"Hearse" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... fattest oxen were slaughtered, to afford a strengthening meal to those so much in need of nourishment. About mid-day, a strange procession moved down the Koenig's Street and across the Palace Square. And what was the meaning of it? It was not a funeral, for there were no mourning-wreaths and no hearse; it was not a bridal procession, for the bridal paraphernalia and joyous music were wanting. Nor did it wend its way toward the church nor the churchyard, but toward the new and handsome opera-house, recently erected by the king, whose gates ...
— The Merchant of Berlin - An Historical Novel • L. Muhlbach
... coroner's office until I saw the hearse arrive, and, when the coffin was carried in, I followed it. The coroner's assistants reported that some body-snatchers had been at work, and had attempted to steal Mrs. Pattmore's body, having succeeded in getting the coffin nearly out of the grave; but they had evidently ...
— The Somnambulist and the Detective - The Murderer and the Fortune Teller • Allan Pinkerton
... "When Colonel Ingersoll ceased speaking the pall-bearers, Senator Allison, Senator David Davis, Senator Blaine, Senator Voorhees, Representatives Garfield of Ohio, Morrison, Boyd, and Stevenson of Illinois, bore the casket to the hearse and the lengthy cortege proceeded to the Oak Hill Cemetery where the remains ...
— Something of Men I Have Known - With Some Papers of a General Nature, Political, Historical, and Retrospective • Adlai E. Stevenson
... wakened by the crack of thunder; some came from the waiting room, where they had been warming themselves by the red stove, or half-asleep on the slat benches; others uncoiled themselves from baggage trucks or slid out of express wagons. Two clambered down from the driver's seat of a hearse that stood backed up against the siding. They straightened their stooping shoulders and lifted their heads, and a flash of momentary animation kindled their dull eyes at that cold, vibrant scream, the world-wide call for men. It stirred them like the note of a trumpet; just as it had often ...
— The Troll Garden and Selected Stories • Willa Cather
... gumphions of tarnished white crape, in honour of the well-preserved maiden fame of Mrs. Margaret Bertram. Six starved horses, themselves the very emblems of mortality, well cloaked and plumed, lugging along the hearse with its dismal emblazonry, crept in slow state towards the place of interment, preceded by Jamie Duff, an idiot, who, with weepers and cravat made of white paper, attended on every funeral, and followed by six mourning coaches, filled with the ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... her decease Sir Joseph, who was rapidly becoming a substantial and important member of society, hoped that his lowly past had died also; and when from the window of the first coach he watched the hearse bearing his wife swing round through the gates of the cemetery, he mentally recorded the resolution that on that day all uncertain syntax, all abuse and neglect of aspirates, and all Midland slang should be banished from his ...
— Too Old for Dolls - A Novel • Anthony Mario Ludovici
... day when the long line of buggies and carryalls and folk on foot followed the hearse to the cemetery amid the pines. Captain Sears, looking back at the procession, thought of the judge's many prophecies and grim jokes concerning this very journey, and he wondered—well, he wondered as most of us wonder on such occasions. Also he realized ...
— Fair Harbor • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... procession is ready to start, the clergyman leaves the house first, and enters a carriage, which precedes the hearse. Then follows the coffin, which is placed in the hearse; the next carriage is for the immediate family and relatives. Guests stand uncovered while these mourners pass them, no salutation ...
— Frost's Laws and By-Laws of American Society • Sarah Annie Frost
... hell!' says Micky. He lays down on a bail of straw 'n' pulls his hat over his face. 'If any guy bothers me while I'm gettin' my rest,' he says, 'call a hearse. Don't wake me up till some guy ...
— Blister Jones • John Taintor Foote
... something which it was impossible to procure for me. She is dead, that kind, that ill-rewarded mother! I remember the long faces—the darkened rooms—the black hangings—the mysterious impression made upon my mind by the hearse and mourning coaches, and the difficulty which I had to reconcile all this to the disappearance of my mother. I do not think I had before this event formed, any idea, of death, or that I had even heard of that final consummation of all that lives. The first acquaintance which I formed with it deprived ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... neither to eat, nor drink, nor sleep, nor speak, nor cease weeping till all were dead. The queen had died the first; and half of the other ladies had already "under the earth ta'en lodging new." The woeful recorder of all these woes invites the prince to behold the queen's hearse: ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... tales of fight, and grace His earliest feat of field or chase; In peace, in war, our rank we keep, We cheer his board, we soothe his sleep, Nor leave him till we pour our verse— A doleful tribute!—o'er his hearse. Then let me share his captive lot; It is my right,—deny it not!' 'Little we reck,' said John of Brent, 'We Southern men, of long descent; Nor wot we how a name—a word— Makes clansmen vassals to a lord: Yet kind my noble landlord's part,— God bless the house ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... Keogh, who, in company with others, acted so bravely in rescuing the wounded, tells of the actual incident of the surrender of De Valera, near Ringsend. Dr. Keogh was on Sunday returning at one o'clock from Glasnevin Cemetery on a hearse, which, under the Red Cross, had left a number of dead for burial, and when opposite Sir Patrick Dun's Hospital a voice hailed him. Two men had come out of the Poor Law Dispensary opposite, in which the Sinn Feiners were installed. So ...
— Six days of the Irish Republic - A Narrative and Critical Account of the Latest Phase of Irish Politics • Louis Redmond-Howard
... and Monument to it. So when late ESSEX dy'd, the Publicke face Wore sorrow in't, and to add mournefull Grace To the sad pomp of his lamented fall, The Common wealth served at his Funerall And by a Solemne Order built his Hearse. But not like thine, built by thy selfe, in Verse, Where thy advanced Image safely stands Above the reach of Sacrilegious hands. Base hands how impotently you disclose Your rage 'gainst Camdens learned ashes, whose Defaced Statua and Martyrd booke, Like an Antiquitie ...
— The Works of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher in Ten Volumes - Volume I. • Beaumont and Fletcher
... me a message it'll be the last you'll take to a livin' soul. Drive your old hearse away from my door, will you, an' tell your lies to somebody that's big enough fool ...
— Duncan Polite - The Watchman of Glenoro • Marian Keith
... seldom looks Up in the country ez it doos in books; They 're no more like than hornets'-nests an' hives, Or printed sarmons be to holy lives. I, with my trouses perched on cow-hide boots, Tuggin' my foundered feet out by the roots, Hev seen ye come to fling on April's hearse Your muslin nosegays from the milliner's, Puzzlin' to find dry ground your queen to choose, An' dance your throats sore in morocker shoes: I've seen ye an' felt proud, thet, come wut would, Our Pilgrim stock wuz pithed with hardihood. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 56, June, 1862 • Various
... Underneath this sable hearse Lies the subject of all verse,— Sidney's sister, Pembroke's mother. Death, ere thou hast slain another, Learn'd and fair and good as she, Time shall throw ...
— Familiar Quotations • John Bartlett
... buried; only the boys in his own house, and those who had known him best, followed him to the grave. They were standing in two lines along the court, and the plumed hearse stood at the cottage door. Just at that moment the rest of the boys began to flock out of the school, for lessons were over. Each as he came out caught sight of the hearse, the plumes waving and whispering in the sea-wind, and the double ...
— St. Winifred's - The World of School • Frederic W. Farrar
... nails, oh ye waves! to their utter-most heads drive them in! ye but strike a thing without a lid; and no coffin and no hearse can be mine:—and hemp only ...
— Great Sea Stories • Various
... back in that long-vanished May; And the baby, who came but to hurry away In the little white hearse, is not dead, but alive, And out in his little go-cart ...
— Poems of Optimism • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... thought it would never have got to the Chateau, for the Prince could only send his carriage with it as far as Toadcaster. Luckily my Lady's youngest brother, who was staying at Desir, happened to get drowned at the time; and so Davenport, very clever of him! sent her on in my Lord Dormer's hearse." ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... What is annihilation? A mere word, an unmeaning sound that fixes no impression on the mind. Dead, Charlotte! laid in the cold earth, in the dark and narrow grave! I had a friend once who was everything to me in early youth. She died. I followed her hearse; I stood by her grave when the coffin was lowered; and when I heard the creaking of the cords as they were loosened and drawn up, when the first shovelful of earth was thrown in, and the coffin returned a hollow sound, which grew fainter and fainter till all was completely covered over, I ...
— The Sorrows of Young Werther • J.W. von Goethe
... it so impressed my childish imagination—following the funeral service, stage after stage, and suddenly, with the words, "It is all over!" fell back fainting. She said afterwards that she had followed the hearse, had attended the service, had walked behind the coffin to the grave. Certain it is that a few weeks later she determined to go to the Kensal Green Cemetery, where the body of her husband had been laid, and went thither with a relative; he failed to find ...
— Annie Besant - An Autobiography • Annie Besant
... while the crystals were forming. Singular disguises were produced: a bit of ragged rope appeared a piece of twisted lace-work; a knot-hole in a board was adorned with a deep antechamber of snowy wreaths; and the frozen body of a hairy caterpillar became its own well-plumed hearse. The most peculiar circumstance was the fact that single flakes never showed any regular crystallization: the magic was in the combination; the under sides of rails and boards exhibited it as unequivocally as the upper sides, indicating ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 52, February, 1862 • Various
... third day came the funeral, and he went. He did not let his cabman turn in behind the one carriage that followed the hearse. At the graveyard he stood afar off, watching her in her simple new black, noting her calm. She seemed thinner, but he thought it might be simply her black dress. He could see no change in her face. As she was leaving the ...
— The Grain Of Dust - A Novel • David Graham Phillips
... says, 'that I'm the man to go hintin' that what former foonerals has been pulled off in these yere parts ain't been all they should; but still, to get a meetropolitan effect, you oughter have a hearse an' ploomes. Let it be mine to provide them marks of a advanced civilization. It'll make villages like Red Dog an' Colton sing low, an' be a distinct advantage to a camp which is strugglin' for consid'ration. Yes, sir,' ...
— Faro Nell and Her Friends - Wolfville Stories • Alfred Henry Lewis
... touched the imagination of Clark, and she was never so much called upon as during this year. Now Edward was coming home for a rest, and there was a subdued flutter about her, rather like the stirring of the funeral plumes on the heads of hearse-horses. ...
— Christopher and Columbus • Countess Elizabeth Von Arnim
... sickness, of long pain and suffering, or of swift dissolution, and piercing beneath the surface may see the blessed central reality and thankfully feel that Death, too, is God's angel, who' does His commandments, hearkening to the voice of God's word' when in his dark hearse ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... in the manner of furnishing or decorating funerals, though but little in the intention of making them objects of outward show. A bearer of plumes precedes the procession. The horses employed are dressed in trappings. The hearse follows ornamented with plumes of feathers, and gilded and silvered with gaudy escutcheons, or the armorial bearings of the progenitors of the deceased. A group of hired persons range themselves on each side of the hearse and attendant carriages, while others close the procession. These again ...
— A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume II (of 3) • Thomas Clarkson
... so that I should be in good hands if the worst befell. The fog becoming even denser, Sanger's became veiled from the sight of our fiery steed, which thereupon consented to slide on towards Lambeth Palace. A sharp turn brought us to the gateway, where stood a hearse and string of mourning coaches. Was I too late? Had the Bishops passed sentence, and had the loved one ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Harry Furniss
... dinner than all Mr. Whitehead's family for a week. Do not observe many gentlemen's seats on the banks of the Hudson on the New York side; the opposite is too rocky and precipitous. Observed a funeral supposed to be a negro, as all the attendants excepting the driver of the hearse were people of colour; two of the first appeared to be ministers, both dressed with white cravats; a number on foot after the body, with two ...
— A Journey to America in 1834 • Robert Heywood
... of high talent; unlucky in mistaking it for the highest! His poor Wife, a born Borck,—hastening from Berlin, but again and again delayed by industry of kind friends, and at last driving on in spite of everything,—met, in the last miles, his Hearse and Funeral Company. Adieu, a pitying adieu to him forever,—and even to his adoring La Beaumelle, who is rather less a blockhead than he ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... irony, "and may want us to think about the people who are not merely carried through this street in a coupe, but have to spend their whole lives in it, winter and summer, with no hopes of driving out of it, except in a hearse. I must say they don't seem to mind it. I haven't seen a jollier crowd anywhere in New York. They seem to have forgotten death a little more completely than any of their fellow-citizens, Isabel. And I wonder what they think of us, making this gorgeous progress through their midst. ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... twice—about. But she has made up her mind—and she never changes." Then with an abrupt alteration of note she looked round the room. "I suppose your English dining-rooms are all like this? One might be sitting in a hearse. And ...
— The Marriage of William Ashe • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... at the residence of the dead; prayers are offered and eulogies are pronounced. Then a procession is formed and the hearse is preceded by priests and followed by the male members of the family and by friends. The body is not placed in a coffin, but is covered with rich shawls and vestments. When the gateway of the outer temple is reached, priests who are permanently attached to ...
— Modern India • William Eleroy Curtis
... fashion in England at that date, laudatory verses and sentences were fastened to the bier or herse. The name herse was then applied to the draped catafalque or platform upon which the candles stood and the coffin rested, not as now the word hearse to a carriage for the conveyance of the dead. Sewall says of the funeral of the Rev. Thomas Shepherd: "There were some verses, but none pinned on the Herse." These verses were often printed after the funeral. ...
— Customs and Fashions in Old New England • Alice Morse Earle
... his duty as a citizen more discriminatin'ly on public occasions than any man I ever see. There's Wilkerson's celebration when there's a funeral; look at the difference between it and on Fourth of July. Why, sir, it's as melancholy as a hearse-plume, and sympathy ain't the word for it when he looks at the remains, no sir; preacher nor undertaker, either, ain't half as blue and respectful. Then take his circus spree. He come into the store this afternoon, head up, marchin' like ...
— The Gentleman From Indiana • Booth Tarkington
... the play in mournful verse, As undertakers stalk before the hearse; Whose doleful march may strike the harden'd mind, And wake its ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... interview with General Canby, who also invited me, and I witnessed the conclusion. So, from the Charleston Convention to this point, I shared the fortunes of the Confederacy, and can say, as Grattan did of Irish freedom, that I "sat by its cradle and followed its hearse." ...
— Destruction and Reconstruction: - Personal Experiences of the Late War • Richard Taylor
... spectre, as theatrical and as unreal as the painted scenic distance, turned the corner from a cross-street, and moved slowly towards me. A long black cloak, falling from its shoulders to its feet, floated out on either side like sable wings; a cocked hat trimmed with crape, and surmounted by a hearse-like feather, covered a passionless face; and its eyes, looking neither left nor right, were fixed fatefully upon some distant goal. Stranger as I was to this Continental ceremonial figure, there was no mistaking his functions as the grim messenger, knocking "with equal foot" on every door; ...
— The Twins of Table Mountain and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... the first sights I witnessed was a funeral, but not the solemn, imposing ceremony which that word conveys to English ears. The sides of the hearse and the upper part of the coffin were made of glass; inside lay a little girl, six or seven years old, dressed as if going to a wedding, and decorated with gay flowers. Volantes followed, bearing the mourners—or the rejoicers; I know not which is ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... Catholic decency upon the people confided to their charge, the priests not only refused to do their duty, but floutingly referred the police to Lady Mary Burke. "He did her work," they said, "let her send a hearse now to bury him." The lady thus insolently spoken of is one of the best of the Catholic women of Ireland. At her summons Father Burke, a few years only before his death, I remember, made a long winter journey, though in very bad health, from Dublin to Marble Hill to soothe the last ...
— Ireland Under Coercion (2nd ed.) (2 of 2) (1888) • William Henry Hurlbert
... up, and reached the studio door just as a shower of knocks descended upon it from outside. He opened it, and on the threshold there stood two persons; a stout lady in white, surmounted by a huge black hat with a hearse-like array of plumes; and, behind her, a tall and willowy youth, with—so far as could be seen through the chinks of the hat—a large nose, fair hair, pale blue eyes, and a singular deficiency of chin. He carried in his arms a tiny black Spitz with ...
— A Great Success • Mrs Humphry Ward
... Ben Jonson's, witness the charming ones on his own children, on Salathiel Pavy, the child-actor, and many more; and this even though the rigid law of mine and thine must now restore to William Browne of Tavistock the famous lines beginning: "Underneath this sable hearse." Jonson is unsurpassed, too, in the difficult poetry of compliment, seldom falling into fulsome praise and disproportionate similtude, yet showing again and again a generous appreciation of worth in others, ...
— Sejanus: His Fall • Ben Jonson
... white head-stones and low crosses, edged by drooping cypress and trailing feathery vines. Some vines had fallen and been caught in long loops from bough to bough, like funeral garlands, and here and there the tops of isolated palmettos lifted a cluster of hearse-like plumes. Yet in spite of this dominance of sombre but graceful shadow, the drooping delicacy of dark-tasseled foliage and leafy fringes, and the waving mourning veils of gray, translucent moss, a glorious vivifying Southern sun smiled and glittered everywhere as through tears. ...
— Sally Dows and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... her carriage pushed up till it was quite level with Berselius. "So you are back from—where was it you went to? And how are the tigers? Why, heavens, how you are changed! How gloomy you look. One would think you had swallowed a hearse and ...
— The Pools of Silence • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... ride on that back seat to Gumbolt to-night, or I'll ride in Jim Digger's hearse. I am layin' for him anyhow." The ...
— Gordon Keith • Thomas Nelson Page
... before the Queen, my mother, had her final seizure, I was walking here alone in this very spot. A reddish light appeared above the monastery of Saint Denis, and a cloud which rose out of the ruddy glare assumed the shape of a hearse bearing the arms of Austria. A few days afterwards my poor mother was removed to Saint Denis. Four or five days before the horrible death of our adorable Henrietta, the arrows of Saint Denis appeared to me in a ...
— The Memoirs of Madame de Montespan, Complete • Madame La Marquise De Montespan
... little time the casket had been placed within the hearse, and this strange funeral party started on its solemn journey to the tomb. Mr. Goldwin and Ray and Herbert and Bob occupied the carriage of chief mourners—not that the two former could strictly be called mourners, ...
— The Boy Broker - Among the Kings of Wall Street • Frank A. Munsey
... death my life and fortune ends, Let not my hearse be vexed with mourning friends; But let all lovers, rich in triumph, come And with sweet pastimes grace my happy tomb: And, Lesbia, close up thou my little light, And crown with love my ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 2 (of 4) • Various
... times reached the bottom of an abyss, and they came up again when from the tempest rending them emerged such a savior. But here the formula may render impossible the appearance of such a savior. The formula is the nation's hearse. The formula has neutralized the best men in Congress, the best men in ...
— Diary from March 4, 1861, to November 12, 1862 • Adam Gurowski
... joke?" she began. "And that is what you Puritan gentlemen of God and volcanoes of Correct Thought snuffle over as a good joke? Well, with the highest respect to Professor Doctor Miles Standish, the Puritan Hearse-hound, and Professor Doctor Elder Brewster, the Plymouth Dr. ...
— A Parody Outline of History • Donald Ogden Stewart
... afternoon M. Brossard was buried in the Cimetiere de Passy, a tremendous crowd following the hearse; the boys and masters just behind Merovee and M. Germain, the chief male mourners. The women walked in ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... officers, Colonel Stoneman (A.S.C.) and Major Henderson, of the Intelligence Department, representing the Staff. Many more would have come, but nearly the whole garrison was warned for duty. About twenty-five of us, all mounted, followed the little glass hearse with its black and white embellishments. The few soldiers and sentries whom we passed halted and gave the last salute. There was a full moon, covered with clouds, that let the light through at their misty edges. ...
— Ladysmith - The Diary of a Siege • H. W. Nevinson
... subsequently the laird himself, of Logie; Rob Thornton, the merchant, Dudhope, and other kindred spirits, who used to sing in the inn of Sandy Morren, the hotel-keeper, "Death begone, here's none but souls," sallied drunk from the inn. The story goes that the night was dark, and there stood at the door a hearse, which had that day conveyed to the "howf," now about to be shut up because of its offence against the nostrils of men who are not destined to need a grave, the wife of an inconsolable husband and ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Vol. XXIII. • Various
... as if they dreaded some sympathetic contact, revealing bank-frauds and transactions in stocks. Who ever saw a smile in an omnibus, even when court-plasters have changed places? You might as well look into a slow-driven hearse for something sunshiny! Your broker dares not even chuckle. Your exquisite cannot resort for consolation to the suction of his cane, but all look grim and virtuous as Seneca, until they pull the leather, pass up six-pence through the port-hole, and as they open the door, their faces begin ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, April 1844 - Volume 23, Number 4 • Various
... twelve weeks have elapsed since the foregoing incident occurred. The bell tolls out its solemn death-knell, and the sable hearse is moving slowly on to the grave-yard. Sad, tearful mourners follow, to lay all that remains of James Cole—the son, and brother—in the silent "narrow house." For the demon-vice has done its worst, and loosed the silver chord, and his youthful spirit has gone before the ...
— The Bobbin Boy - or, How Nat Got His learning • William M. Thayer
... sake of poor Jane to receive the aid which Mutimer offered, had insisted through Alice that there should be no expenditure beyond the strictly needful. The carriage which conveyed her and Kate alone followed the hearse from Hoxton; it rattled along at a merry pace, for the way was lengthy, and a bitter wind urged men and horses to speed. The occupants of the box kept up ...
— Demos • George Gissing
... heart of the stoutest, when the women break down and are led away blinded by their tears. It is then that the most indifferent spectator pays that beautiful tribute of weeping for those he may not have loved, nay, hated or despised. All the ill is forgotten, the good alone remembered. A hearse was hardly known in the old days. The coffin was placed on a bier of home construction and carried to the graveyard on the shoulders of four men. The sad funeral procession followed behind, the mourners walking ...
— Confessions of Boyhood • John Albee
... Soubise's cook, on the campaign, Sterne dresses it, and serves it up quite tender and with a very piquante sauce. But tears, and fine feelings, and a white pocket-handkerchief, and a funeral sermon, and horses and feathers, and a procession of mutes, and a hearse with a dead donkey inside! Psha! Mountebank! I'll not give thee one penny more for that trick, ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... undertaker of the east put together some benches in the north corner of the square, and a young man in a black hat came forward, attended by five assistants and carrying a bunch of hearse-plumes in his hand. It was the ...
— More Translations from the Chinese • Various
... was cut short. Robert, amazingly and unnaturally, failed her by dying. He was sent away in a hearse and the tiny house ceased ...
— Robin • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... person died back in the days when Uncle Henry was coming on, he said they sat up with the dead and had prayers for the living. There was a Mr. Beman in the community who made coffins, and on the Hunt place old Uncle Aaron Hunt helped him. The dead were buried in home-made coffins and the hearse was a ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Georgia Narratives, Part 3 • Works Projects Administration
... a scared hearse-horse," said young Grandcourt gloomily. There was reason for his gloom. Unknown to his father he had invested heavily in Dysart's schemes. It was his father's contempt that he feared more ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers
... men and women were earnest and thoughtful. In the solitude of their homes, they had reflected deeply upon life and its issues. When death occasionally visited their cabins, it was a far more awful event than when death occurs in the crowded city, where the hearse is every hour of every day passing through ...
— Daniel Boone - The Pioneer of Kentucky • John S. C. Abbott
... died," said he. "The very cocks walk about the yard as if they had hearse-plumes in their tails. Everybody looks ready to hang hisself, except you, Mr. ...
— Adela Cathcart, Vol. 3 • George MacDonald
... pause of delirium, and soon afterwards passed to a brighter world. He died on the 16th of September, 1845, when yet but thirty-one years old. How sincere and deep was the public grief, no pen can ever tell. In the mourning procession that followed his hearse there was no parade of woe, but every eye was wet and every tongue silent. If ever sorrow was too deep for utterance, it was that which settled above the early ...
— The Felon's Track • Michael Doheny
... six or eight weeks since the hearse carrying away the remains of the ill-fated Sir Wynston Berkley had driven down the dusky avenue; the autumn was deepening into winter, and as Marston gloomily trod the woods of Gray Forest, the withered leaves whirled drearily along his pathway, and the gusts that swayed the mighty ...
— The Evil Guest • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... the office showed him a plan which indicated the mode of interment adopted for the various classes, and a programme giving full particulars with regard to the spectacular portion of the funeral. Would he like to have an open funeral-car or a hearse with plumes, plaits on the horses, and aigrettes on the footmen, initials or a coat-of-arms, funeral-lamps, a man to display the family distinctions? and what number of carriages would ...
— Sentimental Education, Volume II - The History of a Young Man • Gustave Flaubert
... here remark, that the Americans are sensible enough not to throw away so much money in funerals as we do; still it appears strange to an Englishman to see the open hearse containing the body, drawn by only one horse, while the carriages which follow are drawn by two: to be sure, the carriages generally contain six individuals, while the hearse is a sulky, ...
— Diary in America, Series One • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... New York. On the 8th of September, 1867, we bore him through the streets of Quito to this quiet resting-place, without parade and in solemn silence—just as we believe his unobtrusive spirit would have desired, and just as his Savior was carried from the cross to the sepulchre. No splendid hearse or nodding plumes; no long procession, save the unheard tread of the angels; no requiem, save the unheard harps of the seraphs. We gave him a Protestant Christian burial, such as Quito never saw. In ...
— The Andes and the Amazon - Across the Continent of South America • James Orton
... martyr) strove to imitate These several sounds; which when her warbling throat Fail'd in, for grief down dropt she on his lute, And brake her heart. It was the quaintest sadness To see the conqueror upon her hearse To weep a funeral elegy of tears. He look'd upon the trophies of his art, Then sigh'd, then wiped his eyes; then sigh'd, and cry'd "Alas! poor creature, I will soon revenge This cruelty upon the author of it. Henceforth ...
— Our Village • Mary Russell Mitford
... lad were put into a small coffin, and Madame Guerard and I followed the pauper's hearse to the grave. The morning was so cold that the driver had to stop and take a glass of hot wine, as otherwise he might have died of congestion. We were alone in the carriage, for the boy had been brought up by his grandmother, who could not ...
— My Double Life - The Memoirs of Sarah Bernhardt • Sarah Bernhardt
... hearse in Drumtochty, and we carried our dead by relays of four, who waded every stream unless more than knee deep, the rest following in straggling, picturesque procession over the moor and across the stepping stones. Before we started, Marget came out ...
— Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush • Ian Maclaren
... twilight, admitted through the deep, dark, mullioned windows, revealed the antique furniture of the room, which still boasted a sort of mildewed splendor, more imposing, perhaps, than its original gaudy magnificence; and showed the lofty hangings, and tall, hearse-like canopy of a bedstead, once a couch of state, but now destined for the repose of Lady Rookwood. The stiff crimson hangings were embroidered in gold, with the arms and cipher of Elizabeth, from whom the apartment, having once been occupied by ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... and ten have been lived—probably a few extra for good measure—an end must come, but a California funeral is so different! A Los Angeles paper advertises "Perfect Funerals at Trust Prices." We often meet them bowling gayly along the boulevards, the motor hearse maintaining a lively pace, which the mourners are expected to follow. The nearest J—— ever came to an accident was suddenly meeting one on the wrong side of the road, and the funeral chauffeur's language was not any more scriptural than J——'s. As we were ...
— The Smiling Hill-Top - And Other California Sketches • Julia M. Sloane
... connected themselves with the circumstances. The first notice of the approach was the sudden emerging of horses' heads from the deep gloom of the shady lane; the next was the mass of white pillows against which the dying patient was reclining. The hearse-like pace at which the carriage moved recalled the overwhelming spectacle of that funeral which had so lately formed part in the most memorable event of my life. But these elements of awe, that might at any rate have struck forcibly upon the mind of a child, were for me, in my condition of morbid ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... sides—people of all classes and creeds. First, the clergy in their surplices, then the Indian boys, two and two, one of them, who had been supported by the late Bishop, carrying a banner with the words, "He rests from his labours;" then came the hearse bearing the late Bishop's remains, with four horses, all draped, and the Wawanosh girls followed, one of them bearing a banner with the words, "She is not dead, but sleepeth;" then the hearse, and members of the family and ...
— Missionary Work Among The Ojebway Indians • Edward Francis Wilson
... skill with which the attendants slid Mrs. Babbitt upon a stretcher and carried her down-stairs. The ambulance was a huge, suave, varnished, white thing. Mrs. Babbitt moaned, "It frightens me. It's just like a hearse, just like being put in a hearse. I want ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis
... There was lacking no pomp of War, War who must have gauds with which to hide his naked horror. The guns boomed, the bells tolled, the muffled drums beat, beat! Regiments marched with reversed arms, with colours furled. There was mournful civic pomp, mournful official. There came a great black hearse drawn by four white horses. On it lay the body of Stonewall Jackson, and over it was drawn the deep blue flag with the arms of Virginia, and likewise the starry banner of the eleven Confederate States. Oh, heart-breaking ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... hearse, with its nodding plumes, bears the rich man from his door, to a grave whose proud monument shall commemorate his life, be its deeds good or evil. Perhaps an almost endless train of costly equipages follow; and there are congregated many who seem to weep, but I question if in all that splendor ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 6 June 1848 • Various
... sepulture to the actress in question. The populace, who followed the funeral out of curiosity, learnt the affront which was thus offered to her remains. Transported by sudden indignation, they rushed to the hearse, and dragged it onwards. The doors of the interdicted church were burst open in a moment. They called for a priest; no priest appeared. The tumult augmented. The church and the neighbouring streets resounded with the groans and ...
— Memoirs of the Private Life, Return, and Reign of Napoleon in 1815, Vol. I • Pierre Antoine Edouard Fleury de Chaboulon
... school, we all went together to the house of the dead woman, to accompany her to church. There was a hearse in the street, with two horses, and many people were waiting, and conversing in a low voice. There was the head-master, all the masters and mistresses from our school, and from the other schoolhouses where she had taught in ...
— Cuore (Heart) - An Italian Schoolboy's Journal • Edmondo De Amicis
... thought, drive up to the door, out we went, me on your father's arm laughing, but wi' my teeth set. But Aaron's words had put an idea into their heads, though he didna intend it, and they had got out the hearse. It was the hearse they had brought to the door instead of ...
— Sentimental Tommy - The Story of His Boyhood • J. M. Barrie
... With heauy sighs whilst thus I breake the ayre, Paynting my passions in these sad dissignes, Since she disdaines to blesse my happy verse, The strong built Trophies to her liuing fame, Euer hence-forth my bosome be your hearse, Wherein the world shal now entombe her name, Enclose my musick you poor sencelesse walls, Sith she is deafe and will not heare my mones, Soften your selues with euery teare that falls, Whilst I like Orpheus sing to trees and stones: Which with ...
— Minor Poems of Michael Drayton • Michael Drayton
... Samuel Briggs occupied the car next to the hearse. They were at least the nearest relations to ...
— The Co-Citizens • Corra Harris
... letter, which so completely bewildered me that, but for the assistance of Father Roach, I should have been totally unable to make out the writer's intentions. By his advice, I immediately set out for Athlone, where, when I arrived, I found my uncle addressing the mob from the top of the hearse, and recounting his miraculous escapes as a new claim upon ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... on one of the sofas, Salome's dry eyes noted all that passed while the services were performed; and, when the hearse moved down the avenue, she took his offered arm, and was ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... a spiritualist seance where an old gentleman had died in a fit on seeing a materialization of his mother-in-law; she had escaped from two fires in her night-gown, and at the funeral of her first cousin the horses attached to the hearse had run away and smashed the coffin, precipitating her relative into an open man-hole before the eyes ...
— Bunner Sisters • Edith Wharton
... procession was formed at Westminster. All the nobles of the court and the members of Parliament joined in the train as mourners, and followed the body through the city. The body was placed on a magnificent hearse, which was drawn by twelve horses. Immense throngs of people crowded the streets and the windows to see the procession go by. After passing through the city, the hearse, attended by the proper escort, took the road ...
— Richard II - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... after this, another funeral. There was no long line of coaches, and no display of magnificence this time—only a quiet, slow-moving procession following the unplumed hearse. Only one store in the city was closed, and not a hundred people knew for whom the bell tolled that day; but did ever truer mourners or more bleeding hearts follow a coffin to its final resting-place than were those who gathered around that open grave, and saw the body of Grandma McPherson laid to ...
— Three People • Pansy
... was to be the wave-length of his endowed broadcasting station. I don't know how Remington Solander first got his remarkable idea, but just about that time an undertaker in New York had rigged up a hearse with a phonograph so that the hearse would loud-speak suitable hymns on the way to the cemetery, and that may have suggested the loud-speaking tomb to Remington Solander, but it is not important ...
— Solander's Radio Tomb • Ellis Parker Butler
... about three miles off; and after the guests had been regaled at breakfast with wines of all sorts for the upper classes, and whisky, which flowed in profusion, for the lower, they mounted their horses, and entered their conveyances, to follow the hearse decorated with the usual trappings of mourning. Behind the hearse, in a mourning carriage, sat Nora and her cousin, closely veiled. Poor girls, how differently they felt to the mixed multitude who followed them. Their ...
— The Heir of Kilfinnan - A Tale of the Shore and Ocean • W.H.G. Kingston
... curious incidents a funeral started from Canterville Chase at about eleven o'clock at night. The hearse was drawn by eight black horses, each of which carried on its head a great tuft of nodding ostrich-plumes, and the leaden coffin was covered by a rich purple pall, on which was embroidered in gold the Canterville coat-of-arms. By the side of the hearse ...
— Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories • Oscar Wilde
... Glencairn joiner, who was conducting the funeral—if, indeed, Scots funerals can ever be said to be conducted—had given it a too successful push to let the rickety hearse have plenty of sea-room between the granite pillars. It was a long and straggling funeral, silent save for the words that stand at the opening of this tale, which ran up and down the long black files like ...
— Bog-Myrtle and Peat - Tales Chiefly Of Galloway Gathered From The Years 1889 To 1895 • S.R. Crockett
... ranges one above another up and up—back and farther back until they reached a point from whence a miniature forest of dwarf beech and maple, that appeared to crown the topmost bastion of them all, nodded in the swaying wind like funeral plumes upon a Titan's hearse. ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens
... him—but I doubt it. Through a pane of glass might have been seen, thoroughly ornamented and painted for public inspection, the face of the principal whom these proceedings interested no more. The hearse sported a forest of plumes also, and behind it stalked six stalwart, high-class, professional mourners, likewise in green tights and Tower-of-London hats, all members of the Pallbearers' International Union (purple card), with flowing beards and curling moustaches—probably the only men on earth ...
— A Fantasy of Mediterranean Travel • S. G. Bayne
... 'Ten-thirty-three. There's generally four hours to wait, for we're due in at six-fifteen. But this auld hearse will be lucky ...
— Mr. Standfast • John Buchan
... leaf I cast upon thy bier; Let worthier hands than these thy wreath entwine; Upon thy hearse I shed no useless tear— For us weep rather thou, in ...
— Memories of Jane Cunningham Croly, "Jenny June" • Various
... church-spire, one might be tempted to ask, "Which are the boys?" or, rather, "Which the men?" But, leaving these, let us turn to the third procession, which, though sadder in outward show, may excite identical reflections in the thoughtful mind. It is a funeral. A hearse, drawn by a black and bony steed, and covered by a dusty pall; two or three coaches rumbling over the stones, their drivers half asleep; a dozen couple of careless mourners in their every-day attire; ...
— Sights From A Steeple (From "Twice Told Tales") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... along their spears, played upon their features and made them ghastly; the chilly night wind tossed their tall and hearse-like plumes. There they lay in wild confusion, with arms outstretched and twisted limbs; their stern, stalwart forms looking weird and ...
— King Solomon's Mines • H. Rider Haggard
... lords, to add to your laments, Wherewith you now bedew King Henry's hearse, I must inform you of a dismal fight Betwixt the stout Lord Talbot and ...
— King Henry VI, First Part • William Shakespeare [Aldus edition]
... van; I should have said "passengers," but the sombre character of the omnibus suggests "Black Maria;" it is depressing (I repeat to myself), to be the only two passengers driving through a dead town at night-time, as if we were the very personification of "the dead of night" being taken out in a hearse to the nearest cemetery. Even DAUBINET feels it, for he is silent, except when he tries to rouse himself by exclaiming "Caramba!" Only twice does he make the attempt, and then, meeting with no response from me, he collapses. Nor does it relieve depression ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, September 5, 1891 • Various
... that way sorrow's hurtfuller than this, My brother having brought unto a grave That murder'd body whom he call'd his wife, And spent so many tears upon her hearse, As would have made a tyrant to relent; Then, kneeling at her coffin, this he vow'd From thence he never would ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various
... Although Jonathan wept not, yet did he express mute sorrow as he marshalled him to his long home, and drank to his memory in a pot of porter as he returned from the funeral, perched, with many others, like carrion crows on the top of the hearse. ...
— The Pirate and The Three Cutters • Frederick Marryat
... times, Jawn dear, a-ho th' gray hearts left behind an' th' hungry mouths to feed. They done th' best they cud f'r th' Connock man back iv th' dumps,—give him all th' honors, th' A-ho-aitches ma-archin' behind th' hearse an' th' band playin' th' Dead March, 'Twas almost as good a turnout as Grogan had, though th' Saint Vincents had betther hats an' looked more like their fam'lies ...
— Mr. Dooley: In the Hearts of His Countrymen • Finley Peter Dunne
... I shall pay his landlady and nurse; and for the rest of the expenses, a subscription must be made (according to the custom in such cases) among the shipmasters, headed by myself. The funeral pomp will consist of a hearse, one coach, four men, with crape hatbands, and a few other items, together with a grave at five pounds, over which his friends will be entitled to place a stone, if they choose to ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... some captive maid." Flirtation is the grand business of life. The maiden flirts from the nursery, the married woman flirts from the altar. The widow adds to the miscellaneous cares of her "bereaved" life, flirtation from the hearse which carries her husband to his final mansion. She flirts in her weeds more glowingly than ever. But she knows too well the "value of her liberty" to submit to be a slave once more; and so flirts ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various
... said, "is twelve francs, and if you want a Mass, ten francs more. A hearse is paid for ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... honors suitable to the man who had won for himself the respect of all who knew him in the city of Melbourne. The railroad offices were closed, the American flag at half mast, and men with uncovered heads marched behind the hearse that bore the remains of their distinguished member, the American gentleman from California, to his last resting place. Our sorrow was too great to be realized, even after reading the letter from the rector who had read the funeral service over the dead, and who explained the circumstances ...
— Sixty Years of California Song • Margaret Blake-Alverson
... similar plight have hidden themselves, travestied themselves, had hairbreadth escapes, or have not escaped at all. In Tuscany the fallen ruler went forth in his own carriage with one other following it, both rather heavily laden with luggage. The San Gallo gate is that by which the hearse that conveys the day's dead to the cemetery on the slope of the Apennine leaves the city every night. And the Duke passed amid the large crowd assembled at the gate to see him go, as peaceably as the vehicle ...
— What I Remember, Volume 2 • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... were about like white folks. Some would go walking and singing to de grave in back of hearse or body. There was a conjurer in our neighborhood who could make you do what he wanted, sometimes he had folks killed. The Yankees marched through our place, stole cattle, and meat. We went behind dem and picked up lots dat dey dropped when ...
— Slave Narratives Vol. XIV. South Carolina, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... the Countess Dowager of Pembroke. Underneath this Marble Hearse Lies the Subject of all Verse, Sidney's Sister, Pembroke's Mother: Death, ere thou hast kill'd another, Fair, and learn'd, and good as she, Time shall throw ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... in delicate ditties. But most playwrights, like Massinger, were persistently pedestrian. The only man who came at all close to Shakespeare as a lyrist was John Fletcher, whose "Lay a garland on my hearse" nobody could challenge if it were found printed first in a Shakespeare quarto. The three great songs in "Valentinian" have almost more splendour than any of Shakespeare's, though never quite the intimate beauty, ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse
... live Molly and she objects to his being a hearse," laughed Sally. "He must be something between them. What," she inquired, with the air of propounding a conundrum, "is between a live Molly and ...
— The Gray Dawn • Stewart Edward White
... no calamity overtaking man, that can not be rendered merchantable. Undertakers, sextons, tomb-makers, and hearse-drivers, get their living from the dead; and in times of plague most thrive. And these miserable old men and women hunted after corpses to keep from going to the church-yard themselves; for they were the ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville
... was very solemn and imposing, because the mourning was sincere and heartfelt. There was no vain ostentation. The pall bearers were generals. The President followed near the hearse in a carriage, looking thin and frail in health. The heads of departments, two and two, followed on foot—Benjamin and Seddon first—at the head of the column of young clerks (who ought to be in the field), ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones
... themselves), While now and then a growl came from Its stretcher-ladened shelves. Briggs never stopped, but when the groans Were punctured with a curse He told the weary moon, "At least This flivver is no hearse!" And slowly yawned again.... At last They rounded Trouble Bend, Base Eight before them—and that ride Was at a welcome end.... The blood-stained orderlies came out To take the wounded in, Opened the doors to lift the ...
— With the Colors - Songs of the American Service • Everard Jack Appleton
... ditto, 14 pence each; four great lions of gilt picture-work, with shields of the King's arms over them, for wax mortars [square basins filled with wax, a wick being in the midst], placed in four parts of the hearse; four images of the Evangelists standing on the hearse, 66 shillings, 8 pence; eight incensing angels with gilt thuribles, and two great leopards rampant, otherwise called volant, nobly gilt, standing outside the hearse, 66 shillings, 8 pence... An empty tun, to carry the said ...
— In Convent Walls - The Story of the Despensers • Emily Sarah Holt
... was an unusual scene in the alley. It was no uncommon thing to see a coffin carried out from there, but on this day there was a hearse, and a minister in Dr. Everett's carriage, and Dirk and his sister, in neat apparel, came out together and were seated in Mr. Roberts' carriage; and all the boys of the Monday-evening Class walked arm in ...
— Ester Ried Yet Speaking • Isabella Alden
... eight yeares in Fortunes sweete soft lap Haue I beene luld a sleepe with pleasant ioyes, Me hath she dandled in her foulding Armes, And fed my hopes with prosperous euentes: Shee Crownd my Cradle with successe and Honour, And shall disgrace a waite my haples Hearse? Was I a youth with Palme and Lawrell girt, And now an ould man shall I waite my fall? Oh when I thinke but on my triumphs past, The Consul-ships and Honours I haue borne; 140 The fame and feare where in great Pompey liu'd, Then doth my grieued Soule informe me this, ...
— The Tragedy Of Caesar's Revenge • Anonymous
... made and resolutions passed in the Senate, which went far beyond anything that had ever been suggested in such contingencies of state. One of the members recommended that the statue of Victory which stood in the Curia should be carried before the hearse, that lamentations should be sung by the sons and daughters of the senators, and that the pageant, on its way to the Campus Martius, should march through the Porta Triumphalis, which was never opened except to victorious generals. Another member suggested that all classes ...
— Pagan and Christian Rome • Rodolfo Lanciani
... Skippy disdainfully, "but if that red-haired, knock-kneed, overfed beau of yours ever sets foot on this place again, he comes in a hearse! And what goes for him, goes for all! Go on and tell, but you'll have the loneliest summer you've ...
— Skippy Bedelle - His Sentimental Progress From the Urchin to the Complete - Man of the World • Owen Johnson
... the fishermen seized the boat as a waif, and towed it into their own fleet, filling the air with cries of triumph. Curiosity led a few to enter the hearse-like canopy, whence they immediately ...
— The Bravo • J. Fenimore Cooper
... carefully-arranged white handkerchiefs, and, until lately, the pall-like funeral cloaks? During the last few years, a great and marked improvement has been made. The plumes, cloaks, and weepers have well-nigh disappeared. The grotesquely ghastly hearse is almost a thing of the past, and the coffin goes forth heaped over with flowers instead of shrouded in the heavy black velvet pall. Men and women, though still wearing black, do not roll themselves up in shapeless garments like sable winding-sheets, as if trying to see how miserable ...
— Death—and After? • Annie Besant
... mere ceremonial; but there were some things almost oppressive from their reality and solemnity.... The coffin was brought up on a gun-carriage. It was of enormous size and weight, (near two tons, I believe). The gun-carriage, drawn by twelve artillery horses, made a strangely impressive hearse. It looked so solid, so businesslike, so simple, and so free from all the plumes and staves and rubbish of undertakers. About thirty picked sailors from the "Daphne" and "Glasgow" walked behind and by the side; all dressed ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen
... woodbine, With cowslips wan that hang the pensive head, And every flower that sad embroidery wears: Bid Amaranthus all his beauty shed, And daffadillies fill their cups with tears, To strew the laureate hearse where Lycid lies. For, so to interpose a little ease, Let our frail thoughts dally with false surmise; Ay me! whilst thee the shores and sounding seas Wash far away, where'er thy bones are hurled; Whether beyond the stormy Hebrides, Where thou perhaps under the whelming tide Visit'st ...
— Lyra Heroica - A Book of Verse for Boys • Various
... man has never stopped to consider how close he is to the oil business or how dependent he is upon it; from babyhood, when his nose is greased with vaseline, to the occasion when a motor hearse carries him on his last journey, there is not often a day when he fails to make use of mineral oil or some of its by-products. Ocean liners and farmers' plows are driven by it; it takes the rich man to his office ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... found out. We pulled up in front of the place I was going to in Wall Street, but I sat still in the carriage, and at last the driver scrambled down off his seat to see whether his carriage had not turned into a hearse. I couldn't have got out, any more than if I had been a corpse. What was the matter with me? Momentary idiocy, you'll say. What I wanted to get out of was Wall Street. I told the man to drive down to the Brooklyn ferry ...
— The American • Henry James
... cry; but that young girl, though she was as white as a sheet, never gave up for a moment, and sat in her place like a man. We met nothing, luckily; and I pulled the horses in after a mile or two, and I drove 'em into Brighton as quiet as if I had been driving a hearse. And that little trump of an Ethel, what do you think she said? She said: 'I was not frightened, but you must not tell mamma.' My aunt, it appears, was in a dreadful commotion. I ought to have ...
— Boys and girls from Thackeray • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... are here Drying the widow's and the orphan's tear; Helping them gently o'er lone life's rough ways, Sending what light may be to darkling days— A better service than to hang with verse, As our forefathers did, the poet's hearse. ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... great request at the great and stately funerals of the sixteenth century, going before the hearse and singing with their surplices hanging on their arms till they came to the church. The changes wrought by the Reformation strongly affected their use. In the early years of the century we can hear them chanting anthems, dirige, and Mass; later on they sing "the Te Deum in English new fashion, ...
— The Parish Clerk (1907) • Peter Hampson Ditchfield
... gradually fading away, he was involved in deep darkness.—He groped along, and at length saw a faint distant glimmer, the course of which he pursued, until he came into a large room, hung with black tapestry, and illuminated by a number of bright tapers. On one side of the room appeared a hearse, on which some person was laid: he went up to it—the first object that arrested his attention was the lovely form of Melissa, shrouded in the sable vestments of death! Cold and lifeless, she lay stretched upon the hearse, beautiful ...
— Alonzo and Melissa - The Unfeeling Father • Daniel Jackson, Jr.
... the end of the autumn of 1826, at the age of twenty-two, I was the sole mourner at his graveside—the grave of my father and my earliest friend. Not many young men have found themselves alone with their thoughts as they followed a hearse, or have seen themselves lost in crowded Paris, and without money or prospects. Orphans rescued by public charity have at any rate the future of the battlefield before them, and find a shelter in some institution and a father ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac
... Miss Beaufort are in the Park a most thrilling one. Two fops ask Thaddeus where he got his boots, and he replies, with withering dignity, 'Where I got my sword, gentlemen.' I treasured the picture of that episode for a long time. Thaddeus wears a hat as full of black plumes as a hearse, Hessian boots with tassels, and leans over Mary, who languishes on the seat in a short- waisted gown, limp scarf, poke bonnet, and large bag,—the height of elegance then, but very funny now. Then William Wallace in 'Scottish Chiefs.' Bless me! we ...
— A Garland for Girls • Louisa May Alcott
... you to mind your own business," observed his friend. "Hullo! it looks as if the engine-driver is actually going to get a move on this old hearse. Let's go aboard." ...
— The Elephant God • Gordon Casserly
... again lifted up his head. Thaddeus threw back his long sable cloak, and taking off his cap, whose hearse-like plumes he thought might have terrified the child, he laid it on the ground, and again stretching forth his arms, called the boy to approach him. Little William now looked steadfastly in his face, and then on the cap, which he had laid beside him; whilst he grasped his grandmother's apron ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter
... attending the annual synod at Pniel, two Wesleyan ministers — Rev. Jonathan Motshumi of Kimberley, and Rev. Shadrach Ramailane of Fauresmith — took charge of the funeral service, and a row of carriages followed the hearse to the West ...
— Native Life in South Africa, Before and Since • Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje
... sent by the hospitals, and doomed from their birth to all manner of ills. As the mortality constantly increased, even that source of supply failed, and the omnibus that had departed at full speed for the railway station returned as light and springy as an empty hearse. How could that state of affairs last? How long would it take to kill off the twenty-five or thirty little ones who were left? That is what the manager, or, as he had christened himself, the register of deaths, Pondevez, was wondering ...
— The Nabob, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... of an omnibus, Indeed, I've cause to curse; And if I ride in one again, I hope 'twill be my hearse. If you a journey have to go, And they make no delay, 'Tis ten to one you're serv'd like curds, They spill you on ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari. Vol. 1, July 31, 1841 • Various
... days later was an imposing one. The five hundred workmen of the establishment followed the hearse, notabilities of all sorts made up an immense cortege. It was much noticed that an old workman, father Moineaud, the oldest hand of the works, was one of the pall-bearers. Indeed, people thought it touching, although the worthy ...
— Fruitfulness - Fecondite • Emile Zola
... yet—she died young! We buried her at midnight. There were few That knew it; for the high State Funeral Was held upon the morrow, Lammas morn. Anon you shall hear why. A strange thing that,— To see the mourners weeping round a hearse That held a dummy coffin. Stranger still To see us lowering the true coffin down By torchlight, with some few of her true friends, In Peterborough Cathedral, all alone." "Old as the world," said ...
— Collected Poems - Volume Two (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... driving a coach-and-six up a good old flight of stairs, or through a bad young Act of Parliament; but I mean to say you might have got a hearse up that staircase, and taken it broadwise, with the splinter-bar[258-8] towards the wall, and the door towards the balustrades: and done it easy. There was plenty of width for that, and room to spare; which is ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 6 • Charles H. Sylvester
... a gruesomely ugly hearse, with glass sides and cheap imitation ostrich plumes drawn by gorged ravens of horses with egregiously long tails, and driven by an undertaker's assistant, who, with a natural gaiety of soul, displayed an idiotic solemnity by dragging ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker |
