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Vigil   /vˈɪdʒəl/   Listen
Vigil

noun
1.
A period of sleeplessness.
2.
The rite of staying awake for devotional purposes (especially on the eve of a religious festival).  Synonym: watch.
3.
A purposeful surveillance to guard or observe.  Synonym: watch.



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"Vigil" Quotes from Famous Books



... church well known for its cures, which was provided with mattresses or low couches, and attended by priests and assistants. Devotions being finished he lay down to sleep. Sometimes he slept immediately, at other times sleep must be wooed by fast and vigil. At any rate, during the sleep he dreamed that the saint touched him, or prescribed some remedy, and in the first case he awoke cured, and in the second the prescribed medicine brought ...
— Three Thousand Years of Mental Healing • George Barton Cutten

... held converse with magic, methinks, And the future was given to her gaze; For an obelisk marked her abode, and a sphinx On her threshold kept vigil always. She was pensive and ever alone, nor was seen In the haunts of the dissolute crowd; But communed with the ghosts of the Pharaohs, I ween, Or with ...
— The World's Best Poetry Volume IV. • Bliss Carman

... sits down on a bench. The prospect of a long vigil brings to his mind a well-known room in which at that hour the lamp burns low on a table laden with humming-birds and insects, but that vision passes swiftly through his mind in the chaos of confused thoughts to which the delirium of ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... teasing, monotonous bark of the house-dog disturbed the quietude of their vigil. Caroline rose, and made her way noiselessly through the dark passages to the kitchen, intending to appease him with a piece of bread. She succeeded. On returning to the dining-room she found it all dark, Miss Keeldar having extinguished the candle. The ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte

... of the house had retired, when the long candle was lighted, when the coffee-kettle was filled, when she sat in the elbow-chair, with her lover on a chair close beside her, and when the vigil of the night was fairly begun, she began to find it wearisome. The young man looked chilly, and ...
— The Story of an African Farm • (AKA Ralph Iron) Olive Schreiner

... basement recesses, and one knew not which was friend or foe. Meanwhile the Winged Lion, with those terrible, jeweled, glaring eyes, and the primitive patron San Teodoro—each high on his column, in a Nirvana of quiescence—kept solemn semblance of vigil over that dread space where sometimes a horror of which one dared not speak scattered the sunshine high in air between those silent wardens of San Marco. Yet the horror of those figures swinging lifeless, with veiled ...
— A Golden Book of Venice • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull

... draw their legs home and to bed. Indeed, there were nights when Dick, hardly the equal of his brother in weight and strength, lay sleepless from sheer exhaustion, while Barney from sympathy kept anxious vigil with him. Morning, however, found them stiff and sore, it is true, but full of courage and ready for the renewal of the long-drawn struggle which was winning for them not only very substantial financial profits, but also high fame as workers. The end of the harvest ...
— The Doctor - A Tale Of The Rockies • Ralph Connor

... Saint Look living in the moon; and as you turn Backward and forward to the echoes faint Of your own footsteps—voices from the Urn Appear to wake, and shadows wild and quaint Start from the frames which fence their aspects stern, As if to ask how you can dare to keep A vigil there, where all but Death ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron

... she scorched in her sheet on the rock, and all that night she kept her vigil there in the bitter cold. Thursday morning, in the sight of her relatives, she went through a ceremonial which said more to them than any words could have done; she put on the dhaja (a coarse red turban) and broke her bracelets in pieces. By these acts she became ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... God's law by sleeping, but during sleep, i.e. that he should meditate on the law of God when he is preparing to sleep, because this leads to his having better phantasms while asleep, in so far as our movements pass from the state of vigil to the state of sleep, as the Philosopher explains (Ethic. i, 13). In like manner we are commanded to meditate on the Law in every action of ours, not that we are bound to be always actually thinking about the ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas

... rapid times in the course of an hour and a half. While John was keeping his vigil on the sandstone rock, Betty was having an interview with Mr. Scobell which was to produce far-reaching results, and which, incidentally, was to leave her angrier and more at war with the whole of her world than she could remember to have been in the entire course ...
— The Prince and Betty - (American edition) • P. G. Wodehouse

... freight parcels was crisp and distinct in the morning hush. The dew deposited during darkness had not yet dried from the pavement of the square. Damp, unhappy figures loafed nearby. They were self-evidently secret police, as yet unrelieved after a night's vigil about the Embassy's rugged wall. They were sleepy and their clothing stuck soggily to them, and none of them had had anything warm in his stomach for many hours. They had not, either, anything to look forward to from ...
— The Pirates of Ersatz • Murray Leinster

... back to the house and to her bed, whither she went obediently enough, and soon fell into the sleep of exhaustion. But there was no more sleep for me that night. I kept a grim vigil with dread. ...
— Further Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... daylight strove with night, About the pyre a chosen band of Greeks Had kept their vigil, and around it rais'd Upon the plain one common mound for all; And built in front a wall, with lofty tow'rs To screen both ships and men; and in the tow'rs Made ample portals with well-fitting gates, That through the midst a carriage-way might pass: Then dug a trench around it, ...
— The Iliad • Homer

... wide, and bade her come out, and talked to her. Passionate and wild and loving words he used, and Beatrice was nothing to him. He did not go to bed that night. In the morning his face showed symptoms of the vigil he had passed through. His mother noticed the haggard lines round his eyes, and she gave vent to a sigh—scarcely audible, it is true, and ...
— The Honorable Miss - A Story of an Old-Fashioned Town • L. T. Meade

... Montors, we may now resume our vigil. When yonder vessel sails there will be no conceivable happening that can keep breath within my body two weeks longer. I shall be quit of every debt to you. You will then fight with a man already dead if you ...
— Domnei • James Branch Cabell et al

... only two days distant. Only one night therefore intervened and the irksome task of guarding the boat-house would only have to be performed once more. The vigil of the Go Ahead boys, however, was not rewarded by detecting the presence of any one with plots ...
— Go Ahead Boys and the Racing Motorboat • Ross Kay

... representative must separate from his family, must not approach women, must avoid all places of amusement, must eat only food cooked with sacred fire, must abstain from wine, must bathe in fresh cold water several times a day, must repeat particular prayers at certain hours, and must keep vigil upon certain nights. When he has performed these duties of abstinence and purification for the specified time he becomes religiously free, and another man is then elected to take his place. The prosperity of the settlement is supposed to depend upon the exact observance by its representative ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner

... fathers worshipped native deities only. They recognized gods everywhere—in the home, in the grove, and on the mountain. They erected their altars on the hills; they had their Lares and Penates to watch over their hearthstones, and their Vestal Virgins kept everlasting vigil near the never-dying fires in the temples. With the art of Greece that made itself felt through Etruria, came also the influence of the Grecian mythology, and Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva found a shrine on the top of the Capitoline, where the first ...
— The Story of Rome From the Earliest Times to the End of the Republic • Arthur Gilman

... walking the whole length of the train; and then you are aware of an insane satisfaction in renewed flight through the darkness. You think hazily of the folk in their beds in the town left behind, who stir uneasily at the sound of your train's departing whistle; and so all is a blank vigil ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... friend—I may not weep. My soul goes out to Him who bled; I pray for Christ's compassion deep On mothers, lovers—all who keep The woeful vigil, having read The joyous ...
— 'Hello, Soldier!' - Khaki Verse • Edward Dyson

... it may seem, neither child felt any ill effects from that midnight escapade, but the next morning they awoke as chipper and gay as if there were no such thing as after-Christmas feelings. They even forgot the lonely vigil in the stable in their dismay at the discovery that Lorene had slept all night with Cherry instead of returning to their room as she had promised to do. An after-breakfast summons to the President's study brought their pranks vividly ...
— The Lilac Lady • Ruth Alberta Brown

... within the net Of tough grass fibres green and wet, A myriad thirsty creatures, pent In sorrowful imprisonment, Await the beat, distinct and sweet, Of the white waves' returning feet. My soul their vigil joins, and shares A nobler discontent than theirs; Athirst like them, I patiently Sit listening beside the sea, And still the waters outward glide: When is the turning of ...
— Verses • Susan Coolidge

... night—a night as grim and sleepless as her tortured fancy had pictured it to Gerty. She had never learned to live with her own thoughts, and to be confronted with them through such hours of lucid misery made the confused wretchedness of her previous vigil seem easily bearable. ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton

... third night of their watch. Nor was their vigil without interest beyond its object. Bill, who knew by sight every frequenter of the place, spent his time searching for newcomers. But newcomers were scarce at this season of the year. The arrivals had not yet begun from Seattle, and the "inside" was already claiming those who ...
— The Triumph of John Kars - A Story of the Yukon • Ridgwell Cullum

... lasted hours, for the moon was now low in the west! I ran to the door to sound the alarm. It resisted under my frantic hands; would not open. Something fell tinkling to the floor. It was the key and I remembered then that Throckmartin had turned it before we began our vigil. With memory a hope died that I had not known was in me, the hope that he had escaped from the cabin, found refuge elsewhere ...
— The Moon Pool • A. Merritt

... uneventful night. When not watching, he was hovering over Charley's bedside administering medicine or working over the bitten leg. Yet daylight found him as cool and fresh as ever, apparently unaffected by his long vigil. ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely

... wavered and again he fell. He found himself at midnight standing at the corner above Anne's home, staring at the darkened unresponsive windows. Three nights passed before he resumed the hateful vigil. This time there were lights. And from that time on, he went almost nightly to the neighbourhood of Washington Square, regardless of weather or inconvenience. He saw her come and go, night after night, and he saw people enter the house to which he held ...
— From the Housetops • George Barr McCutcheon

... hours of the night passed slowly. Dyke Darrel dared not sleep, and so he kept his lonely vigil beside the dead, seated in the shadows, with revolver ready to use ...
— Dyke Darrel the Railroad Detective - Or, The Crime of the Midnight Express • Frank Pinkerton

... conducted some of these experiments. He caused three young men to remain awake for four successive days and nights. They were then allowed to go to sleep, the purpose of the experiment being to determine just how much time Nature required to recuperate from the long vigil. They were allowed to sleep themselves out, and all woke up thoroughly rested. Yet the one who slept the longest slept only one-third longer ...
— Initiative Psychic Energy • Warren Hilton

... Sad vigil they kept by that grandmother's chair, Kind angels hovered o'er them— And the dead-bell was tolled in the hamlet—and there, On the following eve, knelt that innocent pair, With the ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo

... the darkness and Dr. Bird settled himself for a long vigil. For an hour nothing broke the stillness of the night. Suddenly the doctor was on his feet, peering downstream. A faint purring murmur came over the water, so faint that no one with less sensitive ears than the doctor's could have detected it. Assured after a few minutes of listening ...
— Poisoned Air • Sterner St. Paul Meek

... passport. Lest this declaration should seem the effect of haste, or a mere sudden effusion of pride and insolence, on full deliberation, about a week after comes out a second. This manifesto is dated the 5th of October, one day before the speech from the throne, on the vigil of the festive day of cordial unanimity so happily celebrated by all parties in the British Parliament. In this piece the Regicides, our worthy friends, (I call them by advance and by courtesy what by law I shall be obliged to call them hereafter,) our worthy friends, I say, renew and enforce ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. V. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... 'Twere sweet, methinks, to sleep beneath the wave; Its murmuring song, like sweetest minstrelsy, Would rest a wanderer in an early grave, Within thee, River, many a pale face sleeps— And many a redman's ghost his vigil keeps— And many a maid has watched the dark banks over— He comes not, yet, in truth, ...
— The Emigrant - or Reflections While Descending the Ohio • Frederick William Thomas

... of the cemetery were locked, but the wall was not very high. To scale it but added zest to his adventure. He would be a knight unfit for his vigil if he were to let ...
— The Dreamer - A Romantic Rendering of the Life-Story of Edgar Allan Poe • Mary Newton Stanard

... see his animated face as he smiled at the other man, a fine looking man who looked as if he might be some one of note. The momentary glance did not show the haggard look of David's face nor the lines that his vigil of the night before had traced under his eyes, and Kate was angered to see him so unconcerned and forgetful of his pain of yesterday. Her face darkened with spite, and she resolved to make him suffer yet, and to the utmost, for the ...
— Marcia Schuyler • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz

... the room. His face is furrowed with the fatigue of his long vigil. But as he speaks the tone of his voice is as that of one who ...
— The Hohenzollerns in America - With the Bolsheviks in Berlin and other impossibilities • Stephen Leacock

... usual picnic parties and inhale great draughts of health as we lie on our backs on the heather-clad slopes of the hill. But even while we pursue these simple pleasures our thoughts are with the great warships in their ceaseless vigil in the North Sea or with the gallant fellows who slipped away under cover of the night and are now taking their place in the fighting line with our French and Belgian friends. England, too, it seems, can perform a great operation of war on sea and land, and can do it with ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, August 26th, 1914 • Various

... found dead by his front gate yesterday morning. He 'd been killed by a knife-thrower, and a boss one at that—cut right across his jugular. I went straight for Felipe Vigil, and last night I got a clue from him, and he promised to tell me more to-day. But this morning he was found dead under the long bridge with his tongue cut out. That's enough for 'em; not another Greaser will dare open his mouth now. I ...
— Emerson's Wife and Other Western Stories • Florence Finch Kelly

... good a housewife to allow herself any extra rest on account of her vigil, and she had just put her Juneating apple-tart into the oven when Anne rushed into the kitchen with the warning that there was a grand gentleman getting off his horse at the gateway, and speaking to her uncle—she thought it ...
— A Reputed Changeling • Charlotte M. Yonge

... Poor Miss Jones! Her vigil had indeed been a patient one. From the time the hands of the little cabin clock had pointed to the hour of six she had anxiously awaited the girls. She had cooked the dinner, then set it in the oven to warm. At seven o'clock she trudged up the hill to the farmhouse to make inquiries. No one had ...
— Madge Morton, Captain of the Merry Maid • Amy D. V. Chalmers

... were probably too honest, however simple, to achieve a complete cure on Dugdale by an amicable understanding; so, after their year of vigil, they relinquished their task by degrees. Dugdale, weary of his illness, which now attracted little notice, attended a regular physician, and was cured of that part of his disease which was not affected in a regular ...
— Letters On Demonology And Witchcraft • Sir Walter Scott

... lacking words with which to describe the scene properly. Before the wedding, in accord with mediaeval custom, Edward received knighthood at the hands of King Alfonso. In that same old monastery at Las Huelgas where the youth Fernando had kept his lonely vigil before he had been knighted by his noble mother, Queen Berenguela, the English prince now kept his watch; and when the morning came and he stood, tall and fair, clothed in a robe of white, ready to receive the accolade, before ...
— Women of the Romance Countries • John R. Effinger

... carefully in her delicate-coloured morning-gown. She was one of those women who take pains to appear freshest and fairest in the early hours of the day; to greet the sun as the flowers greet him—rich "in the dew of youth." Despite her weary vigil, the balmy morning brought colour to her cheek and a faint sweetness to her heart. It was a new and pleasant thing to wake beneath the same roof as Harold Gwynne; to know that his face would meet her when she descended—that she would walk and talk with him ...
— Olive - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik, (AKA Dinah Maria Mulock)

... street the disturbance had now become terrific. Both sides were hard at it, and the Irishmen on the roof, rewarded at last for their long vigil, were yelling encouragement promiscuously and whooping with the unfettered ecstasy of men who are getting the treat of their lives without having ...
— Psmith, Journalist • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse

... have known what passed within, the knowledge would have yielded him no clue to this mysterious vigil. At twilight, Mr Haredale shut himself up, and at daybreak he came forth. He never missed a night, always came and went alone, and never varied his proceedings in ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens

... on the forest floor, Dead leaves there are and nothing more, If trunks of trees seem sentinels, For what their vigil no man tells. And if you clasp these guardian trees Nothing there is to hurt or please; Only the dead roof of the forest drops Gently down and never stops And roofs you in and roofs you under, Mute and away from life's dim thunder; And if there come eternal spring It is but more disheartening, ...
— ANTHOLOGY OF MASSACHUSETTS POETS • WILLIAM STANLEY BRAITHWAITE

... had gone, Lydia stood long at the living-room window which gave on the front gate. The pine, its boughs powdered with snow, kept its lonely vigil over ...
— Lydia of the Pines • Honore Willsie Morrow

... who waits at home, With her lily cheeks and her violet eyes, Dreaming the sweet old dreams of love, While her lover is walking in Paradise; God strengthen her heart as the days go by, And the long, drear nights of her vigil follow, Nor bird, nor moon, nor whispering wind, May breathe the tale of the hollow; Alas! alas! The secret is safe ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various

... judge, by his answer. They're no good," muttered the officer. He resumed his position at the forward side of the bridge where the wooden railing afforded some shelter from the raw wind, and began the long vigil which would only end when the second officer relieved him, four hours later. Conversation—except in the line of duty—was forbidden among the bridge officers of the Titan, and his watchmate, the third officer, stood on the other side of the large bridge binnacle, only ...
— The Wreck of the Titan - or, Futility • Morgan Robertson

... punishment which came upon some young men and women for disturbing a priest who was performing mass on the eve of Christmas. "I, Othbert, a sinner," says the story, "have lived to tell the tale. It was the vigil of the Blessed Virgin, and in a town where was a church of St. Magnus. And the priest, Rathbertus, had just begun the mass, and I, with my comrades, fifteen young women and seventeen young men, were dancing outside the church. And we were singing so loud that our ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson

... think she would live much longer. Round the lonely cottage the sea-mist drifted white and thick, and the darkness deepened, until—as the saying goes—it could have been cut with a knife. Never was there so eerie and weary and sinister a vigil. ...
— The Green Mummy • Fergus Hume

... Cross, or in shielding his Prince's life, it would have been welcome, but death, branded with vile ingratitude, as a traitor to that master, was abhorrent. Shrunk up in the corner of the tent, half asleep after the night's vigil, yet too miserable for the entire oblivion of rest, Richard spent the day in dull despair, listening for sounds without with an intensity of attention that seemed to pervade every limb, and yet with snatches of sleep that brought dreams more ...
— The Prince and the Page • Charlotte M. Yonge

... a moment the purpose of his vigil, he was thinking of a long morning's fishing, and had turned to pick up his plaid and go off to the house for his fishing-rod, when he thought he heard the sound of dry wood snapping. He listened intently; and ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes

... floating in the sea of the infinite and resting in night shows the present state of humanity. But, "the blush of dawn" is ready to gladden the soul, and the expectant seer, from his lonely vigil on the hilltop, awaits the sunlight which will soon flood ...
— The Light of Egypt, Volume II • Henry O. Wagner/Belle M. Wagner/Thomas H. Burgoyne

... distractions he fell into a dream as the 'bus rolled and tossed on its way Citywards, and still he strove to solve the enigma of his vigil of the night before, and as the shapes of trees and green lawns and houses passed before his eyes, and as he saw the procession moving on the pavement, and while the murmur of the streets sounded in his ears, all was to him strange and unaccustomed, as if he moved through the avenues ...
— The House of Souls • Arthur Machen

... from the room after her night's vigil, came upon her nephew at his post, and, struck to her kind heart by his wistful countenance, bade him with many winks and nods enter and have ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle

... still managed to keep their eyes open fancied, as they listened to the measured tramp of the national guards in the courtyard, that they were heroes and were receiving decorations. A large lamp, placed on the writing-table, illumined this strange vigil. All at once, however, Rougon, who had seemed to be slumbering, jumped up, and sent for Vuillet. He had just remembered that he had ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola

... I took up my vigil. I had been the victim of a fear I was determined to conquer. The house was quiet. Maggie had retired shriveled to bed. The cat slept ...
— The Confession • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... Earth lies quiet like a child asleep, The deep heart of the Heaven is calm and still, Must thou alone a restless vigil keep, And with thy sobbing ...
— The Beauties of Nature - and the Wonders of the World We Live In • Sir John Lubbock

... for forty days the spectre stayed. For forty days the knight incessant prayed; With scourge, with vigil and ascetic rite, With fast, with groan remorseful and contrite, He cleansed his blackened spirit by degrees, And purified it from its vanities; And as he prayed, the spectre's gruesome scowl Grew day by day less ...
— Mountain idylls, and Other Poems • Alfred Castner King

... in isto, Qui regum splendor, lumen et orbis erat. Rex vigil et sapiens, comes virtutis, amatur, Egregius forma, strenuus atque potens. Qui peperit pacem regno, qui bella peregit Plurima, qui victor semper ab hoste redit, Qui natas binis conjunxit regibus ambas, Regibus ...
— London in 1731 • Don Manoel Gonzales

... metal, the life of Senor Martin Decoud, an agreeable, wealthy, and well-informed young gentleman, would have been jeopardized through his falling into the hands of his political enemies. Captain Mitchell also admitted that in his solitary vigil on the wharf he had felt a certain measure of concern for the ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad

... description may be seen in the cortili of S. Cecilia and SS. Apostoli at Rome. It used to be blessed on the vigil or festival of the Epiphany, as it is now in the Greek and even the Roman church. When churches were built without atria, a vessel of blessed water was placed inside the church: in some of the older churches there is ...
— The Ceremonies of the Holy-Week at Rome • Charles Michael Baggs

... at this. I believe I even swore at the disturbing effect of these words. They attacked all the self-possession that was left to me. In my endless vigil in the face of the enemy I had been haunted by gruesome images enough. I had had visions of a ship drifting in calms and swinging in light airs, with all her crew dying slowly about her decks. Such things had ...
— The Shadow-Line - A Confession • Joseph Conrad

... always, if nothing else, the hunchback face. That remained, and she was watching him; but people watched best, as a general thing, in silence, so that such would be predominantly the manner of their vigil. Yet he didn't want, at the same time, to be tense and solemn; tense and solemn was what he imagined he too much showed for with other people. The thing to be, with the one person who knew, was easy and natural—to make the reference rather ...
— The Beast in the Jungle • Henry James

... the hindrance of a storm, they beheld the city in the form of a bow, reaching out its arms to the sea; high were its ramparts; and a colossal tower, armed with stone-projectiles, guarded the harbour. Nevertheless the Knights landed in good heart, after a cup of Grecian or Malmsey wine, on the Vigil of Magdalen Day (July 22nd), unopposed, and each great lord set up his pennon before his tent over against the fortress, with the Genoese crossbows on the right. Here they remained nine weeks. The Saracens never offered ...
— The Story of the Barbary Corsairs • Stanley Lane-Poole

... sala was pressing in on Jimsy as it had on the girl, that other day. He was worn with vigil and torn with thirst, sick with dread of what might any moment come to them,—with remorse for bringing Honor there, tormented with his helplessness to save her. Even at his best he was no match for the other's cleverness and now he was in the dust, blaming ...
— Play the Game! • Ruth Comfort Mitchell

... of lighting bonfires at midsummer has been observed in many parts of our own country. "On the Vigil of Saint John the Baptist, commonly called Midsummer Eve, it was usual in most country places, and also in towns and cities, for the inhabitants, both old and young, and of both sexes, to meet together, and make merry by the side of a large fire made in the middle of the ...
— Balder The Beautiful, Vol. I. • Sir James George Frazer

... night. The agonizing vigil began again, but I was so weary that I went to sleep a few minutes after lights out. Sullen thunders mingled with my dreams and did not ...
— Combed Out • Fritz August Voigt

... he gave them the slip, took vows of chastity and abstinence, and began a pilgrimage to our Lady of Montserrat near Barcelona. On the road he scourged himself daily. When he reached the shrine he hung his arms up as a votive offering, and performed the vigil which chivalrous custom exacted from a squire before the morning of his being dubbed a knight. This ceremony was observed point by point, according to the ritual he had read in Amadis of Gaul. Next day he gave his raiment to a beggar, and assumed the garb of a mendicant ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds

... Nice swarmed with Russian secret agents, who, at orders from Azef and Rasputin, kept constant vigil upon the doings of everyone. The directors of the foreign service of our political police were Ratchkovsky in Paris, and Rataef in London. The latter posed as a Russian journalist, and usually spent his afternoons over cups of coffee in the cosmopolitan ...
— The Minister of Evil - The Secret History of Rasputin's Betrayal of Russia • William Le Queux

... helped them to resist the depressing influence of the cold night air following upon their sleep on the wet ground. The French, on the other hand, had no manner of musical instruments with their army, and all were fatigued and depressed by their long vigil. ...
— At Agincourt • G. A. Henty

... steps; and the moonlight, striking across his great forehead as he came, revealed the furrows ploughed there by an anxiety of which I guessed the cause. The creaking of the wooden stairs and gallery and the whine of an old door announced that he had returned to his vigil. ...
— The Guest of Quesnay • Booth Tarkington

... the holy sisters keep vigil this night in the Convent of the Blessed Santa Croce," ...
— The Royal Pawn of Venice - A Romance of Cyprus • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull

... above particulars were communicated by Guapo; and when he had finished talking, all the others went to sleep, leaving Guapo to his midnight vigil. ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid

... could not sleep? What need of reviewing the last chapter of his knowledge of the woman who was so compelling in her helplessness and her childlike faith? He would read: something silly, if he had it at hand. The large matters of the mind and soul were not for this unwilling vigil; and at this intruding thought of the soul he smiled, remembering how glibly he had bartered the integrity of his own to add his fragment to the rising temple of Tira's faith. He had strengthened her at the expense of his own bitter certainties. It was done deliberately ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown

... the company that it was a fact, handed down from his ancestor the historian, that the Kaatskill Mountains had always been haunted by strange beings. That it was affirmed that the great Hendrick Hudson, the first discoverer of the river and country, kept a kind of vigil there every twenty years, with his crew of the Half-moon; being permitted in this way to revisit the scenes of his enterprise, and keep a guardian eye upon the river and the great city called by his name. That his father had once seen ...
— Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four. • William H. Elson and Christine Keck

... the Coroner what witnesses to call; and gave an opinion as to Peter's condition. He also added that he was sure Peter's family would be very glad he was to suffer no more, and then he went back to Kate who was suffering entirely too much for safety. Then began a long vigil that ended at midnight with Kate barely alive and Sarah Nepple, the Walden mid-wife, trying to divide a scanty wardrobe between ...
— A Daughter of the Land • Gene Stratton-Porter

... festivals of the Church are preceded by a vigil, or eve, and, considering the magnitude of the festival of Christmas, it is no wonder that the ceremonial attaching to the eve of the Nativity outvies all others. What sings ...
— A Righte Merrie Christmasse - The Story of Christ-Tide • John Ashton

... looked up from her reading with her finger on her lips—I recognised the gesture she had addressed me in the afternoon—and, though the nurse was about to go to rest, had not encouraged her sister-in-law to relieve her of any part of her vigil. But certainly at that time the boy's state was far from reassuring—his poor little breathing so painful; and what change could have taken place in him in those few hours that would justify Beatrice in denying Mackintosh access? This was the moral of Miss Ambient's anecdote, the moral for ...
— The Author of Beltraffio • Henry James

... don't know what a Vigil means; or Venus— whether it's a person or a place; or why the Latin is late, as you ...
— Brother Copas • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... of Dieppe. In a few minutes she returned. Guillaume was no longer lying by the hut, but was safe inside it under the straw. She found Dieppe's matches, relighted the candle, and sat down in the doorway with her back to the straw. Thus each had kept a silent vigil until the Captain returned to the rendezvous. Guillaume felt that he had turned a rather unpromising situation to very good account. He was greatly and naturally angered with Paul de Roustache: the loss of his portfolio was grievous. ...
— Captain Dieppe • Anthony Hope

... who climbed the storm-swept steep, She who the foaming wave would dare, So oft love's vigil here to keep, Stranger, albeit, thou think'st I dote; I know, ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 1 July 1848 • Various

... Fancy's boldest glances fail, Contemplating each hurrying mood Of thought that to that aspect pale Sent up the heart's o'erboiling flood Through that vast vigil, while his eyes Watch'd till the slow reluctant skies Should kindle, and the vision dread, Of all his livelong years be read! In youth, his faith-led spirit doom'd Still to be baffled and betray'd, His manhood's vigorous noon consumed Ere Power bestow'd its niggard aid; That morn ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 344, June, 1844 • Various

... looked out. Over emerald lawn and coppice, tall trees and brilliant flowers, the October sun shone gloriously. No fairer day ever smiled upon old earth. She stood for an instant—then turned slowly away and walked over to a mirror—had her night's vigil made her look wan and sallow? she wondered. No—she looked much as usual—a thought paler, perhaps, but it is appropriate for brides to look pale. No use thinking of a morning nap under the circumstances—she would sit down by the window and wait for them to come. She could hear the household ...
— A Terrible Secret • May Agnes Fleming

... as if they had neither of them slept; but the girl's vigil seemed to have made her wild and fierce, like some bird that has beat itself all night against its cage, and still from time to time feebly strikes the bars with its wings. Mrs. Bowen was ...
— Indian Summer • William D. Howells

... incidents. According to their version, a huge helmeted hornbill[120] (RHINOFLAX VIGIL) sits by the far end of the bridge across the river of death, and with its screams tries to terrify the ghost, so that it shall fall from the bridge into the jaws of the great fish which is in league with the bird. On the other side of the river IS UNGAP, a woman with a cauldron ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall

... and went back to his seat on the bench. He counted time now by the throbbing of his nerves. The sun passed its zenith, began to droop; still Trusia slept and Carter kept a sleepless vigil. Great and red, in the west, the sun was setting as the girl came out and laid a soft, comforting hand upon ...
— Trusia - A Princess of Krovitch • Davis Brinton

... room that witnessed her nightly vigil a prison house of dark sad thoughts. Her head throbbed with the heat; she craved the space, the freshness of ...
— The Shadow of the East • E. M. Hull

... with bottles at their sides in public places. On the whole, however, there has been little down-heartedness at the restaurants during the past four and a half years Even while the housewife in the red-brick street was wasting her mornings in the patient vigil of the queue, only to find at the end of it that there was no butter, no lard, no tea, no jam, no golden syrup, no prunes, no potatoes, no currants, no olive oil, or whatever it might be she wanted most, the restaurants ...
— The Pleasures of Ignorance • Robert Lynd

... till she heard the bedroom door open, and then fly to make her mother a cup of tea and have a tempting little supper ready for her when she should come out, dressed and ready to go back to another exhausting vigil. ...
— Mary Ware's Promised Land • Annie Fellows Johnston

... the pavement was filled with the gay, excited crowds. Whistles resounded for taxis hovering in the immediate vicinity, like steel-plated birds of prey. Carriages were being shouted for, and throughout all the bustle and excitement, a slight girlish form doggedly kept its vigil near the main entrance. ...
— Adrien Leroy • Charles Garvice

... Grassman had translated similarly, "When thou, O Sindhu, rannest to the prize of the battle," while Ludwig wrote, "When thou, O Sindhu, wast flowing on to greater powers." Vaga, connected with vegeo, vigeo, vigil, wacker (see Curtius, Grundzuege, No. 159), is one of the many difficult words in the Veda the general meaning of which may be guessed, but in many places cannot yet be determined with certainty. Vaga occurs very ...
— India: What can it teach us? - A Course of Lectures Delivered before the University Of Cambridge • F. Max Mueller

... what it was that I had done, Mrs. Middlemist," said he solemnly, "I passed my vigil, like a knight of old, in my dispensary, with a pot of the cure in front of me, and I took a great oath to devote my life to spread it far and wide among the nations of the earth. It should bring comfort, I swore, to the king in his ...
— Septimus • William J. Locke

... saw the evidence of the long vigil of the night. All about its base were little nests, where the tired dogs had bedded down and kept their weary watch. Their incessant barking had served to keep the cougar treed, but it cost them a temporary loss of voice. Poor devils, they ...
— Hunting with the Bow and Arrow • Saxton Pope

... Master Bean, shelving the trivial subject of the prospective vigil, 'in the hope that I might persuade you, sir, to reconsider your decision in regard to my dismissal. I can assure you, sir, that I am extremely anxious to give satisfaction. If you would take me back and inform me how I have fallen short, I would ...
— The Man Upstairs and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse

... Guy de Warre Sir Harold Wynn Sir Harold Spurned The Deserted Eyrie Sir Harold Sails Rowena's Lonely Vigil Rowena's Song Sir Harold at Acre The Saracen Maid's Secret The Secret Assassin The Light in the Turret Tower Death at Ragnor's Tower Rowena's Grief Rowena's Lament The Holy Friar's Consolation Rowena Enters ...
— Rowena & Harold - A Romance in Rhyme of an Olden Time, of Hastyngs and Normanhurst • Wm. Stephen Pryer

... the belief that Smilax had not been taken. Without question, he and Echochee were still in flight, heading toward some safe refuge; coaxing, by shot or cry, the furious pack that tore hopefully after them. I knew that my vigil here was unnecessary—that with all senses focused on the chase no straggler would by any chance be coming this far out into the prairie—but I had told Sylvia it would ...
— Wings of the Wind • Credo Harris

... the trio anxious and ugly in their restlessness. There was no sleep for them. Davy visited the trap over a hundred times that night. His mother, breaking over the traces of restraint, hugged the jug of whiskey, taking swig after swig as the vigil wore on. At last Davy, driven to it, insisted upon having his share. Bill drank but little, and it was not long before Rosalie observed the shifty, nervous look in his eyes. From time to time he slyly appropriated ...
— The Daughter of Anderson Crow • George Barr McCutcheon

... dark night wraps the graveyard around, With only the dead in their vigil to see; Break not my repose or the mystery profound, And perchance thou mayst hear a sad hymn resound; 'Tis I, O my country, ...
— Lineage, Life, and Labors of Jose Rizal, Philippine Patriot • Austin Craig

... from my look-out and steer at a guess towards my neighbor in vigil, and come upon him with outstretched hand. "Is that you?" I say to him in a subdued voice, though I don't ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse



Words linked to "Vigil" :   viewing, continuous receiver watch, religious rite, vigil light, spying, wakefulness, watch, religion, faith, rite, listening watch, surveillance, agrypnia, religious belief, wake, vigil candle



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