"Incense" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... am to overturn the throne of my fathers as the lying star-men prophesied, then shall not these same babbling 'uncles' live to see the day!" And ere his brother could stop him the enraged boy flung the golden totoloque balls into the sparkling fish-fountain, dashed through the curling clouds of incense that wreathed the wide door-way of the sculptured arcade, and breathing out threatening and slaughter against the offending gray-beards, ...
— Historic Boys - Their Endeavours, Their Achievements, and Their Times • Elbridge Streeter Brooks
... Holding it toward me, he said: 'I shall not ask if I may smoke in your presence! A long time ago that request once met with a denial, so thereafter I merely implored the ladies' permission to burn a little incense to their lovely charms. Nor do I recall,' he smiled, 'one single refusal in the seventy-five years which have passed since then!' This," Jane added, her voice tender with the memory, "was ...
— Sunlight Patch • Credo Fitch Harris
... Augustus was chosen supervisor and corrector of morals for another five years,—this also he received for a limited period as he had the monarchy,—and he ordered the senators to burn incense as often as they had a sitting, and not to come to his residence: the first, that they might show reverence to the gods, and the second, that they might have no difficulty in convening. Inasmuch as very few became candidates for the tribuneship on account of its power having been ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol. 4 • Cassius Dio
... of Punt the galleys come, HATSHEPSU'S, sent by Amen-Ra and her To bring from God's own land the gold and myrrh, The ivory, the incense and the gum; The greyhound, anxious-eyed, with ear of silk, The little ape, with whiskers white as milk, And the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Sept. 26, 1917 • Various
... that domestic purgatory on a summer day,—the kitchen. There were vines about the windows, sunshine on the floor, and order everywhere; but it was haunted by a cooking-stove, that family altar whence such varied incense rises to appease the appetite of household gods, before which such dire incantations are pronounced to ease the wrath and woe of the priestess of the fire, and about which often linger saddest memories of wasted temper, time, ...
— A Modern Cinderella - or The Little Old Show and Other Stories • Louisa May Alcott
... spacious, what room for all, yet without space to insert an atom;—in graceful succession, in equal fulness, in balanced beauty, the dance of the hours goes forward still. Like an odor of incense, like a strain of music, like a sleep, it is inexact and boundless. It will not be dissected, nor unravelled, nor shown.... The great Pan of old, who was clothed in a leopard skin to signify the ...
— Emerson and Other Essays • John Jay Chapman
... mites. pom'ace, ground apples. might'y, powerful. pum'ice, a spongy stone. na'val, of ships. rig'or, severity; stiffness. na'vel, the central part. rig'ger, one who rigs. cen'sor, one who censures. suck'er, a kind of fish. cens'er, a pan for incense. suc'cor, help; assistance. pan'nel, a kind of saddle. sur'plus, excess. pan'el, a jury roll. sur'pluce, a ...
— McGuffey's Eclectic Spelling Book • W. H. McGuffey
... fine-looking man, and all had rather agreeable faces, quite unlike the brutal, vicious look of the lamas of Tachienlu. There was much that recalled the ritual of the Roman Catholic Church,—processions, genuflexions, chanting, burning of incense, lighting of candles, tinkling of bells,—all centring round a great figure of Sakyamuni. The words I could not understand, but the reverent expression on the monks' faces, their orderly bearing as they circled slowly round, keeping always the bared right shoulder toward the image, ...
— A Wayfarer in China - Impressions of a trip across West China and Mongolia • Elizabeth Kendall
... just entered the church. Dim lights twinkled on the altar, and a smell of incense filled the place. Hetty fell on her knees with the rest, and prayed for those she had left behind her. Her prayer was simple and short, repeated many times: "Oh God, make them happy! make them happy!" When the mass was over, Hetty ...
— Hetty's Strange History • Helen Jackson
... town with bear-skin on their legs, and at every time they start they fire a gun. They also beg through the tribe, each carrying a basket in which to receive whatever may be bestowed. The alms consist of Indian tobacco, and other articles that are used for incense at the sacrifice. Each manager at this time carries a dried tortoise or turtle shell, containing a few beans, which he frequently rubs on the walls of the houses, both inside and out. This kind of manoeuvering ...
— A Narrative of the Life of Mrs. Mary Jemison • James E. Seaver
... enemy. She was a connection of the family, independent, yet in some sort alone in the world. If it had been conferring a favor on her, to ask her to stay with me, be sure I never would have uttered a persuasive word. But it was asking her to leave gay society, and the incense of admiration, to bury herself in a dull house. Then she was 'ornamental;' I liked to see her about; she was satirical, and pleased me by a little spicy abuse. They called her handsome. She was too small, I think, too slight, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 3 No 3, March 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... banged on Ferrara's door. He didn't open at first, but shouted out to know who was knocking. When I told him, he let me in, and closed the door very quickly. As I went in, a pungent cloud met me—incense." ...
— Brood of the Witch-Queen • Sax Rohmer
... mine: I moved and talked, I smiled or was pensive, as though I saw them not; nevertheless the homage of their gaze was not lost upon me. You know, my charming Gabrielle, one likes to observe the sensation one produces amongst new people. The incense that I perceived in the surrounding atmosphere was just powerful enough to affect my nerves agreeably: that languor which you have so often reproached me for indulging in the company of what we call indifferents gradually dissipated; and, as poor R—— used to say of me, I came from behind ...
— Tales And Novels, Vol. 8 • Maria Edgeworth
... explains the manner in which the oracle of Nymphoea, in Epirus, delivered its responses. The party that consulted took incense, and having prayed, threw the incense into the fire, the flame pursued and consumed it. But if the affair was not to succeed, the incense did not come near the fire, or if it fell into the flame, it started out and fled. It so happened for prognosticating futurity, in regard to ...
— Thaumaturgia • An Oxonian
... a sweet wayside temple of his own, full of bright dreams and visions, incense, and ringing songs, and partly is he so sweet, because, unburthened with any sense of a message to utter, a mission to develop, he sings like a child in the valleys of asphodel, weaving bright chaplets of spring flowers for the whole world, looking upon the mystery of grief and pain with ...
— Music and Some Highly Musical People • James M. Trotter
... After taking off his gloves, he rubbed his hands hard enough to take off their skin as well, if his epidermis had not been tanned and cured like Russia leather,—saving, of course, the perfume of larch-trees and incense. Presently his ...
— Eugenie Grandet • Honore de Balzac
... Gothic—of what do they remind one so strongly as of the marvels of old stained glass, that rich, pure kaleidoscope which has lived so long in the atmosphere of incense ascending from censer and from heart. The same scale, rich and simple, unafraid of unshaded colour, ...
— The Tapestry Book • Helen Churchill Candee
... so that the gratification of the aesthetic emotions became dignified with the garb of piety. The picture-galleries of the Louvre, crowded with Madonnas and saints, the Roman Catholic churches with their incense-laden air and exquisite music, brought a new joy into my life, a more vivid colour to my dreams. Insensibly, the colder, cruder Evangelicalism that I had never thoroughly assimilated, grew warmer and more brilliant, and the ideal ...
— Annie Besant - An Autobiography • Annie Besant
... native of dry, stony places on Mediterranean coasts, but found occasionally naturalized as an escape from gardens in civilized countries, both warm and cold. From early days it has been popularly grown for culinary purposes. The name is from the Greek word thyo, or sacrifice, because of its use as incense to perfume the temples. With the Romans it was very popular both in cookery and as a bee forage. Like its relatives sage and marjoram, it has practically disappeared from medicine, though formerly it was very popular because of its ...
— Culinary Herbs: Their Cultivation Harvesting Curing and Uses • M. G. Kains
... Deserts of Kerman or of Lut, of Khorasan; of Charchan; Lop (Gobi); Kharakorum. Desgodins, Abbe. Despina Khatun. Devadasi. Devapattan. Deveria, G. Devil-dancing. Devil trees. Devils, White. D'Evreux, Father Yves. Dhafar (Dofar, Thafar), its incense; two places of the name. Dharani, mystic charms. Dhulkarnain (Alex.), see Zulkarnain. Dialects, Chinese. Diamonds in India, how found, mines of; diffusion of legend about. "Diex Terrien". Dilawar, Polo's Dihar. Dimitri II., Thawdadebuli, ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... are feeding and resting upon the site of the city that they left; the mower's scythe swept this day at dawn over the chief street of the city that they built, and the swathes of soft grass are now sending up their scent into the night air, the only incense that fills the temple of their ancient worship. Let us go down into that little space of ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume II (of 3) • John Ruskin
... Song is heard, the rosy Garland worn; Devices quaint, and Frolics ever new, Tread on each other's kibes.[85] A long adieu He bids to sober joy that here sojourns: Nought interrupts the riot, though in lieu[cy] Of true devotion monkish incense burns, And Love and Prayer unite, or ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron
... sea. There they sat upon the rocks, sitting as the gods sit, with their right hands uplifted, and having the power of gods, only none came to worship. Thither came no ships nigh them, nor ever at evening came the prayers of men, nor smell of incense, nor screams from the sacrifice. Then said ...
— Time and the Gods • Lord Dunsany [Edward J. M. D. Plunkett]
... memory and colours indefinable to the eye, as though they had been special flowers gathered by no man, grown not in this world, and destined for the use of the dead alone. Their powerful scent hung in the warm air, making it thick and heavy like the fumes of incense. The lumps of white coral shone round the dark mound like a chaplet of bleached skulls, and everything around was so quiet that when I stood still all sound and all movement in the world seemed to ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... up in smoke, In incense smoke of prayer; We thank the Underlying Love, The Overarching Care— We do not thank the living men Who make our ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... worth and distinction, it is what you cannot but lament, not without some indignation. It creeps into the hearts of the wise man as well as that of the coxcomb. When you see a man of sense look about for applause, and discover an itching inclination to be commended; lay traps for a little incense, even from those whose opinion he values in nothing but his own favour; who is safe against this weakness? or who knows whether he is guilty of it or not? The best way to get clear of such a light fondness for applause is to take all possible care to throw off the love of it upon occasions that ...
— Talkers - With Illustrations • John Bate
... this is never contradicted. For although thousands may in their own hearts feel the falsehood of their assertions, there is not one who will venture to express his opinion. The government sets the example, the press follows it, and the people receive the incense of flattery, which in other countries is offered to the court alone; and if it were not for the occasional compunctions and doubts, which his real good sense will sometimes visit him with, the more enlightened American would be as happy ...
— Diary in America, Series Two • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... hearts, which gladly leap Whene'er thy name is called! Deep in our souls the quenchless fire Of love full brightly burns upon The sacred altar, set apart For sprite commune and sacrifice; Whose high-priest tends with loving care, And unto thee sweet incense burns. Our tongues most gladly sing thy praise, And from it ne'er shall cease—till ...
— The Sylvan Cabin - A Centenary Ode on the Birth of Lincoln and Other Verse • Edward Smyth Jones
... our inactivity. It has not been so quiet all day. The Boers disregarded their customary Sabbath rule of refraining from hostilities unless provoked by some apparently menacing movement on our part. There was nothing of that kind to incense them this morning, but their gunners, unable to resist the temptation offered by herds of cattle on Manchester Hill (as Caesar's Camp is sometimes called), sent one shell from "Silent Susan" on to that ridge. They missed their mark, however, and ...
— Four Months Besieged - The Story of Ladysmith • H. H. S. Pearse
... where he was met by a procession of 120 rectors and curates of the city, in the richest copes, and 500 secular chaplains in the whitest of surplices, with whom were a like number of monks bearing crosses, tapers and incense, and chanting psalms and antiphons in grateful thanks for his safe return. Thence the royal cavalcade passed through Southwark to the city, where pageants appeared at every turn. The fulsome adulation bestowed upon a lad scarcely ten years ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume I • Reginald R. Sharpe
... enough of the productions of a young woman, to bring it upon the stage, since she herself in a more mature age could hardly bear to read it. But as the play succeeded, she received such unbounded incense from admirers, that her apartment was crowded with men of wit, and gaiety. There is a copy of verses prefixed to her play, said to be written by a very great hand ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. IV • Theophilus Cibber
... go through in the course of these long circuits, and how many sacrifices had they to attend! When she returned from these visitations she was utterly exhausted, and indeed, it was no small exertion to undergo so many fumigations with incense and so many aspersions, to listen to so many litanies and hymns, to parade through such endless halls and while being elevated to the rank of celestial beings, to be crowned with so many crowns in turn and decorated with all kinds of ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... through the warm incense of the pines. It was hot weather, and insects vexed the ear with an unwearied trill. But the heat of despair was greater in the girl than any such assault. Her cheeks had each a deep red spot. Her eyes were dark with feeling, ...
— Country Neighbors • Alice Brown
... to his place, in the way he sat down, in the way he then looked about him. If anyone had tried to get up three cheers for Snooks, Snooks would not have known that he was being made a fool of. He would have accepted the incense of fame as justly his due. There once was a man who entered the Edinburgh theatre at the same instant with Sir Walter Scott. The audience cheered lustily; and while Sir Walter modestly took his seat, as ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 44, June, 1861 • Various
... the heart, and with that tongue which speaks The same in all, an holocaust I made To God, befitting the new grace vouchsaf'd. And from my bosom had not yet upsteam'd The fuming of that incense, when I knew The rite accepted. With such mighty sheen And mantling crimson, in two listed rays The splendours shot before me, that I cried, "God of Sabaoth! that does prank ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... expected; and surrounded by old carved chairs, sofas of the Empire, embossed and gilded wedding-chests, and the cupboards which contain bits of old damask and embroidered altar-cloths scenting the place with the smell of old incense and mustiness; all of which are presided over by Signor Porri's three maiden sisters—Sora Serafina, Sora Lodovica, and Sora Adalgisa—the three Fates in person, even to the distaffs and their ...
— Hauntings • Vernon Lee
... dawning loveliness been revealed to him alone, but to him it seemed that he had helped to make her lovely. The innocent tenderness she felt for him had accomplished this miracle. Why should he refuse to inhale an incense so pure, so genuine? How could he help being sensible to its fragrance? Would it not be in his power to put an end to the whole affair whenever he pleased? But till then might he not bask in it, as one does in a warm ray of spring sunshine? He put aside, therefore, all scruples. And when ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... remove melancholy and sadness; and they also make use of scents to a great degree. In the morning, when they have all risen they comb their hair and wash their faces and hands with cold water. Then they chew thyme or rock-parsley or fennel, or rub their hands with these plants. The old men make incense, and with their faces to the east repeat the short prayer which Jesus Christ taught us. After this they go to wait upon the old men, some go to the dance, and others to the duties of the State. Later on they meet at the early lectures, then in the temple, then for bodily ...
— The City of the Sun • Tommaso Campanells
... country would have peculiar charms. But in the worship of the primitive Christians there was no attempt, in the way of embellishment or decoration, to captivate the senses. The Church had no gorgeous temples, no fragrant incense, [218:1] no splendid vestments. For probably the whole of the first century, she celebrated her religious ordinances in private houses, [218:2] and her ministers officiated in their ordinary costume. John, the forerunner ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen
... wealth, and extended his influence. The sages repeated his maxims, the captains of thousands waited his commands. Competition withdrew into the cavern of envy, and discontent trembled at his own murmurs. But human greatness is short and transitory, as the odour of incense in the fire. The sun grew weary of gilding the palaces of Morad, the clouds of sorrow gathered round his head, and the tempest of hatred ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson - Volume IV [The Rambler and The Adventurer] • Samuel Johnson
... wandering, absent-minded fashion, and his conversation was uniformly frivolous. If he could not evade a serious question by a joke, he bolted. I cut my classes to lie in wait for him, confident that in some unwary moment I could trap him into serious conversation, that if one burned incense long enough and ardently enough, the oracle would not be dumb. I was Maupassant mad at the time, a malady particularly unattractive in a Junior, and I made a frantic effort to get an expression of opinion from him on "Le ...
— A Collection of Stories, Reviews and Essays • Willa Cather
... slain to thee; Great festivals are kept for thee; Fowls are sacrificed to thee; Beasts of the field are caught for thee; Pure flames are offered to thee; Offerings are made to every god, As they are made unto Nile. Incense ascends unto heaven, Oxen, bulls, fowls are burnt! Nile makes for himself chasms in the Thebaid; Unknown is his name in heaven, He doth not manifest his forms! ...
— Ancient Egypt • George Rawlinson
... Charlie, under his hat. "Here's your 'noble savage,' Fanny. Burn a little incense, can't you?" But Fanny preferred remaining silent to answering her brother's bantering remarks; and if she was burning incense at all, I had reason to think it was to ...
— The New Penelope and Other Stories and Poems • Frances Fuller Victor
... her ear other compliments in a similar strain. She hung her head, and turned it aside from him, as a woman will when flattered, or when she wishes to be flattered, but she did not rise to depart; and he felt that the incense which he offered to her beauty was not unacceptable. But the words and the attentions of the stranger were as daggers in the ears, and as wormwood in the heart ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume III • Various
... no living creature in sacrifice, nor do they think it suitable to the Divine Being, from whose bounty it is that these creatures have derived their lives, to take pleasure in their deaths, or the offering up their blood. They burn incense and other sweet odours, and have a great number of wax lights during their worship, not out of any imagination that such oblations can add anything to the divine nature (which even prayers cannot do), but as it is a harmless and pure way of worshipping God; so they think those ...
— Utopia • Thomas More
... worship—simple, intelligible, and grand, appealing at the same time to the reason and the imagination. I prefer it infinitely to the Catholic service, for though I am fond of the bursts of music and the clouds of incense, I can't endure the undistinguishable sounds with which the ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. III • Charles C. F. Greville
... company should be formed which would monopolize its commodities.[2] Nevertheless, by the Navigation Act of 1660 colonial exports, part of which had to be carried only to England, were confined to English ships. This was a sufficient limitation of their former freedom of trade to incense the planters in the West Indies but, as a matter of greater importance to them, the king granted to the Company of Royal Adventurers the exclusive trade to the western coast of Africa, thus limiting their supply of Negro slaves to this organization. The company therefore undertook ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 4, 1919 • Various
... speak for gold! A little while, and thine own palace-halls Shall flash the truth upon thee with loud noise Of men and women, shrieking o'er the dead. And all the cities whose unburied sons, Mangled and torn, have found a sepulchre In dogs or jackals or some ravenous bird That stains their incense with polluted breath, Are forming leagues in troublous enmity. Such shafts, since thou hast stung me to the quick, I like an archer at thee in my wrath Have loosed unerringly—carrying their pang, Inevitable, to thy very heart. Now, sirrah! lead me ...
— The Seven Plays in English Verse • Sophocles
... he is put under the notion of an angel, of an angel that came and stood at the altar to offer incense for the church, all the time that the seven angels were to sound out with trumpets the alarm of God's wrath against the anti-christian world; lest that wrath should swallow them up also. 'And,' saith John, 'another angel came and stood at the altar, having ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... new prisoner, that Symbat might be conducted into Constantinople with every possible indignity. The blind and mutilated Peganes was compelled to walk before his friend, with a bowl of earthenware in the form of a censer, filled with sulphur, as if burning incense to perfume him. The right eye of Symbat was put out, and his right hand cut off, and in this state he was placed in the Lauron, like a beggar, with a bowl hung before his breast to receive charity. Three days after, the two rebels were ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 379, May, 1847 • Various
... Durward, "but use your interest with the Count of Crevecoeur to permit me an interview with the Countess Isabelle of Croye, who is the party possessed of my secret, and I doubt not that I can persuade her to be as silent as I shall unquestionably myself remain, concerning whatever may incense the Duke against ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... seems to have been animated by a real spite against the king; the establishment of a harem, in particular, appears to incense him greatly, and he takes evident pleasure in showing us a simple shepherd girl triumphing over the presumptuous sultan who thinks he can buy love, like everything else, ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... an overpowering odour," said the old parson; "it is suggestive of incense. I am sure I once smelt something like it in the Church of the Nativity at Bethlehem. It ...
— The Brownies and Other Tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... so wide unfurled In brooding calm above the world! Waft us your holy peace, and raise The incense of our morning praise Up to our Father, Lord ...
— The Mistress of the Manse • J. G. Holland
... every day was a holiday. So it was not important just then which way the river flowed or in what direction those glorious mountains led. It was the bloom-time of the year in the uplands; the landscapes of the valley were sparkling in the sunlight, the songs of numerous larks rose like incense from every meadow, the vireo filled in every pause with her rapid voluble song, the clear ringing call of the quail resounded through every valley, and the hillsides were so covered with different hued grasses, ferns and flowers that they ...
— See America First • Orville O. Hiestand
... from France, where he had been in the Y. M. C. A. service; and it would upset him, they said. So instead of smoking downstairs, by the fire, she had to do it up in her room; and also burn Chinese incense after each ...
— The Crow's Nest • Clarence Day, Jr.
... unconscious that they are the oddest-looking guys that have come down from the Middle Ages; there is music in all the gardens, singing in the cafes, beer flowing in rivers, and a mighty smell of cheese, that goes up to heaven. If the eating of cheese were a religious act, and its odor an incense, I could not say enough of ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... also in danger, and therefore he proposes that they shall go together after dark to the temple courts, and, passing through these, enter into the sanctuary itself, the Holy Place, in which stood the altar of incense, the golden candlestick, and the table of showbread. There, having carefully closed the folding doors of fir-wood, they may hide till daybreak, and those who were coming to assassinate Nehemiah will ...
— The King's Cup-Bearer • Amy Catherine Walton
... though I have seen the beauties of cities and of courts, with all the splendour of studied ornament about them to enhance their graces, possessing charms which had made them known almost throughout the world, and worshipped with the incense of a thousand votaries, yet never, nowhere did I behold a being of such exquisite and touching beauty, as that possessed by the creature of whom I have just spoken. At the moment of which I write, she was standing near the gate, close to which ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume II. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... converses with me, he keeps respectful distance, and gracefully averts from me the annoyance of his breath by holding his hand before his mouth. I inwardly applaud his refined breeding, forgetting that I am a Pariah of Pariahs, whose soul, if I have one, the incense of his holy lungs might save alive,—forgetting that he is one to whose very footprint the Soodra salaams, alighting from his palanquin,—to whose shadow poor Chakili, the cobbler, abandons the broad highway,—the feared of gods, hated of giants, mistrusted ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... nature. The Alligator fern, as I still call it, has become a symbolic thing to me; and the sight of it now stands for my supreme or best-loved impression, not alone in the world of ferns, but also in each department of nature. Among forests it symbolizes the immemorial incense cedars and redwoods of the Yosemite; among shores, those of Capri and Monterey; among mountains, the glowing one called Isis as seen at dawn from the ...
— The Joyful Heart • Robert Haven Schauffler
... a strange Oriental odor in the car—suggestive of an incense. The car was gliding up Central Park West, toward one of the road entrances into the Park proper. Shirley's hand clutched the ring, tensely. The driver, tactfully looking straight to the front, gave no heed to ...
— The Voice on the Wire • Eustace Hale Ball
... the basaltic pillars which crowd the stormy cavern of the Hebrides. The voice of the alternate choirs of singing boys swung back and forward, as the silver censer swung in the hands of the white-robed children. The sweet cloud of incense rose in soft, fleecy mists, full of penetrating suggestions of the East and its perfumed altars. The knees of twenty generations had worn the pavement; their feet had hollowed the steps; their shoulders had ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... said, 'forest and mountain, the little copse and the grass under it, and delicate little flowers among the grass. List to the lark's song in the heavens, the wind soughing in the trees, the whispering of the leaves. In the air there is a mysterious incense spread from God's censers, the very language of mystery. Now you see far into the beauty of the world and hear tidings from afar. All the horizons of your senses have been extended. Are you not glad for all these impressions, these pictures and songs and perfumes? Every impression ...
— A Tramp's Sketches • Stephen Graham
... the story preserved its primal character of a composite between Christianity and the Nature Ritual, as witnessed by the ceremony over the bier of the Dead Knight, the procession with Cross and incense, and the solemn Vespers for the Dead. This, I suspect, correctly represents the final stage of the process by which Attis-Adonis was identified with Christ. Thus, in its first form the story was the ...
— From Ritual to Romance • Jessie L. Weston
... thrust the bloody blade of the knife often into the fire that none of the blood may be lost; then the priest maketh many strange gestures with the knife, like a fencer, giving or defending thrusts. In the mean time other priests with burning censers go round about the altar perfuming it with incense, and ringing a small silver bell all the time of the sacrifice. The priest who sacrifices the cock has his arms and legs garnished with silver plates and pendants, which make a noise when he moves like hawks-bells, and he wears a kind of boss on his ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VII • Robert Kerr
... birds among the flowers and sunshine. There you shall not go in stealth to the temple of the Lord when the bells tell you of the Sabbath. Oh, you shall see the new chapel with its vaulted roof and high pillared aisles. And hear the acolytes singing when the bishop lights the incense on the high altar. There shall you solemnize the God service with those of Christ and you shall feel you heart cleansed ...
— Plays: The Father; Countess Julie; The Outlaw; The Stronger • August Strindberg
... not Fate, that, on this July midnight— Was it not Fate, (whose name is also Sorrow,) That bade me pause before the garden-gate, To breathe the incense of those Slumbering roses? No footstep stirred; the hated world all slept, Save only thee and me. (Oh, Heaven!—oh, God! How my heart beats in coupling those two words!) Save only thee and me. I paused—I looked— And in an instant all things disappeared. (Ah, bear in ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various
... had a peculiar fascination. He petted and flattered her to her heart's content, and thus made her the envy of her young acquaintances, which was incense indeed to her vain little soul. He never lectured or preached to her on account of her follies and nonsense, as her elderly friends usually did, but gave to her wild, impulsive moods free rein. Where a true friend would have cautioned and curbed, he applauded and incited, causing ...
— What Can She Do? • Edward Payson Roe
... feet redden in the under-light, To the blind gods from Babylon less incense burn to-night, To the high beasts of Babylon, whose mouths make mock ...
— Poems • G.K. Chesterton
... single state; as a married man, he could only have reformed his wife; as a bachelor, he exercised undisputed power over every spinster in his neighbourhood. He was, indeed, unconscious of, or ungratified by the deference and incense he received; but the generality of men are less insensible, and half the homage he so carefully rejected would have been sufficient to intoxicate with delight and self-complacency the greater part of his fraternity. What object in nature is more pitiable than a London old bachelor, of moderate ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13, Issue 353, January 24, 1829 • Various
... speeding kick to a falling boss on general principles, if not from personal motives. Hartwell never took this factor into consideration. His vanity was flattered by the deference paid to him, never for a moment dreaming that the bulk of the substance and the whole of the flavour of the incense burned under his nose was made up of resentment against Firmstone, nor that the waning stores were nightly replenished at the Blue Goose. Had Hartwell remained East, as devoutly hoped by Firmstone, it is all but certain ...
— Blue Goose • Frank Lewis Nason
... Primate of Sweden, in his great work on the northern nations, declares it a well-established fact that cities and harvests may be saved from lightning by the ringing of bells and the burning of consecrated incense, accompanied by prayers; and he cautions his readers that the workings of the thunderbolt are rather to be marvelled at than inquired into. Even as late as 1673 the Franciscan professor Lealus, in Italy, in a schoolbook ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... gleam, while purpling still the lowlands lie; And pearly mists, the morning-pride, soar incense-like to greet ...
— The Kasidah of Haji Abdu El-Yezdi • Richard F. Burton
... Crucis which rehearses the ineffable history of the Man of Sorrows and the Lady of Pain. The glorious Easter morning was there. Bright vestments gleamed, a thousand lights flamed from the sanctuary, perfumed incense circled heavenward, bearing the thanksgiving of opening hearts. From hillside to valley echoed the music of bells in every turret and steeple, even the bells of the churches and convents in the old beleaguered town that had so often sounded the alarm ...
— The Bastonnais - Tale of the American Invasion of Canada in 1775-76 • John Lesperance
... pray to your gods, for from here on our road is No Man's road." He and his men killed a black goat for sacrifice on the bows; and the Yellow Man brought out a small, smiling image of dull-green glass and burned incense before it. Hugh and I commended ourselves to God, and Saint Bartholomew, and Our Lady of the Assumption, who was specially dear to my Lady. We were not young, but I think no shame to say, when as we drove out of that secret harbour at ...
— Puck of Pook's Hill • Rudyard Kipling
... over which trees hang their green foliage, which, ever rustling and trembling, form a trellis-work with the blue sky, while the spray rising from behind the rock-worn altar seems like the sprinkling of holy incense. After all these years I still hear the voice of those dashing waters and dream again, as I did that day, of the brook of Cherith where ravens fed the prophet of old. It is said by Lossing, in his booklet on the Dover Stone Church, that Sacassas, the mighty sachem of the Pequoids ...
— The Hudson - Three Centuries of History, Romance and Invention • Wallace Bruce
... fountain's source. Upon the surface floats all that is earthly—it is hurried back by storms; but that which was hallowed by the breath of love, freely streams it forth, through hidden paths, into that realm beyond the mountain chain, and there, exhaled as incense, becomes mixed with loves that have slept. Still, cheerful light, dost thou waken the weary to his toil, still pourest thou glad life into my breast; but from the mossy monument that memory has raised, thence canst thou not allure me. Willingly will I employ my hands in industry and toil; I will ...
— Peter Schlemihl etc. • Chamisso et. al.
... indeed, by a figure, be said to be transubstantiated thus for the food of man. The Persians offered bread and wine to Mithra; the people of Thibet and Tartary did the same. Cakes were made for the Queen of heaven, kneaded of dough, and were offered up to her with incense and drink-libations (Jer. vii. 18, and xliv. 19). Ishtar was worshipped with cakes, or buns, made out of the finest flour, mingled with honey, and the ancient Greeks offered the same: this bread seems to have been sometimes only ...
— The Freethinker's Text Book, Part II. - Christianity: Its Evidences, Its Origin, Its Morality, Its History • Annie Besant
... and the purple veils beyond the headland are lifted one by one; the midst of dawn rises upwards like the smoke of incense from some giant censers swung by unseen, ...
— The Bronze Eagle - A Story of the Hundred Days • Emmuska Orczy, Baroness Orczy
... the throne room was vastly different than when he had first visited it. The Zara sat curled as before, a golden bowl of incense burning at either side of the throne. The men-at-arms were absent and, instead, there were dozens of handmaidens, white-skinned and seductive as their queen, reclining on luxurious cushions that were arranged in a semicircle before the dais. ...
— The Copper-Clad World • Harl Vincent
... the dismantled appearance of this church with the magnificent cathedrals of Italy and Spain, where a soft and mysterious light shines from the walls, and where one meets the loving looks of angels and saints through the clouds of incense directing one's gaze toward heaven; where one sees so many pictures of innocence that calm one, so many images of pain that help one to suffer, that inspire one with resignation, peace, and the sweetness ...
— Holland, v. 1 (of 2) • Edmondo de Amicis
... virtue to be as easy as it is beautiful. Religion should conduce to one's comfort. They like incense, but not the smell of brimstone. They would remain forever content on Tabor, but the dark frown of Calvary is insupportable. Beautiful churches, artistic music, eloquent preaching on interesting topics, that is their idea of religion; that is ...
— Explanation of Catholic Morals - A Concise, Reasoned, and Popular Exposition of Catholic Morals • John H. Stapleton
... everybody knows that if there is anything more distasteful and embarrassing to very young ladies than a failure on the part of gallants to recognise their claims to attention, that other more embarrassing circumstance is a too large quantum of the pleasing incense. It is not the present writer, however, who will go so far as to say that their usual habit of running away from the admirer should be taken, as in ...
— The Last of the Foresters • John Esten Cooke
... not interesting to me. Bits of gossip—discussions of fashionable amusements with which I could have nothing to do; frivolous badinage, which was of all things most distasteful to me. Yet, amid it, I believe there was a subtle incense of admiration which by degrees and insensibly found its way to my senses. But I had two dances with Thorold, and at those times I was myself and enjoyed unalloyed pleasure. And so ...
— Daisy • Elizabeth Wetherell
... valley; and beautiful to the eye were the snowy, drooping blossoms, contrasted with the rich dark green of their leaves. Some few brought twigs of the orange and the lime; and the sweet odour of the blossoms pervaded the place like a holy incense, as the first stirring airs of morning breathed around and through the building. There were smiles on almost every face; and a hum of low but joyous greetings was heard without, till the loud voice of the priest, reciting the Creed, hushed every other. The only ...
— The Hour and the Man - An Historical Romance • Harriet Martineau
... fortunate if, in seeking a perfect restoration to health, I am not obliged to be a swine-herd or keep sheep, to dig, cut, and saw wood, pick spinach, or weed the flower-beds! Quick, my friend; light with all convenient haste the altar on which we will burn again the incense and benjamin of friendship. Blow again the sparks now so nearly extinguished of our happy boyish days; revive again the holy flames of our youthful affections; and, above all things, have the scissors ready which are to cut the Gordian knot of my complicated diseases. ...
— Le Morvan, [A District of France,] Its Wild Sports, Vineyards and Forests; with Legends, Antiquities, Rural and Local Sketches • Henri de Crignelle
... displeasing. No woman is quite indifferent to a man who admires her in the hearty, wholesale way which De Burgh did not try to conceal. Katherine was much too feminine not to like the incense of his devotion, especially when he kept it within certain limits. She did not credit him with any deep feeling; but in spite of her strong conviction that he was attracted by her money, she recognized a certain sincerity in his liking for herself. She enjoyed the idea of humbling his immense assurance, ...
— A Crooked Path - A Novel • Mrs. Alexander
... of Billy somewhere and made him forget his hunger. Like a sweet incense which induces pleasant daydreams they were wafted in upon him through the rich, mellow voice of the solitary camper, and the lilt of the meter ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... the present century the sandal-wood trade was at its height. This wood was in great request at Canton, where it was sold for incense and the manufacture of fancy articles. It was purchased by the picul of 133-1/2 pounds, the price varying from eight to ten dollars for the picul. This wood, while it lasted, was a mine of wealth for the chiefs, by means of which they were enabled to buy fire arms, liquor, boats and schooners, as ...
— The Hawaiian Islands • The Department of Foreign Affairs
... guests. What a schemer that Moessard was! What impudent sycophancy! And the same envious, disdainful smile distorted every mouth. The devil of it was that they were forced to applaud, to appear enchanted, as their host's sense of smell was not surfeited by the odor of incense, and as he took everything very seriously, both the article and the applause that it called forth. His broad face beamed during the reading. Many and many a time, far away in Africa, he had dreamed of being thus belauded in the Parisian papers, ...
— The Nabob, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... the rumbling of the organ, the voices of the choristers, even the oppressed sighs of the worshippers, murmured through each one of its rooms, lulled it as if with a holy breath from the Invisible, and at times through the half-cool walls seemed to come the vapours from the burning incense. ...
— The Dream • Emile Zola
... without a parallel. No murmur escapes them under the severest domestic affliction; whilst prayer is their daily bread. Besides five times a day, they never omit the extraordinary occasions. The aspirations of the older and retired men continue all the live-long day; this incense of the soul, rising before the altar of the Eternal, is a fire which is never extinguished in Ghadames! Their commercial habits naturally beget caution, if not fear. In The Desert, though armed, they have no courage to fight. Their arms are their mysterious ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... of dried and desiccated religious respectability that penetrated everywhere, and made the grateful twilight redolent of the generations of forgotten Guitierrez who had quietly exhaled in the old house. A mist as of incense and flowers that had lost their first bloom veiled the vista of the long corridor, and made the staring blue sky, seen through narrow windows and loopholes, glitter like mirrors let into the walls. The chamber assigned to the young ladies seemed half oratory and half sleeping-room, ...
— Maruja • Bret Harte
... nook I heard a confused talking, and after every word such a ghastly laughter, as if five hundred devils were casting their horns with laughing. On approaching to see the cause of such a rarity as laughter in Hell, I discovered that it was only got up to incense two honorable gentlemen, newly arrived, who were insisting on being shown respect suitable to their gentility. One of them was a round bodied squire, having with him a big roll of parchment—namely his map of pedigree—out of which he ...
— The Sleeping Bard - or, Visions of the World, Death, and Hell • Ellis Wynne
... the colonnade that stretched in dusky perspective from the great door to the altar, soaring above the distant arches, and swelling upwards in floods of melody, until the vast concavity of the vaulted nave was filled with a sea of sound. But a sultry heaviness weighed with the incense upon the air. Elder citizens glanced uneasily at one another, and the thoughts of many wandered anxiously from the sacred building. Outside, the streets were empty. All Caracas was engaged in public worship; and the white dwellings that inclosed the Plaza, with its converging avenues, ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 3, No. 16, February, 1859 • Various
... o'-chums, as they termed them, were invariably of a conical form, made with small poles, and covered with the bark of the incense cedar (Libocedrus decurrens). A few poles ten or twelve feet long were set in the ground around an area of about twelve feet in diameter, with their tops inclined together. The outside was then closely covered with long strips of ...
— Indians of the Yosemite Valley and Vicinity - Their History, Customs and Traditions • Galen Clark
... revolt. Why had Fate flung this feeling into her heart, lighted up her life suddenly, if God refused her its enjoyment? Some of the mountain pinks remained clinging to her belt, and the scent of them, crushed against her, warred with the faint odour of age and incense. While they were there, with their enticement and their memories, prayer would never come. But did she want to pray? Did she desire the mood of that poor soul in her black shawl, who had not moved by one hair's ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... think of milder matters," he said. "Lavender Hill! Could any of your glebes and combes and all the rest of it produce so fragrant an idea? Think of a mountain of lavender lifting itself in purple poignancy into the silver skies and filling men's nostrils with a new breath of life—a purple hill of incense. It is true that upon my few excursions of discovery on a halfpenny tram I have failed to hit the precise spot. But it must be there; some poet called it by its name. There is at least warrant enough for the solemn purple plumes (following the botanical ...
— The Napoleon of Notting Hill • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... indeed the figure,' murmured Tancred, 'before which a hundred steers have bled? before which libations of honeyed wine were poured from golden goblets? that lived in a heaven of incense?' ...
— Tancred - Or, The New Crusade • Benjamin Disraeli
... the garden, so imbued the musky air, Every dew-drop, ere it reaches earth, is turned to attar rare; O'er the parterre spread the incense-clouds a canopy right fair: Gaily live! for soon will vanish, Biding ...
— Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers • W. A. Clouston
... gratify the prejudices of the heathen proselytes. By a slow though inevitable progression, the honors of the original were transferred to the copy: the devout Christian prayed before the image of a saint; and the Pagan rites of genuflection, luminaries, and incense, again stole into the Catholic church. The scruples of reason, or piety, were silenced by the strong evidence of visions and miracles; and the pictures which speak, and move, and bleed, must be endowed with a divine energy, and may ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon
... the look of a barn. Now it is as empty of decoration as the Pennsylvania railroad-station in New York. It is a beautiful shell waiting for the day to come when the candles will be relit, when the incense will toss before the altar, and the gray walls glow again with the colors of tapestries and paintings. The windows only will not bloom as before. The glass destroyed by the Emperor's shells, all the king's horses and all the ...
— With the French in France and Salonika • Richard Harding Davis
... terror and of beauty; God hath set His rainbow on thy forehead, and the cloud Mantles around thy feet. And he doth give Thy voice of thunder power to speak of him Eternally—bidding the lip of man Keep silence, and upon thy rocky altar pour Incense ...
— Diary in America, Series One • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... smile of his child, the awe-struck respect of Leonard da Souza and of all the Da Souza family. That family's admiration was the great luxury of his life. It rounded and completed his existence in a perpetual assurance of unquestionable superiority. He loved to breathe the coarse incense they offered before the shrine of the successful white man; the man that had done them the honour to marry their daughter, sister, cousin; the rising man sure to climb very high; the confidential clerk of Hudig & Co. They were a numerous and an unclean crowd, living in ruined ...
— An Outcast of the Islands • Joseph Conrad
... Indies he found the savages playing with rubber balls, smoking incense sticks of tobacco and eating cakes made of a new grain that they called mahiz. When Pizarro invaded Peru he found this same cereal used by the natives not only for food but also for making alcoholic liquor, ...
— Creative Chemistry - Descriptive of Recent Achievements in the Chemical Industries • Edwin E. Slosson
... beautiful prints and a number of exquisitely bound books. These last, with bowls and vases of flowers, were scattered over the various tables. The scent of the flowers mingled with the strange fumes of some Oriental incense. He had draped pieces of flame-coloured silk over the windows. Everything looked bizarre, and the atmosphere was sultry. When I entered he was not pleased to see me—in fact, he showed a disposition ...
— Robert Orange - Being a Continuation of the History of Robert Orange • John Oliver Hobbes
... The time-keeping steps of the men upon the marble floor mingle with drum, fife, and organ. Over all, one catches now and then the subdued voice of the priest, reciting his prescribed part at the altar, where he kneels and reads alternately. The boys in white gowns busily swing incense vessels; the tall, flaring candles cast long shadows athwart the high altar; the files of soldiers kneel and rise at the tap of the drum; seen through an atmosphere clouded by the fumes of burning incense, all this combines to make up a picture which is ...
— Foot-prints of Travel - or, Journeyings in Many Lands • Maturin M. Ballou
... divine voluptuousness! The books treating of devotion to the Virgin burned his hands. They spoke to him in a language of love, warm, fragrant as incense. Mary no longer seemed a young maiden veiled in white, standing with crossed arms, a foot or two away from his pillow. She came surrounded by splendour, even as John saw her, clothed with the sun, crowned with twelve stars, and having ...
— Abbe Mouret's Transgression - La Faute De L'abbe Mouret • Emile Zola
... in company with Thoth (a figure of a man with the head of an ibis), the Mercury of the Egyptians, god of the moon and inventor of speech, Isis, the Egyptian Ceres, and Nutpe, the Abyss of Heaven. The next case (68) is the highly decorated coffin of the incense-bearer of the abode of Noumra. Here the judgment scene of the Amenti is pourtrayed; Osiris, in the shape of a sphinx; and other sacred figures. The following case (69) contains a mummy (l) of a Theban priest of Amoun, swathed in ...
— How to See the British Museum in Four Visits • W. Blanchard Jerrold
... them out. And when their faces made me sick, Mopsa would come, with face of brick, A little heated in the fire, And break the neck of my desire. Now from their face I turn mine eyes, But (cruel panthers!) they surprise Me with their breath, that incense sweet, Which only for the gods is meet, And jointly from them doth respire, Like both the Indies set ...
— A Defence of Poesie and Poems • Philip Sidney
... authoress's own words, 'Feminine overtures still continued to be made to Lord Byron; but the fumes of incense never hid from his sight his IDEAL.' We are told that in the case of these poor ladies, generally 'disenchantment took place on his side without a corresponding result on the other: THENCE many heart-breakings.' Nevertheless, we are informed that there followed the indiscretions ...
— Lady Byron Vindicated • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... remained during the service, and enjoyed the unusual privilege of seeing the clergy communicate—a ceremony for which the doors of the chancel are always shut, and the curtains drawn, so that the congregation never witness it. It was a most elaborate ceremony, full of crossings, and waving of incense before everything that was going to be used, but also clearly full of much deep devotion.... In the afternoon we went down to the Archbishop's palace, and were presented to him by Bishop Leonide. The Archbishop could only talk Russian, so that the conversation ...
— The Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll • Stuart Dodgson Collingwood
... the Russian Chapel, and attend in uniform. I had two of these Masses at the Russian Chapel in a short time, one for the Emperor and one for the Empress, and painful ceremonies they were, as we had to stand packed like herrings in a small room, stifled with incense, wearing heavy uniform, and carrying lighted tapers in our hands. On this occasion I saw the Prince of Wales go to sleep standing, his taper gradually turn round ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke V1 • Stephen Gwynn
... also prefixed to the "Fables," those introductory verses addressed to the beautiful Duchess of Ormond,[43] which have all the easy, felicitous, and sprightly gallantry, demanded on such occasions. The incense, it is said, was acknowledged by a present of L500; a donation worthy of the splendid house of Ormond. The sale of the "Fables" was surprisingly slow: even the death of the author, which has often sped away a lingering impression, does not seem ...
— The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author • Sir Walter Scott
... will bear, And who will flourish many years before. Pannonia's garland one of these shall wear. Another matron on the Ausonian shore, When she shall be released from earthly care, Men will among the blessed saints adore; With incense will approach the dame divine, And hang with votive images ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... it's not news, Sir," he said; "but that's the way I saw the story—outside on the lawn, the band playing, and the governor and the governor's staff and the clergy burning incense to Flagg; and inside, this girl right on the job—taking care of the sick and wounded. It seemed to me that a million from a man that won't miss a million didn't stack up against what this girl was doing for these ...
— The Red Cross Girl • Richard Harding Davis
... like manner Leviticus, the third book, is smelling or respiration. For the whole of that book treats of sacrifices and offerings. And wherever there is a sacrifice, there arises the smell of the scent from the sacrifice owing to the incense, concerning which sweet smell the sense of ...
— Simon Magus • George Robert Stow Mead
... were ringing the procession gradually formed;—a dozen or more priests leading,—incense-bearers and acolytes walking next,— and then the long train of little children and girls carrying their symbolic banners, following after. The way they had to walk was a steep, winding ascent, through tortuous streets, to the Cathedral, which ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli
... his royal mantle peace and war; to him who called himself the distributer of crowns, the chastiser of nations, the great, the immortal; to him in whose honor, during the last half century, marbles had been sculptured, bronzes cast, sonnets written, and incense poured. ...
— The Conspirators - The Chevalier d'Harmental • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... incense-breathing morn, The swallow twitt'ring from the straw-built shed, The cock's shrill clarion, or the echoing horn, No more shall rouse them from their ...
— Poems Every Child Should Know - The What-Every-Child-Should-Know-Library • Various
... grasp; and I contrived to keep up the shuttlecock of conversation playfully to his highest satisfaction, though they who praised him so ardently, little imagined whose ears imbibed all their honest incense." ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XX. No. 557., Saturday, July 14, 1832 • Various
... off the town's faint mingled clamours stir, And through the silence of the nearer light The incense of the evening mist floats up— The day's last lingering ...
— All Round the Year • Edith Nesbit
... this reason: "In fact, a fair dame at whose shrine I, the priest of the Nine, offer up the incense of Parnassus; a dame whom the Graces have attired in witchcraft, and whom the Loves have armed with lightning; a fair one, herself the heroine of the song, insists on the amendment, and dispute ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... so they conceive the celestial race require no services from man, having occasion for none. Hence they have neither idols nor temples, and offer no sacrifices, except in case of some severe calamity, or on the conclusion of a peace, when they sacrifice animals, and burn tobacco as a grateful incense to their deities. Yet they invoke them and implore their aid on urgent occasions, chiefly ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 5 • Robert Kerr
... be-'—'Hold!' Rejoin'd the negro, 'pray be not provoking; This spirit 's well, but it may wax too bold, And you will find us not top fond of joking.' 'What, sir!' said Juan, 'shall it e'er be told That I unsex'd my dress?' But Baba, stroking The things down, said, 'Incense me, and I call Those who will leave you of ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... impossible to transgress, the picture of a little girl with reddish hair, and a skin freckled with tiny pink marks, who held a trowel in her hand, and smiled as she directed towards me a long and subtle and inexpressive stare. And already the charm with which her name, like a cloud of incense, had filled that archway in the pink hawthorn through which she and I had, together, heard its sound, was beginning to conquer, to cover, to embalm, to beautify everything with which it had any association: her grandparents, whom my own had ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... than the first dawn to guide us, I could not help being struck with the cultivated beauty of the avenue through which we passed, and the profusion and variety of the flowers, which now began to breathe their opening incense to the dawn. The house was old, but large and handsome, and the furniture of the apartment into which we were shown, was singularly tasteful and costly. Who the owner was, was scarcely known among the bold fellows who accompanied us; but by their pointings to their foreheads, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 360, October 1845 • Various
... troops of admiring friends. A woman who was less essentially noble would have assuredly accepted the overtures that were more than once made to her, and would have purchased her peace with Napoleon by burning a few grains of literary incense on his altar. But though, in a life of more than common vicissitude and temptation, Madame de Stael was betrayed into great weaknesses and into some serious faults, she never lost her sense of the dignity ...
— Historical and Political Essays • William Edward Hartpole Lecky
... married life he had found so irksome. With large gestures and in the emphatic tone which made what he said so striking, Athelny described to Philip the Spanish cathedrals with their vast dark spaces, the massive gold of the altar-pieces, and the sumptuous iron-work, gilt and faded, the air laden with incense, the silence: Philip almost saw the Canons in their short surplices of lawn, the acolytes in red, passing from the sacristy to the choir; he almost heard the monotonous chanting of vespers. The names which Athelny mentioned, ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... It uses up my energies; yet, in spite of the really busy life I lead, I literally have more leisure than I used to have at home, where all through the day, there was some little detail to be attended to, some call to make, some convention to offer incense to, some prejudice to respect. Here, once my day's work is over, it is over, and I have good solid hours of leisure. I feel that I have earned those hours when they come; also that I have earned a right to my keep, as Wilfrid ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... accompaniment, was very sweetly sung, and the service beautifully read in the soft silence of that old, old church, with the thousand scents of the country floating in through the open doors and windows, like Nature's own incense entering the ...
— Hollowdell Grange - Holiday Hours in a Country Home • George Manville Fenn
... light across the water, birds were flitting about and twittering in the trees, and everywhere there was that delicious scent of the woodlands, a mixture of honey and flowers and warm moist earth and damp moss, which is the incense nature burns at the shrine ...
— The Princess of the School • Angela Brazil
... idolaters, instead of acknowledging that their idol had deceived them with a lie, took pains to appease him, as if the death of the Chinese woman had been an effect of their god's displeasure. They sacrificed birds to him, and burnt incense in honour of him; after which they cast lots again to know the cause of this disaster which had befallen them. They were answered, "That if the young Christian, who had fell into the sink, had died, the captain's daughter had been preserved." Then Neceda, transported with fury, ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume XVI. (of 18) - The Life of St. Francis Xavier • John Dryden
... ceremony of knocking the forehead on the ground thrice three times. Next they illuminate as splendidly as they can, and pray for felicity towards some domestic idol. Then they visit all the gods in the various surrounding temples, burn candles, incense, gilt paper, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 326, August 9, 1828 • Various
... mist, and shed round them a deep divine clothing of cloud, that none might see them, none touch them, or work delay, or ask wherefore they came. Herself she speeds through the sky to Paphos, and joyfully revisits her habitation, where the temple and its hundred altars steam with Sabaean incense, and are fresh with fragrance of chaplets ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil • Virgil
... the waste of snows The noonday sun uprose, Through the driving mists revealed, Like the lifting of the Host, By incense-clouds ...
— Tales of a Wayside Inn • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... treading on ground where stronger, and wiser, and better men have knelt before us; and own that the altar on which things so rare and precious have been laid has a right to be fastidious as to the quality of incense. ...
— Sword and Gown - A Novel • George A. Lawrence
... Snoop, "are supposed to waft a perfume or incense to reach the nostrils of the god. The glass of propitiatory wine and the aromatic spices are ...
— Arcadian Adventures with the Idle Rich • Stephen Leacock
... had been brilliant and sustaining and she had received much personal homage, for she was looking very beautiful and radiant, and the little adventure had been incense to her pride (moreover the young Freifrau von Nettelbeck, whom she saw on his arm later, was an insignificant little hausfrau); but when she was in her room after midnight she realized grimly that if she had ...
— The White Morning • Gertrude Atherton
... little girl is training herself for motherhood by lavishing caresses on wretched papier-mache baby dolls. She is practising for her part of woman by playing at being in love. Artless little affairs outlined in the catechism, pervaded by the fragrance of incense. Very similar to these appears to us the enthusiasm the little Slav felt for the Duc de H——. Candid, affectionate little girl, she says deliciously: "I love him, and that is what makes me suffer. Take away this grief, and I shall be a thousand ...
— Marie Bashkirtseff (From Childhood to Girlhood) • Marie Bashkirtseff
... with their wives, doctors with their daughters, bankers, professors, merchants, public officials, with whom are sometimes misted stout, comfortable, jovial-looking canons, wrapping themselves in the bitter smoke of a regalia, as in a cloud of incense. ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Vol VIII - Italy and Greece, Part Two • Various
... should "the little remnant mourn?" Though closed the house of prayer, An aged oak its shelter gave; And surely He was there, Who dwells in house not built with hands, Eternal in the skies; Incense nor costly altar craves, Nor lamb for sacrifice; But who the purest offering still Finds in a willing mind, And oft "through paths they know not of," In safety leads the blind. Yes, He was there! The faithful band, "O'ershadowed by His love," Saw in each ...
— Heart Utterances at Various Periods of a Chequered Life. • Eliza Paul Kirkbride Gurney
... directed; and going to him soon after, found him with a match in one hand, gathering sticks to light a fire; which he had no sooner done, than he cast some incense into it, and pronouncing certain words which I did not understand, there presently arose a thick cloud. He divided this cloud, when the rock, though of a prodigious perpendicular height, opened like two folding doors, and exposed to view a magnificent palace in the hollow of the mountain, ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 3 • Anon.
... depicted in the Tro-Cortesianus (103-112) is apiculture. This, again, has clearly some religious significance. Pottery-making is shown in the same manuscript (95-101). It is, however, a purely religious ceremony. The renewal of the incense-burners is shown. Animals occur very infrequently in this section. The quetzal and two vultures are noted seated on top of an oven-like covering under which is the head of god C, probably representing the idol. There are several other occupations shown ...
— Animal Figures in the Maya Codices • Alfred M. Tozzer and Glover M. Allen
... gravely: "Why didn't she pick a real fellow, who'd kneel and kiss the hem of her dress and make a man of himself? That's what she wants—love and sacrifice, and lots of both. If I were Ed Austin I'd wear her glove in my bosom and treat her like those queens in the stories. Incense and adoration and—-" ...
— Heart of the Sunset • Rex Beach
... he was performing the priest's office in the order of his class before God, it fell to his lot, [1:9]according to the custom of the priesthood, to go into the temple of the Lord to burn incense; [1:10]and all the multitude of the people were praying without, at the hour of incense. [1:11]And an angel of the Lord appeared to him, standing on the right side of the altar of incense; [1:12]and ...
— The New Testament • Various
... on the benches beneath the choir, a broad-faced young American, whose keen black eyes rested upon Alves. She was absorbed in the service, which was loudly intoned by the young priest. The candles, the incense, the intoned familiar words, animated her. Sommers had often wondered at the powerful influence this service exerted over her. To the training received here as a child was due, perhaps, that blind wilfulness of self-sacrifice which had first brought ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... what may be called taste, they might be convicted of occasional affectation in metaphor, as where the hills are 'as a stallion stal- wart, very-violet-sweet', or of some perversion of human feeling, as, for instance, the 'nostrils' relish of incense along the sanctuary side ', or 'the Holy Ghost with warm breast and with ah! bright wings', these and a few such examples are mostly efforts to force emotion into theological or sectarian channels, as in 'the com- fortless unconfessed' and the unpoetic line 'His mystery must be instressed stressed', ...
— Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins - Now First Published • Gerard Manley Hopkins
... her being, disturbed him, made him uneasy and shy; which was perhaps his reason for drawing aside the heavy leather curtain and going into the church, instead of waiting for her outside. He preferred to meet her on his own ground—in the chill air, heavy with the odour of stale incense, and in the dim light of that place where he laid down, in blunt language, his own dim reading of ...
— The Isle of Unrest • Henry Seton Merriman
... blue-gray color, so tender, and clear and pure, that it conveyed the idea of 'atmosphere' to perfection. Then, as the shadows, the soothing shadows of evening, increased around us, the woods seemed to melt into the mountains; the rivers veiled their course by their misty incense to the heavens—wreath after wreath of vapor creeping upwards; and as the distances faded into indistinctness, the bold headlands seemed to grow and prop the clouds; the heavens let down the pall of mystery and darkness with a tender, not terrific, power; earth and ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various
... white-clad youths, who were understood to proceed to this office in perfect temperance, as pure in soul and body as the air they breathed in the firm weather of that early summer-time. The clean lustral water and the full incense-box were carried after them. The altars were gay with garlands of wool and the more sumptuous sort of blossom and green herbs to be thrown into the sacrificial fire, fresh-gathered this morning from a particular plot in the old garden, set apart for the purpose. ...
— Marius the Epicurean, Volume One • Walter Horatio Pater
... the excellence of his origin, the public would be indebted to you; your name would be recorded amongst the assertors of morality and religion; and I myself, though brought up in a different persuasion from yours, would be the first to offer my incense at the shrine of merit. But the tendency of your performance is to deny the divinity of Christ and the immortality of the soul. In denying the first, you sap the foundations of religion; you cut off at one blow the merit of our faith, the comfort of our hope, ...
— Irish Wit and Humor - Anecdote Biography of Swift, Curran, O'Leary and O'Connell • Anonymous
... French ethnologist, have gone to the length of arguing that Lord Bacon was a Materialist, and that his Theistic utterances were all perfunctory: as it were, the pinch of incense which the philosopher was obliged to burn on the altars of the gods. This much at least is certain—Lord Bacon rarely speaks of religion except as a philosopher or a statesman. He is apt to sneer at the "high ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (Second Series) • George W. Foote
... gave "Komala" by Sobolewski. I do not know whether you have seen a small pamphlet "Opera, not Drama," which he published last year as an introduction to his opera. The following beautiful comparison occurs in it: "The words are the hard, transparent pieces of incense, the melody is the beautiful scent which emerges from the thick clouds of smoke, when the incense has been lit." In many other things I cannot agree with him, especially not as regards the marks of punctuation, by means of which he tries to distinguish himself from you, when ...
— Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt, Volume 2 • Francis Hueffer (translator)
... Then, as if to incense her more, Bourjac was attacked by rheumatism before the winter finished; he could move only with the greatest difficulty, and took to his bed. Day after day he lay there, and she fumed at the sight of him, passive under the blankets, while his ...
— A Chair on The Boulevard • Leonard Merrick
... all it's only the east wind. No, it's the incense some one's been burning. At your shrine, of course, Mrs. Ogilvie. What a talent you have for ...
— The Twelfth Hour • Ada Leverson
... not in Jerome's copy, viz.: "That it was the occasion of the death of Zacharias in the temple, that when he had seen a vision, he, through surprise, was willing to disclose it, and his mouth was stopped. That which he saw was at the time of his offering incense, and it was a man standing in the form of an ass. When he was gone out, and had a mind to speak thus to the people, Woe unto you, whom do you worship? he who had appeared to him in the temple took away the use of ...
— The Forbidden Gospels and Epistles, Complete • Archbishop Wake
... stood the Lady of the Lake, Who knows a subtler magic than his own— Clothed in white samite, mystic, wonderful. She gave the King his huge cross-hilted sword, Whereby to drive the heathen out: a mist Of incense curl'd about her, and her face Well-nigh was hidden in the minster gloom; But there was heard among the holy hymns A voice as of the waters, for she dwells Down in a deep, calm, whatsoever storms May shake ...
— Famous Tales of Fact and Fancy - Myths and Legends of the Nations of the World Retold for Boys and Girls • Various
... copper-red illumination. The soldier audience sat in a deep semicircle, and sat at ease, being accustomed by now to the posture of tailor or Turk. Only recruits sought logs or stones upon which to sit. Tobacco smoke rose like incense. ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... eighth century to build the great monasteries on Hiyeizan, northeast of Ki[o]to, this being the quarter in which Buddhist superstition locates the path of advancing evil, to ward off malevolence by litanies and incense. Or, the inao is a sort of lightning-rod conductor by which impending mischief may ...
— The Religions of Japan - From the Dawn of History to the Era of Meiji • William Elliot Griffis
... highest judge, chief priest; he was the son of a god, a god himself even. He accepted divine honors, not only from officials and the people, but sometimes he raised altars to his own person, and burnt incense before images of himself. ...
— The Pharaoh and the Priest - An Historical Novel of Ancient Egypt • Boleslaw Prus
... and mild indifferentism towards each and all of these. Has not Christ been present alike at the holding-forth of the poor dissenting son of thunder, who tore God's word into shreds, at the tinklings and posturings and incense-fumes of Roman pietism, and even at the learned discourse which dissolved the myth of his own life and death? Why, then, over-strenuously take a side? Why not regard all phases of belief or no-belief with equal and serene regard? Such a mood of amiable indifferentism is abhorrent to Browning's ...
— Robert Browning • Edward Dowden
... the large room. A song has just concluded, and he enters triumphantly amidst the thunder of applause, the jingling of glasses, the imperious vociferations of fresh orders, and an atmosphere of smoke that pervades the whole apartment, like dense clouds of incense burning at the altar of the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, October 16, 1841 • Various
... knocked up yesterday in a good cause. We went to see Mr. Ruskin at Herne Hill. I find him far more personally lovable than I had expected. Of course he lives in the incense of an adoring circle, but he is absolutely unaffected himself, and with a GREAT charm. So much gentler and more refined than I had expected, and such clear ...
— Juliana Horatia Ewing And Her Books • Horatia K. F. Eden
... were, of "The Soldiers' Rest". I only wish I had been able to write it as I conceived it. The tale as it stands is, I think, a far better piece of craft than "The Bowmen", but the tale that came to me as the blue incense floated above the Gospel Book on the desk between the tapers: that indeed was a noble story—like all the stories that never get written. I conceived the dead men coming up through the flames and in the flames, and being welcomed in ...
— The Angels of Mons • Arthur Machen |
