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Incense   Listen
noun
Incense  n.  
1.
The perfume or odors exhaled from spices and gums when burned in celebrating religious rites or as an offering to some deity. "A thick cloud of incense went up."
2.
The materials used for the purpose of producing a perfume when burned, as fragrant gums, spices, frankincense, etc. "Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, took either of them his censer, and put fire therein, and put incense thereon."
3.
Also used figuratively. "Or heap the shrine of luxury and pride, With incense kindled at the Muse's flame."
Incense tree, the name of several balsamic trees of the genus Bursera (or Icica) mostly tropical American. The gum resin is used for incense. In Jamaica the Chrysobalanus Icaco, a tree related to the plums, is called incense tree.
Incense wood, the fragrant wood of the tropical American tree Bursera heptaphylla.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Incense" Quotes from Famous Books



... with wallflowers and write to their mothers? Really, when I think of the twigs I've bent and the trees I've inclined, I feel that there should be a tablet erected to me somewhere. But the woman who weds Michael Daragh, I don't care who she is (lie: I care enormously!) will always be burning incense to him in her lesser soul, always straining on tiptoe to breathe the air in which he lives and moves ...
— Jane Journeys On • Ruth Comfort Mitchell

... not plunge himself, despite the faint odour of incense lingering in the atmosphere, into the deepest pit of his personality. At first he ascribed his restlessness to the sultry weather, then to his abuse of tea and cigarettes,—perhaps it was the sharp odour of the average congregation, that collective odour ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker

... Lord of high magnificence In tokening of priesthood, and dignity of office, To thee I offer a cup full of incense; For it behoveth thee to ...
— Everyman and Other Old Religious Plays, with an Introduction • Anonymous

... foot to the church, which lifted its temporary wooden roof above the clustering episcopal buildings near at hand. Two or three cabs waited at the curb, from one of which fluttered a facetious knot of white ribbon tied to an axletree. A smell of stale incense pervaded the vestibule. The murmured words of a liturgy drifted down the long nave as he passed within. North was reading the marriage service. Shelby bided restively in the shadow of a column till the ceremony ...
— The Henchman • Mark Lee Luther

... distributed to them rice and other articles procured from the wrecked ships of mariners, who had fallen a prey to her. A feast follows, and Wijayo and the princess retire to pass the night in an apartment which she causes to spring up at the foot of a tree, curtained as with a wall and fragrant with incense." It is impossible not to be struck with a curious resemblance between this description and that in the 10th book of the Odyssey, where Eurylochus, after landing, returns to Ulysses to recount the fate of his companions, who, having wandered towards the palace ...
— Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and • James Emerson Tennent

... perceived a lack of deference to her opinions and respect for her judgment—an irritating assumption of superior wisdom, as if he had worn the visible inscription, "I will accept homage, but not suggestions. Offer incense and be content." Would the little princess be content? I saw ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 86, February, 1875 • Various

... apartments. Grandeur will never make its presence felt by a greater weight of ceremony, nor ever extend a more watchful and provident care to all the equipage of rank and ostentation. Flattery, we may safely assert, will never offer its incense in a more seductive form, than when it borrowed the pencil of Holbein and the lyre of Spenser. Yet these persons were the same who trode upon floors strewn with rushes, and deemed it a point of nicety and refinement if these were changed sufficiently often to prevent the soiling ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, April 1844 - Volume 23, Number 4 • Various

... chaussure, and places the sacred shoes on the patriarch's feet. A like ceremony replaces the patriarch's every-day gaiters, and the pious rite ends.] The basilica, however, is not in every thing the edifice best adapted to the Romish worship; for the incense, which is a main element of the function, is gathered and held there in choking clouds under the low wagon-roofs of the cross-naves.—Yet I do not know if I would banish incense from the formula of worship even in St. ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells

... leaden from horizon to horizon; the rain fell with a gentle steadiness of a quiet summer storm, and had evidently been falling some hours already. The air was so fragrant that I threw wide open the door and windows. It was a true June incense, such as no art could distil, and when, at last, we all sat down to breakfast, of which crisp radishes taken a few moments before from our own garden formed a part, we felt that nature was carrying on our work of the past week in a way that filled our hearts with gratitude. The air was ...
— Driven Back to Eden • E. P. Roe

... camp! but let its fragrant story Blend with the breath that thrills With hop-vines' incense all the pensive glory That fills the ...
— Dickens in Camp • Bret Harte

... expect she'd take any notice of the prohibition! Now Morgan, dear, I think you've treated her handsomely and she has cause to be grateful to you. You offered her the incense of a profound faith in her genius and a profound admiration of her person. Not content with that, she needs must have the same incense—compounded of the same two essentials, observe you—from the world at large. For this purpose you ...
— Cleo The Magnificent - The Muse of the Real • Louis Zangwill

... victory. She sympathized with the fallen Napoleon, and with Mehemet Ali, massacring the foreign usurpers of Egypt. In short, any kind of genius was accommodated with an aureole, and she was fully persuaded that gifted immortals lived on incense ...
— Two Poets - Lost Illusions Part I • Honore de Balzac

... I kneel, an unknown worshipper, Chanting strange hymns to thee and sorrowful litanies, Incense of dirges, prayers that ...
— The Collected Poems of Rupert Brooke • Rupert Brooke

... Life was made greater by their sweetheart prayers. Passion was turned to civic strength that day— Piling the marbles, making fairer domes With zeal that else had burned bright youth away. I have seen priestesses of life go by Gliding in samite through the incense-sea— Innocent children marching with them there, Singing in flowered robes, "THE EARTH IS FREE": While on the fair, deep-carved unfinished towers Sentinels watched in armor, night and day— Guarding ...
— The Congo and Other Poems • Vachel Lindsay

... making friends. No man made so many enemies. He was an excellent hater, and few men have been more cordially hated in return. He was imperious, insolent, hot-tempered. He could brook no equal. He had also the fatal defect of enjoying the flattery, of his inferiors in station. Adroit intriguers burned incense to him as a god, and employed him as their tool. And now he had mortally offended Hohenlo, and Buys, and Barneveld, while he hated Sir John Norris with a most passionate hatred. Wilkes, the English representative, was already ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... fire,—a sort of argument the force of which we always have been unable to appreciate, no doubt because we are of the heretics, and never believed that persons belonging to our determination ought to be roasted. The incense of the stake, that was so sweet in ecclesiastical nostrils three hundred years ago, and also in vulgar nostrils wherever the vulgar happened to be of the orthodox persuasion, has become an insufferable stench to the more refined noses of the nineteenth century, which, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... word shelter—a silence in which she seemed to envelop him with her deep, luminous regard. The still, remote beauty of the winter woods, the notes of friendly birds, the sweet, wild music of the wind in the tree-tops, accompanied that look, as mystery and incense and ...
— The Side Of The Angels - A Novel • Basil King

... that remarkable. Manifold art had combined to create this exquisite temple, and to guide all its ministrations. But to-night it was not the radiant altar and the splendor of stately priests, the processions and the incense, the divine choir and the celestial harmonies resounding lingering in arched roofs, that attracted many a neighbor. The altar was desolate, the choir was dumb; and while the services proceeded in hushed tones of subdued sorrow, and sometimes even of suppressed ...
— Lothair • Benjamin Disraeli

... scenery of early religion. For what were the most vivid of all the experiences men had among their fellows on earth? Why, the exhibitions of the sultan with his gorgeous ceremonial state, and of the high priest with the dread sacrifice and homage he paid amidst clouds of incense and rolling waves of song; the admission of the favored, in glittering robes, to share the privileges; the exclusion of the profane and vulgar in squalid misery and outer darkness. Consequently, except by a miracle, these sights could not fail largely ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger

... eves and on the mornings of holy festivals, business was totally suspended; the bells, great and small, rang forth their silvery sounds; the churches were crowded, the chapels glittered with blazing lights; the prayers of the priests and people rose with the incense before the high altar; the solemn organ swelled its full tones responsive to the loud-voiced choir; the curates thundered from the pulpits, to the edification of charitable congregations; and after all had ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXVI. October, 1843. Vol. LIV. • Various

... noble, and beautiful; had been nursed in pomp and pleasure; hunger had never tempted, and scorn never pursued her. Her life had been one continued scene of amusement and of splendour. She cared for nothing but the homage of men, the incense of admiration, the intoxication of pleasure. There was not a duty that she did not neglect, nor one sacred obligation that she felt herself bound to observe. We are not told that she committed what men call crimes; but her husband she treated with open contempt, and ridiculed ...
— The Life of St. Frances of Rome, and Others • Georgiana Fullerton

... congregation. And all Israel that were round about them fled at the cry of them: for they said, Lest the earth swallow us up also. And there came out a fire from the Lord, and consumed the two hundred and fifty men that offered incense. ...
— The Gospel of the Pentateuch • Charles Kingsley

... upon the tops of some of his trees, which looked ominous. Having spent a very pleasant day, and enjoyed good cheer and good company, Three-forty was again "hitched to;" joined hands announced the parting moment had arrived; wreaths of smoke from fragrant Havanas ascended like incense from the shrine of Adieu; "G'lang"—the note of advance—was sounded; Three-forty sprang to the word of command; friends, shoes, and shoemakers were soon tailed of; and ere long your humble servant was nestling his nose ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray

... the nose, and other features composed a face, but the expression of feelings and passions was entirely wanting; and the countenance of the King, whether charging an enemy's phalanx in the heat of battle, or peaceably offering incense in a sombre temple, presented the same outline and the same inanimate look. The peculiarity of the front view of an eye, introduced in a profile, is thus accounted for: it was the ordinary representation of that feature added to a profile, and no allowance was made for any change in ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy

... by refusing to offer a pinch of incense to the elder gods, should thus strip himself of a marked opportunity of exerting an undoubtedly useful influence over public opinion, or over a certain section of society, is he not justified in compromising to the extent ...
— On Compromise • John Morley

... in the great tomb were of devout enough mind to take much heed of the service now proceeding at the altar, where the priest droned and the incense rose in slow clouds towards the dome. We all stared at each other freely enough, and in truth the faces of many, not to mention bright uniforms and brilliant names, warranted the abstraction from holy thought and fervour. The old soldiers lining ...
— Dross • Henry Seton Merriman

... evening till they were tired, and after it was all over, including a fair amount of firing, the smell of blank cartridges began to give way to the more pleasant odour of tobacco smoke, the officers lighting their cigars, and the privates filling up their pipes to incense ...
— A Dash from Diamond City • George Manville Fenn

... one side of the steps that went up to the Place of Giving, stood the house of the Corn Goddess, which was served by women. There the Seven laid up their offering of poor food before the altar and stood on the steps of the god-house until the head priestess noticed them. Wisps of incense smoke floated out of the carved doorways and the drone of the priestess like bees in a hollow log. All the people came out on their flat roofs to watch—Did I say that they had two and even three houses, one on top of the other, each one smaller than the others, ...
— The Trail Book • Mary Austin et al

... the same time that dolphins and several kinds of fish played upon the banks, or took their pastime in the meadows. The birds had many of them golden beaks, and human voices. The flowers perfumed the air with smells of incense, ambergris, and pulvillios; and were so interwoven with one another, that they grew up in pieces of embroidery. The winds were filled with sighs and messages of distant lovers. As I was walking to ...
— Essays and Tales • Joseph Addison

... who comes into his own late in life has a sense of values and trains on. Mr. Hill does not ask for taffy on a stick. And while he prizes friendship, the hate or praise of those for whose opinions he has little respect are to him as naught. No one need burn the social incense before him in a warm desire to reach his walletosky. He judges quickly, and his decisions are usually right and just. It isn't time yet to write his biography. Too many men are alive who have been moved, pushed and gently jostled ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 11 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Businessmen • Elbert Hubbard

... This nobleman had declared his acceptance of the dedication in a manner so gracious, that Mickle was once more decoyed with the hope of having found a powerful protector. After an interval of some months, he learnt that his incense had not been permitted to enter the nostrils of the new idol, and that his offering lay, where he left it, without the slightest notice. For this disappointment he might have considered it to be some compensation that his work had procured him the kindness of those who were more ...
— Lives of the English Poets - From Johnson to Kirke White, Designed as a Continuation of - Johnson's Lives • Henry Francis Cary

... when Iris was beginning to revel in the sweet incense of a multitude of unseen flowers, Marcel halted, motioned to Hozier to stand fast, and indicated that Iris was to come with him. At once she shrank away in terror. Though in some sense prepared for this parting, she felt it now as ...
— The Stowaway Girl • Louis Tracy

... triumph through the streets of Birmingham, this flimsy idol of party snuffed up the incense of the populace, but the more sensible with held their homage; and when he preached at Sutton Coldfield, where he had family connections, the people of Birmingham crowded in multitudes round his pulpit. ...
— An History of Birmingham (1783) • William Hutton

... to prostrate itself again and for ever at the feet of Rome. In a catholic state of things like that, delighted should I be, for one, to be among the humblest of its communicants. How beautiful would their organs be then! how ascending to an unperplexing Heaven their incense! how unselfish their salvation! how intelligible their talk about justice and love! It would be far more easy, however, for the Church of England to do this than the Church of Rome; since the former would not feel ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Volume 1 • Leigh Hunt

... That person who from dullness of intellect acts in this way never succeeds in winning prosperity. The man that treads along the path of madness should be subjected to medical treatment by the aid of incense and collyrium, of drugs applied through the nose, and of other medicines. O best of the Bharatas, I am the worst of all my sex, since I desire to live on even though I am bereaved of my children. ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown

... the incense to a dense cloud of smoke, and her blazing eyes, turned from her people, peered through the reek for a reassuring sign from the rock, for what she now demanded of Milo called for superhuman swiftness and surety. As the seconds ...
— The Pirate Woman • Aylward Edward Dingle

... the west-winds awake On pampas, on prairie, o'er mountain and lake, To bathe the swift bark, like a sea-girdled shrine, With incense they stole from the rose and ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... land, I, too, Where warm keen incense on the sea-wind blows, And all the winter long the skies are blue, And the brown deserts blossom ...
— The New Morning - Poems • Alfred Noyes

... beautiful; she loved him; she was unhappy! To be loved by any woman is flattering to the feelings of every man, no matter how deeply he may have quaffed the bitter goblet of worldly knowledge. The praise of a fool is incense to the wisest of us; and though we believe ourselves broken-hearted, it still delights us to find that we are loved. The memory of Violet Fane was still as fresh, as sweet, to the mind of Vivian Grey as when he pressed her blushing cheek for ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield

... altar of incense, which was in the holy place of the tabernacle. It was of similar construction to the altar of burnt-offering, but smaller, being 2 cubits high and 1 cubit square (Ex. xxx. 1-5). It was overlaid with gold. Solomon's altar of incense ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... romances and the plays of Mr. W. S. Gilbert his morality appears not merely questionable but coarse and improper and repulsive. While he lived he was adored: he moved and spoke and dwelt in an eternal mist of 'good, thick, strong, stupefying incense smoke'; he was the idol of female England, a master of virtue, a king of art, the wisest and best of mankind. Johnson revered him—Johnson and Colley Gibber; Diderot ranked him with Moses and Homer; to Balzac and Musset and George Sand he was the greatest novelist ...
— Views and Reviews - Essays in appreciation • William Ernest Henley

... great quantity of purple and scarlet, which were there deposited for the uses of the veil, as also a great deal of cinnamon and cassia, with a large quantity of other sweet spices, which used to be mixed together and offered as incense to God every day. A great many other treasures were also delivered to him, with sacred ornaments of the Temple not a few, which things thus delivered to Titus obtained of him for this man the same pardon that he had allowed to such as ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 03 • Various

... beoples in tobaggo-jars is tings you ton't exbect! "Bervidious von!" she shpeak at him, zo broud as any queen, "Pehold your homage-objects vonce—ze goddess Nigodeen! I galls to know ze reason vy you leafs my aldars cold, And nefer purns me incense like your bractice vas of old?" "To bay you more resbects, I must," he plurted out, "degline, For I'm vorshibing at bresent mit an obbosition shrine." "And zo you makes yourzelf," she gries, "a dankless renegade To von who, oftendimes invoked, yet nefer vailed her aid To charm ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 93, August 13, 1887 • Various

... their faces. In the middle, under a silken canopy with gold fringes, a higher ecclesiastic walked, a venerable figure, with long silver hair and beard, bearing the most holy object and looking like a high-priest, surrounded as he was with clouds of incense. After the priests came a long line of men in country costume, powerful figures with flashing eyes, and faces full of character. They held themselves upright like soldiers, and bore large white tapers fastened four together. The ...
— The Shores of the Adriatic - The Austrian Side, The Kuestenlande, Istria, and Dalmatia • F. Hamilton Jackson

... to visit the scene where for Pallas Athene "the hundred altars glowed with Arabian incense, and breathed with the fragrance of garlands ever fresh," found disenchantment when I spent the night in the cabin of a Greek priest—not a priest of the goddess, but of the Greek church—where there was but one ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume 19 - Travel and Adventure • Various

... Gunputty. On the whole I imagine there never was a better subject to cope with a sorcerer; and when he asked the cause of the immediate preparations we told him the man was going to show some feats of legerdemain such as he used to see in India. The magician began by throwing grains of incense upon the fire, bowing with a seesaw motion and repeating "Heyya hadji Capitan, Heyya hadji Capitan;" which being interpreted, if it was intended to have any meaning, would appear to imply "Hurra, pilgrim Captain!" being, as I understood it at the time, an invocation ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 19, No. 543, Saturday, April 21, 1832. • Various

... dried sticks, that he soon collected a great heap. The magician presently set them on fire; and when they were in a blaze, threw in some incense, pronouncing several magical words, which Aladdin ...
— Fairy Tales Every Child Should Know • Various

... to sacrifice their own reasonable view of life to his own sublimated spiritual conception. It was the spirit of the man they loved, and not the creed of the priest. The little chapel in its subdued lights and shadows, with confessionals and crosses and candles and incense, was as restful a refuge as ever to the tired and the dependent; but wanting his inspiring face and voice, it was not the same thing, and the attendance always fell away when he was absent. There was needed there more than elsewhere ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... not but in his turn burn incense before Darwin by declaring that he would not dare to cross swords with such a man, while in reality he repudiates all of Darwin's ...
— At the Deathbed of Darwinism - A Series of Papers • Eberhard Dennert

... in kindred blood, A tigress sating with the flesh of lambs The unnatural famine of her toothless cubs, 80 Whilst shouts and howlings through the desert rang, Sloping and smooth the daisy-spangled lawn, Offering sweet incense to the sunrise, smiles To see a babe before his mother's door, Sharing his morning's meal 85 With the green and golden basilisk That comes to lick ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley

... these woody eminences, the forlorn adventurers would plunge into ravines of frightful depth, where the exhalations of a humid soil steamed up amidst the incense of sweet-scented flowers, which shone through the deep glooms in every conceivable variety of color. Birds. especially of the parrot tribe, mocked this fantastic variety of nature with tints as brilliant ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott

... 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

... were braver than the hunters, more courageous than the soldiers. Listening to the appeal of the Angelus stealing so tenderly through the twilight, with the strain of poetry that was in him thrilling in response, he felt that the prayers then going up must fill the cruel wilderness with holy incense; that the coming of these gentle Sisters must subdue the very wild beasts, as the presence of the lovely martyrs ...
— Round Anvil Rock - A Romance • Nancy Huston Banks

... demonstration, and nothing could be farther from obsequiousness. It was the delicate reverence which a man gives to only one woman of all the world; something that must be felt and cannot be feigned; the most subtle incense of worship one human spirit can render to another; which the one renders and the other receives, without either being able to tell how it is done. The more is the incense sweet, penetrating, powerful. Lois went home silently, through the rain and ...
— Nobody • Susan Warner

... your confessor, I order you to receive him, to be kind and affectionate to him, to quit that garment of wrath, and forgive him as God will forgive you. Can there still be the remains of passion of a soul I believed to be purified. Burn this last incense on the altar of your penitence, or else your repentance is ...
— The Village Rector • Honore de Balzac

... kings once came on a Christmas eve, The king of the Moors was one, I believe;— The druggist at the sign of the Moor Today with spices raps at your door; Regretting no incense or myrrh to have found, He throws pistachio and ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various

... heal the wound, and ease her pain, 110 And tries the compass of his art in vain. Soon as he saw the lovely nymph expire, The pile made ready, and the kindling fire, With sighs and groans her obsequies he kept, And, if a god could weep, the god had wept. Her corpse he kissed, and heavenly incense brought, And solemnised the death himself had wrought. But, lest his offspring should her fate partake, Spite of the immortal mixture in his make, He ripped her womb, and set the child at large, 120 And gave him to the centaur Chiron's ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville

... 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 the cedar bark, making it perfectly ...
— Indians of the Yosemite Valley and Vicinity - Their History, Customs and Traditions • Galen Clark

... building which he had noticed earlier in the morning, and seeing that the door was open, he looked in. The air was heavy with the scent of incense. It needed only a moment's observation to tell him that he was in a Catholic church. A curtained tabernacle stood on the little altar, before which hung a ruby lamp. The building was too small to allow of two altars, but at ...
— Antony Gray,—Gardener • Leslie Moore

... Vassals of his anger, when the Scourge 90 Inexorably, and the torturing houre Calls us to Penance? More destroy'd then thus We should be quite abolisht and expire. What fear we then? what doubt we to incense His utmost ire? which to the highth enrag'd, Will either quite consume us, and reduce To nothing this essential, happier farr Then miserable to have eternal being: Or if our substance be indeed Divine, And ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton

... than mankind thus ignorantly bringing to this poor martyr throughout the years the very last offering he can have desired. Surely it must have filled his shade with a strange bewilderment to have watched us year by year bringing him garlands and the sweet incense of young love, to have seen this gay company approach his shrine with laughter and roses, a very bacchanal, where he had looked for sympathetic sackcloth and ashes—surely it must have all seemed a silly sacrilegious jest. However, ...
— Prose Fancies • Richard Le Gallienne

... about seven hundred men who called themselves a posse, advanced against Nauvoo, with some small field pieces. Governor Ford had authorized Major Flood, commanding the militia of Adams County, to raise a force to preserve order in Hancock; but the major, knowing that such action would only incense the force of the Antis, disregarded the governor's request. At this juncture Major Parker was relieved of the command at Nauvoo and succeeded by Major B. Clifford, Jr., of the 33rd regiment ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn

... sleeper's eyes. In the midst was one lily far larger than the rest, and of a dazzling white. This spoke in a gentle voice, but with the tones of a trombone: "Thy thoughts and acts are a pleasure to me. Thou hast raised no idols within thy heart, and thy faith is as incense before me. Thy name is now in the Book of Life. Continue as thou hast begun, and thou shalt live and reign forever." Hereupon the earth shook, and Ayrault was awakened. Great boulders were rolling and crashing down the slope about him, while the dawn was already in the east. ...
— A Journey in Other Worlds • J. J. Astor

... Viscount Grandison, and younger brother of Lady Castlemaine's father, who had died without male issue.] which was only in his name, for the use of my Lady Castlemaine's children; and that this did incense her, and she did speak very scornful words and sent a scornful message to ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys

... shining through this clan. And I would sing you of her beauty now. And I will fight with knives the gipsy man Who tries to steal her wild young heart away. And I will kiss her in the waterfalls, And at the rainbow's end, and in the incense That curls about the feet of sleeping gods, And sing with her in canebrakes and in rice fields, In Romany, eternal Romany. We will sow secret herbs, and plant old roses, And fumble through dark, snaky ...
— American Poetry, 1922 - A Miscellany • Edna St. Vincent Millay

... greatest altar,—the altar of burnt-offerings, was not half so big as Ezekiel's altar, compare Ezek. xliii. 16 with Exod. xxvii. 1,(1366) so is Moses' altar of incense much less than Ezekiel's altar of incense, Exod. xxx. 2 compared with ...
— The Works of Mr. George Gillespie (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Gillespie

... Shining Light. Say, Does the Virgin Spring less Chaste appear, 'Cause many Thirsts are quenched there? Or have you not with the same Odours met, When more then One have smelt your Violet The Phoenix is not angry at her nest, 'Cause her Perfumes makes others Blest: Tho' Incense to th' Immortal Gods be meant, Yet Mortals rival in the Scent. Man is the Lord of Creatures; yet we see That all his Vassals Loves are free; The severe Wedlock-Fetters do not bind The Pard's inflam'd and Am'rous Mind, But that he may be like a Bridegroom led ...
— The London-Bawd: With Her Character and Life - Discovering the Various and Subtle Intrigues of Lewd Women • Anonymous

... varying forms fantastic wander white; Or turns his ear to every random song, Heard the green river's winding marge along, The whilst each sense is steeped in still delight. So o'er my breast young Summer's breath I feel, Sweet Hope! thy fragrance pure and healing incense steal! ...
— The Poetical Works of William Lisle Bowles, Vol. 1 • William Lisle Bowles

... honour shall not be at all equal: but Hector also was the dearest of mortals to the gods, of [those] who are in Ilium; for thus was he to me; for never did he miss [offering] pleasing gifts. For never did my altar lack the fitting banquet, or incense, or odour: for this honour are we allotted. Yet let us forego to steal away bold Hector; (nor is it at all practicable without the knowledge of Achilles;) for he is ever by him both by night and day, like ...
— The Iliad of Homer (1873) • Homer

... of your orgies! Know that there is a God, (perhaps you doubt His existence, and only use His name to advance your ends) who will some day call you to account for all your iniquities. Know that He needs not the money of the poor, nor is it necessary to worship Him by burning candles and incense, saying masses or believing blindly what others say, ...
— The Story of the Philippines and Our New Possessions, • Murat Halstead

... Incense burned and perfumes arose and blended in an indescribable union with melody and motion, while as the fragrant vapors from the burning censers wafted and wreathed about the colonnades and porticoes, Spirit forms added their ...
— Within the Temple of Isis • Belle M. Wagner

... puzzled them completely. The crowd moved back, leaving them with Ping Wang and the big man in the centre of a circle. Then three men advanced to join them. One was carrying a long cane, the second two lighted incense candles, and the third a handful of square pieces of paper, on which were written some Chinese characters. The fat man and Ping Wang then went down on their knees, face to face, and so close to each other that their noses almost touched. As they knelt, the man with the paper set light to one ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various

... gray sandstone you're likely to spot what looks like a squatter's wickyup of rusty galvanized iron. Yesterday, on our main street where the electric-cars were clanging and the limousines were throwing their exhaust incense to the gods of the future, I caught sight of a lonely and motionless figure, isolated in the midst of a newer world. It was the figure of a Cree squaw, blanketed and many-wrinkled and unmistakably dirty, blinking at the devil-wagons and the ceaseless ...
— The Prairie Child • Arthur Stringer

... Dryden's satire of Absalom and Achitophel, is meant for Lord Howard, a profligate, who laid claim to great piety. As Nadab offered incense with strange fire and was slain, so Lord Howard, it is said, mixed the consecrated wafer with some roast ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer

... with rare antique cameos and exquisite gems. Crucifixes were also made of metals and richly adorned, as well as all the vessels and smaller articles used in the service and ceremonials of the church—incense-burners, candlesticks, tabernacles and reliquaries, or caskets for preserving relics. In the sacristies of many old churches and in art collections these rare, costly articles are still preserved, and are of great interest in the ...
— A History of Art for Beginners and Students - Painting, Sculpture, Architecture • Clara Erskine Clement

... makes itself so easily known by its fine aromatic, pungent scent, that it is almost impossible to pass it by without notice—has yet no English name, and seems never to have had one. Thyme is the Anglicised form of the Greek and Latin Thymum, which name it probably got from its use for incense in sacrifices, while its other name of serpyllum pointed out its creeping habit. I do not know when the word Thyme was first introduced into the English language, for it is another curious point connected with the name, that thymum does not occur ...
— The plant-lore & garden-craft of Shakespeare • Henry Nicholson Ellacombe

... hold the gift of beauty As some rare treasure to be bought and sold. But guard it as a precious aid to duty - The outer framing of the inner gold; Women who, low above their cradles bending, Let flattery's voice go by, and give no heed, While their pure prayers like incense are ascending THESE are our ...
— Poems of Power • Ella Wheeler Wilcox

... was very low when they set forth again; the shadows of the forest trees extended across the broad white road that led them home; the penetrating odour of the evening wood had already arisen, like a cloud of incense, from that broad field of tree-tops; and even in the streets of the town, where the air had been baked all day between white walls, it came in whiffs and pulses, like a distant music. Half-way ...
— The Merry Men - and Other Tales and Fables • Robert Louis Stevenson

... presence to the other. They decline association in the Sacramental rites. In Sta. Sophia, it is the Papal mass to-day; to-morrow, it will be the Greek mass. It requires a sharp sense to detect the opposition in smell between the incense with which the parties respectively fumigate the altars of the ancient house. I suppose there is a difference. Yesterday the parabaloni came to blows over a body they were out burying, and in the struggle the bier was knocked down, ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace

... Groom of the Stole; Lord Granville[1] is actually Lord President, and, by all outward and visible signs, something more—in short, if he don't overshoot himself, the Pelhams have; the King's favour to him is visible, and so much credited, that all the incense is offered to him. It is believed that Impresario Holdernesse will succeed the Bedford in the foreign seals, and Lord Halifax in those for the plantations. If the former does, you will have ample ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume I • Horace Walpole

... that she regards her husband as a superior being, not to be spoken of save with bated breath. Mr. Marsh is rather too stout for his years, and I should think very self-indulgent; whenever his wife looks at him, he unconsciously falls into the attitude of one who is accustomed to snuff incense. He speaks of 'my Bohemian years' with a certain pride, wishing one to understand that he was a wild, reckless youth, and that his present profound knowledge of the world is the result of experiences which do not fall to the lot of common men. With Cecily he was ...
— The Emancipated • George Gissing

... seated at breakfast near the open window—we, that is Agnes, myself, and little Francis; the freshness of morning spirits rested upon us; the golden light of the morning sun illuminated the room; incense was floating through the air from the gorgeous flowers within and without the house; there in youthful happiness we sat gathered together, a family of love, and there we never sat again. Never again were we three gathered together, nor ever shall be, so long as the sun ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey, Vol. 2 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey

... Trojans repulsed from the trenches, Hector in a swoon, and Neptune at the head of the Greeks: he is highly incensed at the artifice of Juno, who appeases him by her submissions; she is then sent to Iris and Apollo. Juno, repairing to the assembly of the gods, attempts, with extraordinary address, to incense them against Jupiter; in particular she touches Mars with a violent resentment; he is ready to take arms, but is prevented by Minerva. Iris and Apollo obey the orders of Jupiter; Iris commands Neptune to leave the battle, to which, after much reluctance ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer

... pavement rose where he walked. Yet, as he stood by the door of the fane, where he had burned so many a sacrifice, at length he spied a light blazing from the windows of a great chapel by the sea. It was the Temple of Aphrodite, the Queen of Love, and from the open door a sweet savour of incense and a golden blaze rushed forth till they were lost in the silver of the moonshine and in the salt smell of the sea. Thither the Wanderer went slowly, for his limbs were swaying with weariness, and he was half in a dream. Yet ...
— The World's Desire • H. Rider Haggard and Andrew Lang

... the sterner grandeur of thy form; The lightnings glancing through the midnight gloom, To Faith's raised eye as calm, as lovely come, As splendors of the autumnal evening star, As roses shaken by the breeze's plume, When like cool incense comes the dewy air, And on the golden ...
— The Evolution of Expression Vol. I • Charles Wesley Emerson

... intervene between herself and him. The repentance she felt for her faults was immense, and not less intense was her gratitude for their pardon; but when she longed to offer acts of love and thanksgiving as precious incense at the feet of Jesus, she beheld him betrayed, suffering, and about to die for the expiation of her offences which he had taken upon himself, and this sight filled her with horror, and almost rent her soul asunder with feelings of love, repentance, and gratitude. The sight of the ingratitude ...
— The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ • Anna Catherine Emmerich

... had, besides this, been spread about the city that James Van Artevelde had secretly sent to England the great treasure of Flanders, which he had been collecting for the space of the nine years and more during which he had held the government. This was a matter which did greatly vex and incense them of Ghent. As James Van Artevelde rode along the street, he soon perceived that there was something fresh against him, for those who were wont to bow down and take off their caps to him turned him a cold ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume II. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... read the above quotation between the lines. He loved a lord as ardently as did the next man, and he attached to rank the same exaggerated importance which pervades, with all the unwelcome odour of sickening incense, the literature of his age. As Macklin so well said of him, Nature formed Cibber for a coxcomb, and it is quite probable that he took greater delight in being thought a leader of fashion than a writer of charming plays. Indeed, he was careful to cultivate the society ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins

... exclaiming, in the words of the prophet, "My father, my father, the chariots of Israel and the horsemen thereof!" to the humble orphan child in the obscure alley, who missed his daily returning visit,—all, all, with one accord, sent up their voices as incense to Heaven. ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick

... wept all the time. It was very silly, he knew, but he could not help it. The voice of the cure was pathetic; the little girls looked like white-robed angels; the organ thrilled him, and the incense gratified his senses. There was one especial anthem which touched him deeply. He was not the only person who wept, he was glad to see, and when the ceremony was over he left the church feeling that it was the happiest day of his life. But ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola

... of this ancient foundation can no longer receive her sons within her bosom, her spirit is perhaps more alive than it has ever been since her altars were demolished and the images of her saints torn from their high places. No longer do the smoke of innumerable candles and the fumes of incense blacken and obscure her arches, but the spiritual breath of supplication and of thanksgiving still as of yore ascends to heaven from this ancient church, consecrated by the prayers of so many {9} past generations. The old order has changed, and a Protestant form of worship has long ...
— Westminster Abbey • Mrs. A. Murray Smith

... thing but the poor human tongue. We have excluded Nature from our worship, though Nature is purer, more innocent and worthier to come before the face of God than men. We have been frightened by candles and incense, and vestments, and signs, and symbols, and sacraments, but now we see that the mystery of life and of our religion is too deep to be spoken out clearly in words only. And we have been frightened by the episcopal administration of the Church, but now we see that the ...
— The Agony of the Church (1917) • Nikolaj Velimirovic

... sanctuaries of the Pagan gods were quite small and dark. Worship was simply an individual matter, a bringing of a sacrifice to an altar. There was nothing like congregational worship in the Jewish temple either. The priest alone went within to offer the incense, whilst the people stood without. But in the Christian church the condition of affairs was completely reversed. The worship of God was to be for all the people, all together, with one heart and one voice. That is why the early Christians in the fourth ...
— In Troubadour-Land - A Ramble in Provence and Languedoc • S. Baring-Gould

... Egmont hardly broached the public matters which had brought him to Madrid. Upon the subject of the edicts, Philip certainly did not dissemble, however loudly the envoy may have afterwards complained at Brussels. In truth, Egmont, intoxicated by the incense offered to him at the Spanish court, was a different man from Egmont in the Netherlands, subject to the calm but piercing glance and the irresistible control of Orange. Philip gave him no reason to suppose that he intended any change in ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... abroad on the morning breeze the scent of last night's dottle. Then, when breakfast is over and the horses are caught up and saddled, and you are jogging across the plain, with the friend of your heart beside you, the burnt incense once more goes up, and conversation is unnecessary. At ten o'clock when you cross the creek (you always cross a creek about ten if you are in a good country), you halt and smoke. So after dinner in the lazy ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley

... place where people had suffered. This was what came to her in the starved churches, where the marble columns, transferred from pagan ruins, seemed to offer her a companionship in endurance and the musty incense to be a compound of long-unanswered prayers. There was no gentler nor less consistent heretic than Isabel; the firmest of worshippers, gazing at dark altar-pictures or clustered candles, could not have felt more intimately the suggestiveness of these objects nor ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 2 (of 2) • Henry James

... saw one of these monstrous figures—that of Huitzilopochtli, the god of war, all inlaid with gold and precious stones; and beside it were "braziers, wherein burned the hearts of three Indians, torn from their bodies that very day, and the smoke of them and the savor of incense were ...
— Pagan & Christian Creeds - Their Origin and Meaning • Edward Carpenter

... few choice words of introduction to the American reprint Mrs. Annis Lee Wister admirably characterizes this charming novel. It is indeed like a "clear, pure breath of English air:" from the first page to the last it is redolent of the health of an "incense-breathing morn." There are no dark scenes here, leaving on the reader a feeling of degradation that such things can be—no impossible villain weaving a web of intricate or purposeless villainy—but all is fresh and genuine, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, October, 1877, Vol. XX. No. 118 • Various

... sails all set, came speeding over the waters towards him. It came nearer and nearer, and the sailors rested upon their oars as it glided into the quiet harbor. A minstrel, with long white beard floating in the wind, sat at the prow; and the sweet music from his harp was wafted like incense to the shore. The vessel touched the sands: its white sails were reefed as if by magic, and the crew leaped out upon ...
— The Story of Siegfried • James Baldwin

... the royalty of her soul. For the beauty of the spirit may transfigure its earth-bound temple, as some vast and grey cathedral with light streaming from its stained glass windows, and eloquent with chimes and singing, may breathe incense and benediction upon ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed

... who were awake were smoking the everlasting cigarette or rolling a fresh one. Not a few of the women were smoking, too. Just one of these male figures, lolling against the wall directly opposite her window, did not expel the incense of nicotine through his nostrils. This lad ...
— The Mission of Janice Day • Helen Beecher Long

... who occupied the surgery and a small bedroom at the rear of the shop, always returned to relieve him. That night, however, a professional visit would detain the "Doctor" until half-past twelve. There was still an hour to wait. He felt drowsy; the mysterious incense of the shop, that combined essence of drugs, spice, scented soap, and orris root—which always reminded him of the Arabian Nights—was affecting him. He yawned, and then, turning away, passed behind the counter, took down a jar labeled "Glycyrr. Glabra," selected a piece of Spanish ...
— Under the Redwoods • Bret Harte

... products, brought together from the Ural, from the forests towards the Polar Ocean, and from the vast extent of Siberia. Here, from morning till night, the beloved kvass flows in rivers, the strong stream of shchi (cabbage-soup) sends up its perpetual incense, and the samovar of cheap tea is never empty. Here, although important interests are represented, the intercourse between buyers and sellers is less grave and methodical than in the bazaar. There are jokes, laughter, songs, and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 87, January, 1865 • Various

... curtains again and down the dark passage into the outer chamber; and the illusion was of walking behind a golden-haired Madonna to some shrine of Innocence. Her perfume was like incense; her manner perfect reverence. She passed into the cave where the two dead bodies lay like a high priestess ...
— King—of the Khyber Rifles • Talbot Mundy

... up a little mounting street and filed into a churchyard. Fraulein tried and opened the great carved doorway of the church... incense.... They were going into a Roman Catholic church. How easy it was; just to walk in. Why had one never done it before? There was one at Roehampton. But it would be ...
— Pointed Roofs - Pilgrimage, Volume 1 • Dorothy Richardson

... injured sniff. A hurried consultation ended in plates being fetched from the kitchen. Brown sugar, sealing-wax, and tobacco were placed on these, and something from a square bottle was poured over it all. Then a match was applied. It was the only incense that was handy in the Phoenix office, and it certainly burned very briskly and smoked a ...
— The Phoenix and the Carpet • E. Nesbit

... unbidden contrast leaped to his mind. Mary's music reminded him of church. It was cold and bare as a Methodist meeting house. But Polly's was like the mad and lawless ceremonial of some heathen temple where incense arose and ...
— The Turtles of Tasman • Jack London

... trees. There were shadows in the dark-growing vine which draped a column. One could only guess if he caught sight of garb or of the outline of a form among the shadows. He could only guess, too, whether he heard music, faint as the breeze, faint as the incense of the flowers. He could only guess if he had seen the image of the House Beautiful, ...
— The Singing Mouse Stories • Emerson Hough

... quickly,—not that the divine smile was not always the same, but continually variable through the medium of earthly influences. The great slanting beam of sunshine was visible all the way down to the pavement, falling upon motes of dust, or a thin smoke of incense imperceptible in the shadow. Insects were playing to and fro in the beam, high up toward the opening. There is a wonderful charm in the naturalness of all this, and one might fancy a swarm of cherubs coming down through the opening and sporting in the broad ray, to gladden the faith of worshippers ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... mist like an incense cloud From some great altar drifts away, In silvery fullness o'er us flows The glory of a pallid day. Amid the opening buds of hope I smile at half-forgotten fears; For love, I said, grows holier still And purer through ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol III, Issue VI, June, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... constantly observed by the Javanese, on the eve of every extraordinary undertaking. They also pronounce some prayers, anoint themselves with sweet-scented oils, and smoke the entrance of the cavern with gum- benjamin. Near some of these caverns, a tutular goddess is worshipped, whose priest burns incense, and lays his protecting hand on every person intending to descend. A flambeau is carefully prepared at the same time, with a gum which exudes from a tree growing in the vicinity, and is not easily extinguished by fixed air, or ...
— Domestic pleasures - or, the happy fire-side • F. B. Vaux

... without a shade, in the midst of a rummage of pamphlets and papers. Near it were a coffee-table and two deep arm-chairs. From the ceiling, which was divided into compartments painted in dark red and blue, hung a heavy lamp by a chain of gilded silver. A stick of incense burned in a gilded holder. The dining-room, on the other side of the screen, was fitted with divans running round the walls, and contained a large table and a number of chairs with curved backs. The table was covered with a long and exquisitely embroidered Indian cloth, of ...
— Bella Donna - A Novel • Robert Hichens

... long rifts of 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 of ...
— The Princess of the School • Angela Brazil

... the Coblentz, and with Scanlon lighted one of the cigarettes. The full rich aroma of the island herb drifted through the room like a heavy incense; and under its influence the troubled look which Scanlon's face had worn ...
— Ashton-Kirk, Criminologist • John T. McIntyre

... burst their pistols or fired off their crackers, the boys sometimes huddled into the back part of the Catholic church and watched the service, awed by the dim altar lights, the rising smoke of incense, and the grimness of the sacristan, an old German, who stood near to keep order among them. They knew the fellows who were helping the priest; one of them was the boy who stood on his head till he had to have it shaved; they would have liked to mock him then and ...
— A Boy's Town • W. D. Howells

... a long spiral mist of incense was rising, and about me as I stood in the centre of the enormous interior, many visitors were passing out from the dim religious gloom into the light of the ...
— The Stretton Street Affair • William Le Queux

... bric-a-brac possessed by the Santa Maria flatters was artistic. It may have been in the Lease that only people with esthetic tastes were to be admitted to the apartments. However that may be, the fireplace, with its vases and pictures and trinkets, was something quite wonderful. Indian incense burned in a mysterious little dish, pictures of purple ladies were hung in odd corners, calendars in letters nobody could read, served to decorate, if not to educate, and glass vases of strange colours and extraordinary shapes stood about ...
— The Children's Book of Christmas Stories • Various

... day passed; she had Lloyd's novel and the candy. It was cold enough for a fire in the parlor, and she lay on the sofa in front of it, and read and nibbled her candy and drowsed. Once, lazily, she roused herself to throw some grains of incense on the hot coals. Gradually the silence and perfume and warm sloth pushed the pain of the last twenty-four hours into the background of her mind, where it lay a dull ache of discontent. By and by even that ceased in physical well-being. Her body had her in its grip, and her spirit sunk ...
— The Awakening of Helena Richie • Margaret Deland

... I could but huddle in with those poor laborers and working-women!" he would say to himself. "If I could but breathe that atmosphere, stifling though it be, yet made holy by ancient litanies, and cloudy with the smoke of hallowed incense, for one hour, instead of droning over these moral precepts to my half-sleeping congregation!" The intellectual isolation of his sect preyed upon him; for, of all terrible things to natures like his, the most ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... hold fast to the form, and defend that first, as distinguished from the mere transition of forces. Discern the molding hand of the potter commanding the clay, from his merely beating foot, as it turns the wheel. If you can find incense, in the vase, afterwards,—well: but it is curious how far mere form will carry you ahead of the philosophers. For instance, with regard to the most interesting of all their modes of force— light;—they never consider how far the existence of it depends ...
— The Ethics of the Dust • John Ruskin

... standing on a globe, with flowing garments, expanded wings, and a crown of laurel in her outstretched hand. [8] The senators were sworn on the altar of the goddess to observe the laws of the emperor and of the empire: and a solemn offering of wine and incense was the ordinary prelude of their public deliberations. The removal of this ancient monument was the only injury which Constantius had offered to the superstition of the Romans. The altar of Victory was ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 3 • Edward Gibbon

... 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 ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 3 No 3, March 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... the light chair, they moved slowly toward the spot where the white chalices of the garden lilies poured forth their incense. ...
— Jewel's Story Book • Clara Louise Burnham

... Le Mesge along a long winding corridor with frequent steps. The passage was dark. But at intervals rose-colored night lights and incense burners were placed in niches cut into the solid rock. The passionate Oriental scents perfumed the darkness and contrasted strangely with the cold ...
— Atlantida • Pierre Benoit

... as Christians of old may have felt when called on to throw incense on the altar of Jupiter, as a handful of pages torn from a Prayer-book was thrust into his hands. Words did not come readily to him, but he shook his head and stood ...
— Under the Storm - Steadfast's Charge • Charlotte M. Yonge

... bride is not mentioned; she is eclipsed in the grandeur and the state of her royal Bridegroom; nevertheless, she is both enjoying and sharing it. The very air is perfumed by the smoke of the incense that ascends pillar-like to the clouds; and all that safeguards the position of the Bridegroom Himself, and shows forth His dignity, safeguards also the accompanying bride, the sharer of His glory. The car of state in which they sit is built of fragrant cedar ...
— Union And Communion - or Thoughts on the Song of Solomon • J. Hudson Taylor

... in fact? Why not? Through his numberless works we may easily divine the soul of the artist, and can well understand, how the calm and serene atmosphere of the monastic cell, the church perfumed with incense, and the cloister vibrating with psalms, would develop the mystic sentiment in such ...
— Fra Angelico • J. B. Supino

... thirty-six hours; and while Murat was inhaling the incense which the crafty Russian lavished on him, Koutousoff's army made a detour and concealing its movement behind a screen of low hills, escaped from danger, and went on to take up, beyond Hollabrunn, a strong position ...
— The Memoirs of General the Baron de Marbot, Translated by - Oliver C. Colt • Baron de Marbot

... sole delight Is worship and each holy rite, To chant aloud the Veda hymn, Nor let the sacred fires grow dim. Now through the air like thunder ring The echoes of the chants they sing. The vapours of their incense rise And veil with cloudy pall the skies, And Rakshas might grows weak and faint Killed by the power of sage and saint. By Brahma's boon thy life was screened From God, Gandharva, Yaksha, fiend; But Vanars, men, ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI

... received the goddess from her priests, and carried her to land, where the noblest women of the State received her,—received the black stone, that is,—and carried it in their arms in turns, while all Rome poured out to meet her, and burned incense at their doors as she passed by. And praying that she might enter willingly and propitiously into the city, they carried her into the temple of Victory on the Palatine on the 4th of April, henceforward to be a festal ...
— The Religious Experience of the Roman People - From the Earliest Times to the Age of Augustus • W. Warde Fowler

... then promise to live according to the rules of the holy father Augustine, and to render obedience to Almighty God, to the Virgin Mary, and to the prior of the monastery. Before doing so, he put on anew the dress of his Order, which had been consecrated with holy water and incense. The prior received his vows and sprinkled holy water upon him as he prostrated himself upon the ground in the form of a cross. When the ceremony was over, his brethren congratulated him on being now like an innocent child fresh from the baptism. He was then given a cell of his own, with table, bedstead, ...
— Life of Luther • Julius Koestlin

... the incense of her presence, he drew her to him until her heart beat against his own. She did not resist, but lifted her face to ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... The fountain was lit up by torches, and many lamps also were lighted in the garden. Genji was taken to an airy room in the southern front of the building, where incense which was burning threw its sweet odors around. The priest related to him many interesting anecdotes, and also spoke eloquently of man's future destiny. Genji as he heard him, felt some qualms of conscience, ...
— Japanese Literature - Including Selections from Genji Monogatari and Classical - Poetry and Drama of Japan • Various

... scarcely deigned to notice her in her days as maid-of-honour. When, according to St Simon, she paid a visit to the Capucines in Paris her approach was heralded by a procession of monks, scattering incense and bearing aloft the holy cross. "She was received," we are told, "as if she were a Queen, which quite overwhelmed her, as she was not prepared for such an honour." To such a pitch indeed did this popular idolatry reach that she was actually painted as a Madonna to grace the altar of the richest ...
— Love Romances of the Aristocracy • Thornton Hall

... For incense now he breathes the homely smell of rice and tea, stored in his anteroom; For priests the busy spiders hang festoons between his fingers, and nest them in his yellow nails. And darkness broods upon him. The ...
— Profiles from China • Eunice Tietjens

... long, of the choicest tropical fruit-trees, planted with the greatest care and judgment; and should you chance to stray through it, after sunset, when the clove-trees are in blossom, you would fancy yourself in the Idalian groves or near the banks of the Nile, where they were burning the finest incense as ...
— Wanderings In South America • Charles Waterton

... so short a time. It was a soul rather than a body that lay there, ablaze with spiritual fire, good will shining through everywhere. He did not pay me any compliment about my work, and I didn't pay him any about his. We did not burn any of the incense before each other which authors so often think it necessary to do, but we were friends instantly. I am not given to speedy intimacies, but I could not help my heart going out to him. It was a wonderfully invested soul, no hedges or fences across his fields, ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson - a Record, an Estimate, and a Memorial • Alexander H. Japp

... it was as poor old hard-working Don he moved toward her. But there was magic in her lithe young body; there was magic in her warm hand; there was magic in her swimming eyes. As he fell into the rhythm of the music and breathed the incense of her hair, he was whirled into another world—a world of laughter and melody and care-free fairies. But the two most beautiful fairies of all were her two beautiful eyes, which urged him to dance faster and faster, and which left him in the end stooping, with short breaths, ...
— The Wall Street Girl • Frederick Orin Bartlett



Words linked to "Incense" :   incense cedar, odourise, incense wood, exasperate, infuriate, fragrance, cense, thurify, chemical compound, odorize, perfume



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