"Parson" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... period of fourteen years, to his own rectory on the Somersetshire shores of the Bristol Channel, and closeted him at a private interview with a lady who had paid him a visit in the character of a total stranger to the parson and ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... had a child after all—after all the way she'd spoken at the women's club about the increasing birth-rate among the poor; better give women the franchise and let them have some say in their own affairs, she said. And now she was caught. Yes, the parson's wife had said, "She's had some say in lots of things—but her own affairs are none the better for it, ha ha ha!" And that was a clever saying that went the round of the village, and there were many that understood what ...
— Growth of the Soil • Knut Hamsun
... XIII. What happened to Joseph during his sickness at the inn, with the curious discourse between him and Mr Barnabas, the parson of the parish ...
— Joseph Andrews Vol. 1 • Henry Fielding
... Popish; La Place's Theory; The Vestiges of Creation. Herbert Spencer's Contradictory Theory. The Evolutionists' Hell. Spontaneous Generation—two Theories; the Conflicting Theories of Progress; Tremaux; Lamarck; the Climatal; Darwin's; Huxley's; Parson's; Mivart's; Hyatt's; Cope's; Wallace's; the Gods; Denounced by the Princes of Science. Agassiz's Deliverance Against it. Imperfection of the Theory Eked out. Huxley's Protoplasm. Tyndall's Potency of Life in Matter. Buchner's ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson
... the party saw a little church in an almost inaccessible situation, and observed that it was a most inconvenient site for a church, for surely no congregation could attend it. "It is on that account the more convenient to the parson," replied Bonaparte, "who may preach what stuff he pleases ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... deteriorated, much to the disgust of the enlightened lawyer. The picture of Joseph, very indifferently done, provoked him beyond endurance, and seizing several of the numbers he sallied forth to reproach the parson for leading him into such a bad bargain. "Look at these wretched scratches," said he, turning the pages over, "and see how I have been imposed upon! Here is a portrait of Joseph, whom his brethren sold to the Egyptians ...
— Toasts - and Forms of Public Address for Those Who Wish to Say - the Right Thing in the Right Way • William Pittenger
... you don't think that they would wish to make a parson or a lawyer of me surely?" exclaimed Tom, in a ...
— The Three Lieutenants • W.H.G. Kingston
... resolved to follow Morgan "to seek new fortunes and greater advantages than he had found before." The French might hold aloof, they all declared, but an Englishman was still the equal of a Spaniard; while after all a short life and a merry one was better than work ashore or being a parson. With this crude philosophy, they went aboard again to the decks they had so lately left. The Campeachy pirate brought in a ship or two, and some large canoas. In all they had a fleet of nine sail, manned by "four hundred and three score military men." With this ...
— On the Spanish Main - Or, Some English forays on the Isthmus of Darien. • John Masefield
... of Pynsent jumped on my face at a festival in honour of the birth of Sir Ranulph Berlingcourt's heir," said Maulerer of Phascald. "I had been knocked on the floor by the Archdeacon of Warleileigh, and the Parson of Pynsent trode on my nose. He was the biggest man in Yorkshire, and squeezed my nose out of sight—a rare jovial companion, was the Parson of Pynsent, and many is the joke we have had about the weight of his foot. Ah! we have no ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 341, March, 1844, Vol. 55 • Various
... this attractive rural spot the Schiller Family resided for several years; and found from the pious and kindly people of the Hamlet, and especially from a friend of the house, Moser, the worthy Parish-Parson there, the kindliest reception. The Schiller children soon felt themselves at home and happy in Lorch, especially Fritz did, who, in the Parson's Son, Christoph Ferdinand Moser, a soft gentle child, met with his first boy-friend. In this ...
— The Life of Friedrich Schiller - Comprehending an Examination of His Works • Thomas Carlyle
... and aching to get at them again. We looked up our kinsmen Hector and Donald and struck up a great friendship with the men of the Black Watch. Hector and Donald were both God-fearing men, and went with us several times to hear Parson Cleveland of Bagley's regiment preach. He gave us sermons full of meat, and we ...
— Ben Comee - A Tale of Rogers's Rangers, 1758-59 • M. J. (Michael Joseph) Canavan
... thunders so defiantly against spiritual foes, is trembling all the time beneath the critical eye that is watching him with so merciless an accuracy in his texts. Impelled, guided, censured by woman, we can hardly wonder if, in nine cases out of ten, the parson turns woman himself, and the usurpation of woman's rights in the services of religion has been deftly avenged by the subjugation of the usurpers. Expelled from the temple, woman has simply put her priesthood ...
— The True Woman • Justin D. Fulton
... exceeding care, nor did he ask uncomfortable things, or moralize visibly. Thus he came to hear how it had fared with Lin his friend, and Lin forgot altogether about its being a parson he was delivering the fulness of his heart to. "And come to think," he concluded, "it weren't home I had went to back East, layin' round them big cities, where a man can't help but feel strange all the week. No, sir! Yu' can blow ...
— Lin McLean • Owen Wister
... had Satan there as well! Who but Satan could have tempted you all to disregard me, your lawful lord and master, as you every one of you did for that wretch's sake! Hang it, parson, I wasn't the master of my own house, nor head of my own family! Precious Father Gray was! Black Donald was! Oh, you shall hear!" cried Old Hurricane, ...
— Capitola the Madcap • Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... Act was passed, a very curious piece of work in the harvest field was the paying of the parson by the tithe man going round among the shocks of corn and placing a green bough in every tenth shock, &c., for then the tithe was collected in kind—the tenth shock, hay-cock, calf, lamb, pig, fowl, pigeon, duck, egg, the tenth pound of butter, cheese, and so on through all the products of the ...
— Fragments of Two Centuries - Glimpses of Country Life when George III. was King • Alfred Kingston
... man as loves the Squire, The Parson, and the Beak; And labours twelve good hours a day For thirteen ...
— The Humourous Story of Farmer Bumpkin's Lawsuit • Richard Harris
... nearest neighbour, to whose judgment he submitted himself in all agricultural matters. He shot a little, but moderately, having no inclination to foster what is called a head of game. And he went to church very regularly, having renewed his intimacy with Mr. Bromley, the parson, a gentleman who had unfortunately found it necessary to quarrel with the old squire, because the old squire had ...
— John Caldigate • Anthony Trollope
... turn'd her around an' said, smiling, While the tear in her blue e'e shone clear, "You 're welcome, kind sir, to your mailing, For, O, you have valued it dear: Gae make out the lease, do not linger, Let the parson indorse the decree; An' then, for a wave of your finger, I 'll gang to ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume II. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... priests in hiding, and talk big about their conscience and the like, but when they've seen a neighbour or two pay down a heavy fine for recusancy, they think better of it, and a good wife settles their brains to jog to church to hear the parson ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... are light gusts of controversy. It is Sunday. The parson proposes to read the service. The captain objects. He insists on the maintenance of naval supremacy. On board ship, 'or at any rate on board this ship,' no one but the captain reads the service. The minister, a worthy Irishman, abandons the dispute—not without ...
— London to Ladysmith via Pretoria • Winston Spencer Churchill
... been no place for a parson's son," he grinned, "but it a dam-fine place for a parson. What you think, ...
— The Spoilers of the Valley • Robert Watson
... argue anything of their being sinful and unlawful, as forbid by divine rules; let the parson alone to tell you that, who has, no question, said as much to as little purpose in this case as in any other. But I am of the opinion that there is nothing so impertinent, so insignificant, so senseless, and foolish as ...
— An Essay Upon Projects • Daniel Defoe
... brought to town by Bishop Laval and shut up in the Hotel-Dieu, she being considered under a spell, cast on her by a miller whom she had rejected when he popped the question: the diabolical suitor was jailed as a punishment. Champlain relates how a pugnacious parson was dealt with by a pugnacious clergyman of a different persuasion respecting some knotty controversial points. The arguments, however irresistible they may have been, Champlain observes, were not edifying either to the savages or to the French: "J'ay veu le ministre ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine
... man with a smile, "you don't suppose I should have lent it to Mr Mark Frayne, whose father's only a poor parson? Not me!" ...
— The Queen's Scarlet - The Adventures and Misadventures of Sir Richard Frayne • George Manville Fenn
... his eyes surveyed The pillow-case before him laid, Whose contents reaching to its hem, Might purchase endless joy for them. The maiden answers, "Let us wait; To borrow trouble where's the need?" Then, at the parson's squeaking gate Halted ...
— The Canadian Elocutionist • Anna Kelsey Howard
... the brookside, ramblers on the brambly common, kite-flyers in the windy and cloud-navigated sky; and then, at another cadence of the hymn, back again to church, and the somnolence of summer Sundays, and the high genteel voice of the parson (which he smiled a little to recall) and the painted Jacobean tombs, and the dim lettering of the ...
— Stories By English Authors: Germany • Various
... aloud the wind doth blow, And coughing drowns the parson's saw, And birds sit brooding in the snow, And Marian's nose looks red and raw; When roasted crabs hiss in the bowl, Then nightly sings the staring owl, Tu-whoo! Tu-whit! Tu-whoo! a merry note, While greasy ...
— Birds and Poets • John Burroughs
... is you are not a parson, or at least a parson's wife! You really talk like a preacher; but I fear your discourse has produced little more effect upon your auditory than do the polished words of a fashionable divine upon his; all very fine, but fancy sketches are not apt to effect ...
— Eveline Mandeville - The Horse Thief Rival • Alvin Addison
... parson a dozen if he does that again," he remarked, unmoved by the crash of a shot which struck us right under our turret. Then he took a cigar and spoke between his teeth when he had ...
— The Iron Pirate - A Plain Tale of Strange Happenings on the Sea • Max Pemberton
... characteristics. One is described as having a human figure at the butt, and at the other end a crowned head. The third example is an historic souvenir, having been made, as the inscription on the stopper indicates, from the royal oak which sheltered Charles II, by Mr. George Plaxton, at one time "parson of the parish." ...
— Chats on Household Curios • Fred W. Burgess
... is that circuit of ground in which the souls under the care of one parson or vicar do inhabit. These are computed to be near ten thousand in number. How antient the division of parishes is, may at present be difficult to ascertain; for it seems to be agreed on all hands, ...
— Commentaries on the Laws of England - Book the First • William Blackstone
... articles, read books, and deliver a judgment upon them; the talk of professional critics and writers is not a whit more brilliant, or profound, or amusing, than that of any other society of educated people. If a lawyer, or a soldier, or a parson, outruns his income, and does not pay his bills, he must go to gaol; and an author must go, too. If an author fuddles himself, I don't know why he should be let off a headache the next morning,—if ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... denominations, for one day only, fraternised effusively together on that platform; for princes of the royal house, and the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Lord Mayor of London had urged that it should be so. The Primitive Methodists' parson discovered himself next but one to Father Milton, who on any other day would have been a Popish priest, and whose wooden substitute for a wife was the queen on a chessboard. And on all ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... from this mistake of words, this I am sure, that, by constant and familiar use, they charm men into notions far remote from the truth of things. It would be a hard matter to persuade any one that the words which his father, or schoolmaster, the parson of the parish, or such a reverend doctor used, signified nothing that really existed in nature: which perhaps is none of the least causes that men are so hardly drawn to quit their mistakes, even in opinions purely philosophical, ...
— An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume II. - MDCXC, Based on the 2nd Edition, Books III. and IV. (of 4) • John Locke
... great scholar, and my father had forgot his classical learning; and so the rector of the parish was desired to examine young Launcelot. It was a long time before he found an opportunity; the squire always gave him the slip.—At length the parson catched him in bed of a morning, and, locking the door, to it they went tooth and nail. What passed betwixt them the Lord in heaven knows; but when the doctor came forth, he looked wild and haggard as ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett
... actual weaving had to be done by hand. Not until 1785, when Dr. Cartwright, a parson, invented a "power loom," was it deemed possible to weave by machinery. Cartwright's invention, coming in the same year as the general introduction of Watt's steam engine in the cotton industry, made the industrial revolution. Had the revolution come slowly, had the inventors of the new industrial ...
— Socialism - A Summary and Interpretation of Socialist Principles • John Spargo
... stone marks the actual spot where he died, and the wording of the epitaph favours the idea. It may be that he went to church in a very feeble state, perhaps thinking that neither parson nor congregation could get on without him, and with a supreme effort crowned ...
— Devon, Its Moorlands, Streams and Coasts • Rosalind Northcote
... would fail should he attempt to do so. But he would know what he meant, and so very probably would they who defied him. It may be that the son of a butcher of the village shall become as well fitted for employments requiring gentle culture as the son of the parson. Such is often the case. When such is the case, no one has been more prone to give the butcher's son all the welcome he has merited than I myself; but the chances are greatly in favour of the parson's ...
— Autobiography of Anthony Trollope • Anthony Trollope
... Bachelor's Establishment Colonel Chabert The Muse of the Department The Thirteen Jealousies of a Country Town Scenes from a Courtesan's Life The Country Parson The Magic Skin The Gondreville Mystery The Secrets of a ...
— Sons of the Soil • Honore de Balzac
... Philip, "it isn't much. Just a tract. But it was written by Parson Halleck, a great minister and a sort of Pope in this region for fifty years. It is, so far as I know, the only thing ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... the simplest, raw ham and eggs forming the staple food. We bought a lamb once, but it only lasted one meal, as everyone developed an extraordinary appetite—the parson, Lazo our servant, and all ...
— The Land of the Black Mountain - The Adventures of Two Englishmen in Montenegro • Reginald Wyon
... Mrs. McAravey, satirically, "but I think ma mon and mysel' knows our duties, and can teach the wains, too, wi'out any parson comin' to help us. A pretty thing to tell us we knows nothing o' the Saviour! I can tell you, mon, I've walked more miles o' the Sawbath to my place o' worship than some folks as I know ...
— A Child of the Glens - or, Elsie's Fortune • Edward Newenham Hoare
... ever hear, TOBY, what the weeping widow said to the parson, who asked, 'Was your husband resigned to die?' 'He had ter be,' ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 100, May 2, 1891 • Various
... badger, or spear otter, better than he. And then, as to tippling, he would sit you a whole afternoon at the alehouse, and be the merriest man there, and drink a bout with every farmer present. And if the parson chanced to be out of hearing, he would never make a mouth at a round oath, nor choose a second expression when the first would serve his turn. Then, who so constant at church or lecture as Squire Nicholas—though ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... return of my old ailments. I don't think I can ever remember having had worse weather, and this in my Sils-Maria, whither I always fly in order to escape bad weather. Is it to be wondered at that even the parson here is acquiring the habit of swearing? From time to time in conversation his speech halts, and then he always swallows a curse. A few days ago, just as he was coming out of the snow-covered church, he thrashed his dog and exclaimed: ...
— How to Write Letters (Formerly The Book of Letters) - A Complete Guide to Correct Business and Personal Correspondence • Mary Owens Crowther
... the Rev. Paul. They chaffed him, and he was very easily teased, because he was not clever and did not see their jokes. This put Maggie up in arms in his defence at once. But they had all the layman's distrust of a parson. They were all polite to him, of course, and Maggie discovered that in this world politeness was of the very first importance, so that you really never said what you thought nor did what you wanted to. They frankly could not understand why Katherine ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole
... inhabitants of Wychwood-on-the-Heath as had happened to come into personal contact with the reverend gentleman, had sought to impress upon him, by hints and innuendoes difficult to misunderstand, their cordial and daily-increasing dislike of him, both as a parson and a man. Matters had come to a head by the determination officially announced to him that, failing other alternatives, a deputation of his leading parishioners would wait upon his bishop. This it was that had brought it home to the Rev. Augustus Cracklethorpe that, as the spiritual guide ...
— The Cost of Kindness - From a volume entitled "Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow" • Jerome K. Jerome
... much of the gospel in it. Mr. Arnold opined that people should not go to church to hear sermons, but to make the responses; whoever read prayers, it made no difference, for the prayers were the Church's, not the parson's; and for the sermon, as long as it showed the uneducated how to be saved, and taught them to do their duty in the station of life to which God had called them, and so long as the parson preached neither Puseyism nor Radicalism — (he frowned solemnly and disgustedly as he repeated the word) ...
— David Elginbrod • George MacDonald
... must speak as I find; and Minister Holman—we call the Church clergyman here "parson," sir; he would be a bit jealous if he heard a Dissenter called parson—Minister Holman knows what he's about as well as e'er a farmer in the neighbourhood. He gives up five days a week to his own work, and two to the Lord's; and ...
— Cousin Phillis • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... "The parson came to see her yesterday. He's not what you'd call an unusual man, Madame Zabriska—and she is an unusual woman, you know. It was—yes, it was amusing, and there's an end of it." He paused, and added, by way of excuse, "Oh, I know her so well, you see. She wouldn't be left ...
— Tristram of Blent - An Episode in the Story of an Ancient House • Anthony Hope
... you're safe from me. But stay—you are a heretic. Phoo! what am I saying? 'twas seeing the priest put that word heretic in my head—you're not a catholic, I mean. But an oath's an oath, taken before priest or parson—an oath, taken how you will, will operate. But stay, to make all ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. IX - [Contents: Harrington; Thoughts on Bores; Ormond] • Maria Edgeworth
... frequently while he trapped and hunted with other pioneers. Whenever he related that portion of his early life, he declared that he "was so well known in his circuit, that the chickens recognized him as he came riding by the scattered farmhouses, and the old roosters would crow 'Here comes Parson Williams! One of us must ...
— The Old Santa Fe Trail - The Story of a Great Highway • Henry Inman
... Parson John, Rector of Glendow, glanced down at the little muffled figure at his side. He reached over, tucked in the robes more closely about their feet, and spoke one word to Midnight. The horse, noble animal that she was, bounded forward. The ice, glassy and firm, stretched out far ahead. It was a ...
— The Fourth Watch • H. A. Cody
... Voluntaries, waiting for the abolition of the National Church, and paying tithes meanwhile. They were Separatists who would at once and in every way assert their Separatism. They would pay no tithes; they called every church "a steeple-house"; and they regarded every parson as the hired performer in one of the steeple-houses. Then, in their own meetings for mutual edification and worship, all their customs were in accordance with their main principle. They had no fixed articles of congregational creed, no prescribed forms of prayer, no ordinance of baptism or ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... interpreted. That he intended to ridicule the monastic life, and suffered his imagination to play with the simple dulness of his converted giant, seems evident enough; but surely it were as unjust to accuse him of irreligion on this account, as to denounce Fielding for his Parson Adams, Barnabas,[334] Thwackum, Supple, and the Ordinary in Jonathan Wild,—or Scott, for the exquisite use of his Covenanters in the ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... thinks thou wert a wench, Tom," cried Charles; "but tell me, how much of the worthy parson's discourse didst thou hear?" ...
— St George's Cross • H. G. Keene
... outpourings seemed to be thrown back upon herself, and she had sometimes longed to hide her disappointment in seclusion. But the picture spoke to her, as pictures can do. True art can often succeed where divinity fails; the painter preaches more effectually than the parson. ...
— A Vanished Hand • Sarah Doudney
... there went forth the appeal for the propagation of the Gospel which comes nearest to Carey's cry from the same midland region. Cromwell was in power, and had himself planned a Protestant Propaganda, so to the Long Parliament William Castell, "parson of Courteenhall," sent a petition which, with the "Eliot Tracts," resulted in an ordinance creating the Corporation for the Promoting and Propagating the Gospel of Jesus Christ in New England. Seventy English ministers had backed the petition, and six of the ...
— The Life of William Carey • George Smith
... Yale lectures to young ministers, I shall tell them that there is a blessed guile, a holy cozenage of the heart whereby they may win their people's souls by stealth. And if a parson hath some obdurate parishioner or some gnarled and snarling elder, let him attack him as a thief in the night, and turn its darkness ...
— St. Cuthbert's • Robert E. Knowles
... much that I never spoke of to you, mother, but sometime when you grow stronger and your memory is better we will talk together.—Do you remember the winter, long after father went away, that Parson Lane sent me to Fairfield Academy to get enough Greek and Latin ...
— The Story Of Waitstill Baxter • By Kate Douglas Wiggin
... The good parson again blessed her, and went away. She took leave of him with tears in her eyes, entreating him often to visit her in that heathen land of the Amorite, the Hittite, and the Girgashite: to which he assented, on many solemn and qualifying conditions—and ...
— The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner • James Hogg
... nobody. But follow your own genius—damn me, if I take it upon me to understand your men of genius—they are in the Serpentine river one day, and in the clouds the next: so fare ye well, Clary. I expect to see you a doctor of physic, or a methodist parson, soon, damn me if I don't: so fare ye well, Clary. Is black-ball your last word? or will you think better on't, ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. III - Belinda • Maria Edgeworth
... hand down upon the table. "You'll do no such thing!" he thundered. "The girl's got to be here when he comes. As for her dress, can't she borrow from you? The Lord knows that though only the wife of a poor parson, you might throw for gewgaws with a bona roba! Go trick her out, and bring her here. I'll attend to the wine and ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston
... on it; if there was a cat-fight, he'd bet on it; if there was a chicken-fight, he'd bet on it; why, if there was two birds sitting on a fence he would bet you which one would fly first; or if there was a camp-meeting, he would be there reg'lar to bet on Parson Walker, which he judged to be the best exhorter about here—and so he was, too, and a good man. If he even seen a straddle-bug start to go anywheres, he would bet you how long it would take to get wherever he was going to, and if you took him up, he would foller ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie
... began to guess For whom this mighty image was intended. "The head," I cried, "is Upton's, and the dress Is Parson Bartlett's own." True, his cloak ended Flush with his lowest vertebra, but no Sane sculptor ever made ...
— Black Beetles in Amber • Ambrose Bierce
... folks used to say that the Ingmarssons had been on earth such a long time that they must know what was pleasing to our Lord. Therefore the people fairly begged them to rule over the parish. They appointed both parson and sexton; they determined when the river should be dredged, and where gaols should be built. But me no one consults, nor have I ...
— Jerusalem • Selma Lagerlof
... of Belial, bound for Deniliquin, with 3,000 Boolka wethers off the shears. Now, anyone who has listened for four hours to the conversation of a group of sheep drovers, named, respectively, Splodger, Rabbit, Parson, Bottler, Dingo, and Hairy-toothed Ike, will agree with me as to the impossibility of getting the dialogue of such dramatis personae into anything like printable form. The bullock drivers were bad enough, but these fellows are out of ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... time appointed mother was taken very ill, which made it necessary that the wedding should be postponed, or take place somewhere else. To the first Mike would not hear, and as good old Parson S——, whose sermons were never more than two hours long, came regularly every Sunday night to preach in the schoolhouse, Mike proposed that they be married there. Sally did not like this exactly, but grandmother, who now ruled the ...
— Homestead on the Hillside • Mary Jane Holmes
... deacon then popp'd up his head, And Parson Jones's sermon read, In which the reverend doctor said That ...
— The Defence of Stonington (Connecticut) Against a British Squadron, August 9th to 12th, 1814 • J. Hammond Trumbull
... them; but, whatever the motive might be, certain it is that at the age of forty he married a delicate beauty from Baltimore, and came to live on Greenfield Hill, in the great white house with a gambrel roof and dormer windows, standing behind certain huge maples, where Major Hyde and Parson Hyde and Deacon Hyde had all ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... flush on his winsome face and a swimming gleam in his eyes, that he was preparing to pack the theatre on the opening night in the interests of worried Joe. Poor, good-hearted Dick! Then there was Parson Swift, who sat behind the scenes with mild interest on his face and a sneer in that ugly, gnarled heart of his. "We stood on the stage," he writes to Stella, "and it was foolish enough to see the actors prompting every moment, and the poet directing them, and the drab that acts Cato's daughter ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins
... Lovell, good-naturedly. "It is seldom we have a homily in Bostock Church. Parson Leggatt is not much given to ...
— Mistress Margery • Emily Sarah Holt
... respect and liking for the Vicar of Gantick—"th' old Parson Kendall," as we call him—but have somewhat avoided his hospitality since Mrs. Kendall took up with the teetotal craze. I say nothing against the lady's renouncing, an she choose, the light dinner claret, the ...
— News from the Duchy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... he went to Guinea after those poor negroes, little lightness has my heart known; and the very day that that crest was put up in our grand new house, as the parson read the first lesson, there was this text in it, Mr. Gilbert, 'Woe to him that buildeth his house by iniquity, and his chambers by wrong. Shalt thou live because thou closest thyself in cedar?' And ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... very dear Sir," cried in trembling accents an old parson in a thread-bare coat, "I have a wife and family, and we ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, April 29, 1893 • Various
... "A parson! Does he know anything about his subject? Is he an expert?—a trained relief worker? Does he know Willoughby? And Smathers? ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... grandfathers in the "brave days of old," when Richardson told the story of "Pamela," and "Clarissa Harlowe," when Fielding wrote "Tom Jones," and Smollett narrated the history of "Humphrey Clinker," and the career of "Tristram Shandy" found a truthful historian in that mad parson Lawrence Sterne. We might even read those ancient authors, ancient in style at least, for a change, and still be reading English literature in its truest and widest sense. But it is less with the fiction- writers that we have to deal, than with the ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine
... But honesty comes not from the washing, like a clean shirt, nor can the piety of one day purge the evil of six. They built their church anigh the margin, forasmuch as it was handy, and that they thought, 'Surely the Lord will not undermine His own?' A rare community o' blasphemers, fro' the parson that took his regular toll of the organ-loft, to him that sounded the keys and pulled out the joyous stops as if they was so many spigots to ...
— At a Winter's Fire • Bernard Edward J. Capes
... steadily put aside both from temper and definite principle. He had no popular aptitudes, and was very suspicious of them. He had no care for the possession of influence; he had deliberately chosen the fallentis semita vitae, and to be what his father had been, a faithful and contented country parson, was all that he desired. But idleness was not in his nature. Born a poet, steeped in all that is noblest and tenderest and most beautiful in Greek and Roman literature, with the keenest sympathy with that new school of poetry which, with Wordsworth as its ...
— The Oxford Movement - Twelve Years, 1833-1845 • R.W. Church
... humorously. "I seem to be developing a taste for worthy deeds. But there's no reason on earth why you two shouldn't get married and done for as soon as possible. I'll see Larpent to-night and tell him, and you can go and see the parson about it to-morrow. You'll find Nonette won't put any obstacles in the way. She's a good child and does as ...
— Charles Rex • Ethel M. Dell
... our great-coats," said one of them afterwards, "reeking of cigars and brandy-and-water, d—e, sir, we quite frightened the old buck of a parson; he did not much like our company." After the ceremony was concluded, these gentlemen were very happy to get home to a warm and comfortable breakfast, and finished the day ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... well avised of that?" said a fat parson from the Vale of Evesham. "Nay, if the Head of the Church wears them,—God bless his Sacred Majesty!—I will try what they can do for me; for I have not been able to distinguish one Hebrew letter from another, since—I cannot remember the time—when I ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... A parson, surprised by the sudden return of a husbandman with whose wife he was making good cheer, quickly devised a means for saving himself at the expense of the worthy man, who was never any ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. III. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre
... with a mission, and maintained it to be an outrage that a Christian boy should be brought up by a godless pagan. She worried over it almost as much as she did over the heathen in Central Africa, where there are no Sunday schools, and clothes are as scarce as churches. Failing to move Parson Peck and Elder Knapp in the matter, and despairing of an early answer to her personal prayers, she resolved on a bold move, "An' it was only after many a sleepless, prayerful night," namely, to carry the ...
— Rolf In The Woods • Ernest Thompson Seton
... endanger their safety in the pursuit of tigers in the Terai, they will have their Sunday, come rain, come shine. On the deck of the steamer in the Red Sea, in the cabin of the inbound Arctic explorer, in the crowded Swiss hotel, or the straggling Indian hill station, there is always a parson of some description, in a surplice of no description at all, who produces a Bible and a couple of well-thumbed sermons from the recesses of his trunk or his lunch basket, or his gun-case, and goes at the work of weekly redemption with a will. And, what is more, he is listened to, and for ...
— Mr. Isaacs • F. Marion Crawford
... parlor for this celebration and never, never, shall I forget its mean and bare look, even to my untutored eyes; or how lonely those far hills looked, through the small-paned window I faced; or what a shadow seemed to fall across them as the parson uttered those fateful words, so terrible to one whose heart is not in them: What God hath joined together let no man put asunder. Death and not life awaited me on that bleak hillside, or so I thought, ...
— The Mayor's Wife • Anna Katharine Green
... here for a night. I knew that you came because my father was the parish clerk and let you spend the night in St Mary's Church; and I know that, though he allowed it secretly, you did no harm there, else he would never have allowed it. Now he is dead, and meanwhile I keep the keys by the parson's wish until a new parish clerk is appointed. And so I wrote, thinking to serve you for one year more as my father had served ...
— Shining Ferry • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... as clever as Don Juan himself, or Dona Elvira possessed more discretion or more virtue than Spanish wives are usually credited with, Don Juan was compelled to spend his declining years beneath his own roof, with no more scandal under it than if he had been an ancient country parson. Occasionally he would take wife and son to task for negligence in the duties of religion, peremptorily insisting that they should carry out to the letter the obligations imposed upon the flock by the Court of Rome. Indeed, he was never so well pleased as when ...
— The Elixir of Life • Honore de Balzac
... practically fell in love with one another at sight. Poor old Eustace!" Scott paused, faintly smiling. "He meant her to marry well if she married at all, and Basil was no more than the son of a country parson without a penny to his name. However, the thing was past remedy. I saw that when they came home, and Isabel told me about it. I was at Oxford then. She came down alone for a night, and begged me to try and talk Eustace over. It was the beginning of a barrier between them even then. It ...
— Greatheart • Ethel M. Dell
... The parson of Stramehl, David Dilavius, related also to old Uckermann another fact, which, though it hardly seems credible, the ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V1 • William Mienhold
... mob, but it was a heap better than havin' some Connecticut parson call in wifie and the hired girl, as ...
— Wilt Thou Torchy • Sewell Ford
... convenience, my hearers," said old Parson Withington of Newbury, "if the moral of a fable could only be written at the beginning of it, instead of the end. But it never is." Commonly the only thing to be done is to get hold of a few general principles, hold to those, and trust that all will turn out well. No matter ...
— Women and the Alphabet • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... at Pine Cone and settle down with him as her hill-billy would hold small temptation, but to take her away to new and wider fields—that was another matter! And go they would—he and she. He would get a horse somewhere, somehow. With Nella-Rose behind him, he would never stop until a parson was reached, and after that—why the world would be theirs from which ...
— The Man Thou Gavest • Harriet T. Comstock
... although no beauties certainly, are harmless after all. For instance, I never heard a well—authenticated case of their attacking a human being hereabouts; pigs and fowls they do tithe, however, like any parson. I don't mean to say that they would not make free with a little fat dumpling of a piccaniny, if he were thrown to them, but they seem to have no ferocious propensities. I shot one of them; he was about twelve ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... their deviltry as I bid 'em, for they esteem me Lucifer's lieutenant. And I grant the present situation is an outrage to propriety, yet the evil is not incurable. Lady Allonby may not, if she value her reputation, pass to-night at Stornoway; but here am I, all willingness, and upstairs is the parson. Believe me, Anastasia, the most vinegarish prude could never object to Lady Rokesle's spending to-night ...
— Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell
... in the Bodleian an early copy of Namby Pamby (1725?) "By Capt. Gordon, Author of the Apology for Parson Alberony and the Humorist." The joke here is surely in not only letting the Whig Gordon attack the Whig Ambrose Phillips but then, also by association, connecting Gordon's name with the attack on Walpole and Marlborough. There is ...
— A Learned Dissertation on Dumpling (1726) • Anonymous
... member of the family. Her character seemed to be set on absolutely conventional lines, and the whole family, with the exception of her father, who did not concern himself with such mundane things, secretly hoped that she would marry a young parson who had lately "made friends with her." As is often the case with that type of young woman, Dolly was feckless about money, and would always have appeared badly and unsuitably dressed but for the efforts of her ...
— What Timmy Did • Marie Adelaide Belloc Lowndes
... "Don't you preach, parson, but put on your boots and come out for a tramp, instead of mulling over the fire like ...
— Eight Cousins • Louisa M. Alcott
... pay it back and twenty-five more besides if Robbins didn't like the coffin after he'd tried it. And then Robbins died, and at the funeral he bursted off the lid and riz up in his shroud and told the parson to let up on the performances, becuz he could not stand such a coffin as that. You see he had been in a trance once before, when he was young, and he took the chances on another, cal'lating that if he made the trip it was money in ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... about the middle of the fifteenth century were a priest near Florence, Arlotto (1483), for more refined wit ('facezie'), and the court-fool of Ferrara, Gonnella, for buffoonery. We can hardly compare their stories with those of the Parson of Kalenberg and Till Eulenspiegel, since the latter arose in a different and half-mythical manner, as fruits of the imagination of a whole people, and touch rather on what is general and intelligible to all, while Arlotto ...
— The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy • Jacob Burckhardt
... joosy. Cook, said Stubb, squaring himself once more; do you belong to the church? Passed one once in Cape-Down, said the old man sullenly. And you have once in your life passed a holy church in Cape-Town, where you doubtless overheard a holy parson addressing his hearers as his beloved fellow-creatures, have you, cook! And yet you come here, and tell me such a dreadful lie as you did just now, eh? said Stubb. Where do you expect to go to, cook? .. Go to bed berry soon, ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... all necessary arrangements, and the nuptial ceremony was solemnized by the village parson on the 30th of September, 1830. With his bride he now settled down at home. For some years he lived the life of a farmer. His mother was riveted to the spot where her devoted husband fell at the hands of a besotted Indian. But ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams
... "The parson is the best man in the world," he mused; "there ain't another white man that dare go visitin' 'mong the varmints like him, for they trust him just as his own kith ...
— The Phantom of the River • Edward S. Ellis
... fill these same places, and to command them with equal or greater authority and competence, will not be plaster saints, laden with all human virtue, spotless in character and fit to be anointed with a superman legend by some future Parson Weems. They will be men with a human quality, and a strong belief in the United States and the goodness of a free society. They will have some of the average man's faults, and maybe a few of his vices. But certainly they will possess the qualities of courage, creative intelligence and physical ...
— The Armed Forces Officer - Department of the Army Pamphlet 600-2 • U. S. Department of Defense
... everybody thought that if the parents died, the child would be left a burden on their hands. Then said the father, "I will take the child and carry it to church next Sunday, and say that although I can find no sponsors for the child, the parson may please himself. Then, whether he christens the child or not, no sin can rest ...
— The Hero of Esthonia and Other Studies in the Romantic Literature of That Country • William Forsell Kirby
... The parson's hat and overcoat hung in the room. In a moment they were on; in another he was following the very respectable young woman down-stairs; in a third he was scrambling after her into the carriage; in a fourth they were rattling wildly over the wet, ...
— The Unseen Bridgegroom - or, Wedded For a Week • May Agnes Fleming
... to his wife, written while this famous North Carolina judge was a guest at Fairfax, gives a pleasant account of an evening spent in General Gregory's home with Parson Pettigrew and Gideon Lamb, and also of the kindness and ...
— In Ancient Albemarle • Catherine Albertson
... to build warships of the first magnitude, the ball of pleasure must be kept rolling. So Killigrew was to produce a new version of an old comedy, written in the forties, but now polished up to the modern style of wit. This new-old play, The Parson's Widow, was said to be all froth and sparkle and current interest, fresh as the last London Gazette, and spiced with allusions to the late sickness, an admirable subject, and allowing a ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... turned out of his benefice by a knight (who was in our sense also a squire) simply that the gentleman might clap in his brother. The poor parson appealed to Courts Christian and Courts Civil, but found his enemy was much too favoured for him to effect anything. He tried Rome, but, poor Lackpenny, got what he might have expected from that distant tribunal. ...
— Hugh, Bishop of Lincoln - A Short Story of One of the Makers of Mediaeval England • Charles L. Marson
... Tavistock, Devonshire. It was (says Britton) formerly a place of consequence; and Prince states, that this ancient town and borough was the largest parish in the county, or the kingdom, and that the whole forest of Dart belonged to it; to whose parson, or rector, all the tithes thereof are due. It is said that this town, in its best strength, was able to entertain Julius Caesar, at his second arrival here in Britain; but, anno 997 it was grievously spoilt by the inhuman Danes. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 484 - Vol. 17, No. 484, Saturday, April 9, 1831 • Various
... reasoning being, unless he asks what his sensations and perceptions are, and why they are, what is a Hottentot, or an Australian black fellow; or what the "swinked hedger" of an ordinary agricultural district? Nay, what becomes of an average country squire or parson? How many of these worthy persons who, as their wont is, read the Quarterly Review, would do other than stand agape, if you asked them whether they had ever reflected what their sensations and perceptions are, and why ...
— Critiques and Addresses • Thomas Henry Huxley
... and clergy were rendered clearer by the case of Dodwell v. the Bishop of Wellington in 1887. The old legal status of an English "parson" was shown not to exist in New Zealand: no clergyman has any position save such as is given him by the constitution of the Church. In the same way, no parishioner has any claim at law against his parish priest. This point was decided by the Avonside case ...
— A History of the English Church in New Zealand • Henry Thomas Purchas
... day he set off. He took with him one of his few possessions, a little silver coin that a parson hard by had given him. He went his way quickly among the pleasant fields, making towards the great bulk of Blackdown beacon, where the hills swelled up into a steep bluff, with a white road, cut in the chalk, winding steeply up their green smooth sides. It was a ...
— Paul the Minstrel and Other Stories - Reprinted from The Hill of Trouble and The Isles of Sunset • Arthur Christopher Benson
... and mind the bells, The fifth of November; The parson a sad story tells, And with horror doth remember How some hot-brain'd traitor wrought Plots that would have ruin brought To ...
— Cavalier Songs and Ballads of England from 1642 to 1684 • Charles Mackay
... Pilgrim Fathers. They enacted a law that the right of suffrage should be limited to church members in good standing. Suppose we had such a law now, what a mighty revolution it would work either in exterminating fraud or in promoting piety! "Men and Brethren!" said the colored parson, "two ways are open before you, the broad and narrow way which leads to perdition, and the straight and crooked way which leads to damnation." [Laughter.] We have before us now the two ways of stuffed ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various
... lord, come with me!" cried the landlord, bursting into energy in a moment. "I know who you are well enough. But they shan't catch you here, I warrant you. Come into the stable: there's not a minute to be lost; for there's old Sir John Bulrush, and Parson Jeffreys, who's a magistrate too, drinking away up at the rectory till the people come back from Plessis's house." Berwick lingered not; but taking a quick leave of Lady Laura, and shaking Wilton's hand, he followed ...
— The King's Highway • G. P. R. James
... his constant companion. Syl Todd, the village dandy, worshipped him, and Pat Duffy, who was rather a liberal-minded Catholic, declared him "a blazin' fine chap" and gave as his opinion that it was "a relief to see a parson that didn't look scared when a fellow swore a little"—which indulgence was a conversational ...
— Duncan Polite - The Watchman of Glenoro • Marian Keith
... the rackaboar, the snaix, the bear, the Rocky Mountain goat, Of the conversazzhyony 'nd of Casey's tabble-dote, And a word of them old pardners that stood by us long ago (Three-Fingered Hoover, Sorry Tom and Parson Jim, you know)! Old times, old friends, John Smith, would make our hearts beat high again, And we'd see the snow-top mountain like we used to see 'em then; The magpies would go flutterin' like strange sperrits to 'nd fro, And we'd hear the ...
— John Smith, U.S.A. • Eugene Field
... rear with all possible speed. I drew up for an instant, and inquired of him how matters were going at the front. He replied, "Everything is lost; but all will be right when you get there"; yet notwithstanding this expression of confidence in me, the parson at once resumed his breathless pace to the rear. At Newtown I was obliged to make a circuit to the left, to get round the village. I could not pass through it, the streets were so crowded, but meeting on this detour Major McKinley, of Crook's staff, he spread ...
— The Memoirs of General Philip H. Sheridan, Vol. II., Part 4 • P. H. Sheridan |
