"Sacrilegious" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... "I do not love her, nor does she love me. I can scarcely bear to tell you all this. It is sacrilegious to think of marriage under such circumstances, and above all things to mention it in connection with a ...
— The Time of Roses • L. T. Meade
... work, that had not any representation in the World, but only of the cost of the Founder and skill of the Mason, what toting and piping upon the destroyed Organ pipes, and what a hideous triumph on the Market day before all the Countrey, when, in a kind of Sacrilegious and profane procession, all the Organ pipes, Vestments, both Copes and Surplices, together with the Leaden Crosse which had been newly sawne down from over the Green-Yard Pulpit, and the Service books and singing books that could be had, were carried to the fire in the publick Market place; ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Norwich - A Description of Its Fabric and A Brief History of the Episcopal See • C. H. B. Quennell
... beloved doubloons, all his cherished dollars, for the which no Yankee ever felt a stronger passion, took swift wings and flew from his coffers to alight in the hands of the adversary. The sacred recesses of his pockets, and those of his companions, were sacred no longer from the sacrilegious hands of the spoilers. The breast-pins were ravished from the shirt-frills,—for in those days studs were not,—and the rings snatched from the reluctant fingers. All the shining testimonials of Mexican admiration were ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... unbelieving American with a diabolical brass box called a "come-pass'" had insisted upon crossing the mountains in defiance of the genius loci and all his tempestuous warnings. One dead dog was no compensation at all for such a sacrilegious violation of the Evil Spirit's clearly expressed wishes! The sacrifice, however, seemed to relieve the natives' anxiety about their own safety; and, much as I pitied the poor dog thus ruthlessly slaughtered, I was glad to see the manifest improvement ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... she said. "I thought I'd like to ask you some questions about him if you were. We have had a good deal about him at Sunday-school lately. I'm studying my lessons nowadays for a prize; they are going to give a sacrilegious picture to the child that knows her verses the best by Easter, and I think maybe I'll get it, for I'm only about next to the ...
— What Two Children Did • Charlotte E. Chittenden
... Lysia's Oration against Andocides is this passage: To expiate this pollution (the mutilation of the {592} Herm), the priestesses and priests turning towards the setting sun, the dwelling of the infernal gods, devoted with curses the sacrilegious wretch, and shook their purple robes, in the manner prescribed by that law, which has been transmitted from the earliest times."—Mitford, ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 216, December 17, 1853 • Various
... two sensations that seemed her last on earth: one, the warm touch of Hero's tongue on her clenched fingers; the other, a supernatural wail that came down from the gallery, and that even then she knew was born in the organ. Was it the weird fingering of the sacrilegious cyclone that concentrated its rage upon the venerable sanctuary? After a little while the fury of the wind spent itself, but the rain began to fall heavily, and the electricity drama continued with ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... and venerable object he was chosen to protect from attack or injury. Had he failed in his task, had he slumbered at his post, all god though he might be, his people themselves would have risen in a body and torn him limb from limb before their ancestral fetich as a sacrilegious pretender. ...
— The Great Taboo • Grant Allen
... brave friend," continued Achilles. "This Nicanor was daring enough to throw a reproach on our noble corps, accusing them—gods and goddesses!—of plundering in the field, and, yet more sacrilegious, of drinking the precious wine which was prepared for his most sacred Majesty's own blessed consumption. I, the sacred person of the Emperor being present, proceeded, ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... these more general illustrations of the account in the Acts, the newly-discovered inscriptions throw light on some special points in the narrative. Thus where the chief magistrate pronounces St Paul and his companions to be 'neither sacrilegious ([Greek: hierosulous]) nor blasphemers of our goddess' [299:1], we discover a special emphasis in the term on finding from these inscriptions that certain offences (owing to the mutilation of the stone, we are unable to determine the special offences) were treated ...
— Essays on "Supernatural Religion" • Joseph B. Lightfoot
... chiefs retire, The tow'ring, sacrilegious eagle[5] flew; Our bosoms swell'd with more than mortal fire, When from the field indignant ...
— Elegies and Other Small Poems • Matilda Betham
... that's why I'm a sacrilegious, blasphemous person who doesn't care much about hearing about God. I associate Him with thin lips that shut together tight-and people who make long prayers and break little dogs' hearts—and with boots—and souls—that squeak. I can't think of ...
— The Visioning • Susan Glaspell
... guide was infinite in patience, stopping at every new exclamation point of mine, plunging down rocks into the meadow land, climbing to the points of great rocks, and returning with his hands filled with flowers. It seemed almost sacrilegious to tear away such fanciful creations, that looked as if they were votive offerings on an altar, or, more likely, living existences, whose only conscious life was a continued exhalation ...
— Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands V2 • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... of tradition is supposed to be a miserly, wealthy, sacrilegious fellow who goes about stealing children and dogs and anything else he can lay his hands upon. He may have his faults, but to see him kneeling before the shrine of his "patronne reine Sara," ragged and travel-worn and yet burning costly candles and saying his Aves as piously and incessantly ...
— The Automobilist Abroad • M. F. (Milburg Francisco) Mansfield
... accomplishment Evangelical hymnody played a prominent part. Though the Reformation gained little momentum before 1526, the Papists began as early as 1527, to preach against "the sacrilegious custom of roaring Danish ballads at the church service". As no collection of hymns had then been published, the hymns thus used must have been circulated privately, showing the eagerness of the people to adopt the new custom. The leaders of the Reformation were quick ...
— Hymns and Hymnwriters of Denmark • Jens Christian Aaberg
... taken. Some, however, objected to its being done, without application for leave having been first made to the Comtesse de Villeroi, as one to whom the proprietorship of her deceased husband's remains naturally and solely appertained, and who might feel it as a cruel insult towards herself, and a sacrilegious violation of the grave of her first lord, the consigning without her knowledge and permission, any part of his body to the hands of a surgeon. "Tush!" quoth old Morel, "all nonsense that! for if one may believe what has long been town-talk, 'tis little that madame will care ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 17, Number 489, Saturday, May 14, 1831 • Various
... youth! Go hence quickly, and take those misguided men, thy minions, with thee, lest I call down the wrath of Holy Mother Church upon thy sacrilegious head—and theirs. Who art thou, ...
— The Cruise of the Nonsuch Buccaneer • Harry Collingwood
... another time, the Indians had dared to take a friar from his convent, and they dragged him to the place where I was. I commenced to try the case, and gave a verdict against the Indians, as it was doubly sacrilegious to take the friar from his convent, and to place hands on an ecclesiastic. This case came to the Audiencia by way of appeal, and it still remains there, with the records. A beneficed priest, who was performing ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, V7, 1588-1591 • Emma Helen Blair
... as if the "Talking Oak" was sure to stand just round a sun-lighted corner of the wood, that, incited thereto by a countrywoman of the poet's, who, herself a member of the guild, should know how poets' possessions may worthily be approached, I let my sacrilegious feet carry me a little way within that violated enclosure. But it was only a very tiny raid we made. We stood quietly for two or three minutes, just feeling the place, then scurried hastily away like two timorous ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 12, No. 32, November, 1873 • Various
... seemed to have been chosen by Providence to delight and inspire every one privileged to hear them. Such privileges had been omitted from the scheme of Miss Alicia's existence. She did not know, she would have felt it sacrilegious to admit it even if the fact had dawned upon her, that "dear papa" had been a heartlessly arrogant, utterly selfish, and tyrannical old blackguard of the most pronounced type. He had been of an absolute morality as far as social laws were concerned. He had written ...
— T. Tembarom • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... splendid and fierce and humble, reigned in the glowing words that he read, ruled his failing voice, swayed his reeling figure. She could not question the identity of the Blessed One whose beauty made the singer sacrilegious in the white-heat of his devotion. She could not misinterpret the significance of the abandoned parchment lying discarded where it had fallen on the floor while the reciter, with his sad eyes fixed ...
— The God of Love • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... imposed for the life of a man, and death for death when the property of the rich was touched?—when—I blush to discover the depravity of our nature—a deer was killed! Are these the laws that it is natural to love, and sacrilegious to invade? Were the rights of men understood when the law authorized or tolerated murder?—or is ...
— Mary Wollstonecraft • Elizabeth Robins Pennell
... hanging shade, in circling eddies flow. Dear peaceful scenes, that now prevail no more, Your loss shall every weeping muse deplore! Your poet, too, in one dear favour'd spot, Shall shew your beauties are not quite forgot: Protect from all the sacrilegious waste Of false improvement, and pretended taste, One tranquil vale![100] where oft, from care retir'd He courts the muse, and thinks himself inspired; Lulls busy thought, and rising hope to rest, And checks each wish that dares ...
— On the Portraits of English Authors on Gardening, • Samuel Felton
... benches, they bestrode the railing, they swarmed over the altar, shouting and carousing in riotous wassail. Their coarse red shirts were flung back from hairy chests, their faces were distorted with rum and sacrilegious delight. Every station, every candlestick, had been hurled to the floor and trampled upon. The crucifix stood on its head. Sitting high on the altar, reeling and waving a communion goblet, was the drunken chief, singing a blasphemous song of ...
— The Doomswoman - An Historical Romance of Old California • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... who might be elected by the clergy. On the other hand, it was complained that this custom put the bishops and other high ecclesiastics into a relation of dependence on the lay authority; and, moreover, that, the ring and staff being badges of a spiritual function, it was sacrilegious for a ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... repeated calls made upon its wealth. But still the forty-four churches stood intact, surrounded by the noble trees that gave to the capital such a picturesque appearance; no one had dared extend a sacrilegious hand to those sanctuaries, and until then Theodore himself had shrunk from such a deed. But now he had made up his mind: the gold of Kooskuam, the silver of Bata, the treasures of Selassie should refill his empty coffers; her churches should ...
— A Narrative of Captivity in Abyssinia - With Some Account of the Late Emperor Theodore, - His Country and People • Henry Blanc
... murdered man had come out of his grave to entreat me to keep the oft-sworn vow of vengeance. Had these letters offered me no more than one single chance, one against a thousand, of obtaining one single indication of the secrets of my father's private life, I could not have hesitated. With such sacrilegious reasoning as this did I dispel the last scruples of pious respect; but I had no need of arguments for yielding to the desire which ...
— Stories of Modern French Novels • Julian Hawthorne
... he would regain his former position. With keen suffering and indignation, he rebelled against Edward's harshness and distrust. He—who had brought him there—who ought to have known him better! Moreover, there was the crushing sense of the guilt of his brothers; guilt most horrible in its sacrilegious audacity, and doubly shocking to the feelings of a family where the grim sanctity of the first Simon de Montfort, and the enlightened devotion of the second, formed such a contrast to the savage outrage of him who now bore their name. Richard, as with bare ...
— The Prince and the Page • Charlotte M. Yonge
... where is they resistless power; I swore the livery of Heaven to grace, Yet stand, to-day, a sacrilegious tower, Perjured by the witchery of thy ...
— Debris - Selections from Poems • Madge Morris
... the foot of a tree which bore the mark of a round shot and had carved into its bark the letter "H." The tree is here still and the dent of the round shot, and faintly too is to be discerned the carved letter but the bark around it seems to have been whittled away, perhaps by the sacrilegious knives of relic-seeking visitors. There is the grave of a young lieutenant in a corner of the little garden and a few private soldiers lie ...
— Camps, Quarters, and Casual Places • Archibald Forbes
... gods of the Romans under whom the Empire had flourished. It was also the custom to burn incense in front of the Emperor's statue, as an act of adoration. The Christians not only refused homage to the Roman gods, but denounced the burning of incense as sacrilegious. AURELIUS gave his sanction to the most general persecution this sect had yet suffered. The last combined effort to suppress them was under DIOCLETIAN, in 284, but it ended with the EDICT OF MILAN in 312, which famous decree gave the imperial license ...
— History of Rome from the Earliest times down to 476 AD • Robert F. Pennell
... effect) constituted the foundation of legal enactment and social opinion concerning the matter in Europe for thirteen hundred years.[268] In France the vindices flammae survived to the last; St. Louis had handed over these sacrilegious offenders to the Church to be burned; in 1750 two pederasts were burned in the Place de Greve, and only a few years before the Revolution a Capuchin monk named Pascal was ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... had previously been without a breath of stirring air, which caught up the shroud, and twisted it round a large projecting branch of one of the plane-trees. From that day the branch withered away, and remained, for ages like a black shrivelled arm uplifted to heaven, as a protest against the sacrilegious crime. This is only one of the many wondrous tales concerning Peden, who was known far and wide as "The Prophet." Peden's remains were carried to the hill above Cumnock, where the common gallows stood, and there, in spite ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... married the daughter of the Italian Count Aldobrandini, and was living in the neighborhood. Their daggers were raised, and Henry was unarmed. He sprang to the altar, and the two officiating priests interposed; but the sacrilegious Montforts killed one, and left the other for dead, and, piercing Henry again and again, slew him at the foot of the altar. Then going to the church-door, where their horses awaited them, one of them said, "I have satisfied ...
— Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... or to continue her walk. She decided for the walk. She had been feeling peculiarly toward Victor since the previous afternoon. She had not gone back in the evening, but had sent an excuse by one of the Leaguers. It was plain to her that Jane Hastings was up to mischief, and she had begun to fear—sacrilegious though she felt it to be to harbor such a suspicion—that there was man enough, weak, vain, susceptible man enough, in Victor Dorn to make Jane a danger. The more she had thought about Jane and her environment, the clearer it had become that there could ...
— The Conflict • David Graham Phillips
... defended from profanation by the strictest edicts of the all-pervading 'taboo', which condemned to instant death the sacrilegious female who should enter or touch its sacred precincts, or even so much as press with her feet the ground made holy by the ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville
... affray took place in Cheapside, and Duket, fearing he had killed his man, sought sanctuary in Bow Church. Crepyn's friends, hearing of the matter, followed and having killed Duket, disposed of their victim's body in such a way as to suggest suicide. It so happened, however, that the sacrilegious murder had been witnessed by a boy who informed against the culprits and no less than sixteen persons were hanged for the part they had taken in it. Alice, herself, was condemned to be burnt alive as being the chief ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume I • Reginald R. Sharpe
... the porch and went to his own room, returning presently with a guitar. "I've been wanting to play a little," he confessed as he tuned the neglected instrument, "but it seemed sort of sacrilegious—after coming home and finding my father gone and the ranch about to go. However—why sip sorrow with a long spoon? What's that ballad about the old-fashioned garden, Miss Kay? I like it. If you'll hum it a ...
— The Pride of Palomar • Peter B. Kyne
... paid due respect to the learned men, and has raised a sacrilegious hand against the melamed Moshe, whom he knocked down, throwing the table upon him, causing, thereby, bodily harm to the melamed and ...
— An Obscure Apostle - A Dramatic Story • Eliza Orzeszko
... nephew," replied Mr. Templeton, gravely; "those phrases are somewhat sacrilegious; I am an ...
— Ernest Maltravers, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... an earnest undertone. The gay, and what for the first time struck her as the sacrilegious words, chilled her. And for almost the first time in her life she uttered an unhesitating remonstrance. Something in the tone surprised Marion, and she looked curiously down at her little companion, but ...
— Four Girls at Chautauqua • Pansy
... is an image of the Virgin! But I should suppose they considered it sacrilegious to expose it to the ...
— Inez - A Tale of the Alamo • Augusta J. Evans
... shown by everybody, without distinction of rank. In short, the behaviour of the naval force I had the honour of commanding was even better than I could have expected of it. The service still bears the same good character, and will continue to bear it so long as no one lays a sacrilegious hand on an organisation the value of which has been thoroughly tested, and which now rests on long and ...
— Memoirs • Prince De Joinville
... ghostly creatures die or be killed, its spirit turns either into an insect or into an ant-hill. Children who would destroy such an ant-hill or throw little darts at it, are warned by their elders not to indulge in such sacrilegious sport. When the insect also dies, the series of spiritual transformations is at ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer
... this ... good grief! The Ancient Order of Hibernians, if you please, formally requests that ... since '58 Beta was launched on St. Patrick's day ... to do otherwise with this launch would be unthinkable, sacrilegious, treasonable, etc, etc." ...
— If at First You Don't... • John Brudy
... sort of religious horror filled him, although there was nothing sinister about the place, as he violated this palace of death so carefully protected against profanation. His attempt seemed to him impious and sacrilegious, and he said to himself, "Suppose this Pharaoh were to rise on his couch and strike me with his sceptre." For one moment he thought of letting fall the shroud half lifted from the body of this antique, dead civilisation, but the doctor, carried ...
— The Works of Theophile Gautier, Volume 5 - The Romance of a Mummy and Egypt • Theophile Gautier
... if he wanted to make this sacrifice he couldn't; the mere act of making it would produce so entirely catastrophic a revulsion. He could as soon have become a croquet champion or the curate of Chexington church, lines of endeavour which for him would have led straightly and simply to sacrilegious scandal or ...
— The Research Magnificent • H. G. Wells
... atoms hiding from the most powerful microscope. All things came by chance or by design. They say there is no design. We wonder that the hand that wrote the lie was not palsied. It would be, if the same Creator that filled every muscle, nerve, bone, and tissue of the sacrilegious hand, with numberless proofs of design, were not a long-suffering and ...
— The Evolution Of Man Scientifically Disproved • William A. Williams
... church, were so much concerned, a cause which it might well befit his holiness himself to support, by taking in person a journey to Germany, the spiritual thunders should so long be suspended over those sacrilegious offenders [p]. The zeal of Celestine corresponded not to the impatience of the queen-mother; and the regency of England were, for a long time, left to struggle alone with all their domestic and foreign enemies. [FN [p] Rymer, vol. i. p. 72, ...
— The History of England, Volume I • David Hume
... well suit the ideas of an autonomous hierocracy. According to the Law the current money dues fell to the priests; no king had the right to take them away and dispose of them at his pleasure. How was it possible that Jehoiada should waive his divine right and suffer such a sacrilegious invasion of sacred privileges? how was it possible that he should be blamed for his (at first) passive resistance of the illegal invasion; how was it possible at all that the priest in his own proper ...
— Prolegomena to the History of Israel • Julius Wellhausen
... room) might fall upon the desks, and fill the whole length and breadth of the library. There were 28 desks, marked with the letters of the alphabet, five feet high, and so arranged that they were separated by a moderate interval. They were loaded with books, all of which were chained, that no sacrilegious hand might [carry them off. These chains were attached to the right-hand board of every book] so that they might be readily thrown aside, and reading not be interfered with. Moreover the volumes could be opened and shut without ...
— The Care of Books • John Willis Clark
... the most of Elenko's dilapidated temple, whose smoking shell threw up a sable column in the background. The effigies of Apollo and the Muses had been dragged forth, and were being diligently broken up with mallets and hammers. Others of the sacrilegious throng were rending scrolls, or dividing vestments, or firing the grove of laurel that environed the shrine, or pelting the affrighted birds as they flew forth. The sacred vessels, however, at least those of gold and silver, appeared safe in the guardianship ...
— The Twilight of the Gods, and Other Tales • Richard Garnett
... tell you of the Old World; as if the Lord had not the power and the will to create the universe in a day, or as if he had not bestowed his gifts with an equal hand, though not with an equal mind, or equal wisdom, have they been received and used. Were they to say a worn out, and an abused, and a sacrilegious world, they might not be so ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper
... on account of his prodigious knowledge of things and books Hellenic. I soon grew to love the dear old man, and sat at his feet, like an obedient pupil, in his green old-fashioned garden at Lower Halliford. To him I first read some of my Undertones, getting many a rap over the knuckles for my sacrilegious tampering with Divine Myths. What mercy could I expect from one who had never forgiven "Johnny" Keats for his frightful perversion of the sacred mystery of Endymion and Selene? and who was horrified at the base "modernism" of Shelley's "Prometheus ...
— The Idler Magazine, Vol III. May 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... temperaments. But the Ultramontane spirit had already invaded Piedmont, and was embraced by its clergy with all the zeal of converts. There was still a Foro Ecclesiastico for the arraignment of religious offenders, and this was one of the first privileges against which Massimo d'Azeglio lifted his 'sacrilegious' hand. To go through all the list would be tedious, and would demand more explanation regarding the local modes of acquisition and tenure of religious property than would be interesting now. The object of the Siccardi laws, ...
— The Liberation of Italy • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... part of the more ancient vicarage, which an ancestor of Captain Batt's had seized in the troublous times for property which succeeded the Reformation. This Henry Batt possessed himself of houses and money without scruple; and, at last, stole the great bell of Birstall Church, for which sacrilegious theft a fine was imposed on the land, and has to be paid by the owner of the Hall ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte - Volume 1 • Elizabeth Gaskell
... was easy to perceive, with wonderful skill of needlework; and the stitch (as I am assured by ladies conversant with such mysteries) gives evidence of a now forgotten art, not to be discovered even by the process of picking out the threads. This rag of scarlet cloth—for time, and wear, and a sacrilegious moth had reduced it to little other than a rag—on careful examination, assumed the shape ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... vain, foolish, even sacrilegious, so little could he convey to her of what he believed to be the truth, and they walked in silence through the fragrance of the soft night, thinking of the colour of the sky, in which the sunset was not yet ...
— Sister Teresa • George Moore
... up in the traditions of York Hill, felt that it was almost sacrilegious to question the ...
— Judy of York Hill • Ethel Hume Patterson Bennett
... recalls the day— Alas, the cruel day!—what time her lap-dog, Her beauteous lap-dog, darling of the Graces, Sporting in youthful gayety, impressed The light mark of her ivory tooth upon The rude foot of a menial; he, with bold And sacrilegious toe, flung her away. Over and over thrice she rolled, and thrice Rumpled her silken coat, and thrice inhaled With tender nostril the thick, choking dust, Then raised imploring cries, and "Help, help, help!" She seemed to call, while ...
— Modern Italian Poets • W. D. Howells
... works of geology, or read Mr. Lewes's Sea-side Studies, will perceive that science excites poetry rather than extinguishes it. And he who contemplates the life of Goethe, must see that the poet and the man of science can co-exist in equal activity. Is it not, indeed, an absurd and almost a sacrilegious belief, that the more a man studies Nature the less he reveres it? Think you that a drop of water, which to the vulgar eye is but a drop of water, loses anything in the eye of the physicist who knows that its elements are held together by a force which, if suddenly liberated, would ...
— Essays on Education and Kindred Subjects - Everyman's Library • Herbert Spencer
... but she's just too fine for it. It's like seeing a clumsy person handlin' one of them spun glass things, the way I have to sit still and see Providence dealing with Savilla Dassonville. It may be sort of sacrilegious to say so, but I declare it ...
— The Lovely Lady • Mary Austin
... long roofless, is overgrown with trees, that rustle melancholy sounds in the light joyous breeze. Creeping in by a dwarf door or rather hole, my Gudabirsi guides showed me a bright object forming the key of the arch: as it shone they suspected silver, and the End of Time whispered a sacrilegious plan for purloining it. Inside the vault were three graves apparently empty, and upon the dark sunken floor lay several rounded stones, resembling cannon balls, and used as weights by the more civilised Somal. ...
— First footsteps in East Africa • Richard F. Burton
... more zeal than discretion, and with so much heat, that he not only preferred our worship to theirs, but condemned all their rites as profane, and cried out against all that adhered to them as impious and sacrilegious persons, that were to be damned to everlasting burnings. Upon his having frequently preached in this manner he was seized, and after trial he was condemned to banishment, not for having disparaged their religion, but for his inflaming the people ...
— Utopia • Thomas More
... said, "Graham, you and I accepted the belief long ago that man was only highly organized matter. I must admit to you that my mind has often revolted at this belief; and the thought that Grace was merely of the earth has always seemed to me sacrilegious. She never was what you would call a religious girl; but she once had a quiet, simple faith in a God and a hereafter, and she expected to see her mother again. I fear that our views have troubled her exceedingly; although with that rare reserve in ...
— His Sombre Rivals • E. P. Roe
... There was no cruel tearing of the veil from those sacred privacies of the human affection—there was no forensic shouting out of those fond confidences meant only for one. But there was, he was shocked to say, a new sacrilegious intrusion. The weak pipings of Cupid were mingled with the chorus of the saints—the sanctity of the temple known as the "meeting-house" was desecrated by proceedings more in keeping with the shrine of Venus—and the inspired writings themselves ...
— The Best American Humorous Short Stories • Various
... Amendment."[170] In the so-called "Miracle Case,"[171] in which it was held that under the First and Fourteenth Amendments, a State may not place a prior restraint on the showing of a motion picture film on the basis of the censor's finding that it is "sacrilegious," a word of uncertain connotation, this point of view becomes the doctrine of the Court and the Mutual Films Case is pronounced "overruled" so far as it is out of harmony ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin
... cold about me, and my eyes overflow with tears of joy, while an awful confusion seizes me all over; and I am certain should the most harden'd of your bloody rebels look him in the face, the devilish instrument of death would drop from his sacrilegious hand, and leave him confounded at the feet of the royal forgiving sufferer; his eyes have in them something so fierce, so majestic, commanding, and yet so good and merciful, as would soften rebellion itself into ...
— Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister • Aphra Behn
... certain reverence; and the Vidame assured me that such actually was the case. Already, being dedicate to the Christmas rite, it had become in a way sacred; and along with its sanctity, according to the popular belief, it had acquired a power which enabled it sharply to resent anything that smacked of sacrilegious affront. The belief was well rooted, he added by way of instance, that any one who sat on a yule-log would pay in his person for his temerity either with a dreadful stomach-ache that would not permit him to eat his Christmas dinner, or would ...
— The Christmas Kalends of Provence - And Some Other Provencal Festivals • Thomas A. Janvier
... trained, by a father and mother whose marriage union was an ideal of mutual love, honor, and respect, to feel that marriage was the holiest and most awful of obligations. To her, the idea of a husband or a wife betraying each other's weaknesses or faults by complaints to a third party seemed something sacrilegious; and she used all her womanly tact and skill to prevent any conversation that might lead to such ...
— Pink and White Tyranny - A Society Novel • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... raise one feeble voice against a practice sanctioned by all nations, and hallowed by the most solemn religious rites, appears almost sacrilegious. There is something so beautiful, so poetical, so sacred, in this outward sign of a deep and heartfelt sorrow, that to deprive death of his sable habiliments—the melancholy hearse, funeral plumes, sombre pall, and ...
— Life in the Clearings versus the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... concerning one Pedro d'Ortez and his descendants, is here set down at the special prayer and persuasion of said d'Ortez, a profane and sacrilegious lord, yet whose past service to the Holy Church should not be forgotten, though his late riotous and ungodly life hath ...
— The Black Wolf's Breed - A Story of France in the Old World and the New, happening - in the Reign of Louis XIV • Harris Dickson
... escape." Chosen for victim, Sinon had fled. He solemnly declares the horse to be an offering to Pallas. "Destroy it, and you are lost. Preserve it in your citadel, your revenge is assured" (127-222). Treachery triumphs. Laocoon's cruel fate is ascribed to his sacrilegious attack upon the horse, which is brought with rejoicing into Troy, despite a last warning, from Cassandra (223-288). While Troy sleeps, the fleet returns, and Sinon releases the Greeks from the horse (289-315). ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil - Translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor • Virgil
... of the slightest; there is scarcely a genuinely dramatic incident from beginning to end. The audience wearies of a succession of pretty pictures and sentimental soliloquies or dialogues, mouths begin to gape, and the attention wanders. Is this sacrilege? If it be, I must be content to be sacrilegious. But there is scope for careful and graceful acting, and of this the O. U. D. S. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, February 18, 1893 • Various
... before her Maker appeared to Miss Philura little short of sacrilegious; but the thought of the mysterious Abundance of which the seeress had spoken, urging itself, as it were, upon her acceptance, encouraged her. She arose from her evening orisons with a glowing face. "I have asked," she said aloud, "and I ...
— The Transfiguration of Miss Philura • Florence Morse Kingsley
... ensnared in the net woven by Lans's blind passion and irresponsibility, seemed so incapable of fulfilling any role that demanded the recognition of her as a wife in this superficial environment that Matilda felt immoral and sacrilegious. She wanted to say, instead of leaving it to a higher power, "Your task is done, lil' girl! Run back to your hills!" but ...
— A Son of the Hills • Harriet T. Comstock
... way; and among others this, that, in the first fervour of the Crusades, the men who took the Cross, after receiving communion, heartily devoted the day to the extermination of Jews. To judge them by a fixed standard, to call them sacrilegious fanatics or furious hypocrites, was to yield a gratuitous victory to Voltaire. It became a rule of policy to praise the spirit when you could not defend the deed. So that we have no common code; our moral notions are always fluid; ...
— Lectures on Modern history • Baron John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton
... out: the sacred garments of Mrs. P. had not only been touched by sacrilegious hands, but had had an airing, and smelt the lamps of the play-house! Mrs. Pompaliner was so shocked, that four first-class physicians tended ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley
... buried the Sunday before the messenger came. This saltpeter man had digged in the Colledge Church for his work, bearing too bold upon his commission. The news of it came to me to London about November 26. I went to my Lord Keeper, and had a messenger sent to bring him up to answer that sacrilegious abuse. He ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 208, October 22, 1853 • Various
... eyes of the sacrilegious murderer. Madness which helped him not only to carry his grim task to the end, but, having accomplished it, to see that it ...
— The Nest of the Sparrowhawk • Baroness Orczy
... his eyes a serpent-smile, Upon his lips some false, endearing word, And through the streets of Salem clang'd the while His slaughtering, hacking, sacrilegious sword— And I, to see a man cause men such woe, Trembled with ire—I did not ...
— Poems • (AKA Charlotte, Emily and Anne Bronte) Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell
... they spoke no more of the matter; but Ann Eliza now understood that the little black bag about her sister's neck, which she had innocently taken for a memento of Ramy, was some kind of sacrilegious amulet, and her fingers shrank from its contact when she bathed and dressed Evelina. It seemed to her the diabolical instrument of ...
— Bunner Sisters • Edith Wharton
... favourable tradition represents the king as an avaricious and irreligious sovereign: he is said one day to have conceived the sacrilegious desire to bring about a conflict between an ordinary bull and the Mnevis adored at Heliopolis. The gods, doubtless angered by his crimes, are recorded to have called into being a lamb with eight feet, which, suddenly breaking into articulate ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 7 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... Sick at heart, the master returned to the schoolhouse. As he lit his lamp and seated himself at his desk, he found a note lying before him addressed to himself, in Mliss's handwriting. It seemed to be written on a leaf torn from some old memorandum book, and, to prevent sacrilegious trifling, had been sealed with six broken wafers. Opening it almost tenderly, the master ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... the wedding ring of England, which is still placed upon the finger of the sovereign after he has received the insignia of royalty, had its origin in this sacred ring. We turn to the shrine itself, and try to picture it in all its pristine beauty before the sacrilegious hand of the despoiler had touched it. West of the shrine is a modern altar, the ancient one was destroyed long since, but hitherto a wooden table was temporarily placed here at coronations, for which this marble altar was substituted on the last occasion. The modern gilt {71} group ...
— Westminster Abbey • Mrs. A. Murray Smith
... so entrenched itself in his heart, that even the Pope and papal church were not so papal as he. The man who came to him with the Pope's endorsement appeared to him like a god, while he would gladly have overwhelmed in ruin the sacrilegious wretch that dared to say a word against the ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird
... knelt in a pink flannel nightgown, her thin hair down her back, her forehead as full of horror as a mask of tragedy, while she identified her love for the Son of God with her love for a mortal, and wondered if any other woman had ever been so sacrilegious. She wanted to be a nun and observe perpetual adoration. She bought a rosary, but she had been so bitterly reared as a Protestant that she could not ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... neither can nor will discover more; The gods will punish you, if they be just; The gods will plague your sacrilegious lust. ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. II • Edited by Walter Scott
... his desire to re-unite the saintly colleagues. This time, apparently in consequence of Deusdona's opposition to any further resurrectionist doings, he took counsel with a Greek monk, one Basil, and, accompanied by Hunus, but saying nothing to Deusdona, they committed another sacrilegious burglary, securing this time, not only the body of the blessed Petrus, but a quantity of dust, which they agreed the priest should take, and tell his employer that it was the remains of the blessed Tiburtius. How Deusdona was "squared," and what he got for his not very valuable complicity ...
— Lectures and Essays • Thomas Henry Huxley
... a day older than Drew's sister, and she's powerful cheerful for an afflicted person. But maybe she ain't afflicted. They ain't, always. She looks as if she was dressing up in them togs for fun, and at first glimpse it strikes one as sacrilegious. Something like a kid using ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock
... 2. These sacrilegious dramatis personae were discussing in detail a suggestive and exhaustive address, delivered from the proscenium box of the Calisthenic Lyceum by a notable financier on obligatory hydropathy, as accessory to the irrevocable and irreparable doctrine ...
— 1001 Questions and Answers on Orthography and Reading • B. A. Hathaway
... flourished the paper above his head. Instantly the column was in an uproar. Caps were thrown into the air, voices grew hoarse with shouting; frantic gesticulation, tearful eyes and laughter, yells, inane antics, queer combinations of sacrilegious oaths and absurd embraces were everywhere to be seen ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... you here is about as sacrilegious as it would have been to thrust St. Catherine among the chain-gang in the galleys," muttered ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... rumor of Jack's own death, she began dimly to admit of palliation in her lover's fatal act. Her father, the Boone faction, all who had access to her, held the shooting to be a craftily planned murder, calculated to bring advantage to the assassin. To check the sacrilegious love she felt in her heart, she too had been forced to believe, to admit the worst. But when the image of Jack came to her mind, as it did day and night, it was as the gay, frank, chivalrous Hotspur, as unlike a murderer ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... Everything belonging or related to so popular an order, its possessions, its privileges, its doctrines, necessarily appeared sacred in the eyes of the common people; and every violation of them, whether real or pretended, the highest act of sacrilegious wickedness and profaneness. In this state of things, if the sovereign frequently found it difficult to resist the confederacy of a few of the great nobility, we cannot wonder that he should find it still more so to resist the united force of the clergy of his own dominions, ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith
... and flake. Architects cannot teach nature anything. Let me remove this matting—it is put here to preserve the pavement; now there is a bit of pavement that is seven hundred years old; you can see by these scattering clusters of colored mosaics how beautiful it was before time and sacrilegious idlers marred it. Now there, in the border, was an inscription, once see, follow the circle-you can trace it by the ornaments that have been pulled out—here is an A and there is an O, and yonder another A—all beautiful Old English capitals; there is no telling ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... thing, [23] but not actually doing it, is not worthy of punishment. But if Polybius could think that Antiochus thus lost his life on that account, it is much more probable that this king died on account of his sacrilegious plundering of the temple at Jerusalem. But we will not contend about this matter with those who may think that the cause assigned by this Polybius of Megalopolis is nearer the truth than ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... supernatural voice, and also from Criton's reports, of the sacrilegious larceny M. Coignard committed by which he flattered himself to find out the art by which Salamanders, Sylphs, and Gnomes ripen the morning dew and insensibly change it ...
— The Queen Pedauque • Anatole France
... the house of God!" thundered Mr. Shorto-Champernowne, with tones so resonant that they woke rafter echoes the organ itself had never roused. "Silence, and cease this sacrilegious brawling, or the consequences will be unutterably serious! Let those involved," he concluded more calmly, "appear before me in the vestry after divine service ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts
... any Land which doth not either pay, or do some Duty to the King. Only one case excepted, and that is, if they give or dedicate Land to a Priest, as an Alms or Deed of Charity in God's Name. On that there is never any more Tax or Duty to be imposed, as being Sacrilegious to take ought from one that belongs to the Temple. [Custom of goods imported formerly paid.] Formerly the King had the Benefit of the trade of two Ports Cotiar and Portalone, unto each of which used to come yearly some twenty or thirty Sail of small Vessel, which brought considerable ...
— An Historical Relation Of The Island Ceylon In The East Indies • Robert Knox
... times came, getting up a comfortable trade with the intrusive infidels they had so lately belabored. The reputation for wealth acquired by this astute community seems to have brought its troubles upon the enterprising diocesans, for tradition has it that in the eleventh century Viscount Dax laid sacrilegious hands upon their property. Whether he was too strong for the carnal weapon or spiritual manifestations were deemed more appropriate to his particular case, history does not record, but certain it is that the rebellious noble, being deaf to expostulation, was excommunicated, and resenting that, ...
— A Midsummer Drive Through The Pyrenees • Edwin Asa Dix
... that their punishments be multiplied. He caused prayers to be said by the convents and parishes, noting that beyond doubt the sins of the people were great, since the Lord was working against them and permitted that the sacrament be taken from its place and dwelling in so sacrilegious a manner. For no less in the present desecration than in that which these sacrilegious Jews practiced toward our Lord in the garden, the gravity of the sin is recognized, since He allows such treatment. And no less is the love recognized which He ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXIV, 1630-34 • Various
... homelessness of men, and even of inanimate vessels, cast away upon strange shores, came strongly in upon my mind. To make a profit of such pitiful misadventures seemed an unmanly and a sordid act; and I began to think of my then quest as of something sacrilegious in its nature. But when I remembered Mary I took heart again. My uncle would never consent to an imprudent marriage, nor would she, as I was persuaded, wed without his full approval. It behoved me, then, to be up and doing ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XXI • Robert Louis Stevenson
... moustache. As he made his reverence, his rich robes fell over a faultless form. He was a beau to the very fold of the cambric band round his throat; with long ends of the richest, closest point that was ever rummaged out from a foreign nunnery to be placed on the person of this sacrilegious sinner. ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 1 • Grace Wharton and Philip Wharton
... he answered. "If any advice of mine—But I couldn't go through that sacrilegious farce of being near you and not"—She waited breathlessly, a condensed eternity, for him to go on; but he stopped at that word, and added: "How ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... mercy hovered over me afar. Upon how grievous iniquities consumed I myself, pursuing a sacrilegious curiosity, that having forsaken Thee, it might bring me to the treacherous abyss, and the beguiling service of devils, to whom I sacrificed my evil actions, and in all these things Thou didst scourge me! I dared even, while Thy solemnities were celebrated within the walls of Thy Church, ...
— The Confessions of Saint Augustine • Saint Augustine
... replied a smiling habitan, "it was not we, but the sacrilegious canaille of St. Anne who boiled the Easter eggs! If you don't believe us, send some of the good Gray Friars down to try our love. See if they do not find everything soft for them at Beauport, from our hearts ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... what the French call effarement was ever expressed on a human countenance it was on this occasion, testifying to his modesty, his sensibility and his innocence. He looked afraid of somebody overhearing my audacious—almost sacrilegious hint—as if there had not been a mile and a half of lonely marshland and dykes between us and the nearest human habitation. And then perhaps he remembered the soothing fact for he allowed a gleam to light up his eyes, like the reflection of some inward fire ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad
... them into conflict. To the former the latter are "intruders." To the latter the former are "refractories." By virtue of his being a guardian of souls, the former cannot dispense with telling his parishioners that the intruder is excommunicated, that his sacraments are null or sacrilegious, and that it is a sin to attend his mass. By virtue of his being a public functionary, the latter does not fail to write to the authorities that the "refractory" entraps the faithful, excites their ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 2 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 1 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... could do as he liked with it!" said a mild, piping falsetto; "And so far, he has made it beau-ti-ful!—beau-ti-ful!" carved with traceries of natural fruit and foliage, which were scarcely injured by the devastating mark of time. But rough and sacrilegious hands had been at work to spoil and deface the classic remains of the time-worn edifice, and some of the lancet windows had been actually hewn out and widened to admit of the insertion of modern timber props which awkwardly supported a hideous galvanised iron roof, on the ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... Christian subjects the free exercise of their religion, permitted them to build churches, elect bishops, and conduct services at their pleasure, and even suffered them to bury their dead, though such pollution of the earth was accounted sacrilegious by the Zoroastrians. No unworthy compliances with the established cult were required of them. Proselytism, however, was not allowed; and all Christian sects were perhaps not viewed with equal favor. Chosroes, at any rate, is accused of persecuting the Catholics and the Monophysites, ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 7. (of 7): The Sassanian or New Persian Empire • George Rawlinson
... "I tried to detain him, but suspecting some discovery he forced his way out, sword in hand, and has gone I do not know in what direction; but he cannot be far—saddle all the horses in my stable and pursue the sacrilegious wretch. I would sacrifice half my worldly wealth, that he ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Captain Frederick Marryat
... interval of radiant peace it seemed to descend upon him with an ugly violence. It was true; nothing that they could do now would alter it. And, of course, the thing was serious. If anything in life was serious, this was. It was frightful—it seemed sacrilegious to connect such things for an instant with Julia. Dear little Julia, with her crisp little uniforms, her authority in the classroom, her charming deference to Aunt Sanna! ...
— The Story Of Julia Page - Works of Kathleen Norris, Volume V. • Kathleen Norris
... himself to expose to his judges the disorders and scandals to which the Spouse of Christ was exposed by the Civil Constitution of the Clergy; he proposed to depict the eldest daughter of the Church waging sacrilegious war upon the Pope, the French clergy robbed, outraged, subjected to the odious domination of laics, the regulars, Christ's true army, despoiled and scattered. He cited St. Gregory the Great and St. Irenaeus, quoted numerous articles of the Canon Law ...
— The Gods are Athirst • Anatole France
... remark to the ear of anyone who has genuine talent, whether artist or author or poet, or what you please, sounds like a sacrilegious blasphemy. ...
— To-morrow? • Victoria Cross
... came the emancipation of the States of the Church by Cavour and Victor Emmanuel. Newman referred to the Piedmontese as 'sacrilegious robbers,' but his advocacy of the temporal power was not strong enough to please the Vatican, while the strength of Manning's language left nothing to be desired. Newman became more unpopular than ever. His ...
— Outspoken Essays • William Ralph Inge
... leave the church," growled Graves. "In my mind it's almost sacrilegious for women to dare to go so far that some of the best of its members will leave a well-regulated church. Maria, you must talk to Mrs. Hall and ...
— Tess of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White
... mystical corruption that does actually exist in our midst. I do not know whether the monstrous tableau of the Black Mass—so marvellously, so revoltingly described in the central episode of the book—is still enacted in our days, but I do know that all but the most horrible practices of the sacrilegious magic of the Middle Ages are yet performed, from time to time, in a secrecy which is all but absolute. The character of Madame Chantelouve is an attempt, probably the first in literature, to diagnose a case of Sadism in a woman. To say that it is successful ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons
... emphasize the fact that the ancient builders had not made pure Gospel teaching their sure foundation. But, by the irony of fate, the text had become a striking commentary upon the fortunes of later possessors of sacrilegious spoils; for it was a tradition—upon which the family kept a discreet silence—that three male heirs in direct succession had never lived to inherit the property. At the very time of which I am writing, Colonel Ashol's only son was suffering ...
— Up in Ardmuirland • Michael Barrett
... and unreserved attachment to the Papacy, and that inflexible spirit which all his virtues rendered but the more dangerous, made his death as advantageous, at that time, as the means by which it was effected were sacrilegious and detestable. ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... made, From feasts you deign'd to grace, you wip'd his name, And gave him o'er to infamy and shame: And when, tho' late, he made a bold appeal To arms, from frowning Peers and fawning zeal, And dar'd attempt with sacrilegious sword, To offer equal combat to a LORD, Sudden your noble limbs your coursers bore, From Berkshire's hills to Avon's distant shore: And eager to preserve from foul disgrace, Th' unsullied honors of a noble ...
— An Heroic Epistle to the Right Honourable the Lord Craven (3rd Ed.) • William Combe |
