"Propitiate" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... chance to go To Hades, do not fail to throw A "Sop to Cerberus" at the gate, His anger to propitiate. Don't say "Good dog!" and hope thereby His three fierce Heads to pacify. What though he try to be polite And wag his Tail with all his might, How shall one amiable Tail Against three angry Heads prevail? The Heads must win.—What puzzles ...
— The Mythological Zoo • Oliver Herford
... of the tour, gave, on her return, so lamentable an account of Mr. Adolphus Young, to whom the headstrong girl had united her destiny, that it operated as a chill upon family feeling—especially in the case of the half-brothers. Catherine had done nothing subsequently to propitiate her family; she had not even written to them in a way that indicated a lucid appreciation of their suspended sympathy; so that it had become a tradition in Boston circles that the highest charity, as regards this young lady, was to think it well to forget her, and to abstain from conjecture ...
— The Europeans • Henry James
... fighting the battles of England, and can be worn with credit to yourself and to your country; but these baubles are sent to me, at a moment when a rising was foreseen, and as a sop to keep me in good-humour, as well as to propitiate the ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... against her had been physical. A sick longing surged over her for Aunt Enid, into whose arms she could rush for comfort. But there was no Aunt Enid to turn to, and it was no use seeking Aunt Isobel, whose sole advice in such a crisis was to apologize and propitiate. ...
— Quin • Alice Hegan Rice
... hardly credit and was wholly impotent to express. With a face, voice, and manner trained through forty years to terrify and repel, Rhadamanthus may be great, but he will scarce be engaging. It is a fact that he tried to propitiate Archie, but a fact that cannot be too lightly taken; the attempt was so unconspicuously made, the failure so stoically supported. Sympathy is not due to these steadfast iron natures. If he failed to gain his son's friendship, or even his son's toleration, on he went up the great, bare ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... not whether greater relaxation may not he indulged, and whether hope as well as gratitude may not unblamably produce a dedication; but let the writer who pours out his praises only to propitiate power, or attract the attention of greatness, be cautious lest his desire betray him to exuberant eulogies. We are naturally more apt to please ourselves with the future than the past, and while we luxuriate in expectation, may ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson
... wish to give me the money," she said, trying to propitiate me in that way, "I am ready ...
— The Two Destinies • Wilkie Collins
... sallied forth, under the belief that he was able to propitiate the powers that be, without a single carnal weapon, and loaded only with a ...
— Canoe Mates in Canada - Three Boys Afloat on the Saskatchewan • St. George Rathborne
... maintain and send forth armies; vain are the crowds of civil and military officers about our palace! Which of them will drive back for us these foreign troops? They are all afraid of the Tartar swords and arrows! But if they cannot exert themselves to expel the barbarians, why call for the princess to propitiate them? ...
— Chinese Literature • Anonymous
... whatever may be his own superiority of social rank or worldly circumstances; and that, therefore, his conduct should be marked by a delicate respect towards the parents of his lady-love. By this means he will propitiate them in his favour, and induce them to regard him as worthy of the trust ...
— Routledge's Manual of Etiquette • George Routledge
... Robert Peel, he added, had imperilled these institutions of the country more than Cobbett or O'Connell; he had broken up the old interests, divided the great families, and thrown personal hostility into the social life of half the counties of England—and all to propitiate Richard Cobden. Such was the bitter cry of the outcast Protectionist, and similar vapourings arose in cliques and clubs all over the land. The abolition of the Corn Laws was the last measure of Sir Robert Peel's political life, and he owed the victory, which was ...
— Lord John Russell • Stuart J. Reid
... you perhaps know the nature of your people better than I do. But I know them well enough not to trust them. They stickle at nothing to accomplish an end; and their preachers can soon convince them that slavery is a sin, and that they are responsible for its existence here, and that they can only propitiate offended Deity by its abolition. You are a peculiar people, Holmes, prone to fanaticism upon all subjects, and this fanaticism concentrated as a religious duty—the Constitution will only prove a barrier of straw. No, ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks
... the hall, and the library was not the only one that led on into the conservatory; the drawing-room was another, in which I heard voices as I lit a cigarette among the palms and tree-ferns. It struck me that poor Mr. Garland was finding it hard work to propitiate the lady whom Raffles had deemed unworthy of mention overnight. But I own I was in no hurry to take over the invidious task. To me it need prove nothing more; to him, anguish; but I could not help feeling ...
— Mr. Justice Raffles • E. W. Hornung
... seventy-two," shouted the usher again, and as the witness was a Jew, his hat was sent for. "There's a lot of history behind that hat," said Mr. Clarkson, wishing to propitiate public opinion. ...
— Essays in Rebellion • Henry W. Nevinson
... gradually crumbling to dust, and nearly all of which are dirty beyond description. Immediately after the Spanish conquest a rage possessed the victors to build churches, without regard to the necessary population for their support, perhaps hoping thereby to propitiate heaven for their rapaciousness and outrageous oppression of the native race. The criminal extortion exercised by the priesthood and their followers forms a dark blot upon the escutcheon of both the church and the state. O Christianity, ...
— Aztec Land • Maturin M. Ballou
... the trough, tossed a few drops over his shoulder to propitiate the god of the kava-drinking, and placed the shell in ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien
... fortitude—that is, I feel sure I could—but toothache, no! I am not ashamed of it. Every brave man has at least one weakness. Lord ROBERTS'S was cats. Achilles' was tendons. Mine is toothache (Biographers, please note). When my jaw annoys me I try to propitiate it with libations of whisky, brandy, iodine, horse-blister and patent panaceas I buy from sombreroed magicians in the Strand. If these fail I totter round to the dentist, ring the bell and run away. If the maid catches me before I can escape and turns me into the waiting-room I examine ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, January 14, 1920 • Various
... aged dame called Bessie Millie, who helped out her subsistence by selling favourable winds to mariners. He was a venturous master of a vessel who left the roadstead of Stromness without paying his offering to propitiate Bessie Millie! Her fee was extremely moderate, being exactly sixpence, for which she boiled her kettle and gave the bark the advantage of her prayers, for she disclaimed all unlawful acts. The wind thus petitioned for was sure, she ...
— Records of a Family of Engineers • Robert Louis Stevenson
... blighted or a crop does not promise well, a gourd is placed in the pathway; passengers set up a wailing cry, which they intend as a prayer to the spirits to give a good crop to their mourning relatives. Rumanika, in order to propitiate the spirit of his father, was in the habit of sacrificing annually a cow on his tomb, and also of placing offerings on it of corn and wine. These and many other instances show that, though their minds are dark and misguided, the people possess religious sentiments which ...
— Great African Travellers - From Mungo Park to Livingstone and Stanley • W.H.G. Kingston
... gratitude to God. Their belief in Him is universal, and their confidence in his goodness and mercy almost exceeds belief. Their Almighty Creator is always before their eyes on all important occasions. They feel and acknowledge, his supreme power. They also endeavour to propitiate Him by outward worship or sacrifices. These are religious solemnities, intended to make themselves acceptable to the Great Spirit, to find favour in His sight, and to obtain His forgiveness for past errors ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 1 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... widow of forty-five, who was ready to nurse his now declining years. That year 1822 was a year of much sorrow; the cholera, said to have first appeared in 1817, became very virulent. The Hindoos viewed it as a visitation from the goddess of destruction, and held services to propitiate it, and when that had passed away, a more than usually fatal form of fever set in. Krishnu-pal, the first convert, who had for twenty years been a consistent Christian, was one of the first to be taken away. ...
— Pioneers and Founders - or, Recent Workers in the Mission field • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... his theme, that the attempt to win any favour for his performance from the Saxon reader, is attended with no small risk,—although it is possible that a little practice with the rifle in any similar wilderness may propitiate even the holiday sportsman somewhat in favour of the subject and its minute details. We must commit this forest minstrel to the good-nature of other readers, entreating them only to render due acknowledgment to the forbearance which has, in the meantime, troubled them ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel , Volume I. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... as her eyes meet his; and turning upon the couch of her chamber, where he hath lain her, awakes to consciousness, and finds him watching over her with a lover's solicitude. "I was not cold because I loved you less-oh no! It was to propitiate my ambition-to be free of the bondage of this house-to purge myself of the past-to better my future!" And she lays her pale, nervous hand gently on his arm-then grasps his hand and presses ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams
... yet approached. He had at length found a publisher willing to print, and apparently at his own risk, "The Candidate—a Poetical Epistle to the Authors of the Monthly Review," that journal being the chief organ of literary criticism at the time. The idea of this attempt to propitiate the critics in advance, with a view to other poetic efforts in the future, was not felicitous. The publisher, "H. Payne, opposite Marlborough House, Pall Mall," had pledged himself that the author should receive some share of the profits, ...
— Crabbe, (George) - English Men of Letters Series • Alfred Ainger
... god Ammon appeared to him in a dream; in consequence of which he raised the siege, imagining this to be the will of the god, ordered the inhabitants to sacrifice to Ammon, and himself made preparations for proceeding at once to Libya to propitiate the god. Most persons, however, imagined that this was a mere pretence, but that really he feared the Ephors, and was unable to endure the harsh discipline of life at Sparta, and therefore wished to travel abroad, just as a horse longs for liberty when he has been ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume II • Aubrey Stewart & George Long
... the merits of a hansom cab had been always made when it was the right way up. Let me, therefore, explain how I felt when I fell out of a hansom cab for the first and, I am happy to believe, the last time. Polycrates threw one ring into the sea to propitiate the Fates. I have thrown one hansom cab into the sea (if you will excuse a rather violent metaphor) and the Fates are, I am quite sure, propitiated. Though I am told they do not like ...
— Tremendous Trifles • G. K. Chesterton
... of the common belief among the agricultural classes of villages being haunted by the spirits of ancient proprietors whom it was thought necessary to propitiate. 'He knew', he said, 'many instances where these spirits were so very froward that the present heads of villages which they haunted, and the members of their little communities, found it almost impossible to keep them in good humour; ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... happy-omened. Our own left seems equally to mean the hand that is left after the right has been mentioned, or, in short, the other one. Many things which are lucky if seen on the right are fateful omens if seen to leftward. On the other hand, if you spill the salt, you propitiate destiny by tossing a pinch of it over the left shoulder. A murderer's left hand is said by good authorities to be an excellent thing to do magic with; but here I cannot speak from personal experience. Nor do I know why the wedding-ring ...
— Falling in Love - With Other Essays on More Exact Branches of Science • Grant Allen
... us an altar, tug at the cliff-boulders, pile them with the rough stones— we no longer sleep in the wind, propitiate us. ...
— Sea Garden • Hilda Doolittle
... the religious terrors and remorse of Michelangelo's old age; says that "his fancy became haunted with doubts and fears; every day discovering fresh sins in the past, inveighing against the very art which made him famous among men, and seeking to propitiate Paradise for his soul by acts of charity to dowerless maidens." The sonnets to Vasari and some others are quoted in support of this view. But the question remains, whether it is not exaggerated to regard pious aspirations, and a sense of human life's inadequacy at its close, as the signs ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds
... great vogue just then; and the little fellow used to buy it, and roast it on the Sunday. There was a cheap periodical of selected pieces called the Portfolio, which he had also a great fancy for taking home with him. The new proposed "deed," meanwhile, had failed to propitiate his father's creditors; all hope of arrangement passed away; and the end was that his mother and her encampment in Gower Street north broke up and went to live in the Marshalsea. I am able at this point ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... of some power higher than his own. The world then and its various familiar objects become for him peopled with spirits, like in character to men, but more powerful, and his success in life and its various operations depends on the degree in which he is able to propitiate these spirits and secure their co-operation. If he desires rain, he must win the favour of the spirit who controls it, if he would fell a tree and suffer no harm, he must by suitable offerings entice the indwelling spirit to leave it. ...
— The Religion of Ancient Rome • Cyril Bailey
... and other animals are sacrificed daily at her shrine. We saw the bloody work going forward. Crowds of pilgrims, numbering at least three hundred during our short stay, came in bands from the country to propitiate the goddess. Each one presents an offering as the idol is shown. It is the most disgusting object I have ever seen, and a sight of it would, I am sure, frighten children into crying. The business is skilfully managed. ...
— Round the World • Andrew Carnegie
... Strove by wise counsel to encourage him For life's important duties, But he deem'd A ban was on him, and a mark which all Would scan who met him. "He whose lot hath been With fiends in Pandemonium, must expect Hate and contempt from men." "Not so, my son! Wipe off the past, as a forgotten thing, Propitiate virtue, by forsaking vice. The good will aid you, and a brighter day Doubtless awaits you. Be not too much moved By man's applause or blame, but ever look Unto a higher Judge." Then there arose A voice of supplication, so intense To the ...
— Man of Uz, and Other Poems • Lydia Howard Sigourney
... Hector did not follow the custom of her Indian fathers, and offer the first duck or the best fish to propitiate the Great Spirit. Hector told her that the God he worshipped desired no sacrifice; that his holy Son, when he came down from heaven and gave himself as a sacrifice for the sin of the world, had satisfied his Father, ...
— Lost in the Backwoods • Catharine Parr Traill
... entered Jewel's room after speaking with the doctor. The little girl looked at her eagerly. A plan had formed in her mind which depended for its success largely on the housekeeper's complaisance, and she wished to propitiate her. ...
— Jewel - A Chapter In Her Life • Clara Louise Burnham
... visited the region where this great mine was said to be emboweled in the earth. Here the wily Shawanoe spent some time in seclusion, in order to humble himself by fastings, purifications and pow-wowings, with a view to propitiate the Great Spirit; and to get His permission to disclose the grand secret of the mine. An equivocal answer was all the response that was given to him in his dreams; and, after many days of fruitless toil and careful research, ...
— Life of Tecumseh, and of His Brother the Prophet - With a Historical Sketch of the Shawanoe Indians • Benjamin Drake
... question in the words, a timorously expectant question. Emma had learnt the sad lesson of hope deferred, always to meet discouragement halfway. It is thus one seeks to propitiate the evil powers, to turn the edge of ...
— Demos • George Gissing
... this noble veteran were prepared to march. Previously, however, to their departure from the city, they piously bent their steps towards the cathedral, where divine service was performed with great pomp, to propitiate heaven in favour of its servants. The archbishop delivered an eloquent oration inculcating on the Christians their duty, and the glory of their enterprize; pointing out fame and honour to the survivors—an eternal ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio
... disease and ancestors, and of avoidance of acts traditionally displeasing to them. There is neither worship nor propitiation. An anthropomorphic deity, Puluga, is the cause of all things, but it is not necessary to propitiate him. There is a vague idea that the "soul'' will go somewhere after death, but there is no heaven nor hell, nor idea of a corporeal resurrection. There is much faith in dreams, and in the utterances of certain "wise men,'' who practise ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... been entirely obliterated by the cult which superseded them. The belief in the power of malignant spirits to cause misfortune, sickness, and death is still strong among the Malays, whose pawangs or medicine-men claim to be able to propitiate demons by spells, prayers, and offerings. These men frequently invoke benevolent spirits by the names of Rama, Vishnu, and other Hindu deities, in complete ignorance that they are Hindu,[36] to counteract the evil influences ...
— A Manual of the Malay language - With an Introductory Sketch of the Sanskrit Element in Malay • William Edward Maxwell
... or chapel is generally to be found throughout the whole Christian world near a ferry, to which the passenger went to propitiate the Deity before embarking, and to express ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 333 - Vol. 12, Issue 333, September 27, 1828 • Various
... labors of Niebuhr made the truth generally known,—if it can, indeed, be said to be so known even now. The Gracchi long passed for a couple of demagogues, who were engaged in seditious practices, and who were so very anxious to propitiate "the forum populace" that they were employed in perfecting plans for the division of all landed property amongst its members, when they were cut off by a display of vigor on the part of the government. "The Sedition of the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 18, April, 1859 - [Date last updated: August 7, 2005] • Various
... figure, the long white veil, in which she was shrouded, overshadowing rather than concealing the elegance and majesty of her shape. Her demeanour was that of respect, unmingled by the least shade either of fear, or of a wish to propitiate favour. Rowena was ever ready to acknowledge the claims, and attend to the feelings, of others. She arose, and would have conducted her lovely visitor to a seat; but the stranger looked at Elgitha, ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... made the old place look a different thing; also there was some laughing pleasant chatter about Prim's trunk. It was funny to see how both the ladies sat with their faces turned towards Dane three-quarters of the time; Prudentia possibly with a desire to propitiate, Primrose forgetting everything else in the moment's pleasure of seeing him; and both of them being a little unconsciously shy towards Hazel. However, that evening rolled off well; and also the next day was filled with business which ...
— The Gold of Chickaree • Susan Warner
... Durham's return for such a purpose; but it had been agreed between himself and Madame de Malrive—who had once more been left alone by Madame de Treymes' return to her family—that, so close to the fruition of their wishes, they would propitiate fate by a scrupulous adherence to usage, and communicate only, during his hasty visit, by a daily ...
— Madame de Treymes • Edith Wharton
... Sothernes alias Dembdike."] The Sothernes and Davies's and the Whittles and Redfernes were the Montagus and Capulets of Pendle. The poor cottager whose drink was forsepoken or bewitched, or whose cow went mad, and who in his attempt to propitiate one of the rival powers offended the other, would naturally exclaim from the innermost recesses of his heart, "A plague on both ...
— Discovery of Witches - The Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Lancaster • Thomas Potts
... duchy of Tuscany to his father's fiefs, and meeting the allied forces of the Lombard barons in the field of Coviolo like an independent potentate. His power and splendour were great enough to rouse the jealousy of the Emperor; but Henry III. seems to have thought it more prudent to propitiate this proud vassal, and to secure his kindness, than to attempt his humiliation. Bonifazio married Beatrice, daughter of Frederick, Duke of Lorraine—her whose marble sarcophagus in the Campo Santo at Pisa is said ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds
... Hanged if I deserve such an awakening as I thought was blessing my eyes on the other side. From the way I ache, the other side mayn't be far off yet. Like enough hours will pass before Chunk comes back, and I must try to propitiate his grandam." ...
— Miss Lou • E. P. Roe
... are heaps of devils about," she declares, shaking her head; "or else why do they put up arches especially to keep them off—propitiate them, and prevent their entrance into the village? They have little bamboo huts like dolls' houses, and place food inside, that the devils may lodge and eat. It seems that the corpse to-day had a good time of it. They gave him a month's food, new gong and gun, a complete set of new clothes, ...
— When the Birds Begin to Sing • Winifred Graham
... tradition went, by any European. With the exception of a few of Sekeletu's tusks, the oxen needed for carrying, and a trifling amount of coffee, cloth, beads, etc., Livingstone had neither stores of food for his party, nor presents with which to propitiate the countless tribes of rapacious and suspicious savages that lined his path. The Barotse men who accompanied him, usually called the "Makololo," though on the whole faithful and patient, "the best that ...
— The Personal Life Of David Livingstone • William Garden Blaikie
... savage Indian has some idea of the power of God, which he deduces from the phenomena of nature—such as thunder and lightning—and believes in his goodness in supplying him with cassava and other provisions, yet his whole worship is devoted to propitiate the malignant spirits, to avert evil which might otherwise overtake him; while he has great faith in the power of the native sorcerers, who practise on his credulity. The Guaranis are the most renowned as sorcerers. The huts which are set apart for ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston
... had taken from his grandfather, which Zerah in turn had wrested form Shishak. (19) Asa himself did not long keep them. Baasha, the king of Israel, together with Ben-hadad, the Aramean king, attacked Asa, who tried to propitiate Ben-hadad by giving him his lately re-acquired treasures. (20) The prophet justly rebuked him for trusting in princes rather than in God, and that in spite of the fact that Divine help had been visible in his conflicts ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME IV BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG
... stretched out beyond the lands under his rule. The death of Saladin encouraged the idea of a new crusade. Henry as crusader might propitiate the Pope. But such an expedition once started might have been diverted, as indeed happened a few years later, for an attack upon Constantinople, which should lead to the union of both empires under the ambitious Hohenstaufen. Pretexts were not wanting. Henry ...
— The Church and the Empire - Being an Outline of the History of the Church - from A.D. 1003 to A.D. 1304 • D. J. Medley
... ever pursuing in vain; and discovering, through its initiations and Mysteries, all that to its contracted view seemed wanting to restore the well-being of mankind, the means of purification and expiation, remedies for disease, expedients to cure the disorders of the soul, and to propitiate the gods. ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... succession, dead calms and fresh breezes, stiff gales and sudden squalls; saw sharks, flying-fish, and dolphins; spoke several vessels: had a visit from Neptune when we crossed the Line, and were compelled to propitiate his favour with some gallons of spirits, which he seems always to find a very agreeable change from sea water; and touched at Table ...
— A Voyage to the Moon • George Tucker
... to which I had it in my power to subject him. Yet an acute friend of mine gave a more harmless, or at least a less offensive, construction to his attentions, which he conceived to be meant for my daughter Julia, though immediately addressed to propitiate the influence of her mother. This could have been no very flattering or pleasing enterprise on the part of an obscure and nameless young man; but I should not have been offended at this folly as I was at the higher degree of presumption I suspected. ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... the last lays on him a heavy requittal for his evil doing. But do you turn your foolish heart altogether away from these things, and, as far as you are able, sacrifice to the deathless gods purely and cleanly, and burn rich meats also, and at other times propitiate them with libations and incense, both when you go to bed and when the holy light has come back, that they may be gracious to you in heart and spirit, and so you may buy another's holding and ...
— Hesiod, The Homeric Hymns, and Homerica • Homer and Hesiod
... existence of a Good Spirit, which he called Kissa-Manito; and also in the existence of a bad spirit, whose name was Muche-Manito; but in what little worship he had engaged heretofore he had endeavoured to propitiate and turn away the malice of the evil spirit, rather than to worship the Good Spirit, in whom all Indians believe, but about whom he had very vague ideas until his visit to the Christian hunter's wigwam. Now, however, ...
— Oowikapun - How the Gospel Reached the Nelson River Indians • Egerton Ryerson Young
... whom have agreed to help me. I've had a plank rigged up with staves into a sort of raft, on which I mean to take my chance. There's a bag all ready with some victuals in it, and another with a few nails, beads, etcetera, to propitiate the natives. Young Hayward is the only other officer besides yourself to whom I have revealed my intention. Like you, he attempts to dissuade me, but in vain. I ...
— The Lonely Island - The Refuge of the Mutineers • R.M. Ballantyne
... women all round him letting their love and their desire trickle through their fingers; he sees Semenoff die, and death also in that atmosphere is blurred and meaningless. Men and women plunge into horrible relationships and constantly excuse themselves. They seek to propitiate society by labouring to give permanence to fleeting pleasures, the accidents of passion and propinquity. Love is rare; physical necessity is common to all men and women; it is absurd to expect the growth ...
— Sanine • Michael Artzibashef
... chosen for his visit;" adding, "because our American kinsfolk have conceived, rightly or wrongfully, that they have some cause of complaint against ourselves, and out of all England we could not have selected an envoy more calculated to allay irritation and to propitiate good will." As one whose cordial genius was, in truth, a bond of sympathy between the two great kindred nationalities, Charles Dickens indeed went forth in one sense at that time, it might almost have been said, in a semi-ambassadorial character, not between the rulers, but between the peoples. ...
— Charles Dickens as a Reader • Charles Kent
... shall be yours," she exclaims. "You shall wander like a restless shade between Orcus and the light of day.... The blood of your eyes I shall offer up at the tomb of my beloved Tlepolemus, and with them I shall propitiate his blessed spirit." At these words she takes a pin from her hair and blinds him. Then she rushes through the streets, with a sword in her hand to frighten anyone who might try to stop her, to her husband's tomb, where, after telling all ...
— Greek and Roman Ghost Stories • Lacy Collison-Morley
... even his touch a profanation. For the Brahman represented Brahma, was in fact Brahma incarnate, while the Sudra was a manifestation of deity in inferior clay. Yet the Brahman needed the Sudra, and had to propitiate him in order to use him. So the Aryan absorbed into his own system some of the Dravidian gods, and usually did so by marrying to Dravidian female divinities male deities of his own. Siva, the Aryan god, for example, took for his wife the Dravidian ...
— A Tour of the Missions - Observations and Conclusions • Augustus Hopkins Strong
... also attributed by the Egyptians to Exvotos offered in the temples. They consisted of various kinds. Some persons promised a certain sum for the maintenance of the sacred animals; or whatever might propitiate the deity; and after the cure had been effected, they frequently suspended a model of the restored part in the temple; and ears, eyes, distorted arms, and other members, were dedicated as memorials ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... virgin and unafraid. There was something slightly subservient, consciously inferior, in Charlotte's attitude to life. She had loved it secretly, with a sort of shame, with a corroding passion and incredulity and despair. Such natures are not seldom victims of the power they would propitiate. It killed her in her effort to ...
— The Three Brontes • May Sinclair
... which, they suppose, restored to its body, will enjoy the future on those happy hunting-grounds which form the red man's heaven. They also worship numerous inferior deities or evil spirits, whom they endeavour to propitiate, under the supposition that unless they do so they may work them evil rather than good. They suppose that there is one god of the sun, moon, and stars; that the ocean is ruled by another god, and that storms ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston
... because he who repairs a ruined house, and dwells in it, proclaims that he is not afraid to live amongst the spirits that haunt the places abandoned by mankind. Such a man can disturb the course of fate by glances or words; while his familiar ghosts are not easy to propitiate by casual wayfarers upon whom they long to wreak the malice of their human master. White men care not for such things, being unbelievers and in league with the Father of Evil, who leads them unharmed through the invisible dangers of this world. To the warnings of ...
— Tales of Unrest • Joseph Conrad
... met with any Shamans. They are described by Wrangel, Hooper, and other travellers. Wrangel states (vol. i. p. 284) that the Shamans in the year 1814, when a severe epidemic broke out among the Chukches and their reindeer at Anjui, declared that in order to propitiate the spirits they must sacrifice Kotschen, one of the most highly esteemed men of the tribe. He was so much respected that no one would execute the sentence, but attempts were made to get it altered, first by presents to the prophets, and then by flogging them. But when ...
— The Voyage of the Vega round Asia and Europe, Volume I and Volume II • A.E. Nordenskieold
... as men say, the gods aid those who propitiate them, I will begin my book by invoking divine approval, not like Homer and Ennius, from the Muses, nor indeed from the twelve great gods of the city whose golden images stand in the forum, six male and as many female, but from a solemn council of those twelve divinities ...
— Roman Farm Management - The Treatises Of Cato And Varro • Marcus Porcius Cato
... invaded the nobler parts, leaving nothing unchanged but a bunch of grapes which the female holds in her hand to this day. Whenever the Ricaras pass these sacred stones, they stop to make some offering of dress to propitiate these deities. Such is the account given by the Ricara chief, which we had no mode of examining, except that we found one part of the story very agreeably confirmed; for on the river near where the event is ...
— First Across the Continent • Noah Brooks
... of the protomartyr brought its fruits. Verulam became Christian, and within a century was paying him the honors of a saint. In the eighth century King Offa of Mercia, having treacherously murdered King Ethelbert, became conscience-stricken, and to propitiate Heaven founded the abbey. He built a Benedictine monastery, which was richly endowed, and gradually attracted the town away from Verulam and over to its present site. This monastery existed until the Norman Conquest, when it was rebuilt, ...
— England, Picturesque and Descriptive - A Reminiscence of Foreign Travel • Joel Cook
... next social stratum she found altars of mammon-groves of Baal, shining Schoe Dagonset up by business men and women of fashion. Society appeared intent only upon reviving the offering to propitiate evil spirits; and sometimes it seemed thickly sprinkled with very thinly disguised refugee Yezidees, who, in the East, openly worshipped ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... The savage sees his crops destroyed by a tempest or drought; he attributes the disaster to the particular powers concerned with such things whom he must have angered unwittingly, and whom he must propitiate by sacrifice or penitence. His individual and tribal acts do not always accomplish the desired ends, and again the laws of infinite and ultimate powers must have been contravened, as he interprets the situation. Therefore his whole ...
— The Doctrine of Evolution - Its Basis and Its Scope • Henry Edward Crampton
... heard a woman's scream, and the sharp checking exclamation of his master, and felt himself seized on each side. There was much confusion in his mind and in the yard, but he knew 'Tite Laboise flew through the gate and past him, and he tried to propitiate her by a look. ...
— The Black Feather - From "Mackinac And Lake Stories", 1899 • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... customs of the lower-class Jew, his unpleasant and insistent curiosity, his intrusiveness where he is not desired, his want of cleanliness, his sharpness at a bargain, his oily bearing to those he wishes to propitiate and his ruthless sweating of the worker in all fields when in his power, are all disagreeable personal qualities. There is also, as a concomitant of the nation's growth in wealth of every sort, and mostly perhaps to be found in the ...
— William of Germany • Stanley Shaw
... Percival had not even time to breathe into her ear the "Forgive me" with which he meant to propitiate her. He was not very penitent for his offence. He thought that he was sure of Elizabeth's pardon, because he thought himself sure of Elizabeth's love. But, as a matter of fact, that stolen kiss did not at all advance his cause with ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... very spot for a theatre—"because it was reputed to be haunted by a malignant goddess,"—that wouldn't matter as long as the "gods" were well provided for. Then it continues, "They" (who?) "did all they could to propitiate her, setting apart a tree—." Yes; but it wasn't the right tree: of course it ought to have been a BEERBHOOM TREE. His first drama might have shown how a Buddhist priest couldn't keep a ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, Sept. 27, 1890 • Various
... to propitiate her. You see, they didn't understand the difference, and they thought that as they'd been massacring people, THEY'D be massacred. They didn't understand the ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells
... to their desires and appetites as the hyenas and tigers. And in some natures the moral sense is only kept alive by fear,—fear of offending some despotic, invisible Force that pervades the Universe, and whose chief and most terrible attribute is not so much creative as destructive power. To propitiate and pacify an unseen Supreme Destroyer is the aim of all religions,— and it is for this reason we add to our worship of the Sun that of the White Serpent, Nagaya the Mediator. Nagaya is the favorite object of the people's adoration,—they may forget to pay their vows to the Sun, but never ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... had approached the bishop, who, eager to propitiate whoever seemed most likely to become king, gave the signal for the procession that was to mark the solemn bearing of the crown of Lutha up the ...
— The Mad King • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... attributed to the Spirit of the springs the power of ordaining the success or failure of their war expeditions. As their warriors passed by the mysterious pools when hunting their hereditary enemies, the Utes, they never failed to bestow their votive offerings upon the spring, in order to propitiate the Manitou of the strange fountain, and insure a fortunate issue to their path of war. As late as twenty-five years ago, the visitor to the place could always find the basin of the spring filled with beads and wampum, ...
— The Old Santa Fe Trail - The Story of a Great Highway • Henry Inman
... He felt no inclination even to take her hand: she had annoyed him too sorely. But now that she had gained her point, she was prepared to humble herself that she might propitiate him. ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... imploring her forgiveness. The king had him expelled from the church, but, instead of taking warning, he lingered in the shops around the market-place in the Cite, selecting jewels and rich stuffs with which to propitiate the queen; when she issued from the church and saw him, she despatched her guards to arrest him; one of them was wounded, and another gave him a sword-cut over the head; as he fled across the Petit-Pont, he fell and broke his leg. The manner and quality of a torture that should be appropriate ...
— Paris from the Earliest Period to the Present Day; Volume 1 • William Walton
... by clashing on their drumlike instruments, and whoops that rang long and loud amid the echoing hills. If to the hunt, the Bear-Dance or the Buffalo-Dance was kept up nights and days before starting, in order to propitiate the Bear Spirit or Buffalo Spirit, whichever it might be. They had a funeral dance also, which was very solemn and impressive. And if a chieftain was to be buried, either in the river, or, as among the ...
— Po-No-Kah - An Indian Tale of Long Ago • Mary Mapes Dodge
... moment they saw Arab tents in the valley of Mandara, knew the dreadful calamity which awaited them. To avert it and to propitiate the sultan, numerous parlies came down with presents of honey, asses, and slaves. Finally appeared the Musgow, a more distant and savage race, mounted on small fiery steeds, covered only with the skin of a goat or leopard, and with necklaces made of the teeth of their enemies. They ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... in their love and admiration for this plant, used to pay it a religious respect, and considered it the most grateful offering to the spirits they might wish to propitiate. It has certainly a most wonderful effect in sustaining nature; and I have known people undergoing great fatigue, exist four or five days, without tasting any other food, or suffering the slightest inconvenience. The ignorant conquerors, from ...
— Manco, the Peruvian Chief - An Englishman's Adventures in the Country of the Incas • W.H.G. Kingston
... to my care, no longer as before let our path be hindered. Now at last let us propitiate Phoebus with sacrifice and straightway prepare a feast. And until my thralls come, the overseers of my steading, whose care it is to choose out oxen from the herd and drive them hither, we will drag down the ship to the sea, and do ye place ...
— The Argonautica • Apollonius Rhodius
... with her gaze riveted on Maltravers; and Aubrey, whose gentle character was borne down and silenced by the powerful and tempestuous passions that now met in collision and conflict, withheld by his abhorrence of Vargrave's treachery from his natural desire to propitiate, and yet appalled by the apprehension of bloodshed, that for the ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... guests of the SERAPIS, he could not forget that his career had come to an end. There was much to remind him that this was so. He was made aware of it by the sad, sympathetic glances of the women; by their tactful courtesies; by the fact that Livingstone, anxious to propitiate Hanley, treated him rudely; by the sight of the young officers, each just starting upon a career of honor, and possible glory, as his career ended in humiliation; and by the big war-ship herself, that recalled certain crises ...
— My Buried Treasure • Richard Harding Davis
... unpalatable food, refusing it day after day, till the sharp, wilful face had grown pale and pinched with famine, and caring no more apparently for her aunt's beatings than she did for the clumsy advances by which her uncle would sometimes try to propitiate her. There had been a great deal of beating—whenever Reuben thought of it he had a superstitious way of putting Sandy out of his mind as much as possible. Many times he had gone far away from the house to avoid the sound of the blows and shrieks ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... their owner. Whether they deny God, or mock him by acknowledging and not heeding him, or treat him as an arbitrary, formal monarch; whether, taking no trouble to find out what pleases him, they do dull things for his service he cares nothing about, or try to propitiate him by assuming with strenuous effort some yoke the Son never wore, and never called on them to wear, they are slaves, and not the less slaves that they are slaves to God; they are so thoroughly slaves, that they do not care to get out of their slavery ...
— Unspoken Sermons - Series I., II., and II. • George MacDonald
... for discovery; and so he sailed away in the direction of Gunnbiorn's land, and found it. He whiled away three years on its coast, and as soon as he was allowed, ventured back with the tidings. While, to propitiate intending settlers, he said he had been to Greenland, and so the land ...
— Great Epochs in American History, Volume I. - Voyages Of Discovery And Early Explorations: 1000 A.D.-1682 • Various
... of them, to be used between man and man. All forms of complimentary address were at first the expressions of submission from prisoners to their conqueror, or from subjects to their ruler, either human or divine—expressions which were afterwards used to propitiate subordinate authorities, and slowly descended into ordinary intercourse. All modes of salutation were once obeisances made before the monarch and used in worship of him after his death. Presently others of the god-descended ...
— Essays: Scientific, Political, & Speculative, Vol. I • Herbert Spencer
... to see the girl's repellent manner and Orion's eager attempts to propitiate her; and for this reason Neforis was glad when, just as her husband had finished the third game, and had pushed the men together on the board with the back of his hand, his chamberlain reminded him that the Arab was without, awaiting his pleasure with growing ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... good man, pure as the deep sunless source, could soon kill me, without drawing from my veins a single drop of blood, or receiving on his own crystal conscience the faintest stain of crime. Especially I felt this when I made any attempt to propitiate him. No ruth met my ruth. He experienced no suffering from estrangement—no yearning after reconciliation; and though, more than once, my fast falling tears blistered the page over which we both bent, they produced no more effect on him than if his heart had been really a matter of ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte
... praiseworthy efforts, but at what cost no one but herself ever knew. Marion's whole life became one propitiatory sacrifice to her mother-in-law. To propitiate Mrs. Daintree was a very simple matter. Bearing in mind that her leading characteristics were a bad temper and an ungovernable desire to ride rough-shod over the feelings of all those who came into contact with her, in order to secure her favour it was only necessary to ...
— Vera Nevill - Poor Wisdom's Chance • Mrs. H. Lovett Cameron
... friendship and all the best hopes of our lives. We do not ask, What is right and best for us? but, What will folks say of it? We have no individuality, no self-poised strength, no sense of freedom. We are conscious always of the gaze of the many-eyed tyrant. We propitiate him with precious offerings; we burn incense perpetually to Moloch, and pass through his fire the sacred first-born of our hearts. How few dare to seek their own happiness by the lights which God has given them, or have strength to defy the false pride and the prejudice ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... mourned virginity, was never paraded, (that I wot of,) for any other than a much-to-be-lamented damsel. Who ever asked, in those old times, the mediation of St. Enoch? Where were the offerings, in jewels or in gold, to propitiate that undoubted man of God and denizen of heaven, St. Moses? what prows, in wax, of vessels saved from shipwreck, hung about the dripping fane of Jonah? and where was, in the olden time, that wretched and insensate being, calling himself rational and godly, ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... they arrived during a festival, and some of the most wonderful of the offerings were carried into the presence of [My Majesty]. The children of their chiefs adored my face, they smelt the earth before my face, and rolled on the ground. I gave them to all the gods of this land to propitiate the two gods in ...
— The Literature of the Ancient Egyptians • E. A. Wallis Budge
... Selden still leaned against the window, a detached observer of the scene, and under the spell of his observation Lily felt herself powerless to exert her usual arts. The dread of Selden's suspecting that there was any need for her to propitiate such a man as Rosedale checked the trivial phrases of politeness. Rosedale still stood before her in an expectant attitude, and she continued to face him in silence, her glance just level with his polished ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton
... (weakly thinking to propitiate by making light of his infirmity). Well, there isn't much ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, March 19, 1892 • Various
... embarrassment in an instant, failed her now. She attributed his strange reception of her to pride, to reluctance—to any cause but the unexpected revelation of her own beauty. "I have no words to thank you," she said, faintly, trying to propitiate him. "I should only distress you if I tried to speak." Her lip began to tremble, she drew back a little, and turned away ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... the Vatican at Rome, the work of the three Rhodian sculptors, Agesan'dros, Polydo'rus, and Athenodo'rus. It represents a scene, in connection with the fall of Troy, that Virgil describes in the Second Book of the AEneid. A Trojan priest, named Laocoon, endeavored to propitiate Neptune by sacrifice, and to dissuade the Trojans from admitting within the walls the fatal wooden horse, whereupon the goddess Minerva, ever favorable to the Greeks, punished him by sending two ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson
... If you think an automobile race is an easy thing to manage, try it. Every man who drives a racing-car has a coloratura soprano beaten to death for temperament. Then every racing-car has quirky spells; there's the local committee to propitiate; the track to look after; and if that isn't enough, there's the promotion itself, the ...
— Tish, The Chronicle of Her Escapades and Excursions • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... greatest dismay. He offered two hundred thousand pounds to propitiate the British government. But Hastings replied that nothing less than half a million would be accepted. Nay, he began to think of selling Benares to Oude, as he had formerly sold Allahabad and Rohilcund. The matter was one which could not be well ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... then solemnly took a piece of the comb and placed it in the fork of a tree for the honey-guide, assuring those who looked on, that it was necessary to propitiate the bird and pay it for its services—a plan of which the little thing seemed highly to approve, for it flew to the comb at once, ...
— Off to the Wilds - Being the Adventures of Two Brothers • George Manville Fenn
... solemn rites were celebrated. Those rites were accompanied with many peculiar and fantastic gestures, by leaping, clapping of hands, prostrations, loud cries, and not unfrequently with unintelligible exclamations. Sacrifices, and burnt offerings were used to propitiate superior powers; but our knowledge of the magical rites exercised by certain oriental nations, the Jews only excepted, is extremely limited. All the books professedly written on the subject, have been, swept away by the torrent of time. We learn, however, that the ...
— Thaumaturgia • An Oxonian
... who performed great exploits in dacoity in their day, gained a great name and established lasting reputations. For instance, Mahajit, my grandfather, and Sahiba, his father, are called gods and admitted to be so by us all. We have all of us some such gods to be proud of among our ancestors; we propitiate them and ask for favourable omens from them before we enter upon any enterprise. We sometimes propitiate the Suraj Deota (sun god) and seek good omens from him. We get two or three goats or rams, and sometimes even ten or eleven, at the place where we determine to take the auspices, ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume II • R. V. Russell
... is it chosen at the will of mortals? Ozanam tried to win pity from death. In his private journal he notes death's approach, concerning which he was never deceived; and he asks Heaven for a respite. To propitiate it, he offers a part of his life, the most brilliant part; he is willing to renounce honors, fame, and fortune, and will consent to live humbly and be forgotten, like the poor for whom he founded the Conferences de Saint-Vincent de Paul, and whom he so often visited ...
— Georges Guynemer - Knight of the Air • Henry Bordeaux
... relations and friends had taken as the final expression of his life's weakness, his miserable failure to play the man in his own household, and in which she, his wife, had recognized with a secret triumph his last effort to propitiate her, his last surrender to her. Everything left to her, both land and personalty, everything! save for a thousand a year to each of the children, and fifteen hundred a year to Coryston, his heir. The great Irish, the great Devonshire properties, the accumulated savings of a ...
— The Coryston Family • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Unconsciously the truly feminine asserted its dominance—the woman anxious to please and propitiate her lover. She put on a dainty summer dross, rearranged her hair, powdered away all trace of the tears that insisted on coming as soon as she reached the sanctuary of her own room. And then she watched for Jack from a window that commanded the street. She had eaten ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... social aspects of States; it belonged to the Forum or the Senate; it was employed to save culprits, to kindle patriotic devotion, or to stimulate the sentiments of freedom and public virtue. Eloquence certainly did not belong to the priest. It was his province to propitiate the Deity with sacrifices, to surround himself with mysteries, to inspire awe by dazzling rites and emblems, to work on the imagination by symbols, splendid dresses, smoking incense, slaughtered beasts, grand temples. He was a man to conjure, not ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IV • John Lord
... to propitiate the minds of his subjects and vassals, they were invited in large numbers to partake of a princely festivity at Castell-Coch, or the Red- Castle, as it was then called, since better known by the name of Powys-Castle, and ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... hesitated for a moment or two, as if touched by some compunction, before he put the notes into his pocket. It had occurred to him vaguely that he might propitiate his fortune by sacrificing this money make himself, as it were, by a timely generosity, the creditor of good luck. But it was not the kind of thing ...
— Those Who Smiled - And Eleven Other Stories • Perceval Gibbon
... the ancient world—the God of human passions, frailties, caprices, and whims is gone, and with him the old duty to propitiate him, so that he might be induced to treat you better than your neighbor. Can anyone question the advance that has been made in diminishing the prevalence of these medieval, essentially childish, and essentially selfish ideas? The new God is the God of law and order; ...
— The Necessity of Atheism • Dr. D.M. Brooks
... constantly trying to propitiate Tornarsuk by incantations; and when they kill game, an offering is made to him. The devil is supposed to have a keen appreciation of these tidbits. On leaving a snow igloo the Eskimos are careful to kick the front out of it, that the evil spirits ...
— The North Pole - Its Discovery in 1909 under the auspices of the Peary Arctic Club • Robert E. Peary
... point of the political and theological compass, and yet in our hearts acknowledge him to be the best of all good fellows. Without surrendering a single conviction, we came to see the virtue of so stating our beliefs as to persuade and propitiate, instead of offending and alienating. We had attained to that temper which, in the sphere of thought and opinion, is analogous to the crowning virtue of ...
— Fifteen Chapters of Autobiography • George William Erskine Russell |
