"Relic" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... on—as the motor, not the crow, flies—we came to Nesle, or what once was Nesle. The ghost of the twelfth-century church looms in skeleton form above one more Pompeii among the many forced by the Germans upon France: but save for that towering relic of the past there's little left of this brave town of the Somme, which was historic before the thirteenth century. It gave its name to a famous fighting family of feudal days: and through the last heiress of the line—a beauty and a "catch"—a certain Seigneur ...
— Everyman's Land • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... worship, especially the Ancient Grove Worship of Assyria. He shows that the object of veneration was a male date palm, which represented the Assyrian god Baal. Sex was worshipped under this deity, and it is shown that the tree of the Assyrian grove was a phallic symbol. Palm Sunday appears to be a relic of this worship. In France, until comparatively recent times, there was a festival, "La Fete des Pinnes," in which palms were carried in procession, and with the palms were carried phalli of bread which had been blessed by ...
— The Journal of Abnormal Psychology - Volume 10
... use of the phrase "its own Centre," which became an important Quaker term, is an interesting relic of Boehme's influence. ...
— Spiritual Reformers in the 16th & 17th Centuries • Rufus M. Jones
... strange. Mrs. Hale's dressing-room was left untouched to the last; and there she and Dixon were packing up clothes, and interrupting each other every now and then to exclaim at, and turn over with fond regard, some forgotten treasure, in the shape of some relic of the children while they were yet little. They did not make much progress with their work. Down-stairs, Margaret stood calm and collected, ready to counsel or advise the men who had been called in to help the cook and Charlotte. These two last, crying between whiles, wondered how the young lady ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... Norman had given her, and gave a sigh as she slipped it into the shelf of the seldom used. She looked about the room, cleared out the last piece of brown paper, and burned the last torn envelope, that no relic of packing and change might distress Margaret's eyes for order; then feeling at once desolate and intrusive, she sat down in Flora's fireside chair, opened her desk, and took out her last time-table. She looked at it for some ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... you will have it that I am poor, do not reject the soul I present to you in this paper, and give me back the crown, which, since it has been touched by your hand, shall remain with me as a hallowed relic as long as ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... himself into other property; and thereupon he thrusts him out again, and so on. It was a fiction invented by the English lawyers to try the right of two parties to the possession of real estate; because they could do it in no other way, and the 4th of July had not freed us from this relic of antiquity. The issue here was, whether Fisk had a better right to the possession of this land, than had Cole; and whatever did not in some way help to enlighten them on that issue, had no business to ...
— Bart Ridgeley - A Story of Northern Ohio • A. G. Riddle
... circles, of Nirvana, facing a great dagaba, or final cupola, the exact function or purpose of which as key to the whole structure is still the puzzle of archaeologists. This final shrine is fifty feet in diameter, and either covered a relic of Buddha, or a central well where the ashes of priests and princes were deposited, or is a form surviving from the tree-temples of the earliest primitive East when nature-worship prevailed. The English engineers ...
— Across the Equator - A Holiday Trip in Java • Thomas H. Reid
... Boniface VIII (or John XXII) just inside the cathedral is, with a bishop in one of the sacristies, the only remnant; while of the second facade, for which Donatello and other early Renaissance sculptors worked, the giant S. John the Evangelist, in the left aisle, is perhaps the most important relic. Other statues in the cathedral were also there, while the central figure—the Madonna with enamel eyes—may be seen in the cathedral museum. Although not great, the group of the Madonna and Child now over the central door of the Duomo ...
— A Wanderer in Florence • E. V. Lucas
... the discovery of documents which owed all their existence to his own ingenuity. This, he admitted, was his notion of "fun." Whenever the whim seized him, he would in gravest manner reveal to the Press, or even contrive to bring to the notice of a learned society, some alleged relic in manuscript or in stone which he had deliberately manufactured. His sole aim was to recreate himself with laughter at the perplexity that such unholy pranks aroused. It is one of these Puck-like tricks on Steevens's part that has spread confusion among those of my correspondents, ...
— Shakespeare and the Modern Stage - with Other Essays • Sir Sidney Lee
... with suppliant hands implor'd The gods' protection, and their star ador'd. 'Now, now,' said he, 'my son, no more delay! I yield, I follow where Heav'n shews the way. Keep, O my country gods, our dwelling place, And guard this relic of the Trojan race, This tender child! These omens are your own, And you can yet restore the ruin'd town. At least accomplish what your signs foreshow: I stand resign'd, and am ...
— The Aeneid • Virgil
... black, greasy Family Bible, evidently a relic of better days. It had probably been hidden under ...
— The Mintage • Elbert Hubbard
... had supposed it was. After a half hour's search she succeeded in finding it. Tears coursed down her cheeks like rain as she removed from the corner of the little box, where it had lain for so many years, this precious relic of a dear father, who in all probability, was buried beneath the ocean. Dashing them hastily away, she started again for Mrs. Carr's. The ice cream was procured on the way, and, just as the clock struck eight, she arrived at the door. One hour has elapsed since she left. ...
— Friends and Neighbors - or Two Ways of Living in the World • Anonymous
... lowland population was firmly attached to the Presbyterian discipline. Prelacy was abhorred by the great body of Scottish Protestants, both as an unscriptural and as a foreign institution. It was regarded by the disciples of Knox as a relic of the abominations of Babylon the Great. It painfully reminded a people proud of the memory of Wallace and Bruce that Scotland, since her sovereigns had succeeded to a fairer inheritance, had been independent in name ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... brought out with him from England, thick-soled brown boots, and good leather leggings. An old Norfolk jacket completed the outfit, so far as his outer garb was concerned. And when he had donned an old and somewhat battered, but still serviceable, topi helmet—a relic of more prosperous days—and had fastened round him a leather belt and bandolier combined, filled it with cartridges, and attached to it one of Penryn's revolvers in a leather holster, it would have been rather difficult to recognise in him the ...
— A Chinese Command - A Story of Adventure in Eastern Seas • Harry Collingwood
... tenderly than the requirements of ordinary social intercourse call for or allow, the hand of every woman they meet They are not necessarily flirts. Perhaps they never go farther than that clinging hand-pressure. It is a relic of the customs of the days of chivalry—a little more and this man will kiss the hand. Let the lady be beautiful, gracious, the hour dusk, or close on midnight, the room a pretty one, and the environment pleasing, he will ...
— Crowded Out! and Other Sketches • Susie F. Harrison
... going away?" asked Fletcher, catching at the words in anxious haste, yet looking pleased at her desire to keep the relic. ...
— Work: A Story of Experience • Louisa May Alcott
... ever performed his disagreeable duties better than our romancer. Here is a tattered little official document signed by Hawthorne when he was watching over the interests of the country: it certifies his attendance at the unlading of a brig, then lying at Long Wharf in Boston. I keep this precious relic side by side with one of a similar custom-house character, signed ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... excessive indiscretion of some of her visitors, for questions literally rained upon her, and she often grew faint through having to repeat her story so many times. Ladies of high position fell on their knees, kissed her gown, and would have liked to carry a piece of it away as a relic. She also had to defend her chaplet, which in their excitement they all begged her to sell to them for a fabulous amount. One day a certain marchioness endeavoured to secure it by giving her another one which she had brought with her—a chaplet with a golden cross and beads of real pearls. ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... mother's, and a brass kettle, which had belonged to her grandmother, and which Mrs. Parker, the lady from western New York, said was the most valuable of all the articles sent. Antiques were sure to sell to relic hunters, and a big price must be put upon them, she told the committee who looked in dismay at the piles of goods as they came pouring in, wondering how they were ever to bring anything like order out of the ...
— The Cromptons • Mary J. Holmes
... that the Snuggery was an utterly vicious place. Vice never so much as thought of wearing any disguise here. No glimmer of wit played over the foul substance of the songs that were sung, and hid it in dazzle from too close observation. No relic of youth and freshness, no artfully-assumed innocence and vivacity, concealed the squalid deterioration of the worn-out human counterfeits which stood up to sing, and were coarsely painted and padded to look like fine women. Their fellow performers among the men were such ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... live for thirty-five years,—in the parish of St. Thomas in the East,—that very St. Thomas, possibly, whose court-house was called forty years ago the "hell of Jamaica," and where is preserved as a pleasant relic of the past a record book wherein the curious traveller reads the prices paid in the palmy days of slavery for cutting off the ears and legs, and slitting the noses, of runaway negroes. Had these ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... not risen from the easy-chair,—a comfortable old family relic which stood opposite the old-fashioned piano. She leaned forward, however, so that the sealskin mantle, which the warmth of the room and the length of her wait had prompted her to throw back, settled down from her shoulders in rich and luxurious folds. She gave him, ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... She made also several other pieces of workmanship, which were admired by connoisseurs, more especially a Crucifix made out of a single piece of corneil wood, which she presented to Father de Bray, and which afterwards fell into the hands of Madaine de Maintenon, who valued it as a precious relic. She wrought also three other crucifixes, one very small, which she wore round her neck; another, three feet high, which, she placed in her cell; and a third, six feet high, which she carved out of the wood of a fir-tree, which had been struck down by lightning in the forest, and which she ...
— The Life of St. Frances of Rome, and Others • Georgiana Fullerton
... curious relic of Sir Isaac survives in the garden at Cranbury Park, viz. a sun-dial, said to have been calculated by Newton. It is in bronze, in excellent preservation, and the gnomon so perforated as to form the cypher I. C. seen either way. The dial is divided ...
— John Keble's Parishes • Charlotte M Yonge
... land with the Main Party, and Neale, who will remain with the Ship's Party, turn out at six and rouse the afterguard for the pumps, a daily evolution, and soon an unholy din may be heard coming up from the wardroom. "Rouse and shine, rouse and shine: show a leg, show a leg" (a relic of the old days when seamen took their wives to sea). "Come on, Mr. Nelson, it's seven o'clock. All hands on ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... the side; the bones settled to the bottom of the grave, while the skull, if intact, is reached first by excavators and the conclusion drawn at once that it is "on top of the other bones." This error of observation is quite common among relic hunters, and is not ...
— Archeological Investigations - Bureau of American Ethnology, Bulletin 76 • Gerard Fowke
... the omniscient and watchful providence of God. It is a very ancient symbol, and is supposed by some to be a relic of the primitive sun-worship. Volney says (Les Ruines, p. 186) that in most of the ancient languages of Asia, the eye and the sun are expressed by the same word. Among the Egyptians the eye was the symbol of their supreme god, ...
— The Symbolism of Freemasonry • Albert G. Mackey
... the fact that in front of the house lies a lawn of that weedless turf which is only found in this country in such places as the Arena at Frejus. In the center of the lawn stands a sun dial—grey, green and ancient—a relic of those days when men lived by hours, and not by minutes, as we do to-day. It is all of the old world—of that old, old world of France beside which our British antiquities are, with a few exceptions, youthful. This was the birthplace of Madame de Clericy and of ...
— Dross • Henry Seton Merriman
... nails, beads, and other trifles, at an easy rate. In one of their canoes we observed the head of a woman lying in state, adorned with feathers and other ornaments. It had the appearance of being alive; but, on examination, we found it dry, being preserved with every feature perfect, and kept as the relic of some deceased relation. ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 15 (of 18) • Robert Kerr
... the 14th day of May, 1796, that he received his license to practice law. The license, written in a bold hand on paper, was signed by judges Peter Lyons, Edmund Winston, and Joseph Jones, and is preserved by his children as a family relic. His first fee was derived from a warrant trying, in which a Mr. Taliaferro, who was his landlord, was a party, and was fifteen shillings, which helped to pay the rent of his office. His first important criminal case was the defence of a man on ...
— Discourse of the Life and Character of the Hon. Littleton Waller Tazewell • Hugh Blair Grigsby
... should be destroyed is, indeed, greatly to be lamented. At one of the late meetings of the Royal Irish Academy a communication was made of the intention of the proprietor of the estate at New Grange to destroy that most gigantic relic of druidical times, which has justly been termed the Irish pyramid, merely because its vast size 'cumbereth the ground.' At Mellifont a modern cornmill of large size has been built out of the stones of the beautiful monastic buildings, some of which still adorn that charming ...
— Thomas Davis, Selections from his Prose and Poetry • Thomas Davis
... One interesting relic of the former supremacy of the Portuguese was the right claimed by Portugal to nominate the Roman Catholic prelates throughout India. This right, natural enough in the sixteenth century, became absurd in the nineteenth. A long quarrel arising from this claim has recently ...
— Rulers of India: Albuquerque • Henry Morse Stephens
... the Colonel, beginning to wax indignant, 'do they send such a museum relic here to fight a reasonably ...
— Between the Lines • Boyd Cable
... let me add; the boat being no longer serviceable, was burnt, Sturt giving as a reason that he was reluctant to leave her like a log on the water. What a priceless relic that ...
— The Explorers of Australia and their Life-work • Ernest Favenc
... gear," answered the Mate, hugging himself at thought of the new lanyards, the stout Europe gammon lashings, he had rove off when the boom was rigged. Now was the time when Sanny Armstrong's spars would be put to the test. The relic of the ill-fated Glenisla, now a shapely to'gallant mast, was bending like a whip! "Good iron," he shouted as the backstays twanged a ...
— The Brassbounder - A Tale of the Sea • David W. Bone
... remains that practically all children up to a certain age consider it perfectly legitimate to lie to their enemies if they but tell the truth to their friends. Children may lie to the policeman, or to the teacher, or to anyone with whom they are for the moment in conflict. This is a relic of the time when our savage ancestors found it necessary to practice deceit in order to save themselves from their enemies. So ingrained is this instinct that many a child will stick to a falsehood before the teacher ...
— Your Child: Today and Tomorrow • Sidonie Matzner Gruenberg
... last revealed in a miraculous manner to the prayers of Landulphus, one of his successors in the episcopacy.—The cathedral of Chartres, in early ages, set up a rival claim for the possession of this precious relic; but its existence here was formally verified at the end of the seventeenth century, by the opening of the chasse, in which a small quantity of bones was found tied up in a leather bag, with a certificate ...
— Account of a Tour in Normandy, Vol. II. (of 2) • Dawson Turner
... a procession toward? or a relic to be displayed?" asked Ambrose, trying to recollect whose feast-day it ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... some seven thousand years old; that his existence, his history, is a myth, traced upon the cylinders of Babylon; that man never fell except to himself and his own conscience; that the "redemption" scheme is an idiosyncrasy of Paul; that a priesthood is avowedly a pagan conception, and sacrifice a relic of barbarism. Tell them this, for you know it is true, and that your creeds and confessions are false. Speak out as your conscience bids you speak, that yours is no temple of truth, no cathedral vast enough to hold the race, nothing but ...
— Morality as a Religion - An exposition of some first principles • W. R. Washington Sullivan
... after and stow the plugs away in their capacious pockets. As the town became settled, visitors would carry off the bones as mementos of the old chief. After they were all gone, some wags would place the bones of some dead sheep for relic-hunters to pick up and carry home as the ...
— Three Years on the Plains - Observations of Indians, 1867-1870 • Edmund B. Tuttle
... relic of the past, still in vogue in the offices of daily papers, which is of an absurdity truly exquisite. It is the practice of paying by the column, or, in other words, paying a premium for verbosity, and imposing a fine upon conciseness. It will often happen that information which cost three ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... day army of heroes would have no opportunity to display the individual valor of its members, just so a merchant who counts upon his direct acquaintanceship for success, is a relic of ...
— The Clock that Had no Hands - And Nineteen Other Essays About Advertising • Herbert Kaufman
... to the former high reputation of the Radish survives in the "Annual Radish Feast at Levens Hall, a custom dating from time immemorial, and supposed by some to be a relic of feudal times, held on May 12th at Levens Hall, the seat of the Hon. Mrs. Howard, and adjoining the high road about midway between Kendal and Milnthorpe. Tradition hath it that the Radish feast arose out of a rivalry between the families of Levens Hall and Dallam ...
— The plant-lore & garden-craft of Shakespeare • Henry Nicholson Ellacombe
... and would-be detective, Dallas. A pretty penny it must have cost. Where did he get the money? Skylarking around the country like a millionaire, and what did he pick out that antiquated curiosity of a relic car for? Well, it was the 'Dallas Special,' sure enough, and it made its run just the same as if he was a ...
— Ralph on the Overland Express - The Trials and Triumphs of a Young Engineer • Allen Chapman
... relic of the olden time was lately presented to the museum of the Northern Institution, by William Mackintosh, Esq. of Milbank—an ancient virginal, which was in use among our ancestors prior to the invention of the spinnet and harpsichord. Mary, Queen of Scots, who delighted ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 12, No. 336 Saturday, October 18, 1828 • Various
... scalping-knife. In Boston and other of the older and safer settlements, the Indians had found devoted friends before Philip's War; and even now they had apologists and defenders, prominent among whom was that relic of antique Puritanism, old Samuel Sewall, who was as conscientious and humane as he was prosy, narrow, and sometimes absurd, and whose benevolence towards the former owners of the soil was trebly reinforced by his notion that ...
— A Half Century of Conflict - Volume I - France and England in North America • Francis Parkman
... the Faith among the unfortunate natives. Whereupon the Pope created him Count and Governor of the country, the heathen name of which he changed to St. Paul, and gave him as the emblem of his authority a sword in the hilt of which was fixed a thorn of gold. This holy relic, under the name of the Spina d'Oro, is preserved, for the reverence of the faithful. In the cathedral of the city of Vallanza, where the descendants of St. Guy still reign as lieutenants of the Sovereign ...
— The Lady Paramount • Henry Harland
... theory of the Oriental origin of fairies? At the same time, let us admit that the superstitious belief in capnomancy—i.e., divination by smoke—still said to be prevalent in some parts of the Highlands, is probably the relic of the old sacrifices by fire to the gods. In so far the superstition has a mythological significance, but then, are we not driven back to the consideration whether these gods were not actual personages ...
— Storyology - Essays in Folk-Lore, Sea-Lore, and Plant-Lore • Benjamin Taylor
... strange snatches and fragments of song has been all but irretrievably lost, and almost wholly unsuspected. Stonehenge, or the Coir-mhor, on Salisbury Plain, is the grandest remaining monument of the Druids in the British Isles. Everybody has heard of this mysterious relic, though few know that many other Druidical circles of minor importance are scattered over various parts of England, Scotland, and Ireland. In Scotland they are especially numerous. One but little known, and not mentioned by the Duke of Argyll in his ...
— The Celtic Magazine, Vol. 1, No. 2, December 1875 • Various
... myself sometimes," Easton said placidly. "I suppose it is a relic of our original savage nature, when men did not mind dirt, and lived by hunting and fighting and ...
— The Dash for Khartoum - A Tale of Nile Expedition • George Alfred Henty
... neckcloth, and a large projecting shirt frill—which were all the peculiarities of person and dress that could be distinctly made out. He was smoking a long pipe, and placidly rocking himself to and fro. His appearance, through the two windows, was that of a finely preserved relic ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... you are wondering at England and her relic of Woden-worship, shall I tell you that here, in America, we too possess relics of this very pagan god to which some people accord a superstitious regard? Look on the threshold, or above the door of some cottage or cabin, and you will see nailed there a common horse-shoe as a protection against ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, January 1878, No. 3 • Various
... willing to pay for the production of thousands of volumes annually, the value of which is inappreciable from its littleness, may perhaps not be unwilling to encourage, to the extent of the purchase of a small edition, the preservation in print of a relic which, even in the mere commonplace power of giving amusement, exceeds the majority of circulating novels: while readers whose appetites are more discriminating, and the students of the past, to whom the productions of their ancestors have a memorial value for themselves, may find their ...
— Froude's Essays in Literature and History - With Introduction by Hilaire Belloc • James Froude
... monolith, from a stratum unknown in any local quarry, on which was roughly carved a human hand. Differing accounts were given of its history and purport. Some authorities stated that a devotional cross had once formed the complete erection thereon, of which the present relic was but the stump; others that the stone as it stood was entire, and that it had been fixed there to mark a boundary or place of meeting. Anyhow, whatever the origin of the relic, there was and is something sinister, or ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... some attention. Weakness, and fasting, and horror had overpowered a delicate body and a sensitive mind, and he lay senseless by the shattered relic of happier times. Antoine, the gaoler (a weak-minded man whom circumstances had made cruel), looked at him with indifference while the Jacobin remained in the place, and with half-suppressed pity when ...
— Melchior's Dream and Other Tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... the stiff leg and straight left; they stood up to show tricks of foot and hand—cunning shifts and feints; they ducked and side-stepped and smote the empty air with whirling fists to the imminent peril of the owl that was a parrot, which moth-eaten relic seemed to watch them with his solitary glass eye. And ever the Spider's respect and admiration for the mild-eyed, ...
— The Definite Object - A Romance of New York • Jeffery Farnol
... Davis, the English navigator, had a chair made out of her timbers, which he presented to the University of Oxford, still guarded sacredly in the Bodleian Library. No wonder that Cowley, while sitting in it, wrote his stirring lines, and apostrophised it as "Great Relic!" How ...
— By the Golden Gate • Joseph Carey
... relic of the method of ancient science, which was upside down,—a mere confusion with faith. Faith and belief are two different things; faith is the emotion, the steam, if you like, that drives us on in our search ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... are," was his smiling rejoinder. "But you don't expect to find in it a relic of the Revolution, do you?" he asked laughingly, pinching her cheek, then bending down to kiss again the rosy face upturned ...
— Elsie's Vacation and After Events • Martha Finley
... human bones were found in the deposits of the early Quaternary period, or indeed of an earlier period, in various other parts of the world, and the question regarding the Moulin Quignon relic ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... later the disagreeable relic of caterpillar existence ceased to canker the worshipful matron's public life, and the grim eyes of the past to cast malignant glances down into a white ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... "I can see her now. She wore a pince-nez and a bicycling skirt. I am sure of it. Come and sit down here, and I will prove to you how much cleverer I am than that ancient relic." ... ...
— The Moving Finger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... can examine this interesting problem on its merits, we have to get over one nasty puddle that lies at the beginning of it. Much of the prejudice against financiers is based on, or connected with, anti-Semitic feeling, that miserable relic of medieval barbarism. No candid examination of the views current about finance and financiers can shirk the fact that the common prejudice against Jews is at the back of them; and the absurdity of this prejudice is a very fair measure of the validity of other current notions on the subject ...
— International Finance • Hartley Withers
... passion-kindled rhetoric. The time came when she had learned to listen for his step, when her eyes glistened at meeting him, when the words he uttered were treasured as from something more than a common mortal, and the book he had touched was like a saintly relic. It never suggested itself to her for an instant that this was anything more than such a friendship as Mercy might have cultivated with Great-Heart. She gave her confidence simply because she was very young and innocent. The green tendrils of the ...
— The Guardian Angel • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... describes them, filthy in their habits, and treacherous in their character, but some would have seen, and seen truly, more beauty and dignity than he does with all his manliness and fairness of mind. However, his one fine old man is enough to redeem the rest, and is perhaps tire relic of a better day, a Phocion among ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... known, by positive evidence, to exist in any of the South Sea islands, except New Zealand, yet it is extremely probable, that it was originally prevalent in them all. The sacrificing human victims, which seems evidently to be a relic of this horrid practice, still obtains universally amongst these islanders; and it is easy to conceive, why the New Zealanders should retain the repast, which was probably the last act of these shocking rites, longer than the rest of their, tribe, who were situated ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 17 • Robert Kerr
... pride she boasted that she possessed something worth more than uncut rubies, carpets from Bagdad, and silken petticoats sewn with sequins. And the Ouled Nails could not gainsay her. Indeed, they turned their huge, kohl-tinted eyes upon the relic with envy, and stretched their painted hands towards it as if to a god in prayer. But Halima would let no one touch it, and presently, taking from her bosom her immense door key, she retired to enshrine the foot in her box, studded with huge brass nails, such as ...
— Halima And The Scorpions - 1905 • Robert Hichens
... the synclines, but others, equally long-headed, discard entirely all theory of this kind, and drill wherever it may be most convenient or where other operators have already demonstrated the existence of gas. It will surprise many of our readers to know that the divining rod, that superstitious relic of the middle ages, is still frequently called upon to relieve the operator of the trouble of a rational decision. The site having been selected, the ordinary oil-drilling outfit is employed to sink a hole of about six inches in diameter until the gas is reached. ...
— Burroughs' Encyclopaedia of Astounding Facts and Useful Information, 1889 • Barkham Burroughs
... of Saint-Jean-du-Doigt takes place on the 22nd of June, and is, perhaps, the most solemn of these festivals. During its celebration the relic of the Saint, the little finger of his right hand, is held before the high altar of the church by an abbe clad in his surplice. The finger is wrapped in the finest of linen, and one by one the congregation ...
— Legends & Romances of Brittany • Lewis Spence
... find a comprehensive formula for what the Renaissance meant as to tie it down to a date. The year 1453 A.D., when the Eastern Empire—the last relic of the continuous spirit of Rome—fell before the Turks, used to be given as the date, and perhaps the word "Renaissance" itself—"a new birth"—is as much as can be accomplished shortly by way of definition. ...
— English Literature: Modern - Home University Library Of Modern Knowledge • G. H. Mair
... excitement, the reckless triumph of that moment, I was ready to "fraternize" with anybody who encouraged me in my game. I accepted the old soldier's offered pinch of snuff; clapped him on the back, and swore he was the honestest fellow in the world—the most glorious relic of the Grand Army that I had ever met with. "Go on!" cried my military friend, snapping his fingers in ecstasy—"Go on, and win! Break the bank—Mille tonnerres! my gallant English ...
— After Dark • Wilkie Collins
... or fresh-water deposits; relic seas, so long as they are partly salty, and saline lakes are ...
— The Economic Aspect of Geology • C. K. Leith
... them round to his monks with an air of deep reverence. I do not doubt he took the image of her gracious Majesty for a very mighty and potent goddess. As soon as all had inspected them, with many cries of admiration, he opened a little secret drawer or relic-holder in the pedestal of the statue, and deposited them in it with a muttered prayer, as precious offerings from ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... it seemed almost impossible that he, Freddie Kirby, native of Kansas, unromantic aviator, should have been the one to discover this relic of an unknown, lost race. Yet the cylinder of gold was ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, December 1930 • Various
... his fame. This prophet who desired not to have followers, lest he too should become a cult and a convention, and whose main thesis throughout life was that piety is a crime, has been calmly canonized and embalmed in amber by the very forces he braved. He is become a tradition and a sacred relic. You must speak of him under your breath, and you may not laugh ...
— Emerson and Other Essays • John Jay Chapman
... had died a month or two before the play was published; he had grown to be, in extreme old age, the most venerable figure of the Restoration, and it is possible that the Humorous Lovers may have been a relic of his Jacobean youth. He might very well have written it, so old was he, in Shakespeare's lifetime. But the Duke of Newcastle was never a very skilful poet, and it is known that he paid James Shirley to help him with his plays. I feel ...
— Gossip in a Library • Edmund Gosse
... claim his attention. He walked past lawns, shrubs, and flower-beds, and only stopped at an old stone fountain, which tradition declared to have been one of the ornaments of the garden in the time of the monks. Having carefully examined this relic of antiquity, he took a sheet of paper from his pocket, and consulted it attentively. It might have been a plan of the house and grounds, or it might not—I can only report that he took the path which led him, by the shortest way, to ...
— The Black Robe • Wilkie Collins
... earlier days for the wedding-feast of Selina and the soldier, which had been religiously and lovingly preserved by the former as a testimony to her intentional respectability in spite of an untoward subsequent circumstance, which will be mentioned. This relic was now as dry as a brick, and seemed to belong to a pre-existent civilization. Till quite recently, Selina had been in the habit of pausing before it daily, and recalling the accident whose consequences had thrown a shadow over her life ever since—that of which the water-drawers had ...
— A Changed Man and Other Tales • Thomas Hardy
... thought of it excited him disagreeably. At the bottom of his heart he genuinely considered now that his marriage to Tanya had been a mistake. He was glad that their separation was final, and the thought of that woman who in the end had turned into a living relic, still walking about though everything seemed dead in her except her big, staring, intelligent eyes—the thought of her roused in him nothing but pity and disgust with himself. The handwriting on the envelope reminded him how cruel and unjust ...
— The Lady with the Dog and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... beauty; but the head of one young man certainly stood the trial. Fine features, of a cast frequently seen towards the north of Albania, and a set of the best teeth, (this is very general,) showed that he might have once been more prosperous in love than he proved to be in war. I thought of a relic, and took up a skull, the best I could find, but it was full of red earth, and seemed damp and unpleasant; so I put it down again. I next discovered a beautiful tooth; this would have surpassed the former in elegance and convenience, but I fancied ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various
... relic we are indebted to Mr. Godfrey Higgins's erudite quarto, entitled "The Celtic Druids," already alluded to at page 121 ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 333 - Vol. 12, Issue 333, September 27, 1828 • Various
... been composed. Admirable in itself and a precious document of our early literary history, it gains still further lustre from being indissolubly associated with that monument which Kemble has called the most beautiful as well as the most interesting relic of Teutonic antiquity." ...
— Studies from Court and Cloister • J.M. Stone
... An interesting relic of the execution of the Bishop is in possession of the rector of St. Mary's Church—viz. the sergeant's mace, which was the authority of the soldiers who conducted the Bishop down to Gloucester. This mace, which is the ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Gloucester [2nd ed.] • H. J. L. J. Masse
... slipped off. He held it tight between his hands. He was too numb and stupefied even to think of Francey, but there was magic in that dirty, blood-stained handkerchief. It might have been a saint's relic, or a Red Indian's totem, preserving him from evil. He knew nothing about saints or totems, but he knew that Francey was good and stronger than ...
— The Dark House • I. A. R. Wylie
... conviction that he will use them in the place to which he is going. A peculiar custom among several races is this: the oldest son cuts a piece from the heel of his deceased father, which he hangs round his neck, and wears as a sacred relic. Some of the tribes on the Perene and Capanegua do not, like most wild nations, respect the remains of the dead, but throw the bodies into the forest unburied, to be devoured ...
— Travels in Peru, on the Coast, in the Sierra, Across the Cordilleras and the Andes, into the Primeval Forests • J. J. von Tschudi
... forum, at present, is the last sad relic of ancient oratory. But does that epitome of former greatness give the idea of a city so well regulated, that we may rest contented with our form of government, without wishing for a reformation of abuses? If we ...
— A Dialogue Concerning Oratory, Or The Causes Of Corrupt Eloquence • Cornelius Tacitus
... who, of all the plunderers of yon fane On high, where Pallas lingered, loth to flee The latest relic of her ancient reign - The last, the worst, dull spoiler, who was he? Blush, Caledonia! such thy son could be! England! I joy no child he was of thine: Thy free-born men should spare what once was free; Yet they could violate each saddening shrine, And bear these altars ...
— Childe Harold's Pilgrimage • Lord Byron
... separate scale is distinguishable upon their glistening bodies, the wrinkling of the skin in the coils, the sparkling points of eyes, and the minute nostrils. Such works of art are not made nowadays; the ring is an antique,—a relic of an age when skill was out of all proportion to liberty,—a very distant time indeed. To deserve such a setting, the stone must have exceptional qualities. Let us take a closer look ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne
... he had had one once; but that the priest had touched it with a holy relic and it had gone away. "It was on the back ...
— IT and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... treasures which sufficed for them. Plainly this waif has had its experiences. It was Robinson Crusoe's, Annie, depend upon it. We will save it from the flames, and when we establish our marine museum, nothing save a veritable piece of the North Pole shall be held so valuable as this undoubted relic ...
— Oldport Days • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... is an old relic of home, a thing of no great worth, a poor trifle, but sacred to me ...
— Master Humphrey's Clock • Charles Dickens
... of Slavery upon our national policy have been like those of a glacier in a Swiss valley. Inch by inch, the huge dragon with its glittering scales and crests of ice coils itself onward, an anachronism of summer, the relic of a by-gone world where such monsters swarmed. But it has its limit, the kindlier forces of Nature work against it, and the silent arrows of the sun are still, as of old, fatal to the frosty Python. Geology ...
— The Writings of James Russell Lowell in Prose and Poetry, Volume V - Political Essays • James Russell Lowell
... literature of England is, in an emphatic sense, the production of her scholars; of men who have cultivated letters in her universities, and colleges, and grammar-schools; of men who thought any life too short, chiefly because it left some relic of antiquity unmastered, and any other fame too humble, because it faded in the presence of ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... upon the rocks, and threw the plant of tangle at my feet. Something at the same moment rang sharply, like a falling coin. I stooped, and there, sure enough, crusted with the red rust, there lay an iron shoe-buckle. The sight of this poor human relic thrilled me to the heart, but not with hope nor fear, only with a desolate melancholy. I held it in my hand, and the thought of its owner appeared before me like the presence of an actual man. His weather-beaten face, his sailor's hands, his sea-voice ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XXI • Robert Louis Stevenson
... walk through ruins old and hoary, And make each relic and persue his search? Who would not listen and applaud each story, Told of an ancient ...
— Revised Edition of Poems • William Wright
... the Pawnbroker's Son. He has on a cutaway suit—a relic of his first and last public concert before the war. His shoulders sag dejectedly and his face is drawn and white. He comes in and sits on the bed. A knock—a determined knock—is heard at the door but Jean does not move. The door opens and his landlady—a ...
— A Parody Outline of History • Donald Ogden Stewart
... that some one or more of the number will come to harm if the thing is done. This is what Mr. Tylor calls survival in culture. The faint belief in the corporate liability of these thirteen is the feeble relic and last dying representative of that great principle of corporate liability to good and ill fortune which has filled such an ...
— Physics and Politics, or, Thoughts on the application of the principles of "natural selection" and "inheritance" to political society • Walter Bagehot
... the Provencal custom at the Christmas festival for the old thus to instruct the young and so to keep family tradition alive. No doubt there is in this a dim survival of ancestor-worship; but I should be glad to see so excellent a relic of paganism preserved in the Christmas ritual of my ...
— The Christmas Kalends of Provence - And Some Other Provencal Festivals • Thomas A. Janvier
... lingering representative. New Zealand seems to have been cut off from the southern continent at the close of the Permian or beginning of the Triassic, and so preserved for us that very interesting relic of Permian life. From some primitive level of this group, it is generally believed, the great Deinosaurs arose. Two different orders seem to have arisen independently, or diverged rapidly from each other, in different parts of the world. One group seems to have evolved ...
— The Story of Evolution • Joseph McCabe
... lieutenant-governor they form a "house of lords" which may or may not agree with the policies of the chief magistrate. They can aid him greatly, or they can "clip his wings" and materially curb his freedom of action. The Council is a relic of the old provincial and colonial days, its inherited aristocratic body clothed in democratic garments. As its duties could be performed by the Senate without loss of dignity, and with pecuniary saving, its retention as a part of the body politic is due to the ...
— The Further Adventures of Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks • Charles Felton Pidgin
... and 7 show the site and general appearance of this interesting relic of the Roman occupation ...
— Folklore as an Historical Science • George Laurence Gomme
... of St. Sergius is a relic hidden away and almost buried in the midst of a labyrinth of ruins. Without a guide it is almost impossible to find your way thither. The quarter in which it is situated is enclosed within the walls of what was once ...
— Egypt (La Mort De Philae) • Pierre Loti
... and even, in saint and relic worship, cuts a "monstrous cantle" out of paganism, it excludes, not only all Judaeo-Christians, but all who doubt that such are heretics. Ever since the thirteenth century, the Inquisition would have cheerfully burned, and in Spain did abundantly burn, all persons ...
— Lectures and Essays • Thomas Henry Huxley
... we feel the phantom, the more promptly it responds to our appeal. But he had no relic of his family—ring, miniature, or lock of hair—while Bouvard was in a position to conjure up his father; but, as he testified a certain repugnance on the subject, ...
— Bouvard and Pecuchet - A Tragi-comic Novel of Bourgeois Life • Gustave Flaubert
... bridge builders, and that they were so named from the sacrifices which are offered upon the sacred bridge, which are of great sanctity and antiquity. The Latins call a bridge pontem. This bridge is intrusted to the care of the priests, like any other immovable holy relic; for the Romans think that the removal of the wooden bridge would call down the wrath of Heaven. It is said to be entirely composed of wood, in accordance with some ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4) • Plutarch
... both, and use them discreetly. When I am gone, I request you, my friend, to discharge the last sad duties of humanity, and to see me buried according to the usages of my caste. The simple beings around me will then behold that I am mortal like themselves. And let this precious relic of female loveliness and worth, (taking a small picture, set in gold, from his bosom,) be buried with me. It has been warmed by my heart's blood for twenty-five years: let it be still near that heart when it ceases to beat. I have yet more to say to you; but ...
— A Voyage to the Moon • George Tucker
... and yet curious, we looked through the cracks in the shutters. We saw a procession of peasants and townspeople, led by a number of priests, carrying crosses and banners and images. In the place of honor was carried a casket, containing a relic from the monastery in the outskirts of Polotzk. Once a year the Gentiles paraded with this relic, and on that occasion the streets were considered too holy for Jews to be about; and we lived in fear till the end of the day, knowing that the ...
— The Promised Land • Mary Antin
... to a rustic bridge that humped high in the middle, spanning a cool green stream, willow-bordered. The cool green stream was an emerald chain that threaded its way in a complete circlet about the sylvan spot known as Wooded Island, relic ...
— Gigolo • Edna Ferber
... Quebec for modern illustrations of this kind of faith. "Bareheaded people stood out upon the corner in East 113th Street yesterday afternoon, "said a New York City newspaper of December 18, 1898, "because they were unable to get into the church of Our Lady Queen of Angels, where a relic of St. Anthony of Padua was exposed for veneration. "Describing a service in the church of St. Jean Baptiste in East 77th Street, New York, where a relic alleged to be a piece of a bone of the mother of the Virgin was exposed, a newspaper of that city, on July 24th, 1901, said: "There ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn
... follows to Miss Mackenzie, on receiving the book she had promised to send him as a relic of her brother:— ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Africa, through the sun-bright cities of Spain, he travelled—unfriended as a man under a curse, lonely as a second Cain. Never for an instant did the remembrance of his ruined projects desert his memory, or his mad determination to revive his worship abandon his mind. At every relic of Paganism, however slight, that he encountered on his way, he found a nourishment for his fierce anguish, and employment for his vengeful thoughts. Often, in the little villages, children were frightened from their sports in a deserted temple by the apparition of his gaunt, ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins
... politics, but he could not support the measure. Mr. Shiel endeavoured to make the honourable baronet refute himself by quoting extracts from his former speeches on the same subject. He spoke, however, of the honourable baronet in terms of the highest respect, as "a venerable relic of a temple dedicated to freedom, though ill-omened birds now built their nests and found shelter in that once noble edifice." On the second night of the debate the bill was supported by Messrs. Brotherton and Charles ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... abnormally broad-backed and broad-bodied that a male rider who sat astride her was forced to stick his legs out at a most awkward and ridiculous angle. That broad back carried, however, most comfortably a side-saddle or a pillion. Being extremely short-legged this treasured relic was unprecedentedly slow, and altogether I found the Narragansett Pacer, though an object of great pride and even veneration to her owner, not all my fancy had ...
— Customs and Fashions in Old New England • Alice Morse Earle
... it with the deserted husband? Stern and unyielding also. The past year had been marked by so little of mutual tenderness, there had been so few passages of love between them—green spots in the desert of their lives—that memory brought hardly a relic from the past over which the heart could brood. For the sake of worldly appearances, Emerson most regretted the unhappy event. Next, his trouble was for Irene and her father, ...
— After the Storm • T. S. Arthur
... out strips of bright yellow cloth, which two clowns held across the ring for the Circus Boy to leap over as his horse passed under. This did not bother him in the least, though he had never tried the act before. It was a relic of the old circus days that few shows ...
— The Circus Boys In Dixie Land • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... himself. In Egypt even the native Christians reverence Moslem saints or holy men. They pay frequent visits to them to ask for counsel and to hear their prophecies, to beg a hair of them in memory, "and dying, mention it within their wills, bequeathing it as a rich legacy unto their issue." Any relic of a venerated saint is worn as a ...
— There was a King in Egypt • Norma Lorimer
... Rivarol. "I have learned no such word in your very admirable language. He who will allow his soul to be vexed by creditors is a relic of an imperfect civilization. Of what use is science if it cannot avail a man who has accounts current? Listen. The moment you or any one else enters the outside door this little electric bell sounds me warning. Every successive step on Mrs. Grimier's staircase ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 5 • Various
... in the east seemed to brush the fading stars, was deserted even by the private watchmen that guarded the homes of the apprehensive in the Western Addition. Alexina darted across and into the shadows of the avenue that led up to her old-fashioned home, a relic of San Francisco's "early days," perched high on the steepest of the casual hills in that city ...
— The Sisters-In-Law • Gertrude Atherton
... That is where I want to have my wedding. I don't believe that anybody else would have thought of it. Perhaps it's more than a hundred years since the last Indian wedding was held in that little deserted chapel; but it's all right, kept in good order, just as a relic beside the big new church. I think"—turning to the clergyman—"that it will be perfectly delightful and original to have you marry me there, at high noon, on the last ...
— Days Off - And Other Digressions • Henry Van Dyke
... woman, poisoned by horrible suggestions, having no refuge either in work or in fatigue, having for my only safeguard against despair and ruin a sacred but frightful grief. O God! it is that grief, that sacred relic of my sorrow, that has just crumbled in my hands! It is no longer, my love, it is my despair that is insulted. Mockery! She mocks at me as I weep!" That appeared incredible to me. All the memories of the past crowded ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... have a station; another will be built at Ross, ten miles, a third at Oughterard, sixteen and a half miles. Not a stone laid as yet. At Ross a great excavation. The men had just laid bare a huge boulder of granite, weighing some thirty tons, and Mr. Wood, observing my interest in this relic of the ice-age, gave it to me on the spot. "No granite in situ hereabouts, the living rock is mountain limestone, but no end of granite boulders, which are blasted to the tune of half-a-ton of tonite per week." Ten miles from Galway a cutting was being regularly ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... missionaries were carried to Sainte Marie, and buried in the cemetery there; but the skull of Brbeuf was preserved as a relic. His family sent from France a silver bust of their martyred kinsman, in the base of which was a recess to contain the skull; and, to this day, the bust and the relic within are preserved with pious care by the nuns of the ...
— The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century • Francis Parkman
... sought in vain to hide itself among the leaves. So busied had I been it escaped my notice. Instinctively I reclaimed the prize and with no gentle hand I doubt, for his touch and jeering manner desecrated the sacred relic of ...
— 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
... jewels glittered on his sight. The rooms were drear and empty, their hollow floors mocking his footsteps with long-silent echoes. One treasure only he found, the jewelled table of Solomon, a famous ancient work of art which had long remained hidden from human sight. Of this wonderful relic we shall say no more here, for it has a history of its own, to be told in a ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume VII • Charles Morris
... Kodiak lies on the opposite side of the island from the canneries, a bleak, wind-swept relic of the country's first occupation, and although peopled largely by natives and breeds, there is also a considerable white population, to whom Christmas is a season of thanksgiving and celebration. Hence it was that ...
— The Silver Horde • Rex Beach
... loved the young maiden whom she had reared with the intensity of which a strong and fervent nature like hers perhaps alone is capable. Zarah was all that was left to her grandmother in the world, the sole relic remaining of the treasures which she once had possessed. It may be permitted to me here, as a digression, to give a brief account of Hadassah's former life, that the reader may better understand her position at the point ...
— Hebrew Heroes - A Tale Founded on Jewish History • AKA A.L.O.E. A.L.O.E., Charlotte Maria Tucker
... priests enter or leave the churches. They are like the palaces of a theatre, set on an empty stage, and waiting for the actors. It will be a long time before the actors come to Mozambique. It is, and will remain, a city of the fifteenth century. It is now only a relic of a cruel and barbarous period, when the Portuguese governors, the "gentlemen adventurers," and the Arab slave-dealers, under its blue skies, and hidden within its barred and painted walls, led lives of magnificent debauchery, when the tusks of ivory were piled high along its water-front, ...
— The Congo and Coasts of Africa • Richard Harding Davis
... countenances, however pretty they may be, have something terrifying in them. The great nobles make a tolerably grand display of carriages on the last days of the carnival; but the pleasure of this festival is the crowd and the confusion: it seems like a relic of the Saturnalia; every class in Rome is mixed together. The most grave magistrates ride with official dignity in the midst of the masks; every window is decorated. The whole town is in the streets: it is truly a popular festival. The pleasure of the ...
— Corinne, Volume 1 (of 2) - Or Italy • Mme de Stael
... the enmity of the great conflict, but it refuses to abandon its old traditions and idols. In "Governor" Pemberton, as he was still fondly called, the inhabitants of Elmville saw the relic of their state's ancient greatness and glory. In his day he had been a man large in the eye of his country. His state had pressed upon him every honour within its gift. And now when he was old, and enjoying a richly merited repose ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry
... Jew, spared the sight of the destruction of Jerusalem which, according to his own canon in the text, would have proved that the system to which he had given his life was not of God; and the only relic of his wisdom is ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren
... around my feelings as I landed on Beechey Island and looked down upon the bay, on whose bosom once had ridden Her Majesty's ships "Erebus" and "Terror;" there was a sickening anxiety of the heart as one involuntarily clutched at every relic they of Franklin's squadron had left behind, in the vain hope that some clue as to the route they had taken hence ...
— Stray Leaves from an Arctic Journal; • Sherard Osborn
... the same purpose he deposited it in a creek. When it was thoroughly clean, the grinning white skull was painted red all over and placed in a decorated basket. Then followed the ceremony of formally handing over this relic of the dead to the relations. The brothers-in-law, who had been in attendance on the body, painted themselves black all over, covered their heads with leaves, and walked in solemn procession, headed by the chief brother-in-law, who carried the skull in the basket. Meantime ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer
... the following:—A portion of Aaron's rod that budded; a portion of one of the five loaves that fed the five thousand; a shoulder-blade of one of the Holy Innocents; two pieces of the Virgin Mary's veil; part of the stone paten of the Evangelist S. John. The great relic of the house was the arm of S. Oswald. The date when this was acquired is not certainly known, some thinking that this period is too early a date to assign to its acquisition. Bede relates[30] "that this Oswald, King of Northumberland, was very free and liberal in giving of alms ...
— The Cathedral Church of Peterborough - A Description Of Its Fabric And A Brief History Of The Episcopal See • W.D. Sweeting
... character. The sacrifice of Agamemnon in Aulis, as told in the opening of the 'Iliad,' connects the tree and serpent worship together, and the wood of the sacred plane tree under which the sacrifice was made was preserved in the temple of Diana as a holy relic so late, according to Pausanias, as the second century of the Christian era." The same writer further adds that in Italy traces of tree-worship, if not so distinct and prominent as in Greece, are nevertheless existent. Romulus, for ...
— The Folk-lore of Plants • T. F. Thiselton-Dyer
... seems to demonstrate clearly that the world is too far advanced to be driven into combination by force. And as to Alexander the Great, has the world really made no progress since his time? Force or war is a relic of a savage age, and will be relegated to the background with the ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 21 - The Recent Days (1910-1914) • Charles F. Horne, Editor
... seen at the Musee d'Artillerie at Paris. In the time of Louis XIV. the art of casting cannon was carried to a high degree of perfection. The gun in question may have been made by a French blacksmith on the spot. A far less probable supposition is, that it is a relic of some unrecorded visit of the Spaniards; but the pattern of the piece would have been antiquated even in the time of De Soto.] Nor were these La Salle's only dependants. By the terms of his patent, he ...
— France and England in North America, a Series of Historical Narratives, Part Third • Francis Parkman
... displayed them in the hollow of his hand. She touched them lightly, reverently, as a tourist touches a sacred relic in ...
— Zuleika Dobson - or, An Oxford Love Story • Max Beerbohm
... she replied, "and look up thither, where Christ with His saints expecteth thee. Fight the good fight, for thy soul's sake, and show thyself faithful and steadfast in thy Saviour's love. Remember him too whose relic thou bearest round thy neck." [Footnote: The father of Pancratius had suffered martyrdom, and the relic mentioned was stained with the ...
— Journeys Through Bookland - Volume Four • Charles H. Sylvester
... countenance lighted as he took the paper; the silver spectacles were hurriedly replaced. "Ha!" he said, "Alexandrines, the tragic metre. I shall cherish this, your Highness, like a relic; no more suitable offering, although I say it, could be made. 'Dieux de l'immense plaine et des vastes forets.' Very good," he said, "very good indeed! 'Et du geolier lui-meme apprendre des lecons.' ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the directors of the Bank of England cannot be themselves by trade bankers. This is a relic of old times. Every bank was supposed to be necessarily, more or less, in opposition to every other bankbanks in the same place to be especially in opposition. In consequence, in London, no banker has a chance ...
— Lombard Street: A Description of the Money Market • Walter Bagehot
... was a relic of Dushan, little mended by the Turk, and had been three times struck by lightning, the magazine each time exploding (once while I was in Montenegro), only because the Turkish government, in putting up the lightning-rod and finding the supply of rod short, ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume II • William James Stillman
... had seemed goblin-like before, but as he now stood there before the glistening relic of mortality, over which he had partly thrown the corner of the table-cloth, the scene was weird and grim in the extreme; for the one uncovered eye-socket seemed to leer at him in company with a ghastly pride, as if rejoicing at the relief the ...
— The Bag of Diamonds • George Manville Fenn
... present of it, my lady, to poor Mrs. Baxter, John Dutton's sister, my lady, who was always so much attached to the family, and would have a regard for even the smallest relic, vestige, or vestment, I knew, above all things in nature, poor old soul!—she has, what with the rheumatic pains, and one thing or another, lost the use of her right arm, so it was particularly agreeable and appropriate—and ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. IX - [Contents: Harrington; Thoughts on Bores; Ormond] • Maria Edgeworth
... memory of Charlemagne, went down into the vault, and gave the priests of the Cathedral convincing proofs of his munificence. The Empress was shown a piece of the true cross which the Carlovingian Emperor had long worn on his breast as a talisman. She was offered a holy relic, almost the whole arm of that hero, but she declined it, saying that she did not wish to deprive Aix-la-Chapelle of so precious a memorial, especially when she had the arm of a man as great as Charlemagne to ...
— The Court of the Empress Josephine • Imbert de Saint-Amand
... the gossip of the department of the Aube,—a good deal of it being there manufactured,—should be ignorant of facts of this nature. But his ignorance will seem natural when we mention that this noble relic of the Napoleonic legions went to bed at night and rose in the morning with the chickens, as all old persons should do if they wish to live out their lives. He was never present at the intimate conversations ...
— The Deputy of Arcis • Honore de Balzac |
