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Votary

noun
(pl. votaries)
1.
One bound by vows to a religion or life of worship or service.
2.
A priest or priestess (or consecrated worshipper) in a non-Christian religion or cult.
3.
A devoted (almost religiously so) adherent of a cause or person or activity.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Votary" Quotes from Famous Books



... hearth, Is worth the wealth contained in all the earth! It does become us then to study well (Who knows the secret? Would some Angel tell?) The best of means by which to foster this Great earthly blessing, pure domestic bliss! Hail sweet conjugal union! Hail to thee! May I thy humble votary ever be! Take thee away, and each dear earthly home Would soon a scene of dreadful strife become; And from this source would spring a thousand woes Which to imagine has my heart's ...
— The Emigrant Mechanic and Other Tales In Verse - Together With Numerous Songs Upon Canadian Subjects • Thomas Cowherd

... but still, beneath the dark and spreading foliage, gleamed a wide extent of ocean, and many a passing sail; while, to the right and left, thick woods were seen stretching along the winding shores. So much as this had been admitted, perhaps, to give to the secluded votary an image of the dangers and vicissitudes of life, and to console him, now that he had renounced its pleasures, by the certainty of having escaped its evils. As Emily walked pensively along, considering how much suffering she might have escaped, had she become a votaress of the ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe

... tired, How gracious, how benign, is Solitude; How potent a mere image of her sway; Most potent when impressed upon the mind With an appropriate human centre—hermit, 360 Deep in the bosom of the wilderness; Votary (in vast cathedral, where no foot Is treading, where no other face is seen) Kneeling at prayers; or watchman on the top Of lighthouse, beaten by Atlantic waves; 365 Or as the soul of that great Power is met Sometimes embodied on a public road, When, for the night deserted, it assumes A ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. III • William Wordsworth

... Stanton, "Miss Anthony was the connecting link between me and the outer world—the reform scout who went to see what was going on in the enemy's camp, and returned with maps and observations to plan the mode of attack." It has been intimated that Miss Anthony has not remained sweet Dian's votary, in maiden meditation fancy free, because nobody asked her to change her name and station. Many victims, we are told, are carrying crushed hearts and blighted hopes through life, and all because of the unrelenting cruelty exercised by this usually good-humored ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 2 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper

... extraordinary but well-deserved praise to Erinna, who, with her three hundred verses, challenged the fame of the brightest light of Greece, and counterbalanced with her one small volume, called the "Elecate," the ponderous "Iliad" of the great Homer. Aristophanes celebrates Carissena, a votary of the same profession, as a woman of great excellence and learning; and the same may be said for Teano, Merone, Polla, Elpe, Cornificia, and Telesilla, to the last of whom, in honour of her marvellous talents, a most beautiful statue was set up in ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol. 05 ( of 10) Andrea da Fiesole to Lorenzo Lotto • Giorgio Vasari

... taken roughly, of Scott's worst novel and Thackeray's best, the flood tide of romanticism had risen to its highest point, and had then ebbed very low, on both sides of the British Channel. And we can see that the younger writer was no votary of the older school of high-flying chivalrous romance, with its tournaments, its crusaders, its valiant warriors, and distressed maidens. His youthful aversion for shams and conventionalities, his ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall

... and the door swung open—but the black-cassocked gentleman who stepped in, though a priest indeed, was no votary of idolatrous rites, but that sound orthodox divine, the Reverend Ozias Mounce, looking very much perturbed at his surroundings, and very much on the alert for the Scarlet Woman. He was supported, to his ...
— The Descent of Man and Other Stories • Edith Wharton

... owners of the city, who, though they despised this upstart, made a small place for him in their midst with the instinctive solidarity that characterizes the freemasonry of money. To gain a little more standing for his name, he became a votary of San Bernardo, contributed to the funds for church festivals, and danced attendance on the alcalde, whoever that "mayor" might be. In his eyes now, the only people in Alcira were such as collected thousands ...
— The Torrent - Entre Naranjos • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... lyre Young Lyaeus did inspire; When the bard awoke his lays, Love and wine alike to praise. So, illustrious Pidding, thou Inspire thy tea-urn votary now, Whilst the tea-pot circles round— Whilst the toast is being brown'd— Let me, ere I quaff my tea, Sing a paean unto thee, IO PIDDING! who foretold, Chinamen would keep their gold; Who foresaw our ships would be Homeward bound, yet wanting tea; Who, to cheer the mourning ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various

... individual's mind, and the dwelling-place it chooses. The polished courtier brings his refinement and duplicity with him to ape the Arcadian rustic in Devonshire; the romantic rhymer takes a plastered habitation, with one back window looking into the Green Park; the soft votary of luxury endeavors to rise at seven, in some Ultima Thule of frosts and storms; and the rich stock-jobber calculates his percentages among the soft dingles and woody shores of Westmoreland. When the architect finds this to be the case, he ...
— The Poetry of Architecture • John Ruskin

... Noble sportsmen are proud to be seen in his company, aristocratic guinea-pigs are constantly in his pocket in the congenial society of the great man's purse, art willingly reproduces his features, journalism enthusiastically commemorates his adventures, and even Royalty does not thrust away a votary whose ministrations are as acceptable as they are readily performed. Without much effort on his own part he is raised to pinnacles which he imagined impossible of access, and soon learns to look down with a contempt that might spring of ancient lineage and assured ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, Sept. 27, 1890 • Various

... ye Muses, keep your votary's feet From tavern-haunts where politicians meet Where rector, doctor, and attorney pause, First on each parish, then each public cause: Indited roads and rates that still increase; The murmuring poor, who will not fast ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... by water from Burton to Nottingham, and on to Newark. They had cold provisions on board, and plenty of wine. It was midsummer; the day ardent and sultry. The noon-tide meal had been made, and the glass had gone gaily round. It was one of those few instances in which the medical votary of the Naiads transgressed his general and strict sobriety," in which, in fact, he may ...
— Evolution, Old & New - Or, the Theories of Buffon, Dr. Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck, - as compared with that of Charles Darwin • Samuel Butler

... sternly: "You have become old, madame," he said, coldly—"old enough to tread in the new path you have so wisely prepared for yourself. You who have so long been the votary of love, are now old enough and plain enough to become a model of virtue. Accept this order of virtue and modesty, promised you by the Empress of Austria. The king will not divorce his wife, and as this is supposed ...
— Frederick the Great and His Court • L. Muhlbach

... which they would never have drawn from the most eloquent assumptions of speculative system-mongers, nor from any other source whatever, save practical experience carefully observed and rationally interpreted. This native and independent rationality in men is what the jealous votary of the historic ...
— Studies in Literature • John Morley

... aims to suggest to the haters of unjust war, especially Quakers, in what direction they ought to work, viz. to lay the foundation of an entirely new political party. No candidate for a vote could complain that he was humiliated by being required to profess himself a VOTARY OF JUSTICE. ...
— Memoir and Letters of Francis W. Newman • Giberne Sieveking

... face was neither sodden nor silly nor sensual; but it did not wear the enchanted look of the true votary. Instinctively this young man, though it was emotion that he found in music, resisted any too obvious assault upon his feelings, taking refuge in irony from their force when roused. For the form of music, and its intellectual content, he had little appreciation, and he was thus the ...
— Tante • Anne Douglas Sedgwick

... depicted with a bouquet of flowers or a basket of peaches of immortality, is stated to have been a grand-nephew of Han Yue (A.D. 768-824), the great statesman, philosopher, and poet of the T'ang dynasty, and an ardent votary of transcendental study. His own name was Ch'ing Fu. The child was entrusted to his uncle to be educated and prepared for the public examinations. He excelled his teacher in intelligence and the performance of wonderful feats, such as the production from a little earth in ...
— Myths and Legends of China • E. T. C. Werner

... There were several wolf-creatures, a bear-bull, and a Saint-Bernard-man. I have already described the Ape-man, and there was a particularly hateful (and evil-smelling) old woman made of vixen and bear, whom I hated from the beginning. She was said to be a passionate votary of the Law. Smaller creatures were certain dappled youths and my little sloth-creature. But ...
— The Island of Doctor Moreau • H. G. Wells

... of Troubadour and all other poetic guilds Browning decisively detaches his poet. Sordello is not a votary of poetry; he does not "cultivate the Muse"; he does not even prostrate himself before the beauty and wonder of the visible universe. Poetry is the atmosphere in which he lives; and in the beauty without he recognises the ...
— Robert Browning • C. H. Herford

... considered his wife's likes and inclinations somewhat silly; she considered his sordid and material. The husband's business was that of a gunmaker in a thriving city northwards, and his soul was in that business always; the lady was best characterized by that superannuated phrase of elegance 'a votary of the muse.' An impressionable, palpitating creature was Ella, shrinking humanely from detailed knowledge of her husband's trade whenever she reflected that everything he manufactured had for its purpose the destruction of life. She could only recover ...
— Wessex Tales • Thomas Hardy

... been to a generation that had just emerged from the close parlours of Richardson, the best of the sentimentalists of the pre-revolutionary type? May we not say, too, in parenthesis, that the man is the votary, not of wisdom, but of a bald and shapeless asceticism, who is so excessively penetrated with the reality, the duties, the claims, and the constant hazards of civilisation, as to find in himself no chord responsive ...
— Critical Miscellanies, Vol. I - Essay 3: Byron • John Morley

... scientific precision. Mr. Spayth's book is accordingly addressed to a comparatively narrow circle of readers; but those who are competent to judge of its merits will find it a work of great value. The author, who is an enthusiastic votary of the game, and has no superior among our American amateurs, offers a judicious selection from the treatises of such foreign writers as the severe and critical Anderson, the brilliant but capricious Drummond, Robert Martin, perhaps the first of living players, Hay, Sinclair, and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various

... held out for months. I never was much of a tea drinker before. It is all very well to take a cup at an afternoon tea fight, but that was about the extent of my indulgence in the beverage. In future I shall become what is called a votary, and shall cut down my ...
— Through Three Campaigns - A Story of Chitral, Tirah and Ashanti • G. A. Henty

... days and night passed unmolested, all seemed to have grounded their arms of rebellion, and no callidity appeared to be going on with any of the parties. Other arrangements were made by Ambulinia; she feigned herself to be entirely the votary of a mother's care, and she, by her graceful smiles, that manhood might claim his stern dominion in some other region, where such boisterous love was not so prevalent. This gave the parents a confidence that yielded some hours of sober joy; they ...
— The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories • Mark Twain

... and fascinated by her cousin's manner, wit, and acquaintances, had suddenly declared herself a votary of the idol of the day. She had discerned the signs of the occult power exerted by the ambitious great lady, and told herself that she could gain her end as the satellite of this star, so she had been outspoken in her admiration. The Marquise was not insensible to the ...
— A Distinguished Provincial at Paris • Honore de Balzac

... can be done before you start for Rome, because this bit of business between Piero de' Medici and the French nobles must be effected at once. I mean when you come back, of course; I need say no more. I believe you could make yourself the pet votary of San Marco, if you liked; but you are wise enough to know that effective dissimulation ...
— Romola • George Eliot

... is true, a large book will produce in the minds of many persons greater respect than a miniature copy of the same work; but the ideas contained in the one are no better or more impressive than the same contained in that of the other; save the feeling with which the larger one inspires the votary who looks no farther than the outside of the page. The series of forty landscapes alluded to in the above digression, if viewed at the focal distance of eighteen inches, will appear as large as those twice the size, viewed at their proportionate increased distance. An elaborately finished picture, ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, February 1844 - Volume 23, Number 2 • Various

... hump-backed, lame, and ugly. In fact, he is a species of buffoon, who is allowed full liberty of speech, being himself a universal butt. His attempts at wit, which are rarely very successful, and his allusions to the pleasures of the table, of which he is a confessed votary, are absurdly contrasted with the sententious solemnity of the despairing hero, crossed in the prosecution of his love-suit. His clumsy interference in the intrigues of his friend only serves to augment his difficulties, and occasions many an awkward dilemma. On the other hand, the shrewdness ...
— Sakoontala or The Lost Ring - An Indian Drama • Kalidasa

... death. I burnt for the more active life of the world—for the more exciting toils of a literary career—for the destiny of an artist, author, orator; anything rather than that of a priest: yes, the heart of a politician, of a soldier, of a votary of glory, a lover of renown, a luster after power, beat under my curate's surplice. I considered; my life was so wretched, it must be changed, or I must die. After a season of darkness and struggling, light broke and relief fell: my cramped existence all at once spread out to a plain ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte

... destroyed! independence bartered; respectability undermined; family concord subverted! that peace sacrificed, which forms so primary an ingredient in man's cup of happiness!—a deadly war with conscience! and the very mind of the unhappy votary, (whilst the ethereal spirit of natural affection generally escapes! despoiled ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle

... the latter, with a gesture toward the street below. "Observe yonder ladylike warrior in brand-new regimentals. Apparently, Stephen, he's a votary of Mars and pants for carnage; but in reality he continues to remain the sartorial artist whose pants are more politely emitted. He emitted these—" patting his trousers with a ruler. "On what goose has this my tailor fed that ...
— Ailsa Paige • Robert W. Chambers

... expedition. Young Kit, at this period of his life, imitated the example set by his elders, for he wished to be considered by them as an equal and a friend. He, however, passed through this terrible ordeal, which most frequently ruins its votary, and eventually came out brighter, clearer and more noble for the conscience-polish which he received. He contracted no bad habits, but learned the usefulness and happiness of resisting temptation, and became so well schooled that he was able, by the caution and advice of wisdom founded on experience, ...
— The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky Mountains, from Facts Narrated by Himself • De Witt C. Peters

... poor votary seeks in vain for peace: He cannot bid the voice of conscience cease Its dire upbraidings; in his heartless course He meets at every turn the fiend Remorse, Who glares upon him with her tearless eye, That sears his heart—but mocks its agony. He hears ...
— Enthusiasm and Other Poems • Susanna Moodie

... not a Poet now, who, perhaps, is a greater Votary to St. Cyprian in other Matters than the Absolver is in this, rally him thus, and turn his Quotation upon himself, Phrase by Phrase? "What business has a Parson with such Books as these? A Parson who has not the liberty so much ...
— Essays on the Stage • Thomas D'Urfey and Bossuet

... For I am honour's votary. Honour, with me, Is worth: 't is truth; 't is virtue; 't is a thing, So high pre-eminent, that a boy's breath, Or brute's, or madman's blow, can never reach it. My honour is so much, so truly mine, That none hath power to ...
— Andre • William Dunlap

... sales, and buys every book that is cheap. That is a painfully low and grovelling type of the malady; and, fortunately for the honour of literature, the bargain-hunter who suffers under it is not in general a special votary of books, but buys all bargains that come in his way—clocks, tables, forks, spoons, old uniforms, gas-meters, magic lanterns, galvanic batteries, violins (warranted real Cremonas, from their being smashed to pieces), classical busts (with the same ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton

... or misled, the most valuable of the social cementing qualities, faith in one's fellows, is weakened. Despite the disintegrating effect of unscrupulous shrewdness, it is common enough to hear men say of a successful votary of the art, "Well, I give him credit. He is a very clever fellow, and he has brought home the bacon." Success is so highly prized and admired that the means of obtaining it becomes secondary in ...
— The Foundations of Personality • Abraham Myerson

... at Soissons, his capital, and thither Gaultier repaired on Good-Friday, in the year 536, and, availing himself of the moment when the King was kneeling before the altar, threw himself at the feet of the royal votary, beseeching pardon in the name of the common Savior of mankind, who on that day shed his blood for the redemption of the human race. But his prayers and appeal were in vain: he found no pardon; Clothair drew his sword, and ...
— Account of a Tour in Normandy, Vol. I. (of 2) • Dawson Turner

... and he saw that the nymph had been transformed into a fountain. Not for a moment did Alpheus delay, but, turning himself into a torrent in flood, he rushed on in pursuit of Arethusa. Then did Diana, to save her votary, cleave a way for her through the dark earth even into the gloomy realm of Pluto himself, and the nymph rushed onward, onward still, and then upward, until at length she emerged again to the freedom of the blue sky and green trees, and beheld ...
— A Book of Myths • Jean Lang

... is heightened religious tone is lowered. The Puranic votary clinging to his one idea of god curses all them that believe in other aspects of the divinity. Blind bigotry fills the worshipper's soul. Religion becomes mere fanaticism. But there is also tolerance. Sometimes in one and the same Pur[a]na rival forms are honored. The modern Hindu ...
— The Religions of India - Handbooks On The History Of Religions, Volume 1, Edited By Morris Jastrow • Edward Washburn Hopkins

... prejudice; and the phantoms which existed only in the mind of the emperor had a real and pernicious effect on the government of the empire. The vehement zeal of the Christians, who despised the worship, and overturned the altars of those fabulous deities, engaged their votary in a state of irreconcilable hostility with a very numerous party of his subjects; and he was sometimes tempted by the desire of victory, or the shame of a repulse, to violate the laws of prudence, and even of justice. The triumph of the party, ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon

... whose locks unrolled, Stream on the breeze like floating gold; Come, within a fragrant cloud Blushing with light, thy votary shroud; And, on those wings that sparkling play, Waft, oh, waft me hence away! Love! my soul is full of thee, Alive to all thy luxury. But she, the nymph for whom I glow The lovely Lesbian mocks my woe; Smiles at the chill and hoary hues That time upon my ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al

... his perfect wits, and interested in nothing but small change; for that he had a great avidity. In the course of time he proved to be a chicken- stealer, and vanished from his perch; and perhaps from the first he was no true votary of forest freedom, but an ingenious, theatrically-minded beggar, and his cabin in the tree was only stock-in-trade to beg withal. The choice of his position would seem to indicate so much; for if in the forest there are no places still to be discovered, ...
— Across The Plains • Robert Louis Stevenson

... they would appear of a very negative character in the eyes of persons revelling in all the splendour and luxury that wealth could procure, in a country in which nature and art are so eminently favourable towards what is usually termed the pleasures of life; but I never was a votary at the shrine of luxury or fashion. A round of company, a routine of pleasure, were to me sources of weariness, if not of disgust. "There's nothing in all this to satisfy the heart," says Schiller; and I admit the force of ...
— The Backwoods of Canada • Catharine Parr Traill

... collected, if a trifle pale, holding, like a proper votary, a bouquet—starry handful of sweet white hedge-roses,—which he offered as soon as Aurora entered, saying he had picked them for her that morning in the country near ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall

... loves, as some cold peak Through icy mists may enviously descry Warm vales unzoned to the all-fruitful sun. So they along an immortality Of endless-envistaed homage strain their gaze, If haply some rash votary, empty-urned, But light of foot, with all-adventuring hand, Break rank, fling past the people and the priest, Up the last step, on to the inmost shrine, And there, the sacred curtain in his clutch, Drop ...
— Artemis to Actaeon and Other Worlds • Edith Wharton

... now, votary! still at your book? Ever in mourning weeds? For shame, for shame! With better entertainment cheer our friends. Now, by the bless'd cross, you are much to blame To cross our mirth thus: you are much to blame, I say. Good lord! hath never woe enough Of welladay? Indeed, indeed, ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VIII (4th edition) • Various

... Areopagus. The court consists of Athenian citizens. Athene in person presides. The Furies appear as the accusers. They form the Chorus, which in this case plays a part in the drama. Apollo appears as a witness for his accused votary, and as responsible for the act which he had commanded. The result is the acquittal of Orestes by the presiding goddess. The proceedings ...
— Specimens of Greek Tragedy - Aeschylus and Sophocles • Goldwin Smith

... Truth-speaking, skilled in arms, sagacious, just; Terrible to his foes, fortunate, lord Of many conquered towns; a godlike man, Princeliest of princes—Nala—one that hath A countenance like the full moon's for light, And eyes of lotus. This true offerer Of sacrifices, this close votary Of Vedas and Vedangas, in the war Deadly to enemies, like sun and moon For splendor—by some certain evil ones Being defied to dice, my virtuous Prince Was, by their wicked acts, of realm despoiled— Wealth, jewels, all. I am his woful wife, The Princess Damayanti. Seeking ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson

... having an intrinsic charm, is valuable for some reflexion in it of those lost works, being itself pre-eminently a work in colour, and excelling in a kind of painting in words, which brings its subject very pleasantly almost to the eye of the reader. The mind of this late votary [131] of the old gods, in a world rapidly changing, is crowded with all the beautiful forms generated by mythology, and now about to be forgotten. In this after-glow of Latin literature, lighted up long after their fortune had set, and just before their long night began, they pass before us, in ...
— Greek Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater

... most tremulously: But soon her voice the calmness which it shed 2135 Gathered, and—'Thou art whom I sought to see, And thou art our first votary here,' she said: 'I had a dear friend once, but he is dead!— And of all those on the wide earth who breathe, Thou dost resemble him alone—I spread 2140 This veil between us two that thou beneath Shouldst image one who may have been ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley

... the emperor, having been recognized by him and questioned as to the cause of his arrival, he answered in Greek; and, like a philosopher who professed himself a votary of truth, when the prince inquired more precisely, if those who had sent him did really think well of the prefect, he replied, that they had sent him against their will, and with ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus

... air must have found its subtle way to the heart of our hero, had it not luckily been driven from his ears by the coarse bubbling of some bottled ale which at that time he was pouring forth. Many other weapons did she essay; but the god of eating (if there be any such deity) preserved his votary; or, perhaps, the security of Jones may be accounted for by natural means, for, as love frequently preserves from the attacks of hunger, so may hunger possibly, in some cases, defend us against love. No sooner was the ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange

... canst thou renounce the boundless store Of charms which Nature to her votary yields! The warbling woodland, the resounding shore, The pomp of groves, and garniture of fields; All that the genial ray of morning gilds, And all that echoes to the song of even, All that the mountain's sheltering bosom shields, ...
— Lectures on the English Poets - Delivered at the Surrey Institution • William Hazlitt

... in order due, His mind from worldly thoughts withdrew, And with his large-eyed wife besought Narayan, as a votary ought. Upon his head the brimming cup Of holy oil he lifted up, Then placed within the kindled fire The offering to that heavenly Sire, And as he sipped the remnant prayed To Him for blessing and for aid. Then with still lips ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI

... haggle about naming so ancient a term. I made a visit yesterday to the Abbess of Panthemont, General Oglethorpe's niece,(1089) and no chicken. I inquired after her mother, Madame de Meziers, and I thought I might to a spiritual votary to immortality venture to say, that her mother must be very old; she interrupted me tartly, and said, no, her mother had been married extremely young. Do but think of its seeming important to a saint to sink a wrinkle of her own through ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole

... Heaven's overflowing kindness ever Give you good health of body and of soul, And bless your days according to the wishes And prayers of its most humble votary! ...
— Tartuffe • Jean-Baptiste Poquelin Moliere

... I was a man, the most wedded to his idols of my generation. I was a dweller under roofs; the gull of that which we call civilisation; a superstitious votary of the plastic arts; a cit, and a prop of restaurants. I had a comrade in those days, somewhat of an outsider, though he moved in the company of artists, and a man famous in our small world for gallantry, knee-breeches, and dry and pregnant sayings. He, looking on the long meals and waxing bellies ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... of Mainz was an image of the Virgin, on whose feet were golden slippers, the gift of some wealthy votary. Of this image ...
— Hero Tales and Legends of the Rhine • Lewis Spence

... postscript from the young soldier votary of Cupid and the muse is evidently appended in the gayety of an affectionate heart, speeding to the land of his own lady-love, shortly to become his bride after his arrival, and which was so consummated. Kosciusko never swerved from his soul's loyalty ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter

... once more, at all events. He stood, alternately nodding and looking up at her glowing room, and longing for its owner to appear. But as Bacchus had inspired him to mistake eight o'clock for nine, and as she was not a votary of Bacchus, she did not appear; and he stood there till he ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 101, March, 1866 • Various

... of dread desire! By all the dreams that throng Love's golden ways, By all the honied vows thy votary pays, By sacrificial wine, and holy fire! Thou who hast made my heart thy living lyre, Hast thou no gift for me, nor any grace? Why hast thou turned the light of Love's sweet face From me, the sweetest singer of ...
— Audrey Craven • May Sinclair

... her time with the most empty-headed and frivolous people. Only art seemed great and glorious and satisfying. She loved it sincerely, and for itself alone; she had no ambitions with regard to it, ambition was not a part of her queer nature; she would all her life be a humble votary at a lofty shrine. She did not imagine that there could be anything greater than art in the whole world. As yet her soul had not been really aroused, but the time of awakening ...
— Red Rose and Tiger Lily - or, In a Wider World • L. T. Meade

... political or local interest. But more frequently there appeared in its first column an effusion of no local color, but full of sentimental or moral reflections. In this day's issue there was a long letter, dated New York, from one who claimed to be "Beauty's Votary." This expressed the writer's disappointment that an interesting "Piece" inserted in the "Gazette" a fortnight earlier had presented in its conclusion "an unexpected shocking Image." The shock to the writer it ...
— Forgotten Books of the American Nursery - A History of the Development of the American Story-Book • Rosalie V. Halsey

... and romance of the long years of Spanish domination and character have been crystallised upon the Mexican soil. The mien and character of the race created here in New Spain is marked for all time as a distinctive type, which may possess more for the future than the votary of Anglo-Saxon civilisation and strenuous commercialism may yet suspect. Whatever critical comparison may be applied to these people, the foreigner will acknowledge the pleasing trait of courtesy they invariably show. The elegance ...
— Mexico • Charles Reginald Enock

... long again was seen That Votary of Hippocrene. As along Cheap his Way he took, His Uncle spied him by a Brook, Not such as Nymphs Castalian pour,— 'Twas but the Kennel, nothing more. His Plight was plain by every Sign Of Idiot ...
— Collected Poems - In Two Volumes, Vol. II • Austin Dobson

... least, I imagine—pleasure pure and simple, pleasure crude, brutal and vulgar—this poor flimsy delusion has lost all its charm. I shall never again care for certain things—and indeed for certain persons. Of such things, of such persons, I firmly maintain, however, that I was never an enthusiastic votary. It would be more to my credit, I suppose, if I had been. More would be forgiven me if I had loved a little more, if into all my folly and egotism I had put a little more naivete and sincerity. Well, I did the best I could, I was at once too bad and too good ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 5 • Various

... understands the art of smoking better than his Highness. His richly carved silver sheesha borne by a glossy Nubian eunuch, in a scarlet and golden dress, was a picture for Stephanoff. The Chibouquejee of the Viceroy never took less than five minutes in filling the Viceregal pipe. The skilful votary is well aware how much the pleasure of the practice depends upon the skill with which the bowl is filled. For myself, notwithstanding the high authority of the Pacha, I give the preference to Beirout, a tobacco from the ancient Berytus, lower down on the coast, and which reminded ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 566, September 15, 1832 • Various

... man was Arrius—prudent, and of the class which, while enriching the altars at Praeneste and Antium, was of opinion, nevertheless, that the favor of the blind goddess depended more upon the votary's care and judgment than upon his gifts and vows. All night as master of the feast he had sat at table drinking and playing; yet the odor of the sea returned him to the mood of the sailor, and he would not rest until he knew his ship. Knowledge ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace

... him to a station second to none among the public characters of his time; and if, instead of being cut off by the hand of violence in the morning of life, he had been permitted to attain a length of days at all approaching to the fourscore years of his father, it is probable that the votary of letters would have been lost to us in the statesman or the soldier. Queen Mary, who sought by her favor and confidence to revive the almost extinguished energies of his father, and called forth ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin

... dawned for fair Betty Ives. It was not so unbroken for her betrothed: now and then a look of care overcast his brow, and now and then his hands clenched themselves with a slight nervous movement. All through the day he paid her a courtship so tender, so deferential, so loving, it might have been a votary addressing his saint, a courtier waiting on his queen; and as the hour advanced, and the time of departure drew near, his attentions became yet ...
— Tales from Many Sources - Vol. V • Various

... great talents, and of brilliant wit; but, a worn-out votary of voluptuousness, his desires became fastidious in proportion as they grew weak, and the native tenderness of his heart was undermined by a vitiated imagination. A thoughtless career of libertinism and social ...
— Posthumous Works - of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman • Mary Wollstonecraft

... wealth. His first wish was aggrandisement; and the means that led towards this end were secondary considerations. Haughty, yet trembling to every demonstration of respect; ambitious, but too proud to shew his ambition; willing to achieve honour, yet a votary of pleasure,— he entered upon life. He was met on the threshold by some insult, real or imaginary; some repulse, where he least expected it; some disappointment, hard for his pride to bear. He writhed beneath an injury he was unable to revenge; and he quitted England with a vow not to return, ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley

... though I would fain be spared the trouble. I doubt not it is some soft votary of Flora; and I am not in the vein for such ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 1 of 2) • Henry William Herbert

... we do is often that for which our age and our friends care the least; but they who have once tasted the delights of a cultivated mind would not exchange them for the gifts of fortune, and to have beheld the fair face of wisdom is to be forever her votary. Words spoken for the masses grow obsolete; but what is fit to be heard by the chosen few shall be true and beautiful while such minds are found on earth. In the end, it is this little band—this intellectual aristocracy—who ...
— Education and the Higher Life • J. L. Spalding

... her lamp, but fed from inborn store; Love thrice-requited with the single joy Of an immaculate vision naught could cloy, 20 Dearer because, so high beyond my scope, My life grew rich with her, unbribed by hope Of other guerdon save to think she knew One grateful votary paid her all her due; Happy if she, high-radiant there, resigned To his sure trust her image in his mind. O fairer even than Peace is when she comes Hushing War's tumult, and retreating drums Fade to a murmur like the sough ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell

... the crack of his heavy thong on Smiler's dull sides,) may have been perfectly consistent with the acme of politesse some centuries bygone. We speak here somewhat confidently. Hear what an amorous votary of the Muses in the olden time, Robert Herrick, saith ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13 Issue 364 - 4 Apr 1829 • Various

... and to the privileges and feelings of a votary, is only to be gained by one means—sound and sufficient knowledge of mathematics, the great instrument of all exact inquiry, without which no man can ever make such advances in this or any other of the higher departments of science as can entitle him to ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume I (of II) • Augustus De Morgan

... the momentary irresolution. She touched her palfrey lightly with the whip, and turned her splendid eyes on her votary. ...
— The White Rose of Langley - A Story of the Olden Time • Emily Sarah Holt

... to be a social concern, and narrows into a personal affair between an individual and his Maker, in which the issue at stake is but his private salvation. Religion in this shape is quite consistent with the most selfish and contracted egoism, and identifies the votary as little in feeling with the rest of his kind ...
— Considerations on Representative Government • John Stuart Mill

... that love-verses, writ without any real passion, are the most nauseous of all conceits; and I have often thought that no man can be a proper critic of love-composition, except he himself, in one or more instances, have been a warm votary of this passion. As I have been all along a miserable dupe to love, and have been led into a thousand weaknesses and follies by it, for that reason I put the more confidence in my critical skill, in distinguishing foppery and conceit from real passion and nature. Whether the following ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham

... in the middle ranks of life, and even amongst a large portion of the working classes. He has to mend with his own hands every sort of thing that can break or wear in his house. Yet Mr. Peach is a votary of Natural History; not a student of the science in books, for he cannot afford books; but an investigator by sea and shore, a collector of Zoophytes and Echinodermata - strange creatures, many of which are as ...
— Glaucus; or The Wonders of the Shore • Charles Kingsley

... write had become universal among the jeunesse of the capital. The seductive methods by which Alexandrinism had made it equally easy to enshrine in verse his morning reading or his evening's amour, proved too great an attraction for the young Roman votary of the muses. Rome already teemed with the class so pitilessly satirized by Horace ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell

... most depraved votary of wealth and fashion really to despise a poor, honest, well-informed man. There is an aristocracy of virtue as well as of wealth; and the rich man who dares to cast undeserved contempt upon his poor, but high-minded brother, hears a voice within him which, ...
— Life in the Clearings versus the Bush • Susanna Moodie

... gaudy Venice round, Resolv'd the inviting sweets to prove, Of friendship warm, and willing love; Where softly roll th' obedient seas, Sacred to luxury and ease, In coffee-house or casino gay Till the too quick return of day, Th' enchanted votary who sighs For sentiments without disguise, Clear, unaffected, fond, and ...
— Observations and Reflections Made in the Course of a Journey through France, Italy, and Germany, Vol. I • Hester Lynch Piozzi

... illuminated from end to end by thousands of colored lamps, all apparently lit at once by a single flash of electricity. A magnificent repast was spread for the Laureate and his guest, in a lofty, richly frescoed banqueting-hall,—a repast voluptuous enough to satisfy the most ardent votary that ever followed the doctrines of Epicurus. Wonderful dainties and still more wonderful wines were served in princely profusion—and while the strangely met and sympathetically united friends ate and drank, delicious music was played on stringed instruments by unseen performers. ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli

... Lord John Russell on his approaching union with Lady Fanny Elliot. His lordship is such a persevering votary of Hymen, that we think he ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various

... only to be expected that in every case the vision should take the form required by the religion of the worshipper. Hence the Christian sees Christ and enters heaven; Mahomed was caught up to the Paradise of the true believers; the anthropomorphic Jehovah permitted only a back view to His votary; the Egyptian Pharaohs beheld their gods alive and moving on the earth. The witch also met her god at the actual Sabbath and again in her dreams, for that earthly Sabbath was to her the true Paradise, where there was more pleasure than she ...
— The Witch-cult in Western Europe - A Study in Anthropology • Margaret Alice Murray

... with unerring aim, into the breast of his antagonist. The wounded man starts convulsively, as the other coolly draws back the weapon, the blood gushing forth in a livid stream. "Is not that in self-defence?" exclaims the bloody votary, turning his haggard and enraged face to receive the approval of the bystanders. The dying man, writhing under the grasp of his murderer, utters a piercing shriek. "Murdered! I'm dying! Oh, heaven! is this my last-last-last? ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams

... higher rate than intellectual acquisitions, and proposes to conduct her followers to the heights of virtue rather than of knowledge. On the contrary, most of the false religious systems which have prevailed in the world, have proposed to reward the labour of their votary, by drawing aside the veil which concealed from the vulgar eye their hidden mysteries, and by introducing him to the knowledge of their deeper and ...
— A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Middle and Higher Classes in this Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity. • William Wilberforce

... place, her votary should not have a lame or halting industry—I mean, that he should not be half industrious and half idle: as, for example, when a man is a lover of gymnastic and hunting, and all other bodily exercises, ...
— The Republic • Plato

... generally travel in families, for the women are of course more ardent than their husbands in undertaking these pious enterprises, and they take care to bring with them all their children, however young; for the efficacy of the rites does not depend upon the age of the votary, so that people whose careful mothers have obtained for them the benefit of the pilgrimage in early life, are saved from the expense and trouble of undertaking the journey at a later age. The superior veneration so often excited by objects that are distant and unknown shows not ...
— Eothen • A. W. Kinglake

... the future pilgrim to Rome, unaware on which side his irony was whetted. When professional education confers nothing but irritation on a Schiller, no one ought to be surprised; for Schiller, and such as he, are primarily spiritual adventurers. But that Winckelmann, the votary of the gravest of intellectual traditions, should get nothing but an attempt at suppression from the professional guardians of learning, is what ...
— The Renaissance: Studies in Art and Poetry • Walter Horatio Pater

... the storm. Thy temple, NATURE, rears it's mystic form; From earth to heav'n, unwrought by mortal toil, Towers the vast fabric on the desert soil; O'er many a league the ponderous domes extend. And deep in earth the ribbed vaults descend; 70 A thousand jasper steps with circling sweep Lead the slow votary up the winding steep; Ten thousand piers, now join'd and now aloof, Bear on their branching arms the ...
— The Temple of Nature; or, the Origin of Society - A Poem, with Philosophical Notes • Erasmus Darwin

... What will he find beyond them? The secret he longed to learn, the seal and confirmation of his hard-won faith, or empty, baulking nothingness? Would the goddess herself, the unveiled Isis, wait to bless her votary within those doors? Or would that hall be tenanted but by a painted and bedizened idol, a thing fine with ivory and gold, but dead ...
— Stella Fregelius • H. Rider Haggard

... cigar in his mouth to prepare it for smoking, the regulations of the ship forbidding any further indulgence below; but when he received this assurance, he withdrew the tobacco with the sort of mystifying simplicity that gets to be a second nature with a regular votary of Neptune, and answered with a coolness of manner that was in ridiculous contrast to the affected ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper

... mixed as such a mixture, our Scotch with our Irish, might be, it had had still a grace to borrow from the third infusion or dimension. If I could freely have chosen moreover it was precisely from my father's mother that, fond votary of the finest faith in the vivifying and characterising force of mothers, I should have wished to borrow it; even while conscious that Catherine Barber's own people had drawn breath in American air for at least two generations before her. Our father's father, ...
— A Small Boy and Others • Henry James

... Vivaswata,[FN6] the Lord of Light; Vivaswata to Manu gave it; he To Ikshwaku; so passed it down the line Of all my royal Rishis. Then, with years, The truth grew dim and perished, noble Prince! Now once again to thee it is declared— This ancient lore, this mystery supreme— Seeing I find thee votary and friend. ...
— The Bhagavad-Gita • Sir Edwin Arnold

... may easily suffer shipwreck; but an unfettered purpose that moulds circumstances as they arise, masters us, and is terrible. Character melts to it, like metal in the steady furnace. The projector of plots is but a miserable gambler and votary of chances. Of a far higher quality is the will that can subdue itself to wait, and lay no petty traps for opportunity. Poets may fable of such a will, that it makes the very heavens conform to it; or, I may add, what is almost equal thereto, one who would be a gentleman, to consent ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... this house, that we may not meet again; and I will leave it to God Almighty to protect honesty and innocence against the dangers which must attend vanity and folly." So saying, he turned contemptuously from the youthful votary of ambition, and ...
— The Surgeon's Daughter • Sir Walter Scott

... breath; and a sudden stroke of genius lit her face into a very heaven with its lightning. It seemed to me that in her I should find one who would truly sympathize with me, one who looked on the art not as a connoisseur, but a votary. ...
— Woman in the Ninteenth Century - and Kindred Papers Relating to the Sphere, Condition - and Duties, of Woman. • Margaret Fuller Ossoli

... dinner Sir Jasper comically described the procession as he met it. Kalliope White, looking only too like Minerva, or some of those Greek goddess statues they used to draw about, sitting straight and upright in her triumphal car, drawn by her votary; while poor Gillian came behind with the pony on one side and the bicycle on the other, very much as if she were conducting the wheel on which she was to be broken, as an offering to ...
— Beechcroft at Rockstone • Charlotte M. Yonge

... her presence to her votary in such wonderful guise, it is for me to proclaim her worship throughout our land, and then shall the country gain new life. 'Your image make we in temple after temple.' [20] But this our people have not yet fully realized. So I would call on them in your name and offer for their worship ...
— The Home and the World • Rabindranath Tagore

... to the Princesse de Guemenee just a fortnight before this adventure happened, and was often raised by the conjurations of M. d'Andilly, to frighten his votary, I believe, into piety, for he was even more in love with her person than I myself; but he loved her in the Lord, purely and spiritually. I raised, in my turn, a demon that appeared to her in a more kind and agreeable form. ...
— The Memoirs of Cardinal de Retz, Complete • Jean Francois Paul de Gondi, Cardinal de Retz

... votary of St. Francis made his bow, and opening the lid of his basket, pulled out a cabbage with a long stalk and four or five flagging leaves, but no heart to it. "Superior send present to Inglez capitown." And having laid it carefully on the carronade slide, fumbled in his pocket for some time, and ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat

... garden. Its only ornament was a short walk, shaded on each side by a filbert-hedge, with a small alcove at one end, whither in hot weather the gentleman and his wife used to retire and divert themselves with their children, who played in the walk before them. But, though vanity had no votary in this little spot, here was variety of fruit and everything useful for the kitchen, which was abundantly sufficient to catch the admiration of Adams, who told the gentleman he had certainly a good gardener. Sir, answered ...
— Joseph Andrews, Vol. 2 • Henry Fielding

... have been for many a changeful year, Studious or sensual, gay or wild, or sad, An earnest votary of Evening. She Had something wondrous winning to my eye, So soft she was, and quiet. Often too, Absorbed in books, which were perchance a bane, Perchance a blessing; or in glittering crowds, Gazing all rapt on woman's eloquent face, Nature's most witching and ...
— Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, March 1844 - Volume 23, Number 3 • Various

... she sped her honors wide and far, Hailing as son Muscovia's haughty Czar, Who in his palace humbly knelt to greet, And laid his costly presents at her feet?[56] Relentless fate her sudden fall decreed, Dooming each votary's tender heart to bleed, And yet, as if in mercy to atone, That fate hushed sighs, and silenced many a groan." Winslow's ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall

... native of Nottinghamshire) in either the year 1756 or 1757, arrived in Lichfield to practise as a Physician there, where he resided until 1781. Darwin was a “votary to poetry,” a philosopher, and a clever though an eccentric man. He wrote “The Botanic Garden,” which Anna Seward pronounced to be “a string of poetic brilliants,” and in which book Horace Walpole noted a ...
— Anna Seward - and Classic Lichfield • Stapleton Martin

... some sound, some long-trembling sob of the wind, at some rushing past of an unseen stream of electricity, the irrational demon would wake unsolicited, would stir strangely alive, would rush from its pedestal like a perturbed Dagon, calling to its votary for a sacrifice, whatever the hour—to its victim for some blood, or some breath, whatever the circumstance or scene—rousing its priest, treacherously promising vaticination, perhaps filling its temple with a strange ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte

... blend and wreath, and fall again. At one extremity of music's hall was an organ; at the other a grand piano, built by a German composer. Ranged on carved slabs, at intermediate distances, was placed almost every instrument that may claim a votary. Of viols, from the violin to the double bass,—of instruments of brass, from trombones and bass kettledrums even unto trumpet and cymbal,—of instruments of wood, from winding serpents to octave flute,—and of fiddles of parchment, from the grosse caisse ...
— A Love Story • A Bushman

... been served to warrant the introduction of the lighter delicacies of the dessert. But still there seemed to be a saving of appetite, a looking for some expected dish that had not yet made its appearance, on the part of several of the guests, and especially on that of the pompous votary of Mars, who had been installed master of the ceremonies, and who at ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson

... consequent on Stevie missing his mother very much at first, she did not altogether decline the discussion. Guiltless of all irony, she answered yet in a form which was not perhaps unnatural in the wife of Mr Verloc, Delegate of the Central Red Committee, personal friend of certain anarchists, and a votary ...
— The Secret Agent - A Simple Tale • Joseph Conrad

... same power is wielded for the same purpose, as in the Halls of Congress. Even the preliminary nominating conventions, before they dare name a candidate for the highest office in the gift of the people, must ask of the Genius of slavery, to what votary she will show herself propitious. This very year, we see both the great political parties doing homage to the slave power, by nominating each a slaveholder for the chair of State. The candidate of one party declares, "I ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society

... renowned witch. By threats and entreaties, Freya compelled the old woman to trace Ottar's genealogy back to Odin, and to name every individual in turn, with a synopsis of his achievements. Then, fearing lest her votary's memory should be unable to retain so many details, Freya further compelled Hyndla to brew a potion of remembrance, which she ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber

... is as lovely as he is sound. But perhaps it is by the perfection of soundness of his lighter and archer masterpieces that he is poetically most wholesome for us. For the votary misled by a personal estimate of Shelley, as so many of us have been, are, and will be,—of that beautiful spirit building his many-colored ...
— Selections from the Prose Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold

... can the votary be justly said to have lost of his present happiness? If he resides in a convent, he converses only with men whose condition is the same with his own; he has, from the munificence of the founder, all the necessaries of life, and is safe from that destitution, ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson

... Hesketh. When he had become a Methodist, his hypochondria took a religious form, but so did his recovery from hypochondria; both must be set down to the account of his faith, or neither. This double aspect of the matter will plainly appear further on. A votary of wealth when his brain gives way under disease or age fancies that he is a beggar. A Methodist when his brain gives way under the same influences fancies that he is forsaken of God. In both cases the root of the ...
— Cowper • Goldwin Smith

... off by the blindness of my daughter from the only assistance which I ever had; deprived by time of my patron and friends; a kind of stranger in a new world, where curiosity is now diverted to other objects, and where, having no means of ingratiating my labours, I stand the single votary of an obsolete science, the scoff of puny pupils ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson

... that she desired to accompany her husband to the other world. But the wife who would not so burn herself was thrust out from among the others, and lived by gaining, by means of her body, support for the maintenance of the pagoda of which she was a votary. However, when Affonso de Albuquerque took the city of Goa, he forbad from that time forward, that any more women should be burned; and although to change one's customs is equal to death itself, nevertheless they were happy to save their lives, and spoke very highly of him because he had ...
— Rulers of India: Albuquerque • Henry Morse Stephens

... temple, but they had considerable freedom and could leave the convent and also contract marriage. Their vows, however, while securing them special privileges, entailed corresponding responsibilities. Even when married a votary was still obliged to remain a virgin, and, should her husband desire to have children, she could not bear them herself, but must provide him with a maid or concubine. Also she had to maintain a high standard of moral conduct, for any breach of which severe penalties ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, And Assyria In The Light Of Recent Discovery • L.W. King and H.R. Hall

... eaten by the canker ere it blow, Even so by love the young and tender wit Is turned to folly; blasting in the bud, Losing his verdure even in the prime, And all the fair effects of future hopes. But wherefore waste I time to counsel the That art a votary to fond desire? Once more adieu! my father at the road Expects my coming, there to see ...
— The Two Gentlemen of Verona • William Shakespeare [Craig, Oxford edition]

... Ladye." The Blessed Virgin had no fewer than six festivals—those of the Conception, Nativity, Annunciation, Visitation, Purification, and Assumption—any one of which might be made the starting-point of the fast either by the choice of the votary or by the cast of the die. A third method is instanced in the "Popish Kingdom" of Barnabe Googe (1570), actually an English metrical version of a truculent German satire by one Thomas Kirchmeyer, who was scholar enough to Latinize, ...
— The Customs of Old England • F. J. Snell

... manhood Craven Le Noir had been the votary of vice, which he called pleasure. Before reaching the age of twenty-five he had run the full course of dissipation, and found himself ruined in health, degraded in character and disgusted ...
— Capitola the Madcap • Emma D. E. N. Southworth

... the act of casting a ring into a black little stream ornamented by six rushes and two swans, with this inscription beneath: 'Venice wedding the Adriatic through the person of her Doge.' A wit having suggested to this votary of the muse that he should compose an epic on the royal canine of Venice, he is now zealously devoting himself to the task, as the literary public ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. V, May, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... poets from his Republic because they are allied to sense; because they stimulate the emotions; because they are thrice removed from the ideal truth. And in a similar spirit he declares in the Gorgias that the stately muse of tragedy is a votary of pleasure and not of truth. In modern times we almost ridicule the idea of poetry admitting of a moral. The poet and the prophet, or preacher, in primitive antiquity are one and the same; but in later ages they seem ...
— Gorgias • Plato

... easy," said the colonel, bitterly. Philip could afford to take it easy, for he had most of the colonel's money in his pocket. In fact, the unhappy votary of Mars was more thoroughly ruined than his companion was aware of, for when fortune was hitting him hardest, he had not hesitated to bring into action a reserve of government funds which had been intrusted to his charge for ...
— Fort Lafayette or, Love and Secession • Benjamin Wood

... previous to the date of these representations, which is about 1600 B.C. They are interesting to compare both with the much more ancient figures from the Spanish cave and with modern female costume. The first (Plate VIII) is a figure in coloured pottery (faience), representing either a votary or priestess of a goddess to whom snakes were sacred. The petticoat of this lady is very modern, being long, decorated with flounces (a series of five) and bell-shaped. The dress is further remarkable for a tight ring-like girdle which greatly compresses the waist and ...
— More Science From an Easy Chair • Sir E. Ray (Edwin Ray) Lankester

... or altars, in imitation of the black stone [49] of Mecca, which is deeply tainted with the reproach of an idolatrous origin. From Japan to Peru, the use of sacrifice has universally prevailed; and the votary has expressed his gratitude, or fear, by destroying or consuming, in honor of the gods, the dearest and most precious of their gifts. The life of a man [50] is the most precious oblation to deprecate a public calamity: the altars of Phoenicia ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon

... this lowly votary. "I have e'en been admitted to his table—at the foot, 'tis true—when the brave fellows of Pantagruel were at it. Not for my wit was I thus honored"—the plaisant made a dissenting gesture, the irony of which passed over the head of the speaker—"but ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham

... But ah! Oblivion's nod to get In rattling coach is harder yet. Slumbrous God of half-shut eye! 5 Who lovest with limbs supine to lie; Soother sweet of toil and care Listen, listen to my prayer; And to thy votary dispense Thy soporific influence! 10 What tho' around thy drowsy head The seven-fold cap of night be spread, Yet lift that drowsy head awhile And yawn propitiously a smile; In drizzly rains poppean dews 15 O'er the tired inmates of the Coach diffuse; ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... it obliterated. He had come forth with the exalted but undefined sense of a great task to perform. But, even as the road to the Castle of the Grail was difficult to find, the road to Klingsor's castle was easy and overeasy; it would seem that for the feet of a votary of the Grail all roads led to it. Parsifal had seen it shining afar, and with childish shouts of delight is drawing near. Klingsor, divining in him an enemy more than usual dangerous, resorts, to make his ruin altogether sure, to what are his supreme methods. He ...
— The Wagnerian Romances • Gertrude Hall

... up an unmeaning conversation. In the lefthand corner, seated on an ottoman, and regarding the others as if a barrier were placed between them, are two men designated gamblers. Your Southern gentleman is, with few exceptions, a votary of the exciting vice; but he who makes it his profession severs the thread that bound him to society. And there sits not far from these members of the sporting fraternity, the tall, slender figure of a man, habited ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams

... god is ever mocking them. To-day he smiles upon his votary, and to-morrow hides his face in darkness. To-day he gives full coffers, that are empty to-morrow. But the true riches offered so freely to all by the living God are blessed both in the getting and in the keeping. These never produce satiety, ...
— True Riches - Or, Wealth Without Wings • T.S. Arthur

... The knowledge of this process would place Miriam at the head of modern art; the sole condition being agreed upon, that she should return with him into his sightless gloom, after enriching a certain extent of stuccoed wall with the most brilliant and lovely designs. And what true votary of art would not purchase unrivalled excellence, even at ...
— The Marble Faun, Volume I. - The Romance of Monte Beni • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... the shrine of Becket at Canterbury. In every instance a gift was expected from the visitor, and as a consequence the monks fared sumptuously. Among these pilgrims were many of the nobility and even kings, including Henry VIII, who, after visiting the priory as a votary in the early part of his reign, ordered its complete destruction in 1539. This order was evidently carried out, for only shattered fragments of the ruins remain to show how splendid the ...
— British Highways And Byways From A Motor Car - Being A Record Of A Five Thousand Mile Tour In England, - Wales And Scotland • Thomas D. Murphy

... purpose of the religious sentiment, as I have shown in the last chapter, is the fruition of a wish, the success of which depends upon unknown power. The votary asks help where he cannot help himself. He expects it through an exertion of power, through an efficient cause. Obviously therefore, he is acting on the logical idea of Causality. This underlies and is essential to the simplest prayer. He extends ...
— The Religious Sentiment - Its Source and Aim: A Contribution to the Science and - Philosophy of Religion • Daniel G. Brinton

... that it might have actually swum. A profane farmer in the neighborhood announced his intention of converting this last bed of the Saint into a trough for his swine; but the profanation was rendered impossible, either by the Saint, or by some pious votary in his behalf, for on the following morning the stone sarcophargus was found ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott

... The votary, we shall say, of alcoholic liquor is found fault with, and makes the excuse, he cannot help it—he cannot resist the temptation. So far, the language may pass. But what shall we say to the not uncommon reply,—You could help it if you would. Surely there is some mystification here; ...
— Practical Essays • Alexander Bain

... cherished, if they be found to contradict the truth. Believe me, a self-renunciation which has something noble in it, and of which the world never hears, is often enacted in the private experience of the true votary ...
— Essays on Education and Kindred Subjects - Everyman's Library • Herbert Spencer

... of the times echoes the sentence of Mr. Mill. The enthusiastic votary who has been pouring his vows at the feet of his mistress consoles himself, as he leaves her, with the thought that engagements cannot last for ever, and that he shall soon be able to get back to the real world of business and of life. He ...
— Modern Women and What is Said of Them - A Reprint of A Series of Articles in the Saturday Review (1868) • Anonymous

... often behanged with a calf-skin on their recreant limbs) are down among the dead and the jackal-pack which has now taken up the howling could no longer have caused Thackeray to fear or can excite the righteous disgust of that votary of "fair-play" ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton

... only in her father's power to be given in marriage, but he might dedicate her to the service of some god as a vestal or a hierodule; or give her as a concubine. She had no choice in these matters, which were often decided in her childhood. A grown-up daughter might wish to become a votary, perhaps in preference to an uncongenial marriage, and it seems that her father could not refuse her wish. In all these cases the father might dower her. If he did not, on his death the brothers were bound to do so, giving her a full child's share ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 - "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" • Various



Words linked to "Votary" :   bacchante, disciple, bacchant, adherent, vestal virgin, non-Christian priest, religious, priest



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