Online dictionaryOnline dictionary
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

  Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Vespers   Listen
Vespers

noun
1.
The sixth of the seven canonical hours of the divine office; early evening; now often made a public service on Sundays.  Synonym: evensong.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |
Add this dictionary
to your browser search bar





"Vespers" Quotes from Famous Books



... upon the details of the flight. On the next day but one, being the feast of one of the many Franciscan saints, Stradella was to sing an air at Vespers in the Church of the Frari. It was therefore arranged that Ortensia and Pina should go to the church at that hour on pretence of confession. At the monument of Pietro Bernardini, near the main entrance, Stradella's hunchback servant would be waiting for ...
— Stradella • F(rancis) Marion Crawford

... neighbouring wives, Who ne'er shrove in their lives,— Such wickedness Sathanas whispers!— Said the black-cloaked prior By the miller's log fire, Oft tarried too late for vespers! ...
— The Baron's Yule Feast: A Christmas Rhyme • Thomas Cooper

... days of gladness are but short reliefs, Giv'n to reserve us for enduring griefs: So smiling calms close tempests breed, which break Like spoilers out, and kill our flocks when weak. I heard last May—and May is still high Spring— The pleasant Philomel her vespers sing. The green wood glitter'd with the golden sun. And all the west like silver shin'd; not one Black cloud; no rags, nor spots did stain The welkin's beauty; nothing frown'd like rain. But ere night came, that scene of fine sights turn'd To fierce dark show'rs; ...
— Poems of Henry Vaughan, Silurist, Volume II • Henry Vaughan

... world? Our doctrines are wise and ancient; we pray and keep fasts and live to ourselves, and there's little differ, in my mind, between us and the Catholic religion—in which I was born and reared. Haven't we the mass, and vespers, and beads, and monasteries, and ...
— The Road to Mandalay - A Tale of Burma • B. M. Croker

... the lorn heart does its influence creep, As the wild winds sweep o'er the fairy strings, Bringing again departed, perish'd things, O'er which we feel it luxury to weep. Sing on ye zephyr-sprites, your vespers cheer The heart, whose off'ring is a ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 494. • Various

... lounging about the deck or leaning over the bulwarks, listening to a neighboring crew chanting their vespers, while we awaited the coming on board of our captain. Meanwhile the shadows crept up the Asian hills, till the last sombre answering smile to the sun's good-night faded from the cypress-trees above the ...
— Little Classics, Volume 8 (of 18) - Mystery • Various

... antiphon[obs3], antiphony. oblation, sacrifice, incense, libation; burnt offering, heave offering, votive offering; offertory. discipline; self-discipline, self-examination, self-denial; fasting. divine service, office, duty; exercises; morning prayer; mass, matins, evensong, vespers; undernsong[obs3], tierce[obs3]; holyday &c. (rites) 998. worshipper, congregation, communicant, celebrant. V. worship, lift up the heart, aspire; revere &c. 928; adore, do service, pay homage; humble oneself, kneel; bow the knee, bend the knee; fall down, fall on one's ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... soldier, the church verger's assistant, is standing behind the candle cupboard. Raising his eyebrows and stroking his beard he explains in a half-whisper to an old woman: "Matins will be in the evening to-day, directly after vespers. And they will ring for the 'hours' to-morrow between seven and eight. Do you understand? Between seven ...
— The Cook's Wedding and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov

... his room in a whirl of conflicting thoughts. He was summoned almost immediately to vespers and complines. The familiar ritual soothed him, and he was able to join in the chants in much the old way. His feeling was that he would gladly have had the service last into the night. He would have liked to go on with this half emotional, ...
— The Puritans • Arlo Bates

... his heart revives: her vespers done, Of all its wreathed pearls her hair she frees; Unclasps her warmed jewels one by one; Loosens her fragrant bodice; by degrees Her rich attire creeps rustling to her knees: Half-hidden, like a mermaid in sea-weed, Pensive ...
— Six Centuries of English Poetry - Tennyson to Chaucer • James Baldwin

... in the distance. They were ringing for vespers; sunset was already gleaming through ...
— Legends of the Rhine • Wilhelm Ruland

... (consisting of Vespers and Matins, or Compline and Matins) may be celebrated in unconsecrated buildings, and the devout not infrequently have it, as well ...
— A Reckless Character - And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev

... part in the famous battle of Jarnac. He is supposed to have fought in France for six years. From early youth his mind was "bent on military glory," and always in opposition to Spain. His escape from the bloody Vespers of Saint Bartholomew had given him a deep distrust of the policy of Rome. The Spaniard had "abused and tormented" the wretched inhabitants of Flanders. Sir Walter Raleigh dreamed that by the combination in ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse

... after Mass and Vespers, the habitans of all parts of the extended parish naturally met and talked over the affairs of the Fabrique—the value of tithes for the year, the abundance of Easter eggs, and the weight of the first salmon of the season, ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby

... There my followers will be awaiting us, and we can escort you to a place of safety. It is fortunate that you are ordered to be apart from the rest; none therefore will mark you as you linger behind when the bell rings for vespers." ...
— In Freedom's Cause • G. A. Henty

... her cloak, and asking for Lucette; but she was grieved to hear that Martin had sent her to vespers to disarm suspicion, and moreover that he meant not to tell her of his new device. 'The creature is honest enough,' he said, 'but the way to be safe with women is not to ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge

... requiem was again said. This done they returned by Cheapside to the Church of St. Thomas Acons, where each man offered a penny. On All Saints' Day (three days later) they went to St. Paul's again for Vespers, and again at Christmas, on the Epiphany, and on Candlemas Day (Purification). On Whitsun Monday they met at St. Peter's, Cornhill, and on this occasion the City clergy all joined the procession, and again they assembled in the cathedral nave, while the Veni Creator Spiritus ...
— Old St. Paul's Cathedral • William Benham

... brigantines, which he had given over for lost. Cortes requested Sandoval to visit our quarters at Tacuba, being unable to go there himself, as he was apprehensive the brunt of the attack might now fall upon our post. Sandoval arrived about the hour of vespers, when he found us occupied in repelling the enemy, some of them having attacked us by the causeway, and others from the ruined houses. I and several other soldiers were at this time up to our middles in the water, engaging the enemy in defence of a brigantine which had run aground, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. IV. • Robert Kerr

... the stake himself in place of any other victim of Prussian cruelty, but ready to make some effort to soften hardships and reduce sentences. (There were others like him—Saxon, Thuringian, Hanoverian, Wuerttembergisch—or the German occupation of Belgium might have ended in a vast Sicilian Vespers, a boiling-over of a maddened people reckless at last of whether they died or not, so long as they slew their oppressors.) He hoped through the pieces played at the theatres and through his censored, subsidized press to bring the Belgians round to a reasonable ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston

... earlier days by a Vicar Choral, and subsequently by a Petty Canon; and next came the two masses named after the Virgin and the Chapter, the Cardinals taking the latter. The other daily services were the usual Nocturns or Matins and the rest, ending with a combined evensong of Vespers and Compline. We do not know how the old Use of St. Paul's differed from that of Sarum. Besides the Conversion and Commemoration of St. Paul, the Deposition (April 30th) and the Translation (November 14th) of St. Erkenwald ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of St. Paul - An Account of the Old and New Buildings with a Short Historical Sketch • Arthur Dimock

... the weather predisposes him to sing a particular tune. This point may, perhaps, be determined by some future observer; and it may be ascertained that the birds of this species have their matins and their vespers, their songs of rejoicing and of complaining, of courtship when in presence of their mate, and of encouragement and solace when she is sitting upon her nest. As Nature has a benevolent and a definite object ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various

... the ebb of time, From yon dull steeple's drowsy chime, Or mark it as the sunbeams crawl, 675 Inch after inch, along the wall. The lark was wont my matins ring, The sable rook my vespers sing; These towers, although a king's they be, Have not a hall of ...
— Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott

... I proved mistaken. Vespers must long have been over. A smell of stale incense, a crypt-like damp filled my mouth; it was already night in that vast cathedral. Out of the darkness glimmered the votive-lamps of the chapels, throwing wavering ...
— Hauntings • Vernon Lee

... land of charms to an Englishman. Poor Stanbury did wander into the cathedral, and finding it the coolest place in the town, went to sleep on a stone step. He was awoke by the voice of the priests as they began to chant the vespers. The good-natured Italians had let him sleep, and would have let him sleep till the doors were closed for the night. At five he dined with Mrs. Trevelyan, and then endeavoured to while away the evening thinking ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope

... preserved in existence as by its proper cause, just as without natural causes He can produce other effects of natural causes, even as He formed a human body in the Virgin's womb, "without the seed of man" (Hymn for Christmas, First Vespers). ...
— Summa Theologica, Part III (Tertia Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas

... development of the drama. They continued to be represented in the sixteenth century, and the Parliament of Paris complained in 1542 of their too great popularity: parish priests, and even the chanters of the Holy Chapel, sang vespers at noon, a most unbecoming hour, and sang them "post haste," to see the sight. Six years later the performance of Mysteries was forbidden at Paris; but the cross and ladder, emblems of the "Confreres de la Passion," continued to be seen above the gates of the "Hotel de Bourgogne," and the privilege ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand

... of isolation, M. Dablin was also his factotum and his mentor. Balzac commissioned him to buy a Bible, carefully specifying that the text must be in French as well as Latin; he wished to read the Sicilian Vespers; he felt it his duty, as a simple soldier in the ranks of literature, to attend a performance of Cinna, by the great General Corneille, from the safe seclusion of a screened box, and he would be glad to see Girodet's Endymion at the Exposition, "some morning when there is no ...
— Honor de Balzac • Albert Keim and Louis Lumet

... behind the Childe men might follow on the track of his blood in the grass. But so much he went in thoughts of Nicolette, his lady sweet, that he felt no pain nor torment, and all the day hurled through the forest in this fashion nor heard no word of her. And when he saw vespers draw nigh, he began to weep for that he found her not. All down an old road, and grass-grown, he fared, when anon, looking along the way before him, he saw such an one as I shall tell you. Tall was he, and great of growth, ugly ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner

... qualifications; but, in this sketch, those to whom I am known will not accuse me of framing my own panegyric. It was at Rome, on the 15th of October, 1764, as I sat musing amidst the ruins of the Capitol, while the bare-footed friars were singing vespers in the temple of Jupiter, that the idea of writing the decline and fall of the city first started to ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb

... the fifteenth of October, 1764, as I sat musing amidst the ruins of the Capitol, while the barefooted friars were singing vespers in the Temple of Jupiter, that the idea of writing the decline and fall of the city ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long

... were, and abbey windows, dim and dimly seen—as Moorish temples of the Hindoos," that exercised even princely power both in Lorraine and in the German Diets. These had their sweet bells that pierced the forests for many a league at matins or vespers, and each its own dreamy legend. Few enough, and scattered enough, were these abbeys, in no degree to disturb the deep solitude of the region; many enough to spread a network or awning of Christian sanctity ...
— Miscellaneous Essays • Thomas de Quincey

... fancy, Jim," said Hatteras, "I hear them every night and at matins and at vespers. There was a Jesuit monastery here two hundred years ago. The bells remain and some of the clothes." He touched his coat as he spoke. "The Fans still ring the bells from habit. Just think of it! Every morning, every evening, every midnight, I hear those bells. They talk to me of little ...
— Ensign Knightley and Other Stories • A. E. W. Mason

... conventual buildings still perfect. In the distance was the little landlocked haven, with a brig and some small lateen-sailed vessels moored alongside the Marino. Above it rose the fortress-town, with its towers and battlements. The sound of the church bells tolling for vespers rose, softened by distance, up the valley. Ravens were croaking over the ruins of the convent, and lizards frisking on the banks and the marble steps on which we reposed. It was a fitting spot for a Sunday afternoon's meditation—our ...
— Rambles in the Islands of Corsica and Sardinia - with Notices of their History, Antiquities, and Present Condition. • Thomas Forester

... to drop the Magnificat or Nunc Dimittis. When Evening Prayer is said twice on the same day, it seems proper not to drop the Magnificat at the first service (representing the ancient Evensong or Vespers, of which Magnificat was an invariable part); and, similarly, not to drop the Nunc Dimittis at the second service (representing the other component of Evening Prayer, viz. the ancient Compline, at which that Canticle was invariably used), so that in any case one of the Gospel Canticles should ...
— Ritual Conformity - Interpretations of the Rubrics of the Prayer-Book • Unknown

... is the despair of the land-owner; he works underground; no Sicilian vespers for him until he becomes a cockchafer! If the populations only realized with what untold disasters they are threatened in case they let the cockchafers and the caterpillars get the upper hand, they would pay more attention than ...
— Sons of the Soil • Honore de Balzac

... follow and watch. He had told his thought to the abbot, who bid him come to him the moment he hit the truth; and the next day, which was a Sunday, he stood in the path when the abbot and the Brothers were coming from vespers, with their white habits upon them, and took the abbot by the habit and said, 'The beggar is of the greatest of saints and of the workers of miracle. I followed Olioll but now, and by his slow steps and his bent head I saw that the ...
— The Secret Rose • W. B. Yeats

... always, as the evening chime With measured cadence fell, Her vespers o'er, she sought ...
— Indian Legends and Other Poems • Mary Gardiner Horsford

... "Christmas Eve Vespers" was suggested by the schoolmaster's little daughter going into church before the decoration had been put up, and exclaiming, disappointed, "No Christmas!" "The Second Sunday in Lent" recalls, in the line ...
— John Keble's Parishes • Charlotte M Yonge

... religious processions in the streets of the towns—when we entered the Great Cathedral at Antwerp, and found vast numbers of people, of both sexes, and all ranks and ages, on their knees, engaged, with the appearance of sincere devotion, in the solemn and striking service of vespers, we could not help saying among ourselves, that this people, for better reasons than mere political convenience, deserved to ...
— Travels in France during the years 1814-1815 • Archibald Alison

... behind the High Altar. The whole of the exterior is covered with rich carving, crocketed finials, innumerable gargoyles and the usual enriched mouldings of Gothic architecture. The charm of the interior is heightened if one enters in the twilight when vespers are proceeding. There is just sufficient light to show up the tracery of the windows and the massive pointed arches in the choir. A few candles burn by the altar beyond the dark mass of figures forming the congregation. A Gregorian ...
— Normandy, Complete - The Scenery & Romance Of Its Ancient Towns • Gordon Home

... this, he was much delighted, and determined to set out immediately for the Golden River. How to get the holy water was the question. He went to the priest, but the priest could not give any holy water to so abandoned a character. So Hans went to vespers in the evening for the first time in his life, and, under pretense of crossing himself, stole a cupful and returned home ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes

... at one another, for it was certain that all this reading would last till the meal must be left for vespers. ...
— A Thane of Wessex • Charles W. Whistler

... demand upon his auditors. If I heard Minot Savage in the morning and got wound up tight, as I always did, I went to Vespers ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 7 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Orators • Elbert Hubbard

... there was the unwonted occurrence of a sermon after vespers. Sermons were not fashionable at that time. When preached at all, they were usually extremely dry scholastic disquisitions. Father Warner had given two during his abode at the Castle: and both were concerning the duty ...
— Earl Hubert's Daughter - The Polishing of the Pearl - A Tale of the 13th Century • Emily Sarah Holt

... drinking upon early risers (see Plate); slipping on my academicals, therefore, I accompanied my friend Tom to morning prayers,—a circumstance, as I have since been informed, which would have involved me in very serious disgrace, had the appearance of an ex college man at vespers attracted the notice of any of the big wigs. Fortunately, however, I escaped the prying eyes of authority, which, on these occasions, are sometimes as much under the dominion of Morpheus—and literally walk ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle

... endure the adventure as best he was able; so he prayed to God to take him in His keeping, and in His good pleasure to bring him safe to port, and deliver him from the peril of death. Then climbing upon the couch, he laid his head upon the pillow, and slept as one dead, until, with vespers, the ship drew to that haven where he might find the healing for ...
— French Mediaeval Romances from the Lays of Marie de France • Marie de France

... of Saint Sulpice was ringing for vespers. Margaret walked slowly to the church, and sat down in the seats reserved in the transept for the needy. She hoped that the music she must hear there would rest her soul, and perhaps she might be able to pray. Of late she had not dared. There was a pleasant darkness in the place, and its ...
— The Magician • Somerset Maugham

... convenient; person, pas mal; principles, Catholic, with a due abhorrence of heretics, especially English ones. After a time, the lady is to be looked at by the unhappy pretendu; a church, a mass, or vespers, being very often the opportunity agreed. The victim thinks she will do. The proposal is discussed by the two mammas; relatives are called in; all goes well; the contract is signed; then, a measured acquaintance is allowed: but no tete-a-tetes; no idea of love. 'What! ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 1 • Grace Wharton and Philip Wharton

... songs, it was a matter of common report. Yet but once in their close friendship did the Queen command him to make a song for her. This had been at Dover, about vespers, in the starved and tiny garden overlooking the English Channel, upon which her apartments faced; and the priest had fingered his lute for an appreciable while before he sang, more ...
— Chivalry • James Branch Cabell

... dusted the gritty sill with her petticoat, she leaned her chin on her two palms and stared out into the sunbaked garden. It was empty now, and very still. The streets that lay behind the high palings were deserted in the drowsy heat; the only sound to be heard was a gentle tinkling to vespers in the neighbouring Catholic Seminary. Leaning thus on her elbows, and balancing herself first on her heels, then on her toes, Laura went on, in desultory fashion, with the thoughts that had been set in motion during the afternoon. ...
— The Getting of Wisdom • Henry Handel Richardson

... our act? Victory belongs to us; the White Dove doth rest upon our helms. 'Tis true that some of us may perish, but what of them? Their fame shall live from age to age, and never will the call to Mass or Vespers sound, never will the clouds of incense mount upward—streaming past the Host without their names being within the hearts and on the tongues of the worshipers. Think how greatly we be blessed," he continued, laying his hand fondly upon the other's shoulder;—"a few, a happy few, ...
— The Fifth of November - A Romance of the Stuarts • Charles S. Bentley

... back, come back, bonnie Laurie!" until, getting over a bank, she was met by a white-faced old man, and so frightened was she, that she thought she fainted outright. At all events, she did not come to herself until the birds were singing their vespers in the amber light of sunset, and the day ...
— J.S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 5 • J.S. Le Fanu

... regret, almost like melancholy, when we reflect that the true Nightingale and the Skylark, the classical birds of European literature, are strangers to our fields and woods. In May and June there is no want of sylvan minstrels to wake the morn and to sing the vespers of a sweet summer evening. A flood of song wakes us at the earliest daylight; and the shy and solitary Veery, after the Vesper-Bird has concluded his evening hymn, pours his few pensive notes into the very bosom of twilight, and makes the hour sacred ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various

... power on his child. Thou art mine, my beloved!—mine with thy mother's blessing; and mine thou shalt be—no earthly power shall part us. Death, death alone can break the links that bind us, and must be of God, though man may seem the cause. Be comforted, sweet love. Hark! they are chiming vespers; I must be gone for the solemn vigil of to-night, and to-morrow thou shalt arm thine own true knight, mine Agnes, and deck me with that blue scarf, more precious even than the jewelled sword my sovereign brother gives. Farewell, for a brief, brief while; I go to watch and ...
— The Days of Bruce Vol 1 - A Story from Scottish History • Grace Aguilar

... gentle hand was at the latch, Before the door had given her to his eyes; And from her chamber-window he would catch Her beauty farther than the falcon spies; 20 And constant as her vespers would he watch, Because her face was turn'd to the same skies; And with sick longing all the night outwear, To hear her ...
— Keats: Poems Published in 1820 • John Keats

... incense, libation; burnt offering, heave offering, votive offering; offertory. discipline; self-discipline, self-examination, self-denial; fasting. divine service, office, duty; exercises; morning prayer; mass, matins, evensong, vespers; undernsong^, tierce^; holyday &c (rites) 998. worshipper, congregation, communicant, celebrant. V. worship, lift up the heart, aspire; revere &c 928; adore, do service, pay homage; humble oneself, kneel; bow the knee, bend the knee; fall down, fall on one's ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... lay-sister, Mary Antony, stepped from the cool shade of the cell passage and, blinking at the sunshine, shuffled slowly to her appointed post at the top of the crypt steps, up which would shortly pass the silent procession of nuns returning from Vespers. ...
— The White Ladies of Worcester - A Romance of the Twelfth Century • Florence L. Barclay

... in the stillness his voice sounds sweet and clear, and the words of the song are: 'Chewee, chewee, chewee lira, lira, lira lee.' That is the way he says his evening prayers: you know that in some of the churches there is a beautiful service called Vespers. Ah, if we only knew ...
— Citizen Bird • Mabel Osgood Wright and Elliott Coues

... one was Sunday, so after dressing myself in my go-ashore toggery, I went with the skipper to take another stroll in the city. We dined at a cafe, and then hearing the cathedral bells tolling for vespers, I concluded to leave the skipper to smoke and snooze alone, and go and hear the performances. It was rather a warm walk up the hill, and, upon arriving at the cathedral, I stopped awhile in the cool airy porch ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various

... sings a bonny lay, above the Scottish heather, It sprinkles from the dome of day like light and love together; He drops the golden notes to greet his brooding mate, his dearie; I only know one song more sweet, the vespers ...
— Little Rivers - A Book Of Essays In Profitable Idleness • Henry van Dyke

... we left Sessouns, I remember, as I came into the Queen's lodging from vespers in the Cathedral,—Jack, that went with me, having tarried at the potter's to see wherefore he sent not home three dozen glasses for the Queen's table (and by the same token, the knave asked fifteen pence for ...
— In Convent Walls - The Story of the Despensers • Emily Sarah Holt

... in this sketch, those to whom I am known will not accuse me of framing my own panegyric. It was at Rome, on the 15th of October 1764, as I sat musing amidst the ruins of the Capitol, while the bare-footed fryars were singing vespers in the temple of Jupiter, that the idea of writing the decline and fall of the city first started to my mind. But my original plan was circumscribed to the decay of the city rather than of the empire: and though my reading ...
— Memoirs of My Life and Writings • Edward Gibbon

... vespers, Bibboni determined to seek better refuge. Followed at a discreet distance by Bebo, he first called at their lodgings and ordered supper. Two priests came in and fell into conversation with them. But something in the behaviour of one of these good men roused his suspicions. So they left the ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds

... He said: "True, Father, I fear; and if you had to say the entire Office, commencing Matins at eleven o'clock at night; or if you had to crush Vespers and Compline, under the light of a street lamp, into the ten minutes before twelve o'clock, you'd see the absurdity of the whole thing more clearly. A strictly conscientious confrere of mine in England used always commence Prime about ten o'clock ...
— My New Curate • P.A. Sheehan

... gown for Sundays and fete-days, and on working-days she wore merino in winter and striped cotton dresses in summer. On Sundays she went to church with her father and mother, and took a walk after vespers along the banks of the Vienne or about the environs. On other days she stayed at home, busy in filling worsted-work patterns, the payment for which she gave to the poor,—a life of simple, chaste, and exemplary principles and habits. She did some reading together with her tapestry, but never ...
— The Village Rector • Honore de Balzac

... wholesale slaughter of foreigners had run through the town, arousing among us fears of an impending catastrophe. The news had one day been brought us that the 16th was the date fixed for these new Sicilian Vespers, and all were warned to be watchful. The day, however, passed without any further demonstration of ill will than a few shots, and ...
— Maximilian in Mexico - A Woman's Reminiscences of the French Intervention 1862-1867 • Sara Yorke Stevenson

... spare hour bending over her "patch"; and the hole, at first no bigger than a pin's point, was larger at each setting of the sun behind the mountain. The old women, scolding on the corridor, called to her not to forget vespers. ...
— The Splendid Idle Forties - Stories of Old California • Gertrude Atherton

... fancied, to herself and to others, she was rigid as steel. Besides this, she was a strict observer of all Church canons and rituals; and more than once, when Guy had proposed some plan, a vigil, or matins, or vespers came in the way. She did all for the best, I am certain, and judged herself far more severely than she did others, but she could not guess how any thing like an admonition or a lecture grated on the proud, self-willed nature that from childhood had ...
— Guy Livingstone; - or, 'Thorough' • George A. Lawrence

... The vespers had already begun, and the monks were singing the service in the choir, when two boys rushed up the nave, announcing, more by their terrified gestures than by their words, that the soldiers were bursting into the palace and monastery. Instantly ...
— MacMillan's Reading Books - Book V • Anonymous

... run their race; Without me they would be a dream. Behold the miser! does he deem Those hoards are his? So long—no more— Than I am with him, is the store. Soon from him as I pass away, His heir will lavish them with play. To arts and learning, matins' chime, Vespers and midnight, seizing time, I never know an idle hour Love not more fugitive in bower. But I have heard coquettes complain That they have let the seasons wane, Nor caught me in my flight; and sorrowed To see the springtide was but borrowed— Not permanent—and so ...
— Fables of John Gay - (Somewhat Altered) • John Gay

... the Fete-Dieu, preparations were being made in the village for the procession that was to take place after vespers. Sheets were spread along the fronts of the houses, with flowers pinned to them, and reposoirs had been raised in the open air. I did not wait for the procession, as I expected to be in time for the one at the next village, ...
— Wanderings by southern waters, eastern Aquitaine • Edward Harrison Barker

... the saint, whose day, August 12th, was observed by them. Five days, by easy jornadas, they traveled down the river, and arrived on the 14th at the first rancheria[22] of the Channel Indians. It being the vespers of the feast of La Asuncion de Nuestra Senora, Portola named the village La Asuncion. It contained about thirty large, well-constructed houses of clay and rushes, and each house held three or four families. ...
— The March of Portola - and, The Log of the San Carlos and Original Documents - Translated and Annotated • Zoeth S. Eldredge and E. J. Molera

... that the earl, as, according to custom, Anne knelt to him for his morning blessing in the oratory where the Christian baron at matins and vespers offered up his simple worship, drew her forth into ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... one squint. To the comic encouragement, to the "consolations lavished" in prize-book phrases by the voices of young urchins with colds, were the affecting benedictions, the whining and piteous mummeries of a church-porch after vespers. And the moment the young visitors departed, what an explosion of laughter and shouting in the garret, what a dance in a circle round the present brought, what an upsetting of the arm-chair in which one had pretended to be lying ill, of the medicine spilt in the ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet

... whispering side by side, Nor ceased the low murmur at eventide; So breathe in whispers The zephyrs through lindens at twilight vespers. ...
— Fridthjof's Saga • Esaias Tegner

... ten, and that the fourth commandment (called the third in their enumeration) is made to enjoin the observance of Sunday as the Sabbath, and prescribe that the day shall be spent in hearing mass devoutly, attending vespers, and reading moral and pious books. Here are several variations from the decalogue as found in the Bible. Which of them constitutes the change of the law intended in the prophecy? or, are they all included in that change? Let it be borne in mind that, according to ...
— The United States in the Light of Prophecy • Uriah Smith

... massacres in history, abominable ones assuredly, but they have possessed some show of reason; Saint Bartholomew and the Dragonnades are explained by religion, the Sicilian Vespers and the butcheries of September are explained by patriotism; they crush the enemy or annihilate the foreigner; these are crimes for a good cause; but the carnage of the Boulevard Montmartre is a crime ...
— The History of a Crime - The Testimony of an Eye-Witness • Victor Hugo

... of his spouse. To this he privily assented; and that very evening, when Annatoo descended into the forecastle, we barred over her the scuttle-slide. Long she clamored, but unavailingly. And every night this was repeated; the dame saying her vespers ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville

... the singular form; as, hemp, flax, barley, wheat, pitch, gold, sloth, pride, honesty, meekness, compassion, &c.; others only in the plural form; as, bellows, scissors, ashes, riches, snuffers, tongs, thanks, wages, embers, ides, pains, vespers, &c. ...
— English Grammar in Familiar Lectures • Samuel Kirkham

... the different tones lingering on the air and seeming to me like the old church bells of Westham summoning the laggards of the congregation to prayers. Father wasn't an extreme high churchman, or otherwise I would have said vespers! ...
— Afloat at Last - A Sailor Boy's Log of his Life at Sea • John Conroy Hutcheson

... political reasons to change the system of government from election to heredity, and the choice fell on the Lord of Njegusi Danilo Petrovic, whose reign (1696-1735) is chiefly memorable for the Montenegrin vespers of the Turks and Turkish renegades, who had rendered so much assistance to Kiuprili Pasha in one of his terrible invasions. But a crushing defeat of the Turks in 1706 gave the ...
— The Land of the Black Mountain - The Adventures of Two Englishmen in Montenegro • Reginald Wyon

... 1860, than it had been in October, 1764, when the idea of writing the Decline and Fall of the city first started to the mind of Gibbon, "in the close of the evening, as I sat musing in the Church of the Zoccolanti or Franciscan Friars, while they were singing Vespers in the Temple of Jupiter, on the ruins of the Capitol." Murray's Handbook had the grace to quote this passage from Gibbon's "Autobiography," which led Adams more than once to sit at sunset on the steps of the Church of Santa Maria di Ara Coeli, curiously wondering that not an inch had been gained ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams

... had time to hurry him upon a bed ere he breathed his last. Some pretty verses, attributed to Alaric A. Watts, commemorate a similar incident, said to have happened to two sisters who were nuns at Beverley Minister. They disappeared one evening after vespers. After some months they were found in a trance in the north tower. On being aroused they declared they had been admitted into Paradise, whither they would return before morning. They died in the night; and the beautiful monument called the Sisters' ...
— The Science of Fairy Tales - An Inquiry into Fairy Mythology • Edwin Sidney Hartland

... with our dead," say the Bretons. First on the Eve of All Souls' comes the religious service, "black vespers." The blessedness of death is praised, the sorrows and shortness of life dwelt upon. After a common prayer all go out to the cemetery to pray separately, each by the graves of his kin, or to the "place of bones," where the remains of those long dead are thrown ...
— The Book of Hallowe'en • Ruth Edna Kelley

... be said. The morning service on Sunday was the only one that was of much importance, to which the whole parish came. That in the afternoon was attended only by the village people, and did not count for much. The rector would not have said in so many words, like a French cure, that vespers was pas obligatoire, but he had the same feeling. Both he and his wife felt kindly to the people who came, as if it were a personal compliment. It is needless to say that things ecclesiastical have very, very much changed since, and that this easy ...
— A Country Gentleman and his Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant

... to the high-road, and he asked us if we should like to see the church. It was about three o'clock, and in the low porch the cure was ringing the bell for vespers. We pushed open the inner doors and went in. The church was without aisles, and down the nave stood four rows of wooden cots with brown blankets. In almost every one lay a soldier—the doctor's "worst cases"—few of them ...
— Fighting France - From Dunkerque to Belport • Edith Wharton

... meantime has come forward, seizes a rope hanging from the bell tower, and begins to ring vespers). If your worship be seriously meant, ...
— Master Olof - A Drama in Five Acts • August Strindberg

... festivals; three burning perpetually, viz., in the chapter-house, the second before S. Mary's altar, and the third before the cross in the rood-loft; four before the high altar, and altar on "Minus Duplicia," and five tapers in basons, on principles, and doubles, at mass, prime, and second vespers, four tapers before the high altar, five in the basons, thirteen on the beam, and seven in the candelabra; the paschal and portable tapers for processions. He kept the keys of the treasury, copes, palls, vestments, ornaments, and the plate, ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Hereford, A Description - Of Its Fabric And A Brief History Of The Episcopal See • A. Hugh Fisher

... incontinence. He was an enormous eater. He breakfasted at five, on a fowl seethed in milk and dressed with sugar and spices. After this he went to sleep again. He dined at twelve, partaking always of twenty dishes. He supped twice; at first, soon after vespers, and the second time at midnight or one o'clock, which meal was, perhaps, the most solid of the four. After meat he ate a great quantity of pastry and sweetmeats, and he irrigated every repast by vast draughts of beer and wine. His stomach, originally a wonderful one, succumbed after ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... else—to Japan; and he had lived for six weeks up country in China, in a secluded Buddhist monastery perched on the edge of a precipice, like an eagle's nest, where his only associates were bonzes in yellow robes, and the stillness was only broken by the deep-toned temple bell, booming for vespers. Then, somehow, his thoughts turned back to Europe, and he began a disquisition upon the great old masters—Tintoretto, Rembrandt, Velasquez, Tiziano, and Peter Paul—with whose immortal works he seemed as familiar as he subsequently showed himself with the pictures ...
— Austin and His Friends • Frederic H. Balfour

... was done, the Abbot and the Convent invited all who were there present to be their guests, giving a right solemn feast to all; and the chief persons dined with the Convent in the Refectory. And that same day in the evening, after vespers, when it was about four o'clock, the workmen had removed the stone lions, and placed the tomb upon them, and laid the lid of the tomb hard by, and made all ready to fasten it down, so soon as the holy ...
— Chronicle Of The Cid • Various

... of Scripture, and who pride themselves in finding one which seems to favour their error.—The chapter for Vespers, Passion Sunday, the prayer ...
— Pascal's Pensees • Blaise Pascal

... over his shoulders, is the true chorister for the bridals of earth and sky. There is no bird that seems to me so thoroughly happy as he, so void of all arriere pensee about getting a livelihood. The robin sings matins and vespers somewhat conscientiously, it seems to me—makes a business of it and pipes as it were by the yard—but Bob squanders song ...
— The Vision of Sir Launfal - And Other Poems • James Russell Lowell

... year, and enclosing a chapel and a house. Near by, they had cleared a large tract of land, and sown it with wheat, Indian corn, peas, and other crops. The new-comers were graciously received, and invited to vespers in the chapel; but they very soon found La Salle's prediction made good, and saw that the Jesuit fathers wanted no help from St. Sulpice. Galinee, on his part, takes occasion to remark that, though the Jesuits had baptized a few Indians ...
— France and England in North America, a Series of Historical Narratives, Part Third • Francis Parkman

... on the eve of the Sicilian Vespers; on the eve of St. Bartholomew; at the time when Castracaro, when De La ...
— Elsie at Nantucket • Martha Finley

... not know whether it had anything to do with his hesitation that at that moment the cathedral bell in the town below us began to ring slowly for Vespers. Yes, he hesitated. He—a Caylus. Turning to him again, I repeated my question impatiently. "Which shall it be? A moment, and we shall be moving on, and ...
— The House of the Wolf - A Romance • Stanley Weyman

... the ear and made me spell the words I could not pronounce. And the boys in the congregation tittered gleefully. In my mortification was honey for them. Such was my pride, nevertheless, such the joy I felt, when, of all the boys that gathered round the lectern at vespers, I was called upon to read in the sinksar (hagiography) the Life of ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani

... I accuse myself of many sins. I have missed mass, vespers and many holy ordinances of our most holy church. Have borne hatred, and given most ...
— Inez - A Tale of the Alamo • Augusta J. Evans

... being afterwards made of embroidered silk and other rich materials, it was retained as a decoration. Previous to the Reformation, the stole was one of the vestments used in the celebration of the Holy Eucharist, and consequently, in preaching also, but not at vespers or the ordinary services. The authorities for these statements are Paley's Gothic Architecture, the Oxford Manual for Brasses, Popular Tracts illustrating the Prayer-book, No. 2., and An Explanation of the Construction, ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 41, Saturday, August 10, 1850 • Various

... citizens in any town known to me which under this dispensation are in a good way, but the New Yorker is in about the worst way of all. Other men, the world over, worship regularly at the shrine with matins and vespers, nones and complines, and whatever other daily services may be known to the religious houses; but the New Yorker is always on ...
— Volume 1 • Anthony Trollope

... these pious pilgrims, who found their open trustfulness and amiability better fitted to repress hostility than the presence of an armed, suspicious, and brawling soldiery. So the good Father Jose said matins and prime, mass and vespers, in the heart of sin and heathenism, taking no heed to himself, but looking only to the welfare of the Holy Church. Conversions soon followed, and on the 7th of July, 1760, the first Indian baby was baptized,—an event which, as Father Jose piously records, "exceeds the richnesse of gold ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte

... the evening in discourse upon the object of my mission, and I observed that she took a singular pleasure in talking upon it in all our succeeding conferences when I thought proper to introduce it. The ball being ended, we went to hear vespers at the church of the Canonesses, an order of nuns of which we have none in France. These are young ladies who are entered in these communities at a tender age, in order to improve their fortunes till they are of an age ...
— Memoirs And Historical Chronicles Of The Courts Of Europe - Marguerite de Valois, Madame de Pompadour, and Catherine de Medici • Various

... began the series of wonderful events which he narrates, and for which we have his personal guarantee. The first thing that he notices is the dream of a servant of Ratleig, the notary, who, being set to watch the holy relics in the church after vespers, went to sleep and, during his slumbers, had a vision of two pigeons, one white and one gray and white, which came and sat upon the bier over the relics; while, at the same time, a voice ordered the man to tell his master that the holy martyrs had chosen another resting-place ...
— Collected Essays, Volume V - Science and Christian Tradition: Essays • T. H. Huxley

... December 7th, a boy-bishop at Hoton, near Newcastle-on-Tyne, said vespers before Edward I., then on his way ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Salisbury - A Description of its Fabric and a Brief History of the See of Sarum • Gleeson White

... with her did any nourishment pass her lips. On the evening of the third day I became alarmed, and determined to send for a physician. I told Justine to despatch one of the servants for Dr. B——, but to request him to come after five o'clock, when I should have returned from vespers, as I wished to see him myself. I gave my directions to Justine as we stood together at the foot of Lina's bed, in so low a whisper as to prevent, as I thought, the possibility of her hearing me. Great, then, was my astonishment, when, on leaving my room, ready for church, I met ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various

... did she mention the fact that a rejected suitor had threatened her with another appeal. Of a Sunday afternoon all good Romans (and the best Romans are often the northern barbarians) follow the custom of going to vespers at Saint Peter's; and it had been agreed among our friends that they would drive together to the great church. After lunch, an hour before the carriage came, Lord Warburton presented himself at the Hotel de Paris and paid a visit to ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 1 (of 2) • Henry James

... warfare, have left but few traces in their rustic poetry. It is true that some districts are less utterly barren than others in these records of the past. The Sicilian people's poetry, for example, preserves a memory of the famous Vespers; and one or two terrible stories of domestic tragedy, like the tale of Rosmunda in 'La Donna Lombarda,' the romance of the Baronessa di Carini, and the so-called Caso di Sciacca, may still be heard upon the lips of the people. But these exceptions are insignificant in comparison with the vast mass ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds

... in the afternoon that Anthony Dalaber came to me and borrowed a book. I lent it to him, bidding him be careful of it; and he locked himself into his room, whilst I went my way to sundry tasks I had to perform, and then on to vespers and compline. When I returned, Dalaber's chamber door was shut and locked. I went to mine own room, and presently the young man, a servant of the college, came in to perform some small duty, and he looked at me very cunningly, and asked ...
— For the Faith • Evelyn Everett-Green

... lived, as it were, a reflected existence. Every morning she said to her idol, "How beautiful we are to-day!" precisely as the bell-ringer who, puffing out his cheeks, cried: "We are in voice; we have chanted vespers well to-day!" M. Moriaz excused her for finding his daughter charming, but could not so readily approve of her upholding Antoinette's ideas, her decisions, her prejudices. "This woman is no chaperon," said he; "she is an admiration-point!" ...
— Samuel Brohl & Company • Victor Cherbuliez

... benefit of others; besides, many a worthy man owed his prim Sunday suit to those same heaped-up chests, and it would have done you good to see the broad ruffles bedecking the sons of Erin as they escorted their sweethearts to vespers. They would cross themselves, and murmur a prayer for the "masther," heretic though he was, and they knew they would get him out of Purgatory, if masses and penances would avail. As for Nannie and her mother, it was dangerous to say a word ...
— The Elm Tree Tales • F. Irene Burge Smith

... vespers, in 1812, she sent for her husband, and awaited him at a window of one of the lower rooms, which looked on the garden. Tears were in her eyes. As she sat there, suddenly over her head sounded the footsteps of Claes, making her start. No one could have heard that ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol. I • Various

... sword! that modesty becomes thee mightily. But we must lose no time. Attend vespers this afternoon, there thou shalt find my conscientious valet, who will give thee proper directions and assistance to effect thy escape, and ample means to pass the remainder of thy precious life in some distant city ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio

... the few lamps there were flickered dully behind their quaint, old-fashioned iron casings. The mountains indeed were beautiful, all snow-white under the stars that are so big in frost. Hardly any one was astir; a few good souls wending home from vespers, a tired post-boy, who blew a shrill blast from his tasseled horn as he pulled up his sledge before a hostelry, and little August hugging his jug of beer to his ragged sheepskin coat, were all who were abroad, for the snow fell heavily and the good folks of Hall go early ...
— Bimbi • Louise de la Ramee

... under a thick-leaved sycamore, a few paces from the church-porch. Vespers were just ended; the low chant had reached my ears, and I missed the soothing undertone. The women, in their high white caps, and the men, in their blue blouses, were sauntering slowly homeward. The children were playing all down the village street, ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton

... They need no longer the petard to tear them. The ramparts are all filled with men and women, With peaceful men and women, that send onwards. Kisses and welcomings upon the air, Which they make breezy with affectionate gestures. From all the towers rings out the merry peal, The joyous vespers of a bloody day. O happy man, O fortunate! for whom The well-known door, the faithful arms are open, The faithful tender arms with ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... the lord of the castle is suffering under no disability whatever; he is described as "tall, and strong of limb, of no great age, but somewhat bald." Besides the King there is a Dead Knight upon a bier, over whose body Vespers for the Dead are solemnly sung. The wasting of the land, partially restored by Gawain's question concerning the Lance, has been caused by the 'Dolorous Stroke,' i.e., the stroke which brought about ...
— From Ritual to Romance • Jessie L. Weston

... Here was a fellow who should have been captain of a ship or a soldier, a leader of forlorn hopes. I felt sure there must be a weakness of some sort in him. Quite possibly it would prove to be a mild estheticism that delighted in the savor of incense and the mournful cadence of choral vespers. He declined a cigar and this rather ...
— The House of a Thousand Candles • Meredith Nicholson

... The churches were packed from dawn to dark, not an altar in a chapel went bare of a mass. There were not enough of them. Altars were set up in the squares, and the street-ends blocked by a kneeling, bowing, weeping, adoring crowd. The bishop spoke the common mind when at Vespers that night he gave notice that he should go forthwith to purge the Carmelite church of the stain upon it, "at the request of my reverend brother the Prior Provincial of the Order." He set out then and there in solemn procession of the whole cathedral chapter. Rank formed ...
— Little Novels of Italy • Maurice Henry Hewlett

... Captain Hemans, an Irish officer. The union, however, was not a happy one, and her husband practically deserted her and her five sons in 1818. Her literary activity was continued during the whole of her short life, and her works include, The Vespers of Palermo, a drama, which was not successful, The Forest Sanctuary (1826), her best poem, Records of Woman, Lays of Leisure Hours, Songs of the Affections, Hymns for Childhood, and Thoughts during Sickness (1834), her last effort. In 1829 she ...
— A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature • John W. Cousin

... to drink in his hall, Audunn ate his meal out of doors, as is the custom of Rome pilgrims, so long as they have not laid aside their staff and scrip. In the evening, when the King went to Vespers, Audunn intended to meet him, but shy as he was before, he was much more so now that the courtiers were merry with drink. As they were going back, the King noticed a man, and thought he could see that he had not the confidence to come forward and meet ...
— Seven Icelandic Short Stories • Various

... or quills to write with into the necks of the daintiest gentlewomen that he could find, yea, even in the church, for he never seated himself above in the choir, but always sat in the body of the church amongst the women, both at mass, at vespers, and at sermon. In another, he used to have good store of hooks and buckles, wherewith he would couple men and women together that sat in company close to one another, but especially those that wore gowns of crimson taffeties, that, when they were about to go away, they might ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais

... a better memory, as a rule, and a more active brain, than other people. The shoemaker, Escarboeuf, used to gather his neighbors and trusty comrades about him now and then at the hour of vespers. He remembered exactly what the doctor had said on the discovery of the corpse; he was standing close by and had heard every syllable. "It almost looks as if the man had been murdered;" those were the astonished words of the ...
— The German Classics, v. 20 - Masterpieces of German Literature • Various

... "The inhabitants are mostly of Spanish origin; consequently, mostly Roman Catholics; and a recent traveller says that from the moment of his arrival, he was struck with the devout appearance of the city of Guatemala. At matins and vespers, the churches were all open, and the people, particularly the women, went regularly to prayers. Every house had its figure of the Virgin, the Saviour, or some tutelary saint, and on the door were billets of paper with prayers. You will be surprised to hear that nearly all the ...
— The World of Waters - A Peaceful Progress o'er the Unpathed Sea • Mrs. David Osborne

... an immense success. Having returned to Italy he was stricken with paralysis from overwork in 1845. He never recovered. Besides more than threescore of operas, Donizetti composed seven masses, twelve string quartets, and a host of songs, cantatas and vespers, as ...
— A History of the Nineteenth Century, Year by Year - Volume Two (of Three) • Edwin Emerson

... without end or remedy. An actual disease the pious Bretons call it, ascribing it, however, to the malice of the Devil. He keeps crouching in the woods, the peasants say: if anyone passes by tending his cattle, he sings to him vespers and other rites, until ...
— La Sorciere: The Witch of the Middle Ages • Jules Michelet

... requested. In any case, John Mauprat could not hope to impose upon me, and I wished to do all in my power to prevent him from pestering my great-uncle's last days with his intrigues. Accordingly, the very next day I betook myself to the town, where I arrived towards the end of Vespers. I rang, not without emotion, at the door of ...
— Mauprat • George Sand

... spelling, religion, and in Teutonic countries a little music. La Salle (R. 182) had prescribed, for the Catholic vernacular schools of France, instruction in French, some. Latin, "orthography, arithmetic, the matins and vespers, le Pater, l'Ave Maria, le Credo et le Confiteor, the Commandments, responses, Catechism, duties of a Christian, and maxims and precepts drawn from the Testament." The Catechism was to be taught one half-hour daily. The schoolbooks in England ...
— THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION • ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY

... thicket of woods it hid all indications of the City of the Dead. The placid river, in which there was only a gentle tide up here, lapped the shores with a little murmur as it came up from the bay. The green, irregular shore opposite showed here and there a house. The wood-robins were beginning their vespers already. Hanny thought them the sweetest singers she had ...
— A Little Girl of Long Ago • Amanda Millie Douglas

... said the host, and continuing in proverbs: "'They began to ring the bell for Vespers, but the priest's wife forbade it. The priest went visiting, and the devils are ...
— Marie • Alexander Pushkin

... intimate friends assert that when he reached Palermo he had still no intention of taking up arms. He soon began, however, to speak in a warlike tone, and at a review of the National Guard in presence of the Prefect, the Syndic, and all the authorities, he told the 'People of the Vespers' that if another Vespers were wanted to do it, Napoleon III., head of the brigands, must be ejected from Rome. The epithet was not bestowed at random; Lord Palmerston confirmed it when he said from his place in the House of Commons: 'In Rome there is a French garrison; under its shelter ...
— The Liberation of Italy • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco

... Queen's habit to go every night, when the business of the day was done, to pray, along with the Lady Mary, in the small chapel that was in the roof of the castle. To vespers she went with all the Court to the big chapel in the courtyard that the King had builded especially for her. But to this little chapel, that was of Edward IV's time, small and round-arched, all stone and dark and bare, she went with ...
— The Fifth Queen Crowned • Ford Madox Ford

... prayer-room, where the sisters met night and morning for vespers and matins," she ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V1 • William Mienhold

... not as serious as the Massacre of Saint Bartholomew or the Sicilian Vespers; but it served to raise passion to a white heat in the little provincial town. On the next day there was assembled, under the skillful leadership of Samuel Adams, a great town meeting which demanded in no uncertain terms the removal of the troops from Boston. Under the ...
— The Eve of the Revolution - A Chronicle of the Breach with England, Volume 11 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Carl Becker

... the event a visitation of Heaven on Popish superstition. Pamphlets of the time, well rummaged by us, describe the scene with curious exactness, and mention the singular escapes of several persons on the "Fatal Vespers," as they ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury

... Sylva had said that local conflicts were usually "short and fierce." Applied to such upheavals as had taken place in the capital during recent years, the phrase was strictly accurate. He himself had been bundled out of office between Mass and Vespers on a memorable Sunday. But a convict on a remote island cannot organize such a perfect example of a successful revolt. He had done much in gaining a good foothold; the rest must be left to ...
— The Stowaway Girl • Louis Tracy

... Spaniards with amazement, and in some cases with apprehension. There was no going back then, however; there was nothing to do but advance. At the hour when the bells of Holy Church in their home land were ringing vespers, in a cold driving rain mingled with sleet, the little cortege entered the city, which they found as the French found Moscow, deserted of its inhabitants. With the ready instinct of a soldier, Pizarro led his force to the public square, or Plaza, which was in ...
— South American Fights and Fighters - And Other Tales of Adventure • Cyrus Townsend Brady

... Empedrado Street, is a structure of much interest, its rude pillared front of defaced and moss-grown stone plainly telling of the wear of time. The two lofty towers are hung with many bells, which daily call with their brazen tongues to matins and vespers. Some of these bells are very ancient. The church is not elaborately ornamented,—it rather strikes one with its unusual plainness. It contains a few oil paintings of moderate merit, and also the tomb where the ashes of Columbus ...
— Due South or Cuba Past and Present • Maturin M. Ballou

... 2nd of May, followed by a vast throng, Joan of Arc rode out along the enemy's forts, and after closely inspecting their defences returned to vespers at the Church of Sainte-Croix. Certainly among the people there was no want of belief in, and enthusiastic devotion to, the Maid; but she had already enemies among the entourage of the King. We have already alluded to ...
— Joan of Arc • Ronald Sutherland Gower

... radiant face, and looked towards the half opened window, as she caught the sound of chimes. Across the Loire came the deep-toned voice of a cathedral bell, ringing for vespers. ...
— The Gate of the Giant Scissors • Annie Fellows Johnston

... Sound towards the glory of the sunset. The thickly grassed hillside sloped down in front of me to a belt of forest from which rose the golden, leisurely chiming of the wood thrushes, chanting their vespers; through the still air came the warble of vireo and tanager; and after nightfall we heard the flight song of an ovenbird from the same belt of timber. Overhead an oriole sang in the weeping elm, now and then breaking his song to scold ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt

... one disagreeably Low Church bishop; and was not less frequent in her attendance at the ecclesiastical doings of a certain terrible prelate in the Midland counties, who was supposed to favour stoles and vespers, and to have no proper Protestant hatred for auricular confession and fish on Fridays. Lady Lufton, who was very staunch, did not like this, and would say of Miss Dunstable that it was impossible to serve both God and Mammon. ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope

... and well in order. The which victory was on the 2nd February, on the day of the Madonna of candles. And at the request and entreaties of the said trunkmakers, it was decreed that the Doge, every year, as long as Venice shall endure, should go on the eve of the said feast to vespers in the said church, with the Signory. And be it noted, that the vicar is obliged to give to the Doge two flasks of malvoisie, with two oranges besides. And so it is observed, and will be observed always." The reader must observe the continual confusion ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume III (of 3) • John Ruskin

... fort. On the third day, being St. Vitus' Day, they rested, fearing no harm. The Esthlanders had not troubled them. Some of their chiefs had even come in with an offer of surrender. They were willing to be converted, they said, and the priests were baptizing them after vespers, while the camp was making ready for the night, when suddenly the air was filled with the yells of countless savages. On every side they broke from the woods, where they had been gathering unsuspected, and overwhelmed the camp. The guards were hewn down, ...
— Hero Tales of the Far North • Jacob A. Riis

... Sundays. The usual mode of calling the monks to morning prayers is by striking with a stick upon a long piece of granite, suspended from ropes, which produces a sound heard all over the convent; close by it hangs a piece of dry wood, which emits a different sound, and summons to vespers. A small tower is shewn which was built forty or fifty years ago for the residence of a Greek patriarch of Constantinople, who was exiled to this place by the orders of the Sultan, and who remained ...
— Travels in Syria and the Holy Land • John Burckhardt

... Vespers had just begun when the murderers entered, but the singing of that service was never completed. The fear of sacrilege induced the knights to try to drag the defenceless Archbishop out of the Cathedral, but he struggled with such vigour, flinging one ...
— Beautiful Britain • Gordon Home

... seeking to find a light To guide men on their dark and weary way, And through the valley and the shades of death, Until the glories of the setting sun Called him to vespers and his evening meal. ...
— The Dawn and the Day • Henry Thayer Niles

... sneer had struck home. 'And if you must try your hand at composition,' continued Reutter in a somewhat kinder tone than before, as he observed the tears spring to the boy's eyes, 'let me advise you to write variations on the motets and vespers which are played in the church.' With this parting piece of counsel he passed on, leaving poor Haydn as much in the dark as before with regard to how he ought to proceed. 'If only he would instruct me in counterpoint, how I would thank him!' was the thought uppermost in Joseph's mind, as ...
— Story-Lives of Great Musicians • Francis Jameson Rowbotham

... cousin," cried the Duke, in haste. "Send for me if danger threat thee. Ships enow await thy best in my new port of Cherbourg. And I tell thee this for thy comfort, that were I king of the English, and lord of this river, the citizens of London might sleep from vespers to prime, without fear of the Dane. Never again should the raven flag be seen by this bridge! Never, I swear, by ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton



Words linked to "Vespers" :   canonical hour, evensong



Copyright © 2024 Dictionary One.com