"Abbess" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... tells you and take a farmer's blessing, and with that he slapped his posteriors very soundly. But the slap and the blessing stood him friend, says Mr Vincent, for to make up he taught him a trick worth two of the other so that maid, wife, abbess and widow to this day affirm that they would rather any time of the month whisper in his ear in the dark of a cowhouse or get a lick on the nape from his long holy tongue than lie with the finest strapping young ravisher in ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... monseigneur," replied the man in the cloak; "in two hours your highness will not have even broached the subject of your visit. Oh! the Abbess de Chelles ...
— The Regent's Daughter • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... by. The abbess of the Convent of Santa Ines and Maese Perez's daughter were talking in a low voice, half hidden in the shadows of the church choir. The penetrating voice of the bell was summoning the faithful. A very few people ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: Spanish • Various
... Almeneches, as far as we are concerned with it, might be summed up under a sensational heading, as "The Sorrows of Abbess Emma." Her sorrows did not last long, but they were heavy while they lasted. It was hard for the head of a devout Sisterhood to have three of the great ones of the earth set upon her at once, one of them being her own brother. She was daughter of Roger of Montgomery, afterwards ...
— Sketches of Travel in Normandy and Maine • Edward A. Freeman
... crosses the Alps in the dead of winter, with her excommunicated lord, to remove the curse which deprived him of the allegiance of his subjects. Anne, Countess of Warwick, dresses herself like a cook-maid to elude the visits of a royal duke, and Ebba, abbess of Coldingham, cuts off her nose, to render herself unattractive to the soldiers who ravage her lands. Philippa, the wife of the great Edward, intercedes for the inhabitants of Calais, and the ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord
... Tordesillas had established his headquarters in the buildings outside the convent of Saint-Claire, and the abbess of this convent was presented to his Majesty. She was then more than sixty-five years old, and from the age of ten years back never left this place. Her intelligent and refined conversation made a most agreeable impression on the Emperor, who ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... teaching.[55] Very early in its history Japanese Buddhism welcomed womanhood to its fraternity and order,[56] yet the Japanese ama, bikuni, or nun, never became a sister of mercy, or reached, even within a measurable distance, the dignity of the Christian lady in the nunnery. In European history the abbess is a notable figure. She is hardly heard of beyond the Japanese nunnery, even by ...
— The Religions of Japan - From the Dawn of History to the Era of Meiji • William Elliot Griffis
... morning the priest returned on board the ship, with the intelligence that he had obtained a reception for Amine in the Ursuline convent, the abbess of which establishment he was acquainted with; and, before Amine went on shore, he cautioned her that the lady-abbess was a strict woman, and would be pleased if she conformed, as much as possible, to the rules of the convent; that this convent only received young persons of the highest ...
— The Phantom Ship • Captain Frederick Marryat
... et conventui de Leghe per Dame M. de Clare." The lady here referred to was doubtless Maud de Clare, second wife of Richard de Clare, Earl of Hereford and Gloucester, who, at the beginning of the reign of Edward I., is known to have changed the Augustinian Canons of Leghe, in Devonshire, into an abbess and nuns of the same order; and it was probably at the same period she bestowed this volume on them. The conjecture of Mr. Morton, that Bishop Poore, who died in 1237, might have been the original author of the Ancren Riwle, ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 219, January 7, 1854 • Various
... winning, he might obtain Edward's kingdom. In the same spirit of caution, Philip tarried half-way between Saint Omer and Tournai, watching both armies and afraid to strike at either. The armies wore themselves out in this game of waiting until the widowed Countess of Hainault, then abbess of the Cistercian nuns of Fontenelles, was moved by the desolation of the country to intervene between the two kings. The mother of the Queen of England and the sister of the King of France, she succeeded not only by reason ...
— The History of England - From the Accession of Henry III. to the Death of Edward III. (1216-1377) • T.F. Tout
... dais sat the stately Abbess Addula, daughter of King Dagobert, looking a princess indeed, in her purple tunic, with the hood and cuffs of her long white robe trimmed with ermine, and a snowy veil resting like a crown on her silver hair. At her right ...
— The Blue Flower, and Others • Henry van Dyke
... public into his confidence as to the manner in which such a book should be, and indeed actually was, completed. He set out to write a historical novel dealing with Guildford in the days of King John, weaving into it various local legends and a love-story of an abbess and an archbishop; he "began the book on November 26, 1857, and finished it in exactly eight weeks, on January 21, 1858, reading for the work included." The list of books which he consulted in Mr. Drummond's library at Albury must be read in full for the mere physical labour of the business to be ...
— Highways and Byways in Surrey • Eric Parker
... is made easy by such a handsome acquittal from you and the Lady Abbess, your coadjutor in the ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 3 • Leonard Huxley
... the Abbess of Fontevrault came to see him. The King's mother Eleanor, her guest, had been sent for in a hurry. The king had been hurt. A serf of Achard of Chalus had ploughed up a golden relic, an emperor with his ...
— Hugh, Bishop of Lincoln - A Short Story of One of the Makers of Mediaeval England • Charles L. Marson
... something formal, and even ascetic, in the character of her beauty, which was still considerable, in her air and in her dress. She might have suggested to you the idea of some Gothic baroness of old, half chatelaine, half-abbess; you would see at a glance that she did not live in the light world around her, and disdained its fashion and its mode of thought; yet with all this rigidity it was still the face of the woman who has known human ties and human affections. And now, as she gazed long on ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... he proposed to marry Edith, daughter of Malcolm, king of Scotland, and of Margaret, sister of the atheling Edgar. She had spent almost the whole of her life in English monasteries, a good part of it at Romsey, where her aunt Christina was abbess. Immediately the question was raised, whether she had not herself taken the veil, which she was known to have worn, and therefore whether the marriage was possible. This was the question now referred to Anselm, and he made a most careful examination of the ...
— The History of England From the Norman Conquest - to the Death of John (1066-1216) • George Burton Adams
... lived in a convent "according to that strictness as was expected," because she left it. But this was done in the following letter:[97] "The Lady Purbeck is come forth of the English Nunnerie. For, the Lady Abbess being from home, somebody forgott to provide the Lady Purbeck her dinner, and to leave the roome open where she used to dine at night, expostulating with the Abbess, they agreed to part fairely, ...
— The Curious Case of Lady Purbeck - A Scandal of the XVIIth Century • Thomas Longueville
... into a great valley, where they saw an abbey of nuns; and there was a squire ready and opened the gates, and so they entered and descended off their horses; and there came a fair fellowship about Sir Launcelot, and welcomed him, and were passing glad of his coming. And then they led him unto the Abbess's chamber and unarmed him; and right so he was ware upon a bed lying two of his cousins, Sir Bors and Sir Lionel, and then he waked them; and when they saw him they made great joy. Sir, said Sir Bors unto Sir Launcelot, what adventure hath brought you hither, for ...
— Le Morte D'Arthur, Volume II (of II) - King Arthur and of his Noble Knights of the Round Table • Thomas Malory
... to observe the Mother Abbess, or whatever she is, disguising the fact that she takes any interest in me. ...
— Hilda - A Story of Calcutta • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... entered the Abbey, and albeit she took the veil herself she was not under the same strict rule as her sister nuns. The Abbess herself retired to Winchester and ruled the convent from that city, while Elfrida had the liberty she desired, to live and do as she liked in her own rooms and attend prayers and meals only when inclined ...
— Dead Man's Plack and an Old Thorn • William Henry Hudson
... her official name, La Mère Angélique—was appointed abbess of Port Royal when she was only eight years of age. She was descended from a distinguished family belonging originally to the old noblesse of Provence, but which had migrated to Auvergne and settled there. Of vigorous healthiness, both ...
— Pascal • John Tulloch
... nature! Well, to say the truth, the Lady Gycia is not at all to my taste. It is a cold, insipid style of beauty, at the best; and she is as self-willed and as straitlaced as a lady abbess. I suppose she is well ...
— Gycia - A Tragedy in Five Acts • Lewis Morris
... had during her life a pension from King Henry VIII.: she was 140 yeares old when she dyed. She was great-great-aunt to Mr. Child, Rector of Yatton Keynell; from whom I had this information. Mr. Child, the eminent banker in Fleet Street, is Parson Child's cosen-german. [The name of the last Abbess of Amesbury was Joan Darell, who surrendered to the King, 4 Dec. 1540. Hoare's Modern Wiltshire, Amesbury Hundred, ...
— The Natural History of Wiltshire • John Aubrey
... and close as to be unsafe to remain in long. These candles are kept constantly burning, and the devotion to the Saint also burns as brightly as ever. St. Agnes and St. Disciolus repose near their abbess. Pepin, King of Aquitaine, lies somewhere in their neighbourhood; but the exact spot ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... November, the Maid was at Moulins in Bourbonnais.[1862] What was she doing there? No one knows. There was at that time in the town an abbess very holy and very greatly venerated. Her name was Colette Boilet. She had won the highest praise and incurred the grossest insults by attempting to reform the order of Saint Clare. Colette lived in the convent of the Sisters of Saint Clare, which she had recently ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France
... my charge to the abbess of her own order at Glastonbury, where they would be tended in all honour as here with herself, and she gave me a letter also to the abbess to tell her what was needed and why they came, and then she gave me a bag with ...
— A Thane of Wessex • Charles W. Whistler
... the rays of blue, yellow, red, and green light which darted from them. This cross was suspended on a chain of black beads resembling a rosary, and giving to the black-robed figure the appearance of an abbess. The Spanish lace mantilla which she had thrown over her beautiful hair served as the veil, ...
— Dr. Dumany's Wife • Mr Jkai
... salute, and cross themselves. Evidently, under these circumstances, it is difficult for a foreigner to get a view of the original Virgin. We were fortunate, however. Our first invitation in Moscow was from the Abbess of an important convent to be present at one of the services which I have mentioned,—a sort of invocation of the Virgin's blessing,—in her cell, and at the conclusion of the service we were asked if we would not like to "salute the Virgin" and take a sip of the holy water "for ...
— Russian Rambles • Isabel F. Hapgood
... sculptured fourteenth-century lantern cross, of mediaeval date, in the form of an octagonal shaft. Under four niches at the summit are sculptured representations of: God the Father with the Dove bearing a crucifix; an Abbot; an Abbess; and a King and Queen. The height of the cross is 5 feet 2 inches, the breadth of the head being ...
— The Cornish Riviera • Sidney Heath
... up to him and claimed him as her lunatic husband, who had escaped from his keepers; and the men she brought with her were going to lay violent hands on Antipholus and Dromio; but they ran into the convent, and Antipholus begged the abbess to give ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles Lamb and Mary Lamb
... their leaving their ranks. On Herrera's entrance, the terrified nuns thought that the guerillas were returning, and with cries of terror fled in all directions. He succeeded in calming their fears, and enquired for the abbess, although nearly certain that she it was to whose death he had been witness. None could tell him aught concerning her; nor was he able, either by threats or entreaties, to obtain any information with respect to Rita. Several of the nuns knew that she and her attendant had occupied ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 367, May 1846 • Various
... the German marine by Bartholdy, twelve letters by John Voigt on the manners and social life of the princes at the German Diets, a picture from the XVIth Century, the sequel of a memoir by Guhrauer on Elizabeth, Abbess of Herford, a friend of William Penn, and a correspondent of Malebranche, Leibnitz and ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... were violently flushed, and Sin, who never loses an opportunity of corrupting innocent hearts, shot into their blood, and hastily pictured the dangerous scene to their imaginations. Fury and consternation, in the mean time, deformed the features of the old ones. The abbess trembled and leaned on her staff, while the spectacles fell from her face. But when the porteress added, that it was the sister Clara whom the fiend had brought to the Dominican in his dream, a dreadful ...
— Faustus - his Life, Death, and Doom • Friedrich Maximilian von Klinger
... me a particular night on which he proposed to attempt to storm the nunnery of Saint Bride, and carry me from hence to freedom and the greenwood, of which Wallace was generally called the king. In an evil hour—an hour I think of infatuation and witchery—I suffered the abbess to wheedle the secret out of me, which I might have been sensible would appear more horribly flagitious to her than to any other woman that breathed; but I had not taken the vows, and I thought Wallace and Fleming had the same charms for every body as for me, and the artful woman ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... of Canterbury. Between Godwine and the Normans there was no goodwill, and though Godwine was himself of fair repute, his eldest son, Swegen, a young man of brutal nature, alienated the goodwill of his countrymen by seducing the Abbess of Leominster, and by murdering his cousin Beorn. Godwine, in his blind family affection, clung to his wicked son and insisted on his being ...
— A Student's History of England, v. 1 (of 3) - From the earliest times to the Death of King Edward VII • Samuel Rawson Gardiner
... the very beginning, if not some goddess connected with the moon?' Very likely; quis negavit? Then our author, like myself (loc. cit.), dilates on Artemis as 'sister of Apollo.' 'Her chapels,' I say, 'are in the wild wood; she is the abbess of the forest nymphs,' 'chaste and fair, the maiden of the precise life.' How odd! The classical scholar and I both say the same things; and I add a sonnet to Artemis in this aspect, rendered by me from the Hippolytus of Euripides. Could ...
— Modern Mythology • Andrew Lang
... La abadesa (abbess) El actor (actor) La actriz (actress) El baron (baron) La baronesa (baroness) El canonigo (canon) La canonesa (canoness) El cantor (singer) La cantatriz (singer) El conde (count) La condesa (countess) El diacono ...
— Pitman's Commercial Spanish Grammar (2nd ed.) • C. A. Toledano
... peacefully, on the 21st of April, 1142, in the abbey of St. Marcellus, near Chalon-sur-Saone, after having received the sacraments with much piety, and in presence of all the brethren of the monastery. "Thus," wrote Peter the Venerable to Heloise, abbess for eleven years past of the Paraclete, "the man who, by his singular authority in science, was known to nearly all the world, and was illustrious wherever he was known, learned, in the school of Him who said, 'Know that I am meek and lowly of heart,' to remain meek and lowly; and, as ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume II. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... Archbishop Theodore appointed a synod at Hatfield; because he was desirous of rectifying the belief of Christ; and the same year died Hilda, Abbess of Whitby. ...
— The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle • Unknown
... the carrion-pit. A man whom the Church had excommunicated was buried in the cemetery of a German convent. The Archbishop of Mayence ordered the exhumation of the body, threatening to interdict divine service in the convent if his command were disobeyed. But the abbess, Hildegarde of Bingen (1098-1179), a woman of great mental power and an inspired seer, opposed him. Having received a direct message from God, she wrote to the bishop as follows: "Conforming to my custom, I ...
— The Evolution of Love • Emil Lucka
... not credit our asserted union! They dragg'd me to a convent in their wrath, And left me to my widowhood and tears, Tore my sweet infant from my longing arms, And while I madly scream'd, and begg'd for pity, The abbess spoke of penitence and prayer. Reason, for weeks, forsook me: when again I was awaken'd to a cruel world, They would have forced me to ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat
... recitations. This was followed, a year later, by a performance of Cefalo, one of the oldest of Italian dramas, a pastoral play composed by Niccolo da Correggio, chiefly taken from Ovid's "Metamorphoses," and which is said to have suggested the subjects of Correggio's famous frescoes in the Abbess of San Paolo's parlour at Parma. Each Christmas and carnival these theatrical representations were repeated, and many were the distinguished visitors who came to Ferrara to witness these celebrated performances. The Amphitryon and Cassina of Plautus were frequently given. On one ...
— Beatrice d'Este, Duchess of Milan, 1475-1497 • Julia Mary Cartwright
... of an unexpected mission to Florence, (for a loan of arms and money,) which thus gave her a safe and honoured escort.—Passively she submitted to what she herself deemed a relief; and it was agreed that she should for a while be the guest of a relation of Nina's, who was the abbess of one of the wealthiest of the Florentine convents: the idea of monastic seclusion was welcome to the bruised ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... of Crete; but that on the voyage we had been driven out of our course and wrecked at Aguamorta. And so I continued, as occasion required, observing their usages with much assiduity, lest worse should befall me; but being one day asked by their superior, whom they call abbess, whether I was minded to go back to Cyprus, I answered that, there was nought that I desired so much. However, so solicitous for my honour was the abbess, that there was none going to Cyprus to whom she would entrust ...
— The Decameron, Volume I • Giovanni Boccaccio
... about having a good time. Her only longing was to do good and to make other people happy, and to grow good and wise herself, so that she could do this all the better. So she studied and studied, worked and worked; and she became a holy woman, an Abbess. And while she was still very young and beautiful, she was given charge of a whole convent of nuns and school-girls not much younger than herself, because she was so much wiser and better than any one else ...
— The Book of Saints and Friendly Beasts • Abbie Farwell Brown
... Rose with a shrug. "I don't think so. She is too pale, and proud, and cold, and too far up in the clouds altogether. She ought to go and be a nun; she would make a splendid lady-abbess." ...
— Kate Danton, or, Captain Danton's Daughters - A Novel • May Agnes Fleming
... a convent and lived as its abbess, and the great church of Santa Chiara is built on the site of this convent. She was born in Assisi in 1194, and died in 1253, surviving Francis by twenty-seven years. Her father was the Count Favorini Scifi, and he ...
— Italy, the Magic Land • Lilian Whiting
... lady recluse, bird of the cloister, Margot of the Nunnery, sable-frocked Abbess, Church fowl of the lustrous ...
— The Merrie Tales Of Jacques Tournebroche - 1909 • Anatole France
... undergoing a year's probation, during which time she would be instructed in every elegant accomplishment, she should take the veil. Her advancement would speedily follow, for, with such a face and figure, she would make a capital lady abbess, especially in Italy, to which country she would probably be sent; ladies of her hair and complexion—to say nothing of her height—being a curiosity in the south. With a little care and management ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... or Superior of the female part of the society of hermits. Every association of religious devotees seems to have included a certain number of women, presided over by an elderly and venerable matron, whose authority resembled that of an abbess in a ...
— Sakoontala or The Lost Ring - An Indian Drama • Kalidasa
... first Duke of Ormond. She married Philibert, Count of Grammont, the hero of these Memoirs, by whom she had two daughters: Claude Charlotte, married, 3rd April, 1694, to Henry, Earl of Stafford; and another, who became superior, or abbess, of the ...
— The Memoirs of Count Grammont, Complete • Anthony Hamilton
... cowherd, being at a feast, declares when the harp reaches him, that he cannot sing. As he sleeps, a divine Voice commands him to sing. He obeys, and the gift of song is imparted to him. Hilda, Abbess of Whitby, enrolls him among her monks; and in later years he sings the revolt of the Fallen Angels, and many Christian mysteries, thus becoming ...
— Legends of the Saxon Saints • Aubrey de Vere
... of this abbess [Hild] was a certain brother especially distinguished and gifted with the grace of God, because he was in the habit of making poems filled with piety and virtue. Whatever he learned 5 of holy writ through interpreters he gave forth in a very short time in poetical language ...
— Old English Poems - Translated into the Original Meter Together with Short Selections from Old English Prose • Various
... said, "of the saintly Margherita of thine house, the Abbess of San Lazzaro; why left she ...
— The Royal Pawn of Venice - A Romance of Cyprus • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... wayfarers. In the midst of all was a closed horse litter, beside which rode two or three veiled and hooded ladies and a priest. Save the captain of the guards, there was no thane with the party, and but a few pack horses followed them, and I thought it would be some abbess, perhaps, who was leaving ...
— A King's Comrade - A Story of Old Hereford • Charles Whistler
... distinguished for talents and erudition, could not help exciting admiration, and making illustrious proselytes. Among them was Arnauld D'Antilly, the intimate friend of Richelieu and Anne of Austria; Le Maitre, the most eloquent lawyer and advocate in France; and Angelique Arnauld, the abbess of Port Royal. This last was one of the most distinguished ladies of her age, noble by birth, and still more noble by her beautiful qualities of mind and heart. She had been made abbess of her Cistercian convent at the age of eleven years, and at that time was gay, social, and light-hearted. ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord
... Abbess, Sister Serafina," continued the Abbate, "is an extremely learned woman, a duchess by birth. She has told me—by letter, of course, for the inmates are under a vow of perpetual silence—that she has heard of Marcolina's erudition, and would like to ...
— Casanova's Homecoming • Arthur Schnitzler
... and buried alive in the walls of a deep cell. In the mean time, Lord Marmion, being sent by Henry VIII. on an embassy to James IV. of Scotland, stopped at the hall of Sir Hugh de Heron, who sent a palmer as his guide. On his return, Lord Marmion commanded the abbess of St. Hilda to release the Lady Clare, and place her under the charge of her kinsman, Fitzclare of Tantallon Hall. Here she met the palmer, who was Ralph de Wilton, and as Lord Marmion was slain in the battle of Flodden Field, she was free to marry the man ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... till towards day, but had not slept above two hours before the peasant who had served him as a guide, and had also stayed at the inn, came into his room, and waked him abruptly, telling him the lady abbess desired to speak with him.—Natura was much vexed at this disturbance, and not sufficiently awaked to recollect himself, only cried peevishly, 'What have I to do with abbesses,' and then ...
— Life's Progress Through The Passions - Or, The Adventures of Natura • Eliza Fowler Haywood
... of dissimulation, together with advancing age, had given the queen-mother that well-known abbess face, with its haughty and macerated mask, expressionless yet full of depth, inscrutable yet vigilant, remarked by all who have studied her portrait, the courtiers now observed some clouds on her icy countenance. No sovereign ...
— Catherine de' Medici • Honore de Balzac
... of constant urging to renewed contests the Borders had become one vast battlefield in her quarrel, she wrote to the Marquis of Dorset to beg him to spare the convent of Coldstream, whose abbess had done her good service in times past.* The motive for this intercession was no mere charitable one, the abbess being "one of the ...
— Studies from Court and Cloister • J.M. Stone
... them ourselves should easily judge their thoughts to have no excursion beyond the duffling academy. You know very well how at Brignoles, when the religious nun, Sister Fatbum, was made big with child by the young Stiffly-stand-to't, her pregnancy came to be known, and she cited by the abbess, and, in a full convention of the convent, accused of incest. Her excuse was that she did not consent thereto, but that it was done by the violence and impetuous force of the Friar Stiffly-stand-to't. Hereto the ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... the ten days, from the Ascension to Whitsuntide, at an abbey four leagues from Paris, the abbess of which had a particular friendship for me. Here my union with God seemed to be deeper and more continued, becoming always simple, at the same time more close ...
— The Autobiography of Madame Guyon • Jeanne Marie Bouvier de La Motte Guyon
... Rochester. The keep of St. Leonard, not far from the abbey, was also built by Gundulf, who is responsible for the White Tower of the Tower of London. This St. Leonard's Tower is said to be of earlier character than any keep in Normandy. Permission to see the ruins must be obtained from the abbess or chaplain, and visitors are expected to give a small ...
— What to See in England • Gordon Home
... blunt tower is visible for miles above its grove of sycamores. More than twelve centuries ago an old saint, whose name I think was Owen, though it was Latinised by the monks into Ovinus, because he had the care of the sheep, kept the flocks of St. Etheldreda, queen and abbess of Ely, on these wolds. One does not know what were the visions of this rude and ardent saint, as he paced the low heights day by day, looking over the monstrous lakes. At night no doubt he heard the cries of the marsh-fowl and saw the elfin lights stir on the reedy flats. Perhaps some touch ...
— At Large • Arthur Christopher Benson
... works of wimmen from the present age of the world back to that wonderful book writ by the Abbess Herrard in the twelfth century, which contains about all the knowledge ...
— Samantha at the World's Fair • Marietta Holley
... contrive parties for her pleasure and satisfaction. But no sooner did he regain possession of his stray sheep, than he locked her up more closely than ever; and after having revolved various schemes for her reformation, determined to board her in a convent, under the inspection of a prudent abbess, who should superintend her morals, and recall her to the paths of virtue which she had forsaken. With this view, he consulted an English priest of his acquaintance, who advised him to settle her in a monastery at Lisle, that she might be as far ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... Othman. The fourth of the pillars, my Lord Ali dear, Inspector acute of the dark and the clear. Then the light of our eyes, the delectable twain, The Lovely Prince Hassan, the Emir Hoseyn. Nor unnoticed by men shall be suffered to pass Those excellent uncles, Hanozah and Abbess. Unto each of that band be a thousand salaams, An bless'd through all ages be each of ...
— The Song of Deirdra, King Byrge and his Brothers - and Other Ballads • Anonymous
... furnishes a basis to the fine ballad in Percy's Reliques, and to the Canterbury Tale of Chaucer's Lady Abbess. ...
— Biographical Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... under the same roof, but in detached houses within an enclosure. In each of these houses are three, four, or perhaps six young girls, under the care of an old woman. These governesses, together with the abbess, are of the number of such as have never been married. These girls never wear the habit of the order but in church; and the service there ended, they dress like others, pay visits, frequent balls, and go where they please. They were constant visitors ...
— Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois, Complete • Marguerite de Valois, Queen of Navarre
... Augustinian[obs3]; Gilbertine; Austin Friars[obs3], Black Friars, White Friars, Gray Friars, Crossed Friars, Crutched Friars; Bonhomme[Fr], Carthusian, Benedictine[obs3], Cistercian, Trappist, Cluniac, Premonstatensian, Maturine; Templar, Hospitaler; Bernardine[obs3], Lorettine, pillarist[obs3], stylite[obs3]. abbess, prioress, canoness[obs3]; religieuse[Fr], nun, novice, postulant. [Under the Jewish dispensation] prophet, priest, high priest, Levite; Rabbi, Rabbin, Rebbe; scribe. [Mohammedan &c.] mullah, muezzin, ayatollah; ulema, imaum[obs3], ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... him determine to retrace his steps. He entered the room again, and, from the intelligence he had just acquired, gave Amadeo the assurance that Monna Tita must delay her entrance into the convent; for that the abbess had that moment gone down the hill on her way toward Siena to venerate some holy relics, carrying with her three candles, each five feet long, to burn before them; which candles contained many particles of the myrrh presented at the Nativity of our Saviour by the Wise Men of the East. Amadeo breathed ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... details; and, whatever the writing of them may be, we are prepared to contend that the reading of them is infinitely pleasanter. But as travellers and poets have of late left few mountains or molehills unsung in Palestine, we prefer extracting a picturesque account of a venerable abbess, who threw the light of Christian goodness over that benighted land about a century ago, and must have impressed the heathens in the neighbourhood with an exalted notion of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXVI. October, 1843. Vol. LIV. • Various
... enjoy to the utmost before they sailed into the harbour at Dearport, and walked up to St. Faith's. Captain Audley, who had not seen Sister Constance since her husband's death, had an access of shyness and would not encounter the 'Lady Abbess,' as he called her; but his last words to Felix were a promise that if Bernard went to Stoneborough, he would have him out now and then for a holiday ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... and tired out her husband with persistent entreaties that she might be permitted to withdraw herself altogether from his Court and devote herself entirely to the religious life. At last she obtained his reluctant consent, and betook herself to Coldingham, where Ebba, the king's aunt, was abbess, and was there admitted into the order of nuns at the hands of Wilfrid, Archbishop of York. This Ebba was afterwards canonised, and her name is preserved in the name of the promontory on the coast of Berwickshire known as S. ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Ely • W. D. Sweeting
... evening closed we took possession of our rooms. Our parlour had been that of the lady abbess, and A—— had her bed-chamber. These were spacious rooms and well furnished. The girls were put into the cells, where girls ought never to be put. Jetty had another near them, and, these dispositions made, I sallied forth alone, in quest of ...
— A Residence in France - With An Excursion Up The Rhine, And A Second Visit To Switzerland • J. Fenimore Cooper
... increasing still more, Sister Maria Celeste obtained with much difficulty, a small quantity of a renowned liqueur, made by Abbess Ursula, an exceptionally saintly nun. This she sends to ...
— Great Astronomers • R. S. Ball
... peace was mine in my noviciate, father. Thro' all closed doors a dreadful whisper crept That thou wouldst excommunicate the King. I could not eat, sleep, pray: I had with me The monk's disguise thou gavest me for my bower: I think our Abbess knew it and allow'd it. I fled, and found thy name a charm to get me Food, roof, and rest. I met a robber once, I told him I was bound to see the Archbishop; 'Pass on,' he said, and in thy name I pass'd From house to house. In one a son stone-blind Sat by ...
— Becket and other plays • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... were under the tutelage of the good Sisters at Nonnenwerth Convent, Hildegunde, the Abbess frequently spoke of your proficiency in historical studies. Did you ever turn your attention to the ...
— The Sword Maker • Robert Barr
... Messire Thibault went on the morrow into that house and heard mass, and thereafter spake to the abbess, and the convent, and prayed them that they would guard that Lady there till his coming back; and they granted it to him much willingly. Messire Thibault left of his meney there to serve the Lady, and went his ways, and did his pilgrimage the best he might. And when he had ...
— Old French Romances • William Morris
... for having educated five bishops, among them John of Beverley, and for giving birth, in Caedmon, to the father of English poetry. "Religious poetry, sung to the harp as it passed from hand to hand, must have flourished in the monastery of the abbess Hild, and the kernel of Bede's story concerning the birth of our earliest poet must be that the brethren and sisters on that bleak northern shore spoke to each other in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs.' "[1] of Melrose, an offshoot of Aidan's foundation, ...
— Old English Libraries, The Making, Collection, and Use of Books • Ernest A. Savage
... fortune to enter Milan at the head of a victorious army, the first thing I should have done would be he setting free of this poor captive, and if the abbess had resisted she would have felt ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... heard of the Prince at the opera ball in Paris. He sent the Prince a watch from the Abbess of English nuns at Pontoise. Charles was always leaving his watches under his pillow. He certainly was not far from Paris. He scolded Madame de Talmond for returning thither (March 4), and sent to Mademoiselle Luci a commission for books, such as 'Attilie tragedie' ('Athalie') and 'Histoire ...
— Pickle the Spy • Andrew Lang
... home to his own domain. A bishop, an abbe, a chapter of the clergy, an abbess, each has one like a lay seignior; for, in former times, the monastery and the church were small governments like the county and the duchy.—Intact on the other bank of the Rhine, almost ruined in France, the feudal structure everywhere ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine
... and good Mukaukas George, who had made such a magnificent gift to the Church. Oh those Jacobites! They only were capable of such ingratitude, only their heretical prelate could commit such a crime. Every one in the Convent of St. Cecilia, from the abbess down to the youngest novice, knew that the Patriarch had sent word by a carrier pigeon forbidding the Bishop to allow the priests to take part in the ceremony. Plotinus was a worthy man, and he had been highly indignant at these instructions; it was not in his power to contravene them; but at any ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... 'Lo! they have set her on, Our simple-seeming Abbess and her nuns, To play upon me,' and bowed her head nor spake. Whereat the novice crying, with clasped hands, Shame on her own garrulity garrulously, Said the good nuns would check her gadding tongue Full often, 'and, sweet lady, if I seem To vex an ear too sad to listen to me, Unmannerly, with ...
— Idylls of the King • Alfred, Lord Tennyson
... under which we partake our sacrament," she told me, "is called San Pietro's. It is here that, in times gone by, the Bishop of Pistoja went through the ceremony of a mystical marriage with the Abbess of the Benedictines, which has now been stopped by the Jesuits, because, more than once, it was not so mystical a business as it might have been. But I think the place very suitable for what you and I ...
— The Fool Errant • Maurice Hewlett
... little Elzevir, have disappeared. {7} Madame de Maintenon was fond of bindings. Mr. Toovey possesses a copy of a devotional work in red morocco, tooled and gilt, which she presented to a friendly abbess. The books at Saint-Cyr were stamped with a crowned cross, besprent with fleurs-de-lys. The books of the later collectors—Longepierre, the translator of Bion and Moschus; D'Hoym the diplomatist; McCarthy, and La Valliere, are all ...
— The Library • Andrew Lang
... a portion of his works being now condemned. Among the non-ecclesiastical authors banned were Machiavelli, Guicciardini and Boccaccio. It is noteworthy that the Decameron was expurgated not chiefly for its indecency but for its satire of ecclesiastics. Thus, a tale of the seduction of an abbess is rendered acceptable by changing the abbess into a countess; the story of how a priest led a woman astray by impersonating the angel Gabriel is merely changed by making the priest a layman ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... that that part is put in to make it harder. I find that the greater part of the mystery kept by The Mystery Keepers is put in to make it harder. The Abbey at Clynch St. Mary has a "coise" put on it by the last Abbess, and every direct male heir expires punctually on his twenty-first birthday. The actual agency is a poisoned ring concealed in the frame of a portrait of the malevolent Abbess and is in the custody of the Otway family, who enjoy a prescriptive ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, April 23, 1919 • Various
... Brestalou and M. Victor de Marmont, own nephew to Marshal the duc de Raguse; Madame la prefete, resplendent in the latest fashion from Paris, the Duc and Duchesse d'Embrun, cousins of the bride, the Vicomte de Genevois and his mother, who was Abbess of Pont Haut and godmother by proxy to Crystal de Cambray; whilst General Marchand, in command of the troops of the district, fresh from the Council of War which he had hastily convened, was trying to hide behind a debonnaire manner ...
— The Bronze Eagle - A Story of the Hundred Days • Emmuska Orczy, Baroness Orczy
... when the King awoke, and rising from his couch, saw at once that the scabbard of his sword was gone. Then summoned he the whole household to his presence and inquired who had entered his chamber. "Sir," said the Abbess, "there has none been here save only your kinswoman, the Queen Morgan le Fay. She, indeed, desired to look upon you since she might not abide your awakening." Then the King groaned aloud, saying, "It is my own kinswoman, the wife of my true knight, Sir Uriens, that would betray me." He bade Sir ...
— Stories from Le Morte D'Arthur and the Mabinogion • Beatrice Clay
... her steadfastness, and was released after a twelvemonth's confinement. Five years later she was again seized and sent to another convent; but, continuing immovable against the entreaties and threats of the abbess and confessor, she ...
— The Huguenots in France • Samuel Smiles
... 535 Held sad communion with himself: "Yes! all is true my fears could frame; A prisoner lies the noble Graeme, And fiery Roderick soon will feel The vengeance of the royal steel. 540 I, only I, can ward their fate— God grant the ransom come not late! The Abbess hath her promise given, My child shall be the bride of heaven. Be pardoned one repining tear! 545 For He, who gave her, knows how dear, How excellent!—but that is by, And now my business is—to die. —Ye towers! within whose circuit dread A Douglas by his sovereign bled; ...
— Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... bring you to reason; but we can no longer permit this advocacy of rebellion, and the last unmaidenly step which you took of setting at defiance your friends and relatives, and even of sending messages hence, must be punished. The abbess bade me reason with you and try and turn your obstinate will. Your cousins of Badenoch here have appealed to you in vain. This can no longer be tolerated. The lady abbess bids me tell you that she gives you three days to renounce the rebel opinions you have so frowardly held, and ...
— In Freedom's Cause • G. A. Henty
... who were each wedded to a young wife, remained childless; but no public notice was taken until Duke Francis succeeded to the duchy in 1618. He was a ruthless enemy to witches; all in the land were sought out with great diligence and burned, and as they unanimously named the Abbess of Marienfliess [Footnote: Sidonia never attained this dignity, though Micraelius and others gave her the title.] upon the rack, she was brought to Stettin by command of the Duke, where she freely confessed all the evil ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V1 • William Mienhold
... the Abbess blame Adriana first because she did not find fault with her husband and then because she did? Is her sudden harsh turn against her explicable not as personal inconsistency or womanly prejudice, but as due to ...
— Shakespeare Study Programs; The Comedies • Charlotte Porter and Helen A. Clarke
... vanity or to his vices. No one was a better judge of conduct in the case of others, or a sterner champion of moral probity, when it did not conflict with his own desires or conscience. In 1528 Anne Boleyn and her friends were anxious to make a relative abbess of Wilton.[686] But she had been notoriously unchaste. "Wherefore," wrote Henry to Anne herself, "I would not, for all the gold in the world, cloak your conscience nor mine to make her ruler of a house which ...
— Henry VIII. • A. F. Pollard
... ABBESS. Hath he not lost much wealth by wreck of sea? Buried some dear friend? Hath not else his eye Stray'd his affection in unlawful love? A sin prevailing much in youthful men Who give their eyes the liberty of gazing. Which of these sorrows ...
— The Comedy of Errors • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... retracted without perjury. And so each year she renewed her vow a twelvemonth. The seventh year of her religious life was drawing to its close, and she had notified her superior of her wish now, after so many years of probation, to take the black veil, and make her vows perpetual. And the Abbess had, at length, listened favorably ...
— The Missing Bride • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... Bargrave, the leech, at last sliced it off, the gangrene was too confirmed to admit of remedy. Dame Martin thought it high time to send for Miss Margaret, who, ever since her mother's death, had been living with her maternal aunt, the abbess, in the Ursuline convent at Greenwich. The young lady came, and with her came one Master Ingoldsby, her cousin-german by the mother's side; but the Baron was too far gone in the dead-thraw to recognize either. He died as he lived, unconquered and unconquerable. His last ...
— Half-Hours with Great Story-Tellers • Various
... Toporoff was in his study talking with an abbess, a lively and aristocratic lady, who was spreading the Greek orthodox faith in Western Russia among the Uniates (who acknowledge the Pope of Rome), and who have the Greek religion enforced on them. An official ...
— Resurrection • Count Leo Tolstoy
... I fell into was on the account of my son Swane, who had deflowered the abbess of Leon, since called Leominster, in Herefordshire. After this fact he retired into Denmark, whence he sent to me to obtain his pardon. The king at first refused it, being moved thereto, as I afterwards found, by some ...
— From This World to the Next • Henry Fielding
... now crowded round the abbess. They had been accustomed to look up to her as all-powerful, and they now implored her protection. The mother abbess looked with a rueful eye upon the treasures of beauty and vestal virtue exposed to such ...
— Wolfert's Roost and Miscellanies • Washington Irving
... Oh, I have thought of it, and until—until this morning, it seemed that a convent must be my ultimate refuge. I have spent most of my young life at Santa Sofia, and the little that I have seen of the world at my uncle's court scarce invites me to see more of it. The Mother Abbess loved me a little. She would take ...
— Love-at-Arms • Raphael Sabatini
... nearer to the church of St. Clara, where the Neapolitan kings were buried, and where several princesses of the blood, exchanging the crown for the veil, have gone to bury themselves alive. The nuns, novices, and abbess, hidden behind shutters, were throwing flowers upon the procession. A bunch fell at the feet of the Prince ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - NISIDA—1825 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... Christine, Prioress of Margate, who lived in the middle of the twelfth century. In the thirteenth century several names occur. Adam de Bazinge made, in 1241, by order of Henry III. of England, a cope for the Bishop of Hereford. Cunegonde, Abbess of Goss, in Styria, accomplished numerous important works in that period. Also, Henry III. employed Jean de Sumercote to make jewelled ...
— Arts and Crafts in the Middle Ages • Julia De Wolf Addison
... foreign parts, being of too hot temper, but will leave his Ministers to do it. [Dickens's Despatch, Berlin, 22d July (n.s.), 1730.] To Queen Sophie he says coldly, "Wilhelmina's marriage, then, is off; an end to IT. Abbess of Herford [good Protestant refuge for unprovided Females of Quality, which is in our gift], let her be Abbess there;"—and writes to the then extant Abbess to make Wilhelmina "Coadjutress," or Heir-Apparent ...
— History of Friedrich II of Prussia V 7 • Thomas Carlyle
... twinkling chandeliers. The choir perched in a little loft high up in the right transept, like a balcony in a side-scene at the opera, and indulging in surprising roulades and flourishes.... Near me sat a handsome, opulent-looking nun—possibly an abbess or prioress of noble lineage. Can a holy woman of such a complexion listen to a fine operatic barytone in a sumptuous temple and receive none but ascetic impressions? What a cross-fire ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James
... You recollect we accused him of exaggeration. Strange chance! If any one had then told me—But though you have undoubtedly now almost divined my secret, let me follow the march of events without interruption. The Convent of Saint Hermangilda, of which my aunt is the abbess, is hardly a quarter of a league distant from Gerolstein, for the abbey gardens border on the suburbs of the city. A charming house, completely isolated from the cloister, had been placed at my disposition by my aunt, who loves me, ...
— Mysteries of Paris, V3 • Eugene Sue
... upon her own resources. She followed her first book, the success of which was immediate and very great, by a novel entitled "The Refugee in America," in which the plot is ill-constructed, and the characters are crudely drawn, but the writer's caustic humour lends animation to the page. "The Abbess," a novel, was her third effort; and then, in the following year, came another record of travel, "Belgium and Western Germany in 1833." Her Conservative instincts found less to offend them in Continental than in American society, and her sketches, therefore, while not less vivid, are ...
— Celebrated Women Travellers of the Nineteenth Century • W. H. Davenport Adams
... circumstances, that on receiving the congratulations of those around him, he replied calmly: "Should my daughter not be one day eligible to become Queen of France, she will at least make a fitting Abbess of Remiremont." [167] ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... at her death her body was deposited in the same tomb. Three centuries they reposed together; after which they were separated to different sides of the church, to calm the delicate scruples of the lady- abbess of the convent. More than a century afterward, they were again united in the same tomb; and when at length the Paraclet was destroyed, their moldering remains were transported to the church of Nogent-sur- Seine. ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3 • Various
... 2nd. A heavy ring enamelled in colours, and bearing a jacynth. 3rd. An amethystine sapphire. 4th. A polished ruby, surrounded by diamonds. 5th. The engraved ring of an abbess. 6th. A ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy
... Tyburn is mentioned in Domesday Book among the possessions of the Abbess and Convent of Barking. Early in the thirteenth century it was held by Robert de Vere, whose daughter married William de Insula, Earl of Warren and Surrey, from whom the manor passed to their heirs, the Fitzalans, Earls of Arundel. The ...
— Hampstead and Marylebone - The Fascination of London • Geraldine Edith Mitton
... well as royal bounty; and, when the consequences of these alienations in mortmain came to be visible in the impoverishment of the public revenue, every attempt at legislative interference was in a great measure defeated by the piety or superstition of the age. The abbess of the monastery of Huelgas, which was situated within the precincts of Burgos, and contained within its walls one hundred and fifty nuns of the noblest families in Castile, exercised jurisdiction ever ...
— History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella V1 • William H. Prescott
... had before appeared, returned in the evening to offer consolation to Emily, and brought a kind message from the lady abbess, inviting her to the convent. Emily, though she did not accept the offer, returned an answer expressive of her gratitude. The holy conversation of the friar, whose mild benevolence of manners bore some resemblance to those of ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... young nobleman's promises glitter before her eyes and said to her: 'If you consent to go with him to-night you'll have a solid annuity, inscribed at the Hotel de Ville, and an outfit richer than any ballet dancer or Abbess of Panthemont may get, and a cupboard full of the finest silver.' 'He thinks me to be one of those creatures," she said; 'he is an impudent fellow.' 'He loves you,' I replied; 'you could not expect to be venerated?' 'I must have an ...
— The Queen Pedauque • Anatole France
... described the homosexual attractions of women. Diderot's famous novel, La Religieuse, which, when first published, was thought to have been actually written by a nun, deals with the torture to which a nun was put by the perverse lubricity of her abbess, for whom, it is said, Diderot found a model in the Abbess of Chelles, a daughter of the Regent and thus a member of a family which for several generations showed a marked tendency to inversion. Diderot's narrative has been described as a faithful description of ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... occupied it as a palace, and to have been buried there." "The two picturesque towers" (quoting Bevan again), "which form so conspicuous a land and sea mark, are called 'The Sisters,' and are in reality modern-built by the Trinity Board in place of two erected traditionally by an Abbess of Faversham, who was wrecked here with her sister on their way to Broadstairs." The sea is fast encroaching on the land here, notwithstanding the erection of a large sea-wall ...
— A Week's Tramp in Dickens-Land • William R. Hughes
... very detrimental to Wolsey; that Henry was fully alive to his minister's unpopularity; and that if occasion served he might take the popular side. Thus when Wolsey appointed a suitable person to be Abbess of Wilton, instead of a very unsuitable person who was connected with the Boleyns, the King reprimanded him in his most elevated style—taking occasion at the same time to be scandalised at the subscriptions to Wolsey's educational ...
— England Under the Tudors • Arthur D. Innes
... always asks first for it, and visits it last when returning from the cemetery. It is the most beautiful monument in the cemetery. It consists of a chapel formed out of the ruins of the Abbey of Paraclete, which was founded by Abelard, and of which Heloise was the first abbess. It is fourteen feet in length, by eleven in breadth, and is twenty-four feet in height. A pinnacle rises out of the roof in a cruciform shape, and four smaller ones exquisitely sculptured stand between the gables. Fourteen columns, six feet high, support beautiful arches, ...
— Paris: With Pen and Pencil - Its People and Literature, Its Life and Business • David W. Bartlett
... all who saw her (her husband and his monks excepted) loved. He seized rapaciously upon her fortune and her jewels, and allowing her only one attendant, confined her in a gloomy convent, of which a sister of his—no doubt an unpleasant lady after his own heart—was abbess or jailer. ...
— A Child's History of England • Charles Dickens
... alabaster sheen, With sculptured lid of roses white, She slumbered in unbroken night, By mortal eyes unseen. Above her marble couch was reared A monumental shrine, Where cloistered sisters, gathering round, Made night and morn the aisle resound With choristry divine The abbess died: and in her pride Her parting mandate said, They should her final rest provide The alabaster couch beside, ...
— Gryll Grange • Thomas Love Peacock
... first, from the moment when, as a young girl, she left the convent to enter into possession of her fortune she had chosen to assert some right to a footing in the most exclusive aristocracy in the world, it is not impossible that the protection of the Abbess might have helped her to obtain it. The secret of her birth would, however, have rendered a marriage with a man of that class all but impossible, and would have entirely excluded her from the only other position considered dignified for a well-born woman of fortune, unmarried ...
— The Witch of Prague • F. Marion Crawford
... all the time, especially after you came in. It was you came in, wasn't it? Her mother's simply an absurd worldly old woman. My Lebyadkin distinguished himself too. I kept looking at the ceiling to keep from laughing; the ceiling there is finely painted. His mother ought to be an abbess. I'm afraid of her, though she did give me a black shawl. Of course, they must all have come to strange conclusions about me. I wasn't vexed, but I sat there, thinking what relation am I to them? Of course, ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky |
