"Custom" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... than to meet the exigencies of business, even to aid a declining industry, may have a fair opportunity to judge comparative merits and draw sound conclusions based upon scientific facts, rather than misleading statements or the biased dictates of custom. ...
— Northern Nut Growers Report of the Proceedings at the Twenty-First Annual Meeting • Northern Nut Growers Association
... [1] It was the custom of the ancient Irish, in the manner of the Scythians, to bury the favorite swords of their ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... philosopher in practice, and I am proud to say that on this occasion I smoked in absolute indifference to the absurdity of the thing. People came and stood at a distance in the passage, and eyed me curiously. But they knew I belonged to the party of foreigners, and doubtless they supposed it was the custom of my country to guard doors ...
— A Roman Singer • F. Marion Crawford
... was a town called Atpat. In it there lived a poor Brahman who had seven sons and seven daughters-in-law. He had also one daughter called Gunvanti and a wife called Dhanvanti. Whenever a mendicant Brahman came to this house, it was the custom of all the ladies to give him alms and then prostrate themselves in front of him. One day a Brahman came, tall as a tree and shining like the sun. The seven daughters-in-law ran out as usual and gave him alms and then threw themselves at full length at his feet. The Brahman blessed ...
— Deccan Nursery Tales - or, Fairy Tales from the South • Charles Augustus Kincaid
... of Dorothea Trudel was an eminently pious woman, and it was her custom, when any of her children were ill, to bring them in prayer before the feet of the Heavenly Physician, as Dorothea herself says: 'Our mother had no cure except prayer, and though at that time we did not understand, yet since then we have found it out, that it was the ...
— The Wonders of Prayer - A Record of Well Authenticated and Wonderful Answers to Prayer • Various
... with one of her attendants, who held her by the hand. Spying her father at the other side of the lawn, she snatched her hand from the maid's, and sped across to him. Now, when she wanted to run alone, her custom was to catch up a stone in each hand, so that she might come down again after a bound. Whatever she wore as part of her attire had no effect in this way: even gold, when it thus became as it were a part of herself, lost ...
— Adela Cathcart, Vol. 1 • George MacDonald
... ACCIDENT.—Last evening, about six o'clock, as Mr. William Schuyler, an old and respectable citizen of South Park, was leaving his residence to go downtown, as has been his usual custom for many years with the exception only of a short interval in the spring of 1850, during which he was confined to his bed by injuries received in attempting to stop a runaway horse by thoughtlessly placing himself directly in its wake and throwing up his hands and shouting, ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Mystic-Humorous Stories • Various
... lost sight, in any of his distinctions, of that inalienable affinity between land and people; the solidarity of a nation, its very right of existing as a political entity, he derived from homogeneity as to origin, language, custom, habitat. The validity of this view is now generally accepted in theory, while its practical application to science must necessarily depend upon the growth of special knowledge. In The Palatine People Riehl presented a standard treatise upon ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VIII • Various
... visit him and Saemund; till at last, one dark night, they betook themselves to flight. No sooner had the Master missed them than he sent in pursuit of them; but in vain, and the heavens were too overcast to admit, according to his custom, of reading their whereabouts in the stars. So they traveled day and night and all the following day. But the next night was clear, and the Master at once read in the stars where they were, and set out after them at full speed. Then Saemund, casting his eyes up at the heavens, said, "Now is my ...
— The Elder Eddas of Saemund Sigfusson; and the Younger Eddas of Snorre Sturleson • Saemund Sigfusson and Snorre Sturleson
... camped about the fort. Accordingly. Beaujeu at once called the warriors to a council, and urged that they accompany him against the English on the morrow. They received his proposition with marked coldness, and according to the Indian custom, asked until morning to consider their reply. In the morning, the council was called together again, and the Indians refused to take part in the expedition. At that moment a runner burst in upon them and announced that the enemy was at hand. Beaujeu, who knew well the inflammable nature of his ...
— A Soldier of Virginia • Burton Egbert Stevenson
... of Bethlem Hospital (who was elected January, 1815) gave evidence that, when she was appointed, there were about twenty patients under personal restraint, out of between fifty and sixty patients. "The custom when I first went was only to get them up three days of the week—never on meat days; they lie in bed four days in the week." She also stated that one of the female patients had been chained for eight years, but had not required restraint since ...
— Chapters in the History of the Insane in the British Isles • Daniel Hack Tuke
... French voile, meaning a veil, a light fabric usually more or less transparent, intended to conceal the features in whole or in part or to serve as a screen against sunlight, dust, insects, etc., or to emphasize or preserve the beauty. The custom of wearing veils had its origin in the early ages in the desire of semi-savage man to hide away the woman of his choice, and is a survival of the ancient custom of hiding women that is found even down to the present day in Eastern countries. Voile ...
— Textiles • William H. Dooley
... the custom of the village maidens of Alexandria Bay to inaugurate the winter sports by giving a Halloween party, and every one looked forward to this with the ...
— Kidnapped at the Altar - or, The Romance of that Saucy Jessie Bain • Laura Jean Libbey
... fact, that a singular testimony to wife snatching in ancient times is indicated by a custom once general, and still not obsolete in South Wales, of a feigned attempt on the part of the friends of the young woman about to get married to hinder her from carrying out her object. The Rev. Griffith Jones, Vicar of Mostyn, informed the writer that he had witnessed such a struggle. The ...
— Welsh Folk-Lore - a Collection of the Folk-Tales and Legends of North Wales • Elias Owen
... custom of the Germans to spare certain houses in every village by chalking up some laudatory notice. We despatch riders had a theory that the inhabitants of these marked houses, far from being spies, were those against whom the Germans had some particular ...
— Adventures of a Despatch Rider • W. H. L. Watson
... cultivators. As the sun went down, the Abbot and his companion, wishing me good-night, retired to rest. On approaching the window, I observed another monk sauntering from the burial-ground, where, with his hands, in conformity to their daily custom, he had been scooping ...
— Confessions of an Etonian • I. E. M.
... In accordance with custom a copy of the order giving Darrin special commendation was mailed to his father, as one who had a right to know and to be proud of his son's record ...
— Dave Darrin's First Year at Annapolis • H. Irving Hancock
... the originators or, at least, the arrangers of parts of the liturgy. They composed new hymns and invocations, fixed the order of service, and established in full vigor a system of Minhag, or Custom, whose power became more and more predominant, not only in religious, but also in social ...
— Chapters on Jewish Literature • Israel Abrahams
... world can be insensible to the fact that a large and growing proportion of those who habitually attend our religious services have come to diverge very widely, though in many different degrees, from the beliefs which are expressed or implied in the formularies they use. Custom, fashion, the charm of old associations, the cravings of their own moral or spiritual nature, a desire to support a useful system of moral training, to set a good example to their children, their household, or their neighbours, keep them in their old place when the beliefs which they profess with ...
— The Map of Life - Conduct and Character • William Edward Hartpole Lecky
... left among the Mandans appeared at Fort La Reine in September. They reported that they had been well treated, and that their hosts had parted from them with regret. They also declared that at the end of spring several Indian tribes, all well supplied with horses, had come, as was their yearly custom, to the Mandan villages to barter embroidered buffalo hides and other skins for corn and beans; that they had encamped, to the number of two hundred lodges, on the farther side of the Missouri, and that among them was a band said ...
— A Half-Century of Conflict, Volume II • Francis Parkman
... have been denominated "the Cuban claims," in which more than 100 of our citizens are directly interested, have furnished no exception. These claims were for the refunding of duties unjustly exacted from American vessels at different custom-houses in Cuba so long ago as the year 1844. The principles upon which they rest are so manifestly equitable and just that, after a period of nearly ten years, in 1854 they were recognized by the ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 4 (of 4) of Volume 5: James Buchanan • James D. Richardson
... and pearls, while the silver Sabbath lamp cast its festive light on the cheerful, devout faces of parents and children. On the purple velvet cushions of a chair, higher than the others, reclined, as custom requires, Rabbi Abraham, who read and sang the Agade, while the gay assembly joined in, or answered in the appointed places. The Rabbi also wore the prescribed black festival garment, his nobly-formed, ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... It is the custom among whalers to have their harpoons marked with date and name of ship, and Dr Scoresby, in his work on arctic voyages mentions several instances of whales having been taken near Behring's Straits, with harpoons in them bearing the stamp of ships that were known to cruise in the ...
— The Ocean and its Wonders • R.M. Ballantyne
... waters, as the United States was drawn slowly but surely into the vortex of European war. The carrying trade at home and abroad had fallen very much into the hands of Americans, and this became the root of bitterness. The tonnage of their vessels employed in foreign trade and entered at the custom-houses of the United States was equal to nearly four fifths of the tonnage of British vessels engaged in the same traffic and entered at home. But there was this difference: the foreign commerce of Great Britain was almost all carried on from her own ports, and the returns, therefore, showed ...
— James Madison • Sydney Howard Gay
... as the new railway was nearly completed to it, there were new shops of all kinds to be opened in it, and Stephen's business would be interfered with; for he could not make good boots and shoes as cheaply as other people could buy and sell poor ones, and his custom was dropping off. It would all come right in the end, he told Dolly; but in the meantime a hard winter might ...
— Stephen Grattan's Faith - A Canadian Story • Margaret M. Robertson
... horrors, and I am surprised that he should have put himself to the trouble of such a tedious journey when he might have discovered far more exciting material on any good road around New York. However, nobody seemed to mind, such is the force of custom—and I did not mind very much, because my particular friend, intelligently foreseeing my absurd European prejudices, had engaged for ...
— Your United States - Impressions of a first visit • Arnold Bennett
... carry on agriculture and trade and to tend cows and Brahmans. Their earliest books, the Vedas, require them not to abandon their family customs and Krishna then cites as an ancient practice the custom of placating the spirits of the forests and hills. This custom, he says, they have wrongly superseded in favour of Indra and they must now revive it. Nanda sees the force of Krishna's remarks and holds a meeting. 'Do not brush aside his words as those ...
— The Loves of Krishna in Indian Painting and Poetry • W. G. Archer
... soup. "I hate doing business out of hours." He tore the envelopes off the various letters as he spoke. "What's this? Casks returned as per invoice; that's all right. Note from Rudder & Saxe—that can be answered to-morrow. Memorandum on the Custom duties at Sierra Leone. Hallo! what have we here? 'My darling Tom'—who is this from—Yours ever, Mary Ossary.' Why, it's one of young Dimsdale's love-letters which has got mixed up with my business ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... African Roman-Dutch law in statutory courts and Swazi traditional law and custom in traditional courts; accepts compulsory ...
— The 2007 CIA World Factbook • United States
... or rather was the custom in Egypt and Syria to range long rows of fine China bowls along the shelves running round the rooms at the height of six or seven feet, and they formed a magnificent cornice. I bought many of them at Damascus till the people, learning their value, ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... which the motive was much more agreeable than the manner, captain Lewis lighted a pipe and offered it to the Indians who had now seated themselves in a circle around the party. But before they would receive this mark of friendship they pulled off their moccasins, a custom as we afterwards learnt, which indicates the sacred sincerity of their professions when they smoke with a stranger, and which imprecates on themselves the misery of going barefoot forever if they are faithless to their ...
— History of the Expedition under the Command of Captains Lewis and Clark, Vol. I. • Meriwether Lewis and William Clark
... less fine view from the hill behind, on which sits the Panteon, or city cemetery. It is a rectangular place enclosing perhaps three acres, and, as all Guanajuato has been buried here for centuries, considerably crowded. For this reason and from inherited Spanish custom, bodies are seldom buried, but are pigeonholed away in the deep niches two feet square into what from the outside looks to be merely the enclosing wall. Here, in more exact order than prevails in life, the dead of Guanajuato are filed in series, each designated by a number. Series ...
— Tramping Through Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras - Being the Random Notes of an Incurable Vagabond • Harry A. Franck
... through certain malice: because to anyone that has a habit, whatever is befitting to him in respect of that habit, has the aspect of something lovable, since it thereby becomes, in a way, connatural to him, according as custom and habit are a second nature. Now the very thing which befits a man in respect of a vicious habit, is something that excludes a spiritual good: the result being that a man chooses a spiritual evil, that ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) - From the Complete American Edition • Saint Thomas Aquinas
... fagot of wood; a load; a fagot of wood which custom allows a hedger to carry home ...
— Poems of Rural Life in the Dorset Dialect • William Barnes
... of the same species in every age and country, built their nests alike: In this we see the force of instinct. Men, in different times and places, frame their houses differently: Here we perceive the influence of reason and custom. A like inference may be drawn from comparing the instinct of generation and the institution ...
— An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals • David Hume
... Jacob Heller. In a fortnight I shall be ready with Duke Friedrich's work; after that I shall begin yours, and, as my custom is, I will not paint any other picture till it is finished. I will be sure carefully to paint the middle panel with my own hand; apart from that, the outer sides of the wings are already sketched in—they will be ...
— Albert Durer • T. Sturge Moore
... When the heart is stricken with a certain force, all forms of presenting less gloomy views of the condition of the individual, will generally be found to be totally unavailing in affording relief. Nay, I am satisfied that there was genuine philosophy in the custom of the Greeks and the ancient Germans, in forcing victims of great sorrows to weep out the rankling barbed shaft. These had a species of licensed mourners, whose duty it was to soften the heart by melting strains ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland Volume 17 • Alexander Leighton
... with his big dog, is lost. He is there, you are told, but if you keep to the highway you never see him; and, to tell the truth, in Germany you miss him. He stands for youth and high spirits and that world of ancient custom most of us would be loth to lose. In Berlin, if you go to the Universitaet when the working day begins, you see a crowd of serious, well-mannered young men, most of them carrying books and papers. They are swarming like bees to the various lecture-rooms; they ...
— Home Life in Germany • Mrs. Alfred Sidgwick
... Admiral Keppel courted the custom of passing travellers by a poetical appeal to the feelings ...
— A Walk from London to Fulham • Thomas Crofton Croker
... It had been their custom on each succeeding spring to go, if the anniversary ware pleasant, to sit again at evening on the door-step with the sweetness of the straggling spice-bush upon it. Now as they sat there a silence came upon them like that of their ...
— Life at High Tide - Harper's Novelettes • Various
... observed any sin against nature, which is saying a great deal of so uncivilized a race; yet with regard to their treatment of women, they are so vicious and licentious that any race whatever might excel them, and this is no insignificant evil and sin. Their custom in taking wives ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803 - Volume III, 1569-1576 • E.H. Blair
... when it was presented. Therewith he spent incredibly small sums; after growling and remonstrating and eating for more than an hour, his bill would amount to seventy or eighty centesimi, wine included. Every day he threatened to withdraw his custom; every day he sent for the landlady, pointed out to her how vilely he was treated, and asked how she could expect him to recommend the Concordia to his acquaintances. On one occasion I saw him push away a plate of something, plant his elbows on the table, and hide his face in his hands; thus ...
— By the Ionian Sea - Notes of a Ramble in Southern Italy • George Gissing
... some way conciliate the Jews, and save Jesus as well? he wondered. Yes; he would pretend to look upon Him as guilty; but would remind them of the custom of releasing some prisoner at the Passover; and try to persuade them to have Jesus set free. But they preferred Barabbas; and Pilate tried another plan. He would inflict upon Jesus the painful and humiliating punishment of scourging and ...
— Little Folks (October 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... of critical days; for the fortieth day, according to the most ancient notions, has been always regarded as the last of ardent diseases, and the limit of separation between these and those which are chronic. It was the custom to subject lying-in women for forty days to a more exact superintendence. There was a good deal also said in medical works of forty-day epochs in the formation of the foetus, not to mention that the alchemists ...
— The Black Death, and The Dancing Mania • Justus Friedrich Karl Hecker
... not buy her toilets in New Orleans. Everything was ordered from Paris, and came as regularly through the custom-house as the modes and robes to the milliners. She was furnished by a certain house there, just as one of a royal family would be at the present day. As this had lasted from her layette up to her sixteenth year, it may be imagined what took ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly
... is the custom in Denmark for intimate acquaintances to use the second person singular, "Du," (thou) when speaking to each other. When a friendship is formed between men, they generally affirm it, when occasion offers, either in public or private, by drinking ...
— A Christmas Greeting • Hans Christian Andersen
... why an "infinitely more angelic sexual order" should not replace marriage as at present conceived and constituted, for "Marriage is no more a Christian ethic than it is a Mohammedan ethic, or a Japanese custom. We have already 'considered' the marriage laws and altered them. Where, then, is the immorality in demanding a further consideration? Our notions concerning the relations of men and women have changed with the changing times, and at each stage we have reached ...
— British Socialism - An Examination of Its Doctrines, Policy, Aims and Practical Proposals • J. Ellis Barker
... between him and Darwin. The latter, contrary to his usual custom, wrote a letter to "Nature," in reply to an unfair attack which had been made upon evolution by Sir Wyville Thomson in his Introduction to "The Voyage of the Challenger" (see Darwin "Life and Letters" ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 2 • Leonard Huxley
... I hoped," said Callard, as they passed out; "but we are still only half way, confound it! We shall have to hurry up if Smith is to get off in time. Arabadji," he cried to the coachman awaiting them at the door, "the Direction-General of the Custom House." ...
— Round the World in Seven Days • Herbert Strang
... year was always tellin' how they went to the stewardess for most everything, and she give her five dollars in gold when they got into Boston. I shouldn't want Lyddy should give so much as that, but I should want she should give something, as long's it's the custom." ...
— The Lady of the Aroostook • W. D. Howells
... they, or any of the little papooses, were naughty or disobedient, they were put under what might be called the water-cure treatment. Instead of being whipped or locked up in a dark pantry—as was, I am sorry to say, the custom among some white people—they were simply "ducked" under water until they became manageable. Winter or summer, it was all the same. A bad child would very soon become a wet child, if there were ...
— Po-No-Kah - An Indian Tale of Long Ago • Mary Mapes Dodge
... necessitates freedom, and without freedom there is no such thing as beauty in dress at all. In fact, the beauty of dress depends on the beauty of the human figure, and whatever limits, constrains, and mutilates is essentially ugly, though the eyes of many are so blinded by custom that they do not notice the ugliness ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde
... further suburb—it is worse than town; it is a place to walk in; and the tedium of a walk to a child's mind is hardly measurable by a man, who walks voluntarily, with his affairs to think about, and his eyes released, by age, from the custom of perpetual observation. The child, compelled to walk, is the only unresting observer of the asphalt, the pavement, the garden gates and railings, and the tedious people. He is bored as he will never ...
— The Children • Alice Meynell
... social and political state of America, after having studied its history, we shall remain perfectly convinced that not an opinion, not a custom, not a law, I may even say not an event, is upon record which the origin of that people will not explain. The readers of this book will find the germe of all that is to follow in the present chapter, and the key to almost the ...
— American Institutions and Their Influence • Alexis de Tocqueville et al
... the world, according to the rules of this our time, to continue to court and caress you; for they say that a sensible person may take a wife indeed, but that to espouse her is to act like a fool. Let them talk; I adhere for my part the custom of the good old days; I also wear my hair as it used to be then; and, in truth, novelty costs this poor country up to the present moment so dear (and I do not know whether we have reached the highest ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... The Romans marched through the street in close ranks, prepared for battle if an enemy had appeared; the strict order maintained by their general imprinted on their minds the duty of obedience; and in an age in which custom and impunity almost sanctified the abuse of conquest, the genius of one man repressed the passions of a victorious army. The voice of menace and complaint was silent, the trade of Carthage was not interrupted; while Africa changed ...
— Gibbon • James Cotter Morison
... holding something in your hand and you let it go, what happens? It falls to the ground, of course. Now, why should it do so? You will say: 'How could it do anything else?' But that is only because you are hampered by custom. Try to shake yourself free, and think, Why should it go down instead of up or any other way? The first man who was clever enough to find some sort of an answer to this question was the great philosopher Sir Isaac Newton, though he was not quite the first to be puzzled by it. ...
— The Children's Book of Stars • G.E. Mitton
... value, for Murguia stifled his wrath, again drew out the belt, and more Napoleons changed hands. Murguia was then for remounting, leaving the flask of brandy with the two imperialist emissaries, as had become his custom. But the jovial Tiburcio stopped him. "What must you think of us, Don Anastasio?" he exclaimed contritely. "We haven't offered you a drink yet." Murguia dared not refuse, and he paused for the return of hospitality from his own bottle. ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... have not their faculties fully under control all the time they are at work. The rules are especially strict for men working for a railroad or street railway company. The Pennsylvania Railroad Company replied to my inquiry as to their custom of discriminating against drinking men in these words: "We have no printed rules in regard to this except in a general way,—that no employee is allowed to go into a saloon during his hours of work or wearing the company's uniform. Of course the men ...
— Civics and Health • William H. Allen
... among the trees. But a moment later I gave an exclamation of surprise, and raised myself a little from the saddle while I gazed earnestly at the summit of the keep. The flag staff was naked; the royal standard that had flapped in the wind last night was gone. But by immemorial custom the flag flew on the keep when the king or the queen was at the castle. It would fly for Rudolf V. no more; but why did it not proclaim and honor the presence of Queen Flavia? I sat down in my saddle and spurred my horse to the top of his speed. We had been ...
— Rupert of Hentzau - From The Memoirs of Fritz Von Tarlenheim: The Sequel to - The Prisoner of Zenda • Anthony Hope
... always be with this condition, that the thing is capable of being prescribed for: and I insist, that prescription cannot run against reason and common sense. Customs may be pleaded by prescription; but if, upon showing the custom, anything unreasonable appears in it, the prescription fails; for length of time works nothing towards the establishing anything that could never have a legal commencement. And if this objection will overthrow all prescriptions for customs; the mischief of which ...
— The Trial of the Witnessses of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ • Thomas Sherlock
... ornaments have each a bit of red velvet between them and the oak of the cabinet. One sees this on Gothic chests in England and occasionally on the antique furniture of other countries. The red material stretched back of the metal fret-work, is said to be a souvenir of the gruesome custom prevailing in ancient times, of warning off invaders by posting on the doors of public buildings, the skin of prisoners of war, and holding it in place with open-work metal, through which the red skin was ...
— The Art of Interior Decoration • Grace Wood
... a born Conservative; for this too I inexpressibly honour him. All great Peoples are conservative; slow to believe in novelties; patient of much error in actualities; deeply and forever certain of the greatness that is in LAW, in Custom once solemnly established, and now long recognised as just and final.—True, O Radical Reformer, there is no Custom that can, properly speaking, be final; none. And yet thou seest Customs which, in all civilised countries, are accounted final; nay, under the Old-Roman name of Mores, are accounted ...
— Past and Present - Thomas Carlyle's Collected Works, Vol. XIII. • Thomas Carlyle
... was an encumbrance to her had eaten deeply into the child's mind. During the last year she had been a waitress for some time at a sailors' tavern down in Nyhavn with an innkeeper Elleby, the confidence-man who had fleeced Pelle on his first arrival in the city. It was Elleby's custom to adopt young girls so as to evade the law and have women-servants for his sailors; and they generally died in the course of a year or two: he always wore a crape band round his sleeve. Johanna was also to have been adopted, ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... for such an oath? Sal. It is great sinne, to sweare vnto a sinne: But greater sinne to keepe a sinfull oath: Who can be bound by any solemne Vow To do a murd'rous deede, to rob a man, To force a spotlesse Virgins Chastitie, To reaue the Orphan of his Patrimonie, To wring the Widdow from her custom'd right, And haue no other reason for this wrong, But that he was bound by a solemne Oath? Qu. A ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... he supped with Marcus Lepidus, and signed, according to custom, a number of letters, as he sat at table. While he was so employed, there arose a question, "What kind of death was the best?" and Caesar, answering before them all, cried out, "A sudden one." The same night, as he was in bed with his wife, the doors and windows of the room flew open at once. ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 2 • Various
... this might be filled, all through, with stories about the dog, besides what are already published; but any one of you may see enough to delight you every day in the affectionate creature, it you will only be patient and kind. It is too often the custom to punish a dog when he does not do just what you like; and you may like things quite different at different times. Now, the poor brute cannot tell exactly what you wish; and if he is used to get a blow, or an angry scolding, he will be ...
— Kindness to Animals - Or, The Sin of Cruelty Exposed and Rebuked • Charlotte Elizabeth
... Fordyce to shape his days according to the plans of the American party, and when they met at the Schlossbrunn in the morning at half-past seven, and he and Mr. Cloudwater and the Princess had drunk their tumblers of water together, their custom was to go on down to the town and there find Sabine, who had bought their slices of ham and their rolls, and awaited them at the end of the Alte Weise with the pink paper bags, and then the four proceeded to walk to the ...
— The Man and the Moment • Elinor Glyn
... dear Frank, but it is quite needful that there should be an immediate knowledge of the contents of the will, in order that the right person may look after the business interests of the estate. I assure you that it is the invariable custom to read the will immediately ...
— Making His Way - Frank Courtney's Struggle Upward • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... the line above it. Things should be called by their right names, and this should be called the blunder-mark. I would have you, my dear James, scorn the use of the thing. Think before you write; let it be your custom to write correctly and in a plain hand. Be careful that neatness, grammar, and sense prevail when you write to a blacksmith about shoeing a horse as when you write on the most important subjects. Habit is powerful in all cases; but its power in this case is truly wonderful. When you write, ...
— The Verbalist • Thomas Embly Osmun, (AKA Alfred Ayres)
... cigars were lighted—for the officers had all adopted the custom of the country—the colonel said courteously, "Would you mind telling us, Major Kennedy, how it is that you, who by your name are Irish, although you speak excellent French, have made your way so rapidly as to be ...
— In the Irish Brigade - A Tale of War in Flanders and Spain • G. A. Henty
... Teuton doctrine and practice are that Germans may insinuate themselves into a country, and in the guise of loyal citizens become conversant with its secrets, and then use them to its hurt. In the light of this law, which was a custom long before it became a statute, the number of Germans naturalized in various countries grew amazingly during the past fifteen years. In France, for example, where there were only 38,000 foreigners naturalized ...
— England and Germany • Emile Joseph Dillon
... It was empty. He crept towards the boat and found no one there. Then he examined the chain that moored it. There was no padlock. In Spain to this day they bar the window heavily and leave the door open. To the cunning mind is given in this custom the whole history ...
— The Velvet Glove • Henry Seton Merriman
... and poorer roads. It would seem, therefore, that inspection by the companies themselves has not been sufficient. It certainly has not been enough to prevent two hundred disasters in ten years. It is the custom in several of the United States to maintain what is termed a railroad commission. The original intention seems to have been for these commissions to keep the railroads under some kind of inspection, and in some way to assist in settling any questions ...
— Bridge Disasters in America - The Cause and the Remedy • George L. Vose
... when, lo, the church glowed again; and so on half-a-dozen times, till at last he quoted the verse "And the Lamb is the light thereof," when a perfect blaze of effulgence made those mysterious, words almost startling. And then he wound up by describing the Tyrolese custom on which Mrs. Field's poem is founded, which he had himself seen and enjoyed, and of which, it seems, he spoke at East Dorset last summer at the Sunday-school. [8] I read the poem and letter to him the instant we got home, and he admired ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... however, did not induce Mademoiselle Madeleine to break her queer custom of having something of the same kind in the Third Book of every Part. For though there is some "business," it slips into another regular "History," this time of Prince Thrasybulus, a naval hero, of whom we have often heard, and his Alcionide, not a ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... far had something foolish in them, and her eyes seemed to say so. If it was the only chance, and his custom was to operate in such cases,—if he would have operated had she not been there, why did he ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... 'And, your honour, where WILL these go?—Where WILL We carry 'em all to, for your honour?' was now the question. Without waiting for an answer, most of the goods were carried at the discretion of the porters to the custom-house, where, to his lordship's astonishment, after this scene of confusion, he found that he had lost nothing but his patience; all his goods were safe, and a few TINPENNIES made his officious porters happy men and boys; blessings were ...
— The Absentee • Maria Edgeworth
... protracted banquet, and a merry one withal; there was a perfect Babel of noise; and the excellent old custom of drinking healths with distant friends was freely adopted. Miss Girond did her best to amuse the good-looking boy whom she had been instrumental in rescuing from his solitary dinner in the coffee-room; ...
— Prince Fortunatus • William Black
... Jacobs calls "junior right;" the patriarchal custom of the elder children going forth into the world to seek their fortunes, and the youngest remaining at home to look after his parents and inherit their possessions. Hence the rivalry between ...
— The Hero of Esthonia and Other Studies in the Romantic Literature of That Country • William Forsell Kirby
... seventh day the party reached Aghadez, which they entered about an hour after sunset, it being the custom in this country never to enter a town by day. Aghadez is situated on a hamadah, or lofty plateau of sandstone and granite formation. Around, although there is no arable soil, a good deal of herbage and wood is found in the depressions of the plain. It ...
— Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa Performed in the Years 1850-51, Volume 2 • James Richardson
... the grass, loose the stop from your throat, Not words, not music or rhyme I want, not custom or lecture, not even the best, Only the lull I like, the hum ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman
... evils; for time is the greatest innovator; and if time of course alter things to the worse, and wisdom and counsel shall not alter them to the better, what shall be the end? It is true, that what is settled by custom, though it be not good, yet at least it is fit; and those things which have long gone together, are, as it were, confederate within themselves; whereas new things piece not so well; but though they help by their utility, yet they trouble by their inconformity. Besides, they are like strangers; more ...
— Essays - The Essays Or Counsels, Civil And Moral, Of Francis Ld. - Verulam Viscount St. Albans • Francis Bacon
... indeed is safely cast. And Wisdom smiles, while seated on her throne. 'Twere well to kill two birds with one shrewd fling Of fortune's stone, and thus from grievous ills Which close enwrapped by robes of custom, are Work freedom from the threats of cruel fate. Francos, whose mental woof is frail indeed, Stood for promotion to important post. Which might embarrass all the wheels of state, And so 'twere well within his itching hand To place commission for those distant Isles Where mild efficiency can work ...
— 'A Comedy of Errors' in Seven Acts • Spokeshave (AKA Old Fogy)
... or stupid animals, panic-stricken at last when it was too late, fell ready victims. Instead of seeking safety at the first menacing roar they foolishly succumbed to their curiosity or stopped only long enough to listen and to wonder, then went about their own affairs as was their custom. This seldom failed to bring dire consequences, for when the sudden rush came it confused them and they dashed blindly into the very jaws of their destroyer. Such particularly was the fate of the agoutis, which had either forgotten the experience of past seasons or had failed ...
— The Black Phantom • Leo Edward Miller
... It was not Pee-wee's custom to leave a thing to somebody else. He attended to everything—meals, awards, hikes, ice cream cones, camping localities, duffel lists, parents, everything. He was the world's champion fixer. You can see for yourselves what a triumph he made of not rescuing the wrong ...
— Pee-wee Harris on the Trail • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... is in fact the original custom is clear from the word XTN, which signifies both circumcision and bridegroom (or in Arabic, son-in-law). This explains the meaning of XTN DMYM in Exodus iv. 25. The original usage is still in force with some Arab tribes. ...
— Prolegomena to the History of Israel • Julius Wellhausen
... been Mrs. Parlin's custom, once or twice every summer, to allow the children to take the large, heavy rag-bag to the store, and sell its contents for little articles, which they divided among themselves. Sometimes the price of the rags amounted to half or three quarters of a dollar, ...
— Dotty Dimple's Flyaway • Sophie May
... great applause, and the Putney Pet was dressed out in a gown and mortar-board, and the whole party then sallied out to battle. From time immemorial it has been the custom at Oxford for the town-people and the scholars to engage, at least once a year, in a wild scrimmage, and the pitched battle was now due. No doubt it was not quite fair for the men of Brazenface to ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.
... additional quarter-section was assured. For some reason or other, possibly because he was beginning to feel a reaction after the hard work of the summer, Nora fancied that his spirits were less high than usual. He talked less of the coveted land than was his custom. She, herself, had never, in all her healthy life, felt so glowing with health and strength. She, too, had worked hard, finding almost every day some new task to perform. But aside from the natural fatigue at night, which long hours of dreamless sleep entirely dissipated, she felt all the better ...
— The Land of Promise • D. Torbett
... of an open field with our two Parrott guns and one gun of Carpenter's battery, en echelon, with each gun's horses and limber off on its left among the trees. Both Capt. Joe Carpenter and his brother, John, who was his first lieutenant, were with this gun, as was their custom when any one of their guns went into action. We soon let the enemy know where we were, and they replied promptly, getting our range ...
— The Story of a Cannoneer Under Stonewall Jackson • Edward A. Moore
... lingered. Never before had he been absent for a night except when at school or college, or on a visit to some friend; for his habits were most regular, and he always rose and retired to rest early, his custom in this respect having been often the subject of remark and merriment to Walter, who would say to his friends that, "although Amos would never join in a lark, he had no objection to rise with one; nor to lie down with a lamb, ...
— Amos Huntingdon • T.P. Wilson
... ancient custom, on the night previous to the execution of condemned criminals, for the bellman of the above parish to go under Newgate, and, ringing his bell, repeat the verses beneath (which, by the above extract, it would appear, should be the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 395, Saturday, October 24, 1829. • Various
... exhibited on pleasant afternoons, when the mothers and daughters of these cotton lords take their accustomed airing. So powerfully has this feeling of exclusiveness prevailed that no son or daughter dares marry out of their circle. For a long series of years has this custom prevailed, and the consequence is that the families above named are nearly of a common blood; and it needs no physiologist to tell us the invariable effect arising from this transgression of natural laws, on the physical and mental faculties of both sexes. In such a state of society is it ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I., No. IV., April, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... custom among the Northmen, that young princes should thus be put under the care of some trusty vassal, instead of being brought up at home, and one reason why the Centevilles had been chosen by Duke William was, that both Sir Eric and his mother ...
— The Little Duke - Richard the Fearless • Charlotte M. Yonge
... won't. I once brought a feller to that was drowned, and one night he got drunk and quilted me; I couldn't walk for a week. Says I, "You're the last chap I'll ever save from drowning in all my born days, if that's all the thanks I get for it." No sir, Halifax has lost the run of its custom. Who does Yarmouth trade with? St. John. Who does Annapolis County trade with? St. John. Who do all the folks on the Basin of Mines, and Bay shore, trade with? St. John. Who does Cumberland trade with? St. John. Well Pictou, Lunenburg and Liverpool, supply themselves, ...
— The Clockmaker • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... human fellowship, and surrounded by so much that ministers to restfulness of soul, it is often hard to repress a longing to shatter the fetters of custom, to flee from the noise and confusion of this hurrying, fretful world, and to pass one's days in a coveted retirement, far from the maddening strife and tumult. Montalembert's profound appreciation of monastic life was never more aptly illustrated than in ...
— A Short History of Monks and Monasteries • Alfred Wesley Wishart
... Battersea, and his head sunk deep between his little sloping shoulders, he watched the fire. The windows had for a while been opened, as usual, to air the room for him; and the fire had not yet mitigated the chill. It was not his custom to bathe at so inclement an hour; and his appetite for food and drink, less keen than it had once been, required to be whetted by example—he never broke his fast before his master and mistress broke theirs. Time had been when, for sheer joy in life, he fluttered from perch to perch, though ...
— A Christmas Garland • Max Beerbohm
... very apt to get set in their ways unless they take care, and I am naturally too fair-minded to judge a man before I have seen him. Maria and Alice were prejudiced, if you like. Maria, indeed, had so much to say to Ada that I interfered, though it is contrary to my custom. ...
— The Whole Family - A Novel by Twelve Authors • William Dean Howells, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, Mary Heaton Vorse, Mary Stewart Cutting, Elizabeth Jo
... and means," said old Reynolds; and, rapping his snuff-box, and talking, as it was his custom, loud to himself, "Lady Dashfort knows all those Irish lords: she shall get one for ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. 6 • Maria Edgeworth
... flagrant use of backstair wiles, and pointing out to him ways of reform.[1626] He sought in good faith to secure efficiency and honesty, and if he had not been pinioned as with ball and chain to a system as old as the custom-house itself, and upon which every political boss from DeWitt Clinton to Roscoe Conkling had relied for advantage, he would doubtless have reformed existing peculation and irregularities among inspectors, ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander |
