"Custom" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Chaeronea assembled and condemned the conspirators to death—a decree which was intended to excuse the city to the Romans for what had happened. But that evening, when the chief magistrates, as is their custom, were dining together, Damon and his party broke into the senate-house, murdered them all, and again escaped out of the city. It chanced that at this time Lucius Lucullus was passing near Chaeronea with an armed force. He halted his troops, and, after investigating the circumstances, ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume II • Aubrey Stewart & George Long
... we exchanged the compliments of the day, and, after the African custom, told each other how important we were. Our visitor turned out to be none other than the brother of Lenani, the paramount chief of all the Masai. I forget what I was, either the brother of King George or the nephew of Theodore Roosevelt—the only two white men every ...
— African Camp Fires • Stewart Edward White
... got back to the shop, she would ask the provision man about her, and find out in that way. She stayed a little while to rehearse the terms of her inquiry, and while she lingered the woman herself came round the corner of the avenue and mounted the steps where Louise stood and, with an air of custom, went on upstairs to the second floor, where Louise heard her putting a latch-key into the door, which then closed ...
— The Story of a Play - A Novel • W. D. Howells
... and accepting a theory without sufficient evidence; and the opposite mistake of accepting as hygienic the customs about him simply because they are customs, and thus mistaking for fads any conclusions of science which are discordant with current custom. ...
— How to Live - Rules for Healthful Living Based on Modern Science • Irving Fisher and Eugene Fisk
... we were basking in the sunshine, with our eyes half shut, and Pussy purring pleasantly, I heard the sound of wheels at a distance. Supposing it to be the baker's cart, I roused myself, and ran to the gate, according to custom, to see him give in the bread. But long before the vehicle came in sight, I smelt the difference between it and the baker's cart. It came nearer; I felt in a state of uncommon agitation; old recollections and associations returned with extraordinary vividness, ...
— Cat and Dog - Memoirs of Puss and the Captain • Julia Charlotte Maitland
... really impregnable. Inside the walls I found a quantity of large round stones—the shot and shell of those days; these stones were capable of making considerable havoc amongst a besieging party I should say. The custom was in the old time that no young man should be allowed to take unto himself a wife till he had carried one such stone from the bed of the river where they are found, to the summit of the rock within the ...
— Round About the Carpathians • Andrew F. Crosse
... "RUTS."—But this will require something of heroism. For to follow the well-beaten path of custom is easy and pleasant, while to break out of the rut of habit and start a new line of action is difficult and disturbing. Most people prefer to keep doing things as they always have done them, to continue reading ...
— The Mind and Its Education • George Herbert Betts
... a marveylouse custom in that contree, (but is profitable) that zif ony contrarious thing, that scholde ben preiudice or grevance to the Emperour, in ony kynde, anon the Emperour hathe tydynges there of and fulle knowleche in a day, thoughe it ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, - and Discoveries of The English Nation, Volume 9 - Asia, Part 2 • Richard Hakluyt
... explained that the kissing of the bride was an old custom still retained among the lower classes, but Frank was not to be mollified, and the unhappy clerk was ordered ...
— Mike Fletcher - A Novel • George (George Augustus) Moore
... styling themselves American seamen, who are to be seen at Liverpool and other seaports; tall, weedy, narrow-shouldered, slovenly, yet still athletic men, with their knives worn in a sheath outside of their clothes, and not with a lanyard round them, as is the usual custom of English seamen. There is, I grant, a great difference in their appearance, and it arises from the circumstance of those men having been continually in the trade to New Orleans and the South, where they have picked up the buccaneer airs and ...
— Diary in America, Series One • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... measure of Mr. Gladstone was to abolish the custom of buying and selling commissions in the army, which provoked bitter opposition from the aristocracy. It was maintained by the government that the whole system of purchase was unjust, and tended to destroy the efficiency of the army by preventing the advancement of officers according ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume X • John Lord
... looking the questioner over suspiciously, as was his custom with all strangers recently since the ...
— Ralph on the Engine - The Young Fireman of the Limited Mail • Allen Chapman
... custom, she removed her apron, brushed her waving hair and wore a fresh dress. She rocked gently in her wicker chair, while her voice was moved to unusual solicitude as she spoke. Peter also had performed a rite he spoke of as "brushing up" for evening. He believed in the efficacy of soap and water, ...
— Michael O'Halloran • Gene Stratton-Porter
... between the 19th and 20th of March Napoleon reached Fontainebleau, and again paused, as had formerly been his custom, with short, quick steps through the antiquated but splendid galleries of that old palace. What must have been his feelings on revisiting the chamber in which, the year before, it is said he had ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... politician. "I should rather say of laissez faire, or, more precisely, of laissez assassiner," laughed the Editor. "What was the Fascinating Friend supposed to have in her portmanteau?" asked Beatrice. "What was she so anxious to conceal from the custom-house officers?" "Her woman's clothes, I imagine," the Critic replied, "though I don't hold myself bound to explain all the ins and outs of her proceedings." "Then she was a wonderful woman," replied the fair questioner, as one having authority, ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery - Riddle Stories • Various
... Parliamentary Papers, 1863, Commons, LXXII. "Correspondence respecting the 'Alabama.'" Also ibid., "Correspondence between Commissioner of Customs and Custom House Authorities at Liverpool relating to the 'Alabama.'" The last-minute delay was due to the ...
— Great Britain and the American Civil War • Ephraim Douglass Adams
... corridors moaning Wyvis' name sadly to herself, and wringing her hands as if in bitter woe. Her dress was neglected, and her hair unbrushed: indeed, when Janetta was too busy to give her a daughter's loving care, as it was her custom and her pleasure to do, poor Mrs. Brand roamed about the house looking like a madwoman. Her madness was, however, of a gentle kind: it took the form of melancholia, and manifested itself chiefly by continual restlessness and occasional bursts of ...
— A True Friend - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... of us with his card, he politely expressed the hope that we would give him our custom, if we needed anything in his line. Fortunately we had no occasion for his services. Just before leaving the ship he was invited to take a glass of brandy and water. Holding the glass in his hands which were yet stained with the coffin paint, he drank ...
— The Narrative of a Blockade-Runner • John Wilkinson
... Wil'sbro' would say to you! It is their great harvest. Lodgings for those three days pay a quarter's rent; and where so many interests are concerned, a custom cannot lightly be dropped." ...
— The Three Brides • Charlotte M. Yonge
... please!" Kite's little eyes were popping; he dragged out a handkerchief and fumbled it around his forehead. "I've not been here for any five or six years—no, nor half that time. Since I've been here most of our custom is transient. Nobody don't keep no room five or six years ...
— The Million-Dollar Suitcase • Alice MacGowan
... It was the custom at that time to pull handsome dresses in pieces, and use the materials for something else; but if a dress were not worth the unpicking, it was hung up and left to its fate. Queen Elizabeth kept all hers "by the walls;" she never gave a dress, ...
— Clare Avery - A Story of the Spanish Armada • Emily Sarah Holt
... the English widow! Young in years, but old in pride and self-confidence, she smiled at the notion of our advocate. She said that the idea of any such friendship between men was nonsense; that she knew more about men than some present could be expected to know: their love was but a matter of custom and use; the moment self took part in the play, it would burst; it was but a bubble-company! As for love proper—she meant the love between man and woman—its law was the opposite to that of friendship; its ...
— The Flight of the Shadow • George MacDonald
... first-born dwelling outside of their own land.[217] Even the long dead of the first-born were not spared. The dogs dragged their corpses out of their graves in the houses, for it was the Egyptian custom to inter the dead at home. At the appalling sight the Egyptians mourned as though the bereavement had befallen them but recently. The very monuments and statues erected to the memory of the first-born dead were changed into dust, which was scattered and flew out of sight. Moreover, ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg
... to me," he observed, when one morning, not without Captain and Mrs Askew feeling some misgivings, he went forth from the Tower. He had, as usual, his pack on his back and his staff in his hand, as he wound his way down the hill to the hamlet on the seashore. As it was not his custom to tell the people whence he had last come, they, naturally supposing that he had been at a distance, asked him if he had heard of the awful doings up at the Tower since he had last been there? "What ...
— Washed Ashore - The Tower of Stormount Bay • W.H.G. Kingston
... custom in all the houses of Glamerton to rest the fire; that is, to keep it gently alive all night by the help of a truff, or sod cut from the top of a peat-moss—a coarse peat in fact, more loose and porous than the peat proper—which they laid close down upon the fire, destroying ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald
... father: odd movements of a warmish curiosity brushed him when the cynic was not mounting guard. They were, it seemed, external—no part of him: like blasts of a wayside furnace across wintry air. They were, as it chanced, Nature's woman in him plucking at her separated partner, Custom's man; something of an oriental voluptuary on his isolated regal seat; and he would suck the pleasures without a descent into the stale old ruts where Life's convict couple walk linked to one another, to their ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... of the low-country South Carolina planter, until broken up by the war, had changed but little since colonial times. It was the life which Washington lived at Mount Vernon, with some slight differences of local custom. The two-storied house, with its ten or twenty rooms and broad piazza, had probably been built in ante-Revolutionary days by the British country gentleman or Huguenot exile from whom the present owner drew his ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 17, - No. 97, January, 1876 • Various
... usual custom, he was attended by four soldiers, who stood at attention while I ate my breakfast. As soon as the meal was finished, the gaoler directed me to follow him, and, escorted by the soldiers, I descended the massive staircase shut in on each storey by ponderous double doors, crossed the wide ...
— My Sword's My Fortune - A Story of Old France • Herbert Hayens
... kind to these little dressmakers—she spoke of them as if they were minute to the point of being midgets or dwarfs—she was really rather the curse of their lives, and after a while they would have been glad to dispense with her custom. She wanted them to do impossibilities, such as making her look exactly as she did at Queen Victoria's first Jubilee (the time when she was so much admired and had such a success), and yet making her look up-to-date now, without any of the ...
— Bird of Paradise • Ada Leverson
... custom in both English and Scottish universities of electing a Lord Rector with the accompaniment of much undergraduate "ragging" of the choicest kind. The candidates usually each represent a political party but personal popularity has much to say in their success. At the Scottish universities the ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... took the liberty of replying to the word extravagant, and endeavoured to explain that his father's ideas of independence did not go beyond just bounds: Lord Oldborough, contrary to his usual custom when he met with any thing like contradiction, did not look displeased; on the contrary, he complimented Alfred on his being a good advocate. Alfred was going to fall into a commonplace, about a good cause; but from that he was happily saved by ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth
... Gabrinowic and Grabez, and the smuggling of their arms, a secret system of transportation was organized by Ciganowic. The entry of the criminals with their arms into Bosnia and Herzegovina was effected by the frontier captains of Shabatz (Rade Popowic) and of Loznica, as well as by the custom house official Rudivoy Grbic of Loznica with the aid of ...
— Why We Are At War (2nd Edition, revised) • Members of the Oxford Faculty of Modern History
... which American Indians discharge their arrows, and states that it is exceptional to meet with only a single wound. It is commonly believed that the Indian tribes make use of poisoned arrows, but from the reports of Bill and others, this must be a very rare custom. Ashhurst states that he was informed by Dr. Schell, who was stationed for some time at Fort Laramie, that it is the universal custom to dip the arrows in blood, which is allowed to dry on them; it is not, therefore, improbable that septic ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... ancient custom of the Merucaans that any man captive or free, can ever challenge our chief, whosoever he be, to the death-combat. If the chief wins, he remains chief. If he loses, the victor takes his place. Many hundreds of years, I know not how long, this has been our way. And many ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... chiefly of women and old men. The young men were hunting after Myrtle Hazard. Mr. Byles Gridley was in his place, wondering why the minister did not read his notice before the prayer. This prayer, was never reported, as is the questionable custom with regard to some of these performances, but it was wrought up with a good deal of rasping force and broad pathos. When he came to pray for "our youthful sister, missing from her pious home, perhaps nevermore to return to ...
— The Guardian Angel • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... reason of the objection is not apparent. A savage people is imperfectly punished by a few deaths: the fine is the only true way to produce a lasting impression upon their heads and hearts. Moreover, it is the custom of India and the East generally, and is in reality the only safeguard of a ...
— First footsteps in East Africa • Richard F. Burton
... manner of demoniacal prayers, twisting and writhing and screaming over a string of amber gods that she had brought with her and always wore. When winter came and the first snow, she was furious, perfectly mad. One might as well have had a ball of fire in the house, or chain-lightning; every nice old custom had been invaded, the ancient quiet broken into a Bedlam of outlandish sounds, and as Captain Willoughby was returning, his wife packed the sprite off with him,—to cut, rip, and tear in New Holland, if she liked, but not in New England,—and rejoiced ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 27, January, 1860 • Various
... of the pope were going forward: the vice-chancellor had sent out orders to the highest among the clergy, the superiors of convents, and the secular orders, not to fail to appear, according to regular custom, on pain of being despoiled of their office and dignities, each bringing his own company to the Vatican, to be present at the pope's funeral; each therefore appeared on the day and at the hour appointed at the ...
— The Borgias - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... upper hand get, custom-house duties enrage. "Truly, I can't understand thee! thou ...
— The Poems of Goethe • Goethe
... which we read that the people, thinking it too hard to be tied to go up to Jerusalem with every sacrifice, "did sacrifice still in the high places, yet unto the Lord their God only," 2 Chron. xxxiii, 17; pleading for their so doing, antiquity, custom, and other defences of that kind, which have been alleged for your ceremonies. But albeit these be foul spots in the church's face, which offend the eyes of her glorious Bridegroom, Jesus Christ, yet that which doth less appear is more dangerous, and that is the cause of all ...
— The Works of Mr. George Gillespie (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Gillespie
... and manifestos. Five or six of the captured, among whom was Thomas Venner, a wine-cooper, the real soul of the conspiracy, were imprisoned in the Tower, and the rest elsewhere; but, in accordance with Cromwell's lenient custom in such cases, there was no trial, or other public notice of the affair, beyond a report about it by Thurloe to the House (April 11). Harrison, however, was again arrested, with Rich, Lawson, and Major Danvers; and amongst those taken was a Mr. Arthur ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... custom of the Cid to eat at a high table, seated on his bench, at the head. And Don Alvar Fanez, and Pero Bermudez, and other precious knights, ate in another part, at high tables, full honourably, and none other knights whatsoever dared take their seats with them, unless they were such ...
— Journeys Through Bookland - Volume Four • Charles H. Sylvester
... were horizontal like those of our clergy. He did not uncover himself when I appeared, and advanced towards me without once stooping his body; but there appeared more politeness in the open, humane air of his countenance, than in the custom of drawing one leg behind the other, and taking that from the head which is made to cover it. "Friend," says he to me, "I perceive thou art a stranger, but if I can do anything for thee, only tell me." "Sir," ...
— Letters on England • Voltaire
... on good terms with his pupils. The revenue arising from his school was small, and would have been scarcely sufficient to furnish him with daily bread, for he was a huge feeder, and, though lank, had the dilating powers of an anaconda; but to help out his maintenance he was, according to country custom in those parts, boarded and lodged at the houses of the farmers whose children he instructed. With these he lived successively a week at a time, thus going the rounds of the neighborhood with all his worldly effects tied up ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving
... pause, one half of the children cried in chorus, 'Yes, sir!' Upon which the other half, seeing in the gentleman's face that Yes was wrong, cried out in chorus, 'No, sir!' - as the custom is, ...
— Hard Times • Charles Dickens*
... a haughty nod, and ran up-stairs with a quick light step. The old butler came to lock and bolt the hall-door as the clock struck ten, according to unalterable custom; and I went back to my room, wondering what could have kept Mrs. Darrell out so long— whether she had been upon some special errand, or had only been wandering about the grounds in ...
— Milly Darrell and Other Tales • M. E. Braddon
... and he watched for her approach. She put the cards into his hand saying, "Sophy's cousin, Isobel Murray, brought them." Her voice was full of resentment; and Andrew, not at the moment realising a custom so unfamiliar in a fishing-village, looked wonderingly in his mother's face, and then at the ...
— A Knight of the Nets • Amelia E. Barr
... delighted at first at being sent into dinner with him, but she found him disappointingly taciturn. In truth, he had acquired Oriental habits and views with regard to women. If a foolish Occidental custom demanded that they should sit at meat with the lords of creation, he, Maxwell Davison, would not pretend to acquiesce in it. Mildred, to whom it was unthinkable that any man should not wish to talk to ...
— The Invader - A Novel • Margaret L. Woods
... joined with six vessels. The Queen also invested L1800 in the adventure, and London L6000. Ralegh had been named General of the Fleet. He exhausted all his resources to ensure success. 'I protest,' he wrote, 'both my three years' pension of the Custom-house, and all I have besides, is in this journey.' He had borrowed L11,000 at interest; and in addition was heavily in debt to the Crown. In part discharge of his obligations, he assigned to the Queen the Ark Ralegh at the price of L5000. Calumny asserted that the apparent sale was a mere pretext ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing
... passes for loyalty or patriotism in other countries is blind impulse, growing out of mere attachment to the soil, or the power of custom, or a helpless feeling of dependence on things as they are. "If my father in his grave could hear of this war," said a Spanish peasant, "his bones would not rest." Yet what earthly interest, what intelligible concern had Spanish ...
— The Spirit Proper to the Times. - A Sermon preached in King's Chapel, Boston, Sunday, May 12, 1861. • James Walker
... dressed after the work was over, and the men were in white drill, and the ladies had, from custom, ...
— Rujub, the Juggler • G. A. Henty
... had been a relaxation for the profligacy of the human mind subjugated, wilfully or involuntarily, by reason, it nowhere reached such a pitch of audacity as in the periods and countries in which custom and law, the guardians of reason, weighed most heavily upon the people. The town in which Anna lived was therefore one of its most chosen regions. The more moral stringency paralyzed action and gagged speech, the bolder did action become and speech the more untrammeled during those ...
— Jean-Christophe Journey's End • Romain Rolland
... recall, to those who were intimate with Father Hecker, how often he arrived at his own convictions by discussing them with others while they were yet but partially formed. It is a custom with many to do so, mind assisting mind, negation provoking affirmation, doubt vanishing with the utterance of the truth. In Father Hecker's case his perfect frankness led him, when among his own friends, to utter half-formed ideas, sometimes ...
— Life of Father Hecker • Walter Elliott
... summer exiles are home again from Jersey boarding houses, and mountain camps, and seaside hotels, and thankful to the point of hilarity that this episode of the year is over, that they can once more dwell under their own roofs without breaking any of the manifest laws of the great goddess Custom or Fashion. ...
— The Man Between • Amelia E. Barr
... is well placed in the simple choir; for it belongs in style, if not in actual fact, to the first centuries of the Faith; and in the semi-darkness behind the altar, the old episcopal throne still stands against the apse's wall, in memory of the custom of the Church's early days. The low arches of the aisles, the dim lighting of the church, its simple ornaments of classic bands and little capitals, its slight irregularities of form and carvings, make an interior of fine and strong ...
— Cathedrals and Cloisters of the South of France, Volume 1 • Elise Whitlock Rose
... forest round the well-known watering-place of Borsek. When visitors were on their way to the baths, they were frequently stopped by the robbers in a mountain pass, in the immediate neighbourhood of a dense forest that stretches far away for miles and miles over the frontier. It was the custom of the robbers to demand all the money, and they would relieve the travellers of their fur cloaks and overcoats, and other useful articles; but if they did not offer any resistance, they were permitted to go on uninjured, to take their cure at the baths. I should ...
— Round About the Carpathians • Andrew F. Crosse
... and presently mention made of Philadelphus's queen and sister Arsinoe, we are to remember, with Spanheim, that Arsinoe was both his sister and his wife, according to the old custom of Persia, and of Egypt at this very time; nay, of the Assyrians long afterwards. See Antiq. B. XX. ch. 2. sect. 1. Whence we have, upon the coins of Philadelphus, this known inscription, "The divine ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... the Union is preparing to carry away our superior courts, and the remains of our bar to Westminster, and to turn that beautiful building upon the quay into a barrack like the Linen Hall, or an English tax-gatherer's office like the Custom House, there are many learned, accomplished, and respectable lawyers at the Irish bar, and far be it from me to doubt but that any Irish lawyer who might undertake my defence would loyally exert himself as the lofty idea of professional honour commands to save ...
— The Wearing of the Green • A.M. Sullivan
... dozen. There was a delightful freshness in the air, the dew-laden bushes, and the smell of the forest. In half an hour we called at the hunting shanty of Mr. Murchison, wrote our names on the wall, according to custom, and regretted that we could not stay for a day in that retreat and try the speckled trout. Making our way through the low growth and bushes of the valley, we came into a fine open forest, watered by a noisy brook, and ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... troubled her. For the past three weeks basket ball had been the all-important topic of the hour with the students of Sanford High School. It was the usual custom for the instructor in gymnastics to hold basket ball try-outs among the aspiring players of the various classes. Assisted by several seniors, she culled the most skilful players to make the respective teams. But this year a new departure had been declared. Miss Randall was no longer instructor. ...
— Marjorie Dean - High School Sophomore • Pauline Lester
... retired with the rank of major, maintaining in his domestic establishment a comparative splendor, he be came a man of the first consideration in his native colony which was that of New York. He had served with fidelity and courage, and having been, according to the custom of the provinces, intrusted with commands much superior to those to which he was entitled by rank, with reputation also. When Major Effingham yielded to the claims of age, he retired with dignity, refusing his half-pay or any other ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper
... but the custom of us cooks,' replied Congrio, gravely, to undervalue our tools, in order to increase the effect of our art. The sweetmeat shape is a fair shape, and a lovely; but I would recommend my master, at the first occasion, to purchase some ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
... It was their custom to carry off the women and children. If the children were hindered the march of their mothers, or if they cried and endangered or annoyed their captors, they were torn a hawked, or their brains were dashed out against the trees. But if they ...
— Stories Of Ohio - 1897 • William Dean Howells
... nature of their act. After children have committed petty offenses through carelessness or a sense of mischief, the harshness of the police may so embitter or antagonize the culprits that their criminal tendencies are intensified. An important cause of crime is the custom, still common in many states, of imprisoning young and first offenders in county jails, where they are allowed to mingle with, and learn about crime from, hardened ...
— Problems in American Democracy • Thames Ross Williamson
... was a boy on the farm, we used to thrash our grain with the hand-flail. Our custom was to thrash a flooring of sheaves on one side, then turn the sheaves over and thrash them on the other, then unbind them and thrash the loosened straw again, and then finish by turning the whole over and thrashing it once more. I suspect my reader will ...
— Ways of Nature • John Burroughs
... presented with four children, beautiful as the sun, and that she was again a widow at the time of the death of the king, at which epoch she gained, by competition in Malaga, the title of gossip and the position of matron in the custom-house. ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: Spanish • Various
... to sit and look at Grandma Shears and to hear her recount the Oriental adventures of her father, the sea captain. But Tess gave Missy little chance to do this. Tess had heard and re-heard the adventures to the point of boredom and custom had caused her to take her grandmother's strange garb as a matter of course; Tess's was a nature which craved—and ...
— Missy • Dana Gatlin
... It is always, therefore, more safe, and more desirable, to use some agent by the mouth, and we know of no better one than castor oil; and as castor oil can be so masked as to be practically tasteless at any drug-store soda fountain there can be small objection to it. My custom is to send the nurse or husband with an empty glass to the drug store to have the mixture made there and brought back ready for use. We have frequently obtained it in this way and given it to the patient without her knowing what it was. The best time to ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Volume I. (of IV.) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • W. Grant Hague, M.D.
... delivering to the Speakers of each House a copy in manuscript, and then retired in dignified state, when the Speakers each adjourned the members to their respective halls. This was in imitation of the custom of the British monarchs, followed by the colonial governors in America, and by Washington himself ...
— The Battle of New Orleans • Zachary F. Smith
... Jordan, a very humble poet, wrote a prologue to notify the new procedure, and referred to the absurdity of the old custom: ...
— A Life of William Shakespeare - with portraits and facsimiles • Sidney Lee
... through the custom-house in this excessive heat; but Isnaga recognized one of his servants, in a small boat coming toward us, gesticulating wildly and waving a paper; this paper meant, it seemed, authority with the officials, so we had no ...
— In the Courts of Memory 1858-1875. • L. de Hegermann-Lindencrone
... of the infernal regions. Scrymgeour said hopefully that the place would look cozier after he had his pictures in it; but he stopped me when I began to fill my pipe. He believed, he said, that smoking was not a Japanese custom; and there was no use taking Japanese chambers unless you lived up to them. Here was a revelation. Scrymgeour proposed to live his life in harmony with these rooms. I felt too sad at heart to say much to him then, but, promising to ...
— My Lady Nicotine - A Study in Smoke • J. M. Barrie
... revealed, self-conscious, substantial will. It is the will which thinks and knows itself, and carries out what it knows, and in so far as it knows. The unreflected existence of the State rests on custom, and its reflected existence on the self-consciousness of the individual, on his knowledge and activity. The individual, in return, has his substantial freedom in the State, as the essence, purpose, and ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... unpleasant shock to them that I took no hand in stealing oil and did not go with them to ask for tips from people on whose property we were working. Stealing oil and paints from those who employed them was a house painter's custom, and was not regarded as theft, and it was remarkable that even so upright a man as Radish would always carry away a little white lead and oil as he went home from work. And even the most respectable old fellows, who owned the houses in which they lived in the ...
— The Chorus Girl and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... quick of decision and immovable of opinion, his progeny were increasingly inclined to be deliberate in judgment and vacillating of purpose. So many of his descendants entered the priesthood that the family was threatened with extinction, for in the course of time it had become a sacred custom in the Rincon family to consecrate the first-born son to the Church. This custom at length became fixed, and was rigidly observed, even to the point of bigotry, despite the obliteration of those branches where there was but a ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... society "in much the same convulsionary and transitional state" as the Highlands and Islands after 1745. He was always haunted, and in popularity retarded, by History. He wanted to know about details of savage custom and of superstitious belief, a taste very far from being universal even in the most highly cultivated circles, where Folklore is a name of fear. He found among the natives such fatal Polynesian fairy ladies as they of Glenfinlas, on whom Scott wrote the ballad. He found a medicine-man who hypnotized ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... operations, he established himself with a splendid court in the province of Atacama, the most southerly district of Peru, and confided the command of the invading army to Sinchiruca, a prince of the blood royal of Peru. Preceded, according to the specious custom of the Peruvians, by several ambassadors, and attended by a considerable military force, this general reduced under the Peruvian government, more by persuasion than force, the four most northerly tribes of the Chilese, named Copaipins, Coquimbans, Quillotans, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 5 • Robert Kerr
... boss, was caught and was indicted by the grand jury. The Reformers made such a stir that Ben Cass, the county prosecutor, though a Dominick man, disobeyed his master and tried and convicted M'Coskrey. Of course, following the custom in cases of yielding to pressure from public sentiment, he made the trial-errors necessary to insure reversal in the higher court; and he finally gave Dominick's judge the opportunity to quash the indictment. But the boss was relentless,—Cass ...
— The Plum Tree • David Graham Phillips
... well, And on its salient points delighted dwell. These with free libraries and concerts tend Much happiness with useful work to blend; And our fair city may be proud to know, Th' uplifting forces which from them outflow. The despotism of custom in our day To much benignant progress bars the way, While superstition, ignorance and sloth Oppose all national and mental growth. But under education's brightening ray, And blessed reason's intellectual sway, These barriers are bound to disappear, ...
— Home Lyrics • Hannah. S. Battersby
... author to be a Syrian mystic, named Stephen bar Sudaili, who lived late in the fifth century. If this theory is correct, the date of Dionysius will have to be moved somewhat later than it has been the custom to fix it. The book of the holy Hierotheus on "the hidden mysteries of the Divinity" has been but recently discovered, and only a summary of it has as yet been made public. But it is of great interest and importance ...
— Christian Mysticism • William Ralph Inge
... the Bill which proposes to augment by L100,000 sterling the annual provision for his Royal Highness the Prince, her Majesty's Consort, and the debate having been exhausted and closed, the House will proceed to vote; the votes will be taken according to custom, beginning with the puisne Baron. Each Lord, on his name being called, will rise and answer content, or non-content, and will be at liberty to explain the motives of his vote, if he thinks fit to do ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... at once convinced that it was utterly impossible to him. He attempted to look at it all as an empty custom, having no sort of meaning, like the custom of paying calls. But he felt that he could not do that either. Levin found himself, like the majority of his contemporaries, in the vaguest position in regard to religion. Believe he could ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... was not buried at all, but kept in the house of the family, so that the friends and relatives could always have it with them. This may have been very consoling to the ancient Egyptians, but to us it seems a truly mournful custom. ...
— Round-about Rambles in Lands of Fact and Fancy • Frank Richard Stockton
... joy or pain, are, in Dr. Poyet's opinion, bad for the voice. Great fear may cause a passing but instantaneous loss of voice. "Vox faucibus haesit." The emotion of singing in public, as everyone knows, prevents many artists from showing their full capacity. Only custom, and sometimes reasoning, ...
— The Voice - Its Production, Care and Preservation • Frank E. Miller
... said Martin, somewhat nettled by her smile, "in this country there are heaps of chaps that simply can't fall down because of the supports that surround them, supports of custom, tradition, not to speak of their countless friends, sisters, cousins, and aunts; if they're anyways half decent they're kept a going; whereas if they are in a new country and with few friends, they must stand alone or fall. Here the crowd support them; there the crowd, eager to ...
— Corporal Cameron • Ralph Connor
... invitation; the gambler rattles his triumphant dice; but excursive policemen never see, and vigilant magistrates never hear! Some provision of nature has imparted a very singular quality to the optic powers of the one, and the auditory nerves of the other. The laws against this vice, or that custom, stand fixed and silent; and as for putting them in operation, one would as soon think of pulling up so many grave-stones. They are the grave-stones of a dead public sentiment—the stumbling-blocks of a blind justice, ...
— Humanity in the City • E. H. Chapin
... grind!—umbrels to mend!" he cried wearily and mechanically; but no one seemed to need his services. Soon he passed by the public-house—there was clearly no lack of custom there, and yet the sounds that proceeded from it were certainly not those of drunken mirth. He looked up at the sign. No ferocious lion red or black, urged into a rearing posture by unnatural stimulants, was ...
— Frank Oldfield - Lost and Found • T.P. Wilson
... stood near listened amazedly. Then, when he had finished, he clattered the steel and cleaver still more loudly, shouting lustily, "Now, who'll buy? Who'll buy? Four fixed prices have I. Three pennyworths of meat I sell to a fat friar or priest for sixpence, for I want not their custom; stout aldermen I charge threepence, for it doth not matter to me whether they buy or not; to buxom dames I sell three pennyworths of meat for one penny for I like their custom well; but to the bonny lass that hath a liking for a good tight butcher I charge nought ...
— The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood • Howard Pyle
... from the early years of his life with some trade, he so directs his mind to that, by force of necessity, that he understands nought else. And forasmuch as the habit of virtue, moral as well as intellectual, cannot possibly be had all on a sudden, but it must be acquired through long custom, and as these people place their custom in some art, and care not to discern other things, it is impossible to them to have discretion. Wherefore it happens that often they cry aloud: "Long live Death!" and "Let Life die!" because some one begins the ...
— The Banquet (Il Convito) • Dante Alighieri
... are usually of the male species. Generally speaking the property of lycanthropy in Spain appears to be hereditary; and, as one would naturally expect in a country so pronouncedly Roman Catholic, to rid the lycanthropist of his unenviable property it is the custom to resort to exorcism. Though they are extremely rare, both flowers and streams possessing the power of transmitting the property of werwolfery are to be found in the Cantabrian ...
— Werwolves • Elliott O'Donnell
... alone of the three, had not seated himself wandered about with the restless volubility of a peripatetic philosopher, though his humor was genial beyond its custom. At last with the air of one too engaged with his own conversation to heed details of courtesy he took up his glass and sipped from ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... this time by the relation of the following anecdote to his nephew: Josiah Ogden Hoffman and Martin Wilkins, an effective and witty advocate, had been appointed to examine students for admission. One student acquitted himself very lamely, and at the supper which it was the custom for the candidates to give to the examiners, when they passed upon their several merits, Hoffman paused in coming to this one, and turning to Wilkins said, as if in hesitation, "though all the while intending to admit him, Martin, I think he knows a little law."—"Make it stronger, Jo," ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... need to admit that women would carry away the prize of vanity in a competition where differences of custom were fairly considered. A man cannot show his vanity in a tight skirt which forces him to walk sideways down the staircase; but let the match be between the respective vanities of largest beard and tightest skirt, and here too the battle would be to ...
— Impressions of Theophrastus Such • George Eliot
... who had most right to it. In the XXXIInd year of his reign he called together his military and civil chiefs, the generals of the foreign mercenaries, the Shardana, the priests, and the nobles of the court, and presented to them, according to custom, his heir-designate, who was also called Ramses. He placed the double crown upon his brow, and seated him beside himself upon the throne of Horus. This was an occasion for the Pharaoh to bring to remembrance ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 5 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... a riddle tied anew. But let the great world rave and riot! Here will we house ourselves in quiet. A custom 'tis of ancient date, Our lesser worlds within the great world to create! Young witches there I see, naked and bare, And old ones, veil'd more prudently. For my sake only courteous be! The trouble's small, the sport is rare. Of instruments I hear the cursed din— One must get used ...
— Faust Part 1 • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... transformation was not made without some qualm; for in addressing his cousin he adheres, in at least one more letter, to spelling number two. And this, again, shows a man preoccupied about the manner of his appearance even down to the name, and little willing to follow custom. Again, he was proud, and justly proud, of his powers in conversation. To no other man's have we the same conclusive testimony from different sources and from every rank of life. It is almost a commonplace that the best of his works was what he said in talk. Robertson the ...
— Familiar Studies of Men & Books • Robert Louis Stevenson
... seldom, even in that age, led to much evil. Parliament in England raised its voice against the trickery and deceit practised by the greater merchants towards the small shopkeepers, and complained bitterly of the growing custom of the King to farm out to the wealthier among them the subsidies and port-duties of the kingdom. For the whole force of the break-up of feudal conditions was to turn the direction of power into the hands ...
— Mediaeval Socialism • Bede Jarrett
... lines on our right, he stopped at one of our vidette posts, and left his horse and private arms with one or two other articles in charge of the pickets, stated that he intended, as was often his custom, to go forward and exchange papers with the enemy's videttes. He advanced in the direction of the Yankee lines, flourishing a paper in his hand, in token of his object, and after proceeding some distance was met ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones
... our Blessed Lord falls on a Friday, those who are not under the obligation of abstinence by a vow, or by a regular observance, may eat meat on that day, because of the excellence of the festival, according to the custom of the universal Church. Those, however, who abstain on that day, from devotion, are not to ...
— The Life and Legends of Saint Francis of Assisi • Father Candide Chalippe
... who love only once in their lives are really the shallow people. What they call their loyalty, and their fidelity, I call either the lethargy of custom or their lack of imagination. Faithfulness is to the emotional life what consistency is to the life of the intellect—simply a confession of failures. Faithfulness! I must analyse it some day. The passion for property is in it. There ...
— The Picture of Dorian Gray • Oscar Wilde
... leave here with as little delay as possible," observed Frank. "I have sent our purser, Manuel, to comply with the custom duties, and secure us a few supplies. When he comes aboard again we ...
— The Aeroplane Boys on the Wing - Aeroplane Chums in the Tropics • John Luther Langworthy
... much, she decided, as she seated herself at the table, after pouring a cup of tea. Before she had finished her meal she had begun to wonder over his absence—it was not his custom to go away in the night. She thought he might have gone to the corral, or might even be engaged in some small task in the stable. So after completing her meal she rose and went ...
— The Two-Gun Man • Charles Alden Seltzer
... often the custom for the natives, in this part of the world, to come in their canoes from one island to another, merely to get cocoa-nuts. I can't say that the other islands near us are inhabited, but still it is probable, and we cannot tell what the character of the people may be. I tell you this, but we had better ...
— Masterman Ready - The Wreck of the "Pacific" • Captain Frederick Marryat
... accompany her. And certainly, the General's wife deemed the proposal a seductive one. It is a very fashionable amusement to run from one shop to another, even when one cannot, or will not, buy. It is a custom, which some noble ladies have imported from America, to the despair of the poor shopkeepers. And thus every fine afternoon, the swell shops are filled to overflowing with richly-attired dames and damsels, who ask to ...
— Baron Trigault's Vengeance - Volume 2 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... gods having different names were similar in any way, such as Indra and Agni, whose glory is fire; or Varuna and Mitra, whose seat is the sky. From this casual union of like pairs comes the peculiar custom of invoking two gods as one. But even in the case of gods not so radically connected, if their functions were mutually approximate, each in turn became credited with his neighbor's acts. If the traits were similar ...
— The Religions of India - Handbooks On The History Of Religions, Volume 1, Edited By Morris Jastrow • Edward Washburn Hopkins
... the Buddhist teaching of the duty of kindness to all living creatures, and of pity for all suffering, had a powerful effect upon national habit and custom, long before the new religion found general acceptance. As early as the year 675, a decree was issued by the Emperor Temmu forbidding the people to eat "the flesh of kine, horses, dogs, monkeys, or barn-door fowls," and prohibiting the use ...
— Japan: An Attempt at Interpretation • Lafcadio Hearn
... made me judge he liked praise, was that the Queen invariably praised him—even his face; and asked me one day, at the end of an audience which had led us into conversation, if I did not think him very handsome, and more so than any one I knew?—His piety was only custom, scruples, fears, little observances, without knowing anything of religion: the Pope a divinity when not opposed to him; in fact he had the outside religion of the Jesuits, of whom he ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... peace on terms extremely favorable. The Princess Sophia, as soon as this news reached her in Moscow, ordered that arrangements should be made for great public rejoicings throughout the empire on account of the victories which had been obtained. According to the custom, too, of the Muscovite government, in cases where great victories had been won, the council drew up a formal letter of thanks and commendations to the officers and soldiers of the army, and sent it to them by a special messenger, with promotions and other ...
— Peter the Great • Jacob Abbott
... the real difficulty of creating that taste by which a truly original poet is to be relished? Is it in breaking the bonds of custom, in overcoming the prejudices of false refinement, and displacing the aversions of inexperience? Or, if he labour for an object which here and elsewhere I have proposed to myself, does it consist in divesting the reader of the pride that induces him to dwell upon those points wherein men differ ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... "that every day of your life is ordaining irrevocably for good or evil the custom and practice of your soul; ordaining either sacred customs of dear and lovely recurrence, or trenching deeper and deeper the furrows for seed of sorrow. Now, therefore, see that no day passes in which you do not make yourself a somewhat better creature.... You will find that ...
— The Arena - Volume 18, No. 92, July, 1897 • Various
... except the natives. They, as before, whatever the beauty around them, whatever the prodigal seasons did, remained immune from thoughts other than those they were accustomed to. All their lives they had seen, year by year, the amazing recurrent spectacle of April in the gardens, and custom had made it invisible to them. They were as blind to it, as unconscious of it, as Domenico's dog asleep ...
— The Enchanted April • Elizabeth von Arnim
... would permit. There were two methods of doing this. I might wait till the next day; till a coffin could be made and conveyed hither; till the woman, whose trade it was to make and put on the habiliments assigned by custom to the dead, could be sought out and hired to attend; till kindred, friends, and neighbours could be summoned to the obsequies; till a carriage were provided to remove the body to a burying-ground, belonging to a meeting-house, and five miles distant; ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown
... heart, our boyhood's dream. The Psyche and the Eros ne'er have been, Save in Olympus, wedded! As a stream Glasses a star, so life the ideal love; Restless the stream below, serene the orb above! Ever the soul the senses shall deceive; Here custom chill, there kinder fate bereave: For mortal lips unmeet eternal vows! And Eden's flowers for Adam's mournful brows! We seek to make the moment's angel guest The household dweller at a human hearth; We chase the bird of Paradise, whose nest Was never found ...
— The Pilgrims Of The Rhine • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... re-state it all as clearly as you have heard it this evening, but I confess it is not. I fear to add anything to what you have already heard, for I do not see how in any way I could make this important subject any more clear to your comprehension. I will therefore say no more, but ask, as is the custom, that anyone here present who desires to change his life and wishes the assistance of the prayers of God's people will ...
— All He Knew - A Story • John Habberton
... shutting the door after her with a sigh of satisfaction, retired to his own quarters to seek sleep until custom should return. Louie and Tristan, deep in their cards, paid little heed to ...
— If I Were King • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... was a comic part, and he did it with so much natural humour that I was anxious to read his article whatever the Nascita might be, as to which they gave me some preliminary information. They reminded me of the Presepio, the representation of the Nativita at Bethlehem, which it is the custom in many places to make at Christmas; there is a most elaborate one, treated as though the event had happened in modern times, preserved in the convent of S. Martino, in Naples; there is one in the Musee de Cluny in Paris, L'Adoration des Rois et des Bergers, ...
— Castellinaria - and Other Sicilian Diversions • Henry Festing Jones
... Holmes, relapsing into his arm-chair, and putting his finger-tips together, as was his custom when in judicial moods. "I know, my dear Watson, that you share my love of all that is bizarre and outside the conventions and humdrum routine of everyday life. You have shown your relish for it by the enthusiasm which ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Stories • Various
... to the telephone exchange and pulled out all the plugs, so that the residents could hold no intercommunication by that means. The Custom House and the offices of the Governor were also seized without a moment's loss of time. An armed party was dispatched along a bush road to seize the wireless station. Late that evening the man in charge rang up in some alarm to state that there was dynamite lying about and that the engine ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol 1, Issue 4, January 23, 1915 • Various
... man-wolf still followed his prey, and the step-mother ruled in the tepee; Her will must Winona obey, by the custom and law of Dakotas. The gifts to the teepee were brought —the blankets, and beads of the White men, And Winona, the orphaned, was bought by the crafty relentless Tamdka. In the Spring-time of life, in the flush of the gladsome mid-May days of Summer, When the bobolink ...
— Legends of the Northwest • Hanford Lennox Gordon
... the custom may be in Arabia," said Horace, "but with us it is not usual for a man to engage a houri to dance after dinner to amuse the lady he is proposing to marry. It's the kind of attention she'd be ...
— The Brass Bottle • F. Anstey
... subject? This happened in the instance by which I introduced this article, and it happens daily and hourly in all our colleges? The truth is that the Doctor-Monopoly in teaching, which is becoming so rooted an American custom, can show no serious grounds whatsoever for itself in reason. As it actually prevails and grows in vogue among us, it is due to childish motives exclusively. In reality it is but a sham, a bauble, a dodge, whereby to decorate the catalogues of ...
— Memories and Studies • William James
... usual courteous inclination of the head. Seating themselves at a green table, the party did not rise therefrom till supper time; and during that period all conversation between the players became hushed, as is the custom when men have given themselves up to a really serious pursuit. Even the Postmaster—a talkative man by nature—had no sooner taken the cards into his hands than he assumed an expression of profound thought, pursed his lips, and retained this attitude ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... a very pretty French custom of submission to parents," said Madame Gratiot. "And afterwards there ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... butcher, "fetch the water and let us make haste." The men obeyed the order which was given rather peremptorily and the half drunk butcher followed them, so did a lad of fourteen years (the heir to the estate), who, according to a Guernsey custom, had been ...
— The Silver Lining - A Guernsey Story • John Roussel
... exactly an American custom I have been putting you next to, and I guess I'm patriotically glad that you don't entirely understand. Now, I'm going to put you on the train for Old Harpeth and kiss you good-bye for your mother. I'm not ...
— The Daredevil • Maria Thompson Daviess
... the cloisters. But who shall paint the captain's envied feelings, the proud triumph of his assiduity and skill? To him the honourable office of public orator is assigned; with modest reverence he speaks the Latin oration, standing, as is the custom from time immemorial, under the clock. There too he receives the bright reward, the approbation of the Provost of King's college, and the procession moves forward to the College-hall to partake of the generous banquet. On Sunday the Provost of King's remains a guest with his compeer ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... at the moment that the room, though stern and strong, was not squalid. It was lighted fully by a window, iron-barred, but not small, and according to custom, the prisoners had been permitted to furnish, at their own expense, sufficient garniture for comfort, and as both were wealthy men, they were fairly provided, and they were not fettered. Both looked paler than ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... that though he had formerly been a good moose hunter, and had always observed every custom, yet he now utterly failed to secure a moose at all. He might come upon plenty of tracks, but the moose would always escape, and prove the efforts of an experienced moose hunter of no more avail than those of a greenhorn. In such a case, there was but one thing to do, and that was to secure the ...
— The Drama of the Forests - Romance and Adventure • Arthur Heming
... The Custom Office was a little white frame building with green shutters, and overhanging the water as though to topple into the tide. Here at any time of the day betwixt the hours of ten in the morning and of five in the afternoon the Collector was to be found ...
— Stolen Treasure • Howard Pyle
... is derivable in part from the doctrine 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 expected more durable revolutions ...
— The Black Death, and The Dancing Mania • Justus Friedrich Karl Hecker
... and without bias examines the evidence relating to incense-burning, the arbitrary details of the ritual and the peculiar circumstances under which it is practised in different countries, can refuse to admit that so artificial a custom must have been dispersed throughout the world from some one centre where ...
— The Evolution of the Dragon • G. Elliot Smith
... as to the outward form of the spirit, owing to a custom quite prevalent among negroes,—and, for aught we know, among whites, too,—of invariably shutting the eyes, and covering up heads under blankets, petticoats, or whatever else might come in use for a shelter, on these occasions. Of course, as everybody knows, when ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... hall. Their leaders asked permission to present a petition, and to defile before the assembly. A violent debate arose between the Right, who were unwilling to admit the armed petitioners, and the Left, who, on the ground of custom, wished to receive them, Vergniaud declared that the assembly would violate every principle by admitting armed bands among them; but, considering actual circumstances, he also declared that it was impossible to deny a request in the ...
— History of the French Revolution from 1789 to 1814 • F. A. M. Mignet
... times, and under all circumstances, possessed the faculty of amusing himself and entertaining others. In the evening camp, when other amusements failed, or when anticipated troubles depressed the spirits of the travelers, it was his custom to remove the "hindgate" of his wagon, lay it on the ground, and thereon perform the "clog dance," "Irish jigs," the "pigeon wing," and other fantastic steps. Many an evening the Donner Party were prevented from brooding over their troubles by ...
— History of the Donner Party • C.F. McGlashan
... you must pardon me: it is my ordinary custom to be too studious; my mistress hath told me of it often, and I find it to hurt my ordinary discourse: but say, sweet sir, do ye affect the most gentlemanlike game ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various
... you," said the King. "You must know that in the town of Champaka there is a college for the devotees. Unto this resorted daily a beggar-priest, named Chudakarna, whose custom was to place his begging-dish upon the shelf, with such alms in it as he had not eaten, and go to sleep by it; and I, so soon as he slept, used to jump up, and devour the meal. One day a great friend of his, named ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson
... meals alone with Doctor Chantry, and never questioned this custom, from the day I entered the house. De Chaumont's chief, who was over the other servants, and had come with him from his chateau near Blois, waited upon me, while Doctor Chantry was served by another man named Jean. My master fretted at Jean. The older ...
— Lazarre • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... were consequently greatly injured, but more especially during the time he acted as Adjutant, being for a period of near seven years, when his time was daily occupied more or less by the duties of that situation; and instead of drawing permanent pay, as is the usual custom of volunteer adjutants, he even put himself to considerable annual expences, to further the views of that service. And this deponent further saith, That the testimonials now produced in Court, as proofs of his energetic and loyal services, are of the ...
— The Trial of Charles Random de Berenger, Sir Thomas Cochrane, • William Brodie Gurney
... female children shortly after birth, and by some means preventing union subsequently, in order that these might have less trouble in child-birth—as it were, a modified and early form of symphysiotomy. In consequence of this custom the females of this race, to quote an old English authority, had a "waddling, lamish gesture in their going." These old writers said that for the same reason the women in some parts of Italy broke the coccyxes of their female children. This report is very ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... are preserved our oldest extant relics of ancestral custom. The first code is that of thelberht, with this title:—"This be the Dooms that thelbriht, king, ordained in Augustine's days." It is much concerned with penalties for personal injuries. These are some ...
— Anglo-Saxon Literature • John Earle
... need to believe in my promise. I am not in the habit of requiring faith of those whom I would serve. No such hard conditions for me! There is only one thing that I ask. This is the season that you Christians call the Christmas, and you have taken up the pagan custom of exchanging gifts. Well, if I give to you, you must give to me. It is a small thing, and really the thing you can best afford to part with: a single word—the name of Him you profess to worship. Let me take that word and all that ...
— The Lost Word - A Christmas Legend of Long Ago • Henry Van Dyke
... of the peregrinations of this nobleman, he visited North America, and, as had been his custom in Europe, proceeded straightway to fall in love. And curious it is to contrast the elegant refinements of European society, where, according to monseigneur, he had but to lay siege to a woman in order to vanquish her, with the simple lives and habits of the colonial folks, amongst whom this ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... doing that would exempt their house at Paris, already poor, from the expenses of so long a journey. Father La Combe, who did not penetrate the poison under this fair outside, consented thereto; knowing it was my custom to have some ecclesiastic with me in traveling. Father La Combe went off twelve days before me, in order to transact some business, and to wait for me at the passage over the mountains, as the place where I had most need of an escort. I set off in Lent, the weather then ...
— The Autobiography of Madame Guyon • Jeanne Marie Bouvier de La Motte Guyon
... "he keeps a Greek in an outhouse, but what for nobody knows. I think Stephen Petter is gettin' more oncommon than he was. If he wants to get custom for his house the best thing he can do is to die. There ain't no other way, for Stephen's not goin' to do no changin' of himself. My niece, Calthea Rose, the daughter of Daniel Rose, who used to keep the store,—she keeps it now herself,—goes over there a good deal, ...
— The Squirrel Inn • Frank R. Stockton
... question, but would pass with unabated zest from one to another. This habit he had sternly repressed during the War, but Mrs. Mifflin had noticed that since the armistice he had resumed it with hearty violence. This is a custom which causes the housewife to be confronted the next morning with a tragical vista of pathetic scraps. Two slices of beet in a little earthenware cup, a sliver of apple pie one inch wide, three prunes lowly nestling in a mere trickle of their ...
— The Haunted Bookshop • Christopher Morley
... waiting for the end of the "Soecula soeculorum," the crowd rushed like a torrent to the doors of the church. Following his usual custom, the old seigneur waited till the general hurry was over; after which he left his chapel, placing the duenna and the youngest page, carrying a lantern, before him; then he gave his arm to his wife and told the other page ...
— Maitre Cornelius • Honore de Balzac |
