"Custom" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... pursued the speaker, with that measured delivery which showed that her custom, as one member put it, was to "first write and then commit," "is to promote the cause of Culture in this community. Our aim is Culture in the broadest sense, not only in the curricula of institutions of learning, not only in those spreading branches of study and research ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... to exclude the transactions of a department like the Post Office Department, which relies for its support upon its receipts. In calculations heretofore made for comparison of economy in each year, it has been the proper custom only to include in the statement the deficit in the Post Office Department which was ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... quite alive to the fact that he must maintain his position and custom by keeping well in line, even just a little ahead of all competition. He knew that to rest on his oars would be to court swift disaster. It must be his constant thought to make his place more and more attractive, to listen to the voice of public ...
— The Golden Woman - A Story of the Montana Hills • Ridgwell Cullum
... By custom and under sanction of law certain studies are pursued in the common schools of every state. Spelling, reading, writing, arithmetic, geography, history, grammar, civics and physiology are the subjects usually taught. The school authorities select the textbooks which shall be used ...
— A History of the McGuffey Readers • Henry H. Vail
... for this bribe, fabricated by Mr. Hastings, and taught to Munny Begum, when he found that she was obliged to prove it against him, was, that it was given to him for his entertainment, according to some pretended custom, at the rate of 200l. sterling a day, whilst he remained at Moorshedabad. My Lords, this leads me to a few reflections on the apology or defence of this bribe. We shall certainly, I hope, render it clear to your Lordships that it was not paid ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. X. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... sell our custom to four different coach-builders—5,000 francs each clip—and the man who got the order lost all? One evening Monsieur de Frescas starts off from home with wretched screws, and we bring him back, Lafouraille and I, with a span worth ten thousand francs, which have cost him ...
— Vautrin • Honore de Balzac
... read of the ancient wild Irish women breaking the pubic bones of their 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 likely not veracious, because ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... Fielding was later to labour so assiduously as a student, and as a member of the Middle Temple; but where, as the young Templar of the play observes, "dress and the ladies" might also very pleasantly employ a man's time. But except for an oblique hit at duelling, a custom which Fielding was later to attack with curious warmth, this second play seems to yield few passages of biographical interest. Of very different value for our purpose is the third play, which within only two months appeared from a pen stimulated, ...
— Henry Fielding: A Memoir • G. M. Godden
... their hands, and quickly spread two beds in haste. Then with bitter meaning [in his reference to Agamemnon] said fleet-footed Achilles unto Priam: "Lie thou without, dear sire, lest there come hither one of the counsellors of the Achaians, such as ever take counsel with me by my side, as custom is. If any of such should behold thee through the swift black night, forthwith he might haply tell it to Agamemnon shepherd of the host, and thus would there be delay in giving back the dead. But come say this to ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer (Lang, Leaf, Myers trans.)
... red and shut his lips. The queer hostility he had always felt towards his second-cousin was strongly and suddenly reinforced. 'All right!' he thought, 'you wait, my friend!' More wine than was good for him, as the custom was, helped him to remember, when they all trooped forth to a secluded spot, to touch Val ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... argument from general consent is at best a suspicious one for the truth of any opinion or the validity of any practice. History proves that the generality of men are the slaves of prejudice, the sport of custom, and foes most bigoted to such opinions concerning religion as have not been drawn in from their sucking-bottles, or 'hatched within the narrow fences of their ...
— Superstition Unveiled • Charles Southwell
... them justice. They comprehend nothing about tragedy or Shakespeare, and it is a failure. I said so; and by so saying produced a blank silence—a mute consternation. I was, indeed, obliged to dissent on many occasions, and to offend by dissenting. It seems now very much the custom to admire a certain wordy, intricate, obscure style of poetry, such as Elizabeth Barrett Browning writes. Some pieces were referred to about which Currer Bell was expected to be very rapturous, and failing in ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... a rule of our club, sir, as well as an old Spanish custom, for us to present to our guests anything that they may happen openly to admire. You are surely sufficiently well acquainted with the etiquette of club life to know that guests may not with propriety decline to ...
— The Water Ghost and Others • John Kendrick Bangs
... was well advanced, the weather was not more than chilly, and the hour was late. It was as if coals were not a marketable commodity and a serious item in the expenses of an embarrassed household. She held up a Japanese fan between her face and the fire, from mere custom, for she had ceased to pay much heed to the exigencies of ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Sarah Tytler
... sauntered rather than walked; the very bullocks crawled along in the midday sun, listlessly dragging the native carts. Everything and everybody seemed enervated, except those frightfully active people in all countries and climates, "the custom-house officers:" these necessary plagues to society gave their usual amount ...
— Eight Years' Wandering in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker
... other literary celebrity of the time, was not less from the custom of the day than from his own purpose a public man. He took his place among his fellow-citizens; he went out to war with them; he fought, it is said, among the skirmishers at the great Guelf victory at Campaldino; ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... her further would be the greatest of folly and then, toward night, lonely, half ill, Raymond undertook that time-honoured custom of turning over a new leaf only to find that it stuck to ...
— The Shield of Silence • Harriet T. Comstock
... IT was usually my custom of an afternoon to read law for a couple of hours, a course of training preparatory to committing myself to the tender mercies of a special pleader; and as Sir John's well-stored library afforded me every facility ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... in this castle to weep for the Duke of Gandia. From one of those windows he watched the funeral procession of his son, whom they were carrying to Santa Maria del Popolo. According to old Italian custom they bore the corpse in an open casket. The funeral was at night, and two hundred men with torches lighted the way. When the cortege set foot on this bridge, the Pope's retinue saw him draw back with horror, and cover his ...
— Caesar or Nothing • Pio Baroja Baroja
... for playing at some childish game, 'You chide me,' says the youth, 'for a trifling fault.' 'Custom,' replied the philosopher, 'is no trifle.' 'And,' adds Montaigne, 'he was in the right; for our vices begin in ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... they upset the magnates of the De Beers Corporation, whose annual meeting had been fixed for that day. The meeting had to be postponed until Thursday, in order that the dividend declared might immediately be cabled, in accordance with custom, to the shareholders throughout the world. The wires were bound to be in flashing order by Thursday. It was re-assuring to find oneself in agreement on that head with a rock of common ...
— The Siege of Kimberley • T. Phelan
... and the washing grew to be a custom; and in three weeks' time, watching for a hot day and having it luckily on a Saturday, they ventured upon instituting a whole bath, in big round tubs, in the back shed-room, where a faucet came in over a wash bench, and a great boiler was set ...
— Real Folks • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... Each head, on this system, would have its vote, and every man would vote directly for the person who was to represent him in the legislature. "But soft,—by regular degrees, not yet." This metaphysic principle, to which law, custom, usage, policy, reason, were to yield, is to yield itself to their pleasure. There must be many degrees, and some stages, before the representative can come in contact with his constituent. Indeed, as we shall soon see, these two persons are to have no sort of communion with each ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... custom in Evan's bank for the accountant to look after all clearing items on which exchange had been added by other banks. When the clearing men on the machines registered a bill with exchange they laid it aside for the accountant to see. The clearing ...
— A Canadian Bankclerk • J. P. Buschlen
... that he could not wait till Monday. But there was no help for it. The hours were not at all disposed to humor his impatience. They moved along at their usual slow pace, and wore away minute by minute, as was their custom. But they brought Monday morning at last. He rose early, and set out in quite a hopeful mood; but as he walked, his spirits began to flag. The nearer he got to the spring, the less hope he had. He was trying to prepare himself for the very worst that could happen—a ...
— Baby Pitcher's Trials - Little Pitcher Stories • Mrs. May
... but it did not lessen his attachment to liberty, the name of which had been so desecrated in its wild convulsions. Perhaps in his subsequent writings we can trace a more respectful feeling towards old establishments; more reverence for the majesty of Custom; and with an equal zeal, a weaker faith in human perfectibility: changes indeed which are the common fruit of years themselves, in whatever age or climate of the world our experience may ...
— The Life of Friedrich Schiller - Comprehending an Examination of His Works • Thomas Carlyle
... actuality, may be judged from that delightful sensation of freshness with which we turn to those plays of Shakespeare which have escaped being performed, and to those passages in the acting plays of the same writer which have happily been left out in performance. How far the very custom of hearing anything spouted, withers and blows upon a fine passage, may be seen in those speeches from Henry the Fifth, &c. which are current in the mouths of school-boys from their being to be found in Enfield Speakers, and such kind of books. I ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... reveal himself by his Dress, in wearing something extravagantly singular and ridiculous, or in preposterous suiting of colours; but a decency of Habit (which is all that Men of best sense pretend to) may be acquired by custom and example, without putting the Person to a superfluous expence of wit for the contrivance; and though there should be occasion for it, few are so unfortunate in their Relations and Acquaintance not to have some Friend capable of giving them advice, if they ...
— Incognita - or, Love & Duty Reconcil'd. A Novel • William Congreve
... of 1676, a party of Kiskakon Ottawas were hunting on Lake Michigan; and when, in the following spring, they prepared to return home, they bethought them, in accordance with an Indian custom, of taking with them the bones of Marquette, who had been their instructor at the mission of St. Esprit. They repaired to the spot, found the grave, opened it, washed and dried the bones and placed them carefully in a box of birch- bark. Then, in a procession of thirty canoes, they bore it, ...
— France and England in North America, a Series of Historical Narratives, Part Third • Francis Parkman
... Distinguish Individuals by Smell. The Odor of Sanctity. The Odor of Death. The Odors of Different Parts of the Body. The Appearance of Specific Odors at Puberty. The Odors of Sexual Excitement. The Odors of Menstruation. Body Odors as a Secondary Sexual Character. The Custom of Salutation by Smell. The Kiss. Sexual Selection by Smell. The Alleged Association between Size of Nose and Sexual Vigor. The Probably Intimate Relationship between the Olfactory and Genital Spheres. Reflex Influences from the Nose. Reflex ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 4 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... abuse, therefore, which her book brought upon her she bore, says her sister, 'as it was her custom to bear whatever was unpleasant, with mild, steady patience. She was a very sincere and practical Christian, but the tinge of religious melancholy communicated a sad shade ...
— The Tenant of Wildfell Hall • Anne Bronte
... evening when the trains encamped at Mountain Meadows. On the Sabbath they rested, and at the usual hour one of them conducted divine service as had been their custom throughout the journey. ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... And these last were not few, for Dan had travelled widely and had gathered multitudes of friends. Then, again, he possessed those two almost indispensable adjuncts of popularity—delightful manners and a beautiful face. It was his invariable custom to get up when any one came into a room; and when he advanced to meet them, it might certainly have been said that, in his case, the tail literally wagged the dog, for his hind-quarters were moved from the middle of his back and went in rhythm with ...
— 'Murphy' - A Message to Dog Lovers • Major Gambier-Parry
... It was a custom to which I was determined to cling with grim resolution. If I allowed his treatment of me to become too casual we might continue to drift apart even when we had some ...
— Our Elizabeth - A Humour Novel • Florence A. Kilpatrick
... strength what perfect weakness; even while repeating the word she sunk into a calm and peaceful slumber, and this weary world, with its burden of sorrows and woes, faded away from her mental vision also, giving place to hopeful and cheering dreams. Madame La Blanche entered the room, as was her custom before retiring to her own couch, and as she looked upon the gentle sleepers before her, and contrasted them with the pitiable ones who, perchance were even then wakeful and sinning, her heart went up toward the Dispenser of all blessings, in earnest supplication ...
— The Elm Tree Tales • F. Irene Burge Smith
... method of estimating diamonds is altogether arbitrary; and Ratchcali, who was an exquisite lapidary, had set it in such a manner as would have imposed upon any ordinary jeweller. By these means of introduction, the Tyrolese soon monopolised the custom of a great many noble families, upon which he levied large contributions, without incurring the least suspicion of deceit. He every day, out of pure esteem and gratitude for the honour of their commands, entertained them with the sight of ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett
... shall form part of the colonial domain[4]." In the British Empire, the right of the Government to declare vacant lands in the colonies Crown property has been frequently exercised[5]. In annexing all the vacant lands, the Congo Free State therefore, has only followed the usual custom practised by all countries, so that it is obvious these lands are absolutely the property of the State, which, therefore, has a perfect right either to sell or lease them to Companies, Missionaries or Traders, or to collect the ...
— A Journal of a Tour in the Congo Free State • Marcus Dorman
... later, Charles and his court, returning from their long progress through France, came to La Rochelle, and spent three days there (Sept., 1565). A noteworthy incident occurred at his entry. The jealous citizens had not forgotten an immemorial custom which was not without significance. A silken cord had been stretched across the road by which the monarch was to enter, that he might stop and promise to respect the liberties and franchises of La Rochelle. Constable Montmorency was ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird
... wedding of a sister maid, whom the empress always presents with her picture set in diamonds. The three first of them are called Ladies of the Key, and wear gold keys by their sides; but what I find most pleasant, is the custom, which obliges them, as long as they live, after they have left the empress's service, to make her some present every year on the day of her feast. Her majesty is served by no married women but the grande maitresse, who is generally a widow of the first quality, ...
— Letters of the Right Honourable Lady M—y W—y M—e • Lady Mary Wortley Montague
... while Marcella talked. It might be ten feet broad, he thought, by six feet in one part and eight feet in another. The roof was within little more than an inch of his head. The stairway in the corner was falling to pieces; he wondered how the woman got up safely to her bed at night; custom, he supposed, can ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... land-connecting bond is torn away, Each ancient custom hastens to decline; Not e'en the ocean can war's tumult stay. Not e'en the Nile-god, not the ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... Bongrand, the justice of peace, heard of the pleasure of these evenings and sought admittance to the doctor's society. Before becoming justice of peace at Nemours he had been for ten years a solicitor at Melun, where he conducted his own cases, according to the custom of small towns, where there are no barristers. He became a widower at forty-five years of age, but felt himself still too active to lead an idle life; he therefore sought and obtained the position of justice of peace ...
— Ursula • Honore de Balzac
... the artillery, so that Rucker and Johnson soon passed us. On reaching old Carrollville, five miles northeast of Brice's Cross Roads, heavy firing could be heard just on ahead. Forrest, as was his custom, had passed to the front of the ...
— The Black Phalanx - African American soldiers in the War of Independence, the - War of 1812, and the Civil War • Joseph T. Wilson
... a solitary custom house officer resting upon his gun and looking out toward the sea, the doctor would offer him a cigar and give him medical advice if he were sick. "Poor men! so badly paid!"... But his sympathies were always going out to the ...
— Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) - A Novel • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... said it could make little difference to me since her brother was willing to let the obligation rest until I was ready to meet it. I do not blame her; there are some things Marcia Feversham and I do not see in the same light. It isn't so much through custom and breeding; it's the way we were created, bone and spirit." Her voice broke but she laid her hand on the parapet again with a controlling grasp and added evenly, "That is the reason when Mr. Banks came I was so ...
— The Rim of the Desert • Ada Woodruff Anderson
... oceanographer Schroer, left us at Bergen. On July 23 the Fram left Bergen, and arrived on the following day at Christiansand, where I met her. Here we again had a series of busy days. In one of the Custom-house warehouses were piled a quantity of things that had to go on board: no less than 400 bundles of dried fish, all our ski and sledging outfit, a waggon-load of timber, etc. At Fredriksholm, out on Flekkero, we had found room for perhaps ...
— The South Pole, Volumes 1 and 2 • Roald Amundsen
... in whose eye lurked all evil passions and appetites, whirled her away in a waltz, he again felt, with indignation, that here was another instance in which fashion—custom—insolently trampled on divine law and womanly modesty. He had seen enough of the world to know that Lottie, with all her faults, was too good to touch the fellow whose embrace she permitted. Could she—could the others-be ...
— From Jest to Earnest • E. P. Roe
... the palace Conde proceeded to the hall of the Council, which was on the ground-floor; and at the termination of the sitting ascended, as was his custom, to the apartments of the Queen-mother, where Louis, who had entered eagerly into the part that had been assigned to him, and who had just distributed with his own hands the arms which had been prepared for the followers of M. de Themines, ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 2 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... than in their treatment of prisoners. They never took them away from their friends and country; they always ransomed them,—if they had wherewithal to pay their way. So good-natured!—upon my life it was a most excellent custom! They took any little valuables they found about them, and then put them up at auction. Moses and Eleazar, a priest, we are told, took every piece of gold, and their wrought jewels,—meaning their watches, and ear-rings. You needn't laugh, they all wore ear-rings, those fellows ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... origin, by which it 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 ...
— Jean-Christophe Journey's End • Romain Rolland
... Kells, as was her custom, but he did not appear. This was the third time in a week that he had forgotten or avoided her or had been prevented from seeing her. Joan was glad, yet the fact was not reassuring. The issue for Kells was ...
— The Border Legion • Zane Grey
... that Simon Basset never removed a suit of clothes, after he had once put it on, until it literally dropped from him in rags. He was also said to have argued, when taken to task for this most untidy custom, that birds and animals never shifted their coats until they were worn out, and it behooved men to follow their innocent and natural habits as closely ...
— Jerome, A Poor Man - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... up the gangway and through the custom-house. Few seemed to take an interest in their surroundings. They exchanged no comments, but walked side by side in silence —dumb and driven animals. Some of them bore signs of disease. A few stumbled as they went. One or two were half blind, with ...
— Roden's Corner • Henry Seton Merriman
... of affinity between the Gipsies and Hindus may be found in a custom which was described to me by a ...
— The English Gipsies and Their Language • Charles G. Leland
... contained, into the Greek tongue. Now Eleazar the high priest, one not inferior to any other of that dignity among us, did not envy the forenamed king the participation of that advantage, which otherwise he would for certain have denied him, but that he knew the custom of our nation was, to hinder nothing of what we esteemed ourselves from being communicated to others. Accordingly, I thought it became me both to imitate the generosity of our high priest, and to suppose there might even now be many lovers ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... by law and by custom, we meet here to consider the state of the union. This year, we gather in this chamber deeply aware of ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... and a half hours; he then lies down till very early morning, at which time the chances are ten to one that, awakening refreshed and strengthened, he commences to stray back along the way he came, or in some other direction; accordingly, it is a common custom, about eight or nine o'clock, to yard one's team, and turn them out with the first daylight for another three or four hours' feed. Yarding bullocks is, however, a bad plan. They do their day's work of from fifteen to twenty miles, or sometimes more, at one ...
— A First Year in Canterbury Settlement • Samuel Butler
... back with an account of all these matters. Then the lord steward Meruitensa accused Hemti unto the nobles who sat with him; and they said unto him: "By your leave: As to this Sekhti of yours, let him bring a witness. Behold thou it is our custom with our Sekhtis; witnesses come with them; behold, that is our custom. Then it will be fitting to beat this Hemti for a trifle of natron and a trifle of salt; if he is commanded to pay for it, he will pay for it." But the high steward Meruitensa held his peace; for he ...
— Egyptian Literature
... otherwise, but his assertion that he did not say his prayers and knew nothing about God smacked of superiority. He had to be taken down. And, anyhow, a new boy was an object of curiosity and his preliminary persecution a time-honoured custom. A fight was not in their calculations—the very idea of a new boy venturing to fight beyond their imaginations. And Robert did not want to fight. He felt oddly weary and disinclined. But to him there was no other outcome possible. It was his only tradition. It blinded him to what was kindly ...
— The Dark House • I. A. R. Wylie
... and said: "Well, I have been lending money all my life, and I don't see why I should stop now. Did you ever hear of anybody paying back borrowed money except in a poker game? I never did. Do people really pay back? I don't know what the custom is over in the part of the country you came from, but the rules are very strict here, and they are not violated very often—they rarely pay back. And they never violate ...
— The Jucklins - A Novel • Opie Read
... of the legislators, in joint assembly, and read to the august body his first message, formally 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 in ...
— The Battle of New Orleans • Zachary F. Smith
... Honesty may well suspect them, but dares not detect them; For if he should, they have by their knavery Got so many friends, that though never so bad, They will stand in defence with the best. I was at the water-side, where I saw such deceit— I dare not say knavery—in paying and receiving Custom for outlandish ware, that I wond'red to see, Yet durst not complain of: the reason was, They were countenanced with men of great wealth, Richer than I a great deal, but not honester. Then I went into the markets, ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VI • Robert Dodsley
... quarter the land had been gradually sold until now its white picket fence was only a dozen feet from the front door and passers-by could easily have looked inside its parlor windows save for the tall bushes that served as a shield. By immemorial custom the cottage had always been painted white and green, but for a good many years it had not been troubled by any paint at all, "but had lived," as Polly said, "on its past, and like a good many persons in Woodford had gotten considerably run down ...
— The Camp Fire Girls at Sunrise Hill • Margaret Vandercook
... brightening my page with the initials of the most exquisite of humorists, J.H.?) told me that he once heard five 'wells,' like pioneers, precede the answer to an inquiry about the price of land. The first was the ordinary wul, in deference to custom; the second, the long, perpending ooahl, with a falling inflection of the voice; the third, the same, but with the voice rising, as if in despair of a conclusion, into a plaintively nasal whine; the fourth, wulh, ending in the aspirate of a sigh; and then, fifth, came a short, sharp ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... by the Secessionists, under the Palmetto Flag, of Castle Pinckney and Fort Moultrie; the simultaneous raising of that flag over the Federal Custom House and Post Office at Charleston; the resignation of the Federal Collector, Naval Officer and Surveyor of that Port—all of which occurred December 27th; and the seizure "by force of arms," December 30th, of the United ...
— The Great Conspiracy, Complete • John Alexander Logan
... was not a Brattahlid custom; but when the noon-hour came, there was a lull in the activity while Kark carried around bread and meat and ale. Combining prudence with a saving of labor, the thrall made no attempt to approach the brooding stranger; nor did the ...
— The Thrall of Leif the Lucky • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... it has been his custom to slip away to the old home in Delaware County on one pretext or another—to boil sap in the old sugar bush and rejoice in the April frolic of the robins; to meander up Montgomery Hollow for trout; to gather wild strawberries in the June meadows and hobnob with the bobolinks; to saunter ...
— Our Friend John Burroughs • Clara Barrus
... without complaint, friendship to the death, indomitable hatred, unfaltering hope, deep-seated greed, splendid gayety—it takes these things to subdue a continent. Vice is also an incidental,—that is to say, what one calls vice. This is because it is the custom to measure these men as if they were governed by the laws of civilization, where there ...
— A Mountain Woman and Others • (AKA Elia Wilkinson) Elia W. Peattie
... sympathy, but privately you will be saying to yourself how difficult a place of sojourn London must have been in those days for a stranger—how little cosmopolitan, how bound, in a thousand ways, with narrowness of custom. What is true of the metropolis at that time is of course doubly true of the provinces; and a genteel little city like the one I am speaking of must have been a kind of focus of insular propriety. Even then, however, the irritated alien would ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, October, 1877, Vol. XX. No. 118 • Various
... hand; but more strongly still had it aroused the hot fires of love in a heart that never otherwise would have known the meaning of that all-consuming passion, for such a wondrous creature as La could never have felt love for any of the repulsive priests of Opar. Custom, duty and religious zeal might have commanded the union; but there could have been no love on La's part. She had grown to young womanhood a cold and heartless creature, daughter of a thousand other cold, heartless, ...
— Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... the meditation; and what the text says in praise of the breath thus not being allowed to remain naked may be taken as a mere glorification of the act of rinsing. And as ordinary rinsing of the mouth, subsequent to eating, is already established by Smriti and custom, we must conclude that the text means to enjoin rinsing of the mouth of a different kind, viz. as auxiliary to the meditation on prna.—To this the Stra replies that what the text enjoins is the new' thing, i.e. the ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Ramanuja - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 48 • Trans. George Thibaut
... scandalous thing among Mohammedans. Their weddings were to be conducted in public, after the Christian forms, their national songs and dances were interdicted, and they were even forbidden to indulge in warm baths, bathing being a custom of which the Spaniard of that day appears to ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume VII • Charles Morris
... 3. The unwise custom of chewing and smoking tobacco for many hours in a day not only injures the salivary glands, producing dryness in the mouth when this drug is not used, but I suspect that it also produces schirrhus of the pancreas. The use of tobacco in this immoderate degree injures ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. II - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin
... of slavery, the Christmas holidays brought with them general alarm. To prevent insurrections, the militia was uniformly called out, and an array made of all that was formidable in military enginery. This custom was dispensed with at once, after emancipation. As Christmas came on the Sabbath, it tested the respect for that day. The morning was similar, in all respects, to the morning of the Sabbath described above; the same serenity reigning everywhere—the same quiet in the household movements, ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... included in its plan of operations an immediate influence upon the popular mind—the most direct, immediate, and radically reforming influences which could be brought to bear, under those conditions, upon the habits and sentiments of the ignorant, custom-bound masses of men;—those masses which are, in all their ignorance and unfitness for rule, as the philosopher of this age perceived, 'that greater part which carries it'—those wretched statesmen, under whose rule we are all groaning. 'Questions about clothes, ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... way back in November, rigged out like fishermen an' swearin' as how they was fishermen. They went south; an' they soon come back wid empty hands. We was all t'inkin' in Raggedy Cove as how some vessel had maybe bin broke up afore it was deserted by the crew, as is the custom wid some folks in some harbors. An' when I see ye wid business in Chance Along, sir—well, Black Dennis Nolan do surely look to me like a man who'd be breakin' into a ship widout waitin' for ...
— The Harbor Master • Theodore Goodridge Roberts
... and contempt; and there had dawned in her that temper which is in truth implied in all the more majestic conceptions of the State—the temper that regards the main institutions of every great civilisation, whether it be property, or law, or religious custom, as necessarily, in some degree, divine and sacred. For man has not been their sole artificer! Throughout there has been working with him "the ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... woman who, while shocked at the transgression of some social custom in which she has been trained from her childhood, or, for example, has come to think that a certain way of observing Lent, on which we have just entered, is absolutely necessary to the safety of religion and morals both, is yet quite willing, and without ...
— Our Unitarian Gospel • Minot Savage
... the divisions of the Army and the Navy, whose joint operations during the previous summer had brought to an end the French occupation of Egypt, begun by Bonaparte in 1798. Nelson had for some time been uneasy that no such notice had been taken of the Battle of Copenhagen, for the custom of the Corporation of the chief city of the Empire, thus to honor the great achievements of their armed forces, was, he asserted, invariable in his experience; consequently, the omission in the case of Copenhagen was a deliberate slight, the implication of which, he thought, could not be ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. II. (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... up, one half of what he earned went, according to custom, to the boat-owner, in this case his father, frequently had be thu to pay for repairs and new gear. That went on for years after he was married—'hauling an' rowing an' slaving an' pulling me guts out wi't!'—until, in fact, the present Mrs Widger ...
— A Poor Man's House • Stephen Sydney Reynolds
... eighth such report that, as President, I have been privileged to present to you and to the country. On previous occasions, it has been my custom to set forth proposals for legislative action in the coming year. But that is not my purpose today. The presentation of a legislative program falls properly to my successor, not to me, and I would not infringe upon his responsibility to chart the forward course. Instead, I wish to speak ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Harry S. Truman • Harry S. Truman
... the wall-eyed glare of shuttered windows, and down the long avenue, that curved submissive to the windings of the Onwashee, now black and brimming after a week of rain. Young cattle, that had slept, according to their custom, on the roadway, scrambled up as she came near, and crashed away through the evergreens, whose bared lower branches bore witness to their depredations. They were a sight hateful to Christian, who, in spite of her resignation to the methods of her groom, cherished a regard for ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross
... confessing that his London life had 'not been entirely as it ought to be,' he appeals to him for pity in his present surroundings. Imagine 'a young fellow,' he cries, 'whose happiness was always centred in London, hauled away to the town of Edinburgh, obliged to conform to every Scottish custom, or be laughed at—"Will ye hae some jeel? Oh fie, oh fie!"—his flighty imagination quite cramped, and be obliged to study Corpus Juris Civilis and live in his father's strict family; is there any wonder, sir, that the unlucky dog ...
— James Boswell - Famous Scots Series • William Keith Leask
... and Place of the Sermon on the Mount.—Matthew gives the address early mention, placing it even before the record of his own call from the seat of custom—which call certainly preceded the ordination of the Twelve as a body—and before his account of many sayings and doings of the Lord already considered in these pages. Luke's partial summary of the sermon follows his record of the ordination of the apostles. Matthew ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage
... as Jesus passed forth from thence, He saw a man, named Matthew, sitting at the receipt of custom: and He saith unto him, Follow Me. And he arose, and followed Him. 10. And it came to pass, as Jesus sat at meat in the house, behold, many publicans and sinners came and sat down with Him and His disciples. 11. ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... how her sweetness and goodness once saved the house from robbery. It was the custom of her father and mother, on Sunday, to lock up the house, while they went to church. A pot of pork and beans, and a pudding of Indian meal was put in the oven to bake ...
— The Talkative Wig • Eliza Lee Follen
... Tom. It says the custom house authorities have tried every way to catch them, and when they couldn't land 'em, the only theory they could account for the way the smuggling was going on was ...
— Tom Swift and his Great Searchlight • Victor Appleton
... came. Tana-naw Station was populous. As was their custom, the tribes had gathered to await the salmon-run, and in the meantime spent the time in dancing and frolicking, trading and gossiping. Then there was the ordinary sprinkling of white adventurers, traders, and prospectors, and, in addition, a large number of white men who had come because of curiosity ...
— Lost Face • Jack London
... admonitory, and directs our attention to the fruits of faith. Here, however, Paul sums up briefly all the fruits of faith, in love. In the verses going before he enjoined subjection to temporal government—the rendering of tribute, custom, fear and honor wherever due—since all governmental power is ordained of God. Then follows our lesson: "Owe no man ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. II - Epiphany, Easter and Pentecost • Martin Luther
... shouldering his way round the gallery in the act of sweeping it, winks with sympathy. This chafing over, the ornamental part of Mr. George's toilet is soon performed. He fills his pipe, lights it, and marches up and down smoking, as his custom is, while Phil, raising a powerful odour of hot rolls and coffee, prepares breakfast. He smokes gravely and marches in slow time. Perhaps this morning's pipe is devoted to the memory of ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... it makes a strange noise, emits, perhaps, a strange odor, is passing quickly and about to escape; it must be killed, hence the brickbat. Uncontrollable impulse! poor hoodlum, he cannot help it; if he could restrain the hand and stay the brickbat he would not be a hoodlum, but a man. Time and custom have tamed him so that he lets horses, bicycles, and carriages pass; he can't quite help slinging a stone at an advertising van or any strange vehicle, while the automobile is ...
— Two Thousand Miles On An Automobile • Arthur Jerome Eddy
... he caused toll the great bell, and to hang out from the highest tower a great banner of red and gold, cut into so many points that it seemed as if it were tattered; for this was the custom of his house when ...
— The World of Romance - being Contributions to The Oxford and Cambridge Magazine, 1856 • William Morris
... It was Mr. Furze's custom on Sunday to go to sleep for an hour between dinner and tea upstairs in what was called the drawing-room, while Mrs. Furze sat and read, or said she read, a religious book. On hot summer afternoons Mr. Furze always took off his coat before he had ...
— Catharine Furze • Mark Rutherford
... The British Government is more afraid of Ireland now that submarines, bombs, and poison gas are cheap and easily made than it was of the German Empire before the war; consequently the old British custom which maintained a balance of power through command of the sea is intensified into a terror that sees security in nothing short of absolute military mastery of the entire globe: that is, in an impossibility that will yet seem possible in detail to soldiers and ...
— Back to Methuselah • George Bernard Shaw
... made her think of what an old Welsh nurse of her childhood had once told her of "conversion," in a Welsh revival, and its marvellous effects; how men and women walked on air, and the iron bands of life and custom dropped away. ...
— Delia Blanchflower • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... down from immemorial custom, that on these great ceremonial days of changing a ruler, those of the people being present may bring forward petitions and requests; may make accusations against their retiring head with sure immunity from his vengeance; or may state their own private theories for the better government of ...
— The Lost Continent • C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne
... is the custom of those connected with the world of the circus to eat, sleep, have their whole being, as it were, within the environment of the show, to the total exclusion of hotels, boarding-houses, or outside lodgings of any sort, ...
— Cleek: the Man of the Forty Faces • Thomas W. Hanshew
... work. Following my life-long custom, the first Sabbath of the new Conference year found me at my post of labor. I was happy to find the charge in a good spiritual condition, and hence I was able to take up the work in its ordinary line of service. My first care was to arrange a complete system of pastoral labor, still entertaining ...
— Thirty Years in the Itinerancy • Wesson Gage Miller
... he, "one can see very well that you don't know the place. It's quite true that there is work for all of us, and that nobody has reason to complain during the national pilgrimage. But that only lasts four or five days, and in ordinary times the custom we secure isn't nearly so great. For myself, thank Heaven, I am always satisfied. My house is well known, it occupies the same rank as the Hotel of the Grotto, where two landlords have already made their fortunes. But no matter, it is vexing to see ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... The floor was of trampled earth, and on it were placed shearing-tables, s s s, and burring-and tying-tables, B B. The shearing-tables were about fifteen inches high, the burring-tables high enough for a man to stand up to. It is the custom in many parts of the country to shear on the floor. In Mr. Hardy's picturesque novel, "Far from the Madding Crowd," the shearers shear in a cathedral-like barn, on a shining black-oak floor,—probably for purposes ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, October 1885 • Various
... a gross feeder. Generally there were, except for the young who could not fast till dinnertime, only two meals daily, dinner and supper. Yet the Normans had brought in the habit of sitting long at the table—a custom not yet altogether abated, since the great people, especially at banquets, sit till two or three o'clock in the afternoon; so that it is a hard matter to rise and go to evening prayers and return in time ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... Long Arrow, that you would bind him like a soldier taken in war." The priest's voice was gentle. "Is this the custom of the Onondagas? It was not so when I served ...
— The Road to Frontenac • Samuel Merwin
... It is the custom of all biographers, at their entrance into their work, to step a little backwards (as far, indeed, generally as they are able) and to trace up their hero, as the ancients did the river Nile, till an incapacity of proceeding higher puts an end to ...
— The History of the Life of the Late Mr. Jonathan Wild the Great • Henry Fielding
... third was left behind, and, as his companions disappeared below the brow of a hill, the two beasts came directly after him. He quickly loosed a deer which was tied to his saddle, but the prey was not sufficient to distract them from their purpose. Happily, as is the custom, both barrels of his piece were loaded with ball—a most timely precaution in that country—and he was a good marksman. Turning for a moment, he leveled his gun with as much precision as at such a time he could command, and fired. He waited not for the ...
— Stories about Animals: with Pictures to Match • Francis C. Woodworth
... was standing idly at his door, waiting for a custom that rarely came his way. He was a cadaverous man, about fifty years of age, with eyes of an uncertain colour set deep in his head. An ill-kept, grizzled beard descended upon his chest, and gave a certain wildness to his appearance. A very shabby green smoking cap, trimmed ...
— Sant' Ilario • F. Marion Crawford
... tickets from their hands with offensive haste and roughness. Omnibus conductors grew ill-tempered and abusive without any seemingly adequate reason; shopkeepers became flippant, disobliging, and careless of custom; cabmen shouted derisive or denunciatory language after their rapidly retreating fares; in short, everybody was in a discontented, almost spiteful humour, with the exception of those few aggressively cheerful persons who are in the habit of always making the best ...
— Stories By English Authors: London • Various
... embellishments which still continued to please great men and great ladies, and that is why the story is told by the knight, and Chaucer retains purposely all the faults of that particular sort of story. In opposition to his usual custom, he contents himself here with lending a little life to ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand
... of the table was now complete; each guest had a candle alight, and each owner was studying the several wicks as if the future could be read in their blaze: Aunt Nancy with a certain seriousness. To her the custom was not new; the memories of her life were interwoven with many just such top candles,—one I knew of myself, that went out long, long ago, and has never been ...
— Colonel Carter's Christmas and The Romance of an Old-Fashioned Gentleman • F. Hopkinson Smith
... orders were to make quick dispatch and return with freight and passengers direct from Charles Town. Jack was given no more leisure to brood over his own misfortunes. There were many errands to be done for Mr. Peter Forbes, besides the chests and boxes to be packed and stoutly corded. As was the custom, they had to supply their own furniture for the cabin in the ship and Jack Cockrell enjoyed the ...
— Blackbeard: Buccaneer • Ralph D. Paine |
