"Tonsure" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... as nor to attract attention. A short time afterwards we met two more horsemen, one of whom asked us if he was going right for the house we had been at. As he was speaking a gust of wind blew off his hat. I fetched it and gave it to him, and as he stooped to put it on I saw that a tonsure was shaven on the top of his head. The matter had already seemed strange to us; but the fact that one of this number of men, all going to a lonely house, was a priest in disguise, seemed so suspicious that my brother and myself determined to try and get to the bottom ...
— By England's Aid or The Freeing of the Netherlands (1585-1604) • G.A. Henty
... Dead.—In Vol. ii., p. 230., the excellent vicar of Morwenstow asks the reason why combs are found in the graves of St. Cuthbert and others, monks, in the cathedral church of Durham. I imagine that they were the combs used at the first tonsure of the novices, to them a most interesting memorial of that solemn rite through life, and from touching affection to the brotherhood among whom they had dwelt, buried with them at ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 47, Saturday, September 21, 1850 • Various
... and Bishops are the Church, while they do according to their own pleasure whatever they choose, in virtue of the declaration, "The Church has forbidden it." Holiness is not that which consists in the estate of monks, priests and nuns,—the wearing of the tonsure and cowl; it is a spiritual word, meaning that there is an inward holiness in the spirit before God. And this is the reason specially why he said this, in order to show that there is nothing holy but that holiness ...
— The Epistles of St. Peter and St. Jude Preached and Explained • Martin Luther
... a rich young lady of his neighbourhood. But he took her aside, and pressed upon her the claims of the ascetic life with such fervour that she instantly consented to renounce the world with him. She therefore went into a convent; and he received the tonsure, and was in due ...
— Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... liar Jacob, who won a blessing when he should not, or to unspiritual Esau, who lost a blessing which he should have had, the young Monsignore in his purple came back again, and, bowing so low that we saw the little tonsure on the top of his head, beckoned to us ...
— Oddsfish! • Robert Hugh Benson
... no longer thought enough without a good life; and, as the Greeks said, that beard and cloak did not make a philosopher, so the Egyptians said that white linen and a tonsure would not make a follower of Isis. All the sacrifices to the gods had a secondary meaning, or, at least, they tried to join a moral aim to the outward act; as on the twentieth day of the month, when they ate honey and figs in honour of Thot, they sang "Sweet is truth." The Egyptians, like most ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 11 (of 12) • S. Rappoport
... most pleasant figure. He—for it was a man—was very tall, or, rather, he had been very tall. Now he was much bent with age and rheumatism. His long white hair hung low upon his neck, and fell back from a prominent brow. The top of the head was quite bald, like the tonsure of a priest, and shone and glistened in the lamplight, and round this oasis the thin white locks fell down. The face was shrivelled like the surface of a well-kept apple, and, like an apple, rosy red. The features were aquiline and strongly ...
— Jess • H. Rider Haggard |
