"Initiation" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the stultification), the suspension of moral prepossessions, the absence of sympathetic sentimentalism, the habit of shirking nothing and smiling at all things. These qualities are not characteristic of the average Englishman. Now, satiric comedy did not in its initiation depend upon the average Englishman. It took its cue from the court of Charles the Second, who—with a dash of thoroughly English humour—was more than half- French in temperament, and attracted to himself all that was artistically frivolous in his kingdom. Questions of decency and morality—which ...
— The Comedies of William Congreve - Volume 1 [of 2] • William Congreve
... this introduction: my initiation, as I have confessed, was primarily an emotional one. My interest in Birth Control was awakened by experience. Research and investigation have followed. Our effort has been to raise our program from the plane of the emotional to the plane of the scientific. Any social ...
— The Pivot of Civilization • Margaret Sanger
... good-will, and admiration of each other. Yet it is more credible, as others write, that there were, before, frequent interviews between them, and that it was by the means of Theseus that Hercules was initiated at Eleusis, and purified before initiation, upon account of several rash actions of ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... unfaithfulness too—but here this lady's allegiance had failed her. Her spirit rebelled and disowned any more obedience. First she had to bear in secret the passion of losing the adored object; then to get a farther initiation, and to find this worshipped being was but a clumsy idol: then to admit the silent truth, that it was she was superior, and not the monarch her master: that she had thoughts which his brains could never master, ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... frequent other houses as lovers, without ceasing to live at home, and without being in any way detached from the maternal family. There is, however, a symbolic marriage for every girl, by a rite known as tying the tali; but this marriage serves the purpose only of initiation, and the couple separate after one day. When thus prepared for marriage, a Nair girl chooses her lovers, and any number of unions may be entered upon without any restrictions other than the strict prohibitions relative to caste and tribe. These later ...
— The Position of Woman in Primitive Society - A Study of the Matriarchy • C. Gasquoine Hartley
... time that Colonel A———had ended his short initiation into these various arcana, the company broke up; the doctor to give a lecture on egg-shells at the Committee of Taste; Lord Flute to visit the Opera; Lord Skimcream to the Green Boom; Lord Flash to 'Fives Court,' to see a set-to by candle-light; the exquisites to Bouge ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... of the fixed stars. The symbol was the same as that of the seven stages of Borsippa, the Pyramid of vitrified brick, near Babylon, built of seven stages, and each of a different color. In the Mithraic ceremonies, the candidate went through seven stages of initiation, passing through many fearful trials and of these the high ladder with seven rounds or steps was the symbol. You see the Lodge, its details and ornaments, by its Lights. You have already heard what these Lights, the greater and lesser, are said to ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... educated in the true sense of the term, MEN OF LETTERS, by virtue of (as Ruskin calls it) "the kingship of words." "Charm" is derived from the Latin "carmen," a song that fascinates, and means to control by incantation, to subdue; while Teleo concerns the secret powers and wisdom of consecration and initiation. It is because of modern misuse of antique terms that, we have considered this somewhat lengthy explanation necessary, in order to clear away the accumulated debris of the ages, from the true foundation of our ...
— The Light of Egypt, Volume II • Henry O. Wagner/Belle M. Wagner/Thomas H. Burgoyne
... generations working to meet one social necessity, of an apostolic succession of masters living in the service of one ideal. And so it is these brotherhoods of labor, it is these grim brotherhoods covered with grime and scars, that stand before you to-day inviting you to initiation. ...
— Modern American Prose Selections • Various
... Frere," said I one day, during the initiation of this system, "to think that these villains whom you have made constables ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... had his initiation to Fenris," I said. "He got squirted by a tread-snail almost as soon as he got off the ship. They have him at the spaceport hospital; it'll be 2400 before they get all the poison sweated ...
— Four-Day Planet • Henry Beam Piper
... made a remarkable transformation from a farm/forest economy to a diversified modern industrial economy. Per capita income has risen to the West European level; Finland is a member of the European Union and is the only Nordic state to join the euro system at its initiation ...
— The 1999 CIA Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... States of the Commonwealth and the Dominion of New Zealand have made remarkable progress, none has eclipsed the rapid growth of the State to which the steps of my family were directed in 1839. Its growth has been more remarkable, because it has been primarily due to its initiation of many social and political reforms which have since been adopted by other and older countries. "Australia, lead us further," is the cry of reformers in America. We have led in so many things, and though America may claim the honour of being the birthplace of ...
— An Autobiography • Catherine Helen Spence
... several days. Here the heads were watched by young boys of from six to ten years old, who, for the whole time the process of drying occupied—from seven to ten days—were never allowed to step out of the hall, or neglect their sacred trust. This was the commencement of their initiation in the endurance of hardships, that they also might become warriors. Night after night the men used to meet in front of the hall, dancing and singing, and beating their gongs. They used to address their heads, taunting them, telling them that ...
— Mark Seaworth • William H.G. Kingston
... deliberation, stopping every moment, that my Father might expound it, verse by verse. The extraordinary beauty of the language—for instance, the matchless cadences and images of the first chapter—made a certain impression upon my imagination, and were (I think) my earliest initiation into the magic of literature. I was incapable of defining what I felt, but I certainly had a grip in the throat, which was in its essence a purely aesthetic emotion, when my Father read, in his pure, large, ringing voice, such passages as 'The heavens are the works of Thy hands. They shall perish, ...
— Father and Son • Edmund Gosse
... discontinue conversation with Mr. Polly; he would come along to him whenever he appeared at his door, and converse about sport and women and fisticuffs and the pride of life with an air of extreme initiation, until Mr. Polly felt himself the faintest underdeveloped intimation of a man that had ever hovered on ...
— The History of Mr. Polly • H. G. Wells
... removal of some stores of arms and ammunition, revealed their readiness to break into rebellion. It is not improbable that designing conspirators took advantage of the open and chivalric character of Saigo to push him into the initiation of hostilities. Admiral Kawamura, himself a Satsuma man and a connection of Saigo, was sent down to hold an interview with him and if possible to make a peaceful settlement. But the interview was declined. The rebellious elements were at once gathered together, and Saigo, at the head ...
— Japan • David Murray
... essay already quoted, vigorously vindicates "the deeply cherished belief of some philosophers, and of many Christians, that our world, in its present state, contains the mere embryo of intelligent, moral, and religious happiness; that the progress of man in his present state is but the initiation of an interminable career of glory; and that his most widely extended associations are a preparation for as interminably an intercourse with the whole family of an intelligent universe." [463] Dr. Arnott may add a final word, a last link in this evidential chain of analogy. He writes: "To ...
— Moon Lore • Timothy Harley
... the Lord of the Sea indicates to the world, though with its initiation he is not ...
— The Lord of the Sea • M. P. Shiel
... she rose, she was richer by a very simple conception, but still richer. She felt as a novice might feel who had been initiated, and had been intrusted at least with the preliminary secrets of her community. She owed her initiation to Mr. Armstrong, but also to her husband. Experts no doubt may smile, and so may the young people who, in these days of universal knowledge, have got up astronomy for examinations, but nevertheless, in the profounder study ...
— Miriam's Schooling and Other Papers - Gideon; Samuel; Saul; Miriam's Schooling; and Michael Trevanion • Mark Rutherford
... must pass over these domestic duties to speak of state affairs and the gradual initiation therein by the Princess of this young couple. During the campaign of Italy in which Philip V. was anxious to take part, Madame des Ursins, suitably to the duties and prerogatives of her charge, did not quit the Queen for a single moment. She was ...
— Political Women, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... army; kept in splendid condition and of great size, they not only drag the heavy guns, but in the celebrated mountain artillery each mule carries a small gun on his back. A brigade of this arm would have been invaluable to the British in South Africa, having no doubt had its initiation in the guerilla warfare of ...
— Spanish Life in Town and Country • L. Higgin and Eugene E. Street
... for, starting with no other initiation into the mysteries of foreign relations than having had a father born in Wales and having spent his vacations in England, probably in the lake region studying the topography of Wordsworth's poetry,—a certain oft detected resemblance to Wilson must make Wordsworth his favorite poet, as he was Wilson's,—in ...
— The Mirrors of Washington • Anonymous
... enlightened, might have exposed the horror and defeated it; but HE, the one weaponless and defenceless spectator, the one whom none of the others would believe or understand if he attempted to reveal what he knew—HE alone had been singled out as the victim of this atrocious initiation! ...
— Short Stories for English Courses • Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.)
... nice to you, too—after a bit. Of course, everybody new has to expect some hazing. Thank your stars that you won't have to be put through the initiation of the marble harp," and she pointed to a marble figure in the tiny Italian garden in the middle ...
— Ruth Fielding on Cliff Island - The Old Hunter's Treasure Box • Alice Emerson
... by prayers and praises to eternity. "It is ordained," said they, "both here and in heaven, that you are first to enter into the temple, and remain there for three days and three nights and after this initiation you are to enter the houses of the city, which are so many chapels consecrated by us to divine worship, and in every house join the congregation in a communion of prayers, praises, and repetitions of holy things; you are to take ...
— The Delights of Wisdom Pertaining to Conjugial Love • Emanuel Swedenborg
... a "silent" area. Occasionally there results a change in temperament or intelligence, and the region is on this account supposed to be concerned with the higher psychical functions. There is evidence that the pre-frontal cortex has a centre for the conscious initiation of movements, and that lesions produce "apraxia," i.e., inability to perform, or clumsiness in voluntarily performing fine movements such as touching the nose with the finger, though such movements may be perfectly carried ...
— Manual of Surgery Volume Second: Extremities—Head—Neck. Sixth Edition. • Alexander Miles
... tour through the valley of the Mohawk, that such a work came to be appreciated by the people, and resulted in that grand artery of wealth to our State, the Erie Canal. So I believe it has ever been in the past with the initiation and construction of great public works, and with the introduction of agencies and methods which have been of the greatest benefit to mankind throughout the world, and so perhaps it will ever be. Yet, for the welfare of these two cities, let us venture the hope that the tide of improvement ...
— Opening Ceremonies of the New York and Brooklyn Bridge, May 24, 1883 • William C. Kingsley
... and Abbeville. The Chapter appointed four of its own members to superintend the work: Jean Dumas, Jean Fabres, Pierre Vuaille, and Jean Lenglache, to whom my authors (canons both) attribute the choice of subjects, the placing of them, and the initiation of the workmen 'au sens veritable et plus eleve de la Bible ou des legendes, et portant quelque fois le simple savoir-faire de l'ouvrier jusqu'a la hauteur du genie ...
— Our Fathers Have Told Us - Part I. The Bible of Amiens • John Ruskin
... were to form the Council of Ancients, having powers to amend or reject the proposals emanating from the Council of Five Hundred. In this Council were the younger deputies, and with them rested the sole initiation of laws. Thus the young deputies were to make the laws, but the older deputies were to amend or reject them; and this nice adjustment of the characteristics of youth and age, a due blending of enthusiasm with caution, ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... many, which are finally reunited in a single science (compare Rep.). At first immortality means only the succession of existences; even knowledge comes and goes. Then follows, in the language of the mysteries, a higher and a higher degree of initiation; at last we arrive at the perfect vision of beauty, not relative or changing, but eternal and absolute; not bounded by this world, or in or out of this world, but an aspect of the divine, extending ...
— Symposium • Plato
... from the prefaces of Mr. Shaw on the subject of children and their education, plays, pamphlets, even legislation have dealt with the theme. A reaction was bound to follow, and we do not hear so much now about "sex initiation" and coeducation. Suffice it to say that Frank Wedekind was the first man to put the question plumply ...
— Ivory Apes and Peacocks • James Huneker
... with so much truth of their community, in the language of the Latin father, that "every one reckoned those whom he baptized as belonging to himself and not to Christ;" [541:1] for, as we have just seen, some, when baptizing their disciples, used even new forms of initiation. Never, assuredly, had the advocates of expediency a better opportunity for pleading in favour of a decree ordaining that "one chosen from among the presbyters should be put over the rest, and that the whole care of the Church should be ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen
... Saint Anne, in the Louvre, has been attributed to him. It illustrates Leonardo's usual choice of pupils, men [117] of some natural charm of person or intercourse like Salaino, or men of birth and princely habits of life like Francesco Melzi—men with just enough genius to be capable of initiation into his secret, for the sake of which they were ready to efface their own individuality. Among them, retiring often to the villa of the Melzi at Canonica al Vaprio, he worked at his fugitive manuscripts and sketches, working for the present hour, and for a few only, perhaps chiefly for ...
— The Renaissance: Studies in Art and Poetry • Walter Horatio Pater
... away by it, without any volition of their own. Recollect, the memory can tyrannise, as well as the imagination. Derangement, I believe, has been considered as a loss of control over the sequence of ideas. The mind, once set in motion, is henceforth deprived of the power of initiation, and becomes the victim of a train of associations, one thought suggesting another, in the way of cause and effect, as if by a mechanical process, or some physical necessity. No one, who has had experience of men of studious habits, but must recognise the existence of a parallel phenomenon ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)
... drew the rectors and professors of its colleges, its preachers, confessors, and teachers in schools for the laity. They were not yet full members, though they had taken the three vows, and were irrevocably devoted to the service of the order. The final stage of initiation was reached toward the age of forty-five, after long and various trials. Then the Jesuit received the title of Professed. He was either a professed of the three vows, or a professed of the four vows; having in the latter case dedicated his life to the special service ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... attend to some of the ceremonies of what may be called the initiation of warriors, this being the first time I had been on a war-party. For the first three times that a man accompanies a war-party, the customs of the Indians require some peculiar and painful observances, from which old warriors may, if they choose, be exempted. ...
— The True Story Book • Andrew Lang
... Martin's initiation into the joys of sea life was a strenuous one. The gale that had sent the Cohasset flying from San Francisco, died out, as Ruth had predicted. Followed a couple of ...
— Fire Mountain - A Thrilling Sea Story • Norman Springer
... support of the Gov.-General of the day, was granted; and Mr. Butler, taking advantage of this recent precedent, also succeeded in founding a commercial house in Manila. To these foreigners is due the initiation of the traffic in those products which became the staple trade of the Colony and paved the way for the bulk of the business being, as it is to-day, in the hands of European ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... cool his indignation, and Bethmann-Hollweg's cynical explanation of the violation of Belgium's neutrality went far to justify Britain's action consequent upon that outraging of treaty faith. The deliberate initiation of the policy of "frightfulness" which had heaped such unspeakable horrors upon the Belgian people tore the veil from the face of German militarism and revealed in its sheer brutality the ruthlessness and lawlessness ...
— The Major • Ralph Connor
... There followed an impromptu initiation ceremony, interrupted but once by Lily's bleating, after which the Wildcat realized that he was the head of something that he knew mighty little about. He looked around for Honey Tone, seeking the moral support that might derive ...
— Lady Luck • Hugh Wiley
... to St. Peter's." Don dropped into an armchair and began to load his pipe from the Mycenaean vase. "Some of your facts are startlingly novel. For instance, where on earth did you get hold of that idea about the initiation of Christ by the Essenes at Lake Moeris ...
— The Orchard of Tears • Sax Rohmer
... islanders of Crete, before sacrificing to Jupiter, had to abstain from food. A celebrated ancient author informs us, that those who wished to be initiated into the secrets of Cybele, fasted ten days before their initiation; and that, in short, the priests who gave the oracles, and those who came to consult them, had ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 20. No. 568 - 29 Sept 1832 • Various
... above advice if followed conscientiously by you would go to make you really fit for initiation into the more advanced stages of mastery. Take it to heart by all means. Be convinced, the man who looks for quick results and a royal road to the mastery of Mental Science breaks down in frequent despair at apparent failures ...
— The Doctrine and Practice of Yoga • A. P. Mukerji
... satisfied that the boy should have so pleasant an initiation into the life he had chosen, and was quite content that this semi-holiday opportunity had arisen instead of hard work in one of the hatchery stations. Major Dare felt that Colin had already had a strenuous summer and that it was advisable for him to do something a ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Fisheries • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... and only child. He was resolved that his offspring should enjoy all those advantages of education and breeding and society of which he himself had been deprived. For him was to be reserved a full initiation in those costly ceremonies which, under the names of Eton and Christ Church, in his time fascinated and dazzled mankind. His son, William Pitt Ferrars, realised even more than his father's hopes. Extremely good-looking, he was gifted with a precocity of talent. He was ...
— Endymion • Benjamin Disraeli
... was so transparently obvious. And since this was so, every member of that heterogeneous community had a respect for his companions; the fact that they were there together showed that they had all passed this initiation, and knew what for them ...
— Michael • E. F. Benson
... no more. What, my uncle dead! General Kock, Major Hall, Advocate Coster—all dead! It seemed impossible. We could not understand it, this first initiation of ...
— With Steyn and De Wet • Philip Pienaar
... be utilized in the support of the customary or the established, as well as in initiation and support of the novel. People ape the great, or those that pass for great, in manners and morals. The words of a distinguished public man have prestige in the maintenance of the established. Men will follow, and if the socially conspicuous lead ...
— Human Traits and their Social Significance • Irwin Edman
... to confess a fault. It was his impulsiveness that led him to volunteer and serve four years in the Confederate army,—trying years to my mother, with a brood of seven children to feed, garb, and house. The war brought me my initiation as a cowboy, of which I have now, after the long lapse of years, the greater portion of which were spent with cattle, a distinct recollection. Sherman's army, in its march to the sea, passed through our county, devastating that section for miles ...
— The Log of a Cowboy - A Narrative of the Old Trail Days • Andy Adams
... with the common faith, or very important in themselves, could either have been propounded by the priests or received by the audience. And it may be further observed, in corroboration of so self-evident a truth, that it was held an impiety to the popular faith to reject the initiation of the mysteries—and that some of the very writers, most superstitious with respect to the one, attach the most solemnity to the ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... to a pension of twenty-five dollars per month. This began to bring in one straggler after another from the ranks of the new-fledged pilots, in the dull (summer) season. Better have twenty-five dollars than starve; the initiation fee was only twelve dollars, and no dues ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... the light of these considerations the American capital took on the semblance of a monstrous mystical infinite Werden. But they fatigued Vogelstein a little, and it was his preference, as a general thing, not to engage the same evening with more than one newcomer, one visitor in the freshness of initiation. This was why Mrs. Bonnycastle's expression of a wish to introduce him to three young ladies had startled him a little; he saw a certain process, in which he flattered himself that he had become proficient, but which was after all tolerably exhausting, repeated for each of the damsels. ...
— Pandora • Henry James
... adding, that all they found fault with was an insolent remark which, in his wrath, Manua Sera had given utterance to, that their quarrel with him was owing chiefly to a scurvy jest which he had passed on them, and on the characteristic personal ceremony of initiation to their Mussulman faith. Now, however, as Manua Sera wished to make friends, they would abide by anything that I might propose. Here the knotty question arose again, what territory they, the Arabs, would give to Manua Sera? I thought he would ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... They are apt to avoid the light shades of red and green as being too showy, and further, as being liable to fade. Greens and yellows in dark shades they treat with more favor. They consider black and indigo as the symbols of sorrow; rose is the symbol of Divine Wisdom; green represents initiation into the knowledge of ...
— Rugs: Oriental and Occidental, Antique & Modern - A Handbook for Ready Reference • Rosa Belle Holt
... was succeeded, in the sense only of followed, by the Katipunan,—a native word also meaning league. The makers of this "league," though avowing the same purpose as the members of the other, were men of very different stamp. Their initiation was a blood-rite: they sought immediate independence; they preached a campaign of force, if not of violence. That a recent reviewer should have connected Dr. Rizal's name with the Katipunan is difficult to understand. Not ...
— An Eagle Flight - A Filipino Novel Adapted from Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... secret ramifications to the German societies; but as I have already said, I have not been able to obtain exact information as to them. Nevertheless, I will endeavor to repeat here what I heard concerning the initiation of ...
— The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Constant
... alleviation of pain. The countrywoman who puts her child to sleep in the great, cradle-like, basket, for winnowing the corn, remembers Demeter Courotrophos, the mother of corn and children alike, and makes it a little coat out of the dress worn by its father at his initiation into her mysteries. Yet she is an angry goddess too, sometimes—Demeter Erinnys, the goblin of the neighbourhood, haunting its shadowy places. She lies on the ground out of doors on summer nights, and becomes wet with the dew. She grows young again ...
— Greek Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater
... evidence,[196] and describe a ceremony among the northern tribes connected with the myth of the sun, which ends in a newly initiated youth being brought up, "shown the decorations, and had everything explained to him."[197] Among the central tribes the same authorities describe minutely the initiation ceremonies, during which the initiate boy "is instructed for the first time in any of the sacred matters referring to totems, and it is by means of the performances which are concerned with certain animals, or rather, apparently with ...
— Folklore as an Historical Science • George Laurence Gomme
... risk of their lives. Half the aeroplane accidents are due to the fact that many men prefer risk to safety. To do some things that other people cannot do seems to them the only way of justifying their existence. It is an initiation into aristocracy. Every man is the rival of all other men, and he is not satisfied till he has beaten them. If he is a great cricketer, or a great poet, or a Cabinet Minister, or wins the Derby, his ambition as a rule is fulfilled and he does not feel the ...
— The Pleasures of Ignorance • Robert Lynd
... ability to carry on that work to its due height and proportion, yet as that was not proposed, but an initiation only by accidence into grammar, I consented to the proposal as a present expedient till a more qualified person should be found, without further treaty or mention of terms between us than that of mutual friendship. ...
— The History of Thomas Ellwood Written by Himself • Thomas Ellwood
... mind, the perfunctory in things ecclesiastical is hardly more distressing than the service of books as conducted in many great libraries. One feels that the librarii should be a sacred order, nearly allied to the monastic, refined by varying steps of initiation, and certainly celibates. They should give out their books as the priest his sacrament, should wear sacred vestments, and bear about with them the priestlike aura, as of divine incarnations of the great spirit of Truth and Art in whose temples they are ministrants. The next step to this ideal ...
— The Book-Bills of Narcissus - An Account Rendered by Richard Le Gallienne • Le Gallienne, Richard
... as the ambassador had furnished me with an extract of his vakayeh nameh, or his instructions, I walked out to an adjacent cemetery to read it over undisturbed. I kept the paper carefully folded in the lining of my cap, and as it was my first initiation into public business, the principal contents of it have remained in my ...
— The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan • James Morier
... [Footnote: A medicine woman is a female doctor or juggler. No man or woman can assume this office without previous initiation by authority. The medicine dance is a sacred rite, in honor of the souls of the dead; the mysteries of this dance are kept inviolable; its secrets have never been divulged by its members. The medicine men and women attend in cases of sickness. The Sioux have the greatest faith in ...
— Dahcotah - Life and Legends of the Sioux Around Fort Snelling • Mary Eastman
... getting-together spirit is getting more and more into Church circles. The fervent heart repeats constantly our Lord's prayer, "that they may all be one." Yet it becomes clear that there may be movements toward union that are not of the Holy Spirit's initiation, and that ...
— Quiet Talks on the Crowned Christ of Revelation • S. D. Gordon
... was undergoing initiation into a secret society. He was blind-folded, and two companions were leading him along the edge of a cliff over a deep ravine, when the earth gave way, or they slipped and fell from the precipice, and Leggett was so injured ...
— Ars Recte Vivende - Being Essays Contributed to "The Easy Chair" • George William Curtis
... any case where the advance has been made by the female. Pairing may be for a season or for a period or for life. I don't think there is any rule; but in all cases of separation the children are invariably divided—the males to the father, the females to the mother. After initiation the children owe no allegiance to their parents. Love with them is a wild and wonderful rapture in all its manifestations, and without regard necessarily to sex. I never, in my life, saw a more beautiful expression of it than in the two females whom I saw ...
— Lore of Proserpine • Maurice Hewlett
... goddess of Licentiousness: here called 'dark-veiled' because her midnight orgies were veiled in darkness. She was a Thracian divinity, and her worshippers were called Baptae ('sprinkled'), because the ceremony of initiation involved the sprinkling ...
— Milton's Comus • John Milton
... night of our initiation, supper was over, the house-party and guests were all assembled on the balcony, the women engaged in needlework, and the men smoking cigarettes, when Saima, the Finnish servant, arrived to solemnly announce in a loud tone that the English lady's bath was ready. Taking a fond farewell of the ...
— Through Finland in Carts • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... The ceremonies of initiation were peculiarly solemn. After undergoing a severe fast, and spending whole nights in prayer, the candidate confessed, and received the sacrament. He then clothed himself in snow-white garments, and repaired to the church, or the hall, where the ceremony was to take place, bearing ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... as these brought about the initiation of the dastardly plot known in history as "The Pazzi Conspiracy." The name is somewhat open to criticism, for, although the Pazzi were the chief instruments employed, and exceeded all others in detestation of the Medici, the "forefront and head of the offending" ...
— The Tragedies of the Medici • Edgcumbe Staley
... been deputed to carry a dead body to burial, holds himself unclean until he has thoroughly washed himself in water prepared for the purpose by certain ceremonies.[127-2] A bath was an indispensable step in the mysteries of Mithras, the initiation at Eleusis, the meda worship of the Algonkins, the Busk of the Creeks, the ceremonials of religion everywhere. Baptism was at first always immersion. It was a bath meant to solemnize the reception of the child into the guild of mankind, drawn ...
— The Myths of the New World - A Treatise on the Symbolism and Mythology of the Red Race of America • Daniel G. Brinton
... that this mode of life has not been invented in order to cut short life as rapidly as possible, that the $2000, with all the rich diamonds upon initiation, may be repeated as frequently ...
— Life in the Grey Nunnery at Montreal • Sarah J Richardson
... not legitimate business. Not till we came to fly-fishing were we really entered at the sport, and this initiation took place, as it chanced, beside the very stream where I was first shown a trout. It is a charming piece of water, amber-coloured and clear, flowing from the Morvern hills under the limes of an ancient avenue—trees ...
— Angling Sketches • Andrew Lang
... Home; but the beauty and delicacy of this latter work are so interwoven with the author's air of being remotely outside of everything he describes, that they count for more, seem more themselves, and finally give the whole thing the appearance of a triumph, not of initiation, but of the ...
— Hawthorne - (English Men of Letters Series) • Henry James, Junr.
... fabric of the cathedral, the remainder of the historical portion will be associated with the names of the bishops—not that, by any means, the most important works connected with the church were due to the initiation of the bishops, nor was the cost always, or indeed generally, defrayed by them. The monastic body spent large sums upon the building, as has been seen in the case of the octagon: but these works are mostly to be credited to the whole body, and, except in a few cases, which are duly noticed, ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Ely • W. D. Sweeting
... strange man came to the village to live, even though no one boasted of his prowess, he was likely to suffer at the hands of the rougher element of the place. It was a sort of rude initiation into their society. These ceremonies were conducted with a savage sense of humor by a gang of rowdies known as the "Clary's Grove Boys," of whom the ...
— The Story of Young Abraham Lincoln • Wayne Whipple
... Street; requesting him to obtain Mrs. Haughton's acquiesence in that exercise of the discretionary powers with which he had been invested by Mr. Darrell. To Lionel the proposition that commended the very studies to which his tastes directed his ambition, and placed his initiation into responsible manhood among scenes bright to his fancy, because new to his experience, seemed of course the perfection of wisdom. Less readily pleased was poor Mrs. Haughton, when her son returned to communicate the arrangement, ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Behold, it is the privilege of mine honours,/My oath, and my profession] The privilege of this oath means the privilege gained by taking the oath administered in the regular initiation ...
— Notes to Shakespeare, Volume III: The Tragedies • Samuel Johnson
... how it can fail, sir. At what point in the action should it be put into effect? And will you call the time of initiation, or shall I?" ...
— Masters of Space • Edward Elmer Smith
... the all-important step from tableau to dialogue and action had been taken. Its initiation is shrouded in obscurity, but may have been as follows. Ever since the sixth century Antiphons, or choral chants in which the two sides of the choir alternately respond to each other, had been firmly established ...
— The Growth of English Drama • Arnold Wynne
... jurisdiction in different localities. In order not to be confounded with the vulgar mechanics who could only use the hammer and the trowel, the Freemasons invented signs of mutual recognition and certain ceremonies of initiation. A traditionary secret was handed down, revealed to the initiated, and that only according to the degrees they had attained. They adopted for symbols the square, the level, the compass, and the hammer. In some lodges and in higher ...
— Alvira: the Heroine of Vesuvius • A. J. O'Reilly
... first the new boy found everything quite delightful, and before a week was over had caught, as they meant him to catch, the spirit of party, and always was ready to stick up for the Noelites as the best house in the school. So far so good; but this was only the first step of initiation into these ...
— St. Winifred's - The World of School • Frederic W. Farrar
... with a sense of escape from prison, and for the ten days of their course they were like "freshers" at Oxford and made the most of their minutes, organizing concerts and other entertainments in the evenings after their initiation into the mysteries of Vickers and Lewis. I was invited to dinner there one night, and sat between two young cavalry officers on long benches crowded with subalterns of many regiments. It was a merry meal and a good one—to this day I remember a potato pie, gloriously ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs
... those who singly possessed equal science in mathematics as in metaphysics? It is not impossible, perhaps not improbable, from his course of learning and inquiries, that if Dr. Priestley had not from his first initiation into science been dedicated for what is called the immediate service of God, he himself might have been one of the greatest disprovers ...
— Answer to Dr. Priestley's Letters to a Philosophical Unbeliever • Matthew Turner
... fair-haired little woman of girlish figure and sweet expression, and from the moment of their introduction the unkempt monk, after crossing himself and uttering a benediction, became greatly interested in her, the result being that she became an "aspirant," and her initiation into the secrets of the cult was arranged to take place on the ...
— The Minister of Evil - The Secret History of Rasputin's Betrayal of Russia • William Le Queux
... and unique chief who can appoint, pay, punish and dismiss his subordinates.—For, on the one hand, he stands alone and feels his responsibility; he brings to bear on the management of affairs a degree of attention and consistency, a tact and a power of initiation of which a committee is incapable; corporate follies or defects do not involve any one in particular, and authority is effective only when it is in one hand.—On the other hand, being master, he can rely on the subalterns whom he has himself selected, whom he controls through their ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 2 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 1 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... The initiation lasted a whole year, till the time when the Christians joyfully celebrate the festival of Easter. One night in the holy week, Thais, who was already asleep on her mat, felt herself lifted by the slave, whose eyes gleamed with a strange light. He was clad, not as usual in a ...
— Thais • Anatole France
... the Bill proposed to throw technical education into the hands of the Science and Art Department. But, in reality, no power of initiation, nor even of meddling with details, was given to that Department—the sole function of which was to decide whether any plan proposed did or did not come within the limits of "technical education." The necessity for such control, somewhere, is obvious. No legislature, ...
— Evolution and Ethics and Other Essays • Thomas H. Huxley
... of the great goddess Diana; barbarian captives with the rites of Teuton priests; Syrians, Jews, Chaldaean astrologers, and Thessalian sorcerers.... The crowds which flocked to Rome from the eastern shores of the Mediterranean brought with them practices extremely demoralizing. The awful rites of initiation, the tricks of magicians, the pretended virtues of amulets and charms, the riddles of emblematical idolatry with which the superstition of the East abounded, amused the languid voluptuaries who had ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume III • John Lord
... his behaviour will be much improved." He clinked the coin before her. As O'Iwa passed up the stairs he returned to the hibachi of the wife. The tea was a short course. Cho[u]bei was on needles while drinking it. He feared an outbreak from above in the course of O'Iwa's initiation into a vileness the depth of which she never even could suspect. "Yes: trade is good. Women are difficult to secure. The men prefer to have them in their homes, rather than to gain by their service elsewhere." In such professional ...
— The Yotsuya Kwaidan or O'Iwa Inari - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 1 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... intellectual effort, whereas another is less fatigued by eight; and further, the daily occupations vary greatly in the demand that they make on attention and on such qualities as reason, judgment, and power of initiation. Those who teach or learn such subjects as mathematics, or those who are engaged in such occupations as portrait-painting and the higher forms of musical effort, must necessarily take more out of themselves than those who are employed in feeding a ...
— Youth and Sex • Mary Scharlieb and F. Arthur Sibly
... was born at Lichfield, in Staffordshire, on the 18th of September, N.S., 1709; and his initiation into the Christian Church was not delayed; for his baptism is recorded, in the register of St. Mary's parish in that city, to have been performed on the day of his birth. His father is there stiled Gentleman, a circumstance ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... chapter x.) What they found was a belief in 'the great spirit, Twanyirika,' who is believed 'by uninitiated boys and women' (but, apparently, not by adults) to preside over the cruel rites of tribal initiation.[2] No more is said, no myths about 'the great spirit' are given. He is dismissed in a brief note. Now if these ten lines contain all the native lore of Twanyirika, he is a mere bugbear, not believed ...
— The Making of Religion • Andrew Lang
... "Poor child! the initiation has been too much for her unformed mind," she murmured complacently, pleased with herself for having secured a disciple. "The path is narrow and rugged at the beginning, but it will broaden out before her as she ...
— Vixen, Volume III. • M. E. Braddon
... an initiation of a new era of religious teaching. The light is breaking and the full illumination is ...
— The Life Radiant • Lilian Whiting
... the initiation of new members into anything you like is done, anyway, tete-a-tete and not in the company of twenty people one doesn't know!" blurted out the lame man. He had said all that was in his mind because he was too irritated to restrain ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... means the only factor which it is in our power to grasp and direct. By our energetic effort the world can be moulded. It is the concern of all of us, and especially of those nations which are strong enough and enlightened enough to take a leading part in human affairs, to work towards the initiation and the organisation of this immense effort. In so far as the Great War of to-day acts as a spur to such effort it will not have ...
— Essays in War-Time - Further Studies In The Task Of Social Hygiene • Havelock Ellis
... my head and conducted me to my own bed, put me in, tucked me up, and tenderly kissing me, left the room, first unlocking my door and then locking the door of communication between the two rooms. Thus passed the first glorious night of my initiation into all the rites of Venus, and at the hands of a lovely, fresh and beautiful woman, who had only been married long enough to make her a perfect adept in the art. Never, oh never! have I passed such a night. ...
— The Romance of Lust - A classic Victorian erotic novel • Anonymous
... for Lens.—As I was indebted to the kindness of DR. DIAMOND, amongst other friends, for my original initiation into the mysteries of photography, it may appear somewhat presumptuous in me to differ from one who has had so much more experience in a point of practice. I allude to that of washing the collodion negative after developing, previously ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 187, May 28, 1853 • Various
... Meister's Apprenticeship and Wandering Years that I would especially refer, as these volumes contain the sum of the Sage's observations during a long life, as to what Man should do, under present circumstances, to obtain mastery over outward, through an initiation into inward life, and severe ...
— Woman in the Ninteenth Century - and Kindred Papers Relating to the Sphere, Condition - and Duties, of Woman. • Margaret Fuller Ossoli |
