"Superstitious" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... spoiling the feather in her bonnet. The nine brats expressed their disappointment by slapping one another on the staircases. Peter felt that Mrs. Crowl connected him in some way with the rainfall, and was unhappy. Was it not enough that he had been deprived of the pleasure of pointing out to a superstitious majority the mutual contradictions of Leviticus and the Song of Solomon? It was not often that Crowl could count on such ...
— The Big Bow Mystery • I. Zangwill
... but the most obdurate characters) to bring one's hopes of domestic prosperity and a fortunate lineage into direct hostility with the awful claims of the ancient religion. At all events, there is still a superstitious idea, betwixt a fantasy and a belief, that the possession of former Church-property has drawn a curse along with it, not only among the posterity of those to whom it was originally granted, but wherever it has subsequently been transferred, even if ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 62, December, 1862 • Various
... little cabinet. May there result no grievous outcome for either of us! From that room emanates a malign influence from which I would have protected you. If you, in your turn should become subjected to it, I should never get over it. Forgive me; when we love we are superstitious." ...
— The Seven Wives Of Bluebeard - 1920 • Anatole France
... I," rejoined his companion seriously. Both were superstitious men, a failing apparently not shared by Bellew, who stood regarding them, seated easily sideways in his saddle, ...
— The Girl Aviators on Golden Wings • Margaret Burnham
... fact was that all the shame and vexation and mortification which he felt over the accident were less powerful than the deep impression of the almost supernatural truth of his premonition. He stood still in alarm—in almost superstitious alarm, for a moment; then all mists seemed to clear away from his eyes; he was conscious of nothing but light and joy and ecstasy; his breath came and went; but the moment passed. Thank God it was not that! He drew a ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... slily dropped the battered coin into the muzzle of his gun, taking care to secure its presence, until he himself should send it on its disenchanting message, by a wad torn from the lining of part of his vestments. Supported by this redoubtable auxiliary, the superstitious but still courageous borderer followed his companion, whistling a low air that equally denoted his indifference to danger of an ordinary nature, and his sensibility to impressions of ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper
... blouse, with loose trowsers thrust in his boots; such a wretch, in short, as you would select for an unmitigated ruffian if you were in want of a model for that character—take off his cap, and, with superstitious awe and an expression of profound humility, bow down before some picture of a dragon with seven heads or a chubby little baby ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... I would say that they are lazy and easy-going (though not so much so as the Roro and Mekeo people), lively, excitable, cheerful, merry, fairly intelligent (this being judged rather from the young people), very superstitious, brave, with much power of enduring pain, cruel, not more revengeful perhaps than is usual among uncivilised natives, friendly one with another, not quarrelsome, but untrustworthy and not over-faithful even in their dealings with one another, though honest as regards boundaries and ...
— The Mafulu - Mountain People of British New Guinea • Robert W. Williamson
... they observe that the worshippers in Church are serious and subdued in their manner, and will not look, and speak, and move as much at their ease as out of doors, or in their own houses, then (if they are very profane) they ridicule them, as weak and superstitious. Now is it not plain that those who are thus tired, and wearied, and made impatient by our sacred services below, would most certainly get tired and wearied with heaven above? because there the Cherubim and Seraphim "rest not day and night," saying, "Holy, ...
— Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. VIII (of 8) • John Henry Newman
... been sadly jarred since I began to study them. Writing with one eye on this master-mariner of ours, I call to mind certain conceptions of the sailor-man which my youthful mind gathered from books and relations. He was an honest, God-fearing man; slightly superstitious certainly, slightly forcible in his language at times, slightly garrulous when telling you about the Sarah Sands; but all these were as spots on the sun. He was just and upright towards all men, never dreamed of making money "on ...
— An Ocean Tramp • William McFee
... England (Mr. R.W. Emerson) while traveling through the northern part of Norway, with a cargo of tinware, on the 21st of June, 1836, distinctly saw the Sun in all its majesty, shining at midnight!—in fact, shining all night! Emerson is not what you would call a superstitious man, by any means—but, he left! Since that time many persons have observed its nocturnal appearance in that part of the country, at the same time of the year. This phenomenon has never been witnessed in the latitude of San Diego, however, and it is very improbable that it ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume V. (of X.) • Various
... discourses and discoveries as they deserved. But when the experience of succeeding times had verified many of their sayings, which had been considered as vain and empty boastings in their lifetimes, then prosperity began to pay a superstitious regard to whatever could be collected concerning them, and to admire all they delivered as oraculous. Our other discoverer, Candish, was likewise a man of great parts and great penetration, as well as of great spirit; he had, undoubtedly, a mighty genius for discoveries; ...
— Early Australian Voyages • John Pinkerton
... error hath been erected. But then, of these multitudinous sources of protection we must not be slow to avail ourselves impartially. The prejudice which would erect Codexes B and [Symbol: Aleph] into an authority for the text of the New Testament from which there shall be no appeal:—the superstitious reverence which has grown up for one little cluster of authorities, to the disparagement of all other evidence wheresoever found; this, which is for ever landing critics in results which are simply irrational and untenable, ...
— The Causes of the Corruption of the Traditional Text of the Holy Gospels • John Burgon
... demand quite other performances as a living manifestation of the relation of Israel to Jehovah. This was the reason of their so great hostility to the cultus, and the source of their antipathy to the great sanctuaries, where superstitious zeal outdid itself; it was this that provoked their wrath against the multiplicity of the altars which flourished so luxuriantly on the soil of a false confidence. That the holy places should be abolished, but the cultus itself remain as before ...
— Prolegomena to the History of Israel • Julius Wellhausen
... itself The Begonia Furnishing Company. I glanced through the books and soon concluded that they were swindlers. I worried over that case for a week; you see it was my first case, and I felt a little superstitious about it. However, at the end of a week I sent the books back saying that I couldn't see my way to undertake the auditing. I've never ...
— A Dominie in Doubt • A. S. Neill
... overtakes the man who attempts to accomplish ideal good by material means. Sancho, on the other hand, with his proverbs, is the type of the man with common sense. He always sees things in the daylight of reason. He is never taken in by his master's theory of enchanters,—although superstitious enough to believe such things possible,—but he does believe, despite all reverses, in his promises of material prosperity and advancement. The island that has been promised him always floats before him like the air-drawn dagger before Macbeth, and beckons him on. The whole character is exquisite. ...
— The Function Of The Poet And Other Essays • James Russell Lowell
... over one thirtieth of the value, or at least the cost which had been incurred in building the city, would have restored it to a perfectly inhabitable state. The fact that it was utterly abandoned probably indicates a certain superstitious view ...
— Outlines of the Earth's History - A Popular Study in Physiography • Nathaniel Southgate Shaler
... people is idolatry and fetich, or superstition. They have large houses where they worship snakes; and so great is their reverence for the reptile, that, if any one kills one that has escaped, he is punished with death. But, above their wild and superstitious notions, there is an ever-present consciousness of a Supreme Being. They seldom mention the name of God, and then ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams
... carried off the young monarch, who had reigned but eight months. Elizabeth Farnese, aided by the pope's nuncio and some monks who were devoted to her, had triumphed over her husband's religious scruples and the superstitious counsels of his confessor; she was once more reigning over Spain, when she heard that the little Infanta-queen, whose betrothal to the King of France had but lately caused so much joy, was about to be sent away from ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... "prerogatives" were hostages from Galway, the monopoly of the chase in Mayo, free quarters in Murrisk, in the same neighbourhood, and to marshal his border-host at Athlone to confer with the tribes of Meath. The ruler of Ulster was also forbidden to indulge in such superstitious practices as observing omens of birds, or drinking of a certain fountain "between two darknesses;" his prerogatives were presiding at the games of Cooley, "with the assembly of the fleet;" the right of mustering his border army in the plains of Louth; free quarters ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... be deemed Beauties by 300—if so many there were; and this not out of any respect for the Public (i.e. the persons who might happen to purchase and look over the Book), but from a hobby-horsical, superstitious regard to my own feelings and sense of Duty. Language is the sacred Fire in this Temple of Humanity, and the Muses are its especial and vestal Priestesses. Though I cannot prevent the vile drugs ...
— A Publisher and His Friends • Samuel Smiles
... Mr. Jarvis. It was in life-and-death earnestness. I would not have felt that I could truly trust you unless you had gone through that. Remember, I am a product of a different civilization from your own: I am still superstitious, if you please to term it so, in the Old-World sense. I speak your language, and indeed think in it with you. But back in the inner shrine of my being I am a Spanish woman, true to my heredity. You are essentially an American—droll, well-balanced, cynical—and oblivious to any other ...
— The Ghost Breaker - A Novel Based Upon the Play • Charles Goddard
... answered with a smile. "I told my messenger to see that the gate of the reservoir was opened at four o'clock. So, you see, you had to marry or swim. Now I've made a clean breast of it. I felt sure something would happen before you got back from Milwaukee. I was plum superstitious about it." ...
— A Man for the Ages - A Story of the Builders of Democracy • Irving Bacheller
... world should be regarded with superstitious reverence, it is the Colorado, for it represents to us, albeit in a diminished form, the element that has produced the miracle of the Arizona Canon,—water. Far back in the distant Eocene Epoch of our planet's history, the Colorado was the outlet of an inland sea which ...
— John L. Stoddard's Lectures, Vol. 10 (of 10) - Southern California; Grand Canon of the Colorado River; Yellowstone National Park • John L. Stoddard
... it was due, likewise, to certain characteristic qualities of the young general. In the first place, he was thoroughly convinced of his own abilities. Ambitious, selfish, and egotistical, he was always thinking and planning how he might become world-famous. Fatalistic and even superstitious, he believed that an unseen power was leading him on to higher and grander honors. He convinced his associates that he was "a man of destiny." Then, in the second place, Bonaparte possessed an effective ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes
... 'dispersed to the elements of which our strange forms are so mystically composed,' are all wonderful indications of insight into a type of mind differing inconceivably from the mere infidel villain of modern novels, and which could never have been attributed to a knight of the superstitious Middle Ages without a strong basis of historical research. Very striking indeed is his fierce love for Rebecca—his intense appreciation of her great courage and firmness, which he at once recognizes as congenial to his own daring, and believes will form for him in her a fit ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... customs, informal allusions in conversation, and direct statements and instruction. But frequently the resultant mental picture is a misleading one, sometimes even vicious in its moral effect. Where superstitious servants take more interest in the child's religious ideas than do his parents, we have the child whose life is darkened by the fear of an omnipotent ogre. Nursemaids will slothfully scare small children into silence by threats of the awful presence ...
— Religious Education in the Family • Henry F. Cope
... Impossible! My mother could not be killed because her destiny was not yet fulfilled. No: there was a deep pool right under the tree. She fell into that with a plunge that echoed from cliff to cliff. The Indians were profoundly superstitious. All Indians are not so, but these Indians were. They waited not for more. They turned and fled as if all the evil spirits in the Rocky Mountains were chasing them. They reached their wigwams breathless, and told their squaws that one of the spirits of a mountain stream ...
— The Buffalo Runners - A Tale of the Red River Plains • R.M. Ballantyne
... in which this speech occurs is one of Scott's most finished pieces, showing with supreme art how far the weakness of Richie's superstitious formality is increased by his being ...
— On the Old Road, Vol. 2 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... new Canon was nothing to him. He very seldom now, being over eighty, with a strange "wormy" pain in his left ear, took his horses out himself. He saved his money and counted it over by his fireside to see that his old woman didn't get any of it. He hated his old woman, and in a vaguely superstitious, thoroughly Glebeshire fashion half-believed that she had cast a spell over him and was really responsible for his ...
— The Cathedral • Hugh Walpole
... of cards, the celebrated Balthazar, in regard to his future. He was amazed to find how much of his past this man was able to reveal to him, a past made up of struggles and of obstacles overcome, and he joyously accepted predictions that assured him victory. Balzac was superstitious, not in a vulgar way, but through a deep curiosity in the presence of those mysteries of the universe which are unexplained by science. He believed himself to be endowed with magnetic powers; and, as a matter of fact, ...
— Honor de Balzac • Albert Keim and Louis Lumet
... opportunities of learning mechanics. The fairest and richest damsel in St. Omer, she had been left early by her father an orphan, to the care of a superstitious mother and of a learned uncle, the Abbot of St. Bertin. Her mother was a Provencale, one of those Arlesiennes whose dark Greek beauty still shines, like diamonds set in jet, in the doorways of the quaint old city. Gay ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley
... contemptible, superstitious, tottering object, that the bold sons of France allow themselves to be enslaved? He is a mere skeleton in purple, who can scarcely cough out of his asthmatic throat the desire to live; yet they tremble before him, as if he were a giant, ...
— Faustus - his Life, Death, and Doom • Friedrich Maximilian von Klinger
... mob, each more mischievous and daring than the former. The Duc d'Orleans continued busy in his work of secret destruction. In one of the popular risings, a sabre struck his bust, and its head fell, severed from its body. Many of the rioters (for the ignorant are always superstitious) shrunk back at this omen of evil to their idol. His real friends endeavoured to deduce a salutary warning to him from the circumstance. I was by when the Duc de Penthievre told him, in the presence of his daughter, that he might look upon this accident as prophetic of the fate ...
— The Secret Memoirs of Louis XV./XVI, Complete • Madame du Hausset, an "Unknown English Girl" and the Princess Lamballe
... dabbling in the Black Art, the hocus-pocus way in which the Lenny he had incarcerated was transformed into the doctor he found, conjoined with the peculiarly strange eldrich and Mephistophelean physiognomy and person of Riccabocca, could not but strike a thrill of superstitious dismay into the breast of the parochial tyrant; while to his first confused and stammered exclamations and interrogatories, Riccabocca replied with so tragic an air, such ominous shakes of the head, such mysterious equivocating, long-worded sentences, that Stirn every ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... not fear traps with the full knowledge of their powers and limitations as the coyotes did, but with the superstitious dread of the wolf. In common with all his kind he had merely avoided instead of investigating this danger, and now his understanding could not distinguish between a trap that was set and one that was sprung ...
— The Yellow Horde • Hal G. Evarts
... boys once trailed him to a rocky glen. The horses would not enter; the boys went in afoot, and were never seen again. The Mexicans held him in superstitious terror, believing that he could not be killed; and he passed another year in the cattle-land, known and feared now as the "Monarch of the Range," killing in the open by night, and retiring by day to his fastness in the near hills, ...
— Monarch, The Big Bear of Tallac • Ernest Thompson Seton
... predisposing causes by which it is probable that such men may have been affected, they are prone to superstition. On which account it appeared to me proper to select a character like this to exhibit some of the general laws by which superstition acts upon the mind. Superstitious men are almost always men of slow faculties and deep feelings; their minds are not loose but adhesive; they have a reasonable share of imagination, by which word I mean the faculty which produces impressive effects out of simple elements; ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth - Volume 1 of 8 • Edited by William Knight
... the relation of the Cyrenaic school to the popular faith, the general proposition has been handed down to us that the wise man could not be "deisidaimon," i.e. superstitious or god-fearing; the Greek word can have both senses. This does not speak for piety at any rate, but then the relationship of the Cyrenaics to the gods of popular belief was different from that of the other followers ...
— Atheism in Pagan Antiquity • A. B. Drachmann
... likeness to the following transcript of a popular Irish one. It may, however, be interesting to show this very coincidence between the descendants of a Dutch transatlantic colony and the native peasantry of Ireland, in the superstitious annals of both. Our tale, moreover, will be found original in all its circumstances, that alluded to ...
— Stories by English Authors: Ireland • Various
... no religious exercises at the funerals, neither singing, praying, preaching, or reading of the scriptures. This was by way of revolt from former superstitious practices. The friends gathered, condoled with the afflicted ones, sat around a while and then the corpse was taken to the burying ground. After that the party returned to the house of the deceased, where much eating and drinking ...
— The Two Hundredth Anniversary of the Settlement of the Town of New Milford, Conn. June 17th, 1907 • Daniel Davenport
... terrific to witness the poor man's fright. He was pale as death, with tottering knees and trembling in every limb. I myself felt a cold shudder creep over me, although usually I am neither timid nor superstitious. But it is such a singular coincidence, that the White Lady should appear on the very day when the Electoral Prince ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach
... period vast numbers of illuminated liturgical books were destroyed for religious or fanatical reasons, just as in our own Cromwellian times numbers of Hor, Missals, etc., were destroyed as papistical and superstitious. ...
— Illuminated Manuscripts • John W. Bradley
... will!" It is vain; side by side we plunge, but the cutter evidently gains; a glimpse of blue sky is apparent at the back of her steerer; it increases; the slanting beams of the setting sun shines full in our eyes. It is noticed by the crew—sailors are superstitious, and their hopes sink with the sun; "But it will rise again! Give way, boys, give way! we'll beat them yet!" Again they put forth all their power, and the bow oars nearly touch. But the wind increases, the sea rises, a heavy swell knocks us back ...
— Kathay: A Cruise in the China Seas • W. Hastings Macaulay
... described it as "absolutely useless," because the king particularly wished to save it, the nuns having been favourites of his mother. To Cavour, Victor Emmanuel's resistance had seemed simply a fit of superstitious folly; he did not sufficiently realise how distasteful the whole affair must be to a man like the king, who said to General Durando when he was starting for the Crimea, "You are fortunate, General, in going to fight the Russians, while I stay here to fight ...
— Cavour • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... moss and lichen, seemed planted as a wall of defence. As he approached, seeking to leave the spot, they tossed their long arms as if warning him away, and the thick darkness behind appeared to become denser, and to frown him back. A superstitious fear crept into his heart, and he turned his eyes to the sweet glade rejoicing in the sunlight, where all looked smiling and inviting. In the centre, upon a gentle mound covered with a carpet of the softest, ...
— Holidays at the Grange or A Week's Delight - Games and Stories for Parlor and Fireside • Emily Mayer Higgins
... I told him about the pilot of the Pinta steering my vessel through the storm off the coast of the Azores, and that I looked for him at the helm in a gale such as this. I do not charge Howard with superstition,—we are none of us superstitious,—but when I spoke about his returning to Montevideo on the Spray he shook his head and took a ...
— Sailing Alone Around The World • Joshua Slocum
... fled from him whenever he appeared in the streets. At length we see him established at Lyons as physician to the Queen Mother, the Princess Louise of Savoy, and enjoying a pension from Francis I. This lady seems to have been of a superstitious turn of mind, and requested the learned Agrippa, whose fame for astrology had doubtless reached her, to consult the stars concerning the destinies of France. This Agrippa refused, and complained of being employed in such follies. His refusal aroused the ire of the Queen; her courtiers ...
— Books Fatal to Their Authors • P. H. Ditchfield
... followers, by telling them I have no regard for Christianity. Still, it will be for me to settle which, in present circumstances, is best,—to remain in, and not be misconstrued, or to go out and bear a testimony against the superstitious keeping of the day. Different circumstances will dictate different action on ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... duchesses and the Pope himself,—some incredulous, some mocking, some devout, some hesitating, some spell-bound, in the presence of a holy man. The fashionable ladies wish to take him up and make a lion of him; the superstitious kiss the hem of his garment and believe that he can work miracles, or, in a sudden revulsion, they jeer him and drive him away with stones. And what a panorama of ecclesiastical life in Italy! What a collection ...
— The Saint • Antonio Fogazzaro
... speaking, the redbreast has the best time of it in northern lands. This tolerance has not, as has been suggested, any connection with Protestantism, for such a distinction would exclude the greater part of Ireland, where, as it happens, the bird is as safe from persecution as in Britain, since the superstitious peasants firmly believe that anyone killing a "spiddog" will be punished by a lump growing on the palm of his hand. The untoward fate of the robin in Latin countries bordering the Mediterranean has nothing ...
— Birds in the Calendar • Frederick G. Aflalo
... rock, gazed into the darkness where the apparition had been; even Harry felt a thrill of half-superstitious wonder, and listened half mechanically to a rough sailor's voice ...
— Malbone - An Oldport Romance • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... she be confined somewhere. "You never can tell about her kind," he had said; he had a superstitious fear of her. ...
— At the Crossroads • Harriet T. Comstock
... wax candles, and superstitious mummeries, and painted jackets of the Catholic priests, I fear ...
— Sydney Smith • George W. E. Russell
... the deck, and that we should then make a rush together, and secure the companion-way before any opposition could be offered. I objected to this, because I could not believe that the mate (who was a cunning fellow in all matters which did not affect his superstitious prejudices) would suffer himself to be so easily entrapped. The very fact of there being a watch on deck at all was sufficient proof that he was upon the alert,—it not being usual except in vessels where discipline ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... to be ridiculed as a superstitious dreamer—nor, on the other hand, could I ask you to accept on my affirmation what you would hold to be incredible without the evidence of your own senses. Let me only say this, it was not so much what we saw or heard (in which ...
— The Best Ghost Stories • Various
... whole of his journey Matt's mind was a prey to wild and foreboding passion—passion largely the product of a rude and superstitious mind. Questions painful, if not foolish, haunted and tormented him. Would Miriam die? Had not the seven years of their past life been too happy to last? Did not his mother once reverse the old Hebrew proverb, and warn him that a night of weeping would follow a morning ...
— Lancashire Idylls (1898) • Marshall Mather
... The enemy are finally defeated, with loss of all their ships and artillery, and practically all their men killed or captured. Soon afterward the viceroy is accidentally drowned, which puts an end to his plans of conquest. The missionaries in Cochinchina are persecuted by superstitious natives. ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXIII, 1629-30 • Various
... while aeroplanes flung down bombs. A thunderstorm rumbled in combination with the continuous roar of the German guns. A panic took hold of the citizens. Distracted men, women and children huddled together in spellbound terror, or sought the shelter of their cellars. The more superstitious pronounced this to be the end of all things, from the eclipse of the sun which darkened the sky. Fort Malonne succumbed sometime during the afternoon ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume II (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... people of Paris if once the enemy were able to put a foot within the walls of the capital city. He was very ambitious, he was very confident, he was very brave, and yet he felt that ambition, confidence and courage were not enough at that crisis to give his throne support. The superstitious side of his nature turned restlessly to the unknown and his spirit dived into crystals or soared among the spinning planets, struggling for occult enlightenment. To the superstitious, trifles are the giants of destiny, and the king's escapade of the previous evening had taken a firm hold on his fancy. ...
— If I Were King • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... of vegetable and animal poisons in which art they were exceptionally expert and that they were equally skilful in shooting poisoned arrows. Some of my informants wanted to make me believe that they were exceedingly ferocious by nature and so superstitious that they would aim their deadly dart at whatever stranger ventured to approach them, believing him to be the messenger of some Evil Spirit and that afterwards they would make of him a dainty meal ...
— My Friends the Savages - Notes and Observations of a Perak settler (Malay Peninsula) • Giovanni Battista Cerruti
... applied. Even when taught by dire experience the necessity of laying up adequate stores, it was the almost universal practice to waste great quantities of food by a constant succession of feasts, in the superstitious observances of which the stores were rapidly wasted and plenty soon gave way to ...
— Seventh Annual Report • Various
... array across the steep banks on either side, taking now this, now that wild and fanciful shape, awakened strange feelings of dread in the mind of these poor forlorn wanderers; like most persons bred up in solitude, their imaginations were strongly tinctured with superstitious fears. Here, then, in the lonely wilderness, far from their beloved parents and social hearth, with no visible arm to protect them from danger, none to encourage or to cheer them, they started with terror-blanched cheeks at ...
— Lost in the Backwoods • Catharine Parr Traill
... interview between the dead and living scrupled not to affirm that at the instant when the clergyman's features were disclosed the corpse had slightly shuddered, rustling the shroud and muslin cap, though the countenance retained the composure of death. A superstitious old woman was the ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... of mysterious horsemen. They rode by night, wearing long white garments with hoods that hid their faces, and to the terror-stricken Negroes who encountered them they declared themselves—not without symbolic truth—the ghosts of the great armies that had died in defence of the Confederacy. But superstitious terrors were not the only ones ...
— A History of the United States • Cecil Chesterton
... not a bit superstitious (nobody is), but she had been watching the omens (most people do), and she would have been better satisfied had the day been bright; but still she felt no shadow of a foreboding until the twins appeared. Then, however, there arose in her heart a horrified exclamation: "It is unnatural! It ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... young theologian on the way to that same ghostly state was an object of piquant interest. She had never had a flirtation with a man of this character, therefore there was all the zest of novelty. Had she been less fearless, she would have shrunk from it, however, with something of the superstitious dread that many have of jesting in a church, or a graveyard. But there was a trace of hardihood in her present course that just took her fancy. From lack of familiarity with the class, she had a vague impression ...
— From Jest to Earnest • E. P. Roe
... dixit, as he does not, in truth cannot, show why it is not to be justified. The passage I alluded to is the argument of an old woman; and Mr. Addison's being a writer of true humour is not justification of his reasoning like a superstitious gossip. In the other passage you have sent me, Mr. Kippis is perfectly in the right, and corrects me very justly. Had I seen Archbishop Abbot's(313) Preface, with the outrageous flattery on, And lies of James I., I should certainly ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... old-world mechanism into oblivion; the wooden press which, with all its imperfections, turned out such beautiful work for the Elzevirs, Plantin, Aldus, and Didot is so completely forgotten, that something must be said as to the obsolete gear on which Jerome-Nicolas Sechard set an almost superstitious affection, for it plays a part in this ...
— Two Poets - Lost Illusions Part I • Honore de Balzac
... down here then," he explained, "for the Minjla Mela, a superstitious ceremony by which we test the luck of the State for the coming year. An unfortunate buffalo is flung into the Ravee, just above the rapids; and if he succumbs, or scrambles out on the far side, the gods will not fail us. But ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver
... might be occasionally saying parts of sentences to herself. But there was no sound, for I was the nearest person to her and I heard nothing. But I set my ears open, for those two speeches had affected me uncannily, I being superstitious and easily troubled by any little thing of a strange and ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... her watch fifteen minutes to the ringing of the bell, a sudden resolve that she would speak to her father without another minute's delay had prompted her like a superstitious impulse to abandon her aimless course and be direct. She knew what was good for her; she knew it now more clearly than in the morning. To be taken away instantly! was her cry. There could be no further doubt. Had there ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... this attitude seems somewhat superstitious. The period of opposition to a measure is not ended when it has passed Parliament and received the royal assent. The question is whether it will receive the assent of the people. Can it get itself obeyed? If it can, then its future ...
— Humanly Speaking • Samuel McChord Crothers
... seventeenth century. The old quay remains. The ancient bridge, which is a remarkable one, was built five hundred years ago, and is constructed on twenty-four piers, firmly founded, yet shaking under the footstep. The superstitious say it is of miraculous origin, for when they began to build it some distance farther up the river, each night invisible hands removed the stones to their present position. It is also a wealthy bridge and of noble rank, having its heraldic ...
— England, Picturesque and Descriptive - A Reminiscence of Foreign Travel • Joel Cook
... evening at a small tobacconist's hard by, has related anecdotes of this pipe and the grim figures that are carved upon its bowl, at which all the smokers in the neighbourhood have stood aghast; and I know that my housekeeper, while she holds it in high veneration, has a superstitious feeling connected with it which would render her exceedingly unwilling to be left alone in its company ...
— Master Humphrey's Clock • Charles Dickens
... his journeys too, was but imperfectly obtained, as his people were so very much occupied in the hunt that they could pay but little attention to the preaching of the word; and their heathen companions disliked the presence of a missionary, as it caused those to keep back who believed in their superstitious customs and practices, and who practised them, and on whom, according to their notions, the success of the ...
— The Moravians in Labrador • Anonymous
... gave utterance to a remarkable prophecy. Tolstoy was a mystic, and it was not unusual for him to go into a semi-trance state in which he professed to peer far into the future and obtain visions of things beyond the ken of average men. The Russian czar was superstitious and it is said that the German emperor had a strong leaning towards the mystic and psychic. In fact, it has been stated that the Kaiser's claim to a partnership with The Almighty was the result of delusions formed in his consultations with mediums—the modern ...
— History of the American Negro in the Great World War • W. Allison Sweeney
... superstitious to lend a half belief to the idea that the place was haunted, and that was his reason for haste. The electrician was only sorry that so much time had been purely wasted; that was his reason. He was a middle-aged ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... and caused by actual vibrations of the atmosphere. I am acquainted with at least four persons, all of them healthy, and normal enough, who have had such experiences. In all four cases, the apparent voice (though the listeners have no superstitious belief on the subject) has communicated intelligence which proved to be correct. But in only one instance, I think, was the information thus communicated beyond the reach of conjecture, based perhaps on some observation unconsciously made ...
— The Valet's Tragedy and Other Stories • Andrew Lang
... beauty and gallantry—Laguerre, D'Hervieux, Sophie Arnould. Having lost their virtue with maturity, these women had no sense of morality; in them, nothing preserved the sense of honor—their religion consisted of a few superstitious practices. The constituents of duty and the virtue of women they could only vaguely guess; marriage itself was presented to them under the most ...
— Women of Modern France - Woman In All Ages And In All Countries • Hugo P. Thieme
... that I have often during a stormy night wondered if he might not be sitting there ruling the elements, but never had the temerity to go and see. I may here tell the reader that although not naturally superstitious, I have a way of peopling my island with beings during the solitary walks I take in the day, that at night I almost fancy these spirit-forms hover round me—perhaps watching me. It may be that I have mistaken the flight ...
— Jethou - or Crusoe Life in the Channel Isles • E. R. Suffling
... unacquainted with the disturbance they were under; and as he thought it unseasonable to use violence with them, so he spake to some of them by way of consolation, and in order to free them from that superstitious fear they were under; yet could not he satisfy them, but they cried out with one accord, out of their great uneasiness at the offenses they thought he had been guilty of, that although they should think of bearing all the rest yet would they never bear images of men in their city, ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... "Hold thy superstitious tongue," answered Varney; "and while thou talkest of visiting, answer me, thou paltering knave, how came Tressilian to be ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... the South, in America, and among the Hawaiians, we find marked instances of this kind. The negro Voodoo men and women work Black Magic on those of their race who are superstitious and credulous, and who have a mortal fear of the Voodoo. Travelers who have visited the countries in which there is a large negro population have many interesting tales to recite of the terrible workings of these Voodoo black magicians. In some cases, sickness and even death ...
— Genuine Mediumship or The Invisible Powers • Bhakta Vishita
... suddenly before his face. Michu, superstitious like all primitive beings, fancied he heard the muffled tones of a death-knell. The day, however, began brightly enough for lovers, who rarely see magpies when together in the woods. Michu, armed with his plan, verified the spots; each gentleman had brought ...
— An Historical Mystery • Honore de Balzac
... American people is intoxicated by passion, or carried away by the impetuosity of its ideas, it is checked and stopped by the almost invisible influence of its legal counsellors, who secretly oppose their aristocratic propensities to its democratic instincts, their superstitious attachment to what is antique to its love of novelty, their narrow views to its immense designs, and their habitual procrastination to ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... Philosophers imitating the Heavenly Bodies in their Circular Motion, would seem indeed extreamly ridiculous, but that we are to consider that the Mahometans have a superstitious Custom of going several times round the Cave of Meccah, when they go thither on Pilgrimage, and look upon it as a very necessary part of their Duty. Now our Author having resolved to bring his Philosopher as ...
— The Improvement of Human Reason - Exhibited in the Life of Hai Ebn Yokdhan • Ibn Tufail
... almoist no questioun for materis of religioun, the space ney of thretty yearis. For not long after, to witt in the year of God 1508,[41] the said Bischop Blackcater departed this lief, going in his superstitious devotioun to Hierusalem; unto whome succeided Mr. James Beatoun, sone to the Lard of Balfour, in Fyfe, who was moir cairfull for the world then he was to preach Christ, or yitt to advance any religioun, but for the fassioun only; and as he ...
— The Works of John Knox, Vol. 1 (of 6) • John Knox
... in hunting and war by the aborigines of the British Isles and of Europe generally, as they still are among savages elsewhere; derived their name from the superstitious belief that they were used by the fairies to kill cattle and sometimes human beings in their mischief-joy; they were sometimes worn as talismans, occasionally set in silver, ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... superstitious fear, clung silently to the arm of Fatia Negra whom all these speechless marvels served and obeyed. Finally, descending six stone steps they entered the actual ...
— The Poor Plutocrats • Maurus Jokai
... have belonged to Bobby Smudge. This was considered still stronger proof that the poor lad had destroyed himself, as no doubt he had hung them there before jumping into the sea. Seamen are certainly the most superstitious beings alive, for this trifling matter made them talk the whole evening after they had knocked off work about Bobby and his ways; and scarcely one but believed that his spirit would haunt the ship as long ...
— Salt Water - The Sea Life and Adventures of Neil D'Arcy the Midshipman • W. H. G. Kingston
... There was a surging forward of the straining red line, while in their front howled and gesticulated the hideous old medicine-man, his painted face distorted by passion, eager to grasp this auspicious moment to cast down forever one who had sought to end his superstitious rule among the tribe. I marked how she drew back as they advanced, retreating step by step,—not, indeed, as if she feared them, but rather as if some definite purpose led her movement. Her eyes never ...
— When Wilderness Was King - A Tale of the Illinois Country • Randall Parrish
... than both boys were at their stations. The next moment a great white path, widening as it went, streamed out into the darkness, lighting up everything in its reach with the brilliancy of day, but with a bluish-whiteness which must have been decidedly terrifying to the superstitious negroes. Like an accusing finger the strange light swept around the field, raising and lowering, resting a few moments on this group and then that group of petrified, hideously-painted faces, from which eyeballs stood out ...
— Around the World in Ten Days • Chelsea Curtis Fraser
... appeased with external rites and symbols, with changes of vestment, excessive lustrations, and the like. Now he had grown earnest, uncompromising, in his religion; and consistency entailed a further step. Clearly his person, the object of such superstitious veneration, must be guarded from all unbecoming and ridiculous accidents; such an accident, for instance, as getting drunk. If you came to think of it, few things could be more compromising to the person than that (Heavens! if Miss Harden had seen ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... been in company with Gravina, and after what I heard him say, so far from judging him superstitious, I thought him really impious. But infidelity and ...
— Memoirs of the Court of St. Cloud, Complete - Being Secret Letters from a Gentleman at Paris to a Nobleman in London • Lewis Goldsmith
... match in modern history. Save in a few large cities, every American community lies under a sacerdotal despotism whose devices are disingenuous and dishonourable, and whose power was magnificently displayed in the campaign for Prohibition—a despotism exercised by a body of ignorant, superstitious, self-seeking and thoroughly dishonest men. One may, without prejudice, reasonably defend the Catholic clergy. They are men who, at worst, pursue an intelligible ideal and dignify it with a real sacrifice. But in the presence of the Methodist clergy it is difficult to avoid giving way to the weakness ...
— The American Credo - A Contribution Toward the Interpretation of the National Mind • George Jean Nathan
... after the passing of the Act (1 Edw. VI, c. 14) confiscating property devoted to "superstitious uses," the corporation and the livery companies were the objects of suspicion of holding "concealed lands," i.e. lands held charged for superstitious uses, which they had failed to divulge. The appointment of a royal commission to search for such lands was submitted to the law officers of ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume I • Reginald R. Sharpe
... of a boyish memory of the shocking end of his father that had distorted the piety of Henry the Third into superstitious terror. A frightened soul, himself touched with the contrary sort of religious madness, doting on all that was alien from his father's huge ferocity, on the genialities, the soft gilding, of life, on the genuine interests ...
— Appreciations, with an Essay on Style • Walter Horatio Pater
... pitiable state of superstitious indecision. It was popularly believed that Quetzalcoatl would some day return, and it was more than probable to the Aztec monarch and his counsellors that he might be reincarnated in the person of Cortes and his followers. Indeed, the common name for them among the Mexicans was Teules, ...
— South American Fights and Fighters - And Other Tales of Adventure • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... ye learned, who grope your dull way on "By the dim twinkling gleams of ages gone, "Like superstitious thieves who think the light "From dead men's marrow guides them best at night[49]— "Ye shall have honors—wealth—yes, Sages, yes— "I know, grave fools, your wisdom's nothingness; "Undazzled it can track yon starry sphere, "But ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... all religion recognises, and in often crude forms tries to set forth, and by superstitious acts to secure, is raised to an absolute certainty, if we believe that Jesus Christ, the Incarnate Truth, speaks truth to us about this matter. For there is nothing more certain than that the characteristic which ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren
... there; if only she were a witch-could see him, know where he was, what doing! For a fortnight now she had received no letter. Every day since he had left she had read the casualty lists, with the superstitious feeling that to do so would keep him out of them. She took up the Times. There was just enough light, and she read the roll of honour—till the moon shone in on her, lying on the floor, with the ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... flickering among the trees and heard the snapping of twigs, the sound of feet, and rustling of leaves. The light disappeared but the noises became more distinct, coming directly toward where he was. Basilio was not naturally superstitious, especially after having carved up so many corpses and watched beside so many death-beds, but the old legends about that ghostly spot, the hour, the darkness, the melancholy sighing of the wind, and certain tales heard in his childhood, asserted their influence over his mind ...
— The Reign of Greed - Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo' • Jose Rizal
... valuable than England's Koh-i-noor, and more important to the country and the crown that possess it. The legend runs, does it not, that Mauravania falls when the Rainbow Pearl passes into alien hands. An absurd belief, to be sure, but who can argue with a superstitious people or hammer wisdom into the minds of babies? And that has been lost—that gem so dear to Mauravania's people, so ...
— Cleek: the Man of the Forty Faces • Thomas W. Hanshew
... would have been powerless. But it was harvest-time now, and the rural allies of Gracchus were away from home in the fields. [Sidenote: Murder of Gracchus.] The next day dawned, and with it occurred omens full of meaning to the superstitious Romans. The sacred fowls would not feed. Tiberius stumbled at the doorway of his house and broke the nail of his great toe. Some crows fought on the roof of a house on the left hand, and one dislodged a tile, ...
— The Gracchi Marius and Sulla - Epochs Of Ancient History • A.H. Beesley
... "and I trust you will not suffer me to cause any interruption. I am not quite so superstitious," he added, smiling, "as to fear contagion from accidentally witnessing forms, which are not altogether agreeable ...
— The Rivals of Acadia - An Old Story of the New World • Harriet Vaughan Cheney
... eyes from Euclid, and directed them to matrimony. He has chosen the eldest sister of your acquaintance Lord Haddington. I revive about you and Tuscany. I will tell you. what is thought to have reprieved you: it is much suspected that the King of Spain(1017) is dead. I hope those superstitious people will pinch the queen, as they do witches, to make her loosen the charm that has kept the Prince of Asturias from having children. At least this must turn out better than the death of ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... are many who believe in second sight, as it is called; and that there are families there, and they say in Ireland, also, where a sort of warning is given of the death of a member of the family. We sailors are a superstitious people, and believe in things that landsmen laugh at. It does not seem to me impossible that, when two people love each other dearly, as we do, one may feel when the other is in danger, or may be conscious of his death. It may be said that ...
— The Tiger of Mysore - A Story of the War with Tippoo Saib • G. A. Henty
... captain, who was endeavoring to quiet the superstitious fears of the sailors. Drawing him aside, he ...
— Edmond Dantes • Edmund Flagg
... aimed at the person who had dared to reflect on Gen. Hooker's capacity, and to refer to the question of Gen. Hooker's habitual use of stimulants. The public mention of my name was as sedulously avoided as a reference to his satanic majesty is wont to be in the society of the superstitious; but the exuberance of the attack must have afforded unbounded satisfaction to its authors, as it very apparently did ...
— The Campaign of Chancellorsville • Theodore A. Dodge
... moment, also blamed me, looking as black as if I had committed some unheard-of sin. It is unlucky for a man to lend his gun to anybody, even to the greatest friend he has on earth, they told me sadly; and that for no superstitious reason, but because, according to the law, if murder be committed with that weapon, the owner of the gun will be considered guilty no matter by whose hand the ...
— Oriental Encounters - Palestine and Syria, 1894-6 • Marmaduke Pickthall
... Hostilius, who was king next after Numa, and who derided and insulted his wise ordinances, especially those connected with religion, as lazy and effeminate, and who urged the people to take up arms, was cut down in the midst of his boastings by a terrible disease, and became subject to superstitious fears in no way resembling Numa's piety. His subjects were led to share these terrors, more especially by the manner of his death, which is said to have been by the stroke ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4) • Plutarch
... the chief city of which is Hardwair, or Hurdwar, where the famous river Ganges seems to begin, and issues out of a rock, which the superstitious Gentiles imagine resembles a cow's head, which animal they hold in the highest veneration; and to this place they resort daily in great numbers ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume IX. • Robert Kerr
... evidenced in the long list of names that have become famous in the world's literature. In spite of the high intellectual attainments of these people, they are fond of the quiet, simple life, with friends and kinsfolk and home employments and home enjoyments. And they are very superstitious, too, and, in spite of their Lutheran faith, they have never discarded the customs that grew from belief in gods many, and fairies, trolls, gnomes and norns without number. The forests, the mountains and gorges, are inhabited by these ...
— Norwegian Life • Ethlyn T. Clough
... occasions slip away in long consultations; and it may be a degree of sloth, to be too long in mending nets, though that must be done. He that observeth the wind shall not sow, and he that regardeth the clouds shall not reap;[286] that is, he that is too dilatory, too superstitious in these observations, and studies but the excuse of his own idleness in them; but that which the same wise and royal servant of thine says in another place, all accept, and ask no comment upon it, He becometh ...
— Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions - Together with Death's Duel • John Donne
... Billy groaned, "but the fact is that I am not one of the things she is superstitious about. Pipe the dame at the corner table with the lorgnette. Classy, ...
— Outside Inn • Ethel M. Kelley
... trumpets and amid the huzzas of the citizens, of Cheapside Cross, Charing Cross, and other such street-monuments of too Popish make. At the same time the anti- Sabbatarian "Book of Sports" had been publicly burnt. Then followed (Aug. 27) an ordinance for removing out of churches all "superstitious images, crucifixes, altars," &c.; the effect of which for the next few months was a more or less rough visitation of pickaxing, chipping, and chiselling in all the parish-churches within the Parliament's bounds that had not already been Puritanized by private effort. Then, ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson
... before the sale. Olive persuaded her mother to go to rest early; for she herself had a trying duty to perform—the examining of her father's private papers. As she sat in his study—in solitude and gloom—the young girl might have been forgiven many a pang of grief, even a shudder of superstitious fear. But Heaven had given her a hero-soul, not the less heroic ...
— Olive - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik, (AKA Dinah Maria Mulock)
... could not play on their dripping instruments. The Emperor and the Empress withdrew at eleven, and both the court and the people had gloomy memories of this festivity which began so well and ended so badly. Superstitious and ill-disposed persons fancied that they saw an evil omen in this; they recalled the disastrous ball at the Austrian Embassy, and said that the storm broke just at the very moment when the palace of the King of Rome was illuminated. But what ...
— The Happy Days of the Empress Marie Louise • Imbert De Saint-Amand
... Santiago, have hardly any claim to be considered Bisya in the sense in which that word is applied to the Bisyas of the town of Surigao. The same holds true of a great portion of the inhabitants of Tndag, Tgo, La Paz, and Kagwit, where the Mandya element in language and in superstitious beliefs still holds sway to a considerable extent among the lower ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan
... gave way. The soldier who was pulling at the other end was clumsily unhorsed, and I myself was all but thrown by the unexpected jerk. This amusing incident at first provoked mirth among my escort, a mirth which their superstitious minds immediately turned ...
— An Explorer's Adventures in Tibet • A. Henry Savage Landor
... of Interviewer: Mrs. W.M. Ball Subject: Anecdotes of an Aged Ex-Slave. Subject: Superstitious Beliefs Among Negroes. (Negro ...
— Slave Narratives: Arkansas Narratives - Arkansas Narratives, Part 6 • Works Projects Administration
... these considerations go to make and fortify the position, that whatever body has authority to decide how a State has voted, has authority to draw information from all the sources of knowledge. The superstitious veneration of a certificate, which would implicitly believe it, and shut the eye to other evidence, is as revolting as that of the poor negro in the swamps of Congo, who bows down before his fetich. The idolaters, mentioned in Scripture, who took a tree out of the wood, ...
— The Electoral Votes of 1876 - Who Should Count Them, What Should Be Counted, and the Remedy for a Wrong Count • David Dudley Field
... calculated to suppress any tendency on the part of wives to poison their husbands. These secondary grounds may have contributed something to the preservation and enforcement of an idea based originally on superstitious motives. ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume II • R. V. Russell
... carried to the bottom of the river by the goblins and spirits that come out and hover over it at night. There is a certain terror in this termination, something that recalls parts of the Inferno. Ourrias's superstitious fears are the effect of his guilty conscience. The souls of the damned, their weird ceremonial, are but the outward rendering of the inward ...
— Frederic Mistral - Poet and Leader in Provence • Charles Alfred Downer
... good as a man; and hence her hatred of marriage, and her Amazonian exploits. But still the Piache would not show her that trumpet, or tell her where it was; and as for going to seek it, even she feared the superstitious wrath of the tribe at such a profanation. But the day after the English went, the Piache chose to express his joy at their departure; whereon, as was to be expected, a fresh explosion between master and pupil, which ended, she confessed, in her burning the old rogue's ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... and Antiquities of Bristol, by William Barrett:" Bristol, 1789, quarto; a Work which Mr. Park described as " a motley compound of real and superstitious history."-E. ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... Bob's turn to sustain the drooping courage of Dick, who, like most country-bred lads, was intensely superstitious, fancying the darkness to swarm with ghosts and goblins, who were on the watch to devour him; the boy, while bearing up bravely against palpable privations and open dangers, staring them in the face, from which grown men would have ...
— Bob Strong's Holidays - Adrift in the Channel • John Conroy Hutcheson
... spot where it took place. No one would ever inhabit that house again. The furniture was removed, except from the one room which to this day remains unchanged, and the building left to fall to decay. The superstitious affirm, that, in the long winter nights, oaths and groans steal out, muffled, on the rising wind, from the dark ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 39, January, 1861 • Various
... manner of tenderness. What other would he have? He deals out to it no measure of philosophical justice. He accepts the faith of every age but his own. He will accept, as the best thing possible, the trustful and hopeful spirit of dark and superstitious periods; but if the more enlightened piety of his own age be at variance even with the most subtle and difficult tenets of his own philosophy, he will make no compromise with it, he casts it away for contemptuous infidelity to trample on as it pleases. When visiting the past, how indulgent, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various
... feelings you seem to have no control: agile and mischievous, his little practical jokes, at first performed in ignorance of the pain he gave, but afterward proceeding to a malicious pleasure in suffering, really seemed to afford some ground to the superstitious notion of some of the common people that he was ...
— The Doom of the Griffiths • Elizabeth Gaskell
... to a superstitious notion that it is honorable to make but little display of themselves, and allow their wings to be bound ...
— Life in a Thousand Worlds • William Shuler Harris
... Podsnap, no. For three reasons. Firstly, because I couldn't take so much upon myself when I have respected family friends to remember. Secondly, because I am not so vain as to think that I look the part. Thirdly, because Anastatia is a little superstitious on the subject and feels averse to my giving away anybody until baby is old enough to ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... superstitious of late. The traces of superstition remained in him long after, and were almost ineradicable. And in all this he was always afterwards disposed to see something strange and mysterious, as it were, the presence of some peculiar ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... matron has naturally the care of the children. A childless home is one of the greatest of calamities. It means a solitary old age, and still worse, the dying out of the family and the worship of the family gods. There is just enough of the old superstitious "ancestor worship" left in Athens to make one shudder at the idea of leaving the "deified ancestor" without any descendants to keep up the simple sacrifices to their memory. Besides, public opinion condemns the childless home as not contributing to the perpetuation of the city. ...
— A Day In Old Athens • William Stearns Davis
... voice to a superstitious whisper. "It's a mystery to the Indians," he declared, "and they avoid the sound like it were an evil spirit. Even the chief could not tell me what it was, although all his life he had heard its tolling. He wasn't so much afraid of it as are the other Indians ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... Ruth's arm, still laughing, as they went on and left the old Irishman. "He's just as superstitious as he can be," she whispered. "He really believes the old ...
— Ruth Fielding at Briarwood Hall - or Solving the Campus Mystery • Alice B. Emerson
... appointment. The servant ushers him into the private room of Sir Charles. This seems strange, but Paul thinks it some caprice of Agnes. There is but one chair in the room, and this faces the door through which Paul expects Agnes to enter. The lights are dim and throw fitful shadows. Though feeling a superstitious sense, Paul's strong nerves brace against all "uncanny" sentiments. He attempts to turn on more light, but finds this is impossible. He shifts uneasily, finally picking up a paper lying on a small table within reach. Date and title startle him. How came ...
— Oswald Langdon - or, Pierre and Paul Lanier. A Romance of 1894-1898 • Carson Jay Lee
... be better to bury the dead," said Paul; for he knew Eve would scarcely appear on deck as long as the body remained in sight. "Seamen, you know, are superstitious on ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... the tickets and in the letter enclosed a small scarf pin which he said was sure to bring me luck. He had done quite a little running in his time and said it had never failed him and urged me to be sure and put it in my tie the day of the Harvard-Princeton game. I am not superstitious, but I did stick it in my tie when I dressed that Saturday morning and it surely had a charm. It was in the first half that I got away for my run, and as we came out of the field house at the start of the second ...
— Football Days - Memories of the Game and of the Men behind the Ball • William H. Edwards |
