"Propitiatory" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... have an opportunity of beholding a very uncommon sight, which is the propitiatory dance to Shivu. There is no occasion for hurrying on so fast, young gentleman," continued the captain to Courtenay; "they ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat
... salutes having been fired on both sides, the Indians are elaborately welcomed within the fort, where, after long silence and much tobacco-smoking, the subject of the visit is distantly broached, and the chief receives propitiatory gifts of brightly coloured apparel: "A coarse cloth coat, either red or blue, lined with baize, and having regimental cuffs; and a waistcoat and breeches of baize. The suit is ornamented with orris lace. He is also presented with a white orris shirt; his ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan
... such as Yiieh, but always to let the Chinese princes alone." Ts'i, Lu, Ts'in, and Yiieh on different occasions between that date and the fourth century B.C. received similar donations, usually, evidently, more propitiatory than patronizing. In 472 the barbarous King of Yiieh was even nominated Protector along with his present of meat; this was after his total destruction of Wu, when he was marching north to threaten North China. Presents of private family sacrificial meat ...
— Ancient China Simplified • Edward Harper Parker
... transgression which they did not commit; the damning of all men who do not avail themselves of an alleged mode of obtaining forgiveness, which most men have never heard of; and the effecting a reconciliation by sacrificing a son who was perfectly innocent, to satisfy the assumed necessity for a propitiatory victim; are modes of action which, ascribed to a human ruler, would call forth expressions of abhorrence; and the ascription of them to the Ultimate Cause of things, even not felt to be full of ...
— Unspoken Sermons - Series I., II., and II. • George MacDonald
... he had left it. He smiled sadly as he noted his civilian clothes laid out on the bed. However, he would not wear them to-night. A little later, while he was hanging them in the clothes-press, a propitiatory cough sounded at the door. Turning, he beheld the strangest sight ever seen on the Rancho Palomar—a butler, bearing a tray covered with ...
— The Pride of Palomar • Peter B. Kyne
... to take up this little tract, and while reading it was struck with the sentence, "The finished work of CHRIST." The thought passed through my mind, "Why does the author use this expression? why not say the atoning or propitiatory work of CHRIST?" Immediately the words "It is finished" suggested themselves to my mind. What was finished? And I at once replied, "A full and perfect atonement and satisfaction for sin: the debt was ...
— A Retrospect • James Hudson Taylor
... towards sunset she remembered that on the outskirts of the forest there was a flat rock where it was the custom of those who had been in any way afflicted, or who considered themselves or their belongings to be bewitched, to place propitiatory offerings of food wherewith the Esemkofu and Amalhosi were supposed to satisfy their spiritual cravings. Urged by the pinch of starvation, to this spot Nanea journeyed rapidly, and found to her joy that some neighbouring kraal had evidently been in recent trouble, for ...
— Black Heart and White Heart • H. Rider Haggard
... running between Suez and the South Seas have nothing more to fear from the fury of this gulf, in spite of contrary trade-winds. The captain and passengers do not prepare for their departure by offering propitiatory sacrifices; and, on their return, they no longer go ornamented with wreaths and gilt fillets to thank the gods in the ...
— Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea • Jules Verne
... Autga is offended and game becomes scarce. When the hunters are unsuccessful it is often assumed that this is the cause, and the augur never fails to point out the transgressing female, who must provide a propitiatory offering. The Malers use poisoned arrows, and when they kill game the flesh round the wound is cut off and thrown away as unfit for food. Cats are under the protection of the game laws, and a person found guilty of killing one is made to give a small quantity of salt to every ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell
... are worshipped by the family. Afterwards the lamas make little balls which are worshipped, and one of the family mounts the roof and invites the neighbours, who receive the balls from the lamas' hands and drink moderately of chang. Next, the figures are thrown to the demons as a propitiatory offering, amidst 'hellish whistlings' and the firing of guns. These ceremonies are called ise drup (a full life), and it is believed that if they were neglected life would be ...
— Among the Tibetans • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs Bishop)
... author of evil," occupied alternately in aiding the former and subduing the latter. So do the Parsees of our own day regard him; and their only hope for the ultimate triumph of Ormuzd is in constant sacrifices and prayers and propitiatory offerings to the sun as the fire that is to burn out and utterly consume all evil from our earth. Fire is to the Parsees now, as it has ever been, the holiest of all holy things, carried about by princes and great men for safety; ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Vol. XV., No. 85. January, 1875. • Various
... in fact, to prevent them bringing evil on the land, and to insure a fruitful harvest. It was rather ominous that hail fell with violence, and lightning burnt down one of the palace huts, while the king was in the midst of his propitiatory devotions. ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... OF PETITION been immolated in the very Temple of Liberty, and offered up, a propitiatory sacrifice to the demon of slavery. Never before has an outrage so unblushingly profligate been perpetrated upon the Federal Constitution. Yet, while we mourn the degeneracy which this transaction evinces, ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... laying his feet in irons, gave him over to the slave girl and went away. Meanwhile, the old men said to one another, "When the day of the Festival of the Fire cometh, we will sacrifice him on the mountain, as a propitiatory offering whereby we shall pleasure the Fire." Presently the damsel went down to him and beat him a grievous beating, till streams of blood flowed from his sides and he fainted; after which she set at his head a ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... the Indies, both East and West, and, indeed, of all the varied forms in which superstition has presented herself, and in one or in all you meet with evidences of a universal flood, of man's fall, of the serpent having been the instrument in it, of propitiatory sacrifices, of the expectation of a great deliverer. The long lives of men in the early ages of the world are mentioned by Berosus, Manetho, Hiromus and Helanicus, as also by Hesoid and many other writers quoted by Josephus, ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... the traditional customs of primitive tribes the abstract principles of a legal system that governs the most cultivated societies. This religion was no longer like that of ancient Rome, a mere collection of propitiatory and expiatory rites performed by the citizen for the good of the state; it now pretended to offer to all men a world-conception which gave rise to a rule of conduct and placed the end of existence in the future life. It was more unlike the worship that Augustus had attempted ...
— The Oriental Religions in Roman Paganism • Franz Cumont
... secret spot, they collect a number of poles from twenty to thirty feet in length, and, lashing them together at the small ends, form a huge conical lodge, which they cover with grass and boughs. Inside they deposit various articles, with which to "make medicine," or as a propitiatory offering to the Great Spirit; generally a green buffalo head, kettles, scalps, blankets, and other things of value, of which the most prominent and revered is the sacred pipe. The party then enters the ...
— The Old Santa Fe Trail - The Story of a Great Highway • Henry Inman
... the end of March. Messrs. Voltera Brothers were also requested to forward another instalment of necessaries and comforts; and they were as punctual and satisfactory as before. For this postal service, and by way of propitiatory present, Shaykh Mohammed received ten dollars, of which probably two were disbursed. We therefore parted fast friends, he giving me an especial invitation to his home in the Hisma, and I accepting it with the firm intention of visiting him ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton
... ways and for no other reason but their own detestable delight in doing evil. These defences could not consist in rational measures dictated by a knowledge of the laws of physical nature, since they had no notion of such laws; nor in prayers and propitiatory offerings, since one of the demons' most execrable qualities was, as we have seen, that they "knew not beneficence" and "heard not prayer and supplication." Then, if they cannot be coaxed, they must be compelled. This seems a very presumptuous assumption, but it is strictly ...
— Chaldea - From the Earliest Times to the Rise of Assyria • Znade A. Ragozin
... early registers was based on no such high principle as this. It arose simply from a sense of the continuity of the Roman commonwealth, from national pride, and from considerations of utility. The catalogue of prodigies, pestilences, divine visitations, expiations and successful propitiatory ceremonies, of which it was chiefly made up, was intended to show the value of the state religion, and to secure the administration of it in patrician hands. It was indeed praiseworthy that considerations so patriotic ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell
... unconscious girl and the almost equally helpless veteran. Then one mounted the box with the driver and another ran for a physician, who was directed to go to Mrs. Bodine's residence. The negro carefully moored Houghton's boat, feeling that there might be something propitiatory to the dreaded ghost in this act. He then hastened to his humble cabin, and filled the cars of his family and neighbors with lamentations over the lost boat and lost man, and also with self-gratulations that he was alive to ...
— The Earth Trembled • E.P. Roe
... we were cold, and we saw the smoke coming up from the lake, so we went down there to get warm. And," he continued, in a propitiatory tone, "we thought we'd catch some ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... attests the offering of sacrifices long prior to Israel's exodus from Egypt—e.g. by Abel and by Cain (Gen. 4:3, 4); by Noah after the deluge (Gen. 8:20); by Abraham (Gen. 22:2, 13); by Jacob (Gen. 31:54; 46:1)—it is silent concerning the divine origin of sacrifice as a propitiatory requirement prefiguring the atoning death of Jesus Christ. The difficulty of determining time and circumstance, under which the offering of symbolical sacrifices originated amongst mankind, is recognized ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage
... Miss Blanchard's roses you may be sure there is a moral," he had said. "You can see it sticking out its head, and, if you go to smell the flower, it scratches your nose." But on this occasion she had come with a propitiatory gift—introducing her friend Mr. Leavenworth. Mr. Leavenworth was a tall, expansive, bland gentleman, with a carefully brushed whisker and a spacious, fair, well-favored face, which seemed, somehow, to have more room in it than was occupied by a smile of superior benevolence, ...
— Roderick Hudson • Henry James
... the text and title of this sermon, and the many excellent observations which it contains in illustration of both, there are several passages in it which the dissenters of the time would hardly consider as propitiatory towards the continuance of brotherly love. There are also various allusions to the parties which raged at the time, and some which appear to have been written in defence of the preacher's character, then severely ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IV: - Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Volume II • Jonathan Swift
... family; grapes from Shansi or Shan-tung, hams from Foochow, and lichees from Canton, all form fitting vehicles for a declaration of friendship or of love. Now, too, the birthday gifts offered by every official in the Empire to his immediate superior, are supplemented by further propitiatory sacrifices to the powers that be, without which tenure of office would be at once troublesome and insecure. Such are known as dry, in contradistinction to the water presents exchanged between relatives ...
— Chinese Sketches • Herbert A. Giles
... fear of Walter before his eyes (who he knew was at home packing), Captain Cuttle again assumed his ankle-jacks and mourning brooch, and issued forth on this second expedition. He purchased no propitiatory nosegay on the present occasion, as he was going to a place of business; but he put a small sunflower in his button-hole to give himself an agreeable relish of the country; and with this, and the knobby stick, and the glazed hat, bore down upon ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... always late; but the afternoon was so lovely." She stood drawing her gloves off, propitiatory and graceful, diffusing about her a sense of ease and familiarity in which the situation lost its grotesqueness. "But before talking business," she added brightly, "I'm sure every one ...
— The Descent of Man and Other Stories • Edith Wharton
... priest, or Magus, who stood between him and the divinity as a Mediator. The Magus prepared the victim and slew it, chanted the mystic strain which gave the sacrifice all its force, poured on the ground the propitiatory libation of oil, milk, and honey, held the bundle of thin tamarisk twigs—the Zendic barsom (baregma)—the employment of which was essential to every sacrificial ceremony. The Magi were a priest-caste, apparently ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 3. (of 7): Media • George Rawlinson
... discovered himself. In a moment he was changed. He found that he now feared to be inadequate, he feared to be theatrical, he feared the quality of his voice, the quality of his wit, astonished, he turned to the man in yellow with a propitiatory gesture. "For a moment," he said, "I must wait. I did not think it would be like this. I must think of the ...
— When the Sleeper Wakes • Herbert George Wells
... He left the crowded and rose-lit dining-room early, because he was not at ease amid its ceremoniousness of attire and of service, and went into the turkey-carpeted hall, whose porter suddenly sprang into propitiatory life on seeing him. He produced a cigarette, and with passionate haste the porter produced a match, and by his method of holding the flame to the cigarette, deferential and yet firm, proved that his young existence had not been wasted in idleness. When the cigarette was alight, the porter surveyed ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... the state, they ate breakfast in a dim dawn, with only the rim of the sun showing over the eastern mountains. Mr. Heathcote came in late and found every chair occupied. No one moved or took any notice. Jimmy Grayson looked embarrassed, and said in a propitiatory tone to the proprietor, who ...
— The Candidate - A Political Romance • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... if he should happen to be so foolish, pray think of ME; of all we owe him, and how much I love him, and ought to love him." She then bestowed a propitiatory kiss, and ran off to dress for dinner; it was a much ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade
... teaching of the Holy Spirit in the heart. These were prepared boldly to declare God's controversy with sin, and the means by which it might be subdued, not omitting to proclaim the alone ground of a sinner's pardon through the propitiatory sacrifice of our ...
— The Annual Monitor for 1851 • Anonymous
... they were of the same tribe as his own people, and some of them were distant relatives. Unfortunately for him they were in the midst of one of their superstitious dances. The dances and sacrifices of dogs were a kind of propitiatory offering to the Muche-Manito, the devil, to put him in good humour, so that he would not interfere with them and prevent their having great success in the coming spring hunt. Of course Oowikapun was invited to join in the dance, but much to their surprise he ...
— Oowikapun - How the Gospel Reached the Nelson River Indians • Egerton Ryerson Young
... did not respond, she made a further propitiatory advance, "It will soon be time for that hornets' nest, we must ...
— Westways • S. Weir Mitchell
... As a propitiatory offering for the rest of the soul of the maiden who had thus avoided the monastic life, the knight in his deep sorrow vowed to build a chapel on the hill opposite his castle. Then Hans Broemser shut himself up in his chamber, and passed the following ...
— Legends of the Rhine • Wilhelm Ruland
... was repeated now from the pulpit, with the added statement that for the once the class-meetings usually following this morning service would be suspended. Then Theron came down the steps, conscious after a fashion that the Presiding Elder had laid a propitiatory hand on his shoulder and spoken amiably about the sermon, and that several groups of more or less important parishioners were waiting in the aisle and the vestibule to shake hands and tell him how much they had ...
— The Damnation of Theron Ware • Harold Frederic
... original documents of great value were extant, he refrains from citing them if they do not satisfy his taste. During the second Punic war a hymn to Juno had been written by Livius Andronicus for a propitiatory festival. It was one of the most celebrated documents of early Latin; but he refuses to insert it, on the ground that to the taste of his own day it seemed rude and harsh. Yet as a historian, and not a collector of materials ...
— Latin Literature • J. W. Mackail
... his aunt of the mysterious potentate in the far North, who was the ruler of man, beast and fish, and who had an only daughter. When these presents arrived, Mrs. Lavender was informed that they were meant for her, and was given to understand that they were the propitiatory gifts of a half-savage monarch who wished to seek her friendship. In vain did Ingram warn Lavender of the possible danger of this foolish joke. The young man laughed, and would come down to Sloane street with another story of his success ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XI, No. 27, June, 1873 • Various
... then be that the crude idea of propitiatory and conciliatory sacrifice would fall to the ground; that to use the inspired words of the ...
— From a College Window • Arthur Christopher Benson
... of the evil one. Van Haubitz found himself in an awkward fix. Credit was dead, none of his relatives would notice or assist him; his whole fortune consisted of a dozen gold Wilhelms. At this critical moment an eccentric maiden aunt, to whom, a year or two previously, he had sent a propitiatory offering of a ring-tailed monkey and a leash of pea-green parrots, and who had never condescended even to acknowledge the present, departed this life, bequeathing him ten thousand florins as a return for the addition to her menagerie. A man of common prudence, and who ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various
... thinking to gratify the gods and nature by massacre and murder: an opinion universally once received in all religions. And still, in these later times wherein our fathers lived, Amurath at the taking of the Isthmus, immolated six hundred young Greeks to his father's soul, in the nature of a propitiatory sacrifice for his sins. And in those new countries discovered in this age of ours, which are pure and virgin yet, in comparison of ours, this practice is in some measure everywhere received: all their idols reek with ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... torture beneath, such should be the all concentrating anxiety to secure safety that there would be neither time nor taste for any thing else. Every object should seem an altar drenched with sacrificial blood, every sound a knell laden with dolorous omen, every look a propitiatory confession, every breath a pleading prayer. From so single and preternatural a tension of the believer's faculties nothing could allow an instant's cessation except a temporary forgetting or blinking of the awful scene and the ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... scarcely be called religious. That the spirits of the dead should be permitted to return to earth, under circumstances the most grotesque, to support the doctrines of masses for the dead, purgatory and propitiatory penance; that demons should be exorcised to give testimony to the merits of rival orders of monks and friars; that relics, many of them supposititious, and many of the most disgusting and blasphemous character, should have power to affect ...
— The Phantom World - or, The philosophy of spirits, apparitions, &c, &c. • Augustin Calmet
... going with you, Master Copperfield, if you'll allow me the pleasure of a walk with an old acquaintance.' Saying this, with a jerk of his body, which might have been either propitiatory or derisive, he fell into step ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... time it is customary to sound the shophar (cornet) in the synagogues, to give warning to the people that the day of judgment, New Year, is rapidly approaching, and with it the Day of Atonement. Therefore, propitiatory prayers are said twice every day, morning and evening, from the second day of Elul until the eve of the Day of Atonement, which period comprises the last forty days which Moses passed on Sinai, when God was reconciled to ...
— Hebraic Literature; Translations from the Talmud, Midrashim and - Kabbala • Various
... partly my fault, you know"—he could not quell a sudden shamefaced laugh,—"if you'd kindly allow me to explain. I shall have to be quite brutally frank; but Mrs. Percifer said"—Here he lugged in a propitiatory compliment, which sounded no more like Mrs. Percifer than it fitted me; but mistaking my smile of irony for one of encouragement, he babbled on. I wish I could do justice to his "charmin'" accent and his perfectly unstudied manner of speech, a mixture of British and American ...
— A Touch Of Sun And Other Stories • Mary Hallock Foote
... a conception of Christianity is quite fully developed according to which the Gospel was a new law of life, with its prescribed holy seasons and hours for prayer; its sacrifices, though as yet only sacrifices of prayer; its fasts and almsgiving, which had propitiatory effect, atoning for sins committed and winning merit with God; its sacred rites, solemnly administered by an established hierarchy; and all observed for the sake of a reward which God in justice owed those who kept His commandments. It is noticeable that already ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.
... different from that of Schleiermacher. It has been oftenest associated with the notion of something purely external, forensic, even magical. It is connected, even down to our own time, with reliance upon the blood of Christ, almost as if this were externally applied. It has postulated a propitiatory sacrifice, a vicarious atonement, a completed transaction, something which was laid up for all and waiting to be availed of by some. Now every external, forensic, magical notion of salvation, as something ...
— Edward Caldwell Moore - Outline of the History of Christian Thought Since Kant • Edward Moore
... persecuted as a destroyer of other animals more useful to man, or hunted for food, is regarded with peculiar respect, one might almost say, affection. Some of the North American aboriginal nations celebrate a propitiatory feast to the manes of the intended victim before they commence a bear hunt; and the Norwegian peasantry have not only retained an old proverb which ascribes to the same animal "ti Maends Styrke og tolo Maends Vid," ten men's strength and twelve men's cunning, ...
— The Earth as Modified by Human Action • George P. Marsh
... consequently almost unknown among them. All the fables about animals and plants speaking and exercising volition; the practice of ordeals, resting on the belief that the sacred living elements, fire and water, will of themselves discriminate between the innocent and guilty; the propitiatory offerings to the sea and to rivers, such incidents as Xerxes binding the sea with fetters, Ajax defying the lightning, Aaron's rod that budded, the superstitions of sailors about ships: all result from the same primitive belief. Many other instances of self-conscious ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India—Volume I (of IV) • R.V. Russell
... consecravit, et consecrando etiam immutavit'' Responsio, p. 263). Adoration is permitted, and the use of the terms "sacrifice'' and "altar'' maintained as being consonant with scripture and antiquity. Christ is "a sacrifice—so, to be slain; a propitiatory sacrifice—so, to be eaten'' (Sermons, vol. ii. p. 296). "By the same rules that the Passover was, by the same may ours be termed a sacrifice. In rigour of speech, neither of them; for to speak after the exact manner ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... M. Polo sbattendo i denti is very remarkable. It seems to me, that very few of the Chinese are aware of the fact, that this custom still exists among the Taouists. In the rituals of the Taouists the K'ow-ch'i (Ko'w 'to knock against,'ch'i 'teeth') is prescribed as a comminatory and propitiatory act. It is effected by the four upper and lower foreteeth. The Taouists are obliged before the service begins to perform a certain number of 'K'ow-ch'i, turning their heads alternately to the left and to the right, in order to drive away mundane thoughts and aggressions ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... its true, but whey; to incite God to wrath, sayes he. O wicked inference, horrid to come out of the mouth of any Christian save only a Jesuites. Does not the Scripture language cut thy throat, O prophane, which teaches us that Christ offereth up to his father his sufferings as a propitiatory sacrifice; and consequently to appaise, ...
— Publications of the Scottish History Society, Vol. 36 • Sir John Lauder
... it.—Wheel within wheel in the fine world, as well as in the political world!—Bribes for all occasions, and for all ranks! The timely present was sent, accepted with many thanks, and understood as it was meant. Per favour of this propitiatory offering, and of a promise of half a dozen pair of real Limerick gloves to Miss Pratt—a promise which Pratt clearly comprehended to be a conditional promise—the grand object was at length accomplished. The very day before the party was to take place came cards of invitation to ...
— The Absentee • Maria Edgeworth
... chiefs Tubourai Tamaide and Tootahah returned, bringing in their canoes not branches only, but two young trees, and would not venture on board till these had been received as emblems of peace. They each also brought, as propitiatory gifts, a hog and bread-fruit ready dressed—both very acceptable articles at that time. In return, a hatchet and a nail were given to ...
— Captain Cook - His Life, Voyages, and Discoveries • W.H.G. Kingston
... Sometimes the civil or commercial law furnishes the analogy; and then, our sins being taken as a debt, Christ offers himself as a ransom for us. Or the analogy of the ceremonial law is accepted; and then Christ is set forth as a propitiatory or expiatory offering to obtain remission of sins for us. Regarding Christ as suffering for us in one or another of these Scripture forms or figures taken as the literal dogmatic truth, we have as many distinct ...
— Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors • James Freeman Clarke
... King of Pamaunck!" Savages and procedures of the more civilized with savages have, the world over, a family resemblance. Like many a man before him and after, Smith casts about for a propitiatory wonder. He has with him, so fortunately, "a round ivory double-compass dial." This, with a genial manner, he would present to Opechancanough. The savages gaze, cannot touch through the glass the moving needle, grunt their admiration. Smith proceeds, ...
— Pioneers of the Old South - A Chronicle of English Colonial Beginnings, Volume 5 In - The Chronicles Of America Series • Mary Johnston
... do. He had had a long experience in judging people quickly by the expression of their faces, and in that short length of time he had decided thankfully that he was really, just as he had hoped, going to like his new neighbor as much as all the rest of it. He gave her a propitiatory smile, hoping she might like him a little, too, and hoping also that she would not mind Vincent. Sometimes people did, especially nice ladies such as evidently Mrs. Crittenden was. He observed that as usual Vincent had cut in ahead of everybody else, had mentioned their names, both of them, ...
— The Brimming Cup • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... Harry to understand, that without the marriage the thing could not be done at all. Mina had reported Mr Disney faithfully, and Lady Evenswood's knowledge of her cousin Robert was not at fault. "Apart from anything else, there would be the sordid question," she ended, with a smile that became propitiatory against her will; she had meant it ...
— Tristram of Blent - An Episode in the Story of an Ancient House • Anthony Hope
... the Piazza. The news had spread by now, and in the dimly breaking morning light we saw the Square full of people—men, women, and children. As we marched in there was a cheer, not very hearty—a cheer propitiatory, for they did not know what we meant to do. The colonel made them a brief speech, promising peace, security, liberty, plenty, and all the goods of heaven. In a few stern words he cautioned them against "treachery," and announced that any rebellion against the Provisional Government would meet with ...
— A Man of Mark • Anthony Hope
... given you her message. It is for you, Lycinus, to overhaul your work, and by removing these blemishes avoid the offence. They shocked and made her nervous as I read; she kept on addressing the Goddesses in propitiatory words; and such feelings may surely be permitted to her sex. For that matter, to be quite frank, I shared them to some extent. At the first hearing I found no offence; but as soon as she put her finger on the fault, I began to agree. You know what happens with visible objects; if we look ...
— Works, V3 • Lucian of Samosata
... rude jests of tarpaulin ruffians—a thing of its delicate texture—the salt bilge wetting it till it became as vapid as a damaged lustring. Suppose it in material danger (mariners have some superstition about sentiments) of being tossed over in a fresh gale to some propitiatory shark (spirit of Saint Gothard, save us from a quietus so foreign to the deviser's purpose!) but it has happily evaded a fishy consummation. Trace it then to its lucky landing—at Lyons shall we say?—I have not the map before me—jostled upon four ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... was a stout, cream Confucian with an oleaginous smile, and the gentle, propitiatory man of an inferior people, cunning enough to realise that if you cannot dominate it is wisest to be docile. He had a good stock, a good business, a half-caste wife, and a noiseless, placid, slit-eyed baby about the ...
— The Missing Link • Edward Dyson
... a new moon or the clear evening star, the dusty roads used to look like soft gray rivers flowing past it. I never came upon the place without emotion, and in all that country it was the spot most dear to me. I loved the dim superstition, the propitiatory intent, that had put the grave there; and still more I loved the spirit that could not carry out the sentence—the error from the surveyed lines, the clemency of the soft earth roads along which the home-coming wagons rattled after sunset. ...
— My Antonia • Willa Sibert Cather
... it is. We're acting like a pair of kids, seems to me." This last with a propitiatory little smile toward her which she ...
— Mavericks • William MacLeod Raine
... see the light of day.—A rapid stichomuthic dialogue follows as to temporizing and resisting, and then Chrys. is going to do her errand.—Elec. enquires what this is, and learns that Clytaemnestra, disturbed by a dream, is sending propitiatory libations. ...
— Story of Orestes - A Condensation of the Trilogy • Richard G. Moulton
... youth, good looks and innocence, was little short of desperation. There was an evident movement of adhesion towards the fair stranger, a slight muttering broke out on the right, but the very boldness of the act held them in stupefied surprise. Judge Thompson, with a bland propitiatory smile, began: "Really, Bill, I must protest on behalf of this young lady—" when the fair accused, raising her eyes to her accuser, to the consternation of everybody answered with the slight but convincing hesitation of ...
— The Idler Magazine, Vol III. May 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... teeth prevails also there. "The knocking out their fore teeth," says that navigator, "may be, with propriety, classed among their religious customs. Most of the common people and many of the chiefs had lost one or more of them; and this we understood was considered as a propitiatory sacrifice to the Eatooa to avert his anger; and not like the cutting off a part of the finger at the Friendly Islands to express the violence of their grief at the death of a friend." ...
— Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, Vol 2 (of 2) • Thomas Mitchell
... custody, and was ushered by her into a little room, where he was bidden to make himself as civilized as possible in appearance, lest his war-worn guise should shock mamma and frighten baby into convulsions, he obeyed in silence, nay, even with propitiatory smiles and gestures. Ay, lay down your arms and bend the suppliant knee, sheathe your useless sword, and hush to soothing whisper the voice that thundered in command a week agone; hide away with noiseless ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King
... mouse of a man—gray, Parisian, dandified—was twisting in his large chair, surveying the others with shrewd though somewhat propitiatory eyes. In spite of his old grudge against Cowperwood because of the latter's refusal to favor him in the matter of running street-car lines past his store, he had always been interested in the man as a spectacle. He really disliked the thought of plotting ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser
... Essie's black eyes, although bright enough, were altogether gracious, and in a certain way even propitiatory. They were bent upon the ...
— Say and Seal, Volume II • Susan Warner
... afterwards was fully convinced of the propitiatory sacrifice, as I shall shew at large in my future work, The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. BOSWELL. For Dr. Kippis see ante, iii. 174, and for Johnson on the propitiatory sacrifice, iv. 124. ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell
... witnesses, and he began to shout and swear that the King of Youth had either heard amiss or was maliciously giving false evidence. He had proposed no bargain, nor hinted at one; he had come on a pilgrimage for his soul's sake, bringing the wine as a propitiatory offering to Our Lady of the Oder for the use of her people. Here was one man's oath against another's. Moreover, and even if his sentence were legal (which he denied), it could be revised and quashed by the Viscount of Beziers, as feudal lord of Ambialet, and to him he appealed. ...
— Merry-Garden and Other Stories • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... tissue of the agricultural mind, so as to be linked to its keenest emotions. Here the rites of religion, whether persuasive as in prayer, or compulsory as in sympathetic magic, whether associated with communal or propitiatory sacrifice, whether directed to the earth or to the heaven, all had an intensely practical and terribly real character, due to man's constant preoccupation with the growth and storage of food for man and beast. In the hunting, the pastoral, and above all ...
— Celtic Religion - in Pre-Christian Times • Edward Anwyl
... out of the question, consider the case of our god here.[858] Does it seem likely to you that, if he knew that the souls of the dead perish immediately, and glide out of their bodies like mist or smoke, he would enjoin many propitiatory offerings for the departed and honours for the dead, merely cheating and beguiling those that believed in him? For my own part, I shall never abandon my belief in the permanence of the soul, unless some second Hercules[859] shall come and take away the tripod of the Pythian ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... examination uniform. The room filled: the greetings of the company were loud and cordial. The distributionists trembled, for their popularity was at stake. The eldest boy fell forward, and delivered a propitiatory address from behind his collar. It was from the pen of Mr. Henry Brown; the applause was universal, and the Johnson Parkers were aghast. The examination proceeded with success, and terminated in triumph. The child's examination ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... an orange and a biscuit for physical refreshment, I depended on sea and sky for my mental entertainment; and in my hand I bore a slender scroll, destined as a propitiatory ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield
... to that by a few caustic remarks that you don't want savages in your house; and a pointed use of that delightful story in one of the White Cross papers,[25] of the Zulu chief to whom the Government sent a propitiatory present of wagons and wheelbarrows, thinking that it would be sure to please him. But he gazed on them with fine scorn, exclaiming: "What's the use of those things for carrying our burdens when we have plenty of women!" Or you can use that equally ...
— The Power of Womanhood, or Mothers and Sons - A Book For Parents, And Those In Loco Parentis • Ellice Hopkins
... Only, I plead, this propitiatory work of Christ must come second in the imagination, and His Love-of-God-revealing work first. And I think in the course of the history of Christianity an inversion has come about. In hymns and liturgies the prima facie and predominant emphasis seems rather to rest on our sinfulness ...
— Thoughts on religion at the front • Neville Stuart Talbot
... Romans hath this worthy sentence: I accompt the afflictions of this world transitory, Be they never so many, in full equivalence Cannot countervail those heavenly glory, Which we shall have through Christ his propitiatory. I also accompt the rebukes of our Saviour Greater gains to me than this house full ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VI • Robert Dodsley
... treasure she possessed in the affections of her lord; of his accomplishments, surpassing those of his contemporaries, his genius, his devotion to her.—Soon she thought, that all she possessed in the world, except him, might well be spared, nay, given with delight, a propitiatory offering, to secure the supreme good she retained in him. Soon she imagined, that fate demanded this sacrifice from her, as a mark she was devoted to Raymond, and that it must be made with cheerfulness. She figured ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... least, honest to offer a few grains of salt to be taken with the text; and as some words of apology, addition, correction, or amplification fall to be said on almost every study in the volume, it will be most simple to run them over in their order. But this must not be taken as a propitiatory offering to the gods of shipwreck; I trust my cargo unreservedly to the chances of the sea; and do not, by criticising myself, seek to disarm the wrath of other ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 3 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... similar custom was noticed by Captain Cook at the Sandwich Islands, where it was regarded as a propitiatory sacrifice to the Eatooa, to avert his anger; and not to express, as the same mutilation does in the Friendly Islands, grief for the ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 1. • J Lort Stokes
... preposterous, prerequisite, prerogative, presentiment, primogeniture, probation, probity, proclivity, procrastinate, prodigal, prodigious, prodigy, profligate, progenitor, proletarian, prolific, prolix, promiscuous, promissory, propaganda, propensity, prophylactic, propinquity, propitiatory, propitious, proprietary, prorogue, proselyte, prototype, protuberant, provender, proximity, prurient, psychical, psychological, puerile, pug-nacious, puissant, punctilious, pungent, ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... assurance that that presence would be self-revealing and would manifest Himself to His people. So here the throne on which glory rests is what we call the mercy-seat within the veil, where, above the propitiatory table on which once a year the High Priest sprinkled the blood of sacrifice, and beneath which were shut up the tables of the covenant which constituted the bond between God and Israel, shone the Light in the midst of the darkness of the enclosed inner shrine, the token of the divine presence. ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... the Berlin Foreign Office looked to Count von Bernstorff to prevent a break. His attitude was represented as propitiatory from the viewpoint of the United States and opposed to the submarine warfare of Von Tirpitz. On several occasions he is said to have warned his Emperor personally that a continuance of the warfare against which ...
— Kelly Miller's History of the World War for Human Rights • Kelly Miller
... patroness swung it coolly aside until little of her was visible but the salient curve of a pastel-tinted cheek and buried her nose in a best-selling novel, ignoring overtures analogous to the wagging of a propitiatory tail. While Savage, in the chair beyond his sister, betrayed every evidence of being heartily grateful for a distance that precluded conversation and to a Providence that tolerated Town Topics. Sally was left to improve her mind with a copy ...
— Nobody • Louis Joseph Vance
... vituperative recollections of old grievances, that we regret some kind friend of the author did not suggest the omission of these personalities. They will be neither advantageous to the writer, interesting to the public, nor propitiatory for the work itself; since the world care less about the squabbles of authors and booksellers than even an "untoward event" in Parliament; and if the writer of every book were to detail his vexations as a preface, the publication of a long series of ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 19, No. 543, Saturday, April 21, 1832. • Various
... in the mass, or sacrifice of the altar, is offered to God a true, proper, and propitiatory, sacrifice for ...
— The Book of Religions • John Hayward
... Christ, according as the serpent was lifted up in the wilderness, so would he himself be exalted, that thereby as many as trusted in him should have salvation; but the devil would none of that: they would have us saved by a daily oblation propitiatory, by a sacrifice ...
— Sermons on the Card and Other Discourses • Hugh Latimer
... stript the harp half bare, and throwing a propitiatory bright glance at her audience on the other side of her, she commenced thrumming a kind of Giles Scroggins, native British, beer-begotten air, while Jim smeared his mouth and grinned, as one who sees his love dragged into public view, and is ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... blandly, turning with a smile and propitiatory air to Patoux who sat silently smoking, "Madame Doucet seems a little—what shall we say?—unduly excited? Yet surely the recovery of her child should fill her with thanksgiving and make her a faithful and devout servant—" "Pardon, Monsieur," interrupted Madame ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... thy nose, sir Spirit, were anything more than the ghost of an olfactor, I would offer it a propitiatory pinch, that you might the more feelingly understand the merit of the said verses, and admire them accordingly. But I am no more to be deemed a snuff-taker because I carry a snuff-box when travelling, and keep one at hand for occasional use, than I am to be reckoned a casuist ...
— Colloquies on Society • Robert Southey
... cries the woman, with a propitiatory laugh. 'Short and snappish we are! But we're out of sorts for want of a smoke. We've got the all-overs, haven't us, deary? But this is the place to cure 'em in; this is the place where the all- ...
— The Mystery of Edwin Drood • Charles Dickens
... to others until the moment came for them themselves to deliver. Then with an ill-concealed relief some would come to the footlights, some leap up in their places with a tenoring eagerness, some would be facetious and some speak with neuralgic effort, some were impertinent, some propitiatory, some dull, but all were—disappointing, disappointing. God was not in any of them. A platform is no setting for the shy processes of an honest human mind,—we are all strained to artificiality in the excessive glare of attention that beats upon us there. One does not exhibit opinions ...
— The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... premises absent. They were on their way to Laramie to trade and sell game, and it was their intention to leave a portion of their mutton with Larry Kildene; for never did they dare venture near him without bringing a propitiatory offering. ...
— The Eye of Dread • Payne Erskine
... propitiatory or memorial. The former spring either from the idea of sacrifice or of specific performance. A sacrifice is a gift, but its measure is what it costs the giver. Specific performance means that a religious ...
— The Religious Sentiment - Its Source and Aim: A Contribution to the Science and - Philosophy of Religion • Daniel G. Brinton
... love her; and that, if Hippy went, she went. We thought it a master-stroke of firmness to rejoin that Hippolyto must go in any event; but I am bound to own that he did not go, and that his mother stayed, and so fed us with every cunning propitiatory dainty, that we must have been Pagans to renew our threat. In fact, we begged Mrs. Johnson to go into the country with us, and she, after long reluctation on Hippy's account, consented, agreeing to send him away ...
— Suburban Sketches • W.D. Howells
... putting his lordship in good humour by this propitiatory offering of a bull, continued to supply him, either directly or indirectly, by some of her confederates, with the most absurd anecdotes, incredible facts, stale jests, and blunders, such as were never made by ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. IV • Maria Edgeworth |
