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Idol   Listen
noun
Idol  n.  
1.
An image or representation of anything. (Obs.) "Do her adore with sacred reverence, As th' idol of her maker's great magnificence."
2.
An image of a divinity; a representation or symbol of a deity or any other being or thing, made or used as an object of worship; a similitude of a false god. "That they should not worship devils, and idols of gold."
3.
That on which the affections are strongly (often excessively) set; an object of passionate devotion; a person or thing greatly loved or adored. "The soldier's god and people's idol."
4.
A false notion or conception; a fallacy. "The idols of preconceived opinion."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Idol" Quotes from Famous Books



... were being made for a grand festival in honour of the great idol Devi. Hundreds of banners waved, hundreds of drummers drummed, hundreds of singers chanted chants, hundreds of priests, well washed and anointed, performed their sacred rites, whilst the rajah sat, nervous and ill at ease, amongst hundreds of ...
— The Olive Fairy Book • Various

... Yoritomo, and his own bitter experiences may well have helped to convert those doubts into certainties. He warned Kamakura in very strong terms against the brilliant young general who was then the idol of Kyoto, and thus, when Yoshitsune, in June, 1185, repaired to Kamakura to hand over the prisoners taken in the battle of Dan-no-ura and to pay his respects to Yoritomo, he was met at Koshigoe, a ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi

... lusts and passions. God does not tempt us when he gives us money, puts us in the way of earning money, or spending money. Money is not bad in itself; wealth is not bad in itself. If mammon be unrighteous, we make money into mammon, when we make an idol of it, and worship it more than God's law of right and justice. We make it unrighteous, by being unrighteous, ...
— Town and Country Sermons • Charles Kingsley

... Hannibal proceeding solitary in the midst, formed as peaceful a band, and one as innocently diverted, as if no man of them had ever grasped pike or blown a match. There was an old rider among them who had seen the sack of Rome, and the dead face of the great Constable the idol of the Free Companies. But he had a taste for simples and much skill in them; and when Madame had once seen Badelon on his knees in the grass searching for plants, she lost her fear of him. Bigot, with his low brow and matted hair, was the abject slave ...
— Count Hannibal - A Romance of the Court of France • Stanley J. Weyman

... sick languors in the public squares. A multitude adores her reverently: Before her face two burning tapers are; Her voice is uttered upon paths afar. Yet through the Lesser Brethren's jealousy She is named idol; not being ...
— Florence and Northern Tuscany with Genoa • Edward Hutton

... was "foggy, And society Too aristocratic" For his—pedigree: So he crossed the channel To escape the BLUES, And became the idol ...
— Poems • George P. Morris

... youth, who looked in from time to time, bringing a sort of air of refreshment with his good-natured shy smile, even when he least knew what to say. Or else it was little Lance's fervent affection for Felix which had conduced to the erection of the elder brother into the idol of Fernando's fancy; and his briefest visit was the event of the long autumnal days spent in the uncurtained iron bed in the corner of the low room. The worship, silent though it was, was manifest enough to become embarrassing and ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge

... their idol, waving their censers and shouting their hymns of praise, while their ample draperies effectively hid from the public eye the object which was really in the centre of their throng, namely, a gaunt, black, touzled man, rough in speech, brooding like an ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse

... monkeys, and rats, crocodiles, serpents, beetles, and ants, and monsters like to nothing in heaven or earth, or under the earth. Take one specimen of all. There is "the lord of the world," Juggernath. "When you think of the monster block of the idol, with its frightfully grim and distorted visage, so justly styled the Moloch of the East, sitting enthroned amid thousands of massive sculptures, the representative emblems of that cruelty and vice which constitute ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson

... old painters of Italy had taught me their dangerous worship of the beauty that is more than mortal, but those images all seemed shadowy now, and floated before me so dimly, the one overcasting the other, that they left me no one sweet idol on which I could look and look again and say, “Maria mia!” Yet they left me more than an idol; they left me (for to them I am wont to trace it) a faint apprehension of beauty not compassed with lines and shadows; they touched me (forgive, proud Marie of Anjou!)—they touched ...
— Eothen • A. W. Kinglake

... deliverer, his signal overthrow of the Philistine foe with means so inadequate that the hand of God was manifest in the victory; his final humiliation, which he owed to his own weakness and disobedience, and the present revelry and feasting of the uncircumsised Philistines in the temple of their idol,—all these things together constitute a parable of which no reader of Milton's day could possibly mistake the interpretation. More obscurely adumbrated is the day of vengeance, when virtue should ...
— Milton • Mark Pattison

... go, his honesty was great. Now there was a Merchant Prince who had come to Thangobrind and had offered his daughter's soul for the diamond that is larger than the human head and was to be found on the lap of the spider-idol, Hlo-hlo, in his temple of Moung-ga-ling; for he had heard that Thangobrind was a thief ...
— The Book of Wonder • Edward J. M. D. Plunkett, Lord Dunsany

... (Doctrine of Divorce, Bk. i, Ch. XIII); it is "a covenant, the very being whereof consists not in a forced cohabitation, and counterfeit performance of duties, but in unfeigned love and peace" (Ib., Ch. VI). Any marriage that is less than this is "an idol, nothing in the world." The weak point in Milton's presentation of the matter is that he never explicitly accords to the wife the same power of initiative in marriage and divorce as to the husband. There is, ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... frightened me not a little; for Firm, though mild of speech, was very hot of spirit at any wrong, as I knew from tales of Suan Isco, who had brought him up and made a glorious idol of him. And now, when she could not say where he was, but only was sure that he must be quite safe (in virtue of a charm from a great medicine man which she had hung about him), it seemed to me, according to what I was used to, that in these regions human life was held ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore

... satisfied that she owed him all she had. I suppose, too, there was some trace of a Puritan conscience back of it, some inherent feeling about divorce; and there was pride as well, a desire not to let that disgusting family of hers know into what ways her idol had fallen. Anyway, she was adamant—oh, yes, I made no bones about it, I up and asked her one night why she didn't get rid of the hound. So there she was, that white-and-gold woman, with her love of music, ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1915 - And the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various

... of expediting matters, the committee adopts this resolution and the three men who are to tell their life's history are chosen. The first of these is a man of the world, a fallen idol of society, who had lately joined the ranks of the oppressed as a consequence of ...
— The Transgressors - Story of a Great Sin • Francis A. Adams

... took the news as a personal grace, and blossomed into smiles and glad humor of which only Josephine understood the source. But Josephine held her tongue, and received the confidence of her young friend with discretion. As she had never dispossessed her own old idol, she could feel for Adelaide, and she was not disposed to look on her patient determination with displeasure. The constancy of the two, however, was very different in essential meaning. With Josephine it was the constancy that is born of an affectionate disposition ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - February, 1876, Vol. XVII, No. 98. • Various

... hope and believe, nay we know that there are more than seven thousand who will never bow the knee to Baal, or servilely submit to Tyranny, temporal or spiritual: But are we not fallen into an age when some even of the Clergy think it no shame to flatter the Idol; and thereby to lay the people, as in the days of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, under a temptation to commit great wickedness, and sin against God? Let us beware of the poison of flattery - If the people are tainted with this ...
— The Writings of Samuel Adams, volume II (1770 - 1773) - collected and edited by Harry Alonso Cushing • Samuel Adams

... heart had been his few civil words at times when he could make her useful to him. I am persuaded, too, that Mademoiselle de Gringrimeau exercised her spite in keeping the two young creatures from any childish or innocent enjoyments that might have drawn them together. If etiquette were the idol of that lady, I am sure that spite flavoured the incense she ...
— Stray Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge

... time Uncle Vanya and the other members of the family as well, had sacrificed themselves entirely to this celebrated man. But at this proposition Vanya realizes that their idol is nothing but an abominable egoist, and he begins to despise his brother-in-law. What is more, he secretly loves the young and beautiful wife of the professor, while she suffers from the everlasting complaints and caprices ...
— Contemporary Russian Novelists • Serge Persky

... whom the neighbourhood talked, who seemed to have left behind him such memories of energy and goodness, his mother's idol, had his bones too lain bleaching on that field of horror? It did not ...
— Eleanor • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... as much, and the thought greatly oppressed me. 'T is as if I were a golden calf set aloft in the wilderness to mock the true God. It resteth heavy on my spirit to abide as a vain idol in the tents of these idolaters. When first they draped me with this foul livery of Satan," he touched the scarlet robe gingerly with his chin, "I made so vigorous a protest two of the black imps went down before me, but the others overpowered my struggles, binding me fast, as ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish

... Vain idol of a scribbling crowd, Whose very name inspires an awe Whose ev'ry word is ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell

... to his work the name of Reformation. Such was the line of argument in a lecture which entertained the general public and enraged bigoted Protestants more, perhaps, than any of the others. The secret of its success was that it overturned the great Protestant idol. ...
— Life of Father Hecker • Walter Elliott

... one mad hour, I dared to pour The thoughts that burst their channels into song, And sent them to thee—such a tribute, lady, As beauty rarely scorns, even from the meanest. The name—appended by the burning heart That long'd to show its idol what bright things It had created—yea, the enthusiast's name, That should have been thy triumph, was thy scorn! That very hour—when passion, turn'd to wrath, Resembled hatred most—when thy disdain Made my whole soul a chaos—in that hour The tempters ...
— The Lady of Lyons - or Love and Pride • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... even the rudest savage, something within him which reminds him of One to whom he of right belongs; however far he may have got away from Him, or may have tried to satisfy his conscience—that "eye of the soul"—by seeking to please some idol-god which ...
— Twilight And Dawn • Caroline Pridham

... gregarious habits; "the people are all driven down to the beach like a flock of sheep in the morning, and in the evening they are all driven back to their folds." He reported a feeble drama written by his ancient idol, Lord Stratford de Redcliffe; "it is a painful thing to see a man of his quality and of his age unduly detained in the world; when the Emperor Nicholas died, the Eltchi lost his raison d'etre." He disparaged the wild fit of morality undergone by the "Pall ...
— Biographical Study of A. W. Kinglake • Rev. W. Tuckwell

... smite the idol in Guildhall, And then, as we are wont, We'll cry it was a Popish plot, And swear ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden

... Webster, and their numerous tools, on the Bench, in Commissioners' seats, and other official stations, or in hopes of gaining such stations bye and bye, had fallen upon their faces before the monster idol, and sworn that the victim should be prepared. Thomas Sims was ordered back to slavery by Commissioner G.T. Curtis, and was taken from the Court House, in Boston, early on the morning of April 11th, [1851,] to the Brig Acorn, lying at the end of Long Wharf, ...
— The Fugitive Slave Law and Its Victims - Anti-Slavery Tracts No. 18 • American Anti-Slavery Society

... you one moment's inquietude to purchase the greatest possible felicity to myself. Whatever my fate is, my most ardent wish is for your happiness, and my latest breath will be to implore the blessing of heaven on the idol and only ...
— Woman's Life in Colonial Days • Carl Holliday

... sentiment of seclusion, when the society of trees and flowers is to be enjoyed. Next to woman, nature is his fetish. True to his national taste in dress, he prefers that both should be costumed a la Parisienne; but as poet and lover, it is his instinct to build a wall about his idol, that he may enjoy his moments of expansion unseen and unmolested. This square of earth, for instance, was not much larger than the space covered by the chamber roof above us; and yet, with the high walls towering over the rose-stalks, it was as ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd

... and insolent husband. 13. In the fable of the Discontented Pendulum, the weights hung speechless. 14. The brightness and freedom of the New Learning seemed incarnate in the young and scholarly Sir Thomas More. 15. Sir Philip Sidney lived and died the darling of the Court, and the gentleman and idol ...
— Higher Lessons in English • Alonzo Reed and Brainerd Kellogg

... unashamed. He saw himself in his young manhood loving beyond his star, and his heart quickened as he thought of youth and beauty. He saw himself in his prime, and his eyes filled as he thought of youth and beauty wronged, betrayed, and abandoned. He saw himself clasping in his arms the injured idol of his youth; he saw again the strange scene in the forest, the captured wronger, the rude, lawless trial, and the stroke of the great sword which avenged dishonor. He saw again his sad, sweet nuptials; he lived anew through that brief spring and summer and autumn of ...
— The Proud Prince • Justin Huntly McCarthy

... governors, and bishops sitting in state on the broad verandas of government buildings, witnessed that new thing, the making of a king and queen, knew the stolid march of convicts, white and brown, images of saints carried in processions, and schools opened to regenerate the race of idol-worshippers. ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien

... extremely hard to give a faithful and intelligible description of it. Most people who have lived in India would maintain that the Indian religion, as believed in and practised at present by the mass of the people, is idol worship and nothing else. But let us hear one of the mass of the people, a Hindu of Benares, who in a lecture delivered before an English and native audience defends his faith and the faith of his forefathers against such sweeping accusations. ...
— Chips From A German Workshop - Volume I - Essays on the Science of Religion • Friedrich Max Mueller

... the farmer's spare room, where the subscription book, flashing without and dull within, lay on the center table. A plaster-of-paris kitten, once the idol of a child whose son now doubtless lay in a national burial-ground, looked down from the mantel-piece. There was the frail rocking-chair that was never intended to be sat in, and on the wall, in an acorn-studded ...
— The Colossus - A Novel • Opie Read

... such hero-worshippers by nature that we can only believe in one man at a time. We get hold of a Palmerston or a Gladstone, and set him on a pedestal, and think that everybody else is a pygmy. It may be that our idol is a tolerably good one—that is, not mischievously active. In that case he cannot do much harm. But when, as in the case of Gladstone, you have a national idol who is actively mischievous, it is impossible to exaggerate the evil which ...
— Name and Fame - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant

... colored under the doctor's satire, he was chiefly conscious of a great relief that his idol was not in danger. His only reply was the sullen, impassive expression he usually turned toward ...
— What Can She Do? • Edward Payson Roe

... while you are shaking hands with a husky you're just putting into harness at one-fifty per. I didn't intend to do it, but somehow when your whole conception of fame and glory comes clattering down about your ears, and you find you've got to order your star and idol to get a hustle on him and load the car at door four damquick, you are likely to do something foolish. I just stood and sniveled and let my mouth hang open. Neither of us said a word, but presently I put my arm around his shoulders and led him out into the shipping room. "There's ...
— At Good Old Siwash • George Fitch

... And her idol being broken (as it were), and all her fond fancies dashed, she would not as much as look at him again nor go anigh the room, to ...
— A Set of Rogues • Frank Barrett

... harshly, puffing at his cigarette, dragging its fumes into his lungs in a fierce desire to finish his physical cataclysm with his moral. Yes, it had been his last chance. He, the popular idol, had been going lower and lower in the scale, but the sporting world had been loyal, as it always is to "class." He had been "class," and they had ...
— Garrison's Finish - A Romance of the Race-Course • W. B. M. Ferguson

... his time the prince spent in seeing what was most remarkable in and about the city; and among other things he visited a temple, all built of brass. It was ten cubits square, and fifteen high; and the greatest ornament to it was an idol of the height of a man, of massy gold: its eyes were two rubies, set so artificially, that it seemed to look at those who looked at it, on whichever side they turned. Besides this, there was another not less ...
— Fairy Tales From The Arabian Nights • E. Dixon

... for the women in their predicament weighed one way—knowledge that our friend Monty was in durance vile contingent on her actions pulled heavily another Fred was frankly enjoying himself, which influenced her strongly toward the Armenian side, she being young and, doubtless the idol of a hundred heart-sick Americans, ...
— The Eye of Zeitoon • Talbot Mundy

... reappeared with an extraordinary eclat; his works were read with passion; a new world was discovered in them, with a horizon unknown to our fathers; and the god of Spinoza, which the seventeenth century had broken as an idol, became the god of Lessing, of Goethe, ...
— A Theodicy, or, Vindication of the Divine Glory • Albert Taylor Bledsoe

... learnt to submit his personal convictions to the requirements of the State; he had only done so unwillingly and by a great struggle. This was to be the end of the doctrine of the Christian State. With Gneist, Lasker, Virchow, he was subduing the Church to this new idol of the State; he was doing that against which in the old days he had struggled with the greatest resolution and spoken with the greatest eloquence. Not many years were to go by before he began to repent of what he had done, for, as he saw the new danger from Social Democracy, he like many other ...
— Bismarck and the Foundation of the German Empire • James Wycliffe Headlam

... of chagrin and grief, for my idol had been shattered by a single blow, and only the wreck of all my hopes and ...
— The Sign of Silence • William Le Queux

... into all his projects, and was among his most valuable counsellors whether in peace or war. In force of character and in personal bravery she was scarce inferior to her heroic husband, and yet she lacked not discretion or even shrewdness. She was the idol of the Swedish people, and before many years were passed was to have an opportunity ...
— The Swedish Revolution Under Gustavus Vasa • Paul Barron Watson

... should impress our minds with deep solemnity. Anything held back from such a dedication would most certainly have been rejected in the old dispensation, and truly it is the same in the new. Many professing to follow Jesus into a thorough consecration, are at heart disposed to keep back some treasured idol. Many have doubtless made a profession of sanctification, and yet have never made a definite consecration. Such are deceived, and never know the joys of this glorious experience. The cleansing blood ...
— Sanctification • J. W. Byers

... great way below "double G," this time, and I did not see how he could get back. He drew his scalp quite down to the bridge of his nose, and, seeing that my horse pricked up his ears, timorously smiled like the idol of Baal. ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend

... four years old at this time, the idol of his foster-mother, and a great favorite with his adopted brothers and sisters. A quaint little fellow he was, with a broad, intellectual-looking face, serious to old-fashionedness, very fair, and ...
— Jan of the Windmill • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... a common Cabby, for the time being combining in himself the several functions of guide-book, chattel-mortgage and writ of habeas corpus on the person of the most popular literary idol of the hour and all for the matter of maybe no more than half ...
— A Jongleur Strayed - Verses on Love and Other Matters Sacred and Profane • Richard Le Gallienne

... you her picture to use—and to reproduce with photographic exactness the unsurpassable expression and all. May you find an artist who has lost an idol! ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... He divided it, according to an idea of his own, into groups of four comrades each, for the campaign. He exercised a personal supervision over the most important and the most trivial minutiae of the regimental business. The quick sympathy of the public still followed him. He became the idol of the Bowery and the pet of the Avenue. Yet not one instant did he waste in recreation or lionizing. Indulgent to all others, he was merciless to himself. He worked day and night, like an incarnation ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 45, July, 1861 • Various

... delighted reading of a scholar, willing to ponder at leisure, to make his way surely, and understand. Very different, certainly, from the cruel-featured little idol his mother had brought in her bundle—the old Scythian Artemis, hanging there on the wall, side by side with the forgotten Ares, blood-red,—the goddess reveals herself to the lad, poring through the dusk by taper-light, as at once a virgin, ...
— Greek Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater

... French name—reside in the same palace where your fathers lived before you. Your sister is the idol of your heart. You worship her with such devotion that it becomes a maxim quoted by mothers to their sons. You idealize her, and are proud of her; and she is worthy of it all. Ah, sir, follow me with care, for the story will touch you, I believe, as ...
— Princess Zara • Ross Beeckman

... the sea, I could have swum the widest tide That ever mariner defied, And, at the shore, could on have gone To that high crag she stood upon, To there entreat and say, 'My Sweet, Behold thy servant at thy feet.' And to my soul I said: 'Above, There stands the idol of ...
— The Complete Works • James Whitcomb Riley

... cold mammon, that idol to whom our hearts are sacrificed so ruthlessly!" exclaimed Fanny, indignantly. "For money we sell our youth, our happiness, ...
— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach

... Yank With his blood-spattered idol of gold, Who, his birthright, for cash in the bank, And political pottage has sold. Then we send our poor boys to the war With a prayer that they keep themselves clean, And we purchase a shining new car, Praying harder for ...
— War Rhymes • Abner Cosens

... of which together would hardly equal one province of the huge Asiatic realm! Moreover, it was a war not only on the men but on their gods. The Persians were zealous adorers of the sun and of fire, they abhorred the idol-worship of the Greeks, and defiled and plundered every temple that fell in their way. Death and desolation were almost the best that could be looked for at such hands—slavery and torture from cruelly barbarous masters would only too surely be the lot ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry

... failed, like himself, in conducting a critical publication, for which his countrymen were not ready. He made a second collection of his poems at this time (1832), a copy of which was sent by Mr. Verplanck to Mr. Washington Irving, who was then, what he had been for years, the idol of English readers, and not without weight with the Trade. Would he see if some English house would not reprint it? No leading publisher nibbled at it, not even Murray, who was Mr. Irving's publisher; but an obscure bookseller named Andrews ...
— Poetical Works of William Cullen Bryant - Household Edition • William Cullen Bryant

... out sin, and you cast out sorrow. So he first earns his new name of Jerubbaal ('Let Baal plead'), and is known as Baal's antagonist, before he blows the trumpet of revolt. The name is an omen of victory. The hand that had smitten the idol, and had not been withered, would smite Midian. Therefore that new name is used in this chapter, which tells of the preparations for the fight and its triumphant issue. From his home among the hills, he had sent the fiery cross to the three northern tribes, who had been ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... chiefs of both factions were on the ground, and never was there a fiercer, more bitter and relentless conflict between the Narragansetts and Pequods than this memorable contest between the Barnburners and Hunkers. Silas Wright was the idol of the Barnburners. He had died on the 27th of the preceding August—less than two weeks before. James S. Wadsworth voiced the sentiments of his followers. In the convention some one spoke of doing justice ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander

... find them. I can so well understand the lover leaving his mistress that he might write to her, I should leave mine, not to write to, but to think of her, to dress her up in the habiliments of my ideal beauty, investing her with all the charms of the latter, and then adoring the idol I had formed. You must have observed that I give my heroines extreme refinement, joined to great simplicity and want of education. Now, refinement and want of education are incompatible, at least I have ever found them ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 572, October 20, 1832 • Various

... his strong veins. Once he had seen that tide at the surface, and it had left an impression not easily forgettable. Nan, too, was not without understanding of him. But hers was the understanding of her sex for an idol she had set up in her heart. Her knowledge of his shortcomings and his best characteristics was perhaps the reflection of her feelings for him, feelings which make it possible for a woman to endow any object of her profound ...
— The Forfeit • Ridgwell Cullum

... ones, and now it comes to make more beautiful this fairy land, hiding the scars and ugly places, touching the pine trees with silver points, and glorifying the old Temples, till one wonders if they could have been made by hands. A night when the white robed priests are doing honor to some "heathen idol" and must needs call his wandering attention by the stroke of the deep toned bell, which sends its music far across sleeping Japan, out into ...
— Lady of the Decoration • Frances Little

... first of mortal race. Alas! if I who still was blessed When thou wast but a lowly flower— To pluck thy image from my breast, Though thus thou will'st it, have no power; Thou still to me, though lifted high In hope and heart above the glen, Where first thou won my idol eye, Must spell my worship ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various

... most of all for any woman who cared for the social conventions. This affair brought down upon Byron a storm of public indignation which drove him from England. The society which had petted him and excused his vagaries and violations of all decency, now turned upon him with rage and made the idol responsible for the foolishness of his worshipers. To the end of his life, neither society nor the critics ever forgave him, and did not even do justice to his genius. His espousal of the popular cause in Europe embittered the conservative element, ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various

... participation in the nature of God, this sanctification of God's name, which forms the foundation of: "I will be their God, and they shall be my people." Without this, the relation cannot exist at all, as truly as God is not an idol, but the True and Holy One. These words express, as Buddeus, S. 94, rightly remarks: "That He will impart himself altogether to them." But how were it possible that God, with His blessings and gifts, should [Pg 441] impart himself entirely and unconditionally ...
— Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions. Vol. 2 • Ernst Hengstenberg

... that only because I did not put off my hat, which he knew I did not put on in disrespect to him, but upon a religious principle. But as this hat-honour (as it was accounted) was grown to be a great idol, in those times more especially, so the Lord was pleased to engage His servants in a steady testimony against it, what suffering soever was brought upon them for it. And though some who have been called ...
— The History of Thomas Ellwood Written by Himself • Thomas Ellwood

... no one could have guessed it. Once more she was a Moslem slave, sold by the man whom last night she had thought——She bowed to kismet and strangled her feelings as she had so many times before. And so after a shake of the hand, Mr. Middleton left her, left her to learn as the idol of Mr. Crayburn's life, with every whim gratified, that the first American she had known ...
— The Strange Adventures of Mr. Middleton • Wardon Allan Curtis

... presence, I recognize there that portion of her which she has inherited from the Aphrodite of other days; and this I know is beauty. It is not the beauty of an hallucination, the halo which a heart diseased casts about the head of its idol. It is the beauty which is seen by a sober second thought, a beauty which does not so much dazzle as it delights; a beauty which does not fade with the passing hour, but stays through the heat and burden of the day and until the day ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various

... her features? Is this her countenance? Is this her gait or her mien? No, I think even now I hear you calling upon me to turn from this vile libel, this base caricature, this Indian pagod, formed by the hand of guilty and knavish tyranny, to dupe the heart of ignorance,—to turn from this deformed idol to the true Majesty of Justice here. Here, indeed, I see a different form, enthroned by the sovereign hand of Freedom,—awful without severity—commanding without pride—vigilant and active without restlessness or suspicion—searching and inquisitive without meanness or debasement—not ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan Vol 2 • Thomas Moore

... the review were exciting. After the calling of the roll, the idol of his regiment, Col. Martin Van Buren Brick, discharged ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall

... over Pontus, was an extraordinary man. He spoke many languages, was the idol, of his subjects, and had boundless ambition. He doubted the durability of the Roman Empire, and began to enlarge his own territory, with no apparent fear of ...
— History of Rome from the Earliest times down to 476 AD • Robert F. Pennell

... Nannerl prettier than ever, and Wolfgang, notwithstanding the severe illness he had recently had, looked normally well and happy, and was as childish in his interests as if he had not become a public idol. ...
— Ten Boys from History • Kate Dickinson Sweetser

... in no social humor that he reached Dingwall's house the next evening. Yet he knew the difficulty of taking an aggressive attitude toward his previous idol or of inviting a full explanation ...
— Trent's Trust and Other Stories • Bret Harte

... by Rome, And said,—nor he a bad man, no, nor fool,— Only a man, so, blind like all his mates,— 'Here skulk in safety, lurk, defying law, The devotees to execrable creed, Adoring—with what culture ... Jove, avert Thy vengeance from us worshippers of thee!... What rites obscene—their idol-god, an Ass!' So went the word forth, so acceptance found, So century re-echoed century, Cursed the accursed,—and so, from sire to son, You Romans cried, 'The offscourings of our race Corrupt within the depths there: fitly, fiends Perform a temple-service o'er ...
— Studies in Literature • John Morley

... triumphs! such intoxication!' as Scudo says; but the glory was that of a shooting star. In eight short years after that brilliant season at Venice, Adelaide Montresor, better known as 'La Malanotte,' the idol of the European musical public, the short-lived infatuation and passion of the celebrated Rossini, was a hopeless ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various

... Sometimes he disappeared for several days, and on his return from these mysterious absences, would let it be known that he had just accomplished some great deed, or brought a dangerous mission to a successful termination. In this way the Chevalier Acquet de Ferolles had become the idol of the little group of naive royalists among whom he had found refuge. He had bravely served the cause; he plumed himself on having merited the surname of "toutou of the Princes," and in Mme. de Combray's dazzled eyes this was equal ...
— The House of the Combrays • G. le Notre

... more ready and willing to take his place. Don't think of him as a human being. Don't think of him as some woman's husband and breadwinner. Don't think of him as some grey-haired widow's son, whose support he has been. Don't think of him as some foolish girl's heart's idol. But think of him as a part of the country's revenue. Think of him as "One-and-fourpence ...
— Campaign Pictures of the War in South Africa (1899-1900) - Letters from the Front • A. G. Hales

... wood and milk and fowls and all sorts of things; and I gave five rupees to the shrine and told Macnamara that he had been injudicious. He said that I had bowed down in the House of Rimmon; but if he had only just gone over the brow of the hill and insulted Palin Deo, the idol of the Suria Kol, he would have been impaled on a charred bamboo long before I could have done anything, and then I should have had to have hanged some of the poor brutes. Be gentle with them, Padri—but I don't think you'll ...
— Soldiers Three • Rudyard Kipling

... turned and entered the house, those who had seen him saluted as the favorite of the emperor and the idol of the crowd, and thence had believed unbounded happiness must be his never-varying lot, would have been astonished to know how many things there were which rankled painfully in his heart, and, for the moment, made ...
— Continental Monthly, Volume 5, Issue 4 • Various

... These warm, moist places always makes folks lazy; and when they're hot enough, if you take notice, it makes heathen of 'em. It always seems so queer to me that real hot weather and the Christian religion don't seem to git along together. P'r'aps it's just as well that the idol-worshippers should get used to heat in this world, for they'll have it consid'able hot in the next one, I guess! And see here, Mrs. Beresford, will you get me ten cents'—I mean sixpence—worth o' red gingham to make Miss ...
— Penelope's Irish Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... have mended her idol discreetly and permanently, so that for the outward world it would still present the same uncompromising surface, so that no inquisitive or bungling touch could bring to light the grim, disfiguring fracture which it had sustained, it is probable that she would have chosen this part, and hidden the ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore

... and the storms too fierce for the vacillating Erasmus. He did some excellent service in his way, but all his counsels and ideas failed, as they deserved. Once the idol of Europe, he died a defeated, crushed, and miserable man. "Hercules could not fight two monsters at once," said he, "while I, poor wretch! have lions, cerberuses, cancers, scorpions, every day at my ...
— Luther and the Reformation: - The Life-Springs of Our Liberties • Joseph A. Seiss

... and hamlet, are his memorial. In Montezuma's empire, where once a barbaric splendor held court and set in tragic splendor, lurid even yet at these centuries' remove, what is left save a vocabulary or a broken idol lying black and foreboding in some mountain stream? Or those discoverers whose adventurous deeds are part of the world's chosen treasure, what but their names are written on the streams or hills? The import ...
— A Hero and Some Other Folks • William A. Quayle

... wished at least, that beauty was in some degree dependent upon sentiment and manners, that so high a privilege might not be possessed by the unworthy, and that human reason might no longer suffer the mortification of those who are compelled to adore an idol, which differs from a stone or log only by the skill of the artificer: and if they cannot themselves behold beauty with indifference, they must, surely, approve an attempt to shew that it ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore

... do books ever really affect people like this? Most assuredly! We have only to turn to biography for the record, if we do not find living witnesses among our friends. It was said of Neander that "Plato is his idol—his constant watchword. He sits day and night over him; and there are few who have so thoroughly and in such purity imbibed ...
— The Booklover and His Books • Harry Lyman Koopman

... it is," continued Graeme, getting into his former expression: "through this channel, this innocent medium, this creature the fruit of my loins, the idol of my heart, is the lightning of reproof hurled. A wandering idiot is prompted by the very inspiration of her imbecility to put into the hands of my child the emblem of my wickedness, that she in her love might place it before ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, XXII • various

... inflicting on their countrymen for the gratification of their avarice, filthy passions, and pride; the new Mahometans were at hand - Arab, Persian, and Afghan, with the glittering scimitar upraised, full of zeal for the glory and adoration of the one high God, and the relentless persecutors of the idol-worshippers. Already, in the four hundred and twenty-sixth year of the Hegeira, we read of the destruction of the great Butkhan, or image-house of Sumnaut, by the armies of the far-conquering Mahmoud, when the dissevered ...
— The Zincali - An Account of the Gypsies of Spain • George Borrow

... yet return his love, after her fashion; but the fair Portinari laughs and marries another. Some less melancholy face, some more intelligible courtship, triumphed over the questionable flattery of the poet's gratuitous worship; and the idol of Dante Alighieri became the wife of Messer Simone de' Bardi. Not a word does he say on that mortifying point. It transpired from a clause in her father's will. And yet so bent are the poet's biographers on leaving a romantic doubt in one's mind, whether Beatrice may not have returned his ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Volume 1 • Leigh Hunt

... well, Guardy—loved and longed for it. It has been an idol to me, and my punishment is here. I wish I had never seen it. I wish I had never left the city, never been parted from the old friends. I am a miserable woman. I wish I ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan

... lounged on the hard earth beside the step, his fair head shining in the afterglow, his grey eyes upon the girl's face in a sort of idol-worship. ...
— Tharon of Lost Valley • Vingie E. Roe

... at Versailles, had concealed himself at Viry. He was there recognised, and the peasants seized him, and dragged him to the Hotel de Ville. The cry for death was heard; the electors, the members of committee, and M. de La Fayette, at that time the idol of Paris, in vain endeavoured to save the unfortunate man. After tormenting him in a manner which makes humanity shudder, his body was dragged about the streets, and to the Palais Royal, and his heart was carried by women in the midst of a bunch of white carnations! M. Berthier, M. Foulon's ...
— Memoirs Of The Court Of Marie Antoinette, Queen Of France, Complete • Madame Campan

... hands were cut off upon the threshold; only the stump of Dagon was left".[42] A further reference to "the threshold of Dagon" suggests that the god had feet like Ea-Oannes. Those who hold that Dagon had a fish form derive his name from the Semitic "dag a fish", and suggest that after the idol fell only the fishy part (dago) was left. On the other hand, it was argued that Dagon was a corn god, and that the resemblance between the words Dagan and Dagon are accidental. Professor Sayce makes reference in this connection to a crystal seal from Phoenicia ...
— Myths of Babylonia and Assyria • Donald A. Mackenzie

... views and practices; and there is nothing to draw forth his regard and sympathy, except it be the fervour, the deep though mistaken fervour, of some of the worshippers, especially of the women, who may sometimes be seen with children in their arms teaching them to make obeisance to the idol. In Roman Catholic worship there is much which, as Protestants ruled by the Bible, we rightly condemn; but in the gorgeous vestments of its priests, in the magnificence of many of the places in which they minister, in the grand strains ...
— Life and Work in Benares and Kumaon, 1839-1877 • James Kennedy

... Woggle-Bug espied him; and, recognizing at once the pattern and colors of his infatuating idol, he ran up and sat beside the Chinaman, saying in agitated but ...
— The Woggle-Bug Book • L. Frank Baum

... make poor mamma unhappy.' And then, mamma grieves over it and wonders over it, when she finds her little angel disobedient. What a fatal system of education! All my success in life; every quality that endeared me to your father and Mr. Presty; every social charm that has made me the idol of society, I attribute entirely to judicious correction in early life, applied freely with the open hand. We will change the subject. Where is dear Bennydeck? I want to congratulate him on his approaching marriage." She looked hard at her daughter, and ...
— The Evil Genius • Wilkie Collins

... true, unearthed the interesting information that Peter was "working," but the discovery was greeted with but scant curiosity. One's place in life closes up very quickly after one drops from sight. When the idol of the Milburn ball team had vanished it had caused great agitation and for a brief interval he had been sincerely mourned; then some one else had been raised up to fill the gap, life was readjusted, and soon Peter and ...
— The Story of Leather • Sara Ware Bassett

... of Liber and Ceres (bread and wine) may be translated literally by the modern Protestant; and the sarcasms which Clement and Tertullian flung at the Pagan creed, the modern sceptic returns upon their own. Of what use is it to destroy an idol when another, or the same in another form takes immediate possession ...
— Froude's Essays in Literature and History - With Introduction by Hilaire Belloc • James Froude

... warfare. He was happy only when in the field of battle, and the struggle between Francis and Charles gave him ample opportunities, fighting on the side of Charles and the Pope and doing many brave and dashing things. He died at an early age, only twenty-eight, in 1526, the idol of his men, leaving a widow and ...
— A Wanderer in Florence • E. V. Lucas

... I give to my father for declining this offer?" said she. "Every one knows that I am almost portionless, and that I am sacrificed to my brother, immolated upon the altar erected before the cruel idol of family pride; and how dare I refuse a suitable offer when one is made for ...
— The Champdoce Mystery • Emile Gaboriau

... puff your idol-fires, And heap their ashes on the head; To shame the boast so often made, [4] That we are wiser ...
— The Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson • Tennyson

... do you get that line—walk your head off? I seem to remember a close-up of you riding home on horseback with moonlight atmosphere and a fellow to drive your goats. And you giving him the baby-eyed stare like he was a screen idol and you was an extra that was strong for him. Bu-lieve me, Helen Blazes, I'm wise. You're wishing a goat would get lost—now, while the moon's ...
— Starr, of the Desert • B. M Bower

... to have bid him burn his tablets, forswear poetry for ever, and regard himself as forbidden the temptations of the maids of Parnassus. But I should have broken his heart. I took the simpler but more effectual cure—I bade him find out this idol, and marry her. Before I forget him and his sorrows, let me mention, that he took my advice, and that, on my return to the Continent some years after, I found the poet transferred into the benedict, with a pretty wife at his side, and a circle of lively children at his knee—an active, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 343, May 1844 • Various

... was Mr Delvile himself less sanguine in his hopes: his son was not only the first object of his affection, but the chief idol of his pride, and he did not merely cherish but reverence him as his successor, the only support of his ancient name and family, without whose life and health the whole race would be extinct. He consulted him in all his affairs, never mentioned him but with distinction, and expected ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)

... my eyes full of tears, looking at the man in silent, awe-stricken wonder. His grief unnerved him, and made him a weak, passive child. I did not dream that his rugged nature could be so moved. I shall never forget those solemn moments—genius and greatness weeping over love's idol lost. There is a grandeur as well as a simplicity about the picture that will never fade. With me it is immortal—I really believe that I shall carry it with me across the dark, mysterious river ...
— Behind the Scenes - or, Thirty years a slave, and Four Years in the White House • Elizabeth Keckley

... an impulse stronger than himself, lifted his face to the idol. It had vanished. In its place stood ...
— The Native Born - or, The Rajah's People • I. A. R. Wylie

... had come had made no call upon the harsher elements of his nature, if such he had. At times he had felt the stir and impulses of ambition, but they had been like the formless dreams of a child walking by the sea and gazing at the coming and going of stately ships. But now, if we can imagine an idol, sensible of the worship it was accustomed to, dashed suddenly from its altar, and lying amidst the wreck of its little world of love, an idea may be had of what had befallen the young Ben-Hur, and of its effect upon his being. Yet there was no sign, nothing ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace

... is more common than for the hero-worshipper, disenchanted of his early idolatry, to rush to the opposite extreme, and to become the hero-hater; and the fault is as frequently his own as that of his idol. And it must be granted that an hospital—especially of that age—was no congenial atmosphere for a poet so Platonic and ...
— Poetical Works of Akenside - [Edited by George Gilfillan] • Mark Akenside

... known the two brothers at college, and to Paul he had given a freshman's worship. In the field Paul had been the idol, and popular not only for his feats of strength but for his lovableness. He recalled the affection between the two boys. Arthur admired Paul for his strength, Paul admired and gloried in his brother's learning. Never ...
— Parrot & Co. • Harold MacGrath

... elevate themselves into national consequence and independence, during the civil convulsions which were likely to ensue. On this subject Cedric was all animation. The restoration of the independence of his race was the idol of his heart, to which he had willingly sacrificed domestic happiness and the interests of his own son. But, in order to achieve this great revolution in favour of the native English, it was necessary that they should be united among themselves, and act under an acknowledged head. The ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott

... down and touched his lips to the white forehead; then as the sweet eyes opened and looked up lovingly into his, "Oh, my darling, idol of my heart," he groaned, "would that your father could himself take the suffering that I have just learned is in store ...
— Elsie's Vacation and After Events • Martha Finley

... from king, chief, or avenger. These gates were wide, and some faced the sea, and others the mountains. Hither the murderer, the manslayer, the tabu-breaker fled, repaired to the presence of the idol, and thanked it for aiding him to reach the place of security. After a certain time the fugitives were allowed to return to their families, and none dared to injure those to whom the high gods had granted ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird

... had said. Olivia Langdon improved steadily, and now at twenty-two, though not robust—she was never that—she was comparatively well. Gentle, winning, lovable, she was the family idol, and Samuel Clemens joined in their worship from the moment of that ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine

... got back they found Murgatroyd pacing up and down the floor of the deck-chamber, looking about him with serious eyes, but betraying no other visible sign of anxiety. The Astronef was at once his home and his idol, and, as Redgrave had said, even his own direct orders would hardly have induced him to leave her even in a world in which there was not a living human being to dispute possession ...
— A Honeymoon in Space • George Griffith

... gazing at him as though she were worshiping him; and he hardly looks at her, and yet she is the prettiest little creature I have seen for a long time. How Percy would rave about her if he saw her; but I forgot, Percy's idol is ...
— Wee Wifie • Rosa Nouchette Carey

... snivel any more. Wipe your eyes and take it sporting. And, wait a moment. If you want a bit of really good, sound advice, don't mention The Poplars again, or the fact that you were head girl there, and the idol of the school, and the rest of it. You're only a junior here, and the sooner you find your level the better. We're not exactly aching to have our tone improved by you! And, look here! Take that absurd keepsake bracelet off, and lock it up in your box, and don't ...
— The Madcap of the School • Angela Brazil

... dropping into his chair and testing the soup Winnie instantly placed before him. Hugh was her idol and she always managed not to keep him waiting. "Heat too much for ...
— Rosemary • Josephine Lawrence

... Lord in the circumgestation and adoration of the bread which their critics [the Lutheran opponents of the Interimists, by their doctrine concerning the Lord's Supper] strengthened and that they might thank God for the purification of the temple from the Romish idol Maozim, Dan. 11, 38. (Tschackert, 510.) Frank remarks: "One must see this passage black on white in order to believe the Wittenbergers really capable of stultifying themselves in such an incredible manner. It is a monstrosity, a defense ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente

... writing, and kindling the first spark of the fire of the French Revolution. 'Royal-Flunkey' methods of journalism provoke deep resentment in the public mind,—for a king after all is only the paid servant of the people—he is not an idol or a deity to which an independent nation should for ever crook the knee. And from the smouldering anger of the million at what they conceive to be ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli

... repeated in the looks of many men, who were still glowering at the afternoon's quotations. Carson, the idol of the new "promotions," seemed to be the man most in demand for pounding. Einstein was explaining to a savage customer why he had advised ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick

... significance of the world of which he is the interpreter. Such an aspiration can be a very high and holy thing; it can lead a man to live purely and laboriously, to make sacrifices, to endure hardness. But the altar on which the sacrifice is made, stands, when all is said and done, before the idol of self. With women, though, it is different. The deepest quality in their hearts is, one may gratefully say, an intense devotion to others, an unselfishness which is unconscious of itself; and thus their aim is ...
— From a College Window • Arthur Christopher Benson

... towards him, and, believing herself unseen, looked up in is face as they met; and the passionate tenderness of the look, the sudden lighting of lip and eye, racked the poor, unwilling spy for days. To suit this abrupt descent from the pedestal, he was obliged to carve a new attribute to his idol, and laboriously adapt it. ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson

... I verily believe woman was never loved before. And then, to discover all in a moment that her love for me was a mere fiction, or at any rate a secondary sentiment, although, even with such evidence before my eyes as what I have already described to you, I could scarcely realise it, and that the idol I worshipped was at best the very incarnation of falsehood and unworthiness, was altogether too much for me; I brooded and fretted over it until I could endure it no longer, and then, one day when she seemed striving to weave anew round my heart the fatal spell of her endearments, I broke away ...
— The Rover's Secret - A Tale of the Pirate Cays and Lagoons of Cuba • Harry Collingwood

... intention. You may even go so far as to shoot the wrong gent in a darkened way, an' as long as you pulls off the play in a sperit of honesty, an' the party plugged don't happen to be a pop'lar idol, about the worst you'd get would be a caution from the Stranglers to be more acc'rate in your feuds, sech is the fairmindedness an' toleration ...
— Wolfville Days • Alfred Henry Lewis

... Villiers imposed ignominious conditions of surrender upon Washington, but scorned to take other revenge for the death of his brother. He spared the life of Washington, who lived to become the leader and idol of his nation, which, but for the magnanimity of the noble Canadian, might ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby

... great that Mr. Green, who had regarded him as a tower of strength and courage, and had wormed himself into the tall seaman's good graces by his open admiration of these qualities, stood appalled at his idol's sudden lack of spirit. ...
— A Master Of Craft • W. W. Jacobs

... that is the method which the author of the Erotica Biblon adopts for portraying the morals of the Jewish people. Again, he has not even understood this code; he has believed that the law against giving one's seed to the idol Moloch meant giving the human semen; and he is ignorant of the fact that this seed, as spoken of in the Bible, means the children and descendants. Thus it is that the land of Canaan is promised to the seed of Abraham, and the perpetuity of the reign on Sion to that of David. ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter

... But he broke loose from all entanglements; he surmounted all obstacles; he conquered all adverse circumstances. He rose to power by his own abilities. He led the armies of France to marvellous victories. He became the idol of his soldiers, the hero of the people, the chief man in the nation, the controlling power in Europe; and on the second of December, in the year 1804, he was crowned in the great church of Notre Dame, in Paris, Emperor of the French. "Straw-nose," the poverty-stricken little ...
— The Boy Life of Napoleon - Afterwards Emperor Of The French • Eugenie Foa



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