"Joss" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... The joss house that most visitors see in Chinatown is the little one up under the roof at the meeting of Doyers and Pell streets—at the toe of the twisted horseshoe made by these tiny thoroughfares of black fame, ...
— The Perils of Pauline • Charles Goddard
... the temple and burned some joss-sticks; after which the Superior made him a low obeisance and begged him to come and rest himself for a moment in the reception hall. Tea was served. Then, concealing his true design, the ...
— Eastern Shame Girl • Charles Georges Souli
... Pennington Lawton when death came to him! That has been proved. Just as brandy and soda, and peach brandy, are amber-colored, so are Scotch high-balls, which you and Pennington Lawton were drinking. No odor of peaches lingered about the room, for Miss Lawton had lighted a handful of joss-sticks in a vase upon the mantel earlier in the evening, and their pungent perfume filled the air. But the odor of peaches permeated the room when the tiny bottle which you hid in the folds of the chair was uncorked—the odor of peaches rose ...
— The Crevice • William John Burns and Isabel Ostrander
... home was shocked to find his little wife suspended by the neck in an attempt at suicide. He rescued her, and when she was restored asked for the reason. She acknowledged that she had a good home and a kind and generous husband, but there was no shrine in the house, no ancestral tablet, no Joss, and she was convinced that some great evil must be impending from spirits thus neglected and provoked. She preferred to sacrifice her present comfort rather than incur the woes approaching,—all the more dreadful in her apprehension ...
— The American Missionary - Vol. 44, No. 3, March, 1890 • Various
... peaceful exchange" that makes the whole world kin. When the Filipinos are fit for self-government, let us do as we did Cuba, make them as free as the air they breathe, but keep the key to Manila Bay as our doorway to the Orient; for whatever may be said of the old "Joss House" kingdom with all her superstitions, she possesses today the "greatest combination of natural conditions for industrial activity of any undeveloped part of the globe." By building the Suez Canal England secured an advantage of three thousand miles, in her oriental ...
— Wit, Humor, Reason, Rhetoric, Prose, Poetry and Story Woven into Eight Popular Lectures • George W. Bain
... buy him a coffin," is not so far off, because death to many of them looks much more attractive than life. We were told that if a Chinese falls off his sampan, his neighbor does not try to save him. That would be a "Bad Joss" as they say and would incur the wrath of the River God, who pulled him in. Then, too, the rescuer would have to support him for the ...
— The Log of the Empire State • Geneve L.A. Shaffer
... beautiful Golden Temple of Rangoon defies all powers of exaggeration. We went there again and again, and wandered amongst its endless small temples, representing various forms of worship, including even a Chinese joss-house, which is stamped upon my memory through a disaster, which I have always connected with this special temple; rank ...
— Seen and Unseen • E. Katharine Bates
... the Master of Life. Gushkewau', the darkness. Hiawa'tha, the Wise Man, the Teacher, son of Mudjekeewis, the WestWind and Wenonah, daughter of Nokomis. Ia'goo, a great boaster and story-teller. Inin'ewug, men, or pawns in the Game of the Bowl. Ishkoodah', fire, a comet. Jee'bi, a ghost, a spirit. Joss'akeed, a prophet. Kabibonok'ka, the North-Wind. Kagh, the hedge-hog. Ka'go, do not. Kahgahgee', the raven. Kaw, no. Kaween', no indeed. Kayoshk', the sea-gull. Kee'go, a fish. Keeway'din, the Northwest wind, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... washermen, laborers, and artisans in the city; there are also responsible merchants, brokers, and manufacturers belonging to that nationality, wielding considerable influence, both among their own people and the citizens at large. Every street in China Town has its joss-house or temple, and however low these Mongols are as a race, they never fail to give heed to their professed religion and its various forms. It is also a fact that crime is less frequent in China Town than it is in other parts of the city; and drunkenness, except insensibility from opium, is scarcely ...
— Due West - or Round the World in Ten Months • Maturin Murray Ballou
... ripen, he told himself, and time was on his side. So he drifted, very happy and content, ripening; but being overlaid all the time, deeper and thicker, with this intangible, transparent, strong wall, hemming him in, shutting in the gold, just like that little joss ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1919 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... satisfied, And I see green trees and fluttering wings, And my deathless bird from Shanghai sings." Then he lit five fire-crackers in a pan. "Pop, pop," said the fire-crackers, "cra-cra-crack." He lit a joss stick long and black. Then the proud gray joss in the corner stirred; On his wrist appeared a gray small bird, And this was the song of the gray small bird: "Where is the princess, loved forever, Who made Chang first of ...
— Chinese Nightingale • Vachel Lindsay
... fuzz of a head and this pinky peach of a face is like anybody in the world except Patty Farnsworth, I'll give up! Why, she's the image of you,—except when she makes these grotesque grimaces,—like a Chinese Joss." ...
— Patty and Azalea • Carolyn Wells
... white neckwear in his bed-chamber at Villa Cardross. And sometimes he whistled, tentatively, as though absorbed in mentally following an elusive air; sometimes he resumed a lighted cigarette which lay across the gilded stomach of a Chinese joss, sending a thin, high thread of smoke to the ceiling. He had begun his collection with one small idol; there were now nineteen, ...
— The Firing Line • Robert W. Chambers
... big upper room, where his best customers gathered, as neat as a new pin. In one corner used to stand Fung-Tching's Joss—almost as ugly as Fung- Tching—and there were always sticks burning under his nose; but you never smelt 'em when the pipes were going thick. Opposite the Joss was Fung-Tching's coffin. He had spent a good deal of his savings on that, and whenever a new man came to the Gate he was always ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... to the Chief Forester of Pennsylvania," said Mr. Marlin. Charley was suddenly abashed. He held out his hand and responded to the Commissioner's greeting, but was at a joss for anything further to say. He thought of his toast and coffee and was more than ever embarrassed, because he had only three slices to offer. Nevertheless, he set what he ...
— The Young Wireless Operator—As a Fire Patrol - The Story of a Young Wireless Amateur Who Made Good as a Fire Patrol • Lewis E. Theiss
... there, too. He's one of these short-legged, ham-faced gents that's almost as tall when he's sittin' down as when he's standin' up. A neck that takes a No. 18 turn-down collar goes with that. He has his hands in his pockets, an Egyptian joss-stick in his mouth, and he's straddlin' up and down, as satisfied with himself as if he'd just cashed a ticket on ...
— Torchy • Sewell Ford
... the palms growing at the back of the Bazaar, and the Chinese junks and Malay craft moored alongside the bank. At the end of the Bazaar, and separated from it by a small stream running into the main river, which is crossed by a wooden bridge, is the Chinese joss-house, an imposing edifice erected by the principal Chinese merchants here at a cost ...
— On the Equator • Harry de Windt
... port of Amoy, is another scene which, though it must yield the palm to this, is nevertheless one of a similarly wild nature. The "Valley of the Ten Thousand Rocks," as the spot is called, in the midst of which stands a joss-house (or temple), may be reached in a pleasant walk from the harbour of Amoy, by way of the wonderful Rocking Stone, and along paths lined with aloes and cacti. There the grass grows between the confusion of boulders, and the Chinamen's incense ascends to the ...
— Twixt France and Spain • E. Ernest Bilbrough
... our first meeting had insisted on being enrolled under that pseudonym, alleging it his real name. Upstairs above his store all was sepulchral silence when I mounted to investigate—and I came quickly and quietly down again; for the door had opened on the gaudy Oriental splendor of a joss-house where dwelt only grinning wooden idols not counted as Zone residents by the materialistic census officials. On the Isthmus as elsewhere "John" is a law-abiding citizen—within limits; never obsequious, nearly always friendly, ready to answer ...
— Zone Policeman 88 - A Close Range Study of the Panama Canal and its Workers • Harry A. Franck
... was out at sea? Whether they dangled there, banging and beating against each other, like so many jesters' baubles? Whether the idol Chin Tee, of the eighteen arms, enshrined in a celestial Punch's Show, in the place of honour, ever tumbled out in heavy weather? Whether the incense and the joss-stick still burnt before her, with a faint perfume and a little thread of smoke, while the mighty waves were roaring all around? Whether that preposterous tissue-paper umbrella in the corner was always spread, as being a convenient maritime instrument for walking about the decks ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... for long. As he sat upright and stiff in his chair, he suddenly rapped his knees, like the carved image of some queer Joss or other coming out of its reverie, and said: 'We must finish this bottle, Mr. Edwin. Let me help you. I'll help Bazzard too, though he IS asleep. ...
— The Mystery of Edwin Drood • Charles Dickens
... the line, waited, according to their own immemorial traditions, on the Director and his wife. These servants had curious ways, and a curious language in the odd pidgin English that enabled the door boy to announce that "the number one topside foreign devil joss man have makee come," when the English Bishop called, and the table boy to announce a dish of duckling as "one piecee duck pups," or of chicken as "one piecee looster." The social scale among the few ...
— Herbert Hoover - The Man and His Work • Vernon Kellogg
... the mane of a lion as a wig, which is supposed by them to give the character of ferocity and courage to the wearer, while those who affect the dandy allow their hair to grow, and jauntily place some sticks in it resembling the Chinaman's joss-sticks, which, when arranging their toilette, they use as a comb, and all carry as weapons of defence a spear and shield, a shillelagh, and a long two-edged knife. The women clothe more extensively, though not much so. Fastening a cloth tightly round the body immediately under their arms, ...
— What Led To The Discovery of the Source Of The Nile • John Hanning Speke
... circumference, and entered. It contains 300,000 people. We walked some distance through its filthy, narrow alleys, and saw the poor wretches in their dens working at all kinds of trades, from the forging of iron to the production of Joss-money, but the villainous smells soon overpowered me, and I had to get Vandy to escort me out. He can go through anything of this kind without flinching, and means to return; but I have seen enough of it, and am sorry that human ...
— Round the World • Andrew Carnegie
... perhaps, unless you're familiar with savages, but these poor, misguided, ignorant creatures took me straight to their kind of joss place to present me to the blessed old black stone there. By this time I was beginning to sort of realise the depth of their ignorance, and directly I set eyes on this deity I took my cue. I started a baritone howl, 'wow-wow,' very long on one note, and began waving my arms about a lot, and ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells |
