"Propitiate" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... in hand, he heard sounds: the sound of the night wind, the sound of one of the soldiers singing as he cleaned his rifle—the men always sang over this business, as if to propitiate the gun god—the scratch of the scorpion and the "creak, creak" of a joist warping ...
— The Pools of Silence • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... of his former life." Such also [28] was the case in Shinto belief: the good man became a beneficent divinity, the bad man an evil deity,—but all alike became Kami. "And since there are bad as well as good gods," wrote Motowori, "it is necessary to propitiate them with offerings of agreeable food, playing the harp, blowing the flute, singing and dancing and whatever is likely to put them in a good humour." The Latins called the maleficent ghosts of the dead, Larvae, and called the beneficent or harmless ghosts, Lares, or Manes, or Genii, ...
— Japan: An Attempt at Interpretation • Lafcadio Hearn
... gone to Soma-tirtha[14] to propitiate Destiny, which threatens his daughter [S']akoontala with some calamity; but he has commissioned her in his absence to entertain all guests ...
— Sakoontala or The Lost Ring - An Indian Drama • Kalidasa
... sacrifices, and the entire service of gods, demigods, and heroes; also the ordering of the repositories of the dead, and the rites which have to be observed by him who would propitiate the inhabitants of the world below. These are matters of which we are ignorant ourselves, and as founders of a city we should be unwise in trusting them to any interpreter but our ancestral deity. He is the god who sits in the centre, on the navel of the earth, and he is the interpreter ...
— The Republic • Plato
... voice called out "Hold, hold!" Then they said "Who are you who stop us?" And the voice answered "You have done evil and offended Karam Gosain by scalding him; this is why you have become poor and to-day have worked without food and without wages; he has gone to the Ganges and you must go and propitiate him." And they asked how they should propitiate him, and the voice said "Grind turmeric and put it on a plate, and buy new cloth and dye it with turmeric and make ready oil and take these things to the Ganges ...
— Folklore of the Santal Parganas • Cecil Henry Bompas
... could be more happily chosen for his visit;" adding, "because our American kinsfolk have conceived, rightly or wrongfully, that they have some cause of complaint against ourselves, and out of all England we could not have selected an envoy more calculated to allay irritation and to propitiate good will." As one whose cordial genius was, in truth, a bond of sympathy between the two great kindred nationalities, Charles Dickens indeed went forth in one sense at that time, it might almost have been said, in a semi-ambassadorial character, not between the rulers, but ...
— Charles Dickens as a Reader • Charles Kent
... at first the Myth applied. Its object is as much to propitiate the gods as to preserve social order. It is absolute because it is inspired. Many of its ordinances as drawn from the myth are inapplicable to man, and are unjust or frivolous. Yet such as it is, it rules the conduct ...
— The Religious Sentiment - Its Source and Aim: A Contribution to the Science and - Philosophy of Religion • Daniel G. Brinton
... distance; the women remaining behind, with the rest of the fighting men as their guard. This decision pleased the young men much, for they could not hope to go far without meeting other tribes; and although, as had been found in the present instance, the gift of fire would be sure to propitiate the Indians; it was probable that they might be attacked on the march, and killed without having an opportunity of explanation. Their friends, however, would have the power of at once explaining, to all comers, the valuable benefits which they ...
— Under Drake's Flag - A Tale of the Spanish Main • G. A. Henty
... as he can manage. To his German countrymen he has to proclaim that the war has been one brilliant progress from the start to the present time. This must be done in order to allay the apprehensions of Berlin and to propitiate the ever-increasing demand for more plentiful supplies of food. Secretly he has to work quite as hard to secure for the Central Empires such a conclusion of hostilities as will leave them masters of Europe. And, without doubt, he has to put up with a good many indignities ...
— Raemaekers' Cartoons - With Accompanying Notes by Well-known English Writers • Louis Raemaekers
... direct control of the powers who rule man as well. The savage sees his crops destroyed by a tempest or drought; he attributes the disaster to the particular powers concerned with such things whom he must have angered unwittingly, and whom he must propitiate by sacrifice or penitence. His individual and tribal acts do not always accomplish the desired ends, and again the laws of infinite and ultimate powers must have been contravened, as he interprets the ...
— The Doctrine of Evolution - Its Basis and Its Scope • Henry Edward Crampton
... that go with incorporation, however unassuming, capitalizing at fifteen thousand dollars, B. T. Becker, president; Jerry Hensel, trusted foreman of years, vice president and holder of ten shares; Carrie Becker, secretary and treasurer and, to propitiate the law, ...
— Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst
... the new unpalatable food, refusing it day after day, till the sharp, wilful face had grown pale and pinched with famine, and caring no more apparently for her aunt's beatings than she did for the clumsy advances by which her uncle would sometimes try to propitiate her. There had been a great deal of beating—whenever Reuben thought of it he had a superstitious way of putting Sandy out of his mind as much as possible. Many times he had gone far away from the house to avoid the sound of the blows and ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... hours with wonderful spirit and perseverance. She has with her a suite of eight domestics; and when she wins (which is not often), on returning to her hotel at night, she presents each member of her retinue with—twopence! "not," as she naively avows, "from a feeling of generosity, but to propitiate Fortune." When she loses, none of them, save the man who wheels her home, get anything but hard words from her; and he, happy fellow, receives a donation of six kreutzers. She does not curse the croupiers loudly for her bad luck, like her contemporary, the once lovely Russian Ambassadress; but, ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume I (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... lost no time in making the favorable acquaintance of the sisterhood,—never coming to them empty-handed. The finest oranges of her garden, the whitest flax of her spinning, were always reserved as offerings at the shrine of the patroness whom she sought to propitiate for her grandchild. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 43, May, 1861 • Various
... cruel stripes, Yea, and the bitter torment of the fire; For strong endurance into him Hera breathed; And still he told them the same guileful tale: "The Argives in their ships flee oversea Weary of tribulation of endless war. This horse by Calchas' counsel fashioned they For wise Athena, to propitiate Her stern wrath for that guardian image stol'n From Troy. And by Odysseus' prompting I Was marked for slaughter, to be sacrificed To the sea-powers, beside the moaning waves, To win them safe return. But their intent I marked; and ere they ...
— The Fall of Troy • Smyrnaeus Quintus
... first case it is turned towards the wall; or, in the second, it is covered over with a sheet, in order that it may not be a witness of the sin. In asking a favour of an image, it is a common practice for the devotee, in order to propitiate it, to inflict upon himself some punishment or privation; such, for example, as that of absenting himself from the theatre, or the bullfights (corridas de toros), abstaining from eating dessert, or from going to the promenade, balls, ...
— Roman Catholicism in Spain • Anonymous
... henchmen. An amusing story was told, that after some meeting to arrange matters with Bradbury and Evans, the printers, Boz, ever charitable, was glad to report to Forster some hearty praise by this person, of the ability with which he (Forster) had arranged the matters, thus amiably wishing to propitiate the autocrat in his friend's interest. But, said the uncompromising Forster, "I am truly sorry, my dear Dickens, that I cannot reciprocate your friend's compliment, for a d——nder ass I never encountered in the whole course of my life!" A ...
— John Forster • Percy Hethrington Fitzgerald
... whereas there is another and a very short one, which the Pope and the other great prelates, who know and practise it, will not have made known, for that the clergy, who for the most part live by alms, would incontinent be undone, inasmuch as the laity would no longer trouble themselves to propitiate them with alms or otherwhat. But, for that thou art my friend and hast very honourably entertained me, I would teach it thee, so I were assured thou wouldst practise it and wouldst not discover it to any ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio
... who feels that such a connection of the absent wife with some actual experience of his is equivalent to their joint presence. It was not so much to praise Mrs. Braile's belongings to her as to propitiate the idea of Mrs. Reverdy that he continued his flatteries. In the meantime Braile, who came in behind him, stood easing himself from one foot to the other, with an ironical eye slanted at Reverdy from under his shaggy brows; he dropped his head now, and began walking up and down the room while ...
— The Leatherwood God • William Dean Howells
... much the easy-going, early-houred soir,e. We mean, of course, those gentlemen who no longer care for balls, and if aristocracy is to be desired, "the rule of the best," at American entertainments, all aspirants for social distinction should try to propitiate those men who are being driven from the ballroom by the insolence and pretension of the lower elements of fashionable society. In Europe, the very qualities which make a man great in the senate, the field, or the chamber of commerce, give him a corresponding eminence in the ...
— Manners and Social Usages • Mrs. John M. E. W. Sherwood
... the least mind his assignment to so prominent a position, but he did mind Little Teacher's attitude toward him throughout the day. He sought to propitiate her by coming to her assistance in many little tasks, but she persistently ignored his overtures. He then ventured to seek enlightenment regarding his studies, but she coldly informed him he could remain after school to ask ...
— David Dunne - A Romance of the Middle West • Belle Kanaris Maniates
... how much jealousy and envy and unhappiness some of them managed to contain! The life that went on in them seemed to me made up of evasions and negations; shifts to save cooking, to save washing and cleaning, devices to propitiate the tongue of gossip. This guarded mode of existence was like living under a tyranny. People's speech, their voices, their very glances, became furtive and repressed. Every individual taste, every natural appetite, was bridled by caution. The people asleep in those ...
— My Antonia • Willa Cather
... potion or vegetable drug, by which the ecstatic state is produced, and their venerable medicine-men see visions and dream dreams. No enterprise is undertaken without consulting the gods, and no evil impends but they seek to propitiate the gods. All daily life, to the minutest particular, is religious. This stage of religion is characterized by fetichism. Every Indian is provided with his charm or fetich, revealed to him in some awful hour of ecstasy produced by fasting, or feasting, or drunkenness, and that fetich he carries ...
— Sketch of the Mythology of the North American Indians • John Wesley Powell
... civilization. In the bloom of youthful manhood, at the age of thirty-two, he paused from the fiery speed of his earlier course; and for the first time gave the nations an opportunity of offering their homage before his throne. They came from all the extremities of the earth to propitiate his anger, to celebrate his greatness, or to solicit his protection. . . . History may allow us to think that Alexander and a Roman ambassador did meet at Babylon; that the greatest man of the ancient world saw and spoke with a citizen of that great nation, which ...
— The Fifteen Decisive Battles of The World From Marathon to Waterloo • Sir Edward Creasy, M.A.
... moved to pity and forgiveness, but to Him such weakness is unknown. He is utterly and absolutely implacable; no gifts or prayers, no holocausts of human victims can appease, or ever, for one moment, propitiate Him. ...
— Trivia • Logan Pearsall Smith
... all of whom knew that God was to be found there, and that the tent of Moses was the spot where they were to appear before their Creator. God, however, was not at all pleased to see Moses keep himself aloof from the people, and said to him: "According to our agreement, I was to propitiate thee every time thou wert angry with the people, and thou wert to propitiate Me when My wrath was kindled against them. What is now to become of these poor people, if we be both angry with them? Return, therefore, into the camp ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME III BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG
... together, and resolved to propitiate the king on account of the Jews who were in exile in his Empire. Then the king entered their land with his army, and stayed there fifteen days. And they showed him much honour, and also sent a dispatch to the Kofar-al-Turak their allies, reporting ...
— The Itinerary of Benjamin of Tudela • Benjamin of Tudela
... blarney to propitiate me,' laughed Mr. Kendal, who certainly was in unusual spirits after his execution and rescue by proxy, but ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... to play the robber and tyrant over its true and tried friends. Is the President to be supported because he is magnanimous and merciful? Congress doubts the magnanimity which sacrifices the innocent in order to propitiate the guilty, and the mercy which abandons the helpless and weak to the covetousness of the powerful and strong. Is the President to be supported because he aims to represent the whole people? Congress may well suspect that he represents the least patriotic ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... Jewel's room after speaking with the doctor. The little girl looked at her eagerly. A plan had formed in her mind which depended for its success largely on the housekeeper's complaisance, and she wished to propitiate her. ...
— Jewel - A Chapter In Her Life • Clara Louise Burnham
... bowl to each couple facing each other. But before commencing, a portion was laid aside and dedicated to their gods, with various mysterious ceremonies; for here, as in other places where the gospel is not known, the poor savages fancied that they could propitiate God with sacrifices. They had never heard of the "sacrifice of a broken spirit and a contrite heart." This offering being made, the feast began in earnest. Not only was it a rule in this feast that every mouthful should be swallowed by each guest, however ...
— The Dog Crusoe and his Master • R.M. Ballantyne
... trade this time, but when I go back to my country, and say I have seen the great merchant, and shew them the presents I have received, then they will all want to come, and bring plenty of trade." This of course concludes with a present to propitiate the grasping spirit of the ...
— A Voyage Round the World, Vol. I (of ?) • James Holman
... mourned virginity, was never paraded, (that I wot of,) for any other than a much-to-be-lamented damsel. Who ever asked, in those old times, the mediation of St. Enoch? Where were the offerings, in jewels or in gold, to propitiate that undoubted man of God and denizen of heaven, St. Moses? what prows, in wax, of vessels saved from shipwreck, hung about the dripping fane of Jonah? and where was, in the olden time, that wretched ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... superstition had usurped the functions of the reasoning powers, that the sun-god should have been invested with the attributes inspired by terror, and that so far as possible, mankind should have deemed it necessary to propitiate its wrath, and, by rendering to it suitable offerings and sacrifices, they should have hoped to avert the calamities incident to its displeasure. Neither is it remarkable when we remember the peculiar circumstances ...
— The God-Idea of the Ancients - or Sex in Religion • Eliza Burt Gamble
... They were still going on when the bear arrived, and was duly installed in an apartment which had been prepared for him, as well as it could be on such short notice; for all agreed, that he must be treated with great care and attention, not only in order to propitiate him, but because it might be dangerous to let him return in worse condition than he came. So neither trouble nor cost was spared to make him comfortable; and very comfortable he was: supplied with every luxury, crammed with dainties, and petted in every ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 449 - Volume 18, New Series, August 7, 1852 • Various
... the Colonel, and wrestled with him for half an hour. At the end of that time, the Regimental Sergeant-Major reported himself. The situation was rather novel to him; but he was not a man to be put out by circumstances. He saluted and said, "Regiment all comeback, Sir." Then, to propitiate the Colonel—"An' none of the 'orses any ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling
... delivered plainly by way of precept, or sermoned at large, as they use, than thus cloudily enwrapped in allegorical devises." He thought that Homer and Virgil and Ariosto had thus written poetry, to teach the world moral virtue and political wisdom. He attempted to propitiate Lord Burghley, who hated him and his verses, by setting before him in a dedication sonnet, the true intent ...
— Spenser - (English Men of Letters Series) • R. W. Church
... But Sallie proceeded gayly: "Then you know how hard I have tried to propitiate those miserable Asburys. I declare, I think Alice might meet me half way. Perhaps she didn't like being seated between Frank Mayo and Brian Beck, but both she and that awful Frost man sat as stiff ...
— The Love Affairs of an Old Maid • Lilian Bell
... is to this shrine of the Maya Venus that as far down as the Spanish conquest, pilgrims repaired yearly to offer their prayers and votive presents to propitiate that divinity. Cogolludo tells us that it was on her altar that the priest who accompanied the adventurers who first landed at the island, after destroying the effigies of the Goddess and of her companions and replacing ...
— The Mayas, the Sources of Their History / Dr. Le Plongeon in Yucatan, His Account of Discoveries • Stephen Salisbury, Jr.
... daughter, but two primal beings, brothers, named Manabozho and Chibiabos, are the chief characters. The Manitos (spirits or gods) drown Chibiabos. Manabozho mourns and smears his face with black, as Demeter wears black raiment. He laments Chibiabos ceaselessly till the Manitos propitiate him with gifts and ceremonies. They offer to him a cup, like the beverage prepared for Demeter, in the Hymn, by Iambe. He drinks it, is glad, washes off the black stain of mourning, and is himself again, while ...
— The Homeric Hymns - A New Prose Translation; and Essays, Literary and Mythological • Andrew Lang
... Real meekness of character is called out by experience of kindness. And few had been kind to him. Yet through it all, with stern determination he refused the assistance his Trades' Union would have given him. It had not much to give, but, with worldly wisdom, thought it better to propitiate an active, useful member, than to help those who were more unenergetic, though they had large families to provide for. Not so thought John Barton. With ...
— Mary Barton • Elizabeth Gaskell
... Others have a vague fear of the world as of some wild beast which may spring out upon them at any time. Tell them they are safe in their houses from this myriad-eyed creature: they still are sure that they shall meet with it some day, and would propitiate its favour at any sacrifice. Many men contract their idea of the world to their own circle, and what they imagine to be said in that circle of friends and acquaintances is their idea of public opinion- -"as if," to use a saying of Southey's, "a number of worldlings ...
— Friends in Council (First Series) • Sir Arthur Helps
... of the first rank in Poland, but as one of the most accomplished scholars in Europe. Such was his reputation, that at the period of the last vacancy in the throne of Poland, Poniatowski (afterwards king) was deputed by the diet to propitiate the Empress Catherine, to second the election of Czartoryski; but the deputy's handsome form found such favour in the licentious eyes of the modern Messalina, that he ceased to urge the suit of the diet, and returned the avowed nominee of his imperial mistress. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 17, - Issue 495, June 25, 1831 • Various
... to the buff and standing about without self-consciousness. The chief had said that in former times men retained their pareus except when they went fishing, at which time they wore a little red cap. He did not know whether this was a ceremonial to propitiate the god of fishes or to ward off evil spirits in scales. Man originated on the seashore, and many of the most primitive habits of humans, as well as their bodily differences from the apes, came from their early life there. Man pushed back from ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien
... mentioned with civility. Marjorie fairly wept over the leave-taking of Mr. Biggles, but commanded herself sufficiently to beg that he would not christen that baby Woollens, Cottons or Piscopalian. He said emphatically that he would not, and then departed, taking home a string of bass to propitiate Mrs. Bigglethorpe. The tea party, spite of Miss Du Plessis' marvellous story of Tillycot, was very slow. The newly engaged couple were full of each other. Mrs. Du Plessis, her daughter and the colonel had Wilkinson ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell
... prey. Sundry cocks and hens, evidently toothsome morsels, are then thrown from one priest to another, and saved for the cooking-pot, but a tough-looking chanticleer of the Cochin China persuasion is finally selected, and cast into the seething pit to propitiate the terrible wrath of the Avenging Deity at the smallest expense and loss to the astute priesthood. At the close of the sacerdotal is sacreligious performance, we mount the shaking ladder to a thatched shed on the rim of the crater. From hence, between the dense volumes of smoke, the huge cavity ...
— Through the Malay Archipelago • Emily Richings
... New Year's morning, which according to their calendar comes between the twenty-first of January and the nineteenth of February, they propitiate heaven and earth with offerings of rice, vegetables, tea, wine, oranges, and imitation of paper money which they burn ...
— Threads of Grey and Gold • Myrtle Reed
... the language of an enlightened practical educator and eminent statesman, "we need far more of wisdom and rectitude than we possess. Preparations for our present condition have been so long neglected, that we now have a double duty to perform. We have not only to propitiate to our aid a host of good spirits, but we have to exorcise a host of evil ones. Every aspect of our affairs, public and private, demonstrates that we need, for their successful management, a vast accession to the ...
— Popular Education - For the use of Parents and Teachers, and for Young Persons of Both Sexes • Ira Mayhew
... to promulgate the nomination. These persons were hardly off the deck, before another party came up the opposite side of the ship. They announced themselves to be a nominating committee of the Perpendiculars, on exactly the same errand as their opponents. They, too, wished to propitiate the foreign interests, and were in search of a proper candidate. Captain Poke had been an attentive listener to all that occurred during the circumstances that preceded my nomination; and he now stepped promptly forward, and declared his readiness to serve. As there was quite as little ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper
... interlarding their most solemn speeches with expostulations and threats of neglect if he fails in complying with their requests. As most of their petitions are for plenty of food they do not trust entirely to the favour of Kepoochikawn but endeavour at the same time to propitiate the animal, an imaginary representative of the whole race of larger quadrupeds that are ...
— The Journey to the Polar Sea • John Franklin
... think, and, in any case, there was no inducement to make a display in my presence. What influence could I possibly exercise over the fortunes of that great female? A maternal hippopotamus in the Zoo would as soon think of hugging a young giraffe to propitiate the spectators. Of course you may take up the position that the hypocrisy is practised all day before her mistress, and that the mere momentum of habit carries it on at other times. This is plausible, but I suspect that such a case would rather ...
— Behind the Bungalow • EHA
... your people better than I do. But I know them well enough not to trust them. They stickle at nothing to accomplish an end; and their preachers can soon convince them that slavery is a sin, and that they are responsible for its existence here, and that they can only propitiate offended Deity by its abolition. You are a peculiar people, Holmes, prone to fanaticism upon all subjects, and this fanaticism concentrated as a religious duty—the Constitution will only prove a barrier of straw. No, sir; I am unwilling to trust them. ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks
... convened, and Father Fahey consented to occupy the chair. He was supported by a dispensary doctor, anxious to propitiate the Board of Guardians with a view to obtaining a summer holiday; a leading publican, who had a son at Maynooth; a grazier, who dreaded the possible partition of his ranch by the Congested Districts Board; and Mr. O'Reilly, who saw a hope of drawing custom from the counter of his ...
— Hyacinth - 1906 • George A. Birmingham
... wanted his support, first of all, when he came as Imperial Commissioner to Carthage to bring the Donatists into line. Generally, we see only the good points of people who do us good turns. Besides, in order to propitiate the bishop, and the devout Court at Ravenna, the Tribune advertised his great zeal in favour of Catholicism. His first wife, a very pious woman whom he seems to have loved much, encouraged him in this. When she died, he was so overcome by despair ...
— Saint Augustin • Louis Bertrand
... Three days later the stock of milled money in the coffers of the Bank of England at Grocers' Hall had run out, and the governor of the Bank, Sir John Houblon, who happened at the time to be also lord mayor, had to propitiate the numerous claimants for the new money by offering them part payment in the old coin and the rest in the new as soon as ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume II • Reginald R. Sharpe
... may be. The shipper, realizing that the manager's displeasure or good will toward him finds practical expression in his daily freight bills, finally loses, like the serf, all self-esteem in his efforts to propitiate an overbearing master. He is intimidated to such an extent that he never speaks openly of existing abuses, lest he lose the special rates which have been given him, or, if he is not a participant of such privileges, lest additional favors be given to ...
— The Railroad Question - A historical and practical treatise on railroads, and - remedies for their abuses • William Larrabee
... as her eyes meet his; and turning upon the couch of her chamber, where he hath lain her, awakes to consciousness, and finds him watching over her with a lover's solicitude. "I was not cold because I loved you less-oh no! It was to propitiate my ambition-to be free of the bondage of this house-to purge myself of the past-to better my future!" And she lays her pale, nervous hand gently on his arm-then grasps his hand and presses it ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams
... gipsy saw this, and broadly hinted that another piece of silver placed upon the junction of two cross lines in the pretty gentleman's right palm would materially propitiate the stars, and assist in the happy solution of his fortune. When the hint had been taken she pursued her romantic narrative. Her elaborate but discursive summing-up comprehended the triumph of Mr. Verdant Green, the defeat of the dark man, the marriage of the former to the pomegranate-hearted ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede
... hatred for six centuries of oppression; what will you do to prove your repentance, and propitiate our revenge?"—and the answer is, "That's an old story, we wish to hear no ...
— Thomas Davis, Selections from his Prose and Poetry • Thomas Davis
... rock overhangs the left bank. This is known as Fetish Rock from the legend that the natives used to throw live people from it into the river as sacrifices. This is possibly true but there is little evidence to show that the natives of the Congo ever sacrificed either living or dead to propitiate ...
— A Journal of a Tour in the Congo Free State • Marcus Dorman
... eventful one, both for Assyria and for the neighboring countries. Hezekiah, king of Judah, hoped with the aid of Egypt to achieve his independence. Sennacherib was obliged to raise the siege of Jerusalem, after Hezekiah had vainly sought to propitiate him with large offerings of silver and gold; but the Assyrian was prevented from engaging in battle with Tirhaka of Egypt by a great calamity that befell his army. Against Babylon, which frequently revolted, he was more successful. "Berodach-baladan," as he is called in Scripture (2 ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... persons so afflicted crawl through the hole under the tomb, where, suspended by chains, is an iron hook. They twist a lock of their hair round this hook, and tear it off with violence, hoping to propitiate the saint by this mortification—evidently a remnant of heathen times, when hair was sacrificed to deities or to the memory ...
— Brittany & Its Byways • Fanny Bury Palliser
... of the game, and they chase her and propitiate her; and she generally condescends to return, for solitary dignity is dull. If any of the seniors happen to see it, it is checked as much as possible, but oftener we hear of it in that very informing prayer, which is to her quite the event of the evening; ...
— Things as They Are - Mission Work in Southern India • Amy Wilson-Carmichael
... to propitiate a divinity is generally in inverse ratio to its responsiveness, and the sense of discouragement produced by Osric Dane's entrance visibly increased the Lunch Club's eagerness to please her. Any lingering idea that she might consider herself under an obligation to her entertainers was ...
— The Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton, Part 2 (of 10) • Edith Wharton
... representatives in the heads of the government—that they as a body and the great sectarian power of the West, formally ask'd Mr. Harlan's appointment—that he was of them, having been a Methodist minister—that it would not do to offend them, but was highly necessary to propitiate them. ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... "off" again. But not all at once; not without suffering, for the seventh time, the supreme agony of the creator—that going down into the void darkness, to recall the offended Power, to endure the tortures that propitiate the ...
— The Creators - A Comedy • May Sinclair
... Gowkern, a hill near Mangalore, all the way to Cape Comorin; which new land long remained marshy and scarcely habitable, and the original settlers were forced to abandon it on account of the numerous serpents by which it was infested: But they afterwards returned, being instructed to propitiate ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. II • Robert Kerr
... an altar, tug at the cliff-boulders, pile them with the rough stones— we no longer sleep in the wind, propitiate us. ...
— Sea Garden • Hilda Doolittle
... there was a tremendous eruption from it, which flooded several villages, destroyed many plantations and fishponds, filled up a deep bay 20 miles in extent, and formed the present coast. The terrified inhabitants threw living hogs into the stream, and tried to propitiate the anger of the gods by more costly offerings, but without effect, till King Kamehameha, attended by a large retinue of priests and chiefs, cut off some of his hair, which was considered sacred, and threw it into the torrent, which in two days ceased to run. This circumstance gave him a greatly ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird
... make good his escape again, to sea, in case of any sudden or extraordinary danger. Another party were employed in erecting altars, and preparing for sacrifices and other religious celebrations, designed on the part of AEneas to propitiate the deities of the place, and to inspire his men with religious confidence and trust. He also immediately proceeded to organize a party of reconnoiterers who were to proceed into the interior, to explore the country and to communicate ...
— Romulus, Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... river from a lofty pole erected for the purpose on one side to some large opposite tree on the other. Such poles are permanently fixed, supported by substantial props, and it was doubtless one of them that Captain Sturt supposed to have been erected to propitiate some deity. ...
— Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, Vol 1 (of 2) • Thomas Mitchell
... Frank was anxious to propitiate Sally. He returned from London with presents for her, and he always spoke to her, ...
— Spring Days • George Moore
... way, they may propitiate the gods of the volcano. Their hearts are constantly filled with fear lest the gods of the volcano become angry and ...
— Flash-lights from the Seven Seas • William L. Stidger
... the offering by which Joe and his companions expected to gain immunity, showed that the fellow was really a most worthless character, whose death even would have been a benefit to the tribe. Thus it seemed that they had two purposes in view—the one to propitiate me and get good terms, the other to rid themselves of a ...
— The Memoirs of General Philip H. Sheridan, Vol. I., Part 1 • Philip H. Sheridan
... dust, and nearly all of which are dirty beyond description. Immediately after the Spanish conquest a rage possessed the victors to build churches, without regard to the necessary population for their support, perhaps hoping thereby to propitiate heaven for their rapaciousness and outrageous oppression of the native race. The criminal extortion exercised by the priesthood and their followers forms a dark blot upon the escutcheon of both the church and the state. O Christianity, ...
— Aztec Land • Maturin M. Ballou
... sorcery, she had had a vivid dream, in which she seemed to take this flight. It is obvious, however, from his account, as well as from other sources, that the belief of the transformation into lower animals was and is one familiar to the superstitions of the Mayas.[25-[]] The natives still continue to propitiate the ancient gods of the harvest, at the beginning of the season assembling at a ceremony called by the Spaniards the misa milpera, or "field mass," and by themselves ti'ch, "the stretching ...
— Nagualism - A Study in Native American Folk-lore and History • Daniel G. Brinton
... of late she seemed possessed with a sort of girlish fluttering and disquiet: her eyes were dreamy and her voice softer and less decided in its inflexions, and her manner to me, instead of continuing its old noble habits of command, became timid and caressing, as if she were anxious to propitiate me. In the evenings, instead of sitting among us boys on the piazza, she would leave us and walk by herself under the laburnums in the garden; and if I followed her and put my arm about her, I found, with vague pain and rebellion at my heart, that although ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. July, 1878. • Various
... was ridiculous to be discomposed by this young man, to whom, she was sure, she was naturally superior; but sitting behind that piano as though it were a pulpit, he had an air of authority and she was anxious to propitiate him. 'Well—' Henrietta repeated, ...
— THE MISSES MALLETT • E. H. YOUNG
... called "money spinners" prognosticate good luck; in order to propitiate which, they must be thrown over the ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 41, Saturday, August 10, 1850 • Various
... was anxious to propitiate Michael, laughed a cheerless laugh. "You have such a flow of spirits," said he, "I am sure I often find it quite amusing. But regarding this principle of which I was about to speak. It is that of accommodating one's-self to the manners of any land (however humble) in which ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... fear and trembling lest the truth should come to light—in that case, she would be a pariah indeed—went in hourly dread of Lilith betraying her. Nothing, however, happened—at least as far as she could discover—and she sought to propitiate Lilith in every possible way. For the time being, though, anxiety turned her into a porcupine, ready to erect her quills at a touch. She was ever on the look-out for an allusion to her mother's position, and for the slight that ...
— The Getting of Wisdom • Henry Handel Richardson
... prudent to propitiate Dr. Amboyne; so, when the time came for the usual folly of drinking healths, he leaned over to him, and, in the sweetest possible voice, asked him if he would do them both the honor to propose ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... neither rich nor fashionable and to include comparative strangers because they are of great social importance, not alone shows a want of loyalty and proper feeling, but is to invite the contempt of those very ones whom such snobbery seeks to propitiate. ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
... now as I had then. Even the errand of good on which he had come could not blind me to his thin-lipped mouth, to his mock humility and crafty eyes. "I have had no task so pleasant for many days," added he, with every appearance of a desire to propitiate. ...
— The House of the Wolf - A Romance • Stanley Weyman
... finally come, some of them, to be used between man and man. All forms of complimentary address were at first the expressions of submission from prisoners to their conqueror, or from subjects to their ruler, either human or divine—expressions that were afterwards used to propitiate subordinate authorities, and slowly descended into ordinary intercourse. All modes of salutation were once obeisances made before the monarch and used in worship of him after his death. Presently others of the god-descended race ...
— Essays on Education and Kindred Subjects - Everyman's Library • Herbert Spencer
... understand why Hector did not follow the custom of her Indian fathers, and offer the first duck or the best fish to propitiate the Great Spirit. Hector told her that the God he worshipped desired no sacrifice; that his holy Son, when he came down from heaven and gave himself as a sacrifice for the sin of the world, had satisfied his Father, the ...
— Lost in the Backwoods • Catharine Parr Traill
... bring. Nor will he ever remove the loathly pestilence from the Danaans till we have given the bright-eyed damsel to her father, unbought, unransomed, and carried a holy hecatomb to Chryse; then might we propitiate him ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer (Lang, Leaf, Myers trans.)
... fourteen, number seventy-two," shouted the usher again, and as the witness was a Jew, his hat was sent for. "There's a lot of history behind that hat," said Mr. Clarkson, wishing to propitiate public opinion. ...
— Essays in Rebellion • Henry W. Nevinson
... of which is the volcano Vesuvius. [Footnote: Among the strange customs of the olden times in Italy was one called ver sacrum (sacred spring). In time of distress a vow would be made to sacrifice every creature born in April and May to propitiate an offended deity. In many cases man and beast were thus offered; but in time humanity revolted against the sacrifice of children, and they were considered sacred, but allowed to grow up, and at the age of twenty were sent blindfolded out into the ...
— The Story of Rome From the Earliest Times to the End of the Republic • Arthur Gilman
... entered boldly, traversed the crowd, and knelt at the feet of Fredegonde, imploring her forgiveness. The king had him expelled from the church, but, instead of taking warning, he lingered in the shops around the market-place in the Cite, selecting jewels and rich stuffs with which to propitiate the queen; when she issued from the church and saw him, she despatched her guards to arrest him; one of them was wounded, and another gave him a sword-cut over the head; as he fled across the Petit-Pont, he fell and broke his leg. The manner and ...
— Paris from the Earliest Period to the Present Day; Volume 1 • William Walton
... entrust your glory to my care, no longer as before let our path be hindered. Now at last let us propitiate Phoebus with sacrifice and straightway prepare a feast. And until my thralls come, the overseers of my steading, whose care it is to choose out oxen from the herd and drive them hither, we will drag down the ship to ...
— The Argonautica • Apollonius Rhodius
... hundreds of kids, goats, buffaloes, and other animals are sacrificed daily at her shrine. We saw the bloody work going forward. Crowds of pilgrims, numbering at least three hundred during our short stay, came in bands from the country to propitiate the goddess. Each one presents an offering as the idol is shown. It is the most disgusting object I have ever seen, and a sight of it would, I am sure, frighten children into crying. The business is skilfully managed. A small dark hall, capable of holding about twenty-five worshippers, occupies ...
— Round the World • Andrew Carnegie
... is a row of five huge, granite boulders, which the Indians regard with great reverence, and when they visit the spot to secure some red stone to make pipes, they seek to propitiate the guardian spirits by throwing plugs of Tobacco to them. Some admirable pieces of pipe-sculpture are produced by the Boheen Indians, who are found on the coast of the Pacific to the south of the Russians. These pipes are made from a soft blue clay stone which is found only in slabs, ...
— Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce • E. R. Billings
... had strong opponents in the women of all the Dyak tribes. They held important parts in all the feasts, incantations, and superstitions, which could not be called religion, but were based on the dread of evil spirits and a desire to propitiate them. The women encouraged head-taking by preferring to marry the man who had some of those ghastly tokens of his prowess. When Sir James Brooke forbad head-taking among the tribes in his dominions, it was the women who would row their lovers out of ...
— Sketches of Our Life at Sarawak • Harriette McDougall
... Toleration, is to build that Temple, most acceptable to God, in erecting which Masonry is now engaged. No longer needing to repair to Jerusalem to worship, nor to offer up sacrifices and shed blood to propitiate the Deity, man may make the woods and mountains his Churches and Temples, and worship God with a devout gratitude, and with works of charity and beneficence to his fellow-men. Wherever the humble and contrite ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... to trouble himself about such a matter at present; but this was by no means the way in which to propitiate his uncle. ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... with the full knowledge and acquiescence of the two brothers, who had taken a strange attachment to the young Charles Holland, who was indeed in every way likely to propitiate the good opinion of ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... sketch. Behind the women was a box, open on the side next us, fitted up as a shrine; in it sat an Indian goddess in vermilion and gold, with minor deities round her, all very fearsome. I was told it was a cholera goddess, and the dancing was to propitiate her and drive cholera out of the village. I'd fain remember the light and shade and colour, but it is difficult to do these unfamiliar scenes from memory; of scenes at home one can grasp more in the time, for many forms are familiar and others one can reason from these—that they must be ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch
... always deemed wise to neglect or injure the changeling, it was not infrequently supposed to be necessary to take the greatest care of it, thereby and by other means to propitiate its elvish tribe. This was the course pursued with the best results by a Devonshire mother; and a woman at Strassberg, in North Germany, was counselled by all her gossips to act lovingly, and above all not to beat the imp, lest her own little one be beaten in ...
— The Science of Fairy Tales - An Inquiry into Fairy Mythology • Edwin Sidney Hartland
... Courtland was not afraid of any man, and his natural attitude toward all men was challenge till he knew them. He stood straight and tall and looked Uncle Ramsey in the eye critically, questioningly, courteously, but with no attempt to propitiate; and not the slightest apparent conception of the awesomeness of the occasion or the condescension of the august personage whom he was thus ...
— The Witness • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... sale insured me a modest independence apart from the profits of a profession; and as I had not been legally bound to defray my father's debts, so I obtained that character for disinterestedness and integrity which always in England tends to propitiate the public to the successes achieved by industry or talent. Perhaps, too, any professional ability I might possess was the more readily conceded, because I had cultivated with assiduity the sciences and the scholarship which are collaterally connected with the study of ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... of the press and the public approval of the National Irish Players had not proved sufficient to propitiate that iron-hearted monster, Financial Success. The company went into bankruptcy before they had played half their bookings. Their final curtain went down on a bit of serio-comic drama staged, impromptu, on a North River dock, with barely enough ...
— Seven Miles to Arden • Ruth Sawyer
... emphasis, and distorted his baby features into a shocking expression of malignity. You may be certain this grieved more than angered me. Fit to cry, I took an orange from my pocket, and offered it to propitiate him. He hesitated, and then snatched it from my hold; as if he fancied I only intended to tempt and disappoint him. I showed another, keeping it out ...
— Wuthering Heights • Emily Bronte
... into a drawing-room with muddy boots and a smock-frock. He courted disgust, and such courtship is pretty sure of success. But Landor made his bow in full court-dress. In spite of the difficulty of his poetry, he had all the natural graces which are apt to propitiate cultivated readers. His prose has merits so conspicuous and so dear to the critical mind, that one might have expected his welcome from the connoisseurs to be warm even beyond the limit of sincerity. To praise him was to announce one's own possession of a fine classical taste, and there ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen
... superior power requires of him, he must thwart his inclinations. He dreads punishment, if he neglects to do it. He invents methods by which he can indulge his appetites, and finds a substitute by which he can propitiate his invisible ruler or rulers. He offers sacrifices; he institutes ceremonies and observances. This is the religion of the body, the religion of fear. It is what we call superstition. In his nobler ...
— Bunyan • James Anthony Froude
... body affected.[7:1] Passages from the books of the Gospel (literally "good spell") were especial favorites as such preservatives; they were usually inscribed on parchment, and were even placed upon horses.[7:2] Amulets were also employed to propitiate the goddess Fortune, and to thwart her evil designs. So insistent was the belief in the virtues of these objects, and to such a pitch of credulity did the popular mind attain, that special charms in great variety were devised against particular diseases, as well as against misfortunes ...
— Primitive Psycho-Therapy and Quackery • Robert Means Lawrence
... knew when his wife would return, and was ready to receive her in the meekest of moods. He had cut an unusual quantity of wood and kindlings, but they failed to propitiate. Sissy soon called her mother to come over to her cabin to hear of Mr. Birdsall's visit, and all that it portended. Aun' Sheba listened in silence, and sat for a long time in deep thought, while Sissy and Vilet sobbed quietly. At last the old woman said firmly, "Sissy, I wants you and Kern ...
— The Earth Trembled • E.P. Roe
... event of the moment; they are under the influence of dreams and apparitions, and they build altars and temples in every village and in any place where they have had a vision. The law is designed to prevent this, and also to deter men from attempting to propitiate the Gods by secret sacrifices, which only multiply their sins. Therefore let the law run:—No one shall have private religious rites; and if a man or woman who has not been previously noted for any impiety offend in this way, let them be admonished ...
— Laws • Plato
... for the expedition. All who had volunteered to join in it, then adjourned to their "winter house," and drank the war-drink, a decoction of bitter herbs and roots, for three days—preserving in other respects an almost unbroken fast. This is considered to be an act tending to propitiate the Great Spirit to prosper their expedition. During this period of purifying themselves, they were not allowed to sit down, or even lean upon a tree, however fatigued, until after sun-set. If a bear or deer even passed in sight, custom forbade them from killing it for refreshment. ...
— The First White Man of the West • Timothy Flint
... who, though not king, appeared to be at this time invested with the sovereign authority; he seemed not to be well pleased with the distinction that was shewed to the lady, and became so jealous when she produced her doll, that to propitiate him it was thought proper to compliment him with another. At this time he thought fit to prefer a doll to a hatchet; but this preference arose only from a childish jealousy, which could not be soothed but by a gift of exactly the same kind with that which had been presented ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 12 • Robert Kerr
... these observances really constitute worship? i.e. are the offerings made with a view to propitiate the spirits of the dead, and obtain from them increase of worldly ...
— China and the Chinese • Herbert Allen Giles
... elephant was killed, and they sent for the meat, but Chisabi ordered the men to let his meat alone: experience at Kabwabwata said, "Take the gentle course," so two fathoms of calico and two hoes were sent to propitiate the chief; Chisabi then demanded half the meat and one tusk: the meat was given, but the tusk was mildly refused: he is but a youth, and this is only the act of his counsellors. It was replied that Casembe, ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume I (of 2), 1866-1868 • David Livingstone
... stirring the paste-pot preparatory to the afternoon's work. She looked at me curiously out of her shrewd, snapping dark eyes as she awaited my answer. I was conscious that Mrs. Smith didn't like me for some reason or other, and I was anxious to propitiate her. I was pretty certain she thought me a boresome prig, and I determined I'd prove I wasn't. My confession of an omnivorous appetite for all sorts of story-books had the desired effect; and when I confessed further, that I liked best of all a real, tender, sentimental ...
— The Long Day - The Story of a New York Working Girl As Told by Herself • Dorothy Richardson
... on which no vegetation grows, though it rises from a veritable jungle of undergrowth. The Akasava call this place the Hill of the Women, because it was here that M'lama, the King of the Akasava, slew a hundred Akasava maidens to propitiate M'shimba M'shamba, the god of storms. It was on the topmost point of the hill that Sanders erected a fine gallows and hung M'lama for his country's good. It had always been associated with the spiritual ...
— The Keepers of the King's Peace • Edgar Wallace
... England. The position was a difficult one, but the council-pensionary at once saw, with his usual perspicacity, that there was but one course to pursue. Acting under his advice, every possible step was taken by the States-General and the Estates of Holland to propitiate the prince, who from being a forlorn exile had suddenly become a powerful king. Immense sums were spent upon giving him a magnificent reception at the Hague; and, when he set sail from Scheveningen, deputations from the States-General and the Estates of Holland attended in ...
— History of Holland • George Edmundson
... acquisition of the means of discharging the debts of the Revolution, and the protection and encouragement of the infant and drooping manufactures of the country. All this, however, as is now well ascertained, was insufficient to propitiate the rulers of the Southern States to the adoption of the Constitution. What they specially wanted was protection.—Protection from the powerful and savage tribes of Indians within their borders, ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... Miss Minerva, in unconcealed surprise at finding her in the house. She rose, and made an effort to propitiate him by shaking hands. "I am very anxious," she said gently, "to ...
— Heart and Science - A Story of the Present Time • Wilkie Collins
... enunciation of the merits of a hansom cab had been always made when it was the right way up. Let me, therefore, explain how I felt when I fell out of a hansom cab for the first and, I am happy to believe, the last time. Polycrates threw one ring into the sea to propitiate the Fates. I have thrown one hansom cab into the sea (if you will excuse a rather violent metaphor) and the Fates are, I am quite sure, propitiated. Though I am told they do not like to be ...
— Tremendous Trifles • G. K. Chesterton
... plain household when it was worth while to light the best lamp! This was one of them, for in those days the office dignified the man to a degree that is hardly understood now. But Henry Roberts's concern was not entirely a matter of social propriety; it was a desire to propitiate this young man who was living in certain errors of belief, so that he would be in a friendly attitude of mind and open to the arguments which were always burning on the lips of Edward Irving's follower. He ...
— The Voice • Margaret Deland
... Eumenides, which signifies the "well-meaning" or "soothed goddesses;" This appellation was given to them because they were so feared and dreaded that people dared not call them by their proper title, and hoped by this means to propitiate their wrath. ...
— Myths and Legends of Ancient Greece and Rome • E.M. Berens
... important for our present purpose in two ways. In the first place, it may serve, at the outset of our remarks, to propitiate those plain-spoken English critics who look upon new terms in philosophy with the same suspicion with which Jack Cade regarded "a noun and a verb, and such abominable words as no Christian ear can endure to hear," by showing ...
— The Philosophy of the Conditioned • H. L. Mansel
... celebrated. Those rites were accompanied with many peculiar and fantastic gestures, by leaping, clapping of hands, prostrations, loud cries, and not unfrequently with unintelligible exclamations. Sacrifices, and burnt offerings were used to propitiate superior powers; but our knowledge of the magical rites exercised by certain oriental nations, the Jews only excepted, is extremely limited. All the books professedly written on the subject, have been, swept ...
— Thaumaturgia • An Oxonian
... charms, and sacred objects, which they abjectly feared, and in which they devoutly believed. They were given up to countless superstitions, and firmly glued to their dark heathen practices. Their worship was entirely a service of fear, its aim being to propitiate this or that Evil Spirit, to prevent calamity or to secure revenge. They deified their chiefs, like the Romans of old, so that almost every village or tribe had its own Sacred Man, and some of them ...
— The Story of John G. Paton - Or Thirty Years Among South Sea Cannibals • James Paton
... conclude that somebody must be doing it all, or that somebody is doing the good and somebody else doing the evil, or that armies of invisible persons, benefit-cut and malevolent, are doing it; hence you postulate gods and devils, angels and demons. You propitiate these powers with presents, called sacrifices, and flatteries, called praises. Then the Kantian moral law within you makes you conceive your god as a judge; and straightway you try to corrupt him, also with presents and flatteries. This seems shocking ...
— Preface to Androcles and the Lion - On the Prospects of Christianity • George Bernard Shaw
... Marlborough and Godolphin. Tory as he was, in fact, Marlborough had no mind for an unchecked Tory rule, or for a measure which would be fatal to the war by again reviving religious strife. But it was in vain that he strove to propitiate his party by inducing the Queen to set aside the tenths and first-fruits hitherto paid by the clergy to the Crown as a fund for the augmentation of small benefices, a fund which still bears the name of Queen Anne's Bounty. The Commons showed their resentment against Marlborough by refusing ...
— History of the English People, Volume VII (of 8) - The Revolution, 1683-1760; Modern England, 1760-1767 • John Richard Green
... religious consciousness is afforded by Mr. Risley, who, in dealing with the religion of the jungle dwellers of Chota Nagpur, India, says that "in most cases the indefinite something which they fear and attempt to propitiate is not a person at all in any sense of the word; if one must state the case in positive terms, I should say that the idea which lies at the root of their religion is that of a power rather ...
— Myths of Babylonia and Assyria • Donald A. Mackenzie
... the maternal uncle only comes when it is a question of life or death." The Khasi father is revered not only when living, but also after death as U Thawlang, and special ceremonies are performed to propitiate his shade. Further remarks on the subject of marriage will be found in the Section which ...
— The Khasis • P. R. T. Gurdon
... and commanding figure, the long white veil, in which she was shrouded, overshadowing rather than concealing the elegance and majesty of her shape. Her demeanour was that of respect, unmingled by the least shade either of fear, or of a wish to propitiate favour. Rowena was ever ready to acknowledge the claims, and attend to the feelings, of others. She arose, and would have conducted her lovely visitor to a seat; but the stranger looked at Elgitha, and again intimated a wish to discourse with the Lady Rowena alone. ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... Miss Lady tried in vain to propitiate the guest. His manner showed only too plainly that he regarded her as an intrusion in the family which he had seen fit to adopt. It was not until the pudding arrived that his mood mellowed. Myrtella's ...
— A Romance of Billy-Goat Hill • Alice Hegan Rice
... a gliding lope the amulet swayed rhythmically to the whispered praises of the power of Marufa, mixed with ardent prayers to the spirits to provide the fat goat with which to propitiate the spirit of the woods; for had not the love charm already manifested its wondrous power? As she hastened through the banana plantation she could not resist diverging a little in the direction of the magician's ...
— Witch-Doctors • Charles Beadle
... you see, preparing for the great festival to-morrow," Byrrhena said to me. "Hypata is the only city that keeps the feast of the god of laughter. You must come, and invent some pleasantry to propitiate the merriest ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol. I • Various
... Our own left seems equally to mean the hand that is left after the right has been mentioned, or, in short, the other one. Many things which are lucky if seen on the right are fateful omens if seen to leftward. On the other hand, if you spill the salt, you propitiate destiny by tossing a pinch of it over the left shoulder. A murderer's left hand is said by good authorities to be an excellent thing to do magic with; but here I cannot speak from personal experience. Nor do I know why the wedding-ring is ...
— Falling in Love - With Other Essays on More Exact Branches of Science • Grant Allen
... days passed over. On Sunday Bell and Sylvia went to church, with a strange, half-superstitious feeling, as if they could propitiate the Most High to order the events in their favour by paying Him the compliment of attending to duties in their time of sorrow which they had too often ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. II • Elizabeth Gaskell
... observed the feasts and fastings; each morn the Household God has rice and tea before him; the Kitchen God has gone with celebrations at springtime to the spirit up above. The candles have been lighted and the smoke of incense has ascended to propitiate the God of Light, Lord Buddha, and Kwan-yin, and my children have been taught their prayers and holy precepts. It is not my fault, nor shouldst thou blame it to my teaching if rites and symbols have lost their meaning, and if the Gods of China are no longer ...
— My Lady of the Chinese Courtyard • Elizabeth Cooper
... myself upon my knees, and pray to all the saints to come to my aid; for I do not dare, in consequence of my excess of wickedness, to call upon God. O Saints of God, you I pray with weeping full of grief, that ye would propitiate his mercies for me miserable. Alas me! Father Abraham, pray for me, that I be not driven from thy bosom, which I greatly long for, and yet not worthily, because of the greatness of ...
— Primitive Christian Worship • James Endell Tyler
... gods, Mercury [62] is the principal object of their adoration; whom, on certain days, [63] they think it lawful to propitiate even with human victims. To Hercules and Mars [64] they offer the animals usually allotted for sacrifice. [65] Some of the Suevi also perform sacred rites to Isis. What was the cause and origin of this foreign worship, ...
— The Germany and the Agricola of Tacitus • Tacitus
... Roman Church like Rohrbacher, and historians of science like Pouchet, have found it convenient to propitiate the Church by dilating upon the glories of St. Thomas Aquinas in thus making an alliance between religious and scientific thought, and laying the foundations for a "sanctified science"; but the unprejudiced historian ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... him at his own wig/iwam at a specified time. When the conference takes place, tobacco, which has been previously furnished by the candidate, is distributed and a smoke offering made to Ki/tshi Man/id[-o], to propitiate his favor in the deliberations about to be undertaken. The host then explains the object of the meeting, and presents to his auditors an account of the candidate's previous life; he recounts the circumstances of his fast and dreams, and if the candidate is to take the place of a lately deceased ...
— The Mide'wiwin or "Grand Medicine Society" of the Ojibwa • Walter James Hoffman
... confused with the aboriginal superstitions, and neither have been entirely obliterated by the cult which superseded them. The belief in the power of malignant spirits to cause misfortune, sickness, and death is still strong among the Malays, whose pawangs or medicine-men claim to be able to propitiate demons by spells, prayers, and offerings. These men frequently invoke benevolent spirits by the names of Rama, Vishnu, and other Hindu deities, in complete ignorance that they are Hindu,[36] to counteract the evil influences of malevolent demons. Practices of this sort prevail most ...
— A Manual of the Malay language - With an Introductory Sketch of the Sanskrit Element in Malay • William Edward Maxwell
... gazing on this horrible apparition, until, with an angry countenance, the being demanded by what right he intruded himself on those hills, and destroyed their harmless inhabitants. The perplexed stranger endeavoured to propitiate the incensed dwarf, by offering to surrender his game, as he would to an earthly Lord of the Manor. The proposal only redoubled the offence already taken by the dwarf, who alleged that he was the lord of those mountains, and ...
— The Black Dwarf • Sir Walter Scott
... themselves ignored and took their revenge in this mean fashion; others thought it was a punishment from Heaven for having too fat a back. At all events this was their weak spot, and whenever the farmer felt a twinge of pain in his back he would hurry to propitiate ...
— Ditte: Girl Alive! • Martin Andersen Nexo |
