"Relic" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... temptation on Mars for anyone to take more than he needs, for selfishness has been entirely eliminated from our planet. Selfishness has no place among really civilized beings. It is a relic of the jungle where it is necessary to perpetuate the lower ...
— The Planet Mars and its Inhabitants - A Psychic Revelation • Eros Urides and J. L. Kennon
... harm, undone? Deep harm to disobey, Seeing obedience is the bond of rule. Were it well to obey then, if a king demand An act unprofitable, against himself? The King is sick, and knows not what he does. What record, or what relic of my lord Should be to after-time, but empty breath And rumors of a doubt? But were this kept, Stored in some treasure-house of mighty kings, Some one might show it at a joust of arms, Saying, 'King Arthur's sword, Excalibur, Wrought by the lonely maiden of the Lake. Nine years she wrought ...
— Famous Tales of Fact and Fancy - Myths and Legends of the Nations of the World Retold for Boys and Girls • Various
... of the time they might sit about playing cards. Of course, retreat was out of the question with a gun of this sort. Yet through the twenty months that the opposing armies had sniped at each other from the same positions the relic had done faithful auxiliary service. The French could move it on to some other part of the line now where no offensive was expected and some old territorials could use it as the old ...
— My Second Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... yesterday. But exposure to the atmosphere appeared to begin and finish the long-delayed process of decay in a moment, causing him to vanish like a bubble; so, that, almost before there had been time to wonder at him, there was nothing left of the stalwart Earl save his hair. This sole relic the ladies of Warwick made prize of, and braided it into rings and brooches for their own adornment; and thus, with a chapel and a ponderous tomb built on purpose to protect his remains, this great nobleman could not help being brought untimely to the ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... Another intensely interesting relic of the great priory is the altar-tomb, believed to be that of Robert de Brus of Annandale. The stone slabs are now built into the walls on each side of the porch of Guisborough Church. They may have been removed there from the abbey for safety at the time of the dissolution. ...
— Yorkshire—Coast & Moorland Scenes • Gordon Home
... in the night; the trees were clothed in white, and the air was particularly light, transparent, and tender, so that when Anna Akimovna looked out of the window her first impulse was to draw a deep, deep breath. And when she had washed, a relic of far-away childish feelings—joy that today was Christmas—suddenly stirred within her; after that she felt light-hearted, free and pure in soul, as though her soul, too, had been washed or plunged in the ...
— The Party and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... abstract grounds, that we can pronounce with any certainty how far the present neglect of St. Mark's is significative of the decline of the Venetian character, or how far this church is to be considered as the relic of a barbarous age, incapable of attracting the admiration, or influencing the ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume II (of 3) • John Ruskin
... "since you will have it that I am poor, do not reject the soul I present to you in this paper, and give me back the crown, which, since it has been touched by your hand, shall remain with me as a hallowed relic as long ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... close to the wreck; but, with the exception of the shattered remnant which was firmly wedged between the rocks, there was nothing to be seen; not a fragment of her masts and spars, or sails, not a relic of what once was life remained. The tide, which ran furiously round the promontory, had swept them all away, or the undertow of the deep water had buried every detached particle, to be delivered up again, "far, far at sea." All that Forster could ascertain was ...
— Newton Forster • Frederick Marryat
... transmitted from mouth to mouth, from father to son, from the old man to the young, from generation to generation? The mere etymological import of the word will mislead us. It is not enough for a thing to have been handed down from father to son. A relic may be so transmitted; indeed, written papers and printed books are traditions of this kind. Heirlooms of any sort—whether belonging to a nation or an ...
— The Ethnology of the British Islands • Robert Gordon Latham
... we contend, is not surrounded with Catholic influence, if it is not carried on by Catholic agents—and is left only to those who see in the faith of the Ruthenian, a "relic of the Middle-Ages," an obstacle to Canadian citizenship—the danger to the faith of our Ruthenian people is greater than in the days of open attack. This method of neutral proselytism is more insidious, and in the long run, more telling. We know perfectly well that if the Canadian Ruthenian is ...
— Catholic Problems in Western Canada • George Thomas Daly
... was fastened to his wrist by the hair; whereupon he kissed it on both cheeks, and went through the ordeal as if it were a religious act, addressing words of prayer to the head as he might have done to a relic of a martyr. ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... day, as I sit behind my counter, or warm my old hands by the cheerful blaze of the fire, do customers come to me to buy something or perhaps to sell some loved relic in order that they ...
— Futurist Stories • Margery Verner Reed
... angel of death may receive the fatal mandate to strike you from the role of existence; and the friends who now surround you may be called upon to perform the last sad duty of laying you in the earth, a banquet for worms, and this fair body become as the relic you now hold in your hand. Man that is born of a woman is of few days and full of sorrow; he cometh up and is cut down like a flower; he fleeth as a shadow and continueth not; in the midst of life we are in death; of whom may we seek for succor but of Thee, O Lord, who for our sins are justly ...
— The Mysteries of Free Masonry - Containing All the Degrees of the Order Conferred in a Master's Lodge • William Morgan
... on without heeding. "This thing happened eight years ago at Santasalare," he said, "a little place between Luna and Pistoria—a mere handful of houses wedged between two hills. A regular relic of old Italy crumbling away under flowers and sunshine, with nothing to suggest the present century except the occasional passing of a train round the base of one of the hills. I had literally stumbled upon the place on a long tramp south from Switzerland, and had been tempted into a stay at the ...
— The Masquerader • Katherine Cecil Thurston
... surface, forming a tough crust above the hasty-pudding which, if broken through, held the horse's leg suspended as in a vice, and would have thrown him down, if it were possible to throw down a West-Indian horse. We passed in one place a quaint little relic of the older world; a small sugar-press, rather than mill, under a roof of palm-leaf, which was worked by hand, or a donkey, just as a Spanish settler would have worked it three hundred years ago. Then on through plenty of ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley
... Church of a small minority. The majority of the lowland population was firmly attached to the Presbyterian discipline. Prelacy was abhorred by the great body of Scottish Protestants, both as an unscriptural and as a foreign institution. It was regarded by the disciples of Knox as a relic of the abominations of Babylon the Great. It painfully reminded a people proud of the memory of Wallace and Bruce that Scotland, since her sovereigns had succeeded to a fairer inheritance, had been independent in ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... Aramis; three out of the old 'four.' You are deceiving me; I suspect you; and Porthos is fast asleep. An admirable trio of friends, don't you think so? What an affecting relic of the ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... manor-house. It was a Saxon ornament, which a certain ancestor was said to have had from Harold, the old Saxon king; but if there ever was any such article, it has been missing from the family mansion for two or three hundred years. There is not known to be an antique relic of that description ...
— Doctor Grimshawe's Secret - A Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... A very curious relic of Sir Isaac survives in the garden at Cranbury Park, viz. a sun-dial, said to have been calculated by Newton. It is in bronze, in excellent preservation, and the gnomon so perforated as to form the cypher I. C. seen either way. The dial is divided ...
— John Keble's Parishes • Charlotte M Yonge
... it just a minute! Do you collect arrow-heads? I think they're bully. There's the finest one you ever seen." He brought out the relic, tightly wrapped in paper, several pieces. "I foun' it myself, camping with father. It was sticking in a crack right on top of a rock, but nobody'd seen it till I ...
— Lin McLean • Owen Wister
... the throwing-stick in Eskimoland has its simplest form in the center and not in the extremities of its whole area. It is as yet unsafe to speculate concerning the origin of this implement. A rude form is as likely to be a degenerate son as to be the relic of a barbaric ancestry. Among the theories of origin respecting the Eskimo, that which claims for them a more southern habitat long ago is of great force. If, following retreating ice, they first struck the frozen ocean at the mouth ...
— Throwing-sticks in the National Museum • Otis T. Mason
... me, together with the sweet influences of the spring, completed my cure. Before leaving Warsaw I had meant to throw away the hat which the ball had pierced, but the marshal kept it as a curiosity and gave it to my mother. It still exists in my possession, and should be kept as a family relic.' ...
— The Red True Story Book • Various
... old family carriage was about the only relic of the Charlotte family's former greatness; imported from England years before, held as almost sacred by succeeding generations of the Charlotte family. To have one intimate that the sacred old vehicle should ...
— Watch Yourself Go By • Al. G. Field
... particular planets, and bestowing high medical powers, as well as the means of advancing men's fortunes in various manners. A story of this kind, relating to a Crusader of eminence, is often told in the west of Scotland, and the relic alluded to is still in existence, and ...
— The Talisman • Sir Walter Scott
... work in which Donatello took his inspiration exclusively from childhood is at Prato. It is an external pulpit, fixed at the southern angle of the Cathedral facade, and employed to display the most famous relic possessed by the town, namely, the girdle of the Virgin. The first contract was made as early as 1428 with Donatello and Michelozzo, industriosi maestri, to whom careful measurements were given.[144] The sculptors promised to finish the work by September ...
— Donatello • David Lindsay, Earl of Crawford
... was really founded on the old prejudices against usury or interest; and as these prejudices are fast disappearing, we may hope speedily to see this relic of their operation removed. Towards this end, let the operatives everywhere meet to consider this question, so important to their interests; and, as we believe they will generally see the propriety of furthering a law to establish commandite ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 426 - Volume 17, New Series, February 28, 1852 • Various
... refuge in silence, and filled up her life with a noble record of charities and humanities. So pure was she, so childlike, so artless, so loving, that those who knew her best, feel, to this day, that a memorial of her is like the relic of a saint. And could not all this preserve her grave from insult? ...
— Lady Byron Vindicated • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... Excellency's gift," he added to De Gondomar, who had unfastened the glittering clasp and presented it to him, "I shall ever guard it, as a devotee in your own sunny land of Spain would the most precious relic." ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 2 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth
... of the existing City churches were built by Wren, as you know. I think I have seen them nearly all, and in every one, however externally unpromising, I have found something curious, Interesting, and unexpected—some wealth of wood-carving, some relic of the past snatched from the names, some monument, some association with the ...
— As We Are and As We May Be • Sir Walter Besant
... you might just as well retire for an old fossil or petrifaction. You're obsolete, that's all; as much behind the times as RIP VAN WINKLE himself, after his memorable sleep. English is out of date here—a relic of the Dark Ages. Fashionable ladies return from Paris, bringing with them accomplished bonnes, and every one is prohibited from speaking a word of English to the children; but, in spite of every precaution, the vulgar little ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 8, May 21, 1870 • Various
... mention (in the first No. of your 3rd Vol.) of some damasked linen which belonged to James II. reminds me of a relic which I possess, and the description of which may interest ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 68, February 15, 1851 • Various
... building known as the Chateau de Ramezay. Its history is contemporary with that of the city for the last two centuries, and so identified with past stirring events that it has been saved from the vandalism of modern improvement, and is to be preserved as a relic of the old Regime in New France. It is a long one-storied structure, originally red-tiled, with graceful, sloping roof, double rows of peaked, dormer windows, huge chimneys and the unpolished architecture ...
— Famous Firesides of French Canada • Mary Wilson Alloway
... something far higher also. It is not an institution of man, not a mere political establishment, not a creature of the state, depending on the state's breath, made and unmade at its will, but it is a Divine society, a great work of God, a true relic of Christ and His Apostles, as Elijah's mantle upon Elisha, a bequest which He has left us, and which we must keep for His sake; a holy treasure which, like the ark of Israel, looks like a thing of earth, and is ...
— Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. VII (of 8) • John Henry Newman
... children up to a certain age consider it perfectly legitimate to lie to their enemies if they but tell the truth to their friends. Children may lie to the policeman, or to the teacher, or to anyone with whom they are for the moment in conflict. This is a relic of the time when our savage ancestors found it necessary to practice deceit in order to save themselves from their enemies. So ingrained is this instinct that many a child will stick to a falsehood before the teacher or other inquisitors, only to retract and "go to ...
— Your Child: Today and Tomorrow • Sidonie Matzner Gruenberg
... of Distinguished Men, by Lord Braybrooke 233 Story of a Relic 234 Illustration of Chaucer, No. II: Complaint of Mars and Venus 235 Charles the First and Bartolomeo della Nave's Collection of Pictures, by Sir F. Madden 236 Minor Notes:—Nonsuch Palace—Ferrar and Benlowes— Traditions from remote Periods through few Links— Longevity—Emendation ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 74, March 29, 1851 • Various
... contained a black liquid like oil. "It is a relic of the past," said she, "an heir-loom from the Untori, the ointers of Milan. With that oil they spread death through the doomed city, anointing its doors and thresholds with the plague until the ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... work the Morro Castle of Santiago has no importance or significance whatever, and its complete destruction would not have made it any easier for Admiral Sampson to force an entrance to the harbor. It is the oldest Morro, however, in Cuba; and as a relic of the past, and an interesting and attractive feature in a landscape already picturesque, it has the highest possible value, and I am more than glad that it was not destroyed. There was no reason, really, for bombarding it at all, because it was perfectly ...
— Campaigning in Cuba • George Kennan
... obtained only a partial glimpse of an interior which to my fancy had a peculiarly deserted and eerie look. I felt a desire to explore the place, attracted rather than repelled by its forlorn look of falling age; for I came from a part of the country where the most ancient relic dates back only forty years, and the aspect of everything old and quaint in the place had a charm for me which I suspect it offers to few of the natives. The front door was locked, but I obtained an entrance without difficulty at the back, and made my way ...
— Not Pretty, But Precious • John Hay, et al.
... hunted for it. Its colour was a faded claret, and lacings of dingy silver appeared on the front and round the stiffened skirt that stood out from the waist—a kind of cut to make even a meagre man look well among his fellows; a three-cornered hat went with it, and into this relic of strenuous days, madame soon assisted ...
— Ringfield - A Novel • Susie Frances Harrison
... character, in which effect is sought by startling incidents, striking situations, exaggerated sentiment and thrilling denouement, aided by elaborate stage effects. The more thrilling passages are sometimes accentuated by musical accompaniments, the only surviving relic of the original musical character of ...
— Writing for Vaudeville • Brett Page
... bell suspended on a bough outside his cell; how it came there he never knew, but he was sure that it had been sent to rescue him from the wiles of Satan and he treasured it as a sacred relic. Many came from far and near to see the wonder, and on the site of the cell the monk founded a chapel which became known as the ...
— Hero Tales and Legends of the Rhine • Lewis Spence
... old monkish legends teach, the devil might have carried him off bodily and he would not have resisted. In his prostrated nature, but one element of strength was apparent—a perverted pride that rose like a shattered, blackened shaft, the one prominent relic ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe
... pocket-handkerchiefs, two pairs of shoes, two pairs of socks, and a pound and a half of snuff. The others were in general less well set up with shirts,*2* some few had cloaks, and one (P. Sigismundo Griera) a nightcap; but all of them had their snuff, the only relic of their luxurious mission life. Manuel Vergara, their Provincial, testifies in a paper sent with the list that most of the clothes were taken from the common stock, and all the snuff. What sort of treatment they endured upon their ...
— A Vanished Arcadia, • R. B. Cunninghame Graham
... of her uncle’s life—had become, with her sister, a pupil at Port Royal. She suffered from an apparently incurable disease of the eye, fistula lachrymalis. On a sudden she was reported to be entirely cured, and the cure was attributed to the touch of a relic which had been brought to the abbey by a priest,—a supposed thorn from the crown of Christ. It is remarkable that the Mère Angélique was somewhat slow of belief as to the “miracle,” and that she marvelled the world ...
— Pascal • John Tulloch
... embraced the land in the region of Third avenue and Thirteenth street. In the spring of 1647, a pear tree was planted upon this spot, which was long known as "Stuyvesant's pear tree." For more than two centuries it continued to bear fruit. In its latter years, this venerable relic of the past was cherished with the utmost care. It presented many touching indications of its extreme old age. In its two hundred and twentieth year it bloomed for the last time. "Since the fall of the tree," writes Mr. Stone, "a promising shoot from the ancient stock has ...
— Peter Stuyvesant, the Last Dutch Governor of New Amsterdam • John S. C. Abbott
... stands near the wash-stand, an extra sixpence is required for that commonplace adjunct of the toilette. If ladies carry their own wine from the steamer to a lodging-house, and drink it there, or offer it to their friends, they are charged "corkage." On asking the meaning of this now almost obsolete relic of barbarism, they are informed that the lodging-house keeper pays a tax of twenty pounds a year for the privilege of using wine or spirits on the premises, and seven shillings—equal to nearly two dollars of our money—was ...
— Manners and Social Usages • Mrs. John M. E. W. Sherwood
... piece of it into a curling pin, which she then pinned far back on her head (as if afraid that the effect on the forehead would be too becoming), took off her dainty green shoes, put on an enormous pair of grotesque slippers, carpet slippers (also a relic), and went into Hyacinth's room. Anne made it a rule every evening to go in for a few minutes to see Hyacinth and talk against everyone they had seen during the day. She seemed to regard it as a sacred duty, almost like saying her ...
— Love's Shadow • Ada Leverson
... been flourishing. I doubt if any English visitor ever troubles its stagnant repose. Yet it boasts its 'grand' place, imposing enough as a memorial of departed greatness, and, as usual, a Flemish relic, in the shape of a charming belfry and town-hall combined. It was really truly 'fantastical' from the airiness of its little cupolas and galleries, and was in tolerable order. Like the old Calais watch-tower, it was caked round by, and embedded in, old houses, and had ...
— A Day's Tour • Percy Fitzgerald
... and purpose were dependent, and with which they had to conspire—affects the imagination even more than cases where we see nothing. We are tempted less to musing and wonder by the Iliad, a work without a history, cut off from its past, the sole relic and vestige of its age, unexplained in its origin and perfection, than by the Divina Commedia, destined for the highest ends and most universal sympathy, yet the reflection of a personal history, and issuing seemingly from ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... damaged Pharaoh of the fourth dynasty, he reflected that some day he would confer upon that museum a relic transcending all others. He saw it enshrined in a room by itself; it should never be demeaned by association with those rusty cadavers he saw about him. This would be when he had passed on to another body, in accordance with the law of Karma. He would leave ...
— Bunker Bean • Harry Leon Wilson
... the native Christians reverence Moslem saints or holy men. They pay frequent visits to them to ask for counsel and to hear their prophecies, to beg a hair of them in memory, "and dying, mention it within their wills, bequeathing it as a rich legacy unto their issue." Any relic of a venerated saint is worn as a ...
— There was a King in Egypt • Norma Lorimer
... weep at it, when the old crone who nursed me would tell it over as I sat by her side in the evening. See, here is holy relic that my mother wore round her neck, and my nurse hung round mine. It has never been parted from me. So I grew up to the years of pagehood, which came early with me, and forth I went on my first foray with the rest of them. But as we rode joyously home ...
— The Lances of Lynwood • Charlotte M. Yonge
... in the first place, it is from my bringing up. I lived with and was educated by a good priest, one not wanting in manliness and energy, but who often deplored the system of duelling, which is as strong with us as it is here, and denounced it as a relic of barbarism, and, at any rate, never to be put in use on account of a heated quarrel over wine, but only if some deadly injury had been inflicted, and even then better left alone. Of course, as an officer in one of His Majesty's ...
— In the Irish Brigade - A Tale of War in Flanders and Spain • G. A. Henty
... old name for the festival of Christmas, originally a heathen one, observed at the winter solstice in joyous recognition of the return northward of the sun at that period, being a relic in the N. of the old ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... the Englishman enter his house and drink coffee, then took him into the church. The door stood open. Iskender caught some fragments of the priest's discourse, from which it appeared that he was displaying vestments and a holy relic. When they emerged, the Frank was thrusting money on the priest, who declined to take ...
— The Valley of the Kings • Marmaduke Pickthall
... fallals better suited to the children of the fleet. She was a no-nonsense lady, one of the "up and doing and you be damned" sort, but she boasted at least one unusual feature, the pride and envy of her fellows. She was fitted with an aerial, the relic of an age when small vessels went forth to sweep up big mines very often to be swept up themselves while so engaged and to mention the fact by wireless in the short interval between being struck ...
— Men of Affairs • Roland Pertwee
... remaining is the 6-wheel "Pioneer," on display in the Museum of History and Technology, Smithsonian Institution. This locomotive is a true representation of a light passenger locomotive of 1851 and a historic relic ...
— The 'Pioneer': Light Passenger Locomotive of 1851 • John H. White
... gathered together many a golden relic, which he afterwards made use of in his poetical works. He studied Gascon like a pioneer. He made his own lexicon, and eventually formed a written dialect, which he wove into poems, to the delight of the people in the ...
— Jasmin: Barber, Poet, Philanthropist • Samuel Smiles
... under the Roman or Jewish laws. The sacraments derive from the Greeks, from the Indians—the mysteries of Ceres and Bacchus, from the Haoma sacrifice of the Persians, originally Brahmanic. The Trinity, was it not a relic of that ineradicable desire for polytheism implanted in the human bosom? Was the crucifixion but a memory of those darker cults and blood sacrifices of Asia, and also of the expiating goats sent out into the wilderness? What became of that Hosanna-shouting crowd which welcomed Christ on Palm Sunday? ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... added, "what we found within. A Popish relic, is it not? Colet and Mistress Gale were for making away with it at once, but it seemed to me that it was a token whereby the poor babe's friends may know her again, if she have any kindred not lost ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... told nothing as to sacrificial and religious rites, and all else is omitted which does not provide material for artistic treatment. The so-called Northern Mythology, therefore, may be regarded as a precious relic of the beginning of Northern poetry, rather than as a representation of the religious beliefs of the Scandinavians, and these literary fragments bear many signs of the transitional stage wherein the confusion of the old and ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber
... taken by one of the most feeble noblemen in Great Britain, between persecution and the deprivation of political power; whereas, there is no more distinction between these two things than there is between him who makes the distinction and a booby. If I strip off the relic-covered jacket of a Catholic, and give him twenty stripes ... I persecute; if I say, Everybody in the town where you live shall be a candidate for lucrative and honourable offices, but you, who are a Catholic ... I do not ...
— English Satires • Various
... Castle Logan and Merton found poor Mr. Macrae comparatively cheerful. Bude and Lady Bude had told what they had gleaned, and the millionaire, recognising his daughter's hair-pin, had all but broken down. Lady Bude herself had wept as he thanked her for this first trace, this endearing relic, of the missing girl, and he warmly welcomed Merton, who had detected the probable meaning of the enigmatic ...
— The Disentanglers • Andrew Lang
... their hall, a fine sanctuary knocker of brass, representing a lion's head, with a ring through its nose; this knocker was installed at a house in Stamford, which still retains the name it gave, "Brasenose Hall." The knocker itself was there till 1890, when the College recovered the relic (it now hangs in the hall). The students were compelled by threats of excommunication to return to their old university, and down to the beginning of the nineteenth century, Oxford men, when admitted to the degree of M.A., were compelled to swear ...
— The Charm of Oxford • J. Wells
... of the phrase "its own Centre," which became an important Quaker term, is an interesting relic ...
— Spiritual Reformers in the 16th & 17th Centuries • Rufus M. Jones
... the back of his hand across his face; the thought of the hag's prediction in an instant rose, and banished all softer emotions. In utter contempt of his own weakness, yet with a tremor that deprived his redoubtable kick of half its wonted force, he spurned the relic with his foot. One word alone issued from his lips, elucidatory of what was passing in his mind—it long remained imprinted on the memory of his faithful followers—that word was "Gammon!" The skull bounded across the beach till it reached the very margin ...
— Half-Hours with Great Story-Tellers • Various
... and character, but nothing else. By the educated and more earnest members of the nation much sensitiveness is felt, especially in the presence of the Occidental, on the subject of the Imperial concubinage. It is felt to be a blot on Japan's fair name, a relic of her less civilized days, and is, accordingly, kept in the background as much as possible. The statements given in the text in regard to the number of the concubines and children are correct so far as they go. A full statement might require an increase ...
— Evolution Of The Japanese, Social And Psychic • Sidney L. Gulick
... to the slaveocracy. The foulest relic of the past will at length be destroyed. The new era has a glorious dawn; it rises in the glories of sacrifices made by a generous and inspired people. Yes! The new era rises above darkness, selfishness, and imbecility. The shades of the slaughtered are now at length propitiated; their slaughter ...
— Diary from November 12, 1862, to October 18, 1863 • Adam Gurowski
... had a queer old stone tenement by the edge of the lake just under Mardykes Hall. Some people said it was the stump of an old tower that had once belonged to Mardykes Castle, of which in the modern building scarcely a relic was discoverable. ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 3 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... 'We have a relic of a delicate temple here,' said Lord Montfort, directing her gaze to another window. 'You see it now to advantage; the columns glitter in the sun. There, perhaps, was worshipped ...
— Henrietta Temple - A Love Story • Benjamin Disraeli
... peculiar features of the room was a suit of ancient Chinese armor—a relic that had been rusted and pit-marked by time, but now stood brightly polished beside the statue of the god. A huge two-edged sword was held ...
— The Perils of Pauline • Charles Goddard
... Fair Greece! sad relic of departed worth! Immortal, though no more! though fallen, great! Who now shall lead thy scattered children forth, And long accustomed bondage uncreate? Not such thy sons who whilome did await, The hopeless warriors of a willing doom, In bleak Thermopylae's sepulchral strait— Oh, who that ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... peculiarities of person and dress that could be distinctly made out. He was smoking a long pipe, and placidly rocking himself to and fro. His appearance, through the two windows, was that of a finely preserved relic of a past generation, ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... a necklace, drawn on a piece of a shoulder-blade of a reindeer, she is seen lying by a stag, and would seem to be in an advanced state of pregnancy. The piece of bone however is broken, and the head of the woman is lost, which of course greatly lessens the value of the relic. ...
— Manners and Monuments of Prehistoric Peoples • The Marquis de Nadaillac
... Legislature, and which is expressed by the current phrase, "omnipotence of Parliament," thus became the acknowledged property of the three branches of the Federal Legislature; and the old and respectable doctrine of State independence is now no more than an archaeological relic, a piece of historical antiquarianism. Yet the actual attributions of the State authorities cover by far the largest part of the province of government; and by this division of labor and authority, the problem of fixing for the nation a political centre of gravity is divested of ...
— Prose Masterpieces from Modern Essayists • James Anthony Froude, Edward A. Freeman, William Ewart Gladstone, John Henry Newman and Leslie Steph
... Finding no relic of the man whose life once glorified the now dark and gloomy house, I hold with the greater tenacity the mental picture I have of the old flag I used to see in the National Museum. Faded, discolored, ...
— Literary Hearthstones of Dixie • La Salle Corbell Pickett
... a copious supply of water issues from three spouts, the fountain has on each side the representation of a chained lion, sculptured in stone. One's first impression would be that this were a relic of the Genoese or Venetian crusaders; but these figures, whatever their meaning or origin, are not infrequent upon fountains about the Lebanon, even when only rustically daubed in red ochre; and it has not been ...
— Byeways in Palestine • James Finn
... perhaps the most prominent feature of the place. It is a magnificent relic of Egypt, and is one of two obelisks which stood in front of the temple of Thebes. It was erected fifteen hundred and fifty years before Christ, by Sesostris, in the eighteenth Egyptian dynasty. Mehemet Ali made a present of the obelisk to the French government. On account of its enormous ...
— Paris: With Pen and Pencil - Its People and Literature, Its Life and Business • David W. Bartlett
... saucer," added Rose, proudly producing the single relic of a well-remembered set of olden times. "And please, please, Aunt Ermine, let me sit up to make it for him. I have not seen him all day, you know; and it is the first time he ever drank tea in our house, except make-believe ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... held by any whose wives and children have lived in danger of his scalping-knife. In Boston and other of the older and safer settlements, the Indians had found devoted friends before Philip's War; and even now they had apologists and defenders, prominent among whom was that relic of antique Puritanism, old Samuel Sewall, who was as conscientious and humane as he was prosy, narrow, and sometimes absurd, and whose benevolence towards the former owners of the soil was trebly reinforced by his ...
— A Half Century of Conflict - Volume I - France and England in North America • Francis Parkman
... decay, though guarded with care, John Davis, the English navigator, had a chair made out of her timbers, which he presented to the University of Oxford, still guarded sacredly in the Bodleian Library. No wonder that Cowley, while sitting in it, wrote his stirring lines, and apostrophised it as "Great Relic!" How noble ...
— By the Golden Gate • Joseph Carey
... seemed to me to have advanced in learning and judgment. His letters are the fairest memorials of him which I possess, and they are also among the most excellent of his writings. His last letter I preserve as a sacred relic, among my treasures." He rose and fetched it. "See and read it," said he; ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. II • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... veterans, one of them proposed to go up into the belfry, and see the old bell which proclaimed liberty "to all the land, and to all the nations thereof." Lafayette and a few others accompanied the proposal by expressing a wish to see that interesting relic. With great difficulty, some of the old men were conducted up to the belfry, and there they beheld the bell still swinging. Lafayette was much gratified at the sight, as it awakened his old enthusiasm to think of the period when John Adams and his bold brother patriots dared to assert the principles ...
— The Old Bell Of Independence; Or, Philadelphia In 1776 • Henry C. Watson
... consciousness. Our dead are never dead to us until we have forgotten them: they can be injured by us, they can be wounded; they know all our penitence, all our aching sense that their place is empty, all the kisses we bestow on the smallest relic of their presence. And the aged peasant woman most of all believes that her dead are conscious. Decent burial was what Lisbeth had been thinking of for herself through years of thrift, with an indistinct expectation that she should ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... the fall, had been shattered to pieces. There was in the chamber a stuffed easy-chair, the covering of which was of worsted-work, wrought by Mrs. Preston when she was a young girl. This chair, which was highly valued as a relic of the past, was also badly injured. A part of the needle-work, which had cost so many hours of patient toil, was torn in every direction, and some of the hair, with which the cushion was stuffed, was pulled out, and scattered ...
— Oscar - The Boy Who Had His Own Way • Walter Aimwell
... black corkscrew curls and staring blue eyes. Whenever she visited Overlea, Serena was given to her to play with, as a special privilege. Her grandma knew that Edna was careful, but she would not have brought out this relic of her childhood for everyone. "I will put this little shawl around her before you take her, for she has been in a cooler room, and it might chill you to touch her," said grandma, as she wound a small worsted ...
— A Dear Little Girl's Thanksgiving Holidays • Amy E. Blanchard
... Marguerite's father. It remained for Isidore, however, to give to the poor orphan girl that which in this direst of all trials we all so earnestly yearn after, the personal account of one who has himself seen the dear one laid to his last rest, and to present to her the little relic he had himself meant to keep in memory of his fellow-soldier—the blood-stained strip of a flag in which, by Isidore's directions, they had carried the ...
— The King's Warrant - A Story of Old and New France • Alfred H. Engelbach
... dual number was soon absorbed by the plural. No relic of it now remains. But when two and only two are referred to, the dual is consistently used in O.E.An example occurs in the case of the two blind men (Matthew ix. 27-31): Gemiltsa unc, Davdes sunu! Pity us, (thou) Son of David! Se inc fter incrum ...
— Anglo-Saxon Grammar and Exercise Book - with Inflections, Syntax, Selections for Reading, and Glossary • C. Alphonso Smith
... relic in its way," returned Tucker amicably, "though if you are going to make a business of sacrificing yourself, for heaven's sake let it be for something bigger than a relic. A live neighbour is a much better thing to make sacrifices ...
— The Deliverance; A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields • Ellen Glasgow
... register of St. Oswald's, Durham, informs us that "Duke, Hyll, Hogge, and Holiday" were hanged and burned for "there horrible offences." The arm of one of these horrible offenders was preserved at St. Omer as the relic of a martyr, "a most precious treasure," in 1686. But no one knew whether the arm belonged originally to Holiday, Hyll, Duke, or Hogge. The coals, when these unfortunate men were burned, cost sixpence; the other items in the account of the abominable execution are, perhaps, ...
— Books and Bookmen • Andrew Lang
... famous Cathach, now in the museum of the Royal Irish Academy, was long popularly believed to be the very Psalter in question. As a relic of St. Columba it was carried to battle by the O'Donnels, even as late as 1497, to insure ...
— The Hermits • Charles Kingsley
... he said, "a very odd thing to find in the bedroom of an old bachelor like Jeffrey, especially as we know that he employed no woman to look after his rooms. Of course, it may be a relic of the last tenant. Let us see if there ...
— The Mystery of 31 New Inn • R. Austin Freeman
... time the most important. It has fallen into the background lately, partly because the gold-reefs have not realized the hopes once formed of them, partly because it suffers from fever after the rains. I went to it because from it one visits the famous ruins at Zimbabwye, the most curious relic of prehistoric antiquity yet discovered in tropical Africa. The journey, one hundred miles from Iron Mine Hill to Victoria, is not an easy one, for there are no stores on the way where either provisions ...
— Impressions of South Africa • James Bryce
... unorganized group is an abnormality in the midst of civilization, a relic of the primitive days when impulse rather than reason swayed the mind of a group. Such is the crowd that gathers in a moment of excitement and yields to a momentary passion to lynch a prisoner, or a revolutionary mob that loots and burns out of a sheer desire for destruction. ...
— Society - Its Origin and Development • Henry Kalloch Rowe
... to my own story, so close was the resemblance between the little flower and little Therese. I received this floweret as a relic, and noticed that in gathering it my Father had pulled it up by the roots without breaking them; it seemed destined to live on, but in other and more fertile soil. Papa had just done the same for me. He allowed ...
— The Story of a Soul (L'Histoire d'une Ame): The Autobiography of St. Therese of Lisieux • Therese Martin (of Lisieux)
... the chest reveal something of the tragedy. The box is full of letters written in Russian, and full of stones which weigh collectively a hundred pounds at least. There is nothing else in the chest except a broken Ikon and a bronze figure of Erlik, a Yildiz relic, no doubt, of some Kurdish raid into Mongolia, and probably placed beside the dead girl by her murderers in derision. I am translating the letters and arranging ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers
... That excessive construction is no longer necessary. Modern ships carry ten times the pay-load on one-quarter of the power that this old battle-wagon uses. Even though she's only four years old, she's a relic of the days when we used to slam through on the ecliptic route, right through all the meteoric stuff that is always there—trusting to heavy armor to ward off anything too small for the observers and detectors ...
— Spacehounds of IPC • Edward Elmer Smith
... of the Bank of England cannot be themselves by trade bankers. This is a relic of old times. Every bank was supposed to be necessarily, more or less, in opposition to every other bankbanks in the same place to be especially in opposition. In consequence, in London, no banker ...
— Lombard Street: A Description of the Money Market • Walter Bagehot
... couldn't go ahead of that it should be drained. And will you please tell me why this precious platter from which I have eaten much stewed chicken, fried ham, and in youthful days sopped the gravy——will you tell me why this relic of my ancestors is called a willow plate, when there are a majority of orange trees so extremely fruitful they have neglected to grow a leaf? Why is it not an orange plate? Look at that boat! And in plain sight of it, two pagodas, a summer house, a water-sweep, and a pair of corpulent swallows; ...
— The Harvester • Gene Stratton Porter
... Rude relic of a lost and savage race! Memento of a people proud and cold! Sole lasting monument to mark the place Where the red tide of Indian ...
— The Poets and Poetry of Cecil County, Maryland • Various
... unfortunately been whitewashed within and without. The Tombs are mainly built of grey granite. They are nearly all covered with beautiful mosaics and enamelled tiles, mutilated, however, in too many instances by the hands of modern relic-hunters. The buildings are surrounded by gardens fragrant with champa and orange-blossom, and gay with many other flowers. One can see that formerly the gardens must have been much more lovely and luxuriant than they now are. The decay and ruin were caused by the great siege in ...
— The Last Voyage - to India and Australia, in the 'Sunbeam' • Lady (Annie Allnutt) Brassey
... the Bengal Civil Service, as magistrate of Benares, in 1806 prevented the widow of a Brahman from being burned. Twelve months after her husband's death she had been goaded by her family into the expression of a wish to burn with some relic of her husband, preserved for the purpose. The pile was raised to her at Ramnagar,[9] some two miles above Benares, on the opposite side of the river Ganges. She was not well secured upon the pile, and as soon as she felt the fire she jumped ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... return home. And once more he went to the mighty Pope, to take his leave and to ask a blessing for himself and his brethren, and to beg that he might bear away with him to the brotherhood some precious relic of those who had shed ...
— A Child's Book of Saints • William Canton
... her erect, stately figure perfectly. A broad real lace collar encircled her neck, and Jack recognized with delight the solid gold brooch—in shape like nothing that was ever on sea or land—with which it was fastened. It was a relic from the dim past. Jack remembered that piece of jewelry as far back as his ...
— The Wolf's Long Howl • Stanley Waterloo
... A. An isolated mountain more than 3000 feet high, standing about midway between the extremities of the bay: probably a relic of ...
— The Moon - A Full Description and Map of its Principal Physical Features • Thomas Gwyn Elger
... "What a pity you did not come sooner," they said. Alas! it is nearly always so; on first coming to stay at a village one is told that it has but just lost its oldest and most interesting inhabitant—a relic of ...
— A Shepherd's Life • W. H. Hudson
... by the injustice of the act, she clung patiently to her only means of support. Two weeks later, it is said that a Northern newspaper contained an editorial which spoke sneeringly of "A Troublesome Relic," and ended with, "We draw the line at Miss Van Lew." Even though she had not a penny in the world, she could not bear the sting of that, and she wrote her resignation, and went back to the great, lonely house on Church Hill ...
— Ten American Girls From History • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... to this singular relic arises from the fact of its having been found in the heart of a piece of coal, seven feet ...
— The Book of the Damned • Charles Fort
... Pawnbroker's Son. He has on a cutaway suit—a relic of his first and last public concert before the war. His shoulders sag dejectedly and his face is drawn and white. He comes in and sits on the bed. A knock—a determined knock—is heard at the door but Jean does not move. The door opens and his landlady—a shrewish, sharp faced woman of 40—appears. ...
— A Parody Outline of History • Donald Ogden Stewart
... she is! A great lady, of a type we're not familiar with, that's all. A relic of feudalism. I give you fair warning—don't monkey with ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly
... be so punctiliously tended by all Englishmen, we are sorry to record that Dr. Madden (though otherwise a man of scrupulous honor) yielded to the temptation of substituting for the saint's skull another less remarkable from his own collection. With this saintly relic he embarked on board a Grecian ship; was alternately pursued and met by storms the most violent; larboard and starboard, on every quarter, he was buffeted; the wind blew from every point of the compass; the doctor honestly confesses that he often wished this baleful skull back ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... from the bottom and close to the wall. But supposing that referred to some real door which had since been blotted out by falling rock—by a later avalanche of which this barrier was a relic? There was but one way to find out and he must decide quickly. Also, he must memorize the other directions, for he would be unable to consult his map in the darkness ...
— The Web of the Golden Spider • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... course, still waits, and, perhaps, may long wait, for interpretation. The facts are there, but the significance of them is not always easily discerned. But, at least, the importance of the supreme fact cannot be questioned; the emergence of this magnificent relic of a civilization, so great and so advanced as to fill the mind with wonder, so curiously corroborating the ancient legends as to the greatness and power of the House of Minos, and yet so absolutely lost as to have left no trace of itself, save in romantic story, until the patience and skill of present-day ...
— The Sea-Kings of Crete • James Baikie
... attention to the merest second lieutenant! His rank is a fact. The life tenure, the necessities of military discipline and administration, weld army officers into a distinct class and make our military system the sole but necessary relic of personal government. Any class with special ...
— The Colored Regulars in the United States Army • T. G. Steward |
