"Votive" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... day, however, there came bad news from the castle concerning the infant and the mother, and the city was excited. During the whole day, the churches were as crowded as they were during the time of absolution. Votive offerings were very numerous for the queen's and princess' health. One could see poor peasants offering some grain, lambs, chickens, ropes of dried mushrooms or baskets of nuts. There came rich offerings from the knights, from the merchants and from the artisans. They sent messengers to the places ...
— The Knights of the Cross • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... and I'll take upon myself to get you safely out of this affair," said the lawyer. "There will be a terrible fight; but I will put my whole soul into it—you'll have to make me a votive offering." ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... side of the hills which the French call the Hills of Gold, in a country of pasturage and forest, very high up above the world and thinly peopled. The River Seine appears there in a sort of miraculous manner, pouring out of a grotto, and over this grotto the Parisians have built a votive statue; and there is yet another of the hundred thousand ...
— First and Last • H. Belloc
... "old sakes' sake" she had never had the heart to sell. The only other trace of her in the strange little bedroom was in a wonderful array of china animals on the mantlepiece. She was a great animal lover, and, being a favorite with every one, she received many votive offerings. Her shrine was an amusing one to look at. A green china frog played a tuneless guitar; a pensive monkey gazed with clasped hands and dreadfully human eyes into futurity; there were sagacious looking elephants, placid rhinoceroses, ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall
... we went up the valley, we would see the Indian village located there, and in the midst, on a rising piece of ground, the mission station. Over some of the houses we would see a red flag flying. That is a prayer, a votive offering; there are sick in that house, and that is a prayer to the gods that healing may come, and that death may be kept from them. Over on the right we would see the dance-house—a great octagonal house with an open roof, in which the Indians gather ...
— American Missionary, Volume 43, No. 12, December, 1889 • Various
... sea;[4] and in one of the highest parts a fair was formerly, and is, perhaps, still held[5] for the enjoyment of those who assemble to witness the self devotion of a few young men, who offer themselves as a sacrifice to fulfil the vows of their mothers. When a woman is without children she makes votive offerings to all the gods, who can, she thinks, assist her, and promises of still greater in case they should grant what she wants. Smaller promises being found of no avail, she at last promises her first- born, if a male, ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... table. When he got there he perceived that another cover was standing there beside his own. It used to be there on the other birthdays also, for there, from year to year, the peasant girl who brought the votive lambs was wont to sit. But now, Master Jock, in high dudgeon, shouted to Palko, who stood behind ...
— A Hungarian Nabob • Maurus Jokai
... emblems. Women and children strewed the path of the procession with flowers, green branches, or, in the absence of these, with handfuls of colored paper cut into minute pieces. Indeed, the street, in places, was literally covered with these votive offerings of the people, who had no other means of testifying their reverence ...
— Dikes and Ditches - Young America in Holland and Belguim • Oliver Optic
... brown mite! She was picked up after the storm (such a set-out of ship-models and votive candles as that storm must have brought the Madonna at Porto Venere!) on a strip of sand between the rocks of our castle: the thing was really miraculous, for this coast is like a shark's jaw, and the bits of sand are tiny and far between. ...
— Hauntings • Vernon Lee
... achievements of Gideon, the Midianite, and giving particular prominence to the miracle of the "fleece of wool," vouchsafed to that renowned champion, the great patron of the Knights of the Fleece. On the present occasion there were various additional embellishments of flowers and votive garlands. At the western end a spacious platform or stage, with six or seven steps, had been constructed, below which was a range of benches for the deputies of the seventeen provinces. Upon the stage itself there were rows of seats, covered with ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... order to visit the town of Es-Salt. Upon a wide level tract we came to a small patch of ground enclosed by a low wall, to which a space was left for entrance, with a lintel thrown across it, but still not above four feet from ground. On this were bits of glass and beads and pebbles deposited, as votive offerings, or tokens of remembrance or respect. The place is called the Weli, or tomb, of a Persian Moslem saint named Sardoni. But it should be recollected that in Arabic the name 'Ajam, or Persia, is often used to signify any unknown ...
— Byeways in Palestine • James Finn
... riding in the same steeplechase as a nephew of mine. The youth had lost his cap, and turning round in his saddle, he shouted to my nephew in the middle of the race, between two fences, "You will perceive that I have already sacrificed my cap, and laid it as a votive offering on the altar of Diana." One would hardly have anticipated that a youthful cavalry subaltern, in the middle of a steeplechase, would have been able to lay his hands on such choice flowers of speech. Unfortunately, owing ...
— The Days Before Yesterday • Lord Frederick Hamilton
... It was the habit of the Greeks to present to their divinities all sorts of objects in recognition of past favors or in hope of favors to come. Among these votive objects or ANATHEMETA works of sculpture occupied a large and important place. The subjects of such sculptures were various. Statues of the god or goddess to whom the dedication was made were common; but perhaps still commoner were figures representing human persons, either ...
— A History Of Greek Art • F. B. Tarbell
... rebuilding for the third time. The image is a doll about the size of a girl ten years old, wearing a silver crown and a dress of blue silk glittering with golden stars. Hosts of miracles are attributed to Our Lady, and we were shown votive offerings and models of legs, arms, heads, etc., etc., the grateful in memoriam of wonderful cures, besides a boat whose crew were saved by invoking the protection of Mary. The facilities for education are improving. There are several seminaries in ...
— The Andes and the Amazon - Across the Continent of South America • James Orton
... rifle, but I was too quick that time and stepped back out of range of his arm. As I did that the blood burst anew from his wounds. He put his left hand to his side and scattered the hot blood up in the air in a sort of votive offering to the gods of Greek revenge, and, brandishing the long knife, tore away into ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... which the Fates hastened the pangs of childbirth[37] * * * * whom, the first-born germ the wretched daughter of Leda, (Clytaemnestra,) wooed from among the Greeks brought forth, and trained up as a victim to a father's sin, a joyless sacrifice, a votive offering. But in a horse-chariot they brought[38] me to the sands of Aulis, a bride, alas! unhappy bride to the son of Nereus' daughter, alas! And now a stranger I dwell in an unpleasant home on the inhospitable sea, unwedded, childless, ...
— The Tragedies of Euripides, Volume I. • Euripides
... Binzuru is polished smooth and shining, quite deformed with rubbing—his poor head's a nubbin! And in gratitude for what he's done for people, he sits now on a pile of cushions, one for each new cure. Bibs and caps adorn him too, votive offerings from ...
— Civilization - Tales of the Orient • Ellen Newbold La Motte
... and especially while she was in captivity, the French hung her picture in churches.[2776] In the Museum of Versailles there is a little painting on wood which is said to be one of those votive pictures. It represents the Virgin with the Child Jesus, having Saint Michael on her right and Jeanne d'Arc on her left.[2777] It is of Italian workmanship and very roughly executed. Jeanne's head, which has disappeared beneath the blows of some hard-pointed instrument, must have been execrably ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France
... reconnoitring-expedition, and a victorious conclusion to every struggle in which the Mohar might engage. The high-priest then pledged him, and thanked him emphatically in the name of the brethren of the temple, for the noble tract of arable land which he had that morning given them as a votive offering. A murmur of approbation ran round the tables, and Paaker's timidity ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... at thy honour'd shrine, the Muse Pours, MONTAGU, to thee her votive strain, Thy heart will not her simple notes refuse, Or chill her ...
— Poems (1786), Volume I. • Helen Maria Williams
... tastes of the day, to that magnificence of hangings and nick-nacks with which young painters were then beginning to surround themselves. It was the bare, greyish studio of the old style, exclusively ornamented with sketches by the master, which hung there unframed, and in close array like the votive offerings in a chapel. The only tokens of elegance consisted of a cheval glass, of the First Empire style, a large Norman wardrobe, and two arm-chairs upholstered in Utrecht velvet, and threadbare with ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola
... a more open country, with every few hours a small valley, through which ran a little rill in the middle of a bog. These were always difficult to pass, and being numerous, kept the lower part of the person constantly wet. At different points in our course we came upon votive offerings to the Barimo. These usually consisted of food; and every deserted village still contained the idols and little sheds with pots of medicine in them. One afternoon we passed a small frame house with the head of an ox in it as an object of worship. The dreary uniformity ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... comes that she is buried in the stained robe, and she is carried amid flowers and white cloths to a white marble tomb, where incense is burning, and where the walls are hung with votive wreaths and things commemorative of virginal life and its many lovelinesses. But, strange to say, upon all these, upon the flowers and images alike there is some small stain which none sees but she and the one in shadow, ...
— A Mere Accident • George Moore
... across, Jim 'ad an eye in soak, Sam 'obbled on a patent leg, 'n' every man was broke; They sang a song of "Mother" with their faces titled up. Says Bill-o: "'Ere's yer 'eroes, sling the bloomin' votive cup! We got no beer, the soup was bad- Now oo will stand the soldier lad The swag of honest liquor that ...
— 'Hello, Soldier!' - Khaki Verse • Edward Dyson
... seven gentlemen of Florence, who formed themselves into a religious order called "Servants of Mary." Many miraculous cures were wrought here; and the church, in consequence, was so thickly hung with votive offerings of legs, arms, and other things in wax, that they used to tumble upon people's heads, so that finally they were all cleared out as rubbish. The church is still, I should imagine, looked upon as a place of peculiar sanctity; for while we were there it had an unusual number ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... Love their long repose Shall burst, more bright and good Than all who fell, than One who rose, Than many unsubdued: Not gold, not blood, their altar dowers, But votive tears ...
— The Hundred Best English Poems • Various
... today to review the mass of archeological data which the discoveries of this civilization have produced. They consist of cyclopean ruins of cities and strongholds, tombs, vases, statues, votive bronzes, and exquisitely engraved gems and intaglios. That which is most valuable in establishing the claim of the African origin of the Grecian civilization is the discovery of the frescoes on the palace walls. These opened up a ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917 • Various
... of the gods and the human race. This is confessed by Herodotus as a persuasion spread through some of the nations amongst which he travelled: there was a sort of truce, indeed, between the parties; temples, with their religious services, and their votive offerings, recorded this truce. But below all these appearances lay deadly enmity, to be explained only by one who should know the mysterious history of both parties from the eldest times. It is extraordinary, however, that Herodotus should rely, for this account, upon the belief of ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v1 • Thomas de Quincey
... absent lover lost, And one for a husband,—Donna Julia, Wife of the captain, tempest-tossed, In circumstances so peculiar: Even the fathers, unawares, Grumbled a little at their prayers; And all along the coast that year Votive ...
— East and West - Poems • Bret Harte
... Against whom does he rage? What Church is it whose sacred vessels, lamps, and ornaments he is pillaging, whose ritual he overthrows? Whose golden patens and silver chalices, sumptuous votive offerings and rich treasure, does he envy? Why, the man is a Lutheran all over. With what other cloak did our Nimrods[4] cover their brigandage, when they embezzled the money of their Churches and wasted the patrimony of Christ? Take on the contrary ...
— Ten Reasons Proposed to His Adversaries for Disputation in the Name • Edmund Campion
... round him, between the folds of which are sculptured the signs of the zodiac; Medea and her children; a mile-stone, bearing the names of the Emperors Theodosius and Valentinian; a basso-relievo of the Muses; several sarcophagi, votive altars, cornices, pillars, mutilated statues, and inscriptions, are here carefully preserved: but nothing in the collection equals the statue known by the title of the Venus of Arles, found here, and which is so ...
— The Idler in France • Marguerite Gardiner
... service I can render, some kindness, some votive offering which I could make, and so imprint on your memory as long as you live that I am ...
— The Romantic Adventures of a Milkmaid • Thomas Hardy
... not the notes; yet, having a quick ear for rhythm, he presently joined in with a deep but uncultivated baritone. Together they forgot everything else, and at the end of an hour were only recalled by the presence of a silently admiring concourse of votive-offering friends who had gathered ...
— By Shore and Sedge • Bret Harte
... probably be conjectured that he had a temple of some importance in that vicinity. For further details see Pauly, II, p. 46; Roscher, I, col. 1738.] nor Asclepius nor Serapis, in spite of his many supplications and his unwearying persistence. Even when abroad he sent to them prayers and sacrifices and votive offerings and many runners traveled to them daily, carrying things of the sort. He also went himself, hoping to prevail by appearing in person, and he performed all the usual practices of devotees, but he obtained nothing that would ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol VI. • Cassius Dio
... Consort, stealing through the gloom Of Hangs in mute anguish o'er the scutcheon'd hearse, Or graves with trembling style the votive verse. ...
— The Botanic Garden - A Poem in Two Parts. Part 1: The Economy of Vegetation • Erasmus Darwin
... of old Rouget, if old Rouget changes his mind, ought to make me a votive offering," cried Monsieur Heron. "If it had not been for me, the old fellow would have allowed the fifty thousand francs' income to stand in the name of Maxence Gilet. I told Mademoiselle Brazier that ...
— The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... votive stones, the little altars and statues of the gods, the bushes and single trees along the sides of the dike road were overflowed while the travellers were in the region of the marsh, they would be obliged to interrupt their journey, for the danger ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... gold-rimmed spectacles, and his lips tight-shut like some steel trap into which our poor humanity had just fallen, he seemed to constitute a menace under which the boldest might well quail. Nevertheless, I took my courage in both hands, and laid it as a kind of votive offering on the ...
— A Christmas Garland • Max Beerbohm
... long mourning years she had grown dull; her mental processes were either a sad introspection or reminiscence. Now she could only take into account her sacrifices of feeling, of time, of care; the illnesses she had nursed, the garments that she had made and mended—ah, how many! laid votive on the altar of Leander's vigor and his agility, for as he scrambled about the crags he seemed, she was wont to say, to climb straight out of them. The recollection of all this—the lesser and unspiritual ...
— The Moonshiners At Hoho-Hebee Falls - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... with yellow tresses confined in a golden head-dress; she is bending forward and listening, with the smile of a charming woman at a dinner-party, to her neighbor. Newman detected her in the crowd, admired her, and perceived that she too had her votive copyist—a young man with his hair standing on end. Suddenly he became conscious of the germ of the mania of the "collector;" he had taken the first step; why should he not go on? It was only twenty minutes before that he had bought the first picture of his life, and now ...
— The American • Henry James
... boat and crossed the water, landing speedily on the soft, damp islet sward. The grotto was still clad in morning freshness, for the strong beams of the sun had not yet penetrated to the heart of the sacred grove. The entrance was hung with garlands, votive offerings from the poorer pilgrims. More costly gifts lay near and all ...
— Atma - A Romance • Caroline Augusta Frazer
... for his kindred, and became the great delight of his age. He was apprenticed by his father to his own art of goldsmith, in which Tommaso was a master more than passing good, for it was he who made the greater part of the silver votive offerings that were formerly preserved in the press of the Nunziata, and the silver lamps of the chapel, which were all destroyed in the siege of the city in the year 1529. Tommaso was the first who invented and put into execution those ornaments worn on ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol. 3 (of 10), Filarete and Simone to Mantegna • Giorgio Vasari
... extending not merely through the early Church but far back into paganism. Just as formerly patients were cured in the temples of Aesculapius, so they were cured in the Middle Ages, and so they are cured now at the shrines of saints. Just as the ancient miracles were solemnly attested by votive tablets, giving names, dates, and details, and these tablets hung before the images of the gods, so the medieval miracles were attested by similar tablets hung before the images of the saints; and so they are attested to-day by similar tablets hung before the images ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... Indian glades, Where kneel the sun-swart maids, On Gunga's flood their votive flowers to throw, And launch i' the sultry night Their burning cressets bright, Most like a fleet of stars that southing go, Till on her bosom prosperously She floats them shining forth to ...
— Poems by Jean Ingelow, In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Jean Ingelow
... the panic and ruin in their bearing, might be pilgrims or suppliants, or the servants of some religious rite, bringing the votive offerings and the sacrificial beasts. The infinite land and the avenues of slender trees persuade you ...
— A Journal of Impressions in Belgium • May Sinclair
... befell her to be buried in the stained robe. And she is taken away amid flowers and white cloths to a white tomb, where incense is burning, and where the walls are hung with votive wreaths, and things commemorative of virginal life. But upon all these, upon the flowers and images alike, there is some small stain which none sees but she and the one in shadow, the one whose face she cannot recognise. And although she is nailed fast in her coffin, ...
— Celibates • George Moore
... helps to face the cave on the west. This is a smoothed surface which shows a narrow cornice ledge above it, and a narrow base below. In it are a number of irregularly driven holes. Delbrueck calls it a votive niche,[120] and says that the "viele regellos verstreute Nagelloecher" are due to nails upon which votive ...
— A Study Of The Topography And Municipal History Of Praeneste • Ralph Van Deman Magoffin
... the consecration, as it were, of learning, by raising temples to its honor, even where they answer no purpose of direct use. Next, after the service of religion, I would have the service of learning externally embellished, recommended to the affections of men, and hallowed by the votive sculptures, as I may say, of that affection, gathering in amount from age to age. Magnificabo apostolatum meum is a language almost as becoming to the missionaries and ministers of knowledge, as to the ambassadors ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... preference, among pagan peoples. Perhaps there are some among you who, although they have received holy baptism and been incorporated into the family of Abraham, have yet worshipped idols, like the ancient Romans, or hung up images, votive tablets, fillets of wool, and garlands of flowers on the branches of some sacred tree. Or perhaps some of the women Penguins have danced round a magic stone and drunk water from the fountains where the nymphs dwell. If it be so, believe, O Penguins, that ...
— Penguin Island • Anatole France
... and Mary; by unnamed artists, of George I. and George II.; and by Ramsay, of George III. There are portraits of a fat Prior, William Sandall, with a jewelled reliquary; of "Sir John the Little with the Great Beard," who ruled in the Prior's stead; and there is the portrait, a votive tablet of penitence and remorse, "of that Lord Arundel Who struck in heat the child he loved so well" (see "A Picture at Newstead," by Matthew Arnold, Poetical Works, 1890, p. 177); but of portraits of judges ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... a late Professor of Divinity in the University of Cambridge. 'The heathen temples,' says Professor Blunt, 'became Christian churches; the altars of the gods altars of the saints; the curtains, incense, tapers, and votive-tablets remained the same; the aquaminarium was still the vessel for holy water; St. Peter stood at the gate instead of Cardea; St. Rocque or St. Sebastian in the bedroom instead of the Phrygian Penates; St. ...
— The Superstitions of Witchcraft • Howard Williams
... of the sunset of genuine art are to be found in the votive pictures at Locarno or Oropa, and in many a wayside chapel. In these, religious art still lingers as a living language, however rudely spoken. In these alone is the story told, not as in the Latin and Greek verses of the scholar, who thinks he has succeeded best when he has ...
— Selections from Previous Works - and Remarks on Romanes' Mental Evolution in Animals • Samuel Butler
... the general relaxation of singing, votive offerings of respectful sympathy began to make their appearance at her shrine. Living Perkins, who could not sing, dropped a piece of maple sugar in her lap as he passed her on his way to the blackboard to draw the map ...
— Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... wearied soul had never fully known. Peace brooded over the great nave, and hovered in the soft air that drifted slowly through the deserted aisle up to the High Altar, where lay the Sacred Host. A few votive candles were struggling to send their feeble glow through the darkness. The great images of the suffering Christ, of the Saints and the Virgin Mother had merged their outlines into the heavy shadows which lay ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... widely recognized in the early Sumerian period and dictated her position in the classified pantheon of Babylonia. Apart from this evidence, the important rank assigned her in the historical and legal records and in votive inscriptions,(1) especially in the early period and in Southern Babylonia, accords fully with the part she here plays in the Sumerian Creation myth. Eannatum and Gudea of Lagash both place her immediately after Anu and Enlil, giving her precedence over Enki; and even in the Kassite Kudurru inscriptions ...
— Legends Of Babylon And Egypt - In Relation To Hebrew Tradition • Leonard W. King
... Raphael's votive picture, known as the Madonna di Foligno, there is a town with a few towers, placed upon a broad plain at the edge of some blue hills. Allowing for that license as to details which imaginative masters permitted themselves in matters of subordinate ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds
... debt indeed; I was being swept along in a rough turbid torrent, unresisting, drifting with the stream; when lo, you stood there and fished me out, a true deus ex machina. I have good enough reason, I think, to shave my head like the people who get clear off from a wreck; for I am to make votive offerings to-day for the dispersion of that thick cloud which was over my eyes. Henceforth, if I meet a philosopher on my walks (and it will not be with my will), I shall turn aside and avoid him as ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata
... purchase was in fulfilment of a vow made long ago, in the lifetime of Mr. Johnson, that if ever she wore glasses, they should be gold- bowed; and I hope the manes of the dead were half as happy in these votive spectacles as the simple soul ...
— Masterpieces Of American Wit And Humor • Thomas L. Masson (Editor)
... possessed of the galaxy of charms and attractions of the ci-devant Cathedral of Notre Dame at St. Omer. Hardly in the accepted forms of good taste are the Byzantine slabs of marble stuck upon the walls here and there, as in a museum; the Renaissance screens; the overpowering organ case; the votive offerings and tablets without number; and the alleged wonderful astronomical clock, with its colossal wooden figures of the sixteenth century,—all of which go to compose a heterogeneous mass more interesting as to occasional detail than as a ...
— The Cathedrals of Northern France • Francis Miltoun
... votive cup The rich blood of the vine, And "Drink ye all the hallowed draught," He cries, "This ...
— Hymns for Christian Devotion - Especially Adapted to the Universalist Denomination • J.G. Adams
... between the arches; the garlanding of vines flung from column to column; the secret pool to which childless women are brought to bathe, and where the tree springing from a cleft of the steps is always hung with the bright bits of stuff which are the votive ...
— In Morocco • Edith Wharton
... was given, and Madelaine de Repentigny at once exchanged her gay robes for the coarse black gown and veil, and hung up this votive lamp before the Madonna as a perpetual ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... a walled enclosure containing numerous pedestals and bases of votive statues and other monuments. Usually only the foundation-walls are of stone, as the same sun-dried brick was commonly used in ancient as in modern times for the superstructure. Such sites are often vary shallow, and when ...
— How to Observe in Archaeology • Various
... by this soft stream, We set to-day a votive stone; That memory may their deed redeem, When, like our sires, ...
— Selections From American Poetry • Various
... but which will fill you with pleasure on account of the novelty and freshness of everything you meet; whether it is the old bonnet-less, short-petticoated women walking arm and arm with their grandsons, whether the church with its quaint sculpture of the Entombment of our Lord, and the sad votive candles ever guttering in front of it, or whether the plain evidence that meets one at every touch and turn, that one is among people who live out of doors very much more than ourselves, or what not—all will be charming, and if you ...
— Samuel Butler's Cambridge Pieces • Samuel Butler
... rents were mended and a large new patch adorned each elbow. The patches, to be sure, were blue, and the coat was black, but the stitches were set with mechanical regularity. Joe straightened his aching shoulders and held the garment at arm's length with a smile. It was his first votive offering at ...
— Miss Mink's Soldier and Other Stories • Alice Hegan Rice
... the wealthiest families in Florence from placing their daughters in the Carmelite Convent. A nobleman or opulent citizen who had several daughters, would consider it a duty to devote one of them to the service of the church; and the votive girl was most probably compelled to perform her novitiate and take the veil in this renowned establishment. It was essentially the convent patronized by the aristocracy; and no female would be received within its walls save on the payment of a ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... magnificent churches. The one in which he entered was vast and shrouded in the dusk of evening. At the extremity of the long aisles a couple of tapers feebly glimmered on the grand altar. In one of the side chapels was a votive candle placed before the image of a saint. Before this image the robber had prostrated himself. His mantle partly falling off from his shoulders as he knelt, revealed a form of Herculean strength; a stiletto and pistol glittered ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... church of the thieves," and that it was even lately a favorite resort of ladrones, who prayed for blessing upon their thieving expeditions and for release in case they should be taken captive. And not so long ago, among the little silver votive offerings,—eyes, legs, arms, hands,—all given in fulfillment of promises for the cure of ailing members,—one might see little chains and manacles, visible evidence that saint or Virgin had kindly released some fellow, ...
— In Indian Mexico (1908) • Frederick Starr
... of the shining shrine Where all my votive tapers burn, Where every gold-embroidered thought And all my flowers of life are brought —With many, alas! that are not mine— What will you give ...
— The Rainbow and the Rose • E. Nesbit
... stars of the early night, just as they had done when Somerset was attracted by their glare four months before. The fervid minister's rhetoric equalled its force on that more romantic occasion: but Paula was not there. She was not a frequent attendant now at her father's votive building. The mysterious tank, whose dark waters had so repelled her at the last moment, was boarded over: a table stood on its centre, with an open quarto Bible upon it, behind which Havill, in a new suit of black, sat in ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy
... and, indeed, of all the chapels, were once covered with votive pictures recording the Grazie with which each several chapel should be credited, but these generally pleasing, though perhaps sometimes superstitious, minor satellites of the larger artistic luminaries have ...
— Ex Voto • Samuel Butler
... formerly confided his secret thoughts to his books, as to tried friends, and for good and evil, resorted not elsewhere: hence it came to pass, that the old man's life is there all seen as on a votive tablet."—Horace, Sat., ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... by the Prussians, than she would have done forty and odd years later. The end-scenes of this book, with her Druid-stone marriage to a comrade, are really good. Of Le Bouscassie, Titi-Froissac IV, and La Fete Votive de Saint-Bartholomee Porte-Glaive I shall not say much. The "province," which is strong in them, saves them sometimes. But Cladel's hopeless lack of self-criticism shows itself in the fact of his actually reprinting ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... Youths, Who hang enraptur'd on the empassion'd strain Gazing with eloquent eye, even till the heart Sinks in the deep delirium! and ye too Shall witness, unborn Ages! to that song Of warmest zeal; ah witness ye, how hard, Her fate who hymn'd the votive hymn in vain! Ungrateful Goddess! I have hung my lute In yonder holy pile: my hand no more Shall wake the melodies that fail'd to move The heart of Phaon—yet when Rumour tells How from Leucadia Sappho hurl'd her down A self-devoted ...
— Poems • Robert Southey
... Aonian Maid In thy life's blossom, a resistless spell Amid the wild wood, and irriguous dell, O'er thymy hill, and thro' illumin'd glade, Led thee, for her thy votive wreaths to braid, Where flaunts the musk-rose, and the azure bell Nods o'er loquacious brook, or silent well.— Thus woo'd her inspirations, their rapt aid Liberal she gave; nor only thro' thy strain Breath'd their pure spirit, while her charms beguil'd ...
— Original sonnets on various subjects; and odes paraphrased from Horace • Anna Seward
... Middle Ages votive crowns were often presented to churches; among these a few are specially famous. The crowns, studded with jewels, were suspended before the altar by jewelled chains, and often a sort of fringe of jewelled letters was hung from the rim, forming an inscription. ...
— Arts and Crafts in the Middle Ages • Julia De Wolf Addison
... pledged for his safety in the Basilica Julii, (Hist. Miscell. l. xvii. in Muratori, tom. i. p. 107.) Anastasius (in Vit. Pont. p. 40) gives a dark but probable account. Montfaucon is quoted by Mascou (Hist. of the Germans, xii. 21) for a votive shield representing the captivity of Vitiges and now in the collection of Signor Landi ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon
... the proprietor of Althorp, so honorably known as an early advocate of parliamentary reform, sought out the quarry from which, more than two centuries ago, these votive tablets were taken, and caused others to be made which are exact facsimiles of the originals. These he has presented to Mr. Sumner, who has expressed the desire that memorials so interesting to all Americans may be ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... of terraces may yet be discovered—here and there the stump of a column, while niches for receiving votive offerings are numerous among the cliffs, but it is a lone and dismal place; Desolation sits with Silence, and Ruin there is so decayed ...
— The Life of Lord Byron • John Galt
... to their deities. The niches of these temples were filled with Madonnas, crucifixes, and saints, gaunt and grizzly, with unlighted candles stuck before them, or rude paintings and tinsel baubles hung up as votive offerings. The signboards—especially those of the wine venders—were exceedingly religious. They displayed, for the most part, a bizarre painting of the Virgin, and occasionally of the Pope; and not unfrequently underneath these personages ...
— Pilgrimage from the Alps to the Tiber - Or The Influence of Romanism on Trade, Justice, and Knowledge • James Aitken Wylie
... visited by a traveller. In this temple the main object of worship was a large upright, standing alone, and the resemblance to the male generative organ was so striking as to leave no doubt as to what it represented. This upright was worshipped especially by women, who left votive offerings, among them small phalli, elaborately wrought out of wood or other material. The traveller remarked that the worship ...
— The Sex Worship and Symbolism of Primitive Races - An Interpretation • Sanger Brown, II
... the other is S. Christopher carrying Jesus Christ on his shoulders. On the wooden tabernacle of the same church, wherein the vessels of silver are kept, he painted a S. Martin on horseback, with many beggars who are bringing votive offerings, in a ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol. 05 ( of 10) Andrea da Fiesole to Lorenzo Lotto • Giorgio Vasari
... windows; one of the mystic wine-press is very interesting. Votive offerings of the city of Paris to Ste. Genevive also exist in the ambulatory. Curious frescoes of the martyrdom of the 10,000 Christians on Mount Ararat on the north side. The best view of the choir is obtained ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3 • Various
... legs, with the camel mooning at him, the thicket over the way was divided, and the stupor-stricken Tartarin saw a gigantic lion appear not a dozen paces off. It thrust out its high head and emitted powerful roars, which made the temple walls shake beneath their votive decorations, and even the saint's ...
— Tartarin of Tarascon • Alphonse Daudet
... Japanese idea of god—which even to-day with them means anything wonderful or extraordinary.[22] From the days before history the people have worshipped trees, and do so yet, considering them as the abodes of and as means of communication with supernatural powers. On them the people hang their votive offerings, twist on the branches their prayers written on paper, avoid cutting down, breaking or in any way injuring certain trees. The sakaki tree is especially sacred, even to this day, in funeral or Shint[o] services. To wound or ...
— The Religions of Japan - From the Dawn of History to the Era of Meiji • William Elliot Griffis
... daughter, whose likeness appears in several of his most celebrated pictures. The Madonnas enumerated in ll. 22-25 are the Sistine Madonna, now in the Dresden Gallery; the Madonna di Foligno, so called because it had been painted as a votive offering for Sigismund Corti of Foligno; the Madonna del Granduca (Petti Palace, Florence) in which the Madonna is represented as appearing to a votary in a vision; and probably the Madonna called La Belle ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning
... brother or sister; finally, cover him a bier with costly palls, for at last he triumphs: crowd it with lamps and candles, circle round him, overthrown as he is, with helping crowds of servants. Do more. Repeat the votive offering of My Son. Make the richest feast, and thus the panting spirit, restless and weary with the jars of the wonted mortality it has just laid by, may breathe to strength: and the flesh, empty for the while of its old tenant, and now to be nursed in the lap of the Mother Earth, may ...
— Hugh, Bishop of Lincoln - A Short Story of One of the Makers of Mediaeval England • Charles L. Marson
... women, who fled to right and left. The statue of Kwan-yin was covered with necklaces and pieces of embroidery. She was represented holding a child in her arms, while four or five babies clung to her robe. The altar and the walls were covered with votive offerings, chiefly consisting of embroidered slippers. Candles beyond number were held in branches of candlesticks. The hall was filled with the smoke of incense. To the left was the immortal Chang who gives us children. To the ...
— Eastern Shame Girl • Charles Georges Souli
... repair in crowds, and are accosted by the deceased through the organs of his surviving representatives, who dwell within the walls of the tower, and artfully contrive to increase the holy reputation of their predecessor, as well as their own profits. The walls of their tombs are covered with votive tablets and offerings to the deceased, consisting of fire-arms, saddles, bridles, stirrups and baskets of fruit, which no profane hand is allowed to touch, because the departed saint may choose to appropriate the contents to his own use, and by emptying the basket, ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... green bank, by this soft stream, We set to-day a votive stone, That memory may their deed redeem, When, like our sires, our sons ...
— The Golden Treasury of American Songs and Lyrics • Various
... a distant place, 'Twas not to pray nor hear our friend's address, But, gazing once more on your winsome face, To worship there Ideal Loveliness. On that pure shrine that has too long ignored The gifts that once I brought so frequently I lay this votive offering, to record How sweet your quiet beauty seemed to me. Enchanting girl, my faith is not a thing By futile prayers and vapid psalm-singing To vent in crowded nave and public pew. My creed is simple: that the world is fair, ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 2 (of 4) • Various
... amazed at the seas, rough with blackening storms who now credulous enjoys you all precious, and, ignorant of the faithless gale, hopes you will be always disengaged, always amiable! Wretched are those, to whom thou untried seemest fair? The sacred wall [of Neptune's temple] demonstrates, by a votive tablet, that I have consecrated my dropping garments to the powerful god of ...
— The Works of Horace • Horace
... that undertaking, the faithful Jackeymo would never have had the heart to avail himself of the generosity of his master. He had a sort of religious sentiment too, about those vestments of the Padrone. The ancients, we know, when escaping from shipwreck, suspended in the votive temple the garments in which they had struggled through the wave. Jackeymo looked on those relics of the past with a kindred superstition. "This coat the Padrone wore on such an occasion. I remember the very evening the Padrone last put on those pantaloons!" And coat and pantaloons were tenderly ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... country thereabouts had served greatly to enrich the community and bring them in numerous costly offerings. The chapel wherein the saint's heart was said to repose was lighted by a huge gold lamp, and on the walls and in niches right up to the ceiling were thousands of votive offerings in enamel, silver, and gold. The Duc de Villa-Hermosa (a good Catholic) dared not give orders for the pillage of this holy chapel, but left that to the Prince ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... the street leading to the temple of Baaltis (My Lady—Aphrodite) the prince's motor was checked while a procession of pilgrims, white-robed and carrying votive offerings, passed before them, the votive tablet to the Lady Tanith and the Face of Baal being borne at the head of the line by a dignitary in a smart electric victoria. This was one of the frequent Festival Embassies to Melita, to combine religious rites ...
— Romance Island • Zona Gale
... Atheist, being shown the votive tablets in the temple of Neptune, presented by those who prayed to the god in a storm and were saved, asked where were the tablets of those who were drowned. Bacon tells the story with evident gusto, and it is in such things that we seem to get at his real thoughts. In a set essay on Atheism, ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (Second Series) • George W. Foote
... thy honour as thy God rever'st, Who, save thy mind's reproach, nought earthly fear'st, To thee this votive offering I impart, The tearful tribute of a broken heart. The Friend thou valued'st, I, the Patron lov'd; His worth, his honour, all the world approved: We'll mourn till we too go as he has gone, And tread the shadowy path to that ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... chambers of various people, etc. These figures and pictures are intended to represent miracles. When these people were in their afflictions they prayed to the image of the Good End and made a promise that if they should recover they would bring one of these votive offerings of the part affected, whether of man or beast, to the shrine. Some of them came before the cure was effected, and with a prayer, left the image behind and the cures of their disease or afflictions ...
— Brazilian Sketches • T. B. Ray
... life was set in minors, yet subtle and perfect was the harmony that dwelt therein; and because she had sternly shut love out of her lonely heart, she kept votive lights burning ceaselessly on the cold altar of duty. The solitary red rose of happiness that might have brightened and perfumed her thorny path, she had cut off, ere the bud expanded, and offered it as a loyal tribute to broaden the garland that crowned Miss ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... by this soft stream, We set today a votive stone; That memory may their deed redeem, When, like our sires, our sons ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... and she returned loosed; and they declare also, that she was very mad before they took her to the well, but since that time she is working and sober in her wits." He adds that this well was still celebrated in 1723, and votive offerings were left; but no one then surviving knew that the virtues of the stone were in request. The chapel itself was demolished in 1650, in order to suppress the ...
— Chapters in the History of the Insane in the British Isles • Daniel Hack Tuke
... altogether new, scene which presented itself on reaching the church. There is a small covered way—in imitation of cloisters—which goes entirely round it. The whole of the interior of these cloisters is covered with little pictures, images, supposed relics—and, in short votive offerings of every description, to the Holy Virgin, to whom the church is dedicated. The worshippers believe that the mother of Christ was an African by birth, and therefore you see little black images of the virgin stuck up in every direction. At first, ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Three • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... was wont to believe that the beautiful Cypriote[2] revolving in the third epicycle rayed out mad love; wherefore the ancient people in their ancient error not only unto her did honor with sacrifice and with votive cry, but they honored Dione[3] also and Cupid, the one as her mother, the other as her son, and they said that he had sat in Dido's lap[4] And from her, from whom I take my beginning, they took the name of the star which the sun wooes, now at her back now at her front.[5] I was ...
— The Divine Comedy, Volume 3, Paradise [Paradiso] • Dante Alighieri
... Mermnadai obtained the government having driven out from it the Heracleidai: and Gyges when he became ruler sent votive offerings to Delphi not a few, for of all the silver offerings at Delphi his are more in number than those of any other man; and besides the silver he offered a vast quantity of gold, and especially one offering which is more worthy of mention than the rest, namely six golden mixing-bowls, which ...
— The History Of Herodotus - Volume 1(of 2) • Herodotus
... the reeds, Kenelm Chillingly felt the haunting influence of the legendary stream. Many a poetic incident or tradition in antique chronicle, many a votive rhyme in song, dear to forefathers whose very names have become a poetry to us, thronged dimly and confusedly back to his memory, which had little cared to retain such graceful trinkets in the treasure-house ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... priestess will lend me the line I see there and the Piraean fisherman's votive hook; I will not ...
— Works, V1 • Lucian of Samosata
... panes like blood-drops stigmatize The western floor. The aisles are mute and cold. A rigid fetich in her robe of gold The Virgin of the Pillar, with blank eyes, Enthroned beneath her votive canopies, Gathers a meagre remnant to her fold. The rest is solitude; the church, grown old, Stands stark and gray beneath the burning skies. Wellnigh again its mighty frame-work grows To be a part of nature's self, withdrawn From hot humanity's ...
— The Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton, Part 2 (of 10) • Edith Wharton
... more immediate object of the present Note, which is to show—what, when once pointed out, will, I think, readily be admitted, namely, that in the grotto formed of oyster shells, and lighted with a votive candle, to which on old St. James's day (5th August) the passer by is earnestly entreated to contribute by cries of, "Pray remember the Grotto!" we have a memorial of the world-renowned shrine of ...
— Notes And Queries,(Series 1, Vol. 2, Issue 1), - Saturday, November 3, 1849. • Various
... possessed of some property, versed in the Scriptures and of a decided character, which, in connection with his natural eloquence, gave him great influence over his associates. It is told of him, that he offered a bucket of wine to the hospital, if he would be allowed to destroy the images and votive paintings in the Water Church; and that he intended to give a banquet in honor of Zwingli at Lindenhof, amid a large assembly of country-people. He had often rebuked the possessor of the crucifix for not casting away the object of ...
— The Life and Times of Ulric Zwingli • Johann Hottinger
... the middle of the picture is an altar with festoons. On the top of it three Cupids, assisted by another who has climbed up the tree, endeavor to bear on their shoulders the hero's quiver; while on the ground, to the left of the altar, four other Cupids are sporting with his club. A votive tablet with an image of Bacchus rests at the foot of the altar, and indicates the god to whom Hercules has ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... church was quite black save for the sanctuary lamp and the little red votive lights burning before the statues of the saints and of our Lady. All these many little lights only cast the veriest ghosts of brightness upon the darkness, but the white altar was revealed by the larger glow of the sanctuary lamp. There it shone with a mild and pure ...
— Slippy McGee, Sometimes Known as the Butterfly Man • Marie Conway Oemler |
