"Idol" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Claudius, there was a time when I was the idol of Buenos Ayres, and the pet of Rio Janeiro! Do not think I would tell you an untruth! No! I know myself. Bad at Paris, I am excellent in the provinces. In Paris you play for yourself; in the provinces you play for the others! And then what ...
— The Adventures of a Special Correspondent • Jules Verne
... tangled hair, And servile scourges and reluctant groans Roll o'er the vault uninterruptedly, Till, such the natural stillness of the place The very tear upon the damps below Drops audible, and the heart's throb replies. There is the idol maid of Christian creed, And taller images, whose history I know not, nor inquired—a scene of blood, Of resignation amid mortal pangs, And other things, exceeding all belief. Hither the aged Opas ...
— Count Julian • Walter Savage Landor
... one word, was the idol of the rich and gay; Blanche was the saint of the poor, the lowly, the sick, and those ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 1 January 1848 • Various
... Something was no longer there, telling her where to stake. She wished to play again, but felt at sea, without a rudder. Her unconscious vanity rebelled against risking loss at this table of which she had been the queen, the idol. ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... especially beyond the canton, an act as rebellious as horrible, yea worthy of death; and they threatened, in case the perpetrators were not dealt with in this way, according to their will and confused ideas, such dangerous consequences, that the government was obliged to cast the so-called "Idol Stormers" into prison for a while. The result of an investigation, conducted in common with the three people's priests, convinced the Council, that the quieting of the people, and the introduction of rules of law for the abrogation of customs, which were no ...
— The Life and Times of Ulric Zwingli • Johann Hottinger
... you're looking for, just a-waiting for you!' So I sneaks up soft and easy,—it were a rare dark night,—and looks in, and what do I see by the light o' them there crazy lanterns? There was one o' them heathen idols! Yes, sir, a heathen idol as handy as you please. 'Aha!' says I,—not aloud, you understand, sir,—'Aha! I'll wager you've got a fine pair o' rubies in your old eye-sockets, you blessed idol.' And with that I takes a squint at the lay o' the land and sees my chance, ...
— The Mutineers • Charles Boardman Hawes
... about the fate of his opera—he could get no answer at all for a long while, and after it was definitely accepted the usual troubles occurred through the whims and caprices of singers. Even his idol and divinity, Schroeder-Devrient, great artist though she was on the stage, played the very prima donna—which is about as bad a thing as can be said of any woman—off the stage so far as Rienzi was concerned. Being a prima ...
— Richard Wagner - Composer of Operas • John F. Runciman
... by the shores of that river which was the scene of so much of his labour, his ashes now add their wind-swept atoms to the mighty waste of the Soudan. But if England, still true to the long line of her martyrs to duty, keep his memory precious in her heart—making of him no false idol or brazen image of glory, but holding him as he was, the mirror and measure of true knighthood—then better than in effigy or epitaph will his life be written, and his nameless tomb become ...
— The Glory of English Prose - Letters to My Grandson • Stephen Coleridge
... delegation came from no less a person than Yasmini herself, bearing her compliments, and hot food savory enough to make a brass idol's mouth water. By that time King had his sets of surgical instruments and drugs and bandages all laid out on one of the beds and covered from view by ...
— King—of the Khyber Rifles • Talbot Mundy
... of shewbread, and the altar of burnt offering, and all the secret treasures. He slew some of the people, and carried off into captivity about ten thousand, burnt the finest buildings, erected a citadel, and therein placed a garrison of Macedonians. Building an idol altar in the Temple, he offered swine on it, and he compelled many of the Jews to raise idol altars in every town and village, and to offer swine on them every day. But many disregarded him, and these underwent bitter punishment. They were ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XI. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... a murmer of amazement ran through the room. The unthinkable had happened. An East Side idol had fallen. ...
— The Ear in the Wall • Arthur B. Reeve
... our own soul. At other times they proclaim an undisguised materialism, and look for the explanation of all things in atoms and in the law which governs them. They make to themselves a two-faced idol, one of these faces being called nature, and the other humanity. What strangely increases the confusion is that all the terms of language change meaning as employed by their pen. They speak of God, of duty, of religion, of immortality; their pages seem sometimes to be extracted from mystical ...
— The Heavenly Father - Lectures on Modern Atheism • Ernest Naville
... Moloch, fled, Hath left in shadows dread His burning idol all of blackest hue; In vain with cymbals' ring They call the grisly king, In dismal dance about the furnace blue; The brutish gods of Nile as fast, Isis, and Orus, ...
— The Hundred Best English Poems • Various
... thy hand could wake Are fallen on utter silence here, And hearts too little even to break Have made an idol of despair. ...
— Joyous Gard • Arthur Christopher Benson
... and best of all, Spedding. I have stolen his noble book {241} away from him; noble, in spite (I believe, but am not sure) of some adikology in the second volume: some special pleadings for his idol: amica Veritas, sed magis, etc. But I suppose you will think this the intolerance of a ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald - in two volumes, Vol. 1 • Edward FitzGerald
... him anxiously. A little hope that he will contradict Hardinge's statement animates her mind. To feel herself a burden to her guardian—to anyone—she, who in the old home had been nothing less than an idol! Surely Sir Hastings, his own brother, will say something, will tell her something to ease this chagrin ...
— A Little Rebel - A Novel • Margaret Wolfe Hungerford
... her elbow rests On the bare branch of half-uprooted tree, That leans towards its mirror! Who erewhile Had from her countenance turned, or looked by stealth (For fear is true-love's cruel nurse), he now With steadfast gaze and unoffending eye, Worships the watery idol, dreaming hopes Delicious to the soul, but fleeting, vain, E'en as that phantom-world on which he gazed, But not unheeded gazed: for see, ah! see, The sportive tyrant with her left hand plucks The heads of tall flowers that behind her grow, Lychnis, and willow-herb, and fox-glove ...
— Poems of Coleridge • Coleridge, ed Arthur Symons
... be told for a purpose; Nicodemus must judge it fairly. Resuming his narrative, Joseph related the day spent in the forest and Jesus' interpretation of the prophecies. Nicodemus cried: he is the stone cut by no hand out of the mountain; the idol shall fall, and the stone that felled it shall grow as big as a mountain and fill ...
— The Brook Kerith - A Syrian story • George Moore
... weary he repairs to the centre of my bed which is forbidden to him by his grandmother of whom he has no fear. He fears nothing. My Mother, he is almost the same sort as my own. He sends his salutations to him. He calls him "My brother who is in India." He also prays for him aloud before an idol which he is taken to worship. On account of his fatness he cannot yet kneel long, but falls over sideways. The idol is of Bibbee Miriam [the Virgin Mary] whom they, in this country, believe to watch over children. He has also a small idol of ...
— The Eyes of Asia • Rudyard Kipling
... before the fight, shouts like the ancient gladiators: Ave, Caesar, morituri te salutant! "Hail, Caesar, those about to die salute you!" an army in which even dying men shout applause, with their last breath, to their sovereign, their idol! And yet how petty is all this glory! Bossuet was right when he said: "What could you find on earth strong and dignified enough to bear the name of power? Open your eyes, pierce the dusk. All the power in the world can but take a man's life: is it then such a great ...
— The Court of the Empress Josephine • Imbert de Saint-Amand
... performances, tableaux-vivants, and picnics. It is very gay and amusing, but I have only to catch a perch or find a mushroom for my head to droop, and my thoughts to be carried back to the past, and my brain and soul begin in a funereal voice to sing the duet "We are parted." The "deposed idol and the deserted temple" rise up before my imagination, and I think devoutly: "I would exchange all the zoologists and great artists in the world for one little Idiotik." [Footnote: Madame Kisilyov's son.] The weather has all the while been hot and dry, and only to-day there has ...
— Letters of Anton Chekhov • Anton Chekhov
... demands of Southern politicians with such prompt and easy acquiescence, that many of your oldest friends have mourned over your lost manhood, and sadly abandoned you to the worship of your ugly and obscene idol. A Northern man, descended from the best Puritan stock, surrounded from childhood by institutions really free, breathing the atmosphere of free thought, enjoying the luxury of free speech, you have deliberately allied yourself to a party which has ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 74, December, 1863 • Various
... teachings were almost directly opposed to the philosophic tenets of the time, attacking the current dogmas, and Aristotle, the idol of the schoolmen, yet such was the power of Bruno's eloquence and the charm of his manner that crowds flocked to his lecture-room, and he became one of the most popular foreign teachers the university had known. Under ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... autumn leaf that shivers before the wind. They had both suffered—so Mrs. Temperley dared to assert—in the same cause. They were both victims of the same creed. It was a terrible cultus, a savage idol that had devoured them both, as cruel and insatiable as the brazen god of old, with his internal fires, which the faithful fed devoutly, with ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... the erectness of his supple body, like a symbol. The very way he stood, so quiet, so insidious, like an erect, supple symbol of life, the living body, confronting her downcast soul, was torture to her. He was like a supple living idol moving before her eyes, and she felt if she ...
— England, My England • D.H. Lawrence
... to us astonishing that parents were ever capable of causing their children to pass through the fire to an idol, but what is this compared with what our pious fathers and mothers have believed concerning their children's sufferings in the eternal world, for the glory of that God who is the Father of ...
— A Series of Letters In Defence of Divine Revelation • Hosea Ballou
... the idol of her father's heart, and her mother's, and Ida's. But I really think that if there was one person who idolized her more than all the rest, it ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... other earthly things, Quoz had its season, and passed away as suddenly as it arose, never again to be the pet and the idol of the populace. A new claimant drove it from its place, and held undisputed sway till, in its turn, it was hurled from its pre-eminence, and a ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... I have even from the beginning declared to thee; before it came to pass I showed them thee; and I showed them for fear lest thou shouldst say—mine idol hath done them, and my graven image, and my molten image ...
— The Book Of Mormon - An Account Written By The Hand Of Mormon Upon Plates Taken - From The Plates Of Nephi • Anonymous
... to be adventurous than cautious, for Fortune is a woman, and to be mastered must be boldly handled. He was a republican, but he believed that strength was the secret of government—strength in itself and in mastery of those who make up the State. No half-measures for him. The State is his idol, if he have one. The State must be supreme in will, in vigor, in intelligence; unflinching, unsparing, remorseless. The humility of Christ has no part in his scheme. He knows no mercy and no justice. One almost can admire his inhuman disregard of men. He cared as little for them as Napoleon. He ...
— Volume 10 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... Morocco." From the king's private theatre, "The Empress of Morocco" was transferred, in all its honours, to the public stage in Dorset Gardens, and received with applause corresponding to the expectation excited by its favour at Whitehall. While the court and city were thus worshipping the idol which Rochester had set up, it could hardly be expected of poor Settle, that he should be first to discern his own want of desert. On the contrary, he grew presumptuous on success; and when he printed his performance, the dedication to the Earl of Norwich was directly ...
— The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author • Sir Walter Scott
... I do with him?" she thought. "I love the other man, but if I cannot win him, I shall gratify my ambition by marrying Haughton Hall, and in petting my idol gratify myself; and so to pet my old love until it's ...
— A Heart-Song of To-day • Annie Gregg Savigny
... charged by Colonel Roberts and his colleagues with having dipped too deep into the treasury and by extravagance and other questionable methods dissipated the funds of the Brotherhood. This widened the breach, and Roberts became the popular idol with the majority of the American Fenians. Yet O'Mahony held on to office with a ragged remnant of his old retainers to support him, until finally Roberts triumphed and became the star around which all of ...
— Troublous Times in Canada - A History of the Fenian Raids of 1866 and 1870 • John A. Macdonald
... interrupting me with a low cry. "Do not mock me, Miriam Monfort," he exclaimed, "if you can do no better. My God! a baby of five years old suggested as a wife by you, my idol! Oh, yes, wildly-beloved Miriam, the noblest, truest, as I have ever thought you—the most beautiful, too, surely, of all God's created beings!" and he caught ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield
... multiply,' which they did, though they didn't understand. Then we asks the names of things in their lingo—bread and water and fire and idols and such; and Dravot leads the priest of each village up to the idol, and says he must sit there and judge the people, and if anything goes wrong he is ...
— Stories by English Authors: Orient • Various
... his mother's idol, since ever his father died; And there isn't a horse on the station that he isn't game to ride. But that Reckless mare is vicious, and if once she gets away He hasn't got strength to hold her — and ...
— The Man from Snowy River • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson
... suddenly, just as he was sinking into the dulness of despair, there came, like the fist gleam of light in chaotic darkness, the memory of Mildred Carr. Truly she had spoken prophetically. His idol had been utterly cast down and crushed to powder by a hand stronger than his own. He would go to her in his suffering; perhaps she could find means ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... Buddha, or the peasant woman with her paper money alight in the brazier at the feet of Kwan-yin, we ought to feel that the place where he who worships stands, is holy ground. We hear it said that he is worshipping an image, an idol, a thing of stone or wood or clay. It is not so; he is thinking far beyond the statue, he is seeing God. He looks upwards towards the sky and asks what supports that cup of blue. He hears the winds and asks them whence they ...
— My Lady of the Chinese Courtyard • Elizabeth Cooper
... some accident, Dorothy had not reached her post of naiad before Molly arrived in presence of her idol, the white horse, her usual application to which was thence for the moment in vain. Having waited about three seconds in perfect patience, she turned her head slowly round, and gazed in her nurse's countenance with large ...
— St. George and St. Michael • George MacDonald
... the name of love," he said, as if in prayer. "They make an idol of my memory while my brothers and sisters are dying for the lack of love and kindness. They do all this to praise me whom they have so little understood. O God, my Father, let this trial pass, or make me as you are ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 22, September, 1891 • Various
... alackaday! With his splendid figure suddenly all diminished and shrunken, with distress writ large and plain upon his features, the popular idol was step by step flinching backward from the edge of the platform—was step by step inching, edging toward the side door ...
— Sundry Accounts • Irvin S. Cobb
... "Idol of a great soul! Fougas returns to thee like the eagle to his eyrie. I have long traversed the world in pursuit of rank, fortune and family which I was burning to lay at thy feet. Fortune has obeyed me as a slave: she knows in what school I learned the art of ...
— The Man With The Broken Ear • Edmond About
... Rotunda in all its parts, I cannot but think of the old philosopher, who, after having entered into an AEgyptian temple, and looked about for the idol of the place, at length discovered a little black monkey enshrined in the midst of it, upon which he could not forbear crying out, (to the great scandal of the worshippers) What a magnificent palace is here for such a ...
— The Coverley Papers • Various
... measure, at first slight, then more and more surprising ones, viz. cures of incurable diseases,—who does not know the resistless nature of this illusion, bound up as it is with the nearest needs of man in every form?—made him the idol of England. Henry II had to live to see the man who had refused him the old accustomed obedience, reverenced among his people with almost divine honours as one of the greatest saints that had ever lived. The great Hohenstaufen in the unsuccessful ...
— A History of England Principally in the Seventeenth Century, Volume I (of 6) • Leopold von Ranke
... Chamber All was silent as the grave, Whilst the tempest of their sorrow Shook the bosoms of the brave. Well indeed might they be shaken With the weight of such a blow: He was gone—their prince, their idol, Whom they loved and worshipped so! Like a knell of death and judgment Rung from heaven by angel hand, Fell the words of desolation On the elders of the land. Hoary heads were bowed and trembling, Withered hands were clasped and wrung: God had left the old and feeble, ...
— Lays of the Scottish Cavaliers and Other Poems • W.E. Aytoun
... dues, By a just judgment strip and starve themselves. The wings that waft our riches out of sight Grow on the gamester's elbows, and the alert And nimble motion of those restless joints, That never tire, soon fans them all away. Improvement too, the idol of the age, Is fed with many a victim. Lo! he comes— The omnipotent magician, Brown, appears. Down falls the venerable pile, the abode Of our forefathers, a grave whiskered race, But tasteless. Springs a palace in its stead, But in a distant spot; where more exposed It ...
— The Task and Other Poems • William Cowper
... Goetzenberg from the circumstance of its having been formerly the site of a temple of Minerva built in the time of the Romans, and thence called Goetzenberg by the Christians, Goetze in German signifying an idol. ...
— After Waterloo: Reminiscences of European Travel 1815-1819 • Major W. E Frye
... days I had longed for a country life. The pleasures of the world of London had no attraction for me, my ideal being a snug country practice with Ethelwynn as my wife. But alas! my idol had been shattered, like that of ...
— The Seven Secrets • William Le Queux
... ring, O idol mine, tells one is here To bring thee joy, to kiss away the tear. Keep in thy heart the ruby fire of love; The hour of thy deliverance ...
— Tales of Destiny • Edmund Mitchell
... memories of Lanier's war career was that of General Lee attending religious services in Petersburg. The height of every Confederate soldier's ambition was to get a glimpse of the beloved general, who was the idol of his soldiers. Lanier reverenced him as one of the greatest of men. In later years he gave his ideal of what a great musician ought to be. "A great artist," he said, "should have the sensibility and expressive genius ...
— Sidney Lanier • Edwin Mims
... as it were, incidental utterances concerning demons, the Jewish view of the pagan gods impresses one as decidedly atheistic. The god is identical with the idol, and the idol is a dead object, the work of men's hands, or the god is identical with a natural object, made by God to be sure, but without soul or, at any rate, without divinity. It is remarkable that no Jewish ...
— Atheism in Pagan Antiquity • A. B. Drachmann
... be, was forced into growth at once. He made me a new self; he was in a sense creator, teacher, parent, friend, idol, lover. He was the world I have not known; he taught me that I could myself write, create. I was nearer madness in those days than now, for when he threw himself here—" She rose and pointed to the floor near the table—"here on these ...
— A Village Ophelia and Other Stories • Anne Reeve Aldrich
... the militia out of New York was with a knowledge that it would be desirable to have them away when his (the Governor's) 'friends' wanted to riot." I am aware that Governor Seymour has been a sort of idol with many, and that if I lay my poor weak tongue on his fair name, I will incur their displeasure; but I ...
— Between the Lines - Secret Service Stories Told Fifty Years After • Henry Bascom Smith
... Minister of Exterior Relations, offered a compensation to the nuns for the curious piece of antiquity which they gladly gave up to the government, on whose account he acted. It is said to be the idol goddess of the Indians, Centeotl, the goddess of medicine and medicinal herbs, also known by the name of Temaz calteci, or the "Grandmother of the Baths." A full account is given of her in one of the numbers ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon De La Barca
... post of Food Controller has been received with equanimity. There is a touch of imagination, almost of romance, in the appointment of his successor, the redoubtable Lord Rhondda, who as "D.A." was alternately the bogy and idol of the Welsh miners, and who, after being the head of the greatest profit-making enterprise in the Welsh coalfields, is now summoned to carry on war against the profiteers ...
— Mr. Punch's History of the Great War • Punch
... of the preceding; member of an illustrious English family that was free of any mesalliance from the time of the Conquest; exceedingly wealthy; one of those almost regal ladies; the idol of the highest French society during the Restoration. She did not live with her husband to whom she had left two sons who resembled Marsay, whose mistress she had been. In some way she succeeded in taking Felix de Vandenesse away from Mme. de Mortsauf, thus causing that virtuous ...
— Repertory Of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z • Anatole Cerfberr and Jules Franois Christophe
... of whom I teach and the Great Manitou, your idol, are the same; the happy hunting ground of the Indian and the beautiful forest of the paleface are the same; the paleface and the redman are the same. There is but one Great Spirit, that is God; but one eternal ...
— The Spirit of the Border - A Romance of the Early Settlers in the Ohio Valley • Zane Grey
... itself over her white shoulder and still fairer bosom. Tints like flitting clouds, Titianic, the mystery and despair of art, disclosed to the intelligent eye the feeling that mastered her spirit and her sense. Admirable beauty! Unrivalled, unhappy! The Phidian idol of gold and ivory, into which a demon had entered, overthrown, and the worshippers gazing on it with a scorn ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Number 9, July, 1858 • Various
... with the meditative quiet and lowly duties of these first years, came the crowded vicissitudes of the tempestuous course through which he reached his throne—court minstrel, companion and friend of a king, idol of the people, champion of the armies of God—and in his sudden elevation keeping the gracious sweetness of his lowlier, and perhaps happier days. The scene changes with startling suddenness to the desert. He is "hunted like a partridge ...
— The Life of David - As Reflected in His Psalms • Alexander Maclaren
... the admirers of Martin Renard entered the library of his author that night he would have seen an interesting thing. He would have seen the creator of that idol of clerks and messenger-lads and fourth-form boys frankly putting the case before a portrait propped up on a chair. He would have heard that popular author haranguing, pleading, curiously on his defence, turning the thing ...
— Widdershins • Oliver Onions
... "Plain of Cruach." Cromm Cruach is the name of the idol traditionally destroyed by St. Patrick in the "Lives." Cromm Cruach is also described In the Book of Leinster (L.L. 213b) as an idol to whom human sacrifices were offered. The name of this plain is probably ...
— Heroic Romances of Ireland Volumes 1 and 2 Combined • A. H. Leahy
... few minutes Billy Byrne played with his man, hitting him when and where he would. He fought, crouching, much as Jeffries used to fight, and in his size and strength was much that reminded Cassidy of the fallen idol that in his heart of hearts he ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... time, upon which no outer interest had intruded. She had presented an invulnerable surface to all that went on about her, the men's care, the day's incidents, the setting of the way. Cold-eyed and dumb she had moved with them, an inanimate idol, unresponsive to the observances of their worship, aloof from them in ...
— The Emigrant Trail • Geraldine Bonner
... acceptance of the dedication in a manner so gracious, that Mickle was once more decoyed with the hope of having found a powerful protector. After an interval of some months, he learnt that his incense had not been permitted to enter the nostrils of the new idol, and that his offering lay, where he left it, without the slightest notice. For this disappointment he might have considered it to be some compensation that his work had procured him the kindness of those who were more able to estimate it. Mr. Crowe assisted ...
— Lives of the English Poets - From Johnson to Kirke White, Designed as a Continuation of - Johnson's Lives • Henry Francis Cary
... pleasing troubles; Farewell, ye honour'd rags, ye glorious bubbles; Fame's but a hollow echo, Gold, pure clay; Honour the darling but of one short day; Beauty, th' eye's idol, but a damask'd skin; State, but a golden prison, to live in And torture free-born minds; embroider'd Trains, Merely but pageants for proud swelling veins; And Blood allied to greatness is alone Inherited, not purchas'd, nor our own. Fame, Honour, Beauty, ...
— The Complete Angler • Izaak Walton
... learned man, of whom she might receive instruction.' They proposed Willock; but even that gentle preacher did not set forth 'the virtue and strength of the death of Jesus Christ,' without touching also upon 'the vanity and abomination of that idol, the mass.' The dying woman said nothing, good or bad, of the form in which Christianity had been first presented, long years ago, to her childish eyes. But 'she did openly confess "that there was no salvation ...
— John Knox • A. Taylor Innes
... was enough," Lady Kirke was vowing with a toss of her head; and we none of us gave another look to the royal boxes that night, though all about the wits were cracking their jokes against M. Radisson's "Medusa locks," or "the king's idol, with feet of clay and face of brass," thereby meaning M. Radisson's moccasins and swarth skin. At the door we were awaiting M. Radisson's return when the royal company came out. I turned suddenly and met Hortense's eyes blazing ...
— Heralds of Empire - Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade • Agnes C. Laut
... question often asked, and is often answered thus—Because they are a set of hypocritical libertines. But we say, may not we see the reason in this: the female members of a church are apt to regard their minister with the highest degree of affectionate admiration—as an idol worthy to be worshipped. They load him with presents—they spoil him with flattery—they dazzle him with their glances, and encourage him by their smiles. Living a life of luxurious ease, and enjoying a fat ...
— City Crimes - or Life in New York and Boston • Greenhorn
... of Bel had been partly ruined by the fire-worshipping Persians, and Alexander greatly pleased the Babylonians by decreeing that they might restore it with his aid; but the Jews at Babylon would not work at an idol temple, which they believed to be also the tower of Babel, and on their entreaty Alexander permitted them to have nothing to do ...
— Aunt Charlotte's Stories of Greek History • Charlotte M. Yonge
... sign an armistice, giving up to France the valley of the Danube, the country of the Tyrol, a number of fortresses and large magazines of war material. This truce was followed by a peace in February, 1801. It was one that left Napoleon the idol of France, the terror of Europe, and the admiration of the world. He had proved himself the mate of Caesar and Alexander ...
— A History of The Nations and Empires Involved and a Study - of the Events Culminating in The Great Conflict • Logan Marshall
... Walter's speedy return, with his boyish disappointment forgotten, and with eyes no longer blinded to the attractions of one sister, by a bootless fancy for another. And though Ellinor interrupted her from time to time with assertions, now of Walter's eternal constancy to his present idol; now, with yet more vehement declarations of the certainty of his finding new objects for his affections in new scenes; she yet admitted, by little and little, the persuasive power of Madeline to creep into her heart, and brighten away its griefs with ...
— Eugene Aram, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... sacrifice themselves for the women they love. He was not very demonstrative. He never wore his heart upon his sleeve, but deep within him was that true affection which caused him to worship her as his idol. To him she was peerless among women, and her beauty was unequalled. Her piquant mischievousness amused him. As a girl, she had always been fond of tantalising him, and did so now. Yet he knew her fine character; ...
— The House of Whispers • William Le Queux
... conceived along with him, that the flourishing trade of this country was greatly owing to law and institution, and not quite so much to liberty; for but too many are apt to believe regulation to be commerce, and taxes to be revenue. Among regulations, that which stood first in reputation was his idol: I mean the Act of Navigation. He has often professed it to be so. The policy of that act is, I readily admit, in many respects well understood. But I do say, that, if the act be suffered to run the full length ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... looked out from the watch-towers of Loxa along the valley of the Xenil, which passes through the mountains of Algaringo. They looked to behold the king returning in triumph at the head of his shining host, laden with the spoil of the unbeliever. They looked to behold the standard of their warlike idol, the fierce Ali Atar, borne by the chivalry of Loxa, ever foremost in ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving
... never wanted anything in his life, not even to have two good legs, as much as he wanted to beat Natchez. For the Madden's Hill boys had come to believe him infallible. He was their idol. They imagined they had only to hit and run, to fight and never give up, and Daddy would make them win. There was not a boy on the team who believed that Natchez had a chance. They had grown proud and tenacious of their dearly won reputation. ...
— The Redheaded Outfield and Other Baseball Stories • Zane Grey
... as certain as anything can be, that Joseph Priestley was no gloomy fanatic, but as cheerful and kindly a soul as ever breathed, the idol of children; a man who was hated only by those who did not know him, and who charmed away the bitterest prejudices in personal intercourse; a man who never lost a friend, and the best testimony to whose worth is the generous and tender warmth with which his many friends vied with ...
— Science & Education • Thomas H. Huxley
... overthrow of the Philistine foe with means so inadequate that the hand of God was manifest in the victory; his final humiliation, which he owed to his own weakness and disobedience, and the present revelry and feasting of the uncircumsised Philistines in the temple of their idol,—all these things together constitute a parable of which no reader of Milton's day could possibly mistake the interpretation. More obscurely adumbrated is the day of vengeance, when virtue should ...
— Milton • Mark Pattison
... would be to demand your name, so utterly would he have forgotten you! They would rush to precipitate themselves beneath the silver wheels of her chariot, that they might have even the pleasure of being crushed by her, like those devotees of the Indus who pave the pathway of their idol with their bodies. ...
— King Candaules • Theophile Gautier
... graces of childhood gradually expanded (as they did) into more than ordinary beauty, the avarice of the father was not occasionally encountered in its progress by! sudden gushes of love for his son. It was impossible for any parent, no matter how strongly strongly the hideous idol of mammon might sway his heart, to look upon a creature so fair and beautiful, without being frequently touched into something like affection. The fact was, that, as the child advanced towards youth, the two principles ...
— Fardorougha, The Miser - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... idol set up against God, the Maker of all laws, Who hath commanded us we should not kill, And yet we say we must, for Reputation! What honest man can either fear his own, Or else will hurt another's reputation? Fear to do base unworthy things is valour; If they be done to us, to suffer ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott
... with a hideous-looking figure carved on the top of it. On this they all joined hands and began dancing and shouting more furiously than before, going round and round their prey. The chief and others then brought pieces of the meat, which they placed before the idol. This I now knew to be a fetish, as all idols as well as charms are called throughout Negro-land. I was afraid every instant that I should be seen. Hitherto there had been little risk of that, as ...
— In the Wilds of Africa • W.H.G. Kingston
... visited a Japanese art shop in Paris. It happened to be a dull, dark afternoon. She looked at the bronzes, jewels, drawings and other things, and finally, pointing toward a dusky corner, she said to the polite young salesman: "How much is that Japanese idol over ...
— Good Stories from The Ladies Home Journal • Various
... ultimately prevail. The mighty Bhima wishes to strangle Kichaka regardless of consequences. At last Bhima and Draupadi together extract from him a most reluctant permission. Bhima goes secretly to the Bairoba temple, and removing from its stand the god's idol, he takes its place. So hidden, he is present when Draupadi, abandoned by the King's guards, is seized upon by Kichaka. In vain Draupadi appeals to the latter for mercy. He laughs alike at tears and menaces, and is about to carry her ...
— Indian Unrest • Valentine Chirol
... influence me? Had it been the soul of my actions, could I not by my education and fortune, by the rank and consideration of my family, have placed myself amongst the proudest of your oppressors? My country was my idol! To it I sacrificed every selfish, every endearing sentiment; and for it I ...
— Public Speaking • Irvah Lester Winter
... open heart, but also into a heart well fortified, if watch be not well kept. It is a poor saying of Epicurus, Satis magnum alter alteri theatrum sumus; as if man, made for the contemplation of heaven, and all noble objects, should do nothing but kneel before a little idol, and make himself a subject, though not of the mouth (as beasts are), yet of the eye; which was given him for higher purposes. It is a strange thing, to note the excess of this passion, and how it braves the nature, and value of things, by this; that the speaking in a perpetual hyperbole, is comely ...
— Essays - The Essays Or Counsels, Civil And Moral, Of Francis Ld. - Verulam Viscount St. Albans • Francis Bacon
... was the king, Pomare, who, having been severely tried by the rebellion of some part of his subjects, became deeply impressed with the insufficiency of his idol gods to help him, and, after having recalled the banished missionaries, listened to their instructions, and embraced the faith of Christianity. His example being followed by a majority of his people the idols were renounced, as already mentioned; and, as soon as he was firmly ...
— Captain Cook - His Life, Voyages, and Discoveries • W.H.G. Kingston
... deity, divinity, idol. Associated Words: deify, deification, apotheosize, apotheosis, theogony, Olympus, pantheon, deicide, deifie, deiform, mythology, polytheism, monotheism, theomachy, cuhemerism, monolatry, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... There are idol shepherds. Zech. 11:7. There are foolish shepherds. Zech. 11:15. There are shepherds that feed themselves, and not their flocks. Ezek. 34:2. There are hard-hearted and pitiless shepherds. Zech. 11:3. There are shepherds that instead of healing, smite, push, and ...
— The Riches of Bunyan • Jeremiah Rev. Chaplin
... humanity; his heart never breaks because a life is withering in despair? He takes no hurt from the weltering sorrows by which so many are overwhelmed. It is man, it is woman, who bears the agony; the crushing burden of wrong-doing falls on them. Look no more then, we urge, to a phantom deity, to an idol-god in the skies, a figment of a disordered imagination, but think on your brother man before you dare to set mischief in motion. When you apprehend the nearness of danger, think of the future, think of consequences, ...
— Morality as a Religion - An exposition of some first principles • W. R. Washington Sullivan
... the east was fretted over with pink, and a freshness was breathed into the air. Then she began to run. Behind her were all her pretty dreams, and they were dead. Behind her was the love she had cherished, and that was dead, too. From a joyful vision she had awakened to find the idol ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine
... Cora Quemalusi, after the principal one of the five mythical men who in ancient times lived in the Sierra del Nayarit. Reports say an idol now hidden was once found here. A few miles east of Santa Teresa is a deep volcanic lake, the only remnant of the large flood, the Coras say. It is called "Mother," or "Brother," the last name containing a reference to their great god, ...
— Unknown Mexico, Volume 1 (of 2) • Carl Lumholtz
... the House if it is true that a newspaper published within the Principality of Wales recently made the announcement that the honorable member who had just made inquiries regarding the exploration of Mr. Herbert Courtland, was the idol of his constituents [Laughter, and cries of "Order!"], and if the right honorable gentleman is prepared to state that the provisions of ...
— Phyllis of Philistia • Frank Frankfort Moore
... the woman; "and she was just as sweet as her name; but I made an idol of my child, and that is why God took ...
— Hunter's Marjory - A Story for Girls • Margaret Bruce Clarke
... proved so satisfactory to Madame Graslin's faithful friends that his arrival made no change in the various intimacies that grouped themselves around this beloved idol, whose hours and moments were claimed by each ...
— The Village Rector • Honore de Balzac
... own dear tabby cat and myself, it is also true that I recognize your bassoon as an object so much worthier of adoration than mankind in general, and your male acquaintances in particular, that I most heartily felicitate you upon the idol you have chosen for your worship. Bassoons do not smoke, nor chew tobacco, nor swear, nor bet on horse-races, nor play billiards, nor do any of those horrid things which constitute the larger part of a man's ambitions ...
— The Holy Cross and Other Tales • Eugene Field
... look when she hears the praises of Clio. 'I used to write her composition for her, when we were at school together,' says she; 'and now she is quite the idol of the literary world; while I am never heard of beyond my own family, unless some one happens to introduce me as the friend of Clio.' 'Why not write, then; and see if the world will not learn to introduce Clio as the friend of Matrona?' 'I write! not for the world! I could not ...
— The American Frugal Housewife • Lydia M. Child
... beginning of our laws," he said, "that all men shall be Christian here in the land, and believe in one God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, but leave off all idol- worship, not expose children to perish, and not eat horseflesh. It shall be outlawry if such things are proved openly against any man; but if these things are done by stealth, ...
— Njal's Saga • Unknown Icelanders
... published in 1796. The first of the "Waverley" series made its appearance anonymously in 1814. As the series progressed, it became known that Walter Scott was the author of the famous novels, and he became the idol of the hour. In 1820 a baronetcy was bestowed upon him. Six years later he joined an old friend in the establishment of a large printing and publishing business in Edinburgh, but the venture was not successful, and Scott soon found himself a bankrupt. Here his manhood and proud integrity ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VII • Various
... the Salem road Bloom of orchard and lilac showed. Little the wicked skipper knew Of the fields so green and the sky so blue. Riding there in his sorry trim, Like an Indian idol glum and grim, Scarcely he seemed the sound to hear Of voices shouting, far and near: "Here's Flud Oirson, fur his horrd horrt, Torr'd an' futherr'd an' corr'd in a corrt By the women ...
— Selections From American Poetry • Various
... of property for the benefit of some "patriot," the book was widely read among the leading families and had the desired effect of crystallizing the sentiment against the friars, thus to pave the way for concerted action. At last the idol had been flouted, so all could attack it. Within a year after it had begun to circulate in the Philippines a memorial was presented to the Archbishop by quite a respectable part of the Filipinos in Manila, requesting that the friar orders be expelled from the country, but this resulted ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... were committed with provoking good humor. No freak seemed exuberant, no folly preposterous, no extremity extravagance. The joy of paternity, sinking deep into his nature, made every peculiarity more glaringly apparent. Money had been his idol, its accumulation the summit of his ambition; its reckless sacrifice in his daughter's honor appeared the only adequate expression of his love. The intervals of his devotion were passed in idle boasting, and to me he detailed every incident. There ...
— Trifles for the Christmas Holidays • H. S. Armstrong
... had met with him accidentally—when he heard who it was that Virginie met. I do not suppose the man had the faintest idea of any relationship or even previous acquaintanceship between Clement and Virginie. If he thought of anything beyond the mere fact presented to him, that his idol was in communication with another, younger, handsomer man than himself, it must have been that the Norman farmer had seen her at the conciergerie, and had been attracted by her, and, as was but natural, had tried to make her acquaintance, and had succeeded. But, from what ...
— My Lady Ludlow • Elizabeth Gaskell
... voice, her willowy figure and her beautifully shaped hands aroused Philip's intense admiration. A pure and noble love had filled his heart during his absence, and had exerted a powerful and restraining influence over his actions, his thoughts, his hopes and his language. He had endowed his idol with beauty in his fancy, but, beautiful as he had pictured her, he was obliged to confess on beholding her that the reality surpassed his dreams, and he loved her still ...
— Which? - or, Between Two Women • Ernest Daudet
... by his affability and politeness made himself the idol of the nation, which he betrayed and ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... its flavor of the accursed spirit of monarchy, and of the punishment which "the God of Heaven and Earth" must inflict for such perversity. Adams was all against a Fabian policy and wanted to settle issues forever by a short and strenuous war. The idol, it was being whispered, proved after all to have feet of clay. One general, and only one, had to his credit a really great victory—Gates, to whom Burgoyne had surrendered at Saratoga, and there was a movement to replace Washington ...
— Washington and his Comrades in Arms - A Chronicle of the War of Independence • George Wrong
... xv. 12 to 19; for there, the people have entered into a covenant with the Lord, "and sworn with all their soul, and with all their heart," the Lord was found of them; and Asa removed his mother, Maachah, from her royal dignity, and stamped the idol which she had made, and burnt it at the brook Kidron; and he brought into the house of the Lord the things that his father and himself had dedicated. Thus it was also in Jehoiada's covenant, which he made "between the Lord, and the king, and the people, that they should be the Lord's people," ...
— The Auchensaugh Renovation of the National Covenant and • The Reformed Presbytery
... conception of human nature. Not the least among these he found in the brilliant literary and artistic society of Edinburgh, to which his mother's social position gave him entrance. Here, when only a lad, he met Robert Burns, then the pet and idol of the fashionable coteries of the capital. Here he heard Henry Mackenzie deliver a lecture on German literature which turned his attention to the romantic poetry of Germany and led directly to his first attempts at ballad-writing. But much more vital than ...
— Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... scepters of kings are broken in pieces. Jehovah is King of kings! Babylon, with all her glory, shall become a desolation. Her lofty towers shall fall, her walls shall be destroyed, her palaces shall become heaps of ruin, and her idol temples shall be ...
— The Young Captives - A Story of Judah and Babylon • Erasmus W. Jones
... generally, that met with Dr. Bagby's stern opposition—the duel. I once had opportunity to note his earnestness in trying to prevent a meeting of this kind. Two young men of whom General Pickett was very fond, Page McCarty, a writer for the press and an idol of Richmond society, and a brilliant young lawyer named Mordecai became involved in a quarrel which led to a challenge. The innocent cause of the dispute was the golden-haired, blue-eyed beauty, Mary ...
— Literary Hearthstones of Dixie • La Salle Corbell Pickett
... suddenly without warning appear in a totally different light, and in a light which must have seemed to you mean and sordid. The discovery that I was going to have a baby threw me suddenly down from the pedestal on which you had placed me; your idol was broken, and your feelings—for you are one of those men who feel deeply—got the better of you, and you indulged in a few incautious ...
— The Lake • George Moore
... time in her life—the time when she was, or was called, a professional beauty—when she could scarcely see a man's face without watching it for admiration. Although she preserved her delightfully unselfconscious manner she was almost ceaselessly conscious of self. Her own beauty was the idol which she worshipped and which she presented to the world expectant of the worship of others. There have been many women like her, but few who have been so clever in hiding their disease. But always seated in her ...
— December Love • Robert Hichens
... can only justify and praise him, sling mud at his opponents, and, so to speak, clear a space round his hero by knocking over in opprobrious terms any one who may threaten his supremacy. He condones and even praises any fault in his idol; and what would be in his eyes a damning fault in one whom he happened to dislike, becomes a salient virtue in the person whom he praises. He condemns Swift for his coarseness and praises Johnson for his outspokenness. He condemns Robert ...
— The Silent Isle • Arthur Christopher Benson
... popular recognition. Such merits as he has are too aloof to touch the great popular heart. But we who believe in the people and work for them have found him a bitter enemy. The idle, academic, superior person, whatever his gifts, is a serious hindrance to honest work," said the popular idol. ...
— The Half-Hearted • John Buchan
... good-tempered, and manly in his deportment. Besides these considerations in his favour, he was virtually the head of his tribe, and no warrior was more renowned for deeds of valour. A born chief, the idol of his aged father, prepossessing in his appearance, already the leader of his band and its chief warrior. He was just such a person as was likely to move the heart and excite the ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... in a very low voice and went on, with his declamation growing louder, till it was a roar, when he suddenly ceased, and dropped down on the ground with his legs under him in the position of an Indian idol, and, with his chin upon his breast, sat there perfectly silent, and as if in ...
— Gil the Gunner - The Youngest Officer in the East • George Manville Fenn
... demand all over the country for addresses and lectures. The columns of papers and magazines were everywhere open to him, and while it may be true that his popularity was not of the intense sort that it had been at times, when he was almost the idol of the people, it probably was of a more substantial character. It is probable, too, that at no time in its history had Plymouth Church been more closely identified with him, or the opinion been so prevalent that neither could prosper ...
— Sixty years with Plymouth Church • Stephen M. Griswold
... and towers, and put into it a garrison of Macedonians. However, in that citadel dwelt the impious and wicked part of the [Jewish] multitude, from whom it proved that the citizens suffered many and sore calamities. And when the king had built an idol altar upon God's altar, he slew swine upon it, and so offered a sacrifice neither according to the law, nor the Jewish religious worship in that country. He also compelled them to forsake the worship which they paid their own God, and to adore those whom ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... of doors, the former doing his best to cheer his poor father, who had been perhaps more entirely cast down by his loss than any other member of the family, Mrs Prothero not excepted. As he himself said, he had not known what an idol he had made of his girl until she was ...
— Gladys, the Reaper • Anne Beale
... class of men was fitted to direct it? Then, suddenly, the people spoke, and selected for their ruler a man from among themselves, a man whose college was the backwoods, whose opinions were prejudices rather than convictions, and yet who was, withal, perhaps the greatest popular idol this country will ever see; whose very blunders endeared him to the people, because they knew his ...
— American Men of Action • Burton E. Stevenson
... seguidilla meant any thing in the lips of the songstress, I do not presume to say. But the hearts of women, perhaps I should say of all pretty women, expect admiration as naturally as an idol receives incense; and as a part of the incense now and then descends upon the worshippers themselves, the sentiment becomes in some degree mutual. However, with all my perceptions alive to her merits, and she had many; the cause ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 • Various
... idol of all, grew up surrounded by love and smiles. She won the favor of even the friars when she was dressed in white for some religious procession, her long, wavy hair interwoven with flowers, two silver or golden wings attached to the shoulders of her dress, and holding ...
— Friars and Filipinos - An Abridged Translation of Dr. Jose Rizal's Tagalog Novel, - 'Noli Me Tangere.' • Jose Rizal
... thing denoted, as 'blind' or 'deaf.' We may predicate 'blind' or 'deaf' of a man, dog or cow that happens not to be able to see or hear, because the powers of seeing and hearing generally belong to those species; but of a stone or idol these terms can only be used figuratively. Indeed, since the contradictory of a privative carries with it the privative limitation, a stone is strictly 'not-blind': that ...
— Logic - Deductive and Inductive • Carveth Read
... idol. He had foretold everything, thrown light on everything. The evidence which Mlle. de Saint-Veran gave before the examining magistrate confirmed, down to the smallest detail, the hypothesis imagined by Isidore. Reality seemed to submit, in every point, to what he had decreed ...
— The Hollow Needle • Maurice Leblanc
... bereaved family in that remote age when even the Pyramids of Egypt were young, Damascus a village, Abraham a prattling infant and ancient Troy not yet [dreampt] of, to receive the tears wept for some lost idol of a household. It spoke to us in a language of its own; and with a pathos more tender than any words might bring, its mute eloquence swept down the long roll of the centuries with its tale of a vacant chair, a familiar footstep missed from the threshold, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... godlessness is the highest folly is here seen in a very evident manner. The same Ahaz who rejects the offer of the living God, who palpably wishes to reveal to him that He is a living God, sacrifices his son to the dead idol Moloch, who never yet gave the smallest sign of life! In this mirror we may see the condition of human nature.—The circumstance that it is not Ahaz, but the house of David that is addressed, indicates that the deed is a deed of the whole house.—The Prophet says, "My God," ...
— Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions. Vol. 2 • Ernst Hengstenberg
... sympathy Ethel found to be the usual tone among her acquaintances. St. Jude's got a new rector and a new idol, and the Stanhope affair was relegated to the limbo of things "it was ...
— The Man Between • Amelia E. Barr
... the greater splendour. The fondest day-dreams of her life had all had reference to the time when her son should bring home a new Lady Lufton, selected by herself from the female excellence of England, and in which she might be the first to worship her new idol. But could she dethrone herself for Lucy Robarts? Could she give up her chair of state in order to place thereon the little girl from the parsonage? Could she take to her heart, and treat with absolute loving confidence, with the confidence of an almost idolatrous mother, ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope
... in the year 1822 I made his acquaintance in Dublin. He was in the full ripeness of middle age,—then, as ever, "the poet of all circles, and the idol of his own." As his visits to his native city were few and far between, the power to see him, and especially to hear him, was a boon of magnitude. It was, indeed, a treat, when, seated at the piano, he gave voice to the glorious "Melodies" ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 87, January, 1865 • Various
... Pitt's health seems now to have been beyond doubt so shattered by his hereditary malady, that he was already in old age though only fifty-eight. It was natural, therefore, that he should choose a sinecure office, and the ease of the Lords. But a popular idol nearly always suffers by removal from immediate contact with the popular sympathy, be the motives for removal ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 1 - "Chtelet" to "Chicago" • Various
... occupied by one Tessyman, a bookbinder, who was well acquainted with Dickens, Thackeray, and Cruikshank. The literary pilgrim will give up this most sentimental Dickens relique with something of the serious pang that one feels when his favourite idol is shattered, when the little overhanging corner building is finally demolished, as it soon will be, if "improvement" goes on at the pace of ...
— Dickens' London • Francis Miltoun
... draughts, was surcharged with the intoxicating oxygen of freedom of action, liberality, and unrestrained enjoyment. While still very young she was introduced into a select society of the choicest spirits of the age and speedily became their idol, a position she continued to occupy without diminution for over sixty years. No one of all these men of the world had ever seen so many personal graces united to so much intellectuality and good taste. Ninon's form was as symmetrical, elegant and yielding as a willow; ...
— Life, Letters, and Epicurean Philosophy of Ninon de L'Enclos, - the Celebrated Beauty of the Seventeenth Century • Robinson [and] Overton, ed. and translation.
... around him, raised his eyes, put his hand to his forehead, and, still mechanically, but with a dawning of fright on his face, glanced round the room. What did he see? He started, stumbled to his feet, turned deathly white, and rushed to the opposite bookcase. There was his Plato—his idol—actually placed in the bookshelf upside-down. It was a monstrous crime—a crime that he felt he could never forgive—that no one could expect him to forgive. He walked across to the fireplace and rang ...
— Girls of the Forest • L. T. Meade
... of Italian art; but Gainsborough early discarded all he had learned from the bygone schools, and gave himself up wholly to Nature; he was capable of delicate handling and minute execution, but he resolutely cast them aside lest any idol should interfere between him and his new religion. There may be traced a lingering likeness in his landscapes to those of Rubens; but this arose more from his generalization of details, his sinking the parts in the whole, than to any imitation of the great Fleming. It is like the recollection of ...
— Great Pictures, As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Esther Singleton
... into a passion of grief, short but violent. Then he ordered the nurse to watch there, and let no one enter the room; then he staggered back to his office, and flung himself down at his table and buried his head. To do him justice, he was all parental grief at first, for his child was his idol. ...
— A Perilous Secret • Charles Reade
... knew what was troubling him. A little tin god has a pleasant time of it, no doubt, until the coming of the eighteen carat gold idol. Captain Jed had been boss of Denboro—self-appointed to that eminent position, but holding it nevertheless—and to be pushed from his perch by a city rival was disagreeable. If I knew him he would not be dethroned without a fight. There ...
— The Rise of Roscoe Paine • Joseph C. Lincoln
... elaborate preparations for the coming of the young viscount than she would have deemed necessary for the dinner to be given to her master's guests. This band of venerable domestics had all been servants of the family before the viscount's birth, and he was not only an idol among them, but seemed, in a manner, to appertain ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... belief of the principles of the Roman Catholics. "Can two walk together except they be agreed?" They parted in anger, and my father again became a wanderer, leaving his wife and child with his father-in-law. But my mother was a faithful, devoted wife. Her husband was her heart's chosen idol whom she loved too well to think of being separated from. She therefore left her father's house, with all its luxuries and enjoyments, to follow the fortunes of one, who was certainly unworthy of the pure affection thus lavished upon him. As her health had been delicate for ...
— Life in the Grey Nunnery at Montreal • Sarah J Richardson
... long been permitted to dictate the policy to be pursued towards slavery, it had so inoculated the institutions of the government with the virus of its vicious opinions, that, to be interfered with, to be dictated to, was out of the question. It was Ephraim and his idol repeated. ...
— Black and White - Land, Labor, and Politics in the South • Timothy Thomas Fortune
... heathen knelt and prayed; it was their day of bridal, the savage and the maid. "We two have come together, to journey through the years, in calm and stormy weather, in sunshine and in tears. O idol most exalted, protect us on our way, and may our feet be halted from going far astray. This maid," the bridegroom muttered, "is fresh from Nature's hands; her boudoir is not cluttered with strings and pins and bands; she does not paint her features, or wear rings on her ...
— Rippling Rhymes • Walt Mason
... with me?' he shouts, standing by the idol Imbra. 'Am I a dog, or am I not enough of a man for your wenches? Haven't I put the shadow of my hand over this country? Who stopped the last Afghan raid?' It was me really, but Dravot was too angry to remember. 'Who bought your guns? Who repaired the bridges? Who's the Grand Master of the sign ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... yet they were the consequences of a truly philosophical reasoning. But the investigation of Nature is an affair of genius, not of rules. No man can invent an organon for writing tragedies and epic poems. Bacon's system is, in its own terms, an idol of the theatre. It would scarcely guide a man to a solution of the riddle of AElia Laelia Crispis, or to that of ...
— Pioneers of Science • Oliver Lodge
... gilds The idol of the shrine; But cold Oblivion seeks to fill Regret's ambrosial wine. Though Friendship's offering buried lies 'Neath cold Aversion's snow, Regard and Faith will ...
— Complete Poetical Works of Bret Harte • Bret Harte
... resemble the most exalted; he bestows not his confidence on him who resists his will, nor subscribes to the advancement of one whom he does not hope to influence.—I may almost venture to add, that more dissimulation, meaner concessions, and more tortuous policy, are requisite to become the idol of the people, than are practised to acquire and preserve the favour of the most potent Monarch in Europe. The French, however, do not argue in this manner, and Rolland is at present very popular, and his popularity is said to be ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... their idol, waving their censers and shouting their hymns of praise, while their ample draperies effectively hid from the public eye the object which was really in the centre of their throng, namely, a gaunt, black, touzled man, rough in speech, brooding like an old gipsy over his inch of clay pipe stuffed ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse
... noted as characteristic of the interior of the country, reinforced by the democracy of the cities, growing into self-consciousness and power. A new force was coming into American life. This fiery Tennesseean was becoming the political idol of a popular movement which swept across all sections, with but slight regard to their separate economic interests. The rude, strong, turbulent democracy of the west and of the country found in ...
— Rise of the New West, 1819-1829 - Volume 14 in the series American Nation: A History • Frederick Jackson Turner
... published, and life was changed as if a magician had waved his wand over him. While the two great poets were slowly struggling for recognition, Dickens, with plenty of money and too much fame, was the acknowledged literary hero of England, the idol of immense audiences which gathered to applaud him wherever he appeared. And there is also this striking contrast between the novelist and the poets,—that while the whole tendency of the age was toward realism, away from the extremes of the romanticists and from the oddities and ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... in a splendid Popish chapel, opposite the altar, over which shone a richly gilt cross, while my poor nun was prostrated in the lowliest adoration, touching the ground with her forehead before the senseless idol. I was confounded, and unable to say any thing; but after a hasty glance at the fine trappings, left the place secretly praying for grace and strength to protest openly against the abomination from which my soul revolted with unspeakable ...
— Personal Recollections • Charlotte Elizabeth
... themselves, and then, when the moment comes for paying the gambler's penalty, they complain of having been swindled. Note that the losses of publishers are nearly always on the works of the idols of the crowd. They want the idol's name as an ornament to their lists, and they commit indiscretions in order to get it. Fantastic terms are never offered to the solid, regular, industrious, medium novelist. And it is a surety that fantastic terms are never offered to the ...
— Books and Persons - Being Comments on a Past Epoch 1908-1911 • Arnold Bennett
... beside the window and lighted his long pipe, puffing thoughtfully and gazing into the smoke as he spoke. "I would not have you repeat this, son, for it may be but idle gossip. But it is reported that since her mother's death the child has become the idol of the governor's hard, old heart. He is filled with foolish fears that he may lose her as cruelly as he lost her mother before her. He scarcely ever permits her to stir abroad and then only when she is followed by one ...
— The New Land - Stories of Jews Who Had a Part in the Making of Our Country • Elma Ehrlich Levinger
... almost frantic with joy; and Bismarck, from being the most unpopular man in the nation, became instantly a national idol. His marvellous diplomacy, by which Austria was driven to the battlefield, was now seen and universally acknowledged. He obtained fame, decorations, and increased power. A grateful nation granted to him four hundred thousand ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume X • John Lord
... is," continued Graeme, getting into his former expression: "through this channel, this innocent medium, this creature the fruit of my loins, the idol of my heart, is the lightning of reproof hurled. A wandering idiot is prompted by the very inspiration of her imbecility to put into the hands of my child the emblem of my wickedness, that she in her love ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, XXII • various
... will shortly explain why he painted the famous picture, "The Fallen Idol." If only some of our minor ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, March 31, 1920 • Various
... Great Marlborough could arise, he would have done the honours to the victor of Aboukir, a greater victor than himself! Lady Hamilton finely remarked—with a spirit and energy forcibly depicting the grand character of that superlative mind which renders her, at once, the idol and idoliser of transcendent genius and valour—that "the splendid reward of Marlborough's services, was because a woman reigned, and women had great souls: and I," says her ladyship, for these are her own matchless words, "told Nelson that, if I had been a queen, after the battle of Aboukir, ...
— The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson, Vol. II (of 2) • James Harrison
... of the handsomest men of his time, six feet four inches in height, perfectly proportioned and a superb figure. He never spoke over twenty minutes, but it was the talk in the familiar way of an expert to his neighbors. He had a cordial and captivating manner, which speedily made him the idol of the crowd and a most agreeable companion in social circles. When he was minister to Russia, the Czar, who was of the same height and build, was at once attracted to him, and he took a first place among ...
— My Memories of Eighty Years • Chauncey M. Depew
... aimless over mountain, hill and dale, Until tired nature doth demand repose, Why did I Roosevelt as a pattern take And boast his doctrines as the wisdom's fount From which I drank as a disciple might Who worships blindly at his idol's shrine? And now these varlets point with taunting grin At what my demigod hath ordered here, And oh, ye sages, what shall I reply? For now his work I purpose to undo. When I with eloquence did picture draw Of tyranny which from above did flow, And with convincing tongue did loud proclaim ...
— 'A Comedy of Errors' in Seven Acts • Spokeshave (AKA Old Fogy)
... ever. Nothing more excited the indignation of the Prince of Orange than such senseless iconomachy. In fact, he had at one time procured an enactment by the Ghent authorities, making it a crime punishable with death. He was of Luther's opinion, that idol-worship was to be eradicated from the heart, and that then the idols in the churches would fall of themselves. He felt too with Landgrave William, that "the destruction of such worthless idols was ever avenged by torrents ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... She is the Fenella of the fireside; the will-o'-wisp of our souls; our gaiety; the life of the house. When she is not here, the very walls are conscious of her absence—so much does she brighten them by her presence. She had never known misfortune; she knows nothing of annoyance; she is the idol of all who surround her, and she had the sensibility and goodness of an angel: in one word, she unites qualities which moralists consider incompatible; it is, however, only a self-evident fact to all who know her. She is evidently well informed, without pedantry; ...
— Women in the Life of Balzac • Juanita Helm Floyd
... of the corners of the cabin was a most peculiar-looking affair, very like a Punch and Judy show. On the proscenium, as it were, large Chinese letters were painted. Inside was an image or idol (the joss), carved in wood, with gorgeous gilded paper stuck all round him. A small crowd of diminutive Chinamen knelt before him, doing homage. On the ledge before the little stage was a glass of porter for the idol to drink, and some rice and fruit to satisfy his appetite. ...
— A Boy's Voyage Round the World • The Son of Samuel Smiles
... worshippers were strangely silent. It seemed to Ralston that suspense had struck them dumb. They looked at the intruder with set faces and impassive eyes. At the far end of the courtyard there was a raised stone platform, and this part was roofed. At the back in the gloom he could see a great idol of the goddess, and in front, facing the courtyard, stood the lady from Gujerat. She was what Ralston expected to see—a dancing girl of Northern India, a girl with a good figure, small hands and feet, and a complexion of an olive tint. ...
— The Broken Road • A. E. W. Mason
... died. For quite a month women stopped short on the footway to look at Lisa between the saveloys and bladders in the window. Her white and pink flesh excited as much admiration as the marbles. She seemed to be the soul, the living light, the healthy, sturdy idol of the pork trade; and thenceforth one and all baptised her "Lisa ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola
... am become as sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal.' I have lately read the poems of Platen, and cannot deny his great talent. But, as I said, he is deficient in love, and thus he will never produce the effect which he ought. He will be feared, and will be the idol of those who would like to be as negative as himself, ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. II • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... that one may attain a ripe old age with neither son nor daughter to smooth the decline of life, or sorrow for his or her departure! How many women desire a first-born of love, the idol of their waiting hearts, a soul, which shall be begotten within, clothed with their own nature, and yet immortal! It is a natural instinct, this yearning of the heart for offspring; and yet little is said upon this subject, ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... alive your terror of the Gods; and last, they have made you believe no man may touch these images and live. I tell you they lied—I will show you they lied to you. Behold the most mighty Ammon—the father of the gods—I spit my hate at him! Thou art but an idol; I curse thee for evil men have done in thy name! I curse thee in the name of all the enslaved, in the name of all those they have cheated with hopes of an avenging life; in the name of all who for thousands of years have ...
— Woman on Her Own, False Gods & The Red Robe - Three Plays By Brieux • Eugene Brieux
... forget where Andrew Jackson was entertained before and after the Battle of New Orleans—where General Beauregard, military idol of the Creoles, resided—where Paul Morphy the "chess king" lived—where General Butler took up his quarters when, in 1862, under the guns of Farragut's fleet, the city surrendered—? Shall we fail to visit the curious old tenements and stables surrounding ...
— American Adventures - A Second Trip 'Abroad at home' • Julian Street |
