"Profane" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Farwell, wherein he sought to soothe his mount's wounded feelings. When at last the quadruped condescended to allow his four hoofs to remain on the ground simultaneously for more than a fraction of a second, young McCrae was gone; and Farwell, somewhat shaken, and profane with what breath was left him, had nothing for it but ...
— Desert Conquest - or, Precious Waters • A. M. Chisholm
... for so was the robber called, left me that he might give himself to the service of God and men, inasmuch as he had formerly abused them. Never saw I man so changed, my Father; his speech, formerly profane, was all of God and the Saints; he did penance and confessed his sins publicly; ay, by the Justice's order he received one hundred lashes in the market-place, and at every lash he cried with upturned face, 'Deo Gratias!' And I was there, because he besought of me to stand in the crowd and pray ...
— The Gathering of Brother Hilarius • Michael Fairless
... deepening twilight of the spring In ball-rooms and hot theatres, they still, Full of meek sympathy, must heave their sighs O'er Philomela's pity-pleading strains. My friend, and thou, our sister! we have learnt A different love: we may not thus profane Nature's sweet voices, always full of love And joyance! 'Tis the merry nightingale That crowds and hurries and precipitates With fast-thick warble his delicious notes, As he were fearful that an April night Would be too short for him to utter ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 442 - Volume 17, New Series, June 19, 1852 • Various
... enough for themselves. I had no remembrance of such an incident, and such applications were hardly likely to reach a general officer unless he wished to catechise the person for information's sake; but a laugh was raised at my expense as Hardee in telling the story repeated some profane camp expletives as having added emphasis to the refusal, according to the old woman's account of it. Schofield merrily rallied me on a change of habits of speech when not with my usual associates, and refused to credit my protestation that the story only proved that she had seen some wicked ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... inevitable bunch of juniper, the honor of decorating the entrance and justified an appellation one might have regarded as disrespectful to the fair sex. The original design had been repainted in dazzling colors by the artist charged with restoring the church. This alliance of the profane with the sacred had, it is true, scandalized the parish priest, but he did not dare say a word too much, as Madame Gobillot was one of his most important parishioners. A woman in a rose-colored dress and large panniers, standing upon very high-heeled shoes, displayed upon ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... of what he considered unessential and injurious dogmas of belief, in favour of those principles of the religion of charity which inflict no contradiction on the heart and understanding; third, the trouble which seems to have been given him by critics, "sacred and profane," in consequence of these originalities; and lastly, a doubt which has strangely existed with some, as to whether he intended to write a serious or a comic poem, or on any one point was in earnest at all. One writer thinks he cannot have been in earnest, ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Volume 1 • Leigh Hunt
... fancy, believe, conceive. impaciente adj. impatient. impvid, -a undaunted. imperial adj. imperial. impetuoso, -a violent, fierce. impiedad f. impiety, impiousness. impo, -a impious, profane, wicked, godless. implacable adj. implacable, relentless. implorar implore. imponer impose. importar impers. matter, concern. importunar disturb, harass. importuno, -a troublesome, ill-timed, vexatious, importunate, unreasonable. imposible adj. impossible. impotencia f. ...
— El Estudiante de Salamanca and Other Selections • George Tyler Northup
... to wait for their return. Only Manlio was left in the box besides himself. Manlio, consecrated to the worship of one afar, cared little to mix with the profane and noisy multitude. As Gerald leaned forth to see the couple that had just left them reappear down-stairs, Manlio, whose eyes followed his, remarked very sincerely, when the large easily-recognized white domino came into sight "E buona!" which can be translated either, ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall
... met that idea by saying that it was not more than singular, in the early stages of science, for people to be burnt as witches and magicians, because they made discoveries which are now developed and brought into daily use, than it is now for men to be scouted as infidel and profane, because they teach opinions which only require investigation ...
— Life in London • Edwin Hodder
... arise, as the theory has hitherto been, from study and observation of the generative agencies in nature, but from the identity of object between love in sense and love in intellect, profane and sacred passion. The essence of each is continuance, preservation; the origin of each is subjective, personal; but the former has its root in ...
— The Religious Sentiment - Its Source and Aim: A Contribution to the Science and - Philosophy of Religion • Daniel G. Brinton
... a prayer at a high pitch, as if intended to cover all the camp-ground and be heard to the outermost bounds. The sincerity of the sound made Levin Dennis feel that the camp might still be inhabited by some spiritual congregation which the eyes of profane visitors could not see—the remainder of the saints, the souls of the converted, or an ethereal host from above the ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend
... studied the texts, he soon acquired considerable influence. He was the leader of those who were full of ardent piety—the "mystics," as they are now called. All of them treated him as their director, and they formed, as it were, a school apart, from which the profane were excluded, and which had its own important secrets. A very powerful auxiliary of this party was the lay doorkeeper of the college, Pere Hanique, as we called him. I always excite the wonder of the realists when I tell them that I have seen with my own eyes, a type which, owing ...
— Recollections of My Youth • Ernest Renan
... Shakespeare and his family. The widow, who survived him seven years, lies nearest the wall, and on the other side Susanna and her husband, Dr. Hall. The removal of the dust to Westminster Abbey has been prevented by the profane imprecation of the inexplicable epitaph by which the tenant of the tomb, as if in anticipation of the irreconcilable mysteries posterity would discover in his history, bequeathed an undying curse to him who should ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 7 of 8 • Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne
... if we manage to keep old Tommy Norton and Black Joe from getting intoxicated, so there will be a pair of fiddlers on the gulch. Tommy, on such occasions, always has an attack of religion which precludes the possibility of his assisting at any profane scene of mirth, and Joe falls into a deep sleep from which nothing can rouse him for ...
— Down the Mother Lode • Vivia Hemphill
... endure a plain discourse of religion, who expect a constant supply of wit and eloquence on a subject handled so many thousand times; what will they say when we turn the objection upon themselves, who, with all the rude and profane liberty of discourse they take, upon so many thousand subjects, are so dull as to furnish nothing but tedious repetitions, and little paltry, nauseous common-places, so vulgar, so worn, or so obvious, as, upon any other occasion, but that of advancing vice, would be hooted off the ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IV: - Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Volume II • Jonathan Swift
... the cache was a solid phalanx of Cascellans. They stood behind a network of ropes that probably marked the boundary between sacred and profane ground. ...
— Warrior Race • Robert Sheckley
... into some of the adjoining apartments, where I saw enough, in a few minutes, to fill me with disgust and commiseration for these poor creatures; from slothfulness and the want of education, morality appeared to be so degraded as to profane the very ...
— A Woman's Journey Round the World • Ida Pfeiffer
... following day their foremost men come tearfully from the city to our camp, their hands veiled in suppliant wise, and entreat us to pardon their transgression: and one and all they surrender their persons, their entire possessions sacred and profane, their city and their children to the Theban people to have and to hold as they deem fit. Then, for his valour, my lord Amphitryon was presented with a golden bowl from which King Pterelas was wont to drink. (heaves deep sigh of relief) This is how I will tell it to the mistress. Now ...
— Amphitryo, Asinaria, Aulularia, Bacchides, Captivi • Plautus Titus Maccius
... be checked and not to be confined, Obey the spells of Wisdom's wizard skill; 195 Time, earth, and fire—the ocean and the wind, And all their shapes—and man's imperial will; And other scrolls whose writings did unbind The inmost lore of Love—let the profane Tremble to ask what secrets they ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... night's dark shadows, The hair stands on end through terror; Thus confused, so full of doubt, Sad remembrance so o'erwhelms me, That the thing I dared to do I scarce dare in words to tell thee. For, in fine, my crime is such, So to be abhorred, detested, So profane, so sacrilegious (Strange upon thee so to press it), That for having such committed I at times feel some repentance. Well, in fine, I dared one night, When deep silence had erected Sepulchres of fleeting sleep For men's overwearied senses, When a dark and cloudy veil ...
— The Purgatory of St. Patrick • Pedro Calderon de la Barca
... slain. And Darius the Median took the kingdom.' Xenophon informs us that Babylon was taken in the night while the inhabitants were engaged in feasting and revelry, and that the king was killed. To this extent sacred and profane history agree. The country became a Persian province. Then it was conquered by Alexander the Great, who died in Babylon in 323. It was also a part of the Roman ...
— Asiatic Breezes - Students on The Wing • Oliver Optic
... for anyone to settle outside of the country, inasmuch as the worship of God by which they were bound could not be carried on elsewhere: their own land alone was considered holy, the rest of the earth unclean and profane. ...
— A Theologico-Political Treatise [Part IV] • Benedict de Spinoza
... to this subject, "I do not doubt but that God revealed many things to Moses and the prophets, which were contained under the covert of the words of the law, which were not to be communicated to the profane vulgar: so for this art, which the Jews so much boast of, which I have with great labour and diligence searched into, I must acknowledge it to be a mere rhapsody of superstition, and nothing but a kind of theurgic magic before spoken of. ...
— Thaumaturgia • An Oxonian
... hear Mr. Lewis Wade, a celebrated missionary preacher, who had been to Syria and the Holy Land, and brought thence observations on subjects sacred and profane that made his discourses peculiarly interesting ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... saffron, wax, cassia, rhubarb, tamarinds, all drugs and spices, were lost without exception. Mark, mark, quoth Homenas, an effect of divine justice! This comes of putting the sacred Scriptures to such profane uses. ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... wished to make so that he could believe that he might release himself from that which he had to recognize as his duty." Maria however "he had in these days accustomed himself to think of as a being so high above him that his love must profane her." Again the well known splitting of the mother into the holy and ...
— Sleep Walking and Moon Walking - A Medico-Literary Study • Isidor Isaak Sadger
... of Mr. Amhurst, the greatest part of which were written at the university, consist chiefly of poems sacred and profane, original, paraphrased, imitated, and translated; tales, epigrams, epistles, love-verses, elegies, and satires. The Miscellany begins with a beautiful paraphrase on the Mosaic Account of the Creation; and ends with a very humorous tale upon the ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753),Vol. V. • Theophilus Cibber
... is a nursery for thieves and villains; modest women are every day insulted by them and their strumpets; and such children who run about the streets, or those servants who go on errands, do but too frequently bring home some scraps of their beastly profane wit; insomuch, that the conversation of our lower rank of people runs only upon bawdy and blasphemy, notwithstanding our societies for reformation, and our laws in force against profaneness; for this lazy life gets them many proselytes, ...
— Everybody's Business is Nobody's Business • Daniel Defoe
... know, that you will have to put your hand into your pocket sooner or later about that accursed bill"—Mark shrank as the profane words struck his ears—"and I should be glad to think that you had got something in hand ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope
... mireginda. Prodigy miregindajxo. Produce produkti. Produce produktajxo. Product produktajxo. Production produkto. Productive fruktoporta. Proem antauxdramo, antauxdiro. Profanation malpiegajxo. Profane malpia. Profanity malpieco. Profess anonci, profesi. Profession (occupation) profesio. Professor profesoro. Proffer proponi, prezenti. Proficient kompetenta. Profile profilo. Profit profito, gajno. Profitable profita. Profligate dibocxulo. Profound (deep) ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... not to grow industriously, after the way Dab and I have sprained our old backs spading and feeding them according to spiritual direction that stood over us with a rake," answered father, with proud if profane enthusiasm. There was a faint pink glow in his haggard, thin cheeks, and he took from his pocket a huge knife I had never seen him use before and began carefully to cut away a few dead twigs from ...
— The Heart's Kingdom • Maria Thompson Daviess
... "Silence!" which being obtained, he thus addressed the pretorian magistrate, who sat in the Chair: "My Lord Mayor, the wicked have accused us of intemperance, and branded us with the imputation of gluttony; that they may be put to open shame, and their profane tongues be from this day utterly silenced, I humbly move, that your Lordship command the proper officer to record in our annals, that two Aldermen of the city of London prefer beans and bacon to either turtle soup ...
— The Works of William Hogarth: In a Series of Engravings - With Descriptions, and a Comment on Their Moral Tendency • John Trusler
... England, among whom may be found men of the greatest learning, virtue, and piety, and of a truly apostolic character. He talked before Dr Johnson, of fat bishops and drowsy deans; and, in short, seemed to believe the illiberal and profane scoffings of professed satyrists, or vulgar railers. Dr Johnson was so highly offended, that he said to him, 'Sir, you know no more of our church than a Hottentot.' I was sorry that ...
— The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D. • James Boswell
... Sundown loomed through the mass. Then he would beat the ground with his tail and whine expectantly. As he became stronger, he ventured to stretch his wound-stiffened muscles in short pilgrimages to the camp, where the men welcomed him with hearty and profane zest. Was he not the slayer of their enemy's sheep and the killer of the timber-wolf? Eventually he was presented with a broad collar studded with brass spikes, and engraved upon it was the sanguinary and somewhat ambiguous legend: "Chance—The Killer ...
— Sundown Slim • Henry Hubert Knibbs
... as that I am at home. There she is, you see—only you are not to see her on any account," as a bow necessarily passed between him and Rachel. "Now mind you have not been introduced to Mrs. Keith, and if you utter a breath that will bring the profane crowd in shoals upon the Rectory, I shall never ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... painful fact that the religion of the present day is too much accommodated to the fashions and customs of the world. Let a man, for instance, use profane language, or get intoxicated, and he will readily be suspended from the communion of the church. But let him slander his neighbors, and little or no notice is taken of his conduct. And let him slander other denominations; and it becomes, as it were, a virtue; whereas ...
— Twenty-Four Short Sermons On The Doctrine Of Universal Salvation • John Bovee Dods
... entirely out of the world of worship, maintained their existence in a transformed shape. Funerals, as Chouquet[4] pointedly notes, "provided the occasion for scenic performances and certain religious fetes the pretext for profane ceremonies." ...
— Some Forerunners of Italian Opera • William James Henderson
... the chorus of tragedies, and to the parodies comic authors sometimes made; or look up in books of magic the plagiarisms that writers of incantations may have committed.[15] But all this gives us only a dim reflection of the religious ceremonies. Shut out from the sanctuary like profane outsiders, we hear only the indistinct echo of the sacred songs and not even in imagination can we attend the celebration of ...
— The Oriental Religions in Roman Paganism • Franz Cumont
... text] Louvain library, nor the sculpture of Rheims; and it follows logically that you shall empty your pockets into ours." Much better say: "God forgive us all!" If we cannot rise to this, and must soil our hands with plunder, at least let us call it plunder, and not profane our language and our souls by giving it ...
— New York Times, Current History, Vol 1, Issue 1 - From the Beginning to March, 1915 With Index • Various
... a chorus of virtuous but profane indignation. It was so indignant that Mr. Jones apologised, and stood for some time regarding the article in his hand with the face of a small child eyeing a large powder. Then he clapped it on his ...
— A Master Of Craft • W. W. Jacobs
... consult the ring, the Mohar touched with the point of his bronze dagger the engraved sign of the name, below which were represented three objects sacred to the Gods, and three that were, on the contrary, profane. If he hit one of the former, he concluded that his father—who was gone to Osiris—concurred in his design; in the contrary case he was careful to postpone it. Often he pressed the ring to his heart, and awaited the first living creature that he might meet, regarding it as a messenger from ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... of No. 8 Co., Queen's Own, was taken prisoner by a squad of Fenians and his rifle taken from him and handed to one of their officers. The officer took the rifle, and after eyeing it critically, grabbed it by the barrel and with a profane remark that it would never shoot another Fenian, smashed the stock against a boulder. The Canadian gun, being loaded and at full cock, went off with the concussion, and the bullet passed through the Fenian's body, killing ...
— Troublous Times in Canada - A History of the Fenian Raids of 1866 and 1870 • John A. Macdonald
... races has refused to change the day, contending, with reason, that the French people cannot be expected to exchange their usages for those of a foreign country. Although it is understood that Queen Victoria has formally forbidden the prince of Wales to assist at these profane solemnities, this interdict has not prevented the appearance there of some of the principal personages of England, and we have several times noticed the presence of the dukes of St. Albans, Argyll, Beaufort and Hamilton, the marquis of Westminster and Lords Powlett, Howard and ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, September 1880 • Various
... limbs, fire-hot and icy-cold in turns, As if invisible arms would pluck the soul Back from the deed. "O miserable man! What would'st thou?" (Thus within the inmost heart Murmur'd the warning whisper.) "Wilt thou dare The All-hallow'd to profane? 'No mortal-born' (So spake the oracular word)—'may lift the veil Till I myself shall raise!' Yet said it not— The same oracular word—'who lifts the veil Shall see the truth?' Behind, be what there may, I dare the hazard—I will lift the veil—" Loud rang his ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. III • Kuno Francke (Editor-in-Chief)
... carriages deserve those gracious names. I have met with persons calling themselves gentlemen, who evidently thought it manly and high-spirited to swear at their servants, and who were incapable of appreciating any anecdote which was not profane or coarse; and I have met, as all who go amongst the poor have met, men who well deserved that noble epithet in cottages and corduroy. Who has not seen illustrious snobs in satin, and sweet, modest gentlewomen in homely print and serge? A gentleman! There's no title shouted at a reception ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie
... puzzled for a moment, and then seeing, as the fact is, that the boy is really affected to tears by the most touching thing in Homer, perhaps in all profane poetry put together, steps up to him and lays his hand kindly on his shoulder, saying, "Never mind, my little man, you've construed very well. Stop a minute; ...
— Tom Brown's Schooldays • Thomas Hughes
... forbidden by the second Commandment? A. The second Commandment forbids all false, rash, unjust, and unnecessary oaths, blasphemy, cursing, and profane words. ...
— Baltimore Catechism No. 2 (of 4) • Anonymous
... in my mind as an uneasy breath of suspicion, agitated from time to time by countless indications that such a possibility might, indeed, exist in a condensed form, but too inauspiciously profane to be contemplated in the altogether. Thus, when in the company of the young this person has walked about the streets of the city, he may at length have said, "Truly, out of your amiable condescension, you have shown me a variety of entrancing scenes. Let us now in turn visit the ...
— The Mirror of Kong Ho • Ernest Bramah
... when Silas Wegg had grown accustomed to the arrival of his patron in a cab, accompanied by some profane historian charged with unutterable names of incomprehensible peoples, of impossible descent, waging wars any number of years and syllables long, and carrying illimitable hosts and riches about, with the greatest ease, beyond ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... black marble glittering with the name and full titles of the dead, and the inscriptions from Ecclesiastes or the Song of Songs. But the Princess could find only a few indistinct words, confused with profane thoughts, which made her ashamed. She rose and busied herself with the flower-stands, retiring gradually far enough to judge the effect of the sarcophagus or bed. The cushion of black bronze, with silver monogram, was ...
— The Immortal - Or, One Of The "Forty." (L'immortel) - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet
... Latisan's grandson was a chief who had the real and the right stuff in him. It was plain that all the men of the crew were receiving the information with enthusiasm. Some of them ventured to pat him on the shoulder and volunteered profane promises to go with him to the limit. They did not voice any loyalty to Flagg. Flagg was not a man to inspire anything except perfunctory willingness to earn wages. The men saw real adventure ahead if they followed at the back of a heroic youth who was avenging the wrongs ...
— Joan of Arc of the North Woods • Holman Day
... not by the will of man; but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. Without the outward Word, however, they were not holy, much less would the Holy Ghost have moved them to speak when they still were unholy [or profane]; for they were holy, says he, since the Holy ...
— The Smalcald Articles • Martin Luther
... gate, with the Aequimaelium and the Jugarian street. In the temples of Fortune, Mater Matuta, and Hope, which latter stood without the gate, the fire, spreading to a wide extent, consumed much both sacred and profane. ...
— The History of Rome; Books Nine to Twenty-Six • Titus Livius
... He avoideth profane oaths and jesting, as so much time lost from his employ. What spare time he hath for conversation, which in a counting-house such as we have been supposing can be but small, he spendeth in putting ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 84, October, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... bigotry or intolerance, and in the hope that after the fever of erotic buffoonery and folly had subsided, he might have some lucid intervals, and listen to common sense. Meantime I gave him expressly to understand that I disapproved of his want of respect towards women, his free and profane expressions, and pitied those unhappy ones, who, he informed me, had ...
— My Ten Years' Imprisonment • Silvio Pellico
... overpowered!" Kurwenal does not pause in his preparations: "While I live, no one shall look in here! Take your post and help!" Brangaene's voice is heard, calling her mistress. Kurwenal's excitement, his rage of determination to keep the sight of those helpless embraced bodies sacred from profane eyes, shuts his reason to every sign. Brangaene's cry to him not to close the gate he takes to signify that she is in league with the enemy. Melot's voice, just outside: "Back, madman! Bar not the way!" ...
— The Wagnerian Romances • Gertrude Hall
... had not been without its tragic consequences of a small sort; for the next week Minnie Smellie's mother told Miranda Sawyer that she'd better look after Rebecca, for she was given to "swearing and profane language;" that she had been heard saying something dreadful that very afternoon, saying it before Emma Jane and Living Perkins, who only laughed and got down on all fours ...
— Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... of a few words," sighed Hawkins. "Werry few words, an' not a civil word in the lot—mostly adjectives of a profane kind. When I told 'em what had happened, they got mad at Fortune for a-jiltin' of 'em, an'—well, I came here. I was 'sas'inated that ...
— The Pursuit of the House-Boat • John Kendrick Bangs
... different world from that of these motley exponents. He lives in an antagonistic one. Shakespeare was as profoundly the enemy of scholastic pedantry as he was the enemy of puritan squeamishness. He was almost unkindly averse to the breath of the profane crowd. And his melancholy scepticism, with its half-humorous assent to the traditional pieties, is at the extremest opposite pole from the "truths" of metaphysical reason. The Shakespeare of the Popular Revivals is a fantastic caricature. The Shakespeare of the College Text-Books ...
— Visions and Revisions - A Book of Literary Devotions • John Cowper Powys
... by the Persians. The whole population toiled night and day to raise the bulwark which was to guard their temples and their homes, using as materials the walls of the houses which had been sacked and burnt by the Persians, with whatever remained of public buildings, sacred or profane, and sparing not even the monumental pillars of graves in the urgency ...
— Stories From Thucydides • H. L. Havell
... plague I— The thing came under the eye of the mother, And caused her a dreadful internal pother: The woman's scent is fine and strong; Snuffles over her prayer-book all day long, And knows, by the smell of an article, plain, Whether the thing is holy or profane; And as to the box she was soon aware There could not be much blessing there. "My child," she cried, "unrighteous gains Ensnare the soul, dry up the veins. We'll consecrate it to God's mother, She'll give ...
— Faust • Goethe
... had become in her less a moral conviction than a fixed quality of soul. To dwell even for a minute on "the dark side of things" awoke in her the same instinct of mortal sin that she had felt at the discovery that Oliver was accustomed to "break" the Sabbath by reading profane literature. ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow
... assurance of protection than I could hope I from those interested brutes, who sent me from you; yet brutish as they are, I know thou art safe from their clownish outrages. For were they senseless as their fellow-monsters of the sea, they durst not profane so pure an excellence as thine; the sullen boars would jouder out a welcome to thee, and gape, I and wonder at thy awful beauty, though they want the tender sense to know to what use it was made. Or if I doubted their humanity, I cannot ...
— Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister • Aphra Behn
... of paramount influence at home, for he was public spirited, he was chief of the fire department, he had an admirable command of profane language, and had killed several "parties." His shirt fronts were always immaculate; his boots daintily polished, and no man could lift a foot and fire a dead shot at a stray speck of dirt on it with a white handkerchief with a finer grace than he; his watch chain weighed a ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 4. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner
... in the morning. Every face, however, was foreign. By-and-by came in three Americans, talking loudly, moving rudely, proclaiming contempt for "lager" and yelling for "liquor," bantering and offering fight, joking coarsely, profane, noisy, demonstrative in any and every way, to the end of attracting attention to themselves, and proclaiming that they were "on a spree" and highly excited. They could not keep it up; they became awkward, ill at ease, and at length silent, standing looking about them in ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 42, April, 1861 • Various
... Review rebukes the daring of those uneducated story-tellers who profane by their intrusion the holy lands, the sacred names, and golden ages of art. We have acceptable specimens of the "classical novel" by Dr. Croly, Lockhart, Bulwer, and Collins (the author of "Antonini"), and in this country by Mrs. Child and William Ware; but nineteen ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various
... guests. The Reverend Lemuel Whey is a tea-party man, with a curl on his forehead and a scented pocket-handkerchief. He ties his white neckcloth to a wonder, and I believe sleeps in it. He brings his flute with him; and prefers Handel, of course; but has one or two pet profane songs of the sentimental kind, and will occasionally lift up his little pipe in a glee. He does not dance, but the honest fellow would give the world to do it; and he leaves his clogs in the passage, though it is a wonder he wears them, for in the ...
— Men's Wives • William Makepeace Thackeray
... and the assurance that an immortality of bliss would be the reward of piety. The truth, says Mr. H. A. Kennedy, was presented to them in the guise of divine revelations, esoteric doctrines to be carefully concealed from the gaze of the profane, doctrines which placed in their hands a powerful apparatus for gaining deliverance from the assaults of malicious demonic influences, and above all for overcoming the relentless tyranny of fate. This demonology was ...
— The Legacy of Greece • Various
... section of this work; and we may at once, therefore, proceed to Christianity itself. The history of the origin of the creed is naturally the first point to deal with, and this may be divided into two parts: 1. The evidences afforded by profane history as to its origin and early growth. 2. Its story as told by ...
— The Freethinker's Text Book, Part II. - Christianity: Its Evidences, Its Origin, Its Morality, Its History • Annie Besant
... notable for what, were it cleaned, would be a lovely landscape. Before both the sacristan is ecstatic, but on his native heath, in the sacristy itself, he is even more contented. It is an odd room, with carvings all around it in which sacred and profane subjects are most curiously mingled: here John the Baptist in the chief scenes of his life, even to imprisonment in a wooden cage, into which the sacristan slips a delighted expository hand, and there Nero, Prometheus, Bacchus, and Seneca ...
— A Wanderer in Venice • E.V. Lucas
... him which broke her calm. It seemed profane even to look upon his suffering. She shrank away from him, and hid her face in her hands. That roused him, and in a moment the ...
— John Ward, Preacher • Margaret Deland
... luxurious dinners imaginable on what were erroneously styled fast-days; and their cooks had such a reputation for their skill, that the having served a Monseigneur d'Eglise was a passport to the kitchens of all lovers of good eating. There are people so profane as to insinuate that the excellence at which the cooks arrived in dressing les diners maigres is one of the causes why Catholicism has continued to flourish; but this, of course, must be looked on as a malicious hint of the enemies to that faith ...
— The Idler in France • Marguerite Gardiner
... a sky of bluer and more tranquil loveliness than that to whose cloudless vault I looked up. It lay as far and beautiful as it once seemed to the eye of childhood, and the swords of Seraphim kept profane feet from its sacred hills. But these rough rocks around me, these dry, fiery hollows, these thickets of ancient oak and ilex, had heard the trumpets of the Middle Ages, and the clang and clatter of European armor—I could feel and believe ...
— The Lands of the Saracen - Pictures of Palestine, Asia Minor, Sicily, and Spain • Bayard Taylor
... my boy. Every hero and martyr in sacred or profane history would view the matter as the commodore and ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... wrathful. There is such a rush of all other kinds of words in our days, that it seems desirable to give kind words a chance among them. There are vain words, and idle words, and hasty words, and spiteful words, and silly words, and empty words, and profane words, and boisterous words, and warlike words. Kind words also produce their own image on men's souls, and a beautiful image it is. They smooth, and quiet, and comfort the hearer. They shame him out of his sour, and morose, and unkind feelings. We have not yet ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous
... felt—when I once lost mine; it was given me in 1835, and has gone with me ever since whenever I have journeyed (as I was so happy as to find it again). [3] I think if I have the pleasure of restoring it to its owner, she will feel glad that it did not fall into profane hands. I thought it right to look through it, in order to get some clue, if possible, to its destination; I fancy it was the silent comforter of a wife who went abroad with her husband for his health, and came home a widow; God bless ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... to make search in due form for the holy weapon. The day after the morrow was fixed upon for the ceremony; and, in the mean time, Peter was consigned to the care of Raymond, the count's chaplain, in order that no profane curiosity might have an opportunity of cross-examining him, and ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... himself—at least, there was no other human being to be seen. He held in his hand a battered pair of marine glasses and occasionally he peered through them. Each time he did so his soliloquy became more animated and profane. ...
— The Woman-Haters • Joseph C. Lincoln
... impossible monsters and subjects of profane history, the Griffin, the Mermaid, the Phoenix, Arion and Hermes has each had its Mark or Marks. In the case of the first named, which, according to Sir Thomas Browne, in his "Vulgar Errors," is emblematical of watchfulness, courage, perseverance, and rapidity of execution, it ...
— Printers' Marks - A Chapter in the History of Typography • William Roberts
... you great profane soul! That is where the doctrine of form destroys your eye! Sedaine is not a writer, that is true, although he falls but little short of it, but he is a man, with a heart and soul, with the sense of moral truth, the direct insight into human feelings. I don't mind his out-of-date ...
— The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters • George Sand, Gustave Flaubert
... thou, our Sister! we have learnt 40 A different lore: we may not thus profane Nature's sweet voices, always full of love And joyance! 'Tis the merry Nightingale That crowds, and hurries, and precipitates With fast thick warble his delicious notes, 45 As he were fearful that an April night Would be too short for him to utter forth His love-chant, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... stanza in which this word occurs was omitted in 1827 and 1832, because the expression was censured as almost profane. Wordsworth in his dictated note to Miss Fenwick has the following: "The word [apostolical] is adopted with reference to its derivation, implying something sent out on a mission; and assuredly this little flower, especially when the subject of verse, may be regarded, in its humble degree, ...
— Selections from Wordsworth and Tennyson • William Wordsworth and Alfred Lord Tennyson
... who died in his native town of Edinburgh in May 1807, aged eighty-two, is alluded to by Sir Walter Scott in a prophecy put into the mouth of Meg Merrilees in "Guy Mannering"—"They shall beset his goat; they shall profane his raven," &c. ...
— Heads and Tales • Various
... the first time in many years) did I find myself within the doors of the Red Deer. A cosey place it was, despite the wine-bibbers that did profane it; and the inn-keeper's wife, a most buxom, eye-pleasing wench, with three sturdy boys aye clambering about her. As I looked, some hard and sinful thoughts did visit my heart concerning the bounty that the Lord had lavished upon one who was a barterer ...
— A Brother To Dragons and Other Old-time Tales • Amelie Rives
... conscience of uttering continually, or when they will, not idle words only, but expressions the most absurd, insignificant, false, exaggerated, vulgar, indecent, injurious, wicked, sophistical, unprincipled, ungentle, and perhaps blasphemous, or profane? ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... faults—she was too fond of dress and gaiety, but then she was so young, and we indulged her. Then Bert Williams came to Lindsay to work in the factory. He was a handsome fellow, with taking ways about him, but he was drunken and profane, and nobody knew anything about his past life. He fascinated Missy. He kept coming to see her until her father forbade him the house. Then our poor, foolish child used to meet him elsewhere. We found this out afterwards. And at last she ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1907 to 1908 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... expression too, Sir," said Mr. Hopewell; "a very irreverent, indecent, and I may say profane expression; I am quite shocked. But as you say you didn't mean it, are sorry for it, and will not repeat it again, I accept your apology, and rely on your ...
— The Attache - or, Sam Slick in England, Complete • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... horror and night go with thee. Sisters of Acheron, go hand in hand, Go dance around the bow'r, and close them; And tell them, that I sent you to salute them Profane the ground; and for th' ambrosial rose, And breath of jess'mine, let hemlock blacken, And deadly nightshade poison, all the air. For the sweet nightingale, may ravens croak, Toads pant, and adders rustle through the leaves; May serpents ...
— The Revenge - A Tragedy • Edward Young
... curate appeared pleased. The Jesuit persisted in his opinion. "Beware of a profane taste in your theological style. What says Augustine on this subject: ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... dog-cart, sir," said Mains, realising that even Kilbogie did not know what a singular gift they had obtained, and that discussion on such sublunary matters as pots and pans was useless, not to say profane. So eight carts got a box each; one, Jeremiah's ancient kist of moderate dimensions; and the tenth—that none might be left unrecognised—a handbag that had been on the twelve years' probation with its ...
— Kate Carnegie and Those Ministers • Ian Maclaren
... "Don't be profane, Scott," she rebuked him, with the literalness which had replaced her meagre childish sense of humour. "The good Lord didn't make your surplices a full eighth of a yard too long, nor put you into a black stole for the whole year round. Besides, you were the only man in ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... made it expedient that he should exchange the holy for the profane state; whether he had lost his good voice (his best recommendation to that office), like Sir John, "with hallooing and singing of anthems;" or whether he was adjudged to lack something, even in those early years, of the gravity indispensable to an occupation ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... Whither would you go? Forbear Beyond this place to make advance: it is The holy minister's divine abode. To all profane the law forbids the entrance. Of whom are you in search? My mother shuns, Upon this solemn day, the guilty sight Of foul idolatry; and prostrate now Before the Lord, would shrink ...
— Athaliah • J. Donkersley
... stopped before reaching the brow of the hill, and, panting heavily, muttered an oath which Frederick heard. Though it was no more profane than those which had just escaped his own lips in the forest, it produced an effect upon him which was only second in intensity to the terror of the discovery that the money he had ...
— Agatha Webb • Anna Katharine Green
... earth, which way the Lord inclined my heart; taking a chamber to myself in the town where I came, and tarrying sometimes more, sometimes less in a place: for I durst not stay long in a place, being afraid both of professor and profane, lest, being a tender young man, I should be hurt by conversing much with either. For which reason I kept much as a stranger, seeking heavenly wisdom and getting knowledge from the Lord; and was brought off from outward things, to rely ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James
... Muckle John got another fit of cursing He stood up by the door with his eyes blazing like a wild-cat's, and delivered what he called his "testimony." His voice had been used to shout orders on shipboard, and not one of us could stop his ears against it. Never have I heard such a medley of profane nonsense. He cursed the man Charles Stuart, and every councillor by name; he cursed the Persecutors, from his Highness of York down to one Welch of Borrowstoneness, who had been the means of his first imprisonment; he ...
— Salute to Adventurers • John Buchan
... possessed of a hidden passion for effective backgrounds. Two or three wooden crucifixes, a prie-dieu, and a couple of saints in plaster, went far to prove that this excellent bourgeoise had thriftily made her peace with Heaven. It was a curious mixture of the sacred and the profane. ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd
... the profane would call up a tree. He had been giving his consent for some seventeen years. And Joy had swept the ground from under his feet. He did not in the least remember meeting this amazing lover at any of his receptions, but there had been a tradition for many years that he never ...
— The Wishing-Ring Man • Margaret Widdemer
... reply came to the lank burglar's low call, that gentleman moved nearer; there was an awkward scrambling, a heavy body struck the side of the rose arbor and set it creaking; then the voice of Big Slim was heard uttering guarded but profane remarks. ...
— Ashton-Kirk, Criminologist • John T. McIntyre |
