"Superstitious" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... treats of the superstitious times of 1692, when witchcraft was punished with death. It tends to arouse one's sympathy, and will be read with much ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... women Are generally weak and superstitious, When first to this Corinthian old woman I gave the little infant, from my finger I drew a ring, and charg'd her to expose That with my daughter: that if chance she died, She might have part of ...
— The Comedies of Terence • Publius Terentius Afer
... who built above a race entombed, should mingle fancy with tradition, and imagine that the buried cities and habitations were yet inhabited by the accursed and unholy. Such have been the fancies of those who darkly remembered the flood; and as the wind swept through the caverns of the earth, the superstitious might still imagine that they heard the voices or the shrieks of ...
— Notable Women of Olden Time • Anonymous
... introduced, many of which clashed with the most cherished national prejudices of his subjects. A career of victory and prosperity had not yet raised Peter above the reach of that disaffection, nor had superstitious obedience to the Czar yet become the characteristic of the Muscovite mind. The victorious occupation of Moscow by Charles XII. would have quelled the Russian nation as effectually, as had been the case when Batou Khan, and other ancient invaders, captured the capital of primitive Muscovy. ...
— The Fifteen Decisive Battles of The World From Marathon to Waterloo • Sir Edward Creasy, M.A.
... in this room, I am sure there are in the country, many persons who hold a superstitious traditionary belief that, somehow or other, our vast trade is to be attributed to what we have done in this way, that it is thus we have opened markets and advanced commerce, that English greatness depends upon the extent of English conquests ...
— Selected Speeches on British Foreign Policy 1738-1914 • Edgar Jones
... laugh at the singularity of this strange family—may consider it an evidence of weakness to pay such regard to the silly requisitions of a superstitious ancestor—deny themselves so many comforts—make themselves so singular—engage those with whom they married to conform to the rules of their house, and instil the same into their children from generation to generation! ...
— Sermons on Various Important Subjects • Andrew Lee
... Guayaquil she had two very narrow escapes: one, by a fall from her mule; and next, by an immersion in the River Guaya, which teems with alligators. Meeting with neither courtesy nor help from the Spanish Americans—a superstitious, ignorant, and degraded race—she gladly set sail ...
— The Story of Ida Pfeiffer - and Her Travels in Many Lands • Anonymous
... not to escape the Nemesis which is wont to pursue the over-fortunate. During the stay of the army in Babylonia a disease was contracted of a strange and terrible character, whereto the superstitious fears of the soldiers assigned a supernatural origin. The pestilence, they said, had crept forth from a subterranean cell in the temple of Comsean Apollo at Seleucia, which those who were plundering the town ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 6. (of 7): Parthia • George Rawlinson
... who admire the exchange of flashing blows, who hail like women the bright colors of uniforms; those whom military music and the martial ballads poured upon the public intoxicate as with brandy; the dizzy-brained, the feeble-minded, the superstitious, the savages. ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse
... shot through and through; and an arrow piercing the joint of the armour of Sir Rudolph, wounded him in the shoulder. In vain the knight stormed and raged and ordered his men to advance. The suddenness of the attack seemed to his superstitious followers a direct answer from heaven to the words of the abbess. Their number was already seriously lessened, and those who were in case to do so at once took flight and scattered through the city, making for the gate, which had already been ...
— Winning His Spurs - A Tale of the Crusades • George Alfred Henty
... the window gazed at her with almost superstitious awe. That her face had come before him so vividly, as he sat dreaming in the old school-room, at the very moment when she was turning into the yard, moved him greatly. His blood tingled at the odd premonition that this woman was somehow to play a great part in his ...
— The Calling Of Dan Matthews • Harold Bell Wright
... the head of a stately procession through the streets. All were anxious to receive a benediction from the holy man who had come so far to represent the successor of St. Peter, and to enlist the efforts of all true believers in his cause. He appeared to answer the entreaties of the superstitious rabble with fervent blessings, while the friends who were nearest him were aware that nothing but gibes and sarcasms were falling from his lips. "Let us fool these poor creatures to their heart's content, since they ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... commended the spot to the creatures that fear mankind, but not their spectres. The very last of all to approach it now would have been the two rollicking tars who had trodden their wooden-legged watch around it. Nicholas the fish was superstitious also, as it behooved him well to be; but having heard nothing of the story of the place, and perceiving no gnats in the neighborhood, he thankfully took it for ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... railroaders, who got to quarrelling among themselves, and the quarrel wound up in quite a tragic poisoning affair, that resulted in the death of two, and nearly killed a third. The Chinese are nothing, if not superstitious, and since this affair no Chinaman would sleep in the bunk-house or work on this section; consequently the building remains empty. The "spooks" of murdered Chinese are everything but agreeable company; ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... to town we determined to spend three days there together and then proceed to our errand. We were as conscious one as the other of that deeper mystic appeal made by London to those superstitious pilgrims who feel it the mother-city of their race, the distributing heart of their traditional life. Certain characteristics of the dusky Babylon, certain aspects, phases, features, "say" more to ...
— A Passionate Pilgrim • Henry James
... historical survey, then, we must recollect that in the festivities of Christmastide there is a mingling of the Divine with the human elements of society—the establishment and development of a Christian festival on pagan soil and in the midst of superstitious surroundings. Unless this be borne in mind it is impossible to understand some customs connected with the celebration of Christmas. For while the festival commemorates the Nativity of Christ, it also illustrates the ancient practices of the various peoples who have taken ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson
... proceed for an unity and quietness among our said subjects, but also greatly coveting and desiring them to be brought to a knowledge of the mere verity and truth, and no longer to be seduced with any such superstitious and false doctrines of any earthly usurper of God's laws—will, therefore, and command you, that whensoever ye shall hear of any such seditious persons, ye indelayedly do take and apprehend them, ...
— History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth. Vol. II. • James Anthony Froude
... of it was that, often, when they had done these seemingly silly things, the boat would start. So they were rather superstitious about it, and they did carry a tin of talcum powder with them, much to the ...
— The Motor Girls on Crystal Bay - The Secret of the Red Oar • Margaret Penrose
... the pointed wigwams of the savages; and a huge cross, the emblem of peace, lifted itself above all, the conspicuous feature of the settlement in the distance. By the tribe over which he had exercised his gentle rule for so many years, Le Pere Ralle was regarded with superstitious ...
— Acadia - or, A Month with the Blue Noses • Frederic S. Cozzens
... preparation of vegetable and animal poisons in which art they were exceptionally expert and that they were equally skilful in shooting poisoned arrows. Some of my informants wanted to make me believe that they were exceedingly ferocious by nature and so superstitious that they would aim their deadly dart at whatever stranger ventured to approach them, believing him to be the messenger of some Evil Spirit and that afterwards they would make of him a dainty meal to ...
— My Friends the Savages - Notes and Observations of a Perak settler (Malay Peninsula) • Giovanni Battista Cerruti
... exquisite design, reading, or suckling, or sewing, or soothing the fretful baby; no angels around her, or rarely: the Scripture says nothing about such a court of seraphs as the Italians and Flemings, the superstitious Romanists, always placed round the mother of Christ. It is all as it might have happened to them; they translate the Scripture into their everyday life, they do not pick out of it the mere stately and ...
— Renaissance Fancies and Studies - Being a Sequel to Euphorion • Violet Paget (AKA Vernon Lee)
... its right bank. Half-way up one of its pointed crags is a dark cavern known as the 'Dragon's Cave,' which was at one time, in that misty past to which all legends belong, the habitation of a hideous monster, half-beast and half-reptile. The peasants of the surrounding district held the creature in superstitious awe, worshipped him, and offered up sacrifices of human beings at the instigation of their pagan priests. Foremost among the worshippers of the dragon were two warrior princes, Rinbod and Horsrik, who frequently made an onslaught on the Christian ...
— Hero Tales and Legends of the Rhine • Lewis Spence
... always running after cures. It would stop eating meat, not on valid Shelleyan grounds, but in order to get rid of a bogey called Uric Acid; and it would actually let you pull all its teeth out to exorcise another demon named Pyorrhea. It was superstitious, and addicted to table-rapping, materialization seances, clairvoyance, palmistry, crystal-gazing and the like to such an extent that it may be doubted whether ever before in the history of the world did soothsayers, astrologers, and unregistered therapeutic ...
— Heartbreak House • George Bernard Shaw
... the shoulder, in an authoritative manner, bidding him to go out of her presence. He went away cowed, and they all said, as was reported to her by one of her attendants, 'She is not afraid'; they then became very superstitious at the idea of a woman taking hold of them, ...
— Heathen Slaves and Christian Rulers • Elizabeth Wheeler Andrew and Katharine Caroline Bushnell
... two Indian guides, Everett had navigated a small boat along the shores of the Lake, covering a distance that now takes only a few hours. The Indians had long regarded this silent, red iron region with a superstitious reverence, and now, as the little party approached, they refused to complete the journey. "Iron Mountain!" they said, pointing northward along the trail—"Indian not go near; white man go!" The sight which presently met Everett's eyes repaid him well for his solitary tramp in the ...
— The Age of Big Business - Volume 39 in The Chronicles of America Series • Burton J. Hendrick
... a tenant at last. For twelve long years its massive walls of dark grey stone had frowned in gloomy silence upon the passers-by, the terror of the superstitious ones, who had peopled its halls with ghosts and goblins, saying even that the snowy-haired old man, its owner, had more than once been seen there, moving restlessly from room to room and muttering of the darkness which came upon him when he lost ...
— Darkness and Daylight • Mary J. Holmes
... had been very much countenanced by the Squire, who, though not superstitious himself, was very fond of seeing others so. He listened to every goblin tale of the neighbouring gossips with infinite gravity, and held the porter's wife in high favour on account of her talent for the ...
— Old Christmas From the Sketch Book of Washington Irving • Washington Irving
... three reasons. Firstly, because I couldn't take so much upon myself when I have respected family friends to remember. Secondly, because I am not so vain as to think that I look the part. Thirdly, because Anastatia is a little superstitious on the subject and feels averse to my giving away anybody until baby is old enough ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... magpie flew suddenly before his face. Michu, superstitious like all primitive beings, fancied he heard the muffled tones of a death-knell. The day, however, began brightly enough for lovers, who rarely see magpies when together in the woods. Michu, armed with his plan, verified the spots; each gentleman had brought a pickaxe, and ...
— An Historical Mystery • Honore de Balzac
... true that the arbitrary laws of hospitality, as recognized by some primitive and half-civilized communities, are reinforced by the superstitious fear of the stranger's curse, it is none the less true that they serve certain social needs. The fact that hospitality tends to decline when it becomes superfluous is sufficient to ...
— A Handbook of Ethical Theory • George Stuart Fullerton
... companionship of the writer, who is always present, as Walton is in his Angler, as White is in his Selbourne. Cowper, however, even at his worst, is a highly cultivated methodist; if he is sometimes enthusiastic, and possibly superstitious, he is never coarse or unctuous. He speaks with contempt of "the twang of the conventicle." Even his enthusiasm had by this time been somewhat tempered. Just after his conversion he used to preach to everybody. He had found out, as he tells ...
— Cowper • Goldwin Smith
... the hundreds who fall victim to the terrible jaws each year, the natives seem incapable of observing the slightest precautions. For superstitious reasons they will not disturb the crocodile until it has shown itself to be a man-eater. If the crocodile will live at peace with him the native has no wish to start a quarrel. But the day usually comes when a native who has gone down to the river ...
— Where the Strange Trails Go Down • E. Alexander Powell
... minsters of the West of England, a subject on which he was ever eloquent. Glastonbury performed all these excursions on foot, armed only with an ashen staff which he had cut in his early travels, and respecting which he was superstitious; so that he would have no more thought of journeying without this stick than most other people without their hat. Indeed, to speak truth, Glastonbury had been known to quit a house occasionally without that ...
— Henrietta Temple - A Love Story • Benjamin Disraeli
... party had it not been for the seasoned apparatus inherited from hard-drinking Southern ancestors. Altogether, he gave himself little time for thought, and if he felt at times an inclination to dream he thrust it from him with an almost superstitious fear. He would speculate no longer, but neither would he run the risk of invoking the laughter of cynical gods. If unimaginable disaster awaited him, at least he would not weaken his defences by a sojourn ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... a far less real thing to David than to old John. He pondered during many sleepless hours the advisability of having David sign the pledge. David had always refused to do it hitherto. He had a keen sense of shame in breaking a verbal promise on this subject; but he had an almost superstitious feeling regarding the obligation of anything he put his name to; and this very feeling made John hesitate to press the matter. For, he argued, and not unwisely, "if David should break this written obligation, his condition would seem to himself ...
— Scottish sketches • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... Ceylon, not pelagic, but oceanic. To early classical antiquity, it must be remembered, the Ocean was no mere sea, but a vast and mysterious river encircling the whole land surface of the earth. Its mighty waves, its tides, its furious currents, all made it an object of superstitious horror. To embark upon it was the height of presumption; and even so late as the time of Claudius we shall find the Roman soldiers feeling that to do so, even for the passage of the Channel, was ...
— Early Britain—Roman Britain • Edward Conybeare
... to follow the white man's ways, continuing consistently their wild habits, unmindful of all admonitions. Indeed, they often destroyed their household utensils, tepees and clothing, and killed their horses on the graves of the dead, in the fulfillment of a superstitious custom, which demanded that they should undergo, while mourning for their kindred, the deepest privation in a property sense. Everything the loss of which would make them poor was sacrificed on the graves of their relatives or distinguished warriors, and as melancholy because of removal ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... It is, indeed, a capital example of the irony of circumstance that I am able to do so. But, after all, why should we be annoyed instead of being thankful, when bright flowers spring up on a dunghill? Certainly, my father would not have felt any indignity. He was the least superstitious and also the least sophistical of men. If a thing was worthy in itself he would never call it common or unclean on ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey
... planets! Plainly the solar system is not cut according to the Sirian fashion. We shall hardly find a more remarkable coupling of celestial bodies until we come, on another evening, to a star that began, ages ago, to amaze the thoughtful and inspire the superstitious with dread—the ...
— Pleasures of the telescope • Garrett Serviss
... Ossian from the lips of Highland hussifs, and made the world with modern Attila to back it, wonder at the stores that are hived on old wives' tongues; even so might any other literary, black-smith hammer from the ore of common gossip a regular Vulcan's net of superstitious "facts." Never yet was uttered ghost story, that did not breed four others; every one at table is eager to record his, or his aunt's, experience in that line; and the mass of queer coincidences, inexplicable incidents, indubitable seeings, hearings, ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... surroundings: the emblem of some wild survival from dark ages when that spot had been one of the most uncivilised in the whole of Britain—a land of wild, uncouth people, living in a state of perpetual watch and guard, fearing the sea, fearing the land, cringingly superstitious because of their crying need of supernatural defence; and, indeed, there is nothing more curious in the Cornwall of to-day than this perpetual reminder of past superstitions, dead gods, strange pathetic survival of ...
— The Wooden Horse • Hugh Walpole
... and manners of the Scotch were so blended with superstitious practices and fears, that the author of these novels seems to have deemed it incumbent on him, to transfer many more such incidents to his novels, than seem either probable or natural to an English reader. It may be some apology that his story would have lost the national cast, which it ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... Superstitious Piscators have great faith in the Heavenly Signs, but often fail to find a Sign of a Fish under the fishiest sign of ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 15, July 9, 1870 • Various
... Athens he was initiated into the Eleusinian mysteries. It was the practice of the emperor to conform to the established rites of the age, and to perform religious ceremonies with due solemnity. We cannot conclude from this that he was a superstitious man, though we might perhaps do so if his book did not show that he was not. But that is only one among many instances that a ruler's public acts do not always prove his real opinions. A prudent governor will not roughly oppose even the superstitions of his people; and though he may wish they were ...
— Thoughts of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus • Marcus Aurelius Antoninus
... of patron or steward; his spirits were depressed by trouble, and he grew superstitious over the strange affair. Near the end of August, he was about to set out for Prague to attend the coronation of Leopold II., upon which occasion the composer's music to Metastasio's festival opera was to be performed. Just as he was stepping into the carriage the mysterious messenger appeared ...
— Among the Great Masters of Music - Scenes in the Lives of Famous Musicians • Walter Rowlands
... lake. Just back of the village was a round knoll which served as a landmark on the lake, for the shore near St. Ignace was remarkably level. On the summit of this mound the good father had reared a great white cross, and at its foot the superstitious Indians often laid votive offerings of strongly incongruous character. Here he had lived and taught for many years, succeeding in instructing his little flock in the French tongue, and in at least an outward semblance of the Catholic religion. Even ...
— The Galaxy - Vol. 23, No. 1 • Various
... attempt a repetition, but content myself with informing my readers, that we occupied the large one, dedicated to the ancient worship of the Buddhists; a gloomy temple, but cool, and possessing a certain interest from having been the scene of superstitious horrors round which hang the mystery of ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 454 - Volume 18, New Series, September 11, 1852 • Various
... doing Blondin on the tight-rope. China, in her pralaya and dearth of souls, may have fallen into the perils of her larger freedom, and some superstition rightly to be called degrading: in our Middle Ages, when we were in pralaya, we were superstitious enough; and being unbalanced, fell into other evils too such as China never knew: black tyrannies of dogmatism, burnings of heretics wholesale. But when the Crest-Wave Egos were in China, that larger freedom of hers enabled her, among ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... fitting one. She answered to it just as she answered to anything else—and that was not at all. She allowed herself to be led, fed, and otherwise attended, without resistance, and if she was especially comfortable she wore a happy smile on her small wrinkled face. But she never spoke and to the superstitious servants her silence ...
— Dorothy's House Party • Evelyn Raymond
... hath caused herself to be called the maid, a liar, pernicious, deceiver of the people, soothsayer, superstitious, a blasphemer against God, presumptuous, miscreant, boaster, idolatress, cruel, dissolute, an invoker of devils, apostate, ...
— A Treasury of Heroes and Heroines - A Record of High Endeavour and Strange Adventure from 500 B.C. to 1920 A.D. • Clayton Edwards
... the interests of her husband, is certain; but it may be doubted whether his mighty genius ever leaned for support upon the political skill and counsel of a woman—even though that woman were Josephine. She, like her wonderful husband, seems to have cherished a superstitious reliance upon destiny—a weakness singularly inconsistent with their general character. The story of the early prediction that she would become a queen is given with an amusing simplicity and earnestness. The prophecy is ...
— Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXII No. 4, April 1848 • Various
... subtle problem than those so far considered is presented by a courtship custom described by Bulmer (Brough Smyth, 82-84). The natives are very superstitious in regard to their hair. They carefully destroy any that has been cut off and would be greatly frightened to know it had fallen into another person's hands, as that would place their health and life in jeopardy at the other's will. Yet a girl who has a lover will not hesitate to give him a ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... happening to his ship. Dispirited by sickness, the accidents which had delayed his voyage prayed on his spirits, he became apprehensive of the power of Salazar being too great for him, and his lofty mind sunk under superstitious fears. On his second return to Truxillo, he ordered the celebration of a solemn mass, and prayed fervently to be enlightened by the Holy Spirit as to his future proceedings. On this occasion it appears ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. IV. • Robert Kerr
... prophetic wail of the Banshee as being fatal in her then state of health; or was it this ominous and supernatural foreboding of her dissolution that caused them to fly from the place? He reasoned, as the reader may perceive, upon the principle of the Banshee being, according to the superstitious notions entertained of her, a real supernatural visitant, and not the unscrupulous and diabolical imitation of her by Catherine Collins. Still he thought it barely possible that the change of air and the waters of the celebrated spring might recover her, ...
— The Evil Eye; Or, The Black Spector - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... is equal, in dealing cards, that every hand will have seven trumps in two deals, or seven trumps between two partners, and also four court cards in every deal. It is also certain on an average of hands, that nothing can be more superstitious and absurd than the prevailing notions about luck or ill-luck. Four persons, constantly playing at Whist during a long voyage, were frequently winners and losers to a large amount, but as frequently at 'quits;' and at the end of the voyage, after the last game, ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume II (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... appear that the popular mind became possessed with the idea that this contest, extending to Chinese waters, would neutralize the Christian influence and power, and that the time was coming when the superstitious masses might expel all foreigners and restore mandarin influence. Anticipating trouble from this cause, I invited France and North Germany to make an authorized suspension of hostilities in the East (where they were temporarily suspended by act of the commanders), and ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Ulysses S. Grant • James D. Richardson
... perhaps explain what these were. It is clear that they were superstitious practices of sufficient prevalence and influence on the popular mind to call for the interference ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 19, Saturday, March 9, 1850 • Various
... and, as night came on, the travellers saw a prodigious comet blazing above this scene of desolation. On that night, it was chilling, with a superstitious awe, the hamlets of New England and the gilded chambers of Versailles; but it is characteristic of La Salle, that, beset as he was with perils, and surrounded with ghastly images of death, he coolly notes down the phenomenon,—not as ...
— France and England in North America, a Series of Historical Narratives, Part Third • Francis Parkman
... memorable adventure of the fulling mills," said Don Quixote, "I have never seen Sancho in such a fright as now; were I as superstitious as others his abject fear would cause me some little trepidation of spirit. But come here, Sancho, for with the leave of these gentles I would say a word or two to thee in private;" and drawing Sancho aside among the trees of the garden and seizing ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... which is admirably imitative of the reverberations of the cataract and the thundering of mighty waters. The sounds at sea, ominous of shipwreck, will also occur to the minds of some. At Land's End it is not uncommon for storms to be heralded by weird sounds; and in the northern seas sailors, always a superstitious race of people, used to be much alarmed by a singular musical effect, which is now well known to be caused by nothing more fearsome ...
— The Strand Magazine: Volume VII, Issue 37. January, 1894. - An Illustrated Monthly • Edited by George Newnes
... of semi-savage sports. The American-born blacks gazed at this group with intense interest also, regarding them as so many ambassadors from the land of their ancestors, to enlighten them in usages and superstitious lore, that were more peculiarly suited to their race. The last even endeavoured to imitate the acts of the first, and, though the attempt was often ludicrous, it never failed on the score of intention and gravity. Nothing was done in the way of caricature, but much in the way ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper
... it as it was told in a certain quiet but stately room in the palace, where the man once known only as "Stefan Loristan," but whom history would call the first King Ivor of Samavia, told his share of it to the boy whom Samavians had a strange and superstitious worship for, because he seemed so surely their Lost Prince restored in body and soul—almost the kingly lad in the ancient portrait—some of them half believed when he stood in the sunshine, with the ...
— The Lost Prince • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... inclinations of the French public, when they forget the duties they have imbibed from Boileau's Art of Poetry, are not quite so hostile to the dramatic liberties of other nations as might be supposed, and that the old and narrow system is chiefly upheld by a superstitious ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... forts commenced a brisk fire for several hours: the Ladrones did not return a single shot, but weighed in the night and dropped down the river. The reasons they gave for not attacking the town, or returning the fire, were, that Joss had not promised them success. They are very superstitious, and consult their idol on all occasions. If his omens are good, they will undertake the most daring enterprises. The fleet now anchored opposite the ruins of the town where the women had been made prisoners. Here we remained five or six days, during which ...
— The Pirates Own Book • Charles Ellms
... small amount of mythus. He was, it appears, the inventor of that mystical method of Hermeneutics which has in our time received the name of "the year-day theory," and which, though now abandoned for the most part by sane men, has still some devout and superstitious advocates in the school of Dr. ...
— The Coming of the Friars • Augustus Jessopp
... hostilities broke out. By this time Aguinaldo had a capital at Malolos, thirty miles north of Manila, a government, thirty or forty thousand troops, and an influence which he was extending throughout the islands by means of secret organizations and superstitious appeals. This seemed a puny strength to put forth against the United States but various circumstances combined to make the contest less unequal than it seemed, and the outcome was probably more in doubt than that in ...
— The Path of Empire - A Chronicle of the United States as a World Power, Volume - 46 in The Chronicles of America Series • Carl Russell Fish
... woman could not explain, she had, a short time before, discarded the companion I had left with her; she was, therefore, alone among servants. They sent for the ignorant practitioners of the place; they tried their nostrums without success; her madness increased; her attendants, with that superstitious horror of insanity, common to the lower classes, became more and more violently alarmed; the landlady insisted on her removal; and—and—I told you, Peham—I told you—they sent her away—sent her to a madhouse! All this I listened ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... the spring, I set out again, taking the spring run for my guide. Before I had followed it two hundred yards it sank into the ground at my feet. I had half a mind to be superstitious and to believe that we were under a spell, since our guides played us such tricks. However, I determined to put the matter to a further test, and struck out boldly to the left. This seemed to be the keyword,—to the left, to the left. ...
— A Year in the Fields • John Burroughs
... to the vulgar to be punctilious about speaking the truth to them. A similar indifference is characteristic of the whole position. The select classes were to be perfectly convinced that the accepted creed was superstitious; but they were not for that reason to attack it. To the statesman, as Gibbon was to point out, a creed is equally useful, true or false; and the English clergy, though bound to use orthodox language, were far too well in hand ...
— English Literature and Society in the Eighteenth Century • Leslie Stephen
... its own weight; a project that would surprise the people into greater happiness, without giving them an opportunity to view it and reject it, are not adapted to a council composed of discordant elements, or a people who have thirteen heads, each of which pay superstitious adorations to ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... comparative study of religions, folklore relative to various amatory and superstitious practices, contemplation of ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... rather about yourself. What is this strange and sudden betrothal? What has it to do with Christianity? I had thought that it was rather by the glories of celibacy—gross and superstitious as their notions of it are—that the Galileans ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley
... examine it in this Light, so far as regards my present Purpose. Whoever looks into the Abridgment above mentioned, will find that the Character of AEneas is filled with Piety to the Gods, and a superstitious Observation of Prodigies, Oracles, and Predictions. Virgil has not only preserved this Character in the Person of AEneas, but has given a place in his Poem to those particular Prophecies which he found recorded of him in History and Tradition. The Poet took the matters ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... man. I am therefore exceedingly unwilling that any thing, however slight, which my illustrious friend thought it worth his while to express, with any degree of point, should perish. For this almost superstitious reverence, I have found very old and venerable authority, quoted by our great modern prelate, Secker, in whose tenth sermon there ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... that which approaches the nearest in form to man is undoubtedly the dugong, which, when its head and breast are raised above the water, and its pectoral fins, resembling hands, are visible, might easily be taken by superstitious seamen for a semi-human ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 406, Saturday, December 26, 1829. • Various
... of the grounds on which this opinion is founded: but the stigmas are explained to be the marks of the Saviour's five wounds. It is very likely that the notion is nothing more than a fantastic and superstitious explanation of the passage in Galatians vi. 17. But it is not altogether impossible that it may be the faint and imperfect echo of some early tradition in the Church as to the physical effect produced upon St. Paul by Christ's miraculous ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown
... girl frightened into complete idiotcy by those who placed a skeleton, or, as some say, a skull only, in her bed[8]—and of ladies, bishops, &c. obtaining their livelihoods privately by highway robbery[9], with similar narratives, rather romantic than superstitious, are general property, and to be met with under various modifications throughout England. The tale of the King of the Cats[10], a German tradition, has its exact counterpart in an Irish one, related to us as an original Hibernian legend, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 487 - Vol. 17, No. 487. Saturday, April 30, 1831 • Various
... space assigned it, being really a small organ at the summit of Ideality, which exercises a more intellectual and less superstitious function than has been given it. Marvellousness, Hope, Conscientiousness, Time, Order, Weight, Size, and Individuality are the eight organs discovered and added by Spurzheim, not having been recognized by Gall. ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, October 1887 - Volume 1, Number 9 • Various
... the whole enclosure. The old man, who proved to be the sexton, assured us not only of this, but also that previous to the interment of the Robinsons no mushrooms had grown within a mile of the spot. He added that, albeit regarded with abhorrence by the more superstitious inhabitants of Pewsey, the fungi were edible, and gave no trouble to ordinary digestions (his own, for example); nor upon close examination could Mr. Micklethwaite detect that they differed at all from the common agaricus campestris. So, sirs, concludes ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... under God the king. For five troubled years he had been staring religion in the face, and now he saw that it must mean this—or be no more than fetishism, Obi, Orphic mysteries or ceremonies of Demeter, a legacy of mental dirtiness, a residue of self-mutilation and superstitious sacrifices from the cunning, fear-haunted, ape-dog phase of human development. But it did mean this. And every one who apprehended as much was called by that very apprehension to the service of ...
— Soul of a Bishop • H. G. Wells
... superstitious people have at various times been alarmed by the different phenomena of so-called blood, ink, or sulphur rains. Ehrenberg very patiently collected records of the most prominent instances of these, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 286 - June 25, 1881 • Various
... I am now in correspondence with gentlemen of wealth and position who have signified their willingness to support this statement by affidavits and other documents prepared for the purpose of opening the eyes of the people to the delusions daily practised upon the ignorant and superstitious. ...
— The Humbugs of the World • P. T. Barnum
... strange appearance before the news arrived, and also my father directly he returned, all of whom are now dead. They advised me to dismiss it from my memory, but agreed that it could not be imagination, as I described my uncle so exactly, and they did not consider me to be either of a nervous or superstitious temperament. ...
— Complete Hypnotism: Mesmerism, Mind-Reading and Spiritualism • A. Alpheus
... the Poison he was administring. She passed whole Days and Nights in Prayer, and the Austerities of a false Devotion, according to the Instructions of her infamous Director. Nor was it long, before she attain'd the Height of that superstitious Chastity which he required of her, and, imagining there was no stopping in a Course which was to end so gloriously, she formed a Resolution, in order to devote herself with the greater Fervour and Purity to the heavenly ...
— The Amours of Zeokinizul, King of the Kofirans - Translated from the Arabic of the famous Traveller Krinelbol • Claude Prosper Jolyot de Crbillon
... were, in fact, offered for this ticket, which had only one chance in a million of winning the capital prize. This was absurd, unquestionably, but superstitious people do not stop to reason; and as their imaginations became more and more excited, they were likely to bid ...
— Ticket No. "9672" • Jules Verne
... a superstitious notion that it is honorable to make but little display of themselves, and allow their wings to ...
— Life in a Thousand Worlds • William Shuler Harris
... Kenmore, impatiently pushing aside a long leader on native politics and regarding me thoughtfully. "Well, I'm not superstitious, but a honeymoon spent trying to break into Davy Jones's locker for sunken treasure—I guess that's a good ...
— The Treasure-Train • Arthur B. Reeve
... by their examples, not obstinately and wilfully to eschue and shunne these two remedies in hot seasons, and in the time of the Dog-dayes, (much lesse all other manner of physicall helpes) not once knowing so much as why, or wherefore, and without any reason at all, following blind and superstitious tradition, and error, haply first broched by some unworthy and ignorant Physitian, not rightly understanding Hippocrates his saving in all likelyhood, or at least wise misapplying it. Which hath so prevailed in these times, that it hath not onely ...
— Spadacrene Anglica - The English Spa Fountain • Edmund Deane
... be free until you are equal with other people, and we aren't equal with the English. We aren't equal with anybody but subject people. And they look down on us, the English do. We're lazy and dirty and ignorant and superstitious and priest-ridden and impractical and ... and comic!... My God, comic! Whenever I see an Englishman in Ireland, running round and feeling superior, I want to wring his damned neck ... and I should hate to ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine
... and superstitious inhabitants had many wonderful stories to relate of this cloud; they all believed that no ship could safely approach it. Some held it to be an island hanging between heaven and earth, in which some Christians had been hidden by God from the power of their ...
— Famous Islands and Memorable Voyages • Anonymous
... to limit beauty to definite artistic lines; that is the mistake of the superstitious formalist who limits divine influences to certain sanctuaries and fixed ceremonials. The use of the sanctuary and the ceremonial is only to concentrate at one fiery point the wide current of impulsive ardour. The true ...
— Joyous Gard • Arthur Christopher Benson
... purses of the bourgeois. By degrees they sink into the category of the reactionary conservative Socialists depicted above, differing from these only by more systematic pedantry, and by their fanatical and superstitious belief in the miraculous effects ...
— The Communist Manifesto • Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels
... were in readiness. The start was made on the 24th of June. Just as the little flotilla of clumsy flatboats was caught by the rapid current, the landscape was darkened by an eclipse of the sun. The superstitious said that this was surely an evil omen. But Clark was no believer in omens, and he ordered the bateaux to proceed. He had lately received news of the French alliance, and was surer than ever that the habitants would make common cause ...
— The Old Northwest - A Chronicle of the Ohio Valley and Beyond, Volume 19 In - The Chronicles Of America Series • Frederic Austin Ogg
... fear. His hope for her lay beyond the summer-time of life, when, chastened by suffering and subdued by experience, a tranquil autumn would crown her soul with blessings that might have been earlier enjoyed. He was not superstitious, and yet it was with a feeling of concern that he saw the white and golden clouds gathering like enchanted land along the horizon, and piling themselves up, one above another, as if in sport, building ...
— After the Storm • T. S. Arthur
... cracked, and the black giant fell dead. A yell arose from the crowd, but they stood irresolute. For firearms, so strictly kept from servants and slaves, so preeminently pertaining to the dominant class, they had a superstitious dread. Four pistols meant four lives picked from ...
— Prisoners of Hope - A Tale of Colonial Virginia • Mary Johnston
... wherever there is a line of division, have not failed to mark one in the maps, at the sources of the Rio Neveri, the Unare, the Guarapiche, and the Pao. Thus the priests of Mongol race, according to ancient and superstitious custom, erect oboes, or little mounds of stone, on every point where the rivers flow in ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V2 • Alexander von Humboldt
... stretched from Galena to Chicago, and the upper half of the State was generally a wilderness. The earlier emigrants, principally of the poorer class of Southern farmers, shunned the prairies with something of a superstitious dread. They preferred to pass the first years of their occupation in the wasteful and laborious work of clearing a patch of timber for corn, rather than enter upon those rich savannas which were ready to ...
— Abraham Lincoln: A History V1 • John G. Nicolay and John Hay
... when a herdsman announces to her the arrival and detection of two strangers, whom she is bound by her office to sacrifice to Diana. On meeting, a mutual discovery takes place, and they plot their escape. Iphigenia imposes on the superstitious fears of Thoas, and, removing them to the sea-coast, they are on the point of making their escape together, when they are surprised, and subsequently detained and driven back by stress of weather. Thoas is about to pursue them, when Minerva appears, ...
— The Tragedies of Euripides, Volume I. • Euripides
... blue dresses, with their colors dull and indistinct, the lace crumpled and yellow, retaining in their folds something of the living fragrance of the form they once had covered. The whole past of the dead woman was there. With superstitious care, she had stored away the gowns of the different periods of her life, as if she had been afraid to get rid of them, to tear out a ...
— Woman Triumphant - (La Maja Desnuda) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... should have noticed a thing like that! I've thought about it once or twice, myself, to tell the truth. An educated man, I've said, has no business with these superstitious notions. I was brought up myself here in the high school of Viborg, and our old master was always a man to set his face against anything of that kind. He's been dead now this many years—a fine upstanding man he was, and ready with his hands as well as his head. ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Ghost Stories • Various
... is the world. In my eyes you too, if not an infidel, are an idolater. I conceive that you ignorantly worship; in all things you appear to me too superstitious. Sir, your god, your great Bel, your fish-tailed Dagon, rises before me as a demon. You, and such as you, have raised him to a throne, put on him a crown, given him a sceptre. Behold how hideously he governs! See him busied ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... d'Orleans continued busy in his work of secret destruction. In one of the popular risings, a sabre struck his bust, and its head fell, severed from its body. Many of the rioters (for the ignorant are always superstitious) shrunk back at this omen of evil to their idol. His real friends endeavoured to deduce a salutary warning to him from the circumstance. I was by when the Duc de Penthievre told him, in the presence of his daughter, that ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... Last night the sky presented a very wonderful appearance. It was luminous with a scarlet light nearly throughout the entire night. What it may portend I know not. People may brand me superstitious, but I can not resist the impression that this, with other signs, betokens the shedding of blood ...
— Life and Labors of Elder John Kline, the Martyr Missionary - Collated from his Diary by Benjamin Funk • John Kline
... how it had come there, and the tyrant was especially anxious to clear up the mystery that puzzled them all. Isabelle, who was a little inclined to be superstitious, and attach importance to omens, signs of evil, and such-like, felt troubled about it. She spoke Spanish perfectly, and understood the full force and significance of the strange inscription upon the wicked-looking ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... child were to be born to me," continued Karpathy, and, in a sudden outburst of merriment, he banged the table with his fist, "why, it would be enough to make me live my life over again. I am not superstitious, sir; but when I was lying on my death-bed, a heavenly vision gave me the assurance that, to the wonder of my fellows, I should return from the realm of death, though everybody looked upon me as a dead man already; and the ...
— A Hungarian Nabob • Maurus Jokai
... hearing this, shrunk with a superstitious dread entirely new to her, and could scarcely conceal her agitation ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... not allow her ideas of that future state to be modified by the notions of judgment and retribution. From this sketch, it is sufficiently evident, that the pleasure she took in an occasional attendance upon the sermons of Dr. Price, was not accompanied with a superstitious adherence to his doctrines. The fact is, that, as far down as the year 1787, she regularly frequented public worship, for the most part according to the forms of the church of England. After that period her attendance became less constant, and in ...
— Memoirs of the Author of a Vindication of the Rights of Woman • William Godwin
... the baron, or the armed vassal of the king. He had rights and possessions of his own, and he valued both too much to cast them away in civil conflict, for claims which had become emaciated by the lapse of years, and sacrifice freedom for the superstitious ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCLXXVI. February, 1847. Vol. LXI. • Various
... sleep, if you can trust yourself to wake in time, or come and sit on the hotel step until morning. Have you got it all clear? It's a piece of good luck having you to do all this. No real Moslem would ever be able to hold his tongue about it. They're superstitious about the Dome of the Rock. But ask questions now, if you're not clear; you mustn't be seen speaking in the street or in the mosque, remember. All plain sailing? Come along, then. If you're alive tomorrow you'll have ...
— Jimgrim and Allah's Peace • Talbot Mundy
... doubt to Columbus's discoveries, as well as these two victories, was observed to be a lucky day to the Spaniards; according to Gaillard, it was regarded from this time by the French with more superstitious dread than ever. Istoria, tom. i. p. 301.— Rivalite, ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V3 • William H. Prescott
... have shown themselves unworthy of their trust. Others are ready to pronounce a merchant dishonest because some article purchased at his store has not proved to be so good as it was expected to be. There are those who are superstitious concerning the wearing of opals, claiming that these jewels bring the wearer ill luck, because they have heard of some instances where misfortune seemed to follow the wearing of that particular stone. ...
— Composition-Rhetoric • Stratton D. Brooks
... to the functions, rights and privileges of the pope, the different ranks of priests, bishops, arch-bishops and the inferior officers; and in the progress of time, men were allowed to adopt almost any error, provided they paid their dues to the priests, and performed the superstitious ceremonies of the church. ...
— American Lutheranism Vindicated; or, Examination of the Lutheran Symbols, on Certain Disputed Topics • Samuel Simon Schmucker
... the superstitious at that period a legendary story of the period of the Duke of Monmouth's Rebellion, of two brothers who fought in this field so ferociously as to destroy each other; since which, their footsteps, formed from the vengeful struggle, were said to remain, with the indentations produced by their ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 14. Saturday, February 2, 1850 • Various
... numerous band of minstrels, making a prodigious noise with drums, timbrels, tambourets, and other such instruments. The wages of the nairs are four carlines each, monthly, in time of peace, and six during war. When any of them are slain, their bodies are burned with great pomp and many superstitious ceremonies, and their ashes are preserved; but the common people are buried in their houses, gardens, fields, or woods, without any ceremony. When I was in Calicut it was crowded with merchants from almost every ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VII • Robert Kerr |
