"Custom" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... is another foolish custom you gentlemen have; it is almost as foolish as the other. Yes, I'll tell my aunt of you, ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... from strict at Lilas Lynn's hotel. The employees were not over-courteous at any time, and, although in theory callers announced themselves by telephone before going up-stairs, this was a custom generally honored in the breach. No question, therefore, was raised when a heavily built, capable-looking man, with large hands and feet, inquired for Miss Lynn's room-number and stepped into the elevator ...
— The Auction Block • Rex Beach
... monarch of Kitwara clothed in a beautiful mantle of fine skins, but he wore nothing but a short kilt of blue baize that Speke had given him, and a scarf thrown across his shoulders. He was dreadfully alarmed, and could hardly be persuaded to leave his weapons outside the door, according to the custom of the country—these were three lances and a double-barrelled rifle that had been given him by Speke. I was much amused at his trepidation, and observing the curious change in his costume, I complimented him ...
— The Albert N'Yanza, Great Basin of the Nile • Sir Samuel White Baker
... may be added that it has been the custom of those writing of Eugene Field to surround and endow him throughout his career with the acquirement of scholarship, and pecuniary independence, which he never possessed before the last six years of ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... fiddle and the bass—viol formed the sole link (and an unconscious one) between the simple song-service of the Puritan meeting-house and the orchestral accompaniments to the high masses of European cathedrals. The men still sat at the end of the pew—a custom which had grown up in the days when they went to the meeting-house gun in hand, not knowing when they should be hastily summoned forth to fight the Indians. In the earliest days the drum was the martial summons to worship, but soon European bells sent forth their milder call. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XXVI., December, 1880. • Various
... occasionally raised their eyes to glance mistrustfully at the new arrival sweeping the garden gravel with her frivolous draperies. The inmates of the hotel were of different nationalities, but their racial differences were levelled by the stamp of a common mediocrity. All differences of tongue, of custom, of physiognomy, disappeared in this deep community of insignificance, which was like some secret bond, with the manifold signs and pass-words of its ignorances and its imperceptions. It was not the heterogeneous mediocrity of the American summer hotel ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton
... the Eastern custom of gathering the tears of mourners in tear-bottles alluded to in ...
— Little Folks (Septemeber 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... of the 'Endurance' it was soon noticed that the terms being used to describe different forms of ice were not always in agreement with those given in Markham's and Mill's glossary in "The Antarctic Manual," 1901. It was the custom, of course, to follow implicitly the terminology used by those of the party whose experience of ice dated back to Captain Scott's first voyage, so that the terms used may be said to be common to all Antarctic voyages of the present century. ...
— South! • Sir Ernest Shackleton
... first half of the second year, in accordance with the custom of the School, she responded to calls from wealthy families wherein there were cases of such serious illness as to require the services of a trained nurse, and in each instance she so won the confidence of the attending physician and the affection of the family as to make them personal friends. ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe
... us, for they at least go through the semblance of casting their slough annually; they have the idea of the thing, whether they have the reality or not. Would it not be well if we were to celebrate such a "busk," or "feast of first fruits," as Bartram describes to have been the custom of the Mucclasse Indians? "When a town celebrates the busk," says he, "having previously provided themselves with new clothes, new pots, pans, and other household utensils and furniture, they collect all their worn ...
— Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience • Henry David Thoreau
... a member of the club to which, till recently, Anthony had belonged. His soft felt hat was cocked extravagantly over one eye to keep the sun at bay, and his country suit was, fortunately, of a cloth which age cannot wither nor custom stale, but whose like has not been woven since the ill-favoured and lean-fleshed kine came up out ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates
... why he went out alone that day. Now, with time to think things over, the obvious safeguard would be to have a wash bowl; but where to get it? In those days, tins were scarce and ex-pensive. It was the custom to look in the woods for nearly all the necessaries of life; and, guided by ancient custom and experience, they seldom looked in vain. Rolf had seen, and indeed made, watering troughs, pig troughs, sap troughs, hen troughs, etc., all his life, and he now set to work with the axe and a block ...
— Rolf In The Woods • Ernest Thompson Seton
... his own financial rebound, meant to have his chuckle from it, should he ever unhorse the worry by which he was hag-rid. Consulting a city directory, he set forth on a fagging tramp from hotel to hotel—a quest barren of result for the excellent reason that Sprague, according to his custom, had registered at the ...
— The Henchman • Mark Lee Luther
... period of very remote antiquity. Among the ancient oriental nations, presents from a superior were saluted by kissing, to express gratitude and submission to the person conferring the favour. Reference is made to this custom, Genesis, ch. xl. v. 41, "According to thy words shall my people be ruled;" or, as the margin, supported by most eminent critics, renders it, "At thy mouth shall my people kiss." The consecration of ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13 Issue 364 - 4 Apr 1829 • Various
... peril to the order, our rules provide that new superiors be elected, who may carry out the rigor of our laws with new resolution, new zeal, and new force, and who should restore and suspend whatever time and opportunity has relaxed somewhat, taking away the opportunity for evil custom and abuses. Thus, desirous in this chapter of advance throughout the province, the capitular fathers set their eves on father Fray Diego de Alvarez, a man of learning and judgment, and of blameless life. Of such ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXIII, 1629-30 • Various
... they all came; and as the custom was then, each guest brought his present with him to the king: one a horse, another a shawl, or a ring, or a sword; and those who had nothing better brought a basket of grapes, or of game; but Perseus brought nothing, for he had nothing ...
— The Heroes • Charles Kingsley
... collection of Devonian rocks and fossils—and the library upstairs. Sitting there on a summer afternoon, and seeing through the open windows the smooth sunlit curve of the river below, and the gentle slope of wooded hills beyond, the Athenaeum has a charm—that charm of weather and daily custom—which architectural description fails to convey for any building, whether it is the Parthenon or a farm-house. Without it, places lack their intimate personality, as photographs lack the personality of men and women. My memory of the Athenaeum Library is of the familiar, ...
— Lynton and Lynmouth - A Pageant of Cliff & Moorland • John Presland
... passes for loyalty or patriotism in other countries is blind impulse, growing out of mere attachment to the soil, or the power of custom, or a helpless feeling of dependence on things as they are. "If my father in his grave could hear of this war," said a Spanish peasant, "his bones would not rest." Yet what earthly interest, what intelligible concern had Spanish ...
— The Spirit Proper to the Times. - A Sermon preached in King's Chapel, Boston, Sunday, May 12, 1861. • James Walker
... recollection the peculiar use made of the word should, by the author in this narrative. It is from the Saxon scealan, to be obliged. Thus, in the Saxon gospels (Matt 27:15), "the governor should release unto the people a prisoner"; in our version it is, "was wont to release," meaning that custom compelled him so to do. In Bunyan's phraseology, the word should is used in the same sense, that is, to show that, under peculiar circumstances, his feelings or position involuntarily produced a certain result. Thus, ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... opened a legal brothel, out of which he carefully reserved (you may be sure) the very flower of his collection for the entertainment of his young superiors: ladies recommended not only by personal merit, but, according to the Eastern custom, by sweet and enticing names which he had given them. For, if they were to be translated, they would sound,—Riches of my Life, Wealth of my Soul, Treasure of Perfection, Diamond of Splendor, Pearl of Price, Ruby of Pure Blood, and other metaphorical descriptions, ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. X. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... of their own depravity, and led to numerous irregularities which we find severely rebuked by the Apostle Paul. Their women, rejoicing in the emancipation which had been given to the Christian community, laid aside the old habits of attire which had been consecrated so long by Grecian and Jewish custom, and appeared with their heads uncovered in the Christian community. Still further than that, the Lord's Supper exhibited an absence of all solemnity, and seemed more a meeting for licentious gratification, where "one was hungry, and another was drunken"—a place in which ...
— Sermons Preached at Brighton - Third Series • Frederick W. Robertson
... figuring in the gay career Of blooming manhood with a young man's joy, When I was yet a little peevish boy— Though time has made the difference disappear Betwixt our ages, which then seemed so great— And still by rightful custom you retain Much of the old authoritative strain, And keep the elder brother up in state. O! you do well in this. 'Tis man's worst deed To let the "things that have been" run to waste, And in the unmeaning ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb IV - Poems and Plays • Charles and Mary Lamb
... analogous compensations. The idle amateur, the boarding-school girl, the street minstrel, and the barrel-organ, reflect his more palpable beauties; and, subjecting them to the severe test of incessant reiteration, make us wonder that "custom cannot stale" the infinite variety that is shut up even in ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various
... however, that it overhung the rest of the features. The ears, well detached from the head, had the sort of mobility which we find in those of wild animals, which are ever on the qui-vive. The mouth, half-open, as the custom usually is among country-people, showed teeth that were strong and white as almonds, but irregular. Gleaming red whiskers framed this face, which was white and yet mottled in spots. The hair, cropped close in front and allowed to grow long at the sides and on ...
— An Historical Mystery • Honore de Balzac
... will, excess is excess. Those passions in our sex, which we take pains to subdue, may have one and the same source with those infinitely-blacker passions, which we used so often to condemn in the violent and headstrong of the other sex; and which may only be heightened in them by custom, and their freer education. Let us both, my dear, ponder well this thought: ...
— Clarissa, Volume 4 (of 9) - History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... the magistrates in the circumstances of honor or neglect with which they might choose to receive him. His words, however, imply that the practice was by no means an uncommon one. And, indeed, from some passages in writers of the Augustan era, it would seem that this custom was not confined to people of distinction, but was familiar to a class of travellers so low in rank as to be capable of abusing their opportunities of concealment for the infliction of wanton injury upon the woods and fences which bounded the margin, ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey
... my eldest, and by our custom, second in command of the People's armies. As Khan, ...
— Adaptation • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... bedtime! But a cloud blacker than the heaviest fog came down upon me, for while we was standing on the deck, expecting every minute to land, a man came along and shouted at the top of his voice that no baggage could be examined by the custom-house officers after six o'clock, and the passengers could take nothing ashore with them but their hand-bags, and must come back in the morning and have their baggage examined. When I heard this my soul simply boiled ...
— Pomona's Travels - A Series of Letters to the Mistress of Rudder Grange from her Former - Handmaiden • Frank R. Stockton
... some truth beyond the range of our limited experience. But, having come to see wherein the essence of Christian truth lies in all varieties of pious experience, we know that this doctrine is an excrescence, weakening always the vital power of the gospel. It rests on custom, on cowardice, on the fear of change, not on any positive insight or substantial knowledge. But, as Tertullian declared of another doctrine defended by precedent, "Christ did not say, 'I am the Custom,' but, 'I am ...
— Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors • James Freeman Clarke
... will not apply new remedies, must expect new evils; for time is the greatest innovator; and if time of course alter things to the worse, and wisdom and counsel shall not alter them to the better, what shall be the end? It is true, that what is settled by custom, though it be not good, yet at least it is fit; and those things which have long gone together, are, as it were, confederate within themselves; whereas new things piece not so well; but though they help by their utility, yet they trouble by their inconformity. Besides, they are like ...
— Essays - The Essays Or Counsels, Civil And Moral, Of Francis Ld. - Verulam Viscount St. Albans • Francis Bacon
... ordered her out of the harbour at once. No cargo could be landed, of course, and the passengers for Sulaco naturally refused to go ashore. They could hear the firing and see plainly the fight going on at the edge of the water. The repulsed mob devoted its energies to an attack upon the Custom House, a dreary, unfinished-looking structure with many windows two hundred yards away from the O.S.N. Offices, and the only other building near the harbour. Captain Mitchell, after directing the commander of the Minerva to land "these gentlemen" in the first ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... Mayhew, I have no right to be here and speaking to you, and yet"—he made a passionate and despairing gesture, and was about to turn hastily away, when Ida said, earnestly, with her eyes fixed on his face, as was her instinctive custom when she sought to learn more from the expression of the ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe
... say, lately; for we are told by our correspondent, that the operations towards perfecting the invention have been stopped by orders of the French government, from an opinion that, if air-travelling were introduced, it would be injurious to the custom-house, and denationalise the country. This resolution of the French government is to be regretted, not less on the score of science, than from the ruin it has inflicted on the modest means of the ingenious operator. ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 431 - Volume 17, New Series, April 3, 1852 • Various
... knowledge and philosophical verity, in that children, being taught words, whilst they have but imperfect notions of things, apply them at random, and without much thinking, and seldom frame determined ideas to be signified by them. Which custom (it being easy, and serving well enough for the ordinary affairs of life and conversation) they are apt to continue when they are men: and so begin at the wrong end, learning words first and perfectly, but make the notions to which they ...
— An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume II. - MDCXC, Based on the 2nd Edition, Books III. and IV. (of 4) • John Locke
... fishing. The king and the richest men drink mare's milk, but the poor men and the slaves 150 drink mead. There is much strife among them. There is no ale brewed by the Esthonians; there is, however, plenty of mead. And there is a custom among the Esthonians that when a man dies he lies unburied in his house, with his kindred and friends, for a month—sometimes 155 two; and the kings and most powerful men still longer, in proportion to ...
— Old English Poems - Translated into the Original Meter Together with Short Selections from Old English Prose • Various
... just like any other, but the next, the 27th, as we came back from the College Henri IV, it was easy to see that there was a great stir in Paris Deligny's swimming school, at the corner of the Quai d'Orsay, where we went after school, according to custom, to take our bath, was full of young men discussing and holding forth, and relating incidents, true or not, which had occurred during the day. The Place Louis XV., now the Place de la Concorde, was occupied by ...
— Memoirs • Prince De Joinville
... broad-brimmed hat—to the consternation of the British Consul-General and the Europeans present, to the amazement of the Turkish and native officials, who eyed him keenly. They themselves wore red tarbooshes, as did the Prince; yet all of them knew that the European custom of showing respect was by doffing the hat. The Prince Pasha had settled that with David, however, at their first meeting, when David had kept on his hat and offered ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... deemed advisable to convene them again, the chancellor, in his opening address, felt compelled to enter into explanations respecting the nature and functions of a body which perhaps not a man living remembered to have seen in session.[22] Yet, while the desuetude into which had fallen the laudable custom of holding the States every year, or, at least, on occasion of any important matter for deliberation, might properly be traced to the flood of ambition and pride which had inundated the world, and to the inordinate covetousness of kings,[23] there were not wanting considerations to mitigate ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird
... and drink in His teaching; but she loved Him with all her heart all the same, and showed it by serving. No doubt, she took care that the best dishes were carried to Jesus first, and, no doubt, as is the custom in those lands, she plied Him with invitations to partake. We do Martha less than justice if we do not honour her, and recognise that her kind of service is true service. She has many successors among Christ's true followers, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. John Chapters I to XIV • Alexander Maclaren
... picture: a hut half hidden in moss and flowers. It was almost lost among the portraits of distinguished personages, the historic incidents, the scenes taken from fashionable life, and almost drowned in the bloody reflections from the vast display of battle pictures, which, as was then the custom, ...
— Delsarte System of Oratory • Various
... Reasmus Philipps's Diary it is recorded that in Pembroke College early in every November 'was kept a great Gaudy [feast], when the Master dined in public, and the juniors (by an ancient custom they were obliged to observe) went round the fire in the hall.' Notes & ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... Nearly every law and custom of a country has an influence direct or remote on eugenics. The eugenic progress to be expected if laws and customs are gradually but steadily modified in appropriate ways, is vastly greater and more practicable than is ...
— Applied Eugenics • Paul Popenoe and Roswell Hill Johnson
... a custom here, that when any foreign ships are in this harbour, a guard boat rows constantly night and day, and when any boat from such foreign vessel goes on shore, a soldier is put into the boat, and continues on board her during her stay on shore: this custom is intended to prevent smuggling, a ...
— An Historical Journal of the Transactions at Port Jackson and Norfolk Island • John Hunter
... saw the royals advancing, he ordered his men, according to custom, to offer up prayers to God, and when these were finished he disposed his troops for battle. His plan was to take up position with the greater part of his men on the other side of a ravine, which would thus form a kind of moat between him and the king's ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... approached the tomb containing the sacred bodies, the priest, according to custom, read the formula of exorcism over her head. When he began to ask how and when the demon had entered her, she answered, not in the tongue of the barbarians, which alone the girl knew, but in the Roman tongue. And when the priest was astonished ...
— Lectures and Essays • Thomas Henry Huxley
... resting places of the dead. Not only were the mummies wrapped in cloth and papyrus inscribed with the Book of the Dead and other Egyptian texts, but many documents and papers were buried with the bodies. It was the custom of the Egyptians to bury with the dead all their personal papers including unopened letters and papers belonging to other persons which happened to be in the possession of the deceased at the time of his death. Many a letter has thus been read for the first time by some modern ...
— Books Before Typography - Typographic Technical Series for Apprentices #49 • Frederick W. Hamilton
... Doctor Brearley denounced modern parents for their own godlessness and the irreligion of their homes, William took the blame to himself. On his way home he announced his determination to resume the long-neglected family custom of reading ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes
... way, and between two thieves. One of them was to have been Jesus Bar-Abba, but the people cried out that he was to be released instead of Jesus. As Joseph repeated the words, Bar-Abba instead of Jesus, as if he only half understood them, the masons reminded him that it was the custom to deliver up a prisoner to the people at the time of the Passover. At the time of the Passover, he repeated.... At last, realising what had happened, his face became overwrought; his eyes and mouth testified to the grief he was ...
— The Brook Kerith - A Syrian story • George Moore
... twenty-five thousand dollars. The insane oddity of a monument set up in a village to preserve a name that would outlast the hills and the rocks without any such help, would advertise Elmira to the ends of the earth —and draw custom. It would be the only monument on the planet to Adam, and in the matter of interest and impressiveness could never have a rival until somebody should set up a monument to the ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... order to have sufficient strength to bring to the daily task of profit-earning. She pondered on the cruelty and injustice of it all in odd moments; she could not give much thought to the matter, as Christmas was approaching, which meant that "Dawes'" would be hard at work to cope with the rush of custom every minute of the working day, and for some time after the doors were closed to the public. The class of customer had, also, changed. When Mavis first went to "Dawes'," the people whom she served were mostly visitors to London ...
— Sparrows - The Story of an Unprotected Girl • Horace W. C. Newte
... three men sat drinking together, as was the custom of the time, and then adjourned to a tavern in Forfar, where they continued their potations until all three were, beyond all doubt, in an advanced state of intoxication, ...
— Love Romances of the Aristocracy • Thornton Hall
... were filled with Spanish potatoes, maize, mandioca-roots, and various kinds of wild fruits; one or two drinking vessels; the hollow trunk of a tree, used for pounding maize in; and several dishes which contained the colours used by the Indians in painting their naked bodies,—a custom which was very prevalent amongst them. Besides these things, there were bows, arrows, spears, and blow-pipes in abundance; and hammocks hung from various posts, elevated about a foot from the ground. ...
— Martin Rattler • R.M. Ballantyne
... butter and butter-milk, about four pounds each cow within the year. The butter they salted and took to market, at the neighbouring town; the butter-milk they sold to the country people, who, according to the custom of the neighbourhood, came to the house for it. Besides this, they reared five calves, which, at a year old, they sold for fifteen guineas and a half. The dairy did not, however, employ all the time of this industrious mother and daughter; ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... landings. Thus you get glimpses of Seattle, Steilacoom, Tacoma, and of the so-called saw-mill ports—Port Madison, Port Gamble, Port Ludlow, and Port Townsend—the last named being also the boundary of our Uncle Samuel's dominions for the present, and the port of entry for this district, with a custom-house which looks like a barn, and a collector and inspectors, the latter of whom examine your trunk as you return from Victoria to save you from the ...
— Northern California, Oregon, and the Sandwich Islands • Charles Nordhoff
... had a good deal to endure for the next two or three weeks. They missed their old room with its sunny window and pleasant outlook. They missed Rose, who, down at the far end of Quaker Row, could not drop in half so often as had been her custom. Miss Jane was specially grim and sharp; and some of the upstairs girls, who resented Katy's plain speaking, and the formation of a society against flirting, improved the chance to be provoking. Lilly Page was one of these. She didn't really believe Katy guilty, but she liked to tease her by pretending ...
— What Katy Did At School • Susan Coolidge
... however poor, had a wagon, if not a chaise; and he must be miserable indeed who did not own at least one horse. Nobody in his sober senses demeaned himself to walking. Perhaps it was the climate. Perhaps our fathers instituted the custom, to be as unlike the British as possible,—as they did of making their houses like lanterns, to show they had no ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. September, 1863, No. LXXI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... his hands loosely clasped behind him, with the air of semi-detachment that young clergymen sometimes have with their wives. Whether it was that, or the trace of custom his satisfaction carried, the casual glance might easily have taken them ...
— The Path of a Star • Mrs. Everard Cotes (AKA Sara Jeannette Duncan)
... placed him clearly in the wrong. The aristocrats threatened to punish him as soon as his term of office was over. To avoid impeachment Tiberius sought reelection to the tribunate for the following year. This, again, was contrary to custom, since no one might hold office for two successive terms. On the day appointed for the election, while voting was in progress, a crowd of angry senators burst into the Forum and killed Tiberius, together with three hundred of his followers. Both sides had now begun to display an utter ...
— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER
... for the Celebration of a grand Festival, which was kept but once in five Years. 'Twas a constant Custom in Babylon at the Expiration of the Term above-mention'd, to distinguish that Citizen from all the Rest, in the most solemn Manner, who had done the most generous Action; and the Grandees and Magi always sat as Judges. The Satrap inform'd them of every ...
— Zadig - Or, The Book of Fate • Voltaire
... thoughts of arbitration. But the world grows wiser slowly, and Spanish-America not more rapidly. Important matters which occupied the attention of the Congress were the questions of some standardising of Spanish-American Custom-house methods, and the great subject of the Pan-American railway. This vast scheme is designed to link all the republics of North and South America together. But it may well be asked if the cost, estimated at 40 million pounds sterling, ...
— Mexico • Charles Reginald Enock
... recover Fido to console Constantia. Dr. Lloyd had left the town, and no one knew where the remains of Eustace were deposited. The graves of his fellow-victims were pointed out by the attentive piety of the young maidens, who adorned them with garlands of flowers, which (according to the custom of the country) were renewed every Sabbath. On that day they duly knelt beside the spot, and with awful veneration kept alive their own attachment to the cause for which these officers suffered, by repeating ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... gone over to Germanicus—the rest abandoned their cantons and villages and dispersed themselves into the woods. Mattium, the capital of the nation, he burned, ravaged the open country, and bent his march to the Rhine; nor durst the enemy harass his rear, which is their custom whenever they have fled, more from craft than fear. The Cheruscans had purposed to assist the Cattians, but were deterred by Caecina, who moved about with his forces from place to place; and the Marsians, who dared to engage him, he checked by ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 03 • Various
... superstructure, tier above tier of men clad in night-clothing—that is to say, in blue jumper and trousers, with the white V of the flannel showing up each seaman's bronzed neck and face. Seamen and marines all wore their caps tilted comfortably on the backs of their heads, as is the custom of men of H.M. Navy enjoying their leisure. Above them all the smoke from a thousand pipes and cigarettes trembled in a blue haze on the still air ...
— A Tall Ship - On Other Naval Occasions • Sir Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie
... Normandy, he preferred the Normans to the English. He made a Norman Archbishop, and Norman Bishops; his great officers and favourites were all Normans; he introduced the Norman fashions and the Norman language; in imitation of the state custom of Normandy, he attached a great seal to his state documents, instead of merely marking them, as the Saxon Kings had done, with the sign of the cross—just as poor people who have never been taught to write, now make the same mark for their names. All this, the powerful ...
— A Child's History of England • Charles Dickens
... President for eighteen years on a salary payable in Indian corn; and in answer to his earnest prayer for relief, alleging instant necessity, the sacrifice of personal property, and the custom of English universities, a committee of the General Court reported that "they conceive the country to have done honorably toward the petitioner, and that his parity with English ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 107, September, 1866 • Various
... in fact, mistaken and because the O'Connells shared with the Beekmans and the Ginsbergs a tradition reaching back to a period when revenge was justice, and custom of kinsfolk the only law, Shane O'Connell had sought out Red McGurk and had sent him unshriven to his God. The only reason why this everyday Bowery occurrence excited any particular attention was not that Shane was an O'Connell but that ...
— By Advice of Counsel • Arthur Train
... when all the slaves would be out at work in the fields. Castro, who professed to know the locality very well indeed, would be of use. Meantime, the Lion would make her way to Havana, as if nothing was the matter. No doubt all sorts of confounded alguazils and custom-house hounds would be ready to swarm on board in full cry. They would be made very welcome. Any strangers on board? Certainly not. Why should there be?... Rio Medio? What about Rio Medio? Hadn't been within miles and ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... for that other conceit that learning should undermine the reverence of laws and government, it is assuredly a mere depravation and calumny, without all shadow of truth. For to say that a blind custom of obedience should be a surer obligation than duty taught and understood, it is to affirm that a blind man may tread surer by a guide than a seeing man can by a light. And it is without all controversy that learning doth make the minds of men gentle, generous, manageable, ...
— The Advancement of Learning • Francis Bacon
... my taste at which great applause and pretty to see me bow to right and left although in mortal fear lest something give way, I being grown heavier of late and the quality of cloth suffering from the New York Custom House. The applause being over did continue my speech and say that in my forties had had little time to think of aught but my own personal affairs, but that now being come to my fifties was well disposed to share ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VI. (of X.) • Various
... The custom of the country made it almost an obligatory courtesy to go in and spend money when one hitched in front of a saloon, an excuse for entering that Lambert accepted with a grim feeling of satisfaction. While he didn't want it to appear that he was crowding a quarrel ...
— The Duke Of Chimney Butte • G. W. Ogden
... as it was the last time in the War that I heard a British band playing to cheer attacking "Tommies." I believe it used to be a British war custom to rouse martial instincts with lively music, but something must have gone wrong with the works in this War, there must have occurred a rift in the lute, for ever after this first battle of Elandslaagte the British ...
— My Reminiscences of the Anglo-Boer War • Ben Viljoen
... imprudent. However, fifty steps with the gun is less than fifteen with a pistol. This point is settled. We will remain with heads covered, although this is not the custom. A ball might strike the head where the cap would be, and if this should happen it would arouse suspicion, as people do not hunt bareheaded. It only remains to decide who shall fire ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... four years and the other for two years, they have still adhered to the principle of direct taxation, and in some of the States they have made it necessary for a voter to be worth one hundred pounds. Yet they have, in that country, duties on goods, custom duties, and excise duties also; and, of course, there are many persons who really pay taxes, and who, nevertheless, are not permitted to vote. The people do not complain of this. They know that the number of votes is so great that no corruption can take place, and they have ...
— Political Pamphlets • George Saintsbury
... itself, and make it two-pieced. But if the arch be of any bizarre form, especially ogee, the joints must be in particular places, and the masonry simple, or it will not be thoroughly good and secure; and the fine schools of the ogee arch have only arisen in countries where it was the custom to ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume I (of 3) • John Ruskin
... 'em are good creeters, better than wimmen, some on 'em. They want to do right, but don't exactly see the way to do it. In the old slavery times some of the masters wuz more to be pitied than the slaves. They could see the injustice, feel the wrong they wuz doin', but old chains of Custom bound 'em, social customs and idees had hardened ...
— Samantha on the Woman Question • Marietta Holley
... reasons,—for his use of the artificial sonnet, and for his literary desertion of Spenser as a model for poets. His Delia, a cycle of sonnets modeled, perhaps, after Sidney's Astrophel and Stella, helped to fix the custom of celebrating love or friendship by a series of sonnets, to which some pastoral pseudonym was affixed. In his sonnets, many of which rank with Shakespeare's, and in his later poetry, especially the beautiful "Complaint of Rosamond" and his "Civil Wars," ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... There was a gentleman of the Bar of Philadelphia, many years ago, who possessed these qualities in a very remarkable degree. He allowed nothing that occurred in a cause to disturb or surprise him. On an occasion in one of the neighboring counties, the circuit of which it was his custom to ride, he was trying a cause on a bond, when a witness for defendant was introduced, who testified that the defendant had taken the amount of the bond, which was quite a large sum, from his residence to that of the obligee, a distance of several miles, ...
— An Essay on Professional Ethics - Second Edition • George Sharswood
... had passed, spread it over the bed again, smoothed it well out, as was my custom, and tried to wipe away every trace of my late action. I could not possibly have been in my right mind at the moment when I came to the conclusion to commit this rascally trick. The more I thought over it the more unreasonable it seemed to ...
— Hunger • Knut Hamsun
... the custom of travelling on mules was unknown, so was the coin ducats, so was that of begging with a rosary, and of extorting money in the manner in which Gil Blas describes. In fact, the "useful magnificence," as Mr Burke terms it, of the spacious roads in France, and the traffic ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 344, June, 1844 • Various
... American, "I'm sorry I can't give you an answer about that, the cap'n, as I told you, not being aboard. He's gone ashore on some Custom House business. But, if you like, you can ...
— The Land of Fire - A Tale of Adventure • Mayne Reid
... held the place of housekeeper to the Custom-house, and when it was burnt down, Kelly was burnt with it, in endeavouring to save his favourite boots. When the news of his horrible death became known, all the dandies were anxious to secure the service of his valet, who possessed the mystery of the inimitable blacking. Brummell lost no time ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie
... Queen had gone to bed, according to their usual quiet custom, at eleven o'clock. Their feelings, as a certain class of writers are in the habit of saying, may be more easily imagined than described when they were roused from sleep about two in the morning by the couriers, who came to tell them that the princess had become the mother of a girl, and ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume II (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... early reapers whistled—shrill A whistle may be noted still, The locomotives' ravings. New custom newer want begets— My bank of early violets Is now a ...
— London Lyrics • Frederick Locker
... aware, had been manufactured, in order to give the highest significance to the item, by the enterprising reporter, but it pleased him. The reporter, associating his name with fire-arms, had chosen a military title, in accordance with the custom which makes "commodores" of enterprising landsmen who build and manage lines of marine transportation and travel, and "bosses" of men who control election gangs, employed to dig the dirty ...
— Sevenoaks • J. G. Holland
... long nobility From hieroglyphic proofs of heraldry, And impudently talk of a posterity; And, like Egyptian chroniclers, Who write of twenty thousand years, With maravedies make the account, That single time might to a sum amount; We grow at last by custom to believe That really we live; Whilst all these shadows that for things we take, Are but the empty dreams which in ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... rides, high over Syrtis Major, toward the setting sun, became an every other day custom, harmless in itself. A carefully kept nuclear-battery motor didn't conk; the vehicle could almost fly without guidance. It was good to look down at the blue-green shagginess, below... Familiarity bred, not contempt, but a decline of dread to the point where it became ...
— The Planet Strappers • Raymond Zinke Gallun
... away, and I must go thither, for there Baleka slept. Also I dared not enter by the gate, because a man was always on guard there. So I cut my way through the reed fence with my assegai and crept to the hut where Baleka was with some of her half-sisters. I knew on which side of the hut it was her custom to lie, and where her head would be. So I lay down on my side and gently, very gently, began to bore a hole in the grass covering of the hut. It took a long while, for the thatch was thick, but at last I was nearly through it. Then I stopped, ...
— Nada the Lily • H. Rider Haggard
... Custom-house dues are at all times vexatious, but on the French- Prussian frontier they are so arranged as to provoke patriotic feeling. It may seem a foolish fancy for French folks, German subjects of the Kaiser, to prefer French soap and stationery, ...
— East of Paris - Sketches in the Gatinais, Bourbonnais, and Champagne • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... common pasture, had after harvest the grazing of the common arable fields and of the meadows. The common pasture was early 'stinted' or limited, the usual custom being that the villager could turn out as many stock as he could keep on his holding. The trouble of pulling up and taking down these fences every year must have been enormous, and we find legislation on this important matter at an early date. About 700 the ...
— A Short History of English Agriculture • W. H. R. Curtler
... of Francis, one in armour and the other in his pontificals; besides which, all the Cardinals, Bishops, Chamberlains, Esquires, and Grooms of the Chamber are seated in due order in their places, as is the custom in the chapel, all in their robes and portrayed from life, among them being Giannozzo Pandolfini, Bishop of Troia, a close friend of Raffaello, with many others who were distinguished at that time. Near the King is a little boy kneeling, who is holding the royal crown—a portrait of Ippolito ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol. 04 (of 10), Filippino Lippi to Domenico Puligo • Giorgio Vasari
... about the same time. There are four epigrams of his in the Anthology, and another is quoted by Athenaeus, who, in connexion with a Samian custom, adduces him as "a poet of the country." He also wrote epic poems. The /Garland/ of Meleager, l. 29, speaks ...
— Select Epigrams from the Greek Anthology • J. W. Mackail
... "Was there not a custom," she said, still gazing down into the wet, glistening street, "among one of the ancient peoples, I forget which, ordaining that when a man and woman, loving one another, or thinking that they loved, had been joined together, they should go down upon their wedding night to ...
— The Second Thoughts of An Idle Fellow • Jerome K. Jerome
... and no farther." Gyves, chains and fetters will enforce that command. But what master shall say unto the mind, "Here do I set the limit of your acquisition. Pass it not"? Who shall put gyves upon the intellect, or fetter the movement of thought? Joshua Leckler, as custom denominated him, had tasted of the forbidden fruit, and his appetite had grown by what it fed on. Night after night he crouched in his lonely cabin, by the blaze of a fat pine brand, poring over the few ...
— The Strength of Gideon and Other Stories • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... Selene and Luna of the Greeks and Latins." [111] Again, "The Egyptians represented their moon as a male deity, like the German mond and monat, or the Lunus of the Latins; and it is worthy of remark, that the same custom of calling it male is retained in the East to the present day, while the sun is considered female, as in the language of the Germans." [112] "In Slavonic," Sir George Cox tells us, "as in the Teutonic mythology, the moon is male. His wedding ...
— Moon Lore • Timothy Harley
... American custom, was dressed in its clothes—a suit of light grey homespun, such as is to be bought everywhere from French-Canadian weavers. When they had lifted the body and put it in the box, they stopped involuntarily to look, before the girl laid a handkerchief upon the face. ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... the Empress occupied the house of a rich wine-merchant opposite the town-hall. The house was decorated with flags, and before it a triumphal arch was set up. Marie Louise rested there, and changed everything she had on, according to the custom, which demands that a foreign princess on entering her new country must leave behind her everything that attaches her to the country, the people and the ways she has left. The Parisian shopkeepers had made everything for her from measures and models sent from Vienna. Napoleon had ...
— The Happy Days of the Empress Marie Louise • Imbert De Saint-Amand
... seeing sik uncertentie in our men's wryting, as if a man wald indyte one letter to tuentie of our best wryteres, nae tuae of the tuentie, without conference, wald agree; and that they quhae might perhapes agree, met rather be custom then knawlege, set my selfe, about a yeer syne, to seek a remedie for that maladie. Quhen I had done, refyning it, I fand in Barret's Alvearie,[3] quhilk is a dictionarie Anglico-latinum, that Sr. Thomas Smith,[4] a ...
— Of the Orthographie and Congruitie of the Britan Tongue - A Treates, noe shorter than necessarie, for the Schooles • Alexander Hume
... its beauty, leaving aside the depth and truth of the phrase, "Where I shall be made thy music," we must recall the custom of those days to send out for "a noise of musicians." Hence he imagines that he has been summoned as one of a band already gone in to play before the king of "The High Countries:" he is now at the door, where he is listening ...
— England's Antiphon • George MacDonald
... Therewith he spent incredibly small sums; after growling and remonstrating and eating for more than an hour, his bill would amount to seventy or eighty centesimi, wine included. Every day he threatened to withdraw his custom; every day he sent for the landlady, pointed out to her how vilely he was treated, and asked how she could expect him to recommend the Concordia to his acquaintances. On one occasion I saw him push away a plate of something, plant his elbows on the table, ...
— The House of Cobwebs and Other Stories • George Gissing
... by the Latins aes alienum, another's brass, for some of their coins were made of brass; still living, and dying, and buried by this other's brass; always promising to pay, promising to pay, tomorrow, and dying today, insolvent; seeking to curry favor, to get custom, by how many modes, only not state-prison offenses; lying, flattering, voting, contracting yourselves into a nutshell of civility or dilating into an atmosphere of thin and vaporous generosity, that you ...
— Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience • Henry David Thoreau
... cellar-book you will have had in all ten dozen, that is seven dozen and a half now and two dozen and a half before, of that particular wine, and about a dozen of Burgundy. It goes by sea to Hull. The Knight cutter, Thomas Savil, master, Hull, at the custom-house quay. That custom-house quay may mean at London. However, this is the method prescribed by your porter, for I have been at your house to enquire, as ...
— George Selwyn: His Letters and His Life • E. S. Roscoe and Helen Clergue
... Tolstoi was right when he said that when an individual rises in this way he simply brings another recruit to the rulers from the ruled, and that the fact that this passage from one class to another does occasionally take place, and is not absolutely forbidden by law and custom as in India, does not mean that we have no castes.[88] Even in ancient Egypt, it was quite usual, as in the case of Joseph, to elevate slaves to the highest positions. This singling out and promotion of the very ablest ...
— Socialism As It Is - A Survey of The World-Wide Revolutionary Movement • William English Walling
... of the anteroom without hat or sword, which, in accord with the Club custom, he had given up to the hall porter. He had no lambskin cap on his head, nor had he a loaded whip over his shoulder, as when Rostov had seen him on the eve of the battle of Austerlitz, but wore a tight new uniform with Russian and foreign Orders, and the Star of St. George ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... gentleman is accustomed to travel; how soberly and evenly he jogs along, picking his way over the ground. But let him fall into the hands of a lively youngster, and how soon he picks up a frisky spirit! Were horses less plastic, more the creatures of custom than they are, it would always be necessary, before buying one, to inquire into ...
— The Naturalist in La Plata • W. H. Hudson
... "It's a custom that suits me well enough—at least, what there is of it. I'm free to confess that this rather smallish cup of chocolate and two not very large rolls and a tiny bit of butter do not seem to me all that a ...
— Patty in Paris • Carolyn Wells
... she lived during this period was entered upon without thought, her own inclinations agreeing at the time to every usage sanctioned by custom; but in after years she said that those days of dissipation and excitement appeared to her to be a curious preparation for the solemn duties she was about ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... administered to poor little Filippo—Giovanna's puny, sickly child! He even had the audacity to accuse Francesco of complicity, because he had ordered no elaborate court mourning, conveniently ignoring the fact that a gracious compliment was paid to Spanish custom and court etiquette, by ...
— The Tragedies of the Medici • Edgcumbe Staley
... came to pass, while he executed the priest's office before God in the order of his course, 9 according to the custom of the priest's office, his lot was to enter into the temple of the Lord and burn incense. 10 And the whole multitude of the people were praying without at the hour of incense. 11 And there appeared unto him an angel of the Lord standing on the right side of the altar of incense. ...
— The Gospel of Luke, An Exposition • Charles R. Erdman
... that it would be possible to touch at an English port. At all events I required some days to prepare for this voyage, and I was obliged to address myself to the minister of police to ask for that indulgence. It has been already seen that the custom of the French government is to order women, as well as soldiers, to depart within twenty-four hours. Here follows the minister's reply: it is ...
— Ten Years' Exile • Anne Louise Germaine Necker, Baronne (Baroness) de Stael-Holstein |
