"Abbess" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... nothing to conceal; only, when pressed for the story of that last day at the island villa, she turned away her face, and entreated the questioner's forbearance. All else she told with a sad simplicity. Her religious conversion was the result of teaching she had received from the abbess, a Roman lady of great learning, who spoke of things till then unknown to her, and made so manifest the truth of the Catholic creed that her reason was constrained to accept it. Obeying the king's command, Athalfrida refrained from argument and condemnation, ...
— Veranilda • George Gissing
... diamonds, only recognisable as such by the rays of blue, yellow, red, and green light which darted from them. This cross was suspended on a chain of black beads resembling a rosary, and giving to the black-robed figure the appearance of an abbess. The Spanish lace mantilla which she had thrown over her beautiful hair served as the veil, ...
— Dr. Dumany's Wife • Mr Jkai
... harsh turn against her explicable not as personal inconsistency or womanly prejudice, but as due to a gleam of insight? What clew to the case does Adriana's meekness afford? Or else of the relationship of the Abbess to the twins? Why does she so peremptorily keep the man from his wife? Is not this conduct devised to mystify the audience ...
— Shakespeare Study Programs; The Comedies • Charlotte Porter and Helen A. Clarke
... whom some thought disappointed, as perhaps, in her foolish thought, she might a little be, was made Abbess of Quedlinburg, which opulent benefice had fallen vacant; and, there or at Berlin, lived a respectable Spinster-life, doubtless on easier terms than Ulrique's. Always much loved by her Brother, and loving him (and "taking ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIV. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... which we are writing was some years before convents were abolished; but the strictness of their rules had in many instances been considerably relaxed. Without much difficulty, permission was obtained from the abbess for our nun to devote her time during the day to the care of these poor children, upon condition that she should regularly return to her convent every night before evening prayers. The house which Madame de Fleury chose for ...
— Murad the Unlucky and Other Tales • Maria Edgeworth
... as I am, one more ave would have saved me; for my sister, who was Abbess of St. Mary of Chauchigny, did so prevail, by her prayer and good works, for my lost and wretched soul, that every day I felt the pains of purgatory decrease; the pitchforks which, on my first entry, had never ceased ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... the truth, madam, I stole it out of Hippolita's pocket, to take the print of it in wax; for I'll suppose you'll give my master leave to wait on you in the nunnery-garden, after your abbess has walked the rounds. ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Volume 4 (of 18) - Almanzor And Almahide, Marriage-a-la-Mode, The Assignation • John Dryden
... the convent where Madame Bonacieux was confined; it was at Bethune, and thither the musketeers hastened. Unfortunately, Milady reached Bethune first. She had come there to await the cardinal's orders, and having ingratiated herself with the abbess, learnt that D'Artagnan was on his way with an order from the queen to take Madame Bonacieux to Paris. Milady immediately dispatched a messenger to the cardinal, and at the very moment when the musketeers were at the front entrance, she poured a powder ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol III • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... were drawing nearer to the church of St. Clara, where the Neapolitan kings were buried, and where several princesses of the blood, exchanging the crown for the veil, have gone to bury themselves alive. The nuns, novices, and abbess, hidden behind shutters, were throwing flowers upon the procession. A bunch fell at the feet ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... avail, was made to disgorge much of the wealth she had acquired during her supremacy, and was put on an allowance. The rest of her life, a period of nearly thirty years, she spent in retirement. Before her death(459) she gave the sum of forty shillings to the Abbess and Minoresses of Aldgate of the Order of St. Clare, for the purpose of purchasing for themselves two pittances or doles on the anniversaries of the decease of her husband the late king and of Sir John de Eltham ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume I • Reginald R. Sharpe
... had long been established at Lyons. There is a verbose "Epistre" or Preface in French to the "moult reuerende Abbesse du religieux conuent S. Pierre de Lyon, Madame Iehanne de Touszele," otherwise the Abbess of Saint Pierre les Nonnains, a religious house containing many noble and wealthy ladies, and the words, "Salut d'un vray Zele," which conclude the dedicatory heading, are supposed to reveal indirectly the author of the "Epistre" itself, namely, Jean de Vauzelles, ...
— The Dance of Death • Hans Holbein
... our landau and caleche at Lucerne, and proceeded in them to Zug, where there is a famous convent or Frauenkloster, which escaped being destroyed during the Revolution, because the abbess and nuns established a school for the female children of the neighbourhood, where they still continue to teach them to read and work: Madame Gautier had desired us to go and see it, and to it we walked: rang at the bell, were told that the nuns ...
— The Life and Letters of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... November, the Maid was at Moulins in Bourbonnais.[1862] What was she doing there? No one knows. There was at that time in the town an abbess very holy and very greatly venerated. Her name was Colette Boilet. She had won the highest praise and incurred the grossest insults by attempting to reform the order of Saint Clare. Colette lived in the convent ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France
... told in this book were very different from each other in many ways. The child abbess, Mere Angelique, ruling her convent, and at war with naughty abbesses who hated being earnest, does not at once remind us of Hannibal. The great Montrose, with his poems and his scented love-locks, his devotion ...
— The Red Book of Heroes • Leonora Blanche Lang
... lip in charming confusion; while an abbess, with face serene in the frame of her snowy coif, caught up ...
— The Day of Days - An Extravaganza • Louis Joseph Vance
... take my charge to the abbess of her own order at Glastonbury, where they would be tended in all honour as here with herself, and she gave me a letter also to the abbess to tell her what was needed and why they came, and then she gave me a bag with gold in it, knowing that I might have to buy help on the way. For all this ...
— A Thane of Wessex • Charles W. Whistler
... teaching.[55] Very early in its history Japanese Buddhism welcomed womanhood to its fraternity and order,[56] yet the Japanese ama, bikuni, or nun, never became a sister of mercy, or reached, even within a measurable distance, the dignity of the Christian lady in the nunnery. In European history the abbess is a notable figure. She is hardly heard of beyond the Japanese nunnery, even by the native ...
— The Religions of Japan - From the Dawn of History to the Era of Meiji • William Elliot Griffis
... give to a crew, thus exposed, the appearance of half-drowned rats. Luckily the wind began to subside, and by degrees old ocean wore a face of undisturbed serenity. Our crew was a motley one; but among them, an Abbess, with a visage of parchment-like rigidity, and with her broad streaming bands, seemed to experience particular distress. She was surrounded by some hale, hearty market women, whose robust forms, and copper-tinted countenances, ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume One • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... as he was, he could not close his eyes till towards day, but had not slept above two hours before the peasant who had served him as a guide, and had also stayed at the inn, came into his room, and waked him abruptly, telling him the lady abbess desired to speak with him.—Natura was much vexed at this disturbance, and not sufficiently awaked to recollect himself, only cried peevishly, 'What have I to do with abbesses,' and then turned ...
— Life's Progress Through The Passions - Or, The Adventures of Natura • Eliza Fowler Haywood
... your safety, to make our escape sure by coming with us. I made the young nobleman's promises glitter before her eyes and said to her: 'If you consent to go with him to-night you'll have a solid annuity, inscribed at the Hotel de Ville, and an outfit richer than any ballet dancer or Abbess of Panthemont may get, and a cupboard full of the finest silver.' 'He thinks me to be one of those creatures," she said; 'he is an impudent fellow.' 'He loves you,' I replied; 'you could not expect to be venerated?' ...
— The Queen Pedauque • Anatole France
... exciting admiration, and making illustrious proselytes. Among them was Arnauld D'Antilly, the intimate friend of Richelieu and Anne of Austria; Le Maitre, the most eloquent lawyer and advocate in France; and Angelique Arnauld, the abbess of Port Royal. This last was one of the most distinguished ladies of her age, noble by birth, and still more noble by her beautiful qualities of mind and heart. She had been made abbess of her Cistercian convent ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord
... Abbess of Fontevrault came to see him. The King's mother Eleanor, her guest, had been sent for in a hurry. The king had been hurt. A serf of Achard of Chalus had ploughed up a golden relic, an emperor with his ...
— Hugh, Bishop of Lincoln - A Short Story of One of the Makers of Mediaeval England • Charles L. Marson
... demanded our business. With much nonchalance Don C. expressed a desire to pay his respects to the ladies under her charge, especially to the one just admitted. His coolness somewhat disconcerted the supreme lady Abbess, to whom such a request had never before been preferred, I warrant, and her black eyes sparkled with scarcely a holy fire, as she answered this time in Spanish, and in the tone of dignity which that language can convey so well, "That the ...
— Kathay: A Cruise in the China Seas • W. Hastings Macaulay
... rests at Fulda, where also his body lies. A copy of St. Jerome on Ecclesiastes, written in Italy in the sixth or seventh century, has in it the Anglo-Saxon inscription, "The book of Cuthsuuitha the Abbess." The only Abbess Cuthsuuitha we know of presided over a nunnery in or near Worcester about 690-700. Her book travelled to Germany with some British or English missionary, and is at Wuerzburg. Wuerzburg is an Irish foundation; its apostle and patron, ...
— The Wanderings and Homes of Manuscripts - Helps for Students of History, No. 17. • M. R. James
... generous fervour and the massive piety of an age that could still believe felt the icy and disintegrating touch of a new and strange indifference. 'Mais qu'elle est jolie!' he murmured as he came away. The Abbess ran forward to ask what holy books he recommended. 'Give her a threepenny Catechism,' was Massillon's reply. He had seen ...
— Books and Characters - French and English • Lytton Strachey
... allowed, however, to play at this game for ever; she was at length discovered in a nunnery, and her retreat cut off. The viceroy made several representations to the superior to deliver her up, but without effect. The abbess, supported by the archbishop of the diocese, constantly refused. The public curiosity was in consequence so much excited at the additional importance thus thrust upon the criminal, that thousands of persons visited the nunnery in order to catch ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... especially after you came in. It was you came in, wasn't it? Her mother's simply an absurd worldly old woman. My Lebyadkin distinguished himself too. I kept looking at the ceiling to keep from laughing; the ceiling there is finely painted. His mother ought to be an abbess. I'm afraid of her, though she did give me a black shawl. Of course, they must all have come to strange conclusions about me. I wasn't vexed, but I sat there, thinking what relation am I to them? Of ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... wall. She wore a white, lace scarf over her hair—turned up and back, dressed high, as of old, though now somewhat gray upon the temples. The lace was tied under her chin, framing her face. In her gray dress she looked as some stately, yet gracious lady abbess might—a lady abbess who had known love in all fulness, yet in all honour—a lady abbess painted, if such happy chance could be, by the debonair and clean-hearted Reynolds. She stood smiling, charmed—though a trifle ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... to Marshal the duc de Raguse; Madame la prefete, resplendent in the latest fashion from Paris, the Duc and Duchesse d'Embrun, cousins of the bride, the Vicomte de Genevois and his mother, who was Abbess of Pont Haut and godmother by proxy to Crystal de Cambray; whilst General Marchand, in command of the troops of the district, fresh from the Council of War which he had hastily convened, was trying to hide behind a debonnaire manner all the anxiety which "the brigand's" ...
— The Bronze Eagle - A Story of the Hundred Days • Emmuska Orczy, Baroness Orczy
... came up to him and claimed him as her lunatic husband who had escaped from his keepers, and the men she brought with her were going to lay violent hands on Antipholus and Dromio; but they ran into the convent, and Antipholus begged the abbess to give ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... Abbey, where she solemnly assumed the veil of a black nun. She was now plain Sister Margaret, and in due course of time and promotion, she would become Mother Margaret, and then, perhaps, Prioress and Abbess. And then—her soul would be ...
— A Forgotten Hero - Not for Him • Emily Sarah Holt
... although they were nuns, they had their little imperfections. They found themselves barren in a certain particular, hence the evil. But the truth of the matter is, all these wickednesses were the deeds of an abbess who had fourteen children, all born alive, since they had been perfected at leisure. The fantastic amours and the wild conduct of this woman, who was of royal blood, caused the convent of Poissy to become fashionable; and thereafter no pleasant adventure ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 2 • Honore de Balzac
... councils of the Church and signed its decrees; while kings were even dependent upon their consent in granting certain charters. The synod of Whitby, in the ninth century, was held in the convent of the Abbess Hilda, she herself presiding over its deliberations. The famous prophetess of Kent at one period communicated the orders of Heaven to the Pope himself. Ladies of birth and quality sat in council with the Saxon Witas—i.e., wise men—taking part in the Witenagemot, the ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... Cardinal Woolsey and the Duke of Buckingham, previous to that haughty prelate's dismissal from royal favor and ultimate disgrace, and on the death of the Marchioness of Cosingby who, for forty years reigned as the Lady Abbess, the sisters of this order moved elsewhere, as the property fell into the hands of Eustace, first Earl of Castlemere, heir-at-law, by whom and his successors, alterations and additions were made ...
— Vellenaux - A Novel • Edmund William Forrest
... was a better judge of conduct in the case of others, or a sterner champion of moral probity, when it did not conflict with his own desires or conscience. In 1528 Anne Boleyn and her friends were anxious to make a relative abbess of Wilton.[686] But she had been notoriously unchaste. "Wherefore," wrote Henry to Anne herself, "I would not, for all the gold in the world, cloak your conscience nor mine to make her ruler of a house which ...
— Henry VIII. • A. F. Pollard
... breaks into an appeal to the strong to break into the great convent, to hang the abbess, and say to the Countess, "Appear again, O splendor! Away with grief, away! Long life ...
— Frederic Mistral - Poet and Leader in Provence • Charles Alfred Downer
... Sens, died peacefully, on the 21st of April, 1142, in the abbey of St. Marcellus, near Chalon-sur-Saone, after having received the sacraments with much piety, and in presence of all the brethren of the monastery. "Thus," wrote Peter the Venerable to Heloise, abbess for eleven years past of the Paraclete, "the man who, by his singular authority in science, was known to nearly all the world, and was illustrious wherever he was known, learned, in the school of Him who said, 'Know that I am meek and lowly of heart,' to remain meek and lowly; and, as it is but ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume II. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... the Queen, 'Lo! they have set her on, Our simple-seeming Abbess and her nuns, To play upon me,' and bowed her head nor spake. Whereat the novice crying, with clasped hands, Shame on her own garrulity garrulously, Said the good nuns would check her gadding tongue Full often, 'and, sweet lady, if I seem To vex an ear too sad to ...
— Idylls of the King • Alfred, Lord Tennyson
... of Italian dramas, a pastoral play composed by Niccolo da Correggio, chiefly taken from Ovid's "Metamorphoses," and which is said to have suggested the subjects of Correggio's famous frescoes in the Abbess of San Paolo's parlour at Parma. Each Christmas and carnival these theatrical representations were repeated, and many were the distinguished visitors who came to Ferrara to witness these celebrated performances. The Amphitryon and Cassina of Plautus were frequently ...
— Beatrice d'Este, Duchess of Milan, 1475-1497 • Julia Mary Cartwright
... the letters he entrusted to my charge. The one I have brought to the Contessa was enclosed in an envelope to me and marked 'To be personally delivered in case of my death.' But among the letters for the post was one to the Marquis's only sister, the Abbess of a convent in Paris—she will ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... 2nd. A heavy ring enamelled in colours, and bearing a jacynth. 3rd. An amethystine sapphire. 4th. A polished ruby, surrounded by diamonds. 5th. The engraved ring of an abbess. 6th. ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy
... founded in the thirteenth century by Blanche of Navarre, wife of Duke John I. (le Roux). The chapel of Notre Dame-de-Paradis formerly belonged to the convent; but when the parish church was demolished, the Abbey ceded this chapel to the town, reserving the privilege of a separate seat for the Abbess, who, on the Sunday after St. John's day, had her crosier carried before her in state by one of her vassals at ...
— Brittany & Its Byways • Fanny Bury Palliser
... I shall love them! Even at Bellaise, when first we came there, we used to sing them, but the Mother Abbess went out visiting, and when she came back she said they were heretical. And Soeur Monique would not let me say the texts he taught me, but I WOULD not forget them. I say ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Milady showed her the cardinal's order. The abbess assigned her a chamber, and had ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... those men of quality, whose fortunes are not equal to their birth, was thinking to remove him from his studies, after having allowed him a competent maintenance for a year or two. He communicated these his thoughts to Magdalen. Jasso, his daughter, abbess of the convent of St Clare de Gandia, famous for the austerity of its rules, and established by some holy Frenchwomen of that order, whom the calamities of war had forced to forsake their native country, and to seek a sanctuary in the kingdom ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume XVI. (of 18) - The Life of St. Francis Xavier • John Dryden
... undertook a reform of the monasteries and their system of instruction, and the establishment of new schools throughout the kingdom of Charlemagne. At the court school the great king himself, as well as Liutgard the queen, became his pupil. Gisela, Abbess of Chelles, the sister of Charlemagne, came also to him for instruction, as did the Princes Charles, Pepin, and Louis, and the Princesses Rotrud and Gisela. On himself and the others, in accordance with the fashion ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... mine—for the greater the love the sharper the eye to mark, prevent, countermine. And this maid, so cold and icy, so full of good works and the abounding fame of saintliness, let her live for the healing of the people, for the love of God and man both, and it liketh her. She shall be abbess of our greatest convent. She shall indeed be the Saint Helena of the North. Even now I will save her from death and give her refuge. I promise it. I have the power in my hands. Only do you, Hugo Gottfried, give me your love, ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... must first tell your decision to the Abbess of a convent, so that when I take you away through the underground passage to the Madocsany Castle, a nun may be waiting for you there with a closed carriage. Great prudence and careful preparations are necessary. ...
— Peter the Priest • Mr Jkai
... habit of a nun, holding a platter in its paws to a mouse approaching to lick it; alluding to the allurements of the abbesses to draw young women into their convents; while sometimes I have seen a sow in an abbess's veil, mounted on stilts: the sex marked by the sow's dugs. A pope sometimes appears to be thrust by devils into a cauldron; and cardinals are seen roasting on spits! These ornaments must have been generally executed by the monks themselves; but ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... mine in my noviciate, father. Thro' all closed doors a dreadful whisper crept That thou wouldst excommunicate the King. I could not eat, sleep, pray: I had with me The monk's disguise thou gavest me for my bower: I think our Abbess knew it and allow'd it. I fled, and found thy name a charm to get me Food, roof, and rest. I met a robber once, I told him I was bound to see the Archbishop; 'Pass on,' he said, and in thy name I pass'd From house to house. In one a son stone-blind ...
— Becket and other plays • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... tells you and take a farmer's blessing, and with that he slapped his posteriors very soundly. But the slap and the blessing stood him friend, says Mr Vincent, for to make up he taught him a trick worth two of the other so that maid, wife, abbess and widow to this day affirm that they would rather any time of the month whisper in his ear in the dark of a cowhouse or get a lick on the nape from his long holy tongue than lie with the finest strapping ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... dais sat the stately Abbess Addula, daughter of King Dagobert, looking a princess indeed, in her violet tunic, with the hood and cuffs of her long white robe trimmed with fur, and a snowy veil resting like a crown on her snowy hair. At her right hand was the ...
— The First Christmas Tree - A Story of the Forest • Henry Van Dyke
... bank of the Thames, and opposite Richmond gardens. It is called Sion from a nunnery of Bridgetines of the same name, originally founded at Twickenham, by Henry V. in 1414, and removed to this spot in 1432. This conventual association consisted of sixty nuns, the abbess, thirteen priests, four deacons, and eight lay brethren; the whole thus corresponding, in point of number, with the Apostles and seventy-two disciples of Christ. But the inmates were neither sinless nor spotless; many irregularities existed in the foundation, and consequently, Sion ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 14, - Issue 389, September 12, 1829 • Various
... delightful to observe the Mother Abbess, or whatever she is, disguising the fact that she takes any interest in ...
— The Path of a Star • Mrs. Everard Cotes (AKA Sara Jeannette Duncan)
... she was elected abbess of the convent. It was a day of triumph for her powerful family. Perhaps the Count Balbo may have sometimes regretted that solemn vow, but he never betrayed repentance. Perhaps he would have been more secretly satisfied by the triumphant worldly career of a woman like his daughter, ...
— Gifts of Genius - A Miscellany of Prose and Poetry by American Authors • Various
... uncle of St. Wenceslaus, but this sounds rather doubtful. Boleslav II, however, is known to have founded a convent here, probably the oldest in Bohemia, and he installed his sister Milada as first abbess. St. Ludmilla was also buried here, so the Hrad[vs]any was increasing in sanctity. Boleslav II is also responsible for providing Prague with her first bishop. We have seen that Henry the Fowler had incorporated Bohemia into the bishopric of Ratisbon; this was before that country could ...
— From a Terrace in Prague • Lieut.-Col. B. Granville Baker
... of old welcomed to the city and installed in the See. Thither came all the clergy of the diocese to take part in a strange and beautiful ceremony. Attached to the church was a Benedictine convent, whose abbess seems to have represented the diocese of Florence. There in S. Piero the Archbishop came to wed her, and thus became the guardian of the city. The church is destroyed now, and, as we have seen, all the monks and nuns have departed; the Government has stolen their dowries and ...
— Florence and Northern Tuscany with Genoa • Edward Hutton
... last sliced it off, the gangrene was too confirmed to admit of remedy. Dame Martin thought it high time to send for Miss Margaret, who, ever since her mother's death, had been living with her maternal aunt, the abbess, in the Ursuline convent at Greenwich. The young lady came, and with her came one Master Ingoldsby, her cousin-german by the mother's side; but the Baron was too far gone in the dead-thraw to recognize either. He died as he lived, unconquered and unconquerable. His ...
— Half-Hours with Great Story-Tellers • Various
... Thibault went on the morrow into that house and heard mass, and thereafter spake to the abbess, and the convent, and prayed them that they would guard that Lady there till his coming back; and they granted it to him much willingly. Messire Thibault left of his meney there to serve the Lady, and went his ways, ...
— Old French Romances • William Morris
... suppose he will be happy to see his mamma again. But, my dear, you must not scold me for having gone away. It was so dull at home without you, so lonesome, that I could bear it no longer, and I took a trip to Valki, to visit the Abbess ...
— Rabbi and Priest - A Story • Milton Goldsmith
... and torments. Legends there were of small kingdoms torn asunder, of the slaughter of their kings, the mad fightings of their barons, and the faith or unfaith of their serfs. Here and there the eternal power revealed itself in some story of lawful or unlawful love—for dame or damsel, royal lady, abbess, or high-born nun—ending in the welding of two lives or in rapine, violence, and death. There were annals of early England, and of marauders, monks, and Danes. And, through all these, some thing, some man or woman, place, or strife linked by some tie with Mount Dunstan blood. In past ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... madrigals; they praised each other in verse; they wrote long letters on the slightest pretext. As a specimen of the badinage so much in vogue, I quote from a letter written by Voiture to one of the daughters of Mme. de Rambouillet, who was an abbess, and had sent him a ...
— The Women of the French Salons • Amelia Gere Mason
... Grand Duke, on 7th August 1574, soon after Cammilla's reception, the Very Reverend Abbess of Santa Monica humbly thanked his Serene Highness "for the generous treatment of the young widow, and begs remembrance of his good offices for her and for the ...
— The Tragedies of the Medici • Edgcumbe Staley
... a lot about life that I do not know. And that other man Sir Something-or-other Wright, who said plainly that men cannot work side by side with women because they get excited.... And yet, you know, women have had glimpses of a freedom that was not mischievous. I could have been happy as a Lady Abbess—I must have space and dignity, Stephen—and those women had things in their hands as no women have things in their hands to-day. They came to the House of Lords. But they lost all that. Was there some sort ...
— The Passionate Friends • Herbert George Wells
... monastry:—he invented many pretences, but none seemed satisfactory to himself, therefore could not expect they would pass upon others.—Sometimes he thought of disguising himself in the habit of a woman, his youth, and the delicacy of his complexion making him imagine he might impose on the abbess and the nuns for such; but then he feared being betrayed, by not being able to answer the questions which would in all probability be asked him.—He endeavoured to find out some person that was acquainted there; but tho' he asked all the gentlemen, which were a great many, ...
— The Fortunate Foundlings • Eliza Fowler Haywood
... and killed by pouring boiling oil over them. In one of Pitre's versions the robbers are hidden in sacks of charcoal, and the cunning daughter pierces the bags with a red-hot spit. In another, they are hidden in oil-skins, and sold to the abbess of a certain convent for oil. One of the nuns has some suspicion of the trick, and invites her companions to tap the skins with red-hot irons. Another Sicilian version (Gonz. No. 79, "The Story of the Twelve Robbers") contains the ...
— Italian Popular Tales • Thomas Frederick Crane
... and more unprofitable. The sturgeon, it is true, still made their appearance, but they were spent and thin, and altogether unlike those which had been wont of yore to visit the fishing-ground of the sisterhood. The abbess and the nuns, however, either could not or they would not perceive the cause of the falling off in the take, or the change in the appearance of the sturgeon, but the common people who dwelt in the vicinity of the convent, and especially ...
— Folk-lore and Legends: German • Anonymous
... instances, the termination is changed, and there is no increase of syllables: as, abbot, abbess; actor, actress; adulator, adulatress; adulterer, adulteress; adventurer, adventuress; advoutrer, advoutress; ambassador, ambassadress; anchorite, anchoress; or, anachoret, anachoress; arbiter, arbitress; auditor, auditress; benefactor, benefactress; ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... towards the tall cliffs and the German Ocean. Ecgberht, fourth Christian king of Kent, by the advice of Theodore, the monk of Tarsus who became Archbishop of Canterbury, made over to the lady whose name is conveniently Latinised as Dompneva, first abbess, some forty-eight plough-lands in the Isle of Thanet. This cultivated district, bounded by the ancient earthwork known (from the name of the second abbess) as St. Mildred's Lynch, lay almost entirely within ...
— Science in Arcady • Grant Allen
... with a shrug. "I don't think so. She is too pale, and proud, and cold, and too far up in the clouds altogether. She ought to go and be a nun; she would make a splendid lady-abbess." ...
— Kate Danton, or, Captain Danton's Daughters - A Novel • May Agnes Fleming
... wedded to a young wife, remained childless; but no public notice was taken until Duke Francis succeeded to the duchy in 1618. He was a ruthless enemy to witches; all in the land were sought out with great diligence and burned, and as they unanimously named the Abbess of Marienfliess [Footnote: Sidonia never attained this dignity, though Micraelius and others gave her the title.] upon the rack, she was brought to Stettin by command of the Duke, where she freely confessed all the evil wrought by her sorceries ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V1 • William Mienhold
... speculations regarding her origin. If from the first, from the moment when, as a young girl, she left the convent to enter into possession of her fortune she had chosen to assert some right to a footing in the most exclusive aristocracy in the world, it is not impossible that the protection of the Abbess might have helped her to obtain it. The secret of her birth would, however, have rendered a marriage with a man of that class all but impossible, and would have entirely excluded her from the only other position considered dignified for a well-born woman of fortune, unmarried and ...
— The Witch of Prague • F. Marion Crawford
... espouse the poor babe; he—a blood-stained, dicing, drunken rover, with whom I would not trust a dog that I loved! Yet my death would place her at the disposal of his father, who would give her at once to him. Nay, even his aunt, the abbess, will believe nothing against him, and hath even striven with me to have her betrothed at once. On the barest rumour of my death will they wed the poor little thing, and then woe to her, and woe to ...
— The Dove in the Eagle's Nest • Charlotte M. Yonge
... sculptured lid of roses white, She slumbered in unbroken night, By mortal eyes unseen. Above her marble couch was reared A monumental shrine, Where cloistered sisters, gathering round, Made night and morn the aisle resound With choristry divine The abbess died: and in her pride Her parting mandate said, They should her final rest provide The alabaster couch beside, Where ...
— Gryll Grange • Thomas Love Peacock
... had established his headquarters in the buildings outside the convent of Saint-Claire, and the abbess of this convent was presented to his Majesty. She was then more than sixty-five years old, and from the age of ten years back never left this place. Her intelligent and refined conversation made a most agreeable ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... of the abbess, Magdalena von Petersdorfin—Item, how Duke Francis makes Jobst Bork and his daughter, Diliana, come to Camyn, and what ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold
... appeared, returned in the evening to offer consolation to Emily, and brought a kind message from the lady abbess, inviting her to the convent. Emily, though she did not accept the offer, returned an answer expressive of her gratitude. The holy conversation of the friar, whose mild benevolence of manners bore some resemblance to those of St. Aubert, soothed the violence of her grief, ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... him? Oh, I have thought of it, and until—until this morning, it seemed that a convent must be my ultimate refuge. I have spent most of my young life at Santa Sofia, and the little that I have seen of the world at my uncle's court scarce invites me to see more of it. The Mother Abbess loved me a little. She would take ...
— Love-at-Arms • Raphael Sabatini
... into the Abbess's chamber and unarmed him; and therein came twelve nuns that brought with them Galahad, the which was passing fair and well made, that unnethe[1] in the world men might not find his match: and all those ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 5 • Charles Sylvester
... to her memory. Among the other celebrated nuns and saints of the fourteenth century may be mentioned the Blessed Marina, who founded the cloister of Saint Matthew at Spoleta; the Blessed Cantuccia, a Benedictine abbess; and the Holy Humilitas, abbess of the Order of Vallombrosa at Florence; but none of them compare in pious works or in worldly reputation with the wise and hard-working ...
— Women of the Romance Countries • John R. Effinger
... the ten days, from the Ascension to Whitsuntide, at an abbey four leagues from Paris, the abbess of which had a particular friendship for me. Here my union with God seemed to be deeper and more continued, becoming always simple, at the same time ...
— The Autobiography of Madame Guyon • Jeanne Marie Bouvier de La Motte Guyon
... 735), 'what could his sister Artemis have been, from the very beginning, if not some goddess connected with the moon?' Very likely; quis negavit? Then our author, like myself (loc. cit.), dilates on Artemis as 'sister of Apollo.' 'Her chapels,' I say, 'are in the wild wood; she is the abbess of the forest nymphs,' 'chaste and fair, the maiden of the precise life.' How odd! The classical scholar and I both say the same things; and I add a sonnet to Artemis in this aspect, rendered by me from the ...
— Modern Mythology • Andrew Lang
... disappointments now no longer recent;—to relinquish, without repining, frequent intercourse with those I love;—to settle myself in my monastery, without one idea of ever quitting it; to study for the approbation of my lady abbess, and make it a principal source of content, as well as spring of action; -and to associate more cheerily with my surrounding nuns and monks;—these were the articles which ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... wretched abbess is described as an alchemist as well as a sorceress, and she descends to the depths of the lowest and most revolting witchcraft. She practises shape-shifting and similar arts. She has power over natural forces, and knows the past, the present, and the things to be. She possesses sufficient Druidic ...
— Legends & Romances of Brittany • Lewis Spence
... and a creature of the prince. The king has also, I hear, promised to him the hand of the young Lady Margaret, when she shall become of marriageable age. At present she is placed in a convent in Worcester. The abbess is, I believe, a friend of the late earl, and the girl had been with her for some time previously. Indeed she went there, I think, when her father left England. This lady was ordered to give up her charge to the guardianship of Sir Rudolph; ...
— The Boy Knight • G.A. Henty
... or, as she must now be called, the Abbess of St. Idlewhim, was the traitress. Yet, why call I her so? She did but obey ...
— The Knight of the Golden Melice - A Historical Romance • John Turvill Adams
... jewels, or about having a good time. Her only longing was to do good and to make other people happy, and to grow good and wise herself, so that she could do this all the better. So she studied and studied, worked and worked; and she became a holy woman, an Abbess. And while she was still very young and beautiful, she was given charge of a whole convent of nuns and school-girls not much younger than herself, because she was so much wiser and better than any one else in ...
— The Book of Saints and Friendly Beasts • Abbie Farwell Brown
... below," said Little John, hurriedly. "I bethought me to talk with Stuteley on the matter. The beggar told me that the Abbess of Kirklees had stayed him as he was travelling past her Priory: 'Go to Haddon, brother, and there you will find Robin Hood sick unto death. Say that in the woods near by there is one who is practising magic upon him, having made a little image of Robin Hood. At each change ...
— Robin Hood • Paul Creswick
... transformations known to this once quiet spot. Drury Lane is close at hand, and Covent Garden Theatre is as well known as the market itself. The convent has become a play-house. "Monks and nuns turn actors and actresses. The garden, formal and quiet, where a salad was cut for a lady abbess, and flowers were gathered to adorn images, becomes a market, noisy and full of life, distributing its thousands of fruits and flowers to a vicious metropolis." Two quaint old inns are still here; two great national theatres, and a churchyard ...
— Prisoners of Poverty Abroad • Helen Campbell
... gone by. The abbess of the Convent of Santa Ines and Maese Perez's daughter were talking in a low voice, half hidden in the shadows of the church choir. The penetrating voice of the bell was summoning the faithful. A very few people were passing through the portico, silent and deserted, this year, and after taking ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: Spanish • Various
... in England in 1127 forbade any abbess or nun to use more costly fur than that of lambs or cats, and it is proved that cat-fur was at that time commonly used for trimming dresses. The cat was, probably for that reason, an object of chase in royal forests, and ...
— Concerning Cats - My Own and Some Others • Helen M. Winslow
... began to find that she could lead a much freer and gayer life now that she was a prioress; for the prioress of a convent had rooms of her own, instead of sharing the common dormitory and refectory; sometimes she even had a sort of little house with a private kitchen. The abbess of one great nunnery at Winchester in the sixteenth century had her own staff to look after her, a cook, and an under cook, and a housemaid and a gentlewoman to wait upon her, like any great lady in the world, and never dined with the nuns except on ...
— Medieval People • Eileen Edna Power
... confirmed by a Compotus roll of St. Swithin's Priory at Winchester (1441), from which it appears that the boys of the monastery, along with the choristers of St. Elizabeth's Collegiate Chapel, near the city, played before the Abbess and Nuns of St. Mary's ...
— The Customs of Old England • F. J. Snell
... abbey founded by Ealhswith, King Alfred's queen, in which to spend the years of her widowhood. The general plan of the gardens has probably been but little altered since the days when the nuns paced their shady paths in pious meditation. An ancient manuscript of prayers, used by the abbess in the ninth century, is preserved in the British Museum. Ealhswith's son, Edward the Elder, levied a toll from all merchandise passing under the City Bridge by water, and beneath the East Gate by land, for ...
— Winchester • Sidney Heath
... certain favors from the royal treasury; and their agent avails himself of this opportunity to ask favors for his own order, the Franciscan Recollects. The nuns themselves write to the king (June 30, 1636), through their abbess, Ana de Christo, informing him of their progress and growth in the Philippines, and other matters. They have founded a convent of their order at Macao; and have built a house at Manila for their residence. They complain that Governor Corcuera has ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 • Various
... Dymokes and the Hotchkin family. The reading desk was presented by the writer in memory of his father, the Rev. E. Walter. As a support to the Credence-table in the chancel is a stone with an effigy of a lady abbess of Stixwould Priory. This, with the stone for the church, was given by the late Mr. Christopher Turnor, owner of the Stixwould Estate, from the Priory ruins, and, as from the rude character of the carving it is evidently of very ...
— Records of Woodhall Spa and Neighbourhood - Historical, Anecdotal, Physiographical, and Archaeological, with Other Matter • J. Conway Walter
... invitation to her to come over here to teach, she was, of course, quite right to consider her own interests. She can make more money in London than she could in Ireland. I forgot that she couldn't bring her baby with her, remembering only that my eldest sister is Mother Abbess in the Tinnick Convent—a very superior woman, if I may venture to praise my own sister. The convent was very poor at one time, but she has made the school a success, and, hearing that she wanted someone who would teach music and singing, I proposed to her that she should engage Miss ...
— The Lake • George Moore
... date. Some contend that it is the identical church which William of Malmesbury tells us St. Aldhelm built at Bradford-on-Avon about 700 A.D., others assert that it cannot be earlier than the tenth century. It was a monastic cell attached to the Abbey of Malmesbury, but Ethelred II gave it to the Abbess of Shaftesbury in 1001 as a secure retreat for her nuns if Shaftesbury should be threatened by the ravaging Danes. We need not describe the building, as it is well known. Our artist has furnished us with an admirable ...
— Vanishing England • P. H. Ditchfield
... not thinking of that; but if I could, say with Bull and Macwitty, suddenly attack him like three robbers, we might carry off something that would serve as a sort of passport to the lady abbess. For instance, he had a tremendously big ring on. I noticed it as he held up his hands, as if on ...
— With Moore At Corunna • G. A. Henty
... by Mr W. H. Hart ("Chartulary," i. 3), the first mention of the abbey is in 681, when it was founded by Osric, viceroy of King Ethelred. It was dedicated to St. Peter, and Kyneburga (the sister of Osric) was the first Abbess of a double foundation for monks and ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Gloucester [2nd ed.] • H. J. L. J. Masse
... improve their fortunes till they are of an age to be married. They do not all sleep under the same roof, but in detached houses within an enclosure. In each of these houses are three, four, or perhaps six young girls, under the care of an old woman. These governesses, together with the abbess, are of the number of such as have never been married. These girls never wear the habit of the order but in church; and the service there ended, they dress like others, pay visits, frequent balls, and go where they please. They ...
— Memoirs And Historical Chronicles Of The Courts Of Europe - Marguerite de Valois, Madame de Pompadour, and Catherine de Medici • Various
... somersaults, saints like butchers, and martyrs simpering feebly. Like C.'s babies much better. Heaven can't be painted, and they'd better not try. Madonna, by Girolamo, was lovely. Room of the Abbess, with rosy children peeping through the lattice, very charming. Madonna della Scodella—the boy Christ very charming. The old Farnese Theatre most interesting; got a scrap of canvas from a mouldy scene. Dead ...
— Shawl-Straps - A Second Series of Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag • Louisa M. Alcott
... is worthy consideration. As the newspapers say, it is an "unprecedented opportunity for investment!" For the sole Helicon of the institution shall be—"Blackwood's Entire" its lady abbess— ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 55, No. 340, February, 1844 • Various
... of Saint Bride, and carry me from hence to freedom and the greenwood, of which Wallace was generally called the king. In an evil hour—an hour I think of infatuation and witchery—I suffered the abbess to wheedle the secret out of me, which I might have been sensible would appear more horribly flagitious to her than to any other woman that breathed; but I had not taken the vows, and I thought Wallace and Fleming had the same charms for every body as for me, and the artful woman gave me reason ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... not remain in Scotland, as she succeeded her friend and patroness St. Bridget as Abbess of Kildare, ...
— A Calendar of Scottish Saints • Michael Barrett
... to a convent at Teirargues, where, after enduring considerable persecution, she persisted in her steadfastness, and was released after a twelvemonth's confinement. Five years later she was again seized and sent to another convent; but, continuing immovable against the entreaties and threats of the abbess and confessor, she was again set ...
— The Huguenots in France • Samuel Smiles
... unoffending wife, whom all who saw her (her husband and his monks excepted) loved. He seized rapaciously upon her fortune and her jewels, and allowing her only one attendant, confined her in a gloomy convent, of which a sister of his—no doubt an unpleasant lady after his own heart—was abbess or jailer. ...
— A Child's History of England • Charles Dickens
... supposed—more so than could be believed. I know that the possessed Abbess is his niece, and that he is provided with an order in council directing him to judge, without being deterred by any appeals lodged in Parliament, the Cardinal having prohibited the latter from taking cognizance of the matter of ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... flight as he talked rapidly and brokenly, kissing her cheek, her neck, straining her so close to him that she could hardly breathe. Suddenly it poised above the memory of an old book of Renan's, "The Abbess Juarre," in which the eminent skeptic had somewhat clumsily attempted to demonstrate that if the world unmistakably announced its finish within three days the inhabitants would give themselves up to an ...
— The White Morning • Gertrude Atherton
... certain convent there were eight large dormitories on one floor, approached by a spiral staircase in the centre, as shown in our plan. On an inspection one Monday by the abbess it was found that the south aspect was so much preferred that six times as many nuns slept on the south side as on each of the other three sides. She objected to this overcrowding, and ordered that it should be reduced. On Tuesday she found that five ...
— Amusements in Mathematics • Henry Ernest Dudeney
... personality, with the wonderful tumult in the air that her large and enthusiastic following excited, fascinated the imagination. What had she originated? I mentally questioned this modern St. Catherine who was dominating her followers like any abbess of old. She told me the story of her life, so far as outward events may translate those inner experiences which ...
— Pulpit and Press (6th Edition) • Mary Baker Eddy
... France, who, while here, married the Duke of Suffolk. Her chamber still exists, and we saw it in high preservation. This marriage, you will remember, laid the foundation for the claim of Lady Jane Grey to the crown. Here, too, for a season, the excellent abbess and the nuns of Port Royal found a refuge. Some forty years ago, it came into the hands of M. Sommerard, a man devoted to antiquarian pursuits, and here he expended a large property in forming a vast collection of all sorts of relics ...
— Young Americans Abroad - Vacation in Europe: Travels in England, France, Holland, - Belgium, Prussia and Switzerland • Various
... meet her, or left Naples with the intention of joining her party, the chances are that I as well as you would be snubbed. In her desire to avoid society and personal attention, one might suppose her an escaped abbess from some convent, instead of a popular actress. It was with much difficulty that I prevailed on her to receive my son and wife one afternoon; as she remarked that her object in coming here was to secure health, not acquaintances. In treating ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... daughter of a Thuringian king, who first saw her father's kingdom lost, and then, fleeing from the cruelty of her husband, the bloodstained Chlotaire, took the veil in Poitiers and founded a convent, of which she made Agnes, a noble Franconian lady, the abbess. When Fortunatus visited the place, these ladies became his devoted friends, and he remained there as a priest until the death of Radegunde. His poems to them, which were often letters and notes written off-hand, are full of affection and gratitude (he was, by the way, a gourmet, ...
— The Development of the Feeling for Nature in the Middle Ages and - Modern Times • Alfred Biese
... girl, with an expression of fear.—"God pardon us both! I meant no harm. I speak of our blessed Saint Catherine of Sienna!—may God forgive me that I spoke so lightly, and made you do a great sin and a great blasphemy. This was her nunnery, in which there were twelve nuns and an abbess. My aunt was the abbess, till ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... was a sad song, Abbess," Isabeau sighed, and her face seemed to have paled beneath its false colours and the lines about her mouth and eyes to have grown older in surrender to inevitable thoughts. She whom the girl called Abbess laughed, and her mirth ...
— If I Were King • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... of movement, prompted by an intense desire, the dead woman was carried into the convent parlour, passed through the window, and lowered from the walls before the Abbess, followed by the nuns, returned to take up Sister Theresa's body. The sister left in charge had imprudently left her post; there were secrets that she longed to know; and so busy was she ransacking the inner room, that she heard nothing, and was horrified when she ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... of Venus, whose white pillars and graceful acanthus-leaves once crowned a portion of the precipice on which the town was built, and were reflected from the glassy blue of the sea at its feet. It was said that this princess was the first lady abbess. Be that as it may, it proved to be a favorite retreat for many ladies of rank and religious aspiration, whom ill-fortune in some of its varying forms led to seek its quiet shades, and it was well and richly endowed by its ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 44, June, 1861 • Various
... had issue, besides his three sons who survived him, five daughters, to wit, (1.) Cicely, a nun in the monastery of Feschamp, afterwards abbess in the Holy Trinity at Caen, where she died in 1127. (2.) Constantia, married to Alan Fergent, Earl of Britany. She died without issue. (3.) Alice, contracted to Harold. (4.) Adela, married to Stephen, Earl of Blois, by whom she had four sons, William, Theobald, Henry, ...
— The History of England, Volume I • David Hume
... "Sing to me of the beginning of created things." Therefore he began to sing and, on awaking, remembered his song and added to it. Thereafter he told what had befallen him to the bailiff who was over him, who repeated the tale to the Abbess Hilda. She having called together certain learned and pious persons, C. was brought before them, told his story, and recited his verses. A part of Scripture was read to him, which he was asked to turn into verse; and this being ...
— A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature • John W. Cousin
... and, when the consequences of these alienations in mortmain came to be visible in the impoverishment of the public revenue, every attempt at legislative interference was in a great measure defeated by the piety or superstition of the age. The abbess of the monastery of Huelgas, which was situated within the precincts of Burgos, and contained within its walls one hundred and fifty nuns of the noblest families in Castile, exercised jurisdiction ever fourteen capital towns, and more than ...
— History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella V1 • William H. Prescott
... Burggraf Friedrich's daughter, she said nothing that we hear; silently became a Nun, an Abbess: and through a long life looked out, with her thoughts to herself, upon the loud whirlwind of things, where Sigismund (oftenest an imponderous rag of conspicuous color) was riding and tossing. Her two brothers also, joint Burggraves after their father's death, seemed ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... of caution, Philip tarried half-way between Saint Omer and Tournai, watching both armies and afraid to strike at either. The armies wore themselves out in this game of waiting until the widowed Countess of Hainault, then abbess of the Cistercian nuns of Fontenelles, was moved by the desolation of the country to intervene between the two kings. The mother of the Queen of England and the sister of the King of France, she succeeded not only by reason of her prayers, but through the refusal of the ...
— The History of England - From the Accession of Henry III. to the Death of Edward III. (1216-1377) • T.F. Tout
... hastening homeward from Florence. The information he collected from them made him determine to retrace his steps. He entered the room again, and, from the intelligence he had just acquired, gave Amadeo the assurance that Monna Tita must delay her entrance into the convent; for that the abbess had that moment gone down the hill on her way toward Siena to venerate some holy relics, carrying with her three candles, each five feet long, to burn before them; which candles contained many particles of the ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... Soulie has found a rough catalogue of Moliere's library, but the books, except a little Elzevir, have disappeared. {7} Madame de Maintenon was fond of bindings. Mr. Toovey possesses a copy of a devotional work in red morocco, tooled and gilt, which she presented to a friendly abbess. The books at Saint-Cyr were stamped with a crowned cross, besprent with fleurs-de-lys. The books of the later collectors—Longepierre, the translator of Bion and Moschus; D'Hoym the diplomatist; McCarthy, and La Valliere, are all valued at a rate ...
— The Library • Andrew Lang
... upon her own resources. She followed her first book, the success of which was immediate and very great, by a novel entitled "The Refugee in America," in which the plot is ill-constructed, and the characters are crudely drawn, but the writer's caustic humour lends animation to the page. "The Abbess," a novel, was her third effort; and then, in the following year, came another record of travel, "Belgium and Western Germany in 1833." Her Conservative instincts found less to offend them in Continental than in American society, and her sketches, therefore, while ...
— Celebrated Women Travellers of the Nineteenth Century • W. H. Davenport Adams
... to Cromwell, 'mine own foster-sister had the veil there; mine own mother's sister was there the abbess.' She stretched out a hand. 'Sir, they dwelled there simply and godly, withdrawn from the world; succouring the poor; weaving of fine linens, for much flax grew upon those lands by there; and praying God and the saints that blessings fall ...
— Privy Seal - His Last Venture • Ford Madox Ford
... a beautifully sculptured fourteenth-century lantern cross, of mediaeval date, in the form of an octagonal shaft. Under four niches at the summit are sculptured representations of: God the Father with the Dove bearing a crucifix; an Abbot; an Abbess; and a King and Queen. The height of the cross is 5 feet 2 inches, the breadth of the head being ...
— The Cornish Riviera • Sidney Heath
... winter, with her excommunicated lord, to remove the curse which deprived him of the allegiance of his subjects. Anne, Countess of Warwick, dresses herself like a cook-maid to elude the visits of a royal duke, and Ebba, abbess of Coldingham, cuts off her nose, to render herself unattractive to the soldiers who ravage her lands. Philippa, the wife of the great Edward, intercedes for the inhabitants of Calais, ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord
... attendance of nobles and citizens, to the island church of San Giorgio Maggiore, whither, in 1009, the body of St. Stephen was brought from Constantinople. On the first of May the Doge visited the Convent of the Virgins, (the convent building now forms part of the Arsenal,) where the abbess presented him with a bouquet, and graceful and pleasing ceremonies took place in commemoration of the erection and endowment of the church. The head of the State also annually assisted at mass in St. Mark's, ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells
... chandeliers. The choir perched in a little loft high up in the right transept, like a balcony in a side-scene at the opera, and indulging in surprising roulades and flourishes.... Near me sat a handsome, opulent-looking nun—possibly an abbess or prioress of noble lineage. Can a holy woman of such a complexion listen to a fine operatic barytone in a sumptuous temple and receive none but ascetic impressions? What a cross-fire of ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James
... An abbess, arising in haste and in the dark to find one of her nuns, who had been denounced to her, in bed with her lover and, thinking to cover her head with her coif, donneth instead thereof the breeches of a priest who is abed with her; the which the accused nun observing ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio
... and lot nearby and installed them in it. They became known as The Pious Ladies. On May 18, 1801, Mary de la Marche advertised the two houses of the Poor Clares for sale, but apparently they did not sell them at that time, for, in 1804, after the death of the Abbess, Madame de la Rochefoucault, who succeeded her, sold the convent to Bishop Neale, and the remaining ladies ...
— A Portrait of Old George Town • Grace Dunlop Ecker
... we know of Caedmon, the Anglo-Saxon Milton, as he is properly called, is taken from Bede's account[29] of the Abbess Hilda and of her monastery at Whitby. Here is a free and condensed translation ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... Popish times, when the nuns held Whitford Priors, the first Mr. Lavington that ever was came from the king with a warrant to turn them all out, poor souls, and take the lands for his own. And they say the head lady of them—prioress, or abbess, as they called her—withstood him, and cursed him, in the name of the Lord, for a hypocrite who robbed harmless women under the cloak of punishing them for sins they'd never committed (for they say, sir, he went up to court, and slandered the nuns there for ...
— Yeast: A Problem • Charles Kingsley
... such creatures, whom the flames do not injure at all, because these creatures are informed with an ardor that is unquenchable and is more hot than fire. And you understand perfectly what I mean, so there is no need for you to stand there goggling at me like a horrified abbess!" ...
— Jurgen - A Comedy of Justice • James Branch Cabell
... she entered the Abbey, and albeit she took the veil herself she was not under the same strict rule as her sister nuns. The Abbess herself retired to Winchester and ruled the convent from that city, while Elfrida had the liberty she desired, to live and do as she liked in her own rooms and attend prayers and meals only when inclined to do so. There, ...
— Dead Man's Plack and an Old Thorn • William Henry Hudson
... not be retracted without perjury. And so each year she renewed her vow a twelvemonth. The seventh year of her religious life was drawing to its close, and she had notified her superior of her wish now, after so many years of probation, to take the black veil, and make her vows perpetual. And the Abbess had, at length, listened ...
— The Missing Bride • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... of dissimulation, together with advancing age, had given the queen-mother that well-known abbess face, with its haughty and macerated mask, expressionless yet full of depth, inscrutable yet vigilant, remarked by all who have studied her portrait, the courtiers now observed some clouds on her icy countenance. No sovereign was ever so imposing as this woman from the day ...
— Catherine de' Medici • Honore de Balzac
... of 'abbess' for 'abbatess' this account of 'lass' must be abandoned. It is the old English lasce (akin to Swedish loesk), meaning (1) one free or disengaged, ...
— English Past and Present • Richard Chenevix Trench
... lady of God's making, too; one who might have been a St. Theresa, had she been born there and then; but as it was, had been fated to become only the Wesleyan abbess of the town, and, like Deborah, 'a mother in Israel.' With her tall, slim, queenly figure, massive forehead, glittering eyes, features beaming with tenderness and enthusiasm, and yet overcast with a peculiar expression of self-consciousness and restraint, ...
— Prose Idylls • Charles Kingsley
... Bonaventure, a monk of the strict order of Saint-Francois, was made three times over the triennial Superior of his order, and confessor of Antoine and Francois, Dukes of Lorraine; and one of his sisters, Salmone, was appointed Abbess of Sainte ...
— Rene Mauperin • Edmond de Goncourt and Jules de Goncourt
... content with the numerous oblations of Orondates on her altars, was not satisfied while his heart remained unengaged. Across the canal, overagainst the palace of Grimaldi, stood a convent of Carmelite nuns, the abbess of which had a young African slave of the most exquisite beauty, called Azora, a year younger than Orondates. Jet and japan were tawny and without lustre, when compared to the hue of Azora. Afric never produced a female so perfect as Azora; as Europe could ...
— Hieroglyphic Tales • Horace Walpole
... old adage, the laurestinus, dedicated to St. Faine (January 1), an Irish abbess in the sixth century, may ...
— The Folk-lore of Plants • T. F. Thiselton-Dyer
... condemned. Among the non-ecclesiastical authors banned were Machiavelli, Guicciardini and Boccaccio. It is noteworthy that the Decameron was expurgated not chiefly for its indecency but for its satire of ecclesiastics. Thus, a tale of the seduction of an abbess is rendered acceptable by changing the abbess into a countess; the story of how a priest led a woman astray by impersonating the angel Gabriel is merely changed by making the priest a layman masquerading ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... find you.—It all fits beautifully. You may go back to la Gonore.—To go on: Jacqueline will arrange with Madame Nourrisson to purchase her business in the Rue Sainte-Barbe; and if you manage well, child, you may make a fortune out of it," he said to Prudence. "An Abbess at your age! It is worthy of a Daughter of France," he added in ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... have no excursion beyond the duffling academy. You know very well how at Brignoles, when the religious nun, Sister Fatbum, was made big with child by the young Stiffly-stand-to't, her pregnancy came to be known, and she cited by the abbess, and, in a full convention of the convent, accused of incest. Her excuse was that she did not consent thereto, but that it was done by the violence and impetuous force of the Friar Stiffly-stand-to't. Hereto the abbess very austerely replying, Thou naughty wicked girl, why didst ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... under evil circumstances. There was much singing and playing under the trees; and they helped the school-girls to get up some little French plays to act at their breaking-up party. Mary took a part in the character of a French abbess, but she tells us that "assuredly" her talents never lay in the acting line, and very honestly adds: "I could never sufficiently have forgotten myself as to ...
— The Fairchild Family • Mary Martha Sherwood |
