"Mortal" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... seed can be cultivated if we will—that is, if we desire and insist on its growth. As a child's taste for art or learning can be educated into high capabilities for the future, so can the human Soul be educated into so high, so supreme an attainment, that no merely mortal standard of measurement can reach its magnificence. With much more than half the inhabitants of the globe, this germ of immortality remains always a germ, never sprouting, overlaid and weighted down by the lymphatic laziness and ...
— A Romance of Two Worlds • Marie Corelli
... the disclosure of a death is that of a mortal illness. If the man had recovered, his illness would have been rightly his own secret. But because he did not recover, it is assumed to be news for the first comer. Which of us would suffer the details of any physical suffering, over and done in our own lives, ...
— The Colour of Life • Alice Meynell
... mortal fright, for her baby was almost black with his gasping breath, and she had no one to ask for aid or sympathy but her landlady's daughter, a little girl of twelve or thirteen, who attended to the house in her mother's absence, as daily cook in gentlemen's families. ...
— The Grey Woman and other Tales • Mrs. (Elizabeth) Gaskell
... life, and in no wise solicitous for the future. Nevertheless ambition and the desire to rule trouble even them, and they fight amongst themselves, so that even in the golden age there is never a moment without war; the maxim Cede, non cedam, has always prevailed amongst mortal men. ...
— De Orbe Novo, Volume 1 (of 2) - The Eight Decades of Peter Martyr D'Anghera • Trans. by Francis Augustus MacNutt
... that one wears and throws away, the friend one forgets, the music that passes—out of the well-known transitoriness of mortal things I have made myself a maxim or precept to the effect that it is foolish to look for one face, or to listen long for one voice, in a world that is after all, as I know, full of ...
— Trivia • Logan Pearsall Smith
... Lord knows I did not, and that I came honestly by it, too," sobbed the poor woman, who had a mortal terror ...
— Little Bobtail - or The Wreck of the Penobscot. • Oliver Optic
... mid deep silence to a strain To listen, which the soul alone can know, Saying: "Fear naught, for Jesus came on earth, Jesus of endless joys the wide, deep sea, To ease each heavy load of mortal birth. His waters ever clearest, sweetest be To him who in a lonely bark drifts forth On His great deeps of ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall
... fine woman, and Rose Bradwardine a pretty girl. But he alleged that the former destroyed the effect of her beauty by an affectation of the grand airs which she had probably seen practised at the mock court of St. Germains. As for Rose Bradwardine, he said it was impossible for any mortal to admire such a little uninformed thing, whose small portion of education was as ill adapted to her sex or youth, as if she had appeared with one of her father's old campaign-coats upon her person for her sole garment. Now much of this was mere spleen and ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott
... CXLII., Fig. 6.] Where the pine-cone is carried, it is invariably pointed towards the monarch, as if it were the means of communication between the protector and the protected, the instrument by which grace and power passed from the genius to the mortal whom he had undertaken to guard. Why the pine-cone was chosen for this purpose it is difficult to form a conjecture. Perhaps it had originally become a sacred emblem merely as a symbol of productiveness after which ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 2. (of 7): Assyria • George Rawlinson
... his compeer might prosper in such simple wise as his own experience had proved to be amply possible. Kennedy's earlier incentive to industry had been his intention to marry, but the object of his affections had found him "too mortal solemn," and without a word of warning had married another man in a distant cove. The element of treachery in this event had gone far to reconcile the jilted lover to his future, bereft of her companionship, but the ...
— The Christmas Miracle - 1911 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... the corner, away from the lamp-post," Ann Eliza said to herself, with sudden insight into unconjectured things. On Sundays they usually went for the whole afternoon to the Central Park, and Ann Eliza, from her seat in the mortal hush of the back room, followed step by step ...
— Bunner Sisters • Edith Wharton
... England contains hundreds of practical examples, thank God—appreciable temptations in the other direction, the wrong, unhappy, fatal direction, may very conceivably creep upon you with time. Your admirable Incumbent is all the while a mortal man, and as such, most certainly (he himself above all men knows and owns it), he is not perfect, not quite equal to himself in every way. Perhaps he has come to be not perfect in physical health, and thus he is obliged, to his own grief, to do less in this or that branch of activity ...
— To My Younger Brethren - Chapters on Pastoral Life and Work • Handley C. G. Moule
... fairly floated himself for his portrait. The living whale, in his full majesty and significance, is only to be seen at sea in unfathomable waters; and afloat the vast bulk of him is out of sight, like a launched line-of-battle ship; and out of that element it is a thing eternally impossible for mortal man to hoist .. him bodily into the air, so as to preserve all his mighty swells and undulations. And, not to speak of the highly presumable difference of contour between a young sucking whale and a full-grown Platonian Leviathan; ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... former than in the latter. Why does the lover hang with complete abandon on the eyes of his chosen one, and is ready to make every sacrifice for her? Because it is his immortal part that longs after her, while it is merely his mortal part that desires everything else." Because this is so, love is the God of ...
— The Kempton-Wace Letters • Jack London
... possession, the Russians had returned to face the charge. Whereas cool, machinelike precision marks the German soldier in battle as on the parade ground, an imperturbable obstinacy and total disregard of mortal ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume III (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... struck with a disorder in my bowels, which at first gave me no alarm, but has since, as I apprehend it, become mortal and incurable. I now reckon upon a speedy dissolution. I have suffered very little pain from my disorder; and what is more strange have, notwithstanding the great decline of my person, never suffered a moment's abatement of my spirits, inasmuch that were I to name a period ...
— The History of England, Volume I • David Hume
... ground, the best fitted of any that could have been selected, in a scenical sense, as a stage for bringing a spectacle below the eyes of Klosterheim, the most agitating of spectacles would be exhibited,— friends and kinsmen engaged in mortal struggle with remorseless freebooters, under circumstances which denied to themselves any chance of ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... the students have occasionally, after the gates were locked, taken the liberty of passing, without an exeat, in rather a novel style. A certain Cantab was in the act of drawing himself through the bars, and being more than an ordinary mortal's bulk, he stuck fast. One of the fellows of the college passing, stepped up to the student and asked him ironically, "If he should assist him?"—"Thank you," was the reply, "I can get through!" at the same instant he drew himself ...
— The Jest Book - The Choicest Anecdotes and Sayings • Mark Lemon
... that others were ready to testify, that Car gave them a very different account from that which he gave to his doctor: It ought to be remembered, that the unhappy man was laboring under the pains and anxiety occasioned by a mortal wound; and might not be able at all times to attend duly to such questions as were asked him: What makes it highly probable that he must have been mistaken, is, that among the many witnesses, not one on either side, mention'd their seeing the least ill ...
— The Writings of Samuel Adams, volume II (1770 - 1773) - collected and edited by Harry Alonso Cushing • Samuel Adams
... Count, hoping to be more liberally dealt with by the enlightened Tsar, who was said to surpass in all that was great and noble, his tolerant predecessor, Alexander I., proceeded to St. Petersburgh. The Tsar made a reply to his representation, which, in the case of an ordinary mortal, would be taken for a proof of stupidity, or of impenetrable ignorance. "The Orthodox religion is pleasing to me. Why should it not please you also?" It remained only for the Count to sell his properties and abandon his ...
— Pius IX. And His Time • The Rev. AEneas MacDonell
... kings' high honor / and their far-reaching might, Of their full lofty majesty / and how each gallant knight Found his chiefest pleasure / in the life of chivalry, In sooth by mortal never / might it full ...
— The Nibelungenlied - Translated into Rhymed English Verse in the Metre of the Original • trans. by George Henry Needler
... fallacy of all the so-called mediaeval jargon he had read,—"is the Helectric Bell, which does away with our hold, hordinary 'orn blowin', and the hattendant waitin' in the 'all for the usual 'Without there, who waits?' which all of us was accustomed to in mortal flesh. You hobserve this button. I press it so, and it instantly rings a bell in the kitchen 'all, and shows in fair letters the name of this 'ere gallery—as we will see later. Will hany good dame or gaffer press the ...
— Colonel Starbottle's Client and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... we are both in great danger of being captured; but I shall do the best I can, and we can only hope that it will come out right in the end. Tom Thornton will do everything that mortal man can do ...
— Seek and Find - or The Adventures of a Smart Boy • Oliver Optic
... mortal—Pro mortalibus. There are two senses in which these words may be taken: as far as mortals can, and instead of being mortals. Kritz and Dietsch say that the latter is undoubtedly the true sense. Other commentators ...
— Conspiracy of Catiline and The Jurgurthine War • Sallust
... he whom thou lovest is mortal—that what thou lovest is not thine own; it is given thee for the present, not irrevocably nor for ever, but even as a fig or a bunch of grapes at the appointed season of the year. . ...
— The Golden Sayings of Epictetus • Epictetus
... was none in him. They did not know that suddenly, to him, out of Margaret's pleading eyes looked the eyes of the dead sister, Serena de Rievaulx, and it seemed to him as though soft child-fingers held him off for an instant. He had never loved any mortal thing but that ...
— Earl Hubert's Daughter - The Polishing of the Pearl - A Tale of the 13th Century • Emily Sarah Holt
... mean? What a pity! But I think you do. I think you must. Look here. I am the boy at what is called The Refreshment Room at Mugby Junction, and what's proudest boast is, that it never yet refreshed a mortal being. ...
— Mugby Junction • Charles Dickens
... There is no God, and from that moment my face was blotted out. I may never see it in the moving waters, in mirrors, in the burnished hearts of things, or in the liquid eyes of woman. I denied God. I mocked His omnipotence. I dared him to mortal combat, and my mirror tells me there is no Me, no image of the man called by my name. I denied ...
— Melomaniacs • James Huneker
... Is Jesus born To fight our fight Against the night Of Satan and his devil-spawn. And a manger is His cot And all humble is His lot; So, mortal, make you humble, too, To serve ...
— The Path of Life • Stijn Streuvels
... why should the spirit of mortal be proud? Like a swift-fleeting meteor, a fast-flying cloud, A flash of the lightning, a break of the wave, He passeth from life to his ...
— In The Boyhood of Lincoln - A Tale of the Tunker Schoolmaster and the Times of Black Hawk • Hezekiah Butterworth
... swaying gait and looped-up skirts, her spectacles, and the dangling parcels in which her soul delighted, were the outward signs of a personality familiar to all. For under those checked shawls which few women passed without an inward marvel, there beat one of the warmest hearts that ever animated mortal clay, and the prematurely wrinkled face, with its small quick eyes and shrewd indulgent mouth, bespoke a nature as responsive ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... fled from the spot in mortal terror, but that his limbs were trembling and refused to ...
— Mischievous Maid Faynie • Laura Jean Libbey
... tried mechanically to arrange it; to see her stand, alternately leering and scowling by the bedside, an incarnate blasphemy in the sacred chamber of death, was to behold the most horrible of all mockeries, the most impious of all profanations. No loneliness in the presence of mortal agony could try me to the quick, as the sight of that foul old age of degradation and debauchery, defiling the sick room, now tried me. I determined to wait alone by the bedside till Mr. ...
— Basil • Wilkie Collins
... the Christian era, and was appealed to under the names of "Our Lady," "Queen of Heaven," "Star of Heaven," "Star of the Sea," "Mother of God," and so forth. Hercules, Bacchus, and Perseus were gods born by mortal mothers. Zeus, father of the gods, visited Semele in the form of a thunderstorm and she gave birth, on the 25th of December, to the great savior ...
— The Necessity of Atheism • Dr. D.M. Brooks
... succeeded in attaining this object is but a mild expression. Fine carpets cover the floors, the seats and chairs are upholstered in the best and softest of material, while every convenience is provided for the use of the lucky mortal who is called across the continent on business or pleasure, and whose pleasure it is to travel and sleep in the Pullman sleeping car of the present day. The traveler of today when he has to go from Chicago to San Francisco, simply throws a few things in a grip, is driven ...
— The Life and Adventures of Nat Love - Better Known in the Cattle Country as "Deadwood Dick" • Nat Love
... could only come from glass. The building, then—if building, after all, it was—could, at least, not be a barn, much less an abandoned one; stale hay ten years musting in it. No; if aught built by mortal, it must be a cottage; perhaps long vacant and dismantled, but this very spring ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville
... an' Saturdays you can pretty mortal sure bank on him," Captain Benjamin would reply. "If he's comin' to-night, he better be heavin' into sight, for it's damp an' I'll have to ...
— Flood Tide • Sara Ware Bassett
... away from him, toward the open safe, intending, it would seem, to put the valuable ornament in there and lock it up, when Larch struck at her. As he did so, he knocked down the heavy statue of the hunter. It struck her on the head, inflicting what would have proved a mortal blow, even without the ...
— The Diamond Cross Mystery - Being a Somewhat Different Detective Story • Chester K. Steele
... old women on the island—his own bride excepted—and when they undertook to use a club or anything, he had THEM licked instead. He wore 'em down to skin and bone. Jule said you wouldn't believe a mortal man could treat his feller creatures so low down and mean. And the meanest part of it was that he always called 'em the names that they used to call him aboard ship. Sometimes he invented new ones, but not often, because ...
— Cape Cod Stories - The Old Home House • Joseph C. Lincoln
... Ana," for which the "Royal Sovereign" was steering, fired at the latter the first gun of the battle. As by a common impulse the ships of all the nations engaged hoisted their colors, and the admirals their flags,—a courteous and chivalrous salute preceding the mortal encounter. For ten minutes the "Royal Sovereign" advanced in silence, the one centre of the hostile fire, upon which were fixed all eyes, as yet without danger of their own to distract. As she drew near the two ships between ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. II. (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... dog was inside, growling furiously, the door was closed and the man gone. Jack opened the door. Pizarro bounded out, and Jack followed. The dog stopped a moment, sniffed the ground, and made for the kitchen. A loud bark, followed by a ferocious growl, and a scream of mortal pain broke on the air; then a pistol-shot, and a long, pitiful ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... link of galley-slaves, by a light chain, which passes from them to Jupiter's great toe: and yet, in receiving or delivering a message, they may never approach above the lowest step of his throne, where he and they whisper to each other through a large hollow trunk. These deities are called by mortal men accidents or events; but the gods call them second causes. Jupiter having delivered his message to a certain number of these divinities, they flew immediately down to the pinnacle of the regal library, and consulting a few minutes, entered unseen, and disposed the parties ...
— The Battle of the Books - and Other Short Pieces • Jonathan Swift
... "In many mortal forms I rashly sought The shadow of that idol of my thought: And some were fair,—but beauty dies away; Others were wise,—but honeyed words betray; And one was true,—oh! why not true to me? Then, as a hunted deer that could not flee, I turned ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., February, 1863, No. LXIV. • Various
... mortal of beautiful unfortunate L—— had been removed to the morgue, and, the name and address of her parents having been discovered, the following telegram had been sent: "Daughter L—— died suddenly. What disposition of remains?" As quickly as possible came this reply: ...
— Fifteen Years With The Outcast • Mrs. Florence (Mother) Roberts
... let the gods do to me, and more also, if I make not thy life as the life of one of them by to-morrow about this time," has its counterpart in the lofty terror of the invocation which Lady Macbeth makes to the "spirits that wait on mortal thoughts,"— ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... along in their wake, lusting for the time when their efforts would prevail and the end of the world would come. For the Northern nations believed that as their gods had sprung from an alliance between the divine element (Boerr) and the mortal (Bestla), they were finite, and doomed to perish with the world ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber
... unconscious authority of his words he was easily master of them all; but though he had the voice of Mars and a head like Olympian Zeus he must needs abase his proud spirit to the demands of the occasion, for the jealousy of mortal man is a proverb. Where the punchers that he hired for thirty dollars a month were decked out in shaps and handkerchiefs he sat in his shirt-sleeves and overalls, with only his high-heeled boots ...
— Hidden Water • Dane Coolidge
... "Mortal! if life smile on thee, and thou find All to thy mind, Think, Who did once to earth from heaven descend Thee to befriend; So shalt thou dare forego, at His dear call, ...
— Sketches of Our Life at Sarawak • Harriette McDougall
... I watched them, shrinking Low in the gorse-bush shade; Then, like a mortal fool unthinking, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, November 24, 1920 • Various
... ridiculous ones. Towards 1820 the liberal opposition organized itself in the Chambers and in the press. The Muse of Beranger came to its assistance under the mask of gay raillery. He was the angry bee that stung flying, and whose stings are not harmless; nay, he would fain have made them mortal to the enemy. He hated even Louis XVIII., a king who was esteemed tolerably wise, and more intelligent than his party. "I stick my pins," said Beranger, "into the calves of Louis XVIII." One must have seen the fat king in small-clothes, his legs as big ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 4, February, 1858 • Various
... redress by Dharna the creditor or injured person would sit starving himself outside his debtor's door, and if he died the latter would be held to have committed a mortal sin and would be haunted by his ghost; see also article on Bhat. The account here given must ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell
... restoration. He came back to the old life of mortality, of temptation, of sickness and pain and death. He came back only for a season. It was not a resurrection to immortal life; it was only a restoration to mortal life. He must pass again through the mystery of dying, and his sisters must a second time experience the agony of separation and loneliness. We can scarcely call it comfort; it was merely a postponement for a little while ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller
... Roman writers of prominence claim our attention. With some reason the Romans looked upon Ennius as the father of their literature. He, like Andronicus, was a native of Magna Grcia, claiming lordly ancestors, and boasting that the spirit of Homer, after passing through many mortal bodies, had entered his own. His works remain only in fragments gathered from others who had quoted them, and we cannot form any accurate opinion of his rank as a poet; but we know that his success was so great that Cicero considered him the prince ...
— The Story of Rome From the Earliest Times to the End of the Republic • Arthur Gilman
... might of my own arms I seek Arjuna in battle. Thou, however, that art a foe with the face of a friend desirest to frighten me. No person shall deter me from this resolution, not even Indra himself uplifting his thunder; what then need be said of a mortal?"'" ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... dawn of day appeared In Cumnor Hall, so lone and drear, Full many a piercing scream was heard, And many a cry of mortal fear. ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 6 June 1848 • Various
... love Astraea? If there be a mortal I hate in the core of my heart, it is Astraea. Are you satisfied?" he replied, with an expression of fiendish satisfaction in his face, as if he were glad of the excuse for giving ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various
... of the white-pillared house as it stood at the beginning of the war; the severing of old ties, the averted faces of old friends and neighbors; the mortal apprehension, endless suspense; the insurgent flags fluttering from porch and portico along the still, tree-shaded street; her own heart-breaking isolation in the community when Sumter fell—she an orphan, alone there with her brother ...
— Special Messenger • Robert W. Chambers
... hand, next the further corner, for years and years. He died out of it, the other day.—Died?—said the schoolmistress.—Certainly,—said I.—We die out of houses, just as we die out of our bodies. A commercial smash kills a hundred men's houses for them, as a railroad crash kills their mortal frames and drives out the immortal tenants. Men sicken of houses until at last they quit them, as the soul leaves its body when it is tired of its infirmities. The body has been called "the house we live in"; the house is quite as much the body we live in. Shall I tell you some things the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 10, August, 1858 • Various
... he died! one frantic cry Of mortal anguish thrill'd my madden'd brain, Recalling sense and mem'ry. Desperately I strove to raise my fallen sire again, And call'd upon my mother; but her eye Was closed alike to sorrow, want, and pain. Oh, what a night was that!—when all alone I watch'd my dead ...
— Life in the Clearings versus the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... "is the magic ring given long ago to a mortal, and it is what you say it is. It was given to your ancestor by a lady of my house that he might build her a garden and a house like her own palace and garden in her own land. So that this place is built partly by his love and partly by that magic. She never ...
— The Enchanted Castle • E. Nesbit
... female victim in a net, and expose her to be rolled, tossed, or gored by wild cattle. One encounter with a single wild beast often finished the martyr's course; while occasionally three or four were successively let loose, without their inflicting a mortal wound. ...
— Journeys Through Bookland - Volume Four • Charles H. Sylvester
... toward night, Petra took a turn for the worse; during the afternoon she had been conversing spiritedly with her daughters; but this animation had subsided until she was overwhelmed by a mortal collapse. ...
— The Quest • Pio Baroja
... permitted, and accordingly Steele printed what he must soon have discovered to be a shrewd attack upon his old friend and ally. Some writers have found a difficulty in understanding how Steele could have so blundered. One might, perhaps, whisper in confidence to the discreet, that even editors are mortal, and that Steele was conceivably capable of the enormity of reading papers carelessly. Philips was furious, and hung up a birch in Button's Coffee-house, declaring that he would apply it to his tormentor should he ever show his nose ...
— Alexander Pope - English Men of Letters Series • Leslie Stephen
... kind of way on the hillside, when suddenly a party of hunters from the neighbouring city of Eternal Spring came dashing into view. They were a merry group and full of excitement, for they had just sighted a fox which Chan had seen a moment before flying away at its highest speed in mortal ...
— Chinese Folk-Lore Tales • J. Macgowan
... since 6.30 a.m. At 9.30 I telephoned in, and found that he had gone to some other duty and forgotten me! However, it cannot be helped. He and I are really very friendly. More fighting on our right, with very heavy big gun fire. I expect the brickfields at La Bassee are again being a scene of mortal combat. We were ordered last night to try to ascertain if the Germans still occupied their trenches as usual; so we crept out and looked about, and found everything much the same. As to the khaki-coloured shirts, would you have them put ...
— Letters of Lt.-Col. George Brenton Laurie • George Brenton Laurie
... significance in that repeated phrase, "I know," for it hinted at a knowledge more complete and evil than falls to the share of the ordinary mortal. ...
— Harrigan • Max Brand
... think we do over-estimate the value of the papaw, although I certainly did once myself hang the leg of a goat no mortal man could have got tooth into, on to a papaw tree with a bit of string for the night. In the morning it was clean gone, string and all; but whether it was the pepsine, the papaine, or a purloining pagan that was the cause of its departure there was no evidence ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... virtuous character in the play. Question has been raised as to whether a story so forbidding can be considered a comedy, for, although the plot ends in the discomfiture and imprisonment of the most vicious, it involves no mortal catastrophe. But Jonson was on sound historical ground, for "Volpone" is conceived far more logically on the lines of the ancients' theory of comedy than was ever the romantic drama of Shakespeare, ...
— The Alchemist • Ben Jonson
... cycles in the sixty-first year of Hwang-ti, giving — not every year, but the years of which anything has been mentioned in history. From Hwang-ti also, it ascends through the dateless ages up to P'an-ku, the first of mortal sovereigns. Næ, 'The Boundaries of the Nation in the successive Dynasties.' This Work by the same author, and published in 1817, does for the boundaries of the empire the same service which ...
— THE CHINESE CLASSICS (PROLEGOMENA) • James Legge
... where Merlin, by means of a magic ring given by the Lady of the Lake to her sister Vivien, becomes so infatuated with the latter lady, that she is able to coax from him all his secrets, and even to learn the spell whereby a mortal can be kept alive although hidden from all eyes. Having obtained the magic formula by bringing all her coquettish wiles to bear upon besotted old Merlin, Vivien is said to have decoyed the wizard either to an enchanted castle, where she enclosed him in a stone ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber
... elegy upon the death of Thyrza, "far too beautiful," says Moore, "and too pure to have been inspired by a mortal being," what pathos, what sensitiveness! What charm in his sonnets to Guinevre! What soft melancholy, what profound and intimate knowledge of the immortality and spirituality of our soul, in his Hebrew melodies! "They seem as though they had been inspired ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... leaves, or tasseld horn Shakes the high thicket, haste I all about, Number my ranks, and visit every sprout With puissant words, and murmurs made to bless, 60 But els in deep of night when drowsines Hath lockt up mortal sense, then listen I To the celestial Sirens harmony, That sit upon the nine enfolded Sphears, And sing to those that hold the vital shears, And turn the Adamantine spindle round, On which the fate of gods and men is wound. Such sweet compulsion doth in ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... mean him to have. If Phoebe's self caan't change me or hurry me 't is odds you won't. Theer's a darter for 'e! My Phoebe. She'll often put in a whole week along o' me still. You mind this: if it's grawn true an' thrawn true from the plantin', a darter's love for a faither lasts longer 'n any mortal love at all as I can hear tell of. It don't wear out wi' marriage, neither, as I've found, thank God. Phoebe rises above auld age and the ugliness an' weakness an' bad temper of auld age. Even a poor, ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts
... might discrie al that was done, within the compasse of his house. And there seing al their curteous offers and proffers, hee waited but when the gentleman should haue indeuoured himself to precede further, that he might haue then discharged his mortal malice vpon them both. But they fearing that their long abode in the gardein might ingender some displeasure, retourned into the Castell, with purpose in time to content their desires, so sone as opportunitie ...
— The Palace of Pleasure, Volume 1 • William Painter
... has seen a gentleman in braid, buttons and spangles will understand how impossible it is to describe him. One might enumerate the buttons and the spangles and even locate them precisely upon his person, but no mortal intellect can expand sufficiently to cope with an undertaking that would try even the powers of Him who created the contents of ...
— The Prince of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... called death, without having rightly improved the lessons of this primary school of mortal existence,—and still believe in matter's reality, pleasure, and pain,—are not ready to understand immortality. Hence they awake only to another sphere of experience, and must pass through another probationary state before it can be truly said ...
— Unity of Good • Mary Baker Eddy
... enough or more? I say what mighty sum of Lybian-sands Confine Cyrene's Laserpitium-lands 'Twixt Oracle of Jove the Swelterer 5 And olden Battus' holy Sepulchre, Or stars innumerate through night-stillness ken The stolen Love-delights of mortal men, For that to kiss thee with unending kisses For mad Catullus enough and more be this, 10 Kisses nor curious wight shall count their tale, Nor to ...
— The Carmina of Caius Valerius Catullus • Caius Valerius Catullus
... like himself, rather a "visitant" than an inhabitant of this planet, and their courtship not unlike one of his own stories of half immaterial lovers who go hand in hand, with sentiments for sentences and great heedlessness of mortal matters, to an idyllic union of hearts. He rose, on her entrance, to greet her, and looked at her with great intentness; and it immediately occurred to her sister that he would ...
— Nathaniel Hawthorne • George E. Woodberry
... Woman who had brought herself even to Death's Door with grief for her sick Husband, but the good Man her Father did all he could to comfort her. Come, Child, said he, we are all mortal. Pluck up a good heart, my Child: for let the worst come to the worst, I have a better Husband in store for thee. Alas, Sir, says she, what d'ye talk of another Husband for? Why, you had as good have stuck a Dagger to my Heart. No, no; if ever I think of another ...
— Shakespeare Jest-Books; - Reprints of the Early and Very Rare Jest-Books Supposed - to Have Been Used by Shakespeare • Unknown
... Charles de Ligne I cannot restrain my tears. He was as brave as Achilles, but Achilles was invulnerable. He would be alive now if he had remembered during the fight that he was mortal. Who are they that, having known him, have not shed tears in his memory? He was handsome, kind, polished, learned, a lover of the arts, cheerful, witty in his conversation, a pleasant companion, and a man of perfect equability. Fatal, terrible revolution! ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... the joys that are there mortal eye bath not seen! O the songs they sing there, with hosannas between! O the thrice-blessed song of the Lamb and of Moses! O brightness on brightness! the pearl gate uncloses! O white wings of angels! O fields white with ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... first-fruits of them that slept.... Behold, I show you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump.... For this corruptible must put on incorruption and this mortal must put on immortality. So when this corruption shall have put on incorruption, and when this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed ...
— Summer • Edith Wharton
... the aching and anxiousness were a little dulled, for habit blunts even the keen edge of mortal pain. They had news that summer that Ralph had been severely wounded, but had recovered; that John had gone through a sharp attack of camp-fever; that Reuben was taken prisoner, but escaped by his own wit. Hannah was thankful and grateful beyond expression. Perhaps another ...
— Good Cheer Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... galliard style, say the Spanish chroniclers, a proud and mettlesome steed (un caballo arrogante). Then followed the army in shining columns, with flaunting banners and the inspiring clamor of military music. The king and queen (says the worthy Fray Antonio Agapida) looked on this occasion as more than mortal: the venerable ecclesiastics, to whose advice and zeal this glorious conquest ought in a great measure be attributed, moved along with hearts swelling with holy exultation, but with chastened and downcast looks ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving
... with respectful attention. It seemed to them probable enough that a supernatural personage might convoy himself vast distances through the air, but that he could not burden himself with mortal appliances—if, indeed, such things were the work ...
— By Right of Conquest - Or, With Cortez in Mexico • G. A. Henty
... attempting to eternize the memory of Napoleon Bonaparte, was a German of the name of Schumacher. It is, indeed, allowed that he was more industrious, able, and well-meaning than ingenious or considerate. He did not consider that it would be no compliment to give the immortal hero a hint of being a mortal man. Schumacher had employed near three years in planning and executing in marble the prettiest model of a sepulchral monument I have ever seen, read or heard of. He had inscribed it: "The Future Tomb of Bonaparte the Great." Under the patronage of ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... bodily, of the whole crew; and I have no doubt that young and small as I was then, compared to what I am now, I could have thrown him down. But he had such an overawing way with him; such a deal of brass and impudence, such an unflinching face, and withal was such a hideous looking mortal, that Satan himself would have run from him. And besides all this, it was quite plain, that he was by nature a marvelously clever, cunning man, though without education; and understood human nature to a kink, and well knew whom he had to ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville
... at Thuillier's candidacy was mortal, but Minard did not profit by it. While the pair were contending for votes, a government man, an aide-de-camp to the king, arrived with his hands full of tobacco licenses and other electoral small change, and, like the third thief, ...
— The Lesser Bourgeoisie • Honore de Balzac
... secrets no living mortal ever knew. No charge for causing speedy marriages and showing likenesses of friends." No. 2.—"Astonishing to all I Madame Wright, the celebrated astrologist, born with a natural gift to tell all the events of your life, even your very thoughts and whether you are married ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... forgot one phrase in Thoreau's statement: "sooner or later." No doubt the Concord hermit was a true prophet; but how many of the inhabitants are "later"—too late, indeed, for a mortal who, unlike our New England philosopher, has such weak human needs as food and rest, and whose back will be tired in spite of her enthusiasm, if she sits a few hours on a rock, with a tree for ...
— Little Brothers of the Air • Olive Thorne Miller
... swan!" exclaimed Long Sam, who was at the wheel, "if you Dolly ain't the rippenest little mortal! However you managed to keep a grip on that there kid is ...
— Two Little Women • Carolyn Wells
... united and yet divided. Each is distinct from and acts without the other at times, and yet both act in concert with a wonderful power. The soul plans and the body executes. The body exercises the soul—the soul the body. The one is visible—the other invisible; the one is mortal—the other immortal. Now why do they act together here? Why was not each placed in its separate sphere of action? Again: What is the soul? Men tell us it is a spirit. What is a spirit? An invisible something ...
— Ella Barnwell - A Historical Romance of Border Life • Emerson Bennett
... bodies to the commonwealth and received, each for his own memory, praise that will never die, and with it the grandest of all sepulchres; not that in which their mortal bones are laid, but a home in the minds of men, where their glory remains fresh to stir to speech or action as the occasion comes by. For the whole earth is the sepulchre of famous men; and their story is ...
— With British Guns in Italy - A Tribute to Italian Achievement • Hugh Dalton
... it gratefully, as we turn to all art full of the "sense of tears in mortal things," and into which the pulse of human life has passed directly. For there are times when he is close to the bourne of life, when his art is immediately the orifice of the dark, flowering, germinating region where lie lodged the dynamics of the human soul. There are ...
— Musical Portraits - Interpretations of Twenty Modern Composers • Paul Rosenfeld
... o't— Is as cozie a beil as a body could see; Hauf-hid 'mang auld trees, wi' braw parks at the back o't, Whare lambs, 'mang the gowans, are sporting wi' glee. I've got a bit wife too, a rich winsome lady— In short, I hae a' that a mortal could hae: Sae onward, ye youths! as my auld mither said aye— Whare'er there's a will there is ...
— Chambers' Edinburgh Journal, No. 421, New Series, Jan. 24, 1852 • Various
... afterwards for the musical festival in Valais. On our way we were joined at Martigny by an extraordinary young man, Robert von Hornstein, who had been introduced to me on the occasion of my great musical festival the year before as an enthusiast and a musician. This quaint mortal was regarded as a very welcome addition to our party, particularly by young Ritter, and both young people looked forward with great enthusiasm to the treat in store for them; Hornstein had come all the way from Swabia to hear me conduct ...
— My Life, Volume II • Richard Wagner
... our most childish past, Nor sympathy, nor worship, passionless; Nor gratitude, nor tenderest caress: Nor the post-mortal glamor priests have cast With "This to hope! Surrender what thou hast!" These are but parts and can but partly bless; We in our new-born common consciousness Are learning Law and Life and Love ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... scriptures, admonition and counsel as directly applicable to his case and circumstances as if the lines had been addressed to him by name. A brief period of hesitation, in which he shrank from the thought that a mortal like himself, weak, youthful, and unlearned, should approach the Creator with a personal request, was followed by a humble and contrite resolution to act upon the counsel of the ancient apostle. The result, to which he bore solemn record ...
— The Story of "Mormonism" • James E. Talmage
... contrary, became another gratification of mere will, sublimely independent of definite motive. At that moment he had begun a second large cigar in a vague, hazy obstinacy which, if Lush or any other mortal who might be insulted with impunity had interrupted by overtaking him with a request for his return, would have expressed itself by a slow removal of his cigar, to say in an undertone, "You'll be kind enough to go to ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... Sweeping o'er his heart and spirit, Aweless, godless and unholy, He his thoughts and purpose altered To full measure of all daring, (Still base counsel's fatal frenzy, Wretched primal source of evils, Gives to mortal hearts strange boldness,) And at last his heart be hardened His own child to slay as victim, Help in war that they were waging To avenge a woman's frailty, Victim for the good ...
— Story of Orestes - A Condensation of the Trilogy • Richard G. Moulton
... them? Yea, there seemed now to be a mixture in Mansoul; the Diabolonians and the Mansoulians would walk the streets together. Yea, they began to seek their peace; for they thought that, since the sickness had been so mortal in Mansoul, it was in vain to go to handygripes with them. Besides, the weakness of Mansoul was the strength of their enemies; and the sins of Mansoul, the advantage of the Diabolonians. The foes of Mansoul did also now begin ...
— The Holy War • John Bunyan
... chiefly before discipline, or example, had time to work it. He is an honest man, and soberly asserts that to his certain knowledge he did not perform the work himself. But where is the example to be found of such and so great a change, wrought by mortal means? The history of the human race is challenged to produce it. To God then who created man, to Christ who redeemed him, and to the Holy Ghost who sanctifies him, be ascribed without abatement, ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 7, 1922 • Various
... travel, and that they would fain defer the debate for another two days, but that in the meantime they would be glad to hear the views of their friends. Then did one after another of these eight worthy men rise, and for six mortal hours they poured forth their views. I do not know whether it was most difficult to avoid laughter or yawning; but, indeed, Master Harry, it was a weary time. I dared not look at William, for he put such grave attention and worshipful reverence on his face that you would have thought he had ...
— Friends, though divided - A Tale of the Civil War • G. A. Henty
... between the window and the blazing hearth—it was the month of November. Somewhat exhausted, but still in high spirits, he arrived at Rome, and the rejoicings there celebrated for his triumph were not yet concluded, when he was attacked by a mortal disease. 'Pray for me,' said he to his servants, 'that I may yet make you all happy.' We see that he loved life, but his hour was come, he had not time to receive the sacrament nor extreme unction. So suddenly, so prematurely, and surrounded by hopes so bright! he died-'as the poppy fadeth.'" ...
— Luther Examined and Reexamined - A Review of Catholic Criticism and a Plea for Revaluation • W. H. T. Dau
... 'He then whose mind is endowed with true magnanimity, who hath accustomed himself to the contemplation both of all times, and of all things in general; can this mortal life (thinkest thou) seem any great matter unto him? It is not possible, answered he. Then neither will such a one account death a grievous thing? By ...
— Meditations • Marcus Aurelius
... accomplishments. Put me on a horse, darling, and see what I can do; and put me in a boat, pet, and find out where I can take you. And set me swimming in the cold sea; I can turn somersaults and dive and dance on the waves, and do every mortal thing as though I were a fish, not a girl. And give me a gun and see me bring down a bird on the wing. Ah! those things ought to be counted in the education of a woman. I can do all those things, and I can mix whisky punch, and I can sing songs to the dear old dad, ...
— The Rebel of the School • Mrs. L. T. Meade
... for any particular time, but for eternity, on account of their perpetual utility, not one ought to be repealed; unless either experience evince it to be useless, or some state of the public affairs render it so; I see, at the same time, that those laws which particular seasons have required, are mortal, (if I may use the term,) and changeable with the times. Those made in peace are generally repealed by war; those made in war, by peace; as in the management of a ship, some implements are useful in good weather, ...
— History of Rome, Vol III • Titus Livius
... now shaped. If the Socialistic program were to go into effect tomorrow morning there would be here tonight neither lecturer nor audience. The good dinner would remain untasted in the ovens. Every mortal soul of us would be scooting from one Social magnate to another to assure that we were on the slate for the soft jobs and that nobody was crowding us off. I have no faith in human nature except as it is constantly strengthened and purified by struggle. That struggle is an irrepressible ...
— The Inhumanity of Socialism • Edward F. Adams |
