Free TranslationFree Translation
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

  Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Sceptre   /sˈɛptər/  /skˈɛptər/   Listen
Sceptre

noun
1.
The imperial authority symbolized by a scepter.  Synonym: scepter.
2.
A ceremonial or emblematic staff.  Synonyms: scepter, verge, wand.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |





"Sceptre" Quotes from Famous Books



... instruments, To work its purposes. Let envy hide Her witless forehead at a prince's name, And fix her hopes upon a clown's content. You, happy lowly, know not what it is To groan beneath the crowned yoke of state, And bear the goadings of the sceptre. Ah! Fate drives us onward in a narrow way, Despite ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911: Francesca da Rimini • George Henry Boker

... unmistakably English in features, though strongly suggestive of the Boadicea. She was a large, heavily-boned woman, enormously covered with flesh, and she dandled across her knees that very unfeminine sceptre, an English cavalryman's sword. But the eye neglected these details, and was irresistibly drawn by the strongness of her face. Even Kettle was almost ...
— A Master of Fortune • Cutcliffe Hyne

... Whose name is one for ever with the name Of England, rose; and in her face the gleam Of justice that makes anger terrible Shone, and she stretched her glittering sceptre forth And spoke, with distant empires ...
— Collected Poems - Volume One (of 2) • Alfred Noyes

... at the children's feet Each his kingly crown, Each, the conquering power to greet, Laying humbly down. Sword and sceptre as is meet." ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain

... King has sceptre, crown and ball. You are my sceptre, crown and all, For all his robes of royal silk. More fair your skin, as white as milk. And it's O! sweet, ...
— The Broom-Squire • S. (Sabine) Baring-Gould

... sons of kings, of an immortal race. Their garb to their condition they debase, Eat of his fare, make on his straw their bed, Conversing, use his homely dialect, (Giving the words some meaning of their own,) Till, half forgetting purple, sceptre, throne, Themselves his children mere they nigh suspect. And when, divinely moved, one goes away, His royal right and glory to resume, Loss of his rags appears his life's decay, He weeps, and his companions mourn his doom. Yet doth a voice in every bosom say, "So perish ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 48, October, 1861 • Various

... the visions sweet that filled that gentle heart? Surely to Azof, her liege lord, was given the greatest part,— To him who prized her smiles beyond the power his sceptre gave, And, mighty sultan though he was, to ...
— The Poetical Works of Mrs. Leprohon (Mrs. R.E. Mullins) • Rosanna Eleanor Leprohon

... a willing ear to the messengers of Heaven, and, gathering together in considerable numbers, laid the foundations of the city of Cuzco. The same wise and benevolent maxims, which regulated the conduct of the first Incas, 9 descended to their successors, and under their mild sceptre a community gradually extended itself along the broad surface of the table-land, which asserted its superiority over the surrounding tribes. Such is the pleasing picture of the origin of the Peruvian monarchy, as portrayed by Garcilasso de la Vega, the descendant of the ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott

... Pompeius, Antonius or Octavius. To the pursuit of fame he sacrificed many interests and friendships. He was not less jealous of a rival in his chosen career than any of the leaders of party and candidates for popular favor. He could not endure competition for the throne of eloquence and the sceptre of persuasion. It was on this account perhaps that he sought his associates among the young, from whose rivalry he had nothing to fear, rather than from his own contemporaries, the candidates for the same prize of public admiration which ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various

... her arms with infinite allure. "It is so little that is asked of thee—only to ascend thy father's throne and be honoured of all Bharuta, only to wield the sceptre that is thine by right, only to reign an undisputed king in two kingdoms—Khandawar and ...
— The Bronze Bell • Louis Joseph Vance

... woman—really in love—though the attainment of his desire be all but impossible, he has reached the goal of life; no tide can take him higher toward the Absolute. He has reached life's zenith, and never will he rise higher, even though he live to wield a sceptre or rule armies. ...
— The Pools of Silence • H. de Vere Stacpoole

... multitudes destroy'd, For that the son of Atreus had his priest Dishonored, Chryses. To the fleet he came 15 Bearing rich ransom glorious to redeem His daughter, and his hands charged with the wreath And golden sceptre[2] of the God shaft-arm'd. His supplication was at large to all The host of Greece, but most of all to two, 20 The sons of Atreus, highest in command. Ye gallant Chiefs, and ye their gallant host, (So may the Gods who in Olympus ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer

... of a spirit-body (sahu). The chief priest then asserted that the king was alive, and that he should never be removed, and that he was similar in every way to Horus. The priest personifying the king then put on a special garment, and taking a staff or sceptre in his hand, said, "I love my father and his transformation. I have made my father, I have made a statue of him, a large statue. Horus loveth those who love him." He then pressed the lips of the statue, and said, "I have come to ...
— The Literature of the Ancient Egyptians • E. A. Wallis Budge

... he said, gravely, with the calm which presages a storm; "our Royal person must be no butt for raillery. This sceptre appears light, my lords, but he who ridicules it shall be crushed thereby as with a block of iron. I believe that our holy father the Pope is somewhat indebted to us, so that we do not fear his displeasure at the step which we are about to take. Since the King of ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 27, March 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various

... historian would commit a great error should he allow three hundred years to these nine monarchs. Every generation takes about thirty-six years; every reign is, one with the other, about twenty. Thirty kings of England have swayed the sceptre from William the Conqueror to George I., the years of whose reigns added together amount to six hundred and forty-eight years; which, being divided equally among the thirty kings, give to every one a reign of twenty-one years ...
— Letters on England • Voltaire

... not easily be carried with them. They took all the goods that were in the castle; went into the Cross church, and plundered it of all its ornaments. The priest Andres gave King Rettibur a silver-mounted gilt sceptre, and to his sister's son Dunimiz he gave a gold ring. They supposed from this that he was a man of great importance in the town, and held him in higher respect than the others. They took away with them the holy cross, and also the tables which ...
— Heimskringla - The Chronicle of the Kings of Norway • Snorri Sturluson

... beyond the mountains? Should we find her there who held the sceptre and upon earth wielded the power of the outraged Isis, and with her, that other woman who wrought the wrong? And if so, would the dread, inhuman struggle reach its climax around the person of the sinful priest? In a few months, a few days even, we might ...
— Ayesha - The Further History of She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed • H. Rider Haggard

... household. Both were under the orders of Mademoiselle, who, from the time of the war in La Vendee to the period of her brother's return, had ruled the house. When she learned that the baron was about to bring home a mistress, she had been moved to great emotion, believing that she must yield the sceptre of the household and abdicate in favor of the Baronne du Guenic, whose subject she was now ...
— Beatrix • Honore de Balzac

... other in their eagerness to get a view of her face and gown, and no wonder, too, that the proud, old colonel who ruled his house with a rod of iron, determined for the first time in his life to lay down the sceptre and give Kate and Harry full sway to do whatever popped into their two ...
— Kennedy Square • F. Hopkinson Smith

... Moses, you are gathered to your fathers; but Miss Rice stands like Joshua, commanding the sun not to go down till the sword of the gospel shall triumph. We thank the Lord that she is still a judge in Israel, so that as yet the sceptre has not ...
— Woman And Her Saviour In Persia • A Returned Missionary

... Diogenes and Antisthenes they were what the crown is to the king, the cloak of purple to the general, the cowl to the priest, the trumpet to the augur. Indeed the Cynic Diogenes, when he disputed with Alexander the Great, as to which of the two was the true king, boasted of his staff as the true sceptre. The unconquered Hercules himself, since you despise my instances as drawn from mere mendicancy, Hercules that roamed the whole world, exterminated monsters, and conquered races, god though he was, had but a skin for raiment and a staff ...
— The Apologia and Florida of Apuleius of Madaura • Lucius Apuleius

... umber and mottled white breast, with coal-black collar and neck and head of cinnamon. His golden tail droops far below his perch, and, running downward along the tree-trunk, it flashes in the air like a sceptre over the wood-lice he devours with his pickaxe bill. "Go to the ant, thou sluggard!" was an instigation to murder in the flicker, who loves young ants as much as wild-cherries or Indian corn, and is capable of taking any such ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend

... head Above the forest, was, perchance, his throne; There has he stood and marked the woods outspread, Like a great kingdom, that was all his own; In hunting shirt and moccassins arrayed, With bear skin cap, and pouch, and needful blade, How carelessly he leaned upon his gun! That sceptre of the wild, ...
— The Emigrant - or Reflections While Descending the Ohio • Frederick William Thomas

... couple was that, now and then, some of the farmers, whose eyes were sharper than those of their neighbours, seemed to think that the intimacy between the two was going a little too far, and that Joseph, was really keeping in his hands the sceptre of the little priestly kingdom. Nothing could be done without his advice; he was meddling in all the small and big affairs of the parish, and the curate seemed sometimes to be rather the servant than the master in his own house and parish. Those who ...
— The Priest, The Woman And The Confessional • Father Chiniquy

... serving mortals!" thought I, as, with a secret desire to play that fire- tending game, I contemplated the well-fed dame, amid iron pots and stewpans, standing there like an empress in the glory of the firelight, and with the fire-tongs sceptre rummaging about ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors • Various

... the mystic coronation-stone underneath it, brought for the purpose from the Abbey. In front of the chair was a table, covered with pink-coloured Geneva velvet fringed with gold; and on the table lay a large Bible, a sword, the sceptre, and a robe of purple velvet, lined with ermine. His Highness, having entered, attended by his Council, the great state officers, his son Richard, the French Ambassador, the Dutch Ambassador, and "divers of the nobility ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson

... rubies and jacinth stones, Such as great kings wear on their golden thrones, And a royal mantle of vair, And held a sceptre in my hand, Which showed me ruler of all the land, In my palace, where none ...
— A Legend of Old Persia and Other Poems • A. B. S. Tennyson

... the palace. Put on thy royal robes; put on thy crown, And take thy sceptre! Hail, thou King of ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

... The sceptre passed as quietly from Louis XVIII. to Charles X. in France as from George IV. to William IV. in England. So far, indeed, as public disorder indicates public discontent, the English monarchy was in greater peril during the period between 1815 and 1830 than the ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert

... Street Carnival. Now Billy Jordan, who was over eighty years of age, had served as announcer for every big boxing contest in San Francisco since—well, let's say, since San Francisco was born. He always ends his ring announcement with the words, "Let her go!" The reporters say that in the crown and sceptre, the velvet and ermine of a king, he opened the Fillmore Street Carnival with "Let her go!". And for myself, I choose to believe that story. The queen of this carnival—her first name was Manila, by the way—a pretty girl ...
— The Californiacs • Inez Haynes Irwin

... calls it. Chardin refers this title to the Persian Dad, "equity." To a portrait of "Alexander, King of Iberia," or Georgia Proper, Castelli attaches the following inscription, giving apparently his official style: "With the sceptre of David, Crowned by Heaven, First King of the Orient and of the World, King of Israel," adding, "They say that he has on his shoulder a small mark of a cross, 'Factus est principatus super humerum ejus,' and they add that he has all his ribs in one piece, and not ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa

... when the bloody foot prints of the first remorseless soul thief was placed upon the shores of our fatherland. The humblest peasant is as free in the sight of God, as the proudest monarch that ever swayed a sceptre. Liberty is a spirit sent out from God, and like its great Author, is ...
— Walker's Appeal, with a Brief Sketch of His Life - And Also Garnet's Address to the Slaves of the United States of America • David Walker and Henry Highland Garnet

... price: Bend not on her thine eyes, Till mid the souls that live she stay. See that thou turn not back upon the way! Check all fond thoughts that rise! Else will thy love be torn from thee away. I am well pleased that song so rare as thine The might of my dread sceptre should incline. ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds

... were with thee at thy birth, But life soon bowed thy tender form to earth, And hope forsook thee in thy hour of need. Come, for thy Saviour had His pains divine; Come, for His brow was crowned with thorns like thine, His sceptre was ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo

... immortal days. This region was naturally located on the surface of the earth, where the cheerful sun could shine and the fresh breezes blow, yet in some untrodden distance, where the gauntlet of fact had not smitten the sceptre of fable. The paltry portion of this earth familiar to the ancients was surrounded by an unexplored region, which their fancy, stimulated by the legends of the poets, peopled with mythological kingdoms, the rainbow bowers and cloudy synods of Olympus, from whose glittering peak ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger

... Thy sceptre—'tis with points of light Begemmed; thy retinues advance, And feeble Nature owns thy might, The ...
— The Minstrel - A Collection of Poems • Lennox Amott

... proportions, is most satisfying to the eye. It was a happy selection to place the Goddess of Agriculture between the Food Products Palace and the Palace of Agriculture. Ceres strikes the keynote of this delightfully beautiful court. With corn sceptre and cereal wreath, Ceres is poised on the globe, the winds of the Golden Gate blowing thru her drapery. Below on the die of the fountain are graceful figures in relief suggesting the decorations of a Greek ...
— Sculpture of the Exposition Palaces and Courts • Juliet James

... an enormous scandal; next for handing over the case, for public trial, to the Parlement, the hereditary foes of the Court. Freteau de Saint-Just, one of the Bar, cried: 'What a triumph for Liberal ideas! A Cardinal a thief! The Queen implicated! Mud on the crosier and the sceptre!' ...
— Historical Mysteries • Andrew Lang

... or Philosophical Society of Great Britain, an institution which names itself after her who is unquestionably the best queen on earth; who for a half century has with such dignity, clemency, and virtue worn the English crown and borne the English [30] sceptre. ...
— Miscellaneous Writings, 1883-1896 • Mary Baker Eddy

... birds fierce Monarch drops his vengeful ire; Perch'd on the sceptre of the Olympian King, The thrilling darts of harmony he feels, And indolently hangs his rapid wing, While gentle sleep his closing eye-lids seals; And o'er his heaving limbs, in loose array To every balmy gale the ruffling feathers ...
— An Essay on the Lyric Poetry of the Ancients • John Ogilvie

... flower to flower; here is that crying back to the antique spirit that was leavening the middle-class of France which was about to claim dominion over the land and to step to the foot of the throne and usurp the sceptre and diadem of her ancient line of kings as the Third Estate; and to come to power with violent upheaval, wading to the throne through blood and terror. Here we see Vigee Le Brun, royalist, glorifying motherhood, her ...
— Vigee Le Brun • Haldane MacFall

... under the liberty-cap of the goddess whose features are stamped in the shining gold, and his laugh is the clink of the jingling pieces. He turns himself into a regal sceptre that sways the gaping crowd, and it becomes a magnet that draws with resistless power the outstretched, itching palms of men. He takes the witching form of woman, paints her pulpy cheek with peachy bloom, knots into grace her mass of wavy hair, lights in her sparkling eye the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 103, May, 1866 • Various

... opinions. At the epoch at which the Christian religion appeared upon earth, Providence, by whom the world was doubtless prepared for its coming, had gathered a large portion of the human race, like an immense flock, under the sceptre of the Caesars. The men of whom this multitude was composed were distinguished by numerous differences; but they had thus much in common, that they all obeyed the same laws, and that every subject was so weak and insignificant ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 2 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville

... however, are some others of a less austere nature Masked balls were the rage that year. They were given in all directions. I was only three-and-twenty, and thought them all delightful Just at that moment Chicard—the famous Chicard—shared the sceptre of the opera-balls with Musard, the chief of the orchestra. A quiet-living worthy tradesman on weekdays, on important occasions an officer in the National Guard, Monsieur L "le grand Chicard," dressed in the most eccentric of costumes, led indescribable farandoles to the ...
— Memoirs • Prince De Joinville

... (but not, as tradition states, in the Eagle Tower, not then built), April 25, 1284; crowned at Westminster Abbey, August 6, 1307, by the Bishop of Winchester, acting as substitute for the Archbishop of Canterbury. The gilt spurs were borne by William le Mareschal; "the royal sceptre on whose summit is the cross" by the Earl of Hereford (killed in rebellion against the King) and "the royal rod on whose summit is the dove" by Henry of Lancaster, afterwards Earl: the Earls of Lancaster, Lincoln, and Warwick—of whom the first was beheaded for treason, and ...
— In Convent Walls - The Story of the Despensers • Emily Sarah Holt

... not thy sceptre unto them that be nothing, and let them not laugh at our fall; but turn their device upon themselves, and make him an example, that hath begun ...
— Deuteronomical Books of the Bible - Apocrypha • Anonymous

... hopes I kin stay free till night, anyhow," said Aun' Suke, pausing in her work to make a dab at a little darky with her wooden spoon sceptre. "Firs' Marse Scoville whirl in en say I free; den old miss whirl in en say I ain'; now conies de gin'ral ob de hull lot en I'se free agin. Wat's mo', de freer I git de harder I has ter wuk. My haid gwine roun' lak dat ar brass rewster on de barn, wen' de win' ...
— Miss Lou • E. P. Roe

... carefully picked out the shells; the consequence is easily imagined, the pudding became a pudding of puddings, and the use of eggs from thence took its date. The woman was sent for to Court to make puddings for King John, who then swayed the sceptre; and gained such favour that she was the making of ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange

... I choose to do it?" asked the cobbler, whose name was Simon, with a coarse laugh. "See, I hold the hand of the future King of France, and I can break it if I choose, and make it so it can never lift the sceptre of France. The little monkey thought he would take hold of my hand and make me draw it back, but now my hand has got hold of his, and holds it fast. And mark this, boy, the time is past when kings seized us and ...
— Ten Boys from History • Kate Dickinson Sweetser

... past—the mathematical class-room, the blackboard with its figures, the tricks of the boys, the scratching of the pens, came up to him, and his soul was stirred within him. His hand closed again upon the sceptre of authority, and Peter laid a grimy paw open upon the bedclothes. The master gave it one little stroke with all the strength he had. "The fiddlers," he said softly, "the little fiddlers can't do without me, after all." A tear gathered in his eye and overflowed and ...
— Young Barbarians • Ian Maclaren

... its existence and acceptance, among the most striking signs of the lost sensation and deadened intellect of the nation at that time; a numbness and darkness more without hope than that of the grave itself, holding and wearing yet the sceptre and the crown like the corpses of the Etruscan kings, ready to sink into ashes at the first unbarring of ...
— Modern Painters Volume I (of V) • John Ruskin

... if 't please you! I've laid my purple by, but I have still The royal color in my heart. Think'st thou To sit above Assyria, who wearest not The brave investment of the gods? who hold'st Thy sceptre still from warrior chiefs, not from ...
— Semiramis and Other Plays - Semiramis, Carlotta And The Poet • Olive Tilford Dargan

... all go," said he, "these magnates, to kiss the hand of this emperor of seven months, and wallow in the dust before the cradle of a whimpering nurseling! I shall nevertheless be the real emperor, and both sceptre and crown will ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach

... Europe, during the last half century, can furnish you with many parallel cases. Louis Philippe has, ere now, like myself, earned his bread by mathematical exertion—Young Gustavson—Henry of Bourbon, are exiles! the sceptre has fallen from the hands of the chivalrous house of Murat! Minor principalities are changed or absorbed, unnoticed amidst the war and clash of the great world around them! Thrones are eclipsed like stars, and ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846 • Various

... cortege approached they struck up a loud chant, to the measured time of which they marched forward. As they got nearer, after a shout of welcome had been uttered by the entire concourse, the sceptre-bearer advanced, and in a manly voice commenced an oration, prompted by a companion, and at the conclusion, according to the rule, they all shouted "Oh!" ...
— Notable Voyagers - From Columbus to Nordenskiold • W.H.G. Kingston and Henry Frith

... driving the old horse, and beaming at his little friend from the bower of flags and chestnut-boughs, where he sat in state, with a crown of daisies on his sailor-hat and a spray of blooming sweetbrier in his hand. Waving his rustic sceptre, he led off the shout of "Happy birthday, Marjorie!" which was set up as the wagon stopped at the gate, and the green boughs suddenly blossomed with familiar faces, all smiling on the little damsel, who stood in the lane quite overpowered ...
— Marjorie's Three Gifts • Louisa May Alcott

... glutted her brain with greed. She has starved her intellect and gorged her ambition. She has bartered her birthright of nobility and sold her soul to crawling sycophants. She has prostituted her sceptre of power to trusts for tinsel and cowers under the lash of corporations because they bind her brow with a cap of bells that tinkle an empty song of "Freedom." In the mad rush for gain, America has ...
— Volume 10 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann

... the sceptre, his back bent, as under too heavy a burden; he lifted it no higher than in bowing and no lower than in making a gift. His face changed, as it will with fear, and he dragged his feet, as ...
— The Sayings Of Confucius • Confucius

... head they placed a fruitless crown, And put a barren sceptre in my gripe, Thence to be wrench'd by an unlineal hand, No son of ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... rules alone it is easy to see how thoroughly the masterful spirit of Jonson ruled in the Apollo room. His air was a throne, his word a sceptre that must be obeyed. This impression is confirmed by many records and especially by Drummond's character sketch. The natural consequence was that membership in the Apollo Club came to be regarded as an unusual honour. There appears ...
— Inns and Taverns of Old London • Henry C. Shelley

... see and pronounce causes sufficient, why women oght not to beare rule nor authoritie, shuld this clay liue and see a woman sitting in iudgement, or riding frome parliament in the middest of men, hauing the royall crowne vpon her head, the sworde and sceptre borne before her, in signe that the administration of iustice was in her power: I am assuredlie persuaded, I say, that suche a sight shulde so astonishe them, that they shuld iudge the hole worlde to be transformed into Amazones[5], and that suche a metamorphosis and change was made of all the ...
— The First Blast of the Trumpet against the monstrous regiment - of Women • John Knox

... Mrs. Lora Rewbush was again heard from the wings; it sounded bloodthirsty. Penrod released his victim; and the Child King Arthur, somewhat disconcerted, extended his sceptre and, with the assistance ...
— Penrod • Booth Tarkington

... your eye over the monumental map of ancient grandeur, once studded with the stars of empire and the splendors of philosophy. What erected the little State of Athens into a powerful Commonwealth, placing in her hand the sceptre of legislation, and wreathing round her brow the imperishable chaplet of literary fame? What extended Rome, the heart of banditti, into universal empire? What animated Sparta with that high, unbending, adamantine courage, which conquered Nature herself, and has fixed ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick

... face and arms were painted vermilion; above the Tyrian purple of his toga, above the gold work and palms of his tunic, there oscillated a little ball in which there were charms against Envy. On his head a wreath concealed his increasing baldness; along his left arm the sceptre lay; behind him a boy admonished him noisily to remember he was man, while to the rear for miles and miles there rang the laugh of trumpets, the click of castanets, the shouts of dancers, the roar of the multitude, the tramp of legions, and the ...
— Imperial Purple • Edgar Saltus

... patience; as, for example, Jingling Geordie, look here!" And he displayed the recovered treasure to the eyes of the astonished jeweller, exclaiming, with great triumph, "What say ye to that, Jingler?—By my sceptre and crown, the man stares as if he took his native prince for a warlock! us that are the very malleus maleficarum, the contunding and contriturating hammer of all witches, sorcerers, magicians, and the like; he thinks we are taking a touch of the black art outsells!—But gang thy way, ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott

... the method of the ballot-box—of course with proportional representation. When there are no more heathen—when the whole world can read the will of God by direct intuition, as though it were written in letters of fire across the firmament—then, indeed, the ballot-box may join the throne, sceptre and crown in the historical museum. But even the robust optimism of the gottestrunken Mr. Wells can scarcely conceive this millennium to be at hand. So that in the meantime it seems unwise to speak slightingly of democracy, lest we thereby help the Powers, both here and elsewhere, ...
— God and Mr. Wells - A Critical Examination of 'God the Invisible King' • William Archer

... strength. Political organization seems to have been its forte, and it had set its own house in some sort of order before it was summoned by Ecgberht to assume the lead in English politics. From that day to this the sceptre has remained in his house ...
— The History of England - A Study in Political Evolution • A. F. Pollard

... father. For he would not trust the natives to nominate or elect, knowing the evil he had done, and the force he had used towards them. Manco Ccapac being now on the point of death, he left the bird indi enclosed in its cage, the tupac-yauri[57] or sceptre, the napa and the suntur-paucar the insignia of a prince, [though tyrant,] to his son Sinchi Rocca that he might take his place, [and this without the consent or election of any ...
— History of the Incas • Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa

... to a wounded and vanquished foe. The tree is rotten to the core and can crush no one in its fall, but it will cover all who stand near it with dust and rubbish. The sovereign has outlived his dominion, and when his fingers drop the sceptre few indeed will bewail him, for the new King has already mounted the throne and His is the Kingdom, and the power, and the ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... oppressed, and felt there was a great wrong, and she said I will die or I will bring my complaint before the king. Should the king of the United States be greater, or more crueler, or more harder? But the king, he raised up his sceptre and said: "Thy request shall be granted unto thee—to the half of my kingdom will I grant it to thee!" Then he said he would hang Haman on the gallows he had made up high. But that is not what women come forward to contend. ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage

... to be out of and above the world, in solitary congregation, with hair shirt, hard diet, empty flesh pot, and full library, in the deep silence and keen air of the mountains. Here hands that had gripped the sword and the sceptre were turned to the spade and lifted only in prayer. There were not only the allurements of hardship, but also his parents' faith and his own early lessons tugging at his heart strings. He found means ...
— Hugh, Bishop of Lincoln - A Short Story of One of the Makers of Mediaeval England • Charles L. Marson

... above all take notice, how good these brats are, and how well they work!" So saying, the matron pointed with the long ladle, which served her as a sceptre, to some fifteen children of both sexes, seated round a table, and deeply absorbed in the exercise of their functions, which consisted in peeling potatoes ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue

... Turning his eyes from the hostile wood, he looked at the sword as he held it there, and seemed puzzled as to what to do with it, where to put it. In short, this weapon had of a sudden become a strange thing to him. He looked at it in a kind of stupefaction, as if he had been endowed with a trident, a sceptre, ...
— Men, Women, and Boats • Stephen Crane

... that the sceptre hath borne, The brow of the priest, that the mitre hath worn, The eye of the sage, and the heart of the brave, Are hidden and lost in the depths of ...
— Lincoln's Yarns and Stories • Alexander K. McClure

... this great Icelandic poet, that owing to his treachery the free island of Iceland came beneath the Norwegian sceptre. For this reason he could never appear in Iceland without a strong guard, and therefore visited the Allthing under the protection of a small army of 600 men. Being at length surprised by his enemies in his house at Reikiadal, he fell beneath their blows, after a short and ineffectual ...
— Visit to Iceland - and the Scandinavian North • Ida Pfeiffer

... Wherefore this promise I make thee, ere I depart. A fruit there shall come forth issuing from thy body, Whom I will advance upon thy seat for ever. His throne shall become a seat of heavenly glory His worthy sceptre from right will not dissever, His happy kingdom, of faith shall perish never. Of heaven and of earth he was author principal, And will continue, though they do perish all. This sign shalt thou have for a token special, That ...
— Everyman and Other Old Religious Plays, with an Introduction • Anonymous

... and Mac mean to go to Greenwich Fair! Perhaps you dine at the Crown and Sceptre to-day, for it's Easter-Monday—who knows! I wish you drank punch, dear Forster. It's a shabby thing, not to be able to picture you with that cool green glass. . ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster

... served her for a sceptre; she took her seat; a rose leaf hung for a canopy over her head; the bells of the lily of the valley and the campanula sent forth their joyous chime. The bladder senna filled the air with the noise of its bursting petards. The artillery of the ...
— Piccolissima • Eliza Lee Follen

... gale rising in England as will blow out this petty breeze. A question of rights, some arrows shot, a fire and lives lost—what of that when it agitates betwixt powers temporal and spiritual, and which of them shall hold the sceptre in this mighty Britain? Martin, I have a mission for you that may lead you to a bishopric ere all is done, for that's your mind and aim, and if you would put off your doubts and moodiness you've got the brain to rule. That ...
— The Lady Of Blossholme • H. Rider Haggard

... arose, and, waving his sceptre, commanded silence. John bowed and turned to the King, waiting to hear his pleasure. But instead of the speech which every one expected, they saw the King gazing down into the crowd before him, and on his lips was a malicious smile. But he looked very old and sick, and he tottered as he held to ...
— John of the Woods • Abbie Farwell Brown

... from whom the first of the Magi learned the secret of the heavens. And of these Balaam the son of Beor was one of the mightiest. Hear the words of his prophecy: 'There shall come a star out of Jacob, and a sceptre shall arise ...
— The Story of the Other Wise Man • Henry Van Dyke

... advantages for bearing the orator's sceptre were a voice of singular fulness, depth, and variety of tone; a falcon's eye with strange imperious flash; features mobile, expressive, and with lively play; a great actor's command of gesture, bold, sweeping, natural, unforced, without exaggeration or a trace of ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley

... at these words like a tallow-candle, began again to embrace her; and sealing the latter with a kiss, he gave her his hand, saying, "Take my faith, you shall be my wife, you shall be mistress of my sceptre, you shall have the key of this heart, as you hold the helm of this life." After these and a hundred other ceremonies and discourses they arose. And so it ...
— Stories from Pentamerone • Giambattista Basile

... the life of a man, when the goddess of Reasonable Impulse raises her arms above her head, and allows herself a little yawn. Then she takes off her crown and hangs it on the back of her throne; after which she rests her sceptre on the floor, and, rising, stretches herself to her full height, and goes forth to take a long, refreshing walk by the waters of Unreflection. Then her minister, Prudence, stretches himself upon a bench, and, with his handkerchief over ...
— The Late Mrs. Null • Frank Richard Stockton

... However that be, scouts were sent through the land in search of Wamba, whom they found at length in his fields, driving his plough through the soil and asking for no higher lot. He was like Cincinnatus, the famous Roman, who was called from the plough to the sceptre. ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume VII • Charles Morris

... that had been used. They were identified by miracle. A true relic-worship set in. The superstition of the old Greek times reappeared; the times when the tools with which the Trojan horse was made might still be seen at Metapontum, the sceptre of Pelops at Chaeroneia, the spear of Achilles at Phaselis, the sword of Memnon at Nicomedia, when the Tegeates could show the hide of the Calydonian boar and very many cities boasted their possession of the true palladium of Troy; when there were statues of Minerva that could ...
— History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science • John William Draper

... what has been the controlling force holding this strange empire together. What is the electro-magnetism governing its furthest atom as though it were at your elbow? What is the magic sceptre that compels this diversity of peoples to act as one man? What is the master passion uniting these multifarious pulsations into ...
— The War Romance of the Salvation Army • Evangeline Booth and Grace Livingston Hill

... not worthy. I cannot reasonably claim to equal the great men who have previously swayed the sceptre of Britain. Perhaps the only peculiarity that I can claim is that I am probably the first monarch that ever spoke out his soul to the people of England with his head and body in this position. This may in some ...
— The Napoleon of Notting Hill • Gilbert K. Chesterton

... but mere artificial, arbitrarily defined districts, which were regularly subdivided or combined according to the hereditary rights of the Princes, it is highly probable that they would in any case have been sooner or later united under one sceptre; but it is quite certain that the policy of the Khans helped to accelerate this unification and to create the autocratic power which has since been wielded by the Tsars. If the principalities had been united without foreign interference ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace

... the great white house of Kings and, entering the portals where none are worthy to follow, shalt make obeisance alone to all the elder Kings of Zarkandhu, whose bones are seated upon golden thrones grasping their sceptres still. Therein thou shalt go with robes and sceptre through the marble porch, but thou shalt leave behind thee thy gleaming crown that others may wear it, and as the times go by come in to swell the number of the thirty Kings that sit in the great white house on golden thrones. ...
— Time and the Gods • Lord Dunsany [Edward J. M. D. Plunkett]

... there were many curtains with great golden tassels. Then he went through the doors of the saloon to where the great throne-room was, and there was his wife sitting upon a throne of gold and diamonds, and she had a great golden crown on, and the sceptre in her hand was of pure gold and jewels, and on each side stood six pages in a row, each one a head shorter than the other. So the man went ...
— Household Stories by the Brothers Grimm • Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm

... the waiting; for when Stanley Thane Came from his northern home with Dalton Earl, And on the terrace steps met Coralline, Love took the sceptre that ...
— Stories in Verse • Henry Abbey

... him out for the last time, and perhaps made him sit on the judgment-seat in his mockery of kingly garments and royal insignia, saying, 'Behold your king!' Just because of those robes and that crown, that sceptre and that throne of ridicule, he was the only real king that ...
— Unspoken Sermons - Series I., II., and II. • George MacDonald

... as the longest in the annals of the empire. He was indolent, timid, irresolute, and incapable. His features and manners were vulgar, his intellect sluggish. Peasant-like in his petty economies, he was shrewder at a bargain than in wielding his imperial sceptre. At Treves he was accompanied by his son, the Archduke Maximilian, a fairly intelligent youth of eighteen, very ready to be fascinated by his proposed father-in-law, who was a striking contrast to his own languid and irresolute father, in energy ...
— Charles the Bold - Last Duke Of Burgundy, 1433-1477 • Ruth Putnam

... too close to the event to be able to measure its true import. Its real meaning was that the American continent with all its huge resources, its potential value in the ages to come, had entered upon the sphere of world politics, and ultimately would hold in its hands the sceptre of world dominion. Even the British thought that we had come (p. 029) merely to assist the Mother Country in her difficulties. Those who were at the helm in Canada, however, knew that we were not fighting for the security ...
— The Great War As I Saw It • Frederick George Scott

... Vasudeva seemed to be stupefied, Arjuna shot a weapon from which issued torrents of shafts on all sides. And he struck the son of Drona with innumerable shafts, each resembling the thunder or fire or the sceptre of Death. Endued with mighty energy, that achiever of fierce feats, (Ashvatthama) then pierced both Keshava and Arjuna with well-shot shafts which were inspired with great impetuosity and struck with which Death himself would feel pain. Checking ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown

... time when I entered the college, the convention was imposing its blood-stained sceptre over France. Representatives of the people, on various missions, infested the provinces, and almost all of these who were of any importance in the Midi came to visit Sorze, whose title of "Military Academy" sounded ...
— The Memoirs of General the Baron de Marbot, Translated by - Oliver C. Colt • Baron de Marbot

... the social transformation which dates from her Majesty's accession. Thackeray spoke the words of truth and soberness when, after describing the virtues and the limitations of George III., he said: "I think we acknowledge in the inheritrix of his sceptre a wiser rule and a life as honourable and pure; and I am sure that the future painter of our manners will pay a willing allegiance to that good life, and be loyal to the memory ...
— Collections and Recollections • George William Erskine Russell

... snapp'd her sword, And laid her sceptre down; Her stately purple she abhorr'd, And her ...
— Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold

... that some token might be sent him of friendship and peace; this request was readily complied with, and soon after came the king, attended by a guard of about a hundred tall men, and preceded by an officer of state, who carried a sceptre made of black wood, adorned with chains of a kind of bone or horn, which are marks of the highest honour among them, and having two crowns, made as before, with feathers fastened to it, with a bag of the same herb, which was presented to Drake ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 6 - Reviews, Political Tracts, and Lives of Eminent Persons • Samuel Johnson

... Mephisto had successively dawned on the delighted consciousness of the Parisians—those most insatiate of all theatre-goers—Lemaitre had won the sceptre of the Paris stage. He reigned over the public with despotic sway, and the public adored its theatrical monarch. With his subjects he could do anything, take any liberty, without fear of dethronement. One evening, during an act in which he had not ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Volume 15, No. 89, May, 1875 • Various

... followed by the Duke of Montpensier, the Duke of Nevers, the Duke of Aumale, the Duke of Etampes, the Marquis of Maine, and M. de Rohan. Then came the grands deuils or chief mourners, led by the Duke of Vendome, and three lords carrying the crown, sceptre, and hand of justice. The Viscount of Lavedan officiated as grand master of the ceremonies, and special seats were assigned to the States of Navarre, Foix, Beam, and Bigorre, and to the chancellor, counsellors, and barons of the country; whilst on ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. I. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre

... answered, "I am the Prince of all the army of heaven; rise up and stand on your feet, and hear my words." Then for the first time she looked at him, and saw that he was in all things like Joseph, with royal robe, and crown and sceptre; but his face, and hair, and hands and feet were bright like the sun, and his eyes pierced like lightning; and again she was afraid, and fell on her face. But he said, "Do not be afraid; hear what I am come to say to you." Thereupon she rose and stood ...
— Old Testament Legends - being stories out of some of the less-known apochryphal - books of the old testament • M. R. James

... text is also frequent with the meaning here given. Corneille has, "Alidor en voulait a Celie" (la Veuve, I. 181). "Poppee etait une infidele qui n'en voulait qu'au trone" (Othon, I. 194). "Je n'en veux pas, Cleone, au sceptre d'Armenie" (Nicomede, I. 347). And La Fontaine: "Comme il en voulait a l'argent" (les deux Mulets, I. 8). The Academy gives the locution in its Dictionary, with the remark: "signifie aussi familierement, Avoir quelque pretention sur cette personne, sur cette chose, en avoir quelque desir. Il ...
— A Selection from the Comedies of Marivaux • Pierre Carlet de Chamblain de Marivaux

... grace of Buddha, but adversity brings forth one's religious conviction. Christ on the cross was more Christ than Jesus at the table. Luther at war with the Pope was more Luther than he at peace. Nichi-ren[FN225] laid the foundation of his church when sword and sceptre threatened him with death. Shin-ran[FN226] and Hen-en[FN227] established their respective faiths when they were exiled. When they were exiled, they complained not, resented not, regretted not, repented not, lamented not, ...
— The Religion of the Samurai • Kaiten Nukariya

... Keep orb and sceptre. Give us up your souls That our long fingers wake them verily Like dulcimers and citherns and violes; Or at the burning disk of ecstasy Impose rare sigils ...
— The Hours of Fiammetta - A Sonnet Sequence • Rachel Annand Taylor

... no longer. Take thou my royal robes, my signet-ring, My crown and sceptre, and deliver them Unto my son, Antiochus Eupator; And unto the good Jews, my citizens, In all my towns, say that their dying monarch Wisheth them joy, prosperity, and health. I who, puffed up with pride ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

... bayonet and with lance, With corslet, casque and sword; Our island king no war-horse needs, For on the sea he's lord. His throne's the war-ship's lofty deck, His sceptre is the mast; His kingdom is the rolling wave, His servant is the blast. His anchor's up, fair Freedom's flag Proud to the mast he nails; Tyrants and conquerors bow your heads, For there your ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, No. - 288, Supplementary Number • Various

... conversation that the old king died, with results very different from those which Hokosa had anticipated. Although he was a Christian, to his surprise Nodwengo showed that he was also a strong ruler, and that there was little chance of the sceptre slipping from his hand—none indeed while the white teacher was there to ...
— The Wizard • H. Rider Haggard

... this dust, the sovereign power of a commonwealth is no more bounded, that is to say straitened, than that of a monarch; but is balanced. The eagle mounts not to her proper pitch, if she be bounded, nor is free if she be not balanced. And lest a monarch should think he can reach further with his sceptre, the Roman eagle upon such a balance spread her wings from the ocean to Euphrates. Receive the sovereign power; you have received it, hold it fast, embrace it forever in your shining arms. The virtue of ...
— The Commonwealth of Oceana • James Harrington

... his band he will raise from out of the earth; he will revive the Ephraimitic Messiah, who was slain; he will show the three holy vessels of the Temple, the Ark, the flask of manna, and the cruse of sacred oil, all three of which disappeared mysteriously; he will wave the sceptre given him by God; he will grind the mountains of the Holy Land into powder like straw, and he will reveal the secret of redemption. Then the Jews will believe that Elijah is the Elijah promised to them, and the Messiah introduced by him is ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME IV BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG

... six feet and a half long, and represents king Richard in a recumbent posture, his head supported by a square cushion, wearing a crown enriched with precious stones; his feet are supported by a crouching lion. On his left hand was a sceptre of which we only see the remains; the right hand has disappeared. The princes, mantle descends nearly to his ancles, in wide folds. It is over a tunic which reaches up to the neck, and which is bound round the body, by an embroidered belt of which the end hangs in front below ...
— Rouen, It's History and Monuments - A Guide to Strangers • Theodore Licquet

... of the dark-blue sea, Our thoughts as boundless, and our souls as free, Far as the breeze can bear, the billows foam, Survey our empire, and behold our home! These are our realms, no limits to their sway, Our flag the sceptre all who meet obey. Ours the wild life in tumult still to range From toil to rest, and joy ...
— Pirates and Piracy • Oscar Herrmann

... protecting zemes into battle. Not only had they beheld the holy image but also a woman, robed in fair white draperies, who, in the heat of the battle, sustained them against their enemies. The latter also declared that there had appeared opposite to them a woman with menacing face, carrying a sceptre, who encouraged the opposing army and that this apparition made them ...
— De Orbe Novo, Volume 1 (of 2) - The Eight Decades of Peter Martyr D'Anghera • Trans. by Francis Augustus MacNutt

... on the sweetmeat-box. They are minded to hold many pleasant festivals in your honour; you may count upon having a veritable Court. Here it is that you will meet the old Warnais nobility that followed Henri IV. and placed the sceptre in his hand. Messieurs de Grammont and de Biron are our neighbours; their grim castles dominate the whole district, so that they seem ...
— The Memoirs of Madame de Montespan, Complete • Madame La Marquise De Montespan



Words linked to "Sceptre" :   staff, sovereignty, bauble, reign



Copyright © 2024 e-Free Translation.com