"Vocation" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... at least of Shakspeare the man, as distinguished from the author, there remains little more to record. Already in 1592, Greene, in his posthumous Groat's-worth of Wit, had expressed the earliest vocation of Shakspeare in the following sentence: "There is an upstart crow, beautified with our feathers; in his own conceit the only Shakscene in a country!" This alludes to Shakspeare's office of recasting, and even recomposing, dramatic ...
— Biographical Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... operation of the draft, with the high bounties paid for army recruits, is beginning to affect injuriously the naval service, and will, if not corrected, be likely to impair its efficiency by detaching seamen from their proper vocation and inducing them to enter the Army. I therefore respectfully suggest that Congress might aid both the army and naval services by a definite provision on this subject which would at the same time be equitable to the communities more ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Lincoln - Section 1 (of 2) of Volume 6: Abraham Lincoln • Compiled by James D. Richardson
... at no distant day to break far enough away from the election, the seeming "vocation" of his youth, yet would remain always, and under all circumstances, unmistakably a monk in some predominant qualities of temper. At first it only by way of thought that he asserted his liberty—delightful, late-found ...
— Giordano Bruno • Walter Horatio Pater
... and slights her son Judah for his love. She tries to incite him into rebellion against the Syrians, when Jojakim, a priest appears. He {189} announces the death of Osias, High-priest of Zion and calls one of Leah's sons to the important office.—As Judah feels no vocation for such a burden, Eleazar, his mother's favorite is chosen, and so Leah sees her dream already fulfilled. They are about to depart, when the approaching army of the Syrians is announced. Terror seizes the people, ...
— The Standard Operaglass - Detailed Plots of One Hundred and Fifty-one Celebrated Operas • Charles Annesley
... oxygen from which to add to the remaining nitrogen oxygen, in substitution for that which has been burnt up in the process of respiration. Armed with this apparatus, a diver is enabled to follow his vocation without any air-tube connecting with the surface, indeed without any connections whatever. A notable instance of a most courageous use of this apparatus was afforded by a diver named Lambert, who, during one of the inundations which occurred in the construction of the ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 488, May 9, 1885 • Various
... speak of does exist. In Switzerland, I believe, a bell-ringer has for years been collecting material for a heraldic memorial. I should think," he continued, laughing, "that his avocation would interfere with his vocation." ...
— La-bas • J. K. Huysmans
... it is as much my duty to consult Lucilla's happiness as if any words had passed between us. I have never pledged myself to take Orders. It has been only a wish, not a vocation; and if she have become averse to the prospect of a quiet country life, it would not be treating her fairly not to give her the choice of comparative wealth, though procured by means ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... made the married state so irksome and distasteful to women that they prefer celibacy when they dare enjoy it. Observe, however, the inconsistency of another line of reasoning running parallel with this in the floating literature of the day: "Motherhood," these writers say, "is the natural vocation of women; is, indeed, an instinct so mighty, even if unconscious, that it draws women toward matrimony with a yearning as irresistible as that which pulls the great sea upon the land in blind response to the moon." If ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... here they were displayed in strong kaleidoscopic effect. We thought it must be the occasion of some special charitable fair, after the practice of religious societies in more modern countries; but were informed that these merchants were engaged in their regular vocation, and were permanent fixtures in the temple. The natives crowded about these small bazars, and seemed to freely invest the few coppers they had. We were followed about the courts, chapels, and departments of the immense ...
— Due West - or Round the World in Ten Months • Maturin Murray Ballou
... an aristocrat, if he excels in his vocation: he is an aristocrat, if he turns a better or a straighter furrow than his neighbor. The poorest poet is an aristocrat, if he writes more feelingly, in a purer language, or with more euphonic jingle ...
— Sanders' Union Fourth Reader • Charles W. Sanders
... preferred, but the torrent of Mr. Henley's enthusiasm swept him off his feet. However, after several plays had been finished, and his health seriously impaired by his endeavours to keep up with Mr. Henley, play writing was abandoned forever, and my husband returned to his legitimate vocation. Having added one of the titles, The Hanging Judge, to the list of projected plays, now thrown aside, and emboldened by my husband's offer to give me any help needed, I concluded to try ...
— Kidnapped • Robert Louis Stevenson
... region called The Great Valley, that Mr. Young and his trappers pursued their vocation. They commenced far south, at the head waters of the San Joaquin, and trapped down that stream, a distance of about one hundred and fifty miles. They then struck the greater flood of the Sacramento, and followed up that stream nearly ...
— Christopher Carson • John S. C. Abbott
... experience. You may enter into partnership at once, by keeping the books in the morning and going out to visit patients in the afternoon. While I dose the nobility and clergy, you shall labor in your vocation among the lower orders; and when you have felt your ground a little, I will get you admitted into our body. You are a philosopher, Gil Blas, tho you have never graduated; the common herd of them, tho they have graduated in due form and order, are likely to run out the length of their tether without ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VII (of X)—Continental Europe I • Various
... being satisfied before that the great men of the Epirots were his friends, and that they were eager for him to rid himself of Neoptolemus, and not to content himself with a mere petty share of the government, but to follow his own natural vocation to great designs, and now when just ground of suspicion appeared, to anticipate Neoptolemus ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... the old groceryman, as he heaved a sigh, and tried to look sorry. "What is it, reform school, or have the police ordered you out of town? I have felt it coming for a long time. This is the only town you could have plied your vocation so long in and not been pulled. Where are you going with the dude suit case and ...
— Peck's Bad Boy Abroad • George W. Peck
... always lie upon the surface of things. It requires hard, patient toil to dig down beneath the superficial crust of appearance to the solid rock of fact on which truth rests. To discover and declare truth as it is, and facts as they are, is the vocation of the scholar. Not what he likes to think, not what other people will be pleased to hear, not what will be popular or profitable; but what as the result of careful investigation, painstaking inquiry, prolonged reflection he has learned to be the fact;—this, nothing less and nothing more, ...
— Practical Ethics • William DeWitt Hyde
... his fingers, a consequence of his over-exertions, obliged him to give up this career forever. He did not yet suspect that this accident would prove fortunate for him in the end, by directing him to his true vocation, composition. Perhaps, too, it was the first germ of love, in the garb of admiration for the wondrous talent of Clara, which made young Robert so quiet and dreamy. His companions were all the more lively. There sat the eccentric Louis ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. September, 1863, No. LXXI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... the abstraction of the employment from him who pursues it, is one which most men do not take the trouble to make: an effort, indeed, which the majority of men are incapable of making. A vicious priest degrades the priestly vocation—a hypocrite brings reproach upon the religious profession—a dishonest lawyer sinks the legal character—and even the bravest men care but little for promotion in an army, when cowardice and incompetency are rewarded with rank and power. But manifest incapacity, culpable ...
— Western Characters - or Types of Border Life in the Western States • J. L. McConnel
... "You much mistake my vocation, noble captain;" returned the dealer in contraband, faintly laughing. "Though one of the seas, I am one more used to the calm latitudes than to these whirlwinds of war. You have visited the brigantine of our mistress, and must have seen that her temple resembles that of Janus more than that ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... confided these things, leaning in Charlie's arms on a little striped divan by a gas fire. She made him a drink, and showed him the cunning and luxurious little contrivances for comfort about the flat. He loved it. She didn't try to conceal from him her real vocation, for that would have been too silly. Even Charlie might not have been such a fool as to believe her. But she invested it with glamour; she made of it romance. Once more as in boyhood he saw the ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Edward J. O'Brien and John Cournos, editors
... attend to each corridor, and connected with the hospital is a school for nurses, under the direction of the medical superintendent and the matron. From this school, nurses are provided for the town; they are not merely efficient for any duty in the vocation in which they are always engaged, either within the hospital or out of it, but from the care with which they attend to their own personal cleanliness, and the plan they pursue of changing every garment on leaving an infectious case, they fail to be the bearers of any ...
— Hygeia, a City of Health • Benjamin Ward Richardson
... reverenced, and widened the idea, until it embraced the whole world. He said it was the mission, the special vocation of all who felt the mutual responsibility of men. But nationality of Italy meant to Carlyle, only "the glory of having produced Dante and Columbus," and he cared for them not for the national thought they interpreted, ...
— Cobwebs of Thought • Arachne
... appropriate word. One cannot help thinking that so it must have struck the Prince; nor are we surprised that, on the next opportunity he had of exercising a sportsman's legitimate vocation, with the good qualities of patience, endurance, and skill, which it is calculated to call forth, emphatic mention is made ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen, (Victoria) Vol II • Sarah Tytler
... leaders of Portugal and the "Examples of all Christians," was now cut off by death from a sight of their first victories. Her last thought was for their success. She spoke to Edward of a king's true vocation, to Pedro of his knightly duties in the help of widows and orphans, to Henry of a general's care for his men. On the 13th, the last day of her illness, she roused herself to ask "What wind was blowing so strong against the house?" and hearing it was the north, sank back and died, exclaiming, "It ...
— Prince Henry the Navigator, the Hero of Portugal and of Modern Discovery, 1394-1460 A.D. • C. Raymond Beazley
... Marshall Clemens tired of the unpromising life of Florida and removed to Hannibal, Missouri. He was a stern, unbending man, a lawyer by profession, a merchant by vocation; after his removal to Hannibal he became a Justice of the Peace, an office he filled with all the dignity of a local autocrat. His forum was a "dingy" office, furnished with "a dry-goods box, three or four rude stools, and a puncheon bench." The solemnity of his ...
— Mark Twain • Archibald Henderson
... dogmen came forth as usual at their Circes' pleading, guerdon, or crack of the whip. One among them was a strong man, apparently of too solid virtues for this airy vocation. His expression was melancholic, his manner depressed. He was leashed to a vile white dog, loathsomely fat, fiendishly ill-natured, gloatingly intractable ...
— Sixes and Sevens • O. Henry
... so accustomed to passive endurance, that no murmur escaped her when she found that her only white friend could not come to her, as she had expected. Granny Nan boasted of having nursed many grand white ladies, and her skill in the vocation proved equal to her pretensions. Only her faithful Tulee and the kind old colored mammy were with her when, hovering between life and death, she heard the cry that announced the advent of a human soul. Nature, deranged by bodily illness and mental ...
— A Romance of the Republic • Lydia Maria Francis Child
... enough to cheer and console him? At any rate, young Esmond of the army was quite a different being to the sad little dependant of the kind Castlewood household, and the melancholy student of Trinity Walks; discontented with his fate, and with the vocation into which that drove him, and thinking, with a secret indignation, that the cassock and bands, and the very sacred office with which he had once proposed to invest himself, were, in fact, but marks of a servitude which was to continue all ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... He had no abiding place; sometimes he referred to one hill shanty, sometimes to another, as home; but the home-feeling with him was at its fullest and strongest when he was "trampin'." Ostensibly his vocation was that of a travelling farm-hand, but it was all ostentation. Piney would not work. Not while the pony could carry him from hospitable farm-house to hospitable farm-house. He was a knight of the saddle, the uncrowned king of the woods, and Bruce, riding along beside him now, regarding him, ...
— Sally of Missouri • R. E. Young
... their young manhood often before the age of puberty. They develop a bad character as they grow older. Young girls are ruined, and licentiousness and prostitution flourish. Keep the boys pure and the harlot would soon lose her vocation. Elevate the morals of the boys, and you will have pure men and ...
— Searchlights on Health - The Science of Eugenics • B. G. Jefferis and J. L. Nichols
... ambassador between sea and land!—whose sailor-trowsers did not more convincingly assure thee to be an adopted denizen of the former, than thy white cap, and whiter apron over them, with thy neat-fingered practice in thy culinary vocation, bespoke thee to have been of inland nurture heretofore—a master cook of Eastcheap? How busily didst thou ply thy multifarious occupation, cook, mariner, attendant, chamberlain; here, there, like another Ariel, flaming at once about all parts of the deck, ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... master, left him, and continued his training in London as a student at St. Thomas's Hospital and Guy's. Gradually, however, during the months that followed, though he was an industrious and able medical student, Keats came to realize that poetry was his true vocation; and as soon as he was of age, in spite of the opposition of his guardian, he decided to abandon the medical profession and devote his ...
— Keats: Poems Published in 1820 • John Keats
... a hermit,' said Dr. Johnson to Boswell in St. Andrews, 'but in imagination I kiss his feet: I never read of a monastery, but I could fall on my knees and kiss the pavement. I have thought of retiring myself, and have talked of it to a friend, but I find my vocation is rather in active life.' It was such monasteries as Teresa founded and ruled and wrote the history of that made such a sturdy Protestant as Dr. Johnson was say such a thing as that. The Book of the Foundations is Teresa's own account, written also under superior orders, ...
— Santa Teresa - an Appreciation: with some of the best passages of the Saint's Writings • Alexander Whyte
... they could have been performed but to indicate on the part of God an unjust and odious discrimination between nations and between individuals; purposely injuring the one in order to especially favor the other. The vocation and the choice which God made of the Patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, in order to make for Himself of their posterity a people which He would sanctify and bless above all other peoples of the earth, is a proof of it. But it will be said God is the absolute master of His ...
— Superstition In All Ages (1732) - Common Sense • Jean Meslier
... renounce the law for some more paying business; but this seemed the smallest of sacrifices to make for the privilege of calling Undine his wife; and besides, he still secretly hoped that, in the interval, his real vocation might declare itself in some work which would justify his adopting ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton
... between the Baptist and the Son of Man. The Nazarite would have felt it a sin against the law of his vocation and office to touch anything pertaining to the vine. Christ began his signs by changing water into wine, though of an innocuous kind, for the peasants' wedding at Cana of Galilee. John would have lost ...
— John the Baptist • F. B. Meyer
... this strain. He saw now that he must abandon his easy view about his future. He must, indeed, plan his life. He must choose his vocation, follow it grimly, with one end in view. Pearl must become his in the sight abandon his easy view about his future. He must, indeed, plan his life. He must choose his vocation, follow it grimly, with one end in view. Pearl must become his in the sight of God and man—especially man—with ...
— The Wrong Twin • Harry Leon Wilson
... sake has come to have a meaning which must be challenged, but yet it can be used in a sense that is both high and sacred. If a gifted writer take literature as a great vocation and determine to use his talents faithfully and well, without reference to fee or reward; if prosperity cannot seduce him to the misuse of his genius, then we give him our high praise. Let it still not be forgotten ...
— Principles of Freedom • Terence J. MacSwiney
... in chains; and in a few days a negro was placed beside him, and here they swung, "blind and blackening," in the April air, in full view of the tranquil bay, a ghastly spectacle to the fishermen as they plied their vocation near by. For three weeks they dangled here in sunshine and storm, a terror to the passers-by. At length a rumor passed through the town that Hughson had turned into a negro, and the negro into a white man. This was a new mystery, and day after day crowds would come and gaze on the strange transformation, ...
— The Great Riots of New York 1712 to 1873 • J.T. Headley
... really serious obstacle in the way being the fact that I felt I had a duty to perform to the three seamen who had formed part of our little company in the gig. First-rate fellows they were, all three of them, knowing their vocation to its smallest detail, and thoroughly at home aboard a ship in blue water, though ashore they were as guileless and helpless as babes, ready to fall an easy prey to the first land shark that got scent of ...
— Turned Adrift • Harry Collingwood
... But her vocation she felt to be for missionary life. At one time she thought of joining a mission to the Red Indians, and her verses were full of the subject. Her ode on Colman's death expressed the feeling of her soul ...
— Pioneers and Founders - or, Recent Workers in the Mission field • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... respects a remarkable, in many ways, a really wise and great man. At whatever points he may fall short of our criteria, this much must be said of him, that he was fired throughout with the high spirit of his vocation, that he was punctual in the performance of duty as he understood it, that he was obedient to the most rigorous dictates of that Gospel which he had set himself to preach. In absolute, single-hearted, unflinching, and tireless devotion ...
— The Famous Missions of California • William Henry Hudson
... aid. He is at the experimental stage; he is not sure how one would feel in certain circumstances; to make sure, he must come as near trying it as his means permit. And so here is young heroism with a wooden sword, and mothers practise their kind vocation over a bit of jointed stick. It may be laughable enough just now; but it is these same people and these same thoughts, that not long hence, when they are on the theatre of life, will make you weep and tremble. For children think very much the same ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... and wicked hierarchie: Fourthly, that we joyn our selves to this reformed Kirk in doctrine, Faith, Religion, & discipline, promising and swearing by the great name of GOD, that we shall continue in the Doctrine and Discipline of this Kirk, and defend the same according to our vocation and power all the dayes of ...
— The Acts Of The General Assemblies of the Church of Scotland
... cheats in physic, chymical and galenic, in astrology, physiognomy, palmistry, mathematics, alchymy, and even government itself. Of which latter he did not propose to discourse, or meddle with, since it in no way belonged to his trade or vocation, which he thanked God he found much more safe, equally honest, and more profitable. But he, Alexander Bendo, had with unswerving faithfulness and untiring assiduity for years courted the arts and sciences, and had learned dark ...
— Royalty Restored - or, London under Charles II. • J. Fitzgerald Molloy
... not shoved into the Church, Mr Haslam: I felt it to be my vocation to walk with God, like Enoch. After twenty years of it I realized that I was walking with my own ignorance and self-conceit, and that I was not within a hundred and fifty years of the experience and wisdom I ...
— Back to Methuselah • George Bernard Shaw
... nicely discriminating between the philosophical and the superstitious part of that character, and adopting the former only, he possessed qualities not unworthy the first professors of Christianity. Every virtue which it was his vocation to preach, it was his care to practise; nor was he in the class of those of the religious, who, by secluding themselves from the world, fly the merit they might have in reforming mankind. He refused to shelter himself from the temptations of ...
— A Simple Story • Mrs. Inchbald
... be found; that his tongue, covered with spines bending backward, is well adapted to seize the larvae; and, lastly, that the stiff and elastic feathers of its tail afford it a very useful support in the exercise of its laborious vocation. ...
— Adventures of a Young Naturalist • Lucien Biart
... by the engineer, were briefly these: Frank was not possessed of the necessary abilities to fit him for his new calling; and it was useless to waste time by keeping him any longer in an employment for which he had no vocation. This, after three years' trial, being the conviction on both sides, the master had thought it the most straightforward course for the pupil to go home and candidly place results before his father and his friends. In some other pursuit, for which he was more fit, and in which he could ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... like courtesy; and, like Gibbet in the Beaux Stratagem, piqued themselves on being the best behaved men on the road, and on conducting themselves with all appropriate civility in the exercise of their vocation. A young man, therefore, in my circumstances was not entitled to be highly indignant at the mistake which confounded him with this ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... can imagine the answer of some popular novelist if he heard me speak scornfully of his books. "My dear fellow," he might say, "do you suppose I am not aware that my books are rubbish? I know it just as well as you do. But my vocation is to live comfortably. I have a luxurious house, a wife and children who are happy and grateful to me for their happiness. If you choose to live in a garret, and, what's worse, make your wife and children ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing
... (call it not slashing, for he struck with the flat of his sword) one man, a poor old schoolmaster, most pacifically tottering there; and is driven out, by barricade of chairs, by flights of 'bottles and glasses,' by execrations in bass voice and treble. Most delicate is the mob-queller's vocation; wherein Too-much may be as bad as Not-enough. For each of these bass voices, and more each treble voice, borne to all points of the City, rings now nothing but distracted indignation; will ring all another. The cry, To arms! roars tenfold; steeples with their metal storm-voice ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... Magnan were sentenced to the galleys for ten years. Naudaud died there, but Magnan finished his time and then became a scavenger, and, faithful to his vocation as a dealer of death, ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... this, that all the talk about the artist's vocation and the artist's mission, and so forth, began to strike me as being very empty, and ...
— When We Dead Awaken • Henrik Ibsen
... settle difficulties and to condemn progressive men as well as fanatics. In its phrasing, this ecclesiastical legislation left room for the ministrations of reputable itinerants, for among many, some of whom were ignorant and self-called to their vocation, there were others whose abilities were widely recognized. Foremost among such men in Connecticut were Jonathan Edwards himself, Dr. Joseph Bellamy of Bethlem, trainer of many students in theology, Rev. Eleazer Whelock of Lebanon, Benjamin Pomroy of Hebron, and ...
— The Development of Religious Liberty in Connecticut • M. Louise Greene, Ph. D.
... find him settled in a London pleader's office, reading law with temporary assiduity, frequenting the theatres and Caves of Harmony, making many literary acquaintances, taking runs into the country to canvass for Charles Buller, and trying his 'prentice hand at journalism. His vocation for literature speedily damped his legal ardour, and drew him out of Mr. Tapsell's chambers, where he left a desk full of sketches and caricatures. In May 1832 he wrote: 'This lawyer's preparatory education is certainly one of the most cold-blooded, prejudicial ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... in the prince's ear, who, close beside him, listened without losing a syllable, "since you are placed here, monseigneur, in order to learn your vocation of a king, listen to a piece of infamy—of a nature truly royal. You are about to be a witness of one of those scenes which the foul fiend alone conceives and executes. Listen attentively,—you will find your advantage ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... and brothers and sisters hadn't sacrificed enough for our sakes already! There was cramming again for long periods, and then we began life in the schoolroom—to give to others the same unnatural upbringing we had had ourselves. Oh, yes, ours was a noble vocation; it was almost like being missionaries. But now if you'll excuse me, I'd like to talk about something besides this exalted position. Anything ...
— Look Back on Happiness • Knut Hamsun
... Rochelle, and that it would be far better that you should appoint there either Monsieur de Conde, Monsieur de Bassopierre, or some valiant gentleman whose business is war, and not me, who am a churchman, and who am constantly turned aside for my real vocation to look after matters for which I have no aptitude. You would be the happier for it at home, sire, and I do not doubt you would be ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... what had been the profession of his former master. Instead of passing the chaise, he laid his counter close up to it, and stopped it, having no doubt that his rider would embrace so fair an opportunity of exercising his vocation. The clergyman, under the same mistake, produced his purse unasked, and assured the inoffensive and surprised horseman that it was unnecessary to draw his pistol. The traveller rallied his horse, with apologies to the gentleman, whom he had unwillingly ...
— A Hundred Anecdotes of Animals • Percy J. Billinghurst
... not, you may be lawfully a slave. Just how all this stands in the Constitution of the United States I do not presume to say. Other heads, whose business it is, must attend to that. Every man to his vocation. I speak from the stand-point of philosophy, not of politics; I attend to the logic of history, the logic of destiny, according to which, of course, final judgment will be rendered. It is not exactly to be supposed that ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., February, 1863, No. LXIV. • Various
... creditor; he knows that this debt is "most frightful and most detestable for families," that his debtors are real, living men and therefore different in kind, that the head of the State should keep these differences in mind, that is to say their condition, their education, their sensibility and their vocation; that, not only in their private interest, but again in the interest of the public, not merely through prudence but also through equity, all should not be indistinguishably restricted to the same mechanical pursuit, to the same manual labor, to ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 5 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 1 (of 2)(Napoleon I.) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... Cobham, 1432, restored 1635," is the engaging legend painted on a low-roofed timbered house which stands at the churchyard gate. With its square beams, its latticed windows and red curtains, it is a model of what a "Home of Rest for Gentlewomen"—which is its vocation—should be. Cobham has one or two other good houses, Georgian, red and solid, but the best perhaps is the old White Lion posting inn at Cobham Street, half a mile away on the Portsmouth Road. The White Lion stood ...
— Highways and Byways in Surrey • Eric Parker
... impressed with the conviction of his own vocation to be the head of the whole Church we have seen in his own repeatedly quoted words.[215] What can a Pope claim more than the attribution to himself as Pope of the three great words of Christ spoken to Peter? Accordingly, all his conduct was directed to maintain every particular church ...
— The Formation of Christendom, Volume VI - The Holy See and the Wandering of the Nations, from St. Leo I to St. Gregory I • Thomas W. (Thomas William) Allies
... man of twenty-seven was in harmony with his character; he obeyed his vocation by cultivating philanthropy,—the only expression which explains the philanthropist. Theodose loved the People, for he limited his love for humanity. Like the horticulturist who devotes himself to roses, or dahlias, or heart's-ease, or geraniums, and pays no attention to the plants ...
— The Lesser Bourgeoisie • Honore de Balzac
... own members. The election alone of the congregation was sufficient to bestow the sacerdotal character; and as all essential distinction was denied between the laity and the clergy, no ceremony, no institution, no vocation, no imposition of hands was, as in all other churches, supposed requisite to convey a right to holy orders. The enthusiasm of the Presbyterians led them to reject the authority of prelates, to throw off the restraint of liturgies, to retrench ceremonies, to limit the riches ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part E. - From Charles I. to Cromwell • David Hume
... beau-ideals—when do we ever see them? But personally I cannot complain. I have a husband in ten thousand, and that, after all, should be a woman's beau-ideal, for it is her vocation. Oh!" with a little scream, pretending not to have heard her husband come up quietly behind her; "you did not hear me paying you compliments behind your back, Eugene? I assure you I meant the very ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 5, May, 1891 • Various
... and forth from the hips, she put her hands up to her face. Major Stone stared at her, his mind in a twisting eddy of confused thoughts. Perhaps it was the clearest possible betrayal of his utter unfitness for his new vocation in life that not until that very moment when the girl had halted her narrative did it come to him—and it came then with a sudden jolt—that here he had one of those monumental news stories for which young Gilfoil or young Webb would be willing to barter ...
— The Escape of Mr. Trimm - His Plight and other Plights • Irvin S. Cobb
... not understood until after the Day of Pentecost.] A large portion of what is now stored up in the Holy Gospel for the instruction of the whole body of Christians, was in the first instance spoken to the Apostles with a special view to their Apostolic vocation; to them it was "given to know the Mysteries of the Kingdom of Heaven." Doubtless much of what they were thus taught remained unexplained "Mysteries" to them until the Coming of the Holy Ghost on the Day ...
— A Key to the Knowledge of Church History (Ancient) • John Henry Blunt
... say that reality wants poetical interest; for in this the poet proves his vocation, that he has the art to win from a common subject an interesting side. Reality must give the motive, the points to be expressed, the kernel, as I may say; but to work out of it a beautiful, animated whole, belongs to the poet. You know Fuernstein, called ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. II • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... part of this period I had remained to a considerable degree unoccupied in my character of an author, and had delivered little to the press that bore my name.—And I beg the reader to believe, that, since I entered in 1791 upon that which may be considered as my vocation in life, I have scarcely in any instance contributed a page to any ...
— Thoughts on Man - His Nature, Productions and Discoveries, Interspersed with - Some Particulars Respecting the Author • William Godwin
... detained a week, and Eleanor was bidden to go to her next recitation. But Eleanor, who was Petty's confidant in all things, instantly decided to keep her trump card to be played when the moment should be ripe. Eleanor had missed her vocation in life. She should have been in the Turkish diplomatic service instead of in ...
— A Dixie School Girl • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... study his aptitudes so as to have not only a first choice as to occupation, but a second or third, so that if, either at the outset of his career or subsequently, owing to the progress of invention or changes in demand, he is unable to follow his first vocation, he can still find reasonably congenial employment. This principle of secondary choices as to occupation is quite important in our system. I should add, in reference to the counter-possibility of some sudden failure of volunteers in ...
— Looking Backward - 2000-1887 • Edward Bellamy
... Italy: and though the Archduke Reinier is nominal viceroy, all real power seems lodged in Bubna's bands. He it was who suppressed the insurrection in Piedmont during the last struggle for liberty: 'twas his vocation—more the pity. Eight hundred of the Milanese, at the head of them Count Melzi, were connected with the Carbonari and the Piedmontese insurgents. On Count Bubna's return from his expedition, a list of these malcontents being sent to him by the police, ...
— The Diary of an Ennuyee • Anna Brownell Jameson
... a dairy could be built up. A very neat bridge had been thrown across the stream, and every morning the two girls, generally attended by Henry, Alfred, or Captain Sinclair, crossed over, and soon became expert in their new vocation as dairy-maids. Altogether, things began to wear a promising appearance. Henry and Mr. Campbell had dug up as fast as Martin and Alfred cleared away the brushwood, and the garden had already been cropped with such few articles as could be put in at the season. The commandant had ...
— The Settlers in Canada • Frederick Marryat
... hardest eyes. The stranger had ceased to doubt, as he had done at the first glance, that she could fix the attention of her rougher hearers, but still he wondered whether she could have that power of rousing their more violent emotions, which must surely be a necessary seal of her vocation as a Methodist preacher, until she came to the words, "Lost!—Sinners!" when there was a great change in her voice and manner. She had made a long pause before the exclamation, and the pause seemed to be filled by agitating thoughts that showed themselves in her features. Her ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... among the inhabitants! In dealing with the trade, revenue, and other administrative details Smollett shows himself the expert compiler and statistician a London journalist in large practice credits himself with becoming by the mere exercise of his vocation. In dealing with the patois of the country he reveals the curiosity of the trained scholar and linguist. Climate had always been one of his hobbies, and on learning that none of the local practitioners was in a position to exact a larger fee than sixpence from his patients (quantum ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... the descriptions of Western manners and scenery, which are lively and picturesque, and at the same time, as we have reason to believe, remarkable for their exact fidelity. We think the success of this work must decide the vocation of the author. He has already gained a reputation in American literature of which he may justly be proud. We shall look with interest for the future creations of his genius, which with the increasing polish of their execution, we are ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, July, 1851 • Various
... and use of the holy sacraments, as lively members of the same in Christ our head: Promising and swearing by the Great Name of the Lord our God, that we shall continue in the obedience of the doctrine and discipline of this kirk, and shall defend the same according to our vocation and power, all the days of our lives, under the pains continued in the law and danger both of body and soul, in the day of God's fearful judgment. And, seeing that many are stirred up by Satan and that Roman Antichrist, ...
— The Auchensaugh Renovation of the National Covenant and • The Reformed Presbytery
... busy continuous process that turns boys into bishops, and it will stand few jars or discords. The student of ecclesiastical biography will find that an early vocation has in every age been almost universal among them; few are there among these lives that do not display the incipient bishop from the tenderest years. Bishop How of Wakefield composed hymns before he was eleven, and Archbishop Benson when scarcely older possessed ...
— Soul of a Bishop • H. G. Wells
... England, grunted his scorn for Manhattan, ancient or recent, and, nodding a brusque adieu, walked away with ponderous and powerful strides. And the others followed, presently, each in pursuit of his own vocation, Annan and Ogilvy remaining together as their common destination was the big new studio building which they as well ...
— The Common Law • Robert W. Chambers
... that my progress was prodigious, and, without vanity, I believe he was right, for I then verily considered that praying was my vocation, and not fighting, as I ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... taste for military glory. Bury himself in the country like Uncle Dennis, and administer one of his father's estates? It would be death. Go amongst the poor? For a moment he thought he had found a new vocation. But in what capacity—to order their lives, when he himself could not order his own; or, as a mere conduit pipe for money, when he believed that charity was rotting the nation to its core? At the head of every avenue stood an angel or devil with drawn sword. And then there came to ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... of Ebury was there also; his crozier was different in shape from the rest, and as an addition to his silken cassock he wore a train. He was accompanied by his daughter. Daring in her assertion of the vocation which had withdrawn her from the gaieties of life she wore the gray robe of a ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman
... marvels. Grandmother preferred for several years to keep house by herself, raise chickens and geese, and keep putting by a little of her very own. They had a choice garden and a soft-eyed Alderney cow, but Bernard Darcy had surely missed his vocation. He should have ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas
... boy has come out very well in this matter, considering that the finding Mite was to his own detriment; but probably he has found his vocation as a colonist. Still Northmoor might have let him ...
— That Stick • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Isabel, that you do not love this destiny, glittering though it seem,—that your heart is not in the vocation which ...
— Zicci, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... loneliness, in the shade of an oak on the shore of the charming lake near the small town in which we lived—how often did I utter loud cries of anguish, and say to the billows that washed the shore with a low, murmuring sound: 'I am a French marquise; there is aristocratic blood in my veins; it is my vocation to shine at the courts of kings, and to see counts and princes at my feet!' Yet none but the waves of the lake believed my words; men treated me never as a Marquise de Barbasson, but only as little Frederica Hahn, daughter of a ...
— NAPOLEON AND BLUCHER • L. Muhlbach
... to withstand them. The difficulty disappears, however, when we understand that good and evil are but relative qualities. An illustration will make the point clear:—Let us suppose that an expert organ builder has constructed a wonderful organ, a masterpiece. Then he has followed his vocation in the proper manner, and is therefore to be commended for the good which he has done. But if he is not satisfied to leave well enough alone, if he refuses to give up his product to the musician who understands how to play upon the instrument; if he intrudes his presence into the concert hall, ...
— The Rosicrucian Mysteries • Max Heindel
... right prelating is busy labouring, and not lording. Therefore preach and teach, and let your plough be doing. Ye lords, I say, that live like loiterers, look well to your office; the plough is your office and charge. If you live idle and loiter, you do not your duty, you follow not your vocation: let your plough therefore be going, and not cease, that the ...
— Sermons on the Card and Other Discourses • Hugh Latimer
... Their hands were still joined, he had turned slightly towards her so that his eyes looked into hers, they were face to face with one of those psychological crises which, since the days of primitiveness, have made man's destiny and woman's vocation. Ever afterwards a thought of that moment brought thrilling recollections—there was the suspense, the footstep outside, the crashing of a pistol shot through the glass. Douglas leaped to his feet with a cry of horror. Emily had sunk back upon her seat, a red spot upon one of her beautiful ...
— The Survivor • E.Phillips Oppenheim
... excitement of travel, ordinary every-day life seems to him tasteless; the mere idea of a regular career of any sort is abhorrent to him. "At my return into England, I ruffeled out in my silks, in the habit of Malcontent, and seemed so discontent that no place would please me to abide in, nor no vocation cause mee to ...
— The English Novel in the Time of Shakespeare • J. J. Jusserand
... was not fitted to find happiness except in some humble and retired sphere, did not regret the fate that was thus imposed upon him; she used this enforced vocation to prepare him for a noble life of study and science, and she brought to the chateau Pierre de Sebonde as tutor to the future priest. Nevertheless, in spite of the tonsure imposed by the will of the father, she was determined that Etienne's education should ...
— The Hated Son • Honore de Balzac
... Congress pursue thy vocation Of adding fresh sums to this National Debt of ours, Leaguing with Kings, who for mere recreation Break promises, fast as ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... with his youth. His father was a banker very well off, rich even, and had destined Auber to be a banker, like himself; but when Auber went to London to commence his clerkship he found he had no vocation for finance, and began to devote himself to music and composition. He was thirty-six years old when he wrote his first opera. He told us that his first ones were so bad that he had given them to the Conservatoire ...
— In the Courts of Memory 1858-1875. • L. de Hegermann-Lindencrone
... Jefferson Doman, who had once been of some service to him, and love of whisky, which certainly had not. He had been among the first in the rush to Hurdy-Gurdy, but had not prospered, and had sunk by degrees to the position of grave digger. This was not a vocation, but Barney in a desultory way turned his trembling hand to it whenever some local misunderstanding at the card table and his own partial recovery from a prolonged debauch occurred coincidently in point of time. One day Mr. Doman received, at Red Dog, a letter ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Vol. II: In the Midst of Life: Tales of Soldiers and Civilians • Ambrose Bierce
... and He talked with us by the way. Yes, the vision of Christ binds us to work, and while the more close and intimate and silent communion has its rights and its place in life, it is never to be made a substitute for the active exercise of our Christian vocation to bear witness of Him, and to tell His name to those who need the consolation of His Resurrection, and the joyful news that He lives to bless. So then that meal by the wayside may stand as type and symbol of the way in which we, like the two pedestrians on ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... am a reader of your valuable paper and find in it much to interest, and many practical hints that are useful in my vocation; I would not be without it for any consideration and I think every mechanic in the land should take it, read it, and ...
— Scientific American, Vol.22, No. 1, January 1, 1870 • Various
... weary of admiring this aquatic panorama Jake called their attention to a fisherman who, in a small canoe, was pursuing his vocation ...
— The Search for the Silver City - A Tale of Adventure in Yucatan • James Otis
... exhausted; and one morning he declared resolutely that he would no longer attend the law-school, that he had been mistaken in his vocation, and that there was no human power capable to make him return ...
— Other People's Money • Emile Gaboriau
... public catechising he publicly expounded, and lectured on the Fourth Gospel, in the chapel of the castle. He doubted if he had "a lawful vocation" to preach. The castle pulpit was then occupied by an ex-friar named Rough. This divine, later burned in England, preached a sermon declaring a doctrine accepted by Knox, namely, that any congregation could call on any man in whom they "espied the gifts of ...
— John Knox and the Reformation • Andrew Lang
... knew how to open books and read them I have wished to rival those great captains that I saw in the prints, erect on their horses, with swords in their hands, proud and handsome. Believe me, no one enters on this career without a vocation; many are entered in the seminaries against their will, but no one can make a soldier by force; anyone who comes to the academy ...
— The Shadow of the Cathedral • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... needed it, and when you found my love for you might do me harm in the People's honour, you sacrificed your life! Alas, my Lotys! If you could but have realised that through you, and the love of you, I a King, who had long missed my vocation, could alone ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli
... of study, instead of taking them with sympathy and carelessness as pleasant or instructive adjuncts to our actual life. Artists, historians of art, and critics are forced to isolate pictures; and it is of profit to their souls to do so. But simple folk, who have no aesthetic vocation, whether creative or critical, suffer more than is good for them by compliance with mere fashion. Sooner or later we shall return to the spirit of the ages which produced these pictures, and which regarded them with less of an industrious bewilderment ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... a Kodak for the little smile with which Raffles shook his head, for it was one that he kept for those great moments of which our vocation is not devoid. All this time he had been wearing his hat, tilted a little over eyebrows no longer raised. And now at last I knew where ...
— Raffles - Further Adventures of the Amateur Cracksman • E. W. Hornung
... art of agriculture. At first, the men assisted the women in what time they could spare from hunting; but as game became scarce and the food supply grown from the soil was found to be more certain, agriculture became man's vocation. Permanent home life commenced with the development of agriculture. As he became a farmer, primitive man stayed at home with his wife and shared with her the nurture of the children. Before then the ...
— The Farmer and His Community • Dwight Sanderson
... wants unmarried women, her cry is for our marriageable daughters, and each one would find her vocation out there. ...
— Woman and Womanhood - A Search for Principles • C. W. Saleeby
... only help him to discover himself. One is called to his work by a love for it, and the pleasure he takes in doing it easily and well. If his bent is vague or tardy, he is allowed to change, and feel his way to it by trial. Since the work or vocation is not a means of living, there is no compulsion in it. Their aim is to do right in carrying out the true ...
— A Trip to Venus • John Munro
... Milly, I must confess I noticed in the spring that you seemed to be bringing the child up in an easy-going, old-fashioned way I should hardly have expected of you. I hope you will begin now to study the theory of education. A mother should take her vocation seriously. I own I don't altogether understand the taste for frivolities which you have developed since you married. It's harmless, no doubt, but it doesn't seem quite natural in a young woman who has taken a ...
— The Invader - A Novel • Margaret L. Woods
... under the advance of Republican enlightenment. An absent-minded, reserved child, Baudelaire attracted no especial attention during his school days. When they were over, his predilection for a literary vocation became known. From this his parents sought to divert him by sending him to travel. He voyaged through the Indian Ocean, visiting the great islands: Madagascar, Ceylon, Mauritius, Bourbon. Had there been a chance for irresolution in the mind of the youth, this voyage ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... wife, father of two boys and a girl, has the good taste to make no allusion to his past efforts. Eve had the sense to dissuade him from following his terrible vocation; for the inventor like Moses on Mount Horeb, is consumed by the burning bush. He cultivates literature by way of recreation, and leads a comfortable life of leisure, befitting the landowner who lives on his ...
— Eve and David • Honore de Balzac
... My vocation thus determined, I was bound apprentice; not, however, to a watchmaker, but to an engraver, and I had been so completely humiliated by the contempt of the register, that I submitted without a murmur. My master, whose name was M. Ducommon, was a young man of a very violent and boorish character, ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau |
