"Symbol" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... this water sufficed for all uses of both men and animals. And in congratulating the general, Procopius said that he rejoiced at the abundance of water, not so much because of its usefulness, as because it seemed to him a symbol of an easy victory, and that Heaven was foretelling a victory to them. This, at any rate, actually came to pass. So for that night all the soldiers bivouacked in the camp, setting guards and doing everything else as was customary, ...
— History of the Wars, Books III and IV (of 8) - The Vandalic War • Procopius
... having a large picture of the Crucifixion, or perhaps one of the Holy Virgin, put up over the altar, instead of the Ten Commandments, which greatly offend my eye; while I confess that I cannot consider the altar complete without the symbol of our faith placed on it. I should have preferred a crucifix of full size, and I think that the cross might be so arranged that the figure can at any time be added; but I fear that at present some of the parishioners ...
— Clara Maynard - The True and the False - A Tale of the Times • W.H.G. Kingston
... outline for you a picture of an object which is everywhere recognized by good people as a symbol of defiance of the law, a suggestion of immorality, of poverty, depravity and death. [Draw beer keg, completing Fig. 15.] In plain words, it is a beer keg, and its close companions are the whiskey barrel, the wine cask ...
— Crayon and Character: Truth Made Clear Through Eye and Ear - Or, Ten-Minute Talks with Colored Chalks • B.J. Griswold
... of Germany. There were some six weeks of fighting after the capture of the Hindenburg line; but it was that capture—"the essential part" of the whole campaign, to use Marshal Haig's words—to which everything else was subordinate, which, in truth, decided the struggle. And the tanks are the symbol at once of the general strategy and the new tactics, by which Marshal Foch and Sir Douglas Haig, working together as only great men can, brought about this result, bettered all that they had learned from Germany, and ...
— Fields of Victory • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... the wintry sky the bright symbol shone, and from it seemed to fall a radiance, warmer than the moonlight, clearer than the starlight, showing to that tempted heart the darkness of the ...
— On Picket Duty and Other Tales • Louisa May Alcott
... the brig's poop I thought I saw a face peep from the little cabin window, and after it a little hand wave. I put my own hand to my lips as a symbol both of secrecy and devotion, and taking advantage of the bustle attending on the arrival of a fresh craft, slipped out of the ...
— Kilgorman - A Story of Ireland in 1798 • Talbot Baines Reed
... moment, when they recognised the meaning of the pictures, their excitement grew quite intense. The photographs were passed round from hand to hand, amid loud exclamations of joy and surprise. One brother would point out with astonishment to another some familiar symbol or some ancient text; two or three of them, in their devout enthusiasm, fell down on their knees and ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... V.S. llego ynigo lopez a los xviij de malaca el ql truxo por nuevas q los castellanos estavan en maluco, q ptiero tres naos de castilla y en ellas fernando magallaes por principal y fuero a [symbol] vista del cabo de san Agustin y de allj corriero obra de dozientas o trezientas leguas al luengo de la costa del brasil y fuero a dar en un rrio q atravessava toda la trra del brasil y era de ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803 • Emma Helen Blair
... Dave threw back his coat, and at sight of the symbol upon his inner lapel the two young men became suddenly and respectfully stationary. 'Now,' panted Dave, still shaken with ...
— Against Odds - A Detective Story • Lawrence L. Lynch
... was in the midst of a cluster of bushes close beside a creek, Dick came unexpectedly upon a little wooden cross, which marked the head of a grave. There was no inscription on it, but the Christian symbol told that it was the grave of a white man. It is impossible to describe the rush of mingled feelings that filled the soul of the young hunter as he leaned on the muzzle of his rifle and looked at this solitary resting-place ...
— The Dog Crusoe and his Master • R.M. Ballantyne
... had done no deed of arms, But heard the call, and came: and Guinevere Stood by the castle walls to watch him pass; But since he neither wore on helm or shield The golden symbol of his kinglihood, But rode a simple knight among his knights, And many of these in richer arms than he, She saw him not, or marked not, if she saw, One among many, tho' his face was bare. But Arthur, looking downward as he past, Felt the light of her eyes into his life Smite on the ...
— Myths and Legends of All Nations • Various
... is the symbol of the friendly truce between man and the material universe. The world itself and the void spaces of its wanderings, together with the elements of our celestial neighborhood, have been viewed by man with dark ...
— Journeys to Bagdad • Charles S. Brooks
... symbol of the glory of France. During fifteen years it conducted our fathers to victory. It has glittered upon all the fields of battle. It has traversed all the capitals of Europe. Soldiers! will you not rally ...
— Hortense, Makers of History Series • John S. C. Abbott
... an idea into a symbol, and illustrating that symbol by a tersely-expressed motto. 'The object of a device,' according to the Lord of Fossez, 'was to express covertly, by means of a picture and words, a conception of human wit;' and it was distinguished from an emblem, inasmuch as the emblem demonstrated ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 444 - Volume 18, New Series, July 3, 1852 • Various
... ordinary man or woman with suspicion is unquestionable, and the best that can be said for his attitude is that he was so mentally constituted that he could only see or preferred to see in Nelson's extravagant attentions to his wife a guileless symbol of high friendship for her, which he took as a compliment to himself. On the other hand, if he not only suspected but knew that he was being betrayed, and bitterly resented the passion which no remonstrances from him could ...
— Drake, Nelson and Napoleon • Walter Runciman
... over his breastplate. To the crest of his helmet was tied a small brown glove, nodding and swinging above him. He bore a long lance with a red square banner at the end, charged with a black boar's head, and the same symbol was engraved upon his shield. Slowly he rode through the forest, ponderous, menacing, with dull thudding of his charger's hoofs and constant clank of metal, while always in front of him came the distant peal of the silver trumpet calling all men to admit his ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle
... True that there were there, as we had seen them in life, the traces of care and pain and waste. But these were all dear to us, for they marked her truth to what we knew. One and all we felt that the holy calm that lay like sunshine over the wasted face and form was only an earthly token and symbol of the calm that was ...
— Dracula • Bram Stoker
... stave off the inevitable dissolution. It is beautiful—that old childlike faith in the pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night, that patient waiting through the centuries for the Messiah who even to you, I dare say, is a mere symbol." Again the wistful look lit up her eyes. "That's what you rich people will never understand—it doesn't seem to go with dinners in seven ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... for a short time while the judgment was taking place. But the events following show that the end of the world is not here described, therefore it can not have reference to such. Moreover, it is extremely doubtful whether silence in heaven would be a proper symbol of such an event. I do not perceive the analogy. In fact, such an interpretation of silence would ...
— The Revelation Explained • F. Smith
... different directions, and morally too their paths henceforth were widely diverse. The Pythagoreans chose the letter Y as their symbol for a good and evil life. The broad, sloping, almost perpendicular left-hand stroke is an apt emblem for the facile downward descent into Avernus; the precipitous and narrow right-hand stroke aptly presents the slippery, uphillward struggle of a virtuous course I remember to have ...
— St. Winifred's - The World of School • Frederic W. Farrar
... at the darkened sky. A black cloud was moving slowly overhead, high above the roof of the late Sir Charles Abingdon; and as he watched its stealthy approach it seemed to Paul Harley to be the symbol of that dread in which latterly Sir Charles's life had lain, beneath which he had died, and which now was stretching out, mysterious ...
— Fire-Tongue • Sax Rohmer
... enough if single straight lines are drawn with some brief indication, perhaps at the beginning of the series of lines, to show that these stand each for an individual enemy. This simplification of the drawing leaves the written symbol with very much larger possibilities of entering into new relations in the mind of the reader. Instead, now, of being a specific drawing related to a specific object, it invites by its simple character a number of different ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... Grand National at Liverpool—only to be disqualified for crossing amid one of the stormiest scenes in racing history. After that Mocassin ceased to be a mare. She became a talisman, an oriflamme, a consecrated symbol. She was American—youthful, hopeful, not to be put upon by the Old Country, quietly ...
— Boy Woodburn - A Story of the Sussex Downs • Alfred Ollivant
... seriously to revise it. You shall judge of my scholar's competence. He translates L'Estrange, Dryden, and others, l''etrange Dryden, etc.(593) Then in the description of the tailor as an idol, and his goose as the symbol; he says in a note, that the goose means the dove, and is a concealed satire on the Holy Ghost. It put me in mind of the Dane, who, talking of orders to a Frenchman, said, "Notre St. Esprit, ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... Here you note a dozen phases of significance. The theme is unconventional; the man has become the archenemy; the night is weird and awe-inspiring; the tares represent the foe of the church—money; they are sown at the foot of the cross—the symbol of the church.... Mr. Vedder has not passed his life in Rome for nothing. His attitude is in harmony with the spirit of ...
— Italy, the Magic Land • Lilian Whiting
... this house the seven years that he had last lived stretched away into a wild waste of time. It stood as a symbol of his wasted, ruined life. It was personal, intimately personal, this decay ...
— Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... Otto, "to find in our time, in the year 1830, such a Catholic symbol in Lutheran Denmark! And yet—yes, you will laugh at me, but I find it lovely: it affects ...
— O. T. - A Danish Romance • Hans Christian Andersen
... desk, he was still conscious of a strong repulsion. It was idiotic to let such an insignificant fact as the Winscombes' man persistently annoy him. But, in a manner entirely unaccountable, this Cecco had become a symbol of much that was dark, potentially threatening, ...
— The Three Black Pennys - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... the street and away, not bothering about the squeal of brakes and the honking horns. He looked back only once, toward the glowing sign that topped the building. Your health is our business! Then the great symbol of the health business faded behind him, and he stumbled on, sucking incessantly at the cigarettes he rolled. One hand clutched the bronze badge belonging to the dead man and his stolen boots drove ...
— Badge of Infamy • Lester del Rey
... clean-sweeping archimandrite visited the place, set fire to the sacrificial mound, and in its place erected a cross, which is still standing. The Samoyeds had not sought to retaliate by destroying in their turn the symbol of Christian worship. They left revenge to the gods themselves, certain that in a short time they would destroy all the archimandrite's reindeer, and merely removed their own place of sacrifice a little farther into the land. There no injudicious religious zeal has since attacked ...
— The Voyage of the Vega round Asia and Europe, Volume I and Volume II • A.E. Nordenskieold
... there is no instance of its being slaughtered for the table. The ostrich held out a great temptation to the hunter from the value of its plumes. These were in great request among the Egyptians for ornamental purposes; they were also the sacred symbol of truth; and the members of the court on grand occasions decked themselves with the feathers of the ostrich. The labor endured during the chase of this swift-footed bird was amply repaid; even its eggs were required for some ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... unutterable terror swept across the Old Dominion, bringing thoughts of agony to every Virginian master, and of vague hope to every Virginian slave. Each time has one man's name become a spell of dismay and a symbol of deliverance. Each time has that name eclipsed its predecessor, while recalling it for a moment to fresher memory; John Brown revived the story of Nat. Turner, as in his day Nat. Turner recalled the ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams
... have a symbol to the left of them, while white pieces have a ^ symbol to the left of them. For example, B is the Black bishop, while ^B is the white bishop. Kt is the black knight, while ^Kt is the white knight. This will let the reader instantly tell by sight which pieces ...
— Chess Strategy • Edward Lasker
... with the [Greek: koppa] ([Symbol: Letter 'koppa']), a letter of the older Greek alphabet, afterwards ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al
... of Necker's reforms and economies was the queen, Marie Antoinette. She was an Austrian princess, the daughter of Maria Theresa, and in the eyes of the French people she always remained a hated foreigner—"the Austrian," they called her—the living symbol of the ruinous alliance between Habsburgs and Bourbons which had been arranged by a Madame de Pompadour and which had contributed to the disasters and disgrace of the Seven Years' War [Footnote: See above, pp. 358 ff]. While grave ministers of finance were puzzling their heads over the deficit, ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes
... may find here will soon vanish," said Kelso, turning to the newcomer. "I have great respect for the sturdy sons of New England. I believe it was Theodore Parker who said that the pine was the symbol of their character. He was right. Its roots are deep in the soil; it towers above the forest; it has the strength of tall masts and the substance of the builder in its body, music in its waving branches and turpentine in its veins. I thought of this when I saw Webster ...
— A Man for the Ages - A Story of the Builders of Democracy • Irving Bacheller
... and waves in this tempestuous ocean. In his strong right hand he held a large three-pronged oven fork, and in his left a telescope, with which he surveyed the watery expanse seeking for a sacrifice. A grey beard smeared with tar, hung down to his knees, and, probably as a symbol of his marine dominion, instead of a crown, his head was decorated by a leathern pail. Before him lay a large open book, and a pen was stuck behind his ear, to write down the names of the ships which sailed by. The exact ...
— A New Voyage Round the World in the Years 1823, 24, 25, and 26. Vol. 1 • Otto von Kotzebue
... Canada was to diffuse the Catholic Religion throughout the new world. With much energy of character, he was singularly pious. He attended mass regularly at an early hour every morning. His bedroom was religiously fitted up; the symbol of redemption hung constantly over the head of his bed. He was no bigot. He was thoroughly in earnest. He was only not wise. The man who had caused Champlain so much annoyance was himself a Huguenot, and not that only,—to the Duke's mortification, he had taken to Canada chiefly Protestants, ...
— The Rise of Canada, from Barbarism to Wealth and Civilisation - Volume 1 • Charles Roger
... is the very symbol of nobility! When my Aunt Harding was in Naples, she knew the Duke of Montecarbana, intimately; and she says he had the smallest ears she ever beheld on a human being. The Montecarbanas are a family as old as the ruins of Paestum, ...
— Autobiography of a Pocket-Hankerchief • James Fenimore Cooper
... in the color systems of the various tribes, both as to the location and significance of the colors, but for obvious reasons black was generally taken as the symbol of death; while white and red signified, respectively, peace and war. It is somewhat remarkable that red was the emblem of power and triumph among the ancient Oriental nations no less than ...
— The Sacred Formulas of the Cherokees • James Mooney
... can amuse themselves by locking up the product of so much sweating toil in useless trinkets—the stone can no longer have any attraction for him. He who buys such a stone in Freeland is like a man who should set his heart upon possessing a crown which was no longer the symbol ...
— Freeland - A Social Anticipation • Theodor Hertzka
... Western Europe, North and South Viet-Nam. They need only compare the disillusionment of Communist Cuba with the promise of the Alliance for Progress. And all the world knows that no successful system builds a wall to keep its people in and freedom out—and the wall of shame dividing Berlin is a symbol ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... lodge For solitary thinkings; such as dodge Conception to the very bourne of heaven, Then leave the naked brain: be still the leaven, That spreading in this dull and clodded earth Gives it a touch ethereal—a new birth: Be still a symbol of immensity; A firmament reflected in a sea; 300 An element filling the space between; An unknown—but no more: we humbly screen With uplift hands our foreheads, lowly bending, And giving out a shout most heaven rending, Conjure ...
— Endymion - A Poetic Romance • John Keats
... not, after all, unexpected, because the very profession of journalism is to take advantage. But the journalist is a man of straw who shows which way the wind blows, and his raucous exultation over disaster was the manifest symbol of a commercial exploitation of war by tradesmen and speculators which soon became sensible from one end of belligerent Europe to the other. Like the Vali of Aleppo, I am not good at statistics. It is well known however without the ...
— The World in Chains - Some Aspects of War and Trade • John Mavrogordato
... for a moment before the couch at the foot of the bed, ready to slip off her long white dressing-gown. She paused. Her eyes rested on the silver crucifix, the beloved symbol of redemption. She remembered how he had given it to her. She had not understood him even then; but she understood him now. She longed to tell him that she understood. ...
— The Helpmate • May Sinclair
... in this way represent mercuric oxide, a molecule of which has been found to contain 1 atom each of mercury and oxygen. H{2}O will represent water, the molecules of which consist of 1 atom of oxygen and 2 of hydrogen, the subscript figure indicating the number of the atoms of the element whose symbol precedes it. H{2}SO{4} will stand for sulphuric acid, the molecules of which contain 2 atoms of hydrogen, 1 of sulphur, and 4 of oxygen. The combination of symbols which represents the molecule of a substance ...
— An Elementary Study of Chemistry • William McPherson
... and (f), in numerical order the next passages complained of, refer to the fact that when the co-ordinates in the Auckland computer were altered a symbol was used which had the effect of including in the information to be sent to the United States air traffic controller at McMurdo Station the word 'McMurdo' instead of the actual co-ordinates (latitude and longitude) of the ...
— Judgments of the Court of Appeal of New Zealand on Proceedings to Review Aspects of the Report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Mount Erebus Aircraft Disaster • Sir Owen Woodhouse, R. B. Cooke, Ivor L. M. Richardson, Duncan
... deciphered, it is replaced by:—, the angular brackets being, as already explained, a symbol for an insertion by the editor. More commonly, however, the context makes the interpretation of a word reasonably sure although the word is not strictly legible. Such words are followed by an inserted mark of interrogation ...
— The Foundations of the Origin of Species - Two Essays written in 1842 and 1844 • Charles Darwin
... breathing, individual facts, vivid with the circumstance of terrene life, quick with the thoughts and ambitions of the hour, full charged with familiar and neighbourly associations. All this with Dr. Hake is by no means inevitable. He loves to symbolise; he does not always care that the symbol shall be appropriate and plain. He prefers to work in allegory and emblem; but he does not always see that, however representative to himself, his emblems and his allegories may not be altogether representative to the world. His imagination is at once quaint and far- reaching—at once peculiar ...
— Views and Reviews - Essays in appreciation • William Ernest Henley
... without his smiling, happy face and unselfish presence. The night that he was buried the mysterious aurora lit up the vault of heaven. The Innuits, children of the Northland, call it "the spirits of the dead at play." But it seemed to us a shining symbol of the joy in the City of the King that another young soldier had ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... that we may cultivate a sharper sense of qualities of effectiveness in visualization. For these four sorts of visualization we may employ the symbols, V1, V2, V3, VB3. For the first of these the symbol V1 is not very satisfactory, since we will employ it for simple description which presents rather the idea of the thing than a mental picture, but it will perhaps be simpler to use it than to use a symbol for the word description. Having in mind the idea of a thing, we ...
— The Writing of the Short Story • Lewis Worthington Smith
... consciousness what it means to be born a Man. The actual drama of our mortal existence, reduced to the simplest terms, is enough to occupy their consciousness and their passion. In this sphere—in the sphere of the "inevitable things" of human life—everything becomes to them a sacrament. Not a symbol—be it noted—but a Sacrament! The food they eat; the wine they drink; their waking and sleeping; the hesitancies and reluctances of their devotions; the swift anger of their recoils and retreats; their long loyalties; their savage reversions; their sudden ...
— Visions and Revisions - A Book of Literary Devotions • John Cowper Powys
... my symbol, C. & R." (that is, Christo et Reipublicae, for Christ and the State). "Let us not be over-hasty. Suppose that Dr. Constantinus should first dissect this poor infant, and see what really ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold
... at the gates of the Gdansk shipyard in Poland at the monument to the fallen workers of Solidarity. It's a monument of simple majesty. Three tall crosses rise up from the stones, and atop each cross, an anchor, an ancient symbol of hope. ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... It stood for something invisible but very real. Even their elders were not insensible to that something. Hitherto they had taken that flag for granted. They had hung it out of their windows on Empire Day or on Dominion Day as a patriotic symbol, but few of them would have confessed, except in a half-shamed, apologetic way, to any thrill at the flapping of that bit of bunting. They had shrunk from a display of patriotic emotion. They were not like their American cousins, who were ever ready to rave over Old ...
— The Major • Ralph Connor
... for a better symbol of what we may all do by our life? Bleakness, wind, squalid streets, a car full of heterogeneous people, some very dull, most very common; a laborious jog-trot all the way. But to redeem it all with the pleasantness of beauty and the charm ...
— Laurus Nobilis - Chapters on Art and Life • Vernon Lee
... illustrated with his own observations, the methods pursued by Captain Cook for preserving the health of his men. In conclusion, Sir John remarked, that the Royal Society never more cordially or more meritoriously bestowed the gold medal, that faithful symbol of their esteem and affection. 'For if,' says he, 'Rome decreed the civic crown to him who saved the life of a single citizen, what wreaths are due to that man, who, having himself saved many, perpetuates in your transactions the means by which Britain may now, on the most distant voyages, ...
— Narrative of the Voyages Round The World, • A. Kippis
... swept around others a circular drift, at a few yards' distance, overtopping then: eaves, and leaving each the untouched citadel of this natural redoubt. There was also a dismantled lighthouse, an object which always seems the most dreary symbol of the barbarism of war, when one considers the national beneficence which reared and kindled it. Despite the service rendered by this once brilliant light, there were many wrecks which had been strown upon the beach, ...
— Army Life in a Black Regiment • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... and the hatred are reactions of fear and a sense of impotence. Germany hated England because England was secure behind her navy, upon her island, beyond the reach of the war machine which is Germany's symbol of power and the compensation for her sense ...
— The Psychology of Nations - A Contribution to the Philosophy of History • G.E. Partridge
... Tylor explains as follows how this belief arose: [380] "To man in the lower levels of science the earth is a flat plain over which the sky is placed like a dome as the arched upper shell of the tortoise stands upon the flat plate below, and this is why the tortoise is the symbol or representative of the world." It is said that Bhunjia women are never allowed to sit either on a footstool or a bed-cot, because these are considered to be the seats of the deities. They consider it disrespectful ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume II • R. V. Russell
... hills resounded with the shouts of victory! We sent them hand-grenades in abundance, and broke their shins in glorious style. I must say that the French behaved nobly, though many a tall grenadier and pioneer fell by the symbol in front of his warlike cap. I cried with rage and excitement; and we all fought like bull-dogs, for we knew there was ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat
... distances are measured off. Once a week, the wheels of business, and even of pleasure, drop into the old customary ruts, and turn thither. Sunday morning, all the land is still. Labor puts off his iron apron and arrays him in clean human clothes,—a symbol of universal humanity, not merely of special toil. Trade closes the shop; his business-pen, well wiped, is laid up for to-morrow's use; the account-book is shut,—men thinking of their trespasses as well as their debts. For six days, aye, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 7, May, 1858 • Various
... life lies dying. I kiss her and bid her good-bye. Is the bare loss the sole cause of my misery, my despair, breeding that mad longing that I myself might die? In all parting there is something infinite. We see in it a symbol of the order of the universe, and it is because that death-bed farewell stands for so much that we break down. "If it pleases God," says Swift to Pope, "to restore me to my health, I shall readily make a third journey; ...
— Catharine Furze • Mark Rutherford
... is divided into twelve equal parts of thirty degrees each, and to these twelve divisions are given the names of the constellations of the Zodiac in the following order: Aries ([Symbol: Aries]), Taurus ([Symbol: Taurus]), Gemini ([Symbol: Gemini]), Cancer ([Symbol: Cancer]), Leo ([Symbol: Leo]), Virgo ([Symbol: Virgo]), Libra ([Symbol: Libra]), Scorpio ([Symbol: Scorpio]), Sagittarius ([Symbol: Sagittarius]), Capricornus ...
— A Field Book of the Stars • William Tyler Olcott
... and through Symbols that man, consciously or unconsciously, lives, works, and has his being. For is not a Symbol ever, to him who has eyes for it, some dimmer or clearer ...
— The Heroic Enthusiast, Part II (Gli Eroici Furori) - An Ethical Poem • Giordano Bruno
... forming a dark cowl, which overshadows the old house of the monks. In ancient Erin the yew tree was regarded as sacred, and in its shade the Druids performed their mystic rites. With the early Christians, as an evergreen, it was a symbol ...
— The Sunny Side of Ireland - How to see it by the Great Southern and Western Railway • John O'Mahony and R. Lloyd Praeger
... gate rose the arms of the state, or its symbol: a winged globe, from behind which appeared two serpents. Lower down sat a series of gods to which the pharaohs were bringing offerings. On side pillars images of the gods were cut out also in five rows, one above the other, ...
— The Pharaoh and the Priest - An Historical Novel of Ancient Egypt • Boleslaw Prus
... here for five weeks in our Paradise without the serpent (symbol of visitors!); but alas! without the health which would make the long peace one filled with work. As for me, I vegetate mostly. I get up at six to stroll out for an hour before breakfast, leaving Madonna in bed with Dante or Homer, and quite insensible to the attractions of before-breakfast walks. ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... power of producing these sounds with distinctness, and of adapting them to the purposes for which language is used, constitutes perfection of utterance. Had we a perfect alphabet, consisting of one symbol, and only one, for each elementary sound; and a perfect method of spelling, freed from silent letters, and precisely adjusted to the most correct pronunciation of words; the process of learning to read would doubtless be greatly facilitated. ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... to bring all the various opposing elements into subjection, and produce order in the place of discord and opposition. With the cross the early disciples went forth, not as the crusaders went, with the sacred symbol on banners, and badges, and weapons, but wearing the spirit of the cross like a garment, having its doctrines engraven on the heart, and inspired and quickened into life by its mysterious energy. It was the ...
— Daughters of the Cross: or Woman's Mission • Daniel C. Eddy
... brighter stars by night. Of spring we have none. April is nothing better than a protracted thaw, with scenes of mud and melting snow. May, the month dear to poets, is frequently but an uninterrupted succession of showers to fecundate the earth; its symbol, an array of outspread umbrellas in our streets. As to our summer, it is but the epitome of the lovely summer of France and Italy for the use of new countries. Autumn is a shade better; but anon, the first ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine
... the inn door; it came at a miserable little trot, but with an accompaniment of tremendous whip- cracking, that awoke echoes in the silent streets far and near, and imparted an impression of breathless speed to the imagination of the bystanders, who, being Italians, accepted the symbol in despite of their certain knowledge that the reality of the thing symbolised was not there. Like the immortal Marchioness, Dick Swiveller's friend, in the Old Curiosity Shop, the Italians, when the realities of circumstances are unfavourable, can always manage to gild them a ...
— A Siren • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... the present state of affairs, based on the assumption that over-taxation is balanced by profligate expenditure. The maintenance—to take only one point—of a police force about half the size of the United States army, when at the present time white gloves—the symbol of a crimeless charge—are being given to the judges on every circuit, is a state of affairs which is intolerable, while the small proportion which in the returns Ireland is shown to bear of the Imperial contribution is the result of the inclusion ...
— Ireland and the Home Rule Movement • Michael F. J. McDonnell
... the visible vertebrae of the spine. Several times (Dr. 12b and 13b) he is represented apparently with distended abdomen. A distinguishing article of his costume is the stiff feather collar, which is worn only by this god, his companion, the war-god F, and by his animal symbol, the owl, which will both be discussed farther on. His head ornament varies in the Dresden Codex; in the first portion of the manuscript, relating in part to pregnancy and child-birth (see the pictures of women on p. 16, et seq.), he wears on his head several times a figure ...
— Representation of Deities of the Maya Manuscripts • Paul Schellhas
... coster. We see it, too, in the ups and downs of words once aristocratic or tender, words once the very signet of polite conversation, now tossed about amid the very offal of language. We see it when some noble house, an illustrious symbol of heroic honour, the ark of high traditions, finds its reductio ad absurdum in some hare-brained turf-lord, who defiles its memories as he sells its pictures. But no lapse could be more pitiful than the end of St. Valentine. ...
— Prose Fancies • Richard Le Gallienne
... dear little woman has too much love for you, too much pride in you, to make a fright of herself, upon any consideration? Don't you know that, were your wife to venture to church in that hideous condition of which a last year's bonnet is the efficient and unmistakable symbol, Mrs. A., Mrs. B., Mrs. C., all the ladies of the church, in fact, would remark it at once,—would sit in judgment upon it like a quilt committee at an industrial fair, and would unanimously decide, either that you were a close-fisted ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 104, June, 1866 • Various
... came to him over the four paths guarded by the Four Winds. It was Wakoda, the Mysterious One, who gave to man the sunshine, the clear rippling water, the clear sky from which all storms, all clouds are absent, the sky which is the symbol of peace. Through this sky sweeps the eagle, the "Mother" of Indian songs, bearing upon her strong wings the message of peace and calling to her nestlings as she flies. Little wonder that to some tribes song was an integral ...
— Myths and Legends of the Great Plains • Unknown
... holy cross, as had been already done at Chempoalla; but Father Olmedo recommended that this should be postponed to a fitter opportunity, lest the ignorance and barbarism of the people might incite them to offer indignity against that holy symbol of our blessed religion. ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. IV. • Robert Kerr
... had insecurely fastened the sapling down. The strain upon the knot was too severe, and suddenly the young tree flew up and stood erect but quivering, with his handkerchief fluttering in its top as a symbol of defeat. There was an exclamation of dismay and Elsie again asked with ...
— Taken Alive • E. P. Roe
... and low; lie shrinking, awaiting the second summons that never failed to terrify, the siren of the Chippering Mill,—to her the cry of an insistent, hungry monster demanding its daily food, the symbol of a stern, ugly, and ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... of the happiness of writing to you; I went into the village church without being urged by a single romantic feeling nor any desire for comfort from without. My conception of divine harmony did not need to be supported by any outward form, or popular symbol. ...
— Letters of a Soldier - 1914-1915 • Anonymous
... necessarily dispel their opposites which belong with evil, disorder and discord. Thus deafness and blindness do not exist in the immaterial mind, which is philosophically the real world, but are banished with the perishable material senses. Reality, of which visible things are the symbol, shines before my mind. While I walk about my chamber with unsteady steps, my spirit sweeps skyward on eagle wings and looks out with unquenchable vision upon the ...
— The World I Live In • Helen Keller
... had committed, therefore, a sin theoretically unpardonable; for had he not—to gratify his personal desire for food—levelled a blow at the guardian spirit of the Tribe? Had he not alienated himself from his fellows by destroying its very symbol? There was only one way by which he could regain the fellowship of his companions. He must make amends by some public sacrifice, and instead of retaining the flesh of the animal for himself he must share it with the whole tribe (or clan) in a common feast, while at the same time, tensest ...
— Pagan & Christian Creeds - Their Origin and Meaning • Edward Carpenter
... Elizabeth with sentiments of family pride. It was erected by her remote progenitor Edmund of Langley, son of king Edward III. and founder of the house of York. By his directions the keep was built in the likeness of a fetter-lock, the well known cognisance of that line, and in the windows the same symbol with its attendant falcon was repeatedly and conspicuously emblazoned. From Edmund of Langley it descended to his son Edward duke of York, slain in the field of Agincourt, and next to the son of his unfortunate brother the decapitated earl of Cambridge; ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... United Nations as the living sign of all people's hope for peace, we shall strive to make it not merely an eloquent symbol but an effective force. And in our quest for an honorable peace, we shall neither compromise, nor ...
— U.S. Presidential Inaugural Addresses • Various
... lettered poster, which stood out black and white against the reds and yellows of the circular advertisement-column, and bore the word "Siegfried," Maurice Guest should not merely be filled with the anticipation of a world of beauty still unexplored, but that the world should stand to him for a symbol, as it were, of the easeful and luxurious side of a life dedicated to art—of a world-wide fame; the society of princes, kings; the gloss of velvet; the dull glow of gold.—And again, tapering vistas opened up, through which he could peer into the future, happy in the ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... when was ever love cast out by fear? He knew not as yet the only remedy for such sorrow,—that there is a love celestial and divine, of which earthly love in its purest form is only the sacramental symbol and emblem, and that this divine love can by God's power so outflood human affections as to bear the soul above all earthly idols to its only immortal rest. This great truth rises like a rock amid stormy seas, and many is the sailor struggling in salt and bitter waters who cannot yet believe ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 49, November, 1861 • Various
... large fleet of English, Russians, Neapolitans, and Turks, composed of two-deckers, frigates, and sloops, lay at their anchors in front of the town. On board of one of the largest of the former was flying the flag of a rear-admiral at the mizzen, the symbol of the commander's rank. A corvette alone was under-way. She had left the anchorage an hour before, and, with studding-sails on her starboard side, was stretching diagonally across the glorious bay, apparently heading toward the passage between Capri and the Point of Campanella, bound to Sicily. ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... with Divine force and should, therefore, be obeyed and honored in the same degree. Justice and force, moreover, belong to two different worlds—the natural and the spiritual. The former is the phenomenon and symbol of the latter. We live in a world of symbols; and so preponderant force is for us the visible and practical ...
— New York Times, Current History, Vol 1, Issue 1 - From the Beginning to March, 1915 With Index • Various
... little group has been recorded because of the woman. Mechanically rocking the child in her arms, with her neat clothes and brave little bits of finery, with, above all, her anxious, pathetic smile as she looked up into the face of her man, she stood there for a symbol of all that the warring Navy demands of ...
— The Long Trick • Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie
... amid a scene of unparalleled enthusiasm. After that they were in demand in every State of the Union in which free labor was honored. They were borne in processions by the people, and hailed by hundreds of thousands as a symbol of triumph and a glorious vindication of freedom and of the right and dignity of labor. These, however, were not the first rails made by Lincoln. He was a practiced hand at the business. As a memento of his pioneer accomplishment he preserved in later years a cane made from ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... the symbol of Animal Passion; LABRYDE of the lower appetites; THERION, the human wild beast, who deserts ...
— Spenser's The Faerie Queene, Book I • Edmund Spenser
... ditto mounted on bronze, common and heavy in design,—Roman standards with Greek foliage! Above the clock is that inevitable good-natured lion which looks at you with a simper, the lion of ornamentation, with a big ball under his feet, symbol of the decorative lion, who passes his life holding a black ball, —exactly like a deputy of the Left. Perhaps it is meant as a constitutional myth. The face of the clock is curious. The glass over the chimney is framed in that new fashion of applied ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... last hope in our woe And fair is the lone desert isle; Young Flora peeps gay from the snow; And dearest in grief is a smile; The dew-drop is bright with a star; Age glows when young memories appear; But a symbol to hope that is sweeter by far Is the wee blink ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume VI - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... "we have had such a walk! And here you have finished for us this beautiful cherub as the symbol ...
— Claire - The Blind Love of a Blind Hero, By a Blind Author • Leslie Burton Blades
... bunch of leeks been suddenly presented to his lordship at this moment, his face would have crimsoned with a blush as deep as that of the red night-cap which apparently is the object of his homage; for surely no hostility can be deeper than that between the badge of jacobinism and this antique symbol of honor, good faith, and loyal brotherhood, and reverence for the dust of ...
— Walladmor: - And Now Freely Translated from the German into English. - In Two Volumes. Vol. I. • Thomas De Quincey
... chairs to see your face, Each the fair symbol of Parisian grace, The guns in wreaths of flowers are dressed; Fierce ...
— L'Aiglon • Edmond Rostand
... applied to the classicists by the French romanticists of Hugo's generation, who wore their hair long and flowing—cheveaux merovigiennes—and affected an outre freedom in the cut and color of their clothes. Similarly the Byronic collar became, all over Europe, the symbol of daring independence in matters of taste and opinion. Its careless roll, which left the throat exposed, seemed to assist the liberty of ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... Strangers' Welcome' (as I will take leave to term it) is more ambitious than 'The Rest,' but it is of the same simple type. In some respects it is even more primitive; no sign hangs over its door, nor is any other symbol of its vocation visible, 'Liberty,' not 'License,' as one may say without much metaphor, being its motto. It is on an island, so insignificant in extent that horse exercise is impossible on it. What it lacks in superficial area is more than made up, however, in its stupendous height. From the ...
— Some Private Views • James Payn
... magnificent spectacle as well as a lesson, to see the army itself overthrow the ramparts of tyranny. Then this Bastille would be set fire to and from the midst of the flames would appear the Column with the genius of Liberty, symbol of a new order and of ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... less of black annihilation, and we must have systematic jurisprudence, with its classification of caitiffs and its graduated blasting. Has Mr. Carlyle's passion, or have the sedulous and scientific labours of that Bentham, whose name with him is a symbol of evil, done most in what he calls the Scoundrel-province of Reform within the last half-century? Sterling's criticism on Teufelsdroeckh told a hard but wholesome truth to Teufelsdroeckh's creator. 'Wanting peace himself,' said Sterling, ...
— Critical Miscellanies, Vol. I - Essay 2: Carlyle • John Morley
... on that December day Had seen it so deject and lorn, So lone a symbol of decay, Had dreamed of it this summer morn? Divined the power that should relume A flame so spent, and once more bring That blackened being back to bloom,— Who could have dreamed so ...
— A Jongleur Strayed - Verses on Love and Other Matters Sacred and Profane • Richard Le Gallienne
... need not add the astrological characters: they are the senseless superfluous accessories of the dreamer who wrote the book. But the pentacle itself has an intelligible meaning; it belongs to the only universal language, the language of symbol, in which all races that think—around, and above, and below us—can establish communion of thought. If in the external universe any one constructive principle can be detected, it is the geometrical; and in every part of the world in which ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... The influence of light as a sacred symbol. 75 Sec. 2. The idea of purity connected with it. 75 Sec. 3. Originally derived from conditions of matter. 76 Sec. 4. Associated ideas adding to the power of the impression. Influence of clearness. 76 Sec. 5. Perfect beauty of surface, in what consisting. ...
— Modern Painters Volume II (of V) • John Ruskin
... and not judge too harshly the great actor. Unlike those whose lives we have hitherto considered, he knew none of the softening influences of a home; to him the very name of mother, instead of recalling every tender and affectionate feeling, was but the symbol of a vague horror, the fountain of that degradation and depravation of his nature, from which no subsequent prosperity could ever ...
— The Drama • Henry Irving
... say so without fear to me, who saw a symbol of my love for you in your name. Eve was the one woman in the world; if it was true in the outward world for Adam, it is true again in the inner world of my heart for me. My God! do you ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... of the Book of Joshua you may read the great type and example of such achievements, the symbol of every victory of good over evil, the thing that could not be done by man's best power, skill and foresight, accomplished, with God to aid, by a breath. The defensive strength of Jericho was greater, compared with the means of attack then known, than that of Sebastopol ...
— The Subterranean Brotherhood • Julian Hawthorne
... was once an unworthy member, that the annual custom of salting alludes to that saying of our Saviour to His disciples, 'Ye are the salt of the earth;' for as salt draws up all that matter that tends to putrefaction, so it is a symbol of our doing the like in a spiritual state, by taking away all natural corruption.... If this will not please, why may it not denote that wit and knowledge by which boys dedicated to learning ought to distinguish themselves. You know what sal sometimes signifies among ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 40, Saturday, August 3, 1850 - A Medium Of Inter-Communication For Literary Men, Artists, Antiquaries, • Various
... found that Peace the doctor had spoken of, Margaret whose delicate curving lips had always seemed to her the symbol of discontent, of the inadequacy of life. Margaret had found it, and why not she? ... That explained the difference she felt these days in Margaret. There had always been something fine and sweet in the Southern woman, something ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... thinks the familiar barrow is merely a truck for the conveyance of cabbages and carrots, and for the exposure of the same to the choice of housewives in Bermondsey, he is mistaken. Far beyond that, it is the symbol, the solid expression, of life itself to the owner, his family, and circle of connections, more so than even the ship to the sailor, as the sailor, no matter how he may love his ship, longs for port, and the joys of the ...
— The Open Air • Richard Jefferies
... fact, of singular intellectual value. Many of the faults and mistakes of the ancient philosophers are traceable to the fact that they knew no language but their own, and were often led into confusing the symbol with the thought which it embodied. I think it is Locke [84] who says that one-half of the mistakes of philosophers have arisen from questions about words; and one of the safest ways of delivering yourself from the bondage of words is, to know how ideas look ...
— Autobiography and Selected Essays • Thomas Henry Huxley
... eyes and, to be frank, the ears and nose as well. It was a forlorn-looking lot of hovels, occupied by listless, frowsy adults and noisy children. Here existence seemed to be a grim caricature of life; the children, the only symbol of abundance to be seen, continued to be grotesque in their very dirt. What clothes they had were second or third-hand garments too large for them, which they seemed to be perpetually ...
— John Wesley, Jr. - The Story of an Experiment • Dan B. Brummitt
... than an embodiment of the scientific knowledge of physical laws, or a symbol of social tendencies. It is equally a monument to the moral qualities of the human soul. It could never have been built by mere knowledge and scientific skill alone. It required, in addition, the infinite patience and unwearied courage by which great ...
— Opening Ceremonies of the New York and Brooklyn Bridge, May 24, 1883 • William C. Kingsley
... dedicated to Isis, as symbols of agriculture; the bird Ibis, the crocodile, the dog Anubis, and other animals, whose physical characteristics impressed the as yet childish man, who saw in them the symbol, either of the beneficent power of nature which moved him to thankfulness, or of a destructive power which he dreaded and whose anger he sought to avert. The religion of Egypt was not of a purely spiritual character. To the man whose eye is not ...
— A Comparative View of Religions • Johannes Henricus Scholten |
