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Neophyte   Listen
noun
Neophyte  n.  
1.
A new convert or proselyte; a name given by the early Christians, and still given by the Roman Catholics, to such as have recently embraced the Christian faith, and been admitted to baptism, esp. to converts from heathenism or Judaism.
2.
Hence: A novice; a tyro; a beginner in anything.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Neophyte" Quotes from Famous Books



... to be cast away upon a desert island, or turned to such diminutive proportions that he can live on equal terms with his lead soldiery, and go a cruise in his own toy-schooner? Surely all these are practical questions to a neophyte entering upon life with a view to play. Precision upon such a point, the child can understand. But if you merely ask him of his past behaviour, as to who threw such a stone, for instance, or struck such and such a match; or whether he had looked into a parcel or gone by a ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... Notre Dame de Paris, where he prayed the first priest he met to administer baptism to his friend, and this was speedily done; and the new convert changed his Jewish name of Abraham into the Christian name of Jean; and as the neophyte, thanks to his journey to Rome, had gained a profound belief, his natural good qualities increased so greatly in the practice of our holy religion, that after leading an exemplary life he died in the ...
— The Borgias - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... proclamations in every direction, you should have kept the local leaders fully informed of what was going on, you should have concentrated the whole force of the movement, you should have thoroughly systematized the whole concern. Ah! Numa, I see you are but a neophyte after all. Why did you begin without inviting the aid of the Poles? This is just the sort of thing a Pole would understand! Have you ...
— The Day of Wrath • Maurus Jokai

... a moment of taking orders, but his dread of appearing in public conspired with the good sense which lay beneath his excessive sensibility to put a veto on the design. He, however, exercised the zeal of a neophyte in proselytism to a greater extent than his own judgment and good taste approved when his enthusiasm ...
— Cowper • Goldwin Smith

... could not overtake their old mistress, so she herself alighted from her chair to volunteer her services. She was about to hastily press forward and support her, when, by a strange accident, a young Taoist neophyte, of twelve or thirteen years of age, who held a case containing scissors, with which he had been snuffing the candles burning in the various places, just seized the opportunity to run out and hide himself, when he unawares rushed, ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin

... the spirits who communicated with us, instead of the imperfect laws constructed by our benighted fellow-men. How clear and logical, how lofty, these doctrines seemed! If, at times, something in their nature repelled me, I simply attributed it to the fact that I was still but a neophyte in the Spiritual Philosophy, and incapable of perceiving the truth ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, No. 38, December, 1860 • Various

... and solemn steward of the celestial Mysteries. He comes, pushes the curtain aside, leads the awe struck initiate in, takes the blinding bandage of the body from his soul; and straightway the trembling neophyte receives light in the midst of that innumerable Fraternity of Immortals over whom the Supreme Author of ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger

... that they cannot drive as far as the men. But otherwise the man's game and the lady's game are the same in principle and in practice. As for the manner in which to play, I have not a single special piece of instruction to offer, and can only refer the lady neophyte to the previous pages, in which I have set forth as well as I am able the precise method in which each of the many strokes in golf should be played. I have merely to insist that they shall not deviate from these methods in one or two ...
— The Complete Golfer [1905] • Harry Vardon

... late afternoon the journalist and the neophyte went to the Luxembourg, and sat down under the trees in that part of the gardens which lies between the broad Avenue de l'Observatoire and the Rue de l'Ouest. The Rue de l'Ouest at that time was a long morass, bounded by planks and market-gardens; the ...
— A Distinguished Provincial at Paris • Honore de Balzac

... converted the Tahitians to the Christian faith the Arioi adherent was the chief barrier, the fiercest opponent, and, when won over, the most enthusiastic neophyte. In that is found the secret of the society's strength. It embraced all the imaginative, active, ambitious Tahitians, to whom it gave opportunities to display varied talents, to form close friendships, to rise in rank, to meet on evener terms those more aristocratic in degree, and, above all, ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien

... St. Guenole. "And what then do you believe that baptism really is? Baptism is the process of regeneration by which man is born of water and of the spirit, for having entered the water covered with crimes, he goes out of it a neophyte, a new creature, abounding in the fruits of righteousness; baptism is the seed of immortality; baptism is the pledge of the resurrection; baptism is the burying with Christ in His death and participation in His departure from the sepulchre. That is not a gift to bestow ...
— Penguin Island • Anatole France

... half shyly in a glass on his table a wonderful thought occurred to him. Was not the episode of last night a special providence? Was not that young girl, wayward and childlike, a mere neophyte in her idolatrous religion, as yet unsteeped in sloth and ignorance, presented to him as a brand to be snatched from the burning? Was not this the opportunity of conversion he had longed for—this the chance of exercising his gifts of exhortation that he had been hiding in the napkin ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte

... Nidui! and banish my diabolical guests. If cauterization cures moral ulcers as effectually as those that afflict the flesh, then, verily, you intend I shall be clean and whole. You are losing patience with your graceless neophyte." ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson

... after this sort is like a neophyte who has at last become a veteran, has accustomed his mind to shot and shell and his legs to lengthy marches. When the monster's hold on him is still uncertain, and it is not yet known which will have the better of it, they roll over and over, ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac

... away feeling that he was a blunderer. The fact was that he was a neophyte and, it was true, did not possess the qualities which make a successful lobbyist. Mr. Stamps had wheedled or forced his way into the great man's apartment and had persisted in remaining to press his claim until he was figuratively turned out by ...
— In Connection with the De Willoughby Claim • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... whose influence over the Jacobins was boundless, undertook the defence of his colleague, owned there was some ground for what had been said, but spoke highly of Barere's industry and aptitude for business. This seasonable interposition silenced the accuser; but it was long before the neophyte could venture to ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 2 (of 4) - Contributions To The Edinburgh Review • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... priest once presented to Saint Teresa a young girl who wished to become a Carmelite nun, and who, according to him, had angelic qualities. Saint Teresa, accepting the neophyte, replied: "See, my father, our Lord has given this maiden devotion, but she has no judgment, and never will have any; and she will always ...
— Spontaneous Activity in Education • Maria Montessori

... which the neophyte here gave seemed to give great dissatisfaction to all of the trappers present. One of ...
— The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky Mountains, from Facts Narrated by Himself • De Witt C. Peters

... and, to a certain extent, its duties. He is at first a junior member, it is true. Among his duties, therefore, will be obedience to some of the senior members, and respect to all. But none the less is he a neophyte member of a corporation which extends back hundreds of years perhaps,—he is a co-proprietor of its honors and privileges, is responsible for their preservation, and is, from the first, inoculated with its ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 45, July, 1861 • Various

... their subordinates. Disraeli used to lie in Oriental calm during the greater part of every sitting, leaving all his lieutenants to do the drudgery while he dosed and posed. Not so Gladstone. He is almost literally always on his legs. The biggest bore—the rudest neophyte—the most gulping obstructive is certain of an answer from him—courteous, considerate, and ample. No debate, however small, is too petty for his notice and intervention; in short, he tries to do not only his own work, but ...
— Sketches In The House (1893) • T. P. O'Connor

... it occur to her to examine the letter, to look at it critically as a profession of love? Her whole soul was possessed by the fact that a fuller life was opening before her: she was a neophyte about to enter on a higher grade of initiation. She was going to have room for the energies which stirred uneasily under the dimness and pressure of her own ignorance and the petty peremptoriness ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot

... was gesture. Here again, while some of our evidence is somewhat unreliable, practically every shred of extant testimony indicates an extreme liveliness and vivacity. In the rhetoricians frequent warning is issued to the forensic neophyte to avoid the unrestraint of theatrical gesticulation. Cicero says (De Or. I. 59. 251): "Nemo suaserit studiosis dicendi adulescentibus in gestu discendo histrionum more elaborare." Quintilian echoes (I. 11. 3): "Ne gestus quidem omnis ac motus a comediis ...
— The Dramatic Values in Plautus • Wilton Wallace Blancke

... worth one's while. If rumor is to be believed, you have ordinarily more than your labor for your pains. You have taught me something already.... Ah, well!" she sighed, "I suppose I may as well acknowledge my inferiority—as neophyte to hierophant. Master!" She courtesied low. "I beg you proceed and let thy cheela profit through observation!" And a small white hand gestured significantly toward the collection of burglar's tools,— drills and chisels, skeleton keys, putty, ...
— The Brass Bowl • Louis Joseph Vance

... Where they believe them worthy they do not inquire about their means; and a fund is annually set apart by the trustees to pay the passage of poor families whom they have determined to take in. Usually a neophyte enters on probation for two years, signing an obligation to labor faithfully, to conduct himself according to the society's regulations, ...
— The Communistic Societies of the United States • Charles Nordhoff

... thee true, my noble neophyte; my little gram maticaster, he does: it shall never put thee to thy mathematics, metaphysics, philosophy, and I know not what supposed Suficiencies; if thou canst but have the patience to plod enough, talk, and make a noise enough, be ...
— The Poetaster - Or, His Arraignment • Ben Jonson

... the storage space from which supplies had been removed, Calhoun produced vacuum suits. The four first students went out, each escorting a less-accustomed neophyte and all fastened firmly together with space ropes. They warmed the interiors of four ships and went on to others. Presently there were eight ships making ready for an interstellar journey, each with a scared but resolute new pilot familiarizing himself with ...
— This World Is Taboo • Murray Leinster

... you, ha? Know, my pretty neophyte, that happiness, married happiness especially, does not come from being loved, but from loving. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 10, August, 1858 • Various

... in store for you! But the reason of our existence as an institution, Soames, is not far to seek. Once the joys of Chandu become perceptible to the neophyte, a great need is felt—a crying need. One may drink opium or inject morphine; these, and other crude measures, may satisfy temporarily, but if one would enjoy the delights of that fairyland, of that enchanted realm which bountiful nature has concealed in the ...
— The Yellow Claw • Sax Rohmer

... poet, however, he was more successful, and it was here that the assurance of literary ability, so dear to the heart of the neophyte, first came to him. Dr. Watts's "imitation" of the Psalms, incomplete and inappropriate in many respects, was then the only version within reach of the Puritan churches, and in 1785 the Congregational Association of Connecticut applied to the poet for a revised edition of the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 26, July 1880. • Various

... Burr was entertaining the simple-minded Doctor with all the grace of a young neophyte come to sit at the feet of superior truth. There are some people who receive from Nature as a gift a sort of graceful facility of sympathy, by which they incline to take on, for the time being, the sentiments and opinions ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 21, July, 1859 • Various

... in tones of mortal hatred, "I will have the book when your collection is sold after your death." And he kept his word. The fever of gambling is not absent from the auction-room, and people "bid jealous" as they sometimes "ride jealous" in the hunting-field. Yet, the neophyte, if he strolls by chance into a sale-room, will be surprised at the spectacle. The chamber has the look of a rather seedy "hell." The crowd round the auctioneer's box contains many persons so dingy and Semitic, that at Monte Carlo they would be ...
— The Library • Andrew Lang

... the departure of Portola and his party, Sunday, July 16, Padre Serra felt that the glorious moment for which he had so long prayed had at length arrived. The mission bells were unpacked and hung on a tree, and a neophyte, or converted Indian, whom he had brought with him from the peninsula, was appointed to ring them. As the sweet tones sounded on the clear air, all the party who were able gathered about the padre, who stood lifting the cross of Christ on ...
— History of California • Helen Elliott Bandini

... a silver rose with my benediction on it, to know of a certainty what became of those poor creatures the abbates. The initiatory rite of Mohammedanism is most diabolically malicious. According to the canons of our Catholic Church, it disqualifies the neophyte for holy orders, without going so far as adapting him to the choir of the pontifical chapel. They limp; ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor

... made that even Lydia Sessions, still exceedingly employed at being pictorially chagrined over the depravity of her neophyte, could but be appeased. ...
— The Power and the Glory • Grace MacGowan Cooke

... that of the dark ages, then contained scarce a single enactment, and not a single stringent enactment, imposing any penalty on Papists as such. On our side of Saint George's Channel every priest who received a neophyte into the bosom of the Church of Rome was liable to be hanged, drawn, and quartered. On the other side he incurred no such danger. A Jesuit who landed at Dover took his life in his hand; but he walked the streets of ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... of the neophytes comes before us with a bigger mouthful than she can swallow. If she understands fully that a single word above a whisper—or any word at all unless she is addressed by the Sisters—will be punished by her being instantly corked up again, the gag may be removed. Do you understand, Neophyte? ...
— Ruth Fielding at Briarwood Hall - or Solving the Campus Mystery • Alice B. Emerson

... upon the suave hospitality of the grand old man at the desk, it was Ardessa who went out and made soothing and plausible explanations as to why the editor could not see them. She was the brake that checked the too-eager neophyte, the emollient that eased the severing of relationships, the gentle extinguisher of the lights that failed. When there were no longer messages of hope and cheer to be sent to ardent young writers and reformers, Ardessa ...
— A Collection of Stories, Reviews and Essays • Willa Cather

... cadet in a neo-judo hold that no neophyte, however skilled or strong could break. He dragged the struggling Hanlon up to the rostrum and, with his elbow, ...
— Man of Many Minds • E. Everett Evans

... him to turn Christian on the supposition of being his companion; and then gives him the slip. The neophyte's expressions on the occasion are ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury

... N. learner, scholar, student, pupil; apprentice, prentice[obs3], journeyman; articled clerk; beginner, tyro, amateur, rank amateur; abecedarian, alphabetarian[obs3]; alumnus, eleve[Fr]. recruit, raw recruit, novice, neophyte, inceptor[obs3], catechumen, probationer; seminarian, chela, fellow-commoner; debutant. [apprentice medical doctors] intern; resident. schoolboy; fresh, freshman, frosh; junior soph[obs3], junior; senior soph[obs3], senior; sophister[obs3], sophomore; questionist[obs3]. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... eye that initiation was Latin for a practical joke, he led forth his victim behind the arras again, and waited five minutes while the room was being darkened, till Frank's voice called to him to bring in the neophyte. ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley

... sustain the role of frowning displeasure as Dick skipped back with him to the company. He remembered his own delight three months before, even with the haunting thoughts of his mother's reproaches to dampen his ardor, and he was soon dazzling the neophyte with the wonders that were ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan

... The neophyte in Christian Science acts like a diseased physique,—being too fast or too slow. He is inclined to do either too much or too little. In healing and teaching the student has not yet achieved the entire wisdom of Mind-practice. The textual explanation of this practice is complete in Science ...
— Retrospection and Introspection • Mary Baker Eddy

... brings sufficiently to memory the progress of the youthful Napoleon. Here we see him at his mother's knee; then in the time of his school days; then in Paris and Valence; then as a neophyte author, quite absurd in his dreams; then on garrison duty, and then swept away with the tides of the oncoming revolution. In the smoke of the South his slender figure is seen here and there until he ...
— The Arena - Volume 18, No. 92, July, 1897 • Various

... confessor, the Spanish Francesco da Toledo, impressed upon him the necessity of following the footsteps of Paul IV. and Pius V. It was made plain that he must conform to the new tendencies of the Catholic Church; and in his neophyte's zeal he determined to outdo his predecessors. The example of Pius V. was not only imitated, but surpassed. Gregory XIII. celebrated three Masses a week, built churches, and enforced parochial obedience throughout his capital. The Jesuits in his reign attained to the maximum ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds

... that something above wealth which the bewildered rich man only discovers the existence of when he has struggled to the highest pinnacle of advancement in his own way, began to seize this wealthy neophyte. To be sure, in this first essay, the company which he assembled in his fine rooms in Portland Place, to see all his fine things and celebrate his glory, was not a fine company, but they afforded more gratification to Mr. ...
— Phoebe, Junior • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant

... endued with attributes should, in the first instance, be practised, for, O ruler of Mithila, if the breath (that is inhaled and suspended) be exhaled without mentally reflecting the while upon a definite image (furnished by a limited mantra), the wind in the neophyte's system will increase to his great injury.[1658] In the first Yama of the night, twelve ways of holding the breath are recommended. After sleep, in the last Yama of the night, other twelve ways of doing the same have been laid down. Without doubt, one endued with tranquillity, of ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown

... without any admixture of mystical slackness in faith or conduct. Each order is distinguished by a peculiar garb. Candidates for admission have to pass through a noviciate, more or less lengthy. First comes the 'ahd, or initial covenant, in which the neophyte or mur[i]d, "seeker," repents of his past sins and takes the sheikh of the order he enters as his guide (murshid) for the future. He then enters upon a course of instruction and discipline, called a ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 2 - "Demijohn" to "Destructor" • Various

... first essay in a canoe, nevertheless she succeeded admirably in her effort, for it is far easier to learn a little of paddling than a little of rowing, as every neophyte ...
— The Voyage Alone in the Yawl "Rob Roy" • John MacGregor

... together with folded circulars and advertising cards, into pasteboard boxes. At the far end of this room a pungent, high-spiced scent, as of a pickle-kitchen with a fortified odor underlying it, greeted the unaccustomed nose of the neophyte. ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams

... on Mr. Hazen, "there was, as I told you, a young neophyte by the name of Thomas Watson. Tom had not found his niche in life. He had tried being a clerk, a bookkeeper, and a carpenter and none of these several occupations had seemed to fit him. Then one fortunate day he happened in at Williams's shop and immediately ...
— Ted and the Telephone • Sara Ware Bassett

... be of use in urging this uncle to induce the French King to throw before Savonarola the shield of his protection? At all events, he entered Florence this evening with the burning zeal of a young neophyte who hopes to effect something himself for a glorious and sacred cause embodied in a leader who ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 52, February, 1862 • Various

... changed hands and direction, heaped up, scattered, reunited; fortunes were swallowed up in that colossal game, and at its close the Nabob, who had started it to forget his fears in the caprices of luck, after extraordinary alternations, somersaults of fortune calculated to make a neophyte's hair turn white, withdrew with winnings of five hundred thousand francs. They said five millions on the boulevard the next day, and every one cried shame, especially the Messager, which gave up three-quarters of its space to an article against certain adventurers who ...
— The Nabob, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet

... — N. learner, scholar, student, pupil; apprentice, prentice^, journeyman; articled clerk; beginner, tyro, amateur, rank amateur; abecedarian, alphabetarian^; alumnus, eleve [Fr.]. recruit, raw recruit, novice, neophyte, inceptor^, catechumen, probationer; seminarian, chela, fellow-commoner; debutant. [apprentice medical doctors] intern; resident. schoolboy; fresh, freshman, frosh; junior soph^, junior; senior soph^, senior; sophister^, sophomore; questionist^. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... plunged into his first public-house. How shall he ask for his liquor? "I will take a glass of ale, if you please, Miss," seems tame for a Blade. It may be useful to know a more suitable formula. Just at present, we may assure the Blade neophyte, it is all the rage to ask for "Two of swipes, ducky." Go in boldly, bang down your money as loudly as possible, and shout that out at the top of your voice. If it is a barman, though, you had better not say ...
— Certain Personal Matters • H. G. Wells

... glimpse of its teachings, there may be a few who will be led by them to penetrate more deeply into its philosophy, its science and its religion, facing its abstruser problems with the student's zeal and the neophyte's ardour. But these Manuals are not written for the eager student, whom no initial difficulties can daunt; they are written for the busy men and women of the work-a-day world, and seek to make plain some of the great truths that render life ...
— The Astral Plane - Its Scenery, Inhabitants and Phenomena • C. W. Leadbeater

... ourselves had all gone through this cruel novitiate, we showed no mercy on a newcomer, never sparing him the mockery, the catechism, the impertinence, which were inexhaustible on such occasions, to the discomfiture of the neophyte, whose manners, strength, and temper were thus tested. Lambert, whether he was stoical or dumfounded, made no reply to any questions. One of us thereupon remarked that he was no doubt of the school of Pythagoras, and there was a shout of laughter. The new boy was thenceforth Pythagoras ...
— Louis Lambert • Honore de Balzac

... that growing love had enlightened his eyes to see into her heart, and enabled him thus to use an ordinary human language for the embodiment of common-sense ideas; whereas the speech of the pastor contained such an admixture of technicalities as to be unintelligible to the neophyte. ...
— Stephen Archer and Other Tales • George MacDonald

... deepening by degrees into disappointment and disenchantment. He abated no jot or tittle of his demands upon human frailty. He kept the spiritual cord drawn tight; the Biblical bearing-rein was incessantly busy, jerking into position the head of the dejected neophyte. That young soul, removed from the Father's personal inspection, began to blossom forth crudely and irregularly enough, into new provinces of thought, through fresh layers of experience. To the painful mentor at home in the West, the centre of anxiety was still the meek ...
— Father and Son • Edmund Gosse

... abroad—PUNCH, that teaches all, must teach the law; and, as a preliminary indispensable, he now proceeds to give a few definitions of the principal matters contained in that science, which bear a different meaning from what they would in ordinary language. The admiring neophyte will perceive with delight the vast superiority apparent in all cases of "matters of law," or ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, August 14, 1841 • Various

... thereupon after a movement which intimated that all present were kneeling, the presiding voice offered up an extemporary prayer of great power and even eloquence. This was succeeded by the Hymn of Labour, and at its conclusion the arms of the neophyte were unpinioned, and ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli

... in order, as a class, with their backs considerately placed against a screen, had begun, in rotation, to read the exercises which they had not written, even then, each Bencher, true to the great lazy principle of the whole proceeding, stopped each neophyte before he had stammered through his first line, and bowed to him, and told him politely that he was a barrister from that moment. This was all the ceremony. It was followed by a social supper, and by the presentation, ...
— The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices • Charles Dickens

... fellow-ranchers of the Doge's selection, who were genuine, hall-marked people, whatever the origin from which the individual sprang. He knew the fatigue of productive labor as something far sweeter than the fatigue that comes from mere exercise, and the neophyte's enthusiasm was his. ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer

... from the temple, and passed through the city ways. First came those who clear the path, then my father Amenemhat in all his priestly robes, and the wand of cedar in his hand. Then, clad in pure linen, I, the neophyte, followed alone; and after me the white-robed priests, holding aloft banners and emblems of the Gods. Next came those who bear the sacred boat, and after them the singers and the mourners; while, stretching as far as the eye could reach, all the ...
— Cleopatra • H. Rider Haggard

... a sobbing and miserable neophyte who stumbled into the kitchen a few seconds later. The twins were bending earnestly over their Latin grammars by the side of the kitchen fire, and did not raise their eyes as the Seeker burst into the room. Constance sat down, and gasped and quivered for a while. Then she looked down ...
— Prudence of the Parsonage • Ethel Hueston

... also, the Neophyte in Literature had better be prepared. He will never be able to subsist by creative writing unless it so happens that the form of expression he chooses is popular in form (fiction, for example), and even in that case, the work he does, if he is to ...
— The Idler Magazine, Vol III. May 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various

... prettiest of the stories about birds is divided between St Serf, the founder of a monastery in Loch Leven, and St Kentigern, the patron of Glasgow, where he is better known as St Mungo. Kentigern was one among a parcel of neophyte boys whom the worthy old Serf, or Servanus, was perfecting in the knowledge of the truth. Their teacher had a feathered pet—"quaedam avicula quae vulgo ob ruborem corpusculi rubisca nuncupatur"—a robin-redbreast, ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton

... sombre countenance, as the hot-stuff, the cards, and the pipes were produced, an hour or two before supper,—a meal we always had hot and comfortable. This covert satisfaction, however, was not exhibited without certain misgiving looks, as if the neophyte in these innocent enjoyments distrusted his right to possess his share. I remember in particular, when my mother laid two or three new, clean packs of cards on the table, that Jason cast a stealthy glance over his shoulder, ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper

... come to consider it. Why, then, my good friend, perjure yourself or strive to mince matters? The work of the world will be done whether I'm here to direct the doing of it or not.—Granted I am tough and in personal knowledge of ill-health a neophyte. My luck throughout has been almost uncanny. Neither in soldiering nor in sport, from man or from beast, have I ever suffered so much as a scratch. I have borne a charmed life—established a record for invulnerability, ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet

... of Mr. Leigh Hunt and his simple neophyte.—If any one should be bold enough to purchase this 'Poetic Romance,' and so much more patient, than ourselves, as to get beyond the first book, and so much more fortunate as to find a meaning, we entreat him to make us acquainted with his success; we shall then ...
— Early Reviews of English Poets • John Louis Haney

... guests seemed struck by his look of attention. "My dear Vivaldi," said this gentleman, laying down a fossil, and fixing his gaze on Odo while he addressed the Professor, "why use such superannuated formulas in introducing a neophyte to a study designed to subvert the very foundations of the Mosaic cosmogony? I take it the Cavaliere is one of us, since he is here this evening: why, then, permit him to stray even for a moment in the labyrinth of ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton

... hot anger over this indignity put upon a fellow "artist." His view of literature was sacramental, sacerdotal. All should reverence the altar; none should insult the humblest neophyte. Mrs. Whyland indulgently overlooked his reckless use of names and liked him none the less; and the little lady who had suffered on a similar occasion, though in a different role, gave him a glance ...
— Under the Skylights • Henry Blake Fuller

... way up the steep declivity of the mountain, Costal and his neophyte halted by one of these boulders. Now apparently absorbed in profound meditation, now muttering in a low tone, and in the language of his fathers, certain prayers, the Zapoteque awaited that hour when the moon should reach its meridian, in order to come to the grand ...
— The Tiger Hunter • Mayne Reid

... but little talking, of course, during the card-playing: at the end of it Mr. Roscorla found he had only lost half a sovereign. Then everybody adjourned to a snug little smoking-room, to which only members were admitted. This, to the neophyte, was the pleasantest part of the evening. He seemed to hear of everything that was going on in London, and a good deal more besides. He was behind the scenes of all the commercial, social and political performances which were causing the vulgar crowd to gape. He discovered ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various

... advanced occultists scrupulously refrain from so doing. In fact, among the highest teachers, it is a condition imposed upon the pupil that he shall refrain from exhibitions of his developing powers among the uninitiated public. "The Neophyte is bound over to the most inviolable secrecy as to everything connected with his entrance and further progress in the schools. In Asia, in the same way, the chela, or pupil of occultism, no sooner becomes a chela than he ceases to be a witness on behalf ...
— A Series of Lessons in Gnani Yoga • Yogi Ramacharaka

... a Catholic. He accepted with all the fervour of a neophyte the principle of submission to Holy Church. But in place of the official intellectualist apologetic, which an Englishman may study to great advantage in the remarkably able series of manuals issued by the Jesuits of Stonyhurst, he substituted a philosophy of experience which ...
— Outspoken Essays • William Ralph Inge

... consciousness, guided him also. No doubt he was not sorry to reappear in his little town, although he was so young, with the importance and authority of a master. His former companions were going to become his pupils. And then the Manichees had fanaticized him. Carried away by the neophyte's bubbling zeal, elevated by his triumphs at the public meetings in Carthage, he meant to shine before his fellow-countrymen, and perhaps convert them. He departed with his mind made up to proselytize. Let us believe also, that in spite of his dissolute life, ...
— Saint Augustin • Louis Bertrand

... were edified by the fervor with which he requested and received the sacrament of baptism, by the solemn protestation that the remainder of his life should be worthy of a disciple of Christ, and by his humble refusal to wear the Imperial purple after he had been clothed in the white garment of a Neophyte. The example and reputation of Constantine seemed to countenance the delay of baptism. Future tyrants were encouraged to believe, that the innocent blood which they might shed in a long reign would instantly be washed away in the waters of regeneration; and the abuse of ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon

... and silence. As he grew older these periods of solitary fasting were increased in length, and now, at eighteen, several boys in the Wyandot village had reached the last blackening and fasting. The black paint was spread over the neophyte's face, and he was led by his father far from the village to a solitary cabin or tent, where he was left without weapons or food. It was known from his previous fasting about how long he could stand it, and now the utmost ...
— The Riflemen of the Ohio - A Story of the Early Days along "The Beautiful River" • Joseph A. Altsheler

... from a back room and desired to get ready a tub. It was the ceremony customary at the reception of a neophyte—customary, and in ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XXVI., December, 1880. • Various

... chaplain saw this, and with the earl's permission lodged the neophyte in a chamber adjacent to his own "cell," where he gave himself up to his beloved books, only varying the monotony by an occasional stroll with his friend Hubert, who never turned his back upon his former friend, and endured much ...
— The House of Walderne - A Tale of the Cloister and the Forest in the Days of the Barons' Wars • A. D. Crake

... under examination, in consequence of the appearance of dangerous symptoms among the younger students. Dr. Barnes, returning from the continent, had used violent language in a pulpit at Cambridge; and Latimer, then a neophyte in heresy, had grown suspect, and had alarmed the heads of houses. Complaints against both of them were forwarded to Wolsey, and they were summoned to London to ...
— History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth. Vol. II. • James Anthony Froude

... in happiness through love! Dream of the school-boy! It is permissible to the neophyte who puts on for the first time the white surplice and the golden chasuble with so much joy and pride. The sweet young girls, the youthful wives, the grave matrons regard you with softened eyes. Then you have ...
— The Grip of Desire • Hector France

... to your person, was, in fact, most valuable to us. But, with the ardor peculiar to any neophyte who wishes to distinguish himself, he pushed his zeal too far and thwarted my plans by permitting himself, on his own initiative, to strike you ...
— The Hollow Needle • Maurice Leblanc

... grounded they would not have him; and it was necessary to be particular, because the first or lowest form assumed a certain amount of knowledge in the commencement of that course which proposed to land the neophyte in the Indian Civil Service, the army, or a good scholarship ...
— Dr. Jolliffe's Boys • Lewis Hough

... drawing-room, diligently fingered and classed brown-black pressed weeds of her neophyte's botany-folios. The sight of her and her occupation struck Aminta as that of a person in another world beyond this world of blood, strangely substantial to view; and one ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... strength, in severe fasts of several days' duration, and in mimic combats, which, although the weapons were blunted, were always attended with wounds, and sometimes with death. During this trial, which lasted thirty days, the royal neophyte fared no better than his comrades, sleeping on the bare ground, going unshod, and wearing a mean attire,—a mode of life, it was supposed, which might tend to inspire him with more sympathy with the destitute. With all this show of impartiality, however, ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott

... by more varied and disastrous experience, to see the omissions of the text-books. They are written for the initiated, though designed for the amateur. Naturally it is so. A man who has been brought up to business can hardly resume the utter ignorance of the neophyte. Unconsciously he will take a certain degree of knowledge for granted, and he will neglect to enforce those elementary principles which are most important of all. Nor is the writer of a gardening book accustomed, ...
— About Orchids - A Chat • Frederick Boyle

... dorje), ghanta, mudra, mandala, mystic syllables, and Devis marks it as an offshoot of Tantrism and it offers many parallels to Nepalese literature. On the other hand it is curious that it uses the form Nibana not Nirvana.[428] Its object is to teach a neophyte, who has to receive initiation, how to become a Buddha.[429] In the second part the pupil is addressed as Jinaputra, that is son of the Buddha or one of the household of faith. He is to be moderate but not ascetic in food and clothing: he is not to cleave ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, An Historical Sketch, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Charles Eliot

... taking of the part in a play which represents the downfall of a virtuous person, the setting forth of the passions of love and hatred, must in time produce a powerful effect on the mind of a young woman, and there is danger that the neophyte on the stage will be contaminated with the base things of life before strength of character is developed. The Chinese are to be commended in this respect, whatever their motive in excluding their women from the stage. The ...
— By the Golden Gate • Joseph Carey

... wide, with pitiless finger and thumb, and gazed deep through the pupil and the irids into the brain, into the heart, to search if Vanity, or Pride, or Falsehood, in any of its subtlest forms, was discoverable in the furthest recess of existence. If, at last, he let the neophyte sleep, it was but a moment; he woke him suddenly up to apply new tests: he sent him on irksome errands when he was staggering with weariness; he tried the temper, the sense, and the health; and it was only when every severest test had been applied ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte

... better.—For though, in fact, the true evolutions are purely moral, as I have just had the honor to explain, yet we have instituted a physical parallel that is very congenial to our habits, with which the neophyte always commences." ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper

... confirming swoon. Up through the gates they bore her Christalan, Dressed in the garments of the neophyte, That erst were spotless white, but then were soiled, Bedraggled and dust-stained. His golden hair A matted mass, of sunny curls unkempt,— And yet how beautiful he was withal! Into the hall they brought and laid him down, While Agathar gave thanks, ...
— Under King Constantine • Katrina Trask

... Now the neophyte needs the introduction of a trusted sponsor before he can win admission to the club-house of the exclusive Circle of Friends of Humanity; but Lanyard's knock secured him prompt and unquestioned right of way. The unfortunate fact is, he was a ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance

... never tried it. How very serious—how very solemn you look: and you are as ignorant of the matter as this cameo head" (taking one from the mantelpiece). "You have no right to preach to me, you neophyte, that have not passed the porch of life, and are ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte

... young girl such vantage-ground in society and in life as a mother,—a sensible, amiable, brilliant, and commanding woman. Under the shelter of such a mother's wing, the neophyte is safe. This mother will attract to herself the wittiest and the wisest. The young girl can see society in its best phases, without being herself drawn out into its glare. She forms her own style on the purest models. She gains confidence, without losing modesty. Familiar with wisdom, she will not ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., April, 1863, No. LXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics. • Various

... to Sagittarius. He made up openly to Canis Major and was shortly on what might almost be considered terms of affection with Venus. And he was, moreover, presently quite fearless in the presence of Saturn, quite unabashed beneath the glittering eye of Mercury. Then, as the neophyte growing bold by familiarity with the circle of the great ones, he ventured on his first prophecy, a discreet and even humble forecast of the weather. He predicted a heavy fall of snow for a certain evening, and so distrusted his own prediction that when the evening came, mild and benign, ...
— The Prophet of Berkeley Square • Robert Hichens

... become infected with his earlier ideas, practises them with the fanatic ardor of a neophyte. With his sister and several other religious people, he locks himself into his house to pray; he sings vespers and matins. In the meanwhile Matvey decides that he must read ...
— Contemporary Russian Novelists • Serge Persky

... had gradually and unconsciously asserted his own individuality and taken upon his younger shoulders not only a poet's keen appreciation of that life, but its actual responsibilities and half-childish burdens, he never suspected. He had fondly believed that he was a neophyte in their ways, a novice in their charming faith and indolent creed, and they had encouraged it; now their renunciation of that faith could only be an excuse for a renunciation of him. The poetry that had for two years invested the material and sometimes even mean details of their ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte

... Franchi, whose proud surname was henceforth to be Joseph's, stood sponsor. The presiding cardinal in his solemn sermon congratulated the congregants on the miracle which had taken place under their very eyes, and then, attired in white satin, the neophyte was slowly driven through the streets of Rome that all might witness how a soul had been saved for the true faith. And in the ecstasy of this union with the human brotherhood and the divine fatherhood, and with Christ, its symbol, Giuseppe de' Franchi saw not the dark, haggard faces ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill

... fewest of all, as will appear if you would undertake to give us English words for the thirteen Hebrew words: except you would coin such ridiculous inkhorn terms, as you do in the New Testament, Azymes, prepuce, neophyte, sandale, parasceve, and such like."[236] "When you say 'evangelized,' you do not translate, but feign a new word, which is not understood of mere ...
— Early Theories of Translation • Flora Ross Amos

... Erevato and the Padamo. They would have resisted the attacks of the natives, if, instead of leaving them isolated and solely to the control of the soldiery, they had been formed into communities, and governed like the villages of neophyte Indians. ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V2 • Alexander von Humboldt

... thought forms of the stronger kind, such as those brought about by practicing black magic, there this particular form of the dweller will be much stronger and more dangerous, and often desperate is the struggle between the neophyte and these dwellers from his past backed up by the masters of the ...
— An Introduction to Yoga • Annie Besant

... vultures that feed and fatten on him. Ai, ai! it is agony eternal,—gwoaning and solitawy despair! And you, Yellowplush, would penetwate these mystewies; you would waise the awful veil, and stand in the twemendous Pwesence. Beware, as you value your peace, beware! Withdraw, wash Neophyte! For heaven's sake! O for heaven's sake!'—Here he looked round with agony;—'give me a glass of bwandy-and-water, for this clawet is beginning to disagwee with me.'" It was thus that Thackeray began that vein of satire on his contemporaries of which it may be said that ...
— Thackeray • Anthony Trollope

... to return to infancy, to be supported, and directed, and perpetually set upon your feet, by the hand of some one else. The air besides, as it is supplied to you by the busy millers on the platform, closes the eustachian tubes and keeps the neophyte perpetually swallowing, till his throat is grown so dry that he can swallow no longer. And for all these reasons—although I had a fine, dizzy, muddle-headed joy in my surroundings, and longed, and tried, and always failed, to lay hands on the fish that darted here and there about me, swift ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... beautiful flower was to become to him the principal cause of bitter sorrow. Poor, grand Cardinal! It was the final trial of his life, the supremely bitter drop in his chalice, to assist at the disenchantment which followed so closely upon the blissful intoxication of his gentle neophyte's first initiation. To whom, if not to him, should she have gone to ask counsel, in all the tormenting doubts which she at once began to have in her feelings with regard ...
— Cosmopolis, Complete • Paul Bourget

... from childhood, or for fifteen years, were married, or at least not minors, and had some means of gaining a livelihood. The Indians must apply to the commandant at the presidio, who, after obtaining from the padre a report, was to issue a written permit entitling the neophyte and his family to go where they chose, their names being erased from the Mission register. The result of this might readily be foreseen. Few could take advantage of it, and those that did soon came in contact with vultures of the "superior race," who ...
— The Old Franciscan Missions Of California • George Wharton James

... grate, amid my permutations and combinations! By the evening, I had nearly mastered my subject. When the bell rang, at seven, to summon us to the common meal at the principal's table, I went downstairs puffed up with the joys of the newly initiated neophyte. I was escorted on my way by a, b and c, intertwined ...
— The Life of the Fly - With Which are Interspersed Some Chapters of Autobiography • J. Henri Fabre

... persons of very high morals. Their secret practices were obtained from one of his officials who had entered the sect in the lowest grade. On the day of initiation there is a great meeting of members at the cost of the neophyte. A text is taught to him, and the initiation is completed by all the members partaking together of a feast without distinction of caste. The food eaten at this is considered to be Mahaprasad, or as if offered to Vishnu in his form of Jagannath at Puri, and to be therefore incapable of ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India—Volume I (of IV) • R.V. Russell

... polishing epigrams under his eyelids; Henry Wilmers, who timed an anecdote to strike as the passing hour without freezing the current; Sullivan Smith, smoked, cured and ready to flavour; Percy Dacier, pleasant listener, measured speaker; and young Arthur Rhodes, the neophyte of the hostess's training; of whom she had said to Emma, 'The dear boy very kindly serves to frank an unlicenced widow'; and whom she prompted and made her utmost of, with her natural tact. These she mixed and leavened. The talk was on high levels and low; an enchantment to Emma Dunstane: ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... Robert's inexperienced ear could not accommodate itself, save under protest, to the instrument which once his teacher had considered all but perfect; and it needed the master's finest touch to make its tone other than painful to the sense of the neophyte. ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald

... has ever been pointed out as a cardinal trait in the Filipino character. No quarter was to be asked or given, and the most sacred ties, even of consanguinity, were to be disregarded in the general slaughter. To the inquiry of a curious neophyte as to how the Spaniards were to be distinguished from the other Europeans, in order to avoid international complications, dark Andres replied that in case of doubt they should proceed with due caution but should take good care ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal

... stratification of my new home, where the excellent principles of high thinking and plain living were highly recommended for all who could not reverse the precept, struck me, a neophyte, as for all the world like that of a cathedral town in England, except that these visiting patrons of religion and learning were treated with a reverence and respect found only in America. Surely it must have amused them, had they not been so used to it; for they were quite the simplest, ...
— How To Write Special Feature Articles • Willard Grosvenor Bleyer

... that Lucien was deep in thought, and made a pretty good guess at the matter of his meditations. He himself had opened out wide horizons of public life before an ambitious poet, with a vacillating will, it is true, but not without aspirations; and the journalists had already shown the neophyte, from a pinnacle of the temple, all the kingdoms of the world of ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac

... in London Lord Houghton was occupying a house in Arlington Street made famous by the fact that Hogarth drew its interior and decorations in his pictures of "Marriage a la Mode." And nowhere did the social neophyte receive a warmer welcome, or find himself amid a more eclectic and representative society. Queens of fashion, professional beauties, authors and authoresses, ambassadors, philosophers, discoverers, actors—every one who was famous or even notorious; who had ...
— Collections and Recollections • George William Erskine Russell

... evening at her Majesty's Opera-house in London, which satisfied England that she was a great singer, and confirmed her career. To the audience her friendly interest seemed the impulse of her kindly heart for a young neophyte in this profession. To ...
— From the Easy Chair, vol. 1 • George William Curtis

... be disappointed with him, at any rate partially. You will have expected more joy in him than you have received. I have referred in a previous chapter to the feeling of disappointment which often comes from first contacts with the classics. The neophyte is apt to find them—I may as well out with the word—dull. You may have found Lamb less diverting, less interesting, than you hoped. You may have had to whip yourself up again and again to the effort of reading him. In brief, Lamb has not, for you, justified his terrific reputation. ...
— LITERARY TASTE • ARNOLD BENNETT

... addicted to the drug; had inherited a sound constitution, and differed from any other fresh subject only in the intensity of his nervous temperament. I wish to emphasize the fact that the system of a mere neophyte, with nothing to neutralize the effects of the drug save the absorbency, so to speak, of the pain for which it was given, could so rapidly adapt itself to them as to demand an increase of the dose in such an alarming ratio. There are certain men to whom opium is ...
— The Opium Habit • Horace B. Day

... merely the locking of empty rooms or the dissimulation of awkward encumbrances; but Miss Trent's reticence was to Glennard like the closed door to the sanctuary, and his certainty of divining the hidden treasure made him content to remain outside in the happy expectancy of the neophyte. ...
— The Touchstone • Edith Wharton

... her vivacity sank into a breathless hush, and she sat intent in her corner of their baignoire, with the gaze of a neophyte about to be initiated into the sacred mysteries. Darrow placed himself behind her, that he might catch her profile between himself and the stage. He was touched by the youthful seriousness of her expression. In spite of the experiences she must have had, and of the twenty-four years to which ...
— The Reef • Edith Wharton

... with the thrill of ordering him some new clothes, and coaxing him out to dine succulently at a neighbouring restaurant. Caspar flourished insufferably on this regime: he began to strike the attitude of the recognized Great Master, who gives advice and encouragement to the struggling neophyte. He held himself up as an example of the reward of disinterestedness, of the triumph of the artist who clings ...
— The Hermit and the Wild Woman and Other Stories • Edith Wharton

... a table with great care). Always like to be near the stove, and out of the draught. (The prettiest Waitress approaches, and greets him with a sacerdotal sweetness, as one of the Faith, while to the Neophyte—whom she detects, at a glance, as still without the pale—she is severely tolerant.) Now, what are you going to have? [Passing him the bill ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 103, December 17, 1892 • Various

... passed over if we are to make any estimate of his art. He, it is related, always becomes enraged at the word "inspiration," enraged at the common notion that fire descends from heaven upon the head of the favoured neophyte of art. Rodin believes in but one inspiration—nature. He swears he does not invent, but copies nature. He despises improvisation, has contemptuous words for "fatal facility," and, being a slow-moving, slow-thinking man, ...
— Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker

... The neophyte, beneath the extraordinary hypnotism of the "saint," felt the dirty fingers upon her brow, as, in a strange jargon of religious phrases and open blasphemy, he pronounced a kind of benediction upon her, adjuring her carefully to preserve the secrets of the sect "from your own mother and father, ...
— The Minister of Evil - The Secret History of Rasputin's Betrayal of Russia • William Le Queux

... what the world in general, and friends in particular, will say to our labours. Some authors, I am told, profess an oyster-like indifference upon this subject; for my own part, I hardly believe in their sincerity. Others may acquire it from habit; but, in my poor opinion, a neophyte like myself must be for a long time ...
— The Surgeon's Daughter • Sir Walter Scott

... his advent! Had half the treasures an eager father and mother prayed Heaven to grant been bestowed upon the child, he would unquestionably have become an abnormality of health, wealth, and wisdom. But Destiny was too farseeing a goddess to allow her neophyte to be spoiled by prosperity. Both his parents died while Martin was still a pupil at the district school, and the lad, instead of going to the city and pursuing a profession, as had been his ambition, found himself hurried, all unequipped, uneducated and unprepared, ...
— The Wall Between • Sara Ware Bassett

... other officers, without mutual ties, and surprised, as one may say, to find themselves together. Godeschal, who had served his apprenticeship under Maitre Derville, was not the sort of clerk to allow the precious tradition of the "welcome" to be lost. This "welcome" is a breakfast which every neophyte must give to the "ancients" of the office into which ...
— A Start in Life • Honore de Balzac



Words linked to "Neophyte" :   student, newbie, tiro, plant life, educatee, tyro, entrant, initiate, newcomer, freshman, fledgeling, starter, novice, enlistee, beginner, recruit, fledgling, plant, pupil, catechumen



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