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Observance   /əbzˈərvəns/   Listen
Observance

noun
1.
The act of observing; taking a patient look.  Synonyms: observation, watching.
2.
A formal event performed on a special occasion.  Synonyms: ceremonial, ceremonial occasion, ceremony.
3.
The act of noticing or paying attention.  Synonyms: notice, observation.
4.
Conformity with law or custom or practice etc..  Synonym: honoring.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Observance" Quotes from Famous Books



... hear me: If I do not put on a sober habit, Talk with respect, and swear but now and then, Wear prayer-books in my pocket, look demurely; Nay more, while grace is saying, hood mine eyes[58] Thus with my hat, and sigh, and say amen; Use all the observance of civility, Like one well studied in a sad ostent;[59] To please his grandam,—never trust ...
— The Merchant of Venice [liberally edited by Charles Kean] • William Shakespeare

... attracted much attention in Ireland, but was passed unnoticed in Great Britain. In a sonnet, written by a leading Fellow of the College in "T.C.D.," the College magazine, the writer spoke of the Catholic churches in Ireland as "grim monuments of cold observance, the incestuous mate of superstition," of which "to seeing eyes each tall steeple lifts its tall head and lies." Sentiments of this kind, expressed in such taste, are not calculated to encourage Catholic parents to send their sons to a college where they ...
— Ireland and the Home Rule Movement • Michael F. J. McDonnell

... dread and aversion to a large body of dissenters. The truth is that the time for such a scheme had gone by. If, a hundred years earlier, when the division in the Protestant body was recent, Elizabeth had been so wise as to abstain from requiring the observance of a few forms which a large part of her subjects considered as Popish, she might perhaps have averted those fearful calamities which, forty years after her death, afflicted the Church. But the general tendency of ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... from the violence of another, they again united and formed nations. This combination laid the foundation of civilisation, and as that extended, these beasts of prey retired to the confines of the country, enforcing while they still remain the observance of that law of nature which assigned to them this ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton

... deal with. No sooner did the pressure of outside attack abate than antagonisms began pretty sharply to declare themselves. In 1832 Mr. Ralph Waldo Emerson, pastor of the Second Church in Boston, proposed to the church to abandon or radically change the observance of the Lord's Supper. When the church demurred at this extraordinary demand he resigned his office, firing off an elaborate argument against the usage of the church by way of a parting salute. Without any formal demission of the ministry, he retired to his ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon

... given without infringing by a hair's breadth the rule of the Church. And admirably he succeeded in showing how entirely the spirit and intention of the Church in prescribing a fast could be made of none effect by a skilfully-managed observance of the ...
— What I Remember, Volume 2 • Thomas Adolphus Trollope

... made a change. The wan face waked up a little and looked astonished at the speaker. Rollo seated her; then poured out himself a cup of Gyda's coffee, creamed and sugared it duly, and offered it to the girl with the observance he would have given to a lady. Then he moved her chair nearer to the table, and supplied porridge and then peaches; talking and talking to her all the while. The answers began to come at last; the girl's colour changed with the coffee, and her eyes brightened ...
— Wych Hazel • Susan and Anna Warner

... as the result of an unwise and harmful selection of toys, such as scissors, forks, toy pistols, air rifles and bows and arrows. The observance of a sane Fourth of July has lessened the number of accidents to the eyes ...
— Five Lectures on Blindness • Kate M. Foley

... conduct of the University were under his direct supervision. He was compelled to reside in the College, and during the non-residence of the Principal he was to be "the parent and guardian of the College Household." It was his duty "to examine students for matriculation, maintain the observance of the Statutes by Professors, Students, Inferior Officers and all other resident members of the College, enforcing such observance by admonitions and punishments; to direct the students in their studies, promoting by all the means in his power their progress in Religion, and Learning; ...
— McGill and its Story, 1821-1921 • Cyrus Macmillan

... as though his main idea was just to stretch his legs, strolled up to the front of the car. Passing the men, he stopped quite naturally to watch them play. When one of the men under observance took a trick with an exceptionally good play, he commented audibly on it. The man turned and smiled, showing his seat check as ...
— The Ranger Boys and the Border Smugglers • Claude A. Labelle

... tell us we ought to trust you because you now enter into a solemn compact with us? This you have done before, and now treat with the utmost contempt. Will you now make an appeal to the Supreme Being, and call on Him to guarantee your observance of this compact? The same you have formerly done for your observance of the Articles of Confederation, which you are now violating in the most ...
— The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government • Jefferson Davis

... of sound mind to society. But the Mad-house Act, he said, does none of these three things, for it does not empower the Commissioners to discharge a patient, however sound in mind; nor does it furnish them with the means of enforcing the observance of any improvement they may recommend. The Commissioners, indeed, may withdraw the licence, but the keeper of such a house must again have it on the next licensing day, if he wishes, upon giving the necessary security. It ...
— Chapters in the History of the Insane in the British Isles • Daniel Hack Tuke

... go to church. She practiced an easy tolerance. Her people had been, originally, Quakers. In later years they had turned to Unitarianism. And now in this generation, Nancy, as well as Anthony Peak, had thrown off the shackles of religious observance. ...
— The Gay Cockade • Temple Bailey

... course, arises as to the means of enforcing the agreement against war, of finding some proper and effective sanction to secure its observance. It may be well to note that throughout this discussion the word sanction is used in the strict legal sense, meaning some definite penalty or punishment to be inflicted on a wrong-doer. It is the existence of such a "sanction" which is the clearest way of enforcing obedience, and gives a rule of ...
— Rebuilding Britain - A Survey Of Problems Of Reconstruction After The World War • Alfred Hopkinson

... his conduct on this occasion to have inherited from his father, even more than Alfred, the spirit of religious devotion at least so far as the strict and faithful observance of religious forms was concerned. There was, it is true, a particular reason in this case why the forms of divine service should be faithfully observed, and that is, that the war was considered in a great measure a religious war. ...
— King Alfred of England - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott

... held out her hand gracefully. There could, at least, be little harm in kissing it. Dieppe walked across the room and paid his homage. As he rose from this social observance he heard a voice from the ...
— Captain Dieppe • Anthony Hope

... "unchangeless" are but terms expressive of a stoppage of growth. Said Kuzugen,—"The Sages move the world." Our standards of morality are begotten of the past needs of society, but is society to remain always the same? The observance of communal traditions involves a constant sacrifice of the individual to the state. Education, in order to keep up the mighty delusion, encourages a species of ignorance. People are not taught to be really virtuous, but to behave properly. We are wicked because we are frightfully ...
— The Book of Tea • Kakuzo Okakura

... England was bound to protest against violation of Belgian neutrality] be received here by twelve o'clock to-night. If not, you are instructed to ask for your passports and to say that his Majesty's Government feel bound to take all steps in their power to uphold the neutrality of Belgium and the observance of a treaty to which Germany is as much a part ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume I (of 8) - Introductions; Special Articles; Causes of War; Diplomatic and State Papers • Various

... law was unconstitutional. This, as well as the above-mentioned decision, excited strong indignation in South Carolina. Notwithstanding the decision, the law still remains in force, and other States have followed the example of South Carolina, though with a more cautious observance of appearances. ...
— An Appeal in Favor of that Class of Americans Called Africans • Lydia Maria Child

... "Go and preach the gospel to all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost; commanding them to observe and keep all that I have commanded you." Here Christ Jesus requires the observance of His precepts and commandments, not of His actions, except in so far as He had also commanded them; and so must the apostle be understood when he saith, "Be followers of Christ, for Christ hath suffered for us, that we should follow His footsteps," which ...
— The World's Great Sermons, Volume I - Basil to Calvin • Various

... Upon the observance of these rules, especially the first, often depends the patient's capability of taking food at all, or, if he is amiable and forces himself to take food, of deriving any nourishment ...
— Notes on Nursing - What It Is, and What It Is Not • Florence Nightingale

... learn Russian thoroughly and to visit Russia. I am not at all sure that travelling is not the best of all Universities. The great disadvantage of a 'Varsity is the insularity of mind which it is apt to breed. Its rigid observance of ancient customs, its cult of "form," the fact that it is the almost exclusive monopoly of the rich, the aristocracy and the upper middle-class; above all, its contempt for the learning of modern times and studied disregard of modern languages—all these features ...
— War Letters of a Public-School Boy • Henry Paul Mainwaring Jones

... you that even church-going may be perverted into an evil? That piety may attain an inordinate growth, while charity is dead at the root? Spiritual pride; a vain conceit of superior goodness because of the observance of certain forms and ceremonies, is the error into which too many devout religionists fall. But God sees not as man seeth. He looks into the heart, and judges his creatures by the motives that ...
— Home Lights and Shadows • T. S. Arthur

... upon the vessel conveying the party, she was not to quit the place where she might have been left by it until such a time had elapsed, from the departure of the expedition for the interior, as should be agreed upon; and, to ensure the observance of this condition, we were instructed to act by the advice of the local authorities of the colony where she might be engaged in drawing up the agreement, as well as in ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 1 (of 2) • George Grey

... of strictly attending to close order: and, should they compel any of the enemy's ships to strike their colours, they are at liberty to judge and act accordingly, whether or not it may be most advisable to cut away their masts and bowsprits; with this special observance, namely, that the destruction of the enemy's armament is the sole object. The ships of the enemy are, therefore, to be taken possession of by an officer and one boat's crew only, in order that the British ships may be ...
— Memoirs and Correspondence of Admiral Lord de Saumarez, Vol. I • Sir John Ross

... very highly of your cousin, and I have no reason to think otherwise than well of the gentleman whom she intends to marry. But it is only human nature to suppose that the fact that your property is still at your own disposal should have some effect in producing the more complete observance of your wishes.' ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope

... confined to manufactories and mills in which the motive power was machinery. No workshops were to come under the clauses of the act that did not employ more than twenty hands in any one shed. The report says: 'It is likewise to be borne in mind that there is in France no compulsory observance of Sunday, and no day of ...
— Women Wage-Earners - Their Past, Their Present, and Their Future • Helen Campbell

... fathers met at the close of the first year of their hard life among New England rocks to thank the God, in whose name and by whose power they had laid the foundations of the new commonwealth on this side of the sea. Then he told how the observance had gradually spread from State to State; at first being appointed by the State Governor, on such day as seemed to him fittest. Till at last, the wise and lamented President Lincoln sent out ...
— Katie Robertson - A Girls Story of Factory Life • Margaret E. Winslow

... comfort that he did not wish; and thereupon the unhappy gentleman began his sad story in nearly the same words and manner in which he had related it to Don Quixote and the goatherd a few days before, when, through Master Elisabad, and Don Quixote's scrupulous observance of what was due to chivalry, the tale was left unfinished, as this history has already recorded; but now fortunately the mad fit kept off, allowed him to tell it to the end; and so, coming to the incident of the note which Don Fernando had found in the volume of "Amadis of Gaul," Cardenio ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

... river-side there was almost a freshness in the air. They disposed of their troubling bags and packages; they complimented the ridiculous princeliness of their stateroom, and then they betook themselves to the sheltered space aft of the saloon, where they sat down for the tranquiller observance of the wharf and whatever should come to be seen by them. Like all people who have just escaped with their lives from some menacing calamity, they were very philosophical in spirit; and having got aboard of their own motion, and being neither ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... to bind the chiefs to the observance of their original promises and professions, and to establish a plausible and legal claim, in opposition to the attempts of rival European powers to interfere in the trade of the same country, written contracts, ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden

... he appeared no more elated with his success than he had been daunted by the storm which, a minute before, had threatened the utter dissolution of his authority. Instead of pursuing his further purpose in haste, he awaited the observance of the minutest form which etiquette, as well as use, had rendered customary on ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper

... uphold orthodoxy was the next logical necessity, for autocracy and orthodoxy were, in Russia, closely related. Hence the non-orthodox sects—such as the Finnish Protestants, German Lutherans, Polish Roman Catholics, the Jews, and the Mohammedans—were increasingly restricted in the observance of their religion. They might not build new places of worship; their children could not be educated in the faith of their parents. In many cases children were taken away from their parents in order to be sent to schools where they would be inculcated ...
— Bolshevism - The Enemy of Political and Industrial Democracy • John Spargo

... observance lasted a month. It was not confined to the British Isles, but extended to the dominions of the queen throughout the world, in all of which some form of festive celebration took place. But the chief and great event of the occasion was the unrivalled procession in London ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 4 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris

... consent of the parties themselves, followed by cohabitation, was sufficient to constitute a legal marriage, without the observance of any formalities. The formal ceremonies provided by statute for the celebration of marriages, and the penalties imposed upon clergymen and others who married those who had not complied with these formalities, were solely for the purpose of ...
— Legal Status Of Women In Iowa • Jennie Lansley Wilson

... and made amends by heavily draining the purses of widows and orphans. Some affected an ascetical simplicity of dress, and yet hugged their purses where their Bibles should have been. It was all Mammon worship; some grossly palpable, some adroitly cloaked under solemn faces and severe observance of the outward ceremonials. The clergy, as a class, I found strangely unlike what I had expected. Instead of earnest zeal for the promotion of Christianity, I saw that the majority were bent only on the aggrandizement of their ...
— Beulah • Augusta J. Evans

... was celebrated with due observance. In the morning we all heard Dr. Lyman preach, and came home with the feeling that we and the country at large were prosperous. Mr. and Mrs. Jones, with Junior, dined with us in great state, and we had our first four-course dinner since arriving ...
— Driven Back to Eden • E. P. Roe

... time, it is with him a subordinate art. It has no worth or substance in itself; it borrows all its worth from that which masters and rigorously subdues it to its end. Here, too, we find ourselves coming down on all its old ceremonial and observance, from that new height which we found our foreign philosopher in such quiet possession of,—taking his way at a puff through poor Cicero's periods,—those periods which the old orator had taken so much pains with, and laughing at his pains:—but this English philosopher is more daring still, ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon

... it was kept here in an entirely new way. At her Western home, her father had made it a day of religious observance. Marion had always been leader in trimming their church with the pretty greens which their mild winter spared to them, and on Christmas Sunday they sang Christmas hymns, and listened to a Christmas sermon. On Christmas Eve they had a Christmas-tree, and hung it with such useful ...
— Miss Ashton's New Pupil - A School Girl's Story • Mrs. S. S. Robbins

... the Wesleyan missionaries have nearly made a clean sweep of all heathen ceremonial in Fiji. 'But in one corner of Fiji, the island of Nbengga, a curious observance of mythological origin has escaped the general destruction, probably because the worthy iconoclasts had never heard of it.' The myth tells how the ancestor of the clan received the gift of fire-walking from a god, and the existence of the myth raises a presumption in ...
— Modern Mythology • Andrew Lang

... makes observance of its limitations requisite to the validity of laws, whether passed by the nation or by the states, to be judged by the courts of law in each ...
— Experiments in Government and the Essentials of the Constitution • Elihu Root

... countess, then, to his exceeding wonderment and that of all others who were present, orderly recounted that which had passed and how it had happened; whereupon the count, feeling that she spoke sooth and seeing her constancy and wit and moreover two such goodly children, as well for the observance of his promise as to pleasure all his liegemen and the ladies, who all besought him thenceforth to receive and honour her as his lawful wife, put off his obstinate despite and raising the countess to her feet, embraced her and kissing ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio

... the right to fix the time when the provisions of the present law shall cease to be enforced. Each of our ministers is bound, as far as his department is concerned, to enforce the present law and to issue such orders as will secure its strict observance. ...
— Maximilian in Mexico - A Woman's Reminiscences of the French Intervention 1862-1867 • Sara Yorke Stevenson

... old time. Here a friture of the famous gudgeons of the Dronne is placed before the guest, whether the fishing be open or closed, and a magistrate would feel as much aggrieved as anybody if the law were not laughed at when its observance would lay a penalty upon his stomach. At the hospitable board of this inn I made the acquaintance of a somewhat eccentric gentleman who lived alone in a large old house, where he pursued the innocent occupation ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker

... to have known better, but, although a British custom is more honored in the breach than the observance in Western Canada, I had met men who could pocket their pride, and, after fumbling in my wallet, I held out a slip of paper, saying, "She's doing splendidly. I wish you would buy Mrs. ...
— Lorimer of the Northwest • Harold Bindloss

... deceased is well-to-do this observance may follow immediately, but usually years go by and many liaoes are served at the same time. On the great occasion the coffin is put on a big fire for a couple of hours until the flesh has been burned from the bones, which are then collected ...
— Through Central Borneo: - An Account of Two Years' Travel in the Land of Head-Hunters - Between the Years 1913 and 1917 • Carl Lumholtz

... blameless.[11] Such was my position. I possessed an ideal pedigree; full sacramental position from the first; domestic traditions pure and strict; an absolute personal devotion to the cause of my creed; the most rigorous observance of its rules; the ...
— Philippian Studies - Lessons in Faith and Love from St. Paul's Epistle to the Philippians • Handley C. G. Moule

... condition that they should resign all claims to Sweden if the amount were not paid within three years. As soon as the King and his son were delivered to the deputies, they solemnly swore to a strict observance of this article, the Hanse towns engaging themselves to guarantee the treaty. The money, however, not being paid by the stipulated time, Margaret became undisputed sovereign of Sweden, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various

... has been achieved not so much by inspiration, subordinate to sentiments of exquisite good taste or guided by observance of classical models, as by audacious sallies of pure inventive power. This is true as a judgment of that constellation which we call our drama, of the meteor Byron, of Milton and Dryden, who are the Jupiter and Mars of our poetic system, ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds

... causes (anemia, rheumatism, malarial infection, hereditary predisposition), the observance of rest during the menstrual week would be quite ineffectual so long as the regime of the other three weeks remain uselessly unhygienic. If the menstrual crisis finds the uterine blood-vessels already deprived of tonicity through nervous exhaustion or other cause, haemorrhage is as likely to ...
— The Education of American Girls • Anna Callender Brackett

... spoke, Cromwell was undoing or rather tearing open the parcel; and the man was about to withdraw with all the court observance which the Protector would ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall

... one man from another, for enforcing justice, and the observance of contracts, are essential and fundamental, and may be styled 'Eternal and Immutable.' The ends to be served require these rules; no caprice of custom could change them without sacrificing these ends. They are to society what food is to individual life, of sexual intercourse and ...
— Moral Science; A Compendium of Ethics • Alexander Bain

... the preponderance of Russia in the Black Sea. 4. Abandonment by Russia of her claim over any subjects of the Porte; the Five Powers to co-operate in obtaining from the Sultan the confirmation and observance of the religious privileges of the different Christian communities, and to turn to account in their common interest the generous intentions manifested by the Sultan, without infringing his dignity or the independence of ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume III (of 3), 1854-1861 • Queen of Great Britain Victoria

... prolixity, to prove, that this was a custom more honoured in the breach than in the observance; and, like Fluellen, declares, "that such idle pribble prabbles were contrary to all the good customs and disciplines of war." Nevertheless, the custom of crying the slogan or ensenzie, is often alluded to in all our ancient histories and poems. It was usually the name ...
— Minstrelsy of the Scottish border (3rd ed) (1 of 3) • Walter Scott

... and disorders above mentioned would disappear with the observance of the said ordinance. For the natives would then be at work, and there would be an abundance of fruits and provisions in the country, and at very low prices, as there has been hitherto, and thus the country would be supported; and there would not be taken ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume VIII (of 55), 1591-1593 • Emma Helen Blair

... with a delicate kind of observance which was not like most boys of sixteen, and which Daisy fully relished. It met her notions. Then she went to get her fishing-rod which lay fallen into ...
— Melbourne House, Volume 1 • Susan Warner

... Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy, desires and enjoins the orderly observance of the Sabbath by the officers and men in the military and naval service. The importance for man and beast of the prescribed weekly rest, the sacred rights of Christian soldiers and sailors, a becoming deference to the best sentiment of a Christian ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln

... making a living by teaching mathematics. He was only twenty-two years old when he met Mme. Firmiani. He married her first at Gretna Green. The marriage at Paris took place in 1824 or 1825. Before marriage, Octave de Camps lived on rue de l'Observance. He was a descendant of the famous Abbe de Camps, so well known among bookmen and savants. [Madame Firmiani.] Octave de Camps reappears as an ironmaster, during the reign of Louis Philippe. At this time he rarely resided at Paris. ...
— Repertory Of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z • Anatole Cerfberr and Jules Franois Christophe

... words are—'Since the Sabbath is abrogate, I do not so rest upon the number of seven, that I would bind the church to the bondage thereof; neither will I condemn those churches that have other solemn days for their meetings.'[3] Luther considers the observance of the Jewish Sabbath one of the ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... of the dictionary and other books of recognized reference value, close observance of the speech of others, scrutiny of one's own pronunciation, mental criticism of others' slips, and determination to correct one's own errors, are the various methods of attaining certainty of correct ...
— Public Speaking • Clarence Stratton

... purely scientific grounds his title to this great honour may require considerable qualification. What one thing, it is asked, would not have been discovered in the age of Galileo and Harvey, if Bacon had never written? What one scientific discovery can be traced to him, or to the observance of his peculiar rules? It was something, indeed, to have conceived, as clearly as he conceived it, the large and comprehensive idea of what natural knowledge must be, and must rest upon, even if he were not able to realise ...
— Bacon - English Men Of Letters, Edited By John Morley • Richard William Church

... our preachment on individual hygiene. We have stated them as fifteen separate kinds of procedure. In actual life, however, our acts can not be so separated. The neglect or observance of one rule carries with it, to some extent, the neglect or observance of other rules. For instance, one can not take muscular exercise without, to some extent, taking breathing exercises. Swimming serves as a means of cleanliness, of skin gymnastics, of general exercise and of amusement. ...
— How to Live - Rules for Healthful Living Based on Modern Science • Irving Fisher and Eugene Fisk

... are certain conventional laws by which our social doings and seemings are regulated; but what is the power which compels the observance of these laws? There is no company police to keep people moving on, no fines or other penalties; nobody but the very outrageous need fear being turned out of the room; we have every one of us strong inclinations ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 459 - Volume 18, New Series, October 16, 1852 • Various

... and perhaps can never be made more. It will be observed that they are more negative than positive. The reason of this is not far to seek. The main difference between my verses and those of other contemporary writers—the one point on which I claim for myself the merit of novelty—is the strict observance throughout of the rules of position. But the strict observance of position is in effect the strict avoidance of unclassical collocations of syllables: it is almost wholly negative. To illustrate my meaning I will instance the poems written in pure iambics, the Phaselus ille and Quis hoc potest ...
— The Poems and Fragments of Catullus • Catullus

... the least defiant; on the contrary, his manner was straightforward, simple, sincere, as became one interposing conscience against an observance in itself rightful enough. Only in the last exclamation was there a perceptible emphasis, a little marked by a lift of the head and a ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace

... yet remember, when the depot's forty jaws Through iron teeth that chatter to the tramping of a throng Spew out the crushed commuter in obedience to laws That all accord observance and that all agree are wrong; When rush and din and hubbub stir the too responsive vein Till head and heart are conquered by the hustle roaring by And the sign looks good that glitters on the temple gate of ...
— Guns of the Gods • Talbot Mundy

... at once be seen. The poor hack has all his little bundle of phrases tied up ready to his hand; but he has no brain left, and he cannot rearrange his verbal stock-in-trade in fresh and vivid combinations. The old, old sentences trickle out in the old, old way. Our friends, "the breach than the observance," "the cynosure of all eyes," "the light fantastic toe," "beauty when unadorned," "the poor Indian," and all the venerable army come out on parade. The weariful writer fills up his allotted space; but he does not give one single new ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman

... "which are the most eligible paths for man to choose? All such as are an ornament to those who tread therein; and get them honor from man. Be also as careful of the observance of a light precept, as of a weighty one; because thou knowest not the due reward of the precepts, and balance the loss sustained by the omission of a precept against its recompense, and the reward of sin against its ...
— Hebrew Literature

... experimenting, mixing a little of the dangerous and changing fluid, as they passed along, with the contents of the flasks, thus saving their lives hour by hour. Philip learned afterwards that temperance and the strict observance of Sunday and a certain gravity of deportment are geographical habits, which people do not usually carry with them away ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... a little halt at the flower-shop, as he came out, to have a carnation stitched in his buttonhole; then a constitutional as far as the Arc de l'Etoile, Stenne and the phaeton following close to the footway. Finally came a turn in the Bois, where Paul, thanks to his observance of fashionable hygiene, displayed a feminine delicacy of colouring and a complexion rivalling any lady's. By this visit to Keyser's he also saved himself the trouble of reading the papers. Gossip went on ...
— The Immortal - Or, One Of The "Forty." (L'immortel) - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet

... their own devices for more than twenty-four consecutive hours, that I did not return to find that they had seemingly manifested their grief at my absence after the old Hebraic method, ("more honored in the breach than the observance,") by rending their garments. When summoned to their account, the invariable defence has been a vehement denunciation of some particular nail as the guilty ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 83, September, 1864 • Various

... this gathering one of a popular character? What I mean is will not some sturdy Republican or Gerrit Smith man preside, another act as secretary and several make addresses? Only we must not lose the control. I do not believe that any observance of the day will be instituted outside our ranks. I am without tidings from the "seat of war" since Tuesday evening; and do not know what we shall hear next. My voice is against any attempt at rescue. It would ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper

... following no doubt an observance prevalent among the Dayaks, had some of their teeth filed off in the upper jaw, the four incisors, two cuspids, and two bicuspids. Our Kayans from Kaburau had no less than ten teeth filed off, the four incisors and three more on either side. The operation is performed when a boy or ...
— Through Central Borneo: - An Account of Two Years' Travel in the Land of Head-Hunters - Between the Years 1913 and 1917 • Carl Lumholtz

... adopting the plan of sending out Pombeiros, or native traders, with large quantities of goods, to trade in the more remote parts of the country. Some of the governors of Loanda, the capital of this, the kingdom of Angola, have insisted on the observance of a law which, from motives of humanity, forbids the Portuguese themselves from passing beyond the boundary. They seem to have taken it for granted that, in cases where the white trader was killed, the aggression had been made by him, and they wished to ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone

... the attainment of good karma may be removed by the observance of the following precepts, which are embraced in the moral code of Buddhism, viz.: (1) Kill not; (2) Steal not; (3) Indulge in no forbidden sexual pleasure; (4) Lie not; (5) Take no intoxication or stupefying drug or ...
— The Buddhist Catechism • Henry S. Olcott

... is by the observance of such precautions as these, some of them seemingly unimportant, that the housewife will be repaid for her efforts in canning and be able to produce canned fruits and vegetables like those shown in color in Fig. 22. This ...
— Woman's Institute Library of Cookery, Vol. 5 • Woman's Institute of Domestic Arts and Sciences

... the misery of this crowd of helpless women, so-called "Bettinen houses" were instituted in many cities, and placed under municipal supervision. Sheltered in these establishments, the women were held to the observance of a decent life. But neither these establishments, nor the numerous nunneries, were able to receive all that ...
— Woman under socialism • August Bebel

... not fulfil if not permitted by a higher power. Philip, your reasoning is false. We are told that, by certain means, duly observed, we may procure the dreams we wish. Our observance of these means is certainly the least we can attend to, to prove our sincerity. Forgive me, Philip, but are not observances as necessary in your religion—which I have embraced? Are we not told that the omission of the mere ceremony of water to the infant will turn ...
— The Phantom Ship • Captain Frederick Marryat

... one-third of the Gospel record to our Lord's Passion and Resurrection. A comparison of the four narratives clearly indicates the order of events upon the several days of the Holy Week. The devotional reading of the story is a most natural and helpful observance of the Easter season. As an aid to such observance this booklet has been prepared. It is the story, day by day, of the last week in our Lord's earthly life in the words of the four evangelists, containing all that they record, but without ...
— His Last Week - The Story of the Passion and Resurrection of Jesus • William E. Barton

... very unconventional invitation was lost upon Dominic Iglesias, soberly crossing the road with due observance of the eccentricities of the drivers of motor-cars and riders of bicycles. Looking up, he was aware of a vision quite sufficiently indicative of welcome, without added indiscretion of words.—The white balustrade, the trailing ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet

... wedding-feast, as in France in Rabelais' time, was a noisy and drunken and tumultuous rejoicing, when bone-throwing was in favor, with other rough sports and jokes. The three days after the bridal and their observance in ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")

... have sunk deepest into the soil of their nature. But let it not be thought that they do not grow stronger against caste than they used to be. In the Indian Christian community there is developing a most encouraging movement toward the complete eradication of caste sentiment and observance within the Church itself. They are more sensible than ever before of the gross inconsistency of a man's taking upon himself the sacred name of Christ and at the same time submitting to the dominance of caste. Indian Christian anti-caste organizations are now at work seeking ...
— India, Its Life and Thought • John P. Jones

... true that a custom has existed in many places for nearly two centuries and a half to assign to the clergy a method of interment distinct from that adopted for the laity; and the observance of this usage is not limited to Romanists, for its continuance may be noted among members of the Church of Ireland also, at least in remote districts of that country. With respect to this matter, however, your correspondent has entirely misapplied the term "ancient;" for until the ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 57, November 30, 1850 • Various

... they appear to think or care very little about it; the military are certainly dissatisfied and the Innkeepers delighted, but further I know not what to tell you; I am told, however, that the new proclamation for the more decent observance of Sunday, by forcing the Shopkeepers to shut up their shops during Mass, ...
— Before and after Waterloo - Letters from Edward Stanley, sometime Bishop of Norwich (1802;1814;1814) • Edward Stanley

... that; there were days set apart and kept holy, as days of rest, as far back as the time of Sargon of Agade; it was from the Semites of Babylonia—perhaps the Chaldeans of Ur—that both the name and the observance passed to the Hebrew branch of the race, the tribe of Abraham. George Smith found an Assyrian calendar where the day called Sabattu or Sabattuv is explained to mean "completion of work, a day of rest for the soul." On this day, it appears it was not lawful to cook ...
— Chaldea - From the Earliest Times to the Rise of Assyria • Znade A. Ragozin

... the Dona Briones, waving her fan. She was the center of a little group composed of Benito and Inez Windham, Adrian Stanley and Nathan Spear. Near them, keeping out of their observance, ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman

... 1885, but for ten successive years the official national reports accord to Massachusetts, in all respects, the position of "the banner department." In April, 1868, Commander-in-chief Logan issued his order for the observance annually of the thirtieth of May as a Memorial Day, "for the purpose of strewing with flowers or otherwise decorating the graves of those who died in defence of their country during the late rebellion," and the ceremony into which so much of tenderness ...
— The New England Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, February, 1886. - The Bay State Monthly, Volume 4, No. 2, February, 1886. • Various

... had ceased to slip through the chute. He frowned at the observance. Surely Rossi had brought a larger ...
— El Diablo • Brayton Norton

... and other older congregations, the old customs are retained; in others they are quite unknown. In some we still find such things as Love-feasts, the division into choirs, the regular choir festivals, the observance of Moravian Memorial Days; in others, especially in those only recently established, these things are absent; and the consequence is that in the new congregations the visitor of to-day will find but little of a specific Moravian stamp. At the morning service he will hear the Moravian Litany; ...
— History of the Moravian Church • J. E. Hutton

... They are feelings that are familiar to you; I, happily, caught them from your lordship: and let me beg of you, on this occasion, to accept my tribute of gratitude. It is to you, I owe my success; and, by a strict observance of your order, I arrived exactly in time. I sent Lieutenant Bolton to take possession of the prize; but, as I had great difficulty in floating one boat, Captain Blackwood's officer got there before him. The admiral, of course, he carried to the Lion, being the commodore; but, I hope, our ...
— The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson, Vol. II (of 2) • James Harrison

... agree to establish at the seat of the League a mandatory commission to receive and examine the annual reports of the mandatory powers, and to assist the League in insuring the observance of the terms of ...
— World's War Events, Volume III • Various

... attitude towards name and pedigree, exercised a marked influence on his whole career. "To prove himself worthy of his forefathers was the purpose of his early manhood. It gives us a key to many of the singularities of his character; to his hunger for self-improvement; to his punctilious observance, from a boy, of the essentials of gentlemanly bearing, and to the uniform assertion of his self-respect."* (* Dabney volume ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson

... merriment and sports. First, God to honour, they sang mass. Then the people pressed in hard to behold the youths dubbed knights with such pomp and high observance as we see not the like ...
— The Fall of the Niebelungs • Unknown

... the laws they enact, and the necessity they are able to impose, of adhering strictly to the terms of law in its execution. States are accordingly unequally qualified to conduct the business of legislation, and unequally fortunate in the completeness, and regular observance, of their civil code. ...
— An Essay on the History of Civil Society, Eighth Edition • Adam Ferguson, L.L.D.

... Fourth came along, the river that flowed past the three towns was the scene of a most remarkable gathering; for the annual regatta between the boat clubs of the high schools had been set down for observance. To enjoy the humor of the tub races, and experience the thrills that accompanied the flight of the rival four-oared and eight-oared shells over the scheduled course, the reader must peruse the third volume, called: "The Boys of Columbia High on the River; ...
— The Boys of Columbia High on the Gridiron • Graham B. Forbes

... All honor to the half million of our working population in Lancashire, Cheshire, and elsewhere, who are bearing with heroic fortitude the privation which your war has entailed upon them!... Their sublime resignation, their self-forgetfulness, their observance of law, their whole-souled love of the cause of human freedom, their quick and clear perception of the merits of the question between the North and the South... are extorting the admiration of all classes of ...
— A Straight Deal - or The Ancient Grudge • Owen Wister

... to be attributed to the direct influence of the county federation. The public schools of the county have been largely instrumental in stirring the public conscience to a livelier appreciation of the beautiful. The regular observance of Arbor and Bird Days in our schools has done much toward initiating this movement. However, the federation has been the great factor in uniting otherwise independent organizations into one large machine for stirring the social consciousness and molding public ...
— Chapters in Rural Progress • Kenyon L. Butterfield

... table with all his native dignity. The embarrassment of the librarian left him hovering on his hind legs, like a huge bear. The Duke addressed the priest with great seriousness. "Father Brown," he said, "Doctor Mull informs me that you have come here to make a request. I no longer profess an observance of the religion of my fathers; but for their sakes, and for the sake of the days when we met before, I am very willing to hear you. But I presume you would rather be ...
— The Wisdom of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton

... way Pegua slipt, almost unconsciously, into the possession of his family. The process was of itself so innocent! Language to praise it sufficiently John could not find. Diplomacy having large claims on the observance of etiquette, cannot permit insults to go unpunished, said he. The Commodore, too, was in diplomacy a fast sort of man, and could not be excited to anger without a consideration—which said consideration was no other than that the aforesaid Rajah just hand over the kingdom. Spunky ...
— The Adventures of My Cousin Smooth • Timothy Templeton

... know not whether Luther teaches—that the constitutions of the Pontiffs do not render us liable to guilt, unless there has been contempt besides. In fact, he who speaks in that passage grants that the Pope may appoint an observance; he simply enquires, whether this were the intention of the Pope, to bind all equally to abstinence from meats, so that one who should partake would be liable to hell-fire, even although no perverse contempt should be committed. And he who says this in the Colloquies, adds that ...
— Colloquies of Erasmus, Volume I. • Erasmus

... girl needs to rest. Sometimes, if hemorrhage continues almost from one period to the next, she should remain in bed even after the flow seems checked. The great desideratum is to build up the general health, not by tonics, which are usually only stimulants, but by the judicious observance of the laws of health. This will, in many cases, call for the advice of the physician, who can see and study the patient and her special conditions. It is not ...
— What a Young Woman Ought to Know • Mary Wood-Allen

... figures is not a matter of faith, but of reason. I submit that the facts are prima facie evidence that by observance of the moral law, as taught by the Catholic Church, even a highly cultured community is enabled to escape those dangers of over-civilisation that lead to diminished fertility and consequently to ...
— Birth Control • Halliday G. Sutherland

... reference is to a Landsmannschaft. These were associations, at a university, of students from the same state or country, bound to the observance of certain traditional customs, &c, and under the control of certain self-elected officers (the ...
— Weird Tales. Vol. I • E. T. A. Hoffmann

... at Foligno, the Fiesolan refugees propagated that severe form of life and strict observance which Giovanni Dominici had taught in his convent at Fiesole, and brother Giovanni again began his artistic work, for painting was to him like prayer, i. e. his usual way of raising his mind and heart to God. Unfortunately few of these first ...
— Fra Angelico • J. B. Supino

... With all due observance of the courtesies of the sea the graceful, white-hulled Thetis dipped a farewell salute to the Spanish warships in Havana harbour as she next morning swept past them, outward bound, shortly after nine o'clock in the morning of a glorious ...
— The Cruise of the Thetis - A Tale of the Cuban Insurrection • Harry Collingwood

... This was our religious observance of the day. It was a great contrast to the prayers on the poop which we had on the previous Sunday, when the ship, in all the glory of her fine proportions, with her lofty masts towering into the skies, was rolling on the calm bosom of the ocean, with her idle sails spread ...
— The White Squall - A Story of the Sargasso Sea • John Conroy Hutcheson

... the open and continued violations of neutrality by the Spanish Governor, who had permitted Pensacola to be made a recruiting camp for the arming and drilling of their Indian allies by the British, General Jackson determined to march his army against this seat of government, and to enforce the observance of neutrality on the part of the Spanish commandant at the point of the bayonet if need be. He had removed his headquarters to Fort Montgomery, where by the first of November his command consisted of one thousand regular troops and two thousand ...
— The Battle of New Orleans • Zachary F. Smith

... universal and systematic action. A voluntary association for military instruction may be commenced with a zeal which will carry its members for a time through the daily routine of drilling; but it will not be long before the ranks will begin to diminish, and the observance of discipline become less strict; and if the officers attempt to enforce the laws by which all have agreed to abide, those laws will speedily be rescinded by the majority who find them galling, and the tie by which they are bound together will prove ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various

... I go on to the question of Conduct, is the place to define a relationship to that system of faith and religious observance out of which I and most of my readers have come. How do these beliefs on which I base my rule ...
— First and Last Things • H. G. Wells

... until then, and after long and mature consideration for and against, did they proceed to answer in like measure and close with their adversaries at sea. As the only belligerents who had done everything to secure the observance of the agreement which should provide for freedom of the seas to neutrals, it was sorely against their wishes to bow to the need of the moment and attack that freedom; but they took that step in order to fulfil their urgent duty to their peoples and with the conviction that ...
— In the World War • Count Ottokar Czernin

... of none of these Absurdities, and more especially our Author; and indeed the Non-observance of Rules has occasion'd the great Miscarriages of so many excellent Genius's of ours, particularly that of the immortal Shakespear. Since these are such apparent Faults and Absurdities, and still our Beauties are so admirable as to cover, and almost to out-weigh our Errors (else our Plays ...
— Prefaces to Terence's Comedies and Plautus's Comedies (1694) • Lawrence Echard

... made in certain nerve cells which persisted. This trait of nerve modifiability is one factor which accounts for greater retentive power in some persons than in others. It must not be concluded, however, that all good memory is due to the inheritance of this trait. It is due partly to observance of proper conditions of impression, and much can be done to overcome or offset innate difficulty ...
— How to Use Your Mind • Harry D. Kitson

... to run for fresh, cool water; and he did not eat. The fever broke on the fourth day and left her spent and shrunken, a slip of a girl with life only in her eyes. They hung upon Venters with a mute observance, and he found ...
— Riders of the Purple Sage • Zane Grey

... are admonished that consciences are not to be burdened, as though such observance was ...
— The Confession of Faith • Various

... stream to be married on French soil; therefore Don Luis de Haro, as the proxy of Louis XIV., having the French Bishop of Frejus as his witness, was married to Maria Theresa in the church at Fontarabia. The ceremony was conducted with the most punctilious observance of the stately forms ...
— Louis XIV., Makers of History Series • John S. C. Abbott

... secondary considerations, is really all that there is relating to the abolishment of circumcision by the Christians. The real Disciples and Apostles believed in Jesus with as much fervor as Paul, but it is singular that they who were with the Master should always have insisted on the observance of the Law, while Paul as energetically ...
— History of Circumcision from the Earliest Times to the Present - Moral and Physical Reasons for its Performance • Peter Charles Remondino

... many other conditions which Mr. Booer, after consultation with practical bakers and others, set himself to fulfill, the observance of which lends to the present Blackfriars experiment much of its interesting character. Thus it was observed that, while it is not difficult to build an oven in a given spot, and bake bread in it, this cannot truly be ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 401, September 8, 1883 • Various

... Lanfranc, a native of Lombardy, who had been bred as a lawyer, and was possessed of great learning and talent, but had chosen to embrace the monastic life, and had selected the Norman abbey of Bee as the place of his profession, because the monks there were very poor, and very strict in the observance of their rule. Lanfranc, at the Duke's desire, travelled to Rome, and there succeeded in obtaining the confirmation of the marriage, and the absolution of the bride and bridegroom, on condition of their ...
— Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II • Charlotte Mary Yonge

... promise to guard your child as if she were my own, you will trust her with me," her grace urged, with a pertinacity that could not fail to be flattering. "She will be as safe under my care as were she under the observance of ...
— The Mother's Recompense, Volume I. - A Sequel to Home Influence in Two Volumes. • Grace Aguilar

... unfaithful to him if she has had opportunity. In most tribes women are not allowed to converse or have any relations whatever with any men but their husbands, even with their own grown-up brothers.[1383] Veth[1384] thinks that the observance of the sex taboo by Dyak wives has been exaggerated, but that, at least on the west coast, it is better than that of the Malay women. The young unmarried women among the sea Dyaks take great license, and the custom of lending daughters exists, but such customs are unknown on the west coast. ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner

... precautions Dr. Hornaday maintained his health throughout five years of almost constant travel and exploration in the woods and jungles of Cuba, South America, India, the Malay Archipelago, and Borneo. If our soldiers went to Cuba, or marched from Siboney to Santiago, without the equipment required for the observance of these precautions, it was not the result of necessary ignorance on the part of their superiors. As the Philadelphia "Medical Journal" said, ten days before the army sailed: "The climate and sanitary—or rather unsanitary—conditions of Cuba ...
— Campaigning in Cuba • George Kennan

... Days are instituted, is the commemoration of some person or event by devotional observance, the devotion being, of course, offered to ...
— The Church Handy Dictionary • Anonymous

... of equity. America has learned in the last few years how important it is for its safety that "scraps of paper" be held sacred and how dangerous is the doctrine of necessity. Nevertheless it is well to observe that if the United States did, in the case of Panama, depart somewhat from that strict observance of obligations which it has been accustomed to maintain, it did not seek any object which was not just as useful to the world at large as to itself, that the situation had been created not by a conflict of opposing ...
— The Path of Empire - A Chronicle of the United States as a World Power, Volume - 46 in The Chronicles of America Series • Carl Russell Fish

... ear, and exalting you in her opinion—KA ME, KA THEE—it is a proverb all over the world. The lady must know her friends, and be made to judge of the power they have of being her enemies; meanwhile, watch her strictly, but with all the outward observance that thy rough nature will permit. 'Tis an excellent thing that sullen look and bull-dog humour of thine; thou shouldst thank God for it, and so should my lord, for when there is aught harsh or hard-natured to be done, thou dost it as if it flowed from thine ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott

... country has done a glorious thing, whether he falls in a pitched battle deciding the fate of an empire, or in some such obscure and scarcely chronicled event as the attack upon a slave factory. He is, where such is possible, laid in his last resting-place with all the honourable observance that circumstances permit, and his memory is cherished in the hearts of his comrades; but whether his fame pass with the echo of the last volley fired over his grave, or outlives the brass of the tablet which records his name and deeds, there is no room for grief. Wherefore, when we got ...
— A Middy of the Slave Squadron - A West African Story • Harry Collingwood

... instances of wisdom and humour at once, particularly his Majesty's reply to the lords who advised him (I think at Salisbury,) to send away King James; and his few words, after long patience, to that foolish lord himself, who harangued him on the observance of his declaration. Such traits, and several of Queen Anne (not equally deep) in the same journal, paint those princes as characteristically as Lord Clarendon's able father would have drawn them. There are two letters in ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole

... are ministers properly ordained. When they seceded over the 'Church Government Act' they carried their full Canonical Orders with them: only as they had no Bishops they have become a diminishing body. Their beliefs, or their disbeliefs (for on many points the churches are merely maintaining an observance of definitions which their intellects no longer really accept)—their professed beliefs, then, shall I say?—in all matters of doctrine are not more heterogeneous than those which distract the councils ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman

... shipmates with the expletives in which many of them were apt to indulge, when the use of strange oaths and swearing of all descriptions was more common than even at present, when the practice would be more honoured in the breach than in the observance. One thing I must say, I never heard our gallant captain utter an oath or abuse a man during the whole time I had the happiness of serving under him, and a braver, more spirited, or more sensible man never trod the deck of a man-of-war as her chief. ...
— Marmaduke Merry - A Tale of Naval Adventures in Bygone Days • William H. G. Kingston

... morning country dress, nor omit one item of her daily work. If he wished to take her at all, he should wish to take her as she really was, in her plain country life, but he should take her also with full observance of all those privileges which maidens are allowed to claim from their lovers. He should curtail no ceremonious observance because she was the daughter of a poor country parson who would come to him without a shilling, whereas he stood high in the world's ...
— Victorian Short Stories • Various

... on the serious condition in which the doctor finds those who apply to her for treatment. "The cases which came to the dispensary were sorely in need of help. This was, I think, the invariable rule. Such cases they were as do not often come to the observance of physicians in this country, and some familiarity with the dispensaries of four of the large hospitals in New York City, has almost failed to show such need as ...
— Notable Women Of Modern China • Margaret E. Burton

... hand, Our Imperial posterity may possess an express guide for the course they are to follow, and that, on the other, Our subjects shall thereby be enabled to enjoy a wider range of action in giving Us their support, and that the observance of Our laws shall continue to the remotest ages of time. We will thereby to give greater firmness to the stability of Our country and to promote the welfare of all the people within the boundaries of Our dominions; ...
— The Constitution of the Empire of Japan, 1889 • Japan

... many natives went out with their spears, nets, and dogs, to hunt wallabies. A goodly number attended the forenoon service, when Mr. Lawes preached. A good many strangers were present from an inland village on the Astrolabe side. There is not yet much observance of the Sabbath. Poi, one of the chief men of the place, is very friendly: he kept quite a party of his inland friends from hunting, and brought them to the services. Mr. Lawes preached again in the afternoon. As we went to church in the afternoon the hunters were returning: they had evidently ...
— Adventures in New Guinea • James Chalmers

... the town of Falkenborg, a guard of several men, with drawn swords, received us; but what their motive was in honouring us with their protection, we could not conceive. Wherever we went, these men kept close to our heels, nor faltered in the strictest observance of every military evolution. This seeming honour amounted, at length, to extreme pertinacity, and became offensive to our freedom; for, it not only excited the curiosity of numberless dogs, that barked, and ...
— A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden - 2nd edition • W. A. Ross

... totally different climate, to the investigation of what is beautiful here, without the slightest reference to styles now or formerly adopted for our own "villas," if such they are to be called; and therefore it will be necessary to devote a short time to the observance of the peculiarities of such styles, if we possess them; or, if not, of ...
— The Poetry of Architecture • John Ruskin

... when Ku-ula made all these preparations he believed in the existence of a God who had supreme power over all things. That is why he prepared this place wherein to make his offerings of the first fish caught by him to the fish god. From this observance of Ku-ula all the fish were tractable (laka loa) unto him; all he had to do was to say the word, and the fish would appear. This was reported all over Hana and when Kamohaolii, the King (who was then ...
— Hawaiian Folk Tales - A Collection of Native Legends • Various

... retreated very slowly, making a sign to the negroes to do the same. The dog was sitting at a distance in mute observance. I could now read in the face of the negroes that they considered this as a very unpleasant affair; and they made another attempt to persuade me to let them go for a gun. I smiled in a good-natured manner, and made a feint to cut them down with the ...
— Wanderings In South America • Charles Waterton

... to the good sense of the individual, and a Martian can be trusted to regulate his habits and conduct without needing penalties to compel the observance ...
— To Mars via The Moon - An Astronomical Story • Mark Wicks

... friend was no less fragile in the observance of his firm vow. Becoming a widower, he swore eternal fidelity to the "departed angel." Soon after, he was seen with another ...
— Delsarte System of Oratory • Various

... sect thoroughly communistic in character, with many elements of refinement and genius, which obliterated the taboos against women, and though nominally for the worship of the generative powers of nature, mixed murder and minstrelsy in its rites and observance. For what wrote red the records of this society in the journals of the discoverers, missionaries, and early European dwellers in Tahiti, was the Arioi primary plank of membership—that no member should permit ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien

... Between her unceasing efforts to get him well, and her grim determination to keep the situation well in hand, she had unlimited opportunity of finding out. The physicians agreed that his chances for recovery were one to three. It was only by the most persistent observance of certain regulations pertaining to rest, diet, and fresh air, that they held out any hope of arresting the malady that had already made such alarming headway. Nance realized from the first that it was to be a fight against heavy odds, and she gallantly rose to the emergency. Aside from the ...
— Calvary Alley • Alice Hegan Rice

... justly, that it was an inaccurate modern innovation, that Sabbath was Saturday, the Seventh day of the week, not the first, a Jewish festival and not a Christian commemoration. Yet his exaggerated view with regard to the observance of the First Day, namely, that it must be exclusively occupied with public and private exercises of divine worship, was based much more upon a Jewish than upon a Christian law. In fact, I do not remember that my Father ever produced a definite argument ...
— Father and Son • Edmund Gosse

... surprised that you are in love with her. She is the handsomest and most lovely lady in Bagdad, but very proud, and of difficult access. You know how strict our judges are, in enjoining the punctual observance of the severe laws that confine women; and they are yet more strict in the observation of them in their own families; the cauzee you saw is more rigid in that point than any of the other magistrates. They are always preaching to their daughters what a heinous crime it is to shew ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous

... thinking. He did not like the implications of that furtive observance. A suspicious, watchful man is a jealous man. And a jealous man who has nothing to do but watch and suspect and nurse that mean passion was a dangerous adjunct ...
— The Hidden Places • Bertrand W. Sinclair

... murder; again, moving away in silence towards the churchyard, to look at the grave of poor Bradley. Still, however, I was loth to believe myself a criminal; and so, from day to day, the time passed on, without any outward change revealing what was; passing within, to the observance or suspicions of my comrades. When the regiment was sent against the Burmese, the bravery of the war, and the hardships of our adventures, so won me from reflection, that I began almost to forget the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 399, Supplementary Number • Various



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