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Devotion   /dɪvˈoʊʃən/   Listen
Devotion

noun
1.
Feelings of ardent love.  Synonym: devotedness.
2.
Commitment to some purpose.
3.
Religious zeal; the willingness to serve God.  Synonyms: cultism, idolatry, veneration.
4.
(usually plural) religious observance or prayers (usually spoken silently).






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Devotion" Quotes from Famous Books



... generally that is the case. The aldermen are chosen by the votes of the Common Council of each ward, and that choice generally falls upon one whom they deem will worthily represent them, or upon one who shows the most devotion to the interests of the ward and city. My father was a prominent citizen before me, and I early learned from him to take an interest in the affairs of the city. It chanced that, when on the accession of the young king the Duke of Lancaster would have infringed some of our rights and privileges, ...
— A March on London • G. A. Henty

... trim silk-clad ankles. Yet, the novel charm of her failed utterly to disturb the loyalty of his heart. His hungry soul found exquisite satisfaction in the spectacle of feminine refinement thus presented for the first time, but his devotion to the roughly garbed mountain girl was in no wise imperiled. On the contrary, his imagination busied itself with an effort to ...
— Heart of the Blue Ridge • Waldron Baily

... of spirit. To business capacity Dr. Carter added distinguished scholarship and the genius of a teacher born. All this was made living effective by single-hearted loyalty to the best interests of the college as he saw them and by devotion to the highest moral and intellectual good of the students. He did not swerve from duty as he understood it to follow an easy popularity. The burdens that he bore and the labors that he accomplished, at personal cost in more ways than one, rested in the last analysis on ...
— A Williams Anthology - A Collection of the Verse and Prose of Williams College, 1798-1910 • Compiled by Edwin Partridge Lehman and Julian Park

... the Spirit—and the majority of educated men would probably accept this description of it—seems little if at all conditioned by Church membership. It speaks in secret to its Father in secret; and private devotion and self-discipline seem to be all it needs. Yet looking at history, we see that this conception, this completeness of emphasis on first-hand solitary seeking, this one-by-one achievement of Eternity, has ...
— The Life of the Spirit and the Life of To-day • Evelyn Underhill

... to the right or left. Elizabeth stared after him. He had passed so close she might have touched him, and how pale and angry he looked! The schoolmaster was one of the objects upon which Elizabeth showered the wealth of her devotion, and she was vaguely disturbed for him. He looked just as if he had been whipping someone in school. Then her own uncomfortable condition obtruded itself once more, and she arose. She straightened her sunbonnet, smoothed down her crumpled skirts and slowly and fearfully took ...
— 'Lizbeth of the Dale • Marian Keith

... monster getting previous notice, said, Tush, a fig for the fools, a button for the bragging of heretics. Is the Lord governor mine? witness his oldest son with me as a pledge. Have not I the queen at my devotion? Is not France my friend? What danger should I fear?—But in a few days, Norman Lesly, John Lesly, and the laird of Grange entered the castle in the morning, just as one of his harlots Mrs Ogilvie was gone out of bed from him. The noise soon ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie

... army, in hospitals, or whatever place men are found needy and dependent, true women are freely admitted as ministering angels, with no thought of demoralization. Yes, the world lauds the heroism and devotion of many of these ...
— The Prison Chaplaincy, And Its Experiences • Hosea Quinby

... and then the child passed his Sundays at the Rondics, who were all very kind to him, Zenaide in particular. The old man felt a certain contempt for Jack's physical delicacy, and said the boy stunted his growth by his devotion to books, but "he was a good little fellow all the same!" In reality, old Rondic felt a great respect for Jack's attainments, his own being of the most superficial description. He could read and write, to be sure, but that was all; and since he had married the second Madame Rondic, ...
— Jack - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet

... and physical development, with progress in the direction of your profession and devotion to duty, lies the road to military glory; and it may readily come to pass that "the race will not be to the swift, nor the battle to the strong," as you ...
— Henry Ossian Flipper, The Colored Cadet at West Point • Henry Ossian Flipper

... music, and fine speeches. He is just a mere man, who has never noticed a flower in his life, who is totally indifferent to music, and never could talk with eloquence. But if Pauline likes these things, he must endeavor to impress her, if not with his skill, at all events with his devotion. He sends her a beautiful bouquet; she does not even notice it. For months he tries to learn the instrument, until finally he can play "his tune." She does not even listen; he throws the lute away, for he cares nothing for music except for her sake. At last ...
— Robert Browning: How To Know Him • William Lyon Phelps

... you will see one with a child come in from the street where she has been begging, put herself in a corner, say a prayer (probably for the success of her petitions), and then return to beg again. There is wonderfully little of any moral strength connected with this devotion; but still it is better than nothing, and more than is often found among the men of the upper classes in Rome. I believe the Clergy to be generally profligate, and the state of domestic morals as bad as it ...
— The Life of John Sterling • Thomas Carlyle

... Epoch," which within a few months was also prohibited. He was weighed down by debt, his brother's family was dependent on him, he was forced to write at heart-breaking speed, and is said never to have corrected his work. The later years of his life were much softened by the tenderness and devotion of his ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... whispered almost aloud to Raskolnikov that it certainly would have been strange for a man of Pyotr Petrovitch's position and standing to find himself in such "extraordinary company," in spite of his devotion to her family and his old friendship ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... asked Mrs. Dunmore; "or do you trespass upon the hours necessary to your repose and recreation that you are so much thinner and paler than you used to be? I fear I must usurp your prerogative and turn preacher if you are really destroying your health by too great devotion ...
— The Elm Tree Tales • F. Irene Burge Smith

... billows of each crude emotion Break on life's strand, recede, and then unite With love's large sea; and to some late devotion Unrecognised, they bring their lost delight. So all the vanished fancies of my past Live yet in this one passion, grand ...
— The Kingdom of Love - and Other Poems • Ella Wheeler Wilcox

... stones cast into Honey become more brilliant thereby," says St. Francis de Sales in The Devout Life, 1708, "and all persons become more acceptable when they join devotion ...
— Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure • William Thomas Fernie

... They were a body of religious persons associated together for the purpose of aiding each other in the common work of preaching the gospel and teaching youth, as well as maintaining in themselves the fervor of devotion by united exercises of worship. On entering the order certain vows were taken by the members, but they were not those which were usually imposed by monastic orders, for of these, which are three, celibacy, poverty, and obedience, the Culdees were bound to none except the third. ...
— TITLE • AUTHOR

... this hollow of the hills on the one hand, and on the other the portentous conceptions that peopled the region of dream revealed by the clergyman. And in the second place she had no standards but her own instincts to judge by, for Mrs. Mawle, in spite of her devotion to the girl, suffered under too great disabilities to fill the place of a mother, while Mr. Skale was too lost in his vast speculations to guide her except in a few general matters, and too sure of her at the same time to reflect ...
— The Human Chord • Algernon Blackwood

... assiduous in his attention to his old parents. I have thus, O pious Yudhishthira, narrated in detail to thee this history full of moral instruction, which thou, my good son, didst ask me to recite,—the virtue of women's devotion to their husbands and that of filial piety.' Yudhishthira replied, 'O most pious Brahmana and best of munis, thou hast related to me this good and wonderful moral story; and listening to thee, O learned ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... holy woman, pure Forever may thy charms on earth endure! Oh, trample not upon thy husband's love! For true devotion he doth daily prove. Oh, shackle not his feet in life's fierce strife, His weary shoulders burden,—blast his life! Or palsy those dear hands that work for thee, And fill his eyes with tears of agony, Till love shall turn as acid to his teeth, And thorns shall tear his side with hellish ...
— Babylonian and Assyrian Literature • Anonymous

... come to Osborne with a heart full of gratitude and devotion to your Majesty, but with a strong conviction (all the grounds for which he will, with your Majesty's permission, explain to your Majesty) that in the present state of affairs, he can render more service to your Majesty and to the country ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Vol 2 (of 3), 1844-1853 • Queen Victoria

... towards the close of his life, exacted from those around him an outward attention to religious duties, produced an effect similar to that which the rigour of the Puritans had produced in England. It was the boast of Madame de Maintenon, in the time of her greatness, that devotion had become the fashion. A fashion indeed it was; and, like a fashion, it passed away. The austerity of the tyrant's old age had injured the morality of the higher orders more than even the licentiousness of his youth. Not only had he not reformed their ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 2 (of 4) - Contributions To The Edinburgh Review • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... thinking, while she who had given him so many proofs of maternal tenderness and devotion was dying a few paces from him? Did he regret her? was he not thinking rather of the grand and magnificent existence which awaited him on the other side of the river, at the Faubourg St. Germain? He turned abruptly round on hearing his ...
— The Widow Lerouge - The Lerouge Case • Emile Gaboriau

... succeeds in making Mr. B. tolerable, not to say likable, is a proof of his power; that the reader really grows fond of his heroine—especially perhaps in her daughterly devotion to her humble family—speaks volumes for his grasp of human nature and helps us to understand the effect of the story upon contemporaneous readers. That effect was indeed remarkable. Lady Mary, to quote her again, testifies that the book "met with very extraordinary (and I think ...
— Masters of the English Novel - A Study Of Principles And Personalities • Richard Burton

... she delighted in his mind, and knew that had it been commonplace she could not have loved him did he have every other gift in the workshop of the gods; she worshipped his strength of character, his independence, his lofty yet practical devotion to an ideal; she loved him for his attitude to his wife, the manly and uncomplaining manner with which he accepted his broken and shadowed home life, when his temperament demanded the very full of domestic happiness, and the heavy labours of his days ...
— Senator North • Gertrude Atherton

... the priests and the churches, justice demands that if I know any thing good about either I ought to say it. I have heard of many things that redound to the credit of the priesthood, but the most notable matter that occurs to me now is the devotion one of the mendicant orders showed during the prevalence of the cholera last year. I speak of the Dominican friars—men who wear a coarse, heavy brown robe and a cowl, in this hot climate, and go barefoot. They live on alms altogether, I believe. They must unquestionably love their religion, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... The Octoechos, which contains the Ferial Office, was, it is said, arranged by John of Damascus. There his Canons are found, which are perhaps his greatest work in hymnody. John retired eventually to the monastery of Mar Saba, where he spent a life of devotion, and sang those Christian hymns which have cheered and inspired so many generations of Christians in the East. There he penned the 'Golden Canon' for Easter Day, which breathes the ...
— Hymns of the Greek Church - Translated with Introduction and Notes • John Brownlie

... the usual objects of a pilgrim's devotion, but I had a desire to see the old family seat of the Lucy's at Charlecot, and to ramble through the park where Shakespeare, in company with some of the roisterers of Stratford, committed his youthful offense of deer-stealing. The old mansion of Charlecot and its surrounding park still remain ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume I. - Great Britain and Ireland • Various

... moved by this passionate speech, that she was mute for some time. After a difficult struggle within herself, she said, "Seeing your intense love and devotion for me, I cannot but consent to your proposal. Were not the matter pressing, however, I should not give my consent in so short a time. Here is the ring, if ...
— Filipino Popular Tales • Dean S. Fansler

... act of conscientious self-devotion, years passed away in quiet, amid a species of negative prosperity. Rumors from the old world reached the ears of the tenants of this secluded settlement, months after the events to which they referred were elsewhere forgotten, and tumults and wars in the sister colonies came to their ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper

... return to his palace to inform his wife that they must part; but, on hearing what had occurred, Sita piteously begged to share his fate, although he eloquently described the hardships to which she would be exposed should she venture to accompany him. Her wifely devotion was, however, proof against all he could urge, for she declared with tears there was no happiness for her save ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber

... of strange pathos. He always remembered Tump tramping away through the night to carry Cissie some underclothes and, if possible, to take her place in jail. At the foundation of Tump's being lay a faithfulness and devotion to Cissie that reached the heights of a dog's. And yet, he might have deserted her, he would probably have beaten her, and he most certainly would have betrayed her many, ...
— Birthright - A Novel • T.S. Stribling

... affection of the young wife by this act, notwithstanding that she had received permission to do so—She could not doubt, as she read, that the young baronet's heart had all been given to this fair, beautiful woman, for though written in his own dignified way, the letter was full of devotion and loyalty to her. And yet not once in all those eight pages had he called her by the sacred name of "wife." There were all manner of pet names and expressions of endearment, but not a single time was written that word which would ...
— Virgie's Inheritance • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon

... tea!— I deem my happiest. Howsoe'er I swerve, as To mind or morals, elsewhere, over thee I am a perfect creature, quite impervious To care, or tribulation, or ennui— In fact, I do agnize to thee an utter Devotion even to the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, December 4, 1841 • Various

... wish. At Paris my brother was joined by Bussi, whom he received with all the favour which his bravery merited. He was inseparable from my brother, in consequence of which I frequently saw him, for my brother and I were always together, his household being equally at my devotion as if it were my own. Your aunt, remarking this harmony betwixt us, has often told me that it called to her recollection the times of my uncle, M. d'Orleans, and my aunt, ...
— Memoirs And Historical Chronicles Of The Courts Of Europe - Marguerite de Valois, Madame de Pompadour, and Catherine de Medici • Various

... of Christian redemption I had, as is the custom of my people, Worn on my neck concealed, where'er I went, From my first hours of infancy; and now, When from sweet life I was compelled to part, I grasped it as my only stay, and pressed it With passionate devotion to my lips. ...
— Demetrius - A Play • Frederich Schiller

... in his bounty spread the rich and sumptuous feast, Drona's son with due devotion ...
— Maha-bharata - The Epic of Ancient India Condensed into English Verse • Anonymous

... may well honor the mission padres for their earnest, unselfish lives, and in no way can this be done so fully as in the preservation of the grand old buildings they left behind, which are indeed fitting monuments to their devotion, energy, and skill. ...
— History of California • Helen Elliott Bandini

... completed an eight thousand dollar building to displace an old one, for the Government Boarding School. In all these five reservations, lands have been secured in severalty to the Indians, and largely through his persistent devotion to their welfare. For two or three years his father had care of the S'kokomish Mission under the American Missionary Association, and in 1874, his brother, Rev. Myron Eells, was appointed to the same work, ...
— American Missionary, Volume 44, No. 6, June, 1890 • Various

... ate your supper," said her aunt, giving the example, which was followed by Oonah; and after the light meal, their prayers were said, and perchance with a little extra devotion, from their peculiar state of mind; then to bed they went. The rushlight being extinguished, the only light remaining was that shed from the red embers of the decaying fire, which cast so uncertain a glimmer within the cabin, that its effect was almost worse than utter darkness to a timid person; ...
— Handy Andy, Volume One - A Tale of Irish Life, in Two Volumes • Samuel Lover

... "Some tell us there were twenty Homers; some deny that there was ever one. It were idle and foolish to shake the contents of a vase, in order to let them settle at last. We are perpetually labouring to destroy our delights, our composure, our devotion to superior power. Of all the animals on earth we least know what is good for us. My opinion is, that what is best for us is our admiration of good. No man living venerates Homer more ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer, translated by Alexander Pope

... Greek cross. The golden bar from which it was suspended bore the letters S. B. A., on the points were the initials N. W. S. A., and on the reverse was engraved, "Presented by the Citizens' Suffrage Association of Philadelphia as a token of gratitude for her life-long devotion to the interests of woman." The little presentation speech was made in a most tender and graceful manner by May Wright Sewall. The Boston Globe in describing the ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 2 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper

... declaration of one of the special magistrates, "Barbadoes has long been distinguished for its devotion to slavery." There is probably no portion of the globe where slave-holding, slave driving, and slave labor, have been reduced to ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society

... in the vulgar sense of the word, but only in the sense that many devout and religious women have been Christian mystics too. Like Saint Catherine of Sienna, Saint Teresa, and other holy women, she was specially attracted to the spiritual and devotional aspect of the Catholic Faith. Neither did her devotion to the spiritual element unfit her for the practical side of things: quite the contrary. Like Saint Teresa, side by side with her religious life, she was a remarkably shrewd woman of business. It need scarcely be added that between so- called "spiritualism" as practised in England and ...
— The Romance of Isabel Lady Burton Volume II • Isabel Lady Burton & W. H. Wilkins

... which care and the despair of better things tended to make men hard and selfish and to blot out those fairer features which cannot be denied to the courts and palaces of the Iliad and Odyssey." It appears that the foundation of aristocracy—living in comparative luxury, in devotion to art and the culture of life—was early laid by the side of the foundation of poverty and wretchedness of the great mass of the people. While, then, the Greeks derived from their ancestry the beautiful pictures of heroic Greece, they inherited ...
— History of Human Society • Frank W. Blackmar

... Robert Bruce remained, to join in the intercession for the wicked town and its wicked neighbourhood. He even "engaged in prayer," for the first time in public, and astonished some of the older members by his gift in devotion. He had been received into the church only a week or two before, upon profession of faith in the merits of Christ, not in Christ himself—that would not have been definite enough for them. But it would have been all the same ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald

... allow no close approach, but quiet watching will reveal many of its interesting characteristics. Some one once found the nest of a loon and brought me a little, downy, young one that I might try to tame it; but it lived only a day or two in spite of all the devotion expended upon it, and its wild, frightened cry was too pathetic to allow of ...
— On the Trail - An Outdoor Book for Girls • Lina Beard and Adelia Belle Beard

... lover bought a leper's gown and bowl and clapper from some afflicted wretch. He mutilated his forefinger, and sat before his lady's door, in the company of a piteous crowd of sick and maimed, to await her alms. No doubt he trusted that his devotion would procure him a different kind of charity. From such discussions as these, and from conduct such as this, a type of love came into being which was peculiar to the period. Since the lovers were not bound in the sweet and common union of children and home, since on the side of the lady all ...
— French Mediaeval Romances from the Lays of Marie de France • Marie de France

... to defend the friars against the various charges which have been brought against them. In support of his own opinions, he also cites Fray Manuel del Rio; and he himself praises the public spirit, disinterestedness, and devotion to the interests of the Indians, displayed by the curas, many of whom are friars. He argues that they even show too much patience and lenity toward the natives, who are lazy and indolent in the extreme; and it has been a great ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 (Vol 28 of 55) • Various

... into the mysteries of the universe, and to tell what he sees or what he guesses, is accused of an indifference to the effect which his utterances may have upon the less enlightened who hear him speak; many criticise the lawyer for a devotion to the interests of his client which is at times in doubtful harmony with the interests of justice in the larger sense; in the business world commercial integrity is exalted, and lapses from the ethical code which do not assail this cardinal ...
— An Introduction to Philosophy • George Stuart Fullerton

... together, are here presented, with the hope that as wandering streams are traced to their original fountain, some heart may thus be led to the history of the stricken and sustained Patriarch, with more studious research, purer delight, or a deeper spirit of devotion. ...
— Man of Uz, and Other Poems • Lydia Howard Sigourney

... was but reflected from a girl's eyes. As he looks about and not seeing her, says, "She does not care, she will not come," the sword loses all its sheen, and the nodding plume its charm, and his dreams of self-devotion all ...
— The Duke of Stockbridge • Edward Bellamy

... undiminished vigor, to direct, ten years longer, [6] the ecclesiastical government of Alexandria, Egypt, and the Catholic church. Before his departure from Antioch, he assured Jovian that his orthodox devotion would be rewarded with a long and peaceful reign. Athanasius, had reason to hope, that he should be allowed either the merit of a successful prediction, or the excuse of a grateful though ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon

... and happy, Monsieur, thus to feel myself the object of such devotion; but I greatly fear you will prove but a poor companion on the journey if you wear so glum a look. Captain de Croix is full of wit and good-humor this morning, and has already cheered me greatly with reminiscences of ...
— When Wilderness Was King - A Tale of the Illinois Country • Randall Parrish

... poor-house, when the sudden determination was taken to send out a little sketch of her life to the benevolent public, in the hope of redeeming the little home. This object, through the kindness of friends, was accomplished. The old people died in Harriet's own home, breathing blessings upon her for her devotion ...
— Harriet, The Moses of Her People • Sarah H. Bradford

... at Marburg so far back as 1840. Though alive to the importance of applied science, he considered truth alone to be the end of scientific research, and the example he set his pupils was one of single-hearted devotion to ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various

... in the city at St. Antony's School in Threadneedle Street, a school which had already achieved a great reputation and afterwards reckoned among its pupils the famous Whitgift. Later in life he shut himself up for four years in the Charterhouse of London, living a life of devotion and prayer, but ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume I • Reginald R. Sharpe

... of that look his own conscience pricked him, and he made a vehement effort to recall his wandering mind and fix it on the words which were being read. He flushed as he saw boys opposite point his way and laugh, with hands clasped in mock devotion, and he felt angry with himself, and young Aspinall, and everybody, for laying him open to the imputation of being ...
— Follow My leader - The Boys of Templeton • Talbot Baines Reed

... President, of the Secretary of War, of the Secretary of State; echoes from the House, from the Senate; determined optimism as to foreign intervention; disdain, as determined, of Burnside's "On to Richmond"; passionate devotion to the grey armies in the field—all the loud war song of the South, clear and defiant! She read everything in the paper. She read the market prices. Coffee $4 per lb. Tea $20 per lb. Wheat $5 per bushel. Corn $15 per barrel. Bacon ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston

... had any other great interest in life. Her socialism amused me, but her devotion to it inspired me with reverence. As for Moissey, good literature, as the term is understood in Russia, was nearly as much of a passion with him as Marxian socialism. His fervent talks of what he considered good fiction and his ferocious assaults upon what he termed ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan

... will, ruling her kingdom alone. Above all she was very dignified, very silent, and very sober-minded. That she was affectionate and loving cannot be doubted, for she retained to the last a profound hold upon the reverential devotion of her son, and yet as he rose steadily to the pinnacle of human greatness, she could only say that "George had been a good boy, and she was sure he would do his duty." Not a brilliant woman evidently, not ...
— George Washington, Vol. I • Henry Cabot Lodge

... their absence at dinner, Mrs. Baldwin was lightly humorous about the twins' devotion: one could not weather a headache without the other. Mr. White and Mr. Morton exchanged glances, and showed interest in the topic, as if they were on the track of ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume X (of X) • Various

... characterize them, and which pass away, and succeed to one another; often that which has appeared admirable at one time, becomes pitiful and ridiculous at another. We have seen that in some ages all was turned towards a certain kind of devotion, of studies and of exercises. It is known that, for more than one century, the prevailing taste of Europe was the journey to Jerusalem. Kings, princes, nobles, bishops, ecclesiastics, monks, all pressed thither in crowds. The pilgrimages to Rome were formerly very frequent and ...
— The Phantom World - or, The philosophy of spirits, apparitions, &c, &c. • Augustin Calmet

... love, beyond which there is so little for a woman as woman, the princess had flung herself into the kingdom of philosophy. She took to reading, she who for sixteen years had felt a cordial horror for serious things. Literature and politics are to-day what piety and devotion once were to her sex,—the last refuge of their feminine pretensions. In her late social circle it was said that Diane was writing a book. Since her transformation from a queen and beauty to a woman of intellect, the princess had contrived to make ...
— The Secrets of the Princesse de Cadignan • Honore de Balzac

... pair walked on in silence; Jolland with his nose in the air, determined that after this he really must cut his former friend as the other fellows had done, since his devotion was appreciated so little, and Paul watching the ascending double line of tall chimney-pot hats as they surged before him in regular movement, and feeling a dull wonder at finding himself setting out to church in ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey

... upon a time a poor mason, or bricklayer, in Granada, who kept all the saints' days and holidays, and Saint Monday into the bargain, and yet with all his devotion he grew poorer and poorer and could scarcely earn bread for his numerous family. One night he was roused from his first sleep by a knocking at his door. He opened it and beheld before him a ...
— The Elson Readers, Book 5 • William H. Elson and Christine M. Keck

... to our old place—into our kitchen or our workshop or our office and take the first step, solve the problem nearest at hand. We must make our old work luminous with a new devotion. We must battle up over every inch. And as fast as we solve and dissolve the difficulties and turn our burdens into blessings, we find love, the universal solvent, shining out of our lives. We find our spiritual influences going upward. ...
— The University of Hard Knocks • Ralph Parlette

... expedition; and she stood by Columbus, in storm and sunshine, as long as she lived. Isabella stood by Columbus, in his success, with winsome gentleness, keeping up his daring spirit of enterprise; and, in his reverses, with the balm of unwavering devotion healing his bruised, bleeding heart. Isabella stood by Columbus, as a mother by her son, ever, ever true to ...
— Christopher Columbus and His Monument Columbia • Various

... position is good enough," Mrs. Verdon answered, "and she will suit him exactly. He is a man who will demand a great deal of devotion from his wife, and she will give him all he needs. It would have been bad for him if he had married a woman whose supply was not ...
— A Vanished Hand • Sarah Doudney

... of the Dominican order, Las Casas had years since been united by the strong bonds of devotion to a common cause, which was the dominant influence, as it was the sole object, of his life. As they had accompanied and sustained him throughout his long struggle, so it was to them that he naturally ...
— Bartholomew de Las Casas; his life, apostolate, and writings • Francis Augustus MacNutt

... Siseburto, the sons of the late king Witiza; and a great host of vassals and retainers, all well armed and appointed, for they had been furnished, by Count Julian, with a part of the arms sent by the king to Africa. The bishop was smooth of tongue, and profound in his hypocrisy: his pretended zeal and devotion, and the horror with which he spoke of the treachery of his kinsman, imposed upon the credulous spirit of the king, and he was readily admitted ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, May 1844 - Volume 23, Number 5 • Various

... Cabaner. Cabaner! since the beginning there have been, till the end of time there shall be Cabaners; and they shall live miserably and they shall die miserable, and shall be forgotten; and there shall never arise a novelist great enough to make live in art that eternal spirit of devotion, disinterestedness, and aspiration, which in each generation incarnates itself in one heroic soul. Better wast thou than those who stepped to opulence and fame upon thee fallen; better, loftier-minded, ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore

... attachment to certain fundamental principles of democracy and an unceasing devotion to Napoleon constitute the chief elements of Hazlitt's political character. He sets forth his idea of representative government exactly in the manner of Rousseau when he proclaims that "in matters of feeling and common sense, of which each individual ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin

... enough to raise the expectations of any young man to a dangerous pitch, and, had it not been that he had not as yet completely shaken off the effects of illness, and was much troubled in his mind about Ustane, of whose affection and brave devotion he spoke in touching terms, I have no doubt that he would have entered into her plans, and fallen in love with her by anticipation. As it was, however, he was simply wildly curious, and also, like myself, considerably ...
— She • H. Rider Haggard

... panegyrics and laudatory articles, declaring that they will never forget the anniversaries of his nativity and his decease. The British Pharisee and Philistine, true to his miserable creed, ignored all the "real Lord Byron"—his generosity, his devotion to his friends, his boundless charity, and his enthusiasm for humanity. They exhaled their venom by carping at Byron's poetry (which was and is to Europe a greater boon than Shakespeare's), by condemning his morality (in its dirty sexual sense) and ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton

... who, with the Austrian Emperor, alone of all European sovereigns, had preserved the unbroken continuity of faith. The old man leaned over his fald-stool, mumbling and weeping, even crying out now and again in love and devotion, as, like Simeon, he saw his Salvation. The Austrian Emperor twice administered the Lavabo; the German sovereign, who had lost his throne and all but his life upon his conversion four years before, by a new privilege placed and withdrew the cushion, as his Lord kneeled ...
— Lord of the World • Robert Hugh Benson

... hum of the forest I hear, I hear, When the hum of the forest I hear,— 'Tis solitude's prayer, pure devotion is there, And its breathings I ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various

... Sometimes they were sent on false trails, but their loyal mountaineers brought them back again. They also found volunteers, and Major Hertford's little force swelled from three hundred to six hundred. In the main, the mountaineers were sympathetic, partly through devotion to the Union, and partly through jealousy of ...
— The Guns of Shiloh • Joseph A. Altsheler

... Satan tell thee thou prayest but faintly, and with very cold devotion? Answer him thus, and say, I am glad you told me, for this will make me trust the more to Christ's prayers, and the less to my own; also I will endeavour henceforth to groan, to sigh, and to be so fervent in my crying at the Throne ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... the jewellery had reappeared, Sinkum Fung next fell into raptures over his own deeds. Had he but known that missee wanted the black-fellow too, he would have given his greatest treasure—his fine long pig-tail—to have detained him. He made the statement with a great air of devotion—a Chinaman does not part ...
— Queensland Cousins • Eleanor Luisa Haverfield

... I had any such feeling, it has long since disappeared," he assured her earnestly. "From the moment I saw Elsie and realized what you have made of her, I have felt only the gratitude I am sure my sister would have felt for your devotion to ...
— Elsie Marley, Honey • Joslyn Gray

... achieved my ambition in this respect it is no small part of my self-imposed task to somewhat analyze this, the chief reward of my devotion to my profession, my years of industrious application, my careful following of the paths that other successful Americans have blazed ...
— The "Goldfish" • Arthur Train

... Conciergerie. She begged him to say a mass for her and in honour of Our Lady, so that she might gain the intercession of the Virgin at the throne of God. The Virgin she had always taken for her patron saint, and in the midst of her crimes and disorderly life had never ceased in her peculiar devotion. As she could not go with the priest, she promised to be with him at least in the spirit. He left her at half-past ten in the morning, and after four hours spent alone together, she had been induced by his piety ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE

... days of the Hooks and Moores had gone by; there was nobody to do with the pen what H. B. did with the pencil. So "Punch" was at once a novelty and a necessity,—from its width of scope, its joint pictorial and literary character, and its exclusive devotion to the comic features of the age. "Figaro" (a satirical predecessor, by Mr. a Beckett) had been very clever, but wanted many of "Punch's" features, and was, above all, not so calculated to hit "society" and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various

... his devotion to the bottle John Allandale usually made a hearty breakfast. But this morning the sight of Jacky presiding at his table upset him, and he left his food almost untasted. Remorse was deadened but conscience was yet unsilenced ...
— The Story of the Foss River Ranch • Ridgwell Cullum

... bound to me, Amelie; but I, too, am bound to them. We also have a man to whom we have sworn obedience. That man is the future king of France. If you accept your brother's devotion to Bonaparte, ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas, pere

... bishop of Avranches. The body of the saint was deposited in the neighbourhood of Mont-Saint-Michel, in a church surrounded by forests. A priest lived alone in the neighbourhood. The two ecclesiastics, from an excess of devotion resolved to carry away the remains of the bishop. The priest heard of it and put a stop to their enterprise. They returned to Rouen, and humbly begged Richard, whose consent they easily obtained to authorize the removal of the remains, and in spite ...
— Rouen, It's History and Monuments - A Guide to Strangers • Theodore Licquet

... crowing. Her first thought was that perhaps the Virgin had performed the miracle and the sun was not going to rise, in spite of the invocations of the cocks. She rose, crossed herself, recited her morning prayers with great devotion, and with as little noise as possible went out on ...
— The Reign of Greed - Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo' • Jose Rizal

... the god of wealth, the most popular of the household gods of Japan, shrines, memorial tablets, cheap ex votos, sacred bells, candlesticks, and incense-burners, and all the endless and various articles connected with Buddhist devotion, public and private. Every day is a festival-day at Asakusa; the temple is dedicated to the most popular of the great divinities; it is the most popular of religious resorts; and whether he be Buddhist, Shintoist, or Christian, no stranger ...
— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird

... did not see, though Constance did, and she felt troubled and anxious. She had understood for long how it was with Ellice. She had seen the girl's eyes turned with dog-like devotion towards the man who was all unconscious of the passion he had aroused. But she saw it all in her quiet way, and was anxious and worried, as a kindly, gentle, tender-hearted woman must be when she notices one of her own sex give all the love of a passionate heart ...
— The Imaginary Marriage • Henry St. John Cooper

... requite him for his captivity and his faithful service by giving him his sweetheart to wife, he would presently turn friar and serve no master but God. This, however, his companion could not believe, perceiving in him no token of devotion, unless it were that which he ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. III. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre

... would have crushed out my love and given her to Frank, had there been any practicable way; how, knowing that the only chance for happiness to both was in mutual love, I had determined to gain hers by every act of devotion; how I sought to give her the only relation to Frank she could properly bear—his benefactress. I told her of my secret studies, designed to fit me for companionship with her; of my withdrawing with her into the wilderness, that ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I. February, 1862, No. II. - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... helpless and find no stay. For this reason the merriest of all children are those, much pitied, who are brought up neither in a family nor in a public home by paid guardians, but in a place of charity, rightly named, where impartial, unalterable, and impersonal devotion has them in hand. They endure an immeasurable loss, and are orphans, but they gain in perpetual gaiety; they live in an unchanging temperature. The separate nest is nature's, and the best; but it might be wished that ...
— The Children • Alice Meynell

... heavens! Sir Miles turned pale when he saw his nephew coming. Lady Warrington prayed for him as a dangerous reprobate; and, in the meantime, George was walking the town, quite unconscious that he was occasioning so much wrath and so much devotion. He took little Miley to the play and brought him back again. He sent tickets to his aunt and cousins which they could not refuse, you know; it would look too marked were they to break altogether. So they not only took the tickets, but whenever ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray

... beauty and sublimity of the Psalms. I was amazed at the depth and vastness of the wisdom of the Book of Proverbs. I was pleased with the stern fidelity with which the prophets rebuked the vices and the crimes, the selfishness and cruelty, of the sinners of their days, and the tenderness and devotion with which they pleaded the cause of the poor, the fatherless, and the widow. When I came to the Gospels, and read again the wonderful story of the Man of Nazareth, my whole soul gave way. The beauty, the tenderness, the glory of His character overpowered me. I was ashamed, ...
— Modern Skepticism: A Journey Through the Land of Doubt and Back Again - A Life Story • Joseph Barker

... that Sir Patrick Home lay hid in the vault, it was not only by collecting food for him by day, and by taking it to him by night, that his young daughter gave proof of her devotion. In a room of which Grisell kept the key, on the ground floor at Redbraes Castle, she and Jamie Winter worked in the small hours, making a hiding-place for the fugitive. Underneath a bed which drew out they lifted up the boards, ...
— Stories of the Border Marches • John Lang and Jean Lang

... impressed itself upon the rapt features, actually breaking through the shackles of time before the prisoner was emancipated from its fetters. And those brief intervals of rapture which are sometimes experienced in the midst of earnest and ardent devotion—what are they but eternity thus manifesting itself through time in the soul? Those who have been rescued from the very jaws of death, frequently tell us that the moment preceding insensibility was crowded and filled ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 1, July, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... the other's search by pointing with a much-chewed cigarette. It was at this moment that Nature's smile was shut off as if by a tap. For the lady in the pink skirt had been in receipt of Mr. Coston's respectful devotion ...
— Psmith, Journalist • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse

... which comprehends and brings into action all the higher qualities of our being, and enlarges all our capacities for happiness. God and nature, so to speak, had gifted her mind with extraordinary feeling and intellect, and her person with unusual grace and beauty; yet, here, by this act of self-devotion to her father, she renounced all that the human heart with such strong claims upon the legitimate enjoyments of life could expect, and voluntarily entered into a destiny of suffering and misery. She reflected ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton

... this statue, which betokened their homage, they transmitted with much show of worship to Byzantium, fettering even the effigied arms with a serried mass of bracelets. Odin was overjoyed at such notoriety, and greeted warmly the devotion of the senders. But his queen Frigga, desiring to go forth more beautified, called smiths, and had the gold stripped from the statue. Odin hanged them, and mounted the statue upon a pedestal, which by the marvellous skill of his art he made to speak when ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")

... Let us see if I am. I accuse her of nothing but a slavish devotion to custom and the conventions. What did she say when you read her the chapter before this one: where Fidelia goes down to the dining-room at midnight and finds Fleming breaking into the silver-safe where ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde

... than even the Hindus. But still they have left many memorials behind them, and, amongst others, their cemeteries. The Mussulman fidelity to the dead is a very touching feature of their character. Their devotion to those that are gone is always more demonstrative than their affection for the living members of their families, and almost entirely concentrates itself on their last abodes. In proportion as their notions of paradise are coarse and material, the appearance ...
— From the Caves and Jungles of Hindostan • Helena Pretrovna Blavatsky

... believed with all his mind, heart, and soul, that it was his religious, moral, and social duty to espouse what he called his country's cause; and he had done so with all his influence and his fortune. He had even gone so far in his devotion to his duty as he understood it, as to attempt to hand over the Bellevite, though she was not in Mobile Bay on a warlike mission, to the new government of the South, and had taken part personally in an expedition extended to ...
— A Victorious Union - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray—Afloat • Oliver Optic

... girls looked at each other; their eyes sparkled already with a fearful joy,—they drew a long breath of guilty anticipation. For a moment Susy even believed in her imaginary sketch of Pedro's devotion. ...
— Susy, A Story of the Plains • Bret Harte

... the independence and the dignity of the Church. But the inhabitants of Bologna or Viterbo, of Terracina or Ancona, are more occupied with national than with religious interests, either because they want that feeling of self-devotion recommended by M. Thiers, or because the government of the priests has given them a horror of Heaven. Very middling Catholics, but excellent citizens, they everywhere demand the freedom of their country. The Bolognese affirm ...
— The Roman Question • Edmond About

... sarcasm was absorbed in a moment in the sacredness of his office; and with a solemnity befitting the highest occasion, he placed his hands together before his breast, and raising his eyes to Heaven he poured forth his sweet voice, with a tone of the deepest devotion, in that reverential ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover

... easily read the heart, was not mistaken there; the painter had in his wife's brother a friend of self-sacrificing devotion. He could exact anything of the Mameluke, or, rather, of that slave, for it was the blood of the slaves, of his ancestors, which manifested itself in Chapron by so total an absorption of his personality. The atavism of servitude has these two effects which are ...
— Cosmopolis, Complete • Paul Bourget

... scratching his chin; he looked very much as if he doubted the accuracy of the doctor's prediction. He had already had some experience of the implacable devotion of the Moslem group to this treasure of ...
— The Quest of the Sacred Slipper • Sax Rohmer

... Legion of Honor, and member of the General Council. During the whole time the Empire was in the ascendancy he remained the chief of the well-disposed Opposition, merely in order to command a higher value for his devotion when he should rally to the cause which he meanwhile opposed with "courteous weapons," ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant

... point out an enterprise the execution of which reflects higher credit upon the address and daring conduct of its authors, than this does upon Logan and his two companions. Indeed a spirit even less indomitable, a sense of honor less acute, and a patriotic devotion to a good cause less active, than were manifested by this gallant chieftain of the woods, might, under other circumstances, have well ...
— Life of Tecumseh, and of His Brother the Prophet - With a Historical Sketch of the Shawanoe Indians • Benjamin Drake

... period of which we have any knowledge, music has been employed in the public worship of Christian communities. Its purposes are, to afford to the devotion of the worshippers a means of expression more subtile than even human speech, to increase that devotion, and to add additional lustre and solemnity to the outward service offered to God. Music has a wonderful ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 6, No. 1, July, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various

... towards Festus and Michal, with their happy Aennchen and Aureole in the quiet home at Einsiedeln, remains to Paracelsus; there is in it now more than a touch of "the devotion to something afar from the sphere of ...
— Robert Browning • Edward Dowden

... do not find that the French consider the marshals men of singular talents. Most of them reached their high stations on account of their cleverness in some particular branch of their duties, and by their strong devotion, in the earlier parts of their career, to their master. Marechal Soult has a reputation for skill in managing the civil detail of service. As a soldier, he is also distinguished for manoeuvring in the face of his enemy, and under fire. Some such excitement appears ...
— Recollections of Europe • J. Fenimore Cooper

... who ran the farm. And on more extended walks he had felt once more, as he had so often in these long years, the charm of the village people near him, with their friendly manners, their patient devotion to work, and their childlike enjoyment of ...
— Roads from Rome • Anne C. E. Allinson

... Years, long years afterwards, when he was an old, old man he started to climb Fuji as usual. Another bird told my father, however, that that year he never reached the top; but that Tsuki, touched with his devotion to her, had come with her maidens one night as he slept on the mountain side, and, wrapping him in their feathery mantles, had carried him, smiling in his sleep, to their ...
— More Tales in the Land of Nursery Rhyme • Ada M. Marzials

... express to the friend who has honoured me by the dedication of his recently published lectures on 'Older England;' and whose eager enthusiasm and far collected learning have enabled me for the first time to assign their just meaning and value to the ritual and imagery of Saxon devotion. But while every page of Mr. Hodgett's book, and, I may gratefully say also, every sentence of his teaching, has increased and justified the respect in which I have always been by my own feeling disposed to hold the mythologies ...
— The Pleasures of England - Lectures given in Oxford • John Ruskin

... as I am," and then try to prove that the one who made charges against the other is not altogether holy, because he is alleged to have confessed to passing the night in a room with a female church member, in silent devotion, when he swears it is a lie,—that he only ...
— Peck's Sunshine - Being a Collection of Articles Written for Peck's Sun, - Milwaukee, Wis. - 1882 • George W. Peck

... very air feels rank with mystery. Whatever may be the cause, I never felt more i' the mood for an hour of devotion ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby

... she began, "because I want you both to hear my answer before I inform the agent. The land only was mine, and but for your love and devotion to the colonel would still be a wild hill. The coal, therefore, belongs to him. Go and tell the Englishman I accept his offer. The land and all the coal ...
— Colonel Carter of Cartersville • F. Hopkinson Smith

... the home with one thought filling his mind—the regiment. It had got to justify all Oakley's devotion; it had got somehow to make amends to him, even if he never was to know of it, for this last unfair stroke of destiny. Luttrell walked across London, dwelling upon the qualities of individual men in the ...
— The Summons • A.E.W. Mason

... There never was error so fatal: the larger the brain, the larger should be the reservoir from which to draw vitality. Were Seneca alive now, he would write no such letter as he once wrote to Lucilius, protesting against the ridiculous devotion of his countrymen to physical gymnastics. "To be wise is to be well," was the gospel he went about preaching. "To be well is to be wise," would answer much better as the modern article of faith. The utmost ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 104, June, 1866 • Various

... many years before by her father, with a cabinet picture of Mater Dolorosa, which now hung over it. Both were invaluable, not only on account of their artistic excellence and age, but as mementos of her father, and incentives to devotion. Thither she now went to offer the first fruits of the day to heaven in mingled thanksgiving and prayer. Almost numbed with the intense cold, she felt inclined to abridge her devotions, but she remembered the cold, dreary journey of the holy family from Nazareth to Bethlehem—the ruggedness of ...
— May Brooke • Anna H. Dorsey

... stream; but so soon as they perceived that the Tetons had withdrawn, they fell back to a man, leaving the young chief to the support of his own often-tried skill and well-established courage. The instructions of Hard-Heart, on quitting his band, had been worthy of the self-devotion and daring of his character. So long as single warriors came against him, he was to be left to the keeping of the Wahcondah and his own arm; but should the Siouxes attack him in numbers, he was to be sustained, man for man, even to the ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper

... of cities did you pass The time [1] of early youth; and there you learned, From years of quiet industry, to love The living Beings by your own fire-side, With such a strong devotion, that your heart 5 Is slow to meet [2] the sympathies of them Who look upon the hills with tenderness, And make dear friendships with the streams and groves. Yet we, who are transgressors in this kind, Dwelling retired in our simplicity 10 Among the woods and fields, we love you well, Joanna! and ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. II. • William Wordsworth

... the cement and prerogative of all other friendships: in a world to come, but no where else, such attachments must receive their full completion.' . . . PROFESSOR GOURAUD, well known among us for his devotion to the interests of art and science, has perfected a System of Remembrance, which he designates by the term 'Mnemotechny,' and which we venture to predict will prove of the greatest service to nearly every class of society. No system of modern ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, January 1844 - Volume 23, Number 1 • Various

... information are taken from the same work: The colossal statue of St. Christopher is no longer in the church of Notre-Dame; "He was, without doubt, the greatest Saint Christopher in all France. This ridiculous monument of the taste and devotion of our ancestors has ...
— A Trip to Paris in July and August 1792 • Richard Twiss

... the pious chronicle, writ of old By Brahman sage; but we, who happier, live Under the holiest dispensation, know That God is Love, and not to be adored By a devotion born of stoic pride, Or with ascetic rites, or penance hard, But with a love, in character akin To His unselfish, all-including love. And therefore little can we sympathize With what the Brahman sage ...
— Ancient Ballads and Legends of Hindustan • Toru Dutt

... dwelling or elaborate adornment of their abode; becoming gradually more and more specialised in function, yet gaining thereby no more real protective care for their worshippers—a cold and heartless hierarchy, ready to exact their due, but incapable of inspiring devotion or enthusiasm. Let us ask next how the Romans conceived of their own relations ...
— The Religion of Ancient Rome • Cyril Bailey

... out this morning to find a faithful, old family servant, whose devotion has never before been questioned; but evidently I have wasted my confidence as well as my time. Where is Dyce? She is worth a ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson

... concession and rebellion. He strongly urged his convictions on the Government, and the Government had the wisdom to yield. The patent was withdrawn, a pension was given to Wood in consideration of the loss he had sustained, and Swift was the object of universal gratitude, enthusiasm, love, and devotion, on the part of the Irish nation. Many a patriotic Irishman would fain believe to this very day that Swift, too, was Irish, and an Irish patriot. Ireland certainly has not yet forgotten, probably never will forget, the successful stand made by Swift against what he believed ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume I (of 4) • Justin McCarthy

... transported about the time when the virulence of the epidemic began to abate. My father had himself suffered from an attack of the disease, probably incurred whilst visiting, with quiet but unstinted devotion, the sick, and I also had had a very slight touch of it. The fine air of Whitley and the sunny hours spent on the lonely sands did wonders for us all; and when we returned home it was to find Newcastle ...
— Memoirs of Sir Wemyss Reid 1842-1885 • Stuart J. Reid, ed.

... presented to their consciousness, they would be indignant. It has for them no connexion with conduct; it is purely aesthetic, but art means to them make-believe, the make-believe that they live an entirely frivolous life of pleasure provided for them by masculine power and devotion. ...
— Essays on Art • A. Clutton-Brock

... number of secretory organs. Unrestrained selfishness, while it naturally conserves the individual interests, in its ultimate tendencies, is the very essence of human depravity. Without qualification, clearly, it is crime, for blind devotion to the individual must be in utter disregard for the good of others. The ultimate tendencies of these ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce

... Clayton. He had begun it a few days before to use on the occasion of Clayton's renomination. It had been a labor of love, and Kittrell suddenly realized how good it was. He had put into it all of his belief in Clayton, all of his devotion to the cause for which Clayton toiled and sacrificed, and in the simple lines he experienced the artist's ineffable felicity; he had shown how good, how noble, how true a man Clayton was. All at once he realized the sensation the cartoon would produce, how it would delight ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various

... crept by, during which the Saracen lord brooded over the valley and the monk Joseph went his simple way, rendering service where he could, preaching, by the example of his daily life and his unselfish devotion, a sermon more powerful than his lips could utter. Through it all the Moor watched him carefully, safeguarding him as a provident farmer fattens a sheep for the slaughter. Once a year the father rode southward to Cordova, ...
— Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories • Rex Beach

... a new groping; but the false prophet Mahomet has contriv'd matters well for his successors; for as the Grand Signior has now a great many fine women, he will then have as many fine young gentelmen, at his devotion. ...
— The Bickerstaff-Partridge Papers • Jonathan Swift

... also that their isolation is an experiment of doubtful success. Condemned criminals ought to be in religious institutions, surrounded by prodigies of Good, instead of being cast as they are into sight and knowledge of Evil only. The Church can be expected to show an absolute devotion in this matter. If it sends missionaries to heathen or savage nations, with how much greater joy would it welcome the mission of redeeming the heathen of civilization? for all criminals are atheists, and often without knowing ...
— The Brotherhood of Consolation • Honore de Balzac

... sorcerer, the hope that the old man and the child, the wise and the ignorant, took from their souls as inborn. Man and fiend had alike failed a mind, not ignoble, not skill-less, not abjectly craven; alike failed a heart not feeble and selfish, not dead to the hero's devotion, willing to shed every drop of its blood for a something more dear than an animal's life for itself! What remained—what remained for man's hope?—man's mind and man's heart thus exhausting their all with no other result but despair! What remained but the mystery of mysteries, so ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.

... hours were passed in devotion, and in affectionate intercourse with some members of his family. He professed no repentance on account of his last enterprise, but bewailed, with great emotion, his former compliance in spiritual things with ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... better to effect the object of his mission. There was something touching in the zeal of this devoted padre in his work amongst the tribe, and the recognition of the government had come as a fitting climax to his work and devotion. ...
— The Log of a Cowboy - A Narrative of the Old Trail Days • Andy Adams

... He who with devotion recites this highest secret of immortality before an assembly of Brahmanas (pious men) or at the time of Shraddha (funeral ceremonies), gains everlasting ...
— The Upanishads • Swami Paramananda

... element. He is no ascetic or exclusive ecclesiastic; he is no diplomat or intriguant, but rather a simple, kindly man, of a simplicity totally unprecedented in the annals of the Palazzo Vaticano. Instead of clinging with unswerving intensity of devotion to the idea of the restoration of the temporal power of the church, Pope Pius X would not be disinclined to the uniting of church and state as in England; the Vatican to remain, like the See of Canterbury, the acknowledged ...
— Italy, the Magic Land • Lilian Whiting

... called tierce, the sexte, the none, vespers, and the compline, at nine in the morning, at noon, at three in the afternoon, at six in the evening and before eight. These services broke in on his favourite studies; and, possessing more talent than devotion, while engaged in them he thought more of his studies than of them. Patrick, therefore, refused to take the ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland Volume 17 • Alexander Leighton

... for the Hearticulturist in August. If the Gossip Weed and Scandalwood have been kept in check, the young Heart Gardener will have ample time to enjoy the feast of color and sweetness that his labor and devotion have ...
— Cupid's Almanac and Guide to Hearticulture for This Year and Next • John Cecil Clay

... wayward haughtiness, in his bearing; but now the whole man was changed,—the Mentor had vanished in the Lover; he held his being on her breath. Her lightest pleasure seemed to have grown his law, no coldness ever alternated the deep devotion of his manner; an anxious, a timid, a watchful softness replaced all his stately self-possession. Evelyn saw that she was loved; and she then looked into ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Book VIII • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... sweeter in this world than the guileless, hot-headed, intemperate, open admiration of a junior. Even a woman in her blindest devotion does not fall into the gait of the man she adores, tilt her bonnet to the angle at which he wears his hat, or interlard her speech with his pet oaths. And Charlie did all these things. Still it was necessary to salve my conscience ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling

... of the finest of her Youth to uphold the Cause of Right, but she has given no one of more splendid promise than he, whose service was an example of devotion to duty, of readiness for action, and of ...
— Night Bombing with the Bedouins • Robert Henry Reece

... I am glad of that," exclaimed Maria Dolores. "It is a most beautiful order. They have an especial devotion to Our Lady ...
— My Friend Prospero • Henry Harland

... dark story of her treason. This book must stir the patriotism and Christian enthusiasm of every one who reads it. It ought to lead us to make genuine sacrifices to show our appreciation of their supreme devotion to the country by sending to this Mountain Work, opened by the A.M.A., generously of men ...
— American Missionary, Volume 43, No. 3, March, 1889 • Various

... this devotion to a wise care of his kingdom was about all this young man could stand, and he went back to his dissolute ways, and the bad blood of ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls, Vol. XII, Jan. 3, 1891 • Various

... to the holy law of Christ. All his spare time was devoted to prayer, and he approached very frequently the holy sacraments. In that of the blessed Eucharist he began to find a wonderful relish and devotion, and he spent some hours in preparing himself to receive it with the utmost purity of heart and fervor of love he was able to bring to that divine banquet. In the commerce of the world he appeared so much out of his element, that he was sent ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler

... that curious phenomena on which I dwelt in the last chapter, the superstitious attachment of citizens to the civil power, to awe of, and devotion to, the monarch, was exaggerated in England ...
— Europe and the Faith - "Sine auctoritate nulla vita" • Hilaire Belloc

... Mrs Rimbolt could not resist the gratification of seeing honour done to her guest by the object of his devotion; a project which was the more easy of accomplishment as Mr Rimbolt was from home on that ...
— A Dog with a Bad Name • Talbot Baines Reed

... Lord and Creator of the world. "Every thing," says be, "appears to be the object of a religious worship."—(A Voyage to North America, by Father Charlevoix, vol. ii. 107.) Heckewelder affirms, that "Habitual devotion to the Great First Cause, and a strong, feeling of gratitude for the benefits which He confers, is one of the prominent traits which characterise the mind of the untutored Indian."—(Heck. Hist. Ace. p. 84.) Loskiel says, (History of the ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 1 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones

... a little carpet laid down like those we have to kneel upon when we say our prayers, and a comely young man sat on this carpet reading with great devotion the Koraun, which lay before him on a desk. At this sight I was transported with admiration. I wondered how it came to pass that he should be the only living creature in a town where all the people were turned into stones, and I did not doubt but there was ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous

... to the well-known piety of O'Connell, the preacher said: "What more moving spectacle than to see the greatest man in the United Kingdom—to see him, who was the object of Ireland's devotion, of England's fear, and of the world's admiration, kneeling with the people before the altar, practicing the piety of the people, with that humble simplicity, that recollection, that devoutness, and that modesty, which supercilious science and stolid pride abandon as ...
— Pius IX. And His Time • The Rev. AEneas MacDonell

... interested him. As a speculation in moral obligation, he adopted Peter Castle's orphan, who turned to him in a passion of gratitude and blind devotion. And as she bade fair to rival her dead mother in beauty, and as rich men marry beauty when it is in the market, the Hon. John Garcide decided to control the child's future. A promise at ten years is quickly made, ...
— A Young Man in a Hurry - and Other Short Stories • Robert W. Chambers

... Sophia comprehended the length and the seriousness of her illness, and the immense devotion of the two women, and the terrific disturbance of their lives, and her own debility. She saw that the women were strongly attached to her, and she could not understand why, as she had never done anything for them, whereas they had done everything for her. She had not learnt that benefits ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett

... ways, but on a higher plane. Love of truth, mastery over passion, control of the senses, disinterested self-sacrifice, mercy and kindness to all creatures, desire to help the distressed, forgiveness, faith in a Supreme Being and devotion; all these are the expressions of that higher moral and spiritual nature. They cannot be explained as developed from animal nature by means of the struggle for material existence. For these qualities are not to be found in lower animals, although the struggle for existence is there. The ...
— Reincarnation • Swami Abhedananda

... me, as you believed. This house, which is built so nearly like the old hacienda where I was born, must have been planned for me. But, afterwards, when he thought I had failed him, when he contrasted me with Mrs. Barbour, her devotion to her husband, it ...
— The Rim of the Desert • Ada Woodruff Anderson

... leaving Mary a widow. On Jesus, as the eldest son, the care of the mother now rested. Knowing the deep love of his heart and his wondrous gentleness, it is easy for us to understand with what unselfish devotion he cared for his mother after she was widowed. He had learned the carpenter's trade; and day after day, early and late, he wrought with his hands to provide for her wants. Very sacred must have been the friendship of mother and son in those days. Her gentleness, quietness, hopefulness, ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller

... Long live they all! until he absolutely wept with sentiment. During the whole of this scene, which lasted some three hours, he had plenty of shouting and weeping and sentimental company, and throughout Defarge held him by the collar, as if to restrain him from flying at the objects of his brief devotion and tearing them ...
— A Tale of Two Cities - A Story of the French Revolution • Charles Dickens

... France always took place on a Sunday. On the previous day, at the conclusion of evening prayers, the custody of the cathedral devolved upon certain royal officers, assisted by the ordinary officials. During the evening the monarch came to the church for devotion, and "according to his religions feelings, to pass part of the night in prayer," an act which was called la veillee des armes. A large platform, surmounted by a throne, was erected between the chancel and the great nave. Upon this assembled, ...
— Manners, Custom and Dress During the Middle Ages and During the Renaissance Period • Paul Lacroix

... sensibility which is rarely absent from the nature of the literary artist. Certain it is that practice in verse has always been recognised as the best of all preparation for work in prose, and no doubt much of Mr. Ruskin's success as prose-producer has been owing to his early devotion ...
— By-ways in Book-land - Short Essays on Literary Subjects • William Davenport Adams



Words linked to "Devotion" :   Stations of the Cross, lordolatry, Bible-worship, devotedness, bhakti, dedication, novena, woman-worship, commitment, gyneolatry, allegiance, worship, thaumatolatry, miracle-worship, prayer, plural form, symbol-worship, gynaeolatry, symbololatry, worship of man, topolatry, plural, loyalty, anthropolatry, party spirit, grammatolatry, devote, symbolatry, supplication, fetish, verbolatry, Stations, hobbyism, place-worship, bibliolatry, fetich, word-worship, love



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