"Coffin" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... let it be to freeze to the American Eagle, and with a firm determination to make him your own beloved bird! When you work, be sure that you get the worth of your work! No chains and slavery, anything like them! And especially no nonsense about being sent back in your coffin to the Central Flowery Kingdom. A country which is good enough to live in, is good enough ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 17, July 23, 1870 • Various
... Antone found him stiff, frozen fast in a pool of blood. They could not straighten him out enough to fit a coffin, so they buried him in a pine box. Before the funeral Antone carried to town the fiddle-bow which Peter had forgotten to break. Antone was very thrifty, and a better man than his ...
— A Collection of Stories, Reviews and Essays • Willa Cather
... smiling at her, teasingly, "but then the reasons you gave were ridiculous, Louise; you had dreams, and a coffin in a teacup. Come, come; it is not so bad as you fear, despite the prophetic tea grounds; there is always a way out if you look for ...
— The Bondwoman • Marah Ellis Ryan
... encouragement He has given me to be virtuous and sober! Much I have for which to praise His holy name! Arbitrarily, without excuse, or faintest show of antecedent reason, He has elected to curse. And the curse will cling forever and ever, till they lay me in a coffin nearly half as short again as that of any other man, and leave the hideousness of my deformity to be obliterated and purged at last—eaten away by the worms in ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... to fix the crime flickered out in the face of opposition, and in the end he bowed his head to the inevitable "open verdict." Then the floodgates of inkland were opened, and the deluge pattered for nine days on the deaf coffin where the poor idealist mouldered. The tongues of the Press were loosened, and the leader-writers revelled in recapitulating the circumstances of "The Big Bow Mystery," though they could contribute nothing but adjectives to the solution. The papers ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... through my head, the predominant one being to go at once and wander about the world, till I should discover the fiend to whom the misery I now suffered was attributable. Before doing so, however, I must see my Natalie once more. I stepped up to the coffin. Natalie lay there in her nun's garments, a crucifix upon her breast, and a veil surrounding her face, which, to my inexpressible astonishment and horror, I now saw was covered ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 350, December 1844 • Various
... assembled in the metropolitan cathedral. In the presence of this august assemblage, a small vault was opened above the chancel, in the principal wall on the right side of the high altar. Within were found the fragments of a leaden coffin, a number of bones, and a quantity of mould, evidently the remains of a human body. These were carefully collected and put into a case of gilded lead, about half an ell in length and breadth, and a third in height, secured by an iron ...
— The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (Vol. II) • Washington Irving
... procession. The banners of England and France, Scotland and Ireland, were carried by great nobles before the corpse. The pall was borne by the chiefs of the illustrious houses of Howard, Seymour, Grey, and Stanley. On the gorgeous coffin of purple and gold were laid the crown and sceptre of the realm. The day was well suited to such a ceremony. The sky was dark and troubled; and a few ghastly flakes of snow fell on the black plumes of the funeral car. Within the Abbey, nave, choir and transept were in ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... fist crashed down upon the table. "Love!" he thundered. "Love! Do you want to make me sick? I tell you, sir, I would sooner see you in your coffin than married to a woman with whom you imagined yourself in love. Oh, I know what you have in your mind. I've known for a long time. You're caught in the toils of that stiff-necked, scheming Judy at the ...
— The Bars of Iron • Ethel May Dell
... Morgue," are very good reading for a boy who is not peculiarly intrepid. Many a bad hour they gave me, haunting me, especially, with a fear of being prematurely buried, and of waking up before breakfast to find myself in a coffin. Of all the books I devoured in that year, Poe is the only author whom I wish I had reserved for later consideration, and whom I cannot ...
— Adventures among Books • Andrew Lang
... village parlors, sometimes in the guest-chambers, when there had been many deaths in the family, hung the framed coffin-plates and faded funeral wreaths of departed dear ones. Now and then there was a wreath of wool flowers, a triumph of domestic art, which encircled the coffin-plate instead of the original funeral garland. Mrs. Jameson ...
— The Jamesons • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... nothing could have induced him to admit this to Georgina. As far back as he could remember he had had an unreasoning dread of coffins. Even now, big as he was, big enough to wear "'leven-year-old suits," nothing could tempt him into a furniture shop for fear of seeing a coffin. ...
— Georgina of the Rainbows • Annie Fellows Johnston
... third day, and Jenny was already in her coffin. The first bloom of death, that light that lingers awhile in the face like a sunset tranquil and blessed, a smile of immortal promise in the very moment of mortality, had faded. Jenny's face by this was really dead, a mask of drawn and sunken wax. She seemed now some fantastic ...
— The Romance of Zion Chapel [3d ed.] • Richard Le Gallienne
... and show of arms and promises, Captain Charles Clerke, who was now in command, induced the islanders to deliver the remnants of Cook's body. In an impressive silence, on Sunday the 21st of February 1779, the coffin containing the great commander's bones ...
— Pioneers of the Pacific Coast - A Chronicle of Sea Rovers and Fur Hunters • Agnes C. Laut
... the caitiff a toss that sent him reeling against the wall, and dashed up-stairs for the papers. All was darkness, and I nigh broke my neck over a coffin-shaped rough box made for one of the trappers, who had died in the fort. Why was the thing lying there, anyway? The man should have been put into it and buried at once without any drinking bout and dead wake, I reflected with some sharpness, as I rubbed my bruised ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... otherwise he might anger the spirit following the corpse and thereby cause himself and his family unending trouble. Unlike the Chinese, who treat their dead with the greatest respect and go to enormous expense in the burial, every Mongol knows that his coffin will be the stomachs of dogs, wolves, or birds. Indeed, the Chinese name for the raven ...
— Across Mongolian Plains - A Naturalist's Account of China's 'Great Northwest' • Roy Chapman Andrews
... had one before, and notice is given that that one will be open to the people on Sunday mornings. No, we are not marking time; we are forging ahead. Every park, every playground, every bath-house, is a nail in the coffin of the slum, and every big, beautiful schoolhouse, built for the people's use, not merely to lock the children up in during certain hours for which the teachers collect pay, is a pole rammed right ...
— The Battle with the Slum • Jacob A. Riis
... transports of gratulations, out of respect to the grief which dwelt there, and could scarcely, by all the arguments of family pride, or the excitement of this universal triumph, be brought to rejoice. The bier was set down within the chancel, the coffin opened, and opened also was the little window through which the nuns received the sacrament on ordinary occasions. To this little opening the pale group of nuns, ten of them, with Clara at their head, came marching ...
— Italy, the Magic Land • Lilian Whiting
... contrary, the condemned remains exposed during three days in a "chapelle ardente;" his coffin is continually before his eyes; the priests say the prayers for the dying; the bells of the church night and day ring a ...
— Mysteries of Paris, V3 • Eugene Sue
... seven feet high; and, altogether, they shone like a galaxy of stars. In the middle of the nave, moreover, there was another galaxy of wax candles burning around an immense pall of black velvet, embroidered with silver, which seemed to cover, not only a coffin, but a sarcophagus, or something still more huge. The organ was rumbling forth a deep, lugubrious bass, accompanied with heavy chanting of priests, out of which sometimes rose the clear, young voices ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... signed by Kingston, to the effect that he was quite satisfied with the action taken by the authorities. So ended this extraordinary episode, but I was told by a good many friends that I had driven a nail in my coffin as regarded the Commandantship. The appointment was practically in Kingston's hand. But those friends of mine did ...
— The Chronicles of a Gay Gordon • Jose Maria Gordon
... to make your acquaintance, Ma'am. [He writes] "Mrs. Lemmy, one of the veterans of industry——" By the way, I've jest passed a lot of people following a coffin. ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... fell upon my neck, weeping, and as mute as a fish. As soon as he came to his speech again he told me of the great miraculum (daemonis I mean) which had befallen at the burial of old Lizzie. For that, just as the bearers were about to lower the coffin into the grave, a noise was heard therein as though of a carpenter boring through a deal board; wherefore they thought the old hag must be come to life again, and opened the coffin. But there she lay as before, all black and blue in the face and as cold ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold
... this or some very similar way she perished with her two handmaidens. The eunuch, at the moment her body was taken up, presented himself voluntarily to the serpents, and after being bitten by them leaped into a coffin which had been prepared by him. Caesar on hearing of her demise was shocked, and both viewed her body and applied drugs to it and sent for Psylli,[71] in the hope that she might possibly revive. These Psylli, who are male, for there is no woman born in their tribe, ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol. III • Cassius Dio
... the coffins had been exhausted, and in many places the dead were taken to the graves and dropped in through the hinged bottom of a trap-coffin. ...
— The Reminiscences of an Irish Land Agent • S.M. Hussey
... Patriarch, undisturbed by the sufferings of his victims, was busy enriching himself. Gradually he got control of all the trades in the city; he even made himself chief undertaker and passed a law by which those who dared to bury their dead in a coffin not of his providing could be severely punished. That his coffins cost a small fortune was only to be expected. At the end of two years he had exhausted the patience of the Alexandrians, pagans and Christians alike. There was ...
— Saint Athanasius - The Father of Orthodoxy • F.A. [Frances Alice] Forbes
... cap in hand, and begging to sweep offices! No, by Napoleon! I would die at my chosen trade; and the two who had that day flouted me should live to envy my success, or to weep tears of unavailing penitence behind my pauper coffin. ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... age—perhaps thirty years. He was a small child when he came to London—he has become more English than the English themselves. His activity and industry are very great; he forms plans of such magnitude and numbers that they would compel his grandfather to turn in his coffin. I am in indifferent health. I live much at Homburg and Marienbad and at Cairo. Practically speaking, I have retired from business. There remain branches of our house—in several places—but the London house has become the centre of all things—and Robert has become the London house. This ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... uncanny form of premonition, or of foreseeing, is that in which a coffin is seen before the death of some member of the household. The following narrative is communicated to me by Mrs. Crofts, of 22, Blurton Road, Clapton. She is quite clear that she actually saw ...
— Real Ghost Stories • William T. Stead
... errand, and arrived, as I said before, at the very instant the corpse of this ill-fated young lady was being borne to the grave. He was stopped by the crowd occasioned by this solemn procession. He contemplates it for some time. He observes a long train of persons in mourning, and remarks the coffin to be covered with a white pall, and that there are chaplets of flowers laid upon the coffin. He inquires whose funeral it is. The answer he receives is, that it is the funeral of a young lady. Unfortunately for him, this reply fails to satisfy ...
— Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois, Complete • Marguerite de Valois, Queen of Navarre
... learn Fear. The beasts shall hunt him, the fires of the ground shall spoil his rest. He shall know hunger, and he shall breathe bad air. And all the while he shall remember that I have Nais near me, living and locked in her coffin of stone, to play with as I choose, and to give over to what insults may come to my fancy.' That is what she said, Deucalion. Now I ask you again will you go back to meet ...
— The Lost Continent • C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne
... vault of the noble Count van Valkenburg, whom your reverence buried three days ago. Fortunately the masons have not yet come to cement down the stone. If your Excellencies find it close, you can get air by standing upon the coffin of the noble Count." ...
— Lysbeth - A Tale Of The Dutch • H. Rider Haggard
... grave, which is the same as that occupied by Dr. Welsh's remains, lies in the centre of the ruined choir of the old cathedral at Haddington. In accordance with the Scottish practice, there was no service read, and Mr. Carlyle threw a handful of earth on the coffin after it had been lowered ...
— On the Choice of Books • Thomas Carlyle
... in motley clad, Wore such a visage, woeful, wan and sad, That some condoled with him as with a brother Who, having lost a wife, had got another. Others, mistaking his profession, often Approached him to be measured for a coffin. For years this highborn jester never broke The silence—he was pondering a joke. At last, one day, in cap-and-bells arrayed, He strode into the Council and displayed A long, bright smile, that glittered in the gloom Like a gilt epithet within a tomb. Posing his bauble like ...
— Shapes of Clay • Ambrose Bierce
... sound of deals; and they don't have deals inside a prison for anything else than scaffolds." But the noise, he said, did not disturb him in the least, as he was quite prepared to meet his fate. He would like to have seen his grave and coffin; he knew that his body would be treated with scant ceremony after his death. But what of that? By that time his soul would be in Heaven. He was pleased that one sinner who had seen him on his way from Pentonville to Sheffield, had written to tell him that the sight of the convict had brought ...
— A Book of Remarkable Criminals • H. B. Irving
... impressed upon it through a life; there is nothing vague any more, no abstract excellences to strain after; all is distinct, personal, palpable. It is no dream. The saint's bones are under the altar; nay, perhaps, his very form and features undissolved. Under some late abbot the coffin may have been opened and the body seen without mark or taint of decay. Such things have been, and the emaciation of a saint will account for it without a miracle. Daily some incident of his story is read aloud, ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude
... certain that nothing but a rattlesnake, or something of the kind, will ever turn them from their sinful ways, they are so hard-headed.' When returning home, and before I got out of the Sand Hill district, I saw a funeral, and thought I would fasten my horse to a post and attend. The coffin was carried in a common horse cart, and followed by fifteen or twenty persons very shabbily dressed, and attended by a man whom I took to be the religious man of the place. After the coffin had been placed near the grave, he spoke ...
— Clotel; or, The President's Daughter • William Wells Brown
... hands twitched nervously over the prayer-book that she held. Subject to apoplexy, Sommers judged; but his thoughts passed over her as well as Miss M'Gann, who stood with downcast eyes ostentatiously close to Mrs. Preston, and the grave old dentist standing at the foot of the coffin, and the clergyman whose young voice had not lost its thrill of awe in the presence of death. He had no eyes for aught but the woman, who was bound to him by firmer ties than those whose dissolution the clergyman was recording. She stood serene, ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... "The coffin will be plain, of course... and everything will be plain, so it won't cost much. Katerina Ivanovna and I have reckoned it all out, so that there will be enough left... and Katerina Ivanovna was very anxious it should be so. You know one can't... it's a comfort ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... room that the use of both had to be avoided): that she did not give her guests enough to eat at his funeral: that she actually sought the quiet of her own room instead of staying downstairs to receive condolences when her husband's coffin had just ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... time no workman could be found to make a coffin, and an old servant of the Ursulines, known as Bonhomme Michel, gathered a few boards and nailed them together so as to form a rough box. In it was laid the body of the dead soldier; and late in the evening ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... fellow was taken off, after a few days' illness, yesterday. The attack was one to which the negroes are very subject, arising from cold and exposure.... We went to his burial, which was a scene I shall not soon forget. His coffin was brought out into the open air, and the negroes from over the whole island assembled around it. One of their preachers (a slave like the rest) gave out the words of a hymn, which they all sang in unison; after which he made an exhortation, and bade us pray, and we all kneeled down ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... no vestige of any living thing in the miserable hovel, except the old fellow. On two low trestles, in the middle of the floor, lay a coffin with the lid on, on the top of which was stretched the dead body of an old emaciated woman in her graveclothes, the quality of which was much finer than one could have expected to have seen in the midst of the surrounding squalidness. ...
— Great Sea Stories • Various
... command me to look at these images? No doubt they represent the terrestrial life of the idolater whose body rests here, under my feet, at the bottom of a well, in a coffin of black basalt. They recall the life of a dead man, and are, despite their bright colours, the shadows of a shadow. The life of ...
— Thais • Anatole France
... wholly delighting in her company, to the great grief and indignation of his friends and followers. When she was dead, he did embrace her corpse, as Apollo did the bay-tree for his Daphne, and caused her coffin (richly embalmed and decked with jewels) to be carried about with him, over which he still lamented. At last a venerable bishop, that followed his court, prayed earnestly to God (commiserating his lord and master's case) to know the true cause of this mad passion, ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... bones scattered in the air. Even the glorious name of Turenne could not protect his grave from spoilation. His remains were almost undecayed, as when he received the fatal wound on the banks of the Lech. The bones of Charles V., the savior of his country, were dispersed. At his feet was found the coffin of the faithful Du Gueselin, and the French hands profaned the skeleton before which English invasion had rolled back. Most of these tombs were found to be strongly secured. Much time, and no small exertion of skill ...
— The Revelation Explained • F. Smith
... plainly enough," said Captain Marsham in a low voice, as if talking to himself. "These were the party of six left here to collect skins during the winter, to be fetched away the next season. One man died, and his kindly-hearted companions laboriously made that rough, wooden coffin, and dug a few inches into this icy rock for its reception. They covered it with these stones to guard it from wild beasts, and put up this elaborate timber with its three cross-pieces, cut in Russian characters as we see. Then another died, and his ...
— Steve Young • George Manville Fenn
... languid curiosity and half-an-hour to spare, we assented. A handsome young man appeared, who conducted us with decent gravity into a little darkened chamber behind the altar. There he lighted wax tapers, opened sliding doors in what looked like a long coffin, and drew curtains. Before us in the dim light there lay a woman covered with a black nun's dress. Only her hands, and the exquisitely beautiful pale contour of her face (forehead, nose, mouth, and chin, modelled in purest outline, as though the injury of death had never touched ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds
... them the dirge, the knell? These were the mourner's share,— The sullen clang, whose heavy swell Throbbed through the beating air; The rattling cord, the rolling stone, The shelving sand that slid, And, far beneath, with hollow tone Rung on the coffin's lid. ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... solid; the only thing you could see was the nasty bogy glimmer of the dead wood, and that showed you nothing but itself; and as for sounds, I stretched my ears till I thought I could have heard the match burn in the tunnel, and that bush was as silent as a coffin. Now and then there was a bit of a crack; but whether it was near or far, whether it was Case stubbing his toes within a few yards of me, or a tree breaking miles away, I knew no more than the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 17 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... did a view at that distance afford him. He must see her nearer ere he decided as to her merits to be a belle. He did not believe her face would at all compare with the one which continually haunted his dreams, and over which the coffin lid was shut weary months ago, but fifty thousand dollars had invested Miss Alice with that peculiar charm which will sometimes make an ugly face beautiful. The doctor was beginning to feel the need of funds, ...
— Bad Hugh • Mary Jane Holmes
... saw before me a corpse—not that of one who has died a peaceful, natural death, but that of the victim of some terrible accident; a ghastly, shapeless mass, with a face swollen, crushed, unrecognizable. I saw this dreadful object placed in a coffin, and the funeral service performed over it. I saw the burial-ground, I saw the clergyman: and though I had never seen either before, I can picture both perfectly in my mind's eye now; I saw you, myself, Beauchamp, all of us and many more, standing ...
— Clairvoyance and Occult Powers • Swami Panchadasi
... Coffin sent out two fine blood-horses, Barefoot and Serab by name, to Massachusetts, something before the time I am talking of. With them came a Yorkshire groom, a stocky little fellow, in velvet breeches, who made that mysterious hissing noise, traditionary in English stables, when ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... from their backs, who suffer them so to do without any resistance. In these they wrap the dead bodies, and cover them with two or three mats which the Indians make of rushes or cane; and, last of all, they have a long web of woven reeds or hollow canes, which is the coffin of the Indians, and is brought round several times and tied fast at both ends, which, indeed, looks very decent and well. Then the corps is brought out of the house into the orchard of peach trees, where another hurdle is made to ...
— Prehistoric Textile Art of Eastern United States • William Henry Holmes
... In front, in a little cart harnessed with one horse, and advancing at a walking pace, came the priest; beside him sat the deacon driving; behind the cart four peasants, bareheaded, carried the coffin, covered with a white cloth; two women followed the coffin. The shrill wailing voice of one of them suddenly reached my ears; I listened; she was intoning a dirge. Very dismal sounded this chanted, ...
— A Sportsman's Sketches - Works of Ivan Turgenev, Vol. I • Ivan Turgenev
... form is robed in the tiny shroud, and the dimpled hands crossed sweetly over the pulseless bosom. Gently he is placed in the coffin—it is a harder bed than he was wont to rest on, but he will feel it not. With unutterable anguish they follow him to the dark, cold grave; strange hands lower him into its gloomy depths, and the clods fall heavily upon ...
— Words of Cheer for the Tempted, the Toiling, and the Sorrowing • T. S. Arthur
... man up by the roots, and the root-soil of his faith crumbled and fell with the moulds upon her coffin. He went from her graveside back to the house and closed the door. Mrs. Wesley had urged him to return with the family to Epworth, and John, who had ridden from Oxford to preach the funeral sermon, shook him by the hand and added his persuasions. But the broken ...
— Hetty Wesley • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... out certain familiar objects in this unfamiliar scene. Her father's travelling rug lay folded on the red velvet sofa; his cap and gloves were there, just as he had flung them down; his violin, dumb in its black coffin-like case, stood propped up against the wall. Everywhere else (only gradually discerned) were things belonging to Madame, evidence of her supreme and intimate occupation of ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... of her own sorcery, because, so many times, that which she had seen had come true. Once, when a child was ill, she had gazed into the crystal and seen the little white coffin that, a week later, was carried out of the front door. Again, she had seen the vision of a wedding which was unexpectedly fulfilled later, when a passing cousin begged the hospitality of her house ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed
... child was missing). In the anguish of my heart I went to a French refugee who lived near, and who had sometimes visited us. I told him our sore need. At once with the friendliest kindness he gave me two pounds. With that we paid for the little coffin in which the poor child now sleeps peacefully. I had no cradle for her when she was born, and even the last small resting place was long denied her. What did we suffer when it was carried away to its last place ...
— Socialism - A Summary and Interpretation of Socialist Principles • John Spargo
... this pretty quick, but we had no railways or telegraphs then, and, ride as quick as you might, the soldiers could not get here before morning. The men from Aberdare were back here the same night, and marched straight for the Court of Requests, where they made poor Coffin, the clerk, give up every scrap of book or paper he had about the Court's business, and they made a bonfire of them in the middle of the street. Then they came over here, and swore we should all turn out ...
— Faces and Places • Henry William Lucy
... regarding his father's death. Peter's remains were exhumed—placed beside those of Catherine lying in state, to share all the honors of her obsequies and to be entombed with her; while Alexis Orlof, his supposed murderer, was compelled to march beside the coffin, bearing his crown. ...
— A Short History of Russia • Mary Platt Parmele
... burned, but the stone walls could not burn; they remained overgrown with creeper. Then, finally, old Wellington Monroe built a house into the walls for the young wife he was about to marry, but he went to the coffin instead of the bride-bed, and the house stood empty. It fell into the courts with the whole of Monroe's tangled business and finally Zindorf gets ...
— The Sleuth of St. James's Square • Melville Davisson Post
... which the good might have been proud, flashed through his mind. Who, at such moments, would recognize David White, the bold, dark, dangerous man? But thus it is; mirthful feelings will sometimes obtrude when the heavy clod is falling upon the coffin of a friend, and the grave closing over him forever; thoughts of the last agony, the bourne of death, and the curtained futurity, will sometimes come like a pall over our minds, when the dance is at its flush, and pleasure in its spring-time; ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 6 June 1848 • Various
... like an unused lock, or rusted like the hinges of an unopened door; and you are as little active in all the noblest activities of spirit, which are activities in submission to and dependence upon Him, as if you were laid in your coffin with your idle hands crossed for evermore upon ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren
... Spare your words. I know the seasons of our human grief, And can predict them without almanac. A few sobs o'er the body, and a few Over the coffin; then a sigh or two, Whose windy passage dries the hanging tear; Perchance, some wandering memories, some regrets; Then a vast influx of consoling thoughts— Based on the trials of the sadder days Which the dead missed; and then a smiling face Turned on to-morrow. Such is mortal grief. It writes ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911: Francesca da Rimini • George Henry Boker
... wanted to burn him at the stake, you still admired the aggravating coolness of him. And his winding-up was the coolest thing of all. For he told them how, at the funeral of our old King, the French King-at-Arms had broken his staff of office over the coffin of "Charles VI. and his dynasty," at the same time saying, in a loud voice, "Good grant long life to Henry, King of France and England, our sovereign lord!" and then he asked them to join him in a hearty Amen to that! The people ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... most beautiful floral tribute was an exact copy of the Steel Wheel Club's railroad cup, in Parma violets, with the inscription, woven of white violets, "Forgive us our Trespasses." Directly behind the coffin, the members of the club marched in a body, headed by their captain, Rod Blake, whose resignation had ...
— Cab and Caboose - The Story of a Railroad Boy • Kirk Munroe
... well; but her highest adornment was that of a meek and quiet spirit, which, in the sight of God, is of great price. When she died you all gathered lovingly about her; and as you carried her out to rest, the Sunday-school class almost covered the coffin with japonicas; and the poor people stood at the end of the alley, with their aprons to their eyes, sobbing bitterly, and the man of the world said, with Solomon: "Her price was above rubies;" and Jesus, as unto the maiden in Judea, commanded, ...
— New Tabernacle Sermons • Thomas De Witt Talmage
... rented, and more full-grown men stare into shoe-stores and shirt-emporiums without buying anything than in any other part of the world. Near the lower end of this quaint avenue rises the Post-Office, sending aloft a wooden steeple which is the coffin of a dead clock, and looking, altogether, like some good, old-fashioned country church, which, having come to town many years ago to see its city cousins, and been discouraged by their brown-stone airs, retired, much demoralized, into a shady by-way, and there fell from ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 16, July 16, 1870 • Various
... pontifical ornaments, was carried on the shoulders of priests through the different religious edifices of Quebec before being interred. All the churches of the country celebrated solemn services for the repose of the soul of the first Bishop of New France. Placed in a leaden coffin, the revered remains were sepulchred in the vaults of the cathedral, but the heart of Mgr. de Laval was piously kept in the chapel of the seminary, and later, in 1752, was transported into the new chapel of this house. The funeral orations were pronounced, ...
— The Makers of Canada: Bishop Laval • A. Leblond de Brumath
... royal city on account of the synod then held at Chalcedon, they say to them, 'We hear that there is in Jerusalem the first and famous Church of Mary, mother of God and ever Virgin, in the garden called Gethsemane, where her body which bore the Life was deposited in a coffin. We wish, therefore, her relics to be brought here for the protection of this royal city. But Juvenal answered, 'In the holy and divinely inspired Scripture, indeed, nothing is recorded of the departure ...
— Primitive Christian Worship • James Endell Tyler
... there any attempt at funereal pomp. From the dean's side door, across the vaulted passage, and into the transept,—over the little step upon which he had so nearly fallen when last he made his way out of the building,—the coffin was carried on men's shoulders. It was but a short journey from his bedroom to his grave. But the bell had been tolling sadly all the morning, and the nave and the aisles and the transepts, close up to the door leading from the transept into ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope
... was halted before the inclosure, and rejecting the offers of assistance with the same air of simple self-reliance he had displayed throughout, Tennessee's Partner lifted the rough coffin on his back, and deposited it unaided within the shallow grave. He then nailed down the board which served as a lid, and mounting the little mound of earth beside it, took off his hat and slowly mopped his face with his handkerchief. This the crowd felt was ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... deep sleep, and is placed by a magician in a glass coffin. A glass mountain is prepared, on which the coffin is fixed. Up the glass mountain the successful suitor must ride when seven years and seven days have expired, when the princess will awake and ...
— The Hero of Esthonia and Other Studies in the Romantic Literature of That Country • William Forsell Kirby
... her marriage was the impassable barrier, a barrier as enfranchisable as the brown earth on a coffin lid. ...
— Prisoners - Fast Bound In Misery And Iron • Mary Cholmondeley
... nearer and nearer. Hawbury turned once more, and saw two men entering the room, carrying between them a box about six feet long and eighteen inches or two feet wide. It was coarsely but strongly made, and was undoubtedly intended as a coffin for the corpse of the brigand. The men put the coffin down against the wall and retired. After a few minutes they returned again with the coffin lid. They then lifted the dead body into the coffin, and one of them put the lid in its place and secured it with half a dozen screws. After this ...
— The American Baron • James De Mille
... the table though it was broad daylight, the bells were tolling though nobody was sick, the coffin had also been made ready though nobody ...
— The Day of Wrath • Maurus Jokai
... the lad did not, however, delight Mr. Osborne's friends so much as they pleased the old gentleman. It gave Mr. Justice Coffin no pleasure to hear Georgy cut into the conversation and spoil his stories. Colonel Fogey was not interested in seeing the little boy half tipsy. Mr. Sergeant Toffy's lady felt no particular gratitude, when, ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... take nearly anything from each other. The only thing that cheered Rees up as he was wheeled away was the voice of Pinker crying, "Jer want white flowers on yer coffin? We'll ...
— A Diary Without Dates • Enid Bagnold
... and see nothing but years of disaster and bloodshed in store for me. Prussia must not make peace with Napoleon; she must not, in hypocritical friendship, give her hand to him who is her mortal enemy. She must remain faithful to the alliance which her king has sworn on the coffin of Frederick the Great to maintain; and France will resent this constancy as though it were a crime. But, in spite of her anger, we must not recede; we must advance on our path if we do not wish to lose also our honor, and if history is not to mention ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach
... and the audience remained standing for a few moments in silent prayer. A large wreath of violets and Southern ivy, adorned with miniatures of Mrs. Stanton, Miss Anthony and other pioneer suffrage workers was sent by the delegates to be laid on her coffin. ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... in the church at the funeral service. She sat at the inner end of the pew with Hilda beside her. The coffin had stood before the altar all night, with the lamps lit all night, and Rosalie believed her father had stayed with it all night. He was struck right down by what had happened, Rosalie's father. She had heard him, when Anna lay on the bed, and ...
— This Freedom • A. S. M. Hutchinson
... fortress wall, Virgil conducts Dante to an open sepulchre, where lies the Ghibelline leader Farinata. Partly rising out of his glowing tomb, this warrior informs Dante that the Guelfs—twice driven out of Florence—have returned thither. At that moment another victim, peering over the edge of his coffin, anxiously begs for news of his son Guido, thus proving that, while these unfortunates know both past and future, the present remains a mystery to them. Too amazed at first to speak, Dante mentions Guido in the past tense, whereupon ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber
... Kings of Italy, which the Austrians had taken away in 1859, was brought back and restored to the Cathedral of Monza. Less presumptuous than Napoleon, Victor Emmanuel never placed the mystical fillet upon his head, but it was carried after his coffin ...
— The Liberation of Italy • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... with witches and warlocks." He went on to tell a little story about a gude man who was returning to his cottage one night, when, in a lonely out-of-the-way place, he met with a funeral procession of cats all in mourning, bearing one of their race to the grave in a coffin covered with a black velvet pall. The worthy man, astonished and half-frightened at so strange a pageant, hastened home and told what he had seen to his wife and children. Scarce had he finished, when a great black cat that sat beside the fire raised himself up, ...
— Abbotsford and Newstead Abbey • Washington Irving
... screwing tight the door of the engine-room, in order to safeguard the fireman in attendance on the donkey-boiler. Now that the screw-driving was actually in operation, it very unpleasantly reminded Courtenay of the fastening of a coffin lid. Neither Walker nor the man inside could guess the gruesome notion which held the captain in its chilly grip for an instant; indeed, the engineer looked ...
— The Captain of the Kansas • Louis Tracy
... made an oration in which he praised the departed statesman and scientist, referring to him constantly as "our countryman." When he had finished, Jonas Lie, without anybody's invitation, stepped quietly up to the coffin and in the name of Norway bade his countryman a last farewell. "The spirit came over Lie," says his biographer, "and he ...
— Essays on Scandinavian Literature • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... about? He would have to arrange for the funeral. And the money. He did not know whether there would be money enough. It was hideous—to think of a thing like that—to have to go into a shop and say to some bored shopkeeper: "I want a nice cheap coffin, please." For Christine—for whom he had never been able to buy so much as ...
— The Dark House • I. A. R. Wylie
... I'm doing an errand, Anne, for your father. If this boat is taken and I am made a prisoner, you are to say that you want to go to Newburyport. That and no more. Mayhap they'll set you ashore there. Then make your way to Squire Coffin's house as best you may. Give him the packet. Tell him the story, and he'll find a way to reach your father. Do ...
— A Little Maid of Province Town • Alice Turner Curtis
... him, by Washington and the great bronze men in his company, by Jefferson and Marshall, by Henry and Mason, by Lewis and Nelson. They bore him over the greensward to the Capitol steps, and there the hearse stopped. Six generals lifted the coffin, Longstreet going before. The bells tolled and the Dead March rang, and all the people on the green slopes of the historic place uncovered their heads and wept. The coffin, high-borne, passed upward and between the great, white, Doric columns. It passed into the Capitol ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... I took dog team up Grand Lake this morning and got here again this evening with Mr. Hubbard's body and the things we left behind in the fall. We dressed him the best we could and laid him in the coffin the men at Kenemish had made for him, till we are ready to ...
— A Woman's Way Through Unknown Labrador • Mina Benson Hubbard (Mrs. Leonidas Hubbard, Junior)
... and the son who had passed away. When the Viceroy died she wanted to go and kotow at his funeral, and all his family except the eldest son were anxious to have her do so, and thus be recognized as one of the family. But this son objected, and though Lady Li knocked her head on the coffin until it bled he would not yield, lest she might ...
— Court Life in China • Isaac Taylor Headland
... animal, black and bristly, which peers from the high tower of the municipal palace. One wonders how this could ever have been a city of the fat, voluptuous Etruscans, whose images lie propped up and wide-eyed on their stone coffin-lids. The long wars of old Italic times, in which Etruria fell before Rome, must have burned and destroyed, as one would think, the land as well as the inhabitants, leaving but grey cinders and blackened stone behind. Siena and Florence ruined Volterra once more ...
— Renaissance Fancies and Studies - Being a Sequel to Euphorion • Violet Paget (AKA Vernon Lee)
... sons-in-law, the Infantes of Aragon and Navarre, and to King Don Alfonso. And they moved on from Salvacaete and came to Osma, and then Alvar Faez asked of Doa Ximena if they should not put the body of the Cid into a coffin covered with purple and with nails of gold; but she would not, for she said that while his countenance remained so fresh and comely, and his eyes so fair, his body should never be placed in a coffin, and that her children should see the face of their father; and they thought ...
— Chronicle Of The Cid • Various
... After this Snip and I lay down together, and had a most comfortable Nap; for when I awoke again it was almost light. I then walked up and down all the Isles of the Church to keep myself warm; and though I went into the Vault, and trod on Lady Ducklington's Coffin, I saw no Ghost, and I believe it was owing to the Reason Mr. Long has given you, namely, that there is no such Thing to be seen. As to my Part, I would as soon lie all Night in the Church as in any other Place; and I am sure that any little Boy ...
— Goody Two-Shoes - A Facsimile Reproduction Of The Edition Of 1766 • Anonymous
... monument on Cemetery Ridge was dedicated; J.W. Sawyer, presiding, Lieut. Geo. M. Barry and C.C. Coffin making addresses. ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 6 • Various
... against the pane! how cheering and unwontedly sweet and balmy the soft, sudden gust of the sweet south, breathing up from the flowers, and stirring the loose drapery around the couch! How can we part with these without tears? how reflect, without horror, upon the close coffin, the damp clod, the deep hollows of the earth in which we are to be cabined? Oh, with what earnestness, at such a moment, must the wholly conscious spirit pray for life! now greedily will he drink the nauseous draught in the hope to secure its ...
— Charlemont • W. Gilmore Simms
... Barton really believes that supernatural agencies were brought into operation by the opening of the high priest's coffin. For my part, even if I believed the same, I should still maintain that Dr. Fu-Manchu controlled those manifestations. But reason it out for yourself and see if we arrive at any common center. Don't work so much upon the datum of the green mist, but keep ...
— The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer
... bewailing and screeching, singing and dancing, throwing their arms and legs about as if they were drunk, until the evening set in, when they gathered a huge bundle of bulrushes, and, covering it with a cloth, carried it up to the door of the bereaved on their shoulders, as though it had been a coffin. Then setting it down on the ground, they planted some of the rushes on either side of the entrance, and all kneeling together, set to bewailing, shrieking, and ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... put him in his coffin that way, Mrs Collins. And I should have been very sorry; because we are all fond ...
— Getting Married • George Bernard Shaw
... It is quite possible that under the high, still light in the round church, with its four niche-like chapels, you may see, draped in black, that thing which no one ever mistakes for anything else; and round about the coffin a dozen tall wax candles may be burning with a steady yellow flame. Possibly, at the sound of the leathern curtain slapping the stone door-posts, as it falls behind you, a sad-looking sacristan may shuffle out of a dark corner to see who has come in; possibly not. He may be asleep, or ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 1 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... Charlotte, we shall live here together all our lives, and die here," thought Barnabas, as he went up the hill. "I shall lie in my coffin in the north room, and it will all be over," but his heart leaped with joy. He stepped out proudly like a soldier in a battalion, he threw back his ...
— Pembroke - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... time, the master of the house; for as strange a thing as that, sometimes, may be the result of a death. He met the relatives from out of town at the station; he set the time for the funeral and the time for meals; he selected the flowers and he selected Jim's coffin; he did all the grim things and all the other things. Jim had belonged to an order of Knights, who lengthened the rites with a picturesque ceremony of their own, and at first Bibbs wished to avoid this, but upon reflection he offered no objection—he ...
— The Turmoil - A Novel • Booth Tarkington
... variation of the atmosphere, however trifling, brought back the old agony of their wounds as sharp as ever they had felt it on the battle-field. I've had my wound, Bob; I carry the bullet still, and I shall carry it into my coffin." ...
— Lady Audley's Secret • Mary Elizabeth Braddon
... Where The gravid mistress of their care? A busy scene, indeed, he sees, But not a sign or sound of bees. Worms of the riper grave unhid By any kindly coffin lid, Obscene and shameless to the light, Seethe in insatiate appetite, Through putrid offal, while above The hissing blow-fly seeks his love, Whose offspring, supping where they supt, Consume corruption ...
— Songs from Books • Rudyard Kipling
... foot broad, and one foot nine inches in depth, having a rude sculptured figure on its upper surface. In his History of Fife, published in 1710, Sir Robert Sibbald has both drawn and described it. "It is (says he) made like a coffin, and very fierce and grim faces are done on both the ends of it. Upon the middle stone which supports it, there is the figure of a man holding a spear in his hand."[42] He might have added that on the corresponding middle part of the opposite side there is sculptured ...
— Archaeological Essays, Vol. 1 • James Y. Simpson
... and the honors of his funeral. He came forth to the scaffold, arrayed in a robe of white, adorned, both before and behind, with a large black cross. He wore a cap with a similar token, and carried a rosary in his hand. He was presented with a coffin of cedar, ornamented with the devices of innocence and sorrow; and bearing a plate, which told his name and the time of his death! As he advanced, with several youthful fellow sufferers (of whom it is only said, that ...
— The History of Tasmania , Volume II (of 2) • John West
... was in readiness the Story Girl brought her pet through the orchard where he had so often frisked and prowled. No useless coffin enclosed his breast but he reposed in ...
— The Golden Road • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... upon," or "to go to." [Ch] is a character that may usually be translated "to enter" as in [Ch][Ch] "to enter a door"; yet in the locution [Ch][Ch] "enter wood," the verb becomes causative, and the meaning is "to put into a coffin." It would puzzle grammarians to determine the precise grammatical function of any of the words in the following sentence, with the exception of [Ch] (an interrogative, by the way, which here happens to mean "why" but ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 2 - "Chicago, University of" to "Chiton" • Various
... Bear, purchased at St. Johns, Newfoundland, and the Alert, which was generously provided by the British Government. Preparations for the expedition were promptly made by the Secretary of the Navy, with the active cooperation of the Secretary of War. Commander George W. Coffin was placed in command of the Alert and Lieutenant William H. Emory in command of the Bear. The Thetis was intrusted to Commander Winfield S. Schley, to whom also was assigned the superintendence of the ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 8: Chester A. Arthur • James D. Richardson
... two very striking instances of such imagined sensations are given by Dr. Carpenter.[54] Here is one. An officer who superintended the exhuming of a coffin rendered necessary through a suspicion of crime, declared that he already experienced the odour of decomposition, though it was afterwards found that ...
— Illusions - A Psychological Study • James Sully
... sternly, "you've no more sense than a child, and if it was not for me you'd have been in your coffin these five years. Go up-stairs this minute and change your boots." And off she sent him, but not without a parting shot ...
— The Reflections of Ambrosine - A Novel • Elinor Glyn
... do I thank ye, death, and bless thy power, That I have passed the guard, and 'scaped the Tower! And now my pardon is my epitaph, And a small coffin my poor carcass hath; For at thy charge both soul and body were Enlarged at last, secur'd from hope and fear. That amongst saints, this amongst kings is laid; And what my birth did claim, ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... paralytic stroke. Five days of unconscious slumber passed away, when she fell into that deep and dreamless sleep, which has no earthly waking. Her funeral was attended by a large concourse of citizens, with every testimonial of respect. Some of Franklin's oldest friends bore the coffin to the churchyard, where the remains of the affectionate wife and mother who had so nobly fulfilled life's duties, were placed by the side of her father, her mother, ...
— Benjamin Franklin, A Picture of the Struggles of Our Infant Nation One Hundred Years Ago - American Pioneers and Patriots Series • John S. C. Abbott
... from the vicarage to the church, and from the church to the open grave. There were men and women standing in that churchyard who had bandied vulgar jests about their pastor, and who had lightly charged him with sin; but now, when they saw him following the coffin, pale and haggard, he was consecrated anew by his great sorrow, and they looked ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot
... his Journal, a plan to this effect, contrived by Heywood, Stewart, and himself, but observes, 'it was a foolish attempt, as, had we met with bad weather, our crazy boat would certainly have made us a coffin.' ...
— The Eventful History Of The Mutiny And Piratical Seizure - Of H.M.S. Bounty: Its Cause And Consequences • Sir John Barrow
... side of the painting from this scene is depicted a gigantic tomb on the top of which is a group of soldiers holding aloft a great coffin in which is a dead companion. At the base and on the steps is a woman dressed in mourning, kneeling in the attitude of prayer, while nearby is a wreath inscribed to the unknown dead. Back of the tomb in the distance you can see ...
— Birdseye Views of Far Lands • James T. Nichols
... hear a bell toll as she passed through the little gate, and a moment later a funeral procession, following a small coffin, evidently of a child, climbed slowly up ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... a simple pine-wood coffin, painted black, and round it a garland of heather, for she had loved the delicate, unpretending little plant ...
— Dame Care • Hermann Sudermann
... Damocles. Nelson himself seems to have been possessed already by vague premonitions of the coming end, which deepened and darkened around him as he went forward to his fate. The story told of his saying to the upholsterer, who had in charge the coffin made from the mast of the "Orient," that a certificate of its identity should be engraved on the lid, because he thought it highly probable that he might want it on his return, is, indeed, but a commonplace, ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. II. (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... you heard the racket of hammer and saw, beheld men in feverish haste over their boat-building. There were many fine boats, but the crude makeshift effort of the amateur predominated. Some of them, indeed, had no more shape than a packing-case, and not a few resembled a coffin. Anything that would float and keep out the water was ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service
... shadow of mystic things, Things that fate fashions or forbids; The staff of time-forgotten Kings Whose name falls off the Pyramids, Their coffin-lids and grave-clothings; ...
— A Channel Passage and Other Poems - Taken from The Collected Poetical Works of Algernon Charles - Swinburne—Vol VI • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... a pauper; for there was still twenty-nine dollars standing to his credit at Hintzen's. And this sum defrayed his funeral expenses. Out of rough planks, lying about to mend sluices, the Woolsey boys framed a coffin, for which they procured handles at a neighboring village. And Mrs. Sherwood, faithful nurse and spiritual adviser, laid the old man out in his best clothes. The rugged face showed no look of annoyance. After thirty-three years of honest striving the old Forty-niner slept ...
— Forty-one Thieves - A Tale of California • Angelo Hall
... tears that love is dead, That never more her gracious head Can turn to meet their eyes and hold Their hearts with chains of silky gold; That never more her hands can be As dear as was virginity; That in her coffin there is laid Beauty, the body of a maid, The body of one so piteous-sweet, With candles burning at her feet And cowled monks ...
— Miscellany of Poetry - 1919 • Various
... strange circumstances. His body was released for burial without any difficulty. In the newspaper "The Other A" Theo Tontod provided a short obituary. And the Club Clou sent a wreath. Ilka Leipke had herself taken to observe the body before the burial. The coffin was opened quickly. In it Kohn lay somewhat askew, because of the hump. The features of his face were distorted in a grimace. His hands were rolled up lumps. Dried blood stuck to his nose and hung over his opened mouth. ...
— The Prose of Alfred Lichtenstein • Alfred Lichtenstein
... only light that came from this dark carriage was from the red eyes of the six horses who drew it, and their trappings swept the ground, black and mouldy. Now, the body of this coach was shaped like a coffin, and at the head sat ...
— The Story and Song of Black Roderick • Dora Sigerson
... that ungallant disorder, and had I a mind to brag, I could boast of a little rheumatism too; but I scorn to set value on such trifles, and since your ladyship does me the honour to bespeak my company, I will come if 'twere in my coffin and pain. May I hope your ladyship will favour us at Maria's nuptials? Sure the Graces were ever attended by Venus ...
— The Ladies - A Shining Constellation of Wit and Beauty • E. Barrington
... within a plantation which formed the Abbey grounds, and taking a new hold of her he went onward a few steps till they reached the ruined choir of the Abbey-church. Against the north wall was the empty stone coffin of an abbot, in which every tourist with a turn for grim humour was accustomed to stretch himself. In this Clare carefully laid Tess. Having kissed her lips a second time he breathed deeply, as if a greatly desired end were attained. Clare then lay down on the ground alongside, ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... recollect that he came after the trouble in finding words had become well marked. "My memory hides itself," he said. The last time I saw him, living, was at Longfellow's funeral. I was sitting opposite to him when he rose, and going to the side of the coffin, looked intently upon the face of the dead poet. A few minutes later he rose again and looked once more on the familiar features, not apparently remembering that he had just done so. Mr. Conway reports that he said to a friend near him, "That gentleman was a sweet, beautiful ...
— Ralph Waldo Emerson • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... give a month o' grog jest ter hear the ol' dear tickin', and ter know that Flint was restin' easy in his rotten coffin—swappin' stories with the ...
— Wappin' Wharf - A Frightful Comedy of Pirates • Charles S. Brooks
... of the Dead are often found amongst the cloths, (by the leg or under the arm), or else in the coffin trader, or near, ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... minister for war, a fervent Royalist. When he received no reply to this reasonable request, in an act of courage, rare at the time, he let it be known to the court that if a baton did not arrive in time for his father-in-law's funeral, he would place ostentatiously on his coffin, the baton awarded to him by the Emperor. The government then decided that they would supply a baton ...
— The Memoirs of General the Baron de Marbot, Translated by - Oliver C. Colt • Baron de Marbot
... of thirty centuries, the modern country-doctor, if he could be seen about thirty miles off, could not be distinguished from a wheel-animalcule. He inhabits a wheel-carriage. He thinks of stationary dwellings as Long Tom Coffin did of land in general; a house may be well enough for incidental purposes, but for a "stiddy" residence give him a "kerridge." If he is classified in the Linnaean scale, he must be set down thus: Genus Homo; Species Rotifer ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 31, May, 1860 • Various
... stately mansion were thrown open, and a long train came sweeping out in dark garments, with blazing torches, and music doleful and piercing. And women chanting the shrill funereal strain. And then, upon a bier covered with black, the rude wooden coffin, peculiar to the slave, of the murdered Medon! Behind him followed the whole household of the Consul; and last, to the extreme astonishment of Paullus, preceded by his lictors, and leaning on the arm of his most faithful ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 1 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... food; while the friends gather to talk of the virtues of the deceased, to console the family, and to partake of the food and drink which has been provided for the gathering. The body is kept over one night, and in the case of great personages, for three days, or until the coffin—a large log split in halves and hollowed out—is prepared. When this is ready the body is placed in it, together with some prized articles of the deceased. After the top has been fitted to the lower portion, they are lashed together and the cracks are filled with lime.[41] ...
— The Wild Tribes of Davao District, Mindanao - The R. F. Cummings Philippine Expedition • Fay-Cooper Cole
... went one way after the defendant, and the turnkey another. The latter went to Crawford's burial ground, where he saw the same suspicious looking man whom he had observed about the defendant's house, in the act of interring a coffin. He immediately interposed, and said the coffin should not be buried until he examined its contents. At this moment the defendant came into the burying-ground, and seemed angry at the interruption, and begged he might be ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... and that for several days there prevailed in the streets a stillness like that of the Sabbath, but without its repose. I opened the newspaper; it was still bordered with broad mourning lines, and was filled with details concerning the deceased Princess. Her coffin and the ceremonies at her funeral were described as minutely as the order of her nuptials and her bridal dress had been, in the same journal, scarce eighteen months before. "Man," says Sir Thomas Brown, "is a noble animal, splendid in ashes, and pompous in the ...
— Colloquies on Society • Robert Southey
... was not all over! That group around the foot of the gallows; that cart and empty coffin; that shrouded and bound figure, convulsed and swaying in the air—blasted his sight. With a loud cry he dashed his hand up to his eyes to shut out the horrible vision, and fell heavily upon the floor. He lay there as one dead until ...
— Self-Raised • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... face of the bad man grew purple. "That'll be about enough from both of you. But I'll say this: when I get ready to settle with Mr. Beaudry you can order his coffin." ...
— The Sheriff's Son • William MacLeod Raine
... writes (February 23, 1872), 'to be impressed by a mere ceremonial; but there were some things almost oppressive from their reality and solemnity.... The coffin was brought up on a gun-carriage. It was of enormous size and weight, (near two tons, I believe). The gun-carriage, drawn by twelve artillery horses, made a strangely impressive hearse. It looked so solid, so businesslike, so simple, and so free from all the plumes and staves ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen
... surprised even those who knew best how widespread was the interest in the beloved pastor. As the coffin lay in the church on Thursday there was an unceasing line of those who wished to show their regard for him. On Friday the funeral services were conducted by Rev. Charles H. Hall, D. D., pastor of the First Presbyterian Church, to which Plymouth Church had succeeded in ownership of its site. ...
— Sixty years with Plymouth Church • Stephen M. Griswold
... Duke, died without heirs. In that case by many bargains, some with bloody crowns, it had been settled, If the Wendish Dukes died out, the country was to fall to Brandenburg;—and here they were dead. "At Duke Otto's burial, accordingly, in the High Church of Stettin, when the coffin was lowered into its place, the Stettin Burgermeister, Albrecht Glinde, took sword and helmet, and threw the same into the grave, in token that the Line was extinct. But Franz von Eichsted," apparently another ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. III. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Hohenzollerns In Brandenburg—1412-1718 • Thomas Carlyle
... us 40 cents a day to stay with him. I stays 'bout a year and dere's no big change. De same houses and some got whipped but nobody got nailed to a tree by de ears, like dey used to. Finally old Pinchback dies and when he buried de lightnin' come and split de grave and de coffin wide open. ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves. - Texas Narratives, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... the crew on the deck and the galley-slaves in the outriggers at either side lay dead in rows under the overwhelming shower from above. From stem to rudder every foot of her was furred with arrows. It was but a floating coffin piled with dead and dying men, which wallowed in the waves behind them as the Basilisk lurched onward and ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle
... for it; I never would have otherwise. Of course what I looked at was a dead face in the coffin, a dead face that was seared and burned. But anyway, I was already convinced that he was not the man. I am not sure what I should have thought if I had met him ...
— The Strange Case of Cavendish • Randall Parrish
... rather take you to her in your coffin. She's never known you, never seen what most of us have seen, that all you have—or nearly all—is your lovely looks, and what they call a kind heart. There's only you two in your family, and she's got to live with you—awhile, anyhow. She couldn't stand this business. She mustn't stand ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... the Colonel,'though Heaven knows with a heart distressed for him as an individual, that this young gentleman has studied and fully understood the desperate game which he has played. He threw for life or death, a coronet or a coffin; and he cannot now be permitted, with justice to the country, to draw stakes because the dice ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... crucifix; a little white-robed acolyte carrying holy water in a silver basin; a few Sisters of Charity with their long black gowns and flapping white bonnets; behind these the weeping villagers, bearing the coffin on a rude sort of litter. As Hetty saw this procession, she was seized with an irresistible desire to join it. She was the only passenger in the diligence, and the door was locked. She called to the driver, and at last succeeded in making ...
— Hetty's Strange History • Helen Jackson
... churchyard, they found the old sexton beside the grave, leaning on his spade, ready to fill it again at the shortest notice. The vicar put on his bands, and read the funeral service. "Dust to dust, ashes to ashes, but the spirit to God who gave it." The coffin was lowered into its narrow house and the earth thrown upon it, while the minister of Christ ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various
... is born in me. Do you know I actually think of mean things to do when I am in the most solemn places. They took me to a funeral once; and I got to thinking what a stampede there would be if the corpse would come to life and sit up in the coffin, and I snickered right out, and Pa took me out doors and kicked my pants. I don't think he orter kicked me for it, cause I didn't think of it a purpose. Such things have occurred, and I have read about them, and a poor boy ought to be allowed to ...
— Peck's Bad Boy and His Pa - 1883 • George W. Peck
... man who has been able to escape death, or what perhaps is more trying, sickness, by the observation of a certain easy but daily regimen, is completely and duly nailed up between the four planks of his coffin, after having said every evening: "Dear me! to-morrow I will not forget my pills!" How are we to explain this magic spell which rules all the affairs of life? Do men submit to it from a want of energy? ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part I. • Honore de Balzac |
