Free Translator Free Translator
Translators Dictionaries Courses Other
Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Vespers   Listen
Vespers

noun
1.
The sixth of the seven canonical hours of the divine office; early evening; now often made a public service on Sundays.  Synonym: evensong.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |





"Vespers" Quotes from Famous Books



... follow on the track of his blood in the grass. But so much he went in thoughts of Nicolette, his lady sweet, that he felt no pain nor torment, and all the day hurled through the forest in this fashion nor heard no word of her. And when he saw vespers draw nigh, he began to weep for that he found her not. All down an old road, and grass-grown, he fared, when anon, looking along the way before him, he saw such an one as I shall tell you. Tall ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner

... unfolded a long black robe, looking gloomily upon it, as though it aroused unwelcome thoughts; while he was pondering, he heard a hum of music behind the arras; he put the robe down, and stepped through the hangings, and stood awhile in the little oriel that looked down into the church. Vespers were proceeding; he saw the holy lights dimly through the dusty panes, and heard the low preluding of the organ; then, solemn and slow, rose the sound of a chanted psalm on the air; he carefully unfastened the casement which opened inward and unclosed it, standing for ...
— Paul the Minstrel and Other Stories - Reprinted from The Hill of Trouble and The Isles of Sunset • Arthur Christopher Benson

... of the venders of toys and caricatures. Round the whole square in front of the church there is almost a continuous line of cafes, where the idle Venetians of the middle classes lounge and read empty journals; in its center the Austrian bands play during the time of vespers their martial music jarring with the organ notes—the march drowning the miserere and the sullen crowd thickening round them—a crowd which if it had its will would stiletto every soldier that pipes to it. And in the recesses of the porches, all day long, knots of men of the lowest classes, unemployed ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VI (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland IV • Various

... seen a human being, except a friar of the monastery, who had been to a neighbouring town to order provision. On the following evening they repeated their walk; and, engaged in conversation, rambled to a considerable distance from the abbey. The distant bell of the monastery sounding for vespers, reminded them of the hour, and looking round, they perceived the extremity of the wood. They were returning towards the abbey, when struck by the appearance of some majestic columns which were distinguishable between the trees, they paused. Curiosity tempted them to examine to what ...
— A Sicilian Romance • Ann Radcliffe

... was less applicable to the affair than that of "Athenian Vespers," with which the Parisian press christened it. Admiral Dartige protests indignantly against the grotesque exaggerations of his imaginative compatriots. Apart from the tragic features natural to a pacific demonstration, he declares ...
— Greece and the Allies 1914-1922 • G. F. Abbott

... could listen to it forever, and he came very near doing that same, for the bird was an enchanted singer, and so bewitched the priest that he had no idea how the time went by. At last, he thought that it was about the hour for vespers—so he gave his blessing to the little bird, and went back into the abbey. But, when he entered, he was astonished to see only strange faces and to hear a strange tongue, which was the English, in place of the ...
— Stories and Legends of Travel and History, for Children • Grace Greenwood

... girl in each parish recite this to the vicar or cure after vespers in their tiny voices as a commandment of God and of the Church, as a supplementary article of the creed. Meanwhile the officiating priest in the pulpit gravely comments on this article, already clear enough, at every morning or evening service;[51109] by order, he ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 6 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 2 (of 2) • Hippolyte A. Taine

... relax sufficiently to allow me to find her a lodging? Why did she fall in love with the lodging when found? I do not know. I only know Fate smiles; that Kitty and I eat our morning bacon and eggs together; that I carve Kitty's cold beef and pour Kitty's sparkling ale at luncheon; that I go to vespers with Kitty, and dine with Kitty, and walk in the gloaming with Kitty—and aunt Celia. And after a day of heaven like this, like Lorna Doone's lover,—ay, and like every other lover, I suppose,—I go to sleep, and the roof above me swarms with ...
— A Cathedral Courtship • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... better memory, as a rule, and a more active brain, than other people. The shoemaker, Escarboeuf, used to gather his neighbors and trusty comrades about him now and then at the hour of vespers. He remembered exactly what the doctor had said on the discovery of the corpse; he was standing close by and had heard every syllable. "It almost looks as if the man had been murdered;" those were the ...
— The German Classics, v. 20 - Masterpieces of German Literature • Various

... away, which contributed much to the security of these pious pilgrims, who found their open trustfulness and amiability better fitted to repress hostility than the presence of an armed, suspicious, and brawling soldiery. So the good Father Jose said matins and prime, mass and vespers, in the heart of Sin and Heathenism, taking no heed to himself, but looking only to the welfare of the Holy Church. Conversions soon followed, and, on the 7th of July, 1760, the first Indian baby was baptized,—an ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 72, October, 1863 • Various

... by a Petty Canon; and next came the two masses named after the Virgin and the Chapter, the Cardinals taking the latter. The other daily services were the usual Nocturns or Matins and the rest, ending with a combined evensong of Vespers and Compline. We do not know how the old Use of St. Paul's differed from that of Sarum. Besides the Conversion and Commemoration of St. Paul, the Deposition (April 30th) and the Translation (November 14th) of St. Erkenwald were red-letter days when, before the peal was sounded, the bells were rung ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of St. Paul - An Account of the Old and New Buildings with a Short Historical Sketch • Arthur Dimock

... hopping step by step with his legs, holding the weight with his hands; and thus, resting often, he succeeded in his design. For, being one day loose about the house, he hopped step by step from roof to roof, during the hour when the Guardian was away chanting Vespers, and came to the roof over his chamber. There, letting go the weight, he kept up for half an hour such a lovely dance, that not a single tile of any kind remained unbroken. Then he went back ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol. 05 ( of 10) Andrea da Fiesole to Lorenzo Lotto • Giorgio Vasari

... vespers, and Thomas Bodza was taking a walk across the fields. This was his usual promenade. Sometimes he went as far as the boundaries of the neighbouring village with a little book under his arm which ...
— The Day of Wrath • Maurus Jokai

... of the exterior is covered with rich carving, crocketed finials, innumerable gargoyles and the usual enriched mouldings of Gothic architecture. The charm of the interior is heightened if one enters in the twilight when vespers are proceeding. There is just sufficient light to show up the tracery of the windows and the massive pointed arches in the choir. A few candles burn by the altar beyond the dark mass of figures ...
— Normandy, Complete - The Scenery & Romance Of Its Ancient Towns • Gordon Home

... Richard and the Maid Jeanne, in the Hog Market without the Walls. The same afternoon, through all the city, on either side the bridges, shouts of fear arose—"Save yourselves! fly, the enemy are come in, all is lost!" The cries were heard even inside the Churches, where pious folks were singing Vespers. These came flying out in terror and ran to their houses to ...
— The Merrie Tales Of Jacques Tournebroche - 1909 • Anatole France

... time the trees were growing somewhat thinner, and lights began to twinkle here and there, showing that some village was nigh at hand. A bell for vespers began to ring forth, and the traveller was glad enough to think his toilsome journey nearly at an end. Hardy as he was, and well inured to fatigues and hardship of all kinds, he was growing exhausted from his day's travel and his sharp fighting. He was ...
— In the Wars of the Roses - A Story for the Young • Evelyn Everett-Green

... of banns was made compulsory on all Christendom. In early times it was usual for the priest to betroth the pair formally in the name of the Blessed Trinity; and sometimes the banns were published at vespers, sometimes during mass. In the United Kingdom, under the canon law and by statute, banns are the normal preliminary to marriage; but a marriage may also be solemnized without the publication of banns, ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various

... by the great artists Mademoiselle Mars and Talma; and 'Don Juan d'Autriche' (Don John of Austria), a prose comedy. Other dramas of his—'Marino Faliero,' 'Les Vepres Siciliennes' (The Sicilian Vespers), 'Louis XI.,' 'Les Enfants d'Edouard' (The Children of Edward), and 'La Fille du Cid' (The Daughter of the Cid)—are still read with admiration, or acted to applauding spectators. A pure disciple ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various

... political reasons to change the system of government from election to heredity, and the choice fell on the Lord of Njegusi Danilo Petrovic, whose reign (1696-1735) is chiefly memorable for the Montenegrin vespers of the Turks and Turkish renegades, who had rendered so much assistance to Kiuprili Pasha in one of his terrible invasions. But a crushing defeat of the Turks in 1706 gave the ...
— The Land of the Black Mountain - The Adventures of Two Englishmen in Montenegro • Reginald Wyon

... soldiers of Atahualpa's army. The number of them filled the Spaniards with amazement, and in some cases with apprehension. There was no going back then, however; there was nothing to do but advance. At the hour when the bells of Holy Church in their home land were ringing vespers, in a cold driving rain mingled with sleet, the little cortege entered the city, which they found as the French found Moscow, deserted of its inhabitants. With the ready instinct of a soldier, Pizarro led his force to the public square, or Plaza, which was in the shape of a rude triangle surrounded ...
— South American Fights and Fighters - And Other Tales of Adventure • Cyrus Townsend Brady

... happily situated. Small though it be, it will make many mistakes, because it will be composed of men. Discord will reign there as in a monastery; but there will be no St. Bartholomew, no Irish massacres, no Sicilian vespers, no inquisition, no condemnation to the galleys for having taken some water from the sea without paying for it, unless one supposes this republic composed of devils in ...
— Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionary • Voltaire

... King Henry the Eighth held a Chapter of the Garter—How he attended Vespers and Matins in Saint George's Chapel—And how he feasted with the ...
— Windsor Castle • William Harrison Ainsworth

... absolutely necessary to find one to satisfy the Indian; M. the Earl of Frontenac is under a delusion: I may say it, they will give us the goby, and after that all shall be lost, I am not sure even, if they would not repeat the Sicilian Vespers, to show their good will, and that they never want to make it up. I am so isolated that I do not say anything about it, as I am afraid for myself, but I know well that it is Indian's nature to betray, and that our affairs are not at all ...
— Pathfinders of the West • A. C. Laut

... After vespers, that day in May, Enide was in sore distress, nor did her grief cease to trouble her. And the Count urged her mildly by prayer and threat to make her peace and be consoled, and he made her sit down upon a chair, though it was against her will. In spite of her, they made her take a seat and ...
— Four Arthurian Romances - "Erec et Enide", "Cliges", "Yvain", and "Lancelot" • Chretien de Troyes

... cocking his head on one side, then up he hopped to his old place on the cardinal's chair. Never after this did he indulge in thievish tricks, but became so devout, so constant at feast and chapel, so well-behaved at matins and vespers, that when he died he died in the odor of sanctity, and was canonized, his name being changed to that of Jim Crow.—Barham, Ingoldsby Legends ("Jackdaw of ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer

... the hour accustomed, after this was done, the Abbot and the Convent invited all who were there present to be their guests, giving a right solemn feast to all; and the chief persons dined with the Convent in the Refectory. And that same day in the evening, after vespers, when it was about four o'clock, the workmen had removed the stone lions, and placed the tomb upon them, and laid the lid of the tomb hard by, and made all ready to fasten it down, so soon as the holy body should be laid ...
— Chronicle Of The Cid • Various

... endeavouring to devise some better mode of supplying the captive with nourishment, and in the construction of a tube, composed of hollow reeds, slipping into each other, by which liquids might be conveyed to him. The bell of the village church of Falkland tolled to vespers. The dey, or farm woman, entered with her pitchers to deliver the milk for the family, and to hear and tell the news stirring. She had scarcely entered the kitchen when the female minstrel, again throwing herself in Catharine's arms, and assuring her of her unalterable fidelity, ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott

... A.D.) point in this direction. In the Spanish Church particularly the very ancient custom of praying at the hour when the evening lamps were lighted had developed into the regular office of the lucernarium, as distinct from Vespers. The Mozarabic Breviary (seventh century) contains the prayers and responses for this service, and the Rule of St. Isidore runs: "In the evening offices, first the lucernarium, then two psalms, one responsory and lauds, a hymn and prayer are to be said." St. Basil also writes: "It ...
— The Hymns of Prudentius • Aurelius Clemens Prudentius

... ere we left Sessouns, I remember, as I came into the Queen's lodging from vespers in the Cathedral,—Jack, that went with me, having tarried at the potter's to see wherefore he sent not home three dozen glasses for the Queen's table (and by the same token, the knave asked fifteen pence for the same ...
— In Convent Walls - The Story of the Despensers • Emily Sarah Holt

... He left the church with the Latournelles and followed them at a distance to the rue Royale, where he saw them enter a house accompanied by Modeste, whose custom it was to stay with her friends till the hour of vespers. After examining the little house, which was ornamented with scutcheons, he asked the name of the owner, and was told that he was Monsieur Latournelle, the chief notary in Havre. As Ernest lounged along the rue Royale hoping for ...
— Modeste Mignon • Honore de Balzac

... your father in Paris. I had thought myself hardened in my sin; I was mistaken. Repentance crept slowly but surely in upon me immediately after my father's visit to us. His words haunted me. I began to steal away in the evening to vespers at the Church of St. Cecilia. One night a grave, sweet-faced priest stood up in the pulpit; and as his words sank into my heart my sin rose up before me black and grim, and the burden of it grew intolerable. After the service I sought him, ...
— A Monk of Cruta • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... wondrously alike. In summer especially, the sun-bathed mountains, the pendant dewdrop, the melodious silences—all these belong so much to both alike that I find it hard to distinguish the matins and the vespers of ...
— St. Cuthbert's • Robert E. Knowles

... Vespers" was suggested by the schoolmaster's little daughter going into church before the decoration had been put up, and exclaiming, disappointed, "No Christmas!" "The Second Sunday in Lent" recalls, in the line on "the mimic rain ...
— John Keble's Parishes • Charlotte M Yonge

... Veracini haughtily answered, "To the place of the first violinist." It was explained by Laurenti that he himself had been engaged to fill that post, but, if his interlocutor wished to play a solo, he could have the privilege either at high mass or at vespers. Evidently he did not recognize Veracini, who turned away in a rage, and took his position in the lowest place in the orchestra. When his turn came to play his concerto, he begged that instead of it he might play a solo where he was, accompanied ...
— Great Violinists And Pianists • George T. Ferris

... tomb, some of which cures, however, were very gradual. We are also told that when a humble hunchback bowed the knee in adoration at the tomb of St. Andreas, his irresistible faith instantly released him from his unnatural rotundity. In 1243 a Ferrara writer was at Padua, and while attending vespers at the tomb where the sainted body of the Minorite Anthony reposed, he affirms that he saw a person who had been mute from his birth recover his ...
— Three Thousand Years of Mental Healing • George Barton Cutten

... becomes thee mightily. But we must lose no time. Attend vespers this afternoon, there thou shalt find my conscientious valet, who will give thee proper directions and assistance to effect thy escape, and ample means to pass the remainder of thy precious life in some distant city of Spain, ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio

... doubt but that he suffered both in purse and feeling from want of appreciation; but the Spanish proverb says, "An author's work who looks to money is the coat of a tailor who works late on the vespers of Easter Sunday." He had too noble a mind to harbor so mean a sentiment as jealousy, and was far in advance of his age. His countrymen, with characteristic indolence, were ready to cry, manana, manana (to-morrow, to-morrow), and so it was left for ...
— Wit and Wisdom of Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

... drown. And so, her head wrapped in a mantle, she stretched herself weeping on the floor of the boat. But it fell out quite otherwise than she had conjectured: for, the wind being from the north, and very equable, with next to no sea, the boat kept an even keel, and next day about vespers bore her to land hard by a city called Susa, full a hundred miles beyond Tunis. To the damsel 'twas all one whether she were at sea or ashore, for, since she had been aboard, she had never once raised, nor, come what might, meant she ever to raise, ...
— The Decameron, Vol. II. • Giovanni Boccaccio

... Italian patriot, born at Palermo, devoted a great part of his life to the history of Sicily, and took part in its emancipation; was an Orientalist as well; he is famous for throwing light on the true character of the Sicilian Vespers (1806-1889). ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood

... pall of life-extinguished clay, In sainted fame the sacred fathers grew, Nor raised their pious voices but to pray. Where now the bats their wavering wings extend, Soon as the gloaming spreads her warning shade, The choir did oft their mingling vespers blend, Or matin orisons ...
— Abbotsford and Newstead Abbey • Washington Irving

... there seems to have been a general movement throughout Italy, headed by the Catholic clergy, for the purpose of throwing off his yoke, and if we do not misread the obscure language of the Panegyrist, this movement was accompanied by a wide-spread popular conspiracy, somewhat like the Sicilian Vespers of a later day, to which the foederati, the still surviving adherents of Odovacar, scattered over their various domains in Italy, appear ...
— Theodoric the Goth - Barbarian Champion of Civilisation • Thomas Hodgkin

... Neither have I learned whether a certain hour of the day or a certain state of the weather predisposes him to sing a particular tune. This point may, perhaps, be determined by some future observer; and it may be ascertained that the birds of this species have their matins and their vespers, their songs of rejoicing and of complaining, of courtship when in presence of their mate, and of encouragement and solace when she is sitting upon her nest. As Nature has a benevolent and a definite object in every instinct which she ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various

... this fatal attempt, for his own purposes. Charles, of very different memory, was at this time, by invitation of the pope, occupying the double throne of Naples and Sicily. And he it was who provoked by his cruelties that frightful outbreak known as the "Sicilian Vespers," ...
— A Short History of France • Mary Platt Parmele

... been most patient," declared her friend. "Soon you will abandon needlework and be sent out nursing. I heard the Mother Superior talking about it with Sister Lilian after vespers last night. Now that Sister Hannah has gone back to Paris we are one nurse short, and you are ...
— The White Lie • William Le Queux

... some nine feet across and about the same height, and by the time that pleasant work was done the brothers were back, and the little bell on the chapel, where it hung in a stone cote, rang for their vespers. ...
— A Sea Queen's Sailing • Charles Whistler

... which draws thither the pilgrim, who would rather muse in the twilight of the naked vault, than wander amid the marble glories of the palace that rises proudly in its neighbourhood. You shall go with me, at the hour of vespers, to aisled cathedrals, which were ages a-building, and the erection of which swallowed up the revenues of provinces,—beneath whose roof, ample enough to cover thousands and tens of thousands, you may see a solitary priest, singing a solemn dirge ...
— Pilgrimage from the Alps to the Tiber - Or The Influence of Romanism on Trade, Justice, and Knowledge • James Aitken Wylie

... the series of wonderful events which he narrates, and for which we have his personal guarantee. The first thing that he notices is the dream of a servant of Ratleig, the notary, who, being set to watch the holy relics in the church after vespers, went to sleep and, during his slumbers, had a vision of two pigeons, one white and one gray and white, which came and sat upon the bier over the relics; while, at the same time, a voice ordered the man to tell his master that the holy martyrs had chosen ...
— Collected Essays, Volume V - Science and Christian Tradition: Essays • T. H. Huxley

... beggars of St. Innocent, and cast them, with small canes or quills to write with, into the necks of the daintiest gentlewomen that he could find, yea, even in the church; for he never seated himself above in the choir, but always in the body of the church amongst the women, both at mass, at vespers, and at sermon. ...
— Classic French Course in English • William Cleaver Wilkinson

... Reischach, the church-bell ringing for vespers, which begin at one o'clock. We wear bouquets of carnations and rosemary, presented to us by the family at the Hof, as correct decorations for a festival. And Anton!—how to present him to you as he deserves to be presented? His truthful, guileless face is his best ornament: nevertheless, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XI, No. 27, June, 1873 • Various

... the cell— And barefoot friars passed the close-shut door; At vespers rang the monastery bell, Yet still he lay, unheeding, where he fell, Cross of black outstretched upon ...
— The Miracle and Other Poems • Virna Sheard

... slow water, which could not be called a stream, and they hung like a palpable sort of clouds in the gathering mists. The mists, in fact, seemed of much the same density as the trees, and I should be bolder than I like if I declared which the birds were singing their vespers in. There was one thrush imitating a nightingale, which I think must have been singing in the heart of the mist, and which probably mistook it for a tree of like substance. It was having, apparently, the time of its life; and really the place was enchanting, ...
— London Films • W.D. Howells

... with Leviathan, and therefore I do not propose to narrate the development of the rivalry between these two excellent men. How Mr. Jones introduced an early morning service, and Mr. Hopkins replied with an afternoon musical vespers: how a vested choir of boys was installed in the brown church, and a cornet and a harp appeared in the gallery of the white church: how candles were lighted in the Episcopalian apse, (whereupon Erastus Whipple resigned from ...
— Days Off - And Other Digressions • Henry Van Dyke

... Dr. Watson, on the 20th of August, preached at Paul's Cross under a guard of soldiers; on the 24th, two days after the scene on Tower Hill, so little was a guard necessary, that mass was said in St. Paul's Church in Latin, with matins and vespers. The crucifix was replaced in the roodloft, the high altar was re-decorated, the real presence was defended from the pulpit, and, except from the refugees, not a murmur was heard.[101] Catching this ...
— The Reign of Mary Tudor • James Anthony Froude

... persuade himself that what He had just witnessed had been a dream, so strong an impression had it made upon his fancy. A little recollection convinced him of its fallacy: The Lamps had been lighted during his sleep, and the music which he heard was occasioned by the Monks, who were celebrating their Vespers in the ...
— The Monk; a romance • M. G. Lewis

... Edouard from the first. The day after he came we were together much, and, when we parted after vespers, I was conscious of a vast respect for this new-comer. He was bright, ready spoken, and almost a man of the world. Compared with my dull career, his short life had been one of positive gayety. He had seen Frederic le Maitre at the Comedie Francaise. He had been at ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 6 • Various

... will go forward at once ... I have been sent money by the Government, and those looking for a job should see me before vespers. If you want this money to stay in the parish instead of being sent back to Quebec you had better lose no time ...
— Maria Chapdelaine - A Tale of the Lake St. John Country • Louis Hemon

... procession on the vigil of Easter (1282), spread the flame of insurrection over the whole island, and 8000 Franks were exterminated in a promiscuous massacre, which has obtained the name of the 'Sicilian Vespers.' His son and successor, Andronicus, was reckoned a learned and virtuous prince; but his long reign is chiefly memorable for the disputes of the Greek church, the invasion of the Catalans, and the rise of the Ottoman power. He associated ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 419, New Series, January 10, 1852 • Various

... on mast or shroud, 75 It perched for vespers nine; Whiles all the night, through fog-smoke ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... severe religious training of the Paris school: chapel with mass at half-past six in the morning, grace before and after all meals, and chapel again a quarter before nine in the evening; on holidays, catechism for new students; Sundays, catechism and high mass, and vespers with confession every Saturday; communion every two months. Long afterwards the Emperor remembered de Juigne, his chaplain, with kindness and overwhelmed him with favors. Of the hundred and thirty-two ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. I. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane

... goodly portion for the benefit of others; besides, many a worthy man owed his prim Sunday suit to those same heaped-up chests, and it would have done you good to see the broad ruffles bedecking the sons of Erin as they escorted their sweethearts to vespers. They would cross themselves, and murmur a prayer for the "masther," heretic though he was, and they knew they would get him out of Purgatory, if masses and penances would avail. As for Nannie and her mother, it ...
— The Elm Tree Tales • F. Irene Burge Smith

... period of isolation, M. Dablin was also his factotum and his mentor. Balzac commissioned him to buy a Bible, carefully specifying that the text must be in French as well as Latin; he wished to read the Sicilian Vespers; he felt it his duty, as a simple soldier in the ranks of literature, to attend a performance of Cinna, by the great General Corneille, from the safe seclusion of a screened box, and he would be glad to see Girodet's Endymion at the Exposition, "some ...
— Honor de Balzac • Albert Keim and Louis Lumet

... ask you to excuse me. Vespers wait for no man, and I hear the bell,' he said with a grave ...
— In Kedar's Tents • Henry Seton Merriman

... Cesar had appointed to conclude the affair of the lands about the Madeleine, Monsieur and Madame Ragon, and uncle Pillerault arrived about four o'clock, just after vespers. In view of the demolition that was going on, so Cesar said, he could only invite Charles Claparon, Crottat, and Roguin. The notary brought with him the "Journal des Debats" in which Monsieur de la Billardiere ...
— Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau • Honore de Balzac

... comment, in the old, BOOK OF ELY date before the Conquest) is preserved this stave;—giving picture, if we consider it, of the Fen Country all a lake (as it was for half the year, till drained, six centuries after), with Ely Monastery rising like an island in the distance; and the music of its nones or vespers sounding soft and far over the solitude, eight ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol, II. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Of Brandenburg And The Hohenzollerns—928-1417 • Thomas Carlyle

... or admonished them that it was time to send up their own orisons to God. Before mid-day had arrived, and soon after it had passed, the deeper tones of a bourdon, from some of the parochial churches, invited the citizens to the sacrifice of the mass or the canticles of vespers. Not seldom the throngs of busy wordlings were forced to separate and give room to some holy procession, which, with glittering cross at the head, with often tossed and sweetly smelling censers at ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXVI. October, 1843. Vol. LIV. • Various

... the neighbouring wives, Who ne'er shrove in their lives,— Such wickedness Sathanas whispers!— Said the black-cloaked prior By the miller's log fire, Oft tarried too late for vespers! ...
— The Baron's Yule Feast: A Christmas Rhyme • Thomas Cooper

... come in from vespers. She was sitting in her favorite place, the recess of the window. The wall of the house opposite, dirty white and cracked, obstructed the view, but from the corner where she sat she could see to the right through the yards of the next ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland

... jumping about, drinking, enjoying themselves, love-making, singing Alleluia and applauding the music with which they were being regaled. The kitchen performed miracles, the Offices said were fine rich pots-full, the Matins sweet little hams, the Vespers luscious mouthful, and the Lauhes delicate sweetmeats, and after their little carouses, these brave priests were silent, their pages diced upon the stairs, their mules stamped restively in the streets; everything went ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 1 • Honore de Balzac

... Chariots and horses are emblems of flight; but if sleep were descending upon the hero of the prophetic age, twilight would more appropriately have drawn her soft veil over nature, birds would have begun their vespers, clouds would have put on their changing, pensive colors, while cadences of music, breathed by the winds, would have shed lethargic influences into the scene. Inspiration does not trifle with us by really meaning such a preparation for a sleep ...
— Catharine • Nehemiah Adams

... maid, casting down her eyes, "I have nothing to fear, because I belong to the abbey. The Lord Abbot has given me leave to exercise the cow after vespers." ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 3 • Honore de Balzac

... twelve, and, at one, set out again, with my wife, towards St. Peter's, where we meant to stay till after vespers. We walked across the city, and through the Piazza de Navona, where we stopped to look at one of Bernini's absurd fountains, of which the water makes but the smallest part,—a little squirt or two amid a prodigious fuss of gods and monsters. Thence ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... Protestant princes as a gentleman volunteer in France, and he took part in the famous battle of Jarnac. He is supposed to have fought in France for six years. From early youth his mind was "bent on military glory," and always in opposition to Spain. His escape from the bloody Vespers of Saint Bartholomew had given him a deep distrust of the policy of Rome. The Spaniard had "abused and tormented" the wretched inhabitants of Flanders. Sir Walter Raleigh dreamed that by the combination in arms of England, France, and the ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse

... veteran soldier, the church verger's assistant, is standing behind the candle cupboard. Raising his eyebrows and stroking his beard he explains in a half-whisper to an old woman: "Matins will be in the evening to-day, directly after vespers. And they will ring for the 'hours' to-morrow between seven and eight. Do you understand? Between ...
— The Cook's Wedding and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov

... it once before with Mrs. C., and sitting in a dark corner, with my head against a cold, stone pillar, had heard vespers, all in the most approved style of the poetic. I went back to it now to see how it looked after the cathedrals of Germany. The churches of France have suffered dreadfully by the whirlwind spirit of its revolutions. At different times the painted glass of ...
— Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands V2 • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... The vespers had already begun, and the monks were singing the service in the choir, when two boys rushed up the nave, announcing, more by their terrified gestures than by their words, that the soldiers were bursting into the palace and monastery. ...
— MacMillan's Reading Books - Book V • Anonymous

... his soul was restored to peace. This was his first trial besides what has already been narrated, and it came upon him suddenly one day as he was entering the church. He was accustomed to hear Mass daily, and to assist at Vespers and Compline—devotions from which he derived much consolation. During Mass, he always read over the history of the Passion, and his soul was filled with a ...
— The Autobiography of St. Ignatius • Saint Ignatius Loyola

... vespers, Bibboni determined to seek better refuge. Followed at a discreet distance by Bebo, he first called at their lodgings and ordered supper. Two priests came in and fell into conversation with them. But something in the behaviour of one of these good ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds

... as the hundred or more orphans met at vespers and sang, "Onward, Christian Soldiers!" they saw a stranger seated at the speaker's desk in the home chapel. He was a venerable old Wan, straight and dignified, his hoary head a crown of honor; for he was all that he appeared—a father ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various

... I often went into the orchard behind the house; there we bit the same apples and the same pears; we were the happiest creatures in the world. It was I who took her to high mass and vespers; and on holidays she never left my side, and refused to dance with the other youths of the village. Everybody knew that we would some day be married; but, if I should be so unfortunate as to be drawn in the conscription, there was an end of matters. I wished that I was a thousand times more lame; ...
— The Conscript - A Story of the French war of 1813 • Emile Erckmann

... After vespers had been sung, the monks retired, but one lingered, for he was blind and walked slowly, led by a little chorister. As he drew near, Prince Henry ...
— The Children's Longfellow - Told in Prose • Doris Hayman

... is an excuse for believing the tradition that the revolt called "the Sicilian Vespers," in 1282, was arranged throughout the island without the use of a syllable, and even the day and hour for the massacre of the obnoxious foreigners fixed upon by signs only. Indeed, the popular story goes so far as to ...
— Sign Language Among North American Indians Compared With That Among Other Peoples And Deaf-Mutes • Garrick Mallery

... floor, as if sight had been restored to her so that her eyes could dwell upon the green-leaved alder and maple, the drooping spruce bows, the vastness of those forests of somber fir where the deer lurked in the shadows and where the birds sang vespers and matins when dusk fell and dawn came again. There were meadow larks warbling now on stumps that dotted the floor of the Big Bend, and above the voices of those yellow-breasted singers and the watery murmuring of the ...
— The Hidden Places • Bertrand W. Sinclair

... whispering side by side, Nor ceased the low murmur at eventide; So breathe in whispers The zephyrs through lindens at twilight vespers. ...
— Fridthjof's Saga • Esaias Tegner

... fancied, to herself and to others, she was rigid as steel. Besides this, she was a strict observer of all Church canons and rituals; and more than once, when Guy had proposed some plan, a vigil, or matins, or vespers came in the way. She did all for the best, I am certain, and judged herself far more severely than she did others, but she could not guess how any thing like an admonition or a lecture grated on the proud, self-willed nature ...
— Guy Livingstone; - or, 'Thorough' • George A. Lawrence

... reinforcing while pretending submission, in order to throw dust in the eyes of the too confiding Danes, brought up their forces and commenced fighting anew. "It was the eve of St. Vitus, and the Danes were singing Vespers in camp, when suddenly a wild howl rang through the summer evening, and the heathens poured out of the woods, attacked the surprised Danes on all sides, and quickly thinned their ranks. The Danes began to waver, but the Prince of Rugen, ...
— Denmark • M. Pearson Thomson

... to vespers as I approached the Village of Arques. The old castle had frequently peeped out upon me, in my way thither, from its elevated situation; but being resolved to see "all that could be seen," a French village, for the first time, was not to be overlooked. For a country ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume One • Thomas Frognall Dibdin

... strongest. And how seven times in the twenty-four hours, in thunder, rain, or snow, by daylight, twilight, moonlight, or torchlight, the solitaries flocked from distant points, over rugged precipitous ways, to worship in the convent church; at matins, at prime, tierce, sexte, nones, vespers, and compline. He even, under eager questioning, described to him the persons of famous anchorites he had sung the Psalter and prayed with there; the only intercourse their vows allowed, except with special permission. Moncata, Duke of Moncata and Cardova, and Hidalgo of Spain, who in ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade

... unfendered and uncared for! But the bells of Messina, all let loose together, interrupt our pleasing reverie, and our friends, who have been hovering round us in a boat, are now permitted to approach, and to land with us at our hotel. 'Tis our last day!—in the evening, we go to hear Sicilian vespers for the last time; and the next day we ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various

... was the only one that was of much importance, to which the whole parish came. That in the afternoon was attended only by the village people, and did not count for much. The rector would not have said in so many words, like a French cure, that vespers was pas obligatoire, but he had the same feeling. Both he and his wife felt kindly to the people who came, as if it were a personal compliment. It is needless to say that things ecclesiastical have very, very much changed since, and that this ...
— A Country Gentleman and his Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant

... or hurds, hemorrhoids, ides, matins, nippers, nones, obsequies, orgies,[145] piles, pincers or pinchers, pliers, reins, scissors, shears, skittles, snuffers, spectacles, teens, tongs, trowsers, tweezers, umbles, vespers, victuals. ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown

... after most others have gone to bed. Then in the stillness his voice sounds sweet and clear, and the words of the song are: 'Chewee, chewee, chewee lira, lira, lira lee.' That is the way he says his evening prayers: you know that in some of the churches there is a beautiful service called Vespers. Ah, if ...
— Citizen Bird • Mabel Osgood Wright and Elliott Coues

... the feasts," is understood, in Spain, that after joining in the mass, as before stated, believers are at liberty to dedicate the day to every species of diversion and profanity. In France and in England, it is obligatory also to attend vespers on the Sundays. Not so, however, in Spain, where, in the evenings, scarcely a person is to be ...
— Roman Catholicism in Spain • Anonymous

... and the pictures on the ceiling are far from contemptible; but I cannot praise that of the altar-piece, where Our Lady is covering with her cloak the Queen Dona Maria, and all the royal family, on their arrival in Brazil. The choir is served in a manner that would not disgrace Italy. I attended at vespers, and have seldom been more gratified with the music of the evening service. This the chapel owes to the residence of the royal family, whose passion and talent for music are hereditary. Adjoining ...
— Journal of a Voyage to Brazil - And Residence There During Part of the Years 1821, 1822, 1823 • Maria Graham

... Will's I met with Mr. Spicer, and with him to the Abbey to see them at vespers. There I found ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys

... mist or cloud, on mast or shroud, It perch'd for vespers nine; Whiles all the night, through fog-smoke ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy

... he wants by a sign, but he may not go further unless he have been commanded by the abbat. When Collation is over it is his duty to close the press, and during the period of labour, of sleep, and of meals, and while vespers are being sung, to ...
— The Care of Books • John Willis Clark

... cannot but congratulate themselves that I have spared them so much. Nearly all my cannon were loaded only with powder. I wanted to give a little lesson to the Parisians. The whole affair was nothing but the impress of my seal on France. Such skirmishes are only the vespers of my fame." [Footnote: Napoleon's words.—See Le Normand, vol. i., ...
— The Empress Josephine • Louise Muhlbach

... of oleanders the bell for vespers began to ring. Its tones passed over the Padre as he watched the sea in his garden. They reached his parishioners in their adobe dwellings near by. The gentle circles of sound floated outward upon the ...
— Padre Ignacio - Or The Song of Temptation • Owen Wister

... himself in his favorite chair. The thrushes were singing vespers. The pure air was faintly ...
— Jewel - A Chapter In Her Life • Clara Louise Burnham

... as I said, has succeeded in inspiring me with doubts on many matters—without imagining it, for he has never required anything of me; I must do him that justice—but who, at any rate, has succeeded in making me neglect many things belonging to religion, such as fasting, vespers, sermons,... confession. ...
— Monsieur, Madame and Bebe, Complete • Gustave Droz

... make one squint. To the comic encouragement, to the "consolations lavished" in prize-book phrases by the voices of young urchins with colds, were the affecting benedictions, the whining and piteous mummeries of a church-porch after vespers. And the moment the young visitors departed, what an explosion of laughter and shouting in the garret, what a dance in a circle round the present brought, what an upsetting of the arm-chair in which one had pretended to be lying ill, of the medicine ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet

... seen in every city in Europe at different intervals. Charitable people gave him alms, but he never begged. He would enter a town, take his station near a church and wait until the bells rang for matins or vespers, then take up his staff and, sighing deeply, move off. People noting the wistful look in his eyes would ask ...
— ZigZag Journeys in Northern Lands; - The Rhine to the Arctic • Hezekiah Butterworth

... guardians kept on by wood and stream, plantation, tavern, forge, and mill, now with companions and now upon a lonely road. At last, when the frogs were at vespers, and the wind had died into an evening stillness, and the last rays of the sun were staining the autumn foliage a yet deeper red, they came by way of Broad Street into Richmond. The cask of bright leaf must be deposited ...
— Lewis Rand • Mary Johnston

... cloud on mast or shroud It perch'd for vespers nine, Whiles all the night thro' fog-smoke white Glimmer'd ...
— Lyrical Ballads 1798 • Wordsworth and Coleridge

... often close her eyes when eating Lucy and conjure up pictures of her own simple girlhood days, of the country rectory, of the rooks singing matins and vespers in the trees. Country people often get like this over an egg at breakfast. I didn't eat Lucy myself, as my taste is ruined by my vicious town breeding; besides, Lucy was a luxury in war-time, and Dossett's Genuine Creamery has for me a ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 150, February 2, 1916 • Various

... fort of cedar pickets, built by their men within the past year, and enclosing a chapel and a house. Near by, they had cleared a large tract of land, and sown it with wheat, Indian corn, peas, and other crops. The new-comers were graciously received, and invited to vespers in the chapel; but they very soon found La Salle's prediction made good, and saw that the Jesuit fathers wanted no help from St. Sulpice. Galinee, on his part, takes occasion to remark that, though the Jesuits had baptized a few Indians at the Saut, not one of them was ...
— France and England in North America, a Series of Historical Narratives, Part Third • Francis Parkman

... regarded her as his wife. She reproached him with his duplicity and the imposition he had practised on her, and told him she would have no more to say to him. This took place in St. Peter's one Friday at vespers. Soon after they went to Naples, where Swift followed, and wrote to her mother saying he had married her daughter, and asking her forgiveness; that she might fancy the marriage was not valid, but she would find it was, having been celebrated by an abbe, ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville

... but it is very difficult to believe so), sit on the footway leaning against house walls. Everybody who has come for water to the fountain, stays there, and seems incapable of any such energetic idea as going home. Vespers are over, though not so long but that I can smell the heavy resinous incense as I pass the church. No man seems to be at work, save the coppersmith. In an Italian town he is always at work, and always thumping ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens

... legionaries—-two heavy javelins (Spanish azagaya, the Roman pilum), a short stabbing sword and a shield. They served the king, the nobles, the church or the towns for pay, and were professional soldiers. When Peter III. of Aragon made war on Charles of Anjou after the Sicilian Vespers—-30th of March 1282-for the possession of Naples and Sicily, the Almogavares formed the most effective element of his army. Their discipline and ferocity, the force with which they hurled their ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... went bare of a mass. There were not enough of them. Altars were set up in the squares, and the street-ends blocked by a kneeling, bowing, weeping, adoring crowd. The bishop spoke the common mind when at Vespers that night he gave notice that he should go forthwith to purge the Carmelite church of the stain upon it, "at the request of my reverend brother the Prior Provincial of the Order." He set out then and there in solemn procession of the whole cathedral chapter. ...
— Little Novels of Italy • Maurice Henry Hewlett

... the gathering twilight, I was making my way through the streets of the city. The dusk had obliterated all that was mean and dreary. Nothing but the irregular housefronts stood up against the still sky, the lighted windows giving the sense of home and ease. A quiet bell rang for vespers in a church tower, and as I passed I heard an organ roll within. It all seemed a sweetly framed message to the soul, a symbol of joy ...
— At Large • Arthur Christopher Benson

... seignorial rents are to be suppressed. Millers are to take only one thirty-second of a bushel. The seigneurs of our department are to give up all servile holidays and ill-acquired property. The cure of Bieze is simply to say mass at nine o'clock in the morning and vespers at two o'clock in the afternoon, in summer and winter; he must marry and bury gratis, it being reserved to us to pay him a salary. He is to be paid 6 sous for masses, and not to leave his cure except to repeat his breviary and make proper calls on the men and women of his parish. Hats ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 2 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 1 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine

... vespers, he came again, bowed politely, fetched a bit of paper out of his waistcoat-pocket and sat down on a chair by the stove. This visit annoyed her: with the quickness with which small-minded people weigh and think over a ...
— The Path of Life • Stijn Streuvels

... she mention the fact that a rejected suitor had threatened her with another appeal. Of a Sunday afternoon all good Romans (and the best Romans are often the northern barbarians) follow the custom of going to vespers at Saint Peter's; and it had been agreed among our friends that they would drive together to the great church. After lunch, an hour before the carriage came, Lord Warburton presented himself at the Hotel de Paris and paid a visit to the two ladies, Ralph ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 1 (of 2) • Henry James

... Church, and, during a pilgrimage he made to Rome, he deposited upon the altar of St. Peter his own Latin poems set to music. "He often went to the church of St. Denis, clad in his royal robes and with his crown on his head; and he there conducted the singing at matins, mass, and vespers, chanting with the monks and himself calling upon them to sing. When he sat in the consistory, he voluntarily styled himself the bishops' client." Two centuries later, St. Louis proved that the virtues of the saint are not incompatible with the qualities of the ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume I. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... those leading to the piazza of the modern Capitol, and "the interior is vast, solemn, and highly picturesque. It was here, as Gibbon tells us, that on the 15th of October, 1764, as he sat musing amidst the ruins of the Capitol, while the barefooted friars were singing vespers, the idea of writing the 'Decline and Fall' of the city first started ...
— The Youthful Wanderer - An Account of a Tour through England, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany • George H. Heffner

... the bell for Vespers, she waited by the bell ringer to see that Gadbeau came into the church. He took his place among the men, and then Ruth dropped quietly into a pew near the door. When the people rose to sing the Tantum Ergo, she saw Gadbeau slip unnoticed out of the church. She waited tensely until the singing ...
— The Shepherd of the North • Richard Aumerle Maher

... Vespers are finished at the Gesu; the organ is silent, the crowd have departed, and, in the mellow twilight of an autumn eve, we discern only a few pious souls crouched behind the pillars, or pouring forth their last fervent aspirations before some favorite altar or ...
— Alvira: the Heroine of Vesuvius • A. J. O'Reilly

... Thursday, at vespers, after the bell had rung for the watch, John Stockton did not forget to appear at the hour his hostess had appointed. He went to her chamber, and found her there quite alone, and she received him and made him welcome, for the table ...
— One Hundred Merrie And Delightsome Stories - Les Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles • Various

... and blossoming orchard copse Glittering with dews dawn-reddened. Bertha here, That church begun, had thus besought her Lord, 'Spare me this bank which God has made so fair! Here let the little birds have leave to sing, The bud to blossom! Here, the vespers o'er, Lovers shall sit; and here, in later days, Children shall question, "Who was he—Saint Paul? What taught, what wrought he that his name should shine Thus like the stars in heaven?"' As Sebert stood, The ...
— Legends of the Saxon Saints • Aubrey de Vere

... great project of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire took shape in his mind one eventful evening as he "sat musing amidst the ruins of the Capitol, while the barefooted friars were singing vespers in the temple of Jupiter." Yet I suppose Gibbon's fifteenth chapter is scarcely to Mr. Henson's taste. Had I "been there" with Mr. Henson, I too might have had my reflections, and I might have thrown this Freethought douche on his ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (Second Series) • George W. Foote

... asking themselves questions. Gossip and scandal would arise, and there would be read into the affair quite another meaning than the real one. No, little angel, it were better that I should see you tomorrow at Vespers. That will be the better plan, and less hurtful to us both. Nor must you chide me, beloved, because I have written you a letter like this (reading it through, I see it to be all odds and ends); for I am an old man now, dear Barbara, and an uneducated one. Little ...
— Poor Folk • Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... was much delighted, and determined to set out immediately for the Golden River. How to get the holy water was the question. He went to the priest, but the priest could not give any holy water to so abandoned a character. So Hans went to vespers in the evening for the first time in his life, and, under pretence of crossing himself, stole a cupful, and returned ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V2 • Charles H. Sylvester

... of vespers our good General arrived, with fifty foot-soldiers very much fatigued. As soon as I learned that he was coming, I ran home and put on a new soutain, the best which I had, and a surplice, and, going out with a crucifix in my ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various

... longer dwelt in the buildings, but shepherds from distant folds came monthly to administer to the needs of this consecrated flock. Then the many bells would call the faithful to mass, and to vespers, or chime for the wedding of favored sons and daughters. Part of them would jingle merrily for notable christenings; but one only would toll when death whitened the lips of some distinguished victim; and again, while ...
— The Expedition of the Donner Party and its Tragic Fate • Eliza Poor Donner Houghton

... my impatience as I waited for vespers, by pacing to and fro in the wood which divided the road to Dover from the convent wall; when I was startled to come suddenly upon a horse, saddled and bridled, tied up in a covert. It had a pillion on its back; and seemed like the beast on which a ...
— Sir Ludar - A Story of the Days of the Great Queen Bess • Talbot Baines Reed

... post-office they met a young fellow wearing a cassock, a strangely incongruous figure in the Wisconsin village. "Are you coming to vespers?" the young priest asked. His brown, heavy face did not accord with the clerical habit or ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick

... it in great festivals alone that the religious spirit of the people was manifested. On Sundays all shops were shut, and the common people heard at least the morning mass, although they were getting careless about vespers. Every spring for a fortnight about Easter, there was a great revival of religious observance, and churches and confessionals were crowded. But throughout the year, one humble kind of procession might be met in the streets of Paris. A poor priest, in a worn surplice, reverently carries the ...
— The Eve of the French Revolution • Edward J. Lowell

... At the vespers and feast of Santa Anna Preciosa was somewhat fatigued; but so celebrated had she become for beauty, wit, and discretion, as well as for her dancing, that nothing else was talked of throughout the capital. A fortnight afterwards, she returned to Madrid, ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

... "Often, at vespers, in the dim twilight of the chapel, she flung back her cape and hood, with the tears raining from her eyes and her voice gushing and throbbing with the melancholy music, while the nuns paused in their singing, appalled by the religious ecstasy of Sulpizia. She was so sweet and ...
— Gifts of Genius - A Miscellany of Prose and Poetry by American Authors • Various

... ALAR. The moon's a sluggard, I think, to-night. How now, the Moor that dodged My steps at vespers. Hem! I like not this. Friends beneath cloaks; ...
— Count Alarcos - A Tragedy • Benjamin Disraeli

... sick in the hospitals, fell victims to the craving for revenge for the humiliations and exactions of the last seven months.[76] Such was Easter-tide at Verona—les Paques veronaises—an event that recalls the Sicilian Vespers of Palermo ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose

... I remember how on foot I climbed The stony pathway leading to its gate; Above, the convent bells for vespers chimed, Below, the ...
— Italy, the Magic Land • Lilian Whiting

... wonderful," he said one evening to Fra Giulio, as they talked together in the cloister after vespers; "I solemnly declare that it hath happened to me to ask him a question of which I, verily, knew not the answer; and he, keeping in quiet thought for some moments, hath so lucidly responded that his words have carried with them the conviction that ...
— A Golden Book of Venice • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull

... dislikes, her sentiments, her opinions, her rights, and her wrongs; she lived, as it were, a reflected existence. Every morning she said to her idol, "How beautiful we are to-day!" precisely as the bell-ringer who, puffing out his cheeks, cried: "We are in voice; we have chanted vespers well to-day!" M. Moriaz excused her for finding his daughter charming, but could not so readily approve of her upholding Antoinette's ideas, her decisions, her prejudices. "This woman is no chaperon," said he; "she is an admiration-point!" He would have ...
— Samuel Brohl & Company • Victor Cherbuliez

... also perished at the hands of the mob. Their bodies were allowed to lie stark naked all that day in the middle of Chepe. The head of the bishop was sent to the queen at Gloucester,(417) but his corpse was reverently carried into St. Paul's after vespers by the canons and vicars of the cathedral. It was not allowed, however, to remain there long; for hearing that the bishop had died under sentence of excommunication, the authorities caused it to be removed to the church of St. Clement Danes, near which stood ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume I • Reginald R. Sharpe

... list of pieces ready at hand to satisfy the rapacious public. She was wont at first to sing Proch's Air and Variations, but that always led to a demand for more, and whether she supplemented it with "Ah! non giunge," from "La Sonnambula," the bolero from "The Sicilian Vespers," "O luce di quest anima," from "Linda," or the vocalized waltz by Strauss, the applause always was riotous, and so remained until she sat down to the pianoforte and sang Chopin's "Maiden's Wish," in Polish, to her own accompaniment. As for ...
— A Book of Operas - Their Histories, Their Plots, and Their Music • Henry Edward Krehbiel

... invitatories; chimes telling a rosary of harmony over tortuous labyrinths of narrow streets, over cornet towers, over pepper-box pignons, over dentelated walls; the chimes chanting the canonical hours, prime and tierce, sexte and none, vespers and compline; celebrating the joy of a city with the tinkling laughter of the little bells, tolling its sorrow with the ponderous lamentation of the great ones. And there were master ringers in those times, makers of chords, who could send into ...
— La-bas • J. K. Huysmans

... significantly phrase it. The last time I ever saw him was under melancholy circumstances enough, though the occasion professed to be one of rejoicing. It was at the great gathering at Palermo for celebrating the anniversary of the Sicilian Vespers. Of course such a celebration would have brought Garibaldi to partake in it, wherever he might have been, short of in his grave. And truly he was then very near that. It was a melancholy business. He was brought from the steamer to his bed ...
— What I Remember, Volume 2 • Thomas Adolphus Trollope

... Fuller and her husband first met are full of interest. Soon after Miss Fuller's arrival in Rome, early in 1847, she went one day to hear vespers at St. Peter's, and becoming separated from her friends after the service, she was noted as she examined the church by a young man of gentlemanly address, who, perceiving her discomfort and her lack of Italian, offered his services as a guide in her endeavour ...
— The Romance of Old New England Rooftrees • Mary Caroline Crawford

... and abbey windows, dim and dimly seen—as Moorish temples of the Hindoos," that exercised even princely power both in Lorraine and in the German Diets. These had their sweet bells that pierced the forests for many a league at matins or vespers, and each its own dreamy legend. Few enough, and scattered enough, were these abbeys, in no degree to disturb the deep solitude of the region; many enough to spread a network or awning of Christian sanctity over what else ...
— Miscellaneous Essays • Thomas de Quincey

... John. And about forty-five years since, I rang all through one Sunday in June, when there was such a battle going on in the corn-fields there, as none of you others ever heard tolled of. Yes, from morning service until after vespers, the French and English were all at it, ding-dong." And then calls of business intervening, the bells have to give up their private jangle, resume their professional duty, and sing their hourly ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray

... ways forthwith, and about vespers happened on Amis, and they greeted each the other. And Amis said to the pilgrim, had he seen or heard tidings in any land of Amile, son of the Count of Alverne. And the pilgrim answered him all marvelling: "Who art thou, Knight, who thus mockest a pilgrim? Thou seemest ...
— Old French Romances • William Morris

... and looked towards the half opened window, as she caught the sound of chimes. Across the Loire came the deep-toned voice of a cathedral bell, ringing for vespers. ...
— The Gate of the Giant Scissors • Annie Fellows Johnston

... mother's blessing; and mine thou shalt be—no earthly power shall part us. Death, death alone can break the links that bind us, and must be of God, though man may seem the cause. Be comforted, sweet love. Hark! they are chiming vespers; I must be gone for the solemn vigil of to-night, and to-morrow thou shalt arm thine own true knight, mine Agnes, and deck me with that blue scarf, more precious even than the jewelled sword my sovereign brother gives. Farewell, for a brief, brief while; I go to ...
— The Days of Bruce Vol 1 - A Story from Scottish History • Grace Aguilar

... owers, l. 34. 'The prime and other hours are the services Ad primam horam, Ad tertiam, Ad sextam, and Ad nonam, found in the Primer, or layman's prayer-book. They are sometimes called the middle hours, as distinguished from Matins and Vespers.' ...
— Caxton's Book of Curtesye • Frederick J. Furnivall

... hopes. I felt sure there must be a weakness of some sort in him. Quite possibly it would prove to be a mild estheticism that delighted in the savor of incense and the mournful cadence of choral vespers. He declined a cigar and this rather increased ...
— The House of a Thousand Candles • Meredith Nicholson

... her before she went away again, for, you see, she hasn't come to stay for keeps yet. I think she came the first time when Jim went away, and then again at Easter time when Miss King talked to us at Vespers, and then this summer when Aunt Nan told me about Malcolm. That time she ...
— Virginia of Elk Creek Valley • Mary Ellen Chase



Words linked to "Vespers" :   canonical hour



Copyright © 2024 Free-Translator.com