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observance
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  • As her release date neared, Vanessa got increasingly anxious, with a decided uptick in religious observance.†   (source)
  • They waited for her to rejoice in kind, on cue, with due observance of the protocols.†   (source)
  • General Dreedle's views, expressed in less pretentious literary style, pleased ex-P. F.C. Wintergreen and were sped along by him in zealous observance of regulations.†   (source)
  • Since RFS and FP are laws, some sort of authority is needed to guarantee the observance of these laws.†   (source)
  • Guilty of a fierce desire to remain alive, they and Rearden traded like savages, without rights, titles, contracts or protection, with nothing but mutual understanding and a ruthlessly absolute observance of one's given word.†   (source)
  • With governmental offices due to close at noon for the Good Friday observance, there's little time to spare.†   (source)
  • Rather, it required--in addition to belief in the gods-- observance of rites, prayers, and the offering of sacrifices.†   (source)
  • Free people of Berlin: Today, as in the past, the United States stands for the strict observance and full implementation of all parts of the Four Power Agreement of 1971.†   (source)
  • He is judged, and if he has done well, observing the rules and restrictions of his caste, paying the proper observances to Heaven, advancing himself intellectually and morally, then this man will be incarnated into a higher caste, eventually achieving godhood itself and coming to dwell here in the City.†   (source)
  • TYRONE It's true I'm a bad Catholic in the observance, God forgive me.†   (source)
  • The Good Friday observance means that its citizens are temporarily done celebrating the war's end.†   (source)
  • The altar boy hesitated, well acquainted with Father Knowles' deep observance of church tradition… and, more importantly, with his foul temper when anything cast this time-honored shrine in anything but favorable light.†   (source)
  • The most significant of our activities then were the Cinco De Mayo festivities, including our own float in the annual observances, and efforts to raise funds, like holding dances.†   (source)
  • Each day hundreds of elves arrived in Ellesmera from their cities scattered throughout the woods, for no elf would willingly miss the centennial observance of their treaty with the dragons.†   (source)
  • I believed that everyone should be able to practice according to their own preferences and beliefs, but an awful lot of pilgrims in prison seem to be making it up as they go along, in silly ways—wearing a contraband napkin on their head one month when they're practicing Islam, and then appearing in the Buddhist meditation circle the next—after realizing that they could duck out of work for this new brand of religious observance.†   (source)
  • He remembered the austerely pitiless respect he had felt for his contract of marriage, for all his contracts and all his legal obligations-and he saw what sort of legality his scrupulous observance was expected to serve.†   (source)
  • "On the other hand," he added, "I shall take it as a personal affront if there are not ten prisoners for sacrifice to Nirriti the Black, my personal patron-outside these walls, of course, where observance of the Dark Feast will not be held so heavily against us …."†   (source)
  • They are lax in religious observance, and some of them live in open concubinage.†   (source)
  • Moreover, most people, assuming they had not altogether abandoned religious observances, or did not combine them naïvely with a thoroughly immoral way of living, had replaced normal religious practice by more or less extravagant superstitions.†   (source)
  • Their only interest is in a new one-way international law, which lacks mutuality in its observance and therefore becomes an instrument of oppression.†   (source)
  • Where was piety and observance?†   (source)
  • This Lincoln, even before he was thirty, warned the young men of Springfield that disrespect for legal observances might destroy free institutions in America, and urged them to let reverence for the laws "become the political religion of the nation."†   (source)
  • Mostly a lot of riffraff turned up, however, in observance of his troubles, which were by then public and had been for some time.†   (source)
  • Each soul was rated upon a basis often as regards its goodness, its diligence in religious observance, and its importance to its family group.†   (source)
  • They hung upon Venters with a mute observance, and he found hope in that.†   (source)
  • Cold dinner in the kitchen on the Sabbath, Mr Gallanbile being devoted to the Observance question.†   (source)
  • He spoke in the name of something sacred and precious—the observance of a magnificent form.†   (source)
  • Religion and its observances had made Felton a man inaccessible to ordinary seductions.†   (source)
  • Of course I felt my good faith involved in the observance of his request.†   (source)
  • There were people everywhere, and everywhere the people were engaged in sacred observances.†   (source)
  • '—All unavailing without a strict observance of the unities, sir,' returned Mr Curdle.†   (source)
  • One by one his followers went through with the simple observances that Kells's personality made a serious and binding compact.†   (source)
  • Seemeth it not strange that madness should filch from his memory his father's very lineaments; the customs and observances that are his due from such as be about him; and, leaving him his Latin, strip him of his Greek and French?†   (source)
  • In the school we made a special effort to teach our students the meaning of Christmas, and to give them lessons in its proper observance.†   (source)
  • For he had crossed the line into Cochise County, Arizona, where sheriffs kept a stricter observance of law.†   (source)
  • There was something about the luxury of the Welland house and the density of the Welland atmosphere, so charged with minute observances and exactions, that always stole into his system like a narcotic.†   (source)
  • My grandfather's cousin—by courtesy my great-aunt—with whom we used to stay, was the mother of that aunt Leonie who, since her husband's (my uncle Octave's) death, had gradually declined to leave, first Combray, then her house in Combray, then her bedroom, and finally her bed; and who now never 'came down,' but lay perpetually in an indefinite condition of grief, physical exhaustion, illness, obsessions, and religious observances.†   (source)
  • Jude agreed, and Sue went up-stairs and prepared to start, putting on a joyful coloured gown in observance of her liberty; seeing which Jude put on a lighter tie.†   (source)
  • Chapter 5 The observance of Sunday at Bellomont was chiefly marked by the punctual appearance of the smart omnibus destined to convey the household to the little church at the gates.†   (source)
  • He spent years and years in desultory studies, undertakings, and meditations; he began to evince considerable indifference to social forms and observances.†   (source)
  • …sells me an oaken chest which he swears was made in the XIII century, though as a matter of fact he made it himself only yesterday, at least does not pretend that there are any modern ideas in it, whereas your academic copier of fossils offers them to you as the latest outpouring of the human spirit, and, worst of all, kidnaps young people as pupils and persuades them that his limitations are rules, his observances dexterities, his timidities good taste, and his emptinesses purities.†   (source)
  • For although the few gun-room officers there at the time had, in due observance of naval etiquette, withdrawn to leeward the moment Captain Vere had begun his promenade on the deck's weather-side; and tho' during the colloquy with Claggart they of course ventured not to diminish the distance; and though throughout the interview Captain Vere's voice was far from high, and Claggart's silvery and low; and the wind in the cordage and the wash of the sea helped the more to put them beyond…†   (source)
  • These were the only traces of luxury, of that clinging to the minute observance of personal seemliness, which showed what her other renunciations must have cost.†   (source)
  • Respected by all and sundry, not merely in her own house, where every one of us, having learned the futility of recommending any healthier mode of life, had become gradually resigned to its observance, but in the village as well, where, three streets away, a tradesman who had to hammer nails into a packing-case would send first to Francoise to make sure that my aunt was not 'resting'—her 'little jog-trot' was, none the less, brutally disturbed on one occasion in this same year.†   (source)
  • Winsett himself had a savage abhorrence of social observances: Archer, who dressed in the evening because he thought it cleaner and more comfortable to do so, and who had never stopped to consider that cleanliness and comfort are two of the costliest items in a modest budget, regarded Winsett's attitude as part of the boring "Bohemian" pose that always made fashionable people, who changed their clothes without talking about it, and were not forever harping on the number of servants one…†   (source)
  • To wit, that he shall deny to none that he is the true prince, and heir to England's greatness; that he shall uphold his princely dignity, and shall receive, without word or sign of protest, that reverence and observance which unto it do appertain of right and ancient usage; that he shall cease to speak to any of that lowly birth and life his malady hath conjured out of the unwholesome imaginings of o'er-wrought fancy; that he shall strive with diligence to bring unto his memory again…†   (source)
  • He had his own reason for observance.†   (source)
  • And for that he hath been a king, it is meet that other than common observance shall be his due; wherefore note this his dress of state, for by it he shall be known, and none shall copy it; and wheresoever he shall come, it shall remind the people that he hath been royal, in his time, and none shall deny him his due of reverence or fail to give him salutation.†   (source)
  • Nine o'clock was an early hour for a visit, but Selden had passed beyond all such conventional observances.†   (source)
  • This photograph was, of course, in common use in their ritual observances, was subjected to daily profanation, for the friend replied in words which were evidently a liturgical response: "Let him stay there.†   (source)
  • Lily had hinted to Mr. Gryce that this neglect of religious observances was repugnant to her early traditions, and that during her visits to Bellomont she regularly accompanied Muriel and Hilda to church.†   (source)
  • Even the two hours devoted to certain princely pastimes and recreations were rather a burden to him than otherwise, they were so fettered by restrictions and ceremonious observances.†   (source)
  • …holiday attire, for one of those days which are the only true holidays, the holy days of religion, because they are not appointed by any capricious accident, as secular holidays are appointed, upon days which are not specially ordained for such observances, which have nothing about them that is essentially festal—but it was attired even more richly than the rest, for the flowers which clung to its branches, one above another, so thickly as to leave no part of the tree undecorated, like…†   (source)
  • Then the Earl proceeded, very delicately, to instruct Tom as to the observances proper to the stately occasion, under the rather thin disguise of 'reminding' him concerning things already known to him; but to his vast gratification it turned out that Tom needed very little help in this line—he had been making use of Humphrey in that direction, for Humphrey had mentioned that within a few days he was to begin to dine in public; having gathered it from the swift-winged gossip of the…†   (source)
  • Another truth is no less clear—that religions ought to assume fewer external observances in democratic periods than at any others.†   (source)
  • The sullen soldiers shouldered their empty tubes and fell into their places, like men whose blood had been heated by the past contest, and who only desired the opportunity to revenge an indignity which was still wounding to their pride, concealed as it was under the observances of military etiquette.†   (source)
  • Thirdly, Mr. Bucket has to take Jo by the arm a little above the elbow and walk him on before him, without which observance neither the Tough Subject nor any other Subject could be professionally conducted to Lincoln's Inn Fields.†   (source)
  • Baby was christened, the rector deciding that a double baptism was the lesser risk to incur; and on this occasion Silas, making himself as clean and tidy as he could, appeared for the first time within the church, and shared in the observances held sacred by his neighbours.†   (source)
  • Your acceptance of it, and your observance of it as binding, is the only remaining condition that I am charged with, by the person from whom I take my instructions, and for whom I am not otherwise responsible.†   (source)
  • He was certainly a happy fellow at this time: to be seven-and-twenty, without any fixed vices, with a generous resolution that his action should be beneficent, and with ideas in his brain that made life interesting quite apart from the cultus of horseflesh and other mystic rites of costly observance, which the eight hundred pounds left him after buying his practice would certainly not have gone far in paying for.†   (source)
  • While in various silent ways the seamen of the Pequod were evincing their observance of this ominous incident at the first mere mention of the White Whale's name to another ship, Ahab for a moment paused; it almost seemed as though he would have lowered a boat to board the stranger, had not the threatening wind forbade.†   (source)
  • She had never received from her more than outward attention, nothing beyond the observances of complaisance; had never succeeded in any point which she wanted to carry, against previous inclination.†   (source)
  • …they did not greatly propose to do right; that they were a distinct race from me by their prejudices and superstitions, as the Chinamen and Malays are; that in their sacrifices to humanity they ran no risks, not even to their property; that after all they were not so noble but they treated the thief as he had treated them, and hoped, by a certain outward observance and a few prayers, and by walking in a particular straight though useless path from time to time, to save their souls.†   (source)
  • It was the place whence proclamations were wont to be made, amidst an assemblage of the magistracy, with all the ceremonial that attended such public observances in those days.†   (source)
  • Proceeding upon that policy, the predecessors of Gratus had carefully abstained from interfering with any of the sacred observances of their subjects.†   (source)
  • So in the same way Moscow was empty when Napoleon, weary, uneasy, and morose, paced up and down in front of the Kammer-Kollezski rampart, awaiting what to his mind was a necessary, if but formal, observance of the proprieties—a deputation.†   (source)
  • In his regiment Maximilian Morrel was noted for his rigid observance, not only of the obligations imposed on a soldier, but also of the duties of a man; and he thus gained the name of "the stoic."†   (source)
  • He slipped back to thinking and dreaming in the vernacular, and mechanically followed the lama's ceremonial observances at eating, drinking, and the like.†   (source)
  • Evidently in observance of their nightly custom, she put some bread before herself, and touched his glass with her lips; but Arthur saw she was troubled and took nothing.†   (source)
  • On the other hand, Richard was as rigid in the observance of the canons of his church as he was inflexible in his opinions.†   (source)
  • "You, Middleton!" returned his wife looking up into his flushed face, while a bright blush suffused her own sweet countenance; "you may receive my vows, but surely you can have no power to absolve me from their observance!"†   (source)
  • The countenance of the first-named gentleman, peculiarly intelligent at all times, acquired great additional interest from his close observance of the game, and his attentive perusal of Mr. Chitling's hand; upon which, from time to time, as occasion served, he bestowed a variety of earnest glances: wisely regulating his own play by the result of his observations upon his neighbour's cards.†   (source)
  • …round the cup with the ejaculation tr-r-r-oonk, tr-r-r—oonk, tr-r-r-oonk! and straightway comes over the water from some distant cove the same password repeated, where the next in seniority and girth has gulped down to his mark; and when this observance has made the circuit of the shores, then ejaculates the master of ceremonies, with satisfaction, tr-r-r-oonk! and each in his turn repeats the same down to the least distended, leakiest, and flabbiest paunched, that there be no mistake;…†   (source)
  • Cedric, to whom the name of Alfred was as that of a deity, had treated the sole remaining scion of that great monarch with a degree of observance, such as, perhaps, was in those days scarce paid to an acknowledged princess.†   (source)
  • It is to be all made of sighs and tears; It is to be all made of faith and service; It is to be all made of phantasy; All made of passion, and all made of wishes; All adoration, duty, and observance; All humbleness, all patience, and impatience; All purity, all trial, all observance.†   (source)
  • For in the United States it is believed, and with truth, that patriotism is a kind of devotion which is strengthened by ritual observance.†   (source)
  • The servants said they would follow the fashion, a fashion grown sacred through immemorial observance; they would scatter fresh rushes in all the rooms and halls, and then the evidence of the aristocratic visitation would be no longer visible.†   (source)
  • The memory of how he had received her confession of infidelity on their way home from the races (especially that he had insisted only on the observance of external decorum, and had not sent a challenge) tortured him like a remorse.†   (source)
  • Having resolved to do it without loss of time, as his leave of absence extended only to the following Saturday, and having no feelings of diffidence to make it distressing to himself even at the moment, he set about it in a very orderly manner, with all the observances, which he supposed a regular part of the business.†   (source)
  • The Churchills might not have a word to say in return; but then, you would have no habits of early obedience and long observance to break through.†   (source)
  • Having regulated her thoughts and comforted her feelings by this happy mixture of reason and weakness, she was able in due time to go down and resume her usual employments near her aunt Bertram, and pay her the usual observances without any apparent want of spirits.†   (source)
  • A spirit of conciliation prescribed the observance of distinct principles in the formation of these two assemblies.†   (source)
  • As the cavalcade left the court of the monastery, an incident happened somewhat alarming to the Saxons, who, of all people of Europe, were most addicted to a superstitious observance of omens, and to whose opinions can be traced most of those notions upon such subjects, still to be found among our popular antiquities.†   (source)
  • It is good and profitable, John, to freshen the understanding, and support the wavering, by the observance of our holy festivals; but all form is but stench in the nostrils of the Holy One, unless it be accompanied by a devout and humble spirit.†   (source)
  • …College-yard—of course on the aristocratic or Pump side, for the Father made it a point of his state to be chary of going among his children on the Poor side, except on Sunday mornings, Christmas Days, and other occasions of ceremony, in the observance whereof he was very punctual, and at which times he laid his hand upon the heads of their infants, and blessed those young insolvents with a benignity that was highly edifying—the brothers, walking up and down the College-yard together,…†   (source)
  • —She should see them henceforward with the closest observance; and wretchedly as she had hitherto misunderstood even those she was watching, she did not know how to admit that she could be blinded here.†   (source)
  • In that house Elizabeth must be first; and she was in the habit of such general observance as "Miss Elliot," that any particularity of attention seemed almost impossible.†   (source)
  • But I expect a strict observance of the external forms of propriety till such time"—his voice shook—"as I may take measures to secure my honor and communicate them to you."†   (source)
  • His drawing-room, under the regenerating influence of a young wife and a daughter by his first marriage, scarcely eighteen, was still one of the well-regulated Paris salons where the worship of traditional customs and the observance of rigid etiquette were carefully maintained.†   (source)
  • If, as I am willing to suppose, you wish to shew me any observance, you will not give way to these emotions, but endeavour to reason yourself into a stronger frame of mind.†   (source)
  • Nor would it have been impracticable, in the observance of majestic ceremonies, to combine mirthful recreation with solemnity, and give, as it were, a grotesque and brilliant embroidery to the great robe of state, which a nation, at such festivals, puts on.†   (source)
  • In aristocracies the observance of forms was superstitious; amongst us they ought to be kept with a deliberate and enlightened deference.†   (source)
  • He had nothing else to do, poor fellow, except at a certain hour of every afternoon to "go to Lloyd's"—in observance of a ceremony of seeing his principal, I think.†   (source)
  • …Crawford had too much sense not to feel the worth of good principles in a wife, though he was too little accustomed to serious reflection to know them by their proper name; but when he talked of her having such a steadiness and regularity of conduct, such a high notion of honour, and such an observance of decorum as might warrant any man in the fullest dependence on her faith and integrity, he expressed what was inspired by the knowledge of her being well principled and religious.†   (source)
  • The reward for perfect observance was Beatitude, or absorption into the being of Brahm, which was not existence as much as absolute rest.†   (source)
  • Remarkable nodded a return to the compliment, and took a sip of the beverage before her; for, provided it was well sweetened, she had no objection to a small potation now and then, After this observance of courtesy between the worthy couple, the dialogue proceeded.†   (source)
  • …that nature, since he did not even know her to be in Bath, it immediately occurred, that something might be done in her favour by the influence of the woman he loved, and she had been hastily preparing to interest Anne's feelings, as far as the observances due to Mr Elliot's character would allow, when Anne's refutation of the supposed engagement changed the face of everything; and while it took from her the new-formed hope of succeeding in the object of her first anxiety, left her at…†   (source)
  • The United States pledge themselves to the observance of the obligation; but the territory which they at present occupy was formerly secured to them by the most solemn oaths of Anglo-American faith.†   (source)
  • Accuracy of style is therefore less required, because the attentive observance of its rules is less perceptible on the stage.†   (source)
  • …living, nor found them in himself (and he could not but consider himself one of the persons making up the Russian people), and most of all because he, like the people, did not know and could not know what is for the general good, though he knew beyond a doubt that this general good could be attained only by the strict observance of that law of right and wrong which has been revealed to every man, and therefore he could not wish for war or advocate war for any general objects whatever.†   (source)
  • Such is the charm of these democratic manners, that even the partisans of aristocracy are caught by it; and after having experienced it for some time, they are by no means tempted to revert to the respectful and frigid observance of aristocratic families.†   (source)
  • Their disciplined habits, both of mind and body, had endowed them with great physical perfection; and the eye of the veteran was apt to scan the fair proportions and athletic frames of the colonists with a look that seemed to utter volumes of contempt for their moral imbecility, He was also a little addicted to the expression of a belief that, where there was so great an observance of the externals of religion, there could not be much of the substance.†   (source)
  • The reader will undoubtedly have remarked the preamble of these enactments: in America religion is the road to knowledge, and the observance of the divine laws leads man to civil freedom.†   (source)
  • Perhaps the necessary classification which I pointed out in the last sentence will always be less respected by a democratic people than by any other, because amongst such a people there are no men who are permanently disposed by education, culture, and leisure to study the natural laws of language, and who cause those laws to be respected by their own observance of them.†   (source)
  • The legislator is then transformed into the magistrate; he is called upon to admit, to distinguish, and to punish the offence; and as he exercises all the authority of a judge, the law restricts him to the observance of all the duties of that high office, and of all the formalities of justice.†   (source)
  • Religion was a quality but little cultivated amid the stumps of Temple's Patent for the first few years of its settlement; but, as most of its inhabitants were from the moral States of Connecticut and Massachusetts, when the wants of nature were satisfied they began seriously to turn their attention to the introduction of those customs and observances which had been the principal care of their fore fathers.†   (source)
  • *d The Catholics are faithful to the observances of their religion; they are fervent and zealous in the support and belief of their doctrines.†   (source)
  • *a A religion which should become more minute, more peremptory, and more surcharged with small observances at a time in which men are becoming more equal, would soon find itself reduced to a band of fanatical zealots in the midst of an infidel people.†   (source)
  • There are no Romish priests who show less taste for the minute individual observances for extraordinary or peculiar means of salvation, or who cling more to the spirit, and less to the letter of the law, than the Roman Catholic priests of the United States.†   (source)
  • On doctrinal points the Catholic faith places all human capacities upon the same level; it subjects the wise and ignorant, the man of genius and the vulgar crowd, to the details of the same creed; it imposes the same observances upon the rich and needy, it inflicts the same austerities upon the strong and the weak, it listens to no compromise with mortal man, but, reducing all the human race to the same standard, it confounds all the distinctions of society at the foot of the same…†   (source)
  • I have seen no country in which Christianity is clothed with fewer forms, figures, and observances than in the United States; or where it presents more distinct, more simple, or more general notions to the mind.†   (source)
  • Men living at such times are impatient of figures; to their eyes symbols appear to be the puerile artifice which is used to conceal or to set off truths, which should more naturally be bared to the light of open day: they are unmoved by ceremonial observances, and they are predisposed to attach a secondary importance to the details of public worship.†   (source)
  • Nor do I suppose that it is possible to maintain a religion without external observances; but, on the other hand, I am persuaded that, in the ages upon which we are entering, it would be peculiarly dangerous to multiply them beyond measure; and that they ought rather to be limited to as much as is absolutely necessary to perpetuate the doctrine itself, which is the substance of religions of which the ritual is only the form.†   (source)
  • He learns from tradition that in Europe ceremonial observances were infinitely varied according to different ranks; this recollection of former times completes his perplexity, and he is the more afraid of not obtaining those marks of respect which are due to him, as he does not exactly know in what they consist.†   (source)
  • Nor will there ever be wanting to a prince legitimate reasons to excuse this non-observance.†   (source)
  • No smile, no continued observance attended it; his eyes were immediately returned to their former direction.†   (source)
  • And so he did all the observance of the service himself, both the dirige, and on the morn he sang mass.†   (source)
  • Therefore a wise lord cannot, nor ought he to, keep faith when such observance may be turned against him, and when the reasons that caused him to pledge it exist no longer.†   (source)
  • One can also see of two cautious men the one attain his end, the other fail; and similarly, two men by different observances are equally successful, the one being cautious, the other impetuous; all this arises from nothing else than whether or not they conform in their methods to the spirit of the times.†   (source)
  • The stamp of publicity had of course been fully given by her confinement and departure, and the change itself was now ushered in by our nonobservance of the regular custom of the schoolroom.†   (source)
    standard prefix: The prefix "non-" in nonobservance means not and reverses the meaning of observance. This is the same pattern you see in words like nonfat, nonfiction, and nonprofit.
  • The historians tell us with naive assurance that its causes were the wrongs inflicted on the Duke of Oldenburg, the nonobservance of the Continental System, the ambition of Napoleon, the firmness of Alexander, the mistakes of the diplomatists, and so on.†   (source)
  • The people of the west moved eastwards to slay their fellow men, and by the law of coincidence thousands of minute causes fitted in and co-ordinated to produce that movement and war: reproaches for the nonobservance of the Continental System, the Duke of Oldenburg's wrongs, the movement of troops into Prussia—undertaken (as it seemed to Napoleon) only for the purpose of securing an armed peace, the French Emperor's love and habit of war coinciding with his people's inclinations,…†   (source)
  • …as an infringement of the real power; or (2) that the will of the people is transferred to the rulers conditionally, under definite and known conditions, and to show that all limitations, conflicts, and even destructions of power result from a nonobservance by the rulers of the conditions under which their power was entrusted to them; or (3) that the will of the people is delegated to the rulers conditionally, but that the conditions are unknown and indefinite, and that the appearance…†   (source)
  • In spite of the complaints of the French as to the nonobservance of the rules, in spite of the fact that to some highly placed Russians it seemed rather disgraceful to fight with a cudgel and they wanted to assume a pose en quarte or en tierce according to all the rules, and to make an adroit thrust en prime, and so on—the cudgel of the people's war was lifted with all its menacing and majestic strength, and without consulting anyone's tastes or rules and regardless of anything else,…†   (source)
  • He seemed rather embarrassed at being caught in the act of condoning acts of paganism, as it were, but brushed it off as merely a local observance with historical color, like the Wearing of the Green.†   (source)
  • And says John Wyse: —'tis a custom more honoured in the breach than in the observance.†   (source)
  • Are there no other tokens Between you 'greed concerning her observance?†   (source)
  • And as he is so scrupulous in his observance of the laws of knight-errantry, he will, no doubt, in order to keep his word, obey the injunction I have laid upon him.†   (source)
  • And ever shall With true observance seek to eke out that Wherein toward me my homely stars have fail'd To equal my great fortune.†   (source)
  • And so he did all the observance of the service himself, both the dirige, and on the morn he sang mass.†   (source)
  • I have long loved her, and, I protest to you, bestowed much on her; followed her with a doting observance; engrossed opportunities to meet her; fee'd every slight occasion that could but niggardly give me sight of her; not only bought many presents to give her, but have given largely to many to know what she would have given; briefly, I have pursued her as love hath pursued me; which hath been on the wing of all occasions.†   (source)
  • Can the most perfect admiration, the most watchful observance, the most ardent love, the most melting tenderness, the most resigned submission to your will, make you amends for what you are to sacrifice to my happiness?†   (source)
  • Ay, marry, is't; But to my mind,—though I am native here, And to the manner born,—it is a custom More honour'd in the breach than the observance.†   (source)
  • When th' orison was done of Palamon, His sacrifice he did, and that anon, Full piteously, with alle circumstances, *All tell I not as now* his observances.†   (source)
  • It is evident that there is no process of a court by which the observance of the laws can, in the last resort, be enforced.†   (source)
  • If thou lovest me then, Steal forth thy father's house tomorrow night; And in the wood, a league without the town, Where I did meet thee once with Helena, To do observance to a morn of May, There will I stay for thee.†   (source)
  • I do beseech you,— Though I perchance am vicious in my guess, As, I confess, it is my nature's plague To spy into abuses, and of my jealousy Shape faults that are not,—that your wisdom yet, From one that so imperfectly conceits, Would take no notice; nor build yourself a trouble Out of his scattering and unsure observance:— It were not for your quiet nor your good, Nor for my manhood, honesty, or wisdom, To let you know my thoughts.†   (source)
  • If I do sweat, they are the drops of thy lovers, and they weep for thy death: therefore rouse up fear and trembling, and do observance to my mercy.†   (source)
  • It is as easy to count atomies as to resolve the propositions of a lover:—but take a taste of my finding him, and relish it with good observance.†   (source)
  • But there are other strict observances: As, not to see a woman in that term, Which I hope well is not enrolled there: And one day in a week to touch no food, And but one meal on every day beside; The which I hope is not enrolled there: And then to sleep but three hours in the night And not be seen to wink of all the day,— When I was wont to think no harm all night, And make a dark night too of half the day,— Which I hope well is not enrolled there.†   (source)
  • MOS: 'tis true, that, sway'd by strong necessity, I am enforced to eat my careful bread With too much obsequy; 'tis true, beside, That I am fain to spin mine own poor raiment Out of my mere observance, being not born To a free fortune: but that I have done Base offices, in rending friends asunder, Dividing families, betraying counsels, Whispering false lies, or mining men with praises, Train'd their credulity with perjuries, Corrupted chastity, or am in love With mine own tender ease,…†   (source)
  • Signior Bassanio, hear me: If I do not put on a sober habit, Talk with respect, and swear but now and then, Wear prayer-books in my pocket, look demurely, Nay more, while grace is saying, hood mine eyes Thus with my hat, and sigh, and say 'amen'; Use all the observance of civility, Like one well studied in a sad ostent To please his grandam, never trust me more.†   (source)
  • The observance of this law, from the equall distribution to each man, of that which in reason belongeth to him, is called EQUITY, and (as I have sayd before) distributive justice: the violation, Acception Of Persons, Prosopolepsia.†   (source)
  • Or I have no observance.†   (source)
  • Such is the policy by which I seek To serve the Commons and conformably I have proclaimed an edict as concerns The sons of Oedipus; Eteocles Who in his country's battle fought and fell, The foremost champion—duly bury him With all observances and ceremonies That are the guerdon of the heroic dead.†   (source)
  • What, for instance, would avail restrictions on the authority of the State legislatures, without some constitutional mode of enforcing the observance of them?†   (source)
  • By what observance, I pray you?†   (source)
  • It is to be all made of fantasy, All made of passion, and all made of wishes; All adoration, duty, and observance, All humbleness, all patience, and impatience, All purity, all trial, all observance;— And so am I for Phebe.†   (source)
  • Be not too tame neither; but let your own discretion be your tutor: suit the action to the word, the word to the action; with this special observance, that you o'erstep not the modesty of nature: for anything so overdone is from the purpose of playing, whose end, both at the first and now, was and is, to hold, as 'twere, the mirror up to nature; to show virtue her own image, scorn her own image, and the very age and body of the time his form and pressure.†   (source)
  • This discourse had an effect on Sophia's countenance, which would not perhaps have escaped the observance of the sagacious waiting-woman, had she once looked her mistress in the face, all the time she was speaking: but as a looking-glass, which was most commodiously placed opposite to her, gave her an opportunity of surveying those features, in which, of all others, she took most delight; so she had not once removed her eyes from that amiable object during her whole speech.†   (source)
  • A wife asketh full many an observance.†   (source)
  • …and consequently, given occasion to the Governours of the Heathen Common-wealths to regulate this their fear, by establishing that DAEMONOLOGY (in which the Poets, as Principal Priests of the Heathen Religion, were specially employed, or reverenced) to the Publique Peace, and to the Obedience of Subjects necessary thereunto; and to make some of them Good Daemons, and others Evill; the one as a Spurre to the Observance, the other, as Reines to withhold them from Violation of the Laws.†   (source)
  • …did not wish; and thereupon the unhappy gentleman began his sad story in nearly the same words and manner in which he had related it to Don Quixote and the goatherd a few days before, when, through Master Elisabad, and Don Quixote's scrupulous observance of what was due to chivalry, the tale was left unfinished, as this history has already recorded; but now fortunately the mad fit kept off, allowed him to tell it to the end; and so, coming to the incident of the note which Don Fernando…†   (source)
  • He does not therein deny, that there be Covenants; and that they are sometimes broken, sometimes kept; and that such breach of them may be called Injustice, and the observance of them Justice: but he questioneth, whether Injustice, taking away the feare of God, (for the same Foole hath said in his heart there is no God,) may not sometimes stand with that Reason, which dictateth to every man his own good; and particularly then, when it conduceth to such a benefit, as shall put a man in…†   (source)
  • Compacts of this kind exist among all civilized nations, subject to the usual vicissitudes of peace and war, of observance and non-observance, as the interests or passions of the contracting powers dictate.†   (source)
  • And yet increaseth this all my penance, That man is bounden to his observance For Godde's sake to *letten of his will*, *restrain his desire* Whereas a beast may all his lust fulfil.†   (source)
  • The several departments being perfectly co-ordinate by the terms of their common commission, none of them, it is evident, can pretend to an exclusive or superior right of settling the boundaries between their respective powers; and how are the encroachments of the stronger to be prevented, or the wrongs of the weaker to be redressed, without an appeal to the people themselves, who, as the grantors of the commissions, can alone declare its true meaning, and enforce its observance?†   (source)
  • And for to do his observance to May, Remembering the point* of his desire, *object He on his courser, starting as the fire, Is ridden to the fieldes him to play, Out of the court, were it a mile or tway.†   (source)
  • …ones in a morn of May That Emily, that fairer was to seen Than is the lily upon his stalke green, And fresher than the May with flowers new (For with the rose colour strove her hue; I n'ot* which was the finer of them two), *know not Ere it was day, as she was wont to do, She was arisen, and all ready dight*, *dressed For May will have no sluggardy a-night; The season pricketh every gentle heart, And maketh him out of his sleep to start, And saith, "Arise, and do thine observance."†   (source)
  • It merits particular attention in this place, that the laws of the Confederacy, as to the ENUMERATED and LEGITIMATE objects of its jurisdiction, will become the SUPREME LAW of the land; to the observance of which all officers, legislative, executive, and judicial, in each State, will be bound by the sanctity of an oath.†   (source)
  • *watched This strange knight, that came thus suddenly, All armed, save his head, full richely, Saluted king, and queen, and lordes all, By order as they satten in the hall, With so high reverence and observance, As well in speech as in his countenance, That Gawain <9> with his olde courtesy, Though he were come again out of Faerie, Him *coulde not amende with a word.†   (source)
  • Praise whoso will a wedded manne's life, Certes, I find in it but cost and care, And observances of all blisses bare.†   (source)
  • In other manner than ye hear me say, He durste not to her his woe bewray, Save that paraventure sometimes at dances, Where younge folke keep their observances, It may well be he looked on her face In such a wise, as man that asketh grace, But nothing wiste she of his intent.†   (source)
  • Right as a serpent hides him under flow'rs, Till he may see his time for to bite, Right so this god of love's hypocrite Did so his ceremonies and obeisances, And kept in semblance all his observances, That *sounden unto* gentleness of love.†   (source)
  • When he had found his firste mansion, He knew the remnant by proportion; And knew the rising of his moone well, And in whose face, and term, and every deal; And knew full well the moone's mansion Accordant to his operation; And knew also his other observances, For such illusions and such meschances,* *wicked devices As heathen folk used in thilke days.†   (source)
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