"Esoteric" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... matter, neither Britain, France, Belgium, (nor the United States with her 186-odd variants of Christianity in her 186-odd religious sects), grew out of political cynicism, least of all out of some aloof system of esoteric idealism. ...
— Blood and Iron - Origin of German Empire As Revealed by Character of Its - Founder, Bismarck • John Hubert Greusel
... conspicuous clearness of the estimation of primitive peoples is the cause that has prevailed on us to dwell so long on this point. That the cause of this want of prestige among savages is the lack of concentration in masses, not any esoteric peculiarity, is proved by the profound psychological appreciation of the distances created by nature, and still more by the expansion of tribal life into a barbarian one. The tenfold increase of the number of a tribe renders ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... instinct, of ignorance which is hopeful to learn and strives to see; since ignorance is now no longer hopeful. In this and in many other ways it may differ from the past art, but in one thing it must needs be like it; it will not be an esoteric mystery shared by a little band of superior beings; it will be no more hierarchical than the art of past time was, but like it will be a gift of the people to the people, a thing which everybody can understand, and every one surround with love; it will be a part of every life, ...
— Hopes and Fears for Art • William Morris
... with blazing malice in some pariah world. But all things in this dreadful story ought to be harmonized. Already in itself it is an ennobling and an idealizing of the riddle, that it is made a double riddle; that it contains an exoteric sense obvious to all the world, but also an esoteric sense—now suggested conjecturally after thousands of years—possibly unknown to the Sphinx, and certainly unknown to oedipus; that this second riddle is hid within the first; that the one riddle is the secret commentary upon the other; and that the earliest is the hieroglyphic ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... smiling inscrutably. "Thank you, it's not the pink edelweiss. The scientific, the esoteric name, I've promised that I'll tell to no one; but the common people in my native country, who have heard of it, would ...
— The Princess Virginia • C. N. Williamson
... resemblance between Man and the higher Ape, so frequently cited by Darwinists as pointing to some ancestors common to both, presents an interesting problem, the proper solution of which is to be sought for in the esoteric explanation of the genesis ...
— The Story of Atlantis and the Lost Lemuria • W. Scott-Elliot
... to be ashamed of. It would be a very trying ordeal, no doubt, to admit even intimate friends to this confidence. But as eugenics spread, concealment of taint will become almost impracticable, and the facts may as well be confessed. But even then there will be limitations. There might be an esoteric book for the individual's own account of himself. Such important items as the incidence of puberty (though notorious in some communities) could not well be included in a book open even to the family circle, for generations to come. The quiescence of the genital sense, the sedatives naturally occurring, ...
— The Task of Social Hygiene • Havelock Ellis
... that one cannot do without that I want the new great poet to sing of. I agree with William Morris that art is the one thing we all want, the expression of man's joy in his work. And the more that art retires into fine nuances and intellectual subtleties, the more that it becomes something esoteric and mysterious, the less I care about it. When Tennyson said to the farmer's wife, 'What's the news?' she replied, 'Mr. Tennyson, there's only one piece of news worth telling, and that is that Christ died for all men.' Tennyson said very grandly ...
— Escape and Other Essays • Arthur Christopher Benson
... Shelley's inner life "Epipsychidion" will always have high value, independently of its beauty of style, as containing his doctrine of love. It is the full expression of the esoteric principle presented to us in "Alastor", the "Hymn to Intellectual Beauty," and "Prince Athanase." But the words just quoted, which may be compared with Mrs. Shelley's note to "Prince Athanase," authorize our pointing out what he himself recognized as the defect of his theory. Instead of remaining ...
— Percy Bysshe Shelley • John Addington Symonds
... flower of the nation but its root as well. All the gracious gifts of Heaven flowed through them. Though they kept themselves socially aloof from the populace, they set a moral standard for them and guided them by their example. I admit Bushido had its esoteric and exoteric teachings; these were eudemonistic, looking after the welfare and happiness of the commonalty, while those were aretaic, emphasizing the practice of virtues ...
— Bushido, the Soul of Japan • Inazo Nitobe
... has changed. And this change is always easy and natural. Dogmas and creeds may remain the same, but progress consists in giving a spiritual or poetic interpretation to that which once was taken literally. The scheme of the Esoteric and the Exoteric is a sliding, self-lubricating, self-adjusting, non-copyrighted invention—perfect in its workings—that all wise theologians fall back upon ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 7 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Orators • Elbert Hubbard
... were inclined to consider this an esoteric form of advertisement, intended to convey to the initiated the information that A. STORM had gone into the beer business. But conjecture was set at naught by its fellow which appeared at its side on the day after its posting, in ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. II. July, 1862. No. 1. • Various
... to know the best; how are we to gain this definite idea of the vast world of letters? There are some who appear to suppose that the "best" are known only to experts in an esoteric way, who may reveal to inquirers what schoolboys and betting-men describe as "tips." There are no "tips" in literature; the "best" authors are never dark horses; we need no "crammers" and "coaches" ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)
... higher meaning was lost in progress of time in the minds of most nations, and they came at length to pay worship to the lifeless image itself. The priests alone were acquainted with any deeper meaning, but refused to share it with the people; they reserved it under the veil of esoteric (secret) doctrines, as the peculiar appanage of their own class. They invented endless fables which gave rise to Mythology. They ruled the people by the might of superstition, and acquired wealth, honor, and power, for themselves.[17] We arrive then at nearly ...
— Mysticism and its Results - Being an Inquiry into the Uses and Abuses of Secrecy • John Delafield
... altitudes in Mexico, and its root produces an extract with a powerful purgative effect. All of these ingredients possessed one especial feature highly prized by the patent-medicine manufacturers of the nineteenth century, i.e., they were derived from esoteric plants found only in geographically remote locations. One does find it rather remarkable, however, that the native Indian chiefs who confided the secrets of these remedies to Dr. Morse and Dr. Cunard ...
— History of the Comstock Patent Medicine Business and Dr. Morse's Indian Root Pills • Robert B. Shaw
... ecstasy of bliss, the absolute fruition, which men call by many names: the end towards which the adult strives, in vain, to recover what he lost by ceasing to be a child: a child, which is sexless, knowing as yet nothing of the esoteric dissatisfaction of the soul that wants and has not found. Aye! to reach the mystic union, the absolute extinction of the Knower in the All; to lose one's Self in Infinity, without a remnant of regret; to attain to the unattainable, the point ...
— The Substance of a Dream • F. W. Bain
... argue out with toil intense A 'cosmic' poet's esoteric sense, Of which a world, unwitting, Recks nothing. Yet how terribly they'd trounce Parliament's pettifogging, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, February 8, 1890 • Various
... a person has grown up and is able to express himself in literary language, he is freed from these wholesome restraints. He may indulge in peevishness to his heart's content, and it will be received as a sort of esoteric wisdom. For we are simple-minded creatures, and prone to superstition. It is only a few thousand years since the alphabet was invented, and the printing-press is still more recent. There is still a certain Delphic mystery about ...
— By the Christmas Fire • Samuel McChord Crothers
... "that no doubt was his exoteric teaching, but Professors Hanky and Panky have assured me most solemnly that his esoteric teaching was as I have given it. By the way, these gentlemen are both, I understand, at Sunch'ston, and I think it quite likely that I shall have a visit from them this afternoon. If you do not know them ...
— Erewhon Revisited • Samuel Butler
... John lived on till the times of Trajan (98-117 A.D.). If so, it is very possible that the Gospel was not yet published, or barely published, when Clement of Rome wrote his Epistle to the Corinthians. Neither, considering its almost esoteric character and the slow rate at which such a work would travel at first, should we be very much surprised if it was not in the hands of Barnabas (probably in Alexandria) and Hermas (at Rome). In no case indeed could the silence of these two writers be of much moment, as in the Epistle ...
— The Gospels in the Second Century - An Examination of the Critical Part of a Work - Entitled 'Supernatural Religion' • William Sanday
... always within my powers to appreciate their work. Sometimes the charm of what they played was too esoteric for my understanding. The sounds were unmeaning to me; not infrequently they were absolutely discordant. But I had confidence enough in the superiority of their intellects over mine not to condemn, ...
— The Recipe for Diamonds • Charles John Cutcliffe Wright Hyne
... complete accord with the belief of other religions—including Christianity—regarding the Godhead. And here we touch another pleasing characteristic of this most ancient of books—its catholic spirit and disregard of those {35} mythological and esoteric riddles that most Egyptian works propound to us continually. It will be noticed that 'the God' is not anywhere mentioned by name. Osiris (5) and Horus (41) are alluded to, but only historically, in respect of their ...
— The Instruction of Ptah-Hotep and the Instruction of Ke'Gemni - The Oldest Books in the World • Battiscombe G. Gunn
... from the Apostolic tradition, critically examined. This tradition lies before us in a series of Apostolic writings, and in a secret doctrine derived from the Apostles, (positive).[348] As exoteric it is comprehended in the regula fidei (positive),[349] as esoteric it ...
— History of Dogma, Volume 1 (of 7) • Adolph Harnack
... than have their names dragged into a publicity which, to say the least, would reflect on them discreditably. For these, and other obvious reasons, many kinds of secret crimes flourish and abound in the esoteric life of great cities. In New York, where money is often rapidly acquired, and where little curiosity is manifested as to the mode of its acquisition, there are naturally many facilities for putting black-mailing schemes into successful operation. Scores of persons, apparently respectable, are constantly ...
— Danger! A True History of a Great City's Wiles and Temptations • William Howe
... exist beyond the grave is, so far as man and man in their mutual relations are concerned, not a subject that discussion can affect or speculation unravel. To believers it cannot matter whether the Sermon on the Mount embodies or does not embody the quality of ethics that the esoteric votaries of Mr. Froude's "new creed" do accept or even can tolerate. Under the old creed man's sense of duty kindled in sympathy towards his brother, urging him to achieve by self-sacrifice every possibility of beneficence; ...
— West Indian Fables by James Anthony Froude Explained by J. J. Thomas • J. J. (John Jacob) Thomas
... necessary to get behind the scenes, a thing not easy for a stranger anywhere, least of all here. There is too the further difficulty, that when you have got behind the scenes, it is not very easy to narrate your esoteric experiences to the public. Even if there were no other objection, it would be useless to quote individual stories and facts which have come privately to my knowledge, and which would show Rome, in spite of its external propriety, ...
— Rome in 1860 • Edward Dicey
... accordingly; but my companion, a connoisseur in such matters, pronounced them not the true quahaug (Venus mercenaria,—what a profanely ill-sorted name, even for a bivalve!) but the larger and coarser Cyprina islandica. The man to whom we imparted this precious bit of esoteric lore received it like a gentleman, if I cannot add like a scholar. "We call them quahaugs," he answered, with an accent of polite deprecation, as if it were not in the least to be wondered at that he should be found in the wrong. It was evident, ...
— The Foot-path Way • Bradford Torrey
... repeated in a relieved tone, as if assuring Edwin that there was nothing very esoteric about Preston Street. "It's just beyond the Metropole. You know Regency Square. Well, it's the next street after that. There's a club at ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... follows. The quality, as the upper classes in rural districts are designated by the lower with so much true discrimination, were to eat a breakfast, and the non-quality were to eat a dinner. Two marquees had been erected for these two banquets: that for the quality on the esoteric or garden side of a certain deep ha-ha; and that for the non-quality on the exoteric or paddock side of the same. Both were of huge dimensions—that on the outer side was, one may say, on an egregious scale—but Mr. Plomacy declared that ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... relations between the Archdeacon and women. They are more than avuncular and less than cousinly; they are tender without being romantic, and confiding without being burdensome. He has the private entree at chhoti hazri, or early breakfast; he sees loose and flowing robes that are only for esoteric disciples; he has the private entree at five o'clock tea and hears plans for the evening campaign openly discussed. He is quite behind the scenes. He hears the earliest whispers of engagements and flirtations. He can give a stone to the Press Commissioner in the ...
— Twenty-One Days in India; and, the Teapot Series • George Robert Aberigh-Mackay
... Occident know that esoteric magic and Oriental barbarisms will neither flavor Chris- [25] tianity nor advance health ...
— Miscellaneous Writings, 1883-1896 • Mary Baker Eddy
... and, for moments, even farther west to the home country of his family about Lough Gara in Mayo. This discovery was foreshadowed in "Evelyn Innes" (1898), in which Mr. Moore grows curious about the belief in ancestral memory and other esoteric beliefs of Mr. Yeats; it is latent in the introductions to "The Heather Field" and "The Bending of the Bough"; and it is made manifest in the parts of the latter play that are Mr. Moore's. Who most helped him to the ...
— Irish Plays and Playwrights • Cornelius Weygandt
... are so matter-of-fact in their speech and thought that it might not have occurred to them that the true value of this story of Sarah and Hagar, like that of all else, not only in our own Bible but in the scriptures of other faiths, lies in the esoteric meaning, had it not been for Paul, that prince of occult philosophers, who distinctly says, according to the old version, that it is an allegory; according to the revised, that it contains an allegory: "for these women are two covenants," ...
— The Woman's Bible. • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... knowledge that the name was pronounced Yahhy-Bahhy, and that the doctrine taught by Mr. Yahi-Bahi was Boohooism. This latter, if anyone inquired further, was explained to be a form of Shoodooism, only rather more intense. In fact, it was esoteric—on receipt of which information everybody remarked at once how infinitely superior the Oriental ...
— Arcadian Adventures with the Idle Rich • Stephen Leacock
... a great deal better. It's only that temporarily he's knocked off his balance. But I hardly feel as anxious as you do. There's Mary against May; and even if my uncle were for him, on a general, vague theory of something esoteric and outside nature, which you can't fairly call unreasonable any more, Mannering, seeing what's happened—even if Sir Walter felt tempted to let him have his way, I don't believe he'd really consent when it came ...
— The Grey Room • Eden Phillpotts
... teach youthful maidens anything at all of Botany? Or Mathematics cause a thrill erotic in the heart? Will flirting give a lady brains—if she hasn't got any?— Or solve the esoteric problems hid in Ray's Third Part? You may lose yourself completely in pursuing Etiology, Or safely throw yourself away upon a Cubic Rule; But nowhere else in nature will you find such useless "ology," As in a man who's dead in love and ...
— The Dead Men's Song - Being the Story of a Poem and a Reminiscent Sketch of its - Author Young Ewing Allison • Champion Ingraham Hitchcock
... was a political revolt of the Celtic races. The disturbance will pass away; and we shall find that Abraham and Moses knew more about the universe than Hegel or Comte. The prophets of the sacred race were divinely endowed with an esoteric knowledge concealed from the vulgar behind mystic symbols and ceremonies. If the old oracles are dumb, some gleams of the same power still remain, and in the language of mere mortals are called genius. We find it in perfection only amongst the Semites, ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen
... broad statement of the Mosaic law; for the cultured community of Alexandria, Jew and Gentile, a more elaborate exegesis, in which each character and each ordinance of the Pentateuch received a particular ethical value; and, finally, for the esoteric circle of Hellenic-Jewish philosophers, a theological and psychological study of the allegories of the law. Origen, the first great Christian exegete of the Bible and a close student of the Philonic writings, ...
— Philo-Judaeus of Alexandria • Norman Bentwich
... It deals with all men as on one level. It addresses universal humanity. 'Unto you, O men, I call, and My voice is to the sons of men.' It speaks the same language to all sorts of men, to all stages of society, and in all ages. Christianity has no esoteric doctrine, no inner circle of the 'initiated.' Consequently it introduces a new notion ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Mark • Alexander Maclaren
... temple in the corner, with water cascading down its steps, the make-believe clouds which float across the ceiling, the tables of glass lighted from beneath—all this, ordinarily, seems trivial and banal; but occasionally, in an esoteric mood, I like Murray's, and can even find something picturesque and romantic in bright gowns, and gleaming shoulders, and handsome faces seen amid these bizarre surroundings. And then, of course, there is always the cooking, which leaves ...
— The Mystery Of The Boule Cabinet - A Detective Story • Burton Egbert Stevenson
... place. It was written one night between twelve and three, and cost the poet, he said, "hardly an effort." Indeed, it is the spontaneous ease and grace, the unfailing taste of Longfellow's lines, which are their best technical quality. There is nothing obscure or esoteric about his poetry. If there is little passion or intellectual depth, there is always genuine poetic feeling, often a very high order of imagination and almost invariably the choice of the right word. In this volume were also included the Village Blacksmith ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... private sentiments (for some authors affirm his esoteric doctrines to have been dogmatic[152]), he brought forward these sceptical tenets in so unguarded a form, that it required all his argumentative powers, which were confessedly great, to maintain them against the obvious objections ...
— Historical Sketches, Volume I (of 3) • John Henry Newman
... For the esoteric side of his history, I counted much on his spontaneous choice of songs. Man is but a lyre (in both senses of the phonetically-taken word, unfortunately); and some salient experience, some fire-graven thought, ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... question as relying on tradition for its clearness? Jeremy Taylor was a true Father of the Church, and would furnish as fine a subject for a 'concordantia discordantiarum' as St. Austin himself. For the exoteric and esoteric he ...
— The Literary Remains Of Samuel Taylor Coleridge • Edited By Henry Nelson Coleridge
... character caution and curiosity were oddly mingled; in his sober moments he thought of the unusual and the eccentric with undisguised aversion, and yet, deep in his heart, there was a wide-eyed inquisitiveness with respect to all the more recondite and esoteric elements in the nature of men. The latter tendency had prevailed when he accepted Raymond's invitation, for though his considered judgment had always repudiated the doctor's theories as the wildest nonsense, ...
— The House of Souls • Arthur Machen
... Buddhist shrines, and known as the Shvastika. The numerous chapels of Chandi Sewon contained the galaxy of Tirthankas or Buddhist saints which the materialism of the Jains added to the impersonal subtleties of esoteric Buddhism. The blank emptiness and desertion of this vast sanctuary produces an impression of unutterable desolation. The weed-grown courts, the ruined altars, and the moss-blackened arches, encumbered with indistinguishable heaps of shattered sculpture, ...
— Through the Malay Archipelago • Emily Richings
... among the Indians in their sacred dances is very significant. The meaning of the snake song is unknown to the Indians who sing it. The words are probably either archaic or remnants of a sacred language or mystic words of an esoteric priesthood. ...
— Contribution to Passamaquoddy Folk-Lore • J. Walter Fewkes
... the full comprehension of the above dream, it is necessary to be profoundly versed at once in the esoteric signification of the Scriptures and in the mysteries of Freemasonry. It was the dreamer's great regret that she neither knew, nor could know, the latter, women being ...
— Dreams and Dream Stories • Anna (Bonus) Kingsford
... the common mistake which gathers a nimbus of mystic sense around every book excessively revered. Thus the Greeks fancied an inner and mystical sense in Homer; and thus Italian professors expound the esoteric significance of Dante. ...
— The Right and Wrong Uses of the Bible • R. Heber Newton
... people, is deliberately maintained for the air of mystery and of awe which is conveyed by its use, and which has something of the same effect upon the intellect as the "dim religious light" of a cathedral has upon the emotions. Further, it reserves to the priesthood a kind of esoteric knowledge, which gives them an additional authority that they would desire to maintain. So we find that in the days of Marcus Aurelius an ancient Salian liturgy was used in the Roman temples which had become almost unintelligible to the worshippers. ...
— Chosen Peoples • Israel Zangwill
... institution. All its mysteries and its dogmas, which constitute its philosophy, are intrusted for communication to the neophyte, sometimes to one, sometimes to the other of these two methods of instruction, and sometimes to both of them combined. The Freemason has no way of reaching any of the esoteric teachings of the Order except through the medium of ...
— The Symbolism of Freemasonry • Albert G. Mackey
... except to those who have at some time had a hand in carrying on the business, and none of them likely to be duly appreciated by persons not practically acquainted with the department. I do not mean that the transaction of public business has esoteric mysteries, only to be understood by the initiated. Its principles are all intelligible to any person of good sense, who has in his mind a true picture of the circumstances and conditions to be dealt with; but to have this he must know those circumstances and conditions; ...
— Considerations on Representative Government • John Stuart Mill
... teach him philosophy, Show him the purpose of our holy writ. Instruct him in the meaning of the Vedas, Reveal to him their esoteric sense. ...
— The Buddha - A Drama in Five Acts and Four Interludes • Paul Carus
... The esoteric flat of Madame Cassandra was darkened except for the electric lights glowing in amber and rose-colored shades. There were several women there already. As they entered Constance had noticed a peculiar, dreamy odor. There did not seem to be any hurry, any such thing as time ...
— Constance Dunlap • Arthur B. Reeve
... disputatious. In truth, his quickness in discovering and apprehending distinctions and analogies was such as a veteran judge might envy. The lawyers of the Duchy of Lancaster were astonished to find in an unprofessional man so strong a relish for the esoteric parts of their science, and complained that as soon as they had split a hair, Lord Holland proceeded to split the filaments into filaments still finer. In a mind less happily constituted, there might have been a risk that this turn for subtilty would have produced serious ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... esoteric and transcendental utterances which Kelley credited to the spirits, he cleverly introduced sufficient in the way of references to the elixir of life and the transmutation of metals, to keep alive in Dee's breast the hope of ultimately solving the ...
— Historic Ghosts and Ghost Hunters • H. Addington Bruce
... nephew Eric Till just before the War Was steeped in esoteric And antinomian lore, Now verging on the mystic, Now darkly symbolistic, Now frankly Futuristic, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, June 7, 1916 • Various
... him we see a layman, alike indifferent to clerisy and heresy, giving energetic and pointed utterance to those opinions of his class which the clergy are content to ignore so long as they remain esoteric. At present the world has advanced to where Lessing stood, while the Church has done its best to stand stock-still; and it would be a curious were it not a melancholy spectacle, to see the indifference with which the laity look on while theologians thrash their wheatless ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell
... them. If, for example, when he says servant he means slave, when he says Negrophilist he means Republican, and when he says false philanthropy he means the fairest instincts of the human heart, we have a right to suspect that there is also an esoteric significance in the phrases, Loyalty to ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II., November, 1858., No. XIII. • Various
... Christian times the principal doctrine based upon the Mysticism of the Neo-platonists and the Kabalists was what was called the [Greek: Gnosis], the Knowledge of the All, and the fundamental basis of this, as of all esoteric teaching from the beginning of History, was Procreation. From the first dawn of civilisation the "Great One" always had an enemy with whom he had to fight; having conquered, he married that enemy, and their offspring was Life or Duration. In the oldest forms, ...
— Science and the Infinite - or Through a Window in the Blank Wall • Sydney T. Klein
... designate, determine; denote, indicate, point out, select. descend to particulars, enter into detail, go into detail, come to the point. Adj. special, particular, individual, specific, proper, personal, original, private, respective, definite, determinate, especial, certain, esoteric, endemic, partial, party, peculiar, appropriate, several, characteristic, diagnostic, exclusive; singular &c (exceptional) 83; idiomatic; idiotypical; typical. this, that; yon, yonder. Adv. specially, especially, particularly ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... time she left this place. As regards those who claim to have known all about Sir Richard Burton—'They knew the man well,'etc.—allow me to point out that the exoteric subtleties of his character were only exceeded by the esoteric; and to what an extent this is true is only known to those who were at the same time his friends and his wife's intimate friends, of whom there are several here beside myself. My position at the Villa Gosslett was perhaps a little ...
— The Romance of Isabel Lady Burton Volume II • Isabel Lady Burton & W. H. Wilkins
... child's-play he denied that he had named his themes. Pray, then, who did? Did von Wolzogen? Did Tappert? They worked directly under his direction, put forth the musical lures and decoys and the ignorant public was easily bamboozled. Simply mention the esoteric, the mysterious omens, signs, dark designs, and magical symbols, and you catch a certain ...
— Old Fogy - His Musical Opinions and Grotesques • James Huneker
... her accord with her partner! How faultless her intelligence, divining the very source of every hidden motive controlling him, forestalling his intent—acquiescent, delicate, marvellous intelligence—the esoteric complement of two parts of a ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers
... with the chase. To this, however, there are some exceptions. One of these may be partly explained by the following myth concerning Po-shai-a[n,]-k'ia, the God (Father) of the Medicine societies or sacred esoteric orders, of which there are twelve in Zuni, and others among the different pueblo tribes. He is supposed to have appeared in human form, poorly clad, and therefore reviled by men; to have taught the ...
— Zuni Fetiches • Frank Hamilton Cushing
... answered, however, than by a reference to his relations witb the priestly caste of Egypt and their wisdom. It is not to be believed that an Egyptian deity could inspire the Hebrews of Goshen with courage for the struggle against the Egyptians, or that an abstraction of esoteric speculation could become the national deity of Israel. It is not inconceivable indeed, although at the same time quite incapable of proof, that Moses was indebted to the Egyptian priests for certain advantages of personal culture, or that he borrowed from them on all hands in external ...
— Prolegomena to the History of Israel • Julius Wellhausen
... understand, meant, as she knew well, long days and weeks of solitary brooding; therefore inventions, and, indeed, all unnecessary work, were in his case to be discouraged. Such solitary brooding also drew from the mind of Morris a vague mist of thought about matters esoteric which, to Mary's belief, had the properties of a miasma that crept like poison through his being. She wished for no more star-gazing, no more mysticism, and, above all, no more memories of the interloping woman who, in his company, had studied its ...
— Stella Fregelius • H. Rider Haggard
... was abolished, and its possession prohibited. Even the utterance of any word denoting Colour, except by the Circles or by qualified scientific teachers, was punished by a severe penalty. Only at our University in some of the very highest and most esoteric classes—which I myself have never been privileged to attend—it is understood that the sparing use of Colour is still sanctioned for the purpose of illustrating some of the deeper problems of mathematics. But of this I can ...
— Flatland • Edwin A. Abbott
... seldom stupidly, exhibited a powerful virtuosity in strange gestures, and pointedly designated herself as a "spin" (diminutive for spinster) apparently deriving from this conceit an amusement esoteric to her audience. Similarly, she indulged a mettlesome fancy for referring to her hostess as "dear Abigail." Her own maiden name was eventually disclosed ...
— Nobody • Louis Joseph Vance
... itself in many things that Balzac did. One little incident will perhaps be sufficiently characteristic of many others. He had a belief that names had a sort of esoteric appropriateness. So, in selecting them for his novels, he gathered them with infinite pains from many sources, and then weighed them anxiously in the balance. A writer on the subject of names and their significance has given the ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr
... life, and which enjoin the higher harmony of practical and theoretical conceptions. Taking Christianity as an example, the contrast with the beliefs of savagery brings out clearly the nature of progressive development. Here religious thought is no longer esoteric, confined to a chosen sect like the Levites among the Hebrews or the shaman and medicine-man among the American Indians; nor is religious observance restricted to the innermost shrine of the tabernacle or sacred dwelling, accessible to few or only one. It comes ...
— The Doctrine of Evolution - Its Basis and Its Scope • Henry Edward Crampton
... prepared and delivered for the Social Science Club, which she organized, five papers ranging in subject from the home life of Rameses I., through a Survey of the Forces Dominating Michael Angelo, to the Influence of Esoteric Buddhism on Modern Political Tendencies. More than that, she had been elected president of the City Federation clubs and being a delegate to the National Federation from the State, was talked of for the State Federation Presidency. When the State Federation met in our town, Mrs. Worthington ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various
... sects that arose in the Apostolic age of Christianity, and that sought, agreeably to the philosophic opinions which they had severally embraced, to extract an esoteric meaning out of the letter of Scripture and the facts especially of the Gospel history, such as only those of superior speculative insight could appreciate; they set a higher value on Knowledge (gnosis, ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... that in your pocket and read it. I am sure that you will agree with every word of it. Your understanding of the situation does great credit to your insight. That is, if I may use the term, the esoteric side of the question. It is only on the external and material side that it is really a Daily Lyre's war. There's really no contradiction, none at all, ...
— Captain Jinks, Hero • Ernest Crosby
... His esoteric project was the original project of Christopher Columbus, extended and modified. Columbus had hoped to establish a communication between our quarter of the world and India across the great western ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 5 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... this business, and particularly how you invented it, I don't understand at all," said Sanderson, "but just that phase—I do." He reflected. "These happen to be a series of gestures—connected with a certain branch of esoteric Masonry. Probably you know. Or else—HOW?" He reflected still further. "I do not see I can do any harm in telling you just the proper twist. After all, if you know, you know; if ...
— Twelve Stories and a Dream • H. G. Wells
... Among the lost evangels was one that Valentinian said was imparted only to the more spiritual of the disciples. It may be that in it a main idea was elucidated and, perhaps, as a consequence, the meaning of the esoteric proclamation: "Before Abraham ...
— The Lords of the Ghostland - A History of the Ideal • Edgar Saltus
... which Mr. Bryan never enjoyed, of a correct Republican upbringing and a mind. The Republican upbringing and the mind have come of late years to preponderate. Looking at Mr. Hughes to-day, you could not tell him from a Republican, except perhaps by his mind, though such esoteric Republicans as Brandegee, Cabot Lodge, and Knox profess an ability ...
— The Mirrors of Washington • Anonymous
... a work of practical instructions, by Tson-kha-pa, in two portions, one for ecclesiastical and exoteric purposes, the other for esoteric use. "To make ready" for Dubjed, is to prepare the vessels used for seership, such as mirrors and crystals. The "other selves," refers to the fellow students. Unless the greatest harmony reigns among the learners, ...
— Studies in Occultism; A Series of Reprints from the Writings of H. P. Blavatsky • H. P. Blavatsky
... will write for antiquity!" he exclaimed with not unnatural heat when the "Gypsy's Malison" was rejected by the ingenious editors of the Gem, on the ground that it would "shock all mothers"; and even this expression, uttered with pardonable irritation, manifests no solicitude for a narrow and esoteric audience. ...
— Masterpieces Of American Wit And Humor • Thomas L. Masson (Editor)
... it would appear that some, at least, of the English clergy have adopted the Jesuit principle, practically so convenient, by which any one may have an esoteric religion for himself as the comfortable lining of the cloak, and an esoteric religion for other people as the outside of the cloak. Meanwhile these clergymen are deeply respected, whilst honest men whose opinions are not one whit more heretical are stigmatized ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... aspects. The wide term Mysticism is used because, in spite of many misleading associations, it is hard to replace. "Love of nature" is too general: "cosmic emotion" is too specialised. But let it at once be understood that the Mysticism here contemplated is neither of the popular nor of the esoteric sort. In other words, it is not loosely synonymous with the magical or supernatural; nor is it a name for peculiar forms of ecstatic experience which claim to break away from the spheres of the senses and the intellect. It will simply be taken to cover the causes and the effects ...
— Nature Mysticism • J. Edward Mercer
... refined face as might have belonged to an artist or musician. He had the mellow colour Murillo loved. The mad strain which, in the case of greatly gifted people, has often seemed to be the motive power of genius, in him took the form of a great cleverness,—an esoteric cleverness and ingenuity added to ...
— An Isle in the Water • Katharine Tynan
... said he, "that 'Nil admirari' is the devil's favorite text; and he could not choose a better to introduce his pupils into the more esoteric parts of his doctrine. And therefore I have always looked upon a man infected with the disorder of anti-romance as one who has lost the finest part of his nature and his best protection against everything ...
— How to Get on in the World - A Ladder to Practical Success • Major A.R. Calhoon
... fireside, he must preserve the critic's self-respect. "I cannot write a publicity story about A.B," he said woefully to me, "because I am convinced he is a bogus philosopher. I am not interested in selling books: what I have to do with is that strange and esoteric thing ...
— Shandygaff • Christopher Morley
... and then, his little raft of French foundering at once, scramble silently to shore again. He at least could understand; but to Pinkerton, I think the noise, the wine, the sun, the shadows of the leaves, and the esoteric glory of being seated at a foreign festival, made up the whole ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... with a thoroughly anthropomorphic divinity. Archaic, predatory human nature is not satisfied with abstruse conceptions of a dissolving personality that shades off into the concept of quantitative causal sequence, such as the speculative, esoteric creeds of Christendom impute to the First Cause, Universal Intelligence, World Soul, or Spiritual Aspect. As an instance of a cult of the character which the habits of mind of the athlete and the delinquent require, may be cited that branch of the church militant known as the Salvation Army. ...
— The Theory of the Leisure Class • Thorstein Veblen
... were arrived at by man either intuitively or rationally, and these were harmonised with the Bible by a process of lifting the veil from the text, and thus penetrating to the true meaning hidden beneath the letter. Allegorical and esoteric exegesis always had this aim: to find written what had been otherwise found. Honour was thus done to the Scriptures, though the latter were somewhat cavalierly treated in the process; Philo's doctrine ...
— Judaism • Israel Abrahams
... not; but the symbolism is as simple as the realism of the oxen at Laon. It gave play to the artist in his effort for variety of decoration, and it amused the people,—probably the Virgin also was not above being amused;—now and then it seems about to suggest what you would call an esoteric meaning, that is to say, a meaning which each one of us can consider private property reserved for our own amusement, and from which the public is excluded; yet, in truth, in the Virgin's churches the public is never excluded, but invited. The Virgin ...
— Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres • Henry Adams
... with Maurice Strangwise in the stalls of the vast Palaceum auditorium. In the unwonted luxury of evening clothes he felt clean and comfortable, and the cigar he way smoking was the climax of one of Julien's most esoteric efforts. ...
— Okewood of the Secret Service • Valentine Williams
... mysterious, cryptic, recondite, occult, esoteric, cabalistic, abstruse, unknown, latent; secluded, privy, withdrawn, retired, covert, private, sequestered; stealthy, underhand, clandestine, sly, surreptitious, confidential, undetected. Antonyms: overt, revealed, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... father's workshop, which was more comfortable than a stranger's, and better fitted for evading the Factory Acts. To-night she was radiant in silk and jewelry, and her pert snub nose had the insolence of felicity which Agamemnon deprecated. Seeing her, you would have as soon connected her with Esoteric Buddhism ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... closet of the studious man, but not for common people coming to perform a plain, practical, duty. Great principles, however, are at the foundation of all good action. Look to the divine teaching. See how the highest things are addressed to all classes. There is no esoteric philosophy there—one thing to the initiated, and another to the outer populace. And so I am persuaded in addressing the great masses of mankind on other subjects, you can hardly be too profound, if you contrive to express yourself without pedantry; ...
— The Claims of Labour - an essay on the duties of the employers to the employed • Arthur Helps
... achievement, before he accomplished the greater one of getting a new rector for St. John's, had been to construct the "water-tight box" whereby the Consolidated Tractions Company had become a law-proof possibility. But his was an esoteric reputation, —the greater fame had been Eldon Parr's. Men's minds had been dazzled by the breadth of the conception of scooping all the street-car lines of the city, long and short, into one big basket, as it were; and when the ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... suspect something else: something more subtle and esoteric than graven characters upon stones that have fallen from the sky, in attempts to communicate. The notion that other worlds are attempting to communicate with this world is widespread: my own notion is that it is not attempt at all—that ...
— The Book of the Damned • Charles Fort
... great science previous to ours and quite different in constitution and nature from our science once was universal, established all over the then-existing globe. I believe it was esoteric, invested in a large priesthood. Just as mathematics and mechanics and physics are defined and expounded in the same way in the universities of China or Bolivia or London or Moscow to-day, so, it seems to me, in the great world previous to ours a great science and cosmology were taught ...
— Fantasia of the Unconscious • D. H. Lawrence
... Portland, Me., says, "Esoteric Anthropology is vital in every part, refreshing every man's and woman's soul that reads it with a most grateful sense of its truth and importance. I know of no work in the world like ...
— The Arabian Art of Taming and Training Wild and Vicious Horses • P. R. Kincaid
... the first critic to publish a detailed analysis of the master's methods and purpose. The article was illustrated by engravings which (though they had cost the magazine a fortune) were declared by Professor Wildmarsh to give but an imperfect suggestion of the esoteric significance of the originals. The Professor, with a tact that contrived to make each reader feel himself included among the exceptions, went on to say that Keniston's work would never appeal to any but exceptional natures; and he closed with the usual assertion that to apprehend the full meaning ...
— Crucial Instances • Edith Wharton
... head to tail. But the art of the strokes is not all; the art of their combination is that which produces the enchantment, often so as to astonish the Japanese themselves. It is not surprising, indeed, considering the strangely personal, animate, esoteric aspect of Japanese lettering, that there should be wonderful legends of calligraphy relating how words written by holy experts became incarnate, and descended from their tablets to ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan - First Series • Lafcadio Hearn
... on his shoemaker's bench, trimming a half-sole. He was drabbled with dew, grass-stained, unkempt, and miserable; and on his face was still the unexplained wretchedness, the problematic sorrow, the esoteric woe, that had been written there by nothing less, it seemed, than ...
— Sixes and Sevens • O. Henry
... interposition of a screen betwixt the nave and chancel. It did not spread itself in breadth, but ascended to the roof in lofty narrowness. One large body of worshippers might have knelt down in the nave, others in each of the transepts, and smaller ones in the side-aisles, besides an indefinite number of esoteric enthusiasts in the mysterious sanctities beyond the screen. Thus it seemed to typify the exclusiveness of sects rather than the worldwide hospitality of genuine religion. I had imagined a cathedral with a scope more vast. These Gothic aisles, with their groined arches overhead, ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... class used as adjectives mostly follow the same rule, as 'sporadic', 'dynamic', 'pneumatic', 'esoteric', 'philanthropic', 'emetic', 'panegyric'. As nouns the earlier introductions threw the stress back, as 'heretic', 'arithmetic', but later words follow the adjectives, as 'emetic', 'enclitic', 'panegyric'. As for 'politic', which is stressed as we stress both by Shakespeare ...
— Society for Pure English Tract 4 - The Pronunciation of English Words Derived from the Latin • John Sargeaunt
... so harshly[120]—made such great alterations in the manuscripts of Berosus, that we have nothing to proceed upon beyond a few disfigured fragments.[121] And yet Chaldaeism comprises a great mass of teachings; he whom we know as "the divine Zoroaster" had been preceded by twelve others, and esoteric doctrine was as well known in Chaldaea as ...
— Reincarnation - A Study in Human Evolution • Th. Pascal
... no one in the hotel saw the Princess Zairoff. But her influence seemed to have left a distinct impression, judging from the run on Buddhist literature at the different circulating libraries of the town. The "Occult World", "Isis Unveiled," and "Esoteric Buddhism" were in great demand; so were various works on Mesmerism, Clairvoyance, ...
— The Mystery of a Turkish Bath • E.M. Gollan (AKA Rita)
... trade or profession. It may be correct, according to the rules of grammar, but it is not universal; it is confined to certain parts and localities and is only intelligible to those for whom it is intended. In short, it is an esoteric language which only the initiated can understand. The jargon, or patter, of thieves is cant and it is only understood by thieves who have been let into its significance; the initiated language of professional ...
— How to Speak and Write Correctly • Joseph Devlin
... her throat a big knot of white lace, the ends of which fell winding in a creamy cascade to her waist (do they call the thing a jabot?); and then.... But what can a man trust himself to write of these esoteric matters? She carried herself extremely well, too: with grace, with distinction, her head held high, even thrown back a little, superciliously. She had an immense quantity of very lovely hair. Red hair? Yellow hair? Red hair with yellow lights burning in it? ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume X (of X) • Various
... town, and assembled daily in a large outhouse furnished with desks of a peculiar pattern, known to us as "scobs." Mr. Stimcoe, who had received his education as a "querister" at Winchester (and afterwards as a "servitor" at Pembroke College, Oxford), habitually employed and taught us to employ the esoteric slang—or "notions," as he called it—of that great public school; so that in "preces," "morning lines," "book-chambers," and what-not we had the names if not the things, and a vague and quite illusory ...
— Poison Island • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... a triumph of intimate characterisation. And the brutal touches that disfigured his former work were absent from this; he had shown us that the boldest, most inflexible realism is compatible with a delicacy worthy of the daintiest of esoteric ideals. ...
— Audrey Craven • May Sinclair
... earnest attention for the passage in which Geoffrey's Cousin blights his hopes for ever. The story, Sir, is one of controversy, and is suited to this time. Geoffrey McPhun is an Auld Licht (see Mr. BARRIE's books, passim). His cousin is an Esoteric Buddhist. They love each other dearly, but Geoffrey, a rigid character, cannot marry any lady who does not burn, as an Auld Licht, "with a hard gem-like flame." Violet Blair, his cousin, is just as staunch an Esoteric Buddhist. Nothing stands between ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, January 30, 1892 • Various
... at being treated quite so insultingly DE HAUT EN BAS, from the height of esoteric art to the depth of general exoteric amateurism, replied, hotly, ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence
... a mere function of her femaleness. And on the other hand every woman, over and above this almost unescapable legacy from her actual grandmothers, also inherits admission to that traditional wisdom which constitutes the esoteric philosophy of woman as a whole. The virgin at adolescence is thus in the position of an unusually fortunate apprentice, for she is not only naturally gifted but also apprenticed to extraordinarily competent masters. While a boy at the same ...
— In Defense of Women • H. L. Mencken
... scene, let me gather from it first a recollection of pure romance. One night at a London dinner-party I found myself sent down with a very stout gentleman, an American Colonel, who proclaimed himself an "esoteric Buddhist," and provoked in me a rapid and vehement dislike. I turned my back upon him and examined the table. Suddenly I became aware of a figure opposite to me, the figure of a young girl who seemed to me one ...
— A Writer's Recollections (In Two Volumes), Volume II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... to us from the old masters. These are generally known as the "traditional precepts." Just when the precepts were first formulated it is impossible to say. Tosi and Mancini do not mention them. Perhaps they were held by the old masters as a sort of esoteric mystery; this idea is occasionally put forward. At any rate, by the time the traditional precepts were given to the world in published works on the voice, their valuable meaning had ...
— The Psychology of Singing - A Rational Method of Voice Culture Based on a Scientific Analysis of All Systems, Ancient and Modern • David C. Taylor
... Siberian Magic. The reticence wore off in a week or two under the influence of an entire lack of general curiosity, and Leonard began to make more detailed allusions to the enormous powers which this new esoteric force, to use his own description of it, conferred on the initiated few who knew how to wield it. His aunt, Cecilia Hoops, who loved sensation perhaps rather better than she loved the truth, gave him as clamorous an advertisement ...
— Beasts and Super-Beasts • Saki
... even had a bank account. Dexter Jones, a grade-school teacher, did have one but was able to keep it barely high enough to cover his rent and car payment checks. Their value to the Institute was of a different kind. Both possessed esoteric mental talents, rather modest ones, to be sure, but still very interesting, so that on occasion they could state accurately what was contained in a sealed envelope, or give a recognizable description of the photograph of a loved one hidden ...
— Ham Sandwich • James H. Schmitz
... and generally crudely reproduced out-of-print books about raw foods diets, hygienic medicine, fruitarianism, fasting, breathairianism, plus some works discussing spiritual aspects of living that were far more esoteric than I had ever thought existed. I decided that weird or not, I might as well find out everything potentially useful. So I spent a lot of money ordering their books. Some of Mokelumne Hill's material really expanded my thoughts. Though much ...
— How and When to Be Your Own Doctor • Dr. Isabelle A. Moser with Steve Solomon
... out, it may be so arranged as to give the whole stock of information acquired, or, without being so exact and so complete, it may bring to its elucidation only a relatively inexact and general information. The ancients called the first method the esoteric and the second the exoteric, as we give to such lectures now, respectively, the names scholastic and popular. The first makes use of terms which have become technical in science or art, and proceeds syllogistically ...
— Pedagogics as a System • Karl Rosenkranz
... timidly (for what did he know about such esoteric matters?). "I suppose the money they might get from a novel would be of little consideration—but it would show that the book ...
— Prince Fortunatus • William Black
... freely into the domain of spiritual things, and has dealt, with more daring than knowledge, with esoteric mysteries. The great reading public knows little of these matters, because, as a rule, they have been expressed by writers whose works are too abstruse to catch the popular ear. It is only when they are handled by writers of imaginative fiction that they become popularly ...
— My Contemporaries In Fiction • David Christie Murray
... There was always in the first place a reasonable fear of secret and perilous doctrines—Communism, for instance, under some modification, or rancorous Jacobinism. And secondly, suppose that for the present, or in the existing stage of the secret society, there really were no esoteric and mischievous doctrine propagated, there was at any rate the custom established of meeting together in secret, of corresponding by an alphabet of conventional signals, and of acting by an impenetrable organization, always applicable to evil purposes, even where it might not originally ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v1 • Thomas de Quincey
... introduction was a little informal and obscure, there was every reason for the intimacy that followed. The Wilcoxes were unpopular; so, by this time, was Tyson. In cultivating him Mrs. Wilcox felt that she was doing something particularly esoteric and rather daring. She had taken a line. She loved everything that was a little flagrant, a little out of the common, and a little dubious. To a lady with these tastes Tyson was a godsend; he more than satisfied her desire for magnificence ...
— The Tysons - (Mr. and Mrs. Nevill Tyson) • May Sinclair
... from this passage by Isidore Geoffroy, that Buffon had modified his opinions, and was inclined to believe in a more limited mutability than he had done a few years earlier. His exoteric position is still identical with what it was in the outset, and his esoteric may be seen from the spirit which is hardly concealed ...
— Evolution, Old & New - Or, the Theories of Buffon, Dr. Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck, - as compared with that of Charles Darwin • Samuel Butler
... rule of three. Your question really implies that we pretend to complete knowledge not only of all past and present phenomena, but of all that are possible in the future, and we leave all that sort of thing to the adepts of esoteric Buddhism. Our pretensions are infinitely more modest. We have succeeded in finding out the rules of action of a little bit of the universe; we call these rules "laws of nature," not because anybody ...
— Collected Essays, Volume V - Science and Christian Tradition: Essays • T. H. Huxley
... where the practices of Druidry still lingered, and revived after the retreat of the Romans. The mediaeval romancers invented a legend that Merlin was a virgin- born child of Satan. In Tennyson he may be guessed to represent the fabled esoteric lore of old religions, with their vague pantheisms, and such magic as the tapas of Brahmanic legends. He is wise with a riddling evasive wisdom: the builder of Camelot, the prophet, a shadow of Druidry clinging to the Christian king. His wisdom cannot ...
— Alfred Tennyson • Andrew Lang
... There is an esoteric way, however, of taking these matters which is more in sympathy both with natural evolution and with transcendental philosophy. If we assert that evolution is infinite, no substantive goal can be set to it. The goal will be the process itself, if we could ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... must—and should—appear as follies, and under certain circumstances as crimes, when they come unauthorizedly to the ears of those who are not disposed and predestined for them. The exoteric and the esoteric, as they were formerly distinguished by philosophers—among the Indians, as among the Greeks, Persians, and Mussulmans, in short, wherever people believed in gradations of rank and NOT in equality and equal rights—are not so much in contradistinction to one another in respect to ...
— Beyond Good and Evil • Friedrich Nietzsche
... hideously monotonous mutton chop and potato which so many millions of unimaginative Anglo-Saxons are content to swallow on each recurring day. And Mrs. Fay, her landlady, had a soul; and her skill in cooking was her pride and glory. Cookery was to her what poetry and the worship of Humanity, and Esoteric Buddhism are to others; and from the time when she began life as a kitchen-maid in a small hotel, she had followed her art with singleness of purpose and unflagging zeal. She felt it as a kind of degradation to have ...
— Fan • Henry Harford
... George in these days was very cordial, greeting him with that genial esoteric warmth which is always felt by one English country gentleman with a large estate for another equally blessed. Six months ago, when it was believed that Ralph had sold his inheritance to his uncle, Sir George when he met the young man addressed him in a very different fashion. As he entered ...
— Ralph the Heir • Anthony Trollope
... time—and as usual—writing ghost tales. Thought I to myself, this raven is just what I want; I will make a great friend of it, it shall sit at my table while I write and inspire me with its eyes—its esoteric eyes and mystic voice. I let it in, gave it food and shelter, and we settled down together, the raven and I, both revellers in the occult, both lovers of solitude. But it proved to be a worthless bird, a shallow, empty-minded, ...
— Byways of Ghost-Land • Elliott O'Donnell
... country and led by women; and of Christian Science, which, under the able guidance of Mrs. Eddy, has sprung up and flourished. It is instructive to note that both these religions are connected with, and largely established on, magical faith and esoteric doctrines and practices. In almost all the religions founded by women we may trace a similar relation with hypnotic phenomena which must be regarded as closely dependent on sexual sources. The proof is ...
— The Truth About Woman • C. Gasquoine Hartley
... as successfully as he could have wished, and, "Not I, Naraini," he returned in English: a tongue which seemed somehow better suited for service in combating the esoteric influences at work upon his mind. "What's the next turn on ...
— The Bronze Bell • Louis Joseph Vance
... book which the poet entitled "a comedy" and which he could have called history; which takes all forms and all style, which surpasses Tacitus and Suetonius; which traverses Beaumarchais and reaches Rabelais;—a book which realizes observation and imagination, which lavishes the true, the esoteric, the commonplace, the trivial, the material, and which at times through all realities, swiftly and grandly rent away, allows us all at once a glimpse of a most sombre and tragic ideal. Unknown to himself, whether he wished it or not, whether he consented ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein
... prided himself on his mastery of that esoteric English by which the members of various sets, smart, sporting and other, conceal the meaning of what they say from outsiders, especially from foreigners who have acquired their knowledge of our language by painful ...
— The Island Mystery • George A. Birmingham
... not, Froude perhaps a little, Maitland, one might believe, to some extent,[8] Professor Bury, Lord knows, neither that nor any other emotion comprehensible in man. To the don, indeed, the absence of the past is one of the factors in his fascinating, esoteric game: were some astounding document to appear that should make the origin and constitution of the mediaeval manor as clear as daylight, the problem would lose its interest, the agile don would find it too easy for him. ...
— Hilaire Belloc - The Man and His Work • C. Creighton Mandell
... anyone. A few of the children, perhaps, and a very, very few grown-up people—persons who believe in Faith-healing and Esoteric Buddhism, and Thought-reading, and Arbitration, and Phonetic Spelling, can believe in anything, except what their mothers taught them on their knees. All of ...
— 'That Very Mab' • May Kendall and Andrew Lang |
