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noun
Unction  n.  
1.
The act of anointing, smearing, or rubbing with an unguent, oil, or ointment, especially for medical purposes, or as a symbol of consecration; as, mercurial unction. "To be heir, and to be king By sacred unction, thy deserved right."
2.
That which is used for anointing; an unguent; an ointment; hence, anything soothing or lenitive. "The king himself the sacred unction made." "Lay not that flattering unction to your soul."
3.
Divine or sanctifying grace. (R.)
4.
That quality in language, address, or the like, which excites emotion; especially, strong devotion; religious fervor and tenderness; sometimes, a simulated, factitious, or unnatural fervor. "The delightful equivoque and unction of the passage in Farquhar." "The mention of thy glory Is unction to the breast."
Extreme unction (R. C. Ch. & Gr. Ch.), the sacrament of anointing in the last hours; the application of consecrated oil by a priest to all the senses, that is, to eyes, ears, nostrils, etc., of a person when in danger of death from illness, done for remission of sins. (James v. 14, 15.)






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Unction" Quotes from Famous Books



... good reason, proceeded to deal out six diamonds, led by the ace, king and queen. His partner unwisely allowed his feelings to get the better of him. "As WILL SHAKSPEARE hath it," he observed with unction, "'now is the winter of our discontent made glorious summer—'" but stopped on a sudden, with ears ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, March 3rd, 1920 • Various

... seven external signs, which are designed for the good of our souls, and more distinctly mentioned in Scripture; Baptism in St. Matthew xxviii. 19. Confirmation, Acts viii. 17. Penance, Matthew xvi. 19. the Eucharist, Matthew xxvi. 26. Ordination, 1 Tim. iv. 22. Extreme Unction, Mark vi. 13. James v. 14. and Marriage; Ephes. ...
— The Life of the Truly Eminent and Learned Hugo Grotius • Jean Levesque de Burigny

... of his words. Then, suspicion of covert sarcasm being clearly inadmissible, Sir Abel spoke again in his largest platform manner, although the tones of his voice, like his person, were shrunken, docked of the fulness of their former rotundity and unction. ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet

... further encouragement, but disregarding the hints and looks of Coates, sang with much unction the following ballad to a good old tune, then very popular—the merit ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth

... spoke Leidesdorff, with unction, "one should not be alarmed. What is that cloud of dust on the horizon? A ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman

... "individuals more intent upon liberty than mindful of the duties which it imposes," and whose conduct was not beyond reproach when the first news of the great reform became diffused among the rural population. The serfs are called upon, with much unction, to appreciate and recognize the considerable sacrifices which the nobility have made on their behalf. They are expected to understand that the blessings of an existence supported upon the basis of guarantied ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 45, July, 1861 • Various

... soul. The actual final summons to that Other Room is met variously. There is Earthly Dignity, who answers even this last tap at the door with a fitting and quotable rejoinder; there is Deathbed Repentance, whose unction in momento mortis is doubtless a comfort to pious relatives; and there are Chivalry and Valor, twin youths who go to the unknown banquet singing and bearing their garlands ...
— The Stolen Singer • Martha Idell Fletcher Bellinger

... upon its walls.[64] He kept a good lookout along these waters, gathered information from deserters, and when reporting on one occasion that the enemy's fleet were short of provisions and the men reduced to half allowance, he added, with unction, "May God increase their wants!" A little later we meet again with the ...
— The Campaign of 1776 around New York and Brooklyn • Henry P. Johnston

... half-breed mastiff and shepherd dog that Lem Wacker had introduced to his railroad friends with great unction, one Christmas day. ...
— Bart Stirling's Road to Success - Or; The Young Express Agent • Allen Chapman

... country, where he has bitter adversaries as well as devoted friends, Mr. Wilson was regarded by many as a composite being made up of preacher, teacher, and politician. To these diverse elements they refer the fervor and unction, the dogmatic tone, and the practised shrewdness that marked his words and acts. Independent American opinion doubted his qualifications to be a leader. As a politician, they said, he had always followed the crowd. He had swum with the ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon

... to overrule God's laws, and we enslaved these people for our greed, and sought to escape the manstealer's curse by laying to our souls the flattering unction that we were making of barbarous negroes civilized and Christian men. If we did not, if instead of making them Christians we have made some of them brutes, we have only ourselves to blame, and if these prey upon society, it ...
— The Marrow of Tradition • Charles W. Chesnutt

... "But too leggy. Clancy'll eat him alive—eat him alive," he repeated with more unction ...
— Paradise Garden - The Satirical Narrative of a Great Experiment • George Gibbs

... were none, nor oil of unction, when the King of Beasts was crowned:— 'Twas his own fierce roar proclaimed him, rolling ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson

... valuable. Moreover, a girl thus rendered more useful to her owner, will thereafter fail to touch either the chivalry of men or the tenderness of women because good men and women have become convinced of her innate degeneracy, a word we have learned to use with the unction formerly placed upon original sin. The very revolt of society against such girls is used by their owners as a protection to ...
— A New Conscience And An Ancient Evil • Jane Addams

... head and laughed, not loud, but gayly and with unction. Robert reddened, but he could not take offense, as he saw that ...
— The Shadow of the North - A Story of Old New York and a Lost Campaign • Joseph A. Altsheler

... believed to have been instituted by Christ Himself, and were defined as "outward signs instituted by Christ to give grace." The number generally accepted was seven: baptism, confirmation, holy eucharist, penance, extreme unction, holy orders, and matrimony. By means of the sacraments the Church accompanied the faithful throughout life. Baptism, the pouring of water, cleansed the child from original sin and from all previous actual sins, and made him a Christian, a child of God, and an heir of heaven. The priest ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes

... the Lord. And the prayer of faith shall heal the sick; and the Lord shall raise him up: and if he be in sins they shall be forgiven him. Confess your sins among yourselves, pray for yourselves among yourselves, that ye be healed." Thus spake Jacob the Apostle concerning the unction of the sick. But the sick man, before his anointing, shall with inward heart confess his sins to the priest, if he hath any for which he hath not made satisfaction, according to what the Apostle before taught: and ...
— Edwy the Fair or the First Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake

... the author of the afore-lauded comedy)—the celebration, by a classic chaunt, of his reaching the pinnacle of depravity; this was the ne plus ultra of dramatic invention. Robbers and murderers began to be treated, after the Catholic fashion, with extreme unction; audiences were intoxicated with the new drop; sympathy became epidemic; everybody was bewildered and improved; and nobody went and threw themselves off the Monument with a copy of the baleful drama ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, October 30, 1841 • Various

... lived together in perfect harmony, and who evidently thought it her duty to burst into fresh tears at every strange face she saw; dwelling on his poor young widow's desolate state, and the helplessness of the fatherless child, with an unction, as if she liked the ...
— A House to Let • Charles Dickens

... on Russell and the Government by Derby in the House of Lords. Derby approved the stopping of the Rams but sought to prove that the Government had dishonoured England by failing to act of its own volition until threatened by America. He cited Seward's despatch of July II with much unction, that despatch now having appeared in the printed American diplomatic correspondence with no indication that it was not an instruction at once communicated to Russell. The attack fell flat for Russell simply replied that Adams had never presented such an instruction. ...
— Great Britain and the American Civil War • Ephraim Douglass Adams

... always strongly anti-clerical, and at the last, as we shall see, a "Deicide" of the most uncompromising fanaticism, M. Zola here devoted himself to cathedral services and church ritual generally, and, as a climax, the administration of extreme unction to his innocent heroine. But, as too often happens in such cases, the saints were not grateful and the sinners were bored. L'Argent was at least in concatenation accordingly, seeing that the great financial swindle and "crash"[475] it took for subject had ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury

... Meerschaum Extravagant Travel Alley Concur Travail Fee Attention Apprehend Superb Magnanimity Lewd Adroit Altruism Instigation Quite Benevolence Complexion Urchin Charity Bishop Thoroughfare Unction Starve Naughty Speed Cunning Moral Success Decent Antic Crafty Handsome Savage Usury Solemn Uncouth Costume Parlor Window Presumption Bombastic Colleague Petty Vixen ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor

... manner. He was not, however, a hypocrite or a pharisee, but was simply indifferent to religious dogmas, and secretly averse to the society of priests. When he was dying, it was with great difficulty that he could be made to receive extreme unction. He died without pain, recommending to his brother, who was to succeed him, to observe the charter of French liberties, yet fearing that his blind bigotry would be the ruin of the family and the throne, as events proved. The last things to which ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IX • John Lord

... improve upon it. So wrangle, dispute, faction, feud, plot, exile, murder and Sherlock Holmes absorbed the energies of men and paralyzed spontaneity and all happy, useful effort. The priest caught us coming and going. We had to be christened when we were born and given extreme unction when we died, otherwise we could not die legally—hell was to pay, here ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard

... Hand that giveth, And giveth evermore, To every soul that liveth Abundance flowing o'er! For every soul He filleth With manna from above, And over all distilleth The unction ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper

... unction (non-poisonous) is simply invaluable to taxidermists. I have been trying for a long time to make a non-poisonous unction, but never fairly succeeded; always had a doubt as to their efficacy, prejudice had something to do ...
— Practical Taxidermy • Montagu Browne

... vessel from which he was served, that was not of gold, or of silver. And Owain ate and drank, until late in the afternoon, when lo, they heard a mighty clamour in the Castle; and Owain asked the maiden what that outcry was. "They are administering extreme unction," said she, "to the Nobleman who owns the Castle." And ...
— The Mabinogion Vol. 1 (of 3) • Owen M. Edwards

... to it, with real Methodist unction," answered Marcus, with his usual good humor. "Any way that will smash the decanters and ...
— The Bobbin Boy - or, How Nat Got His learning • William M. Thayer

... all, you do take the world so much more seriously than he! And yet he is not stupid; he is bright, alert, "kindly," to be sure, but delightfully humorous, deliciously droll. Life with him appears to be one huge joke, and there is an unction about him, a contagion in his point of view, that affects you whether you will or no, and when you are in his presence you cannot take life seriously, either,—you can but laugh with him. He does you good. You say he is "perfectly ridiculous," but you laugh. Then he smiles back at you and ...
— Penguin Persons & Peppermints • Walter Prichard Eaton

... says to those who say they are unconscious of these facts of spiritual pathology, that the consciousness of the spiritual man is not the less true, that [though?] the unspiritual man is not privy to it; and this most devout gentleman quotes with unction the words: For the spiritual man judgeth all things, but himself is judged ...
— Phases of Faith - Passages from the History of My Creed • Francis William Newman

... time we came to the opera Doctor Johnson thought this was all a part of the play, and applauded with unction ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Musicians • Elbert Hubbard

... affection—not a single drop of bitterness, not a ruffle on the smooth surface. Why, sir! did we not all, to satisfy our self-love, and our country's custom, call it very idolatry; but it was only a little envy which we, as it were, stole to ourselves, as a sweet unction to our sores, and when these were mended we loved her the more—nay, we could do nothing less; for even the devil's spleen couldn't detect an unevenness to hang upon it ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume VI • Various

... all caring for, and indeed as it seems to me rather enjoying,' said Fledgeby, with peculiar unction, 'the precious kick-up and row that will come off between Mr Twemlow and ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens

... stockie—a little beld, an' bowd-leggit, an' wants a thoom. But, I'll swag, the young kimmers that were at the pairty didna see muckle wrang wi' him. There was as keen competition for him amon' the lassies as gin he'd been a gude-gaen public-hoose puttin' up for unction. ...
— My Man Sandy • J. B. Salmond

... that the pattern, by His help and love, is capable of reproduction in ourselves? Do we put Him on as 'the Lord Jesus Christ,' who was anointed with the Divine Spirit, that from the head it might flow, even to the skirts of the garments, and every one of us might partake of that unction and be made pure and clean thereby? 'Put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ,' and do it day by day, and then you have 'put on the ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren

... Lesueur's church-pictures is worth examining and admiring; they are full of "unction" and pious mystical grace. "Saint Scholastica" is divine; and the "Taking down from the Cross" as noble a composition as ever was seen; I care not by whom the other may be. There is more beauty, and less affectation, about this picture than ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray

... character though but in fiction. But the holiest minds have sometimes not thought it reprehensible to counterfeit impiety in the person of another, to bring Vice upon the stage speaking her own dialect; and, themselves being armed with an unction of self-confident impunity, have not scrupled to handle and touch that familiarly which would be death to others. Milton, in the person of Satan, has started speculations hardier than any which the feeble armory of the atheist ever furnished; and the precise, strait-laced Richardson ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb

... She could tell that marvelous tale with all the grace and unction and passion which her genius inspired her with. Little Agnes listened and listened, and forgot her terrors. She clung closer and closer to her companion, and when the story came to an end her starry eyes were ...
— A Modern Tomboy - A Story for Girls • L. T. Meade

... but one can see it.... One can see directly when a man's going to die. You don't eat, you don't drink; it's dreadful to see how thin you've got. It's consumption, in fact. I say it, not to upset you, but because maybe you would like to have the sacrament and extreme unction. And if you have any money you had better give it to ...
— The Witch and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov

... her songs—the "Bird of Beauty" and the whole repertoire. Nor was Tom Herbert backward in encouraging his companion's mirth. Tom was the soul of joy. He sang "Katy! Katy! don't marry any other!" with an unction which spoke in his quick color, and "melting glances" as in the tones of his laughing voice. Riding along the famous highway, upon which only a solitary cavalryman or a wagon occasionally appeared, the little maiden and her ...
— Mohun, or, The Last Days of Lee • John Esten Cooke

... Imperii, the transference of the imperial authority in 800 A.D. from the Greeks to the Franks. It is the Emperor to whom, in the first instance, the Pope has entrusted the secular sword; he is, in feudal phraseology, merely the chief vassal of the Pope. It is the unction and coronation of the Emperor by the Pope which confer the imperial power upon the Emperor Elect. The choice by the German nobles is a papal concession which may be recalled at any time. Hence, if the imperial throne is vacant, if there is a disputed election, ...
— The Church and the Empire - Being an Outline of the History of the Church - from A.D. 1003 to A.D. 1304 • D. J. Medley

... she echoed. "You think he's so madly in love with you that it doesn't matter how you look, I suppose? Don't lay that flattering unction to your soul, Eleanor. I've known many an engagement broken off in consequence of the man coming suddenly upon the girl when she had a bad cold and had got ...
— Nell, of Shorne Mills - or, One Heart's Burden • Charles Garvice

... my dear. It was from what you did not say that I became alarmed. You seldom mentioned her name, and when I referred to her, you always turned the conversation. However, that is all over now. She is Countess of Beaumaris," added Myra, dwelling slowly and with some unction on the title, "and may be a powerful friend to you; and I am Countess of Roehampton, and am your friend, also not quite devoid of power. And there are other countesses, I suspect, on whose good wishes you may rely. If we cannot shape your destiny, there is no such thing as witchcraft. No, ...
— Endymion • Benjamin Disraeli

... his life was despaired of: accordingly, a few days before his death, he underwent the ceremony, and joined together those two sacraments, which, wise men say, should be the last we receive; for, if you observe, matrimony is placed after extreme unction in our catechism, as a kind of hint of the order of time in which they are to be taken. The old man then lay down, satisfied in the conscience of having, by this one act, paid his just debts, obliged a woman, who, he was told, had ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753),Vol. V. • Theophilus Cibber

... general aspect of this Christian wedding. She, who had made a love-match which had been successful, had a horror of unhappy marriages. This might not be one in the end—but it was clearly a toss-up; and to consecrate a toss-up in this fashion with manufactured unction before a crowd of fashionable free-thinkers—for who thought otherwise than freely, or not at all, when they were "dolled" up—seemed to her as near a sin as one could find in an age which had abolished them. Her eyes wandered from the prelate in his ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... abundantly hospitable, he latterly avoided general society, and, in a great measure, confined himself to his secluded parish of Kilmalcolm. Among his parishioners he was highly esteemed for the unction and fervour which distinguished his public ministrations, as well as for the gentleness of his manners and the generosity of his heart. Of domestic animals he was devotedly fond. He took delight in pastoral scenery, and ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various

... do't: And, for the purpose, I'll anoint my sword. I bought an unction of a mountebank, So mortal, that but dip a knife in it, Where it draws blood no cataplasm[45] so rare, Collected from all simples[46] that have virtue Under the moon, can save the thing from death That is but scratch'd withal: I'll touch my point With this contagion, that, ...
— Hamlet • William Shakespeare

... as in discussing self- control, we must here steer clear of religious controversy and phrase what we have to say in the colder terms of "mere morality." And though there will be a great loss in feeling, in persuasiveness and unction thereby, there will be gain in clearness. It is possible to express in the drab tones of morality the profound insights which have made religion the great guide to happiness; and even the man who deems himself irreligious ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake

... a great connoisseur in dress, was detailing to her the advantageous change which he proposed to make in her attire as soon as they should reach Edinburgh, by arraying her in his own colours of pink and carnation. Mysie Happer listened with great complacency to the unction with which he dilated upon welts, laces, slashes, and trimmings, until, carried away by the enthusiasm with which he was asserting the superiority of the falling band over the Spanish ruff, he approached his hand, in the way of illustration, towards the collar of his page's doublet. ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott

... pine; Here in this transitory life, for thee and me The blessed sacraments seven there be, Baptism, confirmation, with priesthood good, And the sacrament of God's precious flesh and blood, Marriage, the holy extreme unction, and penance; These seven be good to have in remembrance, Gracious sacraments of ...
— Everyman and Other Old Religious Plays, with an Introduction • Anonymous

... since none but Thou Can end it. Into thee such virtue and grace Immense I have transfused, that all may know In Heaven and Hell thy power above compare; And, this perverse commotion governed thus, To manifest thee worthiest to be Heir Of all things; to be Heir, and to be King By sacred unction, thy deserved right. Go then, Thou Mightiest, in thy Father's might; Ascend my chariot, guide the rapid wheels That shake Heaven's basis, bring forth all my war, My bow and thunder, my almighty arms Gird on, and sword upon thy puissant thigh; Pursue these sons of darkness, drive them ...
— Paradise Lost • John Milton

... honours bestowed by the Virgin on St. Thomas a Becket, (according to a MS. in the Cotton Library,) he received from our Lady's own hands, at Sens, in France, a golden eagle, and a small phial of stone or glass, containing an unction, on whose virtues she largely expatiated. Being then in banishment, he was directed to give them in charge to a monk of Poictiers, who hid them in St. Gregory's church at that place, where they were discovered in the reign of Edward III., with a written account of the vision; ...
— Coronation Anecdotes • Giles Gossip

... whole blooming production," put in Mr. Dillingford, with unction. "Including my dress suit and a top hat, to say nothing of a change ...
— Green Fancy • George Barr McCutcheon

... their sublime insularity, benevolently herded two stately, though shivering, turbanned native gentlemen, who reached Deadham during the early stages of the ceremony no one quite knew whence or when. In the intervals of his self-imposed duties, he found time to admire the rich unction of his father, ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet

... incident in this entertainment, a humble second-liner like Luigi Fabiani, who broke stones upon his mighty brother and caught the infant Stella when she was hurled at him? The thought was unpleasant to him, and did his lady no honor—so he dismissed it with reservations. But, whatever unction he laid to his soul, the truth would not be downed that two months had elapsed since that parting in the railway station at SÂŽes during which time he had neither heard from nor ...
— Madcap • George Gibbs

... all others, the most antipathetic to the Anglo-Saxon type of mind. In a word he is a humanist of the great tradition—a civilized artist—a great and wise man. He is Rabelaisian and Voltairian, at the same time. His style has something of the urbanity, the unction, the fine malice, of Renan; but it has also a quality peculiar to its creator—a sort of transparent objectivity, lucid as rarified air, and contemptuously cold as a fragment of antique marble. Monsieur Bergeret, who appears ...
— One Hundred Best Books • John Cowper Powys

... that of extreme unction. These are holy and sacred words for all. It is with these words that our ancestors have fallen asleep, our fathers and our relatives, and it is with them that one day our children will see us sleep. When one wishes to make use of them, it should ...
— The Public vs. M. Gustave Flaubert • Various

... first verse at the head of the page was regarded as a prognostication of the character of his episcopate. There are numerous accounts of such presages in the chronicles. Guibert of Nogent relates, for instance, that when Landric, elected Bishop of Noyon, was receiving episcopal unction, the text of the Gospel foreshadowed evil—"A sword shall pierce through thine own soul also." After having committed several crimes, he was assassinated. He had, as his successor, the Dean of Orleans; the new bishop on being presented for consecration, ...
— Castles and Cave Dwellings of Europe • Sabine Baring-Gould

... ludicrous banter. But his one object, as he tells 'serious criticks,' has been to delineate Johnson's character, and for this purpose he appeals from Philip drunk to Philip sober, and to the approbation of the discerning reader. Later on, he has laid the flattering unction to his heart, and has extracted comfort from the soul of things evil. He felt comfortable, and 'I then thought that my last night's riot was no more than such a social excess as may happen without much moral blame; and recollected that some physicians maintained, that a fever produced by it ...
— James Boswell - Famous Scots Series • William Keith Leask

... friend!" Father Pezelay answered with unction. "But his Majesty's will is to do—to do for the glory of God and the saints and His Holy Church! How? Is that which was lawful at Saumur unlawful here? Is that which was lawful at Tours unlawful here? Is that which the King did in Paris—to the utter ...
— Count Hannibal - A Romance of the Court of France • Stanley J. Weyman

... committee or of a public meeting of our own or any other time. A Parnellite once said he had the unctuousness of a retired grocer, but was contradicted by a more reverent English Radical, who said, 'No, he has the unction of grace,' whereas, the truth is, he has the platform manner ...
— The Reminiscences of an Irish Land Agent • S.M. Hussey

... rainbow than a living woman—little, very little for the tribe of Levi, and less than all for Ichabod. His black eyes she likened to burnt cinders; she saw no beauty in a beard striped and mottled with grey, although it was perfumed with the sweets of Araby, and oiled with as pure and undefiled an unction as that which flowed from the horn of the ancient Samuel upon the head of the youthful David. His stateliness provoked her mirth—his deafness her impatience; and when she compared him with the joyous cavaliers, the brilliant and captivating men who graced the court of the gay and luxurious ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall

... lawgiver who is able to save and to destroy," he said wearily, and then, gathering himself up with more pompous unction, he asked of the surprised Darling, "Who ...
— The Mormon Prophet • Lily Dougall

... old-fashioned, or mean and ridiculous, when they have been for some time laid aside. Mr. Lamb is the only imitator of old English style I can read with pleasure; and he is so thoroughly imbued with the spirit of his authors that the idea of imitation is almost done away. There is an inward unction, a marrowy vein, both in the thought and feeling, an intuition, deep and lively, of his subject, that carries off any quaintness or awkwardness arising from an antiquated style and dress. The matter is completely his own, though the manner is assumed. Perhaps ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt

... point where some of you are lacking. You need this cleansing, this 'unction of the Holy One', or you need it afresh in the face of the world's crying need. You hold back, you stumble and often fail; but why? The answer is, you need just what Isaiah got to qualify him for his mission. You must get this so as to be able to respond ...
— Standards of Life and Service • T. H. Howard

... room in the Vatican, and a cardinal administered the extreme unction; his youth, however, triumphed, and he recovered. Although Lucretia, owing to her fright, fell sick of a fever, she and his sister Sancia took care of him; they cooked his food, while the Pope himself placed a guard over ...
— Lucretia Borgia - According to Original Documents and Correspondence of Her Day • Ferdinand Gregorovius

... he shook hands with Galusha and Miss Phipps. If Primmie had been present doubtless he would have shaken hands with her. When Cabot suggested that the interview had best terminate, he agreed with unction and oozed, rather than walked, through that doorway. Watching from the window, they saw him stop when he reached the road, draw a long breath, take a cigar from his pocket, light it, hitch his cap a trifle to one side, and stride away, a moving picture of still unshaken ...
— Galusha the Magnificent • Joseph C. Lincoln

... ceremonies, in voluntary humility and worship of angels, in using vain repetitions, and fancying he will be heard for his much speaking; he will try to find a substitute in intellect, and the worship of intellect and art and poetry, . . . but let no man lay that flattering unction to his soul. ...
— Daily Thoughts - selected from the writings of Charles Kingsley by his wife • Charles Kingsley

... from utter ruin and subversion. Ethelwolf, his father, the year after his return with Alfred from Rome, had again sent the young prince thither with a numerous retinue; and a report being spread of the king's death, the pope, Leo III., gave Alfred the royal unction [h]; whether prognosticating his future greatness from the appearances of his pregnant genius, or willing to pretend, even in that age, to the right of conferring kingdoms. Alfred, on his return home, became every day more the object of his father's affections; but being indulged ...
— The History of England, Volume I • David Hume

... John, with much unction: "Oh, has he come at last! I am glad to hear it. (Luttrell, give Molly some strawberries.) You underrate him, I think: he was downright handsome. When Molly Bawn was in short petticoats he used to adore her. I suppose it would be presumptuous to pretend to measure the admiration he will undoubtedly ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton

... dead spit and image of your sister Eileen you are, with your nose always in a book; and you're like your mother, too, God rest her soul. (He crosses himself with pious unction and Mary also does so.) It's Nora and Tom has the high spirits in them like their father; and Billy, too,—if he is a lazy, shiftless divil—has the fightin' Carmody blood like me. You're a Cullen like your mother's people. They always was dreamin' their ...
— The Straw • Eugene O'Neill

... nothing in humorous writing delights them more than a clever burlesque on their favourite topic. You may hear the book praised where one of the writer's more ambitious efforts may pass unnoticed; and one of its passages is quoted with unction in many a shooting party. "Johnson, who was placed forward, again stood under a canopy of pheasants, and shot with brilliant success into the gaps.... The only theory which is accepted as explaining the catastrophe is one that imputes ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann

... a part of the state of Massachusetts. My impression is that the governor appointed November 28th as Thanksgiving Day, but I am not sure. It is likely that not much unction attended the announcement. The notices of it did not reach many localities in Maine. In the neighbourhood where my grandparents lived, in Oxford County, nothing was heard of it; but at a schoolhouse meeting, on November 21st, our nearest neighbour, Jonas Edwards, made a motion "that the people of ...
— Good Cheer Stories Every Child Should Know • Various

... Jerusalem! We will go up to Jerusalem!" During the night of the 24th 25th of August he ceased to speak, all the time continuing to show that he was in full possession of his senses; he insisted upon receiving extreme unction out of bed, and lying upon a coarse sack-cloth covered with cinders, with the cross before him; and on Monday, the 25th of August, 1270, at three P.M., he departed in peace, whilst uttering these his last words: "Father, after the example of the Divine Master, ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume II. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... vicar of Saint-Francois church at Paris; at Schmucke's request he administered extreme unction to the dying Pons, in April, 1845, who understood and ...
— Repertory Of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z • Anatole Cerfberr and Jules Franois Christophe

... for the self-righteous moralists who puff themselves into a state of Jingo complacency over the failings of foreign nations, to declare with considerable unction that the domestic hearth, which every Frenchman habitually tramples upon, is maintained in unviolated purity in every British household. The rude shocks which Mr. Justice BUTT occasionally administers to ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100. February 14, 1891. • Various

... mortal wounds, had the veins and arteries of his neck and his windpipe separated with a sword, he made signs for a priest, and from the merit of his past life, and the honour and veneration he had shewn to those chosen into the sacred order of Christ, he was confessed, and received extreme unction before he died. And, indeed, many events concur to prove that, as those who respect the priesthood, in their latter days enjoy the satisfaction of friendly intercourse, so do their revilers and accusers often die without that consolation. ...
— The Itinerary of Archibishop Baldwin through Wales • Giraldus Cambrensis

... which all quickly recognized, rolled out the now familiar lines of "Dibdin's Ghost," then heard for the first time by everyone in that historic Corner. No point was missed in that weird recitation. I shall never forget the graveyard unction with which he propounded the question and ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson

... he went on a bit carelessly, "we want to see Baliol on top as often——" He stopped, then broke into a chuckle as the stroke of the gentlemen's eight suddenly produced from the folds of his sweater a bottle from which he drank with dramatic unction while his fellow-oarsmen clamoured to share the libation and the coxswain abused them ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1920 • Various

... importance. Not only were there dark, serious looks from the men in the party, and distressed exclamations from the most beautiful young lady in the world (he had always said that of her), but he had the extreme unction of bringing tears to the eyes of a prince, and of hearing manfully suppressed sobs from the throat of the same ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon

... persuade himself that the king was in earnest, and that his severity would be carried any further than the mere terror of execution. When the decisive period approached, and he was to receive the extreme unction, he looked wistfully round, and when there still appeared no prospect of a reprieve, he turned to Julian Romero, and asked him once more if there was no hope of pardon for him. Julian Romero shrugged his shoulders, looked on the ground, ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... prepared letter on the electoral counting of 1876. Mr. Marble was unsparing in his denunciation of the Republicans for having, as he alleged, obtained the election of Hayes and Wheeler by corruption in the Southern States. He dealt with unction upon the fact that the absolute trust of Mr. Tilden and his adherents in the Presidential contest had been in moral forces. As the accusations put forth were attributed to Mr. Tilden, and only the remarkable rhetoric of the letter ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine

... went Percy Godolphin; and about three weeks afterwards, Percy Godolphin was condemned to expulsion for returning, with considerable unction, a slap in the face that he had received from Dr. Shallowell. Instead of waiting for his father's arrival, Percy made up a small bundle of clothes, let himself drop, by the help of the bed-curtains, from the window of the room in which he was confined, and towards the close ...
— Godolphin, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... was they had many amusing experiences at Fogg's expense. The gossip of the stage he cherished and cultivated. This made him a favorite with a large circle of female acquaintances who go in for all that kind of thing. People living, as it were, on the fringe of society, who lay the flattering unction to their souls that they are living in Bohemia, and they are never so happy as when they are settled in the company of some pseudo-player discussing the drama and ventilating the small ...
— A Pirate of Parts • Richard Neville

... received of this came to him late in the evening. He had been reading a novel which, whatever its other merits may have been, was not interesting, and it had sent him to sleep. He awoke to hear a well-known voice observe with some unction: 'Ah! M'yes. Leeches and hot fomentations.' This effectually banished sleep. If there were two things in the world that he loathed, they were leeches and hot fomentations, and the School doctor apparently regarded them as a panacea for every kind of bodily ...
— Tales of St. Austin's • P. G. Wodehouse

... marks of dignity, unless at the time and in the manner when they were most likely to produce an imposing effect. Therefore, although, had he been to receive a brother chieftain, he would probably have been attended by all that retinue which Evan described with so much unction, he judged it more respectable to advance to meet Waverley with a single attendant, a very handsome Highland boy, who carried his master's shooting-pouch and his broadsword, without which he seldom ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott

... care, and anxiety in which I have been kept for the last fortnight. She died without being conscious of any thing—her life went out like a taper. Three days ago she confessed, received the sacrament and extreme unction; but since that time she has been constantly delirious and rambling, until this afternoon at twenty-one minutes after five, when she was seized with convulsions, and immediately lost all perception ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various

... animals and plants. Yet they are close akin. They give out the same tone and are pitched in about the same key. Their methods are the same; so are their quaintness and scorn of rhetoric. Thoreau has the drier humor, as might be expected, and is less stomachic. There is more juice and unction in Lamb, but this he owes to his nationality. Both are essayists who in a less reflective age would have been poets pure and simple. Both were spare, high-nosed men, and I fancy a resemblance even in their portraits. Thoreau is the Lamb of New England fields and woods, and ...
— Birds and Poets • John Burroughs

... there is something done for us in regeneration, while we actively repent and believe. Are you not so afraid of Romanism, and of 'sacramental grace,' that you go to an opposite extreme? for it seems to me a morbid state of feeling. I wish for no extreme unction, but I do believe that, in being baptized, and in receiving the Lord's Supper, something more is done for us than helping us to take up and offer to God something on the little needle-points of our poor feelings. I should feel, in being baptized, that God has adopted ...
— Bertha and Her Baptism • Nehemiah Adams

... impassioned declamation. With unearthly unction the voice repeats those dream-lines so dramatically uttered in hearing of Paul ...
— Oswald Langdon - or, Pierre and Paul Lanier. A Romance of 1894-1898 • Carson Jay Lee

... me, that whether her body remained senseless in that room, or whether it quitted it, I was not to be frightened, nor fail to wait there till morning, when she would bring me word of what was to befal me until I should be a man. I signified my assent by drooping my head; and she finished her unction, and stretched herself on the floor like a corpse. I put my mouth to hers, and perceived that she did not breathe at all. One thing I must own to you, friend Scipio, that I was terribly frightened at seeing myself shut up in that narrow room with that ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

... still important, I should get out of the reach of this very woman. I could not beat her myself but I wished her husband might do it, and not to anticipate my own story, he did so in less than three months after. He was the man too, to perform such a labor with unction and emphasis. A vigorous man with muscles like bolt-ropes, and limbs that would have been respectable in the days of Goliah. I met him on leaving the steps of Mrs. Delaney's lodgings, and—thinking of the ...
— Confession • W. Gilmore Simms

... then comes a telegram predicting blue ruin for American importers and a cheerless Christmas for American children if a cargo of German toys be not quickly released at Rotterdam, and I dimly recall the benevolent unction with which American children last Christmas sent a shipload of toys to this side of the world—many of them for German children—to the tune of "God bless us all"—do you wonder we often have to pinch ourselves to find out if we are we; and what year of the Lord is it? What is the vital thing—the ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume II • Burton J. Hendrick

... actively boiling, and where he was made to feel most, the heat that kept it in ebullition. I am assured that on the subject of taxation, and on that of the wrongs of America and Ireland, there were few youths in the parish who could discourse with more zeal and unction. About this time, too, he was heard shouting "Wilkes and ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper

... diabolical practises as any of those whom he defended. Atheist and Sadducee, if not very wizard himself, were the terms in which his name was generally mentioned, and as such, the royal author of the Demonology anathematizes him with great unction and very edifying horror. Against the papists, the satire of Scot had been almost as much directed as against what he calls the "witch-mongers," so that that very powerful party were to a man opposed to him. Vigorous, therefore, as was his onslaught, its effect soon passed by; and when ...
— Discovery of Witches - The Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Lancaster • Thomas Potts

... have been tolerably general. Its original object had been to invite prayers in behalf of a departing soul, and to summon the priest, if he had had no other admonition, to his last duty of extreme unction. It was retained by the sixty-seventh canon as a solemn reminder of mortality. But towards the end of the century it was fast becoming obsolete. Pennant, writing in 1796, says that though the practice was still punctually kept up in some places, it had ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton

... the flattering unction to my soul that I had gotten away with something, eh?" he laughed, much more at his ease, now that he realized how frank and yet ...
— Kindred of the Dust • Peter B. Kyne

... to the Word, that had praise of God. His preaching was not then much owned of God in fruit. Doubtless the Lord saw that he was not ready for reaping, and scarcely for sowing: there was yet too little prayer in preparation and too little unction in delivery, and so his labours were comparatively barren ...
— George Muller of Bristol - His Witness to a Prayer-Hearing God • Arthur T. Pierson

... reader that we did not eat the "product"; but, in explanation, when we thought of that Chickahominy water, the "old man" stirred mightily within us, and we greatly desired to say that it was good, knowing well with what unction every unfortunate that ever tasted it, would say, "O, what a lie!" We would like also to insert a few thoughts about G. Washington, who could not tell a lie, but we forbear. We drank that coffee as ...
— In The Ranks - From the Wilderness to Appomattox Court House • R. E. McBride

... the baptism day of democracy, the extreme unction day of feudalism. Behold the procession of processions advancing towards Notre—our commons, noblesse, clergy, the king himself. Which of these six hundred individuals in plain white cravat might one guess would become their king? ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XII. - Modern History • Arthur Mee

... as disclosed to us in these pages has been called joyless, by that sect of religious partisans whose peculiarity is to mistake boisterousness for unction. Was the life of Christ himself, then, so particularly joyful? Can the life of any man be joyful who sees and feels the tragic miseries and hardly less tragic follies of the earth? The old Preacher, when he ...
— Critical Miscellanies, Vol. 3 (of 3) - Essay 2: The Death of Mr Mill - Essay 3: Mr Mill's Autobiography • John Morley

... arrangements, if they ever existed, did not survive the stress of the migration and the struggle with the Celts. War begat the king, and soon the church baptized him and confirmed his power with unction and biblical precedents. The moot of the folk became the moot of the Wise (Witan), and only those were wise whose wisdom was apparent to the king. Community of goods and equality of property broke down in the vast appropriation ...
— The History of England - A Study in Political Evolution • A. F. Pollard

... voluntarily offer them all their Wealth and Furniture: And Princes and Nobles shall attend them; and be ready at their Nod to pay them all Manner of Obedience; while they themselves shall be surrounded with Grandeur and Pleasure, appearing abroad in Apparel glittering with Jewels like Priests of the Unction, consecrated to God.... ...
— Secret Societies And Subversive Movements • Nesta H. Webster

... an audience, and yield rich spiritual results. Physical condition may have some influence on a minister's delivery; but the chief element in the eloquence that awakens and converts sinners and strengthens Christians is the unction of the Holy Spirit. Our best power is the ...
— Recollections of a Long Life - An Autobiography • Theodore Ledyard Cuyler

... meets wandering about, can hardly lull themselves over their "games" with the flattering unction that they are of use, for, have they not France before them (which they find so much to their taste) stronger, richer, more respected than ever since she shook herself free of such incumbrances? Not to mention our own democratic country, which has managed ...
— Worldly Ways and Byways • Eliot Gregory

... have never known what it is to be subject to the caprices of a petty tyrant, scarcely appreciate this alleviation at its true value. They expatiate upon the light labors, the abundance, the freedom from anxiety which characterize the lot of servants in good places, with an unction worthy of Southern slaveholders. What more any woman can want they cannot understand. They think it nothing that a servant has not, from week to week, and month to month, a moment that she can call her own, a single hour of the day or night, of which she can say, 'This is mine, and no ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 3, September 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... so violent an attack that he sent in great haste to get holy oil in order that he might take the holy sacrament. Again the same disease, accompanied by a severe pain above the heart, attacked him with such violence that he could scarcely breathe. So he determined that extreme unction should be administered to him; but, remembering that he had a written signature of our holy father, he placed it with great devotion over his heart and commended himself to the saint [12]—through whose merits the Lord caused the ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 • Emma Helen Blair

... churches, if here and there a rood-loft was pulled down or a saint's shrine demolished, no change was made in form of ritual or mode of worship. The mass was untouched. Every hymn, every prayer, was still in Latin; confession, penance, fastings and feastings, extreme unction, went on as before. There was little to show that any change had taken place; and yet every ploughman felt that all was changed. The bishop, gorgeous as he might be in mitre and cope, was a mere tool of the king. The priest was trembling before heretics ...
— History of the English People - Volume 4 (of 8) • John Richard Green

... have your own way. ... What a plague of women! But how did monks manage to live anyhow? Maybe they chose a hard death—perhaps that was the secret of the whole monkery game! Women let us down into the grave with much unction to our ego, I mean sweet oil of adoration ... poured out upon the way down to Avernus. ... Don't feel discouraged because you lie there. I feel much more discontented than you do, right here at the heart of the world. ... Love to Maude and ...
— The Letters of Franklin K. Lane • Franklin K. Lane

... servant did not nod—an act—which she considered as too flippant for the solemnity of devotion—but she gently bowed her head, and closed her eyes in assent—upon which was heard a somewhat cheerful groan, replete with true unction, inside the parlor, followed by a voice that said, "ah, Susannah!" pronounced in a tone of grave but placid remonstrance; Susannah immediately entered, and the voice, which was that of our attorney, proceeded—"Susannah take your place—long measure, eight lines, ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton

... last sentence with oratorical unction, and Cosmo was conscious of an approving movement of big official shoulders around him. The disdain deepened on ...
— The Second Deluge • Garrett P. Serviss

... however, as nothing had been seen of the old German, La Cibot sent Remonencq's sister to see whether Schmucke wanted anything; prompted not so much by interest as by curiosity. The Abbe Duplanty had just heard the old musician's dying confession, and the administration of the sacrament of extreme unction was disturbed by repeated ringing of the door-bell. Pons, in his terror of robbery, had made Schmucke promise solemnly to admit no one into the house; so Schmucke did not stir. Again and again Mlle. ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac

... the regions of happiness and misery; the passage of souls over the bridge of the bottomless pit; the celebration of the mysteries of Mithras; the unleavened bread which the initiated eat; the baptism of new-born children; the unction of the dead; the confession of sins; and, in a word, he recited so many things analagous to those of the three preceding religions, that his discourse seemed like a commentary or a continuation of the Koran or ...
— The Ruins • C. F. [Constantin Francois de] Volney

... to an end at last, and those of our party who could credit themselves with no gain of masses against the morrow, received the benediction at San Moise with peculiar unction. We all issued forth, and passing through the lines of young men who draw themselves up on either side of the doors of public places in Venice, to look at the young ladies as they come out, we entered the Place of ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells

... maravillosa," Father Roman would say to some of his flock, "which you behold here through the munificence of the wife of our Senor Administrador, has been painted in Europe, a country of saints and miracles, and much greater than our Costaguana." And he would take a pinch of snuff with unction. But when once an inquisitive spirit desired to know in what direction this Europe was situated, whether up or down the coast, Father Roman, to conceal his perplexity, became very reserved and severe. ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad

... a religion, the proper faculty of which would be the bodily eye! Looked at in this way, some of the well- [71] marked characteristics of the poetry of the Pleiad assumed a hieratic, almost an ecclesiastical air. That rigid correctness; that gracious unction, as of the medieval Latin psalmody; that aspiring fervour; that jealousy of the profane "vulgar"; the sense, flattering to one who was in the secret, that this thing, even in its utmost triumph, could never be really popular:—why ...
— Gaston de Latour: an unfinished romance • Walter Horatio Pater

... must use it; you must use nothing else. It shall take you everywhere. I'll drive you about to-morrow." Julia dropped these words with all her air of being able rather than of wanting; but Nick had already noted, and he noted now afresh and with pleasure, that her lack of unction interfered not a bit with her always acting. It was quite sufficiently manifest to him that for the rest of the time she might be near his mother she would do for her numberless good turns. She would give things to the girls—he had a private adumbration of that; expensive ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James

... After the unction, when questioned on his belief according to the ordinary form, the little Prince responded audibly, "Credo"; and finally, he recited without error or hesitation the Lord's Prayer, the Hail Mary, ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe

... a procession to march to the grove was being formed. There was considerable enthusiasm and noise, but by far the most excited individual was the Grand Marshal and Master of Ceremonies. Seated on a high horse, he was riding up and down the line shouting out his orders with tremendous unction. He was the constable ...
— The Abolitionists - Together With Personal Memories Of The Struggle For Human Rights • John F. Hume

... stupendous difficulties, and rend rocks that appeared to be insuperable barriers in the eyes of common sense or common justice. Judges are compelled to yield to their authority, and do violence to their own consciences whilst they help to lay the healing unction to those of ...
— The Bushman - Life in a New Country • Edward Wilson Landor

... shoulders. "Of course," he said briefly. "For a time he was kept here, in an upper room. He could have saved himself, if he would. We could have used him. But he turned sulky, refused speech, did not eat. When he was taken away," he added with unction, "he was so weak that he could not walk." He rose and consulted a great silver watch. "We can go now," he said. "The ...
— Long Live the King • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... we are wont to speak the word with a certain unction, is a thing whose value may be questioned. One way of defending the democratic ideal is to deny that civilisation is a good. In one sense, indeed, social democracy is essentially a reversion to a more simple life, more Arcadian and idyllic than ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana

... is not madness That I have utter'd:——For love of grace, Lay not that flattering unction to your soul, That not your trespass but my madness speaks: It will but skin and film the ulcerous place; While rank corruption, mining all within, Infects unseen. Confess yourself to Heaven; Repent what's past; avoid what is ...
— An Appeal in Favor of that Class of Americans Called Africans • Lydia Maria Child

... eighteenth century was seven for one, though he records the case of an award by the Dublin Society in 1763 to an Irish gentleman who raised 50 bushels of wheat from a single peck of seed! Harte was a parson, but apparently he did not bring the same unction into his agriculture as did the Rev. Robert Herrick to the husbandry of his Devonshire glebe, a century earlier. In Herrick's Thanksgiving to God ...
— Roman Farm Management - The Treatises Of Cato And Varro • Marcus Porcius Cato

... sound, and form—to do this is to labor in a large field of industry. But all your training, bodily and mental, is subservient to the two great principles in tragedy and comedy—passion and geniality. Geniality in comedy is one of the rarest gifts. Think of the rich unction of Falstaff, the mercurial fancy of Mercutio, the witty vivacity and manly humor of Benedick—think of the qualities, natural and acquired, that are needed for the complete portrayal of such characters, and you will understand how difficult it ...
— The Drama • Henry Irving

... him I after in the field espied, Performing wondrous feats of chivalry, I was surprised by Love, ere I descried That freedom in my Love, so rash a guide, I lay this unction to my phantasy, That no unseemly place my heart possest, Fixed on the worthiest in the world ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto



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