"Elegant" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... inhabited the basement, while Peace and Mrs. Thompson occupied the best rooms on the ground floor. The house was fitted with Venetian blinds. In the drawing-room stood a good walnut suite of furniture; a Turkey carpet, gilded mirrors, a piano, an inlaid Spanish guitar, and, by the side of an elegant table, the beaded slippers of the good master of the house completed the elegance of the apartment. Everything confirmed Mr. Thompson's description of himself as a gentleman of independent means with a taste for scientific inventions. In association ...
— A Book of Remarkable Criminals • H. B. Irving
... upon Buchanan's elegant verses to Mary Queen of Scots, Nympha Caledoniae, &c., and spoke with enthusiasm of the beauty of Latin verse. 'All the modern languages (said he) cannot furnish so ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... excluded them from the other one, and entertained these favored beings so well with little suppers, new games devised by Nan, and other pleasing festivities, that, one by one, the elder boys confessed a desire to partake of these more elegant enjoyments, and, after much consultation, finally decided to propose an ...
— Little Men - Life at Plumfield With Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... little probity, perhaps, either in the court of France, or in their Italian visitors: but of refinement, of culture, of those graces which enable men to dispense with the more austere excellences of character,—which transform licentiousness into elegant frailty, and treachery and falsehood into pardonable finesse,—of these there was very much: and when a rough, coarse, vulgar Englishman was plunged among these delicate ladies and gentlemen, he formed an element which ...
— History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth. Vol. II. • James Anthony Froude
... their turn, and others will overtake and outstrip her; but where is one in these times to compare with London? Where in Europe will you see streets so well ordered, squares so spacious, houses so comfortable, yet elegant, as in this mile east and south of Hyde Park? Where such solid, self-respecting wealth as in our City? Where such merchant-princes and adventurers as your Whittingtons and Greshams? Where half its commerce? ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... dear niece that 'the last plans are absolutely beyond criticism: the rooms are large and elegant, the modern conveniences perfect, the kitchen and servants' quarters isolated from the rest ...
— The House that Jill Built - after Jack's had proved a failure • E. C. Gardner
... committed to the tender guardianship of his maternal grandmother, in whose hands he remained until the close of his fourth year, when her death necessitated his return to the home of his only relatives, Enoch and Jane. At the request of his sister, the former had sold the elegant new residence in a fashionable quarter of the town, and removed to the old homestead and farm, hallowed by reminiscences of their mother, and invested with the magic attractions that early association weaves about ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... seede.' This head of seed alone is left by about May to mark where the plant grew; and even this soon dries up and disappears. Wordsworth has thrown an interest about this plant, which it would not otherwise have possessed, by his elegant little poem called ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 427 - Volume 17, New Series, March 6, 1852 • Various
... and moved slowly toward it. A long time passed, before, far down in the distance, I distinguished the white covering of the cart and the little black specks of horsemen before and behind it. Drawing near, I recognized Shaw's elegant tunic, the red flannel shirt, conspicuous far off. I overtook the party, and asked him what success he had met with. He had assailed a fat cow, shot her with two bullets, and mortally wounded her. But neither of us were prepared for the chase that afternoon, and Shaw, ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... is before us in the elegant Boston typography of Ticknor & Field's worthy successors.[31] The poet laureate added little to his fame by his previous dramatic work, "Queen Mary"; he will gain less by this. It is good of course to a certain degree, but it is only "fair to middling" Tennysonian work. We find in it not ...
— The Galaxy, Volume 23, No. 2, February, 1877 • Various
... front of the house. Instantly a French lieutenant called to his men. They climbed over the wall and made a dash for the chateau, bayoneting the Germans who tried to stop them. Then they swarmed into the chateau—a platoon of them with the lieutenant. They were in the drawing-room, quite an elegant place, you know, with the usual gilt furniture and long mirrors. In one corner was a pedestal, with a statue of Venus standing on it. Rather charming, I expect. A few Germans were killed in the room, easily. But upstairs there was a mob who fired ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs
... that's all there is to show. And,"—glancing at an elegant little watch which she wore attached to a bracelet—"my stars, if it ain't just five o'clock! I want my tea. Do ...
— The First Mate - The Story of a Strange Cruise • Harry Collingwood
... (for we doubt whether the former is epicene,) of this elegant little volume is the lady of Mr. Alaric A. Watts, the editor of the Literary Souvenir. It is expressly designed for the perusal of children from six to twelve years old, and is, we think, both by its embellishments ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 12, No. 338, Saturday, November 1, 1828. • Various
... an anxious yet hopeful look, Fellowes disappeared, Al'mah's brown eyes following him with dark inquisition. Presently she looked at Ian Stafford with a flash of malice. Did this elegant and diplomatic person think that all he had to do was to speak, and she would succumb to ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... virtuoso. When Chopin is at the piano I forget all about the technical side of playing and become absorbed in the sweet profundity, the sad loveliness of his creations, which are as deep as they are elegant. Chopin is the great inspired tone-poet who properly should be named only in company with Mozart, Beethoven, ...
— Chopin and Other Musical Essays • Henry T. Finck
... describe them as the most striking wonders of the metropolis. Another, who is equally disposed to sport with their notoriety, says, "as they are visible in the street, they are more admired by many of the populace on Sundays, than the most elegant preacher from the pulpit within." We are, however, induced to hope better; especially as Dr. Donne, the celebrated Richard Baxter, and the pious Romaine were preachers ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 388 - Vol. 14, No. 388, Saturday, September 5, 1829. • Various
... publisher' had been forthcoming, although Dr. Knapp's researches have unearthed a 'note' in The Monthly Magazine, which, after the fashion of the anticipatory literary gossip of our day, announced that Olaus Borrow was about to issue Legends and Popular Superstitions of the North, 'in two elegant volumes.' But this never appeared. Quite a number of Borrow's translations from divers languages had appeared from time to time, beginning with a version of Schiller's 'Diver' in The New Monthly Magazine for 1823, continuing with Stolberg's 'Ode to a Mountain Torrent' ...
— George Borrow and His Circle - Wherein May Be Found Many Hitherto Unpublished Letters Of - Borrow And His Friends • Clement King Shorter
... time I provided the mother and daughter with their outfit, and we left Aix gladly in an elegant and convenient travelling carriage which I had provided. Half an hour before we left I made an acquaintance which afterwards proved fatal to me. A Flemish officer, unknown to me, accosted me, and painted his destitute condition ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... employed a certain Jean Laforgue, a professor of the French language at Dresden, to revise the original manuscript, correcting Casanova's vigorous, but at times incorrect, and often somewhat Italian, French according to his own notions of elegant writing, suppressing passages which seemed too free-spoken from the point of view of morals and of politics, and altering the names of some of the persons referred to, or replacing those names by initials. This revised ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons
... inhale the saline salubrity of the sea, that would never have been induced to try, and be tried, by the experiment of a trip. Like hams for the market, every body is now regularly salted and smoked. The process, too, is so cheap! The accommodations are so elegant, and the sailors so smart! None of the rolling roughness of quid-chewing Jack-tars. Jack-tars! pshaw! they are regular smoke jacks on board a steamer! The Steward ("waiter" by half the cockneys called) is so ready and obliging; and then the provisions is excellent. Who would not ...
— The Sketches of Seymour (Illustrated), Complete • Robert Seymour
... rainbow-hued picturesque India would have looked like that of a masquerader. The blue gold-embroidered jacket was girded with a red silk scarf, and the loose red trousers disappeared at the knees in patent leather topboots, the elegant shape of which showed the contour of the smallest of feet. Thick golden locks fell like waves almost down to the shoulders of the boyish youth. The handsome oval face had the complexion of a blushing rose; the great, blue eyes, however, showed the ...
— The Coming Conquest of England • August Niemann
... Nugent, who can afford to patronise or throw over-board whomsoever she will. She is seated next to Mr Gwynne, and is lavishing a considerable share of good looks and eloquence on that gentleman. Still in the prime of life, elegant, refined, pretty, and a skilful tactician, she is a dangerous rival of the young ladies, and is not wholly innocent of a desire to eclipse them. She and her daughter are dressed very nearly alike, in some white and light material, and at a little distance ...
— Gladys, the Reaper • Anne Beale
... severely there, and did not look up when Raisky entered. Tiet Nikonich embraced him. He received an elegant bow from Paulina Karpovna, an elaborately got-up person of forty-five in a low cut muslin gown, with a fine lace handkerchief and a fan, which she kept constantly in motion although ...
— The Precipice • Ivan Goncharov
... seat. "Yes. It is quite warm." And this seemed to be the extent of his responsiveness for the moment. He was grave, rather pale; and Mrs. Adams's impression of him, as she formed it then, was of "a distinguished-looking young man, really elegant in the best sense of the word, but timid and formal when he first meets you." She beamed upon him, and used with everything she said a continuous accompaniment of laughter, meaningless except that it was meant to convey cordiality. "Of course we DO have a great deal of warm ...
— Alice Adams • Booth Tarkington
... was a gentleman and an officer, and of course an honourable man; but somehow I should not have liked to buy a horse from him. He was very gentlemanlike in appearance, and even elegant; but I never liked him, although he undoubtedly had a superficial fascination. I always thought, when in his company, of old Lord Holland's silk stocking with something unpleasant in it. I think, in fact, he was destitute of those fine moral instincts which are born ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... lately occupied by turbaned infidels," he writes, "now rustled with stately dames and Christian courtiers, who wandered with eager curiosity over this far-famed palace, admiring its verdant courts and gushing fountains, its halls decorated with elegant arabesques, and storied with inscriptions, and the splendor of its gilded ...
— A Trip to the Orient - The Story of a Mediterranean Cruise • Robert Urie Jacob
... what elegant names have been given to the Floridas, the Iowa, or any of the other territories, but no doubt they are equally significant. Texas, I suppose, will be called ...
— Canada and the Canadians - Volume I • Sir Richard Henry Bonnycastle
... vote. It was responded to by the whole assembly's rising. After the benediction, the various rooms were visited and admired. The beauty and convenience of the rooms, the fine pictures on the walls, the beautiful desks and chairs for the teachers, the elegant Steinway piano, the bell, and the handsome stoves, were all noted ...
— American Missionary, Volume 43, No. 4, April, 1889 • Various
... and on the next street were magnificent stores and shops. Elegant carriages, drawn by horses in shining harness, indicating wealth, were seen. Elegantly dressed ladies and gentlemen were premenading the street, or exchanging congratulations. Sukey thought this would "sort o' do," and he wondered why Terrence Malone had quartered ...
— Sustained honor - The Age of Liberty Established • John R. Musick,
... committee," said Stuart. "An elegant judge of oratory. Has decided many contests at ...
— The Jimmyjohn Boss and Other Stories • Owen Wister
... other Rites and Ceremonies of the Church, according to the use of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America, together with the Psalter or Psalms of David. Illustrated with Steel Engravings by Overbeck, and a finely illuminated title-page in various elegant ...
— Louis' School Days - A Story for Boys • E. J. May
... found rooms decently furnished, and a maid-servant immediately spread the table with a genteel cold collation; but what he looked upon as the most elegant part of the entertainment, was the agreeable chit-chat during the time of supper, and a song the lady who had so much attracted him, gave him, at her friend's request, after the ...
— Life's Progress Through The Passions - Or, The Adventures of Natura • Eliza Fowler Haywood
... down!" "I dare not read your letters for fear of having read them." These are only occasional flashes; but almost always, when on the point of giving way to all her emotion, she gives her phrase an ingenious turn, she makes witty observations, is bright, pleasing, elegant. All this seems to some readers to proceed from a mind quite self-possessed, and not so far affected by passion as to be inattentive ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various
... up indifferently, but Mrs. Purcell sprang from her elegant lounging and bent to look at her ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, No. 38, December, 1860 • Various
... An elegant, irreproachable, high-minded model of dignity and reserve has just knocked and inquired what we will have for dinner. It is very embarrassing to give orders to a person who looks like a judge of the Supreme Court, but I said languidly, "What ...
— A Cathedral Courtship • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... a sieve, and turned every six or eight hours, fresh powdered sugar being sifted over them every time they are turned. Afterwards they are to be kept in a dry situation, in drawers or boxes. Currants and cherries preserved whole in this manner, in bunches, are extremely elegant and have a fine flavor. In this way it is, also, that orange and ...
— The Whitehouse Cookbook (1887) - The Whole Comprising A Comprehensive Cyclopedia Of Information For - The Home • Mrs. F.L. Gillette
... aspect undistinguishable, Malone followed the speaker into a light and bright room within—very light and bright indeed it seemed to eyes which, for the last hour, had been striving to penetrate the double darkness of night and fog; but except for its excellent fire, and for a lamp of elegant design and vivid lustre burning on a table, it was a very plain place. The boarded floor was carpetless; the three or four stiff-backed, green-painted chairs seemed once to have furnished the kitchen of some farm-house; a desk of strong, solid formation, ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... justice distributed by most novelists. When Richardson kills off his villains by violent deaths, we know too well that many villains live to a good old age, leave handsome fortunes, and are buried under the handsomest of tombstones, with the most elegant of epitaphs. This very rough device for inculcating morality is of course ineffectual, and produces some artistic blemishes. The direct exhortations to his readers to be good are still more annoying; no human being can long endure a mixture of preaching and story-telling. For Heaven's sake, ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... thing more elegant than the representation of the graceful tranquillity occasionally put on by one of the author's favourites; who, though gay and ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... excellent and well-ordered repast, a young dandy entered, who did not escape Rastignac. He had been nodding here and there among the crowd to this or that young man, distinguished both by personal attractions and elegant attire, and now he ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac
... along, it came to pass he Fell in with what was late the second column, Under the orders of the General Lascy, But now reduced, as is a bulky volume Into an elegant extract (much less massy) Of heroism, and took his place with solemn Air 'midst the rest, who kept their valiant faces And levell'd weapons ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... beautiful—seeing the end of his waistcloth thrown empty over his shoulder, passed him in the streets without even deigning a look. The very shopkeepers' wives, who once had adored his mustachio and had never ceased talking of his "elegant" gait, despised him; and the wealthy old person who formerly supplied his small feet with the choicest slippers, left him to starve. Upon which he also in a state of repentance, followed his brother ...
— Vikram and the Vampire • Sir Richard F. Burton
... usual homage paid to the king of the country, he informed me that you advanced your hand before you, on a level with your face, and snapped your fingers at him. That the louder you could snap them, the more accomplished and elegant you were considered. But in my confusion I quite forgot his injunctions; and it was not until the ladies all snapped their fingers in obedience to the commands of their sovereign, that I recollected the omission which I had been guilty of. Before the king retired, he intimated ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Frederick Marryat
... Reader of doing justice to his own imaginings. Dr. Johnson's whimsical anecdote of the author of The Seasons admits, in point of fact, of a very general application. According to the grimly humorous old Doctor, "He [Thomson] was once reading to Doddington, who, being himself a reader eminently elegant, was so much provoked by his odd utterance, that he snatched the paper from his hand, and told him that he did not understand his own verses!" Dryden, again, when reading his Amphytrion in the green-room, "though," says ...
— Charles Dickens as a Reader • Charles Kent
... (ARNHOLM, in elegant morning dress, with gold spectacles, and a thin cane, comes along the road. He looks overworked. He looks in at the garden, bows in friendly fashion, and enters ...
— The Lady From The Sea • Henrik Ibsen
... With which elegant peroration the magistrate, much relieved in his own mind, took up his newspaper, and Reginald was hurried once more down those steep stairs ...
— Reginald Cruden - A Tale of City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... livelihood—"something under government;" a hope improbable of accomplishment, indefinite as to view, but still a hope: especially, since very civil answers came to his request, couched in terms of official guardedness. He had called anxiously upon "old friends," in pretty much of his usual elegant dress (for he was wise enough, or proud enough, never to let his poverty be seen in his attire), and they made many polite inquiries after "Mrs. Clements," and "Where are you living?" and "How is it you never come ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... (this was, incidentally, the beginning of the expression of the terms Left and Right to denote ideological preferences, but I digress). Uniform in all the fortress was the architecture, it being a strange mix between elegant and gentle arches and curves and brute practicality, for while the ceilings were high and open, and the walls wide, they were rendered homely by their plain surfaces and the absence of small triflings, conditions that were necessitated because of its identity: an impregnable fortress containing a ...
— The Revolutions of Time • Jonathan Dunn
... upon it. Let him imagine a great and rich city there, with piers, and docks, and extensive warehouses for the commerce, and temples, and public edifices of splendid architecture, for the religious and civil service of the state, and elegant mansions and palaces for the wealthy aristocracy, and walls and towers for the defense of the whole. Let him then imagine a back country, extending for some hundred miles into the interior of Africa, fertile and highly cultivated, producing great stores of corn, ...
— Hannibal - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... before my mental eye the elegant ladies and gentlemen for whom these comfortable sayings are prepared: the vestrymen and pillars of the Church, with black frock coats and black kid gloves and shiny tophats; the ladies of Good Society with their Easter costumes in pastel shades, ...
— The Profits of Religion, Fifth Edition • Upton Sinclair
... himself up to his hopes, slowly down the broad avenue, an elegant four-in-hand carriage rolled past him, and stopped at the house where lived Colonel Bischofswerder, long before he had reached the Brandenburg Gate. A gentleman sprang out, hastening past the footman into the house, where a servant evidently awaited his arrival, and preceded ...
— Old Fritz and the New Era • Louise Muhlbach
... imposing as his great subject. Indeed, with almost any other subject the sonorous roll of his majestic sentences would be out of place. While it deserves all the adjectives that have been applied to it by enthusiastic admirers,—finished, elegant, splendid, rounded, massive, sonorous, copious, elaborate, ornate, exhaustive,—it must be confessed, though one whispers the confession, that the style sometimes obscures our interest in the narrative. As he sifted his facts from a multitude of sources, so he often hides them again in ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... which made me very happy. Your fete I believe to have been most probably one of the most splendid ever given. There is hardly a country where so much magnificence exists; Austria has some of the means, but the Court is not elegant from its nature. We regret sincerely not to have been able to witness it, and will admire the ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume 1 (of 3), 1837-1843) • Queen Victoria
... years growth, and fifty foot high to the nearest bough: These he wafted upon floats and engines, four long miles; and planted them so luckily, that they bare abundantly the very first year; as Gasper Barloeus hath related in his Elegant Description of that Prince's Expedition. Nor hath this only succeeded in the Indies alone; Monsieur de Fiat (one of the Mareschals of France) hath with huge oaks done the like at Fiat. Shall I yet bring you nearer home? A great person ...
— Sylva, Vol. 1 (of 2) - Or A Discourse of Forest Trees • John Evelyn
... D'Artagnan, determined to continue on the laudatory tack on which he had commenced, "the more I listen to you the more surprised I am at the easy and elegant manner in which you speak French. You have lived three years in Paris? May I ask ...
— Twenty Years After • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... correspondence was varied. Some of it was taken up with criticisms of his thought—products of a leisurely age when the thinkers of Europe were a brotherhood, calling to each other across the dim populations; some represented the more deferential doubts of disciples or the elegant misunderstandings of philosophic dilettanti, some his friendly intercourse with empirical physicists like Boyle or like Huyghens, whose telescope had enlarged the philosopher's universe and the thinker's God; there was an acknowledgment of the last scholium from the young men's society of Amsterdam—"Nil ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... do a laborer's work, he at once resolved to exchange his elegant broadcloth for a laborer's suit, and he managed this transfer so shrewdly that he obtained quite a little sum of money ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... proved to be an impressively elegant affair, the locality considered, drawn by two horses which were clearly not of the range variety. And then further things were revealed: a coachman sat on the front seat, and a man who wore an air of authority about him like a kingly robe sat alone ...
— Children of the Desert • Louis Dodge
... all wainscoted, the marble all cleaned, the old grates taken down, and register-stoves, you could see to dress by, put up; four trees were planted in the back garden, several small baskets of gravel sprinkled over the front one, vans of elegant furniture arrived, spring blinds were fitted to the windows, carpenters who had been employed in the various preparations, alterations, and repairs, made confidential statements to the different maid-servants in the row, ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... and watched this sad scene with folded arms and tightly drawn mouth. Was it true? Was this his work? This dishevelled, staring-eyed, sodden, incoherent creature, shrewdly wise in his cups, had taken the place of the elegant and easy English gentleman, the educated Oxford man, dabbler in high-class verse and prospective happy bridegroom, and what woman would care to have his arm around her now? With the thought came a wave of self-righteous indignation; he had partially effected what he had hoped to ...
— Ringfield - A Novel • Susie Frances Harrison
... represented by the fifth book of Manilius, by Phaedrus's Fables, and perhaps by the translation of Aratus ascribed to GERMANICUS, the nephew and adopted son of Tiberius. This translation, which is both elegant and faithful, and superior to Cicero's in poetical inspiration, has been claimed, but with less probability, for Domitian, who, as is well known, affected the title of Germanicus. [15] But the consent ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell
... what could I do? A fellow can't get an iceberg to enjoy tropical sunshine. Our dislike to leave the old lady alone, although she insisted that she didn't mind it at all, led us to pass a large portion of each day, sometimes all day, about the house. It was "deuced stupid," to use Marston's elegant phrase, but there was little to do for it. To be sure, there was Desmond, "old Dives," Fred called him. He seldom went out of sight of the house, but he had a perfect mail-bag of newspapers and letters every morning, and spent the forenoon ...
— That Mother-in-Law of Mine • Anonymous
... lawyer, was a circumstance that could not so easily be understood. Had the interesting fact transpired, that the great Elias had not so much slipped through her fingers, as, to use his own forcible and elegant language, "wriggled himself clear," it might have been satisfactory to the world in general. But Mr Green was far-away intent on more important matters, on the valuation and disposal of fabulous quantities ...
— Janet's Love and Service • Margaret M Robertson
... eminent French novelist and essayist, born at Amiens; a subtle analyst of character, with a clear and elegant style, on which he bestows great pains; his novels are what he calls "psychological," and distinct from the romantist and naturalistic; ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... of yours. You hit on a big thing, and you spoil it. You are so anxious that Toole shall get no credit that you rush it into print and make a fizzle of it. I know who the traitors to the party are—you are one. Doc Weaver with his elegant style and his Shakespeare is another. And that miserable intermeddling little book agent is another. You ...
— Kilo - Being the Love Story of Eliph' Hewlitt Book Agent • Ellis Parker Butler
... wonderfully brief discourses; but, whereas they had once been elegant and somewhat scholarly productions, they were now earnest and even pungent. If the sentences were less carefully compiled, more rough-hewn, and deficient in polish, there was matter in them that roused people and ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey
... the Coventry Plays. In Chapman's 'All Fools' is the misprint of employ for imply, fairly inferring an identity of sound in the last syllable. Indeed, this pronunciation was habitual till after Pope, and Rogers tells us that the elegant Gray said naise for noise just as our rustics still do. Our cornish (which I find also in Herrick) remembers the French better than cornice does. While clinging more closely to the Anglo-Saxon in dropping ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... a learned relation and comment on his dangerous and remarkable Travels; and for his harmonious translation of the Psalms of David, the Book of Job, and other poetical parts of Holy Writ, into most high and elegant verse. And for Cranmer, his other pupil, I shall refer my Reader to the printed testimonies of our learned Mr. Camden, of Fynes Moryson[11] ...
— Lives of John Donne, Henry Wotton, Rich'd Hooker, George Herbert, - &C, Volume Two • Izaak Walton
... preposterous thicks and thins, has been mostly relegated to works that do not profess anything but the baldest utilitarianism (though why even utilitarianism should use illegible types, I fail to see), and Caslon's letter and the somewhat wiry, but in its way, elegant old-faced type cut in our own days, has largely taken its place. It is rather unlucky, however, that a somewhat low standard of excellence has been accepted for the design of modern roman type at its ...
— The Art and Craft of Printing • William Morris
... his utterance; some, led by an abhorrent fantasy, may have wandered along the path that goes to the Venus-berg and have striven to lisp a formula that would transform the earth into Gehenna rather than into Heaven. But, beside this mass of imposture, of folly, of elegant idleness and of corruption, the a rebours of a spiritual outpouring, there was a real mysticism that could present the Authentic Spectacle and could utter comfortable words in tongues not of this world utterly. ...
— The Gnosis of the Light • F. Lamplugh
... Esquire, was not acquainted with the stage, in a professional way, at any rate. He was a slim and elegant gentleman, dressed with elaborate care, who appeared profoundly bored with life in general and our society in particular. He sported one of Hephzibah's detestations, a monocle, and spoke, when he spoke at all, with a languid drawl and what I learned later was a Piccadilly ...
— Kent Knowles: Quahaug • Joseph C. Lincoln
... of affluence; which to her were little less than the necessaries of life. A carriage and a lady's-maid were great conveniences; but, thank heaven, she had feet to carry her, and hands to minister to her own necessities. An elegant house and spacious grounds were not to be despised; but she would rather live in a cottage with Richard Grey than in a palace with any other man in ...
— Agnes Grey • Anne Bronte
... couch in the Dragon Chamber, to await the coming of the Son of Heaven. Slowly dripped the water-clock as the minutes fled away; sorely ached the venerable limbs of the Lady Ma as she crouched in the shadows and saw the rising moon scattering silver through the elegant traceries of carved ebony and ivory; wildly beat her heart as delicately tripping footsteps approached the Dragon Chamber, and the Princess of Feminine Propriety, attended by her maidens, ascended the Imperial Couch and hastily dismissed them. Yet ...
— The Ninth Vibration And Other Stories • L. Adams Beck
... Charleston alone there were at one time as many as 16,000 Huguenots. They added whole streets to the city. Their severe morality, marked charity, elegant manners and thrifty habits, made them a most desirable acquisition. They brought the mulberry and olive, and established magnificent plantations on the banks of the Cooper. They also introduced many choice varieties ...
— A Brief History of the United States • Barnes & Co.
... I was much surprised and pleased to see the signature of Sara to that elegant composition, the fifth epistle. I dare not criticise the "Religious Musings;" I like not to select any part, where all is excellent. I can only admire, and thank you for it in the name of a Christian, ...
— The Best Letters of Charles Lamb • Charles Lamb
... seaweed seemed to fill the air with ozone. Just as we came in sight of the road we heard the thunder of hoofs behind. We turned around. It was Blenavon, riding side by side with a lady who was a stranger to me. Her figure was slim but elegant. I caught a glimpse of her face as they flashed by, and it puzzled me. Her hair was almost straw coloured, her complexion was negative, her features were certainly not good. Yet there was something about her attractive, something which set me guessing at once ...
— The Betrayal • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... Her graceful gait, elegant figure, and dignified manner in general won the mummers to the opinion that they had gained by the exchange, if the newcomer were perfect in ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... her little sugar soldier back again, but, oh, in what a lamentable state! . . . Never had Don Marcelo realized the de-personalizing horrors of war as when he saw entering his home this convalescent whom he had known months before—elegant and slender, with a delicate and somewhat feminine beauty. His face was now furrowed by a network of scars that had transformed it into a purplish arabesque. Within his body were hidden many such. His left hand had disappeared with a part of the forearm, ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... and Marston, from the parlor-window, beheld Rhoda and the elegant French girl walking together towards the woodlands. He watched them gloomily, himself unseen, until the crowding underwood concealed their receding figures. Then, with a sigh, he turned, and reascended ...
— The Evil Guest • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... be the product and the concomitant of her guilt. But with these she must go. We see her threading her lonely way through the streets, learning by hints, since she would not dare to learn by questions, where Jesus is, and stops before the vestibule of the elegant mansion ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... horses, commerce, law, medicine, small talk, art, science, the theater and religion in fifteen minute causeries, every day if you like. You have the milieu of every club in New York and the Waldorf cafe massed in one elegant composition in more than ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 6, July 1905 • Various
... distinguish; I am rather a swell, but NOT SOLVENT. At a touch the edifice, AEDIFICIUM, might collapse. If my creditors began to babble around me, I would sink with a slow strain of music into the crimson west. The difficulty in my elegant villa is to find oil, OLEUM, for the dam axles. But I've paid my rent until September; and beyond the chemist, the grocer, the baker, the doctor, the gardener, Lloyd's teacher, and the great thief creditor Death, ...
— The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 1 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... granaries, and quarters for the guerilleros and servants. A portale extended along the front range, and large vases, with shrubs and flowers, ornamented the balustrade. The portale was screened from the sun by curtains of bright-coloured cloth. These were partially drawn, and objects of elegant furniture ...
— The Rifle Rangers • Captain Mayne Reid
... Nine we met over a Pot of Coffee, which was not quite strong enough to give us the Palsy. After Breakfast the Colo. and I left the Ladys to their Domestick Affairs.... Dinner was both elegant and plentifull. The afternoon was devoted to the Ladys, who shew'd me one of their most beautiful Walks. They conducted me thro' a Shady Lane to the Landing, and by the way made me drink some very fine ...
— Woman's Life in Colonial Days • Carl Holliday
... to complete it, his friend Sir William Young superintended the publication of the work, and added a short preface; in which, speaking of Mr. Edwards's literary merits, he mentioned "the judicious compilation and elegant recital of the travels of Mungo Park". This produced a letter of expostulation from Park to Sir William Young, of which either no copy was kept, or it has been since lost or mislaid; but the nature of its contents will be seen from the sequel ...
— The Journal Of A Mission To The Interior Of Africa, In The Year 1805 • Mungo Park
... went to the tailor, was clothed anew from head to foot, and began to look at himself like a child. He purchased perfumes and pomades; hired the first elegant suite of apartments with mirrors and plateglass windows which he came across in the Nevsky Prospect, without haggling about the price; bought, on the impulse of the moment, a costly eye-glass; bought, also on the impulse, a number of neckties of every description, many more than he needed; had ...
— Taras Bulba and Other Tales • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... established the reputation of American augers."[14] Likewise, makers of braces and bits were commended for the number of excellent examples shown. Some were a departure from the familiar design with "an expansive chuck for the bit," but others were simply elegant examples of the traditional brace, in wood, japanned and heavily reinforced with highly polished brass sidings. An example exhibited by E. Mills and Company, of Philadelphia, received a certification from the judges as being "of the best quality and finish" (fig. ...
— Woodworking Tools 1600-1900 • Peter C. Welsh
... his past tendencies. He would attach his bays to a roomy carriage, giving her a "carte-blanche" in making up the party if she would be one of the number. He would perspire like a hero in any boating excursion or picnic that she would originate; and thus the fastidious and elegant fellow often found himself in unwonted company, for, with an instinct peculiarly her own, she soon found out the comparatively poor and neglected in the hotel, and appeared to derive her chief pleasure in enlivening their dull days. Quick-witted Stanton early learned that the surest way ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe
... was last at Glanyravon Park Mrs Gwynne was alive, Freda was a child of eight, and Miss Hall a very elegant and pretty young woman. Mr Gwynne Vaughan was then one of her numerous admirers; but there was apparently no remnant of his early passion left, if you can judge of the heart of a man, or his character at least, by his face or manner. Miss Hall was much more confused when she suddenly met him than ...
— Gladys, the Reaper • Anne Beale
... of an elegant, and, according to the times, an accomplished woman, Queen Caroline possessed the masculine soul of the other sex. She was proud by nature, and even her policy could not always temper her expressions of displeasure, although few were more ready at ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... have immediate news of messages by sea and land from far and near communicated in their letters. Abi-milki of Tyre had carried this practice farthest, and he was also admirably skilful in lodging complaints by the way. We owe to this worthy one of the choicest pieces in the whole collection, the elegant paean of a place-hunter of more than three thousand years ago. It will be noticed that some of his rhetorical expressions repeatedly recall those of the Hebrew Psalter in the same way as do phrases in the letter of Tagi already ...
— The Tell El Amarna Period • Carl Niebuhr
... hunters were still discussing their ill luck when the sound of horse's hoofs fell on their ears, and they turned slowly about to see a stranger approaching them on horseback. His sad, gray eye had something wild and supernatural about it. His costume had at one time been elegant, but was now stained with dust and travel. It included a wrought flowing neckcloth, a sash covered with a silver-laced red cloth coat, a satin waistcoat embroidered with gold, a trooping scarf and a silver hat-band. ...
— The Witch of Salem - or Credulity Run Mad • John R. Musick
... morning may dawn as sure as you're born, Ade. Will find us dancing alone Kit. I'll get a hack, be off in a crack, [3] Ade. An elegant Darby and Joan! How'll the vulgarians stare As they see you sportingly! Both.For none can splash it, dash it, splash it, Crissy Addy ...
— Musa Pedestris - Three Centuries of Canting Songs - and Slang Rhymes [1536 - 1896] • John S. Farmer
... and, not far off, a beautiful stream of water, with a curious bridge over it. The old monks well knew how to choose beautiful places to live in. All harmonizes, except—I grieve to tell of it—a shocking modern house, very near, very ugly, and, I suppose, ridiculously elegant and comfortable inside. From this hideosity you must resolutely turn away; and then you may say, as I did, that your mortal eyes have never rested on any thing so lovely as the ...
— Travellers' Tales • Eliza Lee Follen
... sincerely doubt whether the Oxford mosch would have produced a volume of controversy so elegant and ingenious as the sermons lately preached by Mr. White, the Arabic professor, at Mr. Bampton's lecture. His observations on the character and religion of Mahomet are always adapted to his argument, and generally founded in ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon
... been derided, but it has the merit of a bold conception. Ralph in "Publick Buildings" says: "The portico is at once elegant and august, and the steeple above it ought to be considered one of the most tolerable in town. The east end is remarkably elegant, and very justly challenges a particular applause; in short, if there is anything wanting in this fabric, it ...
— The Strand District - The Fascination of London • Sir Walter Besant
... Barton of the Life-guards, an Irish landlord, I think in Fermanagh County, and a man of connections about Court, lived in a certain figure here in Town; had a wife of fashionable habits, with other sons, and also daughters, bred in this sphere. These, all of them, were amiable, elegant and pleasant people;—such was especially an eldest daughter, Susannah Barton, a stately blooming black-eyed young woman, attractive enough in form and character; full of gay softness, of indolent sense ...
— The Life of John Sterling • Thomas Carlyle
... glittering necklaces upon his person; the members of tributary states, hearing that the king had an heir born to him, sent their presents and gifts of various kinds: oxen, sheep, deer, horses, and chariots, precious vessels and elegant ornaments, fit to delight the heart of the prince; but though presented with such pleasing trifles, the necklaces and other pretty ornaments, the mind of the prince was unmoved, his bodily frame small indeed, but his heart established; his mind at rest within its own high purposes, ...
— Sacred Books of the East • Various
... Mildred Carruthers thought, as her eyes wandered again and again to the elegant little figure, "Kit said nothing of this. I expected to find a rather interesting child of the humbler classes. I remember particularly that he said she looked as though she had had a ...
— Mary Gray • Katharine Tynan
... a subject of universal interest; and "The Seasons" from that hour to this—then, now, and for ever—have been, are, and will be loved, and admired by all the world. All over Scotland "The Seasons" is a household book. Let the taste and feeling shown by the Collectors of Elegant Extracts be poor as possible; yet Thomson's countrymen, high and low, rich and poor, have all along not only gloried in his illustrious fame, but have made a very manual of his great work. It lies in many thousand cottages. We have ourselves ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... readers into their service. Had Shakespeare produced no other works than these, his name would have reached us with as little celebrity as time has conferred upon that of Thomas Watson, an older and much more elegant sonnetteer.' Severe as this may appear, it only amounts to the general conclusion which modern critics have formed. Still, it cannot be denied that there are many scattered beauties among his Sonnets, and in the Rape of Lucrece; enough, it is hoped, to justify their admission into the present collection, ...
— Adventures in Criticism • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... pointed out many years ago, the Assyrians had a sacred tree which became conventionalized. It was "an elegant device, in which curved branches, springing from a kind of scroll work, terminated in flowers of graceful form. As one of the figures last described[378] was turned, as if in act of adoration, towards this device, it was evidently a sacred emblem; and I recognized in it the holy ...
— Myths of Babylonia and Assyria • Donald A. Mackenzie
... opposition of the greatest consequence could prevail between one system and another, and even in the parts of almost each individual system; and yet nobody, till very lately, was ever sensible of it. The elegant Lord Shaftesbury, who first gave occasion to remark this distinction, and who, in general, adhered to the principles of the ancients, is not, himself, entirely free from the ...
— An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals • David Hume
... its mark on the countenance and the attire. In the latter department there was a proclivity to thick pea-jackets and voluminous white comforters round the neck, though the day was springlike and the room stuffy. The talk was loud, but not boisterous, and garnished with fewer elegant flowers of speech than one would have expected. Five minutes before two the non-competing birds were carefully muffled up in pocket-handkerchiefs, and carried in their cages out of earshot, lest their twitterings might ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies
... which-stretched on these floating islands, followed the ship with a stupid and puzzled look. We were forcibly struck with the contrast between the fictitious world in which we lived on board the ship, and the terrible realities of nature that surrounded us. Lounging in an elegant saloon, at the corner of a clear and sparkling fire, amidst a thousand objects of the arts and luxuries of home, we might have believed that we had not changed our residence, or our habits, or our enjoyments. One of Strauss's waltzes, or Schubert's ...
— Letters From High Latitudes • The Marquess of Dufferin (Lord Dufferin)
... plastered back from his face in a unique, not to say distinguished style, which he privately considered highly becoming his position as the proprietor of the New Canaan Hotel. Mr. Wackernagel's self-satisfaction did indeed cover every detail of his life—from the elegant fashion of his hair to the quality of the whisky which he sold over the bar, and of which he never tired of boasting. Not only was he entirely pleased with himself, but his good-natured satisfaction included all his possessions—his horse first, then his wife, his two ...
— Tillie: A Mennonite Maid - A Story of the Pennsylvania Dutch • Helen Reimensnyder Martin
... enumerated in the Constitution may be effectually brought into action by laws promoting the improvement of agriculture, commerce, and manufactures, the cultivation and encouragement of the mechanic and of the elegant arts, the advancement of literature, and the progress of the sciences, ornamental and profound, to refrain from exercising them for the benefit of the people themselves would be to hide in the earth the talent committed to ...
— State of the Union Addresses of John Quincy Adams • John Quincy Adams
... under their black shawls. If nothing remained of these women except a bone, one would find in that bone the charm of their exquisite structure. Sundays, at church, they form laughing groups, agitated, with hips a little pointed, elegant necks, flowery smiles, and inflaming glances. And all bend, with the suppleness of young animals, at the passage of a priest whose head resembles that of Vitellius, and who carries the ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... and she seemed to have made no effort to conceal the dark rings underneath, which only increased their luminosity. A magnificent string of turquoises hung from her bare neck, a curious star shone in her hair. Her dress was of the newest mode. Her voice, languid but elegant, had in it that hidden quality which makes it one of a woman's most attractive gifts. By her side was a great black-moustached giant, a pale-faced man, with little puffs of flesh underneath his eyes, whose dress was a little too perfect and his jewelry a ...
— The Lost Ambassador - The Search For The Missing Delora • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... was seven feet high, queenly in pose and face, yet delicate and beautiful, with the thoughts which genius had wrought in it. The left arm supported the elegant drapery, while the right hung listlessly by her side, both wrists chained; the captive of the Emperor Aurelian. Since that time, I have looked upon other masterpieces in all the great galleries of Europe, but perhaps none have ever made a stronger impression upon me than "Zenobia," ...
— Lives of Girls Who Became Famous • Sarah Knowles Bolton
... written for The Bibliophile Society's (1903) Year Book, Caroline Ticknor says, "The true book-lover loves his books for their helpfulness, for their companionship; but he regards them as well for their elegant settings." She also observes that "strange as the anomaly may seem, there are still many persons of ample means, and some education, who, although they would be horrified at the very thought of admitting to the home a cheap rug or vase, ...
— Book-Lovers, Bibliomaniacs and Book Clubs • Henry H. Harper
... months he had been painting On the walls beneath the arched roof; Imitated Buffamalco; But he drank himself the red wine. And his compositions truly Were artistic, highly proper, And of elegant conception. ...
— The Trumpeter of Saekkingen - A Song from the Upper Rhine. • Joseph Victor von Scheffel
... her child more like an enamoured lover than a fond mother; she hung upon her looks, she read her thoughts, she anticipated every want and wish; her dulcet tones seemed even sweeter than before; her soft and elegant manners even more tender and refined. Though even in her childhood Lady Annabel had rather guided than commanded Venetia; now she rather consulted than guided her. She seized advantage of the advanced character and mature appearance of Venetia to treat her as a woman rather than a child, and ...
— Venetia • Benjamin Disraeli
... to Issoudun, Max was excluded from the society of the place. He showed, moreover, proper self-respect in never presenting himself at the club, and in never complaining of the severe reprobation that was shown him; although he was the handsomest, the most elegant, and the best dressed man in the place, spent a great deal of money, and kept a horse,—a thing as amazing at Issoudun as the horse of Lord Byron at Venice. We are now to see how it was that Maxence, poor and without apparent means, was able to become the ...
— The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... cough and splutter. "Or old Gurley'll be coming in to put me on a mustard plaster.—As for you, Infant, if you take the advice of a chap who has seen life, you'll keep your ideas to yourself: they're too crude for this elegant world." ...
— The Getting of Wisdom • Henry Handel Richardson
... vegetables and fruits of the New World; there was Antonio de Marchena, one of Columbus's oldest friends, who went as astronomer to the expedition. And there was one Coma, who would have remained unknown to this day but that he wrote an exceedingly elegant letter to his friend Nicolo Syllacio in Italy, describing in flowery language the events of the second voyage; which letter, and one written by Doctor Chanca, are the only records of the outward voyage that exist. The journal kept by Columbus on this voyage ...
— Christopher Columbus, Complete • Filson Young
... companionable habits rendered them very acceptable company when engaged in his artistic work. I know of no sound so pleasantly tranquillising as the purring of a cat, or of anything more worthy of admiration in animal habit as the neat, compact, and elegant manner in which the cat adjusts itself at the fireside, or in a snug, cosy place, when it settles down for a long quiet sleep. Every spare moment that a cat has before lying down to rest is occupied in carefully cleaning itself, ...
— James Nasmyth's Autobiography • James Nasmyth
... eagerly sought by many suitors, and was at last yielded by her parents to a gentleman of some property who had recently purchased a chateau in the neighborhood. His apparent wealth, his high connections, and very elegant manners, had won their favor; and in great delight at the excellent match her daughter was about to make, Madame L—— wrote to her friends and relatives to inform them of the approaching happy event. Among these was a lady residing at Marseilles, to whom she described, with all a Frenchwoman's ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... pulling at his sandy mustache. "That is because you know nothing about it. This Sainte Vierge has already been much talked about—first, with Nobili, who lives opposite—when ma tante was sleeping. Then she spent a day with several men upon the Guinigi Tower, an elegant retirement among the crows. After that old Trenta offered her formally ...
— The Italians • Frances Elliot
... of the workingman dresses in elegant robes which in a previous century great ladies would not have disdained.—M. ...
— The Philosophy of Misery • Joseph-Pierre Proudhon
... rose to let him put the elegant thing round her. She was one of those dangerous women who look their best when you are helping them ...
— Tommy and Grizel • J.M. Barrie
... the bounds between land and water, when practice sharpens keen vision and no false light is shining. It is, however, quite true also, that the language of the barge-world is not to be found complete in Johnson's dictionary. It is far more powerful than elegant. Words that are unused ashore except in anger or the coarsest abuse seem to be the gentle appellations of endearment between father and son afloat. But we must not forget that it is the meaning attached to a word by speaker and hearer, and not that given ...
— The Voyage Alone in the Yawl "Rob Roy" • John MacGregor
... are, an exquisite shade. Shall I try them on? The right hand, if you will. Perhaps you'd better remove your elegant ring; I should n't like to have anything ...
— Homespun Tales • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... by Napoleon, a work more learned than popular, however greatly he may be indebted to the labors of others.] The "Commentaries" resemble the history of Herodotus more than any other Latin production, at least in style; they are simple and unaffected, precise and elegant, plain and without pretension. ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord
... learned, elegant, and zealous saint, reported to have performed miracles. The Welsh regarded him as their tutelar saint, and annually held festivals in his honour. In answer to the saint's prayers in the year 640, the Britons, under King Cadwallader, gained a complete victory over the Saxons. From a garden near ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... removed to the Sun near the Conduit, which was probably the old residence of Wynkyn de Worde, for whom he was an executor. The Lady of Pity is personified as an angel with outstretched wings, holding two elegant horns or torches, the left of which is pouring out a kind of stream terminating in drops, and is marked on the side with the word "Gratia"; that on the right contains fire and is lettered "Charitas": the lower ends of these horns are rested by the angel upon two rude heater shields, ...
— Printers' Marks - A Chapter in the History of Typography • William Roberts
... to behave with dignity. In any case it would have been trying to encounter such a man as Redgrave—wealthy, elegant, a figure in society, who must necessarily regard her as banished from polite circles; and in her careless costume she felt more than abashed. For the first time a sense of degradation, of social inferiority, ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing
... to inform you that the Jersey cow had an elegant little cow-calf Sunday last. There was a great deal of rejoicing, of course; but I don't know whether or not you remember the Jersey cow. Whatever else she is, the Jersey cow is not good-natured, and Dines, who was ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the Bronze Age, and is distinguished by its symmetrical forms, and by the texture of the inner surface, especially about the rim and base, where the potter's fingers have grazed the whirling clay. Self-coloured wares still occur, and are sometimes elegant ('bucchero' ware); but the improved furnaces now permit general use of light-coloured clays, suited to painted decoration. Glazed paint is still rare, and may be taken as probable token of date not earlier than the end of ...
— How to Observe in Archaeology • Various
... use of English are the simple, plain, exact, lucid, concise, trenchant, vigorous, impressive, lively, figurative, polished, graceful, fluent, rhythmical, copious, elevated, flexible, smooth, dignified, terse, epigrammatic, felicitous, euphonious, elegant, and lofty. Undesirable qualities are the diffuse, verbose, redundant, inflated, prolix, ambiguous, feeble, monotonous, loose, slip-shod, dry, flowery, pedantic, pompous, rhetorical, grandiloquent, artificial, formal, ...
— Talks on Talking • Grenville Kleiser
... quills are hung up for ornament. The pine table and willow-seated chairs are all made in the "bush," and even into this far back settlement has penetrated the prowess of the renowned "Sam Slick, of Slickville." One of his wooden-made yankee clocks is here—its case displaying "a most elegant picture" of Cupid, in frilled trowsers and morocco boots, the American prototype of the little god not being allowed to appear so scantily clad as he is generally represented. A long rifle is hung over the mantle-piece, and from the beams are suspended heads of Indian corn ...
— Sketches And Tales Illustrative Of Life In The Backwoods Of New Brunswick • Mrs. F. Beavan
... wonderful and singular, what should one then say, if another fish is spoken of which does not regard this kind of protection as sufficient, and which therefore causes its eggs to hatch outside the surface of the water. The exceedingly adorned and elegant Phyrrhylima Filamentosa performs this masterpiece of truest love. With great dexerity [tr. note: sic] this fish darts from 5 to 7 cm. above the surface of the water and there fastens its eggs on the walls of the aquarium—usually in one corner. Even though one must and can preserve ...
— Evolution - An Investigation and a Critique • Theodore Graebner
... argument, Eva crept up on the stretcher and had him lift her to the ground. Her shape was very slender and elegant, and when the two passed each an arm across the other's back to walk together school-girl fashion, Adam's grasp sloped far downward. She did not quite ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, August, 1885 • Various
... fair creature of sixteen! The blushing tints in the soft bloom on the fruit, or the delicate painting on the flower, are not more exquisite than was the blending of the rose and lily in her gentle face, or the deep blue of her eye. The vine, in all its elegant luxuriance, is not more graceful than were the clusters of rich brown hair that ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... I may here say, was a long low building, of two stories only in one portion, round which ran a broad verandah. It possessed no pretensions to architectural beauty, but was very neat and comfortable inside, and even elegant on the ...
— In New Granada - Heroes and Patriots • W.H.G. Kingston
... that Mrs. Gisburn was rich; and it was immediately perceptible that her husband was extracting from this circumstance a delicate but substantial satisfaction. It is, as a rule, the people who scorn money who get most out of it; and Jack's elegant disdain of his wife's big balance enabled him, with an appearance of perfect good-breeding, to transmute it into objects of art and luxury. To the latter, I must add, he remained relatively indifferent; but he was buying Renaissance bronzes and eighteenth-century pictures ...
— The Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton, Part 2 (of 10) • Edith Wharton
... told me the place where they are to be found, and the way thither. Perhaps you may imagine these things of little consequence; that without these additions our house will always be thought sufficiently elegant, and that we can do without them. You may think as you please, but I cannot help telling you that I am persuaded they are absolutely necessary, and I shall not be easy without them. Therefore, whether you value them or not, I desire you to consider what person you may think proper for me to ...
— The Arabian Nights - Their Best-known Tales • Unknown
... is willing to overlook little things in you that she can overlook because you are her child; but when you are grown up, you would wish to be liked by other nice people, wouldn't you? people of education, and taste, and elegant habits; and they do not like to have anything to do with people who 'poke their noses' into things, or who say that ...
— What She Could • Susan Warner
... the hills, I found Hardwickia binata, a most elegant leguminous tree, tall, erect, with an elongated coma, and the branches pendulous. These trees grew in a shallow bed of alluvium, enclosing abundance of agate pebbles and kunker, the former derived from the ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker
... muslins, and pretty calicoes; leather, into boots and shoes; iron and steel, into plows, stoves; and cutlery; lumber, into wagons, carriages, and all kinds of furniture. Other articles which we must not forget are elegant jewelry, all sorts of ornaments for parlors, and beautiful toys which ...
— Home Geography For Primary Grades • C. C. Long
... room was on the ground floor, the room to the left of the entrance. He led a very pleasant life there, tempering his college duties with the literature he loved, and receiving his friends amidst elegant surroundings, which added to the charm of his society. Occasionally we amused ourselves by writing for the magazines and papers of the day. Mr. Willis had just started a slim monthly, written chiefly by himself, but with the true magazine flavor. We wrote for that, and sometimes verses ...
— Memoir of John Lothrop Motley, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... pace by that of the first; but in the voluntary slowness of its gait, suppleness and agility were discernible. This figure had also something fierce and disquieting about it, the whole shape was that of what was then called an elegant; the hat was of good shape, the coat black, well cut, probably of fine cloth, and well fitted in at the waist. The head was held erect with a sort of robust grace, and beneath the hat the pale profile ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... shoulders. "You seem to think that you're pretty clever," he said, laughing. "But in the elegant and expressive diction of the late—the late Overland Red Summers, 'I think you're a bum scout.'" And they shook hands, laughing as they turned ...
— Overland Red - A Romance of the Moonstone Canon Trail • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... was precisely the little person with whom it was natural that such a man, a self-made man, should fall in love. She was very small, quiet and gentle, not exactly pretty, but elegant and ladylike. She was, indeed, a well-educated young lady of good connections; a very Phoenix she must have seemed in the eyes of a lover conscious of a background of Pruntyism and potatoes. She was about twenty-one and he thirty-five when ...
— Emily Bront • A. Mary F. (Agnes Mary Frances) Robinson
... remarking that the evils of poverty are not alleviated by calling it 'want of riches,' and that there is a poverty which involves want of necessaries. The offered consolation, indeed, came rather awkwardly from the elegant country gentleman to the poor scholar who had just known by experience what it was to live upon fourpence-halfpenny a day. Johnson resolutely looks facts in the face, and calls ugly things by their right ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen
... was so disguised that it was impossible his son could know him. He therefore advanced near enough to hear the conversation. The simple yet elegant manner in which Perdita conversed with his son did not a little surprise Polixenes. ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... otto of roses. Madame Mantalini's shows-rooms were on the first-floor: a fact which was notified to the nobility and gentry by the casual exhibition, near the handsomely curtained windows, of two or three elegant bonnets of the newest fashion, and some costly garments in the most ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... an impressive, rich, interminable circus on a grand scale, full of action and color in the beauty of the day, under the clear sun and moderate breeze. Family groups, couples, single drivers—of course dresses generally elegant—much "style," (yet perhaps little or nothing, even in that direction, that fully justified itself.) Through the windows of two or three of the richest carriages I saw faces almost corpse-like, so ashy and listless. Indeed the whole affair exhibited less of sterling ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... friends of Mr. Eyre, to meet him at Government House on the morning of his departure. On Thursday last accordingly (the anniversary of Waterloo, in which His Excellency and the gallant 52nd bore so conspicuous a part) a very large party of ladies and gentlemen assembled. After an elegant DEJEUNER A LA FOURCHETTE, His Excellency the Governor rose and spoke as nearly as ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... except through the bars of a wicker cage near the gate of his garden, as if he were some rare wild beast. Curious indeed were some of the customs of this court, not the least so the fancy for obesity: no one was considered elegant unless he had attained to a bulk generally looked upon ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part III. The Great Explorers of the Nineteenth Century • Jules Verne
... PRUDENTIUS, in one of his hymns, has an elegant and beautiful address to these young sufferers for their Redeemer [10]; Hail, ye first flowers of the evangelical spring, cut off by the sword of persecution, ere yet you had unfolded your leaves to the morning, as the early rose droops before the withering blast. Driven, ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. II • Francis Augustus Cox
... enclosing a large round stone, which, upon being broken, yields a well-flavoured kernel. The edible part of the fruit has an agreeable acid taste, and makes excellent puddings or preserves, for which purpose it is now extensively used by Europeans. The shrub on which this grows, is very elegant and graceful, and varies from four to twelve feet in height. [Note 71: A species of fusanus.] When in full bearing, nothing can exceed its beauty, drooping ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... who somehow recall a cavalry sword, slightly bent, of exceedingly good metal. He retained, you might say, merely the skin and bones of a splendid countenance. The skin was brown as parchment, and wrinkled, but the bones were elegant—Hamlet's skull, not Yorick's. His eyes were perfectly round, gray below a kind of yellow brilliance, as if an old eagle within looked out beneath the steel bars of those bristling brows. His nose belonged to the colonial period of American history. It was an ...
— The Co-Citizens • Corra Harris
... habitations is of a somewhat general character; we will now consider the cases of more special adaptation. If the lion is enabled by his sandy colour readily to conceal himself by merely crouching down upon the desert, how, it may be asked, do the elegant markings of the tiger, the jaguar, and the other large cats agree with this theory? We reply that these are generally cases of more or less special adaptation. The tiger is a jungle animal, and hides himself among tufts of grass or of bamboos, and in these positions the vertical stripes ...
— Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection - A Series of Essays • Alfred Russel Wallace
... Warrington burst out laughing, said that Bacon had got the game chair, and bawled out to Pen to fetch a sound one from his bedroom. And seeing the publisher looking round the dingy room with an air of profound pity and wonder, asked him whether he didn't think the apartments were elegant, and if he would like, for Mrs. Bacon's drawing-room, any of the articles of furniture? Mr. Warrington's character as a humorist, was known to Mr. Bacon: "I never can make that chap out," the publisher was heard to say, "or tell whether he is ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray
... have Indian blood in their veins. Their education, carefully begun by their parents, is often completed in Scotland, and they are well-read, intelligent people, as proud of their Indian as of their European descent. Many of them are handsome and distingue-looking. Their elegant appearance sometimes leads to awkward mistakes. One of these ladies, meeting a young Englishman fresh from the old country, and full of its prejudices, was entertained by him with reflections on race, and ...
— A Trip to Manitoba • Mary FitzGibbon
... hard upon twelve o'clock when the mirror on the dressing-table assured him that he was at length point-device in the habit and apparel of a gentleman of elegant nocturnal leisure. But if he approved the figure he cut, it was mainly because clothes interested him and he reckoned his own impeccable. Of their tenant he was feeling just then a bit less sure than he had half-an-hour since; his regard was louring and mistrustful. ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance
... hope for the honor." And, rising, he made her a bow which was such a capital imitation of Charlie's grand manner that she forgave him at once, exclaiming with amused surprise: "Why, Mac! I didn't know you could be so elegant!" ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott
... to be the large beautiful metallic-blue blackbird, with obscure and elegant white markings. I have observed common to all hills I have seen, and is always found in damp wet places, this bird is very wary, and in carriage much like the English blackbird, on alighting from its short flight, flirting its tail ...
— Journals of Travels in Assam, Burma, Bhootan, Afghanistan and The - Neighbouring Countries • William Griffith
... shows exactly how every letter and signal should sound. The student can then practise each letter until perfect. The surface of the plate is covered with a special insulating enamel, bare spots corresponding to correct dots and dashes. The polished brass plate measures about 6x8 inches and has a most elegant appearance. The book tells all about ...
— How Two Boys Made Their Own Electrical Apparatus • Thomas M. (Thomas Matthew) St. John
... who would ever have thought it? One whole duke and six dukelets; why, Sandy, it was an elegant haul. Knight-errantry is a most chuckle-headed trade, and it is tedious hard work, too, but I begin to see that there is money in it, after all, if you have luck. Not that I would ever engage in it as a business, for ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... happier scene than Cowes presented on that day? But to begin with the splendid patrons of the festival, we must turn our eyes to the elegant Club House, built at the expense of George Ward, Esq. Before it are arranged the numerous and efficient band of the Irish Fusileers, and behind them, standing in graceful groups, are many of the illustrious members of the club. That elderly personage, arrayed in ship habiliments, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13, No. 374 • Various
... was no arresting the flood. The aristocracy of Bristol vied with each other in seeing who should be first and most extravagant in their demonstrations. The street in front of the "White Lion" was day after day blocked up, with elegant equipages, and her reception-rooms thronged with "fair women and brave men." Milliners and mantuamakers pressed upon the lovely and mysterious Princess Cariboo the most exquisite hats, dresses, and laces, ...
— The Humbugs of the World • P. T. Barnum
... and James Otis. Adams contrasted strongly with both of these men. Hancock was the richest man in the province and as liberal as he was wealthy. In the general jubilation that followed the repeal of the Stamp Act, he opened a pipe of Madeira wine before his elegant mansion opposite the Common, and so long as it lasted it was freely dispensed to the crowd. The dress of Hancock when at home is described as a "red velvet cap, within which was one of fine linen, the edge of this turned up over the velvet one, two or three inches. He wore a blue damask ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 6 • Various |
