"Embroider" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... they must have accepted the results as a testimony to the value of the personal factor in uniform. Respect for individual tastes was rather a mark of that time in the navy. Seamen handy with their needle were permitted, if not encouraged, to embroider elaborate patterns, in divers colors, on the fronts of their shirts, and turned many honest pennies by doing the like for less skillful shipmates. Pride in personal appearance, dandyism, is quite consonant with military feeling, as history has abundantly shown; and it may be that something ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan
... dainty stitches, set so exactly, assure me that the little girls for whom I write are not too young to embroider neatly. Will you let its two mottoes remind you that a few moments carefully used each day will make you as good needle-women as your grandmothers were, and that your work-boxes or baskets should be in such order that you can find your thimbles in the dark, and can ...
— Harper's Young People, October 26, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... dear friend, I must ask you to accept this book from me, and to make the best of it. Of course, I have had to conjecture a great deal, and to embroider even more; but it is no more than embroidery. I have not touched the fabric itself which you put into my hands; and anyone who cares to pull out the threads I have inserted can do so if they will, without any fear of the thing ...
— None Other Gods • Robert Hugh Benson
... in the vigour of his treatment. He loved the large scene, the mob movement; and he worked with a big brush. As Nym Crinkle, the popular New York World dramatic critic of the day, wrote: "Whatever else he may be, [he] is not a 'lisping hawthorne bud'! He doesn't embroider such napkins as the 'Abbe Constantin', and he can't arrange such waxworks as 'Elaine'. He can't stereoscope an emotion, but he can incarnate it if you give ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911: Paul Kauvar; or, Anarchy • Steele Mackaye
... believed her a few minutes before to be speaking the prettiest French. He wondered almost wistfully if such a sweep of the lyre didn't react on the spirit itself; and his fancy had in fact, before he knew it, begun so to stray and embroider that he finally found himself, absent and extravagant, sitting with the child in a friendly silence. Only by this time he felt her flutter to have fortunately dropped and that she was more at her ease. She trusted him, liked him, and it was to come back to him afterwards that ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James
... which wuz goin' to devour a fearful amount of time, she had got to embroider three night-shirts for Whitfield ...
— Samantha at the World's Fair • Marietta Holley
... When the spring field work at home has been finished, the cattle are taken thither by the young women and girls,—often twenty and sometimes forty miles away,—where they stay during the summer and make butter and cheese, gather hay, knit stockings, and embroider linen. The dwelling is usually a rude hut with a single room, mud floor, an open fireplace without chimney, and a few pieces of rough furniture. Sheds and pens surround the hut, and there are patches of enclosed ...
— Norwegian Life • Ethlyn T. Clough
... it. A girl who still plays with dolls, and who learned nothing in a convent but to count beads and embroider trumpery lace," ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... speak—I understand it all! It was because—and because—and because! Yes, yes! Now all the accounts balance. That's it. Fie, I won't sit at the same table with you. [Moves her things to another table.] That's the reason I had to embroider tulips—which I hate—on his slippers, because you are fond of tulips; that's why [Throws slippers on the floor] we go to Lake Mlarn in the summer, because you don't like salt water; that's why my boy is named Eskil—because ...
— Plays: The Father; Countess Julie; The Outlaw; The Stronger • August Strindberg
... Like colour'd rainbow see our banners glare; While paler far and like the waning bow, Rustle the standards in the winds that blow; Piercing the mists, above our heads that lower, Aloft behold our stately Toron {21} tower, Flapping the skies with its embroider'd rim. Away we journey, hale in mind and limb; Our cars of state are creaking in the rear, Whilst in the front the ...
— Targum • George Borrow
... had tried to catch the yellow snake on our river voyage called on me with his wife, who knew how to embroider well, and I bought some shirts embellished with realistic representations of animals, etc. The husband had that unsightly skin disease (tinea imbricata) that made his body appear to be covered with half-loose fish scales. Next day, to my amazement, he had shed ...
— Through Central Borneo: - An Account of Two Years' Travel in the Land of Head-Hunters - Between the Years 1913 and 1917 • Carl Lumholtz
... united the vocations of exhorter and wood-chopper. He united them literally, for one moment Peter might be seen standing on his log chopping away, and the next kneeling down beside it praying. He got his mistress to make him a long jeans coat and on the ample tails of it to embroider, by his direction, sundry texts of scripture, such as "Come unto Me, all ye that are heavy laden." Thus literally clothed with righteousness, Peter went from cabin to cabin, preaching the Word. Well for him if that other Peter could ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 3, 1918 • Various
... palfrey forth he paced; His cap of maintenance was graced 135 With the proud heron-plume. From his steed's shoulder, loin, and breast, Silk housings swept the ground, With Scotland's arms, device, and crest, Embroider'd round and round. 140 The double tressure might you see, First by Achaius borne, The thistle and the fleur-de-lis, And gallant unicorn. So bright the King's armorial coat, 145 That scarce the dazzled eye could note, In living colours, blazon'd brave, The Lion, which his title gave; A train, ...
— Marmion • Sir Walter Scott
... chanced to be within a few feet of the water's edge, opposite a fallen pine, some of the branches of which leaned out over the lake. Here my three dearly welcome visitors took up their station, and at once began to embroider the frosty air with their delicious melody, doubly delightful to me that particular morning, as I had been somewhat apprehensive of danger in breaking my way down through the snow-choked canons to ...
— The Mountains of California • John Muir
... has been and is going on. "The race of strong, hardy, cheerful girls, that used to grow up in country places, and made the bright, neat, New-England kitchens of olden times,—the girls that could wash, iron, brew, bake, harness a horse and drive him, no less than braid straw, embroider, draw, paint, and read innumerable books,—this race of women, pride of olden time, is daily lessening; and, in their stead, come the fragile, easy-fatigued, languid girls of a modern age, drilled in book-learning, ...
— Sex in Education - or, A Fair Chance for Girls • Edward H. Clarke
... at his side asked: "Why persecutest thou me?" He looked up and saw——Here he paused dramatically, though Raven concluded it was simply because he found himself at a loss to go on. He had appropriated the story, but he was superstitiously afraid to embroider it. For he (Raven gave him that credit) honestly ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... England, as they grow wealthy, coming every day to the Herald's Office, to search for the coats-of-arms of their ancestors, in order to paint them upon their coaches, and engrave them upon their plate, embroider them upon their furniture, or carve them upon the pediments of their new houses; and how often do we see them trace the registers of their families up to the prime nobility, or the most ancient gentry of ...
— The Complete English Tradesman (1839 ed.) • Daniel Defoe
... still more in Prometheus Unbound, Shelley's imagination is becoming its own master. The variations are more important, more subtle, more beautiful than the theme; but still the theme is there, a precise and definite dogma for fancy to embroider. It is only in Hellas that Shelley's power of narrative (in Hassan's story), his irrepressible lyrical gift, and his passion which at length could speak in its own idiom, combine to make a masterpiece which ...
— Shelley, Godwin and Their Circle • H. N. Brailsford
... what they may be doing. From some distant region, the laugh of a child, the song of a canary-bird, reaches you, and then a door claps hastily to. Do they love plants? Do they write letters, sew, embroider, crochet? Do they ever romp and frolic? What books do they read? Do they sketch or paint? Of all these possibilities the mute and muffled room says nothing. A sofa and six chairs, two ottomans fresh from the upholsterer's, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 79, May, 1864 • Various
... night the little girl's mother cut out the baptismal robe. And while she tucked it in one succession of narrow rows and began to embroider it in lacy patterns that she had learned to do when she was a little girl in England, the big brothers hunted up the lists from the dictionary, atlas, almanac, and Bible, and reviewed them. But when the autumn days had been stitched ...
— The Biography of a Prairie Girl • Eleanor Gates
... fearing, lest some or other might seek after it, we slunk out at a back-door, where we saw a groom saddling his horses; but, as having forgotten somewhat, he run into the house leaving behind him an embroider'd mantle, mail'd to one of the saddles: In his absence I cut the straps and under the covert of some out-sheds we made off with it to a neighbouring forest. Being more out of danger among the thickets we ...
— The Satyricon • Petronius Arbiter
... of corporation, and knew by heart what every member of the corporation ought to know, so that he thought he could quite well speak on State matters and give his opinion. He understood, besides this, how to embroider braces with roses and other flowers, and scrolls, for he was very ready ...
— The Yellow Fairy Book • Leonora Blanche Alleyne Lang
... no choice. I love you. (A pause. As GRACIOSA does not speak, GUIDO continues, very quiet at first.) It is a theme on which I shall not embroider. So long as I thought to use you as an instrument I could woo fluently enough. Today I saw that you were frightened and helpless—oh, quite helpless. And something in me changed. I knew for the first time that I loved you. And ...
— The Jewel Merchants - A Comedy In One Act • James Branch Cabell
... dirt, only in the duster. She may do fancy work of no earthly use, but she must not be caught making a gown. Indeed very few women could make one, and as few will do plain needlework. They will braid and embroider, "cut holes, and sew them up again," and spend any amount of time and money on beads and wools for messy draperies which no one wants; the end, being finery, sanctions the toil and refines it; but they will ...
— Modern Women and What is Said of Them - A Reprint of A Series of Articles in the Saturday Review (1868) • Anonymous
... city, that flat expanse of silence, decay, and putrefaction which is surrounded on every side by the pulsating arteries of London. The living visit the dead during the day, but at night the dead are left to themselves, and the very flowers which embroider their dissolution close up and forget them. Round about him everywhere trees and shrubs moved restlessly and plaintively in the night breeze; the angular grave-stones raised their kindly lies in the darkness. A few stars flickered ...
— Hugo - A Fantasia on Modern Themes • Arnold Bennett
... I'm as poor as Job myself, but my old yellow sash will wash and make into sachets, and I'll cut the crushed parts out of hair ribbons, and use the ends for needlebooks. If they are a tiny bit stained, I will embroider flowers over the spots. We shall manage the work somehow, never fear; and think of the tea and refreshments, and sails in the punts! We shall simply coin money over them. Lilias is going to do ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... ay! yi! This satin is like a tile! These fans were made in Spain! This is as big as a windmill. God of my soul!"—she threw a handful of yellow sewing-silk upon a piece of white satin; "Ana shall embroider this gown,—the golden poppies of California on a bank of mountain snow." She suddenly seized a case of topaz and a piece of scarlet silk and ran over to me: I being a Monterena, etiquette forbade me to purchase ...
— The Doomswoman - An Historical Romance of Old California • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... a thousand objects, women but one!' That's nonsense, dear Percy; women have their thousand objects too. They have not the bar, but they have the milliner's shop; they can't fight, but they can sit by the window and embroider a work-bag; they don't rush into politics, but they plunge their souls into love for a parrot or a lap-dog. Don't let men flatter themselves; Providence has been just as kind in that respect to one sex as to the other; our objects are small, yours great; but a small ...
— Godolphin, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... money much now, and I don't know that I care so much about travel either. What I would like would be to go to your home, and settle down and live quietly. What I want is a nice flower garden, and a pony to drive into town, and a home to fuss about. I would embroider, and read, and play a little, and cook things, and—just ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service
... perfume-manufacturers and manicurists and hair-dressers and plumed-bird hunters and florists and cab-drivers and Irish lace-makers and Chinese silkworm tenders and violet-and-orris sachet-powder makers and matinee heroes and French nuns who embroider underwear and fur-traders and pearl-divers and other deserving persons, not forgetting the multitudes of Turks who must make nougat ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine
... I make thee beds of roses And a thousand fragrant posies, A cap of flowers, and a kirtle Embroider'd all ...
— English Songs and Ballads • Various
... me to embroider in a frame with silk? And to draw and design the wild and tame Beasts of the forest and field? Also to picture on plain surface: Round about to place golden borders, A narrow and a broader one, With stags ...
— Arts and Crafts in the Middle Ages • Julia De Wolf Addison
... ourselves of this inestimable gift of Faraki. Having left the temple, we go into several shady thickets, where we take a light repast; after which, each of us employs himself in some unoppressive labour. Some embroider, others apply themselves to painting, others cultivate flowers or fruits, others turn little implements for our use. Many of these little works are sold to the people, who purchase them with eagerness. The ...
— Memoirs And Historical Chronicles Of The Courts Of Europe - Marguerite de Valois, Madame de Pompadour, and Catherine de Medici • Various
... in the world. All this time Leonardo had many pupils in painting and sculpture. Soon he founded the Milan Academy of Art. At odd times he made designs for the Duke's workers in silver and gold, drew patterns for the nuns to embroider from, and gave them and the assembled ladies, invited on the order of the Duke's wife, lessons in literature and the gentle art ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard
... most likely to excel in the lighter arts—to design (for furniture or fabrics), to embroider, to carve, to engrave, to etch, to model, to paint. Here also success depends largely upon that which was inborn, though girls of moderate talent in art, by patience, may become skilled in many kinds of art work. Schools for this instruction are schools ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 497, July 11, 1885 • Various
... Peacock, Imperial, the pride of his race, Received all his guests with an infinite grace, Waved high his blue neck, and his train he display'd, Embroider'd with gold, and with emeralds inlaid; Then with all the gay troop to the shrubbery repair'd, Where the musical ...
— The Peacock 'At Home' AND The Butterfly's Ball AND The Fancy Fair • Catherine Ann Dorset
... of the spring which they are foremost to proclaim. Next come the clumsy gentians and yellow anemones, covered with soft down like fledgling birds. These are among the earliest and hardiest blossoms that embroider the high meadows with a diaper of blue and gold. About the same time primroses and auriculas begin to tuft the dripping rocks, while frail white fleur-de-lis, like flakes of snow forgotten by the sun, and golden-balled ranunculuses join ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds
... moment Grace returned, and sitting down by Nora, who had stationed herself in the big porch swing, she picked up her work and began to embroider industriously. ...
— Grace Harlowe's Return to Overton Campus • Jessie Graham Flower
... example, am I to do, Honora? There at the University I prepared myself for fine work, but I'm trapped here in this silly Silvertree cage. If I had a talent I could make out very well, but I am talentless, and all I do now is to answer the telephone for father and help mummy embroider the towels. They won't let me do anything else. Some one asked me the other day what colors I intended wearing this autumn. I wanted to tell them smoke-of-disappointment, ashes-of-dreams, and dull-as-wash-Monday. ...
— The Precipice • Elia Wilkinson Peattie
... caps like a Parisian milliner; she could dress her exquisitely; she could read for hours in the sweetest and clearest of voices, without one yawn, the dullest of dull High Church novels. She could answer notes and sing like a siren, and she could embroider prie-dieu chairs and table-covers, and slippers and handkerchiefs, and darn point lace ...
— The Baronet's Bride • May Agnes Fleming
... though carried away by candor. "Here am I, a poor man—here are you, my daughter, a girl with the charm and the beauty of the spring, and here's Wallie Hine, rich, weak, and susceptible. Oh, there's a story for a Barstow to embroider! But, Sylvia, he shall not so much as hint at the story. For your sake, my dear, for your sake," cried Garratt Skinner, with all the emphasis of a loving father. He wiped his forehead ...
— Running Water • A. E. W. Mason
... of protecting this vulnerable point, Hagen persuades Kriemhild to embroider a cross on her husband's garment over the fatal spot. Then, sure now of triumphing over this dreaded foe, he feigns the kings have sent word they will submit, and proposes that instead of fighting they all go hunting in ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber
... types of degeneration which always follow in the wake of luxury and debauchery. Effemination makes its appearance early in life. The young boy likes the society of girls; he plays with dolls, and, if permitted, will don female attire and dress his hair like a girl. He learns to sew, to knit, to embroider, to do "tatting." He becomes a connoisseur in female dress, and likes to discuss matters pertaining to the toilet of females. He does not care for boyish sports, and when he grows older, takes no pleasure in the amusements and ...
— Religion and Lust - or, The Psychical Correlation of Religious Emotion and Sexual Desire • James Weir
... With her large blue eyes looked at him, Took her work up to embroider, Coloured worsted and her needle, Moved her stool then near the Baron's Arm-chair, and sat down beside him. Charming picture! In the forest, Round the knotty oak thus climbeth The wild rose in youthful beauty. ...
— The Trumpeter of Saekkingen - A Song from the Upper Rhine. • Joseph Victor von Scheffel
... people. Every morning after breakfast, Julien would play several games of bezique with his wife, smoking and sipping brandy as he played. She would then go up to her room and sit down beside the window, and as the rain beat against the panes, or the wind shook the windows, she would embroider away steadily. Occasionally she would raise her eyes and look out at the gray sea which had white-caps on it. Then, after gazing listlessly for some time, she would ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... forgot their fears, and in the remembrance it appeared to them that the sea and wind grew calm at his word. His strength seemed to impart itself to the weak, his health to the sick. The stories of marvel which richly embroider the whole story are partly the halos of imagination investing a personality which ...
— The Chief End of Man • George S. Merriam
... never could work; and Joan and Maud, they neither of them work. Maud did embroider a banner once for her brother; it is in the hail. I think it beautiful; but somehow or other she never ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli
... not for my wretched Life! What, kill a King!—forbid it, Heaven: Angels stand like his Guards about his Person. The King! Not so many Worlds as there be Stars Twinkling upon the embroider'd Firmament! The King! He loves my Wife Florella, shou'd he die— I know none else ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. II • Aphra Behn
... and the Lover is torn from his Beloved and cries, Ai, Ai, Ai! evermore. She knew how to make up tobacco for the huqa so that it smelt like the Gates of Paradise and wafted you gently through them. She could embroider strange things in gold and silver, and dance softly with the moonlight when it came in at the window. Also she knew the hearts of men, and the heart of the City, and whose wives were faithful and whose untrue, and more of the secrets of the Government ...
— Soldiers Three • Rudyard Kipling
... be Grisell's protector, and let the girl sit and spin or embroider beside her, while the other ladies of the house played at ball in the court, or watched the exercises of the pages and squires. The dame's presence and authority prevented Grisell's being beset with uncivil remarks, but she knew she was like a toad among the butterflies, as she overheard ...
— Grisly Grisell • Charlotte M. Yonge
... whistling, clear, not rough. The very devils conjured in any country do answer in the language of the place; yet sometimes the subterraneans speak more distinctly than at other times. Their women are said to spin very fine, to dye, to tossue, and embroider; but whether it be as manual operation of substantial refined stuffs, with apt and solid instruments, or only curious cobwebs, unpalpable rainbows, and a phantastic imitation of the actions of more terrestrial mortals, since it transcended ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends - Scotland • Anonymous
... though young, had set in with uncommon vigor; he ought to have known that all the hotels, even the largest, were likely to be crowded and have sent on a wire. The porter, emboldened by the departure of the cab, and by my companion's contrite silence, began to embroider the theme. ...
— On the Stairs • Henry B. Fuller
... conviction that one can't be happy without being busy. Now that I can't keep up my athletic sports I should become a pale hypochondriac without these housewifely affairs to employ me. I don't like to embroider. I can't paint china. I'm not a musician. I somehow don't care to begin to devote myself to clubs in town. I love my books and the great outdoors—and plenty ...
— The Indifference of Juliet • Grace S. Richmond
... pomp ye needed, And all the proud array Of courtly joust and high parade Upon a gala day? Look up; have not my valleys Their torrents white with foam— Their lines of silver bullion On the blue hillocks of home? Doth not sweet May embroider My rocks with pearls and flowers? Her fingers trace a richer lace Than yours in all ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo
... answered to "Kid." She requested her friends to call her "Margarite." She dropped slang and learned to embroider; she sat through European Travel and Art History nights with clasped hands and a sweetly pensive air, where she used to drive her neighbors wild by a solid hour of squirming. Voluntarily, she set herself to practising scales. The reason she confided to Rosalie, and Rosalie ...
— Just Patty • Jean Webster
... a jealous pang that she sat with them beneath the myrtle and talked in the same soft voice with the same radiant smile. She was not speaking of heaven now. She was laughing merrily at pointless jokes and promising to embroider a handkerchief for one and to make a box ...
— The Voice of the People • Ellen Glasgow
... . . what do you think I am going to do with the remainder of my days—crochet? embroider slippers for the curate? Trevor, you wouldn't like me to come to that in my old age, would you?" She spoke with gentle banter, as if to fend off something she feared. Had Torps known it, she was fencing for ...
— A Tall Ship - On Other Naval Occasions • Sir Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie
... case was that of an artful, deceitful, arrogant, selfish boy, always clever in excuses, who had stolen from the age of twelve, often stolen things that he threw away. Though of Protestant family, he delighted to draw Catholic insignia and embroider religious characters. He finally entered the university, always lying and stealing. At the end of three months he was taken home in debt 2000 marks. He later became a Catholic. Outside of normal expense he had cost his father 28,000 marks. By the time he was studied he had already ...
— Pathology of Lying, Etc. • William and Mary Healy
... "She doesn't embroider badly, your highness; pray look yourself. She can be put to the embroideries—not to the ground, but to the trimmings. This is for the toilet table ...
— The Little Russian Servant • Henri Greville
... the time," said Audrey, somewhat scornfully. "I shall make myself a pretty pair as soon as I can, and embroider roses on them. I think I will write to granny, and ask her to send me the materials. Granny has some sweet ones. She cuts out great sprays of flowers from cretonne, and applique's them on to Bolton sheeting. You have no idea ...
— Anxious Audrey • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... Duerer is seen, sometimes writing under the influence of impetuous impulse, sometimes with leisurely care, allowing his pen to embroider the ...
— Albert Durer • T. Sturge Moore
... seem to be a thing apart that can't grow anywhere but in England. Every married man has not less than two, nor more than three, and they always are a little gray and embroider very nicely. Someone told me that as long as there's any hope they wear stout boots and walk about and hunt, but as soon as it's ...
— The Rejuvenation of Aunt Mary • Anne Warner
... colour and style of education. Miss Waggum-winne-beg was a very charming young lady, I had no doubt, and could dress a puppy-dog to perfection, and could manufacture moccasins unsurpassed by those of any other young damsel in the tribe, and embroider with coloured grass, or make mats of great beauty; indeed, I cannot enumerate all her accomplishments and attractions. Still she had not won my heart, and indeed, a wife, whether white, or red, or black, would have been very inconvenient while I was ...
— Dick Onslow - Among the Redskins • W.H.G. Kingston
... tailor is sewing before his door with a young priest seated sociably beside him; a burly friar goes by with an empty wine-barrel on his head; children are at play; women, at their own doorsteps, mend clothes, embroider, weave hats of Tuscan straw, or twirl the distaff. Many idlers, meanwhile, strolling from one group to another, let the warm day slide by in the sweet, interminable ...
— The Marble Faun, Volume II. - The Romance of Monte Beni • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... not see why it was not just as sensible a thing to make and sell good bread as to paint scarfs or embroider tidies, and mother, after she heard of their proposal, quite ...
— Holiday Stories for Young People • Various
... and needle must correspond to that of the material on which you embroider; the needle must not be too long, and the cotton must be soft. Messrs. Walter Evans and Co.'s embroidery cotton is the best. Skilful embroiderers never work over anything, because when you tack the material on paper or cloth each stitch shows, and if ...
— Beeton's Book of Needlework • Isabella Beeton
... may embroider three large letters in single-stitch on the side, using worsted of the color of the braid, or may put a pattern down either side of the opening and round the ends in braiding, or a braided medallion with ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, Nov 1877-Nov 1878 - No 1, Nov 1877 • Various
... of their workmanship. In addition they are good workers in iron and copper, using the sheepskin bellows for this purpose. The Ashantis of the Gold Coast know how to make "cotton fabrics, turn and glaze earthenware, forge iron, fabricate instruments and arms, embroider rugs and carpets, and set gold and precious stones."[43] Among the people of the banana zone we find rough basket work, coarse pottery, grass cloth, and spoons made of wood and ivory. The people of the millet zone, because of uncertain agricultural resources, quite generally turn to ...
— The Negro • W.E.B. Du Bois
... beautiful, intelligent, amiable girl. Very pious. My mother had brought her up, and trained her as carefully, almost, as a daughter. She could read and write, embroider and sew, beautifully; ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... was quite simple and unadorned, a fact difficult for the present generation, only acquainted with the florid beauties of his later works, to appreciate. Rossini only followed the traditions of Italian music in giving singers full opportunity to embroider the naked score at their own pleasure. He was led to change this practice by the following incident. The tenor-singer Velluti was then the favorite of the Italian theatres, and indulged in the most unwarrantable tricks with his composers. During the first performance of "L'Aureliano," at Naples, ...
— Great Italian and French Composers • George T. Ferris
... anger, indignation fight, combat sleight-of-hand, prestidigitation build, construct tree, arbor ask, interrogate wench, virgin frisk, caper fill, replenish water, irrigate silly, foolish coming, advent feeling, sentiment old, antiquated forerunner, precursor sew, embroider unload, exonerate grave, sepulcher readable, legible tell, narrate kiss, osculate nose, proboscis striking, percussion green, verdant stroke, concussion grass, verdure bowman, archer drive, propel greed, avarice book, volume stingy, parsimonious warrior, belligerent ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... To show how much our northern tastes refine, Imported nymphs our peeresses outshine; While tradesmen starve, these Philomels are gay; For generous lords had rather give than pay. Behold the masquerade's fantastic scene! The legislature join'd with Drury Lane! When Britain calls, th' embroider'd patriots run, And serve their country—if the dance is done. "Are we not then allow'd to be polite?" Yes, doubtless; but first set your notions right. Worth, of politeness, is the needful ground; Where that is wanting, this can ne'er ...
— The Poetical Works of Edward Young, Volume 2 • Edward Young
... You look exactly as if you had two little horns growing on your forehead, one on each side. There are many other and better amusements for you than spending your life in the stable. Are you able to embroider?" ...
— Cornelli • Johanna Spyri
... favours forth, To give your hot spectators satisfaction! What; was your mountebank their call? their whistle? Or were you enamour'd on his copper rings, His saffron jewel, with the toad-stone in't, Or his embroider'd suit, with the cope-stitch, Made of a herse-cloth? or his old tilt-feather? Or his starch'd beard? Well; you shall have him, yes! He shall come home, and minister unto you The fricace for the mother. Or, let me see, I think you'd ...
— Volpone; Or, The Fox • Ben Jonson
... idea of mounting a horse frightened her. All the emotions and weaknesses that she felt were quite new to her. Flowers about which she had never troubled much were now as dear to her as persons. She had never liked needlework, and now that she had started to embroider a skirt, she enjoyed doing it. She quite roused up and lived over again in the memories of her early girlhood. She thought of the children with whom she used to play, of the friends she had had, of different places to which ...
— Rene Mauperin • Edmond de Goncourt and Jules de Goncourt
... said, with tragic contentment; "I'm coming to the man. The girls used to sit about indoors and embroider—oh, everlastingly! Hideous things. I was, oh, so restless! You know how you ...
— Four Days - The Story of a War Marriage • Hetty Hemenway
... Venus then, Goddess of smiles, 250 Thus answer'd. Thy request, who in the arms Of Jove reposest the omnipotent, Nor just it were nor seemly to refuse. So saying, the cincture from her breast she loosed Embroider'd, various, her all-charming zone. 255 It was an ambush of sweet snares, replete With love, desire, soft intercourse of hearts, And music of resistless whisper'd sounds That from the wisest steal their best resolves; She ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer
... your indomitable friend he seems to have some heart. I only wish he'd given us some facts; they would have been serviceable. But the letters reveal nothing except that he knew Doris. He writes in one of them: 'Doris is learning to embroider. It's like a fairy weaving a cobweb!' Doris isn't a very common name. She must be the same little girl to whom Miss Challoner wrote ...
— Initials Only • Anna Katharine Green
... 5 p.m. in winter and from 1 to 6 p.m. in summer Eglentyne and her sisters were supposed to devote themselves to manual or brain work, interspersed with a certain amount of sober and godly recreation. She would spin, or embroider vestments with the crowned monogram M of the Blessed Virgin in blue and gold thread, or make little silken purses for her friends and finely sewn bands for them to bind round their arms after a bleeding. ...
— Medieval People • Eileen Edna Power
... he has of it up there in the golden Italian air, in petrified act of blessing, while orange lichens and green mosses from year to year embroider quaint patterns on the seams of his sacerdotal vestments, and small tassels of grass volunteer to ornament the folds of his priestly drapery, and golden showers of blossoms from some more hardy plant fall from his ample sleeve-cuffs. Little birds perch and chitter ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 43, May, 1861 • Various
... bed She had made for her lover, White were the sheets And embroider'd the cover; But his sheets are more white, And his canopy grander, And sounder he sleeps ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 17, No. 477, Saturday, February 19, 1831 • Various
... appalling, Bruise the world, and thus hollow thy basin while falling? Ere the mammoth was born hath some monster unnamed The base of thy mountainous pedestal framed? And later, when Power to Beauty was wed, Did some delicate fairy embroider thy bed With the ...
— Lucile • Owen Meredith
... account must on the whole have been very correct. The Galloway nags, the girdle-cakes, the bagpipes—every little detail rings true. Jean-le-Bel was actually present in a Border campaign, and from him Froissart got his material; but he has never attempted to embroider it, and its accuracy, where we can to some extent test it, must predispose us to accept his accounts where ...
— Through the Magic Door • Arthur Conan Doyle
... blue pieces of cloth at the draper's shop in the village, and no sooner had she finished eating than she pushed the cups and plates away and began to embroider her Sunday jacket with pretty strips of the cloth. All the while she never spoke a word, because a stranger was ...
— Look Back on Happiness • Knut Hamsun
... commissioners. Though you live in an elegant residence, and fare sumptuously every day, let your daughters feel it is a disgrace to them not to know how to work. I denounce the idea, prevalent in society, that though our young women may embroider slippers, and crochet, and make mats for lamps to stand on, without disgrace, the idea of doing anything for a livelihood is dishonorable. It is a shame for a young woman, belonging to a large family, to be inefficient when the ...
— The Abominations of Modern Society • Rev. T. De Witt Talmage
... while, managed to embroider two or three petals, when she heard Pao-yue begin to shout abusingly in his dreams. "How can," he cried, "one ever believe what bonzes and Taoist priests say? What about a match between gold and jade? My impression is that it's to be a union between ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... just below. It carries away something, too—scents calculated to bewilder the thrift-hunting bee: sometimes a whiff of peppermint from an old lady's pew, but oftener the breath of musk and southernwood, gathered in ancient gardens, and borne up here to embroider the preacher's drowsy homilies, and remind us, when we faint, of ...
— Tiverton Tales • Alice Brown
... I asked if John had said any more on the subject. "Did he embroider the theme at all?" ...
— We Three • Gouverneur Morris
... festivities presided over by the Queen at Asolo, to which came, among many other guests from the capital by the Lagunes, three Venetian gentlemen and three ladies. This gentle company, in a series of conversations, dwell upon, and embroider in many variations, that inexhaustible theme, the love of man for woman. A subject this which, transposed into an atmosphere at once more frankly sensuous and of a higher spirituality, might well have served as the basis for such a picture ...
— The Earlier Work of Titian • Claude Phillips
... She had brought some there. She was sewing running leather to put into the shoes of human beings, so that they should never be at rest. She embroidered lies, and worked up into mischief and discord thoughtless words, that would otherwise have fallen to the ground. Yes, she knew how to sew and embroider, and transfer with a ...
— The Sand-Hills of Jutland • Hans Christian Andersen
... begun the pocketbook, baron, which I promised to embroider for you. Will you look at ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... ones' door they tarried, And she presents gave to her poor children, To the boys gave gold-embroider'd buskins, To the girls gave long and costly dresses, To the suckling, helpless in the cradle, Gave a garment, to ...
— The Poems of Goethe • Goethe
... families of the Curacas and inferior nobles, and brought up in the great convent-like establishments under the care of certain elderly matrons, who instructed them in their religious duties, and taught them to spin and embroider, and weave the vicuna wool for the temple hangings and for the use of the Inca. They were entirely cut off from their own people and from the world at large, only the Inca and the queen having the right to enter those sacred precincts. From them the brides of the Inca were chosen, ...
— The Red True Story Book • Various
... eyes would reflect in into mine. With such companionship, all the Gradgrinds in existence would prose in vain; life would never lose its ideality, nor the world become a mere combination of things. Her woman's fancy would embroider my man's reason and make it beautiful, while not taking from its strength. Idiot that I was, in imagining that I alone could achieve success! Inevitably I could make but a half success, since the finer feminine element would be wanting. Do I wish men only to read our paper? Am I a Turk, ...
— A Day Of Fate • E. P. Roe
... stopped the coach in the middle to alight with majesty. It was our young man's sense that she was magnificently vulgar, but yet, quite, that this wasn't all. It wasn't with her vulgarity that she felt his want of means, though that might have helped her richly to embroider it; nor was it with the same infirmity that she was strong, ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume 1 of 2 • Henry James
... way downstairs, but it was a little pathetic, also to think of the poor man having to mend his own clothes. The German gentlemen embroider, I know, but darning hose is another ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... they can learn to do. Read with their fingers. Tune pianos. Or we are surprised they have any brains. Why we think a deformed person or a hunchback clever if he says something we might say. Of course the other senses are more. Embroider. Plait baskets. People ought to help. Workbasket I could buy for Molly's birthday. Hates sewing. Might take an objection. Dark men ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... work of that day had its merits. It was the custom to embroider hangings or linen in crewels. Considering how often in this book and my preceding lectures I have said that this style of work was common (even in the early days of Egypt and Assyria), it may well be said, when was it not the fashion? and ...
— Needlework As Art • Marian Alford
... imaginations, indeed, are so exuberant that the bald fact is to them grotesque and painful. They are like writers in love with words for their own sake, who cannot make the plainest statement without a gay parade of epithet and metaphor. They embroider and decorate, they colour and enhance the trivial details of circumstance. They must see themselves perpetually in an attitude; they must never fail to be effective. They lie for art's sake, without reason or rhyme, from mere devilry, often when it can only harm them. Mendacity ...
— The Land of The Blessed Virgin; Sketches and Impressions in Andalusia • William Somerset Maugham
... back to town. She was learning by association with Amelia Ellen to do a few things for herself. The elderly cousin, whose years had been a long strain of scrimping to present a respectable exterior, was only too happy to have leisure and quiet to read and embroider to her heart's content. So Hazel was free to spend much ...
— The Man of the Desert • Grace Livingston Hill
... was quite a rage about this. One girl had a large piece in a frame—"Joseph Sold by his Brethren." Hanny never tired of the beautiful blue and red and orange costumes. Another girl was working a chair seat. And still another had begun to embroider a black silk apron with a soft shade of red. Then they hemstitched handkerchiefs, they marked towels and napkins with ornate letters, and really were a busy lot. Little Eleanora Whitney couldn't sew a stitch, and some of the ...
— A Little Girl in Old New York • Amanda Millie Douglas
... Japanese ideal of beauty; and that standard is not reached by one woman in a hundred thousand. Also she was more than clever: she was accomplished. She composed very dainty poems,—could arrange flowers exquisitely, perform tea-ceremonies faultlessly, embroider, make silk mosaic: in short, she was genteel. And her first public appearance made a flutter in the fast world of Kyoto. it was evident that she could make almost any conquest she pleased, and that ...
— Kokoro - Japanese Inner Life Hints • Lafcadio Hearn
... fire, and through flying mists flush the ruddy earth, turning the white film to pinkish gauze. Crimson and purple stones shine like uncut jewels, and cascades of yellow gorse, under red-flowering trees, pour down over low-growing white flowers, which embroider the rose-coloured rocks. ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... it fine outdoors? I declare, I let out my corsets four inches above and below, I breathe that much deeper here in the mountains; and the air makes you feel so fine. What was I saying?—oh, about my knitting. You see at home, when I get my work done, I knit or crochet or embroider. Mary's baby is a right cute little thing, and I like to sew or knit things anyways. But Joseph said to me: 'Now, Maw! Now you forget it; we're going to have a vacation now, with no work at all for no one at all, and all strings off. We're just going ...
— Maw's Vacation - The Story of a Human Being in the Yellowstone • Emerson Hough
... That will be a wise beginning, for in embroidering the trees and flowers of the forest you will learn all the different stitches. You will have to embroider quite well before beginning on ...
— Masters of the Guild • L. Lamprey
... goin' to embroider slippers for a minister," taunted Sarah, "I'd take care to choose one that could repeat his Scripture when he ...
— The Miller Of Old Church • Ellen Glasgow
... when I was a little girl and we used to work in wool from samplers, and learn to do alphabets. I'm glad you appreciate it. If you would like to have me embroider anything for the church, don't hesitate to ask me." She busied herself examining ...
— Hepsey Burke • Frank Noyes Westcott
... house drudge rather than a housewife. Thrift, neatness, order, marked the limits of her endeavor, and she accomplished her tasks with the awkward, brisk directness learned in her mother's kitchen. Only mind, imagination, and refinement can embroider the homely details of life. Alida would learn to do all that she had done, but the woman with a finer nature would do it in a different way. Holcroft already knew he liked this way although he could ...
— He Fell in Love with His Wife • Edward P. Roe
... In th'embroider'd violet vale, Love, attended by the Graces, Tells his soft bewitching tale, While blushing ...
— Translations of German Poetry in American Magazines 1741-1810 • Edward Ziegler Davis
... scenes out of the lives of ancient heroes. The subject of the drama was thus strictly prescribed; it must be selected out of a cycle of legends familiar to the audience; and whatever freedom might be allowed to the poet in his treatment of the theme, whatever the reflections he might embroider upon it, the speculative or ethical views, the criticism of contemporary life, all must be subservient to the main object originally proposed, the setting forth, for edification as well as for delight, of some ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)
... Betty for short, having learned to embroider in gold and silver, and possessing all the energy of a mountain race, had determination enough to learn to read, write, and keep accounts; for her cousin the Baron had pointed out the necessity for these accomplishments if she hoped to set up in ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac |
