"Exquisite" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... mass thinned and paled, and a tint of rose began to flush the billowy, flowery, creamy white. Then came the surpassing splendor of this cloud pageant—a vast canopy of shell pink, a sun-fired surface like an opal sea, rippled and webbed, with the exquisite texture of an Oriental fabric, pure, delicate, lovely—as no work of human hands could be. It mirrored all the warm, pearly tints of the inside whorl of the tropic nautilus. And it ended abruptly, a rounded depth of bank, on a broad stream of clear sky, intensely ...
— The Call of the Canyon • Zane Grey
... idleness, nor overcast by intemperance. He had been, all his life, a close and deep reader, as well as thinker; and by the force of his own powers, had wrought up the raw materials which he had gathered from books, with such exquisite skill and felicity, that he has added a hundred fold to their original value, and justly ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... arrangement of course. Dora cried a lot; they went into the Minorite church while I went for a walk in Kohlmarkt and Herrengasse. He is going to America in the beginning of July, before Dora comes home. He has given her some exquisite notepaper stamped with his regimental arms, specially for her to write to him on, and a locket with his portrait. To-morrow she is going to send him her photo, through me, I shall be awfully glad to take it. Dora has been much ...
— A Young Girl's Diary • An Anonymous Young Girl
... ceased. Memory threw open her portals with a challenge. I saw her on the stairway at the Armstrongs’; I heard her low, soft laughter, I felt the mockery of her voice and eyes! I knew again the exquisite delight of being near her. My heart told me well enough why ...
— The House of a Thousand Candles • Meredith Nicholson
... his feet just touching the floor, and the crippled member refusing to bear weight. Markham bore down upon the right foot. It was stiff and seemed as if it would break before it bent, while the pain was exquisite, but the man could not stay where he was. He got down upon the floor and crawled toward his clothing. He contrived, somehow, to dress himself, but the task accomplished, his face was pallid and he was wet with perspiration. He tilted himself to his feet and creeping ...
— The Wolf's Long Howl • Stanley Waterloo
... of the mock gravity, the broad humor, and often exquisite wit of those meetings, but it is impossible to give you any adequate idea of them. Burlesque lectures on all conceivable and inconceivable subjects were frequently read or improvised by members ad libitum. I remember something of a remarkable ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall
... of his expenses, which during the twenty-one weeks he remained at Hamburg amounted to 122,000 marks, or about 183,000 francs. None but the most exquisite wines were drunk at the table of Dupas. Even his servants were treated with champagne, and the choicest fruits were brought from the fine hothouses of Berlin. The inhabitants were irritated at this extravagance, and Dupas accordingly experienced the ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... overtakes the body.[244-2] Our knowledge is scanty of the doctrines taught by the Incas concerning the soul, but this much we do know, that they looked to the sun, their recognized lord and protector, as he who would care for them at death, and admit them to his palaces. There—not, indeed, exquisite joys—but a life of unruffled placidity, void of labor, vacant of strong emotions, a sort of material Nirvana, awaited them.[244-3] For these reasons, they, with most other American nations, interred the corpse lying east and west, and not as the traveller Meyen has suggested,[244-4] ...
— The Myths of the New World - A Treatise on the Symbolism and Mythology of the Red Race of America • Daniel G. Brinton
... even to Hungary and France. In the memorable year of jubilee, 1300, he was one of the priors of the Republic. There is no shrinking from fellowship and cooperation and conflict with the keen or bold men of the market-place and council hall, in that mind of exquisite and, as drawn by itself, exaggerated sensibility. The doings and characters of men, the workings of society, the fortunes of Italy, were watched and thought of with as deep an interest as the courses of the stars, and read in the real spectacle of life with as profound ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... across the room, with the huge petition spread out before him. His attention, long absorbed by the problem in hand, was diverted by a tap on the ante-room door, and, in answer to his call, Natalie Rathbawne stood before him, smiling out of the exquisite daintiness of a fresh ...
— The Lieutenant-Governor • Guy Wetmore Carryl
... pronounce sentence on all four. Catinat and Ravanel, as the most guilty, were condemned to be burnt at the stake. Some of the councillors thought Catinat should have been torn apart by four horses, but the majority were for the stake, the agony lasting longer, being more violent and more exquisite than in ...
— Massacres Of The South (1551-1815) - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... one of Vigano's masterpieces. I thought the Didone Abbandonata left us nothing to regret. The immense size of the stage, the splendid scenery, the classical propriety and magnificence of the dresses, the fine music, and the exquisite acting (for there is very little dancing), all conspired to render it enchanting. The celebrated cavern scene in the fourth book of Virgil, is rather too closely copied in a most inimitable pas de deux; so closely, indeed, that I was considerably alarmed pour les bienseances; but little ...
— The Diary of an Ennuyee • Anna Brownell Jameson
... in an argument, as the excitement increases the voice rises. In such a case one of the best and surest ways to govern your temper is to lower your voice. Indeed the nervous system and the voice are in such exquisite sympathy that they constantly act and react on each other. It is always easier to relax superfluous tension after ...
— Power Through Repose • Annie Payson Call
... The exquisite quiet of this room! I have been sitting in utter idleness, watching the sky, viewing the shape of golden sunlight upon the carpet, which changes as the minutes pass, letting my eye wander from one framed print to another, and along the ranks of my beloved books. Within the ...
— The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft • George Gissing
... his mind which he felt upon that occasion was so great, that it balanced all the grief he was in at the general disaster of his affairs; and, farther, that even in the lowest of his circumstances which followed, he would not go back to live as he had done, in the exquisite torture of want of money to pay his bills ...
— The Complete English Tradesman (1839 ed.) • Daniel Defoe
... amazing tenacity of babies, who can clutch and suck before they can do anything else—getting, always getting, from life, like all young things. The baby hung firmly on to the finger and his cries died down; his mouth twitched and puckered to an absurd smile. Ishmael felt an exquisite glow suffuse his tired heart that had been so dry for months. He dared not make a sound for fear he broke the spell of contentment that held the baby and himself; he stayed with his finger enwrapped by those tiny clinging ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... and pubis does not exist; whence no hair grows on their chins at the time of puberty, nor does their voices change, or their necks thicken. This happens probably from there being in them a more exquisite sensitive sympathy between the pubis and the breasts. Hence their breasts swell at the time of puberty, and secrete milk at the time of parturition. And in the parotitis, or mumps, the breasts of ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. II - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin
... "She is lovely—exquisite," he murmured. "I don't wonder you feel as you do. I did not intend to take up any detective work at this time, but I have decided to assist you in this matter in any way that ...
— The Film of Fear • Arnold Fredericks
... one felt the exquisite beauty of the noon as I did to-day? A faint appreciation of sunsets and storms is taught us in youth, and kept alive by novels and flirtations; but the broad, imperial splendor of this summer noon!—and myself standing alone ...
— Short Story Classics (American) Vol. 2 • Various
... his words as a painter his colors, and now we have a bold royal sketch, cloudy outlines of gigantic proportions, shadowy scenes of indefinite grandeur, done with a few strong, words and magnificent adjectives; and now a little paragraph, charming in its exquisite daintiness, like a miniature rarely done upon the face of a costly gem. It is in this word-painting that he is surpassingly admirable. Delineation, description, portraiture are his forte. The same quality of mind which gives dreams of princely men and divine women seems ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol III, Issue VI, June, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... will devote time to these inestimable fragments. Their beauty grows upon us as we read; we catch in one the echo of a single tone, so sweet that it needs no harmony; and again a few stray chords that haunt the ear and fill us with an exquisite dissatisfaction; and yet again a grave and stately measure such ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 3, March, 1891 • Various
... ran to her barrow, threw off her bear's skin, and touched it with the magic wand that the witch had given her. In a moment the skin was changed into an exquisite ball dress woven out of moon-beams, and the wheel-barrow was changed into a carriage drawn by two prancing steeds. Stepping into the carriage the princess drove to the grand entrance of the palace. When she entered the ball-room, ...
— The Grey Fairy Book • Various
... was sacredly guarded; a group of old, old buildings that recalled the past, a cathedral that had grown almost like the woods themselves, out of the visions of men into the dreams of men. And these dumb teachers of men have put into the soul of France a fine and exquisite spirit. It rose at the Marne and made ...
— The Martial Adventures of Henry and Me • William Allen White
... when she was a girl. "As old-fashioned as your grandmother's hoopskirt," Martha called it. A sampler wrought by some ancient great-aunt, both aunt and sampler long since yellowed and mellowed by the years. A della Robbia plaque, with its exquisite swaddled baby holding out eager arms, as if to be taken. A lacquer casket, a string of Egyptian mummy-beads—what seemed to the children an inexhaustible ...
— Martha By-the-Day • Julie M. Lippmann
... went into the ante-room on some pretext or other, the great parcel was lying on a chair; and as she touched it—of course accidentally—and the paper was not tied up, it came to pass that she beheld its contents—a variety of exquisite dresses, and one thing that moved her to tears: it was that white robe of thickest silk which a woman only wears once in her life—on one solemn day ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag
... existent. She was pure—perfectly, absolutely immaculate; but there was another power within and transfused throughout her innocence that swayed and subdued my will as innocence alone could never do. She reminded me of some exquisite, delicate porcelain flagon filled with sparkling wine, that sends its hot crimson glow through the snowy transparent tints of its circling walls. The wine within lies, at present, in glowing tranquillity, unshaken and unstirred, and the beauty and the purity of the flagon grows ...
— To-morrow? • Victoria Cross
... of this troop rode Gyges, the well-named, for his name in the Lydian tongue signifies beautiful. His features, of the most exquisite regularity, seemed chiselled in marble, owing to his intense pallor, for he had just discovered in Nyssia, although she was veiled with the veil of a young bride, the same woman whose face had been betrayed ...
— King Candaules • Theophile Gautier
... me, in other years, when other moods may have made me their own, the best kind of verse for my own expression of myself. Nor do I affect to doubt that the creation of the supreme emotion is a higher form of art than the reflection of the most exquisite sensation, the evocation of the most magical impression. I claim only an equal liberty for the rendering of every mood of that variable and inexplicable and contradictory creature which we call ourselves, of every aspect under which we are gifted or condemned ...
— Silhouettes • Arthur Symons
... except for being too new and too distinctly appropriate. Even the stylish new round hat had the same significance. Pyotr Petrovitch treated it too respectfully and held it too carefully in his hands. The exquisite pair of lavender gloves, real Louvain, told the same tale, if only from the fact of his not wearing them, but carrying them in his hand for show. Light and youthful colours predominated in Pyotr Petrovitch's ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... an air of resignation to decay, well-bred but spiritless, and communicates it to the whole of its small landscape. Our old builders chose their sites for shelter rather than for view; and this—and perhaps a well of exquisite water bubbling by the garden gate on the very lip of the brook—must explain the situation of the Old Court. Its present owner—being inordinately rich—had abandoned it to his bailiff, and built himself a lordly barrack on the ridge, commanding views that stretch ...
— Two Sides of the Face - Midwinter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... Khalid once said to Shakib; "nor for the light free love of an exquisite caprice. Those little flowers that bloom and wither in the blush of dawn are for the little butterflies. The love that endures, give me that. And it must be of the deepest divine strain,—as deep and divine as maternal love. Man is of Eternity, ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... take it very seriously here in the sunshine, with two pretty women facing him—here speeding up the Champs Elysees between the endless green of chestnut trees and the exquisite silvery-grey facades of the wealthy—with motors flashing by on every side and the cool, leafy alleys thronged with children and nurse-maids, and Monsieur Guignol squeaking and drumming ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers
... early history, existed rather as a plant of foreign growth, partially cultivated by them, than as a native production of their own land. They collected, indeed, some of the most exquisite samples of Grecian sculpture, and invited to their capital the yet remaining sculptors of Greece, by whose labors not only Rome itself was embellished, but also many of the cities of Asia Minor, Spain, and Gaul, then under the Roman dominion; ...
— A Catechism of Familiar Things; Their History, and the Events Which Led to Their Discovery • Benziger Brothers
... the coffee-houses are one or two cataracts several feet high, and the perpetual sound of their fall, and the coolness they spread around, are exquisite luxuries—in the heat of day, or in the dimness of evening. There are two or three Cafes constructed somewhat differently from those just described: a low gallery divides the platform from the tide; fountains play ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... rather favourably at me, and she's a dev'lish fine woman, begad she is!" O you wiseacre! Such was Jack Morris's observation and case as he walked away leaning on the arm of his noble friend, and thinking the whole Society of the Wells was looking at him. He had made some exquisite remarks about a particular run of cards at Lady Flushington's the night before, and Lady Maria had replied graciously and neatly, and so away went ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... There still remains the woman herself. Woman, any woman, is marvelous enough, Covington. When you think of all they stand for, the fineness of them compared with our man grossness, that wonderful power of creation in them, their exquisite delicacy, combined with the big-souled capacity for sacrifice and suffering that dwarfs any of our petty burdens into insignificance—God knows, a man should bow his knee before the least of them. ...
— The Triflers • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... men who surrounded Margaret, a like variety prevailed. One was to her interesting, on account of his quick, active intellect, and his contempt for shows and pretences; for his inexhaustible wit, his exquisite taste, his infinitely varied stores of information, and the poetic view which he took of life, painting it with Rembrandt depths of shadow and bursts of light. Another she gladly went to for his compact, thoroughly considered views of God and the world,—for his culture, so much more deep ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. I • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... out, making a bright parterre on the table. It was no great collection, but a few of the ornaments were really of remarkable beauty, the finest that was obvious at first being a necklace of purple amethysts set in exquisite gold work, and a pearl cross with five brilliants in it. Dorothea immediately took up the necklace and fastened it round her sister's neck, where it fitted almost as closely as a bracelet; but the circle suited the Henrietta-Maria style of Celia's head and neck, and ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... well as the fiercest gale, were not torn from the tree, but when I learned to know the cocoanut palm as a dear friend I found that nature had provided for its survival on the wind-swept beaches with the same exquisite attention to individual need that is shown in the electric batteries and lights of certain fishes, or in the caprification of the fig. A very fine, but strong, matting, attached to the bark beneath ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien
... she had once said in the midst of her baby-worship. "Here is a miracle straight from God. A man-child who, if properly cared for, will become a useful citizen of the Empire; and he is my VERY OWN—yours, too," she condescended to add with her exquisite smile. ...
— Banked Fires • E. W. (Ethel Winifred) Savi
... you about to do?" I demanded sharply—but in my heart, poor fool that I was, I found admiration for the exquisite arch of Karamaneh's lips, and reproach ...
— The Return of Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer
... in the form of temples or shrines; the finest of them, supposed by some to have been made for Alexander's favorite general Perdiccas, and by others for the Persian satrap who figures prominently on its sculptured reliefs, is the most sumptuous work of the kind in existence. The exquisite polychromy of its beautiful reliefs and the perfection of its rich details of cornice, pediment, tiling, and crestings, make it an exceedingly interesting and instructive example of the minor architecture of ...
— A Text-Book of the History of Architecture - Seventh Edition, revised • Alfred D. F. Hamlin
... here come in and exercise itself in the most exquisite manner, yea, let it now count up all and all manner of curses and torments that a reasonable and immortal soul is or can be made capable of, and able to suffer under; and when it has done, it shall come infinitely short of this ...
— The Riches of Bunyan • Jeremiah Rev. Chaplin
... I'm sick of life on these terms: you could make life worth living. I must really trouble you: sorry to seem languid, but I am languid. You, with your fine sensibilities, ought to be the first to feel that; but no: you wait, looking exquisite, with eyes like blue-black water, and a mouth, a mouth like a flower. You soft gossamer beauty, I could crush you where you hover; but you won't come and be crushed. Certainly, you ...
— Rest Harrow - A Comedy of Resolution • Maurice Hewlett
... laughing face and went to a cupboard, also made of packing cases, and brought forth a pair of moose-hide moccasins, perfectly beaded and trimmed with black fox fur. She had made them with her own hands for her little friend, a labor of love into which she had put the most exquisite work of which ...
— The Watchers of the Plains - A Tale of the Western Prairies • Ridgewell Cullum
... and a jest's prosperity, has sent us a few leaves of "The Dancing Master," printed in 1728, which form a curious contrast with Mr. Lindsay's elegant treatise, printed at Mr. Clowes's musical office. What will some of the quadrillers say to the following exquisite morsel of dancing, entitled, "The Old Maid in Tears?"—"Longways for as many as will".—(then the notes, and the following instructions:)—"Note: Each strain is to be play'd twice ov'er.—The first wo. holds her handkerchief on her face, and goes ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13, Issue 353, January 24, 1829 • Various
... artistic instincts were established. Then he hunted up a pretty young married woman occupying the dead-centre of the sanctified social circle, went into spasms over her beauty—so classic, such an exquisite outline; grew confidential with the husband at the club, and begged permission to make just a sketch only the size of his hand—wanted it for his head of Sappho, Berlin Exhibition. Next he rented a suite of rooms, crowded in a lot of borrowed tapestries, brass, Venetian chests, lamps and hangings; ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith
... though he was harassed, persecuted, libeled. Life was sweet even though his child had deserted his cause, even though she had "cheated herself into a belief." Life was infinitely worth living, mere existence an exquisite joy, blank nothingness a ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall
... some slender, young exquisite who had stepped from the stage of an old play as she stood smoothing the fingers of her gloves and smiling across at Lorry. He said nothing, but stared at her. She was disappointed. She wanted him to tell her that he liked her new things, ...
— Jim Waring of Sonora-Town - Tang of Life • Knibbs, Henry Herbert
... This exquisite little lyric, inferior to none other which had appeared on the same subject since the "Italia mia" of Petrarch, was composed by Bembo at the period of ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V3 • William H. Prescott
... like that. He could not account for it in any other way. He understood now, of course. When a man loved a woman, every part of her was very dear and beautiful to him, and to kiss her neck just behind the ear was as exquisite as to kiss her lips. No one, in any of the books he had read, had wished to kiss a woman's teeth. There were still hidden joys in kissing ... and he had discovered one of them. He would kiss Maggie's teeth on Saturday. He would kiss her lips, ...
— The Foolish Lovers • St. John G. Ervine
... scarcely time for the exquisite beauty of this scene to sink deeply into my heart just then. Before long I heard the tramp of Tardif and his comrade following me; their heavy tread sent down the loose stones on the path plunging into the sea. They were both laden with part ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton
... almost convent bred, it appeared no less than horribly indecent. He cast down his eyes; but his glance fell upon the foot which just then she thrust laughingly forward, evidently in answer to some remark from Stanford, who stood at her right hand. Upon the toe of her exquisite little shoe sparkled a great diamond ...
— The Puritans • Arlo Bates
... safe with you as glorious. Doctor Jim Cogswell has left the army. A few days ago I received a letter from him. 'I doubt not,' he says, 'you have most sensible pleasure in the applauses bestowed on our friend Burr; when I hear of his gallant behaviour, I feel exquisite delight.' ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... reproaches; yet I would not change this too exquisite nicety for the gross content with which he tramples on the thorns of love! His engaging me in this duel has started an idea in my head, which I will instantly pursue. I'll use it as the touchstone of Julia's sincerity and disinterestedness. ...
— The Rivals - A Comedy • Richard Brinsley Sheridan
... flecks upon the floor. Flowers, too, upon the table. I remember they were all white,—lilies of the valley, I think; and the vase of Parian marble, itself a solitary lily, unfolding stainless leaves. Over the mantle she had hung the finest picture in the house,—an "Ecce Homo," and an exquisite engraving. It used to hang in grandmother's room in the old house. We children wondered a little that she took it ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 106, August, 1866 • Various
... could not afford to pay the price of the book; and, secondly, it was outside their sympathies and knowledge. Indeed, I doubt if any commonplace person, without culture or extended knowledge, can enjoy so refined a work, with so many learned allusions, and such exquisite humor, which appeals to a knowledge of the world in its higher aspects. It is one of the last books that an ignorant young lady brought up on the trash of ordinary fiction would relish or comprehend. Whoever turns uninterested ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIII • John Lord
... that gripped every one of those barefoot men. They leaped and darted here and there, bluish sparks flashing wherever they touched the iron; or they fell after a step or two and writhed on the floor, shrieking and cursing with the exquisite torture of that awful current. Ernol alone kept from shouting; he stood and took it, trembling ...
— The Devolutionist and The Emancipatrix • Homer Eon Flint
... nine bulls and seven fat calves, and in the evening we encamped near a little river, where we made an exquisite supper of marrow and tongue, two good things, which can only be enjoyed in the wild prairies. The next day, at sunset, we received a visit from an immense herd of mustangs (wild horses). We saw them at first ascending one of the swells of the prairie, and took them for hostile ...
— Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet • Captain Marryat
... observed what I have frequently observed before, that a man who is but reasonably afraid of an altercation with an alien has a most poignant dread of the operations of foreign law. The doctor's voice was flute-like in its exquisite politeness, ...
— The Day's Work, Volume 1 • Rudyard Kipling
... at last. Mrs. Castleton's rooms were lighted to perfection, and she herself dressed with exquisite taste, looking the fitting priestess of the elegant shrine over which she presided. Emma, with her brothers, came early—and one glance satisfied Mrs. Castleton. The simplicity and elegance of Emma's toilette were not to be out-done even by her own. Tom looked at them ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... voice, so resolutely subdued, touched, her extremely, and a thrill of exquisite pleasure glanced through her, on hearing confirmed what she had long felt, that she had taken Margaret's place—nay, as she now learnt, that she was even more precious to him. She only thought of ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge
... most exquisite that can be imagined; groves of coral, beautiful caverns, with floors of silver sand, spiral caves winding down, down, down, covered with beautiful, delicate plants, and leading to beds of smooth, hard sand, which ...
— Eric - or, Under the Sea • Mrs. S. B. C. Samuels
... repeated, looking in the center of the eyes without flinching, and becoming instantly aware that his utterance of the name produced in himself a development and extension of the original overtones awakened by her speaking of his own name. It was wonderful ... exquisite ... delicious. He uttered it again, and then heard that she, too, was uttering his at the same moment. Each spoke the other's name. He could have sworn he heard the music within him leap across the intervening space and transfer itself to her ... ...
— The Human Chord • Algernon Blackwood
... a space, the least important fortunately, where the shade, growing year by year, has got the mastery. That space I have surrendered frankly, covering it over with the charming saxifrage, S. hypnoides, through which in spring push bluebells, primroses, and miscellaneous bulbs, while the exquisite green carpet frames pots of scarlet geranium and such bright flowers, movable at will. That saxifrage, indeed, is one of my happiest devices. Finding that grass would not thrive upon the steep bank of my mounds, I dotted them over with ...
— About Orchids - A Chat • Frederick Boyle
... she was free to wander in the past, free to suffer the exquisite pain of memory. She walked slowly on. How the trees had grown! And the little lilacs she had planted—they were tall bushes now. The paths were grass-grown, the water in the basin of the fountain on the south side was covered with weeds and thick green slime, the large stone ...
— A German Pompadour - Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Graevenitz, - Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg • Marie Hay
... touched this world-old theme—which almost every poet has handled, and handled in his highest manner—with that freshness and insight, which is possible only to the inborn originality of genius. Other poets have, in some ways, given to love a more exquisite utterance, and rendered its sweetness, and tenderness, and charm with a lighter grace. It may even be admitted that there are poets whose verses have echoed more faithfully the fervour and intoxication of passion, and who have shown greater power ...
— Browning as a Philosophical and Religious Teacher • Henry Jones
... R. Geograph. Soc.' vol. x. 1840, p. 236.) With birds of paradise a dozen or more full-plumaged males congregate in a tree to hold a dancing-party, as it is called by the natives: and here they fly about, raise their wings, elevate their exquisite plumes, and make them vibrate, and the whole tree seems, as Mr. Wallace remarks, to be filled with waving plumes. When thus engaged, they become so absorbed that a skilful archer may shoot nearly the whole party. These birds, when kept in confinement in the Malay ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin
... I could only buy you and put you in a gold frame, I'd have a prettier picture than any artist in town can paint." Then she turned to a companion to add: "Isn't she a love in that little poke bonnet with the row of rose-buds inside the rim? I never saw such exquisite coloring or such ...
— Georgina of the Rainbows • Annie Fellows Johnston
... wildest sea-coast, exposed to the full sweep of the Atlantic storm! She set him off upon his own scenery, to the destruction of his laborious English, as he dwelt on the glories of his beloved rocks rent by fierce sea winds and waves into fantastic, grotesque, or lovely shapes, with fiords of exquisite blue sea between, the variety of which had been to him as the gentle foliage of tamer countries. Not a tree stood near the 'town' of Ballymakilty, but the wild crags, the sparkling waters, the broad open hills, and the bogs, with their ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... not learning? Would not her soul awake and put forth wings? Was she not, in fact, an enchanted princess, waiting but a touch to become royal? She saw herself transformed, radiantly attired, but in the most exquisite taste: her face grown longer and more refined; her tint etherealised; and she heard herself with delighted wonder ...
— Lay Morals • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Phrygian, who, having found the flute of Athena, which played of itself most exquisite music, challenged Apollo to a contest, the victor in which was to do with the vanquished as he pleased. Marsyas was beaten, and Apollo ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... of the falling snow,—the air a dizzy maze of whirling, eddying flakes, noiselessly transforming the world, the exquisite crystals dropping in ditch and gutter, and disguising in the same suit of spotless livery all objects upon which they fall. How novel and fine the first drifts! The old, dilapidated fence is suddenly set ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs
... love only and went on short rations to educate her. Sada's eager mind absorbed everything offered her like a young sponge, and when a few months ago Susanna folded her hands and joined her foremothers, there was let loose on the world this exquisite girl with her solitary legacy of untried ideals and a blind enthusiasm for ...
— The Lady and Sada San - A Sequel to The Lady of the Decoration • Frances Little
... see how dexterously Brangwyn could manage his design without perspective, which would have made a hole in the wall. Those women with jars on their heads stood against a sky none the less lovely because it was flat. It was exquisite in its varieties of blue and white and green. That sturdy fellow lifting a heavy jar was actually working and working hard. "And how splendidly Brangwyn has modeled the figure with his back turned to us," the painter ...
— The City of Domes • John D. Barry
... easy and natural, but his voice, though well under control, has not volume enough to give full force to his beautiful and stirring thoughts. His writings, like his sermons, are full of strong and rugged points, and are frequently interspersed with brilliant passages of exquisite beauty that will compare favorably with many of the finest word-paintings in ...
— Cleveland Past and Present - Its Representative Men, etc. • Maurice Joblin
... I exulted, I rejoiced and triumphed in the adventure which had led to such a discovery as this. Were there any other women in Canada, in America, or in the world, equal to them? I did not believe there were. And then their voices—low—sweet—musical—voices which spoke of the exquisite refinement of perfect breeding; those voices would have been enough to make a man do or dare ...
— The Lady of the Ice - A Novel • James De Mille
... it, and though it be true that some achieve a quiet and a perfect end to one thing or another (as, for instance, to Life), yet this achievement is not arrived at save through the utmost toil, and consequent upon the most persevering and exquisite art. ...
— On Nothing & Kindred Subjects • Hilaire Belloc
... have had such sensations when she bound the spurs on her knight's heels, yet even she could hardly have had so pure, unselfish, and exquisite a joy as Ethel's, in receiving the pupil who had been in a far ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... beautiful features of mediaeval life through its painting and poetry and religion. We know Saint Francis and are familiar with the heroic records of saintliness and renunciation. We know, the great cathedrals, the pageantry and splendor, the exquisite handicraft, the tapestries and illuminated manuscripts, the vast learning and the incomparable dialectic. We know also the social injustices, the misery and squalor the ignorance in which the mass ...
— Human Traits and their Social Significance • Irwin Edman
... on you by the wayside; disroofed, diswindowed; which the National House-broker is peeling for the lead and ashlar. The old tenants hover disconsolate, over the Rhine with Conde; a spectacle to men. Ci-devant Seigneur, exquisite in palate, will become an exquisite Restaurateur Cook in Hamburg; Ci-devant Madame, exquisite in dress, a successful Marchande des Modes in London. In Newgate-Street, you meet M. le Marquis, with a rough deal on his shoulder, adze and jack-plane under arm; he has taken ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... and there was a moment of exquisite pain as the blood rushed through his ankle and circulation was restored to his numbed foot. But he was able to stand, and, although limpingly, to walk. He had been fortunate, as a matter of fact, in that no bone had been crushed. That might well have happened with such a trap, or a ligament or tendon ...
— The Boy Scout Aviators • George Durston
... came to sit up and went away again did not notice this disorder. The fact that a strange man was asleep and snoring in the drawing-room, and the sketches on the walls and the exquisite decoration of the room, and the fact that the lady of the house was dishevelled and untidy—all that aroused not the slightest interest now. One of the doctors chanced to laugh at something, and the laugh had a strange and timid sound that made ...
— The Wife and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... with the same pervasiveness, or with the same beauty, as in Tennyson. He was rather the poet of men's souls. When he does use nature, it is generally to illustrate some phase or experience of the soul, and not for the sake of its beauty. He has, however, some nature-descriptions so exquisite that English poetry would be the poorer for their loss. Witness De Gustibus, Up at a Villa, Home Thoughts from ...
— Browning's Shorter Poems • Robert Browning
... told his love; he was, in fact, sensitive about it. This meeting with the lady was by chance, and, although it afforded exquisite moments, his heart was beating in an unaccustomed manner, and he was suffering from embarrassment, being at a loss, also, for subjects of conversation. It is, indeed, no easy matter to chat easily with a person, ...
— Penrod and Sam • Booth Tarkington
... He seemed to tear up the ground with fierceness and rage. He returned soon again. He approached the sad remains of what had been Emily, and gazed on them with such intentness, that his eyes appeared, ready to burst from their sockets. Acute and exquisite as were his notions of virtue and honour, he could not prevent himself from reproaching the system of nature, for having given birth to such a monster as Tyrrel. He was ashamed of himself for wearing the same form. He could not think of the ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin
... country in Europe which has so interesting a flora, especially in spring. In March in the granite north the ground under the pine-trees is covered with the exquisite flowers of the narcissus triandrus,[4] while the wet water meadows are yellow with petticoat daffodils. Other daffodils too abound, but ...
— Portuguese Architecture • Walter Crum Watson
... but no music came. 'Those were surely no mortal sounds!' said she, recollecting their entrancing melody. 'No inhabitant of this castle could utter such; and, where is the feeling, that could modulate such exquisite expression? We all know, that it has been affirmed celestial sounds have sometimes been heard on earth. Father Pierre and Father Antoine declared, that they had sometimes heard them in the stillness of night, when they alone were waking to offer their orisons to heaven. Nay, my dear father ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... first piece of ridicule written in heroics, and his claim seemed correct as far as England was concerned, but Boileau and Tassoni had preceded him. Willmot says, "Dryden is wanting in the graceful humour of Tassoni, and exquisite power of Boileau. His wit has more weight than edge—it beat in armour, but could not cut gause." The greater part of Dryden's satire could not cut anything, nor be distinguished from elaborate vituperation. He wrote ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 1 (of 2) - With an Introduction upon Ancient Humour • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... authority in matters of religion, and all Celtic regions have been characterised by religious devotion, easily passing over to superstition, and by loyalty to ideals and lost causes. The Celts were born dreamers, as their exquisite Elysium belief will show, and much that is spiritual and romantic in more than one European literature is due ...
— The Religion of the Ancient Celts • J. A. MacCulloch
... of all her joyful pupils, the animated kindness with which Mrs. Harcourt received her son, touched Mad. de Rosier with the most exquisite pleasure. The happiness that we are conscious of having deserved is doubly grateful to ...
— Tales And Novels, Volume 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... New England fashion, it was division merely into ways of thinking, not into sects. Central in the agitated scene is the calm figure of Edwards, uniting the faith and zeal of an apostle with the acuteness of a philosopher, and applying the exquisite powers of his intellect to discriminate between a divine work and its human or Satanic admixtures, and between true and spurious religious affections. He won the blessing of the peacemaker. When half a generation ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... draws its exquisite stuff from dowdy leaves, so youth finds beauty and mystery in stupid days. Carl went out unreservedly to practise with the football squad; he had a joy of martyrdom in tackling the dummy and peeling his nose on the frozen ground. He knew a sacred aspiration when Mr. ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... intolerable for both of us. And it wasn't. She took it from me, at the end, and held it up, as it were a little way out of my grasp; and before I knew where I was, with some sudden twist or turn she had brought beauty out of it. Clear and exquisite beauty. ...
— The Belfry • May Sinclair
... just alike, and were pink and gold cups and saucers. The china and decoration were exquisite, and both cup and saucer were heart shaped. Not the most convenient shape to drink from, perhaps, but lovely for ...
— Marjorie's New Friend • Carolyn Wells
... Frenchman, rather angrily I fear, why he was following me, whereat he merely bowed with the exquisite politeness of his race, and ...
— Hushed Up - A Mystery of London • William Le Queux
... lip has more character than the lower, which drops disdainfully. Her pale cheeks have no color unless some very keen emotion moves her. Her chin is rather fat; mine is not thin, and perhaps I do wrong to tell you that women with fat chins are exacting in love. She has one of the most exquisite waists I ever saw; the shoulders are beautiful, but the bust has not developed as well, and the arms are thin. She has, however, an easy carriage and manner, which redeems all such defects and sets her beauties in full relief. Nature has given her that princess ...
— Beatrix • Honore de Balzac
... it came to him in the course of a minute and in the oddest way that—yes, positively—she was giving him over to ruin. She was all kindness and ease, but she couldn't help so giving him; she was exquisite, and her being just as she was poured for Sarah a sudden rush of meaning into his own equivocations. How could she know how she was hurting him? She wanted to show as simple and humble—in the degree compatible with operative charm; but it was just ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James
... loaves of solid gold set before his guests, and the prows of galleys adorned with diamonds. His favorite horse was kept in an ivory stable and fed from a golden manger, and when invited to a banquet at his own table was regaled with gilded oats, served in a golden basin of exquisite workmanship. ...
— Historic Tales, Volume 11 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... hurried to the window. And Anna was conscious of a few moments of exquisite emotion. After all, life had still its pulsations. The joy of being loved thrilled her as nothing before had ever done, a curious abstract joy which had nothing in it at that moment of regret or ...
— Anna the Adventuress • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... ravishing, began a concert, accompanied by the most harmonious instruments he had ever heard. When they were seated, the fairy took care to help prince Ahmed to the most delicious meats, which she named as she invited him to eat of them, and which the prince had never heard of, but found so exquisite, that he commended them in the highest terms, saying, that the entertainment which she gave him far surpassed those among men. He found also the same excellence in the wines, which neither he nor the fairy tasted till the dessert ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 4 • Anon.
... intense. It was proved in an article of studied moderation and exquisite taste that the time had come to revise our estimates of bygone grandeur and substitute for the devotion to a Queen of tarnished fame and disastrous tendencies the spontaneous and chivalrous worship of her beneficent and prosperous namesake. Yet in spite of this ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, July 21, 1920 • Various
... a human brain, like any man-made mechanism of great nicety, may readily be thrown into confusion, its exquisite balance disturbed, its functioning confounded. Thirst, near-exhaustion, severe bodily distress and, on top of all, blood-lust anger made Alan Howard over into another man. He was possessed, obsessed. As the ...
— The Desert Valley • Jackson Gregory
... slowly. He recalled the personalities of the young officers that surrounded her. They were charming fellows, gay, kindly, honest; but he felt sure that not one of them was fit to hold the cup of life to the exquisite young lips of Concha Arguello. The very thought disposed him to twist ...
— Rezanov • Gertrude Atherton
... Nagas, spirits, all assembled, amidst the void raise heavenly music, and make their offerings as the law directs. A gentle cooling breeze sprang up around, and from the sky a fragrant rain distilled; exquisite flowers, not seasonable, bloomed; sweet fruits before their time were ripened. Great Mandaras, and every sort of heavenly precious flower, from space in rich confusion fell, as tribute to the illustrious monk. Creatures of every different kind were moved one towards the other lovingly; ...
— Sacred Books of the East • Various
... sleeping face of a child, a baby girl of scarce two years, the cherub face rosy with sleep, smiling in her dreams; the long, silky black lashes sweeping the flushed cheek; the abundant, feathery, jet-black curls floating loosely about—an exquisite picture of ...
— The Baronet's Bride • May Agnes Fleming
... blandly, in exquisite relief, as if he had confessed a sin or had a tooth drawn. He took the child from Ada, and it lay in his arms, ...
— Jonah • Louis Stone
... saying,—Let this tree revive.—Knowing the great attachment of the parrot to that tree and his high character, Indra, well-pleased, caused the tree to be quickly sprinkled over with nectar. Then that tree became replenished and attained to exquisite grandeur through the penances of the parrot, and the latter too, O great king, at the close of his life, obtained the companionship of Sakra by virtue of that act of compassion. Thus, O lord of men, by communion and companionship with ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... so smoothly under the regular strokes of practised boatmen, that you hardly notice the distance from the shore and still are very soon swimming far out on the open sea, on that heavenly clear, blue sea, whose breath liberates the soul. Did he want to fish—there were such exquisite little gaily-coloured fish there, that are so stupid and greedy they grab at every bait—would he not shoot ospreys as well? She ...
— The Son of His Mother • Clara Viebig
... Sanda knew the truth, would she be disgusted and cease to care for her hero, her "Sir Knight?" Max wondered. But perhaps she would only be sad, and forgive him in her heart. Girls were often very strange about such things. Max, however, could not forgive Stanton for ignoring the exquisite blossom of love that might be his, and grasping instead some wild scarlet flower of the desert not fit to be touched by a hand that had pressed Sanda's little fingers. He did not know whether or not to be equally ashamed of the curiosity which made him say to Pelle that he would see the dancer; ...
— A Soldier of the Legion • C. N. Williamson
... spirits was Paradise, and at night's close I only desired a renewal of the intoxicating delusion. The dazzling light of ornamented rooms; lovely forms arrayed in splendid dresses; the motions of a dance, the voluptuous tones of exquisite music, cradled my senses in ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... yourself, dear reader, an exquisite and gracious creature of five feet three. Her golden hair of that peculiar shade"—here would follow directions enabling the reader to work it out for himself. He was to pour some particular wine into some particular ...
— Idle Ideas in 1905 • Jerome K. Jerome
... creature of small account. I must guard the reader against supposing Taheia was at all disfigured; the art of the Marquesan tattooer is extreme; and she would appear to be clothed in a web of lace, inimitably delicate, exquisite in pattern, and of a bluish hue that at once contrasts and harmonises with the warm pigment of the native skin. It would be hard to find a woman more becomingly adorned than "a ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 14 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Catoual, had some difficulty in reaching the palace, where the king, who in the narrative is called the "Zamorin," was awaiting them with extreme impatience. Ushered into halls splendidly decorated with silken stuffs and carpets, and in which burned the most exquisite perfumes, the Portuguese found themselves in the presence of the Zamorin. He was magnificently attired, and loaded with jewels, the pearls and diamonds which he wore being of extraordinary size. The king ordered refreshments to be served to the strangers, and permitted ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part I. The Exploration of the World • Jules Verne
... to condemn suppers. All the inferior animals stuff immediately previous to sleeping; and why not man, whose stomach is so much smaller, more delicate, and more exquisite a piece of machinery? Besides, it is a well-known fact, that a sound human stomach acts upon a well-drest dish, with nearly the power of an eight-horse steam-engine; and this being the case, good heavens! why should one be ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 332, September 20, 1828 • Various
... the benediction of its tutelary saint, since every gondola was wont to have its shrine; and behind them under the canopy, from a mass of roses on an altar of alabaster, rose a noble Madonna by Bellini, painted with exquisite grace—the votive picture which later kept within the Chapel of the Lady Fiorenza in the Palazzo Cornaro, ...
— The Royal Pawn of Venice - A Romance of Cyprus • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... Being, I thank thee that I have obtained the use of my legs again, that I am now able to walk about and kill turkeys without feeling exquisite pain and misery: I know that thou art a hearer and a helper, and therefore I will call upon thee. Oh, ho, ho, ho! grant that my ankles and knees may be right well, and that I may be able not only to walk, but to run and to jump as I did last fall. Oh, ho, ho, ho! grant that on this ...
— Stories Of Ohio - 1897 • William Dean Howells
... hardwood floor lay a profusion of brightly colored Navajo rugs, the walls being hung with others of exquisite workmanship and coloring, interspersed with weapons and trophies of the chase, while in other parts of the room were rare specimens of pottery from ancient adobe houses of ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in New Mexico • Frank Gee Patchin
... say, and how her heart bounded with pride, 'it is indeed a lovely flower, and may well take its place among those in the conservatory, for it is really exquisite.' ...
— Parables from Flowers • Gertrude P. Dyer
... and we were all so dull and languid, that I was extremely glad when we were summoned to the orchestra, upon the opening of a concert; in the course of which I had the pleasure of hearing a concerto on the violin by Mr. Barthelemon, who to me seems a player of exquisite ...
— Evelina • Fanny Burney
... at all like the "barty" the celebrated Hans Breitman "giv'd" to his friends for the imbibition of "lager beer" ad libitum; but still, one may feel inclined to exclaim, in the exquisite broken words of that worthy, "Where am dat barty now?" For, time has worked its usual changes; and all of us have long since been divided, separated, scattered, and dispersed to the four winds of heaven, so to speak, ...
— She and I, Volume 1 • John Conroy Hutcheson
... de Soyecourt; with whom were the Duchess, a gentle and beautiful lady, her two children, and the Demoiselle Claire. The Duke himself was still at Marly, with most of his people, but at Bellegarde momentarily they looked for his return. Meanwhile de Soyecourt, an exquisite and sociable and immoral young gentleman of forty-one, was lonely, and protested that any civilized company was, in the oafish provinces, a charity of celestial pre-arrangement. He would not hear of Mr. Bulmer's leaving Bellegarde; ...
— Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell
... old forest worshipper peopled the trees with an intermediate race of sylvan deities less than divine, more than human; and long he beguiled himself with the exquisite reign and proximity of these; but the lesser could not maintain themselves in temples from which the greater had already been expelled, and they too passed out of sight down the roadway of ...
— Bride of the Mistletoe • James Lane Allen
... judgments; but we find in him what is very rare in our time, the power of justly appreciating and heartily enjoying good things of very different kinds. He can adore Shakspeare and Spenser without denying poetical genius to the author of Alexander's Feast, or fine observation, rich fancy and exquisite humour to him who imagined Will Honeycomb and Sir Roger de Coverley. He has paid particular attention to the history of the English drama, from the age of Elizabeth down to our own time, and has every right to be heard with ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... in Bucarest, gives very lucrative employment to the native women, and such costumes are exposed for sale in the shops of the capital at prices varying from 6l. or 7l. to anything the wearer likes to pay. Many of these costumes testify to the exquisite taste of the females by whom they are made; for the combination of silk, wool, and thread, and the beautiful lace-work, the effect of which is heightened by diminutive spangles of gilt and silver, cannot fail to challenge admiration. These costumes are, however, better adapted ...
— Roumania Past and Present • James Samuelson
... in a traveling suit, but Rose was radiant in robe and train and orange wreath, and a buzz of admiration at her exquisite beauty followed her all the way to her place before ...
— The Wedge of Gold • C. C. Goodwin
... of the senses sufficed to make of Helen Keller a woman of exceptional culture and a writer, who better than she proves the potency of that method of education which builds on the senses? If Helen Keller attained through exquisite natural gifts to an elevated conception of the world, who better than she proves that in the inmost self of man lies the ...
— Dr. Montessori's Own Handbook • Maria Montessori
... top of the ridge they stopped and gazed in silent admiration, for there lay stretched out before them a vast woodland scene of most exquisite beauty. Just at their feet was the lake of which they were in search; some parts of it bright as the blue sky which its unruffled breast reflected; other parts dark almost to blackness with the images of rocks and trees. Everywhere around lay a primeval wilderness of wood and water which it ...
— The Norsemen in the West • R.M. Ballantyne
... not seem to have known those remarkable productions of the middle ages, which have been made accessible to us by the researches of Docen, of Grimm, of Schmeller, and of Mr. Wright; and, above all, of that exquisite gem, "De Phyllide et Flora," first printed by Docen[2], and since given by Mr. Wright in his collection of Poems attributed to Walter de Mapes. We have, however, a much better text from the hand of Jacob Grimm, in the Memoirs ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 77, April 19, 1851 • Various
... tinkling from some distant star. He could imagine her standing at the phone in the back of the shadowy bookshop, and seemed to see her as though through an inverted telescope, very minute and very perfect. How brave and exquisite she was! ...
— The Haunted Bookshop • Christopher Morley
... them on the street. Sometimes it makes them attractive and sometimes it makes them detestable. It turns the noble youth into a hero and the mean youth into a bully. A fine nature it leads into the most exquisite tastes and encircles it with art and music. A coarse nature it plunges into the vilest debauchery and vice. In good fortune it makes the temper carelessly benignant. In bad fortune it makes the temper recklessly defiant. It works these very different effects but is always the one ...
— The world's great sermons, Volume 8 - Talmage to Knox Little • Grenville Kleiser
... old days on the farm—of how he used to dig out rocks to build the fences, of the sugar-making, of cradling the oats in July; while the other—ah! the other, of what was he not thinking!—of the little world of the hives (his thoughts yielding the exquisite "Idyl of the Honey-Bee"), of boyhood days upon the farm, of the wild life around his cabin, of the universe, and of the soul of the poet Whitman, that then much misunderstood man, than whom no one so much as he has helped us to appreciate. Going out and ...
— Our Friend John Burroughs • Clara Barrus
... leafy as a woodland glade. From the house to this natural rampart stretched a mass of verdure peculiar to that rich soil; a beautiful green sheet bordered by a fringe of rare trees, the tones of which formed a tapestry of exquisite coloring: there, the silvery tints of a pine stood forth against the darker green of several alders; here, before a group of sturdy oaks a slender poplar lifted its palm-like figure, ever swaying; farther on, the weeping willows drooped ...
— The Hated Son • Honore de Balzac
... porticos, every inch and corner of which was filled with wondrous ornamental carving, or held a grinning, grotesquely sculptured head. The beams and casings were of cedar, cypress, and other valuable woods profusely carved and put together without nails.... Superb mats of most exquisite finish were spread upon the marble floors; the tapestry that draped the walls and the curtains that hung before the windows were made of a fabric most wonderful for its delicate texture, elegant designs, and brilliant colors; through ...
— Houses and House-Life of the American Aborigines • Lewis H. Morgan
... this was one of the best establishments of the kind in that kingdom. In the hall of the academy were some admirable examples of Correggio, as well as several statues of great merit, particularly a small bust of Vitellins, and a torso of Agrippina, of most exquisite beauty. The academy of the arts, which had been long established at Florence, fell into decay, but was restored in the end of the 18th century. In it there are halls for nude and plaster figures, for the use of the sculptor and the painter, with models of all the finest statues in Italy. But ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... Consequently, all that was to be desired in the appearance of Mademoiselle Esmeralda upon the eventful evening was happiness. With her mother's permission, she came to our room to display herself, Monsieur following her with an air of awe and admiration commingled. Her costume was rich and exquisite, and her beauty beyond criticism; but as she stood in the centre of our little salon to be looked at, she presented an appearance to move one's heart. The pretty young face which had by this time lost its slight traces of the sun had also lost some of its bloom; ...
— Esmeralda • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... in this sphere of splendour. We seemed to hang suspended; and such as this, I fancied, must be the feeling of an insect caught in the heart of a fiery-petalled rose. Yet not these melodramatic sunsets alone are beautiful. Even more exquisite, perhaps, are the lagoons, painted in monochrome of greys, with just one touch of pink upon a western cloud, scattered in ripples here and there on the waves below, reminding us that day has passed and evening come. And beautiful ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... four young girls, in their party finery, sat waiting in the Harlowe's drawing room for their escorts—David, Hippy and Reddy. Anne wore the pink crepe de chine which had done duty at Mrs. Gray's house party the previous winter. Grace wore an exquisite gown of pale blue silk made in a simple, girlish fashion that set her off to perfection. Nora was gowned in lavender and wore a corsage bouquet of violets that had mysteriously arrived that afternoon, and that everyone present ...
— Grace Harlowe's Sophomore Year at High School • Jessie Graham Flower
... windows—mark fair fancies flit In sumptuous chambers of thy soul's chaste wit Like graceful women: then to take in mine Thy hand, whose pressure brims my heart's divine Hushed rapture as with music exquisite! When I remember how thy look and touch Sway, like the moon, my blood with ecstasy, I dare not think to what fierce heaven might lead Thy soft embrace; or in thy kiss how much Sweet hell,—beyond all help of me,—might be, Where I were lost, where ...
— Myth and Romance - Being a Book of Verses • Madison Cawein
... after a period of a day or more away, he was taken with her intensity and her almost brittle beauty. What was it that the aristocrat seemed able to acquire after but a generation or two of what they were pleased to call breeding? That aloof quality, the exquisite gentility. ...
— Frigid Fracas • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... small watch pieces of cut crystal, and of exquisite workmanship. The wheels, pivots, and case of the watch were of the same material, and he had employed remarkable skill ...
— A Winter Amid the Ice - and Other Thrilling Stories • Jules Verne
... be more ingeniously contrived to express the vastness of Lord Bateman's family mansion than this remarkable passage. The proud young porter had to thread courts, corridors, galleries, and staircases innumerable, before he could penetrate to those exquisite apartments in which Lord Bateman was wont to solace his leisure hours, with the most refined pleasures of his time. We behold him hastening to the presence of his lord: the repetition of the word "avay" causes ...
— The Loving Ballad of Lord Bateman • Charles Dickens and William Makepeace Thackeray
... every two or three years; not now, even (since Ruth came to share their living) a place where, as an article grew shabby or worn, a new one was purchased. The furniture looked poor, and the carpets almost threadbare; but there was such a dainty spirit of cleanliness abroad, such exquisite neatness of repair, and altogether so bright and cheerful a look about the rooms—everything so above-board—no shifts to conceal poverty under flimsy ornament—that many a splendid drawing-room would give less pleasure to those who could see evidences of character in inanimate ...
— Ruth • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell |
