"Exquisitely" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... after post along the ways of life and thought, reach out eagerly to field on field of knowledge, through which one has tramped or scampered so many years before. With something of wonder, too, was I inspired to see so young a man lead a life so perfectly balanced, so exquisitely sensitive to every fine masculine influence. Possessing to an unusual degree that rare temperament which we call culture, he entered joyously into all that life offered to him, impatient only of hypocrisy and what he called "the copiously ...
— An Ocean Tramp • William McFee
... it by their observation of many points which our English critics had passed over. For instance, writing of "Much Ado about Nothing," one of the Americans said of Henry in the Church Scene that "something of him as a subtle interpreter of doubtful situations was exquisitely shown in the early part of this fine scene by his suspicion of Don John—felt by him alone, and expressed only by a quick covert look, but a look so full of intelligence as to proclaim him a sharer in ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various
... said in the volume itself, and there is no need of a "peroration with much circumstance" about them. It is a long way—a perfect maze of long ways leading through the most different countries of thought and feeling—from Atala dying in the wilderness to Chiffon doing exquisitely balanced justice to herself and the Jesuit, by allowing that while he and she were both bien eleves, he was un peu trop and she was not. It is not so far, except in time, nor separated by such a difference of intervening country, from the song of the ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... knowledge of the instrument, but his ear was exquisitely just and appreciative; his artistic desire was febrile and foolish, but you thought less of this in his music than in his painting and poetry. His soul went out in the strain of melody sentimentally; and it leaned him in varying and beautiful attitudes. The sweeping, music- evoking arm ...
— Spring Days • George Moore
... Fringing the exquisitely tinted coral strand were outlying reefs, alternately concave and convex, which gave the shore edge a scalloped, almost rococo finish, which I have heard decorators call the Chinese-Chippendale "effect." Borne to our nostrils by an occasional reflex of the zooming trades came, ever ...
— The Cruise of the Kawa • Walter E. Traprock
... is no more exquisitely delicate, rich, and beautiful tissue than the skin of a pretty woman. That is what I was telling myself just now, while contemplating the back of your neck, and you will readily understand that, ...
— A Mummer's Tale • Anatole France
... is distinguished by what appears to be precious jewels of sparkling blue—believed to be visual organs—which lose their brilliancy immediately on removal from the water. Another has a centre of coral pink. The black spines, 10 inches or so long, are exquisitely sharp, and brittle in the extreme. Some believe that the animals are endowed with the power of thrusting these weapons forward to meet the intrusive hand, for unless approached with caution they prick the ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... a friend an incident of the Landor honeymoon that is significant. On one occasion, it seems, the newly married couple were sitting side by side; Landor was reading some of his own verses to his bride—and who could read more exquisitely?—when all at once the lady, releasing herself from his arm, jumped up, saying, "Oh, do stop, Walter, there's that dear delightful Punch performing in the street. I must look out of the window." ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb
... same connection, we may note that the aesthetic appreciation among the birds appears to have attained a far higher level than it has won in any other creatures. There can be little doubt that the exquisitely beautiful plumage, the unparalleled shapeliness of form and grace of carriage, as well as the melodies which are uttered by so many species, all owe their development to a process of sexual selection which has led the discerning females to prefer the more ornamental of the ...
— Domesticated Animals - Their Relation to Man and to his Advancement in Civilization • Nathaniel Southgate Shaler
... scene was still exquisitely calm and beautiful. The stars appeared to have gathered fresh brilliancy and to have increased in number during the night. Those of them near the horizon, as the Professor pointed out, twinkled energetically, as if ...
— Rivers of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... an exquisitely sure and alert sense of honor. He could not do a mean thing. He won friends, and never lost any; because all felt that he was not only so genuine and unselfish, so bright and full of happy humor, so deep and exuberant in affection, but that he was so perfectly to ...
— The American Missionary, Volume 42, No. 12, December, 1888 • Various
... girl, who, though naturally of no melancholy temperament, seemed to derive almost all she enjoyed of pleasure from the society of the widow. Helen Henry was in her twenty-third year; but she seemed older in spirit than in years. She was thin and pale, though exquisitely formed; there was a drooping heaviness in her fine eyes, and a cast of pensive thought on her forehead, that spoke of a longer experience of grief than so brief a portion of life might be supposed to have furnished. She had ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume III • Various
... make jelly, or broth, or whey, that she could taste, but Patty; no one could roast, or boil, or bake, but Patty. Of course, all these things must be done by nobody else. The ironing of Mrs. Crumpe's caps, which had exquisitely nice plaited borders, at last fell to Patty's share; because once, when the laundry-maid was sick, she plaited one so charmingly, that her lady would never afterwards wear any but of her plaiting. Now Mrs. Crumpe changed her ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... which he describes have been viewed with a poet's eye, and are portrayed with a poet's pencil; and the poems contain, many passages exquisitely beautiful; but they also contain many faults, the chief of which are obscurity and a too frequent use of some particular expressions and uncommon words; for instance, moveless, which he applies in a sense, if not new, at least different from, its ...
— Wordsworth • F. W. H. Myers
... quite white on the horizon, with exquisitely delicate blue and pink tints. The pale sun seemed like a great silver lamp, casting a shower of bright rays into the Durance. And the broad, sluggish river, expanding lazily over the red sand, extended from one end of the valley to the other, like a stream of liquid ...
— International Short Stories: French • Various
... dignity, especially in the way in which she bent her head on one side to listen, a gesture often seen in a drawing-room, but never, in my experience, in a cabin. What astonished me most, however, were her hands—her exquisitely modelled hands, still ruddy from the fresh night air, but so wonderfully curved and dimpled. And then, too, the perfect graciousness and simplicity of her manner and its absolute freedom from coquetry or self-consciousness. Her mother was right—I would ...
— The Underdog • F. Hopkinson Smith
... absolution. This mitigation of the form of punishment gave but little consolation to the great body of petitioners, who had been anxious for the pardon of the youth: it was looked upon as all-important, however, by the Prince de Ligne, who, as has been before observed,—was exquisitely alive to ...
— Wolfert's Roost and Miscellanies • Washington Irving
... of the beauty of the living animal. . . . Let it, after being torn from the rock, recover its equanimity; then you will see a pellucid gelatinous flesh emerging from between the plates, and little exquisitely formed and coloured tentacula, with white clubbed tips fringing the sides of the cup-shaped cavity in the centre, across which stretches the oval disc marked with a star of some rich and brilliant colour, surrounding the central mouth, a slit with white crenated lips, like the orifice ...
— Glaucus; or The Wonders of the Shore • Charles Kingsley
... flatter her, when she knows, beyond doubt, that she is the most exquisitely radiant creature in all the Universe? And you dare to insult her, drag her name ...
— Letter of the Law • Alan Edward Nourse
... She was exquisitely dressed, in a long cloak of cream lace over an Indian muslin frock, and an airy hat of chiffon and feathers. She had put on her best for her outing with Robin, her visit to Robin's friend. It was one of the sweet things she was always doing, with an intention in her own mind to ...
— Mary Gray • Katharine Tynan
... the arm with her hoop-stick, and turns eyes that are all serious upon his. "I wish, EDDY, that we could be perfectly absurd friends to each other, instead of utterly ridiculous engaged people. It's exquisitely awful, you know, to have a husband picked out for you by dead folks, and I'm so sick about it sometimes that I hardly have the heart to fix my back-hair. Let each of us forbear, and stop teasing ...
— Punchinello, Vol.1, No. 12 , June 18,1870 • Various
... valley. My toilet-table is formed of a trunk elevated upon two claret-cases, and by draping it with some more of the blue linen neatly fringed, it really will look quite handsome, and when I have placed upon it my rosewood workbox, a large cushion of crimson brocade, some Chinese ornaments of exquisitely carved ivory, and two or three Bohemian-glass cologne-stands, it would not disgrace a lady's ...
— The Shirley Letters from California Mines in 1851-52 • Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clappe
... graceful figure, a little under height, but carried himself with the dignity of a grandee; his eyes were large, dark and languishing; his complexion was a pale olive; while his moustache, black and exquisitely pencilled, was a sign of itself of towering superiority above the rest of us callow youths. That alone would have ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. July, 1878. • Various
... of a gambler, cold and vigilant. It was said that he could follow an undeviating course without relenting at the ruin and misery wrought upon others by his operations. But the helpless loveliness of this exquisitely dainty child-woman, the sense of intimacy bred of a common peril endured, of the strangeness of their environment and of her utter dependence upon him, carried the man out of ...
— Ridgway of Montana - (Story of To-Day, in Which the Hero Is Also the Villain) • William MacLeod Raine
... and steel of the coast are thought to be superior by foreigners, they are not to be compared with that which is found in the interior, and manufactured by the Dyacks. All the best krises used by the Malay rajahs and chiefs, are obtained from the interior. Some of these are exquisitely manufactured, and so hard that, without turning the edge, they cut ordinary ...
— The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes • Fedor Jagor; Tomas de Comyn; Chas. Wilkes; Rudolf Virchow.
... seated herself, with her arms folded and her white hands arranged as a support to one of them and an ornament, as it were, to the other. She looked exquisitely calm but impressively sad. "On your side, don't try to frighten me. I wonder if you guess ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 2 (of 2) • Henry James
... ignoring the "self-denying ordinance" of his adopted method—perpetually obtruding his own individuality, and begging us, as it were, to turn from the picture to the artist, to cease gazing for a moment at his touching creation, and to admire the fine feeling, the exquisitely sympathetic nature of the man who created it. No doubt, as we must in fairness remember, it was part of his "humour"—in Ancient Pistol's sense of the word—to do this; it is true, no doubt (and a truth ...
— Sterne • H.D. Traill
... better, and it was declared by the medical attendants that he might not be much disfigured by-and-by. It was a grand event, indeed, when Mr and Mrs Eugene Wrayburn came to stay at Mr and Mrs John Harmon's house: where, by the way, Mr and Mrs Boffin (exquisitely happy, and daily cruising about, to look at ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... which the angel holds the dragon with his feet, looking exactly like a worm trodden on by the foot of a child, is exquisitely plaintive and interesting. Indeed these touches of nature abound in the works of the old masters, and I saw several fruit-pieces that I could have eaten. One really gets an appetite by looking ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... having yet reached her village, I could see the most magnificent bosom, although her dress was fastened up to the neck. The end of the richly-embroidered skirt did not go lower than the ankles, which allowed me to admire the neatest little foot and the lower part of an exquisitely moulded leg. Her firm and easy walk, the natural freedom of all her movements, a charming look which seemed to say, "I am very glad that you think me pretty," everything, in short, caused the ardent fire of amorous desires to circulate through my veins. I could not conceive how ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... filled with stories bright, interesting, and helpful; and the Bodley folks have already gained so many friends and admirers that the book will be sure to make its way. We said of the former volume that it was charming, but the new one is even more exquisitely printed, and has a cover even more quaint and beautiful. So we cordially commend it to our young friends as a book which will both satisfy their interest and ...
— St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 2, December, 1877 • Various
... day and the sunset of the next he exchanged the forest study for the mountain grave. There, as he had sung his own wish, he lies 'under the wide and starry sky.' If there was something of his own romance, so exquisitely capricious, in the life of Robert Louis Stevenson, so, also, the poetic conditions are satisfied in his death, and in the choice of his burial-place upon the top of Pala. As for the splendour of that maturity upon which we counted, now never to be fulfilled on sea or land, ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson - a Record, an Estimate, and a Memorial • Alexander H. Japp
... back some Indians, further specimens of gold and silver ornaments, exquisitely woven woollen garments, et cetera, which he had taken from a craft cruising near the shore, which were proofs positive of the existence of ...
— South American Fights and Fighters - And Other Tales of Adventure • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... grave orator is most exquisitely perfect in him, for by a full and significant action of body he charms our attention. Sit in a full theatre and you will think you see so many lines drawn from the circumference of so many ears, while the actor is the centre. He doth not strive to make nature monstrous; she is often seen in the ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... slept exquisitely. The luxury of a long peaceful interval, free from anxiety and responsibility, was delightful to her. She came down very late, and after her breakfast sauntered into the drawing-room, looking fresh as a white blush rose, lovely ...
— Fated to Be Free • Jean Ingelow
... pictures you forget, for one you remember. I remember, however, an interesting picture by Guido, of the Rape of Proserpine, in which Proserpine casts back her languid and half-unwilling eyes, as it were, to the flowers she had left ungathered in the fields of Enna. There was an exquisitely executed piece of Correggio, about four saints, one of whom seemed to have a pet dragon in a leash. I was told that it was the devil who was bound in that style—but who can make anything of four saints? For what can they be supposed ...
— A Letter Book - Selected with an Introduction on the History and Art of Letter-Writing • George Saintsbury
... exquisitely intelligent hearing, but he was accepted on his own terms, as a poet who saw so much beauty in simple and common life that he could not help painting it. He painted it in pieces of matchless fidelity to the fact, with nothing of flattery, but everything of charm in the ...
— Imaginary Interviews • W. D. Howells
... with polished marble in the style of the Italian palaces, whose painted ceiling was supported by fluted columns, was lighted by a superb chandelier with hundreds of wax candles, and contained a long table very richly set. Silver ornaments, exquisitely wrought, adorned the centre and the ends. The china, the array of glasses of all shapes which stood beside each plate, bore the initial of the master of the house, without any heraldic addition which might recall the recent elevation of rank, a graceful bit ...
— How Women Love - (Soul Analysis) • Max Simon Nordau
... sound of melody that he imagined was only the haunting echo of dream music. He opened his eyes to another surprise of this valley of beautiful surprises. Out of his cave he saw the exquisitely fine foliage of the silver spruces crossing a round space of blue morning sky; and in this lacy leafage fluttered a number of gray birds with black and white stripes and long tails. They were mocking-birds, and they were singing ...
— Riders of the Purple Sage • Zane Grey
... check. A torrent of emotion overmastered him. He forgot where he was, the darkness of the night, the lateness of the hour, the melancholy murmur of the wind in the trees, he forgot that she was rich and he a poor dependent, he only remembered that she was exquisitely fair and that he—poor fool!—was mad enough to ...
— The Nest of the Sparrowhawk • Baroness Orczy
... how exquisitely flowers may be imitated—making one wish a device for the secreting ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 2, August, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... face of old Colonel Pelham and the majestic proportions of his much-better-half, who, as scion of all the De Ruyters, is quite at home confronting the social battery; and Mrs. Stannard with her happy blue eyes and noble bearing, and Mrs. Truscott, exquisitely dressed and an object of no little admiration among observers of both sexes. "Old Stannard" fidgets at the unaccustomed harness of full uniform, and kicks impatiently at his sabre, wishing himself out on the Arizona deserts again, but defiantly determined to hold his own and glare the people down. ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King
... as she could make them, while Betty's would crop out into little dainty saucy curls over her forehead and down the nape of her slender neck in a most bewildering fashion. Their complexions, like Miss Moppet's, were exquisitely satin-like in texture, but there was no break in Pamela's smooth cheeks, whereas Betty's dimples lurked not only around her willful mouth, but perched high in her right cheek, and you found yourself unconsciously watching to see them come and go at the ...
— An Unwilling Maid • Jeanie Gould Lincoln
... girls were standing in Margaret's sitting-room, adjoining her bedroom. Margaret was dressed completely in white, with long white ribbons floating amongst the dainty folds of her attire; but the white dress, exquisitely as it was fashioned, was less becoming to her than usual, for her face had lost a little of its shell-like bloom. She turned at Janetta's words and surveyed herself a little anxiously in a long glass ...
— A True Friend - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... not too fine ankles,—but that self-confidence which material possessions bring, casts a spell over people.—Coralie is attractive. Odette, the widow, is beautiful. She has the brain of a turkey, but she, too, is exquisitely dressed and surrounded with everything to enhance her loveliness, and the serenity of success has given her magnetism. She announces platitudes as discoveries, she sparkles, and is so ravishing that one finds her trash ...
— Man and Maid • Elinor Glyn
... that notable grey silk gown—very simply made, with no fripperies or fandangos of any sort—reaching up to her throat and down to her wrists, where it had some kind of trimming of white fur, which made the skin beneath show exquisitely delicate. ...
— John Halifax, Gentleman • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... whom he was about to sup, "who live at a variety of good tables, am a much better judge of cookery than any person who has a very tolerable cook, but lives much at home, for his palate is gradually adapted to the taste of his cook, whereas, madam, in trying by a wider range, I can more exquisitely judge." But his pretensions to exquisite taste are by no means borne out by independent witnesses. "He laughs," said Tom Davies, "like a rhinoceros," and he seems to have eaten like a wolf—savagely, silently, and with undiscriminating fury. He was not a pleasant object during this performance. ...
— Samuel Johnson • Leslie Stephen
... on the contrary, preserved on the fair, smooth face, to which years had given scarcely a line or wrinkle, something that might have passed, at first glance, for the levity and thoughtlessness of a gay and youthful nature; but the smile, though exquisitely polished, took at times the derision of a sneer. In his manners he was as composed and as free from gesture as an Englishman. His hair was of that red brown with which the Italian painters produce such marvellous effects of colour; and if ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... found a pin's point protuberance of gold, and pressing sharply, the shield flew up to reveal a tiny but exquisitely painted miniature of Leopold the ...
— The Princess Virginia • C. N. Williamson
... Ho-to-kee-mat-sin, the Bat. The young women of the Chis-chis-chash threw approving glances after the Bat as he strode proudly about the camp. He was possessed of all desirable things conceivable to the red mind. Nothing that ever bestrode a horse was more exquisitely supple than the well-laid form of this young Indian man; his fame as a hunter was great, but the taking of the Absaroke scalp was transcendent. Still, it was not possible to realize any matrimonial hopes which he was led to entertain, for ...
— The Way of an Indian • Frederic Remington
... pianos,—a branch of the business which was urged upon him by the late Jonas Chickering, piano manufacturer, of Boston. The most careless glance at the strings of a piano shows us that the wire must be exquisitely tempered and most thoroughly wrought, in order to remain in tune, subjected as they are to a steady pull of many tons. Washburn experimented for years in perfecting his process, and he was never satisfied until he was able to produce a wire which he could ...
— Captains of Industry - or, Men of Business Who Did Something Besides Making Money • James Parton
... Arabia. Some Semitic peoples appear to have migrated northward to Babylonia and Syria, while others crossed the Red Sea to Abyssinia. Physically, the Arabs are an attractive people, with well-shaped, muscular figures, handsome, bronzed faces, brilliant, black eyes, and all the organs of sense exquisitely acute. Simple and abstemious in their habits, they lead healthy lives and often reach an ...
— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER
... by a cosy and chatty note from my dear and comfortable stepmother, dealing with such perfectly tranquillizing subjects as the harvest of roses in the garden or the state of health of various neighbours. But the other, the solitary letter, in its threatening whiteness, with its exquisitely penned address—there it would lie awaiting me, destroying the taste of the bacon, reducing the flavour of the tea to insipidity. I might fatuously dally with it, I might pretend not to observe it, but there ...
— Father and Son • Edmund Gosse
... fine old kitchen this is!" said Mr. Donnithorne, looking round admiringly. He always spoke in the same deliberate, well-chiselled, polite way, whether his words were sugary or venomous. "And you keep it so exquisitely clean, Mrs. Poyser. I like these premises, do you know, beyond any on ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... then quite young. She had only emerged "from behind the curtain," as natives of India say, for six months. In other words, she had just emancipated herself from the seclusion of the Zenana, where she had lived since her marriage. She had then very delicate features, and most lovely eyes, with exquisitely moulded hands and arms. Very wisely she had not adopted European fashions in their entirety, but had retained the becoming saree of gold or silver tissue or brocade, throwing the end of it over her head as a veil, and looking perfectly charming in it. Everything ...
— Here, There And Everywhere • Lord Frederic Hamilton
... shall have no worthy architecture until every building is made an exquisitely sincere representation of its deepest purpose,—a symbol, as it were, of its indwelling meaning. I should think it would be very difficult to design a lunatic asylum on that basis, but I didn't dare say so, as Mr. Copley seemed to think it all right. ...
— A Cathedral Courtship • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... the ordinary means of illumination, to have visualized before it the blessed spirits in the light of Heaven, dancing, whirling, circling in perfect harmony and making more formal designs to express their bliss by the rapidity of their rhythmical movements! Even though exquisitely quaint as the picture may appear to us, it has been executed so reverently that criticism has rarely if ever attacked this conception of our poet. With light as his principal material to make known to us the joys of Heaven, he has to paint ...
— Dante: "The Central Man of All the World" • John T. Slattery
... Exquisitely and charmingly written are these books which every little girl from five to nine years old will want from the first book to ...
— Polly's Senior Year at Boarding School • Dorothy Whitehill
... lamented. "I've watched them there for a fortnight. What clumsy florist could have grouped them with the tall grasses so exquisitely, and set the little red vine clambering over all in the fence ...
— The Henchman • Mark Lee Luther
... a quarter of an hour, then laid on our oars waiting for our ship. She was coming down on us with swelling sails, looking delicately tall and exquisitely noble through the mist. The captain of the brig, who sat in the stern sheets by my side with his face in his hands, raised his head and began to speak with a sort of sombre volubility. They had lost their masts and sprung a leak in a hurricane; drifted for weeks, always at the pumps, met more ...
— The Mirror of the Sea • Joseph Conrad
... the spinet, with his thick, familiar thumb out, when he presented his inimitable countenance, with a grin, to Mr. Hastings, after he had set his fond mother a-whimpering. (There is nothing in the whole series, by-the-way, better indicated than the exquisitely simple, half-bumpkin, half-vulgar expression of Tony's countenance and smile in this scene, unless it be the charming arch yet modest face of Miss Hardcastle, lighted by the candle she carries, as, ...
— Picture and Text - 1893 • Henry James
... with your request, for nothing gives me more pleasure than to speak of the good qualities of my friends. Examine them for a moment and see how exquisitely they are formed, and, though not gaudy in their colors, yet their feathers are soft and glossy. But these are trifles comparatively; what most endears them to me is ...
— Small Means and Great Ends • Edited by Mrs. M. H. Adams
... the graceful evolutions of the contradanza as she did that night. Her supple slender body curved and swayed and glided; her round arms were like lazy snakes uncoiling; her exquisitely poised head moved in perfect concord with her undulating hips. Her eyes grew brighter, her lips redder. The young men who stood near gave as loud a vent to their admiration as if she had been dancing El Son alone on the floor. But ...
— The Splendid Idle Forties - Stories of Old California • Gertrude Atherton
... this fine shaft to rankle, and by-and-by entered with a small velvet bag, from the neck of which he shook a small cascade of silver coins, all exquisitely polished. ...
— Lady Good-for-Nothing • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... poignant suasion of beauty, when it clouds the brain, and makes the conventional earth, seen through that bright haze, seem a sorry fable. Western poets should not have despised what the Orientals, in their fugitive stanzas, seem often to have sung most exquisitely: the joy of gazing on the beloved, of following or being followed, of tacit understandings and avowals, of flight together into some solitude to people it with those ineffable confidences which so naturally follow the ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... room. A linen cloth, trimmed with lace, covered the face. The delicate hands, still unwrinkled, were folded, and lightly clasped a well-worn rosary. The lifeless form was concealed beneath a costly coverlid, in the centre of which lay an exquisitely-carved ivory crucifix. ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... hens the Pleadings did Most exquisitely utter; And some few pans of cream there ...
— The Humourous Story of Farmer Bumpkin's Lawsuit • Richard Harris
... refreshments were "delicious" at the Jones party when he sees the word in connection with the viands at the Smith party. No two parties were ever "elegant" the same week. No two events were "charming." No two women were "exquisitely" gowned. The person who was assigned the adjective "delightful" by Miss Larrabee might stick it in front of a luncheon, pin it on a hostess, or use it for an evening's entertainment. But he could use it only once. And with a list of those present ...
— In Our Town • William Allen White
... little for a pint, but made no comment. The waiter poured out a glass and retired. The experimenter had tasted elderberry once, but he knew no more of wine. The draught had relish fiery new, and it seemed to warm him everywhere at once. His mind grew exquisitely bright, and his thoughts were astonishingly vivid. He began to improvise verses, and they came with an ease which was quite startling. They seemed to unroll themselves before him, to reveal themselves line by line as if they had been in existence long ago, and some spell had suddenly ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray
... have struck the measure or the harmony more certainly from the keys of his own piano than from that large band. The sounds struggled forth so perfect and distinct that one almost expected to see them embodied, whirling in wild dance around him. Sometimes the air was so exquisitely light and bounding the feet could scarcely keep on the earth; then it sank into a mournful lament with a sobbing tremulousness, and died away ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume V (of X) • Various
... not yet fifty years of age, but her hair was only one remove from white; and though lines of thought and suffering were marked on her pale face, it yet bore the remains of what had been delicate loveliness. Her complexion was still exquisitely fair, and her eyes were a light, bright blue. Though she moved quickly, it was with much dignity and grace. She was a small, slightly-made woman; she sat as upright as a statue; and she inclined her head like a queen. It was no marvel, for she had been all but a queen. For ...
— Robin Tremain - A Story of the Marian Persecution • Emily Sarah Holt
... figures, extremely graceful, all breathing an air of purity; it is loveliness in many forms; for its conception as to chiaroscuro and colour, is most skilfully managed; but it has this present day's reality, and we only force ourselves to believe it Jephtha's Daughter. Exquisitely beautiful, too, is the affectionate, the very loving, Ruth. Orpah, too, is sweet, but the difference is well expressed—"Orpah kissed her mother-in-law, but Ruth clave unto her." There is an unaffected simplicity ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 • Various
... prospective buyer, proved extremely tiresome to the staff of the Motor Show Rooms in Park Lane. He shilly-shallied from one car to another asking rather stupid questions for the best part of two hours. The exquisitely dressed salesman poured forth his eulogies in vain. Nothing could make Mr. Smith decide. He would listen attentively to long recitals of the respective virtues of this make and that and then would gaze out into the street as though lost in contemplation. ...
— Men of Affairs • Roland Pertwee
... instep from sea to sea, and measure it lengthways from Milan to Otranto, sweeping up and carrying away every thing that is worth the transport. After this, you need hardly feel nervous (as some we have known were) lest, in the event of falling in with something exquisitely beautiful, the government should interfere to prevent its leaving Italy. Such an event not being in question, you need make no provision to meet it. Of the brigands and brigandage of Italy, the public has had enough; of her cheats ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 367, May 1846 • Various
... carelessness saved them from the conceits of their predecessors; and, while lowering the tone of morality, they raised unwittingly the standard of taste. Some of the songs of Lovelace, however, such as 'To Althea, from Prison,' are exquisitely simple, as well as pure. Sir Egerton Brydges has found out that Byron, in one of his be-praised paradoxical beauties, either copied, or coincided with, our poet. In the 'Bride of Abydos' he ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... the only one of the whole party, always excepting Aristabulus and Steadfast, who, for those fleeting but gay hours, was not thoroughly happy. For the first time in her life, she felt her own deficiencies, that ready and available knowledge, so exquisitely feminine in its nature and exhibition, which escaped Mrs. Bloomfield and Eve, as it might be from its own excess; which the former possessed almost, intuitively, a gift of Heaven, and which the latter enjoyed, not only from the same source, ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper
... this was most startling, for a pair of as beautiful black eyes as ever danced in a woman's head were now revealed to Mrs. Meng's astonished gaze. Looking at the stranger more intently, she saw that her features were exquisitely perfect, and had the grace and the poetry which the great painters of China have attributed to the celebrated ...
— Chinese Folk-Lore Tales • J. Macgowan
... so exquisitely mirrors the purity of the sky; its general atmosphere is so perfect, that one feels it is peculiarly akin to ...
— The Lake of the Sky • George Wharton James
... for the hundredth time that night, Bill's icy self-control, his really marvelous command of his impulses, was sorely tried. His enemy actually was recumbent in the snow before him, while he, taut as a strung bow, was most exquisitely poised for the attack. Why fight? Why not swift delicious murder, and the gush of the loathed one's throat-blood between his fangs? Bill knew well why it must not be. But given the knowledge, how many dogs in his case, nay, how many men ...
— Jan - A Dog and a Romance • A. J. Dawson
... girl of eighteen, who had come to live with her uncle and aunt. Her father had died some months before. She was absolutely deaf as the result of some accident in childhood, and she was, as his own eyes told him, exquisitely lovely in her white, haunting style. But she was not Isabel Temple; he had tricked himself—he had lived in a fool's paradise—oh, he must get away and laugh at himself. He left her at her gate, disregarding the little hand she put timidly out—but he did not laugh at ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1909 to 1922 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... general character of the English antique. Something more of this will be found in Corbet's "Farewell to the Fairies!" We copy a portion of Marvell's "Maiden lamenting for her Fawn," which we prefer-not only as a specimen of the elder poets, but in itself as a beautiful poem, abounding in pathos, exquisitely delicate imagination and ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 5 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... rich-toned gong for the hours, and on either side of it were a number of elegantly shaped vases, full of choice hot-house flowers. But the most striking feature of the whole apartment was its beautiful coved and panelled ceiling, with its exquisitely moulded interlacing ribs, the choice and dainty paintings that adorned its panels, and the magnificent skylight that occupied its centre. This skylight, it may be mentioned, was such only in appearance, as it did ...
— With Airship and Submarine - A Tale of Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... fair to the many exquisitely beautiful lyrics that in this form grace the English language. Those "little pictures painted well," those "monuments of a moment" are among our most graceful poems, and the reader who has not learned to delight in a beautiful sonnet has missed the ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 10 - The Guide • Charles Herbert Sylvester
... utmost hideousness; He was sickened with its contact; He was crushed with its brutality—crushed to death. Yet this human nature was His own; He was identified with it—bone of its bone, flesh of its flesh; and, as in a reprobate family an exquisitely delicate and refined sister may feel the whole weight of the debt and shame of the household to lie on herself, so He felt the unworthiness and hopelessness of the race as if they were His own; and, like the scapegoat on whose head the ...
— The Trial and Death of Jesus Christ - A Devotional History of our Lord's Passion • James Stalker
... date. A book from Grolier's library, the "Toison d'Or," 1563, brought L405, or over $2,000, and a Heptameron, which had belonged to Louis XIV, in beautiful brown morocco, with crown, fleur-de-lys, a stag, a cock, and stars, as ornaments, all exquisitely worked in gold, lined with vellum, was sold for L400. Following the Grolier patterns, came another highly decorative style, by the French binders, which was notable for the very delicate gold tooling, covering ...
— A Book for All Readers • Ainsworth Rand Spofford
... on the porch, now, looking at the river lights, her book forgotten in her lap. At the head of the table Richard Carter would be sitting, in his cool and immaculate white, and at the foot, sparkling and beautiful, with her fresh bare arms and her firm bare shoulders, her exquisitely modelled hair and her bright eyes, Isabelle. And beside her, to-night, Royal Blondin, musical, poetical, playing the game with all his consummate art, scoring ...
— Harriet and the Piper - (Norris Volume XI) • Kathleen Norris
... lip, but made no answer. She took up the music, and seating herself at the piano, practised the airs. Lady Vargrave listened with emotion; and as Evelyn in a voice exquisitely sweet, though not powerful, sang the words, her mother turned away her face, and half unconsciously, a few tears stole silently ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... the inventor, William Buecking, who died in 1447, and who, on account of the invention, was so greatly honored by Charles V. that the great monarch in 1556 made a journey from Middleburg to Bievlied in Zealand for the express purpose of visiting the grave of the great man. How exquisitely such dishes taste when we are familiar ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... so exquisitely graceful that one forgot how wickedly dangerous it was; but I think that the brief English colloquy was the great wonder of the event for me, and I doubt if I could ever have been perfectly happy again, ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... inches in length, and eight in width and depth. They were addressed to us individually, but in grandma's care. When she removed the cover and a layer of cotton batting from Georgia's, a beautiful French lady-doll was revealed, exquisitely dressed, with a spray of flowers in her hair, and another that looped one side of her lovely pink skirt sufficiently high to display an elaborately trimmed petticoat. She was so fine in lace and ribbons, yes, even watch and chain, that grandma was loath to let us touch her, and insisted she ...
— The Expedition of the Donner Party and its Tragic Fate • Eliza Poor Donner Houghton
... down the wall, and puffed their orange throats, Tu-Kila-Kila lounged at his ease that afternoon, with one of his many wives—a tall and beautiful Polynesian woman, lithe and supple, as is the wont of her race, and as exquisitely formed in every limb and feature as a sculptured Greek goddess. A graceful wreath of crimson hibiscus adorned her shapely head, round which her long and glossy black hair was coiled in great rings with artistic profusion. A festoon of blue flowers ...
— The Great Taboo • Grant Allen
... work. His ideas were never vague or indefinite. Means always presented themselves to him, when he contemplated ends. The following were the duties of the proposed bureau, which may serve as a guide to some future reformer: I copy from his own exquisitely neat and clear ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 45, July, 1861 • Various
... this desire for improved quarters. Colonel Esmond, of Castlewood, neither cared for quarters nor for quarterings. But his daughter had a very high opinion of the merit and antiquity of her lineage; and her sire, growing exquisitely calm and good-natured in his serene, declining years, humoured his child's peculiarities in an easy, bantering way,—nay, helped her with his antiquarian learning, which was not inconsiderable, and with his skill in the art of painting, of which he was a proficient. A knowledge ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Tom from Marc's back I stepped closer and put my face within six inches of the lion's. He promptly spat on me. I had to steel my nerve to keep so close. But I wanted to see a wild lion's eyes at close range. They were exquisitely beautiful, their physical properties as wonderful as their expression. Great half globes of tawny amber, streaked with delicate wavy lines of black, surrounding pupils of intense purple fire. Pictures shone and faded in the amber light—the shaggy ...
— Tales of lonely trails • Zane Grey
... a short time ago, one of these beautiful albums placed in my hand, which was characterized by marked and pre-eminent excellencies. In addition to its being bound in the most splendid manner, and containing the most tasteful embellishments, on paper exquisitely embossed, it was adorned with appropriate contributions, from the vigorous mind of Mrs. Hannah Moore—from the pure and classic taste of the eloquent Robert Hall—from the fervid and poetic imagination of James Montgomery—and many ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 17, - Issue 491, May 28, 1831 • Various
... beneficent ones, expressed for us readers of the Jewish scriptures, centrally in the verse, "thorns also, and thistles, shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field" ([Greek: chortos], grass or corn), and exquisitely symbolized throughout the fields of Europe by the presence of the purple 'corn-flag,' or gladiolus, and 'corn-rose' (Gerarde's name for Papaver Rhoeas), in the midst of carelessly tended corn; and in ...
— Proserpina, Volume 1 - Studies Of Wayside Flowers • John Ruskin
... great deal of sympathy for you, Mr. Fentolin," Lady Saxthorpe confessed, coming over to his side. "You have so many resources, there is so much in life which you can do. You paint, as we all know, exquisitely. They tell me that you play the violin like a master. You have unlimited time for reading, and they say that you are one of the greatest living authorities upon the politics of Europe. Your morning paper must bring you ...
— The Vanished Messenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... another train; you keep yourself on the stretch for four hours, if not five; you take her home; you take yourself home. You don't spend three-quarters of an hour in "thinking about" going to bed. You go. Friends and fatigue have equally been forgotten, and the evening has seemed so exquisitely long (or perhaps too short)! And do you remember that time when you were persuaded to sing in the chorus of the amateur operatic society, and slaved two hours every other night for three months? Can you deny that when you have something definite to ...
— How to Live on 24 Hours a Day • Arnold Bennett
... mean to stay at Florence a week or two longer and then go northward. I love Florence—the place looks exquisitely beautiful in its garden ground of vineyards and olive trees, sung round by the nightingales day and night. . . . If you take one thing with another, there is no place in the world like Florence, I am persuaded, ...
— Life and Letters of Robert Browning • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... left the gardens and went into a fine, big reception hall, where rich rugs were spread upon the tiled floors and the furniture was exquisitely carved and studded with jewels. The King's chair was an especially pretty piece of furniture, being in the shape of a silver lily with one leaf bent over to form the seat. The silver was everywhere thickly ...
— The Emerald City of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... pantaloons of black cloth; on full-dress occasions, a dark blue dress coat, with plain flat gilt buttons, and drab-colored pantaloons. Her waistcoat was of buff cassimere, richly trimmed with plain, flat-surfaced, gold buttons, exquisitely polished; this was an elegant costume, and one she wore to great advantage. Her clothes were all perfect in their fit, and of Paris make; and her figure was singularly well adapted to male attire. No gentleman in Paris made ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... by his children that were the fruit of his body. For, said he, they surpass and are far more excelling creatures of God than all the fruits of trees. By them we see God's Power, Wisdom, and Art, who hath made them all out of nothing, hath given them in one year life and all members, so exquisitely hath created and will maintain and preserve them. Yet, notwithstanding, we do not much regard it; nay, we are in such gifts of God blind and covetous, as commonly it falleth out that people when they have got children grow worse and more covetous; they rake and rend all they can, to the end ...
— Selections from the Table Talk of Martin Luther • Martin Luther
... shone with an incomparable light. She was pale, but exquisitely beautiful, and even her hands and feet expressed the idea of expectation. Antonia had a piece of needlework in her hand. She affected the calmness she did not feel, for her heart was trembling for the tender little heart beating with so much ...
— Remember the Alamo • Amelia E. Barr
... her white robes sweeping the sea. Never was city so exquisitely poised between earth and sky! Very beautiful, with fair white face, the poetic lines of your mountain drapery about you; the azure straits gliding past you in homage, and bringing the world's treasures ...
— Fair Italy, the Riviera and Monte Carlo • W. Cope Devereux
... to be sure! What can Mr. Grey mean? There was Mrs. Oakum's gray and silver brocade, and Mrs. Cotton's point-de-Venice mantle, and Miss Prime and Miss Messe and Miss Middlings, who always dress exquisitely, and Mrs. Shinnurs Sharcke with that superb India shawl that must have cost two thousand dollars! What ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... the table ... the tea-kettle puffed out delicate clouds ... exquisitely tinted apples, firm as in ...
— The Indian Lily and Other Stories • Hermann Sudermann
... had run up her boat, and she now lay, as when first seen, a motionless, beautiful, and exquisitely graceful fabric, without the smallest sign about her of an intention to move, or indeed without exhibiting any other proof, except in her admirable order and symmetry, that any of human powers dwelt within her hull. The royal cruiser, though larger and of far ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... markings, like the play of light and shadow through the leaves, hid the little owners perfectly so long as they held themselves still and let the sunbeams dance over them. Their beautiful heads were a study for an artist,—delicate, graceful, exquisitely colored. And their great soft eyes had a questioning innocence, as they met yours, which went straight to your heart and made you claim the beautiful creatures for your own instantly. Indeed, there is nothing in all the woods that ...
— Wood Folk at School • William J. Long
... time Mazin hesitated whether he should advance to the gates of the palace; but considering that no greater calamity could happen to him than he had already endured, he contemned danger, and boldly advanced to a grand lodge built of white marble exquisitely polished. He entered, and beheld on one of the raised platforms which skirted the passage into the court two beautiful damsels playing at the game of chess; one of whom on beholding him exclaimed, "Surely, sister, this is the young man who passed this way about a month ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... however, was a man of exquisitely sensitive nature—a man, as my mother warned his children, 'without a skin,' and he felt very keenly the attacks of which he could take no notice. In early days this had shown itself by a shyness 'remarkable,' says Taylor, beyond all 'shyness that you could imagine ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen
... the most exquisitely delicate in their texture of all forms in the vegetable kingdom. Look at the petals of this one. Could any thing be softer or finer? The leaf, the bark, and the wood of the plant are all coarse, in comparison to the flower. Now, ...
— Wreaths of Friendship - A Gift for the Young • T. S. Arthur and F. C. Woodworth
... various periods of time was very intimate with Laurier thinks he was a man of deep emotions. This may be doubted. A man who talked so easily and was so exquisitely conscious of himself could scarcely be considered spiritually profound. Other men and events played upon him like the wind on an Aeolian harp. He was tremendously impressionable; and by turns grandly impressive. A personal friend relates how a man ...
— The Masques of Ottawa • Domino
... believing it divine, has appropriated it to all his Madonnas, curtained a lovely forehead, and fell in flowing locks over her shoulders. Her azure eyes bore a heavenly expression; she was of middle height, exquisitely proportioned; and during the rare moments when a gleam of happiness allowed her natural character to display itself, she was lively, joyous, and sympathetic, but at the same time evinced ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... his conduct. The first print most forcibly contrasts two opposite passions; the unthinking negligence of youth, and the sordid avaricious rapacity of age. It brings into one point of view what Mr. Pope so exquisitely describes in his ...
— The Works of William Hogarth: In a Series of Engravings - With Descriptions, and a Comment on Their Moral Tendency • John Trusler
... your attention fixed, and your admiration excited, but the mind wholly subdued by its resistless influence, and disposed to enter at once into every emotion which he may wish to produce. The beauty and feeling of his under tones, the affection, tenderness, and pity which they so exquisitely express, are so perfect, that no one could foresee in such perfections, the fierce, hurried, and overhearing tones of Nero—the voice of deep and exhausting suffering, which in Hamlet shews so profound an impression of the misery he had undergone, and of the hopelessness ...
— Travels in France during the years 1814-1815 • Archibald Alison
... a well-known mariner, who, on retiring from his post on one of the light-ships, settled at Old Skagen, has left a unique collection to the village. This now constitutes a museum of exquisitely carved furniture, much of it inlaid with ivory, marbles and metals in dainty designs, all made by this old sailor during the last twelve years of his life—a wonderful record of industry. Old Skagen is a quaint fisher-village, nestling behind the sand-dunes, trying to shelter itself from ...
— Denmark • M. Pearson Thomson
... the sensory or psychological function which, I hold, should be added to the purely physical ones of motor, vibration and resonance. For by it these functions are enlisted in the service of art and made immediately and exquisitely responsive to the emotional exaltation of music and song. Nor are these vague terms. Psychology of song and psychological action in general may seem indefinite and unintelligible. They become, however, absolutely definite and intelligible when the part played by the nerves as intermediaries ...
— The Voice - Its Production, Care and Preservation • Frank E. Miller
... upon the polar banks of the Neva. Wandering through these mimic groves, or reposing from the fatigues of the dance, was many a fair and graceful form, while the brilliantly lighted ballroom, filled with hundreds of exquisitely dressed women (for the Russian ladies, if not very pretty, are graceful, and make admirable toilettes), formed a dazzling contrast with the tempered light of the 'Winter Garden.' The conservatory opened into ...
— Memoir of John Lothrop Motley, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... period bear the inscription, "Made by me Jacob." There is some question whether he was the same man as Jacob Topf who came from Innsbruck, and became court armourer in England in 1575. Another famous smith was William Pickering, who made exquisitely ornate suits of what we might call ...
— Arts and Crafts in the Middle Ages • Julia De Wolf Addison
... greater than Spenser has also been indebted to him; as will be evident, I think, to all who compare the description of the figures on the shield of war in his Induction, and especially those of them which relate to the siege of Troy, with the exquisitely rich and vivid description of a picture on that subject in Shakespeare's early poem on ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... of the See underwent no change from the time of their earliest appearance to the present day, and were reproduced in many parts of the new cathedral at its rebuilding, and may be seen exquisitely carved by Grinling Gibbons over the entrance to St. Dunstan's Chapel; but with the arms of the City it was very different, and, in fact, they do not appear even now to have reached finality. When, early in the seventeenth century, the seal of 1380 became too ...
— Memorials of Old London - Volume I • Various
... charmed, indeed," said Ferdinand. "There are lovers of music everywhere, of course, but I had not expected to find so advanced a company of amateurs in Heydon Hay. That final passage was exquisitely rendered." ...
— Aunt Rachel • David Christie Murray
... belong to at least two very distinct types. Both are typically rather slender ovals, a good deal compressed towards one end; but in both somewhat broader and more or less pyriform varieties occur. In both the shell is exquisitely fine and glossy; in some specimens it is excessively glossy. In both the ground-colour is a very delicate pale greenish blue, occasionally so pale that the ground is all but white—in one type entirely unspeckled and ...
— The Nests and Eggs of Indian Birds, Volume 1 • Allan O. Hume
... plaster, and are spread with rich carpets. None lodge within the King's house but his women and eunuchs, and some little boys, whom he always keeps about him for a wicked use. He always eats in private among his women, being served with a great variety of exquisitely dressed meats, which being proved by his taster, are put into golden vessels, as they say, covered and sealed up, and brought in by the eunuchs. He has meats made ready at all hours, and calls for them at pleasure. These people do not ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume IX. • Robert Kerr
... his happy choice of subject,—for the Crusades were still fresh in the memory of the people, and chivalry was a thing of the present—his zeal for the Christian cause, his impassioned delineations of love, and his exquisitely poetical treatment of his whole theme, ...
— National Epics • Kate Milner Rabb
... increasingly passionate resentment. Except for the Serial-Letter Co.'s ingeniously varied attentions there was practically nothing to help him make either day or night bearable. More and more Cornelia's infrequent letters suggested exquisitely painted empty dishes offered to a starving person. More and more "Molly's" whimsical messages fed him and nourished him and joyously pleased him like some nonsensically fashioned candy-box that yet proved brimming ...
— Molly Make-Believe • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... Rommani pals, what are you doing here? Only one woman among them was noticeable. Her face was startlingly handsome, with an aquiline nose, thin nostrils, beautifully-arched eyebrows, and eyes like an eagle. She was tall, straight, with exquisitely-rounded figure, and the full drapery of white around her bosom fell from the shoulders in large hanging sleeves; over her head was thrown a crimson and green shawl, folded like the pane of the ciociare, and setting off her raven-black hair ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. VI, June, 1862 - Devoted To Literature and National Policy • Various
... anxious to get away with his booty. When he opens it he is confronted with a dainty and exquisitely clean young Japanese lady in a simple blue cotton kimono printed cunningly with small white jasmine blossoms. Mrs. Pearce is with her. He gets out of her way deferentially ...
— Pygmalion • George Bernard Shaw
... suffering that issues in action. Desdemona is helplessly passive. She can do nothing whatever. She cannot retaliate even in speech; no, not even in silent feeling. And the chief reason of her helplessness only makes the sight of her suffering more exquisitely painful. She is helpless because her nature is infinitely sweet and her love absolute. I would not challenge Mr. Swinburne's statement that we pity Othello even more than Desdemona; but we watch Desdemona with more unmitigated distress. ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley
... chose, Berlioz could write the most exquisite and dainty lyrics possible. What could be more exquisitely tender than many of his songs and romances, and various of the airs and choral pieces from "Beatrice et Benedict," from "Nuits d'Ete," "Irlande," and from ...
— Great Italian and French Composers • George T. Ferris
... The exquisitely happy home life of the queen was brought to a close, and new public burdens were laid upon her, by the death of Prince Albert on December fourteenth, 1861. Throughout his illness of but two weeks, the queen was constantly with him, and not until the end was almost ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... Castelmare?" said the lady, in the sweetest possible of silvery tones, and with an air of humble wonder at the greatness of the honour done her, mingled with grateful appreciation of it, that was inimitably well done; and held up two exquisitely-gloved slender little hands, as she spoke, half joining them together in thankful astonishment, and half extending them towards him with an almost caressing movement ...
— A Siren • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... help you with your cloak," she said to Barrie, dimly hoping that the man would contrast her exquisitely corseted figure in its dress by Lucille with the crude, untrained outlines clothed in blue serge. She was not so tall as Barrie as they stood together, she discovered, and she wanted the girl to sit down. "You must both have something ...
— The Heather-Moon • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... exquisitely miserable; but Cummings was only the lawyer getting rid of an unwanted ...
— The Million-Dollar Suitcase • Alice MacGowan
... have declared," said Lord Brougham, "that they have felt it impossible to remove their looks from him when he had riveted, and as it were fascinated, them by his first glance. Then hear his voice, of surpassing sweetness, clear, flexible, strong, exquisitely fitted to strains of serious earnestness." Yet although he did not rely on wit, or humour, or sarcasm in addressing a jury, he could use them to effect in cross-examination. "You were born and bred in Manchester, I perceive," he said to a witness. "Yes."—"I knew it," said Erskine carelessly, ...
— Law and Laughter • George Alexander Morton
... Angel. The child evidently took him for someone she had known; perhaps she had seen a photograph of some long lost friend of her family, who resembled him, and she had sprung to a conclusion, as children do. But she was an exquisitely pretty and engaging little thing, a grand little pal, and worth cultivating. Hugh liked children, especially girls, though he had always been rather shy with them, not knowing exactly how they liked best to be entertained, and finding it difficult to think of things to say, in keeping up a conversation. ...
— Rosemary in Search of a Father • C. N. Williamson
... out his pocket-book and busied himself with his pencil; using it alternately for minuting memoranda of the scene before him, or sketching some of its more striking features. These were at this moment irresistibly captivating. The boat was gliding through a sea unrippled by a breeze: the water was exquisitely clear and reflecting the rich orange lights of the decaying sunset: a bold rocky shore was before him—haunted by gulls and sea-mews, flights of which last pursued the boat for the sake of the refuse fish which were occasionally tossed overboard: behind the rocky screen of the coast appeared ...
— Walladmor: - And Now Freely Translated from the German into English. - In Two Volumes. Vol. I. • Thomas De Quincey
... genius,—yes!"—they said, "But something more even than that." And this "something more," was just the inexplicable part of her which governed her whole being, and rendered her so indescribably attractive. And she was not without beauty—or perhaps it should be termed loveliness rather,—of an exquisitely suggestive kind, which provoked the beholder into questioning where and how the glamour of it fell. In her eyes, perhaps, the secret lay,—they were violet- grey in hue, and drowsy-lidded, with long lashes that swept the delicate pale cheeks ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... and his wife. Never before, as his biographer justly remarks, was a man so literally the author of his own book. If we may credit the testimony that is given, or even judge from such proofs as Mr. Gilchrist's book can furnish, these works of his hands were exquisitely beautiful. The effect of the poems imbedded in their designs is, we are told, quite different from their effect set naked upon a blank page. It was as if he had transferred scenery and characters from that spirit-realm where ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 78, April, 1864 • Various
... languishing softness and melancholy air in the Indian convivial songs, especially of the amorous class, irresistibly moving attention, and exquisitely pleasing, especially in their solitary recesses, when all ...
— The Crayon Papers • Washington Irving
... them," answered Theo, adding hastily, as if to change the conversation, "Isn't my piano perfectly elegant?" and she ran her fingers over an exquisitely carved instrument, which had inscribed upon it simply "Theo"; and then, as young brides sometimes will, she expatiated upon the kindness and generosity of George, showing, withal, that her love for her husband ...
— Maggie Miller • Mary J. Holmes
... which served for the baptism of the latter and of one of her sisters, was ornamented with fragments of great antiquity? as were the porphyry pillar carved with beautiful figures and some marble candelabra exquisitely carved with leaves, and some children in bas-relief of extraordinary beauty? In short, by these and many other signs, it is clear that sculpture was in decadence in the time of Constantine, and with it the other superior arts. If anything was required to complete their ruin it was supplied by the ...
— The Lives of the Painters, Sculptors & Architects, Volume 1 (of 8) • Giorgio Vasari
... or the headache). You are not to suppose that the volume was slovenly or in anywise unworthy of a gentleman and officer of those days. It was bound in red and gold, had two handsome silver-gilt clasps and red edges, the writing being exquisitely straight and legible, and without a ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... the deep corridor, supported by exquisitely carved marble columns. Beauty in stone was in evidence everywhere and magnificent brass lamps hung from the ceiling. There was a shrine topped by an idol in black marble, incrusted with sapphires and turquoises. Durga Ram, who shall be called Umballa, nodded slightly ...
— The Adventures of Kathlyn • Harold MacGrath
... rose, no larger than the nail of my little finger. Stalk and leaves were there, and golden pollen lay in its delicate heart. Each fairy-petal blushed with June fire; the frail leaves were exquisitely green. Withal it was as hard and unbendable ...
— Tales of Chinatown • Sax Rohmer
... out of all proportion to the small and exquisitely dainty mother. She was short and small, and the child really, as I looked at it, seemed to be quite half the length of her ...
— Five Nights • Victoria Cross
... 'new minster' by St. Swithun's that we are indebted for some of the most beautiful examples of mediaeval art that have come down to us. The Golden Book of Edgar, Bede's 'Ecclesiastical History'—in the Cathedral library—and the exquisitely illuminated 'benedictional' of St. AEthelwold possessed by the Duke of Devonshire, all these were produced before the end of the tenth century by the artists who laboured so patiently in the Scriptorium beside those peaceful meadows. For two ...
— The Book-Hunter at Home • P. B. M. Allan
... Europe, which must have beaten them if only by the force of mere quantity alone, would have evinced a want of sense and consideration which I trust is not our National characteristic. If I ever do feel ashamed in the American department, it is on observing a pair of very well shaped and exquisitely finished oars, labeled, "A Present for the Prince of Wales," or something of the sort. Spare me the necessity of blushing for what we have there, and I am safe enough from shame on account ...
— Glances at Europe - In a Series of Letters from Great Britain, France, Italy, - Switzerland, &c. During the Summer of 1851. • Horace Greeley
... it was quite rude and very simple. It was built of logs and had a thatched roof, which projected far out over the walls. But it was all overrun with the loveliest flowering vines imaginable, and, inside, nothing could have been more exquisitely neat and homelike; although there was only one room and a little garret over it. All around the house were the flower-beds and the vine-trellises and the blooming shrubs, and they were always in the most beautiful order. Now, although ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... Do you call that studied coldness you have observed towards me all day yesterday nothing? Is your ceremonious manner—exquisitely polite, I will not deny—is that nothing? Is your chilling salute when we met—I half believe you curtsied—nothing? That you shun me, that you take pains not to keep my company, never to be with me ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... deceived his servants and friends; disappointed the hopes of his parents; abandoned the road to Flanders, where he was to have exercised his valour and increased the honours of his line; and he has prostrated himself at the feet of a girl, made himself the lackey of one who, though exquisitely beautiful, is after all a gitana! Wondrous prerogative of beauty, which brings down the strongest will to its feet, in spite of ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... with white satin, and trimmed over with powdered ermine. The belt worn by the Noble Duke, on this occasion, was of crimson, richly studded with precious stones, and fastened in the centre by a large diamond buckle. Sword, a valuable specimen of the art of that period, the hilt being of gold, exquisitely chased; a crimson velvet hat with feathers, confined in the ...
— Gossip in the First Decade of Victoria's Reign • John Ashton
... exquisitely neat, and if anyone gave her a plate of food, a little snuff, or any small comfort for her patient old age, she took it straight to the 'master,' and found a double happiness in giving ...
— Shawl-Straps - A Second Series of Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag • Louisa M. Alcott
... Phoebe, it must be allowed that, notwithstanding all her resources, even she was exquisitely uncomfortable for a minute or two. The young people all felt this, but to Tozer it seemed that he had managed everything beautifully, and a sense of elation stole over him. To be visited in this manner by the gentry, "making free," and "quite in a friendly ...
— Phoebe, Junior • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... construction, bearing the date 1579, 3 feet 3 inches long, exquisitely carved out of black oak, is now in the possession of A. Nossoc, Esq., the proprietor of a rare and valuable collection of paintings by ancient masters. By this gentleman's kindness I have been able to take a sketch of it, a copy of which I enclose. In these ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19. No. 538 - 17 Mar 1832 • Various
... latter and feeble days, he was riding in Hyde Park one morning, bowed down over the saddle and bitterly dejected in his air. Mathews happened to observe and saluted him. Curran stopped his horse for a moment, squeezed Charles by the hand, and said in that deep whisper which the comedian so exquisitely mimics, 'Don't speak to me, my dear Mathews; you are ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron
... an animal—exquisitely preserved, damnably selfish, completely devoid of intellect, sugar manners, the senses of a harem houri—and the tenacity ...
— The Price of Things • Elinor Glyn
... get on with blood which was exquisitely harmonious with the heart of the Christ. He was not only a born member of the Society for the Prevention of Sorrow to Mankind, but he was by nature a champion of a working Society for the Prevention ...
— Songs and Other Verse • Eugene Field
... over which patches of ivy hang like green shawls. There are flowers in profusion, scented violets, daisies, dandelions, and crocuses, large and of the richest variety, with orange pistils, and stamens purple and violet, the back of every alternate leaf exquisitely penciled. ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner |
