"Fabulous" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... God became a moral and political being, a lawgiver to men, and so much the more to be dreaded, as this supreme legislator, this final judge, was inaccessible and invisible. Then it was that this fabulous and mythological world, composed of such odd materials and disjointed parts, became a place of punishments and of rewards, where divine justice was supposed to correct what was vicious and erroneous in the judgment of men. ...
— The Ruins • C. F. [Constantin Francois de] Volney
... mean," almost screamed Mrs. Cliff, "that that stone thing down there is filled with the wealth of the Incas!—the fabulous gold we ...
— The Adventures of Captain Horn • Frank Richard Stockton
... fragments of these early writers which have come down to our times, render this truth as conspicuous as the nature of the subject will permit. A Theogony, or an account of the procession of fabulous Deities, was a theme on which Imagination might display her inventive power in its fullest extent. Accordingly Hesiod introduces his work with recounting the genealogy of the Muses, to whom he assigns "an apartment and attendants, ...
— An Essay on the Lyric Poetry of the Ancients • John Ogilvie
... mountains into an AEolian harp,[486] and this supernatural tiralira restores to him the Dorian[487] mythology, Apollo,[488] Diana,[489] and all divine hunters and huntresses. Can a musical note be so lofty, so haughtily beautiful! To the poor young poet, thus fabulous is his picture of society; he is loyal; he respects the rich; they are rich for the sake of his imagination; how poor his fancy would be, if they were not rich! That they have some high-fenced grove, which they call a park; that they live in larger and better-garnished ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... ranks. This led to an interchange of bad compliments, as well as to a very perceptible slanting of the deck, and the captain piped out to the hands to shift the chain-box. And by this action was resolved for me a riddle with regard to the properties and uses of a prematurely stout man of fabulous girth, who had been dimly revealed to me, once or twice in the course of the voyage, through some long vista of the 'tween-decks, but seemed always to melt into air,—or, more probably, oil,—upon any advance being ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 40, February, 1861 • Various
... rajahs—brocade silk sarang fastened by a rich girdle, a loose upper garment of fine muslin, and a massive turban of blue silk wrought in figures of gold. Costly but clumsy Arabic sandals, and a diamond-hilted kris or dagger of fabulous value, completed a costume that looked both graceful and comfortable for a warm climate. He greeted the ladies of our party with marked empressement, thanked them for their visit, and conducted them in person to the entrance of the seraglio to make ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 12, No. 32, November, 1873 • Various
... Druggist and Pharmaceutical Record, issued warnings and gave advice. It was still the custom, they noted, to wrap bottles of ancient patent medicines, like Godfrey's Cordial and Turlington's Balsam, in facsimiles of the original circulars, on which were printed extravagant claims and fabulous certificates of cures that dated back some two hundred years. The new law was not going to permit the continuation of such 18th-century practices. Statements on the label "false or misleading in any particular" ...
— Old English Patent Medicines in America • George B. Griffenhagen
... the principal hotel at Mobile—viz., the "Battlehouse." The living appeared to be very good by comparison, and cost $8 a-day. In consequence of the fabulous value of boots, they must not be left outside the door of one's room, from danger of annexation by a needy and ...
— Three Months in the Southern States, April-June 1863 • Arthur J. L. (Lieut.-Col.) Fremantle
... a sudden she turned spendthrift. She appropriated I do not know what fabulous sums, to spend just as she pleased, for once. She attended bargain sales, and brought away such finery as had never graced our flat before. Home from work in the evening, after a hurried supper, she shut ...
— The Promised Land • Mary Antin
... the intricate, electronic witchery of the 21st century could not pin guilt on fabulous Lonnie Raichi, the irreproachable philanthropist. But Jason, the cop, was sweating it out ... searching for that fourth and final and all-knowing rule that would knock Lonnie's "triple ethic" ...
— Zero Data • Charles Saphro
... once—and then he had gone there with the hounds and jolly loud-voiced riders, cub-hunting, on a bright September morning. The wood symbolized everything that he wished to forget. And he thought that if he were really a rich man—not a poor little well-to-do trader, but a fabulous millionaire—he'd buy all this woodland, cut down every tree, chase away every shadow, and grow corn in the sunlight. He would buy woodland and parkland too—he would burn Aunt Petherick's hidden cottage, the Abbey ...
— The Devil's Garden • W. B. Maxwell
... disposing them to listen to her matrimonial grievances. Old people have a weakness for this kind of confidence. Madame Guillaume wanted to know the most trivial details of that alien life, which to her seemed almost fabulous. The travels of Baron da la Houtan, which she began again and again and never finished, told her nothing more unheard-of concerning ...
— At the Sign of the Cat and Racket • Honore de Balzac
... say it was going beyond their expectations, and this was not so fabulous as it might seem, for their expectations were not so high as they had been, and Godolphin was really playing the piece once or twice a week. They heard no more from him by letter, for Maxwell had decided that ...
— The Story of a Play - A Novel • W. D. Howells
... apparently valueless western land, belonging to her people, has developed fabulous ore, and they say that she is now ...
— People of the Whirlpool • Mabel Osgood Wright
... Protheus, of whom fabulous history records such wonders, was only one of their dancers, who, by the rapidity of his steps, by the strength of his expression, and by the employment of the theatrical deceptions, seemed at every instant, to change his form. The celebrated ...
— A Treatise on the Art of Dancing • Giovanni-Andrea Gallini
... whose means its possessor is enabled to enlist the aid of supernatural beings. Frequently it is a precious stone, sometimes a piece of metal or parchment, whereon is engraved a celestial symbol, such as the representation of a planet or zodiacal sign; or the picture of an animal or fabulous monster. Mystic words and occult phrases are oftentimes substituted, however, for such devices. It is essential that talismans should be prepared under suitable astrological conditions and planetary influences; otherwise they ...
— Primitive Psycho-Therapy and Quackery • Robert Means Lawrence
... with vehemence that she would never suffer these envious savages to be her companions, and that she should not soon be desirous of seeing any more specimens of rustic happiness; but could not believe that all the accounts of primeval pleasures were fabulous, and was in doubt whether life had anything that could be justly preferred to the placid gratification of fields and woods. She hoped that the time would come when, with a few virtuous and elegant companions, she should gather flowers planted by her own hands, fondle the lambs of ...
— Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia • Samuel Johnson
... house in the Avenue de St. Cloud, whither I shall send you. You will there find a young lady about to lie in." The King said nothing, and I was mute from astonishment. "You will be mistress of the house, and preside, like one of the fabulous goddesses, at the accouchement. Your presence is necessary, in order that everything may pass secretly, and according to the King's wish. You will be present at the baptism, and name the father and mother." The King began to laugh, and said, "The father ...
— Memoirs And Historical Chronicles Of The Courts Of Europe - Marguerite de Valois, Madame de Pompadour, and Catherine de Medici • Various
... convinced us that nothing of the kind existed, at all events, in this part of the country. Such ornaments or utensils as the natives seemed to possess were of the crudest description, made of wood or clay, or consisting of shells and pebbles from the seashore. The stories of fabulous wealth, therefore, to be found in this new land appeared to be myths. It was to seek for treasure that the "Endraght" had been equipped by a number of merchants at Amsterdam, of whom my master, De Decker, ...
— Adventures in Southern Seas - A Tale of the Sixteenth Century • George Forbes
... as fabulous what I had heard sailors and others relate of the valley of diamonds, and of the stratagems employed by merchants to obtain jewels from thence; but now I found that they had stated nothing but truth. For the fact is, ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 1 • Anon.
... Travellers in the ninth century; translated from the Arabic by E. Renaudot. 8vo. 1733.—The authenticity of this work is established by M. de Guignes, having found the original in the Royal Library at Paris: and the information it contains, though mixed with much that is fabulous, is very curious and valuable, especially in ...
— Robert Kerr's General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 18 • William Stevenson
... they do preserve, as in a violl, the purest efficacie and extraction of that living intellect that bred them. I know they are as lively, and as vigorously productive, as those fabulous Dragon's teeth; which being sown up and down, may chance to spring ...
— Adventures In Contentment • David Grayson
... Crab-Apple till May, 1861. I had heard of it through Michaux, but more modern botanists, so far as I know, have not treated it as of any peculiar importance. Thus it was a half-fabulous tree to me. I contemplated a pilgrimage to the "Glades," a portion of Pennsylvania where it was said to grow to perfection. I thought of sending to a nursery for it, but doubted if they had it, or would distinguish it from ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 61, November, 1862 • Various
... the merchant and Emilia drove about the City. He showed her all the great buildings, and dilated on the fabulous piles of wealth they represented, taking evident pleasure in her ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... boyhood trooped up to elbow my dreaming childhood out of existence, I fed the same hunger for the hidden and mysterious with Detective-Police stories, Captain Kidd's voyages, and wild tales of wrecks on the Spanish Main, of those vessels of fabulous wealth that strewed the deep sea's lap with gems (so the stories ran) of lustre almost rare enough to light the paths ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various
... the water brought the Chevalier out of his reverie. He leaped from the tub and shone rosily in the firelight, as elegantly proportioned a youth as ever was that fabulous ...
— The Grey Cloak • Harold MacGrath
... ancients had few if any bounds, and even Athens in the height of her intellectual glory accepted the fabulous tales of gods and half-gods. Today we read and wonder. But the child, who in his brief lifetime must live over in part at least the history of the whole race, delights in the myths and legends which made his ancestors admire or tremble. They are naturally ...
— Myths and Legends of All Nations • Various
... severe, it is luxuriantly indefinable to an unusual degree; the fringe of the forest melts away like a vignette. The tops of two or three high trees when they are leafless are so soft that they seem like the gigantic brooms of that fabulous lady who was sweeping the cobwebs off the sky. The outline of a leafy forest is in comparison hard, gross and blotchy; the clouds of night do not more certainly obscure the moon than those green and monstrous clouds obscure the tree; the actual sight of the little wood, ...
— The Defendant • G.K. Chesterton
... and cannot fail to admire the velvety softness and great elasticity of the membrane which forms its wings. It must have been from an exaggerated account of the fox-bats of the Eastern Islands that the ancients derived their ideas of the dreaded Harpies, those fabulous winged monsters sent out by the relentless Juno, and whose names are ...
— Heads and Tales • Various
... Yet it was only at intervals—in moments of intense excitement—that this peculiarity became more than slightly noticeable in Ligeia. And at such moments was her beauty—in my heated fancy thus it appeared perhaps—the beauty of beings either above or apart from the earth—the beauty of the fabulous Houri of the Turk. The hue of the orbs was the most brilliant of black, and, far over them, hung jetty lashes of great length. The brows, slightly irregular in outline, had the same tint. The "strangeness," however, which ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... the dark clouds that hung upon the Oriental heaven, as if the mantling curtains of a night's pavilion strove to repel the wooing kisses of the morn; and the cold chill breeze made the branches swing to and fro with ominous flapping, like the wings of the fabulous Simoorg. ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... earth will become far too small for the race, And we'll pay at a fabulous rate for our space." And he worried about it. "The earth will be crowded so much without doubt, There will hardly be room for one's tongue to stick out, Nor room for one's thoughts when they'd wander about." And he ...
— Successful Recitations • Various
... it is well that the child should in reasonable time be informed of these facts. It may be said in reply that history sufficiently informs children on these points. But the world of the young is the domestic circle; all beyond is fabulous, unless brought home to them by comment. The fact, therefore, of different opinions in religious matters being held by good people should sometimes be dwelt upon, instead of being shunned, if we would secure a ground-work of tolerance ...
— Friends in Council (First Series) • Sir Arthur Helps
... it were physical; yea, with what frontless insinuation he will screw himself into the acquaintance of some knowing intelligencers, who, trying the cask by his hollow sound, do familiarly gull him. I am of opinion, were all his voluminous centuries of fabulous relations compiled, they would vie in number with the Iliads of many fore-running ages. You shall many times find in his gazettas, pasquils, and corrantos miserable distractions: here a city taken by force long before it be besieged; there a country ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... mantel-shelf is not more natural than the pendulum swung in a cathedral tower, though the swing of the one is a slight and the swing of the other a great arc. Browning is a pendulum whose vibrations touch the horizons. He does business with fabulous capital and on a huge scale, and thinks, sees, serves, and loves after a colossal fashion, but is as natural in his large life as a lesser man is in his meager life. "Caliban upon Setebos" is a hint of the man's immense movement of soul and ...
— A Hero and Some Other Folks • William A. Quayle
... mankind?" I could advise it, once, for a little! Flaying of Saint Bartholomew, Rape of Europa, Rape of the Sabines, Piping and Amours of goat-footed Pan, Romulus suckled by the Wolf: all this, and much else of fabulous, distant, unimportant, not to say impossible, ugly and unworthy, shall pass without undue severity of criticism, in a Household of such opulence as ours, where much goes to waste, and where things are not on an earnest footing for this long ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Volume IV. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Friedrich's Apprenticeship, First Stage—1713-1728 • Thomas Carlyle
... street he said, "Will you take me back to Venice? Will you be my guide? Will you put faith in me? You shall be richer than ten of the richest houses in Amsterdam or London, richer than Rothschild; in short, you shall have the fabulous wealth of the ...
— Facino Cane • Honore de Balzac
... embrace tracts of hundreds of acres rising to a height of from four to six hundred feet, which, there is every reason to believe, from the explorations made, are solid iron ore. The extent of the contents of these mountains is perfectly fabulous, in fact, so enormous as almost to baffle computation. The ore, too is remarkably rich, yielding about seventy per cent. of pure metal. There are now in operation at Marquette three Iron Mining Companies, and two blast furnaces for making charcoal pig iron, the Pioneer and Meigs. The Pioneer has ...
— Old Mackinaw - The Fortress of the Lakes and its Surroundings • W. P. Strickland
... the promoters, they come to simply this: That the Agricultural Department, with no motive but to tell the truth, and with its corps of trained experts, might mislead the public, but they (the promoters) could not possibly be mistaken in their fabulous figures compiled for the purpose of getting ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association, Report of the Proceedings at the Third Annual Meeting • Northern Nut Growers Association
... the 1863 uprising of Poland against Tsarist Russia. The Poles were quashed with a violence that appalled not only Verne but all Europe. As originally conceived, Verne's Captain Nemo was a Polish nobleman whose entire family had been slaughtered by Russian troops. Nemo builds a fabulous futuristic submarine, the Nautilus, then conducts an underwater campaign of vengeance against ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne
... load for this earth! In fact, it was only because I and my chimney formed no part of his ancient burden, that that stout peddler, Atlas of old, was enabled to stand up so bravely under his pack. The dimensions given may, perhaps, seem fabulous. But, like those stones at Gilgal, which Joshua set up for a memorial of having passed over Jordan, does not my chimney remain, ...
— I and My Chimney • Herman Melville
... rocked in the awkward and rustic thing. The baby spits the "Alexandra feeding-bottle" out of its mouth, and protests against the old-fashioned cradle, giving emphasis to its utterances by throwing down a rattle that cost seven dollars, and kicking off a shoe imported at fabulous expense, and upsetting the "baby-basket," with all its treasures of ivory hair brushes and "Meen Fun." Not with voice, but by violence of gesture and kicks and squirms, it says: "What! You going to put me in that old ...
— Around The Tea-Table • T. De Witt Talmage
... was almost sorry, knowing that my day's pleasure would cost her one of anxiety. However, I gathered up hooks and lines, with some white salted pork for bait, and with a fabulous number of biscuit, split in the middle, the insides well buttered, then skilfully put together again, and all stowed in sister's large work-bag, and slung over my shoulder. I started, making a wager with Enoch White, as we walked down to the boat, as to which would catch the largest ...
— A Study Of Hawthorne • George Parsons Lathrop
... Fraser's River down to Peru the rivers all bear down treasures of a wealth perfectly inestimable. Emigration must necessarily continue to flow and increase. Gold digging is soon learned, and there will be an immense demand for every kind of labour at almost fabulous prices. ...
— Handbook to the new Gold-fields • R. M. Ballantyne
... Fabulous wealth of silver has been dug from these everlasting hills. Grim and abandoned mine-mouths, far away like black dots upon the slopes, and strange honeycombed galleries and caverns far beneath the outcropping of the lodes, have vomited rich silver ore for centuries: and the clang of miners' steel ...
— Mexico • Charles Reginald Enock
... to even touching pork, that while they will guide Americans where boar may be found, they themselves will take no part in the sport nor help carry the game home, and even when offered American prices a pound for the meat, that representing fabulous wealth to a Moro, he will not defile himself by so much as ...
— A Woman's Journey through the Philippines - On a Cable Ship that Linked Together the Strange Lands Seen En Route • Florence Kimball Russel
... his foot, lest it should have been told to the Stoics."[274] "You should keep the books of the philosophers for your Tusculan ease," he had said in the preceding chapter; and he speaks, in the same page, of "Plato's fabulous State." ...
— The Life of Cicero - Volume II. • Anthony Trollope
... Triptolemus. He gave a kind reception to Ceres, who taught his son the cultivation of the earth. Ceres (se' rez). The goddess of grains and fruits. chamois (sham' my). A small species of antelope of remarkable agility. chimera (ki me' ra). A fabulous monster in Lycia, which was slain by Bellerophon. Clio (kli' o). The muse of history. Clymene (kli me' ne). Mother of Phaeton. Clytie (kli' ti e). The maiden who was changed into a sunflower. Cupid (ku' pid). The god of love, possessing eternal ...
— Classic Myths • Retold by Mary Catherine Judd
... considerate and thoughtful kindness, for which I must ever be grateful. I can find it in my heart even to forgive the reporters who have left little of what I have said or done unnoted, and when they have failed in this, have invented fabulous histories of things which I never did and sayings which I never uttered. Sometimes when I have been questioned as to my impressions and views of America, I have been tempted to say with an Englishman who was hard pressed by his constituents with absurd solicitations: "Gentlemen, ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various
... just as eager to hate as to love. He was unbalanced in everything; he did nothing like other people, and what he did was done in superhuman dimensions. His passion for buying and collecting antiquities was proverbial and fabulous. A first-rate shot, sport was for him a question of murdering en masse, and the number of game shot by him reached hundreds of thousands. A few years before his death he shot ...
— In the World War • Count Ottokar Czernin
... that the annular eclipse of November 28, 771 B.C., might meet the circumstances of the case, but too much romance attaches to the history of Romulus for anyone to write with assurance respecting the circumstances of his career. Much of it is generally considered to be fabulous. ...
— The Story of Eclipses • George Chambers
... temple to-night of all nights in the world, when owing to these late phenomenal occurrences in the city, every one who is of repute and personal distinction will be present to assist at the Service and offer petitions to the fabulous gods that haply their supposititious indignation may be averted? My friend, if only for the sake of custom I must be there, . . moreover, I should be liable to banishment from the realm for so specially marked a ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... men slept the sleep of the weary. The fire, a great mass of red coals, faded and flushed like some fabulous jewel. The wind washed over the cabin and fingered the eaves, and brushed ...
— The Children's Book of Christmas Stories • Various
... and diversity of these may be gathered from a list of his published writings: 'The Efficacy of Digitalis Applied to Scrofula,' 'On the Carpenter Bee (Apis Centuncularis),' 'Domestic Usage and Economy in the Reign of Elizabeth,' 'A Reply to a Query on Singular Fishes,' 'The Fabulous Foundation of the Popedom' (abridged from Bernard), 'Migratory Birds of the West of England,' 'God's Arrow against Atheism and Irreligion,' 'A Dissertation on the Mermaid,' 'Observations on the Natural History of the Chameleon,' ...
— Corporal Sam and Other Stories • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... Fabulous as these stories sound, they still prove that Rhodopis must have been no ordinary woman. Some scholars would place her on a level with the beautiful and heroic Queen Nitokris, spoken of by Julius Africanus, Eusebius ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... document," resumed Sir Reginald, "it must, indeed, be so; and this misguided boy is prepared to take any desperate step in order to obtain the title and the estate. All that he has said about a will must be fabulous, as no man in his senses would risk his neck to obtain so hollow a distinction as a baronetcy—we are equally members of the class, and may speak frankly, Sir Gervaise—and the will would secure the estate, if there were one. ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... read will be much criticised. The earl of Dorset recommended this book to the perusal of sir Kenelm Digby, who returned his judgment upon it, not in a letter, but a book; in which, though mingled with some positions fabulous and uncertain, there are acute remarks, just censures, and profound speculations; yet its principal claim to admiration is, that it was written in twenty-four hours [74], of which part was spent in procuring Browne's book, ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 6 - Reviews, Political Tracts, and Lives of Eminent Persons • Samuel Johnson
... remunerative spectacular representation is what the most celebrated colonial impresario, Mr. R S. Smythe, calls a 'one-man show.' Mr. Archibald Forbes and Mr. R. A. Proctor both made fabulous sums out of their trip to the colonies; and if Arthur Sketchley failed, it was purely for want of a good agent. In Adelaide, which, as a Puritan community, looks somewhat askance at opera and drama, the popularity of good lectures ...
— Town Life in Australia - 1883 • R. E. N. (Richard) Twopeny
... way to a private sitting-room which he had secured for himself in the hotel at almost fabulous terms. It was a small apartment, but it had the advantage of a long French window which opened out into the garden. Here, on an easel, was a canvas with its ...
— Ziska - The Problem of a Wicked Soul • Marie Corelli
... too recent an origin for the great world to take much notice of it, and the fame of its fabulous wealth went hand in hand with the rumour of a sordid avarice which was not a recommendable quality in the eyes of the true gentry. The Lapussas were, in fact, not of gentle blood at all, but simply rich. Madame ...
— The Poor Plutocrats • Maurus Jokai
... examples of testaments are perhaps fabulous. At Athens a childless father only could make a will, (Plutarch, in Solone, tom. i. p. 164. ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon
... sacrifice of both. But no courtier, even the most prostitute, could go further than the parliament itself towards a resignation of their liberties. In a vote, which they called an offer of duty, after adopting the fabulous history of a hundred and eleven Scottish monarchs, they acknowledged, that all these princes, by the primary and fundamental law of the state, had been vested with a solid and absolute authority. They declared their abhorrence of all principles and positions ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part F. - From Charles II. to James II. • David Hume
... pronounce with confidence. Their falsification through family and patrician pride is well known. But the earliest historians must have possessed sufficient insight to distinguish the obviously fabulous. We cannot suspect Cato of placing implicit faith in mythical accounts. He was no friend to the aristocratic families or their records, and took care to check them by the rival records of other Italian tribes. Sempronius Asellio, in a passage already alluded to (ap. Gell. v. 18), distinguishes ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell
... time that great consternation was created in pro-slavery circles by the report that Lane had arrived at the Iowa border with a "Northern army," exaggerated into fabulous numbers, intent upon fighting his way to Kansas. Parties headed by Lane and others and aggregating some hundreds had in fact so arrived, and were more or less provided with arms, though they had no open military organization. While spies and patrols were on the lookout for ...
— Abraham Lincoln, A History, Volume 2 • John George Nicolay and John Hay
... for a poet to be vain," said the stranger. "The little worlds which he raises, the inspiration which he claims, may easily be productive of self-importance; though that inspiration is fabulous, it brings on egotism, which is always the parent ...
— The Man of Feeling • Henry Mackenzie
... monuments of a Civil War waged all over the country with ruthless religious ferocity. Spain, again, was a land which had stored up, during long centuries, nearly the whole of its accumulated possessions in every art, sacred and secular, of fabulous value, within the walls of its great fortress-like cathedrals; Napoleon's soldiers over-ran the land, and brought with them rapine and destruction; so that in many a shrine, as at Montserrat, we still can see how in a few days they ...
— The Task of Social Hygiene • Havelock Ellis
... Eagle. In Greece the Eagle was the bird of Zeus, who carried off Ganymede to be the cup-bearer of Olympus. Among the Australians this same constellation is called Totyarguil; he was a man who, when bathing, was killed by a fabulous animal, a kind of kelpie; as Orion, in Greece, was killed by the Scorpion. Like Orion, he was placed among the stars. The Australians have a constellation named Eagle, but he is our ...
— Custom and Myth • Andrew Lang
... wonderful in its way. For it contained a most beautiful pipe for the Captain, of sweet brier-wood, mounted in silver; and oh! oh! such a doll! Other children have seen such dolls, but Star never had; a blue-eyed waxen beauty, with fringed lashes that opened and shut, rose-leaf cheeks, and fabulous wealth of silky flaxen curls. Also it had a blue velvet-frock, and its underclothing was a wonder to behold; and the box was full ...
— Captain January • Laura E. Richards
... who have made the struggle for life with only animals for nurses and instructors is to recall the rearing of Cyrus in a kennel and the fabulous story of the founding of Rome. Yet Rauber has collected many cases of wild men and some of them, taken as they are from municipal chronicles and guaranteed by trustworthy writers, ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... was to exceed the deluge. Since then, and though it be but through the headlines, you and I stand witness to events that no mortal ever saw before. That night, in that room they were concocted. By comparison, what are the mythical exploits of Homer's warriors, the fabulous achievements of Charlemagne's paladins, the fading memories of Napoleon's campaigns? What are they all by comparison to a world in flames? Hugo, with his usual sobriety, said that Napoleon inconvenienced God. ...
— The Paliser case • Edgar Saltus
... several spoonfuls of this greenish confection, which, at first, seemed to be flavored with honey and pistachio. I had dressed myself—for Granson is one of those obstinate idiots that one is compelled to yield to in order to get rid of—in an Anatolian costume of fabulous richness, my friend insisting that when one ascends to Paradise he should not be annoyed by the ...
— The Cross of Berny • Emile de Girardin
... 1350) as the Catalan voyage is the Book of the Spanish Friar, "of the voyage south to the River of Gold," which gives a more than half fabulous story of travel, first by sea beyond Capes Non and Bojador, then by land across the heart of Africa to the Mountains of the Moon, the city of Melli, where dwelt Prester John, and "the Euphrates, which comes from the terrestrial Paradise," ...
— Prince Henry the Navigator, the Hero of Portugal and of Modern Discovery, 1394-1460 A.D. • C. Raymond Beazley
... models with pale faces and short fabulous hair surrounding a celebrated figure-painter who was said to have seven wives named after the days of the week, and there were soldiers who looked like poets and artists who looked like soldiers. A sculptor who had discovered the secret of making ugliness out of beauty ...
— The Orchard of Tears • Sax Rohmer
... besides the islands, the vast territories of Mexico and Central America and the whole of the western portion of South America. In extent it considerably surpassed that of Europe, and its natural wealth, had it been properly administered, would have been fabulous. The Spaniards, however, thought but of two things: one was to force the natives to embrace their religion, the other to wring all they possessed from them. The first caused the death of great numbers of the Indians; the second brought about the virtual ...
— With Cochrane the Dauntless • George Alfred Henty
... mimic, and after a year or two he found it to his advantage to compete with the actors in a fashion of his own. He was the inventor of the modern English form of pantomime, with a serious part that he took from Ovid's Metamorphosis or any fabulous history, and a comic addition of the courtship of harlequin and columbine, with surprising tricks and transformations. He introduced the old Italian characters of pantomime under changed conditions, and ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson
... ground sacred in some sense, but now desecrated by traditionary falsehoods. Every action of our Saviour's passion has its spot assigned to it; of every noted word the locale is given. When once you are again within the walls, all is again unbelievable, fabulous, miraculous; nay, all but blasphemous. Some will say quite so. But, nevertheless, in passing by this way, should you, O reader! ever make such passage, forget not to mount to the top of Pilate's house. It is now a Turkish barrack; whether it ever were ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... no doubt, many fabulous myths floating about concerning this illustrious man; and his biographer, Captain Jesse, seems anxious to defend him from the absurd stories of French writers, who asserted that he employed two glovers to covers his hands, to one of whom were intrusted the thumbs, to the other the fingers ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 2 • Grace & Philip Wharton
... item without signal amazement; it was evident that she was prepared to credit any vagaries to the possessors of Pompey Hollidew's fabulous legacy. ...
— Mountain Blood - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... being carried from the streets in garbage wagons. In every direction hysterical women were seen. Men walked through the streets, weeping, and others wore blanched faces. Transfer men were being offered fabulous sums to remove household goods, even for a block distant. Horses had been turned loose and were running at large to prevent their being incinerated in the burning buildings. Women had loaded their personal belongings on carts and were pulling them through ...
— Complete Story of the San Francisco Horror • Richard Linthicum
... had heard Mr. Garrison oftenest, and had known him longest, were astonished. It was an effort of unequaled power, sweeping down, like a very tornado, every opposing barrier, whether of sentiment or opinion. For a moment, he possessed that almost fabulous inspiration, often referred to but seldom attained, in which a public meeting is transformed, as it were, into a single individuality—the orator wielding a thousand heads and hearts at once, and by the simple majesty of his all controlling thought, converting ...
— My Bondage and My Freedom • Frederick Douglass
... times, being left in a mythical garb to succeeding generations, that these (the heavenly bodies) are gods, and that the Divinity encompasses the whole of nature. There have been made, however, to these certain fabulous additions for the purpose of winning the belief of the multitude, and thus securing their obedience to the laws, and their co-operation towards advancing the general welfare of the state. These additions have been to the effect that these gods were of the same form as men, and even that some of ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... From the Hidden Way, published in 1916. Here Cabell, even in his most natural role, declines to show his face and amuses himself with a new set of masks labelled Alessandro de Medici, Antoine Riczi, Nicolas de Caen, Theodore Passerat and other fabulous minnesingers whose verses were created only in the mind of Cabell. It has pleased him to confuse others besides the erudite reviewer of the Boston Transcript by quoting the first lines of the non-existent originals in Latin, Italian, Provencal—thus making his skilful ...
— Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell
... duck; their colouring, too, seemed strangely brilliant. Then they remembered the neighbouring Zoo, with its ornamental ponds covered with rare imported and exotic waterfowl, and they realised what they had done. It is quite possible that they had killed some unique specimens, imported at fabulous cost from Central Africa, or from the heart of the Australian continent, some priceless bird that was the apple of the eye of the Curator of the Gardens, so we buried the episode and the birds, ...
— The Days Before Yesterday • Lord Frederick Hamilton
... Scalds and Mythologists often represented treasures as guarded by monsters, dragons, sea snakes, &c. This notion probably originated from the fabulous tales of those who traded to the Indies. An ancient author, speaking of Scythia, says, "nam qvum in plerisque locis auro & gemmis affluant, Gryphorum immanitate, ...
— The Norwegian account of Haco's expedition against Scotland, A.D. MCCLXIII. • Sturla oretharson
... eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth century, in various parts of the continent of Europe. These, and other historical characters have, in part, taken the place of the giants and bogies of old, some of whom, however, linger, even yet, in the highest civilizations, together with fabulous animals (reminiscent of stern reality in primitive times), with which, less seriously than in the lands of the eastern world, childhood is threatened and ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain
... Joaquin, Maxime has often heard of the fabulous wealth and power of this inland chieftain. Don Miguel Peralta is Commandante of the San Joaquin. By a fortunate marriage he is related to Jose Castro, the warlike Commandante general of Pio Pico—a man of mark now. Thousands of cattle and horses, with great armies of sheep, are herded by his ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage
... otter-skin developed the property of stretching itself to a fabulous size, no ordinary treasure could suffice to cover it, and the plight of the gods, therefore, was a very bad one. The case, however, became a little more hopeful when Hreidmar consented to liberate one of their number. The emissary selected ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber
... met with some curious adventures there, and Poe himself certainly alleged that such was the case. Numbers of mythical stories have been invented to account for this chasm in the poet's life, and most of them self-evidently fabulous. In a recent biography of Poe an attempt had been made to prove that he enlisted in the army under an assumed name, and served for about eighteen months in the artillery in a highly creditable manner, receiving an honorable discharge at the instance of Mr. Allan. This account is plausible, ...
— Edgar Allan Poe's Complete Poetical Works • Edgar Allan Poe
... Some of the mountains here mentioned are fabulous and others it is impossible to identify. Sugriva means to include all the mountains of India from Kailas the residence of the God Kuvera, regarded as one of the loftiest peaks of the Himalayas, to Mahendra in the extreme south, from the mountain in the east where the sun is said to ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... five-and-thirty compositions, that the most scrupulous amongst the various religious sects in this country, about admitting pictures into churches, must acknowledge them as truths, or the Scriptures fabulous. Those are subjects so replete with dignity, character, and expression, as demanded the historian, the commentator, and the accomplished painter, to bring them into view. Your Majesty's gracious complacency and commands ...
— The Life, Studies, And Works Of Benjamin West, Esq. • John Galt
... see! I see! The toasted cheese smells stronger, and there's a distinct suggestion of the Rhine about it this time. There's something decidedly German about that fabulous 'monster' and that haunted Chateau, Miss Lorne. They are clever and careful schemers, those German Johnnies. Of course, this amazing 'Red Crawl' was proved to have an absolute foundation in fact, and equally, of course, it 'appeared' to ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew
... being called the historian of the Resurrection. (This title he probably obtained from his gospel being used on Easter Day.) The reason why the lion is taken as a symbol of the Resurrection is to be found in the fabulous history of the animal; according to which the whelp is born dead, and only receives life at the expiration of three days, on being breathed on by its father.—What are the reasons assigned for ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 24. Saturday, April 13. 1850 • Various
... After a discussion of the creation of the world and a description of the earth, an account of the wonderful journeys of Aethicus is given, with digressions on various subjects, such as Alexander the Great and the kings of Rome, full of obscure and fabulous ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... the probable author of the Phoenix, which is in part an adaptation of an old Latin poem. The Phoenix is the only Saxon poem that gives us the rich scenery of the South, in place of the stern northern landscape. He thus describes the land where this fabulous bird dwells:— ...
— Halleck's New English Literature • Reuben P. Halleck
... Unbending uniformity is death! Let us be various and individual as life itself is. . . . Away with dry Rationalism! Let us fight it with all the powers we possess; whether by bold Platonism or simple Bible faith; whether by enthusiastic hymns, or dreamy fairy tales; whether by the fabulous world of distant times and zones, or by the instincts of the children in the next village. Let us abjure the ever-recommended nostrum of imitation of the old masters in poetry, and rather attach ourselves to homely models, and endeavour, with their help, lovingly ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... the creature has been named) is a fabulous bird, 'the chief of the 360 classes of the winged tribes.' It is mentioned in the fourth Book of the second Part of the Shu, as appearing in the courtyard of Shun; and the appearance of a pair of them has always been understood to denote a sage on the throne ...
— The Shih King • James Legge
... revised and completed at future leisure. It appeared to me that its true course and character had never been fully illustrated. The world had received a strangely perverted idea of it through Florian's romance of "Gonsalvo of Cordova," or through the legend, equally fabulous, entitled "The Civil Wars of Granada," by Ginez Perez de la Hita, the pretended work of an Arabian contemporary, but in reality a Spanish fabrication. It had been woven over with love-tales and scenes of sentimental gallantry totally opposite to its ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving
... deals with the earlier portion of this period, necessarily derives its material from traditionary legends, more or less credible, as the case may be. These recount the marvelous exploits—not unfrequently manifestly fabulous—of their rude heroes; their deeds of might, their noble enterprises, their indomitable courage, their persistent activity, and often their deeds of ...
— Woman: Man's Equal • Thomas Webster
... movement continually accelerated of England and France, were it less stealthy and inaudible than it is, would fix, in every stage, the attention of the inattentive and the anxieties of the careless. Like the fabulous music of the spheres, once allowed to break sonorously upon the human ear, it would render us deaf to all other sounds. Heard or not heard, however, marked or not marked, the rate of our advance is more and more portentous. Old ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXVI. October, 1843. Vol. LIV. • Various
... agreeable for him to listen to the tales of old Anton. As a rule, Lavretzky would seat himself with a pipe of tobacco and a cup of cold tea near the window; Anton would stand near the door, with his hands clasped behind him, and begin his leisurely stories of olden times,—of those fabulous times—when the oats and barley were sold not by measures but by huge sacks, at two or three kopeks the sack; when in all directions, even close to the town, stretched impenetrable forests, untouched steppes. "And now," wailed the old man, who was already over eighty years of age:—"they have ...
— A Nobleman's Nest • Ivan Turgenieff
... ground to pieces in the process, not one being left as big as a pin's head. The effect in the sunlight, when this sand is wet with the waves, is something dazzling, and proves that the accounts of my favourite Sindbad are not so fabulous as we prosaic mortals try to make out. The island must be rich in gems, for they seem to be picked up with hardly any trouble. At Neuera-ellia it is a favourite amusement for picnic parties to go out gem-hunting, and frequently they meet with very large ...
— A Voyage in the 'Sunbeam' • Annie Allnut Brassey
... of money-lenders who yearned to advance fabulous sums to the nobility and gentry on their simple notes ...
— Red Masquerade • Louis Joseph Vance
... the Mediterranean Sea with the Sea of Marmora was originally called the Hellespont, from the fabulous legend of a young lady, named Helle, falling into it in attempting to escape from a cruel mother-in-law. At the mouth of the Hellespont there are four strong Turkish forts, two on the European and two on the Asiatic side. ...
— The Empire of Russia • John S. C. Abbott
... a blazing torch, on its left stood a dog that barked continually; its head was covered with a brass basin, apparently meant to represent the barber helmet of the knight of La Mancha. From the shoulders of the figure protruded a pair of dusky wings, not unlike those with which griffins and other fabulous monsters are represented in old books of heraldry; its back was terminated by the tail of the coyote, or Mexican wolf; while the claws with which it seemed digging into the very bowels of the Torso, were those of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 57, No. 352, February 1845 • Various
... the magnificent temple, palace, city and hill; and the manifold streams of goodly navigable rivers, which as so many chains environed the same site and temple; and the several degrees of ascent, whereby men did climb up to the same, as if it had been a Scala Coeli; be all poetical and fabulous; yet so much is true, that the said country of Atlantis, as well that of Peru, then called Coya, as that of Mexico, then named Tyrambel, were mighty and proud kingdoms, in arms, shipping, and riches; so mighty, as at one time, or at least within the space of ten years, they both made two great ...
— Ideal Commonwealths • Various
... under Miss Peecher's tuition were half a year ahead of every other letter in the alphabet. And Mental Arithmetic, administered by Miss Peecher, often devoted itself to providing Bradley Headstone with a wardrobe of fabulous extent: fourscore and four neck-ties at two and ninepence-halfpenny, two gross of silver watches at four pounds fifteen and sixpence, seventy-four black hats at eighteen shillings; ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... of the senate and a Daily News was published in Rome, we find that one of the most celebrated speeches in Tacitus (that in which the Emperor Claudius gives the Gauls their freedom) is shown, by an inscription discovered recently at Lugdunum, to be entirely fabulous. ...
— Miscellanies • Oscar Wilde
... but merely appear unexpectedly by reason of the speed of their movements: and because they were seen unexpectedly in various places, they got the name of Sparti,[106] and were believed to have sprung from the ground, antiquity exaggerating their renown in a fabulous manner, as it does that ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus
... each with the matches. H. filled a tight tin case apiece with powder for Max and himself and sold the rest, as we could not carry any more on such a trip. Those who did not hear of this in time offered fabulous prices afterward for a single pound. But money has not its old attractions. Our preparations were delayed by Aunt Judy falling sick of ...
— Famous Adventures And Prison Escapes of the Civil War • Various
... the British case every consideration was put forward by the clever men who represented it, to magnify the concession made to the United States. They dwelt at great length upon the thousands of miles of coast thrown open to Americans; upon the fabulous wealth of the fisheries, where every one caught had, like the fish of the miracle in Scripture, a bit of money in its mouth; upon the fact that the chief resource and variety of fishing lay within the three-mile limit. They managed to obscure the real issue by great masses of confused ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... mortgage financier, and he scanned each new addition to his already extensive collection with all the elaborate care which a matcher of precious stones might have exercised in the assembling of a fabulous priced string of pearls. It was his practice to scrutinize each transaction from every possible angle, in every degree of light and shade, but in his eagerness that morning he forgot to don for Denny the air of gracious understanding that was half paternal, half deprecating, ...
— Once to Every Man • Larry Evans
... central positions in a score of cities it was discharged continuously, covering these centers with an impenetrable pall of night that no light would penetrate. Only by the glow of radium paint, which commanded fabulous prices, could official business be transacted, and that only to a ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, October, 1930 • Various
... new arrivals at our "diggings" was a Mexican, who had followed the profession of a medico in former times, but who was now an inveterate gold hunter; one of the sort who are perpetually on the move from place to place, seeking placers of fabulous richness, but never working any claim long enough to fairly develop it. Perhaps they have no sooner commenced operations in one place, when a rumor comes of rich finds at some far distant point, and off they go, to repeat the same ...
— Seven and Nine years Among the Camanches and Apaches - An Autobiography • Edwin Eastman
... like clouds over mountains; and from the romance of real life to the idlest fiction, the transition seemed easy.—Shakspeare, as well as others of his time, availed himself of the old Chronicles, and of the traditions or fabulous inventions contained in them in such ample measure, and which had not yet been appropriated to the purposes of poetry or the drama. The stage was a new thing; and those who had to supply its demands laid their ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... your early representations been attended to and produced their proper effect, you would probably not have to boast of the most brilliant success, with the most inadequate means, which history records. There is something so fabulous in the report of a handful of troops, supported by a few raw militia, leaving their strong post to invade an enemy of double numbers in his own fortress, and making them all prisoners without the loss of a man, that, although your report may be sanctioned by Sir George Prevost, it seems to me that ...
— The Life and Correspondence of Sir Isaac Brock • Ferdinand Brock Tupper
... L20,000 a year with the greatest ease. What my income was is of no consequence to any one; suffice it to say that no expectations of mine ever came up to its amount, and even now when I look back it seems absolutely fabulous. I will say no more, notwithstanding the curiosity it has excited amongst the ...
— The Reminiscences Of Sir Henry Hawkins (Baron Brampton) • Henry Hawkins Brampton
... shifts in this story, from the free life of the cattle range, and the wide expanse of the boundless prairie, to that rugged mountainous section of Arizona, where many fabulous fortunes have been won through the discovery of rich ore. The Broncho Rider Boys find themselves impelled, by a stern sense of duty, to make a brave fight against heavy odds, in order to retain possession ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... the Idylls of the King is designedly vague. The region of Lyonnesse was supposed to be adjacent to Cornwall, and the sea now covers it. The Scilly Islands are held to have been the western limit of this fabulous country. ...
— Selections from Wordsworth and Tennyson • William Wordsworth and Alfred Lord Tennyson
... Ah, I see. More of the iron pyrites. The metal has driven many a poor fellow mad with anticipations of fabulous wealth," ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in the Rockies • Frank Gee Patchin
... of other stocks was the lion, bear, frog, or what not. Garcilasso accounts for the belief accorded to the Incas, when they claimed actual descent from the sun, by observing(8) that "there were tribes among their subjects who professed similar fabulous descents, though they did not comprehend how to select ancestors so well as the Incas, but adored animals and other low and earthly objects". As to the fact of the Peruvian worship of beasts, if more evidence ...
— Myth, Ritual, and Religion, Vol. 1 • Andrew Lang
... Historical theory; according to which all the persons mentioned in mythology were once real human beings, and the legends and fabulous traditions relating to them are merely the additions and embellishments of later times. Thus the story of AEolus, the king and god of the winds, is supposed to have risen from the fact that AEolus was the ruler of some islands in the Tyrrhenian Sea, where he reigned as a just ...
— TITLE • AUTHOR
... but the necessary advances of civilization, that are unfavourable to the spirit of poetry. We not only stand in less awe of the preternatural world, but we can calculate more surely, and look with more indifference, upon the regular routine of this. The heroes of the fabulous ages rid the world of monsters and giants. At present we are less exposed to the vicissitudes of good or evil, to the incursions of wild beasts or "bandit fierce", or to the unmitigated fury of the elements. ...
— English literary criticism • Various
... Cumberland Island, where father and I went last summer for a short vacation. One day, leaving the group of happy bathers to their surf, I climbed up inland among the sand-hills, that lie along the shore like the white pillows of fabulous sea-gods. Presently I came upon one of those great sand-pits that stretch along the Island, deep and wide like mighty graves. Far below me a whole forest stood in ghostly silence, with every whitening limb lifted in supplication, as if all had died in a terrified struggle ...
— The Jessica Letters: An Editor's Romance • Paul Elmer More
... beautiful, she had grave moods, she was wearing his fabulous bracelet—if only not to offend him. But when he returned, he met two of the girls who had come out to Mars with her—a nurse and another lab technician. They were the bubbly type, full of bravado and giggles for their strange, new surroundings. ...
— The Planet Strappers • Raymond Zinke Gallun
... thousand taels was a huge fortune which only one or two of the wealthiest men of the State could have afforded to give. The boisterous mirth, however, which convulsed the crowd when they heard the fabulous sums asked by these strangers for their articles, soon became hushed when the latter proceeded to explain that the sums demanded were purposely prohibitive, in order that the sacred vestments should not fall into the hands of anyone who was unworthy ...
— Chinese Folk-Lore Tales • J. Macgowan
... several objects as having descended from the skies, the gifts of the immortal gods. Such was the Palladium of Troy, the image of the goddess of Ephesus, and the sacred shield of Numa. The folly of the ancients in believing such narrations has often been the subject of remark; but, however fabulous the particular cases referred to, the moderns have been compelled to renounce their skepticism respecting the fact itself, of the actual transition of substances from celestial space to terrestrial regions; and no doubt the ancient faith upon ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... the Young Duke of Blueblood and the Daughter of the Clothes-pin King. Millions of the Higgleses to Repair the Duke's Shattered Fortunes.' Git me? 'Wedding of the Bearded Lady and the Dog-faced Man. Sunday Afternoon at Hockley's Popular Musee. No Extra Charge for Admission. Fabulous Quantity of Human Hair on Exhibition At the Same Instant. Hirsute Wonders To Tour the Country at Enormous Expense.' Git me? Same thing. Love? Ha, ha! Not so! There's no more love in that," Mr. Poddle concluded, ...
— The Mother • Norman Duncan
... lunations, as the Mayas, who divided their civil year into eighteen months, of twenty days, that they called U—moon—to which they added five supplementary days, that they considered unlucky. From an epoch so ancient that it is referred to the fabulous time of their history, the Egyptians adopted the solar year, dividing it into twelve months, of thirty days, to which they added, at the end of the last month, called ...
— Vestiges of the Mayas • Augustus Le Plongeon
... ubiquitous,' 'the charitable riche.' Of his 'forthcoming impersonation of Romeo and Juliet' there were constant puffs, quite in the modern manner. The accounts of his debut all showed that Mr. Pryse Gordon's account of it was fabulous. In one paper there was a bitter attack on 'Mr. Gordon, who was responsible for this insult to Thespian art, the gentry, and the people, for he first arranged the whole production'—an extract which makes ...
— The Works of Max Beerbohm • Max Beerbohm
... altogether unlike his own visions of Babylonia. This authoress was "Ouida." Ouida lived largely in a world of her own creation, peopled with foreign princesses, mysterious dukes—masters of untold millions, and of fabulous English guardsmen whose bedrooms in Knightsbridge Barracks were inlaid with silver and tortoise shell. And yet such was her genius that she invested this phantom world with a certain semblance of life, and very often with a certain poetry also. In some respects she was even more striking than ...
— Memoirs of Life and Literature • W. H. Mallock
... sunshine of her fancied love for Le Gardeur had come a day of eclipse for him, of fresh glory for her. The arrival of the new Intendant, Bigot, changed the current of Angelique's ambition. His high rank, his fabulous wealth, his connections with the court, and his unmarried state, fanned into a flame the secret aspirations of the proud, ambitious girl. His wit and gallantry captivated her fancy, and her vanity was full fed by being singled out as the special object ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... handed over to me, and I saw the bridge and gave the two francs, and all was well. But it gave me no renown in Venice, for the Consul and all my friends regarded it as a fabulous joke of mine, inspired by poetic genius. But I sometimes think that the official who yielded up the keys, and the man whom he sent with me, and perhaps the commissionaire, all had a put-up job of it among them on those keys, ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland
... sidereal system. The contemplation of a million stupefies: consider the figures of millions and millions! Articles were written on Lombard Street, the world's gold-mine, our granary of energy, surpassing all actual and fabulous gold-mines ever spoken of: Aladdin's magician would find his purse contracting and squeaking in the comparison. Then, too, the store of jewels held by certain private families called for remark and an allusion to Sindbad the ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... struggle—who fight with sun and enemy—who pass years of long exile and gallant endurance in the service of our empire in India. Agency houses after agency houses have been established, and have flourished in splendour and magnificence, and have paid fabulous dividends—and have enormously enriched two or three wary speculators—and then have burst in bankruptcy, involving widows, orphans, and countless simple people who trusted their all to the ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... in these days right as to the Licinian Rogation, and Livy's myths? Every school-boy knew that Livy lied; but the main story was clear enough for all the purposes of experience; and, that being so, the more fabulous and entertaining the subsidiary matter is the better. Tell Thackeray not to go into ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald - in two volumes, Vol. 1 • Edward FitzGerald
... foretold, with audible voice, the place and manner of Alexander's death. It figures in all the fabulous legends of Alexander. ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... ducat or gold-dropper which has probably been attenuated from a superstition to a joke, and around it are gathered such expressions as "he has gold like muck," "he must have a gold dropper at his house"; then the description of bloody hemorrhoids as golden veins; the fabulous animals that produce as excrement gold and precious things. Here belong also the golden ass [K. H. M., No. 36], which at the word "Bricklebrit" begins "to spew gold from before and behind," or [Pentam., No. 1], at the command, "arre cacaure," gives forth gold, ...
— Hidden Symbolism of Alchemy and the Occult Arts • Herbert Silberer
... and happy days for Wagner. "I, who had hitherto been lonely, deserted, homeless," he wrote, "suddenly found myself loved, admired, by many even regarded with wonderment." "Rienzi" was repeated a number of times to overcrowded houses, though the prices had been put up. It was regarded as "a fabulous success," and the management was eager to follow it up with another. So the score of "The Flying Dutchman" was demanded of Berlin (where they seemed in no hurry to use it), and at once put into rehearsal. It was produced in Dresden on January 2, 1843, only about ten weeks ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIV • John Lord
... Fabulous relations are given in connection with the career of Cromwell. We are told he was in league with the devil, to whom he sold himself for a brief period of power among a people whom he ruled with a rod of iron, and trampled their rulers under his feet. That ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... but cannot put my finger on the author; the idea pleased me and I have turned this fabulous history into a ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. II • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... a middle-aged widow had been hired, at a fabulous price, to come and do the most of the work for them, thus releasing Flaxen from the weight of the hard work, which perhaps was all the worse for her. Hard work might have prevented the unbearable, sleepless pain within. She ...
— A Little Norsk; Or, Ol' Pap's Flaxen • Hamlin Garland
... that and our shore roared diffuse Abysmal seas and fabulous hurricanes Which, thought on, blanched the faces of the bold; For the dread secret of the heavens was then The Western world. Yet on the Italian coasts A boy grew into manhood, in whose soul The instinct of the unknown continent ...
— Modern Italian Poets • W. D. Howells
... were ugly whispers current with respect to the sources of his fabulous wealth. Lanyard, for one, wouldn't have thought him the properest company or the best Parisian cicerone for an ailing American gentleman blessed with independent means and ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance
... this subordinate minister of justice, 'get to the office while there's a magistrate sitting. I shall want you to come along with us, Mr Brass, and the—' he looked at Miss Sally as if in some doubt whether she might not be a griffin or other fabulous monster. ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... valuable collection of books in Northern literature, with which Johnson was often very busy. One day Mr. Wise read to us a dissertation which he was preparing for the press, intitled, "A History and Chronology of the fabulous Ages." Some old divinities of Thrace, related to the Titans, and called the CABIRI, made a very important part of the theory of this piece; and in conversation afterwards, Mr. Wise talked much of his CABIRI. As we returned to Oxford in the evening, ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... raising of Lazarus will be only a similar glorification of a commonplace feat of artificial respiration, whilst others will scoff at it as a planned imposture in which Lazarus acted as a confederate. Between the rejection of the stories as wholly fabulous and the acceptance of them as the evangelists themselves meant them to be accepted, there will be many shades of belief and disbelief, of sympathy and derision. It is not a question of being a Christian or not. A Mahometan Arab ...
— Preface to Androcles and the Lion - On the Prospects of Christianity • George Bernard Shaw
... of me, my thought your thought, and your heart mine—A murmur has just escaped your lips as though it were a soft reply. Be calm and beautiful forever as you are now! Ah! would that I possessed that fabulous fairy power which, with a wand, could make you sleep while I am absent, until, returning, I should wake ...
— The Marriage Contract • Honore de Balzac
... The expressions by means of which Charles is made to point with unmistakable clearness to a contemplated massacre,[878] of which, however the case may stand with respect to his mother, it is all but certain that he had at this time no idea, can only be regarded as fabulous additions of which the earliest disseminators of the story were altogether ignorant. The fact that the cardinal legate's rejection of the ring was publicly known[879] seems to be a sufficient proof that it was offered simply as a pledge of the king's ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird
... search has been scientifically tested and thought to contain gold. They adhere to the miner's adage, "Gold is where you find it"; and they seem to have some occult power of divination for they have uncovered fabulous fortunes in regions which, like Cripple Creek, had been declared "barren of gold." Yet, as the old settlers say, "Prospectors never get anything out of their finds." Having struck it rich, they take to the trail again, ...
— A Mountain Boyhood • Joe Mills |
