"Ormolu" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... sanctorum, a smallish room in a wing of the house all hung in black damask, with black velvet rugs and ebony chairs. Marcia's blonde, you know, and gets her effects daringly. I must admit that she looked dazzling, like a bit of Meissen or Sevres in an ormolu cabinet. She was lolling on a black divan smoking a cigarette and put out her slim fingers languidly. That's her pose—condescension mixed with sudden spasms of intense interest. She extended her fingers to be ...
— Paradise Garden - The Satirical Narrative of a Great Experiment • George Gibbs
... street parade. It was the annual turnout of Good Hope Lodge, No. 72, of the Patriotic Order of American Rosicrucians. The cured patient, marching as Supreme Worthy Archon, wore a lavender baldric, a pea-green sash, an aluminum helmet and scarlet gauntlets, and carried an ormolu sword and the blue polka-dot ...
— A Book of Burlesques • H. L. Mencken
... she said, "and my triumph will be complete. I will have won Rex." The little ormolu clock on the mantel chimed the hour of five. "Heavens!" she cried to herself, "Rex has been gone over two hours. I feel my heart must ...
— Daisy Brooks - A Perilous Love • Laura Jean Libbey
... the holy names of Thunder and Beauty," cried Phineas, throwing out one hand to an ancient saddle-bag sofa whose ends were covered by flimsy rags, and the other to the decayed ormolu clock on the mantelpiece, "what in the name of common sense are you doing ...
— The Rough Road • William John Locke
... blue-gray eyes were apt to confirm them. David Kent's letter was hidden in the folds of her loose-waisted morning gown, and she fancied it stirred like a thing alive to remind her of its message. Ormsby was looking past her to the old-fashioned ormolu clock on the high mantel, comparing the time with his watch, but he was not oblivious of the ...
— The Grafters • Francis Lynde
... had come, till Lady Narborough, looking at the great ormolu gilt clock that sprawled in gaudy curves on the mauve-draped mantel-shelf, exclaimed: "How horrid of Henry Wotton to be so late! I sent round to him this morning on chance, and he promised faithfully not to ...
— The Picture of Dorian Gray • Oscar Wilde
... was a beautiful alcove with two secret outlets; on the right, an elegant dressing-room, on the left, a boudoir which seemed to have been arranged by the mother of Love, with a bath in Carrara marble. Everywhere the wainscots were embossed in ormolu or ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... strange plainness; calls many things by their mere dictionary names. To him the Upholsterer is no Pontiff, neither is any Drawing-room a Temple, were it never so begilt and overhung: "a whole immensity of Brussels carpets, and pier-glasses, and ormolu," as he himself expresses it, "cannot hide from me that such Drawing-room is simply a section of Infinite Space, where so many God-created Souls do for the time meet together." To Teufelsdrockh the highest Duchess ...
— Sartor Resartus - The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdrockh • Thomas Carlyle
... mantel-piece of black marble veined with yellow was supported by fluted columns; on it were two blown-glass vases of decalcomania decoration, then two gilt lustres with prisms, then two hand-screens of woolwork, and in the middle an ormolu clock—"Iphigenia in Aulis"—under a glass shade. In the recess at one side of the fireplace was a tall bookcase with closed doors, but a claw-footed sofa stood out from the wall at an angle that prevented any access to the books. "I can't read Stuffed Animal books," Helena ...
— The Awakening of Helena Richie • Margaret Deland
... of the saloon, and enter Mrs. Martha's own special dressing-room. This was a charming apartment, of which it would be difficult to describe the form, it had so many recesses which were filled up with shelves of ebony and cabinets of japan and ormolu—some for holding books, of which Mrs. Martha had an admirable collection, some for a display of ornamental china, others for shells and similar curiosities. In a little niche, half screened by a curtain of crimson silk, was disposed a suit of tilting armour of bright steel inlaid ...
— Chronicles of the Canongate • Sir Walter Scott
... satin, with the poor shoulders exposed just as much as ever. She had mounted a tawdry cap, which Haggarty himself must have selected for her. She had all sorts of necklaces, bracelets, and earrings in gold, in garnets, in mother-of-pearl, in ormolu. She brought in a furious savour of musk, which drove the odours of onions and turf-smoke before it; and she waved across her wretched angular mean scarred features an old cambric handkerchief ...
— Men's Wives • William Makepeace Thackeray
... it confessed a compilation of "pieces" very carefully authenticated. Some of them were rather splendid "pieces"; three big bureaus burly and brassy dominated it; there was a Queen Anne cabinet, some exquisite coloured engravings, an ormolu mirror and a couple of large French vases that set Miss Sharsper, who had a keen eye for this traffic, confusedly cataloguing. And a little incongruously in the midst of this exhibit, stood Lady Harman, as if she was trying to conceal the fact that she too was a visitor, in a creamy white dress and ...
— The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... be found sitting in an immense bedroom with beautiful furniture by Jacob Desmalters, of mahogany finished in the Empire style with ormolu, which looks even less inviting than the brass-work of Louis XVI.! It gave one a shiver to see this lonely woman sitting on a Roman chair, a work-table with sphinxes before her, colorless, affecting false cheerfulness, but preserving her imperial air, as she had preserved the blue velvet ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... hidden sunlight, threw a mild illumination into the Hoddon Grey dining-room, upon the sparely provided breakfast-table, the somewhat austere line of family portraits on the gray wall, the Chippendale chairs shining with the hand-polish of generations, the Empire clock of black and ormolu on the chimney-piece and on the little tan spitz, sitting up with wagging tail and asking eyes, on Lady William's left. Neither she nor her husband ever took more than—or anything else than—an egg with their coffee and toast. They ...
— The Coryston Family • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... elegant uncomfortableness characteristic of our French neighbors. Here were floors shiny and carpetless; windows that objected to open, and drawers that refused to shut; mirrors all round the walls a set of hanging shelves; an ormolu time piece that struck all kinds of miscellaneous hours at unexpected times; an abundance of vases filled with faded artificial flowers; insecure chairs of white and gold; and a round table that had a way of turning over suddenly like a table in a pantomime, ...
— In the Days of My Youth • Amelia Ann Blandford Edwards
... decanters stoppered with gilt, gave place to port. An epergne of glass and burnished ormolu, in the form of supporting oak leaves, with numerous sockets for candles, was set, filled with fruit, in the centre of the table; silver lustre plates were laid; but Jasper Penny heedlessly fingered the stem of a wine glass. He said suddenly, "I'm ...
— The Three Black Pennys - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... While the little ormolu clock on the dressing-case was whirring softly and chiming the hour she stared at the money-block as if the sight of it had fascinated her. Then she sprang up and flew to the door, not to escape, but to turn the key noiselessly in ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde
... admired the Jacobean sideboard and the Jacobean arm-chairs and the Hepplewhite wall-chairs and the Sheraton settee and the Chippendale stands and the Axminster carpet and the bronze clock with Shakespeare and Ariosto reclining on it—yes, she even admired Shakespeare on the clock—and the ormolu cabinet and the bead-work foot-stools and the dreadful Sevres dish with a cherub in it and—but why enumerate. She admired everything! And Dr. Mitchell's heart expanded in his bosom till he felt it would burst, unless he either fell at ...
— The Lost Girl • D. H. Lawrence
... medieval and oriental weapons, dinner gong, alabaster lamp, bowl pendant, vulcanite automatic telephone receiver with adjacent directory, handtufted Axminster carpet with cream ground and trellis border, loo table with pillar and claw legs, hearth with massive firebrasses and ormolu mantel chronometer clock, guaranteed timekeeper with cathedral chime, barometer with hygrographic chart, comfortable lounge settees and corner fitments, upholstered in ruby plush with good springing and sunk centre, three banner Japanese screen and cuspidors (club style, rich winecoloured ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... boudoir was certainly the most luxurious apartment of its sort into which Saton had ever been admitted. There were great bowls of red roses upon the small ormolu table and on the mantelpiece. Several exquisite etchings hung upon the lavender walls. The furniture was all French. Every available space seemed occupied with costly knick-knacks and curios. Photographs of beautiful women, men ...
— The Moving Finger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... pictures, statues, ornaments heaped in wild confusion, crowds of people, in every variety of strange dishabille, gathered round; two long lines of them handing bucket after bucket, with machine-like regularity, from the fountain; others removing the furniture from the terrace; cushions, ormolu, fine china, handed out of the lower windows; the whole seen by the wild lurid light that flashed from the windows above, strangely illuminating the quiet green trees, and bringing out every tiny leaf and spray by its fierce brilliancy, that confused every accustomed shadow, while ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... and preparation in the selection of wedding gifts. In opulent families each has sometimes given the young couple a silver dinner service and much silver besides, and the rooms of the bride's father's house look like a jeweller's shop when the presents are shown. All the magnificent ormolu ornaments for the chimney-piece, handsome clocks and lamps, fans in large quantities, spoons, forks by the hundred, and of late years the fine gilt ornaments, furniture, camel's-hair shawls, bracelets—all are piled up in most admired confusion. And when ...
— Manners and Social Usages • Mrs. John M. E. W. Sherwood
... rose abruptly, and, advancing to the ormolu clock surmounted by a helmeted Minerva, which throned on the chimney-piece between two malachite vases, passed her lace handkerchief between the helmet ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton
... the round of the tables, in a crush of other ladies, all rapturous. The Louis Quatorze fans, the carved ivory, the Brussels point, the oxydised silver glove-boxes, and malachite blotting-books, the pearls, opals, ormolu; the antique tankards and candlesticks, Queen-Anne teapots; diamond stars, combs, tiaras; prayer-books, and "Christian Years." The special presents which stood out from this chaos of common place were—a riviere of diamonds from the Earl of Southminster, a cashmere ...
— Vixen, Volume I. • M. E. Braddon
... long since withdrew From Mansion House to cot in town; Adorn'd with chair of ormolu, All darkly grand, like Prince Lee Boo, Lectures on FREE TRADE at the U- niversity we've Got in town— niversity we've Got ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... down his head to be rubbed, but after a few sleepy grunts he said, "Poor Lorito, poor Lorito," and shut his eyes again. Evidently the children's pets had no inclination to be sociable just at present. Just then the ormolu clock on ...
— Harper's Young People, November 4, 1879 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... while the velvet carpet, with its azure ground strewn with wreaths of white roses and hyacinths, corresponded in color. Handsome book-cases, burdened with precious lore, lined the walls of the rear room; and on either side of a massive ormolu escritoire, bronze candelabra shed light on the blue velvet desk where lay delicate sheets of gossamer paper with varied and outre monograms, guarded by an exquisite marble statuette of Harpocrates, which stood in the mirror-panelled recess reserved ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... like Daniel Webster, all of them in large gilt frames protected by shadow-boxes. In a corner was a cabinet of gilt and glass, filled with Dresden-china figurines and toy tables and a carven Swiss musical powder-box. The fireplace was of smooth, chilly white marble, with an ormolu clock on the mantelpiece, and a fire-screen painted with Watteau shepherds and shepherdesses, making silken unreal love and scandalously neglecting silky unreal sheep. By the hearth were shiny fire-irons which looked as though they had never been used. The whole room looked ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... eye was that of dusky gold, thrown out first from the Chinese rug in imperial yellow, but reflected from a score of surfaces in rich old satinwood, discreetly mounted in ormolu. On the French-paneled walls there was but one picture, Sargent's portrait of Miss Walbrook herself, an exquisite creature, with the straight, thin lines of her own table legs and the grace which makes no appeal to men. Not that she ...
— The Dust Flower • Basil King
... ormolu!" sighed Kit softly. "That's what they always say in books, though I haven't the slightest idea what it means. Wouldn't it be a terrific blow if there were no ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey |
