"Piquancy" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... were almost as attractive as those of Lucerne, and gave an air of modernity and civilisation to the little place, which would have been out of the picture, had it not contrived to suggest the piquancy of contrast. The Boy spent a hundred francs for a silver chamois poised upon the apex of a perilous peak of uncut amethysts, mounted on ebony, and I was witty at the expense of his purchase, likening it to the white elephant of Instantaneous Breakfasts ...
— The Princess Passes • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... finer appearance than before, and will be welcomed by older readers as gladly as its predecessor was greeted by girls and boys. The lavish use the publishers have made of colored plates, woodcuts and photographic reproductions, gives an unwonted piquancy to the printed page, catching the eye as surely as the text ...
— Duffels • Edward Eggleston
... he had a little studio at the top of Orange Street. At this time he was rather popular in Polchester society. Mrs. Combermere took him up and found him audacious and amusing. His French name gave a kind of piquancy to his audacity; he was unusual; he was striking. It was right for Polchester to have an artist and to stick him up in the very middle of the town as an emblem of taste and culture. Soon, however, he began to decline. ...
— The Cathedral • Hugh Walpole
... fragile of all topics, never losing her guard, never missing her thrust or parry, and yet never inflicting anything like a wound, filled him with a sort of rapture. It united the innocence of a child to the cleverness of a woman of the world, giving an exquisite piquancy to both. In this young creature, who could have had no experience of anything of the kind, it was the very essence of ...
— The Wild Olive • Basil King
... throttles and hangs it with chains of shakes." What, however, Rellstab and the "old musician"—for he, too, exclaims, "nothing but bravura and figuration!"—did not see, but what must be patent to every candid and unprejudiced observer, are the originality, piquancy, and grace of these fioriture, roulades, &c., which, indeed, are unlike anything that was ever heard or seen before Chopin's time. I say "seen," for the configurations in the notation of this piece are so different from those of the works of any other composer that even an unmusical person could ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... in his glory! On this occasion the joke of the evening was an English traveller. The ideal Englishman on the Continent is a never-failing source of merriment. The presence of five Americans gave additional piquancy to the show. The corpulent, double-chinned, red-nosed Englishman, with knee-breeches, shoe-buckles, and absurd coat, stamped, swore, frowned, doubled up his fists, knocked down waiters, scattered gold right and left, was arrested, was ...
— The Dodge Club - or, Italy in 1859 • James De Mille
... great courtesy to the Duc de—, I bowed my way to the Duchesse de B—. That personage, whose liveliness and piquancy of manner always make one wish for one's own sake that her rank was less exalted, was speaking with great volubility to a tall, stupid looking man, one of the ministers, and smiled most graciously upon me as I drew near. She spoke to me of our national amusements. ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... second,) it makes little or no difference who writes them—they are good enough for what they are; nor is it necessary that they should be actual emanations from the personality and life of the writers. The very reverse sometimes gives piquancy. But poems of the first class, (poems of the depth, as distinguished from those of the surface,) are to be sternly tallied with the poets themselves, and tried by them and their lives. Who wants a glorification of courage and manly defiance from a coward or ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... however, she began to grow more and more bold. She became satiated, as one of her historians says of her, with the common and ordinary forms of vice, and wished for something new and unusual to give piquancy and life to her sensations. At length, however, she went one step too far, and brought upon herself in consequence of it ...
— Nero - Makers of History Series • Jacob Abbott
... and Republicans naturally welcomed any effort to accomplish it. They greeted Kelly, during his tour of the State, with noise and music, crowded his meetings, and otherwise sought to dishearten Robinson's friends. Although Kelly's speeches did not compare in piquancy with his printed words, his references to Tilden as the "old humbug of Cipher Alley" and to Robinson as having "sore eyes" when signing bills, kept his hearers expectant and his enemies disturbed. The World followed him, reporting ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... orange, the fruits of Ceylon have one deficiency, common, I apprehend, to all tropical countries. They are wanting in that piquancy which in northern climates is attributable to the exquisite perfection in which the sweet and aromatic flavours are blended with the acidulous. Either the acid is so ascendant as to be repulsive to the European palate, or the saccharine so preponderates as to render Singhalese fruit ...
— Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and • James Emerson Tennent
... conducted by that notorious Master of Arts, Little Cupid. Oona, or Una, O'Brien, was in truth a most fascinating and beautiful brunette; tall in stature, light and agile in all her motions, cheerful and sweet in temper, but with just as much of that winning caprice, as was necessary to give zest and piquancy to her whole character. Though tall and slender, her person was by no means thin; on the contrary, her limbs and figure were very gracefully rounded, and gave promise of that agreeable fulness, beneath or beyond which no perfect ...
— Fardorougha, The Miser - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... and demure star. Now that she had come their interest in her was keen. Her peculiar reputation for ingeniously tricking Mrs. Bowdler, secretary to Mrs. Grundy, rendered her very piquant, and this piquancy was increased by ...
— The Woman With The Fan • Robert Hichens
... ambitious, it is a bungling performance, most unskilfully put together, and contains quite as much of what its hero did not do, as of what he did. The prolixity of the narrative is not even relieved by the piquancy of style, which forms something like a substitute for thought in many of the lower order of French historians. It is less to history, however, than to romance, that the French public is indebted for its conceptions of the character of Gonsalvo de Cordova, as depicted by ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V3 • William H. Prescott
... the day before he had thought of Therese. He had all night dreamed and yearned over her image. He saw her again, delightful, but in another manner, and even more desirable than he had imagined in his insomnia; less visionary, of a more vivid piquancy, and also of a mind more mysteriously impenetrable. She was sad; she seemed cold and indifferent. He said to himself that he was nothing to her; that he was becoming importunate and ridiculous. This irritated ...
— The Red Lily, Complete • Anatole France
... unaware how far he had become another man and she another woman. He was merely alive to the unusual and agreeable excitement of wooing his own wife. There was a piquancy in the experiment that appealed to him. Her new coldness called to him like a challenge. Her new remoteness waked the adventurous youth in him. His imagination was touched as it had not been touched before. ...
— The Helpmate • May Sinclair
... nature, with a nervous organization and all that it entails of torment and delight, the craving for perfection becomes morbid. Intellectually he is akin to Sterne, though he is not a literary worker. There is an indescribable piquancy about his epigrams and sallies of thought. He is eloquent, he knows how to love, but the uncertainty that appears in his execution is a part of the very nature of the man. The brotherhood loved him for the very qualities which ...
— A Distinguished Provincial at Paris • Honore de Balzac
... his good sister over the delicious "mouthfuls for cardinals."[136] As if the pleasure of the eye in beauty gained at a bird's expense were more criminal than the gusto of the tongue in lusciousness, curbed by piquancy, gained at the expense of a dozen other birds! At three o'clock came the gondola, and it was often directed to the Lido. "I walk, even in wind and rain, for a couple of hours on Lido," Browning wrote when nearly ...
— Robert Browning • Edward Dowden
... ward, they too are free! The nimble footman is free, the crushed porter between the trucks is free, the woman in the mill, the child in the mine. Ask them! They will tell you how free they are. They have happened to choose these ways of living—that is all. No doubt the piquancy of the life attracts ...
— New Worlds For Old - A Plain Account of Modern Socialism • Herbert George Wells
... to the absolute nature of man; piquancy and charm to that which serves and modifies this. Infinitude and immortality are of the one; the strictest finiteness belongs to the other. In the first you can never be too deep and rich; in the second never too delicate and measured. Yet you will easily find a man in whom the latter so ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 54, April, 1862 • Various
... child to and from school. Whether or not he had been induced to this display by the excitement did not transpire. Enough that the effect was a success. The riding skirt and her mustang's fripperies had added to Concha's piquancy, and if her origin was still doubted by some, the child herself was accepted with enthusiasm. The parents who were spectators were proud of this distinguished accession to their children's playmates, and when she dismounted ...
— Trent's Trust and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... that there was not as much rurality about this girl as he had thought at first. There was a piquancy about the conversation which he liked. That she shared his enjoyment was doubtful, for a slight line of resentment was noticeable on her ...
— In the Midst of Alarms • Robert Barr
... after the manner of cabbage, but a more elaborate white sauce generally accompanies it. This is the familiar drawn butter sauce, to which may be added a little vinegar or lemon juice, to give piquancy of flavor. Sometimes this sauce is varied by adding milk or cream to the flour and butter, when it is called ...
— The Cauliflower • A. A. Crozier
... r's in a way that gives piquancy and vigour to his conversation. He talks of others with a natural magnanimity which comes from the heart, like the expression of his eyes, and rings true, like the sound of his voice. And then again, he really need not envy any one. Have I not said it! ...
— The New Book Of Martyrs • Georges Duhamel
... the page with its loveliness, that, seeing how an artless woman is foreign to Mr. Reade's ideas, we are forced to believe that Nature was too strong for him and he wrote against the grain. Nevertheless, there is enough of his own prejudice retained for piquancy,—and since the poor things must be insignificantly wicked, see how charming they can be! There are many scenes between these covers that would well bear repetition, were they not too fresh in the reader's mind to require it; we will content ourselves with a single one, which contains ...
— Atlantic Monthly,Volume 14, No. 82, August, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... khaki-clad, sportsmanlike missionary strode in, and after the preliminary greetings Diana asked with charming piquancy, "O! are you really and ...
— The Rhodesian • Gertrude Page
... princesses well brought up, with happy family relations, all couleur de rose,—as it would of course become us to write if we were dealing with the life of a living sovereign,—would not be interesting. No one on going to hear Thackeray lecture on the Georges expected that. There must be some piquancy given, or the lecture would be dull;—and the eulogy of personal virtues can seldom be piquant. It is difficult to speak fittingly of a sovereign, either living or not, long since gone. You can ...
— Thackeray • Anthony Trollope
... compare Thyrsis with the photographs and descriptions of long-sought bank-burglars and murderers. But although Thyrsis had often declared that he would rob a bank to secure his freedom to work, he had not yet done it, and so these experiences only added piquancy ...
— Love's Pilgrimage • Upton Sinclair
... There is a thing, and a generation finds a name for it. The delicacy which prompts a later generation to reject that name is by no means necessarily a result of stricter habits, is far more often due to the flatness which comes of untiring repetition and to the greater piquancy of litotes. I am told that there are, or were, people in America who reject the word 'leg' as a gross word, but they must have found a synonym. So there is not a word in Congreve for which there is not ...
— The Comedies of William Congreve - Volume 1 [of 2] • William Congreve
... rather, for he troubled himself very little with the first operation, when the report of a cork drew his attention towards the chaimpaigne. To Aristabulus this wine never came amiss, for, relishing its piquancy, he had never gone far enough into the science of the table to learn which were the proper moments for using it. As respected all the others at table, this moment had in truth arrived, though, as respected himself, he was no nearer to it, according to a regulated ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper
... whose nerves sprung secret fears upon him. There were sparks between the sweep of her lashes, but she managed to carry herself with the air of being as cool as a cucumber, which gave spice to the effort to "upset" her. If she did not prove suitably amenable, there would be piquancy in getting the better of her—in stirring up unpleasant little things, which would make it easier for her to go away than remain on the spot—if one should end by choosing to get rid of her. But, for the moment, he had no desire to get rid of ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... these pleasant questioning-eyed young people again. The most reckless part of the adventure would be over with this day—and she was rather sorry. After all, she did not much regret the wave of fate which had swept her and her maid-chaperon temporarily apart. There was a certain piquancy in ...
— The Port of Adventure • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... "greens" are as good as spinach. What sacrilege to reduce crisp, glossy, beautiful leaves like these to a slimy mess in a pot! The tender buds, often used in white sauce as a substitute for capers, probably do not give it the same piquancy where piquancy is surely most needed—on boiled mutton, said to be Queen Victoria's favorite dish. Hawked about the streets in tight bunches, the Marsh Marigold blossoms—with half their yellow sepals already dropped—and the ...
— Wild Flowers Worth Knowing • Neltje Blanchan et al
... newspaper said, one whose graces of face and figure were equaled only by the qualities of her mind. She had relatives of strong Northern tendencies, and she had been known to express such sympathies herself; but they only lent piquancy to her conversation. She had appeared at one of the President's receptions; and further on Prescott saw the name of Mr. Sefton. There was nothing by which he could tell with certainty, but he inferred that she had gone there with the Secretary. A sudden thought assailed and tormented him. What ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... piquancy in these days when she lived with the Andersons on Mission Hill. "Daddy" Anderson was a veteran of the Mission, but it was "Mammy" Anderson with whom she came into closest relation. Of strong individuality, she ruled the town from the Mission House, and the chiefs were ...
— Mary Slessor of Calabar: Pioneer Missionary • W. P. Livingstone
... drive, alone with the autocrat of Rivenoak, animated the young man. He felt that the days of his insignificance were over, that his career—the career so often talked about—had really begun. A delightful surprise gave piquancy to his sensations; had he cared to tell himself the truth, he would have known that, whatever his self-esteem, he had never quite believed in the brilliant future of which he liked to dream. It is one thing to merit ...
— Our Friend the Charlatan • George Gissing
... with the piquancy and humour of the following introduction of a Notice of a volume of Poems, "by John Jones, an old servant," which has just appeared under the editorship of Mr. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 17, - Issue 479, March 5, 1831 • Various
... rather tired and preoccupied man takes his wife of four years' standing out to dinner he knows that he need not exert himself to talk, to shine, to please, as with a woman who holds the piquancy of a stranger; so while Osborn spoke spasmodically, or drifted into silence, Marie could look around her and think thoughts which chilled the ardour of her soul. It seemed to her, that evening of her twenty-ninth birthday, that a door was opened to her, revealing nakedly ...
— Married Life - The True Romance • May Edginton
... gaze, and she drew her brow into a little frown. It gave her a curious piquancy, and interested him. ...
— A Little Girl in Old Quebec • Amanda Millie Douglas
... the illness of Bishop Reese necessitated his resignation, the Diocese spontaneously turned to Frank Nelson as his successor. There is a certain piquancy in the contemplation of the change that by this time had come over the Diocese. A man who at one time had been distrusted, and branded as radical if not reckless, had so won the respect and affection of his associates ...
— Frank H. Nelson of Cincinnati • Warren C. Herrick
... was a very handsome girl, rather like himself in feature, but with more refinement of aspect and more thoughtfulness of disposition. This thoughtfulness gave a depth to her eyes and a piquancy to her talk which Tom noted with surprise and admiration; and he was well pleased that both his home and his womenfolk pleased his ...
— Tom Tufton's Travels • Evelyn Everett-Green
... just enough dash and piquancy about it to cause a smile to wreathe your face? A book that tells in an extremely humorous way of the doings of some smart theatrical folk? Life is many ...
— The Blunders of a Bashful Man • Metta Victoria Fuller Victor
... impossible, she found, to live through again days such as they had spent at Rochlitz; time past was past irrevocably, with all that belonged to it. And it was further, a mistake to believe that a more intimate acquaintance meant a keener pleasure; it was just the stimulus of strangeness, the piquancy of feeling one's way, that had made up half the fascination ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... of a certain sentiment which they shared towards the limitations of London (they were both persons strikingly without prejudice) lent a certain piquancy to their old-established relations, an allusive flavour to their conversation—it was always highly seasoned with badinage—that puzzled many of their common ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore
... the twenty thousand a year, which, after all, and lie you as romantic as you may please to be, is not a thing to be sneezed at) Trix's face, its mingled eagerness and shame, its flushed cheeks and shining eyes, the piquancy of its unwonted humility, overcame him. He ...
— Comedies of Courtship • Anthony Hope
... A note of piquancy was given to Mr. DU MAURIER'S part by his broken English. "Broken" is perhaps not quite the word, unless we may speak of a torrent as being broken by pebbles in its bed. There were momentary hesitancies, and a few ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, September 8th, 1920 • Various
... spines, and with a knife fairly divide the spheroid body, and a somewhat nauseous-looking meat is disclosed; but no more objectionable in appearance than the substance of a fully ripe passion fruit. The flavour! Ah, the flavour! It surpasseth the delectable oyster. It hath more of the savour and piquancy of the ocean. It clingeth to the palate and purgeth it of grosser tastes. It recalleth the clean and marvellous creature, whose life has been spent in cool coral grottoes, among limestone and the salty essences of the pure and sparkling sea, and if you be wise and devout and grateful, you forthwith ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... "Scheherazade," for instance, the climaxes are purely voluntary, are nothing other than the arbitrary thickening and distention of certain ideas. And it is only the spiciness of the thematic material, the nimbleness and suavity of the composition, and, chiefly, the piquancy of the orchestral speech, that saves the music of Rimsky-Korsakoff from utter brittleness, and gives it a ...
— Musical Portraits - Interpretations of Twenty Modern Composers • Paul Rosenfeld
... suppose that such a man would be concerned with the veracity of the matter of his verses—even leaving out of the question his enmity towards the House of Borgia, which will transpire later. For him a ben trovato was as good matter as a truth, or better. He measured its value by its piquancy, by its adaptability to ...
— The Life of Cesare Borgia • Raphael Sabatini
... given much hope of her recovery. It was not that de Jars was capable of a lasting love, but Charlotte was young and possessed great beauty, and the romance and mystery surrounding their connection gave it piquancy. Charlotte's disguise, too, which enabled de Jars to conceal his success and yet flaunt it in the face, as it were, of public morality and curiosity, charmed him by its audacity, and above all he was carried ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - LA CONSTANTIN—1660 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... between French, English, and German ivory carvings is quite interesting. The French faces and figures have always a piquancy of action: the nose is a little retroussee and the eyelids long. The German shows more solidity of person, less transitoriness and lightness about the figure, and the nose is blunter. The English ...
— Arts and Crafts in the Middle Ages • Julia De Wolf Addison
... the relations and charities of private life, he is correct, exemplary, generous, just. We never heard a single impropriety laid to his charge; and if he has many enemies, few men can boast more numerous or stauncher friends.—The variety and piquancy of his writings form a striking contrast to the mode in which they are produced. He rises early, and writes or reads till breakfast-time. He writes or reads after breakfast till dinner, after dinner till tea, and from tea ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... was perfect in its contour, her cheeks innocent of the Parisienne's usual aids to beauty, her lips red and well moulded, while two tiny dimples gave a piquancy to a face which was far more beautiful than any I had met in all ...
— Hushed Up - A Mystery of London • William Le Queux
... jealous sex, that reached the pretty face it was intended to mar. But when the observer had studied the eyes sufficiently to notice this defect, he was generally incapacitated for criticism; and even the scar on her cheek was thought by some to add piquancy to her smile. The youthful editor of THE FIDDLETOWN AVALANCHE had said privately that it was "an exaggerated dimple." Colonel Starbottle was instantly "reminded of the beautifying patches of the days of Queen Anne, but more particularly, sir, of the blankest ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... telling himself that he was the happiest and most fortunate old fellow alive; that every thing was coming out just as he had hoped and prayed it might; that one daughter, with the man of her choice, would be just far enough removed from his fireside to give piquancy to the frequent visits he should receive from her; while the other would still, for a time, continue to pour out sunshine in the house, and redouble her love for him by way of compensating for what he should miss in Sophie's absence. And then the professor ...
— Bressant • Julian Hawthorne
... Owen as he deserved, his uncle must be proportionably reviled, and though Humfrey did not imply a word save in commendation of the young missionary's devotion, she went indoors feeling almost injured at his not understanding it; but Honora's petulance was a very bright, sunny piquancy, and she only appeared the more glowing and animated for it when she presented herself at the breakfast-table, with ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... exclaimed Dr. Leete, beaming upon me, "you cannot have any idea of the piquancy your nineteenth century ideas have for us of this day, the rare quaintness of their effect. Know, O child of another race and yet the same, that the labor we have to render as our part in securing for the nation the means of a comfortable physical existence is by no means regarded ...
— Looking Backward - 2000-1887 • Edward Bellamy
... stream towards the castle courtyard to see the hanging. In those days there were hangings so many after assizes that an execution could hardly be said to possess the interest of novelty. But there were circumstances enough attending the forthcoming show to give it quite a piquancy of its own in the eyes of the worthy Lancastrian burghers, who hurried with wives and children to the place of doom, anxious to secure sitting or standing room with a good view ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... that Fyodor Pavlovitch, in spite of his parasitic position, was one of the bold and ironical spirits of that progressive epoch, though he was, in fact, an ill-natured buffoon and nothing more. What gave the marriage piquancy was that it was preceded by an elopement, and this greatly captivated Adelaida Ivanovna's fancy. Fyodor Pavlovitch's position at the time made him specially eager for any such enterprise, for he was passionately anxious to make a career in one way or another. To attach ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... what is meant by that term;—and that now, as we are discovering the old Chinese poetry and painting, we are finding that Natural Magic is really far more Chinese than Celtic—that where we Celts have vibrated to it minorly, the great Chinese gave it out fully and grandly—does it not add to the piquancy of the 'coincidence?' ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... womanhood was studying him. Thanks to a national System, she had had an apprenticeship; the heart-blood of Algernon Cartwright and many others had not been shed in vain. And the fact that she was playing with real fire, that this was a duel with the buttons off, lent a piquancy and zest to the pastime ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... you to be the author of that strange letter, M. Bourget? Indeed I do not. I believe it to have been surreptitiously inserted by your amanuensis when your back was turned. I think he did it with a good motive, expecting it to add force and piquancy to your article, but it does not reflect your nature, and I know it will grieve you when you see it. I also think he interlarded many other things which you will disapprove of when you see them. I am certain that all the ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... fairer, and younger in her graceful gown, and her broad hat—which was in sharpest contrast to the sunbonnet which had so long been her disguise—lent a girlish piquancy to her glance. Mrs. Brinkley expressed in one short phrase the change of sentiment which swept almost instantly over the room. "Why, ...
— They of the High Trails • Hamlin Garland
... only the National Gallery, but the galleries of France and Italy, and even Germany herself. Perhaps Germany first of all, for there would be a piquancy in thus employing the cherished possessions of the foe. Could not something be done, for example, with the famous wax bust, the glory of the Kaiser Friedrich Collection, into which LEONARDO DA VINCI, as a finishing ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Dec. 12, 1917 • Various
... that Dr. Galbraith had not the advantage of knowing Evadne's early history when they first became acquainted adds a certain piquancy to the flavour of his impressions, and the reader, better informed than himself with regard to the antecedents of his "subject," will find it interesting to note both the accuracy of his insight and the curious mistakes ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... stood close. There was a measure of will opposed to will in the unflinching eyes. Elise felt a strange thrill, strange to her. With Pierre and Madame opposition only roused her anger, their commands only gave piquancy to revolt. But now, as she looked at the strong, resolute man before her, there was a new sensation fraught with subtler thrills of delight, the yielding to one who commanded and took from her even the desire to resist. She felt warm waves of blood surging to her face. The defiant poise of her ...
— Blue Goose • Frank Lewis Nason
... are by that same public held to be more precious than others. If, for instance, it has chanced that during the poet’s life he, like Rossetti, had to borrow thirty shillings from a friend, that is a circumstance of especial piquancy. The public likes—or rather it demands—to know all about that borrowed cash. Hence it behoves the properly equipped editor who understands his duty to see that not one allusion to it in the poet’s correspondence is omitted. If he can also show what caused the poet ...
— Old Familiar Faces • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... the exact place marked in the stone pavement for the guillotine, it gave a sort of peculiar piquancy to the occasion. While the proprietors of the adjacent wine-shops and "zincs" grumbled at the new order of things, the young people were making the best of Mardi Gras ...
— Mlle. Fouchette - A Novel of French Life • Charles Theodore Murray
... and piquancy had given place to a gentle shyness. Clay let the burden of conversation fall upon her. He knew that he had come to his hour of hours and his soul ...
— The Big-Town Round-Up • William MacLeod Raine
... you? But father's controlling the country half an hour more than usual this evening, and I expect mamma was so angry about it she forgot to telephone you that dinner's moved accordingly. (With piquancy and humour.) I was rather surprised to hear when I got home from my Ministry that you'd sent word you'd ...
— The Title - A Comedy in Three Acts • Arnold Bennett
... and held the lamp high at the end to afford a better glimpse of the handsome Irishman smiling back at him from the mirror in the bureau. No doubt of it, give a fashionable tailor disposed to be experimental, his head and enough money on account and he could create a dash and piquancy worth while. Always remembering that such a creative artisan was fortunate to find a suitable contrast of shoulder and hip ...
— Kenny • Leona Dalrymple
... occurred to me,—and, to say the truth, it added an indefinable piquancy to the scene,—what proportion of all these people, whether soldiers or civilians, were true at heart to the Union, and what part were tainted, more or less, with treasonable sympathies and wishes, even if such had never blossomed into purpose. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... was clear and healthy, and her white dress—happy coincidence!—had been laundered that very morning. Her half-suppressed excitement at the sudden duty of welcoming the great aristocrat of the county, gave a piquancy to her prettiness. ...
— The Quest of the Silver Fleece - A Novel • W. E. B. Du Bois
... Bolingbroke's posthumous works in 1754. For though few persons will be inclined to agree with Horace Walpole's opinion that Bolingbroke's 'metaphysical divinity was the best of his writings,' yet the eminence of the writer, the purity and piquancy of his style, the real and extensive learning which he displayed, would, one might have imagined, have awakened a far greater interest in his writings than was actually shown. Very few replies were written to this, the last, and in some respects, the most important—certainly the most elaborate ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton
... beauty which her excitement called forth, added piquancy to her natural charms, and inflamed Santa Anna's wicked passions all the more. But more than any of them revenge. For now he knew how much the fair petitioner was interested in the man whose suit she had preferred. With a cold cynicism—which, ...
— The Free Lances - A Romance of the Mexican Valley • Mayne Reid
... war he had enjoyed these last two years more than any of the ten since he built "Charmleigh" and settled down to semi-rural domesticity with his young wife. There had been a certain piquancy, a savour added to existence, by the country's peril, and all the public service and sacrifice it demanded. His chauffeur was gone, and one gardener did the work of three. He enjoyed-positively enjoyed, his committee work; even ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... understood it. Youth she enjoyed, if it were not too inexperienced. Caelius's smile, for instance, boyish and inviting, had seemed to her full of promise. He was worth the winning and was close at hand. Catullus had introduced him, which would add piquancy to her letting the din of the Forum succeed the babbling of Heliconian streams. Suddenly she laughed aloud, cruelly, as another thought struck her. How furious and how impotent Cicero would be! If she could play with this disciple of his, and then divest him of every shred of reputation, ...
— Roads from Rome • Anne C. E. Allinson
... vivacity, good-nature, and amiability, are duly appreciated. Her lively sallies and naive remarks are very amusing; and the frankness and simplicity she has preserved in a profession and position so calculated to induce the reverse, add to her attractions and give piquancy to her conversation. ...
— The Idler in France • Marguerite Gardiner
... The fisherman to whom he applies is unwilling to set sail. The night, he says, shows many threatening signs, and, by way of deterring Caesar, he enumerates the entire list of prognostics to be found in Aratus, Hesiod, and Virgil, with great piquancy of touch, but without the least reference to the propriety of the situation. [64] Nothing can be more amusing, or more out of place, than the old man's sudden erudition. The second is the death of Scaeva, who for a time defended ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell
... seizing upon the points best worth describing, and could give an exact account of them, she would be far more entertaining than any exaggeration could make her; for there is no romance like that of real life, and no imaginings of an inexperienced girl can equal in piquancy the scenes and characters that are every day presented to our view. Extravagant expressions are sometimes resorted to in order to atone for deficiencies of memory and observation; but they will never hide such defects; ...
— The Ladies' Vase - Polite Manual for Young Ladies • An American Lady
... and wrote letters. He showed me one of these, addressed to a friend of Margaret's. In it he extolled Flora's beauty, piquancy, and supremacy; related how she made all the women jealous and all the men mad; and hinted at my triumph. I knew that that letter would meet Margaret's eyes, and was ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 10, August, 1858 • Various
... moment, you will see that, while it is easy to choose what virtues we would have our wife possess, it is all but impossible to imagine those faults we would desire in her, which I think most lovers would admit add piquancy to the loved one, that fascinating wayward imperfection ...
— The Quest of the Golden Girl • Richard le Gallienne
... aggrieved, and thinks it monstrous that the 'virtuous dead' cannot be suffered to rest quietly in their graves. He further complains that I speak disrespectfully of the ——'s in Grandfather's Chair. He writes more in sorrow than in anger, though there is quite enough of the latter quality to give piquancy to his epistle. The joke of the matter is, that I never heard of his grandfather, nor knew that any Pyncheons had ever lived in Salem, but took the name because it suited the tone of my book, and was as much my property, for fictitious purposes, as that of Smith. I have pacified ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... in a box which Stella had reserved for her at the office, and, aside from the purpose which was rapidly taking shape in her mind, she enjoyed the play very much. Stella Larue, as the "Grass Widow," played her part with a piquancy which Constance knew was not wholly a matter ...
— Constance Dunlap • Arthur B. Reeve
... so far the result has been satisfactory. In Alsace-Lorraine no one can help being struck with the fine appearance of the people. The men are tall, handsome, and well made, the women graceful and often exceedingly lovely, French piquancy and symmetrical proportions combined with Teutonic fairness of complexion, ...
— In the Heart of the Vosges - And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... With less piquancy, but not without the germ of the same idea, Dean Moss (ob. 1729), in his sermon Of the Nature and ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 197, August 6, 1853 • Various
... Excitation. — N. excitation of feeling; mental excitement; suscitation[obs3], galvanism, stimulation, piquance, piquancy, provocation, inspiration, calling forth, infection; animation, agitation, perturbation; subjugation, fascination, intoxication; enravishment[obs3]; entrancement; pressure, tension, high pressure. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... enrich the whole by this electrical and enlivening relation between its parts. And thus an American man, no copy, but an original, formed in unprecedented moulds, with his own unborrowed grandeur, his own piquancy and charm, is to be looked for,—is, indeed, even now to be seen,—on ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various
... now filled with animation their charming faces, on which the late fading rose had begun once more to bloom. Their faith in the future gave to their countenances something resolute and decisive, which added a degree of piquancy to the beauty of their ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... "It gives a piquancy to this kind of thing!" was Horne's smiling reply, as they reached an open space in the walk, and he waved his hand towards the charming scene before them, the house with its lights, on its rising ground above the lake, the dancing ...
— Helena • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... unmistakably Gallic flavor or piquancy savors the life of the people; it disappears only when they cease to be their own natural selves. A woman novelist, American by birth, but a resident of several years in Paris, told me a story illustrative of this. The incident ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb
... was only a seed at first, then it began to grow and had now assumed a definite shape. At first he had toyed with it, viewed it from different angles as something fantastic and irrelevant, but nevertheless having a piquancy of its own. Then his ill-luck and that necessary facing of the situation made him regard it more closely, compelled him to award it a serious consideration. He did not like it; it had almost no point ...
— Treasure and Trouble Therewith - A Tale of California • Geraldine Bonner
... the pulpit, Dr. Tyng was the prince of platform orators. He had every quality necessary for the sway of a popular audience—fine elocution, marvelous fluency, piquancy, the courage of his convictions and a magnetism that swept all before him. His voice was very clear and penetrating, and he hurled forth his clean-cut sentences like javelins. A more fluent speaker I never heard; not Spurgeon or Henry Ward Beecher could surpass him in readiness of utterance. ...
— Recollections of a Long Life - An Autobiography • Theodore Ledyard Cuyler
... during a journey, and as a harmless narcotic which it would be hard to replace. The addition of tobacco intensifies this narcotic effect considerably, other additions such as cinnamon serving only to soften the astringency and the piquancy of the leaf and to impart an ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan
... of, and causing infinite annoyance to, the man. Frequently the man, out of revenge for such or similar freaks, larrups and pains and worries the horse. But these little asperities are the occasional landmarks that give point and piquancy to the even tenor of their loving career. Neither would, for a moment, think of allowing such incidents to rankle in his bosom. Both would repudiate with scorn the idea that they were a whit less useful, or in any degree less attached, ...
— The Wild Man of the West - A Tale of the Rocky Mountains • R.M. Ballantyne
... of the superior success of the former in flirtation. The latter were not consoled by their experience that no flirtation lasted beyond the period of rustication. Dr. Price usually had several young men fitting for college also, which fact added more piquancy to the provincial society. In the summer riding parties were fashionable, and in the winter county balls and cotillion parties; a professor came down from Boston at this season to set up a dancing school, ...
— The Morgesons • Elizabeth Stoddard
... the honour of sprightliness, animation, and invention; nor that of Menander and Terence the praise of nature and of delicacy; to that of Moliere must be allowed the happy secret of uniting all the piquancy of the former, with a peculiar art which they did not know. Of these three sorts of merit, let us show to each the justice that is due, let us, in each, separate the pure and the true, from the false gold, without ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson
... gift of genius which, whilst it enabled the artist to lend a sentient expression to such unpromising subjects as a barrel, a wig-block, a jug of beer, a pair of bellows, or an oyster, imparted to his drawings a piquancy which has elevated these apparently insignificant designs into perfectly sterling works of art. The reader who is fortunate enough to number amongst his books the first half-dozen volumes of "Bentley's Miscellany" and "Ainsworth's Magazine," ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt
... and the tone being thus determined, I betook myself to ordinary induction, with the view of obtaining some artistic piquancy which might serve me as a key-note in the construction of the poem—some pivot upon which the whole structure might turn. In carefully thinking over all the usual artistic effects—or more properly points, in the theatrical sense—I ...
— Edgar Allan Poe's Complete Poetical Works • Edgar Allan Poe
... match, and a pair of gray spectacles. But oh, what a dove-coloured dress! Walter Crane might have designed it—one of those perfect travelling costumes of which the America girl seems to possess a monopoly; and the spectacles—well, the spectacles, though undoubtedly real, added just a touch of piquancy to an otherwise almost painfully timid and retiring ...
— Stories by English Authors: The Sea • Various
... colour and loss of effect in the grouping of the characters is more than compensated for by the racy piquancy of Dick Marston's vernacular, and the aspect, unrivalled in Australian literature, which his account affords of bushranging life from the bushranger's own point of view. In the truth with which this view is presented lies the strength ...
— Australian Writers • Desmond Byrne
... old to the Chaldean sages I saw that it was neither from arrow-heads or wedges which gave the letters to the old Assyrians. When thou art at this point, then Nature is equal in all her types, and the city, as the forest, full of endless beauty and piquancy,—in saecula saeculorum. ...
— The Gypsies • Charles G. Leland
... always the case, I was in a peaceful frame of mind when I left her, I was filled with a sense of cosy comfort which gained all the more piquancy because flavored with an infinitely delicate bitterness that I could not understand. In a revery I strolled along through the streets which, because the diminutive houses cast so little shadow, became hotter every minute, and passed ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... the knowledge we should soon meet again; we never parted without exchanging that fair promise. In the morning, it was "hasta la tarde;" at night, our last words were "manana por la manana" Lovers have felt, and poets have sung, the pleasures of hope; oft the anticipation of a pleasure rivals in piquancy its actual enjoyment. ...
— The War Trail - The Hunt of the Wild Horse • Mayne Reid
... to open both doors of the cabin wide, after his hosts were safely asleep, letting in the moonlight and a little breeze that smelled keenly of pine woods. Now and then a faint bird-note broke the hush, or the mournful quaver of a screech-owl. The situation was not without picturesque piquancy ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly
... by some degree of present fruition. Even vice would be in many ways sauceless and insipid in the absence of faith. Who does not remember the old cynic's testimony (in the "New Republic") to the piquancy lent by Christianity to many a sin, otherwise pointless. If the moralist distinguishes between actions that are evil because they are forbidden, and those that are forbidden because they are evil, the libertine ...
— The Faith of the Millions (2nd series) • George Tyrrell
... profound and beautiful thoughts drop from them as things too common and familiar to be spoken with the least emphasis: they are strong, tender, and sweet, yet never without a sufficient infusion of brisk natural acid and piquancy to keep their sweetness from palling on the taste: they are full of fresh, healthy sentiment, but never at all touched with sentimentality: the soul of romance works mightily within them, yet never betrays them ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... very well for a little time. The contrast amuses by its piquancy. To write of wild and whirling things in your books, but in public life to be associated with nothing more wild and whirling than a shirt-fronted eye-glassed hansom; to be at heart an Alastor, but in appearance a bank-clerk, delights ...
— Prose Fancies • Richard Le Gallienne
... falling in love with Daisy, who was the only girl he ever saw except the high-bred, milk-and-water misses whom he sometimes met in Lady Jane's drawing-room, and who, in point of beauty and grace and piquancy, could in no degree compare with the playmate of ...
— Bessie's Fortune - A Novel • Mary J. Holmes
... which gives a piquancy to all our pleasures," said Mad. de la Tour; "no sky is so serene, as that which succeeds a tempest; and a slight alloy of sorrow or disappointment gives ...
— The Rivals of Acadia - An Old Story of the New World • Harriet Vaughan Cheney
... when he alludes to Joseph as a suitor for the hand of Maria. So, too, with the following scene between Joseph and Charles; in itself it would be flat enough; the fact that Sir Peter is listening lends it a certain piquancy; but this is ten times multiplied by the fact that Lady Teazle, too, hears all that passes. When Joseph is called from the room by the arrival of the pretended Old Stanley, there would be no interest in his embarrassment if we believed the ...
— Play-Making - A Manual of Craftsmanship • William Archer
... translator, which more than counterbalances the trifling inaccuracies of phraseology that here and there betray the foreigner, and amount to nothing more than an accent, which is not without its merit of piquancy. In one respect we think he has acted with great discretion, namely, in now and then curtailing the reflections which Guerrazzi has interpolated upon the story to the manifest detriment of its interest and consecutiveness. If Signor Guerrazzi should profit ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 5, March, 1858 • Various
... discovered that she was more than merely pretty and interesting-looking. Her face, with all its piquancy, was a serious face, a strenuous face. Under its humour and vivacity, he discovered a glow . . . a glow . . . could it be the glow of a soul? Her eyes were lustrous, but they were deep, as well. A quality shone in them rarer even than character: a natural ...
— The Lady Paramount • Henry Harland
... point at which it should in all cases stop, and that relentlessly, is where it begins to cause a separation between any entire mass of ornament and its background. If portions are thus relieved almost to complete detachment, but visibly reconnect themselves in another place, a certain piquancy is gained which adds charm without destroying character. A curious use is made of undercutting in the bunch of leaves given in Plate XI from a Miserere seat in Winchester Cathedral; it may be said to be completely undercut in so ...
— Wood-Carving - Design and Workmanship • George Jack
... Chesterfield at the Hague, when, a few months before the restoration, that nobleman fled to the continent to escape the consequences of Francis Woolley's murder. In Lely's picture of the young Countess of Chesterfield, her piquancy attracts at a glance, whilst her beauty charms on examination. Her cousin, Anthony Hamilton, describes her as having large blue eyes, very tempting and alluring, a complexion extremely fair, and a heart "ever open to tender sentiments," ...
— Royalty Restored - or, London under Charles II. • J. Fitzgerald Molloy
... a picture of Russian interior life, we pass to Gretch, an author of some European reputation. His "Trip to Germany" describes, with singular piquancy, the manners of a very curious race—the Germans of St Petersburg; and "Tchernaia Jenstchina," "the Black Woman," presents a picture of Russian society, which was welcomed with great eagerness ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXIX. - March, 1843, Vol. LIII. • Various
... more to fear from Conward as a suitor for the hand of Mrs. Hardy than as a rival for that of Irene. On the latter score he had no misgivings; he was confident of his ability to worst any adversary in that field, and competition would lend a piquancy to his courtship not altogether without advantages; but he had no such confidence in the case of an assault upon the heart of the elder woman. He could not become Conward's rival in such a case, and, repugnant as the idea was to him, he felt no assurance that such a match might not develop. And ...
— The Cow Puncher • Robert J. C. Stead
... in the middle with a touch of Greek simplicity and fell in wavy ripples over her temples beneath the jaunty cap. She put her arms on the railing and leaned forward, her chin tilted to an oddly taking boyish piquancy. ...
— The Vision Spendid • William MacLeod Raine
... the French elements. Variety, satire, finesse, feeling, movement, terseness, suavity, grace, gayety, at times even nobleness, gravity, grandeur—everything—is to be found in him. And then the happiness of the epithets, the piquancy of the sayings, the felicity of his rapid sketches and unforeseen audacities, and the unforgettable sharpness of phrase! His defects are eclipsed by his ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... somewhat exclusive; but his rigid temperance, and his regularity were proper to the man, and neither to the past nor present age. Of his bons mots we have a sprinkling, and but a sprinkling, in this volume; but the celebrated one about language is not there, though others of less piquancy are. Did M. Colmache consider it of apocryphal ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... together, examine each word separately, and unless it can satisfactorily account for its position there, by proving appositeness and either originality or indispensability, then cast it aside. The conscientious performance of this rite will soon give a wonderful freshness and piquancy to your style. ...
— Journalism for Women - A Practical Guide • E.A. Bennett
... rule of the world. Her large black eyes were neither slitted nor slanted in the Asiatic way. They were long, true, but set squarely, and with just the slightest hint of obliqueness that was all for piquancy. ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London
... the evening the sound of his low, deliberate voice was unceasing, and his calm announcements to his two little cousins were each one more startling than the last; while James, to whom it was likewise all sunshine, was full of vivacity, and a shrewd piquancy of manner that gave zest to all he said, and wonderfully enlivened the often ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. I) - or, The Clue of Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... did enjoy it, for a very pleasant little performance it was. The songs had a thrill of either pathos or piquancy in every word and note, and the audience found they were listening in spite ...
— Vagabondia - 1884 • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... in their box at Covent Garden listening to the sensuous music of "Carmen," and comparing the sauciness of the charming little devil who sang the habanera, with the piquancy of the last Carmen but three, and with the refinement of the one who had made so great a success at Munich. They agreed that the savagery of the newest was very fascinating,—Stephen Linton called it womanly,—but they thought they should like to hear her in the third act ...
— Phyllis of Philistia • Frank Frankfort Moore
... speech—the sensational arrest—these would of themselves have made excellent themes for reports and leaders. But the personality of the man arrested, and the Big Bow Mystery Battle—as it came to be called—gave additional piquancy to the paragraphs and the posters. The behavior of Mortlake put the last touch to the picturesqueness of the position. He left the hall when the lights went out, and walked unnoticed and unmolested through pleiads of policemen to the nearest police station, where ...
— The Big Bow Mystery • I. Zangwill
... the glance, as he admitted willingly enough afterward. She was the dainty type, with fluffy bright brown hair, eyes the color of wood violets, a nose tilted to the precise angle of bewitching piquancy, and the adorable mouth and chin familiarized to two continents by the artistic pen of the Apostle of the American Girl. How he could have ridden within arm's reach of her through all the daylight hours of a long summer ...
— Empire Builders • Francis Lynde
... her own penny, though as a rule she was touchily punctilious in sharing expenses with the sumptuous Janet. Without being in the least aware of it, and quite innocently, Janet had painted a picture of the young man, Edwin Clayhanger, which intensified a hundredfold the strong romantic piquancy of Hilda's brief vision of him. In an instant Hilda saw her ideal future—that future which had loomed grandiose, indefinite, and strange—she saw it quite precise and simple as the wife of such a creature ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... one is not charmed even by great beauty. So your perfect room must not be kept too rigidly in one style. To have attraction it must have variety in both line and colour, and reflect the taste of generations of home lovers. The contents of dusty garrets may add piquancy to modern decorations, giving a touch of the ...
— The Art of Interior Decoration • Grace Wood
... indifference was not an affectation. He had read of women who used it as a lure. If it were Charlotte's special weapon he was quite willing to be brought to submission by it. After all, there was piquancy in the situation; for to most men, love sought and hardly won is far sweeter than ...
— The Squire of Sandal-Side - A Pastoral Romance • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr |
