"Tassel" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... characterised by all the trappings of the national bravery. Upon his raven hair, the glossy curls of which made a notable contrast to the matted and elfin locks of the savages around, was placed a cloth cap, with a gold tassel that hung down to his shoulder; his mustaches were trimmed with care, and a silk kerchief of gay hues was twisted round a well-shaped but sinewy throat; a short jacket of rough cloth was decorated with several rows of gilt filagree buttons; his nether garments ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... The first wild tumult of rage having more or less spent its force, she began, with a kind of heart-broken curiosity, to ask for the facts. She spoke nervously, beating a palm with a gold tassel of her girdle. "Begin at the beginning. ...
— The Dust Flower • Basil King
... tassel for some moments, then, suddenly exclaiming: "You dears!" kissed first me and then Poirot, and rushed out ...
— The Mysterious Affair at Styles • Agatha Christie
... and brilliant it looked as if woven of the wings of butterflies. It was studded with diamonds as brilliant as stars. The hem of this robe, the corsage and the waist were trimmed with diamond fringe which sparkled like suns. Her hair was partly covered with a net of diamonds from which a tassel of immense diamonds fell to her shoulders. Every diamond was as large as a pear and was worth a kingdom. Her necklace and bracelets were so immense and so brilliant that you could not look at them ...
— Old French Fairy Tales • Comtesse de Segur
... scene was only one unoccupied individual, or rather occupied only with his own sad thoughts. This was Papa Prevost, leaning against rather than sitting on a dresser, with his arms folded, his idle knife stuck in his girdle, and the tassel of his cap awry with vexation. His gloomy brow, however, lit up as Mr. Harris, for whom he was waiting with anxious expectation, entered, and summoned him to the presence of Lord Eskdale, who, with a shrewd yet lounging air, which ...
— Tancred - Or, The New Crusade • Benjamin Disraeli
... come an' took the place of a tired-lookin' woman that set on a high stool sellin' the jimcracks. She had took off her hat an' things, an' she had on a little red jacket all spangled up, an' a red cap, like the Turks all wear, with a big gold tassel on it, an' she'd made herself blacker round the eyes, an' redder in the cheeks, an' ...
— Against Odds - A Detective Story • Lawrence L. Lynch
... that blows about us—"Lo, Laughing," she says, "into the World I blow: At once the silken Tassel of my Purse Tear, and its Treasure on the ...
— Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam • Omar Khayyam
... eyes—(my senses, how big and how black they were!) Walter thought he must look like the robbers that his uncle John, who had been across the seas, used to tell about. Then, Pietro had such big, fierce whiskers, too, and always wore a bright scarlet cap, with a long gilt tassel, and altogether, for a cook, he looked very picturesque—(Aunt Fanny knows that's a long word, but you must look it out in the dictionary.) When Pietro got angry with any of the waiters, I promise you he'd make his frying-pan ...
— Little Ferns For Fanny's Little Friends • Fanny Fern
... old times," he said happily, as he piloted her through the out-pouring throng. "I remember the first night we walked home together. You weren't much more than a kid. You had on a red cap with a tassel to it. Three years ago the tenth of last May. Wouldn't ...
— Calvary Alley • Alice Hegan Rice
... Krishna's tassel is lost, Tell me, some one, where it is. My child is angry and will not come into my arms. The tears are falling from his eyes like blossoms from the bela [476] flower. He has bangles on his wrists and anklets on his feet, on ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume II • R. V. Russell
... did; for, though much dirtier than the well-washed China dog, this live one had the same tassel at the end of his tail, ruffles of hair round his ankles, and a body shaven behind and curly before. His eyes, however, were yellow, instead of glassy black, like the other's, his red nose worked as he cocked it up, as if smelling for more ...
— St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 2, December, 1877 • Various
... back Jim dropped down and took us in, and there was a young man there with a red skullcap and tassel on and a beautiful silk jacket and baggy trousers with a shawl around his waist and pistols in it that could talk English and wanted to hire to us as guide and take us to Mecca and Medina and Central Africa and everywheres for a half a dollar a day and his keep, and we hired him and left, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... face started up from amongst the bed-clothes, ornamented with a peculiarly-shaped white cap and tassel. ...
— Gladys, the Reaper • Anne Beale
... the time when Aunt Betty an' Alice Sent fer me up to lewk at mi cloas, An aw wauked up as prahd as a Frenchman fra Calais, Wi' mi tassel at t'side—i' mi jacket a rose. Aw sooin saw mi uncles, both Johnny an' Willy, They both gav me pennies, an' off aw did steer: But aw heeard um say this, "He's a fine lad is Billy," It furst Pair o' Briches ...
— Revised Edition of Poems • William Wright
... refusal of Jackson to restrain the State in its headstrong course. Already the state authorities had refused to take notice of a writ of error to the Supreme Court sued out in December, 1830, in behalf of a condemned Cherokee, Corn Tassel, and had permitted the execution of the unfortunate redskin. The state court now refused to issue a writ of habeas corpus in behalf of Worcester, and the prisoner was held—precisely as if the law under which he was convicted ...
— The Reign of Andrew Jackson • Frederic Austin Ogg
... right—but I wasn't allowd to finish my enthoosiastic remarks, for a man with a gold band on his hat said, in a hash voice, that I must stop pokin the walls. I told him I would do so by all means. "You see," I said, taking hold of the tassel which waved from the man's belt, and drawin him close to me in a confidential way, "You see, I'm lookin round this Mooseum, and if I like it I shall ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 5 • Charles Farrar Browne
... his head. He had been fingering a tassel on the end of the sofa, missing all the play of feeling in her eyes, taking in nothing but the changes that she rang on that one word "gratitude." Gratitude!—when he loved the ground she stepped on. But he must face ...
— Peter - A Novel of Which He is Not the Hero • F. Hopkinson Smith
... so as to cover the top of the head, thus producing in some cases a result which resembles a fez, and in other cases one which looks more like a tight skullcap. Again the cap often has its centre terminating in an end or tassel hanging over, thus making it look like a cap of liberty; and yet again I have seen the cap look almost like the square paper caps often worn by certain artisans at home. These caps are seen in several ...
— The Mafulu - Mountain People of British New Guinea • Robert W. Williamson
... after Christmas in Santa-Claus land And to rest from his labors St. Nicholas planned. The reindeer were turned out to pasture and all The ten thousand assistants discharged till the fall. The furry great-coat was laid safely away With the boots and the cap with its tassel so gay, And toasting his toes by a merry wood fire, What more could a weary old Santa desire? So he puffed at his pipe and remarked to his wife, "This amply makes up for my strenuous life! From climbing down chimneys my legs fairly ache, But it's ...
— Christmas - Its Origin, Celebration and Significance as Related in Prose and Verse • Various
... It was so much harder to say than I had thought it would be. I toyed with the tassel of the window cord confusedly. "Father, you remember when you ...
— The Price of the Prairie - A Story of Kansas • Margaret Hill McCarter
... wall panels were formed of mirrors and reflected clearly the interior of the room. Around the ceiling was a frieze of imitation peonies in silver, and the furniture was peony-shaped, the broad leaves being bent to form seats and couches. Beside a pretty dressing table hung a bell cord with a tassel at the end. Cap'n Bill did not know it was a bell cord, so he pulled it to see what would happen and was puzzled to find that nothing seemed to happen at all, the bell being too far away for him to hear it. Then he began ...
— The Sea Fairies • L. Frank Baum
... now at a great loss; the natives were civil enough to us, and came often to discourse with us; one time they brought one whom they showed respect to as a king with them, and they set up a long pole between them and us, with a great tassel of hair hanging, not on the top, but something above the middle of it, adorned with little chains, shells, bits of brass, and the like; and this, we understood afterwards, was a token of amity and friendship; and they brought down to us victuals in abundance, cattle, fowls, herbs, ...
— The Life, Adventures & Piracies of the Famous Captain Singleton • Daniel Defoe
... about stumped up to me to see what was going on; some others sat up in bed, full of alertness; while the sickest greeted me with a languid smile. As I went from cot to cot, the politeness of la belle France, with which a little Frenchman in the corner touched the tassel of his variegated nightcap at me, and the untranslatable gutturals, full of honest satisfaction, with which his German neighbors saluted me, and the "God bless your honor," which a cheery son of Old ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865 • Various
... Whom he hath slain, Podes, Eetion's son? 710 He spake, and at his words grief like a cloud Involved the mind of Hector dark around; Right through the foremost combatants he rush'd All clad in dazzling brass. Then, lifting high His tassel'd AEgis radiant, Jove with storms 715 Enveloped Ida; flash'd his lightnings, roar'd His thunders, and the mountain shook throughout. Troy's host he prosper'd, and the Greeks dispersed. First fled Peneleus, the Boeotian Chief, Whom facing firm the foe ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer
... who manufactured and sold antiquities, selling new ones when the supply of the old happened to fail. Nothing about him, however, smacked of the vulgar exploiter of strangers. He wore a red felt fez from which hung a long blue silk tassel; under the narrow edge of an inner linen cap showed his temples, evidently recently shaved. His olive complexion, his black eyebrows, his hooked nose, his eyes like those of a bird of prey, his big moustaches, ...
— The Works of Theophile Gautier, Volume 5 - The Romance of a Mummy and Egypt • Theophile Gautier
... but I am a stodgy old fogey. When the war is over I am going to buy a velvet coat and a little red pork-pie cap, with a green tassel. Is that old Odin I can ...
— The Orchard of Tears • Sax Rohmer
... everything that happened to be in his way. He seized one of the bedposts, and it became immediately a fluted golden pillar. He pulled aside a window curtain in order to admit a clear spectacle of the wonders which he was performing, and the tassel grew heavy in his hand, a mass of gold. He took up a book from the table; at his first touch, it assumed the appearance of such a splendidly bound and gilt-edged volume as one often meets with nowadays; ...
— The New McGuffey Fourth Reader • William H. McGuffey
... abomination to which no gentleman can lend his countenance. They are a shabby and mangy compromise for mustachios, and are principally sported by the genus of clerks, who, having strong hirsute predilections, small salaries, and sober-minded masters, hang a tassel on the chin instead of a vallance on ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, October 9, 1841 • Various
... shoulders. The head-dress is composed of a cap, called talpock, which is in winter of fine velvet embroidered with pearls or diamonds, and in summer of a light shining silver stuff. This is fixed on one side of the head, hanging a little way down with a gold tassel, and bound on either side with a circle of diamonds (as I have seen several) or a rich embroidered handkerchief. On the other side of the head, the hair is laid flat; and here the ladies are at liberty to shew their fancies; some putting ...
— Lady Mary Wortley Montague - Her Life and Letters (1689-1762) • Lewis Melville
... greater part of the stick, from the mouth-piece to three-fourths of its length, is covered with silk, which is confined at each extremity by gold thread, often intertwined with colored silks, or by a tube of gilt or silver; and at the lower extremity of the covering is a tassel of silk. The covering was originally designed to be moistened with water in order to cool the pipe, and consequently the smoke by evaporation; but this is only done when the pipe is old or not handsome. These stick pipes are used by many persons, particularly in winter; in summer the smoke ...
— Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce • E. R. Billings
... nevertheless, a bruise on the knee from a chair by the way. I fumbled round the glass, which was large, with handsome brass sconces, to find the blind cord. I could not find any. By chance I took hold of the tassel, and with the click of a ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... reel of cotton when the cook dropped it, or playing with the tassel of the blind-cord, or pretending that there were mice inside the paper bag which I knew to be empty, I confess that I had no heart or imagination ...
— Pussy and Doggy Tales • Edith Nesbit
... the best of the game. The only thing I really was sorry for was my own insolence to the man who had come forward as a peacemaker. I had remarked his face before. I don't know how it is with you, but I can never help looking at a tuft—the gold tassel draws one's eye somehow; and then it's an awful position, after all, for mere boys to be placed in. So I knew his face before that day, though I had only seen him two or three times in the street. ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... war bonnets after the "really truly" Indian style learned from Caleb. White Turkey tail-feathers and white Goose wing-feathers dyed black at the tips made good Eagle feathers. Some wisps of red-dyed horsehair from an old harness tassel; strips of red flannel from an old shirt, and some scraps of sheepskin supplied the remaining raw material. Caleb took an increasing interest, and helped them not only to make the bonnet, but also to decide on what things should count coup and what grand coup. Sam had a number of feathers for ...
— Two Little Savages • Ernest Thompson Seton
... white patches on either "cheek;" the tail feathers are black, tipped with white, and on the lower part of the body is a patch of yellow; the feathers of the head form a crest that almost rises to the dignity of a tassel. ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... "Perhaps. What makes men go out of their minds; what makes men shoot themselves?" he answered himself, and opening his eyes, he saw with wonder an embroidered cushion beside him, worked by Varya, his brother's wife. He touched the tassel of the cushion, and tried to think of Varya, of when he had seen her last. But to think of anything extraneous was an agonizing effort. "No, I must sleep!" He moved the cushion up, and pressed his head into it, but he had to make an effort to keep his eyes shut. He jumped up and sat ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... him the impassioned earnestness of his face would have increased her surprise. But she was looking at the tassel on the chair arm, drawing its strands ...
— Treasure and Trouble Therewith - A Tale of California • Geraldine Bonner
... where the proud once dwelt and looked to dwell for ever, having no fear of God or man. The hanging-stone is there that never wanted its tassel, the courtyard where was the ready block, the dungeon for the captive, the banquet-hall and the earl's chamber. They are all there, yet only the owl and the bat ...
— Bog-Myrtle and Peat - Tales Chiefly Of Galloway Gathered From The Years 1889 To 1895 • S.R. Crockett
... the wrist, and bound at the waist with a voluminous gaudy shawl of Cashmere for girdle; over this a warm wide-flowing torrent of white drapery, lined with ermine. On my head is the skull-cap, covered by a high crimson cap with deep-blue tassel; and on my feet is a pair of thin yellow-morocco shoes, covered over with thick red-morocco babooshes. My ankles—my ten fingers—my wrists—are heavy with gold and silver ornaments; and in my ears, which, with considerable pain, I bored three days since, are two ...
— The Purple Cloud • M.P. Shiel
... Maid of Athens, Catinco, and Mariana, are of middle stature. On the crown of the head of each is a red Albanian skull-cap, with a blue tassel spread out and fastened down like a star. Near the edge or bottom of the skull-cap is a handkerchief of various colours bound round their temples. The youngest wears her hair loose, falling on her shoulders,—the hair behind descending down the back nearly to the waist, and, as usual, mixed with ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. I. (of VI.) - With his Letters and Journals. • Thomas Moore
... neck. When he got that on he pulled on a pair of old slippers that he had tacked tin soles onto. The next and last piece to the harness was his red and blue worsted toboggan cap with a long peak minus the tassel—it was very necessary for the head to get the full benefit or you'd catch cold. This cap he pulled down well over his head and ears, and then he stood on a box and mounted the fiery throne, sitting down mighty easy while spreading the quilt over the back of the chair, and holding it out well so ...
— Cupid's Middleman • Edward B. Lent
... worsted tassel of Judith's blue sweater free from its tangle with her shoe lace, then she poked her dimpled ...
— Jane Allen: Junior • Edith Bancroft
... tail of St Mark, evacuating the minor devil, who had hired it on a repairing lease, accepted Asmodeus as a tenant, and violently circumambulating the apartment belaboured all those whose voices had been raised against his Vestal. Finally the tassel of the tail turned into the head of the demon and vowed his devotion to Diana so long as she remained unmarried; did she dare, however, to desert him for an earthly consort, he was commander of fourteen legions, and he would strangle the ...
— Devil-Worship in France - or The Question of Lucifer • Arthur Edward Waite
... October day, when I could not stand up beside you. It has a fight twice worthy of its keen edge now." He drew it partially from its sheath, and mused a moment. Then he slowly untwisted the ribbon and tassel of bullion at the hilt, and gave it into her hand. "I have a better hilt-ribbon than that," he said; "and when we go into the house, I will ...
— The Bow of Orange Ribbon - A Romance of New York • Amelia E. Barr
... end of chain) "My mother's chain." (The chain was a long chain of mother's. It was cut in two after she died. Hannah had worn one half. The half which I took to the sitting had not been worn since mother's death, and it had a tassel on the end, different from ...
— Mrs. Piper & the Society for Psychical Research • Michael Sage
... the rose has held its own as the queen of flowers and as the finest expression of sentiment. But here comes a flaunting thing with no desirable perfume, looking as if it were cut with scissors out of tissue-paper, but capable of taking infinite varieties of color, and growing as big as a curtain tassel, that literally captures the world, and spreads all over the globe, like the Canada thistle. The florists have no eye for anything else, and the biggest floral prizes are awarded for the production of its eccentricities. Is the rage for this flower typical of this fast ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... of the wearer. The material, colour and ornament of the Zaruchi correspond with those of the spencer and vest. A dagger is generally worn in the girdle, together with a pair of pistols. The head-dress is a red fez, with a blue tassel. ...
— A Woman's Journey Round the World • Ida Pfeiffer
... front of the medium's chair. There were also two other pairs of wires leading to two other positions on the stage. The medium was dressed as a "Mahatma" on this evening, wearing a large turban. A large tassel dangled by his left ear, completely concealing a small "watch-case receiver" which was attached to this ear. Two tiny wires led from this receiver, inside his collar, down his person, and were connected inside his ...
— The Lock and Key Library/Real Life #2 • Julian Hawthorne
... itself to the tassel, and the shaped seam suggests a pattern; up-stitches are needed for binding the web, and before she is aware of it, the worker finds herself adorning, embroidering; and the craft enters the outskirts ...
— Needlework As Art • Marian Alford
... darling, I'm not tired! I've saved the fare and bought this swanky little cane instead. Look! Isn't it dinky?" protested Irene, proudly exhibiting her newly purchased treasure. "It has a leather strap and a tassel and a ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil
... him, the captain turned and said a few words to the officer at his side, who was a splendid fellow, in the prime of life, with a square bony frame and red beard, which harmonised, if it did not contrast, with his scarlet fez and blue tassel. A rich Eastern shawl encircled his waist, from the folds of which peeped the handles ...
— In the Track of the Troops • R.M. Ballantyne
... torrents leap and roar, And disappear, in gloomy gorges sunk, Fringed with black pines on dizzy verges high— Poised, trembling to the thunder and the cry Of the lost waters, through each giant trunk, And farthest twig and tassel evermore. ...
— The Coming of the Princess and Other Poems • Kate Seymour Maclean
... disguises? in both instances, military disguises; one, indeed, has gold lace round the cape, and the other has embroidery. Sarah Alexander says, those procured by M'Rae, were officers coats, with flowers of worsted, and that the hats were embroidered, the one having a brass plate, and a gold tassel, instead of the sort of ornaments that the superior actor in this conspiracy (if such you shall be of opinion he was) had. One was decorated with a star, and that silver ornament that you have seen; the other was in rather a plainer dress; but there was in each case the assumption of the ...
— The Trial of Charles Random de Berenger, Sir Thomas Cochrane, • William Brodie Gurney
... eleven o'clock a visitor arrived, a very queer-looking little man, in a black suit of Quaker cut, and a college cap without a tassel, with the corners of the square board rounded off. Standing by my bed-side in this costume, he said that he was a convert of Mr. Aitken's, and had come all the way from Birmingham to hear me. "Moreover," he said, "I am a herbal doctor. Please let ...
— From Death into Life - or, twenty years of my ministry • William Haslam
... the ancle; but Mohammed, excepting when he encased them in European stockings, had his legs bare: the waistcoat and jacket fit tight to the shape, and are of a tasteful cut, and together with a sash and the crimson cap with a dark blue tassel, almost universal, form a picturesque and handsome dress. That worn by our servant was made of fine blue stuff, embroidered, or rather braided, at the edges; and this kind of ornament is so general, that even some of the poorest fellahs, who possess but one coarse canvas shirt, will have that ...
— Notes of an Overland Journey Through France and Egypt to Bombay • Miss Emma Roberts
... weighed, found wanting, and been put back in the balance for reconsideration. She vanished, and a desirable alter ego—Mr. Pellew's, as he hoped—was looking across at him from the sofa by the window, swinging the tassel of the red blind that kept the sun in check, and hushed it down to a fiery glow on the sofa's occupant waiting to know how ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... hung at one side of my bed, continued from a bell-wire at some distance, the tassel of which I touched lightly, and, at the very first signal, Mrs. Clayton appeared through the hitherto only unopened door, to ...
— Sea and Shore - A Sequel to "Miriam's Memoirs" • Mrs. Catharine A. Warfield
... stowed.' The rowers are splendid-looking fellows from two to four in number, each man with two light sculls, and they sit lightly on thwarts on the same level with the gunwale of the caique. Their costume is beautiful; the head covered with the crimson tarbouche, and the long silk tassel dangling over the shoulders; a loose vest of striped silk and cotton, fine as gauze, with wide open collar, and loose flowing sleeves; a brilliant-colored shawl envelops the waist, and huge folds of Turkish trousers ...
— The World of Waters - A Peaceful Progress o'er the Unpathed Sea • Mrs. David Osborne
... believed that as he was going to Algeria he should adopt Algerian costume. Large baggy pantaloons of white cloth, a small tight jacket with metal buttons, a red sash wound round his stomach and on his head a gigantic "Chechia" (a red floppy bonnet) with an immensely long blue tassel dangling from its crown. Added to this, he carried two rifles, one on each shoulder, a hunting knife stuck into the sash round his middle, a cartridge-bag slung on one side and a revolver in a leather holster on the other. ...
— Tartarin de Tarascon • Alphonse Daudet
... a hot day at the Law Courts, but a faint breeze had sprung up with the later hours, blowing softly over the river. It caught the tassel of the blind by which Field sat and tapped it against the window-frame, at first gently like a child at play, then with gathering force and insistence till at last he looked up with a frown and ...
— The Odds - And Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... better described as rangers of the woods and waters. Picturesque, too, they were in their red flannel or leather shirts and cloth caps of some gay color, finished to a point which hung over on one side with a depending tassel. They had a genuine love for their occupation, and muscles that never seemed to tire at the paddle and oar. These were not the men who wanted steamboats and fast sailing vessels. These men had a real love for canoeing, and from dawn to sunset, with only a short interval, ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot
... the object in question was a tassel from his own girdle; and it was plain to him that this dwarfish spy, who took a malign delight in his employment, would lose no time in bearing it to his master, the baron. He was half-tempted to throw aside the arras, fall upon the scoundrel, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 8 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... won't go to Mrs Sawyer's to-night?" said Miss Lyons, who had thrown herself at full length upon a couch, and was idly teazing the baby with the tassel of her muff. "How provoking you are! You might as well be dead as married! It's well for your husband that I'm not in your place. Why, every one's talking about it, my child, how you are cooped up here, ...
— Godey's Lady's Book, Vol. 42, January, 1851 • Various
... acquainted with their faces would no doubt recognize them. There is a certain sensation in finding one's self invested with the academic gown, conspicuous by its red facings, and the cap with its square top and depending tassel, which is not without its accompanying satisfaction. One can walk the streets of any of the university towns in his academic robes without being jeered at, as I am afraid he would be in some of our ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... minister, what a dreadful awful looking thing a night-cap is without a tassel, ain't it? Oh! you must put a tassel on it, and that is another glass. Well then, what is the use of a night-cap, if it has a tassel on it, but has no string, it will slip off your head the very first ...
— The Attache - or, Sam Slick in England, Complete • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... the trees, Of cedar-web and green fir tassel; Low did the pointed pine tops rustle, The camp fire blush'd ...
— Old Spookses' Pass • Isabella Valancy Crawford
... which received the waste water of the household, contributed its quota to the fetid atmosphere of the staircase, and the ceiling was covered with fantastic arabesques traced by candle-smoke—such arabesques! On pulling a greasy acorn tassel attached to the bell-rope, a little bell jangled feebly somewhere within, complaining of the fissure in its ...
— Cousin Pons • Honore de Balzac
... two by two, over the floor. They must pass the open terror of the door and gain the enemy encamped under the wash-stand. The mounted band is very grand, playing allegro and leading the infantry on at the double quick. The tassel of the hearth-rug has flung down the bass-drum, and he and his dapple-grey horse lie overtripped, slipped out of line, with the little lead drumsticks ...
— Men, Women and Ghosts • Amy Lowell
... it rolled from the table, or was swept off inadvertently by the detective's hand, and how it came to be caught by this old tassel and held there in spite of the many shakings it must have received, did not concern me at this momentous instant. The talisman of this old family was found. I had but to discover what it held concealed to understand what had baffled Mr. Moore and made the mystery he had ...
— The Filigree Ball • Anna Katharine Green
... and handed it up, whereupon lady Feng directed Ts'ai Ming to read the contents aloud. "For two large, sedan chairs," he said, "four small sedan chairs and four carriages, are needed in all so many large and small tassels, each tassel requiring so many ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... and for a jest laughs at him without one. Thus she dresses a husband for herself, and after takes him for his patience, and the land adjoining, ye may see it, in a serving-man's fresh napery, and his leg steps into an unknown stocking. I need not speak of his garters, the tassel shows itself. If she love, she loves not the man, but the best of him. She is Salomon's cruel creature, and a man's walking consumption; every caudle she gives him is a purge. Her chief commendation is, she brings a man ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... a tassel from a curtain near by, looked at it, shook his head at it, and inquired ...
— That Affair Next Door • Anna Katharine Green
... who's got the ultimatum.' Oh, say, it was so nice and peaceful! And we used to have big dinners and conferences, especially after the military manoeuvres and the autumn massacres—me and the diplomats, all with stars and orders, and me in my white fez with a copper tassel—and hold discussions about ...
— Further Foolishness • Stephen Leacock
... she were expecting someone to appear. The day was grimy with clouds; mist had risen, and it hung out of the branches of the elms like a veil of white gauze. Withdrawing her eye from the vague prospect before her, Mrs Norton played listlessly with the tassel of one of the blinds. "Surely," she thought, "he cannot have been foolish enough to have walked over the downs such a day as this;" then, raising her glasses again she looked out at the smallest angle with the wall of the house, so that she should get sight of a vista through which any ...
— A Mere Accident • George Moore
... cried the professor, putting on his fez again, and making a vicious dab at the tassel, which was tickling his neck, but subsided quietly between his shoulders after it had done swinging. "He has something to say to everything. Too much talk. It wouldn't do. The Baggara are as keen as their swords: they'd see ...
— In the Mahdi's Grasp • George Manville Fenn
... various tales, in which this idea is symbolized under the form of a special gift from the Great Spirit. The Odjibwa-Algonquins, who call it Mon-da-min, that is, the Spirit's grain or berry, have a pretty story of this kind, in which the stalk in full tassel is represented as descending from the sky, under the guise of a handsome youth, in answer to the prayers of a young man at his fast of ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... absolute enthusiasm. He was too rheumatic to be shaken hands with, but he begged me to shake the tassel on the top of his nightcap, which I did most cordially. When I sat down by the side of the bed, he said that it did him a world of good to feel as if he was driving me on the Blunderstone road again. As he lay in bed, face upward, ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... general mirth—while Cai stood his ground, red to the ears, and Mrs Bosenna plucked nervously at the tassel of her sunshade—'Bias came thrusting forward, shouldering his way through the press. But 'Bias's face reflected none of the ...
— Hocken and Hunken • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... of these sensible inventions come from the brain of a fashionable modiste, who will make you more lovely, or what you value more 'stylish' outside and comfortable within. Mrs. Van Tassel has been to Madame Stone, and is wearing a full suit of this sort. Van himself told me, when I asked how she was, that she had given up lying on the sofa, and was going about in a most astonishing way, ...
— Eight Cousins • Louisa M. Alcott
... house the man commonly wears on his head a band of plaited rattan, which varies from a mere band around the brows to a completed skull-cap. The free ends of the rattan strips are generally allowed to project, forming a dependent tassel or fringe (Pl. 21). A well-to-do Kayan man usually wears a necklace consisting of a single string of beads, which in many cases are old and of considerable value (Pls. 19 and 28). Every Kayan has the shell of the ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall
... contain a specimen like this, in gold; a brass medal, three or four inches in diameter, of a Roman Emperor; together with buckles, bracelets, amulets, and I know not what besides. There was a green silk tassel from the fringe of Queen Mary's bed at Holyrood Palace. There were illuminated missals, antique Latin Bibles, and (what may seem of especial interest to the historian) a Secret-Book of Queen Elizabeth, written, for aught I know, by her own hand. On examination, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various
... makes a pretty finish to various things. Complicated tassel-making requires a professional hand; even a simple tassel requires making properly. The first proceeding is to wind some thread round a piece of cardboard, which should be a little wider than the tassel is to be long; then double a piece of the same thread ...
— Embroidery and Tapestry Weaving • Grace Christie
... are," said his uncle; "but not worth much, either for timber, ornament, or shade. You wouldn't get much relief from the heat under the poor shadow of their tassel-like foliage." ...
— Frank Oldfield - Lost and Found • T.P. Wilson
... gown, Doris?" she said to her placid friend. "Would any one but an artist have dared to put on that side sash of rose-colored tulle with the silver tassel, and the wide ...
— Glory of Youth • Temple Bailey
... plateau of the Peninsula. It was hot and dusty, but five minutes' walk led the weary to the cliff. We used to go down its steep side on to the coast road, full of soldiers of the Allied Armies, of carts and mules with long tassel fly protectors, and of Indian or Zionist muleteers. Across the road a lighter was moored, from which we bathed happily in a peaceful sea, with the pale blue contours of Imbros and Samothrace cut ...
— With Manchesters in the East • Gerald B. Hurst
... breeches of black, and heavily pleated. How heavily pleated they are can be gathered when twenty to twenty-five yards of a kind of black alpaca are used for one pair of knee-breeches. White stockings and a red skull-cap—not the high Turkish fez—with a huge blue silk tassel reaching to the waist, complete the attire. Their women-folk look picturesque in a large scarlet cloak, with a hood half ...
— The Land of the Black Mountain - The Adventures of Two Englishmen in Montenegro • Reginald Wyon
... moment our attention is drawn to a crowd a little way ahead, the centre of attraction being apparently a good-looking young Greek from the Morea, whose jaunty little crimson cap with its hanging tassel sets off very tastefully his dark, handsome face and the glossy black curls which surround it. He is leaning against the pillar of a gateway in an attitude of unstudied grace that would charm an Italian painter, and singing, to the accompaniment of his little three-stringed guitar, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various
... insisted, "if you only knew what fun it's going to be. And we'll stop in the Exchange and buy you a cap. It's a darling cap. I've wanted it evaire since I saw it, it's velvet, rather like a choir boy's, only it has a tassel." Her arm was through Dulcie's, they were really walking along. "And we shall buy our supper there too. Miss Susan has fat jars of baked beans and little round corn muffins and I think she has ...
— Little Miss By-The-Day • Lucille Van Slyke
... disciples who assembled, one evening in each week, to receive his instructions in psalmody, was Katrina Van Tassel, the daughter and only child of a substantial Dutch farmer. She was a blooming lass of fresh eighteen; plump as a partridge; ripe and melting and rosy-checked as one of her father's peaches, and universally famed, not merely for her beauty, but her vast expectations. ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... tomatoes, and the long, thin fingers of the string-bean; potatoes furnished a comfortable brown, which, together with the soft bronze of the onion, harmonized discordant colours; and, crowning all, the silken tassel of the red-eared ...
— A Bookful of Girls • Anna Fuller
... of the tassel-birch he could mark the course of the Vand-dam stream past the Nystuen hamlet to lose itself in the gloomy waters of Utrovand or by a higher flight he could see across the barren upland that rolled ...
— Animal Heroes • Ernest Thompson Seton
... to it, little high reflected lights on the black keys, little blacknesses of shadow in the moulding of the panel behind his hand. He had finished with her altogether, and now she sat in the window-seat, looking out, and playing with the blind-tassel. He had been so much absorbed in his work that he had scarcely noticed that she had been rather ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... had stopped the pony and was watching the inroads of numberless scissor-like mouths on a stub of corn near the roadside. The tassel was gone, the edges of the leaves were eaten away, and lines of hungry insects hung to the centre rib of each blade, gnawing and cutting at every ...
— The Wind Before the Dawn • Dell H. Munger
... the barn, promising to return shortly, and, with trembling steps, again sought the apartment where her lord and master was reposing. A very decided snore met her ear. She stood by the bedside, and looked at the tassel, which was the only portion visible of her better half. She sat down on a chair; she got up again; she fussed about the room; she even opened the drawers and took out the Sunday attire of that Somnus before her. But nothing she could do ...
— Gladys, the Reaper • Anne Beale
... Governor's House stored here, I saw a gold metallic rope cord which in better times had been used to support the heavy drapery of the reception room. The idea of a silent strangulation came into my head with the picture of Jacolliot's Thugs. I cut the tassel away and put it under somebody's pillow, and hid ...
— Rescuing the Czar - Two authentic Diaries arranged and translated • James P. Smythe
... on the chair by the bed lie prone; at the window The tassel of the blind swings gently, tapping the pane, As a little wind comes in. The room is the hollow rind of a fruit, a gourd Scooped out and dry, where a spider, Folded in its legs as in a bed, Lies on the dust, watching where is nothing to see ...
— Amores - Poems • D. H. Lawrence
... His feet, which were of unusually large proportions, were leisurely crossed before him as he half leaned against, half sat upon, the steamboat's bulwark; and his thick cane, shod with a mighty ferule at one end and armed with a great metal knob at the other, depended from a line-and-tassel on his wrist. Thus attired, and thus composed into an aspect of great profundity, the gentleman twitched up the right-hand corner of his mouth and his right eye simultaneously, ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... have been gold ore, so scrupulous were they in evening the bushel measures, in which they transferred it to the quay; and so particular was the captain, a dark-skinned whiskerando, in a Maltese cap and tassel, in standing over the sailors, with his ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville
... didn't have to abide by the result. One little girl got so excited that she fell into the river, and it was Andramark who pulled her out, and beat her on the back till she stopped choking. It may be well to remember that she was named Tassel Top, a figure taken from the Indian-corn ear when it is ...
— IT and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... her; and there he stood, tall and gaunt and timid, and said not a word, only gazed and gazed. His dress was not the national costume of the valley, neither was it like anything that Aasa had ever known. On his head he wore a cap that hung all on one side, and was decorated with a long, heavy silk tassel. A threadbare coat, which seemed to be made expressly not to fit him, hung loosely on his sloping shoulders, and a pair of gray pantaloons, which were narrow where they ought to have been wide, and wide where ...
— Tales From Two Hemispheres • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... my own little room with the prim black walnut bedroom suit, the prize-books in a row on the corner shelf, the worn rug made from the minister's calf that I shot by mistake, and my father's sword, with its faded tassel, over my bed. By some odd chance all my dreams that night were of those boyish days, and it was with sincere surprise that I stared on waking at my long moustache, in the toilet mirror—we were not so universally clean shaven ...
— Margarita's Soul - The Romantic Recollections of a Man of Fifty • Ingraham Lovell
... a paper-knife and book to tumble, a pair of scissors and a thread to snip, or even from imbibing the head of a cane, I am anxious to call his attention to. If I dared add to the list, "or a cord and tassel to play with"! This nervous Mr. Halsey is wearing out my pretty blue tassel that Frank admires so much; he says he can talk better when he dangles it. Think the hint might ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson
... clusters about the pillars at the lower extremities of the gold and silver streets in Lisbon, may be observed, about noon in every day, certain strange looking men, whose appearance is neither Portuguese nor European. Their dress generally consists of a red cap, with a blue silken tassel at the top of it, a blue tunic girded at the waist with a red sash, and wide linen pantaloons or trousers. He who passes by these groups generally hears them conversing in broken Spanish or Portuguese, and occasionally in a harsh guttural language, which ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... "painted tops," "Wellington's" or "Bluchers." There are many other trifles which will evidence these changes. We are told of the "common eighteen-penny French skull cap." Note common—it is exhibited on Mr. Smangle's head—a rather smartish thing with a tassel. Nightcaps, too, they are surely gone by now: though a few old people may wear them, but then boys and young men all did. It also had a tassel. There is the "Frog Hornpipe," whatever dance that was: the "pousette;" while "cold srub," which is not in much ...
— Pickwickian Manners and Customs • Percy Fitzgerald
... sombre determination. In the blackness of the doorway a pair of eyes glimmered white, and big, and staring. Then James Wait's head protruding, became visible, as if suspended between the two hands that grasped a doorpost on each side of the face. The tassel of his blue woollen nightcap, cocked forward, danced gaily over his left eyelid. He stepped out in a tottering stride. He looked powerful as ever, but showed a strange and affected unsteadiness in his gait; his face was perhaps a trifle thinner, and his ...
— The Nigger Of The "Narcissus" - A Tale Of The Forecastle • Joseph Conrad
... and seventeen I went to six different schools. The country in those days was spotted with them. Some were called colleges, some academies, one was called an 'Ecole' of something or other. Each one I went to had a different badge, a different coloured tassel, a different set of rules and subjects. Barring the last one, which was down in Essex, near Maldon, they were simply swindles. A mile from our house was a board-school, but it would not have been ...
— Aliens • William McFee
... was no goat. Bunny saw a big bird, with his wings dragging along on the ground, his feathers all puffed up, and with what looked like a red tassel hanging dangling, dangling down over his beak, strutting ...
— Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue on Grandpa's Farm • Laura Lee Hope
... which rose without spot or wrinkle on his meagre legs, from shoes of blue Meroquin, studded with diamond buckles that flamed forth rivals to the sun! A steel-hilted sword, inlaid with gold, and decked with a knot of ribbon which fell down in a rich tassel, equipped his side; and an amber-headed cane hung dangling from his wrist. But the most remarkable parts of his furniture were, a mask on his face, and white gloves on his hands, which did not seem to be put ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett
... collar-bones. A huge wig covered the head, falling over the shoulders; while the whole was encircled by a great wreath of pink calico roses, the back of which, just under the nape of the neck, was fastened by a glittering pinchbeck tassel. The arms were nude, their natural growth of dark hair being plastered over with white chalk, which had a singularly ghastly effect; a short-skirted, low-necked gold frock, cut like a little girl's, partly covered the body, and ...
— Austin and His Friends • Frederic H. Balfour
... for some time, then suddenly holding up her purse, she exclaimed, "See, mammy, it is all done but putting on the tassel! Isn't it pretty? and won't dear Miss Allison be pleased ...
— Elsie Dinsmore • Martha Finley
... others, of bowing before the lady of the house, and murmuring his thanks; of having his paletot reached him by a servant, and of putting something into his hand; but all this was shadowy and unreal. He only saw one thing clearly: a white cloak, with a silk hood and a tassel—oh, that tassel! Once more the large eyes shone full upon him, and he heard the whispered words, "Good-night!" Then came an uninteresting dream of going up stairs with Fink, and but half hearing his jesting comments; of entering a small room, lighting a lamp, ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag
... these children had had the misfortune to lose his hair, and he was obliged to wear a wig. Every night, when he went to bed, he used to take off his wig, and hang it upon a nail in his dressing-room, and put on a white night-cap with a long tassel ...
— Aunt Fanny's Story-Book for Little Boys and Girls • Frances Elizabeth Barrow
... asleep—shove hip to haunch, Or somebody deal him a dig in the paunch! Look at the purse with the tassel and knob, And the gown with the angel and thingumbob! What's he at, quotha? reading his text! Now you've his curtsey—and what ...
— Introduction to Robert Browning • Hiram Corson
... likes canny seeds; I'll send him some," said she, pinning a paper of sugared spices to the window curtain, and drawing it up by means of the tassel. "O, dear, um don't go high enough. ...
— Dotty Dimple's Flyaway • Sophie May
... spring sunlight, streaming Through the window, sets its gleaming, With a softened silver sparkle in the dim and dusky hall, With its tassel torn and tattered, And its blade, deep-bruised and battered, Like a veteran, scarred and weary, hangs the ...
— Cape Cod Ballads, and Other Verse • Joseph C. Lincoln
... very glad That I do think there is not to be had . . . . . . . . . . The blue wheat-acre is underneath And the braided ear breaks out of the sheath, The ear in milk, lush the sash, And crush-silk poppies aflash, The blood-gush blade-gash Flame-rash rudred Bud shelling or broad-shed Tatter-tassel-tangled and dingle-a-dangled Dandy-hung dainty head. . . . . . . . And down ... the furrow dry Sunspurge and oxeye And laced-leaved lovely Foam-tuft fumitory . . . . . . . Through the velvety wind V-winged To the nest's nook I balance and buoy With a sweet joy of a sweet ...
— Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins - Now First Published • Gerard Manley Hopkins |
