"Tasteful" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... a statuette representing a fast little dog upon a tasteful pedestal, used often to excite my curiosity, the more because Job showed no inclination to gratify it. I managed, however, at last to get at the incident which made Job the possessor of this comical little figure, and as the circumstance worthily illustrates his character, I will relate it as ...
— The Adventures of a Dog, and a Good Dog Too • Alfred Elwes
... of a florid and incongruous character, more lavish and showy rather than true and tasteful; much in vogue from the 16th ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... over the country in all directions during night, and seeks the shelter of a forest about an hour before the sun rises. It feeds heartily, but wastefully, tearing down branches, half of which it leaves untouched; it strips the bark off those trees which it selects as tasteful, but throws wilfully away a considerable portion. Throughout the entire night the elephant is feeding, and it is curious to observe how particular this animal is in the choice of food. Most wild animals possess a certain amount of botanical ...
— Wild Beasts and their Ways • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... plaited the chintz round the looking-glass and on the edges of the book-shelves, while the picture-frames, the corner-brackets, and the impromptu washstand owed their existence to Geoff's cleverness with tools. But the whole effect was pretty and tasteful, and Imogen, as she went on with her dressing, looked about her with a somewhat reluctant admiration, which was slightly tinctured ...
— In the High Valley - Being the fifth and last volume of the Katy Did series • Susan Coolidge
... perfect character, and, truth to tell, ever since her return from Baden-Baden, a sense of the incongruity of her circumstances had crept upon her. The tasteful surroundings, the cultured conversation, the musical evenings, the refinement of all around, had enchanted the young girl, and the humble lot and homely ways of her Forest friends had on her return to them stood out in striking contrast. And, alas! ...
— Little Frida - A Tale of the Black Forest • Anonymous
... very decided advantage in discussing such points; she could compare the balls of Bath with those of Tunbridge, its fashions with the fashions of London; could rectify the opinions of her new friend in many articles of tasteful attire; could discover a flirtation between any gentleman and lady who only smiled on each other; and point out a quiz through the thickness of a crowd. These powers received due admiration from Catherine, to whom they were entirely new; and the respect which they naturally ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... many a stork in the course of his lifetime, and he really excels in reproducing groups and duets, if one may so express it, of this bird. Few Japanese possess the art of interpreting this subject in a manner at once so rapid and so tasteful; first he draws the two beaks, then the four claws, then the backs, the feathers, dash, dash, dash—with a dozen strokes of his clever brush, held in his daintily posed hand, it is done, ...
— Madame Chrysantheme Complete • Pierre Loti
... have consulted the gratification of his readers. In short, there are few subjects that admit of more delightful illustration, literary or graphic, than the "Festivals, Games, and Amusements" of "Merry England;" yet, to do these topics justice, requires careful compilation, condensation, and tasteful arrangement, upon neither of which points can we congratulate Mr. Smith's judgment in the specimen before us. Probably the author has been so long accustomed to indulge his fancy in ten shilling volumes of "historical ...
— Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 475 - Vol. XVII, No. 475. Saturday, February 5, 1831 • Various
... the men were seated, the women entered. A Parisian modiste would have been put to the blush by the ingenuity of design displayed by these countrywomen's costumes. The dazzlingly white linen, the tasteful combination of lace, embroidery, and furbelows, the handsome bodice and woven belt, the richly trimmed cloaks, the skirts hanging in many folds, the silk pinafores, the black lace caps set off by white veils disposed in picturesque puffs and creases,—all betrayed a wealth of ...
— Manasseh - A Romance of Transylvania • Maurus Jokai
... mother Louise feigned to see nothing repulsive in the humility of these. She had been rather fastidiously worldly, she had been even aggressively worldly, in her preference for a luxurious and tasteful setting, and her mother now found it hard to bear her contented acceptance of the pervading commonness of things at Mrs. Maxwell's. Either her senses were holden by her fondness for Maxwell, or else she was trying to hoodwink her mother by an effect of indifference; but Mrs. Hilary ...
— The Story of a Play - A Novel • W. D. Howells
... signorina has such beautiful clothes, while mine are so poor," sighed Lisette, in a deprecatory tone, but with a wistful glance over the daintily made traveling suit, at the tasteful hat, and expensive boots which ...
— His Heart's Queen • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... favorable circumstances to see Miss Marlay's qualities. Her graceful figure in her simple tasteful, and perfectly fitting frock, her rhythmical movement, her rare voice, all touched exquisitely so sensitive a nature as Lurton's. But more than that was he moved by her diligent management of the household, ...
— The Mystery of Metropolisville • Edward Eggleston
... impression upon me; though I also remember their being replaced, upon Mrs. F—— wearying of them, by a set of ground glass and dead and burnished silver, so exquisite, that the splendid gold service was pronounced infinitely less tasteful ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... kindly and appreciative; among them, Dodsley the bookselling author, who wrote "The Economy of Human Life," (the "Proverbial Philosophy" of its day,) and Whately, who gave to the public the most elegant and tasteful discussion of artificial scenery that ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 77, March, 1864 • Various
... received Mr. Fitzgerald with a cold and embarrassed mien, which evidently mortified him; I also felt a little worldly vanity in the moment of surprise, for my morning dress was more calculated to display maternal assiduity than elegant and tasteful deshabille. In a small basket near my chair slept my little Maria; my table was spread with papers, and everything around me presented the mixed confusion of a study and ...
— Beaux and Belles of England • Mary Robinson
... These, in small buildings, are generally plain; but in large buildings they exhibit numerous mouldings, combined with a certain degree of decorative embellishment. This style is, however, far from presenting that extreme beauty of outline and tasteful conception, combined with the pure and chaste ornamental accessories, which prevail in the ...
— The Principles of Gothic Ecclesiastical Architecture, Elucidated by Question and Answer, 4th ed. • Matthew Holbeche Bloxam
... is the Reverend Elder Sprightly. This gentleman was of good natural parts; and in a better school of intellectual discipline and more fortunate circumstances, he must have become a worthy minister of some more tasteful, literary and evangelical sect. As it was, he had only become what he never got beyond—"a very smart man;" and his aim had become one—to enlarge his own people. And in this work, so great was his success, that, to use his own modest boastfulness ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VII. (of X.) • Various
... miles, perhaps not so far. Simon Spriggins raised a large family, but there are only two of the boys at home now, and Nell Spriggins is a nice looking girl. I tell you their home is neat and tasteful, although not very showy." ...
— Marguerite Verne • Agatha Armour
... won hearty eulogies from all though Mr Dixon of Mary's excepted to it, asking with a finicking air did he purpose also to carry coals to Newcastle. Mr Mulligan however made court to the scholarly by an apt quotation from the classics which, as it dwelt upon his memory, seemed to him a sound and tasteful support of his contention: Talis ac tanta depravatio hujus seculi, O quirites, ut matresfamiliarum nostrae lascivas cujuslibet semiviri libici titillationes testibus ponderosis atque excelsis erectionibus centurionum Romanorum magnopere anteponunt, while for those of ruder ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... insinuations, all deserving the epithet of the first, pursued Felix as he entered a room, small, and with all the contents faded and worn, but with an air of having been once tasteful, and still made the best of. Contents we say advisedly, meaning not merely the furniture but the inmates, namely, the pale wan fragile mother, working, but with the baby on her knee, and looking as if care and toil had brought her to skin and bone, though still with sweet ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... of the same general order with "Little Classics," which have proved so universally popular, but smaller every way, except in type. Their typographical beauty, fine paper, tasteful binding, dainty size, and, yet more, the sterling and popular character of their contents, have gained for them ...
— The Nursery, January 1877, Volume XXI, No. 1 - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest Readers • Various
... Ellen Chauncey, to work at something for her. She had begged Alice's advice and help; and between them, out of Ellen's scraps of morocco and silk, they had manufactured a little bag of all the colours of the rainbow, and very pretty and tasteful withal. Ellen thought it a chef-d'oeuvre, and was unbounded in her admiration. It lay folded up in white paper in a locked drawer, ready for New Year's day. In addition to all these pieces of business, John had begun to give her drawing lessons, according to his promise. These became ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Elizabeth Wetherell
... the inner room. Her face and figure show refinement and distinction. Her complexion is pale and opaque. Her steel-grey eyes express a cold, unruffled repose. Her hair is of an agreeable brown, but not particularly abundant. She is dressed in a tasteful, somewhat loose-fitting morning gown. ...
— Hedda Gabler - Play In Four Acts • Henrik Ibsen
... design from the interior of an ancient bowl is shown in Fig. 487, in which merely a suggestion of the radiation is preserved, although the figure is still decorative and tasteful. This process of modification goes on without end, and as the true geometric textile forms recede from view innovation robs the design of all traces of its original character, producing much ...
— Origin and Development of Form and Ornament in Ceramic Art. • William Henry Holmes
... sufferings, called, in bitter mockery, Pleasure. The late evening, being a modern invention, is therefore devoted to fashion; to recur to the simple and pure in theatricals, it would probably be necessary to effect an escape from a period of time, which has never been employed in the full integrity of tasteful elegance; and thus to break the spell, by which the whole realm of fancy has long been bewitched. An absurd and inconvenient practice, which is almost peculiar to this country, of attending public places in that uncomfortable ...
— The Mirror Of Literature, Amusement, And Instruction, No. 391 - Vol. 14, No. 391, Saturday, September 26, 1829 • Various
... the form of Miss Macrae, in an elegant and tasteful yachting costume, appeared on the deck of the submarine. The boat's crew of the Flora Macdonald (to whom she was endeared) lifted their oars and cheered. The masked pirate in command handed her into a boat of the Flora's with stately courtesy, placing in her hand a bouquet of the rarest ...
— The Disentanglers • Andrew Lang
... if one of the older men found himself yielding to the national passion for lengthy monologues on a favorite theme, or to the mediocre habit of anecdote, there was an instant closing in on him of carefully casual team-work on the part of the others which soon reduced him to the tasteful short comment and answer which formed the framework of ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... women, such as form the majority of every crowd at home, as well as in America, and Australia? The conditions of life must surely be easier here, and people must have found rest from some of its burdensome conventionalities. The foreign ladies, in their simple, tasteful, fresh attire, innocent of the humpings and bunchings, the monstrosities and deformities of ultra-fashionable bad taste, beamed with cheerfulness, friendliness, and kindliness. Men and women looked as easy, contented, ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird
... have said, to a type of literary lady now well-nigh passed away, but of which we find frequent trace in the epistolary literature of the last century. The class comes before us in elegant and tasteful letters, indicative of minds imbued with literature, though mayhap not ambitious of authorship, and that show what ornaments their writers must have proved of the society to which they belonged, and what delight they must have given to the circles in which they more immediately moved. ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... the afternoon, as there were vespers at the Roman Catholic churches, I went to that of Notre Dame des Victoires. The congregation was French, and a sermon in French was preached by an Abbe; the music was excellent, all things airy and tasteful, and making one feel as if in one of the chapels in Paris. The Cathedral of St. Mary, which I afterwards visited, where the Irish attend, was a contrast indeed, and more like one of our stifling Irish Catholic churches in Boston or New York, with intelligence in so small a proportion ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... spacious, though there is nothing gaudy or gay about it. Let us walk in. It is plainly furnished, though the articles are rich and tasteful. This is the sitting room. Who is that beautiful lady sitting at the piano-forte? Do you not recognize her, gentle reader? Of course you do. It is Mrs. West, and an old acquaintance. She is no longer the little angel, though I cannot tell her height or her weight; ...
— Try Again - or, the Trials and Triumphs of Harry West. A Story for Young Folks • Oliver Optic
... late or too early for the proceeding. The rite performed, the happy pair and their friends adjourned to the Cadran Bleu, that restaurant so celebrated in the festivities of the good citizens of Paris. Here Mr. Love had ordered, at the epicier's expense, a most tasteful entertainment. ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... vision—one or other, or both—were by no means destitute of taste, hung various spears, and bows, and quivers, and shields of Indian manufacture, with spears and bows whose form seemed to indicate that Dick himself was their fabricator. There was much of tasteful ornament on the sheaths and handles of ...
— The Wild Man of the West - A Tale of the Rocky Mountains • R.M. Ballantyne
... air blows not from place to place. A pleasant taste, of that delight It doth confound all appetite. A strict embrace, not felt, yet leaves That virtue, where it takes it cleaves. This light, this sound, this savouring grace, This tasteful sweet, this strict embrace, No place contains, no eye can see, My God is, and ...
— England's Antiphon • George MacDonald
... architectural features of interiors, were very properly elaborated considerably beyond the somewhat negative character of background accessories by the builders of Colonial times. Virtually furnishings as well as necessary parts of the house, the application of tasteful ornamentation to them seems amply justified. Each is a subject in itself, as indicated by the fact that stair building and mantel construction still remain independent trades quite apart from ordinary joinery. For that reason two separate chapters ...
— The Colonial Architecture of Philadelphia • Frank Cousins
... much sweeter in bygone times; how many struggles had it cost her to keep these two last links of that broken chain which bound her yet to home! With every slender ornament, the occupation of her leisure hours, replete with that graceful charm which lingers in every little tasteful work of woman's hands, how much patient endurance and how many gentle affections were entwined! He felt as though the smile of Heaven were on the little chamber; as though the beautiful devotion of ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... He told them that the Signora Barbarina had arrived, and would appear that evening at the castle theatre. He invited his mother and the two princesses to be present. He requested them to make tasteful and becoming toilets, and to be bright and amiable at the ball and supper after the theatre. The king implored them both to be gay: the one, in order to show that she was neither angry nor jealous; the other, that she was ...
— Berlin and Sans-Souci • Louise Muhlbach
... lacking in the merits of the installation of any exhibit presented by women, nor in the taste manifested in the placing of the same. The women's college booths were always effectively arranged and sometimes made up for the lack of range of exhibit by unusual artistic grouping and tasteful placing of ...
— Final Report of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission • Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission
... a mature woman, full-bosomed, grave of feature, introspective of glance. Her graceful hat, her daintily gloved hands, her tasteful dress, impressed the cowboy with a feeling that all art and poetry and refinement were represented by her. For the moment his own serenity and self-command were shaken. He cowered in his seat like a dust-covered plowman in a parlor, ...
— The Eagle's Heart • Hamlin Garland
... study. Like the young man to whom Coleridge addressed a poem of rebuke, I was abandoned, a greater part of the time, to "an Indolent and Causeless Melancholy"; or to its partner, an excessive and not always tasteful mirth. I spent hours upon hours, with little profit, in libraries, flitting aimlessly from book to book. With something between terror and hunger I contemplated the opposite sex. In short, I was discreditable and harmless and unlovely as the young Yahoo can be. It fills me with amazement to think ...
— Plum Pudding - Of Divers Ingredients, Discreetly Blended & Seasoned • Christopher Morley
... in order to give plenty of accommodation for the living quarters. The staterooms, dining rooms and saloon were really rooms, with seven or eight feet of head room, and furnished just as one would find in a tasteful and expensive house. ...
— The War Terror • Arthur B. Reeve
... the mighty, fir-decked wall of gray and yellow rock behind it. Flowers had been planted along the path, and through the open door a red-shaded lamp shone like a poppy. Plainly it was the home of refined and tasteful women, a place where tall, rude men entered ...
— The Tyranny of the Dark • Hamlin Garland
... a small but select audience to do Mr Pottinger, the Yeld attorney, honour. The widow was there, looking pale but charming in her deep mourning and tasteful cap. Roger was there, restless, impatient, and a little angry at all the fuss. Dr Brandram and the Rector were there, resigned, as men who had been through ceremonies of the kind before. And a deputation of dead-servants sat on chairs near the door, gratified to be included in the party, and mentally ...
— Roger Ingleton, Minor • Talbot Baines Reed
... are covered with small square black and white tiles, set exactly after the fashion of the squares on a chess-board; at the foot of each grave stands a black cross, bearing on its centre a little white plaque, on which the name is graven in delicate and tasteful lettering. So pretty these little tombs are, that you might almost believe yourself in a toy cemetery. Here and there, again, are miniature marble chapels built over the dead,—containing white Madonnas and Christs ...
— Two Years in the French West Indies • Lafcadio Hearn
... several good engravings hanging askew on the walls or lying about the floor, all soiled with rain and cut and torn by their splintered glass. The large open-grate fireplace had an artistically carved overmantel sadly chipped and smoke-blackened, a tiled hearth in fragments; the wall-paper in a tasteful design of dark-green and gold was blotched and discoloured, and hung in peeling strips and gigantic 'dog's-ears'; from the poles and rings over the windows the tattered fragments of a lace curtain dangled. There was ...
— Between the Lines • Boyd Cable
... on, a creaking, antiquated oxcart arrived at Los Cuervos, bearing several articles of furniture, and some tasteful ornaments from Los Gatos, at the same time that a young Mexican girl mysteriously appeared in the kitchen, as a temporary assistant to the decrepit Concha. These were both clearly attributable to Don Jose, whose visit was not so remote but that ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte
... felt that I should find out what cold meant in Venice. In addition to this, the grey-washed walls of my large room soon annoyed me, as they were so little suited to the ceiling, which was covered with a fresco which I thought was rather tasteful. I decided to have the walls of the large room covered with hangings of a dark-red shade, even if they were of quite common quality. This immediately caused much trouble; but it seemed to me that it was well worth surmounting, when I gazed down ...
— My Life, Volume II • Richard Wagner
... are very fond of bright colours, and one of the peculiarities which strike the visitor to Bucarest is the hues of the women's dresses, sometimes, but not always, as tasteful as they are brilliant. Another feature is the love of the pictorial art in connection with the advertisements of tradespeople. Amongst many examples of this, in various vocations, is the frequent recurrence of signboards, representing a lady reposing ...
— Roumania Past and Present • James Samuelson
... occupied the whole of the newer front, and had a cheerful, cosy appearance. Its floor was covered with a tidy rag carpet, evidently of home manufacture, and its plastered walls were decorated with tasteful paper, and hung with a number of neatly framed engravings. Opposite the doorway stood a large mahogany bureau, and over it, suspended from the ceiling by leathern cords, was a curiously contrived shelving, containing a score or more of well-worn books. Among them ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 3 No 3, March 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... when we passed over the same ground, and taking a road to the right of the once tasteful grounds of that mansion, debouched by a narrow pass cut through the bank to the water's edge. As we did so, some shells thrown at the mounted officers of the Regiment passed close to their heads and exploded with ...
— Red-Tape and Pigeon-Hole Generals - As Seen From the Ranks During a Campaign in the Army of the Potomac • William H. Armstrong
... could hardly attain it before, though it was perhaps more essential to them than to the wealthy and leisurely who had previously monopolised it. The multiplication of Schools of Design over the country, intended to promote the tasteful efficiency of those engaged in textile manufactures and in our decorative and constructive art generally, is one remarkable feature of the time, and the sedulous cultivation of music by members of all classes of society is another, hardly less hopeful. In all these efforts for ...
— Great Britain and Her Queen • Anne E. Keeling
... lamentable to see the beautiful picture of a celebrated painter smeared over by our soldiers with coal dust, a Hebe with her arms knocked off, a priceless Buddhist manuscript lying torn in the chimney grate.... Then people began to think it would be a good thing to obtain such beautiful and tasteful articles for one's friends. A system of 'salvage' was thus introduced, which it is said even eminent and distinguished men in the army winked at. Soldiers bargained for them with the Jews and hucksters who ...
— Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris • Henry Labouchere
... of compassion, and stooping, kissed the freckled cheek warmly. The colour came into the child's face, but she stood like a stock, never moving a muscle, never raising her eyes to take note of the pretty, tasteful arrangements to which Margaret had given such thought and pains. But the undressing went on, and presently she was in her little nightgown, with her hair unbraided and smoothly brushed. She might be pretty, Margaret decided, ...
— Margaret Montfort • Laura E. Richards
... in ornamental units is, indeed, embarrassingly large for the modern designer, and a careful and tasteful selection becomes of more and more importance. It is not the number of forms you can combine, or because they are of Persian or Chinese origin, that your work will be artistic, but the judicious and inventive use made of the elements of your ...
— Line and Form (1900) • Walter Crane
... diameter. Both are therefore very small compared with our present ordinary varieties, but of the same general size as the wild forms of the present day. Like these, they must have been of a more woody and less fleshy tissue. They would scarcely have been tasteful to us, but in ancient times no better varieties were known and therefore ...
— Species and Varieties, Their Origin by Mutation • Hugo DeVries
... read politely through the garish revel of the preceding chapter, covers for fourteen are now laid with correct and tasteful quietness at the sophisticated board of that fine old New York family, the Milbreys. Shaded candles leave all but the glowing table in a gloom discreetly pleasant. One need not look so high as the old-fashioned stuccoed ceiling. ...
— The Spenders - A Tale of the Third Generation • Harry Leon Wilson
... want of success has surprised me too. He had a fair share of talent; and, had he cultivated his powers with care, and given himself fair play, his fate would have been different. But he sees nature rather through a curious medium than with the tasteful eye of poetry, and must please himself with the praise of those who love singular and curious things. I have said nothing all this while of Mrs Hogg, though I might have said much, for we hear her household ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume II. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... the Erbprinz Friedrich Ludwig had espoused Henriette Marie of Brandenburg-Schwedt, a pretty and most correct Princess who possessed, among other graceful talents, a perfect genius for tasteful dressing. The marriage festivities had not taken place at Stuttgart, in order to avoid the obvious complications of the meeting of the bridegroom's parents. The Erbprinz hardly knew his father, for Eberhard Ludwig had permitted him to remain chiefly with the Duchess ...
— A German Pompadour - Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Graevenitz, - Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg • Marie Hay
... attic style, that would qualify him to produce the Vestiges of Creation, though we never heard that he is a great natural philosopher. But, as just hinted, deep science is not evinced by the Vestiges, only an able, systematic, and tasteful arrangement of its distant and ...
— An Expository Outline of the "Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation" • Anonymous
... was finer in its quality, and more tasteful in its fashion, than is customary. I have known Admirals do the same in their moments of relaxation. Sailors of condition often love to carry about them the testimonials of their profession, without any of the trappings ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper
... rarely encamp with the regiments. The tents of the men front on streets from fifteen to twenty feet wide, each company having a street of its own, and there is much competition as to the adornment of these. Many regimental camps are decorated with evergreens in an exceedingly tasteful manner—particularly during warm weather—chapels, arches, colonnades, etc., being constructed of rude frameworks, so interwoven with pine boughs that they ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No. 6, December 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... the great room and of the hall are inlaid with marble. A lofty cupola and an immense glazed dome cover both the great room and the hall; the upper staircases are ornamented with beautiful statues. When in the evening it is brilliantly lighted with gas, and further ornamented by a tasteful display of the richest wares, the spectator can almost fancy himself transported to a ...
— Visit to Iceland - and the Scandinavian North • Ida Pfeiffer
... lilies of the valley should be also placed at each cover. The menu cards should be simple but tasteful. Elaborate menus are not now in the best form. In fact, with a bachelor dinner, as with all functions of this kind, elegant simplicity should be the predominating characteristic; cut glass and silver are all that is required. In the center ...
— The Complete Bachelor - Manners for Men • Walter Germain
... white silk, silver and glass beads, and several other materials are in requisition; so that here is ample scope for classification and arrangement. A mourning bag looks well done to imitate lace, worked in black floss silk, and ornamented with black glass and silver beads, disposed in a tasteful and ornamental style. Sometimes a bag is worked as a shield of four squares; in such a case, two squares should be worked in feather stitch, and the others in any stitch that will form a pleasing contrast: the border should be a simple, ...
— The Ladies' Work-Table Book • Anonymous
... posts, the best being entirely built of planks, others of bamboo. The former are always more or less ornamented with carving and have high-pitched roofs and overhanging eaves. The gable ends and all the chief posts and beams are sometimes covered with exceedingly tasteful carved work, and this is still more the case in the district of Menangkabo, further west. The floor is made of split bamboo, and is rather shaky, and there is no sign of anything we should call furniture. There are no benches ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume I. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... illustrations, adorned with tasteful border decorations by PHILIP E. FLINTOFF, besides thirty-four artistic pen sketches by FREELAND ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume X (of X) • Various
... on your guides for a tasteful preparation of food. Many of them are ignorant of the difference between frying and broiling, and their notion of boiling a potato or a fish is to reduce it to a pulp. Now and then you find a man who has a natural inclination ...
— Fisherman's Luck • Henry van Dyke
... not denial, and may be consent. My supposition is this: possibly some lady, here present, has a dear friend at home, a bed-ridden sufferer from spinal complaint. If so, what gift more appropriate to that sufferer than this tasteful little bottle of ...
— The Confidence-Man • Herman Melville
... mischievous Bat, "have you no words of praise for our kind host? Methinks he deserves some return for this wonderfully generous, agreeable, tasteful, well-appointed, luxurious, elegant, and altogether acceptable banquet. What have you to say, O ...
— The Curious Book of Birds • Abbie Farwell Brown
... pronounced fortunate in his biographer, whom he himself designated for the trust. His nephew has performed his labor of love in a manner which will satisfy all but those who read a book mainly for the purpose of finding fault with it. In his brief and tasteful preface he says: "In the delicate office of sifting, selecting, and arranging these different materials, extending through a period of nearly sixty years, it has been my aim to make the author, in every stage of his career, as far as possible, his own biographer, conscious that I shall in this ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 61, November, 1862 • Various
... the chairs, which had been hidden by brown holland, gave to the rooms a pleasant air of being lived in. There were flowering plants and pots of roses here and there on tables or window-ledges. Mabel's aunt prided herself on her tasteful touch in the home, and had studied the arrangement of flowers in a series of articles in Home Drivel called "How to Make Home ...
— The Enchanted Castle • E. Nesbit
... whatever it is called. Blocks of tall new buildings of the most sumptuous sort, rich with decoration and graced with statues, the streets between these blocks roofed over with glass at a great height, the pavements all of smooth and variegated marble, arranged in tasteful patterns—little tables all over these marble streets, people sitting at them, eating, drinking, or smoking—crowds of other people strolling by—such is the Arcade. I should like to live in it all the time. The windows of the sumptuous ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... certainly excellent, very evenly woven; and the patterns, all devised, I am told, by the women themselves, very simple and tasteful. The only dyes used are got by the women also from the sea-weeds and the kelp, which must be counted among the resources of the place. The browns and ochres thus produced are both soft and vivid; while nothing can be better than a peculiar warm grey, produced ...
— Ireland Under Coercion (2nd ed.) (1 of 2) (1888) • William Henry Hurlbert
... return visit to the United States, I brought these drawings with me and engaged a competent architect and builder, giving him instructions to proceed with the work, not 'by the job' but 'by the day,' and to spare neither time nor expense in erecting a comfortable, convenient, and tasteful residence. The work was thus begun and continued while I was still abroad, and during the time when I was making my tour with General Tom Thumb through the United States and Cuba. Elegant and appropriate furniture was made expressly for every room in the house. I erected expensive water-works to ...
— A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career. Life of Hon. Phineas T. • Joel Benton
... was said with so much unction that even Mrs. Hittaway herself found it to be not "tasteful." She shrunk and shivered under Mr. Gowran's eloquence, and almost repented of her zeal. But women, perhaps, feel less repugnance than do men at using ignoble assistance in the achievement of good purposes. Though Mrs. Hittaway ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... are brimming with tears of love at these dear recollections! Louis had sent him a large box of material for doing his work, and Clara had insisted on his having one of her new rooms for a studio, and everything was as perfect as tasteful appointments could make it, even to the dressing-gown she ...
— The Harvest of Years • Martha Lewis Beckwith Ewell
... the family to use but which they all cordially disliked. Its paneled walls, crystal-hung chandelier, marble-fronted fireplace, and inlaid floor gave it the appearance of one of the less cozy rooms in a small palace. There were also two tasteful portraits of dead ducks which had been added as a finishing touch by some tenant during the eighties and which still remained upon the ...
— Ralestone Luck • Andre Norton
... Mildred had never regained her wardrobe; everything that was dear to her was still in her stepmother's keeping,—her father's picture, her own mother's miniature, the silver cup she had used from infancy, and all the elegant and tasteful articles that had accumulated in a house in which no wish was left ungratified. Ever since the session of the Probate Court, the house had been shut to visitors, if any there had been. Mrs. Clamp had not been ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 11, September, 1858 • Various
... sit upon the chairs, or saunter beneath the trees, the effect is both grateful and refreshing. The little flower garden, in the centre of which this fountain seems to be for ever playing, is a perfect model of neatness and tasteful disposition: not a weed dare intrude: and the earth seems always fresh and moist from the spray of the fountain— while roses, jonquils, and hyacinths scatter their delicious fragrance around. For one minute only let us visit the Caffe des Mille Colonnes: so called (as you well know) ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Two • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... arisen to grace the BURNEY name, And some in letters, some in tasteful arts, In learning some have borne distinguished parts; Or sought through science of sweet sounds their fame: And foremost she, renowned for many a tale Of faithful love perplexed, and of that good Old man, who, as CAMILLA'S guardian, stood In obstinate virtue clad like coat of mail. Nor dost ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb IV - Poems and Plays • Charles and Mary Lamb
... return in the same capacity. Marie had served the noble guests with pleasant alacrity, passing the rainbow-tinted trout caught as well as broiled by her own hand, and the luscious huckleberries in tasteful baskets of her own braiding, and Tontz Main de Fer, the chivalric companion and friend of La Salle, was moved like Geraint, served by Enid, "to stoop and kiss the dainty little thumb that crossed the trencher." The salutation was received with unconscious dignity by little Marie; ...
— The Galaxy - Vol. 23, No. 1 • Various
... there two weeks already, waiting for the "Oxford" to arrive with its many precious Art-burdens. It stands near the window; it will be a good light for it. Fred wishes, for the hundredth time, that it would come along. There are books, surely? Oh, yes, one side of the room is a complete bookcase,—tasteful, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 18, April, 1859 - [Date last updated: August 7, 2005] • Various
... a general air of go-to-meeting solemnity pervaded the room. Merry longed to make it pretty and pleasant, but her mother would allow of no change there, so the girl gave up her dreams of rugs and hangings, fine pictures and tasteful ornaments, and dutifully aired, dusted, and shut up this awful apartment once a week, privately resolving that, if she ever had a parlor of her own, it should not be as dismal ...
— Jack and Jill • Louisa May Alcott
... house, of a cabriolet, and to have at his table the company of a few friends, with his Josephine—now found that the little house in the Rue de la Victoire was too small for him; that it must be altered even as the street had been. The modest and tasteful arrangements which had sufficed the Widow Josephine de Beauharnais, appeared now to her young husband as insufficient; the little saloon, in which at one time he had felt so happy at the side of the viscountess, ...
— The Empress Josephine • Louise Muhlbach
... home; and fairyland seemed opening to my view when I embraced Gabrielle once more. What a pleasant home it was!—a cottage not much larger than the one I had left—but how different! Elegance and comfort were combined; and when I saw the rare exotics in the tasteful conservatory I remembered the roses in our wilderness. Ah, I doubt if we ever valued flowers as we did those precious dewy buds. Wood End Cottage stood on the brow of a hill, commanding a fair prospect of sylvan quietude; the old Parsonage was adjacent, inhabited by a bachelor ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various
... recent upheaval in religious thought had secured toleration, and made possible that free and even audacious interchange of ideas without which a literary atmosphere is impossible. From these, or from whatever causes, it happened that the old Harvard scholarship had an elegant and tasteful side to it, so that the dry erudition of the schools blossomed into a generous culture, and there were men in the professors' chairs who were no less efficient as teachers because they were also poets, orators, wits and men of the world. In the ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... September, 1854, LVII. 310. "Mr. Huidekoper had the satisfaction, in the later years of his life, of seeing a respectable society worshipping in the tasteful building which he loved and of witnessing the prosperity of the theological school in which he was so much interested. We have never known any one who seemed to live so habitually in the presence of God. ...
— Unitarianism in America • George Willis Cooke
... Halifax, a prosperous man now, drove daily to and from his mills, in as tasteful an equipage as any of the country ...
— John Halifax, Gentleman • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... most of the members of the Prothero family could be present. They also yielded to Miss Gwynne's ready assistance in such preparations as she made, and were the instruments in surprising her and her father by some tasteful decorations in their honour, unknown to them. Owen and Gladys worked very hard at floral and evergreen mottoes for the tent, whilst Rowland gave his advice as he sat with his mother, and tried to amuse her during the tedium of ...
— Gladys, the Reaper • Anne Beale
... is a sort of sacrament, if I may use the word—a sure sign of the wearer's character; according as any one is orderly, or modest, or tasteful, or joyous, or brilliant"—and I glanced again at Lillian—"those excellences, or the want of them, are sure to show themselves, in the colours they choose, and the cut of their garments. In the workroom, I and a friend of mine used often to ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... shroud worthy of a queen. The statuettes of the four gods of Amenti in hammered gold shone brilliantly, and were symmetrically arranged along the upper edge of the network, which ended below in a fringe of most tasteful ornaments. Between the statuettes of the funeral gods was a golden plate, above which a lapis-lazuli scarabaeus spread out its long golden wings. Under the mummy's head was placed a rich mirror of polished metal, as if it had ...
— The Works of Theophile Gautier, Volume 5 - The Romance of a Mummy and Egypt • Theophile Gautier
... dressing apartment, where she sat arrayed in her native loveliness, adorned with all that Janet's art and a rich and tasteful undress could bestow. But the most beautiful part of her attire was her profuse and luxuriant light-brown locks, which floated in such rich abundance around a neck that resembled a swan's, and over a bosom heaving with anxious expectation, which ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... are unable to pay for a grave or a burial plot. Clara, however, had not the pain of seeing her mother placed in the repulsive red box furnished by the department, for Mr. Jocelyn sent a plain but tasteful coffin, with the woman's age and name inscribed ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe
... comfortable lady, absorbed in the quiet machinery of a conventionally proper life. She loved her family, her church, and a moderate amount of society. She loved things. Quiet satisfaction beamed from the gentle eyes on the choice silver of the dining-room, on her blue antique china, on the costly, tasteful accessories of the drawing-room, and, indeed, on all the well chosen appointments of the quietly elegant home. Interest in her own person and its adornment had been gradually diverted toward Winifred, whose beauty, grace of manner, ...
— The First Soprano • Mary Hitchcock
... induced a little sobriety upon her lover's face, if not a sadness in his heart. Amusement, recreation, enjoyment! There are no more beautiful things. But this proceeding falls under another head. We watched the various toilettes of these bounding belles. They were rich and tasteful. But a man at our elbow, of experience and shrewd observation, said, with a sneer, for which we called him to account, "I observe that American ladies are so rich in charms that they are not at all chary of them. It is certainly generous to us miserable black coats. ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume II. (of X.) • Various
... on one side, appears the triple pyramidal tower, which may be inferred, from the curious distribution of little cells which surround the central room of each story, to have been employed as a place of royal or private sepulture. It would be pronounced a striking and tasteful structure, according to any architectural rule. On another side of the same cloistered court is the detached temple of the chief god, to whom the whole religious building appears to have been devoted, who appears to have been the great and only god of the nations who worshipped in ...
— Diary in America, Series Two • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... such contradiction exists in the system of Divine Providence; which, leaving it open to us, if we will, as creatures in probation, to abuse this sense like every other, and pamper it with selfish and thoughtless vanities, as we pamper the palate with deadly meats, until the appetite of tasteful cruelty is lost in its sickened satiety, incapable of pleasure unless, Caligula like, it concentrates the labour of a million of lives into the sensation of an hour,—leaves it also open to us, by humble and loving ways, to make ourselves susceptible of deep delight, which shall not separate us ...
— Frondes Agrestes - Readings in 'Modern Painters' • John Ruskin
... But the most tasteful portion of the whole, is a stone screen, by Adams, in front of an open court, and facing the street. The style is exceedingly chaste and pleasing, and the decorations are characteristic naval emblems, finely executed. The representation of two ancient ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 343, November 29, 1828 • Various
... library now, and the soft May breeze came stealing through the open window, stirring the fleecy curtain and blowing across the tasteful bouquet which Katy had arranged; but Katy was too wretched to care for her surroundings. It was the first time Wilford had ever spoken to her just in this way, and his manner hurt her more than his words, making her feel as if she were an ignorant, ill-bred creature, whom he ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes
... true, the tasteful way to pay a poet is by the exchange of some other beautiful thing: by beautiful praise, by a beautiful smile, by a well-shaped tear, by a rose. It is thus that a poet—frequently, I am bound ...
— Prose Fancies • Richard Le Gallienne
... disciple of Morse in that far-away village with work that kept him clicking for an hour. We were handsomely taken in by Warren Potter, a pioneer and an active and intelligent factor in the business of that region, in whose tasteful home we for the first time in a month sat down and ate in Christian fashion under a civilized roof. Having lost a week in the farther wilderness, we decided to take the rail to Minneapolis, that we might enjoy the beautiful river thence to Lake Pepin, yet reach our homes within ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, September 1880 • Various
... ladies and gentlemen walked in the garden demurely, And with pointed fingers presented the flowers, and held them. Ah, if only such things were now to be seen! Little care I Now to go out; for everything needs to be alter'd and tasteful, As it is call'd; and white are the benches of wood and the palings; All things are simple and plain; and neither carving not gilding Now are employ'd, and foreign timber is now all the fashion. I should be only too pleased to possess some novelty also, ...
— The Poems of Goethe • Goethe
... the other corner is to be marked Condolence. Cards sent to friends before leaving for a long journey, are issued with the addition of P. P. C. in the left hand corner. These cards are inclosed in heavy and elegant, though plain, envelopes, ornamented with a tasteful monogram or initial. ...
— The Secrets Of The Great City • Edward Winslow Martin
... the factories, he turned east and presently out of Jefferson Street into Elm. He paused at a two-story brick house painted brown, with a small but brilliant and tasteful garden in front and down either side. To the right of the door was an unobtrusive black-and-gold sign bearing the words "Ferdinand Schulze, M.D." He rang, was admitted by a pretty, plump, Saxon-blond young woman—the doctor's younger daughter and housekeeper. She ...
— The Second Generation • David Graham Phillips
... its young rider, while near by it was Firelock, which Durward had borrowed of John Jr. At last 'Lena appeared, and if Durward had admired her beauty before, his admiration was now greatly increased when he saw how well she looked in her neatly fitting riding dress and tasteful straw hat. After bidding her good morning, he advanced to assist her in mounting, but declining his offer, she with one bound sprang ...
— 'Lena Rivers • Mary J. Holmes
... stumbled in the powerful man's direction, perhaps contemplating the performance of some deed of desperate valor. Meanwhile the object of his hostility had relinquished his hold of the horse, and appeared kneeling on the ground, supporting the form of a woman, dressed in a tasteful white dress, with dark, disordered hair lying around ...
— Bressant • Julian Hawthorne
... for a new school of decoration, Claude Audran snatched up his talented brush and put down his dainty inspirations with unfaltering delicacy of touch. He wrote upon his canvas poems in life, symphonies in colour, created a whole world of tasteful fancy, a world whose entire intent was to please. He left the heavy ways of pomp and revelled in a world where roses bloom and ribbons flutter, where clouds are strong to support the svelte deity upon them, and where the rudest architecture ...
— The Tapestry Book • Helen Churchill Candee
... is her wont in Miss Aubrey; Mrs. Grattan acted and looked as if she were quite deserving of a man with ten thousand a year. As to her singing, if her husband were in possession of twenty thousand per annum, (would to the gods he were!) it could not have been more charmingly tasteful. The pathetics of Wilkinson (as Quirk) in the suicide scene, and just before the event, deserve the attention and imitation of Macready. We hope the former comedian's next character will be Ion, or, at ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, November 27, 1841 • Various
... on the in every way attractive appearance of the first volume of their new series. The typography is everything that could be wished, and the binding is most tasteful.... We heartily congratulate author and publishers on the happy commencement of ...
— Sir Walter Scott - Famous Scots Series • George Saintsbury
... personal allusions secured far more attention than any abstract topic I could introduce. Her lips, however, were so exquisitely chiselled that they made, for the time, any utterance agreeable, and suggested that only tasteful thoughts and words ...
— A Day Of Fate • E. P. Roe
... not buy cheap editions. Grimm's "Fairy tales" is selected in the tasteful Macmillan edition with illustrations by Walter Crane. Hawthorne's "Wonderbook" is given to them in the exquisite illustrated edition of Houghton, Mifflin & Co. We consider the illustrations and the dainty covers a part of the educative value of the book. We do not ...
— Library Work with Children • Alice I. Hazeltine
... COOLIDGE, 17 Washington street, Boston, and sold by HENRY DEXTER, New York. It is an almanac; contains a blank memorandum for every day in the year, recipes, music, and light reading—and is altogether an excellent subject for a small and tasteful gift. ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 2, No 6, December 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... years since (eheu! fugaces labuntur anni!) the writer of this induced his friend Sir Egerton Brydges to print the Nymphidia at his private press; and it would give him pleasure, should your Notes be now instrumental to the production of a tasteful selection from the copious materials furnished by Drayton's prolific muse. Notwithstanding that selections are not generally approved, in this case it would be (if judiciously done) acceptable, and, it is ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 6. Saturday, December 8, 1849 • Various
... railing. Then the broad village street was properly graded and drained, and agreeable walks were made at its sides. Incidentally to this, the people living along both sides of the streets were encouraged to do what they could to give it an appropriate setting by putting their own premises into tasteful condition and maintaining them so. The organization worked well, and accomplished good results. The Rev. N. P. Eggleston, formerly of Stockbridge, in a paper on village improvements written for the "New York Tribune," thus describes the collateral work and influences ...
— Village Improvements and Farm Villages • George E. Waring
... an elderly gentleman in correct evening dress, the room a tasteful one, the company of infinite respectability, the locality at once fashionable and exclusive, the occasion an unexceptionable dinner. To this should be added that the ...
— Drift from Two Shores • Bret Harte
... plans. After this he published National Tales, in the same comic vein; but also produced his exquisite serious pieces, The Plea of the Midsummer Fairies, Hero and Leander, and others, all of which are striking and tasteful. In 1838 he commenced The Comic Annual, which appeared for several years, brimful of mirth and fun. He was editor of various magazines,—The New Monthly, and Hood's Magazine. For Punch he wrote The Song of the Shirt, and The Bridge of Sighs. No one can compute the good done by ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee |
