"Tinsel" Quotes from Famous Books
... can write no article just now; I am pioching, like a madman, at my stories, and can make nothing of them; my simplicity is tame and dull—my passion tinsel, boyish, hysterical. Never mind—ten years hence, if I live, I shall have learned, so help me God. I know one must work, in the meantime (so says Balzac) comme le mineur enfoui ... — The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... There are the splendid parlor houses distributed in the most fashionable parts of the city; there are the bar houses; there are the dance houses; and there are the miserable basements where this traffic is seen in its hideous deformity, divested of the gaslight glare and tinsel of the high-toned seraglios. The internal arrangements of the palatial bagnios are in many instances sumptuous, magnificent and suggestive. The walls of these seductive arsenals, too, are frequently of a ... — Danger! A True History of a Great City's Wiles and Temptations • William Howe
... the spot where the pulpit and the minister's chair usually held sway. The tree was likewise adorned with silver paper and tinsel, and pink and white tarlatan in the shape of plump stockings filled with candy and nuts. Each of the little girls was to have one of these, and each boy a candy cane. These also hung in red and white ... — Chicken Little Jane • Lily Munsell Ritchie
... copper-coloured Cupid entering and calling the virgins with a flute; these appeared from a green-room, to the number of thirty or forty, of all ages and sizes. Each had her hair dressed in a topknot, and her head covered with a veil; a scarlet petticoat loaded with tinsel concealed her naked feet, and over this was a short red kirtle, and an enormous white shawl was swathed round the body from the armpits to the waist. A broad belt passed over the right shoulder and under the left arm, to which hung ... — Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker
... Smollett's Ode to Independence: if you have not seen the poem, I will send it to you. How wretched is the man that hangs on by the favours of the great! To shrink from every dignity of man, at the approach of a lordly piece of self-consequence, who, amid all his tinsel glitter, and stately hauteur, is but a creature formed as thou art—and perhaps not so well formed as thou art—came into the world a puling infant as thou didst, and must go out of it as all men must, ... — The Letters of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... wan hands, and, as if noticing her borrowed clothing for the first time, looked about the room for the tinsel and gauze. ... — Old Caravan Days • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... so thoroughly that I cannot hate him. I abhor him. It is you who must save me from him; it is you who must also save me my principality. Oh, they envy me, these poor people, because I am a Princess, because I dwell in the tinsel glitter of the court. Could they but know how I envy their lives, their homes, their humble ambitions! Believe me, monsieur, as yet I love no man; but that is no reason why I should link my life to that of a man to whom virtue ... — Arms and the Woman • Harold MacGrath
... Shelley has it; and much peace of mind it gave him!' answered Lancelot. 'I have grown sick lately of such dreary tinsel abstractions. When you look through the glitter of the words, your "spirit of beauty" simply means certain shapes and colours which please you in beautiful things ... — Yeast: A Problem • Charles Kingsley
... choice and beseeching, what would she think of in her journeying, what would she look for when the herds passed her? Surely for the gaze which had found her, and which she would know again. Life would be no better than candle-light tinsel and daylight rubbish if our spirits were not touched by what has been, to issues of longing and constancy. It was true that Dorothea wanted to know the Farebrothers better, and especially to talk to the new rector, but also true that remembering what Lydgate had told her ... — Middlemarch • George Eliot
... mercy in the girl, no more for him than for herself. The big head lay upon her breast; she caressed the gross hair of it ever so lightly. "These are tinsel oaths," she crooned, as if rapt with incurious content; "these are the old empty protestations of all you strutting poets. A word gets you what you desire! Then why do you not speak that word? Why do you not speak many words, and become again as eloquent and ... — Chivalry • James Branch Cabell
... was accomplished, did they contemplate their work, and predict the aspect of their tinsel and frippery when duly lighted up. Then, as they dispersed to dress, James ran home, and hastily tapped at his ... — Dynevor Terrace (Vol. I) - or, The Clue of Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... is exceptionally high and pure. The devotional fervour often rises to the boiling point of fanaticism. The pathos is sweet, deep and genuine; tender, simple and true, utterly unlike much of our modern tinsel. Its life, strong, splendid and multitudinous, is everywhere flavoured with that unaffected pessimism and constitutional melancholy which strike deepest root under the brightest skies and which sigh in the ... — The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... use of diamonds, rubies, emeralds and other precious stones, mainly introduced for their effect in color, few of them being of great value as gems. Stones with flaws, and others which are mere chips or scales, are laid on like tinsel. Two cases are filled with gaudy trappings and caparisons—horse and camel saddles with velvet and leather work, gold embroidery and cut-cloth work (applique); an elephant howdah of silver; chowries of ... — Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various
... 'Sorrows of Werther.' But Napoleon's range of reading was very extensive. It included Homer, Virgil, Tasso; novels of all countries; histories of all times; mathematics, legislation, and theology. He detested what he called "the bombast and tinsel" of Voltaire. The praises of Homer and Ossian he was never wearied of sounding. "Read again," he said to an officer on board the BELLEROPHO—"read again the poet of Achilles; devour Ossian. Those are the poets who lift up the soul, and give to ... — Character • Samuel Smiles
... wear a similar costume of pale gray and lavender, with a tall headdress of wire covered with white gauze and tinsel. ... — The Belles of Canterbury - A Chaucer Tale Out of School • Anna Bird Stewart
... numerous and complex, the most apparent being the immense influx of immigration from the crowded centres of the old world; the glamor of city life, which has allured thousands from the country, fascinating them from afar much as the gaudy colors and tinsel before the footlights dazzle the vision of a child; the rapid growth of the saloon, rendered well-nigh impregnable by the wealth of the liquor power; the wonderful labor-saving inventions, which in the hands of greed and avarice, instead of mitigating the burdens of ... — The Arena - Volume 4, No. 19, June, 1891 • Various
... hills and rocks and streams, and strange new races of men. These are incidents in which the authentic history of the discovery of our continent exceeds the specious wonders of romance, as much as gold excels tinsel, or the sun in the heavens ... — Christopher Columbus and His Monument Columbia • Various
... people's men! You haven't mastered the elementary truths of your religion. What's England, or France, or any other country in the world, by the side of humanity? Be off! I'll go my own way. Go yours, and take your little tinsel of jingoism with you. Whenever you want to fight ... — A People's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... against the windows, and a draughty wind fluttered the tinselly decorations of last night. The floor was strewed with fragments of garments torn in the crush—paper and silken flowers, here a rosette, there a buckle, a satin bow, a tinsel spangle. Benches and tables were piled about the room, which was half dark; only to westward, through one window, was visible a paler gleam, which might by comparison ... — The First Violin - A Novel • Jessie Fothergill
... them with an askant look and careless demeanour. A table well spread with fine-looking artificial flowers and viands may be nice for the eye, but who can satisfy his hunger and thirst with them? Thus it is with your altiloquent talkers, Miss Bunting. They give you, as a rule, only the tinsel, the varnish, the superficial, which vanishes into thin nothing under your analysis of thought or your reflection of ... — Talkers - With Illustrations • John Bate
... must die, glorious and lofty as they are, proudly as they stand over their trembling subjects! Even to them comes the dark hour in which all the borrowed and artistically-combined tinsel of their lives falls from them; a dark hour, in which they tremble and repent, and pray to God for what they seldom granted to their fellow-men—mercy! Mercy for those false tales which they have imposed upon the people, for those false tales of the higher endowments ... — The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... age of tarletan and tinsel, of delicate zephyrs and extremes in butterfly effects. Hoop-skirts were persisted in, despite the protests of art and reason; so, the serenity of this dress, fitting close as a habit, and falling in soft straight folds with a sculpturesque effect, and ... — The Bondwoman • Marah Ellis Ryan
... universal. The special survival here is of the Hobby Horse, that once played so prominent a part in these boisterous masquerades, but such life as it still enjoys at Padstow is somewhat a galvanised existence, just as children still occasionally dress in poor tinsel and gaiety in order to collect a few coppers. Such exhibitions are melancholy ... — The Cornwall Coast • Arthur L. Salmon
... vivid lines assume The garb and dignity of ancient Rome.— Let college verse-men trite conceits express, Trick'd out in splendid shreds of Virgil's dress; From playful Ovid cull the tinsel phrase, And vapid notions hitch in pilfer'd lays: Then with mosaick art the piece combine, And boast the glitter of each dulcet line: Johnson adventur'd boldly to transfuse His vigorous sense into the Latian muse; Aspir'd to shine by unreflected light, And ... — Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... of one side flew over the enemy's territory diligently mapping out his trenches, observing the movements of his troops, or indicating, by dropping bunches of tinsel for the sun to shine upon or breaking smoke bombs, the position of his hidden battery, the foe thus menaced sought to drive them away with anti-aircraft guns. These proved to be ineffective and it may be said here that throughout the war the swift airplanes proved themselves more than a match for ... — Aircraft and Submarines - The Story of the Invention, Development, and Present-Day - Uses of War's Newest Weapons • Willis J. Abbot
... for you, Colonel." He was in one of his gently sparkling moods. "Get into your armor asinorum, for we fare forth to make contest with tinsel and gauze. In other words, we mingle with the proletariat. We go to see Margaret Anglin and Henry Miller in that superb and realistic ... — The Drama of the Forests - Romance and Adventure • Arthur Heming
... entirely out of his element, but Florence shows him the spirit in which to accept the tinsel and the rude fun-making. He soon comes to like it—and to think very well of the naively ... — Writing the Photoplay • J. Berg Esenwein and Arthur Leeds
... difficult place, and filled it well; but the court of the Second Empire was all spangles and tinsel. It was composed of men and women all more or less adventurers. It was the court of the nouveaux riches and of a mushroom aristocracy. There were prizes to be won and pleasures to be enjoyed, and it was "like as it was in the days of Noe, until the flood came, ... — France in the Nineteenth Century • Elizabeth Latimer
... that she has, making, it may be, but one protest for Justice' sake and then no more. And she will urge her children to do the same. If the world will let her have no jewels, then she will put glass beads in her monstrance, and for marble she will use plaster, and tinsel for gold. ... — Paradoxes of Catholicism • Robert Hugh Benson
... own paws, loses flesh; and love, feeding upon itself, dies of inanition. Take the candle of death in your hand, and walk through the stately galleries of the world, and their splendid furniture and array are as the tinsel armour and pasteboard goblets of a penny theatre; fame is but an inscription on a grave, and glory the melancholy blazon on a coffin lid. We argue fiercely about happiness. One insists that she is found in the cottage which the hawthorn shades. Another that she is a lady of fashion, and treads ... — Dreamthorp - A Book of Essays Written in the Country • Alexander Smith
... story illustrative of this altered manner and matter of preaching. He had been preaching when very young, at Galashiels, and one wife said to her "neebor," "Jean, what think ye o' the lad?" "It's maist o't tinsel wark," said Jean, neither relishing nor appreciating his fine sentiments and figures. After my mother's death, he preached in the same place, and Jean, running to her friend, took the first word, "It's a' ... — Spare Hours • John Brown
... on the floor in a corner, and many of the guests also were seated on the floor. Miss Ingate, intoxicated by the rapture of existence, and Miss Thompkins were carefully examining the frescoes on the walls. A young woman covered from head to foot with gold tinsel was throwing chocolates into Musa's mouth, or as near to it as ... — The Lion's Share • E. Arnold Bennett
... complete mutual understanding, and a joint determination that carried all before it—when, I say, Aunt Rennie, defeated, prepared to take her leave, she said a word to me which I often thought of afterwards. "She is choosing blindfold, tinsel for gold." I thought of it, not on account of the expression, but of Aunt Rennie herself. There was something in the pallor of her face, and in her tone, that made me ask myself whether there could be ... — A Loose End and Other Stories • S. Elizabeth Hall
... courts. That is fun—pleasure and amusement. No; the real work of the stage lies in the creation of a character. A great character will live forever, when paint and canvas and silks and satins and gold foil and tinsel shall have gone the way of ... — [19th Century Actor] Autobiographies • George Iles
... in scanning similar embroidery in the literature of the Napoleonic Era, I unhesitatingly place the work of Archibald Forbes, and that of several knights of the pen still living, far above the delusive tinsel of Marbot, Thiebault, and Segur. I will go further and say that, if we could find out what were the sources used by Thucydides, we should notice qualms of misgiving shoot through the circles of scientific historians as they contemplated ... — The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose
... about to scatter on various errands. You are all going on the same errand, and I like to feel bound with you in one common organization for the glory of America. And her glory goes deeper than all the tinsel, goes deeper than the sound of guns and the clash of sabers; it goes down to the very foundations of those things that have made the spirit of men ... — President Wilson's Addresses • Woodrow Wilson
... nothing. Perhaps I shall discover some new species of antelope or some unknown plant. I may be fortunate enough to find a new waterway. That is all the reward I want. I love the sense of power and the mastery. What do you think I care for the tinsel rewards ... — The Explorer • W. Somerset Maugham
... and proud of my power. But Fortune's favour, which had made another proud, has broken my pride. Priam, thou makest me proud, thou makest me tremble. I count the sceptre naught save a glory bright with worthless tinsel that sets the vain splendour of a crown upon my brow. All this the chance of one short hour may take from me without the aid of a thousand ships and ten long years of siege ... I will own my fault ... I desired to crush and conquer Troy. ... — Post-Augustan Poetry - From Seneca to Juvenal • H.E. Butler
... this strange twilight of mine, and you espied flashes of the aurora there when no one else did, like the true and faithful friend you are. You helped and guided and found grains of gold, where others saw mostly nonsense, and perhaps half a screw loose. While I was straying in search of the spiritual tinsel, with which the esprits forts of the age were glittering, you taught me, and impressed upon me, again and again, that I had to seek in myself for whatever I might possess of sentiment and simplicity—and that it was out of this I would ... — Essays on Scandinavian Literature • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... enemy music has ever had in this country, did not disdain to prepare "a performing edition," and to improve Mozart's improvements on Handel. One wonders whether Mozart, when he overlaid the "Messiah" with his gay tinsel-work, dreamed that some Costa, encouraged by Mozart's own example, and without brains enough to guess that he had nothing like Mozart's brains, would in like manner desecrate "Don Giovanni." Like "Don Giovanni," ... — Old Scores and New Readings • John F. Runciman
... "It's only tinsel, Mrs. Bread," said Newman. "If you stay there a while it will all peel off of itself." And he gave a ... — The American • Henry James
... life in New France was the settlement at Quebec. This was the colonial capital, the seat of the governor and of the council, the only town in the colony large enough to have all the trappings and tinsel of a well-rounded social set. Here, too, came some of the seigneurs to spend the winter months. The royal officials, the officers of the garrison, the leading merchants, the judges, the notaries and a few other professional men—these ... — Crusaders of New France - A Chronicle of the Fleur-de-Lis in the Wilderness - Chronicles of America, Volume 4 • William Bennett Munro
... best. They were received by Mrs. Roosevelt, who had a hand-shake and a kind word for each, and then some of the Cabinet ladies, who were assisting, gave to each visitor a button, set in ribbon and tinsel and inscribed "Merry Christmas and ... — American Boy's Life of Theodore Roosevelt • Edward Stratemeyer
... joyfully clasping to her breast a satin-striped box, in which beneath paper lace and tinsel was the most delicious candy; a whole box full all but a few bites, as Alene had said; while the latter leaned over the wall calling more good-byes, and Prince kept up a continuous barking that said so plainly, once you understood his ... — Peggy-Alone • Mary Agnes Byrne
... She's turned sullen, now. She won't take any interest in the Christmas preparations; wouldn't help the girls a bit." She sighed and looked at a table cluttered with paper paraphernalia for holiday decorations. In her world of bleak realities the tinsel trimmings for fete days left her cold. "I declare, Mr. Daragh, I believe we've worried with her long enough. I've about made up my mind that we'd better tell the young man ourselves and have done with it. ... — Jane Journeys On • Ruth Comfort Mitchell
... in their hearts. Emmy, Septimus, Sypher, all in their respective ways, had grappled with essentials. She alone had done nothing—she the strong, the sane, the capable, the magnificent. She had been a tinsel failure. So far out of touch had she been with the real warm things of life which mattered that she had not even gained her sister's confidence. Had she done so from her girlhood up, the miserable tragedy might not have happened. She had failed in ... — Septimus • William J. Locke
... Themistocles did not secure him from the seductions of avarice and pride, which led him to sacrifice both his honor and his country for the tinsel of Eastern pomp," yet, as THIRLWALL says, "No Greek had then rendered services such as those of Themistocles to the common country; and no Athenian, except Solon, had conferred equal benefits on Athens. He had first delivered her from the most imminent danger, and then raised her to the ... — Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson
... verbatim to best of my ability) I did shake my head sorrowfully, and reply that I greatly feared that JESSIMINA'S devotion to this unlucky self was too severe to be diverted, or even checked, like a cow that is infuriated or non compos mentis, by the mere relinquishment of such tinsel and gewgaw wraps as a title or worldly belongings, having frequently (and that, too, prior to our engagement) protested her preference for very dark-complexioned individuals, and her vehement curiosity ... — Baboo Jabberjee, B.A. • F. Anstey
... you like it? I wonder! Or think you it's stupid To send such a commonplace gift as a Purse? Do you sigh for the tinsel, and gauze, and the Cupid, And the wonderful sentiments written in verse? Well, suppose I had sent them. You'd murmur, "How pretty!" Then not see them again as you put them away. Shall I candidly tell you I thought 'twere a pity Just to send you a gift ... — Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, February 18, 1893 • Various
... said was true, but that I suspected it would live longer than Childe Harold. 'Ah but' (said she). 'I would rather have the fame of Childe Harold for three years than an IMMORTALITY of Don Juan!' The truth is that it is TOO TRUE, and the women hate many things which strip off the tinsel of sentiment; and they are right, as it would rob them of their weapons. I never knew a woman who did not hate De Grammont's Memoirs for the same reason: even Lady * * used ... — Life of Lord Byron, Vol. IV - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... been built where the handle of the sickle joined the blade; as the ship from which the view had been taken had approached, the details grew plainer. At the same time, it became evident that the plain inside the curve of the sickle was powdered with tiny sparkles, like tinsel dust on ... — The Cosmic Computer • Henry Beam Piper
... to change horses at Hof, a handfulof houses on the brow of a breezy hill, the church and tavern standing opposite to each other, and nothing between them but the dusty road, and the churchyard, with its iron crosses, and the fluttering tinsel of the funeral garlands. In the churchyard and at the tavern-door, were groups of peasants, waiting for divine service to begin. They were clothed in their holiday dresses. The men wore breeches and long boots, and frock-coats with large metal ... — Hyperion • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... the Prince of Peace. I believe that War is Murder. I believe that armies and navies are at bottom the tinsel and braggadocio of oppression and wrong, and I believe that the wicked conquest of weaker and darker nations by nations whiter and stronger but foreshadows the death ... — Darkwater - Voices From Within The Veil • W. E. B. Du Bois
... are simple who prize The tongue that is smooth to deceive; Yet sure she had sense to despise, The tinsel ... — The Man of Feeling • Henry Mackenzie
... hands again, and stood towering over her, intoxicated with his own tinsel phrases; almost sincere; a splendid physical presence, save for the slight thickening of face and form, the looseness of the lips, the absence of all freshness in ... — The Case of Richard Meynell • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... serious fault arises from his desire to be thought a fine writer. Without making long extracts, it is impossible to give any conception of the absurdities into which this childish ambition has led him. The tropes and metaphors, the tawdry tinsel, the common tricks of feeble rhetoricians are reproduced here as if they were the highest results of rhetorical art. The display is often amusing. Thus, in describing Mrs. John Adams, Mr. Randall says: "Her lofty lineaments ... — Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II., November, 1858., No. XIII. • Various
... blossom bore. Sid's sceptre, full of juice, did shoot In golden boughs, and golden fruit; And he, the dragon never sleeping, Guarded each fair Hesperian Pippin. No hobby-horse, with gorgeous top, The dearest in Charles Mather's[7] shop, Or glittering tinsel of May Fair, Could with this rod of Sid compare.[8] Dear Sid, then why wert thou so mad To break thy rod like naughty lad?[9] You should have kiss'd it in your distress, And then return'd it to your mistress; ... — Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... after eleven o'clock, Owen fixed the tree in a large flower-pot that had served a similar purpose before, and Nora brought out from the place where it had been stored away since last Christmas a cardboard box containing a lot of glittering tinsel ornaments—globes of silvered or gilded or painted glass, birds, butterflies and stars. Some of these things had done duty three Christmases ago and although they were in some instances slightly tarnished most of them were as good ... — The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... instructed by the famous Gorilla, who was crowned poetess-laureate at the capitol by night, six years later. She was crowned where our great Italian poets were crowned; and though her merit was no doubt great, it was, nevertheless, more tinsel than gold, and not of that order to place her on a par ... — The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... empressement. She was dressed to her heart's delight, with a profusion of mock pearl and tinsel; her hair in a shower of long curls in front, with any quantity of bows and braids behind, and a wreath!—that required all Mrs. Castleton's self-possession to look at without laughing. Her entrance excited ... — Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... taste will enable any smart young lady to make up these dresses. They are mostly loose, and the embroidery may be of tinsel—while cheap velveteen looks as well as the best ... — The Universal Reciter - 81 Choice Pieces of Rare Poetical Gems • Various
... an interesting and instructive incident. Without a doubt the man was Yankee; but he had served all through the Natal campaign, from Willow Grange to Bergendal, and his honest appreciation of his old chief almost brought tears to our eyes, and was of more value than all the ribbon and tinsel that a crowned ... — On the Heels of De Wet • The Intelligence Officer
... far the best of it. Their shrine is gaudy and glittering, and their temple is large and in some degree imposing. The Latins, whom we call Roman Catholics, are much less handsomely lodged, and their tinsel is by far more dingy. The Greeks, too, possess the hole in which stood—so they say—the cross of Our Saviour; while the Latins are obliged to put up with the sites on which the two thieves were crucified. Then the church of the Armenians, for which you have to descend almost ... — The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... spiritual qualities; and herein lies the essential reason of his championing of weak nations and pleading for the preservation of their original spiritual characteristics. These qualities are pearls of too great a price to be lost in a world where so much tinsel passes as what ... — An Interpretation of Rudolf Eucken's Philosophy • W. Tudor Jones
... contained, and she was bright and cheery and exceedingly incompetent. It was her costume that shocked him. Not only was she attired in a low-necked, rose-coloured evening gown, liberally bespangled with tinsel, but she wore a vast top-heavy picture-hat whose crown of black was almost wholly obscured by a gorgeous white feather that once must have adorned the king of all ostriches. She was not at all his idea of a chambermaid. He started to back out of the door with an apology ... — Green Fancy • George Barr McCutcheon
... noises never stilled, The skeptic's sneer, the bigot's hate, the din Of clashing texts, the webs of creed men spin Round simple truth, the children grown who build With gilded cards their new Jerusalem, Busy, with sacerdotal tailorings And tinsel gauds, bedizening holy things, I turn, with glad and grateful heart, from them To the sweet story of the Florentine Immortal in her blameless maidenhood, Beautiful as God's angels and as good; Feeling that life, even now, ... — The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... are in direct opposition to all the maxims which rule the world and make it a world. What we believe to be precious it regards as of no account. What we believe to be fundamental truth it passes by as of little importance. Much which we feel to be wrong it regards as good. Our jewels are its tinsel, and its jewels are our tinsel. We and it stand in diametrical opposition of thought about God, about self, about duty, about life, about death, about the future; and that opposition goes right down to the bottom of things. ... — Expositions of Holy Scripture: St. John Chaps. XV to XXI • Alexander Maclaren
... Chesterfield, as a man who had no friend. JOHNSON. 'There were more materials to make friendship in Garrick, had he not been so diffused.' BOSWELL. 'Garrick was pure gold, but beat out to thin leaf. Lord Chesterfield was tinsel.' JOHNSON. 'Garrick was a very good man, the cheerfullest man of his age;[1175] a decent liver in a profession which is supposed to give indulgence to licentiousness; and a man who gave away, freely, money acquired by himself. He began the world with a great hunger for money; ... — The Life Of Johnson, Volume 3 of 6 • Boswell
... crudity, like those poor painted faces of the dancers pirouetting in the midst of a public they can more surely enchant from the distance of the stage. The costumes, so many of them, came from humble costumers who let them from year to year without renewal of the tinsel or freshening of the ribbons. But those very things gave to this page of life its depth of interest, gave ... — Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall
... the Elector in her chains. These goddesses stepping into a car, vulgarly called a cariole, the mortals followed, and explored alley after alley and pavilion after pavilion. Then, having viewed Pagodenburg, which is, as they told me, all Chinese; and Marienburg, which is most assuredly all tinsel; we paraded by a variety of fountains in full squirt, and though they certainly did their best (for many were set a-going on purpose), I cannot say ... — Dreams, Waking Thoughts, and Incidents • William Beckford
... 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 over this were draped coarse folds of scarlet, purple, and white, with tinsel stars along the seams, and so disposed as to display to fullest advantage the brawny ... — Austin and His Friends • Frederic H. Balfour
... of five more bulls there was general applause. The band rolled out fresh music. There was a thunder of drums and the banderilleros came on, gorgeous in velvet, glittering in spangle and tinsel. ... — Five Nights • Victoria Cross
... sometimes a point of honour; bodily prostration was by no means exploded; matter-of-fact squires knelt like romantic knights; Sir Charles Grandison and Sir Roger de Coverley bent as low for their own purposes as fantastic gauze and tinsel troubadours. ... — Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... scene in the guard-house, a popular uprising, the fish-market, the galleys, the wine-shop, the poule au pot of Henri Quatre, are treasure-trove in her eyes. She seizes upon this canaille, washes it clean, and sews her tinsel and spangles over its villainies; purpureus assuitur pannus. Her object seems to be to deliver patents of nobility to all these roturiers of the drama; and each of these patents under the great seal is ... — Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot
... transparency, the focus for a thousand eyes. For on the dais of the barge, in the place of honour nearest the idols, stood three women and a child. The women were swathed in fold upon fold of rich violet silk, sprinkled all over with tinsel and gold; they were crowned with white flowers, wreathed round a golden ornament like a full moon set in their dark hair; and the effect of the whole, seen in the luminous flush of colour thrown upon them from the shore, was as if the night sky sparkling with stars had come ... — Lotus Buds • Amy Carmichael
... though on hamely fare we dine, Wear hoddin-gray,[1] and a' that; Gie fools their silks, and knaves their wine, A man's a man for a' that! For a' that, and a' that, Their tinsel show, and a' that; The honest man, though e'er sae poor, Is king o' men ... — Poems Every Child Should Know - The What-Every-Child-Should-Know-Library • Various
... actually consumed. Now was not this characteristic?—the ruling passions of Pope are nothing to it. Whilst the poor distracted manager was bewailing the loss of a building only worth 300,000 l., together with some twenty thousand pounds of rags and tinsel in the tiring rooms, Bluebeard's elephants, and all that—in comes a note from a scorching author, requiring at his hands two acts and odd scenes ... — Life of Lord Byron, Vol. I. (of VI.) - With his Letters and Journals. • Thomas Moore
... Seward as “all tinkling and tinsel—a sort of Dr. Darwin in petticoats.” Edgeworth described her as “a handsome woman of agreeable manners, she was generous, possessed of good sense, and capable of strong affection”; and Sir Walter Scott thought that she must have been, “when young, exquisitely beautiful; ... — Anna Seward - and Classic Lichfield • Stapleton Martin
... and lusty, remarkably coarse, without grace and animation. One need only see her to be satisfied of her low birth. At the first blush one would take her for a German actress. Her clothes looked as if bought at a doll shop; every thing was so old fashioned and so bedecked with silver and tinsel. She was decorated with a dozen orders, portraits of saints, and relics, which occasioned such a clatter that when she walked one would suppose that an ass with bells was approaching. The tzar, on the contrary, was tall and well made. ... — The Empire of Russia • John S. C. Abbott
... carried away by abnormal appetites, and wickedness, and the devil, may of course commit murder, or forge bills, or become a fraudulent director of a bankrupt company. And so may a man be untrue to his troth,—and leave true love in pursuit of tinsel, and beauty, and false words, and a large income. But why should one tell the story of creatures so base? One does not willingly grovel in gutters, or breathe fetid atmospheres, or live upon garbage. If we are to deal with heroes and heroines, let us, at any rate, ... — The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... she drifts. But what greatness she has is genuine; there is no tinsel of any kind, no drapery carefully adjusted, no chosen gesture about her. May Heaven lead her, at last, to the full possession of her best self, in harmony with ... — Woman in the Ninteenth Century - and Kindred Papers Relating to the Sphere, Condition - and Duties, of Woman. • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... false from the true. Madame de Frontignac longed for one strong, unguarded, real, earnest word from the man who had stolen from her her whole being. She was beginning to feel in some dim wise what an untold treasure she was daily giving for tinsel and dross. She leaned back in the carriage, with a restless, burning cheek, and wondered why she was born to be so miserable. The thought of Mary's saintly face and tender eyes rose before her as the moon rises on the eyes of some hot and fevered invalid, inspiring vague yearnings ... — The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... ablaze with tiny lighted tapers and radiant with shiny tinsel cut in pretty devices or in thread-like strips. Bright balls, gay toys, and paper flowers help to enhance its beauty, and sometimes scenes from sacred history are arranged with toys at ... — Yule-Tide in Many Lands • Mary P. Pringle and Clara A. Urann
... subjects, were ready to bend their necks to the yoke. Some erect and manly spirits still remained, pillars of state; but the word republic had grown stale to the vulgar ear; and many—the event would prove whether it was a majority— pined for the tinsel and show of royalty. Ryland was roused to resistance; he asserted that his sufferance alone had permitted the encrease of this party; but the time for indulgence was passed, and with one motion of his arm he would sweep away the ... — The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... dressed on an 8-o hook! Yet this is at times absolutely necessary to ensure success. The best patterns for various times of the year are—For February, March, and April, big Shannon Blue Fly, the Black Goldfinch, the Jock Scot, and the Yellow Lahobber; for May, June, and July, Purple Mixture, tinsel bodied Green Parrot, purple bodied Green Parrot, Silver and Blue Doctors, Purple Widgeon, Orange and Grouse, and Thunder and Lightning. Towards the end of the season here, as elsewhere, strange ... — The Sunny Side of Ireland - How to see it by the Great Southern and Western Railway • John O'Mahony and R. Lloyd Praeger
... extended from the corner of his mouth to his ear. Notwithstanding this, the fellow was a great dandy, spending many hours each day in greasing and arranging his long coarse hair, which he ornamented with plates of silver, bits of gaudy-colored cloth, bright feathers, and tinsel. Every hair was scrupulously plucked from his brows and eyelashes, and the lids of his eyes were painted a bright vermilion, giving to his face the expression of a ... — The Young Trail Hunters • Samuel Woodworth Cozzens
... only one leg! His uniform was red and blue and very splendid. He carried his musket across his shoulder as a marching soldier should, kept his eyes straight to the front, and stood very firmly upon his one foot. In the fire he lost the tinsel and the color from his uniform, and when the Dancer joined him he melted into a little ... — Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 10 - The Guide • Charles Herbert Sylvester
... like the rattles of a snake; there an argument sprouting into green declamation, like a damaged ear of corn in a wet harvest; yonder a piece of delightful egotism, set full in sentiment like a miniature of Mr. Clark in a tinsel frame. What seemed most remarkable, however, in at least his earlier productions, was their ceaseless glitter of surface, if we may so speak. We found them literally sprinkled over with little bits ... — Leading Articles on Various Subjects • Hugh Miller
... though pages of hurdy-gurdy tune and unmeaning music intervene. Recall "Ah, fors' e lui che l'anima," with its passionate second section, "A quell' amor," and that most moving song of resignation, "Dite all' giovine." These things outweigh a thousand times the glittering tinsel of the opera and give "Traviata" a merited place, not only beside the later creations of the composer, but among those latter-day works which we call lyric dramas to distinguish them from those which we still call operas, ... — A Book of Operas - Their Histories, Their Plots, and Their Music • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... and huge weapons a la Waterloo suggests "scalping trophies." The china is curious—there is even an empty ginger jar—picked up in country places, of a rare and valuable old-fashioned type. He has the finest collection of old tinsel pictures of the Richard III. and Dick Turpin order in the kingdom, and values an old book full of tinsel patterns of the most exquisite design and workmanship. Old glass pictures are scattered about, "Lord Nelson's Funeral Car," and ... — The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 30, June 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... his taste was excellent. He was well acquainted with the great Greek writers; and, though unable fully to appreciate their creative genius, admired the majestic simplicity of their manner, and had learned from them to despise bombast and tinsel. It is easy, we think, to discover, in The Spectator and The Guardian, traces of the influence, in part salutary and in part pernicious, which the mind of Boileau had on the ... — Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... cross and plumed hat of Switzerland. One street is all Chinese, with shiny-haired women, and little mandarins with long cues of braided red silk. The babies seem to be dressed in imitation of the idol in the temple; their tight caps have the same tinsel and trimmings, and the resemblance their little dry faces bear ... — Life at Puget Sound: With Sketches of Travel in Washington Territory, British Columbia, Oregon and California • Caroline C. Leighton
... captain, Tinsel is a mayor, Tony is a baker-boy With 'lasses in his hair, Tipsy is a sailor, With anchors on his chest, And Tiny is the baby boy Who bosses ... — The Peter Patter Book of Nursery Rhymes • Leroy F. Jackson
... round black hats, ornamented in a similar manner. All who are familiar with Indians, of whatever tribe, will have observed that their first step towards civilization, whether in man or woman, is mounting a man's hat, decorated with tinsel; ribbons, or feathers. Pawnee was among the happy number remembered in the distribution; so, donning at once his new costume, and tying a few additional bunches of gay-colored ribbons to a long spear, that was always his baton of ceremony, he came at once, ... — Wau-bun - The Early Day in the Northwest • Juliette Augusta Magill Kinzie
... of error is operating here, and that multitudes of mankind, especially innocent, loving, and gentle mankind, to say nothing of tender, enthusiastic, love-blinded womankind, are to some extent deceived by the false ring of that which is not metal, and the falser glitter of a tinsel ... — In the Track of the Troops • R.M. Ballantyne
... business had to dismount and kneel in obeisance, and farmers, instead of cultivating the fields, had to act as bearers of the dogs' sedan-chairs. Thus, the city of Kamakura presented the curious spectacle of a town filled with well-fed dogs, clothed in tinsel and brocades, and totalling from four to five thousand. Twelve days in every month used to be devoted to dog-fights, and on these occasions, the regent, the nobles, and the people inside and outside the mansion used ... — A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... to call him blessed. His mind is not at ease, because the atmosphere of envy is all around him; he knows he is the cause of evil thoughts, and that he holds his position by keeping comfort away from many around him, and his fine surroundings become to him as tinsel and dross. Dyspepsia, ennui and weariness of spirit claim him. He is a poverty-haunted coward, ashamed that he is so; and, saddest of all, he is not a Christian. He does not believe that if he seeks the kingdom of God, which means only to do aright, all ... — Brook Farm • John Thomas Codman
... them of a vessel's sex. There are minds which find a certain romance in figure-heads. To me they seem a frigid, unintelligent device, not to say idolatrous. I have known a crew to set so much store by one that they kept a tinsel locket and pair of ear-rings in the forecastle and duly adorned their darling when in port. But this is materialism. The true personality of a ship resides in no prefiguring lump of wood with a sightless smile to which all seas come alike and all weathers. Lay your open palm on the mast, rather, ... — From a Cornish Window - A New Edition • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... to shine in contradictory subjects. I could have secured an immense amount of popularity if I had gone in for a crescendo of anti-clericalism after the Vie de Jesus. The general reader likes a strong style. I could easily have left in the flourishes and tinsel phrases which excite the enthusiasm of those whose taste is not of a very elevated kind, that is to say, of the majority. I spent a year in toning down the style of the Vie de Jesus, as I thought that such a subject could not be treated too soberly or ... — Recollections of My Youth • Ernest Renan
... intelligence society has so greatly profited?" The obvious truth is, that such "celebrations" are not to our taste, that there is something burlesque, to our ideas, in this useless honour; and that we think a bonfire, a discharge of squibs, or even a discharge of rhetoric, and a display of tinsel banners and buffoonery, does not supply the most natural way of reviving the memory of departed genius. At the same time, they have their use, where they do not create their ridicule. On the Continent, life is idle; and the idlers are more harmlessly employed going to those pageants, ... — Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... that I have no other comfort but in my wife and daughter and dear little Cicero. For those ambitious friendships with great people are all show and tinsel, and contain nothing that satisfies inwardly. Every morning my house swarms with visitors; I go down to the Forum attended by troops of friends; but in the whole crowd there is no one with whom I can freely jest, or whom I can trust with an intimate word. It is for you that I wait; I ... — The World's Greatest Books, Vol IX. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... inferior to Virgil's; nay, in point of the interdependence of the adventures, to Ariosto, and with far less general vigour. The mixture of affectation with his dignity is so frequent, that, whether Boileau's famous line about Tasso's tinsel and Virgil's gold did or did not mean to imply that the Jerusalem was nothing but tinsel, and the AEneid all gold, it is certain that the tinsel is so interwoven with the gold, as to render it more ... — Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Vol. 2 • Leigh Hunt
... others in the field are cutting off French heads. And it will be best for me to go back to Kunzendorf. I have nothing to do here; no one cares for an old fellow like me. I have hoped on from day to day, but all my hopes are gone now. Amelia, take off your tinsel, and pack up our traps. The best thing we can do will be to start this very evening and return ... — NAPOLEON AND BLUCHER • L. Muhlbach
... rare moments of reflection in his gorgeous palace on the hills. Here they could at least be once more in the country they loved, albeit of a milder and less heroic type, and a little degraded by the overlapping tinsel and ... — Devil's Ford • Bret Harte
... men-at-arms on horseback, with lances and banners. We were a little too near for the full enjoyment of the spectacle; for, though some of the armor was real, I could not help observing that other suits were made of silver paper or gold tinsel. A policeman (a queer anomaly in reference to such a mediaeval spectacle) told us that they were going to joust and run at the ring, in a field a little beyond ... — Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... men in the group embarking appeared to be a chief. He had sandals on his feet, and was bedizened with gold lace tatters and a tinsel waistcoat, shining under his cloak like the belly of a fish. Another pulled down over his face a huge piece of felt, cut like a sombrero; this felt had no hole for a pipe, thus indicating the wearer to be a man ... — The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... Catholic world. The pope shook upon his throne; the shuttle of diplomatic intrigue stood still; diplomatists who had lived so long in lies that the whole life of man seemed but a stage pageant, a thing of show and tinsel, stood aghast at the revelation of English sincerity, and a shudder of great awe ran through Europe. The fury of party leaves little room for generous emotion, and no pity was felt for these men by the English Protestants. The Protestants knew well that if these same sufferers could have ... — Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude
... obtrudes again—tricked out as a Nautch girl in veils of purple, saffron, gold-tinsel, and grass-green. She postures shamelessly before the delighted tourists with woven skeins of homeward-flying pelicans, fringes of wild duck, black spotted on crimson, and cheap jewellery of opal clouds. ... — Letters of Travel (1892-1913) • Rudyard Kipling
... shall have to begin at the beginning, and enlighten the mothers. Follies and fripperies, in cooking or dressing, will give way before enlightenment, just as do the skin paintings, tattooings, gaudy colors, glass beads and tinsel, and other absurdities of savage tribes; just as have done the barbaric customs and splendors of the barbaric ages. Woman is not quite out of her barbaric stage yet. At any rate, she is not fully enlightened. The desire ... — A Domestic Problem • Abby Morton Diaz
... Kenneth's bonnet, a thin packet of real letters, and the famous champagne cork. She kisses the letters, but she does not blub over them. She strokes the dress, and waggles her head over the certificates and presses the bonnet to her cheeks, and rubs the tinsel of the cork carefully with her apron. She is a tremulous old 'un; yet she exults, for she owns all these things, and also the penny flag on her breast. She puts them away in the drawer, the scarf over them, the lavender on the scarf. Her air of triumph well becomes her. She ... — Echoes of the War • J. M. Barrie
... the executrix and son-in-law, whom that great genius deceased, my well-beloved cousin in folly, King Corny, chose for himself. As to that thing, half mud, half tinsel, half Irish, half French, Miss, or Mademoiselle, O'Faley, that jointed doll, is—all but the eyes, which move of themselves in a very extraordinary way—a mere puppet, pulled by wires in the hands of another. The master showman, fully as extraordinary in his own way as his puppet, kept, ... — Tales & Novels, Vol. IX - [Contents: Harrington; Thoughts on Bores; Ormond] • Maria Edgeworth
... over the contents of the box with lean, long fingers. In one corner thrust up a doll's arm; in another, an animal's tail pointed heavenward. She caught glimpses of glitter and tinsel, wheels and fragments ... — The Christmas Angel • Abbie Farwell Brown
... useless, unless she could win her way into little Drina's heart. She did so, and there were no more difficulties. Drina learnt her letters like an angel; and she learnt other things as well. The Baroness de Spath taught her how to make little board boxes and decorate them with tinsel and painted flowers; her mother taught her religion. Sitting in the pew every Sunday morning, the child of six was seen listening in rapt attention to the clergyman's endless sermon, for she was to be examined upon it in the afternoon. The ... — Queen Victoria • Lytton Strachey
... determined to take matters into his own hands, and he proceeded to issue a number of sumptuary laws which were far from mild. Food was regulated, minstrels were not allowed to sit at the same table with ladies and gentlemen, most rigid rules were formulated against the abuse of gold, silver, and tinsel trimmings on the dresses of the women, and of the men as well, and the use of ermine and of all fine and Costly furs was carefully restricted. In Castile the same movement was taking place, and Alfonso X., who followed Fernando, issued similar laws, wherein ... — Women of the Romance Countries • John R. Effinger
... the tried friend who raised me when I fell— A gift of weakling's tinsel oaths that strew the path ... — The Dreamers - And Other Poems • Theodosia Garrison
... severe spirits who, in garrets far from the Park and Fashion, had scorned the fumes and tinsel ... — Trivia • Logan Pearsall Smith
... The postman, again, was a baron in disguise—in private life he had a castle and retainers; and even Gygi, the gendarme, was a make-believe official who behind the scenes was a vigneron and farmer in a very humble way. Daddy, too, seemed sometimes but a tinsel author dressed up for the occasion, and absurdly busy over books that no one ever saw on railway bookstalls. While Mademoiselle Lemaire was not in fact and verity a suffering, patient, bed-ridden lady, but a princess who escaped from her disguise ... — A Prisoner in Fairyland • Algernon Blackwood
... him for the modern world, without tinsel and pasteboard; since I conceived him in fire and bore him in agony; since—even the cream of this tart is sour—since I carried him to and fro in my pocket, as a young kangaroo is carried in the pouch of ... — Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill
... fellow," he cried, "take off that brass crown and toddle into the study. Are you going to a masquerade? What's all this theatrical tinsel anyway?" ... — The King In Yellow • Robert W. Chambers
... cowardice, I feel more doubt as to my power of carrying my readers with me, though no doubt as to Cicero's courage. Cowardice in a man is abominable. But what is cowardice? and what courage? It is a matter in which so many errors are made! Tinsel is so apt to shine like gold and dazzle the sight! In one of the earlier chapters of this book, when speaking of Catiline, I have referred to the remarks of a contemporary writer: "The world has generally a generous word for the memory of a brave man dying for his cause!" "All wounded ... — The Life of Cicero - Volume II. • Anthony Trollope
... call her Medea. "La pessima Medea!" cried one of the boys—"the one who used to ride through the air on a goat?" "No, no," I said; "she was a beautiful lady, the Duchess of Urbania, the most beautiful woman that ever lived." I made her a crown of tinsel, and taught the boys to cry "Evviva, Medea!" But one of them said, "She is a witch! She must be burnt!" At which they all rushed to fetch burning faggots and tow; in a minute the yelling demons had ... — Hauntings • Vernon Lee
... jeweled as well as our neighbors, and a little better if possible; in fact, it comes from our failure to know that life is spiritual not material; that all these outward things are the mere "passing show," the tinsel, the gawds, the tissue-paper, the blue and red lights of the theater, the painted scenery, the mock heroes and heroines of the stage, rather than the real settings of the real life of real men and women. What does the inventor, who knows that his invention will help his fellows, care about the newest ... — Quit Your Worrying! • George Wharton James
... to the field the fresh, young gallants and noblemen, gorgeously apparelled with curious devices of arts and of embroideries, "as well in their coats as in trappers for their horses; some in gold, some in silver, some in tinsel, and divers others in goldsmith's work goodly to behold." Such was the array in which the young knights came forth at Richmond, in the splendid tournament which immediately succeeded Henry's coronation, "assuming the name and devices of the knights or scholars of Pallas, clothed in garments ... — Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson
... France after the predominance of years. Napoleon can be watched in obscurity and exile till the price of countless victories is estimated more truly now than was possible for his contemporaries. His successor has become a mere tinsel figure meddling with strange impunity with the destinies of Europe, and possessing qualities so little heroic that only his audacious visions and his last great failure make the memory of France's ... — Heroes of Modern Europe • Alice Birkhead
... which belonged to Hungary, he took with him, with great parade. Hungary had been deprived of these treasures, which were the pride of the nation, for seventy years. But the Protestant nobles were not to be cajoled with such tinsel. They remained firm in their demands, and refused to accept him as their sovereign until the promised toleration was granted. Their claims were very distinct and intelligible, demanding full toleration for both Calvinists and Lutherans, and equal eligibility for Protestants with ... — The Empire of Austria; Its Rise and Present Power • John S. C. Abbott
... where Jeffrey is apt to fail; though he affects to be a dictator, he is really a follower of the fashion. He could put up with Rogers's flattest 'correctness,' Moore's most intolerable tinsel, and even Southey's most ponderous epic poetry, because admiration was respectable. He could endorse, though rather coldly, the general verdict in Scott's favour, only guarding his dignity by some ... — Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen
... alter to the sacrifice of her future joy. Story oft told in the vicissitudes of betrayed innocence and in the fate of those who build their happiness in the castles of fancy: like the brilliancy of sunset her moment of pleasure faded; the novelty and tinsel of her gilded home lost their charm, and the virtue of her childhood was wrecked on golden rocks. She no longer went to daily Mass; her visits to the convent became less frequent, her dress lighter; her conversation, ... — Alvira: the Heroine of Vesuvius • A. J. O'Reilly
... sounding song be roughly set? Parnassus' self is rough! Give thou the thought, The golden ore, the gems that few forget; In time the tinsel jewel will be wrought.... Stand thou alone and fixed as destiny; An imaged god that lifts above all hate, Stand thou serene and satisfied with fate. Stand thou as stands that lightning-riven tree That lords the ... — The Galaxy - Vol. 23, No. 1 • Various |