"Alabaster" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... congregations, &c., which it contains, a lively spirit, which may be objectionable to the phlegmatic, the sad-faced, and the puritanical, has been thrown. But the author, who can see no reason why a "man whose blood is warm within" should "sit like his grandsire cut in alabaster," on any occasion, has a large respect for cheerfulness, and has endeavoured to make palatable, by a little genial humour, what would otherwise have been a heavy enumeration of dry facts. Those who don't care for the gay will find in these sketches the grave; those ...
— Our Churches and Chapels • Atticus
... Tavistock Square was grand beyond anything Ishmael had ever imagined, if a little dismal too. It was furnished with a plethora of red plush, polished mahogany, and alabaster vases; while terrible though genuine curios from Mr. Killigrew's foreign agents decorated the least likely places. You were quite likely to be greeted, on opening your wardrobe, by a bland ostrich egg, which Mrs. Killigrew, the vaguest of dear women, ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... jasper. Beneath, the unsullied sea drew in deep breathing, to and fro, its eddies of green wave. Deep-hearted, majestic, terrible as the sea,—the men of Venice moved in sway of power and war; pure as her pillars of alabaster, stood her mothers and maidens; from foot to brow, all noble, walked her knights; the low bronzed gleaming of sea-rusted armour shot angrily under their blood-red mantle-folds. Fearless, faithful, patient, impenetrable, implacable,—every word a fate—sate her senate. ...
— Selections From the Works of John Ruskin • John Ruskin
... napkin. It was so white that it did not seem real, but more like the face of some vision that comes and sits for a minute and fades away before a little draft of air. Her hands were on the chair arms just like the hands of those Egyptian kings, carved out of alabaster, that you see in museums. She might have been one of those queens of great empires in the old times. She might have heard the roar of battle and seen the retreat of her army from the windows of the palace and had plunged a thin little dagger into her ...
— The Blue Wall - A Story of Strangeness and Struggle • Richard Washburn Child
... eventually, if he lived, became a captain. Then he took his wife, and in most cases his children, with him on long voyages. To the stay-at-homes came letters with odd, foreign stamps and postmarks. Our what-nots and parlor mantels were filled with carved bits of ivory, gorgeous shells, alabaster candlesticks, and plaster miniatures of the Leaning Tower at Pisa or the Coliseum at Rome. We usually began a conversation with "When my husband and I were at Hong Kong the last time—" or "I remember at Mauritius they always—" New Orleans or 'Frisco ...
— Cy Whittaker's Place • Joseph C. Lincoln
... all in confusion, for fear some tumbler might drop on my head; the same also were the rest of the guests; still gaping and expecting what new thing should come from the clouds: when straight the main beams opened, and a vast circle was let down, all round which hung golden garlands, and alabaster pots of sweet ointments. ...
— The Satyricon • Petronius Arbiter
... their alabaster chambers, Untouched by morning and untouched by noon, Sleep the meek members of the resurrection, Rafter of ...
— Poems: Three Series, Complete • Emily Dickinson
... alabaster on your pillow?" she asked, with some indignation. "There's good news coming, I tell you. There's good news coming. See how fine the morning is! I never slept a sweeter sleep, and it was in my ...
— The Story of Bawn • Katharine Tynan
... and an oratory; *caused to be made* And westward, in the mind and in memory Of Mars, he maked hath right such another, That coste largely of gold a fother*. *a great amount And northward, in a turret on the wall, Of alabaster white and red coral An oratory riche for to see, In worship of Diane of chastity, Hath Theseus done work in noble wise. But yet had I forgotten to devise* *describe The noble carving, and the portraitures, The shape, the countenance of the ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... hall of audience, with its throne of gold, its sixteen columns of Phrygian and Numidian marble and its eight niches containing colossal statues; there were the hall of justice, the vast dining-room, the peristylium, the sleeping apartments, where granite, porphyry, and alabaster overflowed, carved and decorated by the most famous artists, and lavished on all sides in order to dazzle the world. And finally, many years later, a last palace was added to all the others—that of Septimius Severus: again a building of pride, with ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... that presented by the woman of fashion and the recluse. Lady Maulevrier was almost as handsome in the winter of her days as she had been when life was in its spring. The tall, slim figure, erect as a dart, the delicately chiselled features and alabaster complexion, the soft silvery hair, the perfect hand, whiter and more transparent than the hand of girlhood, the stately movements and bearing, all combined to make Lady Maulevrier a queen among woman. Her brocade gown of a deep shade of red, with a border ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... in a deep sleep on a curtained bed, and hovering, crawling over her with a deadly, serpentine grace, was a white figure wrapped in a veiling garment that might have been a shroud. Out of white cerements showed a trail of yellow hair and a face alabaster white, save for the lips that were blood red—an intent face with a kind of terrible beauty, yet instinct with cruelty. One slender, bloodless hand was in the girl's hair, and, even without the title, it ...
— The Invader - A Novel • Margaret L. Woods
... mission Heaven had bade it go. Her eye beamed bright with beauty; and innocence, Its dulcet notes breathed forth in every word, Was seen in every motion that she made. Her form was faultless, and her golden hair In long luxuriant tresses floated o'er Her shoulders, that as alabaster shone. Her very look seemed to impart a sense Of matchless purity to all it met. I saw her in the crowd, yet none were there That seemed so pure as she; and every eye That met her eye's mild glance shrank back abashed, ...
— Town and Country, or, Life at Home and Abroad • John S. Adams
... posture of affairs when Emily had reached her fourth year: dear as she was to her parents, the return of her birthday found her unspoilt, and as sweet and well-trained a child as any in the colony. It was worth a walk to see her: her golden curls fell upon a neck of alabaster, and her delicate, regular features were illuminated by dark vivacious eyes: she strongly resembled her mother, who had one of those faces which once seen, are never forgotten, and that seem to ripen merely, not to change, from youth to old ...
— Holidays at the Grange or A Week's Delight - Games and Stories for Parlor and Fireside • Emily Mayer Higgins
... and came to the top of the mountain where dwelt the Falcon and Fabiella. And as he stood there, beside himself with amazement, contemplating the beauty of the palace—the corner-stones of which were of porphyry, the walls of alabaster, the windows of gold, and the tiles of silver—his sister observed him, and ordering him to be called, she demanded who he was, whence he came, and what chance had brought him to that country. When Tittone told her his country, his father and mother, and his name, Fabiella knew him ...
— Stories from Pentamerone • Giambattista Basile
... and go out on the road occasionally and catch on for a race with some worldly-minded man, then I am another. You hear me—well, I never knew a calf was so heavy, and had so many hind legs. Kick! Why, bless your old alabaster heart, that calf walked all over me, from Genesis to Revelations. And say, we didn't get much of a breeze the next morning, did we, when we had to clean out ...
— Peck's Sunshine - Being a Collection of Articles Written for Peck's Sun, - Milwaukee, Wis. - 1882 • George W. Peck
... and by that beloved spirit been so nobly animated, in its present awful peace, its blind dumb majesty, meant scarcely more to her than some alabaster or waxen effigy of her dead. It was so like, yet so terrifyingly unlike Charles Verity in life!—She had visited it morning and evening, since to leave it in solitude appeared wanting in reverence. Throughout each night she thankfully knew that either Carteret, McCabe or Faircloth watched ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... him, and he recollected the silver wand of which he was in search, and persevered. Strong and healthy as he was he began to draw his breath quickly, when the full light of the glorious sun burst on him, and he found himself in a magnificent temple of alabaster, on the summit ...
— The Seven Champions of Christendom • W. H. G. Kingston
... down his snowy shirt bosom, pushed the wine. At the same moment, an alabaster clock on the marble ...
— Mohun, or, The Last Days of Lee • John Esten Cooke
... house the petals trace For modesty a fitting aureole; An alabaster wreath to lay, methought, In dusky hair o'er some fair woman's face Which kindles ev'n such love within the soul As sculptured ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... between the vestibule and the altar to break the long vista; even the organ stood aside,—though it by and by made us aware of its presence by a melodious roar. Around the walls there were old engraved brasses, and a stone coffin, and an alabaster knight of Saint John, and an alabaster lady, each recumbent at full length, as large as life, and in perfect preservation, except for a slight modern touch at the tips of their noses. In the chancel we saw a great deal of oaken work, quaintly and admirably carved, especially about the seats ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... of most of our doings at that era. We effected them gradually, and have ever since been undoing them, as our architectural and ecclesiastical perceptions have advanced. I wonder how the next generation will deal with our alabaster reredos and our stained windows, with which we are all as well pleased as we were fifty years ago with the plain red cross with a target-like arrangement above and below it in the east window, or as poor Margaret may have been with her livery altar-cloth. Indeed, ...
— Chantry House • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the lower court there was a stately fountain of fair alabaster. Upon the top thereof stood the three Graces, with their cornucopias, or horns of abundance, and did jet out the water at their breasts, mouth, ears, eyes, and other open passages of the body. The inside of the buildings in this lower court stood upon great pillars ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... the waves of the lake, heaving for centuries, have heaped around the shore of the island—pebbles so clean that they would no more soil a lady's white muslin gown than if they had been of newly polished alabaster. The water at our feet was as transparent as the air around us. On the main-land opposite stood a church with its spire, and several roofs were visible, with a background of woods ...
— Letters of a Traveller - Notes of Things Seen in Europe and America • William Cullen Bryant
... innocent sport one with another in the peaceful little lake of the bath, in which they had no fear of raising stormy waves; nay, even Brigitta's happy face, under her white cap, her lively activity, amid the continual phrases of "best-beloved," "little alabaster arm," "alabaster foot," "lily-of-the-valley bosom," and such like, whilst over the lily-of-the-valley bosom, and the alabaster arm, she spread soap-foam scarcely less white, or wrapped them in snowy ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer
... instantaneously disclosed, Was of a mighty city—boldly say A wilderness of building, sinking far And self-withdrawn into a boundless depth, Far sinking into splendour—without end! Fabric it seemed of diamond and of gold, With alabaster domes, and silver spires, And blazing terrace upon ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... grand and magnificent result. To have our names enrolled in the Capitol, to be repeated by future generations with grateful applause—this is an honor higher than the mountains, more enduring than the monumental alabaster. Yes, Virginia's voice, as in the olden time, has been heard. Her sister States meet her this day at the council board. Vermont is here, bringing with her the memories of the past, and reviving in the memories of all, her Ethan Allen and his demand for the surrender ...
— A Report of the Debates and Proceedings in the Secret Sessions of the Conference Convention • Lucius Eugene Chittenden
... conditions and the course of our own national life. Then will their real worth and excellence be more truly manifested, to the honour of God and the edification of His children. Let us not only open our alabaster box, let us also be willing to break it, if only the perfume of the Divine ointment may fill the house of God, and cheer and refresh the weary souls within ...
— Fruits of Toil in the London Missionary Society • Various
... desired him that he would eat with him. And he went into the Pharisee's house, and sat down to meat. And, behold, a woman in the city, which was a sinner, when she knew that Jesus sat at meat in the Pharisee's house, brought an alabaster box of ointment, and stood at his feet behind him weeping, and began to wash his feet with tears, and did wipe them with the hairs of her head, and kissed his feet, and anointed them with the ointment. Now when the Pharisee which had bidden him saw it, he spake within ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot
... that the mountains of Syene are not the rocks of Paros. Neither the social habits nor intellectual powers of the Greek had so much share in inducing his advance in Sculpture beyond the Egyptian, as the difference between marble and syenite, porphyry or alabaster. Marble not only gave the power, it actually introduced the thought of representation or realization of form, as opposed to the mere suggestive abstraction: its translucency, tenderness of surface, and equality ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... her head back on his shoulder and looked at him earnestly. In the half-light, white and clear from the freshly plastered walls, her face was like alabaster. "Dear Paul, isn't that what getting married means—to learn how to be really, really close to each other all the time. There isn't anything else worth getting married ...
— The Squirrel-Cage • Dorothy Canfield
... he was heartless in the extreme. It was just after a touching scene recorded in Matthew the twenty-sixth chapter the seventh to the thirteenth verses, "There came unto him a woman having an alabaster box of very precious ointment, and poured it on his head, as he sat at meat. But when his disciples saw it, they had indignation, saying, To what purpose is this waste? For this ointment might have been sold ...
— And Judas Iscariot - Together with other evangelistic addresses • J. Wilbur Chapman
... to my first experience in the Chorus Hall in the City of Light. I seemed to be in a great alabaster cage enormously large and very beautiful. Its shining walls rose from the ground and at a great height arched together. The front was a network of sculpture, it held the rising rows of what seemed like ...
— The Certainty of a Future Life in Mars • L. P. Gratacap
... tight. When the mold was ready we poured in the melted tallow, which hardened in a few minutes. Later, by pulling the wooden rods, we loosened the candles and drew them out of the molds. They were as smooth and white as polished alabaster. With shears we trimmed the wick ends. The iron candlesticks were filled and cleaned of drippings and set on the little ...
— The Light in the Clearing • Irving Bacheller
... other side of the great sarcophagus stood another small table of alabaster, exquisitely chased with symbolic figures of gods and the signs of the zodiac. On this table stood a case of about a foot square composed of slabs of rock crystal set in a skeleton of bands of red gold, beautifully engraved with hieroglyphics, and coloured with a blue green, very much the tint ...
— The Jewel of Seven Stars • Bram Stoker
... sheeny silk, the bed of leaves of rose, Made more to soothe the sight than court repose; The mighty palaces that raise the sneer Of jealous mendicants and wretches near— The spacious parks, from which horizon blue Arches o'er alabaster statues new; Where Superstition still her walk will take, Unto soft music stealing o'er the lake— The innocent modesty by gems undone— The qualms of judges by small brib'ry won— The dread of children, trembling while they play— The bliss of ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo
... thirty-four years. The family type is strong. One of the Pope's nieces might have sat for a portrait of his mother. The extraordinarily clear, pale complexion is also a family characteristic. Leo the Thirteenth's face seems cut of live alabaster, and it is not a figure of speech to say that it appears to emit a light of ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 2 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... winter snow, Just tinted by the sunset glow, Throat white as alabaster, Teeth of pearl, and hair of gold, And figure—sure in Venus's mould Th' immortal gods have ...
— Cap and Gown - A Treasury of College Verse • Selected by Frederic Knowles
... pieces, apparently presenting only sweet and graceful subjects:—and by what name he called the strange emotion inclosed in his compositions, like ashes of the unknown dead in superbly sculptured urns of the purest alabaster... Conquered by the appealing tears which moistened the beautiful eyes, with a candor rare indeed in this artist, so susceptible upon all that related to the secrets of the sacred relics buried in the gorgeous shrines of his music, he replied: ...
— Life of Chopin • Franz Liszt
... depression which he knew so well, he found an arched octagonal entrance-hall with arabesques of blue, crimson, and gold, and richly-embroidered hangings; the floor was marble, and from a shallow basin of alabaster in the centre a perfumed fountain rose and ...
— The Brass Bottle • F. Anstey
... sown with dragon's teeth; it hisses forward with furious joy, like the flaming chariot of some Heaven-booked Prophet. Already Egerton anticipates its welcome advent. He can hardly sit still on his pro-consular throne; he smiles in dockets and demi-officials; he walks up and down his alabaster halls, and out into his gardens of asphodel, and snuffs the air. It is redolent with some rare effluvium; pomatum-laden winds breathe across the daffadown dillies from the warm chambers of the south. ...
— Twenty-One Days in India; and, the Teapot Series • George Robert Aberigh-Mackay
... was awake to the existence of this parlour and its yellow cane-bottomed chairs and round table with the maroon cloth and the white alabaster lamp that smelt. The orange envelope lay on the maroon cloth. Miss Horn covered it ...
— Mary Olivier: A Life • May Sinclair
... aunt made me touch her face. A few yards further on lay the body of my uncle, as I saw him in his coffin. His face was dead white in the midst of the cold clear ice, his eyes closed, and his arms straight by his side. He lay like an alabaster king upon his tomb. It was he, I thought, but he would never speak to me more—never look at me—-never more awake. There lay all that was left of him—the cold frozen memory of what he had been, and would never be again. I did not weep. I only knew somehow in ...
— Wilfrid Cumbermede • George MacDonald
... without any thought more of its signifying originally the unmingled, that St. John speaks of {Greek: akratos kekerasmenos} (Rev. xiv. 10), or the unmingled mingled. Boxes in which precious ointments were contained were so commonly of alabaster, that the name came to be applied to them whether they were so or not; and Theocritus celebrates "golden alabasters". Cicero having to mention a water-clock is obliged to call it a water sundial (solarium ex aqua). Columella speaks of ...
— English Past and Present • Richard Chenevix Trench
... Thebaw's father. The central dome is not remarkable, but on each side of the large flagged space which surrounds it are rows and rows of miniature temples, each with an ornamental cupola, supported upon pillars. Each of these 729 cupolas contains a slab of alabaster, on which is inscribed a chapter of the Pali Bible. The entrance-gates, also, are large, and unusually ornate ...
— Burma - Peeps at Many Lands • R.Talbot Kelly
... from the city I found that Eliza had purchased a small white vase for one-and-ten. The man in the shop had told her that it was alabaster. I had my doubts about that, but it was quite in my own taste—rather severe and classical. I complimented ...
— Eliza • Barry Pain
... clear sunset light. The Alban Hills defined themselves like a cameo of amethyst upon a pale blue distance; and over the Sabine Mountains soared immeasurable moulded domes of alabaster thunderclouds, casting deep shadows, purple and violet, across the slopes of Tivoli. To westward the whole sky was lucid, like some half-transparent topaz, flooded with slowly yellowing sunbeams. The Campagna has often been called a garden of wild-flowers. Just now poppy and aster, gladiolus ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds
... priest and a scholar. There were roller maps upon the walls, and two or three engravings, Bougereau's "Virgin of Consolation," the "Madonna dei Ansidei" of Raffaelle, and a "Crucifixion" over the chimneypiece, which had three little statuettes in tinted alabaster—a St. Ignatius at one end, a St. Anthony of Padua at the other; in the middle, ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... the dreaming soul! The appearance, instantaneously disclosed, Was of a mighty City-boldly say A wilderness of building, sinking far, And self-withdrawn into a wondrous depth, Far sinking into splendour without end! Fabric it seemed of diamond and of gold, With alabaster domes and silver spires, And blazing terrace upon terrace, high Uplifted: here, serene pavilions bright, In avenues disposed; there, towers begirt With battlements, that on their restless fronts ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... upon the plant. The bud was a very large one, perfect and symmetrical; the strong sheath, of a rich and even brown, as yet showed only a few fissures of its surface, but even now a faint odor stole from the travailing sphere, as from a cracked box of alabaster filled with perfume. ...
— The Bread-winners - A Social Study • John Hay
... Alabaster, marble, and stone, may be stained of a yellow, red, green, blue, purple, black, or any of the compound colours, by the stains used ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous
... a horse of alabaster, But the weather that day was a sin and a shame, Take it from me and John McMaster. Only a month—and Harrison died, And V.-P. Tyler began preside. A far from popular prex was he, And the next one was Polk of Tennessee. There were two inaugural ...
— Something Else Again • Franklin P. Adams
... chapel is large, and ornamented with some degree of richness, particularly the part about the high altar, which, is embellished by magnificent monuments of the brave family of the Puerto Carreros, the ancient lords of Moguer, and renowned in Moorish warfare. The alabaster effigies of distinguished warriors of that house, and of their wives and sisters, lie side by side, with folded hands, on tombs immediately before the altar, while others recline in deep niches on either side. The night had closed in by the time I entered the ...
— The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (Vol. II) • Washington Irving
... Some alabaster slabs came to light at Tell el Amarna bearing the hieroglyphic names of King Amenophis IV. and his father, Amenophis III. These had evidently served as lids to the chests. Some tablets also were inscribed with notes in hieratic, written in red ink. But in ...
— The Tell El Amarna Period • Carl Niebuhr
... creep over them. The costly marble mantle of their walls dropped away in pieces or was plundered for use. The Mosaic pavements split. There were still in those beautiful chambers seats of bright or dark marble, baths of porphyry or Oriental alabaster. But these found their way by degrees to churches. They served for episcopal chairs, or to receive the bones of a saint, or to become baptismal fonts. Yet not a few remained in their desolation till the ...
— The Formation of Christendom, Volume VI - The Holy See and the Wandering of the Nations, from St. Leo I to St. Gregory I • Thomas W. (Thomas William) Allies
... the central containing scenes from the life of Christ, those to the north and south representing the Old and New Testaments respectively. To the north of the recess forming the sanctuary there is an alabaster pulpit,[4] and on the south stands a ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Priory Church of St. Bartholomew-the-Great, Smithfield • George Worley
... drawing room woodwork, and furniture throughout, is painted a mottled greenish blue, after the same manner as the hall. The decorations of this room, when complete, are intended to illustrate Chaucer's "House of Fame." The chimney-piece, of alabaster, is surmounted by a Caen-stone design, on a rock of glass, showing the entrance to the castle, with the various figures mentioned in the poem, carved in half-round relief, and the gateway itself also richly and quaintly carved; the rock of glass representing the ice on which ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 312, December 24, 1881 • Various
... was terrible to the girl who had to look on so utterly helpless. The convulsed figure beneath the coloured blankets was simply skin and bone. The alabaster of the sunken cheeks was untouched by any hectic display. The ravages of the consumption were too far advanced for that. The wreck was terrible, and the dreadful cough seemed to be tearing the last remaining life out ...
— The Heart of Unaga • Ridgwell Cullum
... trees, lemon groves, and hedges of flowering cactus, dazzling banks of azaleas, marble- basined fountains, in which chestnut-and-white pond-herons step daintily amid exotic water-lilies, while golden pheasants strut about on alabaster terraces. The whole effect rather suggests the idea that Providence and Norman Wilkinson have dropped mutual jealousies and collaborated to produce a background for an open-air Russian Ballet; in point of fact, it ...
— The Toys of Peace • Saki
... defined the outlines of her body, molded on that of the Polyhymnia of antiquity, her pale face gently inclined upon her brother's shoulder, her long golden hair floating around her snowy shoulders, her arm thrown around her mother's neck, its rose-tinted alabaster hand drooping upon the red shawl in which Madame de Montrevel had wrapped herself; such was Roland's sister as she appeared ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas
... treated like a princess, and that in a short time I should have my liberty if I preferred to return to the world. At the same time he attempted to put his arm around my waist. In a moment I was on my feet. While he was talking love to me, I was looking at two large alabaster vases full of beautiful wax flowers; one of them was as much as I could lift. Without one thought about consequences, I seized the nearest vase and threw it with all the strength I had at the priest's ...
— Life in the Grey Nunnery at Montreal • Sarah J Richardson
... a sacred fluid held in a single vessel of alabaster; marriage didn't conveniently create shortsightedness. Lee couldn't pretend to answer all this for women, or even in part for Savina. Her attitude, he knew, in that it never touched the abstract, was far simpler than his; she didn't regard herself ...
— Cytherea • Joseph Hergesheimer
... circling the front of the house and the beautiful bridge leading to its entrance; of the double flight of steps under the grand portico; of the great hall with its ceiling forty feet high, supported by fluted Corinthian columns of red-veined alabaster; of the rare old tapestries on a golden background in the saloon; of the immense corridors connecting the wings of the structure. The dinner and its guests and its setting were calculated to impress the son of the Boston soap boiler who represented ...
— In the Days of Poor Richard • Irving Bacheller
... in the days far gone, the chosen last resting-place of so many connected with our ancient history—the Holtes, the Erdingtons, the Devereux, the Ardens, the Harcourts, the Bracebridgss, Clodshalls, Bagots, &c. Here still may be seen the stone and alabaster effigies of lords and ladies who lived in the time of the Wars of the Roses, two showing by their dress that while one was Lancasterian, the other followed the fortunes of York. The tablets of the Holte' family, temp. ...
— Showell's Dictionary of Birmingham - A History And Guide Arranged Alphabetically • Thomas T. Harman and Walter Showell
... figure was faultlessly symmetrical, and her face radiantly beautiful. The features were clearly cut and regular, the eyes of deep, dark violet hue, shaded by curling brown lashes. Her chestnut hair was thrown back with a silver comb, and fell in thick curls below the waist; her complexion was of alabaster clearness, and cheeks and lips wore the coral bloom of health. As they confronted each other one looked a Hebe, the other a ghostly visitant from spirit realms. Beulah shrank from the eager scrutiny, and put up her hands to shield her face. The ...
— Beulah • Augusta J. Evans
... make upon the stranger who, in the days of old, entered for the first time into the abode of the Assyrian Kings. He was ushered in through the portal guarded by the colossal lions or bulls of white alabaster. In the first hall he found himself surrounded by the sculptured records of the empire. Battles, sieges, triumphs, the exploits of the chase, the ceremonies of religion, were portrayed on the walls, sculptured in ...
— Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects, and Curiosities of Art, (Vol. 2 of 3) • Shearjashub Spooner
... disclosed, Was of a mighty city—boldly say A wilderness of building, sinking far And self-withdrawn into a wondrous depth, Far sinking into splendour—without end! Fabric it seem'd of diamond, and of gold, With alabaster domes, and silver spires, And blazing terrace upon terrace, high Uplifted; here, serene pavilions bright In avenues disposed; there towers begirt With battlements that on their restless fronts Bore stars—illumination ...
— Confessions of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas De Quincey
... known to those interested in such matters, as an 'engagement' to be married. A little time since, the damsel went home to her Amalgamation-preaching parents, and made known the arrangements whereby their lovely daughter expected soon to be folded in the hymenean arms of anti-alabaster Sambo. The parents remonstrated and begged, and got the brothers and sisters to interpose, but all to no effect. The blooming damsel was determined to partake of the 'bed and board,' and inhale the rich odours, refreshing perfumes, and reviving fragrance which Mc. Grawville ...
— The American Prejudice Against Color - An Authentic Narrative, Showing How Easily The Nation Got - Into An Uproar. • William G. Allen
... and talent, and sparkling conversation, there may be good-will even,—and yet the humanest and divinest faculties pine for exercise. Our life without love is like coke and ashes. Men may be pure as alabaster and Parian marble, elegant as a Tuscan villa, sublime as Niagara, and yet if there is no milk mingled with the wine at their entertainments, better is the hospitality ...
— A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers • Henry David Thoreau
... She had no need of such gems. Was not her hair golden and her skin alabaster? Were not her lips coral and her teeth pearls? And were not diamonds of the purest water dropping at that moment from ...
— Under the Waves - Diving in Deep Waters • R M Ballantyne
... thinking this over, the swimmers drew near to a great, circular palace made all of solid alabaster polished as smooth as ivory. Its roof was a vast dome, for domes seemed to be fashionable in the ocean houses. There were no doors or windows, but instead of these, several round holes appeared in different ...
— The Sea Fairies • L. Frank Baum
... on my right, next beyond the Master, can hardly be more than nineteen or twenty years old. I wish I could paint her so as to interest others as much as she does me. But she has not a profusion of sunny tresses wreathing a neck of alabaster, and a cheek where the rose and the lily are trying to settle their old quarrel with alternating victory. Her hair is brown, her cheek is delicately pallid, her forehead is too ample for a ball-room beauty's. A single faint line between the eyebrows is the record of long—continued anxious ...
— The Poet at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... and effortless thou glidest on, As doth the swan upon the yielding water, And with a cheek like alabaster cold! But as thou didst divide the amorous air Just opposite the Astor, and didst lift That vail of languid lashes to look in At Leary's tempting window—lady! then My heart sprang in beneath that fringed vail, Like an adventurous ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... on the platform she closed her eyes and allowed her chin to fall; and so sat, with her hands nestling in her lap, indifferent to everything, caring for nothing but rest. And she was so white again—white as alabaster. ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc Volume 2 • Mark Twain
... a kind of hall similar to the facade with a Gothic fireplace of alabaster imitating oak, great jars of porcelain, pipes the size of walking-sticks, and old armor adorning the walls. Various wood-cuts reproducing modern pictures of Munich alternated with these decorations. Opposite the fireplace William II was displaying one of his innumerable ...
— Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) - A Novel • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... forehead, full in the upper and lateral portions, seemed almost too severely intellectual for the other features. She possessed a wealth of luxuriant black hair, which she had a quaint method of coiling around her head in a single massive braid, singularly contrasting with the alabaster whiteness of the delicate temples upon which it rested. She was very happy at the home she occupied, which was often enlivened by the joyous snatches of music that broke from her ruby lips as from a bird; but she had ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 6 June 1848 • Various
... departed with her daughter for England. At the time of her appearance at Whitehall, Frances Stuart was in her fifteenth year. Even in a court distinguished by the beauty of women, her loveliness was declared unsurpassed. Her features were regular and refined, her complexion fair as alabaster, her hair bright and luxuriant, her eyes of violet hue; moreover, her figure being tall, straight, and shapely, her movements possessed an air of exquisite grace. An exact idea of her lineaments may be gained ...
— Royalty Restored - or, London under Charles II. • J. Fitzgerald Molloy
... limiting the Chymist's principle, Adusta nigra sed perusta alba, by several Instances of Calcin'd Alabaster, Lead, Antimony, Vitriol, and by the Testimony of Bellonius, about the white Charcoles of Oxy-caedar, and by that of Camphire. (140, 141, 142.) That which follows about Inks was misplac'd by an Errour of the Printer, for it belongs to what has been ...
— Experiments and Considerations Touching Colours (1664) • Robert Boyle
... formerly devoted to the use of the harem, were curiously screened by a lattice work of white marble, lace-like in effect, and a curiosity in itself. Delicate carving could hardly be carried to more minute finish in alabaster. The marble inches and pockets, for holding the jewelry of the fair occupants, were so arranged that none but a delicate arm could reach the treasures; a man's hand and wrist would be too large; while the stone pockets, being curved at the bottom, required the long sensitive fingers of the ...
— Due West - or Round the World in Ten Months • Maturin Murray Ballou
... The dog appears in sight, is puzzled a moment, then turns sharply to the left, and is lost to eye and to ear as quickly as if he had plunged into a cave. The woods are, indeed, a kind of cave,—a cave of alabaster, with the sun shining upon it. We take up positions and wait. These old hunters know exactly ...
— The Writings of John Burroughs • John Burroughs
... on deck, he saw at no great distance from the ship a vast white towering mass, glittering like alabaster in the rays of the sun. At the lower part were projecting points and curious arches, and a deep cavern, with numberless columns and long icicles hanging from the roof, while the summit was crowned with pinnacles and ...
— Archibald Hughson - An Arctic Story • W.H.G. Kingston
... a set of rooms where he kept a treasure in the way of old pottery. The walls and windows were covered with plates of marble, each room a different colour, and the floors were of mosaic, with Persian carpets. The dining-hall was cased in alabaster, and the table and the cupboards were of cedar wood. The whole house looked like a block of solid marble, for it was covered with marble without as well as within, and must have cost immense sums. Every ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... that suite, but, being married to Lord Grey, he made her suite voyd, for which reason she parted from her husband and came into Lancashire, saying, If my lord will not let me have my will of my husband's enemies, yet shall my body be buried by him; and she caused a tomb of alabaster to be made, where she lyeth on the ... hand of her ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... resolved to take advantage of the opportunity and depart at once. This at the time, and indeed generally, has been construed into a proof of their guilt. It may have been so, but, on the other hand, it may just as well not have been. Had their innocence been purer than alabaster or whiter than the driven snow they were probably well advised under existing circumstances in not ...
— The Story Of Ireland • Emily Lawless
... blemish in mind or person at which the proudest of you all would sicken. She is fair—oh! how surpassingly fair!" laying her own beautiful, but less brilliant, hand in melancholy affection on the alabaster forehead of Alice, and parting the golden hair which clustered about her brows; "and yet her soul is pure and spotless as her skin! I could say much—more, perhaps, than cooler reason would approve; but I will spare you and myself—" Her voice became inaudible, and her face was bent over the ...
— The Last of the Mohicans • James Fenimore Cooper
... specimens of his own and his brother's skill, all disposed with the utmost taste, and with all the advantages to be derived from the architecture of the room, from a soft and mellowed light resembling moonlight which came through alabaster windows, from the rich cloths, silks, and other stuffs, variously disposed around, and from the highly ornamented cabinets in which articles of greatest perfection and value were kept and exhibited. Here stood the enthusiast, ...
— Aurelian - or, Rome in the Third Century • William Ware
... felt the poetic merit of the Arabic inscription on the walls: 'How beauteous is this garden; where the flowers of the earth vie with the stars of heaven. What can compare with the vase of yon alabaster fountain filled with crystal water? nothing but the moon in her fullness, shining in the midst of an ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... she had been enamoured of and impressed by the splendor of this parlor. Now she had doubts of it, in spite of the long, magnificent sweep of lace curtains, the sheen of carefully kept upholstery, the gleam of alabaster statuettes, and the even piles of gilt-edged ...
— The Copy-Cat and Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... into womanhood, stepped softly into the room. She was, indeed, very beautiful; hair of the darkest shade of brown hung in long and glossy curls from her perfectly shaped head, and rested on the exquisite white neck and shoulders, the contrast of which showed to a great degree the almost alabaster whiteness of her skin; grecian nose, and eyes of the deepest blue, whose long lashes, when veiled, rested lovingly on her damask cheek, and when raised, revealed a depth and brilliancy which does not often fall to the lot of mortals; a mouth not too small, whose beautifully shaped lips, ...
— Vellenaux - A Novel • Edmund William Forrest
... eyes deceive me? As sure as fate, they were all quietly undressing themselves! Hats, scarves, parasols and dresses were scattered all around them; there they sat, on the moss-covered rocks, their alabaster necks and limbs glistening in the sun, looking for all the world like a bevy of mermaids, laughing and chattering in the highest glee, perfectly indifferent to my presence! I saw no more. A dizziness ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... clue to the artistic side of his nature." A poster advertising a summer fair, with a prodigious bull occupying the centre of the picture, hung on one wall, and across from it a lithograph of a young woman, with very bright clothing and very alabaster skin and very decollete costume tendered a brand of beer with the assurance that it goes to the spot. "I ought to drape it," she said, and the curl on her lip ...
— The Cow Puncher • Robert J. C. Stead
... satisfaction to see her leaning there, and looking on a fountain, that stood in the midst of the garden, and cast a thousand little streams into the air, that made a melancholy noise in falling into a large alabaster cistern beneath: oh how my heart danced at the dear sight to all the tunes of love! I had not power to stir or speak, or to remove my eyes, but languished on the window where I leant half dead with joy and transport; for she appeared more charming ...
— Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister • Aphra Behn
... reddish roots, and the branches, covered with leaves, like those of the laurel tree, crept across the different crevices. At a greater distance, on advancing towards the west, we saw pyramids of great stones, as white as alabaster, towering one above another, which seemed to indicate the border of a bank, and above which very high date-trees grew up, of which the trunks were warped round even to the top. The palm trees, extended upon a mass of stones, by their length and ...
— Perils and Captivity • Charlotte-Adelaide [nee Picard] Dard
... blood, he could, of course, wander where he pleased. He passed on among the golden columns and sculptured doorways, and under vaulted and arabesque ceilings, until he came to a door of mother-of-pearl, which had a golden lock, an alabaster knob, and a diamond key-hole. It turned easily on silver hinges, and the Prince passed by it into a beautiful garden. He had never been in such a place of loveliness. The trees were hung with many soft-colored lamps, and the fruit ...
— Ting-a-ling • Frank Richard Stockton
... man went back, and when he got to the door, he found that the whole palace was made of polished marble, with alabaster figures and golden decorations. Soldiers marched up and down before the doors, blowing their trumpets and beating their drums. Inside the palace, counts, barons, and dukes walked about as attendants, and they opened to him the doors, which were ...
— Childhood's Favorites and Fairy Stories - The Young Folks Treasury, Volume 1 • Various
... of another duty, it is to speak the briefest, yet the hardest of all words to utter, the word of final farewell. Had I the gift of eloquence, I would pour into that word, as into a casket of alabaster, all the love, all the affection, all the sad sweet smiles, all the 'God be with you until we meet again,' of your loved ones back home. Through the gates of memory you have left ajar, I seem to see your old home town—the streets guarded by ...
— The Greater Love • George T. McCarthy
... recital may appear to the reader, to a person in my situation the circumstance was affecting in the highest degree. I was oppressed by such unexpected kindness and sleep fled from my eyes." And another writer says: "The name of the woman and the alabaster box of precious ointment, the nameless widow, who, giving only two mites, had given more than all the rich, and this nameless woman of Sego, form a trio of feminine beauty and grandeur of which the sex in all ages may ...
— The Upward Path - A Reader For Colored Children • Various
... hall-with its twenty doors and lofty porphyry columns—in which the king's guests assembled, it was lighted from above, since it was only at the sides that the walls—which had no windows—and a row of graceful alabaster columns with Corinthian acanthus-capitals supported a narrow roof; the centre of the hall was quite uncovered. At this hour, when it was blazing with hundreds of lights, the large opening, which by day admitted the bright sunshine, ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... the Caliph Almamon A palace built in Bagdad, fairer far Than was the vaunted house of Solomon. The portico a hundred columns graced Of purest alabaster. Gold and blue And jasper formed the rich mosaic floor. Ceiled with the fragrant cedar, suites of rooms Displayed a wealth of sculpture; treasures rare In art and nature vied; fair flowers and gems, Perfumes and scented myrtles; verdure soft And piercing lustre; past the embroidered ...
— Laura Secord, the heroine of 1812. - A Drama. And Other Poems. • Sarah Anne Curzon
... descending heavily from the car, but making no effort to assist his niece. Then he led the way upstairs, striding along the veranda with a heavy, despotic tread, and through a large, dim drawing-room, where Sophy caught an impression of much carved furniture, the figure of a large alabaster Buddha gleaming through the shadows, and a stifling atmosphere of dust and sandalwood. Pushing aside a tinkling bamboo screen, they entered another apartment, which was yet gloomier and more obscure, and here on a wide sofa, propped, among large, silk cushions, lay ...
— The Road to Mandalay - A Tale of Burma • B. M. Croker
... lulling of a hero's breath His bleeding country weeps— Hushed in the alabaster arms of death, Our young ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various
... the old bishop must have understood it. He is my friend of friends as he lies opposite my window in his alabaster sleep, clad in pontifical robes, with unshod feet, a little island of white peace in a many-coloured marble sea. The faithful sculptor has given every line and wrinkle, the heavy eyelids and sunken face of tired old age, but withal the smile ...
— The Roadmender • Michael Fairless
... were you last night? Where were you, Charley, and dear little Alice? You had all gone to rest, and left old Grandfather to meditate alone in his great chair. The lamp had grown so dim that its light hardly illuminated the alabaster shade. The wood-fire had crumbled into heavy embers, among which the little flames danced, and quivered, and sported about ...
— Grandfather's Chair • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... called Duyna, many hundred miles long, that falleth Northward into the bay of S. Nicholas, and hath great Alabaster rockes on the ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of The English Nation v. 4 • Richard Hakluyt
... the old tin tub, she made this ceremony as short as possible; but to-night, sitting there in this beautiful white tub, she lingered; she could almost close her eyes and imagine herself Cleopatra reclining in her alabaster bath, waited on by slaves; she reached up and got a bottle of perfume from a shelf over her head and perfumed the waters. And she decided that in addition to the regular Saturday night performance she should ...
— Continuous Vaudeville • Will M. Cressy
... Middle Egypt, on the right bank of the Nile, 70 m. above Cairo; a centre of trade, with cotton-mills and quarries of alabaster. ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... temperature of 90 degrees. This has an absolute transparency of a singular kind, and perpetrates wonderful optical illusions. Every thing put into it is transformed. The rocks, broken timber, and old cocoa nuts which lie below it, are a frosted blue; the dusky skins of natives are changed to alabaster; and as my companion, in a light print holuku, swam to and fro, her feet and hands became like polished marble tinged with blue, and her dress floated through the water as if woven of blue light. Everything about ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird
... deeply moved by the Polish composer's playing, ventured to ask him "by what name he called the extraordinary feeling which he enclosed in his compositions, like unknown ashes in superb urns of most exquisitely-chiselled alabaster? "He answered her that— ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... stripped bare of ornament. On the other side of the entrance lies a royal Prince of English birth, John of Eltham, the second son of Edward II., and thus grandson to Henry III. To the student of armour the alabaster effigy is of special interest as a specimen of the military costume of the fourteenth century; while the coronet is the earliest known example of ducal form—the title of Duke was not introduced into England till rather later. The small crowned images of royal personages, John's ...
— Westminster Abbey • Mrs. A. Murray Smith
... shores, and her alarming words are running through the land. Rome knows no color prejudice, and the foot of that great despotic power can rest just as easily upon a skin that is black as upon a neck that is of the purest alabaster. And the Congregational Church down South is the only champion against this papal see, for she has an aisle wide enough for five races of mankind to march up to her communion table, while the sword of the Spirit ...
— American Missionary, Volume 43, No. 12, December, 1889 • Various
... in Glasgow, is nicely located. Brother Nelmes and his wife are excellent people, and treated me with much kindness. Glasgow is a large and important city, with many interesting places in it. The Municipal Building with its marble stairs, alabaster balustrade, onyx columns, and other ornamentation, is attractive on the inside, but the exterior impressed me more with the idea of stability than of beauty. The old Cathedral, which I visited twice, is in an excellent state of preservation, although founded in the eleventh century. ...
— A Trip Abroad • Don Carlos Janes
... heav'n, Only that, whence it kindles, none is lost, And it is soon extinct; thus from the horn, That on the dexter of the cross extends, Down to its foot, one luminary ran From mid the cluster shone there; yet no gem Dropp'd from its foil; and through the beamy list Like flame in alabaster, glow'd its course. So forward stretch'd him (if of credence aught Our greater muse may claim) the pious ghost Of old Anchises, in the' Elysian bower, When he perceiv'd his son. "O thou, my blood! O most exceeding grace divine! to ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante
... Tisquantum had led him, he had traveled over boundless fields of snow in the sledges of the diminutive Esquimaux, and lodged in their strange winter-dwellings of frozen snow, that look as if they were built of the purest alabaster, with windows of ice as clear as crystal. And marvelously beautiful those dwellings were in Henrich's eyes, as be passed along the many rooms, with their cold walls glittering with the lamp-light, or glowing from the reflection of the fire of pine branches, ...
— The Pilgrims of New England - A Tale Of The Early American Settlers • Mrs. J. B. Webb
... Southern Italy, in Calabria, 2 m. from the SW. shore of the Gulf of Taranto; has a fine cathedral and castle; valuable quarries of marble and alabaster ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... with alabaster hair came to take my order. I asked for jaco and bunlets, and carried the food to a wall shelf near the Dry-towners. Their dialect fell soft and familiar on my ears. One of them, without altering the expression on his ...
— The Door Through Space • Marion Zimmer Bradley
... the gates of the morning poured a light which glorified the palaces and pyramids, purged and purified the afternoon's inscrutable clefts, swept away the shadows of the mesas, and bathed that broad, deep world of mighty mountains, stately spars of rock, sculptured cathedrals and alabaster terraces in an artist's dream of color. A pearl from heaven had burst, flinging its heart of fire into this chasm. A stream of opal flowed out of the sun, to touch each peak, mesa, dome, parapet, temple and tower, cliff and cleft into the new-born ...
— The Last of the Plainsmen • Zane Grey
... whiteness of her cheeks. Over her neck and breast of ivory flowed the golden waves of her magnificent hair, which had come down at the time of her fall. When, as they unlaced her satin corset, less soft, less fresh, less white than the virgin form beneath, which lay like a statue of alabaster in its covering of lace and lawn, one of the horrible hags felt the arms and shoulders of the young girl with her large, red, horny, and chapped hands. Though she did not completely recover the use of her senses, she started involuntarily from the ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... view burst upon them. Below, there was a large lake, surrounded by wooded hills, above which rose noble rocks fringed with stately pines, and higher ranges of mountains beyond, some of whose summits were covered with snow that glittered like purest alabaster in the azure blue of the sky. Eric gave a cry of joy; for he saw the house of one of his father's foresters, which he had once visited with his father. "Wolf! Wolf!" he exclaimed, "look yonder, that is the house of Darkeye, the forester. ...
— The Gold Thread - A Story for the Young • Norman MacLeod
... her blood; Nor soar that whiter skin of hers than snow, And smooth as monumental alabaster. Othello, Act v. Sc. ...
— The World's Best Poetry — Volume 10 • Various
... removed the moss from a part of the block on which I had been lying; when, to my surprise, I found it more like alabaster than ordinary marble, and soft to the edge of the knife. In fact, it was alabaster. By an inexplicable, though by no means unusual kind of impulse, I went on removing the moss from the surface of the stone; and soon saw that it was polished, or at least smooth, throughout. I continued my ...
— Phantastes - A Faerie Romance for Men and Women • George MacDonald
... lead thee to the best leech I know—one who brought me back from death's door, when through thee, if not by thy hand, I was sore wounded. With her, as my prisoner, I shall leave thee. Seek not to make thy escape, lest, being a witch, as they saw of her, she chain thee up in alabaster. When thou art restored, go thy way whither thou pleasest. It is no longer as it was with the cause of liberty: a soldier of hers may now afford to release an enemy for ...
— St. George and St. Michael • George MacDonald
... heavy With the scent of mignonette and rose, And from the beds of flowers the tall White lilies point like angel fingers upward, Casting on the air an incense sweet, That brings to mind the old, old story Of the alabaster box that loving Mary ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For, Book Two • Various
... it was possible for carving in the North to be rendered as deeply and as roundly as the sculptor desired. In Southern countries, however, and chiefly in Italy, the stone used for building was not ordinary, but semi-precious stone. Marble, porphyry, and alabaster were available; and the use of such material led to a different ideal in architecture and decoration,—that of incrustation instead of solid piling. These valuable stones of Italy could not be used, generally speaking, in vast blocks, into which the chisel was at liberty to plough as it ...
— Arts and Crafts in the Middle Ages • Julia De Wolf Addison
... hand and brain to brain, Ofttimes a sudden dream my sense will cheat, The gaudy shops, the sky-piled roofs retreat, And all at once I stand enthralled again Within a marble minster over-seas. I watch the solemn gold-stained gloom that creeps To kiss an alabaster tomb, where sleeps A lady 'twixt two knights' stone effigies, And every day in dusky glory steeps Their sculptured slumber ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. I (of II.), Narrative, Lyric, and Dramatic • Emma Lazarus |
