"Alabaster" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... system of architecture, covered with mats of straw ingeniously worked, which protect them from rain and wind. There is no doubt that if they had the perfection of the arts we have, they would build magnificent edifices, for all the maritime coast is full of blue rocks, crystals and alabaster; and for such cause is full of ports and shelters for ships. They change said houses from one place to another according to the opulence of the site and the season in which they live. Carrying away only the mats, immediately they have other habitations made. There live in each a father ...
— Great Epochs in American History, Volume I. - Voyages Of Discovery And Early Explorations: 1000 A.D.-1682 • Various
... in particular interested us, so unlike any seen in Scotland, exciting awful, wondering admiration. Gazing awe-stricken, we watched the upbuilding of the sublime cloud-mountains,—glowing, sun-beaten pearl and alabaster cumuli, glorious in beauty and majesty and looking so firm and lasting that birds, we thought, might build their nests amid their downy bosses; the black-browed storm-clouds marching in awful grandeur across the landscape, trailing broad gray sheets of hail and rain like vast cataracts, ...
— The Story of My Boyhood and Youth • John Muir
... 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 ivory chairs on which the motionless white and radiant assemblage were seated. The ...
— The Certainty of a Future Life in Mars • L. P. Gratacap
... he often pricked up his ears at the faint and distant sounds that, at night, are heard in the deepest silence, he never barked, having understood that to be mute is a quality indispensable in a fisherman's dog. In vain did Phoebe's alabaster brow show above the horizon reflected in the sombre mirror of the river; Zamore would not bay at the moon, although such prolonged ululation gives infinite delight to creatures of his species. Only when the bell on the set-line tinkled did he look at his master ...
— My Private Menagerie - from The Works of Theophile Gautier Volume 19 • Theophile Gautier
... peculiar blue light of the boudoir her naturally fair face appeared so white that I was almost startled. It was just as though some marble or alabaster statue had moved, looked at me with those large dark-blue eyes, spoken to me with ...
— Dr. Dumany's Wife • Mr Jkai
... which, though hiding her countenance from recognition, nevertheless permitted sufficient of her beauties to be discerned to suggest the extreme elegance and loveliness of her lineaments. Advancing toward our hero, and extending to him a tapering hand as white as alabaster, the fingers encircled with a multitude of jeweled rings, she addressed ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard I. Pyle
... coldness or the sweetness of her smile. When Emilie meant to conquer a heart, her pure voice did not lack melody; but she could also give it a sort of curt clearness when she was minded to paralyze a partner's indiscreet tongue. Her colorless face and alabaster brow were like the limpid surface of a lake, which by turns is rippled by the impulse of a breeze and recovers its glad serenity when the air is still. More than one young man, a victim to her scorn, accused her of acting ...
— The Ball at Sceaux • Honore de Balzac
... 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, it seems to me that we got more ...
— Chantry House • Charlotte M. Yonge
... There are three painted windows over the altar, 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 ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Priory Church of St. Bartholomew-the-Great, Smithfield • George Worley
... the coldness of his faint smile to increase to become scornful. These poor sidewalk creatures little knew what seethed inside the alabaster of the young Augustan noble! What was it to THEM that this was Miss Pratt's last night and that he intended to dance and dance ...
— Seventeen - A Tale Of Youth And Summer Time And The Baxter Family Especially William • Booth Tarkington
... which all sight and sound of the outer world are excluded, is built about an atrium paved with disks of turquoise and black and white. Water trickles from a central vasca of alabaster into an hexagonal mosaic channel in the pavement. The walls, which are at least twenty-five feet high, are roofed with painted beams resting on panels of traceried stucco in which is set a clerestory of jewelled glass. On each side of the atrium are long recessed ...
— In Morocco • Edith Wharton
... rooms of the upper floor, each filled with antique treasures that were impossible to identify. There were few cards of explanation. One room was crowded with alabaster carvings, any one of which would have rated a whole room to itself in a modern American museum. The great building was literally jammed with rare objects, many of them thousands of years old. Uniformed guards were posted at every corner, obviously to protect ...
— The Egyptian Cat Mystery • Harold Leland Goodwin
... Brazilian. "I have rather a mania for that sort of thing, myself. Wait. Let me show you." And he went into the inner cabin. When he came back he held up an alabaster cup. "A Greek kylix!" he cried. "Pure Greek! What an outline, eh? This is what keeps me from putting on my slippers! I have no doubt Alexander left it behind him. Perhaps Hephaistion drank out of it, or Nearchus, to celebrate his return from India. And some rascally Persian stole ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... a glide like a falling star, there ran down from the right horn of the Cross to the foot of it, one of the lights of this cluster of splendours, distinguishing itself, as it went, like flame in alabaster. ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Volume 1 • Leigh Hunt
... Peal the second: The alabaster halls of the air will be filled with those who will throng up from all the cemeteries of all the ages—from Greyfriar's Churchyard and Roman Catacomb, from Westminster Abbey and from the coral crypts of oceanic cave, and some ...
— New Tabernacle Sermons • Thomas De Witt Talmage
... reason why one man keeps pigs and another bees, why one man plants petunias and another roses, why the many can get along with maples when elms and beeches are to be had, why one man will exchange a roomful of man-fired porcelain for one bowl of sunlit alabaster. No chance anywhere. We call unto ourselves that which corresponds to our own key and tempo; and so long as we live, there is a continual re-adjustment without, the more unerringly to ...
— Child and Country - A Book of the Younger Generation • Will Levington Comfort
... with pretty flowers; and I had my eyes fixed upon this, when, all on a sudden, the window opened, and a young lady appeared, whose beauty was dazzling. Immediately she cast her eyes upon me; and, in watering the flower-pot with a hand whiter than alabaster, looked upon me with a smile that inspired me with as much love for her as I had formerly an aversion for all women. After having watered all her flowers, and darting upon me a glance full of charms that quite pierced my heart, she shut up the window again, and so left ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Volume 1 • Anonymous
... having with continued weeping got a little redness about them, her round sweetly swelling lips a little trembling, as though they kissed their neighbor Death; in her cheeks the whiteness striving by little and little to get upon the rosiness of them; her neck, a neck indeed of alabaster, displaying the wound which with most dainty blood labored to drown his own beauties; so as here was a river of purest red, there an island ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... in all, is in the perfection of the French art of the time. Another work by Juste now in the Louvre is the monument to Louis de Poncher, one of the ministers of Francis I., and his wife, Roberta. These statues are in alabaster, and were formerly in the Church of St. Germain l'Auxerrois, which ...
— A History of Art for Beginners and Students - Painting, Sculpture, Architecture • Clara Erskine Clement
... like fallen cities in a wilderness. Ivy began to 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 walls dropped down ...
— 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
... were sphinx and obelisk, coffins of kings, mummies of priest and chieftain, the fabrics they wore, the gems they cut, the scrolls they engrossed, the tomb in which they were buried. Stepping into another section, you were in Assyria, with the alabaster lions and plumed genii of the men of Nineveh and Babylon. The walls again were brilliant, now with the splendour of the palaces of Nebuchadnezzar; the captives building temples, the chivalry sacking cities, ...
— The Last Leaf - Observations, during Seventy-Five Years, of Men and Events in America - and Europe • James Kendall Hosmer
... asked, for that is the vital matter," Mr. Marwood replied. "Many materials have been tried with varying degrees of success—plaster-of-Paris, alabaster, steel, gun-metal, and brass. Of course what is necessary is a strong, firm, absorbent material. Clay moulds break too easily, and also become saturated with water and lose their shape; metal moulds, on the other hand, while ...
— The Story of Porcelain • Sara Ware Bassett
... of the objects closely, with the manner and gesture of a man who loves beautiful things for their own sakes as well as for the profit he hoped to gain from their sale. When he had twice made a tour of inspection, he placed an alabaster Buddha in the centre of a carved table and sat down before it. The Buddha was dead white, with a red chain around his neck, and on his head a gold cap with long, gem-set ears hanging to the shoulders, and Mhtoon ...
— The Pointing Man - A Burmese Mystery • Marjorie Douie
... That alabaster form—that graceful neck How do the cygnets down and whiteness deck?— How does that aspect shame the cheer of day; When summer suns ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol. I. No. 3. March 1810 • Various
... a bygone age, The marble, porphyry, alabaster forms, Still live: at night, to speech upon the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, October, 1877, Vol. XX. No. 118 • Various
... attaching, than I found her for a week in that brilliant October. She sat in the sunshine beside her yellow river like the little treasure-city she has always seemed, without commerce, without other industry than the manufacture of mosaic paper-weights and alabaster Cupids, without actuality or energy or earnestness or any of those rugged virtues which in most cases are deemed indispensable for civic cohesion; with nothing but the little unaugmented stock of her mediaeval memories, her tender-coloured mountains, her ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James
... and as at parting, sank on his knee before Vaninka; but a moment had sufficed for the haughty girl to banish the feeling she had shown. The blush which had suffused her cheek had disappeared, and she had become again cold and haughty like an alabaster statue-a masterpiece of pride begun by nature and finished by education. Foedor kissed her hand; it was trembling but cold he felt his heart sink, and thought ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... heads and alabaster jars, Fragments of porphyry and Persian tiles, Lie heaped in ruin, and at our dismay The old Turk shrugs ...
— Poems of West & East • Vita Sackville-West
... is called Duyna, many hundred miles long, that falleth Northward into the bay of S. Nicholas, and hath great Alabaster rockes on the bankes towards the ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of The English Nation v. 4 • Richard Hakluyt
... hedge of box. He saw the ruddy glow of the fire mingling with the paler light of amber lamps, and this mingled radiance shining on the rich rugs, the few old brocades, and the rare English prints which covered the walls. He saw wide-open creamy roses in alabaster bowls which were scattered everywhere, on tables, on stools, on window-seats, and on the rich carving of the Spanish desk in one corner. Against the curtains of gold silk there was the bough of twisted pine he had broken, ...
— One Man in His Time • Ellen Glasgow
... still a brighter scene—a stately mansion illuminated for a ball, with cut-glass chandeliers and alabaster lamps in every room, and sunny landscapes hanging round the walls. See! a coach has stopped, whence emerges a slender beauty who, canopied by two umbrellas, glides within the portal and vanishes amid lightsome thrills of music. Will she ever feel the night-wind ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... then, but which he knew very well would have been instantly resented by the girl whom he had just left. He went over her features one by one in his mind. They were the same. He could not doubt it. There was the same airy grace of movement, the same deep brown hair and alabaster skin. He found himself thinking up all the psychology which he had ever read. Was this the result of some strange experiment? It was the person of Annabel Pellissier—the soul of a very different ...
— Anna the Adventuress • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... life-size statues of the final conquerors; while in solemn, stately magnificence, the royal mausoleums of purest Carrara marble, with their reclining portrait figures of Ferdinand and Isabella in soft, time-tinted alabaster, tell us that here the nation, "redeemed from bondage," laid their deliverers to rest. And here, at the close of nearly four hundred years, a hand from across the sea lays this tribute, with a garland of white roses and ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 3 of 8 • Various
... Springs, though now much decayed, were highly-finished pieces of Gothic work in wood. Some of the windows are still embellished with painted glass, representing the arms of the De Veres and others. Here also is a costly monument of alabaster and gold, erected to the memory of the Rev. Henry Copinger,[1] rector of Lavenham, with alto-relievo figures of the reverend ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 335 - Vol. 12, No. 335, October 11, 1828 • Various
... little foot, you always flee from me, yet I took the best of care of you; I bathed you with perfumed water, in a basin of alabaster; I rubbed your heel with pumice stone, mixed with oil of palm; your nails were cut with golden scissors, and polished with a hippopotamus' tooth; I was careful to select for you painted and embroidered tatbebs, with turned up toes, which were the envy of all the young girls of Egypt; on your ...
— Humorous Ghost Stories • Dorothy Scarborough
... they see our sanctuary sumptuously decorated, will exclaim: Would it not have been better to give to the poor the money spent in purchasing these things? So complained Judas (though caring not for the poor(432)) when Mary poured from an alabaster vase the precious ointment on the feet of an approving Savior. Why should not we imitate Mary by placing at His feet, around His sanctuary, our vases with their chaste and fragrant flowers, that the Church may be filled with their perfume, as Simon's house was filled with the ...
— The Faith of Our Fathers • James Cardinal Gibbons
... on the river that he had first made friends with Adone, then a child of six, playing and splashing in the stream, on a midsummer noon. Don Silverio also was bathing. Adone, a little nude figure, as white as alabaster in the hot light, for he was very fair of skin, sprang suddenly out of the water on to the turf above where his breeches and shirt had been left; he was in haste, for he had heard his mother calling to him from their fields; an adder started out of a coil of bindweed ...
— The Waters of Edera • Louise de la Rame, a.k.a. Ouida
... his shoulders, it goes out and up in gentle undulation to either side, and then descends in two swift slight curves that meet in a gothic tip at his heels. It is in shape like a Greek urn, but has with it a flowing quality—and the whiteness. It is like a Greek urn of pure alabaster that would have turned liquid, and would be pouring down behind him in ...
— The Trimming of Goosie • James Hopper
... 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 ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... comes through excess of wine and the wholesome exhilaration from which there is no reaction that comes through being filled with the Spirit (Eph. v. 18-20). When God anoints one with the Holy Spirit, it is as if He broke a precious alabaster box of oil of gladness above their heads until it ran down to the hem of their garments and the whole person was suffused with joy unspeakable ...
— The Person and Work of The Holy Spirit • R. A. Torrey
... it is the cause, my soul,— Let me not name it to you, you chaste stars!— It is the cause.—Yet I'll not shed her blood; Nor scar that whiter skin of hers than snow, And smooth as monumental alabaster. ...
— Othello, the Moor of Venice • William Shakespeare
... in his report of his voyage of 1542, calls it the Isle de l'Ascension, probably by mistake. "The Isle of Ascension is a goodly isle and a goodly champion land, without any hills, standing all upon white rocks and Alabaster, all covered with wild beasts, as bears, Luserns, Porkespicks." Hakluyt, Vol. III. p. 292. Of this island De Laet says, "Elle est nommee el langage des Sauvages Natiscotec"—Hist. du Nouveau Monde, a Leyde, 1640, p.42. Vide also Wyet's Voyage in Hakluyt, Vol. III. p. 241. ...
— Voyages of Samuel de Champlain, Vol. 1 • Samuel de Champlain
... sultanas, the poor ladies are locked up in abominable places, into which I am sure your ladyship's amity would never carry you—I think they call them seraglios. Africa has nothing but empresses stark-naked; and of complexions directly the reverse of your alabaster They do not reign in their own right; and what is worse, the emperors of those barbarous regions wear no more robes than the sovereigns of their hearts. And what are princes and princesses without velvet and ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... glowing with gold and azure, was supported by slender shafts, of the whitest alabaster, between which were open arcades, light and graceful as the arched vineyards of Italy, and wrought in that delicate filagree-work common to the Arabian architecture: through these arcades was seen at intervals the lapsing fall ...
— Leila, Complete - The Siege of Granada • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... with pillars of Oriental alabaster, and wherever is a space vacant of precious and richly colored marble it is frescoed with arabesque ornaments; and over the whole is a coved and vaulted ceiling, glowing with picture. There never can be anything richer than the whole effect. As to ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... moon is composed of more or less transparent parts; as though one part were something like alabaster and others like crystal or glass. It would follow from this that the sun casting its rays on the less transparent portions, the light would remain on the surface, and so the denser part would be illuminated, and ...
— The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, Complete • Leonardo Da Vinci
... 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, ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... she would have to be referred to as Miss Dodworth. And this wisp of a girl with her big black-fringed gray eyes peering up and out over her gray knitted shawl, but for the holes in her white stockings and the fact that the alabaster of her neck was a shade off color—faith, an' it might have been Eleanor hersilf! It is obvious that any juryman who allows his mind to be influenced by the mere fact that one of the witnesses for the defense is a pretty woman—even if she recalls to him his wife or sweet-heart—is ...
— By Advice of Counsel • Arthur Train
... encaustic tiles covering the masonry of Chaldean buildings at Nimroud and Khorsabad. The pale ones associated with low reliefs, and really resembling them, as they were partly raised, and the reliefs in alabaster and stone, which were partly coloured, were in harmony, and yet in contrast, with the brilliant ...
— Needlework As Art • Marian Alford
... younger species, we were less plagued by caution and went anyway. The mountains of this little moon are up to fifteen miles high, causing a state of instability that is chronic. Walking down those alabaster valleys was a more awesome experience than any galactic vista I have ever encountered. Our aesthetic sense proved stronger than common sense alertness and seven of us were buried ...
— Man Made • Albert R. Teichner
... small and low, Stands like a maiden in the snow; And the old door-slab is half hid Under an alabaster lid. All day it snows: the sheeted post Gleams in the dimness like a ghost; All day the blasted oak has stood A muffled wizard of the wood; Garland and airy cap adorn The sumach and the wayside thorn, And clustering spangles lodge and shine In the dark tresses ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 3 (of 4) • Various
... of this grand room are curtained by alabaster drapery in vertical folds and present to the eye a scene ...
— New National Fourth Reader • Charles J. Barnes and J. Marshall Hawkes
... when I feel that I am not doing what is right I just run to my dressing case and slip that on my arm," pointing at the same moment to the curious construction of bronze and steel that encircled her alabaster-like arm. ...
— Marguerite Verne • Agatha Armour
... equaled for sublimity that lonely journey through Africa's forests. An example of tenderness, gratitude, devotion, heroism, equal to this, the world had never seen. The exquisite inventiveness of a love that lavished tears as water on the feet of Jesus, and made tresses of hair a towel, and broke the alabaster flask for his anointing; the feminine tenderness that lifted his mangled body from the cross and wrapped it in new linen, with costly spices, and laid it in a virgin tomb, have at length been surpassed by the ingenious devotion of ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various
... am just (Sept. 9) informed by Governor Wallace, that the Sierra de Tecolote, east of the ruins, contains probably gypsum, even in the form of alabaster. It is certain that nothing like lime-kilns or places where lime might have been burnt are found at any moderate distance from the ruins. The surrounding rocks, up to head of the valley and to the mesa, contain deposits of white, yellow, and red carbonates ...
— Historical Introduction to Studies Among the Sedentary Indians of New Mexico; Report on the Ruins of the Pueblo of Pecos • Adolphus Bandelier
... that, strapped behind a rattling vettura, had accompanied the bride and groom on that memorable voyage of discovery of which the booty had till recently adorned her walls; and there was a dim consolation in the thought that those early "finds" in coral and Swiss wood-carving, in lava and alabaster, still lay behind the worn locks, in ...
— Crucial Instances • Edith Wharton
... 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 ...
— Westminster Abbey • Mrs. A. Murray Smith
... see it far away;—a multitude of pillars and white domes, clustered into a long low pyramid of colored light; a treasure-heap, it seems, partly of gold, and partly of opal and mother-of-pearl, hollowed beneath into five great vaulted porches, ceiled with fair mosaic, and beset with sculpture of alabaster, clear as amber and delicate as ivory,—sculpture fantastic and involved, of palm leaves and lilies, and grapes and pomegranates, and birds clinging and fluttering among the branches, all twined ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume II (of 3) • John Ruskin
... the Hall of Diamonds. When the Rabbi entered, he screamed aloud, and put his hands over his eyes, for the lustre of the jewels dazzled him, as if he had looked upon the noonday sun. In vases of agate were heaped diamonds beyond numeration, the smallest of which was larger than a pigeon's egg. On alabaster tables lay amethysts, topazes, rubies, beryls, and all other precious stones, wrought by the hands of skilful artists, beyond power of computation. The room was lighted by a carbuncle, which, from the end of the hall, ...
— Eastern Tales by Many Story Tellers • Various
... vision saw he this, for straight They vanished. Where those silvery shadows were Was nothing. Had he dreamed it? Had he gone Mad with much thinking on her, and so made Ghosts of his own sick fancies? Like a man Carved out of alabaster and set up Within a woodland, he stood rooted there, Glimmering wanly under pendent boughs. Spell-bound he stood, in very woeful plight, Bewildered; and then presently with shock Of rapid pulses hammering at heart, As mad besiegers hammer at a gate, To life came back, and ...
— Wyndham Towers • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... Sir Carver, must you carve me also to lie there.' And he pointed to the vacant space by the side of the fair alabaster figure. ...
— The World of Romance - being Contributions to The Oxford and Cambridge Magazine, 1856 • William Morris
... box of alabaster; The precious spikenard filled the room With honor worthy of the Master, A costly, ...
— Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul • Various
... attribute as it was, disastrous as its discovery had been in many ways to her, perhaps Mr Clare, as a gentleman and a student of history, would respect her sufficiently to forget her childish conduct with the lords and ladies if he knew that those Purbeck-marble and alabaster people in Kingsbere Church really represented her own lineal forefathers; that she was no spurious d'Urberville, compounded of money and ambition like those at Trantridge, but true ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... are many other objects from Tahuti's tomb which must have been very rich, and have escaped plundering until this century. A silver dish, broken, and a canopic jar of alabaster, are in Paris; another canopic jar, a palette, a kohl vase, and a heart scarab set in gold, are in Leyden; while in Darmstadt is the dagger of this great general. This piece of a popular tale founded on an incident of his Syrian wars has curiously survived, while the more solid ...
— Egyptian Tales, Second Series - Translated from the Papyri • W. M. Flinders Petrie
... seen, they are of rich Renaissance work. In the north aisle of the cathedral to the west is the tomb of two bishops of the seventeenth century, Bartholomew and Peter de Camelin, kneeling; and at the east end are two alabaster monuments of bishops three centuries earlier. The cloisters are of the usual Provencal type, the arcade resting on double columns, but walls have been erected blocking up the spaces, and the interior yard is turned into ...
— In Troubadour-Land - A Ramble in Provence and Languedoc • S. Baring-Gould
... shaped out by history and by the 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 ...
— Fruits of Toil in the London Missionary Society • Various
... is fair; there is by the sandy ways a paving all alabaster, and the lanterns along it are of chrysoprase, all night long they shine green, but of amethyst are ...
— Tales of Wonder • Lord Dunsany
... reached a rising ground, from which a magnificent 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. We are safe!" and the thread ...
— The Gold Thread - A Story for the Young • Norman MacLeod
... traced Here lakes of love:—there names entwined were placed; Magnificence like this the nuns admired, And such amusements ardently desired. Their beauty too incited to be free; A thousand matters filled their souls with glee; In height the belles were pretty much the same Like alabaster fair; of perfect frame; In num'rous corners Cupid nestling lay: Beneath a stomacher he'd slyly play, A veil or scapulary, this or that, Where least the eye of day perceived he sat, Unless a lover called to mystick bow'rs, Where he might hearts entwine with chains of flow'rs; A thousand times a day ...
— The Tales and Novels, Complete • Jean de La Fontaine
... Roger de Smet. There is in the South Kensington Museum a full-sized plaster cast of this gigantic chimney piece, the lower part being coloured black to indicate the marble of which it was composed, with panels of alabaster carved in relief, while the whole of the upper portion and the richly carved ceiling of the room is of oak. The model, including the surrounding woodwork, measures thirty-six feet across, and should not be missed by any one who ...
— Illustrated History of Furniture - From the Earliest to the Present Time • Frederick Litchfield
... hospitals, he set out without a farthing in his pocket, 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 ...
— Stories from Pentamerone • Giambattista Basile
... but of dry, hard scales. They were very insignificant in size and shape; nor was their fragrance of much account. Children of the open moors, they had not unfolded in the still air where lilies open their alabaster petals; nor did they grow in the rich soil from which roses draw nourishment for their swelling crowns. What made them flowers was really their color, for they were glowing red. They had received the color-giving sunshine in plenty. They were no pallid cellar growth; the ...
— Invisible Links • Selma Lagerlof
... glance the face had none of the striking features that men associate with great beauty. But behind the eyes there seemed to glow, and to grow gradually, and softly stronger, a light, as though diffused within an alabaster vase, that slowly radiated from the whole countenance an impression of indescribable, ...
— The Shepherd of the North • Richard Aumerle Maher
... 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 spite of these exceptions, it was at once ...
— The Tell El Amarna Period • Carl Niebuhr
... be more striking or pretty than the contrast between James and Angela thus grouped. On the one hand, blond tresses, alabaster tints, rosy cheeks, infantile grace and elegance; on the other, the bronze tint, ebony locks, and manner at once assured ...
— A Romance of the West Indies • Eugene Sue
... creature. She had a head of beautiful form, perched like a bird upon a throat massive yet shapely and smooth as a column of alabaster, a symmetrical brow, black eyes full of fire and tenderness, a delicious mouth, with a hundred varying expressions, and that marvelous faculty of giving beauty alike to love or scorn, a sneer or a smile. But she had one feature more remarkable than all, ...
— Peg Woffington • Charles Reade
... appeared and halted in front of the church. It held a corpse, whose dull white feet protruded from under the winding-sheet like bits of washed alabaster, while the body itself had the uncertain form peculiar to dressed corpses. The crowd around was silent. The men bared their heads; the priest shook his holy-water sprinkler and mumbled orisons, and the pair of oxen swung their heads to and fro under the heavy, ...
— Over Strand and Field • Gustave Flaubert
... the greyhounds young Actaeon leads, When destiny directs him into the doubtful and neglected way, Upon the track of savage beasts in forests wild. And here, between the waters, he sees a bust and face more beautiful than e'er was seen By mortal or divine, of scarlet, alabaster, and fine gold; He sees, and the great hunter straight becomes that which he hunts. The stag, that towards still thicker shades now goes with lighter steps, His own great dogs swiftly devour. So I extend my thoughts to higher prey, and these Now turning ...
— The Heroic Enthusiasts,(1 of 2) (Gli Eroici Furori) - An Ethical Poem • Giordano Bruno
... hero's breath His bleeding country weeps— Hushed in the alabaster arms of death, Our young ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various
... a deep sarcophagus Of alabaster sheen, With sculptured lid of roses white, She slumbered in unbroken night, By ...
— Successful Recitations • Various
... said he, "for all the haste I made," and advancing a few steps he bent over the prostrate girl, and took her lifeless hand in his. Upon this hand, white, cold and diaphanous, as if it had been sculptured in alabaster, shone a ring, set with an amethyst of unusual size. The old nobleman seemed strangely agitated as it caught his eye. He drew it gently from Isabelle's slender finger, with a trembling hand signed to one of the ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... not condemn her who broke an alabaster box of ointment—very precious—simply as a proof of love, even although the suggestion was made, 'This might have been sold for three hundred pence, and given to the poor.' I have thought he would regard with sympathy the fond efforts which human love sometimes makes to express ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... pencil. Now, it has been my inspiration to introduce it into statuary. For this purpose I have invented a peculiar plastic compound which you will permit me not to divulge. That's my secret, signore! It's as light, you perceive, as cork, and yet as firm as alabaster! I frankly confess that I really pride myself as much on this little stroke of chemical ingenuity as upon the other element of novelty in my creations—my types. What do you say to my types, signore? The idea is bold; does it strike you as happy? Cats and monkeys—monkeys ...
— The Madonna of the Future • Henry James
... not pause in the boudoir, but stole through, shuddering beneath the pale light of that alabaster lamp, as if it ...
— Mabel's Mistake • Ann S. Stephens
... of Frettenham, co. Norfolk, several alabaster carvings were discovered some years ago, near the chancel arch, having traces of colour. The most perfect, and the one which had most claims to merit as a piece of sculpture, represented a very curious scene. A horse was standing fixed in a kind of stocks, a machine for ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 82, May 24, 1851 • Various
... bosom: I hope 'twill multiply love there. You do tremble: Make not your heart so dead a piece of flesh, To fear more than to love me. Sir, be confident: What is 't distracts you? This is flesh and blood, sir; 'Tis not the figure cut in alabaster Kneels at my husband's tomb. Awake, awake, man! I do here put off all vain ceremony, And only do appear to you a young widow That claims you for her husband, and, like a widow, I use but half ...
— The Duchess of Malfi • John Webster
... learning of our people, and in such matters appertaining to the Gods as it is meet that children should know. So I grew strong and comely, for my hair was black as the hair of the divine Nout, and my eyes were blue as the blue lotus, and my skin was like the alabaster within the sanctuaries. For now that these glories have passed from me I may speak of them without shame. I was strong also. There was no youth of my years in Abouthis who could stand against me to wrestle with me, nor could any throw so far ...
— Cleopatra • H. Rider Haggard
... pink and gold; the pattern on the carpet represented bunches of flowers on a light ground, but it was carefully covered up in the centre by a linen drugget, glazed and colourless. The window-curtains were lace; each chair and sofa had its own particular veil of netting, or knitting. Great alabaster groups occupied every flat surface, safe from dust under their glass shades. In the middle of the room, right under the bagged-up chandelier, was a large circular table, with smartly-bound books arranged at regular intervals round the circumference of its polished surface, like ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... a pleasure you receyve by this, I tell you, Madam, I shall shortly have His whole proportion cut in Alabaster, Armd as he was when he encountred here, Which kneeling shall ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. III • Various
... baldacchino raised with questionable taste above the ciborium of Arnolfo di Cambio, a pupil of Nicolo Pisano (A. D. 1285), rests on four columns of Oriental alabaster, from the quarries of Sannhur, in the district of the Beni Souef, offered to Gregory XVI. by Mohammed Ali, viceroy of Egypt. The pedestals are inlaid with malachite, a present from the emperor Nicholas ...
— Pagan and Christian Rome • Rodolfo Lanciani
... pebbles which 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
... centuries, was gradually increased from three to one thousand pieces of gold. [147] The schools of Athens were protected by the wisest and most virtuous of the Roman princes. The library, which Hadrian founded, was placed in a portico adorned with pictures, statues, and a roof of alabaster, and supported by one hundred columns of Phrygian marble. The public salaries were assigned by the generous spirit of the Antonines; and each professor of politics, of rhetoric, of the Platonic, the Peripatetic, ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon
... of the ancient cities, were simple in external appearance, but exhibited, in the interior, all the splendor and elegance of refined luxury. The floors were of marble; alabaster and gilding were displayed on every side. In every great house there were several fountains, playing in magnificent basins. The smallest house had three pipes,—one for the kitchen, another for the garden, and ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams
... that by an Act of Parliament passed in the tenth year of Queen Anne, it was enacted that a duty of twopence per pound should be laid upon all starch imported, and of a penny per pound upon all starch made in Great Britain, that no perfumer, barber, or seller of hair-powder should mix any powder of alabaster, plaster of Paris, whiting, lime, etc. (sweet scents excepted), with any starch to be made use of for making hair-powder, under a pain of forfeiting the hair-powder and L50, and that any person who should expose the same for sale should forfeit it and L20." Other details were ...
— At the Sign of the Barber's Pole - Studies In Hirsute History • William Andrews
... food since he parted from his father. So he said in himself, 'Surely, the like of this palace will not lack of victual,' and leaving the horse there, went in quest of somewhat to eat. Presently, he came to a stair and descending it, found himself in a court paved with white marble and alabaster, that shone in the light of the moon. He marvelled at the place and the goodliness of its fashion, but heard no sound and saw no living soul and stood in perplexity, looking right and left and knowing not whither he should go. Then said he to himself, 'I cannot do better ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume IV • Anonymous
... ivory-white linen were those figures of undress marble, the wealth of their glorious bodies pressing out into bosoms magnificent as magnolias (nobler lines and curves Greece herself has never known), towering in throats of fluted alabaster, and flowering in coiffures of ...
— The Quest of the Golden Girl • Richard le Gallienne
... mask unneeded brackets. In the reception rooms food-bestrewn parrot stands were left where they ought never to be seen; and there were gilt-wired parrot cages; baskets for the pugs lined with soiled shawls; absurd ornaments, china cats with exaggerated necks, alabaster figures of stereotyped female beauty and flowerpot stands of ornate bamboo. She loved portieres, and she would fain have mitigated the bareness of the panelled or distempered walls; only that here her husband was firm. She unconsciously mocked the few well-chosen, well-placed pictures on the walls ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston
... hope and fear, and his spirit moved by the passionate exultation of the antiquary whose studies and researches are about to be rewarded with unexpected treasure. Towards sunset the men came upon a large oblong piece of what appeared to be alabaster, closely inlaid with patterns of worn gold and bearing on its surface the sculptured emblems of a cross, a drawn sword and a crown of laurel leaves intertwisted with thorns, the whole most elaborately ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... 'we are told, was borrowed from the East, a large term.' I say 'she is even blended in ritual with a monstrous many-breasted divinity of Oriental religion.' {139b} Is this 'large term' too vague? Then consider the Artemis of Ephesus and 'the alabaster statuette of the goddess' in Roscher's Lexikon, p. 558. Compare, for an Occidental parallel, the many- breasted goddess of the maguey plant, in Mexico. {140} Our author writes, 'we are told that Artemis's most ancient history is to be studied ...
— Modern Mythology • Andrew Lang
... their expression, had ceased to have a value in and for itself, had ceased to be the true and adequate investiture of thoughts demanded from the artist. At best it could be taken only as the symbol of some inner meaning, the shrine of an indwelling spirit nobler than itself; just as a lamp of alabaster owes its beauty and its worth to the flame it more than half conceals, the light transmitted through its scarce ...
— Renaissance in Italy Vol. 3 - The Fine Arts • John Addington Symonds
... occasionally and by good fortune, nuggets of gold; and in the other stream bed, certainly and without hazard, you could dig up little caskets, containing talismans which gave length of days and peace; and alabaster vases of precious balms, which were better than the Arabian Dervish's ointment, and made not only the eyes to see, but the mind to know, whatever it would—I wonder in which of the stream beds there would ...
— Time and Tide by Weare and Tyne - Twenty-five Letters to a Working Man of Sunderland on the Laws of Work • John Ruskin
... in 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, ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... beyond the range of his vision, and when he put one hand under her chin and raised it, he saw that the missing light in the alabaster vase had been supplied, and her smooth cheeks were flushed to ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... the cliffs last autumn. Lizzie looked just the same—rosy, good-natured, and untidy as ever—but it was a very etherealized Eric who lay in the perambulator. The lovely little face looked white and transparent as alabaster, the brown eyes seemed bigger and more wistful, the golden curls had grown, and framed the pale cheeks like a saint's halo, the small hands folded on the shabby rug were thin and colourless. The child was wasted almost to a shadow, and the blue veins on his forehead ...
— A Patriotic Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... around the manger in the night, singing their song of Peace and Good-will,—or Queen Guinever and Sir Lancelot meeting in the autumn day at King Arthur's tomb,—or Mary of Magdala flying from the house of revels, and clasping the alabaster box of ointment to her bosom,—or Ophelia redelivering to Hamlet his gifts of remembrance, while he strips the leaves from a rosetree as he breaks her heart,—or the young farmer, who, having driven his cart to London, and crossed one of the bridges over the black river, finds in the cold, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... white slave-mother, of whom we have already spoken, created as much of a sensation by the fairness of her complexion and the alabaster whiteness of her child, when being conveyed on shore at New Orleans, as she had done when brought on board at Grand Gulf. Every one that saw her felt that slavery in the Southern States was not confined to the negro. Many had been taught to ...
— Clotelle - The Colored Heroine • William Wells Brown
... arm were alone; there was no trunk. After being removed from the ice the flesh-tints quickly faded out and the rosy nails took on the alabaster hue of death. This was the third RIGHT hand found; therefore, all three of the lost men were accounted ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... 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
... am happy to say I possess Johnson's original sketches of all the monuments, and of the exterior of the building. A fair idea of the extent of the destruction may be gained by the mention of the fact, that six hundred-weight of alabaster effigies were beaten into powder, and sold to line water-cisterns. Some of the figures were rescued by the late Dr. W. Clubbe, and erected into a pyramid in his garden at ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 204, September 24, 1853 • Various
... ruins, and he may judge of the impression its halls were calculated to 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, ...
— Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects, and Curiosities of Art, (Vol. 2 of 3) • Shearjashub Spooner
... that enchanted summer. When she could not be with them all felt that some exquisite savor was lacking in their intercourse. Her beauty was illumined by the awakened soul within, as some rosy lamp might shine through a flawless vase of alabaster. There were hours when Anne's eyes seemed to ache with the splendor of her. As for Owen Ford, the "Margaret" of his book, although she had the soft brown hair and elfin face of the real girl who had vanished so long ago, "pillowed where ...
— Anne's House of Dreams • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... caverns below, with icicles hanging down from the roof, and the top of the berg covered with what one might fancy to be towers, steeples, and ruined castles and arches, all glittering and shining just as if they were made of alabaster and precious stones; and the sea a deep purple, or sometimes blue, with streaks of yellow and red. You'd think it was cold enough there, but the summer up in the North is one long day, with the sun in the sky all the time; and I have known it pretty hot there—hot ...
— Voyages and Travels of Count Funnibos and Baron Stilkin • William H. G. Kingston
... turning back now to behold me, To bow thee and make thee bare, Not for sin's sake but penitence, by my feet to hold me, And wipe them with thine hair. And sweet ointment of thy grief thou hast brought thy master, And set before thy lord, From a box of flawed and broken alabaster, Thy broken spirit, poured. And love-offerings, tears and perfumes, hast thou given me, To reach my feet and touch; Therefore thy sins, which are many, are forgiven thee, Because thou ...
— Songs before Sunrise • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... looking exactly like bass or catfish hung on a string. Another is known as the Toyshop, from quantities of stalactites twisted into all possible shapes, many of which suggest some well-known plaything. In one place is a huge cascade of alabaster resembling a frozen waterfall, and frequently the walls appear to be hung with curtains and draperies of gleaming white, or tinted with all shades of beautiful colours. In one cavern six curious blade-shaped stalactites are called the Major Chimes. When ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... therefore 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 ...
— Arts and Crafts in the Middle Ages • Julia De Wolf Addison
... "holy hour" strike, and as the last stroke sounded he fancied he saw the Cupid and Psyche surmounting his clock entwine their alabaster arms about one another. At the same moment two timid taps were given ...
— Bohemians of the Latin Quarter • Henry Murger
... 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 for, is there? ...
— The Squirrel-Cage • Dorothy Canfield
... she lifted her hands, which was often, for she was as full of gestures as a Frenchwoman. Her bodice was cut low, both back and front, showing her large perfectly molded throat and neck, like an alabaster pillar of beauty and strength, and disclosing her bosom just to its shadowy incurving, white and billowy as drifted snow. Her hair was thrown back in an attempt at a coil, though, like her own rebellious nature, it could not brook ...
— When Knighthood Was in Flower • Charles Major
... blame her, somehow—that baby. It's him I hate. Sometimes I wonder how I'm going to hold back, when I lay hands on him, from—killing. But I won't. I'll grin and bear it just as if her beautiful little white self were no more to me than an alabaster ...
— Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst
... landlady of the house led the worthy Major into the Sedleys' room (whereof he remembered every single article of furniture, from the old brass ornamented piano, once a natty little instrument, Stothard maker, to the screens and the alabaster miniature tombstone, in the midst of which ticked Mr. Sedley's gold watch), and there, as he sat down in the lodger's vacant arm-chair, the father, the mother, and the daughter, with a thousand ejaculatory ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... their general arrangement was similar to that of the larger building. The chief feature of both was a large hall (e in the first plan, c in the second) with a square niche at one of its extremities (f in the first plan, d in the second). This niche was paved with a single slab of alabaster, of considerable size and covered upon both faces with a long inscription describing in detail the reign of the prince by whom the temple was consecrated. In the larger of the two buildings the slab in question was twenty-three feet four inches long and seventeen feet ...
— A History of Art in Chaldaea & Assyria, v. 1 • Georges Perrot
... Air (music) ario. Air aerumi. Air (atmosphere) aero. Airball (toy) pilkego. Airballoon aerostato. Airhole fenestreto. Airpump aeropumpilo. [Error in book: aeropompilo] Aisle flankajxo. Ajar duonfermita. Akin parenca. Alabaster alabastro. Alacrity rapideco. Alarm maltrankviligi. Alarum (clock) vekhorlogxo. Alas! ho ve! Albeit kvankam. Album albumo. Albumen albumeno. Alchemy alhxemio. Alcohol alkoholo. Alcoholic alkohola. Alcoholism alkoholismo. ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... can best call up the image I wish to present to my reader. For example: suppose I wish to speak of any object that is white, or analogous to white, I open the drawer that is thus labelled, and I see silver, lime, chalk, and white enamel, ivory, paper, snow-drops, and alabaster, and select whichever of these substances will best suit the measure and the rhyme, and has the most soft-sounding name. If the colour be yellow, then there are substances of all shades of this hue, from saffron and ...
— A Voyage to the Moon • George Tucker
... a large and lofty octagonal chamber, highly decorated, in the centre of which was the tomb of Lothair's grandfather. He had raised it in his lifetime. The tomb was of alabaster surrounded by a railing of pure gold, and crowned with a recumbent figure of the deceased in his coronet—a fanciful man, who lived in solitude, building ...
— Lothair • Benjamin Disraeli
... 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 Bore ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... tops of the houses, and the grisettes in the streets, abandon garrets, grisettes, umbrellas, and overshoes to men who pay for their dinners with tickets; and you must also comprehend Love to be a principle which develops in all its grace only on Savonnerie carpets, beneath the opal gleams of an alabaster lamp, between guarded walls silk-hung, before gilded hearths in chambers deadened to all outward sounds by shutters and billowy curtains. Mirrors must be there to show the play of form and repeat the woman we would multiply as love itself multiplies and magnifies ...
— Ferragus • Honore de Balzac
... latitudes to which the restless and apprehensive spirit of 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 ...
— The Pilgrims of New England - A Tale Of The Early American Settlers • Mrs. J. B. Webb
... friendly shout in his ear. "Ho, ho, Max, reading poetry, are you? What love does for the worst of us!" It was Welsley, who snatched the paper out of his hand, running over the lines rapidly to himself: "Hem, hem, 'carnation, alabaster, gold and fire.' Some queen, that, eh? Have you had your dinner? Well, don't be cross. There's no reason why you shouldn't read verse if you like. And this young man is the latest thing. My wife says they are going to import him here to speak ...
— Ladies Must Live • Alice Duer Miller
... opaque, consistent, and semi-transparent form, it is known as Alabaster. The largest quarries are near Volterra, in Italy. Here the whole population have been employed for centuries, either in cutting it out of the mine, or in converting it into elegant forms of great variety, which are sent to all parts ...
— The Mines and its Wonders • W.H.G. Kingston
... a fair girl suddenly, rushed out from a door on the right. She was crying hysterically. Her hair was disordered, her deep violet eyes rimmed with red, and her moist lips seemed to stand out strangely red against the alabaster paleness of ...
— Malcolm Sage, Detective • Herbert George Jenkins
... cascades. The thick 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 ...
— Perils and Captivity • Charlotte-Adelaide [nee Picard] Dard
... the ruby lips we like, The lass with teeth of pearl, The maid with the eyes like diamonds, The cheek-like-coral girl; The girl with the alabaster brow, The lass from the Emerald Isle. All these we like, but not the ...
— Toaster's Handbook - Jokes, Stories, and Quotations • Peggy Edmund & Harold W. Williams, compilers
... the "ancient mariner" who appeared in the dusk of the evening to warn me against over-payment for the place—old Nat. It turned out that he was a farmer, but with artistic leanings in the direction of whitewash. He appeared one morning in a more substantial form, and was presently making alabaster of our up-stairs ceilings, for if ever there was an old master in whitewash it was Nat. Never a streak or a patchy place, and he knew the secret of somehow making the second coat gleam ...
— Dwellers in Arcady - The Story of an Abandoned Farm • Albert Bigelow Paine
... crucifix, on a table, lay a human skull, which looked as if it might have been dug up out of some old grave. But, examining it more closely, Kenyon saw that it was carved in gray alabaster; most skillfully done to the death, with accurate imitation of the teeth, the sutures, the empty eye-caverns, and the fragile little bones of the nose. This hideous emblem rested on a cushion of white marble, so nicely wrought that you seemed to ...
— The Marble Faun, Volume II. - The Romance of Monte Beni • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... admission. The poultry dealer, however, asserted that he himself had once been in them. The wax floors, he said, were protected by strips of green linen; and there were covers over the furniture, and an alabaster timepiece with columns. He had caught a glimpse of the back of a lady, who was just disappearing through one doorway as he was entering by another, and had taken her to be Madame Robine. She appeared to be an old lady of very genteel appearance, with her hair arranged in corkscrew curls; but ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola
... its way On some kind 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, It spake such innocence. One day she slept,— How calm and motionless! I watched ...
— Town and Country, or, Life at Home and Abroad • John S. Adams
... of Archdeacon Paley, who is buried close at hand in the north choir aisle. It is of richly-carved Caen stone, on a plinth of black Manx marble, and ornamented with carvings in white alabaster, of scenes from the New Testament. In shape it is hexagonal, with shafts at the angles rising into an enriched cornice. The lectern—a brass eagle—was given in memory of the late ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Carlisle - A Description of Its Fabric and A Brief History of the Episcopal See • C. King Eley
... salle de bain of an elliptical form; the bath, of white marble, is sunk in the pavement, which is tessellated. From the ceiling immediately over the bath hangs an alabaster lamp, held by the beak of a dove; the rest of the ceiling being painted with Cupids throwing flowers. The room is panelled with alternate mirrors and groups of allegorical subjects finely executed; and is lighted by one ...
— The Idler in France • Marguerite Gardiner
... a foundation-stone of the new heaven was to be laid! In a week's time Mike would be working at one of the alabaster walls. Perhaps in two years' time, perhaps even in a year, with good fortune, the roof would be on, the door wreathed with garlands, and a modest little heaven ready ...
— Young Lives • Richard Le Gallienne
... 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 ...
— The Last of the Plainsmen • Zane Grey
... of the former State, which, as a local curiosity, is unsurpassed; and one in the romantic County of Christian, in the latter State, makes a span of seventy feet with an altitude of thirty; while the vicinity of the famous Alabaster Mountain of Arkansas boasts a very curious and interesting formation of this species. Two of these natural bridges are of such vast proportions and symmetrical structure that they rank among the wonders of the world, and have long been the goals of pilgrimage, the shrines ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 74, December, 1863 • Various
... lingered, though he had never taken any particular notice of her before, and did not know why he felt inclined to stop to-day. He suddenly felt that Caroline was interesting, though he was not actually aware of that odd shining of the spirit through the flesh—like a lamp in an alabaster vase—which was characteristic of Caroline in moments of supreme, passionate emotion. All he thought was, that there was something unusual about the girl, and that he was sorry he had ...
— The Privet Hedge • J. E. Buckrose
... Portuguese, she spoke French perfectly and English not badly, sang in a melodious contralto voice, drew well for an amateur, carved alabaster vases, and had all kinds of talents. She did not care to sing ballads, only cared for ...
— Recollections Of My Childhood And Youth • George Brandes
... Alabaster abound celebrity conglomerate commensurate constituency effective arrival successor. Meet me Planters Hotel St. Louis this P.M. ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various
... partridges, fowls, and game of all kinds, fruits, and eggs, amphorae, loaves of bread and cakes, hams, and I know not what all else. In the shops attached to this palace belong all sorts of precious articles—vases, lamps, statuettes, jewels, a handsome alabaster cup; besides, there have been found five hundred and fifty small bottles, without counting the goblets, and, in vases of glass, raisins, figs, chestnuts, lentils, and near them scales and bakers' and pastry-cooks' ...
— The Wonders of Pompeii • Marc Monnier
... haunts of gore,— Each Cyclopean Dragon's goal! And groaning cries from maidens fair Is heard by spectral, gangrel forms,— The writhing thin is flayed some more! Its secret sins,—Black deeds of Soul— Is scourged as copper-burnished hair Hangs from her alabaster head, Both feet and arms are screwed till black— A sign that Hell reigns on, unstunned. Then incense swung by priestesses, Salute the newly, plunder'd dead, The bloody sight upon the wrack, Where cringing groans once rose unsummed, ...
— Betelguese - A Trip Through Hell • Jean Louis de Esque
... that stood on little easels, and were carven out of oak; a blotting book of vellum; a Dante of the same material; cheap mosaic brooches, which the maids, next Christmas, would never tell from real; pins, pots, heraldic saucers, brown art-photographs; Eros and Psyche in alabaster; St. Peter to match—all of which would have cost ...
— A Room With A View • E. M. Forster
... standing, holding a long black coat together at her throat, so that her face with its pale brown hair, short and square-cut and curling up underneath, had an uncanny look of being detached from any body. Her face was so alabaster pale that the staring, startled eyes, dark blue or brown, and the faint rose of the parted lips, were like colour stainings on a white mask; and it had a strange delicacy, truth, and pathos, such as only suffering brings. Though not susceptible to aesthetic emotion, ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... he cried, between praying and swearing, "must this alabaster-box of precious ointment be broken upon the ...
— The Mystery of Metropolisville • Edward Eggleston
... the shadow of the cross was already upon Him, one only amongst all His followers—a woman, Mary—had understood and really taken in His repeated declaration of the sufferings that awaited Him; and when she came to anoint Him beforehand for the burial, and broke the precious alabaster box she had reserved for this very purpose, the thief who kept the bag had only angry words of criticism and reproach. How sweet to her wounded spirit was her MASTER'S commendation, "She hath done ...
— Separation and Service - or Thoughts on Numbers VI, VII. • James Hudson Taylor
... eye), into head-bands, breast-pieces, plaques of all shapes and sizes, and wrought into bracelets, rings, pins, baldrics, and dagger and sword hilts. Along with the gold was store of wrought ivory, amber, silver, bronze, and alabaster. One grave alone contained no fewer than sixty swords and daggers; another, in which women only were buried, held six diadems, fifteen pendants, eleven neck-coils, eight hair ornaments, ten gold grasshoppers with gold chains, one ...
— The Sea-Kings of Crete • James Baikie
... portion of the church which belongs to the manor of Dedisham, is a curiously sculptured female figure, destitute of any inscription, but traditionally said, to belong to a member of the family of Tregoz.—There are also two other mural monuments, with small painted alabaster effigies of women in the ancient dress of their times. The first of which we give a sketch, appears particularly "en bon point," and is represented kneeling on a cushion, in the act of prayer. The following inscription, now ...
— The History and Antiquities of Horsham • Howard Dudley
... beautiful girls I ever saw. She was nearly as tall as myself, but considerably stouter, and her body was molded in a most exquisite manner. Although her eyes were very black and her hair like the raven's plume, her skin was as white as alabaster. Her teeth were as regular as if they had been cut of a solid piece of ivory, and her hands and feet were fairylike in their proportions. I was the eldest girl in the school and Laura immediately made me her companion. She was exceedingly intelligent, well educated, ...
— The Life and Amours of the Beautiful, Gay and Dashing Kate Percival - The Belle of the Delaware • Kate Percival
... seignorial apartments, though there was nothing to take care of in them except a dozen white arm-chairs, upholstered in faded stuff, two podgy chests on carved legs with copper handles, four pictures with holes in them, and one black alabaster Arab with a broken nose. The owner of the house, a careless young man, lived partly at Petersburg, partly abroad, and had completely forgotten his estate. It had come to him eight years before, from a very ...
— The Jew And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... without disappointment or loss. Human excellence is always limited and imperfect, but here is One whom we may imitate and be pure. So let us do like that poor woman in the Gospel story—bring our precious alabaster box of ointment—the love of these hearts of ours, which is the most precious thing we have to give. The box of ointment that we have so often squandered upon unworthy heads—let us come and pour ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren
... those other members yield a most pleasing grace, and are alone sufficient to enamour. A high brow like unto the bright heavens, coeli pulcherrima plaga, Frons ubi vivit honor, frons ubi ludit amor, white and smooth like the polished alabaster, a pair of cheeks of vermilion colour, in which love lodgeth; [4914]Amor qui mollibus genis puellae pernoctas: a coral lip, suaviorum delubrum, in which Basia mille patent, basia mille latent, "A thousand appear, as many ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... wonderful scenery all round. The West Mountains were superb in their wild grandeur. The whole outline of peaks, some eighty or ninety distant, showed up, stencilled in delicate contrast to the sky-line. The immense ice-slopes shone white as alabaster against dark shadows. The sky to the west over the mountains was clear, except for low-lying banks at the foot of the slopes round about Mount Discovery. To the south hard streaks of stratus lay heaped up to 30 degrees ...
— South! • Sir Ernest Shackleton
... enchantment of color. One beholds the temples and towers and mosques and pagodas glowing in rose-red, sapphire blue, with emerald and amber and amethyst, all blending, and swimming, apparently, in a sea of purple, or of pearl gray mist, the colors flashing through like flame under alabaster. The sunlight changes as the day wears on, and so this play of color changes,—glowing, fading, paling, flaming. Watching these magical effects from dawn to sunset, watching the panorama of color as it ...
— The Life Radiant • Lilian Whiting
... row, alone, a robust man with disfigured face, and red whiskers, looked like a fresh cut alabaster statue. Cold had blanched him; but a faint steam arose from his armpits, in the sepulchral light of a green-shaded gas-jet. There heat remained to prove that the great furnace in the frame had not ...
— The Son of Clemenceau • Alexandre (fils) Dumas
... she said; and they left it where it was. Long and earnestly she gazed on the perfect tiny features of the little alabaster countenance, and tried to feel that this was the child she had been so long waiting for. As she looked, she fancied she heard it breathe, and she thought—'What if it should be only asleep!' but, alas! the eyes would ...
— Adela Cathcart, Vol. 1 • George MacDonald
... shade leats and runnels of cool water; and the boughs were cunningly dispread so as to veil the ground which was planted with grains of divers sorts and greens and all of vegetation that serveth for the food of man. Also they provided it with a watering wheel whose well was revetted with alabaster[FN190]—And Shahrazad was surprised by the dawn of day and fell silent and ceased to say her permitted say. Then quoth her sister Dunyazad, "How sweet is thy story, O sister mine, and how enjoyable and delectable!" Quoth she, "And ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... halls of the Alhambra, the paradise of the Moorish kings. He visited the great court of the lions, famous for the perfidious massacre of the gallant Abencerrages. He gazed with admiration at its mosaic cupolas, gorgeously painted in gold and azure; its basins of marble, its alabaster vase, supported by ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving
... went 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
... chapel, adjoining Stene, a fine family seat in the north:—The sculptor, in that vile taste which seems to have originated in an unhappy design of making every thing connected with the grave revolting to our feelings, had ornamented this monument with "a very ghastly, grinning alabaster skull;" and the bishop one day expressed a wish to his domestic chaplain, Dr. Grey, that it had not been placed there. Grey, upon this, sent to Banbury for the sculptor, and consulted with him whether it was not possible to convert it into ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume XIII, No. 376, Saturday, June 20, 1829. • Various
... we should ever meet again. We then turned to the north-east, leaving the Nile, and entering into a bare desert of fixed gravel, without trees, and of a very disagreeable whitish colour, mixed with small pieces of white marble, like alabaster. Our camels, we found, were too heavily loaded; but we comforted ourselves with the reflection, that this fault would be remedied by the daily consumption of our provisions. We had been travelling only two days when our misfortunes ...
— MacMillan's Reading Books - Book V • Anonymous |
