"Background" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... door, followed by the professor, he peered cautiously out, to confront a desolate stretch of scrubby growth, hemmed in by a background ...
— Astounding Stories, July, 1931 • Various
... instance, papered with a paper with a dark background and a light pattern on it. Well, you can manoeuvre your eye about so as either to look at the black background—and then it is all black, with only a little accidental white or gilt to relieve it here and there; or you can focus your eye on the white and gold, and then ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... public life stretched over so long a period that to write a full historical memoir of him within the limited space of this volume is impossible. All that can be attempted is to present a sketch of the man with a few of his more prominent surroundings against a very meagre and insufficient background of the history of the times. So it may be permissible to begin with a general outline of his figure, to be filled in, shaded, and colored as we proceed. At best our task is much more difficult of ...
— John Quincy Adams - American Statesmen Series • John. T. Morse
... exultant joy in the mountain sunset, and his abounding health (which filled his heart with the buoyancy of a boy)—all these causes combined to revive emotions which his absorption in scientific investigation had set in the background—emotions which concern the common man, but which the deeply ambitious chemist, eager to discover the chemical molecular structure of the plasm, must put aside ...
— The Tyranny of the Dark • Hamlin Garland
... to whatever task arrives, greedy for the work, like one who lusts in the delight of seeing tasks accomplished. But he is trusted by all, both sides agreeing to rest on his decisions, all realising that personal feeling is put far into the background of his mind when the interests of new ...
— My Lady of the Chinese Courtyard • Elizabeth Cooper
... the nation, belongs in a peculiar sense to the South. He was Southern by birth, temperament, and experience. He knew the South, — he had traveled from San Antonio to Jacksonville, and from Baltimore to Mobile Bay. Its scenery was the background of his poetry, — the marsh, the mountain, the seashore, the forest, the birds and flowers of the South stirred his imagination. He knew personally many of the leaders of the Confederacy, as well as the men who made possible the New South. He was heir ...
— Sidney Lanier • Edwin Mims
... consideration; the intensity of the object *with regard to its background has yet to be considered. Aubert has shown that the accuracy of the distinction is the same when a square of white paper is looked at from an angle of 18'', and when conversely a square of black paper on white background is looked at from an angle of 85''. "When we put a gray paper in the sunshine, it may become objectively brighter than white paper in shadow. But this does not prevent us from knowing one as gray and the other as pure ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... reader, was set up a scaffold high above the crowd, large enough to hold Ezra and thirteen supporters—principal men, no doubt—seven on one side of him and six on the other. Probably a name has dropped out, and the numbers were equal. There, in the morning light, with the new walls for a background, stood Ezra on his rostrum, and amid reverent silence, lifted high the sacred roll. A common impulse swayed the crowd, and brought them all to their feet—token at once of respect and obedient attention. Probably many ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... d'Estrees' "evenings" were certainly not matrimonial. Still the unforeseen was surely the probable in Lady Kitty's case. What sort of man ought she to marry—what sort of man could safely take the risks of marrying her—with that mother in the background? ...
— The Marriage of William Ashe • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... successor consisted of pieces of timber, three arches, and some mill ends. We had hope as to the bottom of the next; but it was blighted and withered in its infancy as we gazed upon 25 tree trunks, a mill, and two tall chimneys. Additional wood, an office, and an entire mill formed the background of the street subsequently encountered. Extra mill buildings closed up the career of the road beyond it; ditto beyond that; partially ditto afterwards, the front of the picture being relieved by a few thirsty souls, looking plaintively at a landlord, who stood with a ...
— Our Churches and Chapels • Atticus
... must unquestionably be labouring. But he was not a little amazed himself, when they did reach it, and entered the parlour where Mr Pecksniff was sitting alone before the fire, drinking some hot tea, to find that instead of taking favourable notice of his relative and keeping him, Mr Pinch, in the background, he did exactly the reverse, and was so lavish in his attentions to Tom, ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... I'll excuse you," she said with meaning emphasis, which was not lost on the older brother, keeping well in the background. ...
— Tabitha's Vacation • Ruth Alberta Brown
... who grew more and more cheerful in the face of these six pairs of grim eyes. "But I'm sure obliged to the gent that give me the sendoff. What d'you want?" Drawing into the background Larsen said: "Open up on ...
— The Rangeland Avenger • Max Brand
... glen by the side of the fiord, on ALLMERS'S property. On the left, lofty old trees overarch the spot. Down the slope in the background a brook comes leaping, and loses itself among the stones on the margin of the wood. A path winds along by the brook-side. To the right there are only a few single trees, between which the fiord is visible. In front is seen the corner of a boat-shed with a boat ...
— Little Eyolf • Henrik Ibsen
... are getting back to the recognition of the proper place of fact, of its power as the background and basis against which and upon which Personality must stand. Our eyes are opening to see that if the girl is to gain a religion which shall mean life, she must gain it through a person ...
— The Girl and Her Religion • Margaret Slattery
... of tough New England fibre, combining sturdy physique, thorough individuality and undiluted common sense, form a groundwork on which no modern youth need hesitate to build, while the mellow background of a virtuous lineage well prepares the canvas for whatever of high aim and noble deed shall fill up the fresher foreground ...
— The History of Dartmouth College • Baxter Perry Smith
... former represented a tomb, with a youthful female weeping over it, exhibiting a church with arched windows in the background. On the tomb were the names, with the dates of the births and deaths, of several individuals, all of whom bore the name of Grant. An extremely cursory glance at this record was sufficient to discover to ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper
... of the least handsome streets of the city for more than a mile, turned into a cross street, and drew up before a small frame house, from the front of which a sign, painted in white upon a black background, announced to the reading public, in letters inclined to each other at various angles, that whitewashing and kalsomining were "dun" there. A knock at the door brought out a slatternly looking colored woman. She had evidently been disturbed at her toilet, for she held a comb ...
— The Wife of his Youth and Other Stories of the Color Line, and - Selected Essays • Charles Waddell Chesnutt
... Pitti Galleries at Florence contain one or two fine specimens of Luca Signorelli's Holy Families, which show his influence over the early manner of Michel Angelo. Into the background of one circular picture he has introduced a group of naked figures, which was imitated by Buonarroti in the Holy Family of the Tribune. The Accademia has also a picture of saints and angels illustrative of his large style and crowded composition. The Brera at Milan ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... be heaped upon injury. As God hears me, I tell you solemnly that you have seen your husband since I have. Upon Maurice Carlyle's face I have never looked since that fatal hour when I last saw yours, ghastly and rigid, against the background of guava-boughs. From that day until this, I have neither seen, nor spoken, nor ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... jostled each other good-naturedly around a long table, where insolent waiters served tepid coffee, and sandwiches that had been cut by the hand of a knave. In the background a number of ladies nodded encouragement to their cavaliers in the intervals of scrutinizing each other's dresses. Many pencilled eyebrows were raised in derision of too little style displayed by some innocent rival, or brought down in disapproval of too much of the same vague quality displayed ...
— The Sowers • Henry Seton Merriman
... men pushed into the background of affairs; men young, intelligent, active, clear-sighted, in one word, fitted out with all mental and intellectual requisites for commanders, leaders, pilots and helmsmen of every kind; and nevertheless twenty times a day I hear repeated ...
— Diary from November 12, 1862, to October 18, 1863 • Adam Gurowski
... on the Irishman, "you've but felt the tickle of the spur; when I drive it in, you'll yell like a whipped kid. Always you play into me hands, McTee. Now when you see Kate, you'll feel me grin in the background mockin' ye, eh?" ...
— Harrigan • Max Brand
... to give. This tended to crystallise the national proneness to defer until the emergency arose the measures necessary to meet it. It followed, then, that while attention was given to the needs of the moment, practically all provision for the requirements of the future was relegated to the background. A further defect in the system was that it resulted in there being no proper understanding between those who had intimate knowledge of what was required by the army and those who ...
— History of the War in South Africa 1899-1902 v. 1 (of 4) - Compiled by Direction of His Majesty's Government • Frederick Maurice
... is the appearance of a new type of management. A group of younger men and women with a broad background, an intense interest in cooperation and a capacity of growing up with the business is working now to make these cooperatives even more successful. The cooperative movement is likely to grow in pretty close proportion to the ability of these leaders and ...
— Consumers' Cooperative Societies in New York State • The Consumers' League of New York
... great favours, so as out of a doubtful friend to make a certain enemy, and one, too, who will seek to support his own cause by defaming you, or to make men say, "I do not know what the reason is that he cannot endure a man to whom he owes so much; there must be something in the background?" Any man can asperse, even if he does not permanently stain the reputation of his betters by complaining of them; nor will any one be satisfied with imputing small crimes to them, when it is only by the enormity of his falsehood that he ...
— L. Annaeus Seneca On Benefits • Seneca
... wooded hills which mark the boundary of the valley on that side, is a modern chateau; but the architect found his model for it in the past, when castles were more picturesque than comfortable. When the amber-tinted towers are seen through the haze of a summer morning against the background of wooded hill, one thinks that in just such a castle as this Tasso or Spenser would have put an enchantress, whose wiles, combined with the indolent influence of the valley, few pilgrim knights taking the eastward way to Roc-Amadour would have been ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker
... brush carefully again, and as soon as the paint was dry went carefully over the letter part with gum, so delicately that the red colour was not disturbed nor the background smeared. ...
— The King's Sons • George Manville Fenn
... "background" will be the next point to be considered. Tableaux vivants may be divided into two classes, the dramatic, i.e., representing some incident, e.g., a duel, or a trial in a court of justice, and the simply artistic, viz., such as portray ...
— Entertainments for Home, Church and School • Frederica Seeger
... figure of Christ, gathered up and focussed, as it were, all the vague and floating intimations of super-human sympathy, all the shadowy rumours and intimations of super-human help, which move to and fro in the background of our apprehension. ...
— The Complex Vision • John Cowper Powys
... the first time lost heart. He had been fighting during all the beginning of the year 1455, reducing the west and south, the Douglas country, to subjection and desolation. But when he found himself menaced by an army as great as anything he could muster, with the angry north in the background and clouds of half-savage warriors on the horizon, the King's heart sank. He is said to have left Edinburgh in disgust and depression, and taken ship at Leith for St. Andrews, to seek counsel from the best and most trustworthy of his advisers, a man whose noble presence appears in the ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant
... visible universe, that seems so fixed and stable, becomes immaterial, evanescent, vanishing; it is no longer a permanent order of seas and continents and rounded skies; it is a vision painted by an unseen hand against a background of mystery. Dead, cold, unchangeable as I see it in the glimpses of a single hour, it becomes warm, vital, forever changing as I gaze upon it from the outlook of the centuries. It is the momentary creation of forces that stream through it in endless ebb and flow, that are to-day touching ...
— Under the Trees and Elsewhere • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... no believer in the theory that the objectionable portions of history should be kept in the background, and that only the bright side should be turned towards the world. If, as one has happily said, "history is experience teaching by example," we most surely need to have both sides fairly presented to us before we can properly extract ...
— Bundling; Its Origin, Progress and Decline in America • Henry Reed Stiles
... to reach the center easily. Any table with tight joints in the top and four- or five-inch boards fitted tightly around the edge will serve the purpose. The inside of the box should be painted to prevent warping and leaking. An "ocean blue" is a good color, as it makes a good background for islands. ...
— Primary Handwork • Ella Victoria Dobbs
... of the snowy mountains, and the endless shades of green presented by the verdure-clad surface of the earth, are a never-failing source of pleasure to all who enjoy the inestimable gift of sight. Yet these constitute, as it were, but the frame and background of a marvellous and ever-changing picture. In contrast with these broad and soothing tints, we have presented to us in the vegetable and animal worlds an infinite variety of objects adorned with the most beautiful and most ...
— The Beauties of Nature - and the Wonders of the World We Live In • Sir John Lubbock
... in a little valley. Half-way up the opposite slope a brush fire was burning clearly and steadily in a maple grove. There was something indescribably alluring in that fire, glowing so redly against the dark background ...
— The Golden Road • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... of the genus who were ensconced that forenoon in the bow windows of the Royal Hotel and gazed across the bright green valley at the dull historical background beyond. One we already know, a stoutish gentleman, ruddy-faced and black-eyed, with check trousers, light waistcoat and heavy chain, legs widely parted, his hands in his pockets, and on his face that expression ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... which surround the name of Charlemagne there can hardly be found a quainter or more interesting one than that which has for a background the old town of Ingelheim (Angel's Home), where at one time ...
— Hero Tales and Legends of the Rhine • Lewis Spence
... official or backstairs Constitutionalism, whichever for the month may have convinced the royal mind. If flight to Bouille, and (horrible to think!) a drawing of the civil sword do hang as theory, portentous in the background, much nearer is this fact of these Twelve Hundred Kings, who sit in the Salle de Manege. Kings uncontrollable by him, not yet irreverent to him. Could kind management of these but prosper, how much better were it than armed Emigrants, Turin-intrigues, and the help of Austria! ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... Fletchers—Milton's first task was to reduce it to the strict relations of time and space. His blindness probably helped him by relieving him from the hourly solicitations of the visible world, and giving him a dark and vacant space in which to rear his geometric fabric. Against this background the figures of his characters are outlined in shapes of light, and in this vacancy he mapped out his local ...
— Milton • Sir Walter Alexander Raleigh
... displaced or their outlines become doubtful and ill defined, it is fair to suppose that the water is getting low or is even entirely dried up. Then, in place of the canals there remains either nothing or at most stripes of yellowish color differing little from the surrounding background. Sometimes they take on a nebulous appearance, for which at present it is not possible to assign a reason. At other times true enlargements are produced, expanding to 100, 200 or more kilometers (60 to 120 miles) in breadth, and this sometimes happens for ...
— The Certainty of a Future Life in Mars • L. P. Gratacap
... only building far or near visible in the whole horizon; and what a position has its architect secured! In the midst of hills on a bit of table-land, apparently made such by smoothing down the summit of one of them, with a greensward in front, and set off behind by a mountain background, stands this eternal monument of the noblest of arts amidst the finest dispositions of nature. There is another antiquity of the place also to be visited at Segeste—its theatre; but we are too immediately below it to know any thing about it at present, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLV. July, 1844. Vol. LVI. • Various
... recall the streams of passionate description with which his words clothed these glowing memories of his vision. Great pictures of it haunt the background of my mind, pictures that lie in early mists, framed by the stars and glimmering through some golden, flowered dawn. Besides the huge outlines that stood breathing in the background like dark mountains, there flitted here and there strange dreamy forms of almost impossible beauty, ...
— The Centaur • Algernon Blackwood
... ashamed. The most of us have his defect. We take a natural interest in novelties, but it is against nature to take an interest in familiar things. The gorse and the broom were a fine accent in the landscape. Here and there they burst out in sudden conflagrations of vivid yellow against a background of sober or sombre color, with a so startling effect as to make a body catch his breath with the happy surprise of it. And then there was the wattle, a native bush or tree, an inspiring cloud of sumptuous yellow bloom. It is a favorite with the Australians, and ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... the fort. For some months there were constant skirmishes. The English had no difficulty in defeating all attacks, but, none the less, trade was brought to a standstill; so Mr. Walter Brown was sent down from Bombay to put matters straight. Poola Venjamutta, who had all the time kept himself in the background, was quite ready to help an accommodation, as open force had proved useless. Things having quieted down, Gyfford, 'flushed with the hopes of having Peace and Pepper,' devoted himself to trade. He had at this time a brigantine called the Thomas, commanded by his wife's brother, ...
— The Pirates of Malabar, and An Englishwoman in India Two Hundred Years Ago • John Biddulph
... scene, with a background of rugged mountains, appealed strongly to our photographic instincts. After three or four exposures, we climbed the farthest fence and passing from alfalfa to sage-brush in one step, were at the ...
— Through the Grand Canyon from Wyoming to Mexico • E. L. Kolb
... was in danger of being altogether forgotten. Half guessing the cause of her uneasiness, and feeling more averse than ever to taking part in the matter, the doctor, after a hasty survey of her person, withdrew into the background, and sat where he could not be seen. This brought the short dress into full view, together with the dainty little foot, ...
— Aikenside • Mary J. Holmes
... Gilbert also had raised his eyes from the ground, and they fixed themselves on the wonderful features of the greatest man of the age, while his voice forgot to chant and his lips remained parted in wonder. Upon the bright green grass against the background of hewn stone walls, in the glorious autumn sunshine, Bernard of Clairvaux moved like the supernal vision of a heavenly dream. His head thrown back, the delicate silver-fair beard scarcely shadowing ...
— Via Crucis • F. Marion Crawford
... they justly regarded with anxiety, they refused to permit the erection of a stone building for a theatre.(10) Instead of this there was erected for each festival a scaffolding of boards with a stage for the actors (-proscaenium-, -pulpitum-) and a decorated background (-scaena-); and in a semicircle in front of it was staked off the space for the spectators (-cavea-), which was merely sloped without steps or seats, so that, if the spectators had not chairs brought along with them, they squatted, reclined, ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... eagerly. His face brightened, as he passed the count's arm through his own. When they were gone, M. Daburon could not resist a impulse of curiosity. He hastened to the door, which he opened slightly; and, keeping his body in the background that he might not himself be seen, he looked out into the passage. The count and Noel had not yet reached the end. They were going slowly. The count seemed to drag heavily and painfully along; the advocate took short steps, bending slightly ...
— The Widow Lerouge - The Lerouge Case • Emile Gaboriau
... We at home have had our own experiences, our deep anxieties, our doubts, our griefs, and always we have been conscious of the might of forces in grapple and the high issues that hung upon the fate of the armies. In the background of all our thoughts at all times has been the solemn consciousness that the destiny of mankind was at work in mighty throes toward an end hidden to our knowledge if not to our faith and hope. We have none of us passed ...
— America's War for Humanity • Thomas Herbert Russell
... junks, gleaming white against the background of dark foliage, were silently and dexterously manoeuvred by small, yellow, naked men, with long hair piled up on their heads in feminine fashion. Gradually, as we advanced farther up the green channel, the perfumes became more ...
— Madame Chrysantheme Complete • Pierre Loti
... excellent soldiers, but their training as such is not promising for the command of modern armies, mainly of infantry and artillery, with other complements. In war much has changed since Waterloo, with the value of cavalry retreating into the background as aeroplanes sweep to the front ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume II (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... the transformation scene of some pantomime, so here the waning and the waxing shapes are mingled; the new forms, at first shadowy and filmy, gain upon the old; and now both blend; and now the old scene fades into the background; still, who shall say whether the new scene ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... purposely retain it in the vaguest possible shape. They say that this life is not all; if it were all, they argue, we should be rightly ruled by our stomachs; but they scrupulously decline to give form and substance to their anticipations. We must, they think, have avowedly a heavenly background to the world, but our gaze should be restricted habitually within the visible horizon. The future life is to tinge the general atmosphere, but not to be offered as a definite goal of action or a ...
— Prose Masterpieces from Modern Essayists • James Anthony Froude, Edward A. Freeman, William Ewart Gladstone, John Henry Newman and Leslie Steph
... any ado went to the instrument, not realizing until after she had done so that it would have been better policy for her to have remained as much in the background as possible, and not to have shown any accomplishments lest people should suspect her position. However, she was too new at acting a part to always think of these little things, and she played the hymns so well that they gathered about her after the hour ...
— Exit Betty • Grace Livingston Hill
... the introduction of human figures into their foregrounds; whereas in the poetic paintings of Mr. Wordsworth the landscape is always subordinate to a higher interest; certainly, in 'The Waggoner', the little sketch of human nature which occupies, as it were, the front of that encircling background, the picture of Benjamin and his temptations, his humble friends and the mute companions of his way, has a character of its own, combining with sportiveness a homely pathos, which must ever be delightful to some of those who are thoroughly conversant with the spirit of Mr. Wordsworth's ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. III • William Wordsworth
... pupils—they were having a lesson in the choir. It was in January. Two gas jets lighted up the choir, illuminating and distorting the marble figures on the altar. The whole of the large church with its two barrel-vaults, which crossed one another, lay in semi-darkness. In the background the shining organ pipes faintly reflected the gas flames; above it the angels blowing their trumpets to summon the sleepers before the judgment seat of their maker, looked merely like sinister, threatening human figures above life size; the ...
— Married • August Strindberg
... come to the circumstance of the composition of Lavengro. The Bible in Spain, when it appeared in 1843, implied a wonderful background to the Author's experience, a career diversified by all kinds of wild adventures, "sorcery, Jews, Gentiles, rambles," ...
— Isopel Berners - The History of certain doings in a Staffordshire Dingle, July, 1825 • George Borrow
... Philippines will be greater with the United States than they can ever hope to be standing alone, if so be that they can stand alone at all. It has retarded the development of the Islands and has checked progress. It forces into the background the fact that with an infinitude of work lying before Americans and Filipinos alike, if the Islands are to have their full value in the world's economy, the best way to do this work is for Americans and Filipinos to labor together, each contributing his share to the ...
— The Head Hunters of Northern Luzon From Ifugao to Kalinga • Cornelis De Witt Willcox
... the fulfilment of her promise. She said nothing against the choice or the decision, merely observing that she was sorry that Jack had quarrelled with his father. By way of counsel she advised strongly that the engagement be kept as much in the background as possible. She did not, she said, want Millicent to be a sort of red rag to Sir John, and there was no necessity to publish abroad the lamentable fact that a quarrel had resulted from a very natural and convenient attachment. ...
— With Edged Tools • Henry Seton Merriman
... of cloth, sewn on the sleeve of the outer garment. Army chevrons are worn on both sleeves with the point up, and special devices may be incorporated within the chevron to indicate specialties. Chevrons for combat soldiers are blue on a gold background, and all others are gold on a blue background. Naval chevrons are worn point down. Air Force chevrons have no point, but are a compound reverse curve with the deepest part of the curve worn down; over this is imposed a star within a circle. Marine Corps chevrons are worn on both sleeves with the ...
— The Armed Forces Officer - Department of the Army Pamphlet 600-2 • U. S. Department of Defense
... knew his job. Everything Sterne did had a dollar somewhere in the background. Even his blackmailing game. He worked with the business office, and he took his orders on that basis. Now if you had some man whom you could turn over this news end to while you're building ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... not the result of accident! I don't like the look of it at all.' Then he turned to the ladies, who were all huddled together, gasping and questioning, with their maids and the other servants in the background, and said: 'Ladies! I advise you to go back to your rooms as quickly as possible. There is not the slightest danger, but it might be just as well to ...
— A College Girl • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... himself, he may believe himself to be obeying the insight of some one wiser than himself, or of society as expressed in its customs and institutions. But no man ever admitted that his life was purely a matter of expediency, or that in his dominant ideal he was the victim of chance. In the background of the busiest and most preoccupied life of affairs, there dwells the conviction that such living is appropriate to the universe; that it is called for by the circumstances of its ...
— The Approach to Philosophy • Ralph Barton Perry
... the short moss that crackled softly beneath her feet. The sun was setting; the sky showed red between the branches, and the trunks of the trees, uniform, and planted in a straight line, seemed a brown colonnade standing out against a background of gold. A fear took hold of her; she called Djali, and hurriedly returned to Tostes by the high road, threw herself into an armchair, and for the rest of the evening did ...
— Madame Bovary • Gustave Flaubert
... plump and still pretty, reclined upon a large gilded bed. Its splendid silk coverlet and pillows cased in embroidery and lace made an effective background for her. She leaned with a luxurious indolence among them, sipping chocolate and smoking a cigarrito. Isabel was on a couch of the same description. She wore a satin petticoat, and a loose linen waist richly trimmed with lace. ...
— Remember the Alamo • Amelia E. Barr
... lovely dark green mountain, and when there was a rainbow, as there frequently was, nothing could have looked more enchanting than it did rising from the opposite bank of the stream with the wet, shadowy mountain for a background. All the Flower family would invariably run to their front windows and ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... with a look that bit into every one of his fashionable details. Presently he lifted his arm and pointed. The son followed the direction of that long, strong, useful-looking forefinger, until his gaze rested upon a sign: "No Smoking"—big, black letters on a white background. ...
— The Second Generation • David Graham Phillips
... the background, was seen to emerge from the thatched cottage. The man hid himself behind a clump of trees. From time to time, the screen displayed, on an enormously enlarged scale, his fiercely rolling eyes or his murderous hands with ...
— The Eight Strokes of the Clock • Maurice Leblanc
... people were preparing for their first landing, there detached itself from the background of trees along the shore the most singular aquatic structure I think I have ever seen. It looked like the skeleton of some antediluvian wigwam which a prehistoric roc had subsequently chosen for a nest. Four poles planted in ...
— Noto, An Unexplored Corner of Japan • Percival Lowell
... green, blue, red, gilt, and silver. Each spire and dome has its glittering cross; and when the sun shines upon the group, it is in effect like the bursting of a rocket at night, against a dark blue background. ...
— Foot-prints of Travel - or, Journeyings in Many Lands • Maturin M. Ballou
... his courtiers, richly but tastefully dressed. The pit was full and the boxes also. The latter were ornamented with mirrors, and on that occasion were all illuminated for some reason or other. It was a magnificent scene, but all this glitter and light put the stage into the background. ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... worn your hair that way since I came; and where's the dress you had on the day I arrived? The colors suited you perfectly. I shall never forget how you looked—it was all blossoms, you and everything—and the background of the dark door, and the white of the porch columns, with just a touch of yellow ochre to break it—Oh, it was delicious! Please, now, put that dress on again and wear a low-neck waist with it. The flesh tones of the throat ...
— Colonel Carter's Christmas and The Romance of an Old-Fashioned Gentleman • F. Hopkinson Smith
... somewhat smaller than the Rock Ptarmigan. They nest abundantly near the summits of the ranges in Colorado, making their nests among the rocks, and generally lining them with a few grasses. During June, they lay from six to twelve eggs having a creamy background, speckled and blotched with chestnut ...
— The Bird Book • Chester A. Reed
... had observed, not without jealousy and scorn, that a favourable impression appeared to exist in behalf of Mr Sweedlepipe and his young friend; and that she had fallen rather into the background in consequence. She now struggled to the front, therefore, and stated ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... recall them, the memory of those more recent and more interesting events which occurred after my return to England gets between me and my adventures in Spain, and seems to force these last into a shadowy background, until they look like adventures that happened many years since. I confusedly recollect delays and alarms that tried our patience and our courage. I remember our finding friends (thanks to our letters of recommendation) in a Secretary to the Embassy and in a Queen's ...
— The Law and the Lady • Wilkie Collins
... in appearance but of vital artistic importance, is the author's power of description, of picturing both the appearance of his characters and the scenes which make his background and help to give the tone of his work. Perhaps four subjects of description may be distinguished: 1. External Nature. Here such questions as the following are of varying importance, according to the character and purpose of the work: Does the author know and care for Nature and ...
— A History of English Literature • Robert Huntington Fletcher
... every restaurant. At any osteria con cucina on the Campagna one is also sure of a good omelet and salad; and, sitting under the vines, after a long walk, I have made as savory a lunch on these two articles as ever I found in the most glittering restaurant in the Palais Royal. If one add the background of exquisite mountains, the middle distance of flowery slopes, where herds of long-haired goats, sheep, and gray oxen are feeding among the skeletons of broken aqueducts, ruined tombs, and shattered mediaeval towers, and the foreground made up of picturesque groups of peasants, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... of storms could not come, and doves brooded softly. They talked sometimes now of the coming of their son; Louis, once he had got over his conventional horror of such a proceeding, said that she would be as safe in Mrs. Twist's care, with him hovering in the background, as though she had gone to the nursing home in Sydney, as he had suggested ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles
... lying dead upon the floor; it showed his poor corpse weltering helpless in its blood; it showed myself, as a girl of eighteen, standing awestruck, gazing on in blank horror at the sight; and in the background, half blurred by the summer evening light, it showed the vague outline of a man's back, getting out of the window. On one side was the door: that formed no part of my mental picture, because it was at my back; but in the photograph ...
— Recalled to Life • Grant Allen
... her had risen to the effort. Never in her life had Stephen Norman looked more radiantly beautiful, more adorable, more desirable. Even Leonard Everard felt his pulses quicken as he saw that glowing mass of beauty standing out against the cold background of old French tapestry. All the physical side of him leaped in answer to the call of her beauty; and even his cold heart and his self-engrossed brain followed with slower gait. He had been sitting opposite Miss Rowly in one of the windows, twirling his hat in nervous suspense. He jumped ...
— The Man • Bram Stoker
... somewhat the same relation to these cliques that the politico-industrial magnates and financiers of to-day do; to all appearances distinctly apart from participation in politics, and yet by means of money, having a strong or commanding influence in the background. But the Rhinelander brothers, William and Frederick, were integral members of the political machine in power. Thus we find that in 1803, William Rhinelander was elected Assessor for the Fifth Ward (a highly important and sumptuary office at that time), ...
— History of the Great American Fortunes, Vol. I - Conditions in Settlement and Colonial Times • Myers Gustavus
... might be a wholesome warning to avoid giving offence to the jealousy which, when once pointed out to her, she could not prevent herself from tracing in Juliana's petulance towards herself, and resolve to force her into the background. Even Bertha was more often brought forward, for in spite of a tongue and temper cast somewhat in a similar mould, she was rather a favourite with Juliana, whom she was not unlikely to resemble, except that her much more elaborate and accurate training might give her both ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Mr. Hems) "presents, as will be seen, a frosty, moonlight night, with a brilliantly-lit old farmhouse in the background. In the fore are leafless fruit-trees, and three men firing guns at them, whilst the jovial farmer and another man drink success to the year's crop from glasses evidently filled from a jug of cider, which the latter ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson
... auctioneers;—Jew-brokers sorting out of it at this moment, in a confused distressing manner, what is still valuable or salable. And, in fact, it lies massed up in our minds as a disastrous wrecked inanity, not useful to dwell upon; a kind of dusky chaotic background, on which the figures that had some veracity in them—a small company, and ever growing smaller as our demands rise in strictness—are delineated for us.—"And yet it is the Century of our own Grandfathers?" ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. I. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Birth And Parentage.—1712. • Thomas Carlyle
... a scene for a painter: the great American humorist on one side of the game, and the silly little creature on the other, with the Matterhorn for a background. Mark was reminded that the time he was consuming was valuable, but to no purpose. The Gorner Grat could wait. He held on with undiscouraged perseverance till he carried his point; the lamb finally put its nose in Mark's hand, and he was ...
— The Boys' Life of Mark Twain • Albert Bigelow Paine
... music, had in it a semi-barbaric chord that the college men had loved, something—or so one might have said who took the canoe-music seriously—of the wildness and fierceness of old tribal loves and plaints and unremembered wooings with a desert background: a gallop of hoof-beats, a quiver of noon light above saffron sand—these had been, more or less, in the music when St. George had been wont to lie in a boat and pick at the strings while Amory paddled; and these he must have reechoed before the crowd of curious ...
— Romance Island • Zona Gale
... respectable tense in the Greek language. It (or shall we say he?) was known to the whole Christian world by this distinction of Primus; clearly, therefore, there must be some low, vulgar tense in the background, pretending also to the name of Aorist, but universally scouted as the Aoristus Secundus, or Birmingham counterfeit. So that, unable as I was, from ignorance, to go along with Lord M.'s appreciation ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... Col. Wm. C. Hunter, with his signature, makes a fine pocket piece. It has a hole in the center so you may tack it up on your desk, dresser or on the wall. It is engraved in heavy brass, background with black, baked enamel. This beautiful souvenir sent postpaid to any address for ...
— Evening Round Up - More Good Stuff Like Pep • William Crosbie Hunter
... medicine has been a record of diminishing resort to this power as a means of cure. The measure of our success and of our control over disease has been, and is yet, in exact proportion to the extent to which we can relegate this resource to the background and avoid resorting to it. Instead of mental influence being the newest method of treatment it is the oldest. Two-thirds of the methods of the shaman, the witch-doctor, the medicine-man, were psychic. Instead of ...
— Preventable Diseases • Woods Hutchinson
... Thread-spinner at her work. She carefully examines every thread, watching it closely as she draws it off the distaff; and that she may see it the more distinctly, a piece of dark blue paper is used as a background for the flax. Whenever the spinner notices the least unevenness, she stops the evolution of her wheel, breaks off the faulty piece of flax, and then resumes her spinning. This fine flax being as costly as gold, the pieces thus broken off are carefully laid aside ...
— International Weekly Miscellany Of Literature, Art, and Science - Vol. I., July 22, 1850. No. 4. • Various
... regiments of little scholars creeping in and forming square, each in its appointed place, under the vast roof; and teachers presently coming to them. A stream of light from the jewelled windows beams slanting down upon each little squad of children, and the tall background of the church retires into a grayer gloom. Pattering little feet of laggards arriving echo through the great nave. They trot in and join their regiments, gathered under the slanting sunbeams. What are they learning? Is it truth? Those two gray ladies with their books ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... which surrounds the house and slopes away from it, and they are brilliant patches of colour, gay with verbenas, geraniums, and petunias. Here and there clumps of tall trees rise above the shrubs, and as a background there is a thick plantation of red and blue gums, to shelter the garden from the strong N.W. winds. Then, in front, the country stretches away in undulating downs to a chain of high hills in the distance: every now and then there is a deep gap in these, ...
— Station Life in New Zealand • Lady Barker
... of William Paterson (born 1658), the far-travelled and financially-speculative son of a farmer in Dumfriesshire. He was the "projector," or one of the projectors, of the Bank of England of 1694, investing 2000 pounds. He kept the Darien part of his scheme for an East India Company in the background, and it seems that William, when he granted a patent to that company, knew nothing of this design to settle in or near the Panama isthmus, which was quite clearly within the Spanish sphere of influence. When the philosopher John Locke heard of the scheme, he wished ...
— A Short History of Scotland • Andrew Lang
... middle ground of the piano with soft chords which are felt rather than heard, and which always come in upon the half beat or the quarter beat, and rarely or never upon the full accented part of a measure. The differentiation of the melody from its harmonic and rhythmic background is accomplished by this great master in a beautiful manner. Take for instance, the romanze in F sharp, Opus 28, No. 2. The melody of the first strophe of this exquisite music might have been written for Church. It is a duet for baritones, the voices being represented by the ...
— A Popular History of the Art of Music - From the Earliest Times Until the Present • W. S. B. Mathews
... were we able to move about freely without running foul of things but, standing aft by the useless wheel and looking forward, every detail of the ship's hull, spars, sails, and rigging stood out clearly and sharply, like a silhouette cut out of black paper, against a background of shining oil- smooth water and dense masses of twisting and writhing cloud-shapes all reflecting the weird, mysterious ruddy light. It was an awe-inspiring phenomenon, strongly suggestive of the supernatural, ...
— The Strange Adventures of Eric Blackburn • Harry Collingwood
... he her father? Was it a father who had sold her so, careless, callous—or was it only a father's semblance, and did there lie in the background of those petted, childish years some darker shadow, of a tragedy that had wrecked her mother's life and broken ...
— The Fortieth Door • Mary Hastings Bradley
... Hugh, for various reasons, the greatest possible excitement. He would have liked to have asked Mr. Pidgen many questions. Christmas Day came, and a beautiful day enthroned it: a pale blue sky, faint and clear, was a background to misty little clouds that hovered, then fled and disappeared, and from these flakes of snow fell now and then across the shining sunlight. Early in the winter afternoon a moon like an orange feather sailed into the sky as the lower stretches ...
— The Golden Scarecrow • Hugh Walpole
... or man ever walks in a straight line. But, oh, how beautiful it was with the fruit-trees and shrubbery in bloom, wild flowers, and stretches of meadow, where cows were pastured, and here and there a small flock of sheep! Up above, on the brow of a hill, a wooded background gave it a still more ...
— A Little Girl of Long Ago • Amanda Millie Douglas
... a step or two farther away from the spot where he still stood as though absorbed. His angular figure was clearly defined through the twilight against the empty background of space. He was on the very edge of the cliff, ...
— The Betrayal • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... who had quite won the confidence of the pious circle. Being active and attentive, he was consoling to the sick; but, more than by all this, he extended his practice by the gift of showing in the background some mysterious medicines prepared by himself, of which no one could speak, since with us the physicians were strictly prohibited from making up their own prescriptions. With certain powders, which may have been some ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... started toward the barn to harness Jack into the worn, old-fashioned sleigh, which sleigh was built high in the back, and had a curved dasher of monstrous proportions, ornamented with a prancing horse in an impossible attitude, done in bright vermilion on a blue background! ...
— The Busted Ex-Texan and Other Stories • W. H. H. Murray
... and the rural population. On the side of the Parisian proletariat stood none but itself. Over 3,000 insurgents were massacred, after the victory 15,000 were transported without trial. With this defeat, the proletariat steps to the background on the revolutionary stage. It always seeks to crowd forward, so soon as the movement seems to acquire new impetus, but with ever weaker effort and ever smaller results; So soon as any of the above lying ...
— The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte • Karl Marx
... you! May coins fall into your coffee and the finest wines and wittles lie smilingly about your path, with a kind of dissolving view of fine scenery by way of background; and may all speak well of you—and me too for that matter—and generally all things be ordered unto you totally regardless of expense and with a view to nothing in the world but enjoyment, edification, and a portly ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the church rose in the background. But we had no time to look at it, for we were already driving up to the institute itself, which was at the end of the village, and consisted of two rows of houses with an open space closed at the rear by the wide front of ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... and fascinating story depicting the unfettered life of a young Russian ... the background of society and ...
— Sanine • Michael Artzibashef
... space outside the main building, which lies to the right. A projecting corner of it is visible, with a door approached by a flight of low stone steps. The background consists of steep fir-clad slopes, quite close at hand. On the left are small scattered trees, forming the margin of a wood. The snowstorm has ceased; but the newly fallen snow lies deep around. The ...
— John Gabriel Borkman • Henrik Ibsen
... real thought and interest in his work by bringing him right to the sources of historical knowledge and enabling him to see the very words of those who, writing when the past was present, can carry him back to themselves and make their times his own. In this way the book offers the proper background and atmosphere for "The Development of Modern Europe," by the same authors, which it accompanies chapter by chapter and section ...
— An Introduction to the History of Western Europe • James Harvey Robinson
... grim-looking stone house, with its windows for the most part covered by their drawn-down blinds. Under other circumstances, with fairly kept gardens and trim borders, the old-fashioned building, dating from the days of Henry the Seventh, would have been attractive enough, with its background of trees, and fine view along the valley out to the far-stretching blue sea; but poverty seemed to have set its mark upon the place, and the boy was so impressed by the gloomy aspect of the house, that he ceased ...
— Cutlass and Cudgel • George Manville Fenn
... for the little inlet, with its background of tall firs, where she had first met little Lottie Drugg, and she often walked down there. So she became pretty well acquainted with "Mr. Selectman" Cross Moore. But as yet she did not get as far out on the Middletown Lower Road as the house where ...
— Janice Day at Poketown • Helen Beecher Long
... by earlier artists to represent celestial glory. The simple and solemn lines of the landscape showing the curved surface of the globe give a cosmic character to the scene, and the beautiful indigo blue of the distance forms a fine background for the supremely modelled flesh. This composition is the first in the order of execution in which Michael Angelo fully realised his scheme of decoration, as to scale and form, making a few figures fill the space allotted to them with ease and freedom of movement. Truly the ...
— Michael Angelo Buonarroti • Charles Holroyd
... transport bound for New York stood the Broncho Rider Boys casting their last glance shoreward as the sun was setting behind the mountains that form the background of the city of Vera Cruz. Over the city still waved the Stars and Stripes, and as the darkness fell and the tip of Mt. Orizaba gradually faded from sight, Billie turned to the others and in a voice tinged ...
— The Broncho Rider Boys with Funston at Vera Cruz - Or, Upholding the Honor of the Stars and Stripes • Frank Fowler |
