"Brilliance" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Truth. Why I should have supposed that the Truth should have been disagreeable to Mrs. Jevons Heaven only knows. I suppose these scruples are the last illusions of our egoism. Still, I think that only an impudent egoist like Jevons could have carried off such an embarrassment with any brilliance. ...
— The Belfry • May Sinclair
... were making as much commotion as possible. In the coco-nut shies there were no coco-nuts, but artificial war-time substitutes, which the lads declared were fastened into the irons. There was a sad decline in brilliance and luxury. None the less, the ground was muddy as ever, there was the same crush, the press of faces lighted up by the flares and the electric lights, the same smell of naphtha and a few fried potatoes, ...
— England, My England • D.H. Lawrence
... feet, alert, fearful. With a swing of her arm, she pulled the great oaken door to and dropped the bar into its place. Over the dead she spread a clean white sheet. Into the fire she thrust pine-knots. They glared in vague red, and shadowy brilliance, waving and quivering and throwing up thin swirling columns of black smoke. Then standing beside the fireplace with the white, still corpse between her and the door, she took ...
— The Quest of the Silver Fleece - A Novel • W. E. B. Du Bois
... returning to the other omnibus, which was waiting for him, he shook his head at the driver and stepped in after her. As they rattled up the street he found it difficult to keep his eyes off her slender, supple figure and the shining glory of golden-red hair that aureoled the clear, soft brilliance of her pink and white complexion. When she looked up once and caught his look of admiration she blushed deeply and endeavored to disguise her embarrassment in lively talk with some people who sat near her. The newcomer saw that they were evidently ...
— Emerson's Wife and Other Western Stories • Florence Finch Kelly
... of ladies the only brilliance in evidence about my young friend was the colour of his hair, so there was little danger of his waking Dawn with his chatter, as he sat inwardly consumed with a desire to escape. As I lay with my hand where I could feel the girl's healthy ...
— Some Everyday Folk and Dawn • Miles Franklin
... of bedridden Mr. Baines, the unfailing comfort and stand-by of Mrs. Baines, the fount and radiating centre of order and discipline in the shop; a quiet, diffident, secretive, tedious, and obstinate youngish man, absolutely faithful, absolutely efficient in his sphere; without brilliance, without distinction; perhaps rather little-minded, certainly narrow-minded; but what a force in the shop! The shop was inconceivable without Mr. Povey. He was under twenty and not out of his apprenticeship when Mr. Baines had been struck down, and he had at once proved his ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... heads; the long vistas of kneeling figures; the lovely contrasts of the flowing draperies; the trailing splendor of the priests' robes dying into the black note made by the nuns' sombre skirts; the gossamer brilliance of the hundreds of white veils, through which the young rapture of religious awe on lips and brow made even commonplace features beautiful; the choristers' scarlet petticoats; the culminating note of splendor, the Archbishop, throned like some antique scriptural king under ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd
... to go out, but stopped on the sill, surprised by the splendid moonlight, of such brilliance as ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... at every step to look closely at the shy, exquisite blooms in their dewy morning freshness and divine colours. Flowers of an inexpressible unearthly loveliness and unforgettable; for how forget them when their images shine in memory in all their pristine morning brilliance! ...
— A Traveller in Little Things • W. H. Hudson
... growled Thaddeus, as he finished rubbing up the left boot, giving it a satin finish which hardly matched the luminous brilliance of its mate, though he said it would do. "There's Bradley, now; he never has any domestic woes of this sort, and he pays just half what we do ...
— Paste Jewels • John Kendrick Bangs
... past ages of brilliance have failed. Cyclically they were bound to come: the fields ripened in due season; but the wealth of the harvest depended on the reapers. The Elizabethan Age, with all its splendid quickening of the English mind, was coarse and wicked to a degree. All through the wonderful Cinquecento, ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... Sandy Kilday returned from his last term at the university, and gossip was busy over the burden of honors under which he staggered, and the brilliance of the position he had accepted in the city. In prompt contradiction of this came the shining new sign, "Hollis & Kilday," which appeared over the judge's dingy ...
— Sandy • Alice Hegan Rice
... sudden impulse, as the immediate descendants of Hugh Capet could not read or write, but were obliged to make a mark as the signature to their edicts, whilst those who possessed that accomplishment were styled clerks. Although much brilliance was shed over the reign of Louis the Sixth by the learning of Abelard and the professors who followed him, yet soon after the barbarous custom was introduced of trial by combat; the idea might probably ...
— How to Enjoy Paris in 1842 • F. Herve
... pass away; of the brief pleasures and the vain expectations of life; of the gray deserted road filled with dead leaves and the sound of voices far off—Nothing but dead leaves and distant voices that went by! In spite of her beauty, her brilliance, her gallant heart, this was what life had brought to her at the end. Only loneliness and the courage of those who have given ...
— One Man in His Time • Ellen Glasgow
... anchor, and would then and there, deliver to him all the important documents. Franklin went on board. The ship dropped down the broad and beautiful Delaware, whose banks were brilliant with foliage in their richest autumnal brilliance, about thirty-two miles below Philadelphia, to Newcastle. To the great disappointment of Franklin, the Governor still did not appear. He however sent his secretary, with a profusion of excuses, and professing to be pressed with business of the utmost importance, promised to send the letters ...
— Benjamin Franklin, A Picture of the Struggles of Our Infant Nation One Hundred Years Ago - American Pioneers and Patriots Series • John S. C. Abbott
... atmosphere and colour (ought I not in mere gratitude to bring myself to say "color"?); his picture of Linda's amazing mother and the rest of the luxurious brainless company of her hotel existence has the exotic brilliance of the orchid-house, at once dazzling and repulsive. Later, in the course of her married life, inspiring and inspired by the sculptor Pleydon (in whose fate the curious may perhaps trace some echo of recent controversy), the story of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, August 11, 1920 • Various
... chief mark of his royal dignity was an immense chawat, or loin-cloth, carried as he walked by eighty men, forty in front and forty behind. He is the earliest monarch of whom the present Brunis have any knowledge, a fact to be accounted for partly by the brilliance of his exploits, partly by the introduction about that time of Arabic writing. After much fighting he subdued the people of Igan,[16] Kalaka, Seribas, Sadong, Semarahan, and Sarawak,[17] and compelled them to pay tribute. He stopped the annual payment to ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall
... and unrelieved save by the thin broken line of twinkling lights from the windows of the buildings, which gave them the direction of the main street, and the few dull glowing tent houses, whose tenants were at home. Overhead the desert stars shone with a brilliance that put to shame the feeble efforts of the earth-men, while about the little pioneer town the desert night drew close with its circling wall ...
— The Winning of Barbara Worth • Harold B Wright
... ale, and feasting, stories and minstrelsy held the hours till the midnight bell called to the first mass and ushered in Christmas Day. Caedmon, coming back from the frosty chapel, saw the stars shining in the brilliance of winter skies. His heart was suffused with all he had heard the pilgrims repeat; for the first time it entered his mind that the same stars that he saw twinkling, held their course at that glad time when "the morning-stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy,"—a prelude to ...
— Christmas in Legend and Story - A Book for Boys and Girls • Elva S. Smith
... looked forward myself to a great career for him: he had so many qualities to ensure success: a sharp, keen mind, which proved its literary quality also at Oxford, an unfailing earnestness and high purpose and a white character: no one could deny the brilliance and the ...
— Letters from Mesopotamia • Robert Palmer
... ermine. His face was strong and merciless, evil, crafty, and vindictive, with a sensual mouth, hooked nose of ruddy colour, and shaped like the beak of a bird of prey. The rest of the face was of a cadaverous colour. The eyes were of peculiar brilliance and with a terribly malignant expression. As he looked at them, Malcolmson grew cold, for he saw there the very counterpart of the eyes of the great rat. The lamp almost fell from his hand, he saw the rat with its baleful eyes peering out through the hole in the corner of ...
— Dracula's Guest • Bram Stoker
... was even paler than usual, and her eyes shone with a curious brilliance. That she was suffering from the most acute and feverish nervous excitement was patent from the way in which she kept putting her hands to her heart as though the violence of its throbbing were unendurable, and from the restless way in which she paced the room, stopping ...
— Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre
... loaded. It would be foolish to go in unarmed, but he had to. One gun wouldn't save him. He put it aside. The button radio on his collar was working and had a strong enough signal to get through any number of walls. He took off his coat, threw open the door and stepped out into the searing brilliance ...
— Planet of the Damned • Harry Harrison
... utter silence of the great room one of the copper-skinned priests moved swiftly toward the rear. There were chests there, massive metal things afire with the brilliance of inlaid jewels. The priest flung one of them ...
— Two Thousand Miles Below • Charles Willard Diffin
... the important post he filled. He was inclined to costume of very decisive colours—to coats of bright green or reddish-brown—presumably that, like a general officer, his forces might perceive his presence in their midst by the peculiarity, if not the brilliance, of his method of dress. Auguste was without education—did not know a note of music; but he understood the audience of the Opera House. For long years he had attended every representation upon its stage, and experience ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... that this Mr. Glascock, who had desired to be his son-in-law, was in very truth the heir to the Peterborough title and estates,—would have been such a son-in-law as almost to compensate, by the brilliance of the connection, for that other unfortunate alliance. He could hardly control his agony when he was made to understand that this embryo peer had in truth been in earnest. "Do you mean that he went down after ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope
... Retrospective Review, however (Vol. I, November, 1852), has an article, 'Mrs. Behn's Dramatic Writings,' which warmly praises her comedies. The writer very justly observes that 'they exhibit a brilliance of conversation in the dialogue, and a skill in arranging the plot and producing striking situations, in which she has few equals.' He frequently insists upon her 'great skill in conducting the intrigue of her pieces', and with no little acumen declares that 'her comedies may be cited as the most ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. I (of 6) • Aphra Behn
... protest or resist. His arms were clasped around her lightly and with exceeding gentleness. He leaned down. She found herself wondering, even in that tumultuous moment, at the strange clearness of his complexion, the whiteness of his firm, strong teeth, the soft brilliance of his eyes, which caressed her even before his ...
— The Great Prince Shan • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... did he seem—and the delicacy of his complexion led me to wonder perhaps whether he was not one of those whom the climate of England strikes with consumption, and who, in the mysterious providence of our race, wander abroad in search of health and find a Realm. His alertness, however, and the brilliance of his eye; his winning, almost obsequious address, and the hooked clutch of his gestures betrayed an energy that no physical weakness could conquer. He invited me to enter, and begged ...
— On Something • H. Belloc
... not so well known then as he has since become; he was regarded as a sharp-witted Irishman who had still his spurs to win. Some knew he had been at school with Oscar, and at Trinity College was as high in the second class as Oscar was in the first. It was said he envied Oscar his reputation for brilliance. ...
— Oscar Wilde, Volume 1 (of 2) - His Life and Confessions • Frank Harris
... fair full earth, the enraptured skies, She images in constant play: Night and the stars are in her eyes, But her sweet face is beaming day, A bounteous interblush of flowers: A dewy brilliance in a dale ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... twenty years before its first publication. The excessive polish of the verse has appeared too high to be endured throughout a long composition; it is certain that, in poems of length, a versification, which is not too florid for lyrical composition, will weary by its brilliance. Darwin, inasmuch as a rich philosophical fancy constitutes a poet, possesses the entire art of poetry; no one has carried the curious mechanism of verse and the artificial magic of poetical diction to a higher perfection. His volcanic head flamed with imagination, but his torpid heart ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... conceivable how Berkeley can be answered by pure reasoning; but I know that the nice and difficult task was to have been undertaken by one of the most luminous minds of the present age, had not politicks 'turned him from calm philosophy aside[1387].' What an admirable display of subtilty, united with brilliance, might his contending with Berkeley have afforded us[1388]! How must we, when we reflect on the loss of such an intellectual feast, regret that he should be characterised as ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... his waking images, froze his heart within him. He almost felt his hair stand on end, when by straining his eyes to their utmost he perceived through the shadow two faint yellow lights. At first he attributed these lights to the reflections of his own pupils, but soon the vivid brilliance of the night aided him gradually to distinguish the objects around him in the cave, and he beheld a huge animal lying but two steps from him. Was it a lion, a ...
— A Passion in the Desert • Honore de Balzac
... on his shoulders, she put back her head. A thin line of white appeared between her lips, and, under their drooped lids, her eyes shone with a moist brilliance. She looked at him eagerly for some seconds, and it seemed to him wistfully, too. Then, in an inexplicable change of mood, she let her arms fall, and turned away. She had grown pale and despondent. There was only one thing for him to do: to put his arms round her and draw her to his ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... painfully of the limits to which her own existence was shrinking. When at length, one afternoon, she put into execution the belated resolve to visit her friend, this sense of shrunken opportunities possessed her with unusual intensity. The walk up Fifth Avenue, unfolding before her, in the brilliance of the hard winter sunlight, an interminable procession of fastidiously-equipped carriages—giving her, through the little squares of brougham-windows, peeps of familiar profiles bent above visiting-lists, of hurried hands dispensing notes and cards to attendant footmen—this glimpse of the ever-revolving ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton
... the Gomez, Milt got a tool kit, and with considerable brilliance as a pitcher he sent a series of wrenches at the agitated stern of the bear. They offended the dignity of the ward of the Government. He finished the cover and ribbons of the candy box, and started for Milt ...
— Free Air • Sinclair Lewis
... heavy shuffling movement with which Peke steadily trudged along. Sweet and pungent odours of the field and woodland floated from the basket of herbs as it swung slightly to and fro on its bearer's shoulders, and amid the slowly darkening shadows of evening, a star of sudden silver brilliance sparkled out in ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... reached Le Moustier. Here the valley is broad, but the rocks, which are like the footstools of the hills, shut in the landscape all around. These naked perpendicular masses of limestone, yellow like ochre or as white as chalk, and reflecting the brilliance of the sun, must have afforded shelter to quite a dense population in the days when man made his weapons and implements from flints, and is supposed to have lived contemporaneously with the reindeer. Notwithstanding all the digging and searching that ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker
... the wound a magic radiance grew. The effect, carefully calculated by priests and builders thousands of years ago, was as thrilling to-day as on the morning when the sun first poured gold upon the altar. The sightless faces of the statues were given eyes of an unearthly brilliance to stare into ours, and search our souls. But with most of the party, to be thrilled for a minute was enough. As the sun's finger began to move, they found it time to move also. There was the whole temple to be seen, and then the walk back to the ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson
... her courage and her judgment equal. She wound in and out among the huge vehicles with perfect composure; and on those occasions when, the traffic being interrupted, the oratorical powers were useful to fill up the time, she shone with singular brilliance. The West End is too often in debt to the City, but, in the matter of chaff, it was not so this day; for whenever she took a peck she returned a bushel; and so she rattled to the door of ...
— A Terrible Temptation - A Story of To-Day • Charles Reade
... came home from a splendid ball, the most splendid by far of the winter, and before one ray of all its brilliance fades from my frivolous mind, let me sit down and tell you all about it ...
— A Terrible Secret • May Agnes Fleming
... from the station agent, who had already sold her a return ticket, that the north bound railway train, by which she desired to travel home, would not depart until 7.15, she was beguiled by the brilliance of the sky into the belief that she had ample time, to comply with her mother's farewell request. Mrs. Brentano had tied with a scrap of ribbon the bouquet of flowers, bought by her daughter on the afternoon of her journey ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... peculiar grace of one whose eyes smile in harmony with her lips. Nothing could be more obliging than her manners, and I could scarce think it possible that the tawdry, noisy Mrs Wickham could be her sister. Her eyes are dark and animated, with long eyelashes which soften their somewhat alarming brilliance. ...
— The Ladies - A Shining Constellation of Wit and Beauty • E. Barrington
... Gardiner, would be found voting in unison in my imaginary Congress. Gibbon, writes Bury, is "the historian and the man of letters," thus ranking with Thucydides and Tacitus. These three are put in the highest class, exemplifying that "brilliance of style and accuracy of statement are perfectly compatible in an historian."[52] Accepting this authoritative classification it is well worth while to point out the salient differences between the ancient historians and the modern. From Thucydides we have twenty-four ...
— Historical Essays • James Ford Rhodes
... had remarkable gifts. He entered the hospital with a scholarship, and during the five years of the curriculum gained every prize that was open to him. He was made house-physician and house-surgeon. His brilliance was allowed by all. Finally he was elected to a position on the staff, and his career was assured. So far as human things can be predicted, it was certain that he would rise to the greatest heights of his ...
— The Moon and Sixpence • W. Somerset Maugham
... was a blue-black rectangle behind them and the blue star burned with the brilliance of a dozen moons, lighting the woods in blue shadow and azure light. Prentiss and the hunter walked a little in front of the two riflemen, winding to keep in the ...
— Space Prison • Tom Godwin
... which had found more than consolation; they are the interpretation of the words of his amulet—"Joie, joie, joie, pleurs de joie." The union of the ardour of a poet or a saint with the scientific rigour of a great geometer, of wit and brilliance with a sublime pathos, is among the rarest phenomena in literature; all this and ...
— A History of French Literature - Short Histories of the Literatures of the World: II. • Edward Dowden
... this passage the young man had paused from time to time in his walk, gazing with earnest admiration at the dainty outline of the young girl's head, with its wig of powdered curls that seemed scarcely whiter than the creamy brilliance ...
— El Dorado • Baroness Orczy
... morning for a short time before sunrise, but it can never be seen, as the outer planets are seen, in the mid-heaven or late at night. When seen low in the twilight, at evening or morning, it glows with the brilliance of a bright first-magnitude star, and is a beautiful object, though few casual watchers of the stars ever catch sight of it. When it is nearest the earth and is about to pass between the earth and the sun, it temporarily disappears in the glare of the sunlight; and likewise, ...
— Other Worlds - Their Nature, Possibilities and Habitability in the Light of the Latest Discoveries • Garrett P. Serviss
... hers, or rather with a life he imagined as hers. And never before had he realized the brightness, even the brilliance, of his life, with its multitudinous changes and activities, its work—the glorious sweating with the brown labourers in the sand flats at the edge of the Fayyum—its sport, its friendships, its strenuous and its quiet hours, so dearly valued because ...
— Bella Donna - A Novel • Robert Hichens
... A brilliance a hundred times brighter than the glaring Nevada sun lit the dim interior of the bunker and the pneumatically-operated door slammed shut just before the wave of the blast ...
— A Filbert Is a Nut • Rick Raphael
... waist in a profusion of ringlets; Her throat was full and beautiful in the extreme; Her hand and arm were formed with the most perfect symmetry; Her mild blue eyes seemed an heaven of sweetness, and the crystal in which they moved sparkled with all the brilliance of Diamonds: She appeared to be scarcely fifteen; An arch smile, playing round her mouth, declared her to be possessed of liveliness, which excess of timidity at present represt; She looked round her with a bashful glance; and whenever her eyes ...
— The Monk; a romance • M. G. Lewis
... paraffin lamp without a globe shed a hard glare on the three inner sides. The fourth side was open, and faced the river. Between the rough supports of the high-pitched roof hung torn rattan screens. There was no ceiling, and the harsh brilliance of the lamp was toned above into a soft half- light that lost itself in the obscurity amongst the rafters. The front wall was cut in two by the doorway of a central passage closed by a red curtain. The women's room ...
— Almayer's Folly - A Story of an Eastern River • Joseph Conrad
... shining with extraordinary brilliance, and the fog, far from veiling its lustre, seemed to make it more disconcerting. Persons assumed strange forms and the shapes of things were modified or exaggerated. Our dazzled eyes were mocked by depressing hallucinations; the smallest objects ...
— In the Field (1914-1915) - The Impressions of an Officer of Light Cavalry • Marcel Dupont
... and the stars twinkled like jewels in a cloudless sky of dark blue. The moon shone with hard brilliance on the ground, which was powdered with a light fall of snow. As the young people walked briskly through the village, their footsteps rang on the frosty earth and they scrunched the snow in their quick tread. The Warrior ...
— The Green Mummy • Fergus Hume
... Sandip Babu's photograph before. There was something in his features which I did not quite like. Not that he was bad- looking—far from it: he had a splendidly handsome face. Yet, I know not why, it seemed to me, in spite of all its brilliance, that too much of base alloy had gone into its making. The light in his eyes somehow did not shine true. That was why I did not like it when my husband unquestioningly gave in to all his demands. ...
— The Home and the World • Rabindranath Tagore
... him desire to turn to him, to communicate with him, to share with him the pleasure of some idea, some little discovery about men or things in which he would have taken pleasure, increasing our own by the gaiety of his enjoyment, the brilliance of his appreciation. We may say, as Scott said at the grave of John Ballantyne, that he has taken with him half the sunlight out of our lives. That he was sympathetic and interested in the work ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson - a Record, an Estimate, and a Memorial • Alexander H. Japp
... lakes and snowy creeks. Indeed, they were thankful when a strip of level surface indicated water, for the toil of getting through the timber was heavy. After two days of travel there was a yellow sunset, and the snow gleamed in the lurid light with an ominous brilliance, while as they made their fire a moaning wind got up. These things presaged a change in the weather, and they were rather silent over the evening meal. They missed the half-breed and the snarling dogs, while it looked as if the good fortune that had so far attended them was ...
— Blake's Burden • Harold Bindloss
... been a wrangler and one of the brilliant men of his year at Cambridge. All manner of brilliance was expected for him and of him. He unexpectedly went into the Church and as ...
— This Freedom • A. S. M. Hutchinson
... written in the nineteenth, or to the fifteenth. The classical atmosphere of the French seventeenth and eighteenth centuries is totally absent. Those who care for the delicately poised balance of classical taste, for wit and brilliance of dialogue, will be disconcerted by childishness or fierce passion. It is an abrupt literature, but spontaneous and sincere, which has not been spoilt by formalism and scepticism, but which has not acquired, from a purely technical point of view, the perfection of the French. Having ...
— Belgium - From the Roman Invasion to the Present Day • Emile Cammaerts
... about half the size as seen from our Earth. The Solar Orb appeared as to size and brightness, about the same as viewed from our Earth, and seemed to give forth its heat with the same intensity. I was facing the sun and its brilliance blinded my eyes for ...
— The Planet Mars and its Inhabitants - A Psychic Revelation • Eros Urides and J. L. Kennon
... cards and flashed across the room a glance whose brilliance shamed the tawdry candles about her, and, as you can readily conceive, roused a prodigious trepidation in my ...
— Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell
... to do? Never had so beautiful and so artistic a robe been seen. She was dumb-founded, and pretending that its brilliance had hurt her eyes she retired to her chamber, where she found the ...
— The Fairy Tales of Charles Perrault • Charles Perrault
... vivid imagination and spirited picturesque portrayal. Discussion might be provoked, but it inevitably proved abortive, inasmuch as there was a complete absence of data based upon actual experience. The novelist was without any theory: he avowedly depended upon the brilliance of his imagination. The critic could only theorise, and no matter how dogmatic his reasonings, they were certainly as unconvincing as those of ...
— Aeroplanes and Dirigibles of War • Frederick A. Talbot
... said as she walked across the wintry fields with Miss Wendover on the verge of midnight, after a Christmas dinner and a long evening of Christmas games at The Knoll, Needham marching in front of them with an unnecessary lantern, and all the stars of heaven shining in blue frosty brilliance above their heads, 'and what a happy home! I feel it is a privilege to have seen so much of it; and by-and-by, ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... sealed for ever the allegiance of the youth to his self-chosen leader. He had prepared Sheridan, and through him Fox and Bouverie, for this change of front. The openness, the charm, the self-effacing patriotism of the Minister thenceforth drew him as by an irresistible magnet. The brilliance and joviality of Fox and Sheridan counted as nothing against the national impulse which the master now set in motion and the pupil was destined to carry to further lengths. There was a natural sympathy between these men both in aim and temperament. It is ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... the truth about the War, for perhaps a very youthful student could imagine it was possible to get the truth about it. The truth may be somewhere in that catalogue; but I know, for I have tried, that it has no significant name to betray its pure gold, no strange brilliance to make the type dance on that page as one turns the leaves with a hopeless eye. There are, however, two certainties about the catalogue. One is that it would require a long life, a buoyant disposition, and a freedom from domestic cares, to read ...
— Waiting for Daylight • Henry Major Tomlinson
... sun fell upon her in a sheen of shimmering splendour, throwing great reflected lights which dazzled the eye so that it could scarce hold any continued gaze upon her. And, indeed, every ornament on her seemed to be made of the precious metal, now glowing to exceeding brilliance in the ...
— The Iron Pirate - A Plain Tale of Strange Happenings on the Sea • Max Pemberton
... thee, O King of kings, Lord of lords, Prince of princes, who from the womb of Nut hast ruled the world and Akert.[9] Thy body is [like] bright and shining metal, thy head is of azure blue, and the brilliance of the turquoise encircleth thee. O thou god An of millions of years, whose body pervadeth all things, whose face is beautiful in Ta-Tchesert,[10] grant thou to the Ka of the Osiris the scribe Ani splendour in heaven, power upon earth, and triumph in the Other World. ...
— The Literature of the Ancient Egyptians • E. A. Wallis Budge
... because of the same medium. But here, what a contrast! They saw the utter, absolute darkness of the complete absence of all light: and upon that indescribable blackness they beheld superimposed the almost unbearable brilliance of enormous suns concentrated into mathematical points, dimensionless. Sirius blazed in blue-white splendor, dominating the lesser members of his constellation, a minute but intensely brilliant diamond upon a field of black velvet—his refulgence unmarred by any ...
— Skylark Three • Edward Elmer Smith
... forward, her elbows on the table, her little square chin on her hands, and if there were wondering contempt in her eyes he saw only their brilliance ...
— The White Morning • Gertrude Atherton
... downhill. It was impossible to light a fire, and we could not therefore dress our food or obtain a warm drink. The cold was beyond language severe. The rigging was glazed with ice, and great pendants of the silvery brilliance of crystal hung from the yards, bowsprit, and catheads, whilst the sails were frozen to the hardness of granite, and lay like sheets of iron rolled up in gaskets of steel. We had no means of drying our clothes, nor were we able so to move as by exercise we might keep ourselves ...
— The Frozen Pirate • W. Clark Russell
... course has been followed by the Impressionist movement in painting. It is seen in its dogmatic and most naturalistic form in so-called Neo-Impressionism. The theory of this is to put on the canvas the whole glitter and brilliance of nature, and not only an ...
— Concerning the Spiritual in Art • Wassily Kandinsky
... more, she sat and pondered. Suddenly she bestowed upon him a smile whose brilliance might have turned the head of another man. Rising, she swept him a curtsey whose grace I have not ...
— 54-40 or Fight • Emerson Hough
... limitations in themselves would have been quite enough to cause the Nonconformist Victorian mind to regard a young—or middle-aged—male as likely to represent a fearsome moral example, but these three temptations combined with good looks and a certain mental brilliance were so inevitably the concomitants of elegant iniquity that the results ...
— The Head of the House of Coombe • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... was too misty for direct sunshine, but before long the brilliance of the light was already greater than that of the midday sun on earth. The heat, too, was intense, but Maskull welcomed it—it relieved his pain and diminished his sense of crushing weight. The wind had dropped with the rising of ...
— A Voyage to Arcturus • David Lindsay
... chord across the arc of the old. Through chance gaps in the boarding between, we looked down on the new portion which was as yet used by carriages alone. The moon had, throughout the evening, alternately shone in brilliance from amidst a lake of blue sky, and been overwhelmed in billowy heaps of wind-tormented clouds. As we stood on the apex of the bridge, looking at the night, the dark river, and the mass of human effort about us, the clouds gathered and closed and tumbled upon her in crowded ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald
... So much brilliance and severity in the display of his sovereign power proved of service to the irreconcilable enemies who were stirring up Europe against the already uncontrollable ambition of the new emperor. Pitt had ...
— Worlds Best Histories - France Vol 7 • M. Guizot and Madame Guizot De Witt
... thousands of awed, ritualistic sibilants which would carry no knowable meaning and only one avowed purpose. Soft music, soft, soft; not soft as to volume, for the volume grew and grew, but soft with the softness of clouds which are soft for all their mountain-size and brilliance; soft and living as a tiger's throat, soft as a breast, soft as the act of drowning, and huge as ...
— Breaking Point • James E. Gunn
... and all existence in an epigram. Along with these things I had things that were different. But I let myself be lured into long spells of senseless and sensual ease." It is difficult to see anything in the factitious but delightful brilliance of this very characteristic swagger that could have endangered the ...
— Books and Persons - Being Comments on a Past Epoch 1908-1911 • Arnold Bennett
... was rather dimly lighted; brilliance is not good for the eyes of the wounded. Walter was in a long chair in the corner; his face was bronzed, drawn and lined a little by suffering; but steady and cheerful as ever, with the eager look which had made ...
— The Valley of Vision • Henry Van Dyke
... the teachers are Irish; why salesmanship lures them; why they are the most successful walking delegates, solicitors, agents, foremen, and contractors. In the higher walks of life you find them where dash, brilliance, cleverness, and emotion are demanded. The law and the priesthood utilize their eloquence, journalism their keen insight into the human side of news, and literature their imagination and humor. They possess a positive genius for organization and management. The labor unions are led ...
— Our Foreigners - A Chronicle of Americans in the Making • Samuel P. Orth
... only a vast expanse, calm, peaceful, and exquisite under the full brilliance of the moonlight; sleeping Japan, lulled by the sonorous song of the grasshoppers, is charming indeed to-night, and the free, pure ...
— Madame Chrysantheme Complete • Pierre Loti
... the morning, her first thought was of Lancelot. His face haunted her. The wild brilliance of his intellect struggling through foul smoke-clouds, had haunted her still more. She had heard of his profligacy, his bursts of fierce Berserk-madness; and yet now these very faults, instead of repelling, seemed to attract her, and intensify ...
— Yeast: A Problem • Charles Kingsley
... summer weather which came on us at the beginning of this week gives by contrast a strange and terrible point to the calamity, the announcement of which sent such a shock through the whole country on Monday last. Summer days in all their brilliance seemed come at last, after a long waiting which made them the more delightful. But as people came down to breakfast on that morning, or as they gathered at railway stations on their way to business, ...
— Occasional Papers - Selected from The Guardian, The Times, and The Saturday Review, - 1846-1890 • R.W. Church
... moss-grown names upon the tombs, With lighter melancholy than the glooms Of the dead house shadowed us with, and thence Turning, my heart was pierced with more intense Suggestion of a mystical dismay, As in the brilliance of the summer day We faced the vast gray barn. The house was old, Though so well kept, as age by years is told In our young land; but the barn, gray and vast, Stood new and straight and strong—all battened fast At every opening; and where once the mow Had yawned wide-windowed, ...
— The Daughter of the Storage - And Other Things in Prose and Verse • William Dean Howells
... later she was heard from in Florence, where she remained in seclusion during the summer, but in the autumn opened a salon which, in point of brilliance, elegance, and distinction, eclipsed every ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... impulse was to await darkness before attempting to cross the plain, so deeply implanted are habits of thought; but of a sudden I recollected the perpetual noonday brilliance which envelopes Pellucidar, and with a smile I ...
— At the Earth's Core • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... a lanky youth, with a long, cadaverous countenance and sallow, unhealthy complexion, illumined, however, and redeemed to a certain extent by black eyes of extraordinary brilliance, "it is the Prince of Wales!" The drawling, awe-struck tones, in the silence that had fallen, were audible to all in ...
— Corporal Cameron • Ralph Connor
... performers did not dim her brilliance by reason of their own. There was her own dear husband, whose serious recitation was the one entertaining number. There was a Rabbit Inspector who rapped out "The Scout" in a defiant barytone, and a publican whose somewhat uneven tenor was shaken to its depths by the simple pathos of "When ...
— Stingaree • E. W. (Ernest William) Hornung
... dwelt with greater pleasure on his own garden, than on the garden of Eden; he could describe the faultless whole-length mirror that reflected his own person, better than the smooth surface of the lake that reflects the face of heaven—a piece of cut glass or a pair of paste buckles with more brilliance and effect, than a thousand dew-drops glittering in the sun. He would be more delighted with a patent lamp, than with "the pale reflex of Cynthia's brow," that fills the skies with its soft silent lustre, that trembles through the cottage window, and cheers the watchful ...
— Lectures on the English Poets - Delivered at the Surrey Institution • William Hazlitt
... scarcely be hoped to be excelled.[197] M. Benard did not very strenuously combat these observations. The great mart for Printselling is the Boulevards; and more especially that of the Boulevards Italiens. A stranger can have no conception of the gaiety and brilliance of the print-shops, and print-stalls, in this neighbourhood. Let him first visit it in the morning about nine o'clock; with the sun-beams sparkling among the foliage of the trees, and the incessant ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Two • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... he had sat on the stool all his life, instead of having just fallen from the moon. And about the middle of the afternoon the incomparable result is completed; a pair of wonderful satin shoes, slender as a neat's tongue, dazzling in their white brilliance, as though they had just walked out of the fairy-tale and were waiting for the ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... Griffith long before—our bright, generous, warm-hearted, promising Griff, the brilliance of our home; but his actual death made the first breach in a hitherto unbroken family, and was a new and strange shock. It made my father absolutely an old man; and it also changed Martyn. His first contact with responsibility, suffering, and death had demolished the light- hearted ...
— Chantry House • Charlotte M. Yonge
... patches of these birds lack the brilliance of the speculums of puddle ducks. Since many of them have short tails, their huge, paddle feet may be used as rudders in flight, and are often visible on flying birds. When launching into flight, most of this group patter along the water before ...
— Ducks at a Distance - A Waterfowl Identification Guide • Robert W. Hines
... the ceremonies, public and private, which gave peculiar gayety and brilliance to the life of the Venetians of former days; but in his political character the noble had yet greater consequence. He was part of the proudest, strongest, and securest system of his time. He was a king with ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells
... imperfectly, for the night was extremely dark, the figure of a man entirely enveloped in a long cloak, such as was commonly worn by gallants in affairs of secrecy or intrigue; and, in the pale light of a single lamp near which he stood, something like the brilliance of gems glittered on the large Spanish hat which overhung his brow. I immediately recalled the description the woman had given me of Barnard's dress, and the thought flashed across me that it was he whom I beheld. "At all events," thought I, "I may confirm my doubts, if I may ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... preparing for death and praising the Lord and least of them in hope, and indeed he who penetrateth his soul with the awful ways of death is as one who looketh into a clear mirror, for that he knoweth the truth, and the mirror still increaseth in clearness and brilliance." Q "What are the goodliest of treasures?"—"The treasures of heaven." Q "Which is the goodliest of the treasures of Heaven?"—"The praise of Allah and His magnification." Q "Which is the most excellent of the treasures of earth?"—"The practice of kindness."—And Shahrazad perceived ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 9 • Richard F. Burton
... in useless speculation upon the meaning of the remarkable situation in which he now found himself. He felt no pain, no discomfort, except that which the brilliance of the light above him caused. He determined at length once more to open his eyes, in order to discover ...
— The Ivory Snuff Box • Arnold Fredericks
... night, I looked out of my chamber-window, the silver moon of Italy, (for we fancied that her light was softer and that the skies were already bluer) hung trembling above the fields of snow that stretched in their wintry brilliance along the mountains around. I heard the roar of the Ticino and the deepened sound of falling cascades, and thought, if I were to take those waters for my guide, to what glorious places they ...
— Views a-foot • J. Bayard Taylor
... gazed on the tombstone where Conrad reclined, Yet they shrank at the cold chilling blast of the wind, When a strange silver brilliance pervaded the scene, And a figure advanced—tall in form—fierce in ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... round altar, niche, and shrine, The funeral evergreens entwine, And a dark brilliance cast, The brighter for their hues of gloom, Tokens of Him, who through the ...
— The Christian Year • Rev. John Keble
... on to a spot that seemed to be the graveyard of the flower-garden. There the scabious mourned, and processions of poppies stretched out in line, with deathly odour, unfolding heavy blooms of feverish brilliance. Sad anemones clustered in weary throngs, pallid as if infected by some epidemic. Thick-set daturas spread out purplish horns, from which insects, weary of life, sucked fatal poison. Marigolds buried with choking foliage their writhing ...
— Abbe Mouret's Transgression - La Faute De L'abbe Mouret • Emile Zola
... perhaps, be soon able to say the phonographed—record of his speeches. Few are the famous speakers who would be famous if they were tried by this latter test alone, and Mr. Gladstone was not one of them. It is only by a rare combination of gifts that one who speaks with so much readiness, force, and brilliance as to charm his listeners is also able to deliver such valuable thoughts in such choice words that posterity will read them as literature. Some few of the ancient orators did this; but we seldom know how far those of their speeches ...
— William Ewart Gladstone • James Bryce
... destination, and the glow of the big, brightly lighted house was seen before them in the wet night. Other cars, not like theirs, were approaching this center of brilliance; long triangles of light near the ground swept through the fine drizzle; small red tail-lights gleamed again from the moist pavement of the street; and, through the myriads of little glistening leaves along the curving driveway, glimpses were caught of lively ...
— Alice Adams • Booth Tarkington
... I urge you to arrange in the following way. Adorn this city in the most expensive manner possible and add brilliance by every form of festival. It is fitting that we who rule many people should surpass all in everything, and such spectacles tend in a way to promote respect on the part of our allies and alarm on the part of enemies. The affairs of other nations you should ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol. 4 • Cassius Dio
... forged its way through the more or less defiling garment of a worn and experienced flesh. But the light in Miriam's eyes and skin was there because it had never been extinguished. She had retained her pristine brilliance of soul. Through the little spirit of the perplexed secretary ran a thrill ...
— The Human Chord • Algernon Blackwood
... passed between Kent's and Hogan's groups (in Bass Strait); the lighthouse on the former of these, perched upon a hill 829 feet high, is admirably situated, and although the night was rather hazy, the light (revolving) shone out with great brilliance, and was afterwards seen from the Bramble's deck, when thirty-seven miles distant. We caught, in the narrows of the Strait, numbers of baracoudas, a very bold and ravenous fish, and withal a good-eating one, measuring from two to three feet in length; they ...
— Narrative Of The Voyage Of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Commanded By The Late Captain Owen Stanley, R.N., F.R.S. Etc. During The Years 1846-1850. Including Discoveries And Surveys In New Guinea, The Louisiade • John MacGillivray
... before you showed me the spangles you picked up in Mr. Adams's study could have told you just how I had seen them arranged. They are sewed on black net, in figures, sir; in scrolls or wreaths or whatever you choose to call them; and so conspicuous are these wreaths or figures, owing to the brilliance of the spangles composing them, that any break in their continuity is plainly apparent, especially if the net be worn over a color, as is frequently the case. Remembering this, and recalling the fact that these spangles doubtless fell ...
— The Circular Study • Anna Katharine Green
... And of all those at home he was in despair, but purposed to use against his country foreigners and the allies once enslaved by him, and he put far more hope in them both of safety and of power than in those who had been benefited. Instead of the brilliance, therefore, which, acquired in those wars, had marked his arrival, he set out with humiliation as his portion in return for his fear of Caesar: and instead of fame which he had had for exalting his country, he became most infamous for his desertion ...
— Dio's Rome • Cassius Dio
... had finished my supper night had fallen, the stars were shining with the brilliance that they only display in the tropics, and I was beginning to feel the need of sleep; I therefore took a final look round, satisfied myself that all was right and that nothing was in sight, and then, heartily commending ...
— A Middy of the Slave Squadron - A West African Story • Harry Collingwood
... cold days of January recurred monotonously, with now and then a brilliance of blue flashing in, when Brangwen went out into a morning like crystal, when every sound rang again, and the birds were many and sudden and brusque in the hedges. Then an elation came over him in spite of everything, whether his wife were strange or sad, ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence
... Rokeby softly, bending his head to look with a new interest at her face. "That's sheer cleverness, that is; that's brilliance. You've seized it. A woman should have confidence to ...
— Married Life - The True Romance • May Edginton
... port-hole again. Jupiter was perceptibly nearer; an enormous, convex globe that blotted out half the heavens. They were being drawn at a frightful velocity toward the mysterious pulsating point, now blinding in its brilliance. ...
— Pirates of the Gorm • Nat Schachner
... in black, for she was, of course, still in mourning for her brother; but, in spite of her sable habiliments, she startled the parson by the brilliance of her beauty. There was a quiet dignity of demeanour natural to Fanny Wyndham; a well-balanced pose, and a grace of motion, which saved her from ever looking awkward or confused. She never appeared to lose her self-possession. Though never arrogant, she seemed always to know ...
— The Kellys and the O'Kellys • Anthony Trollope
... her cousin's bounteous hand, and her dress of stiff yellow brocade burned in the morning light with almost as much brilliance as the sunshine itself. Folded across her bust was the wonderful stomacher, under whose making I had suffered so many emotions that each sprig of work upon it seemed to have its own tale of misery for my eyes, and fixed against this and her white throat were those masses of flowers ...
— The Forsaken Inn - A Novel • Anna Katharine Green
... association between the crooked engineer and the disappearance of the safes. It seemed to fit too well. The scientific nature of the phenomena, Tony Costello's well known reputation for scientific brilliance, and his recent affluence; what else could it mean? In some way, Tony was getting at these safes. But how? And how prove it? Most exhaustive searches failed to reveal any traces of the safes anywhere. If any fragment of one of them had appeared in New York or San Francisco, the news would have ...
— The Einstein See-Saw • Miles John Breuer
... focus in which the brilliance of this genteel life was concentrated was the table. Extravagant prices—as much as 100,000 sesterces (1000 pounds)—were paid for an exquisite cook. Houses were constructed with special reference to this object, and the villas in particular along the coast were provided ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... teachers and students. Adolphe Monod's Saint Paul, a series of five discourses, is an inquiry into the secret of the apostle's life, written with deep sympathy and glowing eloquence; and Renan's work, with the same title, gives, with unrivaled brilliance, a picture of the world in which the apostle lived, if not of the apostle himself. There are books on the subject which do honor to American scholarship from the pens of Cone, Gilbert, Bacon and A. T. Robertson, the last mentioned with a valuable bibliography. But the best help ...
— The Life of St. Paul • James Stalker
... Though a petted child of fortune, she was not spoiled, Envy itself was changed into affection in the presence of a spirit so gentle, unassuming, and loving. She had recently been graduated from one of the best schools, and her graces of character matched the brilliance ...
— California Sketches, Second Series • O. P. Fitzgerald
... (I think he said the Mississippi). "You will find them," he said to me, "brilliant, witty, filled with repartee." He suggested that I should send him back, as far as words could express it, some of this brilliance. I was very glad to be able to do this, although I fear that the results were not at all what he had anticipated. Still, I held conversations with these people and I gave him, in all truthfulness, the result. Sir James Barrie said, "This is really very exceptional weather for this ...
— My Discovery of England • Stephen Leacock
... O, the brilliance of blossoming orchards! O, the savour and thrill of the woods, When their leafage is stirred By the flight of the Angel of Rain! Loud lows the steer; in the fallows Rooks are alert; and the brooks Gurgle and tinkle and trill. Thro' the gloamings, Under the rare, shy stars, Boy and ...
— Poems by William Ernest Henley • William Ernest Henley
... reflected the two apertures of the well, two half-moons between which the shadow of the wall cast a black streak. On leaning over, one might have fancied in the vague light that the half-moons were two mirrors of singular clearness and brilliance. Under the morning sunshine, when the dripping of the ropes did not disturb the surface of the water, these mirrors, these reflections of the heavens, showed like white patches on the green water, and in them the leaves of the ivy which had spread along the wall over the well were ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola
... volume, no historical work has appeared which, in brilliance of style as well as in keen analysis of character and events, can compare with the ten volumes of FROUDE'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND."—New ...
— Ancient States and Empires • John Lord
... were bowling merrily along the country lanes in the fragrant air. It was a dark, starless night, but so warm that the easterly sea-breeze fanned us like a zephyr. And through the gloom a flash-light leaped and waned, flickered and died and gleamed again with electric brilliance—"the Winnaker(?) light from France," a garrulous inhabitant assured us; a rare phenomenon to be seen only once in a decade, when an east wind clarifies the atmosphere, and allows the rays to pierce through two dozen miles of strait. It seemed like La Belle France ...
— Without Prejudice • Israel Zangwill
... Mrs. Vance for several weeks, but she heard her play through the thin walls which divided the front rooms of the flats, and was pleased by the merry selection of pieces and the brilliance of their rendition. She could play only moderately herself, and such variety as Mrs. Vance exercised bordered, for Carrie, upon the verge of great art. Everything she had seen and heard thus far—the merest scraps and shadows—indicated that ...
— Sister Carrie • Theodore Dreiser
... attention to her and which gave her character. Moreover, I am told this mania went so far that when folders were issued for the purpose of advertising the region, they were designed to suggest the warmth and brilliance of the tropics. Had St. Paul a bad climate, instead of a peculiarly fine one, we might feel sympathetic tolerance for these performances, but a city which enjoys cool summers and dry, bracing winters has no apologies to make upon the score of climate, and only need apologize if she tries to ...
— American Adventures - A Second Trip 'Abroad at home' • Julian Street
... strangely as they rested upon mine. Not until now had the wonderful intelligence in their purple-green depths struck me so forcibly. From the orange-tinted lamps before her on the table the light which shone up in her face seemed to increase their brilliance, accentuate their expression and their power. It imparted, too, to her extraordinary complexion a peculiar, livid tint, while the masses of her burnished, red-brown hair, coiled about her head in great ropes and dressed low in her neck, was ...
— The Four Faces - A Mystery • William le Queux
... havoc in the furniture arrangement and finally caused the dressing table to be shifted to a corner to make place for the enormous, gaping head with the fierce eyes; an Indian shawl for Mrs. Leland, selected evidently for size and brilliance of pattern, very nearly large enough to carpet the dining room and of an astonishing combination of dark greens and riotous reds and royal purples; an ornate scarf pin for Martin Leland who had as much use for a scarf pin as a Mohammedan for a Bible; an exquisite set of chessmen ...
— The Short Cut • Jackson Gregory
... neck and exclaimed. For behind Ashe's chair was the treasure of the house. It was a "Dance of Children," by one of the most famous of the eighteenth-century masters. From the dark wall it shone out with a flower-like brilliance, a vision of color and of grace. The children danced through a golden air, their bodies swaying to one of those "unheard melodies" of art, sweeter than all mortal tunes; their delicate faces alive with joy. The sky and grass and trees seemed to caress them; a soft sunlight clothed ...
— The Marriage of William Ashe • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... people, and, through the beautiful old screen which separated chancel from nave, the altar shone out in strong relief against its background of soft-coloured mosaic, the rays of the western sun giving an added touch of brilliance to its decoration of ...
— The Village by the River • H. Louisa Bedford
... reverse is the truth. The supremest delight attainable in fancy's most romantic flight is, I suspect, faint in comparison with the sort of ecstasy into which a child of freshly-strung nerves is sometimes thrown by the mere brilliance or balminess of a summer's day, and with which even we, dulled adults, provided we be in the right humour, and that all things are in a concatenation accordingly, are now and then momentarily affected while listening to the wood-notes wild of a nightingale, or a Jenny Lind, or while gazing on ...
— Old-Fashioned Ethics and Common-Sense Metaphysics - With Some of Their Applications • William Thomas Thornton
... him it seemed to be expedient to get up and at once to go. What delight would there be to him in playing piquet with such a face opposite to him as that of Captain Vignolles, or with such a one as that of old Moody? There could be none of the brilliance of the room, no pleasant hum of the voices of companions, no sense of his own equality with others. There would be none to sympathize with him when he cursed his ill-luck, there would be no chance of contending with an innocent who would be as ...
— Mr. Scarborough's Family • Anthony Trollope
... gave a little grunt, and bade her sit down; but, though not talkative, he keenly observed the two, and saw that they were cast in a different mould. Liz looked well, flushed with her walk, the dark warm fur setting off the brilliance of her complexion, her clothes fitting her with a certain flaunting style, her manner free from the least touch of embarrassment or restraint. Liz Hepburn feared ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan
... command of men, the diverse nature of his duties, half civil, half military, the personal appeals made on all sides by the people of the country for advice, for help, for settlement of disputes, for information which his well-instructed mind could give—all these modified the romantic brilliance of his intellect, made it and ...
— Northern Lights • Gilbert Parker
... the greater part of a volume to the discussion of his characters shows clearly enough that Racine's portrayal of human nature has lost nothing of its freshness and vitality with the passage of time. On the contrary, his admirers are now tending more and more to lay stress upon the brilliance of his portraits, the combined vigour and intimacy of his painting, his amazing knowledge, and his unerring fidelity to truth. M. Lemaitre, in fact, goes so far as to describe Racine as a supreme realist, while other writers have found in him the essence ...
— Books and Characters - French and English • Lytton Strachey
... is such a poison-flower, if it flourishes only in the swamp of poverty and under the sun of riches, it must and ought to be destroyed. Our sentiment will no longer endure the happiness and brilliance of the few growing out of the misery of the many; the days of the senses are over, and the day of conscience ...
— The New Society • Walther Rathenau
... later portraits. He was not more than thirty-five years of age at this time, but his face was already lined with care and trouble and exposure. It was naturally pale and thin, almost haggard. Its sole redeeming feature was the wonderful brilliance of his blue eyes. The doctor and David could not see the color of his eyes, and yet he seemed to them a singularly handsome man, as he did to almost every one. There was something about him that may be called a presence, for lack of a better term, something ...
— Round Anvil Rock - A Romance • Nancy Huston Banks
... of the growing multitude of the stars shivered in the tranquil heaving of the sea. Some way out, the wash upon an irregular band of reef shone with a pallid light of its own. Westward I saw the zodiacal light mingling with the yellow brilliance of the evening star. The coast fell away from me to the east, and westward it was hidden by the shoulder of the cape. Then I recalled the fact that Moreau's beach ...
— The Island of Doctor Moreau • H. G. Wells
... interest because it reminds them of home. Sophisticated children, most of them, optimists with moments of hideous pessimism, enthusiasts at various stages of Parnassus, the peak of which is lighted with a huge dollar sign. A friendly, kindly lot, hard-working and temperamental, with some brilliance and a rather high level of cleverness—slaves of the magazine, probably, and therefore not able to throw stones farther into the future than the end of the month. This is not a country in which literature and ...
— Who Cares? • Cosmo Hamilton
... presented to the country fully formed and featured, the smiling offspring of progress and imagination. Travellers to Greater Britain returned waving joyous torches in the insular fog; they shed a brilliance and infectious enthusiasm, but there were not enough to do more than make the fog visible. Many persons found such torches irritating. They pointed out that as England had groped to her present greatness she might be trusted to feel her way further. "Free trade," they said, "has made us ...
— The Imperialist • (a.k.a. Mrs. Everard Cotes) Sara Jeannette Duncan
... fashion still more stern than their usual cast, yet there had come, as Battersleigh did not fail to notice, an older droop to the corners of his mouth, and a loss of the old brilliance of the eye. ...
— The Girl at the Halfway House • Emerson Hough
... personality. Many of his poems were never printed during his lifetime, the most remarkable of these being "The Jolly Beggars," a piece in which, by the intensity of his imaginative sympathy and the brilliance of his technique, he renders a picture of the lowest dregs of society in such a way as to raise it into the realm ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... eyes of one who is prepared with the same incredulity as the reader of the story, and as a result the strange phenomenon, whether fallen angel, invisible man, converted beast or invading Martian, takes all the shape of reality. That this shape is convincing is due to the brilliance of Mr Wells' imagination and his power of graphic expression; the lesser writer might adopt the method and fail utterly to attain the effect; but it is this conception of the means to reach the intelligence and senses of ...
— H. G. Wells • J. D. Beresford
... identifying them, of not taking an angel for a devil, or vice versa, was most important in the Middle Ages. On this turned the fate of Joan of Arc: Were her voices and visions of God or of Satan? They came, as in the cases mentioned by Iamblichus, with a light, a hallucination of brilliance. When Jean Brehal, Grand Inquisitor of France, in 1450-1456, held the process for rehabilitating Joan, condemned as a witch in 1431, he entered learnedly into the tests of 'spirit-identity'. {66a} St. Theresa was bidden to try to exorcise her visions, by the sign of ...
— Cock Lane and Common-Sense • Andrew Lang
... to do? Still drags the o'erlong day. We have driven, we have eaten, we have drunk. But all the brilliance ...
— Nero • Stephen Phillips
... became benign in its afternoon slant. Little Rivers was beginning to move after its siesta, with the stretching of muscles that would grow more vigorous as evening approached and freshened life came into the air with the sprinkle of sunset brilliance. ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer
... inside the ice. It was a dazzling mine of gems, in particular sapphires and emeralds, whose jets of blue and green crisscrossed. Here and there, opaline hues of infinite subtlety raced among sparks of light that were like so many fiery diamonds, their brilliance more than any eye could stand. The power of our beacon was increased a hundredfold, like a lamp shining through the biconvex lenses of a ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne
... his glass, took up his gun, looked vaguely out of the door into the misty evening, bright with the spiritual brilliance of the young moon. ...
— Angelot - A Story of the First Empire • Eleanor Price
... relieved the Cantonese at the wheel. O'Keefe and I drew chairs up to the rail. The brighter stars shone out dimly through a hazy sky; gleams of phosphorescence tipped the crests of the waves and sparkled with an almost angry brilliance as the bow of the Suwarna tossed them aside. O'Keefe pulled contentedly at a cigarette. The glowing spark lighted the keen, boyish face and the blue eyes, now black and brooding under the spell ...
— The Moon Pool • A. Merritt
... sunshine flooding the room shone, with a brilliance which hurt the eyes upon the silver frame of the picture on the dressing-table. Nothing else was there; all the silver-topped pans and jars and bottles had disappeared; even the companion photograph was no longer to be seen; only the face of her one-time friend smiled ...
— A Sheaf of Corn • Mary E. Mann
... like the Kaiser's, which gave him a cockily self-assured appearance. For the rest, he was a rather military-looking person, although his flowing robe partly concealed that; stockily rather than heavily built; and of rather more than middle height. He wore one ring—a sapphire of extraordinary brilliance, of which he was immensely proud. When I noticed it he said at once that it had been given him by ...
— Jimgrim and Allah's Peace • Talbot Mundy
... husband should be bewildered by the curious misunderstanding which had taken place and also permanently grieved by her disloyalty to his respectable ideals was only natural. He was, however, perfectly satisfied with her beauty, her brilliance, and her useful connections. She was admired, she was envied; she was surrounded by splendour and adulation; the days went on rapid, brilliant, uniform, without a glimpse of sincerity or true passion, without ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad
... his heart, and about eleven o'clock he found time to stop at the village haberdasher's and to select a new tie, which he had wrapped and stuffed in his pocket. And which, inspected in broad day later on a country road, gave him uneasy qualms as to its brilliance. ...
— The Breaking Point • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... solicitor. The law was, however, uncongenial, and he had already begun to write. After some journalistic work, he brought himself into general notice by the publication, in 1827, of his first novel, Vivian Grey, which created a sensation by its brilliance, audacity, and slightly veiled portraits of living celebrities. After producing a Vindication of the British Constitution, and some political pamphlets, he followed up his first success by a series of novels, The Young Duke (1831), Contarini Fleming (1832), Alroy ...
— A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature • John W. Cousin
... to strap on her snowshoes. There was a fighting brilliance in his eyes and a strange look of hurry about him that had its effect on Joan. "It's Pierre no longer," said he. "What can you do for him? What can he do for you? Be sensible, child. Come. Don't waste time. There will be ...
— The Branding Iron • Katharine Newlin Burt
... plays cannot be written in which all the characters are star parts, drama is a poor sort of stuff of no great interest. In his calling, of course, all are stars, though, perhaps, he would hardly admit that all are of equal brilliance; and one fancies that he regards as inacceptable any entertainment during which part of the stage is occupied by persons receiving no greater salary than that of ...
— Our Stage and Its Critics • "E.F.S." of "The Westminster Gazette"
... inactive, over-prudent; if vice, on the other hand, is conceived as easy, brilliant, gay, gallantly reckless, in opposition to the too ethereal or merely stupid and prosaic aspects of life (though in reality seldom do the dissipated and those who prey on the vices of mankind possess any brilliance or originality), then beauty and virtue will aid vice, through the stimulus of contradiction it will provide. Vice will gain by the brilliance, wit and beauty, which the artists and creators of the world ought to be induced, were the world's cause properly cared for, ...
— Women's Wild Oats - Essays on the Re-fixing of Moral Standards • C. Gasquoine Hartley
... they mentioned it to the King, who in turn spoke of it to the Marquis of Coat-Squiriou. The Marquis asked N'Oun Doare the meaning of the light, and the youth replied that it came from the ancient sword they had bought at Morlaix, which was an enchanted weapon and shone at intervals with strange brilliance. But one night his enemies resolved to examine into the matter more closely, and, looking through the keyhole of the stable, they saw that the wondrous light which had so puzzled them shone from a magnificent crown of gold. They ran at once to tell the King, and next night N'Oun Doare's stable was ...
— Legends & Romances of Brittany • Lewis Spence
... delayed them some hours, but when the girls awoke, late the next morning, there was not a vestige of it left, save an extra brilliance in the clear air, while the engines were pounding away in a brave effort to bring them into Lisbon by the schedule. As noon approached, and the pale tan of the coast line grew upon them, all was animation ...
— All Aboard - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... Their clothing took on the soberer colors and weather-worn aspect of the life itself which was no sunny boulevard affair, but an enduring of wet trenches and slimy roads. Those people in Paris needed that high key to send them out, and the early brilliance lifted them to a level which was able ...
— Golden Lads • Arthur Gleason and Helen Hayes Gleason
... distance, telling him that the motor-car had almost, if not quite, reached the river. Such a vehicle could not disappear and leave no trace; it ought to be easy to find. Ahead of him flaring lights alternated with the steady, piercing brilliance of the incandescents, and both struggled ...
— The Stolen Singer • Martha Idell Fletcher Bellinger
... away by herself to a distant part of the room and turned over photographs, with what seemed to Mrs. Friend a stormy hand. And as she did so, everyone in the room was aware of her, of the brilliance and power of the girl's beauty, and of the energy that like an aura seemed to envelop her personality. Lady Cynthia made several attempts to capture her, but in vain. Helena would only answer in monosyllables, ...
— Helena • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... me?" said Betty. The brilliance in her eyes which had been so remarkable a few minutes ago had now faded; her cheeks looked pale; her small face ...
— Betty Vivian - A Story of Haddo Court School • L. T. Meade
... one of pure admiration. In his mind Sanchia Murray had risen to undreamed of heights—heights of impudence, but none the less daring. He could see the coup in all of its brilliance. But not so Howard. ...
— The Desert Valley • Jackson Gregory
... goose-berry—yet it bubbled and frothed gaily. Besides, there were great sweeping tunes—such as the hackneyed prayer—and plenty of really dainty, if very Weberesque, melodies. All that Meyerbeer had to teach was there, and the stolid Dresdener gazed with delight on the brilliance of the latest Parisian musical fashions. So Wagner gained his first success, and deserved it. It was not the Paris success he had dreamed of a few years before, when fame, money and all worldly things desirable were to ...
— Wagner • John F. Runciman
... conflicts, that all Roman burgesses were equal in the eye of the law as respected rights and duties, and the opening up of a political career (or in other words, of admission to the senate) to every one, which was the result of that principle, concurred with the brilliance of military and political successes in preserving the harmony of the state and of the nation, and relieved the distinction of classes from that bitterness and malignity which marked the struggle of the patricians and plebeians. ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... steady and universal enthusiasm for education, which throughout the subsequent generations of political stagnation has always opened to individual Greeks commercial and professional careers of the greatest brilliance, and often led them to spend the fortunes so acquired in endowing the nation with further educational opportunities. Public spirit is a Greek virtue. There are few villages which do not possess monuments of their successful sons, and ...
— The Balkans - A History Of Bulgaria—Serbia—Greece—Rumania—Turkey • Nevill Forbes, Arnold J. Toynbee, D. Mitrany, D.G. Hogarth |
