"Brilliancy" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and to see which the theatre-going public puts up its good coin to enjoy. Why, bless my soul, Mr. Handy, there's hardly a show on the road to-day that don't lay its managers liable to arraignment for obtaining money under false pretenses by the brilliancy of the printing and the stupidity ...
— A Pirate of Parts • Richard Neville
... side. The cavern widened here considerably, the sea forming a little lake. But the roof, the side walls, the end cliff, all the prisms, all the peaks, were flooded with the electric fluid, so that the brilliancy belonged to them, and as if the light issued ...
— The Mysterious Island • Jules Verne
... Though his brilliancy might be discounted, Pevensey was one of the most looked-up-to, and certainly the best-liked man on the staff. He was entirely unassuming for one thing; and though he had the reputation of leading rather ...
— Two on the Trail - A Story of the Far Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... heard other women say: a little child claims its mother's whole attention. Oh, how empty, colourless those days had been in which she had only existed. It was only now that there was meaning, warmth, brilliancy in her life. ...
— The Son of His Mother • Clara Viebig
... another for my latitude at noon, about which time I became aware that the barometer was falling, although not rapidly enough to give cause for any uneasiness. As the afternoon wore on, however, there were indications that a change of weather was impending. The sky lost the pure brilliancy of its blue, and by insensible degrees assumed an ashen pallor, which the sun vainly struggled to pierce until he merged from a palpitating, rayless ball of light to a shapeless blotch of dim, watery ...
— The Log of a Privateersman • Harry Collingwood
... might be inwardly chagrined, deemed it prudent to join in the laugh against himself; they adjourned to the mansion-house, and spent the evening in a manner easily to be conceived by those who are in the least acquainted with the brilliancy of their powers. ...
— Irish Wit and Humor - Anecdote Biography of Swift, Curran, O'Leary and O'Connell • Anonymous
... which the Short-story requires. In the acute and learned essay on vers de societe which Mr. Frederick Locker prefixed to his admirable "Lyra Elegantiarum," he declared that the two characteristics of the best vers de societe were brevity and brilliancy, and that "The Rape of the Lock" would be the type and model of the best vers de societe—if it were not just a little too long. So it is with "The Case of Mr. Lucraft," with "Vice Versa," with "Called Back:" they are just a little ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, October 1885 • Various
... taken up by her uncle. As Perrowne was compelled to be civil to Mrs. Carruthers, while Mr. Nash entertained the lawyer, an opportunity was afforded the schoolmaster of improving his acquaintance with Miss Du Plessis, of which he took joyful advantage, feeling that in so doing with all brilliancy he was planting thorns in the breasts of two innocent beings, whom he inwardly characterized as a clerical puppy and an ungrateful, perfidious, slanderous worm. Neither the puppy nor the worm were happy, ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell
... he looked around; the night was fair and not a sign of trouble could be detected in atmosphere or sky, for the heavenly monitors shone overhead with their usual brilliancy, and there was not much of a tang in ...
— Canoe Mates in Canada - Three Boys Afloat on the Saskatchewan • St. George Rathborne
... and forms, are to be done with ivory black or lamp black, prepared with gum water; as there is no pigment so opaque, and capable of giving strength and decision. When the drawing is finished, and every part has got its depth of colour and brilliancy, being perfectly dry, touch very carefully with spirits of turpentine, on both sides, those parts which are to be the brightest, such as the moon and fire; and those parts requiring less brightness, only on one side. Then lay on immediately ...
— The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, • Mary Eaton
... marked. Each possessed the same indomitable jaw, the same square brow and compelling eyes, the same grim prominence of chin; but there all likeness ended. In Barnabas the high carriage of the head, the soft brilliancy of the full, well-opened gray eye, the curve of the sensitive nostrils, the sweet set of the firm, shapely mouth—all were the heritage of that mother who was to him but a vague memory. But now while John Barty frowned upon his son, Barnabas frowned ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al
... the reason being that about one fifth is utterly unfit for translation; and the most sanguine orientalist would not dare to render literally more than three quarters of the remainder. Consequently, the reader loses the contrast,— the very essence of the book,—between its brilliancy and dulness, its moral putrefaction, and ...
— First footsteps in East Africa • Richard F. Burton
... of emeralds, interspersed with glowing opals, a fourth added a girdle of golden chain braced at every link by close and richly cut garnets, and other rings of sapphire and amethysts, until the lovely stranger was dazzling with the combined brilliancy and reflection of so many rare and ...
— The Circassian Slave; or, The Sultan's Favorite - A Story of Constantinople and the Caucasus • Lieutenant Maturin Murray
... went on she sang louder and with increased fervor. Her breast heaved with emotion, her eyes shone with unusual brilliancy; but when the hymn was finished she lowered her head, tears began to fall over her cheeks, until at last she sobbed aloud. She might have remained long in this condition, had not some one come behind her, saying, "Do not cry, ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. I, No. 6 - Of Literature, Art, And Science, New York, August 5, 1850 • Various
... thousands, above the surface of the sun, he instantly identified the characteristic red and blue radiations of hydrogen. In the yellow, close to the position of the well-known double line of sodium, but not quite coincident with it, he detected a new line, of great brilliancy, extending to the highest levels. Its similarity in this respect with the lines of hydrogen led him to recognize the existence of a new and very light gas, unknown to ...
— The New Heavens • George Ellery Hale
... Daily Morning Post of October 18, 1854, sneered at the new plan as follows: "If Dr. Delany drafted this report it certainly does him much credit for learning and ability; and can not fail to establish for him a reputation for vigor and brilliancy of imagination never yet surpassed. It is a vast conception of impossible birth. The Committee seem to have entirely overlooked the strength of the 'powers on earth' that would oppose the Africanization of more than half the Western Hemisphere. We have no motive ...
— A Social History of the American Negro • Benjamin Brawley
... after these occurrences, Mme. de Longueville was stricken with smallpox which, fortunately, did not impair her beauty; it was said, on the contrary, that in taking away its first flower it left all the brilliancy which, joined to her culture and charming languor, made her one of the most attractive persons in France. La Rochefoucauld has left the following picture of her: "This princess had all the advantages of esprit and beauty to as great a degree as if nature had taken pleasure in completing, ...
— Women of Modern France - Woman In All Ages And In All Countries • Hugo P. Thieme
... seen.[FN120] Then lo and behold! the old trot called to her daughter who came forth from the bower wherein she was, and the Caliph looking at this young lady owned that he had never sighted amongst his women aught fairer than this, a model of beauty and loveliness and brilliancy and perfect face and stature of symmetric grace. Her eyes were black and their sleepy lids and lashes were kohl'd with Babylonian witchery, and her eyebrows were as bows ready to shoot the shafts of her killing glances, and ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... prostrate man burst forth. "I said a little, Jarvis! You drown my optic nerves in ink and, without a moment's warning, flood them with the glaring brilliancy of the noonday sun!" Jarvis half-drew the curtain. "Ah, that's better. Never more than an inch at a time, Jarvis. How many times have I told you that? Never give me a shock like that again; never more than an inch of light at a time. Frantic fiends! From cimmerian, ...
— No Clue - A Mystery Story • James Hay
... with the brightest and the warmest glow of any of the metals, and its brilliancy and lustre are not tarnished by corrosion. To the Oriental fancy it typified the genial light of day. To the fire-worshipper it was a fit emblem of his faith. Fire was originally sacred, perhaps, only ...
— The New England Magazine Volume 1, No. 6, June, 1886, Bay State Monthly Volume 4, No. 6, June, 1886 • Various
... great shipyard,—and the tide whispering on wet sands at his feet, the birds twittering among the budding alders. And far as his eyes could reach along the coast there lifted enormous, saw-toothed mountains. They stood out against a sapphire sky with extraordinary vividness, with remarkable brilliancy of color, with an ...
— The Hidden Places • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... the small, ugly chapel down beyant near Ballybrosna. Some people, it is true, said that she was "just a fairy of a crathur, and too little for anythin'," and she was, no doubt, diminutive in size. Nor had she any brilliancy of colouring to make amends in a humming-bird's fashion for the insignificance of her proportions, resembling rather, with her dark eyes and hair, one of those filmy white blossoms which look the paler ...
— Strangers at Lisconnel • Barlow Jane
... as will be shown, strangely fulfilled, were so mixed up with the rolling of the thunder that Henry could scarcely distinguish one sound from the other. At the close of the latter speech a flash of lightning of such dazzling brilliancy shot down past him, that he remained for some moments almost blinded; and when he recovered his powers of vision the ...
— Windsor Castle • William Harrison Ainsworth
... crops to be as fine as any he had ever seen. Of this matter a Cockney cannot judge accurately, but any man can see with what extraordinary neatness and care all these little plots of ground are tilled, and admire the richness and brilliancy of the vegetation. Outside of the moat of Antwerp, and at every village by which we passed, it was pleasant to see the happy congregations of well-clad people that basked in the evening sunshine, and soberly smoked ...
— Little Travels and Roadside Sketches • William Makepeace Thackeray
... world indifferently and fearlessly. She looked bold and resourceful and unscrupulous, and she was all of these. They were handsome girls, had the fresh color of their country up-bringing, and in their eyes that brilliancy which is called,—by no metaphor, alas!—"the light ...
— My Antonia • Willa Sibert Cather
... so near him,—her voice so close to his ear,—how could he answer her? His heart awoke, and beat and drove the tingling blood tumultuously forth to the remotest veins. She saw the flush, and caught the passionate brilliancy of his eyes. Happy and afraid, she drew ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne
... solemn, sad, sweet mystery That Earth's unrivaled brilliancy Is but her splendid pall! That Heaven were not what it is But for that crown of tragedies, The ...
— Poems - Vol. IV • Hattie Howard
... twelve persons, decored (according to his own favourite terms) with napery as white as snow, grand flagons of pewter, intermixed with one or two silver cups, containing, as was probable, something worthy the brilliancy of their outward appearance, clean trenchers, cutty spoons, knives and forks, sharp, burnished, and prompt for action, which lay all displayed as ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott
... removing the covering, started as suddenly as if a blow had been dealt her, for there was the tortoise-shell box, with its blue satin lining, and its diamonds, which seemed to her like so many sparks of fire flashing in her eyes and dazzling her with their brilliancy. ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes
... which has a drop of clammy fluid at its tip, making the whole appear as if spangled over with small diamonds. I noticed it first in the morning, and imagined the appearance was caused by the sun shining on drops of dew; but, as it continued to maintain its brilliancy during the heat of the day, I proceeded to investigate the cause of its beauty, and found that the points of the hairs exuded pure liquid, in, apparently, capsules of clear, glutinous matter. They were thus like dewdrops preserved from evaporation. The clammy fluid is intended to entrap insects, ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... Randolph was a performer who just once exceeded his promise, and then could never get back to it. That was his tragedy. Strange how, when he lost his following, his brilliancy ...
— Angels & Ministers • Laurence Housman
... the fine bridge, hoping to meet a breeze. The shallow river was like glass, so transparent, that every pebble seemed clearly defined at the bottom. Sunset made the sky one sheet of ruby colour, and the stars, rising in great splendour, shone with dazzling brilliancy; the deep purple of the glowing night which succeeded was like sapphire, every building, every tower, every hill, was mirrored in the waters, and the spires of every church threw their delicate lines ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... that higher life there opens before him a splendid vista of opportunities both for acquiring fresh knowledge and for doing useful work; that life away from this dense body has a vividness and a brilliancy to which all earthly enjoyment is as nothing; and so through his clear knowledge and calm confidence the power of the endless life shines out upon ...
— A Textbook of Theosophy • C.W. Leadbeater
... unmethodic guessing to be a philosophy very seriously. To 'give and receive argument' appears to me to be of the very essence of Philosophy. As for M. Bergson, I yield to no one in admiration for his brilliancy as a stylist and the happiness of many of his illustrations. But I have always found it difficult to grasp his central idea—if he really has one—because his whole doctrine has always seemed to me to be based upon a couple ...
— Recent Developments in European Thought • Various
... August, 1914, is to be thoroughly understood, it is necessary to pick up threads of Chino-Japanese relations from a good many years back. First-hand familiarity with the actors and the scenes of at least three decades is essential to give the picture the completeness, the brilliancy of colouring, and withal the suggestiveness inseparable from all true works of art. For the Chino-Japanese question is primarily a work of art and not merely a piece of jejune diplomacy stretched across the years. As the shuttle of Fate has been cast swiftly ...
— The Fight For The Republic In China • B.L. Putnam Weale
... awful dreams; yet, strange to say, I awoke in the morning refreshed and fearless. The sun was shining through the chinks in my shutters, which had been closed because of the storm, and was making streaks and bands of golden brilliancy upon the wall. I had dressed and completed my preparations long before I heard the steps of the servant who came to ...
— The Portent & Other Stories • George MacDonald
... recrossing, went on unaffected by outward things. A modern poet has confessed that his muse loves the pavement—a bold confession, but most certainly true. Why does talent gravitate to cities? Because there it works its best—because friction necessarily produces brilliancy. Nature is a great deceiver; she draws us on to admire her insinuating charms, and in the contemplation of them ...
— The Slave Of The Lamp • Henry Seton Merriman
... Yet in later times the court has changed; "the Emperor keeps singularly aloof from society; the splendid court-days are no more; the families are withdrawing into coteries; the beauties of former years have lost much of their brilliancy, and a new generation equal to them has not ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... voice used to possess, and when he had fetched the music and taken it to the piano for her, he was not a little surprised to see her select Ambroise Thomas's "Io son Titania." And he was still more astonished when he found her singing this difficult piece of music with a brilliancy, an ease, a verve of execution that he had never dreamed of her being able ...
— Prince Fortunatus • William Black
... and shone over the lake with great brilliancy; the air was cool and refreshing after the great heat of the day; and the chirp of the snipe and whistling sound of the wild fowl on the lake were the only noises that disturbed the wild scene around. The tent fires were blazing ...
— The Rifle and The Hound in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker
... adventure in his famous barrel on Encisco's ship as a reckless, improvident, roisterous, careless, hare-brained scapegrace. Responsibility and opportunity had sobered and elevated him. While he had lost none of his dash and daring and brilliancy, yet he had become a wise, a prudent and a most successful captain. Judged by the high standard of the modern times, Balboa was {35} cruel and ruthless enough to merit our severe condemnation. Judged by his environments and contrasted with any other of the Spanish conquistadores ...
— South American Fights and Fighters - And Other Tales of Adventure • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... old violinist smiled, it was as though he had surprised my secret of dissatisfaction, and found it, like the malice of the world, too ignorant to resent. The edge of his old, passionate adoration had remained bright and keen through the years; and it imparted a strange brilliancy to his eyes, which half convinced me, as presently, with a resumption of his usual air of diffident courtesy, he ushered me out into the vague, spring dawn. And yet, when I had parted from him and was making my way somewhat ...
— The Poems And Prose Of Ernest Dowson • Ernest Dowson et al
... that Gregory had, at least, made no great success of farming; but that occupation, as practiced on the prairie, demands a great deal more than quickness and what some call brilliancy from the man who undertakes it. He must, as they say out there, possess the capacity for staying with it—the grim courage to hold fast the tighter under each crushing blow, when the grain shrivels ...
— Masters of the Wheat-Lands • Harold Bindloss
... long been familiar with his rendering of the part of Romeo, gained as much as I lost, by his taking that of Mercutio, which has never since been so admirably represented, and I dare affirm will never be given more perfectly. The graceful ease, and airy sparkling brilliancy of his delivery of the witty fancies of that merry gentleman, the gallant defiance of his bearing toward the enemies of his house, and his heroically pathetic and humorous death-scene, were beyond description charming. He was one of the best Romeos, and incomparably ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... the opinion of the learned editor of the Catalogue of the Royal Irish Academy, that "the variegated and glowing colours, as well as the gorgeous decorations of the different articles of dress enumerated in the Book of Rights, added to the brilliancy of the arms, must have rendered the Irish costume of the eighth and ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack
... to others, because they spoke on subjects which interested her more; and because they drew out her brother, of whom she was very fond. Her being capable, at so early an age, to appreciate Russell's character and talents; her preferring his solid sense and his plain sincerity to the brilliancy, the fashion, and even the gallantry of all the men whom her father had now collected round her, appeared to Vivian the most unequivocal proof of the superiority of her understanding and of the goodness of her disposition. ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. V - Tales of a Fashionable Life • Maria Edgeworth
... are mainly those that act locally—blows with whips, clubs, and twigs, the presence of foreign bodies, like hayseed, chaff, dust, lime, sand, snuff, pollen of plants, flies attracted by the brilliancy of the eye, wounds of the bridle, the migration of the scabies (mange) insect into the eye, smoke, ammonia arising from the excretions, irritant emanations from drying marshes, etc. Road dust containing infecting microbes is a common factor. A very dry air is alleged to act ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture
... The fluffy flounces of her dancing skirt lay on the ground beside her and the make-up was still on her face. At this close range it gave her eyes a curiously beautiful appearance—the heavy lashes, the dark-smudged shadows, adding to their size and brilliancy. She did not come forward to greet the two men, but she lifted those strange eyes and returned Dick's glance with a stare in which defiance and a rather hurt self-consciousness were ...
— To Love • Margaret Peterson
... Pope, a Spanish friendship ripened into a speedy marriage. Frederick was declared of age when he reached his fourteenth birthday, and a few months after, on the fifteenth of August, 1209, amid great rejoicings which filled Palermo with brilliancy and crowded its narrow and crooked streets with a glittering throng, the "Boy of Apulia," as he was called, was married to the wise and beautiful Constance, the daughter of Alfonso, King of Arragon. This alliance ...
— Historic Boys - Their Endeavours, Their Achievements, and Their Times • Elbridge Streeter Brooks
... dearest to her. At another time there was a buoyancy, animation, vividness, in her look which made her black clothes seem incongruous in any other sense than that in which a dark setting is sometimes used to throw into relief the brilliancy of a jewel. ...
— A Manifest Destiny • Julia Magruder
... informed that, in the year 1128, he, while out hunting in the royal forest near Edwinsburg, was miraculously delivered from a stag at bay by the interposition of an arm, wreathed in smoke, brandishing a cross of the most dazzling brilliancy. At the sight of it the stag fled. The cross remained as a celestial relic in the royal hand. In consideration of this deliverance, strengthened by a vision, the foundations of Holyrood were laid. The same ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... portion of this pulp on our hands and faces, it became, after drying, a most beautiful and delicate rose colour, which required several times washing with soap and water before it could be removed, and which, if allowed to remain without washing, would retain its brilliancy for a comparatively long time. Mr. Cowen professed his intention of preparing a quantity of this dye, to send to his fair ...
— A Voyage Round the World, Vol. I (of ?) • James Holman
... moon was at its full, and for the last time, as it might be, the slave gazed upon the glowing orb shining in the deep blue sky, with a brilliancy unknown in these northern climes. But it recalled many a happy moonlit night in the olden times to his mind; in the chase, or on the terrace at Kenilworth; and that night when, all alone, ...
— The House of Walderne - A Tale of the Cloister and the Forest in the Days of the Barons' Wars • A. D. Crake
... small dull-looking house; and when late on dark nights all the other houses on Clay Street were black blockings lifting from the lesser blackness of their background, the lights in this house patterned its windows with squares of brilliancy so that it suggested a grid set on edge before hot flames. Once a newcomer to the town, a transient guest at Mrs. Otterbuck's boarding house, spoke about it to old Squire Jonas, who lived next door to where the lights blazed of nights, and the answer he got makes a fitting ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... its narrow imprisonment of the sense, it must have been a relief to turn to the amplitude of Spencer's stanza, "the full strong sail of his great verse." To a generation surfeited with Pope's rhetorical devices—antithesis, climax, anticlimax—and fatigued with the unrelaxing brilliancy and compression of his language; the escape from epigrams and point (snap after snap, like a pack of fire-crackers), from a style which has made his every other line a proverb or current quotation—the escape from all ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... the tame animal is not so long as that of the wild one. Their appearance I have already described. I shall never forget that night among the Andes,— how the stars of the southern hemisphere came out, and shone with a brilliancy I had never before seen in that purest of pure atmospheres, among those grand old mountains. For a long time I could not go to sleep: at last I did, and it seemed but a moment afterwards that Terry aroused me to go with Tom and the ...
— A Voyage round the World - A book for boys • W.H.G. Kingston
... various degrees of vitality (white, yellow, crimson, vermilion, cinnabar): their degrees of brilliancy: their magnitudes revealed up to and including the 7th: their positions: the waggoner's star: Walsingham way: the chariot of David: the annular cinctures of Saturn: the condensation of spiral nebulae into suns: the interdependent gyrations of double suns: the independent ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... only for a short time. His door during this illness was besieged by all the Court. The King sent to inquire after him, but it was more for appearance' sake than from sympathy, for I have already remarked that the King did not like him. The brilliancy of his campaigns, and the difficulty of replacing him, caused all the disquietude. Becoming worse, M. de Luxembourg received the sacraments, showed some religion and firmness, and died on the morning of the 4th of January, 1695, the fifth day of his illness, much regretted ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... known as a citizen of wealth, of retired habits, but of influence in public affairs, and retaining to the full the conversational gifts which have made him the life and charm of social and professional circles. Indeed it may be said that either at the Bar, in well remembered efforts of marked brilliancy as an advocate, or on the Bench, occasionally illuminating the soberness of judicial proceedings, or in assemblies on prominent public occasions occurring all through his life, eloquence, wit and humor seemed ready to his use. A fine belle lettres scholar, ...
— Cleveland Past and Present - Its Representative Men, etc. • Maurice Joblin
... one tell what magic it is that is in these concluding lines, so that they even eclipse the rhetorical brilliancy of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 77, March, 1864 • Various
... moment a fruit-seller occupied a tiny shop, squeezed tightly between a church and a restaurant. The interior was dark enough, for a couple of flaring naphtha lamps were so disposed as to cast their flickering brilliancy over the baskets of fruits and vegetables displayed in the window or ...
— The Albert Gate Mystery - Being Further Adventures of Reginald Brett, Barrister Detective • Louis Tracy
... John Spencer Curwen. Rev. John Curwen. Time a mental science. Musical perception of the blind. Music in public schools. Phillips Brooks on school song. Compulsory study. Socrates. Mirabeau. Schumann on brilliancy. Unrighteous mammon of technique. Soul of music. Neglect of ensemble work. As to accompaniments. Underlying principles. Hearing good music. Going abroad. Wagner's hero. ...
— For Every Music Lover - A Series of Practical Essays on Music • Aubertine Woodward Moore
... irreproachable with relation to those whose envoy she was. She took no step save in concert with the sagacious ambassador M. Amelot. If the letters she addressed to Madame de Maintenon, and which commence immediately after her departure from Paris, do not reveal her genius in all its vigour and brilliancy, they at any rate allow us to divine it in certain passages, and give us clearly the chief outlines of her character. The natural tone of her mind was serious, positive, somewhat dry at bottom, but frank, deliberate, and bold. Unlike Madame de Maintenon, she had political ideas which she dared not ...
— Political Women, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... Versailles was unspeakable, its stenches unbearable. In spite of its size the Palace was known as the most comfortless house in Europe. After the death of its owner society, in a fit of madness, plunged into the rocaille. When the restlessness of Louis XV could no longer find moorings in this brilliancy, there came into being little houses called folies, garden hermitages for the privileged. Here we find Madame de Pompadour in calicoes, in a wild garden, bare-foot, playing as a milkmaid, or seated in a little ...
— The House in Good Taste • Elsie de Wolfe
... north-eastern extremity of the bay of Cadiz, and passed by Saint Lucar, an ancient town close by where the Guadalquivir disembogues itself. The mist suddenly disappeared, and the sun of Spain burst forth in full brilliancy, enlivening all around, and particularly myself, who had till then been lying on the deck in a dull melancholy stupor. We entered the mouth of the 'Great River,' for that is the English translation of Qued al Kiber, as the Moors designated the ancient Betis. We came to anchor for ...
— Letters of George Borrow - to the British and Foreign Bible Society • George Borrow
... as the horse that grew gray when Death mounted him; and his eyes shone with a feverous brilliancy. The draper breathed a deep breath, and rubbed his white forehead. The minister rose and began again to pace the room. Drew would have taken his departure, but feared leaving him in such a state. He bethought ...
— Paul Faber, Surgeon • George MacDonald
... ideas were heightened by the brightness of the sky and the serenity of the weather, which was indeed most remarkably pleasing; for though the winter was now advancing apace, yet the morning of this day, in its brilliancy and mildness, gave place to none we had seen since our departure from England. Thus animated by these delusions, we traversed these memorable Straits, ignorant of the dreadful calamities that were then impending, and just ready to ...
— Anson's Voyage Round the World - The Text Reduced • Richard Walter
... and fill around them, biographs, assuming that the script is in rays of light. As differ the stars above in glory, so these differ in the qualities of their illumination. The brightest of them, to mere human seeming, are those which shine with the sheer brilliancy of intellect and genius. These chiefly halo the homes of "the grand old masters" of poetry, painting, eloquence, and martial glory. These attract to their disks pilgrims the most numerous and enthusiastic. But, as the ...
— A Walk from London to John O'Groat's • Elihu Burritt
... equal, and white, glitter between her smiling lips like dewdrops in a passion-flower's half-enveloped breast. Her delicately formed ears, her vermilion hands, her little feet, curved and tender as the lotus-bud, glitter with the brilliancy of the loveliest pearls of Ceylon, the most dazzling diamonds of Golconda. Her narrow and supple waist, which a hand may clasp around, sets forth the outline of her rounded figure and the beauty of her bosom, where youth in its flower displays ...
— Around the World in 80 Days • Jules Verne
... ready wit and beautiful laughter, or glowing-eyed silence. There was a certain tang and savor in the conversation when Leslie was present which they missed when she was absent. Even when she did not talk she seemed to inspire others to brilliancy. Captain Jim told his stories better, Gilbert was quicker in argument and repartee, Anne felt little gushes and trickles of fancy and imagination bubbling to her lips under the influence ...
— Anne's House of Dreams • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... over together. The 'notes,' of which it was full, showed great brilliancy and facility, an accurate eye, and a very practised hand. They were the notes of a countryman artist newly come to London. The sights, and tones, and distances of London streets—the human beings, the vehicles, the horses—were all freshly seen, as ...
— Fenwick's Career • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... second of the day had ticked itself into the past. In the northland such commands are equal to Jehovah's in the matter of potency; the dum-dum as rapid and effective as the thunderbolt. It was clear and cold. The aurora borealis painted palpitating color revels on the sky. Rosy waves of cold brilliancy swept across the zenith, while great coruscating bars of greenish white blotted out the stars, or a Titan's hand reared mighty arches above the Pole. And at this mighty display the wolf-dogs howled as had their ...
— The God of His Fathers • Jack London
... they bear no heavy crosses, no fierce temptations: these are the shadows which cause their virtues to shine with greater brilliancy; for these temptations are thrust back vigorously, the crosses are borne bravely; they even desire more of them: they are all flame and fire, enthusiasm and love. God uses them to accomplish great things, and it seems as though they only need to desire a thing in order to receive it ...
— Spiritual Torrents • Jeanne Marie Bouvires de la Mot Guyon
... a soldier stood as high if not higher than that of any of his cotemporaries. If Raleigh or Sidney had more military genius, if his old rival, Sir Henry Norris, was a more capable general, the young earl had eclipsed all others in mere dash and brilliancy, and within the last few years had dazzled the eyes of the whole nation by the success of his famous feat in Spain, "The most brilliant exploit," says Lord Macaulay, "achieved by English arms upon the Continent, ...
— The Story Of Ireland • Emily Lawless
... a native French Canadian, born at Quebec in 1645. His exceptional brilliancy while a student at the Jesuits' College attracted the attention of Talon; but at the age of seventeen, the forest proved more alluring than the priesthood, and he became an adventurous fur-trader. His companion, the Pere ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan
... think so, Mary. The stones had all the brilliancy of valuable gems, and then there were others in the finest filagree settings—goldsmith's work which bore the stamp of an Eastern world. Take my word for it, that treasure came from India; and it must have been brought to England by Lord Maulevrier. It may have existed all these years ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... Queen Emma resulted in her daughter being educated as a queen, as the Dutch like their sovereigns. Court life in The Hague or at the Loo certainly lacks neither dignity nor brilliancy, but it lacks showiness, and many an English nobleman lives in a grander style than Holland's Queen. Now, education may bend, but it does not alter a charactcr, and whatever qualifies may have adorned or otherwise influenced the late King, he ...
— Dutch Life in Town and Country • P. M. Hough
... his best compositions on this subject is the universal brilliancy with which they are lighted up. The natural language of the passions is, indeed, often figurative and fantastic; and with none is this more the case than with that of love. Still there is a limit. The feelings should, indeed, have their ornamental garb; but, like an elegant ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Contibutions to Knight's Quarterly Magazine] • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... cried the good soul; 'why, she plays magnificently, Clement. Such a touch, such brilliancy! In my young days it was only concert-players who played like that; but nowadays girls of eighteen and twenty sit down, and dash away at the keys like a professor. I think you'll be charmed with her, Clem'—(I'm afraid I blushed as my mother said this; ...
— Henry Dunbar - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... money. The value of the jewels we found more difficulty in estimating. There were diamonds—some of them exceedingly large and fine—a hundred and ten in all, and not one of them small; eighteen rubies of remarkable brilliancy;—three hundred and ten emeralds, all very beautiful; and twenty-one sapphires, with an opal. These stones had all been broken from their settings and thrown loose in the chest. The settings themselves, which we picked ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... keyboard than they, the Latins, the classicists. His works make one keenly aware of the rhythmical, the formalistic limitations of Chopin's piano pieces, of the steeliness of much of Brahms', of the shallow brilliancy, the theatricality, of Liszt's. They even make us feel at moments as though in them had been realized the definitive pianistic style, that the hour of transition to the new keyboard of quarter tones was nigh. For Scriabine ...
— Musical Portraits - Interpretations of Twenty Modern Composers • Paul Rosenfeld
... they had to traverse, is a dry plain, covered with stunted trees not above ten feet high, and small mimosas, which the Indians call curra-mammel; and JUMES, a bushy shrub, rich in soda. Here and there large spaces were covered with salt, which sparkled in the sunlight with astonishing brilliancy. These might easily have been taken for sheets of ice, had not the intense heat forbidden the illusion; and the contrast these dazzling white sheets presented to the dry, burned-up ground gave the desert ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne
... have to repay them to me necessarily, my child; you can pass them over, as you will be constantly doing, to all these groups of children, day after day. I am a sort of stupid, rich old lady who serves as a source of supply. My chief brilliancy lies in devising original methods of getting rid of my surplus in all sorts of odd and delightful ways, left untried, for the most part, by other people. I 've been buying up splendid old trees in the outskirts of certain New England country towns,—trees that ...
— Polly Oliver's Problem • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... in an article on this subject, in Kitto's Cyclopaedia of Biblical Literature, attributes this view of the divine nature of light, which was entertained by the nations of the East, to the fact that, in that part of the world, light "has a clearness and brilliancy, is accompanied by an intensity of heat, and is followed in its influence by a largeness of good, of which the inhabitants of less genial climates have no conception. Light easily and naturally became, in consequence, with Orientals, a representative of the highest human ...
— The Symbolism of Freemasonry • Albert G. Mackey
... QUANTITY.—Electricity, while it has no weight, is capable of being measured by means of its intensity, or by its quantity. Light may be measured or tested by its brilliancy. If one light is of less intensity than another and both of them receive their impulses from the same source, there must be something which interferes with that light which shows the least brilliancy. Electricity can also be interfered with, ...
— Electricity for Boys • J. S. Zerbe
... from the country, can all the fashion, can all the splendor of real life which these eyes have subsequently beheld, can all the wit I have heard or read in later times, compare with your fashion, with your brilliancy, with your delightful ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... cephalo- thorax is pure white, with the anterior part of a rich green, shading into dark brown; and it is remarkable that these colours are liable to change in the course of a few minutes—the white becoming dirty grey or even black, the green "losing much of its brilliancy." It deserves especial notice that the males do not acquire their bright colours until they become mature. They appear to be much more numerous than the females; they differ also in the larger size of their chelae. In some species of the ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin
... a long rambling structure which had been casually added to from time to time. It was painted a sickly, mustard yellow (a color which, the landlord assured me, would last forever) but it's brilliancy was somewhat toned by a thick coating of dust. A veranda extended across the front of the building flush with the wooden side-walk. The veranda was furnished with a railing, and the railing was furnished at all times of the day—except for ...
— The Four Pools Mystery • Jean Webster
... were of assorted sizes and shapes, displaying pearly teeth when the heads smiled. As for dimples, they appeared in cheeks and chins, wherever they might be most charming, and one or two heads had freckles upon the faces to contrast the better with the brilliancy of ...
— Ozma of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... brilliancy has remained, Princess. Do not think me quite unworthy of taking his place. Grant me the blessed consciousness of having aided you to escape a situation which passes all ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... was full of Hugo and Lamartine. I understood what glory was after having vaguely expected to find it in the roof of the chapel at Treguier. In the course of a short time a very great revelation was borne in upon me. The words talent, brilliancy, and reputation, conveyed a meaning to me. The modest, ideal which my earliest teachers had inculcated faded away; I had embarked upon a sea agitated by all the storms and currents of the age. These currents and gales were bound to drive my vessel towards a coast ...
— Recollections of My Youth • Ernest Renan
... and everything in it. The Very Young Man turned his eyes up to the light high overhead. Its great electric bulbs dazzled him with their brilliancy; its powerful glare made objects around as bright as though in daylight. After a moment the Big Business Man's grip on ...
— The Girl in the Golden Atom • Raymond King Cummings
... equal brilliancy, though less pompous, was presented by the grand torchlight procession which formed one evening in the square of Lourdes, where all were provided with candles. Thirty thousand persons were in this procession. They marched to the grotto of Massabielle and to the church upon the rock, moving ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - April, 1873, Vol. XI, No. 25. • Various
... lined the Ohio as well as the Kentucky shore. Iron cages filled with burning coals were suspended from cranes erected upon flatboats for the purpose of lighting the river, which was most effectually done, the unwonted brilliancy giving to the busy scene a strange weirdness, and making a picture never ...
— Four Months in a Sneak-Box • Nathaniel H. Bishop
... made no difference, we fought like seamen. Clara had fainted, but I still kept my hold of her, when suddenly a ton weight seemed to have fallen on my head; my eyes seemed filled with red-hot sparks of intense brilliancy and heat; the wild scene around vanished from their sight as I sunk down ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... an even thing, a fair field and no favor, when the sudden flash of the headlight of the approaching engine, as it shot around the curve, caused both men to lose their hold and spring from the track. The strong, clear light flooded both with its brilliancy, and in that instant mutual recognition ...
— Jim Cummings • Frank Pinkerton
... attracted the veteran's attention was nothing less than the appearance at the end of the lane of three brilliant luminous discs moving along abreast of one another. They came rapidly nearer, increasing in brilliancy as they approached. Then a voice rang out of the darkness, "There they are, officers! Close with them! Don't let 'em get away!" And before the major and his party could quite grasp the situation they were valiantly charged by ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... atop of his head, the blue jay presents an attractive picture. And, indeed, although I myself feel that the Baltimore oriole, the scarlet tanager, the ruby-throated hummingbird, and many of the wood warblers carry off the palm for brilliancy of plumage, there are persons who declare that the jay is the most handsomely colored bird ...
— Our Bird Comrades • Leander S. (Leander Sylvester) Keyser
... Liebig insisted that all albuminoid bodies were in a state of chemically unstable equilibrium, and if left to themselves would fall to pieces without any need of the action of microscopic organisms. The force of Liebig's authority and the brilliancy of his expositions led to the wide acceptance of his views and the temporary obscurity of the relation of microscopic organisms to fermentative and putrefactive processes. The objections to Liebig's views were hardly noticed, and the force of the experiments of Schwann was silently ignored. ...
— The Story Of Germ Life • H. W. Conn
... fortune to be one of the guests at many very brilliant receptions of much state in some of the very grand and ancient palaces of the different countries of Europe, but at none of them have I seen a greater brilliancy than at the one given in his Mansion by the Gouverneur Faulkner of the State of Harpeth in America. All of that old Mansion, which has the high ceilings and the decorations of a palace, if not quite the size, was adorned with very large masses of a most lovely and handsome ...
— The Daredevil • Maria Thompson Daviess
... of almost equal brilliancy, Mose leaped to the ground with the rope in his hand, and while Kintuck looked on curiously, he began a series of movements which one of Delmar's Mexicans had taught him. With the noose spread wide he kept ...
— The Eagle's Heart • Hamlin Garland
... life, which had only time enough to proclaim the advent of the Lord, and after some brief six months of ministry by the Jordan, followed by twelve months in the gaol, waned here to shine in undimming brilliancy yonder. ...
— John the Baptist • F. B. Meyer
... was especially interested. Goldenrod in such great profusion that it seemed the very sunshine of the skies was imprisoned in flower form, stag-horn sumac with its grape-like clusters of red adding brilliancy to the landscape—everywhere was manifest the dawn of autumnal glory, the splendor that foreruns decay, the beauty that is but the first step in nature's transition from blossom and harvest ...
— Patchwork - A Story of 'The Plain People' • Anna Balmer Myers
... up a rivalry between brain and heart. Men are coming to idolize intellect. Brilliancy is placed before goodness and intellectual dexterity above fidelity. Intellect walks the earth a crowned king, while affection and sentiment toil as bond slaves. Doubtless our scholars, with the natural bias for their own class, are largely responsible for this worship ...
— The Investment of Influence - A Study of Social Sympathy and Service • Newell Dwight Hillis
... is no cure for it.—2ndly. A greater intensity in negatives will be produced without the nitric acid, but with an addition of more acetic acid the picture is more brown and never so agreeable as a positive. 3rd. The protonitrate of iron used pure produces a picture as delicate, and having all the brilliancy of a Daguerreotype, without its unpleasant metallic reflexion—the fine metal being deposited of a dead white; and combined with the pyrogallic acid solution in the proportion of one part to six or ten, produces pictures of a most agreeable ivory-like colour.—4th. The protonitrate of iron, when ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 180, April 9, 1853 • Various
... him that his young daughter, pious and simple and destitute even of that seasoning of vanity which is so good and necessary a thing in a woman, but proud at heart like all her race, would derive no compensation from the outward brilliancy of the Imperial Court for the absence of domestic joy which would be her wedded lot unless a surprising change came over the bridegroom. When, however, he was persuaded of the importance, or rather, of the essential character of the concession, he said ...
— The Liberation of Italy • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... us some cups of coffee, which we drank while our horses were being got ready, and in less than five minutes we had mounted. The storm had passed away, and innumerable stars shone out in the blue sky with wonderful brilliancy. We were obliged, however, to walk our horses, as it was with difficulty we could in many places see the road. Our last day's journey had been over ground of a considerable elevation, and we were ...
— In New Granada - Heroes and Patriots • W.H.G. Kingston
... carried out her ideas religiously. "You are right, mon ami," said he to Brent. "She is an orchid, and of a rare species. She has a glorious imagination, like a bird of paradise balancing itself into an azure sky, with every plume raining color and brilliancy." ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... past seventy, thrilling and gripping audiences with the fire and brilliancy of youth, is inspiring. No obstacle can daunt her. Losing a leg does not end her acting, for she remains the "Divine Sarah" with no crippling of her work. She looks younger than many women of half her years. "The years are nothing ...
— The University of Hard Knocks • Ralph Parlette
... from yawing about this way and that to dodge it, and if he encounters three or four of them growing together, he will jump over them or do anything rather than walk through. A kind of white wax, which burns with very great brilliancy, exudes from the leaf. There are two ways in which spaniard may be converted to some little use. The first is in kindling a fire to burn a run: a dead flower-stalk serves as a torch, and you can touch tussock after tussock literally [Greek ...
— A First Year in Canterbury Settlement • Samuel Butler
... discourse at the West Church on the 30th of January, 1750. The topics relating to "non-resistance to the higher powers," which Macaulay treats with such wealth of statement, argument, and illustration, in his "History of England," are in this sermon discussed with equal earnestness, energy, brilliancy, fulness, and independence of thought. If all political sermons were characterized by the rare mental and moral qualities which distinguish Jonathan Mayhew's, there can be little doubt that our politicians and statesmen ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 43, May, 1861 • Various
... say. The brilliancy of Saronia dazzles, shall I say, unhinges the mind of Varro? Remember, do not forget, thou admirest a woman who was once ...
— Saronia - A Romance of Ancient Ephesus • Richard Short
... were but poor tenements, with humble courtyards and gardens; but every fig-tree was gilded and bright, as if it were in an Hesperian orchard; the palms, planted here and there, rose with a sort of halo of light round about them; the creepers on the walls quite dazzled with the brilliancy of their flowers and leaves; the people lay in the cool shadows, happy and idle, with handsome solemn faces; nobody seemed to be at work; they only talked a very little, as if idleness and silence ...
— Notes on a Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo • William Makepeace Thackeray
... know,' said Marie, who could not at once find that brilliancy of words with which her imagination supplied her readily enough ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope
... rattle and roll almost immediately above our heads, as if the overhanging black vault was about to burst open every moment; while dazzling forked flashes of bluish lightning zigzagged across the horizon from the zenith, first blinding our eyes with its brilliancy for a second and then making the darkness all around the darker as the vivid glare vanished and the accompanying thunderbolt sank into the sea—providentially far off to leeward, where the full force of the tropical storm was spent, and not near ...
— Afloat at Last - A Sailor Boy's Log of his Life at Sea • John Conroy Hutcheson
... a man of great comprehension, skilful in his profession, versed in the sciences, acquainted with ancient literature, and able to animate his mass of knowledge by a bright and active imagination; a scholar with great brilliancy of wit; a wit, who, in the crowd of life, retained and discovered a noble ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson
... abruptly invited, fixed itself on the effigies of a youth eminently handsome, and of that kind of beauty which, without being effeminate, approaches to the fineness and brilliancy of the female countenance,—a beauty which renders its possessor inconveniently conspicuous, and too often, by winning that ready admiration which it costs no effort to obtain, withdraws the desire of applause from successes to be achieved by labour, and hardens ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... thought I, a vulgar thing, When lording over WISDOM'S ancient reign? What may avail the brilliancy of spring If autumn yields no hoards of garnered grain? Experience is the daughter of old Time, Mother of Wisdom, last and noblest born, Who comes as Faith to help our waning prime, To cheer the night of ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume XXIV. • Revised by Alexander Leighton
... steal sometimes over the rarest, finest of women's faces,—in the very midst, it may be, of their warmest summer's day; and then one can guess at the secret of intolerable solitude that lies hid beneath the delicate laces and brilliant smile. There was no warmth, no brilliancy, no summer for this woman; so the stupor and vacancy had time to gnaw into her face perpetually. She was young, too, though no one guessed it; so the gnawing ...
— Life in the Iron-Mills • Rebecca Harding Davis
... outside Radbourn took his arm and they walked on up the street in silence for some distance. It was still, and clear, and frosty, and the stars burned overhead with many-colored brilliancy. ...
— A Spoil of Office - A Story of the Modern West • Hamlin Garland
... our language. I was curious to see the effect to be produced by a close juxtaposition of these two exquisite specimens of the soul's light; of the revealment of its original genius; of the intense brilliancy of its Truth, falling as it does in one ray upon two objects so diverse in their character as the virgin love of the retired and comparatively humble but devoted Helena, and the married constancy of the Father ...
— Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, March 1844 - Volume 23, Number 3 • Various
... to draw back her arm and give me a severe slap in the face with her open hand. I confess this rather took me by surprise, and, as the common saying is, made the fire fly out of my eyes in tremendous sparkling brilliancy, but, collecting my best judgment, I caught her by the arms near her shoulders and wheeled her to the right about, moved her forward to the door, and said, 'Gentlemen, please open the door; the devil in this Universalist ...
— Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made • James D. McCabe, Jr.
... cup was empty, a wonderful thing happened. The helmet suddenly burst with a loud noise, and fell in pieces on the ground; and as they all turned to look they found the floor covered with precious stones which had fallen out of it. But the guests were less astonished at the brilliancy of the diamonds than at the beauty of the bride, which was beyond anything they had ever seen or heard of. The night was passed in singing and dancing, and then the bride and bridegroom went to their own house, where they lived till they died, and had many children, who were famous ...
— The Violet Fairy Book • Various
... white from head to foot, their drapery veiling them closely, leaving holes for their eyes. These had just returned from Mecca. The picturesqueness of the drive home was much heightened by the darkness, and the brilliancy of the fires underneath the Malay houses. The great gray buffalo which they use for various purposes—and which, though I have written gray, is as often pink—has a very thin and sensitive skin, and is almost maddened by mosquitoes; and we frequently passed fires lighted ...
— The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs. Bishop)
... presence and she came, whereupon he bade her raise her face-veil; and, when she did his bidding, the Prince considered her and was amazed and perplexed at her beauty and loveliness, he never having seen aught that rivalled her in brightness and brilliancy. So quoth he in his mind, "Would to Heaven I could win a damsel like this, albeit this one be to me unlawful." Thinking thus he drew forth the mirror from his pouch and considered her image carefully ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... Hauteville was twenty-two years old, and had been a widow for three years. She was one of the prettiest women in Paris; her large dark eyes shone with remarkable brilliancy, and she united the sparkling vivacity of an Italian and the depth of feeling of a Spaniard to the grace which always distinguishes a Parisian born and bred. Considering herself too young to be entirely alone, she had long ago invited M. d'Ablaincourt, an ...
— International Short Stories: French • Various
... was seen to take place, and sweep like a drifting cloud over a portion of the solar surface. This was attended by magnetic disturbances of unusual intensity and with exhibitions of aurora of extraordinary brilliancy. The identical instant at which the effusion of light was observed was recorded by an abrupt and strongly marked deflection in the self-registering instruments ...
— The Certainty of a Future Life in Mars • L. P. Gratacap
... still see the rays of the sun, though feebly; to their intense brilliancy had succeeded a reddish twilight, the lowest state between day and night; but we could still see well enough; it was not necessary to resort to the Ruhmkorff apparatus as yet. At this moment Captain Nemo stopped; he waited till I joined him, and then pointed to an obscure mass, looming in ...
— Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea • Jules Verne
... public for a weekly issue of moral and philosophical essays, under the name of a periodical, than it would be found easy to secure at present, when even a monthly discourse upon things in general requires Mr. Euskin's brilliancy of eloquence, vivacity of humour, and perpetual charm of unexpectedness to carry it off. Still the Spectator continued to be read in Coleridge's day, and people therefore must have had before them a perpetual ...
— English Men of Letters: Coleridge • H. D. Traill
... which, according to its place, is compared to a drop of ambergris upon a dish of alabaster or upon the surface of a ruby. The eyes of the Arab beauty are intensely black,[132] large, and long, of the form of an almond: they are full of brilliancy; but this is softened by long silken lashes, giving a tender and languid expression that is full of enchantment and scarcely to be improved by the adventitious aid of the black border of kohl; for this the lovely maiden adds rather for the sake of ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 4 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... in the brilliancy of its colours, flowers in April, and will succeed with the method of culture recommended for ...
— The Botanical Magazine, Vol. I - Or, Flower-Garden Displayed • William Curtis
... is the only place and these the only woods in which I find him in this vicinity. His voice fills these dim aisles, as if aided by some marvelous sounding-board. Indeed, his song is very strong for so small a bird, and unites in a remarkable degree brilliancy and plaintiveness. I think of a tremulous vibrating tongue of silver. You may know it is the song of a wren, from its gushing lyrical character; but you must needs look sharp to see the little minstrel, especially while in the act of ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... always understood that your father could read his Bible at the age of four," remarked Mrs. Pendleton, who passionately treasured this solitary proof of the rector's brilliancy. ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow
... was a great success, everybody said so. Mr. Tidditt expressed the general opinion when he declared that all hands done about as fine as the rest but some of 'em done finer. John Carleton, the schoolteacher, shone with particular brilliancy as he delivered himself of such natural, everyday speeches as: "I have dispatched a messenger to town with the glad tidings," or "We will leave this barren spot and hie to the gay scenes of city life." And Frank Crosby, as "September Gale," ...
— Fair Harbor • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... peeping out among them. At one place, through an opening or gap in the nearer mountains, there could be seen far back towards the horizon the broad sides and towering peak of a distant summit, which seemed to be wholly formed of vast masses of ice and snow, and which glittered with an inexpressible brilliancy under the rays ...
— Rollo in Switzerland • Jacob Abbott
... economy of their lives. Quite in the deepest interior of this region, there is a large garden, bordering on the Thames, along which it has a gravel-walk, and benches where it would be pleasant to sit. On one edge of the garden, there is some scanty shrubbery, and flowers of no great brilliancy; and the greensward, with which the garden is mostly covered, is not particularly ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... them for several minutes. This was the outburst of the storm, which thereafter raged with indescribable fury for a full hour, the lightning incessantly flashing all round the little knoll with such dazzling brilliancy that the entire landscape, almost to its uttermost confines, was nearly as fully revealed as at noonday, while the thunder crashed and rattled and boomed with a nerve-shattering violence that effectually drowned all other sounds. And, to add still further to the weird impressiveness of the ...
— In Search of El Dorado • Harry Collingwood
... familiar hymnology more readily suggests the name of its author than this. In the galaxy of poets Henry Kirke White was a brief luminary whose brilliancy and whose early end have appealed to the hearts of three generations. He was born at Nottingham, Eng., in the year 1795. His father was a butcher, but the son, disliking the trade, was apprenticed to a weaver at the age of fourteen. Two years later he entered an attorney's ...
— The Story of the Hymns and Tunes • Theron Brown and Hezekiah Butterworth
... higher law. I must make a good offer for an extra couple of hours, such as would satisfy the owners of the wagon, and enforce it by a personal motive. I did this handsomely, and succeeded without difficulty. To add brilliancy to my enterprise, I invited the Chaplain and the Philanthropist to take a free passage ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... aura from the brilliancy of its flashes of colour may often be more conspicuous, the nerve-ether and the etheric double are really of a much denser order of matter, being strictly speaking within the limits of the physical plane, though invisible ...
— The Astral Plane - Its Scenery, Inhabitants and Phenomena • C. W. Leadbeater
... to have the same dress as the Queen, and to wear the feathers and flowers to which her beauty, then in its brilliancy, lent an indescribable charm. The expenditure of the younger ladies was necessarily much increased; mothers and husbands murmured at it; some few giddy women contracted debts; unpleasant domestic scenes occurred; in many families coldness or quarrels arose; and the general ...
— Memoirs Of The Court Of Marie Antoinette, Queen Of France, Complete • Madame Campan
... career had been more splendidly and uninterruptedly successful than that of any member of the House of Commons, since the House of Commons had begun to exist. And now fortune had turned. By the Tories he had long been hated as a Whig; and the rapidity of his rise, the brilliancy of his fame, and the unvarying good luck which seemed to attend him, had made many Whigs his enemies. He was absurdly compared to the upstart favourites of a former age, Carr and Villiers, men whom he resembled in nothing but in the speed with which he ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 5 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... masters who in a different world and with different aims have presented the development of civilization in a series of dramas, where the unity of a few great types of man and of society is made paramount to subtlety of character or brilliancy of language. ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VI (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland IV • Various
... weazened old man leaning far out from the torn leather seat, shading his eyes with one unsteady hand while he peered into the shadows searching for the big-shouldered figure that stepped hesitatingly nearer the wheel. There was something birdlike in the brilliancy of the beady little eyes; something of sparrowlike pertness in the tilt of the old man's head, perked ...
— Once to Every Man • Larry Evans
... are regular monsters and all the more formidable to composers because they are often charming monsters. This explains the weakness of certain masters in writing falsely sentimental parts, which attract the public by their brilliancy. It also explains the number of degenerate works, the gradual degradation of style, the destruction of all sense of expression, the neglect of dramatic properties, the contempt for the true, the grand, and the ...
— The Merry-Go-Round • Carl Van Vechten
... there must be admiration. You cannot extinguish the tribute of the soul for heroism, any more than that of the mind for genius. The historian who seeks to pull down a hero from the pedestal on which he has been seated for ages plays a losing game. No brilliancy in sophistical pleadings can make men long prefer what is new to that which is true. Becket is enshrined in the hearts of his countrymen, even as Cromwell is among the descendants of the Puritans; ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume V • John Lord
... brightens the complexion); To remove pimples; Kalydor for the complexion—for pimples, freckle-tanned skin, or scurf on the skin; To improve the skin; Wash a la Marie Antoinette (gives a beautiful brilliancy to the complexion); Liquid Rouge (harmless), a perfect imitation of nature; Milk of Roses, a cosmetic; Circassian Cream; Toilet Vinegar; Bloom Rose; Certain cure for eruptions, pimples, etc.; To clear the complexion and reduce the size of ...
— The Ladies Book of Useful Information - Compiled from many sources • Anonymous
... be put and yet the truth retained. Yesterday we reclined at our ease in our cosy floating cottage, towed up the lovely river by a picturesque crew of bronze Kashmiris, the swish of the passing water only broken by their melodious voices. The brilliancy of the morning gave way in the afternoon to a soft haze which fell over the snowy ranges, mellowing their clear tones to a soft and pearly grey, while the reflections of the big chenars which graced the river bank deepened us the afternoon shadows ...
— A Holiday in the Happy Valley with Pen and Pencil • T. R. Swinburne
... was passed in anxious waiting. The lantern was then fastened to the end of a stick, and introduced into the cave, where it continued to burn with unaltered brilliancy. "Now then, Harry, go," said Starr, "and we will ...
— The Underground City • Jules Verne
... and also remarkably beautiful girl. One could see traces of sorrow in her face, which was exceedingly, though not unpleasingly, pale. The restless brilliancy of her eyes spoke of some physical, if not psychical, disorder. She was dressed in deep mourning, which heightened her pallor and excited a feeling of mingled respect and interest. Thick brown coils of chestnut hair ...
— The Treasure-Train • Arthur B. Reeve
... wife couldn't have asked a better foil; yet I'm sure she never consciously used his dullness to relieve her brilliancy. She may have felt that the case spoke for itself. But I believe her reserve was rather due to a lively sense of justice, and to the rare habit (you said she was rare) of looking at facts as they are, without any throwing of sentimental ...
— The Long Run - 1916 • Edith Wharton
... of literary and pictorial criticism, detached from his heavier home armament. Emerson, on the other hand, gives us probably the most masterly and startling analysis of a people which has ever been offered in the same slight bulk, unsurpassed, too, in brilliancy and penetration of statement. But the "English Traits" is as clear, fixed, and accurate as a machinist's plan, and perhaps a little too rigidly defined. Hawthorne's review of England, though not comparable to Emerson's work for analysis, has ...
— A Study Of Hawthorne • George Parsons Lathrop
... strength were in the proportion of seventy-four men's to one man's. He built an iron city for the abode of his seventeen children by Keturah, the walls of which were so lofty that the sun never penetrated them: he gave them a bowl full of precious stones, the brilliancy of which supplied them with light in the ...
— Hebraic Literature; Translations from the Talmud, Midrashim and - Kabbala • Various
... little care as the annual phlox (Phlox Drummondii). For clear and brilliant colors, the many varieties of this are certainly unrivaled. The dwarf kinds are the more desirable for ribbon-beds, as they are not so "leggy." There are whites, pinks, reds, and variegated of the most dazzling brilliancy. The dwarfs grow ten inches high, and bloom continuously. Set them 8 inches apart in good soil. Seed may be sown in the open ground in May, or for early plants, in the hotbed in March. They may be sown close in the fall if sown very late, so that the ...
— Manual of Gardening (Second Edition) • L. H. Bailey
... luminous highest Person. Him who in the former passage is called four-footed, we know to have an extraordinarily beautiful shape and colour—(cp., e.g., 'I know that great Person of sunlike colour beyond the darkness' (Svet. Up. III, 9))—, and as hence his brilliancy also must be extraordinary, he is, in the text under discussion, quite appropriately called 'light.'—Here terminates the adhikarana ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Ramanuja - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 48 • Trans. George Thibaut
... barbarian ages, emerged from obscurity and laid the foundations of the illustrious house. Generation after generation passed away, as the son succeeded the father in baronial pomp, and pride, and power, till the light of history, with its steadily-increasing brilliancy, illumined Europe. The family had often been connected in marriage both with the house of Guise and the royal line, the house of Valois. Antony of Bourbon, a sturdy soldier, united the houses of Bourbon and Navarre by marrying Jeanne d'Albret, ...
— Henry IV, Makers of History • John S. C. Abbott
... built, and by the noise and activity of preparation, appeared then, when everything was packed, and we, the evening before the journey, drew our chairs about the tea-table. The prospect of such a magnificent time as we expected to have on the cape lost some of its brilliancy. Indeed, I positively regretted that we were to go. We boys were as ...
— Captain Mugford - Our Salt and Fresh Water Tutors • W.H.G. Kingston
... done now than formerly is, I hope, true. There is probably a somewhat heightened sense of responsibility. There are, perhaps, fewer lecture-room repetitions of ancient vivisections, supposed to help out the professors' dulness with their brilliancy, and to 'demonstrate' what not six of the students are near enough to see, and what all had better take, as in the end they have to, upon trust. The waste of animal life is very likely lessened, the thought for animal pain less shamefaced in the laboratories than it was. These benefits ...
— An Ethical Problem - Or, Sidelights upon Scientific Experimentation on Man and Animals • Albert Leffingwell
... exaggerated beauty far down among the waters; the glittering stars stole in and out among their branches, and shone in the clear crystal mirror. Now a fleecy speck of cloud floated over the face of the Queen of Night, from behind which she would soon emerge, with increased brilliancy, to dart her long arrowy beams away down to the pebbly bottom of the flowing river, kissing the fairies that the old German legends tell us dwelt there ...
— Bucholz and the Detectives • Allan Pinkerton
... embroidered with many knots of gold and silver, with figures and designs in black and gray, orange, and green, which made an agreeable and very beautiful sight, because of the fine livery and its brilliancy. Their shields had green bands with silver letters that read: "My hopes are the highest." On the streamers of the lances, in illuminated golden letters, was the cipher of the name of "Dorotea." Their caps and the bands of the ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XXII, 1625-29 • Various
... "Ah, the poor, worn out, over-worked word! There are no adjectives in the language fresh enough to describe such pristine brilliancy; all their brightness has been worn off by misuse. Think of the things that have been called beautiful, and then look ...
— The Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton, Part 1 (of 10) • Edith Wharton |
