"Elegant" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... words to the same effect. It was the language of a statesman with aspirations and convictions. It sounded splendidly. Mr. Lodge is a classical scholar, and one wonders whether he remembers his Epictetus: "But you utter your elegant words only from your lips; for this reason they are without strength and dead, and it is nauseous to listen to your exhortations and your miserable virtue; which is talked ...
— The Mirrors of Washington • Anonymous
... performance as could be expected from the most able and acute scholar living: concerning whose answer thus much must be confessed,—that nothing could be therein desired which either a shrewd wit could prompt or a fluent elegant style express. And, indeed, to give him his due, in whatever he vomited out against his Majesty formerly, or now declaims against Monarchy in behalf of a Republic, he then did, and doth now, want nothing on ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... discrimination, becomes the gladdening love of all delicious flavors.... In the stomach, judging by what there is done, what a scene we are about to enter! What a palatial kitchen and more than monasterial refectory! The sipping of aromatic nectar, the brief and elegant repast of that Apicius, the tongue, are supplanted at this lower board by eating and drinking in downright earnest. What a variety of solvents, sauces, and condiments, both springing up at call from the blood, and raining down from the mouth into the natural patines of the meats! What a ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 101, March, 1866 • Various
... Chester, near the Bay of Chesapeake, lived an elegant man, with the softest manners in the world and a shadow forever on his countenance. He bore a blameless character and an honored name. He had one son of the same name as his own, Perry Whaley. This son was forever with him, for use or for pleasure; they could not be happy separated, nor congenial ...
— Tales of the Chesapeake • George Alfred Townsend
... This is an elegant annual grass. Stems are tufted erect or sometimes geniculately ascending, branching freely, 6 inches to ...
— A Handbook of Some South Indian Grasses • Rai Bahadur K. Ranga Achariyar
... approval among the elect,—this is a different matter. In every American home that is a home, to-day, it demands attention. The visitor, after eyeing it with cautious side-glances, goes jauntily up to it, affecting to have been stirred by the mere impulse of elegant idleness. Under the affectedly careless scrutiny of the hostess he falls dramatically into an attitude of awed entrancement. Reverently he gazes upon the priceless bibelots within: the mother-of-pearl fan, half open; the tiny ...
— The Spenders - A Tale of the Third Generation • Harry Leon Wilson
... dwell here on the influence of later poets upon religious art, though we shall have to notice hereafter the parallel development of the representation of the gods in Hellenistic sculpture. The Alexandrian poets expressed in elegant language their learning on matters of religion and mythology, but there was no living belief in the subjects which they made their theme; and the art they inspired could only show the same qualities of a correct and academic eclecticism. The idylls of Theocritus find, indeed, ...
— Religion and Art in Ancient Greece • Ernest Arthur Gardner
... my companion's sister,—one of a pair of twins, Mary and Maria, that thought the world of each other, as twins will. Their mother died when they wus both of 'em babies; and they wus adopted by a rich aunt, who brought 'em up elegant, and likely too: that I will say for her, if she wus a 'Piscopal, and I a Methodist. I am ...
— Sweet Cicely - Or Josiah Allen as a Politician • Josiah Allen's Wife (Marietta Holley)
... of aerial roots to rocks, or to the exposed trunks of trees, where their enormous, often fragrant, flowers are produced in great abundance, expanding only after the sun has set. Between these three distinct groups we find among the plants of this elegant genus great variety both in size and form of the stem and in the flower characters of the different species. A large proportion of the 200 kinds known are not cultivated in European gardens, and perhaps for many of them it is not ...
— Cactus Culture For Amateurs • W. Watson
... the chair was taken by Andy Plade, supported by two young ladies, and, after saying a welcome to the guests in elegant French, he made a significant gesture to the chief waiter. The most luscious Ostend oysters were at once introduced; they lifted them with bright silver fourchettes from plates of Sevres porcelain, and each guest touched his lips afterward with a glass of refined vermeuth. ...
— Bohemian Days - Three American Tales • Geo. Alfred Townsend
... complete series of the Vandal war is related by Procopius in a regular and elegant narrative, (l. i. c. 9—25, l. ii. c. 1—13,) and happy would be my lot, could I always tread in the footsteps of such a guide. From the entire and diligent perusal of the Greek text, I have a right to pronounce that the Latin and French versions ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon
... 2. Manakins (Pipridae). These elegant birds, whose caps or crests are of the most brilliant colours, are usually of a sombre green in the ...
— Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection - A Series of Essays • Alfred Russel Wallace
... two married sisters are steady and diligent young women, having each made three children since you last saw them. Fine boys, every mother's son of them, with elegant spacious features, and famous mouths for taking in whole potatoes. By the powers, but the offsets of the tree of the O'Briens begin to make a noise in the land, anyhow, as you would say if you only heard them roaring for ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat
... in a loose but elegant negligee, is running her hand over the keys of the pianoforte as SOPHY advances from ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... shore, glittered like diamonds in the distance. Fireworks, in great abundance and variety, flashed about; and instrumental bands filled the night air with harmony. The equipages which filled the streets were in general elegant, and lined with silk; the dresses of the principal inhabitants were in the highest fashion, and all looked perfectly at their ease, and some looked even splendid. A remark is made, that this display of wealth is surprising in what must be regarded as a provincial ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 57, No. 352, February 1845 • Various
... and did not look up when Raisky entered. Tiet Nikonich embraced him. He received an elegant bow from Paulina Karpovna, an elaborately got-up person of forty-five in a low cut muslin gown, with a fine lace handkerchief and a fan, which she kept constantly in motion although there was ...
— The Precipice • Ivan Goncharov
... I am doing," he responded at my protestation of sympathy. "I think that's the only way to be. I never had much appetite at night. They packed me an elegant pail, but somehow all cold food didn't relish much. I never did like a pail.... How would you like to take a dead man's place?" he asked, looking at ...
— The Woman Who Toils - Being the Experiences of Two Gentlewomen as Factory Girls • Mrs. John Van Vorst and Marie Van Vorst
... "Elegant old thing!" he said. "Not made yesterday, that! Well, ladies, you will see me, for this very sad occasion"—he waved a hand at the wreath of flowers—"tomorrow. In the meantime, if there is anything you want done, our young friend here is close at hand. Just now, ...
— The Middle of Things • J. S. Fletcher
... twist, and were dropped loose. She let them hang, looking sadly downward. Melancholy is the most irritating reply to passion, and Wilfrid's heart waged fierce at the sight of her, grown beautiful!—grown elegant!—and to reject him! When, after a silence which his pride would not suffer him to break, she spoke to ask what Mr. Pericles had said of her, he was enraged, forgot himself, and answered: ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... by the Hospital, a large and elegant mansion surrounded by trees and shrubbery and climbing vines, I found myself, after walking a few rods farther, in full view of the Merrimac. A deep and rocky channel stretched between me and the Dracut shore, along which rushed the shallow water,—a feeble, broken, and tortuous ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... of Mission Chair Construction, 39 Completed Stand, 43 Details of the Magazine Stand, 45 The Completed Swing, 47 Details of Seat, 48 Showing Construction of Stand, 49 Table for Outdoor Use, 50 By Swinging the Top Back the Table is Transformed into the Elegant Davenport Seen on the Opposite Page, 52 The Billiard Table as Converted into a Luxurious Davenport—A Child Can Make the Change in a Moment, 53 Details Showing Dimensions of Parts, 54 Details of Shoe Rest, 56 Details ...
— Mission Furniture - How to Make It, Part I • H. H. Windsor
... that perhaps the Liddel came down in flood, and caused the English to make for Kershope ford instead of Ritterford, and here they were met by Martin's men on the Hermitage line of advance. I cannot find this elegant combined movement in the ballad; all this seems to me hypothesis upon hypothesis, even granting that Martin sent Simmy back up Hermitage that he might thence cut sooner across the enemy's path. Colonel Elliot himself writes: "It is certain that after the news of the raid reached Catlockhill" ...
— Sir Walter Scott and the Border Minstrelsy • Andrew Lang
... salt wind blew upon us, and the smell of fresh seaweed seemed to fill the air with ozone. Just as we came in sight of the road we heard the thunder of hoofs behind. We turned around. It was Blenavon, riding side by side with a lady who was a stranger to me. Her figure was slim but elegant. I caught a glimpse of her face as they flashed by, and it puzzled me. Her hair was almost straw coloured, her complexion was negative, her features were certainly not good. Yet there was something about her attractive, ...
— The Betrayal • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... copper coffee-pots, varying in size and form. Here in the Djowf their make resembles that in vogue at Damascus; but in Nejed and the eastern districts they are of a different and much more ornamental fashioning, very tall and slender, with several ornamental circles and mouldings in elegant relief, besides boasting long beak-shaped spouts and high steeples for covers. The number of these utensils is often extravagantly great. I have seen a dozen at a time in a row by one fireside, though coffee-making requires, ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... her toilet, and seemed peculiarly desirous of attracting attention to a pair of splendid bracelets, gleaming with the chaste contrast of emeralds and diamonds. She was not without success. A gentleman of elegant mien and graceful manner presented himself at the door of her loge; he delivered a message from the Queen. Her Majesty had remarked the singular beauty of the bracelets, and wished to inspect one of them more closely. What could be more gratifying? In the seventh heaven of delighted ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various
... they relaxed the severity of their discipline, permitting their men to be curious in dressing their hair, and elegant in their arms and apparel, while they expressed their alacrity, like horses full of fire and neighing for the race. They let their hair, therefore, grow from their youth, but took more particular care, when they expected an action, to have it well combed and shining; ...
— Ideal Commonwealths • Various
... be confessed, that the Latin is more pompous, perhaps more elegant; but what it gains in refinement, it loses in simplicity. The chief thing however to be remarked is, that the same language always suggests itself on the same occasion. But let us ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 6, June 1810 • Various
... hitherto neglected to notice the September and October numbers of this serious, rational and elegant periodical. Each number is embellished with beautiful portraits, landscapes and flowers, and contains the most useful and interesting reading matter, as well as choice poetry and occasional music. Terms $1 per annum. By J. K. Wellman, 116 ...
— Scientific American magazine Vol 2. No. 3 Oct 10 1846 • Various
... exclaimed Salisbury, adding an expression more forcible than elegant; and, starting from his seat, he pulled Reginald by main force from his adversary, with whom he was now struggling on the floor, and at the same instant the remaining candle was extinguished. Louis was almost stunned by ...
— Louis' School Days - A Story for Boys • E. J. May
... with the best, proved himself a martinet in his requirements, not sparing in the heat of the struggle some of those curious oaths for which "our army in Flanders" gained a name. But the elder turned a deaf ear at these moments, and neither the truly devout Carver, nor the elegant Winslow, nor formal Allerton, nor self-restrained Bradford, chose to notice these lapses on the part of him who was giving all his energies and all his experience to their defense. As the sun set, Master Jones straightened his back, and ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... to the old Cheshire Cheese. Being people of plain tastes they liked the solid, honest meals—especially since increasing War-prices were already inducing hotels and restaurants everywhere to disguise a tablespoonful of hashed oddments under an elegant French name and sell it for as much money as a dinner for a hungry man. Norah used to fight shy of the famous "lark-pudding" until it was whispered to her that what was not good beef steaks in the dish was nothing more ...
— Captain Jim • Mary Grant Bruce
... have been collected in two volumes. They are very short, almost miniatures. For the most part they are elegant trifles, worked out with painstaking care. One feels that the author had no definite goal in sight; he wrote them simply to amuse and entertain his readers. One would search in vain for any sort of philosophy. ...
— Contemporary Russian Novelists • Serge Persky
... felt a peculiar interest in the stranger. Mr. Dubois had described him, as a man of intelligence, refined and elegant in his deportment and tastes. He had noticed in him, an air of melancholy, which even ludicrous events on the journey had dissipated, but for the moment. The wild words he had uttered on the night of his arrival, revealed some deep disquiet of mind. Away from home, ...
— Adele Dubois - A Story of the Lovely Miramichi Valley in New Brunswick • Mrs. William T. Savage
... is she? Let me tell you, Popsy-wopsy, that every man wouldn't want to kiss you.—She is not a bit like you, my dear Victoria. Wherever did she get that queer little face? She is no beauty, and that I will say.—Now, your mother, Popsy, is a most elegant woman; any one can see that she is a born aristocrat; but I hate 'em, my dear—hate 'em! I am one of those who vote for the abolition of the House of Lords. Give me the Commons; no bloated Lords for me. Well, you're ...
— The School Queens • L. T. Meade
... insanity," he said, slowly measuring his words, "there is one that manifests itself as an irresistible impulse to steal. Such terms as neuropath and kleptomaniac are often regarded as rather elegant names for contemptible excuses invented by medical men to cover up stealing. People are prone to say cynically, 'Poor man's sins; rich man's diseases.' Yet kleptomania does exist, and it is easy to make it ...
— The Dream Doctor • Arthur B. Reeve
... roof, thatched with grass and plantain leaves; and as the eaves slant down to within a short distance from the ground, they have a very picturesque appearance. They are cool in summer, and are impervious to rain. The ceilings, which are very elegant, are composed of polished bamboo, neatly interwoven, while the floors are carpeted with mats of coloured grass. The walls are decorated with a native cloth, called tapa, which serves the purpose of tapestry. The house is divided into separate chambers at night ...
— A Voyage round the World - A book for boys • W.H.G. Kingston
... garden away out on the country road, a road which is to-day New York's Great White Way. They prospered. One married, and his two boys founded the van der Veere firm of importers. From the East this company's ship, later its ships, brought rare curios, oriental tapestries and fine rugs to make elegant the brown-stone front drawing-rooms of aristocratic, residential New York of that generation. The sons of one of these brothers to-day constitute the honorable van der Veere firm. The other brother left one son, Clifford, and two daughters, Dora ...
— Our Nervous Friends - Illustrating the Mastery of Nervousness • Robert S. Carroll
... manners were much in his favor. His countenance was mild and pleasant; his eyes were clear and quick; his eyebrows were dark and prominent; his gestures varied but not violent; his jet black hair was parted from his crown to his brow;" his voice was peculiarly musical, and his diction was elegant and easy, without giving the appearance of previous elaboration. How far his language and thoughts were premeditated I will not undertake to say. Daniel Webster once declared that there was no such thing ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume X • John Lord
... St. Helena boasts of some elegant society. A few years before our confinement the Zulu chief, Dinizulu, was banished within the rocky bounds of this island prison. This son of Cain had during his detention here been invited to all the fashionable parties ...
— My Reminiscences of the Anglo-Boer War • Ben Viljoen
... and of all she had lost in the world. On the same evening the bride and bridegroom went on board ship; cannons were roaring, flags waving, and in the centre of the ship a costly tent of purple and gold had been erected. It contained elegant couches, for the reception of the bridal pair during the night. The ship, with swelling sails and a favorable wind, glided away smoothly and lightly over the calm sea. When it grew dark a number of colored lamps were lit, and the sailors danced merrily on the deck. The little mermaid could not help ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... so disguised that it was impossible his son could know him; he therefore advanced near enough to hear the conversation. The simple yet elegant manner in which Perdita conversed with his son did not a little surprise Polixenes: he said to Camillo, "This is the prettiest low-born lass I ever saw; nothing she does or says but looks like something greater than herself, too noble ...
— Books for Children - The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 3 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... to be an impressively elegant affair, the locality considered, drawn by two horses which were clearly not of the range variety. And then further things were revealed: a coachman sat on the front seat, and a man who wore an air of authority about him like a kingly robe sat alone on the back seat. Then to Harboro, ...
— Children of the Desert • Louis Dodge
... nearly so elegant as Peter, they could not help kicking a little, but their heads were bobbing against the ceiling, and there is almost nothing so delicious as that. Peter gave Wendy a hand at first, but had to ...
— Peter and Wendy • James Matthew Barrie
... his verses printed in Felix Farley's Journal I may as well try to get mine there. Then people will ask who is Beta—for I shall call myself Beta. I know that is the Greek for B—and it sounds pretty. I have many verses in my old school book. Miss Darcy said they were elegant—at least the one I called ...
— Bristol Bells - A Story of the Eighteenth Century • Emma Marshall
... not in its heyday, it is not yet in its autumn. She has a fine face—originally of a character that would be rather called very pretty than handsome, but improved into classicality by the acquired expression of her fashionable state. Her figure is elegant and has the effect of being tall. Not that she is so, but that "the most is made," as the Honourable Bob Stables has frequently asserted upon oath, "of all her points." The same authority observes that she is perfectly got up and remarks in ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... first time I ever heard "Che faro senza Eurydice?" A musical matinee was given to an elegant elderly woman, Mrs. P——, who had had a wide social reputation as an accomplished singer. She was still mistress of all the technique of her art, but her voice was worn and it was not easily conceded ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, September, 1885 • Various
... social relations he was a genial and entertaining companion, unsurpassed in conversational powers, delighting in witty and sarcastic observations and epigrammatic sentences. He was elegant in his manners and bland and refined in his deportment. He was a skilful musician and passionately fond of children, and it was his wont in early life to gather them in groups about him and beguile them by the hour ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... weapon the Mantis has nothing about it to inspire apprehension. It does not lack a certain appearance of graciousness, with its slender body, its elegant waist-line, its tender green colouring, and its long gauzy wings. No ferocious jaws, opening like shears; on the contrary, a fine pointed muzzle which seems to be made for billing and cooing. Thanks to a flexible neck, set freely upon the thorax, ...
— Social Life in the Insect World • J. H. Fabre
... intellectual love in an immortal dilution. I speak, of course, of Petrarch. His passion is neither ideal nor strong. The man is in love, or has been in love, existing on a borderland of loving and not loving, with the beautiful woman. His elegant, refined, half-knightly, half-scholarly, and altogether courtly mind is delighted with her; with her curly yellow hair, her good red and white beauty (we are never even told that Dante's Beatrice is beautiful, yet how much lovelier is ...
— Euphorion - Being Studies of the Antique and the Mediaeval in the - Renaissance - Vol. II • Vernon Lee
... their thefts; they steal anything that comes to hand and keep records of the thefts—"Schnaps, Wein, Marmelade, Zigarren," writes this private soldier; and the elegant officer of the 178th Saxon Regiment, who was at first indignant at the "vandalismus" of his men, further on admits that he himself, on the 1st of September, at Rethel, stole "from a house near the Hotel Moderne ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... very elegant in Latin, but our English word will hardly bear up to that sense, and therefore Mr. Broome translates it ...
— Cowley's Essays • Abraham Cowley
... had a kitten in one hand and an elegant bouquet of pine needles and grass in the other, and what with the due presentation of the bouquets and the struggles of the kittens, the hugging and kissing was much interfered with. Kittens, bouquets, and babies ...
— Elizabeth and her German Garden • "Elizabeth", AKA Marie Annette Beauchamp
... its richly decorated directors' rooms, and it was said that once a homely would-be depositor from One Horse Gulch was so cowed by its magnificence that his heart failed him at the last moment, and mumbling an apology to the elegant receiving teller, fled with his greasy chamois pouch of gold-dust to deposit his treasure in the dingy Mint around the corner. Perhaps there was something of this feeling, mingled with a certain simple-minded fascination, in the hesitation of a stranger of a higher ...
— The Three Partners • Bret Harte
... different gods may be explained without necessarily having recourse to this hypothesis; the "heaven of Ami," for instance, is an expression which merely affirms Anu's sovereignty in the heavens, and is only a more elegant way of designating the heavens by the name of the god who rules them. The gates of heaven are mentioned in the account ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 3 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... the door, and Madame Adelaide, in festal array, descended the staircase, leaning on the arm of Rosalie, who was so much affected at the sight of M. de Lamare's elegant ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... at this period as handsome as Antinoeus, with an elegant and slender but powerful figure, waving black hair, expressive and noble features, a beautiful complexion, wide forehead, flashing dark eyes, and a carriage full of grace and poetry. Rare personal beauty and extraordinary strength were striking ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Volume 15, No. 89, May, 1875 • Various
... oval and semi-circular shapes, and many of his tables are made in either one way or the other. His sideboards, founded on Shearer's designs, are very elegant, as he liked to say, in their simplicity of line, their inlay, and their general beauty of wood. He was most successful in his chairs, sideboards, tables, and small household articles, for his larger pieces of ...
— Furnishing the Home of Good Taste • Lucy Abbot Throop
... appeal to every book lover, presenting, as it does, in chaste and elegant style, the thoughts of great men of all ages on books and the ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Susan Warner
... on the table, and each has a newspaper. PROFESSOR RUBEK is an elderly man of distinguished appearance, wearing a black velvet jacket, and otherwise in light summer attire. MAIA is quite young, with a vivacious expression and lively, mocking eyes, yet with a suggestion of fatigue. She wears an elegant travelling dress. ...
— When We Dead Awaken • Henrik Ibsen
... deny his identity. Perhaps he realized that to do so would be futile. There he was in his wig, whiskers, glasses, ulster, and slouch hat; and the next moment, presto, valeted by Mr. Inspector, there he was in his fur coat—the elegant gentleman who had invaded Burton and ...
— Christopher and the Clockmakers • Sara Ware Bassett
... other. The uncommon beauty of this flower occasioned Linneus to give it a name signifying the twelve heathen gods; and Dr. Mead to affix his own name to it. The pistil is much longer than the stamens, hence the flower-stalks have their elegant bend, that the stigma may hang downwards to receive the fecundating dust of the anthers. And the petals are so beautifully turned back to prevent the rain or dew drops from sliding down and washing off this dust prematurely; ...
— The Botanic Garden. Part II. - Containing The Loves of the Plants. A Poem. - With Philosophical Notes. • Erasmus Darwin
... least, came the Dennisons; it took Ellen some time to make up her mind about them. Miss Cilly, or Cecilia, was certainly very elegant indeed. Her hair was in the extremest state of nicety, with a little round curl plastered in front of each ear; how she coaxed them to stay there Ellen could not conceive. She wore a real watch, there was no doubt of that, and there ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Susan Warner
... copy of a Christmas Play in which the Hobby Horse appears. In the north of England, "The Old Horse" and "The Old Tup" are the respective heroes of their own peculiar mummeries, generally performed by a younger, or perhaps a rougher, set of lads than those who play the more elegant mysteries of St. George. The boy who acts "Old Tup" has a ram's head impaled upon a short pole, which he grasps and uses as a sort of wooden leg in front of him. He needs some extra support, his back ...
— The Peace Egg and Other tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... gait, elegant figure, and dignified manner in general won the mummers to the opinion that they had gained by the exchange, if the newcomer were ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... Martin," says she and, pressing my hand, goes her way. From the shadow of the rock I watched these gentlemen leap gaily ashore to bow before her with many and divers elegant posturings, flourishes and flauntings of hats, kissing of her hands and the like gallantries until I must needs scowl otherwhere; yet even so, was conscious of their merry laughter where they paced to and fro and the new risen sun making a glory about her. At last she curtseys, and staying ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol
... around them, and outlive it all, perhaps brazenly to acknowledge the fact. Others, suave, attractive, agreeable, seductive, often masquerade as respectability, or constitute the perfumed, the romantic, the elegant carriers of disease. The proportion of ignorant to wilful irresponsibility can scarcely be estimated. But there is little choice between the two except on the score of the hopefulness of the latter. As examples ...
— The Third Great Plague - A Discussion of Syphilis for Everyday People • John H. Stokes
... archways, decorated with paintings. Large, white callas, with their green leaves, sprouted forth from marble shells, into which splashed clear water; a form glided by, a young girl, the daughter of this princely house, so elegant, so light, so charming! He had never seen so lovely a woman. Hold! yes, once, one made by Raphael, a painting of Psyche, in one of the palaces of Rome. There she was but painted, ...
— The Ice-Maiden: and Other Tales. • Hans Christian Andersen
... of the fair sex who go in for gardening, my aunts were essentially dainty. Their figures were shapely and elegant, their hands slim and soft. I never saw them working without gloves, and I have good reason to believe they anointed their fingers every night with a special preparation to keep them smooth and white. ...
— Scottish Ghost Stories • Elliott O'Donnell
... with the air of prosperity and thrift on every hand. Many of the houses are artistic in construction and elegant in their furnishings. Some of them are stately mansions, notably the Stanford, Huntington, Hopkins and Crocker residences on California avenue, in its most conspicuous section. The homes of these California kings are adorned with costly works of art, ...
— By the Golden Gate • Joseph Carey
... officers; and Scarlett bit his lip with rage as he thought of his mother's watch and chain, and the beautiful set of pearls, his father's present to her in happier days. Then, too, there was a case with rings and brooches, beside many other elegant little trifles that would be welcome ...
— Crown and Sceptre - A West Country Story • George Manville Fenn
... that eternal hope which bears its most generous blossom in the springtime of life. In either case, I put away the thought of danger, and set to the task of conning my position a little more closely. The boat in which I lay was painted white, and was of elegant build. She had all the fine lines of a yacht's jolly-boat; and when I raised my head I could see that her fittings had been put in only at great expense. She was not a large boat, but the centre seat had been ...
— The Iron Pirate - A Plain Tale of Strange Happenings on the Sea • Max Pemberton
... point. She was a botanist, and painted a little. So were most of the lady gardeners of her youth. The education of women was, as a rule, poor enough in those days; but a study of "the Linnean system" was among the elegant accomplishments held to "become a young woman;" and one may feel pretty sure that even a smattering of botanical knowledge, and the observation needed for third or fourth-rate flower-painting, would tend to a love of variety in beds and borders which Ribbon-gardening ...
— Last Words - A Final Collection of Stories • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... An elegant, irreproachable, high-minded model of dignity and reserve has just knocked and inquired what we will have for dinner. It is very embarrassing to give orders to a person who looks like a judge of the Supreme Court, but I said languidly, "What would ...
— A Cathedral Courtship • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... have to carry any more baggage for a long while to come," said Mr. Rover, with a smile, and then had Aleck take the things below. When Hans saw the elegant staterooms, and the main saloon of the steam yacht with its beautiful mirrors and rich carvings, his ...
— The Rover Boys on Treasure Isle - or The Strange Cruise of the Steam Yacht. • Edward Stratemeyer (AKA Arthur M. Winfield)
... the national character, which it is hoped may be imparted to the land to which they are flocking in such multitudes. For with all their peculiarities of pagan philosophy and their oriental eccentricities of custom and practical life, they are everywhere renowned for their uniform and elegant courtesy—a most commendable virtue, and one arising from habitual deference to the aged more than ...
— The American Woman's Home • Catherine E. Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe
... alone being more than sufficient to keep himself and his niece in modest comfort, had he so willed. But the lust of gold possessed him. It was nothing short of physical pain for him to part with it, and he had no intention of changing his way of life for her. He was known in the district under the elegant sobriquet of Skinny Graham; and when Gladys heard it for the first time, she laughed silently to herself, thinking of its fitness. The simple-hearted child quickly accommodated herself to her surroundings, accepting her meagre lot with a serenity a more experienced ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan
... lingering a while to listen to the rustle and murmur of the leaves. Then they emerged once more into the moonlight, and took their way down the little lane that led to the water-gate. Here they found an elegant cockle-shell of a boat tied up, "a most ladylike craft," ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... its appointed position. Not only the generals in full parade uniforms, with their thin or thick waists drawn in to the utmost, their red necks squeezed into their stiff collars, and wearing scarves and all their decorations, not only the elegant, pomaded officers, but every soldier with his freshly washed and shaven face and his weapons clean and polished to the utmost, and every horse groomed till its coat shone like satin and every hair of its wetted mane lay smooth—felt that no small ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... were jagged and irregular fragments, with bushes and trees among them, and Dwight, who was a very expert climber, soon had the blue-bell in his hand, and was coming down delighted with his prize. He brought the leaves of the plant with it, and it was in fact an elegant little flower. ...
— Caleb in the Country • Jacob Abbott
... may be a little more abstruse than the explanations already given, but it is very simple and elegant when you see it, and I fancy I can make it quite clear. I shall have to preface it by the explanation of two simple laws. The first of these is, that a body acted on by a constant force, so as to ...
— Scientific American Supplement, Vol. XXI., No. 531, March 6, 1886 • Various
... came at last, and it was as lovely as the Prince himself. All the people in the palace were lovely too—or thought themselves so—in the elegant new clothes which the Queen, who thought of everybody, had taken care to give them, from the ladies-in-waiting down to the poor little kitchen-maid, who looked at herself in her pink cotton gown, and thought, doubtless, that there never was such a pretty girl ...
— The Little Lame Prince - And: The Invisible Prince; Prince Cherry; The Prince With The Nose - The Frog-Prince; Clever Alice • Miss Mulock—Pseudonym of Maria Dinah Craik
... you no doubt remember, we met in Florence the winter of 18—, immediately after I reached New York arranged a reception for me, which was elegant in the extreme. But from that night dates ...
— The Fifth String, The Conspirators • John Philip Sousa
... became his sole study. It was written with a steel instrument upon the bark of trees, and contained twenty-one, or as he himself always expressed it, three times seven, leaves. The writing was very elegant and in the Latin language. Each seventh leaf contained a picture and no writing. On the first of these was a serpent swallowing rods; on the second, a cross with a serpent crucified; and on the third, the representation of a desert, in the midst of which was a fountain, with ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... and manners of courtesans, so that by knowing them betimes, he may detest them ever after. (PYTHIAS enters from the house unperceived.) For while they are out of doors, nothing seems more cleanly, nothing more neat or more elegant; and when they dine with a gallant, they pick daintily about:[103] to see the filth, the dirtiness, the neediness of these women; how sluttish they are when at home, and how greedy after victuals; in what a fashion they devour the ...
— The Comedies of Terence - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Notes • Publius Terentius Afer, (AKA) Terence
... the City Surveyor and Mr. Stanley, stone-mason, the worthy Mayor then proceeded to discharge his agreeable duty—the laying of the first stone. He used for the purpose a very elegant silver trowel {59a} with ivory handle, furnished by the Messrs. Etheridge (which had been presented to his worship by Mr. E. E. Benest) bearing the following ...
— Three Centuries of a City Library • George A. Stephen
... treacherous Tiberius. He was beloved by the people and the army, was frank, generous, and brave; he had married Agrippina, the daughter of Julia and Agrippa, and was the adopted son of the emperor himself. His mind had been highly cultivated, and he excelled in all elegant exercises. He seems, in fact, to have been one of the noblest ...
— A Smaller History of Rome • William Smith and Eugene Lawrence
... commences running Monday next at 12 o'clock. The Mayor and City Council are to be present and no doubt hundreds of our citizens will fill the train which will accommodate between three and four hundred people. This locomotive is said to be the most perfect and elegant in the Union and that there are only two in England equal to it. The display will be at once beautiful and imposing and will no ...
— A Pioneer Railway of the West • Maude Ward Lafferty
... elegant about it, now, and there ain't going to be any more hole. I think Adolph has been keeping it muddy—throwing in soft dirt—and he made a good and plenty lot out of pulling out tourists. Bill and I are going down right now and fill it up with stone. Milt Daggett come through here—he's got ...
— Free Air • Sinclair Lewis
... said Alice; "he is a good old fellow, and looks so aristocratic with his gray hair and elegant bows. Ellen and I will have to take him as a beau when you are out. Aunt Phillis says, that he has promised her not to drink a drop of any thing but water, and she seems to think that he has been so sober lately that he ...
— Aunt Phillis's Cabin - Or, Southern Life As It Is • Mary H. Eastman
... end of the day, on coming back home, from the hills, the boy met some lovely children. They were dressed in very fine clothes, and had elegant manners. They came up, smiled, and invited him to play with them. He joined in their sports, and was too much interested to take note of time. He kept on playing with them ...
— Welsh Fairy Tales • William Elliot Griffis
... among the sublime creations of the Old Masters, trying to acquire the elegant proficiency in art-knowledge, which he has a groping sort of comprehension is a proper thing for a traveled man to be able to display. But what is the manner of his study? And what is the progress he achieves? To what extent does he familiarize himself with the great ...
— The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories • Mark Twain
... western arm of the church was then used for services while the restoration of the choir was in progress. During the latter part of the time its aisle walls were underpinned. To the western transepts and crossing Scott devoted much attention, considering rightly that they formed one of the most elegant parts of the structure. He largely repaired the masonry of both the south and north transepts, underpinned the former's end, inserted some new windows in the west wall of the latter, and gave it a new doorway and massive ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Rochester - A Description of its Fabric and a Brief History of the Episcopal See • G. H. Palmer
... sea and land from far and near communicated in their letters. Abi-milki of Tyre had carried this practice farthest, and he was also admirably skilful in lodging complaints by the way. We owe to this worthy one of the choicest pieces in the whole collection, the elegant paean of a place-hunter of more than three thousand years ago. It will be noticed that some of his rhetorical expressions repeatedly recall those of the Hebrew Psalter in the same way as do phrases in the letter of Tagi already quoted. In fact, the Bible critic has much to learn from ...
— The Tell El Amarna Period • Carl Niebuhr
... Lucrezia Borgia, in honour of some illustrious grandees who had come from Paris on the invitation of the Archduchess, daughter of the French king, Louis XII. Valeria was sitting beside her mother on an elegant tribune, built after a design of Palladio, in the principal square of Ferrara, for the most honourable ladies in the town. Both Fabio and Muzzio fell passionately in love with her on that day; and, as they never had any secrets from each other, each of them soon knew ...
— Dream Tales and Prose Poems • Ivan Turgenev
... of a busy afternoon, Dennis came to a spacious, elegant store before which the snow lay untouched save as trodden by passers-by. Over the high arched doorway was the legend in gilt letters, "Art Building"; and as far as a mere warehouse for beautiful things could deserve the title, this place did, for it was crowded with engravings, paintings, ...
— Barriers Burned Away • E. P. Roe
... looks with artistical delight on the figure of some nymph painted on an Etruscan vase, engaged in pouring out the juice of the grape from her classic urn. And the parson felt as harmless, if not as elegant a pleasure, in contemplating Widow Fairfield brimming high a glittering can, which she designed for the refreshment of the ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... her. She is now in her proper sphere. I hear that her husband has set up in the same business in which his worthy papa-in-law began life. Melinda lives in apartments over the grocery, and enjoys life hugely, as she never did in the elegant ...
— Clemence - The Schoolmistress of Waveland • Retta Babcock
... expected, Sir Peter came a-knocking at my door, and my servant left the dressing of my hair to admit the master of the house. He came in, his handsome face radiant—a tall, graceful man of forty, clothed with that elegant carelessness which we call perfection, so strikingly unobtrusive was his dress, so faultless ...
— The Reckoning • Robert W. Chambers
... Yes! Well! And I hope you will come again, Miss Sylvia. I am greatly pleased to have made your acquaintance," and the polite gentleman escorted her to the door, where he bade her good-bye with such an elegant bow that Sylvia nearly fell backward in her effort to make as low a curtsey ...
— Yankee Girl at Fort Sumter • Alice Turner Curtis
... to wear a mask! Extraordinary! There was something more than a jest: she really did not wish to be known, and the reason lay far back of all this, beyond his grasp. He stood there dumfounded. She rose. The movement was elegant. ...
— The Lure of the Mask • Harold MacGrath
... hollow and filled with a white pith like the elder. After the prickly bark is stripped off the punk can be picked out through the fenestra with a penknife, which occupation affords pleasant pastime for a leisure hour. When thus furbished up the unsightly club becomes an elegant walking stick. ...
— Arizona Sketches • Joseph A. Munk
... 1895 he moved to Indianapolis and finally became the sole proprietor of the Bates House barber shop, said to be the most elegant shop in the country. He is a member of the M. E. Church, which has greatly honored him by sending him as a delegate-at-large to the general conference in New York in 1888, and to Omaha, Neb., in 1892. He has filled numerous offices in the ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various
... that card again," he said, as he gave his tie those little finishing touches that converted it from an elegant accessory into a ...
— The Prodigal Father • J. Storer Clouston
... a flat thing," he said; "wonderfully flat, marvelously flat, enchantingly flat and elegant. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... niece with her. The bedroom that her aunt said would be hers was a gem of beauty, being furnished with one of those fine enameled brass bedsteads, a fine dresser with a long bevel plate French mirror, and on the dresser was an elegant toilet set. The curtains, carpets and draperies matched the tints of the ceiling and walls. Fine costly pictures hung on the walls representing mostly scenes of festivities in baronial halls and castles, also in modern Fifth Avenue ...
— A California Girl • Edward Eldridge
... air of elegant refinement. It was rumored that father and son were fabulously wealthy. To all such gossip both seemed indifferent. Their hauteur and reserve insured desired social entree, ...
— Oswald Langdon - or, Pierre and Paul Lanier. A Romance of 1894-1898 • Carson Jay Lee
... hundred feet, dive down again for a moment beneath the waves, to recommence directly afterwards: this occurs most frequently when they are pursued by bonitos or other foes. When they were flying at some distance from the ship they really looked like elegant birds. We very frequently saw the bonitos also, who were pursuing them, endeavour to raise themselves above the water, but they seldom succeeded in ...
— A Woman's Journey Round the World • Ida Pfeiffer
... lucky! I should strangle him!' and Mr. Brady put back his head and laughed a loud and hearty laugh, by no means elegant, but without much ...
— That Stick • Charlotte M. Yonge
... shall be gone as long as you will for one shilling and sixpence. I will show you all that there is to be seen about the place, and the beautiful view of the bay from the top of the mountain. But it is elegant, you know, ...
— A Chance Acquaintance • W. D. Howells
... beard fell upon a shirt of dazzling whiteness, which was close like a doublet by a row of small coral buttons; a scarf of red silk, hose of the same color, and shoes of doeskin with large ribbon-bows, completed a costume most elegant for a buccaneer, and showing to advantage his tall and robust figure; in the brilliant light of the candles his complexion seemed less brown than in the daytime; his black hair, curling naturally, fell carelessly on his shoulders; and finally, his hands were ...
— A Romance of the West Indies • Eugene Sue
... slatted door and front wall, to establish a draft of fresh air from the window, a counter-draft was set up of electric lights, supper clatter, cigarette smoke, and chatter, renewed at every landing with the fresh arrivals. We resolved to avoid these elegant mail steamers in the future, and patronize the half-merchandise boats of the same line, which are not much slower, and possess the advantage of staterooms opening on a corridor, not on the saloon, and are fitted with skylights, so that one can have fresh air ...
— Russian Rambles • Isabel F. Hapgood
... associated with the dawn of a brighter period in my dark life. I purchased the trimmings, and Mr. Harper allowed me a commission of twenty-five dollars on the purchase. The dress was done in time, and it gave complete satisfaction. Mrs. Lee attracted great attention at the dinner-party, and her elegant dress proved a good card for me. I received numerous orders, and was relieved from all pecuniary embarrassments. One of my patrons was Mrs. Gen. McClean, a daughter of Gen. Sumner. One day when I was very busy, Mrs. McC. drove up to my apartments, ...
— Behind the Scenes - or, Thirty years a slave, and Four Years in the White House • Elizabeth Keckley
... a sort of natural basin, surrounded with rocks, expanded itself into a small pool, as clear as crystal. Around the basin were gathered companies of such wood-flowers as love the water, conspicuous among which, both for number and beauty, were the yellow and orange blossoms of the elegant "jewels," as boys call them. Advancing to this little mirror, the female took a seat on one of the rocks, on the edge of the water, and bending over, appeared to contemplate, with no little satisfaction, what she beheld there; and to tell the truth, it was a pretty face, and justified some ...
— The Knight of the Golden Melice - A Historical Romance • John Turvill Adams
... distinguished by a softness and sensibility unequalled in the rest of her countrywomen, and I was willing to believe that these traits indicated the disposition of her mind. I had never before seen this elegant timid female, of whom I had often heard; but the interest I took in her led me to question her about her husband and family. She answered me by repeating a name which I have now forgotten, and told me she had no children. I was seized with a strong propensity to learn whether ...
— A Complete Account of the Settlement at Port Jackson • Watkin Tench
... peculiarly captivating in the natural grace and softness of these young beauties, whose hearts quickly respond to those warmer feelings of love that are seldom known among the sterner and coarser tribes. Their forms are peculiarly elegant and graceful—the hands and feet are exquisitely delicate; the nose is generally slightly aquiline, the nostrils large and finely shaped; the hair is black and glossy, reaching to about the middle of ...
— The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia • Samuel W. Baker
... well-preserved, no one was in a position to asseverate. As a matter of fact, observers would have been justified in wondering whether she was black or white. She was never abroad without the thick, voluminous veil, and her hands were never ungloved. Mrs. Nixon and Angie described her voice as refined and elegant, and she spoke English as well as anybody, not excepting Professor Rank of ...
— Anderson Crow, Detective • George Barr McCutcheon
... sent you back Mr. Crabbe's poem, which I read with great delight. It is original, vigorous, and elegant. The alterations which I have made I do not require him to adopt; for my lines are perhaps not often better than his own: but he may take mine and his own together, and perhaps between them produce something better than either. He is not to think his copy wantonly defaced: a wet sponge will ...
— Crabbe, (George) - English Men of Letters Series • Alfred Ainger
... verses complacently enough. Poetry in his eyes was an elegant accomplishment vaguely connected with scholarship and gentility: and he took pride in possessing a wife who, as he more than once assured his cronies in the parlour of the "Turk's Head" at the end of the street, could sit down and write it ...
— Hetty Wesley • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... an elegant shell, with elegant adornment, must plead for them. But this art also must one learn: to HAVE a shell, and a fine ...
— Thus Spake Zarathustra - A Book for All and None • Friedrich Nietzsche
... the most gifted, cultivated, and elegant women of her time. The genius and moral worth of Locke are well known to all. Domesticated in the family of Lady Masham for many years before his death, giving her all the advantage of his talents, acquirements, and sympathy, "she returned the obligation with singular ...
— The Friendships of Women • William Rounseville Alger
... time of Edward II—a fine example of the Decorated style. Divided by sub-arcuation into three lights, surmounted by circles of quatrefoil tracery in the spandrels of the arches, and supported by composite shafts, with moulded bases and foliated capitals, this elegant window had been allowed to drop into a ruin. Drawings of it had fortunately been taken before it was too late, and the present work gives us the leading features, and practically the details, ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: Southwark Cathedral • George Worley
... of colour and lighting, a gracefulness of drawing and a refined accomplishment which were new in Scottish painting. His turn for charm of pose and grace of motive was pronounced, and his portraitures mirror very happily the mannered yet elegant social airs of the mid-eighteenth century. More than that of any English painter of his day, his art ...
— Raeburn • James L. Caw
... better and happier than I had seen her look for a long time. Her black dress suited her, and gave her a style which she never had in colors. Her complexion looked dark, but not sallow; and her brown hair was certainly more becomingly arranged. Her appearance was that of a well-bred, cultivated, almost elegant woman, of whom no man need be ashamed. Johanna was simply herself, without the least perceptible change. But Captain Carey again looked ten years younger, and was evidently taking pains with his appearance. That suit of ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton
... ancient temple. A circle of white marble pillars, much time-worn and a little battered, though but one of them broken, surround the solid structure of the temple, leaving a circular walk between it and the pillars, the whole covered by a modern roof which looks like wood, and disgraces and deforms the elegant little building. This roof resembles, as much as anything else, the round wicker cover of a basket, and gives a very squat aspect to the temple. The pillars are of the Corinthian order, and when they were new and the marble ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne |
