"Embellish" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... deserved this beautiful country. They won it bravely; they enjoyed it generously and kindly. No lover ever delighted more to cherish and adorn a mistress, to heighten and illustrate her charms, and to vindicate and defend her against all the world than did the Moors to embellish, enrich, elevate, and defend their beloved Spain. Everywhere I meet traces of their sagacity, courage, urbanity, high poetical feeling, and elegant taste. The noblest institutions in this part of Spain, the best inventions ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... all the world—as, for example, to make Hannibal and Scipio contemporaries with Alexander—but in the dark recesses of antiquity a great poet may and ought to feign such things as he finds not there, if they can be brought to embellish that subject which he treats. On the other side, the pains and diligence of ill poets is but thrown away when they want the genius to invent and feign agreeably. But if the fictions be delightful (which they always are ...
— Discourses on Satire and Epic Poetry • John Dryden
... Else alie. Elsewhere aliloke. Elude lerte eviti. Emaciated malgrasega. Emanate deveni. Emancipate liberigi. Embalm balzamumi. Embankment surbordo bordmarsxejo. Embark ensxipigxi. Embarrass embarasi. Embarrassment embaraso. Embellish beligi, ornami. Embers brulajxo. Emblem emblemo. Embolden kuragxigxi. Embossment reliefo. Embrace cxirkauxpreni. Embroider brodi. Embryo embrio. Embryology embriologio. Emerald smeraldo. Emergency ekokazo. Emetic vomilo. Emigrant elmigranto. ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... contrary, I assure you I neither magnify nor embellish. I am merely stating unvarnished facts, that you may thoroughly understand into what fertile soil your scattered grains of learning fall. I promise you, with moderate cultivation ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... sides, was encompassed by a garden, with parterres of flowers, shrubbery, and whatever could concur to embellish it; and to complete the beauty of the place, an infinite number of birds filled the air with their harmonious notes, and always remained there, nets being spread over the garden, and fastened to the palace to confine them. ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... retaliation; there were no hours of manumission in the inn; the reed was still. And yet, to do him justice, there was even then the frank and suave exterior; no boorish awkward silence in his ancient gossips made him lose his jocularity; he continued to embellish his conversation with morals based on universal kindness ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro
... purposely vary the lonely monotony by burning chemical lights. We admire the effective grouping done by Nature's skillful fingers. Here is a great cross made by a mass of stone rosettes; while floral coronets, clusters, wreaths, and garlands embellish nearly every foot of the ceiling and walls. The overgrown ornaments actually crowd each other till they fall on the floor and make the pathway sparkle with crushed ...
— See America First • Orville O. Hiestand
... ours to embellish thy pillow With everything beauteous that grows in the deep; Each flower of the rock and each gem of the billow Shall sweeten thy bed ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various
... style. Louis Philippe of France, while a visitor in George Town, was feted there and said he had never seen a more elegant entertainment. Twenty-three kinds of fish were caught in the river in those days, besides terrapin and snapping turtles, so perhaps they helped to embellish the occasion. ...
— A Portrait of Old George Town • Grace Dunlop Ecker
... wanderings, at times not a little affecting, and at others comical, when directing her steps towards her place of banishment, her arrival at the ruinous chateau which has neither doors nor windows, and which is haunted by ghosts, and the attempts to embellish the tumble-down place, and people it with gaiety, animation, and life, are so many scenes to which the piquant style of Mademoiselle gives singular attractiveness. Whilst avenues were being planted and a theatre built, matrimonial negotiations ...
— Political Women, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... E. Brock, whose delightful compositions, somewhat in the "Hugh Thomson" manner, embellish several volumes of Messrs. Macmillan's Cranford series, has illustrated also "The Parachute," and "English Fairy and Folk Tales," by E. S. Hartland (1893), and also supplied two pictures to that most fascinating volume prized by all lovers of children, "W. V., Her Book," by W. Canton. ...
— Children's Books and Their Illustrators • Gleeson White
... in this Character of Falstaff, not only a free Course of Humour, supported and embellish'd with admirable Wit; but this Humour is of a Species the most jovial and gay in all Nature.—Sir Jobn Falstaff possesses Generosity, Chearfulness, Alacrity, Invention, Frolic and Fancy superior to all other ...
— An Essay towards Fixing the True Standards of Wit, Humour, Railery, Satire, and Ridicule (1744) • Corbyn Morris
... the taller and more upright species, as well as the earliest in point of flowering, producing its blossoms from February to May; these are large and of a bright orange hue, the pistilla in the centre are purple, and serve at once to distinguish and embellish them. ...
— The Botanical Magazine Vol. 8 - Or, Flower-Garden Displayed • William Curtis
... indications. I shall use the materials at my disposal freely and cautiously, quoting some passages in full, regrouping and summing-up others, and keeping always in mind—which the reader should likewise do—the authoress's tendency to emphasise, colour, and embellish, for the sake of literary and ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... appointed task, my honorable privilege, this evening, to speak of what has been done by others. No one can bring his tribute of words into the presence of great deeds, or try with them to embellish the memory of any inspiring achievement, without feeling and leaving with others a sense of their insufficiency. So felt Alexander when he compared even his adored Homer with the hero the poet had sung. So felt Webster when he contrasted the phrases of rhetoric with the eloquence ...
— Medical Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... the antiquities of Vienne, antiently called Vienna Allobrogum. It was a Roman colony, and a considerable city, which the antients spared no pains and expence to embellish. It is still a large town, standing among several hills on the banks of the Rhone, though all its former splendor is eclipsed, its commerce decayed, and most of its antiquities are buried in ruins. The church ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... attribute to the fact that my eldest brother, with whom I had much in common, was a doctor—had been to adopt the medical profession. Curiously enough, my brother also had a taste for caricaturing, and, like the illustrious John Leech in his medical student days, he was wont to embellish his notes in the hospital lecture-room with pictorial jeux d'esprit of a livelier cast than those for which scope is usually afforded by the discourses ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Harry Furniss
... study of ancient or modern times was achieved by one of them—the "Lion and Tiger Struggle," exhibited at Paris, and afterwards at the Sydenham Crystal Palace. This, and one or two analogous works, carried the English to the foremost ranks of zoological artists; and now that we embellish our taxidermic studies with natural grasses, ferns, etc. and with representations of scenery and rockwork, in the endeavour to carry the eye and mind to the actual localities in which the various species of animals are found—an advance in art not dreamed of fifty years ago—and ...
— Practical Taxidermy • Montagu Browne
... forced to admit, with due humility, his unfitness to embellish his letters with the gorgeous and pyrotechnic lavishness of "fancy writing" which graces the letters of the New York Correspondents, but he is sure that the items which follow are infinitely more truthful than are the most of the statements furnished by those highly ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 16, July 16, 1870 • Various
... that he ought to be bending over a sheet of paper, ruled in pretty parallels of fives, trying to embellish the same with semi-breves and crotchets.' That is what I think to myself, thinks I; and the thought leaves me gasping. I am utterly unable to ...
— The Lady Paramount • Henry Harland
... tower is regarded as one of the "seven wonders of Wales," is three miles from Holt, and is four hundred years old. Few churches built as early as the reign of Henry VIII. can compare with this. It is dedicated to St. Giles, and statues of him and of twenty-nine other saints embellish niches in the tower. Alongside of St. Giles is the hind that nourished him in the desert. The bells of Wrexham peal melodiously over the valley, and in the vicarage the good Bishop Heber wrote the favorite ...
— England, Picturesque and Descriptive - A Reminiscence of Foreign Travel • Joel Cook
... though it may please the average person, is worse than useless to the astronomer, for the unsteadiness is greatly magnified in the telescope. This twinkling is, no doubt, in a great measure responsible for the conventional "points" with which Art has elected to embellish stars, and which, of course, have no ...
— Astronomy of To-day - A Popular Introduction in Non-Technical Language • Cecil G. Dolmage
... in an account of the marvellous blowing up of the island of St. Vincent, which in circumstantial invention and force of description must be ranked among his master-pieces. But Defoe did more than embellish stories of strange events for his newspapers. He was a master of journalistic art in all its branches, and a fertile inventor and organizer of new devices. It is to him, Mr. Lee says, and his researches entitle ...
— Daniel Defoe • William Minto
... me an opinion on the new glace silk from Paris."—"Madame," said he, bowing, "I hope Paris may send me aught so good, or that I shall grace half so well." I smiled, "You shall not be single in your hopes, M. le Comte. The gift would be base that you did not embellish." He lifted his hands, French-fashion: "Madame, it is that I have received the gift."—"Indeed! M. le Comte."—"Even now from the Count de Saldar, your husband." I looked most innocently, "From my husband, M. le Comte?"—"From him, Madame. A portrait. An Ambassador without his coat! The ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... towards the colonists in the, mass of the Mexican nation, feelings of unconquerable jealousy and hostility. Yes! our superiority in enterprise, in learning, in the arts and in all that can dignify life, or embellish human nature, instead of exciting in them a laudable ambition to emulate, to equal, or excel us—excites the most hateful of all the passions—envy—and has caused them to endeavor for years past, by an unremitting series of vexatious, oppressive and unconstitutional acts, to retard our growth and ...
— Texas • William H. Wharton
... it could not pretend to compare with a city more than a thousand years old, which at all periods of its history had maintained the princely taste for building, and which a long line of emperors had never ceased to embellish. ...
— Saint Augustin • Louis Bertrand
... prefer anthologies to "works," who love to read tiny volumes prettily bound, called "Beauties of Ruskin," and who have substituted for the out-of-fashion "Daily Food" books, painted bits of cardboard with sweet sayings culled from popular idols of the day, with which they embellish the walls of their offices and bedrooms, in the hope that they may hoist themselves into a more hallowed frame of mind. This is the class—always with us, though more prosperous than the poor—who prefer a cut bouquet to the natural flowers in wood and meadow, and for whose comfort ...
— Robert Browning: How To Know Him • William Lyon Phelps
... all his successes his throne would be overturned unless he could amuse the people and find work for turbulent spirits. Consequently he concluded on the one hand to make a change in the foreign policy of France, and on the other to embellish his capital and undertake great public works, at any expense, both to find work for artisans and to develop the ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume X • John Lord
... which the refugees of Strasburgh and Frankfort scandalized their brethren and afforded matter of triumph to the church of Rome. On the accession of Elizabeth he returned with alacrity to re-occupy and embellish the modest mansion of his forefathers, and "through the loopholes of retreat" to view with honest exultation the high career of public fortune run by his two illustrious sons-in-law, Nicholas Bacon and ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... up the hillside and plant on the highest point some pretty kiosque, whence, perhaps, my eyes may catch the shimmer of the Mediterranean. Orange and lemon trees, and all choicest things that grow, shall embellish my retreat; and there will I be a mother among my children. The poetry of Nature, which nothing can destroy, shall hedge us round; and standing loyally at the post of duty, we need fear no danger. My religious feelings are shared by my father-in-law ...
— Letters of Two Brides • Honore de Balzac
... no competent Judge that findeth them wanting in those Ancient ones, and that doth not much more admire that smoothly equall neatnesse, continued sweetnesse, and flourishing comelinesse of Catullus his Epigrams, than all the sharpe quips and witty girds wherewith Martiall doth whet and embellish the conclusions of his. It is the same reason I spake of erewhile, as Martiall of himselfe. Minus illi ingenio laborandum fuit, in cuius locum materia successerat. [Footnote: Mart. Praf. 1. viii.] "He needed the lesse worke with his wit, in place whereof matter came in supply." The former ...
— Literary and Philosophical Essays • Various
... came upon one of those wide and beautiful prairies which frequently embellish the landscape of the South and the West This plain was about six miles in width, smooth as a floor, and waving with tall grass and the most brilliantly colored flowers. It was bordered with a forest ...
— David Crockett: His Life and Adventures • John S. C. Abbott
... cluster of grapes hesitatingly, and are loth to mar the exquisite shadings and perfect outlines of the vessel in which the rich juices are served. Therefore, in stocking the acre with fruit, the proprietor has not ceased to embellish it; and should he decide that fruit-trees must predominate over those grown for shade and ornament only, he can combine almost as much beauty as ...
— The Home Acre • E. P. Roe
... council of Newcastle ordered a sweet stop to be added to the organ. This was after Avison became organist, his appointment to that post having been in 1736. So we know that he at least had a "trumpet stop" and a "sweet stop," with which to embellish ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke
... The cuttings of the young branches grow readily, the same as the slips, when planted at the same season in a shady place, and well watered. The common thyme is in universal use as a pot-herb for various culinary purposes; it may also be employed in assemblage with other small plants, to embellish the fronts of flower-borders, shrubbery clumps, small and sloping banks, &c. placing the plants detached or singly, to form little bushy tufts, and in which the variegated sorts, and the silver thyme and lemon thyme particularly, form a very agreeable variety. The lemon thyme is also ...
— The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, • Mary Eaton
... concern. To him it was of no importance whether his grave was with the rich or the poor, whether his burying-place were an obscure or an illustrious spot: he was anxious for the salvation of his soul. Unhappily, mankind in general lavish all their cares upon the body, to embellish or preserve it, to pamper its appetites, or to minister to its artificial necessities: but what an infatuation is it, to provide for that which perishes, and to be careless of that which is immortal—to decorate the walls, and to despise the furniture—to value the casket, and to throw ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. I • Francis Augustus Cox
... clusters of rosy, happy children, clambering about its crumbling top; little knots of men too in the road beyond—evidently expecting something. Even this is in keeping with the poet's grave, which should not be sombre and melancholy, like other graves; and what could better embellish and enliven its aspect than young, blushing life clustering around it? We linger awhile among the boisterous children playing on the churchyard wall, and then we hear a confused sound of voices and music ...
— A Tramp's Wallet - stored by an English goldsmith during his wanderings in Germany and France • William Duthie
... dretful well-feelin', and thinkin' in his heart that it wuz his good looks that wuz wanted to embellish the room, and I kep on a wonderin' inside of myself what made Mr. Freeman so oncommon good to us, till one day he told us sunthin' that made it plainer to us, and Josiah Allen's pride had a fall (which, if his pride hadn't been composed of materials more indestructible than ...
— Samantha at the World's Fair • Marietta Holley
... question of dealing with minutiae, abandon themselves like the mass of mankind to their natural inclinations when they come to set forth general questions. They take sides, they blame, they praise, they colour, they embellish, they allow themselves to take account of personal, patriotic, ethical, or metaphysical considerations. Above all, they apply themselves with what talent has fallen to their lot to the task of creating a work of art, and, so applying themselves, ...
— Introduction to the Study of History • Charles V. Langlois
... When people embellish their conversation with a glitter of titles, and drag into it self-aggrandizing anecdotes, though I laugh at this peacock vein in them, I do not harshly condemn it. Nay, since I too am human, since I too belong to the great household, would it be surprising if—say once or twice in my life—I ...
— More Trivia • Logan Pearsall Smith
... S., Mrs. B., and I had a pleasant drive in Hyde Park, as I used to read of heroines of romance doing in the old novels. It is delightful to get into this fairyland of parks, so green and beautiful, which embellish the ...
— Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands V2 • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... embellish the city of Mexico, which was again as well peopled by natives as ever it had been before the conquest. All of these were exempted from paying tribute to his majesty, till their houses were built, and till the causeways, bridges, public ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. IV. • Robert Kerr
... and romance did thus in ancient times with the scenery of nature, it did also on the field of history. Men explored that field not at all to learn sober and actual realities, but to find something that they might embellish and adorn, and animate with supernatural and marvelous life. What the sober realities might have actually been, was of no interest or moment to them whatever. There were no scholars then as now, living in the midst of libraries, and finding constant employment, ...
— Romulus, Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... incidents attributed to this long interval are not by any means of such a nature as to suggest deliberate fabrication. An annalist who was also a courtier, applying himself to construct the story of his sovereign's ancestors, would naturally be disposed to embellish his pages with narratives of great exploits and brilliant achievements. Neither the Records nor the Chronicles can be said to display such a propensity in any marked degree. The Chronicles do, indeed, draw upon the resources of Chinese ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... the human body and mind more perfect, chastity must more universally prevail, and that chastity will never be respected in the male world till the person of a woman is not, as it were, idolized, when little virtue or sense embellish it with the grand traces of mental beauty or the interesting ...
— Mary Wollstonecraft • Elizabeth Robins Pennell
... the Mercantile Library. Farther down, the continuation of Canal Street affords the most commanding sites for future public edifices; while the neighborhoods of Franklin and Chatham Squares ought to be seized upon to embellish the city at imperial points with its finest architectural piles. The capacities of New York, below Union Square, for metropolitan splendor are entirely undeveloped; the best points are still occupied ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 42, April, 1861 • Various
... Rome, after having become master of the Eastern world. Alexander died, however, before he had an opportunity to get back from the East; but, as the old historian says, it is entertaining and relaxing to the mind to digress from weightier considerations and to embellish historical study with variety, and he decides that if the great Eastern conqueror had marched against Rome, he would have been defeated. While Livy was probably influenced in this decision by that desire to magnify the prowess ...
— The Story of Rome From the Earliest Times to the End of the Republic • Arthur Gilman
... contour, but its size and color surpassed anything that Enoch had as yet seen. From base to apex it was a perfect rose tint, deepening where its great shoulders bent, to crimson. As if still not satisfied with her work, nature had sent a recent snow storm to embellish the verdureless rock, and the mountain was lightly powdered with white which here was of a gauze-like texture permitting pale rose to glimmer through, there lay in drifts, white defined ...
— The Enchanted Canyon • Honore Willsie Morrow
... headlong velocity or flowed like molten brass into the mould of the founder, and, to carry the simile farther, some would sputter over. He had in his storehouse of language, many queer phrases and sayings that he brought out to embellish his conversation, some of which were only used as a corps de reserve, or brought into action when all others failed ...
— Brook Farm • John Thomas Codman
... graceful attitude on horsebak, is just to order a movement: a many generals and attendance are arround him. The leaguer, the landscape, the groups, the fighting all with the greatest thruth, there is nothing that does not contribute to embellish this very remarcable picture, painted by a contemporary of the evenement and famous artist in battle pieces, ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Three • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... which receives this, not only is content with the exaggeration of the first mind, but its own report adds its own effect of endeavours to embellish, and so by this action, and by the deception which it also receives from the goodwill generated in it, good report is made more ample than it should be; either with the consent or the dissent of the conscience; even as it was with the first mind. And ...
— The Banquet (Il Convito) • Dante Alighieri
... innumerable streams and waterfalls; valleys and plateaus that spring into life when pricked by the harrow of the husbandman; forests of big trees, perpetually green, to adorn and protect; the greatest of oceans to temper with its breezes; inland seas and azure lakes to embellish and attract—such are a few of the elements that make the State of Washington and provide beauteous ...
— The Beauties of the State of Washington - A Book for Tourists • Harry F. Giles
... of the eleventh century the great consecration of the church took place. It was again injured by fire in 1106, but repaired; and from that time to the fall of Venice there was probably no Doge who did not in some slight degree embellish or alter the fabric, so that few parts of it can be pronounced boldly to be of any given date. Two periods of interference are, however, notable above the rest: the first, that in which the Gothic school had superseded the Byzantine ...
— Selections From the Works of John Ruskin • John Ruskin
... being then asked why he did not discharge them, declared that they were bailiffs, who had introduced themselves with an execution, and whom, since he could not send them away, he had thought it convenient to embellish with liveries, that they might do him ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson
... route led us through Wynghene. It was here I seized the opportunity of displaying my undoubted ability as mess president, to which post I had been appointed. At the midday halt in this village, I was anxiously looking about for bread, eggs, vegetables or any other commodity which would embellish the festal board of the mess, and thus win the gratitude of my always hungry brother officers, when, through an open door, I caught sight of fowls in a backyard. I promptly jumped off my horse, and entered into negotiations with the owners of the chicken run, which speedily ...
— With The Immortal Seventh Division • E. J. Kennedy and the Lord Bishop of Winchester
... difference between Me and my epic brethren gone before, And here the advantage is my own, I ween (Not that I have not several merits more, But this will more peculiarly be seen); They so embellish, that 't is quite a bore Their labyrinth of fables to thread through, Whereas this ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... was a plump body, well clad, well fed, a carcase that had absorbed much of its world. It cost labor and the pains of innumerable toilers to clothe it, nourish it, maintain it, guard, comfort, and embellish it. And an effort of ten minutes was enough to drain it of all save the fleshly, the mere bestial. The habit of his mind impelled him to sneer as he stood above it, to moralise in the tune of cynicism. "Ecce homo!" ...
— The Second Class Passenger • Perceval Gibbon
... knowledge, and in a very candid tone, takes a very different view of the prophet's death. "In tracing the circumstances of Mahommed's illness, we look in vain for any proofs of that meek and heroic firmness which might be expected to dignify and embellish the last moments of the apostle of God. On some occasions he betrayed such want of fortitude, such marks of childish impatience, as are in general to be found in men only of the most ordinary stamp; and such as extorted ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon
... gentlemen, I extend my thanks to the distinguished ladies who have had the kindness to honor and embellish our tables with their presence; and permit me to invite you to drink with them and with me, hoping that the national harmonizing of individual rights and just liberties, which is called the United ...
— Latin America and the United States - Addresses by Elihu Root • Elihu Root
... Marriage was celebrated with all the intended Magnificence, and on their return from the Mosque, the Prince and Princess repair'd to a stately Scaffold, adorn'd with inventive Luxury, whence they might behold a Tournament, the Prize of which was a Sword richly embellish'd with Diamonds, to be given by the Princess to him that should overcome; the whole Court were there, endeavouring to outshine each other in the Costliness of their Apparel—within the Barriers were all the Flower of the adjoining Kingdoms, drawn thither with a Thirst of ...
— The Life and Romances of Mrs. Eliza Haywood • George Frisbie Whicher
... a less stormy and belligerent company to people the hill? In the quieter days of the fourteenth century, on any bright afternoon, you could have sat beside some friendly artist-monk, and watched him color and embellish those wondrous missals that made the manuscripts of the Brothers famous throughout France. Earlier yet, in those naive centuries, Robert de Torigny, that "bouche des Papes," would doubtless have discoursed to you on any subject dear to this "counsellor of ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd
... time, that in one of her majesty's summer progresses an incident occurred which the painter or the poet might seize and embellish. ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... the idea of the thing evokes the idea. Schopenhauer was right; we do not want the thing, but the idea of the thing. The thing itself is worthless; and the moral writers who embellish it with pious ornamentation are just as reprehensible as Zola, who embellishes it with erotic arabesques. You want the idea drawn out of obscuring matter, this can best be done by the symbol. The symbol, or the thing itself, that is the ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore
... suppose, into a convenient, warm, well-contrived apartment: We necessarily receive a pleasure from its very survey; because it presents us with the pleasing ideas of ease, satisfaction, and enjoyment. The hospitable, good-humoured, humane landlord appears. This circumstance surely must embellish the whole; nor can we easily forbear reflecting, with pleasure, on the satisfaction which results to every one from his intercourse ...
— An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals • David Hume
... tedium vitae round him lowers, The charms of contrast wing his hours, And every scene embellish:— From prison, City, care set free, He tastes his present liberty With keener zest ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 331, September 13, 1828 • Various
... had a Female Samson. She wasn't the Combined Female Contortionist and Strongest Woman in the World that is in my show at present, but she was in about the same line of business. These Strong Women are all genuine, you understand. You can embellish them a little on the handbills, and you can announce that the cannon that the Strong Woman fires from her shoulder weighs a hundred or two pounds more than it actually weighs; but unless a Strong Woman is really strong and no mistake, she might ...
— The Strand Magazine: Volume VII, Issue 37. January, 1894. - An Illustrated Monthly • Edited by George Newnes
... special interest of every one in Egypt, from the Pharaoh to the humblest of his vassals, to maintain the good will and power of the gods, so that their protection might be effectively ensured in the hour of danger. Pains were taken to embellish their temples with obelisks, colossi, altars, and bas-reliefs; new buildings were added to the old; the parts threatened with ruin were restored or entirely rebuilt; daily gifts were brought of every kind—animals which ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 2 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... great point to which all this was to tend, which all this was to fascinate and subdue, to adorn, to embellish, to delight, to honour. Woman! Oh! when I first dared, among the fields of Eton, to dwell upon the soft yet agitating fancy, that some day my existence might perhaps be rendered more intense, by the ...
— The Young Duke • Benjamin Disraeli
... terms as these:—"Sensible of the honour you do my country, I share the gratitude of my fellow-citizens, and hope that it will increase when they have profited by the lessons that you of all men are able to give them. Embellish the asylum you have chosen; enlighten a people worthy of your instruction; and do you who know so well how to paint virtue and freedom, teach us to cherish them in ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley
... ample as those with which she had rewarded the deliverers of the Holy Sepulchre. To the rapacious and profligate she offered the plunder of fertile plains and wealthy cities. Unhappily, the ingenious and polished inhabitants of the Languedocian provinces were far better qualified to enrich and embellish their country than to defend it. Eminent in the arts of peace, unrivalled in the "gay science," elevated above many vulgar superstitions, they wanted that iron courage, and that skill in martial exercises, which distinguished the chivalry of the region beyond the Loire, and ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... the Hellenistic period, were modelled on very early lines. Both countries were the seats of ancient civilizations, and it is natural that each should stage its picture of beginnings upon its own soil and embellish it with ...
— Legends Of Babylon And Egypt - In Relation To Hebrew Tradition • Leonard W. King
... natural phenomena made it impossible for the mere scientist to be the sponsor. It became a question of faith rather than knowledge; and man's instinctive struggle against the risk of extinction impelled him to cling to this larger hope of salvation, and to embellish it with an ethical and moral significance which at first was lacking in the eternal search ...
— The Evolution of the Dragon • G. Elliot Smith
... 'More fancy and vigour in our sculptors, more use of gold and more ornament in our architects—that is what we want. But I think it is past praying for. It would be better to subdivide the work of the world, according to the capacity of the different nations. Let Italy and France embellish us. We might do something in exchange—organise the French colonies, perhaps, or the Italian exchequer. That is our legitimate work, but we will never do ...
— A Duet • A. Conan Doyle
... continued Dupin, "abounds with very strict analogies to the immaterial; and thus some color of truth has been given to the rhetorical dogma, that metaphor, or simile, may be made to strengthen an argument, as well as to embellish a description. The principle of the vis inertiae, for example, seems to be identical in physics and metaphysics. It is not more true in the former, that a large body is with more difficulty set in motion than a smaller one, ...
— The Short-story • William Patterson Atkinson
... primers is to convey information in such a manner as to make it both intelligible and interesting to very young pupils, and so to discipline their minds as to incline them to more systematic after-studies. The woodcuts which illustrate them embellish and explain the text at ...
— Friends in Feathers and Fur, and Other Neighbors - For Young Folks • James Johonnot
... you attempt, from time to time, an original sermon; and in the labour of composition, do not burthen your mind with too much at once; do not exact from yourself at one effort of excogitation, propriety of thought and elegance of expression. Invent first, and then embellish. The production of something, where nothing was before, is an act of greater energy than the expansion or decoration of the thing produced. Set down diligently your thoughts as they rise, in the first words that occur; and, when you have matter, you will easily ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... the corridors, and discontent sat glum or rustled uneasily in each stone cell. Some of the inmates brought pictures, busts and ornaments to embellish their rooms. Friends from the outside world sent presents; the cavalier who played the guitar beneath the window varied his entertainment by gifts; flowers filled the beautiful vases, and these blossoms were replaced ere they ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard
... constructed a classical sculpture gallery, which he enriched with several antiques from his town residence. Notwithstanding all these additions, we are bound to confess, that, compared with the beauty of the situation, they were but unsuccessful efforts of art to embellish bountiful Nature. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 17, No. 476, Saturday, February 12, 1831 • Various
... of Salerno was founded and dedicated to St. Matthew in 1084 by Robert Guiscard, who plundered the temples of Paestum of their marbles and sculptures to embellish it. ...
— The Brochure Series of Architectural Illustration - Vol 1, No. 9 1895 • Various
... descriptions true?' somebody once asked our authoress. 'Yes, yes, yes, as true, as true as is well possible,' she answers. 'You, as a great landscape painter, know that in painting a favourite scene you do a little embellish and can't help it; you avail yourself of happy accidents of atmosphere; if anything be ugly you strike it out, or if anything be wanting, you put it in. But still ...
— Our Village • Mary Russell Mitford
... of these subjects this point was kept in mind, and they are not offered as material which can be cut out in portions of the size and shape desired and transferred bodily by the designer to embellish a modern masterpiece, in the manner in which the Gothic architects of Venice used their patterns of window tracery. These plates show certain qualities in decorative design in their fullest and best development, and are on ...
— The Brochure Series Of Architectural Illustration, Vol 1, No. 2. February 1895. - Byzantine-Romanesque Doorways in Southern Italy • Various
... the writer would not, for the wealth of England, steal from poesy a single lie with which to embellish this narrative. The following is a true history, on which you may safely spend the treasures of your sensibility—if ...
— Madame Firmiani • Honore de Balzac
... of March. He opposed the fugitive slave law because "we cannot be true Christians or real freemen if we impose on another a chain that we defy all human power to lay on ourselves;"[397] he declared for the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia, "and if I shall be asked what I did to embellish the capital of my country, I will point to her freemen and say—these are the monuments of my munificence;" he antagonised the right to take slaves into new territories, affirming that the Constitution devoted the domain ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... words exact and truthful in themselves seem always too thrilling, too great for the subject; seem to embellish it unduly. I feel as if I were acting, for my own benefit, some wretchedly trivial and third-rate comedy; and whenever I try to consider my home in a serious spirit, the scoffing figure of M. Kangourou rises up before me, the matrimonial ...
— Madame Chrysantheme • Pierre Loti
... his methods, and Gen. Peter Horry wrote to him: "I requested you would (if necessary) so far alter the work as to make it read grammatically, and I gave you leave to embellish the work, but entertained not the least idea of what has happened . . . You have carved and mutilated it with so many erroneous statements your embellishments, observation and remarks, must necessarily be erroneous ...
— The Life of General Francis Marion • Mason Locke Weems
... this story of the Pirate Shark was a wild fancy, and these were the prosaic days of wireless and steam power; the whole tale was doubtless one of those strange and utterly improbable yarns that some intoxicated sailor cooks up and other sailors improve upon and embellish. At least, that was the opinion of the two boys as they left the wireless house and joined Captain Hollinger, who had just come to take the bridge. Mart wished they had not ...
— The Pirate Shark • Elliott Whitney
... the Comic scene, (The flattering reflex of a sensual age) Shown prurient Folly's rank licentious mien, Refined, embellish'd ...
— Poems (1828) • Thomas Gent
... together the upper extremities of these sticks, and fix them so as to obtain a vault. All the prominences in the materials employed are turned towards the outside, so that the interior of the room may be smooth and the birds may not catch their plumage in it. This done, the little architects, to embellish their retreat, transport to it a number of conspicuous objects, such as very white stones from a neighbouring stream, shells, the bright feathers of the parroquet, whatever comes to their beak. All these ...
— The Industries of Animals • Frederic Houssay
... longer smiling, half turned so as to pitch her voice fairly into the room, gradually ceased. Gabriel recognised the prelude. It was that of an old song of Aunt Julia's—Arrayed for the Bridal. Her voice, strong and clear in tone, attacked with great spirit the runs which embellish the air and though she sang very rapidly she did not miss even the smallest of the grace notes. To follow the voice, without looking at the singer's face, was to feel and share the excitement of swift and secure flight. Gabriel ...
— Dubliners • James Joyce
... hast wit As well as beauty, Esther. Both are gems That do embellish woman in man's sight. Yet they are gems of second magnitude! Dost THOU possess the one great perfect gem - The matchless jewel ...
— Poems of Progress • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... such works as were rather for ostentation or luxury, than any real usefulness or necessity, as in baths, amphitheaters, circuses, obelisks, triumphal pillars, arches, and mausoleums; for what they added to the aqueducts was rather to supply their baths and naumachias, and to embellish the city with fountains, than out of any real ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 7 - Italy, Sicily, and Greece (Part One) • Various
... of foreign countries, he looks up with a smile and reminds you, 'I got POWER.' Nor is his delight only in the possession, but in the exercise. He rejoices in the crooked and violent paths of kingship like a strong man to run a race, or like an artist in his art. To feel, to use his power, to embellish his island and the picture of the island life after a private ideal, to milk the island vigorously, to extend his singular museum—these employ delightfully the sum of his abilities. I never saw a man more patently in the ...
— In the South Seas • Robert Louis Stevenson
... stultify fool, idiot rule, govern governor, gubernatorial wages, salary nice, exquisite haughty, arrogant letter, epistle pursue, prosecute use, utility use, utilize rival, competitor male, masculine female, feminine beauty, esthetics beauty, pulchritude beautify, embellish poison, venom vote, franchise vote, suffrage taste, gust tasteful, gustatory tasteless, insipid flower, floral count, compute cowardly, pusillanimous tent, pavilion money, finance monetary, pecuniary trace, vestige face, countenance turn, revolve bottle, vial grease, lubricant oily, unctuous ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... necessity for it; the author is quite sure to have added the illustrations that are requisite for the volume. It is only books that were published without illustrations that we are justified in attempting to embellish. Illustrations in a book are invariably a question of the author's and publisher's tastes; the cost of their production is not usually an all-important item: it is the setting up of the type, the paper, and the ...
— The Book-Hunter at Home • P. B. M. Allan
... down an alternative which admits of no dispute; and, abstaining from idle conjectures, undertook to collect evidence. We have now had an interview with the victim of that abominable outrage. Mr.—— is one of those superior workmen who embellish that class for a few years, but invariably rise above it, and leave it' (there—Mr. Little!)—'He has informed us that he is a stranger in Hillsborough, lives retired, never sits down in a public-house, and has not ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... enemies he resolved to complete the pacification of his country by effecting a general disarmament, and he ordered that all weapons should be sent in to his capital at Hienyang. This "skillful disarming of the provinces added daily to the wealth and prosperity of the capital," which he proceeded to embellish. He built one palace within the walls, and the Hall of Audience was ornamented with twelve statues, each of which weighed twelve thousand pounds. But his principal residence named the Palace of Delight, ...
— China • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... shows how that other rendering can be spoilt even to the point of burlesque by an attempt, on preconceived notions, to embellish it with metre and rhyme, but it also hints that parallel verse will actually resent and abhor such embellishment even by the most skilled hand. Yet, I repeat, our version of "Job" is poetry ...
— On The Art of Reading • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... transcribe it bodily here, for, without any gleam of romance or adventure, the experience was one typical of the land and of our life here, which I believe the generous reader will be willing to accept without any attempt on my part to embellish it with ...
— A Woman's Impression of the Philippines • Mary Helen Fee
... reassure yourself," said the buccaneer. "He has shown good stuff, but our two narratives have struck him; he will remember this night for a long time, and, what is better, he will talk about it. Believe me, all the exaggerations which he will use to embellish his recitals will only add to the strange ...
— A Romance of the West Indies • Eugene Sue
... haply want the leisure to expatiate in more miscellaneous speculations. We have been induced, in the first instance, to reprint a thing which he put forth in a friend's volume some years since, entitled 'The Confessions of a Drunkard,' seeing that Messieurs the Quarterly Reviewers have chosen to embellish their last dry pages with fruitful quotations therefrom; adding, from their peculiar brains, the gratuitous affirmation, that they have reason to believe that the describer (in his delineations of a drunkard, forsooth!) ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various
... have—or had—the only gun in this party, and you may thank whatever gods you worship that you didn't try to use it, for—I would have been rough with you. Oh, very rough! I might even have made you eat it. Now, inasmuch as you may be tempted to embellish this story with some highly imaginary details, I prefer that you know the truth. This is the 'gun' I used to stick you up." With a rigidly outthrust thumb Gray prodded the driver in the side. "Simple, isn't it? And no chance for accidents." ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... once been handsome, but traces of sorrow have aged her. The young girl is lovely and her tears only embellish her; the lady appears to be about forty years of age, ...
— Twenty Years After • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... tennis-playing curate? The gossiper whom we have seen nibbling buttered scones at five o'clock tea mounts the pulpit and addresses us upon the subject of the Holy Trinity. On this subject naturally he has nothing to tell us, and naturally we are bored. Rather than abolish ritual I would embellish it, calling to my aid all the resources of art and music. I would invest my ritual with awe and majesty, and my priests should be a ...
— The Orchard of Tears • Sax Rohmer
... by no means complete if devoted entirely to dwellings; and as the resources of an extensive professional practice in the arts which embellish and beautify our country may be largely made use of, we present here a design ...
— Woodward's Country Homes • George E. Woodward
... seats ensued, with general introductions, and then a settling down on pretence of watching the yachts through a glass. It was a very pretty spectacle, and Bessie was left at liberty to enjoy it, and also to take note of the many gay and fashionable folk who enrich and embellish Ryde in the season; for Mr. Cecil Burleigh was entirely engrossed with another person. The party they had joined consisted of a very thin old gentleman, spruce, well brushed, and well cared for; of a languid, pale lady, some thirty ...
— The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax • Harriet Parr
... understood the Indian character too well to forget to embellish his work with a proper amount of jugglery and acting. Luckily, he had left in the canoe a sort of frock of mottled colors that he had made himself, to wear in the woods in the autumn as a hunting-dress, under the notion that such a covering would conceal his ...
— Oak Openings • James Fenimore Cooper
... feet, attentively surveyed his countenance. The emotions which were visible during wakefulness had vanished during this cessation of remembrance and remorse, or were faintly discernible. They served to dignify and solemnize his features, and to embellish those immutable lines which betokened the spirit of his better days. Lineaments were now observed which could never coexist with folly or ...
— Edgar Huntley • Charles Brockden Brown
... affection of the citizens, which rejoiced the heart of Francis the First, and cracked with grief in 1786 at being called upon to ring for Louis XVI. It was his nephew, Rouland Leroux, whose help was called in when the canons desired to embellish their west facade and have a finer central door. This work was begun in 1508 with the money of Georges d'Amboise, and Pierre Desaubeaulx did the central tympanum. Jean Theroulde, Pierre Dalix, another Leroux, Nicolas Quesnel, Hance de Bony, and Denis Lerebours worked at the statuettes. ...
— The Story of Rouen • Sir Theodore Andrea Cook
... chest, in which his lungs had full play, and stalwart limbs which never failed him even in the most difficult mountain ascents. His dark-blue jacket, fitting tightly at the waist, was adorned on the shoulders with epaulets, and in the back with designs in colored embroidery similar to those that embellish the vests of the Breton peasantry. His yellow breeches were fastened at the knee by large buckles. Upon his head he wore a broad-brimmed brown hat with a red-and-black band, and his legs were usually ...
— Ticket No. "9672" • Jules Verne
... all good things, all things sweet, delicious and poetic, which embellish life and make it enjoyable, were withdrawing from her, because she was growing old! It was all finished! Yet she still found within her the tenderness of the young girl and the passionate impulses of the young woman. Nothing had grown old but her body, that ...
— Strong as Death • Guy de Maupassant
... His body was in the counting-house; but his spirit was abroad, in the studio of the painter or engraver. Had his natural talents, which were strong and elastic, been cultivated in early life, he would, in all probability, have attained a considerable reputation. How he loved to embellish—almost to satiety—a favourite work, may be seen by consulting a subsequent page towards the end of this volume. He planned and published the Physiognomical Portraits, a performance not divested of interest—but ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... for the future? Have you laid the foundation of anything by which you can abide contented, and employed? Veronica has been spending two months in New York, with the family of one of my business friends. All that she brings back serves to embellish her quiet life, not to change it. Will it be ...
— The Morgesons • Elizabeth Stoddard
... my country. Against the sneer of the foe, and the skepticism of the foreigner, I will still point to the domestic virtues, that no perfidy could barter, and no bribery can purchase, that with a Roman usage, at once embellish and consecrate households, giving to the society of the hearth all the purity of the altar; that lingering alike in the palace and the cottage, are still to be found scattered over this land—the ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein
... characters they represented in "John Bull."—But to the author of "John Bull," whose genius may be animated to still higher exertions in the pursuit of fame, it may be said—Leave the distortion of language to men who cannot embellish it like ...
— John Bull - The Englishman's Fireside: A Comedy, in Five Acts • George Colman
... has heard of recent excavations under the patronage of the government, and closer inspection shows that these are actually the lower seats of the theatre in the time of the emperor Hadrian, whose favorite residence was Athens, and who did so much to embellish the city. The front seats consist of massive stone chairs, each inscribed with the name of its occupant, generally the priestess of some one of the numerous gods worshiped by that people so given to idolatry. In the centre of the second row is an elevated throne inscribed with the name ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, No. 23, February, 1873, Vol. XI. • Various
... name of others; for instance, his grandsons, his wife, and sister. Thus he built the portico and basilica of Lucius and Caius, and the porticos of Livia and Octavia [155], and the theatre of Marcellus [156]. He also often exhorted other persons of rank to embellish the city by new buildings, or repairing and improving the old, according to their means. In consequence of this recommendation, many were raised; such as the temple of Hercules and the Muses, by Marcius Philippus; a temple of Diana by ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus
... dearth of so many things that once made her life easy and comfortable which throws her back upon her own resources. Here again is woman's strength. Fertile in expedients, apt in device, an artisan to construct and an artist to embellish, she proceeds to supply what is lacking in her new home. She has a miraculous faculty for creating much out of little, and for transforming the coarse into the beautiful. Barrels are converted into easy chairs and wash-stands, spring beds are manufactured with rows of slender, elastic ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler
... eagerness roused the hope that perhaps here they might find something with which to embellish a story in which, so far, they had uncovered little to add to that of yesterday. But first they must know ...
— The Fate of Felix Brand • Florence Finch Kelly
... higher order of things. Mythical narratives occupy much space in these odes, for in the time of Pindar the mythical past was invested with a splendor and sublimity, of which even the faint reflection was sufficient to embellish the present. ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... the most costly and splendid kind was lavished on the Masque; the most celebrated masters were employed on the songs and dances; and all that the kingdom afforded of vocal and instrumental excellence was employed to embellish the exhibition. Thus, magnificently constructed, was composed, as Lord Bacon says, for princes, and by princes it was played. Of these Masques, the skill with which their ornaments were designed, and the inexpressible grace with which they were executed appear to have left a vivid impression ...
— A History of Pantomime • R. J. Broadbent
... one of those audacious stories which Frenchmen alone seem to have enough originality to invent. Captain Mago is sent by Hiram King of Tyre, on a voyage to Tarshish (Spain) to procure a supply of silver and other treasure with which to embellish the temple of David, King of the Jews, which was to be erected at Jerusalem. During his absence of several years, he met with innumerable strange and perilous adventures by land and sea. In itself the ...
— Sara Crewe - or, What Happened at Miss Minchin's • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... rapidly, that the decrees came like hail, always with sounding phrases and grand words to embellish them. ...
— Waterloo - A sequel to The Conscript of 1813 • Emile Erckmann
... details to his story, finding something to embellish it and heighten the effect, and now having succeeded in getting the false Iris into the house, he began already to devise schemes to get her ...
— In Luck at Last • Walter Besant
... us, the warming-pans were found useful in the manufacture of sugar, and brought him in a handsome profit. His ambition rose with his fortune. He purchased a large and stately house in Newburyport, and proceeded to embellish and furnish it according to the dictates of his taste and fancy. In the grounds about his house, he caused to be erected between forty and fifty wooden statues of great men and allegorical figures, together with four lions and one lamb. Among these images were ...
— Over the Teacups • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... the Gospel was clouded by the prodigious number of rites and ceremonies which the bishops invented to embellish it.[215] ...
— Water Baptism • James H. Moon
... our belief forsake us entirely, it still will take with it nothing of what we have given, nor will there be lost one single sincere, religious, disinterested effort that we have put forth to ennoble this faith, to exalt or embellish it. Every thought we have added, each worthy sacrifice we have had the courage to make in its name, will have left its indelible mark on our moral existence. The body is gone, but the palace it built still stands, and the space it has conquered will remain for ever ...
— The Buried Temple • Maurice Maeterlinck |
