"Houri" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... was on the sixth of June, about the hour Of half-past six—perhaps still nearer seven— When Julia sate within as pretty a bower As e'er held houri in that heathenish heaven Described by Mahomet, and Anacreon Moore,[57] To whom the lyre and laurels have been given, With all the trophies of triumphant song— He won them well, and may he wear ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... and, emptying his cup, gave the girls to drink. Then he signed to the thin girl and said to her, 'O Houri of Paradise, feed thou our ears with sweet words and sounds.' So she took the lute; and, tuning it, preluded ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 4 • Richard F. Burton
... a houri from heaven," said Lancelot; "but a houri in a patched print frock—" He shuddered and struck ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... and the rugged piebald plain, Shall the bondman of love win ever free from pain! I wonder, shall I and the friend who's far from me Once more be granted of Fate to meet, we twain! Bravo for a fawn with a houri's eye of black, Like the sun or the shining moon midst the starry train! To lovers, "What see ye?" he saith, and to hearts of stone, "What love ye," quoth he, "[if to love me ye disdain?"] I supplicate Him, who parted us and doomed Our separation, ...
— Tales from the Arabic Volumes 1-3 • John Payne
... twisted, as if she did not know how to dispose of all their abundance, with her vermilion lips, damask cheek, and roguish laughing eye. And Caroline de Blemont! Ah, there is beauty! beauty in perfection. What a cloud of sable curls about the face of a houri! What fascinating lips! What glorious black eyes! Your Byron would have worshipped her, and you—you cold, frigid islander!—you played the austere, the insensible in the presence of ...
— The Professor • (AKA Charlotte Bronte) Currer Bell
... hostler.... I am interrupted at this moment by Simile at the door to ask a question. I wish I could take a photograph as he stands at the door, with the steady eyes of a capable man of affairs, but the dress of a houri; about his loins he has twisted a piece of white cotton; a broad garland of drooping ferns passes over his forehead, crosses at the back of his head, and coming forward round his neck is fastened in a knot of greenery on his breast. He is ...
— The Life of Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson • Nellie Van de Grift Sanchez
... lit. (maids) with eyes of lively white and black, applied to the virgins of Paradise who will wive with the happy Faithful. I retain our vulgar "Houri," warning the reader that it is a masc. for a fem. ("Huriyah") in Arab, although accepted in Persian, ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... intervals—in moments of intense excitement—that this peculiarity became more than slightly noticeable in Ligeia. And at such moments was her beauty—in my heated fancy thus it appeared perhaps—the beauty of beings either above or apart from the earth—the beauty of the fabulous Houri of the Turk. The hue of the orbs was the most brilliant of black, and, far over them, hung jetty lashes of great length. The brows, slightly irregular in outline, had the same tint. The "strangeness," however, which ...
— Famous Modern Ghost Stories • Various
... love, Tartarin jumped out of bed and as he climbed into his ample underwear he asked "What shall I do now?" "Write to the lady quite simply and ask for a meeting" "She understands French then?" Said Tartarin with an air of disappointment. For his dreams had been of an Arabian Houri, uncontaminated by the west. "She doesn't understand a word" Replied the prince imperturbably, "but you will dictate the letter to me and I shall translate it." "Oh prince, how good you are." And Tartarin strode about the room silent and ...
— Tartarin de Tarascon • Alphonse Daudet
... the Phyle in which he was born decided the question. If he was weakly, if he had any bodily unsightliness, he was exposed on a place called Taygetus, and so perished. It was a consequence of this that never did the sun in his course light on man half so godly stalwart, on woman half so houri-lovely, as in stern and stout old Sparta. Death, like all mortal, they must bear; disease, once and for all, they were resolved to have done with. The word which they used to express the idea "ugly," meant also "hateful," "vile," ...
— Prince Zaleski • M.P. Shiel
... trod, Where deep thoughts are a duty, Where Love's a grown-up God, 25 Where the Houri glances are Imbued with all the beauty Which ...
— Selections From Poe • J. Montgomery Gambrill
... which was quite new to him. The ladies upon whom the Duke had of late most often smiled had been somewhat slow,—perhaps almost heavy,—though, no doubt, graceful withal. In his early youth he remembered to have seen, somewhere in Greece, such a houri as was this Madame Goesler. The houri in that case had run off with the captain of a Russian vessel engaged in the tallow trade; but not the less was there left on his Grace's mind some dreamy memory ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope
... believe Lady Fareham would be sorry," answered the physician, with a dry little laugh; "though there are not many married ladies about Rowley's court of whom I would diagnose as much. Not Lady Denham, for instance, that handsome, unprincipled houri, married to a septuagenarian poet, who would rather lock her up in a garret than see her shine at Whitehall; or Lady Castlemaine, whose husband has been uncivil enough to show discontent at a peerage that was not of his own earning; or a dozen others I could ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... In the evening I visited my landlord's garden, in the hope of meeting with Madame Mauvromati, and learning the concluding portion of her history of the massacre of her countrymen, and the destruction of the janissaries. The dark-eyed houri, with her basket of strawberries, was there as usual; and the old lady led us to a seat under the plane trees, commanding a view of Terapia and the ...
— Journal of a Visit to Constantinople and Some of the Greek Islands in the Spring and Summer of 1833 • John Auldjo
... the Houri?" eagerly demanded the youth, in vain endeavouring to raise his head from ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 341, March, 1844, Vol. 55 • Various
... laughed and chatted with her companion. Then, in stooping to pick up one of the shawls, her veil by some means became detached and fell to the ground, and I saw the face of what I thought to be surely the loveliest houri ever seen by mortal man. She gave a little scream and called to her companion, who seemed to be her servant, to assist her to refasten it, but at the same time gave me a smile and a glance out of ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 25, January 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... the meal, the aroma of the East enveloped me, the delicious strains of Bulbul rang in my ears, the Calaisien and the Marseillais, sitting stolidly before me, became straightway transformed into camels, the stewardess into a houri, and the noses of the passengers were as ...
— Notes in North Africa - Being a Guide to the Sportsman and Tourist in Algeria and Tunisia • W. G. Windham
... we say in Bagdad, like "buying a pig in a poke," although rumor greatly magnified her charms, and a secret inclination prompted me. I longed eagerly for the wedding-day; and when her face was revealed to conjugal eyes, methought that Mahomet had sent down a houri from his paradise. Yet I found out, to my cost, that a little knowledge of a woman is worse than ignorance, and that the blinding light of beauty hides the truth more than the thick veil of darkness. Oh, ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I. February, 1862, No. II. - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... this Frankish houri should come to the apartments of which you have hitherto been sole mistress. Fear not, you will soon be another's, for Osman Ali has asked thee for his wife, and I have ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Captain Frederick Marryat
... gazed rapturously on the beauteous slave, admiring in turn her fair countenance, her voluptuous bosom, and her houri-like figure. How lovely, how divinely lovely it all was! And then he bethought him that all this loveliness was his own; that he was the master, the possessor of this girl, at whose command she would fall upon his bosom, ...
— Halil the Pedlar - A Tale of Old Stambul • Mr Jkai
... that angel trod, Where deep thoughts are a duty, Where Love's a grown-up God, Where the Houri glances are Imbued with all the beauty Which we ...
— The Golden Treasury of American Songs and Lyrics • Various
... been seeing me all the time, and the blankets made no difference!' 'Was she really ugly?' I asked. 'Well, I don't know what you call ugly,' he answered, 'but if you had seen her stare, you would have thought her ugly enough! Had she been as beautiful as a houri, though, I don't imagine I should have been less frightened!' 'Well,' said I, for he had come to a pause, 'and what came next?' 'I can not tell. I came to myself all trembling, and as cold and as wet as if I had been dipped in a well' 'You are sure you were not dreaming?' ...
— Home Again • George MacDonald
... and charity sermons, theatres and bazaars, the dressmaker and the confessor. The mistress of the house united a great personal charm with this acquired science—a science visible even in her black and very simple dress, which brought out her nun-like pallor, her houri-like eyes, her shining and plaited hair drawn back from a narrow, child-like forehead, a forehead of which the small mouth accentuated the mystery, hiding from the inquisitive the former favourite's whole varied past, she ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... has been gradually sliding down in his chair since his last adjustment and is now a bundle of clothes with a voice in it calling for Judy. That houri, appearing, shakes him up in the usual manner and is charged by the old gentleman to remain near him. For he seems chary of putting his visitor to the trouble of repeating ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... came to Dr. Lacey's relief by saying, "Why, Dr. Lacey, Mr. Middleton wants you to repeat what I have already told him, that Julia is exceedingly beautiful and that Fanny is as lovely as a Houri, and has the saddest, sweetest face I ever saw, and ...
— Tempest and Sunshine • Mary J. Holmes
... benison to me Wakes my sick soul to dreamful ecstasy, I fancy that some old Arabian night Saw you my houri and ...
— The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... liberal offerings of silver and of gold. I discharged the commission in person, and must confess that the little black-eyed maid, seated as I first saw her, on crimson cushions of rich Genoa velvet, and nearly enveloped in a veil starred with precious gems, looked more like a houri than a woman. She pleased me mightily; and, as I had a good deal of time on my hands, I trifled it with her. This might have done well; we might have gone on pleasantly enough; but the creature was as jealous as a she-tiger, and as revengeful ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... to the taster rise, Of Dervish or of Almeh dances! Of Eblis, or of Paradise, Set all aglow with Houri glances! ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... myself a queen of Sheba or some Eastern houri screened by silken curtains from the vulgar gaze. What extravagances my imagination in its pride might have led me into it is impossible to say, but for the bodily discomfort. The camel is called the "ship ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, September, 1878 • Various
... he was dim, the lady was dimmer. Sometimes I thought of her as a fat old German crone, sometimes as a harsh-featured woman like a schoolmistress with thin lips and eyeglasses. But I had to fit the East into the picture, so I made her young and gave her a touch of the languid houri in a veil. I was always wanting to pump Blenkiron on the subject, but he shut up like a rat-trap. He was looking for bad trouble in that direction, and was disinclined to speak ...
— Greenmantle • John Buchan |
