"Mirror" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... "It is the mind that makes the body rich." Thoughts take shape and coloring from souls through which they pass; and a free and open mind looks upon the world in the mood in which a fair woman beholds herself in a mirror. The world is his as much as the face is hers. If we could live in the fairest spot of earth, and in the company of those who are dear, the source of our happiness would still be our own thought and love; and if they are great and ...
— Education and the Higher Life • J. L. Spalding
... down his pot and brushes. They had no mirror, but Glaucon knew that he was transformed. The host got his daric. Again they went out into the night and forsaking the crowded town sought the seaside. The strand was broad, the sand soft and cool, the circling stars gave three hours yet ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... the back of his hand across his own face, not doubting that he must present an even more disreputable appearance. He leaned forward cautiously to look into the water, but that surface was not quiet enough to act as a mirror. ...
— Storm Over Warlock • Andre Norton
... thought you wore your hair different." And then she flushed. Her own hair was in a braid, and she flushed still more when, glancing into a little mirror, she looked from her face to Gloria's. She had put her own hair down into a braid to be like the girl Dinney had told of. But how different they were! Instantly she realized that hers was a face without round, girlish curves. But she did not speak of ...
— Gloria and Treeless Street • Annie Hamilton Donnell
... circular vale of immoderate plant-luxuriance, a never-ending delight of the eye; the French call it by the appropriate name of "la corbeille." Here the springs issue—l52 of them—from under steep walls of sand; they form glad pools of blue and green that mirror the foliage with impeccable truthfulness and then, after coursing in distracted filaments about the "corbeille," join their waters and speed downhill towards the oasis, a narrow belt of trees running along either side. This marvellous palm-embroidered rift ...
— Fountains In The Sand - Rambles Among The Oases Of Tunisia • Norman Douglas
... gown, but with none of her old niceness of detail. She merely put it on. Her wet hair she twisted into a knot without glancing at the mirror. As she entered the parlor she staggered slightly. Talbot averted his eyes. He may have had similar cases, and, as a doctor, become hardened to all manifestations of human weakness, but this patient was his wife. It was only temporary, of course, and a not unnatural ...
— Sleeping Fires • Gertrude Atherton
... such a freedom and desire to take strangers, as it were, into their bosom, as was enough to make us forget all that was dear to us in our own countries; and continually we met with many things, right worthy of observation and relation; as indeed, if there be a mirror in the world, worthy to hold men's eyes, it is that country. One day there were two of our company bidden to a feast of the family, as they call it; a most natural, pious, and reverend custom it is, showing that nation to be compounded of all goodness. This is ...
— Ideal Commonwealths • Various
... the bank. Renee perceived an over-swollen monster gourd that had strayed from a garden adjoining the river, and hung sliding heavily down the bank on one greenish yellow cheek, in prolonged contemplation of its image in the mirror below. Apparently this ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... purpose, and no capacity of self-sacrifice except in spasms of impulse, and in emotional feeling which is real to itself; a spiritual Proteus who deceives even himself, and only now and then recognizes his own moral illusiveness, like Hawthorne's scarecrow-gentleman before the mirror: but with the irresistible instincts also of the born literary creator and constructor. The other characters are drawn with ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... herself like this, but today she let her hair cascade in a shining glory about her, and about her forehead bound a circlet of red ribbon. She was not yet done. Today she had marvelous designs. On the wall close to her mirror she had tacked a large page from a woman's magazine, and on this page was a lovely vision of curls. Fifteen hundred miles north of the sunny California studio in which the picture had been taken, Nepeese, with pouted red lips ...
— Baree, Son of Kazan • James Oliver Curwood
... is very pleasant to be alone. It is pleasant to be able to gaze at leisure upon those features which all others may gaze upon at their good will! [Looking at his reflection in hand-mirror.] Ah, I am a ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan
... me, now," she answers, viewing herself in the mirror. Her neat setting suit, Panama hat, and green spectacles, give a peculiar air to her lithe figure. And though her emotions are well nigh ready to give forth tears, she cannot suppress a smile at the singular ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... evidently strong. To see her with her brother! What could more delightfully prove that the warmth of her heart was equal to its gentleness? What could be more encouraging to a man who had her love in view? Then, her understanding was beyond every suspicion, quick and clear; and her manners were the mirror of her own modest and elegant mind. Nor was this all. Henry Crawford had too much sense not to feel the worth of good principles in a wife, though he was too little accustomed to serious reflection to know them by their proper name; but when he talked ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... away the maid, and sat there in the dressing-room before the mirror, waiting, her glance traveling about and noting the profuse and prodigal luxury. In the corner stood a circular rack loaded with dressing-gowns—more than a score of exquisite combinations of silk and lace or silk and chiffon. It so happened that there ...
— The Price She Paid • David Graham Phillips
... was covered with tiny, close-lying curls that made her look wonderfully like a truant schoolboy. She looked at her reflection in the mirror long, ...
— The Four Million • O. Henry
... as a mirror, place This story out for the world to face, How many, think you, would there perceive Likeness to children ...
— The Youth's Coronal • Hannah Flagg Gould
... last the girl abruptly rose from her seat. Almost mechanically she moved over to a mirror, and, removing her hat, deftly patted her beautiful hair till it assumed its wonted appearance. And quite suddenly ...
— The Golden Woman - A Story of the Montana Hills • Ridgwell Cullum
... belonging that is possible for a luxurious taste to provide, it is a bit of a trial to give it up and be satisfied with a cot at one end of a long, barnlike place, with no chance for solitude, and only one mirror and one pitcher and basin to serve the needs of three persons. It can be borne, however, as every small trial in this world may, if there is a cheerful spirit and a strong, loving heart to fall ...
— Holiday Stories for Young People • Various
... got in the car. Rick turned it around and headed for town. The rear-view mirror told him that the Frostola man watched them until the trees hid them ...
— The Blue Ghost Mystery • Harold Leland Goodwin
... the regular summer wind, a yachtsman's gale. Four days out of six its cycle ran the same, a breeze rising at ten o'clock, stiffening to a healthy blow, a mere sigh at sundown. Midnight would find the sea smooth as a mirror, the heaving swell killed ...
— Poor Man's Rock • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... representatives of the people may generally be considered as a mirror, reflecting truly the passions and feelings which govern their constituents. In the late elections, the strength of parties had been tried, and the opposition had derived so much aid from associating the cause of France ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing
... and towards the broad highly-adorned square by the side of which they had placed themselves, and where it was hard to realize that the ground had once been soaked in blood while madness and death filled the air; and her changing face like a mirror gave him back the reflection of the times he held up to her view. And still standing there in the same attitude after he had done she had been looking out towards the square in a fit of deep meditation. Mr. Carleton had forgotten her for awhile in his own thoughts, and then the sight of the little ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... present, and leaving what is afar off to the care of chance and fortune. Talk to a man of his condition thirty years hence, and he will not regard you. Speak of what is to happen tomorrow, and he will lend you attention. The breaking of a mirror gives us more concern when at home, than the burning of a house, when abroad, and ...
— A Treatise of Human Nature • David Hume
... but a deceitful mirror, where sometimes one destroys himself, while another comes off safe; and where one ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... whence the lamp hath his light, and the ocean to whom the brook oweth his waters. Thank that incomparable paragon, that consummate swan, that pearl of all perfection, my mistress, of whose brightness I am but the mirror and medium." ...
— Sir Ludar - A Story of the Days of the Great Queen Bess • Talbot Baines Reed
... we recognise the reflection of letters in the water, or in a mirror, only when we know the letters themselves; the same art and study giving us ...
— The Republic • Plato
... which the mountains in dim grandeur rise. Silent, alone he crossed the maidan wide Where first he saw the sweet Yasodhara, Where joyful multitudes so often met, Now still as that dark valley of his dream. He passed the lake, mirror of heaven's high vault, Whose ruffled waters ripple on the shore, Stirred by cool breezes from the snow-capped peaks; And heedless of his way passed on and up, Through giant cedars and the lofty pines, Over a leafy carpet, velvet soft, While solemn voices from ...
— The Dawn and the Day • Henry Thayer Niles
... me hard this morning when I dressed And read the mirror's verdict. Ah, the pain Is gnawing like a canker at my breast, Is beating like a hammer in my brain; I must speak out or break beneath the strain. I'm going bald on top. O cruel reef Where youthful hopes lie wrecked! O dismal lane Whose end is ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, June 11, 1919 • Various
... myself in a perfect enchantment of mirrors. Not an inch of wall was anywhere visible. I was suddenly caught up into the seventh heaven of looking-glasses, from which I came down with a shock the moment I emerged into the street again. I observed that this mirror contagion had broken out in spots in London, and, in the narrow and crowded condition of the shops there, even this illusory enlargement would be a relief. It might not improve the air, or add to the available storage capacity ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs
... 26th, they came across a vast lake, still frozen by reason of its being sheltered from the sun; the ice was even strong enough to bear both men and sledge. It was a solid mirror which no arctic summers had melted, as was shown by the fact that its borders were surrounded by a dry snow, of which the lower layers evidently belonged to ...
— The Voyages and Adventures of Captain Hatteras • Jules Verne
... an instrument of reflexion calculated to bring simultaneously two stars into the field of the telescope, after having equalized their light by receiving it with more or fewer rays at pleasure, reflected by the silvered part of the mirror. I admit that these photometric processes are not very precise; but I believe the last, which perhaps had never before been employed, might he rendered nearly exact, by adding a scale of equal parts to ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America • Alexander von Humboldt
... point downwards above the city, whereon all present vowed they saw it too, though, as I think, it was but a cross of stars. Another tells how that he met the very spirit of Issachar stalking through the market-place, and that peering into the eyes of the wraith, as in a mirror, he saw a great flame wrapping the temple walls, and by the light of it his own dead body. This man was the priest who first struck down the holy Levite yonder in ...
— Elissa • H. Rider Haggard
... influence of a clear spring morning in the forest, is impossible to resist. The mirror-like sparkle of the water that sweeps beneath the light canoe, or glitters in the dew-drops upon the ashen blade; the golden blaze of sunshine streaming up in the heavens; the dewy woods, flecked here and there by the blossoms of some wild fruit or flower; the cool air beneath ...
— The Lost Trail - I • Edward S. Ellis
... sometimes they say, I bewitch and do harm; Though cold, I inflame; and though quiet, invade: And nothing can shield from my spell but a shade. A thief that has robb'd you, or done you disgrace, In magical mirror, I'll show you his face: Nay, if you'll believe what the poets have said, They'll tell you I kill, and can call back the dead. Like conjurers safe in my circle I dwell; I love to look black too, it heightens my spell; Though my magic is mighty in every hue, Who see all my ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... facts of wealth and advantage gripped her; and when she sat at the piano and played or rode in her carriage or walked or stood before her mirror, she was conscious of her figure, her charms, what they meant to men, how women envied her. Sometimes she looked at poor, hollow-chested or homely-faced girls and felt sorry for them; at other times she flared into inexplicable ...
— The Financier • Theodore Dreiser
... married a simple village girl, in whose eyes he was nobler than the noblest—to whom he was the mirror, in which the real forms of all things around were reflected. Who dares pity my poor village schoolmaster? I fling his pity away. Had he not found in her love the verdict of God, that he was worth loving? Did he not in ...
— Adela Cathcart, Vol. 1 • George MacDonald
... his last clean collar and put it on, with the vague idea of going somewhere and doing something—what, he could not have told. His eyes fell on a framed document hanging near his mirror, a small but ornate instrument, setting forth that the Faculty and Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University, by virtue of the authority in them vested, etc., conferred the degree of Bachelor of Arts in Chemistry ...
— Stanford Stories - Tales of a Young University • Charles K. Field
... reveals to man the beauties of creation. The aesthetic sentiment is acknowledged to be the most refining element of civilized life. Painting, sculpture, architecture, and all the scenes of nature, from a tiny way-side flower to a Niagara, are subjects in which the poet's eye sees rare beauties to mirror forth in the ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... 1828 included, however, only three of these little prose tales—of which the first in order was that entitled "My Aunt Margaret's Mirror." By way of introduction to this, when now included in a general collection of my lucubrations, I have only to say that it is a mere transcript, or at least with very little embellishment, of a story that I remembered ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... followed her, like a dog, as she walked round the table to look at herself in the mirror over the fireplace. 'It was only because I'm so ...
— In the Year of Jubilee • George Gissing
... field, and in every element of all that is ignorantly thought to be dead and inert matter. So that the soul of man, he said, is one with the soul that is in all Nature, only that when man is truly human, in him alone the soul becomes self-knowing and self-concentrated; the mirror of Heaven, and the focus of the Divine Light. And he declared, moreover, that the spiritual evolution of which he spoke was not so much promoted by intellectual knowledge as by moral goodness; that it was possible ...
— Dreams and Dream Stories • Anna (Bonus) Kingsford
... tidied by the maids, but allowed to remain just as she had left it. I advanced to the window, in which was set the large dressing-table with its big swing-mirror and silver-topped bottles, and on gazing out saw, to my surprise, it was the only window which gave a view of that corner of Rannoch Wood where the double tragedy had taken place. Indeed, any person standing at the spot would have a clear view ...
— The Czar's Spy - The Mystery of a Silent Love • William Le Queux
... bloom by the fire of thought. On a chimney-piece of slate-blue marble were figures in old Dresden, shepherds in bridal garb, with delicate bouquets in their hands, German fantasticalities surrounding a platinum clock, inlaid with arabesques. Above it sparkled the brilliant facets of a Venice mirror framed in ebony, with figures carved in relief, evidently obtained from some former royal residence. Two jardinieres were filled with the exotic product of a hot-house, pale, but divine flowers, the ...
— A Daughter of Eve • Honore de Balzac
... Queens, most mild, most meek, most wise, Most venerable, Cause of all our joy, Whose cheerful look our sadnesse doth destroy, And art the spotlesse Mirror ...
— Our Lady Saint Mary • J. G. H. Barry
... on the sea and overspreading the sky faded out, and all grew dark, save where there was a glow in the north. The stars had come out bright and clear, and covered the sky like so many points of light looking down at themselves in the mirror-like sea. The tide came up fast, and as the waves heaved and swayed and ran in, it seemed as if they were sweeping before them myriads and myriads of stars, for the water was covered with light, some being the reflections from the sky, others the ...
— Devon Boys - A Tale of the North Shore • George Manville Fenn
... last of half a hundred portraits of himself, painted and etched without vanity; painted because a man's self is such an accommodating model, always ready and willing; painted because Rembrandt loved to experiment with himself before a mirror, grimacing, angry, stern, "as an officer," "with a casque," "with a gorget," or, as we see him in the National Gallery, on one wall with the bloom of youth and health upon his face, on the other, dulled, stained, and marked by the finger of time. This we ...
— Rembrandt • Mortimer Menpes
... when I overheard a young lady say I was growing pretty. I went to my mirror and spent some moments in unalloyed happiness and triumph. Then I thought, "Pretty face, the worms will eat you. All the prettiest girls I know are silly, but you shall never make a fool of me. Helen's beauty ruined Troy. Cleopatra was a wretch. So if you are pretty, ...
— Half a Century • Jane Grey Cannon Swisshelm
... saith he will fetch that water though he burst the globe and wreck its kingdoms to accomplish it; and right bravely doth he work his magic and call upon his hellions to hie them hither and help, but not a whiff of moisture hath he started yet, even so much as might qualify as mist upon a copper mirror an ye count not the barrel of sweat he sweateth betwixt sun and sun over the dire labors of his task; ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... else. We saw each other in the mirror behind the bar. I don't know whether you ever noticed it or not, Tom, but McMakin's eyes had a way of looking almost like cross-eyes when he was startled or excited. They were a good deal too near together ...
— Danny's Own Story • Don Marquis
... tenderness she stroked his locks. Yet while she did so she lifted to the sister a face lighted up with a mirth of deliverance. To nod, toss, and nod again, was poor show for her glee; she smirked and writhed to the disdaining girl like a child at a mirror, and, though sitting thus confined, gave all the effects of jigging over the floor. Hilary out of the way! Kincaid eliminated, and the whole question free of him, this inheritance question so small and mean to all but her and Irby, but to him and her ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable
... a picture suspended against the sala wall—the portrait of a beautiful girl—he stopped in front, for a moment gazed upon it, and then into a mirror that stood close by. ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid
... she saw the bright light flash up. It changed her feeling. Who was this person whose image stood reflected in the mirror? Lenore's recognition of herself almost stunned her. What had happened? She saw that her hair fell wildly over her bare shoulders; her face shone white, with red spots in her cheeks; her eyes seemed balls ...
— The Desert of Wheat • Zane Grey
... love of cousins is proverbially not of a very romantic character. 'Tis well I have not seen her much in my life, and very little of late. Familiarity breeds contempt, they say. Will she dare to despise me?' He glanced at the mirror. The inspection was not unsatisfactory. Plunged in profound meditation, he paced ...
— Henrietta Temple - A Love Story • Benjamin Disraeli
... knees among the leaves). Daddy, now I am putting up my hair. I have got such a darling of a mirror. It is such a darling mirror I 've got, Dad. Dad, don't look. I shall tell you about it. It is a little pool of water. I wish we could take it home and hang it up. Of course the moment my hair is up there will be ...
— Dear Brutus • J. M. Barrie
... minds they pass, Like shadows from the mirror'd glass. Wayward, fickle is our mood, Hovering betwixt bad and good, Happier than brief-dated man, Living twenty times his span; Far less happy, for we have Help nor hope beyond the grave! Man awakes to joy or sorrow; Ours the sleep that knows no morrow. This is ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... thick-set negro, with a most luxuriant head of wool, a portion of which hung around his head in small, close braids, resembling bits of decayed rope. His eyes were large and protruding, and his face glistened like a mirror. He was a genuine African. Some of their qualities in him were carried to the extreme. Instead of being a coward, as is often the case with his nation, he seemed never to know when there really was danger. He always was reckless and careless, and ...
— The Ranger - or The Fugitives of the Border • Edward S. Ellis
... ducks that were resting tranquilly on the water, or were standing in it on their heads—for that they were able to do—swam suddenly to the shore: you could see in the wet ground the traces of their feet, and hear their quacking far and near. The water, which but just now was smooth and bright as a mirror, was quite put into commotion. Before, one saw every tree reflected in it, every bush that was near: the old farm-house, with the holes in the roof and with the swallow's nest under the eaves; but principally, however, the great rose-bush, sown, ...
— A Christmas Greeting • Hans Christian Andersen
... defile it by sensual and fleshly lusts, and animal propensities gratified, and poor, miserable, worldly ambitions and longings filling up your souls, then God can no more be visible before your face than the blessed sun can mirror himself in a storm-tossed sea or in a muddy puddle. The heart must be pure, and the heart must be still, and the mind must be detached from earth, and glued to Heaven, and the glasses of the telescope must be sedulously cleansed from dust, ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... leap and his voice shout at the beautiful sight that met his gaze when he reached the forecastle. The sea was like one wide beautiful mirror, in which all the clouds were clearly reflected. The sun shone brightly and glittered on the swell on which the ship rolled slowly; and the only sound that could be heard was the gentle flapping of the loose sails, now and then, against ...
— The Life of a Ship • R.M. Ballantyne
... mirror, Roger," he breathed in awe. "Only there isn't any other side—no reflection. It just ...
— Stand by for Mars! • Carey Rockwell
... and of having a variety of adventures is explained by many peoples by the hypothesis that these are real experiences which befell the "soul" when it wandered abroad during its owner's sleep. A man's shadow or his reflection in water or a mirror has been interpreted as his double. But what these speculations leave out of account is the fact that these dream- and shadow-phenomena were probably merely the predisposing circumstances which helped in the ...
— The Evolution of the Dragon • G. Elliot Smith
... the rack, barrels to the front, with dress hats on the shelf, and a mirror in the middle of the mantelshelf. Accoutrements and forage saps were hung on certain hooks, and clothing and other things allowable and necessary were always to be kept in an unvarying order on a set ...
— Frank Merriwell's Chums • Burt L. Standish
... you care to put it that way, to visit Shelby's apartment—diggings, Shelby always called them. There, on the walls, he told us, were innumerable photographs of Miss Davis, in every conceivable pose. They looked out at one from delicate and heavy frames; and some were stuck informally in the mirror of his dresser, as though casually placed there to lighten up the beginning of each day, or perhaps because there was no other ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... day in the shop of a man named Itikoff. A thief entered his place and having requested the proprietor to get him a certain article he rifled the money-box the moment the Jew's back was turned. Itikoff saw the act in a mirror, and turning suddenly he seized the man by the neck and beat him severely. The man's cries brought a crowd to the door who, seeing a fellow-gentile maltreated by a Jew, at once set upon the unfortunate shopkeeper ...
— Rabbi and Priest - A Story • Milton Goldsmith
... on her throat and viewed the result in the mirror. It was then that her eye met a golden glint. She turned to see what had caused it, and was astonished to discover on the floor near the molding that poor Chinaman's brass hand warmer. She picked it up and turned back the jigsawed ...
— The Pagan Madonna • Harold MacGrath
... of the falls on the Saco, the two little hamlets of Edgewood and Riverboro nestle together at the bridge and make one village. The stream is a wonder of beauty just here; a mirror of placid loveliness above the dam, a tawny, roaring wonder at the fall, and a mad, white-flecked torrent as it dashes on ...
— The Story Of Waitstill Baxter • By Kate Douglas Wiggin
... him, and, although I was fearful of disturbing him, he assured me that he desired to have me with him. On one of these mornings, I was lying on the sofa endeavouring to keep perfectly quiet, while my father wrote busily and rapidly at his desk, when he suddenly jumped from his chair and rushed to a mirror which hung near, and in which I could see the reflection of some extraordinary facial contortions which he was making. He returned rapidly to his desk, wrote furiously for a few moments, and then went again to the mirror. The facial pantomime was resumed, and ...
— My Father as I Recall Him • Mamie Dickens
... all the youth of England are on fire, And silken dalliance in the wardrobe lies: Now thrive the armourers, and honour's thought Reigns solely in the breast of every man: They sell the pasture now to buy the horse; Following the mirror of all Christian kings, With winged heels, as English Mercuries; For now sits expectation in the air. O England!—model to thy inward greatness, Like little body with a mighty heart,— What might'st thou do, that honour would ...
— King Henry the Fifth - Arranged for Representation at the Princess's Theatre • William Shakespeare
... suggested the plot of Dead Souls as well as the plot of the earlier work The Revisor, which is almost the only comedy in Russian. The importance of both is their introduction of the social element in Russian literature, as Prince Kropotkin points out. Both hold up the mirror to Russian officialdom and the effects it has produced on the national character. The plot of Dead Souls is simple enough, and is said to have been suggested by an ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... hands, and nothing amuses me so much as to watch all that is going on down on your planet, and see what people in general, and children in particular, are doing, every day and all day. You may wonder how I can see so far, and see distinctly, but that is easily explained. I have a great, monstrous mirror, which is—oh! well, if I were to tell you how big it is, you would not believe me, so I will only say that it is very big indeed. This mirror has also the advantage of being a very strong magnifying glass, and as I can tip it in any ...
— Five Mice in a Mouse-trap - by the Man in the Moon. • Laura E. Richards
... a man could you expect the appeal to conscience to be effective. You might as well ask for a reflection without a mirror. I take it that conscience is the guardian in the individual of the rules which the community has evolved for its own preservation. It is the policeman in all our hearts, set there to watch that we do not break its laws. It is the spy seated in the central stronghold of the ...
— The Moon and Sixpence • W. Somerset Maugham
... woman may also be compared to a mirror of crystal, shining and bright, but liable to be sullied by every breath that comes near it. The virtuous woman must be treated like a relic—adored but not handled; she should be guarded and prized, ...
— Wit and Wisdom of Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... then he put a Forefinger to his Brow and glanced at the Mirror to make sure that he still resembled ...
— Fables in Slang • George Ade
... it would be natural for him to want to go out there without me," Evelina simpered. "But it's all so sudden I don't know what to think. He only got the letter this morning. DO I look queer, Ann Eliza?" Her eye was roving for the mirror. ...
— Bunner Sisters • Edith Wharton
... life, to show us a private sitting-room. Upon that, he pulled out a napkin, as if it were a magic clew without which he couldn't find the way up stairs, and led us to the black hole of the establishment, fitted up with a diminishing mirror (quite a superfluous article, considering the hole's proportions), an anchovy sauce-cruet, and somebody's pattens. On my objecting to this retreat, he took us into another room with a dinner-table ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... porch through festoons of lacing boughs gleamed the waters of the huge curved mirror held by Nature's hand. The music from the decks of the steamers floated up on the soft air until music and ...
— The Victim - A romance of the Real Jefferson Davis • Thomas Dixon
... others, every man shows a decided preference for those who resemble him; and a blockhead will find the society of another blockhead incomparably more pleasant than that of any number of great minds put together. Every man must necessarily take his chief pleasure in his own work, because it is the mirror of his own mind, the echo of his own thought; and next in order will come the work of people like him; that is to say, a dull, shallow and perverse man, a dealer in mere words, will give his sincere and hearty applause only to that which is dull, shallow, perverse or merely verbose. On the ...
— The Art of Literature • Arthur Schopenhauer
... but by our decreasing speed I felt that we were already gliding over level crossings to the admiration of belated townsfolk waiting at the gates. Raffles turned from his mirror, and I from mine, simultaneously; and even to my initiated eye it was not Raffles at all, but another noble scamp who even in those days before the war was the observed of all observers ...
— Mr. Justice Raffles • E. W. Hornung
... which might be most easily introduced into general use is a small convex mirror, in which the lady may see herself whenever she shall lift her hand. This will be a perpetual source of delight. Other ornaments are of use only in publick, but this will furnish gratifications to solitude. This will show a face that must always please; she who is followed by admirers ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... A door in the centre. Side doors. At the front, to the left, a mantel-piece with a mirror. To the right, a window, and next it ...
— Mercadet - A Comedy In Three Acts • Honore De Balzac
... the matter, had never seen the woman before, and did not care if he never saw her again. Had the peasants at the door seen anyone ride away? No, they had seen nobody. I searched here and searched there, until at last I chanced to find myself in front of a mirror, where I stood with my eyes staring and my jaw as far dropped as the chin-strap of my shako ...
— The Exploits Of Brigadier Gerard • Arthur Conan Doyle
... still higher satisfaction he rubbed it over his head. He held hatchets and other iron instruments in the highest esteem. On seeing his countenance in a glass for the first time he exclaimed, "I shall never kill deer more," and immediately put the mirror down. The tribe to which he belongs repair to the sea in spring and kill seals; as the season advances they hunt deer and musk-oxen at some distance from the coast. Their weapon is the bow and arrow and they get sufficiently ...
— The Journey to the Polar Sea • John Franklin
... to be done," he said as he stooped to take the shirt out of the fender, "it's got to be done, so why balk it?" And as he combed his hair before the mirror on the wall, he retorted to himself, superficially: "The woman's not speechless dumb. She's not clutterin' at the nipple. She's got the right to please herself, and displease whosoever ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence
... the first thing that strikes the eye is the carpet, with a stiff set pattern large enough to knock you down, and of a rich gaudy colour. You raise your eyes—find opposite them the regulation white marble mantelpiece, more or less carved, and a gilt mirror, which we will hope is not protected from the flies by green netting. Having made a grimace, you sit down upon one of the chairs. There are nine in the room besides the sofa—perhaps an ottoman—and you can take your choice between the 'gent's' armchair, the lady's low-chair, and the six high ones. ...
— Town Life in Australia - 1883 • R. E. N. (Richard) Twopeny
... splendid, Ro; you know just what to say! And a feather fan, with a tiny mirror let into the sticks; dear little silver shoes with buckles, and a single white rosebud tucked in your hair below your ear. That's the place they always put it in books. It would fall out before the first ...
— Etheldreda the Ready - A School Story • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... below, the sea lay like a mirror; and the shepherd, as he looked over for a deep place, saw the great fronds of the sea-weeds and the jelly-fish and the anemones lying motionless in the crystal waters. Then he took the monkey and the stone in his great hands, examined the knots hastily, and, with one sudden swing, heaved ...
— The Monkey That Would Not Kill • Henry Drummond
... then, a dream and delusion, and where shall the dreamer awake? Is the world seen like shadows on water, and what if the mirror break? Shall it pass as a camp that is struck, as a tent that is gathered and gone From the sands that were lamp-lit at eve, and at ...
— The World's Best Poetry Volume IV. • Bliss Carman
... peculiarly unorthodox, in the archdeacon's estimation, in the idea of a round table. He had always been accustomed to a goodly board of decent length, comfortably elongating itself according to the number of the guests, nearly black with perpetual rubbing, and as bright as a mirror. Now round dinner-tables are generally of oak, or else of such new construction as not to have acquired the peculiar hue which was so pleasing to him. He connected them with what he called the nasty newfangled ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... me the mirror [4], and the casket with my trinkets, directly, Scapha, that I may be quite dressed when Philolaches, my delight, ...
— The Captiva and The Mostellaria • Plautus
... the world, in his own heart, to judge even those he loved rightly. But the conduct, the looks, the words of ordinary men, he hardly took the trouble of remarking; and the good parson's surprise and hesitation, passed like breath upon a mirror, seen perhaps, but retaining no hold upon his mind for a moment. Neither did the abrupt question surprise him; nor the quick, angry look which it called up on the face of the attorney attract his notice; but he replied ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various
... resemblance between the two worlds are the criteria they instinctively use. [Footnote: The thoroughgoing objector might, it is true, still return to the charge, and, granting a dream which should completely mirror the real universe, and all the actions dreamed in which should be instantly matched by duplicate actions in this universe, still insist that this is nothing more than harmony, and that it is as ...
— The Meaning of Truth • William James
... all the members of the household would be expected to join, and he arrayed himself in the best he had—a decent suit of broadcloth, a clean shirt, a black tie. He looked at himself in the cracked mirror. His face was ghastly yellow, the whites of his eyes injected with blood, the veins at the temples swollen and congested. He was afraid that his appearance might excite remark, though it was in ...
— Sant' Ilario • F. Marion Crawford
... He was about five feet three or four inches [About five feet six or seven inches in English measurement.—TRANS.] in height. He was kind, gay, amiable, full of wit, intelligent, generous; and it might well be said that his frank and open countenance was the mirror of his soul. How many services he has rendered others during the course of his life, and at the very period when in order to do so he had often to impose ...
— The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Constant
... avenues and the paths winding amid stalwart trees and verdant shrubbery, the dark foliage ineffectually veiling the gleaming statuary and the sheen of bright fountains, "the stone basin with its clear depth, the thick-planted trees which framed this tremulous and rippled mirror," the groups of happy people filling the seats in secluded nooks or loitering in the cool mazes and listening to the music,—we noted all this, and felt that Miss Bronte had revealed it to us long ago. It was across this ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December, 1885 • Various
... raised a shout, and pressed forward. Every instant they expected to come upon a stream. Several of the trees were passed, and none was seen. At length they reached a bank below which the stars were reflected as in a mirror. ...
— Ned Garth - Made Prisoner in Africa. A Tale of the Slave Trade • W. H. G. Kingston
... I describe him? I have seen him twenty times and each time he was a different person; even he himself said to me on one occasion: "I no longer know who I am. I cannot recognize myself in the mirror." Certainly, he was a great actor, and possessed a marvelous faculty for disguising himself. Without the slightest effort, he could adopt the voice, gestures and mannerisms of ...
— The Extraordinary Adventures of Arsene Lupin, Gentleman-Burglar • Maurice Leblanc
... whether they be actually undivided, but potentially divisible. And therefore it is manifest that the entire Christ is under every part of the species of the bread, even while the host remains entire, and not merely when it is broken, as some say, giving the example of an image which appears in a mirror, which appears as one in the unbroken mirror, whereas when the mirror is broken, there is an image in each part of the broken mirror: for the comparison is not perfect, because the multiplying of such images results in the ...
— Summa Theologica, Part III (Tertia Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas
... appalling suddenness, they came out upon the shore of Lake Tahoe, resting like a blue gem upon the mountain tops, upheld like a perfect mirror to ...
— Frank Merriwell's Bravery • Burt L. Standish
... disobliging by an Englishman to refuse to pledge him. He therefore drew near to the table and took the second glass. He did not, however, lose sight of Milady, and in a mirror he perceived the change that came over her face. Now that she believed herself to be no longer observed, a sentiment resembling ferocity animated her countenance. She bit her handkerchief with ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... rapture wholly; For aye the heart that's fill'd with love, Runs o'er in melancholy. To streams that glide in noon, the shade From summer skies is given; So, if my breast reflects the cloud, 'Tis but the cloud of heaven! Thine image glass'd within my soul So well the mirror keepeth; That, chide me not, if with the light The shadow ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... what once was beauty, once was grace; Grace, that with tenderness and sense combin'd To form that harmony of soul and face, Where beauty shines, the mirror of the mind. Such was the maid, that in the morn of youth, In virgin innocence, in Nature's pride, Blest with each art, that owes its charm to truth, Sunk in her Father's fond embrace, and died. He weeps: O venerate the holy tear! Faith lends her aid to ease Affliction's load; The parent ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... have answered him; a mirror might have shown him the harsh features of a man of forty-two. But Harry needed no mirror. He could remember the past dozen years only too easily—though they ...
— This Crowded Earth • Robert Bloch
... against the long tiller, watching the blue-green poplars glide by, here and there reflected in the etched silver mirror of the river, feeling the moist river wind flutter his ...
— Three Soldiers • John Dos Passos
... the abiding charm of Nature. No sensible man can envy Asylas, to whom the language of birds was as familiar as French argot to our young decadents. Think how terrible it would be if Nature could all of a sudden learn English! That exquisite mirror of all our shifting moods would be broken for ever. No longer might we coin the woodland into metaphors of our own joys and sorrows. The birds would no longer flute to us of lost loves, but of found worms; we should realise how terribly selfish they are; we could never more quote 'Hark, hark, ...
— Prose Fancies • Richard Le Gallienne
... Commons Hate him perniciously, and o' my Conscience Wish him ten faddom deepe: This Duke as much They loue and doate on: call him bounteous Buckingham, The Mirror of all courtesie. Enter Buckingham from his Arraignment, Tipstaues before him, the Axe with the edge towards him, Halberds on each side, accompanied with Sir Thomas Louell, Sir Nicholas Vaux, Sir Walter Sands, and ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... waist. But she liked the bonnets and the shawls. They were adorable. The shawls were so soft, so quaintly shaped, the bonnets were fairly ravishing. Felicia tried them on, peering into a carved tortoise shell hand mirror, and giggled whimsically at the little flowered ones with lacy ties and the stuffy winter ones with ...
— Little Miss By-The-Day • Lucille Van Slyke
... of Europe; and whoever has seen that singular spot in Derbyshire belonging to Mr. Port, has seen little Lucca in a convex mirror. Some writer calls it a ring upon the finger of the Emperor, under whose protection it has been hitherto preserved safe from the Grand Duke of Tuscany till these days, in which the interests of those two sovereigns, united by intimacy as by blood and resemblance of ...
— Observations and Reflections Made in the Course of a Journey through France, Italy, and Germany, Vol. I • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... you make her pretty to look at?" asked the cat. "You made me pretty—very pretty, indeed—and I love to watch my pink brains roll around when they're working, and to see my precious red heart beat." She went to a long mirror, as she said this, and stood before it, looking at herself with an air of much pride. "But that poor patched thing will hate herself, when she's once alive," continued the cat. "If I were you I'd use her for a mop, and make ...
— The Patchwork Girl of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... a mistake. Beauty is skin deep. No one can judge merit by outside appearances, as many persons can ascertain by glancing in a mirror. Ram Zon, and that was what we called him for short, was a splendid illusion. It turned out that he could not scrape together enough English to keep an account of his expenditures and had to trust to his memory, which is very defective in money matters. He cannot read or write, ...
— Modern India • William Eleroy Curtis
... the variety on the banks of this basin, ribbed as they were with obsidian and tiny crystals, reflecting the sunlight on their myriad facets. Wonderful was the arrangement of the islands on its surface; magnificent were the blue reflections of the gigantic mirror. And around the lake, one of the highest in the globe, were multitudes of pelicans, swans, gulls and geese, bernicles and divers. In places the steep banks were clothed with green trees, pines and larches, and at the foot of the escarpments there shot upwards innumerable white fumaroles, the vapor ...
— Rubur the Conqueror • Jules Verne
... gone on a short distance ahead, when to my delight I saw in front a large lake, in the centre of which the waves were dancing and sparkling in the sunlight, the shadows of the trees being vividly reflected on the mirror-like surface near the shores, while beyond I saw what I took to be a herd of elephants flapping their ears and intertwining ...
— Adventures in Africa - By an African Trader • W.H.G. Kingston
... can picture this wonderful valley with pen or brush or camera and give its real charm. You must see it yourself to know and understand the beauty of great mountains and falling waters, of Mirror Lake with its fine reflections of the surrounding scenery, and of the rushing torrent of the Merced River in its swift coursing through this mighty canon of the Yosemite. Thousands of tourists and sightseers visit the valley from May to October. Then snow begins to fall and ...
— Stories of California • Ella M. Sexton
... act of surveying her back hair in the mirror, paused, hand glass poised half way, ...
— Personality Plus - Some Experiences of Emma McChesney and Her Son, Jock • Edna Ferber
... and resolved to go into the street, for the first time that day. So, seizing a candle, he looked about for his gold-laced cap, and found it lying in its usual place, on a console-table, in the anteroom, placed before a mirror at which Jos used to coquet, always giving his side-locks a twirl, and his cap the proper cock over his eye, before he went forth to make appearance in public. Such is the force of habit, that even in the midst of his terror he began mechanically to twiddle with his hair, and arrange ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... back room, in which he knew that the servant would be looking for soda-water, before he heard a sound as of smashed crockery, and he was convinced that Mr. Neefit was preparing himself for forcible eviction by breaking his ornaments. Let the ornaments go, and the mirror, and the clock on the chimney-piece, and the windows. It was a frightful nuisance, but anything would be better than sending for the police to take away Mr. Neefit. "Keep your eye on that man in the front room," said ...
— Ralph the Heir • Anthony Trollope
... Dog, swimming[5] through a river, was carrying a piece of meat, he saw his own shadow in the watery mirror; and, thinking that it was another booty carried by another {dog}, attempted to snatch it away; but his greediness {was} disappointed, he both dropped the food which he was holding in his mouth, and was after all unable to reach ...
— The Fables of Phdrus - Literally translated into English prose with notes • Phaedrus
... gardenia-like perfume mixed with the resinous aromatic smell of the long-needle pines. I rode a little behind, on purpose, for I love to see a pretty woman turn her head and look backward across her shoulder. She has no pose more charming, unless it be when she stands before the "laughing mirror" and lifts her ...
— We Three • Gouverneur Morris
... sentences lay the conviction of great beating issues and of menacing drama my own description fails to recapture. It was all so incongruous and remote from the world I lived in that more than once a smile, though a smile of pity, fluttered to my lips; but a glimpse of my face in the mirror showed rather the leer of a grimace. There was no real ...
— The Damned • Algernon Blackwood
... till he sank down on the grass exhausted; and, to say truth, Martin felt much difficulty in restraining himself from doing likewise, for before him was spread out the bright ocean, gleaming in the light of the sinking sun, and calm and placid as a mirror. It was indeed a glorious sight to these two sailors, who had not seen the sea for nearly two years. It was like coming suddenly face to face—after a long absence—with an old ...
— Martin Rattler • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... Carboys' picture—heavy-jowled, sleepy-eyed, dull-looking, and on the threshold stood a man with the kindest eyes, the sweetest smile, and the handsomest and most sympathetic countenance he had seen in many a day. If the eyes are the mirror of the soul, if the face is the index of the character, then here was a man weak as water, as easily led as any lamb, and ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew
... the King stole into the Queen's room and hunted about until he found the flask of water. He bathed his face in the water and stood in front of a mirror to watch the change. A few hours later the Queen found him sound asleep. She could not awaken him, and they sent for the court physician; he could not rouse the King. "The King," the physician told the Queen, ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... there, but it was a troubled love, a love full of anguish. What sweetness! what confidence in him he read in her face! It was like the placid surface of a mountain lake, in which the skies delight to mirror themselves—no emotion hidden, no thought concealed—and, for all this innocent confidence, what was his return? He was entertaining, in his mind, a dreadful purpose; carefully concealing it so that it should be beyond the power ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... Made daily through his sacred charge. One eve He walked by pastures arched along the sea, With many companied. The on-flowing breeze Glazed the green hill-tops, bending still one way The glossy grasses: limitless below The ocean mirror, clipped by cape or point With low trees inland leaning, lay like lakes Flooding rich lowlands. Southward far, a rock Touched by a rainy beam, emerged from mist, And shone, half green, half gold. That rock was Farne: Though strangers, those that kenned it guessed its name: 'Doubtless 'twas there,' ...
— Legends of the Saxon Saints • Aubrey de Vere
... put one of the mirrors into the box and then tightened his cloth and climbed the banyan tree with his battle axe and the other mirror. He was not at all happy as he waited for the Rakhas, thinking of all the people who had been killed as they passed along the road below the tree: however he was determined to outwit the Rakhas if he could. All night long he watched in vain but just at dawn the Rakhas appeared. ...
— Folklore of the Santal Parganas • Cecil Henry Bompas
... only to consult your mirror, Madame," she said with an accent of conviction which at once produced its effect upon the wounded vanity of the Queen, "to feel that you are beyond an apprehension of this nature. Believe me when I assert that, were his Majesty capable of such a passion as that which is now attributed to him, he ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... same time, by reason of the mobility of these organs as subject to your will, you may conceive different affections, and find yourselves in different relations with the same objects; so that you are to them like a mirror, capable of reflecting them truly as they are, or of distorting and ...
— The Ruins • C. F. [Constantin Francois de] Volney
... it was finished, and only then, she showed it tremblingly to her master. He stood silent, in profound astonishment. The easel before him showed a foreground of tangled luxuriance, from which stretched a sheet of water like a darkened mirror, while through parted reeds on its glossy surface arose the half-submerged figure of a river god, exquisite in contour, yet whose delicate outlines were almost a vision by the crowning illusion of ...
— Under the Redwoods • Bret Harte
... the Lex Salica speaks of a freeman who has committed himself to the power of another by way of surety. /3/ The very phrase is copied in the English laws of Henry I. /4/ We have seen what this meant in the story of Huon of Bordeaux. The Mirror of Justices /5/ says that King Canute used to judge the mainprisors according as the principals when their principals not in judgment, but that King Henry I. confined Canute's rule to mainprisors who were ...
— The Common Law • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
... held the boat still, and stared at the spot where his son had gone down, as though he must surely come to the surface again. There rose some bubbles, then some more, and finally one large one that burst; and the lake lay there as smooth and bright as a mirror again. ...
— Short-Stories • Various
... care," said Rob quietly; and in spite of hunger only half appeased, weariness, and doubt as to their future and the length of their imprisonment, he could not help enjoying the beauty of the scene. For the water around was now one smooth mirror-like lake, save where the river rushed along with a peculiar hissing, rushing sound, augmented by a crash as some tree was dashed down and struck against those at the edge of the forest which rose above the water. In the smooth surface the stars were reflected, ...
— Rob Harlow's Adventures - A Story of the Grand Chaco • George Manville Fenn
... moment the two stared at each other—it might have been as in a mirror, so perfectly were their passions reflected in each line, shade, and color of the other's face. It was as if they had each confronted their own passionate and willful souls, and were frightened. It had often occurred before, always with the same ...
— The Heritage of Dedlow Marsh and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... a mirror plate, Reflecting all the impressions it receives. The good I love, the bad regard with hate; I only cherish whom my heart believes. Colleagues I have, but yet my spirit grieves, That on their honor I cannot depend. I speak, but my complaint no influence leaves Upon their hearts; with ...
— Chinese Literature • Anonymous
... the one and he will not let go the other; he would enjoy himself on the "Turf" without abandoning the shelter of the "Towers." His life is spent in trying to effect a compromise between the two antagonistic powers which finally pull down his house of life. Clara, his mistress-wife, is a mirror of himself; she humours him, manages him, perhaps on his ...
— An Introduction to the Study of Browning • Arthur Symons
... mirror! and what a queer one!" exclaimed the maiden, as she bent forward to look, and found her lovely, earnest face reflected from a square, slightly defaced mirror that was set in an ebony frame richly inlaid ...
— Mona • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... both blank verse and the sonnet. But for Surrey both those accomplishments, since so popular among us, might have been long in establishing themselves in English poetry. The other poet-peers of the sixteenth century were admittedly not of the first class. Yet Buckhurst's share in 'The Mirror for Magistrates' and in the tragedy of 'Gorboduc' was of undoubted value, both intrinsic and relative; and the world of letters would not willingly let die the work, slight as it was, of Lord Vaux, the Earls of Essex and Oxford, the Earls of Ancrum and Stirling, Lord Brooke, and Francis ...
— By-ways in Book-land - Short Essays on Literary Subjects • William Davenport Adams
... hold both of us before the fireplace. "Just see how bright the fire is; look down into those deep places under the sticks, and see how it glows and shines like melted gold. Now, you know when you look into a mirror you can see pictures of the things in front of it—your own face, the walls of the room, the furniture. That is because the mirror is so bright that it reflects these things; yet the mirror is not bright enough to reflect anything except what is there before ...
— The Wagner Story Book • Henry Frost
... risen to examine herself in the mirror. Now she looked back over her shoulder and down into Celia's pretty eyes—eyes as unspoiled ...
— Ailsa Paige • Robert W. Chambers
... safe; at such moments they are themselves; perhaps it pleases them to give, as it were, samples of their tenderness in intimacy in this way. It was a guarded glance, nothing was lost between eye and eye; there was no possibility of reflection in any mirror. Nobody intercepted it. ...
— The Collection of Antiquities • Honore de Balzac
... mirror hung on the wall in front of him, and he stood and looked vacantly into it. His thoughts wandered, and when a gleam of consciousness returned the first object that he saw was the reflection of his own face. It was full of light and expression. Perhaps it wore a ghostly smile. ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine
... He counted the strokes, and all of a sudden they recalled him to the present. He pulled himself together, stood up, and, reaching down a clothes-brush from its hook beside the door, walked over to the chimney-piece and to a small mirror that stood ...
— Major Vigoureux • A. T. Quiller-Couch |
