"Ornamental" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... work of retraction were to begin he would have a lot to do." And then came the passage which has already passed into Parliamentary history. "If we are to stand in white sheets, my right hon. friend would have to wear that ornamental garment standing in ...
— Sketches In The House (1893) • T. P. O'Connor
... had forsaken the Jacobean manner of the early Renaissance and come completely under the spell of the English Classic or so-called Georgian style. Correspondingly, American men of means were erecting country houses of brick, with ornamental trim classic in detail, and of marble and white-painted wood. Marked by solidity, spaciousness and quiet dignity, they are thoroughly Georgian in conception, and as such reminiscent of the manorial seats of Virginia, yet less stately and in various respects peculiar to this section of the colonies. ...
— The Colonial Architecture of Philadelphia • Frank Cousins
... did all her sewing, even cutting and making her own dresses; but she learned what every one can learn,—to economize time. Her house was kept scrupulously clean. She says: "I omitted much unnecessary stitching and ornamental work in the sewing for my family, so that I might have more time for the improvement of my mind. For novels and light reading I never had much taste; the ladies' department in the periodicals of the day had no attraction for me. ...
— Lives of Girls Who Became Famous • Sarah Knowles Bolton
... tragedians have convinced you, you have only two alternatives: you must suppose that divinity is temporarily lodged either in the actor—a Polus, an Aristodemus, a Satyrus—, or else in the actual masks, buskins, long tunics, cloaks, gloves, stomachers, padding, and ornamental paraphernalia in general of tragedy—a manifest absurdity; for when Euripides can speak his own sentiments unfettered by dramatic necessity, observe ...
— Works, V3 • Lucian of Samosata
... other road home, Jennings," Lady Anne said graciously, as she alighted in front of the great square, imposing house, amid its flower-beds of all shapes, its ornamental fountains flinging high jets of ...
— Mary Gray • Katharine Tynan
... trainers, who are for the most part old gray-headed negroes, born and raised, to the best of their recollection, on the turf. The riders are noble scions of the same ancient stock, and average three feet and a half in height, and twenty pounds in weight. They are clad in ornamental garments; wear little close-fitting caps; and while they are waiting, sit huddled up in the grass, sucking their thumbs, and talking confidentially ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly
... the late Poon-tin-qua, a distinguished and rich Chinaman, were visited, and proved to be typical of all Chinese pictures. Here were airy summer-houses, pavilions, bridges, rockeries, and ornamental sheets of water, as we see these things represented on lacquered ware, decorated China dishes, and fans. It was really very curious and amusing, and showed much of luxurious life,—even a private theatre being contained in the establishment. Though all seem to be deserted now and somewhat neglected, ...
— Due West - or Round the World in Ten Months • Maturin Murray Ballou
... herbs are available as greens or salads, and are excellent with any plain salad dressing; among them might be mentioned mustard, cress, chervil, parsley, mint, purslane, chives, sorrel, dandelions, nasturtiums, tarragon and fennel. Many of these herbs are ornamental and make beautiful garnishes, or are medicinal and add to the home pharmacy. Though not equally good as the fresh herbs, yet dried ones hold their flavors and do excellent service. Just before flowering they should be gathered on a sunshiny day and dried by artificial ...
— Vaughan's Vegetable Cook Book (4th edition) - How to Cook and Use Rarer Vegetables and Herbs • Anonymous
... head turned slowly; his mouth looked almost square as he fought to say something. Then he slumped, tumbling from the saddle into the embrace of an ornamental bush as his horse clattered along the sidewalk. Drew knew he was ...
— Ride Proud, Rebel! • Andre Alice Norton
... roads are wet and muddy We remain at home and study,— For the Goat is very clever at a sum,— And the Dog, instead of fighting Studies ornamental writing, While the Cat is taking lessons ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... is governed by a Mayor, a Board of Aldermen and a Board of Common Councilmen. The Mayor has been stripped by the Legislature of the State of almost every power or attribute of power, and is to-day merely an ornamental figure-head to the City government. The real power lies in the Boards named above, and in the various "Commissioners" appointed by the Legislature. These are the Commissioners in charge of the streets, the Croton Aqueduct, Public Charities and Corrections, ...
— The Secrets Of The Great City • Edward Winslow Martin
... in his society; she only tolerates him as a necessary evil, and, if he is killed, goes in quest of another in the most business-like manner, as you would go for the plumber or the glazier. In most cases the male is the ornamental partner in the firm, and contributes little of the working capital. There seems to be more equality of the sexes among the woodpeckers, wrens, and swallows; while the contrast is greatest, perhaps, in the bobolink ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... The most Ornamental FOREIGN PLANTS, cultivated in the Open Ground, the Green-House, and the Stove, are accurately represented in their ...
— The Botanical Magazine, Vol. I - Or, Flower-Garden Displayed • William Curtis
... men should work and make their sons work, if only because an idle class was both out of place in a republic and conducive to unrest in the masses, it was quite otherwise with women. They were for men to shelter, and it was their sole duty to be useful in the home, and, wherever possible, ornamental in public. Nor had he the ...
— The Avalanche • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... article on sea-bathing, for instance, and have come to the sentence which begins: "In the well-remembered words of Coleridge, perhaps almost too familiar to be quoted"—and then one may have to look them up. On these occasions a library is not only ornamental but useful. But do not let us be ashamed that we find it ornamental. Indeed, the more I survey it, the more I feel that my library is sufficiently ornamental as it stands. Any reassembling of the books might spoil the colour-scheme. ...
— Not that it Matters • A. A. Milne
... entered the Pacific Ocean, and on reaching the north-west coast, anchored in some of the bays and harbors north of Columbia River. They were visited by canoes from the shore, and traffic commenced. The natives exchanged their furs for articles useful or ornamental. The ship went from port to port until a cargo of furs was obtained, and then sailed for Canton, and disposed of them to the Chinese for silks and teas. After an absence of a couple of years the ship would return to the United States with a cargo ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper
... go from the place where he is, under some pretext or other she makes him look at different things, narrates to him tales and stories very slowly so that she may continue conversing with him for a long time, kisses and embraces before him a child sitting in her lap, draws ornamental marks on the foreheads of her female servants, performs sportive and graceful movements when her attendants speak jestingly to her in the presence of her lover, confides in her lover's friends, and respects and obeys them, shows kindness to his servants, converses with them, and engages them to do ...
— The Kama Sutra of Vatsyayana - Translated From The Sanscrit In Seven Parts With Preface, - Introduction and Concluding Remarks • Vatsyayana
... and his dangling cowries, his corded kersey-mere shorts, his blue knitted hose and silver buckles, had honour in Loafer Land, and every hulking rascal who carried the pattern of the ornamental wrought-iron posts at the gates of the "Green Dragon" yard permanently imprinted in the small of his back, swore by him just as much as did Wormit the landlord. They saluted him as he went to and fro. They pulled forelocks and touched caps, feeling elated ...
— Patsy • S. R. Crockett
... On one side is a lamb with a cross above his back, and on either side four sheep (with tufted tails, a Tunisian variety) coming towards him from an arched and pillared building. On the other is the Labarum monogram with ornamental terminations on a hill from which the four Paradise streams flow; a stag on either side kneels to drink. On the cover stands a saint, on the four Paradise streams, between two lighted tapers in candlesticks, holding a crown; whilst the hand of God ...
— The Shores of the Adriatic - The Austrian Side, The Kuestenlande, Istria, and Dalmatia • F. Hamilton Jackson
... the ninth or tenth century (5787), with its ornamental initials and borders, and St. Jerome's Latin version of the Psalter (2793), with a preface addressed to Sophronius, and written in a tenth-century hand, ...
— Studies from Court and Cloister • J.M. Stone
... into transepts. But Canon Freeman, in his history,[3] dismisses this view as merely attractive. They would certainly be more elaborate, he thinks, if they had been built as western towers, but they have neither portal nor ornamental work. Indeed, up to more than half their height they have very much the appearance of fortresses. It may well be that they served as such in Stephen's time, for the northern one was severely battered. It differs somewhat in detail from that on the south side, there being an interlacing ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Exeter - A Description of Its Fabric and a Brief History of the Episcopal See • Percy Addleshaw
... of ornamental drapery, and are always decked with flowers and plants in flower-pots. The people have a passion for flowers. The peasant girl and village beau are adorned with bouquets of the finest of ordinary flowers; and in the town you see people buying, flowers ...
— The trade, domestic and foreign • Henry Charles Carey
... diamond, the ruby or the topaz with their peculiar attractiveness. The two essential qualities, namely, brilliancy and hardness, are only possessed by certain rare minerals; a brilliancy which makes them unrivaled for ornamental purposes and a hardness which protects them from wear and tear ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 1082, September 26, 1896 • Various
... the majestic "old gobbler," whose generous weight was to grace the great dish on the manor-house table. The presents were all ready,—new shoes, winter clothes, and other useful gifts for the slaves; less useful but more artistic and ornamental remembrances for the household and guests. All this took no small thought and labor, but it was a labor of love, for was it not all meant to make the coming ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 2 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... This is the best for cultivation in western and middle states, and in all cold regions. Very ornamental. ...
— Soil Culture • J. H. Walden
... Escapes" My Escape and Some Others Over the Fireside Faith Reached through Bitterness and Loss Aristocracy and Democracy Duty Sweeping Assertions from Particular Instances How I came to make "History" The Glut of the Ornamental On Going "to the Dogs" A School for Wives The Neglected Art of Eating Gracefully Modern Clothes A Sense of Universal Pity The Few The Great and the Really Great Love "Mush" Wives Children One of the Minor Tragedies The "Glorious Dead" Always ...
— Over the Fireside with Silent Friends • Richard King
... Most of the ornamental figures and designs worked into the finest basketry are symbolical in character, and of so ancient an origin that Indians of the present day do not know what many of them are intended to represent. They have simply been copied from time immemorial, with the idea that ...
— Indians of the Yosemite Valley and Vicinity - Their History, Customs and Traditions • Galen Clark
... in Spain, I, 115, 310. In the patriarchal age of the Jews, there was a relatively very large quantity of ornamental objects in gold and silver: Michaelis, De Pretiis Rerum apud Hebraeos, in the Comm. Soc. Goetting., III, 151 ff., 160. Conservative Sparta, in the middle age of its history, was certainly not rich, and yet it had more gold and silver ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • William Roscher
... eat and went to sleep. Towards evening he woke up, washed and made himself tidy, dined, and having lit a cigarette sat down by the window that looked onto the street. It was cooler. The slanting shadow of the hut with its ornamental gables fell across the dusty road and even bent upwards at the base of the wall of the house opposite. The steep reed-thatched roof of that house shone in the rays of the setting sun. The air grew ...
— The Cossacks • Leo Tolstoy
... a door at one corner, and showed me another fair-sized place, bare as the first, but beautifully white and clean, and with some of the boards looking quite ornamental from the fine grain. There was a row of sleeping-bunks and plenty of water ready, and plain and rough as everything was, it seemed princely to the style of sleeping accommodation we had been accustomed to ...
— To The West • George Manville Fenn
... celebrated garden, associated with the grateful and bright remembrances of all which poetry can lend to wisdom, was, before the time of Cimon, a waste and uncultivated spot. It was his hand that intersected it with walks and alleys, and that poured through its green retreats the ornamental waters so refreshing in those climes, and not common in the dry Attic soil, which now meandered in living streams, and now sparkled into fountains. Besides these works to embellish, he formed others to fortify the city. He completed the citadel, hitherto ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... education of the blind is perhaps the most important of all, and all the institutions are provided with workshops, in which the inmates learn some useful mechanical or domestic art. The female pupils are taught to make all kinds of ornamental bead-work, to crochet and knit woolen and worsted goods, to sew by hand and with machines, and some of them acquire surprising skill, though my own experience does not give me a high opinion of the efficacy of attempting to teach sewing, so very few ever practice it after leaving ...
— The World As I Have Found It - Sequel to Incidents in the Life of a Blind Girl • Mary L. Day Arms
... as the fox and brown lynx; the last of which is by far the finest sort, and, in its natural state, differs little from the colour of our coarser wools; but the hair, with which the animal is also covered, being intermixed, its appearance, when wrought, is somewhat different. The ornamental parts or figures in these garments, which are disposed with great taste, are commonly of a different colour, being dyed, chiefly either of a deep brown or of a yellow; the last of which, when it is new, equals the best in ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16 • Robert Kerr
... the time of which I am speaking, she removed to Madrid, partly for the purpose of educating her children, and partly in the hope of obtaining from the government a considerable sum of money for which it stood indebted to her father, at the time of his decease, for various useful and ornamental works, principally in the neighbourhood of Aranjuez. The justness of her claim was at once acknowledged; but, alas! no money was forthcoming, the royal treasury being empty. Her hopes of earthly happiness were now concentrated in her children. The ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... the button often occupies the center of a rosette of wood or bronze or other ornamental piece. Sometimes, as shown in the cut, they are constructed for use on floors to be pressed by the foot. The general principle of their construction is shown, although the method of making the ...
— The Standard Electrical Dictionary - A Popular Dictionary of Words and Terms Used in the Practice - of Electrical Engineering • T. O'Conor Slone
... second day after I had read the beribboned, besealed contract to Sir George, he sent an advance guard toward the enemy's line. He placed the ornamental piece of parchment in Lady Crawford's hands and directed her to give ...
— Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall • Charles Major
... silently built. The forty or fifty Japanese, and the few volunteers who are with them, have now been reinforced by all the Italians, who have been given a big strip of outer wall and a fortified hillock in Prince Su's ornamental garden—a hillock which commands a great stretch of territory, as territory goes in our wall split area. For here in the Su wang-fu the number of walls and buildings is terrible, and Heaven only knows how seventy or ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale
... a journeyman at Langholm, his wages at the time being only eighteen pence a day. What was called the New Town was then in course of erection, and there are houses still pointed out in it, the walls of which Telford helped to put together. In the town are three arched door-heads of a more ornamental character than the rest, of Telford's hewing; for he was already beginning to set up his pretensions as a craftsman, and took pride in pointing to the superior handiwork which ...
— The Life of Thomas Telford by Smiles • Samuel Smiles
... which vegetables should be put down, and the kinds most suitable to the locality, and the best method of growing them should also be noted, as well as the most suitable kinds of fruit, and the most desirable kinds of ornamental trees. The rainfall register should also be given, as well as any other information of interest, as for instance, a list of game shot ...
— Gold, Sport, And Coffee Planting In Mysore • Robert H. Elliot
... whole undertaking to himself, and he profoundly regretted it. He needed every penny that he could collect; the strictest economy was necessary if he meant to survive the struggle. And here he was paying eight pounds a week to a personage purely ornamental, after having squandered hundreds in rendering that personage comfortable! The situation ...
— The Grim Smile of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... that the author of the work on Education, and of other productions, useful as well as ornamental, would betray herself by a remarkable exterior. I was mistaken. A small figure, eyes nearly always lowered, a profoundly modest and reserved air, with expression in the features when not speaking: such was the result of my first survey. But when she spoke, which was too rarely for my taste, nothing ...
— The Life And Letters Of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... been born in the same year with Cicero, and was now twenty-three. He was a high—spirited ornamental youth, with soft melting eyes, as good as he was beautiful, and so delightful to women that it was said they all longed to bite him. The Pompeys had been hardly treated by Cinna. The father had been charged with ...
— Caesar: A Sketch • James Anthony Froude
... far as visitors were concerned, was summer, and from the middle of May onward various ladies of ornamental and interesting aspect would make their appearance on the pavement of Beach Terrace, or, seen on the balconies of houses which had just unclosed their shutters, would trouble and enliven the atmosphere with suggestions of vague adventures. Some of these we came to know, as Mr. Philpot and his ...
— Memoirs of Life and Literature • W. H. Mallock
... opened upon a lawn covered with orange, magnolia, and other ornamental trees. The house was low on the ground, and it was not more than three feet from the window-sill to the lawn. Without explaining any thing, Captain Passford took his daughter's trunk, carried it to the window, and then dropped it upon ...
— Taken by the Enemy • Oliver Optic
... town of several thousand inhabitants, is abundantly supplied with water from a single spring that issues on higher ground near by. Several other springs in the vicinity afford rare mill-power. At Harrisonburg, a county town farther up the valley, I was attracted by a low ornamental dome resting upon a circle of columns, on the edge of the square that contained the court-house, and was surprised to find that it gave shelter to an immense spring. This spring was also capable of watering the town or several towns; stone steps led down to it at the bottom of ...
— The Writings of John Burroughs • John Burroughs
... joking again," laughed Fil, who added: "We Filipinos hang our umbrella up on the veranda roof, where it is ornamental, as well as ...
— Fil and Filippa - Story of Child Life in the Philippines • John Stuart Thomson
... straying in the English park. Prince Andrew rode up to the hothouse; some of the glass panes were broken, and of the trees in tubs some were overturned and others dried up. He called for Taras the gardener, but no one replied. Having gone round the corner of the hothouse to the ornamental garden, he saw that the carved garden fence was broken and branches of the plum trees had been torn off with the fruit. An old peasant whom Prince Andrew in his childhood had often seen at the gate was sitting on a green garden seat, ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... leggings were so soiled and torn that the ornamental work with which they had been originally decorated was almost invisible, and the moccasins she had worn hung in mere shreds ...
— The Crew of the Water Wagtail • R.M. Ballantyne
... Villa San Giorgio, most of all in the society of its graceful chatelaine, I had my fill of poetry and the other ornamental arts. Wit, love, philosophy, literature, bric-a-brac, religion—each had its petit- maitre, and each its sparkling Muse. It was before the day of Arcadia and shepherdesses, those flowers of our more jaded years; women were still called divine, but it was very ...
— The Fool Errant • Maurice Hewlett
... There were ornamental iron gates at the front entrance, and there was a spot of shells and pebbles next the pavement—almost a touch of seashore, and altogether different from the cheerless welcome of most apartment ...
— The Van Dwellers - A Strenuous Quest for a Home • Albert Bigelow Paine
... pantaloons as well ventilated as a paling fence might do very well for the broiling sun at Andersonville and Savannah, but now, with the thermometer nightly dipping a little nearer the frost line, it became unpleasantly evident that as garments their office was purely perfunctory; one might say ornamental simply, if he wanted to be very sarcastic. They were worn solely to afford convenient quarters for multitudes of lice, and in deference to the prejudice which has existed since the Fall of Man against our mingling with our fellow creatures in the attire ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... a continuous frost succeeding it had turned Baronmead into an Alpine paradise. Tobogganing and skating filled the hours of each day; dancing made fly the hours of each night. Bertie had already conducted one ice gymkhana with marked success, and he was now contemplating a masquerade on the ornamental sheet of water that stretched before the house. Strings of fairy lights were being arranged under his directions, and Chinese lanterns bobbed in ...
— The Knave of Diamonds • Ethel May Dell
... observe. Jack Ballard exactly defined sophistication, root and branch. But his sophistries were always colorful and ornamental and ...
— Paradise Garden - The Satirical Narrative of a Great Experiment • George Gibbs
... wolves live on wind,' and how the gallows looks when one stands under it. And he knew all the secrets of the art of verse-making which courtly poets, like the King, used for the stringing together of delicate trifles, ornamental evasions of facts. He was no poet of the people, but a scholar vagabond, loving the gutter; and so he has the sincerity of the artist as well as the only half-convincing sincerity of the man. There has been no greater artist in French verse, as there has been ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons
... the King himself, nobody ever approached his magnificence. His buildings, who could number them? At the same time, who was there who did not deplore the pride, the caprice, the bad taste seen in them? He built nothing useful or ornamental in Paris, except the Pont Royal, and that simply by necessity; so that despite its incomparable extent, Paris is inferior to many cities of Europe. Saint-Germain, a lovely spot, with a marvellous view, ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... covers of the sacred volume, and ancient clerical libraries formerly possessed many such specimens of early bookbinding; the covers being richly sculptured in ivory, with bas-reliefs designed from Scripture history. Such ivories were sometimes placed in the centre of the covers, and framed in an ornamental metal-work studded with precious stones and engraved cameos. The barbaric magnificence of these volumes has never been surpassed; the era of Charlemagne was the culmination of their glory. One such volume, presented ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... be placed on a strong Pin in the Axeltree) round so fast that although but one Rocket go off at a time, it will seem all on fire, and so continue whilst all are gradually Spent; and this especially at the Angles of great Fire-works are very Ornamental. ...
— The School of Recreation (1696 edition) • Robert Howlett
... altogether out of his element. Therefore, as he is afraid of giving, and incapable of taking offence, he entrenches himself in the unstudied reserve which he finds by experience renders his individuality least assailable, exactly as he surrounds his ornamental woods, his shrubberies, and his parterres with fences, not the less strong ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... his powers in a world which seemed to offer to him infinite opportunities. His name—Philip Burnett—with which the world, at least the American world, is now tolerably familiar, and which he liked to write with ornamental flourishes on the fly-leaves of his schoolbooks, did not mean much to him, for he had never seen it in print, nor been confronted with it as something apart from himself. But the Philip that he was he felt sure would do something in the world. What that something should be varied from ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... regulating the books and studies, and paying frequent visits to it during the time of her sojourn here. The young girls are instructed in fine needlework; but the queen discourages embroidery and ornamental work, meaning to make practical, efficient wives for laboring men. These particulars, with regard to this school, were related to me by a lady living in the ...
— Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands V2 • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... are separated into panels by wide ornamental mouldings, and the panels are decorated with narrower mouldings and rosettes. The bases of the walls are buff Norman brick. Above this is glass tile or glazed tile, and above the tile is a faience or terra-cotta cornice. Ceramic mosaic is used for decorative panels, friezes, ...
— The New York Subway - Its Construction and Equipment • Anonymous
... brittle substance, which easily melts, and forms, in its liquid state, a beautiful dark brown colour for oil painting. Jet, which is of a still harder texture, is a peculiar bitumen, susceptible of so fine a polish, that it is used for many ornamental purposes. ...
— Conversations on Chemistry, V. 1-2 • Jane Marcet
... Butterfly from choice. I only do it because I'm trying to be honest, and I think that it's just about what I am. But do we really know what a butterfly is? Have we given that ornamental (though I say it—that shouldn't) and light-minded (though I say it with shame) and light-hearted (though the very lightest of hearts must weigh something, you know) insect a square deal? I confess that only a light-hearted insect would perpetrate such a ...
— We Three • Gouverneur Morris
... possible after Christmas. Then, because of the look in Marie's eyes and because he feared for her a sad Christmas, full of heartaches and God knows what loneliness, he bought her a most hideous brooch, which he thought admirable in every way and highly ornamental and which he could not afford at all. This he mailed, with a cheery greeting, and feeling happier and much poorer ...
— The Street of Seven Stars • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... a small table of ornamental wood, on which was placed a cup of Chinese porcelain containing coffee. It was of the kind known among Spanish-Americans as cafe de siesta; on the principle, no doubt, lucus a non lucendo: since it is usually so strong that a single cup of it is sufficient to rob one of the power of sleep for ...
— The Tiger Hunter • Mayne Reid
... quite nigh by, we went to the Palace of Mines and Metals. It wuz a beautiful buildin', the walls covered with ornamental carvin' and ornaments, and two tall pillars standin' up each side of the entrance as if they wuz two Genis jealously guardin' the Under World from intrusion. But we got by 'em. And what didn't we see there? Everything that wuz ever dug out of the earth, ...
— Samantha at the St. Louis Exposition • Marietta Holley
... of the elm tree waving over the flagged walk to the gate. With an eye trained to recognize the value of details, she saw that the sitting-room was furnished with the same deplorable taste which had selected the golden-oak hatrack and the assortment of ornamental walking-sticks. The woodwork had been stained to match the oak of the barbarous writing-table, which held a distorted bronze lamp, with the base composed of a heavily draped feminine figure, a massive desk set, also of bronze, ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow
... cousin's riding-horse, a beautiful cream-colored mare with black, flowing mane and tail, and Green Persimmon, her colt, which was like its mother, and scarcely less beautiful. Besides, there were horses and mules which, if not so ornamental, were indispensable. Oh, these must be run off and saved,—but how? Goaded by these thoughts, and upon the impulse of the moment, the girl ordered a sidesaddle to be put upon old "Whitey," and, hastily mounting, belabored the astonished beast until, ...
— Memories - A Record of Personal Experience and Adventure During Four Years of War • Fannie A. (Mrs.) Beers
... explained as follows:—The story of the Franceschini case, as Mr. Browning relates it, forms a circle of evidence to its one central truth; and this circle was constructed in the manner in which the worker in Etruscan gold prepares the ornamental circlet which will be worn as a ring. The pure metal is too soft to bear hammer or file; it must be mixed with alloy to gain the necessary power of resistance. The ring once formed and embossed, the alloy is disengaged, and a pure gold ...
— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... scientific culture bestowed upon the land, the tools were generally clumsy, and altogether too heavy for convenience and dispatch. It struck me as very singular. Paris excels in the manufacturing of light and graceful articles of almost every kind. Certainly, in jewelry, cutlery, and all manner of ornamental articles, it is the first city in the world. How comes it, then, that so near Paris, agricultural implements are so far behind the age? I would by no means have the reader infer that the best of agricultural ...
— Paris: With Pen and Pencil - Its People and Literature, Its Life and Business • David W. Bartlett
... relative, become interesting to the young student, because it is a real pleasure to become familiar with the varieties which are presented in nature's domain, and the homely growths are sometimes of more importance than the ornamental, a consoling thought to such of us as are possessed of ...
— Harper's Young People, August 10, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... men were interrupted by the same cause, the civil war which followed the death of Caesar. They took service with Brutus, both having the same rank, that of military tribune, a command answering more or less nearly to that of colonel in our own army. It was, however, mainly an ornamental rank, being bestowed sometimes by favor of the general in command, sometimes by a popular vote. The young Cicero indeed had already served, and he now distinguished himself greatly, winning some considerable successes in the command of the cavalry which Brutus afterwards gave him. When the hopes ...
— Roman life in the days of Cicero • Alfred J[ohn] Church
... displays a fine gold watch-chain, and his jacket and vest may be of a rough black cloth or blue serge. The trousering may be of a suit with the jacket, or tasteful, and the shoes must be long. The betting man, adorned, is a perfect Blade. There is often a large and ornamental stick, which is invariably carried head downwards. And note, that the born Blade instinctively avoids any narrowness of pose. In walking he thrusts out his shoulders, elbows, and knees, and it is rather the thing to dominate a sphere of influence beyond ...
— Certain Personal Matters • H. G. Wells
... its name, which in the native language means the "ever-flowing;" many of the creeks and rivers in Australia being dry in summer. I hired a boat for the purpose of a row up the Yarra. A little above the city its banks are pretty and ornamental, especially where it passes the Botanic Gardens, which are beautifully laid out, and well stocked with India-rubber plants, gum-trees, and magnificent specimens of the Southern fauna. Higher up, the river—though its banks continue green—becomes more monotonous, and we ...
— A Boy's Voyage Round the World • The Son of Samuel Smiles
... scraped smooth and ornamented with coloured devices, and the blue patterns on the women's cotton skirts, there was scarcely anything to be seen in the way of ornament. How great was the skill of the Mexicans in ornamental work at the time of the Conquest, we can tell from the carved work in wood and stone preserved in museums, the graceful designs on the pottery, the tapestry, and the beautiful feather-work; but this taste ...
— Anahuac • Edward Burnett Tylor
... Robulina, Glandulina, Polystomella, Amplistegina, &c. Corals are very abundant, in many instances forming regular "reefs;" but all the more important groups are in existence at the present day. The Red Coral (Corallium), so largely sought after as an ornamental material, appears for the first time in deposits of this age. Amongst the Echinoderms, we meet with Heart-Urchins (Spatangus), Cake-Urchins (Scutella; fig. 238), and various other forms, the majority of which are closely allied to ...
— The Ancient Life History of the Earth • Henry Alleyne Nicholson
... life. That religion having little hold on the minds of people by external ceremonies and extraordinary observances, or separate habits of living, the clergy make up the deficiency by cultivating their minds with all kinds of ornamental learning, which the liberal provision made in England and Ireland for the parochial clergy, (to say nothing of the ample Church preferments, with little or no duties annexed,) and the comparative lightness of parochial duties, enables ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IV. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... of hot water in which I had dissolved a bit of soap, and I attacked the disagreeable things—the saucepans and broilers and pots and pans. They are very useful, but they are not ornamental. All nice housekeepers are very particular to cleanse them thoroughly, removing every speck of grease from both the outside and the inside, and drying them until ...
— Holiday Stories for Young People • Various
... shown how reduction in personal and household expenditure can be effected, for example, in the laundry by using curtains and linen that can be washed in the house. A special appeal to dispense with starched and ornamental lingerie is made. In these and many other ways the style of living is simplified so that the amount of domestic service in every home is greatly cut down and much labour set free for war work and ...
— The War After the War • Isaac Frederick Marcosson
... heard, was, and found to be, excellent. I mention these things to show how the inhabitants of a vast city like San Francisco, though just sprung into existence, can, by proper arrangement, be fed. A large number of the shops are kept by Chinese, who sell all the fancy and ornamental work, and act as washerwomen. They are said to be great rogues, and are, under that pretext, often cruelly treated by greater rogues than themselves. It is a sad thing to see heathen people coming among nominal Christians, ...
— A Voyage round the World - A book for boys • W.H.G. Kingston
... joiner's business which he had hoped to buy, and work to good account with Robert's help. The present owner had made a fortune by it, and, after thirty years of business, he was thinking of retiring to one of the ornamental cottages in the outskirts of the city, a usual retreat for the frugal and successful workingman. Michael had not indeed the two thousand francs which must be paid down; but perhaps he could have persuaded Master ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... I don't know how that old Greek looked; but if he had the build and lines of this chap he sure was some ornamental. Anyway, the one we had with us would have been a medal winner in any kind of clothes. Also he had the light wavy hair and the dark blue eyes of Millie's description, with some of the vacation tan ...
— Torchy • Sewell Ford
... of laboratories and workshops, gymnasium, swimming-bath, lecture-hall, museum, art-school, music-rooms—all now essentials of a day school as much as of a boarding school. But many of these things are still only partially made use of, and are apt to be regarded rather as ornamental excrescences, to be used by the few who have a special bent that way, at an extra charge, than as an integral part of education for all. All the interests and means of training that they represent, and others as well, need to be brought more into the ...
— Cambridge Essays on Education • Various
... furniture has become decidedly popular in America, and that is the "Morris Chair." The first chair of this pattern was made entirely by the hands of the master. It was built by a man who understood anatomy, unlike most chairs and all church pews. It was also strong, durable, ornamental, and by a simple device the back could be adjusted so as to fit a man's ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... groining are painted with conventional scrollwork of leaves and flowers in a style contemporaneous with the architecture. The monogram and crown of St. Etheldreda are found in several parts of the ornamental design. The total expense of the decoration ...
— Ely Cathedral • Anonymous
... social habits and status of the persons occupying that position, it will be readily imagined that the company thus called together is often a very numerous and sufficiently brilliant one. A good half of the assemblage will in all probability belong to the more ornamental sex. A liberally supplied picnic luncheon will not fail to complete the pleasures of the day; and altogether the festival of the merca of such or such a year will probably remain as an epoch in the memories of many of those invited to be present. The carriages, the horses, the light ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various
... because he is employed; he must apply his strength to that part of the art where the real difficulties lie; to that part which distinguishes it as a liberal art, and not by mistaken industry lose his time in that which is merely ornamental. The students, instead of vying with each other which shall have the readiest band, should be taught to contend who shall have the purest and most correct outline, instead of striving which shall produce the brightest tint, or, curiously ...
— Seven Discourses on Art • Joshua Reynolds
... Metal Work, and its Artistic Design; Kirby Wyatt's Geometrical Mosaics of the Middle Ages; Darrell's China, India, and the Cape, coloured and mounted; Nash's Mansions of England in the Olden Time; Gruner's Specimens of Ornamental Art; Muse Royal (picked proofs before the letters); Richardson's Studies from Old English Mansions; and a great number of Books of Prints by eminent Artists will be sold in this Sale. Catalogues (1s. each, returnable to Purchasers) will be forwarded ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 216, December 17, 1853 • Various
... possible, showing that extremely slight differences in treatment, either in different parts of the same country, or during different seasons, certainly cause an appreciable effect, at least on varieties which are already in an unstable condition. Ornamental flowers are good for this purpose, as they are highly variable, and are carefully observed. All floriculturists are unanimous that certain varieties are affected by very slight differences in the nature of the artificial compost ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Volume II (of 2) • Charles Darwin
... to a little ornamental writing-desk that stood in the corner of the room, and took a pencil and a sheet of note paper and wrote these ...
— The Lost Lady of Lone • E.D.E.N. Southworth
... human soul without education like marble in a quarry which shows none of its inherent beauties until the skill of the polisher sketches out the colors, makes the surface shine, and discovers every ornamental cloud, spot, and vein that runs throughout ...
— Architects of Fate - or, Steps to Success and Power • Orison Swett Marden
... fowls, &c.), which we cannot believe to be either useful to the males in battle, or attractive to the females. We see analogous cases under nature, for instance, the tuft of hair on the breast of the turkey-cock, which can hardly be either useful or ornamental to this bird;—indeed, had the tuft appeared under domestication, it would have ...
— On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection • Charles Darwin
... desolate by-road, but is now a favourite place of residence for the fashionable persons in the Metropolis. It is open to Hyde Park as far as Hamilton Place, whence it reaches Piccadilly by a narrow street. At its junction with the former stands an ornamental fountain by Thorneycroft, erected in 1875 at a cost of L5,000, the property of a lady who died intestate and without heirs. At the base are the muses of Tragedy, Comedy, and History in bronze, above Chaucer, Shakespeare and Milton in marble, ...
— Mayfair, Belgravia, and Bayswater - The Fascination of London • Geraldine Edith Mitton
... But it was eight before we got clear of Calistoga: Kelmar, Mrs. Kelmar, a friend of theirs whom we named Abramina, her little daughter, my wife, myself, and, stowed away behind us, a cluster of ship's coffee-kettles. These last were highly ornamental in the sheen of their bright tin, but I could invent no reason for their presence. Our carriageful reckoned up, as near as we could get at it, some three hundred years to the six of us. Four of the six, besides, were Hebrews. But I never, in all my life, was conscious ...
— The Silverado Squatters • Robert Louis Stevenson
... promotion were essential to Harry's success. He was not one to keep up the strain of effort a long time. Unless, then, tangible results came and came quickly, he was liable to relapse into old habits. Therefore he must succeed and succeed at once. She would have preferred a less ornamental position than the ambassadorship, but there were no other openings. The Alabama senators were firmly seated for at least four years and the Governorship had been carefully arranged for. A term of four years abroad, however, might bring Harry Cresswell back in time for greater advancement. At any ...
— The Quest of the Silver Fleece - A Novel • W. E. B. Du Bois
... moreover, statues are placed in windows, or above door-ways;—and all passers-by take off their hats to these. Over the porch. of the cottage in a mountain village, where I lived for some weeks, there was an absurd little window contrived,—a sort of purely ornamental dormer,— and in this a Virgin about five inches high had been placed. At a little distance it looked like a toy,—a child's doll forgotten there; and a doll I always supposed it to be, until one day that I saw a long procession of black laborers passing before the house, every , one ...
— Two Years in the French West Indies • Lafcadio Hearn
... in the neighbourhood. I first went to the Botanical Gardens, which are very striking. They contain a large collection of rare and valuable specimens of both arboriculture and horticulture. They are admirably kept, and are very ornamental. I next drove round the Mountain road. This is a beautiful drive of seven miles back into the town. The views of the surrounding country are superb. It is a priceless boon to the inhabitants of Grahamstown to ...
— A Winter Tour in South Africa • Frederick Young
... much older. The Lancaster house was also a colonial mansion, much after the fashion of Eudora's, but it showed signs of continued opulence. Eudora's, behind her trees and leafing vines, was gray for lack of paint. Some of the colonial ornamental details about porches and roof were sloughing off or had already disappeared. The Lancaster house gleamed behind its grove of evergreen trees as white and perfect as in its youth. The windows showed rich slants of draperies behind their ...
— The Yates Pride • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... arbitrary way on the stones and are often crowded together in masses. There is no attempt to depict scenes of any kind, nor is there, indeed, any example of animal life. In fact, the designs seem to be purely ornamental. The most frequent elements of design are cup-shaped hollows, concentric circles or ovals, star-shaped figures, circles with emanating rays, spirals, chevrons, reticulated figures, parallel straight or curved lines. ...
— Rough Stone Monuments and Their Builders • T. Eric Peet
... an ornamental color, should be below all others, for artistic effect. An artistic dressmaker places the dark or black plaids or stripes beneath the others. This natural correspondence is almost universally recognized among enlightened nations in clothing for the feet. They not only look smaller ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 2, August, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... we are!" We alighted, and advanced to the entrance of an expanse of ornamental grounds, with a cement pathway leading up to an extensive fortified structure—a wall thirty feet high sweeping to right and left from the tall steel gateway, with the summits of stone towers emerging beyond. I stepped out briskly, in advance of ...
— The Subterranean Brotherhood • Julian Hawthorne
... opened from the corner of a narrow, unfrequented street—a corner like an elbow—and, as seen from the exterior, there was nothing prepossessing to recommend it; but the outer door led by a short hall or passage to an inner door or grille, made of open ornamental iron-work, and through that we entered a court, or patio, as they I called it. Nothing could be more lovely or deliciously cool than was this small court. The building on each side was covered by trellis-work; ...
— John Bull on the Guadalquivir from Tales from all Countries • Anthony Trollope
... those numerous bells loosened from the bodies of elephants and broken into fragments by those falling creatures, and those hooks with handles set with stones of lapis lazuli fallen upon the Earth, and those ornamental yokes of steeds, and those armours set with diamonds for their breasts and those rich cloths, adorned with gold and tied to the ends of the standards borne by horsemen, and those variegated coverlets and housings and Ranku skins, set with brilliant gems and inlaid with gold, for the backs of steeds ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... too ornamental and decidedly sympathetic," he explained gloomily to Garry. "I'm just in the mood to make a colossal fool of myself. She was the sort of girl you'd invite to tea ...
— Kenny • Leona Dalrymple
... succeeded another dish essentially Provencal, carde. The carde is a giant thistle that grows to a height of five or six feet, and is so luxuriantly magnificent both in leaf and in flower that it deserves a place among ornamental plants. The edible portion is the stem—blanched like celery, which it much resembles, by being earthed-up—cooked with a white sauce flavoured with garlic. The garlic, however, is a mistake, since it overpowers the delicate taste of the carde—but garlic ...
— The Christmas Kalends of Provence - And Some Other Provencal Festivals • Thomas A. Janvier
... usual place they would not mind if there was a Crescent on top of it instead of a Cross. By the way, I see the Germans have actually done what I described as a wild fancy in the Flying Inn; combined the Cross and the Crescent in one ornamental symbol. . ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... how often has the resources of a great mine been made known and available to human enterprise by the crude, simple apparatus of a travelling prospector, and how many hopeless and worthless "properties" have swallowed the contributions of a gullable public through the ornamental reports of the skilled and cultured proprietor of an ...
— Colonial Born - A tale of the Queensland bush • G. Firth Scott
... by cloth, the product of our industry. But under a mild sky the traditional fig-leaf, the screen of modesty, was for a long while sufficient. Among peoples remote from civilization, it still suffices in our day, together with its ornamental complement, the fish-bone through the cartilage of the nose, the red feather in the hair, the string round the loins. We must not forget the smear of rancid butter, which serves to keep off the Mosquito and reminds us of the unguent employed by the ...
— The Glow-Worm and Other Beetles • Jean Henri Fabre
... scrupulousness with which he avoids the danger of commonplaceness and of pedantry. It is easy to forget that the transparent obviousness of his style was attained only after many years of groping. We may well believe that "there is a research in the choice of a plain, as well as of an ornamental or learned style; and, in fact, a great deal more."[106] Though he did not go in pursuit of the word to the extent of some later refiners of style, he had a clear realization that the appropriate word was what chiefly gave vitality to writing.[107] ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... later Bruce arrived at the temple. Day after day he had hung to the trail, picking it up here and losing it there. He found Rajah, the elephant, the howdah gone, and only the ornamental headpiece discovered to Bruce that he had found his rogue. Rajah was docile enough; he had been domesticated so long that his freedom ...
— The Adventures of Kathlyn • Harold MacGrath
... reminiscences are instinct with pain. Do I not remember one swept and garnished plot, never defiled by weed or disordered with ornamental plants, where stood old Deacon Pitts, upon an historic day, and woke the echoes with a herald's joy? Deacon Pitts had the ghoulish delight of the ennuied country mind in funerals and the mortality of man; and this morning the butcher had brought him ...
— Tiverton Tales • Alice Brown
... Actions, and Expressions, were cautiously attended to, by the Laws; Persons, in their Minority, Youth, and Manhood, according to their different Ranks in the State, so as by Care, Education, and Discipline, to render them, some subservient, others useful, some beneficial, and others ornamental thereunto. Things, so carefully, as to prevent, by prohibatory Laws, Wastes of whatsoever Kind, and to ascertain to each Individual, as well as Society, their proper and distinct Rights. Actions, by directing ...
— An Essay on the Antient and Modern State of Ireland • Henry Brooke
... made with a pendulum short enough for the timepiece to be placed on a shelf as the former one had been. It was, however, of an entirely new design, having a dial in the upper half, painted glass in the door and an ornamental pillar at each side of the case. On top was a decorative scroll of wood and altogether it was a product so novel and well suited to the home that immediately the ...
— Christopher and the Clockmakers • Sara Ware Bassett
... "like a shovel," a picture of the surf rider—"foam rose on each side of his neck like a boar's tusks," and the appearance of the Sun god's skin, "like a furnace where iron is melted," will, perhaps, cover them all. In each the figure is exact, but ornamental, evidently used to heighten the effect. Images are occasionally elaborated with exact realization of the bodily sensation produced. The rainbow "trembling in the hot rays of the sun" is an example, and those ...
— The Hawaiian Romance Of Laieikawai • Anonymous
... land near the sea where the prison buildings stand. They are of gray stone, with miniature towers, surrounded by a wall capped with stone, the whole surmounted by a tower from which waves the Hawaiian flag. In front is a smooth lawn where grow century-plants and ornamental shrubs, including the India-rubber tree. It is much finer than the so-called palace of the king, a many-roomed, one-story wooden cottage in the centre of the city, surrounded by a large grassy yard enclosed by ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, October, 1880 • Various
... be much too big for me, Ben?" said Roy, pausing before a bronzed ornamental set of defensive weapons, which had evidently been the work ...
— The Young Castellan - A Tale of the English Civil War • George Manville Fenn
... reinforcement for the police but it decreases accidents and has come to be looked upon as an advertising medium. In the downtown districts the high-intensity "white-way" lighting is festive. The ornamental street lamps have possibilities in making the streets attractive and in illuminating the buildings. However, it is to be hoped that in the present age the streets of cities and towns will be cleared of the ragged equipment of the telephone and lighting companies. These may be placed ...
— Artificial Light - Its Influence upon Civilization • M. Luckiesh
... as a man makes a microscope; a talented fish conceived the idea of walking on dry land, so it developed legs, turned its swim bladder into a pair of lungs, and became an amphibian; an aesthetic guinea-fowl admired bright colours, so it bought a paint-box, studied Mr. Whistler's ornamental designs, and, painting itself a gilded and ocellated tail, was thenceforth a peacock. But how about plants? Mr. Butler does not shirk even this difficulty. The theory must be maintained at all hazards.... This is the sort of mystical nonsense from which we had hoped Mr. Darwin ...
— Evolution, Old & New - Or, the Theories of Buffon, Dr. Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck, - as compared with that of Charles Darwin • Samuel Butler
... flap. It lifted readily, without tearing, its gum was wet and more abundant than usual—in fact, it felt confoundedly like library paste, a pot of which, in an ornamental holder, was among the fittings of the escritoire. On the desk pad of blotting paper, too, Victor detected marks of fresh paste defining the contour of ...
— Red Masquerade • Louis Joseph Vance
... Fruit and Ornamental Trees, Cherry Trees on Mazzard Roots, Hardy Evergreens, Flowering Shrubs, Hedge ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association, Report of the Proceedings at the Seventh Annual Meeting • Various
... and whoever considers the Beauty, Regularity and majestic Simplicity of the Relation, cannot but be surpris'd at the Advances that may be made in Poetry by the Strength of an uncultivated Genius, and may see how far Nature can proceed without the Ornamental Helps and Assistances of Art. The Poet don't attribute his Sickness to a Debauch, to the Irregularity or Intemperance of his Life, but to an Exercise becoming an Hero; and tho' he dies quietly in his Bed, he may be said in some measure to die in the Bed of Honour. ...
— Parodies of Ballad Criticism (1711-1787) • William Wagstaffe
... young as it looks, an will begin to be peart enough befo' long," he remarked. "Something useful as well as ornamental, was what I had in mind to bring you. 'Thar's nothin' mo' suitable all round for the purpose than a lamb,' was what I said to ma. 'She can make a pet of it at first, an' then when it gets too big to pet, she can turn ...
— The Miller Of Old Church • Ellen Glasgow
... he refers to," Jack, smiling, explained, "is not in sight. It is under the ornamental brass piece that circles the rod from which the chandelier hangs. It was made to listen at, and not to ...
— The Boy Scout Camera Club - The Confession of a Photograph • G. Harvey Ralphson
... to the hall of the university, where I was to receive the degree of LL.D. The ceremony was not unlike that at Cambridge, but had one peculiar feature: the separate special investment of the candidate with the hood, which Johnson defines as "an ornamental fold which hangs down the back of a graduate." There were great numbers of students present, and they showed the same exuberance of spirits as that which had forced me to withdraw from the urgent calls at Cambridge. The ...
— Our Hundred Days in Europe • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... beautiful France stood a grand old chateau. It was a fine old building, with countless windows large and small, with high pitched roofs and pointed towers, which, in good taste or bad, did its best to be everywhere ornamental, from the gorgon heads which frowned from its turrets to the long row of stables and the fantastic dovecotes. It stood (as became such a castle) upon an eminence, and looked down. Very beautiful indeed was what it looked ...
— Frances Kane's Fortune • L. T. Meade
... intended to draw up a petition to the school trustees, humbly praying that a fence be put around the school grounds; and a plan was also to be discussed for planting a few ornamental trees by the church, if the funds of the society would permit of it . . . for, as Anne said, there was no use in starting another subscription as long as the hall remained blue. The members were assembled in the Andrews' parlor and Jane ...
— Anne Of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... for a turban; Joan a sportsman in her gymnasium knickers; Sheila, in a tricolor cap, represented France; and Lorna was draped with the Union Jack; Jess with a plaid arranged as a kilt made a sturdy Highlander; Mary was an Irish colleen; while Delia, in a wrapper ornamental with fringes of tissue paper, stood for "Carnival." A white dressing jacket trimmed with green leaves, and a garland of flowers were waiting for Peachy, and when the latter was popped on her head she was promptly proclaimed "Queen o' the May." Very much flattered by these preparations ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil
... The dead body, which was often covered with palm woods, was placed generally on the side—though occasionally on the back—on a board of wood, or wrapped in a mat of reeds or palm fibers, and covered with a tub-shaped clay dish. On the dish there was frequently an ornamental design, but beyond this, there was no attempt at decoration. The body was frequently pressed together in order to be brought within the compass of the dish. Sometimes, the knees were pulled up or the body placed ...
— The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria • Morris Jastrow
... a save-all or hold-all. Here seems no more difficulty in the transfer of the name than in that of chiffonier, from a rag-basket to a piece of ornamental furniture. ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 48, Saturday, September 28, 1850 • Various
... without even an occasional betrayal of the bitterness which makes the one attribute savour of insolence, and the other of oppression, his wife had regarded him as exactly fulfilling the part for which he had obviously been cast—of a good-humoured, ornamental, domestic tyrant, to be openly obeyed and covertly coerced. A husband who assisted her acquisition of social laurels; who gave her more money than she asked for; who designed for her the most elaborate and enviable dresses—yes, her mother ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore
... cabin, and they were just as stupid and uninteresting as they were at first; however, they never left me, nor indeed showed any intention to leave me, after the first season of the birds returning to the island. They were useful but not very ornamental, and not at all interesting to one who had such an intelligent companion ...
— The Little Savage • Captain Frederick Marryat
... or mountain of that name is situated. On the way up the last of the incline our friends watched with a great deal of interest the plains stretching out below them, and the city which they had just left lying at their feet like a section of carpet laid off into ornamental squares. Beyond Mount Lofty station the route descended into the valley of the Murray River, whose waters could be seen winding like a thread ...
— The Land of the Kangaroo - Adventures of Two Youths in a Journey through the Great Island Continent • Thomas Wallace Knox
... deal—more, indeed, than they had ever done before on a single occasion—they made their way into the dining room of the hotel, which was a spacious restaurant, with a fountain in the middle, a great many tall plants in ornamental tubs, and an array of French waiters. The first dinner on land, after a sea voyage, is, under any circumstances, a delightful occasion, and there was something particularly agreeable in the circumstances in which our young ...
— An International Episode • Henry James
... if the snows and rains of two centuries had not beaten against them. The interior is equally interesting in this regard, as the walls dividing the chambers and corridors, though covered with modern plaster and stucco, are found to consist of several feet of solid stone masonry, while the ornamental ceiling covers beams of timber, twenty inches by eighteen, which is strong, well jointed and placed as close as flooring. Above this is heavy stone work over twelve inches thick, so that the sloping roof was ...
— Famous Firesides of French Canada • Mary Wilson Alloway
... rule, but in lieu thereof adorns her head with a bamboo comb, at times inlaid with mother-of-pearl, at others covered with a lamina of beaten silver, but nearly always ornamented with decorative incisions. A pair of ear plugs with ornamental metal laminae are placed in the enlarged ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan
... hung up by wires and cords. By means of another wire a wick is suspended in each tumbler and the tumbler filled with oil. The other two are on the same principle, but the tumblers are hung in a kind of glass globe which is suspended by brass chains. These look considerably more ornamental than the first two. Whether you laugh at them or not, they answer a very good purpose. They do not make the room as light as would be required in a church, in as large a city as Amoy is, in the United States, but by means of them my chapel ...
— Forty Years in South China - The Life of Rev. John Van Nest Talmage, D.D. • Rev. John Gerardus Fagg
... at Brighton. Maude and Frank were seated at the favourite small round table near the window, where they always lunched. Their immediate view was a snowy-white tablecloth with a shining centre dish of foppish little cutlets, each with a wisp of ornamental paper, and a surrounding bank of mashed potatoes. Beyond, from the very base of the window, as it seemed, there stretched the huge expanse of the deep blue sea, its soothing mass of colour broken only by ...
— A Duet • A. Conan Doyle
... Colleges, whose grassy plots Are now resorts of vicious ease, Were then laid out in little lots, With useful beans and early peas: Each merely ornamental sod They dug with spades and hoed with hoes: The wilderness in every quad Was made to blossom ...
— Lyra Frivola • A. D. Godley
... measurements are right, and your angles tally faultlessly, I'm glad I kept you back today. You can help me here even more than in the field. Tomorrow, however, I shall have to keep Rice back. He's our ornamental draughtsman, and puts in the fine, flowery work on our maps. Here's ...
— The Young Engineers in Colorado • H. Irving Hancock
... glad I can be useful again, as well as ornamental," he grinned, presenting to her with a flourish ...
— The Nest Builder • Beatrice Forbes-Robertson Hale
... was the system of oil-painting known before the time of Van Eyck; but it remains a question in what kind of works and with what degree of refinement this system had been applied. The passages in Eraclius refer only to ornamental work, imitations of marble, etc.; and although, in the records of Ely cathedral, the words "pro ymaginibus super columnas depingendis" may perhaps be understood as referring to paintings of figures, the applications ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... switch of coarse black hair. A crepe-paper lambrequin decorated the mantel-shelf, whose ornaments were a cup and saucer, a shaving-set, and a pair of conch-shells; while between the windows was a wash-stand obviously kept for ornamental purposes, as there was no water in the pitcher and the basin was cracked. Pinned on the soft plastering of the walls were florid advertisements of various necessities and luxuries of life, together with highly colored Scripture texts, ...
— People Like That • Kate Langley Bosher
... horticulturist, gardener, florist; agricultor[obs3], agriculturist; yeoman, farmer, cultivator, tiller of the soil, woodcutter, backwoodsman; granger, habitat, vigneron[obs3], viticulturist; Triptolemus. field, meadow, garden; botanic garden[obs3], winter garden, ornamental garden, flower garden, kitchen garden, market garden, hop garden; nursery; green house, hot house; conservatory, bed, border, seed plot; grassplot[obs3], grassplat[obs3], lawn; park &c. (pleasure ground) 840; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... that the habitat is used in the more customary present acceptation to indicate the place where a plant naturally grows, as in swamps or upon dry hillsides. Under the head of "Horticultural Value," the requisite information is given for an intelligent choice of trees for ornamental purposes. ...
— Handbook of the Trees of New England • Lorin Low Dame
... was a beautiful building, the centre much higher than the rest, to be filled with climbing roses, vines, etc.; the sides sloped off until they were only high enough to allow free entrance at the doors. It was finished in a highly ornamental manner, and in the ...
— Bertie and the Gardeners - or, The Way to be Happy • Madeline Leslie
... for a good many people lived there; but when the procession had passed through these it came upon a broad plain covered with gardens and watered by many pretty brooks that flowed through it. There were paths through these gardens, and over some of the brooks were ornamental glass bridges. ...
— Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz • L. Frank Baum.
... named for the Prince Regent, afterwards George IV. This park is extensive, and exceedingly beautiful. It has winding roads and shady paths, ornamental plantations, clear, shining sheets of water—noble trees and fairy-like bowers, so secluded and shadowy, that the birds sing and nest in them as fearlessly as in the deep ...
— Stories and Legends of Travel and History, for Children • Grace Greenwood
... How oft his hand unbidden wrote her name! Now presents worthy of the plighted fair, And nuptial robes his busy train prepare— Robes wherewith Livia was herself attired, And those bright dames that to the beds aspired Of emperors. Yet the celestial maid Requires no earthly ornamental aid To give her faultless form a single grace, Or add one charm ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume II. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... cheered, and after a great deal of talking the cuckoo persuaded them to give in and consent to show their feet, as they could not possibly marry the princes without. Besides, perhaps when the king found their toes were all right he would think the colour rather ornamental than otherwise. So the princes were told to their great joy that the princesses had consented to show their feet; and the king and queen, on being informed, summoned a Cabinet Council for the next morning so that their ministers might ...
— The Grey Brethren and Other Fragments in Prose and Verse • Michael Fairless
... same day Evariste set out to see the citoyen Jean Blaise, printseller, as well as dealer in ornamental boxes, fancy goods and games of all sorts, in the Rue Honore, opposite the Oratoire and near the office of the Messageries, at the sign of the Amour peintre. The shop was on the ground floor of a house sixty years ...
— The Gods are Athirst • Anatole France
... the labourer was speaking, standing shufflingly on the margin of the Turkey carpet. The Rector listened, his hand on an open folio where fat infants peered through the ornamental initials. ...
— The Incomplete Amorist • E. Nesbit
... the purely ornamental trinkets of the tree hung tiny net bags of crystallised violets and many large chocolates rolled up in silver paper. The boys, who had subsisted for several days on nothing more exciting than boiled milk, openly rejoiced when they caught sight of the sweets. ...
— A Versailles Christmas-Tide • Mary Stuart Boyd
... without telling us why. "Philip," says the historian, "showed a marvellous alacrity in taking doses of trouble."[1] We see from this that the most homely language is sometimes far more vivid than the most ornamental, being recognised at once as the language of common life, and gaining immediate currency by its familiarity. In speaking, then, of Philip as "taking doses of trouble," Theopompus has laid hold on a phrase which describes with peculiar vividness one ...
— On the Sublime • Longinus
... committed by a General. The most of them are incapable of reasoning without using as a help here and there some shreds of scientific military theory. The smallest of these fragments, consisting in mere scientific words and metaphors, are often nothing more than ornamental flourishes of critical narration. Now it is in the nature of things that all technical and scientific expressions which belong to a system lose their propriety, if they ever had any, as soon as they are ...
— On War • Carl von Clausewitz
... Cyrnos, occupied by the Empress Eugenie. Seen from the road there was nothing striking in its appearance, but seen from the other side it was delightful, recalling the drop scene of a theater. Situated on a steep slope, embowered in trees, its broad stone veranda overhung a series of ornamental terraces decorated with palms, flowers, statuary, and fountains; and where these ended a jumble of rocks and stunted pines fell away abruptly to the blue ...
— An Adventure With A Genius • Alleyne Ireland
... edition, with a preface by Archbishop Whately, the author's nephew, 1839]. Hazlitt confused T. Whately's Observations on Modern Gardening with George Mason's Essay on Design in Gardening, and the one error led to the other.] the author of a Treatise on Ornamental Gardening (not Mason the poet), began a work of a similar kind about forty years ago, but he only lived to finish a parallel between the characters of Macbeth and Richard III which is an exceedingly ingenious piece of analytical criticism. Richardson's ...
— Characters of Shakespeare's Plays • William Hazlitt
... distinctions, one who could distinguish in the most delicate questions of honour the exact boundaries of right and wrong. Compliment, in Shakespeare's time, did not signify, at least did not only signify verbal civility, or phrases of courtesy, but according to its original meaning, the trapping, or ornamental appendages of a character, in the same manner, and on the same principles of speech with accomplishment. Compliment is, as Arwado well expresses it, the varnish of a ...
— Johnson's Notes to Shakespeare Vol. I Comedies • Samuel Johnson
... seemed like an asylum and last resting-place of things which had never been useful, and had ceased to be ornamental, which were yet not quite bad enough to be thrown into the dust-bin. To Fan it was a sort of South Kensington Museum, where she was permitted to handle things freely, and for some time she continued inspecting these rich treasures, after which she once more began to glance round the room. Such ...
— Fan • Henry Harford
... V. teres, to reach the top of the house, where sunshine is fiercest, before blooming. Under the best conditions, indeed, it is slow to produce its noble wreaths of flower—deep red, crimson, and orange. Upon the other hand, the plant itself is ornamental, and it grows very fast. The Duke of Devonshire has some at Chatsworth which never fail to make a gorgeous show in their season; but they stand twenty feet high, twisted round birch-trees, and they have occupied their present quarters for half a century or near it. There is but one ...
— About Orchids - A Chat • Frederick Boyle
... contents of the dray I need hardly speak, though perhaps a full enumeration of them might afford no bad index to the requirements of a station; they are more numerous than might at first be supposed—rigidly useful and rarely if ever ornamental. ...
— A First Year in Canterbury Settlement • Samuel Butler
... genial subject of soot. Without speculating on its origin and parentage, whether derived from the cooking of a Christmas-dinner, or the production of the beautiful colors and odors of exotic plants in a conservatory, it can briefly be shown to possess many qualities both useful and ornamental. ...
— The International Weekly Miscellany, Volume I. No. 8 - Of Literature, Art, and Science, August 19, 1850 • Various
... hand, over all which they just showed their ears and noses, like people looking over a wall. The remainder, stalwart ruddy men and boys, were dressed mainly in snow-white smock-frocks, embroidered upon the shoulders and breasts, in ornamental forms of hearts, diamonds, and zigzags. The cider-mug was emptied for the ninth time, the music-books were arranged, and the pieces finally decided upon. The boys in the meantime put the old horn-lanterns in order, cut candles into short lengths to fit the lanterns; ...
— Under the Greenwood Tree • Thomas Hardy
... of the Empire, by the murder of Roman subjects whom they led away into captivity. In the hands of a wise legislator, such an industrious colony might have contributed to diffuse through the deserts of Scythia the rudiments of the useful and ornamental arts; but these captives, who had been taken in war, were accidentally dispersed among the hordes that obeyed the empire of Attila. The estimate of their respective value was formed by the simple judgment of unenlightened and unprejudiced Barbarians. Perhaps they might not understand the merit ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 4 • Various
... border being to add weight to the end of the stove apron, it would keep it in its place better than anything else, besides being very ornamental. ...
— The Ladies' Work-Book - Containing Instructions In Knitting, Crochet, Point-Lace, etc. • Unknown
... solid silver," he remarked, as he laid on a chair beside her a curious little statuette of a horse, trapped and decorated in Indian graving, and having its whole surface covered with an involved and rich ornamental design. Its eyes were, or seemed to be rubies, and saddle and bridle and housing were studded with small gems. There was little merit in the art of it beyond the engraving, but Cosmo saw the eyes of the lady fixed upon it, with a strange look ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... adornment for festive occasions or loftier leisure moments. "Glad rags" may mean evening dress, when a young gentleman's wardrobe can aspire to splendour so marked, but it also applies to one's best and latest-purchased garb, in contradistinction to the less ornamental habiliments worn every day, and designated ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... privacy in the houses of St. Kitts and Nevis. Either the upper part of almost every room is built of ornamental lattice-work, or the walls are set with numerous jalousies, that can be closed when a draught is undesirable but conduct the slightest sound. Rachael's room adjoined her mother's. She knew that the older woman was as uneasily ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... Chambers of Commerce and other ornamental organizations who, being entirely uninformed on the subject, permit themselves to become the conduits through which the misrepresentation and animosity of avaricious creditors and rapacious attorneys are discharged ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar |
