"Embellish" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of a knowledge of natural phenomena made it impossible for the mere scientist to be the sponsor. It became a question of faith rather than knowledge; and man's instinctive struggle against the risk of extinction impelled him to cling to this larger hope of salvation, and to embellish it with an ethical and moral significance which at first was lacking in the eternal search for the ...
— The Evolution of the Dragon • G. Elliot Smith
... clambering about its crumbling top; little knots of men too in the road beyond—evidently expecting something. Even this is in keeping with the poet's grave, which should not be sombre and melancholy, like other graves; and what could better embellish and enliven its aspect than young, blushing life clustering around it? We linger awhile among the boisterous children playing on the churchyard wall, and then we hear a confused sound of voices and music ...
— A Tramp's Wallet - stored by an English goldsmith during his wanderings in Germany and France • William Duthie
... like a gentleman—rather exorbitantly. That's the way a gentleman always pays. So now suppose you return to your own sort and coyly reappear amid certain circles recently neglected, and which, at one period of your career, you permitted yourself to embellish and adorn with your ...
— Athalie • Robert W. Chambers
... him from exterminating the whole English race upon this continent. Though his character has been described only by those who were exasperated against him to the very highest degree, still it is evident that he possessed many of the noblest qualities which can embellish human nature. ...
— King Philip - Makers of History • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
... or they may have been fictitious altogether. Great generals, like other great men, have often the credit of many exploits which they never perform. It is the special business of poets and historians to magnify and embellish the actions of the great, and this art was understood as well in ancient days ...
— Alexander the Great - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... him something. He feared that with all his successes his throne would be overturned unless he could amuse the people and find work for turbulent spirits. Consequently he concluded on the one hand to make a change in the foreign policy of France, and on the other to embellish his capital and undertake great public works, at any expense, both to find work for artisans and to develop ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume X • John Lord
... had much in common, was a doctor—had been to adopt the medical profession. Curiously enough, my brother also had a taste for caricaturing, and, like the illustrious John Leech in his medical student days, he was wont to embellish his notes in the hospital lecture-room with pictorial jeux d'esprit of a livelier cast than those for which scope is usually afforded by the discourses of ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Harry Furniss
... excuse myself, and implore pity and indulgence, and defend myself from the reproach of having been a cold, unloving daughter. Oh! God knows how I have longed for your love; that I would willingly prove that I would joyfully do every thing to embellish your life and make you happy. It gave me such pleasure to earn something for you with my dear flowers and lessons, and ...
— Old Fritz and the New Era • Louise Muhlbach
... out of uniform, Ardy?" I asked him. One has to be so delicate with Ardy, he's that sensitive. "Why, I thought I might as well embellish myself a bit," ...
— Biltmore Oswald - The Diary of a Hapless Recruit • J. Thorne Smith, Jr.
... hurry[480], because he wanted to exhaust the subject, and to make all proper enquiries for enabling him to treat it thoroughly. He imagined he should find in Gallia Narbonensis, and the neighbouring places, several things that might contribute to embellish his work; and that the French, from envy to the Swedes, hindered his friends from ...
— The Life of the Truly Eminent and Learned Hugo Grotius • Jean Levesque de Burigny
... language or religion. I now proceed to show, that these circumstances have engendered towards the colonists in the, mass of the Mexican nation, feelings of unconquerable jealousy and hostility. Yes! our superiority in enterprise, in learning, in the arts and in all that can dignify life, or embellish human nature, instead of exciting in them a laudable ambition to emulate, to equal, or excel us—excites the most hateful of all the passions—envy—and has caused them to endeavor for years past, by an unremitting series of vexatious, oppressive ...
— Texas • William H. Wharton
... him as I knew him, and even my partiality, heightened by my regret, cannot much exaggerate his merits. He was a brave officer, and an intelligent gentleman. His mind was practical, prompt, and energetic; and he united to the qualities of a strict disciplinarian, all the kind feelings that embellish the character of social benevolence. Peace to his ashes, and honour ...
— A Voyage Round the World, Vol. I (of ?) • James Holman
... a beautiful wife to embellish his canvas, disfigured hitherto by an injudicious selection of models; a virtuous wife to be his crown; a prudent wife to save him from ruin; a cheerful wife to sustain his spirits, drooping at times by virtue of his artist's ...
— Christie Johnstone • Charles Reade
... sympathize my grief; Unshaken, walk in virtue's peaceful road, Nor bribe her reason to pursue the mode; Mild as the saint whose errors are forgiv'n, Calm as a vestal, and compos'd as heav'n. This be the partner, this the lovely wife That should embellish and prolong my life; A nymph! who might a second fall inspire, And fill a glowing Cherub with desire! With her I'd spend the pleasurable day, While fleeting minutes gaily danc'd away: With her I'd walk, delighted, o'er the ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore
... idea of our merits, and built such expectations of felicity upon our friendship, as we were sure that nothing human could possibly answer, I wrote to remind her that we were mortal, to recommend her not to think more highly of us than the subject would warrant, and intimating that when we embellish a creature with colours taken from our own fancy, and so adorned, admire and praise it beyond its real merits, we make it an idol, and have nothing to expect in the end but that it will deceive our hopes, and that we shall derive ...
— Cowper • Goldwin Smith
... planted at the same season in a shady place, and well watered. The common thyme is in universal use as a pot-herb for various culinary purposes; it may also be employed in assemblage with other small plants, to embellish the fronts of flower-borders, shrubbery clumps, small and sloping banks, &c. placing the plants detached or singly, to form little bushy tufts, and in which the variegated sorts, and the silver thyme and lemon thyme particularly, form a very agreeable variety. The lemon ...
— The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, • Mary Eaton
... luxury, is, in nations imperfectly civilized, almost a necessary of life, and is valued less on account of the pleasure which it gives to the ear, than on account of the help which it gives to the memory. A man who can invent or embellish an interesting story, and put it into a form which others may easily retain in their recollection, will always be highly esteemed by a people eager for amusement and information, but destitute of libraries. Such is the origin ...
— Lays of Ancient Rome • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... the most impressionable period of their lives we owe most of our noble private collections. Charles I. and Buckingham, renewed, in their travels in Spain, the efforts previously made by Lord Arundel and Lord Pembroke, to embellish their country seats. Then came the Rebellion; and like a mighty rushing river, made a chasm in which much perished. Art languished in the reign of the second Charles, excepting in what related to portrait painting. Evelyn stood almost alone in his then secluded and lovely retirement at ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 2 • Grace & Philip Wharton
... conducted on religious lines. For the easy profanity, unconscious obscenity, and august slang of the back country scented the air like myall; whilst the aggregate repertory of bon fide anecdote and reminiscence was something worth while. No young fellow in that great rendezvous dared to embellish his narrative in the slightest degree, on pain of being posted as a double-adjective blatherskite; for his audience was sure to include a couple of critical, cynical, iron-grey cyclopedias of everything Australian—everything, at least, untainted by the spurious and blue-moulded ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... highly honoured. Ba-ath is favoured. Mrs. Dowler, you embellish the rooms. I congratulate you on your ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... I extend my thanks to the distinguished ladies who have had the kindness to honor and embellish our tables with their presence; and permit me to invite you to drink with them and with me, hoping that the national harmonizing of individual rights and just liberties, which is called the United ...
— Latin America and the United States - Addresses by Elihu Root • Elihu Root
... wit As well as beauty, Esther. Both are gems That do embellish woman in man's sight. Yet they are gems of second magnitude! Dost THOU possess the one great perfect gem - The matchless jewel of the world ...
— Poems of Progress • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... Cat and therefore aware of all that you bring in your train, O Fire! I foresee winter; its coming both troubles and pleases me. I've already begun to thicken and embellish my fur-coat in its honor, the darker stripes are becoming black, my white tippet swells into a dazzling boa, and the fur on my belly surpasses in beauty anything that has ever been seen. What shall I say of my tail, broad as a club, with alternate rings of fawn-color and black, or of the sensitive, ...
— Barks and Purrs • Colette Willy, aka Colette
... his methods, and Gen. Peter Horry wrote to him: "I requested you would (if necessary) so far alter the work as to make it read grammatically, and I gave you leave to embellish the work, but entertained not the least idea of what has happened . . . You have carved and mutilated it with so many erroneous statements your embellishments, observation and remarks, must necessarily be erroneous as proceeding from false grounds. . . . Can you suppose ...
— The Life of General Francis Marion • Mason Locke Weems
... there were hours and days in which Burns, even when the rain fell on his unhoused sheaves, did not wholly despair of himself: he laboured, nay sometimes he slaved on his farm; and at intervals of toil, sought to embellish his mind with such knowledge as might be useful, should chance, the goddess who ruled his lot, drop him upon some of the higher places of the land. He had, while he lived at Tarbolton, united with some half-dozen ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... calmly observed, 'Now, sir, you will never again say it is impossible.'" In reality, Bruce seems to have been treated with much the same injustice as Herodotus. The truth of the bulk of his narrative has been fully established, although a passion for the picturesque may certainly have led him to embellish many of the minor particulars. And it must be remembered, that his book was not dictated until twelve years after the ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchausen • Rudolph Erich Raspe
... founded and dedicated to St. Matthew in 1084 by Robert Guiscard, who plundered the temples of Paestum of their marbles and sculptures to embellish it. ...
— The Brochure Series of Architectural Illustration - Vol 1, No. 9 1895 • Various
... of Mrs. Hemans will ever keep her memory fresh. "In these 'gems of purest ray serene,' the peculiar genius of Mrs. Hemans breathes, and burns, and shines pre-eminent; for her forte lay in depicting whatever tends to beautify and embellish domestic life, the gentle overflowings of love and friendship, home-bred delights and heartfelt happiness, the associations of local attachment, and the influences of religious feelings over the soul, whether arising from the varied circumstances ...
— Excellent Women • Various
... each other so rapidly, that the decrees came like hail, always with sounding phrases and grand words to embellish them. ...
— Waterloo - A sequel to The Conscript of 1813 • Emile Erckmann
... Sepulchre. To the rapacious and profligate she offered the plunder of fertile plains and wealthy cities. Unhappily, the ingenious and polished inhabitants of the Languedocian provinces were far better qualified to enrich and embellish their country than to defend it. Eminent in the arts of peace, unrivalled in the "gay science," elevated above many vulgar superstitions, they wanted that iron courage, and that skill in martial ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... Noah, his building the Ark, his embarking himself and all Nature's Stock for a new World on board it; the long Voyage they took, and the bad Weather they met with, tho' it would embellish this Work very well, and come in very much to the Purpose in this Place, yet as it does not belong to the Devil's Story, for I cannot prove what some suggest (viz.) that he was in the Ark among the Rest, I say, for that Reason I must ...
— The History of the Devil - As Well Ancient as Modern: In Two Parts • Daniel Defoe
... and aid of Cyrus, King of Persia. It was finished in the reign of Darius, when he was known to be a Prince of Jerusalem. Cyrus not only gave Zerubbabel and the captive Masons their liberty, but ordered all the treasures of the old temple to be restored to them, that they might embellish the second temple, which he had ordered ...
— The Mysteries of Free Masonry - Containing All the Degrees of the Order Conferred in a Master's Lodge • William Morgan
... self-prompted, self-sustained, and almost self-taught, he has conquered every obstacle, achieved his way to eminence, and, having become one of the ornaments of the nation, has turned the whole force of his talents and influence to advance and embellish his native town. ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving
... author has been to throw over labor, home and agricultural life, their true dignity and charm; to introduce the farmer to the delights and privileges of his lot; to embellish the cares of toil with those kindly sentiments so naturally associated with the country and its employments. It is a pleasant book—one that will enliven the fireside, elevate and purify the thoughts, and, at the same time, impart a great deal of valuable agricultural knowledge. We know ...
— Autographs for Freedom, Volume 2 (of 2) (1854) • Various
... employment of all the harmless arts of the toilet, and of those numerous and effective means which modern science offers, to acquire, to preserve, and to embellish beauty, is a duty which woman, whether married or single, should never neglect. With very little trouble, the good looks and freshness of youth can be guarded almost to old age; and, even when hopelessly gone, simple and harmless means are at hand to repair the injuries of years, or at ...
— The Physical Life of Woman: - Advice to the Maiden, Wife and Mother • Dr. George H Napheys
... Original of Architecture, which is taken from the Inventers of the several Orders, and those that added the Ornaments to embellish them. For it's the common Opinion, that the first Fabrick that was made, according to any of the Orders, was the Temple that King Dorus built in Honour of Juno in the City Argos. And it obtained the name of the Dorick Order, when Ion the Conducter of a Colony, ...
— An Abridgment of the Architecture of Vitruvius - Containing a System of the Whole Works of that Author • Vitruvius
... the cross, the mitre, the thurible, is a fulfillment of some dream of childhood, or aspiration of youth. Such poets as are born under her shadow, she takes into her service, she sets them to write hymns, or to compose chants, or to embellish shrines, or to determine ceremonies, or to marshal processions; nay, she can even make schoolmen of them, as she made St. Thomas, till logic ...
— Cardinal Newman as a Musician • Edward Bellasis
... The official engraver strikes off the sheets, passes them over to the Register of the Currency, who, after placing his earmarks upon them, signs the same; the Register turns them over to old Father Spinner, who proceeds to embellish them with his wonderful signature at the bottom; Father Spinner sends them to Secretary of the Treasury Chase, and he, as a final act in the matter, issues them to the public as money—and may the good Lord help any fellow that doesn't take all he can honestly ...
— Lincoln's Yarns and Stories • Alexander K. McClure
... four bare walls and blackened ceiling. The tenant who had been there had taken away his own counters and cases. A furious discussion took place. M. Marescot said it was for them to embellish ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... She brought them also in a brazen tray, Garlic[20] and honey new, and sacred meal. Beside them, next, she placed a noble cup Of labor exquisite, which from his home 760 The ancient King had brought with golden studs Embellish'd; it presented to the grasp Four ears; two golden turtles, perch'd on each, Seem'd feeding, and two turtles[21] form'd the base. That cup once fill'd, all others must have toil'd 765 To move it from the board, but it was light In Nestor's hand; ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer
... prehistoric. On the other hand, the incidents attributed to this long interval are not by any means of such a nature as to suggest deliberate fabrication. An annalist who was also a courtier, applying himself to construct the story of his sovereign's ancestors, would naturally be disposed to embellish his pages with narratives of great exploits and brilliant achievements. Neither the Records nor the Chronicles can be said to display such a propensity in any marked degree. The Chronicles do, indeed, draw upon the resources of Chinese history to construct ethical codes and scholarly diction for ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... precious manuscript to his bosom friend, Sidney Rigdon, that he might embellish and alter it, as he might think expedient. The publisher now dead, Rigdon allowed this chef-d'oeuvre to remain in his desk, till, reflecting upon his precarious means, and upon his chances of obtaining a future livelihood, a sudden idea struck ...
— Monsieur Violet • Frederick Marryat
... child, with the soft smile and intelligent eyes, who had sat by the side of Leonard in his garret. She was about the middle height, still slight, but beautifully formed; that exquisite roundness of proportion which conveys so well the idea of woman, in its undulating, pliant grace,—formed to embellish life, and soften away its rude angles; formed to embellish, not to protect. Her face might not have satisfied the critical eye of an artist,—it was not without defects in regularity; but its expression ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... down on pretence of watching the yachts through a glass. It was a very pretty spectacle, and Bessie was left at liberty to enjoy it, and also to take note of the many gay and fashionable folk who enrich and embellish Ryde in the season; for Mr. Cecil Burleigh was entirely engrossed with another person. The party they had joined consisted of a very thin old gentleman, spruce, well brushed, and well cared for; of a ...
— The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax • Harriet Parr
... will be a fine location for it, and I wish to appropriate it to this purpose. While you are adorning the interior of the building, the walls of which are to contain frescoes of some of the most impressive scenes of our Revolution, I will embellish the grounds in front, and make them my special charge. I understand the cultivation of flowers, though the gift of painting them is denied me. Yesterday I sold my diamonds for a much larger amount than I supposed they would command, ...
— Macaria • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... not attempted to correct or embellish it. So many books, trimmed up nicely and well-padded, go to their graves every year to be forgotten forever, that it has hardly seemed worth while to bedeck this one. I am not a believer in maquillage ...
— Youth and Egolatry • Pio Baroja
... panels being painted with upright landscapes, the leafings of which are executed with a kind of silver lacker. The views seem to be Italian, and are reputed to have been the work of Salvator Rosa, purposely executed to embellish this apartment. The receipt of the painter is said to be in the possession of Mr. Wilcox, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XIX. No. 554, Saturday, June 30, 1832 • Various
... average person, is worse than useless to the astronomer, for the unsteadiness is greatly magnified in the telescope. This twinkling is, no doubt, in a great measure responsible for the conventional "points" with which Art has elected to embellish stars, and which, of course, have no existence ...
— Astronomy of To-day - A Popular Introduction in Non-Technical Language • Cecil G. Dolmage
... fool, stultify fool, idiot rule, govern governor, gubernatorial wages, salary nice, exquisite haughty, arrogant letter, epistle pursue, prosecute use, utility use, utilize rival, competitor male, masculine female, feminine beauty, esthetics beauty, pulchritude beautify, embellish poison, venom vote, franchise vote, suffrage taste, gust tasteful, gustatory tasteless, insipid flower, floral count, compute cowardly, pusillanimous tent, pavilion money, finance monetary, pecuniary trace, vestige face, ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... is laid in Rome in the year 1532 under Pope Clement VII, and comprises the events of three days, Monday before Shrove-tide, Shrove-Tuesday and Ash-Wednesday.—Benvenuto Cellini, the Tuscan goldsmith has been called to Rome by the Pope, in order to embellish the city with his {27} masterpieces. He loves Teresa, the daughter of the old papal treasurer Balducci, and the love is mutual.—At the same time another suitor, Fieramosca, the Pope's sculptor, ...
— The Standard Operaglass - Detailed Plots of One Hundred and Fifty-one Celebrated Operas • Charles Annesley
... their manes! may they enjoy more repose, than that troubled world which their extraordinary, yet different talents seemed equally destined to embellish and to embroil, though it would be difficult to name any two modern writers, who have expressed, with more eloquence, a cordial love of peace, and a zealous desire to promote ...
— The Stranger in France • John Carr
... more than that, I am a mean selfish cur to have a regret. Come, come, we can't eat; let us go round the Point and see the waves reddened by the beacon that gives you back to the world you were born to embellish." ...
— Foul Play • Charles Reade
... Correggio and the Venetian painters, and knew the principles by which they produced those pleasing effects which at the first glance prepossess us so much in their favour; but he took only as much from each as would embellish, but not overpower, that manly strength and energy of style, ...
— Seven Discourses on Art • Joshua Reynolds
... words exact and truthful in themselves seem always too thrilling, too great for the subject; seem to embellish it unduly. I feel as if I were acting, for my own benefit, some wretchedly trivial and third-rate comedy; and whenever I try to consider my home in a serious spirit, the scoffing figure of M. Kangourou rises up before me, the matrimonial agent, to whom I am indebted ...
— Madame Chrysantheme • Pierre Loti
... Series, I., 973). This is probably the origin of the "26 dead" story; the "over 40" being merely a flourish. Ramsey gives a story about Isaac Shelby rallying the whites to victory, and later writers of course follow and embellish this; but Shelby's MS. autobiography (see copy in Col. Durrett's library at Louisville) not only makes no mention of the battle, but states that Shelby was at this time in Kentucky; he came back in August ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume One - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1769-1776 • Theodore Roosevelt
... only shall we see art associations, of which each member will find room for his capacity; for art cannot dispense with an infinity of purely manual and technical supplementary works. These artistic associations will undertake to embellish the houses of their members, as those kind volunteers, the young painters of Edinburgh, did in decorating the walls and ceilings of the great hospital for the ...
— The Conquest of Bread • Peter Kropotkin
... been pleas'd to discover himself, nor to Print his Name, but has set his Mark to his Works, which he has Embellish'd with new Flowers of Rhetorick, that shew what a Genius he has for refining Language, and how happily one may use the Figures of Cursing, Swearing, and Bawdy, which before were entirely exploded. Tho' we cannot ...
— Reflections on Dr. Swift's Letter to Harley (1712) and The British Academy (1712) • John Oldmixon
... have at last reached their full stature, and so (their course being completed) have settled in the works of a few writers; and that there being now no room for the invention of better, all that remains is to embellish and cultivate those things which have been invented already. Would it were so! But the truth is that this appropriating of the sciences has its origin in nothing better than the confidence of a few persons and the sloth and indolence of the rest. For after the sciences had been in several ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot
... sententiously, "We armatures get badly imposed upon." Here were patent gimcrack printing devices, although he had scarce anything worth printing; all sorts of atrocious fancy borders with which he sought in vain to embellish out-of-focus under-exposures; orthochromatic filters and colour screens with which he was eliminating undesirable rays, although the chief thing his negatives lacked was light of any kind. His soiled and stained development trays were scattered about a large table amidst dirty cups and saucers ...
— Ten Thousand Miles with a Dog Sled - A Narrative of Winter Travel in Interior Alaska • Hudson Stuck
... About the time of Pyrrhus silver plate began to make its appearance on Roman tables, and the chroniclers date the disappearance of shingle roofs in Rome from 470.(40) The new capital of Italy gradually laid aside its village-like aspect, and now began to embellish itself. It was not yet indeed customary to strip the temples in conquered towns of their ornaments for the decoration of Rome; but the beaks of the galleys of Antium were displayed at the orator's platform in the Forum(41) and on public festival days ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... virtuous by the square foot of carcase. Ergo, "a little man" in stature, comprehends all that is hypocritical and wicked. The great man, James Merrill, who is the subject of this note, by the above rule is of course, the most honorable, best informed and religious man of the whole group, who embellish the fair pages of that "book." It is proper that the public should know a little of his debut and denoument as a ...
— A Review and Exposition, of the Falsehoods and Misrepresentations, of a Pamphlet Addressed to the Republicans of the County of Saratoga, Signed, "A Citizen" • An Elector
... masterpieces,[63] could not refrain from sometimes introducing Arcady and dreamland into their architecture. Inigo Jones died before finishing his Whitehall palace, and we know from his drawings that he intended to embellish the central circular court with a row of gigantic caryatides representing Persians, six or seven yards high.[64] A contriver of masks for the Court, Inigo Jones, was in this way tempted to build palaces, ...
— The English Novel in the Time of Shakespeare • J. J. Jusserand
... old Spedding, though I have not seen him these twenty years and more, and probably should never see again; but he lives, his old Self, in my heart of hearts; and all I hear of him does but embellish the recollection of him, if it could be embellished; for he is but the same that he was from a Boy, all that is best in Heart and Head, a man that would be incredible had ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald in Two Volumes - Vol. II • Edward FitzGerald
... the kindness of Mr. J. T. Tussaud, to embellish the present collection by an ancient cast of the hand of the Comte de Lorge, a famous prisoner in the Bastille. This cast was taken, together with a death mask, after death, by the great-grandmother of the sculptor, to ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 27, March 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... true temple of God; enter ye into your temples and illumine them with good thoughts. The sacred vessels, they are your hands and your eyes. Do I say that which is agreeable to God—doing good to your neighbors? But, first embellish wherein dwells He, who ...
— The Light of Egypt, Volume II • Henry O. Wagner/Belle M. Wagner/Thomas H. Burgoyne
... globe and of all that is known to us. For the stains and defects in it may be found as useful for enhancing the beauty of the rest as patches, which have nothing beautiful in themselves, are by the fair sex found adapted to embellish the whole face, although they disfigure the part they cover. Cotta, in Cicero's book, had compared providence, in its granting of reason to men, to a physician who allows wine to a patient, notwithstanding that ...
— Theodicy - Essays on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man and the Origin of Evil • G. W. Leibniz
... would leave behind them a name renowned and glorious, if they possessed, together with their store of the goods of Fortune, a mind filled with grandeur and inclined to those things that not only embellish the world, but also confer vast benefit and advantage on the whole race of men! And what works can or should Princes and great persons undertake more readily than noble and magnificent buildings and edifices, both on account of the many kinds of men that are employed upon ...
— Lives of the most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol. 06 (of 10) Fra Giocondo to Niccolo Soggi • Giorgio Vasari
... and romance did thus in ancient times with the scenery of nature, it did also on the field of history. Men explored that field not at all to learn sober and actual realities, but to find something that they might embellish and adorn, and animate with supernatural and marvelous life. What the sober realities might have actually been, was of no interest or moment to them whatever. There were no scholars then as now, living in the midst of libraries, and finding constant employment, and a never-ending pleasure, in researches ...
— Romulus, Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... only a few body servants. The governor, familiar with the clubs and the wits of England, entertained Franklin, in the highest degree, with the literary gossip of London, and probably excited in his mind an intense desire to visit those scenes, which he himself was so calculated to enjoy and to embellish. On the journey he wrote the following comic letter to his wife. He had been disappointed in not receiving a line from her ...
— Benjamin Franklin, A Picture of the Struggles of Our Infant Nation One Hundred Years Ago - American Pioneers and Patriots Series • John S. C. Abbott
... social deficiencies of his neighbour. Like Steele, he deems it humanity to laugh at an indifferent jest, and he has thereby earned for himself the reputation of being readily diverted. If he lacks the urbanities which embellish conversation, he is correspondingly free from the brutalities which degrade it. If his instinct does not prompt him to say something agreeable, it saves him from being wantonly unkind. Plain truths may be salutary; but unworthy truths are those which are destitute of any ...
— Americans and Others • Agnes Repplier
... the city mouse, "I'll show What kind of fare I've brought you to:" On which he led the rustic mice Into a larder, snug and nice, Where ev'ry thing a mouse could relish, Did ev'ry shelf and nook embellish. ...
— Aesop, in Rhyme - Old Friends in a New Dress • Marmaduke Park
... Shepherd's Calendar, first published in 1579, "for the exposition of old words", as he declares, he thinks it expedient to include in his list, the following, 'dapper', 'scathe', 'askance', 'sere', 'embellish', 'bevy', 'forestall', 'fain', with not a few others quite as familiar as these. In Speght's Chaucer (1667), there is a long list of "old and obscure words in Chaucer explained"; including 'anthem', 'blithe', ...
— English Past and Present • Richard Chenevix Trench
... to turn his legions against Rome, after having become master of the Eastern world. Alexander died, however, before he had an opportunity to get back from the East; but, as the old historian says, it is entertaining and relaxing to the mind to digress from weightier considerations and to embellish historical study with variety, and he decides that if the great Eastern conqueror had marched against Rome, he would have been defeated. While Livy was probably influenced in this decision by that desire ...
— The Story of Rome From the Earliest Times to the End of the Republic • Arthur Gilman
... First—Religious paintings embellish the house of God. What is more becoming than to adorn the church, which is the shadow of the heavenly Jerusalem, so beautifully described by St. John?(276) Solomon decorated the temple of God with images ...
— The Faith of Our Fathers • James Cardinal Gibbons
... is of no use to oppose her. For my part, I think her papa has acted wisely in permitting the engagement. Contradiction would embellish her hero; while, left to him, she will soon find him out. I do not concern myself, for Miss Martindale can get over a ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... are indispensable in a narrative, and the habit of exaggerating destroys the power of accurate observation and recollection which would render the story truly interesting. If, instead of trying to embellish her account with the fruits of her imagination, a young lady possessed the power of seizing upon the points best worth describing, and could give an exact account of them, she would be far more entertaining than any exaggeration could make her; for there is no ...
— The Ladies' Vase - Polite Manual for Young Ladies • An American Lady
... reserved for the days of freedom. After the expulsion of the kings, Horatius Pulvillus, in his second consulship[195] dedicated this monument on such a magnificent scale, that in later days, with all her boundless wealth, Rome has been able to embellish but never to enlarge it. After an interval of four hundred and fifteen years, in the consulship of Lucius Scipio and Caius Norbanus,[196] it was burnt and rebuilt on the same site. Sulla after his victory undertook the task of restoring it, but did not dedicate ...
— Tacitus: The Histories, Volumes I and II • Caius Cornelius Tacitus
... world for truth." Of this he gave a conspicuous instance in Mist's Journal in an account of the marvellous blowing up of the island of St. Vincent, which in circumstantial invention and force of description must be ranked among his master-pieces. But Defoe did more than embellish stories of strange events for his newspapers. He was a master of journalistic art in all its branches, and a fertile inventor and organizer of new devices. It is to him, Mr. Lee says, and his researches entitle him to authority, that we owe the prototype of the leading article, ...
— Daniel Defoe • William Minto
... inasmuch as it illustrates the homely maxim, that every man is the architect of his own fortune. Apart from this consideration, the memory of Bewick should be cherished by all our readers; since he re-invented the ingenious means by which we are enabled to embellish unsparingly each of ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XX. No. 557., Saturday, July 14, 1832 • Various
... to specify the antiquities of Vienne, antiently called Vienna Allobrogum. It was a Roman colony, and a considerable city, which the antients spared no pains and expence to embellish. It is still a large town, standing among several hills on the banks of the Rhone, though all its former splendor is eclipsed, its commerce decayed, and most of its antiquities are buried in ruins. The church ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... incited fresh attacks. One British writer insisted that Federal America had done nothing either to extend, diversify, or embellish the sphere of human knowledge, and could produce nothing to bring her intellectual efforts into any sort of comparison with those of Europe. "Noah Webster, we are afraid," said he, "still occupies the first place in criticism, Timothy Dwight and Joel Barlow in poetry, and Mr. Justice Marshall in ...
— The United States of America Part I • Ediwn Erle Sparks
... been deceived," he coolly observed, turning his glance from a mirror to the countenance of his lieutenant, as he spoke, "than those which embellish the countenance of ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper
... caulking. In husbandry for carts, for wheelbarrows, for wheels to raise water, for fences, for sacking to hold grain, and a variety of other utensils. The young shoots furnish an article of food; and the wicks of their candles are made of its fibres. It serves to embellish the garden of the prince, and to cover the cottage of the peasant. It is the instrument, in the hand of power, that keeps the whole empire in awe. In short, there are few uses to which a Chinese cannot apply the bamboo, either entire or split into ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow
... of propagating it is by slips, or cuttings. As it is a small, shewy, hardy plant, and not disposed to over-run others, it is very suitable to embellish rock-work. ...
— The Botanical Magazine, Vol. V - Or, Flower-Garden Displayed • William Curtis
... corroboration of his theory, as it is to it also that the statesman ought to look for the regulation of his practice. Religion, property, science, commerce, literature, whatever can civilize and instruct rude mankind, whatever can embellish life in its more advanced condition, even till it exhibit the wonders of which it is now the theatre, may be referred to this subject, and are comprised under this denomination. The importance of history has been the theme of many a pen, but we question whether it has ever ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXVIII. February, 1843. Vol. LIII. • Various
... forced to admit, with due humility, his unfitness to embellish his letters with the gorgeous and pyrotechnic lavishness of "fancy writing" which graces the letters of the New York Correspondents, but he is sure that the items which follow are infinitely more truthful than ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 16, July 16, 1870 • Various
... share my love of all that is bizarre and outside the conventions and humdrum routine of everyday life. You have shown your relish for it by the enthusiasm which has prompted you to chronicle, and, if you will excuse my saying so, somewhat to embellish so many of my ...
— Short Stories of Various Types • Various
... difference between Me and my epic brethren gone before, And here the advantage is my own, I ween (Not that I have not several merits more, But this will more peculiarly be seen); They so embellish, that 't is quite a bore Their labyrinth of fables to thread through, Whereas this story's ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... this delicate matter to outsiders, despite the fact that you ought to have treated it as entirely official and confidential, it is obviously impossible to hush it up now. All sorts of rumours will get about directly, and everybody who has a grudge against us will take care to embellish these rumours. So it will be necessary for you to ...
— An Enemy of the People • Henrik Ibsen
... neither a spiritual nor an artistic age. The novel was in its infancy; and as if a "true story" was more worthy of respect than an invention, it received from Defoe an air of verisimilitude and is usually based on some real events. He is careful to embellish his fictions with little bits of realism. Thus, Moll Flanders gives an inventory of the goods she took to America, and in the 'History of the Plague' Defoe adds a note to his description of a burial-ground:—"N.B. The author of this Journal lies buried in that ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... washerman—the well-abused "Dobie"—has a marvellous skill in producing a saw-like rim to the starched collar and cuff of the newest shirt; while the elegant and delicate lace and embroidery, with which the fair are wont to embellish their underwear, take strange and unforeseen patterns at the hands of the skilled workmen. It is surprising what an effect can be obtained by tying up the neck and sleeves of a garment, inserting a few smooth pebbles from the brook, and ...
— A Holiday in the Happy Valley with Pen and Pencil • T. R. Swinburne
... wished to have a real rehearsal of the wedding feast, the table had been set in a large gallery adjoining the ordinary dining-room. This gallery was still bare, but throughout the meal they talked incessantly of how they would embellish it with shrubs, garlands of foliage, and clumps of flowers. During the dessert they even sent for a ladder with the view of indicating on the walls the main lines of ...
— Fruitfulness - Fecondite • Emile Zola
... To him it was of no importance whether his grave was with the rich or the poor, whether his burying-place were an obscure or an illustrious spot: he was anxious for the salvation of his soul. Unhappily, mankind in general lavish all their cares upon the body, to embellish or preserve it, to pamper its appetites, or to minister to its artificial necessities: but what an infatuation is it, to provide for that which perishes, and to be careless of that which is immortal—to decorate the walls, and to despise ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. I • Francis Augustus Cox
... fuel for its excesses. A long list of insignificant governors is the history of the island for another century. They did nothing to improve the condition of the inhabitants, whose distress was sometimes severe; but they continued to embellish the capital, which Oviedo described to Charles V. as rivalling in solidity and beauty any city in Spain. He wrote in 1538, and possessed a beautiful residence in the plain of St. John. The private houses were built substantially, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... the door! I don't like it, Anastasia. In his way Rokesle loves you; more than that, you are an ideal match to retrieve his battered fortunes; and the name of my worthy patron, I regret to say, is not likely ever to embellish the ...
— Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell
... known to all the world—as, for example, to make Hannibal and Scipio contemporaries with Alexander—but in the dark recesses of antiquity a great poet may and ought to feign such things as he finds not there, if they can be brought to embellish that subject which he treats. On the other side, the pains and diligence of ill poets is but thrown away when they want the genius to invent and feign agreeably. But if the fictions be delightful (which they always are if they be natural) if they be of ...
— Discourses on Satire and Epic Poetry • John Dryden
... ruined his bank by stealing money to enable him, for a while, to live in an elegant house and support servants, equipages, silks and diamonds galore. For a time he was the idol of the town, while he gave costly dinners and showered his ill-gotten gains to embellish his favorite temple, and to build a tower upon it to look down in contempt ...
— The Gentleman from Everywhere • James Henry Foss
... Governed: "We are far from having exhausted the significance of the few symbols we use," also (2, b), above; "He could embellish the characters with new traits without violating probability;" "He could not help holding out his hand ...
— An English Grammar • W. M. Baskervill and J. W. Sewell
... century the great consecration of the church took place. It was again injured by fire in 1106, but repaired; and from that time to the fall of Venice there was probably no Doge who did not in some slight degree embellish or alter the fabric, so that few parts of it can be pronounced boldly to be of any given date. Two periods of interference are, however, notable above the rest: the first, that in which the Gothic school had superseded the Byzantine towards the ...
— Selections From the Works of John Ruskin • John Ruskin
... therefore that she was originally distinct from Bau. For Gudea, Ga-tum-dug is the mother who produced him. He is her servant and she is his mistress. Lagash is her beloved city, and there he prepares for her a dwelling-place, which later rulers, like Entena, embellish. She is called the 'brilliant' (Azag), but as this title is merely a play upon the element found in the city, Uru-azagga, sacred to Bau, not much stress is to be laid upon this designation. Unfortunately, too, the elements composing her name are not clear,[39] and it must be ...
— The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria • Morris Jastrow
... great powers of mind, I will not inquire: perhaps a sullen and surly spectator may think such performances rather the sport than the business of human reason. But it must be at least confessed that to embellish the form of Nature is an innocent amusement, and some praise must be allowed, by the most supercilious observer, to him who does best what such multitudes are contending ...
— Lives of the Poets: Gay, Thomson, Young, and Others • Samuel Johnson
... very willingly be rid. And being then asked why he did not discharge them, declared that they were bailiffs, who had introduced themselves with an execution, and whom, since he could not send them away, he had thought it convenient to embellish with liveries, that they might do him credit while they stayed. His friends were diverted with the expedient, and by paying the debt discharged their attendants, having obliged Sir Richard to promise that they should never again ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins
... streams and waterfalls; valleys and plateaus that spring into life when pricked by the harrow of the husbandman; forests of big trees, perpetually green, to adorn and protect; the greatest of oceans to temper with its breezes; inland seas and azure lakes to embellish and attract—such are a few of the elements that make the State of Washington and provide beauteous homes ...
— The Beauties of the State of Washington - A Book for Tourists • Harry F. Giles
... by the hundred would be erected. The emperor Augustus boasted of having restored more than eighty temples. "I found a city of bricks," said he; "I leave a city of marble." His successors all worked to embellish Rome. It was especially about the Forum that the monuments accumulated. The Capitol with its temple of Jupiter became almost like the Acropolis at Athens. In the same quarter many monumental areas were constructed—the forum of Caesar, ...
— History Of Ancient Civilization • Charles Seignobos
... intelligent eyes, who had sat by the side of Leonard in his garret. She was about the middle height, still slight but beautifully formed; that exquisite roundness of proportion, which conveys so well the idea of woman, in its undulating pliant grace—formed to embellish life, and soften away its rude angles—formed to embellish, not to protect. Her face might not have satisfied the critical eye of an artist—it was not without defects in regularity; but its expression was eminently ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various
... minds with the impressive moral of "In Adam's fall We sinned all," or gave us a foretaste of the Apollo in "A was an Archer, and shot at a Frog,"—in either case, the story is a plainly told incident, (carefully observing the unities,) which the child's fancy can embellish for itself, and the whole has an additional charm from the gorgeous coloring of an accompanying picture. The vividness is good, and is the only thing that is good. Why, then, should this one merit be omitted, as our children grow a little older? A lifeless moral will not school a child ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 5, No. 28, February, 1860 • Various
... which she celebrates her birthplace. There are walks along the country pathways, long meditations at night, village weddings and fetes. All the poetry and all the picturesqueness of the country transform and embellish the story. ...
— George Sand, Some Aspects of Her Life and Writings • Rene Doumic
... it, my dear friend, as the years go by, that your wife needs no romance from the outside world to embellish ...
— A Woman of the World - Her Counsel to Other People's Sons and Daughters • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... tell the story to you just as it was," asked Beechnut, "as a sober matter of fact, or shall I embellish ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 3 (of 12) - Classic Tales And Old-Fashioned Stories • Various
... opposed the fugitive slave law because "we cannot be true Christians or real freemen if we impose on another a chain that we defy all human power to lay on ourselves;"[397] he declared for the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia, "and if I shall be asked what I did to embellish the capital of my country, I will point to her freemen and say—these are the monuments of my munificence;" he antagonised the right to take slaves into new territories, affirming that the Constitution ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... with minutiae, abandon themselves like the mass of mankind to their natural inclinations when they come to set forth general questions. They take sides, they blame, they praise, they colour, they embellish, they allow themselves to take account of personal, patriotic, ethical, or metaphysical considerations. Above all, they apply themselves with what talent has fallen to their lot to the task of creating a work ...
— Introduction to the Study of History • Charles V. Langlois
... love; and love, which is the law of the world, was on my side. I closed my eyes, and she sprang up on the background of the darkness, more beautiful than in life. 'Ah!' thought I, 'and you too, my dear, you too must carry away with you a picture, that you are still to behold again and still to embellish. In the darkness of night, in the streets by day, still you are to have my voice and face, whispering, making love for me, encroaching on your shy heart. Shy as your heart is, IT is lodged there—I am lodged there; let the hours do their office—let ...
— St Ives • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Supreme God of Grace (bhakti) by all classes, and rejection of animal sacrifices (ahimsa) arose among the orthodox Kshatriyas, who found means to persuade their Brahmanic preceptors to bring it into connection with their Upanishads and embellish it with appropriate texts from those sources. Very likely Krishna Vasudeva, if not the first inventor of these doctrines, was their ...
— Hindu Gods And Heroes - Studies in the History of the Religion of India • Lionel D. Barnett
... which rejoiced the heart of Francis the First, and cracked with grief in 1786 at being called upon to ring for Louis XVI. It was his nephew, Rouland Leroux, whose help was called in when the canons desired to embellish their west facade and have a finer central door. This work was begun in 1508 with the money of Georges d'Amboise, and Pierre Desaubeaulx did the central tympanum. Jean Theroulde, Pierre Dalix, another Leroux, Nicolas Quesnel, Hance de Bony, and Denis Lerebours worked at the statuettes. A screen ...
— The Story of Rouen • Sir Theodore Andrea Cook
... threat of pushing the foreign bayonets all under the ice of the White Sea. And in that remarkable winter defense these American soldiers were to make history for American arms, exhibiting courage and fortitude and heroism, the stories of which are to embellish the annals of American martial exploits. They were destined, a handful of them here, a handful there, to successfully baffle the Bolshevik hordes in ...
— The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki - Campaigning in North Russia 1918-1919 • Joel R. Moore
... to their Eastern settlements two of their home propensities, which distinguish and embellish the towns of the Low Countries; they indulged in the excavation of canals, and they planted long lines of trees to diffuse shade over the sultry passages in their Indian fortresses. For the latter purpose they employed the Suriya (Hibiscus populneus), whose broad umbrageous leaves ...
— Sketches of the Natural History of Ceylon • J. Emerson Tennent
... view of this noble river. This Palace was at one time made use of as a barrack by the French, and since the secularization of the Ecclesiastical Electorates it has not been thought worth while to embellish or even repair it. There is a Roman antiquity in this town called the Altar of Victory, erected on the Place St Remi, but remarkable for nothing but its antiquity; it seems to be a common Roman altar.[23] The road from Bonn to Godesberg ...
— After Waterloo: Reminiscences of European Travel 1815-1819 • Major W. E Frye
... less optimism than has been the case hitherto. In fact, it requires to be treated quite differently from the way German scholars have treated it until now. In all their works there is a continual desire to embellish, to submit and to be content, while the course of events invariably seems to have their approbation. It is rather the exception for one of them to imply that he is satisfied only because things might have turned out worse; for most of them believe, almost as a matter of course, that everything ...
— Thoughts out of Season (Part One) • Friedrich Nietzsche
... Paris. He established a workshop in the vicinity of the royal Palace of the Tuileries, and was thereafter known as "Bernard of the Tuileries." He was employed by the king and queen and some of the greatest nobles of France to embellish their palaces and gardens with the products of his ...
— Eclectic School Readings: Stories from Life • Orison Swett Marden
... to embellish thy pillow With everything beauteous that grows in the deep; Each flower of the rock and each gem of the billow Shall sweeten thy bed and ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various
... showing him the dependence of his exploits on the higher order of things. Mythical narratives occupy much space in these odes, for in the time of Pindar the mythical past was invested with a splendor and sublimity, of which even the faint reflection was sufficient to embellish the present. ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... famous history; they have caught the fancy of poets and literary men who have sought in various ways to reproduce and embellish them. Among English-speaking peoples the poem of Tennyson on this subject is a prime favorite. But in Homer the Lotus-eaters are not an isolated fact, they are a link in the chain of a grand development; this inner connecting thought is ...
— Homer's Odyssey - A Commentary • Denton J. Snider
... Princess had recourse to genii, talismans, and monsters, to adorn her narratives, neither was Mrs. Dymock without her marvellous apparatus; for she had her ghosts, her good people, her dwarfs, and dreadful visions of second sight, wherewith to embellish her histories. There was a piety too, a reference in all she said to the pleasure and will of a reconciled God, which added great charms to her narratives, and rendered them peculiarly interesting to the little girl. Whilst Tamar was under her seventh year, she never rambled beyond ...
— Shanty the Blacksmith; A Tale of Other Times • Mrs. Sherwood [AKA: Mrs. Mary Martha Sherwood]
... adorned. Like the knights of a Northern mythus, their duty was to punish the oppressor and redress the wronged, and they thus fixed in the wild elements of unsettled opinion a recognised standard of generosity and of justice. Their deeds became the theme of the poets, who sought to embellish their virtues and extenuate their offences. Thus, certain models, not indeed wholly pure or excellent, but bright with many of those qualities which ennoble a national character, were set before the emulation of the aspiring and the young:—and the traditional fame of a Hercules or a Theseus ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... would turn our eyes from public monuments, demoralizing games, and grand processions; we would forget the statues in brass and marble, which outnumbered the living inhabitants, so numerous that one hundred thousand have been recovered and still embellish Italy, and would descend into the lower sphere of material life—to those things which attest luxury and taste—to ornaments, dresses, sumptuous living, and rich furniture. The art of working metals and cutting precious stones surpassed any ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord
... very dearth of so many things that once made her life easy and comfortable which throws her back upon her own resources. Here again is woman's strength. Fertile in expedients, apt in device, an artisan to construct and an artist to embellish, she proceeds to supply what is lacking in her new home. She has a miraculous faculty for creating much out of little, and for transforming the coarse into the beautiful. Barrels are converted into easy chairs and wash-stands, spring beds are manufactured ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler
... abandoned that study and devoted himself exclusively to painting. For years he struggled desperately against the discouragements of poverty in himself and ignorance in his neighbors, but found his reward at last in this engagement to embellish the walls of ...
— The English Governess At The Siamese Court • Anna Harriette Leonowens
... this country were not sent into the world to shun society, but to embellish it; they were not designed for wilds and solitudes, but for the amiable and endearing offices of social life. They have useful stations to fill, and important characters to sustain. They are of a religion which does not impose penances, but enjoins ...
— Essays on Various Subjects - Principally Designed for Young Ladies • Hannah More
... by no means complete if devoted entirely to dwellings; and as the resources of an extensive professional practice in the arts which embellish and beautify our country may be largely made use of, we present here a design for another ...
— Woodward's Country Homes • George E. Woodward
... pacification of his country by effecting a general disarmament, and he ordered that all weapons should be sent in to his capital at Hienyang. This "skillful disarming of the provinces added daily to the wealth and prosperity of the capital," which he proceeded to embellish. He built one palace within the walls, and the Hall of Audience was ornamented with twelve statues, each of which weighed twelve thousand pounds. But his principal residence named the Palace of Delight, was without the walls, and there he laid out magnificent gardens, and added building ...
— China • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... pencil, pouring wide The still illumination, that the mind Pauses, absorbed, and scarcely thinks what powers Of mortal art the sweet enchantment wrought. She sees the painter, with no human touch, Create, embellish, animate at will, The mimic scenes, from Nature's ampler range 20 Caught as by inspiration; while the clouds, High wandering, and the fairest form of things, Seem at his bidding to emerge, and burn With radiance and with life! Let us, subdued, Now to the magic ...
— The Poetical Works of William Lisle Bowles, Vol. 1 • William Lisle Bowles
... good things, all things sweet, delicious and poetic, which embellish life and make it enjoyable, were withdrawing from her, because she was growing old! It was all finished! Yet she still found within her the tenderness of the young girl and the passionate impulses ...
— Strong as Death • Guy de Maupassant
... seventh heaven, for we had little to say to each other. We were tyros in the art of conversing, and our promising ideas born of long mental struggles were stilled with bludgeons of assent and dissent. We knew not how to nourish and embellish them, and yet, though there were long stretches of embarrassed silence, we were not unhappy. Even Boller found his subterfuges to drag me away quite futile, and Miss Todd herself seemed content, for she met a dozen like efforts with a quiet ...
— David Malcolm • Nelson Lloyd
... the day would be hot, and Joanna sighed to think that approaching winter had demanded that her new best black should be made of thick materials. She hated black, too, and grimaced at her sombre frills, which the mourning brooch and chain of jet beads could only embellish, never lighten. But she would as soon have thought of jumping out of the window as of discarding her mourning a day before the traditions of the Marsh decreed. She decided not to wear her brooch and chain—the chain might swing and catch in ...
— Joanna Godden • Sheila Kaye-Smith
... non-chosen should furnish the least damaged articles of his own clothing, so as to put them in proper condition to go to the ball and keep up the honour of our flag before the belles of Orotava. We retired into a wood to proceed to draw lots and embellish the elect Fate did not favour me. I did not go to the ball, but my boots did, and our comrades came back full of admiration of all they ...
— Memoirs • Prince De Joinville
... to the country villa of the intendant of the province, or to that of some great lord, to whom the intendant finds it convenient to make his court. A great bridge cannot be thrown over a river at a place where nobody passes, or merely to embellish the view from the windows of a neighbouring palace; things which sometimes happen in countries, where works of this kind are carried on by any other revenue than that which they themselves are capable ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith
... would not admit that species of excellence which knew how to adapt the highest subjects of art to the unlearned. Yet such was MURILLO'S influence over the human heart, that his genius enabled him to embellish truth, and to present it with all its graces and attractions to the understandings of all those who are endowed with an innate love of the beautiful. His pictures, like Gray's Elegy in a Country Church-yard, ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, May 1844 - Volume 23, Number 5 • Various
... the electric fluid will be found to invigorate and embellish, not destroy life. Such women are the great actresses, the songsters. Such traits we read in a late searching, though too French, analysis of the character of Mademoiselle Rachel, by a modern, La Rochefeucault. ...
— Woman in the Ninteenth Century - and Kindred Papers Relating to the Sphere, Condition - and Duties, of Woman. • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... to attend to deeper studies than had before occupied me. My improvement was his delight; he was with me during all my studies and assisted or joined with me in every lesson. We saw a great deal of society, and no day passed that my father did not endeavour to embellish by some new enjoyment. The tender attachment that he bore me, and the love and veneration with which I returned it cast a charm over every moment. The hours were slow for each minute was employed; we lived more in one week than many ...
— Mathilda • Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
... heart and senses: it was only of late that she had developed the subtle quality which calls up thoughts of love. Not marry? Why, the vagrant fire had just lighted on her—and the fact that she was poor and unattached, with her own way to make, and no setting of pleasure and elegance to embellish her—these disadvantages seemed as nothing to Amherst against the warmth of personality in which she moved. And besides, she would never be drawn to the kind of man who needed fine clothes and luxury to point him to the charm of sex. She was always finished ...
— The Fruit of the Tree • Edith Wharton
... adding new details to his story, finding something to embellish it and heighten the effect, and now having succeeded in getting the false Iris into the house, he began already to devise schemes ...
— In Luck at Last • Walter Besant
... in the form of leaves, flowers, etc., used to embellish the angles of pinnacles, spires, gables, ...
— Our Homeland Churches and How to Study Them • Sidney Heath
... a picturesque contrivance of Art to embellish Nature. We have seen many such labours, but none with more satisfaction than ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 17, No. 483., Saturday, April 2, 1831 • Various
... walls of ivory, and on the terraces may peacocks be as plentiful as sparrows are to the undeserving. May you live many centuries shining as you now shine; and at your setting may rivulets of ink dug by the pens of poets flow through meadows of paper in praise of the virtues that embellish you here on earth. Sing-tu-Che, a person of small note but devoted to your service, wishes these frivolous advantages to the Pearl of the West, on ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... joy to anyone without me; I embellish at times, at times I distort; I disdain and I applaud; to share me, one must ...
— Women of Modern France - Woman In All Ages And In All Countries • Hugo P. Thieme
... the corridors, and discontent sat glum or rustled uneasily in each stone cell. Some of the inmates brought pictures, busts and ornaments to embellish their rooms. Friends from the outside world sent presents; the cavalier who played the guitar beneath the window varied his entertainment by gifts; flowers filled the beautiful vases, and these blossoms were replaced ere they withered, ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard
... never quite certain of the tone in which he ought to reply to any observation, or whether the speaker was jesting or in earnest. And so in any event he would embellish all his facial expressions with the offer of a conditional, a provisional smile whose expectant subtlety would exonerate him from the charge of being a simpleton, if the remark addressed to him should turn out to have been facetious. But as ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... well digested what Meynell had told me," continued Bradshawe, "when I met Shortridge, and lo! L'Isle had already found them out in their dirty lodgings," and the colonel went on to repeat and embellish Shortridge's narrative of L'Isle's kind attention, and the origin of their intimacy. Various were the comments of the company on the affair. But they all agreed to the justness of their colonel's criticism, when he remarked: "That scene in ...
— The Actress in High Life - An Episode in Winter Quarters • Sue Petigru Bowen
... to bore their noses, and wear in them pendants of different sorts." And more instances might be mentioned. But we shall have occasion hereafter to speak of some remarkable modes in which the love of distinction and ornament manifests itself The very same principle leads human nature to embellish itself from the "crown of the head to the sole of the foot." One's own dear self is so lovely as to become every sort of ornament that ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 13 • Robert Kerr
... "That patrician viper! Every where in everything—she spoils it all! But wait a while! I fancy she will soon be removed from our path, and then. . . . No, even now, at the present time, I will not allow that we should be deprived of what would embellish life, of doing a thing which may turn the scale in my favor in the day of judgment. The wishes of a dying man are sacred: So our fathers held it; and they were right. The old man's will must be done! Yes, yes, yes. It ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... literature in a most agreeable and desultory manner; to-day a tourist, to-morrow a novelist; the next day surprising his public by an excursion into the regions of historical romance, amongst the well-beaten highways and byways of which he still manages to discover an untrodden path, or to embellish a familiar one by the sparkle of his wit and industry of his researches. The majority of his books convey the idea of being written currente calamo, and with little trouble to himself; and these have a lightness and brilliancy ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 55, No. 340, February, 1844 • Various
... him, as a man of unimpeachable honour and probity, whose word was always to be relied upon, and who was so unimaginative, so thoroughly matter-of-fact, and of so simple, straightforward a character generally, as to be completely above the suspicion of any slightest tendency to embellish a story by the perpetration of an untruth. Quite recently, however, I was made acquainted with certain extraordinary facts which may possibly bear upon the matter, and which, although not absolutely conclusive, appear to corroborate Sir Richard's astounding statements; and as they may ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... constructed a classical sculpture gallery, which he enriched with several antiques from his town residence. Notwithstanding all these additions, we are bound to confess, that, compared with the beauty of the situation, they were but unsuccessful efforts of art to embellish bountiful Nature. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 17, No. 476, Saturday, February 12, 1831 • Various
... great point to which all this was to tend, which all this was to fascinate and subdue, to adorn, to embellish, to delight, to honour. Woman! Oh! when I first dared, among the fields of Eton, to dwell upon the soft yet agitating fancy, that some day my existence might perhaps be rendered more intense, by the admiration ...
— The Young Duke • Benjamin Disraeli
... this, not only is content with the exaggeration of the first mind, but its own report adds its own effect of endeavours to embellish, and so by this action, and by the deception which it also receives from the goodwill generated in it, good report is made more ample than it should be; either with the consent or the dissent of the conscience; even as it was with the first mind. And the ...
— The Banquet (Il Convito) • Dante Alighieri |
