"Silken" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... steel, the crash of axe on armour, the groans of the wounded, and the battle-cries of the combatants on each side. Sir Ralph Percy, pressing too rashly forward, was captured by a newly-made Scottish knight, Sir John Maxwell. The battle was turning in favour of Hotspur, when Douglas sent his silken banner to the front and with renewed shouts of "Douglas!" the Scots pressed forward and overbore their foes. According to Froissart, there was not a man there, knight, squire, or groom, who played the coward. "This bataylle was one of the sorest and ...
— Northumberland Yesterday and To-day • Jean F. Terry
... began to threaten her with his finger, but looked at her with much pleasure. Because such a girl he never saw before. Upon her head she had a silken red net, and a yellow jacket upon her body and the breeches ample round her hips and tighter above them, of which one little leg was of the same color as the cap (net) upon her head, the other had longwise stripes, with a richly covered little sword at her side, smiling and bright like ...
— The Knights of the Cross • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... Douglas paused a moment at the tent-flap, which, being of silken fabric lined with heavier material, hung straight and heavy to ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett
... thoughts he watches the pretty foot, in its hideous disguise of patched, worn, ill-fitting leather, and he sees it as on the first day of their meeting, in its gleaming slipper and dainty silken stocking. ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... Silk enjoyed apparently a protection of 30 per cent., practically ranging indeed to 78, or even 145 per cent, on some made up articles, such as net and bonnets, or turbans: but a false reliance was placed on that protection. It was a delusion: many houses in London and Paris undertook to introduce silken goods into this country at half the duty. The revenue and the trade were robbed by the smuggler; and the manufacturer was deluded by an unreal protection. With respect to silks, he proposed, therefore, to adopt a new principle. The general rule would be, enumerating each article of silk ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... and form a grinning row while a snap-shot is taken; now they recline again; now they scamper down to see the hydroplane come in; now they return, drop to the sand, and idly watch women bathers tripping past them toward the water. Here comes a girl in silken knickerbockers, with cuffs buttoning over her stockings like the cuffs of riding breeches. Heads turn simultaneously as she goes by. Here is a tomboy in a jockey cap; here two women wearing over their bathing suits brilliant colored satin wraps which ...
— American Adventures - A Second Trip 'Abroad at home' • Julian Street
... promised land, where pleasures flow! See how the milk-white hills do gently rise, And beat the silken skies! Behold the valley spread with flowers below! The happy flowers, how they allure my sense! The fairer soil gives them the nobler hue Her breath perfumes them too: Rooted i' th' heart they seem to spring from thence, Tell, tell me why, thou fruitful virgin ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 1 (of 2) - With an Introduction upon Ancient Humour • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... broad staircase and into the empty supper-room, from which a number of entrances showed him the strange scene being enacted in the larger hall. Who were these people who were moving to the sound of rapid music? A clown in a silken dress of many colors, with bells to his cap and wrists, stood at one of the doors. Macleod became his fellow-spectator of what was going forward. A beautiful Tyrolienne, in a dress of black, silver, and velvet, with her yellow hair hanging in two plaits down her back, passed into ...
— Macleod of Dare • William Black
... hast such unseasonable jests! By this heaven, I wonder at nothing more than our gentlemen ushers, that will suffer a piece of serge or perpetuana to come into the presence: methinks they should, out of their experience, better distinguish the silken disposition of courtiers, than to let such terrible coarse rags mix with us, able to fret any smooth or gentle society to the threads ...
— Cynthia's Revels • Ben Jonson
... taste to the full of every kind of pleasure. No shadow of annoyance shall ever touch thee, nor strain nor stress of war and state disturb thy peace. Instead thou shalt tread upon carpets soft as velvet, and sit at golden tables, or recline upon silken couches. The fairest of maidens shall attend thee, music and perfume shall lull thy senses, and all that is delightful to eat and drink shall be placed before thee. Never shalt thou labor, but always live in joy and ease. Oh, come! I give ...
— Good Stories For Great Holidays - Arranged for Story-Telling and Reading Aloud and for the - Children's Own Reading • Frances Jenkins Olcott
... spirit, hovering about his stately wife as no assiduous maid had ever done; for every flower was fastened with a word sweeter than itself, the white arms kissed as the ornaments went on, and when the silken knots were deftly accomplished, the lighthearted bridegroom performed a little dance of triumph about his idol, till she arrested him, beckoning ...
— Pauline's Passion and Punishment • Louisa May Alcott
... was Blanche's image glaring upon him with its clear gray eyes, and winning smile. There was her tune ringing in his ears, "Yet round about the spot, ofttimes I hover, ofttimes I hover," which poor Foker began piteously to hum, as he sat up in his bed under the crimson silken coverlet. Opposite him was a French print, of a Turkish lady and her Greek lover, surprised by a venerable Ottoman, the lady's husband; on the other wall, was a French print of a gentleman and lady, riding and kissing each other at the full gallop; all round the chaste bed-room ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray
... royal apparel on the Peacock throne with a king's ransom in the aigrette of his turban and the rope of pearls which hung from his neck. On such an occasion, the pillars of the Diwan i 'Am were hung with gold brocades and the floors covered with rich silken carpets. Half the court outside was occupied by a magnificent tent and the arcade galleries surrounding it were decked with brocades and covered with costly carpets. The marble Diwan i Khass with its lovely pillars decorated with gold and ...
— The Panjab, North-West Frontier Province, and Kashmir • Sir James McCrone Douie
... with the rose-colored bonnet, whom you saw riding in the carriage, is a poor little cripple. You saw her fine dress and pretty pale face, but you didn't see her little shrunken foot, dangling helplessly beneath the silken robe. You saw the white gloved coachman, and the silver-mounted harness, and the soft, velvet cushions, but you didn't see the tear in their little owner's soft, dark eyes, as she spied you at the ...
— Little Ferns For Fanny's Little Friends • Fanny Fern
... that makes one realize how badly they need airing—but most of the nicer women are very chary of talk, they have to be drawn out, a hint of opposition makes them start back or prevaricate, and I see them afterwards with their husbands, pretty silken furry feathery jewelled silences. All their suppression doesn't keep them orthodox, it only makes them furtive and crumpled and creased in their minds—in just the way that things get crumpled and creased if they ...
— The Passionate Friends • Herbert George Wells
... each other as they are in Europe. Some few towns excepted, we are all tillers of the earth, from Nova Scotia to West Florida. We are a people of cultivators, scattered over an immense territory, communicating with each other by means of good roads and navigable rivers, united by the silken bands of mild government, all respecting the laws, without dreading their power, because they are equitable. We are all animated with the spirit of an industry which is unfettered and unrestrained, because each person works for himself. If he travels through our rural districts he ...
— Letters from an American Farmer • Hector St. John de Crevecoeur
... Tintoretto in the Ducal Palace are only partly by him, or entirely by followers and imitators, its halls are still a storehouse of his genius. There is much that is fine about the great state pieces. In the "Marriage of St. Catherine," the saint, in silken gown and long transparent veil, is an exquisite figure. Tintoretto bathes all his pageantry in golden light and air, and yet we feel that these huge official subjects, with the prosaic old Doges introduced in incongruous company, neither stimulated his imagination nor satisfied his taste. ...
— The Venetian School of Painting • Evelyn March Phillipps
... proud swinging walk, and a metallic clashing kept rhythm to her swift steps. Her arms were fettered, each wrist bound with a jeweled bracelet and the bracelets linked together by a long, silver-gilt chain passed through a silken loop at her waist. From the loop swung a tiny golden padlock, but in the lock stood an even tinier key, signifying that she was a higher caste than her husband or consort, that her fettering was by ...
— The Door Through Space • Marion Zimmer Bradley
... in the fury of physical movement, to leave theology behind with the monasteries and chapels of Porto. He rode with grace and fire, this beautiful youth with the flashing eyes, and the dark hair flowing down the silken doublet, whom a poet might have feigned an image of the passionate spring of the South, but for whose own soul the warm blue sky of Portugal, the white of the almond blossoms, the pink of the peach ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... out, the wind backed and the skies cleared. But all to a different mode and rhythm. A cold white sun shone out of a cold blue sky, diapered, to the north above the indigo and umber moorland and forest, with perspectives of tenuous silken-white cloud. Land and sky were alike washed clean, to a starkness and nakedness calling for warm clothing out of doors, and ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... days every one wore the antiquated Queen Anne Court suit, now superseded by modern garments, perhaps more convenient but certainly not so picturesque. Bagwig and flowered waistcoat, and hanging cast-steel rapier, and silken calves and buckled shoes,—and above all the abundant real point lace (upon which Lord Houghton more than once has commented with me as to the comparative superiority of his or mine,—both being of ancestral dinginess, and only to be washed in coffee)—these are ill exchanged for boots ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... exhaled an unusually delicious perfume. He espied an open window on the ground-floor. He drew near it; the room into which he gazed, full of bric-a-brac of exquisite choice, was Mlle. Moriaz's study. There was in the appearance of this little sanctuary, hung with white silken drapery, and as elegant as the divinity whose favourite tarrying-place it was, something of purity, chastity, and maidenliness. It opened its windows to the fresh breezes and to the perfume of the flowers; but it seemed as if nothing could ...
— Samuel Brohl & Company • Victor Cherbuliez
... this new loneliness, he might have been able to struggle on. He missed her, missed her diabolically. The other things, marvelous though they were, had been more or less like a mirage. This world of new emotions had spread like a silken mesh over all his thoughts, over all his desires. Beatrice had been a tangible person, restful, delightful, a real companion, his one resource against this madness. And now she was gone, and he was powerless to get her back. He turned his head, he looked up the road ...
— The Tempting of Tavernake • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... my honour was safe, and that I had been as it were baptised of the company of gentlemen. So Mr Jermyn seemed to think; for when my arm was dressed, and I had got my clothes on again with some pain, and a silken sling under my elbow, he came and craved the surgeon's leave to carry me off to breakfast. The request was granted, on a promise that I would abstain from inflaming food and from all strong liquors. Accordingly we set out, I dissembling a certain surprise inspired in my countryman's mind by the ...
— Simon Dale • Anthony Hope
... play'd, Each natural thought of her enthusiast mind Pure as the snow that softly veils the earth 'Tween Christide eve and morning white-enrob'd; And yet her sum of suffering were great As that, which I have painted for the child Of sin and misery—her silken cheek Defil'd by ashen trace of furrowing tears, Her sinless eye dim as a Magdalen's; And he that caus'd it lov'd her as a father, Knowing no fiery passion, unchaste thought, To rob him of his ...
— Cromwell • Alfred B. Richards
... grew dark he did indeed stop laughing and think longingly of his soft bed with its silken pillows and down coverings, but in truth he was so tired he could hardly keep his eyes open at all; and as soon as he had picked his small relatives and friends out of the damp grass and put them safely into their ...
— Prince Vance - The Story of a Prince with a Court in His Box • Eleanor Putnam
... day the mourners go again and collect the ashes and throw them into the nearest river. The bones are placed in a silken bag or an earthen pot or a leaf basket, and taken to the Ganges or Nerbudda within ten days if possible, or otherwise after a longer interval, being buried meantime. Some milk, salt and calfs urine are sprinkled ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell
... my mind running once on the end of the cravat yesterday, and I am certain I never looked at it; yet I had the strangest dream concerning it at night. I thought it was lengthened into a long clew, like the silken thread that led to Rosamond's Bower. I thought I took hold of it, and followed it a little way, and then got frightened and tried to go back, but found that I was obliged, in spite of myself, to go on. It led me through a place like the Valley ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins
... broad and perfect world. Life is a sweet-scented garden where all the good are happy and all the bad receive their just and immediate deserts. You are the complete epitome of life, yourself, and I gaze upon you with a satisfaction as complete. I wouldn't change you for the most silken and secluded beauty in Bleecker Street, and you may stay here for ever. The more hideous you become the more pleased I shall be. And you needn't be afraid I have gone mad. I am damnably sane. And still more damnably sober. Go ...
— Sleeping Fires • Gertrude Atherton
... to his great knowledge, he had discovered a means of locomotion compared to which the most magnificent railway coaches and the richest palanquins of Indian princes would seem poor indeed. He had caused his Genii to make a silken carpet of four leagues in extent. In the midst of this carpet was placed a magnificent throne for the royal traveler himself; and around it were seats of gold, of silver, of wood, for the multitude of persons of different rank whom he took ...
— The Curious Book of Birds • Abbie Farwell Brown
... argument against woman's preaching be, "Oh! it looks so awkward and singular to see a woman with a gown on in the pulpit" (for that's the whole gist of it), why, then, the same logic might as well disrobe the male priesthood of their silken paraphernalia, ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... He has a prominent eye, with a placid face, small nose and elegantly turned horns, which have an upward tendency (and cast outward at the end) as if to put the last finish upon his symmetrical form and carriage. These animals are beautifully covered with silken coats of a medium red color. The shoulder points, sides, and foreflanks are well covered with rich meat, which, when blended with their peculiar property of producing meat of first-rate quality along ...
— The Principles of Breeding • S. L. Goodale
... nothing but look, he told himself that they could not really be gazing at him, and grew braver with the thought. Then slowly bringing up his hat, as a boy does to catch a butterfly, he was just going to bring it down on the silken platform and capture prince and princess, table, gold dishes and all, when hark! A shrill whistle sounded, the old man's hand, with the hat in it, was paralysed in the air, so that he could not move it backwards or forwards, and ...
— Cornwall's Wonderland • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... or silken monkey, can be preserved in European climates only by the utmost care in guarding it from the operation of atmospheric temperature. The cold and humidity of our winters are fatally injurious to its health. Neatness and cleanliness to a fastidious ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume 10, No. 270, Saturday, August 25, 1827. • Various
... in that chamber, of carved walnut-wood is it made, rich in design and elaborate in execution; one of those works of art which owe their existence to the Elizabethan era. It is hung with heavy silken and damask furnishing; nodding feathers are at its corners—covered with dust are they, and they lend a funereal aspect to the room. The floor is of ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... of casuistry, Amelie, like others of her sex, placed a hand of steel, encased in a silken glove, upon her heart, and tyrannically suppressed its yearnings. She was a victim, with the outward show of conquest over her feelings. In the consciousness of Philibert's imagined indifference and utter forgetfulness, she could meet him now, she thought, with equanimity—nay, ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... the festival have been duly inspired by the repartee and the sarcasm, and the gem, the robe, and the plume adroitly lighted up by the lamp and the lustre, our cunning is exhausted. And so your novelist generally twists this golden thread with some substantial silken cord, for use, and works up, with the light dance, and with the heavy dinner, some secret marriage, and some shrouded murder. And thus, by English plots and German mysteries, the page trots on, or jolts, ...
— The Young Duke • Benjamin Disraeli
... do not," he said. He took his former seat, but now laid on the heap of rejected MSS., not the silken cylinder he had so daintily poised there before, but a gray fedora that fell carelessly over in lazy curves and hollows. "I wish to modify by adding the effect of further observation and adjusting it to my first conclusions. Since I saw ...
— Imaginary Interviews • W. D. Howells
... I might have known it." The woman sighed, avoided his helpless stare, and tossed her head resentfully. "You never loved him as I do, and you put your own selfish and worldly aims first." She rose stiffly and stalked across the room to the silken bell-pull and gently drew it downward. "You'll want to go to your room before supper. Lucy will show you where it is. I hope everything will be in order up there. I have had so much to worry me that I couldn't see about it myself. ...
— Dixie Hart • Will N. Harben
... bosom, all the bitterness and pride gone out of it, and nothing left save the tear which sparkled under the dark lashes, and the petulant droop of the lip, like that of a child which had wept itself to sleep. She laid her on the ottoman and placed a silken cushion under her head. Then she gathered together and put back into the open cupboard all the jewels which were scattered about the carpet. Having locked it, and placed the key on the table where its owner's eye would readily fall upon it, she struck ...
— The Refugees • Arthur Conan Doyle
... shall know. Understand, this firstling was Once a brisk and bonnie lass, Kept as close as Danae was: Who a sprightly springall lov'd, And to have it fully prov'd, Up she got upon a wall, Tempting down to slide withal: But the silken twist untied, So she fell, and, bruis'd, she died. Love, in pity of the deed, And her loving-luckless speed, Turn'd her to this plant we call Now ...
— The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 • Robert Herrick
... eyes you are splendid," he replied, content, and gave her his arm. They went together through the reception-rooms, and the appreciation of her grew in him. If in the bright and silken distance he had not seen his Bishop it might have glowed into a cordiality of speech with his distinctive individual stamp on it. But he saw his Bishop, his ceinture tightened on him, and he uttered only the trite saying about the folly of counting ...
— The Path of a Star • Mrs. Everard Cotes (AKA Sara Jeannette Duncan)
... he eyed The row of crests and shields and banners Of all achievements after all manners, And "Ay", said the Duke with a surly pride. The more was his comfort when he died At next year's end, in a velvet suit, With a gilt glove on his hand, his foot In a silken shoe for a leather boot, Petticoated like a herald, {70} In a chamber next to an ante-room, Where he breathed the breath of page and groom, What he called stink, and they, perfume: —They should have set him on red Berold Mad with pride, like fire to manage! They should ...
— Introduction to Robert Browning • Hiram Corson
... has recorded his impression of Lanier as he met him at Bayard Taylor's: "I saw him more than once in the study of our lamented Deucalion, — the host so buoyant and sympathetic, the Southerner nervous and eager, with dark hair and silken beard, features delicately moulded, pallid complexion, and hands of the slender, white, artistic type." The friendship between Lanier and Taylor was no less cherished by the older poet. He rejoiced to recognize ...
— Sidney Lanier • Edwin Mims
... as remarkable for her microscopic piety as for the beauty untarnished by a copious maternity, figured in the child's memories as a stout saint who moved with a rustle of silken skirts and heaved an opulent black silk bosom relieved by a ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... with a sweet, kind face, and a little air of quiet dignity that made her doubly dear to Nick by contrast with his father's unkempt ways. He used to think that, in her worsted gown, with its falling collar of Antwerp linen, and a soft, silken coif upon her fading hair, she was the most beautiful woman in all ...
— Master Skylark • John Bennett
... you? Does your scarce-healed wound hurt you still?' But she looked at me, oh! with such eyes, Antonio—I have never seen anything like them. And directly I looked down into the humid moonlight that was in them, they withdrew behind the dark clouds of their silken lashes. Then sighing a sigh that came from the depths of her heart, she turned her lovely pale face to the wall and whispered softly—so softly, but oh! so sadly! that I was cut right to the heart, 'Amare—amare—ah! senza amare!' I fetched a little chair and sat down beside her, and began to ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... entered its northern gate, a little maid in loose silken robe, peaked cap, and embroidered shoes had passed through that very gateway, and slipping through the thronging streets of the great city, approached at last the group of picturesque and glittering buildings that composed the palace of the great ...
— Historic Girls • E. S. Brooks
... this rule, for there are some who do not. But when this is the case, from the nature of things, happiness takes its flight, the marriage-bed is defiled, woman becomes an outlaw in her heart, and the two bound together by a chain rather than by the silken cord of love, are candidates for a peaceable divorce ...
— The True Woman • Justin D. Fulton
... said the earl, "and the first of my family that could so write himself—my grey beard falls on a cambric ruff and a silken doublet—my father's descended upon a buff coat and a breast-plate. I would not that those days of battle returned; but I should love well to make the oaks of my old forest of Dalgarno ring once more with halloo, and horn, and hound, and to have the old ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... who was my friend— It's pretty clear you got on badly; Your ribs, somehow, seem prone to bend, Your silken dress seems wearing sadly. It's very hard, I know, to part, And sentimental feelings smother, But even though it break my heart, I'm going, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, Sept. 27, 1890 • Various
... banner of the prophet false, Unfolds its silken folds to taunt the Jew; The moslem minarets lift high their heads. And raise their summits in the placid sky— As tho' to rouse from his deep lethargy The hardened Jew; to wrest from Paynim hordes The Holy City, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 365 • Various
... shall rise again,—in whom one part of our national genius finds its perfect flower. We shall hear the thunder of his chariot, at the Battle of the Headland of the Kings, when Meave the winsome and crafty queen of Connacht comes against him, holding in silken chains of her tresses the valiant spirit of Fergus. The whole life of that heroic epoch, still writ large upon the face of the land, shall come forth clear and definite; we shall stand by the threshold of Cuculain's dwelling, and ...
— Ireland, Historic and Picturesque • Charles Johnston
... aggravation, which I suppose never occurs to the nymph bona fide, of a miserable uncertainty whether my folded-up wings are those of a purple butterfly or of a poor drudge of a beetle. Besides, it is conceivable that the chrysalis may get weary of his case, and mine is not a silken one. I have been here long enough. My aunt Landholm is very kind; but I think she would like an increase of her household accommodations, and also that she would prefer working it by the rule of ...
— Hills of the Shatemuc • Susan Warner
... who presented himself to his inquiring eyes was a gallant figure in a glittering steel corselet crossed by a silken sash, who bore at his side a long sword with a magnificent handle, and upon his shoulder a lance of some six feet in length, headed with a long scarlet tassel, and brass half-moon pendant. "Is not Crichton victorious?" asked Ogilvy of Captain ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... importance, naturally of the greatest in the assembled popular mind, was enhanced—as mathematicians would say, to the nth power—by the gown of Alice. It was resplendent indeed in the simple, unaccustomed eyes upon which it flashed with a buff silken glory. Matrons stared at it; maidens gazed with fascinated and jealous vision; men young and old let their eyes take full liberty. It was as if a queen, arrayed in a robe of state, had entered that dingy log edifice, an apparition ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson
... move around you, and you feel that the faint fluttering of the silken robe is far more spiritual than the life-breath of their ...
— The Continental Monthly, Volume V. Issue I • Various
... with the letter in her lap, as if she had not moved from her posture while she had been away exchanging her Ptolemaic travesty for the ease of a long silken morning gown of Nile green. She came back buttoning it at her throat, when she gave a start of high tragic satisfaction at something stonily rigid in Cornelia's attitude, but she kept to herself both her satisfaction and the poignant sympathy she felt at the same time, and sank noiselessly ...
— The Coast of Bohemia • William Dean Howells
... me silken gowns, Nor jewels for my hair, Nor sight of gabled, foreign towns In distant countries fair, But I can glimpse, beyond my pane, a green and friendly hill, And red geraniums aflame upon ...
— Spring Street - A Story of Los Angeles • James H. Richardson
... carpets. At the head of the stairs the man met him. The doctor thought himself a tall man, but the stranger topped him by half a head. He motioned the physician to follow him, and the two went down the hall to the front room. The place was flushed with a rose-colored glow from several lamps. On a silken couch, in the midst of pillows, lay a woman dying with consumption. She was like a lily, white, shapely, graceful, with feeble yet charming movements. She looked at the doctor appealingly, then, seeing in his eyes the involuntary verdict ...
— The Shape of Fear • Elia W. Peattie
... when she opened her eyes she could not realize for a moment where she was. Instead of the plain white walls of her room, she saw the soft gray tints of silk and the sheen of silver, and her hands touched a silken-covered eiderdown quilt. She closed her eyes in sheer happiness, and then opened them again to be sure that it was not all a mirage. At last, not being used to lying in bed, she arose and, putting on the dressing-gown, went to one of the windows and raised the ...
— Drusilla with a Million • Elizabeth Cooper
... cloud of twittering birds, frightened from the herbage, flies rapidly across the little path, which is immediately occupied by a young female dressed entirely in white, who dashes from between the branches with a silken net in pursuit of a butterfly. The beautiful apparition, with loose and streaming hair, seemed rather to fly than run, as her light and rapid steps, full of eagerness and animation, scarcely touched ...
— The Poor Gentleman • Hendrik Conscience
... as interesting to hear as fairy tales," said Wee. "This is Mrs. Epeira Diadema; and she is a respectable, industrious little neighbor. She spreads her tent, but sits under a leaf near by, waiting for her breakfast. She wraps her eggs in a soft silken bag, and hides them in some safe chink, where they lie till spring. The eggs are prettily carved and ornamented, and so hard that the baby spiders have to force their way out by biting the shell open and poking their little heads through. The mother ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... the female, and acquires his peculiar tints only when nearly adult. Spiders are possessed of acute senses, and exhibit much intelligence; as is well known, the females often shew the strongest affection for their eggs, which they carry about enveloped in a silken web. The males search eagerly for the females, and have been seen by Canestrini and others to fight for possession of them. This same author says that the union of the two sexes has been observed in about twenty species; and he asserts ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin
... trees, stirring the monkey-pods, and sighing through the sugar-cane. On the lanai the hush still reigned. Then it came, the first feel of the mountain wind, faintly balmy, fragrant and spicy, and cool, deliciously cool, a silken coolness, a wine-like coolness—cool as only the mountain wind ...
— The House of Pride • Jack London
... the same. Nor so the loss. The man of wealth and pride 275 Takes up a space that many poor supplied; Space for his lake, his park's extended bounds, Space for his horses, equipage, and hounds; The robe that wraps his limbs in silken sloth Has robb'd the neighbouring fields of half their growth, His seat, where solitary sports are seen, 281 Indignant spurns the cottage from the green; Around the world each needful product flies, For all the luxuries the world supplies: While thus the land ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith
... unresisting—are calculated to startle and to oppress us with the sense of a fate long prepared, vested in the very seeds of constitution and character; temperament and the effects of early experience combining to thwart all the morning promise of greatness and splendour; the flower unfolding its silken leaves only to suffer canker and blight; and to hang withering on the stalk, with only enough of grace and colour left to tell pathetically to all that looked upon it what ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. II (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... say, Dear heart, what a flash! Look at little Taffline with a silken sash, And the lads will say, Dear heart, what a flash! And the lads will say, Dear heart, what a flash! Look at little Taffline, Look at little Taffline, Oh, look at little Taffline with the ...
— Charles Dickens and Music • James T. Lightwood
... often spoken of her to old Jovita, and said she should be well taught and taken care of, and once even—when she had come into the house with a basket of grapes on her little head, rose-flushed with the hot day, her black hair curling in moist silken rings on her forehead—he had been betrayed into the worldly remark that such pretty young things ought to have something brighter to look forward to than hard work and scant fare, which made them old before their time, and left them nothing to look back upon. But he only said it to Jovita, ...
— The Pretty Sister Of Jose - 1889 • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... of the flickering fire light, or because of the strangeness of the great brass bedstead, with its silken hangings and many-colored Indian rezai, Erica slept very little that night. Perhaps the long talk about her father's early days had taken too great a hold of her. At any rate, she tossed about very restlessly in her luxurious quarters, and when, for brief intervals, she slept, it was only to dream ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall
... a little flutter, a rustling of silken robes, more kissing and hand-shaking, and "good bye, loves," and ...
— Clemence - The Schoolmistress of Waveland • Retta Babcock
... from the Damascened lagoons. But from the bridge, watching the little steamer Paddling against the current up to Eastmanville, The river loosened from the abandoned spools Of earth and heaven wanders without will, Between the rushes, like a silken streamer. And two old men who turn the bridge For passing boats sit in the sun all day, Toothless and sleepy, ancient river dogs, And smoke and talk of a glory passed away. And of the ruthless sacrilege Which mowed away the pines, ...
— Toward the Gulf • Edgar Lee Masters
... within its impalpable folds, the breeze gathered strength and weight by imperceptible degrees, until the scarcely audible tinkle under the bows merged into the sound of a knife shearing through a tautly stretched silken web, with a musical fountain-like plashing at the cutwater and a crisp, gushing curl of the glassy wave under the lee bow as it broke and hurried past into our wake in a lacework of creamy swirling froth, gemmed ...
— The Cruise of the "Esmeralda" • Harry Collingwood
... of colour,—a soft gliding swish of silken skirts, an affectation of tip-toe movement up the nave,—a wave of indescribable artificial perfume,—and then, a general stir and head-turning among the people showed that a new and unaccustomed element had suddenly merged into ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... of build, and two or three years younger. Her face held the same delicate, wistful beauty. The two girls strongly resembled one another in feature. The newcomer was dressed in similar fashion to Miela—sandals on her feet, and silken trousers of a silvery white, fastened at ...
— The Fire People • Ray Cummings
... hundred and thirty years had stood upon the sacred summit of Mount Moriah, went upwards in a sheet of flame, itself the greatest of the sacrifices that had ever been offered there; while soldiers stripped it of its gold and ornaments, tossing the sacred vessels to each other and tearing down the silken curtains of the shrine. Nor were victims lacking to that sacrifice, for in their blind fury the Romans fell upon the people who were crowded in the Court of Israel, and slew them to the number of more than ten thousand, warrior and priest, citizen and woman and child together, till ...
— Pearl-Maiden • H. Rider Haggard
... motionless a while longer, and where his face was hidden, the gray silken mane of the horse was wet with great, slow tears that forced themselves through his closed eyes; then he laid his lips on the King's forehead, as he might have touched the brow of the woman he loved; and with a backward gesture of his hand to his ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... with a flickering flame consume on their short stands. They stir up grief, dazzle my eyes, and a sense of parting arouse. In what family's courts do not the blasts of autumn winds intrude? And where in autumn does not rain patter against the window-frames? The silken quilt cannot ward off the nipping force of autumn winds. The drip of the half drained water-clock impels the autumn rains. A lull for few nights reigned, but the wind has again risen in strength. By the lantern ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... way, 530 The great earl-marshal orders their array. The fair from high the passing pomp behold; A rain of flowers is from the windows roll'd. The casements are with golden tissue spread, And horses' hoofs, for earth, on silken tapestry tread. The king goes midmost, and the rivals ride In equal rank, and close his either side. Next after these, there rode the royal wife, With Emily, the cause, and the reward of strife. The following cavalcade, ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol II - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... with him. We arrived at the Palace. It was a full-dress day, and the Montenegrins never let slip an occasion for peacocking. The situation pleased me immensely. The Marshal himself was in his very best white cloth coat and silken sash, gold waistcoat, and all in keeping. Another glittering functionary received me and between the two I proceeded upstairs. At the top of the flight is a large full-length looking-glass, and for the first ...
— Twenty Years Of Balkan Tangle • Durham M. Edith
... the daughter of her Morne, More deare then life she tendered, whose flowre The girlond of her honour did adorne: Ne suffred she the Middayes scorching powre, Ne the sharp Northerne wind thereon to showre; But lapped up her silken leaves most chayre, When so the froward skye began to lowre; But, soone as calmed was the christall ayre, She did it fayre dispred and let ...
— Spenser - (English Men of Letters Series) • R. W. Church
... under a Purple Canopy furled with curious Wreaths of Drapery, half naked, attended with a Train of Cupids, who were busied in Fanning her as she slept. Behind her was drawn a Satyr peeping over the silken Fence, and threatening to break through it. I frequently offered to turn my Sight another way, but was still detained by the Fascination of the Peeper's Eyes, who had long practised a Skill in them, to ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... father's face, or the cruel uncle's—which was he? I think he was the father. So this was the end of them. Not school, as I at first had imagined. The mother was gone, who had given them the heaps of pretty books, and the pretty studs in the shirts, and the pretty silken clothes, and the tender—tender cares; and they were handed to this scowling practitioner of Trente et Quarante. Ah! this is worse than school. Poor little men! poor mother sitting by the vacant little beds! We saw the children once or twice after, always in Scowler's ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... marvelous wit, the pregnant sayings. He finds no poet in France, and in his "English Traits" credits Tennyson with little but melody and color. (In our last readings, do we not surely come to feel the manly and robust fibre beneath Tennyson's silken vestments?) He demands of poetry that it be a kind of spiritual manna, and is at last forced to confess that there are no poets, and that when such angels do appear, Homer and Milton ...
— Birds and Poets • John Burroughs
... the while stood by the plant to aid in its uprooting should the strength of the animal prove insufficient, then rushes forward, and, detaching it from the body of the dead hound, grasps it firmly in both hands. He then wraps it up carefully in a silken cloth, first, however, washing it well in red wine, and then bears it homeward. The hound is buried in the spot whence the Alraun has ...
— Folk-lore and Legends: German • Anonymous
... silken wars are not for me: The music must be shrill, and all confus'd, That stirs my blood; and then I dance ...
— Literary Remains, Vol. 2 • Coleridge
... adorned in the usual Chinese fashion, with two large painted eyes at the prow, that they may be the better able to find their way. Mandarins' boats she saw, with doors, and sides, and windows gaily painted, with carved galleries, and tiny silken flags fluttering from every point. And flower-boats she also saw; their upper galleries decked with flowers, garlands, and arabesques, as if these were barks fitted out for the service of Titania and her ...
— The Story of Ida Pfeiffer - and Her Travels in Many Lands • Anonymous
... more as she spoke. It was only for a moment. The old ardour and impetuosity were nearly worn out. Her head sank; she sighed heavily as she unlocked a desk which stood on the table. Opening a drawer in the desk, she took out a leaf of vellum, covered with faded writing. Some ragged ends of silken thread were still attached to the leaf, as if it had been torn out ...
— The Haunted Hotel - A Mystery of Modern Venice • Wilkie Collins
... decks and bulwarks covered with cloth of gold; with age-old parrots that had known the troubadours, singing illustrious songs and preening their feathers of gold; with a hold full of emeralds and rubies; all silken with Indian loot; furling as it came in its way-worn alien sails, a galleon glided into port, shutting the sunlight from the merchantmen: and lo! it loomed the ...
— Fifty-One Tales • Lord Dunsany [Edward J. M. D. Plunkett]
... fell in with the idea at once and the two men started work on him with water and the powdery stuff they had taken for red sand. They stripped him of his silken garment and smeared him from head to foot, Carr taking especial care to see that his upper body and face were thoroughly covered. Then, after using his own clothing to swab off the coating, they ...
— Creatures of Vibration • Harl Vincent
... silken Flax mention'd, an attempt to explicate the Phaenomena of it, with a conjecture at the cause of the ...
— Micrographia • Robert Hooke
... of the army. But when the battle was renewed, the Getae and their queen defeated, conquered and overwhelmed the Parthians and took rich plunder from them. There for the first time the race of the Goths saw silken tents. After achieving this victory and winning so much booty from her enemies, Queen Tomyris crossed over into that part of Moesia which is now called Lesser Scythia—a name borrowed from great Scythia,—and built on the Moesian shore of Pontus ...
— The Origin and Deeds of the Goths • Jordanes
... ugly, pretentious building, which is a sort of registry office, the deed was signed and countersigned, with marvellous hieroglyphics, in a large book, in the presence of those absurd little creatures, formerly silken-robed Samurai, but now called policemen, dressed up in ...
— Madame Chrysantheme Complete • Pierre Loti
... the little maiden as she remained there fixed as a statue? Did she revert to the period at which her infant memory could retrace silken hangings and marble halls, visions of splendour, dreamings of courtly state, or was she thinking of her father, as her quick ear caught the least swell of the increasing breeze? Was she, as her ...
— Snarleyyow • Captain Frederick Marryat
... then recite, And give the fifth, new-born of Time, to light; 10 The silken tissue of their joys disclose, Swell with deep chords the murmur of their woes; Their laws, their labours, and their loves proclaim, And chant their virtues to the ...
— The Temple of Nature; or, the Origin of Society - A Poem, with Philosophical Notes • Erasmus Darwin
... into the hands of some poor gambling officer, she attached herself to him as a dog to its master, sharing the discomforts of the military life, which indeed she comforted, as content under the roof of a garret as beneath the silken hangings of opulence. Italian and Spanish both, she fulfilled very scrupulously the duties of religion, and more than once she ...
— Juana • Honore de Balzac
... hear cries and sounds, however alarming, you must on no account enter,' said the jogi, walking over to a closet where lay the silken cord that was to ...
— The Lilac Fairy Book • Andrew Lang
... sighs, O snatch that circling bandage from thine eyes! O look, and smile! No common prayer Solicits, Fortune! thy propitious care! For, not a silken son of dress, 5 I clink the gilded chains of politesse, Nor ask thy boon what time I scheme Unholy Pleasure's frail and feverish dream; Nor yet my view life's dazzle blinds— Pomp!—Grandeur! Power!—I give you ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... unforgettable night in Nienne, the beauty which had whispered in his ear and drawn him close, the hair which had fallen like a silken tent about his cheeks ... ah, that had been the summit of his life, he would go down into darkness with her name on his lips ... But hell! What had her ...
— The Valor of Cappen Varra • Poul William Anderson
... beyond our present, King was little more than peasant, Labour was the shining crescent, Toil, the poor man's crown of glory; Have we passed from worse to better Since we wove the silken fetter, Changed the plough for book and letter. Truest life ...
— Hesperus - and Other Poems and Lyrics • Charles Sangster
... Pleas I yode tho, {81} Where sat one with a silken hood; I did him reverence, for I ought to do so, And told my case as well as I could, How my goods were defrauded me by falsehood. I got not a mum of his mouth for my meed, And for lack of Money ...
— Playful Poems • Henry Morley
... its silk snapper. Are not the literary whips of Paris famous for their rhetorical tips and the sting there is in them? What French writer ever goaded his adversary with the belly of his lash, like the Germans and the English, when he could blister him with its silken end, and the percussion of wit be ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs
... mail news, the latest bridge tournament, and the approaching race meeting. By the lakes you encountered Europe—more particularly Great Britain. At the Shwe Dagon you found yourself in touch with an older world and face to face with the silken East! ...
— The Road to Mandalay - A Tale of Burma • B. M. Croker
... food; the eternal happiness that awaited them in the heavenly future, where the slave-driver ceased from troubling and the weary were at rest; where Time rolled around in endless cycles of days spent in basking, harp in hand, and silken clad, in golden streets, under the soft effulgence of cloudless skies, glowing with warmth and kindness emanating from the Creator himself. Had their masters condescended to borrow the music of the slaves, they would have found none whose sentiments were suitable ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... I cannot think what can be the reason, but my Lady Scrope has bidden me beg of thee to give her speech upon the morrow. All this day she has been in a mighty pleasant humour: she gave me this silken neckerchief when I left today, and bid me bring my brother with me on the ...
— The Sign Of The Red Cross • Evelyn Everett-Green
... a cover, there would be the more hares and rabbits to eat out his harvest, and the more hunters to trample it down. My lord has a new horn from England. He has laid out seven francs in decorating it with silver and gold, and fitting it with a silken leash to hang about his shoulder. The hounds have been on a pilgrimage to the shrine of Saint Mesmer, or Saint Hubert in the Ardennes, or some other holy intercessor who has made a speciality of the health of hunting-dogs. In the grey dawn ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... his hand and laid it on her clasped fingers, then drew it back again very quickly, as though suddenly remembering that the action might pain her. Her heavy hair was plaited into a thick black coil that fell upon the arm of the couch. He bent lower and pressed his lips upon the silken tress, noiselessly, fearing to disturb her, fearing lest she should even notice it. He had lost all his pride and strength and dominating power of character and he felt ...
— Sant' Ilario • F. Marion Crawford
... for these silken-coated slaves, I pass not; It is to you, good people, that I speak, OVer whom, in time to come, I hope to reign, For I am rightful heir unto ...
— King Henry VI, Second Part • William Shakespeare [Rolfe edition]
... A silken rustle in the doorway made Scotty draw back. "Come, Isabel," said the tall lady. She was a very pale lady, with a haughty, weary look in her eyes; and Scotty wondered how the little girl could catch hold of that silk dress ...
— The Silver Maple • Marian Keith
... vegetation, not even the silken tasia ornamenting its sides, though a solitary tree did rise in lonely grandeur from its ...
— Jack North's Treasure Hunt - Daring Adventures in South America • Roy Rockwood
... pricking along the beach, armed with such weapons as they could find; and the Alcayde and his scanty garrison descended from the hill. In the meantime the Moorish bark came rolling and pitching toward the land. As it drew near, the rich carving and gilding with which it was decorated, its silken bandaroles, and banks of crimson oars, showed it to be no warlike vessel, but a sumptuous galleot, destined for state and ceremony. It bore the marks of the tempest: the masts were broken, the oars shattered, and fragments of snowy ...
— Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, March 1844 - Volume 23, Number 3 • Various
... not prevent. Hark! I can hear the drums! And ladies fair from silken tent Peep forth, and every eye is bent On the ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo
... dislike of the word. "Don't be motherly; don't treat me as if I had rompers on. You're positively maddening to-night. I never saw you like this. Why, your hair"—he ran his hands through that silken shower once more and pressed ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach
... this idea from pictures of Napoleon, and, forgetting the terrible stress of the past weeks in the temporary flush of victory, they expected to see their general come to the stand with a blaze of glory. They looked for silken flags and gaudy uniforms and a regular French military parade. This was as little as they thought would do proper honor to the victorious commander of the Allied armies, and they were right, ...
— A Journey Through France in War Time • Joseph G. Butler, Jr.
... once more to the room and blew out the candle. Then, taking a short hold on my silken rope, I clambered out over the window ledge and started to let myself down, hand ...
— The Man with the Clubfoot • Valentine Williams
... worth the loss of ten thousand lives to enjoy. He can pull such things out of his bosom, and can put such things into thy mouth; yea, can make thee choose to be gone, though through the flames, than to stay here and die in silken sheets. Yea, he can himself come near and bring his heaven and glory to thee. The Spirit of glory and of God resteth upon them that are but reproached for the name of Christ (1 Peter 4:14). And what the Spirit of glory is, and what is his resting ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... the night, but while the emperor still protracted the pleasures of the table, an alarm was suddenly given, that Aureolus, at the head of all his forces, had made a desperate sally from the town; Gallienus, who was never deficient in personal bravery, started from his silken couch, and without allowing himself time either to put on his armor, or to assemble his guards, he mounted on horseback, and rode full speed towards the supposed place of the attack. Encompassed by his declared or concealed enemies, he soon, amidst the ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon
... make that vacuum which nature so dreads. You shall see how good I will be this evening, and you shall read me everything you please, even to that 'Ancient Ecclesiastical History.' If you will only stay I will be your slave; and you shall rule me with a rod of iron or draw me with the silken cords of ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe
... colour Far too common, my hair was cut and curl'd very badly. I at last was thinking of dressing myself like the shop-boys, Who are accustom'd on Sundays to show off their persons up yonder, And round whose coats in summer half-silken tatters are hanging. But ere long I discover'd they only intended to fool me This was very annoying, my pride was offended, but more still Felt I deeply wounded that they so mistook the good feelings Which I cherish'd towards them, especially Minnie, the youngest. Well, I went ...
— The Poems of Goethe • Goethe
... a wondering, wakeful night, the excited Hepsey had seen Miss Thorne as plainly as when she first entered the house. The tall, straight, graceful figure was familiar by this time, and the subdued silken rustle of her skirts was a wonted sound. Ruth's face, naturally mobile, had been schooled into a certain reserve, but her deep, dark eyes were eloquent, and always would be. Hepsey wondered at the opaque whiteness of her skin and the baffling arrangement of her hair. ...
— Lavender and Old Lace • Myrtle Reed
... it is you, my darling, who ought to be riding in one of those carriages. Generals would have come seeking your favour, and, instead of being clad in a humble cotton dress, you would have been walking in silken and golden attire. Then you would not have been thin and wan as now, but fresh and plump and rosy-cheeked as a figure on a sugar-cake. Then should I too have been happy—happy if only I could look at your lighted windows from the street, and watch your shadow— ...
— Poor Folk • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... Phillips jotted down his memories of Chiswick—how he, a schoolboy then with his eyes just above the pew door, the bells in the old tower chiming for church, watched 'Widow Hogarth and her maiden relative, Richardson, walking up the aisle, draped in their silken sacks, their raised head-dresses, their black calashes, their lace ruffles, and their high crooked canes, preceded by their aged servant Samuel: who after he had wheeled his mistress to church in her Bath-chair, carried the ...
— Art in England - Notes and Studies • Dutton Cook
... ocean; the energies which call THE SAILOR into life would no longer be necessary; the sea would be covered with pleasure yachts of the most fanciful description, manned by exquisites in snow-white gloves, propelled with silken sails, and decked with streamers, perhaps with flowers, while their broad decks would be thronged with a gay and happy bevy, of both sexes and every age, bent on pleasure and eager to enjoy ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper
... resistless rush of loneliness swept her to her feet; in a moment she was down on the floor again, on her silken knees, her arms around the dog, her head pressed tightly to ...
— A Young Man in a Hurry - and Other Short Stories • Robert W. Chambers
... cemented amidst the scenes that try men's souls, a comradeship born of fellowship in privation, danger, and suffering. I could hardly restrain my tears as we finally parted with our torn and tattered colors, the staff of one of which had been shot away in my hands. We had fought under their silken folds on three battle-fields, upon which we had left one-third of our number killed and wounded, including a colonel and three line officers and upward of seventy-five men killed and two hundred and fifteen wounded. Out of our regiment of one thousand and twenty-four men ...
— War from the Inside • Frederick L. (Frederick Lyman) Hitchcock |
