"Luster" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Smedley, Samuel Shackford, Samuel W. Pennypacker, Howard M. Jenkins, and John T. Harris, Jr., for information and suggestions which have been of use to us in this chapter.] But we now know, with sufficient clearness, through the wide-spread and searching luster which surrounds the name, the history of the migrations of the family since its arrival on this continent, and the circumstances under which the Virginia ...
— Abraham Lincoln: A History V1 • John G. Nicolay and John Hay
... for this purpose I rose at two o'clock in the morning. Everything around was wrapped in darkness and hushed in silence. It was a mild, serene, midsummer night,—the sky was without a cloud,—the winds were [v]whist. The moon, then in the last quarter, had just risen, and the stars shone with a luster but little affected ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various
... Dishes.—Plenty of hot water and clean towels are the essential requisites for expeditious and thorough dish-washing. A few drops of crude ammonia added to the water will soften it and add to the luster of the silver and china. Soap may be used or not according to circumstances; all greasy dishes require a good strong suds. There should also be provided two dish drainers or trays, unless there is a stationary sink with tray ...
— Science in the Kitchen. • Mrs. E. E. Kellogg
... peculiar, however, to this species. The pileus is two to three inches broad; greenish, usually greenish-umber, sometimes reddish; fleshy; compact; nearly round, then expanded, depressed in the center; even; smooth; often sprinkled with a silky luster, pellicle separable, margin at first inflexed, then expanded, always even, sometimes turned upward. The flesh is firm, white, ...
— The Mushroom, Edible and Otherwise - Its Habitat and its Time of Growth • M. E. Hard
... noble—neither in law nor custom were there noble families, and we altogether lacked the edification one found in Russia, for example, of a poor nobility. A peerage was an hereditary possession that, like the family land, concerned only the eldest sons of the house; it radiated no luster of noblesse oblige. The rest of the world were in law and practice common—and all America was common. But through the private ownership of land that had resulted from the neglect of feudal obligations in Britain and the utter want of political foresight in the Americas, ...
— In the Days of the Comet • H. G. Wells
... character of her mother's beauty, she had yet hardly inherited all its charms. Though the shape of her face was the same, the features were scarcely so delicate, their proportion was scarcely so true. She was not so tall. She had the dark-brown eyes of her mother—full and soft, with the steady luster in them which Mrs. Vanstone's eyes had lost—and yet there was less interest, less refinement and depth of feeling in her expression: it was gentle and feminine, but clouded by a certain quiet reserve, from which her mother's face was free. If we dare to look ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... electric fox- or squirrel-tail. The needles are about an inch and a half long, slightly curved, elastic, and glossily polished, so that the sunshine sifting through them makes them burn with a fine silvery luster, while their number and elastic temper tell delightfully in the ...
— Steep Trails • John Muir
... is hid with Christ in God." (Col. iii., 3.) "If they had hope only in this life, they were of all men most miserable." (I Cor. xv., 19.) Nevertheless, they show I know not what superiority of birth. Their glory is not so concealed but we sometimes perceive its luster! just as the children of a king, when unknown and in a distant province, betray in their conversation and ...
— The world's great sermons, Volume 3 - Massillon to Mason • Grenville Kleiser
... reader, that great value was set by the Common Council upon the fact, that the major had transferred his affections from the whig to the democratic party, which could not fail to shed a lasting luster upon its principles. Two honest Hibernian members of the very common board of very uncommon councilmen, had, with that modesty so characteristic of them, paid me the high compliment of saying, that I had been justly styled ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... any other antique standard, the platforme would be more excellent and if vpon the ascent from one leuell to another there might be built some curious and arteficiall banquetting house, it would giue luster to ...
— The English Husbandman • Gervase Markham
... the reel, and the skeins are packed up in bales as if it were of no more value than cotton. Indeed, it does not look nearly so pretty and attractive as a lap of pure white cotton, for it is stiff and gummy and has hardly any luster. Now it is sent to the manufacturer. It is soaked in hot soapy water for several hours, and it is drawn between plates so close together that, while they allow the silk to go through, they will not permit the least bit of ...
— Makers of Many Things • Eva March Tappan
... not been forwarded to her in New York. In those days Mrs. Scott's distinguished presence and sparkling repartee, together with the fact that her husband was Commander-in-Chief of the Army, added luster to every assemblage. The Army was well represented at this reception and it was truly "the feast of reason and the flow of soul." Colonel "Jimmy" Monroe was a great favorite with his former brother-in-arms as he was a genial, whole-souled and ...
— As I Remember - Recollections of American Society during the Nineteenth Century • Marian Gouverneur
... maples he paused, two of them marking the entrance to the wood road, and looked about him. The world was resolutely still. The snow was not deep, but none of it had melted. It was of a uniform whiteness and luster and the shadows in it were deeply blue. There were tracks frozen into it all along the road, many of them old ones, others just broken, the story of some animal's wandering. Then he turned into the wood road and began to climb the rise, and as he went he was conscious of an unaccountable ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... threatening to come out and play, then shrinking back as the blaze leaped and the room widened. The rough brown walls took the shine and broidered themselves with a thread of golden tracery. In such an illumination the eyes shone with added luster, flying locks were all hyacinthine, the frocks might ...
— Judith of the Cumberlands • Alice MacGowan
... could have pictured a career so extraordinary as that to which reality introduced her; and in all the annals of ancient story, she could find no record of sufferings and privations more severe than those which she was called upon to endure. And neither heroine nor hero of any age has shed greater luster upon human nature by the cheerful fortitude with ...
— Madame Roland, Makers of History • John S. C. Abbott
... and hushed in silence, broken only by what seemed at that hour the unearthly clank and rush of the train. It was a mild, serene midsummer's night; the sky was without a cloud—the winds were whist. The moon, then in the last quarter, had just risen, and the stars shone with a spectral luster but little affected by her presence; Jupiter, two hours high, was the herald of the day; the Pleiades, just above the horizon, shed their sweet influence in the east; Lyra sparkled near the zenith; Andromeda veiled her newly discovered glories from the naked eye in the south; ...
— The Uses of Astronomy - An Oration Delivered at Albany on the 28th of July, 1856 • Edward Everett
... cavalcade that has been so long in sight approaches. First a band of musicians in costumes of the Middle Ages; and then a band of pages in the gayest apparel, bearing pictured banners and flags of all colors, whose silken luster would have been gorgeous in sunshine; these were followed by mounted heralds with trumpets, and after them were led the running horses entered for the race. The banners go up on the royal stand, and group themselves picturesquely; the heralds disappear ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... bright stars twinkling in contiguous shoulder bars, but sitting in a chair upon the beflowered carpet is Ulysses Grant, who has lived a century in the last three weeks and comes to-day to add the luster of his iron face to this thrilling and saddened picture. He wears white gloves and sash, and is swarthy, nervous, and almost tearful, his feet crossed, his square receding head turning now here now there, his treble constellation ...
— The Life, Crime and Capture of John Wilkes Booth • George Alfred Townsend
... York and to Chicago, and the manufacturers claim to be able to duplicate in colors, texture, etc., any garments sent them. A tablecloth of glass recently completed shines with a satiny, opalescent luster by day, and under gaslight shows remarkable beauty. Imitation plumes, in opal, ruby, pale green, and other hues, are also constructed of these threads, and are wonderfully pretty. The chief obstacle yet to surmount seems to lie ...
— Scientific American, Volume XLIII., No. 25, December 18, 1880 • Various
... recognized her as the one who had placed a caressing hand upon the bowed head of the sobbing girl the night before. Her face was of pathetic beauty. Its whiteness was startling. Her eyes shone with an unhealthy luster, and her dark hair, falling in heavy curls over her shoulder, added to the wonderful ...
— The Courage of Captain Plum • James Oliver Curwood
... agreeable air possible, and conversed with more than her usual brilliancy. At the same time the fever, which for an instant abandoned her, returned to give luster to her eyes, color to her cheeks, and vermillion to her lips. D'Artagnan was again in the presence of the Circe who had before surrounded him with her enchantments. His love, which he believed to be extinct but which was only asleep, awoke again in his heart. Milady ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... double door that had been polished to a brilliant luster. The cadet waited for the leader to enter, but the Nationalist stood perfectly still, eyes straight ahead. Suddenly the doors swung open, revealing a huge chamber, at least a hundred and fifty feet long. At the far end ...
— The Revolt on Venus • Carey Rockwell
... the ante-room again, pulled open one of the closed doors in the opposite wall and passed up an encased staircase wrapped in darkness. They emerged into the dusk of a long, dim hall, where hanging lamps from the ceiling shed a mild luster and a strong smell of oil, and passing one or two doors on the right, the maid pushed, open one that was rich in ...
— The Palace of Darkened Windows • Mary Hastings Bradley
... yet with a filial fear, which at the same time both fears and loves. It was awe without amazement, dread without distraction. There was then a beauty even in this very paleness. It was the color of devotion, giving a luster to reverence and ...
— The World's Great Sermons, Vol. 2 (of 10) • Grenville Kleiser
... and the noblest of mankind will estimate you by the ratio of distance from the humblest beginning to your present attainment; the greater the distance the greater the luster; the more ...
— Shadow and Light - An Autobiography with Reminiscences of the Last and Present Century • Mifflin Wistar Gibbs
... effectiveness of everything they attempted; their aptitude at tasks to which they had never before set their hands; their utter self-sacrifice alike in what they did and in what they gave? Their contribution to the great result is beyond appraisal. They have added a new luster to the annals ...
— Jailed for Freedom • Doris Stevens
... come to rest in the deep shadow of enormous trees. Leaning over the rail of a snug little harbor two dummy men in rakish hats and dark coats stared at the new arrivals with lack-luster eyes. And the dummies, and the wooden wall on which they were propped, with a strange painted motto consisting of snakes, and dogs, and sticks, and a yard measure, were all repeated with crystal-clear precision in the green mirror ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson
... Even in my teens I was a scribbler for the press. To be an editor was one of my ambitions. Horace Greeley and the "Tribune" was my ideal of human triumph. Strange that there should have come a day when I could have bought the "Tribune"; but by that time the pearl had lost its luster. Our air castles are often within our grasp late in life, but ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie • Andrew Carnegie
... appear at La Fenice, under the Italianized name of Cruvelli, in the part of Dona Sol in "Ernani." This was followed by a performance of Norma, and in both she made a strong impression of great powers, which only needed experience to shine with brilliant luster. The fact that her instructor permitted her to appear, handicapped as she was by inexperience and stage ignorance, in roles not only marked by great musical difficulty, but full of dramatic energy, indicates what a high estimate was placed ...
— Great Singers, Second Series - Malibran To Titiens • George T. Ferris
... follow up to definite conclusion. Beyond the wheel, just at the croupier's elbow, stood a woman, audaciously yet charmingly gowned in red, with a scale-like shimmer of passementerie. A red rose in her black hair threw into conspicuous effect its intense luster. ...
— The Lighted Match • Charles Neville Buck
... all took at the beginning of their navigation from the shores and coasts of Espana. Under such good horoscope was born the happy province of the Philipinas Islands. And thus we should not wonder at the great luster that it has cast, shedding its rays by its zeal through the darkest and most forgotten districts, where a notable number of pagans, who were living like wild beasts in a blind barbarism, received the truth of ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXI, 1624 • Various
... in Phil. Trans., 84-429. To the writer, it looked like a star passing over the moon—"which, on the next moment's consideration I knew to be impossible." "It was a fixed, steady light upon the dark part of the moon." I suppose "fixed" applies to luster. ...
— The Book of the Damned • Charles Fort
... beleaguered defiles of Cartland Craigs, sworn to extricate the helpless families of his followers, or to perish with them. This knight was accompanied by none but men; and his kind eyes shone in too serene a luster to be the mirrors of the disturbed soul of the suffering chief of Ellerslie. "Ah! then," murmured she to herself, "are there two men in Scotland who will speak thus?" She looked up in his face. The plumes of his bonnet shaded his features; but she saw they ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... took the whip, and gently dropped its lash across the drooping shoulders bowed on the horse's neck as the boy hid his face in the silken mane he loved to comb. Indeed, Dandy's black satin coat had never shone with such a luster from excessive currying as in the month past, since the advent of this new little groom, who slept in the little back bedroom of the doctor's big white house, and thought it a nook ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various
... had grown to manhood in their midst, and until this time no taint of suspicion had ever been urged against them. No thought of wrong-doing had ever attached to them, and no shadow had dimmed the luster of their fair fame. Now all was changed, and the irreproachable reputations of days gone by were shattered. Debased and self-convicted, they stood before the bar of justice, to answer for their crimes. Instead of being the objects of admiration, they ...
— The Burglar's Fate And The Detectives • Allan Pinkerton
... Fitch's development of the devices of the endless chain, paddle wheel, and screw propeller and of his puzzling earth-and-water creature that gives luster to his name. His prophetic insight into the future national importance of the steamboat and his conception, as an inventor, of his moral obligations to the people at large were as original and striking in the science of that ...
— The Paths of Inland Commerce - A Chronicle of Trail, Road, and Waterway, Volume 21 in The - Chronicles of America Series • Archer B. Hulbert
... [notable—MS.] as unfortunate, would be poor and ruined, but impossible that it should not be finished, destroyed, and deserted; and impossible that, struggling against so many disasters as it has suffered, it should still survive with some luster and wealth. Inasmuch as it is the purpose to avoid in this memorial generalities that do not influence or persuade, the mention of the misfortunes that have happened to Manila has two special and necessary ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 (Vol 27 of 55) • Various
... kindling to the dying embers, and in the glow of the last stick he smoked his pipe, and as he smoked he drew from his wallet the golden snare. Coiled in the hollow of his hand and catching the red light of the pitch-laden fagot it shone with the rich luster of rare metal. Not until the pitch was burning itself out in a final sputter of flame did Philip replace ...
— The Golden Snare • James Oliver Curwood
... still sat in an attitude of attention with a sad countenance and eyes that had lost their luster. "The missionaries conquered the country, it is true," he replied, "but do you believe that by the friars the Philippines ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... the fact or not, to the average individual, male or female, reflected glory is better than none at all. And when two people stand in the most intimate relation to each other, the success of one lends a measure of its luster to the other. Those who had been so readily impressed by Andrew Bush's device to singe her social wings with the flame of gossip had long since learned their mistake. She had the word of Loraine Marsh and Jack Barrow that they were genuinely sorry for having been carried away ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... indeed different, Ramu. God's limit is nowhere! He who ignites the stars and the cells of flesh with mysterious life-effulgence can surely bring luster of ...
— Autobiography of a YOGI • Paramhansa Yogananda
... immeasurably to the sum of human misery. War ought to be abolished with intemperance and slavery. And this duty he began to utter in the ears of his country. "The brightest traits in the American character will derive their luster, not from the laurels picked from the field of blood, not from the magnitude of our navy and the success of our arms," he proclaimed, "but from our exertions to banish war from the earth, to stay the ravages ...
— William Lloyd Garrison - The Abolitionist • Archibald H. Grimke
... this letter, for your perusal. He says of the expression of Lord Holland's face, that it was "singularly compounded of sense, humor, courage, openness, a strong will and a sweet temper," and that he had the "most gracious and interesting countenance that was ever lighted up by the mingled luster of intelligence and benevolence. As it was with the faces of the men of this noble family (referring to Lord Holland and his ancestors) so was it with their minds. Nature had done much for them all. She had moulded them all of that clay, of which she is most sparing. To all she had given ...
— A Biographical Sketch of the Life and Character of Joseph Charless - In a Series of Letters to his Grandchildren • Charlotte Taylor Blow Charless
... consideration, it is a very small evil for a great good. Three murderers are delivered over to justice, and the temporary arrest of Djalma will only serve to make his innocence shine forth with redoubled luster. ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... government, in the arts, and in all that dignifies and adorns mankind? From that radiant constellation which both illumines our own way and points out to struggling nations their course, let but a single star be lost, and, if these be not utter darkness, the luster of the whole is dimmed. Do my countrymen need any assurance that such a catastrophe is not to overtake them while I possess the power to stay it? It is with me an earnest and vital belief that as the Union has been the source, under Providence, ...
— U.S. Presidential Inaugural Addresses • Various
... XVII. The Master said, 'Fine words and an insinuating appearance are seldom associated with virtue.' CHAP. XVIII. The Master said, 'I hate the manner in which purple takes away the luster of vermilion. I hate the way in which the songs of Chang confound the music of the Ya. I hate those who with their sharp mouths overthrow kingdoms and families.' CHAP. XIX. 1. The Master said, 'I would prefer not speaking.' 2. Tsze-kung said, 'If you, Master, do not ...
— The Chinese Classics—Volume 1: Confucian Analects • James Legge
... some vesture that had the luster of a polished plate of gold, and the suppleness of velvet. As we approached he fixed his immense, deep-set ...
— Edison's Conquest of Mars • Garrett Putnam Serviss
... this woman shows that her motive in adopting and following the career of a soldier was a praiseworthy one. The whole country was aglow with patriotic fervor, and in no section did the flame burn with a purer luster than in that where Deborah was nurtured. It was not idle curiosity nor mere love of roving, that incited her, in those straitlaced days, to abandon her home and join in the perilous fray where the standard of freedom was "full high advanced." She had evidently counted the cost ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler
... "presidential progress" through some of the States. He started late in August. Several members of his cabinet, Seward among others, accompanied him, and so did General Grant and Admiral Farragut, by command, to give additional luster to ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. XXXI, No. 3, July 1908. • Various
... is incorruptible." Think of it, Brethren. No more sin to bewail; no more sickness to suffer; no more death to dread! It is also "undefiled." No more "filthiness of the flesh;" "neither idolatry, nor adultery, nor whatsoever loveth and maketh a lie." And "that fadeth not away." The luster of the eye; the bloom of the cheek; the facial expressions of beauty and love, purity and truth, know nothing of decay in the amaranthine bowers of ...
— Life and Labors of Elder John Kline, the Martyr Missionary - Collated from his Diary by Benjamin Funk • John Kline
... he began laughing, and taking hold of my hat and raising it from my head, said: "Well you infernal vender of the Incomprehensible compound, double-distilled furniture and piano luster, what are you giving me? Produce your ticket, or off ...
— Twenty Years of Hus'ling • J. P. Johnston
... with their ever-changing peacock hues. But finest of all the lot were the pearls. Where old Don Esteban had secured these latter was a mystery, for he had not been a widely traveled man. They were splendid, unrivaled in size and luster. Some had the iridescence of soap-bubbles, others ranged from pink to deepest chocolate in color. To touch them ...
— Rainbow's End • Rex Beach |
