"Adornment" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... from the poetical faculties of their mind, but from a desire to adorn themselves. I have not so lost my head as not to be able to judge Laura, though really I do not know whether she has not the right to be what she is, and to think the sun and stars are made on purpose for her adornment. Absolute beauty, in the nature of things, must be essentially egotistic, and subject everything to its rule. Laura is the very incarnation of beauty, and nobody has the right to ask anything else from her than to be always and everywhere beautiful; ...
— Without Dogma • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... with bouquets kept fresh in tumblers of blue glass; this was particularly the case after the birth of Veronique. On the days of the processions the Sauviats scrupulously hung their house with sheets covered with flowers, and contributed money to the erection and adornment of the altar, which was the pride and glory ...
— The Village Rector • Honore de Balzac
... green room there he found Peddle, who welcomed him with tears of joy and a display of all the finikin luxuries of the toilet and adornment which he had left behind at Denby Hall. There were pots of pomade and face-cream, and nail-polish; bottles of hair-wash and tooth-wash; little boxes and brushes for the moustache, half a dozen gleaming razors, an array of brushes and combs and ...
— The Rough Road • William John Locke
... can assure thee that it would have been less difficult for me to build the whole edifice anew than to mutilate it in several places, change, innovate, add and suppress in others, but I was almost perforce compelled to give it a new form, which I have done, partly for the requirements and the adornment of the stories, partly to conform to the times and the infelicity of our century, when most human things are so exulcerated that there is no work, however well digested, polished, and filed, but it is badly interpreted and ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. I. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre
... of young ladies to handle and examine all articles which concern themselves with personal adornment, Fanny and Redbud, though they really wanted nothing, turned over everything in the pack. But little resulted therefrom for the pedlar. He did not succeed in persuading Redbud to buy a beautiful dress pattern, with ...
— The Last of the Foresters • John Esten Cooke
... look scrumptious in it!" She hastily produced from a paper bag a bunch of violets she had intended for her own adornment. "Here, let me pin these in for you, they will finish you ...
— The Making of a Soul • Kathlyn Rhodes
... her morning,—that, and the manufacture of some very intricate piece of work which was intended for the adornment of Mr Crosbie's person. Her hands, however, were very full of work;—or, rather, she intended that they should be full. She would take with her to her new home, when she was married, all manner of household gear, the produce of her own industry and economy. She had declared that ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope
... flying-buttresses, of singular grace; but the whole fabric is so built in with ugly little shops, that all fine effect is destroyed. The galleries in the church of La Trinite are elaborately ornamented, as are some of the chapels, whose roofs are studded with pendants. Much of this adornment is due to the English, under Henry V., and a good deal is of the ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... busy levee scene, with the flag adornment referred to, will agree that there was something picturesque as well as noisy about the old river days, and will be inclined to regret, and almost deplore, the fact that things are not, from a river man's standpoint, what ...
— My Native Land • James Cox
... eagerly, and Stuart, a genuine knight of old alike in his courage and love of adornment, ...
— The Star of Gettysburg - A Story of Southern High Tide • Joseph A. Altsheler
... very dark and dirty, and one could but wonder how anything contrived to live in such close, stivy air. On going in one day, I nearly walked over a large, pensive-looking duckling which stood in the middle of the shop. His brother had been considered suitable for the adornment of a table-lamp with a looking-glass stand, on which a bright yellow duckling was placed, as if swimming on water; this bird, having some darker markings, was of no use for that purpose and had been allowed to live. He had a strange, old-fashioned look, ...
— Wild Nature Won By Kindness • Elizabeth Brightwen
... skirt, brilliant in its adornment of stained quills of the porcupine got from the Indians, Francette paced daintily here and there in the clean-swept yard, now snapping her small fingers, now coaxing with soft noises in her round throat, her sparkling eyes fixed on the gaunt grey skeleton ...
— The Maid of the Whispering Hills • Vingie E. Roe
... understand too flattering a compliment, or a joke which passed in any way the bounds of propriety. She was neatly dressed, but had no ornaments, and nothing which shewed wealth; neither ear-rings, rings, nor a watch. One might have said that her beauty was her only adornment, the only ornament she wore being a small gold cross hanging from her necklace of black ribbon. Her breast was well shaped and not too large. Fashion and custom made her shew half of it as innocently as she shewed her plump white hand, or her cheeks, whereon the lily and the rose were wedded. ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... their workmanship the deftness of the goldsmith's art. Cloaks were often fastened with golden buckles of curious and exquisite form, set sometimes with rough jewels and inlaid with enamel. The bronze boar-crest on the warrior's helmet, the intricate adornment of the warrior's shield, tell like the honour in which the smith was held their tale of industrial art. The curiously twisted glass goblets, so common in the early graves of Kent, are shewn by their form to be of English workmanship. It is only in the English ...
— History of the English People, Volume I (of 8) - Early England, 449-1071; Foreign Kings, 1071-1204; The Charter, 1204-1216 • John Richard Green
... we now have most at heart is to speak of the ordinary esthetics of life, of the care one should bestow upon the adornment of his dwelling and his person, giving to existence that luster without which it lacks charm. For it is not a matter of indifference whether man pays attention to these superfluous necessities or whether he does not: it is by them that we know whether he puts soul into his work. ...
— The Simple Life • Charles Wagner
... flooring,—then he had it painted inside a dark oak colour, and furnished it with rows of benches. At the upper end a raised platform was erected, and in the centre of that platform stood a simple Cross of roughly carved dark wood, some twelve or fifteen feet in height. There was no other adornment in the building,—the walls remained bare, the floor unmatted, the seats uncushioned. No subscriptions were asked for its maintenance; no collection plate was ever sent around, yet here, whenever Leigh announced a coming "Address," so vast ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... and silver was brought from the mountains and porphyry from the land of Melukhkha, and marble from the mountain of marble. And the patesi installed goldsmiths and silversmiths, who wrought in these precious metals, for the adornment of the temple; and he brought smiths who worked in copper and lead, who were priests of Nin-tu-kalama. In his search for fitting materials for the building of the temple, Gudea journeyed from the lower country ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, And Assyria In The Light Of Recent Discovery • L.W. King and H.R. Hall
... of spreading black eyebrows upon a forehead which was white when well washed, for Nature had done honestly by the top of his head, but had realised, when his chin was reached, the fatuity of spending more time upon the moulding and adornment of the person of ...
— The Tale of Timber Town • Alfred Grace
... highest and most substantial houses two young women sat at the casement of an upper window. The house was a gloomy one, without adornment of any kind except an arched porch, over which was chiselled some motto, or emblem, that had become undecipherable from age. The room where the two girls sat was plain in its appointments, and badly lighted, though its sombreness ...
— Marguerite De Roberval - A Romance of the Days of Jacques Cartier • T. G. Marquis
... scientists are prone to ascribe to man as a whole the faculties which only the best trained and most talented possess. They fail to consider our cannibal brethren, such as are found among the Dyaks on the Island of Borneo, whose chief articles of adornment in the house are heads of murdered men, and whose savage and fiendish ways would put to shame a civilised animal. They forget how long man lived on this earth before he even learned to ...
— The Human Side of Animals • Royal Dixon
... was very much depressed, and he came to Birmingham, hoping to obtain employment in a trade which, owing to a caprice of fashion, was just then in an inflated condition. This was the business of making steel buckles, and other articles of polished steel for personal adornment. In this he was very successful, and soon after his arrival in the town, he took a small house in Bread Street, a little way down on the right from Newhall Street, and here he started business for himself. He had no capital, but he had great ...
— Personal Recollections of Birmingham and Birmingham Men • E. Edwards
... now began to look upon as the Type of himself; an Impression he had made in the Gayety and Vigour of his Youth, before the Rust of Age had debilitated and obscur'd the Splendour of the Original: He was sensible, That he ought not to be sparing in the Adornment of him, if he had Resolution to beautifie his own Memory. Indeed Don Fabio (for so was the Old Gentleman call'd) has been observ'd to have fix'd his Eyes upon Aurelian, when much Company has been at Table, and have wept through Earnestness ...
— Incognita - or, Love & Duty Reconcil'd. A Novel • William Congreve
... were seated sedately on the threshold of their own door-steps, frequent sallies abroad into this quiet city having doubtless convinced them of the futility of all sorties. The old houses were their carved facades as old ladies wear rich lace—they had reached the age when the vanity of personal adornment had ceased to inflate. The great cathedral, towering above the tranquil town, wore a more conscious air; its significance was too great a contrast to the quiet city asleep at its feet. In these long, slow centuries the towers had grown to have the ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd
... the construction of Louis XIV coincided with the first sculptural decoration of Versailles. A great number of works of art were ordered for the adornment of the walks and gardens. Many statues and busts of mythological subjects that were made at Rome to the order of Fouquet, after models by Nicolas Poussin, were removed from Vaux to Versailles. That was a thriving period ...
— The Story of Versailles • Francis Loring Payne
... not a little surprised at the populous and wealthy character which this quarter of the town exhibited, many of the houses rising to the height of two stories, their facades evincing even an attempt at architecture and adornment. ...
— Great African Travellers - From Mungo Park to Livingstone and Stanley • W.H.G. Kingston
... the culture of what are styled the practical faculties. Our wealth is spent in the erection of extravagant stores and shops,—in the decoration of oyster-saloons, hotels, and steamboats,—in the lavish and selfish adornment of drawing-rooms and chambers. In the whole breadth of the continent there is not a single building of such beauty as to be an object of national pride, and few which will have any value in future times, except as historic records of the poverty of sentiment and the deficiency of character ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various
... touch of freedom and of elegant hilarity. This was distinctly needed—for Sauberle and Heller had, of their own resources, hardly more than the good-natured simpleton Holdria to contribute to the cheering and adornment of ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... flush of spring. He contemplated her in advance on the noble terraces; he saw already the light playing on her neck and in her hair; the shadow of laurel-trees falling on her eyes. For him the land and the sky of Florence had nothing more to do than to serve as an adornment to ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... produce; this was too great a shock for the blacks, who stampeded pell-mell, leaving their spears and throwing-sticks behind them. We gave chase, and, after a spirited run, Luck managed to stop a man. A stark-naked savage this, and devoid of all adornment excepting a waist-belt of plaited grass and a "sporran" of similar material. He was in great dread of the camels and not too sure of us. I gave him something to eat, and, by eating some of it myself, put him more at ...
— Spinifex and Sand - Five Years' Pioneering and Exploration in Western Australia • David W Carnegie
... between his hat and the king's. "The only difference," he said, "lies in the ornaments that have been added to thine." His dress was probably that which was common to gentlemen in his day, but without extremes of color or adornment. For some time after becoming a Quaker he wore his sword, having consulted Fox, who said, "I advise thee to wear it as long as thou canst." Presently Fox, seeing him without it, said, "William, where is thy sword?" To which Penn replied, "I have taken thy advice: ...
— William Penn • George Hodges
... it be argued that, because the ancient savage tribes on the coast of South America, who obtained their support by fishing, buried fish hooks and bait with their dead, they supposed the dead bodies occupied themselves in their graves by fishing! The adornment of the tomb, so lavish and varied with the Egyptians, was a gratification of the spontaneous workings of fancy and affection, and needs no far fetched explanation. Every nation has its funeral customs and its rites of sepulture, many of which would be ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... never seen anything quite like that room. The sheer physical comfort of its arrangements appealed to him, but after all he was not one who had ever studied his bodily ease very much, and what he regarded as the chaste refinement of its adornment had a deeper effect. Though he had lived for the most part in the bush and on the prairie, he had been endued with or had somehow acquired an ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss
... sometimes as high as thrice sixty. They are the servants, the bulls of Dyaus, the glory of Rudra (or perhaps the 'boys of Rudra'), divine, bright as suns, blameless and pure. They cover themselves with shining adornment, chains of gold, gems, and turbans. On their heads are helmets of gold, and in their hands gleam arrows and daggers. Like heroes rushing to battle, they stream onward. They are fair as deer; their roar is like that of lions. The mountains ...
— The Religions of India - Handbooks On The History Of Religions, Volume 1, Edited By Morris Jastrow • Edward Washburn Hopkins
... charm was added by the new metal to the personal adornment of women, and an enhanced splendor to the pageants of society. Gold in its palmiest days had never enjoyed such a vogue. A crowded reception room or a dinner party where artemisium abounded possessed an indescribable atmosphere ...
— The Moon Metal • Garrett P. Serviss
... customer being led to continue buying until at least a full set of dishes had been acquired. Later, the range of premiums was expanded; until today the wagon man offers several hundred different articles that can be used in the home or for personal wear or adornment. Practically all the leading wagon-route concerns favor the advance premium method; that is, a special canvasser induces a consumer to contract for a large quantity of coffee and other products in return for receiving the premium at once, ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... taking place in a distant part of the house, not less interesting, perhaps, but not destined to reach so peaceable a conclusion. The scene of this other meeting was Miss Chrysophrasia Dabstreak's especial boudoir, an apartment so singular in its furniture and adornment that I will leave out all description of it, and ask you merely to imagine, at will, the most aesthetic retreat of the most aesthetic old maid ...
— Paul Patoff • F. Marion Crawford
... De Quincey stands alone in these traits: the mass and accuracy of his accumulated knowledge; the power of making the finest distinctions clear to any reader, and the gorgeous style, thick with the embroidery of poetical figures, yet never giving the impression of over-adornment. And above all these merits is the supreme charm of melodious, rhythmical sentences, which give the same ...
— Modern English Books of Power • George Hamlin Fitch
... and the boys were obliged to go and fetch the white of an egg, with which the sparrow was painted all over; on this the gold was stuck, and mamma sparrow was now entirely gilded; but she did not think of adornment, for she trembled in every limb. And the soap-dealer tore a bit off the lining of his old jacket, cut scollops in it so that it might look like a cock's comb, and stuck it on ...
— A Christmas Greeting • Hans Christian Andersen
... decorum with an emotional fervour in preaching which had made him a popular favourite. Though feeling has now and then led him into unconventional paths of theological thought, fate has surely marked him for the adornment of a bishopric. He came to study the alleged powers of the medium. He doubted everything and everybody. The easy faith and unquestioning acceptance of miraculous events of which he was not ashamed whilst in the pulpit had now been exchanged for vigilant ...
— Mountain Meditations - and some subjects of the day and the war • L. Lind-af-Hageby
... Several servants, called maskatti, or dressers, joined us for this purpose. One took the mayor's sword to burnish it; another tied different colored bands to his tail. I will here remark, that nothing lays nearer to a monkey's heart than the adornment ...
— Niels Klim's journey under the ground • Baron Ludvig Holberg
... picture of General Washington in the act of crossing a dark, green river Delaware in a court dress of red and breeches of yellow, surrounded on all sides by ice and officers in rainbow uniforms, and, as this was the only adornment of a rather bare room, it is no wonder ...
— In the Yule-Log Glow, Book I - Christmas Tales from 'Round the World • Various
... such types the notion of the nuance, the dandy, the dude, the masher. (Divided I was, I recall, between the dread and the glory of being so greeted, "Well, Stiffy—!" as a penalty of the least attempt at personal adornment.) The higher intensity for our sense of the Norcoms came from the large, the lavish, ease of their hospitality; whereas our intercourse with the Wards was mainly in the street or at most the "yard"—and it was a wonder how intimacy could to that degree consort with publicity. A glazed ...
— A Small Boy and Others • Henry James
... been ordered to go and dress herself that she might appear at the meal. He shook hands with her very cordially, and then looked all around the little dining-room, taking in every feature of its furnishing and adornment. When he had finished, he would have been glad to shake his head again, but this would ...
— Mrs. Cliff's Yacht • Frank R. Stockton
... reveal her half-unconscious emotions of jealousy and depression and self-abandonment, or a woman carried away by the sweep of a fiery and uncontrollable passion. She could tickle the esthetic sensibilities of her victims by rich and gorgeous festivals, by the fantastic adornment of her own person and her palace, or by brilliant discussions on literature and art; she could conjure up all their grossest instincts with the vilest obscenities of conversation, with the free and easy jocularity of a ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr
... hawks and buzzards; the crows shed it from their wings and weave it into their nests of coarse sticks; the fox barks it, the cattle low it, and every mountain path leads to its haunts. I am not a spectator of, but a participator in it. It is not an adornment; its roots strike to the ...
— Birds and Poets • John Burroughs
... manhood of the town, to belch it forth weary and work-stained every night. Little groups of children straggled to school, or loitered to peep through the single, front windows at the big, gilt-edged Bibles, balanced upon small, three-legged tables, which were their usual adornment. Stout women, with thick, red arms and dirty aprons, stood upon the whitened doorsteps, leaning upon their brooms, and shrieking their morning greetings across the road. One stouter, redder, and dirtier than the rest, had gathered a small knot of cronies around her and was talking energetically, ...
— Round the Red Lamp - Being Facts and Fancies of Medical Life • Arthur Conan Doyle
... a temptation and a snare,' said he, gravely. 'The true adornment is a meek and quiet spirit. And, wife,' said he, as a sudden thought crossed his mind, 'in that matter I, too, have sinned. I wanted to ask you, could we not sleep in the grey room, instead of ...
— Cousin Phillis • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... his character. The counterbalancing principle was his unwavering allegiance to reason, his zealous acknowledgment of its excellence as a gift of God, to be freely used and safely followed on every subject of human interest. He held it to be the glory and adornment of all true religion, and the special prerogative of Christianity. He nowhere rises to greater fervour of expression than where he extols the free and devotional exercise of reason in a pure and undefiled heart; and he is convinced ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton
... cosmography. Separation of other kindred studies — p. 56-62. The uranological portion of the Cosmos is more simple than the telluric; the impossibility of ascertaining the diversity of matter simplifies the study of the mechanism of the heavens. Origin of the word 'Cosmos', its signification of adornment and order of the universe. The 'existing' can not be absolutely separated in our contemplation of nature from the 'future'. History of the world and description of the world — p. 26-73. Attempts to embrace the multiplicity of the phenomena of the Cosmos in the unity of thought ...
— COSMOS: A Sketch of the Physical Description of the Universe, Vol. 1 • Alexander von Humboldt
... chamber; finding all sorts of pretexts for sending little notes which don't seem to require little answers, but get them; culling bits out of his favourite poets, and flowers out of Covent Garden for somebody's special adornment and pleasure; walking to St. James's Church, singing very likely out of the same Prayer-book, and never hearing one word of the sermon, so much do other thoughts engross him; being prodigiously affectionate to all Miss Theo's relations—to ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... so beautiful before! Jeff had only seen her in those soft enwrappings and half-deshabille that belong to invalid femininity. Always refined and modest thus, in her present walking-costume there was added a slight touch of coquettish adornment. There was a brightness of color in her cheek and eye, partly the result of climbing the staircase, partly the result of that audacious impulse that had led her—a modest virgin—to seek a gentleman in this personal fashion. Modesty in a young girl has a comfortable satisfying ...
— Jeff Briggs's Love Story • Bret Harte
... Trees and Shrubs, By A.D. Webster. A valuable guide to planters of beautiful trees and shrubs for the adornment of parks and gardens. Second and cheaper edition. Price 2s.; ...
— Hardy Ornamental Flowering Trees and Shrubs • A. D. Webster
... persisted, staggered at the idea of being able to buy such an adornment for the trivial ...
— Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons - Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, Ruhleben • Henry Charles Mahoney
... costliest cambric, and jewels sparkled in their shirt bosoms and glittered upon their fingers. These fingers, however, told a tale. They told plainly as words, that they to whom they belonged had not always been accustomed to such elegant adornment. Toilet soap had failed to soften the corrugated skin, and obliterate ...
— The Quadroon - Adventures in the Far West • Mayne Reid
... that when one woman knows herself to be tastefully and becomingly dressed, she is so eager to assure others who are to accompany her that they need nothing by way of adornment? The ambulance was at the door. The visit to town had been contemplated for two or three days, so matters were quickly arranged. There was abundant room, and Mrs. Stannard ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King
... looked at him kindly, playing with the buttons on his coat in a childlike simplicity. Her blue-drilling dress was sewed all over with patches of white, representing ornamental buttons. The womanly instinct toward adornment had in her taken ...
— The Hoosier Schoolmaster - A Story of Backwoods Life in Indiana • Edward Eggleston
... at the far side of the chamber and a strange, dried up, little mummy of a man came toward me. He wore but a single article of clothing or adornment, a small collar of gold from which depended upon his chest a great ornament as large as a dinner plate set solid with huge diamonds, except for the exact center which was occupied by a strange stone, an inch in diameter, ...
— A Princess of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... the name of her husband nor enter his clan, and the children belonged to the clan of the mother. All of the family property was held by her, descent was traced in the maternal line, and the honor of the house was in her hands. Modesty was her chief adornment; hence the younger women were usually silent and retiring: but a woman who had attained to ripeness of years and wisdom, or who had displayed notable courage in some emergency, was sometimes invited to a ...
— The Soul of the Indian - An Interpretation • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman
... proof. Ladies of high rank employed themselves thus, for various purposes, previous to the reformation; and it is a fact, worthy of especial notice, that in those ages, when it has been required for the adornment of the temples, and the encouragement of honorable valor and has thus become associated with the sanctifying influences of religion and manly virtue, it has flourished most.[64-*] Queen Adelicia, ...
— The Ladies' Work-Table Book • Anonymous
... reap the advantages of human folly: a world in which lust and obscenity, lying and treachery, oppression and murder, were pleasant, useful, and when properly managed, not dangerous. And as a sort of fringe or adornment to the substantial delights of tyranny, avarice, and lasciviousness, there was the patronage of polite learning and the fine arts, so that flattery could always be had in the choicest Latin to be commanded at that time, and sublime artists were at hand to ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... Papacy. One of them represented the three Ages of Man, the other the Ages of the World, ingeniously set forth in five scenes of Roman history, and in two allegories of the golden age of Saturn and of its final return. The imagination displayed in the adornment of the chariots, when the great Florentine artists undertook the work, made the scene so impressive that such representations became in time a permanent element in the popular life. Hitherto the subject cities had been satisfied merely to present ...
— The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy • Jacob Burckhardt
... decoration that might have savored of dust, decay, or moisture. The four large windows and long, open door, set in scanty strips of the plainest spotless muslin, framed in themselves pictures of woods and rock and sky of limitless depth, color, and distance, that made all other adornment impertinent. Nature, invading the room at every opening, had banished Art from ...
— A Phyllis of the Sierras • Bret Harte
... sauntered back to the living-room, they made a wide detour, rather than risk crossing the space beneath the brilliant chandelier with its innocent adornment. The host, after carefully depositing the cripple in the easiest chair, smiled over to ...
— Polly and the Princess • Emma C. Dowd
... ought to occupy the time that is on their hands by becoming ornamental, and increasing the world's store of beauty. In a sense, certainly, they are ornamental. It is a strange fact, and an ironic, that they spend quite five times the annual amount that was spent by their grandmothers on personal adornment. If they can afford it, well and good: let us have no sumptuary law. But plenty of pretty dresses will not suffice. Pretty manners are needed with them, and are ...
— Yet Again • Max Beerbohm
... and adornment. That of a book involves two other demands mutually so contradictory that bookbinding has always offered a most attractive challenge to the skill of the handicraftsman. The first demand is that the book when closed shall form a well-squared ...
— The Booklover and His Books • Harry Lyman Koopman
... of the ocean crossing had given her sweet girlish face a waxen transparency. At her request the stewardess had loosened her hair, and it lay spread in a golden flood over her white pillow, a golden flood, the sight of which was highly disturbing to Frederick. Where was there an adornment for the head, a queen's diadem, which could exercise so powerful, so divine a charm? It seemed to Frederick as if that tremendous vessel, with its hundreds of human ants, were nothing more than the cocoon of this tiny silkworm, ...
— Atlantis • Gerhart Hauptmann
... told me afterwards her father valued them at ten thousand doubloons, and those she had on her wrists were worth as much more. The pearls were in profusion and very fine, for the highest display and adornment of the Moorish women is decking themselves with rich pearls and seed-pearls; and of these there are therefore more among the Moors than among any other people. Zoraida's father had to the reputation of possessing a great number, and the purest in all Algiers, and of possessing ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... companion, the central portion of the fresco is devised as the interior of a Greek house, where within a semicircular alcove we see a number of Greek maidens and older women, delightfully grouped, mainly occupied in the art of personal adornment. Before this house is the waterside, with a very decorative boat, confined by a gracefully-looped chain, whose curve, as it hangs, is very subtly designed to complete the salient lines of the whole composition. On either side of this interior we have ...
— Frederic Lord Leighton - An Illustrated Record of His Life and Work • Ernest Rhys
... describes them, they were generally held in a narrow, badly lighted room, with no adornment but a large green cross or some picture of a saint hanging beside the master's table. The master was often an old soldier in fantastic dress, with ill-tempered visage. The scholar entered, walked the length of the room, knelt before the cross or picture, recited a prayer, ...
— History of California • Helen Elliott Bandini
... was Teacher whom he dearly loved, whose ideals of personal adornment extended to full sets of buttons on jumpers and to laces in both shoes, here was his immaculate lady fair in urgent need of assistance and advice, and all because she had on that day inaugurated a delightfully vigorous exercise for which, ...
— Little Citizens • Myra Kelly
... the terrace to the wider extent of the palace pleasaunce beyond, scattered such perfume with his snipping shears as might have lured another Proserpine from Hell. Cluster after cluster of white blooms, carefully selected for the adornment of the Royal apartments, he laid beside him on the grass, not presuming to look in the direction where that other Workman in the ways of life sat silent and absorbed in thought. That other, in his own long-practised manner, feigned not to be aware of his dependant's ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli
... different kind of society, which is devoted to this purpose, must hence be formed. It is becoming, indeed, to apply the whole richness and magnificence of human discourse to the loftiest subject which language can reach—not as if there were any adornment, with which religion could not dispense, but because it would show a frivolous and unholy disposition in its heralds if they did not bring together the most copious resources within their power and consecrate them all to religion, so that they might ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various
... they were. But Daisy would not give up. She grew very warm indeed with the excitement of her efforts, but she worked on. By and by she succeeded in dressing a basket so that it looked rich with green; and then a bit or two of rosebuds or heath or bright yellow everlasting made the adornment gay and pretty enough. It was taken for a model; and from that time tongues and fingers worked together, and ...
— Melbourne House • Elizabeth Wetherell
... insure. Indeed, it is said that the Indian holds rather in contempt what we so complacently regard, and will often testify to his scorn by plucking out the hairs which protrude, and would fain lend themselves to his adornment. ...
— A Treatise on the Six-Nation Indians • James Bovell Mackenzie
... that a whole fifth of the Sanvianos' income was spent on Gheta's clothes; and this left only the most meager provision for Lavinia. But this, the latter felt, was just—still in the convent, she required comparatively little personal adornment; while the other's beauty demanded a worthy emphasis. Later Lavinia would have tulle and silver lace. She wished, however, that Gheta would get married; for Lavinia knew that even if she came home she would be held back until the older ...
— The Happy End • Joseph Hergesheimer
... Mendelssohn, a Mozart, a Beethoven? Whither had fled all those wistful dreams and ardent aspirations? What was Linn Moore now?—why, a singer in comic opera, his face beplastered almost out of recognition; a pet of the frivolous-fashionable side of London society; the chief adornment of photographers' windows. ...
— Prince Fortunatus • William Black
... proportionate value to the orator of inventio, dispositio, elocutio, memoria, and pronuntiatio, and how to manage each; he must know how to apply inventio in each of the six divisions of the speech: exordium, narratio, divisio, confirmatio, confutatio, conclusio. On the subject of adornment of style a relatively small task lay in memorizing illustrations of some sixty figures of speech—and so on ad infinitum. Inane cymbalon juventutis is indeed a fitting commentary on such memory tasks. The end of the poem cited betrays the fact ...
— Vergil - A Biography • Tenney Frank
... neighbours to the south of us. But my constitutional governorship is nearly over, and now that I am practically out of harness, I mean to assume autocratic airs, and confess to you that I have sometimes wished for the benefit and adornment of your city to become its dictator with plenary power of raising federal and local taxes for any object which may have seemed best to my despotic will. But I have faith in popular rule, and believe that when I next visit Ottawa I shall see the city ...
— Memories of Canada and Scotland - Speeches and Verses • John Douglas Sutherland Campbell
... gone, when Sebastian Dolores and Seraphe Corniche were asleep, he had got up again and left the house, to gaze at the spot where the big white mill with the red roof had been-the mill which had been there in the days of the Baron of Beaugard, and to which time had only added size and adornment. The gold-cock weathervane of the mill, so long the admiration of people living and dead, and indeed the symbol of himself, as he had been told, being so full of life and pride, courage and vigour-it lay among the ruins, a blackened relic ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... quantities. In the same sacred locality, and at the same early day in the history of time, 'the bdellium and the onyx stone' were found in their beauty; yet were they few and rare, until God would consecrate the treasures of the earth to His own service in the construction and adornment of the tabernacle and the temple. The great treasure house of earth was then opened, until gold became common as brass, and precious stones numerous almost as the pebbles of the brook, and the ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, Issue 2, February, 1864 • Various
... collection cost upwards of 30,000 ducats. For the expenses of so large a household, and the maintenance of this fine library, not to mention a palace that was being built and churches that required adornment, the mere revenues of the duchy could not have sufficed. Federigo owed his wealth to his engagements as a general. Military service formed his trade. 'In 1453,' says Dennistoun, 'his war-pay from Alfonso of Naples exceeded 8,000 ducats a month, and for ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds
... and spiritual chiefs, the ancient streets of Le Mans were set thick with houses, the dwellings of priests and citizens, which showed how well both classes throve, and how each did something for the adornment of the city in every form of art, from Romanesque to Renaissance. But a little time back the traveller might have seen at Le Mans more houses of the twelfth century than he would see anywhere north of Venice. ...
— Sketches of Travel in Normandy and Maine • Edward A. Freeman
... who should I see but our quondam lady passenger from Sydney, Miss Ribbids, reclining on a bank in the most luxurious fashion! She had walked up the valley alone, she informed us, and the natives had been most kind to her, giving her fruits, and wreaths of flowers for her adornment. ...
— A Boy's Voyage Round the World • The Son of Samuel Smiles
... ornamentation, ornamental art; ornature^, ornateness; adornment, decoration, embellishment; architecture; jewelry &c 847.1. [surface coatings for wood: list] garnish, polish, varnish, French polish, veneer, japanning, lacquer. [surface coatings for metal] gilding, plating, ormolu, enamel, cloisonne. [surface coatings for human skin] cosmetics (in general), ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... destruction of animal life which it involves, but in Saugor, and also in the north of India, many of them have now taken to it, and some plough with their own hands. Mr. Marten notes [288] that the Jains are beginning to put their wealth to a more practical purpose than the lavish erection and adornment of temples. Schools and boarding-houses for boys and girls of their religion are being opened, and they subscribe liberally for the building of medical institutions. It may be hoped that this movement will continue and gather strength, both ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India—Volume I (of IV) • R.V. Russell
... and I was dining with the Caerlaverocks en garcon. When I have not to wait upon the adornment of the female person I am a man of punctual habits, and I reached the house as the hall clock chimed the quarter-past. My poor friend, Tommy Deloraine, arrived along with me, and we ascended the staircase together. I call him "my poor friend," for at the moment Tommy ...
— The Moon Endureth—Tales and Fancies • John Buchan
... knowledge of the damning fact. He held it for proved that she was dressed to leave him; and the sight of her, refreshed and rejuvenated, gave the last thrust to his tottering sense. He demanded with such savageness the meaning of her adornment, that the indignant amazement with which she turned on him was real, ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... delineate the stronger Passions of the Mind, each Passion being the subject of a Tragedy and a Comedy." In a lengthened preliminary dissertation, she discoursed regarding the drama in all its relations, maintaining the ascendency of simple nature over every species of adornment and decoration. "Let one simple trait of the human heart, one expression of passion, genuine and true to nature," she wrote, "be introduced, and it will stand forth alone in the boldness of reality, whilst the false and unnatural ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel , Volume I. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... of the low-pitched classic pediments, there appears frequently an arched cornice enclosing a sculptured lunette. Doors and windows were enclosed in richly carved frames, sometimes arched and sometimes square. Faades were flat and unbroken, depending mainly for effect upon the distribution and adornment of the openings, and the design of doorways, courtyards and cornices. Internally vaults and flat ceilings of wood and plaster were about equally common, the barrel vault and dome occurring far more frequently than the groined vault. Many of the ceilings of this period ...
— A Text-Book of the History of Architecture - Seventh Edition, revised • Alfred D. F. Hamlin
... together all the necessaries for comfort, we have taken nothing for adornment," said he, "and 'twere pity the prison were duller than it need be. Choose thou a pretty face or two from among these old pictures, my little Gretchen, and an ornament for his mantelshelf. Young as thou art, thou hast the woman's wit ...
— Monsieur Maurice • Amelia B. Edwards
... art and the virtue-loving part of mankind the great integrity of the character of Sir Joshua Reynolds. Documents and testimonies are sufficient to establish as much entire worth as falls to the lot and adornment of the best; and to bring this conviction, that, for the justice, candour, liberality, kindness, and generosity, which he showed in his dealings with all, even his professional rivals, if he had not had the extraordinary merit of being ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 53, No. 331, May, 1843 • Various
... died before the story began. Somehow he could not "see" his cattleman as one who would set aside the barrier of race and take a squaw for his wife. He could not see Annie-Many-Ponies as anything save what she was—a beautiful young savage with an odd adornment of civilized speech and some of the civilized customs, it is true, but a savage for all that. He did not want to spoil her by portraying her as a ...
— The Phantom Herd • B. M. Bower
... Hornby all the money he had with him except four dollars, and his wife had given him a list of groceries to be purchased in the city. It rather pleased him to use the money toward his daughter's adornment and it tickled his pride as well to give his last cent toward her education. Mrs. Hornby looked at the money he placed in her hand, and hesitated visibly. Josiah Farnshaw stiffened at her manner. Aunt Susan hated to ask for more, but ...
— The Wind Before the Dawn • Dell H. Munger
... end of the island is barely visible from the steamer, hidden as it is by foliage, but it is distinctly seen by New York Central travelers in the winter season. Colonel Cruger has spared no expense in the adornment of his grounds, and a beautiful drive is afforded the visitor. The island is connected by a roadway across a tongue of land which separates the North from the South Bay. Above this island east of the steamer's channel across the railway of the New York Central, ...
— The Hudson - Three Centuries of History, Romance and Invention • Wallace Bruce
... north; they brought their families, and began to engage in the business of exporting the fruits and the fibres, as well as the ores and the dyes from the island. From the white women the native women learned the new art of dressing, and of adornment. ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Adventures on Strange Islands • Roger Thompson Finlay
... others a chance? To produce a greater impression by suspense? No and no. I wrote you I was with the Pettigrews. We caught the coach, we caught the boat, we were only two hours late for the Ball; so we did wonders. And good Mrs. Pettigrew is, pining somewhere to complete her adornment. I was in the crush, spying for Emmy, when Mr. Mayor informed me it was the duty of every Irishwoman to dance her toes off, if she 'd be known for what she is. And twirl! a man had me by the waist, and I dying to ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... principles must be kept in mind. The first is that the garments must be warm without being unduly heavy; and another that they should be roomy, permitting perfect freedom of motion. A third no less important principle is simplicity. Adornment of the clothing gratifies the mother, but does not serve a single useful purpose. The lists which follow include all that is necessary for the young infant; they will also serve as a basis for elaboration if a more ...
— The Prospective Mother - A Handbook for Women During Pregnancy • J. Morris Slemons
... orchards, and wild honey; the dangers of its hunters; its weariness in noonday heat; its children, agile as the goats they tend, who run, in their picturesque rags, across the solitary wanderer's path, to startle him, in the unfamiliar upper places; its one adornment and solace being the dance to the homely shepherd's pipe, cut by Pan first from the sedges ...
— Greek Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater
... / and Hagen, doughty thane. The story further telleth / how that the heroes twain Of color black as raven / rich attire wore, And each a broad and mighty / shield of rich adornment bore. ...
— The Nibelungenlied - Translated into Rhymed English Verse in the Metre of the Original • trans. by George Henry Needler
... cottages on the estate some specimens of minaque lace were offered to us—a lace made by most of the peasants in this part of the country. It varies considerably in quality, from the coarse kind, used for covering furniture, to the finest description, used for personal adornment It is very cheap, wears for ever, and strongly resembles the torchon lace, now so fashionable in Paris and London for trimming petticoats and children's frocks. The women also spin, dye, and weave the wool from the fleece ...
— A Voyage in the 'Sunbeam' • Annie Allnut Brassey
... leaning close, says, 'Maiden, comb my hair and catch the skipping fleas, and remove what stings my skin.' Then he sat and spread his arms that sweated under the gold, lolling on the smooth cushion and leaning back on his elbow, wishing to flaunt his adornment, just as a barking brute unfolds the gathered coils of its twisted tail. But she knew me, and began to check her lover and rebuff his wanton hands; and, declaring that it was I, she said, 'Refrain thy fingers, check thy promptings, take ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... been an animated fragment of the debris, rustled out of a low vaulted passage and welcomed them with a feeble crepitation. Following her into the dim interior, Mrs. Tucker was surprised to find some slight attempt at comfort and even adornment in the two or three habitable apartments. They were scrupulously clean and dry, two qualities which in her feminine eyes ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte
... recovery, and always in strong contrast with the rough-hewn mass in which it is kindled—is in various ways the motive of all his work, whether its immediate subject be Pagan or Christian, legend or allegory; and this, although at least one-half of his work was designed for the adornment of tombs—the tomb of Julius, the tombs of the Medici. Not the Judgment but the Resurrection is the real subject of his last work in the Sistine Chapel; and his favourite Pagan subject is the legend of Leda, the delight of the world breaking from the egg of a bird. ...
— The Renaissance - Studies in Art and Poetry • Walter Pater
... becomes encrusted with imagery. Herein again he deviates from the true Nature poet, the normal Wordsworth type of Nature poet: imagery was to him not a mere means of expression, not even a mere means of adornment; it was a ...
— Shelley - An Essay • Francis Thompson
... Bella Bathgate. Bella is almost like a stage-caricature of a Scotswoman, so dour she is and uncompromising and she positively glories in the drab ugliness of her rooms. Ugliness means to Bella respectability; any attempt at adornment is 'daft-like.' ...
— Penny Plain • Anna Buchan (writing as O. Douglas)
... once an aristocrat and an angel. He began to make verses about her, of course—ghastly, fustian stuff, at the recollection of which the Solitary shuddered, and then laughed. But from that day forward Paul had spasmodic rages of personal cleanliness and adornment. ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray
... disdain! When they lead you into cities without castles or temples, where trade and commerce rule; among whitewashed houses where the spirit of Beauty is not, and the green window-shutters are the sole adornment—murmur ...
— The Continental Monthly, Volume V. Issue I • Various
... are produced great revolutions, and wholly new conditions of intercourse, sees from this simple thought how the carriage of an umbrella came to indicate frugality, judicious regard for bodily welfare, and scorn for mere outward adornment, and, in one word, all those homely and solid virtues implied in the term RESPECTABILITY. Not that the umbrella's costliness has nothing to do with its great influence. Its possession, besides symbolising (as we have already indicated) the change from wild Esau to ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... of home-making. She was a true decorative artist. Her room when she was boarding, and her home after it was completed, were bowers of beauty. Every walk over hill and dale, every ramble by brookside or through wildwood, gave to her some fresh home-adornment. Some shy wildflower or fern, or brilliant-tinted leaf, a bit of moss, a curious lichen, a deserted bird's-nest, a strange fragment of rock, a shining pebble, would catch her passing glance and reveal to her quick artistic sense possibilities of use which ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... in vain for romantic ardor. Even in the lyrics and love poems a critical, intellectual spirit takes its place, and whatever romance asserts itself is in form rather than in feeling, a fantastic and artificial adornment of speech rather than the natural utterance of a heart in which sentiment is so strong and true that poetry is its ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... shapeless. It necessarily is so with all timber that is not thinned in its growth. When fine forest trees are found, and are left standing alone by any cultivator who may have taste enough to wish for such adornment, they almost invariably die. They are robbed of the sickly shelter by which they have been surrounded; the hot sun strikes the uncovered fibers of the roots, and the poor, solitary invalid languishes, and ...
— Volume 1 • Anthony Trollope
... But nature's adornment was still hard by—in fact, within two feet of him, though he did not know it. In Marty's basket was a brown paper packet, and in the packet the chestnut locks, which, by reason of the barber's request for secrecy, she had not ventured to intrust to ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... being now in the thirty-first year of his age, and captain of the city and of the stronghold. And there, too, surrounded by her handmaidens and slaves, in a wing of the palace apart from the rest, and more beautiful for its gardens and marvellous adornment, lived Nehushta, the last of the descendants of Jehoiakim the king remaining in Media; she was the fairest of all the women in Media, of royal blood and ...
— Marzio's Crucifix and Zoroaster • F. Marion Crawford
... this, my first advance into French territory. My impression of France will always be that it is an Arctic region. At any season of the year, the tract over which we passed yesterday must be an uninteresting one as regards its natural features; and the only adornment, as far as I could observe, which art has given it, consists in straight rows of very stiff-looking and slender-stemmed trees. In the ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... ancestors were informed of the important event which had taken place! Then, when this horn-shaped knot had been covered by a high hat of gauze tied tightly on with ribbons, the Korean arose transformed into a being of dignity and consequence. It was the abolishment of this sacred adornment which brought about a rebellion. Those who did not obey the order were hiding from the officials, while those who did were mobbed and in danger of being ...
— A Short History of Russia • Mary Platt Parmele
... into the world; Nature made them fall into her snare. One must have exceptional prudence to defeat Nature's schemes. Let us be sorry for them and not blame them! As for silk dresses, there is no young woman who does not like them. The daughters of Eve adore adornment. You yourself, Therese— who are so serious and sensible—what a fuss you make when you have no white apron to wait at table in! But, tell me, have they got everything ...
— The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard • Anatole France
... paces onward to the right, Close by the pathway, was an open grave, Not of the humbler sort, shaped newly out, Narrow and deep in the dark mould; when closed, To be roofed over with the living sod, And left for all adornment (and so best) To Nature's reverential hand. The tomb, Made ready there for a fresh habitant, Was that of an old family. I knew it.— A very ancient altar-tomb, where Time With his rough fretwork mark'd the sculptor's art Feebly elaborate—heraldic shields And mortuary emblems, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 350, December 1844 • Various
... there."[1] And again: "We rely upon your zeal and prudence to see that the required blocks of marble are forwarded from Faenza to Ravenna without any extortion from private persons; so that, on the one hand, our desire for the adornment of that city may be gratified, and, on the other, there may be no cause for complaint on the part ...
— Ravenna, A Study • Edward Hutton
... a room about which were strewn many articles of feminine adornment. Yet it was not an untidy apartment. True, dresser drawers did yawn and disclose their contents, and closet doors gaped at one, showing a collection of shoes and skirts. But then the occupants of ...
— The Moving Picture Girls at Rocky Ranch - Or, Great Days Among the Cowboys • Laura Lee Hope
... and suppliant, seeing that look, so timid and downcast, Felton reproached himself. By degrees the enchantress had clothed herself with that magic adornment which she assumed and threw aside at will; that is to say, beauty, meekness, and tears—and above all, the irresistible attraction of mystical voluptuousness, the ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... clear and impart to it the warmth of feeling with which it is clothed in your own mind except by a touch of imaginative color, then use a figure of speech, if one flashes itself on your mind. If you add it deliberately as adornment of your speech, it will strike a false note; if you laboriously invent it the effort will show. Unless your thought and your eagerness for your subject flow naturally and inevitably into an image, it is better to stick to plain speech, for ...
— The Making of Arguments • J. H. Gardiner
... read "off the reel." As a book in two volumes I think it would have good claims to success, and good chances of obtaining success. But I suppose the polishing I have hinted at (not a meretricious adornment, but positively necessary to good work and good art) to have been first ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 2 (of 3), 1857-1870 • Charles Dickens
... that the Chinese merchandise can in no way injure the commerce of Espana, while its benefit to Peru is certain—especially to the poor and common people, of whom there is a great number—and since it seems desirable, for the adornment of the churches of the Indians, that there should be goods from China, my opinion would be that license should be given for only one-half million (ordering under heavy penalties that this sum be not exceeded), ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XII, 1601-1604 • Edited by Blair and Robertson |
