"Alabaster" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... wee slip of a child in white, who stood, poised like a startled fawn. Three pale spot-limes swam uncertainly from roof and wings, drifted a moment, then picked her up, focusing her gleaming hair and alabaster arms. I looked at ...
— Nights in London • Thomas Burke
... alabaster hair came to take my order. I asked for jaco and bunlets, and carried the food to a wall shelf near the Dry-towners. Their dialect fell soft and familiar on my ears. One of them, without altering the expression on his face or the easy tone of his voice, began to make elaborate comments ...
— The Door Through Space • Marion Zimmer Bradley
... shoulder. He looked up and saw the face of a young woman, dark-eyed, red-lipped, only a few years older than himself. She was clad in silk, with a veil of gauze over her head, gold coins in her hair, and a phial of alabaster hanging by a gold chain around her neck. A sweet perfume like the breath of roses came from it as she moved. Her voice was soft ...
— The Valley of Vision • Henry Van Dyke
... fourteenth centuries, is stripped bare of ornament. On the other side of the entrance lies a royal Prince of English birth, John of Eltham, the second son of Edward II., and thus grandson to Henry III. To the student of armour the alabaster effigy is of special interest as a specimen of the military costume of the fourteenth century; while the coronet is the earliest known example of ducal form—the title of Duke was not introduced into England till rather later. The ...
— Westminster Abbey • Mrs. A. Murray Smith
... their day, Herman Glosencamp, Andre Rash and Roger de Smet. There is in the South Kensington Museum a full-sized plaster cast of this gigantic chimney piece, the lower part being coloured black to indicate the marble of which it was composed, with panels of alabaster carved in relief, while the whole of the upper portion and the richly carved ceiling of the room is of oak. The model, including the surrounding woodwork, measures thirty-six feet across, and should not be missed by any one who is interested in the subject of furniture, for it is noteworthy ...
— Illustrated History of Furniture - From the Earliest to the Present Time • Frederick Litchfield
... the cliff for about four yards. There it bent sharply to the right in an elbow. This offset extended three or four yards and then bent to the left in a similar elbow, opening into a cavern more than fifteen yards wide, twice as long or longer, and with a roof of dim white pendants like alabaster, no part of which was less than five yards from the conveniently level, rather damp floor, while some ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... my liberty if I preferred to return to the world. At the same time he attempted to put his arm around my waist. In a moment I was on my feet. While he was talking love to me, I was looking at two large alabaster vases full of beautiful wax flowers; one of them was as much as I could lift. Without one thought about consequences, I seized the nearest vase and threw it with all the strength I had at the priest's ...
— Life in the Grey Nunnery at Montreal • Sarah J Richardson
... I saw the remains of a bath, fronting the portal of the temple, which I have described in a former letter; and here were some shafts of marble pillars, particularly a capital of the Corinthian order beautifully cut, of white alabaster. Here the count found a large quantity of fine marble, which he has converted to various uses; and some mutilated statues, bronze as well as marble. The peasant shewed me some brass and silver medals, which he has picked up at different ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... picked up some tesserae of mosaic, and morsels of marble and alabaster,—a piece of the latter now lies on the table ...
— Byeways in Palestine • James Finn
... began to show signs of life and motion. Huge masses of opaque mist, that had shut us in like walls of alabaster, were rent asunder and noiselessly rolled away. The change was magical. In a few moments we found ourselves under a cloudless sky, upon a sparkling sea, flooded with sunshine, and the Golden Gate wide open to ...
— In the Footprints of the Padres • Charles Warren Stoddard
... creature, not even able to drop a tear at so meeting with her humiliated parent, who, from the moment that she was known, could only gaze like the effigy of some extraordinary consternation carved in alabaster stone. ...
— Ringan Gilhaize - or The Covenanters • John Galt
... being anxious to see what was within the shrine that, the cedar door having rotted away, was filled with fine, drifted sand. Basketful by basketful we got it out and then, my friend, there appeared the most beautiful life-sized statue of Isis carved in alabaster that ever I have seen. She was seated on a throne-like chair and wore the vulture cap on which traces of colour remained. Her arms were held forward as though to support a child, which perhaps she was suckling as one of the breasts was bare. But if so, the child had ...
— The Ancient Allan • H. Rider Haggard
... Haddon and Ascham, the pride of Elizabeth's reign, however they have succeeded in prose, no sooner attempt verse than they provoke derision. If we produced any thing worthy of notice before the elegies of Milton, it was, perhaps, Alabaster's Roxana[27]. ...
— Lives of the Poets, Vol. 1 • Samuel Johnson
... we have seen till we have utterly ceased to see them, the things that nobody who really lives in Florence ever dreams of buying, are new to these people. They love them. As a result, you can guess. There will be in their apartments alabaster plates with profiles of Dante and Michelangelo on a black center. There will be mosaic tables with magnolias and irises. There will be Pliny's doves. Think of it! There will be green ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall
... whence it kindles, none is lost, And it is soon extinct; thus from the horn, That on the dexter of the cross extends, Down to its foot, one luminary ran From mid the cluster shone there; yet no gem Dropp'd from its foil; and through the beamy list Like flame in alabaster, glow'd its course. ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... agreed the Brazilian. "I have rather a mania for that sort of thing, myself. Wait. Let me show you." And he went into the inner cabin. When he came back he held up an alabaster cup. "A Greek kylix!" he cried. "Pure Greek! What an outline, eh? This is what keeps me from putting on my slippers! I have no doubt Alexander left it behind him. Perhaps Hephaistion drank out of it, or Nearchus, to celebrate his return from India. And some rascally ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... elements conspired to devour her. The river, with an overrunning flood, swept away a large portion of the walls. The besiegers entered through the breach, and set the city on fire. The charcoal, burnt beans, and slabs of half-calcined alabaster, in the British Museum, demonstrate the fulfillment of ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson
... do. The reredos is alabaster, I believe, and we had nobody fit to undertake that. I so longed for the ...
— Beechcroft at Rockstone • Charlotte M. Yonge
... her cruse of alabaster, Filled with ointment rare and sweet, Came the woman to the Master, Knelt contritely at His feet, Feeling with unfeigned contrition How unfit was her condition ...
— Hymns and Hymnwriters of Denmark • Jens Christian Aaberg
... with the modern hospital. The chapel is particularly beautiful; it is the gift of Mr. W. H. Barry, a brother of the architect, and the walls are adorned with frescoes above inlaid blocks of veined alabaster. ...
— Holborn and Bloomsbury - The Fascination of London • Sir Walter Besant
... knowledge, as in all courteous art—in dance, in song, in sweet wit, in lofty learning, in loftier courage, in loftiest love—able alike to cheer, to enchant, or save, the souls of men. Above all this scenery of perfect human life, rose dome and bell-tower, burning with white alabaster and gold; beyond dome and bell-tower the slopes of mighty hills, hoary with olive; far in the north, above a purple sea of peaks of solemn Apennine, the clear, sharp-cloven Carrara mountains sent up their steadfast flames of marble summit into amber sky; the great sea itself, scorching with ...
— The Two Paths • John Ruskin
... the priest was stripping the robe from the girl at his feet. She stood like a statue, a carving of purest alabaster, slim and erect in her white, slender nakedness. And the face that he saw through incredulous eyes ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, June, 1930 • Various
... There was hardly a tonsure in Italy which covered more than thoughts and hopes of lust and avarice. Religion and morals which God had joined together, were set by man a thousand leagues asunder. Yet religion still sat upon the alabaster throne of Peter, and in the filthy straw of the meanest Calabrian confessional. And still deeper remained a blind devoted superstition. Vitellozzo Vitelli, as Machiavelli tells us, while being strangled by Caeesar Borgia's assassin, implored his ...
— Machiavelli, Volume I - The Art of War; and The Prince • Niccolo Machiavelli
... centre quadrangle he notices the stone cross in the middle of grass sward. He enters the minster, and describes the arches as carved and gilded, the wide windows full of shields of arms and merchants' marks on stained glass, the high tombs under canopies, with armed effigies in alabaster, and lovely ladies lying by their sides in many gay garments. He passes into the cloister, and sees it pillared and painted, and covered with lead, and conduits of white metal pouring water into bronze lavatories beautifully wrought. The chapter-house was like a great ...
— English Villages • P. H. Ditchfield
... delighted me. There was no screen,—nothing between the vestibule and the altar to break the long vista; even the organ stood aside,—though it by and by made us aware of its presence by a melodious roar. Around the walls there were old engraved brasses, and a stone coffin, and an alabaster knight of Saint John, and an alabaster lady, each recumbent at full length, as large as life, and in perfect preservation, except for a slight modern touch at the tips of their noses. In the chancel we saw a great deal of oaken work, quaintly and admirably carved, especially about ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... was thinking this over, the swimmers drew near to a great, circular palace made all of solid alabaster polished as smooth as ivory. Its roof was a vast dome, for domes seemed to be fashionable in the ocean houses. There were no doors or windows, but instead of these, several round holes appeared in different parts of the dome, ...
— The Sea Fairies • L. Frank Baum
... kind, and impatiently watching till the clerks left their apartments for the counting-house. At last she herself crept into Anton's room. She gave one more searching glance at the sofa-cushion she had worked, and arranged in an alabaster vase all the flowers that the gardener had succeeded in forcing. While so engaged, her eye fell upon the drawing that Anton had done on his first arrival, and on the rich carpet which Fink had had laid down. Where was Fink now? She felt on this ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag
... of those who dwell In the halls of frost and snow, Who pass where the crystal domes upswell From the alabaster floors below, Where the frost-trees shoot with leaf and spray, And frost-gems scatter ...
— Poetical Works of William Cullen Bryant - Household Edition • William Cullen Bryant
... hear the voice parental Cry, "my youngster shall not row!" Then my wrath is transcendental, Then my words with vigour flow. Sires, with hearts of alabaster, Your stern "vetos" yet you'll rue, When ye see a sixth disaster, ...
— Sagittulae, Random Verses • E. W. Bowling
... the faith from which he had wandered. Outside of prayer, days and nights at his bedside had made him hers: vigils, nursing, suffering, helplessness, dependence—all these had been as purest oil to that alabaster lamp of love which burned within her ...
— The Reign of Law - A Tale of the Kentucky Hemp Fields • James Lane Allen
... The alchemists. Drugs age you after mental excitement. Lethargy then. Why? Reaction. A lifetime in a night. Gradually changes your character. Living all the day among herbs, ointments, disinfectants. All his alabaster lilypots. Mortar and pestle. Aq. Dist. Fol. Laur. Te Virid. Smell almost cure you like the dentist's doorbell. Doctor Whack. He ought to physic himself a bit. Electuary or emulsion. The first fellow that picked an herb to cure himself had a bit of pluck. Simples. Want ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... health and innocence—you are, indeed, my pretty lass;— but parva componere magnis.—Miss Darnel is all amazing beauty, delicacy, and dignity! Then the softness and expression of her fine blue eyes; her pouting lips of coral hue; her neck, that rises like a tower of polished alabaster between two mounts of snow. I tell you what, gemmen, it don't signify talking; if e'er a one of you was to meet this young lady alone, in the midst of a heath or common, or any unfrequented place, he would down on his knees, and think he ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett
... matters appertaining to the Gods as it is meet that children should know. So I grew strong and comely, for my hair was black as the hair of the divine Nout, and my eyes were blue as the blue lotus, and my skin was like the alabaster within the sanctuaries. For now that these glories have passed from me I may speak of them without shame. I was strong also. There was no youth of my years in Abouthis who could stand against me to wrestle with me, nor could any throw so far with the sling or spear. And I much yearned to hunt ...
— Cleopatra • H. Rider Haggard
... The exterior of the Cathedral takes the place of the interior, and the point of view recedes, the whole fabric smalling into distance and becoming like a rare, delicately carved alabaster ornament. The city itself sinks to miniature, the Alps show afar as a white corrugation, the Adriatic and the Gulf of Genoa appear on this and on that hand, with Italy between them, till clouds cover ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... when she lifted her hands, which was often, for she was as full of gestures as a Frenchwoman. Her bodice was cut low, both back and front, showing her large perfectly molded throat and neck, like an alabaster pillar of beauty and strength, and disclosing her bosom just to its shadowy incurving, white and billowy as drifted snow. Her hair was thrown back in an attempt at a coil, though, like her own rebellious nature, it could not brook ...
— When Knighthood Was in Flower • Charles Major
... it is danced properly,—to proper music, by the proper persons, and with proper ardor,—all the elements break loose. Mirth and music and bright eyes respectively shower, thunder and lighten. In the old days, it snowed too—for the powder fell in alabaster dust and foamy clouds, and crammed the ...
— The Youth of Jefferson - A Chronicle of College Scrapes at Williamsburg, in Virginia, A.D. 1764 • Anonymous
... a scholar. There were roller maps upon the walls, and two or three engravings, Bougereau's "Virgin of Consolation," the "Madonna dei Ansidei" of Raffaelle, and a "Crucifixion" over the chimneypiece, which had three little statuettes in tinted alabaster—a St. Ignatius at one end, a St. Anthony of Padua at the other; in the middle, ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... Some alabaster slabs came to light at Tell el Amarna bearing the hieroglyphic names of King Amenophis IV. and his father, Amenophis III. These had evidently served as lids to the chests. Some tablets also were inscribed with notes in ...
— The Tell El Amarna Period • Carl Niebuhr
... on the platform she closed her eyes and allowed her chin to fall; and so sat, with her hands nestling in her lap, indifferent to everything, caring for nothing but rest. And she was so white again—white as alabaster. ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc Volume 2 • Mark Twain
... mark which has clung to us ever since, and which a noted clairvoyant predicted would never disappear until the feudal parties came together, and a Murdock wedding with a Richards. The offspring of such union would be without taint or blemish, he said, and I am told, sir, your boy is fair as alabaster." ...
— Bad Hugh • Mary Jane Holmes
... I know thee turning back now to behold me, To bow thee and make thee bare, Not for sin's sake but penitence, by my feet to hold me, And wipe them with thine hair. And sweet ointment of thy grief thou hast brought thy master, And set before thy lord, From a box of flawed and broken alabaster, Thy broken spirit, poured. And love-offerings, tears and perfumes, hast thou given me, To reach my feet and touch; Therefore thy sins, which are many, are forgiven thee, Because ...
— Songs before Sunrise • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... am just (Sept. 9) informed by Governor Wallace, that the Sierra de Tecolote, east of the ruins, contains probably gypsum, even in the form of alabaster. It is certain that nothing like lime-kilns or places where lime might have been burnt are found at any moderate distance from the ruins. The surrounding rocks, up to head of the valley and to the mesa, contain deposits of white, yellow, and red carbonates ...
— Historical Introduction to Studies Among the Sedentary Indians of New Mexico; Report on the Ruins of the Pueblo of Pecos • Adolphus Bandelier
... her head back on his shoulder and looked at him earnestly. In the half-light, white and clear from the freshly plastered walls, her face was like alabaster. "Dear Paul, isn't that what getting married means—to learn how to be really, really close to each other all the time. There isn't anything else worth getting married for, is there? ...
— The Squirrel-Cage • Dorothy Canfield
... Bawn, (197) and I must write to you. 'Tis the top of a black barren mountain, a vile little town at the foot of an old citadel: yet this, know you, was the residence of one of the three kings that went to Christ's birth-day; his name was Alabaster, Abarasser, or some such thing; the other two were kings, one of the East, the other of Cologn. 'Tis this of Cofano, who was represented in an ancient painting found in the Palatine Mount, now in the possession of Dr. Mead; he was crowned by Augustus. Well, but about writing-what do you think ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... Rome in clear sunset light. The Alban Hills defined themselves like a cameo of amethyst upon a pale blue distance; and over the Sabine Mountains soared immeasurable moulded domes of alabaster thunderclouds, casting deep shadows, purple and violet, across the slopes of Tivoli. To westward the whole sky was lucid, like some half-transparent topaz, flooded with slowly yellowing sunbeams. The Campagna has often been called a garden of wild-flowers. Just now poppy and aster, gladiolus and ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds
... Dim shapes flee to the haunts of gore,— Each Cyclopean Dragon's goal! And groaning cries from maidens fair Is heard by spectral, gangrel forms,— The writhing thin is flayed some more! Its secret sins,—Black deeds of Soul— Is scourged as copper-burnished hair Hangs from her alabaster head, Both feet and arms are screwed till black— A sign that Hell reigns on, unstunned. Then incense swung by priestesses, Salute the newly, plunder'd dead, The bloody sight upon the wrack, Where cringing groans once rose unsummed, ...
— Betelguese - A Trip Through Hell • Jean Louis de Esque
... which this river flows, imagine if you can a yawning chasm ten miles long and fifteen hundred feet in depth. Peer into it, and see if you can find the river. Yes, there it lies, one thousand five hundred feet below, a winding path of emerald and alabaster dividing the huge canon walls. Seen from the summit, it hardly seems to move; but, in reality, it rages like a captive lion springing at its bars. Scarcely a sound of its fierce fury reaches us; yet, could we stand beside it, a quarter of a mile below, its voice would drown ...
— John L. Stoddard's Lectures, Vol. 10 (of 10) - Southern California; Grand Canon of the Colorado River; Yellowstone National Park • John L. Stoddard
... carried on wars on his own behalf, and boasts of having conquered "Ansan of Elam." The materials for his numerous buildings were brought from far. Hewn stones were imported from the "land of the Amorites," limestone and alabaster from the Lebanon, gold-dust and acacia-wood from the desert to the south of Palestine, copper from northern Arabia, and various sorts of wood from the Armenian mountains. Other trees came from Dilmun in the Persian Gulf, from Gozan in Mesopotamia, and from Gubin, which is possibly Gebal. The ...
— Early Israel and the Surrounding Nations • Archibald Sayce
... not in bed! Crouched on the staircase overhead, Like ghost she gloats, her lean hand laid On alabaster balustrade, And gazes on and on Down on that wondrous to and fro Till finger and foot are cold as snow, And half the night is gone; And dazzled eyes are sore bestead; Nods drowsily the sleek-locked head; And, vague and far, spins, fading out, That rainbow-coloured, ...
— Georgian Poetry 1920-22 • Various
... richly carved doorway, and above the window a representation of the Father holding the crucified Son (cp. S. Brent). The S. door has a groined and panelled porch, and the N. door an ogee moulding. Within, the nave is lofty, with slender pilasters ascending to the roof. In the N. transept is the alabaster tomb of Sir Richard Newton (d. 1448) and his wife; and under foliated recesses a male and female effigy (attributed to the 13th cent.). Attached to this transept is a chapel which is noticeable for being loftier than the adjoining chancel, and has a fine turret at its N.E. ...
— Somerset • G.W. Wade and J.H. Wade
... horn— The sheeny silk, the bed of leaves of rose, Made more to soothe the sight than court repose; The mighty palaces that raise the sneer Of jealous mendicants and wretches near— The spacious parks, from which horizon blue Arches o'er alabaster statues new; Where Superstition still her walk will take, Unto soft music stealing o'er the lake— The innocent modesty by gems undone— The qualms of judges by small brib'ry won— The dread of children, trembling while they play— The bliss of monarchs, potent in their sway— The note ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo
... moon is composed of more or less transparent parts; as though one part were something like alabaster and others like crystal or glass. It would follow from this that the sun casting its rays on the less transparent portions, the light would remain on the surface, and so the denser part would be illuminated, ...
— The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, Complete • Leonardo Da Vinci
... looking over the transept chapel of the Virgin, still adorned with pillars of marble and alabaster, the eye wandered down the nave to the great orient light, a length of nearly three hundred feet, through a gorgeous avenue of unshaken walls and columns that clustered to the skies, On each side of the Lady's chapel rose a tower. One which was of great antiquity, being of that style which is ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli
... patriot dream That sees beyond the years Thine alabaster cities gleam Undimm'd by human tears! America! America! God shed His grace on thee. And crown thy good with brotherhood. From sea to shining sea! America! America! God shed His ...
— Scouting For Girls, Official Handbook of the Girl Scouts • Girl Scouts
... Egyptians anointed themselves before they left home; but still it was customary for a servant to attend every guest, as he seated himself, and to anoint his head; which was one of the principal tokens of welcome. The ointment was sweet-scented, and was contained in an alabaster, or in an elegant glass or porcelain vase, some of which have been found in the tombs of Thebes. Servants took the sandals of the guests as they arrived, and either put them by in a convenient place in the house, or held them on their arm ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... Persian graves, were a precious offering to Christ. They were all missionaries, and did not go home till their work was done. Each one had a place to fill among the instrumentalities employed by the Master to promote his kingdom in Persia. There was no waste in the breaking of those alabaster boxes of precious ointment. Nestorian parents looked on, to learn how to lay their children into the arms of Jesus, and become more Christ-like themselves. No years of mature toil have been more blessed than the years of those thus early called home; and in this ...
— Woman And Her Saviour In Persia • A Returned Missionary
... well console me for all the abuse it has called forth, both on him and me. I trusted to the substantial goodness and greatness of the character, and thought I should only make it more effective in portraiture by keeping in the few specks. I despise with my heels the whole trickery of erecting an alabaster image, and calling that a Man.... The work is now done, and I leave it to its fate. I had no personal object to gratify except, indeed, that I wished and hoped to please my poor wife." From a letter to Miss Edgeworth we learn that ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume I (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... her, sombre and voluptuous; it was dimly lighted by an alabaster lamp. The chairs and sofa were as soft as beds, and there was everywhere suggestion of down and silk. Upon entering I was struck with the strong odor of Turkish pastilles, not such as are sold here on the streets, but those of Constantinople, which are more powerful and more dangerous. ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... of another duty, it is to speak the briefest, yet the hardest of all words to utter, the word of final farewell. Had I the gift of eloquence, I would pour into that word, as into a casket of alabaster, all the love, all the affection, all the sad sweet smiles, all the 'God be with you until we meet again,' of your loved ones back home. Through the gates of memory you have left ajar, I seem to see your old home town—the streets guarded by sentinels ...
— The Greater Love • George T. McCarthy
... annoyances of travel fill one with bitter prejudices sometimes! I might enter Florence under happier auspices a month hence and find it all beautiful, all attractive. But I do not care to think of it now, at all, nor of its roomy shops filled to the ceiling with snowy marble and alabaster copies of all the celebrated sculptures in Europe —copies so enchanting to the eye that I wonder how they can really be shaped like the dingy petrified nightmares they are the portraits of. I got lost ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... century B.C., under the reign of Nebuchadnezzar, the art of tile-painting reached a high state of perfection. The Babylonians had no such splendid alabaster as had the Assyrians, neither had they lime-stone; so they could not make fine sculptured slabs, such as are found at Nineveh and in other Assyrian ruins. But the Babylonians had a fine clay, and they learned how to use it to the best advantage. The city of Babylon ...
— A History of Art for Beginners and Students: Painting, Sculpture, Architecture - Painting • Clara Erskine Clement
... sold blood of others and their own faith. No state buys heads so many, nor pays half so high a price for that sorry merchandise. But what I most admired was to see over against the Duke's palace a fair gallows in alabaster, reared express to bring him, and no other, for the least treason to the state; and there it stands in his eye whispering him memento mori. I pondered, and owned these signors my masters, who will let no man, not even their sovereign, be ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... after her son's marriage. And when at last she died in Rome in 450, on the 27th November,[1] in the sixtieth year of her age, and a few months after her nephew Theodosius II., and was borne in a last triumph along the Via Flaminia, to be laid, seated in a chair of cedar, in a sarcophagus of alabaster in the gorgeous mausoleum she had prepared for herself beside the church of S. Croce in Ravenna, she left Italy at least in a profound peace, so secure, as it seemed, that the whole court had in that very year removed to Rome. It might appear ...
— Ravenna, A Study • Edward Hutton
... of Diamonds. When the Rabbi entered, he screamed aloud, and put his hands over his eyes; for the lustre of the jewels dazzled him, as if he had looked upon the noon-day sun. In vases of agate were heaped diamonds beyond enumeration, the smallest of which was larger than a pigeon's egg. On alabaster tables lay amethysts, topazes, rubies, beryls, and all other precious stones, wrought by the hands of skilful artists, beyond power of computation. The room was lighted by a carbuncle, which, from the end of the hall, poured its ever-living light, brighter than the rays of ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, No. - 288, Supplementary Number • Various
... took straight hold of their heart-strings. She made the house ring with her shouts and her healthy glee. She toddled over everything without restraint; tumbled over Chinese tea-poys and Japan idols; upset the alabaster Graces in the best parlor, and pulled every knick-knack ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 104, June, 1866 • Various
... but among antiquities, whether it be that the veins of it are undiscovered, or that they were quite exhausted upon the ancient buildings. Among these old pillars, I can not forbear reckoning a great part of an alabaster column, which was found in the ruins of Livia's portico. It is of the color of fire, and may be seen over the high altar of St. Maria in Campitello; for they have cut it into two pieces, and fixt it in the shape of a cross in a hole of the wall that ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 7 - Italy, Sicily, and Greece (Part One) • Various
... modern Indian, did much work within the cave. Tons of travertine or stalagmite, the so-called alabaster, have been quarried from some of the deposits, while a large number of flint nodules has been dug out of the cave-earth where they fell from the disintegrating limestone. Some of this labor was carried on more than ...
— Archeological Investigations - Bureau of American Ethnology, Bulletin 76 • Gerard Fowke
... the most distant idea. Modesty created fleeting rosy clouds upon them like those which a drop of crimson essence would form in a cup of milk, and when uncoloured by any emotion they took a silvery sheen, a warm light, like an alabaster vessel illumined by a lamp within. That lamp was her charming soul, which exposed to view ...
— King Candaules • Theophile Gautier
... the poem, nor the poem from the homily, for in each we find facts and phrases of the Greek not contained in the other. For example, both in the Greek and in the homily, the flood which sweeps away the Mermedonians proceeds from the mouth of an alabaster image standing upon a pillar, while in the poem it springs forth from the base of the pillar itself. On the other hand, most of the dialogue between Andrew and the Lord on shipboard, as well as other important incidents, are wanting ...
— Andreas: The Legend of St. Andrew • Unknown
... door of an apartment, which appeared to have been more lately tenanted than the rest, yet which exhibited signs of the general desertion; a marble table, covered with a decaying drapery, a Carrara alabaster of Niobe and her children on the mantelpiece, a huge mirror, and a tapestry of one of the hunts of Henri Quatre, showed that Time had been there, and that the Prussians had not; but the indistinct light of the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 54, No. 338, December 1843 • Various
... excitement of which we speak pursued Valentine even in her sleep, or rather in that state of somnolence which succeeded her waking hours; it was then, in the silence of night, in the dim light shed from the alabaster lamp on the chimney-piece, that she saw the shadows pass and repass which hover over the bed of sickness, and fan the fever with their trembling wings. First she fancied she saw her stepmother threatening her, then Morrel stretched his arms towards her; sometimes mere strangers, like the Count ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... the sarcophagus were set four vases of oriental alabaster, of most elegant and perfect outline, the carved covers of which represented the man's head of Amset, the monkey head of Hapi, the jackal head of Tuamutef, and the hawk head of Kebhsnauf. The vases contained the viscerae of the mummy enclosed in the sarcophagus. At the head of the tomb an effigy ...
— The Works of Theophile Gautier, Volume 5 - The Romance of a Mummy and Egypt • Theophile Gautier
... mantle of their walls dropped away in pieces or was plundered for use. The Mosaic pavements split. There were still in those beautiful chambers seats of bright or dark marble, baths of porphyry or Oriental alabaster. But these found their way by degrees to churches. They served for episcopal chairs, or to receive the bones of a saint, or to become baptismal fonts. Yet not a few remained in their desolation till the walls dropped down upon ...
— The Formation of Christendom, Volume VI - The Holy See and the Wandering of the Nations, from St. Leo I to St. Gregory I • Thomas W. (Thomas William) Allies
... round. The West Mountains were superb in their wild grandeur. The whole outline of peaks, some eighty or ninety distant, showed up, stencilled in delicate contrast to the sky-line. The immense ice-slopes shone white as alabaster against dark shadows. The sky to the west over the mountains was clear, except for low-lying banks at the foot of the slopes round about Mount Discovery. To the south hard streaks of stratus lay heaped up to 30 degrees above the horizon.... Then Erebus commenced ...
— South! • Sir Ernest Shackleton
... himself that Aurora might look like her; and as a judge he understood that in her there was something uncommon. He considered everything and estimated everything; hence her face, rosy and clear, her fresh lips, as if set for a kiss, her eyes blue as the azure of the sea, the alabaster whiteness of her forehead, the wealth of her dark hair, with the reflection of amber or Corinthian bronze gleaming in its folds, her slender neck, the divine slope of her shoulders, the whole posture, ...
— Quo Vadis - A Narrative of the Time of Nero • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... why should I be? I'm a superman. I'm made—let's say—of alabaster. Women with great eyes and wonderful voices and the beauty of broad-browed nymphs walking gravely down under forest arches, such women give me only a great, great longing to read aloud very slowly and carefully a 'Child's History of the English Race'!" He took ...
— The Branding Iron • Katharine Newlin Burt
... beauty and whiteness, as a member or two since expelled had been pleased to call it, and was as scrupulous of having it called in question as a coy damsel. I who had virtues, was cast out because the color of it, as seen through the spectacles of my enemies, was not as white as alabaster. Ah, I have wiped the sweat from my fevered brow, and thought what a wrong-headed world we had-many a time! Every man has a history worth relating, or he must be a poor being in the measure of his kind; but I am afraid mine ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... been confined to paper, to the pen and pencil. Now, it has been my inspiration to introduce it into statuary. For this purpose I have invented a peculiar plastic compound which you will permit me not to divulge. That's my secret, signore! It's as light, you perceive, as cork, and yet as firm as alabaster! I frankly confess that I really pride myself as much on this little stroke of chemical ingenuity as upon the other element of novelty in my creations—my types. What do you say to my types, signore? The idea is bold; does it strike you as happy? Cats and monkeys—monkeys and cats—all ...
— The Madonna of the Future • Henry James
... Soreness will invade the throat, and noses run in every family, seeming to be infected with a sentimental furor for blooming—we presume from being so newly blown. We have seen noses chiseled, as it were, from an alabaster block, grow in one short day scarlet as our own, as though they blushed for the continual trouble they were giving their proprietors; whilst the peculiar intonation produced by the conversion of the nasals into liquids, and then of the liquids ultimately into mutes, leads to ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... Polyhymnia of antiquity, her pale face gently inclined upon her brother's shoulder, her long golden hair floating around her snowy shoulders, her arm thrown around her mother's neck, its rose-tinted alabaster hand drooping upon the red shawl in which Madame de Montrevel had wrapped herself; such was Roland's sister as ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas
... with a glide like a falling star, there ran down from the right horn of the Cross to the foot of it, one of the lights of this cluster of splendours, distinguishing itself, as it went, like flame in alabaster. ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Volume 1 • Leigh Hunt
... Ximenes; and Erasmus, in a letter to his friend Vergara, perpetrates a Greek pun on the classic name of Alcala, intimating the highest opinion of the state of science there. The reclining statue of Ximenes, beautifully carved in alabaster, now ornaments his sepulchre in the College ...
— Wit and Wisdom of Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... her brighter Face and Eyes. He was surpriz'd at her amazing Beauty, and question'd whether he saw a Woman, or an Angel at his Feet. Her Hands, which were elevated, as if in Prayer, seem'd to be form'd of polish'd Alabaster; and he confess'd, he had never seen any Thing in Nature so perfect and ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume V • Aphra Behn
... at Vicksburg, Miss., fell a small piece of alabaster; that, at Bovina, eight miles from Vicksburg, fell a ...
— The Book of the Damned • Charles Fort
... been great and beauteous before, it seemed in these days as if life and love glowed within them, and shone through their mere bodies as a radiant light shines through alabaster lamps. The strength of each was so the being of the other that no thought could take form in the brain of one without ...
— A Lady of Quality • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... struggle hand to hand and brain to brain, Ofttimes a sudden dream my sense will cheat, The gaudy shops, the sky-piled roofs retreat, And all at once I stand enthralled again Within a marble minster over-seas. I watch the solemn gold-stained gloom that creeps To kiss an alabaster tomb, where sleeps A lady 'twixt two knights' stone effigies, And every day in dusky glory steeps Their ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. I (of II.), Narrative, Lyric, and Dramatic • Emma Lazarus
... judge of the impression its halls were calculated to make upon the stranger who, in the days of old, entered for the first time into the abode of the Assyrian Kings. He was ushered in through the portal guarded by the colossal lions or bulls of white alabaster. In the first hall he found himself surrounded by the sculptured records of the empire. Battles, sieges, triumphs, the exploits of the chase, the ceremonies of religion, were portrayed on the walls, sculptured in alabaster, and painted in gorgeous ...
— Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects, and Curiosities of Art, (Vol. 2 of 3) • Shearjashub Spooner
... that fountain, sculptured all of gold, With alabaster sculptured, rich and rare; And in its basin clear thou might'st behold The flowery marge reflected fresh and fair. Sage Merlin framed the font,—so legends bear,— When on fair Isoude doated Tristram brave, That the good errant knight, arriving there, Might quaff oblivion in ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... stood and gazed with unwilling eyes, hating the feeling that constrained him, yet unable for the moment to restrain it or to turn his eyes away. She had that clear, bright whiteness of skin that is seen only in Frenchwomen, and only here and there among these; whiteness as of fire behind alabaster. Her hair was black and soft, and the lashes lay like jet on her cheek, as she stood looking down, smiling a little, feeling so happy, so pleased that she was pleasing others. And now, when she raised her eyes, they were seen to be dark and soft, too; but with what fire in their depths, what sunny ...
— Marie • Laura E. Richards
... rooms of the upper floor, each filled with antique treasures that were impossible to identify. There were few cards of explanation. One room was crowded with alabaster carvings, any one of which would have rated a whole room to itself in a modern American museum. The great building was literally jammed with rare objects, many of them thousands of years old. Uniformed guards were posted ...
— The Egyptian Cat Mystery • Harold Leland Goodwin
... of interest with local antiquarians, as it was, in the days far gone, the chosen last resting-place of so many connected with our ancient history—the Holtes, the Erdingtons, the Devereux, the Ardens, the Harcourts, the Bracebridgss, Clodshalls, Bagots, &c. Here still may be seen the stone and alabaster effigies of lords and ladies who lived in the time of the Wars of the Roses, two showing by their dress that while one was Lancasterian, the other followed the fortunes of York. The tablets of the Holte' family, temp. Elizabeth and Charles, ...
— Showell's Dictionary of Birmingham - A History And Guide Arranged Alphabetically • Thomas T. Harman and Walter Showell
... full light shone upon the plant. The bud was a very large one, perfect and symmetrical; the strong sheath, of a rich and even brown, as yet showed only a few fissures of its surface, but even now a faint odor stole from the travailing sphere, as from a cracked box of alabaster filled with perfume. ...
— The Bread-winners - A Social Study • John Hay
... like Heaven blue and charming, a pretty Mouth, Neck round and white as polisht Alabaster, and a Complexion beauteous as an Angel, a Hair fit to make Bonds to insnare the God of Love,—a sprightly Air,—a Hand like Lillies white, and Lips, no Roses opening in a Morning are ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. III • Aphra Behn
... Watson, a man of fifty years. "He brocht me to Christ and that's ae soul he saved. He broke the alabaster box upon his Saviour's head this day and we a' felt the fragrance o't. If God Himsel' canna despise the contrite hairt, nae ...
— St. Cuthbert's • Robert E. Knowles
... events in the life of the saint. Jewels, and precious metals, shine and sparkle on every side. A windlass slowly removes the front of the altar; and, within it, in a gorgeous shrine of gold and silver, is seen, through alabaster, the shrivelled mummy of a man: the pontifical robes with which it is adorned, radiant with diamonds, emeralds, rubies: every costly and magnificent gem. The shrunken heap of poor earth in the midst of this great glitter, is more pitiful than if ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens
... Ariadneum and the Staedel Gallery. I borrowed a catalogue. I wrestled with Van der Weyden; I toiled like a galley-slave at Meister Wilhelm and Meister Stephan. I have a confused recollection that I saw a number of stiff mediaeval pictures, and an alabaster statue of the lady who smiled as she rode on a tiger, taken at the beginning of that interesting episode. But the remainder of the Institute has faded from ...
— Miss Cayley's Adventures • Grant Allen
... most magnificent of all, for it has a floor of granite blocks; we know of no other instance of stone being used for building in this early age. Almost every tomb has been burnt at some period unknown. The brick walls are burnt red, and many of the alabaster vases are almost calcined. This was probably the work of ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, And Assyria In The Light Of Recent Discovery • L.W. King and H.R. Hall
... upon my knees; I took her hand; I covered it with kisses; I broke into sobs. But she gave no heed; her hand remained in mine icy and still, like a piece of alabaster. ...
— Mauprat • George Sand
... the city. The relatives who stay take off their shoes, wash their hands, and proceed to gather up the bones—which they cleanse in wine and milk—and the ashes, which they mix with perfume. These remains are then placed in the urn of bronze, marble, alabaster, or maybe of coloured glass, and the urn fills one more niche in the ...
— Life in the Roman World of Nero and St. Paul • T. G. Tucker
... in Plate IV, Figs. 3 and 4. The former is very small and composed of compact white limestone, the details being pronounced, and the whole specimen finished with more than usual elaboration. The latter is unusually large, of compact gypsum or alabaster, and quite carefully carved. The eyes have been inlaid with turkoises, and there is cut around its neck a groove by which the beads of shell, coral, &c., were originally fastened. A large arrow-head of chalcedony ...
— Zuni Fetiches • Frank Hamilton Cushing
... green wreath of thorns, the torn sinews, the great blue wounds, and the pierced palms, like rings of gold, beset with rubies red. In one stanza they abhorred themselves as worms; in the next they rejoiced as alabaster doves; and, glorying in the constant presence of the Well-Beloved, they feared not the King of Terrors, and calmly sang of death as "the last magnetic kiss, to consummate their bliss." But, despite its crude ...
— History of the Moravian Church • J. E. Hutton
... of the church which belongs to the manor of Dedisham, is a curiously sculptured female figure, destitute of any inscription, but traditionally said, to belong to a member of the family of Tregoz.—There are also two other mural monuments, with small painted alabaster effigies of women in the ancient dress of their times. The first of which we give a sketch, appears particularly "en bon point," and is represented kneeling on a cushion, in the act of prayer. The following inscription, now ...
— The History and Antiquities of Horsham • Howard Dudley
... cases, to go upstairs and out upon an old gallery and to lift from their drawers silken crapes, and to find, buried away, whispering sea-shells and crystal bottles, and irregular pieces of blue-veined marble and alabaster. Oh, the happy, thrilling hours I spent in that place! My grandmother told me that scholars came from every part of the country to see this tucked-away, ...
— Suzanna Stirs the Fire • Emily Calvin Blake
... ordinary, juicy flower substance, but of dry, hard scales. They were very insignificant in size and shape; nor was their fragrance of much account. Children of the open moors, they had not unfolded in the still air where lilies open their alabaster petals; nor did they grow in the rich soil from which roses draw nourishment for their swelling crowns. What made them flowers was really their color, for they were glowing red. They had received the color-giving sunshine in plenty. They were no pallid cellar growth; ...
— Invisible Links • Selma Lagerlof
... vegetable matter produced in the ocean; and, 3. over these the recrements of animal and vegetable matter produced upon the land. Besides these there are bodies which owe their origin to a combination of those already mentioned, as siliceous sand, fluor, alabaster; which seem to have derived their acids originally from the vegetable kingdom, and their earthy bases from sea-productions. See additional notes, No. ...
— The Botanic Garden - A Poem in Two Parts. Part 1: The Economy of Vegetation • Erasmus Darwin
... the work of a local artist. The dining-hall of the hotel was "decorated with three emblematical pieces of sculpture, mixed with painting in a new style of composition. The central was a finely executed medallion of His Majesty, surrounded with a Glory, on each side of which was an alabaster obelisk, one exhibiting Gallic Liberty breaking the bonds of Despotism, and the other representing British Liberty in its present enjoyment." The terms in which the fourteen toasts were proposed breathed ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... and continued as innocent and fair as the day which had preceded,—two mountain peaks of sky and sun, with their valley of cloud and snow between. Walk to the nearest spring run on such a morning, and you can see the Colorado valley and the great canons of the West in miniature, carved in alabaster. In the midst of the plain of snow lie these chasms; the vertical walls, the bold headlands, the turrets and spires and obelisks, the rounded and towering capes, the carved and buttressed precipices, the branch valleys ...
— A Year in the Fields • John Burroughs
... his brother's features, and was shocked at the apparent havoc a few short years had wrought. It was not that the cheek—whose carnation tint had once drawn a comment from all who saw it—it was not that the cheek was bronzed by an eastern sun. The alabaster forehead, showed that this was the natural result, of exposure to climate. But the wan, the sunken features—the unnatural brilliancy of the eye—the almost impetuous agitation of manner—all these bespoke that more than even sickness had produced the change:—that the mind, as well as body, ...
— A Love Story • A Bushman
... put her lace upon the alabaster neck of the large doll which stood in the middle of her shop. "Only look, my lady—only see, ma'am, how beautiful becoming 'tis to the neck, and sets off a dress too, you know, ma'am. And (turning to Miss Burrage) eight and twenty, you know, ma'am, is really ...
— Tales And Novels, Volume 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... lines of the ancient streets were traced, and a storehouse or granary of the ancient Egyptians was unearthed, also many Greek coins. Besides these were discovered votive deposits, cups of porcelain, alabaster jugs, limestone mortars; and trowels, chisels, knives, ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 12 (of 12) • S. Rappoport
... was the meal which followed the bridal. No appurtenances of modern pomp and luxury, indeed, decorated the board: its only ornaments were the loveliest flowers, arranged in alabaster vases, and silver baskets filled with blushing fruit. The food was simple, and the wines not choice; but the guests thought not of mere sensual enjoyment. In these secret meetings, each felt there was something holy; richer homes, more gorgeous feasts, were theirs in the world, ...
— The Vale of Cedars • Grace Aguilar
... ignorant, absurd, very simple, very unreasonable oftentimes, but things beautiful always, and sometimes even very wise by a wisdom not of the world; by a certain light divine that does shine now and then as through an alabaster lamp, through minds that have no grossness to ...
— Bebee • Ouida
... audience, with its throne of gold, its sixteen columns of Phrygian and Numidian marble and its eight niches containing colossal statues; there were the hall of justice, the vast dining-room, the peristylium, the sleeping apartments, where granite, porphyry, and alabaster overflowed, carved and decorated by the most famous artists, and lavished on all sides in order to dazzle the world. And finally, many years later, a last palace was added to all the others—that ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... will the scorpion of bitter experience sting her heel; then will she die with a smile upon her red mouth, for love will have come to her, maybe for a day, maybe for a second of time, but a love which will mingle her soul with the soul of her desert lover, or shatter her body, even as is broken the alabaster vase of sweet perfume. Yet is it the love of the soul that endureth forever, yea, even if the body of the woman ...
— The Hawk of Egypt • Joan Conquest
... the child was lying dead in its mother's lap, and that mother was sitting speechless, with her eyes riveted upon her lifeless offspring.—I instantly caused the little delicate corpse to be removed. It had a smile upon its lip, and looked as transparent as alabaster; for it had died without a groan or a struggle. My wife sat petrified; she had never moved nor spoken since the infant had breathed its last, which was nearly an hour. The servants were fearful even ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 1 • Henry Hunt
... Glass mirrors, imported by way of Venice, began to supersede the mirrors of polished metal. Larger windows, of painted glass, became common among the rich, in the room of the small pieces of glass, or of alabaster, which had before served to let in a few rays of light. Tallow candles came into vogue. Lamps were not unknown. On great occasions, lanterns and wax candles were used for a festive illumination. Chimneys were in use, and about the vast fire-place the family ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... is supposed to be Richard Harewell, who died in 1576, aged 15 years, to whom a second monument, of alabaster (close by the former), was also erected; a rare circumstance, I should suppose. The Harewells appear to have been a family at the time of the Conquest; the two following lines are a part of ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 217, December 24, 1853 • Various
... like music upon the ear. Her large dark eyes beamed with the light of intelligence and affection. The softest rose tint tinged her alabaster cheek, and the tones of her voice were like the melody of an Aeolian harp, when touched ...
— Withered Leaves from Memory's Garland • Abigail Stanley Hanna
... 'cachemire' shawl. In age she may be somewhat about twenty—a year or so more or less—and has a face as haunting as a Medusa's; not, however, a face to turn a man into a stone, but rather of the two turn a stone into a man. A clear paleness, with a bloom like an alabaster lamp with the light flashing through. I borrow that illustration from Sare Scott, who applied it ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... figures of undress marble, the wealth of their glorious bodies pressing out into bosoms magnificent as magnolias (nobler lines and curves Greece herself has never known), towering in throats of fluted alabaster, and flowering in coiffures ...
— The Quest of the Golden Girl • Richard le Gallienne
... him. She stood a moment in the door of the dining-room, gazing in delight at the long carven oak table, with Florentine candelabra at each end and a strip of filet across the center, at either side of which their plates were laid, separated by a vase of white alabaster, holding a few hothouse roses, crimson as blood. Untrained as her eyes were, they ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly
... the robe of white wool, embroidered on the neck and hem, that lay ready for me, and went down the stair to the room whither my hostess had directed me. It was round, all of alabaster, and without a single window: the light came through everywhere, a soft, pearly shimmer rather than shine. Vague shadowy forms went flitting about over the walls and low dome, like loose rain-clouds over ...
— Lilith • George MacDonald
... girl. Her features were delicate, her complexion was fair as alabaster, and a bright colour mantled in her cheeks. But for the modest cap upon her head, a stranger might have been puzzled to guess at her condition in life. She looked gentle and refined as any lady, and her manners and speech would not ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... head, that it is like Hamilton's Bawn,[1] and I must write to you. 'Tis the top of a black barren mountain, a vile little town at the foot of an old citadel: yet this, know you, was the residence of one of the three kings that went to Christ's birthday; his name was Alabaster, Abarasser, or some such thing; the other two were kings, one of the East, the other of Cologn. 'Tis this of Cofano, who was represented in an ancient painting, found in the Palatine Mount, now ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume I • Horace Walpole
... "perhaps you have found a prince of the church, pale as alabaster, sitting in his red robe, who put together the indicatory evidence of the crime that baffled you with such uncanny acumen that you stood ...
— O Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1919 • Various
... a sixth or eighth part higher in the Pot, whilst it is boyling, then it will remain at, both before and after it be boyled. The reason of which odd Phaenomenon (to hint it here only by the way) is this, that there is in the curious powder of Alabaster, and other calcining Stones, a certain watery substance, which is so fixt and included with the solid Particles, that till the heat be very considerable they will not fly away; but after the heat is increased to such a degree, ...
— Micrographia • Robert Hooke
... the antique in ivory, and chairs covered with Persian stuffs. Beside all this there was an old oak Gothic priedieu, a small altar draped in rose color and white lace, a mass of flowers, and numerous crucifixes and Madonnas of various sizes in silver, ivory and alabaster. ...
— The Malady of the Century • Max Nordau
... is the garden!" says an Arabic inscription, "where the flowers of the earth vie with the stars of heaven, what can compare with the vase of yon alabaster fountain, filled with crystal water? Nothing but the moon in her fulness, shining in the midst of an ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 550, June 2, 1832 • Various
... to meet which made you feel like a party to some hidden crime. Mr. Vane had remained for some time in happy unconsciousness of the significance of Miss Browne's oration. It was something to see it gradually penetrate to his perceptions, vexing the alabaster brow with a faint wrinkle of perplexity, then suffusing his cheeks with agonized and indignant blushes. "Oh, I say, really, you know!" hovered in unspoken protest on his tongue. He threw imploring looks at Mr. Shaw, who alone of all the party sat imperturbable, ...
— Spanish Doubloons • Camilla Kenyon
... a bed of roses she was laid As faint through heat, or dight to pleasant sin; And was arrayed or rather disarrayed, All in a veil of silk and silver thin, That hid no whit her alabaster skin, But rather shewed more white, if more might be: More subtle web Arachne cannot spin; Nor the fine nets, which oft we woven see Of scorched dew, do not in the ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... aware, but for the Irish of it, she would have to be referred to as Miss Dodworth. And this wisp of a girl with her big black-fringed gray eyes peering up and out over her gray knitted shawl, but for the holes in her white stockings and the fact that the alabaster of her neck was a shade off color—faith, an' it might have been Eleanor hersilf! It is obvious that any juryman who allows his mind to be influenced by the mere fact that one of the witnesses for the defense is a pretty woman—even ...
— By Advice of Counsel • Arthur Train
... Down to her hips her rich amber hair flowed like a bridal veil, and from amid a wealth of snowy lace, fluttering on the orbed glory of perfect womanhood, her neck rose smooth and stately as a shaft of alabaster. Her cheeks crimsoned with maiden shamefastness, but the blue eyes met mine without a hint of maiden fear, and for that thanks as well as reverence filled my heart as I bowed to her. Maidenlike, she drew her golden veil ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough
... he had extracted therefrom a large alabaster vase, which still contained the ashes of the deceased. Next this urn, carefully sealed up, there was another vase, containing three gold rings adorned with precious stones, two gold spurs, the bit ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... rising ground, from which a magnificent view burst upon them. Below, there was a large lake, surrounded by wooded hills, above which rose noble rocks fringed with stately pines, and higher ranges of mountains beyond, some of whose summits were covered with snow that glittered like purest alabaster in the azure blue of the sky. Eric gave a cry of joy; for he saw the house of one of his father's foresters, which he had once visited with his father. "Wolf! Wolf!" he exclaimed, "look yonder, that is the house of Darkeye, the forester. We are safe!" and the thread was leading ...
— The Gold Thread - A Story for the Young • Norman MacLeod
... in my wanderings; many and various cathedrals, basilicas, and mosques have delighted me. I know the color and the value of tapestry and rich hangings; of mosaics, porphyry, and verd-antiques; of fluted alabaster and the delicate tracery of the arabesque; but the velvety quality of London soot when applied to the rough surfaces of rudely chiselled stones, and the soft loveliness gained by grime and smoke, came to ...
— Outdoor Sketching - Four Talks Given before the Art Institute of Chicago; The Scammon Lectures, 1914 • Francis Hopkinson Smith
... thy grieved friends forbear Bubbles and alabaster boys to rear On thy religious dust, for men did know Thy life, which such illusions ...
— Old St. Paul's Cathedral • William Benham
... of her skin, complexion and hair than he. The analogy extends even to superfluous hair which he had removed, not by the modern electrolysis, but by depilation with forceps and main force. The attendants at his bath would polish his epidermis, for his satisfaction, until it resembled alabaster or marble. ...
— The Glands Regulating Personality • Louis Berman, M.D.
... bade it go. Her eye beamed bright with beauty; and innocence, Its dulcet notes breathed forth in every word, Was seen in every motion that she made. Her form was faultless, and her golden hair In long luxuriant tresses floated o'er Her shoulders, that as alabaster shone. Her very look seemed to impart a sense Of matchless purity to all it met. I saw her in the crowd, yet none were there That seemed so pure as she; and every eye That met her eye's mild glance shrank back abashed, It spake such innocence. One ...
— Town and Country, or, Life at Home and Abroad • John S. Adams
... flagon," said Sara, arranging tendrils of the wreath about the mug. "And this"—bending tenderly over the soap dish and heaping it with roses—"is purest alabaster encrusted with gems." ...
— A Little Princess • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... reddish roots, and the branches, covered with leaves, like those of the laurel tree, crept across the different crevices. At a greater distance, on advancing towards the west, we saw pyramids of great stones, as white as alabaster, towering one above another, which seemed to indicate the border of a bank, and above which very high date-trees grew up, of which the trunks were warped round even to the top. The palm trees, extended upon a mass of stones, by their length and colour, gave proof of ...
— Perils and Captivity • Charlotte-Adelaide [nee Picard] Dard
... indeed, very beautiful; hair of the darkest shade of brown hung in long and glossy curls from her perfectly shaped head, and rested on the exquisite white neck and shoulders, the contrast of which showed to a great degree the almost alabaster whiteness of her skin; grecian nose, and eyes of the deepest blue, whose long lashes, when veiled, rested lovingly on her damask cheek, and when raised, revealed a depth and brilliancy which does not often fall to the lot of mortals; a mouth not ...
— Vellenaux - A Novel • Edmund William Forrest |
