"Burnish" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... notice that the first tells us how to burnish a photograph; the second, how to ...
— Composition-Rhetoric • Stratton D. Brooks
... the white thorn, maple-leaved or Virginia thorn (suitable for hedging), hawthorn, wild May cherry, or service berry, water beech, fringe tree, red bud, black alder, common alder, sumach, elder, laurel, witch-hazel, hazel-nut, papaw, chinkapin, burnish bush, nine bark, button-bush, honeysuckle, several varieties of the whortleberry ...
— History and Comprehensive Description of Loudoun County, Virginia • James W. Head
... understanding, and the gradual progress of learners."—Introd. to L. Murray's Gram.; 8vo, p. 5; 12mo, p. 3. As if, to be master of his own art—to think and write well himself, were no part of a grammarian's business! And again, as if the jewels of scholarship, thus carefully selected, could need a burnish or a foil from other hands than those ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... Of stubbes sharp and hideous to behold; In which there ran a rumble and a sough*, *groaning noise As though a storm should bursten every bough: And downward from an hill under a bent* *slope There stood the temple of Mars Armipotent, Wrought all of burnish'd steel, of which th' entry Was long and strait, and ghastly for to see. And thereout came *a rage and such a vise*, *such a furious voice* That it made all the gates for to rise. The northern light in ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... same school with Donald. She was a shy little thing with big brown eyes, which looked at you wistfully, and a mass of yellow hair, which the sun in the summer mornings loved to burnish. Minnie at the age of ten felt drawn to Donald, as timid women generally feel drawn toward masterful men, ignoring the steadier love of gentler natures. Donald had from the start constituted himself her protector in a lordly way. He had once resented a belittling remark which a schoolmate ...
— The Hunted Outlaw - Donald Morrison, The Canadian Rob Roy • Anonymous
... Jack should read, the best English poets,—then Gower, Chaucer, Occleve, and Lydgate,—not the Catechism and Latin Grammar. It was very pleasant to come off the directions not to conveye spetell over the table, or burnish one's bones with one's teeth, to the burst of enthusiasm with which the writer speaks of our old poets. He evidently believed in them with all his heart; and it would have been a good thing for England if our educators since had followed his ...
— Caxton's Book of Curtesye • Frederick J. Furnivall
... in, like a burnish'd throne Burn'd on the water; the poop was beaten gold; Purple the sails, and so perfumed, that The winds were lovesick with them; the oars were silver, Which to the time of flutes kept stroke, and made The water which they beat to follow faster ...
— The Development of the Feeling for Nature in the Middle Ages and - Modern Times • Alfred Biese
... with spears, and bright with burnish'd shields, The embattled legions stretch their long array; Discord's red torch, as fierce she scours the fields, With bloody tincture ...
— The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer - With Lives, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Rev. George Gilfillan [Ed.]
... children owed a great deal in the matter of manners. My father gave us an excellent example in behaviour and in that gentleness, unselfishness, and sincerity which is the foundation of good breeding. My mother, who was never shy, and very good at mental diagnosis, added that burnish without which good manners often lose half their power. What she particularly insisted on was the practice of that graciousness of which she herself afforded so admirable an example. Naturally, like a good mother, she always reproved us for bad manners, ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey
... word here, enbarnis, which has so long been lost to French that it is not even in Littre. But Dryden's "burnish into man" probably preserves it in English; for this is certainly not the other "burnish" from brunir. ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... busy at his work, burnishing gold and melting silver, had no time to warm his love or to burnish and make shine his fantasies, nor to show off, gad about, waste his time in mischief, or to run after she-males. Now seeing that in Paris virgins do not fall into the beds of young men any more than roast pheasants into ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 3 • Honore de Balzac
... I pray thee fair, Where hast thou left that page of thine, That used to serve thy cup of wine, Whose beauty was so rare? When last in Raby towers we met, The boy I closely eyed, And often marked his cheeks were wet, With tears he fain would hide: His was no rugged horse-boy's hand, To burnish shield or sharpen brand, Or saddle battle-steed; But meeter seemed for lady fair, To fan her cheek or curl her hair, Or through embroidery, rich and rare, The slender silk to lead: His skin was fair, his ringlets gold, His bosom—when he sighed ...
— Marmion: A Tale of Flodden Field • Walter Scott
... on the burnish'd board Sparkled and shone; so genial was the hearth: And on the right hand of the hearth he saw Philip, the slighted suitor of old times, Stout, rosy, with his babe across his knees; And o'er her second father stoopt a girl, A later but a loftier Annie Lee, Fair-hair'd and tall, and from ...
— Enoch Arden, &c. • Alfred Tennyson
... mothers, household stuff, Live chattels, mincers of each other's fame, Full of weak poison, turnspits for the clown, The drunkard's football, laughing-stocks of Time, Whose brains are in their hands and in their heels, But fit to flaunt, to dress, to dance, to thrum, To tramp, to scream, to burnish, and to scour For ever slaves at home and ...
— Early Reviews of English Poets • John Louis Haney
... cord from a hole Pierced in the hard wood, Circled with silver. For years the Poet had wrought upon this cane. His wealth had gone to enrich it, His experiences to pattern it, His labour to fashion and burnish it. To him it was perfect, A work of art and a weapon, A delight and a defence. The Poet took his walking-stick And ...
— Sword Blades and Poppy Seed • Amy Lowell
... straw-stuffed pillow, carefully rubbed the place where his hand had last touched it, and then took from a peg his scarlet tunic with its white collar, shoulder-straps and facings. Having satisfied himself that to burnish further its glittering buttons would be to gild refined gold, he commenced a vigorous brushing—for it was now his high ambition to "get the stick"—in other words to be dismissed from guard-duty as reward for being the best-turned-out man on parade.... As he reached ...
— Snake and Sword - A Novel • Percival Christopher Wren
... clean the exterior of the barrel, lay it flat on a bench or board, to avoid bending it. The practice of supporting the barrel at each end, and rubbing it with a strap, buffstick, ramrod, or any other instrument to burnish it, is pernicious, and should ...
— Ordnance Instructions for the United States Navy. - 1866. Fourth edition. • Bureau of Ordnance, USN
... when it suiteth me," said Mr Headley coolly. "He wotteth well that Hillyer hath none who can burnish plate ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte M. Yonge
... family importance, and—the sniff. Danger—so indispensable in bringing out the fundamental quality of any society, group, or individual—was what the Forsytes scented; the premonition of danger put a burnish on their armour. For the first time, as a family, they appeared to have an instinct of being in contact, with ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... towers, Unconscious of the stony hours; Harsh gateways startled at a sound, With burning lamps all burnish'd round; - ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... a path, And drew a burnish'd brand, And fifteen of the foremost slew, Till back the lave ...
— A Collection of Ballads • Andrew Lang
... foul and evil-smelling. Then comes the third group, and it too has a drift. Unknown as the names in it are, it is the epoch of restoration, and its 'bright consummate flower' is 'Jesus who is called the Christ.' He will be a better David, will burnish again the tarnished lustre of the monarchy, will be all that earlier kings were meant to be and failed of being, and will more than bring the day which Abraham desired to see, and realise the ideal to which 'prophets and righteous men' unconsciously ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... plants, and grass-plots, and of suburb delights, seems to me borrowed from 'that first garden of my innocence'—to be slips and scions stolen from that bed of memory. In this manner the darlings of our childhood burnish out in the eye of after years, and derive their sweetest perfume from the first heartfelt sigh of pleasure breathed ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... in the power he had of projecting a soul into the ranks of an army, of making legions and their leader one. Disobedience only he punished; anything else he forgave. After a victory his soldiery did what they liked. He gave them arms, slaves to burnish them, women, feasts, sleep. They were his comrades; he called them so; he wept at the death of any of them, and when they were frightened, as they were in Gaul before they met the Germans, and in Africa before they encountered Juba, Caesar frightened them still more. ...
— Imperial Purple • Edgar Saltus
... . . . . . . HOPE holds to Christ the mind's own mirror out To take His lovely likeness more and more. It will not well, so she would bring about An ever brighter burnish than before And turns to wash it from her welling eyes And breathes the blots off all with sighs on sighs. Her glass is blest but she as good as blind Holds till hand aches and wonders what is there; Her glass drinks light, she darkles ...
— Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins - Now First Published • Gerard Manley Hopkins
... acres of the seeded grasses The changing burnish heaves; Or marshalled under moons of harvest Stand still all night the sheaves; Or beeches strip in storms for winter And ...
— Last Poems • A. E. Housman
... of a pivot are that it shall be round and well polished. Avoid the burnish file at all hazards; it will not leave the pivot round, for the pressure is unequal at various points in the revolution. A pivot that was not perfectly round might act fairly well in a jewel hole that was round, but ...
— A Treatise on Staff Making and Pivoting • Eugene E. Hall
... calling—being sure that it is Nature's calling. Then let your dreams become beliefs; let your imaginings develop into faith. Complete the process by resolving to make that belief come true. Then go ahead and make it come true. Keep your resolution bright. Never let it rust. Burnish it with work—untiring, ...
— The Young Man and the World • Albert J. Beveridge
... but a slight difference of appearance induced me to stop, and on getting across the trench the buttercups were found to be yellow Welsh poppies. The petals are larger than those of the buttercup, and a paler yellow, without the metallic burnish of the ranunculus. In the centre is the seed vessel, somewhat like an urn; indeed, the yellow poppy resembles the scarlet field poppy, though smaller in width of petal and much more local in habitat. So concealed were the stalks by the ferns that the flowers appeared to grow ...
— The Life of the Fields • Richard Jefferies
... In his red prime, her pale, sharp fingers crept After the wind and felt about the moss, And seem'd to pluck from shrinking twig and stem The burning leaves—while groan'd the shudd'ring wood. Who journey'd where the prairies made a pause, Saw burnish'd ramparts flaming in the sun, With beacon fires, tall on their rustling walls. And when the vast, horn'd herds at sunset drew Their sullen masses into one black cloud, Rolling thund'rous o'er the quick pulsating plain, ...
— Old Spookses' Pass • Isabella Valancy Crawford
... people sing, the people say. The ancient bridegroom and the bride, Smiling contented and serene, Upon the blithe, bewildering scene, Behold, well pleas'd, on every side Their forms and features multiplied, As the reflection of a light Between two burnish'd mirrors gleams, Or lamps upon a bridge at night Stretch on and on before the sight, Till ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education
... select a jewel that just fills the space, and then with a smooth pointed punch, such as I described I used for closing up a pivot hole, I turn this lip back by sliding this round pointed punch around the outside, making it act as a burnish. Cap jewels I either treat in the same manner as the last, or cut away the setting, and insert them as they are inserted in most ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 664, September 22,1888 • Various
... catalogue of names, which she claims as of her children, and with honest pride holds up to the admiration of other nations, the name of LA FAYETTE has already for centuries been enrolled. And it shall henceforth burnish into brighter fame: for, if in after days, a Frenchman shall be called to indicate the character of his nation by that of one individual, during the age in which we live, the blood of lofty patriotism shall mantle in his cheek, the fire of conscious virtue shall sparkle ...
— Life and Public Services of John Quincy Adams - Sixth President of the Unied States • William H. Seward
... seemed to have been devoured at a gulp. The heavenly lights had lost all power in face of this earthly glory. A mist of smoke had switched off the gleam of starlight, and the moon and mock-moons wore the tarnished hue of silver that has lost its burnish. The ghosts of the aurora no longer trod their measure of stately minuet. They had passed into the world of shadow to which they ...
— The Heart of Unaga • Ridgwell Cullum
... are return'd from viewing The number, strength, and posture of our foes, Who now encamp within a short hour's march; On the high point of yon bright western tower, We ken them from afar; the setting sun Plays on their shining arms and burnish'd helmets, And covers all the field with gleams ...
— Cato - A Tragedy, in Five Acts • Joseph Addison
... latter end should be worse than the beginning. Wherefore, set up a standard in the land; blow a trumpet upon the mountains; let not the shepherd tarry by his sheepfold, or the seedsman continue in the ploughed field; but make the watch strong, sharpen the arrows, burnish the shields, name ye the captains of thousands, and captains of hundreds, of fifties, and of tens; call the footmen like the rushing of winds, and cause the horsemen to come up like the sound of many waters; ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... one. Our Imperium was organized to secure our rights within the United States and we will make any sacrifice that can be named to attain that end. Our efforts have been to wash the flag free of all blots, not to rend it; to burnish every star in the cluster, but to pluck ...
— Imperium in Imperio: A Study Of The Negro Race Problem - A Novel • Sutton E. Griggs
... stuff sent was never meant for other than a first state; I never meant it to appear as a book. Knowing well that I have never had one hour of inspiration since it was begun, and have only beaten out my metal by brute force and patient repetition, I hoped some day to get a "spate of style" and burnish it—fine mixed metaphor. I am now so sick that I intend, when the Letters are done and some more written that will be wanted, simply to make a book of it by the pruning-knife. I cannot fight longer; I am sensible of having done worse than I hoped, worse ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... op'ning gives to see Eclipse and suff'rings burnish majesty, Where thou so artfully the draught hast made That we best read the lustre in the shade, And find our sov'reign greater in that shroud: So lightning dazzles from its night and cloud, So the First Light Himself has for His throne Blackness, ...
— Poems of Henry Vaughan, Silurist, Volume II • Henry Vaughan
... We ought to have been at least twenty feet high to fit the hour and the scene. Gradually the lights faded, the shadows faded, then both began to merge till a soft grey-blue dropped over all blending into the sky everywhere except west where the burnish of sunset remained. Before dark the old camp was reached; we found the saw by the last dying rays and then picked our backward path by starlight following the trail as we had come. Silence and the night were one as in the countless years that had carved the dim buttes from the rocks ...
— A Canyon Voyage • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... a double throne. Like burnish'd cloud of evening shone; While, group'd the base around, Four Damsels stood of Faery race; Who, turning each with heavenly grace Upon me her immortal face, Transfix'd ...
— The Sylphs of the Season with Other Poems • Washington Allston
... like most of us, she only faced the situation that encompassed her. She never gazed inwards. If at times strange images rose from the depths, she put them down to nerves. When Cecil brought the Emersons to Summer Street, it had upset her nerves. Charlotte would burnish up past foolishness, and this might upset her nerves. She was nervous at night. When she talked to George—they met again almost immediately at the Rectory—his voice moved her deeply, and she wished to remain near him. How dreadful if she really wished to remain near him! Of course, the wish ...
— A Room With A View • E. M. Forster
... the stout harvesters falleth the grain, As when the strong storm-wind is reaping the plain, And loiters the boy in the briery lane; But yonder aslant comes the silvery rain, Like a long line of spears brightly burnish'd and tall. ...
— The Children's Garland from the Best Poets • Various
... soft, sir; your mark is at the fairest. Forswear her love, and seal it with a kiss Upon the burnish'd splendour of this blade, Or it shall rip the entrails ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various
... withouten mair.[42] The third he hit in his harness of steel, Throughout the cost,[43] the spear it brake some deal. The great power then after him can ride. He saw no waill[44] there longer for to bide. His burnish'd brand braithly[45] in hand he bare, Whom he hit right they follow'd him na mair.[46] To stuff the chase feil freiks[47] follow'd fast, But Wallace made the gayest aye aghast. The muir he took, and through their power yede, The horse was good, but yet he had great ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... as a book. Knowing well that I have never had one hour of inspiration since it was begun, and have only beaten out my metal by brute force and patient repetition, I hoped some day to get a 'spate of style' and burnish it - fine mixed metaphor. I am now so sick that I intend, when the Letters are done and some more written that will be wanted, simply to make a book of it by ...
— Vailima Letters • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the city at any cost, cared not a straw what the world without might say of him. The rifle, the bayonet, the revolver, the whip—here were fine tools and proved. Let but a breath of suspicion frost the burnish of a reputation and he would have that man or woman at the bar, though arrest might cost a hundred lives. Thus it came about that those within the gates were a heterogeneous multitude to which all classes ...
— Aladdin of London - or Lodestar • Sir Max Pemberton
... is to let truth fight her own battles. She will render a good account of all her foes. Our humble duty is to stand by her, merely as seconds in the strife, to help her to her feet should she fall, to burnish her armor if the rust come to dim its brightness or spoil the keenness of her weapon's edge, knowing that she, as with the sword of the cherubim, will scatter, at the last, the evil legions and their dark array, as the ...
— Continental Monthly, Volume 5, Issue 4 • Various
... early hours of rest go by, To see thee flood the heaven with milky light, And feed thy snow-white swans, before I slept; For thou wert then purveyor of my dreams,— Thou wert the fairies' armourer, that kept Their burnish'd helms, and crowns, and corslets bright, Their spears, and glittering mails; And ever thou didst spill in winding streams Sparkles and midnight gleams, For fishes to new gloss their ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... ere it is trod; Burnish the arms that he must wield; And pray, with all thy strength, that God May crown him Victor ...
— Legends and Lyrics: Second Series • Adelaide Anne Procter
... of the Lord With earth's waters make accord; Teach how the crucifix may be Carven from the laurel-tree, Fruit of the Hesperides Burnish take on Eden-trees, The Muses' sacred grove be wet With the red dew of Olivet, And Sappho lay her burning brows In white Cecilia's ...
— Poems • Francis Thompson
... the wattle gold trembles 'Twixt shadow and shine, When each dew-laden air draught resembles A long draught of wine; When the sky-line's blue burnish'd resistance Makes deeper the dreamiest distance, Some song in all hearts hath existence, — Such songs ...
— An Anthology of Australian Verse • Bertram Stevens
... sat in, like a burnish'd throne, Burn'd on the water—the poop was beaten gold, Purple the sails, and so perfumed that The winds were love-sick with them; the oars were silver, Which to the tunes of flutes kept stroke, and made The water, ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat |
