"Carbuncle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... out behind her like a horse's tail. Under the brim was a white WIDOW'S ruche. Her waist was a black silk one adorned with cheap embroidery, and a broad belt displayed a silver buckle at least four inches in diameter, ornamented with a huge glass carbuncle at least half the buckle's size. On her own huge feet were a pair of shining patent-leather shoes sporting big gilt buckles, and each child wore ...
— Peggy Stewart: Navy Girl at Home • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... much sought after for its medicinal virtues—still another herb with which old women delight to dose their victims for any malady from a cold to a carbuncle. Quite a different plant, but a relative, is the one with hairy spike-like shoots from its fragrant roots, from which the "very precious" ointment poured by Mary upon the Saviour's head was made. The nard, an Indian product from that plant, which is ...
— Wild Flowers Worth Knowing • Neltje Blanchan et al
... interesting suggestions in the Talmud. Sometimes they have come to be generally accepted in the modern time, sometimes they are only curious notions that have not, however, lost all their interest. The crucial incision for carbuncle is a typical example of the first class and the suggestion of the removal of superfluous fat from within the abdomen or in the abdominal wall itself by operation is another. That they had some idea of the danger of sepsis may be gathered from the fact that they suspected iron ...
— Old-Time Makers of Medicine • James J. Walsh
... and pure, With carbuncle and sapphire, Kalsedonys and onyx clere, Sette in golde newe; Diamondes and rubies, And other stones ...
— Needlework As Art • Marian Alford
... sight of the intrigue altogether, and the action lags with heavy pace. Occasionally he reminds us of those over-accurate portrait painters, who, to insure a likeness, think they must copy every mark of the small- pox, every carbuncle or freckle. Frequently he has been suspected of having, in the delineation of particular characters, had real persons in his eye, while, at the same time, he has been reproached with making his characters mere personifications of general ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... and on the mountains there are lions, tigers, and ounces. There are but few elephants, of which we only saw three, but they abound farther inland. The negroes told us of a strange beast, which our interpreter called a carbuncle, which is said to be often seen, but only in the night. This animal is said to carry a stone in his forehead, wonderfully luminous, giving him light by which to feed in the night; and on hearing the slightest noise he presently conceals it with a skin or film naturally provided for the purpose. The ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. VIII. • Robert Kerr
... mysterious case we ever bumped up against in all our long and varied career in Arthur Conan Doyle's dream-pipe. It completely laid over "The Sign of the Four" and "The Study in Scarlet," and had "The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle" all beaten to ...
— The Adventures of the Eleven Cuff-Buttons • James Francis Thierry
... than if I had passed it with Faustina. I rose upon the hour of breaking fast, and felt tired, for I had travelled many miles that night, and was wanting to take food, when a crushing headache seized me; several boils appeared on my left arm, together with a carbuncle which showed itself just beyond the palm of the left hand where it joins the wrist. Everybody in the house was in a panic; my friend, the cow and the calf, all fled. Left alone there with my poor little prentice, who refused to abandon me, I felt stifled ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini
... his coat back on, but he clung to his weapons—there was no telling when the Indians might start an uprising. Probably at the moment it would have deeply pained him to learn that the only Indian uprising reported in these parts in the last forty years was a carbuncle on the back of the neck of Uncle Hopi Hooligan, the gentle copper-colored floorwalker of the white-goods counter in the Hopi House, adjacent to ...
— Roughing it De Luxe • Irvin S. Cobb
... but Glenarvan stopped them by a gesture. The condor was encircling in his flight a sort of inaccessible plateau about a quarter of a mile up the side of the mountain. He wheeled round and round with dazzling rapidity, opening and shutting his formidable claws, and shaking his cartilaginous carbuncle, or comb. ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne
... and saw the lovely Princess, with all her diamonds and her spiders'—web scarf, he did not know what to think, and obeyed her instantly when she commanded him to set out. They could see neither moon nor stars, but in the Queen's neck-handkerchief there was a carbuncle which glowed like fifty torches. Fanfaronade asked the Princess where she would like to go, but she only answered that she did not care where she went as long as he was ...
— The Red Fairy Book • Various
... peculiar to Milton; it is an outburst of the gladness of the company of believers. Every one has at least read the glorious poem; but were I to leave it out I should have lost, not the sapphire of aspiration, not the topaz of praise, not the emerald of holiness, but the carbuncle of delight from the high priest's breast-plate. And I must give the introduction too: it is the cloudy grove of an overture, whence rushes the ...
— England's Antiphon • George MacDonald
... the stairs in a surprisingly agile manner, For the wind through the keyhole kept saying, "Spruggins! Spruggins!" behind him. The fire in his bedroom burned brightly. The room with its crimson bed and window curtains Was as red and glowing as a carbuncle. It was still and warm. There was no wind here, for the windows were fastened; And no moon, For the curtains were drawn. The candle flame stood up like a pointed pear In a wide brass dish. Mr. Spruggins sighed with content; He was safe at home. The fire glowed—red and yellow roses In ...
— Men, Women and Ghosts • Amy Lowell
... others. In this sense there are as many kinds of earth as there are when one speaks of it in the general sense, on account of the mixtures of substances in it in varying quantities which make it of different heart and strength, such as rock, marble, sand, loam, clay, red ochre, dust, chalk, gravel, carbuncle (which is a condition of soil formed by the burning of roots in the intense heat of the sun); from which each kind of soil is called by a particular name, in accordance with the substances of which it is composed, as a chalky soil, a gravelly soil, or what ever else may be its distinguishing ...
— Roman Farm Management - The Treatises Of Cato And Varro • Marcus Porcius Cato
... hands all traces of his previous work—practising the same step all the time with the utmost gravity. This done, he drew from some concealed place a little scrap of looking-glass, and with its assistance arranged his hair, and ascertained the exact state of a little carbuncle on his nose. Having now completed his toilet, he placed the fragment of mirror on a low bench, and looked over his shoulder at so much of his legs as could be reflected in that small compass, with the greatest possible complacency ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... make the application to the case, very likely to happen, of some disfigurement of that exquisite toilette of Aurelia's? In going down stairs, for instance, why should not heavy old Mr Carbuncle, who is coming close behind with Mrs. Peony, both very eager for dinner, tread upon the hem of that garment which my lips would grow pale to kiss? The august Aurelia, yielding to natural laws, would be ...
— Prue and I • George William Curtis
... other things, he speaks of the "rapidly increasing community, now numbering 370 persons." He adds—"I am becoming very feeble from age, and my memory fails me in consequence of an operation at the back of my neck for carbuncle two years since;" and goes on to tell of the ...
— The Lonely Island - The Refuge of the Mutineers • R.M. Ballantyne
... than florid health. But little of the effects of his good cheer were apparent in the external man. His cheeks were neither swollen nor inflated—his person, though not thin, was of no unwieldy obesity—the tip of his nasal organ was, it is true, of a more ruby tinge than the rest, and one carbuncle, of tender age and gentle dyes, diffused its mellow and moonlight influence over the physiognomical scenery—his forehead was high and bald, and the few locks which still rose above it, were carefully and gracefully curled ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... reclining on richly embroidered sofas; yet here, too, all was profound silence. A superb banqueting-hall next met his astonished gaze; then a silent kitchen; then granaries loaded with forage; then a stable crowded with motionless horses. The whole place was brilliantly lighted by a carbuncle which was suspended in one corner of the reception-room; and opposite stood an archer, with his bow and arrow raised, in the act of taking aim at the jewel. As the priest passed back through this hall, he saw a diamond-hilted knife lying ...
— Myths and Myth-Makers - Old Tales and Superstitions Interpreted by Comparative Mythology • John Fiske
... whose dazzling splendour, worthy of the wealth of Golconda, clashes with the dingy colour of their haunts. To deceive the eyes of their bird-tyrants, the Swift, the Swallow, the Chat and the others, these Chrysis-wasps, who glow like a carbuncle, like a nugget in the midst of its dark veinstone, certainly do not adapt themselves to the sand and the clay of their downs. The Green Grasshopper, we are told, thought out a plan for gulling his enemies by identifying himself in colour with the grass in which he dwells, ...
— The Mason-bees • J. Henri Fabre
... long wish of his soul was gratified, and did not hunger or thirst any more. Some uncertain footing at Court, namely, was at length vouchsafed him:—uncertain; for the Most Christian Majesty always rather shuddered under those carbuncle eyes, under that voice "sombre and majestious," with such turns lying in it:—some uncertain footing at Court; and from the beginning of 1745, his luck, in the Court spheres, began to mount in a wonderful and ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVI. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Ten Years of Peace.—1746-1756. • Thomas Carlyle
... that Bug was choosing their path as the two strolled away together. Everywhere there was the pathos of a waning autumn day, and a soft haze creeping out of the west was making a blood-red carbuncle of the sun, set as a jewel on the amber-veiled bosom of the sky. The air was soft, wooing the spirit to a still, sweet peace. The two were at the outskirts of Lagonda Ledge now. The last board walk was three blocks back, and the cinder-made way had dwindled to a ...
— A Master's Degree • Margaret Hill McCarter
... unbearable extent; cold chills, loss of appetite, great depression of spirits, general nervous and muscular debility come on. The tumor continues to discharge, turns purple; gangrene beginning in the carbuncle extends to other ...
— An Epitome of Homeopathic Healing Art - Containing the New Discoveries and Improvements to the Present Time • B. L. Hill
... a carbuncle suddenly developed on Embankment, with the stately Thames swirling below, that I really thought they would like it," said HOME SECRETARY, mopping his furrowed brow. "But there are some people, TOBY, who are never pleased, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, May 3, 1890. • Various
... but the Genoese preferred returning home to announce their triumph, and to partake in the public joy. About the time of the Doge's death, another important public event took place in the death of John Visconti. He had a carbuncle upon his forehead, just above the eyebrows, which he imprudently caused to be cut; and, on the very day of the operation, October 4th, 1354, he expired so suddenly as not to have time to ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch
... King to God due honours pay, Remember Prince soon after thou'lt expire, When thou behold'st thy carbuncle display, Blaze against blaze amidst ...
— Miscellanies upon Various Subjects • John Aubrey
... sinks the sun,—a great carbuncle ball Red in the cavern of a sombre cloud,— And in her garden, where the dense weeds crowd. Among her dying asters stands the Fall, Like some lone woman in a ruined hall, Dreaming of desolation and the shroud; Or through ...
— Weeds by the Wall - Verses • Madison J. Cawein
... cause of love. You shall inhale the odour of myrrhodion, which makes the weak die. You shall bathe your body in the lake of pink oil of the Island of Juno. You shall see sleeping under the primroses the lizard who awakens all the centuries when at his maturity the carbuncle falls from his forehead. The stars glitter like eyes, the cascades sing like lyres, an intoxicating fragrance arises from the opening flowers. Your spirit shall expand in this atmosphere, and it will show itself in your heart as well as in ...
— The Temptation of St. Antony - or A Revelation of the Soul • Gustave Flaubert
... borne vppon foure wheeles, with Iron strakes, forcibly beaten out without fire; All the rest of the Charyot, in fashion like the former, was of burning Carbuncle, shewing light in the darkest places, of an expolite cutting: past any reason, to thinke howe or where it was possible to be made, ...
— Hypnerotomachia - The Strife of Loue in a Dreame • Francesco Colonna
... the kings of the Jinn and they said, 'By Allah, thou sayst sooth!' Then she rose to her feet, with the lute in her hand, and played and sang, whilst the Jinn and the Sheikh Aboultawaif danced. Then the latter came up to her and gave her a carbuncle he had taken from the hidden treasure of Japhet, son of Noah (on whom be peace), and which was worth the kingdom of the world; its light was as the light of the sun and he said to her, 'Take this and glorify thyself withal over[FN233] the people ...
— Tales from the Arabic Volumes 1-3 • John Payne
... scarlet. The crown of the head is scarlet, and between the lower mandible and the eye, and close to the eye, there is a part which has a fine blue appearance; the skin which juts out behind the neck, like a carbuncle, is partly blue and partly orange. The bill is orange and black. Round the bottom of the neck is a broad ruff of soft, downy, ash-grey feathers, and the back and tail-coverts are of a bright lawn. The middle wing-coverts ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston
... It is most probable that the stone described by Marco Polo was not a ruby, but an amethyst, which is found in large crystals in Ceylon, and which modern mineralogists believe to be the "hyacinth" of the ancients. (DANA'S Mineralogy, vol. ii. p. 196.) CORSALI says it was a carbuncle (Ramusio, vol. i. p. 180); and JORDAN DE SEVERAC, about the year 1323, repeats the story of its being a ruby so large that it could not be grasped in the closed hand. (Recueil de Voy., Soc. Geog. Paris. vol. iv. p. 50.) If this resplendent object really exhibited the dimensions assigned to it, ...
— Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and • James Emerson Tennent
... and other precious stones. And all these arches met in the middle of the roof, and just there, hung by a gold chain, an immense lamp made out of one big pearl hollowed out and quite transparent. And in the middle of this was a big, huge carbuncle, which kept spinning round and round, and this was what gave light by its rays to the whole hall, which seemed as if the setting sun ...
— English Fairy Tales • Joseph Jacobs (coll. & ed.)
... 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 noontide, but cooler than the gentle radiance of the dewy moon. This was a sore trial to the Rabbi; but he was strengthened from above, and ...
— Eastern Tales by Many Story Tellers • Various
... the top, a chamber [now the so-called King's Chamber] with an hollow stone [or coffer] in which there was a statue [of stone] like a man, and within it a man upon whom was a breastplate of gold set with jewels; upon this breastplate was a sword of inestimable price, and at his head a carbuncle of the bigness of an egg, shining like the light of the day; and upon him were characters writ with a pen,[251] which no man understood"[252]—a description stating, down to the so-called "statue," mummy-case, or cartonage, and the hieroglyphics ...
— Archaeological Essays, Vol. 1 • James Y. Simpson
... Giamschid. The splendid fabulous ruby of Sultan Giamschid, sometimes called "The Cup of the Sun" and "The Torch of Night." Byron ("The Giaour") says that the dark eyes of Leila were "bright as the jewel of Giamschid." The carbuncle of Giamschid is one of the treasures sought by the Caliph ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning
... doubted; they depended on testimony of sufficient validity to dispose of any mere question of authenticity. All that he attempted was hypothesis, which he invited us to controvert. He might as well have desired me to demonstrate that the sun is not a carbuncle. On the modus operandi, and the powers of his art, the doctor was more explicit. There were a great many gradations in quality in his somnambules, some being better and some worse; and there was also a good deal of difference in the intensity of the magnetiser's. It ...
— Recollections of Europe • J. Fenimore Cooper
... middle stature, usually of broad and powerful build, short-necked, with square head and narrow forehead, and with eyes that would be black, if it were not for the fire that flickers in them with a carbuncle-like intensity. From the hips upward the Llanero is straight and well-proportioned; but his constant equitation curves and bandies his legs in a manner plainly visible whenever he attempts to walk. His distinctive ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 3, No. 16, February, 1859 • Various
... in a rimed toast. The crowd of courtiers in the palace-hall applauded. Then the King of the Sea of Dungting drew forth a blue cloud-casket in which was the horn of a rhinoceros, which divides the water. Tsian Tang brought out a platter of red amber on which lay a carbuncle. These they presented to their guest, and the other inmates of the palace also heaped up embroideries, brocades and pearls by his side. Surrounded by shimmer and light Liu I sat there, smiling, and bowed his thanks to all sides. When ...
— The Chinese Fairy Book • Various
... was there, of Sarraguce, Of that city one half was his by use, 'Twas Climborins, a man was nothing proof; By Guenelun the count an oath he took, And kissed his mouth in amity and truth, Gave him his sword and his carbuncle too. Terra Major, he said, to shame he'ld put, From the Emperour his crown he would remove. He sate his horse, which he called Barbamusche, Never so swift sparrow nor swallow flew, He spurred him well, and down the reins he threw, Going to strike Engelier of Gascune; Nor shield ...
— The Song of Roland • Anonymous
... ship (such as Godwin gave as a gift to the king his master), and the monk of St. Bertin and the court-poets have lovingly described a ship with gold-broidered sails, gilt masts, and red-dyed rigging. One of his ships has, like the ships in the Chansons de Geste, a carbuncle for a lantern at the masthead. Hedin signals to Frode by a shield at the masthead. A red shield was a peace signal, as noted above. The practice of "strand-hewing", a great feature in Wicking-life (which, so far as the victualling of raw meat by the fishing fleets, and ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... for her great preoccupation was to save time), she drew him towards her, pushed him past her in the door, and planted him face to face with Mr. Van Tromp, in a suit of French country velveteens and with a remarkable carbuncle on his nose. Then, as though this was the end of what she could endure in the way of joy, Esther turned and ran out ...
— Tales and Fantasies • Robert Louis Stevenson
... cowards of us all." He felt on his cheek the sharp points of Eleanor's fingers, and did not know who might have seen the blow, who might have told the tale to this pestilent woman who took such delight in jeering him. He stood there, therefore, red as a carbuncle and mute as a fish; grinning sufficiently to show his teeth; an object ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... you follow under your torrid sun, O gleaming carbuncle? Have you the bucolic tastes of your rival in finery, the Splendid Phanaeus? Can you be a knacker, a worker in putrid sausage-meat, like Phanaeus Milon? Vainly do I consider you and marvel at you: your ...
— The Glow-Worm and Other Beetles • Jean Henri Fabre
... Robbins who chanced by wondered how Millie had escaped death from blood poison from the knife blade, until the young husband told casually how when he was a little set along child he had seen an old doctor dip the blade of a penknife in a boiling kettle of water and lance a carbuncle on another's neck. He had done the same ...
— Blue Ridge Country • Jean Thomas
... devil of a temper of his own when his blood was up. I remember one night in this very room when he had some words with Sam Dolsen about that black mare o' his'n. He fired up like a tiger, and that scar on his cheek glowed like a carbuncle. It seemed as if it was going to crack open. I made sure he was going to drop into Sam, and he would 'a done, too, if our landlord hadn't interfered and calmed ...
— The Gerrard Street Mystery and Other Weird Tales • John Charles Dent
... are certain classes of men more subject than others to certain infirmities; the Gascons are given to exaggeration and Parisians to vanity. As we see that apoplexy attacks people with short necks, or butchers are liable to carbuncle, as gout attacks the rich, health the poor, deafness kings, paralysis administrators, so it has been remarked that certain classes of husbands and their wives are more given to illegitimate passions. Thus they forestall the celibates, ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part I. • Honore de Balzac
... come on. In alarm he seeks medical advice. The doctor tells him that it is a malignant pustule, and takes at once the most active measures. In spite of all possible skill and care the patient too often succumbs to the bite of a mouche charbonneuse, or carbuncle-fly. But has any kind of fly the property of producing malignant pustule by some specific inherent power of its own? Surely not. The antecedent circumstances are these: A sheep or heifer is attacked with the disease known ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 303 - October 22, 1881 • Various
... round among the fielders, just to get their hands in; which ball, we may mention, is nine inches in circumference, weighs five and a half ounces, is in color not unlike a carbuncle, and nearly as hard. The umpires take their respective position, and at the word "Play!" the whole party, like a pack of pointers, strike attitudes of attention, more or less graceful, and the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Volume 11, No. 26, May, 1873 • Various
... Changed into stone.—Ver. 415. Pliny says, that this becomes hard, and turns into gems, like the carbuncle, being of a fiery tint, and that the stone has the name of 'lyncurium.' Beckmann (Hist. Inventions) thinks that this was probably the jacinth, or hyacinth, while others suppose it to have been the ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Copious Notes - and Explanations • Publius Ovidius Naso
... their rifles at a mark, Six rods, sixteen, twenty, or forty-five; Sometimes their wits at sally and retort, With laughter sudden as the crack of rifle; Or parties scaled the near acclivities Competing seekers of a rumored lake, Whose unauthenticated waves we named Lake Probability,—our carbuncle, Long sought, not found. ...
— Poems - Household Edition • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... breastplate of Aaron, and those that shine in the foundations of the New Jerusalem, as described by St. John; indeed, the walls of Sion are set with the same jewels as the High Priest's pectoral, with the exception of the carbuncle, the ligure, agate, and onyx, which are named in Exodus, and replaced in the Book of Revelation by chalcedony, sardonyx, chrysoprase, ...
— The Cathedral • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... though, beforehand," cried Zack,—"the clasp. The clasp shall be a serpent, with turquoise eyes, and a carbuncle tail; and all our initials scored up somehow on his scales. Won't that be splendid? I should like to surprise Madonna ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins |
