"Exquisite" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... collier, with one turn of the hand. Queer cuts these!—but just a little bit beyond her. She watched them rather from a distance. She wished she could jump across the distance. Particularly with the Jap, who was almost quite naked, but clothed with the most exquisite tattooing. Never would she forget the eagle that flew with terrible spread wings between his shoulders, or the strange mazy pattern that netted the roundness of his buttocks. He was not very large, but nicely shaped, and with ...
— The Lost Girl • D. H. Lawrence
... Mr. Shaw more immediately successful, and not traceable to any obvious influence, English or foreign, came the comedies of Oscar Wilde. For a parallel to their pure delight and high spirits, and to the exquisite wit and artifice with which they were constructed, one would have to go back to the dramatists of the Restoration. To Congreve and his school, indeed, Wilde belongs rather than to any later period. With his own age ...
— English Literature: Modern - Home University Library Of Modern Knowledge • G. H. Mair
... pleasures so great as that of finding one's own idea, or hope, or longing, finely expressed, half-born thoughts alive and of stately stature; and then the exquisite touches of art upon quick nerves, the enlarging of the realms of imagination, knowledge, the heightening of perceptions, intuitions; finally the blessed power of escaping from oneself, with the paradoxical reward of greater self-realization! But, ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... partly pulled along by Perkins, and at the cost of exquisite suffering, for she was crippled by rheumatism, Alice reached the hall wherein the Bishop sat. He received her ...
— All's Well - Alice's Victory • Emily Sarah Holt
... flocks of gaily plumaged parrots winged their way, screaming discordantly, across the stream; brilliantly painted kingfishers darted like streams of living fire from bough to bough, or perched staring intently down into the water from some overhanging branch; enormous butterflies of exquisite colours, and dragon-flies with transparent rose-tinted wings flitted inconsequently over the surface of the water and were leaped at by fish as brilliantly tinted as themselves—and it was day in the South American forest. Half an hour later, as the boat rounded a low bluff, a break ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... I felt myself borne up and up in that effortless ascension, my senses awake and my reason still half-dormant, an exquisite sense of languor pervaded my whole being. Presently meseemed that the surface was gained at last, and an instinct impelled me to open my eyes upon the light, of which, through closed ...
— The Suitors of Yvonne • Raphael Sabatini
... elevation of his six feet four. Montague Nevitt was tall enough, as men go in England, but with his slim, tailor-made form, and his waxed moustaches, he looked by the side of that big-built giant, like a: Bond Street exquisite before some prize-fighting Goliath. The barrister didn't hold out his huge hand in return. On the contrary, he concealed it, as far as was possible, behind his burly back, and, looking down from the full height of his contempt upon the sinister smirking creature ...
— What's Bred In the Bone • Grant Allen
... heavier body, it wrinkles and musses much more readily than good cotton. For table service, however, for the toilet, and for minor ornamental purposes linen has no equal. Its smoothness of texture, its brilliancy which laundering increases, its wearing qualities, its exquisite freshness, make it the one fabric fit for ...
— Textiles and Clothing • Kate Heintz Watson
... proportion, and therefore of composition. He who alters the relations of dimensions to each other in his copy, shows that he does not enjoy those relations in the original—that is to say, that all appreciation of noble design (which is based on the most exquisite relations of magnitude) is impossible to him. To give him habits of mathematical accuracy in transference of the outline of complex form, is therefore among the first, and even among the most important, means of educating ...
— A Joy For Ever - (And Its Price in the Market) • John Ruskin
... stupid thing!" exclaimed Chia Cheng at these words; "what you simply fancy as exquisite, with that despicable reliance of yours upon luxury and display, are two-storied buildings and painted pillars! But how can you know anything about this aspect so pure and unobtrusive, and this is all because of that failing ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... elemental school, especially in this paragraph which says: "Life is always worth living, if one have such responsive sensibilities. But we of the highly educated classes (so-called) have most of us got far, far away from Nature. We are trained to seek the choice, the rare, the exquisite exclusively and to overlook the common. We are stuffed with abstract conceptions, and glib with verbalities and verbosities; and in the culture of these higher functions the peculiar sources of joy connected with our simpler functions often dry up, and we grow stone-blind and ...
— Reveries of a Schoolmaster • Francis B. Pearson
... an account of his expenses, which during the twenty-one weeks he remained at Hamburg amounted to 122,000 marks, or about 183,000 francs. None but the most exquisite wines were drunk at the table of Dupas. Even his servants were treated with champagne, and the choicest fruits were brought from the fine hothouses of Berlin. The inhabitants were irritated at this extravagance, and Dupas accordingly ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... her fine genius are of Colorado growth, and though without the antique flavor of her recollections of Rome and Venice, are as delicious to the taste as they are tempting to the eye, and afford a natural feast of exquisite quality."—N. Y. Tribune. ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... the precious feather, and thanked Has-se warmly for the gift and its assurance of friendship, Rene noted with surprise that attached to it was a slender gold chain fastening a golden pin of strange and exquisite make. It was by these that the feather had been confined in Has-se's hair, and it was the cutting of this chain by Chitta's arrow that had ...
— The Flamingo Feather • Kirk Munroe
... music were common features of the Muslim art of the Deccan—the association of certain modes with Krishna being carefully preserved. One of the finest series of raga and ragini pictures executed at Hyderabad and now in the India Office Library, London, contains exquisite versions with Krishna themes. ...
— The Loves of Krishna in Indian Painting and Poetry • W. G. Archer
... To give a cup of water, yet its draught Of cool refreshment, drained by fevered lips, May give a shock of pleasure to the frame More exquisite than when nectarean juice Renews the life of joy ...
— The Golden Censer - The duties of to-day, the hopes of the future • John McGovern
... could hear was the the throbbing of her own heart. To her the whole world seemed like an open sepulcher. Looking down she discovered that she was unconsciously sitting on a flowery terrace and that all about her was life. She pulled one of those exquisite white flowers with wide pink veins, peculiar alone to the Philippines, and pressed ...
— The Woman with a Stone Heart - A Romance of the Philippine War • Oscar William Coursey
... to have its own tale of misery for my eyes, and fixed against this and her white throat were those masses of flowers without which her beauty never seemed quite complete. In her hair, which was piled high above her forehead, flashed a huge golden comb, and upon her arm gleamed two bracelets, whose exquisite workmanship was well known to me, for they had been an heirloom in my family for years. She was fair as a dream, proud as a queen, cold as a statue, but she was mine! Was not the minister waiting for us at the church? and were not the horses that were to ...
— The Forsaken Inn - A Novel • Anna Katharine Green
... to sustain the reputation of our arm of the service. We found the most delicious hams packed away in the ash-houses. They were small, and had that; exquisite nutty flavor, peculiar to mast-fed bacon. Then there was an abundance of the delightful little apple known as "romanites." There were turnips, pumpkins, cabbages, potatoes, and the usual products of the field in plenty, even profusion. The corn in the fields ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... serene and unabashed. "The world is wide," he said, with an exquisite tolerance. "It is a very comprehensive subject. You must take it up one of these days—you've hardly made a beginning ...
— With the Procession • Henry B. Fuller
... without exception, the most exquisite of the family; the male can always be known by the bright orange throat, breast and superciliary stripe, the upper parts being largely black. They arrive with us when the apple trees are in bloom and after a week's delay pass on to more ...
— The Bird Book • Chester A. Reed
... adds much that the two previous writers had not included. One can easily understand his spending several days with Mary, the now aged mother of Jesus, in John's home in Jerusalem, and from her lips gleaning the exquisite account of the nativity of her divinely conceived Son. He largely omits names of places, for they would be unknown and not of value or interest. When needed, ...
— Quiet Talks about Jesus • S. D. Gordon
... eternally youthful coquette, had come with a great outward display of timidity and shyness into the sternly solemn forest land of the high Sierra. To the last fine detail and exquisite touch was she, more here than elsewhere, softly, prettily, daintily feminine, her light heart idly set on wooing from its calm and abstracted aloofness this region of granite and lava, of rugged chasms and august ...
— The Everlasting Whisper • Jackson Gregory
... indubitable fit of amazement: for, as was our custom on the neck of land by the Lost Soul, at the one end, where sat the luxurious Dannie Callaway, by no will of his own, was the glitter of silver, the flash and glow of delicate china, a flower or more from our garden, exquisite napery, the bounties of the kindly earth, whatever the cost; but at the other (the napery abruptly ceasing at the centre of the table because of the wear and tear that might chance) was set out, upon coarse ware, even to tin, ...
— The Cruise of the Shining Light • Norman Duncan
... to him that he had never beheld any thing so resplendent. The air was perfumed by their movement and the rustling of their wondrous robes. "They must be of the Aryan race," thought Lothair, "though not of the Phidian type." They sang a Greek air, and their sweet and touching voices blended with exquisite harmony. Every one was silent in the room, because every one was entranced. Then they gave their friends some patriotic lay which required chorus, the sisters, in turn, singing a stanza. Mr. Phoebus arranged the chorus in a moment, and there clustered ...
— Lothair • Benjamin Disraeli
... of the suburbs, for instance, a wretched glass and plaster shelter, nine feet ten inches long by six and one-half feet wide, resting against our cottage, gave us about fifty pounds of grapes of an exquisite flavour in October, for nine consecutive years. The crop came from a Hamburg vine-stalk, six year old. And the shelter was so bad that the rain came through. At night the temperature was always that of outside. It was evidently ...
— The Conquest of Bread • Peter Kropotkin
... those which she now endured. Still he fails to turn aside her thoughts. She is thinking still only of her own and her son's suffering, while he continues bent on making her think of others, until, at last, forth comes her prayer for all women. This seems to me a tenderness grand as exquisite. ...
— England's Antiphon • George MacDonald
... wing-no, they are only deep, golden brown, yet the long lashes and eyebrows of jet, together with the ever dilating pupil, give the impression that they are darker, a complexion of sunny olive, and locks which are certainly the hue of night; a form richly moulded and of perfect symmetry, from the exquisite head to the slippered foot, stood before her. Surely it was not a vision from which my lady had cause to turn in vexation, yet with an expression of scorn, and a bright flush apparently of shame, mounting to her cheek, she impatiently moved away, and ...
— The Duke's Prize - A Story of Art and Heart in Florence • Maturin Murray
... stands a two-story, red-brick house with an exquisite Georgian doorway. The wrought-iron handrail that borders the crumbling stone steps is still intact. The steps usually are crowded with dirty, quarreling children and a sore-eyed cat or two. Nobody knows and nobody cares who built the ...
— The Enchanted Canyon • Honore Willsie Morrow
... a slave to discipline. How delightful! The first time I met an example of this handwriting, I was positively astonished, and where do you think I chanced to find it? In Switzerland, of all places! Now that is an ordinary English hand. It can hardly be improved, it is so refined and exquisite—almost perfection. This is an example of another kind, a mixture of styles. The copy was given me by a French commercial traveller. It is founded on the English, but the downstrokes are a little blacker, and more marked. Notice that the oval has some slight modification—it is more rounded. This ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... rightly read, are parables fresh and inspiring now, as when, twenty-five hundred years ago, Jewish children listened to them with awe beneath the willows by the water courses of Babylonia. That most exquisite story of our weird Hawthorne, the Marble Faun, is a version of the legend of the Garden of Eden. Commingled with these lofty truths we find crude notions of astronomy, geology, biology, and anthropology How could it be otherwise, since these sciences were embryotic ...
— The Right and Wrong Uses of the Bible • R. Heber Newton
... that it might only deceive the reader by stating them as they at present exist, when in a few weeks they may be higher or lower as circumstances may arise. Some persons choose, the route by Southampton and Havre as being the most picturesque, as from the latter town to Rouen such exquisite scenery is presented by the banks of the Seine, as you pass in the steamer between them, that the passenger is at a loss on which side to bestow his attention, whilst rapidly hurried through so delightful and fertile a country; in fact, he is tempted for once to regret the velocity ...
— How to Enjoy Paris in 1842 • F. Herve
... of Rochelle was produced and rapturously received at Drury Lane. Encouraged by his success, he produced The Maid of Artois on the 27th of May 1836—the success of the opera being confirmed by the exquisite singing of Malibran. Balfe was a prolific composer, as may be seen from the following imperfect list of his English operas alone:—Siege of Rochelle (1835); The Maid of Artois (1836); Catherine Grey ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various
... - I have just lunched; the day is exquisite, the air comes though the open window rich with odour, and I am by no means spiritually minded. Your letter, however, was very much valued, and has been read oftener than once. What you say about yourself I was glad to hear; a little decent resignation is not only becoming a Christian, but is likely ...
— The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 1 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Helen's ears. She seemed to float dreamily away to some beautiful world, with the music of those words ringing in her ears. She looked at him again. Had she been dreaming? No; his dark eyes met hers with a love that he could no longer deny. An exquisite emotion, keen, strangely sweet and strong, yet terrible with sharp pain, pulsated through her being. The revelation had been too abrupt. It was so wonderfully different from what she had ever dared hope. She lowered her ...
— The Last Trail • Zane Grey
... "Oh, how exquisite!" murmured the Chinese Court-chaplain, as he heard the frogs croaking in a marsh. "Now I can hear it; why, it resembles ...
— Tales of Wonder Every Child Should Know • Various
... for rugged service than display, yet the number of beautiful old quilts which these industrious ancestors have bequeathed to us is very large. Every now and then there comes to light one of these old quilts of the most exquisite loveliness, in which the needlework is almost painful in its exactness. Such treasures are worthy of study and imitation, and are deserving of careful preservation for the inspiration of future generations ...
— Quilts - Their Story and How to Make Them • Marie D. Webster
... enchantment of it all looked out of the girl's face. Wonder sat on her forehead, and on her parted lips. It was a face serious, either with persistent purpose or with some momentary trouble, yet full of an exquisite hunger for life and light and space. Eyes and hair and curving cheek,—all the girl's sensitive being seemed struggling to accept the gift of beauty before her, almost ...
— Daphne, An Autumn Pastoral • Margaret Pollock Sherwood
... conversation, and particularly their remarks on the authorship of the various articles contributed to the paper, revived Franklin's literary ambition; he sent some communications to the journal in a feigned hand; they were inserted, and he tells us that "he had the exquisite pleasure to find that they met with approbation, and that, in the various conjectures respecting the author, no one was mentioned who did not enjoy a high reputation in the country for talents and genius." He was thus encouraged to reveal ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 4 of 8 • Various
... court is one of exquisite richness. As one enters from any side the impression grows that this is the most decorative of all the courts; and yet one is not conscious of any individual bit of decoration as such. Everything fits perfectly: arches, tower, cornices, finials, statues, ...
— An Art-Lovers guide to the Exposition • Shelden Cheney
... bold flights of poetry, on the extreme boundaries of the conceivable, as aberrations in art. For Calderon has every where converted that into matter what passed with his predecessors for form;—nothing less than the noblest and most exquisite excellence could satisfy him. And this is why he repeats himself in many expressions, images, comparisons, nay, even in many plays of situation; for he was too rich to be under the necessity of borrowing from himself, much less from others. ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel
... for a doubting minute or two, with bowed head, listening to the exquisite harmony which floated out to caress and soothe and enfold him. There was no spiritual, or at least pious, effect in it now. He fancied that it must be secular music, or, if not, then something adapted to marriage ...
— The Damnation of Theron Ware • Harold Frederic
... capricious little dame." Mrs. Margaret was evidently pleased by the poor orphan's preference, and whilst she was dressing the infant, there was time to discover that the little child was a perfect beauty in her way; the form of her face being oval, the features exquisite, the eyes soft, yet sparkling, and the lips delicately formed. The hair, of raven black, was clustered and curling, and the head set on the shoulders in a way worthy of the daughters of kings; but the servants pointed out on the arm of the infant, a peculiar mark which was not natural, but which ...
— Shanty the Blacksmith; A Tale of Other Times • Mrs. Sherwood [AKA: Mrs. Mary Martha Sherwood]
... Mrs. Pat once more replied in forcible phraseology, as she drove her horse again at the wall. The average Meath horse likes stones just about as much as the average Co. Cork horse enjoys water, and the train of running men and boys were given the exquisite gratification of a contest between Pilot and ...
— All on the Irish Shore - Irish Sketches • E. Somerville and Martin Ross
... the martyrs of Lyons, (Euseb. l. v. c. 1,) the slave Blandina was distinguished by more exquisite tortures. Of the five martyrs so much celebrated in the acts of Felicitas and Perpetua, two were of a servile, and two others ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... hold an inquiry, getting back here to an eight o'clock or nearer nine dinner...Dalhousie has discovered that the officer now in command of the "Britannia" is somebody whom he does NOT know, so we gave up going to Dartmouth and agreed to have a lazy day here. It is the most exquisite summer weather you can imagine, and I have been basking in the sun all the morning and dreamily looking over the view of the lovely bay which is looking its best—but take it all round it does not come up to Lynton. Dalhousie is more likeable than ever, and ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 2 • Leonard Huxley
... human companionship was curiously potent: at once, the boy's half-wild manner changed and, though alert and still watchful, he whistled cheerily to Jack, threw his gun over his shoulder, and walked erect and confident. His pace slackened. Carelessly now his feet tramped beds of soft exquisite moss and lone little settlements of forget-me-nots, and his long riflebarrel brushed laurel blossoms down in a shower behind him. Once even, he picked up one of the pretty bells and looked idly at it, turning it bottom upward. The waxen cup might have blossomed from a tiny waxen star. ...
— The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come • John Fox
... length of time that is desired. But a great official observatory, such as Greenwich Observatory or the Observatory at Paris, also has transit instruments, or telescopes smaller than the equatorials and without the same facility of movement, but which, by a number of exquisite refinements, are more adapted to accurate measurements. It is these instruments which are chiefly used in the compilation of the Nautical Almanac. They do not follow the apparent motions of the stars. Stars are allowed to drift across the field of vision, ...
— The Outline of Science, Vol. 1 (of 4) - A Plain Story Simply Told • J. Arthur Thomson
... up the icy water, plunging one's head into it, and drawing it out, all fresh and glowing with the cold; was a good thing. The fast, brisk walk upon the towing-path, between that time and breakfast, when every vein and artery seemed to tingle with health; the exquisite beauty of the opening day, when light came gleaming off from everything; the lazy motion of the boat, when one lay idly on the deck, looking through, rather than at, the deep blue sky; the gliding on, at night, so noiselessly, ...
— The Paths of Inland Commerce - A Chronicle of Trail, Road, and Waterway, Volume 21 in The - Chronicles of America Series • Archer B. Hulbert
... of the Ramsey's dinner far outdid Aunt Elizabeth's, but Edna did not enjoy it one whit the more, although it was very delightful to be served by a man in livery, and to have such exquisite china and glass to look at during the meal. The child felt a little shy in the presence of so many strangers, and had little to say. Moreover, she had too often been told by Aunt Elizabeth that "little children should be seen and not heard" ...
— A Dear Little Girl at School • Amy E. Blanchard
... Inner Temple; died 27th December, 1834, about five months after his friend Coleridge, who continued in habits of intimacy with him from their first acquaintance till his death in July of the same year. In "one of the most exquisite of all the Essays of Elia," "The Old Benchers of the Middle Temple" ("Works", vol. ii, p. 188), Lamb has given the characters of his father, and of his father's master, Samuel Salt. The few touches descriptive of this gentleman's "unrelenting ...
— Biographia Epistolaris, Volume 1. • Coleridge, ed. Turnbull
... is often the "play-house" of the child, and is decked out to that end in a hundred ways (306. 162). Of the Sioux cradle, Catlin says:—"A broad hoop of elastic wood passes around in front of the child's face to protect it in case of a fall, from the front of which is suspended a little toy of exquisite embroidery for the child to handle and amuse itself with. To this and other little trinkets hanging in front of it, there are attached many little tinselled and tinkling things of the brightest colours to amuse both the eyes and the ears of the child. While ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain
... than that of the Nestorians. Under the reigns of Zeno and Anastasius, their artful leaders surprised the ear of the prince, usurped the thrones of the East, and crushed on its native soil the school of the Syrians. The rule of the Monophysite faith was defined with exquisite discretion by Severus, patriarch of Antioch: he condemned, in the style of the Henoticon, the adverse heresies of Nestorius; and Eutyches maintained against the latter the reality of the body of Christ, ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon
... prepared for entering into hostilities with the gods for the possession of Lakshmi and Amrita. Thereupon Narayana called his bewitching Maya (illusive power) to his aid, and assuming the form of an enticing female, coquetted with the Danavas. The Danavas and the Daityas charmed with her exquisite beauty and grace lost their reason and unanimously placed the Amrita in the ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa - Translated into English Prose - Adi Parva (First Parva, or First Book) • Kisari Mohan Ganguli (Translator)
... impulse and from the glowing influence of Rousseau, he felt the necessity and desire of infusing into the verse of the day more passion than might resound from the frigid lyre of Mr. Hayley. My father had fancy, sensibility, and an exquisite taste, but he had not that rare creative power, which the blended and simultaneous influence of the individual organisation and the spirit of the age, reciprocally acting upon each other, can alone, perhaps, perfectly develope; the absence of which, ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... captain, who was unhurt, shattered the right elbow of his antagonist—the very point upon which he had been struck with the second cherry-stone; and here ended the second lesson. There was something awfully impressive in the modus operandi and exquisite skill of his antagonist. The third cherry-stone was still in his possession, and the aggressor had not forgotten that it had struck the unoffending gentleman upon the left breast. A month passed—another—and another, ...
— Successful Recitations • Various
... recognise its face. It was disloyal to her, an offence against all that she was, an affront to his manhood to let the thought have place in his mind even for one swift moment. She was Lord Eglington's wife—there could be no sharing of soul and mind and body and the exquisite devotion of a life too dear for thought. Nothing that she was to Eglington could be divided with another, not for an hour, not by one act of impulse; or else she must be less, she that might have been, if there had ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... of the fact that she had previously read John Charteris's tales of Lichfield,—"those effusions which" (if the Lichfield Courier-Herald is to be trusted) "have builded, by the strength and witchery of record and rhyme, romance and poem, a myriad-windowed temple in Lichfield's honor—exquisite, luminous, and enduring—for all ...
— The Rivet in Grandfather's Neck - A Comedy of Limitations • James Branch Cabell
... thousand years men had come to desire. Hers is the head upon which all "the ends of the world are come," and the eyelids are a little weary. It is a beauty wrought out from within upon the flesh, the deposit, little cell by cell, of strange thoughts and fantastic reveries and exquisite passions. Set it for a moment beside one of those white Greek goddesses or beautiful women of antiquity, and how would they be troubled by this beauty, into which the soul with all its maladies has passed! All the thoughts and experience of the world have etched and moulded there, in that which they ...
— The Gate of Appreciation - Studies in the Relation of Art to Life • Carleton Noyes
... and in an environment in which the finer aspects of life were disregarded. He had enjoyed himself, made himself popular, and for the rest he had waited until such a time as his success would make choice possible. When he met Meredith Fletcher he felt the time had come. The girl's exquisite aloofness, her fineness and sweetness, bewitched him. The real meaning of her character did not interest him at all. Here was something that he wanted; the rest would be an easy conquest. Thornton ...
— The Shield of Silence • Harriet T. Comstock
... as he is small; never was so much of the 'essence of devil' packed into such a tiny compass," said another set; "and this, to be sure, is England's great poet!" Besides these personal objections, there were others of a more solid character. While all admitted the exquisite polish and terse language of Pope's compositions, many felt that they were too artificial—that they were often imitative—that they seldom displayed those qualities of original thought and sublime enthusiasm ...
— Poetical Works of Pope, Vol. II • Alexander Pope
... nothing of the personal inconsistency of some of these critics, whose printed works furnish exquisite illustrations of the will to believe, in spite of their denunciations of it as a phrase and as a recommended thing. Mr. McTaggart, whom I will once more take as an example, is sure that 'reality is rational and righteous' ...
— The Meaning of Truth • William James
... any better poetry than the verses you wrote to me at Lakewood. They are exquisite. ...
— Patty Blossom • Carolyn Wells
... radiant, exquisite, and vnmatchable beautie. I pray you tell me if this bee the Lady of the house, for I neuer saw her. I would bee loath to cast away my speech: for besides that it is excellently well pend, I haue taken great paines to con it. Good Beauties, ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... These have all arisen from the wild by a process of continuous loss. Everything was there in the beginning, and as the wild plant parted with factor after factor there came into being the long series of derived forms. Exquisite as are the results of civilization, it is by the degradation of the wild that they have been brought about. How far are we justified in regarding this as a picture of the ...
— Mendelism - Third Edition • Reginald Crundall Punnett
... pleasant recollection of the mock gravity, the broad humor, and often exquisite wit of those meetings, but it is impossible to give you any adequate idea of them. Burlesque lectures on all conceivable and inconceivable subjects were frequently read or improvised by members ad libitum. I remember something of a remarkable ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall
... we delivered ourselves up to the exquisite loveliness around us; and when returning on board the yacht, the impression of the superb panorama tarried with me, even into the realm of Morpheus; so that I rose on the following morning with the remembrance of ...
— By Water to the Columbian Exposition • Johanna S. Wisthaler
... when the Lord renewed his covenant with Noah. From Scriptural authority we learn many interesting facts as regards the sheep: the first, that mutton fat was considered the most delicious portion of any meat, and the tail and adjacent part the most exquisite morsel in the whole body; consequently, such were regarded as especially fit for the offer of sacrifice. From this fact we may reasonably infer that the animal still so often met with in Palestine and Syria, and known as the Fat-tailed sheep, was in use in the ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... at play, as well as engaged in those public works that make their public history. For no reason in the world I happen to be interested in China, but I am still waiting for just the gossip I want about private life there. We have Pierre Loti's exquisite dream pictures of his deserted palace at Pekin, and we have many useful and expert accounts of the roads, mines, railways, factories, laws, politics, and creeds of the Celestial Empire. But the book I ask for could not be written by ...
— Home Life in Germany • Mrs. Alfred Sidgwick
... the poet has cast his materials, it is impossible to speak too highly. It is adequate praise to say that the language, in its perfect simplicity and exquisite beauty, is in keeping with the elevation of the thought, which is that of the Scriptures themselves. Nor should the constructive skill be unnoticed with which the dramatist has filled in the characters ...
— Esther • Jean Racine
... Carmen and her crimson toreador and yellow dragoon. Not that Bizet's music could infatuate me as it infatuated Nietzsche. Nursed on greater masters, I thought less of him than he deserved; but the Carmen music was—in places—exquisite of its kind, and could enchant a man like me, romantic enough to have come to the end of romance before I began to create in ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw
... melodies which had so often soothed his spirit were hovering again about him! What power infused into the fading light, the gathering darkness; the stars that here and there appeared; the evening air, the City's hum and stir, the very chiming of the old church clocks; such exquisite enthrallment, that the divinest regions of the earth spread out before their eyes could not have held them ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... gazing on this exquisite poem of twilight, that if only this one picture of the woods had been painted it were better than to have produced a thousand inferior scenes. How beautiful that glow on the "Venerable old tree trunk and the opening beyond the great boulder." ...
— See America First • Orville O. Hiestand
... that Columbus was dispatched on his mission of discovering a new world. The rich and fertile Vega, as we rode with the speed of the wind over it, seemed to me like a fairy land—so luxuriant the vegetation—so rich the meadows and fields of waving grain—so exquisite the variety of cottages, and villages, and groves, dotting so vast a plain—so pure and transparent the atmosphere, that the most distant objects are as clearly defined as those nearest us. Imagine so lovely a landscape—thirty miles in length by twenty-five ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. 1, No. 2, July 8, 1850 • Various
... happy to escape with life. Ghastly chateaus stare on you by the wayside; disroofed, diswindowed; which the National House-broker is peeling for the lead and ashlar. The old tenants hover disconsolate, over the Rhine with Conde; a spectacle to men. Ci-devant Seigneur, exquisite in palate, will become an exquisite Restaurateur Cook in Hamburg; Ci-devant Madame, exquisite in dress, a successful Marchande des Modes in London. In Newgate-Street, you meet M. le Marquis, with a rough deal on his shoulder, ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... carries you so smoothly under the regular strokes of practised boatmen, that you hardly notice the distance from the shore and still are very soon swimming far out on the open sea, on that heavenly clear, blue sea, whose breath liberates the soul. Did he want to fish—there were such exquisite little gaily-coloured fish there, that are so stupid and greedy they grab at every bait—would he not shoot ospreys as well? She ...
— The Son of His Mother • Clara Viebig
... patriotic Russian friends—I must say that Volga scenery hardly repays the time, trouble and expense which a voyage from Nizhni to Tsaritsin demands. There are some pretty bits here and there, but they are "few and far between." A glass of the most exquisite wine diluted with a gallon of water makes a very insipid beverage. The deck of the steamer is generally much more interesting than the banks of the river. There one meets with curious travelling companions. The majority of the passengers are ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... flowers are exquisite. The Chinese are expert at making artificial flowers which are true to nature in every detail. Often above the flower a beautiful butterfly is poised on a delicate spring, and looks so natural that it is easy to be deceived into believing it to be alive. When the jasmine is ...
— Court Life in China • Isaac Taylor Headland
... the morning. Everything seemed soaking in the warm radiance. A little brown swamp-sparrow was teetering on a long rush in the pond. Beneath him there were open spaces of dirty water that brought down a few scraps of the blue sky, and worked it and the yellow duckweed into an exquisite mosaic, with a little wrong-side picture of the bird in the middle. On the bank behind was a great vigorous growth of golden green skunk-cabbage, that cast a dense shadow ...
— Lobo, Rag and Vixen - Being The Personal Histories Of Lobo, Redruff, Raggylug & Vixen • Ernest Seton-Thompson
... gray one, and the skirts and underclothing all white. But the latter was of the finest texture, and convinced me, before I had given them more than a glance, that they were the property of Howard Van Burnam's wife. For, besides the exquisite quality of the material, there were to be seen, on the edges of the bands and sleeves, the marks of stitches and clinging threads of lace, where the trimming had been torn off, and in one article especially, there were tucks such as you ...
— That Affair Next Door • Anna Katharine Green
... it is scarcely credible that such accusations should have received attention; but the real offence behind, and is indicated in a vague statement that he had supposed himself to a premunire. The exquisite iniquity of the Northumberland administration could not endure a bishop who had opposed the corrupt administration of patronage; and the explanation being held as insufficient, Ferrars was summoned to London and thrown into prison, ...
— The Reign of Mary Tudor • James Anthony Froude
... both. The reason is organic: the writer is inspired by his theme, and it passes through his mind with a lilt and measure of its own. It makes its own style, just as a human spirit makes its own features and gait; and we know Stevenson through all his transformations only by dint of the exquisite distinction and felicity of word and phrase that always characterize him. Now, with Bulwer there is none of this lovely inevitable spontaneity. He costumes his tale arbitrarily, like a stage-haberdasher, and invents a ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... the waterfall mentioned in this chapter is taken from that of Ledeard, at the farm so called, on the northern side of Lochard, and near the head of the lake, four or five miles from Aberfoyle. It is upon a small scale, but otherwise one of the most exquisite cascades it is possible to behold. The appearance of Flora with the harp, as described, has been justly censured as too theatrical and affected for the lady-like simplicity of her character. But something may be allowed to her French education, in which point and striking ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... experienced a moment of such intense uncomfortableness as that in which he had the honour to hand the lady of the house to her own well-appointed table. Indignation, vexation, disbelief of the whole matter spoiled his dinner effectually. Mrs Grove's exquisite soup might have been ditch-water for all he knew to the contrary. The motherly concern so freely expressed, looked to him dreadfully like something not so praiseworthy. How she could look her dear Fanny in the face, and talk, so softly on indifferent subjects, after ...
— Janet's Love and Service • Margaret M Robertson
... to take home with me some sketches of the exquisite ornamentation in the Rosslyn chapel about which I wrote you so enthusiastically the other day, I took advantage of Edward's absence this morning to visit the place again and this time alone. The sky ...
— The Filigree Ball • Anna Katharine Green
... conscious of a complete collapse of that sympathetic relation between him and the actress which the first scene had produced. In another sentence or two the spell had been irrevocably broken, and he seemed to himself to have passed from a state of sensitiveness to all that was exquisite and rare in her to a state of mere irritable consciousness of her defects. It was evident to him that in a scene of great capabilities she never once rose beyond the tricks of an elementary elocution, that her violence had a ...
— Miss Bretherton • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... insuperable difficulty confronts us in the extreme complexity of the matter. All who see fully on that plane agree that to attempt to call up before those whose eyes are as yet unopened a vivid picture of this astral scenery is like speaking to a blind man of the exquisite variety of tints in a sunset sky—however detailed and elaborate the description may be, there is no certainty that the idea presented before the hearer's mind will be an adequate ...
— The Astral Plane - Its Scenery, Inhabitants and Phenomena • C. W. Leadbeater
... them scream for joy; but they were dumb, they were motionless; they drank rapture through set teeth; it went throbbing through them and thrilling, prolonging its brief life in exquisite reverberations. ...
— The Combined Maze • May Sinclair
... Shakespearian English volunteered at once to show us the fossil beds. It was Dr. Ernst Bacmeister, a man of considerable note in his own country, whose life and deeds are duly recorded in "Wer ist's?" He came, with his wife and child, to Wangen in the summer time, to enjoy these exquisite surroundings, where he could write happily on philosophical subjects, without much danger of interruption. Dr. Bacmeister informed us that the poor little pit close by was in fact one of the noted quarries, with the sides ...
— Popular Science Monthly Volume 86
... a vine; a sweet, steadfast mouth, large blue eyes, clear and calm under the long dark lashes, but with a something in them which makes the stranger turn to look at them again. He may look several times before he discovers the reason of their fixed, unchanging calm. The lovely mouth smiles, the exquisite face lights up with gladness or softens into sympathy or pity; but the blue eyes do not flash or soften, for Melody ...
— Melody - The Story of a Child • Laura E. Richards
... by master Emery Mullineux a man well qualited of a good iudgment and very experte in many excellente practises, in myselfe being the onely meane with master Sanderson to imploy master Mulineux therein, whereby he is now growne to a most exquisite perfection. ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries - Vol. II • Richard Hakluyt
... my father at the close of his visit, the Baron made him many costly gifts; among others, one of an elegant pipe of rare and exquisite workmanship. How distinctly I recall it now! It was in the shape of an elk's head, with spreading, delicately wrought antlers. The eyes were formed of some kind of precious stones, and on the face of the elk were the Baron's initials ...
— Leah Mordecai • Mrs. Belle Kendrick Abbott
... upper part of the body. The care bestowed on the hair was naturally still greater amongst women than amongst men. Cut shows a number of heads of Athenian women, taken from an old painting of Pompeii. These, and the numerous heads represented in sculptures and gems, give an idea of the exquisite taste of these head-dresses. At the same time, it must be confessed that most modern fashions, even the ugly ones, have their models, if not in Greek, at least in Roman antiquity. The combing of the hair over the back ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... never saw the volume of inspiration, and never heard of either Moses or Christ, nevertheless approved of and praised a virtue that he never put in practice. And whoever will turn to the pages of Horace, a kindred spirit to Ovid both in respect to a most exquisite taste and a most refined earthliness, will frequently find the same confession breaking out. Nay, open the volumes of Rousseau, and even of Voltaire, and read their panegyrics of virtue, their eulogies ...
— Sermons to the Natural Man • William G.T. Shedd
... purpose of the law, and of making themselves ample compensation for the restraint laid upon authors, by the necessity of inventing false names. They set themselves to work upon known and real characters, so that they had now the advantage of giving a more exquisite gratification to the vanity of poets, and the malice of spectators. One had the refined pleasure of setting others to guess, and the other that of guessing right by naming the masks. When pictures are so like, that the name is not wanted, nobody inscribes ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson
... incidents as those in which the sheer horror of nature's action, or of man's crime, becomes invested with an illicit beauty, and fascinates while it kills. On the other hand, it is seen in all of the many cases in which exquisite beauty proves also to be dangerous, or at least sinister. "The haunting strangeness in beauty" is at once one of the most characteristic and one of the most tragic things in ...
— Among Famous Books • John Kelman
... of amazement, for the girl was a young one—she looked like the average school-girl—and had one of the most beautiful faces Stafford had ever seen. She was dark, but the cheek that was swept by the long lashes was colourless with that exquisite and healthy pallor which one sees in the women of Northern Spain. Her hair was black but soft and silky, and the wind blew it in soft tendrils, now across her brow and now in dazzling strands about the soft felt hat which sat in graceful negligence upon the small and stately head. She wore a habit ...
— At Love's Cost • Charles Garvice
... full of grace and sweetness, and the finish of his pictures was exquisite. The saying, "leave off in time," originated in his criticism of Protogenes, of whom he said that he was his superior except that he did not know when to leave off, and by too much finishing lessened the effect ...
— A History of Art for Beginners and Students: Painting, Sculpture, Architecture - Painting • Clara Erskine Clement
... was at his very door, for all the best-watered land surrounding Southern Springs was given up to poppy cultivation. During the time when the plant was in flower, the village nestled amidst some hundreds of acres of exquisite iridescent bloom. The beauty was shortlived, even as the seeming prosperity of the grower, and but a few days later Southern Springs stood amidst bare brown fields of dry poppy heads, scarred by the cutter's knife, exuding in thick drops ...
— The Fulfilment of a Dream of Pastor Hsi's - The Story of the Work in Hwochow • A. Mildred Cable
... up into her face in the doorway, it had overwhelmed him. And now even the sound of her footsteps on the floor filled him with an exquisite exultation. It was more than exultation. It was a feeling ...
— Back to God's Country and Other Stories • James Oliver Curwood
... time to see it in all its beauty, when in every narrow valley and on every slope, the most exquisite flowers are growing luxuriantly. And the roses! fields, hedges, groves of roses. They climb up the walls, blossom on the roofs, hang from the trees, peep out from among the bushes; they are white, red, yellow, large and small, single, with a simple self-colored ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 1 (of 8) - Boule de Suif and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... are the histories of Livy, of Sallust, and of Tacitus. They wrote in a language that had been sublimated into electric clouds by the warm and splendid diffuseness of Cicero, and reduced to a granite-like strength by the cold and exquisite simplicity of Terence. The amiable fustian, the Falstaffian bombast of Lucan and Ovid's brilliant imagination, all stamp their indelible seal upon the vivid coloring of Livy, the somewhat affected severity of Sallust, and the elegant morality of Tacitus. The banner of ...
— Continental Monthly - Volume 1 - Issue 3 • Various
... Aristotle's Secretum Secretorum appears a story in which "a queen of India is said to have treacherously sent to Alexander, among other costly presents, the pretended testimonies of friendship, a girl of exquisite beauty, who, having been fed with serpents from her infancy, partook of their nature." It comes to light again, in an altered and expanded form, in the Gesta Romanorum, as the eleventh tale, being entitled Of ...
— The Great English Short-Story Writers, Vol. 1 • Various
... the picturesque is earnestly recommended to direct his steps. But one cannot do everything, and I would rather have missed Chinon than Chenonceaux. For- tunate exceedingly were the few hours that we passed at this exquisite residence. ...
— A Little Tour in France • Henry James
... about the room recalled these things. Thoughts, while they troubled her, yet had power to stimulate and excite her; thoughts which she almost dreaded, but which caused her exquisite delight. She must ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum
... collections from Beni Hasan and El Bersheh; others are from coffins of later periods, and have only paleographical interest; and others are from earlier coffins in the British Museum. But the flower of the collection consists in exquisite drawings of sculptured hieroglyphics, sometimes with traces of colour, from the tomb of Phtahhotep at Saqqara, supplemented by a few from other tombs in the same neighbourhood, and from the pyramid of Papi I. These were all copied on ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 12 (of 12) • S. Rappoport
... the valley, or under the verge of the groves. Many a nest of young orioles did Tobie abstract from the last fork of a branch, when the peculiar note of the parent-bird led him on into the midst of the thicket where these delicate creatures hide themselves. The ring-tail dove, one of the most exquisite of table luxuries, he was very successful in liming; and he would bring home a dozen in a morning. He could catch turkeys with a noose, and young pigs to barbecue. He filled baskets with plover's eggs from the high lands; and of the wild-fowl he brought in, ...
— The Hour and the Man - An Historical Romance • Harriet Martineau
... numerous excursions to the chief places of North-Western India, returned to Magadha, to spend there, with his old friends, some of the happiest years of his life. The route of his journeyings is laid down in a map drawn with exquisite skill by M. Vivien de Saint-Martin. At last he was obliged to return to China, and, passing through the Penjab, Kabulistan, and Bactria, he reached the Oxus, followed its course nearly to its sources ...
— Chips From A German Workshop - Volume I - Essays on the Science of Religion • Friedrich Max Mueller
... the diversions of the gay and beautiful city of Bath, Miss Austen does not lose sight entirely of her satirical aim, though she turns aside for a time. Catherine's confusion of mind is suggested with exquisite art in a single sentence. As she drives with John Thorpe she "meditates by turns on broken promises and broken arches, phaetons and false hangings, Tilneys and trapdoors." This prepares us for the delightful scene in which Tilney, ...
— The Tale of Terror • Edith Birkhead
... by the boundary," Miss Lutworth said when they got through the Wendover gates. "I long to see even the park of that exquisite old lady; it must look quite different to anybody else's, and I feel I want ...
— Halcyone • Elinor Glyn
... Exquisite clear view,—blue water, and brown fields, and green firs. Many thoughts on the follies of my youth. How many, O Lord, may they be? Summed up ...
— The Biography of Robert Murray M'Cheyne • Andrew A. Bonar
... its trifle causes, or to suggest that war (if resigned to its own natural movement of progress) is cleansing itself and ennobling itself constantly and inevitably, were it only through its connection with science ever more and more exquisite, and through its augmented costliness,—all this may have its use in offering some restraint upon the levity of action or of declamation in Peace Societies. But all this is below the occasion. I feel that far grander interests are at stake in this contest. The ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... diminished, normal, or excessive administration of thyroid secretion, we may produce an adynamic, a normal, or an excessively dynamic state. By the thyroid influence, the brain thresholds are lowered and life becomes exquisite; without its influence the brain becomes a globe of relatively inert substance. Excessive doses of iodin alone cause most of the symptoms of Graves' disease. As we have stated, the active constituent of the thyroid is iodin in a special protein combination which is stored in the colloidal ...
— The Origin and Nature of Emotions • George W. Crile
... some whimpered like sick children, especially in their sleep, some lay quiet, with glazed eyes out of which sight was passing. Mere fragments of mankind were there extended, limbs pounded into mash, heads split open, intestines hanging out from gashes. Did those bones—did that exquisite network of living tissue and contrivances for life—cost no more in the breeding than to be hewed and smashed and pulped like this? Shrapnel—shrapnel—it was nearly always the same. For this is, above all, an artillery ...
— America's War for Humanity • Thomas Herbert Russell
... nature speak to me; they bless you for loving me! In the halo of that blessing, as I think of you, I am transfigured by a newly-born ecstacy! To breathe, to exist, is to realize the superlative degree of my exquisite happiness! Hidden away from the clouds and storms of life, by the golden mist which veils the measureless sea of love, infinite love, I sail serene and confident upon its heaving tide. Gently rocked ...
— Solaris Farm - A Story of the Twentieth Century • Milan C. Edson
... movement. Very commonly the child ceases to move one of his lower limbs—pseudo-paralysis—and screams if it is touched; a swelling is found over one of the bones, usually the femur, accompanied by exquisite tenderness; the skin is tense and shiny, and there may be some oedema. These symptoms are due to a sub-periosteal haemorrhage, and associated with this there may be crepitus from separation of an epiphysis, rarely from fracture ...
— Manual of Surgery - Volume First: General Surgery. Sixth Edition. • Alexis Thomson and Alexander Miles
... silver lid of some mighty box heavily down, down upon us, until trees and hills and the dim Carpathians were bent flat beneath the pressure. I lying upon my back, seeing only that sheet of stars, in my nostrils the smell of the straw, rocked by the slow dreamy motion of the wagon, was filled with an exquisite ease and lethargy. I was going into battle, was I? I was to have to-night the supreme experience of my life? It might be that to-night I should die—only last week two members of the Red Cross—a nurse and a doctor—had been killed. It might be that these stars, this ...
— The Dark Forest • Hugh Walpole
... believe her eyes when she saw her husband get up. And if he looked beautiful when dead, much more handsome did he seem to her now, so full of life and animation and power—the picture of health and strength. And he, in his turn, was lost in amazement at the exquisite loveliness of the lady who stood before him. He did not know who she could be, for he had never seen her like, except in a dream. Could she be really the world-renowned Panch-Phul Ranee, or was he dreaming still? He feared to move lest he should break the spell. But ...
— Tales of Wonder Every Child Should Know • Various
... never seen before,' grinned Larry rubbing his hands over the exquisite remembrance. 'If you only seed him, flat on his back, the great ould shnake, wid his knees and his hands up bawling murdher; an' his big white face and his bloody nose in the middle, like nothin' in nature, bedad, but the ace iv hearts ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... people cannot forbear picking this exquisite flower that seems too beautiful to be found outside a millionaire's hothouse, it is becoming rarer every year, until the finding of one in the deep forest, where it must now hide, has become the event of a day's walk. Once it was the commonest ...
— Wild Flowers, An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and - Their Insect Visitors - - Title: Nature's Garden • Neltje Blanchan
... in everything. It occurred to him that this was a most extraordinary place for the family of the exquisite and well-fixed Elbert Carstairs to live. Hard on the heels of that came another thought ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... the great critic were in response to the sudden repentance and despair I felt after Messrs. Stone and Kimball had published the book in exquisite form with a beautiful frontispiece by Will H. Low. In any case, it is now too late to try and disabuse the minds of those who care for the little piece of artistry, and since 1894, when it was published, I have matured sufficiently in life's academy ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... was a gentleman of exquisite literary taste and critical judgment. He discovered in Banneker the elements of a cultivated gentleman and profound scholar. He threw open his library to this remarkable Negro, loaded him with books and astronomical ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams
... will ever preach up healing doctrines?"—Brown's Amusements, Serious and Comical. Some curious instances of the influence exercised by the chief dissenting ministers may be found in Hawkins's Life of Johnson. In the Journal of the retired citizen (Spectator, 317.) Addison has indulged in some exquisite pleasantry on this subject. The Mr. Nisby whose opinions about the peace, the Grand Vizier, and laced coffee, are quoted with so much respect, and who is so well regaled with marrow bones, ox cheek, and a bottle of Brooks and Hellier, was John Nesbit, a highly ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... a child's hand will rob the canary bird of its life—stifle its musical throat, hush its most ecstatic note, still its exquisite song, and render forever mute and silent its voice. But where are Professor Beale's bioplasts which, but a moment before, were not only weaving the nerves, tissues, muscles, bones, and even the ...
— Life: Its True Genesis • R. W. Wright
... soul slept in the city. The explosion had shook its walls, and thousands of people thronged the streets, their hearts beating high with expectation. It was a moment of exquisite triumph. The 'Hope,' word of happy augury, had not been relied upon in vain, and Parma's seven months of patient labour had been annihilated in a moment. Sainte Aldegonde and Gianibelli stood in the 'Boors' Sconce' on the edge of the river. They had felt and heard the explosion, and they were ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... requisite of all education and discipline should be man-timber. Tough timber must come from well grown, sturdy trees. Such wood can be turned into a mast, can be fashioned into a piano or an exquisite carving. But it must become timber first. Time and patience develop the sapling into the tree. So through discipline, education, experience, the sapling child is developed into ...
— Architects of Fate - or, Steps to Success and Power • Orison Swett Marden
... have been specially prepared, by long abstinence from sweet smells, to appreciate the scents and odours of aromatic plants and flowers. The soft shade of foliage, the refreshing green, and the gay colours everywhere, fill the eye with pleasure, not less exquisite than that which fills the ears from the warblings and chatterings of birds, the gentle tones of domestic animals, and the tinkling of rills. The mere solidity of the land, under foot, forms an element of pleasure ...
— The Battery and the Boiler - Adventures in Laying of Submarine Electric Cables • R.M. Ballantyne
... him in the United States. A letter written at that time from Buenos Ayres, says—"I have just received newspapers from the United States, informing me of the magnificent reception of Gen. La Fayette. I have never read newspapers with such exquisite delight as these; and I firmly believe there never was so interesting and glorious an event in the civilized world, in which all classes of people participated in the general joy, as on this occasion. There is an association of ideas ...
— Life and Public Services of John Quincy Adams - Sixth President of the Unied States • William H. Seward
... potentate of the parable whose touch transformed every object into gold, has embellished and adorned the all-too-common habit of eating, until there has been evolved throughout the ages that most charming and exquisite product of human culture—the formal dinner party. The gentleman of today who delightedly dons his dress suit and escorts into a ten-course dinner some lady mountain climber or other celebrity, is probably little ...
— Perfect Behavior - A Guide for Ladies and Gentlemen in all Social Crises • Donald Ogden Stewart
... brutality went far towards redeeming her character. The exquisite satisfaction with which she viewed Jane's present misery, the broad joviality with which she gloated over the prospect of cruelties shortly to be inflicted, put her at once on a par with the noble savage running wild in woods. Civilisation could bring no charge against this young woman; ...
— The Nether World • George Gissing
... differing from the others as the English race-horse from the cart-horse. The Bactrian or two-humped camel, though known to the ancient Assyrians, is not now found in the country. [PLATE XXX., Fig. 1.] The horses are numerous, and of the best Arab blood. Small in stature, but of exquisite symmetry and wonderful powers of endurance, they are highly prized throughout the East, and constitute the chief wealth of the wandering tribes who occupy the greater portion of Mesopotamia. The sheep and goats are also of good breeds, and produce wool of an excellent ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 2. (of 7): Assyria • George Rawlinson
... those Daily Tory letters for a week, he would still call on Senator Hanway at eleven. He considered what an exquisite thrill would go over him as he sat gazing on Dorothy—that new and ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... Sally driving. They swept in silence past the lawns, and into the wide, white highway. A watering-cart had just passed, and the air was fresh and wet. The afternoon was one of exquisite beauty. The steamer from San Francisco was just in, and the road was filled with other motor-cars and smart traps. Sally and the doctor nodded and waved to ...
— Poor, Dear Margaret Kirby and Other Stories • Kathleen Norris
... book there are some exquisite bits. He says, speaking of Athens, that, "Go where you will through the city, you place your footsteps on the vestiges of history."[287] He says of a certain Demetrius, whom he describes as writing books without readers in Egypt, "that this culture of his mind ...
— The Life of Cicero - Volume II. • Anthony Trollope
... history, existed rather as a plant of foreign growth, partially cultivated by them, than as a native production of their own land. They collected, indeed, some of the most exquisite samples of Grecian sculpture, and invited to their capital the yet remaining sculptors of Greece, by whose labors not only Rome itself was embellished, but also many of the cities of Asia Minor, Spain, and Gaul, ...
— A Catechism of Familiar Things; Their History, and the Events Which Led to Their Discovery • Benziger Brothers
... exquisite sensibility by nature, rendered more so by a burning fever, which no doubt had some effect upon her brain, as she was from that time subject to frequent fainting fits ...
— Coleridge's Literary Remains, Volume 4. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... vexatious—but remember, she is intelligent; what she says is clearly expressed, and often picturesquely. I observe the fine sheen of her hair, the pretty cut of her frock, the glint of her white teeth, the arch of her eye-brow, the graceful curve of her arm. I listen to the exquisite murmur of her voice. Gradually I fall asleep—but only for an instant. At once, observing it, she raises her voice ever so little, and I am awake. Then to sleep again—slowly and charmingly down that slippery hill of dreams. And then awake again, ...
— In Defense of Women • H. L. Mencken
... corner into which accident as much as indiscretion had brought this woman might have led even a moderate partisan to feel that she had cogent reasons for asking the Supreme Power by what right a being of such exquisite finish had been placed in circumstances calculated to make of her charms a curse rather ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... only Copies of what has passed between other Persons. Adam and Eve, before the Fall, are a different Species from that of Mankind, who are descended from them; and none but a Poet of the most unbounded Invention, and the most exquisite Judgment, could have filled their Conversation and Behaviour with [so many apt [5]] Circumstances during ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... inflamed with desire, coveting something greedily, nor relaxed by extravagant mirth—such a man is that identical wise man whom we are inquiring for: he is the happy man, to whom nothing in this life seems intolerable enough to depress him; nothing exquisite enough to transport him unduly. For what is there in this life that can appear great to him who has acquainted himself with eternity and the utmost extent of the universe? For what is there in human knowledge, or the short span of this life, that can appear great to a wise man? whose mind is ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... for the exquisite beauty of this scene to sink deeply into my heart just then. Before long I heard the tramp of Tardif and his comrade following me; their heavy tread sent down the loose stones on the path plunging into the sea. They were both laden with part of the boat's cargo. They ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton
... an overpowering desire to exert the strength of his arm to draw the Princess close—close to his insistent body. The touch of her flesh, the clutch of her cold little hand, filled him with the most exquisite sense of possession; the magnetism of life charged from one to the other, striking fire to the blood; sex tingled in this delicious riot of the senses; all went to inspire and encourage the reckless joy that was ...
— The Man From Brodney's • George Barr McCutcheon
... glittering literature, many consider the Bible dull reading. Sir William Jones, one of England's greatest jurists and scholars, said: "I have carefully perused the Bible, and independent of its divine origin, I believe it contains more true sublimity, more exquisite beauty, purer morality, more important history and finer strains of poetry and eloquence than could be contained within the same compass, from all the books ever published in any age or ...
— Wit, Humor, Reason, Rhetoric, Prose, Poetry and Story Woven into Eight Popular Lectures • George W. Bain
... next success—a phenomenal success, too, on which his reputation as a humorist will stand unshaken—was "Happy Thoughts." For popularity and for immediate advantage to the paper this clever series, with its exquisite fooling and keen appreciation of humour, was second only to the "Caudle Curtain Lectures," and among the greatest hits that Punch has ever made. It has since been admirably translated into French ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... heart of the metropolis of modern civilization was secretly trod by this jaunty barbarian in broadcloth; a sort of prophetical ghost, glimmering in anticipation upon the advent of those tragic scenes of the French Revolution which levelled the exquisite refinement of Paris with the bloodthirsty ferocity of Borneo; showing that broaches and finger-rings, not less than nose-rings and tattooing, are tokens of the primeval savageness which ever slumbers in human kind, ...
— Israel Potter • Herman Melville
... method of threatening bargaining, loads of blue and white fox skins, caribou hides, and walrus and narwhal tusks which the natives had previously preserved. One man parted with five tusks, worth as many hundred dollars, for two gaudy handkerchiefs for his wife. Another gave several exquisite fox skins for a plug of tobacco. When they demanded more biscuits, tobacco or matches than were offered, Olafaksoah bullied them with threats. Yet they hung about him, eager for the almost worthless barter, for the time being valuing a box of crackers and allotments of tea more than their substantial ...
— The Eternal Maiden • T. Everett Harre
... last. Mrs. Castleton's rooms were lighted to perfection, and she herself dressed with exquisite taste, looking the fitting priestess of the elegant shrine over which she presided. Emma, with her brothers, came early—and one glance satisfied Mrs. Castleton. The simplicity and elegance of Emma's toilette were not to be out-done even by her own. Tom looked at them ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... covered his eyes. But only for a moment. He would not be able to keep his sight away. That was the exquisite torture the Eurasian had counted on: he well knew as he had arranged it that the adventurer would not be able to hold his eyes from the screen. Carse ...
— The Affair of the Brains • Anthony Gilmore
... this pallor heightened the lustre of her large eyes and gave a touching sadness to her expressive face. She was dressed in simple black, with exquisite taste, and without an ornament. The thin lace vail which partially covered her face did not so much conceal as heighten her beauty. She would not have entered a drawing room with more self-poise, nor a church with more haughty humility. There was in her manner or face ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... great supper, after a masquerade. About me my friends richly costumed, on all sides young men and women, all sparkling with beauty and joy; on the right and on the left exquisite dishes, flagons, splendor, flowers; above my head a fine orchestra, and before me my mistress, a superb creature, whom ...
— The Confession of a Child of The Century • Alfred de Musset
... completed the information for Guy Mannering, which gave him much of the material for the Minstrelsy, and the history of which has, I think, delighted every one of his readers and biographers, except one or two who have been scandalised at the exquisite story of the Arrival of the Keg.[3] Of these let us not speak, but, regarding them with a tender pity not unmixed with wonder, pass to the beginnings of his actual literary life and to the history of his early married years. The literature a little preceded ...
— Sir Walter Scott - Famous Scots Series • George Saintsbury
... with his powerful train, was generally assigned the missionary, who was a large, portly man; to Alec, with his beautiful fleet train, was assigned the pleasure of bringing Mrs Hurlburt, and at first Sam had the exquisite delight of tucking the robes of rich beaver around the fair young daughters from the mission home, and carefully bringing them over to Sagasta-weekee. This pleasure was, however, soon taken from ...
— Winter Adventures of Three Boys • Egerton R. Young
... churches in Cork is the Protestant Cathedral, of St. Finn Barre—whoever he was. This church sits high up on a rocky foundation, its pointed spires of exquisite stone-work pierce the sky. It is not finished, scaffoldings are there, and skilled chisels and cunning hammers have been knapping and polishing there for many a day, and are likely to continue hammering and chiselling for many a day more. Inside, it is marble of Cork, marble of Connemara, marble ...
— The Letters of "Norah" on her Tour Through Ireland • Margaret Dixon McDougall |
