"Showy" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... selfish stamp, O! let me shun the art Taught by smooth Flattery in her courtly mart, Where Simulation's studied smile ensnares! Scorn that exterior varnish for the Mind, Which, while it polishes the manners, veils In showy clouds the soul.—E'en thus we find Glass, o'er whose surface clear the pencil steals, Grown less transparent, tho' with colours gay, Sheds but ...
— Original sonnets on various subjects; and odes paraphrased from Horace • Anna Seward
... with my back to the wall, staring blankly at the trembling landlord, who was ready at any moment to foam at the mouth, and at the dour landlady, who was quite capable of keeping him in order, there came in one of those dark, showy Italian girls with a man. She wore a blouse and skirt, and no hat. Her hair was perfectly dressed. It was really Italy. The man was soft, dark, he would get stout later, trapu, he would have somewhat the figure of Caruso. But as yet he ...
— Twilight in Italy • D.H. Lawrence
... as I should have wished them, temperate and sunny—somewhat clap-trap and sentimental, perhaps, and afraid of speaking out, as all parties are, but still willing to allow my fancy free range in light fictions, descriptions of foreign countries, scraps of showy rose-pink morality and such like; which, though they had no more power against the raging mass of crime, misery, and discontent, around, than a peacock's feather against a three-decker, still were all genial, graceful, kindly, humanizing, and soothed my discontented and impatient ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... exchanged for furs at first showy and worthless, but later more useful and valuable, for example, guns, hatchets, powder, shot, ...
— Ontario Normal School Manuals: Science of Education • Ontario Ministry of Education
... but gently, and strolled over to where the table lay spread beside the cold, gilded radiator, a potted geranium in its center, a liberal display of showy imitation pearl-handled cutlery carefully laid out, and at each place a long-stemmed wineglass, gold-edged and the color ...
— Every Soul Hath Its Song • Fannie Hurst
... nothing for the exercises intended to form the character, and mere showy accomplishments and graces, but eagerly applied himself to all real knowledge, trusting to his natural gifts to enable him to master what was thought to be too abstruse for his time of life. In consequence of this, when in society he was ridiculed by those who thought themselves ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4) • Plutarch
... half-baked information form a stock of "knowledge" with which the townsman's glib tongue enables him to present a showy intellectual shop-front. Business smartness pays better in the town, and the low intellectual qualities which are contained in it are educated by town life. The knowledge of human nature thus evoked is in no sense science, it is a mere rule-of-thumb affair, a thin mechanical empiricism. ...
— The Evolution of Modern Capitalism - A Study of Machine Production • John Atkinson Hobson
... but what any person of moderate ability and good sense can acquire, and I am quite sure that Lord Northmoor would be far less happy without you, even in the long-run, besides the distress you would cause him now. It is not a brilliant, showy person that he needs, but one to understand and make him ...
— That Stick • Charlotte M. Yonge
... of the staff-room would have won his marshal's baton in Napoleon's day, I suppose, though he was out of keeping with those showy times. I did not then know that he was to be Commander-in-Chief; only that all France thrilled with his name, which time will forever associate with Douaumont. At once you felt the dynamic quality under his agreeable manner and knew that General Nivelle did things swiftly ...
— My Second Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... infirmity of noble minds. I think he had not rightly considered the subject. I believe that last infirmity is the love of getting things cheap! Understand me, now. I don't mean the love of getting cheap things, by which one understands showy, trashy, ill-made, spurious articles, bearing certain apparent resemblances to better things. All really sensible people are quite superior to that sort of cheapness. But those fortunate accidents which ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 75, January, 1864 • Various
... 'whose style is for the most part easy and dignified, with a praiseworthy absence of all inflation or bombast, seems at times to have been smitten by a fatal desire to "split the ears of the groundlings" and produce an impression by showy parades of a not overwhelmingly profound scholarship; and the effect of these contrasts would be grotesque in the extreme, were it not absolutely painful in a work of such high average merit. What, for instance, will be thought ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey
... acceptance as a king, and he considered that by the gift, they meant to insult him. The coat alluded to by Adooley was certainly extremely old-fashioned, and belonged to a surgeon in the navy about twenty years ago, notwithstanding which, it was almost as good as new, and was made showy by the addition of a pair of tarnished gold epaulets. It was, however, clear to Lander, that as this very same coat had been, only two days before, received with great satisfaction, that some enemy of theirs had been striving to render the chief discontented and mistrustful. To counteract the ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... and showy monument, standing, as we have said, in the most conspicuous spot of the cemetery, Sand's grave must be looked far in the corner to the extreme left of the entrance gate; and a wild plum tree, some leaves of which every passing traveller carries away, rises ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... town, And caught, once more, the vision of the wave, Where, on the horizon's dip, A many-sailed ship Pursued alone her distant purpose grave; And, by steep steps rock-hewn, to the dim street I led her sacred feet; And so the Daughter gave, Soft, moth-like, sweet, Showy as damask-rose and shy as musk, Back to her Mother, anxious in the dusk. And now 'Good-night!' Me shall the phantom months no more affright. For heaven's gates to open well waits he ...
— The Victories of Love - and Other Poems • Coventry Patmore
... external and internal color or structure of a lichen, and the kind or amount of coloring matter it will be found to yield. It is exceedingly natural to suppose that such a ratio should exist; but, proceeding for some time on this supposition, I was frequently disappointed in my results—the most showy and brilliantly colored lichens often furnishing the dullest and most worthless colors. For instance, the bright yellow thallus of Parmelia parietina, and the beautiful scarlet apothecia of Scyphophorus cocciferus, instead of producing a rich yellow in the one case, and a deep crimson ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds
... reputation, and probably has sung better In former days; still he has a vulgar mind, and can never have had any merit as an artist. At present I find him unbearable. He forces his voice, sings in the most coarse, showy style, and aims at producing effects without regard to the harmony of his part; fat and vulgar, he still takes the part of the lover and young chevalier; to my sorrow I saw him in Ravenswood, and he has well-nigh disenchanted for ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... that afflicted S. Etheldreda, a swelling in the neck, which she held to be a fit punishment for the vanity of her youthful days, when she was fond of wearing necklaces and jewels. "Saint Audrey's laces" became corrupted into "Tawdry laces"; and so the adjective has been applied to all cheap and showy pieces ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Ely • W. D. Sweeting
... few minutes after each meal to remove the odor of food, are important items in the care of the dining room. The furnishing may be simple and inexpensive,—beauty in a home is not dependent upon expense,—but let it be substantial, tasteful, harmonious in color and soft in tone, nothing gaudy or showy. Use no heavy draperies, and have no excess of ornament and bric-a-brac to catch dust and germs. A hard-finished wood floor is far superior to a carpet in point of healthfulness, and quite as economical and easy to keep clean. The general furnishing of the room, besides the dining table and chairs, ...
— Science in the Kitchen. • Mrs. E. E. Kellogg
... only trust to the generosity of his disposition not to dwell at any length upon the compromising nature of the contrast, but to remember Mr. Clyde, in his more interesting character of bridegroom, at a very showy and stylish wedding ceremony. ...
— The Doctor's Daughter • "Vera"
... he observed, 'Sir, if you wish to have a just notion of the magnitude of this city, you must not be satisfied with seeing its great streets and squares, but must survey the innumerable little lanes and courts. It is not in the showy evolutions of buildings, but in the multiplicity of human habitations which are crouded together, that the wonderful immensity ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell
... brought her body into the room. Mavis saw a girl who would have had a fine figure if she had been two or three inches taller. She was swarthy, with red lips and fine eyes; she was dressed in showy but ...
— Sparrows - The Story of an Unprotected Girl • Horace W. C. Newte
... was finally given. Nine hundred men who had been landed, assembled shouting joyfully, marching in order, loaded with plunder, and quite showy with crowns, mantles, feathers, and native military ornaments. The anchor was hoisted on the sixteenth day of the calends of July. The ships, damaged in frequent gales, had been repaired, the flag-ship having especially suffered the loss of her ...
— De Orbe Novo, Volume 1 (of 2) - The Eight Decades of Peter Martyr D'Anghera • Trans. by Francis Augustus MacNutt
... was charged with neglecting her lover to the common danger.... The inspector said the man was in a pitiful state, morally quite uncombed and infested with vulgar, showy ideas...." ...
— The Secret Places of the Heart • H. G. Wells
... were given presents also, but less showy ones. Smith went into his own little house and after hunting through his sea-chest, brought out a silver bracelet which he slipped ...
— The Princess Pocahontas • Virginia Watson
... pleaded against Edgar, in spite of her disapprobation of both; and moreover, the thought at the bottom of her heart was, 'How could any one who had been the object of such tones of the one brother's voice be won by the showy graces of the other? Edgar could easily have thrown off a disappointment; but Felix came first—and oh! can he shake it off in the same ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... was one of those men who, with smart and showy qualities and great plausibility of manner, was yet altogether without purpose or steadfast principle in the most ordinary affairs of life. He had no fixed notions upon either morals, religion, or politics; and when we say so, we may add, that he was equally without motive—that ...
— The Emigrants Of Ahadarra - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... likewise wore scissors and pincushions suspended from their girdles by red ribbons, or among the more opulent and showy classes by brass, and even silver, chains—indubitable tokens of thrifty housewives and industrious spinsters. I cannot say much in vindication of the shortness of the petticoats: it doubtless was introduced for the purpose of giving the stockings a chance to be seen, which were generally ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 8 • Charles H. Sylvester
... pug," answered to the name of "My Lord." His mistress, a woman of about fifty years of age, corpulent and of middle size, was dressed in a costume as gloomy and severe as that of Georgette was gay and showy. It consisted of a brown robe, a black silk mantle, and a hat of the same dye. The features of this woman might have been agreeable in her youth; and her florid cheeks, her correct eyebrows, her black eyes, which were still very lively, scarcely ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... know it is Macheath, for Mr. Tritton showed him to Gilbert and me, when he had just got him, and said he was a showy beast, but incurably lame, so he should get what he could for him from Laing. Now, James, isn't it?' he called to the servant who was sedulously turning away a grinning face, but just muttered, ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... about in the settlement lordly mansions, whose owners rolled in emblazoned carriages, and whose wide halls were the scenes of a showy and almost princely hospitality. By her husband's side, Mrs. Katy Scudder was allied to one of these families of wealthy planters, and often recognized the connection with a quiet undertone of satisfaction, as a dignified and self-respecting woman should. She liked, once in a while, quietly to let ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 19, May, 1859 • Various
... or woman, or a dentist or any such skilled professional, like the secondary school-master, will cease to be a private adventurer under Socialism, concerned chiefly with the taking of a showy house and the use of a showy conveyance; he or she will become part of one of the greatest of all the public services in the coming time, the service of public health. Either he—I use this pronoun and imply its feminine—will be on the staff of one of the main hospitals (which will ...
— New Worlds For Old - A Plain Account of Modern Socialism • Herbert George Wells
... labyrinth of an extensive salt-marsh was lively and entertaining. The picturesque dress of the workmen, with their clean white frocks and linen tights; the horses in great numbers mantled in their showy salt-bags, winding their way on the narrow platforms, moving in all directions, turning now to the right hand and now to the left, doubling almost numberless angles, here advancing and again retreating, often going two leagues ...
— Voyages of Samuel de Champlain, Vol. 1 • Samuel de Champlain
... in thought, and then began to play the "Carnival of Venice," with variations. It had been taught him by his father, and he had played it so often that his execution was all that could be desired. The variations were of a showy and popular character, and very well adapted to impress an audience like that ...
— The Young Musician - or, Fighting His Way • Horatio Alger
... boulevard, which was crowded at this hour of twilight, men were driving themselves home in high carts, and through the windows of the broughams shone the luxuries of evening attire. Dresser's glance shifted from face to face, from one trap to another, sucking in the glitter of the showy scene. The flashing procession on the boulevard pricked his hungry senses, goaded his ambitions. The men and women in the carriages were the bait; the men and women on the street sniffed ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... venture to seek Bob's bedroom, for I knew not where it might lie; but I changed into the serge suit, cap and brown shoes of Doria and packed Redmayne's clothes, tweeds and showy waistcoat, boots and stockings into my handbag with the wig and mustaches and my weapon. Soon after four o'clock I left—a clean-shorn, brown sailorman: "Giuseppe Doria," of ...
— The Red Redmaynes • Eden Phillpotts
... forms of beauty, and seek for startling effects, for odd and unexpected results. The contemplation of one of our fashionable churches, at the hour when its fair occupants pour forth, gives one a great deal of surprise. The toilet there displayed might have been in good keeping among showy Parisian women in an opera-house; but even their original inventors would have been shocked at the idea of carrying them into a church. The rawness of our American mind as to the subject of propriety in dress is nowhere more shown than in the fact that no apparent distinction is made between church ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 103, May, 1866 • Various
... own insight. He had to organize and stimulate the arming of privateers, which, by preying on British commerce, were destined to exercise such a powerful influence on the fate of the war. It was neither showy nor attractive, such work as this, but it was very vital, and ...
— George Washington, Vol. I • Henry Cabot Lodge
... covered with deserved ridicule as having led to anarchy, destitution, and bankruptcy, must be attributed to the exigencies of debate; for he was an advocate as well as a statesman, and occasionally gave way to the temptation of making showy ...
— The Framework of Home Rule • Erskine Childers
... their ability to represent modern comedy, but owing to the strange policy of managers are rarely employed by the ordinary theatre—in London. In several cases the policy may be sound, since the regular fare of the fashionable houses as a rule demands a showy, but insincere, style out of the range, or at least the demonstrated range, ...
— Our Stage and Its Critics • "E.F.S." of "The Westminster Gazette"
... this rule, and an important one, was Brazil. The least showy of the colonies and the one that brought in the least quick profit eventually became a second and a greater Portugal, outstripping the mother country in population and dividing South America almost ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... which was about a mile from the hamlet, was not a showy edifice; but it was reverenced as much by the young race of village scholars as if it had been the most stately mansion in the land; it was a low roofed, long, thatched tenement, sheltered by a few reverend oaks, under which many generations ...
— The Parent's Assistant • Maria Edgeworth
... which, before the demonstration waved long and green; but as the hours went on and the thousands of feet passed over it, the grass was all crushed and torn. There were half a dozen bands—two of them dressed in the showy uniform which descends from the pictures of Robert Emmet in the dock—and they played continuously and for the most part discordantly. There were also many banners, there was a long procession of men on horseback, and the heads of the horses were covered with green boughs. ...
— Donahoe's Magazine, Volume 15, No. 2, February 1886 • Various
... agile as a panther's, though broad-shouldered and deep-chested, denoted all the slightness and elasticity of twenty-five, combined with the muscular power of forty. His dress was rather fantastic,—too showy for the good taste which is habitual to the English gentleman,—and there was a peculiarity in his gait, almost approaching to a strut, which bespoke a desire of effect, a consciousness of personal advantages, equally ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... spirit manifested in an excessive care for showy furniture, in the encouragement of artificial and numberless wants, and in a willingness to live on resources dishonestly obtained, and on means belonging rightfully to another, sooner than relinquish ...
— The Young Maiden • A. B. (Artemas Bowers) Muzzey
... was a showy, smart, good-humoured woman, but not over-scrupulous. She was very ready at adapting herself to circumstances, even when the circumstances were against her. For that reason she was considered very ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... the revenue, somewhat comfortable and showy apartments must be constructed, secure against robbery; for advocates and public speakers, handsomer and more roomy, to accommodate meetings; for men of rank who, from holding offices and magistracies, have social ...
— Ten Books on Architecture • Vitruvius
... Thalberg and Liszt. At any rate he insisted his boy should make the most of his talents as a performer and should also compose certain pieces suitable for public playing. To this period of his life belong many of the compositions for piano solo, the showy caprices, fantaisies and transcriptions. Being obliged to write this kind of music, the young composer sought for new forms in fingering and novel harmonic effects, even in his most insignificant productions. Thus among the early piano works, the Eclogue, Op. 3, and the Ballade, Op. 9, are to be ...
— The World's Great Men of Music - Story-Lives of Master Musicians • Harriette Brower
... is also looked down on, and it is said, Bhamta ka kam sub se nikam, or 'The Bhamta's work is the worst of all.' This may apply either to his habits of stealing or to the fact that he supplies a bier made of twine and bamboo sticks at a death. In Bombay the showy dress of the Bhamta is proverbial. Women are tattooed before marriage on the forehead and lower lip, and on other parts of the body for purposes of adornment. The men have the head shaved for three ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume II • R. V. Russell
... youthful Sundays is fragrant with wintergreens, black birch, and crinkle-root, to say nothing of the harvest apples that grew in our neighbor's orchard; and the memory of my Sundays in later years is fragrant with arbutus, and the showy orchid, and wild strawberries, and touched with the sanctity of woodland walks and hilltops. What day can compare with a Sunday to go to the waterfalls, or to "Piney Ridge," or to "Columbine Ledge," ...
— Our Friend John Burroughs • Clara Barrus
... Closing Day, and the High Street was thronged, mainly with the liberated shop assistants. Jimmy walked slowly, and, owing perhaps to that fact, he got more than one glance, encouraging him to begin an acquaintance with young ladies in cheap and showy raiment. But none of them made the slightest appeal to him. He had no taste for an insipid flirtation with a girl who would probably play havoc with the aspirates. He had met many women far less innocent than these, and there had been more than one ...
— People of Position • Stanley Portal Hyatt
... fills a vacuum and clothes poverty; and they even attack the ideal appearance that ennobles a vulgar reality. Their strict sense of truth is rightlyl offended by the falsity of manners; unfortunately, they class politeness in this category. It displeases them that the noisy and showy so often eclipse true merit, but they are no less shocked that appearance is also demanded from merit, and that a real substance does not dispense with an agreeable form. They regret the cordiality, the energy, and solidity of ancient ...
— Literary and Philosophical Essays • Various
... man eaten by ambition as by a fire, or even a disease. But though Kidd knew a great deal about Sir Claude—a great deal more, in fact, than there was to know—it would never have crossed his wildest dreams to connect so showy an aristocrat with the newly-unearthed founder of Catastrophism, or to guess that Sir Claude Champion and John Boulnois could be intimate friends. Such, according to Dalroy's account, was nevertheless the fact. The two had hunted in couples at school and college, and, though their social destinies ...
— The Wisdom of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... after the publicity. And all I need to tell you of that, is that just the other day the press agent came into the office with a scheme for a string of buildings up on the new part of the Drive. They were to be patriotic—see?—named after the presidents of our country—cheap and showy terra-cotta—main effect red, white and blue." Ethel leaned back with a little gasp. But Nourse added relentlessly, "And Joe didn't ...
— His Second Wife • Ernest Poole
... nearly a head taller than her employer, a stout showy woman, handsome enough, red-lipped, and with a moist and crafty eye. This was so sudden a misadventure that she forgot her usual caution. "You've no right to turn me off in a minute like this!" she burst forth. "I'll leave ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... methods, like the man himself, were showy, but, of their kind, sincere, and, though the good he accomplished might not be unmixed, it was a quantity to ...
— Further Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... settlers, Toryish in tendency in Revolutionary times, and barely escaping confiscation or worse; the Dunhams, a new family, dating its gentility only as far back as the Honorable Washington Dunham, M. C., but turning out a clever boy or two that went to college; and some showy girls with white necks and fat arms who had picked up professional husbands: these were the principal mansion-house people. All of them had made it a point to come; and as each of them entered, it seemed to Colonel and Mrs. Sprowle ...
— Elsie Venner • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... the broad mirrors that reflect all that taste can accomplish by the hand of wealth. Books, the rarest and most costly, were around, in every form of gorgeous binding and gilding, and among them, glittering in ornament, lay a magnificent Bible—a Bible too beautiful in its appointments, too showy, too ornamental, ever to have been meant to be read—a Bible which every visitor should take up and exclaim, "What a beautiful edition! what superb bindings!" and then lay ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... The wealthy mercante di campagna lives in Rome therefore, and his wife and family take the lead in the rich, but not in the aristocratic, circles of the society of the capital. One of these men may be seen perhaps at a "meet" of the Roman hunt, mounted on the best and most showy horse in the field, attended probably by a smart groom leading a second (very needless) horse for his master's use, or holding in readiness an elegant equipage for him to drive himself back to the city ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various
... that his elders are wrong. And this almost unkindly courage of youth must partly be held responsible for the smartness of Dickens, that almost offensive smartness which in these earlier books of his sometimes irritates us like the showy gibes in the tall talk of a school-boy. These first pages bear witness both to the energy of his genius and also to its unenlightenment; he seems more ignorant and more cocksure than so great a man should be. Dickens was ...
— Appreciations and Criticisms of the Works of Charles Dickens • G. K. Chesterton
... apartments, lofty and elaborate, were put to uses that had an appearance of being incongruous. The cot of the soldier, shrouded in a mosquito bar, stood in the midst of sumptuous furniture, before towering mirrors in showy frames, and from niches looked down marble statues that would have been more at home in the festal scenes of pompous life in the sleepy cities of dreamy lands. There was no more striking combination than ...
— The Story of the Philippines and Our New Possessions, • Murat Halstead
... precisely where the strength of the Royalists lay, and by what means alone that strength could be overpowered. He saw that it was necessary to reconstruct the army of the Parliament. He saw also that there were abundant and excellent materials for the purpose, materials less showy, indeed, but more solid, than those of which the gallant squadrons of the King were composed. It was necessary to look for recruits who were not mere mercenaries, for recruits of decent station and grave character, fearing ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 11 • Various
... not our purpose, nor would it be becoming, to more than allude to the private life of this showy personage. His was not the era of either public or private morality. His marriage was contemptible, a connexion equally marked by love of money and neglect of honour; for his choice was the niece of the Duchess of Kendal, the duchess being notoriously the king's mistress, and Chesterfield ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCLXXVI. February, 1847. Vol. LXI. • Various
... to have this a real showy wedding," she said from her point of vantage by the parlour window, where she sat like a field-marshal and issued her orders. "Those paper fringes want to go clean across every one of the shelves, and you all must make enough paper roses to pin 'round ...
— Miss Mink's Soldier and Other Stories • Alice Hegan Rice
... to be thought a gentleman; but the native porter breaks through the veil of a ridiculously affected and outre politeness. Notwithstanding the complacent grimaces of his face, the self-sufficiency of his looks, his systematically powdered and dressed hair, his showy dress, his counted and short bows, and his presumptuous conversation, teeming with ignorance, vulgarity, and obscenity, he cannot escape even ...
— Memoirs of the Court of St. Cloud, Complete - Being Secret Letters from a Gentleman at Paris to a Nobleman in London • Lewis Goldsmith
... of the best chairs," he said at last. "She thinks they are too showy, so she's going ...
— Deep Waters, The Entire Collection • W.W. Jacobs
... others, again, in wrestling, &c. The Russians and Samoyeds played with each other without distinction. The Samoyeds, small of stature, dirty, with matted, unkempt hair, were clad in dirty summer clothes of skin, sometimes with a showy-coloured cotton shirt drawn over them; the Russians (probably originally of the Finnish race and descendants of the old Beormas) tall, well-grown, with long hair shining with oil, ornamentally parted, combed, and frizzled, and held together by a head band, or covered with a cap resembling ...
— The Voyage of the Vega round Asia and Europe, Volume I and Volume II • A.E. Nordenskieold
... soda, one and one-half cupfuls of good Graham flour, one small teacupful of raisins, spices to taste. Steam four hours and serve with brandy or wine sauce, or any sauce that may be preferred. This makes a showy as well as a light and wholesome dessert, and has the ...
— The Whitehouse Cookbook (1887) - The Whole Comprising A Comprehensive Cyclopedia Of Information For - The Home • Mrs. F.L. Gillette
... a handsome brown silk dress and Reuben a new writing-desk, and Sam a silver watch, and Jim a showy vest-pattern. ...
— Self-Raised • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... abominably tawdry. What I had taken for black-and-white marble was only painted stucco, and coarsely daubed at that; the details of the decoration were deplorable, and the Husainabad was just a piece of showy, meretricious tinsel. The gathering dusk and the golden expanse of the Indian sunset sky had by some subtle wizardry thrown a veil of glamour over this poor travesty of the marvels of Delhi and Agra. So a long-cherished ideal was hopelessly ...
— The Days Before Yesterday • Lord Frederick Hamilton
... long-headed king of Ithaca. Mr. Lincoln had the choice of Bassanio offered him. Which of the three caskets held the prize that was to redeem the fortunes of the country? There was the golden one whose showy speciousness might have tempted a vain man; the silver of compromise, which might have decided the choice of a merely acute one; and the leaden,—dull and homely looking, as prudence always is,—yet with something about it sure to attract the ...
— The Writings of James Russell Lowell in Prose and Poetry, Volume V - Political Essays • James Russell Lowell
... else would you expect, I said, when you think of the puny creatures who, seeing this land open to them—a land well stocked with fair names and showy titles—like prisoners running out of prison into a sanctuary, take a leap out of their trades into philosophy; those who do so being probably the cleverest hands at their own miserable crafts? For, although philosophy be in ...
— The Republic • Plato
... of armed strife and without much thought of advancement. But after this disgusting experience an urgent desire of promotion sprang up in his breast. This fighter by vocation resolved in his mind to seize showy occasions and to court the favourable opinion of his chiefs like a mere worldling. He knew he was as brave as any one and never doubted his personal charm. It would be easy, he thought. Nevertheless, ...
— The Point Of Honor - A Military Tale • Joseph Conrad
... the chapel. For two days, he and Jean, his brother-in-law, had worked in the forests, cutting down young trees of fir, balsam, and dogwood. The balsams were full of small cones of a brilliant purple color; and the dogwoods were waving with showy white flowers. Pierre set each tree in a box of moist earth, so that it looked as thriving and fresh as it had done in the forest; first, a fir, and then a dogwood, all the way from the door to the altar, reached the gay and fragrant wall. Great ...
— Hetty's Strange History • Anonymous
... young, but now were only gracious and self-possessed; the way she had of folding her hands on one another, and looking straight forward with a kind observant smile, free alike from sentiment, crossness, or melancholy; her tone and manner, neither showy nor sharp; her habit of saying the wisest things in the most simple way, so that nobody recognised them as wisdom till afterwards—all filled Agatha with a sense of satisfied admiration. She wished either that she had been a man, to have adored and married Anne years ago—or that ...
— Agatha's Husband - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik (AKA: Dinah Maria Mulock)
... anything of the impetuous and boiling style. We go it weak here. I don't know whether you were ever in Brussels. It is a striking, picturesque town, built up a steep promontory, the old part at the bottom, very dingy and mouldy, the new part at the top, very showy and elegant. Nothing can be more exquisite in its way than the grande place in the very heart of the city, surrounded with those toppling, zigzag, ten-storied buildings bedizened all over with ornaments and emblems so peculiar ...
— Memoir of John Lothrop Motley, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... flower garden there is no more showy family than the Paeony. They have flowers of many colours, from almost pure white and pale yellow to the richest crimson; and they vary very much in their foliage, most of them having large fleshy leaves, "not much ...
— The plant-lore & garden-craft of Shakespeare • Henry Nicholson Ellacombe
... personal supervision, was hardly worth three. The plans were perfunctory, and as far as there was anything in them, could be used again elsewhere. He could employ his precious days meanwhile to better purpose in some more showy and profitable work than this half-hatched viaduct. But this was an upset price. "Not enough," he murmured, slowly, shaking his bullet head. "It's a fortune to the young man. You must make ...
— Michael's Crag • Grant Allen
... where the helianthus turns her dial-like face to the sun. Yonder, scarlet, where the malva erects its red banner. Here is a parterre of the purple monarda, there the euphorbia sheds its silver leaf. Yonder the orange predominates in the showy flowers of the asclepia; and beyond, the eye roams over the pink blossoms ...
— The Scalp Hunters • Mayne Reid
... must prompt me if I forget anything. Your desk will be furnished with everything really useful. Merely showy matters we can dispense with. Now let us see. Here is a great empty place that I think wants some paper to fill it. Show me some of different sizes, if ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Susan Warner
... and the brain behind it. Talk about Parliament! If Bridport was to send Legg there, they'd be sending one that's ten times wiser than Raymond Ironsyde—and ten times deeper. In fact, the nation's very ill served by most that go there. They are the showy, rich, noisy sort, who want to bulk in the public eye without working for it—ciphers who do what they're told, and don't understand the inner nature of what they're doing more than a hoss in a plough. But men like Job, though not so noisy, would get to the root, and use their ...
— The Spinners • Eden Phillpotts
... in the pleasant month of July, when Agnes entered the lovely village of Wilston, and drove through its one long street, to the spacious and rather showy dwelling of Mr. Fairland. Agnes had heard much of the beauty of Wilston, but her heart was now so oppressed with many agitating emotions, at the near prospect of the new and strange scenes upon which she was about ...
— Lewie - Or, The Bended Twig • Cousin Cicely
... sameness. He likes to "get acquainted" with a thing. He never takes up fads and is the most conservative of all types. Unlike the Thoracic, he avoids extremes in everything and dislikes anything savoring of the "showy" or conspicuous. ...
— How to Analyze People on Sight - Through the Science of Human Analysis: The Five Human Types • Elsie Lincoln Benedict and Ralph Paine Benedict
... depression. And soon the hired victoria was on its way to that quarter of the city which is made up of streets with geographical names, and seems as if it were intended to lodge all the nations under heaven. It stopped in the Rue de Naples, before a house that was somewhat showy, but which showed from its outside, that it was not inhabited by high-bred people. There were pink linings to lace curtains at the windows, and quantities of green vines drooped from the balconies, as if to attract attention from the passers- ...
— Jacqueline, v3 • Th. Bentzon (Mme. Blanc)
... the male as a rule is dominant. Behold the showy catkins of the chestnuts, the butternuts, the hazelnuts, the willows, and other trees. The stamens of most flowers are numerous and conspicuous. Our Indian corn carries its panicle of pollen high above the silken tresses which mother ...
— Under the Maples • John Burroughs
... mankind, when superstition happens to take a direction so innocent and inoffensive. The severe disposition which naturally attends all reformers prompted likewise the council to abolish some gay and showy ceremonies which belonged to ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part C. - From Henry VII. to Mary • David Hume
... prejudices and opinions of the people both on this and on the other side of the Atlantic." He held, moreover, very strongly that a union of this kind was the only means of making the Colonies a useful factor instead of a showy and expensive appendage of the empire, and the only alternative that could really prevent their total separation from Great Britain. He pleaded for union, too, not merely for the salvation of the Colonies to the mother country, but even more for the salvation of the Colonies ...
— Life of Adam Smith • John Rae
... was by far the most showy and gallant figure, so far as apparel went, anywhere to be seen among the multitude. He wore a profusion of ribbons on his garment, and gold lace on his hat, which was also encircled by a gold chain, and surmounted with a feather. There was a sword at his side ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... ridiculed by every satirist, yet they increase. Every year makes fresh accessions to their ranks, and their follies and extravagances multiply in proportion. They occupy the majority of the mansions in the fashionable streets, crowd the public thoroughfares and the Park with their costly and showy equipages, and flaunt their wealth so coarsely and offensively in the faces of their neighbors, that many good people have come to believe that riches and vulgarity are inseparable. They make themselves the most conspicuous, and are at once accepted by ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... degrees (see Carl von Hugel's 'Kaschmir', 1840, 2d pt. 249). Among the Coniferae, we find the Pinus deodwara, or deodara (in Sanscrit, 'dewa-daru', the timber of the gods), which is nearly allied to Pinus cedrus. Near the limit of perpetual snow flourish the large and showy flowers of the Gentiana venusta, G. Moorcroftiana, Swertia purpurescens, S. speciosa, Parnassia armata, P. nubicola, Poenia Emode, Tulipa stellata; and besides varieties of European genera peculiar ...
— COSMOS: A Sketch of the Physical Description of the Universe, Vol. 1 • Alexander von Humboldt
... attention?- Sometimes in the discharge of my professional duties, I have observed that there was an utter disproportion between the clothing and the food of these knitters. I am no judge as to the value or quality of the goods, but many of them are clothed in a very gaudy, showy manner, and in a way quite inconsistent with their position in life. I have reason to know at the same time that their food is utterly insufficient. I have known knitting girls, one might almost say, starving or very nearly, starving, when they were at the same time very well dressed or dressed ...
— Second Shetland Truck System Report • William Guthrie
... line, the crack of the driver's mighty whip and his warning shouts to "Jack" or "Pete" to pull and keep step, the steady chop-chop thud of the sand-shaker, will be seen and heard no more. In the place of the horse-plough has come the electric sweeper, a less showy but a good deal more ...
— Children of the Tenements • Jacob A. Riis
... becomes to the original author what the New Zealand rata is to the kauri. That insidious vine winds itself round the supporting trunk and thrives on its strength and at its expense, till finally it buries it wholly from sight and flaunts itself aloft, a showy and apparently ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris
... tell of their mistakes, and now and then glory a little in the detection of another's blunder, a young man would find himself better fitted for his real work than many who have followed long courses of lectures and passed a showy examination. But the young man is exceptionally fortunate who enjoys the intimacy of such a teacher. And it must be confessed that the great hospitals, infirmaries, and dispensaries of large cities, where men of well-sifted reputations are in constant attendance, ...
— Medical Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... of dinner at three—a formal dinner party at four. The first private carriage was almost mobbed on Broadway. Mrs. Jacob Little had "a very showy carriage lined with rose colour and a darky ...
— Greenwich Village • Anna Alice Chapin
... pains with herself as this honest woman bestowed upon her person. No dressmaker was ever so tormented as hers. Madame Rabourdin forgot nothing. She went herself to the stable where she hired carriages, and chose a coupe that was neither old, nor bourgeois, nor showy. Her footman, like the footmen of great houses, had the dress and appearance of a master. About ten on the evening of the eventful Tuesday, she left home in a charming full mourning attire. Her hair was dressed with jet grapes of exquisite workmanship,—an ...
— Bureaucracy • Honore de Balzac
... picturesque, the Rue Royale. The rich and poor met together. The locksmith's swinging key creaked next door to the bank; across the way, crouching, mendicant-like, in the shadow of a great importing-house, was the mud laboratory of the mender of broken combs. Light balconies overhung the rows of showy shops and stores open for trade this Sunday morning, and pretty Latin faces of the higher class glanced over their savagely pronged railings upon the passers below. At some windows hung lace curtains, flannel duds at some, and at others only ...
— Short Stories for English Courses • Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.)
... of the second had lasted but six weeks; that of the third but three. He rejoiced in the fact that he had been a good husband to three good women. He lamented that all were dead. Now and then he squirmed his bull head around on his bull body, and glanced across the aisle at the showy woman who was daintily picking a chicken wing. He himself was not toying with beefsteak, boiled eggs, mashed potatoes, cauliflower, lima, and string beans. He was eating them. Each time he looked at the lady he muttered something to his ...
— The Spread Eagle and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... front door steps, was hailed from the front door by a person not one of the party of the preceding evening, and very unlike either of them. It was a lady, not young, of somewhat small figure, trim, and nicely dressed. Indeed she was rather handsomely dressed and in somewhat French taste; she had showy gold earrings in her ears, and a head much more in the mode than either Mrs. Derrick's or her daughter's. The face of this lady was plain, decidedly; but redeemed by a look of sense and shrewdness altogether unmixed with ill nature. The voice spoke alert ...
— Say and Seal, Volume I • Susan Warner
... Fred, as he spurred on past this fugitive to try and overtake the leader, a young-looking man in showy cavalier hat and feathers, who kept on turning in his saddle and encouraging his men to ...
— Crown and Sceptre - A West Country Story • George Manville Fenn
... job, which didn't come off owing to Fritz's tiresome habit of doing the unexpected. Horrors! The General has been trying Swallow. I fear he may steal him. Of course he has every right to any horse in the regiment, but it is quite difficult to smile. Swallow is, unfortunately, even more showy than Rinaldo was; but he shied at a goat, bless him, and I think that may just turn the scale. I shall now proceed to train Swallow to shy at every blade of grass, every grain of sand. Long live that goat! We are still "standing by." It is a wearing existence. ...
— Letters to Helen - Impressions of an Artist on the Western Front • Keith Henderson
... warm, are admirable for the city guests, who are invited to a country place for the wedding, and certainly it is a pleasant season for the wedding journey. Travelling costumes for brides in England are very elegant, even showy. Velvet, and even light silks and satins, are used; but in our country plain cloth and cashmere costumes are more ...
— Manners and Social Usages • Mrs. John M. E. W. Sherwood
... something. She is my heroine, and, as such, must necessarily be very beautiful; but, in truth, her mind and inner qualities are more clearly distinct to my brain than her outward form and features. I know that she was far from being tall, and far from being showy; that her feet and hands were small and delicate; that her eyes were bright when looked at, but not brilliant so as to make their brilliancy palpably visible to all around her; her hair was dark brown, and worn very plainly ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope
... took care that we should both be well furnished with every necessary in arms, ammunition, and camp equipments, such as were light and would go into a small space. He got down from Sydney, too, a quantity of showy electro-gilt jewellery and fancy beads, with common knives, pistols, guns, and hatchets for presents, saying to me that a showy present would work our way better with a savage chief than a great deal of fighting, ...
— Bunyip Land - A Story of Adventure in New Guinea • George Manville Fenn
... noble timber still uncut—had passed through the hands of mortgage holders, through bank transfers, by devious and tortuous ways, until the title rested in Horace Gower,—who had promptly built the showy summer house on Cradle Bay to flaunt in his face, so old Donald ...
— Poor Man's Rock • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... in a wealthier class of citizens to settle, and officials were not wanting in showy attire. Black silk breeches and hose, enormous shoe buckles, stiff stocks, velvet and satin coats and beaver hats were often seen. Ladies rejoiced in new importations, and in winter went decked in costly furs. Even the French damsels relaxed their ...
— A Little Girl in Old Detroit • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... their victuals, unsavoured by salt (prohibited to them, we are told, because an emblem of eternity), became tasteless and insipid—the stately halls were turned into miserable damp caverns—all the delights of the Elfin Elysium vanished at once. In a word, their pleasures were showy, but totally unsubstantial—their activity unceasing, but fruitless and unavailing—and their condemnation appears to have consisted in the necessity of maintaining the appearance of constant industry or enjoyment, though their toil was fruitless ...
— Letters On Demonology And Witchcraft • Sir Walter Scott
... but not so fast as he wished. For his returns came only in small sums, although the profits were great. His customers were chiefly of the poorer classes of the town and the neighbourhood, who preferred his unpretending shop to the more showy establishments of some of his rivals. A sort of couthy, pauky, confidentially flattering way that he had with them, pleased them, and contributed greatly to keep them true to his counter. And as he knew how to buy as well as how to sell, the poor people, ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald
... to Ralph, who had taken their measure in former wanderings, and come across their duplicates in every scene of continental idleness. Foremost among them was Mrs. Harvey Shallum, a showy Parisianized figure, with a small wax-featured husband whose ultra-fashionable clothes seemed a tribute to his wife's importance rather than the mark of his personal taste. Mr. Shallum, in fact, could ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton
... owing to her novel of Florence Macarthy. She professed to have taught Taglioni the Irish jig: of her toilette, made largely by her own hands, she was comically vain. In The Fraserians, a charming off-hand description of the contributors to that magazine, Lady Morgan is depicted trying on a big, showy bonnet before a mirror with a funny mixture of satisfaction and anxiety as ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various
... showy flowers, and has a compact, symmetrical low-branched crown; is frequently subject to insects and disease. The red flowering horsechestnut ...
— Studies of Trees • Jacob Joshua Levison
... the good sense to depart this life ere the divorce proceedings which she had long had in contemplation were instituted; whereupon the stricken widow had him carefully incinerated and his ashes tenderly deposited in a chaste urn in a mausoleum which her architect had taken oath cost more than the showy Ames vault by many thousands. The period of decorous mourning past, Mrs. Hawley-Crowles blithely doffed her weeds and threw herself again into the terrific competition for social standing, determined this time that it should be a warfare ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... the most humble; yet this did not prevent his speaking honestly and openly when he considered by so doing he could be of service. Thus a friend once asked him, after having preached a showy sermon with which he himself was remarkably satisfied, "How did I ...
— Beneath the Banner • F. J. Cross
... undoubtedly she listened—to every word that was said. I did not wonder at it: when his tongue was once unloosed few people could talk better than John Halifax. Not that he was one of your showy conversationalists; language was with him neither a science, an art, nor an accomplishment, but a mere vehicle for thought; the garb, always chosen as simplest and fittest, in which his ideas were clothed. His conversation was never wearisome, since he only spoke when he had something ...
— John Halifax, Gentleman • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... Brain conflict. All other cases are the same. The brain is always more kind than the heart; the brain is always more willing than the heart to put itself to a great deal of trouble for a very little reward; the brain always does the difficult, unselfish thing, and the heart always does the facile, showy thing. Naturally the result of the brain's activity on society is always more advantageous than the ...
— The Human Machine • E. Arnold Bennett
... but he had a decided objection to serve in any capacity but that of command. He did not appreciate the fun of losing the number of his mess as an obscure hero of the rank and file, though he would not mind sacrificing an arm, I do think, at the head of a charging column, provided that he had a showy uniform on, and that the fact of his valour was properly advertised in the despatches. He had an idea that would commend itself to Belcha's bushwhackers, but it was not entertained. It was to take passage with a few trusty men on the tug for ...
— Romantic Spain - A Record of Personal Experiences (Vol. II) • John Augustus O'Shea
... of Guienne, in August, 1653;—the longest, the most disastrous, and at the same time most obscure epoch of the civil war. It will be necessary to strip the mask from more than one illustrious actor in it, exhibit the reverse of the most showy medals, and the shadows which everywhere mingle with glory, genius, and even virtue itself. The character of the Duchess de Longueville has its charming, its sublime aspects; but, alas! it is far from being irreproachable. In dwelling upon ...
— Political Women (Vol. 1 of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... the Garveys, they'd appeared from nowhere in particular, bought this big square stucco house on the Shore road, rolled around in their showy limousine, subscribed liberal to all the local drives and charity funds, and made several stabs at bein' folksy. But there's no response. None of the bridge-playing set drop in of an afternoon to ask Mrs. Garvey if she won't fill in on Tuesday next, she ain't invited to join the ...
— Torchy As A Pa • Sewell Ford
... pardon," he said. "I'm a fool, an awful fool. Hang Morabita and her voice and the golden houses of the gods, and beastly, showy omnipotence to which her voice carries one away! To talk sense—mother—just brutal common sense. My fate is fixed, you know. There's no earthly use in wriggling. I am condemned to live a cow's life and die a cow's death. The pride of life may call, but I can't answer. The great prizes ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... Morebury in a high dog-cart, on his way to call on the Princess. A less Fortunate Youth might have had to walk, risking boots impolitely muddy, or to hire a funereal cab from the local job-master; but Paul had only to give an order, and the cart and showy chestnut were brought round to the front door of Drane's Court. He loved to drive the showy chestnut, whose manifold depravities were the terror of Miss Winwood's life. Why didn't he take the cob? It was so much safer. Whereupon he would reply gaily that in the first place he found ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke
... with the showy armor, the Count made a dash to get to him, and succeeded, for to say truth, he was not an unwilling foeman. A brief combat took place, scarcely more than a blow, and the Turk ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 2 • Lew. Wallace
... never occurred to me to think the place lonely or dreary before, or to demur at this morning operation of opening it for the day; a tawdry, gilded, showy hall, it had seemed to me quite a grand affair, compared with those in which I had hitherto found employment. Now I shuddered and shivered, and felt the task, always regarded as a compliment to my honesty, to be ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., February, 1863, No. LXIV. • Various
... mere band like that used to bind the long hair worn by the people—but richer and of a different color. It was natural and easy, with the increase of power and wealth, to make the crown a more costly and showy symbol ...
— Half Hours in Bible Lands, Volume 2 - Patriarchs, Kings, and Kingdoms • Rev. P. C. Headley
... split my sides. And then the gentlewoman, at whose house I was, took me to a place where there was a large room full of candles, and a greater number of fine gentlemen and ladies, all dressed out and showy, who were dancing about as if they were mad. But at the door of this house there were twenty or thirty ragged, half-starved women and children, who stood shivering in the rain, and begged for a bit of bread; but nobody gave it to them, or took any notice of them. So then I could not help ...
— The History of Sandford and Merton • Thomas Day
... at the showy little bird that was flitting round him with his feathers sticking up, and looking as though he were in a terrible passion; "Eh?" said the ...
— Featherland - How the Birds lived at Greenlawn • George Manville Fenn
... has not the style of a captain in the army, or that sort of carriage as if everybody was beneath him, or that showy kind of talking, and singing, and intellectual talent. But I am thankful he has not. It is a poor preparation ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... upon in that lowland village, for he invariably wore the highland dress: in truth, he had never had a pair of trowsers on his legs, and was far from pleased that his grandson clothed himself in such contemptible garments. But, contrasted with the showy style of his costume, there was something most pathetic in the blended pallor of hue into which the originally gorgeous colours of his kilt had faded—noticeable chiefly on weekdays, when he wore no sporran; for the kilt, encountering, from its loose construction, ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald
... from the Batterie d'Esnotz. High up the Rue Peysette,—up all the precipitous streets that ascend the mornes,—a far gathering of showy color appears: the massing of maskers in rose and blue and sulphur-yellow attire.... Then what a degringolade begins!— what a tumbling, leaping, cascading of color as the troupes descend. Simultaneously from north and south, from ...
— Two Years in the French West Indies • Lafcadio Hearn
... don't know. He seems to me rather showy and bad form. What are his people like, Dad? He's only a second cousin, ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... mine. The Mullah cries aloud to Him: and why? Is your Lord deaf? The subtle anklets that ring on the feet of an insect when it moves are heard of Him. Tell your beads, paint your forehead with the mark of your God, and wear matted locks long and showy: but a deadly weapon is in your heart, and ...
— Songs of Kabir • Rabindranath Tagore (trans.)
... "Showy! Oh, no, it is splendid. My husband is in the churchwarden's pew; he left before me; he is becoming a fanatic—he speaks of ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... Yorkbury, whereon the young people did their promenading after school in the afternoon. Joy always fancied coming here, gay in her white chenille and white ribbons, and dainty parasol lined with white silk. There is nothing so showy as showy mourning, and Joy made the ...
— Gypsy's Cousin Joy • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... His successor designated, adopted, and qualified by himself. A senate for show, a council of state for administration; all local powers conferred from above; cities under tutelage. All subjects endowed with the showy title of citizen, and all citizens reduced to the humble condition of taxpayers and of people under control. An administration of a hundred thousand officials taking all services into its hands, comprising public instruction, ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 5 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 1 (of 2)(Napoleon I.) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... a quiet girl, who had not spoken before. "Sister Agnes said that we are not to be allowed to wear jewelry or silk either; and that, though the material for the dresses may be of as fine a quality as we choose, they ought not be showy ...
— Apples, Ripe and Rosy, Sir • Mary Catherine Crowley
... little word already had a wonderful and living sound—soft, sweet, and beautiful. But to tell the truth about this ordinary masterpiece was no easy matter. An ostentatious lily, a blazing rose, a wayward hyacinth, a mass of showy wisteria— advertised, notorious flowers—presented fewer difficulties. A daisy seemed too simple to be told, its mystery and honour too humble for proud human minds to understand. So he answered gently, while a Marble White sailed past between their very faces: ...
— The Extra Day • Algernon Blackwood
... himself. If a man does not praise himself, nobody else will praise him; he cannot expect his neighbours to take him for better than his own words." So again, if a man wants a place or situation, the world thinks it no harm if he gives the most showy character of himself, and gets his friends to say all the good of him they can, and a great deal more, and to say none of the harm—in short, to make himself out a much better, or shrewder, or worthier man than he really is. The world does not call that either what it ...
— Sermons on National Subjects • Charles Kingsley
... yet committed themselves to formal hospitality of the somewhat showy character that obtained in the neighborhood, but they kept open house for all who liked to come, and whom they themselves liked well enough to ask in the first instance. And here (as in some other matters) this curious pair discovered ...
— The Shadow of the Rope • E. W. Hornung
... old veterans declined attending. The Cypresses in general sent excuses, being confined by the loss of a friend, which was thought rather an uncommon reason for confinement. Mr. Stock was also prevented by a pre-engagement in the alley; he was a remarkably rich, showy flower, or he would not have been invited, yet he was known to possess more intrinsic merit before he had acquired so many petals. Dr. Yew would not leave his church, nor Dr. Palma Christi his patients; indeed, their absence was not at all regretted, it ...
— Forgotten Tales of Long Ago • E. V. Lucas
... the declamations of the clergy against the pomp and vanities of the world, were familiar, in early times, to most European states. There was ample scope for them in Spain, where the example of their Moslem neighbors had done much to infect all classes with a fondness for sumptuous apparel, and a showy magnificence of living. Ferdinand and Isabella fell nothing short of the most zealous of their predecessors, in their efforts to restrain this improvident luxury. They did, however, what few princes on the like occasions have done—enforced the precept by ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V3 • William H. Prescott
... her plan bravely. Putting on a very showy costume, so as to attract as much attention as possible, she had spent the day in driving about to all the places where she thought she would meet most of her acquaintances. Night alone had compelled her to return, and she felt broken to pieces, exhausted, upset ...
— The Clique of Gold • Emile Gaboriau
... cannot resist. But among other plunders of the imagination, they are going to rob us of the unicorn. For two thousand years and upwards, a short date in the history of human quarrel about nothings, the sages of this world have been doubting and deciding on the existence of this showy creature. Pliny would have sworn to his having all but seen it, and he would have sworn that too, if any one had taken the trouble to ask him. Kircher, and a few of the German naturalists, and black-letter fools—every naturalist and black-letter man being more or less a fool—dug up the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 387, August 28, 1829 • Various
... take the specific form and character; nevertheless it will have the essence of originality in the right sense of the term, because it will have originated from the author's mind, just as the offspring originates from the parent. And the result will be, not a showy, emphatic, superficial virtue, which is indeed a vice, but a solid, genuine, substantive virtue; that is, the thing will be just what it seems, and will mean just what it says. Moreover the greatness of the work, if it have any, will be more or less hidden in the order and temperance and harmony ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... houses built by the Elm Crest Land and Improvement Company—old Tom Corkle who owned the market garden farms that gave the village of Corklesville its name, would have laughed himself sore had he been alive—was ripped off and various teams loaded with all sorts of furniture, some very expensive and showy and some quite the contrary—especially that belonging to the servants' rooms—were backed up to the newly finished porch with its second coat of paint still wet, and their contents duly distributed upstairs and downstairs and in ...
— Peter - A Novel of Which He is Not the Hero • F. Hopkinson Smith
... by eating live coals and by various tricks of a similar nature. A medicine bag is an indispensable part of a hunter's equipment. It is generally furnished with a little bit of indigo, blue vitriol, vermilion, or some other showy article, and is, when in the hands of a noted conjurer, such an object of terror to the rest of the tribe that its possessor is enabled to fatten at his ease upon the labours of ...
— The Journey to the Polar Sea • John Franklin
... York hotel for that matter. Wherever he goes he carries the atmosphere of the card room with him and the "blinding glare of the electrics." In Greece he makes love when he has leisure, but he makes "copy" much more ardently, and on the whole is quite as lurid and sordid and showy as his worst Sunday editions. Some good bits of battle descriptions there are, of the "Red Badge of Courage" order, but one cannot make a novel of clever descriptions of earthworks and poker games. The book concerns itself ...
— A Collection of Stories, Reviews and Essays • Willa Cather
... question. Whether the "Andante" was composed at the same time, and what, if any, alterations were subsequently made in the Polonaise, I do not venture to decide. But the Polonaise has so much of Chopin's early showy virtuosic style and so little of his later noble emotional power that my conjecture seems reasonable. Moreover, the fact that the orchestra is employed speaks in favour of my theory, for after the works already discussed in the ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... Miss Sabina, in her showy drawing-room up at the Manor Farm, thought over the event all day in her own critical way, and predicted evil as the result. There was an old Broadwood grand piano in the room where she sat, covered with a pile of old music—Beethoven, Mendelssohn, ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 5, May, 1891 • Various
... indolent eyes of nurses or the anxious watchfulness of mothers. Two enormous trees, rounded into domes, like monuments of leaves, the gigantic horse-chestnuts, whose heavy verdure is lighted up by red and white clusters, the showy sycamores, the graceful plane-trees with their trunks designedly polished, set off in a charming perspective the ...
— Strong as Death • Guy de Maupassant
... and showy thus the shop, 80 What must the habitation prove? The true house with no name a-top— The mansion, distant one remove, Once get him off ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning
... a cousin. She was dark, high-coloured, glossy-haired, stout, and showy. She was as neat as a new pin, and had a will of her own. Her hair was firmly fixed by bandoline, her garibaldis by an arrangement which failed when applied to those of the widow, and her opinions by ...
— The Brownies and Other Tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... breakfasts, no bands from Litolf, no singers from Welsh, no pineapples from Gunter, are there called for by thoughtless thousands, who have met, not from any affection for the turfs delights or their neighbour's cash, but to sport their splendid liveries and to disport their showy selves. ...
— The Young Duke • Benjamin Disraeli
... of Anne made some progress in the national restoration. But it was less by the influence of the Queen than by the work of time. The "gallants" of the reign of Charles were now a past generation. Their frolics were a gossip's tale; their showy vices were now as tarnished as their wardrobe, and both were hung out of sight. The man who, in the days of Anne, would have ventured on the freaks of Rochester, would have finished his nights in the watch-house, and his years in the plantations. The wit ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various
... usual. But we soon revised that early error, and we shall not waste much time about revising this. For though we lacked imagination then, and still lack it, we have the gift, perhaps even more useful if less showy, of commonsense. And when commonsense is found in natures that are honest and hearts that are clean, it may make mistakes, but not for long. No, the spirit which won the War is not going to fail us at this second ...
— Mr. Punch's History of the Great War • Punch
... carriages roll up and away, and gaze at the windows whence the candles blazing in the chandeliers shone down upon them, and behind whose panes they saw in swift alternation so many gold-embroidered uniforms, so many showy ball dresses. ...
— A Conspiracy of the Carbonari • Louise Muhlbach
... hot, baked, reddish soil shows a region where chestnuts flourish. The springs, carefully applied to irrigation, water the meadows only, nourishing the sweet, crisp grass, so fine and choice, which produces this race of delicate and high-strung horses,—not over-strong to bear fatigue, but showy, excellent for the country of their birth, though subject to changes if transplanted. A few mulberry trees lately imported showed an intention ...
— The Village Rector • Honore de Balzac
... every man who feels life advancing on him without an object. He now determined to try his strength as an author, and published his Vindication of Natural Society—a pamphlet in which, adopting the showy style of Bolingbroke, but pushing his arguments to the extreme, he shows the fallacy of his principles. This work excited considerable attention at the time. The name of the author remained unknown, and the imitation was so complete, that for some time it was regarded as a posthumous ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 350, December 1844 • Various
... life's illusions have vanished," they said of the Democratic candidate, "he has no selfish aspirations, no vaulting ambition to carry him astray: no vanity to lead where it is glory enough to follow." They accorded to Mr. Toombs "a very showy cast of talent—better suited to the displays of the stump than the grave discussions of the legislative hall. His eloquence has that sort of splendor mixed with the false and true which is calculated to dazzle the multitude. ...
— Robert Toombs - Statesman, Speaker, Soldier, Sage • Pleasant A. Stovall
... five hunters of the young swell who, after all, is brought to grief in the middle of the season, because he has got nothing to ride! A farmer's horse is never lame, never unfit to go, never throws out curbs, never breaks down before or behind. Like his master, he is never showy. He does not paw, and prance, and arch his neck, and bid the world admire his beauties; but, like his master, he is useful; and when he is wanted, he can always ...
— Hunting Sketches • Anthony Trollope
... for its simplicity, is trimmed with crisp ribbons; there may be flowers in it, but the cleverest of such women wear only bows. Feathers demand a carriage; flowers are too showy. Beneath it you see the fresh unworn face of a woman who, without conceit, is sure of herself; who looks at nothing, and sees everything; whose vanity, satiated by being constantly gratified, stamps her face with an indifference which ...
— Another Study of Woman • Honore de Balzac
... more huskings or quiltings, or apple cuts, or raisings or "bees" of any sort. The telephone and the rural free delivery have come and the automobile and the daily newspaper. The roads are better, communication quicker, and the houses and barns more showy, but the men and the women, and especially the children, are not there. The towns and the cities are now colouring and dominating the country which they have depleted of its men, and the rural districts are becoming a faded replica of ...
— My Boyhood • John Burroughs
... exaggeration, nor have marble lips been made to utter sweeter and more varied music. Luca's true perception of the limits to be observed in sculpture, appears most eminently in the glazed terra-cotta work by which he is best known. An ordinary artist might have found the temptation to aim at showy and pictorial effects in this material overwhelming. Luca restrained himself to pure white on pale blue, and preserved an exquisite simplicity of line in all his compositions. There is an almost unearthly beauty in the profiles of ...
— Renaissance in Italy Vol. 3 - The Fine Arts • John Addington Symonds
... Plants of the genus Geranium, with pink or purplish flowers. Various plants of the genus Pelargonium, native chiefly to southern Africa and widely cultivated for their rounded and showy clusters of red, pink, ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... while up and down across Them rioted the morning-glory-vines On taut-set cotton-strings, whose snowy lines Whipt in and out and under the bright green Like basting-threads; and, here and there between, A showy, shiny hollyhock would flare Its pink among the white and purple there.— And still behind the vines, the children saw A strange, bleached, wistful face that seemed to draw A vague, indefinite sympathy. ...
— A Child-World • James Whitcomb Riley
... considerable bustle was observed on shore at daybreak this morning; and shortly afterwards, we saw the old Chief and his suite embark, and pull towards us, accompanied by a numerous fleet of smaller boats, all ornamented with showy flags, and crowded with people in gay and bright coloured garments, forming, upon the whole, a splendid and imposing scene. As the procession moved slowly along, the band in the Chief's boat struck ...
— Account of a Voyage of Discovery - to the West Coast of Corea, and the Great Loo-Choo Island • Captain Basil Hall
... covered with gorgeous dragon-be-decked draperies that reach the ground, and behind which useful assistants could be easily concealed. His own garments are roomy and his sleeves could contain a multitude of billiard balls and rabbits. But he gives a showy performance with clean bright articles, ending up occasionally, as I have seen, with the production of twelve large Chinese lanterns ...
— Indian Conjuring • L. H. Branson
... collect seeds or specimens. On a Casuarina near the swamp, I saw a beautiful Loranthus with rather small oval leaves, panicles of flowers, with the tube of the corolla green; segments of the limbs dark red; of a dwarf bushy habit. This beautiful parasite covered the tree, and was very showy. The afternoon turning out fine and warm, I collected several specimens and sorts of seeds. In the open ground grew a beautiful tree producing large terminal spikes of yellow flowers, with broad, and slightly cordate leaves; it belongs to the ...
— Voyage Of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Vol. 2 (of 2) • John MacGillivray
... shop window of a print-seller, this man on the brink of death met a young woman alighting from a showy carriage. He looked in delight at her prettiness, at the pale face appropriately framed by the satin of her fashionable bonnet. Her slender form and graceful movements entranced him. Her skirt had ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac
... arrival of the presidential party in New York City, various elements there joined in a showy reception to them, and all were happy. But the scene soon changed. From the city Mr. Seward, with the President, his associates, and a large body of citizens more or less distinguished, came up the ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White
... of costly fashion Round the wealthy, titled bride: But when compar'd with real passion, Poor is all that princely pride. What are the showy treasures? What are the noisy pleasures? The gay gaudy glare of vanity and art: The polish'd jewel's blaze May draw the wond'ring gaze, And courtly grandeur bright The fancy may delight, But never, never can come ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... "Durend's work isn't showy, but I hear that Benson thinks a lot of it," Walters went on. "It's a pity Monty takes it so badly, for the crew has come along immensely and with ordinary luck ought to ...
— Two Daring Young Patriots - or, Outwitting the Huns • W. P. Shervill
... ladies flashes the vision of "Anonyma," with her meretricious beauty, and her daring toilettes. Amenable to no social Mrs. Grundy, her love of dress develops itself in bold contrasts of color, in bizarre and showy ornaments, in picturesque, and often in grotesque and tawdry effects. But whatever the details, the whole is always striking. Our women longing for the new, accept the absurd; desiring the picturesque, take the bizarre, ...
— Modern Women and What is Said of Them - A Reprint of A Series of Articles in the Saturday Review (1868) • Anonymous
... Portsmouth affair, when strolling one day up the High Street, in Leamington, my eyes lighted upon a young man, whom I remembered in a certain butcher's yard, and elsewhere—no other, in fact, than Dobble. He, too, was dressed en militaire, with a frogged coat and spurs; and was walking with a showy-looking, Jewish-faced, black-haired lady, glittering with chains and rings, with a green bonnet and a bird-of-Paradise—a lilac shawl, a yellow gown, pink silk stockings, and light-blue shoes. Three children, and a handsome footman, were walking behind her, and the party, not ...
— The Fatal Boots • William Makepeace Thackeray
... loom unseen, In textures soft as crepe de chine Spring weaves her royal robe of green, With grasses fringed and daisies dotted, With furzy tufts like mosses fine And showy clumps of eglantine, With dainty shrub and creeping vine Upon ...
— Poems - Vol. IV • Hattie Howard
... should not some man of more authentic station have been complimented with that place, seeing that the appointment lay altogether in Wordsworth's gift? But really now who could this have been? Garter King-at-Arms would have been a great deal too showy for a working hero. A railway-director, liable at any moment to abscond with the funds of the company, would have been viewed by all readers with far too much suspicion for the tranquillity desirable ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. II (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey |
