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Varnish   Listen
noun
Varnish  n.  
1.
A viscid liquid, consisting of a solution of resinous matter in an oil or a volatile liquid, laid on work with a brush, or otherwise. When applied the varnish soon dries, either by evaporation or chemical action, and the resinous part forms thus a smooth, hard surface, with a beautiful gloss, capable of resisting, to a greater or less degree, the influences of air and moisture. Note: According to the sorts of solvents employed, the ordinary kinds of varnish are divided into three classes: spirit, turpentine, and oil varnishes.
2.
That which resembles varnish, either naturally or artificially; a glossy appearance. "The varnish of the holly and ivy."
3.
An artificial covering to give a fair appearance to any act or conduct; outside show; gloss. "And set a double varnish on the fame The Frenchman gave you."
Varnish tree (Bot.), a tree or shrub from the juice or resin of which varnish is made, as some species of the genus Rhus, especially Rhus vernicifera of Japan. The black varnish of Burmah is obtained from the Melanorrhoea usitatissima, a tall East Indian tree of the Cashew family. See Copal, and Mastic.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Varnish" Quotes from Famous Books



... showing generals and statesmen of the Ormond-Butlers, one even of the great duke who fled to France; and there were pictures of the Varicks before they mingled with us Irish—apple-cheeked Dutchmen, cadaverous youths bearing match-locks, and one, an admiral, with star and sash across his varnish-cracked corselet of blue steel, looking at me ...
— The Maid-At-Arms • Robert W. Chambers

... recent juice is an organized substance, consisting of an immense congeries of small parts, which disperse the sun's rays in all directions, like a thin film of unmelted tallow; while the varnish which has been exposed to the air loses its organized structure, becomes homogeneous, and then transmits the sun's rays, of a rich, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 529, January 14, 1832 • Various

... 50 ounces of gelatine in water, and heat after pouring off the excess water. Then stir in five ounces of glycerine, ten ounces of turpentine, and five ounces of linseed oil varnish. If too thick add ...
— Practical Mechanics for Boys • J. S. Zerbe

... situations it attains a height of one hundred and fifty feet, with a proportionate thickness of trunk; but it is oftener only fifty or eighty feet high. Its leaves are oval, and, when young, of a rich yellowish colour, which changes to a bright green. The buds are very large, yellow, and covered with a varnish, which exhales a delightful fragrance, and gives to the tree ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid

... the soothing fictions, the smotherings of the burning heart,... really paramount in this world, and never to give way? and when a soul of power, unable to refrain, rubs off, though it be with rasping words, all the varnish from rottenness and lies, is he to be tried in our courts of compliment for a misdemeanor? Is there never a higher duty than that of either pitying or converting guilty men,—the duty of publicly exposing ...
— Phases of Faith - Passages from the History of My Creed • Francis William Newman

... surround himself with a flood of grandeur and loveliness, and fill himself, if he be capable of such filling, with a flood of romance. The tropics will unfold to him all that vegetation in its greatest richness can produce. In Paris he will find the supreme of polish, the ne plus ultra of varnish according to the world's capability of varnishing. And in London he will find the supreme of power, the ne plus ultra of work according to the world's capability of working. Any one of such journeys may be more valuable to a man—nay, ...
— Volume 1 • Anthony Trollope

... Sbano; so at once admitting the truth of what indeed there was no gainsaying, we contended that the indestructibility of the glaze, tested as it had been with aquafortis by Rossi himself, proved the genuineness of its antiquity—it proved nothing but that we had something still to learn! The nola varnish was light as a soap-bubble, but this on the Ryton was thick and substantial. How he wished we had been to stay another week to have taught us the difference! and how we wished him gone, lest he should make some new revelations of a kindred character to the last, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 367, May 1846 • Various

... small, weak and helpless ones of his flock had received their equal share of attention. The cradle was well made with solid high sides and ends, and curved upper edges, swinging low and easily upon its two strong rockers. All was smooth, well finished, and rounded, though there was no paint nor varnish, these articles being doubtless unprocurable and not deemed strictly essential. Near by were the remnants of a white fox robe fitting the cradle. It was made of baby fox skin, fine, soft and pretty. ...
— A Woman who went to Alaska • May Kellogg Sullivan

... oak and for bird's eye maple, depending on whether we liked our furniture to look tanned or freckled; and when the careful housekeeper threw open her parlor for a social occasion, such as a funeral, the furniture gave off a splendid new sticky smell, similar to a paint and varnish store on a hot day. The vogue for antiques hadn't got started yet; that was to descend upon us later on. We rather liked the dining-room table to have all its legs still, and the bureau to have drawers that could be opened without blasting. In short, that was the period ...
— Cobb's Bill-of-Fare • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb

... The general built a comfortable house of a single story, with one sitting room, but many chambers; its materials were of the most durable kind of cypress; but it received no coat either of paint or varnish. Here his friends were received with a hearty welcome and good cheer, and the stranger with kind hospitality. His planting interest was judiciously managed, and his property increased yearly. In the summer months ...
— A Sketch of the Life of Brig. Gen. Francis Marion • William Dobein James

... original turn given by them to ideas.' Here, for the benefit of the philistine, insert a panegyric on Voltaire, Rousseau, Diderot, Montesquieu, and Buffon. Hold forth upon the inexorable French language; show how it spreads a varnish, as it were, over thought. Let fall a few aphorisms, such as—'A great writer in France is invariably a great man; he writes in a language which compels him to think; it is otherwise in other countries'—and so on, and so on. Then, to prove your case, draw a comparison ...
— A Distinguished Provincial at Paris • Honore de Balzac

... nuts and vitriol, powder them and spread them on paper like a varnish, then write on it with a pen wetted with spittle and it will ...
— The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, Complete • Leonardo Da Vinci

... between the others. By daylight they were wont to walk together, and to sit together. At night, they would desist together, and rest together. Really it was a case of harmony in language and concord in ideas, of the consistency of varnish or of glue, (a close friendship), when at this unexpected juncture there came this girl, Hseh Pao-ch'ai, who, though not very much older in years (than the others), was, nevertheless, in manner so correct, and in features so beautiful that the consensus of opinion was that Tai-y herself ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin

... the sun. He built the palace at Khu. He planted about it hazel and chesnut trees, The I, the Thung, the Dze, and the varnish tree. Which, when cut down, might ...
— The Shih King • James Legge

... Jonathan is "busy." I am "busy." We know that, if April passes, there is still May and June, and so, if at the end of April, or early May, we do at last pick up our rods,—all new-bedight with red silk windings, and shiny with fresh varnish,—it is not alone the call of the trout that decides us, but another call which is to me at least more imperious, because, if we neglect it now, there is no May and June in which to heed it. It is ...
— More Jonathan Papers • Elisabeth Woodbridge

... trying my best," stated Johnson, "to varnish that spot for the past five minutes. But I'll be darned if ...
— The Blind Spot • Austin Hall and Homer Eon Flint

... one bedstead one tabel and workstand six or eight chairs crockery ware &c. Tooles and machinery as follows 1 planing machine 1 upright boaring machine 1 circular saw, irons for an upright saw morticing machine 1 turning lathe and belting 1 doz of hand screws 1 copper pot to make varnish in, two dimejons 3-5 gls. each for varnish and oil tooles for cutting bench screws &c likewise 1 cow 3 cosset sheep 1 yew & 2 wethers the cow 11 years old and little lame in one foot otherways a veryry good cow, also a ...
— Brook Farm • John Thomas Codman

... she had worried and drawn faint lines between her delicate auburn brows and at the corners of her greenish-gray eyes. There were also a few fading threads in the red locks which were her one real beauty; but she had a marvellous hair-varnish ...
— The Second Latchkey • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson

... me more pleasure (or at any rate it ought to, I know) to dwell on his many abilities than on this one fault. But this excellent man has the misfortune to resemble wood-alcohol. Wood-alcohol is a respectable liquid; it is useful in varnish; when poured in a lamp it heats tea; yes, it has its good side. Yet how little we dwell on its uses, how much on its defect; its one small defect that it's ...
— The Crow's Nest • Clarence Day, Jr.

... good as new. This dusting was soon a desired occupation to her, and the furniture, instead of losing its value in her eyes, became ever more precious. To use things without hurting them or soiling them or scratching the woodwork or clouding the varnish, that was the problem which soon became the mania of the old maid's life. Sylvie had a closet full of bits of wool, wax, varnish, and brushes, which she had learned to use with the dexterity of a cabinet-maker; she had her feather ...
— Pierrette • Honore de Balzac

... "I should prefer having it of its natural color. The bark of the beech has beautiful colors, if they are only brought out by a coat of varnish." ...
— Forests of Maine - Marco Paul's Adventures in Pursuit of Knowledge • Jacob S. Abbott

... him some things that would help him very much in his work. Jonas carried the money into the city the next time he went, and bought him a small hone to sharpen his knife, a fine-toothed saw, and a bottle of black varnish, with a little brush, to put it on with. He brought these things home, and gave them to Georgie's father; and he carried them into the house, and put ...
— Rollo at Work • Jacob Abbott

... of Black Varnish, the making of which is still a secret in the hands of the manufacturers, so far as ...
— The Author's Printing and Publishing Assistant • Frederick Saunders

... the part Taken in other's joys; yielding to theirs Its own desires, each latent wish that bears The 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 the darken'd ...
— Original sonnets on various subjects; and odes paraphrased from Horace • Anna Seward

... a sight it must have been when—the halt for refreshments being ended—the long line of carriages got under way again and went dashing along the causeway over Lispenard's green meadows, while the silvered harness of the horses and the brilliant varnish of the Italian chaises gleamed and sparkled in the rays of nearly level sunshine from the sun that was setting there a hundred years and ...
— Greenwich Village • Anna Alice Chapin

... its low, heavily beamed ceiling and walls of birch, stained to a rich sienna, glistening in fresh spar varnish; the fire licking up the throat of the wide chimney-piece built of rough boulders from the bed of Big Shanty; the floor laid with rare rugs; the easy chairs and shaded lights—all gave to this living room a charm that none in the house of ...
— The Lady of Big Shanty • Frank Berkeley Smith

... tractable and intelligent. A yellow slicker was rolled and tied at the cantle of the saddle; at the horn a coil of brown rope hung, pliant and smooth from much use upon the range among cattle. Morgan's rifle was slung on the saddle in its worn scabbard, its battered stock, from which the varnish had gone long ago in the hard usage of many years, close to ...
— Trail's End • George W. Ogden

... not have much pity for Lady Sellingworth in misfortune. But Lady Sellingworth was cruel, too, had been cruel to him. And he saw humanity without tenderness, teeth and claws at work, barbarity coming to its own through the varnish. ...
— December Love • Robert Hichens

... infinity of other such things," and that he was an inveterate experimentalist in technical matters. His favourite method in wall-painting was to lay in his compositions in fresco and finish them a secco with a mixture of yolk of egg and liquid varnish. This, says Vasari, was with the view of protecting the painting from damp; but in course of time the parts executed with this vehicle scaled away, so that the great secret he hoped to have discovered ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various

... said, pulling Norah's hair gently. "I wonder! Well, you can do your worst, Dick. Somehow, I fancy that under all the varnish I'll find my little ...
— A Little Bush Maid • Mary Grant Bruce

... ground up here with his black malvoisies, continued for long to tramp the valley with his razor. Now, his place is the picture of prosperity: stuffed birds in the verandah, cellars far dug into the hillside, and resting on pillars like a bandit's cave:- all trimness, varnish, flowers, and sunshine, among the tangled wildwood. Stout, smiling Mrs. Schram, who has been to Europe and apparently all about the States for pleasure, entertained Fanny in the verandah, while I was tasting wines in the cellar. To Mr. Schram this was ...
— The Silverado Squatters • Robert Louis Stevenson

... 'The owner's carriage. It is the paint which is causing all this flame, an essence of alcohol and varnish. A ...
— Selected Writings of Guy de Maupassant • Guy de Maupassant

... the chork over with a little shell or varnish or something, and, of course, it bruke right easy; so he wasn't the strongest man in the world at all, and if Misc Somers ever see him, ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend

... never once thought of their owner, nor hath any one else, as I ever observed; for when it hath been asked whose picture that was, it was never once answered the master's of the house; but Ammyconni, Paul Varnish, Hannibal Scratchi, or Hogarthi, which I suppose were the names of the painters; but if it was asked—Who redeemed such a one out of prison? Who lent such a ruined tradesman money to set up? Who clothed that ...
— Joseph Andrews, Vol. 2 • Henry Fielding

... and edged the carved foliations of the marble mantel, above which loomed a tarnished mirror reflecting darkness. Fleetwood rose, drew a window-shade higher, and nodded toward several pictures; and Plank moved slowly from one to another, peering up at the dead Siwards in their crackled varnish. ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers

... heart,' as the saying is, climbing in opposition to my heart's desire, which was to return to my mother, since she had not, by her kiss, given my heart leave to accompany me forth. That hateful staircase, up which I always passed with such dismay, gave out a smell of varnish which had to some extent absorbed, made definite and fixed the special quality of sorrow that I felt each evening, and made it perhaps even more cruel to my sensibility because, when it assumed this olfactory guise, my intellect was powerless to resist it. When we have gone to ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust

... main-deck is equipped with six bollards and two covered ventilators, each 1/2 inch in diameter. The foremast is properly stayed in the deck, and should be fitted with rat-lines. The rat-lines can be made with black thread and finished with varnish, which when dry will tend to ...
— Boys' Book of Model Boats • Raymond Francis Yates

... stranded these children of Venus on the Pacific shores. Music, recalling the genius of the inspired masters, sways the varying emotions of the multitude. The miners' evenings are given up to roaming from one resort to another. Here, a certain varnish of necessary politeness restrains the throng of men; they are all armed and in the flush of physical power; they dash their thousands against impregnable and exciting gambling combinations at the tables. With no feeling of self-abasement, leading officials, merchants, bankers, ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage

... was ornamented with a sofa, having springs and upholstered in green rep—the only sofa of its kind in Szybow—several armchairs to match it, and a piano. It is true, it was not very new. In several places the varnish had been rubbed off, and the narrowness of the keys and the yellowness of the ivory betrayed its great antiquity. In fact, it was the only piano in the whole of Szybow. When a year ago it had been bought for the exclusive ...
— An Obscure Apostle - A Dramatic Story • Eliza Orzeszko

... The poorest ferrules are nickel-plated. The best ones are either German silver or brass. To care for a rod properly, we must keep the windings varnished to prevent them from becoming unwound. Spar varnish is the best for this purpose but shellac will answer. In taking a rod apart, never twist it. Give a sharp pull, and if it refuses to budge, it can sometimes be loosened by slightly heating the ...
— Outdoor Sports and Games • Claude H. Miller

... long survived his father. He had taught, taken pupils, made a fair income. He had had no break of travel, no touch with the world; a few foreign tours in the company of an old friend had given him nothing but an emotional tincture of recollections and associations—a touch of varnish, so to speak. Suddenly the remembrance of some of the things which Jack Sandys had said that morning came back to him; "real things" the boy had said, so lightly and yet so decisively. He wondered; had ...
— Watersprings • Arthur Christopher Benson

... manufactures anchors, pilot-bread, mattresses, bluing, boxes, bricks, britannia ware, brooms, cardigan jackets, carriages, chairs, cigars, confectionery, enameled cloth, fire-brick, furniture, hose, lamp-black, lumber, oils, wall-paper, planes, pottery, roofing, salt, soap, spices, type, tinware, varnish, vaccine matter, vessels, yeast, and window-shades,—giving employment to a very large ...
— Bay State Monthly, Volume I, No. 2, February, 1884 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various

... being, was soon in the throes of an agonized remorse. There may have been some hypocrisy in it, some struggling to cover up the baser elements in his infatuation for her. What human emotion of upward tendency has not at least a little of the varnish of hypocrisy on certain less presentable spots in it? But in the main it was a creditable, a manly remorse, and not altogether the writhings of jealousy and jealous fear ...
— The Grain Of Dust - A Novel • David Graham Phillips

... after the crude turpentine has been distilled. It is used in the manufacture of varnish, sealing-wax, and soap. Finely powdered resin is also mixed with wood-pulp in the manufacture of wrapping-paper. It gives the latter a glazed surface and renders it almost water-proof. Most of the world's product of resin comes from the turpentine district of the United States, and ...
— Commercial Geography - A Book for High Schools, Commercial Courses, and Business Colleges • Jacques W. Redway

... the boards. One coat must be allowed to dry thoroughly before another is applied. Over night is a sufficient time for this. Varnishing also should be done rapidly to prevent dust settling on it. It is best done in a warm room, without draughts. Do not use stains ready-mixed with varnish, as these do not last as long, nor look so well as pure stains varnished after application. When the boards are in bad condition they should be first sandpapered. Cracks should be filled with wedges of wood ...
— Practical Suggestions for Mother and Housewife • Marion Mills Miller

... shattered frame! The "Phaeton" of whom Saint-Saens sings is not the arrogant son of Phoebus. Whatever the composer may protest, it is the low, open-wheeled carriage that he is describing. He shows it to us coursing through the Bois de Boulogne on a bright spring morning. The new varnish of the charming vehicle gleams smartly, the light, rubber-tired wheels revolve swiftly, the silver-shod harnesses glisten in the sunny air. But, alas, the ponies are frightened by something, doubtlessly the red dress of a singer of the Opera Comique. There is a runaway, and before ...
— Musical Portraits - Interpretations of Twenty Modern Composers • Paul Rosenfeld

... Williams has behaved very civilly to me, and I shall visit her frequently because I rather like her, and I meet French company at her house. Her manners are affected, yet the simple goodness of her heart continually breaks through the varnish, so that one would be more inclined, at least I should, to love than admire her. Authorship is a heavy weight for female shoulders, especially in the sunshine of prosperity. Of the French I will not speak till ...
— Mary Wollstonecraft • Elizabeth Robins Pennell

... the thought, Miss Deane, that your presence on the island will in no way affect my fate at the hands of the Dyaks. Had they caught me unprepared today my head would now be covered with a solution of the special varnish they carry ...
— The Wings of the Morning • Louis Tracy

... do it unless he were at hand? And now there were so many young officers again, landing in boats, coming in post-chaises, or charging down the road on horseback, that Daniel, while touching up the finish of his boat with paint and varnish and Venetian Red, was not so happy as an artist should be who knows how to place the whole. Sometimes, with the paint stirred up and creaming, and the ooze of the brush trimmed warily, through the rushes and ragwort and sea-willow his keen, unconquerable eyes would spy the only figure ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore

... flowers and viands may be nice for the eye, but who can satisfy his hunger and thirst with them? Thus it is with your altiloquent talkers, Miss Bunting. They give you, as a rule, only the tinsel, the varnish, the superficial, which vanishes into thin nothing under your analysis of thought or ...
— Talkers - With Illustrations • John Bate

... spirits and my blood retire, To see the seraphs sunk in clouds of fire; But when, with eager steps, from hence I rise, And view the first gay scenes of Paradise, What tongue, what words of rapture, can express A vision so profuse of pleasantness! Oh, had the poet ne'er profaned his pen, 80 To varnish o'er the guilt of faithless men, His other works might have deserved applause; But now the language can't support the cause; While the clean current, though serene and bright, Betrays a bottom odious to the sight. But now, my Muse, a softer strain rehearse, ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville

... appointed time, the boys arrived at the Northern Railway Station; which presented a very different appearance to that which it ordinarily wore. No whistle of locomotives, or rumble of heavy trains, disturbed the silence of the station. A smell of varnish pervaded the whole place; and several empty balloons hung from the roof, undergoing the process of drying. The official—who had received them at the entrance—conducted them outside the station; and there, in the light of some torches, a great ...
— The Young Franc Tireurs - And Their Adventures in the Franco-Prussian War • G. A. Henty

... the neighbourhood of Pigeon Creek was of the thorough backwoods type; as coarse as possible, but hospitable and kindly, free from cant and varnish, and a better school of life than of manners, though, after all, the best manners are learnt in the best school of life, and the school of life in which Abe studied was not the worst. He became a leading favourite, and his appearance, towering ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith

... for the heads of their expensive pipes and hookahs. Very few trinkets are now sold for ornaments to ladies' dresses; and the great bulk of amber annually found is converted into a species of scented spirits and oil, which are much esteemed for the composition of delicate varnish. In the rough state, amber is sold by the ton, and forms an object of export trade from Memel and Konigsberg.—Granville's Travels ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 332, September 20, 1828 • Various

... very well with your delineations." Another observer had discovered a marvellous resemblance between the solar spots and the hollows left by the breaking and subsidence of bubbles, which rise when oil varnish, which has moisture in it, is boiled, and the streaky channels are left by the retiring liquid. "I cannot help," adds Sir John, "fancying a bare possibility of some upward outbreak, followed by a retreat of some gaseous matter, or some dilated portion of the general atmosphere ...
— James Nasmyth's Autobiography • James Nasmyth

... pictures. To students of technical procedure his work is worthy of study. His under-painting is done in tempera, and sometimes the complete work, as in the cattle picture, is done in this medium, which, by an application of varnish, is then transformed into an oil. The most interesting pictures in his group of five are the two on the right of his wall. The mythological subjects underlying both canvases have a classic note, but their refreshing colour scheme removes these pictures from any classic ...
— The Galleries of the Exposition • Eugen Neuhaus

... sunken windows furnished often with seats. These picturesque rooms often contained "good finds" of the old Spanish furniture, and brass; but as a rule the dealers had long since bought up all the old things, replacing them by "brummagem,"—modern articles shining with cheap varnish. ...
— Vanished towers and chimes of Flanders • George Wharton Edwards

... the chimneys were constructed in a very clumsy manner, at least as much of the smoke found its way into the apartment as escaped by the proper vent. The constant vapour which this occasioned, had polished the rafters and beams of the low-browed hall, by encrusting them with a black varnish of soot. On the sides of the apartment hung implements of war and of the chase, and there were at each corner folding doors, which gave access to other parts of the ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott

... those their not being supported from France, they imagined that they should justify their precipitate flight from Scotland, which many of their fastest friends exclaimed against; and that they should varnish over that original capital fault, the drawing the Highlanders together in arms at the time and in the manner in which it ...
— Letters to Sir William Windham and Mr. Pope • Lord Bolingbroke

... not to bee a degree or intension of love, or any single affection (as the Schooles rather confined then defined zeale) neither yet any mixt affection (as the later, rather compounded then comprehended the nature of it) but an hot temper, higher degree or intension of them all. As varnish is no one color, but that which gives glosse & lustre to all; So the opposites of zeale, key-coldnes and lukewarmnesse, which by the Law of contraries must bee of the same nature, are no affections, but severall ...
— A Coal From The Altar, To Kindle The Holy Fire of Zeale - In a Sermon Preached at a Generall Visitation at Ipswich • Samuel Ward

... could procure, a pattern of flowers of every kind that she was familiar with,—blue roses and green lilies having the preference, as making more show than their humbler sisters. This, when finished, she covered with a thick coat of varnish, thus making a very good substitute for the ...
— The New England Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, Bay State Monthly, Volume 4, No. 4, April, 1886 • Various

... inform you, however, that old pictures deservedly celebrated for their colouring are often so changed by dirt and varnish, that we ought not to wonder if they do not appear equal to their reputation in the eyes of unexperienced painters, or young students. An artist whose judgment is matured by long observation, considers ...
— Seven Discourses on Art • Joshua Reynolds

... thing as dirt in a limestone country. The very mud off the roads in rainy weather is not dirt at all, sticky though it undoubtedly is. It consists almost entirely of lime, which, though it burns all the varnish off your carriage if allowed to remain on it for a few days, has nothing repulsive about ...
— A Cotswold Village • J. Arthur Gibbs

... solid body, weighty in comparison with its size and apparently of such nature that rapid desiccation would convert it into a tough, leathery substance, it melts at the sight of the sun, leaving as a relic of existence its last meal—a handful of grit-covered with a transparent film of varnish, which the first wavelet of the flowing tide dissolves. Yet on the reef in a pool such an individual endures complacently water heated to a temperature of 108. Though feeble and of such readily dissolvable texture, bche-de-mer ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield

... of soft yielding sand, and on the great rocks over which we so painfully clambered. These rocks have a singular appearance, from being dislocated and twisted in every direction, and covered with a thin black glaze, as if highly polished and coated with lamp-black varnish. This seems to have been deposited while the river was in flood, for it covers only those rocks which lie between the highest water-mark and a line about four feet above the lowest. Travellers who have visited the rapids of the ...
— A Popular Account of Dr. Livingstone's Expedition to the Zambesi and Its Tributaries • David Livingstone

... historically, you are obliged to mention yourself, take care not to drop one single word that can directly or indirectly be construed as fishing for applause. Be your character what it will, it will be known; and nobody will take it upon your own word. Never imagine that anything you can say yourself will varnish your defects, or add lustre to your perfections! but, on the contrary, it may, and nine times in ten, will, make the former more glaring and the latter obscure. If you are silent upon your own subject, neither envy, indignation, ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield

... "but did you never try him on white daisies? It wouldn't do, of course, to feed common horses on them, but a blood steed like yours, why, it would make his coat shine like varnish." ...
— In the Mist of the Mountains • Ethel Turner

... were cruel to him, jeerin' and fleerin', he never felt it, because he was too proud to show ye? He'd a big saft heart, had David, beneath the varnish. Mony's the time when mither was alive, I've seen him throw himsel' into her arms, sobbin', and cry, 'Eh, if I had but mither! 'Twas different when mither was alive; he was kinder to me then. An' noo I've no ...
— Bob, Son of Battle • Alfred Ollivant

... it the meat is subject to the action of creosote, a volatile oil produced by the combustion of the sawdust, which is powerfully antiseptic. The process also furnishing a thin covering of a resinous varnish, excludes the air not only from the muscle but also from the fat; thus effectually preventing the meat from becoming rusted; and the principal reasons for condemning the practice of removing the ribs from ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton

... hours later, father and sons sallied out for a day's sport, George with a fowling-piece, Fred with a sketch-book, and Mr Sudberry with a fishing-rod, the varnish and brass-work on which, being perfectly ...
— Freaks on the Fells - Three Months' Rustication • R.M. Ballantyne

... William Canynge"; in another a prose account of one "Symonne de Byrtonne," and, in still others, the whole of the short-verse pieces, "Songe to Aella" and "The Accounte of W. Canynge's Feast." These scraps of vellum are described as about six inches square, smeared with glue or brown varnish, or stained with ochre, to give them an appearance of age. Thomas Warton had seen one of them, and pronounced it a clumsy forgery; the script not of the fifteenth century, but unmistakably modern. Southey describes another as written, for the most part, in ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers

... Then the varnish well dried—urge the biting again, But how long, at its meal, the eau forte may remain, Time and practice alone can determine: But of course not so long that the mountain, and mill, The rude bridge, and the figures—whatever ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt

... the woodwork, from the banisters to the window-frames, which hopelessly defied disguise, and would have emphatically proclaimed their antiquity through any conceivable amount of modern finery and varnish. ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 1 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

... leaves may be prepared by the same process as that given for plants. Leaves will retain their autumn tints if their surface is covered with varnish or paraffin, which will prevent the ...
— Ontario Teachers' Manuals: Nature Study • Ontario Ministry of Education

... constitute a star, or other device. The dark color of the skin prevents any coloring matter being deposited in these figures, but they love much to have the whole surface of their bodies anointed with a comfortable varnish of oil. In their unassisted state they depend on supplies of oil from the Palma Christi, or castor-oil plant, or from various other oliferous seeds, but they are all excessively fond of clarified butter or ox fat. Sheakondo's old wife presented some manioc roots, and then politely ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone

... found themselves in the Ssu Ha Li Country, where everything was red—red walls, red tiles, red varnish on doors and furniture. Sixty li from this place was the Flaming Mountain, which ...
— Myths and Legends of China • E. T. C. Werner

... to paint and varnish? Well, here you are. Or to be shaved or have your eye-brows arched? Walk right in. Here is a place to learn to paint china. Here are drugs, corsets, religion, fish, statuary, cigars and choice meats all in a row. Meats, on Fillmore street, are always "choice" or "selected" or "stall-fed." ...
— Vignettes of San Francisco • Almira Bailey

... there shall be no unsettled questions about any known material or method: that it shall be an entirely ascertained and indisputable matter which is the best white, and which the best brown; which the strongest canvas, and safest varnish; and which the shortest and most perfect way of doing everything known up to that time: and if any one discovers a better, he is to make it public forthwith. All of them taking care to embarrass themselves with no ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume III (of 3) • John Ruskin

... retain a due regard for outward appearance, then reminded him how long a time had passed, since it had been provided with a new cushion. It likewise expressed the opinion, that the oaken figures on its back would show to much better advantage, by the aid of a little varnish. ...
— True Stories from History and Biography • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... dignity, stinking of the varnish of yesterday's veneering, since you like it," said he; "suffice it for the Tumble-Bugs that they come of a race that rolled their fragrant spheres down the solemn aisles of antiquity, and left their imperishable works embalmed in the Old Red Sandstone to ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... even to this day, almost beyond the reach of the white man. Those among whom she had been brought up, whether soldiers or clerks, were probably no nobler or purer at heart—she would gladly have believed them far less so—than Hereward; but the merest varnish of Roman civilization had given a charm to their manners, a wideness of range to their thoughts, which Hereward ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley

... is only a part of the wealth of the kauri forests. The bark is full of gum which, when hard, is much like amber. It makes a very hard and glossy varnish that commands a high price because of its good qualities. In places where old kauri forests have existed, digging kauri gum is a profitable employment. Kauri-gum mining does not require much capital. A sharp iron rod and a pick are ...
— Wealth of the World's Waste Places and Oceania • Jewett Castello Gilson

... pleasing self-delusion, he believed himself born to become a painter; like that ancient personage, mentioned by Horace, who imagined himself the owner of all the vessels that arrived in the Athenian port. His chief talent lay in making crucifixes, to fill up the angles, and in giving a varnish to the balustrades. Next, he attempted landscape in water-colors, in which were exhibited the most strange proportions; of houses less than the men; these last smaller than his sheep; and the sheep again than his birds. Extolled, however, ...
— Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects and Curiosities of Art (Vol. 3 of 3) • S. Spooner

... back; His royal consort heads the female band, And leads the heir apparent in her hand; The pannier'd ass creeps on with conscious pride, Bearing a future prince on either side. No choice musicians in this troop are found, To varnish nonsense with the charms of sound; No swords, no daggers, not one poison'd bowl; 220 No lightning flashes here, no thunders roll; No guards to swell the monarch's train are shown; The monarch here must be a host alone: No solemn pomp, ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill

... duty of all to do. So our housie being rather large (two rooms and a kitchen, not speaking of the coal-cellar and a hen-house,) and having as yet only the expectation of a family, we thought we could not do better than get John Varnish the painter, to do off a small ticket, with "A Furnished Room to Let" on it, which we nailed out at the window; having collected into it the choicest of our furniture, that it might fit a genteeler lodger and produce a better rent—And a ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - tailor in Dalkeith • D. M. Moir

... of the rich Chinese shine with a beautiful varnish, and are covered with silk carpets very elegantly worked. They do not make use of plates, knives, and forks: every guest has two little ivory or ebony sticks, ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli

... first appearance in Europe that any effort was made to utilize it. About the year 1820 it began to be used in France in the manufacture of suspenders and garters, India-rubber threads being mixed with the materials used in weaving those articles. It was also used in blacking and varnish, and some years later, Mackintosh brought it into prominent notice by using it in his famous water-proof coats, which were made by spreading a layer of the gum between two pieces of cloth. The gum was thus protected from the ...
— Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made • James D. McCabe, Jr.

... remark that the impression of the games as belonging to all Greeks, and to none but Greeks, was stronger and clearer during the interval between B.C. 600-300 than it came to be afterward. For the Macedonian conquests had the effect of diluting and corrupting Hellenism, by spreading an exterior varnish of Hellenic tastes and manners over a wide area of incongruous foreigners who were incapable of the real elevation of the Hellenic character; so that although in later times the games continued undiminished both in ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1 • Various

... pause as before the little picture-shop in the Shtchukinui Dvor. This little shop contained, indeed, the most varied collection of curiosities. The pictures were chiefly oil-paintings covered with dark varnish, in frames of dingy yellow. Winter scenes with white trees; very red sunsets, like raging conflagrations, a Flemish boor, more like a turkey-cock in cuffs than a human being, were the prevailing subjects. To these must be added a few engravings, such ...
— Taras Bulba and Other Tales • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol

... boat a large varnish-can, which he had filled with gunpowder, and wrapped tightly round with wire, and also with a sash-line; this can was perforated at the side, and a strong tube screwed tightly into it; the tube protruded twelve inches from the ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade

... every way creditable. He showed, indeed, the prejudice entertained by many of the rationalist divines for the freethinkers who were a little more outspoken than himself. The deist whose creed was varnished with Christian phrases, was often bitter against the deist who rejected the varnish; and Pope put Toland and Tindal into the Dunciad as scandalous assailants of all religion. From his point of view it was as wicked to attack any creed as to regard any creed as exclusively true; and certainly ...
— Alexander Pope - English Men of Letters Series • Leslie Stephen

... goes on: "You mustn't be surprised at what I am. You may think it's dreadful... even wicked. But at least don't expect anything like you've ever known before. Fifteen years with only cocoa-palms and naked savages... the Boston varnish rubs off one. But I'm going to try to behave. I expect to feel quite at home... I have pictures of all of you, and a picture of the house... I even have father's keys, ...
— The Naturewoman • Upton Sinclair

... angel with the cup. He will try if he cannot explain them better in those two little pictures below; which nobody ever looks at; the great Roman sarcophagus being put in front of them, and the light glancing on the new varnish so that you must twist about like a lizard to see anything. Nevertheless, you may make out what ...
— Mornings in Florence • John Ruskin

... at which exclusively Danish plays were acted, in the Danish style, by Danish actors and actresses, was extremely popular with the conservative class, who thought, by attendance on these performances, to preserve the distinction of language and the varnish of "high life" which came, with so much prestige, from Copenhagen. By the patriotic party, on the other hand, the stage was looked upon with grave suspicion as likely to undermine the purity ...
— Henrik Ibsen • Edmund Gosse

... April sun was outside, it hardly penetrated here. Through the mellow dusk, as through the varnish of an old picture, one saw the different objects in a golden light and shade—the brass warming-pan hanging beside the tall eight-day clock—the table in front of the long window-seat, covered with its checked red cloth—the carved door of a cupboard in ...
— Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. I. • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... were made to ascertain whether the effect was produced through the sight of the caterpillar. The ocelli were covered with black varnish, but neither this, nor cutting off the spines of the tortoise-shell larva to ascertain whether they might be sense-organs, produced any effect on the resulting colour. Mr. Poulton concludes, therefore, that the colour-action probably occurs over the ...
— Darwinism (1889) • Alfred Russel Wallace

... philosopher perhaps should have done. Indeed, considering that he was careless about the world, Mr. Pen ornamented his person with no small pains in order to make himself agreeable to it, and for a weary pilgrim as he was, wore very tight boots and bright varnish. ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray

... transformed since Ralph's last visit. Paint, varnish and brass railings gave an air of opulence to the outer precincts, and the inner room, with its mahogany bookcases containing morocco-bound "sets" and its wide blue leather arm-chairs, lacked only a palm or two to resemble the lounge of a fashionable hotel. Moffatt himself, as he came forward, ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton

... compared with the profound aversion which the mere name inspired in the monarch. He pushed this hatred so far that, having one day noticed from the heights of his balcony a superb new equipage, of which the body was painted with orange-coloured varnish, he sent and asked the name of the owner; and, on their reporting to him that this coach belonged to a provincial intendant, a relative of the Chancellor, his Majesty said, the same evening, to the magistrate-minister: ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... minutes the court was empty—a singular little theatre of pale varnish and tawdry hangings, still rather snug and homely in the heat and light of its obsolete gas, and with as little to remind one of the play as any other theatre when the curtain is down and the house empty. But there was clamor in the corridors, ...
— The Shadow of the Rope • E. W. Hornung

... seen lying about on the ground's surface. Still, the chips and scraps which remain when kauri-gum has been cleaned and scraped for market are used in the making of fire-kindlers. But for the resin itself a better use was long ago found—the manufacture of varnish. At the moment when, under Governor Fitzroy, the infant Auckland settlement was at its lowest, a demand for kauri-gum from the United States shone as a gleam of hope to the settlers, while the Maoris near the town became ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves

... generally a broken, irregular surface, coated with a thin black crust, like varnish. When broken, they appear to have been made up of a number of small spherical bodies of a grey colour, imbedded in a gritty substance, and often interspersed with yellow spots. A considerable proportion of iron is found in all of them, partly in a malleable state, partly ...
— The Rain Cloud - or, An Account of the Nature, Properties, Dangers and Uses of Rain • Anonymous

... sycamore wood of proper shape. Upon this draw the design with a pencil, trace over the pencil-marks with Indian ink and a fine crow-quill; then fill in the ground with Indian ink and a camel's-hair brush. After two or three days, varnish ...
— The Lady's Album of Fancy Work for 1850 • Unknown

... conversation with the entrance of a new person? How, when a lovely girl enters, the men all straighten their ties and the women moisten their lips? How, when the new person is a self-made man, with his newness so apparent that he seems to exhale the odor of varnish and gilt—how all repose vanishes, and whatever of crudity there is anywhere suddenly makes itself known, and rushes forth to meet the wave of self-boasting which sweeps all before it when the ...
— From a Girl's Point of View • Lilian Bell

... opened the big, swinging doors and pulled aside an enveloping canvas curtain. There stood revealed a big aeroplane, of somewhat new pattern, the wings gleaming like silver from the varnish that had been applied. In shape it was not unlike the machines already in use, except that the propellers were of somewhat ...
— Tom Swift and his Air Scout - or, Uncle Sam's Mastery of the Sky • Victor Appleton

... finding great things had happened. But there were few transformations in Piccadilly—only three or four big red houses where there had been low black ones—and the brightness of the end of June peeped through the rusty railings of the Green Park and glittered in the varnish of the rolling carriages as he had seen it in other, more cursory Junes. It was a greeting he appreciated; it seemed friendly and pointed, added to the exhilaration of his finished book, of his having his own country and the huge oppressive amusing city that suggested everything, that contained everything, ...
— The Lesson of the Master • Henry James

... Launcelot or a Hotspur,—is as evidently the mainspring of Henry's enterprise and life as of the contract between King Philip and King John. The supple and shameless egotism of the churchmen on whose political sophistries he relies for external support is needed rather to varnish his project than to reassure his conscience. Like Frederic the Great before his first Silesian war, the future conqueror of Agincourt has practically made up his mind before he seeks to find as good reason or as plausible excuse as were likewise to suffice the future ...
— A Study of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne

... "rust," from which the dryer upland plantations were now suffering. Neither the "boll-worm" nor the dreaded "army-worm" had molested the river-fields; so the tall pyramidal plants were thickly set with "squares" and green egg-shaped bolls, smooth and shining as with varnish. On a single stalk might be seen all stages of development—from the ripe, brown boll, parted starlike, with the long white fleece depending, to the bean-sized embryo from which the crimson flower had but just fallen. Indeed, among the wide-open bolls there was an occasional ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, October, 1877, Vol. XX. No. 118 • Various

... which it is made shows the marks of the ship-carpenter's ax, and the whiteness of the fresh wood. The square sails have been rent, and mended with seams and patches; the sides and bulwarks of the vessel have been buffeted by heavy seas off the Newfoundland coast; the paint and varnish which shone on them as she dropped down the reaches of the Zuyder Zee from Amsterdam, five months ago, have become whitened with salt and dulled by fog and sun and driving spray. Across her stern, above the rudder of massive oaken plank clamped with ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne

... where I stand. That is what I am getting at. That is what I am naturally anxious to make clear to you now that we have intermarried, now that you are my stepson-in-law. You're young, you know, you're young, and you're hard and fast. Only years can give a mind tone—mitigate the varnish of education. I gather from this letter—and your face—that you are one of the party that participated in that little affair ...
— Love and Mr. Lewisham • H. G. Wells

... glass greasy. 2. Rubber peels off on drying? Dirty glass. 3. Negative not dense enough? Use more bromide and longer development. 4. Gelatine cracks on being pulled off? Add more glycerine. 5. Gelatine not thick enough? Gelatine varnish too thin, not strong enough. 6. Does not dry sufficiently hard? Too much glycerine.—E.H. Jaques, Reported in Br. ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 623, December 10, 1887 • Various

... often agitated bell; and the eyes of the entering client were now saluted by a gorgeous green baize office door; the imposing appearance of which was only equalled by Mr. Toad's new private portal, splendid with a brass knocker and patent varnish. And now his brother attorneys began to wonder "how Toad got on! and ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield

... toy boat out of an egg-shell. To do this you require the following materials: one egg, as round as possible, half a tea-spoonful of shot, a piece of bees-wax about as big as a small hickory-nut, some black paint or varnish, some vinegar, a little stick of pine, a cork, and a sharp knife. Now with regard to the knife, let me recommend you to buy one such as is represented in Fig. 1. It is one of a kind that shoe-makers use, and can be bought at most hardware stores for ten ...
— Harper's Young People, August 17, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... you may manage with any other or even a stiff feather. When the glaze softens, as glue would do, brush over your meat with it, it will give the lacking brown; or, if you have a ham or tongue you wish to decorate you may "varnish" it, as it were, with the melted glaze; then when cold beat some fresh butter to a white cream, and with a kitchen syringe, if you have one, a stiff paper funnel if you have not, trace any design you please on the glazed ...
— Culture and Cooking - Art in the Kitchen • Catherine Owen

... a foolish one; Mark, whatever else he was, could scarcely be called a fool, and had a certain share of the literary faculty; it was full of smart and florid passages that had evidently been industriously polished, and had something of the perishable brilliancy of varnish. There is a kind of vulgarity of mind so subtle as to resist every test but ink, and the cheap and flashy element in Mark's nature had formed a deposit, slight, perhaps, but perceptible in more than ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey

... go in the world, how many men there are who claim it and yet debase it by ignoble use! They help to spread the notion that a man may be a man of low morality and still a gentleman; that his gentlemanliness may be a mere varnish of culture and manners, a thin veneering having underneath it only meanness, or coarseness, or corruption; and that, notwithstanding this, he may still claim to be called a gentleman. Those who spread such doctrines are debasing the moral currency of English life. And it should be the mission of ...
— Sermons at Rugby • John Percival

... colours as her fancy dictated, or as the various colours held out. The effect was remarkable. A succeeding rector began at once the work of restoration, scraping off the paint and substituting oak varnish; but when my friend took a morning service for him the work had not been completed, and he preached from a bright ...
— Vanishing England • P. H. Ditchfield

... was nursing a still younger bantling, now an empire twice as populous as Europe was at that period. Under the equally rugged hand of the young princess of Anhalt-Zerbst, Russia was having her Mongolian epidermis indued with the varnish Napoleon so signally failed to scrape off, and was for the first time taking a place among the great powers of the West. The curtain, in short, was in the act of rising on the Europe of to-day. Anson had lately brought the Pacific to light, and Cook was completing his work. The crust ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 17, - No. 97, January, 1876 • Various

... to froth it, baste it, and dredge it with flour carefully: you cannot do this delicately nice without a very good light. The common fault seems to be using too much flour. The meat should have a fine light varnish of froth, not the appearance of being covered with a paste. Those who are particular about the froth use butter instead of drippings; (see receipt to roast a ...
— The Cook's Oracle; and Housekeeper's Manual • William Kitchiner

... Moths, your gold-eyed plumage furl, Bow your wide horns, your spiral trunks uncurl; Glitter, ye Glow-worms, on your mossy beds; Descend, ye Spiders, on your lengthen'd threads; Slide here, ye horned Snails, with varnish'd shells; 30 Ye Bee-nymphs, listen ...
— The Botanic Garden. Part II. - Containing The Loves of the Plants. A Poem. - With Philosophical Notes. • Erasmus Darwin

... a new method in wall decoration, but one that was entirely practicable. Glass would not craze like tiles or mosaic; it would not crinkle as will canvas; it needed no varnish. It would retain its color, freshness, and beauty, and water would ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok

... profound secret, till it was a complete and glorious success. So I worked on in my quiet studio, draping before a cheval-glass for my women, attitudinizing and agonizing for my men, until the last touches were on, the varnish dry, and it was all ready for the Spring Exhibition. Then came doubts and speculations. Would it be accepted? Was it good, after all? Would Ellen like it? How would it seem among so many others? Should I take her to look ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. September, 1863, No. LXXI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... buy our annual corncob, and were agreeably surprised to learn that the price is still six cents; but our friend the tobacconist said that it may go up again soon. We took the treasure, gleaming yellow with fresh varnish, back to our kennel, and we are smoking it as we set down these words. A corncob is sadly hot and raw until it is well sooted, but the ...
— Mince Pie • Christopher Darlington Morley

... none whose judgment I could trust. I cannot tell how soon they may find reason to change their minds on the subject. Their satisfaction may only be that they have not tried to rub the varnish off the gilding so much as I, and therefore the gilding itself still shines a ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald

... also hollow, but not so large as that just described. It is covered with a natural varnish as hard as steel. It is also used for native ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman

... because the result is so convincing. We do not intend to quote that musty flower of rhetoric which was a favourite with our grandfathers. It was the fashion then to say that Nature—capitalised—took the brush from the hand of the painter, meaning some old duffer who saw varnish instead of clear colour, and painted the picture for him. Sorolla is receptive; he does not attempt to impose upon nature an arbitrary pattern, but he sees nature with his own eyes, modified by the thousand subtle experiences ...
— Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker

... Discouraged, hungry, and miserable, he wandered about the streets, attracting attention by the wretchedness of his clothing. How often was he tempted to throw himself under the feet of the horses that flashed by, drawing carriages shining with silver and varnish, thus to end his misery at once! Fortunately, he saw Capitan Tiago, accompanied by Aunt Isabel. He had known them since the days in San Diego, and in his joy believed that in them he saw almost ...
— The Reign of Greed - Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo' • Jose Rizal

... he had proposed to connect some Perfectly New people. "Everything new about them. If they presented a father and mother, it seemed as if THEY must be bran new, like the furniture and the carriages—shining with varnish, and just home from the manufacturers." These groups took shape in the Lammles and the Veneerings. "I must use somehow," is the remark of another letter, "the uneducated father in fustian and the educated boy in spectacles whom Leech and I ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster

... its animal matter, which is evidently the colouring principle. The nature of the deposit, in its incipient stage, can often be well seen upon a fragment of white shell, when jammed between two of the fronds; it then appears exactly like the thinnest wash of a pale grey varnish. Its darkness varies a little, but the jet blackness of some of the fronds and of the botryoidal masses seems due to the translucency of the successive grey layers. There is, however, this singular circumstance, that when deposited on the ...
— Volcanic Islands • Charles Darwin

... be taught not to commend such things as these, no, nor to show the nimbleness of his wit or subtlety in maintaining argument by finding out plausible colors and pretences to varnish over a bad matter. But we should teach him rather to judge that poetry is an imitation of the manners and lives of such men as are not perfectly pure and unblameable, but such as are tinctured with passions, misled ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch

... Willard went on. "This is his night, all right. Look at the bulge to that manuscript case, and the shine to his hair. He mixes varnish with his hair dye, all right. I ...
— The Wishing Moon • Louise Elizabeth Dutton

... single quarter of the city. A borer, of similar habits, is not uncommon in Italy, and you may see in that country handsome chairs and other furniture which have been reduced by this insect to a framework of powder of post, covered, and apparently held together, by nothing but the varnish. ...
— The Earth as Modified by Human Action • George P. Marsh

... skimmed milk and water; wipe dry; never use soap. Varnish oil-cloths once a year. After being varnished, they should be perfectly dry before ...
— Practical Suggestions for Mother and Housewife • Marion Mills Miller

... of delicate and fragile appearance, that revealed a tendency to pensive melancholy. In her delicate and pure countenance there was something of the soft, pearly pallor which most novelists attribute to their heroines, and without which sentimental varnish it appears that no Enriquieta or Julia can be interesting. But what chiefly distinguished Rosario was that her face expressed so much sweetness and modesty that the absence of the perfections it lacked was not observed. This ...
— Dona Perfecta • B. Perez Galdos

... resolved to convince the sceptical by constructing another balloon. They wisely began by obtaining subscriptions to enable them to carry out their designs, and finally succeeded in making a globe formed of tiffany, covered with elastic varnish, which was twenty-eight feet in diameter. This they filled with hydrogen gas. Some idea of their difficulties and expenses may be gathered from the fact that the mere filling of the balloon required an apparatus which cost about 400 pounds sterling, one-half of ...
— Up in the Clouds - Balloon Voyages • R.M. Ballantyne

... masques? Hear you me, Jessica. Lock up my doors; and when you hear the drum, And the vile squeaking of the wryneck'd fife, Clamber not you up to the casements then, Nor thrust your head into the public street To gaze on Christian fools with varnish'd faces. ...
— Shakespeare and Music - With Illustrations from the Music of the 16th and 17th centuries • Edward W. Naylor

... other species of candle. This candle is nearly translucent, and can be made to exhibit the wick, when the candle is held up between the eye and the light, while the surface is as glossy as polished wax or varnish. The principal ingredient is lard; and the value of this manufacture can be hardly exaggerated. Taking durability into account, it can be made as cheap as any other candle; and there exists no single element of comfort, convenience, profit, and economy, in which this article ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 420, New Series, Jan. 17, 1852 • Various

... pretty red dress, or your grandmamma buys a new violet ribbon for her cap, just ask if they are dyed with aniline colors; and if the answer is "Yes," you may know that they came from the coal-tar. Besides the dyes, we shall also have left naphtha, useful in making varnish, and various oils that are used in more ways than I can stop to tell you, or you would care now to hear. If your cousin Annie has a jet belt-clasp or bracelet, and if you find in aunt Edith's box of ...
— The Stories Mother Nature Told Her Children • Jane Andrews

... covered with a thick slough of oil and varnish (the perishable vehicle of the English school), like an envelope of goldbeaters' skin, so as ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt

... fine violin return to the marts. But the rejected fiddles had sounded musically enough for him and looked as if they were well up in the society of select fiddles. The fiddle Hawksley now held in his hands was dull, almost black. The maple neck was worn to a shabby gray and the varnish had been sweated ...
— The Drums Of Jeopardy • Harold MacGrath

... cramped and chilly, he went stiffly indoors, through the hot, bright halls, that smelled of varnish and matting, ...
— Poor, Dear Margaret Kirby and Other Stories • Kathleen Norris

... to the window. The snow was lying deep on the fields, like a shimmering coat of varnish; the world was bathed in the light of a pale, wan moon. The forest-trees stood out here and there in blue points, like teeth. Large and brilliant the stars looked down, and above the milky way, veiled in vapours, hung ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various

... single atom of a Garrison, even though he were hanged. The mighty force of martyrs to truth lives; the candle burns more brilliantly than before it was snuffed. "No varnish or veneer of scholarship, no command of the tricks of logic or rhetoric, can ever make you a positive force in the world;" but ...
— Architects of Fate - or, Steps to Success and Power • Orison Swett Marden

... the same condition; but, upon examining her, I had the satisfaction to find that not a worm had touched her, though she was built of the same wood, and had been as much in the water; the reason of this difference I imagine to be; that the long-boat was paid with varnish of pine, and the pinnace painted with white lead and oil; the bottoms of all boats therefore which are sent into this country should be painted like that of the pinnace, and the ships should be supplied with ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 12 • Robert Kerr

... the left, the typical parlor of such places. It might have been the parlor of the White Springs Hotel in duplicate, plush self-rocker and all. Over everything was silence and a pervading smell of fresh varnish. The house was aggressive with new paint—the sagging old floors shone ...
— K • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... class carriage, thus turning a second into a first just to keep up the spirit of deception that is the potent atmosphere of the Holy Land. But we were in Jerusalem and didn't care a rap, even though the varnish on the seats was wet and we were stuck to them like limpets to a ...
— A Fantasy of Mediterranean Travel • S. G. Bayne

... some resemblance to mahogany, is worked up into articles of furniture, and resists the destructive ravages of the white ant, but its hardness and acrid sap, which blisters the hands of those employed about it, are objections to its general use. I am not aware of the natives procuring a varnish from this tree. ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden

... in New York be worth two dollars and a half apiece. Two long windows opened out on a balcony, and commanded a view of the hoary tiled roofs of the city. There was a center-table in the room, which interested me much. It had pictures pasted under the varnish, some colored, some not. There was a pair of scissors, a pen, a needle-case, wafers,—all looking just as if you could pick them up. What a nice breakfast we had there! every thing ...
— Scenes in the Hawaiian Islands and California • Mary Evarts Anderson

... to buy one," said a coachman from a nearby hackstand, approaching the group. "I'll give it a coating of linseed oil, then varnish it and make me ...
— The Quest • Pio Baroja

... of bones with three points[161] all of them feathered on three sides, and both them and his bow beautifully painted with some kind of bituminous substance, as smooth and glossy as the finest varnish. The last arrow which he drew out was headed with flint, sharp-pointed, and double-edged like a dagger. Seeing that the Spaniards were all intent upon observing the curious arrows, he cut his own throat ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 5 • Robert Kerr

... of farm-hands.... No doubt at home he had wine-glasses, and a servant-girl to hand the dishes. She made a resolution to ask him again and provide both these luxuries. To-day she would take him into the parlour and make Ellen show off her accomplishments, which would help put a varnish of gentility on the general coarseness of the entertainment. She wished she had asked Mr. Pratt—she had thought of doing so, ...
— Joanna Godden • Sheila Kaye-Smith

... the collar and carried him to the edge of the water—it was about six inches deep,—and threw him in,—with much the same force as, let us say, a pen is thrown into ink or a brush dipped into a pot of varnish. ...
— Moonbeams From the Larger Lunacy • Stephen Leacock

... due care and expedition, first removes the dirt from your shoes or boots with a sponge occasionally moistened in water, and by means of several pencils, of different sizes, not unlike those of a limner, he then covers them with a jetty varnish, rivaling even japan in lustre. This operation he performs with a gravity and consequence that can scarcely fail to excite laughter. Yet, according to the trite proverb, it is not the customer who ought ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon

... never mistake this fungus. Its surface looks as if covered with varnish, rather wrinkled, a bright dark-red color, and its shape is varied and singular. We have seen it sometimes shaped like a fan, and like a lady's high comb, or in some fantastic form. Stevenson says it is a light yellow color ...
— Among the Mushrooms - A Guide For Beginners • Ellen M. Dallas and Caroline A. Burgin

... the Capitol, the "Rape of Europa," by Paul Veronese, that would glow with wonderful brilliancy if it were set in a magnificent frame, and covered with a sunshine of varnish; and it is a kind of picture that would not be desecrated, as some deeper and holier ones might be, by any splendor of external adornment that could be bestowed on it. It is deplorable and disheartening to see it in faded and shabby ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... with ichthyol (one part ichthyol, one part distilled water), which is swabbed on after the skin has been cleansed with olive oil. Allow this to almost dry, and then sprinkle on talcum powder which smooths over the dry varnish of ichthyol. This is worn every night and during the day, in bad cases, even when the eczema is on the face. It is renewed each day, and is preceded by the olive-oil bath. No water or soap is ever used in eczema. Fortunately, the Eskimo has taught us that the skin really can be ...
— The Mother and Her Child • William S. Sadler

... filler, after it has hardened overnight, apply a coat of orange shellac. Successively apply several coats of some good rubbing varnish. Polish the first coats with haircloth or curled hair, and the last with pulverized pumice stone, mixed with raw linseed or ...
— Mission Furniture - How to Make It, Part 3 • H. H. Windsor



Words linked to "Varnish" :   nail varnish, shellack, surface, Japanese varnish tree, coat, coating, shellac, fixative, varnisher, varnish tree, seal, shellac varnish



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