"Brilliant" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... illustrate the importance of attending to the exact conditions of an hypothesis. He says that in those groups of "birds that need protection from enemies," "when the male is brightly coloured and the female sits exposed on the nest, she is always less brilliant and generally of quite sober and protective hues"; and his hypothesis is, that these sober hues have been acquired or preserved by Natural Selection, because it is important to the family that the sitting ...
— Logic - Deductive and Inductive • Carveth Read
... an uneasy sense of changed relations which that meeting with Jim had brought to Phoebe was not lessened when she entered the theatre with her father that evening, and even Mr. Hopkins seemed to share her feelings. The theatre was large, and brilliant in decoration, the seats were well filled with the same heterogeneous mingling she had seen in the dining-room at the Placer Hotel, but in the parquet were some fashionable costumes and cultivated faces. Mr. Hopkins was not altogether so sure that Jim had been "only gassing." ...
— Susy, A Story of the Plains • Bret Harte
... before, he said, in December, 1750, there was a brilliant foreigner named Peloti among the officers of Major de la Touche, a young soldier who had been singled out by Dupleix, the French Governor of Pondicherry, as a military genius of the first order. ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang
... a simple task for those to whom the curse of rum has never come close home, to condemn the methods of a woman, who, as a drunkard's wife and widow, drank to the dregs the bitter cup of woe. Mrs. Nation saw her brilliant and handsome young husband slowly transformed into a demon by rum. She saw him land in an early and dishonored grave. She saw her baby cursed by the father's sin. She saw her early hopes blighted, and poverty haunting her door. She saw a favorite sister grieving ...
— The Use and Need of the Life of Carry A. Nation • Carry A. Nation
... that had never been trimmed and repressed into thick velvet. The Hall had belonged to the Greens, and the history of it is full of ghost stories and awful tragedies. We entered a hall, and by the ancient oaken staircase reposed upon the carpet a fox, in a fine attitude, with erect head and brilliant eyes,—really a splendid specimen of a creature. I was surprised at the quiet manner in which he reposed, undisturbed by our entrance; but I was much more astonished to find it was a dead fox stuffed. I could scarcely believe it after I was told. Mr. ...
— Memories of Hawthorne • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop
... the hero could well be made sufficiently rapid for dramatic effect, and in which the character of the time itself was depicted by the agencies necessary to the conduct of the narrative. For during the early years of the first and most brilliant successes of the French Republic, in the general ferment of society, and the brief equalization of ranks, Claude's high-placed love; his ardent feelings, his unsettled principles (the struggle between which makes the passion of this drama), his ambition, and his career, were phenomena that ...
— The Lady of Lyons - or Love and Pride • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... time at Venice. Of his occupations in this city the letters written to his friend Wilibald Pirckheimer which have come down to us give many interesting particulars. He there executed for the German Company a picture known as The Feast of Rose Garlands, which brought him great fame, and by its brilliant colouring silenced the assertion of his envious adversaries "that he was a good engraver, but knew not how to deal with colours." In the centre of a landscape is the Virgin seated with the Child and crowned by two angels; on her ...
— Six Centuries of Painting • Randall Davies
... returned, with a brilliant smile, "I am sure it would be very uncourteous in me to allow you to do so after your kindness ...
— Mona • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... names of de Tocqueville and of Taine I can but render a passing homage. The former may be said to have opened the modern mind to the proper method of studying the eighteenth century in France, the latter is, perhaps, the most brilliant of writers on the subject; and no one has recently written, or will soon write, about the time when the Revolution was approaching without using the books of both of them. And I must not forget the works of the Vicomte de Broc, of M. Boiteau, and of ...
— The Eve of the French Revolution • Edward J. Lowell
... just received copies of the one cent printed in brilliant orange. No doubt this colour has been adopted in order better to distinguish it from the 3 cents, which it has hitherto too ...
— The Stamps of Canada • Bertram Poole
... But beneath these brilliant shows there lurked suspicions and fears. Alexander was annoyed that Napoleon retained French garrisons in the fortresses on the Oder and claimed an impossible sum as indemnity from Prussia. This was not ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... ornaments, which, after the coronation of the late King, had been deposited in the sacristy of Saint-Denys, were in the hands of the English. The crown of Charlemagne, brilliant with rubies, sapphires and emeralds, adorned with four flowers-de-luce, which the Kings of France received on their coronation, the English wished to place on the head of their King Henry. This child King they ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France
... to him in the course of his glowing mendacity, Gammon acted as soon as he and Polly had said good-bye. He discovered Greenacre, who no longer slept at the Bilboes, but in a house of like cosiness and obscurity a little farther west; told him of the brilliant ingenuity with which he had escaped from a galling complication, and received his promise of assistance in strengthening the plot. Greenacre wrote to Polly that very night, and on the morrow conversed with her, emphasizing by many devices the secrecy ...
— The Town Traveller • George Gissing
... After all the flattery he had met with since his accession to fortune, and the conventionalisms of society in which he had been plunged, he felt the transparent sincerity of Jane's character something to rest in with perfect confidence and perfect satisfaction. The most brilliant Frenchwomen had not her earnestness or her power, though they had far more vivacity, and made their interlocutors more satisfied with themselves. And Francis felt that he ought to be married; and how could he ever attach himself sufficiently to any other woman and not draw comparisons ...
— Mr. Hogarth's Will • Catherine Helen Spence
... be found: we should consider this as obvious. Then let us apply this, which we say is so obvious, to God. We waste too much time looking for Him in impossible directions and by impossible means. He is not to be found by merely studying lengthy arguments, brilliant explanations of theological statements, or controversies upon the meanings of obscure dogmas. He is not even to be found through organising charity concerts and social reforms however useful. We shall find Him through a self stripped bare ...
— The Golden Fountain - or, The Soul's Love for God. Being some Thoughts and - Confessions of One of His Lovers • Lilian Staveley
... the subtleties of what underground opposition of political influence and twelve per cent finance, is not to be set down here. The government publications tell, in their brief and pregnant records, this story of one of the most complete and brilliant victories in the history of American hygiene. My concern is with the story, not of the typhus epidemic, but of a man who fought for and surrendered and finally retrieved his own manhood and the honor of the paper which was his honor. His share, no small one, ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... afterward two successful lawyers sat in an office, one congratulating the other on his brilliant speech ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various
... now; that Clem, while realizing all her old expectations of "C," was not exactly what "C" had been to her. One reason of this she knew was her own inability to conquer a sort of timidity she felt in his presence, a timidity from which Cyn was certainly free. Well aware that beside the gay and brilliant Cyn she was nowhere, Nattie had a sensitive fear that he might be disappointed in her. But she did not yet know that the foundation of all these uneasy misgivings of hers was a selfish emotion, the same that had prompted that jealous pang at Cyn's "we" the day he first discovered ...
— Wired Love - A Romance of Dots and Dashes • Ella Cheever Thayer
... in the language of their own country, and rare plants, so different from those of Spain. Ornaments of gold were displayed, which would give the people some idea of the wealth of the islands. Last of all came Columbus, elegantly mounted and surrounded by a brilliant cavalcade of young Spaniards. The crowd of wondering people pressed around them. Balconies and windows were crowded with women looking on. Even the roofs ...
— The Life of Christopher Columbus from his own Letters and Journals • Edward Everett Hale
... represented merely the northeastern states and Ohio and occasionally attracted men and women from Indiana, Missouri, and Kansas, were scheduled by Susan to meet every year in New York, simultaneously with antislavery conventions. Thus she was assured of a brilliant array of speakers, for the Garrisonian abolitionists were sincere advocates of ...
— Susan B. Anthony - Rebel, Crusader, Humanitarian • Alma Lutz
... and kind to him, and had encouraged his staying. Therefore he stayed on. She pressed his hand when he first greeted her; and whispered to him little nothings. And then her eye, brilliant and bright, now mirthful, now melancholy, and invincible in either way! What man with warm feelings, blood unchilled, and a heat not guarded by a triple steel of experience could have withstood those eyes! The lady, it is true, intended to do no mortal injury; ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... rather final though priding itself on being much more fluid and adaptable than it had been fifty years previously. In speaking of itself it at least dealt with fixed customs, and conditions and established facts connected with them—which gave rise to brilliant—or dull—witticisms. ...
— The Head of the House of Coombe • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... Unfortunately, these brilliant services to Parisian society and his king had left him without any society of his own, forced to the consideration of the difficult problem of how to keep his pipe lighted, his cellar full, and his maid-of-all-work in a state of hopeful expectation, ...
— Murder in Any Degree • Owen Johnson
... is the day of wonders! It was a line of brilliant phosphorescence, exceedingly brilliant, about two inches wide, perfectly sharp at the edges, which extended along the side of the ship, and ahead and astern out of sight. "Crack in the water" is the seaman's name for it. I have been a full year on the water, but never ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 87, January, 1865 • Various
... time took up the work that had been lying beside them—to wit, some netting; but before Dick had formed many meshes he stopped to replenish the fire, taking some awkward-looking pieces of split root which were as red as mahogany, and placing them upon the top, where they began to blaze with a brilliant light which told tales of how they were the roots of turpentine-filled pines, which had been growing in the ancient forest that existed before the fen; and then taking from a basket half a dozen dark thick squares of dried peat and placing them round the flaming embers ...
— Dick o' the Fens - A Tale of the Great East Swamp • George Manville Fenn
... and descriptiveness and realism hitherto unknown to symphonic art, to characterize briefly, sparingly, justly, a personage, a situation, an event. He could be pathetic, ironic, playful, mordant, musing, at will. He was sure in his tone, was low-German in "Till Eulenspiegel," courtly and brilliant in "Don Juan," noble and bitterly sarcastic in "Don Quixote," childlike in "Tod und Verklaerung." His orchestra was able to accommodate itself to all the folds and curves of his elaborate programs, to find equivalents for individual traits. It is not simply ...
— Musical Portraits - Interpretations of Twenty Modern Composers • Paul Rosenfeld
... at their best on the Riviera: from Cette, where Matthew Arnold painted one of the most brilliant little landscapes in our literature, along to Genoa, where ...
— From a Cornish Window - A New Edition • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... the transference of Thiassi's eyes to the firmament, where they glow like brilliant stars, reminds us of many Greek star myths, and especially of Argus's eyes ever on the watch, of Orion and his jewelled girdle, and of his dog Sirius, all changed into stars by the gods to appease angry goddesses. Loki's antics to win a smile from the irate Skadi are considered akin to ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber
... and I, being the Abbey party, dressed in all our grandeur. The ceremony was much what I expected, but less solemn and impressive from the mixture of religion with worldly vanities and distinctions. The sight was far more brilliant and beautiful than I had supposed it would be. Walked home in our fine gowns through the crowd; found the stand here well filled, and were quite in time to see the procession pass back. Nothing could be ...
— Lady John Russell • Desmond MacCarthy and Agatha Russell
... meant to be festive, but which was, in fact, desolate, burst upon us. The lights, the flowers and the brilliant appearance of such ladies as flitted into sight from the almost empty parlors, were all suggestive of the cheer suitable to a great occasion; but in spite of this, the effect was altogether melancholy, for the ...
— The House in the Mist • Anna Katharine Green
... it from his packet He pressed the spring switch, and in an instant a brilliant shaft of radiance shot out, cutting the intense blackness like a knife. Mr. Damon flashed it ...
— Tom Swift and his Sky Racer - or, The Quickest Flight on Record • Victor Appleton
... rabble of shouting citizens drawing carriage in which sit the Emperor and Empress. They are followed by a brilliant party of ladies and gentlemen. General and Madam Miramon, Princess de Varela, Prince and Princess Zichy, Prince and Princess Salm-Salm, Lopez, Count Charles, Marquez, Archbishop Labastida, Estrada, Berzabal, ...
— Semiramis and Other Plays - Semiramis, Carlotta And The Poet • Olive Tilford Dargan
... Olympiad of Industry, ought not Industry to have had some representation, some vital recognition, in her share of the pageant? If the Queen had come in state to the Horse-Guards to review the elite of her military forces, no one would doubt that "the Duke" should figure in the foreground, with a brilliant staff of Generals and Colonels surrounding him. So, if she were proceeding to open Parliament her fitting attendants would be Ministers and Councillors of State. But what have her "Gentleman Usher of Sword ...
— Glances at Europe - In a Series of Letters from Great Britain, France, Italy, - Switzerland, &c. During the Summer of 1851. • Horace Greeley
... (1775-1860), eldest son of the ninth Earl of Dundonald, a captain in the Royal Navy, and M. P. for Westminster, had done brilliant service in his successive commands—the 'Speedy', 'Pallas', 'Imperieuse', and the flotilla of fire-ships at Basque Roads in 1809. In the House of Commons he had been a strong opponent of the Government, an advocate of Parliamentary Reform, and a vigorous ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron
... is the picture which he painted for the church of St. Sebald in Nuernberg, by the order of Holzschuher. It represents the dead Saviour just removed from the cross, and mourned over by his mother and friends. It is peculiarly brilliant in colour, and there is considerable force in the deep rich draperies with which the figures are clothed, but it has the defect visible in the works of Duerer's master—a love of hard black outlines. In this picture the faces, hands, and feet are delineated by lines very slightly relieved by ...
— Rambles of an Archaeologist Among Old Books and in Old Places • Frederick William Fairholt
... affliction of any kind, but, on the contrary, being hale and hearty, and not much past the meridian of life, he continued at his loom, although, perhaps, not altogether with the perseverance and assiduity which had distinguished the earlier part of his brilliant career. The consciousness of independence, and, probably, some slight preliminary touches from approaching eild, had rather abated the energy of his exertions; yet Thomas still made a fair week's wage of it, as matters went. Now, with a portion of the honest wealth which he had acquired, ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume III • Various
... The brilliant success of the withdrawal from the Dardanelles provided some solace for the failure of the campaign, but did nothing to relieve from responsibility those who had designed its inception and directed ...
— A Short History of the Great War • A.F. Pollard
... while an associate of Sheridan, Erskine, Fox, &c., he affected, in conversation, to be brilliant, and so far succeeded, as to colloquial liveliness, that during their festive intercourse, according to the witty barrister's own admission, 'he fairly kept up at saddle-skirts' even with Curran. Notwithstanding this compliment, his pretensions to wit appear to have been but slender; ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume 19, No. 535, Saturday, February 25, 1832. • Various
... and vexation of mind,"[5] so experience showed me that the sole happiness of earth consists in lying hidden, and remaining in total ignorance of created things. I understood that without love even the most brilliant deeds count for nothing. These gifts, which Our Lord lavished upon me, far from doing me any harm, drew me towards Him; I saw that He alone is unchangeable, He alone can fill the ...
— The Story of a Soul (L'Histoire d'une Ame): The Autobiography of St. Therese of Lisieux • Therese Martin (of Lisieux)
... had halted at was so thickly tenanted with mosquitoes that it was impossible to sleep. I therefore laid awake, listening to the cries of the sea-birds and watching the brilliant fire-flies moving about in the dark ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 1 (of 2) • George Grey
... infinitesimal portion of space which divided the parts of the broken wire, yet as effectually separated as if worlds had rolled between them. Unite again these slender fragments, and both would again spring to life, unimpaired in their workings, and as brilliant as ever; but without this restoration both must ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 5, November, 1863 • Various
... scene of surpassing beauty. They were in a broad valley, covered with magnificent trees, among which were many gigantic baobabs (Adansonia digitata). Wild date-trees were growing in little clumps; while the floral carpet, spread in brilliant pattern over the valley, was observed by Hans with ...
— The Giraffe Hunters • Mayne Reid
... Burns began his poetical career, with song-writing he closed it; and, brilliant as was his achievement in other fields, it is as a song-writer that he ranks highest among his peers, it is through his songs that he has rooted himself most deeply in the ...
— Robert Burns - How To Know Him • William Allan Neilson
... saying: "Very pretty. Perhaps you might arrange your little verse in a duo, but how you must have taxed your imagination, you poor fellow, to transform the flighty good-for-nothing whom you left five years ago into a brilliant queen!" ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... under the dome; but for the moment, caught in the flood of radiance, I could see nothing. It was like being held within a fire opal—so brilliant, so flashing, was it. I closed my eyes, opened them; the lambency cascaded from the vast curves of the globular walls; in front of me was a long, narrow opening in them, through which, far away, I could see the end of the wizards' bridge and the ledged mouth of the cavern ...
— The Moon Pool • A. Merritt
... about ten o'clock when I reached the river-bank opposite my island. There was a brilliant moon up. If daylight could be silver-coloured ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... to do in Parliament, might admit of various estimate in these times. An apt debater in Parliament is by no means certain to be an able administrator of Colonies, of Home or Foreign Affairs; nay, rather quite the contrary is to be presumed of him; for in order to become a "brilliant speaker," if that is his character, considerable portions of his natural internal endowment must have gone to the surface, in order to make a shining figure there, and precisely so much the less (few men in these days know ...
— Latter-Day Pamphlets • Thomas Carlyle
... every dross— Such dread had he that day of the Gaebulg. His crested helm of battle on his head He last put on—a helmet all ablaze From forty gems in each compartment set, Cruan, and crystal, carbuncles of fire, And brilliant rubies of the Eastern world. In his right hand a mighty spear he seized, Destructive, sharply-pointed, straight and strong:— On his left side his sword of battle swung, Curved, with its hilt and pommel of red ...
— Poems • Denis Florence MacCarthy
... she told the girls she considered them, drew a good deal of attention as they sat and talked together. The little lady was not young, but was certainly very fascinating. She had a vivacious, merry smile, the keenest, most brilliant black eyes in the world, and a certain grace and dignity about her which seemed to contrast with her rapid utterances and ...
— The Rebel of the School • Mrs. L. T. Meade
... evening: next day he began the final preparations for his departure to India on the following Thursday. He was looking forward to his journey and his stay in India with keen expectation. He would have the society of a particularly clever and brilliant man; they were to break their journey in Italy and in Egypt; he would enjoy exceptional facilities for seeing the native life of India; he would gain valuable experience. It was a chance at which any young man would have jumped, and Collingwood had been greatly envied when it was known ...
— The Talleyrand Maxim • J. S. Fletcher
... Ziethen, ordinarily a brilliant and active man, had been a strange failure that day. Not even the terrible din of the king's battle had roused him to take any measure to support him, or even to make a diversion in his favour. In vain Mollendorf, an active and enterprising general, had implored him to attempt ...
— With Frederick the Great - A Story of the Seven Years' War • G. A. Henty
... first alighted) the very day before I arrived in these parts. We had a very pleasant set here; at first the Jerseys, Melbournes [3], Cowpers [4], and Hollands, but all gone; and the only persons I know are the Rawdons [5] and Oxfords [6], with some later acquaintances of less brilliant descent. ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron
... succeeded in persuading him that it was his duty to make the sacrifice. He, accordingly, despatched a messenger to his wife, Clytemnaestra, begging her to send Iphigenia to him, alleging as a pretext that the great hero Achilles desired to make her his wife. Rejoicing at the brilliant destiny which awaited her beautiful daughter, the fond mother at once obeyed the command, and sent her to Aulis. When the maiden arrived at her destination, and discovered, to her horror, the dreadful fate which ...
— Myths and Legends of Ancient Greece and Rome • E.M. Berens
... are fastened to the various street cars running to the Park. In this way the news is soon scattered through the city, and crowds of persons flock to the Park to enjoy the sport. The scene is both brilliant and exhilarating. The Commissioners prepare a code of liberal rules for the government of skaters, and place them at conspicuous points. All persons going on the ice are required to comply with them, on pain of exclusion ...
— The Secrets Of The Great City • Edward Winslow Martin
... which a worn-out invalid could not exercise. The duties of an exalted station overwhelmed him; its business distracted, its state fatigued him. He soon felt convinced, that to those who have long languished in the gloom of sorrow, the brilliant glare of greatness is insupportable. To them ease ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... used by those persons who are most worthy of being designated by them. With a nice discrimination worthy of special notice, one of our daily papers recently said: "Miss Jennie Halstead, daughter of the proprietor of the 'Cincinnati Commercial,' is one of the most brilliant young ...
— The Verbalist • Thomas Embly Osmun, (AKA Alfred Ayres)
... theatres as recent critics have named it. This play as a fabric of plot is a very slight affair; but as a satirical picture of the manners of the time, proceeding by means of vivid caricature, couched in witty and brilliant dialogue and sustained by that righteous indignation which must lie at the heart of all true satire—as a realisation, in short, of the classical ideal of comedy—there had been nothing like Jonson's comedy since the days of Aristophanes. "Every ...
— Sejanus: His Fall • Ben Jonson
... that is obsessing him is what he thinks it is. Remember the thing is wholly evil, wholly evil; but it may, perhaps, do its utmost to hide that, and to keep up the illusion. It is intelligent, but not brilliant; it has the intelligence only of some venomous brute in the slime. Or it may try to frighten you. ...
— The Necromancers • Robert Hugh Benson
... poisonous glare, as the nine fragile, gleaming rings, the drifting men and the spare drum, orbited on into the Earth's shadow, not nearly as dark as it might have been because the Moon was brilliant. ...
— The Planet Strappers • Raymond Zinke Gallun
... brido. Brief mallonga. Brier rozo sovagxa. Brigade brigado. Brigand rabisto. Brigandage rabado. Bright (clear) hela. Bright, to get heligxi. Brighten briligi. Brighten (polish) poluri. Brightness brilo. Brilliant brila. Brilliant (jewel) brilianto. Brimful plenpota. Brine peklakvo. Bring alkonduki. Bring back rekonduki. Bring down (of prices) rabati. Bring forth (a child) naski. Bring up (a child) elnutri. Brink rando. Briny sala. Brisk (lively) ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... have said. Save for his one eye and his quivering, one would scarcely have known that he lived. That was his game, perhaps. Who can tell? For a stolid, slow-thinking gull may have, in his way, just as deep, or low, a cunning as a brilliant-brained raven. Anyhow, in that fiftieth of a second allowed, just when it seemed as if nothing could save his eye, Cob's head snicked round and up, and he slid the enemy's beak down off his own with as neat a parry as ever you saw. And he did more. He caught hold of the said raven's beak, ...
— The Way of the Wild • F. St. Mars
... retort of the Prussian General, von Buelow: "Our bones shall bleach in front of Berlin, not behind it." Seeing an opportune moment while Oudinot's other corps were as yet far off, Buelow sharply attacked Reynier's corps of Saxons at Grossbeeren, and gained a brilliant success, taking 1,700 prisoners with 26 guns, and thus compelling Oudinot's scattered array to fall back in confusion on Wittenberg (August 23rd).[352] Thither the Crown Prince cautiously followed him. Four days ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... McFee's righteous hand descended, and accompanying it in its descent was a black mask torn from a startled woman. A wonderful face and brilliant eyes were exposed to the quiet curiosity of those who looked that way, and they were everybody. Floyd Vanderlip was rather confused. The situation demanded instant action on the part of a man who was not beyond his depth, while he hardly knew where he was. He stared helplessly about ...
— The God of His Fathers • Jack London
... was on the watch. The aspect of the night had quite changed. The moon, large, full, brilliant, was directly overhead, and the stars, like magnificent dewdrops, hung richly in the sky. Away to the north, just clear of a stretch of heaven-high peaks, the scintillating shafts of the northern lights shuddered convulsively, like ...
— In the Brooding Wild • Ridgwell Cullum
... hundred feet of length, its central tower two hundred feet high, most of its roofs a hundred feet or more above the ground, dwarfing the petty, storied dwellings. This is but one great church. In brilliant contrast in another quarter, adjoining the city, is the great abbey church of St. Mary, crowned by a lofty and magnificent spire rising above the equally fine conventual buildings. All over the city are seen the churches and buildings of other monastic and religious houses. The background of dwellings ...
— Life in a Medival City - Illustrated by York in the XVth Century • Edwin Benson
... to which most articles of housebold furniture have names different from those in the towns; it requires little experience however to distinguish the adults of the two nations from one another. The Arabs are generally of short stature, with thin visage, scanty beard, and brilliant black eyes; while the Fellahs are taller and stouter, with a strong beard, and a less piercing look; but the difference seems chiefly to arise from their mode of life; for the youth of both nations, to the age of sixteen, have precisely the same appearance. The Turks and Christians of ...
— Travels in Syria and the Holy Land • John Burckhardt
... in the brilliant moonlight, were two stocky men on roan or bay horses. The moonlight was bright enough to make it certain that they were wearing the garb of Imperial couriers. The trappings of their horses, frontlets, saddle cloths, saddle bags ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... the operations of "aristocratic sport," the intelligent bird, following the precedent of Edgar Poe's Raven, should alight, unseen and uninvited, on some object of art in a fashionable ballroom. Here he would find himself at once in the thick of the brilliant competition. He would see a row of lovely archers, backed by a second row of older and more experienced markswomen. And in the human pigeons now cowering before their combined artillery he would recognise ...
— Modern Women and What is Said of Them - A Reprint of A Series of Articles in the Saturday Review (1868) • Anonymous
... time to proceed to St. Rambert, whence the railroad branches off to Grenoble. It is very beautiful between Lyons and St. Rambert. The mulberry trees show the silkworm to be a denizen of the country, while the fields are dazzlingly brilliant with poppies and salvias; on the other side of the Rhone rise high cloud-capped hills, but towards the Alps we ...
— Samuel Butler's Cambridge Pieces • Samuel Butler
... sight. Near them stood a clump of fantastic-shaped trees, their gnarled limbs covered with snow, and brilliant with the countless icicles that glistened like precious stones in the bright light that was reflected upon them from the windows of the station. A little farther on, between them and the town, flowed a small stream, the waters of which were dimpling and sparkling in ...
— The Garies and Their Friends • Frank J. Webb
... was no delusion about it and they listened without saying another word until, in a glorious strain of melody, the selection came to an end. Nor did they break the silence until a band orchestra was announced and crashed into a brilliant overture. ...
— The Radio Boys Trailing a Voice - or, Solving a Wireless Mystery • Allen Chapman
... where their stones had been thrown, they sprang up and bloomed and bore liberally; roses of many kinds and colours clambered up verandah posts and peeped over fences; the garden plots were like compressed bouquets; the brilliant, graceful, and exquisitely perfumed pink oleanders grew wild in the fields; and altogether the vale of melons had graduated ...
— Some Everyday Folk and Dawn • Miles Franklin
... Founder of Our House and Our other Imperial ancestors, by the help and support of the forefathers of Our subjects, laid the foundation of Our Empire upon a basis, which is to last forever. That this brilliant achievement embellishes the annals of Our country, is due to the glorious virtues of Our Sacred Imperial ancestors, and to the loyalty and bravery of Our subjects, their love of their country and their public spirit. Considering that Our subjects are the descendants of the loyal and good ...
— The Constitution of the Empire of Japan, 1889 • Japan
... else that brilliant flame that near the mid-hours of night glared athwart the deck of the Catamaran might not have awakened him; and had it not done so, neither he nor his three companions might ever again have looked upon human face except ...
— The Ocean Waifs - A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea • Mayne Reid
... without the walls and went down the quay. All our surroundings were gay and brilliant. Everything was life and movement, the life and movement of a Continental town. The "gentle gales" wooed the trees, and the trees made music in the air. The sun shone as it can only shine out of England. The sky, wearing its purest ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 1, January, 1891 • Various
... conjoined to the rear with those of the home farm. On the left was an ornamental water sailed in by many swans. On the right extended a flower garden, laid in the old manner, and at this season of the year, as brilliant as stained glass. The front of the house presented a facade of more than sixty windows, surmounted by a formal pediment and raised upon a terrace. A wide avenue, part in gravel, part in turf, and bordered by triple alleys, ran to the great double ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... school-room, very likely after having passed, during a brief season, for a youthful prodigy in the eyes of an admiring, but inconsiderate circle of friends, he would have closed his earthly career and been lamented as a genius for this world too brilliant and too good. But in this comparative state of barbarism, the boy's mind having been allowed more slowly and naturally to unfold itself; and his body meanwhile being strengthened by a life in the open air of the ...
— Life of Schamyl - And Narrative of the Circassian War of Independence Against Russia • John Milton Mackie
... starting boldly for the King, then making a brilliant retreat, calling loudly for help, as the rapier ...
— Mistress Nell - A Merry Tale of a Merry Time • George C. Hazelton, Jr.
... William Fairbairn informed us that he contrived a variety of curious machines for consolidating peat moss, finely ground and pulverised, under immense pressure, and which, when consolidated, could be moulded into beautiful medals, armlets, and necklaces. The material took the most brilliant polish and had the appearance ...
— Men of Invention and Industry • Samuel Smiles
... Taking a short walk towards sunset, we found ourselves on the margin of a beautiful pond, in which myriads of small gold fishes were disporting—now circling about in rapid evolutions, and anon leaping above the surface, and displaying their brilliant sides in the rays of the setting sun. When we had watched for some moments their happy gambols, Mr. C. turned around and broke a twig from a bush that stood behind us; "there is a bush," said he, "which has committed many a murder." On ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... girl at all. She would have none of their companionship; if she had a secret she kept it well; in their noisy, busy midst she was as much alone as though she were on Robinson Crusoe's desert island. Outwardly those ten months had changed her little—her brilliant, dusk beauty was scarcely dimmed—inwardly it had changed her greatly, and hardly ...
— A Terrible Secret • May Agnes Fleming
... The brilliant masses of Coral make a world of colour in the clear seas of the tropics, a gay garden inhabited by fishes of gaudy hues. In dull seas we have, as a rule, dull creatures to match. And in bright, warm, sunny seas the fishes are also brightly ...
— Within the Deep - Cassell's "Eyes And No Eyes" Series, Book VIII. • R. Cadwallader Smith
... the houses were played on to the German cavalry across the streets, killing them in a frightful slaughter. It was for a little while a sheer massacre in that town of white houses with pretty gardens where flowers were blooming under the brilliant sunshine of a glorious ...
— The Soul of the War • Philip Gibbs
... would start again the life of boots and puttees, saddles and tents. Men stood in small groups along the deck, shown only by the embers of pipes and the occasional glow of a match. They watched the low line of the Egyptian shore, deep black against a sky which seemed vaster than usual and more brilliant with stars, and were exhilarated by the knowledge that they would disembark to-morrow in that queer old country. The mess room was filled for a while with a cheery, laughing crowd to hear words of warning from an old soldier concerning the joys ...
— The Tale of a Trooper • Clutha N. Mackenzie
... sport, the man skilled in fastening the gaffs or spurs to the cock's legs; there, bargains are made, the situation discussed, money borrowed, and people curse, swear and laugh boisterously. In one place, some one is caressing his game cock, passing his hand over his brilliant plumage; in another, a man examines and counts the number of scales on the rooster's legs, for that, they say, is a sign of valor. The battles of the heroes are related. There, too, you will see many a disappointed ...
— Friars and Filipinos - An Abridged Translation of Dr. Jose Rizal's Tagalog Novel, - 'Noli Me Tangere.' • Jose Rizal
... creeks, but where they were wanting its voice was silent. On the banks of the Murray and the Darling its note was to be heard during the greater part of the night, almost equal to that of the nightingale, and like that delightful bird, its plumage is any thing but brilliant, it is however somewhat larger, and although its general shade is brown, it has a light shade of yellow in the breast that makes it brighter in its plumage ...
— Expedition into Central Australia • Charles Sturt
... rose and fell, rose and fell again. An usher, stealing down the central aisle, gave to Mr Saltzburg an enormous bouquet of American Beauty roses, which he handed to the prima donna, who took it with a brilliant smile and a bow nicely combining humility with joyful surprise. The applause, which had begun to slacken, gathered strength again. It was a superb bouquet, nearly as big as Mr Saltzburg himself. It had cost the prima donna close on a hundred dollars that morning at Thorley's, but it was ...
— The Little Warrior - (U.K. Title: Jill the Reckless) • P. G. Wodehouse
... Now for the first time he looked at it. For ninety feet up into the air the large mass was one unrelieved, unbroken shadow, barely distinguishable from the night sky that enveloped it. Above was the skeleton of the cupola, made brilliant, fairly dazzling, in contrast, by scores of arc lamps. At that distance and in that confused tangle of light and shadow the great timbers of the frame looked spidery. The effect was that of a luminous crown upon a ...
— Calumet "K" • Samuel Merwin and Henry Kitchell Webster
... hearts drew consolation from its living springs! What a balm it has poured into bleeding and disconsolate hearts. It has irradiated with the glories of eternal day, the darkest chamber of their home. What brilliant hopes and promises it has hung around the parental heart! And here too are the names of our parents,—long since gathered with their fathers. Here too are our names, and birth, and baptism, written by that parental hand, long since cold ...
— The Christian Home • Samuel Philips
... A brilliant black varnish for iron, stone, or wood can be made by thoroughly incorporating ivory black with common shellac varnish. The mixture should be laid on very thin. But ordinary coal tar varnish will serve the same purpose ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 483, April 4, 1885 • Various
... certainly brilliant, effective, and eloquent; but it satisfied none that heard him, though it pleased all. It was neither a defence of the general conduct and politics of the party, such as O'Connell himself attempted in his ...
— The Kellys and the O'Kellys • Anthony Trollope
... better—no woman could feel prouder than Mrs. Waddledot, when—we hope you don't anticipate the catastrophe—when two of the Argand lamps gave olfactory demonstrations of dissolution. Sperm oil is a brilliant illuminator, but we never knew any one except an Esquimaux, or a Russian, who preferred it to lavender-water as a perfume. Old John was in a ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, October 23, 1841 • Various
... bales of hemp was a brilliant conception, not unlike that which made Tarik, the Saracen warrior, immortal, and gave his name to the ...
— The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government • Jefferson Davis
... and paid for by one or more of these officials, assisted by the cooks. The dishes prepared by the cooks were placed, by the help of the esquires, on dressers in the kitchen until the moment of serving. Thence they were carried to the tables. Let us imagine a vast hall hung with tapestries and other brilliant stuffs. The tables are covered with fringed table-cloths, and strewn with odoriferous herbs; one of them, called the Great Table, is reserved for the persons of distinction. The guests are taken to their seats by two butlers, who bring them ...
— Manners, Custom and Dress During the Middle Ages and During the Renaissance Period • Paul Lacroix
... Traith it is, my lord; and upon honour I am determined it shall never be changed with my consent. Weel I vow—ha, ha, ha! Vive la Bagatelle would be a most brilliant motto for the chariot of a belle of fashion. What say you till my fancy, ...
— The Man Of The World (1792) • Charles Macklin
... began and deepened, and vividly brilliant stars began to come out overhead, and Tommy suddenly searched the heavens eagerly for familiar constellations. And found not one. All the stars were strange. These stars seemed larger and much more near than the tiny pinpoints that blink down ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science January 1931 • Various
... were the creators of shells. Ahsonnutli had a beard under her right arm and Yolaikaiason had a small ball of flesh under her left arm from which they made all shells. The eyes of Naiyenesgony and Tobaidischinni were shells placed on their faces by Ahsonnutli; the shells immediately becoming brilliant the boys could look upon all things and see any distance without their eyes becoming weary. A stick colored black was placed to the forehead of Naiyenesgony and one colored blue to that of Tobaidischinni. When Naiyenesgony shook his head the stick remained firm on the forehead, ...
— Eighth Annual Report • Various
... said that but to prove thee, and to fetch from thee a fruit of the honesty of thy heart." Many a deep and powerful passage has Butler composed on that thesis which Hopeful here supplies him with; and many a brilliant sermon has Newman preached on that same text till he has made our "predispositions to faith" a fruitful and an ever fresh commonplace to hundreds of preachers. Yes; the best bulwark of faith is a good and honest heart. To such ...
— Bunyan Characters (Second Series) • Alexander Whyte
... One most brilliant Autumn day I walked by the village market-cross at Barnard, come at last, but with a tenderness in my heart, and a reluctance, to where I was born; for I said I would go and see my sister Ada, and—the other old one. I leaned and loitered a long time on the bridge, gazing ...
— The Purple Cloud • M.P. Shiel
... thing to bear, no doubt; but Dick had been a bad boy on Friday. He had sold his fish instead of bringing them home, and then had gone and squandered the money on a brilliant new ...
— Dab Kinzer - A Story of a Growing Boy • William O. Stoddard
... frock was draped with a dozen ropes of brilliant flowers, and who looked like a little May Queen in her radiant bloom, looked at the newcomer for a few moments, and then said, with ...
— The Story Of Julia Page - Works of Kathleen Norris, Volume V. • Kathleen Norris
... he from the horizon ever so quickly, don he his most brilliant armour and pursue he ever so hastily, yet, save for two short hours when he may barely touch her hem, Night stands ever mockingly, ...
— The Hawk of Egypt • Joan Conquest
... not a business man, and in 1828 he was overwhelmed by financial difficulties. In the meantime he had become acquainted with the brilliant but erratic Lord Brougham, who had completed arrangements for putting into operation one of his great enterprises for educating the masses. This was the establishment of the Society for the Diffusion ...
— John Rutherford, the White Chief • George Lillie Craik
... for her, he disappeared in the press before she could learn through her attendants who he was or whence he had come. But his image remained vivid in her memory,—even to the least detail of his costume. The holiday attire then worn by samurai youths was scarcely less brilliant than that of young girls; and the upper dress of this handsome stranger had seemed wonderfully beautiful to the enamoured maiden. She fancied that by wearing a robe of like quality and color, bearing the same crest, she might be able to attract his ...
— In Ghostly Japan • Lafcadio Hearn
... with admiration in the presence of this hidalgo from the land of knights who was dressed as plainly as a shopkeeper of Gibraltar, yet who could transform himself into a glorious insect of brilliant hues, armed with a mortal sting. And Aguirre did not disturb her illusions, answering affirmatively, with all the simplicity of a hero. Yes; he had a golden costume, that of the consul. He possessed a sword, which went with his uniform, and ...
— Luna Benamor • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... scene of our story to pursue those brilliant and unscrupulous political intrigues so well known to the historian of those times, and whose results were so disastrous to himself. His duel with the ill-fated Hamilton, the awful retribution of public opinion that followed, and the slow downward course of a doomed life are all on record. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various
... do to wait for that, you know. If the world is a closed oyster, we must open it. Isn't that the way Cyn did?" said Clem, half surmising the realization of the difference between Cyn's brilliant success and her own plodding along that had caused her dejection; and as he spoke, he took her hand in his, but Nattie ...
— Wired Love - A Romance of Dots and Dashes • Ella Cheever Thayer
... clashed oddly with the faded lemon of her dress. Her face was small, the features regular, but her complexion was more than sallow, it was yellow, the yellow of dying grass and sunless places. A spot of rouge glared on either cheek, and, with her eyes, which were black and brilliant, gave her face the look of fever. Her dark hair, just visible under the shawl, deepened the hectic quality of her features, although, as a matter of fact, ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1919 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... Carlyle's, born at Kames Castle, Bute, son of Captain Sterling of the Times; studied at Glasgow and Cambridge; a man of brilliant parts and a liberal-minded, but of feeble health; had Julius Hare for tutor at Cambridge, and became Hare's curate at Hurstmonceaux for eight months; wrote for reviews, and projected literary enterprises, but achieved ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... gaunt, bare, white trees, ghosts of a departed forest, the miry ground strewn with eggs of all sizes, shapes and colors, and dead birds of many kinds, in amongst which writhed and twisted dirty-looking, repulsive water moccasins and brilliant yellow and black swamp snakes, while overhead on the whitened limbs, roosted hundreds of birds partly roused from their sleep by the glare of ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... sign of human life, and only at times, when the north wind blew, a faint and not unpleasant odour like the smell of sealing-wax. For all that the world knew of the malgamite workers, they might have been a colony of lepers. "You speak," said Mrs. Vansittart, "as if you were a failure instead of a brilliant success. I think"—she paused for a moment, as if the thought were a real one and not a mere conversational convenience, as are the thoughts of most people—"that the cream of social life ...
— Roden's Corner • Henry Seton Merriman
... and a levee more than usually brilliant; all the new Ministers and all the old, the whole Corps Diplomatique, with a host of others, mixed up in the first entree room, and all very civil and good-humoured. The King received the ex-Ministers very graciously, and talked ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. III • Charles C. F. Greville
... difficult to dispute, in view of her innumerable and excellent artists, that there has always been in modern times an art consciousness in Ireland, but it is impossible to assert that there has been any artistic unity in her people. She has produced no school, but merely a great number of brilliant painters, sculptors, and engravers, chiefly for export. With all our acknowledged artistic capacity, we have not, except in one notable instance, produced a cumulative art effect. The history of Irish art is almost uniformly a depressing narrative. During a comparatively brief period in the eighteenth ...
— The Glories of Ireland • Edited by Joseph Dunn and P.J. Lennox
... totally deficient in the color perception of red, and with a brilliant red patch he matched almost a black shadow. The diagram shows you the relative perceptions in the spectrum of this gentleman and myself. There are others who only see three-quarters, others half, and others a quarter ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 595, May 28, 1887 • Various
... unpopularity with the patriots, he made overtures to Parma. Alexander was glad to enlist so bold a soldier on his side, and assisted Schenk in his besieged stronghold. For years afterwards, his services under the King's banner were most brilliant, and he rose to the highest military command, while his coffers, meantime, were rapidly filling with the results of his robberies and 'brandschatzungs.' "'Tis a most courageous fellow," said Parma, "but rather a desperate ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... Larkin was away for London. And a very serene companion he was, if not very brilliant. Everything was going perfectly smoothly with him. A celestial gratitude glowed and expanded within his breast. His angling had been prosperous hitherto, but just now he had made a miraculous draught, and his nets and his heart were bursting. Delightful ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu |
