"Coif" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the law, for our laws are full of returns, and we we shall shew a compendium of law [takes the wig]; parts of practice in the twist of the tail.—The depth of a full bottom denotes the length of a chancery suit, and the black coif behind, like a blistering plaister, seems to shew us that law is a great irritator, and only to be used in cases ...
— A Lecture On Heads • Geo. Alex. Stevens
... day the mistress of Chad was making her usual morning round of the kitchens and adjoining offices—her simple though graceful morning robe, and the plain coif covering her hair, showing that she was not yet dressed for the duties which would engross her later in the day. She had a great bunch of keys dangling at her girdle, and her tablets were in her hands, where from time to time she jotted down ...
— The Secret Chamber at Chad • Evelyn Everett-Green
... of Pa-Ramesu were emerging from the quarters. They were, almost uniformly, tall, slender and immature in figure. Dressed in the foot-soldier's tunic and coif, they looked like long-limbed youths compared with the powerful manhood of the sons ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller
... ribbon and gold thread, thrown over the back hair to prevent it from dropping. The large tetradrachmai of Syrakuse, bearing the signature of the engraver, Kimon, show a beautiful head of Arethusa adorned with the kekryphalos. More frequent is the coif-like kekryphalos covering the whole hair, or only the back hair, and tied into a ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... of pale yellow, some woolen stuff, the coif and gamp were of white linen, and a red cross marked the entire front of her dress, the arms of the cross resting on her bosom. Arthur stared. Her face of a sickly pallor had deep circles under the eyes, but seemed plump enough ...
— The Art of Disappearing • John Talbot Smith
... danced languidly on the floor, as if "feeble was her hand, and silly her thread;" while she listened anxiously, for every sound in the street below. She wore a dark blue dress, with a small lace ruff opening in front, deep cuffs to match, and a white apron likewise edged with lace, and a coif, bent down in the centre, over a sweet countenance, matronly, though youthful, and now full of wistful expectancy; not ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the hand that he had kissed. The tail of her coif fell almost to her feet; her body in the fresh sunlight was all cased in purple velvet, only the lawn of her undershirt showed, white and tremulous at her wrists and her neck; and, fair and contrasted with the gold of her hair, her face came out of its abstraction, to take on ...
— The Fifth Queen Crowned • Ford Madox Ford
... rested, and the Princess Budur lay down to sleep. Presently, Kamar al-Zaman went in to her and found her lying asleep clad in a shift of apricot-coloured silk that showed all and everything; and on her head was a coif of gold-cloth embroidered with pearls and jewels. The breeze raised her shift which laid bare her navel and showed her breasts and displayed a stomach whiter than snow, each one of whose dimples would contain an ounce of benzoin- ointment.[FN308] At this sight, his love ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... 'Silly child, petite niaise, our lots were fixed by other hands than ours. We will strive each to serve our God, in the coif or in the veil, in samite or in serge, and He will only ask which of us has been most faithful, not whether we have lived ...
— The Caged Lion • Charlotte M. Yonge
... becomes the Frau Freiherrinn," said the housewife aunt, looking with concern at the coarse texture of her black sleeve. "I long to see our own lady ruffle it in her new gear. I am glad that the lofty pointed cap has passed out; the coif becomes my child far better, and I see our tastes still accord ...
— The Dove in the Eagle's Nest • Charlotte M. Yonge
... slightly built, and of middle size; but he had that hardy, wiry look, which showed that he was capable of undergoing great fatigue and enduring an excess of heat without inconvenience, if not of cold. His ordinary dress was that of a simple gentleman, with a flat cap, having a coif tying beneath the chin and completely concealing his hair. His cloak, or gown, was of fine cloth, trimmed with rich fur, and having long sleeves. Beneath it was a closely-buttoned waistcoat, while he wore long hose, and puffed breeches, reaching but a short way down ...
— The Golden Grasshopper - A story of the days of Sir Thomas Gresham • W.H.G. Kingston
... a rough welcome to your home, my pretty cousin, but wandering princesses must expect such adventures. And well I came up in time, for, let me assure you, the Black Troopers respect a countess's coronet as little as a country wench's coif, and I think your retinue is ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... every day. Adios, mare! They had caught sight of their mother's glossy wrinkly face peering over the counter in front of the opening into the wine store, her head swathed as usual in a white kerchief like a coif. Some dirty underfed sheep were browsing the marsh grass near the first houses of the village. From the pools of fresh water behind the dunes frogs were croaking in monotone, their garumps faintly blending with the murmuring of the surf. ...
— Mayflower (Flor de mayo) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... Hester Prynne's blood-coloured A. But the mystery was at last partly dispelled by his being taken to see a collection of pictures (the annual exhibition of the National Academy), where he encountered a representation of a pale, handsome woman, in a quaint black dress and a white coif, holding between her knees an elfish-looking little girl, fantastically dressed and crowned with flowers. Embroidered on the woman's breast was a great crimson A, over which the child's fingers, ...
— Hawthorne - (English Men of Letters Series) • Henry James, Junr.
... entered, the head, which nodded with self-importance; the features, in which an irritable peevishness, acquired by habit and indulgence, strove with a temper naturally affectionate and good-natured; the coif; the apron; the blue-checked gown,—were all those of old Ailie; but laced pinners, hastily put on to meet the stranger, with some other trifling articles of decoration, marked the difference between Mrs. Wilson, life-rentrix ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... becoming and fanciful costume in which she was decked could not heighten her natural charms, it certainly displayed them to advantage. Upon her smooth and beautiful brow sat a gilt crown, while her dark and luxuriant hair, covered behind with a scarlet coif, embroidered with gold; and tied with yellow, white, and crimson ribands, but otherwise wholly unconfirmed, swept down almost to the ground. Slight and fragile, her figure was of such just proportion that ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... Examinate and her mother had their firehouse broken."] The inference intended is, that Whittle's family committed the robbery from Old Demdike's house. This was, in all probability, the origin of their feuds. The abstraction of the coif and band, tempting articles to the young daughter of Old Chattox, not destitute, if we may judge from one occurrence deposed to, of personal attractions, may be said to have convulsed Lancashire from the Leven to the Mersey,—to have caused a sensation, the shock of ...
— Discovery of Witches - The Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Lancaster • Thomas Potts
... my guide down the tribune steps, impatient to see what mystic version of such terrestrial graces the ingenious artist had found—the Cavaliere was master of such arts. The Duchess's attitude was one of transport, as though heavenly airs fluttered her laces and the love-locks escaping from her coif. I saw how admirably the sculptor had caught the poise of her head, the tender slope of the shoulder; then I crossed over and looked into her face—it was a frozen horror. Never have hate, revolt and agony so ...
— Crucial Instances • Edith Wharton
... with a hen, with a cock, with a pullet, with a calf's skin, with a hare, with a pigeon, with a cormorant, with an attorney's bag, with a montero, with a coif, with a falconer's lure. But, to conclude, I say and maintain, that of all torcheculs, arsewisps, bumfodders, tail-napkins, bunghole cleansers, and wipe-breeches, there is none in the world comparable to the neck of a goose, that ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... tinder of his coat to nought, Except these scraps of leather; see how white The skull is, loose within the coif! He fought A good fight, maybe, ere ...
— The Defence of Guenevere and Other Poems • William Morris
... not the comfort had brought me, Fair queen of the ring, thy embrace! Go, mate with the man of thy choosing, Scant mirth will he get of thy grace! Be dearer henceforth to thy dastard, False dame of the coif, than to me;— I have spoken the word; I have sung it;— I have said my ...
— The Life and Death of Cormac the Skald • Unknown
... So called, perhaps, from kekruphalos, an ornament for the head, being a coif, band, or fillet of network for the hair called in Latin 'reticulum,' by which name her office is denoted. The handmaid, whose duty it was to attend to the hair, held the highest rank in ancient ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Vol. I, Books I-VII • Publius Ovidius Naso
... to look at the body. Under the pure white sheet a quilted counter-pane had been placed, for now, more than ever, Aunt Ann had need of warmth; and, the pillows removed, her spine and head rested flat, with the semblance of their life-long inflexibility; the coif banding the top of her brow was drawn on either side to the level of the ears, and between it and the sheet her face, almost as white, was turned with closed eyes to the faces of her brothers and sisters. In its extraordinary peace the face was stronger than ever, nearly all bone ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... wish, to refresh and repose himself in, after a walk of twenty miles. I entered a well-lighted passage, and from thence a well-lighted bar room, on the right hand, in which sat a stout, comely, elderly lady, dressed in silks and satins, with a cambric coif on her head, in company with a thin, elderly man with a hat on his head, dressed in a rather prim and precise manner. "Madam!" said I, bowing to the lady, "as I suppose you are the mistress of this establishment, ...
— Wild Wales - Its People, Language and Scenery • George Borrow
... admitted member of Serjeants' Inn; and the judge would address the Serjeants who practised before him as Brother So-and-So. Justice Lindley was the last judge who took the degree, a degree the only outward visible sign of which is the black patch or coif which is attached to the top of the wig. I do not know what kind of counsel Serjeant Snubbin, retained by Mr. Perker for the defendant, was; but Dodson and Fogg had retained Serjeant Buzfuz for the plaintiff, and we all know that Serjeant Snubbin was no match for Serjeant Buzfuz. ...
— The Law and Lawyers of Pickwick - A Lecture • Frank Lockwood
... rout that morning-tide Had sought the chapel of Saint Bride. Her troth Tombea's Mary gave To Norman, heir of Armandave, And, issuing from the Gothic arch, The bridal now resumed their march. In rude but glad procession came Bonneted sire and coif-clad dame; And plaided youth, with jest and jeer Which snooded maiden would not hear: And children, that, unwitting why, Lent the gay shout their shrilly cry; And minstrels, that in measures vied Before the young and bonny ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... on his way, his heart bursting with grief and hate and love, to pay a last mark of respect to the martyr of liberty, an old countrywoman, wearing the coif of the Limousin peasantry, accosted him to ask if the Monsieur Marat who had been murdered was not Monsieur le ...
— The Gods are Athirst • Anatole France
... wall in the archway. Two or three of the guardsmen were about her, one with a flambeau, by which they were all surveying her. She wore the coif and blouse, the black bodice and short striped skirt, of the country peasant girl, and, like a country girl, she showed a face flushed and downcast under the soldiers' bold scrutiny. She looked up at me as at a rescuing angel. It was ...
— Helmet of Navarre • Bertha Runkle
... The high coif above her forehead flamed with jewels, and big, sleepy pearls slid and fell over her neck ...
— The International Spy - Being the Secret History of the Russo-Japanese War • Allen Upward
... 59, fo. 472. Glyn had assumed the coif in October, 1648, and in so doing had followed the example of Sir Henry Montague and others of his predecessors. The City had tried to get rid of Montague (in 1610) on the same grounds, but failed owing to the intervention of ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume II • Reginald R. Sharpe
... she awoke, as from a long sleep. The low sun was shining into the cell, lighting up the wooden crucifix on the white-washed wall; Soeur Lucie, in her strait coif and long black veil, was sitting by the bedside reading her book of hours; through the window could be seen a strip of blue sky crossed by some budding tree in the convent garden, little birds were beginning to chirp and twitter amongst ...
— My Little Lady • Eleanor Frances Poynter
... coif—very ugly, but delightfully primitive—worn by a large proportion of these peasants showed that they had crossed the Dordogne from the Bas-Limousin. Many had come all the way on foot, taking a couple of days ...
— Wanderings by southern waters, eastern Aquitaine • Edward Harrison Barker
... other and still more potent aids to convalescence on board the Burlington Castle. A band of devoted female nurses tended the sick; and amongst them, demurely clad in a black dress, her now sad white face half hidden under an immense coif, was one who answered to the name ...
— The Thin Red Line; and Blue Blood • Arthur Griffiths
... law.—Servientes ad legem, or serjeant-countors. The coif or covering to the head worn by this order has also given a denomination to them. There exists some differences of opinion among judicial antiquarians as to the origin of the coif. It is supposed by some to have been invented about the time of Henry III, for the purpose ...
— An Essay on Professional Ethics - Second Edition • George Sharswood
... Lancaster. Lord Chief Justice of the King's Bench. Master of the Rolls. The Vice-Chancellor of England. Lord Chief Justice of the Common Pleas. Lord Chief Baron of the Exchequer. Judges and Barons of the degree of the Coif, according to seniority Viscounts' younger Sons. Barons' younger Sons. Baronets. Knights of the Bath. Knights Commanders of the Bath. Field and Flag Officers. Knights Bachelors. Masters in Chancery. Doctors graduate. Serjeants at Law. Esquires of the King's Body. Esquires of the Knights ...
— The Manual of Heraldry; Fifth Edition • Anonymous
... Pinners. A pinner is 'a coif with two long flaps one on each side pinned on and hanging down, and sometimes fastened at the breast . . . sometimes applied to the flaps as an adjunct of the coif.'—N.E.D. cf. Pepys, 18 April, 1664: 'To Hyde Park . . . and my Lady Castlemaine in a ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume V • Aphra Behn
... of serjeant-at-law, and from that body, which existed until 1875, the judges were selected. If a barrister below the rank of serjeant was invited to take a seat on the Bench he invariably conformed to the recognised custom and "took the coif"—became a serjeant-at-law—before he was sworn as one of his (or her) Majesty's judges. This explains the term "brother" applied by judges when addressing serjeants pleading before them in Court. "Taking the ...
— Law and Laughter • George Alexander Morton
... little oasis of light made by two candles in a desert of dusk, I sat at a little table to worry and ink myself all over till the task of my preparation was done. The table of my toil faced a tall white door, which was kept closed; now and then it would come ajar and a nun in a white coif would squeeze herself through the crack, glide across the room, and disappear. There were two of these noiseless nursing nuns. Their voices were seldom heard. For, indeed, what could they have had to say? When ...
— Notes on Life and Letters • Joseph Conrad |
