"Elegant" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... now. One autumn day, a transport arrived with provisions, in charge of an officer, a young man of about twenty-five. He reported himself to me in full uniform, and announced that he had been ordered to remain in the fortress with me. He was so very elegant, his complexion so nice and white, his uniform so brand new, that I immediately guessed that he had not been long with our army in ...
— A Hero of Our Time • M. Y. Lermontov
... Janet it was! Her silken gown was very "fashionable," somewhat too modish for good taste, for it was elaborately trimmed and embroidered. She wore considerable jewelry, including diamonds; her shoes were elegant and her hose daintily clocked; her hat must have been a French milliner's choicest creation. If good clothes could make Janet Orme a lady, there was no question of her social standing, yet even little Alora felt that ...
— Mary Louise Solves a Mystery • L. Frank Baum
... reclining at his ease on an elegant sofa, his head comfortably propped up with pillows, and as far, at any rate, as face was concerned, appearing not a bit the worse for his late accident, and making himself quite at home; and there, too, ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various
... the full-grown chamois are quite black and smooth, and formed like a perfect hook with very sharp points. These elegant creatures are the only animals of the antelope kind to be found in Western Europe. They choose for their home the ...
— The Nursery, July 1877, XXII. No. 1 - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest Readers • Various
... the door was thrown wide-open by a very elegant waiter, who looked anxiously at the windows, as if he was afraid they had been broken in the fray. Then he placed himself in the door-way with a very polite air, as if to intimate that he would there await ...
— Gritli's Children • Johanna Spyri
... the suggestion that it might be of service to Mr. Walpole 'in any future edition of his truly entertaining anecdotes of painting.' This drew from the connoisseur one of the politest letters[6] that have been written in English, in which the simple and elegant sentences expressed with a very charming courtesy the interest and curiosity of its author. He gave his correspondent 'a thousand thanks'; 'he would not be sorry to print' (at his private press) 'some of Rowley's poems'; and added—which reads strangely in the light of what follows—'I would by ...
— The Rowley Poems • Thomas Chatterton
... an oak's broad shade, Lost in delightful talk, We rested from our walk. Beyond the shadow, large and staid, Cows chewed with drowsy eye Their cud complacently: Elegant deer walked o'er the glade, Or stood with wide bright eyes Gazing a short surprise; And up the fern slope ...
— My Beautiful Lady. Nelly Dale • Thomas Woolner
... did. The pale moonlight, streaming through the cellar window, lighted their banquet hall with its ghostly gleams. They enjoyed the cool dampness of the place. They liked its musty smell. And Moses Mouse remarked—between mouthfuls—that they hadn't had such an elegant feast for weeks. "It's quite like old ...
— The Tale of Miss Kitty Cat - Slumber-Town Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey
... having tethered his mare and fed her with a sufficiency of fodder, he fared forth to walk about the thoroughfares. Suddenly he was met by an ancient dame who considered him and noted him for a handsome youth and an elegant, tall of stature and with the signs of prosperity showing manifest between his eyes. Hereat he accosted her and questioned her of the city folk and their circumstances, whereto the old woman made reply with the following purport, "Here in our city reigneth a King of exalted dignity and he hath ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... This elegant and curious piece of workmanship, the history of which is involved in uncertainty, bears the marks of an age subsequent to that of the choir, and was probably erected in the reign of Henry VI. It is in the most finished ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 13, No. 356, Saturday, February 14, 1829 • Various
... overborne, however, by his brother and his nephew—concerning whom he renews his protestations that he never could have thought they would have been half so glad to see him—he is taken home to an elegant house in all the arrangements of which there is to be observed a pleasant mixture of the originally simple habits of the father and mother with such as are suited to their altered station and the higher fortunes ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... fraud and a lawsuit. With the subtle vanity which is common to old maids, and the fanatic self-love which characterizes them, Mademoiselle Gamard was deeply wounded by the course taken by Madame de Listomere. The baroness was a woman of high rank, elegant in her habits and ways, whose good taste, courteous manners, and true piety could not be gainsaid. By receivng Birotteau as her guest she gave a formal denial to all Mademoiselle Gamard's assertions, and indirectly censured her conduct ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... National Bank Building. He was one of those old men who somehow recall a cavalry sword, slightly bent, of exceedingly good metal. He retained, you might say, merely the skin and bones of a splendid countenance. The skin was brown as parchment, and wrinkled, but the bones were elegant—Hamlet's skull, not Yorick's. His eyes were perfectly round, gray below a kind of yellow brilliance, as if an old eagle within looked out beneath the steel bars of those bristling brows. His nose belonged to the colonial period of American history. It was ...
— The Co-Citizens • Corra Harris
... observed, should never be rubbed smooth with glasspaper or cut down. It is not a difficult position to get at and small pieces can easily be inserted. This part also is so fashioned that a comparatively small loss of the edge, especially at the sides, will alter the whole character and reduce a most elegant and masterly form to that associated with mere rubbish. Three or four scrolls of Stradivari's are in my recollection as having been under such treatment and the contour being destroyed there was little about the general shape to remind the spectator of the beautiful ...
— The Repairing & Restoration of Violins - 'The Strad' Library, No. XII. • Horace Petherick
... voice of one of his oldest friends, the author Octave Bertin; for they had been school-fellows at the Lycee Henri IV. Bertin, a little Parisian, quick-witted, elegant, and precocious, had welcomed the awkward enthusiastic advances of the overgrown youth fresh from the country,—ungainly in body and mind, his clothes always too short for his long legs and arms, a mixture of innocence, simplicity, ...
— Clerambault - The Story Of An Independent Spirit During The War • Rolland, Romain
... associated himself with the extreme Radical and Labour wing, where it flatters his vanity to think he is regarded as an elegant exotic. A constant saying of his is "Keep your eye on labour," but, though they don't say so, the Labour Members keep their eye on him and regard ...
— War-time Silhouettes • Stephen Hudson
... yet dressed with elegant simplicity, befitting their rank and position in society. The Chevalier Le Gardeur de Tilly had fallen two years ago, fighting gallantly for his King and country, leaving a childless widow to manage his vast domain and succeed him as sole guardian of their orphan niece, Amelie de Repentigny, ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... Determined that never again, even to herself, should she call me a boy, I summoned to my aid all the savoir-faire I could command. I was (at least, in my own estimation, and I hoped also in hers) the elegant man of the world, discoursing at ease on every fashionable topic, and, to my own amazement, parrying every thrust of her keen repartee, and sometimes sending her as keen in return. I think the situation had gone to my head. Certainly I had never before thought myself ...
— The Rose of Old St. Louis • Mary Dillon
... the prose- poem of Harrington, and the admirable discourses of Algernon Sydney are a sufficient answer to this accusation. To none has it less application than to the subject of our sketch. He was a genial, warmhearted man, an elegant scholar, a finished gentleman at home, and the life of every circle which he entered, whether that of the gay court of Charles II., amidst such men as Rochester and L'Estrange, or that of the republican philosophers who ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... and settlements increased Entomology was not altogether neglected, for we find a resident, John W. Lewin, A.L.S., of Paramatta, New South Wales, in 1805, publishing an elegant and curious quarto volume of plates in which he describes many species of crepuscular and nocturnal Lepidoptera, in most cases figuring the insects in all their stages; it is highly to be regretted that this interesting work was not continued, and it is to be feared ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 2 (of 2) • George Grey
... the child's fault," returned the dean, "that he is not so elegant in his manners as his cousin. Had William been bred in the same place, he would have been ...
— Nature and Art • Mrs. Inchbald
... see. Ah, here's a pretty thing! See, Esther, here's an elegant crown, really beautiful, with the fleurs de lys of France, and the name of the luckless Louis XVI. "Roi de France and de Navarre" but no date. On the other side, "Isles de France and de Bourbon." These coins seem to belong ...
— A Red Wallflower • Susan Warner
... medicines there were to preserve him in health, glittering necklaces upon his person; the members of tributary states, hearing that the king had an heir born to him, sent their presents and gifts of various kinds: oxen, sheep, deer, horses, and chariots, precious vessels and elegant ornaments, fit to delight the heart of the prince; but though presented with such pleasing trifles, the necklaces and other pretty ornaments, the mind of the prince was unmoved, his bodily frame small indeed, but his heart established; his mind at rest within its ...
— Sacred Books of the East • Various
... imaginations—camels laden with spices and treasure—beautiful slaves, presents for Solomon's harem—a long cavalcade of richly caparisoned beasts and warriors—and Sheba's Queen in the van of this vision of "Oriental magnificence." These elegant fragments bear a richer interest than the solemn vastness of the stones the Jews kiss in the Place of Wailing can ever have for ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... is served; knowing so well their ideas in this respect, I can recommend them with confidence to Messieurs Verdier and Dauzier, convinced that all their different fancies will be gratified. If they wish to be exclusive, to enjoy their meal tete-a-tete with their friend, they will find an elegant little apartment suited to their wishes; if they be three or four or more persons, they will still find they can be accommodated in such a manner that they may always imagine themselves at home; in fact there are about twenty ...
— How to Enjoy Paris in 1842 • F. Herve
... Sutherland Bangs, M.P., meeting himself out at a dinner one evening. Mr. Sutherland Bangs cherishes a comfortable vision of himself as a handsome, engaging fellow, with a gift for talk, a breezy manner, a stylish presence, and an elegant accent. And seated beside himself at dinner he would discover that he was a pretentious bore, that his talk was windy commonplace, his breezy manner an offence, his fine accent an unpleasant affectation. ...
— Pebbles on the Shore • Alpha of the Plough (Alfred George Gardiner)
... very scornful. "I said you were a fool. Of course, she'll lie to you again, and wheedle round you. As for the hangers-on, to use your own elegant term, I heard first from Mrs. Fagin, who is a most respectable woman, I find, with a husband in a very good position in the Council office. She had no idea she was lending herself to such a deception, and sent me to the mayor, who very kindly had ...
— People of Position • Stanley Portal Hyatt
... entering one of the rooms of Tortoni one of the two hundred young men whom we confidently style our friends; he was in the full bloom of his modesty. A lovely woman, dressed in perfect taste, and who had consented to enter one of the cool parlors devoted to people of fashion, had stepped from an elegant carriage which had stopped on the boulevard, and was approaching on foot along the sidewalk. My young friend, the celibate, then appeared and offered his arm to his queen, while the husband followed holding by the hand two ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... not long before the thought struck Abner that he was losing opportunities which spread themselves around him, so he jumped up and took down a book. The volume proved to be one of 'Elegant Extracts'; but after reading certain reflections 'Upon Seeing Mr. Pope's House at Binfield' he thought he would like something more in the nature of a story, and took up a thinner volume entitled ...
— John Gayther's Garden and the Stories Told Therein • Frank R. Stockton
... to a door, opened it, and when he entered shut it softly without announcing him. The room in which he found himself was a long one, lighted from the roof. The walls were hung with pictures. At the far end, with their backs towards him, were two ladies: Lydia, and a woman whose noble carriage and elegant form would, have raised hopes of beauty in a man less preoccupied than Cashel. But he, after advancing some distance with his eyes on Lydia, suddenly changed countenance, stopped, and was actually turning to fly, ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... poor way to describe it. It is a bob rustic indeed, but it veils Columbine very slightly. She is like one of the flowers of Keats, "all tiptoe for a flight." Into the room with the arch-valet and the very tired, elegant modish man she has come like the scent of mignonette through the window. His lordship's mind stirs even under its counterpane of cards and dice and buttered claret and snuff and fripperies, and one might think he heard the echo of a thrush's song sung when he was a boy ...
— The Harlequinade - An Excursion • Dion Clayton Calthrop and Granville Barker
... hundred dollars a year not only pay all their expenses of clothing, board, travelling, learning the French language, etc., etc., but they were able out of it to purchase books to send home, and actually sent a large trunk full of elegant books. Now the person who told us that he did this has a father who is said to be worth a hundred and fifty thousand dollars; therefore the young man was not pinched for means, but was thus economical out of consideration to his parents, ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Samuel F. B. Morse
... refreshed the air. The country villas are filled with all that is gayest and most distinguished in Mexico, and every house and every room in the village has been hired for months in advance. The ladies are in their most elegant toilets, and looking forward to a delightful whirl of dancing, cock-fighting, gambling, dining, ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon De La Barca
... here evident that the part allotted to classical qualities seems mostly to depend on harmony and nuances of expression, on graceful and temperate style: such is also the most general opinion. In this sense the pre-eminent classics would be writers of a middling order, exact, sensible, elegant, always clear, yet of noble feeling and airily veiled strength. Marie-Joseph Chenier has described the poetics of those temperate and accomplished writers in lines where he ...
— Literary and Philosophical Essays • Various
... cross at her throat, and velvet bracelets on her bare arms (Madame de Serizy had handsome arms and showed them much), together with bronze kid shoes and thread stockings, gave Madame Moreau all the appearance of an elegant Parisian. She wore, also, a superb bonnet of Leghorn straw, trimmed with a bunch of moss roses from Nattier's, beneath the spreading sides of which rippled the curls of her beautiful ...
— A Start in Life • Honore de Balzac
... Paris was played out, he had a commission for a portrait, and they'd better dine together and have a good old talk. Philip reminded him of his acquaintance with Hayward, and was entertained to see that Lawson was slightly awed by Hayward's elegant clothes and grand manner. They sat upon him better than they had done in the shabby little studio which Lawson and ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... one of the most gifted, cultivated, and elegant women of her time. The genius and moral worth of Locke are well known to all. Domesticated in the family of Lady Masham for many years before his death, giving her all the advantage of his talents, ...
— The Friendships of Women • William Rounseville Alger
... distinguishing yourself. You must know, my good Perseus, I think of getting married to the beautiful Princess Hippodamia, and it is customary on these occasions to make the bride a present of some far-fetched and elegant curiosity. I have been a little perplexed, I must honestly confess, where to obtain anything likely to please a princess of her exquisite taste. But this morning, I flatter myself, I have thought of precisely ...
— Myths and Legends of All Nations • Various
... fair to dignify it by the name of a museum," said Raffles Haw. "It consists merely of a few elegant trifles which I have picked up here and there. Gems are my strongest point. I fancy that there, perhaps, I might challenge comparison with any private collector in the world. I lock them up, for even the best servants ...
— The Doings Of Raffles Haw • Arthur Conan Doyle
... not done thoroughly. Nor is it very convenient to go and wash one's hands every time a lamp is used, because it was not thoroughly cleaned or duly put in order, when it should have been. Nor is it easy to clean an elegant carpet which has become soiled, or replace a valuable astral lamp, or mirror, which has been broken, simply for the want of thorough attention in those who have the care of these things. These little inconveniences, constantly ...
— The Young Woman's Guide • William A. Alcott
... not at first be convinced that the elegant young gentleman, introduced as Julian Huet, was no other than the bound boy, Bill Benton; but he recalled so many incidents of his past life that ...
— Robert Coverdale's Struggle - Or, On The Wave Of Success • Horatio, Jr. Alger
... "I feel equal to applying for the position of general housework man, if I lose my job. I can sew—you ought to see the elegant patch I put on the seat of my old blues—I can 'scrub and wash' clothes, I can sweep beautifully, I can make a bed with neatness and despatch. And I have been known to get on my knees and ...
— A Gunner Aboard the "Yankee" • Russell Doubleday
... elegant dresses in the house,—the ladies having an idea that an old comedy is one of those things which every fashionable person ought to see. There are also numbers of nice young men, who, being the burning and shining lights of fashionable society (after ...
— Punchinello, Volume 2, No. 37, December 10, 1870 • Various
... old, slender, with dark, smooth hair; his movements are quick, with a suggestion of restlessness; he wears a gray business suit of elegant cut, but not well cared for; he has a trick of taking hold of the lapel of his sack coat with his left hand and turning it back; he is seated ...
— The Lonely Way—Intermezzo—Countess Mizzie - Three Plays • Arthur Schnitzler
... Paul hurried in, and Fritz stood by the great glass front, and examined with the eyes of an experienced clothing merchant the elegant cloth ...
— Pixy's Holiday Journey • George Lang
... Croisenois was attired in the most fashionable manner, and formed an utter contrast to the flashy dress of Gaston. He was smoking a cigar, and mechanically tapping his boots with an elegant walking cane. In a moment the features and figure of the Viscount were indelibly photographed upon Andre's brain. He particularly noticed his eyes, which had in them a half-concealed look of terror, and his face bore the ...
— The Champdoce Mystery • Emile Gaboriau
... most elegant aplomb]. Sh-sh-sh-sh-sh! Mr Mangan, you are bound in honor to obliterate from your mind all you heard while you were pretending to be asleep. It was not meant for ...
— Heartbreak House • George Bernard Shaw
... ease he could talk with the down-east farmer and salty seamen and exchange elegant compliments with old world royalty. In The Cathedral ...
— The Vision of Sir Launfal - And Other Poems • James Russell Lowell
... elegant pavilion at the northern extremity of the grounds in the renaissance style, which was a copy, although reduced in dimensions, of the two higher stories of the central part of the "Casa Rosador," or "Pink Palace," ...
— Final Report of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission • Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission
... residence. St. Aubert felt a kind of affection for every part of the fabric, which he remembered in his youth, and would not suffer a stone of it to be removed, so that the new building, adapted to the style of the old one, formed with it only a simple and elegant residence. The taste of Madame St. Aubert was conspicuous in its internal finishing, where the same chaste simplicity was observable in the furniture, and in the few ornaments of the apartments, that characterized ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... bookseller's shop, because the author of the "Baviad and Maeviad" had presumed to castigate the great lampooner of the age. In the present instance, the furious Wolcot leapt to the rash conclusion, that the author of the satire was no less a personage than Mr. Hayley, and he assailed the elegant author of the "Triumphs of Temper" in a virulent pasquinade. This ill-considered movement of his adversary of course achieved the complete success of ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... what appearance the library presented at the time when Ruby Brand slept in it; but we can tell, from personal experience, that, at the present day, it is a most comfortable and elegant apartment. The other rooms of the lighthouse, although thoroughly substantial in their furniture and fittings, are quite plain and devoid of ornament, but the library, or "stranger's room", as it is sometimes called, being the guest-chamber, is fitted up in a style worthy of a lady's boudoir, with ...
— The Lighthouse • Robert Ballantyne
... was gone he continued his work, reflecting on her. He had been so caught by her influence that he had taken no count of her general mould and build. He remembered now that she was not a large figure, that she was light and slight, of the type dubbed elegant. That was about all he had seen. There was nothing statuesque in her; all was nervous motion. She was mobile, living, yet a painter might not have called her handsome or beautiful. But the much that she was surprised him. She was quite a long way removed from the rusticity ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy
... with him," said he, "he might have been about twenty-seven years old; he was thin, nimble, and elegant in his person. I could easily have carried ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. II • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... to give up his reform.[408] In the height of the crinoline fashion Leech published in Punch a picture of two maiden ladies who "think crinoline a preposterous and extravagant invention and appear at a party in a simple and elegant attire." The shocked horror of the bystanders is perfect, but the two ladies would to-day be quite in the fashion. Du Maurier published in Punch a skit in which a little girl asked her mother how Eve knew, the first time that she saw ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner
... but he repaid himself five times over, by gifts extorted from his vassals, and by the value of the Parga lands, now become his property. His palace of Tepelen had been rebuilt at the public expense, and was larger and more magnificent than before; Janina was embellished with new buildings; elegant pavilions rose on the shores of the lake; in short, Ali's luxury was on a level with his vast riches. His sons and grandsons were provided for by important positions, and Ali himself was sovereign prince ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - ALI PACHA • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... highly-cultivated garden, with neat borders and delicate flowers; but no glance of a bright, vivid physiognomy, no open country, no fresh air, no blue hill, no bonny beck. I should hardly like to live with her ladies and gentlemen, in their elegant but confined houses. These observations will probably irritate you, but I shall run ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various
... the Fables of Dryden, ornamented with engravings, from the elegant and fascinating pencil of Lady Diana Beauclerc, was ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... believed that she deserved her reputation, for she had a great deal of taste in dress; and when she had gone upstairs to decorate previous to the hour of arrival of her customers, and came down in a handsome silk dress and an elegant morning cap, I would often look at her with surprise, and say to myself, "Who would think that this was my mother, who used to shove the broom at me in the little parlor at ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... in barracks, forts, etc.; two ships rotting upon the stocks. The Rideau Canal[18] comes to this place, only good as furnishing employment, but what becomes of old England? Passed the 1000 islands, rocky and covered with wood. An old Canadian with an elegant bag for tobacco studded with beads. Very sleepy and dull most of this afternoon. At seven came to Brockville a pretty little town situated on rising ground. Arrived at Prescott soon after nine. Cholera reported to be very bad at Quebec, ninety a day dying; still I ...
— A Journey to America in 1834 • Robert Heywood
... give way to the outbursts of anger, sometimes real, oftener assumed, in which he formerly indulged. He liked to talk, and his conversation was easy and witty, and full of an irresistible charm. His dress, which in old times he neglected, became elegant. His expression and voice acquired gentleness and an almost caressing quality. Not only did he try to fascinate the young and handsome Empress, he spared no pains to please her. Being much honored and flattered in his vanity as a Corsican gentleman,—for this man of Vendmiaire, ...
— The Happy Days of the Empress Marie Louise • Imbert De Saint-Amand
... moon looked into the room from the west where like elegant and graceful phantoms the dancers moved, swayed, glided, swung back again with sinuous grace into the suavely ...
— Athalie • Robert W. Chambers
... within the walls of our humble room in Baker Street. The one, austere, high-nosed, eagle-eyed, and dominant, was none other than the illustrious Lord Bellinger, twice Premier of Britain. The other, dark, clear-cut, and elegant, hardly yet of middle age, and endowed with every beauty of body and of mind, was the Right Honourable Trelawney Hope, Secretary for European Affairs, and the most rising statesman in the country. They sat side by side upon our paper-littered settee, and it was easy to see from their ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes - Magazine Edition • Arthur Conan Doyle
... your last word, citoyenne," said Chauvelin, as a flood of light from the passage illumined her elegant, richly-clad figure, "we meet ...
— The Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... three splendid English crystal chandeliers. In the dining-room were a hundred candles and lamps, and silver plate of every description, and presiding over this magnificence the strange successors of Washington and his stately dame, of Madison and his no less elegant wife,—the Tennessee backwoodsman and ...
— Albert Gallatin - American Statesmen Series, Vol. XIII • John Austin Stevens
... donned a morning suit, the elegant cut and finish of which showed that the old beau of nearly fifty had not ceased trying to please. When he shaved he spared the narrow strip of pepper-and-salt beard round his chin, as it gave him the air of a trust-worthy family ...
— The Lost Child - 1894 • Francois Edouard Joachim Coppee
... makes on me is beyond description. I want to see a better thing made of Chicago. I really hate it here, all this striving for money—but of course no place can beat Chicago for that—but also the idlers here, the worship of Mammon, the dullness and the gloom of elegant people, the extravagant dressing, the liveried servants, all this imitation. And all this talk here of America being the only religious, free, and enlightened people in the world. Why, they are not free at all. The mind must be free before ...
— Children of the Market Place • Edgar Lee Masters
... be an impressively elegant affair, the locality considered, drawn by two horses which were clearly not of the range variety. And then further things were revealed: a coachman sat on the front seat, and a man who wore an air of authority about him like a kingly robe sat alone on the back seat. Then ...
— Children of the Desert • Louis Dodge
... big traveling-coach. When I ran up stairs and knocked,—I had often been there before—she opened the door herself. 'Oh, it's you Chrissy,' she said in her pleasant way; 'come in child; don't you want to see something pretty?' And she showed me two elegant brocaded silk gowns, very narrow and very short-waisted, but stiff enough to ...
— Idle Hour Stories • Eugenia Dunlap Potts
... as to her remaining a day or two after her mother was soon disposed of. Mrs. Egremont sent a pretty little note to make the request, but the elegant valet who appeared at ten o'clock brought a verbal message that his master wished Mrs. and Miss Egremont to be ready by two o'clock to join him in calling on Lady Kirkaldy at Monks Horton, and that if their luggage was ready by four o'clock, he (Gregorio) would take ...
— Nuttie's Father • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Protococcus, but differ in having the cells united in colonies of definite form. Among the most striking are the different species of Pediastrum (Fig. 11, D, E), often met with in company with other algae, and growing readily in aquaria when once established. They are of very elegant shapes, and the number of cells some multiple ...
— Elements of Structural and Systematic Botany - For High Schools and Elementary College Courses • Douglas Houghton Campbell
... this elegant specimen of polite Billingsgate contemptuously into the grate. He was not much a man of the world, but he could read through the lines of a ...
— A Dog with a Bad Name • Talbot Baines Reed
... slender girl with high-piled violet hair and eyes that very nearly matched the hair's tint. She was dressed in something resembling a dozen blossoms—blossoms which, in Trigger's opinion, had been rather carelessly scattered. But presumably it was a very elegant party costume. She was quite ...
— Legacy • James H Schmitz
... between the trunks of the mangroves, glimpses were caught of rich splashes of deep orange-colour, standing out like flame against the dark background of shadowed foliage, that subsequent investigation proved to be clumps of elegant orchids. It appeared that we had entered the river at precisely the right time of the year to behold it at its brightest and best, for the spring rains had only recently set in, and all Nature was rioting in the refreshment of the welcome moisture and bursting forth into a joyous ...
— The Pirate Slaver - A Story of the West African Coast • Harry Collingwood
... the world. And even this does not exhaust the resources of economical art; for there are few of the renowned statues, whether of antiquity or of modern times, that have not been accurately copied in plaster casts; and a few statuettes, costing perhaps five or six dollars each, will give a really elegant finish to your rooms-providing always that they are selected with discrimination ...
— The American Woman's Home • Catherine E. Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe
... to the eastward of the conventional line settled with Spain as the boundaries of their respective territories. Dr. Robertson, in recording this voyage of Cabral, concludes with one of his just and elegant remarks. ...
— The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (Vol. II) • Washington Irving
... Hence also we find that his devotion is not only tender and sympathetic, but passionate and warm. His fervour in prayer arrives at such a pitch as to produce copious tears. The language of Spain's mystical writers, especially that of the elegant Santa Teresa de Jesus, contains the same expressions as those which are used in addressing profane objects of the affections. One of her most celebrated spiritual songs differs in nothing from those which might have been written by Ovid or ...
— Roman Catholicism in Spain • Anonymous
... that I can help you to find one whom no one has ever excelled in this important line of business. There is a distant relation of my own, Miss Folly, who is wonderfully quick with her fingers, and makes all sorts of elegant things. Lady Fashion has her so often with her at her fine town-house, that it is clear that she regards Miss Folly almost in the light of a friend, and would not know how to get on without her. Folly is particularly anxious to ...
— The Crown of Success • Charlotte Maria Tucker
... up again, cleaving a way for itself through the thick growth, and standing nearly erect once more, ragged and sadly deprived of its elegant proportions, just as a dull sound announced Don's arrival on ...
— The Adventures of Don Lavington - Nolens Volens • George Manville Fenn
... drums furnished with bells; these were struck in the air by the dancer's feet when held as high as their arms could reach. This Aldridge performed, and improved upon by stretching his legs asunder, so as to strike two drums at the same time. Those not being the days of elegant dancing, I afterwards," continued the stranger, "exhibited at Paris the tambourine dance, to so much advantage, that I made fifteen hundred pounds ...
— Richard Lovell Edgeworth - A Selection From His Memoir • Richard Lovell Edgeworth
... is HEAL & SON'S EIDER DOWN QUILT. It is the warmest, the Highest and the most elegant Covering, suitable for the Bed, the Couch, or the Carriage; and for Invalids, its comfort cannot be too highly appreciated. It is made in Three Varieties, of which a large Assortment can be seen at their Establishment. List of Prices ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 217, December 24, 1853 • Various
... though the satirist might find ample scope for his wit in anatomizing the foible of the day, fashionable society continued none the less to encourage the exquisite inanity, and to be flattered by the elegant obscurity, of ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg
... pay a visit to Lord Nelville, in order to thank him. He possessed elegant manners, an easy politeness, good taste, and appeared, from the very first introduction, perfectly at his ease. In his company one would feel astonished at all that he had suffered, for he supported his ...
— Corinne, Volume 1 (of 2) - Or Italy • Mme de Stael
... field of action. These novel institutions, not organized and supported from a pure abstract love of the arts ostensibly promoted by them, but from dire necessity created by successful competition in the more elegant branches of manufacture, in which the exercise of taste and fancy is required, may eventually produce great general results; years, however, must necessarily elapse before their ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... a laborer's work, he at once resolved to exchange his elegant broadcloth for a laborer's suit, and he managed this transfer so shrewdly that he obtained quite a little ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... enough to have himself carried in a litter through the mountains and valleys; and when we compare his enjoyments with those of the popes who succeeded him, Pius, whose chief delight was in nature, antiquity, and simple but noble architecture, appears almost a saint. In the elegant and flowing Latin of his Commentaries he freely tells us of ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... to their owner both the choicest luxury and the least dispensable necessary. So, during dinner-time, we talked principally upon books, and I observed that those which my host seemed to know the best were of the elegant and poetical order of philosophers, who, more fascinating than deep, preach up the blessings of a solitude which is useless, and a content which, deprived of passion, excitement, and energy, would, if it could ever exist, only be a dignified name ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... indolent Sybarite, with couches of down, and pictures that provoke the sense; I am no haughty noble, with spacious halls, and galleries that awe the echo. But so much the greater is my merit if I disdain these excesses of the ease or the pride, since I love the elegant, and have a taste! Others may be simple and honest, from the very coarseness of their habits; if I, with so much refinement and delicacy, am simple and ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... reporters of the press, and so it followed that the next issue of the London News contained full-page pictures of Castle Lone and Inch Lone, with their terraces, parterres, arches, arbors and groves; Loch Lone, with its elegant piers, bridges and boats; and the surrounding mountains, with their ...
— The Lost Lady of Lone • E.D.E.N. Southworth
... experiences of its occupant. In place of the usual bunk or berth built against the wall stood a small folding camp bedstead, and upon a rude deal table that held a tin wash-basin and pail lay two ivory-handled brushes, combs, and other elegant toilet articles, evidently the contents of the major's dressing-bag. A handsome leather trunk occupied one corner, with a richly caparisoned silver-mounted Mexican saddle, a mahogany case of dueling ...
— The Bell-Ringer of Angel's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... De Banville is best known as a very skillful maker of polished artificial verse. His poetry stands high; but it is the poetry not of nature, but of elegant society. His muse, as Mr. Henley says, is always in evening dress. References to the classic poets are woven into all of his descriptions of nature. He is distinguished, scholarly, full of taste, and brilliant in execution; ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... rattling over the stones in their aunt's elegant carriage. It was dusk; the lamps were lighted, the streets crowded with people, the ...
— Little Folks Astray • Sophia May (Rebecca Sophia Clarke)
... women—though perhaps chiefly for my own sad lot in not encountering them,—and I conceived a great comprehensive love-poem to be entitled "The Girls that never can be Mine." Perhaps before the end of our tramp together, I shall have a few verses of it to submit to the elegant taste of the reader, but at present I have not advanced ...
— The Quest of the Golden Girl • Richard le Gallienne
... The London booksellers of that time were alarmed at the invasion of what they called their literary property by a Scottish publisher who had presumed to bring out an edition of the English poets. To counteract this move from Edinburgh the decision was reached to print "an elegant and accurate edition of ail the English poets of reputation, from Chaucer down to the present time." The details were thoroughly debated at the Chapter coffee-house, and a deputation was appointed to wait upon Dr. Johnson, ...
— Inns and Taverns of Old London • Henry C. Shelley
... companion remarked. "I imagine she chose her time; the sitting glissade isn't elegant. But if you'll ...
— The Girl From Keller's - Sadie's Conquest • Harold Bindloss
... first house was erected here in 1853, and the population now numbers in the neighborhood of 30,000. Omaha can boast of as fine business blocks, hotels, school-buildings and churches as can be found in many older and more pretentious cities in the East. There are also numerous elegant private residences, with grounds beautifully ornamented with trees and shrubbery, which sufficiently attest the solid prosperity ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens
... without springs or other comfort; but still they served to convey the body, and the mind that went with it at last discovered, by degrees, that conveyances could be constructed so as to cause less wear and tear on animal life. The result of time and labour has been the elegant constructions of the present day. The first hackney-coaches were started in London, A.D. 1625, by a Captain Bailey. Another conveyance for the body, the sedan-chair, was introduced first into England in 1584, and came into fashion ...
— Lectures on Popular and Scientific Subjects • John Sutherland Sinclair, Earl of Caithness
... out of the crowd, and disappeared. Leo thought he could not care much for his little lame boy, if he was not willing to pay five dollars for such an elegant establishment as the "Hotel des Mice," which could not help being a very great pleasure to the invalid. Half a dozen others looked into the palace, asked questions about the habits of the mice, and inquired the price of the house and its inmates. Leo answered them all ...
— Make or Break - or, The Rich Man's Daughter • Oliver Optic
... the particulars of this rupture, which neither of us had heard, when the Kentuckian made his reappearance in the cabin. He had changed his dress, and, taking him altogether, was by no means an ill-looking fellow. His light blue gingham frock and snow-white trousers fitted him well; an elegant straw hat, very fine linen, and a diamond shirt-pin that must have cost the best part of a thousand dollars, contributed to give a sort of genteel planter-like air. His first care upon emerging from his state-room was to empty a glass of toddy. He ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various
... suffering imprisonment as a partisan of the Parliament. In England, in 1648, when he was member for Chichester, he concurred with the Presbyterian vote, thereby causing the more advanced section to look askance at him, and he was turned out of the House, or secluded, to use the elegant parliamentary language of the day. From that time he lived in retirement in London until 1654, when, as we read in Dorothy's letters, he and his son go over to Ireland. He resumed his office of Master ...
— The Love Letters of Dorothy Osborne to Sir William Temple, 1652-54 • Edward Abbott Parry
... feet from its surface; whence the shelving roof—thatched with the long tapering leaves of the palmetto—sloped steeply off to within about five feet of the floor; leaving the eaves drooping with tassel-like appendages over the front of the habitation. This was constructed of light and elegant canes in a kind of open screenwork, tastefully adorned with bindings of variegated sinnate, which served to hold together its various parts. The sides of the house were similarly built; thus presenting three quarters for the circulation of ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville
... oblique. This species is widely circumfused, usually hard, quite thick, uneven, pallid, elegant chocolate-brown, then blackish; ...
— The Mushroom, Edible and Otherwise - Its Habitat and its Time of Growth • M. E. Hard
... ought to have roused my suspicions, but it didn't. I went on down to that pea-patch as innocent as a newly born lamb, with Peter walking beside me, enthusing over the landscape and swinging the light basket with elegant nonchalance. ...
— Over Paradise Ridge - A Romance • Maria Thompson Daviess
... the upstairs members of the committee were buzzing around somewhere else, for there was no one to receive them. They were gradually hustled or carried into the parlor or main room, and here Hemstead and Harcourt found them in characteristic conditions. Addie's and De Forrest's elegant noses were decidedly retrousses; Bel appeared both disgusted and frightened; while Lottie's face wore an expression of intense and amused curiosity. She was seeing "the other set" to her heart's content, and all was as new and strange as if she ...
— From Jest to Earnest • E. P. Roe
... peddler somewhat similar to the one recently purchased by Paul, and Edward decided upon the purchase of it, if he could come to terms with the man. He and Paul both desired to make some present to the bride, and picked out, the one an elegant high-peaked headdress, such as the ladies of the day loved to wear, though satirists made merry at the expense of their "exalted horns;" the other, some of the long gold pins to fasten both cap and hair which were equally acceptable as an ...
— In the Wars of the Roses - A Story for the Young • Evelyn Everett-Green
... household. It was she who washed the dishes, and scrubbed down the stairs, and polished the floors in my lady's chamber, and in those of the two pert misses, her daughters; and while the latter slept on good featherbeds in elegant rooms, furnished with full-length looking-glasses, their sister lay in a wretched garret on an old straw mattress. Yet the poor thing bore this ill treatment very meekly, and did not dare complain to her father, who was so besotted to his wife that ...
— Bo-Peep Story Books • Anonymous
... own an elegant house, denotes that you will soon leave your home for a better, and fortune will be kind ...
— 10,000 Dreams Interpreted • Gustavus Hindman Miller
... with that worthy man and elegant scholar Dean Aldrich, at whose instance he published his pleasing little volume, Fabularum AEsopicarum Delectus, Oxon. 1698. In the preface Bentley is thus designated—"Richardum quendam Bentleium Virum in volvendis Lexicus satis diligentem:" ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 16, February 16, 1850 • Various
... a little wooden table in a garden and the pleasant clack of friendly conversation sounded around; where the women tried to make friends with Sigmund, and the girls whispered behind their coffee-cups or (pace, elegant fiction!) their beer-glasses, and always happened to be looking up if our eyes roved that way. Two poor musiker and a little boy; persons of no importance whatever, who could scrape their part in the symphony with some intelligence and feel they had done their duty. ...
— The First Violin - A Novel • Jessie Fothergill
... some sort, a fine, noble-looking old gentleman. German! oh such fine, elegant manners; to the manner born I am sure! A musician, I think; he had a violin ...
— The Music Master - Novelized from the Play • Charles Klein
... necessary. He may, if such is his inclination,—as I am sure it would have been Adam's,—get his new suit all finished and ready-to-wear. Charley Wax, the sartorially Perfect Gentleman, smiles invitation and encouragement from many a window; an army of elegant and expeditious employees, each as much like Charley Wax as is humanly possible, waits to conduct him to a million ready-to-wear suits. His intellect is appealed to by the plausible argument that we live in a busy time, in which the leaders of men simply cannot afford to waste ...
— The Perfect Gentleman • Ralph Bergengren
... a Treatise on the Art of Riding on Horseback, for Ladies, which originally appeared in the Publishers' well-known Manual of elegant feminine Recreations, Exercises, and Pursuits, THE YOUNG LADY'S BOOK; with, however, various additions to the Text, and a number ...
— The Young Lady's Equestrian Manual • Anonymous
... walls of rooms and passages when they met, lest they should seem designedly to come near each other, and enacted the gravest and most formal of genuflexions, courtesies, and bows, when they accidentally DID meet. And just at the close of the second day, as the elegant Major Van Zandt was feeling himself fast becoming a drivelling idiot and an awkward country booby, the arrival of a courier from headquarters saved that gentleman his ...
— Thankful Blossom • Bret Harte
... was king, and tobacco, sugar, and rice were powerful allies, a unique civilization had grown up. The plantation was the model, and the patriarchal master of slaves the ideal character which the ambitious poor imitated everywhere. The elegant life of the colonial plantation houses, which adorned the banks of the winding rivers of the old South in the days of the Revolution, had gradually moved westward and southwestward until the larger tobacco area of the Piedmont region extended ...
— Expansion and Conflict • William E. Dodd
... There is nothing very elegant or interesting in the record so far, but it all has to do with the annexation of Pango Wango, and, as Blithelygo long afterwards remarked, it shows how nations sometimes acquire territory. Yes, this Coliseum of ours had as much to do with the annexation as had the ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... something about the kid," says the Crow, in his elegant slang. "I don't believe she ever saw him before. Besides, she's nuts on Jack, and ain't likely to pick up with ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... little ponds are intelligent seals and families of otters, with their elegant fur coats always clean and in order; and down by the shore of the stream and the large lake a loud chattering is made by the numerous web-footed creatures and long-legged waders. Here are ducks from Barbary and the American tropics, wild-geese from every ...
— Harper's Young People, September 28, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... having been allowed to fall into such distress, and how any one could have had the power to build the present Greek one, instead of restoring its early Decorated neighbour. I did not observe the 2 ft. 3 in. effigy alluded to in Arch. Journ. iii. 239., but particularly noted the elegant sculpture on the chancel ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 69, February 22, 1851 • Various
... quiet, companionable habits rendered them very acceptable company when engaged in his artistic work. I know of no sound so pleasantly tranquillising as the purring of a cat, or of anything more worthy of admiration in animal habit as the neat, compact, and elegant manner in which the cat adjusts itself at the fireside, or in a snug, cosy place, when it settles down for a long quiet sleep. Every spare moment that a cat has before lying down to rest is occupied in carefully cleaning itself, even under adverse ...
— James Nasmyth's Autobiography • James Nasmyth
... according to artistic rules. Does this sound metaphysical or—aesthet-i-cal? Why is the effect produced by the 'bunch of posies' stuck clumsily into a broken-nosed pitcher on the kitchen window-sill, different from that of the same carefully disposed in an elegant receptacle on the drawing-room table? The nosegay is bright and fragrant in either place. Why then do not the plebeian and patrician bouquets equally please? In the one case, you say, the charms are inharmoniously dispersed, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2 No 4, October, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... acquainted with, from the time that he came to reside at Oxford. He was the son of a tradesman in the city of Chichester, I think a hatter; and being sent very young to Winchester school, was soon distinguished for his early proficiency, and his turn for elegant composition. About the year 1740, he came off from that seminary first upon roll,[5] and was entered a commoner of Queen's college. There, no vacancy offering for New College, he remained a year or two, and then was chosen demy of Magdalen college; where, I ...
— The Poetical Works of William Collins - With a Memoir • William Collins
... Tom entered and bowed pleasantly, at the same time waving them to two chairs placed close together before his table. When they had seated themselves he bowed again, and, without more ado, began an address. He spoke in a low, deep, if somewhat quavery voice, and with an elegant ease of manner. It was his purpose, he explained, to give them an elementary course in the primary systems of the body, together with two supplementary lectures on hygiene, in order that they might go out and instruct the poor in the proper care of their bodies. Tonight ...
— Tutors' Lane • Wilmarth Lewis
... Reggio of Goritz, is now a celebrity in the Hebrew literary world. A man of vast mind, a profound scholar, a philosopher, and an elegant writer, his numerous works on Theology, Hermeneutics, Philology, History, and Literature, written in Hebrew, in Italian, and in German, have tended much to revive the taste for Hebrew literature, and to reconcile modern education to the ...
— A Guide for the Religious Instruction of Jewish Youth • Isaac Samuele Reggio
... he is called in Castilian, Gonzalo Hernandez de Cordova, was sixty-two years old at the time of his death. His countenance and person are represented to have been extremely handsome; his manners, elegant and attractive, were stamped with that lofty dignity, which so often distinguishes his countrymen. "He still bears," says Martyr, speaking of him in the last years of his life, "the same majestic port as when in the height ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V3 • William H. Prescott
... and sexual pleasure, marry, spread disaster around them, and outlive it all, perhaps brazenly to acknowledge the fact. Others, suave, attractive, agreeable, seductive, often masquerade as respectability, or constitute the perfumed, the romantic, the elegant carriers of disease. The proportion of ignorant to wilful irresponsibility can scarcely be estimated. But there is little choice between the two except on the score of the hopefulness of the latter. As examples of the mixture of types with which a large hospital is constantly dealing, ...
— The Third Great Plague - A Discussion of Syphilis for Everyday People • John H. Stokes
... reservoir of ideas, of forgotten sciences, of neglected truth, remained behind. Without that, men would continue to work at a disadvantage, to fight in the dark, and could never fulfil the possibilities of existence. What was impatiently felt as the medieval eclipse came not from the loss of elegant Latin, but from the loss of Greek. All that was implied in the intended resurrection of antiquity depended on the revival of Greek studies. Because Petrarca possessed the culture of his time beyond all ...
— Lectures on Modern history • Baron John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton
... effective, and the details delicate without extravagant minuteness. Subsequently the style underwent a gradual debasement; the arches became depressed; the mouldings impoverished, the details crowded and coarsely executed, and the whole style became wanting in the chaste and elegant effects for which the Decorated stands unapproached and unapproachable. The flowing contours and curved lines of the previous style now gave place in the windows to mullions running straight up from ...
— Our Homeland Churches and How to Study Them • Sidney Heath
... studied in order to render it faultlessly elegant, but in such a thorough way as not to seem studied. It has still higher claims to our regard in view of the services it has rendered to humanity. Thanks to this language of the heart, thousands of deaf-mutes are enabled to endure their affliction, and to share our social pleasures. ...
— Delsarte System of Oratory • Various
... they reproved it, and which to their contemporaries must have appeared (as we know from the Apologists it did) much as Puritan grimace to the court of Charles II., was somehow attractive! That the scruples with which they recoiled from all usages and customs which could be associated with the elegant pomp of Pagan worship, and the suspicion with which, as having been linked with idolatry, they looked on every emanation of that spirit of beauty which reigned over the exterior life of Paganism, would operate as ...
— The Eclipse of Faith - Or, A Visit To A Religious Sceptic • Henry Rogers |
