"Gem" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... grandeur of action anything heretofore portrayed either in story or in song. Whence came these qualities? They were the product of Southern chivalry, which two centuries had finally perfected. A chivalry which esteemed stainless honor as a priceless gem, and a knighthood which sought combat for honor's sake, generously yielding to an antagonist all possible advantage; the chivalry which taught Southern youth to esteem life as nothing when honor was at stake, a chivalry which taught that the highest, noblest, and most exalted privilege ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various
... sift the dry ingredients. Gradually add the milk, the egg well-beaten, and the melted butter. Bake in a hot oven in greased gem ...
— Ontario Teachers' Manuals: Household Science in Rural Schools • Ministry of Education Ontario
... much more, and there is the good company and the best information. In like manner, the scholar knows that the famed books contain, first and last, the best thoughts and facts. Now and then, by rarest luck, in some foolish Grub Street is the gem we want. But in the best circles is the best information. If you should transfer the amount of your reading day by day in the newspaper to the standard authors,—but who dare speak of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... down the hill," he said, "by 'The Cricketers,'" and remained watching. Thence his eyes wandered over the town to far away where the ships' lights shone, and the pier glowed—a little illuminated, facetted pavilion like a gem of yellow light. The moon in its first quarter hung over the westward hill, and the stars were ...
— The Invisible Man • H. G. Wells
... nine. Since then I have read through your letter with intense delight; and now in a quarter of an hour I must go to the railway for a country party with Grote. I hasten to thank you for this beautiful gem for my Introduction and for my whole book. You shall have the last word. Your treatise is the only one in the collection which extends beyond isolated types of speech and families, although it preserves throughout the scientific method of ...
— Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. • F. Max Mueller
... this peremptory manner, leaped to his feet, and stood in all his graceful and beautiful proportions, an equine gem, which could not fail to ...
— The Cave in the Mountain • Lieut. R. H. Jayne
... hopes?—The puffing gale of morn, That of its charms divests the dewy lawn, And robs each flow'ret of its gem,—and dies; A cobweb hiding disappointment's thorn, Which stings more ...
— Life and Remains of John Clare - "The Northamptonshire Peasant Poet" • J. L. Cherry
... was an element; but it was not all. Had I merely looked upon this beauty under ordinary circumstances—that is, without coming in contact with the spirit that animated it—I might have loved her, or I might not. It was the spirit, then, that had won me, though not alone. The same gem in a less brilliant setting might have failed to draw my admiration. I was the captive both of the spirit and the form. Soul and body had co-operated in producing my passion, and this may account for ...
— The War Trail - The Hunt of the Wild Horse • Mayne Reid
... bit of description of Banks Land, from the anthology of that country, which, so far as we know, consists of two poems by a seaman named Nelson, one of Captain McClure's crew. The highest temperature ever observed on this "gem of the sea" was 53 deg. in midsummer. The lowest was 65 deg. below zero in January, 1853; that day the thermometer did not rise to 60 deg. below, that month was never warmer than 16 deg. below, and the average of the month was ...
— If, Yes and Perhaps - Four Possibilities and Six Exaggerations with Some Bits of Fact • Edward Everett Hale
... to ask deliverance, but to invite the free spirit into their own thraldom. People that had lighted on a new thought, or a thought that they fancied new, came to Emerson, as the finder of a glittering gem hastens to a lapidary to ascertain its quality and value. Uncertain, troubled, earnest wanderers through the midnight of a moral world beheld its intellectual fire as a beacon burning on a hill-top, and climbing the difficult ascent, looked forth into ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IX (of X) - America - I • Various
... suitors vainly, decked in gem and burnished gold, Reft of diadem and necklace, fell each chief ...
— Maha-bharata - The Epic of Ancient India Condensed into English Verse • Anonymous
... done, and I sailed via England and the Suez Canal to Ceylon, that fair isle to which Sindbad the Sailor made his sixth voyage, picturesquely referred to in history as the 'brightest gem in the British Colonial Crown.' I knew Ceylon to be eminently tropical; I knew it to be rich in many varieties of the bamboo family, which has been called the king of the grasses; and in this family had I most hope ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... you; it's yourself has the darling blue eyes! Look at them, Mary; ain't they like the blossoms on a peacock's tail? Musha, may sorrow never put a crease in that beautiful cheek! The saints watch over you, for your mouth is like a moss-rose! Be good to her, yer honor, for she's a raal gem: devil fear you, Mr. Charles, but you'd ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... at the living gem, which hung, loud humming, over some fantastic bloom, and then dashed away, seemingly to call its mate, and whirred and danced with it round and round the flower-starred bushes, flashing fresh rainbows at every shifting of ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... the "moral" in the last line, may possibly have ventured to read the "Chimney-Sweeper" at her annual festival to those swart little people; but we have not space to give the gem a setting here; nor the "Little Black Boy," with its matchless, sweet child-sadness. Indeed, scarcely one of these early poems—all written between the ages of eleven and twenty—is without its peculiar, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 78, April, 1864 • Various
... as we can pack ourselves, we gather in the gangways. Some one raises a voice in song. 'Tis not the Marseillaise hymn that we sing, nor Die Wacht am Rhein, nor Ava Maria, nor God Save the King; nor yet is it Columbia the Gem of the Ocean. In their proper places these are all good songs, but we know one more suitable to the occasion, and so we all join in. Hark! Happy voices float across the narrowing strip of rolly water ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb
... forward no Sunday-school library was complete without a full edition of his plaintive and sentimental "Perry-Gorics." After great research and profound study of his subject, he produced that wonderful gem which is known in every land as "The Young Mother's Apostrophe ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume X (of X) • Various
... Then she had grown weary and homesick. And then, as the months had passed, and she had been drawn more and more by association and environment into the world of down-to-dateism she, too, began to regard the sparkle of the diamond as the determining factor in the value of the gem. And when the young woman had achieved this, they called her education finished, and sent her back to the land over which Granite Mountain, gray and grim and fortress-like, with its ranks of sentinel bills? keeps enduring ...
— When A Man's A Man • Harold Bell Wright
... see once more the halcyon spot where they caught the Pandalus, that gem of their aquarium; they had to bid adieu to Mrs Craddock's cottage, and the old lady herself and daughter; and again inspect the place where the unfortunate Bembridge ...
— Bob Strong's Holidays - Adrift in the Channel • John Conroy Hutcheson
... that may not be dispelled, I see an old farm homestead, as in dreams, Where, like a gem in costly setting held, ...
— The Complete Works • James Whitcomb Riley
... the creature was at least offensive. It was de trop— "matter out of place"—an impertinence. The gem was unworthy of the setting. Even the barbarous taste of our time and country, which had loaded the walls of the room with pictures, the floor with furniture and the furniture with bric-a-brac, had not quite fitted the place for this bit of the savage life of the jungle. Besides—insupportable ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Vol. II: In the Midst of Life: Tales of Soldiers and Civilians • Ambrose Bierce
... I answer? Nay, I turn to thee, England, and pray thee, from thy northern throne Step down and hearken, give them back to me, O generous sister, give me back mine own. Thy jewelled forehead needs no alien gem Torn from ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100., Jan. 31, 1891 • Various
... stars that gem the skies at night May differ in degree, And some are pale and some are bright, But in our flag we see A sky of blue wherein the stars Are equal in design; Each has the radiance of Mars And ...
— A Heap o' Livin' • Edgar A. Guest
... and stylus are devices made of sapphire, a gem next in hardness to a diamond, and they have to be cut and formed to an exact nicety by means of diamond dust, most of the work being performed under high-powered microscopes. The minute proportions ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... lounging halls, half drawing-room, half conservatory, while the compound and gardens were brilliantly illuminated with countless colored lamps and lanterns. Hundreds presented themselves for admission to the fairy-like scene, and it was allowed by all to be a perfect success, a gem of the first water of entertainments, and such, as many of the guests had seldom witnessed. Her ladyship, elegantly attired, and flushed with pride and pleasure at the triumph she was achieving moved gracefully about from one room ...
— Vellenaux - A Novel • Edmund William Forrest
... little cottage is a gem, I admit. But I've seen a splendid palace set in flowers and gleaming with subdued light. Soft music steals through its halls mingled with the laughter of throngs who love and admire me. Its banquet ...
— The Root of Evil • Thomas Dixon
... their lives, their sports, their adventures, their kind acts, a companion, a model so much idealized and admired that unconsciously they grow to be like him in so far as their surroundings will permit. In a good story plot and action are but the setting to the gem—the means of conveying a lesson in disguise in such a way that the reader will not suspect he is being taught. Let it once occur to him that he is reading a lecture and the book will at once be quietly but most effectually packed away. Many authors, it ...
— The Boy Broker - Among the Kings of Wall Street • Frank A. Munsey
... afternoon parties; and she even suggested that Mr. Lemuel had almost as much as said that he would like to paint her portrait. Mr. Lemuel had also offered her, but she had refused to accept, a small but marvellous study by Pinturicchio, which most people considered the gem of his collection. ...
— Macleod of Dare • William Black
... truth, Englishmen will always be apt to estimate by the fact that it procured for himself and for his countrymen the freedom of Shakspeare's enchanted world, and the taste of all the marvellous things that, like the treasures of Aladdin's garden, are fruit and gem at once upon its immortal boughs:— Frenchmen will not readily forget that he disparaged Molire. The merit of Schlegel's dramatic criticism ought not, however, to be thus limited. Englishmen themselves are deeply indebted ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... so there was a need-be in its doom. I'll ne'er believe that genuine, that is blessed. The fate of this life would not suffer it. Ah! if it would, if Heaven should leave a gem like that outside her walls, we should ...
— The Bride of Fort Edward • Delia Bacon
... ain't got no idee o' fun—she won't take a joke nohow. The other night I went home, an' I been takin' a little jes' to waam ma heart—das all, jes to waam ma heart—an' I got to de fence, an' tried to climb it. I got on de top, an' thar I stays; I couldn't git one way or t'other. Then a gem'en comes along, an' I says, "Would you min' givin' me a push?" He says, "Which way you want to go?" I says, "Either way—don't make no dif'unce, jes' so I git off de fence, for hit's pow'ful oncom'fable up yer." So he give me a push, an' sont me over to'ard ma side, an' I went ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume I. (of X.) • Various
... Southern lady, published in last year's Atlantic Monthly a sketch called "At Bent's Hotel," which ought to have a place in this volume; but my publisher says authoritatively that there must be a limit somewhere; so this gem must be included in—a ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn
... creature, and in its efforts to protect itself from the sharp edges, the bit becomes covered, layer by layer, and assumes naturally an oval shape. This growth of the pearl, as it is incorrectly termed, can be seen by breaking open a $500 gem, when the nacre will be seen in layers, resembling the section of an onion. The Romans were particularly fond of pearls, and, according to Pliny, the wife of Caius Caligula possessed a collection valued at over $8,000,000 of our money. Julius Caesar presented ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 362, December 9, 1882 • Various
... of a city lawyer? Once, in the course of his rambles by the bookstalls of the Farringdon Road,[8] our book-hunter caught a glimpse of an old box almost covered by books and prints on one of the stalls. Being unearthed, it proved to be a veritable gem of a trunk, about two feet by one, and nine inches deep. It had a convex lid, and was covered with shaggy horsehide, bound with heavily studded leather. The proprietor stated that he had found it in a cellar, full of old books, most of which had already been sold (his listener ...
— The Book-Hunter at Home • P. B. M. Allan
... of the deep, O'er these wild shelves my watch I keep; A ruddy gem of changeful light, Bound on the dusky brow of night; The seaman bids my lustre hail, And scorns to strike his ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, - Volume 12, No. 329, Saturday, August 30, 1828 • Various
... which it displays. He likes to wrap his poems in a physical atmosphere of brightness or gloom, corresponding to the sentiment which pervades them. How, for instance, in Les Orientales, that exquisite little gem, Sarah la Baigneuse, flashes and sparkles with light! How striking in La Fin de Satan is the contrast between the murky atmosphere in which the maker of crosses works and the bright sunshine in which Christ's triumphant entry into Jerusalem is bathed! ...
— La Legende des Siecles • Victor Hugo
... seems a flower whose fragrance none has tasted, A gem uncut by workman's tool, A branch no desecrating hands have wasted, ...
— Translations of Shakuntala and Other Works • Kaalidaasa
... which the possession of a gem of marvelous beauty and great value has upon several sharply differentiated characters is the thread with which this dramatic tale of events is woven. The combination of the mystical, the imaginative and the realistic ...
— Christmas - A Story • Zona Gale
... obtains celebrity even if he be concealed in a pit. Evil words, uttered with whatsoever vigour of voice die out (in no time). Good words, uttered however softly, blaze forth in the world. As the Sun shows his fiery form (in the gem called Suryakanta), even so the multitude of words, of little sense, that fools filled with vanity utter, display only (the meanness of) their hearts. For these reasons, men seek the acquisition of wisdom of various kinds. It seems to me that of all acquisitions that of wisdom is the most valuable. ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... light is the tenor," thereby acknowledging himself that he felt colour as music. There was hyperaesthesia in his case; his eyes were protuberant and, like the ears of violinists, capable of distinguishing quarter tones, even sixteenths. There are affiliations with Watteau; the same gem-like style of laying on the thick pate, the same delight in fairy-like patches of paint to represent figures. In 1860 he literally resuscitated Watteau's manner, adding a personal note and a richness hitherto unknown to French paint. Mauclair thinks that to Watteau can ...
— Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker
... for four pages. The captain, instead of treasuring up this little gem, called at the office next day, and demanded with quite unnecessary warmth what the thing meant, and I was compelled to translate it all back into prose. On this, as on other similar occasions, my employer took me severely to task—for he was, you see, ...
— The Captain of the Pole-Star and Other Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... elbows never were in evidence, he made use of the right plates, spoons, forks, knives; he bore an ease, an unconsciousness of manner that amazed her. The missionary himself was a stiff man, and his very shyness made him angular. Against such a setting young Mansion gleamed like a brown gem. ...
— The Moccasin Maker • E. Pauline Johnson
... One was born, at this same time, Who did our work for us: we'll talk of Him: We shall go mad with thinking of ourselves— We'll talk of Him, and of that new-made star, Which, as He stooped into the Virgin's side, From off His finger, like a signet-gem, He dropped in the empyrean for a sign. But the first tear He shed at this His birth-hour, When He crept weeping forth to see our woe, Fled up to Heaven in mist, and hid for ever Our sins, our works, ...
— Daily Thoughts - selected from the writings of Charles Kingsley by his wife • Charles Kingsley
... self-assisted (save by Heaven), she sought To render each his own, and fairly save What might help others when she found a grave; By prudence taught life's troubled waves to stem, In death her memory shines, a rich, unpolished gem. ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... flute, held it in both hands, and drew it apart at the tuning-slide, held it sidewise, and then unscrewed the top plug, showing an opening, out of which he shook a magnificent gem of great ...
— A Dash from Diamond City • George Manville Fenn
... of Embrace afraid, Fled to the Streams, the Streams my Fair betray'd; To my fond Eyes she all transparent stood, She blush'd, I smil'd at the slight covering Flood. Thus thro' the Glass the Lovely Lilly glows, Thus thro' the ambient Gem shines forth the Rose. I saw new Charms, and plung'd to seize my Store, Kisses I snatch'd, the ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... Baron. Not such a bad show for the hard-drinking, hard-riding country squire. But the gem of my collection is coming and there is the setting all ready for it." He pointed to a space over ...
— His Last Bow - An Epilogue of Sherlock Holmes • Arthur Conan Doyle
... breath and the bloom of the year in the bag of one bee; All the wonder and wealth of the mine in the heart of one gem; In the core of one pearl all the shade and the shine of the sea; Breath and bloom, shade and shine—wonder, wealth, and—how far above them— Truth, that's brighter than gem, 5 Trust, that's purer than pearl— Brightest ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning
... glory. She saw how the great and wise had shrined in fitting words their purity, and wisdom, and sorrow, and suffering, and penitence; and how, as this generation passed away, and another came forth which knew not God, the golden casket became dim, and the memory of its priceless gem faded away; but how, at the touch of a mighty wand, the obedient lid flew back, and the long-hidden thought "sprang full-statured in an hour." She saw how love and beauty and freedom lay floating vaguely and aimlessly in a million minds till the poet ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... did find some samples of tourmaline, in a finely divided state, and this gem was used to polish the gun barrels, so that all the weapons were finally put into condition where they could be used. During an hour each day all took a part in practicing in a range specially prepared near the workshop. ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: The Mysteries of the Caverns • Roger Thompson Finlay
... throughout his poems, begins with a conjunction affirmative or negative, and, or nor; and this last line is often so weak, that it breaks down under the rest. Thus in this very pretty impression, as it may almost be called, of an ancient gem; ...
— Lives of the English Poets - From Johnson to Kirke White, Designed as a Continuation of - Johnson's Lives • Henry Francis Cary
... face; 'Tis closed within a narrow frame, Yet compasses high heav'n's blue vault of endless space. This crystal is of priceless worth, But yet the poor possess it, nor possession pay; It is the brightest gem on earth, It gives and yet receives its heaven-born brilliant ray. What is this mirror bright and clear, Free given to all, ...
— Turandot: The Chinese Sphinx • Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller
... She pursued her studies for the mere love of the science, devoting a year in Italy to mosaics, cameos, and intaglios. And yet the Crevecoeur cameo had puzzled wiser heads than Mrs. Dalliba's, adept though she was. It was cut from a solid heart-shaped gem, a layer of pure white, shading down through exquisite gradations into deep green, and represented Aphrodite rising from the sea; the white form rose gracefully, with arms extended, scattering ...
— The Galaxy - Vol. 23, No. 1 • Various
... give a polish To the gem that lights the soul, They are weak, useless, and foolish, When they're taken for the whole Of all the powers required To entrance the youthful mind, With a spirit so inspired As to touch the eyes of blind With a bright illumination That shall prove itself to be More than a corruscation ...
— Our Profession and Other Poems • Jared Barhite
... any inscription; his wife and several other persons, including two later Emperors, are buried here also. As was quite the custom of the time, the tomb is surrounded by a garden of thirteen acres. Farther on, was the Tomb of a Saint, a perfect gem! It is built of white marble, is eighteen feet square, and is surrounded by a broad veranda. Around the covered grave there is a low marble rail, and over it a beautiful canopy, inlaid with mother-of-pearl; in the walls are finely pierced screens. Near this tomb is a handsome red sandstone ...
— Travels in the Far East • Ellen Mary Hayes Peck
... self-righteous, children who would "sugar over" a very ugly personage ten hours out of the twelve every day, and then at night thank the Lord for all his mercies. In Lune-street Chapel faction used to run high and wilfulness was a gem which many of the members wore very near their hearts; but much of the old feudal spirit of party fighting has died out, and there are signs of pious resignation and loving kindness in the flock, which would at one time have been rare jewels. A somewhat lofty isolation is still manifested here ...
— Our Churches and Chapels • Atticus
... Pond in the world and distiller of celestial dews. Who knows in how many unremembered nations' literatures this has been the Castalian Fountain? or what nymphs presided over it in the Golden Age? It is a gem of the first water which Concord wears in ...
— Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience • Henry David Thoreau
... only one other hue, beside green, was there upon that island gem floating on the jade-green sea, and that was a patch of black and white! It flashed to the eye of the raiding rogue-raven, and he altered course towards it, when it turned into a female great black-backed gull, running, literally racing, to her ...
— The Way of the Wild • F. St. Mars
... famous, are beautiful indeed, the contrast of the black and blue against the black base being very striking. Indeed, much of the carved furniture of the Orientals has been specially designed as a framework for mother-o'-pearl and gem ornaments. The rare jade carvings in black ebony screens, and the marvellous carving of the larger screens are but appropriate settings to the painted and needlework pictures so rich in colours and gold. In Fig. 57 we illustrate a very ...
— Chats on Household Curios • Fred W. Burgess
... nor song her records kept The gem, the ore, the marble breathing life, The pencil's colours,—all in earth had slept, Now see them mark with ...
— Zophiel - A Poem • Maria Gowen Brooks
... feathered gem—for in its hues it unites the brightness of the emerald, the richness of the ruby, and the lustre of the topaz—includes in its wide range more than one hundred species. It is the smallest, and at the same time the most ...
— Lady Mary and her Nurse • Catharine Parr Traill
... The abysmal Fecundity; Checking the gross, Multitudinous blunders, The groping, the purblind Excesses in service, Of the Womb universal, The absolute Drudge; Changing the charactry Carved on the World, The miraculous gem In the seal-ring that burns On the hand of the Master— Yea! and authority Flames through the dim, Unappeasable Grisliness Prone down the nethermost Chasms of the Void; Clear singing, clean slicing; Sweet spoken, ...
— The Song of the Sword - and Other Verses • W. E. Henley
... Western world," continued the King of Siam, "will be interested in seeing this gem. Only once before has the eye of a European been blessed with the sight of it. Your books will tell you that in the seventeenth century a traveller, Tavernier, saw in India an unmatched diamond which afterward disappeared like a meteor, and was thought to have been lost from the earth. ...
— Edison's Conquest of Mars • Garrett Putnam Serviss
... me. I felt the truth rather than saw it; and it is a great joy to me to perceive now what was happening, and how the sad, bewildered hours of pain and misery leave their blessed marks upon the soul, like the tools of the graver on the gem. If only we could learn to plan a little less and to believe a little more, how much simpler it would ...
— The Child of the Dawn • Arthur Christopher Benson
... another gem as the nest of the hummingbird. The finding of one is an event to date from. It is the next best thing to finding an eagle's nest. I have met with but two, both by chance. One was placed on the horizontal branch of a chestnut-tree, with a solitary green leaf, forming ...
— In the Catskills • John Burroughs
... eventful note, and this city is to well known as a seaport to require a detailed description. There, as in all places in close proximity to the ocean, I was spell-bound amid the ceaseless ebb and flow, the endless melody of the waves glowing and scintillating with myriad gem-like hues from the amethyst, the emerald and the diamond, to the many-hued opal, its varied and changing beauty bearing all the brilliant glory of the fabled ...
— The World As I Have Found It - Sequel to Incidents in the Life of a Blind Girl • Mary L. Day Arms
... and implored. She offered the merchant her pearls and every other gem she had if he would but let her keep the ring, ...
— Tales of Folk and Fairies • Katharine Pyle
... Ferrara helped him to display the gems to the best advantage. The Pope took the box in his own hand and showed it to his daughter. There were chains, rings, earrings, and precious stones beautifully set. Especially magnificent was a string of pearls—Lucretia's favorite gem. Ippolito also presented his sister-in-law with his gifts, among which were four beautifully chased crosses. The cardinals ...
— Lucretia Borgia - According to Original Documents and Correspondence of Her Day • Ferdinand Gregorovius
... him beside her. "You dear old thing," she exclaimed at the sight of the powder-puff. "It's a gem. You couldn't have bettered it in Paris." She opened it, took out the little puff, and dabbed her open throat. Then, laughing, she dabbed at him: "Don't look so ...
— Simon Called Peter • Robert Keable
... bison darken the plains of New Mexico, and reach the upper waters of the Saskatchewan. The same wild fowl which hatch their young among the ice-surrounded cliffs of Northern Greenland are found sporting in the lakes of Central America; while some of the smallest of the feathered tribes, the gem-like humming-birds, have been seen flitting through the damp mists of Tierra del Fuego, sipping the sweets of Alpine flowers high up amid lofty peaks of the Andes, and appearing on the hill-sides in sight of Lake Winnipeg, on the ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston
... turned From the talk and the trouble, To where the gem-field Dealt out goodly treasure; As she looked and beheld All the wealth that she had, And the hungry bondmaids, And ...
— The Story of the Volsungs, (Volsunga Saga) - With Excerpts from the Poetic Edda • Anonymous
... only gift is a portion of thyself. Thou must bleed for me. Therefore the poet brings his poem; the shepherd, his lamb; the farmer, corn; the miner, a gem; the sailor, coral and shells; the painter, his picture; the girl, a handkerchief ...
— Ralph Waldo Emerson • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... little children, who Round his feet played to and fro, Thinking every tear a gem, Had their brains knocked out ...
— Percy Bysshe Shelley as a Philosopher and Reformer • Charles Sotheran
... of the house, with all its wide, tranquil rooms rich in art and ancient memories, every stone within them glowing, with everlasting beauty—a house enduring as the green plains and rushing rivers and solemn woods and world-old hills amid which it was set like a sacred gem! O sweet abode of love and peace and purity of heart! O bliss surpassing that of the angels! O rich heritage, must I lose you for ever! Save me from death, Yoletta, my love, my bride—save me—save ...
— A Crystal Age • W. H. Hudson
... once upon a time among the glens of their mountains dwelt the prince of rattlesnakes. Obedient subjects guarded his palace, and on his head glittered in place of a crown a gem of marvellous magic virtues. Many warriors and magicians tried to get possession of this precious talisman, but were destroyed by the poisoned fangs of its defenders. Finally, one more inventive than the rest hit upon the ...
— The Myths of the New World - A Treatise on the Symbolism and Mythology of the Red Race of America • Daniel G. Brinton
... to be valued by their abundance. On the jeweler's stall, many a brilliant trinket will disappear, ere the high-priced gem be asked for; but is it, therefore, the less valued, or the less cared for? When beloved at all, she is loved permanently; for, in the lapse of time, that withers the charm of beauty, and blights the simplicity of youth, her ornaments grow but the brighter ...
— The Ladies' Vase - Polite Manual for Young Ladies • An American Lady
... seemed to speak without much effort, though the pale flush of her cheeks showed that she felt what she was doing. Juliana was pale as death, watching Rose. Intensely bright with the gem-like light of her gallant spirit, Rose's eyes fixed on Evan. He met them. The words of Ruth passed through his heart. But the Countess, who had given Rose to Evan, and the Duke to Caroline, where was her supporter? The Duke was entertaining Caroline with no less dexterity, and ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... sorrowingly from the deck, clasping the precious volume to his heart. Allusive or discursive speech scared him like indecency; and I had used his gem but as a peg whereon flauntingly to hang it. It took me three days to tame him and to induce him to show me another of his treasures, recently acquired in Athens. Ioannes Georgius Godelmann's Tractate ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... encourages the bold friar Erasmus of Rotterdam Establish not freedom for Calvinism, but freedom for conscience Even for the rape of God's mother, if that were possible Ever-swarming nurseries of mercenary warriors Everything was conceded, but nothing was secured Excited with the appearance of a gem of true philosophy Executions of Huss and Jerome of Prague Fable of divine right is invented to sanction the system Fanatics of the new religion denounced him as a godless man Felix Mants, the anabaptist, is drowned at Zurich Ferocity which even Christians could not have surpassed Few, even prelates ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... always some pleasant surprise for the frequent visitor. The morning light shows one picture, the evening light another: the sunrise adorns this window, the sunset that. There is no hour from dawn to dark in which some gem of ancient painting does not look its best, while little noticed, if seen at all, at other hours. Some are seen by a reflected light; others, when the church is so dark that one may stumble against a person in the nave, gather to themselves the dim and scattered ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, September 1880 • Various
... is odd," says WILKINS, "I know the setting is genuine, I have seen it before. But then it had a rubbishy late bit of work in it, and I was in the atelier when a gem-cutter shaved away the top of the stone, and copied your head of Prosperine on it from a Sicilian coin. I can show you a coin of the same stamp in ...
— Punch, Or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, Feb. 13, 1892 • Various
... do not pretend, and I know it will be impossible for me, by any pleading of mine, to reverse the judgment, either of AEsop's cock, that preferred the barleycorn before the gem; or of Midas, that being chosen judge between Apollo, president of the Muses, and Pan, god of the flocks, judged for plenty; or of Paris, that judged for beauty and love against wisdom and power; or of Agrippina, occidat ...
— The Advancement of Learning • Francis Bacon
... called themselves gentlemen, and who had been pompous and grandiose of manner in their intercourse with the widow and her daughter; but O, what pitiful lacquered counterfeits, what Brummagem paste they had been, compared to the real gem! Mary Anne Kepp had seen varnished boots before the humble flooring of her mother's dwelling was honoured by the tread of Horatio Paget, but what clumsy vulgar boots, and what awkward plebeian feet ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon
... "I'm the gem of herbs, and in seasons twain * My tryst I keep with my lovers-train: I stint not union for length of time * Nor visits, though some be of severance fain; The true one am I and my troth I keep, * And, easy of plucking, ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... like the morning flower ye are! Which lifts its diamond head, Exulting in the mead; But the rude wind shall steal its gem, Shall break its tender stem, And ...
— Hymns, Songs, and Fables, for Young People • Eliza Lee Follen
... But the gem of the farm was the ox-stall. It was divided into two sections by wooden bars standing upright their full length, one portion being reserved for the cattle, and the other for persons who attended on them. You could scarcely see there, as all the loopholes ...
— Bouvard and Pecuchet - A Tragi-comic Novel of Bourgeois Life • Gustave Flaubert
... brush. Fergusson, who is recognized as the highest authority on architecture, says that it is "more like a work of nature than any other architectural detail that has yet been designed, even by the best masters of Greece or the middle ages." Yet the mosque which this precious gem made famous is abandoned and deserted, and the courtyard ...
— Modern India • William Eleroy Curtis
... round it, there is a pool; not like any other pool I know. The basin in which it lies is roughly circular, some ten feet across. I suppose it is four or five feet deep. From the centre of the pool rises an even gush of very pure water, with a certain hue of green, like a faintly-tinted gem. The water in its flow makes a perpetual dimpling on the surface; I have never known it to fail even in the longest droughts; and in sharp frosty days there hangs a little smoke above it, for the water is of ...
— The Thread of Gold • Arthur Christopher Benson
... of propriety must also have been in a very unsettled state; for, albeit "to her brow the ruby mounted," that first kiss seemed to her to lie there as softly as an invisible gem, and she did not withdraw her head, nor look up reproachfully, nor utter ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... love is in the way of right, And he who strays commits foul sin and heresy." An thou have ruth on me and bring me to his sight, O rare! Whate'er thou wilt thy recompense shall be; Rubies and precious stones and freshly gathered pearls And every kind of gem that is in earth and sea. Surely, O friend, thou wilt with my desire comply; For all my heart's on fire with love ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume IV • Anonymous
... from sinking into a habit of slothful, undiscriminating acquiescence, and on the other to provide a check against those presumptuous fanatics who would rend the URIM AND THUMMIM FROM THE BREASTPLATE OF JUDGMENT, and frame oracles by private divination from each letter of each disjointed gem, uninterpreted by the Priest, and deserted by the Spirit, which shines in the parts only as it pervades and ...
— Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit etc. • by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... Floss" was soon followed by "Silas Marner," regarded by some as the gem of George Eliot's novels, and which certainly—though pathetic and sad, as all her novels are—does not leave on the mind so mournful an impression, since in its outcome we see redemption. The principal character—the poor, neglected, forlorn weaver—emerges at length from ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VII • John Lord
... coup de maitre [Fr.]; masterpiece, chef d'ouvre [Fr.], prime, flower, cream, elite, pick, A 1, nonesuch, nonpareil, creme de la creme, flower of the flock, cock of the roost, salt of the earth; champion; prodigy. tidbit; gem, gem of the first water; bijou, precious stone, jewel, pearl, diamond, ruby, brilliant, treasure; good thing; rara avis [Lat.], one in a thousand. beneficence &c 906; good man &c 948. V. be beneficial &c adj.; produce good, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... of his ambition. Who can venture to guess what passed in his mind when dazzled by his glory at Dresden, and whether in one of his dreams he might not have regarded the Empire of the Jagellons as another gem in the Imperial diadem? The truth is that Bonaparte, when General-in-Chief of the army of Egypt and First Consul, had deeply at heart the avenging the dismemberment of Poland, and I have often conversed ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... vigor based on this life-giving principle, let each one endeavor to make his influence felt throughout the world; becoming, in his sphere, like one of those fixed stars that sparkle in the midnight sky—a blazing sun to those that are near, a gem of sweetest ray ...
— The Faithful Steward - Or, Systematic Beneficence an Essential of Christian Character • Sereno D. Clark
... expect you. You shall have a bottle of the "Twenty." I have kept a few last lingering caskets with the gem enshrined therein, expressly ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 1 (of 3), 1833-1856 • Charles Dickens
... the physical nature—it exhilarated, cleansed, kindled, intoxicated. It was as inexplicably attractive as a cherry orchard in spring, as affecting as the cry of stringed instruments, as compelling as a storm. So writers had said. They compared it to a stream of clear water, to the flash of a gem, to the love of woman. They lost all decency sometimes; they said it fitted all moods, as the voice of many waters; they called it again and again, as explicitly as possible, the Divine Nature ...
— Lord of the World • Robert Hugh Benson
... indifference—which, considering my anxiety, might almost be styled heartless—"I guess, if it goes on snowing like this, you'll have no cars here to-morrow at all." Then, craning up to the heavens, as if seeking for the confirmation of a more terrible prophecy, he added, "By the looks of it, I think the gem'men may be fixed here for a week." Having delivered himself of the foregoing consolatory observation, and duly discharged a shower of Virginia juice on the floor, the military authority resumed his whittling labours with increased vigour. His occupation ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... fail to win this final crown. They are busily gathering together the jewels of the past, endless in diversity of charm. Museum, gallery, library swell as never before. The earth is not mined for iron and coal alone. Statue, vase and gem are disentombed. Pictures are rescued from the grime of years and neglect. All are copied by sun or hand, and sent in more or less elaboration into hall or cottage. In literature our possessions could scarce be more complete, and they are even more universally distributed. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 17, - No. 97, January, 1876 • Various
... pure and pearly light! In thee the rays of Virtue shine; More calmly clear, more mildly bright, Than any gem that gilds ...
— Poems • Samuel Rogers
... heavens, and earth, and air, seem'd made for them: They found no fault with Time, save that he fled; They saw not in themselves aught to condemn: Each was the other's mirror, and but read Joy sparkling in their dark eyes like a gem, And knew such brightness was but the reflection Of their exchanging glances ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... that shifted place in heav'n, Only that, whence it kindles, none is lost, And it is soon extinct; thus from the horn, That on the dexter of the cross extends, Down to its foot, one luminary ran From mid the cluster shone there; yet no gem Dropp'd from its foil; and through the beamy list Like flame in alabaster, glow'd ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... "Ode to a Skylark," and Keats' "Ode to a Nightingale." For assuredly it is the medium in which these delicate creatures pass their lives that gives them the chiefest share of their magic and their mystery. But this gem from Victor Hugo must suffice for all ...
— Nature Mysticism • J. Edward Mercer
... his last. Eadward died in 925, but the reign of his son AEthelstan, AElfred's golden-haired grandson whom the King had girded as a child with a sword set in a golden scabbard and a gem-studded belt, proved even more glorious than his own. In spite of its submission the North had still to be won. Dread of the northmen had drawn Scot and Cumbrian to their acknowledgement of Eadward's overlordship, but AEthelstan no sooner incorporated ...
— History of the English People, Volume I (of 8) - Early England, 449-1071; Foreign Kings, 1071-1204; The Charter, 1204-1216 • John Richard Green
... the same word (lesolosolou) signifies "to have no intermission of pain" and "to have no cessation, as in the arrival of visitors"; and soua, used of epidemics, bears the sense of being overcome as with "fire, flood, or visitors." But the gem of the dictionary is the verb alovao, which illustrates its pages like a humorous woodcut. It is used in the sense of "to avoid visitors," but it means literally "hide in the wood." So, by the sure hand of popular speech, we ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 17 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... undergrowth. The foliage arched over the water, forming beautiful little dells, with small, clear pools of water. One of these was a favourite resort of humming-birds, who came there to bathe, for these gem-like birds are very frequent in their ablutions, and I spent many a half-hour in the evenings leaning against a trunk of a tree that had fallen across the stream four or five yards below the pool, and watching them. At all times of the day they occasionally ...
— The Naturalist in Nicaragua • Thomas Belt
... with Thring, Woodforde, and seven fresh horses. At fourteen miles came across a splendid reach of water, about one hundred and fifty yards wide, but how long I do not know, as we could not see the end of it. It is a splendid sheet of water, and is certainly the gem of Sturt Plains. I have decided at once on returning, and bringing the party up to it, as it must be carefully examined, for it may be the source of the Camfield, or some river that may lead me through. ...
— Explorations in Australia, The Journals of John McDouall Stuart • John McDouall Stuart
... to her less than mind as recorder, reasoner, and ruler; and for one gem of poetry or other beauty of purely literary value which she quotes, there are fifty records of principles of action. The acquisition of knowledge was her favourite pastime, her principal pleasure in life, and there were no doubts of her own ability to disturb her ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... a Quilted ear-tab, which had lost its velvet mate; R was a Ring with a glassy gem ...
— The Jingle Book • Carolyn Wells
... material given here, and in the Icelandic Volsunga Saga, has been used by Wm. Morris in his Sigurd the Volsung and the Fall of the Niblungs. In the Nibelungen-Lied, as transposed by Auber Forestier, in Echoes from Mist-Land, we have a perfect gem of literature from the middle high German period, but its author had lost sight of the divine and mythical origin of the material that he wove into his poem. It is only by combining the German Nibelungen-Lied with the mythical materials found in Norseland that ...
— The Younger Edda - Also called Snorre's Edda, or The Prose Edda • Snorre
... them now were the players of the drama. One of the Warlockian witches, her gem body patterns glittering in the sunlight, was walking backward out of the sea, her hands held palms together, breast high, in a Terran attitude of prayer. And following her something swam in the water, clearly not another of her own species. But her actions suggested ...
— Storm Over Warlock • Andre Norton
... and beautiful, as also the round column of her neck, shadowed only by one long drooping curl, and banded by a gleaming circlet of many colored gems. Her dark hair, though drawn low upon the temples in acknowledgment of the prevailing mode, was bound in fashion of her own by a gem-clasped, golden fillet, under which it broke into a riot of lesser curls which swept over ears and temples. Here and there a gleaming jewel confined some such truant lock, so that she glittered, half-barbaric, ...
— The Purchase Price • Emerson Hough
... with the gem; 'Twill sink into his venal soul like lead Into the deep, and bring up slime and mud. And ooze, too, from the bottom, as the lead doth With its ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... up some sewing from an old-fashioned sofa. Cora saw instantly that the piece of furniture was of the most desirable pattern and quality, an antique mahogany gem of the ...
— The Motor Girls on a Tour • Margaret Penrose
... are married! Sir, I'll have you know There's an ogre to be tamed, a gem to be pried From out a dragon's forehead, and three riddles To be solved, each tighter than the last, before A Princess ...
— The Lamp and the Bell • Edna St. Vincent Millay
... see it ruinous and desolate. Ah, simple Hero, learn thyself to cherish. Lone women like to empty houses perish. Less sins the poor rich man that starves himself In heaping up a mass of drossy pelf, Than such as you. His golden earth remains Which, after his decease, some other gains. But this fair gem, sweet in the loss alone, When you fleet hence, can be bequeathed to none. Or, if it could, down from th'enameled sky All heaven would come to claim this legacy, And with intestine broils the world destroy, And quite confound nature's sweet harmony. Well therefore by the gods decreed ...
— Hero and Leander • Christopher Marlowe
... up these same waterways and along these trails came settlers singly or in groups, the daring vanguard of an advancing civilization, and planted themselves as pleased their fancy in choice spots, in sunny nooks sheltered by bluffs, by gem-like lakes or flowing streams, but mostly on the banks of the great rivers, the highways for their trade, the shining links that held them to their kind. Some there were among those hardy souls who, severing all bonds behind them, sought only ...
— The Foreigner • Ralph Connor
... in stone, whether granite, gem, or marble, while we accurately use the general term 'glyptic' for it, may be thought of with, perhaps, the most clear force under the English word 'engraving.' For, from the mere angular incision which the Greek consecrated in the triglyphs of ...
— Aratra Pentelici, Seven Lectures on the Elements of Sculpture - Given before the University of Oxford in Michaelmas Term, 1870 • John Ruskin
... balm exhausted breathes no smell, The rose is wither'd ere it fell. That godlike supplement of law, Which held the wicked world in awe And could the tide of faction stem, Is but a shell without the gem. Ye sons of genius, who would aim To build an everlasting fame, And in the field of letter'd arts, Display the trophies of your parts, To yonder mansion turn aside, And mortify your growing pride. Behold the brightest of the race, ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... bed, however, he could hear him for some time after laughing and talking with Marie in the garden; and he felt, without knowing it, all the pangs of jealousy: not that he believed his friend would interfere and dispute with him the possession of the gem which he had discovered, and over which he internally claimed a right of property, but he was oppressed with an uneasy sentiment of future ill, and tormented with a diffidence as to his own powers of pleasing, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 445 - Volume 18, New Series, July 10, 1852 • Various
... story we read together once, out of the "Casket" or "Gem," one of those old annuals, where a certain princess was sent to a desolate island, whose maids of honor were all old crones, once distinguished by their wonderful beauty? Her task was to discover each especial grace, long since buried by the rubbish which time and folly had heaped upon it; ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, Issue 35, September, 1860 • Various
... Christmas volumes which the year has brought to our table this one stands out facile princeps—a gem of the first water, bearing upon every one of its pages the signet mark of genius. . . . All is told with such simplicity and perfect naturalness that the dream appears to be a solid reality. It is indeed a Little ...
— Captain Bayley's Heir: - A Tale of the Gold Fields of California • G. A. Henty
... now preparing a poem entitled, "The Umbrella." It is a dainty little bit of verse, and my hired man thinks it is a gem. I called it "The Umbrella" so that it would ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... dancing but please thy fancy. What is the sparkle of the gem to thee without thy fancy which it allures, and thy fancy is all a dream. Action and deeds and men are nought without dreams and do but fetter them, and only dreams are real, and where thou stayest when the worlds shall drift away there shall be ...
— Time and the Gods • Lord Dunsany [Edward J. M. D. Plunkett]
... that we direct the reader's attention to a little gem lately published by the Hon. Mrs. WARD. One of the most admirable little works on one of the most sublime subjects that has been given to the world. The main design of the book is to show how much may be done in astronomy with ordinary powers and instruments. We have ...
— Country Walks of a Naturalist with His Children • W. Houghton
... fair, green Earth, whose throbbing bosom Is hid like a maid's in her gown at night, Wake out of her sleep, and with blade and blossom Gem her garments to please my sight? Over the knoll in the valley yonder The loveliest buttercups bloomed and grew; When the snow has gone that drifted them under, Will they shoot up sunward, and ...
— Maurine and Other Poems • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... Of leaves and feathers from her breast, Or how the fish outbuilt its shell, Painting with morn each annual cell? Such and so grew these holy piles While love and terror laid the tiles; Earth proudly wears the Parthenon As the best gem upon her zone; And Morning opes with haste her lids To gaze upon the Pyramids; O'er England's abbeys bends the sky As on its friends with kindred eye; For out of Thought's interior sphere These wonders rose to upper air, And nature gladly gave them place, Adopted them into her ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... loose sheets, scraps of paper, notes, studies, canvases stretched and stripped from their stretchers, we paved half the library floor, Schofield keeping up all the time a running fire of "Grand, grand! A masterpiece! A gem, that, Harrison!" They were all that he said, and presently I ceased to hear his voice. The splendour of the work issued undimmed even from the severe test of Schofield's praise; and I thought again with pride how I, I, was the only man living who ...
— Widdershins • Oliver Onions
... beetle, whose pleasure is to lie embedded in a fount of beauty. Deep among the incurving petals of the blushing-fragrance, he loses himself in his joys sometimes, till a breezy waft reveals him. And when the sunlight breaks upon his luscious dissipation, few would have the heart to oust him, such a gem from such a setting. All his back is emerald sparkles all his front red Indian gold, and here and there he grows white spots to save the eye from aching. Pike put his finger in and fetched him out, and offered ...
— Crocker's Hole - From "Slain By The Doones" By R. D. Blackmore • R. D. Blackmore
... blushed, for no apparent reason, and went to her own rooms in a frame of mind that was inexcusable, but very becoming. Her cheeks burned, her eyes flashed with a brighter glow that was gem-like and a little cruel, and her chin tilted up defiantly. Margaret had a resolute chin, a masculine chin. I fancy that it was only at the last moment that Nature found it a thought too boyish and modified it with a dimple—a very creditable dimple, by the ...
— The Eagle's Shadow • James Branch Cabell
... times in every lecture, Parker delights in it, and it often figures on the pages of serious books. In the article before us it is made to do frequent service. A promise of redemption is represented as shining gem-like on the brow of Revelation, Elims gem the dark bosom of the universal desert, and the morning gleams on the dew-gemmed earth. Perhaps a good recipe for this kind of composition would be an hour's gloat on the flaming window of a ...
— Arrows of Freethought • George W. Foote |
