"Mother-of-pearl" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... was made of ten thousand pieces of gold, mother-of-pearl, and woods of various hues. Look at the robes of that period: what embroidery, what delicacy of material, how many colors! And the bronze swords, the brooches, bracelets, earrings and implements of tillage and crafts of various descriptions. All these ...
— The Pharaoh and the Priest - An Historical Novel of Ancient Egypt • Boleslaw Prus
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... Atlantic. She had read of them, though she had not seen them. She knew how they sloughed from the inexhaustible ice-cap of Greenland's bleak continent and marched, stately as an army, down the mighty plain of the ocean. Fair beyond word were they, with jeweled crevasses and mother-of-pearl changefulness, indomitable, treacherous, menacing. Honora, closing weary eyes, still saw them sailing, sailing, white as angels, radiant as dawn, changing, changing, lovely and cold ...
— The Precipice • Elia Wilkinson Peattie
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... on the head when you say that, Steve. They seem to know the mother-of-pearl inside lining of the shells will bring in some money. And I reckon they're piling the shells up in some cave or secret place, meaning to get them down the river in a ...
— In Camp on the Big Sunflower • Lawrence J. Leslie
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... this result the Japanese, who originated the present commercial product, but who probably borrowed the original idea from the Chinese, call to their assistance the pearl oyster itself. The oysters are gently opened, small hemispherical discs of mother-of-pearl are introduced between shell and mantle and the oyster replanted. The foreign material is coated by the oyster with true pearly layers as usual, and after several years a sufficiently thick accumulation of pearly layers is thus deposited on the nucleus so that the oyster may be gathered and opened ...
— A Text-Book of Precious Stones for Jewelers and the Gem-Loving Public • Frank Bertram Wade
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... substance, which would account for their destruction. In this case their ornamentation may have been either by carving or painting, the bosses and rosettes being perhaps in some cases of metal, mother-of-pearl, or ivory. Ornaments of this kind were discovered by hundreds at Nimrud in a chamber which contained arms of many descriptions. Quivers have in some cases a curious rounded head, which seems to have been ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 2. (of 7): Assyria • George Rawlinson
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... pinks and mauves flashed as the ribbon curved and frayed—and were gone. There was no other colour in the whole heavens save the milky greenish-white light, but every time the streamers thrashed back and forth their under edges fringed into the glowing tints of mother-of-pearl. Presently, the whole display faded out until it was gone. But, as we turned again to seek the warmth of the house, all at once tiny fingers of light appeared all over the upper sky, like the flashing of spicules of alum under a microscope when a solution ...
— Ten Thousand Miles with a Dog Sled - A Narrative of Winter Travel in Interior Alaska • Hudson Stuck
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... the walls of the building. The huge doors of the temple were made of cedar, ivory, amber, and silver; the ceiling glistened with golden mosaics; the walls shone with polished marbles: and the capitals of the columns were laced with delicate carvings inset with mother-of-pearl, ...
— A Trip to the Orient - The Story of a Mediterranean Cruise • Robert Urie Jacob
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... took to the skiff for our quiet retreat, which rose, in this time of moonlight, above the shining waters like some fairy garden resting on a bed of mother-of-pearl. We sung Moore's Boat-song, and not a sound except the appropriate soft plash of the oars came between us and the echo that faintly ...
— Impressions of America - During The Years 1833, 1834, and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Tyrone Power
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... them, page 420. f. A clear metallic voice, page 420. g. Like that of a kettle on the boil, page 421. h. As smooth and polished as a river, page 421. i. The prismatic colors gleamed over it, as if on a surface of mother-of-pearl, page 422. j. In order to allow time for the consternation ... to evaporate, ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 10 - The Guide • Charles Herbert Sylvester
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... cover a great number of cross lines were drawn through one another, and among them were worked innumerable gold and silver stars. After he had carefully traced all these, he produced a small box of ebony, skilfully inlaid with streaks of mother-of-pearl. ...
— Eastern Tales by Many Story Tellers • Various
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... gives to it. The name is now unknown here, but I think it probable that Edrisi spoke of this part of the coast. The quantity of pearls obtained is very small, but the Heteym pick up a good deal of mother-of-pearl, which they sell to great advantage at Moeleh, to ...
— Travels in Syria and the Holy Land • John Burckhardt
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... water the murmur alongside ran through my very heart in a delicate crescendo of delight and died away swiftly. I was bitterly tired. The very stars seemed weary of waiting for daybreak. It came at last with a mother-of-pearl sheen at the zenith, such as I had never seen before in the tropics, unglowing, almost gray, with a strange reminder of ...
— The Shadow-Line - A Confession • Joseph Conrad
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... Her blue serge skirt was held at the waist by a belt of black leather. The great silver buckle of her belt seemed to depress the centre of her body, catching the light stuff of her white blouse like a clip. She wore a short black jacket with mother-of-pearl buttons and a ragged black boa. The ends of her tulle collarette had been carefully disordered and a big bunch of red flowers was pinned in her bosom stems upwards. Lenehan's eyes noted approvingly her stout short muscular body. Rank rude health glowed in her face, on her fat ...
— Dubliners • James Joyce
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... screamed and shrieked and waved their arms like boughs in a storm. I stopped at many shops and fingered the cheap silver toys, the little blue and green Ikons, the buckles and beads and rosaries that thronged the trays, but I could not find anything for Nina. Then suddenly I saw a square box of mother-of-pearl and silver, so charming and simple, the figures on the silver lid so gracefully carved that I decided ...
— The Secret City • Hugh Walpole
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... design was an immense brown dog, a lamp with a green, rose-wreathed shade, a carved wooden clock, a little mahogany table beautifully inlaid with white holly, an enormous pair of mounted antlers, and a large concertina, ornamented with a mosaic design in mother-of-pearl. The wooden floor here, and in the hall, was unpainted, but immaculately clean and the effect of the whole was clean and ...
— Saturday's Child • Kathleen Norris
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... king has his stables, and his stud of sea-horses; but they are seldom made use of, except upon public feasts or rejoicing days. Some, after they have trained them, take delight in riding them, and show their skill and dexterity in races; others put them to chariots of mother-of-pearl, adorned with an infinite number of shells of all sorts, of the brightest colours. These chariots are open; and in the middle there is a throne upon which the king sits, and shows himself to his subjects. The horses are trained ...
— Fairy Tales From The Arabian Nights • E. Dixon
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... of mother-of-pearl, bone, or wood, pointed and barbed with small bones or tortoise-shell. They are of various sizes and forms, but the most common are about two or three inches long, and made in the shape of a small fish, which serves as a bait, having a bunch of feathers tied to the head or tail. ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 17 • Robert Kerr
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... cradle, carved in cedar wood and inlaid with mother-of-pearl, had been a sponsor's gift to poor little George, the first male heir of the Talbots, and it was regarded as a special treasure by his mother, who was both wounded and resentful at the demand, and stood pouting and saying, "It was ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
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... covering on her body; her hair, which was woolly in its texture, was partly plaited, partly frizzled, a cloth round her waist, and a piece of faded yellow silk on her shoulders, was all her dress. A few silver rings, on her fat fingers, and a necklace of mother-of-pearl, were her ornaments. Her teeth were jet black, from the use of the betel-nut, and her whole appearance was such as to excite disgust in the ...
— The Phantom Ship • Frederick Marryat
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... "Mother-of-pearl," said the major, laughing. "They will do very well. There's the divil of a lot of cabs at their door," he continued, peering round the corner of the blind. "The rooms are all lighted up, and I can hear them tuning the instruments. Maybe we'd ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
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... family businesses that produce textiles, soap, olive-wood carvings, and mother-of-pearl souvenirs; the Israelis have established some small-scale modern industries in ...
— The 2003 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
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... narrowing towards the top, so that the highest was very small. It sloped very much from the stern, and on it was a windlass used to lift the huge rudder. On either side of the next deck were two cabins, with a roof in front of them made of bits of mother-of-pearl instead of glass. What is called the nettings ran from aft round the greater part of the vessel. The beams of the deck projected beyond the sides, and each butt-end was ornamented with an ugly face carved and painted. Every face was different, and ugly as the others. Some were of beasts, ...
— Mark Seaworth • William H.G. Kingston
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... not to be refused, especially as Herr Dahn and Brand both approved of his going. So the letter was written to tell the Baron he would come in a few weeks, as requested. Meantime his old master gave him an order for a zither of the best quality, to be made of handsome wood, inlaid with mother-of-pearl, and as the price was of no consequence, he was to make it quite a specimen instrument, to show how well he could work. Stephan was very much pleased with the commission, and when, at the end of three weeks, it was finished, his delight was ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, October 1878, No. 12 • Various
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... mere amateur—casually picked up a black-lip mother-of-pearl shell on an island some little distance away. It contained a blue pearl, the price of which gave him such a start in life, that he is now an owner of ships. May not other tides cast up on other shores other oysters whose lives have been rendered miserable by ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
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... little brown-eyed child my own mother-of-pearl beads, mounted in silver, and was glad I had it to give. The children moved away, ...
— My New Curate • P.A. Sheehan
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... article on which the English smoker prided himself. It was made of various materials—wood, bone, ivory, mother-of-pearl, and silver: and the forms which it assumed were exceedingly diversified. Out of a collection of upwards of thirty tobacco-stoppers of different ages, from 1688 to the present time, the following are the most remarkable: a bear's ...
— Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce • E. R. Billings
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... there were muskets of every sort and size, heavy arquebuses from the north and gas-pipe guns and Arab horsemen firelocks with polished stocks like the handle of a corkscrew, all inlaid with gold, silver, and mother-of-pearl. ...
— The Luck of Thirteen - Wanderings and Flight through Montenegro and Serbia • Jan Gordon
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... fishing-line, made from the bark of a species of nettle, was far stronger than any English line of the same thickness. Their fishing-nets, though coarse, answered their purpose. They were often eighty fathoms in length. Harpoons, made of cane, were used to catch fish, and fish-hooks of mother-of-pearl. One used for trawling had a white tuft of dog's or hog's hair attached to it, to look like the tail of a fish. The fishermen watched for the birds which always follow a shoal of bonetas, and seldom returned without a prize. Both sexes were expert swimmers, and would dash out through the ...
— Captain Cook - His Life, Voyages, and Discoveries • W.H.G. Kingston
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... Dreaming of his return, of Francois, the handsome sunburnt face turned to hers, Maria forgets all else, and looks long with unseeing eyes at the snow-covered ground which the moonlight has turned into a glittering fabric of ivory and mother-of-pearl-at the black pattern of the fences outlined upon it, and the menacing ranks of the ...
— Maria Chapdelaine - A Tale of the Lake St. John Country • Louis Hemon
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... captivity. This person had sent his commendations to Ambrose, and likewise a laborious bit of writing, which looked as if he were fast forgetting the art. It bade Ambrose inform his mother and all his friends and kin that he was well and coming to preferment, and inclosed for Aldonza a small mother-of-pearl cross blessed by the Pope. Giles added that he should bring her ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte M. Yonge
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... set on a high plain or mesa, facing a wide valley spreading miles away to the south where mother-of-pearl mountains were ranged like strung jewels far against the Mexican sky. At the north, slate-blue foothills lifted their sharp-edged shoulders three miles away, but only blank walls of Soledad faced the hills, all portals of the ...
— The Treasure Trail - A Romance of the Land of Gold and Sunshine • Marah Ellis Ryan
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... was amid mounds and ruins. We found green coins, pottery fragments, and shells with very lovely mother-of-pearl. The Dujail ran near by, and made a green streak through an arid waste. The whole landscape seemed one dust-heap, sand and rubbish. But by the brook were poppies, marguerites, delicate pink campions, wheat and barley ...
— The Leicestershires beyond Baghdad • Edward John Thompson
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... an hour the coach was back. The Fairy, who was waiting at the door of the house, lifted the poor little Marionette in her arms, took him to a dainty room with mother-of-pearl walls, put him to bed, and sent immediately for the most famous doctors of the ...
— The Adventures of Pinocchio • C. Collodi—Pseudonym of Carlo Lorenzini
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... William Hamilton Gibson, "for he is off in a spangling streak of glitter. Nor is this golden sheen all the resource of the little insect; for in the space of a few seconds, as you hold him in your hand, he has become a milky, iridescent opal, and now mother-of-pearl, and finally crawls before you in a coat of dull orange." A dead beetle loses all this wonderful luster. Even on the morning-glory in our gardens we may sometimes find these jeweled mites, or their fork-tailed, black larvae, or the ...
— Wild Flowers, An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and - Their Insect Visitors - - Title: Nature's Garden • Neltje Blanchan
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... their colours. But nature is constantly splitting the light into its different-lengthed waves, its colours. The rainbow, where dense moisture in the air acts as a spectroscope, is the most familiar example. A piece of mother-of-pearl, or even a film of oil on the street or on water, has the same effect, owing to the fine inequalities in its surface. The atmosphere all day long is sorting out the waves. The blue "sky" overhead means ...
— The Outline of Science, Vol. 1 (of 4) - A Plain Story Simply Told • J. Arthur Thomson
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... are green," admitted Candace. "Some of them are so old that they have colors all over them like mother-of-pearl,—red and blue and yellow. I liked to see them; and she told us that last summer an architect who was going by the house stopped and looked at them a long time, and then rang the bell and offered to give her new sashes with ...
— A Little Country Girl • Susan Coolidge
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... into a small but comfortable apartment, very Eastern in its character, with a mother-of-pearl table in one corner bearing some slight refreshment, and a low ...
— In the Track of the Troops • R.M. Ballantyne
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... He hung his head, and nervously fingered his mother-of-pearl cigarette-holder. After a moment's pause, Sarudine turned sharply round, and, jingling the keys loudly, opened the ...
— Sanine • Michael Artzibashef
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... and war-clubs were there, brought from the gleaming shores of reef-girdled islands; a Florentine lamp; a roll of papyrus; an idol from Easter Island, the eyes of which were two missionary shirt buttons of mother-of-pearl, of the Puritan type; your practical cannibal, having eaten his missionary, spits out the shirt buttons to be used as the eyes which see not; carved gourds were there, and calabashes; Mexican pottery; and some of the latest Pompeiian ...
— In the Footprints of the Padres • Charles Warren Stoddard
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... had forgotten the good old merchant, over whose shoulder we were peeping, while he read the newspaper. Let us now suppose him putting on his three-cornered gold-laced hat, grasping his cane, with a head inlaid of ebony and mother-of-pearl, and setting forth, through the crooked streets of Boston, on various errands, suggested by the advertisements of the day. Thus he communes with himself: I must be mindful, says he, to call at Captain Scut's, in Creek Lane, ...
— Old News - (From: "The Snow Image and Other Twice-Told Tales") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
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... a suite of spacious saloons, disposed in ascending tiers, and all carpeted, candelabraed, and appointed in the most costly European fashion. A superb vase of silver, embossed and burnished, stood on a table inlaid with mother-of-pearl and chased with silver. Flowers of great variety and beauty filled the rooms with a delicious though slightly oppressive fragrance. On every side my eyes were delighted with rare vases, jewelled cups and boxes, ...
— The English Governess At The Siamese Court • Anna Harriette Leonowens
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... rises a square vertical shaft supporting a canopy, with a minaret or pinnacle surmounted by a rich gold and jewelled finial. The entire height of the throne is nine or ten feet. The materials are precious woods, ebony, sandal-wood, etc., with shell, mother-of-pearl, silver, and gold. ...
— Threads of Grey and Gold • Myrtle Reed
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... was more used for domestic furniture than for stationary decoration. The character of the design changed in consequence, and mother-of-pearl, ivory, tortoiseshell, silver, and other materials were used. The first Tuscan, or one of the first who did so was Andrea Massari of Siena. A few works in tarsia were still executed, but none of much importance. The choir of S. Sigismondo, outside Cremona, commenced by Gabriel ...
— Intarsia and Marquetry • F. Hamilton Jackson
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... guildhouse, the roof of which you can just descry rising above that maze of buildings, in the upper hall of justice, is a species of glass shrine, in which the relic is to be seen; a sword of curious workmanship, the blade is of keen Toledan steel, the heft of ivory and mother-of-pearl. 'Tis the sword of Cordova, won in bloodiest fray off Saint Vincent's promontory, and presented by Nelson to the old capital of the much-loved land of his birth. Yes, the proud Spaniard's sword is to be seen in yonder guildhouse, in the glass case ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
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... the same hue. Two full-length Mirrors are placed, one on each side of a table, which supports the luxuries of the Toilet. Several Bottles of Perfumes, arranged in a peculiar fashion, stand upon a smaller table of mother-of-pearl: opposite to these are placed the appurtenances of Lavation richly wrought in frosted silver. A Wardrobe of Buhl is on the left; the doors of which, being partly open, discover a profusion of Clothes; Shoes ...
— Sartor Resartus - The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdrockh • Thomas Carlyle
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... gave his orders to the boatmen, dived briskly into the little cabin, and reappeared with a concertina in his hand. "Neat, Miss Milroy, isn't it?" he observed, pointing to his initials, inlaid on the instrument in mother-of-pearl. "My name's Augustus, like my father's. Some of my friends knock off the 'A,' and call me 'Gustus Junior.' A small joke goes a long way among friends, doesn't it, Mr. Armadale? I sing a little to my own accompaniment, ladies and gentlemen; ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
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... several chambers, decorated with much cost and barbarous splendour. The wainscot of one of the principal saloons is inlaid with mother-of-pearl, ebony, coral, and ivory; but the workmanship seems harsh and ungraceful. The ceiling is plastered with massive gilding, the effect of which is rather cumbrous than ornamental; "not graced with elegancy, but daubed with cost." Pillars, of ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 267, August 4, 1827 • Various
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... quarter of an hour passed, when the carriage returned. The Fairy, who was waiting at the door of the house, took the poor puppet in her arms and carried him into a little room that was wainscoted with mother-of-pearl. She sent at once to summon the most famous doctors ...
— Pinocchio - The Tale of a Puppet • C. Collodi
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... away to a point the bees dropped off by their own weight into the grass below, then rose again and either flew aloft in wide and circling flight or rushed headlong upon the swarm once more. Across the iridescent cluster passed a gleam and glow of peacock and iris, opal and mother-of-pearl; while from its heart ascended a deep murmur, telling of tremendous and accumulated energy suddenly launched into this peaceful glade of apple-blossom and ambient green. The frenzy of the moment ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts
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... When the beautiful Princess Alicia consents to partake of the salmon—as I think she will—you will find she will leave a fish-bone on her plate. Tell her to dry it, and to rub it, and to polish it till it shines like mother-of-pearl, and to take care of it as a present ...
— The Magic Fishbone - A Holiday Romance from the Pen of Miss Alice Rainbird, Aged 7 • Charles Dickens
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... N. semitransparency, translucency, semiopacity; opalescence, milkiness, pearliness^; gauze, muslin; film; mica, mother-of-pearl, nacre; mist &c (cloud) 353. [opalescent jewel] opal. turbidity &c 426.1. Adj. semitransparent, translucent, semipellucid^, semidiaphanous^, semiopacous^, semiopaque; opalescent, opaline^; pearly, milky; frosted, nacreous. V. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
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... cabinets and tables. The wall space above these was pictureless, but two great ivory tusks were crossed over a doorway. Above the fireplace rows of weapons were ranged—queer swords and daggers with gold and mother-of-pearl on their hilts, a ship's cutlass, several scimitars, and the strangest guns and pistols. Chicken Little was fascinated with the frightful array. A huge bearskin lay on the floor among strange, beautifully colored rugs, which reminded her of her mother's India shawl. Rugs where queer stiff little ...
— Chicken Little Jane on the Big John • Lily Munsell Ritchie
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... the lights upon it caught my eye. It was of pure gold, round-brimmed, and circled about with a string of the blue convolvulus, which implies delight to these people. Ay! and each man was plunging his hand into the dark and taking in his turn a small notch-edged mother-of-pearl billet from it that flashed soft and silvery as he turned it in his hand to read the name engraved in unknown characters thereon. "Why," I said, with a start, "surely THIS might be the golden pool and these the silver fish—but the hair-fine ...
— Gulliver of Mars • Edwin L. Arnold
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... striking and easily grasped analogies, facility for seeing and presenting which has ever been one of the secrets of my success as a propagandist. Like pictures, they impress the mind of the hearer with a vivid sense of reality. "Every one knows the exquisite iridiscence of mother-of-pearl, the tender, delicate hues which melt into each other, glowing with soft radiance. How different is the dull, dead surface of a piece of wax. Yet take that dull, black wax and mould it so closely to the surface of the mother-of-pearl ...
— Annie Besant - An Autobiography • Annie Besant
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... anchor in the Bay of Yedo the moon was hanging directly over Yokohama. It was a mother-of-pearl moon, and might have been manufactured by any of the delicate artisans in the Hanchodori quarter. It impressed one as being a very good imitation, but nothing more. Nammikawa, the cloisonne-worker at Tokio, could have ...
— Ponkapog Papers • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
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... rod. Collectively they weigh just a little over thirty pounds. Swimming against the current, they take the fly eagerly; and one cannot hope to land a more gaudy or more gamy fish. Its big dorsal fin is rainbow-tinct, the tail an iridescent blue, and the scales pure mother-of-pearl. Mr. Keele has had "The Complete Angler" for two years with him in the fastnesses, and as he helps us prepare the catch for our evening meal over the coals, quotes blithely that the grayling is eating fit only for "anglers ...
— The New North • Agnes Deans Cameron
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... compared with that of other makers. This will be found in nearly every genuine specimen. Unfortunately nuts wear out and become replaced with new ones, so that it is not always possible to obtain a bow that is original in all its parts. Dodd occasionally decorated the face of his bows with mother-of-pearl, as in the example shown in Fig. 31. He invariably stamped the name DODD in large, plain letters both on the side of the nut and on the stick. I have seen some that are stamped J. Dodd, but not many. Fig. 32 shows (actual size) a very early Dodd head, than which nothing, I think, ...
— The Bow, Its History, Manufacture and Use - 'The Strad' Library, No. III. • Henry Saint-George
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... They certainly were radiantly white, celestial in color; their backs were a dull frosted silver, with here and there a small electric lamp behind the scales to make its jewels sparkle. The lamps alternated with opals increased on the side; the bellies were of a blazing mother-of-pearl. It would be hard to imagine a less imaginative name than "white" fish for such a shining, burning opalescence. Indian names are usually descriptive, but their name for this is simply "The Fish." All others are mere dilutes and cheap imitations, but the Coregonus is at all ...
— The Arctic Prairies • Ernest Thompson Seton
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... the fire lit up a heaven of chrysoprase and rose. Where the lake had been as a metal mirror for the stars, it rippled and dimpled and gleamed with the tints of mother-of-pearl. He knew the sun must be on the farther slope of the Green Mountains, because the face they turned toward him was dense in shadow, like the unilluminated portion of the moon. On the western shore the Adirondacks were rising out of the bath of night as dewy fresh as if they ...
— The Wild Olive • Basil King
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... white-and-gold reception-room, with inhospitable chairs and settees whose satin slipperiness offered no inducements to sit down. There were gold-lacquered tables and a curious concert-grand piano, also gold inlaid with mother-of-pearl cupids and flowers. Everything was most elaborate. Gila, in her soft transparencies, looked like a wraith amid it all. The young man chose to think she was too rare and fine for ...
— The Witness • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
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... Flanders they had their own encampment, conducted in their own native style. They looked after their horses with as much care as a fond mother does her child. The harness and trappings were magnificently decorated with beautiful designs in mother-of-pearl and gold, and the men, when astride their horses and garbed in their long flowing white burnouses, looked the very personification of dignity. The Chief never handles a rifle, it would be beneath his position to do so. He is the Head, and lives up to it ...
— How I Filmed the War - A Record of the Extraordinary Experiences of the Man Who - Filmed the Great Somme Battles, etc. • Lieut. Geoffrey H. Malins
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... presents, carpets, carved and inlaid mother-of-pearl boxes, cabinets, and some curious saddles, also gold-embroidered cushions and slippers. Some Arab horses were announced with great pomp from the Sultan's stables. I was rather interested in them, thought it would be amusing to drive a long-tailed ...
— My First Years As A Frenchwoman, 1876-1879 • Mary King Waddington
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... Queen had built herself a palace of gold and crystal. The rooms were hung with tapestry of rose leaves, and the floors were carpeted with moss. The great hall was the grandest part of all. The ceiling was made of mother-of-pearl, and the walls of ivory, and the lights which hung from the roof sparkled with diamonds. These ivory walls were to be covered with paintings; so the Queen called the fairy artists, and bade them all paint a picture for her by a certain day. "He whose ...
— Harper's Young People, February 17, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
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... They have all one story, with a ground-floor; the upper part, generally occupied by the family, is surrounded by a wide gallery, opened or shut by means of large sliding panels, the panes of which are thin mother-of-pearl. The mother-of-pearl permits the passage of light to the apartments, and excludes the heat of the sun. In the military town are all the monasteries and convents, the archbishopric, the courts of justice, ...
— Adventures in the Philippine Islands • Paul P. de La Gironiere
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... sailed away so swiftly that he could at first mark nothing but the speed with which the clouds above and the dim earth below went rushing past. But soon he began to see that the sky was very lovely, with mottled clouds all about the moon, on which she threw faint colours like those of mother-of-pearl, or an opal. The night was warm, and in the lady's arms he did not feel the wind which down below was making waves in the ripe corn, and ripples on the rivers and lakes. At length they descended on the side of an open earthy hill, ...
— At the Back of the North Wind • George MacDonald
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... a high-shouldered young fellow, with a round red face, a short crop of sandy hair, a very broad humorous mouth, a turned-up nose, and a great sleeved waistcoat of purple bars, with mother-of-pearl buttons, that seemed to be growing upon him, and to be in a fair way—if it were not pruned—of covering his ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
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... hours in this retreat contemplating the tropical mother-of-pearl shells, and trying to image to myself the strange coasts from which ...
— The Story of a Child • Pierre Loti
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... including articles exclusively used in their manufacture, and varnish; (11) bleaching powder, soda ash, caustic soda, salt cake, ammonia, sulphate of ammonia and sulphate of copper; (12) agricultural, mining, textile and printing machinery; (13) precious and semiprecious stones, pearls, mother-of-pearl and coral; (14) clocks and watches, other than chronometers; (15) fashion and fancy goods; (16) feathers of all kinds, hairs and bristles; (17) articles of household furniture and ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 7, Slice 2 - "Constantine Pavlovich" to "Convention" • Various
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... careless days Claire's garments had been purchased with a lavish hand, the only anxiety being to secure the most becoming specimen of its kind. There were long crinkly gloves, and a lace handkerchief, and a fan composed of curling feathers and mother-of-pearl sticks, and a dainty bag hanging by golden cords, and a cloak of the newest shape, composed of layers of different-tinted chiffons, which looked more like a cloud at sunset than a garment manufactured by human hands and supposed to be ...
— The Independence of Claire • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
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... street, forming a sort of verandah, or corridor, as it is called in Spanish as well as in English, round the entire building, affording a considerable protection against the sun's rays. The outer side of this corridor is composed of coarse and dark-coloured mother-of-pearl shell of little value, set in a wooden framework of small squares, forming windows which move on slides. Although the light admitted through this sort of window is much inferior to what glass would give, ...
— Recollections of Manilla and the Philippines - During 1848, 1849 and 1850 • Robert Mac Micking
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... hiding-place, which receives light and air from a slit in the roof. This hollow in the wall goes as far as Timea's bedroom, where in former times Herr Brazovics' guests used to pass the night. The concealed passage ends in a glass door which is hidden from the room by a picture. This picture is a mother-of-pearl mosaic representing St. George and the dragon, and appears to be a votive image built into the wall. It has often been proposed to take the picture away, but Timea never would allow it. One of the pieces of ...
— Timar's Two Worlds • Mr Jkai
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... semitransparency, translucency, semiopacity; opalescence, milkiness, pearliness[obs3]; gauze, muslin; film; mica, mother-of-pearl, nacre; mist &c. (cloud) 353. [opalescent jewel] opal. turbidity &c. 426a. Adj. semitransparent, translucent, semipellucid[obs3], semidiaphanous[obs3], semiopacous[obs3], semiopaque; opalescent, opaline[obs3]; pearly, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
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... seemed an adornment to her. She delighted in the rosy reflections of her skin, in her pretty light dress of a pinkish white material, in her broad sash of pink silk fastened behind with a buckle of mother-of-pearl, in her straw hat trimmed with bright pink ribbons on top and yellow-pink velvet ...
— The Created Legend • Feodor Sologub
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... of my clients. I almost think of ceasing to create raiment, I weary so of the stupidities of New York's four hundred. Corsets, heels"—her hands fluttered in repudiation. She sank full length upon the divan, lighting a cigarette from a case of mother-of-pearl. "Your husband is the only artist, Mrs. Byrd, who has succeeded in painting me as an individual instead of a beauty. It's relieving"—her voice fainted—"very"—it failed—her lids drooped, she ...
— The Nest Builder • Beatrice Forbes-Robertson Hale
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... nature or in art is like the iridescent hue of mother-of-pearl, which is intrinsic and necessary, being the result of the arrangement of the particles,—the flowering of the mechanism of the shell; or like the beauty of health which comes out of and reaches back again to the bones and the digestion. There is no grace like the grace of ...
— Birds and Poets • John Burroughs
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... such an influx of the world upon them at this moment were not sufficient of itself to damn them. But to tell Madame Joubert! With all their dresses made and ready, wreaths, veils, candles, prayer-books, picture-cards, mother-of-pearl prayer-beads, and festival breakfasts with admiring family and friends prepared. Tell Madame Joubert! She would simply cancel it all. ...
— Balcony Stories • Grace E. King
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... English fields were quietly lying safe behind their hedges and the English sky changed from blue to green and from green to mother-of-pearl, and from mother-of-pearl to ivory, and stars stabbed, like silver nails, the great canopy of heaven, and the Cathedral bells rang peal after peal above the slowly ...
— The Cathedral • Hugh Walpole
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... contrast in their dress then struck me. Little Duval wore one of those fanciful children's dresses which are expensive as well as in good taste; his coat was skilfully fitted to his figure, his trousers came down in plaits from his waist to his boots of polished leather with mother-of-pearl buttons, and his ringlets were half hid by a velvet cap. The appearance of his guide, on the contrary, was that of the class who dwell on the extreme borders of poverty, but who there maintain their ground with no surrender. His old blouse, ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
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... flung open in the street behind me. I saw a glitter near the curb, a flash of steel, a shine of mother-of-pearl, and that was the pistol he had flung away. I felt suffocating, and my feet seemed weighted with lead as if I were running in a dream. And, strange enough, what filled me with the wildest terror was ...
— The Other Side of the Door • Lucia Chamberlain
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... Japanese bureau, dishonored and forlorn, standing amongst rusty bedsteads, sorry china, and all the refuse of homes dead and desolate. The bureau pleased him in spite of its grime and grease and dirt. Inlaid mother-of-pearl, the gleam of lacquer dragons in red gold, and hits of curious design shone through the film of neglect and ill-usage, and when the woman of the shop showed him the drawers and well and pigeon-holes, he saw that it would be an apt instrument ...
— The Hill of Dreams • Arthur Machen
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... with her literary affinities as to lose sight of her own kith and kin. She saw Rosy swim past once or twice, and was gratified by constant glimpses of an active and radiant Truesdale. Once Statira Belden drove by in saffron satin and a mother-of-pearl tiara. "And that's her daughter with her," commented Jane. "And there's that girl from New York. And there goes her son—that smooth-faced little snip. Huh!—compare ...
— With the Procession • Henry B. Fuller
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... every window, up one street and down another, crying aloud each time for joy when she saw pretty things displayed. They bought white slippers with little bows, a splendid wreath of white lilies of the valley, a great veil of woven lace, a white-ivory prayer-book, a mother-of-pearl rosary with a little glass peep-hole in the silver crucifix, showing all manner of pretty things. Horieneke sighed with happiness. Mother haggled and bargained, said within herself that it was "foolishness to waste all that money," but bought and went ...
— The Path of Life • Stijn Streuvels
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... the slightest possible tint of amber, meandered an imperceptible network of blue veins; the mouth, fresh as a flower, ripe and ruddy as a fruit, slightly opened by a half smile, and illuminated by a gleam of mother-of-pearl; and above all, the eyes, whose glances, passing between a thick double fringe of black lashes, possessed an irresistible fascination. It was the Greek form with the Arab character: the style of beauty would have had something startling in a London or Paris drawing-room, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, No. 382, October 1847 • Various
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... Brixton "financier," a specialist in "loans from five pounds upward, music-hall artistes treated with the strictest confidence," who pocketed nearly the whole. Now Lily just happened to want a new dress, a new petticoat and a tiny mother-of-pearl lucky charm. Trampy had to own that he couldn't afford these fancies and Lily had a fit of temper! But then why promise so many things to a poor little wife who deserved ...
— The Bill-Toppers • Andre Castaigne
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... old one, and, as clearly of considerable value, being inlaid with tortoise-shell and mother-of-pearl in delicate arabesques that must have cost its unknown maker many months, if not whole years, of patient labour. Its varnish, smooth and transparent as finest glass, belonged to the same date, and had been laid on, if not by the same hand, by one no less careful. Something ...
— Major Vigoureux • A. T. Quiller-Couch
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... my eye most was his trousseau. Say! he was dressed to the minute, from the pink in his buttonhole, to the mother-of-pearl gloves; and the back of his frock coat had an in-curve such as your forty-fat sisters dream about. Why, as far as lines went, he had Jimmy Hackett and Robert Mantell on the back shelf. Oh, he ...
— Shorty McCabe • Sewell Ford
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... starting up; "you have hit it, Jervis, as you always do. It must be mother-of-pearl. Polton, give me a pearl shirt-button out of your ...
— John Thorndyke's Cases • R. Austin Freeman
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... always clean shaven; this youth had a smudgy moustache and a pair of incipient red whiskers. He was dressed in the loudest check suit I have ever seen, off the stage. He wore patent-leather boots with mother-of-pearl buttons, and a necktie that in an earlier age would have called down lightning out of Heaven. He had a low-crowned billycock hat on his head, and a big evil-smelling cigar between ...
— Novel Notes • Jerome K. Jerome
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... Arrou Islands consists chiefly of pearls, mother-of-pearl shell, tortoise-shell, birds of paradise, and Trepang; but the trade of Dobbo is not dependent on the productions of the Arrou Islands alone. The Bughis proas import large quantities of British calico, iron, hardware, muskets, gunpowder, ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 2 • John Lort Stokes
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... her vicinity completely strewn with votive offerings. You shall splash your silver sea with an ivory wand; your hens shall have suburban cottages, each with its garden; their perches shall be of satin-wood and their water dishes of mother-of-pearl. You shall be the Goose Girl and I will be the Swan Herd—simply to be near you—for I hate live poultry. Dost like the picture? It's a little like Claude Melnotte's, I confess. The fact is I am not quite sane; talking with you after a fortnight of the tabbies at the Hydro ...
— The Diary of a Goose Girl • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
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... alone, many persons have supposed that it was engendered in the process. Recently, however, crystalline paraffine has been obtained from ozokerite by dissolving the latter in warm amyl alcohol; on cooling the greater part separates out in crystals having the luster of mother-of-pearl. By repetition of this process, a substance is obtained that is scarcely to be distinguished from the paraffine obtained by distillation. Apparently there exists then in ozokerite, together with paraffine, other substances not capable of crystallization which keep the paraffine ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 711, August 17, 1889 • Various
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... sized with glue, put around the bow, and overlapped at the back. I also glue a small piece of leather on the left-hand side of the bow above the handle to prevent the arrow chafing the wood at this spot. This is called the arrow plate and usually is made of mother-of-pearl or bone; leather is better. These finishing pieces are wrapped temporarily with string ...
— Hunting with the Bow and Arrow • Saxton Pope
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... great square seems to have opened from it in a kind of awe, that we may see it far away;—a multitude of pillars and white domes, clustered into a long low pyramid of colored light; a treasure-heap, it seems, partly of gold, and partly of opal and mother-of-pearl, hollowed beneath into five great vaulted porches, ceiled with fair mosaic, and beset with sculpture of alabaster, clear as amber and delicate as ivory,—sculpture fantastic and involved, of palm leaves and lilies, and ...
— Stones of Venice [introductions] • John Ruskin
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... antique British forest in a region whose lowlands were once all silvan chase, as its highlands were breast-deep heather—slept the shadow of a cloud; the distant hills were dappled, the horizon was shaded and tinted like mother-of-pearl; silvery blues, soft purples, evanescent greens and rose-shades, all melting into fleeces of white cloud, pure as azury snow, allured the eye as with a remote glimpse of heaven's foundations. The air blowing on the brow was fresh, and sweet, ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
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... spirit became aware of something unusual and strange at the opening of the tent. There was a soft, light step without, a guarded footfall. Then a tall, dark shadow distinctly appeared, with a glitter of mother-of-pearl ornaments and a waving of plumes. It stood there like a ghost of a vivid fancy, for a time. Gretchen's heart beat. It was not an unusual thing for an Indian to come to the tepee late in the evening; but there was something mysterious and ominous in the bearing ...
— The Log School-House on the Columbia • Hezekiah Butterworth
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... the first article I am going to offer for your inspection is a fine silver-steel blade knife with a mother-of-pearl handle, brass lined, round-joint tapped and riveted tip top and bottom a knife made under an act of Congress at the rate of thirty-six dollars per dozen there is a blade for every day in the week and a handle for your wife to play ...
— Twenty Years of Hus'ling • J. P. Johnston
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... the Garter was held in November, 1906, and was followed by a banquet. The regal appearance of the Duchess may be gathered from a description of her dress of cloudy white, embroidered with mother-of-pearl, a high diamond tiara on her dark hair and a magnificent bouquet of flowers, surrounded with a wealth of glittering diamonds on ...
— The Portland Peerage Romance • Charles J. Archard
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... all in English dresses, all rouged, and all with bad teeth: which you notice instantly from their contrast to the almost animal, too glossy mother-of-pearl whiteness and the regularity of the teeth of the laughing, loud-talking country-women and servant-girls, who with their clean white stockings and with slippers without heel quarters, tripped along the dirty streets, ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
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... entered an apartment so gorgeous that the child fairly gasped with astonishment. The queen's throne room was indeed the grandest and most beautiful chamber in all the ocean palaces. Its coral walls were thickly inlaid with mother-of-pearl, exquisitely shaded and made into borders and floral decorations. In the corners were cabinets, upon the shelves of which many curious shells were arranged, all beautifully polished. The floor glittered with gems arranged in patterns of ...
— The Sea Fairies • L. Frank Baum
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... to a closet, opened a trunk, and from its depths drew forth a beautiful casket inlaid with mother-of-pearl and otherwise exquisitely decorated. ...
— The Masked Bridal • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
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... came in and sat down across the hearth from me, and neither of us said anything. The firelight flickered over the room, bringing out the faded hues of the old Japanese prints on the walls, gleaming in the mother-of-pearl eyes of the dragon on the screen, setting a grotesque god on a cabinet to nodding. And it threw into relief the strong profile of the man across from me, as he ...
— When a Man Marries • Mary Roberts Rinehart
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... of a much poorer and shabbier condition than those of the Greeks. Both make believe not to take money; but the traveller is expected to pay in each. The Latin fathers enlarge their means by a little harmless trade in beads and crosses, and mother-of-pearl shells, on which figures of saints are engraved; and which they purchase from the manufacturers, and vend at a small profit. The English, until of late, used to be quartered in these sham inns; but last year two or three Maltese took houses ...
— Notes on a Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo • William Makepeace Thackeray
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... itself was hung about with the most beautiful silken curtains and tapestries, and on the floor were spread rugs and carpets and cushions of Oriental magnificence. Tiny tables, inlaid with ivory and mother-of-pearl, were scattered about, on which were caskets filled with beautiful jewels and rare curios from ...
— The Mysterious Shin Shira • George Edward Farrow
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... hangings of which are of Cordova-leather, with gold ground-seemingly awaiting the good pleasure of some grand lady, is a sedan-chair, decorated with paintings by Fragonard. Farther on, there is one of those superb carved mother-of-pearl coffers, in which Oriental women lay by their finery and jewellery. A splendid Venetian mirror, its frame embellished with tiny figure subjects, and measuring two metres in width and three in height, fills a whole panel of the vestibule. Portieres ...
— Serge Panine, Complete • Georges Ohnet
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... than I," said the other fairy; then, taking a rush from the only chair in the room, she blew upon it, when, lo! the rush instantly swelled, and in less time than it takes to tell it became a beautiful musket, inlaid with mother-of-pearl. A second rush produced a cartridge-box, which Graceful slung around his body and which became him marvelously. One would have thought him a prince setting out for the chase; he was so handsome that his grandmother wept ...
— Laboulaye's Fairy Book • Various
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... occurrence of stone implements, are important. But it must be remembered that stone was used long into the 'Bronze' Age, and contemporaneously with copper. There is no sudden break between the two periods. Fragments of shell and mother-of-pearl, often with incised designs, are very characteristic of the earliest period. Coins are of late date; a tell with coins on it is certain to contain buildings as late as the fourth or third century B.C. (though it may also contain far older buildings as well). One of the most useful criteria ...
— How to Observe in Archaeology • Various
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... horns, jewelled clasps, jade studs, enamels, grotesque figures in china, and a little Byzantine virgin with a vermilion ape; and all this was mingled in a golden twilight with the bluish shade of the carpet, the mother-of-pearl reflections of the foot-stools, and the tawny hue of the walls covered with maroon leather. In the corners, on little pedestals, there were bronze vases containing clusters of flowers, which made the ...
— Sentimental Education, Volume II - The History of a Young Man • Gustave Flaubert
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... good to me," answered Betty, picking up Mr. Sherman's gift, a beautiful mother-of-pearl opera-glass. It was like the one he had given Lloyd, except for the difference in monograms. She rubbed it lovingly with her handkerchief, and laid it beside the camera to be carried up-stairs. There were books from the old Colonel, an ivory ...
— The Little Colonel's Christmas Vacation • Annie Fellows Johnston
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... its part in working out the harmonious and decidedly pretty effect of the whole. All the furniture the large apartment boasts is a crimson-and-gold divan or two, a few strips of rich carpet, and an ebony stand-table, inlaid with mother-of-pearl; but suspended from the ceiling are several magnificent cut-glass chandeliers. At night, when these Persian mirrored rooms are lit up, they present a scene of barbaric splendor well calculated to delight ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
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... is going down. Towards the north, the sky has a pearl-grey tint; while, at the zenith, purple clouds, like the tufts of a gigantic mane, stretch over the blue vault. These purple streaks grow browner; the patches of blue assume the paleness of mother-of-pearl. The bushes, the pebbles, the earth, now wear the hard colour of bronze, and through space floats a golden dust so fine that it is scarcely distinguishable from the vibrations ...
— The Temptation of St. Antony - or A Revelation of the Soul • Gustave Flaubert
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... lac, mother-of-pearl, pickles, poppadums and curry powder—but now I am becoming encyclopaedic and scientific, and trespassing on ground already taken up ...
— Twenty-One Days in India; and, the Teapot Series • George Robert Aberigh-Mackay
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... form of charm will sometimes become popular, just as a new sanctuary becomes popular, because it is reported to have been effective in some particular case. Probably no change of fashion will ever banish horns made of coral or mother-of-pearl; being pointed, they are supposed to attract and break up the evil glance as a lightning conductor is supposed to attract and break up a ...
— Diversions in Sicily • H. Festing Jones
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... without stopping, apparently with the view of ascertaining if he were quite correctly put together, while Gluck stood contemplating him in speechless amazement. He was dressed in a slashed doublet of spun gold, so fine in its texture that the prismatic colors gleamed over it as if on a surface of mother-of-pearl; and over this brilliant doublet his hair and beard fell full halfway to the ground in waving curls, so exquisitely delicate that Gluck could hardly tell where they ended; they seemed to melt into air. The features of the face, however, were by no means finished ...
— The King of the Golden River - A Short Fairy Tale • John Ruskin.
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... compass showed the glow of the false dawn. Down in the cove the night mist wrapped the shipping about in an almost opaque veil. Only the lofty tops of craft like the Seamew were visible, black streaks against the mother-of-pearl sky line. ...
— Sheila of Big Wreck Cove - A Story of Cape Cod • James A. Cooper
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... tortoise-shell lorgnette on a narrow black ribbon, the signet-ring, were all such as are worn by persons of the most irreproachable good form. I am certain that in summer he must have worn light prunella shoes with mother-of-pearl buttons at the side. When we met he was standing still at the turning and looking about him, attentively. Noticing that I was looking at him with interest, he asked me in a sugary, though ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
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... of the room which was shut off, and from time to time, when Francis came to fetch a curling-iron, Jenkins caught sight of a huge dressing-table laden with a thousand little instruments of ivory, and mother-of-pearl, with steel files, scissors, puffs, and brushes, with bottles, with little trays, with cosmetics, labelled and arranged methodically in groups and lines; and amid all this display, awkward and already shaky, an old man's hand, shrunken and long, ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
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... suggested the Undulatory Theory Boyle and Hooke The Colours of thin Plates The Soap-bubble Newton's Rings Theory of 'Fits' Its Explanation of the Rings Overthrow of the Theory Diffraction of Light Colours produced by Diffraction Colours of Mother-of-Pearl. ...
— Six Lectures on Light - Delivered In The United States In 1872-1873 • John Tyndall
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... the "ferule," "cap," "bands" and "tips" of brass or nickel; then there are the covering, the runner "guard" which is of silk or leather, the "inside cap," the oftentimes fancy handle, which may be of ivory, bone, horn, walrus tusk, or even mother-of-pearl, or some kind of metal, and, if you will look sharply, you will find a rivet put ...
— Illustrated Science for Boys and Girls • Anonymous
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... instead of carpets, soft cushions of dark green velvet, so as to supersede the necessity of chairs. This room, evidently a favourite retreat, was adorned at close intervals with girandoles of silver and mother-of-pearl; and the interstices of the book-cases were filled with mirrors, set in silver: the handles of the doors were ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
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... like a scarlet eggy probing the mother-of-pearl lake with a long red line of shadow, until it wasted into grayness and so disappeared. Then home-returning sails became spiritualized, and moved in mist as in a dream—foggy lake and sky, as one body, seeming to ...
— The Cursed Patois - From "Mackinac And Lake Stories", 1899 • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
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... god Ganesh. It is intensely interesting to see the place just as it was hundreds of years ago. In the great Mosque Quadrangle there is a marble mausoleum, delicately carved, a priceless piece of work in mother-of-pearl, erected to Akbar's high priest; and our guide was his lineal descendant, glad to get five ...
— Olivia in India • O. Douglas
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... Actually, it was no great treasure, at a monetary calculation—certainly no fortune—but from our romantic point of view, as belonging to the race of Eternal Children, it was El Dorado, Aladdin's lamp, the mines of Peru, the whole sunken Spanish Main, glimmering fifty fathoms deep in mother-of-pearl and the moon. It was the very Secret Rose of Romance; and, also, mark you, it was some money—O! perhaps, all told, it might be some five thousand guineas, or—what would you say?—twenty-five odd thousand dollars; Calypso knows better than I, and she, as I said, alone knows where it is now hid, ...
— Pieces of Eight • Richard le Gallienne
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... conditions, where the sun rose astern daily with the joy of a giant running his course, bringing assurance of prosperity, and sank to rest ahead smiling, again behind the dimpling clouds which he tinged like mother-of-pearl. ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan
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... were more like scenes of enchantment pencilled by a poet's fancy, than anything perhaps before displayed in a domestic habitation. Escritoires of ebony, inlaid with mother-of-pearl, and rich caskets for antique gems, exquisitely enamelled and adorned with onyx, opals, rubies, and emeralds; cabinets of ivory, curiously wrought; mosaic tables, set with jasper, blood-stone, and lapis-lazuli, their feet carved into the claws of lions and eagles; screens of old raised Oriental ...
— Women in the fine arts, from the Seventh Century B.C. to the Twentieth Century A.D. • Clara Erskine Clement
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... and stamped its foot. She was determined to charm her uttermost. Her eye in the gloom was soft with mysterious invitations. George looked about the interior of the box; he saw the rich cloaks of the girls hanging up next to glossy masculine hats, the large mirror on the wall, and mother-of-pearl opera-glasses, chocolates, and flowers on the crimson ledge. He was very close to the powerfully built and yet plastic Lois. He could watch her changing curves as she breathed; the faint scent she used rose to his nostrils. ...
— The Roll-Call • Arnold Bennett
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... of this enclosure, there stood a throne of mother-of-pearl, borne aloft on two pillars, under cover of a high tent or pavilion, the pole of which was headed by a golden knob, the roof being of cloth of gold, and the ground covered by carpets. When the king came near, several noblemen ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume IX. • Robert Kerr
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... as an opal; the white sea is the flower of the breathless midsummer. And in its clear, silent waters, a few days, in the culmination of the heat, bring forth translucent living creatures, many-shaped jelly-fish, coloured like mother-of-pearl. ...
— The Rhythm of Life • Alice Meynell
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... ground, with a rich border ornamented with representations of sacred symbols and various other objects. The price paid for it was L1,000. There are also in the Museum some very rich chairs of modern Chinese work, in brown wood, probably teak, very elaborately inlaid with mother-of-pearl; they were ...
— Illustrated History of Furniture - From the Earliest to the Present Time • Frederick Litchfield
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... island of the Society group, and under the missions long established there, the natives have become civilized. In addition to the usual trade, sugar and mother-of-pearl ...
— Commercial Geography - A Book for High Schools, Commercial Courses, and Business Colleges • Jacques W. Redway
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... the room daintily to a little mother-of-pearl inlaid desk, she opened it with a silver key, and took out two or three papers crumpled and rather stained with green, which she submitted to her friend. Laura took them and read them. They were love-verses sure enough—something about Undine—about ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
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... laugh before she went away, and at length she did somewhat relax—smiling, and in a moment growing grave; but after a while she really and truly laughed, and when the whole harem was shown to the visitors, she slipped her bare and dyed feet into her pattens, inlaid with mother-of-pearl, and joined them in the courts, nestling to them, and apparently losing the sense of her new position for a time; but there was less of the gaiety of a child about her than in the elderly widows. Her dress was superb—a full skirt and bodice of geranium-coloured ...
— Celebrated Women Travellers of the Nineteenth Century • W. H. Davenport Adams
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... spear! Wait till the fires arise! Wait till the sky drops down and touches the spear, Crystal and mother-of-pearl! The sunlight droops forward Like wings. The birds sing songs of sun-drops. The sky leans down where the spear stands upward. . . I hear music . . . It is ...
— Poems By a Little Girl • Hilda Conkling
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... worn her gown. It was a rose pink with some rich flame-coloured material in front, and was held by two of the narrowest bands on her shoulders. In the deep decollete she pushed two rosebuds from the big bunch, and hung round her neck a pendant of mother-of-pearl and silver. She wore no other jewellery, and she needed none. She faced ...
— Simon Called Peter • Robert Keable
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... safe within her mother's unthinking knowledge. She had a mother-of-pearl rosary that had been her own father's. What it meant to her she could never say. But the string of moonlight and silver, when she had it between her fingers, filled her with strange passion. She learned at school a ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence
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... head. Scrubbing it, as she does now, with a hard brush, against the asperities of the rough plank, and then twisting it up like a roly-poly prior to swishing it through the water a second time, would once have induced me to doubt the strength of delicate mother-of-pearl buttons and fine white thread. I ...
— Rivers of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
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... conflict, and produced dulness ... an Asiatic dulness, like Asiatic cholera. Maria Nikolaevna listened patiently to half an act, but when the first lover, discovering the treachery of his mistress (he was dressed in a cinnamon-coloured coat with 'puffs' and a plush collar, a striped waistcoat with mother-of-pearl buttons, green trousers with straps of varnished leather, and white chamois leather gloves), when this lover pressed both fists to his bosom, and poking his two elbows out at an acute angle, howled like a dog, Maria Nikolaevna ...
— The Torrents of Spring • Ivan Turgenev
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... wholly detached from it, so that, on a smart blow dealt by the hammer, they leap out entire, resembling, from the degree of compression which they exhibit, those mimic fishes carved out of plates of ivory or of mother-of-pearl, which are used as counters in some of the games of China or the East Indies. The material of which they are composed, a brittle jet, though better suited than the stone to resist the disintegrating influences, ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller
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... covered with minute pieces of turquoise—cut and polished, accurately fitted, many thousands in number, and set on a dark gum or cement. The eyes, however, are acute-oval patches of mother-of-pearl; and there are two small square patches of the same on the temples, through which a string passed to suspend the mask; and the teeth are of hard white shell. The eyes are perforated, and so are the nostrils, and the upper and lower teeth are separated by a transverse chink; ...
— Anahuac • Edward Burnett Tylor
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... has counted more than one hundred and fifty patterns in the Hall of the Ambassadors, impressed with iron moulds on the moist plaster of the walls. The roof is a low dome of larch wood, intricately carved and inlaid with ivory and with mother-of-pearl; it has been likened to the faceted surface of an elaborately cut gem. The effect is so gorgeous that you are oppressed; you long for some perfectly plain space whereon to rest the eye; but every ...
— The Land of The Blessed Virgin; Sketches and Impressions in Andalusia • William Somerset Maugham
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... of the animal—is to be safely accepted as analogous to the silky smoothness which molluscs (often of rough and rugged exterior) obtain by nacreous deposit and which finds its culmination in the goldlip mother-of-pearl? ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
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... aunt in the long parlor, playing Patience. She was sitting in a straight-backed chair,—for Mrs. Dale scorned the weakness of a rocking-chair,—before a spindle-legged table, covered with green baize and with a cherry-wood rim inlaid with mother-of-pearl and ivory. On it were thirteen groups of cards, arranged with geometrical exactness at intervals of ...
— John Ward, Preacher • Margaret Deland
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... his loaded camels, proudly arching their long necks as they journey beneath the lofty pines over holy ground, I saw a hedge of roses. The turtle-dove flew among the branches of the tall trees, and as the sunbeams fell upon her wings, they glistened as if they were mother-of-pearl. On the rose-bush grew a flower, more beautiful than them all, and to her the nightingale sung of his woes; but the rose remained silent, not even a dewdrop lay like a tear of sympathy on her leaves. At last she bowed her head over a heap of stones, and said, "Here ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
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