"Piquancy" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... ward, they too are free! The nimble footman is free, the crushed porter between the trucks is free, the woman in the mill, the child in the mine. Ask them! They will tell you how free they are. They have happened to choose these ways of living—that is all. No doubt the piquancy of the life attracts them ...
— New Worlds For Old - A Plain Account of Modern Socialism • Herbert George Wells
... perfection undemanded by their neighbors. Perhaps it would have been rash to say then that she was at all exceptional inwardly, or that the unusual in her was more than her rare grace of movement and bearing, and a certain daring which gave piquancy to a very common egoistic ambition, such as exists under many clumsy exteriors and is taken no notice of. For I suppose that the set of the head does not really determine the hunger of the inner self for supremacy: ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... impetuous stream from the depths of the breast than in the scantily-gifted many who merely count and are nothing. Cicero had no conviction and no passion; he was nothing but an advocate, and not a good one. He understood how to set forth his narrative of the case with piquancy of anecdote, to excite, if not the feeling, at any rate the sentimentality of his hearers, and to enliven the dry business of legal pleading by cleverness or witticisms mostly of a personal sort; his better orations, though they are far from coming up to the ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... discovering the old Chinese poetry and painting, we are finding that Natural Magic is really far more Chinese than Celtic—that where we Celts have vibrated to it minorly, the great Chinese gave it out fully and grandly—does it not add to the piquancy ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... Robinson meant the election of Cornell, and Republicans naturally welcomed any effort to accomplish it. They greeted Kelly, during his tour of the State, with noise and music, crowded his meetings, and otherwise sought to dishearten Robinson's friends. Although Kelly's speeches did not compare in piquancy with his printed words, his references to Tilden as the "old humbug of Cipher Alley" and to Robinson as having "sore eyes" when signing bills, kept his hearers expectant and his enemies disturbed. The World followed him, reporting his speeches ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... you reflect a moment, you will see that, while it is easy to choose what virtues we would have our wife possess, it is all but impossible to imagine those faults we would desire in her, which I think most lovers would admit add piquancy to the loved one, that fascinating wayward imperfection which paradoxically ...
— The Quest of the Golden Girl • Richard le Gallienne
... and charities of private life, he is correct, exemplary, generous, just. We never heard a single impropriety laid to his charge; and if he has many enemies, few men can boast more numerous or stauncher friends.—The variety and piquancy of his writings form a striking contrast to the mode in which they are produced. He rises early, and writes or reads till breakfast-time. He writes or reads after breakfast till dinner, after dinner till tea, ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... almost as attractive as those of Lucerne, and gave an air of modernity and civilisation to the little place, which would have been out of the picture, had it not contrived to suggest the piquancy of contrast. The Boy spent a hundred francs for a silver chamois poised upon the apex of a perilous peak of uncut amethysts, mounted on ebony, and I was witty at the expense of his purchase, likening it to the white elephant of Instantaneous Breakfasts ...
— The Princess Passes • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... a will of her own, and she had a heart all womanly. She was a beauty—yes, a beauty by any set rule of the world. Her large black eyes were neither slitted nor slanted in the Asiatic way. They were long, true, but set squarely, and with just the slightest hint of obliqueness that was all for piquancy. ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London
... light and shade in mood, or one is not charmed even by great beauty. So your perfect room must not be kept too rigidly in one style. To have attraction it must have variety in both line and colour, and reflect the taste of generations of home lovers. The contents of dusty garrets may add piquancy to modern decorations, giving a touch of the unusual which ...
— The Art of Interior Decoration • Grace Wood
... all unadulterated sweetness, of course. There were enough difficulties in the way to make it seem desirable; and a few stings of annoyance, now and then, lent piquancy to the adventure. But a good memory, in dealing with the past, has the art of straining out all the beeswax of discomfort, and storing up little jars of pure hydromel. As we look back at our six weeks in Norway, we agree that no period of our partnership in experimental ...
— Fisherman's Luck • Henry van Dyke
... full of little irregularities; a hardly perceptible cast in one eye; the nose drawn a bit to one side, and the mouth twitched decidedly to the other when she talked or laughed. It was this misproportion which gave a piquancy to her expression and which in charming people, no doubt made them ...
— At Fault • Kate Chopin
... [The piquancy of the paradox evaporates in translation. Concealment is perhaps not so much actual invisibility (see supra ss. 9) as "showing no sign" of what you mean to do, of the plans that are formed in ...
— The Art of War • Sun Tzu
... Charles Lamb and the late Mr. Travers, stammered just enough to give piquancy to his conversation. To facilitate enunciation he placed a "g" before the letters which it was hard for him to pronounce. We were talking of the many sad and sudden deaths from pneumonia, bronchitis, etc., during the recent spring season, and then of the insincerity of poets ...
— Memories and Anecdotes • Kate Sanborn
... his appearance. He spoke with a grave and silvery pitch that made his words seem to soar lightly over his audience. His accent was that of the genuine society man, but a delicate touch—a mere suspicion—of Scotch gave the cultured tones a certain odd piquancy. A solemn note of deep passion trembled, as it were, amid the floating music, and every word went home. This jolly, rosy missionary is one of the best of living popular speakers, and his passionate simplicity fairly conquers the very rudest of audiences. The man believes ...
— The Chequers - Being the Natural History of a Public-House, Set Forth in - a Loafer's Diary • James Runciman
... ever go on living with them. And now—I find myself wondering how I am ever going to live without them. We shall not see their like again. The new lot—present lot—are splendid fellows. They are probably better soldiers. Certainly they are more uniformly trained. But there was a piquancy about our old scamps in 'K(1)' that was unique—priceless—something the world will never ...
— All In It K(1) Carries On - A Continuation of the First Hundred Thousand • John Hay Beith (AKA: Ian Hay)
... brought her down half a dozen to choose from, and even the eye of Jock, who doubtless knew nothing about them, made Lady Randolph a little more scrupulous than usual in choosing her book. She was one of those women who like the piquancy and freedom of French fiction. She would say to persons of like tastes that the English proprieties were tame beside the other, and she thought herself old enough to be altogether beyond any risk of harm. Perhaps this was why she divined ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant
... will add piquancy to the visit." Then he added, "Don't you see, Bulchester, that I dare not throw away an opportunity? Ship 'Number One' has foundered. 'Number Two' must come to land. That is ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1 • Various
... blood, and heinous crimes added piquancy to Mrs. Haywood's love stories, but were not the normal material of her romances. Her talent was chiefly for "soft things." She preferred the novel of intrigue and passion in which the characters could ...
— The Life and Romances of Mrs. Eliza Haywood • George Frisbie Whicher
... was the best bargain he ever made, as the satires were worth L4,000. Young, it will be seen, preceded Pope as a satirist. He is more generous and humane, and has none of the venomous attacks on living persons by which Pope added piquancy to his verse. But he is a careless writer, and for the most part lacks the exquisite precision, the subtle wit, the rhythmical felicity, which make the couplets of Pope so memorable. The Dunciad, the Moral Essays, and the Imitations are read ...
— The Age of Pope - (1700-1744) • John Dennis
... fourth class, (perhaps even some of the second,) it makes little or no difference who writes them—they are good enough for what they are; nor is it necessary that they should be actual emanations from the personality and life of the writers. The very reverse sometimes gives piquancy. But poems of the first class, (poems of the depth, as distinguished from those of the surface,) are to be sternly tallied with the poets themselves, and tried by them and their lives. Who wants a glorification of courage and manly defiance from a coward or ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... Aristophanes and of Plautus can never be denied the honour of sprightliness, animation, and invention; nor that of Menander and Terence the praise of nature and of delicacy; to that of Moliere must be allowed the happy secret of uniting all the piquancy of the former, with a peculiar art which they did not know. Of these three sorts of merit, let us show to each the justice that is due, let us, in each, separate the pure and the true, from the false gold, without approving or condemning ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson
... days at the mines there had been a certain piquancy in her sense of the contrast between herself and her circumstances, but that had long passed into a dreary recognition of the fact that she had no real part in ...
— In Exile and Other Stories • Mary Hallock Foote
... in imperfect English, a circumstance that rendered the sweet round tones of the speaker very agreeable to the ear, and lent the charm of piquancy to what she said. I could not distinguish countenances from the drawer, but I fancied young Shoreham to be a handsome youth, the governess to be pale and slightly ugly, though very agreeable in manner, and Julia excessively embarrassed, but ...
— Autobiography of a Pocket-Hankerchief • James Fenimore Cooper
... rather tired and preoccupied man takes his wife of four years' standing out to dinner he knows that he need not exert himself to talk, to shine, to please, as with a woman who holds the piquancy of a stranger; so while Osborn spoke spasmodically, or drifted into silence, Marie could look around her and think thoughts which chilled the ardour of her soul. It seemed to her, that evening of her twenty-ninth ...
— Married Life - The True Romance • May Edginton
... a more elaborate picture 'in the fall.' Now, Dal, you know you admire her immensely. She is lovely, she is charming, she hails from the land whose women, when they possess charm, unite with it a freshness and a piquancy which place them beyond compare. In some ways you are so unique yourself that you ought to have a wife with a certain amount of originality. Now, I hardly know how far the opinion of your friends would influence you in such a matter, but you may like to hear how fully they approve ...
— The Rosary • Florence L. Barclay
... had not the advantage of knowing Evadne's early history when they first became acquainted adds a certain piquancy to the flavour of his impressions, and the reader, better informed than himself with regard to the antecedents of his "subject," will find it interesting to note both the accuracy of his insight and the curious mistakes which it is possible even for a trained observer like himself ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... thus [accent symbol]) give to the musical phrase a piquancy that is admirably in keeping with the gay and careless character of the page, Oscar, who sings it. In fact, as regards Style, Musical accent is particularly valuable in song for the purpose of setting forth the true character of the music. Hence, it may be regarded ...
— Style in Singing • W. E. Haslam
... a piquancy about these libels on the dead which we cannot understand, but which we may contrast with the less dishonourable process known to modern historians as "whitewashing." Just as Tiberius and Henry VIII. have been rescued from the infamy of ages, ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 3, March, 1891 • Various
... he forgot all French encroachments, and the imbecility of geographers in general, as his glance chanced to fall upon a young woman of fresh and striking beauty, and delightful piquancy of ways and expression, who with a clumsy club was pounding fragments of pottery—urns, vases, and goglets—for the foundation of the watt. Very artless and happy she seemed, and free as she was lovely; but the instant she perceived she had attracted ...
— The English Governess At The Siamese Court • Anna Harriette Leonowens
... is an exaggerated form of statement, and is used to magnify or diminish an object. It is quite natural, under the impulse of strong emotion or imagination, to use exaggerated statements, and frequently it serves to lend piquancy and force to style. But this tendency is dangerous, and should be kept under restraint. As a rule it is best to see and describe things as they are. The following from "Julius Caesar" will serve ...
— Elementary Guide to Literary Criticism • F. V. N. Painter
... unmistakably Gallic flavor or piquancy savors the life of the people; it disappears only when they cease to be their own natural selves. A woman novelist, American by birth, but a resident of several years in Paris, told me a story illustrative of this. ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb
... interested. A melancholy, mysterious hero in a setting of silver-rimmed sand hills and wide blue sweeps of ocean was something that ought to lend piquancy to her vacation. ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1896 to 1901 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... go out into the great, mysterious world. Never before had he shared a meal with the girls alone. The situation was indubitably unexpected, unforeseen; it was, too, piquant, and what added to its piquancy was the fact that Constance and Sophia were, somehow, responsible for Mr. Povey. They felt that they were responsible for him. They had offered the practical sympathy of two intelligent and well-trained young women, born nurses by reason ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... not only in the choice of the cacao beans but also in the selection of spices and essences, for, whilst the fundamental flavour of a chocolate is determined by the blend of beans and the method of manufacture, the piquancy and special character are often obtained by the addition of minute quantities of flavourings. The point in the manufacture at which the flavour is added is as late as possible so as to avoid the possible loss of aroma in handling. The flavours used include cardamom, cassia, ...
— Cocoa and Chocolate - Their History from Plantation to Consumer • Arthur W. Knapp
... possessing but two hundred gulden, of being at a loose end, of lacking both a post, the means of subsistence, a shred of hope, and any plans for the future, yet of caring nothing for these things. Had not my mind been so full of Polina, I should have given myself up to the comical piquancy of the impending denouement, and laughed my fill at it. But the thought of Polina was torture to me. That her fate was settled I already had an inkling; yet that was not the thought which was giving me ...
— The Gambler • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... give an idea, in writing, of the pleasant manner he has of relating these things—a manner that receives additional piquancy from his English, which, though good, is necessarily broken. He usually prefers the English ...
— A Residence in France - With An Excursion Up The Rhine, And A Second Visit To Switzerland • J. Fenimore Cooper
... those groups of pages, of maids-in-waiting, of shepherds, of deities, etc., which are so characteristic of Lyly's plays. There is no real distinction between page and page, and between nymph and nymph; but their merry conversations give a piquancy and colour to the drama which make up for, and in part conceal, the absence of character. All that was necessary for the creation of character was to fit these pieces of the moral type together again ...
— John Lyly • John Dover Wilson
... York, the least snobbish of great cities, a man need have but a dress suit and car-fare—if he be the right kind of a man, of course—to go anywhere and hold up his head with the best. In a place so universally rich, there is even a certain piquancy in being a pauper. The Grossenstecks were overcome to think I shined my own shoes, and had to calculate my shirts, and the fact that I was no longer young (that's the modern formula for forty), and next-door to a failure in the art I had followed ...
— Love, The Fiddler • Lloyd Osbourne
... that content with the small daily events which had now become burdensome recurrences. Insensibly to herself she was becoming dependent on his timid devotion, his constant attention; and he, lover-like, once so attracted, in spite of his judgment, by her liveliness and piquancy, now doted on her languor, and thought her ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. II • Elizabeth Gaskell
... advanced Sunna's letters grew bright and more and more like her, and she described with admirable imitative piquancy the literary atmosphere and conversation which is Edinburgh's native air. In the month of November, little Eric went away suddenly, in a paroxysm of military enthusiasm, dying literally the death of a soldier "with tumult, with ...
— An Orkney Maid • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... point which can be sacrificed without detriment to the music and at only a trifling cost to the comedy (even when it is looked upon from the viewpoint which prevailed in Europe at the period of its creation) is that which Beaumarchais relied on chiefly to add piquancy to the conduct of the Count. Almaviva, we are given to understand, on his marriage with Rosina had voluntarily abandoned an ancient seignorial right, described by Susanna as "certe mezz' ore che il diritto feudale," but is desirous of reviving the practice in the case of the ...
— A Book of Operas - Their Histories, Their Plots, and Their Music • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... rather pears like the Seckle for preserving, both on account of the flavor and size. A nice way is to stick a clove in the blossom end of each pear, for this fruit seems to require some extraneous flavor to bring out its own piquancy. Another acceptable addition to pear preserves may be found instead, by adding the juice and thinly pared rind of one lemon to each five pounds of fruit. If the pears are hard and tough, parboil them until tender before beginning to preserve, and from the same water take what ...
— The Whitehouse Cookbook (1887) - The Whole Comprising A Comprehensive Cyclopedia Of Information For - The Home • Mrs. F.L. Gillette
... the return of Cherubina to real life, where she is eventually restored to her father and to Stuart. The incidents, which follow one another in rapid succession, are foolish and extravagant, but the reminiscences they awaken lend them piquancy. The trappings and furniture of a dozen Gothic castles are here accumulated in generous profusion. Mouldering manuscripts, antique beds of decayed damask, a four-horsed barouche, and fluttering tapestry rejoice the heart of Cherubina, for each item in this curious ...
— The Tale of Terror • Edith Birkhead
... strode in, and after the preliminary greetings Diana asked with charming piquancy, "O! are you really ...
— The Rhodesian • Gertrude Page
... the Devotee Prince (vol. v. iii) and the whole Tale of Azizah (vol. ii. 298), whose angelic love is set off by the sensuality and selfishness of her more fortunate rivals. A new note of absolutely tragic dignity seems to be struck in the Sweep and the Noble Lady (vol. iv. 125), showing the piquancy of sentiment which can be evolved from the common and the unclean. The pretty conceit of the Lute (vol. v. 244) is afterwards carried out in the Song (vol. viii. 281), which is a masterpiece of originality[FN294] and (in the Arabic) of exquisite tenderness ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton
... can't see why I should remain," she protested, facing him again. He noted how strikingly handsome she was, her dimpled cheeks delicately moulded and her pretty chin slightly protruding, which gave a delightful piquancy to her features. ...
— The Doctor of Pimlico - Being the Disclosure of a Great Crime • William Le Queux
... on every public and proper subject, stripped of verbiage and coloring, with comments, when suitable, just, independent, fearless, and good-tempered. If the Herald wants the mere expansion which many journals possess, we shall try to make it up in industry, good taste, brevity, variety, point, piquancy, and cheapness." ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... August, in shallow drills 6 or 8 in. apart. Cut for use when 3 or 4 in. high. The tender tops and leaves are used in soups and stews, to which they impart a warm, aromatic flavour. They likewise give piquancy to mixed salads. ...
— Gardening for the Million • Alfred Pink
... much as from choler, which furnisheth the lowest inventions with a kind of pungent expression, and giveth an edge to every spiteful word: so that any dull wretch doth seem to scold eloquently and ingeniously. Commonly also satirical taunts do owe their seeming piquancy, not to the speaker or his words, but to the subject, and the hearers; the matter conspiring with the bad nature or the vanity of men who love to laugh at any rate, and to be pleased at the expense of other men's repute; conceiting themselves extolled by the depression of their neighbour, ...
— Sermons on Evil-Speaking • Isaac Barrow
... from school. Whether or not he had been induced to this display by the excitement did not transpire. Enough that the effect was a success. The riding skirt and her mustang's fripperies had added to Concha's piquancy, and if her origin was still doubted by some, the child herself was accepted with enthusiasm. The parents who were spectators were proud of this distinguished accession to their children's playmates, and when she dismounted amid the acclaim of her little companions, ...
— Trent's Trust and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... detail and held the lamp high at the end to afford a better glimpse of the handsome Irishman smiling back at him from the mirror in the bureau. No doubt of it, give a fashionable tailor disposed to be experimental, his head and enough money on account and he could create a dash and piquancy worth while. Always remembering that such a creative artisan was fortunate to find a suitable contrast of shoulder and ...
— Kenny • Leona Dalrymple
... afternoon the piebald horses and dark brown chariot of the Amadors drew up before the gateway. The young people were delighted with Dona Felipa, and thought her blue eyes and tawny hair gave an added piquancy to her colorless satin skin and otherwise distinctively Spanish face and figure. Aunt Viney, who entertained Donna Maria, was nevertheless watchful of the others; but failed to detect in Dick's effusive greeting, or the Dona's coquettish smile of recognition, ...
— The Bell-Ringer of Angel's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... day before he had thought of Therese. He had all night dreamed and yearned over her image. He saw her again, delightful, but in another manner, and even more desirable than he had imagined in his insomnia; less visionary, of a more vivid piquancy, and also of a mind more mysteriously impenetrable. She was sad; she seemed cold and indifferent. He said to himself that he was nothing to her; that he was becoming importunate and ridiculous. This irritated him. ...
— The Red Lily, Complete • Anatole France
... of the fifteenth century: he was familiar with Villon, Pathelin, the Quinze Joies de Mariage, the Cent Nouvelles, the chronicles and the romances, and even earlier works, too, such as the Roman de la Rose. Their words, their turns of expression came naturally to his pen, and added a piquancy and, as it were, a kind of gloss of antique novelty to his work. He fabricated words, too, on Greek and Latin models, with great ease, sometimes audaciously and with needless frequency. These were for him ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... will be welcomed by older readers as gladly as its predecessor was greeted by girls and boys. The lavish use the publishers have made of colored plates, woodcuts and photographic reproductions, gives an unwonted piquancy to the printed page, catching the eye as surely as the text engages the mind."—New ...
— Duffels • Edward Eggleston
... beauty which her excitement called forth, added piquancy to her natural charms, and inflamed Santa Anna's wicked passions all the more. But more than any of them revenge. For now he knew how much the fair petitioner was interested in the man whose suit she had preferred. With ...
— The Free Lances - A Romance of the Mexican Valley • Mayne Reid
... each sex in many things strange to the other, and capable of sympathy only with their own. It is in giving full play to the differences of sex rather than in seeking to obliterate them, as was apparently the effort of some reformers in your day, that the enjoyment of each by itself and the piquancy which each has for the other, are alike enhanced. In your day there was no career for women except in an unnatural rivalry with men. We have given them a world of their own, with its emulations, ambitions, and careers, and I assure ...
— Looking Backward - 2000-1887 • Edward Bellamy
... frequently was about the favourite law-breakers of fiction, but how they might give rise to the need of the highest courage in others and lead to romantic adventures of an exceedingly exciting kind. A certain piquancy is given to the story by a slight trace of nineteenth century malice in the picturing of eighteenth century ...
— Tales of Daring and Danger • George Alfred Henty
... tremor of fear that had come to him when beneath the menhir's shadow he had watched the opening of her eyes, returned to him. It was not an unpleasant sensation. Rather it added a piquancy to their relationship. But it was distinctly real. She watched the feeding of the monster; and then he came again and stood beside ...
— Malvina of Brittany • Jerome K. Jerome
... Parson, who never fulminated from the pulpit till she felt the fear of hell melting her bones within her. This the lawyer did, and managed at the same time to make her feel herself a good woman, one of the saved, and the piquancy of the double sensation was the hidden drug of Annie's life. She dallied with thoughts of eternal suffering as a Flagellant with imagings of torture, and when her mind was reeling at the very edge of the pit she would pull herself back with a loud outcry on the Almighty, followed ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... the loss of Deventer and, with it, the almost ruinous condition of three out of the seven Provinces, might excuse on their part a little piquancy of phraseology, nor was it easy for them to express gratitude to the governor for his grave and gentle admonitions, after he had, by his secret document of 24th November, rendered himself fully responsible ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... himself to be penning the truth. The most reasonable explanation of the matter appears to be, that tickled by Swift's venomous lines, the sarcastic Frenchman in malice and gaiety adopted them, and added to their piquancy by the assurance that the Chancellor's book was not only published, but was preserved by connoisseurs as a ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... unfortunately for her own happiness, married my Lord Chesterfield at the Hague, when, a few months before the restoration, that nobleman fled to the continent to escape the consequences of Francis Woolley's murder. In Lely's picture of the young Countess of Chesterfield, her piquancy attracts at a glance, whilst her beauty charms on examination. Her cousin, Anthony Hamilton, describes her as having large blue eyes, very tempting and alluring, a complexion extremely fair, and a heart "ever open to tender sentiments," by ...
— Royalty Restored - or, London under Charles II. • J. Fitzgerald Molloy
... face it was intended to mar. But when the observer had studied the eyes sufficiently to notice this defect, he was generally incapacitated for criticism; and even the scar on her cheek was thought by some to add piquancy to her smile. The youthful editor of THE FIDDLETOWN AVALANCHE had said privately that it was "an exaggerated dimple." Colonel Starbottle was instantly "reminded of the beautifying patches of the days of Queen Anne, but more ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... is exceedingly unwise to build a fire in the wilderness and go to sleep beside it, unless there is someone with you to watch. I'm ashamed of you, Monsieur Garay, to have neglected such an elementary lesson. It made your capture easy, so ridiculously easy that it lacked piquancy and interest. Tayoga and I were not able to give our faculties and strength the healthy exercise they need. Come now, are you ...
— The Masters of the Peaks - A Story of the Great North Woods • Joseph A. Altsheler
... Clytemnestra slew her husband, and Orestes his mother. Note the contrast which the duel between Alfio and Turiddu presents with the double murder to the piquant accompaniment of comedy in "Pagliacci," the opera which followed so hard upon its heels. Since then piquancy has been the cry; the piquant contemplation of adultery, seduction, and murder amid the reek and stench of the Italian barnyard. Think of Cila's "Tilda," Giordano's "Mala Vita," Spinelli's "A Basso Porto," and Tasca's ...
— Chapters of Opera • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... the value of sweetness or piquancy in food. To the man whose senses are of the simplest order there is no other idea of sweetness than this. But a finer essence, a more highly placed sensation of the same order, is reached by another perception. The sweetness on the face of a lovely woman, or in the smile of a friend, is recognised ...
— Light On The Path and Through the Gates of Gold • Mabel Collins
... his r's in a way that gives piquancy and vigour to his conversation. He talks of others with a natural magnanimity which comes from the heart, like the expression of his eyes, and rings true, like the sound of his voice. And then again, he really need not envy any one. Have I not said ...
— The New Book Of Martyrs • Georges Duhamel
... bailiff's hypocritical regard for appearances save Eve and David from the disgrace of a suspension of payment? Let each judge for himself. A tolerably long digression of this kind will seem all too short; and ninety out of every hundred readers shall seize with avidity upon details that possess all the piquancy of novelty, thus establishing yet once again the trust of the well-known axiom, that there is nothing so little known as that which everybody is supposed to know—the Law of ...
— Eve and David • Honore de Balzac
... her exposed neck was within two feet of him bent in seeming innocence over the tray. With a mischievous laugh he reached over and flipped the hot ashes from his cigar upon her neck. She screamed affectedly and danced about shaking off the ashes. Then with feigned maidenly piquancy and many reproachful glances, she went out ...
— The Bishop of Cottontown - A Story of the Southern Cotton Mills • John Trotwood Moore
... she said, not ungracefully, a slight color coming into her sallow cheek, which, in conjunction with the gold eye-glasses, gave her, at least in the eyes of the impressible Clint, a certain piquancy. "But my father said you were here in committee and I might consult you. I can come again, if ...
— Openings in the Old Trail • Bret Harte
... temperament, has naturally taken the position of a popular composer, he has done so almost entirely in consequence of the inherently popular character of the music he has turned out, which, for striking rhythm and melodic piquancy, has taken the ear not alone of the United States but of the whole world, his marches being widely played in all foreign countries, where they are received with the liveliest demonstrations of approval. In fact, very much the same kind of mild excitement ...
— The Masters and their Music - A series of illustrative programs with biographical, - esthetical, and critical annotations • W. S. B. Mathews
... on the stage, then a more lengthy one of the old woman, with the contents of the letter she was reading. It was from a niece at a boarding-school, who proposed, in a brief and direct way, to visit this aunt during her coming vacation. The tableau was acted so well, and with such piquancy, that claps and peals of laughter from the audience, and finally calls for "Kate Underwood," who demurely makes her appearance from behind the curtain, drops a stage courtesy, and disappears. The poem had been (this audience constituting the ...
— Miss Ashton's New Pupil - A School Girl's Story • Mrs. S. S. Robbins
... spectacles. But oh, what a dove-coloured dress! Walter Crane might have designed it—one of those perfect travelling costumes of which the America girl seems to possess a monopoly; and the spectacles—well, the spectacles, though undoubtedly real, added just a touch of piquancy to an otherwise almost painfully timid and retiring ...
— Stories by English Authors: The Sea • Various
... drawn him at first; her indifference and stolidity had piqued him; and now the shyness that displaced these was inconsistent and puzzling. This he set himself deliberately at work to remove, and the conscious effort gave a peculiar piquancy to their intercourse. He had learned the secret of association with the mountaineers-to be as little unlike them as possible-and he put the knowledge into practice. He discarded coat and waistcoat, wore a slouched ...
— A Mountain Europa • John Fox Jr.
... him an onion? Well, for the simple reason that though an onion is one of the most valuable of all vegetables, though it is the finest of relishes, though it has added piquancy to a thousand feasts, yet nobody praises the onion. Of course you know the author is right here. You may have read some great poetry in your time, poems on daffodils, violets, roses, daisies. Even you have known a great ...
— Sermons on Biblical Characters • Clovis G. Chappell
... small leases, the possession of valuable horses, etc., were mere fanciful adjuncts which the witty and inventive legislators of the Hanoverian dynasty were happy enough to find unrecorded in the statute-books, and which they had the honor of setting there, and thus adding a new piquancy and vigorous flavor to the ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud
... knife fairly divide the spheroid body, and a somewhat nauseous-looking meat is disclosed; but no more objectionable in appearance than the substance of a fully ripe passion fruit. The flavour! Ah, the flavour! It surpasseth the delectable oyster. It hath more of the savour and piquancy of the ocean. It clingeth to the palate and purgeth it of grosser tastes. It recalleth the clean and marvellous creature, whose life has been spent in cool coral grottoes, among limestone and the salty essences ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... is handy it may be substituted for the flour, and should be added with one ounce of butter to the sauce five minutes before it is strained. A teaspoonful of lemon juice added the last thing will give additional piquancy ...
— New Vegetarian Dishes • Mrs. Bowdich
... for a little time. The contrast amuses by its piquancy. To write of wild and whirling things in your books, but in public life to be associated with nothing more wild and whirling than a shirt-fronted eye-glassed hansom; to be at heart an Alastor, but in appearance a bank-clerk, delights an ...
— Prose Fancies • Richard Le Gallienne
... her gaze, and she drew her brow into a little frown. It gave her a curious piquancy, and interested him. She ...
— A Little Girl in Old Quebec • Amanda Millie Douglas
... part, the moveable embellishments of the seven chambers, upon occasion of this great fete; and it was his own guiding taste which had given character to the masqueraders. Be sure they were grotesque. There were much glare and glitter and piquancy and phantasm—much of what has been since seen in "Hernani." There were arabesque figures with unsuited limbs and appointments. There were delirious fancies such as the madman fashions. There was much of the beautiful, much of the wanton, much of the bizarre, something of the terrible, and not ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... far the result has been satisfactory. In Alsace-Lorraine no one can help being struck with the fine appearance of the people. The men are tall, handsome, and well made, the women graceful and often exceedingly lovely, French piquancy and symmetrical proportions combined with Teutonic fairness of complexion, blonde hair, ...
— In the Heart of the Vosges - And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... good-naturedly insisted on her singing to him. He had even offered, when he had more time, to give her a few lessons. Lady Conroy told her a hundred interesting stories about him and Dulcie found a tinge of romance about him that helped to give piquancy to her ...
— Love at Second Sight • Ada Leverson
... I was to make a fortune, incidentally my name, marry, and live happily ever after. There seemed last year nothing complex about that programme. It seemed almost too simple. I even, like a fool, thought to add an extra touch of piquancy to it by endeavouring to be a Bohemian. I then discovered that what I was attempting was not so simple as I had imagined. To begin with, Bohemians diffuse their brains in every direction except that where bread-and-butter comes ...
— Not George Washington - An Autobiographical Novel • P. G. Wodehouse
... while affecting to smile, have in their eyes and their voices the hesitation of absent-mindedness, that feeling of apprehension of the battle before the footlights which will always be one of the most potent attractions of the actor's profession, its piquancy, ...
— The Nabob, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... a suitor for the hand of Mrs. Hardy than as a rival for that of Irene. On the latter score he had no misgivings; he was confident of his ability to worst any adversary in that field, and competition would lend a piquancy to his courtship not altogether without advantages; but he had no such confidence in the case of an assault upon the heart of the elder woman. He could not become Conward's rival in such a case, and, repugnant as the ...
— The Cow Puncher • Robert J. C. Stead
... evidently did enjoy it, for a very pleasant little performance it was. The songs had a thrill of either pathos or piquancy in every word and note, and the audience found they were listening in ...
— Vagabondia - 1884 • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... already adorned with a certain humor which now and then sparkles through his serious pages. Ruskin brings with him quite a respectable load of artistic baggage; he brings an incisiveness, a sarcasm, often a piquancy with him, which makes him entertaining besides inspiring. Emerson and Carlyle bring with them much that, as artistic work; might, under more favorable auspices, have been worth saving for its own sake: the one brings a grace, a sportiveness, and a brilliancy which fascinates, ...
— Lectures on Russian Literature - Pushkin, Gogol, Turgenef, Tolstoy • Ivan Panin
... 1754. For though few persons will be inclined to agree with Horace Walpole's opinion that Bolingbroke's 'metaphysical divinity was the best of his writings,' yet the eminence of the writer, the purity and piquancy of his style, the real and extensive learning which he displayed, would, one might have imagined, have awakened a far greater interest in his writings than was actually shown. Very few replies were written to this, the last, and in some ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton
... neither form nor colour; how shall I paint with them? It was not the beauty of mere form and colour, either, that struck Mrs. Barclay in Lois's face. You may easily see more regular features and more dazzling complexion. It was not any particular brilliance of eye, or piquancy of expression. There was a soundness and fulness of young life; that is not so uncommon either. There was a steadfast strength and sweetness of nature. There was an unconscious, innocent grace, that is exceedingly rare. And a high, noble expression of countenance ...
— Nobody • Susan Warner
... to sit silent, lulled by the rising and falling murmur of the stream, and by that agreeably cruel memory. . . . He had no inclination to recall it to Val, but it lent an emotional piquancy to their intercourse. He had the whip hand of Val through the past, and perhaps the present also. Lawrence had been struck by Val's allusion to Mrs. Clowes. He was the friend of the house, was he? Now the position of a friend of the house who ...
— Nightfall • Anthony Pryde
... worth the glance, as he admitted willingly enough afterward. She was the dainty type, with fluffy bright brown hair, eyes the color of wood violets, a nose tilted to the precise angle of bewitching piquancy, and the adorable mouth and chin familiarized to two continents by the artistic pen of the Apostle of the American Girl. How he could have ridden within arm's reach of her through all the daylight hours of a long summer day remained ...
— Empire Builders • Francis Lynde
... shoulders before jamming it down across her forehead in the latest mode. Thus occupied, she revealed a certain petulant beauty. Like the majority of shop-girls, she was small, but her figure was good, her skin white; her discontented mouth gave her the touch of piquancy apt to play havoc with the work of the world. In winter breakfast was eaten by the light of a rococo metal lamp set in the centre of the table. This was to save gas. There was usually a rump steak and potatoes, bread and "creamery" butterine, and the inevitable ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... and amiability, are duly appreciated. Her lively sallies and naive remarks are very amusing; and the frankness and simplicity she has preserved in a profession and position so calculated to induce the reverse, add to her attractions and give piquancy ...
— The Idler in France • Marguerite Gardiner
... seriousness of the situation so far as himself and his man were concerned, Carter could not but confess that the scene was a picturesque one, and that the very element of danger gave it a touch of piquancy. Here were himself and Carrick, fresh from the greatest shrine of modernity, after having been cast into a mediaeval dungeon, now being hauled before a trinity of gold-laced judges on ...
— Trusia - A Princess of Krovitch • Davis Brinton
... occurred to me,—and, to say the truth, it added an indefinable piquancy to the scene,—what proportion of all these people, whether soldiers or civilians, were true at heart to the Union, and what part were tainted, more or less, with treasonable sympathies and wishes, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... bank remained unpaid. Moreover, she had never been told of the way in which her friends were contributing to pay the rent. I should have liked to tell her this, but the mystery of the affair gave a piquancy to their deed of kindness which the ladies were unwilling to give up; and at first Martha had to shirk many a perplexed question as to her ways and means of living in such a house, but by-and-by Miss Matty's prudent uneasiness ...
— Cranford • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... by little he discovered that she was more than merely pretty and interesting-looking. Her face, with all its piquancy, was a serious face, a strenuous face. Under its humour and vivacity, he discovered a glow . . . a glow . . . could it be the glow of a soul? Her eyes were lustrous, but they were deep, as well. A quality shone in them rarer even than character: a natural quality, ...
— The Lady Paramount • Henry Harland
... bitterly—than does Lord Shelburne in this short sketch of his. But just as an English House of Commons loves nothing so well as a "personal explanation," so the personalities of literature have a way of attracting us in the direct ratio of their piquancy and severity. Lord Shelburne has quite a gift of killing two birds with one stone in his trenchant criticisms. He cannot crush George III.'s father without demolishing poor Lord Melcombe en passant. "The prince's life (he says) may be judged in some degree from the account given of it in Lord ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Volume 15, No. 89, May, 1875 • Various
... was in the pulpit, Dr. Tyng was the prince of platform orators. He had every quality necessary for the sway of a popular audience—fine elocution, marvelous fluency, piquancy, the courage of his convictions and a magnetism that swept all before him. His voice was very clear and penetrating, and he hurled forth his clean-cut sentences like javelins. A more fluent speaker I never heard; not Spurgeon or Henry Ward Beecher could surpass him in readiness ...
— Recollections of a Long Life - An Autobiography • Theodore Ledyard Cuyler
... of clearness, which so lights up the page with its loveliness, that, seeing how an artless woman is foreign to Mr. Reade's ideas, we are forced to believe that Nature was too strong for him and he wrote against the grain. Nevertheless, there is enough of his own prejudice retained for piquancy,—and since the poor things must be insignificantly wicked, see how charming they can be! There are many scenes between these covers that would well bear repetition, were they not too fresh in the reader's mind to require it; we will content ourselves with a single one, which contains the ...
— Atlantic Monthly,Volume 14, No. 82, August, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... ecstasy. All the evening the sound of his low, deliberate voice was unceasing, and his calm announcements to his two little cousins were each one more startling than the last; while James, to whom it was likewise all sunshine, was full of vivacity, and a shrewd piquancy of manner that gave zest to all he said, and wonderfully enlivened the often ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. I) - or, The Clue of Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the orange, the fruits of Ceylon have one deficiency, common, I apprehend, to all tropical countries. They are wanting in that piquancy which in northern climates is attributable to the exquisite perfection in which the sweet and aromatic flavours are blended with the acidulous. Either the acid is so ascendant as to be repulsive to the European palate, or the saccharine so preponderates ...
— Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and • James Emerson Tennent
... of the best-informed men I know, and, in a 'tete-a-tete', is one of the most agreeable companions. He has great originality, and, being 'tres distrait', it adds to the piquancy of his observations, which are sometimes somewhat 'trop naive', though always amusing. This 'naivete' of his is the more piquant from his being really a good-natured man, who unconsciously thinks aloud. ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron
... yet lofty nature, with a nervous organization and all that it entails of torment and delight, the craving for perfection becomes morbid. Intellectually he is akin to Sterne, though he is not a literary worker. There is an indescribable piquancy about his epigrams and sallies of thought. He is eloquent, he knows how to love, but the uncertainty that appears in his execution is a part of the very nature of the man. The brotherhood loved him for the very qualities which the philistine ...
— A Distinguished Provincial at Paris • Honore de Balzac
... Ernest Arbogast, the chef for many years of the old Palace. The slightly coppery taste of the California oysters gives a piquancy to the flavor of the omelet that can be obtained in no other way, and those who once ate of Arbogast's California oyster omelet, invariably called for ...
— Bohemian San Francisco - Its restaurants and their most famous recipes—The elegant art of dining. • Clarence E. Edwords
... O'Brien, was in truth a most fascinating and beautiful brunette; tall in stature, light and agile in all her motions, cheerful and sweet in temper, but with just as much of that winning caprice, as was necessary to give zest and piquancy to her whole character. Though tall and slender, her person was by no means thin; on the contrary, her limbs and figure were very gracefully rounded, and gave promise of that agreeable fulness, beneath or beyond which no perfect model of female proportion can exist. If our readers could get ...
— Fardorougha, The Miser - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... about her," she commanded. There was a piquancy, a gay impelling force in this girl that grief and hardship had not been strong enough to conquer. Her hours of sadness were spent alone—hours when she was supposed to sleep, but instead, lay awake and ...
— Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon
... eyes shone blue; her skin was clear and healthy, and her white dress—happy coincidence!—had been laundered that very morning. Her half-suppressed excitement at the sudden duty of welcoming the great aristocrat of the county, gave a piquancy to ...
— The Quest of the Silver Fleece - A Novel • W. E. B. Du Bois
... putty with two Scotch pebbles stuck in it—Rebecca was always spoken of sarcastically, and it was a customary kind of banter with young ladies to recommend her as a wife to any gentleman they happened to be flirting with—her fat, her finery, and her thick ankles sufficing to give piquancy to the joke, notwithstanding the absence of novelty. Miss Rebecca, however, possessed the accomplishment of music, and her singing of 'Oh no, we never mention her', and 'The Soldier's Tear', was so desirable an accession to the pleasures of a tea-party ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot
... it in the wind. I taste it already. I feel it in every sense; and so will you hereafter." This letter certainly wants the polish of Junius, but it has the power of bitter thought, and it sneers with practised piquancy. Of course, a broad line is to be drawn between a work of study and the work of the moment—between the elaborate vigour which prunes and purifies every straggling shoot away, and exhibits its production for a prize-show, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 350, December 1844 • Various
... spinach. What sacrilege to reduce crisp, glossy, beautiful leaves like these to a slimy mess in a pot! The tender buds, often used in white sauce as a substitute for capers, probably do not give it the same piquancy where piquancy is surely most needed—on boiled mutton, said to be Queen Victoria's favorite dish. Hawked about the streets in tight bunches, the Marsh Marigold blossoms—with half their yellow sepals already dropped—and the fragrant, pearly, pink arbutus ...
— Wild Flowers Worth Knowing • Neltje Blanchan et al
... you by its piquancy and grace; she is quite ready to meet you (a grave matter of surprise!) upon whatever subject you may suggest. You lapse easily and lovingly into the current of her thought, and blush to find yourself vacantly admiring when she is looking for reply. The regard you feel for her resolves itself ...
— Dream Life - A Fable Of The Seasons • Donald G. Mitchell
... never without a companion, whose ways he knew, and whom he was yet never weary of questioning and studying. No subject so dull that its different aspects, as viewed from soul and from body, would not give it piquancy. No question so trivial that its discussion on material and on spiritual grounds would not lend it importance. Nor was any enjoyment so keen as not to be enhanced by the contrast of its ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne
... the great lady. Her undoubted beauty, aided by a touch of Western piquancy, had captivated the Paris salons of an earlier generation, and those same salons repaid their debt by conferring the repose, the dignity, the subtle aura of distinction, that constitute the aristocrat in outward bearing. For this reason, Princess Delgrado was received in poverty stricken ...
— A Son of the Immortals • Louis Tracy
... Paris, 1714. Though an ambitious, it is a bungling performance, most unskilfully put together, and contains quite as much of what its hero did not do, as of what he did. The prolixity of the narrative is not even relieved by the piquancy of style, which forms something like a substitute for thought in many of the lower order of French historians. It is less to history, however, than to romance, that the French public is indebted for its conceptions of the character of Gonsalvo ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V3 • William H. Prescott
... drink like a gentleman, and wear his evening clothes to perfection—he still had them made in London—and that sort of unmarried man is always in demand in New York. Add to these social graces the piquancy of a little literary reputation, and you have the ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... was a liberal education in blended flavors, in the delights, the surprises of the Creole kitchen. Tall and slim, of a golden-brown complexion, neat to the point of austerity, trim and self-contained, sight of her somehow gave an added piquancy to her dishes. She did not make friends readily, but the comradery of cooking induced her to more than tolerate me. "I don't say I kin cook—but my mother can," she often told me—smiling proudly the while, ...
— Dishes & Beverages of the Old South • Martha McCulloch Williams
... you to be the author of that strange letter, M. Bourget? Indeed I do not. I believe it to have been surreptitiously inserted by your amanuensis when your back was turned. I think he did it with a good motive, expecting it to add force and piquancy to your article, but it does not reflect your nature, and I know it will grieve you when you see it. I also think he interlarded many other things which you will disapprove of when you see them. I am certain that all the harsh names discharged ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... cavernous depths, while the other half were fighting like tigers to keep off the Turks a few miles away! It was nothing out of the ordinary for a squadron or battery to take five hours to water their horses; and it added a piquancy to the situation that you were never quite sure when a marauding party of Turks would appear over the top of a neighbouring hill. Ultimately the extraordinary exertions of the engineers saved the situation; with incredible labour and ingenuity they ...
— With Our Army in Palestine • Antony Bluett
... the illness of Bishop Reese necessitated his resignation, the Diocese spontaneously turned to Frank Nelson as his successor. There is a certain piquancy in the contemplation of the change that by this time had come over the Diocese. A man who at one time had been distrusted, and branded as radical if not reckless, had so won the respect and affection of his associates that they desired to express their trust and belief in him by ...
— Frank H. Nelson of Cincinnati • Warren C. Herrick
... Gallic and the French elements. Variety, satire, finesse, feeling, movement, terseness, suavity, grace, gayety, at times even nobleness, gravity, grandeur—everything—is to be found in him. And then the happiness of the epithets, the piquancy of the sayings, the felicity of his rapid sketches and unforeseen audacities, and the unforgettable sharpness of phrase! His defects are eclipsed by his immense ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... his marriage, the Count de Witt obtained leave of absence, and, accompanied by his wife, he visited the different courts of Europe. Sophia's beauty, which derived piquancy from a certain Oriental languishment of manner, was every where the theme of admiration. The Prince de Ligne, who saw her at the Court of France, mentions her in his Memoirs, in terms of eulogy, which I cannot think exaggerated; for when I knew her at Tulczin, though she was ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 379, Saturday, July 4, 1829. • Various
... years of his life he went back to Provence. The first of these visits was in the January of 1909, and he with his companions set out from Paris on the last day of the old year, travelling by motor-car in defiance of heavy snow and frost. These made obstacles which only gave piquancy to his journey through scenes where stories of the Franco-German War crowded to his tongue, and when difficulties delayed the car he struck up wayside intimacies—once with an old non-commissioned officer now transformed into a Garde Champetre, ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke, Vol. 2 • Stephen Gwynn
... through her own personality as far as her means permitted. If her mother and father had looked carefully at their daughter, they would have seen how much more effectively her hair was arranged; what piquancy of mode had been observed in the making of her new dresses; what careful pride had dictated the fashion and fit of her high-heeled shoes; what trouble was systematically taken to preserve her delicate skin and to restore ...
— A Singer from the Sea • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... so formal and grand I shall never enjoy your delicious dishes any more, with Hubert adding to their piquancy with his ...
— Medoline Selwyn's Work • Mrs. J. J. Colter
... what give the piquancy to the sauce. How many very wantonly pleasant sports spring from the most decent and modest language of the works on love? Pleasure itself seeks to be heightened with pain; it is much sweeter when it ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... to say. And now, having made these declarations in all frankness, let us return to work with all speed. My preface will seem a little short, and the curious reader will seek in vain therein the anticipated piquancy. So much the worse for him. Brief as this page may be, it is three times too long for me. Prefaces have this disadvantage, that they ...
— The Nabob, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... exception of those of the 1st and 2nd Sonatas, which have somewhat of a dramatic character) and Finales are satisfactory, per se, as music: the former have charm, refinement; the latter, elegance, piquancy, brilliancy. Now, in these sonatas, the opening movements seem like the commencement of some tragedy: in No. 2 there is nobility mixed with pathos; in No. 3, fierce passion; and in No. 4, still passion, albeit of a tenderer, more melancholy kind. But in the Finales it is as though we ...
— The Pianoforte Sonata - Its Origin and Development • J.S. Shedlock
... strange to him. The Teutonic sage who evolved the ideal portrait of an elephant from his "inner consciousness" was a commonplace, matter-of fact person compared with the daring visionary who conjures up a complete system of language from the same fertile but untrustworthy source. The piquancy of Senhor Pedro Carolino's New Guide of the Conversation in Portuguese and English is enhanced by the evident bona fides and careful compilation of "the little book," or as Pedro himself gravely ...
— English as she is spoke - or, A jest in sober earnest • Jose da Fonseca
... exemplified, after all, by minor works and ordinary dwellings, many of which have considerable artistic grace, though they are quaint rather than monumental (Fig. 190). Stepped gables, high dormers, and volutes flanking each diminishing stage of the design, give a certain piquancy to the street ...
— A Text-Book of the History of Architecture - Seventh Edition, revised • Alfred D. F. Hamlin
... there are no funds in the treasury upon which they are drawn. Colleges and good-for-nothing smoking-clubs are the places where these conversational fungi spring up most luxuriantly. Don't think I undervalue the proper use and application of a cant word or phrase. It adds piquancy to conversation, as a mushroom does to a sauce. But it is no better than a toadstool, odious to the sense and poisonous to the intellect, when it spawns itself all over the talk of men and youths capable of talking, as it sometimes does. As we hear flash phraseology, it is commonly the dishwater ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 11, September, 1858 • Various
... biography; and most of the great events of the past, down to the period of the American Revolution, they instinctively attribute to Moses. There is a fine bold confidence in all their citations, however, and the record never loses piquancy in their hands, though strict accuracy may suffer. Thus, one of my captains, last Sunday, heard a colored exhorter at Beaufort proclaim, "Paul may plant, and may polish wid water, but it won't do," in which the sainted Apollos ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 86, December, 1864 • Various
... flight beyond their wildest ambition. Salomy Jane accepted the change with charming unconcern. She put on her yellow nankeen sunbonnet,—a hideous affair that would have ruined any other woman, but which only enhanced the piquancy of her fresh brunette skin,—tied the strings, letting the blue-black braids escape below its frilled curtain behind, jumped on her mustang with a casual display of agile ankles in shapely white stockings, whistled to the hound, and waving her hand with a "So long, sonny!" to the lately bereft ...
— Stories in Light and Shadow • Bret Harte
... Parisian dress clung over her wasted figure and well-bred bones artistically if not gracefully; the younger lady, evidently her daughter, was crisp and pretty, and carried off the aquiline nose and aristocratic emaciation of her mother with a certain piquancy and a dash that was charming. The gentleman was young, thin, with the family ...
— Drift from Two Shores • Bret Harte
... suppers, at which much sack and aqua vitae was drunk to king, church, and reigning beauties. And if a quarrel sprung, full armed, from the heated brains of young gallants, crossed rapiers did but add a piquancy, a dash of cayenne, ...
— Prisoners of Hope - A Tale of Colonial Virginia • Mary Johnston
... colour and loss of effect in the grouping of the characters is more than compensated for by the racy piquancy of Dick Marston's vernacular, and the aspect, unrivalled in Australian literature, which his account affords of bushranging life from the bushranger's own point of view. In the truth with which this view is presented lies the strength and lasting merit of what might ...
— Australian Writers • Desmond Byrne
... all couleur de rose,—as it would of course become us to write if we were dealing with the life of a living sovereign,—would not be interesting. No one on going to hear Thackeray lecture on the Georges expected that. There must be some piquancy given, or the lecture would be dull;—and the eulogy of personal virtues can seldom be piquant. It is difficult to speak fittingly of a sovereign, either living or not, long since gone. You can hardly praise such a one without flattery. You can hardly censure him without injustice. We are ...
— Thackeray • Anthony Trollope
... thoughts drop from them as things too common and familiar to be spoken with the least emphasis: they are strong, tender, and sweet, yet never without a sufficient infusion of brisk natural acid and piquancy to keep their sweetness from palling on the taste: they are full of fresh, healthy sentiment, but never at all touched with sentimentality: the soul of romance works mightily within them, yet ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... unless it can satisfactorily account for its position there, by proving appositeness and either originality or indispensability, then cast it aside. The conscientious performance of this rite will soon give a wonderful freshness and piquancy ...
— Journalism for Women - A Practical Guide • E.A. Bennett |
