"Silken" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... or remembrances of posterity. Their presence seemed like an intrusion into the sanctuary of genius. What had wealth to do there? Why should it crowd the dust of the great? That was no thoroughfare of business—no mart of gain! There were no costly banquets there; no silken garments, nor gaudy liveries, nor ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3 • Various
... of diamonds, well stuffed with down, and made of scarlet, sky-blue, sea-green, or other hue of velvet. His fur-lined armyak, reaching to his feet,—through whose silver buttons under the left arm he is bursting, with pads for fashion or with good living,—is secured about his portly waist by a silken girdle glowing with roses and butterflies. His legs are too fat to enter the sledge,—that is to say, if his master truly respects his own dignity, —and his feet are accommodated in iron stirrups outside. He leans well back, with arms outstretched to accord with the ...
— Russian Rambles • Isabel F. Hapgood
... the bulwark above me, holding on by a backstay with one hand and pistol levelled down at me in the other. And beholding this slender, youthful figure thus outlined against the moon, the velvet coat brave with silver lace, the ruffles at throat and wrist, the silken stockings and buckled shoes, I knew myself surely mad, for this I saw was Joanna—alive ...
— Martin Conisby's Vengeance • Jeffery Farnol
... the shop door and gave it to the footman. He put it in the carriage, and held out a thin silken cloak for the lady, which she put on. He covered her knees with a linen dust rug, and smiling and bowing she ...
— The Ffolliots of Redmarley • L. Allen Harker
... twelve years of married life, was still a handsome woman. Her dark eyes shone with the same bewitching fire; her beautiful hair had, in accordance with the orthodox Jewish custom, fallen under the shears on the day of her marriage, but the silken band and string of pearls that henceforth decked her brow did not detract from her oriental beauty. Hirsch was proud of her and he would have been completely happy if God had vouchsafed her a son. Like Hannah, she prayed ...
— Rabbi and Priest - A Story • Milton Goldsmith
... action, the hammer rests in a silken fork, dropping the whole distance of the rise of every blow. The check in the second action, the "paramartello," is next in importance to the escapement. It catches the back part of the hammer at different points of the radius, responding to the amount of force the player has used upon the key. ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 385, May 19, 1883 • Various
... the General said to him without lose of time. Overt saw a tall girl, with magnificent red hair, in a dress of a pretty grey-green tint and of a limp silken texture, a garment that clearly shirked every modern effect. It had therefore somehow the stamp of the latest thing, so that our beholder quickly took her for nothing if ...
— The Lesson of the Master • Henry James
... Mind as he took hold of the Trapeze Bar and signaled the Farm Hands to let go. As he trailed Skyward beneath the buoyant silken Bag he hung by his Knees and waved a glad Adieu to the Mob of Inquisitive Yeomen. A Sense of Relief came to him as he saw the Crowd ...
— Fables in Slang • George Ade
... wood. Only I can carry thee back to the land beyond the sunset hill, where love is lying dead. Over the sea where monsters lurk, and great pearls grow in sunless deeps, I can carry thee back again to the land of long ago. Never a ship with a silken sail could rock thee over across the waves so well as I will waft thee there on the swell of this soft breast. Never a breeze from the sandal hill could ferry thee over a silent sea so gently as will I, by breathing into thy raptured ...
— An Essence Of The Dusk, 5th Edition • F. W. Bain
... Having established "monopolies" upon most wares, they incessantly harassed would-be purchasers. The only thing left free from duty was clothes, but, in regard to these also, the imperial pair contrived to extort money. Silken garments had for a long time been made in Berytus and Tyre, cities of Phoenicia. The merchants and workmen connected with the trade had been settled there from very early times, and from thence the business had spread throughout the world. During the reign of Justinian, ...
— The Secret History of the Court of Justinian • Procopius
... gentlemen to the galleries, that they may enjoy the same privileges vouchsafed to the fair sex in the past, to look down upon the feast, to listen to the speeches, and to hear "the pale, thoughtful brow," "the silken moustache," "the flowing locks," "the manly gait and form" toasted ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... splendid trees and vistas of Stanley Park. At Brockton Point a drill of school children was held in sight of some seven thousand persons and a grand stand full of children looking on. Here the Duke presented a silken banner to the school which had won the prize for drilling and was given an enthusiastic reception. As the C. P. R. steamer, Empress of India, with the Royal party on board, passed in the evening across the Bay of Victoria the waters were illuminated with multitudes of lighted craft and the city ...
— The Life of King Edward VII - with a sketch of the career of King George V • J. Castell Hopkins
... sunset glow, in a meadow by the river, the three companies paraded. The new uniforms, the bright muskets, the silken colours, the bands playing "Dixie," the quick orders, the more or less practised evolutions, the universal martial mood, the sense of danger over all, as yet thrilling only, not leaden, the known faces, the loved faces, the imminent farewell, the flush of glory, the beckoning ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... queens are large and free, And fashioned fine with care, And lined with softest, silken shreds So daintily ...
— Mother Truth's Melodies - Common Sense For Children • Mrs. E. P. Miller
... shame, Made answer to the royal dame: "Dear lady, thou hast yet to know That danger threats, and heavy woe: A grief that will with sore distress On Sita, thee, and Lakshman press. What need of seats have such as I? This day to Dandak wood I fly. The hour is come, a time, unmeet For silken couch and gilded seat. I must to lonely wilds repair, Abstain from flesh, and living there On roots, fruit, honey, hermit's food, Pass twice seven years in solitude. To Bharat's hand the king will yield The regent power I thought to wield, And me, a hermit, will he send My days ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... golden cradle That Christ was rocked in? Where are the silken sheets That Jesus was ...
— In The Yule-Log Glow, Vol. IV (of IV) • Harrison S. Morris
... his swimmer's suit, sat stiffly forward, sluicing water into the bottom. He was a big and well-built boy, with a face that had no viciousness; but his dark eyes, with their heavy silken lashes, were hardly meant for a man. Neither was his mouth, for all that he sought to set ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... given to this calling; he longed for something else, not of a more active nature, it is true, but something that might embrace a broader swing. The soft atmosphere had turned the edge of his physical energy, but his mind was eager and grasping. His history was that dear fallacy, that silken toga which many of us have wrapped about ourselves—the belief that a good score at college means immediate success out in the world. And he had worked desperately to finish his education, had taken care of ...
— Old Ebenezer • Opie Read
... having tea, Susan was busy in their bedroom laying out their gowns and Henrietta, chancing to pass the open door, peeped in. The bed was spread with the rose-pink and apricot dresses of their choice, with petticoats of corresponding hues, with silken stockings and long gloves and fans; and on the mound made by the pillows two pairs of very high-heeled slippers pointed their narrow toes. It might have been the room of two young girls and, before she fluttered down to tea, Henrietta took another glance at ...
— THE MISSES MALLETT • E. H. YOUNG
... when the rose leaves become a bud, or when the bud turns to a full-blown flower. But at dawn by a bed of poppies you may watch the birth of a flower as it slips from the calyx, casting it to the ground as a soul casts aside its outgrown body, and smoothing the wrinkles from its silken petals, it faces the day in serene beauty, though the night of death be but a ...
— Aunt Jane of Kentucky • Eliza Calvert Hall
... Athens take their way, The great Earl-marshal orders their array. The fair from high the passing pomp behold; A rain of flowers is from the window rolled. The casements are with golden tissue spread, And horses' hoofs, for earth, on silken tapestry tread. The King goes midmost, and the rivals ride In equal rank, and close his either side. Next after these there rode the royal wife, With Emily, the cause and the reward of strife. The following cavalcade, by three and three, Proceed by titles marshalled ...
— Palamon and Arcite • John Dryden
... to another climate, or be ill again—that I know, and am prepared for. It is but dreary work, this undoing of my Penelope web in the winter, after the doing of it through the summer, and the more progress one makes in one's web, the more dreary the prospect of the undoing of all these fine silken ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1 of 2) • Frederic G. Kenyon
... at Madame Lepelletier's table. There are three rooms, divided by silken portieres, which are now partially swung aside. The lamps in the other rooms are burning low, there is a sweet, faint perfume, a lovely suggestiveness, a background fit for a picture, and this cosey apartment, hung with shimmering ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... up her eyes tight, then opened them wide at Mrs. Tinneray, who sat rigid, her gaze riveted upon far-off horizons, humming between long sighs a favorite hymn. Finally, however, the last-named lady leaned past Mrs. Bean and touched Mrs. Turtle's silken knee, volunteering, ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... Silken curtains fell around him, Velvet carpets hushed the tread, Many costly toys were lying All unheeded by his bed; And his tangled golden ringlets Were on ...
— De La Salle Fifth Reader • Brothers of the Christian Schools
... another kind. I learned to look with interest on the workings of certain insects, and to understand some of at least their simpler instincts. The large Diadem Spider, which spins so strong a web, that, in pressing my way through the furze thickets, I could hear its white silken cords crack as they yielded before me, and which I found skilled, like an ancient magician, in the strange art of rendering itself invisible in the clearest light, was an especial favourite; though its great ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... cut them the dealer invariably turned up a king. Even admitting he might have various places of concealment, pockets in the lining of the sleeve, in the inside of the coat, and in various other parts of the dress, in which cards could be concealed and drawn out by silken threads, it did not seem possible that this could be done with such quickness as to be unobserved. It was only when his teacher showed him, at first in the slowest manner, and then gradually increasing his speed, that he perceived that what seemed impossible was easy enough when the necessary ...
— Colonel Thorndyke's Secret • G. A. Henty
... presence of the Hadjeb, the viziers, the white and black eunuchs, the archers, and the cuirassiers of the guard, he made a gift to his sovereign of those hundred northern horsemen and their mounts, those fifty blooded bays and their housings, those bales of aloe-wood and camphor, those silken pieces and those two thousand dinars of yellow Catalonian gold. This done, he humbly craved a favor in return, and when bade to speak, he began by telling of the indignities rendered him by the monks ...
— Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories • Rex Beach
... Richard Phillips jotted down his memories of Chiswick—how he, a schoolboy then with his eyes just above the pew door, the bells in the old tower chiming for church, watched 'Widow Hogarth and her maiden relative, Richardson, walking up the aisle, draped in their silken sacks, their raised head-dresses, their black calashes, their lace ruffles, and their high crooked canes, preceded by their aged servant Samuel: who after he had wheeled his mistress to church in her Bath-chair, ...
— Art in England - Notes and Studies • Dutton Cook
... the person who knows the tricks of the trade. Directly underneath it you come upon the tiny circular trap-door, which you will notice in the nest we send with these letters. You will see how wonderfully it is made, with its silken weaving inside, and its bits of bark and leaves outside; and I know you will admire the hinge, which the tarantula must have invented, and which is as pretty a bit of workmanship as the most accomplished mechanic could turn out. We tore away the web and the door ...
— A Summer in a Canyon: A California Story • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... mingled with bitterness, followed in a few days. I saw myself seven children crowd round the coffin that was provided by charity; I saw three taken to the workhouse, and the elder four distributed amongst kind-hearted hard-working people, who are trying to inure the young soft hands, accustomed to silken idleness, to the toils of homely industry. I ask you, John Adams, how the husband of that woman, the father of those children, can meet his God, when it is required of him to give an account ...
— Turns of Fortune - And Other Tales • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... party is under the fair October skies when "the morn, like an Eastern queen, is sumptuously clad in blue and gold; the sheen of her robes in dazzling sunlight, and she comes from her tent of glistening, silken, celestial warp, beaming with tender smiles." "It is a day of days for flatback, provided the moon is right." But "Billy Ivins swears that the planetary bodies have nothing to do with fish—it's all confounded superstition." So they cast ...
— Literary Hearthstones of Dixie • La Salle Corbell Pickett
... tomorrow if she must. Today would be all their own! She began to dress at three o'clock, as pleasantly excited as a girl. She laid her prettiest white linen gown beside the pink hat on the bed, selected an especially frilled petticoat, was fastidious over white shoes and silken stockings. ...
— Poor, Dear Margaret Kirby and Other Stories • Kathleen Norris
... hills.... The many-tunnelled cliff-route from Villefranche to Cap D'Ail, where moments of darkness tease one to longing for the sight of the azure coves dotted with white-winged yachts and foam-slashed motor-boats.... Europe's silken, ...
— Swirling Waters • Max Rittenberg
... coming of the twilight on, As if it were a new and perfect world, And this were its first eve. How beautiful I Must be the work of nature to a child In its first fresh impression! Laura stood By the low window, with the silken lash Of her soft eye upraised, and her sweet mouth Half parted with the new and strange delight Of beauty that she could not comprehend, And had not seen before. The purple folds Of the low sunset clouds, and the blue sky That look'd so still and delicate above, Fill'd her ...
— The Canadian Elocutionist • Anna Kelsey Howard
... little mark, And the man had lived alone so long Within the canyon's noise and dark, The footprint moved him like a song. It spoke to him of women in the East, Of girls in silken robes, with shining hair, And talked of those who sat at feast, While sweet-eyed ...
— The Trail of the Goldseekers - A Record of Travel in Prose and Verse • Hamlin Garland
... father will dub him knight on the morrow after Mass—but says that he will prove himself coward or hero in another land than his own. "If you will grant my boon in that matter in which I have asked you; then give me fur both grey and of divers colour and good steeds and silken attire; for before I am knight I will fain serve King Arthur. Not yet have I so great valour that I can bear arms. None by entreaty or by fair words could persuade me not to go into the foreign land to see the king ...
— Cliges: A Romance • Chretien de Troyes
... I always pray for your soul. As I am a Bernardine, I am very anxious about your soul! Death pulls even staff-officers by the ears. Baka162 wrote well—that Death seizes on sinners at dinners, and on silken frocks she often knocks, and monks' cowls she slashes like satin sashes, and the curb of girls she raps like shoulder-straps. Mother Death, says Baka, like an onion, brings tears from the dears she embraces, and fondles alike both the baby that drowses and the rake that carouses! Ah! ...
— Pan Tadeusz • Adam Mickiewicz
... most elegantly dressed of those whom the enigmatical masquerade attracted, was a young man, of whom it would have bee difficult to say to what race he belonged. His face was covered by a closely-fitting silken mask, in which every hue of the rainbow was blended, but which, nevertheless, was adapted so admirably to his features, as at first to leave the spectators in doubt whether it were not the real colour of his skin. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 57, No. 352, February 1845 • Various
... its presage of disaster. He saw the hand of destiny, and everything in him rebelled against the inexorable cruelty of it all. It was infamous that any life should be dominated by a whim of the Fates; that any creature should enter this world with a silken cord about his throat. Destiny. Does it mould our lives; or do our lives, inundated with the forces of heredity, mould our destinies? He tried to grapple with the thought; but through the pain and confusion of his mind he could only feel the ...
— The Parts Men Play • Arthur Beverley Baxter
... and greed melted... It smells of the sun. And day begins With trolleys, horses, shouts and wind. Dull daily labor cloaks the people in dust. Families silently wolf down lunch. At times a hall still vibrates through a skull, Much dull desire and a silken leg. ...
— The Verse of Alfred Lichtenstein • Alfred Lichtenstein
... with the fair shaggy locks was Leif, the son of Eric the Red of Iceland. The boy with the silken curls, who rode on his foot so ...
— The Norsemen in the West • R.M. Ballantyne
... dreaming when you came in; not quite awake yet, hardly; just wait a bit till I get my slippers on; and this—' So into his red slippers he slid, and got his great shawl dressing-gown, such as fine gentlemen then wore, about his slender person, and knotted the silken cords with depending tassels, and greeted Jim Dutton again in very friendly fashion, enquiring very particularly how he had been ever since, and what his mother was doing; and I'm afraid not listening to Jim's answers as attentively as one ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... fell upon a face that was grimy and scratched. His rosy lips were blackened with heat, the smoke of gun-powder. Dirt and rust tarnished the lustre of his short beard. His shirt collar and cuffs were crumpled; the blue silken tie hung down his breast like a rag; a greasy smudge crossed his white brow. He had not taken off his clothing nor used water, except to snatch a hasty drink greedily, for some forty hours. An awful restlessness had made him its own, had marked him with all the signs of desperate strife, ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... shed. Therefore let loose the flood Of our pent passion; break her gates in, raze The walls of her, cumber her pleasant ways With dead men; set on havoc, sate with spoil Men ravening; get corn and wine and oil, Women to clasp in love, gold, silken things, Harness of flashing bronze, swords, meed of kings, Chariots and horses swifter than the wind Which, coursing Ida, leaves ruin behind Of snapt tall trees: not faster shall they fall Than Trojan spears once we are on the wall. So only shall ye close this agelong strife, Nor by redemption ...
— Helen Redeemed and Other Poems • Maurice Hewlett
... him. He raised himself on his arm, crimson with anger, his chest heaving under the thin silken jacket which defined his gaunt ribs—"Sit down, will you, damn you?" Because Laura believed that she and she only stood between her husband and despair, she yielded and began to read out the Times leader in a voice that was perfectly gentle ...
— Nightfall • Anthony Pryde
... more we lived in pomp and merriment, for it was a wonderful court, full of mimes, magicians, philosophers and poets; and the Empress's ladies spent their days in mirth and music, dressed in light silken garments, walking in gardens of roses, and bathing in a great cool marble tank, while the Emperor's eunuchs guarded the approach to the gardens. Oh, those baths in the marble tank, my Father! I used to lie awake through the ...
— The Hermit and the Wild Woman and Other Stories • Edith Wharton
... the young actor's aspiring soul rose above all secondary parts, dropped Mercutio and Horatio for Romeo and Hamlet, and had not the sense to see that he was getting utterly out of his element, dashing with silken sails into the tempest of tragedy, soaring on Icarian wings over its profoundest deeps and into the height and heat ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 23, September, 1859 • Various
... excitement. The little chamber was full of half lights and shadows, and there seemed to him something almost unearthly about this woman with her soft grey gown and marble face. He was stirred by her presence in a new way. The rustle of her silken skirts as she swept in and out of the dim light, the delicate whiteness of her arms and throat, the flashing of a single diamond in her dark coiled hair,—these seemed trivial things enough, yet they ...
— Berenice • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... addressing her, he soon feels that it is impossible for him to return to his capital. His limbs move forward, while his heart flies back, like a silken standard borne against the breeze. He seeks for opportunities for seeing her. With the thought about her haunting him by day and night, he finds no rest, and no pleasure even in his favourite recreation—sporting. Mathavya, the jester, friend and companion ...
— Tales from the Hindu Dramatists • R. N. Dutta
... him that she was his mother. She would be his mother—true and tender and holy. He would not resist her plea.... This determined, she acted resolutely and in haste: she stripped off the gown, flung it on the floor, kicked the silken heap under the bed; she washed the paint from her face, modestly laid her hair, robed herself anew. And when again, with these new, seeing eyes, she looked into the glass, she found that she was young, unspoiled—still lovely: a sweetly ...
— The Mother • Norman Duncan
... little if they are not. The bustle of preparation was soon over. Coats No. 1, No. 2, and No. 3, are taken off in succession, for some people wear top-coats to keep out the "heat"; chins are released from their silken jeopardy, hats are hid in corners, and fur caps thrust into pockets of the owners. Inside passengers eye outside ones with suspicion, while a deaf gentleman, who has left his trumpet in the coach, ...
— Jorrocks' Jaunts and Jollities • Robert Smith Surtees
... the ash tree There is a soft rustling, Lingering, like A silken whisper, Quite different Than sound the other trees; As if the bronzy leaves Had much to say Before they part, And were ...
— A Little Window • Jean M. Snyder
... the brave Hh Wiwst rode with her proud Chask. She ruled like a queen in his bountiful tee, And the life of the twain was a jubilee. Their wee ones climbed on the father's knee, And played with his plumes of the great Wanmde. The silken threads of the happy years They wove into beautiful robes of love That the spirits wear in the lodge above; And time from the reel of the rolling spheres His silver threads with the raven wove; ...
— Legends of the Northwest • Hanford Lennox Gordon
... rustling of silken draperies over the polished floor announced the entrance of Mrs. Denvil, amiable greetings were exchanged, and the gentlemen became deferential and courteous in manner. Buy the respect of the insolent, by ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 7 • Various
... Keats conceived on occasion, full of the beauty that lends itself so kindly to painted-glass decoration; clustered spear-shafts, crested helms and curling banners, and everywhere lily hands combing yellow hair or broidering silken standards. But the names strike a strange note in these songs of Morris, and the accompaniments are very different from ...
— The Influence of Old Norse Literature on English Literature • Conrad Hjalmar Nordby
... the pretty girl took her father's arm and came down the street passing the young men, who, we fear, stared at her rudely. They were hardly to be blamed for it, for she was as near perfection as a girl of sixteen can be. Tall, willowy form, with deep blue eyes, soft as a gazelle's, long, silken lashes and arched eyebrows, with golden hair, and so graceful that every movement might be set ...
— Sustained honor - The Age of Liberty Established • John R. Musick,
... out four tortoise-shell pins that upheld the silken lightness of her hair, so that it fell in a fair soft cloud about ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... green earth, which like a mighty altar was sending up clouds of perfume from its breast, while flowers danced gayly in the summer wind, and birds sang their morning hymn among the cool green leaves. Then high above, on shining wings, soared a little form. The sunlight rested softly on the silken hair, and the winds fanned lovingly the bright face, and brought the sweetest odors to cheer ...
— Flower Fables • Louisa May Alcott
... can still recall the graceful figure in its silken gown; the gracious address, the slightly supercilious smile, of the Milton jeune et voyageant,[5] just returned from contact with all that was best in French culture to instruct and astonish his own ...
— Matthew Arnold • G. W. E. Russell
... She carefully gathered up her grey silken skirts from the dusty floor and walked out. "Get Christina Bowes to come up tomorrow and scrub this place out," she said practically. "We can go to town and select paint and paper. I should like the dining room done in pale ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1909 to 1922 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... coursed through the wood—narrow footways, broad avenues, enchanting covered walks in which one strolled in the shade and scent. These led to glades and clearings, under bowers of small red roses, and between walls hung with tiny yellow ones. Some sunny nooks gleamed like green silken stuff embroidered with bright patterns; other shadier corners offered the seclusion of alcoves and an aroma of love, the balmy warmth, as it were, of a posy languishing on a woman's bosom. The rose bushes ...
— Abbe Mouret's Transgression - La Faute De L'abbe Mouret • Emile Zola
... for me, I will keep your letters beside mine, in the secret of my little desk. I will show them to you there, sleeping side by side in their silken hiding place, full of our love, ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... with the Pope to wean the newly converted Danes away from their heathen pirate flag and found their opportunity in one of the crusades the Danes undertook on their own hook into what is now Prussia. The Pope had sent a silken banner with the device of a white cross in red, and at the right moment, when the other was taken, the priest threw it down from a cliff into the thick of the battle and turned its tide. Ever after, ...
— The Making of an American • Jacob A. Riis
... but the look she gave was unfortunate for both. He muffled his mouth in his long silken beard as if to smother what he felt impelled to say, then suddenly rose ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... like a set of silken fetters for kings and other great people. Thus, almost all our palaces have been used as prisons, according to the caprice of the monarch, or the violence of the uppermost faction. Shakspeare, in his historical plays, gives ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 392, Saturday, October 3, 1829. • Various
... and calm, Steeped in the sweetness of eternal morn, The wall runs down in crumbling cadence Beside the brook which plays Through the land like a silver harp. A wind of ancient romance blows across the field, A sweet disturbance thrills the air; The silken skirts of Spring go rustling by, And the earth is astir with joy. Up the hill, romping and shaking their golden heads, Come the little children of the wood. From ecstasy to ecstasy the year mounts upward. Up from the south come the odor-laden winds, Angels and ministers of life, Dropping seeds of ...
— The Song of the Stone Wall • Helen Keller
... prudence, conscience, advantage, by which men try to bind their unruly passions and manacle the insisting flesh, are like the chains on the demoniac's wrists—'And he had oftentimes been bound by chains, and the chains were snapped asunder.' But the silken leash with which the fair Una in the poem leads the lion, the silken leash of love will bind the strong man, and enable us to rule ourselves. If we will open our hearts to the sacrifice of Christ, we shall be able to offer ourselves as thankofferings. If we will let His love sway our wills and ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren
... to hear as fairy tales," said Wee. "This is Mrs. Epeira Diadema; and she is a respectable, industrious little neighbor. She spreads her tent, but sits under a leaf near by, waiting for her breakfast. She wraps her eggs in a soft silken bag, and hides them in some safe chink, where they lie till spring. The eggs are prettily carved and ornamented, and so hard that the baby spiders have to force their way out by biting the shell open and poking their little heads through. The mother dies as soon as her ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... that shone like burnished silver in the sunbeams, swinging on her arm, she stole out of the back door, and ran down a narrow lane, till she came to an open field, where the young corn was waving its silken tassels, and potato vines frolicking at its feet. The long, shining leaves of the young corn threw off the sunlight like polished steel, and Helen thought she had never seen anything so beautiful in all her life. She stopped and pulled off the ...
— Helen and Arthur - or, Miss Thusa's Spinning Wheel • Caroline Lee Hentz
... general assault upon Granada, deliberately planned by the chiefs of the Christian army. The Spanish camp (the most gorgeous Christendom had ever known) gradually grew calm and hushed. The shades deepened—the stars burned forth more serene and clear. Bright, in that azure air, streamed the silken tents of the court, blazoned with heraldic devices, and crowned by gaudy banners, which, filled by a brisk and murmuring wind from the mountains, flaunted gaily on their gilded staves. In the centre of the camp rose the pavilion of the queen—a palace in itself. Lances made its columns; brocade ...
— Leila, Complete - The Siege of Granada • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... hurry, and Jim's temper began to loose its serenity. The maid came and lighted the gas jet in the hall. Then there was a rustle of silken garments ...
— A Little Girl of Long Ago • Amanda Millie Douglas
... was imbued with the spirit of love. Oh, that it could have remained so forever! There was not a painted cheek in Eden, nor a bald head, nor a false tooth, nor a bachelor. There was not a flounce, nor a frill, nor a silken gown, nor a flashy waist with aurora borealis sleeves. There was not a curl paper, nor even a threat of crinoline. Raiment was an after thought, the mask of a tainted soul, born of original sin. Beauty ...
— Gov. Bob. Taylor's Tales • Robert L. Taylor
... but which I had traversed in former days, on grand court occasions in the time of Ferdinand VII, when they were glittering with all the splendor of a court, we paused in a great saloon, with high-vaulted ceiling incrusted with florid devices in porcelain, and hung with silken tapestry, but all in dim twilight, like the rest of the palace. At one end of the saloon the door opened to an almost interminable range of other chambers, through which, at a distance, we had a glimpse of some ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... ordinary animal may be overlooked, but a great horse speaks for himself in every language and to every man. He was coal-black, this Diablo, except for the white stocking of his off forefoot; he was night-black, and so silken sleek that, as he turned and pranced, flashes of light glimmered from shoulders ...
— Bull Hunter • Max Brand
... the vicinity of the piano. I felt that, once out of the immediate circle of his tremendous physical influence, I might manage to escape the ordeal which he had suggested. But I could not go away. The silken nets of his personality had been cast, and I was enmeshed. And if I was happy, it was ...
— Sacred And Profane Love • E. Arnold Bennett
... I have a veil, a beautiful—have, did I say? Alas! Troy was. But I must not anticipate—a beautiful veil of brown tissue, none of your woolleny, gruff fabrics, fit only for penance, but a silken gossamery cloud, soft as a baby's check. Yet everybody fleers at it. Everybody has a joke about it. Everybody looks at it, and holds it out at arms' length, and shakes it, and makes great eyes at it, and says, "What in the world"—, and ends with ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various
... appearance. If you can conceive a Russian Grand Duke in a Rajah's throne-room advancing to greet a visiting Emperor, you will gather something of the majesty of his manner. But Thomas McQuade was too near his d t's to be mindful of his p's and q's. When he viewed this silken, polished, and somewhat terrifying host he thought ...
— Strictly Business • O. Henry
... in that chamber, of carved walnut-wood is it made, rich in design and elaborate in execution; one of those works of art which owe their existence to the Elizabethan era. It is hung with heavy silken and damask furnishing; nodding feathers are at its corners—covered with dust are they, and they lend a funereal aspect to the room. The floor is ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... that you could settle me if you only would." I knew quite well what she meant. She meant that of old it had always appeared to be the fine blade, as some one had hyperbolically called it, of my particular opinion that snapped the silken thread by which Limbert's chance in the market was wont to hang. She meant that my favour was compromising, that my praise indeed was fatal. I had made myself a little specialty of seeing nothing in certain celebrities, of seeing overmuch in ...
— Embarrassments • Henry James
... by its side. "A gala suit of the good maiden, Jeanette Peyton, wandering around its birthplace, or searching in vain for its discomfited mistress?" He leaned forward in his stirrups, and placing the point of his sword under the silken garment, by throwing aside the covering, discovered part of the form of the reverend gentleman who had fled from the Locusts, the evening before, in his ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper
... likewise another diversion, which is only shown before the emperor and empress, and first minister, upon particular occasions. The emperor lays on the table three fine silken threads of six inches long; one is blue, the other red, and the third green. These threads are proposed as prizes for those persons whom the emperor has a mind to distinguish by a peculiar mark of his favour. The ceremony ...
— Gulliver's Travels - into several remote nations of the world • Jonathan Swift
... breach of the implied convention existing among the exquisitely fine-bred silken-slender on the summits of our mundane sphere, which demands of them all, that they respect one another's affectations. It is commonly done, and so the costly people of a single pattern contrive to push forth, flatteringly to themselves, luxuriant shoots of individuality ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... from which on his mother's side he sprang—that she was middling tall, chastely slender, having, as he judged from her high waist, a fine, clean length of limb. All this he observed and approved, and prayed for a glimpse of the face which her silken hood obscured and screened from his desiring gaze. She raised it at that moment—raised it in a timid, frightened fashion, as one who looks fearfully about to see that she is not remarked—and Mr. ...
— The Lion's Skin • Rafael Sabatini
... after her; she shrieking that she was poisoned, they shrieking that she was mad; and all this happening amid a crowd which, not knowing what part to take, divided and made way for the victim and the murderers. Terror gave the marquise superhuman strength: the woman who was accustomed to walk in silken shoes upon velvet carpets, ran with bare and bleeding feet over stocks and stones, vainly asking help, which none gave her; for, indeed, seeing her thus, in mad flight, in a nightdress, with flying hair, her only garment ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE GANGES—1657 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... Russia has been murdered, and a few American cities tumbled to fragments by an earthquake—you know how you feel then. James Ollerenshaw felt like that. The captain of the bowling-club, however, poising a bowl in his right hand, and waiting for James Ollerenshaw to leave his silken dalliance, saw nothing but an old man and a young woman ...
— Helen with the High Hand (2nd ed.) • Arnold Bennett
... Anchares bright, And ye, whose cars controlled the fight, Arsaces and Diaixis wight, Kegdadatas, Lythimnas dear, And Tolmus, greedy of the spear! I stand bereft! not in thy train Come they, as erst! ah, ne'er again Shall they return unto our eyes, Car-borne, 'neath silken canopies! ...
— Suppliant Maidens and Other Plays • AEschylus
... aching head, till night. This must be a matter unconfided to any, even Alice Montagu. And while the maiden lay smiling in her quiet sleep, after having fondly told her friend that Sir Richard Nevil had really noticed her new silken kirtle, she knelt on beneath the crucifix, mechanically reciting her prayers, and, as the beads dropped from her fingers, fighting out the fight with ...
— The Caged Lion • Charlotte M. Yonge
... late. But Dagmar had only swooned. As he throws himself upon her bed she opens her eyes, and smiles upon her husband. Her last prayer, as her first, is for mercy and peace. Her sin, she says, is not great; she has done nothing worse than to lace her silken sleeves on a Sunday. Then she closes her eyes ...
— Hero Tales of the Far North • Jacob A. Riis
... and in another second I should have been lost, for my arms would have been around her. The door opened and closed. We heard the jingling of sequins, the sweep of a silken train. The Archduchess had entered. Isobel's arms fell from my neck, but her cheeks were scarlet, ...
— The Master Mummer • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... I am beautiful: they praise my silken hair, My little feet that silently slip on from stair to stair: They praise my pretty trustful face and innocent grey eye; Fond hands caress me oftentimes, yet would that ...
— Fly Leaves • C. S. Calverley
... OH, silken gown, all pink and pretty, Bought, quite a bargain, in the City, Your ill-trained soul full false has played me— No Paris ...
— The Rainbow and the Rose • E. Nesbit
... year of the war, and from a motive of patriotism common at that time, Mr. Ferris (one of my many predecessors in office at Venice) had just been crossing his two silken gondola flags above the consular bookcase, where with their gilt lance-headed staves, and their vivid stars and stripes, they made a very pretty effect. He filliped a little dust from his coat, and begged Don Ippolito to be seated, with the air of putting even a Venetian ...
— A Foregone Conclusion • W. D. Howells
... eaten the drawer empty, let me see What this is in my mouth:" And with both hands He began drawing from his lips long strands Of narrow silken ribbons, every hue And tint;—and crisp they were and bright and new As if just purchased at some Fancy-Store. "And now, Bub, bring your cap," he said, "before Something might happen!" And he stuffed the cap Full of the ribbons. "There, my little chap, Hold tight ...
— A Child-World • James Whitcomb Riley
... if it toyed In silken locks of Don Juan, Or on a gem-bright caftan joyed To stroke the beard of ...
— Enamels and Cameos and other Poems • Theophile Gautier
... maidens. The feast took place in the gardens about Almanzor's beautiful country place, Almeria, where at night the whole estate was illuminated by means of lamps which were fastened to every tree and shrub. Musicians, far out upon the lakes, discoursed sweet music from boats which were hung with silken tapestries, and the whole night was given over to pleasures. As a reminder of the customs of the desert tribes, who used to carry off their wives by force, the bride was placed in a spacious pavilion of white silk, where she was carefully guarded by her maids in ...
— Women of the Romance Countries • John R. Effinger
... family-rubbish, scrupulously saved by half a graveyard-full of female relations,—for the women-folk of the Wimples had been ever noted for their thrift,—a certain quaint garment had come down to Sally from her great-grandmother. It was a black "silken wonder," wherewith, no doubt, that traditionally dear, delightful creature was wont to astonish the streets, in the days of her vanity ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II., November, 1858., No. XIII. • Various
... single-handed; trusting no one, for he was something of a cynic; up early and down late, for he was nothing of a sluggard; daily ear- wigging influential men, for he was a master of ingratiation. In that slender and silken fellow there must have been a rare vein of courage, that he should thus have died at his employment; and doubtless ambition spoke loudly in his ear, and doubtless love also, for it seems there was a marriage in his view had he succeeded. But he died, and his ...
— Memories and Portraits • Robert Louis Stevenson
... lover she only had!—At the instant too that she was priding herself, that now at last she should have it in her power not only to gratify her own susceptibilities, but to give an example to the flirts of her sex** (my worship's self in her eye) how to govern their man with a silken ...
— Clarissa, Volume 1 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... temples; but the wealth of the citizens he encouraged them to make their own. For six days and nights the rough barbarians trooped through the streets of the city on their mission of pillage. Their wagons were heaped with the costly furniture, the rich plate, and the silken garments stripped from the palaces of the wealthy patricians and the temples of the gods. Amidst the license of the sack, the barbarian instincts of the robbers broke loose from all restraint, and the city was everywhere ...
— A General History for Colleges and High Schools • P. V. N. Myers
... the night. Then the cobra crawled along the branch to the trunk of the tree, and then on down to the ground. I, who was holding to the trunk, had to sit still while his cold body passed over my finger. But I was determined not to fear and I could feel the silken coolness passing over my hot hand. In an ...
— Kari the Elephant • Dhan Gopal Mukerji
... went down. Slowly, because her errand was a hard one; thoughtfully, because she knew not where nor how she could best deliver it. No need to look for him or linger for his coming; he was already there. Alone in the hall, absently smoothing a little silken shawl she often wore, and waiting with a melancholy patience that smote her to the heart. He went to meet her, took both her hands in his, and looked into her face ...
— Moods • Louisa May Alcott
... standing by the table folding up the silken cloak. ANNET sits watching her, on her knees lies a open parcel disclosing a woollen shawl. In a far corner of the room MAY is seated on a ...
— Six Plays • Florence Henrietta Darwin
... so late as the reign of George II., that Lord Ferrars should be executed for murder. The king of a new dynasty, who wished to be popular with the people, insisted on it, and even then he was hanged with a silken cord. At any rate we may defend ourselves now,' continued Mr. Millbank, 'and, perhaps, do something more. I defy any peer to crush me, though there is one who would be very glad to do it. No more of that; I am very happy to see you at Millbank, ...
— Coningsby • Benjamin Disraeli
... now that she was admitted to an audience at last, she was received with honors granted to only the greatest personages. At the entrance door stood four heralds in a row, in splendid tabards, with long slender silver trumpets at their mouths, with square silken banners depending from them embroidered with the arms of France. As Joan and the Count passed by, these trumpets gave forth in unison one long rich note, and as we moved down the hall under the pictured and gilded vaulting, this was repeated at ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc - Volume 1 (of 2) • Mark Twain
... caprices, the little care she took to look at the purse and the boots of those who wished to be considered amongst them, brought about a corresponding mobility in her existence which was a perpetual alternation of blue broughams and omnibuses, first floors and fifth stories, silken gowns and cotton frocks. Oh cleaning girl! Living poem of youth with ringing laugh and joyous song! Tender heart beating for one and all beneath your half-open bodice! Ah Mademoiselle Musette, sister of Bernette and Mimi Pinson, ...
— Bohemians of the Latin Quarter • Henry Murger
... in Carmona's pasture now, moving towards a troop of grazing bulls, magnificent creatures whose terrible horns and silken hides (branded with double circles under a crown) glittered in the sun. Scarcely a head was tossed in honour of the new-comers; but as Pilar raised her girlish voice to give a peculiar call, I saw a dark form in the distance separate itself from ...
— The Car of Destiny • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... is a better American than any of us," said Mrs. Van Valkenberg. She had arisen and was standing looking out of the window, toying with the silken fringe of the curtain. "There's hope for you, Anne. . . . Of course I shan't advise you. I could n't, don't you know, not knowing Prince Koltsoff." She paused and gazed eagerly in the direction of Anne's car. Her lips framed an exclamation, but she checked it. "By-the-bye, Anne," she said, ...
— Prince or Chauffeur? - A Story of Newport • Lawrence Perry
... views of places were thus eloquent of the old days, assuredly not less so were the portraits. There was the Head Master in his silken robes, looking exactly as he did when, enthroned in the Sixth Form Room, he used to deliver those well-remembered admonitions—"Never say what you know to be wrong," and "Let us leave commence and ...
— Collections and Recollections • George William Erskine Russell
... could only have foreseen this honour," said Tob, with grisly jest, "I'm sure he'd have laid in a silken warp to make fast on the bollards instead of mere plebeian hemp. I'm sure there'd be a frown on Dason's head this minute, if the sun hadn't scorched it stiff. My Lord Deucalion, will you pick your way with niceness over this common ship and tread ...
— The Lost Continent • C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne
... had heard that voice; it held a touch of sadness; it was familiar; it was soft and silken like music that might have been woven out of the moonbeams. Who was it that always made me think of moonbeams? I lay ...
— The Blind Spot • Austin Hall and Homer Eon Flint
... not have her now. After all, prussic acid would be the truest mercy' said Leonard, holding the little creature up to his face, and laying his cheek against her silken coat ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... in Egypt, had an Angora cat, of which he was extremely fond. It was entirely covered with long white silken hairs; its tail formed a magnificent plume, which the animal elevated at pleasure over its body. Not one spot, nor a single dark shade, tarnished the dazzling white of its coat. Its nose and lips were of a delicate rose colour. Two ...
— A Hundred Anecdotes of Animals • Percy J. Billinghurst
... thinking that her lover was so near, and weary of absence and the solitude of her abode, had that very evening resolved to escape from confinement. In the darkness of night she accordingly let herself down from the battlements by a silken rope, which she had twisted from slips of various robes, and reached the ground unhurt. With haste she fled towards the sea shore, where she perceived a fishing boat, the owner of which, though at first alarmed, supposing her, from her ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 4 • Anon.
... flower'd as well as they? In what weak colours would the plaid appear, Work'd to a quilt, or studded in a chair! The skin, that vies with silk, would fret with stuff; Or who could bear in bed a thing so rough? Ye knowing fair, how eminent that bed, Where the chintz diamonds with the silken thread, Where rustling curtains call the curious eye, And boast the streaks and paintings of the sky! Of flocks they'd have your milky ticking full: And all this for the benefit of wool! "But where," say they, ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift
... a glance over Mrs. Hanway-Harley. She was not coarse, but was superficial—a woman of inferior ideals. He marveled how a being so fine as the daughter could have had a no more silken source, and hugged the boot-heel. The daughter was a flower, the mother a weed. He decided that the superiority of Dorothy was due to the father, and gave that absent gentleman a world of credit without waiting to ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... get the letter, Ladye, Tied wi' a silken string, Whilk I sent to thee frae the far countrie, A message ...
— Phantasmagoria and Other Poems • Lewis Carroll
... to town, trading. When he came to the inn, the dance was already on. He was dressed in his best, wearing his new broad, red silken belt with his snow-white pantaloons and new footgear with silver bells on the ankles and tips. His shirt was as white and thin as air. On it the deftest fingers of our tribe had embroidered figures and flowers. ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... shot through Dawn's silken hair, yet she grew more beautiful as the years matured her. The children under her care grew to be young men and women, and went out into the world qualified to live harmonious lives. She had taught them the true religion of life; had impressed upon their minds the importance ...
— Dawn • Mrs. Harriet A. Adams
... attractions; "a form that was fashioned as light as a fay's;" a complexion of the clearest and lightest olive; {p.247} eyes large, deep-set and dazzling, of the finest Italian brown; and a profusion of silken tresses, black as the raven's wing; her address hovering between the reserve of a pretty young Englishwoman who has not mingled largely in general society, and a certain natural archness and gayety that suited well with the accompaniment of a French accent. A lovelier ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume I (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... that love then led us—you and me? I say 'twas hate, that wore love's wanting eyes: Hate that I could not tear away the lies That wrapped you with their silken sorcery. Hate that for you I could not open skies Where beauty lives of her own loveliness; That God would give me no omnipotence To purge and mould anew your soul's numb sense. Aye, hate that I could love you not tho love Pent in me ached with passion-born distress— While thro unfathomable ...
— Nirvana Days • Cale Young Rice
... for the first time, that a third resource was open—he might cut the rope, and let the kite go free! Amazed at his stupidity in not thinking of this before, he took out his clasp-knife, but before applying it, made a last effort to move the regulator. Strange to say, the silken cord yielded to the first pull, as if nothing had been wrong with it at all! The head of the runaway kite was thrown forward, and it came wavering down in eccentric gyrations, while the sledge gradually lost way, and came to a standstill not ...
— The Giant of the North - Pokings Round the Pole • R.M. Ballantyne
... never was meant: In a chest between two silken cloths 'Twas kept safely hidden with careful intent In camphor to keep out the moths. 'Twas famed far and wide through the whole countryside, From Beersheba e'en unto Dan; And often at meeting with envy 'twas eyed, My grandmother's ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume I. (of X.) • Various
... hanged for a robbery. I did touch the dead body with my bare hand: it felt cold, but methought it was a very unpleasant sight. It seems one Dillon, of a great family, was, after much endeavours to have saved him, hanged with a silken halter this Sessions (of his own preparing), not for honour only, but it seems, it being soft and sleek, it do slip close and kills, that is, strangles presently: whereas, a stiff one do not come so close together, and so the party may live the longer before killed. But ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... bodies of the beeches seemed to melt into the cloudy atmosphere. There was no wind among the trees, and the pervading dampness had robbed the yellowed leaves of their silken rustle. They fluttered softly, hanging limp from the drooping branches as if attached by invisible threads. As he went on a deep bluish smoke issued from among some far-off poplars where a farmer was burning brush in a clearing. The smoke hung low above the undergrowth, ...
— The Voice of the People • Ellen Glasgow
... ago, amuse us in a way their poor dead authors never intended. Most amusing are the dead ones who take themselves seriously, whose books are pulpits quaintly carved and decorated with precious stones and silken canopies in which they stand and preach to ...
— A Crystal Age • W. H. Hudson
... long summer evenings sweet strains of Spanish music from violin and guitar filled the air, and the hard earthen floor of the courtyard resounded to the tap-tap of high-heeled slippers, the swish of silken skirts, and the jingle of silver spurs, as the young people took part in ...
— History of California • Helen Elliott Bandini
... cried, "yonder comes that Nigger in his silken chariot of gold. Come down you king, or we will crucify you and your fold." But tears of sorrow for one among man, only revealed the thoughts of ...
— The Secret of the Creation • Howard D. Pollyen
... more had been heard, as she was still looking up at him everything turned black before her. She found herself half lying on the little spindle-legged sofa, without knowing how she got there, her head pillowed on a green silken cushion, with Dosia fanning her, while Girard leaned against the little mirrored mantelpiece with set face and contracted brows. Presently Lois pushed away the fan, made a motion as if to rise, only to relapse ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various
... no pollen, and is seldom injured by frost. Gooseberries, currants, cherries, pear and peach trees, add a share of both honey and pollen. Sugar maple (Acer Saccharinum) now throws out its ten thousand silken tassels, beautiful as gold. Strawberries modestly open their petals in invitation, but, like "obscure virtues," are often neglected for the more conspicuous Dandelion, and the showy appearance and flagrant blossoms of the apple-trees, which now open their ...
— Mysteries of Bee-keeping Explained • M. Quinby
... end of the room, but arose as Alonzo was announced. She was dressed in sky-blue silk, embroidered with spangled lace; a gemmed tiara gathered her hair, from which was suspended a green veil, according to the mode of those times; a silken girdle, with diamond clasps, surrounded her waist, and a brilliant sparkled upon her bosom. "The stranger's description was not exaggerated, thought Alonzo; for, except one, I have never seen a more elegant figure:" ...
— Alonzo and Melissa - The Unfeeling Father • Daniel Jackson, Jr.
... Spring, Praised the way those anklets ring; Or wandering like a white Greek maid Leaf-dappled through the dancing shade, Where many a green-veined leaf imprints Breast and limb with emerald tints, That softly net her silken shape But let the splendour still escape, While rosy ghosts of roses flow Over ...
— The New Morning - Poems • Alfred Noyes
... upon the rail, her eyes on the water, her lashes on her cheek like a silken veil. At her breast nodded his favor, the Cypriani's perfect rose. In her youth, her beauty, and, most of all, her innocent helplessness, there was something indescribably wistful, indescribably compelling: it sprang at him and possessed him. Even in permitting him her acquaintance, she ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... both in town and country; and gave him a funeral, in pomp and magnificence little inferior to that of princes. He never wore the same garment twice. He (359) has been known to stake four hundred thousand sesterces on a throw of the dice. It was his custom to fish with a golden net, drawn by silken cords of purple and scarlet. It is said, that he never travelled with less than a thousand baggage-carts; the mules being all shod with silver, and the drivers dressed in scarlet jackets of the finest Canusian ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus
... "Oh! it looks so awkward and singular to see a woman with a gown on in the pulpit" (for that's the whole gist of it), why, then, the same logic might as well disrobe the male priesthood of their silken paraphernalia, cassock ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... will quench the fire of my heart.' 'O Ghanim,' replied she, 'wait till I am drunk: then steal a kiss from me, so that I may not know thou hast kissed me.' Then she rose and taking off her upper clothes, sat in a shift of fine linen and a silken kerchief. At this, desire stirred in Ghanim and he said to her, 'O my mistress, wilt thou not vouchsafe me what I asked of thee!' 'By Allah,' replied she, 'this may not be, for there is a stubborn saying written on the ribbon of my trousers.' ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume I • Anonymous
... trailed behind him. At the moment when Edward first caught my horrified eye a particularly well-groomed young gentleman of about his own age caught Edward's eye in turn. Edward paused to survey this silken wonder with interest. Then, as if prompted thereto by the sight, he snatched off his hat and, casting it upon the ground, kicked it ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, August 4th, 1920 • Various
... king— Dreams starting him in terror from his sleep, Yet seeming prophecies of coming good. He dreamed he saw the flag his fathers loved In tatters torn and trailing in the dust, But in its place another glorious flag, Whose silken folds seemed woven thick with gems That as it waved glittered with dazzling light. He dreamed he saw proud embassies from far Bringing the crowns and scepters of the earth, Bowing in reverence before ...
— The Dawn and the Day • Henry Thayer Niles
... Bingo's little silken head on her breast, did not feel young; she heard the noise, and smelled the boiling molasses, and knew that Mary would be cross when she came home and found the kitchen in a mess. "How can Maurice stand ...
— The Vehement Flame • Margaret Wade Campbell Deland
... he took hold of it timidly in its silken sleeve. It amazed him, for it was like marble. Still, he hated to lose her from the neighborliness of the office; he hated to send her out among the workmen with their rough language and their undoubted ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes
... vanquish'd the mighty phantom of the fair, the giant honour, and routed all the numerous host of women's little reasonings, passed all the bounds of peevish modesty; nay, even all the loose and silken counterscarps that fenced the sacred fort, and nothing stopped my glorious pursuit: then, then, ye gods, just then, by an over-transport, to fall just fainting before the surrendering gates, unable to receive the yielding treasure! Oh Sylvia! ...
— Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister • Aphra Behn
... a brief and futile struggle, and a hissing of breath in the silence till the hat tumbled from the head of Jack and down over the shoulders streamed a torrent of silken black hair. ...
— Riders of the Silences • John Frederick
... knit it up in silken strings 45 With twenty odd-conceited true-love knots. To be fantastic may become a youth Of greater time than I shall show ...
— Two Gentlemen of Verona - The Works of William Shakespeare [Cambridge Edition] [9 vols.] • William Shakespeare
... on your lovely rosebud of a mouth.' Don't you think that is a little too warmly colored? And 'I am languishing for the pressure of your ivory arms about my neck and the sweep of your silken hair against my cheek!' What I mean is—well, what about it, ...
— A Man of Means • P. G. Wodehouse and C. H. Bovill
... Mrs. Athelstone who came through the doorway. She was all in white, a soft, silken white, which floated about her like a cloud, drifting back from her bare arms and throat, and suggesting the rounded outlines of her limbs. Her black hair, braided, hung below her waist, and from her forehead the golden asp bound back the curls. ...
— The False Gods • George Horace Lorimer
... flowed proudly from the King's shoulders; above their three ribbons of red, green, and gold, the Orders of his ancestors burned confidingly on the royal breast. The Queen's diamonds were supreme; upon the silken fabric of her corsage they flashed incredibly; one watched them, fire-color infinitely varied, infinitely intensified, like nothing else seen on earth. As she advanced, deeply bowing to right and left, parabolas of light exhaled from her coronet like falling ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman
... all gleaming / held they in the hand, The saddle-bands were silken. / So came they to the land. On every side the people / to gape at them began, And also out to meet them / the men ...
— The Nibelungenlied - Translated into Rhymed English Verse in the Metre of the Original • trans. by George Henry Needler
... bottled milk; The sward our table, and the boughs our roof: And oh! in banquet hall, where richest cates Luxurious woo the pamper'd appetite, Never did viands proffer such delight, To Sybarite upon his silken couch, As did to us our simple ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 360, October 1845 • Various
... twenty-four torch-bearers up the grand staircase to a hall, where they were received by the Princesses of Mansfeld, Velasco, and other distinguished dames. Thence they were led through several apartments rich with tapestry and blazing with crystal and silver plate to a splendid saloon where was a silken canopy, under which the Princess of Conde and the Princess of Orange seated themselves, the Nuncius Bentivoglio to his delight being placed next the beautiful Margaret. After reposing for a little while they were led to the ball-room, ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... literature on Burma, which seems to have appealed to British travelers. Among the books that have chapters devoted to Rangoon are Cuming, In the Shadow of the Pagoda; Bird, Wanderings in Burma; Hart, Picturesque Burma; Kelly, The Silken East; MacMahon, Far Cathay and Farther India; Vincent, The Land of the White Elephant; Nisbet, Burma Under British Rule and Before; Hall, The Soul of a People and A ...
— The Critic in the Orient • George Hamlin Fitch
... "Palmetto Shades." The upper floor of this saloon and hostelry was occupied by Mr. Hamlin as his private lodgings, and was fitted up with the usual luxury and more than the usual fastidiousness of his extravagant class. As the dusty and travel-worn party trod the soft carpets and brushed aside their silken hangings in their slow progress with their helpless burden to the lace-canopied and snowy couch of the young gambler, it seemed almost a profanation of some feminine seclusion. Gideon, to whom such luxury was unknown, was profoundly troubled. ...
— By Shore and Sedge • Bret Harte
... and whispered a word to him. A moment later, Long Sin drew forth a large silken handkerchief and tied it tightly over Elaine's eyes. Then he took her hand and led her out. There was to be no chance by which she could lead a raiding party back to the den in ...
— The Romance of Elaine • Arthur B. Reeve
... standing at one side of the pool, near the center. Directly opposite us, seated on the bottom of the pool, was a human figure, nude save for a great mass of tawny hair that fell about her like a silken mantle. The strangely graceful figure of a girl, one leg stretched out straight before her, the other drawn up and clasped by the interlocked fingers of her hands. Even in the soft light I could see her perfectly, through the clear water, her pale body outlined sharply ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, March 1930 • Various
... thousand horsemen, and a countless host of foot-soldiers. The Gothic nobles appeared in burnished armor, curiously inlaid, and adorned with chains and jewels of gold, and ornaments of precious stones, and silken scarfs, and surcoats of brocade, or velvet richly embroidered; betraying the luxury and ostentation with which they had declined from the iron hardihood of their warlike sires. As to the common people, some had lances and shields and swords and crossbows, but the greater part ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, May 1844 - Volume 23, Number 5 • Various
... circle of light cast through the unshaded window, they gazed silently in upon Chip and the Little Doctor and J.G. Whitmore, and upon one other; a strange lady in a black silk shirtwaist and a gold watch suspended from her neck by a chaste, black silken cord; a strange lady with symmetrical waves in her hair and gray on her temples, and with glasses and an ...
— The Happy Family • Bertha Muzzy Bower
... take things in motion, and to shoot flying, which appears to be very true by his often missing of his mark. His wit is much troubled with obstructions, and he has fits as painful as those of the spleen. He fancies himself a dainty, spruce shepherd, with a flock and a fine silken shepherdess, that follow his pipe as rats did the ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... hue, Upon the turquoise ceiling sprinkled stars Of gold and silver crescents in bright pairs! And gold-fringed scarlet curtains grace each door, And from the inlaid columns reach the floor: From golden rods extending round the halls, Bright silken hangings drape ...
— Babylonian and Assyrian Literature • Anonymous
... conventionalisms of his times without drawing his strongest support from women. Poet and novelist love to depict the princess as won by the outlaw, the gypsy, the peasant. Women have a way of turning from the insipidities and proprieties of life to the wooer who has the stronger hand; from the silken Darnley to the rude Bothwell. This impulse is the natural corrective to the aristocratic instincts of womanhood; and though men feel it less, it is still, even among them, one of the supports of republican ...
— Women and the Alphabet • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... thousand mazes overgone, At last, with sudden step, he came upon A chamber, myrtle wall'd, embowered high, 390 Full of light, incense, tender minstrelsy, And more of beautiful and strange beside: For on a silken couch of rosy pride, In midst of all, there lay a sleeping youth Of fondest beauty; fonder, in fair sooth, Than sighs could fathom, or contentment reach: And coverlids gold-tinted like the peach, Or ripe October's faded marigolds, Fell sleek ...
— Endymion - A Poetic Romance • John Keats
... pay-streak had held him in the mountains. No one could find him when it happened, and now all they could tell him was the story of an upturned canoe found drifting on the lake, of a woman's light summer shawl caught in the thwarts, of a child's little silken bonnet washed ashore. [Fact.] The great-hearted men of the West had done their utmost in the search that followed. Miners, missionaries, prospectors, Indians, settlers, gamblers, outlaws, had one and all turned out, for they liked young Wingate, and they adored his loving wife and dainty child. ...
— The Moccasin Maker • E. Pauline Johnson
... embassies that hold Parley with Hell in fine and silken phrase, How weary is our heart ...
— The Advance of English Poetry in the Twentieth Century • William Lyon Phelps
... hear the sudden crash and uproar of a fight as soon as the three creeping men should reach the barn. She reflected in an agony upon the swift disaster that would befall any enterprise so desperate. She had an impulse to beg them to come away. The grass rustled in silken movements as she ...
— The Little Regiment - And Other Episodes of the American Civil War • Stephen Crane
... and farms in cry of each other, and each ring was pierced by narrow gateways well guarded. In the midst of the innermost ring were the tent of the Chagan or Great Chief, and the House of the Golden Hoard. Piled high were the chambers of that house with the enormous treasure of a century of raiding—silken tissues and royal apparel and gorgeous arms, great vases and heavy plate of gold and silver, spoil of jewels and precious stones, leather sacks of coined money, the bribes and tribute of Greece and Rome, and I ...
— A Child's Book of Saints • William Canton
... Zephyrs! hear my fervent sighs, Bear on broad wings your Votress to the skies!"— —Plume over plume in long divergent lines 20 On whale-bone ribs the fair Mechanic joins; Inlays with eider down the silken strings, And weaves in wide expanse Daedalian wings; Round her bold sons the waving pennons binds, And walks with angel-step upon ...
— The Botanic Garden. Part II. - Containing The Loves of the Plants. A Poem. - With Philosophical Notes. • Erasmus Darwin
... unmoving in the doorway, her fingers tightening on the silken hanging. Her breast was in a tumult of emotions, in which a leaping exultation was not wanting. But stronger than anything else in this moment was the uprushing feeling that here was one whom she had well trusted once, and who had failed her in her ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... utmost possible perfection in all subordinate matters, let us remember that they all without faith are weak, as an empty suit of armour with no life beneath the corselet; and that faith without them all is strong, like the knight of old, who rode into the bloody field in simple silken vest, and conquered. That which determines our success or failure in the work of our Lord ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... less than her words, astonished him. For the first time he saw what it was that she held in her hands. She had been gathering up her own little personal effects; a tiny parcel of silken things, comb and brush, trifling feminine odds and ends. He stared at ...
— The Everlasting Whisper • Jackson Gregory
... disturb the papers on my desk, and the white fire of the Japanese sun is taking that pale amber tone which tells that the heat of the day is over. There is not a cloud in the blue—not even one of those beautiful white filamentary things, like ghosts of silken floss, which usually swim in this most ethereal of earthly skies even ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan - First Series • Lafcadio Hearn
... forehead! What beautiful auburn, silken, brilliant, and naturally curled hair! What variety of expression in his sky-blue eyes! His teeth were like pearls, his cheeks had the delicate tint of a pale rose; his neck, which was always bare, was of the purest white. His hands were real works of art. His whole frame ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... the children's, perhaps a tradition of the old association of the myrtle with Venus, it was believed to be emblematic of the affections. He remembered also that he had even told them of this probable origin of their superstition. He was still holding it in his hand when he was conscious of a silken sensation that sent a magnetic thrill through his fingers. Looking at it more closely he saw that the sprigs were bound together, not by thread or ribbon, but by long filaments of soft brown hair tightly wound around them. He unwound a single hair and held it to the light. Its length, color, texture, ...
— Cressy • Bret Harte |
