"Embellishment" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... disinterested advice to the contrary. For this intelligent perception, and for general nobility of conduct when in battle, the versatile Chief of Bowmen is by this written paper strongly recommended to the dignity of receiving the small metal Embellishment of Valour. ...
— The Wallet of Kai Lung • Ernest Bramah
... meeting I ever had with a Lynx I shall remember when all the other meetings have been dimmed by time, but I have used the incident without embellishment in the early part of "Two Little Savages," so shall ...
— Wild Animals at Home • Ernest Thompson Seton
... scrupulous in her embellishment of facts, used to tell an anecdote of her which I hope was exaggerated. Some friend of hers, as she affirmed, in company with a large party, visited Buttermere a day or two after that on which Hatfield suffered; ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 193, July 9, 1853 • Various
... the open somehow brought relief and the delicate constraint between them relaxed as they sauntered slowly into the house where Shiela presently went away to dress for the Ascott function, and Hamil sat down on the veranda for a while, then retired to undertake the embellishment ...
— The Firing Line • Robert W. Chambers
... the garden her unceasing desire. Nor within doors was her influence less actively exercised. Drawing-rooms and boudoirs, morning-rooms and bedchambers, were always undergoing some improving touch, some graceful embellishment, inspired by that changeful fancy. When new visitors were expected at the Castle, Lady Laura flitted about their rooms, inspecting every arrangement, and thinking of the smallest minutiae. She would even look into the rooms prepared ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... of verse, which probably prevailed among the natives of Provence (the Roman Provincia), and into which, at a later period, rhyme was introduced as an embellishment, the Troubadours derived the metre of their ballad poetry, and thence introduced it into the ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... Hence the number of the specimens warranted their publication in a separate form, under the able superintendance of Dr. Richardson, surgeon and naturalist to the expedition, aided by Mr. Swainson. The great expense of the requisite embellishment of the ornithological portion, however, threatened a formidable obstacle to its completeness; but this was met by a liberal grant of one thousand pounds by the British Government, to be applied solely towards the expense of the engravings—the present being the first zoological work ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 550, June 2, 1832 • Various
... this with seeming calmness, but when Bissell returned the foreman got his revenge. He outlined with full detail and considerable embellishment the constant progress that Larkin was making with Juliet. Disclaiming any interest of his own in the matter, he explained that the reason for his complaint was the ...
— The Free Range • Francis William Sullivan
... fitted up. There was no show, however—no empty glare to catch the eye; on the contrary, the whole concern was marked by an air of solid, warm comfort, that was much more indicative of wealth and independence than tawdry embellishment would have been. ...
— Phil Purcel, The Pig-Driver; The Geography Of An Irish Oath; The Lianhan Shee • William Carleton
... have never seen me in 'anything.' If ever you should surprise me in an ill gown you will see how much the feathers make the bird. Poets and play-wrights may pretend to believe that we need no embellishment from art; but the very men who write all that romantic nonsense are the first to court a well-dressed woman. And there are few of them who could calculate with any exactness the relation of beauty to its surroundings. ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... sought quiet and solitude in the bosom of our western forests. But he brought with him taste, and science, and wealth; and "lo the desert smiled!" Possessing himself of a beautiful island in the Ohio, he rears upon it a palace, and decorates it with every romantic embellishment of fancy. A shrubbery, that Shenstone might have envied, blooms around him. Music, that might have charmed Calypso and her nymphs is his. An extensive library spreads its treasures before him. A philosophical apparatus offers to ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... jury. It is disappointing to listen to Mr. Gordon for the first time. His appearance is sufficiently distingue, for he is tall of stature, and he has a decidedly intellectual cast of countenance. But when he commences to speak there is an almost painful absence of embellishment or emotional feeling; his language is severely practical and argumentative; but his logic is unimpeachable, and he can summon to his aid no end of hard and ...
— Western Worthies - A Gallery of Biographical and Critical Sketches of West - of Scotland Celebrities • J. Stephen Jeans
... himself, and the impressions which these circumstances had made on his own mind. He calls things by their right names; no euphuism or transcendentalism,—the plainer and commoner the better. He tells us of his farm life, its joys and sorrows, its mirth and care, with no embellishment, with no concealment of repulsive and ungraceful features. Never having seen a nightingale, he makes no attempt to describe the fowl; but he has seen the night-hawk, at sunset, cutting the air above him, and he tells of ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... found in any copy except in the Crusca Italian, and, with a little modification, in another at Florence, belonging to the Pucci family. It is just possible that it was the embellishment of a transcriber or translator; but in any case it is very old, ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... his theory of sexual selection. But it is evident that the principle which is operative in the law of battle differs from the principle which is concerned in the form of sexual selection that has to do with embellishment, and consequent charm. The law of battle, in fact, more nearly approaches the law of natural selection; seeing that it expresses the natural advantages of brute force in the struggling of rival ...
— Darwin, and After Darwin (Vol. 1 and 3, of 3) • George John Romanes
... imaginary flowers which adorned the chain, not that man should wear his fetters denuded of fanciful embellishment, but that he should throw off the chain, and break ...
— Selected Essays • Karl Marx
... Hill, Farringdon Road, the service being held in a barn-like room, which on weekdays serves for school, and is capable of accommodating a thousand children. No money has been expended in architectural embellishment, and no question of a controversial character is likely to arise in connection with accessories in the shape of altar, surplice, or candles. The Ragged Church avoids these stumbling-blocks by the simple expedient of doing without candles, surplices, or ...
— Faces and Places • Henry William Lucy
... content, the beauty of sound should be functional; that is, it should never be developed for its own sake alone, but also to intensify, through re-expression, the mood of the thoughts. The sound-values are too lacking in independence to be purely ornamental. Poetry does indeed permit of embellishment—the pleasurable elaboration of sensation—yet should never degenerate into a mere tintinnabulation of sounds. The rimes in binding words should bind thoughts also; the tonalities or contrasts of vowel and consonant should echo harmonies or ...
— The Principles Of Aesthetics • Dewitt H. Parker
... means give his consent to this proposal, observing that he would soon find a sufficient number of Badagry heads to render the plan perfectly uniform, and learning that a hundred and twenty seven were required to complete this extraordinary embellishment, he ordered that number of captives to be brought forth ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... working of coal, and thirty-four of metal mines; twenty new insurance companies were started, twenty-three banks, twelve navigation and packet companies, three fisheries, two for boring tunnels under the Thames, three for the embellishment and improvement of the metropolis, two for sea-water baths, and the rest for miscellaneous purposes; it is a somewhat significant fact that two only had for their object the establishment of newspapers. Notwithstanding the ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt
... most indisputably, the monarch who contributed in the greatest degree to the embellishment of Paris. How many establishments originated under his reign! nevertheless, on beholding them, the observer has but a faint idea of all he achieved; since every principal city of the empire witnessed alike the effects of his munificence and grandeur of mind; ...
— Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects and Curiosities of Art (Vol. 3 of 3) • S. Spooner
... time, points out the EVIL and suggests the REMEDY. PUBLIUS. 1 Aspasia, vide "Plutarch's Life of Pericles.'' 2 Ibid. 3 Ibid. 4 ] Ibid. Phidias was supposed to have stolen some public gold, with the connivance of Pericles, for the embellishment of the statue of Minerva. 5 P Worn by the popes. 6 Madame de Maintenon. 7 Duchess of Marlborough. 8 Madame de Pompadour. 9 The League of Cambray, comprehending the Emperor, the King of France, the King of Aragon, and most of the Italian princes and states. 10 The Duke of Marlborough. 11 ...
— The Federalist Papers
... (it is added,) "shrink from a bon fide examination of the 'Gospel question,' because they imagine, that unless the four Gospels are received as ... entirely the composition of the persons whose names they bear, and without any admixture of legendary matter or embellishment in their narratives, the only alternative is to suppose a fraudulent design in those who did compose them." (p. 161.) ... May one who has not shrunk from 'the Gospel question' be permitted to regret that the Reverend writer has not specified the charges ...
— Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon
... S. de R——d is not more distinguished by its profuse decoration, than by the fine taste which has guided the vast expenditure. Its halls of arabesque are almost without a rival; there is not the slightest embellishment in which the hand and feeling of art are not recognised. The rooms were very crowded; everybody distinguished in Paris was there: the lady of the Court, the duchess of the Faubourg, the wife of the financier, the constitutional Throne, the old Monarchy, the modern Bourse, were alike represented. ...
— Coningsby • Benjamin Disraeli
... painter who has visited this country at intervals during the last ten years said, "There is no such uniformity of beautiful interiors anywhere else in the world. There are palaces in France and Italy, and great country houses in England, to the embellishment of which generations of owners have devoted the best art of their own time; but in America there is something of it everywhere. Many unpretentious houses have drawing-rooms possessing colour-decoration which would distinguish them as ...
— Principles of Home Decoration - With Practical Examples • Candace Wheeler
... in the Pitakas differ from those of later works, whether Mahayanist literature or the Hindu Puranas and Epics, chiefly in their moderation. They may be classified under several heads. Many of them are mere embroidery or embellishment due to poetical exuberance, esteemed appropriate in those generous climates though repugnant to our chilly tastes. In every country poetry is allowed to overstep the prosaic borders of fact without criticism. When an ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, Vol I. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot
... the honourable name of history from the truths contained in them, as I shall prefer truth to embellishment. In fact, to embellish my story I have neither leisure nor ability; I shall, therefore, do no more than give a simple narration of events. They are the labours of my evenings, and will come to you an unformed mass, to receive its shape from your ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... and in addition to these minor indispensable talents he was endowed with a lofty philosophic imagination and a wealth of poetic diction. Naturally, he had the defects of his great qualities; his ingenuity is apt to degenerate into futile embellishment; his employment of theatrical devices is the subject of his own good-humoured satire in No hay burlas con el amor; his philosophic intellect is more interested in theological mysteries than in human passions; and the delicate beauty of his style is tinged with a wilful preciosity. ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... heart to see among these devoted relics fragments of the humble communion-tables and undecorated pulpits which I recognized as having been torn from the meeting-houses of New England. Those simple edifices might have been permitted to retain all of sacred embellishment that their Puritan founders had bestowed, even though the mighty structure of St. Peter's had sent its spoils to the fire of this terrible sacrifice. Yet I felt that these were but the externals of religion, and might most safely be relinquished by spirits that best knew ...
— Earth's Holocaust (From "Mosses From An Old Manse") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... Irish eloquence and wit crowd upon our recollection, but we forbear. The examples we have cited are taken from real life, and given without alteration or embellishment. ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. IV • Maria Edgeworth
... semi-civilization along the Arkansas. After that had been accomplished, he would consider his own safety. He wondered if Hope really was her name, and whether it was the family cognomen, or her given name. That she was Christie Maclaire he had no question, yet that artistic embellishment was probably merely assumed for the work of the concert hall. Both he and Hawley could scarcely be mistaken as to her identity in this respect, and, indeed, she had never openly denied the fact. Yet she did not at all seem ...
— Keith of the Border • Randall Parrish
... Lithographic Drawings, or Prints from Stone; and Engravings on Wood. The first two are Printed independently of the Work; the latter in connection with it; either incorporated with the Text, or otherwise, as may be desired. Each of these modes may be employed with advantage, where Embellishment is intended, or information beyond that which description is adapted to convey. Coloured Engravings are also frequently ...
— The Author's Printing and Publishing Assistant • Frederick Saunders
... my entertainers conducted me about the building, of which the extent, the magnificent architecture and richness of embellishment, astonished me. It seemed that it was not merely a dining-hall, but likewise a great pleasure-house and social rendezvous of the quarter, and no appliance of entertainment or recreation ...
— Looking Backward - 2000-1887 • Edward Bellamy
... had not been passed without quiet thought, and I had come to the conclusion that if so much gold had been used for the embellishment of the various temples, and that gold had been hastily torn down and hidden, it would most probably be in the ...
— The Golden Magnet • George Manville Fenn
... were shut up in seventy-two separate cells (according to another legend two by two in thirty-six cells), where they had no communication with each other and yet produced as many versions agreeing with each other word for word, was a later embellishment designed (as indeed were all the legends respecting the origin of this version) to exalt its character in the apprehension of the people, and to gain for it an authority equal to that of the ...
— Companion to the Bible • E. P. Barrows
... rapid, (a fourth edition being called for within two years) in comparison with the usual slow sale of scientific works. This success may easily be traced. The title of the work is not extraordinarily inviting, illustration, not embellishment, is attempted in a few outline diagrams, and the only external inducement to read, is a plain, legible type, to suit all sights. Looking further, we find the great cause in the manner as well as the matter of the volume, which is throughout a text-book of plain-spoken philosophy, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 405, December 19, 1829 • Various
... arm through Ancrum's, he swept him away, repeating, as they walked, the substance of a letter from his precious nephew, in which the Barbizon episode as it appeared to the inhabitants of No. 7 Rue Chantal and to the students of Taranne's atelier de femmes was related, with every embellishment of witticism and blague that the imagination of a French rapin could suggest. Mademoiselle Delaunay was not yet restored, according to the writer, to the atelier which she adorned. 'On criait ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Mankind".[132] The commonplace incidents of the originally prosaic stories were distorted into an almost unrecognizable form, then secondarily elaborated without any attention to their original meaning, but with a wealth of circumstantial embellishment, in accordance with the usual methods of the human mind that I have already mentioned. The history of the legend is in fact the most complete, because it is the oldest and the most widespread, illustration of those instinctive ...
— The Evolution of the Dragon • G. Elliot Smith
... the decoration, at whatever cost, of interiors in colder climes suggested to the Oriental the embellishment of his house-top. The parapet ordered by Moses became a potter's triumph; above that, later, arose towers, plain and fantastic; still later, kings and princes crowned their roofs with summer-houses of marble and gold. When the Babylonian hung gardens in the air, extravagance ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace
... artist has made the subject for our embellishment occurred with Lord Ossulston's stag-hounds, on Tuesday, the 1st of May, when the stag, after a fast run of an hour, jumped over a precipice, and broke his neck. The hounds were, at this time, close to his haunches, and a couple and a half of the leading dogs ...
— Anecdotes of Dogs • Edward Jesse
... stove-blacking under the stove where it would not be seen. Some predecessor with domestic instincts had left behind him half a package of "Rising Sun," and Billy had found it and was intending to blacken the stove just as soon as he finished the dishes. That he had left it as a crowning embellishment, rather than making it the foundation of his house-cleaning, only proved his inexperience in that line. Billy had "bached" a great deal, but he had never blacked a stove in ...
— The Long Shadow • B. M. Bower
... history, and depict the most famous and remarkable features of scenery, architecture, and art, as well as the various processes of mechanics and manufactures. Although intended for instruction rather than embellishment, no pains have been spared to insure their artistic excellence; the cost of their execution is enormous, and it is believed that they will find a welcome reception as an admirable feature of the Cyclopaedia, and ...
— The Electoral Votes of 1876 - Who Should Count Them, What Should Be Counted, and the Remedy for a Wrong Count • David Dudley Field
... nearer to the living God. But it awakened and educated the conscience, it developed more fully the sense of sin and guilt, and it made man conscious of his inability to save himself from sin and guilt; and "the day that humanity awakens to the want of something more than mere embellishment and culture, that day it feels the need of being saved and restored from the consequences of sin" by a higher power. AEsthetic taste had found its fullest gratification in Athens; poetry, sculpture, architecture, had been carried to the highest ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... of plain wood—black letters painted on a white ground. It is an unostentatious memorial, which has been respected amidst the extensive alteration and embellishment of the grounds by the late Mr. Hope. To our minds, neither of the treasures of art which are assembled within the splendid saloons of the adjoining mansion, or sculpture gallery, will outvie the interest of this humble tribute to ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 565 - Vol. 20, No. 565., Saturday, September 8, 1832 • Various
... gossip in Polpier is not conducted in groups, as the men conduct theirs on the Quay. By tradition each housewife takes post on her own threshold-slate, and knits while she talks with her neighbours to right and left and across the road; thus a bit of news, with comment and embellishment zigzags from door to door through the town like a postal delivery. To-day being Sunday, the women had no knitting; but it was observable that while Mrs Trebilcock, two doors away, led the chorus as usual, her hands moved as though plying imaginary needles: and so did the hands of Sarah Jane ...
— Nicky-Nan, Reservist • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... embellishment of the city had also Cosimo's active sympathy: piazzas, bridges, fountains, statues, still bear the marks of his supervision. Benvenuto Cellini, Michael Angelo Buonarroti, Baccio Bandinelli, Giovanni da Bologna, Bernardo Buonlatenti, ...
— The Tragedies of the Medici • Edgcumbe Staley
... marked by some embellishment. Rusty olive gave place to pale sap green, this in turn to the green of the young willow-leaf, and this again to the green of lush grass. Nor was the change in body colour all. His sides in time were decked with slanting ...
— "Wee Tim'rous Beasties" - Studies of Animal life and Character • Douglas English
... are unusually picturesque, for they have none of the geometrical formalities of the exploded school of landscape-gardening, or of Nature trimmed and tortured into artificial embellishment. We have often wondered where the old gardeners acquired their mathematical education; they must have gone about with the square and compasses in their pockets—for knowledge was then clasped up in ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13, Issue 353, January 24, 1829 • Various
... lay aside the dream of four sweet years, and take up my lonely life without disguise or embellishment. I cannot dispute your decision. I will not by one word or look urge you to change it; for I too deeply respect the truthfulness of your character to dream that it is capable of change. I do not say that I forgive you, for you have done ...
— Outpost • J.G. Austin
... existed between the two women an attraction due to the law of opposites. Myrt was nineteen. She earned twelve dollars a week. She knew all the secrets of the moving picture business, but even that hideous knowledge had left her face unscarred. Myrt's twelve was expended wholly upon the embellishment of Myrt. Myrt was one of those asbestos young women upon whom the fires of life leave no mark. She regarded Martha Eggers, who dwelt in one room, in the rear, across the hall, with that friendly contempt which nineteen, cruelly conscious of its charms, bestows ...
— Defenders of Democracy • The Militia of Mercy
... "he has given a large sum towards the embellishment of our new temple, expressly, (I use his own words) for the promotion of ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... been called forth in herself. Reflection had given calmness to her judgment, and sobered her own opinion of Willoughby's deserts; she wished, therefore, to declare only the simple truth, and lay open such facts as were really due to his character, without any embellishment of tenderness to ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... herself, sweet and bright in modest gravity amid a tumultuous world little respectful of women, full of the excessive charity of the age and of her race, and of those impulses of decoration and embellishment which were slow to develop among the ruder difficulties of the north. Theodoric himself must have been more or less of an artist, for in speaking of the "golden vases" and ornaments for the altars of her ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant
... us mainly in the exhibition of manners, which, in the idle and expensive society dwelling in them, are raised to a high art. The maxim of courts is, that manner is power. A calm and resolute bearing, a polished speech, an embellishment of trifles, and the art of hiding all uncomfortable feeling, are essential to the courtier: and Saint Simon, and Cardinal de Retz, and Roederer, and an encyclopaedia of Memoires, will instruct you, if you wish, in those potent secrets. Thus, it is a ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)
... plundering the hedges, far and wide, for nosegays of wild flowers, with which he would return laden, home; and which it took great care and consideration to arrange, to the best advantage, for the embellishment of the breakfast-table. There was fresh groundsel, too, for Miss Maylie's birds, with which Oliver, who had been studying the subject under the able tuition of the village clerk, would decorate the cages, in the most approved taste. When the birds were ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens
... volume of the MIRROR with an embellishment quite novel in design from the generality of our graphic illustrations, but one which, we flatter ourselves, will excite interest among our friends, especially after so recently, presenting them with a Portrait and Memoir of his Majesty in the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 262, July 7, 1827 • Various
... furthest reaches of the azure sky, and the sombre depths of the wooded valley, and the sheeny splendors of the afternoon sun, and every incident of crag or chasm—all appeared through a soft purple haze that possessed the air, and added an ideal embellishment to the scene. Down the ravine the "lick" shone with the lustre of a silver lakelet. He saw the old oak-tree hard by, with the historic scaffold among its thinning leaves, and further along the slope were visible vague bobbing figures, which he recognized ...
— Down the Ravine • Charles Egbert Craddock (real name: Murfree, Mary Noailles)
... is usually to be met with in such compositions; preserving at the same time a sufficient degree of simplicity to make it intelligible to very young children, and rather choosing to be diffuse than obscure." With these objects in mind, we can understand small Tommy's embellishment of his demand for the return of his ball by addressing the ragged ...
— Forgotten Books of the American Nursery - A History of the Development of the American Story-Book • Rosalie V. Halsey
... This silly story has been retained, perhaps very unnecessarily. It is perhaps an instance of embellishment founded on the love of the marvellous, and the whole truth may lie in a very narrow compass "an infant coming into the world covered with hair," while all the ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VI - Early English Voyages Of Discovery To America • Robert Kerr
... the sense of beauty. No edifices in the world —not even the Pyramids—are more deficient in external ornament. The buttresses and the air-holes, which alone break the flat uniformity of the walls, are intended simply for utility, and can scarcely be said to be much embellishment. If any efforts were made to delight by the ordinary resources of ornamental art, it seems clear that such efforts did not extend to the whole edifice, but were confined to the shrine itself—the actual abode of the god—the chamber which crowned the whole, and was alone, strictly speaking, ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 1. (of 7): Chaldaea • George Rawlinson
... life endurable, he will strive to make it comfortable, according to his notions of comfort. Comfort secured, he will seek pleasure; and among the earliest objects of his endeavors in this direction will be that form of pleasure which results from the embellishment of his external life; the craving that he then supplies being just as natural, that is, just as much an inevitable result of his organization, as that which first ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... their work the more elegant, and giving it a finish, masons chip this stone into small fragments about the size of the head of a large nail; and then stick the pieces into the wet mortar along the joints of their freestone walls: this embellishment carries an odd appearance, and has occasioned strangers sometimes to ask us pleasantly, 'whether we fastened our ...
— The Natural History of Selborne • Gilbert White
... fingers sought a waistcoat pocket and, fumbling therein, touched caressingly a little pellet of soft paper. Its possessor did not require to examine it to reassure himself as to its legitimacy as a work of art, nor as to the prominence of the Roman C in its embellishment ...
— The Brass Bowl • Louis Joseph Vance
... us. In this little obscure home the two lived entirely alone. They had neighbors, of course, but none of them could tell how they contrived to subsist. The mother did no work, except for herself and her child; she had but a small garden in front of the house, the embellishment of which was her particular care; and she was surrounded with books, in the reading of which she spent all her leisure time, having little intercourse with her neighbors. The gossips that exist everywhere in society, if curious about her affairs, could discover ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various
... women should not be judged by the same rules. There are many radical differences in their affectional natures. Man is the creature of interest and ambition. His nature leads him forth into the struggle and bustle of the world. Love is but the embellishment of his early life, or a song piped in the intervals of the acts. He seeks for fame, for fortune, for space in the world's thoughts, and dominion over his fellow-men. But a woman's whole life is a history of the affections. The heart is her world; it is there her ambition strives for ...
— Searchlights on Health - The Science of Eugenics • B. G. Jefferis and J. L. Nichols
... now only wish to give. If she is in want, he will do all he can to supply her. If she is in sorrow, he will be happy if he can do any thing to comfort her. He will send her memorials of his gratitude, and objects of comfort and embellishment for her home, and will watch with solicitude and sincere affection over her ...
— Gentle Measures in the Management and Training of the Young • Jacob Abbott
... white, and his breast in high feather, black, prettily skirted with gray or invaded with white from below; but his yellow spots, set like gleaming gold in various parts of his plumage, constitute his most marked embellishment, being found on the crown, rump, throat, and ...
— Birds of the Rockies • Leander Sylvester Keyser
... no more as she gazed out into the dusty grass. There were tears in her eyes, hot blinding ones that wouldn't drop for pride, but stayed and scalded. She knew the story, with all its embellishment of heartaches. She knew the ring, too. She remembered the day she had kissed and wept and fondled it, until it seemed her heart must burst under its load of grief before she took it to the pawn-broker's that another might be eased before the end came,—that other ...
— The Goodness of St. Rocque and Other Stories • Alice Dunbar
... distended nostrils, like a dormer window on the roof of a house; others convex and twisted like a buck-handled knife; and others magnificently efflorescent, like a full-blown cauliflower. But as to the persons that were attached to these noses, fancy any distortion, protuberance, and fungous embellishment that can be produced in the human form by high and gross feeding, by the bloating operations of malt liquors, and by the rheumy influence of a damp, foggy, vaporous climate. One old fellow was an exception to this, for instead of acquiring that expansion ...
— Washington Irving • Charles Dudley Warner
... the love of calfdom and whelpage. Else it is a mockery. Where is the woman of character who would sell the be-all and end-all of her existence for a neat catalogue of possible advantages? Where is the man who would frankly and without embellishment dare make such proposal? You point to yourself. But you have never explained yourself to Hester, and even to me you are embellishing the matter with all the might ...
— The Kempton-Wace Letters • Jack London
... solve your difficulties," he said. "I have money, papers, clothing, everything I will need, outside the reservation. Suppose you just let me leave here. Then, if there is any trouble, you can use this fiction about the indiscreet underlings, without the unnecessary embellishment of ...
— The Mercenaries • Henry Beam Piper
... the vainest of men, bent on no higher object in life than the embellishment of his person, he could not have been more particular or more difficult ...
— Henry Dunbar - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... clock by him. Pretty thin picking for a dramatist, I should think. He used to take me to the theatre regularly every other Thursday—it was a date—and his favorite entertainment was vaudeville with black-face embellishment preferred. You should add that to Japanese pottery and potage a la tortue. He joined the yacht club just because the green turtle at that joint is the best in New York. Yachts! He never sailed in anything but the biggest ...
— Lady Larkspur • Meredith Nicholson
... as to be at all odd, and it fitted his broad shoulders with precision. He wore a white waistcoat and a flowing black tie, which helped to carry out the impression of his being a boy whose hair had accidentally turned gray. As he danced he put every possible embellishment of posture and step into his task, and when he bowed to Roberta his attitude expressed the deepest reverence, offset only by his laughing face as he advanced to take ...
— The Twenty-Fourth of June • Grace S. Richmond
... and paraphernalia of the soldier, as adopted by the war department at Richmond, never omitting anything, even to the trappings of his horse, bridle and saddle. His hat was decorated with a star and feather, his coat with every star and embellishment, and he wore a bright new sash, big gauntlets, and silver spurs. He was the very picture ...
— "Co. Aytch" - Maury Grays, First Tennessee Regiment - or, A Side Show of the Big Show • Sam R. Watkins
... Karpin was lying in his teeth. That dramatic little touch about McCann's body hovering over the dome before disappearing into the void, that sounded more like the embellishment of fiction than the circumstance of truth. And the string of coincidences were just too much. McCann just coincidentally happens to die right after he and his partner make their big strike. He happens to write out the cash-return ...
— The Risk Profession • Donald Edwin Westlake
... the Bible narrative of Shishak's expedition against Rehoboam as a mere fictitious embellishment of an otherwise tame narrative;[134] but Egyptologists, like Stuart, Poole, and Brugsch, have examined the inscription of Shishak, at Karnak, and allege that it fully ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson
... chuck-wagon when Sundown arrived lugging the inert body of the wolf-dog. They gathered around and asked brief questions. Sundown, busy washing the dog's wounds, answered as well as he could. His account of the fight did not suffer for lack of embellishment, and while he did not absolutely state that he had taken a hand in the fight, ...
— Sundown Slim • Henry Hubert Knibbs
... Survey a division organized for the purpose of preparing illustrations for paleontologic and geologic reports. Mr. W.H. Holmes is in charge of this division. Illustrations will not hereafter be used for embellishment, but will be strictly confined to the illustration of the text and the presentation of such facts as can be best exhibited by figures and diagrams. All illustrations will, as far as possible, be produced by relief methods, such as wood-engraving, photo-engraving, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 484, April 11, 1885 • Various
... Blennerhassett? A native of Ireland, a man of letters, who fled from the storms of his own country to find quiet in ours.... Possessing himself of a beautiful island in the Ohio he rears upon it a palace and decorates it with every romantic embellishment of fancy. [Then] in the midst of all this peace, this innocent simplicity, this pure banquet of the heart, the destroyer comes... to change this paradise into a hell .... By degrees he infuses [into the heart of Blennerhassett] the poison of his own ambition.... In a ...
— John Marshall and the Constitution - A Chronicle of the Supreme Court, Volume 16 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Edward S. Corwin
... authority, from Moscow. This decoration has, as can well be supposed, cost vast sums, but it probably obtained for the ex-Emperor that eclat, by which he constantly sought to please the vanity of the Parisians. Many of his decrees for the embellishment of their city, being dated from Vienna, Berlin, and Madrid, he sought to astonish the multitude, by attempting to accomplish in a few years, what it would in general require an age to effect. Perhaps, calculating on the instability of his power, he hastened ...
— A tour through some parts of France, Switzerland, Savoy, Germany and Belgium • Richard Boyle Bernard
... characterizes Rossini's early operas nothing is discoverable in 'Tell;' there is none of his usual mannerism; but, on the contrary, unusual richness of form and careful finish of detail, combined with grandeur of outline. Meretricious embellishment, shakes, runs, and cadences are carefully avoided in this work, which is natural and characteristic throughout; even the melodies have not the stamp and style of Rossini's earlier times, but only their ...
— Great Italian and French Composers • George T. Ferris
... which was part her nature and part her youth. She had been brought up to believe she was a beauty, and she did believe it. Now that she had the chance, she determined to make the most of her triumph. She would show people that she knew how to spend money; embellishment was the aim of her life, and she did show them. Her toilets were the richest; her equipage was the handsomest and best appointed. Her entertainments soon were among the ...
— Gordon Keith • Thomas Nelson Page
... call of Zarathustra is free both from miraculous embellishment and from undue exaltation of the person of the prophet, and forms a great contrast to later statements in the Avesta, where the prophet is placed in secret conclave with Ahura, asking him questions and receiving detailed replies which at once rank as revelation. In the Gathas, allowing for ...
— History of Religion - A Sketch of Primitive Religious Beliefs and Practices, and of the Origin and Character of the Great Systems • Allan Menzies
... a wide pavement of neat red brick. The new paint on the square detached houses shone afar off in the transparent air: they had, on top, little cupolas and belvederes, in front a pillared piazza, made bare by the indoor life of winter, on either side a bow-window or two, and everywhere an embellishment of scallops, brackets, cornices, wooden flourishes. They stood, for the most part, on small eminences, lifted above the impertinence of hedge or paling, well up before the world, with all the good conscience which in many cases came, as ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. II (of II) • Henry James
... proceed upon false principles. Its leading feature is glitter—and in that one word how much of all that is detestable do we express! Flickering, unquiet lights, are sometimes pleasing—to children and idiots always so—but in the embellishment of a room they should be scrupulously avoided. In truth, even strong steady lights are inadmissible. The huge and unmeaning glass chandeliers, prism-cut, gas-lighted, and without shade, which dangle in our most fashionable drawing-rooms, may be cited as the ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 5 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... strain everything into conformity with it; a little leaven, of the genuine kind, will go a good way towards leavening the whole lump. And so it is in the Faerie Queene; for one stanza of direct allegory there are perhaps fifty of poetical embellishment; and it is in these last, after all, that the chief moral excellency of the poem lies; as we are ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... sheath-gown, costing Jerusha seventy-five dollars, in the distance, gives no more of an impression in the matter of figure to an admiring world than your original grandmother used to make without any further sartorial embellishment than an ostrich feather in her hair, and as for the men—well, if you see any value in the change in men's garments over those which prevailed in my day, you can see what I cannot, and what is going to be the result? The time will ...
— The Autobiography of Methuselah • John Kendrick Bangs
... by taking the number of seats at a price per seat. In the case of churches and chapels, taking a minimum area of 8 ft. each, the cost varies from L10 upwards, the difference being due to the amount of architectural embellishment or the addition of a tower. Schools may be estimated as averaging L9 per scholar; we find that, taking schools of various sizes erected by the late London School Board, their cost varied from L7:12:4 to L10:1:10 per scholar. Hospitals vary ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various
... used in common parlance to express any kind of superficial or superfluous ornamentation. A poet is said to embroider the truth. But such metaphorical use of the word hints at the real nature of the work—embellishment, enrichment, added. If added, there must first of all be something it is added to—the material, that is to say, on which the needlework is done. In weaving (even tapestry weaving) the pattern is got by the inter-threading of warp and weft. In lace, too, it is got out of the threads which ...
— Art in Needlework - A Book about Embroidery • Lewis F. Day
... on his feet, of course. He plunged into an accurate narrative of what had happened, and what he had overheard, on Saturday night. He told it all without embellishment or flourish, and wound up by calling attention to Jordan's plain ...
— Dick Prescotts's Fourth Year at West Point - Ready to Drop the Gray for Shoulder Straps • H. Irving Hancock
... to picture all features of the Indian life and environment—types of the young and the old, with their habitations, industries, ceremonies, games, and everyday customs. Rather than being designed for mere embellishment, the photographs are each an illustration of an Indian character or of some vital phase in his existence. Yet the fact that the Indian and his surroundings lend themselves to artistic treatment has not been lost sight of, for in his country one may treat limitless subjects of an aesthetic ...
— The North American Indian • Edward S. Curtis
... Editors shall supply the said Ebenezer Landells (by delivering the same at Number 12 Newcastle Street Strand the present Office of the Editors of the said work or other the Office for the time being of the said Editors) with written suggestions for subjects for the Cuts for illustration and embellishment of the said work such suggestion for the Cut or Cuts on page 9 of each number (and which page is to be filled with one or more Cut or Cuts and letterpress in explanation thereof) to be furnished at least on the fourteenth day—preceeding [sic] the day on which the number in ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... this authority turns with relief from the master's historical and allegorical pieces to his wonderfully speaking portraits. Here, he says, all is simple, nothing is commonplace, nothing is unexpected, and yet nothing resembles what we have seen elsewhere; we find no embellishment, no stultification. He adds: "In art, as in literature, works which survive are perhaps those in which the artist or writer has put the most of himself, not those in which he has had most faith. The "Voeu de Louis XIII," the "Thtis" ...
— In the Heart of the Vosges - And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... but, in spite of his claims of long descent and his extraordinary natural cleverness, he has never been widely popular in this country as the Collie and the Fox-Terrier are popular. There is a general belief that he is a fop, whose time is largely occupied in personal embellishment, and that he requires a great deal of individual attention in the matter of his toilet. It may be true that to keep him in exhibition order and perfect cleanliness his owner has need to devote more consideration ...
— Dogs and All About Them • Robert Leighton
... as Cecilia paused beside him; "but it strikes me that this picture is very much better than most of those to which places of honour are assigned in your collection. And the face itself is so lovely that it would add an embellishment to ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... buildings in Mandalay, however, are the monasteries, of which there are a large number, many of great interest, the principal one being the "Queen's Golden Monastery," for beauty of design and elaborate embellishment unquestionably the finest structure of its ...
— Burma - Peeps at Many Lands • R.Talbot Kelly
... endeavored to give to the whole a genuine flavor of the old plantation. Each legend has its variants, but in every instance I have retained that particular version which seemed to me to be the most characteristic, and have given it without embellishment ...
— A Mother's List of Books for Children • Gertrude Weld Arnold
... bosom of God. Thus in his defence of the Amistad captives he began with defining justice in the language of Justinian, "Constans et perpetua voluntas jus SUUM cuique tribuendi." He quoted on the same occasion from the Declaration of Independence, not by way of rhetorical embellishment, and not even as a valid human ordinance, but as a truth of nature, of universal application, the memorable words, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, and that they are endowed by their Creator with certain ...
— Life and Public Services of John Quincy Adams - Sixth President of the Unied States • William H. Seward
... sisters being invited guests, and Vera in a continual state of agitated expectation. Had not Wilfred Merrifield always been a cavalier of her own? And here he was, paying no attention to her, with all the embellishment of her bridesmaid's adornments, and squiring instead that little insignificant Felicia, in a simple hat, and hair still on her shoulders; whilst she had to put up with nothing better than a young Varney, who was very shy, and ...
— Modern Broods • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... service, consisting of selections from his own works, was performed in the Pantheon on the anniversary of his funeral. On this occasion, the works were performed in a slow, firm, and distinct manner, just as they were written, without changing the passages in the way of embellishment, and this is probably the way in ...
— Famous Violinists of To-day and Yesterday • Henry C. Lahee
... to do without Avignon. Every city repeats the same thing, and if they were all to be listened to, the Holy Father, freed from the cares of administration, might devote his undivided attention to the interests of the Church and the embellishment of Rome. The Romans themselves, so they be neither princes, nor priests, nor servants, nor beggars, declare that they have devoted themselves long enough, and that M. Thiers may now ...
— The Roman Question • Edmond About
... beautiful. Where is it that I have read, that a Frenchman has no idea of gardening? Nothing can be more false: the French peasants infinitely excell the English of the same order in the knowledge and practice of this embellishment. ...
— Travels through the South of France and the Interior of Provinces of Provence and Languedoc in the Years 1807 and 1808 • Lt-Col. Pinkney
... his story as directly as possible, but minus many details of his heart struggle of which his reserved nature made it impossible to speak. But, bare of all embellishment, the story gave great joy to his father. His own example as a Christian had not been a brilliant one. His principles were just, as men count equity, and his life irreproachable by their standards. But the business man seemed often to hold the ascendency over the disciple of Jesus ...
— The First Soprano • Mary Hitchcock
... without the introduction of an atom of outside material, the sculptors chiseled the figures of forty or more of the principal Hindu deities. And on each of the four sides is a massive altar carved out of the side of the cliff with the most ornate and elaborate traceries and other embellishment. ...
— Modern India • William Eleroy Curtis
... omit to mention, what I trust may be considered as a change belonging to religious feeling—viz., that conversation is now conducted without that accompaniment of those absurd and unmeaning oaths which were once considered an essential embellishment of polite discourse. I distinctly recollect an elderly gentleman, when describing the opinion of a refined and polished female upon a particular point, putting into her mouth an unmistakable round oath as the natural language in which people's sentiments and opinions would ...
— Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character • Edward Bannerman Ramsay
... it did not pourtray the difference, nor convey the precise idea of those qualities which constitute the superiority of the author's; and aware that such would have been obvious to every experienced gardener, the design was necessarily abandoned, trusting, that as it was merely intended for an embellishment, its deficiency will not render the work ...
— The art of promoting the growth of the cucumber and melon • Thomas Watkins
... elected Pope as Sixtus IV. The magnificence which characterized the poor peasant's son in his dealings with Italy, in his embellishment of Rome and the Vatican, was not lacking in his treatment of Wessel. 'Ask what you please as a parting gift', he said to the scholar, who was preparing to set out for Friesland. 'Give me books from your library, Greek and Hebrew', was the request. 'What? ...
— The Age of Erasmus - Lectures Delivered in the Universities of Oxford and London • P. S. Allen
... good-naturedly used, made him a valuable element in a small company; the interest never flagged when he talked. Then, too, Millard had a knack of repeating in a way that seemed almost accidental, or at least purely incidental, what this or that noted person had said to him. It was in appearance only an embellishment of his talk, but it served to keep up a belief in the breadth, and especially the height, of his acquaintance. If he had only been presented to Mrs. Manorhouse, and she had repeated her stock witticism in his presence, Millard knew how to quote it as a remark ...
— The Faith Doctor - A Story of New York • Edward Eggleston
... wing." And, in truth, the really kingly speeches which Shakespeare assigns to him, as to other kings weak enough in all but speech, are but a kind of flowers, worn for, and effective only as personal embellishment. They combine to one result with the merely outward and ceremonial ornaments of royalty, its pageantries, flaunting so naively, so credulously, in Shakespeare, as in that old medieval time. And then, the force of Hotspur is but transient youth, the common heat of youth, in him. The character of Henry ...
— Appreciations, with an Essay on Style • Walter Horatio Pater
... of assistance in her malicious design, to take away the characters of Alan and Lettice. The charges which she brought against her husband were printed and commented on in some very respectable newspapers, and were repeated with all kinds of enlargement and embellishment wherever the retailers of gossip were gathered together. If Alan had been under a cloud before, he was now held up to scorn as a mean-spirited creature without heart or conscience, who had allowed his lawful wife to sink into an abyss of degradation. However bad she ...
— Name and Fame - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... of correct taste will hardly ever go out of his way, even in search of embellishment: he will study to attain the best end by the most natural means; for he knows that what is not natural cannot be beautiful, and that nothing can be beautiful out of its own place; for an improper situation will convert the most striking beauty into ...
— Essays on Various Subjects - Principally Designed for Young Ladies • Hannah More
... labor went desirable embellishment of life. State palaces were restored and enlarged, so that, under Bonaparte, St. Cloud, Fontainebleau, and Rambouillet came to rank with the majesty of Versailles. The city of Paris was beautified. Broad avenues were projected. The Louvre was completed and ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes
... may not sew, spin, weave, embroider sufficiently for the embellishment of their persons, and even enough to raise envy in each other, without being beholden to ...
— The Querist • George Berkeley
... Sincerity and intensity are, indeed, to the modern reader, the most obvious characteristics of Demosthenes. His style is, on the whole, singularly free from what we are accustomed to regard as rhetorical embellishment. Where the modern orator would employ a wealth of imagery, or elaborate a picture in exquisite detail, Demosthenes is content with a phrase or a word. Burke uses, in reference to Hyder Ali, the same image which Demosthenes ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 2 - "Demijohn" to "Destructor" • Various
... his own selection. He stopped the plundering of farms and the dragging of laborers off to military service. He established in Venezuela an excellent monetary system. Great sums were expended in the erection of public and private buildings and in the embellishment of Caracas. European capital and immigration were encouraged to venture into a country hitherto so torn by chronic disorder as to deprive both labor and property of all guarantees. Roads, railways, and telegraph lines were constructed. The ministers of the Church ...
— The Hispanic Nations of the New World - Volume 50 in The Chronicles Of America Series • William R. Shepherd
... in Liverpool are not numerous, but they are worthy of attention. The Town-Hall, which is the subject of our present embellishment, is in a striking style of architecture. The first stone of this structure was laid in 1749, and the hall was opened in 1754. It is an elegant stone building, having two fronts; one towards Castle-street, the other towards the area formed by the New Exchange Buildings. Each front ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume 10, No. 270, Saturday, August 25, 1827. • Various
... doubt; but, stripped of such ornamental embellishment, there can be little doubt that it was within the Tower's grim walls that Dudley first learnt to love the lady who was to be his Queen, and in whose life he was destined to play such a romantic part, when she should wear her crown, and he should be her avowed lover ...
— Love Romances of the Aristocracy • Thornton Hall
... on the earth, birds flying, swans, &c., gliding on the waters, a fine procession, too, is seen, village nymphs strewing flowers before priests, brides, bridegrooms, and their attendants, who, all entering into the temple of Hymen, disappear from the delightful eye. The painting and embellishment of this front are most masterly, and reflect the highest honour on the artists by whom they were executed; and the whole view is terminated with fountains, waterfalls, shepherds, shepherdesses, and other peasants, as pastoral sports and rural ...
— Aphrodisiacs and Anti-aphrodisiacs: Three Essays on the Powers of Reproduction • John Davenport
... characteristic of modern morality. A painful process has taken the place of the old harmony, the old equilibrium, the old joy and fullness of being. We are all so many fauns, satyrs, or Silenuses, aspiring to become angels; so many deformities laboring for our own embellishment; so many clumsy chrysalises each working painfully toward the development of the butterfly within him. Our ideal is no longer a serene beauty of soul; it is the agony of Laocoon struggling with the hydra of evil. The lot is cast irrevocably. There are no more happy whole-natured men ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... the Tiber gave an additional embellishment to this house, which was ornamented, internally, with the most perfect elegance. The saloon was decorated with copies, in plaster, of the best statues in Italy—Niobe, Laocoon, Venus de Medicis, and the Dying Gladiator. In the apartment where Corinne received company were ...
— Corinne, Volume 1 (of 2) - Or Italy • Mme de Stael
... would be simply to present it to thee plain and unadorned, without any embellishment of preface or uncountable muster of customary sonnets, epigrams, and eulogies, such as are commonly put at the beginning of books. For I can tell thee, though composing it cost me some labour, I found none greater than the making of this Preface thou art now reading. Many times did I take ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... no unfolding of the poetic possibilities of the melody. The successive variations were all in the same key; the harmonic basis was practically unchanged and the treatment consisted of dressing up the theme with stereotyped embellishment-figures and of systematic rhythmic animation—produced by the addition of more and more notes to each time unit. A standard illustration of this type of Variations is the so-called Harmonious Blacksmith of Handel from his Suite in E Major. This piece owes whatever popularity it may ...
— Music: An Art and a Language • Walter Raymond Spalding
... sofas of various shapes—all designed to give repose to the limbs; but I am sure they tend towards lazy habits, and very often interfere with work. Surely there has lately risen a custom of overdoing the embellishment and ornamentation of our houses. We fill our rooms too full of all sorts of knick-knacks, so much so that we can hardly move about for fear of upsetting something. "I have a fire [in my bedroom] all day," writes ...
— Interludes - being Two Essays, a Story, and Some Verses • Horace Smith
... her spotless boy to have such a vain distinction; a name that had been soiled by so much ignoble use? Elinor had prided herself all her life on an indifference to, almost a contempt for, the distinctions of rank: and that it should occur to her to think of that title as an embellishment to Pippo—nay, to think furtively, without her own knowledge, so to speak, that Pippo looked every inch a lord and heir to a peerage, was an involuntary weakness almost incredible. She blushed for herself as she realised it:—a peerage which had meant so little that was ...
— The Marriage of Elinor • Margaret Oliphant
... might have been deemed illegal. Had the king been enabled to carry his power still further, and made the houses be rebuilt with perfect regularity, and entirely upon one plan, he had much contributed to the convenience, as well as embellishment of the city. Great advantages, however, have resulted from the alterations though not carried to the full length. London became much more healthy after the fire. The plague, which used to break out with great fury twice or thrice every ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part F. - From Charles II. to James II. • David Hume
... shady alleys with which every street in Eden Vale is bordered. We now had leisure to examine more closely the elegant private houses, which, while they all showed the Eden Vale style of architecture—half-Moorish half-Grecian in its character—were for the rest alike neither in size nor in embellishment. The most conspicuous charm of these villas consists in their wonderfully lovely gardens, with their choice trees, their surpassingly beautiful flowers, the white marble statuary, the fountains, and ...
— Freeland - A Social Anticipation • Theodor Hertzka
... proper stage for the display of his poetical talent, he was induced to pass two of his winters in the capital; but finding that the air of the town was injurious to his health, in 1751 he purchased a residence at Twickenham. He had now another opportunity of showing his taste for rural embellishment, in counteracting the effects of his predecessor's formality, in opening his lawns and grouping his trees with an art that wore the appearance of negligence. An addition to his fortune by the decease of his uncle Mr. Owen, who left him his name together ...
— Lives of the English Poets - From Johnson to Kirke White, Designed as a Continuation of - Johnson's Lives • Henry Francis Cary
... when she had gained her bedchamber, bolted herself in, and began to meditate on the scene she had just witnessed, the most terrific pictures of slaughter and destruction presented themselves to her imagination; among which, a full-length portrait of Mr. Peter Magnus borne home by four men, with the embellishment of a whole barrelful of bullets in his left side, was among the very least. The more the middle-aged lady meditated, the more terrified she became; and at length she determined to repair to the house of the principal magistrate of the town, and request ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... the heavy black capitals in which he printed the name Francis Todd, to the small caps in which appeared the words, "sentenced to solitary confinement for life," and which he flanked with two terrible indices. But the articles did not need such embellishment. They were red hot branding irons without them. One can almost smell the odor of burning flesh as he reads the words: "It is no worse to fit out piratical cruisers or to engage in the foreign slave-trade, than to pursue a similar trade along our coast; and the men ...
— William Lloyd Garrison - The Abolitionist • Archibald H. Grimke
... of Ely in actual conversation, and Drayton's tame exposition of the outcome of their deliberations. In his report of the session of Parliament where the French war is discussed he closely follows Holinshed, so closely as to omit Shakespeare's masterly embellishment of Henry's solemn appeal to the Archbishop to pronounce on the justice of his cause as in the sight of God. Drayton must assuredly have perceived how greatly such an appeal tended to exalt his hero's character, and what an opening it afforded for impressive ...
— The Battaile of Agincourt • Michael Drayton
... Singers, it is true, was not always strictly in accordance with artistic forms. The songs did not require this; for they possessed in themselves a peculiar power, a plaintive, emotional beauty, and other characteristics which seemed entirely independent of artistic embellishment. These characteristics were, with a most refreshing originality, naturalness, and soulfulness of voice and method, fully developed by the singers, who sang with all their might, yet with most pleasing sweetness ...
— Music and Some Highly Musical People • James M. Trotter
... some diligence in the former book, in what manner argumentations ought to be handled, in this book it will be sufficient to set forth the arguments which have been discovered for each kind of subject simply, and without any embellishment, so that, in this book, the arguments themselves may be found, and in the former, the proper method of polishing them. So that the reader must refer the precepts which are now laid down, to the topics of confirmation ...
— The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, Volume 4 • Cicero
... outside surroundings. Woodbine and wild cucumber are trailed over the doors and windows; little beds of sweet-williams and marigolds line the path to the clearing's edge or across the prairie-sward to the well; and an apple or pear tree is put in here and there. In all these works, either of use or embellishment, if not done by her own hand she is at least the moving spirit. Thus over the rugged and homely features of her lot she throws something of the magic of that ideal ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler
... talk with her: to these two persons only did Clotilde reveal her secrets and convey the thoughts of her spotless soul. She spent her time in voluntary seclusion, not in the luxuries of the court or the gaieties of society, but in embroidery, knitting, and in the unnecessary embellishment of her extremely ...
— Filipino Popular Tales • Dean S. Fansler |
