"Festal" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Raleigh himself. As Raleigh returned to sleep on board the 'War Sprite,' the town of Cadiz was all ablaze with lamps, tapers, and tar barrels, while there came faintly out to the ears of the English sailors a murmur of wild festal music. ...
— Raleigh • Edmund Gosse
... eyes, a pastel in an oval frame. Another medallion held the portrait of his wife, gay, piquante, in a bodice with ribbons fluttering, and with a bird perched on her finger. It was the old aunt in her youth, and further search discovered her ancient festal-gown, of stiff brocade. Sylvie arrayed herself in this splendour; patches were found in a box of tarnished gold, a ...
— Letters on Literature • Andrew Lang
... marched away proud in the possession of its diplomas, the minds of all concerned turn naturally towards the old institution, the school picnic. On this occasion parents join the teachers and pupils for a summer day's outing in the woods. Great are the preparations for the festal day, and great the rejoicings thereon. For these few brief hours old men and women lay aside their cares and their dignity and become boys and girls again. Those who have known sorrow—and who has not?—take to themselves a day of forgetfulness. Great baskets are loaded to overflowing with the viands ...
— The Uncalled - A Novel • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... hangs half way Scarce moving, and in fear the shepherd cries, "Would that the worse were come!" So dread to him Those Heralds of fair Peace! He gazed upon them With blood-shot eyes; a moment passed: he stood Sole in his never festal hall, and flung His lighted brand into that pile far forth, And smiled that smile men feared to see, and turned, And issuing faced the circle of his serfs That wondering gathered round in thickening mass, ...
— The Legends of Saint Patrick • Aubrey de Vere
... was over, and Helen stood in her festal costume, before the ample mirror in her chamber, holding in one hand a white kid glove she had just withdrawn. She had indeed been the belle of the ballroom. Simplicity of life, and a joyous spirit, are the wonder-workers, ...
— Choice Readings for the Home Circle • Anonymous
... twin, and luxuriated in the merely Sunday—and not Sabbath—edition of a city paper shrieking with black headlines and spectacular with coloured pictures; a pleasing record of crimes and disasters and secrets of the boudoir, the festal diversions of the opulent, the minor secrets of astronomy, woman's attire, baseball, high art, and facial creams. As a high priest of the most liberal of all arts, Dave scanned the noisy pages with a cynical and ...
— The Wrong Twin • Harry Leon Wilson
... diocese of New York, and who had been appointed chaplain to the senate. From the church Washington retired to his residence, under the conduct of a committee appointed for that purpose. The people spent the remainder of the day in festal enjoyments, and closed it ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... 'Mid the green woodlands of a Western Spring. } Before the Throne a splendid Altar stood, Inlaid, in curious forms, with fragrant wood; Whereon the faithful Votaries might lay Their Offerings sacred to the festal day. ...
— The First of April - Or, The Triumphs of Folly: A Poem Dedicated to a Celebrated - Duchess. By the author of The Diaboliad. • William Combe
... which, dejected, injur'd Freedom bends, And sighs indignant o'er all Europe sends, Behold a Corsican! In better days Eager I sought my country's fame to raise. Now when I'm exiled from my native land I come to join this classic festal band; To soothe my soul on Avon's sacred stream, And from your joy ...
— James Boswell - Famous Scots Series • William Keith Leask
... chain of rooms in Mrs. Light's apartment, the pride and joy of the hostess on festal evenings, through which the departing visitor passed before reaching the door. In one of the first of these Rowland found himself waylaid and arrested ...
— Roderick Hudson • Henry James
... of the Marechal Niel rose. Mrs. Burrage and Lorry had gone for a drive, later to meet Mark—who was to stay with them over Sunday—at the station. Upstairs Aunt Ellen and Mrs. Kirkham were closeted with a dressmaker, fashioning festal attire. For that night there was to be a dinner, the first since the move. Beside the household Mark was coming, and Crowder was expected on a later train with Pancha Lopez and her father—eight people, quite an affair. Fong had been marketing half the morning, ...
— Treasure and Trouble Therewith - A Tale of California • Geraldine Bonner
... bridegroom returns thanks for the bride and for himself. The health of the bride's parents is then proposed, and is followed by those of the principal personages present, the toast of the bridesmaids being generally one of the pleasantest features of the festal ceremony. After about two hours, the principal bridesmaid leads the bride out of the room as quietly as possible, so as not to disturb the party or attract attention. Shortly after—it may be in about ten minutes—the ...
— Routledge's Manual of Etiquette • George Routledge
... B.C., one of his epigrams being an epitaph on Euphorion. He also wrote lyric poetry; Athenaeus mentions a dithyrambic poem of his called the /Centaurs/, and a /Hymn to Love/. The /Garland/ of Meleager, l. 53, speaks of "the fresh-blooming festal ...
— Select Epigrams from the Greek Anthology • J. W. Mackail
... was always, for her beneficent dragon, under arms; living up, every hour, but especially at festal hours, to the "value" Mrs. Lowder had attached to her. High and fixed, this estimate ruled on each occasion at Lancaster Gate the social scene; so that he now recognised in it something like the artistic ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume II • Henry James
... flowed those anthems of our festal days, Whose ravishing division held apart The lips of listening throngs in sweet amaze, Moved in all breasts the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various
... bound apprentice to a shoemaker; he was growing a great boy, and could not be allowed to run wild any longer. Besides, he was going to be confirmed. Ah, how happy he would have been on that festal day in Copenhagen with little Joanna; but he still remained at Kjoge, and had never seen the great city, though the town is not five miles from it. But far across the bay, when the sky was clear, the towers of Copenhagen could be ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... assembled every Sunday; on the third, their delight was greater, was more festal than ...
— O. T. - A Danish Romance • Hans Christian Andersen
... tortured me. It disturbed my bibliophilist labors, and gave a twang of musty nausea even to the sweet scent of old binding-leather. I was as a man caught in the pangs of removing, unattached to either home; and I bent from my windows over the throngs of festal promenaders, taciturn and uneasy. I fancied that wings were sprouting from my brown dressing-robe, and that they were the volatile wings of the moth or dragon-fly. But to establish myself at Marly before the baron, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 28. July, 1873. • Various
... how a knot should be tied in this world,) lost all patience with the contemptible artist, told him she was ashamed of him, took the rope out of his hand, and tied the knot irreproachably herself. The crowd saluted her with a festal roll, long and loud, of vivas; and this word viva of good augury—but ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... lights of the candles in the chandeliers shone over the furniture, the hangings, and the flowers, the rooms wore the festal air that gives to Parisian luxury the appearance of a dream; and Lucien felt indefinable stirrings of hope and gratified vanity and pleasure at the thought that he was the master of the house. But how and by whom the magic wand had been ...
— A Distinguished Provincial at Paris • Honore de Balzac
... possible, the company of such people; who reflect a degree of discredit and infamy upon all who converse with them. But as you may, sometimes, by accident, fall into such company, take great care that no complaisance, no good-humor, no warmth of festal mirth, ever make you seem even to acquiesce, much less to approve or applaud, such infamous doctrines. On the other hand, do not debate nor enter into serious argument upon a subject so much below it: but content yourself with telling these APOSTLES that you ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... invasion, where, in contempt of walls and trenches, every man sleeps securely with his sword beside him; where all on the first approach of hostility came together at the call to battle, as at a summons to a festal show; and committing their cattle to the care of those whom age or nature has disabled, engage the enemy with that competition for hazard and for glory, which operate in men that fight under the eye of those, whose dislike or kindness they have always considered ...
— A Journey to the Western Isles of Scotland • Samuel Johnson
... feasting continued, until its noise and the festal joy of its revellers aroused a mighty enemy, Grendel, the loathsome fen-monster. This monstrous being, half-man, half-fiend, dwelt in the fens near the hill on which Heorot stood. Terrible was he, dangerous to men, of extraordinary strength, human in shape ...
— Hero-Myths & Legends of the British Race • Maud Isabel Ebbutt
... her festal attire, made a nest for herself on her roomy couch and, to the faintly flowing rhythm of "The Beautiful Blue Danube," soon lost herself in dreamland, never waking until the brilliant sun of a glorious June morning flooded her room and warned her that ...
— Katherine's Sheaves • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... triumphal progress by admiring brothers and sisters. It was the morning of New-Year's day, which had always been held as a high festival in the family, as it is in many families of New England, all the merriment and festal observance elsewhere bestowed upon Christmas having been transferred by ...
— Mrs Whittelsey's Magazine for Mothers and Daughters - Volume 3 • Various
... of lightning and smooth harmony of music. The road over which we rolled was white and lustrous as parian marble, and adorned on either side with most rare and beautiful forms of foliage; ever and anon we passed gay cavalcades and bands of spirits, who were evidently, from their festal garments, and the bright emanations which they diffused through the air, bound for some harmonial gathering on one of the numerous islands which dot the sparkling river Washingtonia, so ...
— Strange Visitors • Henry J. Horn
... long-stemmed pipe breathes forth the fumes of war or the pale quiet of peace. With his pipe he pacifies the elements. On festal occasions, or when the camp rejoices at the joys of harvest, the priest smokes his pipe, blowing the smoke first to the earth, then to the sky, to the north, the south, the east, and the west, in token of gratitude for the favour of the gods. With the pipe ...
— The Vanishing Race • Dr. Joseph Kossuth Dixon
... piece was to be specially bound for Eleanor, together with some drawings that she had made of the lake and the temple site earlier in the spring. And on the day the book was finished—somewhere within the next fortnight—there was to be a festal journey to Nemi—divine ...
— Eleanor • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... high priest, had a vision, in which an angel of the Lord appeared to him, and told him what to do. In obedience to this divine command, he made the Le'vites put on their festal garments, and then, dressed in his priestly robes, he led them down the hill to meet ...
— The Story of the Greeks • H. A. Guerber
... On gala and festal occasions the Fijians were wonderfully and fantastically dressed up, their huge heads of hair thickly covered with a red or yellow powder, and they themselves wearing large skirts or "sulus" of coloured "tapa" and pandanus ribbons and ...
— Wanderings Among South Sea Savages And in Borneo and the Philippines • H. Wilfrid Walker
... Frederick Augustus by Rietschl was unveiled in the Dresden Zwinger [Footnote: This is the name by which the famous Dresden Art Galleries are known.—Editor.] with all due pomp and ceremony. In honour of this event I, in collaboration with Mendelssohn, was commanded to compose a festal song, and to conduct the gala performance. I had written a simple song for male voices of modest design, whereas to Mendelssohn had been assigned the more complicated task of interweaving the National Anthem (the English 'God Save the King,' which in ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... O! for festal dainties spread, Like my bowl of milk and bread, Pewter spoon and bowl of wood, On the door-stone, gray and rude! O'er me, like a regal tent, Cloudy-ribbed, the sunset bent: Purple-curtained, fringed with gold, Looped in many a wind-swung fold; While, for ...
— Twilight Stories • Various
... to look at my housekeeper when she carries in the tray. Her mien is festal, yet in her smile there is a certain gravity, as though she performed an office which honoured her. She has dressed for the evening; that is to say, her clean and seemly attire of working hours is exchanged for garments suitable to fireside ...
— The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft • George Gissing
... of ornate electric bulbs, and divided by two rows of massive columns; at one end a dais, flanked with two tall many-branched light standards, and a gold frame behind, from which the Imperial portrait had been cut. Here on festal occasions had been banked brilliant military and ecclesiastical uniforms, a ...
— Ten Days That Shook the World • John Reed
... morning the French landed again, and found their new friends on the same spot, to the number of eighty or more, seated under a shelter of boughs, in festal attire of smoke-tanned deer-skins, painted in many colors. The party then rowed up the river, the Indians following them along the shore. As they advanced, coasting the borders of a great marsh that lay ...
— Pioneers Of France In The New World • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... put new life and energy into him, and as a result his works became quickly known all over Europe. His mind was literally teeming with original themes, which crowded each other, struggling to be expressed. First there was the "Mass in E flat," a beautiful, original work; then a festal Cantata, "Nature and Love," written to celebrate the Queen of Saxony's birthday. After this the "Jubilee Cantata," composed to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the reign of Augustus, of Saxony. The Italian faction prevented a performance ...
— The World's Great Men of Music - Story-Lives of Master Musicians • Harriette Brower
... task, as best you may, to sing The deeds of one who sleeps at Gettysburg Among the thousands in a common grave. The story of his life I bid you tell As it was told one windy winter night To veterans gathered around the festal board, Fighting old battles over where the field Ran red with wine, and all the battle-blare Was merry laughter and the merry songs— Told when the songs were sung by him who heard The pith of it from the dying soldier's lips— His Captain—tell it ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon
... been wasted in Manila and in the outside presidios in firing salutes to the persons who govern the provinces, and on festal days, as appears by the different accounts of the administration of the royal estate, is considerable; and inasmuch as this cannot be regulated with certainty, it is diminished by eight hundred pesos per year, for according to the revision, ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 • Various
... more wood![356-1]—the wind is chill; But let it whistle as it will, We'll keep our Christmas merry still. Each age has deem'd the new-born year The fittest time for festal cheer:[356-2] And well our Christian sires of old Loved when the year its course had roll'd, And brought blithe Christmas back again, With all his hospitable train.[356-3] Domestic and religious rite[356-4] Gave honor to the holy night; On Christmas Eve the bells were ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 6 • Charles H. Sylvester
... trumpet's voice had stirred the sky, And rustling banners waved on high; The shouts of victory went up, And wreaths of laurel crowned the cup That flowed amid the festal halls, Within the crowded city's walls; Stern warriors came in long array To grace the conqueror's pageant day: Triumphant peeled the clarion's tone And spears and glancing armor shone, Mid the dust of thousands sweeping by, Like meteors in a midnight sky. They'd left behind their hosts of slain ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, April 1844 - Volume 23, Number 4 • Various
... highest horse, which he does only on two or three occasions, he finds Shakespeare only a half man, and that it would take Plato and Manu and Moses and Jesus to complete him. Shakespeare, he says, rested with the symbol, with the festal beauty of the world, and did not take the final step, and explore the essence of things, and ask, "Whence? What? and Whither?" He was not wise for himself; he did not lead a beautiful, saintly life, but ate, and drank, and reveled, and ...
— Birds and Poets • John Burroughs
... it says, "and spend this festal day, and to-morrow, and the day after to-morrow, sitting in my shadow. Let thy lover sit at thy side, and let him drink.... Thy servants will come with the dinner-things—they will bring drink of every kind, with all manner of cakes, flowers of yesterday and of ...
— The Treasury of Ancient Egypt - Miscellaneous Chapters on Ancient Egyptian History and Archaeology • Arthur E. P. B. Weigall
... looking at him in some wonder, "here was the daintiest festal ever devised: delicate youths and exquisite maidens footing it to pipe and cymbal as blithely as if they would never ...
— The God of Love • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... door, and finding it locked, opened his dressing-room, which adjoined hers, with the same key, and pushing back the silk draperies which hung between them, went in, and, to his alarm and amazement, saw her, still arrayed in her festal robes sleeping in the chair, into which she had fallen. Her face was as white as the drooping roses on her bosom, and her countenance wore an ...
— May Brooke • Anna H. Dorsey
... condescended to no flattery and attuned his lyre to no sentiment but what would find an echo in every noble heart; he excelled in every department of lyric poetry, hymns to the gods, the praises of heroes, paeans of victory, choral songs, festal songs and dirges, but of these only a few remain, his Epinikia, a collection of triumphal odes in celebration of the successes achieved at the great national games of Greece; he was not only esteemed the greatest of lyric poets by his countrymen, but is without a rival still; when Alexander destroyed ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... Berlin Geographical Society, says, "It does not give prizes, nor publish a journal, but confines itself to its meetings, which, agreeably to the custom of the country, are concluded by a jovial banquet." Thus, we are not alone in our festal predilections, and were all meetings of our public societies terminated like those of the Fellows of Berlin, science would become more popular, and the lovers of good living be gainers. Still, we recommend the fellows to keep out of their after-dinner ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 398, November 14, 1829 • Various
... procession wormed through Harvey. The streets were crowded to watch it. It made its impression on the town. The elder Calvin watched it with Mayor Ahab Wright, in festal side whiskers, from the office of Calvin & Calvin. Young Joe Calvin from time to time came and looked over their shoulders. But he was for the most part too busily engaged, making out commissions for deputy sheriffs and extra ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... recognized as a kingdom. I almost think it would be better if we could persuade Lord Culloden, not to attend the English inauguration, but remain in the kingdom of Scotland, and take the chair and the lead throughout the festal ceremonies. A peer of the realm, and your lordship's guardian, would impart something of national character to the proceedings, and this, with a judicious emblazoning on some of the banners of the royal arms of Scotland, might have a conciliatory ...
— Lothair • Benjamin Disraeli
... nobles, waiting before their palaces, had glided into position as the procession swept down toward the Piazza—each gondola showing the colors of its casa, each fluttering a silken streamer in honor of Cyprus, each bearing its freight of crimson-garbed Senators and ladies in festal array. ...
— The Royal Pawn of Venice - A Romance of Cyprus • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... that praise for the glories of old Nippon might make her seem forgetful of the festal day of her own land, she flashed out, "But please don't anybody forget that I am an American to the marrow-bone." She turned to Page. "Did you come direct ...
— The House of the Misty Star - A Romance of Youth and Hope and Love in Old Japan • Fannie Caldwell Macaulay
... out glistening on the gilded decorations of the Imperial coach. The Moniteur, with its official enthusiasm, spoke of "the orb of day escaping, against every expectation, from the rigid rule of a stormy season to light up the festal day." ...
— The Court of the Empress Josephine • Imbert de Saint-Amand
... through the garden-paths, she brushed the dew with her trailing festal garments, and plucked the great blue convolvuli to crown her forehead. Soon, on a plot of Roman violets, screened by tall trees and trellises, we breakfasted. One might have said that the cloth was laid above giant mushroom-stems, the service acorn-cups and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various
... Burns, tells us that at the age of twelve he had it by heart, and had even tried to turn it into Latin verse. In Peblis to the Play, the fun is not less nimble although it is a whit more restrained; there is an infectious spirit of spring-time and gaiety in the strain that sings of the festal gathering at Beltane, when burgesses and country folks fared forth 'be firth and forest,' all 'graithed full gay' to take part in the sports. 'All the wenches of the west' were up and stirring by cock-crow, selecting, rejecting, ...
— The Balladists - Famous Scots Series • John Geddie
... principal salon were gathered many personages with whom the reader is familiar, all in festal attire—the Count of Monte-Cristo and his beloved wife Mercedes, their friends Maximilian and Valentine Morrel, Esperance, Mlle. Louise d' Armilly and M. and Madame Albert de Morcerf. Many noble relatives of the groom were also present, to say nothing of hosts of acquaintances. ...
— Monte-Cristo's Daughter • Edmund Flagg
... shelf, called the retable, upon which the several ornaments of the Altar are placed. In the center is the Altar-cross, that this holy symbol of our Faith may be constantly before the eyes of all who worship. The vases to hold the flowers with which the Altar is beautified on festal occasions stand at either side of the Cross. The candlesticks, in churches where lights at the Holy Communion are used, stand at ...
— The Worship of the Church - and The Beauty of Holiness • Jacob A. Regester
... of us a fancy for experiments in pillage, Yet never have we seized a town, or even sacked a village.” John Gilbert said unto his mates—“Though partners we have been In all rascality, yet we no festal day have seen.” ...
— The Old Bush Songs • A. B. Paterson
... in his mind, Gwenwyn prolonged his residence at the Castle of Berenger, from Christmas till Twelfthday; and endured the presence of the Norman cavaliers who resorted to Raymond's festal halls, although, regarding themselves, in virtue of their rank of knighthood, equal to the most potent sovereigns, they made small account of the long descent of the Welsh prince, who, in their eyes, was but the chief of a semibarbarous province; while he, on his part, considered them little ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... Before night the street Unter den Linden, from the Brandenburger Thor to the Schlossbrucke, was packed with men overflowing with intense excitement. Without any preconceived arrangement, all the inhabitants decorated their windows with banners and lights, and the streets assumed the festal appearance of rejoicings over a victory. The crowd looked upon this spectacle not as an undecided beginning, but a glorious conclusion. There was no fear in any face, no question as to the future in any eye, but the certainty of triumph in all; as if they ...
— The Malady of the Century • Max Nordau
... she is gone! Her step from the dance, her voice from the song, And the smile of her eye from the festal throng; She ...
— Evenings at Donaldson Manor - Or, The Christmas Guest • Maria J. McIntosh
... conceived a plan to win wives for his people. He sent word abroad that he had discovered the altar of the god Consus, who presided over secret counsels, and he invited the citizens of the neighboring towns to come to Rome and take part in a feast with which he proposed to celebrate the festal day of the deity. This was the 21st of August, just four months after the founding of the city,—that is, if ...
— Historic Tales, Volume 11 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... one day in all the year Let all be one, let all be dear; Wife, husband, child in fond embrace, And thrust the phantom from its place. No bitter words, no frowning brow, Disturb the Christmas festal, now ...
— The Fairy Changeling and Other Poems • Dora Sigerson
... drink them unheeding. 85 Not of vile I seek gifts, nor of infamous, I. Rather, O unstain'd brides, may concord tarry for ever With ye at home, may love with ye for ever abide. Thou, fair queen, to the stars if looking haply, to Venus Lights thou kindle on eves festal of high sacrifice, 90 Leave me the lock, thine own, nor blood nor bounty requiring. Rather a largesse fair pay to me, envy me not. Stars dash blindly in one! so might I glitter a royal Tress, let Orion glow ...
— The Poems and Fragments of Catullus • Catullus
... her destructive flight on earthly crowns, Spares thy cold splendour; still those far-shot beams Tremble on dancing waves and rippling streams With stainless touch, as chaste as when thy praise Was sung by Virgin-choirs in festal lays." ...
— Nature Mysticism • J. Edward Mercer
... the chosen guests of Odin Daily ply the trade of war; From the fields of festal fight Swift they ride in gleaming arms, And gaily, at the board of gods, Quaff the cup of sparkling ale And eat ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber
... he can give a more satisfactory account of his journey than some of his friends, one of whom said that he could not see Paris properly because the houses there were too high. To-day Hasse's opera is to be given; as papa, however, is not going, I can't go either. [FOOTNOTE: Hasse had also a festal opera to compose, but Leopold Mozart writes, "I am sorry to say that Wolfgang's Serenata has totally eclipsed Hasse's opera."] Fortunately I know all the airs thoroughly by heart, so I can see and hear them in ...
— The Letters of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, V.1. • Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
... highways leap to festal bloom, And swallow-swift the traffic skims O'er sudden shoals of light and gloom, Made lovelier ...
— Nights in London • Thomas Burke
... Plates 16, 26, 27, 28 and 29 (the habit of wearing a single dog-tooth at each side of the head, as shown by 27, being a common one, and 28 showing the equally common habit of wearing a couple of betel-nuts at each side). Their appearance, when worn in abundance for a festal dance, is excellently shown in the frontispiece and in Plate 17; and the little girl in Plates 22 and 23, though too young to be a dancer, is ...
— The Mafulu - Mountain People of British New Guinea • Robert W. Williamson
... primitive appliances preceded the circular rotatory querns in evolution, and as the monuments prove were used in ancient Egypt. I cannot say whether, amongst the Euahlayi, there was a recognised licence as to exchange of wives on these festal occasions, or at boorahs. If the custom existed, I was not told of it by the blacks; but it is quite possible that, unless I made inquiries on the subject, ...
— The Euahlayi Tribe - A Study of Aboriginal Life in Australia • K. Langloh Parker
... rebellion by the gibbeting of about sixty of his followers in the most public parts of the city. Neither were the bodies suffered to be removed till the public entry of king Philip after the royal nuptials; on which festal occasion the streets were cleared of these noisome objects which had disgraced them for ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... polished breast, Only, can feel the fire of love, Pure as the flames that brightly rest In bosoms of the realms above. Yes! often in the rudest form, A heart may be, more clear and bright Than ever lent the loveliest charm To goddess of the Festal light. Come, hear a story of the time, When this wide land was one green bower, The roving Red man's Eden-chine, Where bloomed the wildest flower. The great ships brought a wondrous race, One evening o'er the ocean beach; Strange ...
— Lays of Ancient Virginia, and Other Poems • James Avis Bartley
... Queen of Portugal, eldest daughter of John of Gaunt], long ago forgotten in England, yet gentlest and best daughters of Lancaster, lay waiting for death. Somewhere in this troublesome world the bridal is always matched by the burial, the festal song by the funeral dirge. Men and ...
— The White Rose of Langley - A Story of the Olden Time • Emily Sarah Holt
... home all day, For fear of chancing on the Paris lords. The best is when they pass and look aside; But they speak sometimes; I must bear it all. Well may they speak! That Francis, that first time, And that long festal year at Fontainebleau! {150} I surely then could sometimes leave the ground, Put on the glory, Rafael's daily wear, In that humane great monarch's golden look,— One finger in his beard or twisted ...
— Introduction to Robert Browning • Hiram Corson
... the dwelling proper, which consisted of a principal salon and adjoining rooms with bare flagstone floors, and ceilings of beams and painted wooden paneling. The walls of the rooms were whitewashed, and only in the wealthiest houses were they covered with tapestries, and in these only on festal occasions. In the fifteenth century the walls of few houses were adorned with pictures, and these usually consisted of only a few family portraits. If Vannozza decorated her salon with any likenesses, that of Cardinal Rodrigo ...
— Lucretia Borgia - According to Original Documents and Correspondence of Her Day • Ferdinand Gregorovius
... and the festal celebration of the New Year, beneath a cloudless sky, and with the thermometer at 90, concluded our first visit to Swan River. We left our anchorage in Gage's Road on Thursday, January 4th, devoting ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 1. • J Lort Stokes
... profusely By the lanes, and woods, and waters, And brought music, mirth, and gladness, That the monarch heard the gay notes, And removed his sombre garments, And his frowns and dismal broodings, Donning in their stead right gladly His accustomed festal garments, And his manner bright and cheerful. Three great princes had Nimaera, Who held each a post of honor In the ruling of the kingdom, In the keeping of the subjects. Wisdom had they, and were vested Much in favor, much in honor; And a spirit moved within them, Guiding ...
— A Leaf from the Old Forest • J. D. Cossar
... itself with glory by not appearing at all, thereby signally helping along Elfreda's cause. When at eight o'clock the nine representatives of Semper Fidelis seated themselves at the tastefully decorated festal board, which occupied a position of central importance on the grassy lawn, they had no reason to complain of too much natural light. Through the dense summer darkness that had now closed in about them, softly-glowing lanterns winked their many-colored ...
— Grace Harlowe's Golden Summer • Jessie Graham Flower
... grandly lighted His palace for this festal night? 'Tis lucky thou hast seen the sight; The boisterous ...
— Faust • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... had not taken part in for years, 'twas said. Royalty honoured it; the greatest of the land were proud to count themselves among the guests; the retainers, messengers, and company of the two great houses were so numerous that in the west end of the town the streets wore indeed quite a festal air, with the passing to and fro of servants and gentlefolk with favours ...
— A Lady of Quality • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... gilded dome, And sing, for often sighs, too, end in song: "In smiling meads how sweet the brook's repose, To the rough ocean and red restless sands! Where are the woodland voices that increased Along the unseen path on festal days, When lay the dry and outcast arbutus On the fane step, and the first privet-flowers Threw their white light upon the vernal shrine?" Some heedless trip along with hasty step Whistling, and fix too soon on their abodes: Haply and one among them with his spear Measures ...
— Gebir • Walter Savage Landor
... Peter of Oldenburg, the Prince of Saxe-Weimar, Lieutenant-General Sir Harry Smith (the hero of Aliwal), the Bishop of Oxford, and nearly all the gentry of the eastern counties. Cambridge had probably never witnessed such a festal occasion, and never before did her majesty seem so much to enjoy herself. It was generally observed that her fondness for the prince was carried to excess, and that her enjoyment was mainly derived from the honour done to him. That ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... guest, our games and pageant share! Smile on the flowing cup, and hail With us the Genius of this natal day! From whose anointed, rose-entwisted hair, Arabian odors waft away. If thou the festal bless, I will not fail To burn sweet incense unto him and thee, And offerings of Arcadian ...
— The Elegies of Tibullus • Tibullus
... hearts, Our bodies should fall faint. We heard without, Already ere the morning light was full, The din of preparation, and the hum Of voices gathering in the upper tiers; Yet had we seen so often in our thoughts The picture of this strange and cruel death, Its festal horror, and its bloody pomp, The nearness scarcely moved us, and our hands Met in ...
— Alcyone • Archibald Lampman
... mallows wholesome for the body's need, Or lamb foredoomed upon some festal day In offering to the guardian gods to bleed, Or kidling which the wolf ...
— Horace • Theodore Martin
... Now in this gay, musical romance of Sir Huon and his enchanted horn, with its gleams of voluptuousness, is there a possibility that any suggestion of a scowling face like Swift's should cross the festal scenes? ...
— The Notebook of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas de Quincey
... quick-intoxicating might. The rich brown flood adown thy sides is streaming, With my own choice ingredients teeming; Be this last draught, as morning now is gleaming, Drained as a lofty pledge to greet the festal light! [He puts ...
— Faust • Goethe
... he's due here next Saturday, the festal day; and I want to give some substantial expression to him, as a stranger and neighbor, ...
— Flamsted quarries • Mary E. Waller
... on the veldt-side, but we felt we couldn't stop On this, our England's crowning festal day; We're the men of Magersfontein, we're the men of Spion Kop, Colenso — we're the men who had to pay. We're the men who paid the blood-price. Shall the grave be all our gain? You owe us. Long and heavy is the score. Then cheer ...
— The Spell of the Yukon • Robert Service
... way through sunless caves, Like bodies struggling in their graves, Carolina! And now it deepens; slow and grand It swells, as, rolling to the land, An ocean broke upon thy strand, Carolina! Shout! Let it reach the startled Huns! And roar with all thy festal guns! It is the answer ...
— The Golden Treasury of American Songs and Lyrics • Various
... do away with this enemy of the country. An extract from Sand's diary, written on the eve of his last New Year's day, reveals the character of the man: "I meet the last day of this year in an earnest festal spirit, knowing well that the Christmas which I have celebrated will be my last. If our strivings are to result in anything, if the cause of mankind is to succeed in our fatherland, if all is not to be forgotten, all our enthusiasm spent in vain, the evil doer, the traitor, the corrupter of youth ...
— A History of the Nineteenth Century, Year by Year - Volume Two (of Three) • Edwin Emerson
... last days of January the Casino was in an uproar. A number of mechanics, painters, and florists were busy transforming the rooms and corridors, even the veranda, with its adjoining conservatory, into a suite of daintily decorated festal halls. Numerous booths and tents were being erected, and all other preparations were made worthily to receive Prince Carnival, whose coming was timed for the ...
— A Little Garrison - A Realistic Novel of German Army Life of To-day • Fritz von der Kyrburg
... Victory to Thebes returns again And smiles upon her chariot-circled plain. Now let feast and festal should Memories of war blot out. Let us to the temples throng, Dance and sing the live night long. God of Thebes, lead thou the round. Bacchus, shaker of the ground! Let us end our revels here; Lo! Creon our new lord draws near, Crowned by ...
— The Oedipus Trilogy • Sophocles
... brightly lit, teeming at this moment with life: carriages were rolling through them to balls or to the opera. The same hour which tolled curfew for our convent, which extinguished each lamp, and dropped the curtain round each couch, rang for the gay city about us the summons to festal enjoyment. Of this contrast I thought not, however: gay instincts my nature had few; ball or opera I had never seen; and though often I had heard them described, and even wished to see them, it was not the wish of one who hopes to partake a pleasure if she could only reach it—who feels fitted ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... incident in the Wars of the Roses. Lord Clifford, who had been hidden away in infancy from the vengeance of the Yorkists and reared as a shepherd, is restored to the estates and honours of his ancestors. High in the festal hall the impassioned minstrel strikes his harp and sings the triumph of Lancaster, urging the shepherd lord to emulate the ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... was magic in the sound, or contagion, at least, in the spirit which had got possession of Miriam and himself, for very soon a number of festal people were drawn to the spot, and struck into the dance, singly or in pairs, as if they were all gone mad with jollity. Among them were some of the plebeian damsels whom we meet bareheaded in the Roman streets, with silver stilettos thrust through their glossy hair; ...
— The Marble Faun, Volume I. - The Romance of Monte Beni • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... The night was a festal one for the county, the ball being given in honour of a great party movement, his Grace and his visitors driving from Camylott to add to the brilliance of the festivities. The Mayor and his party received them with ceremony, the smaller gentry, who ...
— His Grace of Osmonde • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... never known. It had always been the rule at the mills to let the operatives take their pleasure as they saw fit, and the Eldorado and the Hanaford saloons throve on this policy. But Mrs. Westmore arrived full of festal projects. There was to be a giant Christmas tree for the mill-children, a supper on the same scale for the operatives, and a bout of skating and coasting at Hopewood for the older lads—the "band" and "bobbin" ...
— The Fruit of the Tree • Edith Wharton
... very Loire, with festal mirth Resounding at all hours, and innocent yet Of civil slaughter, was our frequent walk; Or in wide forests of continuous shade, Lofty and over-arched, with open space 435 Beneath the trees, clear footing many a mile— A solemn region. Oft amid those haunts, From earnest dialogues I ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. III • William Wordsworth
... transforming imagination—already in the house; the Christmas turkey for the janitor of the children's school subscribed to—sometimes he had wished himself the janitor!—and all the small demands that drain the purse at the festal season carefully counted up and allowed for. There was no lien on this unexpected sum just received. The reel and the line, and the flies and such, would have to wait until another time, to be sure; but no one could realize what it would be to him to come home and find that blessed rod there. ...
— The Blossoming Rod • Mary Stewart Cutting
... turbid water, saw feasts spread in the open air, where tropic fruits and beaded wine mocked his feverish thirst; and palaces of stainless marble, rising tower upon tower, and turret over turret, like the pearly heaps of cloud before a storm, while the wind swept from their gilded lattices bursts of festal music, the chorus that receives a bride, or the triumphal notes ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... are young; Our time is not yet come. Let us speak now Of what I know thou holdest near thy heart. I do remember that it was thy wish To celebrate thy father's name and fame By some high festal. If thy purpose hold For such observance, the sad day which took him Returns a short time hence; I will employ Whatever wealth is mine to do him honour, And thee, my Gycia. Honouring the sire, I honour too ...
— Gycia - A Tragedy in Five Acts • Lewis Morris
... love him: though to hall and bower He gathered revellers from far and near, He knew them flatterers of the festal hour; The heartless parasites of present cheer. Yea, none did love him—not his lemans dear - But pomp and power alone are woman's care, And where these are light Eros finds a feere; Maidens, like moths, are ever caught by glare, And Mammon wins his ...
— Childe Harold's Pilgrimage • Lord Byron
... farther side of the river was also well seen from Bent-Anat's balcony. There stood in long perspective the rows of sphinxes, which led from the landing-place of the festal barges to the gigantic buildings of Amenophis III. with its colossi—the hugest in Thebes—to the House of Seti, and to the temple of Hatasu. There lay the long workshops of the embalmers and closely-packed homes ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... fantasies which she had long dreamed about; and, aided by these, Uncle Venner's casual attempt at encouragement kindled a strange festal glory in the poor, bare, melancholy chambers of her brain, as if that inner world were suddenly lighted up with gas. But either he knew nothing of her castles in the air,—as how should he?—or else ...
— The House of the Seven Gables • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... buoyant and jubilant, and he flings himself with zest, and a sense of vitality, into the joy and exhilaration all around him. But such a mood as this, unbalanced and untempered by a loftier one, is hazardous to the eternal interests of the soul. Perpetuate this gay festal abandonment of the mind; let the human being, through the whole of his earthly course, be filled with the sole single consciousness that this is the beautiful world; and will he, can he, live as a stranger and a pilgrim in it? Perpetuate that vigorous pulse, and that youthful blood ...
— Sermons to the Natural Man • William G.T. Shedd
... by in procession—men, women, and children—on their way to the flames, to the sound of music, and in festal array, carrying the gold and silver vessels, the roll of the law, the perpetual lamp and the seven branched silver candle-stick of the synagogue. The crowd ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. I (of II.), Narrative, Lyric, and Dramatic • Emma Lazarus
... labour spent in producing it. But the corn and wine gradually vanish, and in their place, as gradually, appear sulphur and saltpetre, till at last the labourers who have consumed corn and supplied nitre, presenting on a festal morning some of their currency to obtain materials for the feast, discover that no amount of currency will command anything Festive, except Fire. The supply of rockets is unlimited, but that of food, limited, ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... appeared afresh at this period in the field of Roman literature. It was in itself very old:(9) long before Rome arose, the merry youths of Latium may have improvised on festal occasions in the masks once for all established for particular characters. These pastimes obtained a fixed local background in the Latin "asylum of fools," for which they selected the formerly Oscan town of Atella, ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... rise of the synagogue; (3) a deepened respect for the law of Moses; (4) a longing for the Messiah. To these might be added or emphasized as being included in them: (1) a vital sense of repentance was created; (2) the change from the national, festal and ceremonial worship to a spiritual and individual religion; (3) a belief that Israel had been chosen and trained in order that through her Jehovah might bless ...
— The Bible Period by Period - A Manual for the Study of the Bible by Periods • Josiah Blake Tidwell
... whom were to travel in their carriages from other watering-places for twenty or thirty miles. The ballroom had been decorated by a committee of ladies; the costumes, it was anticipated, would be dazzling beyond measure. No disappointment was felt when the festal hour arrived, but the very keen emotion attendant upon the absence of ...
— In Connection with the De Willoughby Claim • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... birthday, two months before his death, his beloved pupils gave him a festival, which is beautiful to read about. It must have gladdened the pure-hearted old man immeasurably. Froebel was wakened at sun-rise by the festal song of the children, and as he stepped out of his chamber to the lecture-room, he saw that it had been splendidly adorned with flowers, festoons, and wreaths of all kinds. The day was celebrated with songs and rejoicing, and gifts were received from pupils and friends in various parts ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, December 1887 - Volume 1, Number 11 • Various
... timber, staff of life; bread, bread and cheese. comestibles, eatables, victuals, edibles, ingesta; grub, grubstake, prog^, meat; bread, bread stuffs; cerealia^; cereals; viands, cates^, delicacy, dainty, creature comforts, contents of the larder, fleshpots; festal board; ambrosia; good cheer, good living. beef, bisquit^, bun; cornstarch [U.S.]; cookie, cooky [U.S.]; cracker, doughnut; fatling^; hardtack, hoecake [U.S.], hominy [U.S.]; mutton, pilot bread; pork; roti^, rusk, ship ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... terrible to his feelings than the dreariest wilderness of ocean! For, girdling the dusky horizon, could he not see the domes and campaniles of Venice, perhaps the very lamps in his own palace windows, from whose festal saloons he had just been decoyed; just distant enough to be beyond the reach of help? but too, too near for that despairing gaze that recognized and bade adieu for ever at the same glance? There too were not those nestling lovely islands, each with its ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various
... trigonometry. At any rate, the consumption of The Cigar was a very important ceremony with him; not conducted in the thoughtless and improvident spirit of men who smoke a dozen or so a day, but partaking rather of the character of a sacrifice, at once festal and solemn. There were times, as we have said before, when he would break out of bounds recklessly; but upon such occasions he gave himself no time to reflect; so there was nothing then of calm and deliberate enjoyment; and these escapades grew more and more rare ...
— Sword and Gown - A Novel • George A. Lawrence
... looked down at his festal garments and smiled. "I expect I'll be pickings for your Happy Family when they see me in these ...
— The Lonesome Trail and Other Stories • B. M. Bower
... placed a pile of gold and silver coins on the table of the guest chamber, in order that none might go away in need. Their feasts were events of careful consideration and long preparation, and those whose memories carry them back to the early days, recall bounteous loading of tables when festal ...
— Bohemian San Francisco - Its restaurants and their most famous recipes—The elegant art of dining. • Clarence E. Edwords
... gay and brilliant, as such festal scenes are at Paris. A lovely night in the midst of May, lamps below and stars above; the society mixed, of course. Evidently, when Graham has singled out Frederic Lemercier from all his acquaintances ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... at this, right and left, with inexpressible emotion. Perhaps this accidental sort of quest was that which destiny had arranged for the solution of my life-problem. To light upon Mary Ashburleigh in these festal throngs, perhaps wanting assistance, perhaps calling upon my name even now through her velvet lips, was a chance the mere notion of which ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Vol. XV., No. 85. January, 1875. • Various
... the castle they found a great throng of lords and ladies, and because Sir Gwydion had no lady with him he could not sit at the feast. But Balin was well received and brought to a chamber, and they unarmed him. The squires brought him a festal robe to his pleasure, but he would not suffer them to take ...
— King Arthur's Knights - The Tales Re-told for Boys & Girls • Henry Gilbert
... the natural solitude was as complete as the most devoted hermit could desire. The only means of getting to it were the narrow hill footpaths along which the worshippers from the great city and the scattered villages wound in and out on festal days, when they came trooping to the temple to make their offerings to ...
— Chinese Folk-Lore Tales • J. Macgowan
... to transport himself in fancy to the summit of Olympus, to the palace of Jupiter, and to the Council or to the Banquet of the Gods, or to the deep sea-caves where Thetis sits with her companion nymphs in the hall of her father, the sea-god Nereus—as it is to remove himself from the festal hall, where the poet is singing to him and to the other guests, away to the camp of the Greeks, or to the court of Priam, or to the bower of Andromache. He has no more difficulty to think of Minerva darting, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 57, No. 352, February 1845 • Various
... on the soft, silky hair of the dog, with its turquoise ring on the second joint of one of the fingers,—you can imagine it, can you not? Next him stands Philip II., pale, elegant, and repulsive, in gorgeous armor worn over festal, glittering white satin. Charles V. is on the other side; and I hardly know which of these portraits is the finest as a work of Art, for all are perfect. Charles is standing, with a noble dog leaning up against his hand; there is something simptica in his gray eyes, his ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... of her national institutions. Nevertheless, the glory of that banished Creator shone in the deepening glow of the splendid heavens,—and—from the silver windings of the Seine which, turning crimson in the light, looped and garlanded the time-honoured old city as with festal knots of rosy ribbon, up to the trembling tops of the tall poplar trees fringing the river banks,—the warm radiance palpitated with a thousand ethereal hues of soft and changeful colour, transfusing all visible things into the misty semblance of some divine dwelling of dreams. Ding-dong—ding ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... ladies little resembled those of a century later, though they were not devoid of a calm peacefulness, worthy of the "sweet day, so cool, so calm, so bright." The inhabited rooms of the old house looked bright and festal; there were fresh flowers in the pots, honey as well as butter on the breakfast table. The Major and Palmer were both in full uniform, wonderfully preserved. Eugene, a marvel of prettiness, with his curled hair and little velvet coat, contrived by ...
— Love and Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... peculiar sort of naivete about Italian ostentation, which robs it of all its offensiveness. Nobody exhibits their finery or grandeur for the sake of crushing another; nobody feels themselves crushed by the exhibition of it. The old noble who turns out his gala liveries and other bedizenments on a festal day, does it to make up his part of the general show, which is for the gratification of all classes, and is a gratification to them. But it is a curious commentary of the past history of Italy that, as ...
— A Siren • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... will be a mortal sin if you scold us for coming to you without being summoned by your majesty. This is through—out all Prussia a festal day, and no one should desecrate it by scolding or fault-finding—not even ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach
... was a festal day in Richmond, which, though always threatened by fire and steel, was not without its times of joyousness. The famous Kentucky raider, Gen. John H. Morgan, had come to town, and all that was best in the capital, both military and civil, ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... Opposite the place where Zulma was stationed stood a square box through the bars of which faintly gleamed the white surplice of the parish priest, who sat there awaiting the confessions of his flock. The New Year is the chief of festal days among the French, and it is always ushered in by exercises of devotion. After going through all the needful preparation, Zulma rose from her seat and approached the dread confessional. Her demeanour was full of gravity, a pallor overspread her beautiful features, her eyes ...
— The Bastonnais - Tale of the American Invasion of Canada in 1775-76 • John Lesperance
... strong relief by reflections which gave them still greater solemnity in Cesar's eyes. Pillerault, the practical philosopher, fearing the danger of unexpected events on the worn mind of his nephew, had schemed to prepare him by degrees for the joys of this festal day. Just as Cesar finished dressing, a number of his faithful friends arrived, all eager for the honor of accompanying him to the bar of the Court. The presence of this retinue roused the honest man to an elation which gave him strength to meet the imposing spectacle in the ...
— Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau • Honore de Balzac |
