"Luster" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... there remains a grayish, heavy, sparkling powder, which under the microscope appears to consist of very small crystals. Metallic thorium is brittle and almost infusible; the powder takes a metallic luster under pressure, is permanent in the air at temperatures up to 120 deg., takes fire below a red heat either in air or oxygen, and burns with a dazzling luster, leaving a residue of perfectly white thoria. If heated ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 365, December 30, 1882 • Various
... to gain a foothold in another port, in order to drive out the Dutch in the future from what they have there now. If your Majesty would establish a factory there, it would result in the complete restoration of this country to its old-time luster, and with ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XXII, 1625-29 • Various
... to gaze at him with lack-luster eyes. All he realized was that his murderous design was frustrated; but how or why ...
— The Silent Barrier • Louis Tracy
... silver in color and luster. Tin is ductile and malleable and slightly crystalline in form, almost as heavy as steel, and has a tensile strength of 4,500 pounds ...
— Oxy-Acetylene Welding and Cutting • Harold P. Manly
... he used to live like a prince in Sorrento. Every time I come here I do the best I can to keep the luster to his name. To-morrow I shall point out to you the villa in which I was born. A Russian princess owns it now. You will know the place by the pet monkey which is always clambering about the balconies near the porter's lodge. More than that, if the princess is not on the Riviera, I'll take you ...
— The Lure of the Mask • Harold MacGrath
... great orb dipped into purple hills afar, streamed goldenly in through the window, on Beth, alone at his side. It blazoned her beauty, lingering in her hair, laying its roseate tint upon the pale moss-roses of her cheeks. It richened the wondrous luster of her eyes, and deepened their deep brown tenderness of love. She was gold and brown and creamy white, with tremulous coral lips. Yet on her face a greater beauty burned—the beauty of her inner-self—the beauty of her womanhood, ...
— The Furnace of Gold • Philip Verrill Mighels
... except in eggs;—that their plumage is for the most part warm brown, delicately and even bewitchingly spotty;—and that, in the goodliest species, the spots become variegated, and inlaid as in a Byzantine pavement, deepening to imperial purple and azure, and lightening into luster of innumerable eyes;—all this, I hold, very clearly and positively, should be explained to children as a part of science, quite as exact, and infinitely more gracious, than that which reckons up the whole tribe ...
— Love's Meinie - Three Lectures on Greek and English Birds • John Ruskin
... those Porphyrogenets who are born and bred in purple) are about the pitch of women; bred up like them, and are to be addrest and gained in the same manner. They always see, they seldom weigh. Your luster, not your solidity, must take them; your inside will afterward support and secure what your outside ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IV (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland II • Various
... Worthie Knight, Sir Henrie Nevill. Worthy Sir, I Present, or rather returne unto your view, that which formerly hath beene received from you, hereby effecting what you did desire: To commend the worke in my unlearned method, were rather to detract from it, then to give it any luster. It sufficeth it hath your Worships approbation and patronage, to the commendation of the Authors, and incouragement of their further labours: and thus wholy committing my selfe and it to your Worships dispose I rest, ever readie to doe ...
— A King, and No King • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... polestars; otherwise the reader of the poem would lack a way of measuring the meanness of its characters and principles. The "charms of Parody" in The Dunciad provide a contrast between its dark, fallen world and the undimmed luster of epic realms (p. 10). By using the ambiguous word parody, which in the eighteenth century could mean either ridicule or straight imitation,[23] Harte skillfully suggests the complex purpose ...
— An Essay on Satire, Particularly on the Dunciad • Walter Harte
... was daring, and which was so well seconded by his comrades, justly entitles them to the admiration and gratitude of their country, and will fill an early page in its naval annals with a victory never surpassed in luster, however much it may have been ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 4 (of 4) of Volume 1: James Madison • Edited by James D. Richardson
... exciting toils of a literary career—for the destiny of an artist, author, orator; anything rather than that of a priest: yes, the heart of a politician, of a soldier, of a votary of glory, a lover of renown, a luster after power, beat under my curate's surplice. I considered; my life was so wretched, it must be changed, or I must die. After a season of darkness and struggling, light broke and relief fell: my cramped ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte
... every year brought them seven ships from the Perlas and Cannibal Islands, laden with ingots of gold, with raw silk, with pearls and precious stones. And if any pearls began to grow old, and lose somewhat of their natural whiteness and luster, those by their art they did renew by tendering them to cocks to be eaten, as they used to give ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VII (of X)—Continental Europe I • Various
... writings. All agree that his was the most noble character that ever appeared on earth. The most careful study of his life for nineteen centuries, by friends and enemies, by scholars and critics, by philosophers and statesmen, by Christians and unbelievers, only adds to its luster, and sustains the conviction that, though he was a man, he was also more than man. The most critical research, the most careful examination of his life, his motives, his teachings, only compel the testimony that he was "without spot or blemish." The great ...
— History of Education • Levi Seeley
... case, I bless and forgive you. If, on the other hand, you are come to restore me to that position in the sunshine of fortune and glory to which I was destined by Heaven; if by your means I am enabled to live in the memory of man, and confer luster on my race by deeds of valor, or by solid benefits bestowed upon my people; if, from my present depths of sorrow, aided by your generous hand, I raise myself to the very height of honor, then to you, whom ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... him who alone stands high and independent above all parties, confident that when the time for a final decision has arrived he will so act, within the recognized limits of the Royal Prerogative, as to add a fresh luster and a renewed significance to that supreme symbol and safeguard of the popular will which, under Divine Providence, still ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman
... spreading tree that grew near the banks of the river, which in that part were rather high and precipitous. The shades of evening were deepening; and the dark visage of Coubitant looked darker than ever, while the lurid light of his deep-set eyes seemed to glow with even unwonted luster from beneath his shaggy ...
— The Pilgrims of New England - A Tale Of The Early American Settlers • Mrs. J. B. Webb
... an elderly negro, very black as to face and a trifle shabby as to clothes, but with a shadow of his master's gentility, like a reflected luster, pervading his person. He bowed low, departed, and returned dragging a large, old style trunk, and ...
— The Depot Master • Joseph C. Lincoln
... letters of introduction proved useful," said Imogen. She considered Miss Bocock her protegee, but Miss Bocock, very vexatiously, seemed always oblivious of that fact; so that Imogen, though feeling that she had secured a guest who conferred luster, couldn't resist, now and then, trying to bring her to a slightly ...
— A Fountain Sealed • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... lady could possibly settle, whether one should call the fibers composing them "threads" or "needles." Here is amianthus, for instance, which is quite as fine and soft as any cotton thread you ever sewed with; and here is sulphide of bismuth, with sharper points and brighter luster than your finest needles have; and fastened in white webs of quartz more delicate than your finest lace; and here is sulphide of antimony, which looks like mere purple wool, but it is all of purple needle crystals; and here is red oxide of copper ...
— The Ethics of the Dust • John Ruskin
... religious who reached Philipinas during the years of these three decades, and in especial of the mission which made its voyage this year 1683 to the not small luster of the ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 41 of 55, 1691-1700 • Various
... in 1866 a star, in the constellation Northern Cross, suddenly shone with eight hundred times its former luster, afterward rapidly diminishing in luster. In 1876 a new star in the constellation Cygnus became visible, subsequently fading again so as to be only perceptible by means of a telescope; the luster of this star must have increased from five hundred ...
— Ragnarok: The Age of Fire and Gravel • Ignatius Donnelly
... swoon Of sweetest white beneath the moon— White lilies, in a flood of bright Pure lucidness of liquid light Cascading down some plenilune, When all the azure overhead Blooms like a dazzling daisy-bed.— So luminous her face and brow, The luster of their glory, shed In ...
— Riley Love-Lyrics • James Whitcomb Riley
... institutions, and the noblest of mankind will estimate you by the ratio of distance from the humblest beginning to your present attainment; the greater the distance the greater the luster; the more fitting ...
— Shadow and Light - An Autobiography with Reminiscences of the Last and Present Century • Mifflin Wistar Gibbs
... is well known that by its wavering, as if struggling against its own dissolution, it sometimes darts a ray as bright as ever. In like manner, a strong and lively genius will, in its last struggles, sometimes mount aloft, and throw forth the most striking marks of its original luster. ...
— Journal of A Voyage to Lisbon • Henry Fielding
... my pupils. I received him cordially, and promised that he should share with you the rich, the inestimable educational advantages which our humble seminary affords. I hoped he would be an acquisition, that by his obedience and his fidelity to duty he would shed luster on ...
— Hector's Inheritance - or The Boys of Smith Institute • Horatio Alger
... last few years new States have been admitted into the Union which, in themselves, form a magnificent empire. We allude to the great Northwestern Territories which have become States within the last decade, and which have added so much luster to the escutcheon of our native land. The utmost ignorance prevails as to these States, and as to the northwestern corner of the United States proper, a term generally applied to this great Republic, with ...
— My Native Land • James Cox
... is still very hot, and a part of the volatile oils evaporate very quickly at this high temperature. The surface is thereby at once dried to a certain degree and at the same time receives a handsome luster, as if it had been coated with a black lacquer. The paper is sanded in a very simple manner without the use of mechanical apparatus; as it is being wrapped into a coil, it passes with its lower surface ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 821, Sep. 26, 1891 • Various
... color is white and next in luster to silver. It has never been found in a pure state, but is known to exist in combination with nearly two hundred different minerals. Corundum and pure emery are ores that are very rich in aluminum, containing about fifty-four per cent. The specific gravity is but two ...
— Scientific American Supplement, Vol. XXI., No. 531, March 6, 1886 • Various
... broke away from union matters with an effort, and for a moment regarded her with lack luster eyes, until the ...
— The Valley of the Moon • Jack London
... words can tell, she hardly knew whether to like it or not. It bore above a hundred flowers of the most brilliant hues, and each different from the others, but all having a kind of resemblance among themselves, which showed them to be sister blossoms. But there was a deep, glossy luster on the leaves of the shrub, and on the petals of the flowers, that made Proserpina doubt whether they might not be poisonous. To tell you the truth, foolish as it may seem, she was half inclined to turn round and ...
— Tanglewood Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... exceedingly annoyed. It seems that her invitation had been sent to Washington but had not been forwarded to her in New York. In those days Mrs. Scott's distinguished presence and sparkling repartee, together with the fact that her husband was Commander-in-Chief of the Army, added luster to every assemblage. The Army was well represented at this reception and it was truly "the feast of reason and the flow of soul." Colonel "Jimmy" Monroe was a great favorite with his former brother-in-arms as he was a genial, ...
— As I Remember - Recollections of American Society during the Nineteenth Century • Marian Gouverneur
... lack of references or even of experience that conspired against her every effort at employment. It was the lack of luster to the eye, an absolutely new tendency to tiptoe, a furtive lookout over her shoulder, a halting tongue, that, upon the slightest questioning, would stutter for words. Where there were application-blanks to be filled in she would pore inkily over ...
— Humoresque - A Laugh On Life With A Tear Behind It • Fannie Hurst
... greatest military General on the Union side of the Civil war should have been the son of a country tanner, and as a boy, not over-shrewd in the matter of bargains, adds to the glory of his later life. The simplicity of his childhood gives new luster to the power with which he led the forces of a nation to victory, and then went to a battle no less noble in his long fight for honor while suffering from disease and approaching death. Why then should we feel that such beginnings in the lower world are too humble for man? Why do we ...
— The Meaning of Evolution • Samuel Christian Schmucker
... glow of the last stick he smoked his pipe, and as he smoked he drew from his wallet the golden snare. Coiled in the hollow of his hand and catching the red light of the pitch-laden fagot it shone with the rich luster of rare metal. Not until the pitch was burning itself out in a final sputter of flame did Philip replace it ...
— The Golden Snare • James Oliver Curwood
... like a color from outside reflected in the soft luster of her skin as a tint of sunset may be caught by the petals ...
— The Letter of the Contract • Basil King
... Congress answered, praising the patriotic disinterestedness of Bolvar and protesting that the country would always respect and venerate him, and take care that the luster of his name should pass to posterity in a manner befitting the ...
— Simon Bolivar, the Liberator • Guillermo A. Sherwell
... should learn to detect and watch that gleam of light which flashes across his mind from within, more than the luster of the firmament of bards and sages. Yet he dismisses without notice his thought, because it is his. In every work of genius we recognize our own rejected thoughts; they come back to us with a certain alienated majesty. ...
— How To Study and Teaching How To Study • F. M. McMurry
... Elias still sat in an attitude of attention with a sad countenance and eyes that had lost their luster. "The missionaries conquered the country, it is true," he replied, "but do you believe that by the friars the ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... hands were small, and apparently made for the sole purpose of driving mankind distracted. In fact, that seemed to be the paramount object in her creation, for she had the world of men at her feet. Her greatest beauty was her glowing dark brown eyes, which shone with an ever-changing luster from beneath the shade of the longest, ...
— When Knighthood Was in Flower • Charles Major
... in a sigh and sat down hesitant on the bed edge, her hand reaching out to the bare white shoulder and smoothing its high luster. ...
— Every Soul Hath Its Song • Fannie Hurst
... August, there was the usual flutter of excitement and confusion on the platform and in the waiting-room of the station. The habitues were there in force. Conspicuous among them were four gaily dressed young men, smoking cigarettes and gazing with lack-luster eyes upon the animated scene, which evidently bored them. All the same, they invariably appeared at the depot to witness this event, stirring to others no doubt, but incapable of arousing the interest of these life-weary youths. They comprised the Slaughter-house Quartette, and were the most ...
— Prudence of the Parsonage • Ethel Hueston
... oppressively the change which the free air suffers when it gets imprisoned among leaves, and I am always awed, rather than pleased, by that mysterious still light which shines with such a strange dim luster in deep places among trees. It may convict me of want of taste and absence of due feeling for the marvelous beauties of vegetation, but I must frankly own that I never penetrate far into a wood without finding that the getting out ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins
... quarts of cows milk, with an ounce and a half of white sugar and an ounce of rock alum. These are to be distilled in palneum mariae. The face at bedtime is to be rubbed with this liquid, and it will give a beautiful luster to the complexion. It is a safe application, and its effects ...
— The Ladies Book of Useful Information - Compiled from many sources • Anonymous
... then shrinking back as the blaze leaped and the room widened. The rough brown walls took the shine and broidered themselves with a thread of golden tracery. In such an illumination the eyes shone with added luster, flying locks were all hyacinthine, the frocks might have ...
— Judith of the Cumberlands • Alice MacGowan
... which is the rule whereby human acts are regulated. Hence, since justice regulates human operations, it is evident that it renders man's operations good, and, as Tully declares (De Officiis i, 7), good men are so called chiefly from their justice, wherefore, as he says again (De Officiis i, 7) "the luster of virtue appears ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... it fixt upon Him who is only to be feared, God; and yet with a filial fear, which at the same time both fears and loves. It was awe without amazement, dread without distraction. There was then a beauty even in this very paleness. It was the color of devotion, giving a luster to reverence and ...
— The World's Great Sermons, Vol. 2 (of 10) • Grenville Kleiser
... of worldliness very much tempered the austerity of her retreat, and lent an added luster to its intellectual attractions. But the Marquise had many conflicts between her luxurious tastes and her desire to be devout. Her dainty and epicurean habits, her extraordinary anxiety about her health, and her capricious humors were the subject of much light badinage among her friends. The Grande ...
— The Women of the French Salons • Amelia Gere Mason
... Or is thy luster drawn from heavenly hues— 15 A sumptuous drifting fragment of the sky, Caught when the sunset its last glance imbues With sudden splendor, and the treetops high Grasp that swift blazonry, Then lend those tints to thee, 20 On thee to float ...
— Story Hour Readings: Seventh Year • E.C. Hartwell
... this golden sheen all the resource of the little insect; for in the space of a few seconds, as you hold him in your hand, he has become a milky, iridescent opal, and now mother-of-pearl, and finally crawls before you in a coat of dull orange." A dead beetle loses all this wonderful luster. Even on the morning-glory in our gardens we may sometimes find these jeweled mites, or their fork-tailed, black larvae, or the tiny chrysalids suspended by their tails, although it is the wild bindweed that is ...
— Wild Flowers, An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and - Their Insect Visitors - - Title: Nature's Garden • Neltje Blanchan
... disaggregation of any sort; the fragments have retained their shape, simply changing to a pure frosted white, remaining apparently as solid as before; the other is unchanged, and still shows its deep yellow color and golden luster. Another specimen made within a few months and supposed to be permanent has changed to brown. Complete exclusion of air and light is ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 711, August 17, 1889 • Various
... painter could rest in drawing a ship, as he can rest in drawing a piece of drapery, we might sometimes see vessels introduced by the noblest workmen, and treated by them with as much delight as they would show in scattering luster over an embroidered dress, or knitting the links of a coat of mail. But ships cannot be drawn at times of rest. More complicated in their anatomy than the human frame itself, so far as that frame is outwardly ...
— The Harbours of England • John Ruskin
... peers were noble—neither in law nor custom were there noble families, and we altogether lacked the edification one found in Russia, for example, of a poor nobility. A peerage was an hereditary possession that, like the family land, concerned only the eldest sons of the house; it radiated no luster of noblesse oblige. The rest of the world were in law and practice common—and all America was common. But through the private ownership of land that had resulted from the neglect of feudal obligations ...
— In the Days of the Comet • H. G. Wells
... bathing cap and tossed it near by on the sand. She had let her hair out free to the sun, in whose light it glowed between the rich darkness of polished mahogany and the luster of jet. ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... said to have been blessed by Brahma's son Narada, the god who is distinguished as having cursed his venerable and all-creating sire and changed him from an object of worship and adoration to a luster after ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... your father, what more can I say to you than has already been said?... My dear daughter, whom I tenderly love, see that you live in the world in peace, tranquillity, and contentment—see that you disgrace not yourself, that you stain not your honor, nor pollute the luster and fame of your ancestors.... May God prosper you, my first-born, and may you come to God, who is ...
— The Story of Extinct Civilizations of the West • Robert E. Anderson
... come to his study for a personal interview before the meeting. The Deacon was cool and polite, and his little eyes were shining with a distant luster. ...
— The One Woman • Thomas Dixon
... small rooms she realized that he had had his new tan shoes polished to a brassy luster. There was a recent cut on his chin. He must have shaved on the train just ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... expressed itself in the speckless cleanliness and the modestly proportioned skirts of her light "print" gown, and in the scanty little mantilla of cheap black silk which she wore over it, edged with a simple frilling of the same material. The luster of her terrible red hair showed itself unshrinkingly in a plaited coronet above her forehead, and escaped in one vagrant love-lock, perfectly curled, that dropped over her left shoulder. Her gloves, fitting her like ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... magnificently dressed in some vesture that had the luster of a polished plate of gold, and the suppleness of velvet. As we approached he fixed his immense, deep-set eyes sternly upon ...
— Edison's Conquest of Mars • Garrett Putnam Serviss
... features, with a mobility of expression which bore record of every change of feeling. He saw all this in a few moments, and he wondered only the more at the stoicism of her manner during his interview with Mr. Talboys. There were no tears in her eyes, but they were bright with a feverish luster—terribly bright and dry—and he could see that her lips trembled as she spoke ...
— Lady Audley's Secret • Mary Elizabeth Braddon
... They are the two great nations of modern times most diametrically opposed, and most worthy of each other's rivalry; essentially distinct in their characters, excelling in opposite qualities, and reflecting luster on each other by their very opposition. In nothing is this contrast more strikingly evinced than in their military conduct. For ages have they been contending, and for ages have they crowded each other's ...
— The Crayon Papers • Washington Irving
... beautiful girl who had been brought up in what seemed to him so barren a creed. His dream of love, which had been bright enough only an hour before, was suddenly shadowed by an unthought of pain, but presently began to shine with a new and altogether different luster. He began to hear again what was passing between his father and the ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall
... a long winter's nap,— When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter, I sprang from my bed to see what was the matter. Away to the window I flew like a flash, Tore open the shutters and threw up the sash; The moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow Gave a luster of mid-day to objects below; When, what to my wondering eyes should appear, But a miniature sleigh and eight tiny reindeer, With a little old driver, so lively and quick, I knew in a moment it must be St. Nick. More rapid than eagles his coursers they came, And he whistled, and shouted, and called ...
— Required Poems for Reading and Memorizing - Third and Fourth Grades, Prescribed by State Courses of Study • Anonymous
... you're away, my daughter will be pining for you, drooping and pining, my grand young daughter, and the spring will go out of her step and the light from her eyes and the luster from the hair that's a wonder to all.... Oh, ...
— The Wind Bloweth • Brian Oswald Donn-Byrne
... daughters Created were for admiration only, And did my Mistress and her sister not Obscure their mothers luster fancy could ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Various
... Marichchikkaddi to buy pearls is not given to taking chances; usually he has learned by long experience every "point" that a pearl can possess, knows whether it be precisely spherical, has a good "skin," and a luster appealing to connoisseurs. A metal colander or simple scale enables him to know to the fraction of a grain the weight of a pearl, and experience and the trader's instinct tell him everything further that may possibly be known of a ...
— East of Suez - Ceylon, India, China and Japan • Frederic Courtland Penfield
... she was at all impressed with this story of how the necklace came into Mr. Ricketty's possession. She was fully alive to the risk she ran in entering into any bargain with gentlemen of Mr. Ricketty's appearance, but the luster of the pearls burned in ...
— Tin-Types Taken in the Streets of New York • Lemuel Ely Quigg
... minister, as they have many another visitor to the Cape, before or since. On cloudy days they lowered with a dull, leaden luster and the weed-grown portions were like the dark squares on a checkerboard, while the deep water beyond the outer bar was steely gray and angry. When the sun shone and the wind blew clear from the northwest the whole expanse flashed into fire and color, ...
— Keziah Coffin • Joseph C. Lincoln
... you have done nothing to merit so high a distinction, nor are worthy of it, with what face shall I ask it? How can I open my mouth to make the proposal to the sultan? His majestic presence and the luster of his court would absolutely confound me, who used even to tremble before my late husband your father, when I asked him for anything. There is another reason, my son, which you do not think of, which is that nobody ever ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... medicine, all his experience, all his skill, all his love of animals could avail him nothing so far as securing a license was concerned. He could not read an examination paper, but he could interpret the symptoms seen in a trembling neck and a lack-luster eye. Danny had no choice but to break the law or abandon the only career for which he had an aptitude, or by which he could hope to earn a living at his age. His crime was malum prohibitum, not malum in se, but it was, nevertheless, a violation ...
— By Advice of Counsel • Arthur Train
... Chicago, and he made this an occasion for a "presidential progress" through some of the States. He started late in August. Several members of his cabinet, Seward among others, accompanied him, and so did General Grant and Admiral Farragut, by command, to give additional luster to the ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. XXXI, No. 3, July 1908. • Various
... swooped close, her lips parted. Her teeth shone with a native luster, as if she had lived on roots and tough things all her life. Again little Rackby felt that glow of health and hardness in her person, as if one of the cynical and beautiful immortals of the Greeks confronted him. He was heartily afraid of her ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... effulgence irradiated the whole room and made the envious eyes of Mr. Cyanide Whiffles stand out like a crab's. Besides these extraordinary furbishments, Mr. Williams had his mustache waxed to fine points and his back hair was precious with the luster and richness which accompany the use of the attar of Third Avenue roses combined with the bear's grease dispensed by basement barbers ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VI. (of X.) • Various
... the characteristics of that society of "Birds" that assembled around Mademoiselle de l'Enclos. They put aside all conventional restraint, and the mental metal of those choice spirits clashed and evolved brilliant sparks, bright rays of light, the luster of which still glitters after a lapse of more than ...
— Life, Letters, and Epicurean Philosophy of Ninon de L'Enclos, - the Celebrated Beauty of the Seventeenth Century • Robinson [and] Overton, ed. and translation.
... termed pitchy-peat or fat peat, (Pechtorf, Specktorf)—is dark-brown or black in color, and comparatively heavy and dense. When moist, it is firm, sticky and coherent almost like clay, may be cut and moulded to any shape. Dried, it becomes hard, and on a cut or burnished surface takes a luster ...
— Peat and its Uses as Fertilizer and Fuel • Samuel William Johnson
... hour Agnes had kept her faith in Dr. Slavens and her hope that he would appear in time to save his valuable claim. Now hope was gone, and faith, perhaps, had suffered a tarnishment of luster. ...
— Claim Number One • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... Sonia! The pool wrinkled at the sound of her name, as he shrieked it in anguish across the water. There was nothing in the world so beautiful as she. Her figure rose before him more entrancing than this fairy lake with its ever-changing loveliness. Its shadows under the trees were in her eyes, its luster under the sun was the luster of her body! Oh, there was nothing of beauty in it, perfume, grace, color, its singing and murmuring on the shore, that this perfect sinner ...
— The Art of Disappearing • John Talbot Smith
... found to say, We began the backward way; And the ebbing luster died From the soldier at my side, As in all his spruce attire Failed the everlasting fire. Midmost of the homeward track Once we listened and looked back; But the city, dusk and mute, Slept, and ...
— Last Poems • A. E. Housman
... record of a boy's impressions be read as detracting from the luster shining about the memory of Margaret Fuller. She was highly respected and esteemed by all Brook Farmers and the friends of the community during her life of faithful service, and her tragic death was a source of grief ...
— My Friends at Brook Farm • John Van Der Zee Sears
... little Bible she gave him and see for himself whether he or she were right. He had that Bible now hidden away where no curious eye could find it, and carefully folded between its leaves was a curl of golden hair. It was faded now, and its luster was almost gone, but as often as he looked upon it, it brought to mind the bright head it once adorned, and the fearful hour when he became its owner. That tress and the Bible which inclosed it had made Hugh Worthington a better man. He did not often ...
— Bad Hugh • Mary Jane Holmes
... the reel, and the skeins are packed up in bales as if it were of no more value than cotton. Indeed, it does not look nearly so pretty and attractive as a lap of pure white cotton, for it is stiff and gummy and has hardly any luster. Now it is sent to the manufacturer. It is soaked in hot soapy water for several hours, and it is drawn between plates so close together that, while they allow the silk to go through, they will not permit the least bit of roughness or dirt to pass. If the ...
— Makers of Many Things • Eva March Tappan
... skeptical—you big folks who have ceased to believe in little people—when you hear that out in western Iowa there is a county which is an educational fairyland. Yet if you had traveled up and down the country, gone into the wretched country school buildings, seen the lack-luster teaching and the indifferent scholars, which are so appallingly numerous; if you had read in the report of the investigating committee which has just completed its survey of Wisconsin rural schools the statement that in many districts ...
— The New Education - A Review of Progressive Educational Movements of the Day (1915) • Scott Nearing
... all its charms. Though the shape of her face was the same, the features were scarcely so delicate, their proportion was scarcely so true. She was not so tall. She had the dark-brown eyes of her mother—full and soft, with the steady luster in them which Mrs. Vanstone's eyes had lost—and yet there was less interest, less refinement and depth of feeling in her expression: it was gentle and feminine, but clouded by a certain quiet reserve, from ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... reality introduced her; and in all the annals of ancient story, she could find no record of sufferings and privations more severe than those which she was called upon to endure. And neither heroine nor hero of any age has shed greater luster upon human nature by the cheerful fortitude with which adversity has ...
— Madame Roland, Makers of History • John S. C. Abbott
... her for the pleasure of looking at her again, of realizing that my overwrought senses were not cheating me. Yes, there she was, in all the luster of that magnetic beauty I can not think of even now without an upblazing of the fire which is to the heart what the sun is to a blind man dreaming of sight. There she was on my side of the chasm that ...
— The Deluge • David Graham Phillips
... Nawab of Murshedabad. Calcutta is also famous as the birthplace of Thackeray, a bust of whom ornaments the art gallery of the Imperial Museum. Scattered about the Maidan are statues of a dozen men whose deeds have shed luster on English arms ...
— The Critic in the Orient • George Hamlin Fitch
... injured by it. It is rapid, but has not the beautifully bright color of some European rivers—of the Rhine, for instance, and the Rhone. But what is wanting in the color of the water is more than compensated by the wonderful hues and luster of the shores. We visited the river in October, and I must presume that they who seek it solely for the sake of scenery should go there in that month. It was not only that the foliage of the trees was bright with every imaginable color, but that the grass was bronzed ...
— Volume 1 • Anthony Trollope
... the southern hemisphere, the other to Wega in the northern. Imagination loses itself in this sublime Infinity, amid which the projectile was gravitating, like a new star created by the hand of man. From a natural cause, these constellations shone with a soft luster; they did not twinkle, for there was no atmosphere which, by the intervention of its layers unequally dense and of different degrees of humidity, produces this scintillation. These stars were soft eyes, looking out into the dark night, amid ...
— Jules Verne's Classic Books • Jules Verne
... have no secrets from thee, Wagner," was the answer, while the stranger's eyes gleamed with unearthly luster; then, bending forward, he whispered a few words in ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... a rich, tawny, Indian hue, somewhat inclined to luster; is exceedingly agreeable to the touch; diffuses a pungent odor, as of an old dusty bottle of Port, newly opened above ground; and, altogether, is an object which no man, who enjoys his dinners, could refrain from hanging over, ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville
... bursting into bloom of the womanhood that had lain hidden in the bud. Her eyes took on a starry softness quite different from their usual glint of mischief, the rich blood in her cheeks came and went with her thoughts, her very hair had a sort of sheen upon it like the luster on the wings of pigeons in the spring. Blossom time, that comes once in life to every woman, with its perilous short gift of the power that moves the world, had come in turn to Jacqueline. It is a moment when a girl most needs her mother; but ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly
... band has never left her wrist for a moment. For twenty-two years she has worn it, keeping it bright with service for me, for her children and for her friends. There is something symbolic in the fact that it has never lost its clear luster and that it has never tarnished the ...
— A Daughter of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... the arts, and in all that dignifies and adorns mankind? From that radiant constellation which both illumines our own way and points out to struggling nations their course, let but a single star be lost, and, if there be not utter darkness, the luster of the whole is dimmed. Do my countrymen need any assurance that such a catastrophe is not to overtake them while I possess the power to stay it? It is with me an earnest and vital belief that as the Union has been the ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 4) of Volume 5: Franklin Pierce • James D. Richardson
... air possible, and conversed with more than her usual brilliancy. At the same time the fever, which for an instant abandoned her, returned to give luster to her eyes, color to her cheeks, and vermillion to her lips. D'Artagnan was again in the presence of the Circe who had before surrounded him with her enchantments. His love, which he believed to be extinct but which was only asleep, awoke ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... space for her writing materials, she composed and made ready for the publisher by far the most remarkable work of fiction this country has produced. Slavery is dead, but Mrs. Stowe's masterpiece lives, and is likely to live with growing luster as long as our free institutions survive, which it is to be hoped will ...
— The Abolitionists - Together With Personal Memories Of The Struggle For Human Rights • John F. Hume
... Ramu. God's limit is nowhere! He who ignites the stars and the cells of flesh with mysterious life-effulgence can surely bring luster ...
— Autobiography of a YOGI • Paramhansa Yogananda
... development of the devices of the endless chain, paddle wheel, and screw propeller and of his puzzling earth-and-water creature that gives luster to his name. His prophetic insight into the future national importance of the steamboat and his conception, as an inventor, of his moral obligations to the people at large were as original and striking in the science of that age as were ...
— The Paths of Inland Commerce - A Chronicle of Trail, Road, and Waterway, Volume 21 in The - Chronicles of America Series • Archer B. Hulbert
... memorials of a stirring past. With a mantle of peace they gently covered the former scenes of violence and strife. With magic, intangible substance they filled out the rents in the grassy walls and smoothed away the scars of battle. The pale luster, streaming through narrow barbican and mildewed arch, touched the decaying ruin of San Felipe with the wand of enchantment, and restored it to pristine freshness and strength. Through the stillness of night the watery vapor streamed ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... girls were lovely, as young girls are the world over: their complexion possessed that soft tender luster, peculiar to seashore localities, for the salty breath of Father Neptune is the greatest of cosmetics. Many of the young faces were formed in classic mould, their features clearly cut and refined, and severe, like the thoughts ...
— The Heart of the New Thought • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... the radiant sunlight fell athwart the white-barred field, and glinted from the gay pennants and banners in the stands! Here was a riot of color, the gold and green of old Bannister; in the next section, the orange and black of Ballard. The bright hues and tints of varicolored dresses, and the luster of the official flowers all contributed to a bewilderingly beautiful spectacle! Flower-venders, peddlers of pennants, sellers of miniature footballs with the college colors of one team and the other, hawked their wares, loudly calling above the tumult, "Get yer Ballard colors yere!" "This ...
— T. Haviland Hicks Senior • J. Raymond Elderdice
... looked as she sat by the carriage window. But as the train drew near to Amberieu, the air brightened and the sunlight ministered to her beauty like a careful handmaid, touching her pale cheeks to a rosy warmth, giving a luster to her hair, and humaning her to a smile. Sylvia sat forward a little, as though to meet the sunlight, then she turned toward the carriage and saw her ...
— Running Water • A. E. W. Mason
... the pavement bordering one side of the massive structure, he was brought to sudden stop by a heavy timber platform six feet square and lifted a foot and a half from the ground, which cumbered the sidewalk nearest the curb. Storri surveyed the platform in a lack-luster way. It had, from its appearance, been there years; it was strange he had never noticed ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... water and clean towels are the essential requisites for expeditious and thorough dish-washing. A few drops of crude ammonia added to the water will soften it and add to the luster of the silver and china. Soap may be used or not according to circumstances; all greasy dishes require a good strong suds. There should also be provided two dish drainers or trays, unless there is a stationary sink with tray on which to drain the dishes. ...
— Science in the Kitchen. • Mrs. E. E. Kellogg
... the day of which I speak the Son of Man will come in His glory. No hiding of luster. No sheathing of strength. No suppression of grandeur. No wrapping out of sight of the Godhead. Any fifty of the most brilliant sunsets that you ever saw on land or sea would be dim as compared with the cerulean appearance ...
— New Tabernacle Sermons • Thomas De Witt Talmage
... began laughing, and taking hold of my hat and raising it from my head, said: "Well you infernal vender of the Incomprehensible compound, double-distilled furniture and piano luster, what are you giving me? Produce your ticket, or off you ...
— Twenty Years of Hus'ling • J. P. Johnston
... controversy. Its object is simply to present the truth and have this truth early in the field so that the political canard which was so shamelessly indulged in during the close of the Wilson Administration may not be crystalized in the public mind and cloud for a time the glorious luster of his name. ...
— Woodrow Wilson's Administration and Achievements • Frank B. Lord and James William Bryan
... steps, and, lifting up my head, saw a diamond as large as the egg of an ostrich, lying upon a low stool; it was so pure that I could not find the least blemish in it, and it sparkled with so much brilliancy that when I saw it by daylight I could not endure its luster. ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments • Anonymous
... shadows of Appomattox closed round him, when the darkness of defeat enveloped him, when his soul was rent and torn and his mind was filled with anguish and his ragged and tired and worn veterans, reduced to a mere thin skirmish line, the remnant of an army that had shed unfading luster upon the American arms and the American soldier, gathered with tear-moistened cheeks about him to bid him farewell and receive his blessing, gave utterance to a sentiment just quoted by my colleague [Mr. TUCKER], a sentiment as grand and noble as was ever written upon any Roman tablet or ...
— Memorial Addresses on the Life and Character of William H. F. Lee (A Representative from Virginia) • Various
... was looking down upon the green meadows at its foot. Southward Kent could see for a long distance, and in the vivid sunlight he saw the shimmer of creeks and little lakes, and the rich glow of thick patches of cedar and spruce and balsam, scattered like great rugs of velvety luster amid the flowering green of the valley. Northward, three or four miles away the range which he had climbed made a sharp twist to the east, and that part of the valley—following the swing of the range—was lost to him. He turned in ...
— The Valley of Silent Men • James Oliver Curwood
... or group of men that seeks to stand in our way in this day of high resolution, when every principle we hold dearest is to be vindicated and made secure for the salvation of the nations. We are ready to plead at the bar of history, and our flag shall wear a new luster. Once more we shall make good with our lives and fortunes the great faith to which we were born, and a new glory shall shine in ...
— In Our First Year of the War - Messages and Addresses to the Congress and the People, - March 5, 1917 to January 6, 1918 • Woodrow Wilson
... sleeping peacefully, satisfied with his projects; a prolific writer like Ben-Zayb (anagram of Ibanez), who believed that the people of Manila thought because he, Ben-Zayb, was a thinker; a canon like Padre Irene, who added luster to the clergy with his rubicund face, carefully shaven, from which towered a beautiful Jewish nose, and his silken cassock of neat cut and small buttons; and a wealthy jeweler like Simoun, who was reputed ...
— The Reign of Greed - Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo' • Jose Rizal
... Italian paintings in soft brown tones representing nude, amber-hued babes fondling curly lambs. The arch dividing the alcove from the rest of the apartment suggested the triumphal order, its fluted columns sustaining a scroll-work of carved foliage with the softened luster of faded gilding, as if it were an ancient altar. Upon an eighteenth century table stood a polychrome statue of Saint George treading Moors beneath his charger; and beyond was the bed, the imposing bed, a venerable family monument. Antique chairs with curved arms, the red velvet so worn and threadbare ...
— The Dead Command - From the Spanish Los Muertos Mandan • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... than Margaret, had ever been delicate, and her parents had always feared that not long could they keep her; but though each winter her cough had returned with increased severity, though the veins on her white brow grew more distinct, and her large, blue eyes glowed with unwonted luster, still Margaret had never before dreamed of danger, never thought that soon her sister's voice would be missed, and that Carrie would be gone. But she thought of it now, and laying her head upon the table wept for a ...
— Homestead on the Hillside • Mary Jane Holmes
... not but increase in the community the prestige of the McGregor family. To have a connection so popular, traveled, and prosperous—a man of rank, and adorned with brass buttons, what a luster all this shed over the inhabitants of the fifth floor of Mulberry Court! Carl, Mary, Tim, Martin, were no longer rated as little street Arabs; suddenly they became the nieces, nephews (probably the heirs) of Captain James Frederick Dillingham who commanded the Charlotte ...
— Carl and the Cotton Gin • Sara Ware Bassett
... white gazelle-hide, stitched with gold, and, by way of ornament, he had but a single armlet, and a collar, consisting of ten golden rings, depending by eyelets from a flexible band of the same material. The metal was unpolished and its lack-luster red harmonized wonderfully with the ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller
... we were with him. In his tender charge we were permitted to go down among the tumult and the music of the streets, his round good-humored face and big blue eyes lit with a luster like our own. And happy little Mary Alice Smith—how proud she was of him! And how closely and how tenderly, through all that golden morning, did the strong brown hand clasp hers! A hundred times at least, as we promenaded ...
— Complete Works of James Whitcomb Riley • James Whitcomb Riley
... Kin forces steadily retired before Oukiai and Changtsiun, and victory, which had so long remained constant in their favor, finally deserted their arms. The death of the Kin emperor, Oukimai, who had upheld with no decline of luster the dignity of his father Akouta, completed the discomfiture of the Kins, and contributed to the revival of Chinese power under the last emperor of the Sung dynasty. The reign of Oukimai marks the pinnacle of Kin power, which under his cousin and ...
— China • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... birth-morn of creation. The lovely river, having resumed its crimson border (the so long idle miners being again busily at work), glides by, laughing gayly, leaping and clapping its glad waves joyfully in the golden sunlight. The feathery fringe of the fir-trees glitters like emerald in the luster-bathing air. A hundred tiny rivulets flash down from the brow of the mountains, as if some mighty Titan, standing on the other side, had flung athwart their greenness a chaplet of radiant pearls. Of the large quantities of ...
— The Shirley Letters from California Mines in 1851-52 • Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clappe |
