"Massiveness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... other; the whole naked, rugged surface of which suggests a natural cliff (say of the Vaucluse order) rather than an effort of human, or even of Roman labor. It is the biggest thing at Orange—it is bigger than all Orange put together—and its permanent massiveness makes light of the shrunken city. The face it presents to the town—the top of it garnished with two rows of brackets, perforated with holes to receive the staves of the "velarium"—bears the traces of more than one tier of ornamental arches; tho how these flat arches ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3 • Various
... seems consciously to revel and disport itself in its power, and to exult in investing the sea-girt rock with the playful elegance of a Cellini vase. It is a real jeu d'esprit of mediaeval art. The cloisters are a model of airy grace, enhanced by contrast with the massiveness of the fortress and the wildness of the scene. A strange life the monks must have led in their narrow boundaries. But they had the visits of the knights to relieve their dulness; and probably they ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 105, July 1866 • Various
... its reality. It represents Miss Maja von Heyne wearing a collar of skins. She could represent the Maja of Ibsen's epilogue, When We Dreamers Awake; Maja, the companion of the bear hunter, Ulfheim. As etched, we miss the massiveness, the rich, vivid colour, yet it is ...
— Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker
... impressive in the angry sorrow of Joris. It partook of his own magnitude. Standing in front of him, it was impossible for Captain Hyde not to be sensible of the difference between his own slight, nervous frame, and the fair, strong massiveness of Van Heemskirk; and, in a dim way, he comprehended that this physical difference was only the outward and visible sign of a mental and moral one quite as positive ...
— The Bow of Orange Ribbon - A Romance of New York • Amelia E. Barr
... this gown are, first, the way it showed off the very plump neck of the wearer. The fine throat line was visible, but at the shoulders, where too much massiveness takes the place of fine firm flesh, the robe was draped. The arms were likewise covered at the top, their thickest part, and, as the robe fell over them when in repose, much of their ...
— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke
... Sophia and the Duomo at Florence. On the other hand many of our Gothic cathedrals require only ten per cent.[70] Wren would have said that they lack stability, and that he had calculated accurately on the minimum of massiveness requisite for security; and besides this, they have no heavy dome to be poised. Throughout there are two stages or stories. The lower has the Corinthian Order, which was always Wren's favourite, as he ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of St. Paul - An Account of the Old and New Buildings with a Short Historical Sketch • Arthur Dimock
... Founded in superabundant massiveness, and built in prodigality of strength, the tower seems to defy the elements and to outlive tradition. Old age restores it to more than its primeval significance; and when humbler erections have passed away and crumbled in ruins, it appears ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 27, January, 1860 • Various
... the skies in which rooks are for ever circling and calling. The time-worn stone, at a little distance delicate as lacework, is transformed at different hours of the day into shifting shades of colour, varying from grey to purple: the massiveness of the great nave and transepts contrasts impressively with the gradual tapering of the spire, rising so high above turret and clerestory that it at last becomes a mere line against the ether. In morning, as in afternoon, or in evening, here is a perpetual ...
— The Paradise Mystery • J. S. Fletcher
... (Pl. 32), though it has been more criticised than the "Shaw Memorial," seems to me, if possible, an even finer work. The main objection to it has been that it is not sufficiently "monumental," and, indeed, it has not the massiveness nor the repose of such a work as Donatello's "Gattamelata," the greatest of all equestrian statues. It could not well have these qualities in the same degree, its motive being what it is, but they are, perhaps, not ill exchanged for the character and the nationalism so ...
— Artist and Public - And Other Essays On Art Subjects • Kenyon Cox
... of safety seemed to be the Inner Sanctuary of Nagaya, . . it was untouched by the flames, and its Titanic pillars of brass and bronze suggested, in their very massiveness, a nearly impregnable harbor of refuge. The King had fled thither, and now stood, like a statue of undaunted gloomy amazement, beside Lysia, who on her part appeared literally frozen with terror. Her large, startled eyes, roving here and there in helpless anxiety, alone gave any animation to the ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... is true that Durham Cathedral stands upon a noble cliff overhanging a ravine, while Reading Abbey stood upon a small and irregular hill which hardly showed above the flat plains of the river meadows, but in massiveness of structure and in type of architecture Reading seems to have resembled Durham more nearly than any other of our great monuments, and to emphasise its parallelism to Durham is perhaps the best way to make the modern reader ...
— The Historic Thames • Hilaire Belloc
... but in under-garments of woven, rope and outer clothes of felted aluminium wire; they were shod with timber and iron, and the links and buttons and belts of their clothing were all of plated steel. The great single-storeyed house they lived in, Egyptian in its massiveness, half built of monstrous blocks of chalk and half excavated from the living rock of the hill, had a front a full hundred feet in height, and beyond, the chimneys and wheels, the cranes and covers of their work sheds rose marvellously against the sky. Through a circular window in the ...
— The Food of the Gods and How It Came to Earth • H.G. Wells
... garments; the movements remain those of a clothed being which is only nude as an exception. The painter notices beauty, but he looks for it particularly in the profound characterisation of the types which he studies, and his pastels have the massiveness and the sombre style of bronze. He has also painted cafe-scenes, prostitutes and supers, with a mocking and sad energy; he has even amused himself with painting washerwomen, to translate the movements of the women of the people. And ...
— The French Impressionists (1860-1900) • Camille Mauclair
... sorted out by death)—as if to show how the earth and woods, the attrition of storms and elements, and the exigencies of life at first hand, can train and fashion men, indeed chiefs, in heroic massiveness, imperturbability, muscle, and that last and highest beauty consisting of strength—the full exploitation and fruitage of a human identity, not from the culmination-points of "culture" and artificial civilization, ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... whilst Florent was sitting in his brother's shop, tired out with the fruitless pilgrimages he had made during the morning in search of work, Marjolin made his appearance there. This big lad, who had the massiveness and gentleness of a Fleming, was a protege of Lisa's. She would say that there was no evil in him; that he was indeed a little bit stupid, but as strong as a horse, and particularly interesting from the fact that nobody knew ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola
... The massiveness and vastness of these temples demonstrate the power of the religious instinct in man, even when that instinct is most perverted. With all their grossness and crudity, these shrines reveal a wealth of imagination ...
— A Tour of the Missions - Observations and Conclusions • Augustus Hopkins Strong
... difficulty—which an archangel might have felt—was entirely cleared away. If one compares Fletcher's writings on Calvinism with the scattered notices of the subject in Waterland's works, the difference between the two writers is apparent at once; there is a massiveness and a breadth of culture about the older writer which contrasts painfully with the thinness and narrowness of the younger. Or, if it be unfair to compare Fletcher with an intellectual giant like Waterland, we may compare his 'Checks' with Bishop Tomline's 'Refutation of Calvinism.' ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton
... portrait, painted by Savage. It is cold and dry, hard enough to serve for the signboard of an inn, and able, one would think, to withstand all weathers. Yet this picture has something which Stuart left out. There is a rugged strength in the face which gives us pause, there is a massiveness in the jaw, telling of an iron grip and a relentless will, which ...
— George Washington, Vol. I • Henry Cabot Lodge
... almost to massiveness. An iron-grey beard and a mustache that completely hid the mouth covered the lower part of his face. His eyes were a pale blue, and a little watery; here and there upon his face were moth spots. But the enormous breadth of the shoulders ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... immense size. The architecture is singular from its being a mixture of the Gothic and Greek. It appears the most ponderous load that ever was laid on the shoulders of poor mother earth. There is nothing light in its structure to relieve the massiveness of the building, and in this respect it forms a striking contrast to the Cathedral of Milan which appears the work of Sylphs. The outside of this Duomo of Florence is decorated and incrusted with black and white marble, which increases the massiveness of ...
— After Waterloo: Reminiscences of European Travel 1815-1819 • Major W. E Frye
... I did nothing of the sort," retorted the General. "I trust I am not so lacking in manners. I merely remarked its beauty and quaintness and massiveness and general artistry. My host expressed pleasure at my appreciation of its qualities and volunteered the information that it was a little thing he had picked up in a curio shop on Regent Street, ...
— R. Holmes & Co. • John Kendrick Bangs
... either side of us, the vast trees growing out from among them and forming a sheltering roof with their boughs, showing for how long a period they must have been deserted. There were churches too, which we discovered to be such by their construction and the massiveness of their walls; many of them of considerable size, and built of well-burnt bricks. Altogether we were struck by the elegance and substantial appearance of the different buildings, so superior to those of modern architecture, and which convinced us that ...
— Hurricane Hurry • W.H.G. Kingston
... about. The tree has a gnarled, grotesque trunk which divides into insignificant branches, bearing leaves mean in shape, harsh in texture, with a silvery underside. It gives but a quivering shade and has no massiveness, nor symmetry. Ay! but there are olives on the branches. And so the beauty of the humble tree is in what it grows for man's good. After all, it is the outcome in fruitfulness which is the main thing about us. God's meaning, in all His gifts of dew, and beauty, and purity, and ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... evidences of primitive man. The older these evidences are, the more likely they are to be distinctly below the grade of man of to-day, in the size and shape of the brain case and in the length and massiveness of the jaw. ...
— The Meaning of Evolution • Samuel Christian Schmucker
... cabinets were made in lacquer or in the bright-hued foreign woods which did so much to give lightness and grace to the British style. The glass-fronted cabinet for China or glass was in high favour in the Georgian period, and for pieces of that type, for which massiveness would have been inappropriate, satin and tulip woods, and other timbers with a handsome grain taking a high ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... The extraordinary massiveness of the ark was imposing. Towering ominously on its platform, which was so arranged that when the waters came they should lift the structure from its cradle and set it afloat without any other launching, it seemed in itself a ...
— The Second Deluge • Garrett P. Serviss
... exterior of Durham is in any way disappointing, the interior more than compensates for its shortcomings. The general impression on entering the church is one of simple dignity and solemnity. The great massiveness of the structure and absence of elaborate ornament no doubt contribute to this feeling. The pious builders of old have certainly contrived to stamp on their work their own feeling of awe in the presence of the ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Durham - A Description of Its Fabric and A Brief History of the Episcopal See • J. E. Bygate
... pale-green eyes, with their predatory restlessness, at the square-blocked, flaccid jaw, and the beefy, animal-like massiveness of the strong neck, at the huge form odorous of gin and cigar smoke, and the great, hairy hands marked with their purplish veinings. It seemed like a ghost out of some long-past and only half-remembered ...
— Phantom Wires - A Novel • Arthur Stringer
... Florence, with its encircling hills, and its glorious Val d'Arno. There arose the stupendous outline of Il Duomo, the stately form of the Baptistery, the graceful shaft of the Campanile, the medieval grandeur of the Palazzo Vecchio; and the severe Etruscan massiveness of the Pitti Palace was just below. Far away the Arno wound on, through the verdurous plain, while on either side the hills arose dotted with white villas and deep green olive groves. Is there any view on earth which ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... through the streets, noting the remnants of the ancient walls, the brutal strength of the surviving fragment of the castle, the sheltered position of the tidal basin, the many churches dedicated to the honour of Saxon saints, the proud beauty and massiveness of the Cathedral, if one would realize, not the fancies of the artist and the poet, but the hard facts of history that made the ancient days so great, and which have caused our own days to be ...
— Exeter • Sidney Heath
... severe. Scores, if not hundreds, of statues, each of which was a masterpiece, are spoilt; great quantities of carving are defaced; quite half the glass is irremediably broken; the whole of the interior non-structural decoration is destroyed. But the massiveness of the Cathedral has withstood German shrapnel. The place will never be the same again, or nearly the same. Nevertheless, ...
— Over There • Arnold Bennett
... so interesting: we had not seen them in companies or brotherhoods rising one above another at a long distance. Ben Lomond stood alone, opposite to us, majestically overlooking the lake; yet there was something in this mountain which disappointed me,—a want of massiveness and simplicity, perhaps from the top being broken into three distinct stages. The road carried us over a bold promontory by a steep and high ascent, and we had a long view of the lake pushing itself up in a narrow line through an avenue of mountains, terminated by the mountains at the ...
— Recollections of a Tour Made in Scotland A.D. 1803 • Dorothy Wordsworth
... presumably, with Secchi's third and fourth orders of stars with banded spectra. Whether, in the interim, they should display spectra of the Sirian or of the solar type was made to depend on their greater or less massiveness.[1381] But the relation actually existing perhaps inverts that contemplated by Ritter. Certainly, the evidence collected by Mr. Maunder in 1891 strongly supports the opinion that the average solar star is a weightier body ...
— A Popular History of Astronomy During the Nineteenth Century - Fourth Edition • Agnes M. (Agnes Mary) Clerke
... slaughter-house, and was only cleared of such additions a few years since. Situated near the cathedral, almost on the highest part of the town, it stands on a terrace whose great retaining wall still shows the massiveness of Roman work. ...
— Portuguese Architecture • Walter Crum Watson
... the character and construction which we have gathered from their remains, they could have possessed no great architectural beauty, though they may not have lacked a certain grandeur. In the dead level of Babylonia, an elevation even of 100 or 150 feet must have been impressive; and the plain massiveness of the structures no doubt added to their grand effect on the beholder. But there was singularly little in the buildings, architecturally viewed, to please the eye or gratify the sense of beauty. No ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 1. (of 7): Chaldaea • George Rawlinson
... frankness indeed does he admit in his prospectus that he must "submit to be thought dull by those who seek amusement only." He hoped, however, as he says in one of his earlier essays, to become livelier as he went on. "The proper merit of a foundation is its massiveness and solidity. The conveniences and ornaments, the gilding and stucco-work, the sunshine and sunny prospects, will come with the superstructure." But the building, alas! was never destined to be completed, and the architect had his own misgivings about the attractions even ...
— English Men of Letters: Coleridge • H. D. Traill
... the wheel was seen in all his great beauty—a man of lofty stature perfectly formed and full of power and grace in every movement. His head had an antique massiveness and was crowned with bright brown hair thrown backward. His forehead was wide and contemplative, his eyes large and gray and thickly fringed, lustrous but not piercing. His loving and vehement soul was not always at their windows, but when there, it drew or ...
— The Measure of a Man • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... fascination for the antiquary, and does not fail to impress even the most casual person who wanders into the churchyard and enters the spacious porch. The solemn massiveness of the Norman nave, the unusual effect of the coloured paintings above the arches, and the carved stone effigies of knights whose names are almost forgotten, carry one away from the familiar impressions of a present-day Yorkshire ...
— The Evolution Of An English Town • Gordon Home
... feel that the man loved largeness, massiveness, and volume; that he was preoccupied with intellectual problems; planning deeply, and constructing strongly, under conditions ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... ax, he became a different man. All the good cheer fled out of his face; his curly brown beard seemed to stand out about his head like snakes, and the massiveness of his body was reflected in the battle-fury of his face. He needed no blows to rouse him into madness; but with the ax swinging like a reed about him, he came rushing at Brian, a giant come to earth from of old time. His men on the tower set up ...
— Nuala O'Malley • H. Bedford-Jones
... of its pyramidal purpose it is scarcely inferior to that most consummate work, the tower of St. Stephen's in Vienna. It is composed of three superimposed structures, gradually diminishing in solidity and massiveness from the square base to the high-springing octagonal spire, garlanded with thorny crowns. It is balanced at the south end of the facade by the pretty cupola and lantern of the Mozarabic Chapel, the work of ...
— Castilian Days • John Hay
... avenue rolled concealed its beauty to the unaccustomed eye, showing only more bare trees and sodden stretches of brown grass. The house itself, as it loomed up out of the thickening rain-mist, appalled Tembarom by its size and gloomily gray massiveness. Before it was spread a broad terrace of stone, guarded by more griffins of even more disdainful aspect than those watching over the gates. The stone noses held themselves rigidly in the air as the reporter of the up-town society page passed with Mr. Palford up a flight of steps broad ...
— T. Tembarom • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... stairway to the upper story of the surprisingly large ranch house, where he showed us to our rooms, rooms which were a joy to look upon. Each was furnished with a heavy, hand-made four-posted bedstead, which in spite of the massiveness was beautifully made, and I wondered at the patience of the Wild Hunter in teaching ...
— The Black Wolf Pack • Dan Beard
... seemed to justify the most extravagant tales of pioneer and huntsman. His hind-quarters were trim and fine-lined, built apparently for speed, smooth-haired, and of a grayish lion-color. But his fore-shoulders, mounting to an enormous hump, were of an elephantine massiveness, and clothed in a dense, curling, golden-brown growth of matted hair. His mighty head was carried low, almost to the level of his knees, on a neck of colossal strength, which was draped, together with the forelegs down to the knees, in a flowing brown mane tipped with black. His head, ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... matron was preparing to devote to him stood shrinking with a trepidation which she could not conceal at sight of his strange massiveness, with his rust-gold hair coming down toward his thick yellow brows and mocking blue eyes in a dense bang, and his jaw squaring itself under the rather insolent smile of his full mouth. The matron felt ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... 'Mistress Inger' is not veracious or convincing or even plausible; and the play lacks the broad simplicity of story to be found in the later 'Vikings,' a saga-like drama, a tale of blood and fate, which recalls Wagnerian opera in its primitive massiveness, in the vigor of its legend, in its tragic pathos, and in its full-blooded characters larger than life and yet pitifully human. Power again there is in a third drama dealing with the historic past of Norway, the 'Pretenders' ...
— Inquiries and Opinions • Brander Matthews
... at her will through the garden. Moving from enclosure to enclosure of box, she came, before she knew it, to the house itself. It loomed up before her a pale massiveness, with no lights in any of the windows, but on the back porch sat the owner. He sat in a high-back chair, with his head tilted back, and his eyes were closed and he seemed to be asleep, but Sarah was not quite sure. She stopped short. She became all at once horribly ...
— Quaint Courtships • Howells & Alden, Editors
... rage. Then rushing to the window of his apartment, he looked down on one of the most stately prospects that the palaces of the earth can offer. From the long monotonous architectural lines of the Hradschin, imposing from its massiveness and its imperial situation, and with the dome and minarets of the cathedral clustering behind them, the eye swept across the fertile valley, through which the rapid, yellow Moldau courses, to the opposite line of cliffs crested with the half imaginary fortress-palaces of ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... misty vault of heaven, quaintly situated valleys so masked by timber and brushwood that one came across them only by accident. There is something in the naked face of Nature, in the sheer magnificence of incredible heights and the marvellous massiveness of big timber that somehow dwarfs man into insignificance and makes him realise the puniness of his strength. There was something in the scenes now opening up before the rangers that subdued them and ...
— The Lost Valley • J. M. Walsh
... Europeans. With the exception of two tall, bony Scindians, they were all Seedies, or negroes, and there was not one among them that might not have served as a model for a Hercules. Their huge bodies presented an appearance of massiveness and immense strength; and the enormous muscles had even more than the prominence we find in some statues, but so seldom meet with in men of these effeminate times. These particulars were the more ...
— Chambers' Edinburgh Journal - Volume XVII., No 423, New Series. February 7th, 1852 • Various
... for lack of food, they had perished and tasted the cup of death. Now when the Emir Musa saw this, he stood still, glorifying Allah the Most High and hallowing Him and contemplating the beauty of the palace and the massiveness of its masonry and fair perfection of its ordinance, for it was builded after the goodliest and stablest fashion and the most part of its adornment was of green[FN139] lapis-lazuli, and on the inner door, which stood ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... under reaches of shadow—the shadow of Rokeby Woods. I climbed very leisurely up the hill-side, having in my hand a bag with a meal, and up the stair in the wall to the top I went, where there is no parapet, but a massiveness of wall that precludes danger; and here in my miner's attire I sat three hours, brooding sleepily upon the scene of lush umbrageous old wood that marks the long way the river takes, from Marwood ...
— The Purple Cloud • M.P. Shiel
... now past, he glides adown the steep path of declining age. This undermines and destroys the robustness of former years; and Milo,[13] {now} grown old, weeps when he sees the arms, which equalled those of Hercules in the massiveness of the solid muscles, hang weak and exhausted. The daughter of Tyndarus weeps, too, as she beholds in her mirror the wrinkles of old age, and enquires of herself why it is that she was twice ravished. Thou, Time, the consumer of {all} things, and thou, hateful Old Age, {together} destroy ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Copious Notes - and Explanations • Publius Ovidius Naso
... animated by a love for the grotesque and devilish. Not even the unsteady, deceptive glare of the ember light, throwing streaks and patches of shade, ever changing and ever moving, across the ragged surface of the beard, could hide the square massiveness of the jaws and the curve of the hard yet sensuous lips. There was strength in the nose, strength and cruelty, and the straight black band that formed the heavy brow added to the repellent expression. Such a face it was that, looking ...
— Colonial Born - A tale of the Queensland bush • G. Firth Scott
... room there was no predicting where he would come out. Finally they brought us to a black, oaken door with a great, black lock on it, and bolts at the top and bottom; it was near the end of a corridor, in the oldest wing of the building. The door, in addition to its native massiveness, was studded with great nails, and there were bands of iron or steel crossing it horizontally. When we proposed to enter, our friends informed us that this door had been closed one hundred and eighty ...
— Hawthorne and His Circle • Julian Hawthorne
... the west door of the church we are struck by the length of ritual nave, about 200 feet, the flatness of the roofs, and the massiveness of the arcading dividing the nave from the aisles; for, though the four western bays on the north side and five on the south are Early English in date, there is none of that lightness and grace that we are accustomed to associate with work of this period, no detached shafts of ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Saint Albans - With an Account of the Fabric & a Short History of the Abbey • Thomas Perkins
... Electric Tower, designed by Mr. Howard, the central point in the scheme of architecture, its background of columns and its airy perforated walls and circular cupola with the Goddess of Light above, combined massiveness with lightness. Other buildings were strikingly quaint and pleasing, especially those suggesting the old Southern Missions. All blended into the general scheme with scarcely a discord. This harmony was not accidental, but resulted ...
— History of the United States, Volume 5 • E. Benjamin Andrews
... the genuine childlike awe and wonder inspired by the contemplation of the noble grandeur of nature, or with the calmer and more gentle sense of the beautiful produced by the less imposing aspects of the surrounding scenery. On the one hand crag and beetling cliff sweeping in rugged and colossal massiveness above dark waves of pine and fir, far into the keen and clear blue air; the huge mantle of snow, so cumulus-like in its brightness, thrown in many a solid fold over ice-sculptured crest and shoulders; the ...
— The Lake of the Sky • George Wharton James
... to the height of two hundred feet in square massiveness, and from this point springs a slender and graceful spire to another hundred feet, so that next to Salisbury, the great archetype of this special class of ecclesiastical architecture, it is the tallest spire in England. ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume
... form. He became lithe and quick. The yellow of his coat darkened, and there was a whitish-gray streak along his back like that along Kazan's. He had his mother's under-throat and her beautiful grace of head. Otherwise he was a true son of Kazan. His limbs gave signs of future strength and massiveness. He was broad across the chest. His eyes were wide apart, with a little red in the lower corners. The forest people know what to expect of husky pups who early develop that drop of red. It is a warning that they are born of the wild and that their mothers, or ...
— Kazan • James Oliver Curwood
... lighthouse has been erected of great strength and massiveness, to endure the fierce battering it must encounter from the angry billows. The wind shifting against us, we had a good view of the Wolf Rock, and afterwards of the Longships Lighthouse, the white tower of which, rising above its black base, ...
— A Yacht Voyage Round England • W.H.G. Kingston
... Titanotheres may also be distantly related to the horses, but passed through an entirely different course of development. From the lower Eocene to the lower sub-stage of the middle Oligocene the series is complete, beginning with small and rather lightly built animals. Gradually the stature and massiveness increase, a transverse pair of nasal horns make their appearance and, as these increase in size, the canine tusks and incisors diminish correspondingly. Already in the oldest known genus the number of digits had been reduced to four in the fore-foot and ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others
... over-arched by bone of brow, and lashes and brows were dark. The hair, above an ordinary forehead, was light brown to chestnut. Under the forehead, the cheeks showed high-boned, with underneath the slight hollows that necessarily accompany such formation. The jaws were strong without massiveness, the nose, large-nostriled, was straight enough and prominent enough without being too straight or prominent, the chin square without harshness and uncleft, and the mouth girlish and sweet to a degree that did not hide the firmness to which ...
— The Little Lady of the Big House • Jack London
... compact, with the air of native lordliness and command. His countenance was peculiarly beautiful, full and rounded as if young; fresh-coloured; and beaming with health, spirit, and vivacity. Its almost womanly sweetness was chastened and redeemed by the massiveness of the head, the deep penetrating eye, and an aspect of uncommon elevation and nobleness. Till the last, he was the very personification of the old Dux—the Duke of Chivalry—the foremost leader and ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... lest it should be supposed that our enthusiasm has got the better of our sober judgment. The second theme, "He was brought as a lamb to the slaughter, yet he opened not his mouth," is quite Handel-like in the simplicity and massiveness of its magnificent harmonic progressions. With the scene of the denial, for which we are thus prepared, the dramatic movement becomes exceedingly rapid, and the rendering of the events in the high-priest's hall—Peter's bass recitative ...
— The Unseen World and Other Essays • John Fiske
... she noticed the ease with which he got the big trunk to his shoulder, and her eyes glowed as they glanced over the graceful massiveness of the man. But Bill did not see that. He was too busy with ...
— The Strength of the Strong • Jack London
... provokingly ambiguous. Of all the pamphlets that were coming out only those that could give him light on this question can have been of the least interest to his rough common sense. Now, as it happened, he could be under no mistake, after his arrival in London, as to the strength and massiveness of that current of opinion which had set in for a re-seating of the secluded members. Since the first restoration of the Rump in May 1659, Prynne had been keeping the case of the secluded members perpetually before the public in pamphlets; and Prynne, more than any other ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... effect of solidity removed by their gradual narrowing from the base upwards. The pillars of the Neptune are narrowed in a straight line; those of the Basilica and Ceres by a gentle curve. Study of these buildings, so sublime in their massiveness, so noble in the parsimony of their decoration, so dignified in their employment of the simplest means for the attainment of an indestructible effect of harmony, heightens our admiration for the Attic genius which found in this grand manner of the elder Doric ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... soon swallowed up, for the time, all other emotions. Astonishment, not at the vast size of anything, for the scrub was not thirty feet high; nor at the gorgeous colours, for very few plants or trees were in flower; but at the wonderful wealth of life. The massiveness, the strangeness, the variety, the very length of the young and still growing shoots was a wonder. We tried, at first in vain, to fix our eyes on some one dominant or typical form, while every form was clamouring, as it were, to be looked at, and a fresh ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley
... chequered stonework is carried across the space beneath them, and a small circular window inserted above. It may be mentioned here that the pointed arch has generally been adopted in the new work, to distinguish it from the old, but the characteristic massiveness and predominant scale of the original has been preserved throughout the restoration. A practical illustration of these principles will be seen in The Porch, as an ingenious compromise between the ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Priory Church of St. Bartholomew-the-Great, Smithfield • George Worley
... good at all ages,' replied Loerke. 'A man should be big and powerful—whether he is old or young is of no account, so he has the size, something of massiveness ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence
... overran this porch, whose antique massiveness harmonized with the building, for the straggling branches shot out in all directions, and its coarse blossoms, then in season, seemed to have drank up all the red paint as it vanished from the clapboards. Long, uncut ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens
... edifice had been encased by the modern house, and bade them note, from the deep shelving window-seats, that the stone walls were three feet thick. The rooms were low-ceiled and quaintly shaped, but they borrowed a certain grandeur from this massiveness; and it was easy to figure the priests in black and the nuns in gray in those dim chambers, which now a life so different inhabited. Behind the house was a plot of grass, and thence ...
— A Chance Acquaintance • W. D. Howells
... patriot was shaken; he took the hand of Pomp also. "We are all men in the sight of God!" His heart was full; there was a thrill of fervent emotion in his voice. His calm young face, his firm and finely-cut features, always noticeable for a certain massiveness and strength, were singularly illumined. He went on, the light of the cave-fire throwing its ruddy flash on the group. "We are all His children. He has brought us together here for a purpose. The work to be done is for all men, for humanity: it is God's work. To that we should be ...
— Cudjo's Cave • J. T. Trowbridge
... massiveness of the experience is probably due largely to the great number of sensations of strain and pressure caused by the powerful reflex contraction of so many of the ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 5 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... not romantic or fantastic, but what we understand by the word "realistic." The outward body of the story is in several instances more built up by cumulative details than formerly, which gives it an air of solidity or massiveness, and is less expressed through a swift selection of things essential. And this may lead a reader to suppose that the story is more a narrative of external incidents than is actually the case. In truth, though the ...
— Robert Browning • Edward Dowden
... almost takes the man out of paint to put him in flesh and blood. He looks down with wide-open eyes, swelling nostrils, firm mouth, and massive chin. The noble brow, dome-like and expanded, relieves the massiveness of his face; and the whole countenance and figure express the repose of a powerful and passionate nature schooled into balance and symmetry: altogether the presentment of a great man, who felt that he could move ...
— The Great German Composers • George T. Ferris
... chase. Yet in the past this region was the scene of by far the highest culture that ever developed in America. There alone in this great continent did men develop an architecture which, not only in massiveness but in wealth of architectural detail and sculptural adornment, vies with that of early Egypt or Chaldea. There alone did the art of writing develop. Yet today in those regions the density of the forest, the prevalence of deadly fevers, the extremely enervating temperature, ...
— The Red Man's Continent - A Chronicle of Aboriginal America, Volume 1 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Ellsworth Huntington
... steering oar, finding it difficult even in that moment of suspense to suppress a smile at the expression of terror on Alphonse's black face, I stood up, awed by the solemn massiveness of the vast bulk towering above me, now barely thirty feet away. For the first time I realized fully the desperation of my task, and my heart sank. But the gesticulations of the wrathful guard could no longer be ignored, and, ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish
... whole, the Cathedral of Ulm is a noble ecclesiastical edifice; uniting simplicity and purity with massiveness of composition. Few cathedrals are more uniform in the style of their architecture. It seems to be, to borrow technical language, all of a piece. Near it, forming the foreground of the Munich print, are a chapel and a house surrounded ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume V (of X) • Various
... Despite its apparent massiveness, Roman civilization was not a monolith. Rather it was a conglomerate, consisting of many parts held together by connecting social tissues which Rome and Italy alone supplied. In the first instance there was a division into ...
— Civilization and Beyond - Learning From History • Scott Nearing
... especially if the habitat or the fauna with which the group is in contact is such as to call for a considerable exercise of the sturdier virtues. The habitual pursuit of large game requires more of the manly qualities of massiveness, agility, and ferocity, and it can therefore scarcely fail to hasten and widen the differentiation of functions between the sexes. And so soon as the group comes into hostile contact with other groups, the divergence of function will take on ...
— The Theory of the Leisure Class • Thorstein Veblen
... is a tragedy that will long find readers to astonish, and, with all its faults, to move. It stands, in our imagination, like some ancient rugged pile of a barbarous age; irregular, fantastic, useless; but grand in its height and massiveness and black frowning strength. It will long remain a singular monument of the early genius and early fortune ...
— The Life of Friedrich Schiller - Comprehending an Examination of His Works • Thomas Carlyle
... led to very noble results when followed up by succeeding artists: but in many of Giotto's compositions the figures become ludicrously cumbrous, from the exceeding simplicity of the terminal lines, and massiveness of unbroken form. The manner was copied in illuminated manuscripts with great disadvantage, as it was unfavourable to minute ornamentation. The French never adopted it in either branch of art, nor did any other Northern school; ...
— Giotto and his works in Padua • John Ruskin
... looking beast, formidable in his sturdy strength and his massiveness of jaw; and ugly beyond question, but for the alert intelligence of his eyes. A palpable mongrel, he showed none the less that he had strains of distinction in his ancestry. English bull was the blood most clearly proclaimed, in his great chest, short, crooked legs, fine ...
— The House in the Water - A Book of Animal Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts
... Nature, when evolved out of one another, and when related to one another, as Behmen sees them evolved and related, are categories of the clearest, surest, most necessary, and most intensely instructive kind. And if the height and the depth, the massiveness, the stupendousness, and the grandeur, as well as the sweetness, and the beauty, and the warmth, and the fruitfulness of a doctrine of GOD is any argument or evidence of its truth, then Behmen's magnificent doctrine of the GODHEAD is surely proved to demonstration ...
— Jacob Behmen - an appreciation • Alexander Whyte
... presumably the gay event of the week as the band plays, and there is some color in the throngs who surge along the colonnades to look into the court of honor. A portion of the great space is now accommodating huge shattered cannon and air craft of the enemy, their massiveness suggesting, as the little glittering medals are pinned upon the soldiers' breasts, that it is not so easy to be a hero and ...
— Defenders of Democracy • Militia of Mercy
... alike. Here, at Carcassonne, every tower, or nearly every tower, resembles its fellow, and all have sugar-loaf caps that irritate the eye with iteration of the same form. The citadel has no character of massiveness, no grand donjon to distinguish it from the rest of the fortifications, and the cathedral has only two mean little donkey's ears of towers that are most ineffective, peeping over the walls of the south-western angle ...
— In Troubadour-Land - A Ramble in Provence and Languedoc • S. Baring-Gould
... son upon the ground. It was of a dirty dun color, mottled and striped with a lighter but still dingy hue. It had a black, hoggish nose, but there were fangs in its great jaws. It resembled a huge wolf, save as to its massiveness and club countenance, It was one of the monster hyenas of the time, a beast which must have been as dangerous to the men then living as any animal except the cave tiger and the cave bear. Its degenerate posterity, as they shuffle uneasily back and forth when caged to-day, are perhaps not ...
— The Story of Ab - A Tale of the Time of the Cave Man • Stanley Waterloo
... a thorough fashion, and I could spare my eyes until I reached the first slope of the mountains. When the path began to ascend and I was afforded a better view of the heavens, thunder-clouds were piling in sullen massiveness above the western horizon. ...
— A Virginia Scout • Hugh Pendexter
... vertical supports. The arch or vault makes use of several pieces to span an opening between two supports. These pieces are in compression and exert lateral pressures or thrusts which are transmitted to the supports or abutments. The thrust must be resisted either by the massiveness of the abutments or by the opposition to it of counter-thrusts from other arches or vaults. Roman builders used the first, Gothic builders the second of these means of resistance. The truss is a framework so composed of several pieces of wood or metal that each shall best resist the ...
— A Text-Book of the History of Architecture - Seventh Edition, revised • Alfred D. F. Hamlin
... absolutely plain shell; and no man had as yet looked beneath the shell, and seen the woman in her perfection. She would have made earth heaven for a blind lover who, not having eyes for the plainness of her face or the massiveness of her figure, might have drawn nearer, and apprehended the wonder of her as a woman, experiencing the wealth of tenderness of which she was capable, the blessed comfort of the shelter of her love, the perfect comprehension of her sympathy, the marvellous joy of winning ...
— The Rosary • Florence L. Barclay
... as she said this, in a barely audible voice. I looked at the gray pile in silent contemplation. Its style suggested massiveness, although the building was not of any great size. The part comprising the vestibule and bell-tower was octagon in shape, and the turret was at least a hundred feet in air. Behind this were the ivy-covered walls of the body of the church. ...
— The Love Story of Abner Stone • Edwin Carlile Litsey
... the hills themselves, and raised in the plains of Lower Egypt artificial pyramids in imitation of the granite hills of this form. Their temples were in form like many of the granite ranges, and were thoroughly encased with stone. The extraordinary massiveness of these works suggests that Nature assisted the design; the stone columns are imitations of the date palms, and the buildings are copies of the rocky hills—the two common ...
— The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia • Samuel W. Baker
... sun in Cuzco, with their circular form and curve inward, from the ground upward, are most imposing. Some of the gates without lintels are beautiful, and the geometric patterns in the walls extremely effective. The same objection to over-massiveness might not apply here as in Mexico, owing ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... dome of St. Paul's rising over all, possibly the massiveness of the Tower, or the twin towers of Westminster, of those of the "New Houses of Parliament," as they are still ...
— Dickens' London • Francis Miltoun
... like a fatalistic man. The great court of it, three hundred feet square, with pointed arches supported by piers, double, and on the side looking toward Mecca quintuple arcades, has a great dignity of sombre simplicity. Not grace, not a light elegance of soaring beauty, but massiveness and heavy strength are distinguishing features of this mosque. Even the octagonal basin and its protecting cupola that stands in the middle of the court lack the charm that belongs to so many of the fountains of Cairo. ...
— The Spell of Egypt • Robert Hichens
... great range and abundance, its presence at the core of mountain ranges where it is uncovered by erosion, its attractive coloring, its massiveness and its vigorous personality, it figures importantly in scenery of magnificence the world over. In color granite varies from light gray, when it shines like silver upon the high summits, to warm rose or ...
— The Book of the National Parks • Robert Sterling Yard
... of sumptuous palace-building; and for no purpose was the early Renaissance style better adapted than for the erection of dwelling-houses that should match the free and worldly splendour of those times. The just medium between mediaeval massiveness and classic simplicity was attained in countless buildings beautiful and various beyond description. Bologna is full of them; and Urbino, in the Ducal Palace, contains one specimen unexampled in extent and unique in interest. Yet here, as in all ...
— Renaissance in Italy Vol. 3 - The Fine Arts • John Addington Symonds
... Handel suggests to most people the sound of music unsurpassed in massiveness and dignity, and the familiar portraits of the composer present us with a man whose external appearance was no less massive and dignified than his music. Countless anecdotes point him out to us as a well-known figure in the life of ...
— Handel • Edward J. Dent
... adherent that the whole is indissoluble, though the waves of the sea from the north incessantly beat against it. This edifice is singularly remarkable, as much on account of its height as of its massiveness: it is of exceeding utility, because its fire burns night and day for the guidance of navigators, and is visible at the distance of a day's sail. During the night, it shines like a star: by day, you ...
— Grace Darling - Heroine of the Farne Islands • Eva Hope
... gave an almost square appearance, the neck, short and thick, the forelegs disproportionately small but very sturdy; and the whole animal was built on a slope towards the hind quarters which seemed to equal in massiveness all the rest of the body. One would have said that the horse was a freak meant by nature for the climbing of hills. And to glance at it no man could suppose that those ponderous limbs might be moved to a gallop. However, Haw-Haw Langley well ...
— The Night Horseman • Max Brand
... is another relic discovered at the village of Hunaneh on the road from Safed to Tyre; it recalls the days of David. Hiram was King of Tyre in the time of David. The tomb is a limestone structure of extraordinary massiveness Unfortunately the Mosque of Omar stands on the site of Solomon's Temple and there is no hope of digging there. As for the palace of Solomon, it should be easy to find the foundations, for Jerusalem has been rebuilt several times upon the ruins of earlier ...
— Marvels of Modern Science • Paul Severing
... are, useless and piteous, feebly or fondly garrulous of better days; but useful still, going through its own daily work,—as some old fisherman beaten grey by storm, yet drawing his daily nets: so it stands, with no complaint about its past youth, in blanched and meagre massiveness and serviceableness, gathering human souls together underneath it; the sound of its bells for prayer still rolling through its rents; and the grey peak of it seen far across the sea, principal of the three that rise above the waste of surfy sand and ...
— Modern Painters, Volume IV (of V) • John Ruskin
... craved food and I mentioned the thought to Mr. Finnigan—or, as I shall call him, Zeno the Great. It appeared that he, too, was experiencing a similar natural longing, for his manner instantly became exuberantly cordial. For all his massiveness of contour and boisterous manner of speech, I felt that this new-made friend of mine had a warm heart. He dealt me an unnecessarily violent but affectionate blow between the shoulders, and as I reeled from the shock, gasping for breath, he cried out in his uncouth ...
— Fibble, D. D. • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb
... cathedral roof, where the eaves have for their immediate background the pavement of the streets below; only this cathedral was 9,000 feet high. Now, any one standing at the foot of the Wetterhorn may admire their stupendous massiveness and steepness; but, to feel their influence enter in the very marrow of one's bones, it is necessary to stand at the summit, and to fancy the one little slide down the short ice-slope, to be followed apparently by a bound ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)
... had arrived, in thunders and lightnings, riding the wings of the storm, directing the gigantic, labouring Elsinore in all her intricate massiveness, commanding the wisps of humans to his will, which was the will ...
— The Mutiny of the Elsinore • Jack London
... addition to the main moving ways of the city which laced and gathered here, a complex system of special passages and lifts and slides, for the convenient interchange of people and luggage between stage and stage. And a distinctive feature of the architecture of this section was the ostentatious massiveness of the metal piers and girders that everywhere broke the vistas and spanned the halls and passages, crowding and twining up to meet the weight of the stages and the weighty ...
— When the Sleeper Wakes • Herbert George Wells
... erected by Peter de Rupibus in the early part of the thirteenth century. In its more mature and elaborate work it shows a considerable advance on the simplest form of Early English, though the apparently low elevation, and massiveness of the piers and lower arcading, are obviously not free from Norman influences. It is divided into five bays by alternate circular and octagonal piers, the dwarfed appearance of which is relieved by triple vaulting shafts on the north and south sides, and single shafts to support the arch mouldings. ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: Southwark Cathedral • George Worley
... amiable love of one of the purest characters in the history of our literature. There is at least no difficulty in understanding why he should have been, as it were, concussed by Byron's greater massiveness and energy into a sense—easy to an impassioned devotee—of inferiority. Similarly, most of the estimates— many already reversed, others reversible—by the men of that age, of each other, can be explained. We can see how it was that ...
— Byron • John Nichol
... philosophy enabled me to grasp a subtle and delicate spirit of beauty, which passed, I fear, over the heads of the rest of the youthful audience. His ideas of the correspondence of Egyptian architecture to the stupendous massiveness of Pantheism and the appalling grandeur of its ideas, were clear enough to me, who had copied Hermes Trismegistus and read with deepest feeling the Orphic and Chaldean oracles. The ideas had not only been long ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland
... black hair, thick eyebrows, and a slight moustache. Her eyes were very vivacious, and her gestures, despite that bulk, quick and graceful. She was happy; her ideals were satisfied; it was probably happiness that had made her stout. Her massiveness was apparently no grief to her; she had fallen into the carelessness which is too often the pitfall of women who, ...
— The Grim Smile of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... out to ascertain the cause of the brawl. She turned livid with fear on recognizing Kibei. They were standing together in the sort of entresol or room at the head of the stairway. Only a large brazier separated Kibei from his vengeance. Its massiveness of three or four feet breadth baffled him. The woman was fleeing for life. As he strove to get within striking distance fear gave her wings. From one side to another she leaped and dodged. Kibei was hampered. He had to cut her off from stair and ro[u]ka. As he hesitated she discharged the ...
— The Yotsuya Kwaidan or O'Iwa Inari - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 1 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... twined the great river. The little waves, when I moved in the boat, heaved and fell with a plash as of molten silver, breaking the image of the moon into a thousand morsels, fusing again into one, as the ripples of laughter die into the still face of joy. The sleeping woods, in undefined massiveness; the water that flowed in its sleep; and, above all, the enchantress moon, which had cast them all, with her pale eye, into the charmed slumber, sank into my soul, and I felt as if I had died in a dream, and should never ...
— Phantastes - A Faerie Romance for Men and Women • George MacDonald
... colour-tone to the buildings. The low and even relief of the site and the long vistas of the streets do not lend themselves to the picturesque; yet this quality may be claimed for the high and broken skyline, varied colour, massiveness, bustle and impressive commercialism of the business district. Chicago is generally credited with being the original home of the steel-frame "sky-scraper,"[5] though there are now higher buildings elsewhere in America. The unstable soil of sand, clay ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 1 - "Chtelet" to "Chicago" • Various
... stern, painful formalities were gone through, in the most matter-of-fact way, between my companion and the commander of the strong post which was on guard, we entered the mighty precincts, and the gates closed behind us. I had then time to marvel at the massiveness of the structure—the immense blocks of stone, so typical of the colossal empire under which it was constructed. Passing through a long series of narrow passages, gloomy and sad, impervious to all sound, save that of low sighs and groans from dungeons below and around us, we arrived ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various
... from the right during the speech of Bismarck, with now and again a general ripple of laughter at some pleasantry accessible to the German mind; but these were much outdone in heartiness by the applause which frequently interrupted Richter when speaking. There is a massiveness about this scene which rises up in memory with a vividness greater, if possible, than the reality made on our excited and wearied endurance during the hours we spent there. Later, Windhorst, the leader of the Roman Catholic party, made a memorable speech. ...
— In and Around Berlin • Minerva Brace Norton
... the red glow of the sinking sun, were miles upon miles of ruins—columns, temples, shrines, and the palaces of kings, varied with patches of green bush. Of course, the roofs of these buildings had long since fallen into decay and vanished, but owing to the extreme massiveness of the style of building, and to the hardness and durability of the rock employed, most of the party walls and great columns still ...
— She • H. Rider Haggard
... off at the ends. Similar square ended beams of large size are met with in the ancient work of the Chaco pueblos, but there the enormous labor involved in producing the result with only the aid of stone implements is in keeping with the highly finished character of the masonry and the general massiveness of the construction. The same treatment was adopted in Kin-tiel, as may be seen in Pl. XCV, which illustrates a beam resting upon a ledge or offset of the inner walls. The recent introduction of improved mechanical aids has exerted a strong influence on the character of the construction ...
— Eighth Annual Report • Various
... vigor and massiveness of Schumann's pianoforte style. Note the sonority gained by the use of widely spaced chords. For the brilliant effect demanded, there should be a liberal use of the damper pedal.[192] We likewise find, ...
— Music: An Art and a Language • Walter Raymond Spalding |
