"Motley" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the treaty site apparent than a general concentration took place, and we were speedily surrounded by a bustling crowd, putting up trading tents and shacks, dancing booths, eating-places, etc., so that with the motley crowd, including a large number of women and children, and a swarm of dogs such as we never dreamt of, amounting in a short space by constant accessions to over a thousand, we were in the heart of life ...
— Through the Mackenzie Basin - A Narrative of the Athabasca and Peace River Treaty Expedition of 1899 • Charles Mair
... "hooked" off to the station-house by Superintendent DOGSNOSE of the D division, with an exulting mob of men and boys hooting at his heels: if Demosthenes or Cicero, disguised as Chartist orators, mounting a tub at Deptford, were to Philippicize, or entertain this motley auditory with speeches against Catiline or Verres, straightway the Superintendent of the X division, with a posse of constables at his heels, dismounts the patriot orator from his tub, and hands him over to a plain-spoken ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXIX. - March, 1843, Vol. LIII. • Various
... extra blunder in the conduct of Irish affairs is only like an additional mask in a fancy ball—the whole thing is motley; and asking for consistency would be like requesting the company ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... gathered a motley crew, mostly hard, reckless men, who drank and bet their gold dust away as fast as they found it. But everywhere they were finding gold, and all the time came new reports and rumors of more farther on. The headquarters of Hoover's ...
— Herbert Hoover - The Man and His Work • Vernon Kellogg
... the confusion Such a motley crowd would make; And the clatter of their chatter, And the things that ...
— Cole's Funny Picture Book No. 1 • Edward William Cole
... windows, the ceiling, panels, and chimney-piece of grim black oak—the latter elaborately but not very tastefully carved,—with tables and chairs to match, an old bookcase on one side of the fire-place, stocked with a motley assemblage of books, and an elderly cabinet piano on ...
— The Tenant of Wildfell Hall • Anne Bronte
... on the banks of the Rio Bravo del Norte—a mere rancheria, or hamlet. The quaint old church of Morisco-Italian style, with its cupola of motley japan, the residence of the cura, and the house of the alcalde, are the only stone structures in the place. These constitute three sides of the piazza, a somewhat spacious square. The remaining side is taken up with shops or dwellings of the common people. They are built of ...
— The War Trail - The Hunt of the Wild Horse • Mayne Reid
... high-sounding names and quests which seem to us to give the play an air of unreality and romance were to the Elizabethans real and actual; things as strange and foreign were to be heard any day amongst the motley crowd in the Bankside outside the theatre door. Tamburlaine's last speech, when he calls for a map and points the way to unrealised conquests, is the very epitome ...
— English Literature: Modern - Home University Library Of Modern Knowledge • G. H. Mair
... interesting scene from our window. Besides the motley crowd of passers-by, there are booths and tables stationed thick below. One man in particular is busily engaged in selling his store of blacking in the auction style, in a manner that would do credit to a real Down-caster. He ...
— Views a-foot • J. Bayard Taylor
... supposed to connect with the passenger train and carry forward its human freight to Superior City was filled to overflowing, I determined to take advantage of the construction train, and travel on it as far as it would take me. A very motley group of lumberers, navvies, and speculators assembled for breakfast at five o'clock a.m. at Tom's table, and although I cannot quite confirm the favourable opinion of my friend the express agent as to the quality of the viands which graced it, I can at least ...
— The Great Lone Land - A Narrative of Travel and Adventure in the North-West of America • W. F. Butler
... thus we failed, not thus; When that black Baal blocked the heavens he had no hymns from us Children we were—our forts of sand were even as weak as eve, High as they went we piled them up to break that bitter sea. Fools as we were in motley, all jangling and absurd, When all church bells were silent our ...
— The Man Who Was Thursday - A Nightmare • G. K. Chesterton
... lace and shining decorations), the traditional object of ambition for those most in favor at court; but they seemed to me to present a constrained figure, as I saw them soberly ranged in the stalls of the canons, clad in a costume of no particular epoch, wrapped in long mantles of motley color, and following, with a distracted air, the phases of a ceremony to which they were so little accustomed that they were constantly rising, sitting down, and kneeling at ...
— The Duchess of Berry and the Court of Charles X • Imbert De Saint-Amand
... flanked by the corvette Louisiana, anchored in the stream. No sooner had the heads of the British columns appeared than they were driven back by the fire of the American batteries; the field-pieces, mortars, and rocket guns were then brought up, and a sharp artillery duel took place. The motley crew of the Louisiana handled their long ship guns with particular effect; the British rockets proved of but little service [Footnote: Latour, 121.]; and after a stiff fight, in which they had two field-pieces ...
— The Naval War of 1812 • Theodore Roosevelt
... beginning of the nineties. There were no more hounds or sporting dogs at Yasnaya then, but till the end of her days she gave shelter to a motley collection of mongrels, ...
— Reminiscences of Tolstoy - By His Son • Ilya Tolstoy
... and fire. They were found to be but a momentary protection, for I think in the first mile the last one went overboard, all having their covers burnt off from the frames, when a general melee took place among the deck passengers, each whipping his neighbour to put out the fire. They presented a very motley appearance on arriving at the first station." Here, "a short stop was made, and a successful experiment tried to remedy the unpleasant jerks. A plan was soon hit upon and put into execution. The three links in the couplings of the cars were stretched to their utmost tension, a rail from ...
— Railway Adventures and Anecdotes - extending over more than fifty years • Various
... of original letters, where he could, copies, where he could not, certificates and journals, catching at every gossipping story he could hear of in any quarter, supplying by suspicions what he could find no where else, and then arguing on this motley farrago, as if established on gospel evidence. And while expressing his wonder, 'at the age of eighty-eight, the strong passions of Mr. Adams should not have cooled '; that on the contrary, 'they had acquired the mastery of his soul,' (p. 100 ;) that 'where these were enlisted, no reliance ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... sans-culotte was guillotined four days before Robespierre, whose death would have saved him. His young widow left prison, reduced to extreme want, and took refuge with her father-in-law, at Fontainebleau; then she made her appearance in the motley society which, first showed itself in the drawing-room of Madame Tallien, then at the Luxembourg under Barras. Rivalling Madame Tallien and Madame Rcamier in popularity, she smiled through her tears, like Andromache in ...
— The Court of the Empress Josephine • Imbert de Saint-Amand
... pleasant one, of a life so protracted as mine has been in the midst of such a society as that of Florence in those days, is the enormous quantity of the names which turn the tablets of memory into palimpsests, not twice, but fifty times written over!—unpleasant, not from the thronging in of the motley company, but from the inevitable passing out of them from the field of vision. One's recollections come to resemble those of the spectator of a phantasmagoric show. Processions of heterogeneous figures, almost all of them connected in some way or other with ...
— What I Remember, Volume 2 • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... not, however, get on well with Marfa Timofyevna, when she came to live in the Kalitins' house. Such gravity and dignity on the part of one who had once worn the motley skirt of a peasant wench displeased the impatient and self-willed old lady. Agafya asked leave to go on a pilgrimage and she never came back. There were dark rumours that she had gone off to a retreat ...
— A House of Gentlefolk • Ivan Turgenev
... stands in front of the door. Then the merry clink of glasses, snatches of ribald song, and loud curses from the polluted lips of some wretch who has lost heavily at the gaming-table, reach our hearing, while our gaze wanders over as motley a crowd as it has ever been ...
— Deadwood Dick, The Prince of the Road - or, The Black Rider of the Black Hills • Edward L. Wheeler
... spent the day among the rebels, conversing with their officers, while his boatmen, having with them a canteen of brandy, soon made themselves very popular with the crowd of rebel soldiers who gathered about, dressed in motley colors, buff, blue, gray, butternut, and colors indescribable. They were all in good humor and lively, and the hours passed pleasantly, as the men from the two opposing armies chatted in the shade of some oak trees. Finding ...
— Three Years in the Sixth Corps • George T. Stevens
... suddenly as she had tossed aside her head coverings, Judy dropped her long loose cloak upon the floor and stood revealed clad in motley raiment indeed. In an instant all that she had said was forgotten as the girls crowded around examining ...
— Molly Brown's Senior Days • Nell Speed
... midnight the street before the church had swarmed with a motley throng, that now came onward, waving torches that sparkled like stars. They formed a ring about Dirck and began to dance, and he, nothing loth, seized the nymph who had addressed him and joined in the revel. Not a soul was out or awake except themselves, and no ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... to enumerate the numberless laws found on the motley map of German common rights. ...
— Woman under socialism • August Bebel
... his men, who were a motley collection of all nationalities: Italians, English, Portuguese, Dutch, Germans, and a few Arabs. "Huzzah! Huzzah! Wright forever!" The Arabs, of course, didn't say ...
— Famous Privateersmen and Adventurers of the Sea • Charles H. L. Johnston
... worldly preparations are the motley colored religious pictures on the walls—such subjects as "Purgatory," "Hell," "The Last Judgment," "The Death of the Just," and "The Death of the Sinner." Below these, in a beautiful renaissance frame, is a large, curious linen engraving ...
— Friars and Filipinos - An Abridged Translation of Dr. Jose Rizal's Tagalog Novel, - 'Noli Me Tangere.' • Jose Rizal
... joining the fashionable throng of 'pretty people' at Stanhope Gate, but to mingle with the common herd in its special precincts,—precincts not set apart, indeed, by any legal formula, but by a natural law of classification which seems to be inherent in the universe. It was a curious and motley crowd—a little dull, perhaps, but orderly, well-behaved, and self-respecting, with here and there part of the flotsam and jetsam of a great city, a ragged, sodden, hopeless wretch wending his way about with the rest, thankful for ...
— Penelope's English Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... slouch-sombreroed, long-mustached Texans—for so Jean at once classed them—had ever seen Jean, but they knew him and knew that he was expected in Grass Valley. All but the one who had spoken happened to have their faces in shadow under the wide-brimmed black hats. Motley-garbed, gun-belted, dusty-booted, they gave Jean the same impression of latent force that he had encountered ...
— To the Last Man • Zane Grey
... What a motley crew they were! Swedes and Germans, cockneys and niggers, they passed on till the two watches had answered to their names, and the last man was a Russian Finn, black-haired and swarthy, with a flat face ...
— The Moving Finger • Mary Gaunt
... with the leathern garments, that fashion as well as use, had in some degree rendered necessary to one engaged in his present pursuits. There was, however, a singular and wild display of prodigal and ill judged ornaments, blended with his motley attire. In place of the usual deer-skin belt, he wore around his body a tarnished silken sash of the most gaudy colours; the buck-horn haft of his knife was profusely decorated with plates of silver; the marten's fur of ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper
... portcullis of her mind against a crowd of useless reflections. One was, whether her own relation with this young man's father had died a violent death; and, if so, was she any the worse? The rest were a motley crowd, with "might have been!" tattooed upon their brows and woven into the patterns of the garments. Among them, two images—a potential Adrian and a potential Gwen—each with one variation of parentage, but quite out of court for St. George's, Hanover Square. Are ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... trodden upon in arms, even during inter-tribal wars. In medieval times the market universally enjoyed the same protection.(2) No feud could be prosecuted on the place whereto people came to trade, nor within a certain radius from it; and if a quarrel arose in the motley crowd of buyers and sellers, it had to be brought before those under whose protection the market stood—the community's tribunal, or the bishop's, the lord's, or the king's judge. A stranger who came to trade was a guest, and he went on under this very ...
— Mutual Aid • P. Kropotkin
... "Scientific Idealism," with several quite learned volumes of astronomy and geology, side by side with Gulliver and all kinds of travel and story-books which we have most of us adored. It was I who had the task of sorting and arranging this motley collection, and I can hardly tell you, Padre, how ...
— Everyman's Land • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... like the pigs, and make the best of it they can. When a prisoner has served his time in irons, he is removed to a probationary gang; that which I am describing is an ironed gang. These men are dressed in a motley suit of grey and yellow alternately, each seam being of a different colour; and the irons being secured to each ancle, and, for the relief of the wearer, made fast from the legs to the waist. The whole stockade is sometimes enclosed with high palings, and sometimes ...
— Australia, its history and present condition • William Pridden
... this violent emotion, was a young man, dressed in a mean and tattered garb, his face begrimed corresponding with that of the motley crew by which he was surrounded. He was a perfect stranger to the others present, and had not participated in their previous conversation, nor been personally addressed by any ...
— City Crimes - or Life in New York and Boston • Greenhorn
... welfare of her tenants. Very bare-faced, I well knew, were the impositions practiced upon her credulous good-nature in money matters, and I strongly suspected the spiritual and moral promises and performances of her motley tenantry exhibited as much discrepancy as those pertaining to rent. Still, deceived or cheated as she might be, good Mrs. Davies never wearied in what she conceived to be well-doing, and was ever ready to pour balm and oil into the wounds of the sufferer, however ...
— The Experiences of a Barrister, and Confessions of an Attorney • Samuel Warren
... breed, Motley fruit of mongrel seed; By the dam from lordlings sprung. By the sire exhaled from dung: Think on every vice in both, Look on him, and see their growth. View him on the mother's side,[2] Fill'd ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... subjects be studied together? Explain the qualities that characterize all great literature. Has any text-book in history ever appealed to you as a work of literature? What literary qualities have you noticed in standard historical works, such as those of Macaulay, Prescott, Gibbon, Green, Motley, Parkman, ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... he contemplated the motley mass of humanity that presented itself with such eagerness for the attainment of so degrading an office; and as he listened to their vulgar boastings and brutal language, he blushed to think that such men ...
— The Garies and Their Friends • Frank J. Webb
... slavery should be destroyed with like disregard of the claims (for rights he would allow none) of the proprietors, and a multitude of extravagances of the same sort. Therefore say I, Vive la Bagatelle; motley ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... the little dimly- lighted schoolhouses with the weatherbeaten faces shining in the light of the leaky magic lantern, and the delighted Windy running here and there, talking the jargon of stageland, arraying himself in his motley and strutting ...
— Windy McPherson's Son • Sherwood Anderson
... to the Prince was remarkable. It had managed it rather well. It had stated that all who wished to be present must apply for tickets of admission. Thousands did, and they passed before the Prince in a motley and genial crowd of top hats and gingham skirts, striped sweaters and satin charmeuse. But though they came in thousands, the numbers of ticket-holders were ultimately exhausted. When the last one had passed, the Prince looked at his ...
— Westward with the Prince of Wales • W. Douglas Newton
... Barney to a miserable lean-to shack at one side of the clearing, and for a while the motley crew loitered about bandying coarse jests at the expense of the "king." The boy, Rudolph, brought food and water, he alone of them all evincing the slightest respect or awe for the royalty of ...
— The Mad King • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... beautiful little place of worship, with eighty painted panels of Scriptural subjects by De Witt, the seventeenth-century Dutch artist, and admirable stained glass. The Castle, too, is full of interesting historical relics. It boasts the only remaining Fool's dress of motley in the kingdom; Prince Charlie's watch and clothes are still preserved there, for the Prince, surprised by the Hanoverian troops at Glamis, had only time to jump on a horse and escape, leaving all his belongings behind him. There is a wonderful collection of old family dresses of the seventeenth ...
— The Days Before Yesterday • Lord Frederick Hamilton
... you are king you must appoint me court jester. Will you, my good Lord? We two are good contrasts: You full of dignity upon a royal throne, a golden crown upon your head, the scepter in your hand, and I dressed in motley with cap and bells. Heigh ho! That will be jolly. And after all we are ...
— The Buddha - A Drama in Five Acts and Four Interludes • Paul Carus
... sang of war in the warm wet shires, Where rain nor fruitage fails, Where England of the motley states Deepens like a garden to the gates In the purple ...
— The Ballad of the White Horse • G.K. Chesterton
... The Guards had their Headquarters in the town, and impressed everyone with their physical fitness and splendid discipline. We consumed a morning waiting on the Lillers-Bethune road to see Lord Kitchener drive past in a motor; we watched the Indians going up to the trenches in motor 'buses, and a motley crew of picturesque French Colonials going by train to Souchez: Zouaves, turbaned and bearded, Algerians, with thick-lipped niggers from Congo and Senegal, who ran along the open trucks shouting and gesticulating. On July 11th a memorable meeting took place between the 1st and 4th Battalions in ...
— The War Service of the 1/4 Royal Berkshire Regiment (T. F.) • Charles Robert Mowbray Fraser Cruttwell
... to the Mermaid Inn, One dark May night, Fiddling a tune that quelled our motley din, With quaint delight, It haunts me yet, as old lost airs will do, A phantom strain: Look for me once, lest I should look for you, And ...
— The New Morning - Poems • Alfred Noyes
... wanderer tried to enjoy the picture. Then over against the crenellated wall, under the tablet bearing the quaint inscription picked out in choice Latin, Ferval saw a tall girl. Her bare head would not have marked her in a crowd where motley prevailed; it was her pose that attracted him,—above all, her mediaeval face, with its long, drooping nose which recalled some graven image of Jean Goujon. Her skin was tanned; her hair, flame-coloured, was confined by a classic fillet; her ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... luckily for them; his relatives had seen little of him, and had scarce heard as much about him as the outside world. No man is a prophet in his own country, and, even if he migrates, it is advisable for him to leave his family at home. His friends were a motley crew; friends of the same friend are not necessarily friends of one another. But their diversity only made the congruity of the tale they had to tell more striking. It was the tale of a man who had never made an enemy even by benefiting him, nor lost a friend even ...
— The Big Bow Mystery • I. Zangwill
... met a fool i' the forest, A motley fool;—a miserable world!— As I do live by food, I met a fool, Who laid him down and bask'd him in the sun, And rail'd on Lady Fortune in good terms, In good set terms,—and yet a motley fool. 'Good morrow, fool,' quoth I: 'No, sir,' quoth he, 'Call me not fool till heaven hath sent ...
— As You Like It • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... Golden Rule (now the Christian Endeavor World) calls attention to an incident on a night railroad train narrated in the late Benjamin F. Taylor's World on Wheels, in which "this hymn appears as a sort of Traveller's Psalm." Among the motley collection of passengers, some talkative, some sleepy, some homesick and cross, all tired, sat two plain women who, "would make capital country aunts.... If they were mothers at all they were good ones." ...
— The Story of the Hymns and Tunes • Theron Brown and Hezekiah Butterworth
... been a time of great anxiety to all men. The Virginia colonel was commander-in-chief; a motley army held Sir William Howe penned up in Boston, and why he so quietly accepted this sheep-like fate no man of us could comprehend. My aunt, a great letter-writer, had many correspondents, and one or two in the ...
— Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker • S. Weir Mitchell
... at once out of this dull, dead motley of harmonious nothingness, a single gorgeous spot had revealed itself, swelled out, and disappeared: a butterfly had opened its wings, laid bare their inside splendours, and closed them again—presenting to the eye only the adaptive, protective, exterior of those marvellous swinging ...
— The Choir Invisible • James Lane Allen
... trying ordeal with grace and composure. And if one were to judge by the number and the quality of the gifts which loaded down one whole room, or by the throng which filled the house to overflowing, or by the motley crowd which surged without, impatient for one last look at the bride as she stepped into the splendid coach, a more popular couple was never united in matrimony. It was a great day for all concerned, and none was more happy nor more radiant than Peggy as she sat back in the coach and looked into ...
— The Loyalist - A Story of the American Revolution • James Francis Barrett
... and took the command of the motley besieging force. One thousand of the best men in the fleet were sent to assist in the siege. Just at this time Nelson received a peremptory order from Lord Keith to sail with the whole of his force for the protection of Minorca; or, at least, ...
— The Life of Horatio Lord Nelson • Robert Southey
... gay; not without brilliancy, and even fire. We looked-out on Life, with its strange scaffolding, where all at once harlequins dance, and men are beheaded and quartered: motley, not unterrific was the aspect; but we looked on it like brave youths. For myself, these were perhaps my most genial hours. Towards this young warmhearted, strongheaded and wrongheaded Herr Towgood I was even near ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... in the wide Winnipeg station, there gathered on the platform beside Lady Merton's car a merry and motley group of people. A Chief Justice from Alberta, one of the Senators for Manitoba, a rich lumberman from British Columbia, a Toronto manufacturer—owner of the model farm which the party was to inspect, ...
— Lady Merton, Colonist • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... reenforcements rode up. Then far through the fine cold air came trumpet-calls, and the enemy emerged from their cover in the woods. In comparison with the disciplined and controlled forces of the English, they seemed a motley rabble. Moreover, the Norman crossbowmen and the English archers with their long bows had the pike-bearing Welsh at a terrible disadvantage. This Roger explained, hopping with excitement, for he was full of information gathered from Ralph the ...
— Masters of the Guild • L. Lamprey
... while the streets were alive with motley and noisy crowds. The sun was up, if still red and hazy, and sunlight came like a tunnel of gold down the swampy valley and from over the sea; the orange orchards lying to the south, called the gardens of the Sultan, were red rather than yellow, and the snowy crests of the ...
— The Scapegoat • Hall Caine
... against, indeed, by the very rules and regulations of the society, as well as by its spirit. The individual is the creature of his feelings of all sorts, the sport of his vices and his virtues—like the fool in Shakespear, 'motley's his proper wear':—corporate bodies are dressed in a moral uniform; mixed motives do not operate there, frailty is made into a system, 'diseases are turned into commodities.' Only so much of any ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... to death at pleasure parties, spent the summer season at Baden, and towards the forties married heiresses. In the private rooms of restaurants, where one sups after midnight by the light of wax candles, laughed the motley crowd of men of letters and actresses. They were prodigal as kings, full of ideal, ambitious, fantastic frenzy. This was an existence outside that of all others, between heaven and earth, in the midst of storms, having ...
— Madame Bovary • Gustave Flaubert
... silver. Some drums beat in the distance; sentries paced the strand; the hum of men, and the lowing of commissary cattle, were borne towards us confusedly; soldiers were bathing in the river; team-horses were drinking at the brink; a throng of motley people were crowding about the landing to receive the papers and mails. I had at last arrived at the seat of war, and my ambition to chronicle battles and bloodshed was ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... Berkeley, with the motley crowd of sailors, longshoremen, freed slaves, and such as he could collect, sailed for Jamestown and reached it safely September 7th, 1676. The news of his approach reached Jamestown long before he did, and Colonel Hansford, one ...
— The Real America in Romance, Volume 6; A Century Too Soon (A Story - of Bacon's Rebellion) • John R. Musick
... addition to the city contingent and those who garrisoned the forts where heavy ordnance only was used, the line of march was joined by the marine department, which had been doing duty on the river craft about Dutch Gap, Drewry's and Chaffin's bluffs, etc. Altogether, it was a motley combination, which afforded much amusement and the usual sallies of wit at each other's expense. The marine element was the most striking in appearance, and encumbered with enough baggage for a voyage to the North Pole. In three days' time this had ...
— The Story of a Cannoneer Under Stonewall Jackson • Edward A. Moore
... eyes discover as we walk along on Market street. Such a medley—infinite, incongruous, comical, pathetic, motley and sublime. ...
— Vignettes of San Francisco • Almira Bailey
... gained the opposite bank than he was attacked by the Sikh army, which had been moving up from Bugurrarah while he was gaining the passage. This was a terrible engagement. The sun had hardly risen upon river, and swamp, and undulating plains, when the Mooltanee forces fell upon the motley crowd of the British levies, and in such superior numbers that victory seemed certain. For nine hours the English lieutenant resisted the onslaught, and by his valour, activity, presence of mind, and moral influence, kept his undisciplined forces ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... full-length figure of a girl, balancing an empty pitcher upon her head, at the time of moonrise. Anticipating the Eastern subjects which future years produced, we may note a picture of Old Damascus, showing the Jews' quarter in that fabled city, in all its motley picturesqueness, and the delightful Moorish Garden,—A Dream of Granada, which were exhibited in 1874. A powerful picture, shown in 1875, of the Egyptian Slinger,[4] is illustrated later in this volume, but no reproduction ...
— Frederic Lord Leighton - An Illustrated Record of His Life and Work • Ernest Rhys
... mirrors which repeated their reflections several times. Now this same room was dimly lighted by two candles. On one small table tea things and supper dishes stood in disorder, and in the middle of the night a motley throng of people sat there, not merrymaking, but somberly whispering, and betraying by every word and movement that they none of them forgot what was happening and what was about to happen in the bedroom. Pierre did not eat anything though he would very much have liked ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... into the then totally unknown lands of the Snake Indians. It consisted of about sixty men, thirty women, and as many children of various ages,—about a hundred and twenty souls in all. Many of the boys were capable of using the gun and setting a beaver-trap. The men were a most motley set. There were Canadians, half-breeds, Iroquois, and Scotchmen. Most of the women had Indian blood in their veins, and a few were ...
— The Dog Crusoe and his Master • R.M. Ballantyne
... later he came back again, this time as king, with a motley army of mercenaries gathered to crush the two brothers De Lacy, who for the moment dominated all Ireland—the one, Hugo, being Earl of Ulster, and Viceroy; the other, Walter, Lord ...
— The Story Of Ireland • Emily Lawless
... Abuses of this kind were imported from one nation to another, and with the progress of refinement this diction became daily more and more corrupt, thrusting out of sight the plain humanities of Nature by a motley masquerade of tricks, quaintnesses, hieroglyphics, ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... The entrance to this motley scene was by the principal gate, where the carriages set down their company, and at a short distance along the bank of the river, the steam-boat in like manner contributed its visiters. On entering the park, I was first struck ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 12, Issue 330, September 6, 1828 • Various
... floor of the barn, upon a heap of hay, sat a fool in motley blowing with all his wind into a pipe. It was a cunning tune he played too, rich and heady. And so seemed the company to find it, dancers—some thirty or more—capering round him with all the abandon heart can feel and heel can answer to. As for pose, he ...
— Henry Brocken - His Travels and Adventures in the Rich, Strange, Scarce-Imaginable Regions of Romance • Walter J. de la Mare
... a veritable pandemonium, the fighting, the arrests, the bombardment keeping the excitement at an intense pitch. The people deserted the streets, which were silent and empty, except for the soldiers of the Commune—a disorderly crew in motley uniforms—the movement of ammunition wagons, and the other scenes incident to a state of war. But the usual swarming life of Paris had vanished. There was no movement, scarcely any sound. The shop-windows were shut, many of them boarded up, ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 6 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality. French. • Charles Morris
... shouting, no banging of the bauble. The form of phrase, the inflexion of voice, the dancing light of humour, make up the motley which is the true jester's 'only wear'; and under his flashes of merriment is a sober, sound philosophy. This, after all, is the only kind of humour that lasts ... it is easy to appreciate, difficult to acquire; and Mr. Owen Seaman, having ...
— The Battle of the Bays • Owen Seaman
... with gaudiness, such as we have to endure at Saint Germain des Pres, in Paris, and Notre Dame la Grande at Poitiers. In fact such colour can only be conceived of—if at all—as used in small chapels; why stain the walls of a cathedral with motley? For this tattooing, so to speak, reduces the sense of space, brings down the roof, and makes the pillars clumsy; in short, it eliminates the mysterious soul of the nave, and destroys the sober majesty of the aisle ...
— The Cathedral • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... Strand is, perhaps, the finest street in Europe." Charles Lamb said: "I often shed tears in the motley Strand for fulness of joy ...
— The Strand District - The Fascination of London • Sir Walter Besant
... the Governor, to rest upon the woman beside me; had he pointed to her with his hand, he could not have more surely drawn upon her the regard of that motley throng. By degrees the crowd had fallen back, leaving us three—the King's minion, the masquerading lady, and myself—the centre of a ring of staring faces; but now she became the sole target at which all ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston
... of progress, and ours is a progressive land. A great and glorious land, too—a land which has developed a Washington, a Franklin, a Wm. M. Tweed, a Longfellow, a Motley, a Jay Gould, a Samuel C. Pomeroy, a recent Congress which has never had its equal (in some respects), and a United States Army which conquered sixty Indians in eight months by tiring them out which is much better than uncivilized slaughter, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... of the town are several good private houses. The aspect of Suez is that of an Arabian, and not an Egyptian town, and even in the barren waste, which surrounds it, it resembles Yembo and Djidda; the same motley crowds are met with in the streets, and the greater part of the shop-keepers are from Arabia or Syria. The air is bad, occasioned by the saline nature of the earth, and the extensive low grounds on the north and ...
— Travels in Syria and the Holy Land • John Burckhardt
... by the genius of two or three writers like Irving and Cooper. Strike out the names of Webster, Everett, Story, Sumner, and Cushing; of Bryant, Dana, Longfellow, and Lowell; of Prescott, Ticknor, Motley, Sparks, and Bancroft; of Verplanck, Hillard, and Whipple; of Stuart and Robinson; of Norton, Palfrey, Peabody, and Bowen; and, lastly, that of Emerson himself, and how much American classic literature would be left for a new ...
— Ralph Waldo Emerson • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... liberty: Away, away, I'd rather hold my neck By doubtful tenure from a Sultan's beck, In climes where liberty has scarce been named, Nor any right, but that of ruling, claimed, Than thus to live, where bastard freedom waves Her fustian flag in mockery o'er slaves; Where (motley laws admitting no degree Betwixt the vilely slaved, and madly free) Alike the bondage and the licence suit, The brute made ruler, and ...
— Domestic Manners of the Americans • Fanny Trollope
... the blood move quicker. From figures of historic and regal importance—Richard, Elizabeth, Mary—to the pure coinage of imagination—Dandy Dinmont, Dugald Dalgetty, Dominie Sampson, Rebecca, Lucy, Di Vernon and Jeanie—how the names begin to throng and what a motley yet welcome company is assembled in the assizes where this romancer sits to mete out fate to those within the wide bailiwick of his imagination! This central gift he possessed with the princes of story-making. It is also probable that of the imaginative ...
— Masters of the English Novel - A Study Of Principles And Personalities • Richard Burton
... asked, looking over the crowd with an air of superiority and waving his hand with an inclusive gesture. The motley throng of loafers sidled up to the bar with a deprecatory and automatic movement. They took their glasses, clinked them, nodded to their entertainer, muttered incoherent toasts and drank his health. The delighted landlord, feeling it incumbent ...
— The Redemption of David Corson • Charles Frederic Goss
... cried Adrian. "Dupe, cozen, jockey the trustful young creature. Do. There 's a great-hearted gentleman. You need n't fear my undeceiving her. I know my place; I know who holds the purse-strings; I know which side my bread is buttered on. Motley's my wear. So long as you pay my wages, you may count upon ...
— The Lady Paramount • Henry Harland
... soon as it is in a blaze, it is shouldered by a man, who proceeds to carry it at a run, flaring and dripping melted tar, round the old boundaries of the village; the modern part of the town is not included in the circuit. Close at his heels follows a motley crowd, cheering and shouting. One bearer relieves another as each wearies of his burden. The first to shoulder the Clavie, which is esteemed an honour, is usually a man who has been lately married. Should the bearer stumble or fall, it is deemed a very ill omen for him and for the village. ...
— Balder The Beautiful, Vol. I. • Sir James George Frazer
... may be allowed, as embodying the descriptions often given by Dr Burton of the motley crew of competitors for the scholarships and bursaries dispensed by the university: "Gazing round the room, I noted that my competitors consisted of raw-boned red-haired Highlandmen, fresh from their ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton
... as he lay on the field at Zutphen! But definite information has it otherwise. To learn of the prodigious industry of the youthful Mill, the perseverance of Darwin, the heroic struggle of Scott, the gentleness of Stevenson, the modesty of Browning, the lifelong consecration of Motley,—is not the leaven of inspiration made of knowledge such ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb
... you please, the Jack Pudding to the company, whose business it was to crack the best joke, and sing the best song,—he could. Unluckily, however, this functionary was for the present obliged to absent himself from St. Ronan's; for, not recollecting that he did not actually wear the privileged motley of his profession, he had passed some jest upon Captain MacTurk, which cut so much to the quick, that Mr. Meredith was fain to go to goat-whey quarters, at some ten miles' distance, and remain there in a sort of concealment, until the affair should ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... ideal representative of ruined Rome—the home of ruined religions—in its aesthetic aspects. But one instance of appreciation must be recorded here, as giving the highest pitch of that delightful literary fellowship which Hawthorne seems constantly to have enjoyed in England. His friend John Lothrop Motley, the historian, wrote thus of "The Marble Faun," from Walton-on-Thames, March ...
— A Study Of Hawthorne • George Parsons Lathrop
... of which the gang had loafed for years, and though himself a respectable businessman his name had been attached to the pack of hoodlums who held forth at his back door as the easiest means of locating and identifying its motley members. ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... now stand, they are at least, in one important aspect, only a kind of annex to the public school system, as I shall shortly point out to you. For the moment, let us consider, together, what to my mind constitutes the very hopeful struggle of the two possibilities: either that the motley and evasive spirit of public schools which has hitherto been fostered, will completely vanish, or that it will have to be completely purified and rejuvenated. And in order that I may not shock you ...
— On the Future of our Educational Institutions • Friedrich Nietzsche
... of men, loved the motley. In fact, the individual who is incapable of viewing the world from a jocular basis is unsafe, and can be trusted only when the opposition is strong enough ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 1 of 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Good Men and Great • Elbert Hubbard
... the property of the man who plays on a violin, close to the box; and who is selling little mass books, supposed to be rendered more sacred by having been passed across the feet and hands of the waxen Christ. Such a mongrel occupation, and such a motley group, must strike you with astonishment—as a ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume One • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... mimic of the woods! thou motley fool! Who shall thy gay buffoonery describe? Thine ever-ready notes of ridicule Pursue thy fellows still with jest and gibe. Wit—sophist—songster—Yorick of thy tribe, Thou sportive satirist of Nature's school, To thee the palm of scoffing ...
— Birds and Poets • John Burroughs
... favourite game in Ireland, and Dublin could boast of three or four hells doing a brisk trade. The most frequented and longest established was called "The Coal Hole," being situated on the coal quay. Here, at any hour after midnight, a motley company might be seen, each individual, however, well known to the porter, who jealously scanned his features before drawing back the noiseless bolts which secured the door. The professional gambler trying to live by his winnings, the fashionable swell finishing ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume II (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... picking his way among the orange boxes, the moving farms, and the wig-makers of Covent Garden, he had come upon a sculptor's shop, oddly crowded in among Cockney carters and decaying vegetables. Faces of Greece and Rome gazed at him suddenly from a broad window, and for a few moments he forsook the motley beauty of modern London for ...
— The Worshipper of the Image • Richard Le Gallienne
... birthday gift, with a bright steel chain attached. Otto brought a great picture-book, just sent him by his godmother; Rudolph a tiny marble vase, richly sculptured; and so on, until a still more motley collection than before lay upon ...
— The Big Nightcap Letters - Being the Fifth Book of the Series • Frances Elizabeth Barrow
... wooden walls. It was situated on the north of Lake Simcoe, ten or twelve miles from this body of water, surrounded by a country rich in corn, squashes, and a great variety of small fruits, with plenty of game and fish. When the warriors had mostly assembled, the motley crowd, bearing their bark canoes, meal, and equipments on their shoulders, moved down in a southwesterly direction till they reached the narrow strait that unites Lake Chouchiching with Lake Simcoe, where the Hurons ...
— Voyages of Samuel de Champlain, Vol. 1 • Samuel de Champlain
... week again—the mad blaspheming week of revelry and devilry. The streets were rainbow with motley wear and thunderous with the roar and laughter of the crowd, recruited by a vast inflow of strangers; from the windows and roofs, black with heads, frolicsome hands threw honey, dirty water, rotten eggs, and even boiling oil upon the pedestrians and cavaliers ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... is decidedly motley. The man of quaintest aspect in it is Sidi Mabarak Bombay. He is of the Wahiyow tribe, who make the best slaves in Eastern Africa. His breed is that of the true woolly-headed negro, though he does ...
— What Led To The Discovery of the Source Of The Nile • John Hanning Speke
... could not but fancy, if my Soul had at that Moment quitted my Body, and descended to the poetical Shades in the Posture it was then in, what a strange Figure it would have made among them. They would not have known what to have made of my motley Spectre, half Comick and half Tragick, all over resembling a ridiculous Face, that at the same time laughs on one side and cries o tother. The only Defence, I think, I have ever heard made for this, as it seems to me, most unnatural Tack of the ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... tent flies, oilcloths and clothing, the men being forced to free themselves of all surplus incumbrances in order to keep up with the moving mass. At one place we passed General Early, sitting on his horse by the roadside, viewing the motley crowd as it passed by. He looked sour and haggard. You could see by the expression of his face the great weight upon his mind, his deep disappointment, his unspoken disappointment. What was yesterday ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... there for the Volucella to disguise herself as a wasp? Any fly, whether clad in drab or motley, is admitted to the burrow directly she makes herself useful to the community. The mimicry of the bumblebee fly, which was said to be one of the most conclusive cases, is, after all, a mere childish notion. Patient observation, continually face ...
— The Life of the Fly - With Which are Interspersed Some Chapters of Autobiography • J. Henri Fabre
... during the middle of the last century not only in Boston and Cambridge, but in Paris, Rome, Florence, and other European cities. He was descended from one of the oldest and wealthiest families of Boston, and graduated from Harvard in 1831, together with Wendell Phillips and George Lothrop Motley. He was not distinguished in college for his scholarship, but rather as a wit, a bon vivant, and a good fellow. Yet his companions looked upon him as a strong character and much above the average in intellect. ...
— Cambridge Sketches • Frank Preston Stearns
... inflections of the American's quiet drawl are heard everywhere as he strolls round the tables; Roumanian boyards, Parisian swindlers, Austrian soldiers, Hungarian plutocrats, flashy and foolish young Englishmen—all gather in a motley crowd; and the British bookmaker's interesting presence is obtrusive. His very accent—strident, coarse, impudent, unspeakably low—gives a kind of ground-note to the hum of talk that rises in all places of public resort, and he recruits ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman
... Almighty, it would surely be for some definite end. These phenomena belong to neither class; my persuasion is, that they originate in some brain now far distant; that that brain had no distinct volition in anything that occurred; that what does occur reflects but its devious, motley, ever-shifting, half-formed thoughts; in short, that it has been but the dreams of such a brain put into action and invested with a semisubstance. That this brain is of immense power, that it can set matter into movement, that it is malignant and destructive, I believe; ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... parasangs—and provisions failed; for the Taochians lived in strong places, into which they had carried up all their stores. Now when the army arrived before one of these strong places—a mere fortress, without city or houses, into which a motley crowd of men and women and numerous flocks and herds were gathered—Cheirisophus attacked at once. When the first regiment fell back tired, a second advanced, and again a third, for it was impossible to surround the place in full force, ...
— Anabasis • Xenophon
... "My motley troop, apparently composed of every tribe from the Caspian to the Red Sea, displayed no less variety in arms and accoutrements than in their personal appearance, varying from the sturdy-looking Kourd, mounted on his strong powerful steed, to the swarthy, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXVI. October, 1843. Vol. LIV. • Various
... "'A motley crew' we are!" cheerfully announced Doctor George, and all the children radiantly clapped their hands at his joke. Even the White House baby, which had been carried to the feast, gurgled and crowed loudly on its ...
— A Big Temptation • L. T. Meade
... of No. 20 looks out on the narrow yard wherein ordinary captives are allowed to disport themselves for three half-hours daily. It is a very motley crowd. There are no Confederate soldiers here; all these are confined in the Old Capitol; but of every other class ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... gradually decayed. She was clad in a russet gown, much the worse for the wear, and a scarlet cloak, or rather a cloak that had once been scarlet, but was now completely faded from its original color. It had been broken here and there, but was pieced with different colored cloths, so as to appear a motley and strange garment; and her bony feet were bare and unprotected. Nanny, from different circumstances, was unanimously elected the witch or bugbear of the village; and though the brats were then so busy annoying her, at night, or in a lonesome place, they would fly like lightning ...
— Ellen Duncan; And The Proctor's Daughter - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... There was a motley crowd collected on the pier and on the beach when Joe and his friend landed. Rough, bearded men, in Mexican sombreros and coarse attire—many in shirt-sleeves and with their pantaloons tucked in their boots—watched ...
— Joe's Luck - Always Wide Awake • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... that he wanted to shoot buffalo while there were still buffalo left to shoot, and Gorringe had suggested that he go to Little Missouri. That villainous gateway to the Bad Lands was, it seems, the headquarters for a motley collection of guides and hunters, some of them experts,[1] the majority of them frauds, who were accustomed to take tourists and sportsmen for a fat price into the heart of the fantastic and savage country. The region was noted ...
— Roosevelt in the Bad Lands • Hermann Hagedorn
... of dinner-hour, had assembled the house of Kantor. Attuned to the intimate atmosphere of the tenement which is so constantly rent with cry of child, child-bearing, delirium, delirium-tremens, Leon Kantor had howled no impression into the motley din of things. Isadore, already astride his chair, well into center-table, for first vociferous tear at the four-pound loaf; Esther Kantor, old at chores, settled an infant into the high chair, careful of tiny fingers in lowering the ...
— O Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1919 • Various
... but suddenly there came to the aid of the Democrats a formidable array of Republicans. Although the entering wedge was a difference of policy growing out of conditions in the Southern States, other reasons contributed to the rupture. The removal of Motley as minister to England, coming so soon after Sumner's successful resistance to the San Domingo scheme, was treated as an attempt to punish a senator for the just exercise of his right and the honest performance of his duty. Nine months later Sumner ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... prize-fighters and actors and poets? It seemed an insult to his grand memory. Nevertheless there he was, very erect, and with a look of ineffable disgust in his upturned nostrils. The portraits on the sordid walls were very like the crambo in the minds of ordinary men,—very like the motley pictures of the FAMOUS hung up in your parlour, O my Public! Actors and prize-fighters, poets and statesmen, all without congruity and fitness, all whom you have been to see or to hear for a moment, and whose names have stared out in ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Olcott and Mr. Sinnett move mysteriously in the performance of their wonders; and the wealthy tourist from America, the botanist from Berlin, and the casual peer from Great Britain, are not wanting to complete the motley crowd. There are no roads in Simla proper where it is possible to drive, excepting one narrow way, reserved when I was there, and probably still set apart, for the exclusive delectation of the Viceroy. Every ...
— Mr. Isaacs • F. Marion Crawford
... jumping a number of crevices, finally set foot on the land we had been so long trying to reach. Our advent created a great commotion among the myriads of birds that frequent the ledges and cliffs, and the intrusion caused them to whirl about in a motley cloud and scream at each other in ceaseless uproar. A few minutes sufficed to survey the situation, before attempting to ascend at a spot that seemed scarcely to afford footing for a goat. Near the foot of the cliffs were seen on the one hand several detached pinnacles ...
— The First Landing on Wrangel Island - With Some Remarks on the Northern Inhabitants • Irving C. Rosse
... Take David's advice, "Fret not thyself because of evil-doers" (Psa. 37:1) "Be not thou afraid when one is made rich, when the glory of his house is increased" (Psa. 49:16). But go thou into the sanctuary of thy God, read His Word, and understand the end of these men-(Mason). Often, as the motley reflexes of my experience move in long processions of manifold groups before me, the distinguished and world-honoured company of Christian mammonists appear to the eye of my imagination as a drove of camels heavily laden, yet all at ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... a few minutes, unnoticed apparently, looking about her at the motley crowd. Baubie on entering the room had raised herself for a second on tiptoe to look into a distant corner, and then, remarking to herself, half audibly, "His boords is gane," subsided, and contented herself with ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XXVI., December, 1880. • Various
... command with a crew of sixty, all told; of whom, however, Jack Keene, midshipman, and Tasker, the gunner's mate—who in his new ship held the rank of gunner—were the only individuals with whom I had already been shipmate; the rest were a motley crowd indeed, collected out of the gutters and slums of Freetown. The Dolphin, it was arranged, was to act in the first instance as tender to the Eros; but, later, might perhaps be detached for ...
— A Middy of the Slave Squadron - A West African Story • Harry Collingwood
... Trooper Stormont rode up to Clinch's with Eve Strayer lying in his arms, Mike Clinch strode out of the motley crowd around the tavern, laid his rifle against a tree, and stretched forth his powerful hands to receive ...
— The Flaming Jewel • Robert W. Chambers
... Motley, Dr. Howe, and many others, consider it as a triumph that the English Cabinet asked Mr. Gregory to postpone his motion for the recognition of the Southern Confederacy. Those gentlemen here are not ...
— Diary from March 4, 1861, to November 12, 1862 • Adam Gurowski
... distaste the cost of subsequent departure. A dozen raucous-voiced policemen were employed to keep back the hundreds that thronged the sidewalk and blocked the street. Curiosity was rampant. Ever since the moment that the body of Challis Wrandall was carried into the house of his father, a motley, varying crowd of people shifted restlessly in front of the mansion, filled with gruesome interest in the absolutely unseen, animated by the sly hope that something sensational might happen ...
— The Hollow of Her Hand • George Barr McCutcheon
... Indians with the furs until I was safely housed. It was evidently a gala day, for flags and streamers were flying from every window of the Lower Town, and the narrow, crooked streets were filled with wanderers having no apparent business but enjoyment. Never had I viewed so motley a throng, and I could but gaze about with wide-opened eyes on the ...
— Beyond the Frontier • Randall Parrish
... passed, the troops pushed on as before along the narrow stream, and through the tangled labyrinths on either side; till, on the first of August, they reached Lake Onondaga, and, with sails set, the whole flotilla glided before the wind, and landed the motley army on a rising ground half a league from the salt springs of Salina. The next day was spent in building a fort to protect the canoes, bateaux, and stores; and, as evening closed, a ruddy glow above the southern forest told them that the town of ...
— Count Frontenac and New France under Louis XIV • Francis Parkman
... the conviviality of Washington sets in at an early hour, and, so far as I had an opportunity of observing, never terminates at any hour, and all these drinks are continually in request by almost all these people. A constant atmosphere of cigar-smoke, too, envelopes the motley crowd, and forms a sympathetic medium, in which men meet more closely and talk more frankly than in any other kind of air. If legislators would smoke in session, they might speak truer words, and fewer of them, and bring about ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... pounds were more noticeable there, and it was part of his plan to attract attention to himself. No one, however, appeared to notice him. The pool-players were noisily intent on their game, the same crowd of motley-robed Mexicans hung over the reeking bar. Gale's roving glance soon fixed upon the man he took to be Rojas. He recognized the huge, high-peaked, black sombrero with its ornamented band. The Mexican's face was turned aside. He was in earnest, ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey
... such a thundergust from the motley crew that the crazy building vibrated to the sound. The little King's face lighted with pleasure for an instant, and he slightly inclined his head, and ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... attempt a description. Beards of awful size, moustaches of every shade and length under a foot, phizzes of all colors and contortions, four-story hats with sky-scraping feathers, costumes ring-streaked, speckled, monstrous, and incredible, made up the motley crew. There was a Northern emigrant just returned from Kansas, with garments torn and water-soaked, and but half cleaned of the adhesive tar and feathers, watched closely by a burly Missourian, with any quantity of hair and fire-arms and bowie-knives. There were Rev. Antoinette ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall
... description of the Prioress, Madame Eglentyne, who rode with that very motley and talkative company on the way to Canterbury. There is no portrait in his gallery which has given rise to more diverse comment among critics. One interprets it as a cutting attack on the worldliness of the Church; another thinks that Chaucer meant to draw a charming ...
— Medieval People • Eileen Edna Power
... series of letters, published first in the "Friend," afterwards in his "Biographia Literaria," is to be found a description of his passage to Germany, and short tour through that country. His fellow passengers as described by him were a motley group, suffering from the usual effects of a rolling sea. One of them, who had caught the customary antidote to sympathy for suffering, to witness which is usually painful, began his mirth ...
— The Life of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - 1838 • James Gillman
... passage. I think of the sentences with which Isaak Walton ends his life of Donne. I think of the last pages of Motley's "Dutch Republic," with its eulogy on William the Silent ...
— On The Art of Reading • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... an ether which would not sustain the pinions of the latter. The well-used plea of an "act of God" will not stand. The autumn of 1812 was mild, the winter late in opening. Neither cheerless steppes, nor phenomenal cold, nor unheard-of snows, nor any reversal of nature's laws,—not even the motley nationalities of the grand army, or an unhistoric migration from south to north,—none of these was the chief cause of failure, which is to be found in the attempt monstrously to exaggerate the factors of a strategic system evolved for national, but ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... plane-trees in the Agora, and gathered in knots under the porticoes, eagerly discussing the questions of the day, were the philosophers, in the garb of their several sects, ready for any new question on which they might exercise their subtlety or display their rhetoric." If there were any in that motley group who cherished the principles and retained the spirit of the true Platonic school, we may presume they felt an inward intellectual sympathy with the doctrine enounced by Paul. With Plato, "philosophy was only another name for religion: philosophy is the love of perfect ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... house, drive lime, etc., and Heaven be my help! for it will take a strong effort to bring my mind into the routine of business. I have discharged all the army of my former pursuits, fancies, and pleasures—a motley host! and have literally and strictly retained only the ideas of a few friends, which I have incorporated into a life-guard. I trust in Dr. Johnson's observation, "Where much is attempted, something is done." Firmness, ...
— The Letters of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... to come to the institute in the later hours of the morning he will perhaps be surprised to find a motley company of men, women, and children, apparently of many nationalities and from varied walks of life, gathered about one of the entrances or sauntering near by. These are the most direct beneficiaries of the institution, the unfortunate victims of ...
— A History of Science, Volume 5(of 5) - Aspects Of Recent Science • Henry Smith Williams
... him when he was retreating. This monarch kept a Fool to make his mirth, And loved him tenderly despite his worth. Prompted by what caprice I cannot say, He called the Fool before the throne one day And to that jester seriously said: "I'll abdicate, and you shall reign instead, While I, attired in motley, will make sport To ...
— Shapes of Clay • Ambrose Bierce
... most noble missionaries who, Toiling on Africa's half-tutored shore, Had words quite recently at Kikuyu Whereof the motley bard ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, October 28, 1914 • Various
... the clown had, at first, pretended to join in the pursuit of the nimble runaways, but only pretended. Then he suddenly perceived that they were growing breathless and had almost fallen beneath the feet of a mighty Norman horse. The man beneath his motley uniform rose to the emergency. Catching the bridle of a near-by pony, he flung the monkey from its back, scooped the babies up from the ground, set them in the monkey's place and, mounting behind them, triumphantly ...
— Dorothy's House Party • Evelyn Raymond
... Holland, that he hopes his young friends will not complain of the proportion in which he has mingled his material. It would be a very great happiness to him to have excited a sufficient degree of interest in these countries to induce the boys and girls to read Mr. Motley's inimitable works, "The Rise of the Dutch Republic," and "The History of the United Netherlands." The writer is confident that young people will find these volumes quite as attractive as the story books of ...
— Dikes and Ditches - Young America in Holland and Belguim • Oliver Optic
... had apparently been directed. Projected labor disturbances at munition plants were traced to a similar origin. The result was that the docket of the Federal Department of Justice became laden with a motley collection of indictments which implicated fifty or more individuals concerned in some dozen conspiracies, in which ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume V (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon) |
