"Obelisk" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... more conservative than their corporation, and made such a demonstration that the bargain was annulled, and the Cross left in its proper place. He consoled himself with erecting a tall lath and plaster obelisk in its stead, which was regarded with admiration by the children of the parish for about sixty ...
— John Keble's Parishes • Charlotte M Yonge
... the beauty and the majesty of his picturesque form. Seen from El-Muwaylah, he is equally magnificent in the flush of morning, in the still of noon, and in the evening glow. As the rays, which suggested the obelisk, are shooting over the southern crests, leaving the basement blue with a tint between the amethyst and the lapis lazuli, its northern third lies wrapped in a cloak of cold azure grey, and its central length already dons a half-light of warmer hue. Meanwhile, ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 2 • Richard Burton
... by a detachment of national guards, entered the Garden of the Tuileries, and advanced to the gate of the Place de la Concorde, a general, accompanied by his aide-de-camp, and escorted by a few lancers, taking his station close to the obelisk. In the meantime, the quays adjoining the palace were lined with dragoons. The presence of these troops, which nobody could account for, created much uneasiness, though in some groups a report circulated that the assembly was about to proclaim ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... became his heir, and another was the first wife of Sir David Brewster. Macpherson in his will ordered that his body should be buried in Westminster Abbey, and left a sum of money to erect a monument to him near Belleville. He lies, accordingly, in Poets' Corner, and a marble obelisk to his memory may be seen near Kingussie, in the centre ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... the count continued to descend the Corso. As they approached the Piazza del Popolo, the crowd became more dense, and above the heads of the multitude two objects were visible: the obelisk, surmounted by a cross, which marks the centre of the square, and in front of the obelisk, at the point where the three streets, del Babuino, del Corso, and di Ripetta, meet, the two uprights of the scaffold, between which glittered ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... and other works of art were made there, and many of the Greek sculptures which had been carried to Rome were again borne off to decorate this new Capitol. The Emperor Constantine there erected a column a hundred feet high, and placed his statue on it; Theodosius also erected a column and an obelisk; but Justinian excelled all these, and about 543 A.D. set up a monument with a colossal equestrian statue of himself in bronze upon it. The column which supported this statue was of brick masonry covered with plates of bronze. From the accounts we have of it we conclude that this was a ...
— A History of Art for Beginners and Students - Painting, Sculpture, Architecture • Clara Erskine Clement
... wager that if Mr. Widdicomb were, by a revolution, placed on the throne of Brentford, people would be equally fascinated by his irresistibly majestic smile and tremble as they knelt down to kiss his hand. If he went to Dublin they would erect an obelisk on the spot where he first landed, as the Paddylanders did when Gorgius visited them. We have all of us read with delight that story of the King's voyage to Haggisland, where his presence inspired such a fury of loyalty and where the most famous ...
— The Book of Snobs • William Makepeace Thackeray
... have outlets might contrive to make ornament subservient to utility: a pleasing eye-trap might also contribute to promote science: an obelisk in a garden or park might be both an embellishment ...
— The Natural History of Selborne, Vol. 2 • Gilbert White
... Dowlah confined one hundred and fifty English men and women, when he obtained possession of Calcutta in 1756—confining them in a narrow and noisome cell, which poisoned them with its malarious atmosphere, so that by morning only a few remained alive—is now part of a warehouse. But an obelisk stands at the entrance, inscribed with the names ...
— The Story of Ida Pfeiffer - and Her Travels in Many Lands • Anonymous
... character and we both smiled without openly looking at each other. At the end of the Rue de Rome the violent chilly breath of the mistral enveloped the victoria in a great widening of brilliant sunshine without heat. We turned to the right, circling at a stately pace about the rather mean obelisk which stands at the entrance to ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad
... swallows that fly in and out of the little cafe at Smyrna where the Hadjis sit counting their amber beads and the turbaned merchants smoke their long tasselled pipes and talk gravely to each other; he read of the Obelisk in the Place de la Concorde that weeps tears of granite in its lonely sunless exile, and longs to be back by the hot lotus-covered Nile, where there are Sphinxes, and rose-red ibises, and white vultures with gilded claws, and crocodiles, ...
— The Picture of Dorian Gray • Oscar Wilde
... there is room for a winding spiral staircase within it; as for its height, I will not risk a guess at it. Could Othello's war-ships carry it they would consider it a feat, as the bringing of the Egyptian obelisk to London was thought a feat. The petty ripples of the Adriatic, what were they? This red bowsprit at its roots is high enough to suspend a trapeze; at its head a ladder would be required to mount it from the quay; yet by-and-by, when the tide at last comes, and its time arrives to move ...
— The Life of the Fields • Richard Jefferies
... of arbutus to the lapel of her tan riding-coat; it spoke to her of the blue horizons of the near Virginia hills. The young buds in the maples hovered like a mist in the tree-tops. Towering over all, the incomparable gray obelisk climbed to the blue arch and brought it nearer earth. Washington, the center of man's hope, is also, in spring, the capital of the land of ...
— The Port of Missing Men • Meredith Nicholson
... history, is to delve into the origin and development of periods in furniture. The story of Napoleon is recorded in the unpretentious Directoire, the ornate Empire of Fontainebleau, while the conversion of round columns into obelisk-like pilasters surmounted by heads, the bronze and gilded-wood ornaments in the form of the Sphynx, are ...
— The Art of Interior Decoration • Grace Wood
... London when we return, the bragging, boasting blasphemies of this or that conquering king, all to the same tune—'I came, I saw, I conquered; I slew so many thousands of the people—I took so many thousands into captivity—I built this temple to the gods—I raised this obelisk or that pyramid'—and all by hand labour, with the miserable, belaboured slaves dying by their thousands upon thousands under their taskmasters' lashes, to be cast afterwards into the Nile, or left to the jackals and vultures. These ...
— In the Mahdi's Grasp • George Manville Fenn
... Their linen is not clean, and is wretchedly got up; their black turns rusty, like old mourning; they wear very indifferent fur; and take to the shabbiest cotton velvet, instead of silk velvet. I am on terms of recognition with several small streets of cats, about the Obelisk in Saint George's Fields, and also in the vicinity of Clerkenwell Green, and also in the back settlements of Drury Lane. In appearance, they are very like the women among whom they live. They seem to turn out of their unwholesome beds into the street, without any preparation. ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie
... An obelisk of gray Canadian granite now stands on this historic ground. Madame de la Peltrie did not remain more than two years in Ville-Marie, but returned to the convent at Quebec which she had left in a moment of caprice. ...
— Canada • J. G. Bourinot
... The obelisk generously presented by the Khedive of Egypt to the city of New York has safely arrived in this country, and will soon be erected in that metropolis. A commission for the liquidation of the Egyptian debt has lately concluded its work, and this Government, at the earnest solicitation ...
— Messages and Papers of Rutherford B. Hayes - A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents • James D. Richardson
... oblivion. I ascended the many terraces of the garden of the Colonna Palace, under whose roof I had been sleeping; and passing out from it at its summit, I found myself on Monte Cavallo. The fountain sparkled in the sun; the obelisk above pierced the clear dark-blue air. The statues on each side, the works, as they are inscribed, of Phidias and Praxiteles, stood in undiminished grandeur, representing Castor and Pollux, who with majestic power ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... man, six feet high perhaps, with a powerful and somewhat bulky frame, broad shoulders, a head erect and firmly planted as an obelisk, and altogether an appearance which gave a general idea of strength. He was not a bad-looking man by any means. His features were large and well cut, the mouth firm as iron, and unshadowed by beard or moustache; ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... hurry—stood Peggy Blackton. The strength of five men was in every pair of arms. Huge boulders were rolled back. Men pawed earth and shale with their naked hands. Rock-hammers fell with blows that would have cracked the heart of a granite obelisk. Half an hour—three quarters—and Blackton came back to where Peggy was standing, his face black and grimed, his arms red-seared where the edges of the rocks had caught them, his ...
— The Hunted Woman • James Oliver Curwood
... 1854. Major-General William J. Worth, of Mexican War fame, died at San Antonio, Texas, June 7, 1849. The monument was dedicated with a parade and a review November 25, 1857, and the General's remains interred under the south side. In bands around the obelisk are recorded the names of the battles in which Worth took part. On the east face, cut in the stone, may be read "Ducit Amor Patriae" and on the west face, "By the Corporation of the City of New York, 1857—Honor the Brave." At the ...
— Fifth Avenue • Arthur Bartlett Maurice
... described by Raffray. The fall of many of the monuments, according to Bent, was caused by the washing away of the foundations by the stream called Mai Shum, and indeed the native tradition states that "Gudert, queen of the Amhara," when she visited Axum, destroyed the chief obelisk in this way by digging a trench from the river to its foundation. Others attribute it to religious fanaticism, or to the result of some barbaric invasion, such as Axum may have repeatedly endured before it was sacked by Mahommed Gran, sultan of ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 - "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" • Various
... climbing up every possible elevation, and a bright-faced girl who had conquered a high place on the base of the obelisk was chattering down at a group of her friends who were listening to ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine
... hero. This pyramid ended in a funeral urn surmounted by a crown of fire. On the front of the pyramid were placed the arms of the duke, and medallions commemorating the most remarkable events of his life borne by genii. Under the obelisk was placed the sarcophagus containing the remains of the marshal, at the corners of which were trophies composed of banners taken from his enemies, and innumerable silver candelabra were placed on the steps by which the platform was reached. The oaken altar, ...
— The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Constant
... to be ascertained, in every case where we find a monument buried to a certain depth in mud, as at Memphis and Heliopolis, is the era when the city fell into such decay that the ancient embankments were neglected, and the river allowed to inundate the site of the temple, obelisk, or statue. ...
— The Antiquity of Man • Charles Lyell
... and sixty miles in circumference, and in which were one hundred gates of brass, must have had considerable architectural splendor. This account of Babylon, however, is probably exaggerated, especially as to the height of the walls. The tower of Belus, the Palace of Nebuchadnezzar, and the Obelisk of Semiramis were probably wonderful structures, certainly in size, which is one of the conditions of ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume III • John Lord
... months after the recitation of Franconnette at Toulouse, Jasmin resumed his readings in the cause of charity. In October 1840 he visited Oleron, and was received with the usual enthusiasm; and on his return to Pau, he passed the obelisk erected to Despourrins, the Burns of the Pyrenees. At Pau he recited his Franconnette to an immense audience amidst frenzies of applause. It was alleged that the people of the Pyrenean country were ...
— Jasmin: Barber, Poet, Philanthropist • Samuel Smiles
... pleases us all, as we are told it does every one. It stands up high, and is seen from most parts of the city. From north to south, between the buildings, if is three hundred and sixteen feet, and from east to west three hundred and six feet. In the centre is an enclosure, and in that is a fine obelisk. The north side of the square is composed of stately dwellings, and they have all the appearance of a palace. The square is built of freestone, and is beautifully tinted by age. The first thing almost we want to see in these fine towns is the cathedral, if there be ...
— Young Americans Abroad - Vacation in Europe: Travels in England, France, Holland, - Belgium, Prussia and Switzerland • Various
... 1827, Lord Dalhousie laid the first stone of the beautiful obelisk overlooking what is now known as Dufferin Terrace, to commemorate the heroism of Wolfe and Montcalm, and bearing ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan
... cemetery and pensively viewing the memorials of the departed, one question of deep interest often presses upon the mind and heart: Are these, whose names are here recorded on slab and obelisk, still alive and in the possession of conscious being, or are ...
— Life and Labors of Elder John Kline, the Martyr Missionary - Collated from his Diary by Benjamin Funk • John Kline
... of small square temple, built of Arcueil stone and marble. Corinthian fluted pillars formed its general decoration, and enshrined the four fulminatory inscriptions. Independently of the obelisk, the cupola of this temple bore eight allegorical statues, of which the one was France in mourning; the second, Justice raising her sword, and the others the principal virtues of the King. On the principal ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... hardly think of the name of any hotel when asked suddenly. At first he said the Astor House, and then remembered that it had been demolished years before. At last he recollected that a brother of his from Indiana had once stayed at the Obelisk. ...
— Shandygaff • Christopher Morley
... Prince by the governor and his lady, that he remained at St. Salvador's a month, every day being a festival, and then left it with regret. In commemoration of the visit, a spot was cleared near the fortress of St. Peter's, and commanding a fine view over the whole of the beautiful bay, and there an obelisk was erected with an inscription, stating its purpose, and the surrounding ground was planted and converted into a ...
— Journal of a Voyage to Brazil - And Residence There During Part of the Years 1821, 1822, 1823 • Maria Graham
... ancestors, are to be obtained only by analyzing their virtues. These virtues, indeed, are not seen charactered in breathing bronze, or in living marble. Our ancestors have left no Corinthian temples on our hills, no Gothic cathedrals on our plains, no proud pyramid, no storied obelisk, in our cities. But mind is there. Sagacious enterprise is there. An active, vigorous, intelligent, moral population throng our cities, and predominate in our fields;—men, patient of labor, submissive to law, respectful to authority, regardful of right, faithful to liberty. ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... far as the Obelisk with the O'Kelly and the Signora, who were then living together in Lambeth. Till that morning I had not seen the O'Kelly since my departure from London, nearly two years before, so that we had much to tell each other. For the third time now had the O'Kelly proved his utter unworthiness ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome
... massive proportions, they are yet to be surpassed. The largest buildings elsewhere erected by man are smaller than their pyramids; which are also the oldest human works still remaining, the beauty of whose masonry, says Wilkinson, has not been surpassed in any subsequent age. An obelisk of a single stone now standing in Egypt weighs three hundred tons, and a colossus of Ramses II. nearly nine hundred. But Herodotus describes a monolithic temple, which must have weighed five thousand tons, and which was carried the whole length ...
— Ten Great Religions - An Essay in Comparative Theology • James Freeman Clarke
... orientalis, as he named others the Do-darto, the Fagonne, the Bignonne, the Phelipee. These are compliments proper to be made by the botanists, not only to those of their own rank, but to the greatest persons; for a plant is a monument of a more durable nature than a medal or an obelisk; and yet, as a proof that even these vehicles are not always sufficient to transmit to futurity the name conjoined with them, the Nicotiana is now scarcely known by any other ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 6 - Reviews, Political Tracts, and Lives of Eminent Persons • Samuel Johnson
... sure he'll turn out a most courtly old personage, and perhaps he'll have an enormous fortune that he made by shaking pagoda-trees in India. How do pagodas grow on trees, I wonder? I always thought a pagoda was a sort of odalisque—isn't that right? Oh, I mean obelisk—with beautiful flounces all the way up to the top. It seems a funny way of making money, doesn't it. Where is India, by ...
— Austin and His Friends • Frederic H. Balfour
... Florentinae, which was then printing at Florence. On his return he took orders, and settled at Rome, passing the whole of his time in the library of the Vatican, and in those of the cardinals Passionei and Corsini. The famous obelisk [v.03 p.0312] of Augustus, at that time disinterred from the ruins of the Campus Martius, was described by Bandini in a learned folio volume De Obelisco Augusti. Shortly after he was compelled to leave Rome on account of his health and returned to Florence, where he ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various
... from Paris to this place is about 24 miles: the road of course excellent, as is uniformly the case in the route to Chalons; but the only thing during the stage which remains on my recollection, is an obelisk inscribed, "Dieu, le Roi, et les dames;" a melange perhaps compounded in compliment to Louis XV. who greatly improved a part of this road, which was once nearly impassable. Corbeil, a neat flourishing town within half a mile of Essonne, and possessing large ...
— Itinerary of Provence and the Rhone - Made During the Year 1819 • John Hughes
... in a hole pierced by a cannonball in the middle of the church of the Ursulines; and there he still rests. In 1827, when all bad feeling had subsided, Lord Dalhousie, the then English governor of Canada, ordered the erection at Quebec of an obelisk in marble bearing the names and busts of Wolfe and Montcalm, with this inscription: Mortem virtus communem, famam historia, monumentum posteritas dedit [Valor, history, and posterity assigned fellowship in death, fame, ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... south end there was an inner court, where the principal idol stood, surrounded by a number of inferior deities, for the Hawaiians had "gods many, and lords many." Here also was the anu, a lofty frame of wickerwork, shaped like an obelisk, hollow, and five feet square at its base. Within this, the priest, who was the oracle of the god, stood, and of him the king used to inquire concerning war or peace, or any affair of national importance. It appears that the tones of the oracular ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird
... beauty. It lies so low that it continues beneath the horizon until the ship is close upon the shore. The first landmarks, in fact, which the seaman makes, are the tops of trees growing apparently out of the water, or the summit of an obelisk, or the capital of a pillar, marking the site of ...
— Cleopatra • Jacob Abbott
... of velvet and Chinese silk—gathered in the court. They were kneeling with their backs towards him and the doorway, so that not one of them had noticed his approach. They were facing a small rough-hewn obelisk of stone which stood at the head of a low mound of earth at the far end of the court. Six of them were grouped in a sort of semi-circle, and the seventh, a man clad from head to foot in green robes, knelt a little in advance and alone. But from none of the seven nobles did the voice proceed. ...
— The Broken Road • A. E. W. Mason
... know the Place de la Concorde? 'Tis hard by the Tuilerie wall. Mid terraces, fountains, and statues, There rises an obelisk tall. There rises an obelisk tall, All garnish'd and gilded the base is: 'Tis surely the gayest of all Our beautiful city's ...
— Ballads • William Makepeace Thackeray
... concentrating all the active force of the state in one predestined irremovable human being. This was the logical and necessary outcome of the labors of Philip Augustus, Philip the Fair, of Louis XI, of Henry IV, and Richelieu. They had reared the monarchy like a solitary obelisk in the midst of a desert; but it had to stand or fall alone; no one was there to help it, as no one was there to pull it down. This consideration enables us to pass into a higher and more reposing order of reflection, to leave the sterile impeachment of individual incapacity, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 12 • Editor-In-Chief Rossiter Johnson
... also, it was set up in the temple of Karnak, at Thebes. It is a tall, rectangular pillar, tapering from the base to near the top, where it is pointed like a flattened pyramid; its sides are inscribed with hieroglyphics. The obelisk was taken to Alexandria by Queen Cleopatra, and was named after her. Some think that Cleopatra's Needle was another stone, quarried by order of Ramesis II., and set up in Heliopolis, the City of the Sun; but several obelisks have borne the name, and this may have ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, V. 5, April 1878 - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... An obelisk is a quadrangular, taper, high spire or pyramid, raised perpendicularly, and terminating in a point, to serve as an ornament to some open square; and is very often covered with inscriptions or hieroglyphics, that is, with mystical characters or symbols used by the Egyptians ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin
... P.G.M., and Sec. of the Birmingham district of the Manchester Order of Oddfellows for twenty-five years, died Jan. 22, 1876, aged 63. A granite obelisk to his memory in St. Philip's churchyard was ...
— Showell's Dictionary of Birmingham - A History And Guide Arranged Alphabetically • Thomas T. Harman and Walter Showell
... sun, I took the shadeless road leading out of the town towards the north-east, and after walking about a mile between vineyards, I came to the commemorative monument of the battle raised in 1888 by the Union Patriotique de France. It is a low obelisk, with no ornament save a mediaeval sword carved upon it, with point turned upwards. Facing the road is the ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker
... remains to be seen, for the land is constantly under irrigation, and in course of time most of their heavy stone buildings have sunk into the soft ground and become completely covered by deposits of mud. So, as at Memphis, all that now remains of ancient Heliopolis, or On, is one granite obelisk, standing alone in the fields; while at other places, such as Tamai or Bete-el-Haga near Mansurah, practically nothing now ...
— Peeps at Many Lands: Egypt • R. Talbot Kelly
... expression of phallic ideas. The simple upright for purposes of sex worship is universally found. An upright conical stone is frequently mentioned. Many of the stone idols or pillars, the worship of which was forbidden by the Bible, come under this group. Likewise, the obelisk, found not only in Egypt, but in modified forms in many other countries as well, embodies the same phallic principle. The usual explanation of the obelisk is that it represented the rays of the sun striking the earth: ...
— The Journal of Abnormal Psychology - Volume 10
... but by single dwellings; not by miles, but by rods. The poles of the great magnet that draws in all the iron tracks through the grooves of all the mountains must be near at hand, for here are crossings, and sudden stops, and screams of alarmed engines heard all around. The tall granite obelisk comes into view far away on the left, its bevelled cap-stone sharp against the sky; the lofty chimneys of Charlestown and East Cambridge flaunt their smoky banners up in the thin air; and now one fair bosom of the three-pilled city, with its dome-crowned summit, ...
— Pages From an Old Volume of Life - A Collection Of Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... conspicuous from its size and height, rises a mound of earth shaped into the semblance of an urn or vase, crusted thickly with bits of rock, moss, and pebbles, and overgrown with a tangle of tiny vines. Surmounting this picturesque pedestal is an obelisk of black-veined marble on a granite base, the whole rising some seven feet from the ground. On the polished surface of this memorial pillar is inscribed, in large black capitals, the following classic and touching tribute to the venerable departed ...
— The Aldine, Vol. 5, No. 1., January, 1872 - A Typographic Art Journal • Various
... of a stage-coach, upon France from the coupe of a diligence, upon Italy from the cushion of a carrozza. The broken windows of Apsley House were still boarded up when I was in London. The asphalt pavement was not laid in Paris. The Obelisk of Luxor was lying in its great boat in the Seine, as I remember it. I did not see it erected; it must have been an exciting scene to witness, the engineer standing underneath, so as to be crushed by the great stone if it disgraced him by falling in the ...
— Our Hundred Days in Europe • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... eastward under Long Bridge, through shipping that increased onward to the sea. He said that you could count fourteen towns and villages in the compass of that view, with the three conspicuous monuments accenting the different attractions of it: the tower of Memorial Hall at Harvard; the obelisk on Bunker Hill; and in the centre of the picture that bulk of Tufts College which he said he expected to greet his eyes the first thing when he opened them in the other world. But the prospect, though generally the same, had certain precious differences for each ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... the Vatican. The spot of the apostles' execution was indicated "by immemorial tradition" as between the two goals (inter duas metas) of Nero's Circus, which spot Signor Lanciani tells us is exactly the site of the obelisk now standing in the piazza of St. Peter. A little chapel, called the Chapel of the Crucifixion, stood there in the early ages, before any great basilica or ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 8 - The Later Renaissance: From Gutenberg To The Reformation • Editor-in-Chief: Rossiter Johnson
... always something new and original to say. As we wandered through the beautiful grounds, some of which are reclaimed from the wild heath which stretches for miles round the house, he pointed out to me the curious obelisk, grey and time-worn, which still perpetuates the memory of the historic mansion once known as "Fireproof." For it was here that George III. and Queen Charlotte once breakfasted in peace in the drawing room upstairs, ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III, March 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... of the events in the reign of thirty-five years of his successor, Shalmaneser III., is contained on the Black Obelisk of Nimroud, discovered by Layard and preserved in the British Museum. He conquered the whole country round Lake Van, ravaging the country "as a savage bull ravages and tramples under his feet the fertile fields." An attack ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XI. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... awful ruins of the days of old: Athens, and Tyre, and Balbec, and the waste Where stood Jerusalem, the fallen towers 110 Of Babylon, the eternal pyramids, Memphis and Thebes, and whatsoe'er of strange, Sculptured on alabaster obelisk, Or jasper tomb, or mutilated sphynx, Dark Aethiopia in her desert hills 115 Conceals. Among the ruined temples there, Stupendous columns, and wild images Of more than man, where marble daemons watch The Zodiac's brazen mystery, and dead men Hang their mute thoughts on the mute walls ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... work charmingly; and at any rate it was delightful only to look at them. She tried to get her thoughts a little in order. For Norton, she would make the watch guard; that was one thing fixed. A delicate bronze paperweight, a beautiful obelisk, had greatly taken her fancy, and Norton had been describing to her the use of its originals in old Egypt; it was not very costly, and Matilda thought she would like to give that to Mrs. Laval. But she would not decide till she saw more; and for her sisters, and for everybody else ...
— The House in Town • Susan Warner
... quite rotten and shaly; but there are other causes of difference in impressiveness which I am endeavouring to analyze, but find considerable embarrassment in doing so. There seems no sufficient reason why an isolated obelisk, one-fourth higher than any of them, should not be at least as sublime as they in their dependent grouping; but it assuredly is not. For this reason, as well as because I have not found here the near studies of primitive rock I expected,—for ...
— The Life of John Ruskin • W. G. Collingwood
... a jiffy," replied the elastic Mr. Spriggs there ain't no obelisk a sportsman can't overcome"—and no sooner had he uttered these encouraging words, than he made a spring, and came 'close-legged' upon the opposite bank; unfortunately, however, he lost his balance, and fell plump upon a huge stinging nettle, which would ...
— The Sketches of Seymour (Illustrated), Complete • Robert Seymour
... gig, there a mammoth express-wagon; a sullen Southerner contrasts with a grinning Gaul, a darkly-vested bishop with a gayly-attired child, a daintily-gloved belle with a mud-soiled drunkard; a little shoe-black and a blind fiddler ply their trades in the shadow of Emmet's obelisk, and a toy-merchant has Montgomery's mural tablet for a background; on the fence is a string of favorite ballads and popular songs; a mock auctioneer shouts from one door, and a silent wax effigy gazes from another. Pisani, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 110, December, 1866 - A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics • Various
... was not until the pyramid was sharpened and spiritualized into the spire that it gained its completest triumph over the secret emotions of men. The Egyptians made the nearest approach to it in the obelisk. That mysterious people felt very keenly the suggestiveness of the pyramidal form, and refined the language of its sentiment into some very beautiful expressions. Yet between the mausoleums of Gizeh and the hieroglyphic shafts of Luxor and Karnac there existed a modification, the intensity of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 27, January, 1860 • Various
... public places in the city of Paris, moreover, commemorate, more or less openly, what might be called the great stains on the history of the nation. The Place de la Concorde is that of the Guillotine, and the Luxor obelisk is the monument of the more than twenty-eight hundred victims beheaded by that axe. The Place de l'Hotel de Ville was formerly the Place de Greve, famous in all hangmen's annals,—burnings alive, tearings ...
— Paris from the Earliest Period to the Present Day; Volume 1 • William Walton
... including those which formed parts of alignements and cromlechs. Several of these attain to a great size. That to Locmariaquer (Morbihan), now unfortunately fallen and broken, measured over 60 feet in height, being thus not much shorter than the Egyptian obelisk which stands in the Place de la ...
— Rough Stone Monuments and Their Builders • T. Eric Peet
... brought the excursionists to Le Mans, where the Vendean army was finally destroyed by the forces of General Marceau. The carnage was terrible, and extended even to the massacre of many of the wives and children of the royalists. An obelisk to the memory of the republican general, who was born at Le Mans, informs the reader that he was a soldier at sixteen, a general at twenty-three, and died when ...
— Down the Rhine - Young America in Germany • Oliver Optic
... the Clyde, with their rich flat fields glittering in moisture, and their lines of stately trees, that, as the light flashed out, threw their shadows over the grass. The river expanded into the estuary, the estuary into the open sea; we left behind us beacon, and obelisk, ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller
... force commanded by Lord Gough and the Sikh army under Sher Singh. The loss of the Sikhs was estimated at 4000, while that of the British in killed and wounded amounted to 2800, of whom nearly 1000 were Europeans and 89 were British and 43 native officers. An obelisk erected at Chillianwalla by the British government preserves the names of ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 2 - "Chicago, University of" to "Chiton" • Various
... before or after the Corso, the round of the Pincio is obligatory on fine, clear afternoons. First came the Piazza del Popolo, the most airy and regular square of Rome, with its conjunction of thoroughfares, its churches and fountains, its central obelisk, and its two clumps of trees facing one another at either end of the small white paving-stones, betwixt the severe and sun-gilt buildings. Then, turning to the right, the carriage began to climb the inclined way to the Pincio—a magnificent ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... Barberini family. Madame Gorka's instinct had at least served her in leading her upon a route on which she met no one. Now the sense of reality returned. She recognized the objects around her, and that framework, so familiar to her piety of fervent Catholicism, the enormous square, the obelisk of Sixte-Quint in the centre, the fountains, the circular portico crowned with bishops and martyrs, the palace of the Vatican at the corner, and yonder the facade of the large papal cathedral, with the Saviour and the apostles erect ...
— Cosmopolis, Complete • Paul Bourget
... the fairies. It is the largest menhir known, but it has been broken into three pieces, some say by thunder. Put together, it measures about 67 feet in length, and is 16 feet in diameter. The wonder is how it was placed there, for it is little less than the obelisk of St. Peter's, which took 800 to 900 men and 70 horses nearly a year to raise,—a work which was the great triumph of Fontana the engineer. The menhir is estimated to be one-third the height of Notre ...
— Brittany & Its Byways • Fanny Bury Palliser
... Chelsea or Battersea-reach, "great, square and solid, black clouds drew off like curtains, and revealed to him a magnificent city rising out of the sea. Tower and dome, arch, and column, and spire, and obelisk, and lofty terraces, and many-windowed palaces, rose in all directions from a mass of building, which appeared each instant to grow more huge, till at length it seemed to occupy the whole horizon." On his landing he is pestered with questions from the natives; but, thanks to the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 322, July 12, 1828 • Various
... remarkable promontory of Howth or on the elevation of which Dunsink is the summit. On the south side of Dublin there are several eminences that would have been suitable: the breezy heaths at Foxrock combine all necessary conditions; the obelisk hill at Killiney would have given one of the most picturesque sites for an Observatory in the world; while near Delgany two or three other good situations could be mentioned. But the Board of those pre-railway days was ...
— Great Astronomers • R. S. Ball
... he was succeeded by his son Shalmaneser III (860-825 B.C.), whose military activities extended over his whole reign. No fewer than thirty-two expeditions were recorded on his famous black obelisk. ...
— Myths of Babylonia and Assyria • Donald A. Mackenzie
... at the bow-window of the Smyrna Coffee-House to get a bow from that other, and alas! better accredited royalty, the Prince of Wales; this picture, of an old beau, with his toy-shop of gold snuff-boxes, his agate-rings, his senseless obelisk, his rattle of faded jokes and blunted stories—all this had something very attractive to Goldsmith both in its humour and its pathos; and he has left us, in his Life of Nash, a study which is far too little known, but which deserves to rank among ...
— Gossip in a Library • Edmund Gosse
... large detachment of the army and navy,—form a vast procession at the Town Hall, and, headed by the Supreme Government, march to slow music through the Puerta del Sol and the spacious Alcala street to the granite obelisk in the Prado which marks the resting-place of the patriot dead. I saw the regent of the kingdom, surrounded by his cabinet, sauntering all a summer's afternoon under a blazing sun over the dusty mile that separates the monument from ...
— Castilian Days • John Hay
... sailed from Boston for China, and watched, as he tells us, "while light and eyesight lasted, till the summit of that monument faded, at last, from view." Many a departing, many a returning, sailor and traveler, has given his "last, long, lingering look" to that towering obelisk, but none with deeper ...
— Bay State Monthly, Vol. I, No. 3, March, 1884 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... the cliff, in the open sea rose an enormous rock, over eighty yards high, a colossal obelisk, standing straight on its granite base, which showed at the surface of the water, and tapering toward the summit, like the giant tooth of a monster of the deep. White with the dirty gray white of the cliff, the awful monolith was streaked with horizontal lines marked by flint and displaying ...
— The Hollow Needle • Maurice Leblanc
... common glory of our common country. Where is the Southern man who would wish that monument less by one Northern name that constitutes the mass? Who, standing on the ground made sacred by the blood of Warren, could allow sectional feeling to curb his enthusiasm as he looks upon that obelisk which rises a monument to freedom's and his country's triumph, and stands a type of the time, the men and the event it commemorates; built of material that mocks the waves of time, without niche or molding for parasite or creeping thing to rest ...
— The Victim - A romance of the Real Jefferson Davis • Thomas Dixon
... there is the colossal temple of Luxor, looking as out of place now as the poor obelisk which Egypt gave us as a present, and which stands to-day in the ...
— Egypt (La Mort De Philae) • Pierre Loti
... the Obelisk, the Double Dagger, and sometimes other marks, [Footnote: For instance: the Section mark, [Section], and the Parallel, ||.] refer to ...
— Sanders' Union Fourth Reader • Charles W. Sanders
... where the owners sit and enjoy the air. Those of the lower classes ill-built, dirty, and almost without furniture. In the square where the market is held, near the pier, is a tolerably elegant marble obelisk in honour of our Lady of Candelaria, the tutelar goddess of the place. The Spaniards erected this statue, calling it Our Lady, keeping up some semblance of the ancient worship that they might better keep the Tenerifeans in subjection. At the top of the obelisk is placed the statue, and ...
— The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders • Ernest Scott
... turf-covered graves. Reared against the buttresses of the church was an old stone coffin, together with a fragment of a curious monumental effigy, likewise of stone; but the most striking objects in the place, and deservedly ranked amongst the wonders of Whalley, were three remarkable obelisk-shaped crosses, set in a line upon pedestals, covered with singular devices in fretwork, and all three differing in size and design. Evidently of remotest antiquity, these crosses were traditionally assigned to Paullinus, who, according to the Venerable ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... interred in the family burial ground, situated on a wooded hill up behind the homestead, and at the head of his last resting place was afterwards erected a plain obelisk of white marble, with his name and the date of his birth and death ...
— Hidden Hand • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... Egyptian held converse with magic, methinks, And the future was given to her gaze; For an obelisk marked her abode, and a sphinx On her threshold kept vigil always. She was pensive and ever alone, nor was seen In the haunts of the dissolute crowd; But communed with the ghosts of the Pharaohs, I ween, Or with visitors wrapped in ...
— The World's Best Poetry Volume IV. • Bliss Carman
... a holiday evening, and the lawns of Bagatelle were as fresh as June. Below the Arc de Triomphe, the Champs Elysees sloped downward in a sun-powdered haze to the mist of fountains and the ethereal obelisk; and the currents of summer life ebbed and flowed with a normal beat under the trees of the radiating avenues. The great city, so made for peace and art and all humanest graces, seemed to lie by her river-side ...
— Fighting France - From Dunkerque to Belport • Edith Wharton
... of another rock-ribbed elevation close by, the tourist will notice the shaft of an obelisk. It is over the grave of George Simpson, once a noted mountaineer in the days of the great fur companies. For a long time he made his home there, and it was his dying request that the lofty peak he ...
— The Old Santa Fe Trail - The Story of a Great Highway • Henry Inman
... lips. "Sofala," Captain Whalley repeated; and suddenly his heart failed him. He paused. The shores, the islets, the high ground, the low points, were dark: the horizon had grown somber; and across the eastern sweep of the shore the white obelisk, marking the landing-place of the telegraph-cable, stood like a pale ghost on the beach before the dark spread of uneven roofs, intermingled with palms, of the native town. ...
— End of the Tether • Joseph Conrad
... the second time, the sun had already disappeared behind the western cliff, but a fierce ray from its sinking orb, struck upon a storm-cloud that hung over us, and thence was reflected in a glow of angry light of which the focus or centre seemed to fall upon the summit of this strange and obelisk-like pinnacle of rock. ...
— She and Allan • H. Rider Haggard
... Aventine Hills, was built for chariot races, boxing, and gymnastic contests. It was an immense structure, with galleries three stories high, and a canal called Euripus, and it accommodated one hundred thousand spectators. In the centre Caesar erected an obelisk one hundred and thirty-two feet high, brought from Egypt. The seats were arranged as in the theatre. Six kinds of games were celebrated: 1st, chariot racing; 2d, a sham-fight between young men on horseback; 3d, a sham-fight ...
— History of Rome from the Earliest times down to 476 AD • Robert F. Pennell
... them. Wilkinson says: "No one who has tried to perforate or cut a block of Egyptian granite will scruple to acknowledge that our best steel tools are turned in a very short time, and require to be re-tempered; and the labor experienced by the French engineers who removed the obelisk of Luxor from Thebes, in cutting a space less than two feet deep along the face of its partially decomposed pedestal, suffices to show that, even with our excellent modern implements, we find considerable difficulty in doing what to the Egyptians would ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... Rue de Rivoli. Numerous historical associations are connected with the place. The guillotine did much bloody work here during 1793-4-5; upwards of 2800 people perished by it. Foreign troops frequently bivouacked on the square when Paris was in their power. The Obelisk of Luxor, a Monolith or single block of reddish granite 76 feet high, was presented to Louis Phillipi by Mohamed Ali and erected in the centre of the Place. It adds very much to the interest ...
— Shepp's Photographs of the World • James W. Shepp
... elegant proportion, with their several pillars, cornices, and other suitable ornaments. The eye, astonished, though not dazzled, penetrated through the garden, and, directed by this avenue of light, embraced a view of the temporary obelisk erected on the ridge of the gradual ascent, where stands the Barriere de Chaillot; the road on each side of the Champs Elysees presenting an illuminated perspective, whose vanishing ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... [U.S.], picacho^, tump^; knoll, hummock, hillock, barrow, mound, mole; steeps, bluff, cliff, craig^, tor^, peak, pike, clough^; escarpment, edge, ledge, brae; dizzy height. tower, pillar, column, obelisk, monument, steeple, spire, minaret, campanile, turret, dome, cupola; skyscraper. pole, pikestaff, maypole, flagstaff; top mast, topgallant mast. ceiling &c (covering) 223. high water; high tide, flood tide, spring ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... are very bad; secondly, that they are spurious; and thirdly, that, whether they be bad or good, spurious or genuine, Temple could know nothing of the matter; inasmuch as he was no more able to construe a line of them than to decipher an Egyptian obelisk. ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... floating rosaries of red stars among the two long, black scarfs formed by the buildings. But they were so well acquainted with this panorama that in imagination they mentally saw the majestic sweep of the avenue, the double row of palaces, the place de la Concorde in the background with the Egyptian obelisk, and ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... decorate our graves with flowers as though the dead appreciated them; they are but the representatives of the ancient sacrifice to the dead. We drink to the memory of the deceased as though pouring out libations to them. Our tombstones are direct descendants of the menhir and the obelisk, our altar-tombs of the dolmen, our family vault of the primeval ...
— Castles and Cave Dwellings of Europe • Sabine Baring-Gould
... itself, it had not yet, as the reader will understand from the foregoing explanation, either the fine colonnade of Bernini, or the dancing fountains, or that Egyptian obelisk which, according to Pliny, was set up by the Pharaoh at Heliopolis, and transferred to Rome by Caligula, who set it up in Nero's Circus, where it remained till 1586. Now, as Nero's Circus was situate on the very ground ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... Tuileries—here a glint of gold, there a soft flash of marble statuary, shining through the trees; in the center the round lake where the children sail their boats. Beyond spreads the wide sweep of the Place de la Concorde, with its obelisk of terrible significance, its larger fountains throwing brilliant jets of spray; and then the trailing, upward vista of the Champs Elyses to the great triumphal arch; yes, even to the most ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3 • Various
... M. le Prevost desired us to notice a piece of sculpture, so covered with dirt and dust that it could scarcely be seen, but evidently of Roman workmanship, and, probably, of the fourth century, if we may judge from its resemblance to some ornaments[65] upon the pedestal of the obelisk raised by Theodosius, in the Hippodrome of Constantinople. Our friend's conjecture is, that it had originally served for an altar: perhaps it might, with equal probability, be supposed to have been a tomb.—The corbels on the exterior of this ...
— Account of a Tour in Normandy, Vol. I. (of 2) • Dawson Turner
... Madeleine. That is one of the most beautiful of the Paris churches, and you shall visit it, of course, but not now. To-day I want you to get merely a birdseye view, a sort of general idea of locations. But here we are in the Place de la Concorde. The Obelisk, which you see in the centre, was brought from Egypt many years ago. It is very like our own Obelisk in Central Park, and also Cleopatra's needle in London. From here we turn into one of the most beautiful avenues in the world, the Champs Elysees. ...
— Patty in Paris • Carolyn Wells
... history. Among these volumes, it is said, some are calculated to give a complete interpretation of hieroglyphic writing—the discoverer having already successfully applied them to the interpretation of the inscriptions engraved on the obelisk of the Hippodrome at Constantinople. This may be quite true, but such statements are to be received ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... paused again, and slowly walked on. While deeply moved and conscious of the importance of the interview, I inwardly repeated every word he had said, in order to remember them as long as I lived. We had now reached the obelisk, near the gate of Sans- Souci. The king here gave me his left hand, and with his uplifted right hand he pointed at the obelisk. 'Look at it,' he said, loudly and solemnly; 'the obelisk is tall and slender, and yet it stands firm amid the most furious storms. It says to you: Ma force est ma droiture. ...
— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach
... filed along the Strada Felice till we arrived at the church of Santa Maria maggiore, a superb edifice, the third church in Rome in celebrity, and the second in magnificence. An immense Egyptian Obelisk stands before it. We then, turning a little to the right, made the best of our way to the Coliseum where we remained nearly two hours. I had figured to myself the grandest ideas of this stupendous building, but the aspect of it far exceeded the sketch even ...
— After Waterloo: Reminiscences of European Travel 1815-1819 • Major W. E Frye
... Pope and his own, in order to show his ingenuity: and he had begun thus, "Julio II, Pont. Massimo," having caused a head in profile of Julius Caesar to be made, and a bridge, with two arches, which signified, "Julio II, Pont.," and an obelisk from the Circus Maximus, to represent "Max." At which the Pope laughed, and caused him to make the letters in the ancient manner, one braccio in height, which are there at the present day; saying that he ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol. 04 (of 10), Filippino Lippi to Domenico Puligo • Giorgio Vasari
... sign for itself—the romance was actually in the tap-tap of the blind man's staff, in the pagan obelisk towering above the Christian river. Bob loved the visible sign for the hint it gave to his imagination, the adventure upon which it sent him galloping. He could build up a romance out of anything and nothing—he was the modern Scheherezade, but, as time ...
— Nights - Rome, Venice, in the Aesthetic Eighties; London, Paris, in the Fighting Nineties • Elizabeth Robins Pennell
... French Government, and known as the "Maison de France" . . . Within its walls the illustrious Champollion and his ally Rosellini lived and worked together in 1829, during part of their long sojourn at Thebes. Here the naval officers sent out by the French in 1831 to remove the obelisk which now stands in the Place de la Concorde took up their temporary quarters. And here, most interesting to English readers, Lady Duff Gordon lingered through some of her last winters, and wrote most of her delightful "Letters from Egypt." A little balcony with a broken veranda and a bit ...
— Letters from Egypt • Lucie Duff Gordon
... inscriptions expressive of the gratitude of the people. The pyramid in the Rue d'Angiviller was supported on a base six feet high by twelve broad; it rose to the height of fifteen feet, and was terminated by a globe. Four blocks of stone, placed at the angles, corresponded with the obelisk, and gave it an elegant appearance. Several inscriptions, in honour of the King and Queen, were affixed to it. I went to see this singular monument, ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... which cannot properly be described on paper, things disappoint us, and we fall short of the mark. A powerful iron will overcomes this friction; it crushes the obstacles, but certainly the machine along with them. We shall often meet with this result. Like an obelisk towards which the principal streets of a town converge, the strong will of a proud spirit stands prominent and commanding in the middle of the Art ...
— On War • Carl von Clausewitz
... it may be admired in its day and held up as a model of purity, will in the course of years grow antiquated and obsolete, until it shall become almost as unintelligible in its native land as an Egyptian obelisk or one of those Runic inscriptions said to exist in the deserts of Tartary. "I declare," added I, with some emotion, "when I contemplate a modern library, filled with new works in all the bravery of rich gilding and binding, I feel ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving
... rather to those beyond, on the other side of the Rhine, which are very much loftier—the first impression gives no idea of the extraordinary height of the spire. We continued to descend, slowly and cautiously, with Saverne before us in the bottom. To the left, close to the road side, stands an obelisk: on which is fixed, hi gilt letters, this ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Two • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... artistically somewhat sordid accompaniments of a busy industrialism also contributes to Washington's position as one of the most singularly handsome cities on the globe. Among the other striking features of the American capital is the Washington Memorial, a huge obelisk raising its metal-tipped apex to a height of five hundred and fifty-five feet. There are those who consider this a meaningless pile of masonry; but the writer sympathises rather with the critics who find it, in its massive and heaven-reaching simplicity, a fit counterpart to the Capitol ...
— The Land of Contrasts - A Briton's View of His American Kin • James Fullarton Muirhead
... Tomb of Peter the Hermit.—At Huy, on the Meuse, is shown the tomb where Peter the Hermit was buried: it is in the shape of an obelisk, and has an inscription on each of the four sides. Of this inscription, which is curious, and which I copied when I was there, I have lost the greater part: can one of your correspondents supply it for me, or tell where the lines are originally to be ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 78, April 26, 1851 • Various
... sweep away: it made a nucleus for alluvial deposit, and the island gradually arose. Several hundred years afterward it was built into the form of a ship, as bridges and wharves are built, with a temple in the midst, and a tall obelisk set up in guise of its mast. In mediaeval days a church replaced the heathen fane, and now it stands between its two bridges, a huddle of houses, terraces and gardens, whence one looks down on the fine mass of the Ponte Rotto (Broken Bridge), whose shattered arches ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 86, February, 1875 • Various |
