"Ornament" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... It is not worth complaining of. A stag's top-knot on my head is indeed a very pretty ornament for everybody ...
— Sganarelle - or The Self-Deceived Husband • Moliere
... whose praise of Caesar as a writer has been shared by many readers since his time, described Caesar's works as "unadorned, straightforward, and elegant, their ornament being stript off as it were a garment." Caesar did his work so well that "he has deterred all men of sound ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume II (of X) - Rome • Various
... which haunts the pier every day at high tide—was also drifting homeward. Mme. Roland and Mme. Rosemilly led the way, followed by the three men. As they went up the rue de Paris they stopped now and then in front of a milliner's or jeweler's shop, to look at a bonnet or an ornament; then after making their comments they went on again. In front of the Place de la Bourse Roland paused, as he did every day, to gaze at the docks full of vessels—the Bassin du Commerce, with other docks beyond, where the huge hulls lay ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume VIII. • Guy de Maupassant
... excessively ornate, which seems to play a great part in their existence; Rogron gazed at it as he might at his future wife. Between the two windows is a white porcelain stove in a niche overloaded with ornament. The walls glow with a magnificent paper, crimson and gold, such as you see in the same restaurants, where, no doubt, the Rogrons chose it. Dinner was served on white and gold china, with a dessert service of light blue with green flowers, but they showed us ...
— Pierrette • Honore de Balzac
... historical romance, that the modern romance derives from Scott, and that, moreover, in spite of the remarkable achievements in this order of fiction during almost a century, he remains not only its founder but its chief ornament, his contribution to modern fiction begins to ...
— Masters of the English Novel - A Study Of Principles And Personalities • Richard Burton
... this lithe, lean, formidable body, showing beyond dispute its human ancestry; the right hand that held a steel-pointed spear; the horrible ornament (a withered little smoked hand) that dangled from the left wrist by a cord ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... pulpits, buttoned round his growing corpulency; Wordsworth in a suit of russet, not to say dingy, brown, with a broad flapping straw hat to protect his weak eyesight. And as for Miss Wordsworth, we may well believe that in her dress she thought more of use than of ornament. These three, mounted on their outlandish Irish car, with a horse, now gibbing and backing over a bank, now reduced to a walk, with one of the poets leading him by the head, must have cut but a sorry figure, and wakened many a smile and gibe in passers-by. ...
— Recollections of a Tour Made in Scotland A.D. 1803 • Dorothy Wordsworth
... and without any ornament, but in the middle stood a large table, with a gorgeous cloth, and on it lay a big ...
— The Red Fairy Book • Various
... the worlds faire ornament, And heavens glorie, whom this happie hower Doth leade unto your lovers blisfull bower, Joy may you have, and gentle hearts content Of your loves couplement; And let faire Venus, that is Queene of love, With her heart-quelling Sonne upon ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... view of the ruins at Palenque: "We saw before us a large building richly ornamented with stuccoed figures on pilasters, curious and elegant; trees growing close to it, and their branches entering the doors; the style and effect of structure and ornament unique, extraordinary, and mournfully beautiful." In a description of the walls around an interior court of a building at Uxmal, we have this tribute to the artistic skill of the decorators: "It would be difficult, in arranging four sides facing a court-yard, to ...
— Ancient America, in Notes on American Archaeology • John D. Baldwin
... off to more solitary places. Her head, generally so erect, was bowed under the weight of depression or preoccupation; her flexible, supple figure moved from side to side like the body of a bedouin; those dark African eyes, the most precious ornament of the noble city of Lancia, were fixed upon the ground, and the very deep line on her forehead testified to the fixed, ...
— The Grandee • Armando Palacio Valds
... with you. I have spoken plainly with this man Chaffery. He's not a full-blown professor, you know, a highly salaried ornament of the rock of truth like your demonstration-rigging professors here, and so I can speak plainly to him without offence. He takes quite the view they would take. But I am more rigorous. I insist that there shall be no ...
— Love and Mr. Lewisham • H. G. Wells
... beautiful outlines of her form, though not entirely hiding them, for that was impossible. Her luxuriant tresses were braided and coiled low down on the back of her head, and at her throat a tiny bow of blue. Not an ornament of any name or nature did she wear, not even a single ring. Only the crown of her sunny hair, two little rose leaves in her cheeks, and the queen-like majesty of throat and shoulders and bust, so classic that not one woman in a hundred but would ...
— Uncle Terry - A Story of the Maine Coast • Charles Clark Munn
... removing all seeds and white bits of skin, add two sliced bananas, a tablespoon of chopped or grated pineapple, sweeten to taste, and mix with the juice from a can of pineapple. Stand in a very cold place, or put in the ice cream freezer and partially freeze, serve in small glasses and ornament with maraschino cherries. Reserve the remaining pineapple for a ...
— The Suffrage Cook Book • L. O. Kleber
... not. He is as ugly as the devil himself. Two years ago he stole a good-looking gal up near Santa Fe. He had a chance for the biggest kind of ransom; but the poor gal had long, golden hair, and the skunk wanted it for an ornament, and he took it, too, and thinks more of it than any out of his hundred and more. Arter getting yer home among his people, and arter he'd found out thar's a good show fur a big ransom from yer father, jest as ...
— The Cave in the Mountain • Lieut. R. H. Jayne
... His servant, enriched by an abundant harvest of merits, illustrated by triumphal honors, and glorified by miracles, should also enjoy upon earth a name glorious in the estimation of mankind, and should thus be a new ornament to the church militant. The process of canonization was commenced in the time of Gregory XVI., and completed by Pius IX., when in March, 1859, the name of John Baptist de Rossi was inscribed on ...
— Pius IX. And His Time • The Rev. AEneas MacDonell
... was sitting on a low-backed seat in front of the fire with a child on each side of her. She was in white, her dark hair in a simple shining knot, a little pearl heart which had been Captain Morgan's parting gift, her only ornament. ...
— The Tin Soldier • Temple Bailey
... the most likely catch, did not prove as easy as he imagined. While charming and agreeable, she had evidently seen more or less of the world, and was not to be gathered in by the first man who made up his mind he would like to have her ornament his home. Likewise, she was a girl with common sense, and knowing her position and advantages did not lose her head when a man showed an inclination for her society. In fact, just before the party arrived in Flagstaff she had made it very evident that she did not care for serious attentions from ...
— Montezuma's Castle and Other Weird Tales • Charles B. Cory
... the roof of the canopy, and in a position which would be directly over the head of the Sultan, is a golden cord, on which is hung a large heart-shaped ornament of gold, chased and perforated with floriated work, and beneath it hangs a huge uncut emerald of fine colour, but of triangular shape, four inches in diameter, and an inch ...
— Threads of Grey and Gold • Myrtle Reed
... contented with a retired station, I still hope I shall live to see my Evelina the ornament of her neighbourhood, and the pride and delight of her family; and giving and receiving joy from such society as may best deserve her affection, and employing herself in such useful and innocent occupations as may secure and merit the tenderest love of her friends, and the worthiest satisfaction ...
— Evelina • Fanny Burney
... executive head of the territory. His wife, who had joined him in Carson City, was social head of the little capital, and Brother Sam, with his new distinction and now once more something of a dandy in dress, was society's chief ornament—a great change, certainly, from the early months of his arrival less than three ...
— The Boys' Life of Mark Twain • Albert Bigelow Paine
... where delivered his sentiments with freedom, and in many instances with a seeming regard for the benefit of the inhabitants and the ornament of the country. His remarks on the want of trees and hedges for shade, as well as for shelter to the cattle, are well founded, and merit the thanks, not the illiberal censure of the natives. He also felt for the distresses of the Highlanders, ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell
... work; but if so, why was it not placed near the old gold-workings instead of some miles off, and of what use were the terraced walls? The inquirer is therefore led to the third view—that the building was in some way connected with religious worship, and that the ornament which is seen along the eastern wall was placed there with some religious motive. There is, however, nothing whatever to indicate the nature of that worship, nor the race that practised it, for no objects of a possibly religious character (such as those I shall presently mention at Zimbabwye) ...
— Impressions of South Africa • James Bryce
... widely known and greatly admired, was little understood or appreciated. He was known to be a learned antiquarian, a terrible controversialist, and an incomparable writer. He was regarded as a brilliant ornament to Germany; and a paltry Duke of Brunswick thought a few hundred thalers well spent in securing the glory of having such a man to reside at his provincial court. But the majority of Lessing's contemporaries understood him as little ...
— The Unseen World and Other Essays • John Fiske
... blessed in the Church and why are they used? A. Candles are blessed in the Church on the feast of the Purification of the Blessed Virgin—February 2nd. They are used chiefly to illuminate and ornament our altars, as a mark of reverence for the presence of Our Lord and of ...
— Baltimore Catechism No. 3 (of 4) • Anonymous
... sun got lower an apathetic gloom began to replace the anxiety that had kept the Osborns highly strung. Mrs. Osborn went dejectedly about the house, sometimes moving an ornament and putting away a book, for her brain was dull and she felt incapable of the effort to rouse herself for her daughter's sake. Thorn had not arrived and if he did not come soon he would be too late. On the whole, this was some relief, although it meant that there was no escape from the disaster ...
— The Buccaneer Farmer - Published In England Under The Title "Askew's Victory" • Harold Bindloss
... but Christ liveth in me." Gal 2, 20. The Christian's manner of life may be styled "walking in Christ"; yes, as Paul elsewhere has it (Rom 13, 14), "putting on" the Lord Jesus Christ, like a garment or an ornament. The world is to recognize Christ by ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. III - Trinity Sunday to Advent • Martin Luther
... there is a room for study. It is furnished with a number of plain oak or walnut tables and with chairs which do not invite to repose. There are librarians present to get from the stacks the special books which the student needs. The room is barren of ornament. Each student is hard at —work examining, comparing, collating. She is to be called on to-morrow in class to tell what she has learned, or next week to hand in a thesis the product of her study. All eyes are intent ...
— The Guide to Reading - The Pocket University Volume XXIII • Edited by Dr. Lyman Abbott, Asa Don Dickenson, and Others
... accomplishments; in such an importunate and open demand of praise and admiration, as is offensive to others, and encroaches too far on their secret vanity and ambition. It is besides a sure symptom of the want of true dignity and elevation of mind, which is so great an ornament in any character. For why that impatient desire of applause; as if you were not justly entitled to it, and might not reasonably expect that it would for ever at tend you? Why so anxious to inform us of the great company which you have kept; the obliging things which were said to you; the ...
— An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals • David Hume
... This person is described by the writers of that age, as the most perfect model of an accomplished gentleman that could be formed even by the wanton imagination of poetry or fiction. Virtuous conduct, polite conversation, heroic valor, and elegant erudition, all concurred to render him the ornament and delight of the English court; and as the credit which he possessed with the queen and the earl of Leicester was wholly employed in the encouragement of genius and literature, his praises have been transmitted ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part D. - From Elizabeth to James I. • David Hume
... rest is the mistaking or misplacing of the last or furthest end of knowledge. For men have entered into a desire of learning and knowledge, sometimes upon a natural curiosity and inquisitive appetite; sometimes to entertain their minds with variety and delight; sometimes for ornament and reputation; and sometimes to enable them to victory of wit and contradiction; and most times for lucre and profession; and seldom sincerely to give a true account of their gift of reason to the benefit and use of men: as if there were sought in knowledge a couch whereupon ...
— The Advancement of Learning • Francis Bacon
... his daughter Katherine, as usual. Baby was asleep in my lap and I reached out for a book which proved to be a volume of Shakespeare which had done long service as an ornament to the table, but which nobody ever read on account of the small print. ...
— Stepping Heavenward • Mrs. E. Prentiss
... Her gaiety—young, quick, and active—animated all; and her nymph-like lightness carried her everywhere, like a whirlwind which fills several places at once, and gives them movement and life. She was the ornament of all diversions, the life and soul of all pleasure, and at balls ravished everybody by the justness and perfection of her dancing. She could be amused by playing for small sums but liked high gambling better, and was an excellent, good-tempered, ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... careful, woman. The wallpaper is flaring, but very clean. The pictures are flaring, but framed with honest love. The dresser holds, not only crockery but also items of decoration: some carved candlesticks, some photographs in gilt frames, an ornament with a nodding head, kept there because it always amuses young Emmie's baby when she calls. Everywhere pride ...
— Nights in London • Thomas Burke
... ornament from her, and held it up to the light, screwing his eyes to little points of light; then he polished it on his sleeve, and held ...
— The Green Satin Gown • Laura E. Richards
... transfixed also, though not by the same object," was the reply. "How excessively pale, yet how beautiful she is! That plain black dress, without ornament or jewel, and her raven hair, parted simply on her forehead, enhance her voluptuous charms infinitely more than could the most gorgeous costume. Heavens! what a happy man will he be who can call ...
— Edmond Dantes • Edmund Flagg
... something deficient in their dress. One cannot believe to what excess they carry their coquetry. They dress their hair with great art. They keep it flowing in tresses upon their breasts, and fasten to it any thing they can find. I have seen some of them ornament it with shell-work, keys of chests, and padlocks, rings of umbrellas, and buttons of trowsers, which they have ...
— Perils and Captivity • Charlotte-Adelaide [nee Picard] Dard
... not been stationary. To his old scorn for the idle of the earth had succeeded the surprise that overtook him at Balloch: and he would now hold to his creed, yet not as rejecting his experience. Some, he says, were made for use; others for ornament; but let these be so made, of a truth, and not such as find themselves merely thrust into exemption from labor. Let each know his place, and take it, "For it is beautiful only to do the thing we are meant for." And of his friend urging Providence he can only, while answering ...
— The Germ - Thoughts towards Nature in Poetry, Literature and Art • Various
... find I carve these notches. I also did so on this bowie, which I bought in New York when I went on my last big-game shoot to the Rockies. I marked my things in this way so that the other fellows should not use them by mistake. I brought back this knife, and although it is not a pretty ornament, I fixed it up on the wall yonder. I used it to cut up game. But if you did not take it off the wall—and I confess I never missed it until you drew my attention to the fact that it was missing—where ...
— The Secret Passage • Fergus Hume
... my brother know Yet living in my glass; even such and so In favour was my brother; and he went Still in this fashion, colour, ornament, For him I imitate. O, if it prove, Tempests are kind, and salt waves ...
— Twelfth Night; or, What You Will • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... roses, encircling their bare hair, as laurel Caesar's; and though of the worshipful, scorned, yet is braver, I wist, to your eye and mine which painters be, though sorry ones, than the gorgeous, uncouth, mechanical head-gear of the time, and adorns, not hides her hair, that goodly ornament fitted to her head by craft divine. So the good lasses, being questioned close, did let me know, the rosebuds are cut in summer and laid then in great clay-pots, thus ordered:—first bay salt, then ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... house! Elwyn could remember every bush, almost every flower that had flowered, in the walled garden during those enchanted weeks. Against the background of his mind every ornament, every odd piece of furniture in that old cottage, stood out as having been the silent, it had seemed at the time the kindly, understanding witnesses of what had by then become an exquisite friendship. He, the man, had known almost from the first where they too were ...
— Studies in love and in terror • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... that true ornament of our century, from whom you do not derogate in the love and knowledge of good letters, while amusing herself with the acts of human life, has left such beauteous instructions that there is no one who does not find matter of erudition in them; and, indeed, according ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. I. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre
... were arranged bits of red, yellow, and green woollen cloth tipped with honey. Flies, deceived by the fair appearance, sipped the honey, and remained glued to the woollen; their black bodies serving to set off the bright colors to advantage. In those days, such a cage was considered a very genteel ornament for a New England kitchen. Rich men sometimes have their coats of arms sketched on the floor in colored crayons, to be effaced in one night by the feet of dancers. The Widow Lawton ornamented her kitchen floor in a manner as ephemeral, though less ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 101, March, 1866 • Various
... ingenuity, as good sense brought to a point; it ought to be neither enigmatical nor flat, neither a truism on the one hand, nor a riddle on the other. These wise sayings, said Bacon, the author of some of the wisest of them, are not only for ornament, but for action and business, having a point or edge, whereby knots in business are pierced and discovered. And he applauds Cicero's description of such sayings as saltpits,—that you may extract salt out of them, and sprinkle it where you will. ...
— Studies in Literature • John Morley
... glance on the large plate she bore, at one side of which were two lifelike sheep three or four inches high, with little red ribbons around their necks and standing in the midst of greenery. "This is confectionery," I thought, "and these are sugar sheep for ornament." Disposed on other parts of the plate were sundry rounds and triangles which looked peculiar; but my custom was, at German tables, "to prove all things" and "hold fast that which is good." So I decided on a creamy-looking segment, covered with silver-paper, and showing at the sides a half-inch ...
— In and Around Berlin • Minerva Brace Norton
... question so impertinent is never put by the ex-officio father. The son succeeds by inheritance to his father's relict, who, being generally in years, is condemned to be useful when she has ceased to be an ornament, and, if there are several, they are equally divided amongst ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... deliverance to Germany, as in times past He gave deliverance to Syria. Wherefore the whole Roman Empire turns its eyes to your Lordship alone, and venerates and receives you as the Father of the Fatherland, and the bright ornament and protector of the whole Empire, but of the German nation ...
— Works of Martin Luther - With Introductions and Notes (Volume I) • Martin Luther
... me," he muttered, as he drew his dirk, "and if it turns at bay on finding itself followed, I ought to be able to do something with this, though it is such a stupid ornament of a thing. I'm not afraid, and I won't be afraid, but I wish my heart didn't beat so fast, and that choking sensation wouldn't keep on rising in ...
— Hunting the Skipper - The Cruise of the "Seafowl" Sloop • George Manville Fenn
... fallen from overhead, and now occupied a large part of the sloping bottom of the pit: by squeezing myself through a narrow crevice between this and the live rock, which looked as if it ought to lead to something, I found a veritable ice-cave, unhappily free from ornament, and of very small size, like a round soldier's tent in shape, with walls of rock and floor of ice. We afterwards found an easier entrance to the cave; but the floor was so wet, and the constant drops ...
— Ice-Caves of France and Switzerland • George Forrest Browne
... of delight When first she gleamed upon my sight; A lovely apparition, sent To be a moment's ornament; Her eyes as stars of twilight fair; Like twilight's, too, her dusky hair; But all things else about her drawn From May-time and the cheerful dawn; A dancing shape, an image gay, To haunt, to ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 1 (of 4) • Various
... Seward, since the result of the convention was known," wrote James Russell Lowell, "has been a greater ornament to him and a greater honour to his party than his election to the Presidency would have been."—Atlantic Monthly, October, 1860; Lowell's Political Essays, ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... anywhere that day were those of the second inaugural, which the committee had wisely ordained to be read over his grave, as the friends of Raphael chose the incomparable canvas of the Transfiguration to be the chief ornament ...
— A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln - Condensed from Nicolay & Hay's Abraham Lincoln: A History • John G. Nicolay
... themselves are simple and almost austere in form in comparison with those generally found in North Germany, where fantasy runs riot in red brick. The Nuremberg towers were obviously intended in the first place for use rather than for ornament. ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume V (of X) • Various
... so beautiful, he thought. She had dressed so hastily, so carelessly, that an utter simplicity enhanced the natural charm. Her dark hair was simply massed, her gown was devoid of ornament, her hands bare, except for her wedding-ring. On her earnest, exquisite face the occasion had stamped a certain soberness, she was neither hostess nor guest to-night; just a heartsick wife under the shadow of ...
— The Heart of Rachael • Kathleen Norris
... moment, each changed for the next, before the perpetual mirror of some curiosity or admiration or wonder—some spectatorship that she perceived or imagined in the people about her. Interested as he had ever been in the profession of which she was potentially an ornament, this idea startled him by its novelty and even lent, on the spot, a formidable, a really appalling character to Miriam Rooth. It struck him abruptly that a woman whose only being was to "make believe," ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James
... quarrel with his coadjutors. On the 1st of November, 1780, he brought out the "Morning Herald" in opposition to his old paper, the "Post." He assumed the name of Dudley in 1784, was created a baronet in 1813, and died in 1824. Gainsborough has painted the portrait of this ornament of the Church, who was notorious, in his younger days, for his physical strength, and not less so for the very unclerical use which he made of it. He was popularly ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... called him "our master," and pronounced his life as "great and good." "The young men saw him and hid themselves, and the aged arose and stood up." Dr. Appleton declared that he had been "an honored ornament to his country. Verily, the breach is so wide, that none but an all-sufficient God (with whom is the residue of the Spirit) can repair or heal it." The late Benjamin Peirce, in his History of Harvard University, ...
— Salem Witchcraft and Cotton Mather - A Reply • Charles W. Upham
... remain to form the fringe at the bottom. Before tying the last row of knots, slip a colored glass bead over each set of cords, then make the knot so as to hold the bead in place. These beads are an ornament, apart from giving weight to the portiere to make it hang well. Trim the fringe evenly, slip the portiere from the foundation holder, and it is ...
— Construction Work for Rural and Elementary Schools • Virginia McGaw
... what he had done; but casting her eyes round the room, and seeing nothing of what he had mentioned,—Where is this drawing? cried she. In my heart, adorable Mattakesa, answered he, falling at her feet at the same time:—it is not the city of Petersburg, but the charming image of its brightest ornament, that the god of love has engraven on my heart in characters too indelible ever to be erased:—from the first moment I beheld those eyes my soul has been on fire, and I must have consumed with inward burnings ...
— The Fortunate Foundlings • Eliza Fowler Haywood
... have been interred most of the English kings since Richard III., whose tombs are no small ornament to it, particularly that of Henry VII., the founder, which stands in the middle of the ...
— London in 1731 • Don Manoel Gonzales
... the noise died altogether. Then, after a space, his eyes, sweeping back and forth along the edge of the brush, rested on a bright bit of metal that for an instant caught the light of the sky, probably a weapon or a head ornament. Menard was motionless. Finally an Indian stepped softly out and stood beside a tree. When he began to move forward the Captain recognized Tegakwita, and ...
— The Road to Frontenac • Samuel Merwin
... of our paper, our readers will perceive in an advertisement, an additional proof, if such were necessary, of the strong integrity of that ornament of his profession, both as an Attorney and Christian, Mr. Solomon M'Slime. This gentleman, whilst he devotes himself, with a pure and guileless heart, to the extensive practice which his high principles and great skill have gained him in his profession, ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... for, this authority on London life continued, "a young divine, after his first degree in the university, usually comes hither only to show himself; and on that occasion, is apt to think he is but half equipped with a gown and cassock for his public appearance, if he hath not the additional ornament of a scarf of the first magnitude to entitle him to the appellation of Doctor from his landlady and the boy at' Child's." There is another allusion to the house in the Spectator. "Sometimes I"—the writer is Addison—"smoke a ...
— Inns and Taverns of Old London • Henry C. Shelley
... resembling the resplendent Moon himself! Formerly a large number of the most beautiful ladies used to wait upon him, like thousands of celestial girls upon a sporting gandharva. Who again could endure my son Duhsaha, that slayer of heroic foes, that hero, that ornament of assemblies, that irresistible warrior, that resister of foes? The body of Duhsaha, covered with arrows, looks resplendent like a mountain overgrown with flowering karnikaras. With his garland of gold and his bright armour, Duhsaha, though ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... beings, who bow themselves quietly under the yoke which they cannot break; move, year after year, through the social circle, without any other object than to fill a place there—to ornament or to disfigure a wall. Peace to such patient souls! There, too, are joyous, fresh, ever youthful natures, who, even to old age, and under all circumstances, bring with them cheerfulness and new life into every circle in which they move. These belong to social life, and are its blessings. ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer
... was no longer profitable. High offices under the Georges were as often as not filled by unpolished Englishmen extolled for their native flavour of bluntness and bluffness. Foreign graces were a superfluous ornament, more or less ridiculous. The majority of Englishmen were wont to prize, as Sam Johnson did, "their rustic grandeur and their surly grace," and to join in ...
— English Travellers of the Renaissance • Clare Howard
... sons in the scene, etc. In conclusion, Starkey appears to have been one of those mild spirits, which, not originally deficient in understanding, are crushed by penury into dejection and feebleness. He might have proved a useful adjunct, if not an ornament to society, if Fortune had taken him into a very little fostering; but wanting that, he became a Captain,—a by-word,—and lived and died ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various
... look more bright from the circumstance of the face, ears, and front of the legs being black, while the red is relieved, and the black is defined, by the pencilled lines of white which edge the ears, streak over and under the eye, and ornament the long whiskers, another long white line traversing the middle of the back; a very attractive combination of colour—the painting of "Him who made the world"—and one which must make the Potamochoerus penicellatus most conspicuous among the bright green ...
— Heads and Tales • Various
... excess that these kind Jews were afterward forbidden their worship in the place. It is a very clean-looking, cold-looking white monument of the Catholic faith, with a retablo attributed to Berruguete, and much plateresque Gothic detail mingled with Byzantine ornament, and Moorish arabesquing and the famous stucco honeycombing which we were destined at Seville and Granada to find almost sickeningly sweet. Where the Rabbis read the law from their pulpit the high altar stands, and the pious populace has for three hundred years pushed the Jews from ...
— Familiar Spanish Travels • W. D. Howells
... involve. 3. Martial, warlike, military, soldierlike. 4. Wander, deviate, err, stray, swerve, diverge. 5. Abate, decrease, diminish, lessen, moderate. 6. Emancipation, freedom, independence, liberty. 7. Old, ancient, antique, antiquated, obsolete. 8. Adorn, beautify, bedeck, decorate, ornament, 9. Active, alert, ...
— Composition-Rhetoric • Stratton D. Brooks
... colonize the town. After agreeing to a truce for nine months, he returned home with his wife and son, and after a stormy passage, landed at Sandwich on October 12. All England was filled with the spoils of Edward's expedition, so that there was not a woman who did not wear some ornament, or have in her house fine linen or some goblet, part of the booty the king sent home from Caen ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 1 of 8 • Various
... bare of ornament as the cell from which the prisoner had just been taken. There was an imitation walnut clock at the back of the Judge's hair-cloth sofa, his revolving chair, and his high desk. This was the only ornament. Below was the green ...
— The Exiles and Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... make a great circuit in order to find a place which could be forded. At the moment when I embarked, I saw at the prow of the boat of Youmaeale a kind of brown figure. I drew near; what did I see? My God! the head and arms dried to that of a mummy, forming the figurehead as an ornament for his canoe! We started on our voyage, the Caribbean silent, like the savage that he was, paddled without uttering a word. Arriving off the Caribbean Island, where a Spanish brigantine had stranded some months previous, I asked ...
— A Romance of the West Indies • Eugene Sue
... overmantel developed into an elaborate frame for the family portrait over the chimneypiece. Towards the close of the 18th century the designs of the brothers Adam superseded all others, and a century later they came again into fashion. The Adam mantels are in wood enriched with ornament, cast in moulds, sometimes copied from the carved wood decoration of old ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 2 - "Chicago, University of" to "Chiton" • Various
... Second, son of Charles the Martyr, King of Great Britain, France, and Ireland, Defender of the Faith, a most generous prince, commiserating the deplorable state of things, whilst the ruins were yet smoking, provided for the comfort of his citizens and the ornament of his city, remitted their taxes, and referred the petitions of the magistrates and inhabitants to the Parliament, who immediately passed an Act that public works should be restored to greater beauty with public money, to be raised by an imposition on coals; ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... an advanced stage they were frequently ornamented with zig-zag and other mouldings. A variety of mouldings were also used in the decoration of the Norman portals or doorways, which were besides often enriched with a profusion of sculptured ornament. The Norman churches appear to have much excelled in size the lowly structures of the Saxons, and the cathedral and conventual churches were frequently carried to the height of three tiers or rows of arches, one above another; blank ...
— The Principles of Gothic Ecclesiastical Architecture, Elucidated by Question and Answer, 4th ed. • Matthew Holbeche Bloxam
... water to run off, and because he would have the outline look like the segment of a large circle, resting on the abutments. A double line over the arches gives a finish to the bridge, and perhaps looks as well, or almost as well, as balustrades, for not a sixpence has been allowed for ornament on these works. The sides are protected by water-wings, which are embankments of stone, to prevent the floods from extending on either side, and attacking the flanks ...
— The Life of Thomas Telford by Smiles • Samuel Smiles
... artificers, and suffer no rude matter unwrought, as tin, iron, wool, lead, &c., to be transported out of his country,—[556]a thing in part seriously attempted amongst us, but not effected. And because industry of men, and multitude of trade so much avails to the ornament and enriching of a kingdom; those ancient [557]Massilians would admit no man into their city that had not some trade. Selym the first Turkish emperor procured a thousand good artificers to be brought from Tauris to Constantinople. The Polanders ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... looking for a literary drama which shall be different from the popular drama. Apparently they expect to be able to recognize a literary play at first sight—and probably by its excess of applied ornament. And this attitude is quite as absurd as the other. In no one of the greater periods of the poetic drama have the plays which we now revere as masterpieces differed in form from the mass of the other plays of that epoch. They were better, no doubt, excelling in ...
— Inquiries and Opinions • Brander Matthews
... monastery chapel, and in evil days, when men had forgotten their reverence for holy ground and the quiet dead, the tomb must have been destroyed, and the figure defaced and thrown out as rubbish. Then some one later on had brought her to the cottage and set her up as an ornament to the garden, leaning against a tree, and looking very strange and uncomfortable. When Betty and her sister were little children they were half afraid of the tall grim figure, which looked queer and uncanny among the bushes in the twilight, ...
— Two Maiden Aunts • Mary H. Debenham
... the door of the first salon to receive the guests who were styled her friends. She was dressed in white, and wore no ornament in the plaits of hair braided about her head; her face was calm; there was no sign there of pride, nor of pain, nor of joy that she did not feel. No one could read her soul; she stood there like ...
— Father Goriot • Honore de Balzac
... impossible to go back—vestigia nulla. But that event would open to her a sort of going back, such a return to her old life and her surroundings as might some day make the time she had spent with Quisante and its experiences seem but an episode, studding the belt of long days with one strange bizarre ornament. ...
— Quisante • Anthony Hope
... the exterior of the temples glowed with the richest harmony of colours, and was decorated with the purest gold; an atmosphere peculiarly favourable both to the display and the preservation of art, permitted to external pediments and friezes all the minuteness of ornament—all the brilliancy of colours; such as in the interior of Italian churches may yet be seen—vitiated, in the last, by a gaudy and barbarous taste. Nor did the Athenians spare any cost upon the works that were, like the tombs and tripods of their heroes, to be the monuments ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... spread the language into which he was translating the sacred oracles, in a new region larger than France. Sebituane, at the same time, rooted out hordes of bloody savages, among whom no white man could have gone without leaving his skull to ornament some village. He opened up the way for me—let us hope also for the Bible. Then, again, while I was laboring at Kolobeng, seeing only a small arc of the cycle of Providence, I could not understand it, and felt inclined to ascribe our successive and prolonged droughts to the wicked one. But when forced ...
— The Personal Life Of David Livingstone • William Garden Blaikie
... the cab-stand, of which he promises to be a distinguished ornament. He haunts the Piccadilly stands, and has what he calls ''stablish'd a raw' on Mr. Sponge to the extent of three-and-six-pence a week, under threats of exposing the robbery Sponge committed on our friend Mr. Waffles. That volatile genius, we are happy to add, is quite well, and open to the ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... love,' answered Sir Christopher, in a tone of punctiliously polite affection; 'if you like to part with the ornament from your own room, it will show admirably here. Our portraits, by Sir Joshua, will hang opposite the window, and the "Transfiguration" at that end. You see, Anthony, I am leaving no good places on the walls for you and your wife. We shall turn you with your faces to the wall in the ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot
... workmanship should be preserved intact. Much of the treasure was in the shape of plates or tiles, from the interior of the temples or palaces which did not take up much space. The great temple of the Sun at Cuzco had a heavy outside cornice, or moulding, of pure gold. It was stripped of this dazzling ornament to satisfy the rapacity of the conquerors. There was also a vast quantity of silver which was stored in other chambers. Silver hardly counted in view of the deluge of the more ...
— South American Fights and Fighters - And Other Tales of Adventure • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... (top) and green horizontal band one-half the width of the red band; a white vertical stripe on the hoist side bears the Belarusian national ornament in red ...
— The 2001 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... flat stones which may have been used as scoops for the excavation. Under her neck was discovered the first manufactured object found, a single rude bead of white wampum of the prehistoric form, and which is now deposited in the Chateau de Ramezay. As white wampum was the gift of a lover, this sole ornament tells the pathetic story of early love and death. Mr. Chas. J. Brown again protographed the remains in situ. The work will still proceed and no doubt more important discoveries are ...
— A New Hochelagan Burying-ground Discovered at Westmount on the - Western Spur of Mount Royal, Montreal, July-September, 1898 • W. D. Lighthall
... picturesque with its palmtrees and electric light, which makes it like, in the evening, a theatrical decoration, and whose ornament has been ...
— Literary Blunders • Henry B. Wheatley
... barons, and in the next place the barons marching to Runemede never came near Reigate at all. Mr. Tupper errs. But the passages and chambers hollowed out of the yellow sandstone are interesting, and so are the rough carvings of heads of horses which ornament the walls. Mr. Malden, the Surrey historian, thinks the caves are merely sand-quarries, sand being valuable for making mortar. It is pleasanter, though probably wholly incorrect, to imagine them as dungeons, ...
— Highways and Byways in Surrey • Eric Parker
... an excellent wisdom in him, proper to a rare class of men, which showed him the material world as a means and symbol. This discovery, which sometimes yields to poets a certain casual and interrupted light, serving for the ornament of their writing, was in him an unsleeping insight; and whatever faults or obstructions of temperament might cloud it, he was not disobedient to the heavenly vision. In his youth, he said, one day, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... looked in the glass at her clear skin, at the wonderful throat showing so soft and palpable and tower-like under the black velvet ribbon brightened by a paste ornament; as she saw the smooth breadth of brow, the fulness of the lips, the limpid lustre of the large eyes, the well- curved ear, so small and so like ivory, it came home to her, as it had never done before, that she was wasted in this obscure parish of ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... Mimulus luteus, Ipomoea purpurea, Dianthus caryophyllus, and Petunia violacea, raised from purchased seeds, varied greatly in the colour of their flowers. This occurs with many plants which have been long cultivated as an ornament for the flower-garden, and which have been propagated by seeds. The colour of the flowers was a point to which I did not at first in the least attend, and no selection whatever was practised. Nevertheless, ...
— The Effects of Cross & Self-Fertilisation in the Vegetable Kingdom • Charles Darwin
... at the frontdoor were two seats, where the Doctor was accustomed to sit in fine weather with his pipe and his book, or with such friends as might call to spend a half hour with him. The lawn in front had scarcely any other ornament than its green grass, cropped short by the Doctor's horse. A stone wall separated it from the lane, half overrun with wild hop, or clematis, and two noble rock-maples arched over with their dense foliage the little red gate. Dark belts of woodland, smooth hill pasture, green, broad meadows, and ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... enjoyed any sort of comfort. More often than not, even the beds are unsatisfactory—either pretentiously huge and choked with drapery, or hard and thinly accoutred. Furnishing is uniformly hideous, and there is either no attempt at ornament (the safest thing) or a villainous taste thrusts itself upon one at every turn. The meals, in general, are coarse and poor in quality, and ...
— The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft • George Gissing
... both more useful and more pleasant. So that he who founded the town seems to have taken care of nothing more than of their gardens; for they say the whole scheme of the town was designed at first by Utopus, but he left all that belonged to the ornament and improvement of it to be added by those that should come after him, that being too much for one man to bring to perfection. Their records, that contain the history of their town and State, are preserved with an exact care, ...
— Utopia • Thomas More
... tissue as original as erudite. In his compositions, boldness is always justified; richness, even exuberance, never interferes with clearness; singularity never degenerates into uncouth fantasticalness; the sculpturing is never disorderly; the luxury of ornament never overloads the chaste eloquence of the principal lines. His best works abound in combinations which may be said to form an epoch in the handling of musical style. Daring, brilliant and attractive, they disguise ...
— Life of Chopin • Franz Liszt
... tense arm. A wilful current of thought had disturbed his action. The sharp head nurse wondered if Dr. Sommers had had any wine that evening, but she dismissed this suspicion scornfully, as slander against the ornament of the Surgical Ward of St. Isidore's. He was tired: the languid summer air thus early in the year would shake any man's nerve. But the head nurse understood well that such a wavering of will ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... bean-eating boob!" cried Mr. Peters, frothing over quite unexpectedly and waving his arms in a sudden burst of fury. "Then if you are an American why don't you show a little more enterprise? Why don't you put something over? Why do you loaf about the place as though you were supposed to be an ornament? I want results—and I ...
— Something New • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... and reached the lodge in safety, and, excusing himself for the liberty, he killed two or three of the gulls for the sake of their feathers to ornament his son's head. ...
— The Indian Fairy Book - From the Original Legends • Cornelius Mathews
... till I began to think that after all the little bunch of blossom had done its work,—its message had been given—its errand completed. All the Madonna lilies Santoris had given me were as fresh as if newly gathered,—and I chose one of these with its companion bud as my only ornament. When I joined my host and his party in the saloon he looked at ...
— The Life Everlasting: A Reality of Romance • Marie Corelli
... difficulties. There occurred, in particular, a question about a topaz ring, of considerable value, but of antique setting, which Lady Anne Mowbray wished her mother to part with, instead of some more fashionable diamond ornament that Lady Anne wanted to keep for herself. Lady de Brantefield had, however, resisted all her daughter's importunities—had talked a vast deal about the ring—told that it had been Sir Josseline de Mowbray's—that it had come into his ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. IX - [Contents: Harrington; Thoughts on Bores; Ormond] • Maria Edgeworth
... of education: 'It is a companion which no misfortune can distress, no crime destroy, no enemy alienate, no despot enslave; at home a friend, abroad an introduction; in solitude a solace, in society an ornament. It chastens vice, it guides virtue, it adds a grace to genius. Without it what is man?'—and I would add with emphasis, Without an education, what ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... Queen Augusta's appreciation should have dispelled any unpleasant impressions I might have received. I was again summoned to the royal box, where I found all the court gathered round the Queen, who wore a blue rose on her forehead as an ornament. The few complimentary observations she had to offer were listened to by the members of the court with breathless attention; but when the royal lady had made a few general remarks, and was about to enter into details, she left ...
— My Life, Volume II • Richard Wagner
... most partial. He regretted the venal rapacity with which he had sacrificed himself to a woman he abhorred, and his wishes for her final decay became daily more fervent. He knew that the acquaintance of Cecilia was confined to a circle of which he was himself the principal ornament, that she had rejected all the proposals of marriage which had hitherto been made to her, and, as he had sedulously watched her from her earliest years, he had reason to believe that her heart had escaped any dangerous impression. This being her situation, ...
— Cecilia Volume 1 • Frances Burney
... that night in the cabin, over a bottle of wine, he "didn't know but what the senora had decided to take the Andes home for a mantel ornament, and was engaged in the little ...
— Under the Andes • Rex Stout
... productions by our later masters. They may, indeed, suffer when compared with the masses of the great continental masters; but they nevertheless possess a certain degree of simple majesty, well suited to the primitive character of the ritual of that church which disdains the use of ornament, and on principle declines to avail herself of any appeal to the senses as an auxiliary to devotion. We have been the more particular in our notice of these early masters, because, long without any rivals, their church music even now ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various
... is an aquatic, and well adapted to ornament pieces of water. Its beautiful flowers in the summer months are inferior to scarcely any plants growing in such places, and its foliage will form protection for any birds, &c., which are usually kept in such places. It is easily propagated by ...
— The Botanist's Companion, Vol. II • William Salisbury |
