"Ornamental" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... silks and cottons, the laces, and other ornamental luxuries of a rich country, may contribute very considerably to augment the exchangeable value of its annual produce; yet they contribute but in a very small degree to augment the mass of happiness in the society, and it appears to me that it is with some view to the real utility of the ...
— An Essay on the Principle of Population • Thomas Malthus
... miles above the Valley we come to the beautiful Tenaya Lake, and here the canyon terminates. A mile or two above the lake stands the grand Sierra Cathedral, a building of one stone, sewn from the living rock, with sides, roof, gable, spire and ornamental pinnacles, fashioned and finished symmetrically like a work of art, and set on a well-graded plateau about 9000 feet high, as if Nature in making so fine a building had also been careful that it should ...
— The Yosemite • John Muir
... there were more rooms than could be arranged around one court; and in such cases there were two, and sometimes three courts. In one case, the third court was a garden, with a beautiful portico formed of ornamental columns all around it. Beneath this portico the ladies of the house, in rainy weather, could walk at their ease, and see the flowers growing in the garden, just as well as ...
— Rollo in Naples • Jacob Abbott
... an ornamental garden with all kinds of choice fruits in it, and Rabbi Nehemiah says he erected an inn for travelers in order to make known the name of God to all ...
— Hebraic Literature; Translations from the Talmud, Midrashim and - Kabbala • Various
... brave generals were winning these victories for the Empire, Justinian himself was busy in making improvements of various kinds at the capital. He erected great public buildings, which were not only useful but ornamental to the city. The most remarkable of them was the very magnificent cathedral of St. So-phi'a, for a long time the grandest church structure in the world. The great temple still exists in all its beauty and grandeur, but is now used as a ...
— Famous Men of the Middle Ages • John H. Haaren
... cowries, his corded kersey-mere shorts, his blue knitted hose and silver buckles, had honour in Loafer Land, and every hulking rascal who carried the pattern of the ornamental wrought-iron posts at the gates of the "Green Dragon" yard permanently imprinted in the small of his back, swore by him just as much as did Wormit the landlord. They saluted him as he went to and fro. They pulled forelocks and touched caps, feeling ...
— Patsy • S. R. Crockett
... South-Sea islanders tattoo themselves. In other words, they prick a multitude of little holes in their skins, and rub into these some colouring matter, which, when thoroughly fixed, cannot again be washed out. The ornamental devices with which they thus, more or less, cover their persons are sometimes very cleverly and tastefully done, and they would be really admirable if depicted on a piece of wood or a sheet of paper; but when applied to the human body they are ...
— The Cannibal Islands - Captain Cook's Adventure in the South Seas • R.M. Ballantyne
... already, han't yer?" he said presently. He himself was out of work, like half the village, and had been presented by his wife with boiled swede for supper. But he knew that Hurd had been taken on at the works at the Court, where the new drive was being made, and a piece of ornamental water enlarged and improved—mainly for the sake of giving employment in bad times. He, Patton, and some of his mates, had tried to get a job there. But the steward had turned them back. The men off the ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... out by no matter of excitement, political or intellectual, ever at all, one might say, at any time. The rambling grand-ducal palace was full to overflowing with furniture, which, useful or useless, was all ornamental, and none of it new. Suppose the various objects, especially the contents of the haunted old lumber-rooms, duly arranged and ticketed, and their Highnesses would have had a historic museum, after which those ...
— Imaginary Portraits • Walter Pater
... brooch, 7 pincushions, a snuff box, a small looking glass, 2 china boxes, a china inkstand, 5 china cups and saucers, a china basket, 2 china jugs, a scent bottle, a boa ring, 20 shells, a boy's cap, a pair of snuffers and stand, a little basket, a pair of screen handles, 3 ornamental pens, 5 artificial flowers, 5 glass plates, 5 counter plates, 3 pairs of card racks, a comb, a pair of watch pockets, 12 table mats, 8 paintings, 4 drawings, 2 fans, a pair of garters, 3 pairs of gloves, 3 pairs of silk stockings, 3 veils, a ...
— A Narrative of some of the Lord's Dealings with George Mueller - Written by Himself. Second Part • George Mueller
... copying one of the engravings with crayon upon his dormitory ceiling. He continued to amuse himself in this way from time to time until he had filled all the space in his room with life-size figures which, it is remembered by those who saw them, were highly ornamental and ...
— Edgar Allan Poe's Complete Poetical Works • Edgar Allan Poe
... a cheap device for a man to trick himself out with lodge pins and fraternity symbols, rings, and badges in the hope that they will open doors for him. Highly ornamental jewelry of any kind is inappropriate. Not many men can offset a heavy gold watch chain stretched full length across their bosoms, not many can live down a turquoise ring set with pearls, and very few can ...
— The Book of Business Etiquette • Nella Henney
... ovule substance let us examine the pollen grain a little more carefully. Pollen grains are of many shapes, though usually they are globe-shaped, or football-shaped. Tiny as they are, the outer skin is often marked with grooves and ridges in a very ornamental manner. They have two skins, an outer hard one, a softer inner one. The outer skin is not equally thick and hard all over. It has little glazed spots sometimes, like little glazed windows. Now, when the pistil is ripe ...
— The Renewal of Life; How and When to Tell the Story to the Young • Margaret Warner Morley
... original wooden gallery (manianum summum in ligneis), which was destroyed by lightning, A.D. 217, was a solid wall faced with Corinthian pilasters, and pierced by forty square windows or openings. It has been conjectured that the alternate spaces between the pilasters were decorated with ornamental metal shields. The openings of the outer arches of the second and third stories were probably decorated with statues. The reverse of an aureus of the reign of Titus represents the Colosseum with these statues and a quadriga in the centre. About one-third of the original ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron
... region we traversed following the road to the south. Here they appear frequently as remarkable groupings of stones firmly embedded in the ground. Only the tops of the stones (the total length of which is about one foot) are seen above the surface, much as stones are used in parks and gardens for ornamental purposes. They are arranged in circles or in rectangles. I saw two circles close to each other, each six feet in diameter. One rectangle measured fifty feet in length by half that in width. Low walls divided it into three indistinct partitions. There was never any wall built underneath these ...
— Unknown Mexico, Volume 1 (of 2) • Carl Lumholtz
... of the opening, in a segmentary arch, was an allegory, with Apollo as the central figure, by Francis Lathrop. Statues of the Muses filled niches on both sides of the consoles. Over the ceiling, amidst the entwinings of ornamental figures, on a buff ground, were spread a large number of medallions of oxidized metal, which, in the illumination from the lights, shone with a copper luster. The house was lighted by gas, though preparations had been made ...
— Chapters of Opera • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... philosophy, found consideration even in town-planning. A more definite, more symmetrical, often more rigidly 'chess-board' pattern was introduced for the towns which now began to be founded in many countries round and east of the Aegean. Ornamental edifices and broad streets were still indeed included, but in the house-blocks round them due space and place were left for the dwellings of common men. For a while the Greeks turned their minds to those details of daily life which in their greater ...
— Ancient Town-Planning • F. Haverfield
... per-centage, and men of science much amusement and credit. Then the peasants shoot a certain number of each other, until they get tired; and burn each other's homes down in various places. Then they put the guns back into towers, arsenals, &c., in ornamental patterns; (and the victorious party put also some ragged flags in churches). And then the capitalists tax both, annually, ever afterwards, to pay interest on the loan of the guns and gunpowder. And that is what capitalists call "knowing what to do with their money;" and what ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... anatto, of vast size, with its ornamental coat of mail, and broad large scales margined with bright red, peoples the waters in immense numbers. It is most frequently caught by the native fishermen; and when salted, forms the staple food of all classes on the banks of the Lower Amazon. It swims at great speed, and attains the length ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston
... ingenuity, and quench his affections. The Ghorawalla in his native state is no more like our domesticated Pandoo than the wild ass of Cutch is like the costermonger's moke. We will have him like our own saddlery, plain and businesslike, but he is by nature like his national horse gear, ornamental, and if you let him alone, will effloresce in a red fez cap, with tassel, and a waistcoat of green baize. In such a guise he feels worthy to tend a piebald horse, caparisoned in crimson silk, with a tight martingale of red and ...
— Behind the Bungalow • EHA
... reputation for being what is popularly termed 'haunted.' They have been rather proud of this, as I managed to discover, until quite lately when something very disagreeable occurred, which served to remind them that family ghosts are not always content, as I might say, to remain purely ornamental. ...
— Carnacki, The Ghost Finder • William Hope Hodgson
... an irresistible temptation to the chisel of the sculptor and the ornamentist; and so we nearly always find it decorated with carvings. Sometimes, as in the lintel and thresholds described above (Figs. 95 and 96), the motives are purely ornamental. Elsewhere, in the gates of the Assyrian palaces, and in the plinths of the walls that surround their courts and halls, we find both figures in the round and in low relief. In a future chapter we shall attempt to define the style of these works and to determine their merit. ...
— A History of Art in Chaldaea & Assyria, v. 1 • Georges Perrot
... employed, and I had the good fortune to be of a little service to her one day when I was out biking. Her harness, or at least the harness on the horse she was driving, broke, and I came to the rescue with my pocket-knife and some string, thereby proving, if not ornamental, I was useful. After that I tried hard to find out who she was, but my inquiries always came to nothing. I little dreamt who Miss Melvyn was when Harry, telling me she was a Goulburn girl, asked if I ...
— My Brilliant Career • Miles Franklin
... pottery. And now, instead of making brown butter-crocks and stone jugs all of the time, he was experimenting in glazes. In fact, he had made a little wooden workbox and covered it over with tiny pieces of ornamental "porcelain" in a semi-transparent green color, that he had made himself. And this pretty box he sent to Sarah. Unfortunately, the package was carried on horseback in a bag by the mail-carrier, and on the way the horse lay down, or fell down and rolled on the mail-bag, reducing the pretty present ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard
... impression that most of their shops, or "stores," as we say in America, are for selling bric-a-brac, toys, lacquer ware, bronzes, or ornamental things of one kind or another; but perhaps this is largely because they give an artistic or ornamental appearance to a thousand utensils and household articles which in America would be raw and plain in their obvious practicality. The room in which I write is a fine illustration of this: finished ...
— Where Half The World Is Waking Up • Clarence Poe
... nature of the milieu through which the liberal movement in Boston had to make its way. To re-assert the dignity and usefulness of the beautiful arts was, perhaps, the chief service which the Massachusetts Unitarians rendered to humanism. The traditional prejudice of the Puritans against the ornamental side of life had to be softened before polite literature could find a congenial atmosphere in New England. In Channing's Remarks on National Literature, reviewing a work published in 1823, he asks the question, "Do we possess ...
— Initial Studies in American Letters • Henry A. Beers
... the necessity for having Mrs. Streeter; she is a good creature—very obliging when one needs a neighbor, in cases of sickness, or the like, but would be far from ornamental. I can have an excuse for omitting her in never having received an invitation from her—she does not give parties. She will be very well satisfied, I dare say, if I send her a basket of fragments afterward. You must understand, Cousin ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... forty acres in extent, and contain a large piece of ornamental water, on the shore of which is a pavilion, or summer-house, with frescoes by Eastlake, Maclise, Landseer, Dyce, and others, illustrating Milton's "Comus." The channel of the Tyburn, now a sewer, passes under the ...
— The Strand District - The Fascination of London • Sir Walter Besant
... the meridian heats of a July sun. The natives were gentle and amiable, graceful in figure, agile in movement, and exhibited unusual taste, dressing their hair in a variety of twists and braids, intertwined with ornamental feathers. ...
— Voyages of Samuel de Champlain, Vol. 1 • Samuel de Champlain
... pier, for the rocks were piled unevenly on each other. These rocks changed the current of the water and made boating in the vicinity dangerous, so that launches and sailboats gave the place a wide berth. Then, on the outside of the barred window, clearing it by about two feet, there was an ornamental wooden trellis on which vines grew, which effectually screened the barred window from detection ...
— The Camp Fire Girls at School • Hildegard G. Frey
... some distance and with some difficulty, until there began to shine through the trees a level light, in lines of silver, which he did not at first understand. The next moment he had come out into the daylight at the top of a steep bank, at the bottom of which a path ran round the rim of a large ornamental lake. The sheet of water which he had seen shimmering through the trees was of considerable extent, but was walled in on every side with woods which were not only dark, but decidedly dismal. At one ...
— The Man Who Knew Too Much • G.K. Chesterton
... in their way, and, like an antique jewel, they may serve very well to wear on special occasions, or to treasure as an antiquary would do some rare coin or "auld nick-nacket." But the magnates of Glasgow have a juster and more legitimate cause for pride; their ambition is of a less ornamental, but far more useful kind. The Youngs, the Napiers, the Elders, the Campbells, and the Bairds are, after all, your true and permanent nobility. All that is not the direct result of merit and industry can only induce vanity and vexation of spirit. It is no uncommon thing to hear ...
— Western Worthies - A Gallery of Biographical and Critical Sketches of West - of Scotland Celebrities • J. Stephen Jeans
... white linen, buttoned at the wrist. Long, loose, baggy, linen trousers, also fastened above the ankle, and curiously pointed shoes clothed his nether limbs. This striking costume was completed by a small skull-cap, richly embroidered, and an ornamental sabre. ...
— The Story of the Malakand Field Force • Sir Winston S. Churchill
... camp, I have carried on collaboration with the U. S. D. A. Bureau of Plant Introduction for twenty years. The importation of graftwood of eastern soft shell black walnuts has been "on my own." Of black walnuts we have bearing trees among ornamental plantings. There has been a marked change of attitude from the early days when I was more or less looked upon as a freak for working with them. The nuts are valued today. The original objective ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Thirty-Fourth Annual Report 1943 • Various
... of various states of the Union, he urged Congress to pass laws for the promotion of agriculture, commerce, and manufactures, the "encouragement of the mechanic and of the elegant arts, the advancement of literature, and the progress of the sciences, ornamental and profound." "Were we," he asked, "to slumber in indolence or fold up our arms and proclaim to the world that we are palsied by the will of our constituents, would it not be to cast away the bounties of Providence and doom ourselves to perpetual inferiority?" Such a profession of faith as this ...
— Rise of the New West, 1819-1829 - Volume 14 in the series American Nation: A History • Frederick Jackson Turner
... ornamental insects, sober and industrious, ugly, mischievous, destructive, all have revelled—and the butterfly brings the art of inconsequent revelling to the acme of perfection—in the comparatively dry air, in the glowing ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... former position above the Suspension Bridge, was motionless now above Niagara city, shadowing all that district about the power-house which had been the scene of the land fight. The monster had an air of quiet and assured predominance, and from its stern it trailed, serene and ornamental, a long streaming flag, the red, black, and yellow of the great alliance, the Sunrise and the Dragon. Beyond, to the east, at a much higher level, hung a second consort, and Bert, presently gathering courage, wriggled out and craned ...
— The War in the Air • Herbert George Wells
... Latin word conficere, 'to make up;' but the term confectionary embraces a very large class indeed of sweet food, many kinds of which should not be attempted in the ordinary cuisine. The thousand and one ornamental dishes that adorn the tables of the wealthy should be purchased from the confectioner: they cannot profitably be made at home. Apart from these, cakes, biscuits, and tarts, &c., the class of sweetmeats called confections may be thus classified:—1. ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... a lying mirror! It lied to you and to me. I smashed it. Well, I'll give you another that is more truthful, and more ornamental too." ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens
... inflict an epistolary rebuff on another, the rebuff entirely fails if a single affected word is inserted. The most perfect example of a courteous snub with which I am acquainted was sent by a master of measured and ornamental prose. Gibbon, the historian, received a very lengthy and sarcastic letter from the famous Doctor Priestley, of Birmingham. Priestley blamed Gibbon for his covert mode of attacking Christianity, and observed that Servetus was more to be admired for his courage ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman
... ribs, keel, stem-post, and stern-post by means of innumerable pins of wood or iron, called tree-nails. The spaces between the planks are caulked—that is, stuffed with oakum; which substance is simply the untwisted tow of old and tarry ropes. A figure-head of some ornamental kind having been placed on the top and front of the stem-post, just above the cutwater, and a flat, ornamental stern, with windows in it to light the cabin, the hull of our ship is complete. But the ...
— Man on the Ocean - A Book about Boats and Ships • R.M. Ballantyne
... and profitable reasons for crying up the works of this poet. When I was a very little boy, there was a jubilee in honour of SHAKSPEARE, and as he was said to have planted a Mulberry tree, boxes, and other little ornamental things in wood, were sold all over the country, as having been made out of the trunk or limbs of this ancient and sacred tree. We Protestants laugh at the relics so highly prized by Catholics; but never was a Catholic people half so much duped by the relics of saints, as this nation was ...
— Advice to Young Men • William Cobbett
... Ornamental gardening, too, was now changing its complexion. Dutch William was dead and buried. Addison had written in praise of the natural disposition of the gardens of Fontainebleau, and, at his place near Rugby, was carrying out, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 77, March, 1864 • Various
... the old English parks which I had seen on my visits there to distant relatives during the holidays. It was pleasant to think while wandering under the trees, and over the splendid wastes of flowers, and ornamental shrubs, and trees, that in this wide, vast America no one need be defrauded of his portion of mother earth by this immense flower garden; since there was more than sufficient land for every anxious toiler. To me there was an exceeding luxury in this reflection; for often on those lovely Kentish ...
— Medoline Selwyn's Work • Mrs. J. J. Colter
... beautiful trees, possibly the expression of a reaction from the sentiment of the pioneers who regarded trees as their enemies, handicaps to agriculture to be removed as thoroughly and expeditiously as possible. But with virgin soil producing enormous crops, they naturally centered their interest on ornamental trees without reference to their fruits. Hence the horse-chestnut, buck-eye, maple, locust, oak, poplar, along the highways and byways of America, instead of the native nut trees and the ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Sixth Annual Meeting. Rochester, New York, September 1 and 2, 1915 • Various
... Isabelle to take hold of it and bear her whole weight on it, until the branch was bent as far as possible towards the chateau—coming five or six feet nearer to the window where they were. Then Chiquita tied the cord firmly to the ornamental iron railing of the tiny balcony, with a knot that could not slip, climbed over, and grasping the cord with both hands, swung herself off, and hung suspended over the waters of the moat far below. Isabelle held her breath. With a rapid motion of the hands Chiquita crossed the ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... the cap and embedded in its ridges. A part of the volva remains as a sheath at the base of the stem. This plant develops so rapidly as to attain in a few hours the height of seven inches, the stem is of lace-like structure, pure white, and its appearance suggests the silicious sponge so ornamental in collections, commonly known as Venus' basket. The drooping cap is also lacey with a network, and the spores drip mucus and then dry up, in the meantime spreading around a carrion-like, fetid smell. The Phallus, ...
— Among the Mushrooms - A Guide For Beginners • Ellen M. Dallas and Caroline A. Burgin
... thinking," he said; "that's what I've been thinking. After Weybridge I went south—thinking. I saw what was up. Most of the people were hard at it squealing and exciting themselves. But I'm not so fond of squealing. I've been in sight of death once or twice; I'm not an ornamental soldier, and at the best and worst, death—it's just death. And it's the man that keeps on thinking comes through. I saw everyone tracking away south. Says I, 'Food won't last this way,' and I turned right back. I went for the Martians ...
— The War of the Worlds • H. G. Wells
... The big ornamental letter was now becoming very bright and gay, Alfred looking upon it as finished; ...
— The King's Sons • George Manville Fenn
... is a trifle over fifty feet from the ground. The pedestal comprises a base about thirty inches high, with well-rounded corners of molded brick work. The pedestal proper is five feet six inches in diameter, ten feet in height, and a cornice, ornamental in style, about three feet in height. From this rises a tapering shaft of about twenty-eight feet. The whole is surmounted by a capstone eighteen inches high. Three stories are told ...
— Christopher Columbus and His Monument Columbia • Various
... especially the chief people, are very clean and neat in their persons and clothing, and of pleasing address and grace. They dress their hair carefully, and regard it as being more ornamental when it is very black. They wash it with water in which has been boiled the bark of a tree called gogo. [55] They anoint it with aljonjoli oil, prepared with musk, and other perfumes. All are very careful of their teeth, which from a very ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XVI, 1609 • H.E. Blair
... me a pile of stockings to look over, lest Satan should find some more ornamental use for my idle hands; so I asked Mr. Dane for his socks too; and pretended that I should consider it a slight upon my skill ...
— The Motor Maid • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... touching the propriety of embarking in the trade at all. It was true, that our knowledge of the Chinese customs did not extend far enough to render it certain that the wood was used for the purpose of burning before idols, some pretending it was made into ornamental furniture; but Friend Abraham White had heard the first, and was disposed to provide a set-off, in the event of the report's being true, by endeavouring to do something towards the civilization of the heathen. Had he been ...
— The Crater • James Fenimore Cooper
... the Chhipas dye cloths in red, blue or black, with ornamental patterns picked out on them in black and white. Formerly their principal agent was the al or Indian mulberry (Morinda citrifolia), from which a rich red dye is obtained. But this indigenous product has been ousted by alizarin, a colouring agent made from coal-tar, which is imported from Germany, ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume II • R. V. Russell
... recommended the removal of the galilee as being an encumbrance. The roof was ruinous, the walls were in bad condition; it was "neither ornamental nor useful"; it would cost a large sum to put it into decent repair. Happily this advice was not followed. In the course of the renovation then undertaken it was discovered that the remains of an older porch had been incorporated ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Ely • W. D. Sweeting
... in front of the sofa there used always to be a heavy coloured cloth, and then put diamond-wise a light embroidered or lace one. A vase of artificial or real flowers, according to taste, stood exactly in the middle, and a few books in ornamental bindings on either side. There would be very few ornaments, but these few would be good of their kind, though probably hideous. Luckily the family did not assemble here on State occasions. For every-day use there was a Wohnzimmer soberly furnished with solid ...
— Home Life in Germany • Mrs. Alfred Sidgwick
... heads, the sacrificial act itself, were all such as he could imagine from ancient Greece. Indeed, the whole picture is like a copy of an antique bas-relief; and in the original cartoon there is, below the picture, a decorative border studied from antique sculpture, and below that still an ornamental edge which was very ...
— Raphael - A Collection Of Fifteen Pictures And A Portrait Of The - Painter With Introduction And Interpretation • Estelle M. Hurll
... Enquin our "tin hats" which had recently been shorn of their questionably ornamental or useful sandbags, with which we had been ordered to keep them covered, were painted a dull green, with, for some curious reason, the Transport sign (dark blue square), and narrow light green stripe on the left (denoting 8th ...
— The Sherwood Foresters in the Great War 1914 - 1919 - History of the 1/8th Battalion • W.C.C. Weetman
... result of accident; the two sexes pair as they happen to meet each other. The great points on which Mr. Darwin rests his argument are that in some cases, on the approach of breeding-time, certain ornamental appendages become more highly developed or more brilliantly coloured, [Footnote: Descent of Man, vol. ii. p. 80.] and that in many cases the males, when courting the females, are observed to display their ornaments before them. [Footnote: ...
— The Story of Creation as told by Theology and by Science • T. S. Ackland
... was evident that she had been carried away by some of those who had attacked our village, and that she must have been taken to Erivan, as the nearest market for slaves, for such was no doubt the purpose for which she had been seized. My sword, pistols, and gun, which had formed part of the ornamental furniture of my bridal chamber, were found buried in its ruins, and with these for my protection, and with some pieces of silver in my purse, I bid adieu to Gavmishlu, making a vow never to return until I had ...
— The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan • James Morier
... buggy-horse, a magnificent iron-gray, and Persimmon, her cousin's riding-horse, a beautiful cream-colored mare with black, flowing mane and tail, and Green Persimmon, her colt, which was like its mother, and scarcely less beautiful. Besides, there were horses and mules which, if not so ornamental, were indispensable. Oh, these must be run off and saved,—but how? Goaded by these thoughts, and upon the impulse of the moment, the girl ordered a sidesaddle to be put upon old "Whitey," and, hastily mounting, belabored ...
— Memories - A Record of Personal Experience and Adventure During Four Years of War • Fannie A. (Mrs.) Beers
... over the foothills near the sea. Those on the lower side of the streets that run parallel to the harbor have gardens walled up on the rear, while the houses on the upper side of the streets have massive retaining walls. These give opportunity for many ornamental gateways. ...
— The Critic in the Orient • George Hamlin Fitch
... I were a woman, should support my fears with more dignity; for if one did lose a husband or a lover, there are those becoming comforts, weeds and cypresses, jointures and weeping cupids; but I have only a friend or two to lose, and there are no ornamental substitutes settled, to be one's proxy for that sort of grief. One has not the satisfaction of fixing a day for receiving visits of consolation from a thousand people whom one don't love, because one has lost the only person one did love. This is a new situation, and ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... seated around a very tastefully furnished table in a dining-room looking out upon a pretty lawn. The rain had now almost ceased, and from the window I could see beautiful stretches of grass, interspersed with ornamental ...
— A Bicycle of Cathay • Frank R. Stockton
... the great, bear-like grasp of his captor, across the wet sidewalk, to the foot of a flight of brownstone steps. These steps were wide and ponderous, and led up to an equally wide and ponderous-looking doorway crowned with ornamental figures of marble on a sandstone background. These carven figures, wet and glistening in the light of the street-lamps, stood out incongruously gloomy and ghostly, like the ...
— Phantom Wires - A Novel • Arthur Stringer
... I who praised her, even when I found her stuff rather poor. It was I who brought her into literary circles where she could gather honey from our most ornamental literary flowers. It was I who used my personal influence to keep the critics from her throat. It was I who blew her faith in herself into flame; blew on it until I lost my own breath. I gave, gave, gave—until I had nothing left for myself. ...
— Plays by August Strindberg, Second series • August Strindberg
... my natural grace! I took a few lessons of a wandering minstrel, out home, but I don't know the technique of it, as you and that ornamental captain do." ...
— Patty's Butterfly Days • Carolyn Wells
... description of Queen Marguerite cannot be dismissed without observing, if only for the sake of keeping the fashion of the present times with her sex in countenance, that, though she had hair, as has been already described, becoming her, and sufficiently ornamental in itself, yet she occasionally called in the aid of wigs. Brantome's words are: "l'artifice de perruques bien ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... Chambers of Commerce and other ornamental organizations who, being entirely uninformed on the subject, permit themselves to become the conduits through which the misrepresentation and animosity of avaricious creditors and rapacious attorneys are discharged upon Congress ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... these criticisms by saying that I have written it for the benefit of those who know nothing of the art, and are too much engaged to seek information here and there; who yet, being women, have to select and to execute ornamental needlework; or, being artists, are vexed at the incongruities and want of intention in the decorations in daily domestic use; I have also sought to help the designer, that he or she may know something of the history of patterns ...
— Needlework As Art • Marian Alford
... approached nearer, he noted the dark, tumbledown building, which looked as though it had been a ruin for centuries, dismal and uninhabited. Only one thing was noteworthy. The door, a stout one heavily barred with ornamental straps of ancient and rusty iron, was fitted with strong, modern hinges, and had been closely fitted in anew frame. Warren's keen eye quickly grasped these details as he sauntered past, and stopped before 'the building, but what he did not see, and could not guess, was the tiny auger hole bored ...
— The Boy Scouts in Front of Warsaw • Colonel George Durston
... Rural cottage, L. 1 E., adjoining which, and projecting on stage an inside view of a dairy with sloping roof, painting backing to look like milk pans. The whole scene should have a picturesque appearance. Garden fence run across back, ornamental gate or archway, R. 3 E. Pigeon house on pole near dairy, L. C. Spinning wheel inside cottage door, one or two rustic benches, ...
— Our American Cousin • Tom Taylor
... missed. He was at his early mass of thanksgiving at present, and Bertram was so much better that Nurse Agnes did not withstand his desire to rise and join the household and villagers, who were all collected in the building, low and massive, but on which Edgar Atheling had lavished the rich ornamental work introduced by the Normans. The round arched doorway was set in a succession of elaborate zigzags, birds' heads, lions' faces, twists and knots; and within, the altar- hangings and the priest's robes were stiff with the exquisite ...
— More Bywords • Charlotte M. Yonge
... by his boat. The feeling on board the other craft as they got out of the way of the Bulldog, and nearly ran down her boat, and then, in avoiding that, nearly ran down something else, cannot be put into plain English, but several captains ventured into the domains of the ornamental ...
— Many Cargoes • W.W. Jacobs
... what was the difference between a crozier and a pastoral staff. The crozier (Crocia, Mediaeval Latin), Fr. Crosse, Ital. Rocco Pastorale, German. Bischofstab, is the ornamental staff used by archbishops and legates, and derives its name from the cross which surmounts it. A crozier behind a pall is borne on the primatial arms of Canterbury. The use of the crozier can only be traced back to the 12th century. Cavendish mentions "two great ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 50. Saturday, October 12, 1850 • Various
... Indian ink; screens, ornamented with moss and dried leaves; paintings on velvet, and such faintly ornamental works were displayed on one side of the shop. It was always reckoned a mark of characteristic gentility in the repository, to have only common heavy-framed sash-windows, which admitted very little light, ...
— My Lady Ludlow • Elizabeth Gaskell
... his disapprobation of ornamental architecture, such as magnificent columns supporting a portico, or expensive pilasters supporting merely their own capitals, 'because it consumes labour disproportionate to its utility.' For the same reason he satyrised statuary. 'Painting (said ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell
... had been published by the Religious Tract Society, no doubt in her mother's girlhood. The frontispiece, a steel engraving, showed a group of girls feeding some swans by the terraced margin of an ornamental water, and it bore the legend, "Feeding the Swans." And on the title- page was the text: "That our daughters may be as corner-stones, polished after the similitude of a palace. Psalm cxliv. 12." In the table of contents were such phrases as: "One thing at a time. Darkness ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... glass can be obtained in much greater variety than is usually known, from the most minute in size to large varieties of all kinds of shapes and patterns, the colours of most of them being particularly good. The larger ornamental beads are useful in many ways, sometimes taking the place ...
— Embroidery and Tapestry Weaving • Grace Christie
... discard much. Wentworth had not yet felt the need of discarding anything, and he had not the smallest intention of doing so. He intended instead to make a small ornamental addition, a sort of portico, to his life. His mind had got itself made up this afternoon, and he contemplated the proposed addition with ...
— Prisoners - Fast Bound In Misery And Iron • Mary Cholmondeley
... appears in two forms. Manifestly the Gothic does not lend itself to a cursive form so that the two types which appear are the set or upright, similar in its characteristics to the corresponding book hand, and the ornamental or calligraphic which, as its name implies, was an ornamental type of the set hand. The third type was the letter hand, used by persons who were not professional penmen in correspondence and the ordinary uses to which handwriting ...
— Books Before Typography - Typographic Technical Series for Apprentices #49 • Frederick W. Hamilton
... draw the calls of two or three old New York families who had hitherto stood upon their dignity, and refused to acknowledge the shoddy aristocracy. The beautiful Mrs. John Seymour, therefore, was no less useful than ornamental, and advanced Mrs. Follingsbee's purposes ...
— Pink and White Tyranny - A Society Novel • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... thoughtful, sensitive, earnest, kind men, large in their views of life, and full of various intellectual power. And farther, when you examine the men in whom the gifts of art are variously mingled, or universally mingled, you will discern that the ornamental, or pleasurable power, though it may be possessed by good men, is not in itself an indication of their goodness, but is rather, unless balanced by other faculties, indicative of violence of temper, inclining to cruelty and to irreligion. On the other hand, so sure as ...
— The Two Paths • John Ruskin
... liberties, disposed of its finances, overruled the constitutional legislators, suppressed and excluded the popular element from all voice in public affairs, and finally reduced the nominal prince—the doge—to a mere puppet or an ornamental functionary, still called ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... of fine linen hid a heart set on things higher than this world and its vanities. Nor do the objects of daily use found in the tombs suggest any austerity in the Egyptian character. There is no reflection of the Underworld to be looked for in the ornamental bronze mirrors, nor smell of death in the frail perfume pots. Religious abstraction is not to be sought in lotus-formed drinking-cups, and mortification of the body is certainly not practised on golden chairs and soft ...
— The Treasury of Ancient Egypt - Miscellaneous Chapters on Ancient Egyptian History and Archaeology • Arthur E. P. B. Weigall
... hid him even from himself. He is not found again until a time of the night that is not marked on ornamental clocks, but has an hour to itself on the watch which a hundred thousand or so of London women carry in their breasts; the hour when men steal homewards trickling at the mouth and drawing back from their own shadows to the wives they once went a-maying with, or the mothers ...
— Sentimental Tommy - The Story of His Boyhood • J. M. Barrie
... man walking in the Burlington Arcade? Yes, I will say so, but, I will add, the most gentlemanly young man that ever walked in the Burlington. Mr Stevenson is competent to understand any thought that might be presented to him, but if he were to use it, it would instantly become neat, sharp, ornamental, light, and graceful, and it would lose all its original richness and harmony. It is not Mr Stevenson's brain that prevents him from being a thinker, but ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore
... at the palace of Hampton Court, stood King William III. leaning against a gilt railing, placed round some ornamental objects, near one of the windows. The famous Lord Keeper Somers stood beside him, while, at a little distance behind appeared Keppel, Lord Albemarle, and before him, a tall, fine-looking man, somewhat past the middle age, slight, but dignified in his ...
— The King's Highway • G. P. R. James
... had considerable pretensions to baronial dignity. The architecture was of the most enriched and elaborate style belonging to the reign of James the First: the porch, opening on the terrace, with its mullion window above, was encased with pilasters and reliefs at once ornamental and massive; and the large square tower in which it was placed was surmounted by a stone falcon, whose talons griped fiercely a scutcheon blazoned with the five-pointed stars which heralds recognize as the ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... only in her fourteenth year; but the Sachem was resolved that she should be worthy of the hand of the greatest warriors of her tribe, and he took pains to have her instructed in every art that was considered valuable or ornamental to an Indian female. Already she could perform the most elaborate patterns in native embroidery on her father's pouches and moccasins; and her own garments were also delicately and fancifully adorned in the same manner, with feathers, and shells, and colored grasses. ...
— The Pilgrims of New England - A Tale Of The Early American Settlers • Mrs. J. B. Webb
... from time immemorial in the construction of buttons, heads for their pipes, and many other purposes. Of late years it has found its way into the hands of civilised artisans; and, since it can be procured at a cheaper rate, and is quite equal to the real ivory for many useful and ornamental articles, it has become an ...
— Bruin - The Grand Bear Hunt • Mayne Reid
... shall prosper in proportion as we learn to dignify and glorify common labor and put brains and skill into the common occupations of life; shall prosper in proportion as we learn to draw the line between the superficial and the substantial, the ornamental gewgaws of life and the useful. No race can prosper till it learns that there is as much dignity in tilling a field as in writing a poem. It is at the bottom of life we must begin, and not at the top. Nor should we permit our grievances ...
— Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence - The Best Speeches Delivered by the Negro from the days of - Slavery to the Present Time • Various
... station and the thronging neighbourhood of the trees, the pile rose conspicuous like a cathedral. Behind, as we continued to skirt the park wall, I began to make out a straggling town of offices which became conjoined to the rear with those of the home farm. On the left was an ornamental water sailed in by many swans. On the right extended a flower garden, laid in the old manner, and at this season of the year as brilliant as stained glass. The front of the house presented a facade of more than sixty windows, surmounted by a formal pediment and raised upon a terrace. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... I hope, find you settled to your serious studies, and your necessary exercises at Turin, after the hurry and the dissipation of the Carnival at Venice. I mean that your stay at Turin should, and I flatter myself that it will, be an useful and ornamental period of your education; but at the same time I must tell you, that all my affection for you has never yet given me so much anxiety, as that which I now feel. While you are in danger, I shall be in fear; and you are in danger at Turin. Mr. Harte will by his care arm you as well as he can against ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... last Sunday. The young bridegroom and bride sat together on two stools in the middle of the church. They were simply and plainly dressed in clean white "sillapaks," i.e., light calico tunics edged with broad braid, mostly red. The woman's was rather more ornamental than the man's, and had a longer tail hanging over her skirts. She had a ring on one finger, but that played no part in the ceremony. In his opening address the minister named the pair. William Tuktusna comes from the South, and possesses ...
— With the Harmony to Labrador - Notes Of A Visit To The Moravian Mission Stations On The North-East - Coast Of Labrador • Benjamin La Trobe
... oven, or they will sink and be nothing more than an ordinary pudding; when done take it out, sprinkle powdered sugar over and send the souflee to table in the dish in which it was baked, either with a napkin pinned around or inclosed in a more ornamental dish; serve with wine, cream, ...
— Desserts and Salads • Gesine Lemcke
... work of the civilian authorities, and the advice of the soldiers was very generally disregarded. The results, it need hardly be said, were deplorable. The Northern wiseacres considered cavalry an encumbrance and a staff a mere ornamental appendage. McClellan, in consequence, was always in difficulties for the want of mounted regiments; and while many regular officers were retained in the command of batteries and companies, the important ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... an elegant name for special occasions, such as might occur once or twice in a lifetime, but seems to me something less ornamental, like 'Jim,' for instance, would be better for everyday use. I wonder if he would mind ...
— Under the Great Bear • Kirk Munroe
... opposite us, that has been empty for so long. It's a small house,—nurse says it used to be a stable, and was turned into a dwelling-house since she has lived here,—set quite a good way back from the street, and with a low stoop to one side and a piazza off that. A tall iron railing, with an ornamental gate, encloses a front yard in which are some forlorn-looking shrubs, a rosebush or two, and a couple of scraggy altheas. Workmen had been about the place for some time, putting everything in order, ...
— We Ten - Or, The Story of the Roses • Lyda Farrington Kraus
... did not think the February breeze cold enough to demand further covering than her green woollen dress. A mantle would have been oppressive, for it would have hidden a new necklace and a new clasp, mounted with silver, the only ornamental presents Tito had ever made her. Tessa did not think at all of showing her figure, for no one had ever told her it was pretty; but she was quite sure that her necklace and clasp were of the prettiest sort ever worn by the richest contadina, and she arranged her white hood over her head ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... been in active service. "If a volunteer organization is fit to decide the great wars of the nation, is it not ridiculous to keep an expensive organization of regulars for the petty contests with Indians or for an ornamental appendage to the State in peace?" The thing to be aimed at seemed to me to be to have a system flexible enough to provide for the increase of the army to any size required, without losing any of the advantage of character ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V1 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... one of the best-known kinds, having been extensively cultivated as an ornamental greenhouse plant till within the last few years. It was grown by several nurserymen for Covent Garden Market about eight years ago; small plants, about 1 ft. high, and bearing each from two to six flowers, finding much ...
— Cactus Culture For Amateurs • W. Watson
... already alluded to the ornamental character of Burgundian Gothic contrasting with the severity of the communal period. Luxury rather than strength is aimed at by the architects of the hotels de ville and other well-known monuments of the period, ...
— Belgium - From the Roman Invasion to the Present Day • Emile Cammaerts
... coloring of the blossoms is beautiful, and I hated to be killing it. I just cut the grass short all around it. Then I started at the ground, trimmed up the trunk near the height of me shoulder, and left the top spreading. That made it look so truly ornamental that, idle like, I chips off the rough places neat, and this morning, on me soul, it's a sight! You see, cutting off the limbs and trimming up the trunk sets the sap running. In this hot sun it ferments ...
— Freckles • Gene Stratton-Porter
... substantial luxury which became the inferior apartments of a palace. She came at last to a room which she took to be the butler's office, where there were dressers with a great array of costly Venetian glass, and a great many pieces of silver—cups, tankards, salvers, and other ornamental plate—in presses behind glazed doors. One of the glass panels had been broken, and the shelves in ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... Tiflis before my eyes; walls of the citadels, belfries of the temples belonging to the different religions, a metropolitan church with its double cross, houses of Russian, Persian, or Armenian construction; a few roofs, but many terraces; a few ornamental frontages, but many balconies and verandas; then two well-marked zones, the lower zone remaining Georgian, the higher zone, more modern, traversed by a long boulevard planted with fine trees, among which is seen the palace of ...
— The Adventures of a Special Correspondent • Jules Verne
... she who had moaned. My feelings as I lifted her to a bunk were mixed. Being a reactionary, I still felt that woman's place was not in the Army or Navy. Yet I confess that the woman—or girl, rather—was ornamental. She was of the Iberian type. She was beautiful, and looked helpless. Some atavistic trait of the protective instinct in man made me take a little more pains in caring for her than I might ...
— The Winged Men of Orcon - A Complete Novelette • David R. Sparks
... The Virginia State Audubon Society was organized at Falls Church, September 29, 1903. The objects of the society are to protect our native birds, to discourage the buying and wearing for ornamental purposes of the feathers of all birds other than the ostrich and domesticated fowls, and to promote a popular interest in bird study. The present officers are: President, John B. Henderson; 1st Vice President, Wm. C. Pennywitt; 2nd Vice President, Nathan ...
— A Virginia Village • Charles A. Stewart
... a pet theory of his as against one held by Jim; and Bill marks it with a chuckle and four crosses at the corners—and an extra one at each side perhaps—and sends it on to Jim; he reckons it'll rather corner old Jim. The crosses are not over ornamental nor artistic, but very distinct; Jim sees them from the reverse side of the sheet first, maybe, and turns it over with interest to see what it is. He grins a good-humoured grin as he reads—poor old Bill is just as thick-headed ...
— While the Billy Boils • Henry Lawson
... Number Nine, and spend a few weeks with her there. As this was accounted a great privilege by the two younger sisters, they quietly shelved her, and told her that they were to have their own way at home; so Miss Snow became ornamental and critical. Miss Butterworth had spent the night with her, and they had talked like a pair of school-girls until the small hours of the morning. The two younger girls had slept together, and discussed at length the duties of their ...
— Sevenoaks • J. G. Holland
... been a clear understanding of Style as the living body of thought, and not its "dress," which might be more or less ornamental, the error I am noticing would not have spread so widely. But, naturally, when men regarded the grace of style as mere grace of manner, and not as the delicate precision giving form and relief to matter—as mere ornament, stuck ...
— The Principles of Success in Literature • George Henry Lewes
... Gardener, Rural Economist, and New American Gardener, containing a Compendious Epitome of the most Important Branches of Agricultural and Rural Economy; with Practical Directions on the Cultivation of Fruits and Vegetables; including Landscape and Ornamental Gardening. By Thomas G. Fessenden 2 vols. in ...
— Mysteries of Bee-keeping Explained • M. Quinby
... majesty with an ample provision of every article which, during our intercourse with his country, we had observed to be in any estimation there, either as useful or as ornamental. He had, besides, received many presents of the same nature from Lord Sandwich, Sir Joseph Banks, and several other gentlemen and ladies of his acquaintance. In short, every method had been employed, both during his abode in England, and at his departure, to make him the instrument of ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 15 (of 18) • Robert Kerr
... to those who would desert the royal cause. No words can exaggerate the self-abnegation of those men. I have seen a supper party under my father's roof where our guests were two fencing-masters, three professors of language, one ornamental gardener, and one translator of books, who held his hand in the front of his coat to conceal a rent in the lapel. But these eight men were of the highest nobility of France, who might have had what they chose to ask if they would only consent to forget the past, and to throw themselves heartily ...
— Uncle Bernac - A Memory of the Empire • Arthur Conan Doyle
... the hat, the struggle came to a sudden pause at sight of a tall figure leaning heavily and in evident pain against one of the ornamental iron fences which prevailed along this street. At once proffering his assistance, he recognised Mr. Knight, ...
— The Little Red Chimney - Being the Love Story of a Candy Man • Mary Finley Leonard
... Henry Harrod remarked that "If the view engraved by King correctly represents this house, it was by no means an ornamental feature; still it was as good as the far more pretentious structure which ...
— Three Centuries of a City Library • George A. Stephen
... in the centre of the room was an ornamental iron grating, between the apertures of which there now appeared about an inch and a half of brass tube, like the end of a big peashooter. A moment later there was a prodigious puff, and four "throw-downs" exploded with a simultaneous ...
— Soldiers of the Queen • Harold Avery
... with that same uncomfortable smile, "here's my old shipmate, O'Brien; s'pose you was to heave him overboard. I ain't partic'lar as a rule, and I don't take no blame for settling his hash, but I don't reckon him ornamental now, do you?" ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Cotton Factory has been erected on a portion of the site of the Refinery, Laboratory and Incorporating Mills, and so arranged that the Confederate obelisk stands conspicuously in front of the centre; the battlemented and ornamental architecture of the Powder Works was adopted in the construction of the Factory buildings, which give them a fine and ...
— History of the Confederate Powder Works • Geo. W. Rains
... striking variety prefers to attract bees, and the larger insects for cross-fertilization, and it has therefore assumed brilliant crimson petals of a broadly expanded sort, instead of bearing a succulent edible fruit, This is the highly ornamental Pyrus Japonica, which may so often be seen trained on the ...
— Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure • William Thomas Fernie
... rarely equalled. Les Gobelins, the carpets of the Savonnerie, the porcelaine de Sevres, were all, at her request, declared Manufactures Royales. Some of the finest specimens of the products of Sevres, in ornamental groups of figures, were modelled and painted by Mme. de Pompadour, as presents to the queen.... The name of Pompadour is, indeed, intimately associated with a whole school of art of the Louis Quinze period—art so inimitable in its grace and elegance that it has stood the ...
— Women of Modern France - Woman In All Ages And In All Countries • Hugo P. Thieme
... be understood here as opposing the erection of good, substantial, and even ornamental buildings by the Government wherever such buildings are needed. In fact, I approve of the Government owning its own buildings in all sections of the country, and hope the day is not far distant when it will not only possess them, but will ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Ulysses S. Grant • Ulysses S. Grant
... lawyer made his parting bow, and drove off along a somewhat rough road through two pasture fields. The first gate, white and ornamental, was held open for him by an old man in a short white smock and long leathern gaiters, the second his own servant opened, the third was held by half a dozen shock-headed children, with their backs against it and hands held out, but in vain; he only smacked his driving-whip over their heads, and ...
— The Carbonels • Charlotte M. Yonge
... saying that the man was gone, but that he, Joe, had left word at the Three Jolly Bargemen concerning the notes. Then my sister sealed them up in a piece of paper, and put them under some dried rose-leaves in an ornamental teapot on the top of a press in the state parlor. There they remained, a nightmare to me, many and many ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... been sorry for that,' replied Mr. Puffington, adding, 'the Flat Hat Hunt could ill afford to lose so useful and ornamental ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... presents a finished specimen of joinery, with a tasteful display of ornamental carving. Its colour is a deep warm or, we think, burnt sienna, brown; the furniture is in recherche rusticated style, planned by Mr. Gray, whose taste in these matters is elaborately correct; and it requires but the social blaze ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 544, April 28, 1832 • Various
... criticism to see that the new Wessex Poems did not fall into this accidental category, and still, after twenty years, there survives a tendency to take the verse of Mr. Hardy, abundant and solid as it has become, as a mere subsidiary and ornamental appendage to his novels. It is still necessary to insist on the complete independence of his career as a poet, and to point out that if he had never published a page of prose he would deserve to rank high among the writers of his country on the score of the eight volumes ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse
... this subject is the universal brilliancy with which they are lighted up. The natural language of the passions is, indeed, often figurative and fantastic; and with none is this more the case than with that of love. Still there is a limit. The feelings should, indeed, have their ornamental garb; but, like an elegant woman, they should be neither muffled nor exposed. The drapery should be so arranged, as at once to answer the purposes of modest concealment and judicious display. The decorations should sometimes be employed to hide a defect, and sometimes to heighten a beauty; but never ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Contibutions to Knight's Quarterly Magazine] • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... Atkinsi (some such name, for it is long since I planted my last yucca) with drooping leaves of golden-purple. You will be surprised at the number of agaves in flower here. The reason is, that they are liable to be moved about for ornamental purposes when they want to be at rest; the plant, more sensitive and fastidious than it looks, is outraged by this forceful perambulation and, in an access of premature senility, or suicidal mania, or sheer ...
— Alone • Norman Douglas
... of mining discovery, how often has the resources of a great mine been made known and available to human enterprise by the crude, simple apparatus of a travelling prospector, and how many hopeless and worthless "properties" have swallowed the contributions of a gullable public through the ornamental reports of the skilled and cultured proprietor of ...
— Colonial Born - A tale of the Queensland bush • G. Firth Scott
... and perfect religious sympathy to his other cousin, King Ferdinand himself. The case seemed hopeless, but the Elector went to Munich, and held conferences with his cousin. Not willing to take No for an answer so long as it was veiled under evasive or ornamental phraseology, he continued to negotiate with Maximilian through his envoys Camerarius and Secretary Neu, who held long debates with the Duke's chief councillor, Doctor Jocher. Camerarius assured Jocher that his master was the Hercules ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... Japanese female costume, different articles of dress were called by this name. In the present instance, the hir['e] referred to was probably a white scarf, worn about the neck and carried over the shoulders to the breast, where its ends were either allowed to hang loose, or were tied into an ornamental knot. The hir['e] was often used to make signals with, much as handkerchiefs are waved to-day for the same purpose;—and the question uttered in the poem seems to signify: "Can that be Tanabata ...
— The Romance of the Milky Way - And Other Studies & Stories • Lafcadio Hearn
... reference it is of the highest utility; as an ornamental book it is unsurpassed; and as a guide to the traveller it has no equal in ...
— The Manual of Heraldry; Fifth Edition • Anonymous
... Quixotic for the sober requirements of Yankee warfare. When anything absurd, forlorn, or desperate was to be attempted, the Irish brigade was called upon. But, ordinarily, they were regarded, as a party of mad fellows, more ornamental than useful, and entirely too clannish and factious to be entrusted with power. Meagher himself seemed to be less erratic than his subordinates; for he had married a New York lady, and had learned, by observation, the superiority of the pelfish, ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... not the ornamentation your friend objects to?[4] If it is, I would observe that there is no evidence of progress in the decorative and ornamental arts during the Ming Dynasty; and even in the Jesuit instruments that part of the work is purely Chinese, excepting in one instrument, which I am persuaded must have been made ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... wet summer,—the inmates of the cottage passed their evenings at Diodati, and, when the rain rendered it inconvenient for them to return home, remained there to sleep. "We often," says one, who was not the least ornamental of the party, "sat up in conversation till the morning light. There was never any lack of subjects, and, grave or gay, we ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. III - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... narrow, unfrequented street—a corner like an elbow—and, as seen from the exterior, there was nothing prepossessing to recommend it; but the outer door led by a short hall or passage to an inner door or grille, made of open ornamental iron-work, and through that we entered a court, or patio, as they I called it. Nothing could be more lovely or deliciously cool than was this small court. The building on each side was covered by trellis-work; and beautiful creepers, vines, ...
— John Bull on the Guadalquivir from Tales from all Countries • Anthony Trollope
... commenced. We had now penetrated to the actual foot of the Pass without the smallest difficulty, it now remained to ascend by a steep slope to the level of its entrance. This slope is occupied by a very close wood, in which red cedar, sassafras, palms, and other ornamental inter-tropical trees are frequent. Through this shaded wood lye penetrated, climbing up a steep bank of a very rich loose earth, in which large fragments of a very compact rock are embedded. At length we gained the foot of a wall of bare rock, which we found stretching from the southward ...
— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc
... the immediate vicinity of the graves were scattered the osseous remains of a number of horses which had been sacrificed, no doubt, during the funeral ceremonies. In one of the graves, said to contain the body of a chief, in addition to a number of articles useful and ornamental, were found parts of the skeleton of a boy, and tradition states that a captive boy was buried alive at ...
— A Further Contribution to the Study of the Mortuary Customs of the North American Indians • H.C. Yarrow
... smooth gleam over the mango wood chest, and he bent, turning the key in the ornamental brass lock. He could reconsider the disposal of the opium to-morrow; there was no hurry; he had no intention of becoming a victim to the drug. That would be an inconceivable stupidity, the negation of all the philosophy he had gained. ...
— Java Head • Joseph Hergesheimer
... the good Tyrolese, however, would call them monks and nuns dwelling in cells, rather than "citizens." Formerly they delighted in erecting the most ornamental dwellings which they could devise for them, helping them in their constant toil by planting balmy thyme and other sweet honey-yielding flowers around the hives. These were constructed of wood, gayly painted with holy monograms and devices to add a blessing ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 30. September, 1873 • Various
... all but the very summit, where they stopped. Tricksey-Wee and Buffy-Bob could see above them a great globe of feathers, that finished off the mountain like an ornamental knob. ...
— The Light Princess and Other Fairy Stories • George MacDonald
... Chestnut-street, opposite the Arcade. After dinner, Matthew Williams drove me to the water-works, Fairmount, where there is a magnificent view of the town. Philadelphia is most bountifully provided with fresh water, which is showered and jerked about in all directions. The Water-works are no less ornamental than useful, being tastefully laid out as a public garden, and kept in the best order. The river is dammed and forced by its own powers into certain high tanks or reservoirs, whence the whole city, to the top stories, is supplied at 5 dollars a tap. It was a ...
— Journal of a Voyage across the Atlantic • George Moore
... just as the Beautiful and the Good assimilate, as we trace them to their source in Truth. While art becomes more practical, it loses none of its beauty. In the infancy of science, it was mainly devoted to the illustration of the fanciful and ornamental. Even architecture, in the early ages, looked less to permanent comfort than to artistic effect. But everything now tends to realization. Poetry and art fall in with this influence of the age. Science is every day taking man away from the ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3 No 2, February 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... sharply and hurried back to the centre of the gallery where the great cabinet stood, to find it on the two sides he examined perfectly intact; but the other two sides of the big ornamental piece of furniture fell to the chamberlain's examination, and he was so startled by the discovery he made that he remained silent and stood there with ...
— The King's Esquires - The Jewel of France • George Manville Fenn
... ground, they were forced to sink great weights of stone and rubble to secure the foundation, and did all this out of the money Cimon supplied them with. It was he, likewise, who first embellished the upper city with those fine and ornamental places of exercise and resort, which they afterward so much frequented and delighted in. He set the market-place with plane trees; and the Academy, which was before a bare, dry, and dirty spot, he converted into a well-watered grove, with shady alleys to walk ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... had been if unsymmetrical, but bettered always by increasing degrees of symmetry; as in star figures, wherein there is a circular symmetry of many like members, whence their frequent use for the plan and ground of ornamental designs; so also it is observable that foliage in which the leaves are concentrically grouped, as in the chestnuts, and many shrubs—rhododendrons for instance—(whence the perfect beauty of the Alpine rose)—is far nobler in its effect than any other, so that ...
— Modern Painters Volume II (of V) • John Ruskin
... diamond necklace and jewell" should be sent to England to purchase six diamond rings and two black tombstones, the latter to be placed over her grave and that of her second husband, at the churchyard at Lynnhaven. Since all things ornamental were under a ban during the Commonwealth in England, it is not surprising that Mrs. Yeardley's necklace did not bring even the price of the two tombstones, which cost L19 7s., while the diamond ornament brought only L15. Yet, the tombstones, the inscriptions ...
— Domestic Life in Virginia in the Seventeenth Century - Jamestown 350th Anniversary Historical Booklet Number 17 • Annie Lash Jester
... opposite Waterloo-Place. The taste of the sword and pen does not, however, agree, and their buildings are dissimilar. In the United Service Club are two rooms of 150 feet by 50, the floors of which are constructed of cast-iron girders. At the back of these club-houses will be a large ornamental garden. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 12, No. 334 Saturday, October 4, 1828 • Various
... real life, something that had happened, and the same may be said of what followed. For instance, there was what we call a review. Infantry marched, some of them armed with swords and spears, though these I took to be an ornamental bodyguard, and others with tubes like savage blowpipes of which I could not guess the use. There were no cannon, but carriages came by loaded with bags that had spouts to them. Probably these were charged with poisonous gases. There were some cavalry also, mounted on a different stamp ...
— When the World Shook - Being an Account of the Great Adventure of Bastin, Bickley and Arbuthnot • H. Rider Haggard
... London, or a tomb for a sheriff, or your notion of a cow-house to be erected in a nobleman's park. A pump is a very chaste practice. I have found that a lamp-post is calculated to refine the mind and give it a classical tendency. An ornamental turnpike has a remarkable effect upon the imagination. What do you say to ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol III • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... in the shop-windows and chose three ornamental combs made of celluloid for the three sisters, a snuff-box for papa, made of dried bergamot skin smelling so as to scent the snuff, and a pair of braces for Gildo. It seemed a pity that the buffo should not have something also, ...
— Castellinaria - and Other Sicilian Diversions • Henry Festing Jones
... had received Duchess's answer, and as soon as she was sure that the little dog would come—she popped HER pie into the oven. There were two ovens, one above the other; some other knobs and handles were only ornamental and not intended to open. Ribby put the pie into the lower oven; ...
— A Collection of Beatrix Potter Stories • Beatrix Potter
... philosophy, philology, scholarship, theology, and almost everything in the world but archaeology, are being taught and learned with very great vigour. The hardest worked of men is a conscientious college tutor; and almost all tutors are conscientious. The professors being an ornamental, but (with few exceptions) MERELY ornamental, order of beings, the tutors have to do the work of a University, which, for the moment, is a teaching-machine. They deliver I know not how many sets of lectures a year, ...
— Oxford • Andrew Lang
... one of the desks at Queens' College (B). The photograph shews that in fixing the height of the desk above the ground the convenience of readers has been carefully considered. The iron bar that carries the chains is locked into the ornamental upright, passes through a staple in the middle of the desk, and into the upright at the opposite end, which is left plain. This bar is half an inch in diameter, and one inch above the level of the top of the desk. ...
— The Care of Books • John Willis Clark
... "bond of perfectness;" alluding to the girdle of the Orientals, which was not only ornamental and expensive, but was put on last, serving to adjust the other parts of the dress, and keep the whole together. It is a bond which holds all the Christian graces in harmonious union, and, by keeping them together, secures a permanent completeness and consistency of character. Without ...
— A Practical Directory for Young Christian Females - Being a Series of Letters from a Brother to a Younger Sister • Harvey Newcomb
... horseback from any turnpike, where it was never reached by the vibrations of the coach-horn, or of public opinion. It was an important-looking village, with a fine old church and large churchyard in the heart of it, and two or three large brick-and-stone homesteads, with well-walled orchards and ornamental weathercocks, standing close upon the road, and lifting more imposing fronts than the rectory, which peeped from among the trees on the other side of the churchyard:—a village which showed at once the summits of its social life, and told the practised eye that there was no ...
— Silas Marner - The Weaver of Raveloe • George Eliot
... and in the thickness of the wall can be opened. This again reveals a narrow passage, or staircase, leading up to the joists above the ceiling, and thence to a recess situated immediately behind the carved ornamental facing over the entrance door of the summer-house. In this there is a narrow chink or peep-hole, from which the fugitive could keep on the look-out either for danger or for the friendly Royalist agent of ...
— Secret Chambers and Hiding Places • Allan Fea
... a relief to return to the tranquil, simple forms of furniture, and to decorate our rooms by a process of elimination. How many rooms have I not cleared of junk—this heterogeneous mass of ornamental "period" furniture and bric-a-brac bought to make a room "look cozy." Once cleared of these, the simplicity and dignity of the room comes back, the architectural spaces are freed and now stand in their proper relation to ...
— The House in Good Taste • Elsie de Wolfe
... not toil after a "fashionable appearance." They expend more on warm stockings than on gold rings; and prefer healthy, good bedding, to gaudy window-curtains. Their chairs are solid, not gimcrack. They will bear sitting upon, though they may not be ornamental. ...
— Thrift • Samuel Smiles
... These old Dutch houses are a constant puzzle to me. In most new countries the original white settlers content themselves with the most primitive kind of dwelling, for where there is so much work to be done the ornamental yields place to the necessary; but here, at the very extremity of the African continent, the Dutch pioneers created for themselves elaborate houses with admirable architectural details, houses recalling in some ways the chateaux ...
— Here, There And Everywhere • Lord Frederic Hamilton
... have to say?" roared Mr. von Inwald. I hadn't noticed him before. He had his sheet on in Grecian style and it looked quite ornamental although a little short. "Haven't you ...
— Where There's A Will • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... among the Papuans of north-eastern New Guinea, while the women showed no tendency to ornament pottery, young boys "found pleasure in imprinting with their nails and a pointed stick a sort of ornamental border on some of the pots" ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain |
