"Rotundity" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... amplified and ripened, while purified, in the calm warmth of emotion. From being emotive, poetry draws in more of the man, and higher, finer powers, than prose. The poetical has, must have, rotundity. No poet ever had a square head. Prose, in its naked quality, is to poetry what a skeleton is to a moving, flesh-and-spirit-endowed body. From the skeleton you can learn osteology, but neither aesthetics ...
— Essays AEsthetical • George Calvert
... nomads of Asia and Africa, having given them a knowledge of the earth from the Fortunate Islands to Serica, and from the Baltic to the sources of the Nile, the comparison of the phenomena of the various zones taught them the rotundity of the earth, and gave birth to a new theory. Having remarked that all the operations of nature during the annual period were reducible to two principal ones, that of producing and that of destroying; ...
— The Ruins • C. F. [Constantin Francois de] Volney
... alehouse, through the half-closed windows of which blazed out in ruddy comfort the beams of the hospitable hearth, he knocked hastily at the door. He was admitted by a lady of a certain age, and endowed with a comely rotundity of face ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... over shoulder like a peddler's bundle, to "swop" quaint curiosities, inspiring relics, and solemn symbols, for British prints or American pig-iron. Puck us no Pucks, De Sauty, nor constrict our planet's rotundity with any forty-minute girdle; for in these days of inflating crinoline and ever-increasing circumference of hooped skirts, it becomes us to leave our Mother Earth at least in the fashion, nor strive to reduce her to such unmodish dimensions that one may circumnavigate her in as little time, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various
... was publicly consider'd disgusting and outrageous. Byron thought Pope's verse incomparably ahead of Homer and Shakspere. One of the prevalent objections, in the days of Columbus was, the learn'd men boldly asserted that if a ship should reach India she would never get back again, because the rotundity of the globe would present a kind of mountain, up which it would be impossible to sail even with ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... been patched together into one decently serviceable suit of sails; Grant Sanderson's masts still stood, and might have wondered at themselves. "I haven't the heart to tap them," Captain Wicks used to observe, as he squinted up their height or patted their rotundity; and "as rotten as our foremast" was an accepted metaphor in the ship's company. The sequel rather suggests it may have been sounder than was thought; but no one knew for certain, just as no one except the captain appreciated the dangers of the cruise. The captain, indeed, saw with clear eyes ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... constituted monism the philosophy of China than did the steam-driven machinery mentioned by Hero of Alexandria constitute the first century B.C. the 'age of steam.' Similarly, to take another example, the idea of the earth's rotundity, though conceived centuries before Ptolemy in the second century, did not become established before the sixteenth century. It was, in fact, from the I ching that the Chinese derived their dualistic (not their monistic) conception ...
— Myths and Legends of China • E. T. C. Werner
... transmitted by the lecturer. The fact is worth noting that from 1849 to 1857, arguments on the roundness or flatness of the earth did itinerate. I have {89} no doubt they did much good: for very few persons have any distinct idea of the evidence for the rotundity of the earth. The Blackburn Standard and Preston Guardian (Dec. 12 and 16, 1849) unite in stating that the lecturer ran away from his second lecture at Burnley, having been rather too hard pressed at the end of his first lecture to explain why the large hull of a ship ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume II (of II) • Augustus de Morgan
... their Science. When, for example, the celebrated question of Antipodes came to be discussed, the Bible was with many the ultimate court of appeal. Augustine, who flourished A.D. 400, would not deny the rotundity of the earth; but he would deny the possible existence of inhabitants at the other side, 'because no such race is recorded in Scripture among the descendants of Adam.' Archbishop Boniface was shocked at the assumption ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... Aramis. But, nowadays, what sort of a plank should we want, my friend! I, in particular." And the Seigneur de Bracieux cast a profound glance over his colossal rotundity with a loud laugh. "And do you mean seriously to say you are not tired of Belle-Isle a little, and that you would not prefer the comforts of your dwelling—of your episcopal palace, at ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... of 50 Greene street, New York. It consists of a hollow Globe made of soft iron, and Magnetic Objects, representing the races of mankind, animals, trees, light-houses, are supplied with it, which, adhering to the surface, illustrate clearly the attraction of gravitation, the rotundity of the earth, its diurnal motion, the changes of day and night, and many other things very difficult to make intelligible to children. Teachers will find this globe and its magnetic objects of incalculable value in affording facilities ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No. 6, December 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... overlook Frau's caddishness. He went in town to see if the change would suit his invited friend. Anderson bravely rose to the occasion and accepted silently the duty of having to tour the ball room now and then with his arm despairingly clasping the rotundity ...
— Villa Elsa - A Story of German Family Life • Stuart Henry
... truth in the observation, this is certain, that business did not prosper: it has been surmised that Jonathan's tall, lank, lean figure injured his custom, as people are but too much inclined to judge of the goodness of the ale by the rubicund face and rotundity of the landlord, and therefore inferred that there could be no good beer where mine host was the picture of famine. There certainly is much in appearances in this world; and it appears, that in consequence of Jonathan's cadaverous appearance, ...
— The Pirate and The Three Cutters • Frederick Marryat
... National Assembly will by and by, to save time, 'regard as in a state of distraction.' Note lastly that globular Younger Mirabeau; indignant that his elder Brother is among the Commons: it is Viscomte Mirabeau; named oftener Mirabeau Tonneau (Barrel Mirabeau), on account of his rotundity, and the quantities of strong liquor ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... Not science is this, but an immediate vision of the true, always prophetic, which observes the impress of spirit everywhere upon the realm of matter. The old Greek sages seem to have known not merely of the rotundity of the Earth, but also of its movement round the Sun and upon its own axis, both movements being circular, returns, which image mind. Did they get their knowledge from Egypt or Chaldea? Questionable; if they looked inwardly deep enough, they could find it all there. Indeed the sages of Egypt ...
— Homer's Odyssey - A Commentary • Denton J. Snider
... without a pang, comforting myself with the remaining ones, which throve on their companions' graves, and waxed fat and full and crimson-hearted, in their soft, brown beds. So delighted was I with their luxuriant rotundity, that I made an internal resolve that henceforth I would always plant beets. True, I cannot abide beets. Their fragrance and their flavor are alike nauseating; but they come up, and a beet that will come ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 55, May, 1862 • Various
... level ground, cclx feet. The height of the wooden fabric of the same belfry contains cclxxiiij feet. But altogether it does not exceed five hundred and xx^{ty} feet. Also the ball of the same belfry is capable of containing, if it were vacant, ten bushels of corn; the rotundity of which contains xxxvj inches of diameter, which make three feet; the surface of which, if it were perfectly round, ought to contain four thousand lxviij inches, which make xxviij square feet, and the fourth part of one ...
— A Chronicle of London from 1089 to 1483 • Anonymous
... have developed a little more soul, and a little less stomach - but what of it? -" with a graceful shrug. "For the good of his country it is written that he shall acquire weight and stolidity, instead of an ideal soul, and for the benefit of posterity I sentenced him to speedy rotundity, and dull respectability, and the begetting of future bankers. He will presently marry some one named Alice or Annie, and invite me to the first christening in a ...
— Winding Paths • Gertrude Page
... was wanting. I am no phrenologist, not knowing one organ from another, but I thought the skull of that wretched man no study. If it was particular for anything, it was for a smooth, almost perfect rotundity, with only a little protuberance above the vent of ...
— The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner • James Hogg
... and La Rochefoucauld, and pious Lally, and Lafayette, whom Mirabeau calls Grandison Cromwell, and the Viscount Mirabeau, called Barrel Mirabeau, on account of his rotundity, and the quantity of strong liquor he contains. Among the clergy is the Abbe Maury, who does not want for audacity, and the Cure Gregoire who shall be a bishop, and Talleyrand-Pericord, his reverence of Autun, with sardonic grimness, ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IX • John Lord
... the same fault was committed in another way; and a boy of eight or ten was commonly represented—even by Raffaelle himself—as a dwarf Hercules, with all the gladiatorial muscles already visible in stunted rotundity. Giotto probably felt he had not power enough to give dignity to a child of three years old, and intended the womanly form to be rather typical of the Virgin's advanced mind, than an actual representation of ...
— Giotto and his works in Padua • John Ruskin
... he was out of sight, Mrs Catanach rose, ascended the dune, and propelled her rotundity along the yielding top of it. When she arrived within speaking distance of Lady Florimel, who lay lost in her dreary regard of sand and sea, she paused for a moment, as if ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald
... wide hall was dark and grim. Wade was dark and grim, and Murray too, despite his rotundity. There were lank shadows at the bottom of the hall, grim projections of objects that stood for ornamentation: a suit of armour, a gloomy candlestick of prodigious stature, and a thin Italian cabinet surmounted by an urn whose unexposed contents might readily have suggested something more sinister ...
— From the Housetops • George Barr McCutcheon
... Queen. And here is a tale of the crafty Ogs, In their neighbouring land of Podge; Of their sayings and doings and plottings and brewings, And something about Sir Stodge. Wise to profundity, Stout to rotundity, That was ...
— The Glugs of Gosh • C. J. Dennis
... a bodega is picturesque, too, though in a different way. It is a bright and cheerful spot, a huge shed with whitewashed walls and an open roof supported by dark beams; great casks are piled up, impressing you in their vast rotundity with a sort of aldermanic stateliness. The whole place is fragrant with clean, vinous perfumes. Your guide carries a glass and a long filler. You taste wine after wine, in different shades of brown; light wines to drink with your dinner, older wines to drink before your coffee; wines ...
— The Land of The Blessed Virgin; Sketches and Impressions in Andalusia • William Somerset Maugham
... proportions and flesh. The closely cropped head was of a size sufficient to dominate the huge body, and by the harsh salients of the jaws, the great forehead and the flat back head, gave evidence that but for its pink-fleshed rotundity the head might have appeared nearly square. The backs of the hands which drew the silk handkerchief delicately across the thick red lips beneath the drooping mustache were covered to the fingernails with a fell of thick yellow hair; only the fat white palms were bare, like the ...
— The Plunderer • Henry Oyen
... to give the notion of wrinkling pleasantry. His mother's and sister's doing, Pere Jerome would explain; they would not permit this apartment—or department—to suffer. Therein, as well as in the parlor, there was odor, but of a more epicurean sort, that explained interestingly the Pere Jerome's rotundity ...
— Old Creole Days • George Washington Cable
... abrupt metres of which recall the fornyrdhalag of the Elder Edda. Soon after "Svea" followed, in 1812, "The Priestly Consecration," the occasion of which was the poet's own ordination. Here the oratorical note and a certain clerical rotundity of utterance come very near spoiling the melody. "At the Jubilee in Lund" (1817) is very much in the same strain, and begins with the statement so ...
— Essays on Scandinavian Literature • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... commerce of banks, laboratories, chancellories, and houses of business, are the strokes which oar the world forward, they say. And they are dealt by men as smoothly sculptured as the impassive policeman at Ludgate Circus. But you will observe that far from being padded to rotundity his face is stiff from force of will, and lean from the efforts of keeping it so. When his right arm rises, all the force in his veins flows straight from shoulder to finger-tips; not an ounce is diverted ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... his nose with a purple handkerchief, and put it back into his outside breast pocket with the corners sticking out like attentive ears. He crossed his legs and set on his knee an ankle clothed in a purple silk stocking. On account of his rotundity he was compelled to hold the ankle in place in the firm clutch of his hand. He settled his purple ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... Derby, Dr. Butter accompanied us to see the manufactory of china there. I admired the ingenuity and delicate art with which a man fashioned clay into a cup, a saucer, or a tea-pot, while a boy turned round a wheel to give the mass rotundity. I thought this as excellent in its species of power, as making good verses in its species. Yet I had no respect for this potter. Neither, indeed, has a man of any extent of thinking for a mere verse-maker, in whose numbers, ...
— The Life Of Johnson, Volume 3 of 6 • Boswell
... sweater, wrecked and weather-worn golf cap, run-over shoes, and trousers of the "serviceable" brand. Dust, clinging to the moisture induced by free exercise, darkened wide areas of his face. "Smoky" carried a baseball bat, and a league ball that advertised itself in the rotundity of his trousers pocket. Haywood stopped and passed ...
— Whirligigs • O. Henry
... [trans] render curved &c. adj.; flex, bend, curve, incurvate[obs3]; inflect; deflect, scatter[Phys]; refract (light) 420; crook; turn, round, arch, arcuate, arch over, concamerate[obs3]; bow, curl, recurve, frizzle. rotundity &c. 249; convexity &c. 250. Adj. curved &c. v.; curviform[obs3], curvilineal[obs3], curvilinear; devex|, devious; recurved, recurvous[obs3]; crump[obs3]; bowed &c. v.; vaulted, hooked; falciform[obs3], falcated[obs3]; semicircular, crescentic; sinusoid[Geom], parabolic, paraboloid; luniform[obs3], ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... compelled, as was the unfortunate man from Berlin, to sit on a chair every five minutes, a chair carried by an impudent boy! What—here his heart sank—if the Fraeulein should mock his size! He walked so rapidly at this idea that other victims of rotundity stopped to look at his tall figure and nodded ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... a semi-private fashion. Here, therefore, our excursionists determined to put up for the night, with the widow of a fisherman who had perished in a storm while engaged in the herring fishery off the Irish coast. This good woman's chief physical characteristic was rotundity, and her prominent mental attribute good-humour. She at once received the gentlemen hospitably, and promised to prepare supper for them while they went to visit the far-famed Logan or Logging Rock, ...
— Deep Down, a Tale of the Cornish Mines • R.M. Ballantyne
... absurdity, advanced as an objection that should a ship succeed in reaching the extremity of India, she could never get back again, as the rotundity of the globe would present a kind of mountain up which it would be impossible for her to sail even with the most ...
— Notable Voyagers - From Columbus to Nordenskiold • W.H.G. Kingston and Henry Frith
... Benoni Hill, who had increased in rotundity since selling his grocery store and giving up an ...
— The Further Adventures of Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks • Charles Felton Pidgin
... mark for the sledge-hammer blows of Tom Sayers, just for diversion. His constitution must have been superb, for even in his decrepitude he was good to look upon: five feet ten, fine body, slightly given to rotundity, legs a little shrunken in the shanks, but giving unmistakable signs of what they had been ("not lost, but gone before," as he would say of them), hands and feet aristocratic in form and well cared for, and a fine head set on broad shoulders. His hair was thin, and he parted it with ...
— The Fat of the Land - The Story of an American Farm • John Williams Streeter
... produced a sensation of the unfavorable sort. Hawthorne's attack on the rotundity of the English ladies, whatever may have been his reason for it, was, to speak reservedly, somewhat lacking in delicacy. It stirred up a swarm of newspaper enemies against him; and proved a severe strain to the attachment of his friends there. Henry ...
— The Life and Genius of Nathaniel Hawthorne • Frank Preston Stearns
... so sure of that," she said. "We may yet invent a telescope which shall curve its reflected rays over the rotundity of the earth and above the highest icebergs, so that you and I may sit here and look at the waters of the pole gently splashing ...
— The Great Stone of Sardis • Frank R. Stockton
... should sail due westwards, as proposed by the admiral, it would certainly be impossible to return again to Spain; because whoever should sail beyond the hemisphere which was known to Ptolemy, would then go downwards upon the rotundity of the globe, and then it would be impossible to sail up again on their return, which would necessarily be to climb up hill, and which no ship could accomplish even with the stiffest gale. Although the admiral ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. III. • Robert Kerr
... behind the picture plane partially represents the Perspective-plane, supposed to be perfectly level and to extend from the base line to the horizon. Of this we shall speak further on. In nature it is not really level, but partakes in extended views of the rotundity of the earth, though in small areas such as ponds the ...
— The Theory and Practice of Perspective • George Adolphus Storey
... of light-coloured muslin, tastefully made, with long skirt and tight sleeves—as was the fashion of the time—a fashion that displayed the pleasing rotundity of her figure. Her head-dress was that worn by all quadroons—the "toque" of the Madras kerchief, which sat upon her brow like a coronet, its green, crimson, and yellow checks contrasting finely with the raven blackness of her hair. She wore no ornaments excepting the broad ...
— The Quadroon - Adventures in the Far West • Mayne Reid
... sphere in one hand, the learned professor began fingering it with the other, like Columbus illustrating the rotundity of the globe before the ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... Owing to the rotundity of the planet, only the central part of the disk is sharply defined, and markings which can be easily seen when centrally located become indistinct or disappear altogether when near the limb. Approach to the edge of the disk ...
— Pleasures of the telescope • Garrett Serviss
... Philosophical Inquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful. It is an exhaustive treatise, dealing first with the primitive conceptions of beauty—roundness and smoothness, I think they are, according to Burke. It is well said. Rotundity is a patent charm; as for smoothness—the more new wrinkles a woman acquires, the smoother ...
— Options • O. Henry
... powder; shade lightly over this, but not quite to the edge, with a little of my second yellow, and finish off by a light tint of crimson (crimson lake in cake.) The petals are deep and few, and require a great deal of cupping; to assist in producing this rotundity of petal use the head of the ivory pin, commencing to roll from the bottom to about half-way up the petal. Make a foundation of white wax, rather large and cone-shaped; colour it the same as petals; place the latter on singly, and press them forward to meet at the point and conceal the foundation. ...
— The Royal Guide to Wax Flower Modelling • Emma Peachey
... result of this campaign was pitiable, and they only succeeded in arresting d'Ache's younger brother, an inoffensive fellow of feeble mind, appropriately named "Placide," who was nicknamed "Tourlour," on account of his lack of wit and his rotundity. His greatest fear was of being mistaken for his brother, which frequently happened. As the elder d'Ache could never be caught, Placide, who loved tranquillity and hardly ever went away from home, was invariably taken ...
— The House of the Combrays • G. le Notre
... being presided over by a judicial magistrate. This distinguished functionary, the judicial magistrate, who generally hears the appeals from Fetter's court, is a man of the name of Fairweather Fuddle, a clever wag, whose great good-nature is only equalled by the rotundity of his person, which is not a bad portraiture of our much-abused Sir John Falstaff, as represented by the heavy men of our country theatres. Now, to enter upon an analysis of the vast difference between Fetter's court in ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... crossed the square, La Normande, who had been watching for her exit from the church, recognised her in the twilight by the rotundity of ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola
... steamboats propagated? in other words, how is such an infinite and immovable body inveigled along its course? I will explain it to you. It is by the power of friction: that is to say, the two wheels, or paddles, turning diametrically, or at the same moment, on the axioms, and repressing by the rotundity of their motion the action of the menstruum in which the machine floats,—water being, in a philosophical sense, a powerful non-conductor,—it is clear, that in proportion as is the revulsion so is the progression; and as is the centrifugal force, ...
— Stories of Comedy • Various
... crouch sidewise: we must pass behind this inclined plane, which rests on roughly hewn rocks, that protrude till it appears impossible that any living thing, except a lizard, can find a passage. I am sure we must shrink from the original rotundity with which Nature blessed us. I feel as the frog in the fable might have felt, if, after successfully inflating himself to the much-envied dimensions of the ox, he had suddenly found himself reduced ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 39, January, 1861 • Various
... moving at a comparatively slow speed, yet the size of the moon's disc was very rapidly expanding as we approached nearer and nearer to it. In the course of a little over half-an-hour we were within ten miles of its surface, which now seemed to fill the whole space below us; and its rotundity was most impressive. The shadows of the mountains and other elevated portions near the terminator[4] were jet black, owing to the absence of an atmosphere; and, seen contrasted with the brilliant lighting of the parts exposed to ...
— To Mars via The Moon - An Astronomical Story • Mark Wicks
... offered seat, and von Sternburg placed himself beside her. He fitted his clothes to the cracking-point, and he had the lack of impressiveness that goes with rotundity. Yet it was clear that he felt himself to have the whip-hand of the situation, and Hilda's manner ...
— A Tar-Heel Baron • Mabell Shippie Clarke Pelton
... temper and opinion are gradually worn away by promiscuous converse, as angular bodies and uneven surfaces lose their points and asperities by frequent attrition against one another, and approach by degrees to uniform rotundity. The prevalence of fashion, the influence of example, the desire of applause, and the dread of censure, obstruct the natural tendencies of the mind, and check the fancy in its first efforts to break forth into ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson
... got to his feet with more alacrity than might have been expected of such a fat man, and was adjusting his collar and tie, and smoothing his waistcoat over his rotundity. Malipieri had risen the moment he was free. The detective looked as if nothing had happened out of the common way, and the neatness of his appearance was not in ...
— The Heart of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... where we put the treble, and vice versa. The strings are generally struck with the thumb-nail or with a piece of horn or wood like the ancient plectrum. This produces a harsh metallic sound, without any rotundity. Few New Mexican fiddlers or guitar-players are capable of playing in any time except dancing time, and the character of the baile, funeral and sacred music is the same. The only distinction is the addition ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Vol. XV., No. 85. January, 1875. • Various
... being concerned, not with bloodshed and mysterious murders, but with the wiles of dealers in the spurious antique and the exploits of Lord Louis in defeating them. This Lord Louis is indeed a very pleasant as well as a very ingenious gentleman. From the rotundity of his conversational periods and a certain general suavity of demeanour I suspect him of having made a careful study of the methods of his distinguished predecessor in rogue-reducing, Prince Florizel of Bohemia. But he is, of course, none the worse company for that. Once, however, he ...
— Punch, 1917.07.04, Vol. 153, Issue No. 1 • Various
... grossness of figure, and hirsute appearance have been accountable for many supposed instances of hermaphrodites. On the other hand, a cleft scrotum, an ill-developed penis, perhaps hypospadias or epispadias, rotundity of the mammae, and feminine contour have also provoked accounts of similar instances. Some cases have been proved by dissection to have been true hermaphrodites, portions or even entire genitalia of both sexes ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... was not less than eighteen feet long and eleven in circumference. It was more like an elephant in bulk and rotundity than any other creature. It partook very much of the form of a seal, having two large paw-like flippers, with which, when struggling for life, it had more than once nearly succeeded in getting upon the ice. Its ...
— The World of Ice • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... before him on the back of a colleague! That the colleague happened to be a hunchback only made the incident more ludicrous. But Haydn had rather a partiality for the drum—a satisfying instrument, as Mr George Meredith says, because of its rotundity—and, as we shall learn when we come to his visits to London, he could handle the instrument well enough to astonish the members of Salomon's orchestra. According to Pohl, the particular instrument upon which he performed on the occasion of the Hainburg procession is still ...
— Haydn • J. Cuthbert Hadden
... credible histories. Now, there are two modes of investigation open to us, the dogmatic and the inductive. We may take either. We may construct for ourselves, from the most flimsy suppositions, a metaphysical balloon, inflated with self-conceit into the rotundity of a cosmogony, according to which, in our opinion, the world should have been made, and we may paint it over with the figures of the various animals and noble savages which ought to have sprung up out of its fornea, ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson
... As it was, he turned promptly, and encountered a stout, heavy man, handsomely dressed, but for a massive gold chain which passed across his bosom into his vest pocket, and drooped in glittering lengths far down the rotundity of his capacious person, and a large diamond that blazed on his plaited shirt bosom. From the chain and the diamond, Hepworth's first thought was, that the person must be some Californian or Australian acquaintance, belonging to his old mining days, but ...
— The Old Countess; or, The Two Proposals • Ann S. Stephens
... difference in measurements with regard to the moon, it will be found to be the other way round; for her disc, when carefully measured, is actually the slightest degree greater when high in the sky, than when low down. The reason for this is that, on account of the rotundity of the earth's surface, she is a trifle nearer the observer when ...
— Astronomy of To-day - A Popular Introduction in Non-Technical Language • Cecil G. Dolmage
... expression—which mere physical bulk alone will be found at all times inefficient in creating. If, however, Bon-Bon was barely three feet in height, and if his head was diminutively small, still it was impossible to behold the rotundity of his stomach without a sense of magnificence nearly bordering upon the sublime. In its size both dogs and men must have seen a type of his acquirements—in its immensity a fitting habitation for ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 5 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... from monarchies and republics the ships necessary to undertake their voyage. While Christopher patiently waited in the antechambers of the Catholic monarchs of Spain, Bartolomeo, map in hand, explained to Henry VII. of England the rotundity of the earth, and the feasibility of traveling to the antipodes. Having failed in his mission to the English king, he passed to France to ask of her what had been refused by Portugal, Spain, Venice, England, and Genoa. While ...
— Christopher Columbus and His Monument Columbia • Various
... full moon sort of face, from the ample forehead above which the hair was all dragged back and stowed away under a small and close-fitting cap, which surrounding her face increased the effect of full-blown rotundity. But the grey eye and even the little snub nose were full of drollery and humour, and the lines about the generally somewhat closely shut mouth indicated unmistakable intellectual power. There is a singular resemblance between her handwriting and that of my mother. Very numerous letters must ...
— What I Remember, Volume 2 • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... Split-log, who indeed should rather have been named Split-ear, as we shall presently show, was afflicted with an aldermanic rotundity of person, by no means common among his race, and was one, who from his love of ease and naturally indolent disposition, seemed more fitted to take his seat in the council than to lead his warriors to battle. Yet was he not, in reality, the inactive character ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... elderly man, inclined to rotundity, was introduced, and, taking his position before the fireplace, opened the proceedings with an expression of regret as to the circumstances ...
— The Man Who Knew • Edgar Wallace
... captain, who had been frost-bitten in Canada, wounded in the Peninsula, and saved by an iron constitution from the regimental doctor and yellow fever on Brimstone Hill, St Kitts; and, despite his varied adventures and ailments, had contrived to accumulate an immense rotundity in his person, and quantity and vividness of colour in his countenance. At the foot, was a tall young gentleman, with high cheekbones and a Celtic nose, who had lately joined from Tipperary. The colonel sat in the centre of one side of the table, stiff in attitude, sententious ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 385. November, 1847. • Various
... indulging in strong drinks, he never completely loses the habit which tells, of course, both upon his dress and temper. Though success, by bringing the pleasures of the table within his reach, has increased the rotundity of his figure, it has never been able to make his collars snowy or his conversation refined. He is often found upon the Committees of new Clubs which start with a blare of journalistic trumpets upon a chequered ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, July 12, 1890 • Various
... me!" exclaimed Verkimier, with a look of surprise which was greatly intensified by the rotundity of the blue spectacles. "Vell, I don't feel to ...
— Blown to Bits - or, The Lonely Man of Rakata • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... Arsdales and Van Bummels, who had remained behind to digest the enormous dinner they had eaten. These now trudged manfully forward, smoking their pipes with outrageous vigor, so as to raise the awful cloud that has been mentioned, but marching exceedingly slow, being short of leg, and of great rotundity ...
— Washington Irving • Charles Dudley Warner
... living in Jamaica, and Mr. Ledbetter was a schoolmaster in England. He was in orders, and already recognisably the same man that he is to-day: the same rotundity of visage, the same or similar glasses, and the same faint shadow of surprise in his resting expression. He was, of course, dishevelled when I saw him, and his collar less of a collar than a wet bandage, and that may have helped to bridge the natural gulf between us—but ...
— Twelve Stories and a Dream • H. G. Wells
... dudgeon. "What's 'er matter!" he said indignantly. "Him too muchee heavy fellow. S'pose him little fellow me chuck him all right," explaining a comical failure with even more comical explanations. Soon after the retirement of our crestfallen Cheon, hot cakes were served by a Cheon all rotundity and chuckles once more, but immediately afterwards, a snort of indignation riveted our attention on an exceedingly bristling, dignified Cheon, who was glaring across the enclosure at two of our neighbour's black-boys, one of whom was the bearer of a letter, ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... from the flower you have in front of you, and that you must constantly change your models. Do not paint the little things, the personal things first then. Paint what is common to all the flowers in the group first. Paint the mass and the rotundity of it, and express most vaguely the forms of the accents, and of the darks which fall between the flowers, but get their values. For you will have to change these, and you should have nothing there which will influence you to shirk. In this way only can you get the larger ...
— The Painter in Oil - A complete treatise on the principles and technique - necessary to the painting of pictures in oil colors • Daniel Burleigh Parkhurst
... the Jeebi or ghost, his limbs never assume the rotundity of life. Neither is he confounded in form with the numerous class of Monedoes, or of demons. He does not possess the power of metamorphosis, or of transforming himself into the shapes of animals. Unvaried in repulsiveness, ...
— The Myth of Hiawatha, and Other Oral Legends, Mythologic and Allegoric, of the North American Indians • Henry R. Schoolcraft
... to the place was four enormous oil portraits of pompous turbaned gentlemen, in one of whom Ryder recognized the familiar rotundity of Mahomet Ali in ...
— The Fortieth Door • Mary Hastings Bradley
... snapped out. But the "o-o-o" was prolonged into a wail as a particularly pernicious jab in the midst of her duodenum-"a providential thrust," Dr. Bond said—doubled her up, if rotundity can be said to double. The Doctor was obdurate. Colic was ...
— Our Nervous Friends - Illustrating the Mastery of Nervousness • Robert S. Carroll
... gesture which was like a horrible commentary to his words. Though the rotundity of the landlord prevented Francine from seeing the stranger, who stood behind him, she caught certain words of his threatening speech, and was thunderstruck at hearing the hoarse tones of a Breton voice. She sprang ...
— The Chouans • Honore de Balzac
... chapter of Washington Irving's "Columbus." One of the objections advanced was, that, admitting the earth to be spherical, and should a ship succeed in reaching in this way the extremity of India, she could never get back again; for the rotundity of the globe would present a kind of mountain, up which it would be impossible for her to sail with the most favorable wind.—Hist. del Almirante, cap. ii.; Hist. de Chiapa por ...
— The Conquest of Canada (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Warburton
... eyes came to view now. Both features were good, and had the peculiarity of appearing younger and fresher than the brow and face they belonged to, which were getting sicklied o'er by the unmistakable pale cast. The mouth had not quite relinquished rotundity of curve for the firm angularities of middle life; and the eyes, though keen, permeated rather than penetrated: what they had lost of their boy-time brightness by a dozen years of hard reading lending a quietness to their gaze which suited ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy
... so dejected that I felt a sinking at my heart, a scratchiness in my nose and a wateriness in my eyes. I suffered the pangs of suppressed sympathy. What could a boy of nineteen say or do in order to restore rotundity ...
— The Beloved Vagabond • William J. Locke
... or as our merry ancestors would have called it, a flam, is usually the most ephemeral and evanescent of human devices. Like a boy's soap bubble, it glitters for a brief moment in iridescent rotundity, then ceases to be even a film of air. It is unsubstantial as the tail of Halley's comet. On rare occasions, it is true, its existence is prolonged; many worthy people are beguiled; and some enthusiasts are so effectually hoodwinked as to persist in their delusion, and even to ...
— Round the World in Seven Days • Herbert Strang
... listless, cynical, self-contained. The fat clergyman puffed slowly up the bank, with many gasping witticisms at his own defects. "I'm one of those men who carry everything before them," said he, glancing ruefully at his rotundity, and chuckling wheezily at his own little joke. Last of all came Headingly, slight and tall, with the student stoop about his shoulders, and Fardet, the good-natured, ...
— The Tragedy of The Korosko • Arthur Conan Doyle
... You cataracts and hurricanoes spout Till you have drench'd our steeples, drown'd the cocks! You sulphurous thought-executing fires Vaunt-couriers of oak-cleaving thunderbolts Singe my white head! And thou, all shaking thunder, Strike flat the thick rotundity o' the world! Crack nature's moulds, all germons spill at ...
— Swan Song • Anton Checkov
... sort like our own person; seeing ourselves every day, we end, like the Baron, by thinking ourselves but little altered, and still youthful, when others see that our head is covered with chinchilla, our forehead scarred with circumflex accents, our stomach assuming the rotundity of a pumpkin. So these rooms, always blazing in Betty's eyes with the Bengal fire of Imperial victory, were ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac
... day; and the omnibus was crowded. I had chosen the outside from Rhyl to Denbigh, but, all the rest of the journey, imprisoned myself within. On our way home, an old lady got into the omnibus,—a lady of tremendous rotundity; and as she tumbled from the door to the farthest part of the carriage, she kept advising all the rest of the passengers to get out. "I don't think there will be much rain, gentlemen," quoth she, "you'll be much more comfortable on the outside." As none of us complied, she ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... India by the southern part of Africa, he concluded, that, unless he could devise or suggest some other route, little attention would be paid to him. He, therefore, turned his thoughts to the practicability of reaching India by sailing to the west. At this time the rotundity of the earth was generally admitted. The ancients, whose opinions on the extent and direction of the countries which formed the terrestrial globe, still retained their hold on the minds even of scientific men, had believed that the ocean encompassed the whole earth; the ...
— Robert Kerr's General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 18 • William Stevenson
... shutters: even the Christian clothiers bore him goodwill, not suspecting that S. Cohn's Saturday losses were more than counterbalanced by the general impression that a man who sacrificed business to religion would deal more fairly by you than his fellows. And his person, too, had the rotundity which the ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill |
