"Varnish" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... opposition as snugly as a coat of varnish—and by the opposition we mean the group of Protestant churches commonly called evangelical, to wit, the Methodist, the Baptist, the Presbyterian and their attendant imitators and inferiors. It is out of this group that the dominating religious attitude of the American ...
— The American Credo - A Contribution Toward the Interpretation of the National Mind • George Jean Nathan
... moral sympathies have kept equal step. It includes something beyond an amateur sentiment; in favor of what we favor. If it does not open the ear to every cry of humanity, struggling up or slipping back, it is no culture properly so called, but a sham, a mask of wax, a varnish with cruel glitter; and what a double wrath will be poured on him who cracks the wax and the varnish, not only because of the rude awakening, but because the ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... to offer as a suggestion to PHOTO, that if he wishes to use collodion pictures for the purpose of dissolving views, he should first copy them in the camera as transparent objects so as to reverse the light and shade, then varnish them with DR. DIAMOND'S solution of amber in chloroform, when they will bear the application of transparent colours ground in varnish, such as are ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 182, April 23, 1853 • Various
... Sbano; so at once admitting the truth of what indeed there was no gainsaying, we contended that the indestructibility of the glaze, tested as it had been with aquafortis by Rossi himself, proved the genuineness of its antiquity—it proved nothing but that we had something still to learn! The nola varnish was light as a soap-bubble, but this on the Ryton was thick and substantial. How he wished we had been to stay another week to have taught us the difference! and how we wished him gone, lest he ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 367, May 1846 • Various
... him, is forty horsepower, I believe; whereas I'm much mistaken if Angele isn't about a hundred demon-power. She's geared terribly high, can "crank" herself I should imagine, and has the smartest new type of body, all glittering paint and varnish. Isn't it nice that her name should be Angele? It wasn't the Mother Superior who engaged this guardian angel for Miss Moore, but the dear old Paris friend of Larry's who advised the convent in the first place. Angele was her maid, taken over from a princess—an Albanian one, ...
— The Lightning Conductor Discovers America • C. N. (Charles Norris) Williamson and A. M. (Alice Muriel)
... coach gave a long sigh, then she went on: "I can't tell you monsieur Tartarin how much I miss my lovely Tarascon. These were good times for me, the time of my youth. You should have seen me leaving in the morning, freshly washed and polished, with new varnish on my wheels, my lamps shining like suns and my tarpaulin newly dressed with oil. How grand it was when the postillion cracked his whip and sang out, 'Lagadigadeou, la Tarasque, la Tarasque' and the guard, with his ticket-punch slung on its bandolier and his ...
— Tartarin de Tarascon • Alphonse Daudet
... not being obliged to publish a volume in any fixed period of time. A person here pretends to have discovered the method of rendering sea-water potable, and has some respectable certificates of its success. He has contrived a varnish, also, for lining biscuit barrels, which preserves the biscuit good, and keeps it free from insects. He asks money for his secrets, so we are not to know ...
— The Writings of Thomas Jefferson - Library Edition - Vol. 6 (of 20) • Thomas Jefferson
... inestimable pleasure of gazing at them as they are in improving their own minds. They are visitors, pure and simple, and they are characterized by such an air of newness that even the flies avoid them for fear of sticking to the varnish. ...
— The Adventures of Uncle Jeremiah and Family at the Great Fair - Their Observations and Triumphs • Charles McCellan Stevens (AKA 'Quondam')
... hundred years ago, a true Cornishman, though he wrote in English, or in what he is pleased so to call. In blaming the Cornish gentry and nobility for having attempted to give to their ancient and honorable names a kind of Norman varnish, and for having adopted new-fangled coats of arms, Mr. Scawen remarks on the several mistakes, intentional or unintentional, that occurred in this foolish process. "The grounds of two several mistakes," he writes, "are very obvious: 1st, upon ...
— Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. • F. Max Mueller
... of trappings; and carrying slung at their backs every known game-killer—from rifle to duck gun—they would have been a strange picture to the European officer to which their splendid horsemanship and lithe, agile figures could have added no varnish to ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... air—filled with the smell of corn and wet earth that had long been waiting for rain—he stood looking at the gardens, the woods, the yellow rye fields, the green oatfields, the dark-green strips of potatoes in bloom, that glided past. Everything looked as if covered over with varnish—the green turned greener, the yellow ...
— Resurrection • Count Leo Tolstoy
... Varnish floors scratch but are not affected by water, and on the whole are rather more popular than oil or wax. They cost something less to maintain, and are less conducive to embarrassing gyratics on the part of dignified ...
— The Complete Home • Various
... to court was the same they had seen me using. They asserted it was. Then I recalled the German and asked him the same question. He also replied in the affirmative. I asked him how he knew. He said he recognized the mark on the butt where the varnish had been chafed away. Then I handed the hunting knife I had borrowed from to the police officer and demanded that he have the bullet cut out of the buck's carcass. The court could not object to that, so under the eyes of at least fifty witnesses a flattened Mauser bullet was produced. I called attention ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... and uphold the Rogers group, "Going for the Parson," as well as two fragile gilt chairs, which considerate guests would not sit in but leave exposed to view, and a complete new set of black walnut, the effect that day—which included a grand smell of varnish—was nothing ...
— The Boss of Little Arcady • Harry Leon Wilson
... OCCIDENTALE.—The cashew nut tree, cultivated in the West Indies and other tropical countries. The stem furnishes a milky juice, which becomes hard and black when dry, and is used as a varnish. It also secretes a gum, like gum arabic. The nut or fruit contains a black, acrid, caustic oil, injurious to the lips and tongue of those who attempt to crack the nut with their teeth; it becomes innocuous and wholesome when roasted, but this process must be carefully ...
— Catalogue of Economic Plants in the Collection of the U. S. Department of Agriculture • William Saunders
... pictures, put them so that the lower part shall be opposite the eye. Cleanse the glass of pictures with whiting, as water endangers the pictures. Gilt frames can be much better preserved by putting on a coat of copal varnish, which, with proper brushes, can be bought of carriage or cabinet-makers. When dry, it can be washed with fair water. Wash the brush in ...
— A Treatise on Domestic Economy - For the Use of Young Ladies at Home and at School • Catherine Esther Beecher
... case made of sycamore wood of proper shape. Upon this draw the design with a pencil, trace over the pencil-marks with Indian ink and a fine crow-quill; then fill in the ground with Indian ink and a camel's-hair brush. After two or three days, varnish with the best picture-varnish. ...
— The Lady's Album of Fancy Work for 1850 • Unknown
... but the piano continued, and glowing cigarettes, like red and erratically waving signals, were visible. Returning, going into the dining-room, he saw that the whiskey had been plentifully spilled over the table. In the morning the varnish would be marred by white stains. The stairs were occupied, the angle in the hall behind which a door gave to the cellar steps, was filled; a sound, not culinary, came from the kitchen pantry. Even Fanny, with her hair in disorder, was dancing an eccentric step with Borden Rodman. ...
— Cytherea • Joseph Hergesheimer
... eternal activities, and indeed of other people's! They were divided into three classes,—those contracted in the society of Joanna when she took him out-of-doors: such as sand, water, mud, grass stains, paint, lime, putty, or varnish; those derived from visits to his sisters at their occupations: such as ink, paints, lead pencils, paste, glue, and mucilage; those amassed in his stays with Ellen in the kitchen: sugar, molasses, spice, pudding sauce, black currants, raisins, dough, berry ...
— Mother Carey's Chickens • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... the people to appreciate the dignity, and the true nobility of labor. From it, they will learn that labor, however simple or insignificant, is far nobler than any kind of enervating idleness; no matter how much that idleness may be gilded by the varnish of honor! Godin says: 'A day's work well done, is worth more than ...
— Solaris Farm - A Story of the Twentieth Century • Milan C. Edson
... the studied attitudes of some modern prints, copied with tasteless servility after the antiques; the soul is left out, and none of the parts are tied together by what may properly be termed character. This varnish of fashion, which seldom sticks very close to sense, may dazzle the weak; but leave nature to itself, and it will seldom disgust the wise. Besides, when a woman has sufficient sense not to pretend to any thing which she does not ...
— A Vindication of the Rights of Woman - Title: Vindication of the Rights of Women • Mary Wollstonecraft [Godwin]
... rolled out then, magically, leaving his skin smooth and white. Old Rudie, while advocating this process, made little use of it. He dispatched the whole grimy business by the simple method of washing in gasoline guaranteed to take the varnish off a car fender. It seemed to leave ...
— Half Portions • Edna Ferber
... sixteen superintendents and twenty assistant superintendents were required to oversee the work. Most conspicuous was the Kinkaku-ji, or golden pavilion shrine, so called because its interior was gilt, the gold foil being thickly superposed on lacquer varnish. On this edifice, on the adjacent palace, and on a park where deer roamed and noble pine trees hung over their own shadows in a picturesque lake, immense sums were expended. Works of art were collected from all quarters to enhance the charm of ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... something that was boiling over on the stove. It was an ugly little parlor that was to be her reception-room for the next year at least, with red-and-green ingrain carpet of ancient pattern, hideous chromos on the walls, and frantically common furniture setting up in its shining varnish to be pretentious; but the girl had not seen it yet. She was filled with a great homesickness that had not possessed her even when she said good-by to her dear ones at home. She suddenly realized that the people with whom she was to be thrown were of another world ...
— A Voice in the Wilderness • Grace Livingston Hill
... her cake in a closet which opened out of it, and there were a mahogany sofa and some chairs in it, upon which nobody ever sat, and some books which nobody ever read, and a small Franklin stove, with brass knobs on top, in which a fire was never lighted, and an odor of mice and varnish, and that was all. The sitting-room on the other side of the entry was much pleasanter. It was a large, square room, wainscoted high with green-painted wood, and had a south window and two westerly ones, so that the sun lay on it all day long. Here and there in the walls, and upon ...
— Eyebright - A Story • Susan Coolidge
... out of the boat a large varnish-can, which he had filled with gunpowder, and wrapped tightly round with wire, and also with a sash-line; this can was perforated at the side, and a strong tube screwed tightly into it; the tube protruded twelve inches ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... fall of a fire ball, in Lusatia, March, 1796; fall of a gelatinous substance, after the explosion of a meteorite, near Heidelberg, July, 1811. In the Edinburgh Philosophical Journal, 1-234, the substance that fell at Lusatia is said to have been of the "color and odor of dried, brown varnish." In the Amer. Jour. Sci., 1-26-133, it is said that gelatinous matter fell with a globe of fire, upon the island ...
— The Book of the Damned • Charles Fort
... adorn our lawns (although a similar species grows wild in the Southwest), serves a more utilitarian purpose in supplying commerce with a rich orange-yellow dye-wood known as young fustic. All this tribe of shrubs and trees contain resinous, milky juice, drying dark like varnish, which in a Japanese species is transformed by the clever native artisans into their famous lacquer. With a commercial instinct worthy of the Hebrew, they guard this ...
— Wild Flowers, An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and - Their Insect Visitors - - Title: Nature's Garden • Neltje Blanchan
... came to this part of our subject, corresponding to that set forth in our housewife's economy by the "keeping her embroidery from the moth," that I was going to tell you only how to take better care of pictures, how to clean them, and varnish them, and where to put them away safely when you went out of town. Ah, not at all. The utmost I have to ask of you is, that you will not pull them to pieces, and trample them under your feet. "What!" you will say, "when do we do such things? ...
— A Joy For Ever - (And Its Price in the Market) • John Ruskin
... horizontal fins and three vertical fins. Not every blimp, that is to say, but the pattern approved and required of contractors by the Navy Department. These fins are made of wood and light steel tubing, reinforced with wire, covered with aeroplane linen rubber painted and finished with varnish. ...
— Kelly Miller's History of the World War for Human Rights • Kelly Miller
... represented by beautifully finished ornamental wood and a splendid exhibit of the famous Kauri gum. This gum, which is used principally in the manufacture of varnish, takes an important place among New Zealand products, no less than five million dollars worth being exported last year. Of special interest to ornithologists were the native ...
— Final Report of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission • Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission
... truant mechanic. But that trick of truly logical behavior seems harder to the man than to the child. For example, I climbed up to my den under the eaves last night—a sour, black sea-fog lying all about, and the December sleet crackling against the window-panes—in order to varnish a certain fly-rod. Now rods ought to be put in order in September, when the fishing closes, or else in April, when it opens. To varnish a rod in December proves that one possesses either a dilatory or a childishly anticipatory mind. But before uncorking the varnish ...
— Fishing with a Worm • Bliss Perry
... varnishing of the affected skin with ichthyol (one part ichthyol, one part distilled water), which is swabbed on after the skin has been cleansed with olive oil. Allow this to almost dry, and then sprinkle on talcum powder which smooths over the dry varnish of ichthyol. This is worn every night and during the day, in bad cases, even when the eczema is on the face. It is renewed each day, and is preceded by the olive-oil bath. No water or soap is ever used in eczema. Fortunately, the Eskimo has taught us that ...
— The Mother and Her Child • William S. Sadler
... I could trust. I cannot tell how soon they may find reason to change their minds on the subject. Their satisfaction may only be that they have not tried to rub the varnish off the gilding so much as I, and therefore the gilding itself still shines a little ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald
... is perfectly clear (window glass will answer), clean it thoroughly; then varnish it, taking care to have it perfectly smooth; place it where it will be perfectly free from dust; let it stand over night, then take your engraving, lay it in clear water until it is wet through (say ten ...
— The Ladies Book of Useful Information - Compiled from many sources • Anonymous
... mistaken for a gentleman, my father most strongly asseverates; because it is a principle of his that no man who was not a true gentleman at heart ever was, since the world began, a true gentleman in manner. He says, no varnish can hide the grain of the wood; and that the more varnish you put on, the more the grain will express itself. Well! This man pursued Miss Havisham closely, and professed to be devoted to her. I believe she ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... his birth could not confer them. He would rather be Mr. *** (Mr. *** was present) than a prince of the blood. He panted to distinguish himself by qualities that were properly his own, and had little veneration for the false varnish of ancestry. Were that of any worth, he had as much reason to be vain as any man perhaps in the kingdom: his family came in with the Conqueror, at which time it was respectable: it had produced men, through all its branches, whose names were no disgrace to history.' ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... hearts; all art and authorcraft are of small amount to that. One would say the primary character of the Koran is that of its genuineness, of its being a bona-fide book. Prideaux, I know, and others have represented it as a mere bundle of juggleries; chapter after chapter got-up to excuse and varnish the author's successive sins, forward his ambitions and quackeries: but really it is time to dismiss all that. I do not assert Mahomet's continual sincerity: who is continually sincere? But I confess I can make ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... inn at Pont, when we called there for the bags, were overcome with marveling. At sight of these two dainty little boats, with a fluttering Union Jack on each, and all the varnish shining from the sponge, they began to perceive that they had entertained angels unawares. The landlady stood upon the bridge, probably lamenting she had charged so little; the son ran to and fro, and called out the neighbours to enjoy ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Saturday the unfortunate prisoner, despoiled of her man's dress, had much to fear. Brutality, furious hatred, vengeance, might severally incite the cowards to degrade her before she perished, to sully what they were about to burn. Besides, they might be tempted to varnish their infamy by a "reason of state," according to the notions of the day—by depriving her of her virginity they would undoubtedly destroy that secret power of which the English entertained such great dread, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... contained in this record happened many years ago, they are as fresh in my memory as if they happened but yesterday. I have tried to record events simply as they are, without attempting to varnish over the bad spots or draw on my imagination to fill out a chapter at the cost of the truth. It has been my aim to record things just as they happened, believing they will prove of greater interest thereby; and if I am able to add to the interest and enjoyment of a single ...
— The Life and Adventures of Nat Love - Better Known in the Cattle Country as "Deadwood Dick" • Nat Love
... with quick tactics. He reversed and drove the car backward. The fingers of the attackers slipped from the smooth varnish and the wheels threatened those who tried to grab the running-boards. Men who seized the fender-bar were dragged ...
— All-Wool Morrison • Holman Day
... and yet no news had arrived from beyond the mountains. Captain Rumway's house was finished up to the last touch of varnish. The lawn, and the shrubbery, and fence were all just as they should be; yet, so far as anybody knew, no mistress had been provided for them, when, one warm and hazy afternoon, Mrs. Smiley received an invitation to look at the ...
— The New Penelope and Other Stories and Poems • Frances Fuller Victor
... youth, When every artless bosom throbs with truth; Untaught by worldly wisdom how to feign, And check each impulse with prudential rein; 60 When, all we feel, our honest souls disclose, In love to friends, in open hate to foes; No varnish'd tales the lips of youth repeat, No dear-bought knowledge purchased by deceit; Hypocrisy, the gift of lengthen'd years, Matured by age, the garb of Prudence wears: [ii] When, now, the Boy is ripen'd into Man, His careful Sire chalks forth some ...
— Byron's Poetical Works, Vol. 1 • Byron
... court was empty—a singular little theatre of pale varnish and tawdry hangings, still rather snug and homely in the heat and light of its obsolete gas, and with as little to remind one of the play as any other theatre when the curtain is down and the house empty. But there was clamor in the corridors, ...
— The Shadow of the Rope • E. W. Hornung
... kinds of sea weed. They are a useful test of antiquity when suspicions are entertained of the workmen having forged the hatchets which they offer for sale. The most general test, however, of the genuineness of the implements obtained by purchase is their superficial varnish-like or vitreous gloss, as contrasted with the dull aspect of freshly fractured flints. I also remarked, during each of my three visits to Amiens, that there were some extensive gravel-pits, such as those of Montiers ...
— The Antiquity of Man • Charles Lyell
... as he thought, of his master. The squire's employment at this time was the servile task of cleaning Sir Aymer's arms, which was conveniently performed by heating, upon the projection already specified, the pieces of steel armour for the usual thin coating of varnish. He could not, therefore, if he should be discovered, be considered as guilty of any thing insolent or disrespectful. He was better screened from view, as a thick smoke arose from a quantity of oak panelling, carved in many cases with the crest and achievements of the ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... at an exciting speed; and Americans want excitement. Not only that, but you saw for yourself that they expect a handsome car of the latest make, shining with brass and varnish. Amateurs always do. What will they say when my world-worn old veteran bursts, or ...
— My Friend the Chauffeur • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... was hugely delighted, and when the fire was all over it was customary for the unfortunate owner further to increase the amount of his loss by dealing out liquid refreshments to everybody concerned. On parade days each company turned out with its machine brought to a high state of polish by varnish, and with the members resplendent in uniform, carrying pole-axes and banners. If the rivalries at the fire could only be ended in a general free fight, ...
— The Forty-Niners - A Chronicle of the California Trail and El Dorado • Stewart Edward White
... But the great show of the night was the Russian Ambassador, Count Orloff, whose gigantic figure was all in a blaze with jewels, and in whose demeanor the untamed ferocity of the Scythian might be discerned through a thin varnish of French politeness. As he stalked about the small parlor, brushing the ceiling with his toupee, the girls whispered to each other, with mingled admiration and horror, that he was the favored lover of his ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... durability are what we aim at in the paint shop, and from my experience in varnish work we may have beauty without durability, but we have rarely durability without beauty, so that the fewer defects of any kind in our work caused by inferior material, inferior workmanship, or any other cause, it is more ...
— Scientific American Supplement, Vol. XIX, No. 470, Jan. 3, 1885 • Various
... babies by turns, to hear the jokes of Jean Pottage. Were he to recommend his goods, like the Londoner, with studied eloquence and attentive flattery, he could not hope like him that the eloquence he now bestows on the decorations of a hat, or the varnish of an equipage, may one day serve to torment a minister, and obtain a post of honour for his son; he could not hope that on some future day his flattery might be listened to by some lady of more birth than beauty, or riches perhaps, when happily ...
— Observations and Reflections Made in the Course of a Journey through France, Italy, and Germany, Vol. I • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... mocked the heart-felt grief within; from festival or crowded meeting, where hilarity sprung from the worst feelings of our nature, or such enthralment of the better ones, as impressed it with garish and false varnish; from assemblies of mourners in the guise of revellers. Once however I witnessed a scene of singular interest at one of the theatres, where nature overpowered art, as an overflowing cataract will tear away the puny manufacture of a mock cascade, ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... some of his energy to a change in copal gathering. This substance, which is found at the roots of trees in swampy and therefore unhealthy country, is employed in the manufacture of varnish. To harvest it the natives stand all day in water up to their hips and they catch the inevitable colds from which pneumonia develops. Copal gathering is a considerable source of income for many tribes and usually the entire community treks to the marshes. In this way the lives ...
— An African Adventure • Isaac F. Marcosson
... on the second one bringing in Frank, who had wrapped up a weird collection of broken-off parts in a piece of varnish-stiffened silk torn from one ...
— The Boy Scouts of the Air on Lost Island • Gordon Stuart
... up-town! Why, my dear sir!" he protested, when the subject was first mentioned, "is there nothing in the polish of these old tables and chairs, rubbed bright by the elbows of countless good fellows, that appeals to you? Do you think any modern varnish can replace it? Here I have sat for thirty years or more, and—please God!—here I want ...
— Peter - A Novel of Which He is Not the Hero • F. Hopkinson Smith
... survived his father. He had taught, taken pupils, made a fair income. He had had no break of travel, no touch with the world; a few foreign tours in the company of an old friend had given him nothing but an emotional tincture of recollections and associations—a touch of varnish, so to speak. Suddenly the remembrance of some of the things which Jack Sandys had said that morning came back to him; "real things" the boy had said, so lightly and yet so decisively. He wondered; had he himself ever had any touch with realities at all? ...
— Watersprings • Arthur Christopher Benson
... was a man now pretty far advanced in middle life. He had received in his boyhood that literary and rhetorical training which Amalasuentha yearned to bestow on her son; he was well versed in the works of the Roman orators and could discourse learnedly on the dialogues of Plato. Unhappily, this varnish of intellectual culture covered a thoroughly vile and rotten character. He was averse to all the warlike employments of his forefathers, but his whole heart was set on robbery, under the form of civilisation, by means of extortion and chicane. He had received from his uncle ample ...
— Theodoric the Goth - Barbarian Champion of Civilisation • Thomas Hodgkin
... cotton: she will land that at Liverpool, and ship English hardware and cotton fabrics for the Mediterranean and Greece, and bring back currants from Zante and lemons from Portugal. She goes for the nimble shilling. Well, you know ships wear out: and if you varnish them rotten, and insure them high, and they go to glory, Mr. Plimsoll is down on you like a hammer. So, when she had paid my purchase-money three times over, some fellows in the city made an offer for The Rover—that was her name. My share came to twelve hundred, and my uncle said ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... hit the tack; the tack really did not get through the trap; the trap did not open the slot; the slot—but no matter. We have no carpets now. The Perfect Automatic stands in the garret with all its original varnish on. At its feet sits a half-used can of "Beesene, The ...
— The Hills of Hingham • Dallas Lore Sharp
... be found; but it will excite a probable suspicion, that the arts of Rome were less deeply rooted in Britain than in Gaul or Spain; and that the native rudeness of the country and its inhabitants was covered by a thin varnish of ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 3 • Edward Gibbon
... is, of course, a means of creating variations in the printed intensity of etched lines. After a plate has etched for a certain time—depending on the artist's inclination—it may be removed from the acid and some of its lines covered with a stop-out varnish, similar in texture and acid resistance to the basic ground. The plate is then put back in the acid and the remaining lines etched more deeply. This can be repeated any number of times, giving a wide range of intensity to the ...
— Rembrandt's Etching Technique: An Example • Peter Morse
... the homely face and waiting figure came into full relief. Nature had made the woman in a freak of rare sincerity. There were no reflected lights about her; no gloss on her skin, no glitter in her eyes, no varnish on her soul. Simple and dark and pure, there she was, for God and her master to conquer and understand. Her flesh was cold and colourless,—there were no surface tints on it,—it warmed sometimes slowly from far within; her voice, quiet,—out of her heart; her hair, the only beauty of the woman, ...
— Margret Howth, A Story of To-day • Rebecca Harding Davis
... the most permanent characteristics of Shakespeare. From the beginning to the end of the play, Duke Vincentio is weakly-kind in act and swayed by fitful impulses; his assumed austerity of conduct is the thin varnish of vanity that will not take on such soft material. The Hamlet weakness is so exaggerated in him, and so unmotived, that I am inclined to think Shakespeare was even more irresolute and indisposed to ...
— The Man Shakespeare • Frank Harris
... combination makes the removal of the secretion easy. It is possible to block the pores up, but it is not very easy to do so. A healthy pore will send its secretions out through very close stuff. It is only by something like very strong varnish that ...
— Papers on Health • John Kirk
... gorgeous carriages; and jet-black varnish, gold and silver harness, and horses' brown and chestnut backs all glittered blindingly in the sun. But there were even more motors than carriages, it seemed; or else they were more conspicuous; and many were being driven by beautiful ...
— Lady Betty Across the Water • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... owner's carriage. It is the paint which is causing all this flame, an essence of alcohol and varnish. A ...
— Selected Writings of Guy de Maupassant • Guy de Maupassant
... is to be taught not to commend such things as these, no, nor to show the nimbleness of his wit or subtlety in maintaining argument by finding out plausible colors and pretences to varnish over a bad matter. But we should teach him rather to judge that poetry is an imitation of the manners and lives of such men as are not perfectly pure and unblameable, but such as are tinctured with passions, misled by false opinions, and muffled with ignorance; ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... word, as the most befitting that could be used. That object is nothing less than an attempt to cover the enormous frauds which have marked the proceedings of the Pro-Slavery agents in Kansas, from their initiation, with a varnish of smooth and plausible pretexts. Adroitly taking up the question at the point which it had reached when his own administration began, he leaves out of view all the antecedent crimes, treacheries, and tricks by which the people of the Territory had been led into civil war, and thus assumes ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... which contain several hundred fine Australian horses and a number of beautiful Sumbawan ponies, together with a score or more gilt carriages of state, are as immaculately kept as those of Buckingham Palace. In the palace garage I was shown a row of powerful Fiats, gleaming with fresh varnish and polished brass, and beside them, as among equals, a member of the well-known Ford family of Detroit, proudly bearing on its panels the ornate arms of the Susuhunan. I felt as though I had encountered an old friend who ...
— Where the Strange Trails Go Down • E. Alexander Powell
... tarnished out of knowledge. But the trumpet was evidently an old cavalry trumpet, and the threads of its parti-colored sling, though fretted and dusty, still hung together. Around the side-drum, beneath its cracked brown varnish, I could hardly trace a royal coat-of-arms and a legend running, "Per Mare Per Terram"—the motto of the marines. Its parchment, though black and scented with woodsmoke, was limp and mildewed; and I began to tighten up the straps—under ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Stories • Various
... for her cap, just ask if they are dyed with aniline colors; and if the answer is "Yes," you may know that they came from the coal-tar. Besides the dyes, we shall also have left naphtha, useful in making varnish, and various oils that are used in more ways than I can stop to tell you, or you would care now to hear. If your cousin Annie has a jet belt-clasp or bracelet, and if you find in aunt Edith's box of old treasures an odd- shaped brooch of jet, you may remember ...
— The Stories Mother Nature Told Her Children • Jane Andrews
... other colours which Painters use, which are transparent, and us'd to varnish over all other paintings, 'tis well enough known that the laying on of them thinner or thicker, does very much dilute ...
— Micrographia • Robert Hooke
... remember the evening when it came! What a cry of eager voices, what a group of cheeks in flame, When the wondrous box was opened that had come from over seas, With its smell of mastic-varnish and its flash ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 17, March, 1859 • Various
... remarked of a picture of "The Lord Mayor and Court of Aldermen," in the Shakespeare Gallery, that the varnish was chilled and the figures rather sunk, the proprietors directed one of their assistants to give it a fresh coat of varnish. "Must I use copal or mastic?" said the young man. "Neither one nor the other," said a gentleman present; "if you wish to bring the figures ...
— The Jest Book - The Choicest Anecdotes and Sayings • Mark Lemon
... palette was a simple one; his colours were vermilion, raw sienna (but sometimes yellow ochre instead), Prussian blue, burnt sienna, ivory black, crimson lake, white, of course, and the medium he used was 'gumption,' a composition of sugar of lead, mastic varnish, and linseed oil. The colours were ground by a servant in his own house and put into small pots ready for use." When one adds that his studio had a very high side-light, and that he painted on half-primed canvas with ...
— Raeburn • James L. Caw
... made of strips of leather, wound spirally and coated with some kind of varnish. Everything these people had was carefully and finely made. An old culture, but a static one. Probably tradition-bound ...
— Naudsonce • H. Beam Piper
... Democrats took possession. The lawyers could furnish cogent reasons why Packard was not entitled to the governorship, although the electoral vote of Louisiana had been counted for Hayes; but the Stalwarts maintained that no legal quibble could varnish over so glaring an inconsistency. Indeed, it was one of those illogical acts, so numerous in English and American history, that resolve difficulties, when a rigid adherence to logic would tend to ...
— Historical Essays • James Ford Rhodes
... the sky in dazzling splendor, and all its shoulders are white, too, and all slopes. Even the perpendicular precipices, called walls by the natives, are covered with white frost delicately laid on, or with thin ice adhering to them like varnish, so that the whole mass looms up like an enchanted castle from out of the hoary gray of the forests which lie spread out heavily about its base. In summer, when the sun and warm winds melt the snow from their steep sides, ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VIII • Various
... or body of paint or varnish with a flexible roller to pails, tubs, or other articles of hollow ware, substantially in the manner ...
— Scientific American, Vol. 17, No. 26 December 28, 1867 • Various
... Renaissance pile that Waldron's millions had raised on land which had cost him more than as though he had covered it with double eagles; and Flint himself ascended the steps of Pentelican marble. The limousine, its varnish and silver-plate flashing in the bright spring sun, stood by the curb, purring softly to itself with all six cylinders, a thing of matchless beauty and rare cost. The chauffeur, on the driver's seat, did not even ...
— The Air Trust • George Allan England
... Baldovinetti: Florentine painter, b. 1422, or later, d. 1499; worked in mosaic, particularly as a restorer of old mosaics, besides painting; he made many experiments in both branches of art, and attempted to work fresco 'al secco', and varnish it so as to make it permanent, but in this he failed. His works were distinguished for extreme minuteness of detail. "In the church of the Annunziata in Florence, he executed an historical piece in fresco, but finished 'a secco', wherein he represented the Nativity of Christ, painted with ...
— Introduction to Robert Browning • Hiram Corson
... doors and windows. The yarns they spun and the stories they told would not bear repetition here, but many of them had morals which, while exposing the weakness of mankind, stung like a whiplash. Some were, no doubt, a thousand years old, with just enough of verbal varnish and alterations of names and date to make them new and crisp. By virtue of the last named application, Lincoln was enabled to draw from Balzac a 'droll story' and locating it 'in Egypt' (Southern Illinois) or in Indiana, pass it off for a purely original conception. . . I have seen ...
— Lincoln • Nathaniel Wright Stephenson
... on the safe door, slight and minute as it was, was his starting-point. How had it been made? He had found by experiment that it was impossible to make such a scratch upon the varnish without the exercise of considerable force. It was clear, therefore, that the scratch by the keyhole could not have been made by the thief in his trembling anxiety to get the business he had undertaken accomplished. But why was such ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IV. • Editors: Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... specimens, especially of the black ware, show a smooth finish, and may perhaps, without violence to the term, be classed as lustrous. This is not the effect of a varnish or partial glazing, but is a polish, produced generally, if not always, by rubbing with a ...
— Illustrated Catalogue Of The Collections Obtained From The Indians Of New Mexico And Arizona In 1879 • James Stevenson
... away the stench of bad tobacco-smoke and brandy-flavored human breath with which the room reeked all night long. Here, in short, was vice wholly undisguised; recklessly showing itself to every eye, without the varnish of beauty, without the tinsel of wit, without even so much as the flavor of cleanliness to recommend it. Were all beholders instinctively overcome by horror at the sight? Far from it. The Snuggery was crammed to its last benches every night; and the proprietor filled ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... or rather impressed upon me the necessity of preserving the outline of these tell-tale marks while they were still plain to the eye. Taking out my penknife, I lightly ran the point of my sharpest blade around each separate impression till I had fixed them for all time in the well worn varnish of the mahogany. ...
— The Filigree Ball • Anna Katharine Green
... under any conditions. For this, and for the fact that he could cook under water, and would turn out hot meals when other chefs were committing suicide, much was forgiven him, but he was prone to look upon the vin when it was rouge and was habitually coated an inch thick with a varnish of soot and pot-black. One morning he calmly hove himself over the parapet and, in spite of the earnest attentions of Hun snipers, remained there long enough to collect sufficient debris to boil his dixies. Next day the Bosch Funny Cuts ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Oct. 17, 1917 • Various
... Weejee up by the collar and carried him to the edge of the water—it was about six inches deep,—and threw him in,—with much the same force as, let us say, a pen is thrown into ink or a brush dipped into a pot of varnish. ...
— Moonbeams From the Larger Lunacy • Stephen Leacock
... I varnish leaves with rosin. I sprinkle fine powdered rosin on the leaf, and then pass a hot iron over it. The rosin melts and spreads over the leaf, varnishing it beautifully. The method is ...
— Harper's Young People, July 20, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... nearly in the same condition; but, upon examining her, I had the satisfaction to find that not a worm had touched her, though she was built of the same wood, and had been as much in the water; the reason of this difference I imagine to be; that the long-boat was paid with varnish of pine, and the pinnace painted with white lead and oil; the bottoms of all boats therefore which are sent into this country should be painted like that of the pinnace, and the ships should be supplied with a good stock, in order to give them a new coating when ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 12 • Robert Kerr
... commercial genius, his craft and egotism, were frustrated occasionally by his temper, which, I am afraid, with all its external varnish, was of the sort which is styled diabolical. People said also, what is true of most terrorists, that he was himself quite capable of being frightened; and also, that he lied with too fertile an audacity: and, like a man with too many bills afloat, forgot ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... visitor sees lumber in stock, a million feet of it; then, across one end of a long room, the mere sketch or transparent diagram of a car; then, a car broadly filled in; and so on, up to the last glorious result, upholstered with velvet and smelling of varnish. The cars are on rails, upon which they move, side on, as if by a principle of growth, the undeveloped ones perpetually pushing up their more forward predecessors, until the last perfect carriage is ejected from ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Volume 11, No. 26, May, 1873 • Various
... the reader should be made acquainted with some of the leading provisions of this famous document, thus laid down above all the constitutions as the organic law of the land. A few plain facts, entirely without rhetorical varnish, will prove more impressive in this case than superfluous declamation. The American will judge whether the wrongs inflicted by Laud and Charles upon his Puritan ancestors were the severest which a people has had to undergo, ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... preserve its pliability, and if not supplied will become brittle, crack, and break easily under strain. Inferior dressings are always harmful, and no dressing should be used which contains acid or varnish. Acid burns the leather as it would the skin, and polish containing varnish forms a false skin which soon peels off, spoiling the appearance of the shoe and causing the leather to crack. Paste polish containing turpentine should also ...
— Manual of Military Training - Second, Revised Edition • James A. Moss
... description of Mayan manuscripts or books: "They wrote their books on a large, highly decorated leaf, doubled in folds and enclosed between two boards, and they wrote on both sides in columns corresponding to the folds. The paper they made of the roots of a tree, and gave it a white varnish on which one could write well. This art was known by certain men of high rank, and because of their knowledge of it they were much esteemed, but they did not practice the art in public. This people also used certain characters or letters, with which ...
— The Mayas, the Sources of Their History / Dr. Le Plongeon in Yucatan, His Account of Discoveries • Stephen Salisbury, Jr.
... fish when first hatched. A very good apparatus may be made from a champagne case. This should have large square holes sawn through each end, leaving enough wood to ensure strength and solidity to the box. The box should then have two coats of asphalt varnish, and the square apertures covered with fine perforated zinc. A still better box may be made at a small cost. This consists of a box with a wooden bottom and perforated zinc sides which are supported ...
— Amateur Fish Culture • Charles Edward Walker
... of the ocean—fishes and corals—sparkle with their own colors that are a reflex of their vitality. Their green, their rose color, their intense yellow, their metallic iridescence, all their liquid tints are eternally glazed by a moist varnish which cannot exist in the ...
— Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) - A Novel • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... chips and scraps which remain when kauri-gum has been cleaned and scraped for market are used in the making of fire-kindlers. But for the resin itself a better use was long ago found—the manufacture of varnish. At the moment when, under Governor Fitzroy, the infant Auckland settlement was at its lowest, a demand for kauri-gum from the United States shone as a gleam of hope to the settlers, while the Maoris near the ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves
... ready for the first fall. Bobby had been to Edentown and bought a little toy affair, the best she could get there, and Frances Martin had sent home for her big, comfortable Vermont-made sled that made up in dependability what it lacked in varnish and polish. Counting Betty's, this ...
— Betty Gordon at Boarding School - The Treasure of Indian Chasm • Alice Emerson
... the angel with the cup. He will try if he cannot explain them better in those two little pictures below; which nobody ever looks at; the great Roman sarcophagus being put in front of them, and the light glancing on the new varnish so that you must twist about like a lizard to see anything. Nevertheless, you may make out ...
— Mornings in Florence • John Ruskin
... fittings glistened with varnish, mirrors and brass rods reflected the light at every angle, and the building was packed from roof to floor with boots. The shelves were loaded with white cardboard boxes containing the better sort of boot. But there was not room enough on the shelves, and boots and shoes ...
— Jonah • Louis Stone
... lettin' that Jones up the street give' em a quick finish over the prescription counter. That pill-wrangler couldn't tell the difference between an auger-hole riffle-board and a porous plaster if there wasn't a label on the box. Jeeminnetticus!' says Hadds, 'when he mixes coffin varnish for a man you'd think he was scramblin' eggs. Come on, Washy,' he says, 'while you got the ...
— Mr. Scraggs • Henry Wallace Phillips
... goal of the pilgrimage, was in sight, quite without warning the panting monster had stopped and all attempts to urge it farther were of no avail. There it stood, its motionless engine sending out odors of hot varnish and little ...
— Steve and the Steam Engine • Sara Ware Bassett
... while she spoke through a moral gap an inch wide. Of course, that is only our nonsense. Sally was really in the house when Craddock heroically, as a forlorn hope in a lost cause, offered to "go and see"; and going, said, "Miss Nightingale; and is Dr. Vereker expected in to tea?" without varnish of style, or redundance of wording. But Sally lent herself to this insincere performance, and remained in the hall until she was called on to decide whether she would mind coming in and waiting, and Dr. Vereker would perhaps be back in ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... made an important step in advance of the experiments of Arago, and produced what is properly known as the electro-magnet. He bent a piece of iron wire into the form of a horseshoe, covered it with varnish to insulate it, and surrounded it with a helix, of which the spires were at a distance. When a current of galvanism was passed through the helix from a small battery of a single cup the iron wire became magnetic, and continued so ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: - Invention and Discovery • Various
... roadside a loosened rail was wrenched; an honest cow, picketed at pasture, had her tether shortened a dozen feet in two strokes of the boy's knife. In five minutes more, amid many warnings from Miss Herron against scratching the varnish, one end of the rail was made fast to the rear axle of the carriage, and the other to ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 5, June 1905 • Various
... of the staircase 'against my heart,' as the saying is, climbing in opposition to my heart's desire, which was to return to my mother, since she had not, by her kiss, given my heart leave to accompany me forth. That hateful staircase, up which I always passed with such dismay, gave out a smell of varnish which had to some extent absorbed, made definite and fixed the special quality of sorrow that I felt each evening, and made it perhaps even more cruel to my sensibility because, when it assumed this olfactory guise, my intellect was powerless to resist it. When we have gone to sleep with ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... coated with frozen rain, so that you can touch nothing truly. The spikes of the pines are sunk into pear-shaped crystals, and each fence-post is miraculously hilted with diamonds. If you bend a twig, the icing cracks like varnish, and a half-inch branch snaps off at the lightest tap. If wind and sun open the day together, the eye cannot look steadily at the splendour of this jewelry. The woods are full of the clatter of arms; the ringing of bucks' horns in flight; the stampede of mailed ...
— Letters of Travel (1892-1913) • Rudyard Kipling
... had happened. But there were few transformations in Piccadilly—only three or four big red houses where there had been low black ones—and the brightness of the end of June peeped through the rusty railings of the Green Park and glittered in the varnish of the rolling carriages as he had seen it in other, more cursory Junes. It was a greeting he appreciated; it seemed friendly and pointed, added to the exhilaration of his finished book, of his having his own country and the huge oppressive amusing ...
— The Lesson of the Master • Henry James
... like spiders. By three o'clock the beam was hoisted and fixed; and they broke off their work to attend their shipmates' funeral. After the funeral they fell to again, though more silently, and before nightfall the beam shone with a new coat of varnish. ...
— The Ship of Stars • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... and was presented by sixty admirers. It had one seat, holding two persons, and a high box for the driver in front, bordered with a deep hammer- cloth. The unpainted wood was highly polished, and its fine grain was brought out by a coat of varnish, while on a panel on either side was a representation of "Old Ironsides" under full sail. The phaeton was drawn by General Jackson's four iron-grey carriage- horses, with ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... glass trough with a glass lid fitting tight. "When your oil has been washed in bottle, put it into this trough with water, and put the trough in the sun all day. You will soon see the water turbid again. But mark, you must not carry this game too far, or the sun will turn your oil to varnish. When it is as clear as crystal, not too luscious, drain carefully, and cork it up tight. Grind your own prime colours, and lay them on with this oil, and they shall live. Hubert would put sand or salt in ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... nature, as it received his due at the second hand. Neither had the fame of Cicero, Seneca, Plinius Secundus, borne her age so well, if it had not been joined with some vanity in themselves; like unto varnish, that makes ceilings not only shine but last. But all this while, when I speak of vain-glory, I mean not of that property, that Tacitus doth attribute to Mucianus; Omnium quae dixerat feceratque arte quadam ostentator: for ...
— Essays - The Essays Or Counsels, Civil And Moral, Of Francis Ld. - Verulam Viscount St. Albans • Francis Bacon
... de Byrtonne," and, in still others, the whole of the short-verse pieces, "Songe to Aella" and "The Accounte of W. Canynge's Feast." These scraps of vellum are described as about six inches square, smeared with glue or brown varnish, or stained with ochre, to give them an appearance of age. Thomas Warton had seen one of them, and pronounced it a clumsy forgery; the script not of the fifteenth century, but unmistakably modern. Southey describes another as written, for the most part, in an attorney's regular engrossing hand. ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... three women. And it was not a common parlour! it was ornamented with a sofa, having springs and upholstered in green rep—the only sofa of its kind in Szybow—several armchairs to match it, and a piano. It is true, it was not very new. In several places the varnish had been rubbed off, and the narrowness of the keys and the yellowness of the ivory betrayed its great antiquity. In fact, it was the only piano in the whole of Szybow. When a year ago it had been bought for the exclusive use of Mera, it caused ...
— An Obscure Apostle - A Dramatic Story • Eliza Orzeszko
... I accompanied her in a visit to Wildfell Hall. To our surprise, we were ushered into a room where the first object that met the eye was a painter's easel, with a table beside it covered with rolls of canvas, bottles of oil and varnish, palette, brushes, paints, &c. Leaning against the wall were several sketches in various stages of progression, and a few finished paintings—mostly ...
— The Tenant of Wildfell Hall • Anne Bronte
... no unsettled questions about any known material or method: that it shall be an entirely ascertained and indisputable matter which is the best white, and which the best brown; which the strongest canvas, and safest varnish; and which the shortest and most perfect way of doing everything known up to that time: and if any one discovers a better, he is to make it public forthwith. All of them taking care to embarrass themselves with no theories or reasons for anything, but to work empirically only: it not being ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume III (of 3) • John Ruskin
... floor had been newly done over, and smelt of fresh varnish and paint. The shiny floors had scarcely been walked upon, since they had been refinished. The air was close and warm, by reason of the tightly closed windows. Duvall proceeded at once to the room directly ...
— The Film of Fear • Arnold Fredericks
... into a league and covenant against folks in general:" with whom he had proposed to connect some Perfectly New people. "Everything new about them. If they presented a father and mother, it seemed as if THEY must be bran new, like the furniture and the carriages—shining with varnish, and just home from the manufacturers." These groups took shape in the Lammles and the Veneerings. "I must use somehow," is the remark of another letter, "the uneducated father in fustian and the educated boy in spectacles whom Leech and I saw at Chatham;" of which a hint is in Charley ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... use all material, perfect or imperfect; we cannot afford to select. We must cover knots and imperfections with composition and pass them on. We must use the cheapest glue, and save an infinitesimal sum in the length of our dowels; we must varnish instead of polishing, or "the other man" will get the better of us. If we did not do these things our furniture would be better, but "the other man" would sell more, because he ...
— Principles of Home Decoration - With Practical Examples • Candace Wheeler
... a case which recalls the word of Casal," interrupted Pietrapertosa, "when that snob of a Figon recommended to us at the club his varnish manufactured from a recipe of a valet of the Prince of Wales. If the young man is not settled by us, I shall ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... Death to Bugs:—Varnish is death to the most persistent bug. It is cheap—ten cents' worth will do for one bedstead—is easily used, is safe, and improves the looks of the furniture to which it is applied. The application, must, however, be thorough, the slats, sides, and every ...
— The Whitehouse Cookbook (1887) - The Whole Comprising A Comprehensive Cyclopedia Of Information For - The Home • Mrs. F.L. Gillette
... washed the chork over with a little shell or varnish or something, and, of course, it bruke right easy; so he wasn't the strongest man in the world at all, and if Misc Somers ever see him, ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend
... bet I'd 'a' told her!" gritted Pink, watching furtively Rowdy's averted face. "She ain't goin' t' be bowed down by no load of ignorance much longer, either. If she don't get Harry Conroy's pedigree straight out, without the varnish, it'll be because I ain't next to ...
— Rowdy of the Cross L • B.M. Sinclair, AKA B.M. Bower
... places that contain the figures to be exhibited, and in these light parts the glass is covered with a more or less transparent tint, according to the effect required. The easiest way is to draw the figures with water colors on thin paper and afterward varnish them. To imitate the natural motions of the objects represented, several pieces of glass placed behind each other are occasionally employed. By removing the lantern to different distances, and at the same time altering, ...
— Entertainments for Home, Church and School • Frederica Seeger
... no opinion upon an affair of so much importance. Yet there was sometimes an occasion for a more supported assurance. I remember to have seen him, after giving his opinion that the colouring of a picture was not mellow enough, very deliberately take a brush with brown varnish, that was accidentally lying by, and rub it over the piece with great composure before all the company, and then ask if he had ...
— The Vicar of Wakefield • Oliver Goldsmith
... DOPE—A varnish-like liquid applied to the linen or cotton wing fabrics. It is made chiefly of acetone, and shrinks the fabric around the wooden wing structure until it becomes as tight as a drum. The highly polished surface lessens friction of the ...
— Opportunities in Aviation • Arthur Sweetser
... unpleasant. They would be horrid to meet and horrid to think of. We fear it must be owned that Enoch Arden is this kind of person. A dirty sailor who did not go home to his wife is not an agreeable being: a varnish must be put on him to make him shine. It is true that he acts rightly; that he is very good. But such is human nature that it finds a little tameness in mere morality. Mere virtue belongs to a charity school-girl, and has a taint of the catechism. All of us feel this, though most of us are too ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... nuts and vitriol, powder them and spread them on paper like a varnish, then write on it with a pen wetted with spittle and it will ...
— The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, Complete • Leonardo Da Vinci
... in tens of thousands, would perhaps be the most blessed antidote which could be bestowed upon us. The heroes themselves were the men of the people—the Joneses, the Smiths, the Davises, the Drakes; and no courtly pen, with the one exception of Raleigh, lent its polish or its varnish to set them off. In most cases the captain himself, or his clerk or servant, or some unknown gentleman volunteer, sat down and chronicled the voyage which he had shared; and thus inorganically arose a collection of writings which, ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude
... no such thing as dirt in a limestone country. The very mud off the roads in rainy weather is not dirt at all, sticky though it undoubtedly is. It consists almost entirely of lime, which, though it burns all the varnish off your carriage if allowed to remain on it for a few days, has nothing repulsive about its nature, like ...
— A Cotswold Village • J. Arthur Gibbs
... watched by bailiffs without, until death came to his relief. A corner of the Morning Post noticed his death, generously adding, that his manner displayed considerable genius, though his style was rather sketchy; and referred to an advertisement, which announced that Mr. Varnish, a well-known printseller, had still on hand a very few drawings and painings by Richard Tinto, Esquire, which those of the nobility and gentry who might wish to complete their collections of modern art were invited to visit without delay. So ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott
... village statesmen talk'd with looks profound, And news much older than their ale went round. Imagination fondly stoops to trace 225 The parlour splendours of that festive place; The white-wash'd wall, the nicely sanded floor, The varnish'd clock that click'd behind the door; The chest contriv'd a double debt to pay, A bed by night, a chest of drawers by day; 230 The pictures plac'd for ornament and use, The twelve good rules, the royal game of goose; The hearth, except when winter ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith
... the Owl, 'the modern English chiefly excel in painting. To-morrow, by the way, the shrine of Loveliness begins to open its gates. The successful worshippers, are admitted to varnish their offerings to Beauty, while the unsuccessful are sent away in disgrace, with their sacrifices. Suppose we go and ...
— 'That Very Mab' • May Kendall and Andrew Lang
... savages, with occasional touches of humanity, are however very frequent: and in the wide interval which separates these from any worthy representatives of the human species, how many are the forms and gradations of animalism and selfishness, often under an outward varnish of civilization and even cultivation, living at peace with the law, maintaining a creditable appearance to all who are not under their power, yet sufficient often to make the lives of all who are so, a torment ...
— The Subjection of Women • John Stuart Mill
... veneer smooth and fit for varnishing. We have what is called a sand paper wheel, made of pine plank, its edge formed in an O-G. shape, and sand-paper glued to it. When this wheel is revolving rapidly, the pieces are passed over it and in this way smoothed very fast. They are then ready to varnish, and it usually takes about ten days to put on the several coats of varnish, and polish them ready for mitering, which completes the pieces ready for glueing in shape of the case. The sides of the case are made much cheaper. I used to ...
— History of the American Clock Business for the Past Sixty Years, - and Life of Chauncey Jerome • Chauncey Jerome
... it becomes necessary to deceive 'em, same as we use to do when I was an apprentice in London, when master would put a body in a pine coffin, all flourished off with paint and varnish, and then ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes |
