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Veil   Listen
noun
Veil  n.  (Written also vail)  
1.
Something hung up, or spread out, to intercept the view, and hide an object; a cover; a curtain; esp., a screen, usually of gauze, crape, or similar diaphnous material, to hide or protect the face. "The veil of the temple was rent in twain." "She, as a veil down to the slender waist, Her unadornéd golden tresses wore."
2.
A cover; a disguise; a mask; a pretense. "(I will) pluck the borrowed veil of modesty from the so seeming Mistress Page."
3.
(Bot.)
(a)
The calyptra of mosses.
(b)
A membrane connecting the margin of the pileus of a mushroom with the stalk; called also velum.
4.
(Eccl.) A covering for a person or thing; as, a nun's veil; a paten veil; an altar veil.
5.
(Zool.) Same as Velum, 3.
To take the veil (Eccl.), to receive or be covered with, a veil, as a nun, in token of retirement from the world; to become a nun.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Veil" Quotes from Famous Books



... is done by diffusing the magnetic warp from the root of the nose under the base of the skull, till it forms a veil; so that the sentiments of the heart can have no communication with the operations of ...
— A Terrible Temptation - A Story of To-Day • Charles Reade

... his fault if pretty Donna Angela Chiaromonte had thrown a white veil over her dark hair, just to try the effect of it, the very first time she had been brought to his studio, or that she had been standing beside an early fifteenth century altar and altar-piece which he had just ...
— The White Sister • F. Marion Crawford

... in their pockets, and a shillelah in their hands, when they made pastoral visits; inquiring the signification of such words as vele, firrum, hellum, storrum (so Mr. Malone invariably pronounced veil, firm, helm, storm), and employing such other methods of retaliation as the innate refinement ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte

... crowded with life in every storey, oozing vitality from every window; but of all the narrow vertical strips that make up the houses of the street, this strip numbered thirty-seven is empty, silent, and dead. The shutters veil its windows; within it is dark, empty of furniture, and inhabited only by a memory and a spirit. It is a strange place in which to stand and to think of all that has happened since the man of our thoughts looked forth from these windows, a common ...
— Christopher Columbus, Complete • Filson Young

... sufferings of the soul in this state. It goes about in quest of relief, and God suffers it to find none. The light of reason, in the freedom of its will, remains, but it is not clear; it seems to me as if its eyes were covered with a veil. As a person who, having travelled often by a particular road, knows, though it be night and dark, by his past experience of it, where he may stumble, and where he ought to be on his guard against that risk, because he has seen the place by day, so the soul avoids offending ...
— The Life of St. Teresa of Jesus • Teresa of Avila

... remark of the Lady Abbess made the answer of the Constable necessary, and prevented him from observing that her colour shifted more than once from pale to deep red. Rose, who was not excluded from the conference, drew close up to her mistress; and, by affecting to adjust her veil, while in secret she strongly pressed her hand, gave her time and encouragement to compose her mind for a reply. It was brief and decisive, and announced with a firmness which showed that the uncertainty of the moment had passed away or been suppressed. "In case of ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott

... and especially her duty to marry well. Between her and her mother there had been no reticence on this subject. With worldly people in general, though the worldliness is manifest enough and is taught by plain lessons from parents to their children, yet there is generally some thin veil even among themselves, some transparent tissue of lies, which, though they never quite hope to deceive each other, does produce among them something of the comfort of deceit. But between Lady Augustus ...
— The American Senator • Anthony Trollope

... the carnival!—those wild weeks when the Lord of Misrule wields his motley scepter—leading from one reckless frolic to another till Mardi Gras culminates in a giddy whirl of delirious fun on which, at midnight, Lent drops a somber veil! ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon

... the city, or that he had met with certain suspicious looking individuals during the course of the day! There was yet one who looked peculiarly suspicious and who was enveloped, as far as his knowledge was concerned, in a veil of mystery of the strangest depth. She, indeed, was a flower too fair to blush unseen or unattached. ...
— The Loyalist - A Story of the American Revolution • James Francis Barrett

... Naturally, I am too much of a gentleman to have projected unfair means of illuminating her face, such as the use of a pocket electric lamp or anything of that sort. I am nothing if not gallant,—when it comes to a pinch. Besides, I was reasonably certain that she would wear a thick black veil. In this I was wrong. She wore a white, filmy one, but it served the purpose. I naturally concluded that ...
— A Fool and His Money • George Barr McCutcheon

... instant of bustle and preparation, in which the rattling of firearms blended with the suppressed execrations and threats of the intended combatants; and Cecilia and Katherine had both covered their faces to veil the horrid sight that was momentarily expected, when Alice Dunscombe advanced, boldly, between the points of the threatening weapons, and spoke in a voice that stayed the hands ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper

... alert to earn fares, took the news of the fray into the country, and hauled in scores of excited provincials, who had vague ideas that la guerre was on. The wedding party, only six motor-cars full on the second day, all in wreaths of tuberoses and wild-cherry rind, the bride still in her point-lace veil, and the groom and all the guests cheered with the champagne they had drunk, drove under the shed from the suburbs and honked their horns, to the horror of the ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien

... thin veil of prediction, he strongly recommends all the abominable practices which afterwards followed. In particular, he inflamed the minds of the populace against the respectable and conscientious clergy, who became the chief objects of the massacre, and who were to him the chief objects of a malignity ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. V. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... was in anything but a laughing mood. She was too much afraid of the fiery chief for that, and had merely covered her face, as a modern beauty might drop her veil, to ...
— The Hot Swamp • R.M. Ballantyne

... with him: — "That love of man for man, That joyed in all sweet possibilities: that faith Which hallowed love and life. . . . So he, Heaven-taught in his large-heartedness, Smiled with his spirit's eyes athwart the veil That human loves too oft keep closely drawn. . . . So hearts leaped up to breathe his freer atmosphere, And eyes smiled truer for his radiance clear, And souls grew loftier where his teachings fell, And all gave love. . . . Aye, the ...
— Sidney Lanier • Edwin Mims

... had been passed in England. It was not unknown to her that old English friends were on the way to Italy; the recollection of a quiet and a buried time put a veil across her features. She was perplexed by the mention of the Austrian officer by Luigi, as one may be who divines the truth too surely, but will not accept it for its loathsomeness. There were Englishmen in the army of Austria. Could ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... of whom we have only heard before as "of a noble Roman family, and surpassing in beauty all the women of the island") has wickedly married him. Arthur returns, defeats Mordred at Rutupiae (after this battle Guinevere takes the veil), and, at Winchester, drives him to the extremity of Cornwall, and there overthrows and kills him. But the renowned King Arthur himself was mortally wounded, and "being carried thence to the Isle of Avallon to be cured of his wounds, ...
— The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory - (Periods of European Literature, vol. II) • George Saintsbury

... a look-out as was possible was kept, the captain hoping ere long to see one of the Prince's vessels, and to learn from her where the rest were to be found. At length, about noon, the sun made an effort to burst through the thick veil which shrouded us. Soon afterwards the mist lifted for an instant ahead, and during that instant I saw what appeared to me the hull of a ship, the canvas just rising above it; but it was only a glimpse, and it needed a sharp pair of eyes to discern ...
— The Boy who sailed with Blake • W.H.G. Kingston

... time was very precious, and passed over to the table, where a great bowl of violets stood. The room was pretty: it had reminded Queed, when he entered it, of Nicolovius's room, though there was a softer note in it, as the flowers, the work-bag on the table, the balled-up veil and gloves on the mantel-shelf. He had liked, too, the soft-shaded lamps; the vague resolve had come to him to install a lamp in the Scriptorium later on. But now, thinking of nothing like this, he sat in a thick silence gazing at her ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison

... speaks of the image of a goddess Berecynthia drawn on a litter through the streets, fields, and vineyards of Augustodunum on the days of her festival, or when the fields were threatened with scarcity. The people danced and sang before it. The image was covered with a white veil.[947] Berecynthia has been conjectured by Professor Anwyl to be the ...
— The Religion of the Ancient Celts • J. A. MacCulloch

... confide even in Mrs. Frankland, who would, she felt sure, make too much of the matter. Most of all, it was not in her power to bring herself to say anything to Millard about it. The latter felt, during the three or four weeks that followed the treatment of Wilhelmina, that the veil between him and the inner life of Phillida was growing more opaque. He found no ground to quarrel with Phillida; she was cordial, affectionate, and dutiful toward him, but he felt, with a quickness ...
— The Faith Doctor - A Story of New York • Edward Eggleston

... as she to ask. These, in the years of childhood, were rewarded by a kiss, or permission to ride on her rocking-horse, or to make calls, with Anne and herself, on their dolls, and so forth; but as years rolled on, and vague feelings and shadowy intimations assumed definiteness, a delicate veil of reserve imperceptibly interposed itself, as effectual to bar the former familiarity as if a Chinese wall had been built between them. Yet, for years, no warmer sentiment succeeded; and, though William Bernard felt pleasure in the society of his beautiful neighbor, ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams

... of my world-famous Gypsy's Elixir and Romany Pharmacopheionepenthe. (That is the name, gentlemen, but as I detest quackery I term it simply the Gypsy's Elixir.) When the German gentleman learned that in all probability but one life could be saved he said, 'Veil, denn, doctor, subbose you gifes dat dose to de cook. For mine frau ish so goot dat it's all right mit her. She's reaty to tie. But de boor gook ish a sinner, ash I knows, und not reaty for de next world. And dere ish no vomans ...
— The Gypsies • Charles G. Leland

... heavy carved balustrade to the panelled rooms above.... Then, the last touches put to the heads (too loftily piled with cushions, puffs, curls, and lappets, to admit of being covered with anything more than a veil or a hood).... Gay would be ...
— Woman's Life in Colonial Days • Carl Holliday

... accommodations to popular prejudice, and a great deal too grave to be taken as mere metaphor. And I, for my part, am not so sure that, apart from Him, I know all things in heaven and earth, as to venture to put aside these solemn words of His—which lift a corner of the veil which hides the unseen—and to dismiss them as unworthy of notice. Is it not a strange thing that a world which is so ready to believe in spiritual communications when they are vouched for by a newspaper editor, is so unwilling to believe them when they are in the Bible? ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren

... they, who had built these publicity machines for their own purposes. And what were they in their private lives? Some of them were notoriously dissolute; and still others hid their ways under a veil of hypocrisy—just as in their editorials they hid their class-interests under pretenses of principle. And how easy it would have been for Darrell to get what he wanted without losing his reputation—if only he had been willing to follow the example of these eminent citizens! ...
— Love's Pilgrimage • Upton Sinclair

... as Peter says, 'ready to be unveiled.' Yes, behind the thin curtain, through which stray beams of the brightness sometimes shoot, that other order stands, close to us, parted from us by a most slender division, only a woven veil, no great gulf or iron barrier. And before long His hand will draw it back, rattling with its rings as it is put aside, and there will blaze out what has always been, though we saw it not. It is so close, so real, ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... of seeing beauties unveiled—and then to see nothing but the veil and the eyebrows. It seems that you are like the nightingales of Ourmis; you must be ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 53, No. 331, May, 1843 • Various

... the great tragedies. And this impression is strengthened in further ways. In the other great tragedies the action is placed in a distant period, so that its general significance is perceived through a thin veil which separates the persons from ourselves and our own world. But Othello is a drama of modern life; when it first appeared it was a drama almost of contemporary life, for the date of the Turkish attack on Cyprus is 1570. The characters come close to us, and the application of the drama ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley

... astern, there appeared a long line of white foam, rushing forward over the hitherto calm surface of the ocean at a rapid rate, while clouds came rising out of the horizon, and chasing each other across the blue sky, over which a thick veil of mist seemed suddenly to have been drawn. In a few seconds a fierce blast struck the ship, making her heel over to starboard in a way which seemed as if it was about to take the masts out of her. Mrs Davenport clung to the cabin skylight, on which she was sitting. It was with ...
— In the Eastern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston

... roar of March winds is no more heard in the tossing woods, but along still brown boughs a faint, veil-like greenness runs; when every spring, welling out of the soaked earth, trickles through banks of sod unbarred by ice; before a bee is abroad under the calling sky; before the red of apple-buds becomes a sign in ...
— The Reign of Law - A Tale of the Kentucky Hemp Fields • James Lane Allen

... now leave Captain Crowe and his nephew Mr. Clarke, arguing with great vehemence about the fatal intelligence obtained from the conjurer, and penetrate at once the veil that concealed our hero. Know then, reader, that Sir Launcelot Greaves, repairing to the place described in the billet which he had received, was accosted by a person muffled in a cloak, who began to amuse him with a feigned story ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett

... are the two best paths adored by all. Outward acts produce fruits that are transitory as also eternal. For acquiring the latter there is no other means than abandonment of fruits by the mind.[656] As the eye, when night passes away and the veil of darkness is removed from it, leads its possessor by its own power, so the Understanding, when it becomes endued with Knowledge, succeeds in beholding all evils that are worthy of avoidance.[657] Snakes, sharp-pointed kusa blades, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown

... the writer may claim not to have outstepped the traditional limits of theological hatred. For what follows there is not even that poor excuse. "If we might withdraw the veil of his private life and tell what we now know about him, it would be indeed a disgusting picture that we should exhibit, but it would be an unanswerable comment on our text. . .Mr. Shelley is too young, too ignorant, too inexperienced, and too vicious to undertake the task of reforming any world ...
— English literary criticism • Various

... her veil, drained and shaking, the woman crosses the antechamber. Empress! Empress! Foolish splendour, perished to dust. Ashes of roses, ashes of youth. ...
— Men, Women and Ghosts • Amy Lowell

... imperfect fellow-man, it is not a perfect angel, who besets us behind and before, and is acquainted with, all our ways. It is the immaculate God himself. It is He before whom archangels veil their faces, and the burning seraphim cry, "Holy." It is He, in whose sight the pure cerulean heavens are not clean, and whose eyes are a flame of fire devouring all iniquity. We are beheld, in all this process of sin, be it blind or be it intelligent, ...
— Sermons to the Natural Man • William G.T. Shedd

... their Crown Colony Government, and the frank acceptance of the Union Constitution by the British Government are the first steps in this direction. Meantime that future of South Africa, as of all the Empire, lies behind a veil. ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 21 - The Recent Days (1910-1914) • Charles F. Horne, Editor

... mathematical astronomy has laid open. The grammar of a language is defined to be the art of reading and writing that language with propriety. The study of its elements is dry and uninteresting; and, while the teacher dwells with care upon the merits of the text, he should also lift the veil from that which is hidden, and lead his pupils to appreciate those riches of learning which the knowledge of a language ...
— Thoughts on Educational Topics and Institutions • George S. Boutwell

... work to produce the abundance; and it was a novelty in England, where (in company) the men are the pointed talkers, and the women conversationally fair Circassians. They are, or they know that they should be; it comes to the same. Happily our civilization has not prescribed the veil to them. The mutes have here and there a sketch or label attached to their names: they are 'strikingly handsome'; they are 'very good-looking'; occasionally they are noted as 'extremely entertaining': in what manner, is inquired by a curious posterity, that in so many matters ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... screen. His black eyes had that lively watchfulness you associate with Psis. He had the gain way down and the aperture wide, so that he wasn't in focus any farther back than his ears. And that scope setting hid from where he was calling as effectively as a veil. Did you ever know a Psi who didn't seem ...
— Modus Vivendi • Gordon Randall Garrett

... and staggered Francis; for two days he dallied, and then made a counter-proposition with a new clause, which secured, not the emancipation of states, but dynastic independence for the sovereigns of the Rhine Confederation. This drew the veil from Metternich's policy. Afraid of a German nationality in which Prussia would inevitably secure the hegemony, he was determined to perpetuate the rivalries of petty potentates, and regain Austria's ascendancy in Germany as well as in Italy. This, too, ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane

... out, at last, without unsteadiness or flickering. He continued to exercise every power of his mind without dimness or obscuration, and every affection of his heart with no abatement of energy or warmth, till death drew an impenetrable veil between us and him. Indeed, he seems to us now, as in truth he is, not extinguished or ceasing to be, but only withdrawn; as the clear sun goes down at its setting, not darkened, but ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster

... whom real people were but as empty shadows; but a world that the death and burial of his beautiful and adored young mother and the impression made upon him by those scenes, had tinged with an eternal sadness which hung over it as a veil. ...
— The Dreamer - A Romantic Rendering of the Life-Story of Edgar Allan Poe • Mary Newton Stanard

... must be an investigation!" was Viola's quick decision. There were still tears in her eyes, but she looked through them now, as through a veil that must be torn aside. "I can not believe that my father was a—a suicide—" she halted at the awful word. "I will not believe it!" she went on more firmly. "It can not ...
— The Golf Course Mystery • Chester K. Steele

... the old man, 'speak, and tell us that thou seest, for well we know thou piercest the veil that hideth from us the secrets of ...
— Celtic Tales - Told to the Children • Louey Chisholm

... wedding tour. Not only is the young wife tried beyond all her experience, and her nervous system harassed, but the husband, too, partakes of her weakness. Many men, who really love the women they marry, are subject to a slight revulsion of feeling for a few days after marriage. 'When the veil falls, and the girdle is loosened,' says the German poet Schiller, 'the fair illusion vanishes.' A half regret crosses their minds for the jolly bachelorhood they have renounced. The mysterious charms which gave their loved one the air of something ...
— The Physical Life of Woman: - Advice to the Maiden, Wife and Mother • Dr. George H Napheys

... down at the Frying Pan in Brick Lane yesterday, (said the communicative adventurer;) Snivelling Bill and Carrotty Poll was there in rum order—you know Carrotty? Poll? so Poll, (Good health to you) you knows how gallows lushy she gets—veil, as I vas saying, she had had a good day vith her fish, and bang she comes back to Bill—you knows she's rather nutty upon Bill, and according to my thinking they manages things pretty veil together, only you see ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan

... frankly. Do you really love my sister? Would you wish to see her subjected to the alternative, either to become the wife of Don Carlos Alvarez, or else to be confined in a convent, perhaps be constrained or influenced to take the hateful veil? You alone can save her ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various

... have a way of fighting a prairie fire which is very effective. When they see the blue veil of smoke lying close to the horizon, or the dull red glare on the night sky, they immediately start another fire to go out and meet ...
— The Black Creek Stopping-House • Nellie McClung

... spirits round the war pole till the set of sun closed the rites. "That evening two scalps were brought into camp," so a letter of his reads. Does the bold savage color of this picture affright us? Would we veil it? Then we should lose something of the true lineaments of George Rogers Clark, who, within four short years, was to lead a tiny army of tattered and starving backwoodsmen, ashamed to quail where he never ...
— Pioneers of the Old Southwest - A Chronicle of the Dark and Bloody Ground • Constance Lindsay Skinner

... up the desert to the north. The familiar gray veil of sand was plainly visible. "Lord!" he exclaimed. "We'd better ...
— The Forbidden Trail • Honore Willsie

... way and I go mine Apart, yet not afar. Only a thin veil hangs between The pathways where we are; And God keep watch 'tween thee and me This is my prayer. He looketh thy way, he looketh mine, And keeps us near. I sigh ofttimes to see thy face, But since this may not be, I'll ...
— Reno - A Book of Short Stories and Information • Lilyan Stratton

... observe, that although slowly, we were gradually, and, I think, steadily working our way into the interior. At that time I hoped with God's blessing we should have raised the veil that had so long hung over it, more effectually than we did. Up to that period we had been exceedingly fortunate; nothing had occurred to disturb the tranquillity of our proceedings; no natives to interrupt ...
— Expedition into Central Australia • Charles Sturt

... fallen upon commercial days now, and the traditions of the old Alamo circle around a warehouse. Alamo Plaza is now the scene of the annual "Battle of the Flowers," a joyous and beautiful occasion which throws a fragrant floral veil about the terrible memories ...
— Literary Hearthstones of Dixie • La Salle Corbell Pickett

... ill-starred race. The blood of Townley, and of his brave fellow-sufferers, rests not as a stain on the memory of Lord George Murray; and the Prince alone must bear the odium of that needless sacrifice to a visionary future. "We must draw a veil," says the Chevalier Johnstone, "over this piece of cruelty, being altogether unable either to discover the motive for leaving this three hundred men at Carlisle, or to find an excuse ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume III. • Mrs. Thomson

... Chatterton, Campbell says, "I would rather lean to the utmost enthusiasm of his admirers, than to the cold opinion of those who are afraid of being blinded to the defects of the poems attributed to Rowley, by the veil of obsolete phraseology which is thrown over them. If we look to the ballad of Sir Charles Bawdin, and translate it into modern English, we shall find its strength and interest to have no dependence on obsolete ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various

... Botticelli. In yielding to these tastes he had been conscious of divergence from the standard of the Golden Age. Their poetry was not that of Milton and Byron and Tennyson; of Raphael and Titian; Mozart and Beethoven. It was, as it were, behind a veil; their poetry hit no one in the face, but slipped its fingers under the ribs and turned and twisted, and melted up the heart. And, never certain that this was healthy, he did not care a rap so long as he could see the pictures of the one or hear ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... poetry but must be living subjects for terror and for pity. 'I have endeavoured,' he says, 'as nearly as possible to represent the characters as they probably were, and have sought to avoid the error of making them actuated by my own conception of right or wrong, false or true: thus under a thin veil converting names and actions of the sixteenth century into cold impersonations of my own ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde

... the man spoke this word, "a mate to paddle the canoe," Laieikawai drew aside the veil that covered her face because of her grandmother's wish completely to conceal her grandchild from being seen by anyone as they went on their way to Paliuli; but her ...
— The Hawaiian Romance Of Laieikawai • Anonymous

... his dinner. It was no time, she said to herself, to stand upon little punctilios. There had been too much between them to let there be any question of a girl going after her lover. She was going after her lover, and she didn't care who knew it. Nevertheless, there was a blush beneath her veil as she asked at the door whether Mr Owen was at home. Mr Owen was at home, and she was shown ...
— Cousin Henry • Anthony Trollope

... manifold beliefs. Yes! beneath these soaring vaults the harmonies born of the genius of sacred things find a yet unheard-of grandeur, which adorns and strengthens them. Here the dim light, the deep silence, the voices alternating with the solemn tones of the organ, seem like a veil through which the luminous attributes of God himself pierce and radiate. Yet all these sacred riches now seem flung like a grain of incense on the frail altar of an earthly love, in presence of the eternal throne ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various

... sound of his voice she seemed to experience a shock of fear or horror; started back; lowered her veil with a sudden movement; and fled, without ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 5 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... the Temple of Artemis. Small gold gates on platform in front of the veil before the colossal statue of the Goddess, and in the centre of the Temple a tripod altar, on which is a lighted lamp. Lamps (lighted) suspended between each pillar. Tripods, vases, garlands of flowers, etc., about stage. Altar at back ...
— Becket and other plays • Alfred Lord Tennyson

... her screen with a jerk, cutting herself off from the corner where Susan performed her toilet. Seated on her bed, Nancy brushed at her long, sleek hair, keeping it spread as a veil before her face. Dreda waited in vain for a glance of sympathy, or understanding, but it never came, even when Susan had crept softly from the room and the constraint of her presence was removed. Nancy finished brushing her hair, and rose to her feet in the ...
— Etheldreda the Ready - A School Story • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... mistaken for it all have white gills. The gills end with abrupt upward curves at the center of the cap without being attached to the stem. In the young mushroom, when the cap is folded down about the stem, the gills are not noticeable, as they are covered by a veil or filmy membrane, a part of which remains attached to the stem (when the top expands), as a ring or collar about the stem a little more than halfway up from the ground. The stem is solid and not hollow, and there is no bulbous enlargement at ...
— The Home Medical Library, Volume V (of VI) • Various

... darkish times like these to see a Rent in the veil which keeps the public blind, And thus obtain a pretty shrewd idea Of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, October 27, 1920 • Various

... tunics and jackets of every kind and color, gave certainly an agreeable liveliness to the spectacle, which their elders emulated by expressions of taste as personal and unconventional. A lady in the old-fashioned riding-habit and a black top-hat with a floating veil recalled a former day, but she was obviously riding to lose weight, in a brief emergence from the past to which she belonged. One man similarly hatted, but frock-coated and not veiled, is scarcely worthy of note; but no doubt he was gratifying an individual preference as distinct as that ...
— London Films • W.D. Howells

... victims forward crowned with flowers, Crowned were tame crocodiles, and boys white-robed Guided their creaking crests across the stream. In gilded barges went the female train, And hearing others ripple near, undrew The veil of sea-green awning: if they found Whom they desired, how pleasant was the breeze! If not, the frightful water forced a sigh. Sweet airs of music ruled the rowing palms, Now rose they glistening and aslant reclined, Now they descended, ...
— Gebir • Walter Savage Landor

... side, stretched upon skins, appeared what might have been mistaken for a white veil, except that a draft of air caused a portion of it to rise and fall, showing it to be a mass of human hair. Yet so motionless was the figure, so still a tiny moccasoned foot, just perceptible, and so ghastly the hue and abundance of the covering, that all suggested ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 1 July 1848 • Various

... straight up out of the lake, and towered aloft and overshadowed our pygmy steamer with their prodigious bulk in the most impressive way. Not snow-clad mountains, these, yet they climbed high enough toward the sky to meet the clouds and veil their foreheads in them. They were not barren and repulsive, but clothed in green, and restful and pleasant to the eye. And they were so almost straight-up-and-down, sometimes, that one could not imagine ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... all obedience. [Exit Antonio, she pulls off her Veil; Alberto salutes her with ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume IV. • Aphra Behn

... what we call little, always will come in among great ones, or at least among those which we call great. Before I passed the Golden Gate in the clipper ship Bridal Veil (so called from one of the Yosemite cascades) I found out what I had long wished to know—why Firm had a crooked nose. At least, it could hardly be called crooked if any body looked aright at it; but still it departed from the bold straight line which ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore

... minds. These conventions, like all conventions, are partly insufficient to convey the full idea of the composer, and partly arbitrary, in that they do not give the interpreter adequate latitude to introduce his own ideas in expression. The student should seek to break the veil of conventions provided by notation and seek a clearer insight into the composer's individuality as expressed in his compositions. From this point of view the so-called subjective interpretation seems the only legitimate one. In fact, the ones who ...
— Great Pianists on Piano Playing • James Francis Cooke

... expressed, or the confidences, not only then but to the very eve of his death reposed in me, that were to enable me to fulfill it.[4] The fulfillment indeed he had himself rendered more easy by partially uplifting the veil in ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster

... mode of life that challenges the imagination and induces a curiosity hard to decipher. The dress of the Chinese, their strange customs, their difficult language, and their apparently impenetrable mask-like faces appeal to the fancy and throw a veil of mystery around even ...
— Pung Chow - The Game of a Hundred Intelligences. Also known as Mah-Diao, Mah-Jong, Mah-Cheuk, Mah-Juck and Pe-Ling • Lew Lysle Harr

... tonneau swept aside her veil and looked, as directed. And I looked at her. The face that I saw was sweet and refined and delicate, a beautiful young face, the face of a lady, born and bred. All this I saw and realized at a glance; ...
— The Rise of Roscoe Paine • Joseph C. Lincoln

... mournin' bunnet and veil, but black gittin' soiled so easy, she had put on a bright green alpaca dress she had, thinkin' that she wouldn't see nobody she knew; and she wore some old yeller mitts for the same reason, and some low, shabby-lookin' shoes, and some ...
— Samantha at the World's Fair • Marietta Holley

... guide, and why does he veil his lamp? Why looks he with anxious eyes to yonder bright chambers in the cavern? What beings are those which appear in that chamber, and whose are those accents that fall on the eager ears of the lovers? ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 3 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones

... her hands, then suddenly she caught at the coif above her head and pulled forward the tail of her hood till, like a veil, it ...
— The Fifth Queen • Ford Madox Ford

... her hat under one ear, and covering her face with a blue veil, Beryl took a pasteboard box from a table, on which lay brushes and paints, and leaving the door a-jar, ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson

... woman in the Notary's office, which, while partly detached from the house, did duty as sitting-room and library. When Charley entered, the room was only lighted by two candles, and Paulette's face was hidden by a veil, but Charley observed the tremulousness of the figure and the nervous decision of manner. He had seen her before several times, and he had always noticed the air, half bravado, half shrinking, marking her walk and movements, as though two emotions were fighting in her. She ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... Koppy gasped. A veil seemed to fall over his eyes. A drop of sweat fell to his rifle butt. When he could see once more he slowly drew back the gun, eyes staring. Slowly he turned to the expectant faces below him. They knew nothing of ...
— The Return of Blue Pete • Luke Allan

... tell exactly; somewhars between here an' the village, I reckon. Seems to me she did have a veil or suthin'." ...
— Gypsy's Cousin Joy • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps

... nervousness!" To Aunt Hester he portrayed Irene's hat. "Not one of your great flopping things, sprawling about, and catching the dust, that women are so fond of nowadays, but a neat little—" he made a circular motion of his hand, "white veil—capital taste." ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... child so young to lie in the tomb. But I was not prepared for the sight of the white casket as it was wheeled into the church, with the solitary mourner, her promised husband, slowly following all that was left of his bride-to-be, robed as for the bridal and her shimmering veil tied in a large bow knot and the bridal wreath placed lightly upon the casket with lilies of the valley and maiden-hair ferns, trailing in graceful festoons around the casket. Truly all the heroes do not face the cannon's mouth. It requires bravery beyond conception ...
— Sixty Years of California Song • Margaret Blake-Alverson

... now, the difficult task of establishing the evolutionary succession of these thirty ancestors of humanity since the beginning of life, and in venturing to lift the veil that covers the earliest secrets of the earth's history, we must undoubtedly look for the first living things among the wonderful organisms that we call the Monera; they are the simplest organisms known to us—in fact, the simplest we can conceive. ...
— The Evolution of Man, V.2 • Ernst Haeckel

... first to awaken to their peril. Casting her eyes downward by chance, she all at once became aware of a faint veil of smoke that was creeping round about her feet. Well did she know by that sign who was near. She cast her eyes hurriedly on all sides, and saw with alarm that the smoke was drawing in upon ...
— The Shadow Witch • Gertrude Crownfield

... on me with glances wonder-bright: The slender Syrian spears are not so straight and slight: She laid her veil aside, and, lo, her cheeks rose-red! All manner of loveliness was in their sweetest sight The locks that o'er her brow fell down, were like the night, From out of which there shines ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner

... blue-black. Colored veils look well with a satin ribbon of the same color, about a nail deep, put on as a hem all round. For white ones, a ribbon of a light color is preferable, as it makes a slight contrast. A crape, or gauze veil, is hemmed round; that at the bottom being something broader than the rest. All veils have strings run in at the top, and riding ones are frequently furnished with a ribbon at the bottom, which ...
— The Ladies' Work-Table Book • Anonymous

... as a squirrel flashes along a branch. It was now the season of singing-birds, and the woods were haunted with mysterious, tender music. The voices of the birds which love the deeper shades of the forest are sadder than those of the open fields: these are the nuns who have taken the veil, the hermits that have hidden themselves away from the world and tell their griefs to the infinite listening Silences of the wilderness,—for the one deep inner silence that Nature breaks with her fitful superficial sounds becomes multiplied ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... cloud-wreaths roll away. The veil is lifted; We see again. Behold! He is alone. It was a vision that our eyes beheld, And it hath vanished ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

... brilliant, more glorious than he ever beheld 'neath the heavens, before or since. Then, dight with his 75 boar-crested helmet, he started up from slumber, and straightway the messenger, a bright herald of glory, spake unto him and called him by his name, while the veil of night parted asunder: 'O Constantine, the King of angels, Wielder of fates and Lord of hosts, hath commanded to offer thee a 80 covenant. Fear thou not, though foreign peoples threaten thee with terror and bitter strife. Look to heaven, unto the Lord of glory. There shalt thou find aid and ...
— The Elene of Cynewulf • Cynewulf

... had forgotten them; how horrid they were!" With the surface of her mind she was conscious that his presence was a relief; it was like a veil between her ...
— The Iron Woman • Margaret Deland

... himself to battle with his confused brain, to try and make out where he was, and what it all meant. For, as far as the past was concerned, it was as if a dense black curtain were drawn across his mind, and this great veil ...
— Crown and Sceptre - A West Country Story • George Manville Fenn

... horizon of Rome was filled with vapors, like that leaden veil which the sirocco drew over the Campagna, and which made the last months of summer so deadly. The Pope was no less detested at home than abroad. Thoughtful people were filled with anxiety, hermits appeared upon the streets and squares of Rome, foretelling the fate of Italy and of the world, and ...
— The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy • Jacob Burckhardt

... feasted at Eric's house. On the next night Gyda sat on the cross-bench with her women. A long veil of white linen covered her face and head and hung down to the ground. After the mead-horns had been brought in, Eric stood up from his high seat and went down and ...
— Viking Tales • Jennie Hall

... sake of humanity in general and the royal family in particular, that I could throw a veil over the conduct of the Duke of Cumberland after the last rebellion. The indiscriminate punishments which he held out equally to the innocent and the guilty, are facts of notoriety much to be lamented. The intention may possibly, ...
— An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America • J. P. MacLean

... emerald, the ruby of her youth gave way to grey and silver, pale jade and faint turquoise, shell pink and dim lavender. Her loveliness had shifted. The hours of the day conspired to set her. The hard coat and skirt, the high collar, the small hat, the neat veil of morning, the caressing charmeuse that followed, the trailing chiffon mysteries of her tea-gown, the white velvet or the cloth of silver that launched her triumphantly at night, who was to choose between them? Summer ...
— When Winter Comes to Main Street • Grant Martin Overton

... details, yet a veil is drawn over others still more detestable. They are related circumstantially by Las Casas, who was an eye-witness. He was young at the time, but records them in his advanced years. "All these things," says the venerable Bishop, "and others revolting to human nature, ...
— The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (Vol. II) • Washington Irving

... won't ye?' he was shouting. 'Let me tell you I've held on my course when better men than you have asked me to veil topsails. I tell you I have the admiral's permit, and I won't clew up for a bit of a red-painted cock-boat; so move from athwart my hawse, or I may chance ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle

... lauds the crossing and the recrossing of the river, as an act of superhuman bravery; and Lincoln sympathises with the heavily wounded, and twaddles extensively about comparative losses. Comparative to what? Oh! spirits of Napoleon and his braves; oh! spirit of true history, veil your blushing brows! And the Tribune dares to make this impudent attempt at befogging the American people, and at the same time dares to tell that people that it ...
— Diary from November 12, 1862, to October 18, 1863 • Adam Gurowski

... spirit's bark is driven Far from the shore, far from the trembling throng Whose sails were never to the tempest given; The massy earth and sphered skies are riven! I am borne darkly, fearfully, afar; Whilst, burning through the inmost veil of heaven, The soul of Adonais, like a star, Beacons from the abode ...
— Halleck's New English Literature • Reuben P. Halleck

... himself as to what this something more could be, he brought up the subject tentatively with Jasper Fay, whom he met on leaving the house. Thor himself stood on the door-step, while Fay, who wore gardening overalls, confronted him from the withered grass-plot that ended in a leafless hedge of bridal-veil. ...
— The Side Of The Angels - A Novel • Basil King

... at the top of their speed; despatched a runner to the harvest-field, where her husband Sigurd was, to warn him to come home and dress. How Sigurd was standing among his harvest folk, reapers and binders; and what he had on,—broad slouch hat, with veil (against the midges), blue kirtle, hose of I forget what color, with laced boots; and in his hand a stick with silver head and ditto ring upon it;—a personable old gentleman, of the eleventh century, in those ...
— Early Kings of Norway • Thomas Carlyle

... house but the smooth grass and a narrow worn footpath. The woods were now all brown stems, except here and there a superb hemlock and some scattered silvery birches. But the grass was still green, and the last day of the Indian summer hung its soft veil over all; the foliage of the forest was hardly missed. They passed another hall door, opposite the one where Ellen had tried her strength and patience upon the knocker; a little farther on they paused at the glass door. One step led to it. Ellen's conductress looked in first ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Susan Warner

... and terrible words have been spoken—words never to be forgotten—"phenomenon," and "thing-in-itself"; not knowing what these words mean, you are ignorant and recreant to the truth; knowing what they mean, you tug no more at the veil. Also we have learned that time and change are our portion, "the plastic dance of circumstance"; we talk no more of immortality. We have turned our hopes to the new birth of time, to the new goal of our labor, the new parent of our love, ...
— The Journal of Arthur Stirling - "The Valley of the Shadow" • Upton Sinclair

... Ringstetten was not as bright and happy as such occasions usually are, for a veil of gloom seemed to rest over the company. Even the bride affected a happy and thoughtless demeanour which she did not really feel. The company dispersed early, Bertalda retiring with her maidens, and ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IV. • Editors: Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton

... melodious a voice, sounding like an angel's greeting in the solemn cabinet of the emperor, made a wonderful impression. The gentlemen averted their heads, to conceal their emotion from Napoleon. But he paid no attention to them; his eyes rested on his child with an expression of profound affection; a veil seemed to overspread them, and as it perhaps prevented the emperor from seeing his kneeling child distinctly, he quickly moved his hand across his eyes. The veil disappeared, but the hand that had drawn it aside ...
— NAPOLEON AND BLUCHER • L. Muhlbach

... see that his dragon-ness may be expected to leak out in his attitude toward Woman as a Sex. Already I've detected the most primitive, almost primaeval, ideas in him, which probably he contracted in Bengal. Would you believe it, he insisted on my putting on a veil to travel with?—but I haven't come to ...
— Set in Silver • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson

... not asked) were seated in the front, and though 't is not for me to say it, we made a most pleasing display. Our costume was fancy, and consisted of gauze turbans, spangled and edged with gold and silver, on the right side of which a veil of the same hung as low as the waist, and the left side of the turban was enriched with pearls and tassels of gold or silver, crested with a feather. The jacket was of the polonaise kind; of white silk with long sleeves, and ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford

... these was to while away the twilight or evening hours in long talks with her husband about home and former days. Distance, together with the strange Alpine scenes about her, seemed to have the effect of a score of years in separating her from the past, and throwing over it a mystic veil of tenderness and grace. Old times and old friends, when thus viewed from the beautiful shores of Lake Leman, appeared to the memory in a softened light and invested with something of that ideal loveliness ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss

... life would shine out upon the outside world with warmer rays and larger rayons. I hope that a single passage from a letter written by one of them to a friend, even under the injunction of confidence, may be given here, without rending the veil which they hold so sacred. In referring to this disposition and habit of ...
— A Walk from London to John O'Groat's • Elihu Burritt

... rash has she ta'en the veil, In yon Nonnenwerder's cloisters pale, For her vow had scarce been sworn, And the fatal mantle o'er her flung, When the Drachenfels to a trumpet rung, 'Twas her own dear ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 238, May 20, 1854 • Various

... regret that a veil is drawn over the details of the bitter agony of his passage through the valley of the shadow of death. It is enough to put down the wails which he wrote long afterwards when visibly approaching the close of ...
— Samuel Johnson • Leslie Stephen

... return Patrasche would shake himself free of his harness with a bay of glee, and Nello would recount with pride the doings of the day; and they would all go in together to their meal of rye bread and milk or soup, and would see the shadows lengthen over the great plain, and see the twilight veil the fair cathedral spire; and then lie down together to sleep peacefully while the old man said ...
— Stories By English Authors: Germany • Various

... make him a power. Her first care was to poison the children of Veli's favourite slave, who had died before him. Then, at ease about the interior of her family, she directed her attention to the exterior. Renouncing all the habit of her sex, she abandoned the veil and the distaff, and took up arms, under pretext of maintaining the rights of her children. She collected round her her husband's old partisans, whom she attached to her service, some by presents, others by various favours, and she gradually enlisted all the lawless and adventurous ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - ALI PACHA • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE

... was haunted by two persons. One was a young German scientist, with long hair and spectacles; the other was a tall English lady, slightly bent, with a face wherein the finger of time had deeply written tender things. Her hair was white as silver, and she wore a long black veil. Their habits were strangely similar. Every morning, when the eastern light shone deepest into the ice-cavern at the base of the great Pasterzen glacier, these two would walk thither; then both would sit for an hour or two and peer into its depths. Neither knew why the other was there. ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 2 • Various

... capital, just after lunch time, when we saw the then Colonial Secretary, the man who had succeeded Pollifex, come scurrying round the corner of the street, fresh from his office. His face was flushed and perspiring, his hat was on wrong-side before, with his veil hanging down his back. In the one hand he held papers, in the other he supported over his fevered brow his white cotton umbrella; altogether he looked harassed beyond the bounds of human endurance, but when he caught sight of the open club-doors, he freshened a bit, and ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley

... looked toward the red blur that Marie's candle made in the dark. Immediately that, too, was gone. Little shrieks and currents of soft laughter ran up and down the dark hall. Marie started up,—directly into Emil's arms. In the same instant she felt his lips. The veil that had hung uncertainly between them for so long was dissolved. Before she knew what she was doing, she had committed herself to that kiss that was at once a boy's and a man's, as timid as it ...
— O Pioneers! • Willa Cather

... the warm drip following the glancing slash in his shoulder, knew the veil of invisibility had at last been rent. Abandoning efforts at noiselessness, knowing that his whereabouts was constantly marked by the packet in his hand, anyway, he fled through the ...
— The Radiant Shell • Paul Ernst

... nothing. With proud, prosperous, healthy men, Mr. Hawthorne has little sympathy; he prefers a cracked piano to a new one; he likes cobwebs in the corners of his rooms. All this peculiar taste comes out strongly in the little book in whose praise I am writing. I read "The Minister's Black Veil," and find it the first sketch of "The Scarlet Letter." In "Wakefield,"—the story of the man who left his wife, remaining away twenty years, but who yet looked upon her every day to appease his burning curiosity as to her manner of ...
— Dreamthorp - A Book of Essays Written in the Country • Alexander Smith

... slowly back toward the Stone Coal. Far away a candle in some driver's window twinkled for a moment and was shut out by the trees. In the low land a fog was rising, a climbing veil of grey, that seemed to feel its path along the ...
— Dwellers in the Hills • Melville Davisson Post

... extreme, so strung to an act that there might have streamed a music from him, as from the Memnon in the sands when light and heat thrill the fibres of the stone. His look was concentrated upon a point above him where, look as one might, one could have seen nothing to break the translucent veil ...
— Rest Harrow - A Comedy of Resolution • Maurice Hewlett

... moods of men, but of the moods of words. Corot takes a stream, some grass and trees, a flitting patch of sky. By means of a few strokes of his brush, he manages to present that tree, sky, stream, in a way which suggests the pastoral experience of the ages. Where did that misty veil come from? the trembling lights and shadows, the half-heard sounds and silence of the woods, the changing cloud, the dim reflection, the atmosphere of ...
— The Warriors • Lindsay, Anna Robertson Brown

... my body from head to foot and vanish into the ground. I should have to lay bare a woman's uttermost shame in sight of this boy! Could they have been discussing my deed in their meeting place? Had any vestige of a veil of ...
— The Home and the World • Rabindranath Tagore

... she got out of the hack that day, a cool little figure clad in a thin black silk dress, with the sheerest possible white collars and cuffs. Her small bonnet with its crepe veil was faced with white, and her carefully crimped gray hair showed a wavy border beneath it. Mr. Staley, the station hackman, helped her out of the surrey, and handed her the knitting-bag without which she was seldom seen. It was two weeks since she had been ...
— The Confession • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... speeches fair She woos the gentle air To hide her guilty front with innocent snow; And on her naked shame, Pollute with sinful blame, The saintly veil of maiden white to throw; Confounded, that her Maker's eyes Should look so near upon her ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various

... the time to test the hearts of shepherds and sheep-dogs, when the wind runs ice-cold across the waste of white, and the low woods on the upland walks shiver black through a veil of snow, and sheep must be found and folded or lost: a trial of head as well as heart, of resource ...
— Bob, Son of Battle • Alfred Ollivant

... banners, or the flapping wings of some golden bird of prey. In the midst of them, pressing forward and pressed on by the riot behind, was the Rough Master of Coates, and with him, always hanging a little away and shrinking under her veil, Thea, whose right wrist he grasped in his left hand. Breathless she was among the breathless rabble, who, gaining the hilltop seized each other suddenly and broke into antics, shaking their napkins and rattling on their plates. Their voices were hoarse with laughter and drink, and their ...
— Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard • Eleanor Farjeon



Words linked to "Veil" :   partial veil, yashmak, plant structure, change, fetal membrane, vestment, velum, cover, face veil, obliterate, chaddar, conceal, yashmac, plant part, blot out, chuddar, chadar, take the veil, embryonic membrane, hide, garment, universal veil, obscure, head covering, alter, caul, humeral veil



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