"Brilliant" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... diligence. The village also had finished its supper and was drifting in family groups into the piazza. The moon was just showing above the house-tops, and its light, combined with the blazing braziers before the cook-shops, made the square a patchwork of brilliant high-lights and black shadows from deep-cut doorways. Constance sat up alertly and watched the people crowding past. Across from the inn an itinerant show had established itself on a rudely improvised stage, with two flaring torches which threw their light ...
— Jerry • Jean Webster
... Vail had selected the right man to make his dreams come true; Carty now had the executive who would make it possible for him to accomplish even larger things. He set about building up the engineering organization which was to accomplish the work, selecting the most brilliant graduates of American technical schools. He set this organization to work upon the extension and development of the ...
— Masters of Space - Morse, Thompson, Bell, Marconi, Carty • Walter Kellogg Towers
... is essential to conversation; so much may be admitted by anyone who knows what conversation is. Once arguing at a table in a tavern the most famous man on earth would wish to be obscure, so that his brilliant remarks might blaze like the stars on the background of his obscurity. To anything worth calling a man nothing can be conceived more cold or cheerless than to be king of your company. But it may be said that in masculine sports and games, ...
— What's Wrong With The World • G.K. Chesterton
... silhouetted against the window, the edge of the wristband caught her attention again, and grew strangely significant. This man was passing through adversity! It seemed tragic and shocking to her that he should have to pass through adversity, that he could not remain for ever triumphant, brilliant, cocksure in all his grand schemes, and masculinely scathless. It seemed wrong to her that he should suffer, and desirable that anybody should suffer rather than he. George Cannon with faulty linen! By what error of destiny had this ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... eclat of personal endowment, education, and accomplishment,— of success in the fashionable exercises and graces of his age,—and of that reckless prodigality which obtains popular homage and applause in a prince. Henry VIII. in his youth was one of the most brilliant personages of Europe. A fine person,—the accomplishments of his time in literature and the arts,—the display of gorgeous prodigality,—raised him to a sort of chivalrous rivalry with Francis I. In mental culture he excelled George IV., ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 545, May 5, 1832 • Various
... most unruly, the most vicious populace the history of the world has ever known, was not obtained through fanning its passions. That popularity, though brilliant, is always ephemeral. The passions of a mob will invariably turn against those who have helped to rouse them. Marat did not live to see the waning of his star; Danton was dragged to the guillotine by those whom he had taught to look upon that instrument of death as the only possible and unanswerable ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... But the brilliant poppy, the large-flowered hollyhock, the flaunting dandelion, and the bright blue forget-me-not,—all these are visited by insects, which easily catch sight of them and ...
— Eighth Reader • James Baldwin
... of the Psalms were in marvellous accordance with his poetic soul; they were, all his life, his food and sustenance. The prophets—Isaiah in particular, and his successor in the record of the time of the captivity,—with their brilliant dreams of the future, their impetuous eloquence, and their invectives mingled with enchanting pictures, were his true teachers. He read also, no doubt, many apocryphal works—i.e., writings somewhat modern, the authors of which, for the sake of an authority only granted to very ...
— The Life of Jesus • Ernest Renan
... history, which was in some respects the most brilliant and momentous, now falls to be mentioned; a period when England's name became a synonym on the seas for everything that was most intrepid and successful in maritime enterprise; an era of daring adventure and splendid achievement, ...
— Man on the Ocean - A Book about Boats and Ships • R.M. Ballantyne
... has gone home in a cab. Soon, in the great theatre, the lights will be put out, and the empty stage will be left to ghosts. Hark! midnight from the church tower vibrates through the frosty air. I look out on the brilliant heaven, and see a milky way of powdery splendour wandering through it, and clusters and knots of stars and planets shining serenely in the blue frosty spaces; and the armed apparition of Orion, his spear pointing away into ...
— Christmas - Its Origin, Celebration and Significance as Related in Prose and Verse • Various
... right," he agreed, and they were. Their skins were a light, soft green, tanned to an olive shade by their many fervent suns. Their teeth were a brilliant and shining grass-green. Their eyes and their long, thick hair ...
— The Skylark of Space • Edward Elmer Smith and Lee Hawkins Garby
... cabalistic signs against his corporation, this mysterious, almost uncanny power was encircling them: Men who one night were addressing public meetings denouncing the Standard influence would suddenly sell out their holdings the next day. In 1875 John D. Archbold, a brilliant young refiner who had grown up in the oil regions and who had gained much local fame as opponent of the Standard, appeared in Titusville as the President of the Acme Oil Company. At that time there were twenty-seven independent refineries in this section. Archbold ...
— The Age of Big Business - Volume 39 in The Chronicles of America Series • Burton J. Hendrick
... Mrs. Dorothy Payne Todd, a lady of extraordinary beauty and rare accomplishments; and the reign of Mrs. Dolly Madison at the White House is esteemed its most brilliant period. "Memoirs and Letters of Dolly Madison," by her grand-niece, published in 1887 at Boston, is a most ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly
... sides, and here it was that many noble lords and ladies had congregated from all Europe to form part of that gallant company and shine with its reflected splendor. King Robert likewise held as feudal appanage the fair state of Provence in southern France, rich in brilliant cities and enjoying much prosperity, until the time of the ill-advised Albigensian Crusade, and communication between the two parts of Robert's realm was constant. Naples was the centre, however, and such was the elegance and courtesy of its court that it was famed far ...
— Women of the Romance Countries • John R. Effinger
... a stumpy blue umbrella; every now and then she stopped, and pointed out some special favourite with this, or shook it scornfully at something inferior, and in these criticisms Miss Munnion agreed with nods and shakes of the head. A fourth member of the party was the parrot, who, in his brilliant attire of emerald green, touched with glimpses of rose colour, matched the finest tulip there. Taking his pleasure after his own manner, he waddled along the turf border, turning in his crooked toes, ...
— A Pair of Clogs • Amy Walton
... what you are talking about," said Charlton, "but I can't follow you into the region of volcanos. Constance Evelyn has superb eyes. It is uncommon to see a light blue so brilliant." ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... such critical conditions, of course there was no harm in displaying that in the abstract, as a method merely. As a method of philosophical inquiry, there was no harm in presenting it in a tolerably lucid and brilliant manner, accompanying the exhibition with careful, and apparently specific, directions as to the application of it to indifferent subjects. There was no harm, indeed, in blazoning this method a little, and in soliciting the attention of the public, and the attention of mankind in general, to ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... mind, would have presented the ideal and essential truth of the scene, and done so in large part by discarding much which, though in itself striking, was not characteristic. In every scene, many of the most brilliant details ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth - Volume 1 of 8 • Edited by William Knight
... on, as a staunch Conservative, to add his quota to the already wonderful array of brilliant perorations of ...
— Peg O' My Heart • J. Hartley Manners
... he flogs tame ones,' Maule observed quietly. Her brilliant eyes searched his face for a sign of malevolent sarcasm, but not a muscle quivered. Her own eyes wavered under his steady look. She busied herself ...
— Lady Bridget in the Never-Never Land • Rosa Praed
... pure colour some will deem that Titian has serious rivals in those Veronese developed into Venetians, the two elder Bonifazi and Paolo Veronese; that is, there will be found lovers of painting who prefer a brilliant mastery over contrasting colours in frank juxtaposition to a palette relatively restricted, used with an art more subtle, if less dazzling than theirs, and resulting in a deeper, graver richness, a more significant beauty, if in a less stimulating gaiety and variety of aspect. No ...
— The Earlier Work of Titian • Claude Phillips
... been down to the Van de Weyers at New Lodge, Windsor Forest, from Saturday till Monday, a thing I have frequently done of late. Van de Weyer is almost the last survivor of the brilliant London society of thirty or forty years ago, and to his great literary and social experience he unites an unequalled knowledge of the politics of Europe. During the whole of his reign King Leopold was his own foreign minister; ...
— Memoirs of the Life and Correspondence of Henry Reeve, C.B., D.C.L. - In Two Volumes. VOL. II. • John Knox Laughton
... suddenly, as it usually does on the prairie, and the snow was melting fast under a brilliant sun. The bright rays that streamed in through the window struck athwart the glimmering dust motes in the little bare room, and fell, pleasantly warm, upon the man who sat in the deerhide chair. He was a year ...
— Masters of the Wheat-Lands • Harold Bindloss
... courage, I perceive that he makes himself useful in battle; but, after all, the poor devil has only two feet at his command, while we have four!' You see fit to consider a dragoon on foot ridiculous; but does the foot-soldier always make a very brilliant appearance when one sticks a horse between his legs? I have seen excellent infantry captains cruelly embarrassed when the minister of war made them majors. They said, scratching their heads, 'It's not over when we've mounted ...
— The Man With The Broken Ear • Edmond About
... fond of Dr. Ed. It did not always approve of him. It said—which was perfectly true—that he had sacrificed himself to his brother's career: that, for the sake of that brilliant young surgeon, Dr. Ed had done without wife and children; that to send him abroad he had saved and skimped; that he still went shabby and drove the old buggy, while Max drove about in an automobile coupe. Sidney, ...
— K • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... writers on the Revolution agree that in France, within the first twelve years after we had reconquered our lost liberty, more conspiracies have been denounced than during the six centuries of the most brilliant epoch of ancient and free Rome. These facts and avowals are speaking evidences of the eternal tranquillity of our unfortunate country, of our affection to our rulers, and of the unanimity with which all the changes of Government have been, notwithstanding ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... purple wings Sheds the grateful gifts she brings; Brilliant drops bedeck the mead, Cooling breezes shake the reed; Shake the reed, and curl the stream, Silver'd o'er with Cynthia's beam; Near the checquer'd, lonely grove, Hears, and keeps thy secrets, love. Stella, thither ...
— Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 - The Works Of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D., In Nine Volumes • Samuel Johnson
... that time sped fast with them, and that they, not noting its night, thought often that what was really a year had been no more than a single day. Yima was the great hero of the early Iranians. His titles, besides "the king" (khshaeta), are "the brilliant," "the happy," "the greatly wealthy," "the leader of the peoples," "the renowned in Aryanem vaejo." He is most probably identical with the Yama of the Vedas, who was originally the first man, the progenitor ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 3. (of 7): Media • George Rawlinson
... as report says, he has a secret for his amazing singing, a secret whereby his crow becomes the brilliant burst of red which makes the poppies of the field feel themselves ...
— Chantecler - Play in Four Acts • Edmond Rostand
... entrance, heavily guarded, a great lobby, halls with swinging doors, many obsequious schwitzars on the lookout for tips, many poor creatures sitting against the walls on dirty benches, desks and clerks, brilliant boots and epaulets of gay young officers who are telling tales of the Aquarium ...
— The Secret of the Night • Gaston Leroux
... most splendid intellect, of benumbing the most delicate moral feelings, of palsying the most eloquent tongue, of teaching those on whose lips listening senates hung, to mutter and babble with the drunkard, and of entombing the most brilliant talents and hopes of youth, wherever man can be induced to drink. The establishment of every distillery, and every dram-shop, and every grocery where it is sold, secures the certainty that many a man will thereby become ...
— Select Temperance Tracts • American Tract Society
... line of the Quincy family completes the list of the town's great men. Henry Hope, one of the most brilliant financiers of his generation, and founder of a European banking house second only to that of the Rothchilds, was a native of Quincy. John Hull—who, as every school-child knows, on the day of his daughter's marriage ...
— The Old Coast Road - From Boston to Plymouth • Agnes Rothery
... Fenner, his flag-captain, Drake Took counsel at his tavern, there came a knock, The door opened, and cold as from the sea The gloom rushed in, and there against the night, Clad as it seemed with wind and cloud and rain, Glittered a courtier whom by face and form All knew for the age's brilliant paladin, Sidney, the king of courtesy, a star Of chivalry. The seamen stared at him, Each with a hand upon the red-lined chart Outspread before them. Then all stared at Drake, Who crouched like a great bloodhound o'er the table, And rose with a strange light ...
— Collected Poems - Volume One (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... speed of the Oregon enabled her to take a front position in the chase, and the Cristobal Colon did not give up until the Oregon had thrown a 13-inch shell beyond her. This performance adds to the already brilliant record of this fine battle-ship, and speaks highly of the skill and care with which her admirable efficiency has been maintained during a service unprecedented in the history of vessels ...
— The Boys of '98 • James Otis
... name from the goddess Neith, an Egyptian deity, known by the Greeks as Athena, or Minerva. Its population, in the time of Pericles, was one hundred and twenty thousand. The southernmost point of Attica was Sunium, sacred to Minerva; Marathon, the scene of the most brilliant victory which the Athenians ever fought, was in the eastern part of Attica. To the southeast of Athens was Mount Hymettus, celebrated for its flowers and honey. Between Hymettus and Marathon was Mount ...
— Ancient States and Empires • John Lord
... The brilliant sunlight of a September morning was shining full into the little breakfast-room, where Graeme sat at the head of the table, awaiting the coming of the rest. The morning paper was near her, but she was not reading; her hands were clasped and rested on the table, ...
— Janet's Love and Service • Margaret M Robertson
... help feeling that this is the style of a man rather aiming at finely-turned phrases than deeply in earnest with the matter in hand; more the language of brilliant rhetoric than of impassioned thought. At all events, there is to my taste an air of falsetto about it; it seems more like the image of a painted than of a living passion. Be this as it may, the Poet's own riper style quite discredits it; though I have to confess that, but for his teachings, ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... her the sacred bundle from the neck of the Corn image. Out of it, after a little rummaging, she produced a clear crystal of quartz about the size of a pigeon's egg. It gave back the rays of the Sun in a dazzle that, to any one who had never seen a diamond, would have seemed wonderfully brilliant. Where it lay in the Corn Woman's hand it scattered little flecks of reflected light in rainbow splashes. The Indian women made the sign of the Sun on their foreheads and Dorcas felt a prickle of solemnity along the back of her neck as she ...
— The Trail Book • Mary Austin et al
... shown also in the ease with which they acquire foreign languages. "It is not uncommon," says Dr. Washington Matthews, speaking of the Hidatsa, by no means a specially brilliant tribe, "to find persons among them, some even under twenty years of age, who can speak fluently four or five different languages."[3] Mr. Stephen Powers tells us that, in California, he found many Indians speaking three, four, five or more languages, ...
— Aboriginal American Authors • Daniel G. Brinton
... was held the great Midwinter Fair, and the Woman's Congress Auxiliary became an intellectual focus for gifted women. It culminated in the brilliant convocation which was in session in Golden Gate Hall, San Francisco, for a week in May. Its promoters were Mrs. John Vance Cheney, Mrs. Horace Davis, Mrs. Cooper, Miss Hattie Cooper, Mrs. Mary S. Sperry, Mrs. ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... beauty of plain life I cannot attain. But my own life is as far removed as may be from brilliant or luxurious pleasures, and I divide my time between the country and the town. This I do from obedience to reason rather than fashion; for while the country has my love, the city is more remedial to my peculiar pain. There ...
— Apologia Diffidentis • W. Compton Leith
... than that of Napoleon, madame," said Bianchon, after asking a few questions, to which Veronique replied very clearly. "You keep your mind and your faculties in the last stages of a disease which robbed the Emperor of his brilliant intellect. From what I know of you I think I ought to ...
— The Village Rector • Honore de Balzac
... place among the followers of Harald, and that after the Swedish war he came to the throne of Denmark, it bears somewhat on the subject to relate the traditions of his deeds. Ole, then, when he had passed his tenth to his fifteenth year with his father, showed incredible proofs of his brilliant gifts both of mind and body. Moreover, he was so savage of countenance that his eyes were like the arms of other men against the enemy, and he terrified the bravest with his stern and flashing glance. He heard the tidings that Gunn, ruler of Tellemark, with his son Grim, was haunting ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... races had yielded to the enervating influences of their settled life. Some of these had indeed been tamed, but more had been degraded. The English were degenerating into clownishness, the Franks into effeminacy; and though Christianity continually raised up most brilliant lights—now on the throne, now in the cathedral, now in the cloister—yet the mass of the people lay sluggish, dull, ...
— Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... the career of this brilliant and estimable lady, which is saddened by her early doom, and the grief of her young husband bereaved before Peace had brought him that quiet domestic felicity for ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett
... though they are at some distance. The wheels, well greased for the heavy harvest work, do not creak. Save an occasional monosyllable, as the horses are ordered on, or to stop, and a faint rustling of straw, there is no sound. It may be the flood of brilliant light, or the mirage of the heat, but in some way the waggon and its rising load, the men and the horses, have ...
— Nature Near London • Richard Jefferies
... the want of that brilliant color and roundness in the cheek, which once made so glowing a picture; the eyes seemed larger and tremulous with a pathetic depth, and around them those bluish circles that speak of languor and pain. Still, changed as she was, Madame de Frontignac ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... blue-gray eyes full of a canny twinkle; freckles,—yes, freckles that were really past the bounds of belief, for up into his hair they ran, and to the rims of his eyes,—no pale, dull, equivocal freckles, such as might be mistaken for dingy spots of anything else, but brilliant, golden-brown freckles, almost auburn like his hair. Once seen, never to be forgotten were Donald Mackintosh's freckles. All this does not sound like the description of a handsome man; but we are not through ...
— Between Whiles • Helen Hunt Jackson
... in life. "The relations and experiences of real men and women," he writes, "rarely fall in such symmetrical order as to make an artistic whole. Until they have had such treatment as we give stone in the quarry or gems in the rough, they seldom group themselves with that harmony of values and brilliant unity of interest that result when art comes in—not so much to transcend nature as to make nature transcend herself." In other words, it is not until the true story has been converted into fiction by the suppression of whatever is discursive or ungainly, and the addition of a stroke of ...
— The Great English Short-Story Writers, Vol. 1 • Various
... tedious reading, but I believe that those who will bear with the difficulty will learn more of the character of the Japanese people than by skimming over descriptions of travel and adventure, however brilliant. The lord and his retainer, the warrior and the priest, the humble artisan and the despised Eta or pariah, each in his turn will become a leading character in my budget of stories; and it is out of the mouths of these personages that I hope to show ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford
... Wallace again and again; and, as the veteran's overflowing heart rendered him garrulous, he expatiated on the energy with which the young victor had pursued his conquests, and paralleled them with the brilliant actions he had seen in his youth. While he thus discoursed, Wallace drew him toward the castle, and there presented to him the two nephews of the ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... biography of Margaret Fuller, in the Famous Women Series of Messrs. Roberts Brothers, is a work which has been looked for with curiosity. It will not disappoint expectation. She has made a brilliant and an interesting book. Her study of Margaret Fuller's character is thoroughly sympathetic; her relation of her life is done in a graphic and at times a fascinating manner. It is the case of one woman of strong individuality depicting the points which made another one of the most ...
— Elizabeth Fry • Mrs. E. R. Pitman
... three-quarters of an hour after this first scene the infantry, followed by the cavalry, entered the place, which, in a few moments was entirely covered with military. The Allied sovereigns at length appeared, attended by brilliant staffs. They alighted from their horses and advanced to the altar. What appeared to me most remarkable was the profound silence of the vast multitude during the performance of the mass. The whole spectacle had the effect of a finely-painted ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... porchers who looked after other people's business, having none of their own, burbled and chortled like siphons of soda, and the marvel to all was that such a brilliant girl should thus throw herself away on a sprig of the law. "He acts, too, I believe," said Goldsmith ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 12 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Scientists • Elbert Hubbard
... content to let himself go on the tranquil current of this existence; but although his auditors gave him for the most part an encouraging attention, which, in some, went the length of really brilliant and helpful suggestion, he gradually felt a recurrence of his old doubts. Either his hearers were not sincere, or else they had less power to aid him than they boasted. His interminable conferences resulted in nothing, and as the benefit of the long ...
— Tales Of Men And Ghosts • Edith Wharton
... animal was much heavier than the bay. A brilliant black, whose coat fairly shone with careful grooming. He had been standing comparatively quiet until the three appeared upon the verandah of the house, then, with a sudden surge backward, he dragged the Mexican boy off his feet, shaking ...
— Frontier Boys on the Coast - or in the Pirate's Power • Capt. Wyn Roosevelt
... them down, even though they are disconnected and heterogeneous. Then as you go about your other work you will find a number of occasions that will arouse ideas bearing upon this subject. You may read in a newspaper of a brilliant speech made before the Chamber of Commerce by a leading business man, which will serve as an illustration to support your affirmative position; or you may attend a banquet where a prominent business man disappoints his ...
— How to Use Your Mind • Harry D. Kitson
... and, looking worshipfully, beheld in the centre of a great glory the appearance of a man, clad in a robe intensely white; above its shoulders towered the tops of wings shining and folded; a star over its forehead glowed with steady lustre, brilliant as Hesperus; its hands were stretched towards them in blessing; its face ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace
... pool, he beheld a glory—the sun, encircled with a halo vast and wide, varied like the ring of opal colours seen about the moon when she floats through white clouds, only larger and brighter than that. Looking up, he could see nothing but a chaos of black clouds, brilliant towards the sun: the colours he could not see, except ...
— Adela Cathcart, Vol. 3 • George MacDonald
... occasion, as an official in the suppression of Shays's Rebellion, he had little thought of ever putting his pen to paper as a playwright, although he was noted from earliest days as a man of literary ambition, his tongue being sharp in its wit, and his disposition being brilliant in the parlour. It was while in what was even then considered to be the very gay and wicked city of New York, that Royall Tyler went to the theatre for the first time, and, on that auspicious occasion, witnessed Sheridan's "The ...
— The Contrast • Royall Tyler
... interrupt digestion with speech, as such a practice tends to draw the vital powers, it is said, away from the stomach to the head. Our forefathers were expected to shine in conversation, and be wise and witty while gulping their food between brilliant passages. I sat down at a table to which I was marshaled by a grave and reverend seignior in an imposing uniform. As I took my seat my weight set some machinery in motion. A few feet in front of me suddenly rose out of the table a large ...
— Caesar's Column • Ignatius Donnelly
... had got itself mysteriously coupled with the affair. After their first visit to him five of his old friends, Laroche, Balakirev, Ostrovsky, Kashkine, and, inevitably, Nicholas, met together by common impulse to discuss their brilliant contemporary and the question of their relations with him. The five of them secretly admired, openly liked him, still. Two of them loved him, one confessedly. Of the remaining three, one was to become ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... breathless, brilliant heat which makes the plains of Kansas and Nebraska the best corn country in the world. It seemed as if we could hear the corn growing in the night; under the stars one caught a faint crackling in the dewy, heavy-odored cornfields where ...
— My Antonia • Willa Sibert Cather
... dish of the Rathor. [565] The Rathor princes have been not less ready in placing themselves and the forces of their States at the disposal of the British Government, and the latest and perhaps most brilliant example of their loyalty occurred during 1914, when the veteran Sir Partap Singh of Idar insisted on proceeding to the front against Germany, though over seventy years of age, and was accompanied by his nephew, a ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell
... gilt, who grasped in their paws a lance, the top of which was a coloured lamp. The ceiling was emblazoned with the Hauteville arms, and was radiant with burnished gold. A cresset lamp was suspended from the centre of the shield, and not only emitted an equable flow of soft though brilliant light, but also, as the aromatic oil wasted away, ...
— The Young Duke • Benjamin Disraeli
... they do not really believe in the danger. No doubt there was a great deal of brilliant sarcasm launched at Noah for his folly in thinking that there was anything coming that needed an ark. It seemed, no doubt, food for much laughter, and altogether impossible to think of gravely, that this flood ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... the task she had assigned herself was done. To acquaint Bruce's father with Sprudell's plot and enlist him on Bruce's side seemed altogether the easiest part of her plan. She had no notion that she was the brilliant lady-journalist to whom the diplomat, the recluse, the stern and rock-bound capitalist, give up the secrets of their souls, but she did have an assured feeling that with the arguments she had to offer she ...
— The Man from the Bitter Roots • Caroline Lockhart
... he could trace the dipper and find the North Star, but he regrouped most of the constellations to suit himself, and was able to see the outline of a wolf or the head of an Indian that covered half the sky whenever he chose. He wondered what had become of Orion, whose brilliant galaxy of stars appeals to every boy's fancy. It had vanished since the spring. In it he had always recognized the form of a brig he had seen hove-to in Portsmouth Harbor—high poop, skyward-sticking bowsprit and ...
— The Black Buccaneer • Stephen W. Meader
... been said the weather for weeks was unusually brilliant, days of cloudless sunshine, nights of cloudless moonlight, and the air was warm and sultry enough for the month of August in the tropics. But now, while they looked, a vivid flash of lightning, from what quarter of the heavens no man knew, shot athwart ...
— The Midnight Queen • May Agnes Fleming
... higher, and even his old age seemed like youth in its perennial receptivity and power of vigorous growth. A well-known connoisseur of the time, Constantin Huygens, writing in 1631, was more impressed by Lievens's brilliant flights of invention than by Rembrandt's vivid power of expressing character and emotion. But while the former and so many of his contemporaries were content with their own facility and the convention they had reached, Rembrandt never ...
— Rembrandt, With a Complete List of His Etchings • Arthur Mayger Hind
... ye'll find he's a half better. Clear es a bottle o' gin, an' flawless es the pope! Tommy Dartmoor, ye're in luck, s' welp me never ef ye ain't, an' that's a brilliant yer can show the polis an' not ...
— Stories by English Authors: Africa • Various
... nothing untried, I sent Bendel with a costly brilliant ring to the most celebrated painter in the city, requesting he would pay me a visit. He came—I ordered away my servants—locked the door—sat myself by him; and after praising his art, I came with a ...
— Peter Schlemihl • Adelbert von Chamisso
... of the New Year. Mr. Arlington, who was quite learned on the subject, had been amusing us with an account of its various modes of celebration in various countries. He was perfectly brilliant in a description of New-York as seen under the sun of a clear, frosty New-Year's morning, with snow enough to make the sleighing good. The gay, fantastic sleighs, dashing hither and thither, and their exhilarated ...
— Evenings at Donaldson Manor - Or, The Christmas Guest • Maria J. McIntosh
... of antiquity made more haste than Guynemer to multiply the exploits that increased his glory. But the enumeration of these would not furnish a key to his life, nor explain either that secret power he possessed or the fascination he exerted. "It is not always the most brilliant actions which best expose the virtues or vices of men. Some trifle, some insignificant word or jest, often displays the character better than bloody combats, pitched battles, or the taking of cities. Also, as portrait painters try to reproduce ...
— Georges Guynemer - Knight of the Air • Henry Bordeaux
... is German science which must regain its superiority in unwearying and brilliant research in order to vindicate our birthright. On the one hand, we must extend the theory of the perceptive faculty; on the other, we must increase man's dominion over Nature by exploring her hidden secrets, and thus make human work more useful and ...
— Germany and the Next War • Friedrich von Bernhardi
... marriage, in 1509, to her relation, Charles, Duke of Alencon, who was older than herself by three years, and though a fair soldier and an inoffensive person, was apparently of little talents and not particularly amiable. The accession of her brother to the throne opened a much more brilliant career to her. She and her mother jointly exercised great influence over Francis; and the Duchess of Alencon, to whom her brother shortly afterwards gave Berry, was for many years one of the most influential persons in ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. I. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre
... cock are deep velvety black. His crown, nape, and lower back, and a spot on cheeks and wings, are glistening blue. He also sports some light blue in his tail. His lower plumage is chestnut red. The upper plumage of the hen is olive brown save for a brilliant blue patch on either side of the head. Her tail is chestnut red. This beautiful species is about the size of ...
— Birds of the Indian Hills • Douglas Dewar
... conducted by Mr. James Gilchrist, manager, down into the workings in the ell seam at a depth of 118 fathoms. Here at the pit bottom, in the roads and at the face, twenty-one Swan lamps were burning, giving forth a brilliant, steady flame, the luminosity of which, while sufficient to supply the desired light, had none of the disagreeable intensity associated with most systems of electric lighting. Besides the pear-shaped Swan lamp, ...
— Scientific American Suppl. No. 299 • Various
... back to Concepcion. I remember the jewel-like air that day, the flowers, the trees, the sky. Palms rustled above us, the brilliant small lizards darted around silver trunks. "The fairest day!" quoth the Admiral. "Ease at heart! ...
— 1492 • Mary Johnston
... she dressed in a gown of pale rose chiffon, and we went to the Embassy, where one of the most brilliant balls of the season was in progress, King Leopold himself being present to honour the Crown Prince. Captain Stolberg soon discovered the woman who held him beneath her spell, and I found myself dancing attendance upon the snub-nosed little daughter of a Burgomaster, with whom I waltzed ...
— The Count's Chauffeur • William Le Queux
... Ce serait une betise incroyable! I can imagine her hints, increasing in strength as she beat against the obtuse heaviness of Rust's intellect. But I cannot imagine how any one, least of all the brilliant Froissart, should have conceived that lumpish soldier to be capable of the finesse needful for the Secret Service. He has since been returned empty, and I ...
— The Lost Naval Papers • Bennet Copplestone
... our sorrow, and diamond dusted with the bright laughter of our joy, and as we look through it, on the path that weaves our footsteps, the sunshine and shadows, that have fallen thereon, mingle and soften each other, so that neither the brilliant light of one nor the saddening shade of the other can pain our eyes, that look back, in wistful, ...
— Six Girls - A Home Story • Fannie Belle Irving
... sinking sun. Their eyes they lifted not, but kept them steadfastly fixed on the ground, over which they crept noiselessly as shadows creep. They sat mute and moveless, as if they had been statues of cold marble, all the while these brilliant notes were rolling above them. But I observed they were closely watched by the priests. There were several beside the altar; and whichever it was who happened for the moment to be disengaged, he turned round, and stood regarding the nuns with that stern anxious look with which ...
— Pilgrimage from the Alps to the Tiber - Or The Influence of Romanism on Trade, Justice, and Knowledge • James Aitken Wylie
... Ecnomus which opened to Regulus the way to Africa. Three times did the Romans lose their fleets by tempests, and yet they persevered in building new ones. The fortitude of the Romans, in view of the brilliant successes of Hannibal, can never be sufficiently admired. The defeat at Cannae was a catastrophe, but the troops of Fabius, to whom was left the defense of the city, were not discouraged, and with Scipio—religious, self-reliant, and lofty—the tide of victory turned. ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord
... to be anybody, or go any where;" then, as her services were no longer needed, she ran away to her humble room, where from her window she watched the many brilliant lights which shone from Rose Hill, and caught occasional glimpses of the airy forms which flitted before the open doors and windows. Once she was sure she saw Eugenia upon the balcony, and then, as a sense of the difference between herself and her cousins came over her, she laid her down ...
— Dora Deane • Mary J. Holmes
... contributing essays and other valuable data to French papers on the subject of aeronautics. His gains were ill health, poverty, and neglect, and at the age of thirty a pistol shot put an end to what had promised to be one of the most brilliant careers in all ...
— A History of Aeronautics • E. Charles Vivian
... and partly to varying distances. If all the stars were alike, then those which were farthest away would be faintest and we could judge a star's distance by its brilliancy. This is not the case, however. Some of the more brilliant stars are far more distant than some of the fainter ones. There are stars near and remote and an apparently faint star may in reality be larger and more brilliant than a star of the first magnitude. Vega, for ...
— Lectures in Navigation • Ernest Gallaudet Draper
... excited, kneeling at the edge, with his rifle at "ready," gazing steadily toward a clump of willows at the stream bed, some five hundred feet away, listening so intently that the officer halted, rather than mortify him by coming on his post unchallenged. The brilliant moonlight made surrounding objects almost as light as day, and Bonner could see nothing unusual or unfamiliar along the sandy flat to the east. So, finally, he struck his scabbard against a rock by way of attracting Number ...
— Tonio, Son of the Sierras - A Story of the Apache War • Charles King
... never would have done it themselves. Neither was given to much speaking. Indeed, I fear their conversation this day, if recorded, would have been of the most feeble kind—brief, fragmentary, mere comments on the things about them, or abstract remarks not particularly clever or brilliant. They were neither of them what you would call brilliant people; yet they were happy, and the hours flew by like a few minutes, until they found themselves back again beside the laurel bush at the gate, when Mr. Roy ...
— The Laurel Bush • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... conduct, and requesting permission to keep his room for the evening. Mr. Macadam granted the request, and at the same time desired the servant to say that he was assured that Master Scourhill would find himself much fatigued after his brilliant display of assmanship, which so much astonished ...
— Forgotten Tales of Long Ago • E. V. Lucas
... your father, who had command of the Royal Guard, a most brilliant position, died without leaving you anything, not ...
— The Stepmother, A Drama in Five Acts • Honore De Balzac
... the apartment they had prepared for her. The bedroom was hung with rose-colored silk embroidered with gold. The furniture was covered with white velvet worked with silks of the most brilliant hues. Every species of animal, bird and butterfly ...
— Old French Fairy Tales • Comtesse de Segur
... with love and honor. The echoes of party strife had long died away from his path: the clouds of party malice had faded from his horizon: all felt and acknowledged, in his example and character, the ideal of an American citizen. Not as a brilliant but as a conscientious man, not as a wonderfully gifted but as an admirably well-balanced mind, not as an exceptional hero but as a just, prudent, faithful, and benignant human being—true to the best instincts ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 3, September 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... though their claim to that distinction, measured by their altitude, equalled that of their snow-clad cousins of another hemisphere. On the other hand, Sir Bryan pleased himself with fancying that the splashes of golden aspen and crimson sumac on the mountain sides, contrasting with the brilliant, unalterable blue of the sky, had a Star-Spangled-Banner effect—a thing which the British tourist ...
— Peak and Prairie - From a Colorado Sketch-book • Anna Fuller
... of the doings of Dick & Co. in the "Grammar School Boys Series," our readers again followed them, through the events recorded in the four volumes of the "High School Boys Series". Here their really brilliant work Boys Series athletes was stirringly chronicled, as along with scores of non-athletic adventures ...
— The Young Engineers on the Gulf - The Dread Mystery of the Million Dollar Breakwater • H. Irving Hancock
... obtainable, once they're tamed. Nothing beats an idealist who can face facts. And the intelligent ones usually grow up. Captain, I've studied your strategy against Throm on that last drive after Dayole was killed. Brilliant! I need a good man, and I can pay for one. If you give me a chance, I can also show you why you should take it. Know anything about how Earth got started on ...
— Victory • Lester del Rey
... of it. Travelers and soldiers and campers, people to whom every extra ounce of weight counts, are glad enough to have dishes of aluminum. The accommodating metal is even used for "wallpaper," and threads of it are combined with silk to give a specially brilliant effect on the stage. It can be made into a paint which will protect iron from rust; and will ...
— Diggers in the Earth • Eva March Tappan
... all, proves that they do not interfere with the beneficent influences of the Great and Glorious Orb, or lessen his claims to our respect and veneration, or diminish one jot our obligations to his great Author. They have their use, no doubt. The Sun might be too brilliant without them, and destroy our eyes, instead of giving us light. Too much light might prove as bad as too little. All is well. I accept plain facts. To deny them is to fight against God. To admit them and trust in God is the true faith, and ...
— Modern Skepticism: A Journey Through the Land of Doubt and Back Again - A Life Story • Joseph Barker
... sinister yet fascinating rumors circulated. He was the brilliant but unscrupulous scion of a haughty house in England. He had taken a first degree at Oxford, over there, and the third one at police headquarters, over here. Women simply could not resist him. Let him make ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb
... of Algonkian directly opposite El Tovar to the west of the Bright Angel Creek. They are easily discernible by their brilliant geranium or vermilion color. They extend for a mile or more westward, and rise above the Tonto sandstones, ...
— The Grand Canyon of Arizona: How to See It, • George Wharton James
... uncommon beauties, Hyacinth could only be adequately described by the most hackneyed phrases. Her eyes were authentically sapphire-coloured; brilliant, frank eyes, with a subtle mischief in them, softened by the most conciliating long eyelashes. Then, her mouth was really shaped like a Cupid's bow, and her teeth were dazzling; also she had a ...
— Love's Shadow • Ada Leverson
... books upon my shelves. Often enough, following some outrage by the brilliant, Chinese doctor whose genius was directed to the discovery of new and unique death agents, we had obtained a clue in those works of a scientific nature which bulk largely in the library of a medical man. There are ...
— The Devil Doctor • Sax Rohmer
... like the other buildings. It is old, unpainted, and shaped like a cross, lacking one of the arms. The doors are large and clumsy, and the entrance is through a vestibule or hall. The roof had been recently painted a brilliant red at the expense of the Variag's officers. On the inside, the church has an antiquated appearance, but presents such an air of solidity as if inviting the earthquakes to ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox
... A Haytian word appropriated by the Spaniards, (cocuyos); Elater noctilucus. Their light is brilliant ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 56, June, 1862 • Various
... of our greatest poets have drawn the character of the Duke of Buckingham in brilliant verse, and both have condemned him to infamy. There is enough in Pepys's reports to corroborate the main features of Dryden's magnificent portrait of ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... these scattered fragments. It is said that "Hugh Miller found time while pursuing his trade as a stone-mason, not only to read but to write, cultivating his style till he became one of the most facile and brilliant authors of the day." Also, that Elihu Burritt "acquired a mastery of eighteen languages and twenty-two dialects, not by rare genius, which he disclaimed, but by improving the bits and fragments of time which he could steal from his occupation as ...
— Autobiography of Frank G. Allen, Minister of the Gospel - and Selections from his Writings • Frank G. Allen
... distinguished an ornament swept away; that although neither he nor I might be very delicate upon what had been the taste and the favourite work of the late King, the Regent ought to avoid wounding his memory,—which by such a long reign, so many brilliant years, so many grand reverses so heroically sustained, and escaped from in so unhoped-for a manner—had left the entire world in veneration of his person: in fine, that he might reckon all the discontented, all the neutral even, would join ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... overwhelmed by so many demonstrations of respect, which he really could not accept as an honour—there must be some error; nevertheless he begged to express his thanks for the goodwill of the worthy townspeople. In the meantime Bendel had taken the wreath from the cushion, and laid the brilliant crown in its place. He then respectfully raised the lovely girl from the ground; and, at one sign, the clergy, magistrates, and all the deputations withdrew. The crowd separated to allow the horses to pass, and we pursued our way to the town at full gallop, through arches ornamented ...
— Peter Schlemihl etc. • Chamisso et. al.
... farther than any European traveller had penetrated before him, we continued our route over a most beautiful park of verdant grass, diversified by splendid tamarind trees, the dark foliage of which afforded harbour for great numbers of the brilliant yellow-breasted pigeon. We shortly ascended a rocky mountain by a stony and difficult pass, and upon arrival at the summit, about 800 feet above the Nile, which lay in front at about two miles' distance, we halted to enjoy the magnificent view. "Hurrah ...
— The Albert N'Yanza, Great Basin of the Nile • Sir Samuel White Baker
... Normandy; and the vast expanse of the prairies was blackened by herds of wild cattle, or buffaloes. The influence of this fair and fertile land seems to have been felt by its inhabitants. They came to meet Father Marquette, offering the calumet, brilliant with many-colored plumes, with the gracious greeting,—"How beautiful is the sun, O Frenchman, when thou comest to us! Thou shalt enter in peace all our dwellings." A very different reception from that offered by the stern savages of Jamestown and Plymouth ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 43, May, 1861 • Various
... attention of the officials when the buzz of a motor, livelier and more nervous than our faithful "thrum, thrum," called to us to turn our heads; and there was Prince Dalmar-Kalm's brilliant car flying up the hill, even as we had ...
— My Friend the Chauffeur • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... pen. This was carefully not filled by her sister; the remains of the ink held out for a few lines and then failed altogether. And the prophet lost five hundred thousand pounds and committed one of the most brutal and brilliant murders in human history ...
— The Innocence of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... never were met with during the daytime, and it would have been hopeless endeavoring to penetrate the thick jungle in search of them. There was, however, an abundance of birds, for the most part of brilliant plumage, and the doctor was delighted with the spoils they brought in, while the messes were kept well supplied with jungle fowl and other edible birds. The natives, learning from the guide of the doctor's passion for insects, brought ...
— Among Malay Pirates - And Other Tales Of Adventure And Peril • G. A. Henty
... of dynamos and motors; shrill electrical screams; the clattering of falling ore; clanking of swiftly moving merchandise, bound in metal, magnetized to monorail cars shifting it to warehouses on the nearby hills. And over it all flashed the brilliant signal lights of the merchandise traffic directors whose stentorian electrical voices broadcasting commands sounded above ...
— Tarrano the Conqueror • Raymond King Cummings
... of California, replied to Mr. Wade. This wayward Senator from California has wide notoriety from his unhappy habits of intemperance. He has been described by a writer unfriendly to his politics as "the most brilliant man in the Senate; a man so wonderfully rich, that though he seeks to beggar himself in talents and opportunities, he has left a patrimony large enough to outdazzle most of his colleagues." He frequently would enter the Senate-chamber in a condition of apparent stupor, ...
— History of the Thirty-Ninth Congress of the United States • Wiliam H. Barnes
... to your excellency and those nearest and dearest to your heart, must be, no doubt, inferior in magnificence to the welcome tendered to such illustrious guests in other countries; but believe me, none has ever surpassed our sincerity, because Mexico, as it is the first to admire brilliant careers in politics, in science, in art, in industry, and in commerce, takes pleasure in offering you its most cordial attentions with no other desire than to make your stay in this republic as pleasing as possible and ...
— Latin America and the United States - Addresses by Elihu Root • Elihu Root
... heavily when the theatres let out, and the brilliant throng which poured from the places of amusement was hard put to find cabs. The streets were so many wild rivers of cabs, most of which were engaged, however; and here I saw the desperate attempts of ragged men and boys to get a shelter from the night by procuring cabs for the ...
— The People of the Abyss • Jack London
... notions on things in general, so I kept silent on the matter. I had an affectionate parting from old Waggum-winne-beg, who once more pressed his beautiful Firefly on me; but my heart was proof against even her brilliant attractions. The young lady pouted a little when I wished her good-bye, and, I have no doubt, thought me a man of very bad taste. Once more our course was turned towards the West. With a good supply of ammunition, little baggage, ...
— Dick Onslow - Among the Redskins • W.H.G. Kingston
... and it was the desire of Mrs. Carbuncle's heart to command. But perhaps the wonder of her face was its complexion. People said,—before they knew her, that, as a matter of course, she had been made beautiful for ever. But, though that too brilliant colour was almost always there, covering the cheeks but never touching the forehead or the neck, it would at certain moments shift, change, and even depart. When she was angry, it would vanish for a moment and then return intensified. There was no chemistry on Mrs. Carbuncle's ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... on her pillows and looked through the open window out on the glittering stars. Strange constellations passed in brilliant procession before her eyes. And while she lay thus reflecting and revolving in her mind the loneliness and unhappiness of her surroundings, a startling suggestion far removed from these doubts offered itself to her mind. Repelled at first, it came back as if demanding acceptance. And not until ...
— Laramie Holds the Range • Frank H. Spearman
... precision. She is in fair health, and while I live to look after her she will probably continue so. Her nerves are morbid, her egotism is excessive, her restlessness is abnormal. She is rather a brilliant girl, I think, and to me a very dear one. But her career needs to be guided, or some decided smash ...
— The Man Who Wins • Robert Herrick
... that the brilliant soldier of a republic is apt to have the advantage, in a struggle for popular affection and popular applause, over the statesman, however consummate. . . . The great battles and sieges of the prince had been on a world's theatre, had enchained the attention of Christendom, and on their ...
— Memoir of John Lothrop Motley, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... respects also his student's career was a brilliant one. In 1843 he won the first chemical prize, the certificate stating that his "extraordinary diligence and success in the pursuit of this branch of science do him infinite honour." At the same time, he also won the first prize in the class ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 1 • Leonard Huxley
... gaunt, bare, white trees, ghosts of a departed forest, the miry ground strewn with eggs of all sizes, shapes and colors, and dead birds of many kinds, in amongst which writhed and twisted dirty-looking, repulsive water moccasins and brilliant yellow and black swamp snakes, while overhead on the whitened limbs, roosted hundreds of birds partly roused from their sleep by the ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... sunshine seems to be heard and felt; plant growth goes on before our eyes, and every tree and bush and flower is seen as a hive of restless industry. The deeps of the sky are mottled with singing wings of every color and tone—clouds of brilliant chrysididae dancing and swirling in joyous rhythm, golden-barred vespidae, butterflies, grating cicadas and jolly rattling grasshoppers—fairly enameling the light, and shaking all the air into music. Happy fellows they are, every one of them, blowing tiny pipe ...
— Steep Trails • John Muir
... the blue dress shone out as though it would attract everything to itself. "She's very pretty," thought Maggie, who was more conscious of her shabby clothes than ever. But her chief feeling was of surprise that so brilliant a bird had been able to penetrate into the chapel at all. "She must be a stranger just come out of curiosity." Then the girl's eyes suddenly met Maggie's and held them; the brilliant creature smiled and Maggie smiled ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole
... genteel appearance, invited her to join the circle composed of the Duchesses of Angouleme, of Berri, and the ladies of the court, which she gladly accepted; and several fine looking young men in their brilliant uniforms paying her the greatest attentions, and taking the utmost pains that she should have the best possible view of the sight, her heart was completely won, and when she was re-conducted to Capt. W., her first exclamation was, "Well, as long as I live, I never will speak against ...
— How to Enjoy Paris in 1842 • F. Herve
... with twelve different pieces of leather, variegated and distinguished with colors, of which the colors found here, and which painters use, are, as it were, copies. But there the whole earth is composed of such, and far more brilliant and pure than these; for one part of it is purple, and of wonderful beauty, part of a golden color, and part of white, more white than chalk or snow, and, in like manner, composed of other colors, and those more in number and more beautiful than any ...
— Apology, Crito, and Phaedo of Socrates • Plato
... a person with very little nerve. The moment, therefore, the report fell on her car, she jumped up with all despatch, and leaning on one of the family, she rushed on to the verandah to ascertain the state of things. At the sight of the still brilliant light, shed by the flames, on the south east part of the compound, old lady Chia was plunged in consternation, and invoking Buddha, she went on to shout to the servants to go and burn incense before the ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... you say." Then the girl, whose face shone like a black bottle that had just been dipped in water, showed her brilliant teeth, from ear to ear, laughed outright, looked foolish, after which she looked earnest, when the secret burst out of her heart, in the melodious voice of a young negress, that did not know whether to laugh or to cry—"Where ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper
... his elders wanted to talk, that something they would rather not tell to the lads was in their minds, and meanwhile the brilliant sunshine and free air outside were calling to him and ...
— The Sun Of Quebec - A Story of a Great Crisis • Joseph A. Altsheler
... to classical standards. Rembrandt, however, cared less for beauty than for expression, and Saskia's face was very expressive, at times merry and almost roguish, and again quite serious. She had also a brilliant complexion and an abundance of silky hair, waving from her forehead. The painter had collected in his studio many pretty and fantastic things to use in his pictures,—velvets and gold embroidered cloaks, Oriental stuffs, laces, necklaces, ...
— Rembrandt - A Collection Of Fifteen Pictures and a Portrait of the - Painter with Introduction and Interpretation • Estelle M. Hurll
... Brigade of New York. I have known it well for twenty years, and I speak from a personal acquaintance with very many of its men, and from a professional knowledge of more daring feats, more hairbreadth escapes, and more brilliant work, than could well be recorded between the ...
— Children of the Tenements • Jacob A. Riis
... getting on to five o'clock, the hour when the brilliant lights usually disappeared, when Mark, who was steering in the ...
— Five Thousand Miles Underground • Roy Rockwood
... February, where snow or dead leaves on the ground have furnished a protecting covering. The notable value of this species is perhaps in its decorative character for lawns, although the nuts are first rate. The dark green brilliant leaves are striking in appearance, and the shrub is inclined toward a trailing habit, much like that of some of the junipers. This species is one of my pets at Merribrooke, and a perennial source of wonder that nurserymen ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association, Report of the Proceedings at the Seventh Annual Meeting • Various
... generally visible only during a few days or weeks at the utmost, the determination of their orbits is attended with peculiar difficulties. The method devised by Newton for effecting this object was in every respect worthy of his genius. Its practical value was illustrated by the brilliant researches of Halley on cometary orbits. It necessitated, however, a long train of tedious calculations, and, in consequence, was not much used, astronomers generally preferring to attain the same end by a tentative process. In the year 1780, Laplace communicated ...
— Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men • Francois Arago
... province of Kawachi. The most noted representative of this family was Sugawara Michizane, who was first conspicuous as the teacher of the young prince who afterward became the Emperor Uda (A.D. 888-898). He was a brilliant scholar in Chinese, which was then the learned language of the East. Even down to modern times his family has been devoted to learning. The Sugawara(109) and Oye families both had adopted literature as their hereditary ...
— Japan • David Murray
... Elizabeth Eleanor are too much retouched to be accurate; but William Rossetti, who viewed her with a critical eye, describes her as "tall, finely formed, with lofty neck; regular, yet uncommon, features; greenish-blue, unsparkling eyes; large, perfect eyelids; brilliant complexion, and a lavish wealth of dark ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard
... the lime-light a brilliant development of this new drama through the Chapel Royal, a development that took place primarily under the direction of the great musicians who served as masters of the children of the Chapel and as court entertainers, the first true poets-laureate, through ...
— Halleck's New English Literature • Reuben P. Halleck
... imperfections, this is a sound edition—sadly needed—of one of the most brilliant lyrical writers of his time. It contains a charming portrait; and the editor's enthusiasm, when it does not lead him ...
— Adventures in Criticism • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... the ship. Of the English fleet, the Culloden unhappily got on shore while going into action, and only by great exertions did she get off, after the battle was over. That the French fought with the utmost gallantry is acknowledged by all, while we must rank the victory of the Nile among the most brilliant achievements of the ...
— How Britannia Came to Rule the Waves - Updated to 1900 • W.H.G. Kingston
... at the Parker House, after the fatigues of the day, was a brilliant success. The Great International Walking-Match was over; America had won, and England was nowhere. The victor and the vanquished were the heroes of the occasion, for both had shown great powers of endurance and done their work in capital time. We had no set speeches at the table, ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... other aasvogels, of which perhaps there were now fifty or sixty gathered round Hans, began to show signs of interested animation. They looked at the king bird, they looked at Hans, stretching out their naked red necks and winking their brilliant eyes. I, however, did not pay particular attention to those upon the earth, being amply occupied in watching ...
— Marie - An Episode in The Life of the late Allan Quatermain • H. Rider Haggard
... not," comes back Old Hickory. "Just a scheme of my brilliant-haired young friend here to smuggle me into the sacred presence. Great Zacharias, Nash! why don't you shut yourself in a steel vault, and have ...
— Torchy, Private Sec. • Sewell Ford
... and out of complaisance drank some part of it with me. When my head grew warm with the agreeable liquor, "Fair princess," said I, "you have been too long thus buried alive; follow me, enjoy the real day, of which you have been deprived so many years, and abandon this artificial though brilliant glare." "Prince," replied she, with a smile, "leave this discourse; if you out of ten days will grant me nine, and resign the last to the genie, the fairest day would be nothing in my esteem." "Princess," said I, "it is the fear of the genie that makes you speak thus; for ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 1 • Anon.
... thick branch that lay on the ground, and dealt the savage a whack on the bridge of his nose, that changed it almost immediately from a snub into a superb Roman! For this he received a buffet on the ear that raised a brilliant constellation in his brain, and laid ...
— The Norsemen in the West • R.M. Ballantyne
... have been thought contemptible by Scott and Byron. The exception is, of course, that apostle of British imperialism—that vehement and voluble glorifier of Britannic ideals, whom I dare say you will readily identify from my brief, and, I hope, not disparaging description of him. With that one brilliant and salient exception, England's living singers succeed in reaching only a pitifully small audience." In commenting on this passage, we ought to remember that Scott and Byron were colossal figures, so big that no eye could miss them; and that the reason why Kipling has enjoyed substantial ...
— The Advance of English Poetry in the Twentieth Century • William Lyon Phelps
... flitted over his companion's countenance. For a time he would seem lost in some deep mournful reverie, and his head drooped as if in sadness or perplexity; then a sudden gleam would light up his face, as if a brilliant project had occurred to him, his lips would part, his eyes flash, he would impel his horse forward as though leading a charge, or lift up his head with kindling looks, like one rehearsing a speech; but ever ...
— The Caged Lion • Charlotte M. Yonge
... such thoughts sometimes work irreparable mischief; but left alone, one of these days she would make the discovery that she was flattered by his attentions, because he is nearly fifteen years older than she, and is brilliant in conversation, and quoted as the finest musician in the city. I wish I knew more things about him; what I do know shows me plainly enough the sort of man he is; but with these guileless young things it seems as though one had to unmask wickedness ...
— Ester Ried Yet Speaking • Isabella Alden
... assures her father of her love for Othello, that Mae became conscious of a riveted gaze—of a presence. Lifting her eyes, and widening them, she looked over to the opposite side of the house, and there, of course, was the Piedmontese officer again, handsomer, more brilliant than ever, with a grateful, soft look of recognition in ...
— Mae Madden • Mary Murdoch Mason
... in, a well-dressed crowd, chatting, smiling, bowing to each other, that happy crowd of beautiful women and wealthy men who live only for dress and amusement. Jeanne felt bewildered in the midst of this brilliant assemblage, and got up to make her escape. But suddenly the thought came to her that she might meet Paul in this place; and she began to wander about, looking into the faces, going and coming incessantly ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... was a grand procession that was not accompanied, or, rather, in great measure made up of, followers and onlookers. So in this life parade of ours, with its ever varying pageant and brilliant display, there are comparatively few who carry banners, who disport the epaulette, and the gold lace. And sometimes, we who help swell the ranks of those who watch and wait, grow discouraged, almost thinking that life is a failure ...
— A String of Amber Beads • Martha Everts Holden
... voices instead of one outside our window, and behold! Mrs. Bantam had taken another mate—a fine handsome fellow, so graceful in form and brilliant in plumage that we at once pronounced him a fit companion to our favorite hen. They were evidently on the best of terms, croaking and cackling to each other, and exchanging sage opinions about us as we watched them ...
— Miss Elliot's Girls • Mrs Mary Spring Corning
... civilization in the more easterly districts of the Lake of the Woods, Lake Winnipeg and the Qu'Appelle Lakes. But the most imposing spectacles and the most difficult situation began to arise when the Governors, flanked by the brilliant scarlet of the Mounted Police, came to the farther North-West where the Indians retained much of their ...
— Policing the Plains - Being the Real-Life Record of the Famous North-West Mounted Police • R.G. MacBeth |
