"Decorative" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... ART.—The Decorative Treatment of Natural Foliage.—By HUGH STANNUS. The first of a series of lectures before the London Society of Arts, giving an elaborate classification of the principles of ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 829, November 21, 1891 • Various
... had last seen in a white linen uniform, waiting patiently on the orderlies' bench of the American Ambulance at Neuilly. The ambulance is as hard to get into as an exclusive club, for the woods are full these days of volunteers who, leading rather decorative lives in times of peace, have been shaken awake by the war into helping out overtaxed embassies, making beds in hospitals, doing whatever comes along with a childlike delight in the novelty of work. This young man ...
— Antwerp to Gallipoli - A Year of the War on Many Fronts—and Behind Them • Arthur Ruhl
... ordinary clothing of the people, from the materials of which it was formed, did not admit of being made very decorative, this consideration would be much regarded, and still more where no clothing was worn at all. In such cases, the hair, either of the head or of the beard, has usually been cherished with very affectionate ...
— John Rutherford, the White Chief • George Lillie Craik
... honored in this unique fashion. The delicate tracery in marble, so characteristic of Mogul work of the sixteenth century, is seen here at its best, as well as the inlays of the lotus and other flowers in sapphire, turquoise and other stones. The effect is highly decorative and at the same time chaste and subdued. A feature which impresses every visitor is the remarkable trellis work in marble. A solid slab of marble, about six feet by four and about two inches in thickness, is used as a panel. This is cut out into many designs that remind one ...
— The Critic in the Orient • George Hamlin Fitch
... be freshened in the reproduction even as "words" by music. His egotism had never taken the crude form of desiring a dull wife; this lady's intelligence was to be a silver plate, not an earthen one—a plate that he might heap up with ripe fruits, to which it would give a decorative value, so that talk might become for him a sort of served dessert. He found the silver quality in this perfection in Isabel; he could tap her imagination with his knuckle and make it ring. He knew perfectly, though he had not been told, that their union enjoyed ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 2 (of 2) • Henry James
... address to Mr. Chadwick, and to have same engrossed and framed for presentation. The result of their official duty was an exceptionally handsome piece of engrossing, set in a gilt frame. A pastel portrait of Mr. Chadwick is in the centre of a decorative scroll on which is the ...
— Spalding's Baseball Guide and Official League Book for 1895 • Edited by Henry Chadwick
... know just what sort of milestones I'd like to leave. Only decorative ones, of course. I wish to keep my lane free from weeds and ugly, jagged rocks." ...
— Grace Harlowe's Problem • Jessie Graham Flower
... feel with me that that would have been a pity. Besides, with that prevision given to an author, I am strongly of opinion that something will happen before long. And if the worst comes to the worst, there is always that story of my First Love wherewith to fill the time. Meanwhile I am approaching a decorative old Surrey town, little more than a cluster of ripe old inns, to one of which I have much pleasure in inviting ...
— The Quest of the Golden Girl • Richard le Gallienne
... place which Kingsley, or Mr. Ruskin, or some other master of our decorative school, have described—much more one which has fallen into the hands of the small fry of their imitators—and you are almost sure to find that it has ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde
... or of mere beauty. He blocked out his work in masses, left rough places and surfaces not filled in, and inclined to express his meaning by a symbol, rather than work it out in detail. It was a part of his austerity, his increasing preference for structural over decorative methods, to give up rime for blank verse. His latest poem, Samson Agonistes, a metrical ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... answers Tyler's question in spirited fashion. "While many years are spent by a boy in gaining knowledge, of which the chief value is that it constitutes 'the education of a gentleman;' and while many years are spent by a girl in those decorative acquirements which fit her for evening parties; not an hour is spent by either of them in preparation for that gravest of all responsibilities—the management of a family."[11] "For shoe-making or house-building, for the management of a ship or a locomotive-engine, ...
— The New Education - A Review of Progressive Educational Movements of the Day (1915) • Scott Nearing
... called, the free use of adobe on the one hand and the banded arrangement of ancient masonry on the other. These types appear to present development along divergent lines. The banded feature doubtless reached such a point of development in the Chaco pueblos that its decorative value began to be appreciated, for it is apparent that its elaboration has extended far beyond the requirements of mere utility. This point would never have been reached had the practice prevailed of covering the walls with a coating of mud. The cruder examples of banded construction, ...
— Eighth Annual Report • Various
... the ornamentation your friend objects to?[4] If it is, I would observe that there is no evidence of progress in the decorative and ornamental arts during the Ming Dynasty; and even in the Jesuit instruments that part of the work is purely Chinese, excepting in one instrument, which I am persuaded must ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... unconsciously, unaffectedly proclaiming its superior gravity among human masses, he was a planet destined to have many satellites and be satellite to none; an ego of genuine lordliness; a presence at once masterly and decorative. ...
— The Seeker • Harry Leon Wilson
... one. Through magnifying glasses the little carved faces (hardly larger, some of them, than a pin's head) looked at one with the same expression as the original, and not a mistake had been made in a fold of drapery. Each sculptured capital, each column, each decorative altar of the interior had been carved with loving fidelity. All that, in the vast Cathedral had taken centuries and many generations of men to plan and finish, this one infinitely patient man had copied in miniature in twenty-two years. It would have been worth visiting the town to see the model ...
— My Friend the Chauffeur • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... in the original where paragraphs start with a decorative initial capital letter, instead of the usual sign. These paragraphs are preceded in this etext with a row ...
— The prophete Ionas with an introduccion • William Tyndale
... appreciation of the humorous and the pathetic, and exhibited remarkable artistic talent, sketching from nature with fidelity and ease. His parents being in humble circumstances, he was apprenticed as a house-painter, and soon became distinguished for his skill in the decorative branch of his profession. On the expiry of his apprenticeship, he cultivated painting in a higher department of the art, and his pictures held a highly respectable place at the annual exhibitions of the Scottish Academy. Among his pictures ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume IV. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... park. Green slopes reached almost to the summits of the mountains, and to a point half way up these slopes—the last timber line—clumps of spruce and balsam trees were scattered over the green as if set there by hands of men. Some of these timber patches were no larger than the decorative clumps in a city park, and others covered acres and tens of acres; and at the foot of the slopes on either side, like decorative fringes, were thin and unbroken lines of forest. Between these two ...
— The Courage of Marge O'Doone • James Oliver Curwood
... then put in place; and also the fruits and bon-bons, which may be commingled with the flowers in working out a decorative design, or they may be placed, in ornamental dishes, at the four corners of a wide table, to balance the flowers in the centre; or, they may be arranged along the middle of a long table. For fruit, silver-gilt ...
— Etiquette • Agnes H. Morton
... bread and cheese and looked with interest about the room. The tables and woodwork were dark, the walls and ceiling also low in tone. But there were some fine decorative notes that stood brightly out. On one wall was a lovely gold-framed picture in which a young woman of great beauty held back a sumptuous curtain revealing a castle on the Rhine set above a sunny terrace of grapevines. On the opposite wall was a richly coloured picture of a superb brewery. ...
— The Wrong Twin • Harry Leon Wilson
... the piece before the mind comes into play—the coming modulations and so on. In fact, it is not too much to say that it is best, in certain musical phrases, to rely on the eye alone, e.g. rapid decorative passages, which are not always easy to ...
— Music As A Language - Lectures to Music Students • Ethel Home
... Grasse, Jean Horace Fragonard, who died at Paris in 1806. The best of them are five pictures, which were painted for Madame Dubarry, representing frolicsome scenes, young people playing games. At the foot of the Rue des Dominicains, in a large house with bulging iron grating, are some decorative paintings attributed to Flemish artists. These pictures are shown by courtesy. In the centre of the old town is the parish church, built in the 11th cent., but altered and repaired in the 17th. It ...
— The South of France—East Half • Charles Bertram Black
... the topic was very successful. Mr. Saffron embraced it with eagerness; with much animation he discussed the merits, whether practical or decorative, of various uniforms—field-gray, khaki, horizon blue, Air Force blue, and a dozen others worn by various armies, corps, and services. Alec was something of an enthusiast in this line too; he soon forgot ...
— The Secret of the Tower • Hope, Anthony
... rolled by, with a trip abroad now and then to relieve the tedium of existence. For a woman to know that she comes to be tolerated only because she is decorative, is a consummating blow. Pell soon reached the point where he told Lucia he had bought her, body and soul. He had determined to win her love. When he saw that he could not, he swiftly forgot the integrity of her part of the bargain, the honesty of her words to him before they were ...
— The Bad Man • Charles Hanson Towne
... generation which cared nothing about craftsmanship or art, and everything for cheapness and profit. From this man and by laborious study and practice in his spare time, aided by a certain measure of natural ability, the boy acquired a knowledge of decorative painting and ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... to have been executed by the best artists of the period. They were chiefly employed for entertainments, and the banquets of the wealthy. They are seen in use in scenes painted on the vases themselves. Many, especially those of the later style, were solely used for decorative purposes, as is evident from the fact of one side only being executed with care, while the other has been neglected, both in the drawing and in the subject. Those with Panathenaic subjects were ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... becoming a print-publisher in London. The French refugees, whose necessities obliged them to exercise their acquirements and talents as a means of support, found in Mr. Ackermann's shop a repository for the exhibition and sale of decorative articles, which elevated this branch of business to an importance that it had never before assumed in England. Ackermann's name stands prominently forward in the early history of gas and lithography ...
— A Walk from London to Fulham • Thomas Crofton Croker
... opinion, been outraged by a man, who, according to his ideas of fitness, should have come to them cap in hand; and as a natural consequence, the story, no doubt exaggerated when it reached him, loses nothing under his transforming and malicious pen. Stripped of its decorative flippancy, however, there remains but little that can really be regarded as "humiliating." Scott himself suggests, what is most unquestionably the case, that the blind man was the novelist's half-brother, ...
— Fielding - (English Men of Letters Series) • Austin Dobson
... disappointed, he perceived, and he was forced to go further: "I certainly wouldn't advise any girl to study painting or sculpture in the hope of making a living by it. The only side of art that isn't hopelessly out of the running is the decorative—home decoration is a sure and worthy profession. People don't feel keen need of sculpture, but they do like pretty walls and nice furniture. I know several highly successful women decorators—but I wouldn't advise that ...
— Money Magic - A Novel • Hamlin Garland
... the Masai. These Amu people have the same Wahuma features as Kamrasi, whom they also resemble both in general physical appearance, and in many of them having circular marks, as if made by cautery, on the forehead and temples. These marks I took not to be tatooing or decorative, but as a cure for disease—cautery being a favourite remedy ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... of Short Extracts from the Christian Fathers. With Decorative Title-page and Photogravure Frontispiece. 32mo, cloth extra, each 1s. nett; leather, each 1s. 6d. nett. Also Three Volumes in leather in case, 4s. 6d. nett. White vellum with gilt edges, each volume ...
— Astronomy of To-day - A Popular Introduction in Non-Technical Language • Cecil G. Dolmage
... row of asterisks * * * * * represents a decorative line in the original. A few lines were added by the transcriber at a page break when there was no ...
— The Only True Mother Goose Melodies - Without Addition or Abridgement • Munroe and Francis
... clearly displayed in the case of the other sex. In the treatment of both mind and body, the decorative element has continued to predominate in a greater degree among women than among men. Originally, personal adornment occupied the attention of both sexes equally. In these latter days of civilisation, however, we see that in the dress of men the regard for appearance has in ...
— Essays on Education and Kindred Subjects - Everyman's Library • Herbert Spencer
... casts from antique bronzes, brought out into strong relief by a background of tapestry, adorned this lofty hall, which had none of that confusion of decorative objects, in the midst of which some modern artists seem to pose themselves ...
— Jacqueline, v1 • Th. Bentzon (Mme. Blanc)
... is another great natural force which works steadily to keep all animals up to the race standard; that is sexual selection. Throughout nature the male is the variant, as we have already noted. His energy finds vent not only in that profuse output of decorative appendages Ward defines as "masculine efflorescence" but in variations not decorative, not ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... Mehul and Cherubini. His opera 'Les Bardes,' though now forgotten, has qualities of undeniable excellence. Its faults as well as its beauties are those of the period which produced it. It is declamatory rather than lyrical, and decorative rather than dramatic, but in the midst of its conventions and formality there is much that is true as ...
— The Opera - A Sketch of the Development of Opera. With full Descriptions - of all Works in the Modern Repertory • R.A. Streatfeild
... the card tables included, was fully armed in the customary fashion prevailing in this distant corner of the ranching world, and it would have needed no second thought to realize that these heavy, loaded weapons were not by any means intended for decorative purposes. ...
— The Forfeit • Ridgwell Cullum
... little appreciation of good art, and the paintings ordinarily executed for decorative purposes are as crude as those described by the author. A school of clever artists in Bengal is doing something to raise the public taste. The high merit of the ancient Indian paintings at Ajanta and elsewhere is now fully recognized. A great revival of pictorial art ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... architect, or other distinguished alumnus would confess himself no gentleman by marking that coupon. The suggestion would be an insult, were it affectionately made by the good old president of his Alma Mater in a personal letter. A few decorative cards, to be hung up in the office, might perhaps be ...
— The Perfect Gentleman • Ralph Bergengren
... leisurely over the lawns in front of the club-house, Miss Hitchcock stopped frequently to speak to some group of spectators, or to greet cheerfully a golfer as he started for the first tee. She seemed very animated and happy; the decorative scene fitted her admirably. Dr. Lindsay came up the slope, laboring toward the ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... the poor smoke Struck from a puff-ball, or the troughster's grunt; - Once lion of our desert's trodden weeds; And but for thy straight finger at the yoke, Again to be the lordly paw, Naming his appetites his needs, Behind a decorative cloak: Thou, of the highest, the unwritten Law We read upon that building's architrave In the mind's firmament, by men upraised With sweat of blood when they had quitted cave For fellowship, and rearward ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... under her, and the light playing a game of magic amid the reds and golds and browns of her hair, while she cheerily discoursed to us of Hamdi's villainy, I never noticed the dull decorum of this room. I was struck with the decorative value of ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... worthless in themselves, from the libraries of Grolier, Maioli, De Thou, Peiresc, or Pompadour. There is a sort of sensation of awe in taking up these volumes, as if they had passed through some holy ordeal, as if they had been canonised. It is not the piece of dressed leather with its decorative adjuncts which casts its spell over us: it is the reputation of the courtly patron of learning and art; of the statesman and soldier who sought a diversion in the formation of a library from severer employments; of the ...
— The Book-Collector • William Carew Hazlitt
... retrousse; the chin was round and full and dimpled; the throat was full and round also, a white column supporting the tawny head, and indicated that Vixen was meant to be a powerful woman, and not one of those ethereal nymphs who lend themselves most readily to the decorative art of a ...
— Vixen, Volume I. • M. E. Braddon
... circular brocaded chair, in which gold back and gold arms were one; a sufficiently decorative background for her shining decollete. Hugo, standing and fingering his white tie, looked down at her with no loss of confidence in ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... shaft, and on the other a point. To keep the weapon from slipping out of the hand, a stud is left in the hard wood shaft, about two-thirds of the way from the head, the shaft itself being protected by a steel sheathing half way down; the remainder being ornamented with decorative brass plates and strips, and the end shod in a ferrule of silver. The top of the ax is not straight, but curved, both edge and point taking, as it were, their origin in this curve; the edge is formed ...
— The Head Hunters of Northern Luzon From Ifugao to Kalinga • Cornelis De Witt Willcox
... happy household. A master decorative workman, only lacking a touch of genius to be a sculptor, his pride is in his artistic handiwork. His happiness in his good wife Josephine. His heart ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage
... of locomotion and bound for somewhere in a hurry; excepting of course no forked parsnip, however remarkable in other respects, would be wearing a floppy straw hat in a snowstorm; nor is it likely it would be adorned lengthwise in its rear with a highly decorative design of broad, smooth, polished disks which, even in that poor illumination, gleamed and twinkled and wiggled snakily in and out of alignment, in accord with the movements of ...
— The Life of the Party • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb
... sun drew another blaze from the free-bosomed earth. Whereupon a neighbour's little girl, at the behest of her mother, duly craved and received permission from Bess to gather a few poppies for decorative purposes. But of this I was uninformed, and when I descried her in the midst of the field I waved my arms like a ...
— Revolution and Other Essays • Jack London
... of vivacity, calmness, and motion which goes by the term of the Je ne sais quoi. Everybody knows in what that consists, namely: great cleverness, some taste, and a certain composure of manner. Beatrix might now be called a decorative scenic effect, changed at will, and wonderfully manipulated. The presentation of this fairy effect, to which is added clever dialogue, turns the heads of men who are endowed by nature with frankness, until they become possessed, through the law of contrasts, by a frantic desire to play ...
— Beatrix • Honore de Balzac
... return in labour whatever. In a little while the mere absence of occupation for so great a multitude of people everywhere became an evident social danger, and the government was obliged to resort to such devices as simple decorative work in wood and stone, the manufacture of hand-woven textiles, fruit-growing, flower-growing, and landscape gardening on a grand scale to keep the less adaptable out of mischief, and of paying wages to the younger adults for attendance at schools that would equip them to use the ...
— The World Set Free • Herbert George Wells
... decorative! How would it be to make them leave their wrappings at the entrance to-night, or put them under their own chairs, and to arrange a broad band of holly round the room so as to hide the pegs from view? It would be so easy to tie on the branches, and ...
— A College Girl • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... of Schloss' safe was open when Kennedy and I arrived and found the excited jeweler nervously pacing the office. Surrounding the safe, I noticed a wooden framework constructed in such a way as to be a part of the decorative ...
— The War Terror • Arthur B. Reeve
... longer than Greece could afford to wait. But in July 1832 the sultan recognized the sovereign independence of the kingdom of Hellas in consideration of a cash indemnity; and in February 1833, just a year after the first overtures had been made, the appointed king arrived at Nauplia with a decorative Bavarian staff and a ...
— The Balkans - A History Of Bulgaria—Serbia—Greece—Rumania—Turkey • Nevill Forbes, Arnold J. Toynbee, D. Mitrany, D.G. Hogarth
... had a love affair in Yorkshire and wrote poetry about it, letting just enough be known to stimulate the imagination of the public. They tried their hands at everything, imitated everything, and in all were brilliant, sparkling, and decorative; they got a kind of entrance to the circle of the Court. Then Spenser published his Shepherd's Calendar, a series of pastoral eclogues for every month of the year, after a manner taken from French ...
— English Literature: Modern - Home University Library Of Modern Knowledge • G. H. Mair
... wealth of foliage a bold spike of pleasing lilac flowers, the former, as implied by the specific name, being edged with a white line, which is broad and constant, this quality being all the more commendable from the fact that many variegations are anything but reliable. Speaking of this as a decorative plant for the garden, it may be said to be one of the best; however placed, it has a neatness and beauty which are characteristic, especially when used in lines, and has become well established; from early spring, when the fresh young leaves appear, until the autumn ...
— Hardy Perennials and Old Fashioned Flowers - Describing the Most Desirable Plants, for Borders, - Rockeries, and Shrubberies. • John Wood
... has helped on this confusion, till one is almost tempted to regard them as nuisances. A few of these ornamental trifles, arranged with an eye to a certain unity of design, may do very well; but, as William Morris, the great apostle of true decorative art in England, has said, "Better pure empty space than unworthy and confusing ornament." You may have heard it related of the great naturalist, Thoreau, that he made a collection of stones during his rambles, and placed them on his writing-table; but when he found he had to dust ...
— Letters to a Daughter and A Little Sermon to School Girls • Helen Ekin Starrett
... full. They have cheated France, they are dividing the spoil. France is a bag, and they put their hand in it. Rummage, for Heaven's sake! Take, while you are there; help yourselves, draw out, plunder, steal! One wants money, another wants situations, another wants a decorative collar round his neck, another a plume in his hat, another embroidery on his sleeve, another women, another power; another news for the Bourse, another a railway, another wine. I should think, indeed, that they are well satisfied. Picture to ...
— The History of a Crime - The Testimony of an Eye-Witness • Victor Hugo
... like a huge stiff envelope, but far more beautiful to see, for it was painted all over with many bright colors. These firmly tied bags of dried meat were laid upon the rocks in the walls of the dwelling. In this way they were both useful and decorative. ...
— Old Indian Legends • Zitkala-Sa
... to want to get as far as possible from his ears and, at the same time, remain perched on his head. The yellow shoes looked as though each had half a billiard ball in the toe, and the entire tops were perforated with many diverging lines in an attempt for the decorative. Those were the days of sore feet and corns! Hart Schaffner and Marx had not yet become rural America's tailor. Sartorial magicians in Chicago had not yet won over the young men of the great corn belt, with their snappy lines and style for the millions. In 1890, when a suit ...
— Dust • Mr. and Mrs. Haldeman-Julius
... I shave. Quite possibly some may wonder that I should affect such commonplace pictures. They cost me threepence each, in Swansea. Well, I am not concerned with their merit as pieces of decorative art. When I look at that wet road and rainy sky, I go back in thought to the days when I lived near Barnet, and the world was mine on Sunday. I recall how I was wont to throw off my morning lethargy, get ...
— An Ocean Tramp • William McFee
... matter of plain external fact, there was not a word of truth in this. The leaders of the movement of female emancipation are not at all ugly; most of them are extraordinarily good-looking. Nor are they at all indifferent to art or decorative costume; many of them are alarmingly attached to these things. Yet the popular instinct was right. For the popular instinct was that in this movement, rightly or wrongly, there was an element of indifference to female dignity, of a quite new willingness of women to be grotesque. These ...
— All Things Considered • G. K. Chesterton
... Jonas Lie, a word about his style is in order. Style, as such, counts for very little with him. Yet he has a distinctly individual and vigorous manner of utterance, though a trifle rough, perhaps, abrupt, elliptic, and conversational. Mere decorative adjectives and clever felicities of phrase he scorns. All scientific and social phenomena—all that we include under the term modern progress—command his most intense and absorbed attention. Having since 1882 been a resident of Paris (except during his ...
— Essays on Scandinavian Literature • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... arranging in round balls the two grey locks of hair that were suffered to grow from the crown of his head; his earrings and spear, both well polished, lay beside him, while the highly decorative pair of shoes hung suspended from a projecting cane against the side of the house. The young men were similarly employed; and the fair damsels, including Fayaway, were anointing themselves with 'aka', arranging their long tresses, and performing other matters ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville
... of the huge columns were decorative or symbolical figures wearing the pschent, armed with the tau, following each other in procession, and whose eyes, showing full upon a side face, seemed to look inquisitively into the hall. Lines of perpendicular hieroglyphs ...
— The Works of Theophile Gautier, Volume 5 - The Romance of a Mummy and Egypt • Theophile Gautier
... windows were close shut, apparently until next Fair-time—when the Hotel de Ville had cut off its gas and put away its eagle—when the two paviours, whom I take to form the entire paving population of the town, were ramming down the stones which had been pulled up for the erection of decorative poles—when the jailer had slammed his gate, and sulkily locked himself in with his charges. But then, as I paced the ring which marked the track of the departed hobby-horses on the market-place, pondering in my mind how long some hobby-horses ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... Agnes Farmer—and a young fellow who had been employed on the decorative work at Heston. There were relations between these two, and Roger tells me they have married lately, on a partnership bought by Mrs. Barnes. While the work was going on at Heston the young man used to put up at an inn in the country town, and talk ...
— Marriage a la mode • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... who, without possessing the order of genius which you would desire to devote to higher purposes, yet possess wit, and humour, and sense of colour, and fancy for form—all commercially valuable as quantities of intellect, and all more or less expressible in the lower arts of iron-work, pottery, decorative sculpture, and such like. But these details, interesting as they are, I must commend to your own consideration, or leave for some future inquiry. I want just now only to set the bearings of the entire subject broadly before you, with enough of detailed illustration to make it intelligible; ...
— A Joy For Ever - (And Its Price in the Market) • John Ruskin
... Bearer you may add a touch of white which represents smoke from the flame. Then, while you are in that class, you may wear the Fire Maker's bracelet. 'Fire' is the symbol of our organization. For decorative purposes it may be represented ...
— How Ethel Hollister Became a Campfire Girl • Irene Elliott Benson
... Works by Honore de Balzac, Criticisms on the Author by Sainte-Beuve, Portraits by Coypel and Mignard, and decorative Titlepages. ...
— The Nabob, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... that I did not imagine I had any vocation for the contemplative life. I have as a matter of fact a great longing for it. But I don't think that twenty-one is a good age for being quite sure if that longing is not mere sentiment. I suppose you think I'm just indulging myself with the decorative side of religion, Father Lamplugh? I really am not. I can assure you that I'm far too much accustomed to the decorative side to be greatly ...
— The Altar Steps • Compton MacKenzie
... young people had that same spirit of reverence toward their country's flag!" said Uncle Teddy fervently. "It is becoming a rarer sight all the time to see a young man take off his hat to the Stars and Stripes. We have come to regard it as a sort of decorative rag, and of no more significance than any other decoration. I think it is up to you Camp Fire Girls to foster this spirit of respect for the flag among young folks. I am very glad you did this thing today, Sahwah. ...
— The Campfire Girls on Ellen's Isle - The Trail of the Seven Cedars • Hildegard G. Frey
... existences to travel and expenditure. This contingent appears shopping in the various shopping thoroughfares; it buys clothes, jewels, miscellaneous attractive things, making its purchases of articles useful or decorative with a freedom from anxiety in its enjoyment which does not mark the mood of the ordinary shopper. In the everyday purchaser one is accustomed to take for granted, as a factor in his expenditure, a certain deliberation and uncertainty; to the travelling ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... Capitol Hall at the side, about midway between the ends. It is the largest room yet visited, being some two hundred feet from end to end, with a very high ceiling. Here we notice the walls and ceiling are bare of box work and other formation, and are clean and white. The decorative appearance exceeds any room yet visited. After getting into line again we go down a flight of stairs to Odd Fellows' Hall, a chamber that on examination suggests its name. In the ceiling is situated the 'All ...
— Cave Regions of the Ozarks and Black Hills • Luella Agnes Owen
... of England it would be pretty nearly true, if it were said that the whole amount of art of the decorative kind that existed in England between 1810 and 1850, for instance, would fill but a small museum, and that its quality would fill but slight requirements, it would require a bold Anglophil to contradict. There ...
— The American Architect and Building News, Vol. 27, Jan-Mar, 1890 • Various
... taken the souvenirs of the hunt and trail which Jack had collected, and, with a woman's touch of refinement, had used them for decorative effects. She had in truth made the room her very own. The grace and charm of her personality were ...
— The Round-up - A Romance of Arizona novelized from Edmund Day's melodrama • John Murray and Marion Mills Miller
... remembered that there was a bronze something on the table that, in the irony of modern decorative taste, might hold ashes or matches, or anything of an unpicturesque character. He knocked something over, evidently the ink,—something else,—this time a champagne glass. Becoming reckless, and now groping at ...
— The Story of a Mine • Bret Harte
... taste, and florid pictures, with as many colours and shadows as would appear in an oil painting, resulted. Here and there, where special metallic brilliancy was desired, a leaf of gold was laid under the colour of some transparent enamel, giving a decorative lustre. These bits of brilliant metal were known ...
— Arts and Crafts in the Middle Ages • Julia De Wolf Addison
... live in such an expensive situation, and within the last score of years they have been pulled down and others built on their sites. One of these so destroyed was called the Gothic House; in it lived Count D'Orsay, and it was most beautifully finished both inside and out. The decorative work was executed by Pugin, and has been described by those who remember it as gorgeous. In another there was a beautiful Chippendale staircase, which, it is to be feared, was ruthlessly chopped up. In the last house of all was ...
— Chelsea - The Fascination of London • G. E. (Geraldine Edith) Mitton
... edition of the Persian Classic, being a correct version of the text of the Fourth Edition, together with accurate notes, a biography of both Omar and Fitzgerald, and a Poetical Tribute by Andrew Lang. Beautifully printed in two colors on old Chester deckle edge paper, with decorative borders by Charles D. Farrand, fourteen half-tone illustrations by Gilbert James, and a portrait of Fitzgerald. In every way a superior edition at a moderate price. Gilt tops, attractively bound in cloth and gold, Size 5-1/4 ...
— Found in the Philippines - The Story of a Woman's Letters • Charles King
... was awaiting with impatience the result of the operations. The Chaldaeans were accustomed to torture their prisoners in the fashion we frequently see represented on the monuments of Nineveh, and whenever an unexpected stroke of good fortune brings to light any decorative bas-relief from their palaces, we shall see represented on it the impaling stake, rebels being flayed alive, and chiefs having their tongues torn out. Nebuchadrezzar, whose patience was exhausted, caused the sons of Zedekiah to be slain in the presence of their ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 8 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... desirable one for the park or pleasure ground, on account of the gorgeous tint assumed by the decaying leaves in autumn. Emerson, in his "Trees and Shrubs of Massachusetts," pays a just tribute to this tree from a decorative standpoint. He says: "The crimson, scarlet, and orange of its autumnal colors, mingling into a rich purplish red, as seen at a distance, make it rank in splendor almost with the tupelo and the scarlet ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 421, January 26, 1884 • Various
... back to the house almost silently and through the green drawing-room window again and up the broad stairs with Sir William Hamilton's huge decorative painting of an Ardayre group of his time, filling one vast ...
— The Price of Things • Elinor Glyn
... the Red Light bar is a stuffed bobcat, the same bein' held as decorative. Only the day before Texas and Tutt stands talkin', a couple of Enright's riders comes packin' a live bobcat into town, which between 'em they ropes up over in the foothills of the Tres Hermanas, an' jams labor'ously into a pa'r of laiggin's. The ...
— Faro Nell and Her Friends - Wolfville Stories • Alfred Henry Lewis
... The Reichstag's decorative scheme is panelled oak and gilt-paint. The members' seating space spreads fanlike round the floor, with individual seats and desks exactly like those used by schoolboys, which is not an inappropriate simile. On the extreme right are the places of the Conservative-Junker—landowners—Party; ...
— The Land of Deepening Shadow - Germany-at-War • D. Thomas Curtin
... beginning to acquire consciousness, and sorely afflicted by the decorative scheme that had been adopted in Barty's bedroom, found solace in the faces of these two women. Even the lazy consideration of the contrast between their types, was a comfort to Larry, and distracted his mind from the wall-paper ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross
... ranking beauty to its external features, the decorative west front must manifestly come first; next the Portail aux Libraires, with its arcaded gateway and the remains of the booksellers' stalls which still surround its miniature courtyard; then, perhaps, ...
— The Cathedrals of Northern France • Francis Miltoun
... of antiquarian relics, chiefly in the decorative branch of art, preserved in the northern counties, pourtrayed by a very competent hand.... All are drawn with that distinctness which makes them available for the antiquarian, for the artist who is studying costume, and for the study ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 6. Saturday, December 8, 1849 • Various
... know most of Indian sacred and decorative symbols, we learn that two main ideas are outstanding: desire for rain and belief in the unity of all life. Charms or prayers against drought take the form of clouds, lightning, rain, etc., and those for fertility are expressed by leaves, flowers, seed ...
— The Unwritten Literature of the Hopi • Hattie Greene Lockett
... and gold—kept their uses, mechanical and artistic. They are always beautiful in their proper places, and are as much used for decorative purposes as ever, but those purposes are architectural, not personal, as formerly. Because we do not follow the ancient practice of using paints on our faces and bodies, we use them not the less in what we consider their proper places, and it is ...
— Equality • Edward Bellamy
... stark nakedness of it. There is no decorative treatment here, no evidence of an attempt to impress upon the report the individuality of the paper. The Editor rightly divined that the simple, splendid tragedy of the event offered no opportunity for a display of his art. His art, indeed, could have nothing to do with it. If all news were ...
— Journalism for Women - A Practical Guide • E.A. Bennett
... stands-painted by herself. No witness but herself has been allowed to testify. She stands there painted by her acts, and decorated by her words. When she talks, she has only a decorative value as a witness, either for or against herself, for she deals mainly in unsupported assertion; and in the rare cases where she puts forward a verifiable fact she gets out of it a meaning which it refuses ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... by fancy will presently appear, not that I contend for nomenclature, but only for distinction between two mental faculties, by whatever name they be called, one the source of all that is great in the poetic arts; the other merely decorative and entertaining, but which are often confounded together, and which have so much in common as to render strict definition ...
— Modern Painters Volume II (of V) • John Ruskin
... outrageous proportion to their weight and even size. The imbecility of this, and its probable effect on the reputation of Laurel Run at the General Post-office, being pointed out by Mrs. Baker, stamps were adopted as local currency, and even for decorative purposes on mirrors and the walls of cabins. Everybody wrote letters, with the result, however, that those SENT were ludicrously and suspiciously in excess of those received. To obviate this, select parties made forced journeys to Hickory Hill, the next ...
— Colonel Starbottle's Client and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... quality and length, and of a given amount. Each clip usually consisted of two discs connected by a narrow band, and when used for marking cloth the name or initials of the maker of the material was often incised on one of the discs. The clips, too, were often embossed with a decorative device such as a coat of arms, crest, crown, name or initials of a king, numerals, king's head, royal arms, animal, or flower. Over a dozen of these small lead clips have been unearthed, and serve as reminders of a past day when majestic English merchantmen sailed to ...
— New Discoveries at Jamestown - Site of the First Successful English Settlement in America • John L. Cotter
... porch a central hall 7 feet wide extends 29 feet to the rear of the house, terminating in a flight of stairs broken in the middle by a landing. Above this landing a circular window gives plenty of light and at the same time forms a decorative feature. ...
— Practical English Composition: Book II. - For the Second Year of the High School • Edwin L. Miller
... a little, but Viola did not know why. At the last moment Jane had decided not to wear the amethyst comb, because it seemed to her altogether too decorative for a woman of her age, and she was afraid to mention it to Viola. She was sure that Viola would laugh at her and insist upon her ...
— The Copy-Cat and Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... he then among some tribes ceases to exist socially.... The dances taught to boys at initiation are frequently if not always ARMED dances. These are not necessarily warlike. The accoutrement of spear and shield was in part decorative, in part a provision for making the necessary hubbub." (Here Miss Harrison reproduces a photograph of an Initiation dance among the Akikuyu of British East Africa.) The Initiation-dances blend insensibly and naturally with the Mystery and ...
— Pagan & Christian Creeds - Their Origin and Meaning • Edward Carpenter
... something very distinguished. No one had ever thought Pettingill deficient in ideas, and this was his opportunity. The only drawback was the time limit which Brewster so remorselessly fixed. Without that he felt that he could have done something splendid in the way of decorative panels—something that would make even the glory of Puvis de Chavannes turn pallid. With it he was obliged to curb his turbulent ideas, and he decided that a rich simplicity was the proper note. The result was gorgeous, but not too gorgeous,—it had ...
— Brewster's Millions • George Barr McCutcheon
... it is the rich shareholder who spends the money. While occupation and skill incline one towards severity and economy, leisure and unlimited means involve relaxation and demand the adventitious interest of decoration. The shareholder will be the decorative influence in the State. So far as there will be a typical shareholder's house, we may hazard that it will have rich colours, elaborate hangings, stained glass adornments, and added interests in great abundance. This "leisure class" will certainly ...
— Anticipations - Of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon - Human life and Thought • Herbert George Wells
... to the projecting hood which in medieval times was built over a fireplace to catch the smoke, and at a later date to the decorative framework, often carried up to the ceiling. "Chimneypiece" or "mantelpiece" is now the general term for the jambs, mantelshelf and external accessories of a fireplace. For many centuries the chimneypiece ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 2 - "Chicago, University of" to "Chiton" • Various
... making, towards the end of the seventeenth century, his invention of plate glass, which finally drove Venetian mirrors out of the markets of the world. The Venetian mirrors, charming as they are from the aesthetic point of view of decorative art, are simply blown glass rolled flat, cut, polished, and tinned. The art of making them came, like other arts, to Venice from the East, and in the sixteenth century the Venetian mirror was the true 'glass of fashion' all over Europe. The famous 'Galerie des Glaces' at Versailles, ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... essences into life, and flowers with conflicting fragrances and colors. By the clash of these tones he created a general, nondescript, unexpected, strange perfume in which reappeared, like an obstinate refrain, the decorative phrase of the beginning, the odor of the meadows fanned by ...
— Against The Grain • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... of resemblance between the two kinds of splendor, no single point in common. The loftiness and disposition of the rooms in one of the handsomest houses in the Faubourg Saint-Germain, the ancient gilding, the breadth of decorative style, the subdued richness of the accessories, all this was strange and new to him; but Lucien had learned very quickly to take luxury for granted, and he showed no surprise. His behavior was as far removed from assurance or fatuity on the one hand ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... Born at Winnebago City, Minnesota. Lived in New York City since early childhood. Privately educated. Chief interests: decorative art, gardening, people. First published story: "Burned Hands," Harper's Bazar, Nov., 1918. Lives in ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... certain large flowers that blossom in summer. During July and the first half of August they fill two thirds of his lawn and all the borders of his kitchen-garden. Beautiful, decorative plants, standing erect like flag-staffs, they proudly raise their spiky heads of all colours: blue, ...
— The Teeth of the Tiger • Maurice Leblanc
... jellies in the way just described are chiefly for decorative effect, they do add very greatly to the pleasure of eating them; but jellied fruits, as distinguished from fruits in jelly, are a delicious mode of eating fruit, and where it is in abundance afford a ...
— Choice Cookery • Catherine Owen
... the middle ages, and of the time of the Renaissance, and even down to the last century, in Italy, France, and Germany showed, in the crudest examples, the principal virtues of all true decorative art. The reason is not far to seek. The difficulties in the way of working the material with ease imposed certain limitations in design and execution which could not well be disregarded. The lack of machinery (which is responsible for much of the uninteresting ...
— The Brochure Series of Architectural Illustration, Vol. 1, No. 7, - July, 1895 • Various
... stretch of road, on one side of which was an expanse of swampy ground, varied with pools bordered by sedge, reeds and bushes, with areas of tussocks and with clumps of willows and alders, we came on Bambilio's and Vedia's carriages, their gilded decorative carvings, coral-red panel-bars, pearl-shell panel-panes, gilded rosette-bosses, silver-plated hubs and gilded spokes and fellies glittering in ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... lived, in order to produce such tusks. The ornamentation to which the large tusks have been subjected while preserving their form is in two grades: the one is severely plain, and the other extremely ornate and decorative in effect. The former consists of a series of three to five incised bands of a plait pattern, a design very common in West Africa, placed at intervals, the bands diminishing in width as they approach the tip of the tusk. ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 6, 1921 • Various
... broke on my vision. I could never look again with the same eyes on Raphael. By an intellectual effort I can appreciate the gracious plenitude of his accomplishment, his copious facility, his immense variety, the beauty of his draughtsmanship, and the felicity of his decorative design. But all this self-conscious skill, this ingenious affectation, this ostentatious muscularity, this immense superficiality—I feel always now a spiritual vacuity behind it which leaves me cold and critical. Every famous achievement of Raphael's, when I come ...
— Impressions And Comments • Havelock Ellis
... traverses the hills east of the Karigatta temple overlooking Seringapatam. The porphyry, which is of warm brown or chocolate colour, includes many crystals of lighter coloured felspar, and dark crystals of hornblende. The stone would take a very high polish, and for decorative purposes of high class, such as vases, panels and bases for busts and tazzas, etc., it is unequalled in South India, and deserving of all attention. If well polished it fully equals many of the highly prized antique porphyries. The ...
— Gold, Sport, And Coffee Planting In Mysore • Robert H. Elliot
... employed also on shafts, as in the cloisters of Monreale near Palermo, those of St Paul outside Rome, and many churches in Germany. Its earliest appearance was in the tomb of Agamemnon at Mycenae, where the shafts flanking the entrance doorway have nine decorative chevron bands; in this case there is no doubt it was derived from the metal casing of ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 1 - "Chtelet" to "Chicago" • Various
... striking flowers that grow from foot to crest on the wall of light marl that forms the bank. Constantly refreshed by the adjacent water, they flower and seed, seed and flower, and are haunted by bees and butterflies till the November frosts. The most decorative of all are the spikes of purple loose-strife. In autumn when most of the flowers are dead the tip of the leaf at the heads of the spikes turns as crimson as a flower. The other red flowers are the valerian, in ...
— The Naturalist on the Thames • C. J. Cornish
... domesticated distant lands and made the horizon at home. They fitted into the corners of small houses the ends of the earth and the edges of the sky. Their perspective is rude and crazy, but it is perspective; it is not the decorative flatness of orientalism. In a word, their world, like a child's, is full of foreshortening, as of a short cut to fairyland. Their maps are more provocative than pictures. Their half-fabulous animals are monsters, and yet are pets. It is impossible to state verbally this very ...
— A Short History of England • G. K. Chesterton
... Gilling Castle, the seat of the Fairfaxes for some three centuries. It possesses one of the most beautiful Elizabethan dining-rooms to be found in this country. The walls are panelled to a considerable height, the remaining space being filled with paintings of decorative trees, one for each wapentake of Yorkshire. Each tree is covered with the coats of arms of the great families of that time in the wapentake. The brilliant colours against the dark green of the trees form a most suitable relief to the uniform brown of the panelling. In addition to the charm ...
— Yorkshire Painted And Described • Gordon Home
... nectaries at the base of the petals and collect the abundant pollen of the newly opened flowers, which they perforce transfer to the five button-shaped stigmas intentionally impeding the entrance to older blossoms. Only its cousin the hollyhock, a native of China, can vie with the rose-mallow's decorative splendor among the shrubbery; and the ROSE OF CHINA (Hibiscus Rosa-Sinensis), cultivated in greenhouses here, eclipse it in the beauty of the individual blossom. This latter flower, whose superb scarlet corolla ...
— Wild Flowers, An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and - Their Insect Visitors - - Title: Nature's Garden • Neltje Blanchan
... peas, Madonna lilies and Canterbury bells. The shop itself has a gay awning, and what do you think the draper has suspended from it, just as a picturesque suggestion to the passer-by? Suggestion I call it, because I should blush to use the word advertisement in describing anything so dainty and decorative. Well, then, garlands of shoes, if you please! Baby bootlets of bronze; tiny ankle-ties in yellow, blue, and scarlet kid; glossy patent-leather pumps shining in the sun, with festoons of slippers at the corners, flowery slippers in imitation ...
— The Diary of a Goose Girl • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... pressure to which it would be subjected when the ship should be submerged to great depths in the ocean. The frames of these ports consisted of foliated wreaths of polished aethereum, presenting the appearance of burnished silver, and were exceedingly decorative in effect. A light rod of aethereum above each port carried a number of burnished rings from which drooped handsome lace curtains, that could either be looped back or allowed to veil the window, according to the fancy of the occupants. Above ...
— With Airship and Submarine - A Tale of Adventure • Harry Collingwood |
