"Elaborate" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... were destined to be before the fall of feudalism, by the king's officers and the men of the land in the king's absence. To determine the causes of this insurrection, we need to read between the lines of the story as it is told us by the writers of that and the next age. Elaborate reasons for their hostility to William's government were put into the mouths of the conspirators by one of these writers, but these would mean nothing more than a general statement that the king was a very severe and stern ruler, if it were not for the more specific accusation that he had rewarded ...
— The History of England From the Norman Conquest - to the Death of John (1066-1216) • George Burton Adams
... sculan do not often connote simple futurity in Early West Saxon, yet they were fast drifting that way. The Mn.E. use of shall only with the 1st person and will only with the 2d and 3d, to express simple futurity, was wholly unknown even in Shakespeare's day. The elaborate distinctions drawn between these words by modern grammarians are not only cumbersome and foreign to the genius of English, but equally ...
— Anglo-Saxon Grammar and Exercise Book - with Inflections, Syntax, Selections for Reading, and Glossary • C. Alphonso Smith
... I can not here elaborate the evidence upon which moral idealism is grounded; but it might be broadly classified as ethical, cosmological, and historical. The ethical ground of moral idealism is the virtual unity of life, the working therein of one eventual purpose sustained by the good-will of all moral beings. ...
— The Moral Economy • Ralph Barton Perry
... construction, however—those that still kept well within constructional expediency—were doubtless covered with a coating of plaster where they occurred inside of the rooms. At Tusayan and Cibola, on the other hand, the tendency has been rather to elaborate the plastic element of the masonry. The nearly universal use of adobe is undoubtedly largely responsible for the more slovenly methods of building now in vogue, as it effectually conceals careless construction. ...
— A Study of Pueblo Architecture: Tusayan and Cibola • Victor Mindeleff and Cosmos Mindeleff
... Museum in its Van Dycks. Besides those incomparable portraits of Lady Oxford, of Liberti the Organist of Antwerp, and others better than the best of any other man, there are a few large and elaborate compositions such as I have never seen elsewhere. The principal one is the Capture of Christ by Night in the Garden of Gethsemane, which has all the strength of Rubens, with a more refined study of attitudes ...
— Castilian Days • John Hay
... notion of the poet's peculiar turn of thought and style of expression; and to do this completely, it appeared to us indispensable to avoid confining our choice—however natural it might have seemed, and however great the temptation to do so—to the more ambitious and elaborate efforts of his genius. The true principles of criticism have long ago established the doctrine, that the composition of a beautiful song, or even of a perfect epigram, deserves to be considered as difficult a task, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 358, August 1845 • Various
... best ways to understand these as real stage plays is through some sort of dramatization. This does not mean, however, that they need be produced with elaborate scenery and costumes, memorizing, and rehearsal; often the best understanding may be secured by quite informal reading in the class, with perhaps a hat and cloak and a lath sword or two for properties. With simply a clear space in the classroom for a stage, ...
— The Atlantic Book of Modern Plays • Various
... lady answered, an elaborate Queen Elizabeth. 'Not at present. She found out nobody understood, but Miss Kennedy does, so now she holds it over Miss Kennedy's head that she will tell. That is the way she got her before the glass the ...
— Wych Hazel • Susan and Anna Warner
... gives a peck at a mouse's head and the mouse cries out: "Where must I go to be cured?" Then follow the various objects which are almost identical with those in the other versions. The mouse, however, is killed by the ox, to which he goes last. The Venetian version is the most elaborate; in it the cock and mouse go nutting together, and while the former flies up into the tree and throws the nuts down, the mouse eats them all up. When the cock comes down he flies into a passion and gives the mouse a peck at his head. The mouse runs off ...
— Italian Popular Tales • Thomas Frederick Crane
... chose him as a butt for their satire: but there was a kindness about him, and a sweet playful fancy, that seemed to Esmond far more charming than the pointed talk of the brightest wits, with their elaborate repartees and affected severities. I think Steele shone rather than sparkled. Those famous beaux-esprits of the coffee-houses (Mr. William Congreve, for instance, when his gout and his grandeur permitted him to come among us) would ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... Greeks, the Romans, and the early and mediaeval Christians, Milton arrives at the conclusion that the system of Censorship and Licensing was an invention of the worst age of the Papacy, perfected by the Spanish Inquisition. He gives one or two specimens of the elaborate imprimaturs prefixed to old Italian books, and makes much fun of them. The Papal invention, he continues, had passed on into Prelatic England. "These are the pretty responsories, these are the dear antiphonies that so bewitched our late ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson
... atmospheric elements, hourly adjusting them to man's nicest needs. And we should count it among the best of the progressive plans of our country, if to the new Industrial College under subscription at Worcester were to be added an elaborate culinary department, with the most accomplished professor that could be obtained. Perhaps, as M. Soyer was philanthropic enough to go to the Crimea, and teach the English to make hospital soup, he would even come here and give our nation a glimpse of those marvellous ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 97, November, 1865 • Various
... manuscript is opened, and the club becomes a green-room conference. The play is not to be recast entirely, the changes from the early version being mainly to introduce certain touches to flatter the royal ears, and to suit it to the more elaborate equipment of the Whitehall stage. Quill in hand, the reader as he proceeds crosses out from his manuscript everything that clogs the movement or detracts from the playfulness; giving free rein to his luxuriant imagination, he scatters the choicest flowers ...
— Shakespeare's Christmas Gift to Queen Bess • Anna Benneson McMahan
... agent with elaborate apathy, "I'd leave the office long enough to find somebody who'd fetch ye daown in ...
— The Bronze Bell • Louis Joseph Vance
... losses sustained by classical literature few are more to be deplored than the loss of the closing chapters of Tacitus' Annals. Nero, it is true, is a far less complex character than Tiberius; and there can be no question that Tacitus' sketch of Nero is less elaborate than his study of the elder tyrant. Indeed, no historical figure stands out for all time with features of such hideous vividness as Tacitus' portrait of Tiberius; nowhere do we find emphasised with such terrible earnestness, the stoical poet's anathema ...
— Old English Plays, Vol. I - A Collection of Old English Plays • Various
... of attempts on the part of Sir Ralph Evers and the Cholmleys to stir up trouble between their servants and those of Sir Roger Hastings are very numerous and involved, but despite the elaborate details given by the owner of Roxby the case went against him at the court of the Duchy of Lancaster at Westminster Palace. Sir Roger seems to have been too high handed in his dealings with his neighbours, even for ...
— The Evolution Of An English Town • Gordon Home
... regularly-recurring cycles. And it is in this relation that the moon has been so disappointing an object of astronomical observation. For two centuries and a half her face has been scanned with the closest possible scrutiny; her features have been portrayed in elaborate maps; many an astronomer has given a large portion of his life to the work of examining craters, plains, mountains, and valleys, for the signs of change; but until lately no certain evidence—or ...
— Half-hours with the Telescope - Being a Popular Guide to the Use of the Telescope as a - Means of Amusement and Instruction. • Richard A. Proctor
... after group of 1842, 1843 and 1844. An arrangement in nature,—first observed, as we learn from Bacon, by the people of the Low Countries, and which has since formed the basis of meteoric tables, and of predictions and elaborate cycles of the weather,—bound together the twelvemonths of the Oolitic period in alternate bundles of better and worse: vegetation throve vigorously during the summers of one group, and languished, in those of another, in a state ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller
... work upon the task of breaking up the poor old Mermaid. He decided that the deck-beams of the brig would be the most suitable for his purpose; and to obtain these it was necessary to break up the deck—a long and arduous job, only to be accomplished with hard labour and the assistance of an elaborate ...
— Dick Leslie's Luck - A Story of Shipwreck and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... however, till a new light flashed on his mind from a quarter from which there was little reason to expect any thing but tenfold darkness. In the reign of James the First, Doctor John Overall, Bishop of Exeter, had written an elaborate treatise on the rights of civil and ecclesiastical governors. This treatise had been solemnly approved by the Convocations of Canterbury and York, and might therefore be considered as an authoritative exposition of the doctrine ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... Why, it is unthinkable. Yet the books which treat of tobacco are not all couched in that tranquil tone which is induced by the soothing weed. 'The whole output of literature on tobacco,' writes Professor Routh, 'is eminently characteristic of the age in its elaborate titles, far-fetched conceits, and bitter invective. The spirit of criticism is so strong that even the partisans of the weed satirise the habits of the smoker.' King James's 'Counter Blaste to Tobacco,' first issued in 1604, Braithwaite's 'The Smoaking Age,' 1617, and Barclay's ...
— The Book-Hunter at Home • P. B. M. Allan
... which was done in full view of the front ranks of spectators, was an elaborate proceeding. A heavy silk handkerchief had been prepared by folding it in eight thicknesses, which were then stitched to prevent Clipping. This bandage was four inches wide and completely covered the man's eyes, but as an additional precaution pads of cotton wool were first ...
— Raspberry Jam • Carolyn Wells
... present occasion we were to go over it in form, with the usual torments of laquais and ciceroni. I saw nothing new but the cloisters, which remain exactly as in the time of Constantine. They are in the very vilest style of architecture, and decorated with Mosaic in a very elaborate manner: but what most amused us was the collection of relics, said to have been brought by Constantine from the Holy Land, and which our cicerone exhibited with a sneering solemnity which made it very ...
— The Diary of an Ennuyee • Anna Brownell Jameson
... his idea was to make Ward and me look as foolish as possible, for he was the kind of man who was never really contented unless he was trying to make some one feel uncomfortable. The whole thing, I knew, was an elaborate joke at our expense, but I was not going to starve because Nina had fallen into the "Cher" and Jack had pulled her out, so I set to work to enjoy myself, though I had to sit next to Dennison. In fact, having once got to the Sceptre, I think I made more row than ...
— Godfrey Marten, Undergraduate • Charles Turley
... authority, who knew well what he was writing about, and he speaks of the Welsh bards and rhapsodists of his time as having in their possession 'ancient and authentic books' in the Welsh language. The apparatus of technical terms of poetry, again, and the elaborate poetical organisation which we find, both in Wales and Ireland, existing from the very commencement of the mediaeval literary period in each, and to which no other mediaeval literature, so far as I know, shows at its first beginnings anything ...
— Celtic Literature • Matthew Arnold
... in New York City the work of preparing and forwarding the State's quota of troops. Was called to Albany in December for consultation concerning the defenses of New York Harbor. Summoned a board of engineers on December 24, of which he became a member, and on January 18, 1862, submitted an elaborate report on the condition of the national forts both on the seacoast and on the inland border of the State. Was appointed inspector-general February 10, 1862, with the rank of brigadier-general, and in May inspected ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 8: Chester A. Arthur • James D. Richardson
... parts, occurs throughout Europe as has been shown by Cosquin in his elaborate Notes to No. 22. The Visitor from Paradise, for example, occurs in Brittany, Germany, Norway, and Sweden, England, Roumania, Tyrol, and Ireland. In some of the versions the silly wife gives some household ...
— Europa's Fairy Book • Joseph Jacobs
... hundred yards or so, found myself close to the roofless ruin of a spacious stone house with something of the appearance of an old English manor house. Mullioned windows, finely masoned, opened in the shattered wall, and an elaborate stone staircase, in the interstices of which stout shrubs were growing, gave, or once had given, an entrance through an arched doorway—an entrance now stoutly disputed by the glistening trunk of a gum-elemi tree and endless ...
— Pieces of Eight • Richard le Gallienne
... mouth as he again glanced at the forms of the two assistants. Turning to the Governor, the navy-man sharply addressed what seemed to be a series of questions to him. The Governor replied, making what Frobisher guessed to be a long and elaborate explanation. Finally, with a gesture expressive of anger and impatience, excited apparently by the unsatisfactory character of the Governor's explanation, the stranger cut him short and turned ...
— A Chinese Command - A Story of Adventure in Eastern Seas • Harry Collingwood
... connexion with the State religion in addition to their ordinary duties. As a rule, priests proper, frowned upon as non-producers, were recruited from the lower classes, were celibate, unintellectual, idle, and immoral. There was nothing, even in the elaborate ceremonies on special occasions in the Buddhist temples, which could be likened to what is known as 'public worship' and 'common prayer' in the West. Worship had for its sole object either the attainment of some good or ...
— Myths and Legends of China • E. T. C. Werner
... have never succeeded in cutting ivory after the manner of these people, nor, to all appearance, is it likely they ever will. Nothing can be more exquisitely beautiful than the delicate lacework of a Chinese fan, or the elaborate carving of their miniature junks, chess-pieces, and concentric balls: their models of temples, pagodas, and other pieces of architecture are likewise skilfully constructed; and yet three thousand years ago such monuments of art were ...
— Chambers' Edinburgh Journal, No. 421, New Series, Jan. 24, 1852 • Various
... electric bell in one's bedroom, I never found an instance in which the harmless necessary bath could be ordered with fewer than nine pressures of the button, while the fragrant cocktail or some other equally fascinating but dangerous luxury might often be summoned by three or four. The most elaborate dinner, served in the most gorgeous china, is sometimes spoiled by the Draconian regulation that it must be devoured between the unholy hours of twelve and two, or have all its courses brought on the table at once. Though the Americans ...
— The Land of Contrasts - A Briton's View of His American Kin • James Fullarton Muirhead
... achieve, and within the limits of natural law we could at any moment do exactly as it pleased us to do. All other liberty is a compromise between our own freedom of will and the wills of those with whom we come in contact. In an organized state each one of us has a more or less elaborate code of what he may do to others and to himself, and what others may do to him. He limits others by his rights and is limited by the rights of others, and by considerations affecting the welfare of the ...
— New Worlds For Old - A Plain Account of Modern Socialism • Herbert George Wells
... is Best in Engineering Education." Professor H. H. Higbie, president Tau Beta Pi Association. An elaborate inquiry among graduate members of that association as to the value and relative importance of the different subjects pursued in college, of the time given to each, and of the methods employed in presenting them. ...
— College Teaching - Studies in Methods of Teaching in the College • Paul Klapper
... last, Aguinaldo has put in operation an elaborate system of military government, under his assumed authority as Dictator, and has prohibited any supplies being given us, except by his order. As Go this last, I have written to him that our requisitions on the country for horses, ox carts, fuel, and bamboo (to ...
— The Philippines: Past and Present (vol. 1 of 2) • Dean C. Worcester
... older children: in taking a beautiful medieval story such as "Our Lady's Tumbler," retold by Wickstead, the original text could hardly be presented so as to hold an audience; but while giving up a great deal of the elaborate material, we should try to present many of the characteristic passages which seem to sum up the situation. For instance, before his performance, the Tumbler cries: "What am I doing? For there is none here so caitiff but who vies with all the rest in serving God after his trade." And after his ...
— The Art of the Story-Teller • Marie L. Shedlock
... came upon the scene a fixed rule took the place of simple custom, and what had been optional became mandatory. By the time we reach the mediaeval period evolution has had its perfect work, and we find in existence a scheme of daily service curiously and painfully elaborate. The mediaeval theologians were very fond of classifying things by sevens. In the symbolism of Holy Scripture seven appears as the number of perfection, it being the aggregate of three, the number of Deity, and four, the number of the earth. Accordingly ...
— A Short History of the Book of Common Prayer • William Reed Huntington
... of our rejoicing that Piers set foot on the verandah. For a moment he stood staring, pardonably bewildered, at the two smugglers, who were saluting one another respectively with a profound curtsey and the most elaborate of bows. Then he pulled open the great window and stepped hesitatingly ...
— Jonah and Co. • Dornford Yates
... for here was the spot which Isabella had mischievously revealed to him as the place of her pretended meeting with the Regent. For the latter Luzio therefore lies in wait. Recognising him in an elaborate disguise, he blocks his way, and as Friedrich violently breaks loose, is on the point of following him with shouts and drawn sword, when, on a sign from Isabella, who is hidden among some bushes, he is himself stopped and led away. Isabella then advances, ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... was the May Shore ("Fairy" broidered in a bracket underneath, was her pet name), who finished yonder elaborate example on her tenth birthday, the 1st of May—doubtless that is where she got her name—in the year 1702, and on what far shore does she keep her birthdays now? None will ever know. She has vanished into the great sea of mystery whence she came, and there she lives and has her being, ...
— The Virgin of the Sun • H. R. Haggard
... "Matches lighted at the Divine Fire,"—and one "The Gun of Penitence:" a collection of passages from the fathers is called "The Shop of the Spiritual Apothecary:" we have "The Bank of Faith," and "The Sixpennyworth of Divine Spirit:" one of these works bears the following elaborate title: "Some fine Biscuits baked in the Oven of Charity, carefully conserved for the Chickens of the Church, the Sparrows of the Spirit, and the sweet Swallows of Salvation." Sometimes their quaintness has some humour. Sir Humphrey Lind, a zealous ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... tunic and trousers undoubtedly made in London to order, the tailor having had instructions to prepare for his highness a dress that would be striking and impressive, and from this point of view he had done his work well. The trousers were blue with gold stripes, of the most elaborate floral pattern, such as decorate levee uniforms; and, after the fashion of our most gaily-dressed hussars of fifty years ago, there were wonderful specimens of embroidery part of the way down the front of the thigh. But the tunic was the dazzling part of the show, for it was of the regular military ...
— The Rajah of Dah • George Manville Fenn
... before this body, and made an elaborate argument, of which a part only has been given to the public. He there assumes, as a fundamental proposition, that the Indians were by the law of nature free; that, as vassals of the Crown, they had ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... country—and so few countries, if it comes to that—are without a lover's leap that the very name has come to be a by-word. In most of these places the disappointed ones seem to have gone to elaborate and unusual pains to commit suicide, neglecting many easy and equally appropriate methods. But while in some cases the legend has been made to fit the place, there is no doubt that in many instances the story antedated the arrival of ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... He was a man of considerable conversational talents; "his deportment," says his biographer, "was graceful and manly." When he was first presented to Louis the Fourteenth, who was desirous of asking some questions concerning the invasion of Scotland, he is said to have prepared an elaborate address, which he forgot in the confusion produced by the splendour around him, but to have delivered an able extempore speech, with infinite ease and good taste, upon the spur of the moment, to the great amusement of Louis, who learned from De ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume II. • Mrs. Thomson
... in her own mind, half unconsciously, of every one about her. Of the pretty girl alone, with no elaborate traveling arrangements, going only, it was evident, from one way-station to another, perhaps to spend a summer day with a friend. Of the stout old country grandmamma, with a basket full of doughnuts ...
— A Summer in Leslie Goldthwaite's Life. • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... however; and if she missed, poor McMurtagh would invent most elaborate schemes, extra presents (he always made her an allowance), for extorting letters from her. The sight of her handwriting at any time would make his heart beat. Harley Bowdoin had by this time been taken into the counting-room. He was studying law as a profession (there ...
— Pirate Gold • Frederic Jesup Stimson
... had been settled by drawing lots. Each plot owner might plant and cultivate her own garden in her own way. These ways differed widely, hence the varied color schemes and diversifications of design noted by Sears on his first visit. The most elaborate—not to say "whirliggy"—design was the product of Miss Snowden's labor. The captain would have guessed it. The plot which contained no flowers at all, but was thickly planted with beets, onions and other vegetables, ...
— Fair Harbor • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... same beauty the same afternoon in a corridor of the Baths of Titus, with nothing on but a net over her elaborate coiffure and the bracelet with the key and number of the locker in which the attendant has put away her clothing and valuables and one not only cannot stare at her, one cannot look at her, not even if she accosts one and lingers for ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... distinctly I understood their parrots speak French, when I could not understand our own, though they spoke my native language. I at first ascribed it to the different qualities of the two languages, and was for entering into an elaborate discussion on the vowels and consonants; but a friend that was with me solved the difficulty at once, by assuring me that the French women scarce did anything else the whole day than sit and instruct their feathered pupils; ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... But there was no time for hesitation, and he ascended the broad staircase with a firm step, glancing at the rich tapestries which covered the walls, at the polished surface of the marble steps on either side of the heavy carpet, and at the elaborate and beautiful iron-work of the hand-rail. As he mounted higher, he heard the quick rapping of an electric signal above him, and he understood that the porter had announced his coming. Reaching the landing, he was met by a servant in black, as correct at all points as the porter himself, and who ...
— The Witch of Prague • F. Marion Crawford
... some of which could be shown to have been accompanied by earthquake-shocks. The fossil bones, which had given him the first hint concerning the mutability of species, had by this time been studied and described by comparative anatomists, and Darwin was able to elaborate much more fully the important conclusion that the existing fauna of South America has a close analogy with that of the period immediately preceding ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others
... parts of the world, the inhabitants of these islands do not eat them. They employ them in making models of their prows and bamboo huts, by running a small wire through them before they are dried. I remember seeing a number of these models in the Great Exhibition in England, many of them of very elaborate construction. When cloves were first introduced into England, thirty shillings per pound was paid for them. They are now cultivated in several other places, and consequently their value in the Spice Islands ...
— In the Eastern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... extensive trade, against enemies numerically much superior. The details serve to show the breadth of intelligence, the sound judgment, and clear professional conceptions that characterized Rodney in small things as well as great; but it would be wearisome to elaborate demonstration of this, and these qualities he had in common with many men otherwise inferior to himself. Reaction from the opening strain of the campaign, with the relaxation of vigor from the approach of the hot rainy season, now ...
— Types of Naval Officers - Drawn from the History of the British Navy • A. T. Mahan
... get typical fish. And these Igalwas are great men at canoe work, and can go in a canoe anywhere that any mortal man can go"—this to cheer up my Igalwa interpreter—"and as for the husband, neither the Royal Geographical Society's list, in their 'Hints to Travellers,' nor Messrs. Silver, in their elaborate lists of articles necessary for a traveller in tropical climates, make mention of husbands." However, the official ultimately says Yes, I may go, and parts with me as with one bent on self destruction. This affair being settled I start off, ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... christian zeal that woman derived the power of defying the utmost rigors of persecution with invincible fortitude. Saint Ambrose, in his elaborate and pious treatise on this subject, records the resolution of a fair disciple of Pythagoras, who, being severely urged by a tyrant to reveal the secrets of her sex, to convince him that no torments should reduce her to so unworthy ...
— Sketches of the Fair Sex, in All Parts of the World • Anonymous
... and none other. The revised Book, as in 1552, is thus put in exactly the same legal position as the original, and the authentic copy, as on that occasion, is, for the purpose of reference, annexed and joined to the Act. The other lengthy clauses of the Act contain elaborate provisions for preventing nonconformity, but with one exception they do not throw any further light on the relation of the legislature to the Prayer-book. The exception is ...
— The Acts of Uniformity - Their Scope and Effect • T.A. Lacey
... the mad clergyman who had offered five pounds for the crystal, informing him of its recovery; but after a violent hunt in which her daughter joined her, they were convinced of the loss of his address. As they were without the means required to mourn and bury Cave in the elaborate style the dignity of an old Seven Dials inhabitant demands, they had appealed to a friendly fellow-tradesman in Great Portland Street. He had very kindly taken over a portion of the stock at a valuation. The valuation was ...
— Tales of Space and Time • Herbert George Wells
... laid down:—That the appeal of the sermon must at the beginning be the appeal of intellect to intellect. Let no one be made afraid by this statement. It is not contended that every sermon must be an elaborate argument of the case for the Christian demand. This would necessitate that every preacher be a specialist in theology and apologetics, which is obviously impossible. Happily, the situation, strained as it is, is not such as to render it needful ...
— The Message and the Man: - Some Essentials of Effective Preaching • J. Dodd Jackson
... more developed style of later rulers, but separated into six sections, for the six years whose events are narrated, by brief glorifications of the monarch. Next we have the various hunting exploits of the king, and the document ends with an elaborate account of the building operations and with threats against the later ruler who should destroy the inscription or refuse credit to the king in whose honor it ...
— Assyrian Historiography • Albert Ten Eyck Olmstead
... books of alchemy. "How not to do it," is the lesson of all the books and treatises. Geber and Albertus Magnus, Roger Bacon and Raymond Lully, and the whole crew of "pauperes alcumistae," all give the most elaborate directions showing their student how to fail in transmuting Saturn into Luna and Sol and making a billionaire of himself. "Success" in its vulgar sense,—the gaining of money and position,—is not to be reached by following the rules of an instructor. Our "self-made men," who govern the country ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... sitting night after night in stuffy, darkened rooms, while Clarke, vivid as ever, sonorous as ever, declaimed in passionate rhythms the promise of a new era for spiritism to be inaugurated by the message of "this wonderful organism." He had, indeed, laid out an elaborate programme for the capture of Boston, but this he instantly dropped when Simeon Pratt sent up his card and asked to see what the girl could do. He demanded a sitting much as a dealer in horses would ask the hostler to drive the proffered animal ...
— The Tyranny of the Dark • Hamlin Garland
... then tie the parcels together in pairs by the help of a rhyme. The natural utterance of a man of strong perceptions, but of unwieldy intellect, of a melancholy temperament, and capable of very deep, but not vivacious emotions, would be in stately and elaborate phrases. His style was not more distinctly a work of art than the style of Browne or Milton, but, unluckily, it was a work of bad art. He had the misfortune, not so rare as it may sound, to be born in the wrong century; ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen
... runs, after a few adventures, over into an elaborate practical joke in which Pankraz himself is burlesqued by his contemporaries. Timme carries his poignancy and keenness of satire over into bluntness of burlesque blows in a large part of these closing scenes. ...
— Laurence Sterne in Germany • Harvey Waterman Thayer
... poet of bulk or dignity sufficient to require an elaborate criticism. Grongar Hill is the happiest of his productions: it is not, indeed, very accurately written; but the scenes which it displays are so pleasing, the images which they raise are so welcome to the mind, and the reflections of the writer so consonant to the general sense ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson
... With all the elaborate care of a Deerslayer, Joan got up, gave the boards that creaked a wide berth—she knew them all—and tiptoed to the door. The fact that she, at eighteen years of age, a full-grown woman in her own estimation, should be obliged ...
— Who Cares? • Cosmo Hamilton
... was at work, coming upon him unexpectedly. They hid in cupboards and behind curtains in rooms which Smith was likely to enter. They left letters, written in cipher, and marked coins in prominent places where Smith could hardly fail to see them. Kalliope conceived that an elaborate game of hide-and-seek was being played. She joined in, enthusiastically but unintelligently, concealing herself in various parts of the house without regard to Smith's habits. Once she remained obstinately hidden for more than an ...
— The Island Mystery • George A. Birmingham
... set about preparing a new and elaborate edition of Vaughan, which, only just before his death, he was endeavouring to find means to publish. After his death the two manuscripts passed by purchase to Mr. Charles Higham, the well-known bookseller of Farringdon Street, who in turn sold them to Mr. Dobell. Later, when a part of Dr. Grosart's ...
— From a Cornish Window - A New Edition • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... the general entrance, Poet's Corner. I hardly stopped to look at the elaborate exterior of Henry VIIth's Chapel, but passed on to the door. On entering, the first thing that met my eyes were the words, "OH RARE BEN JONSON," under his bust. Near by stood the monuments of Spenser and Gay, and a few paces further looked down the sublime ...
— Views a-foot • J. Bayard Taylor
... tried, by elaborate computations, to eliminate the effect of immigration and emigration in each division, in order to find out the standing of the old American stock. His conclusions confirm the beliefs of the most pessimistic. "Only three divisions, all Western, add to their population by means of an actual ...
— Applied Eugenics • Paul Popenoe and Roswell Hill Johnson
... house becomes, as it were, one great room, and thus is thoroughly aired. The beds are rolled up and put away in cupboards, and the woodwork is carefully rubbed down and polished. Perhaps the flowers in the vases are faded, and it is a long and elaborate performance to rearrange the beautiful sprays and the blossoms brought in from ...
— Peeps at Many Lands: Japan • John Finnemore
... as possible from the one which she had worn in the afternoon. Her dress was of some shining white stuff, very long, very much trimmed, cut very low at the neck; her hair was once more touzled, curled and pinned, in its most elaborate fashion; and her gold necklet and bracelets were only fit for a dinner-party. It is to be feared that Rupert Vivian did not admire her taste in dress. If she had worn white cotton it would had ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... stag-hunting," which he eulogised as the most legitimate and exhilarating of all sports, and sketched its progress from its wild state of infancy when the unhappy sportsmen had to range the fields and forests for their uncertain game, to the present state of luxurious ease and elaborate refinement, when they not only brought their deer to the meet, but by selecting the proper animal, could insure a finish at the place they most wished to dine at—all of which was most enthusiastically applauded; and on the ...
— Jorrocks' Jaunts and Jollities • Robert Smith Surtees
... Menagier is most amusing. His infinite variety of household knowledge is shown in the incidental recipes which he gives when he is describing the measures which a wife must take for her lord's comfort, and the work of the servants. There are elaborate instructions concerning the costly medieval garments, worn year after year for a lifetime and often bequeathed in their owner's will, instructions for cleaning dresses and furs and for preserving them from moths, and instructions for removing stains and grease spots. The ...
— Medieval People • Eileen Edna Power
... weather. I am charmed with the appearance of Terceira. Every square foot of the island seems to be under the most elaborate cultivation; the little fields divided by hedgerows of what appeared to be sugar-cane. The white one-storied houses are dotted thickly among all this cultivation, giving evidence of great populousness in this primitive paradise—so far removed away from the world, and so little resorted ...
— The Cruise of the Alabama and the Sumter • Raphael Semmes
... photograph," I said, "takes us a step further. Don't you see, Inspector, that this is a deeply and cunningly laid trap? What I had taken for a series of unfortunate coincidences I perceive now to be the workings of an elaborate scheme involving perfectly innocent people ...
— The Green Eyes of Bast • Sax Rohmer
... I will not elaborate the situation as it stood. All I can say is that there is no earthly possibility of making a good impression on any living thing if Elizabeth is in one of her bad moods. And it would be no use explaining the case to Mrs. Boscombe, ...
— Our Elizabeth - A Humour Novel • Florence A. Kilpatrick
... character, accomplishments, and achievements of the deceased, whose valuable work in biographizing American birds is so well known to those interested in ornithology, were referred to in so appropriate a manner that the paper, though not elaborate as it is to be hoped it may ultimately be made, will no doubt be published for general circulation. Major Bendire's services to American ornithology are of indisputable value, and his untimely death eclipsed ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photography [December, 1897], Vol 2. No 6. • Various
... tell you, sir. I would be nowhere at all. I would not be the possessor of a name that is known from one end of this land to the other, a name that guarantees to the public the most elaborate productions ...
— Green Fancy • George Barr McCutcheon
... kindly-hearted companions laboriously made that rough, wooden coffin, and dug a few inches into this icy rock for its reception. They covered it with these stones to guard it from wild beasts, and put up this elaborate timber with its three cross-pieces, cut in Russian characters as we see. Then another died, and his four companions treated him nearly the same as the first; there was as much care taken to bury him, and the cross is nearly as grand as ...
— Steve Young • George Manville Fenn
... Simm's elaborate rhetoric disguised as novels? He must have written two dozen of them, the Richardson of the United States. Lovers of delicious wit and intellectual humor still read Dr. Holmes' essays, but it would probably take a physician's prescription to make them swallow the novels. ...
— The Delicious Vice • Young E. Allison
... the entrance to the grounds, while a fifth is to station himself at the side of the track, and do sentinel duty about the half-mile post, with orders to report to me the moment Simms puts in an appearance, and to have him shadowed. Of course, this elaborate plot may exist only in my imagination, but if, as I believe, there is a carefully arranged scheme to beat Blake's horse, we shall have done him a good turn, and perhaps saved him a lot of money. I must go now, but don't fail to meet me to-morrow at eleven, at the track. ...
— Montezuma's Castle and Other Weird Tales • Charles B. Cory
... of Louis XIV and Colbert it had assumed the form of an organized province.[1] Though its inhabitants numbered less than seven thousand, the institutions under which they lived could not have been more elaborate or precise. In short, the divine right of the king to rule over his people was proclaimed as loudly in the ...
— The Fighting Governor - A Chronicle of Frontenac • Charles W. Colby
... ornamental dress until they arrive at maturity, or they assume it only during the breeding-season, or the tints then become more vivid. Certain ornamental appendages become enlarged, turgid, and brightly coloured during the act of courtship. The males display their charms with elaborate care and to the best effect; and this is done in the presence of the females. The courtship is sometimes a prolonged affair, and many males and females congregate at an appointed place. To suppose that the females do not appreciate the beauty of the ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin
... Soul, her enthroning on a stately couch, like some new-wed Moorish woman, for men to come and covet and admire. Above all, and giving one a shock of surprise by association with the man's other work, is a very long and elaborate poem addressed to Christ or God by no less a minnesinger than Master Gottfried of Strasburg. In it the Beloved is compared to all the things desired by eye or ear or taste or smell: cool water and fruit slaking feverish ...
— Renaissance Fancies and Studies - Being a Sequel to Euphorion • Violet Paget (AKA Vernon Lee)
... Elaborate preparations were not greatly in evidence, however. The Mexican servants had washed themselves and the floor of the big room had been swept and cleared of some of its rubbish; but that was all. The remittance men were in ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces and Uncle John • Edith Van Dyne
... Mussulman need elaborate bed and bedding for his repose. He does not undress as we do, but only loosens his garments, without taking them off, and stretches himself on top of his bed or rug, as the case may be. When the weather is cold, he takes off his shoes, but wraps his head and the upper part of his ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 30. September, 1873 • Various
... Indians sufficiently showed their faith in their own doctrines by immediately setting about a series of curious and elaborate ceremonies, which it was impossible to comprehend, and decidedly unprofitable to describe. They appeared, however, to attach much importance to their propitiatory offerings, the chief among which seemed to be ...
— Ungava • R.M. Ballantyne
... He made no attempt to elaborate the conversation or to introduce any new theme. The scene which had promised to be so dramatic was actually dragging with uncomfortable silences. She waited long enough for him to speak, but when he remained silent—it was a sardonic silence to her—she rose ...
— The Parts Men Play • Arthur Beverley Baxter
... Baby in Parliament. Associations were formed in the metropolis for disposing of Ginx's Baby by expatriation or otherwise. A peer suddenly sprung the matter by proposing to send the Baby to the Antipodes at the expense of the nation. The question was debated with elaborate stilted stultitude and the noble lord ...
— Volume 10 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... missile-crypts are stacked full of old photoprints and recording and microfilm spools. The sighting-and-guidance systems for all the launchers are completely missing. The letoff mechanisms all lack major parts. There is an elaborate set of detection equipment, which will detect absolutely nothing. I saw a few pairs of binoculars about; I suspect that that is what we ...
— A Slave is a Slave • Henry Beam Piper
... how charming it is for me," he responded with an elaborate air of gallantry. "It is so delightful to see you on ...
— The Puritans • Arlo Bates
... of attention. Nowhere, probably, in the language are finer specimens to be met with of rhetorical pathos, but poets like Burns, Cowper, Wordsworth, and Tennyson can touch the heart more deeply by a phrase or couplet than Pope is able to do by his elaborate representations of passion. The reader is not likely to be affected by the following response of Eloisa to an invitation from the ...
— The Age of Pope - (1700-1744) • John Dennis
... never saw a fairer city, Thessala Tempe, orchards, gardens, pleasant walks, groves, fountains, &c. The heaven itself is said to be [4523]fair or foul: fair buildings, [4524]fair pictures, all artificial, elaborate and curious works, clothes, give an admirable lustre: we admire, and gaze upon them, ut pueri Junonis avem, as children do on a peacock: a fair dog, a fair horse and hawk, &c. [4525]Thessalus amat equum pullinum, buculum Aegyptius, Lacedaemonius Catulum, &c., such things we love, are most ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... held out some, or maybe the diamond cross isn't so elaborate. You know they take a lot of little diamonds now, set 'em in a cluster and make 'em look as good as a solitaire. Anyhow Larch has been boasting to King that there's to be a diamond cross present. And ...
— The Diamond Cross Mystery - Being a Somewhat Different Detective Story • Chester K. Steele
... in the liver, on a grand scale, exactly the same conditions as obtain in the smaller and simpler glands. The thin-walled liver cells take from the blood certain materials which they elaborate into an important digestive fluid, called the bile.[23] This newly manufactured fluid is carried away in little canals, called bile ducts. These minute ducts gradually unite and form at last one main duct, which carries the bile from the liver. This is known as the hepatic duct. It passes out ...
— A Practical Physiology • Albert F. Blaisdell
... surroundings of the Manor, and the exceptional opportunities afforded by long afternoons and moonlit evenings,— succeed where he had hitherto failed, that she almost selected Maryllia's bridal gown, and went so far as to study the most elaborate designs for wedding-cakes of a ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... a course of education, then as now and ever, really opulent in manful culture and instruction to him; teaching him many solid virtues, and most indubitably useful knowledges; developing in him valuable faculties not a few both to do and to endure,—among which the faculty of elaborate grammatical utterance, seeing he had so little of extraordinary to utter, or to learn from spoken or written utterances, was not bargained for; the grammar of Nature, which he learned from his mother, being still amply sufficient for him. This was, as ...
— Latter-Day Pamphlets • Thomas Carlyle
... know, I am afraid I didn't think much about it," he said gently. "I'm troubled that way, you see," he explained, with elaborate politeness. "Often do things upon impulse, don't ...
— When A Man's A Man • Harold Bell Wright
... secret of the Mohawk's course of action. It had now become a matter of pride with him, and since the Tories and Indians had made such elaborate preparations to prevent the fugitives reaching Wilkesbarre, he was fired by the resolve that the lines should be passed through, and the maiden placed safely behind the fortifications at that town. In making this determination he did ...
— The Wilderness Fugitives • Edward S. Ellis
... These elaborate and highly organized efforts of the young imagination, of which boys and girls of unusual inventiveness are capable, are imitated on a smaller scale by all normal children. They endow inanimate things with ...
— Fairy Tales Every Child Should Know • Various
... stage of the argument, no very elaborate justification can be necessary, either for the object proposed by a graduated inheritance tax, or for the use of precisely these means to attain it. The preservation intact of a fortune over a certain amount is not desirable either in ...
— The Promise Of American Life • Herbert David Croly
... kind of Religious Horror. Nothing is more frequent than to see Women weep and tremble at the Sight of a moving Preacher, though he is placed quite out of their Hearing; as in England we very frequently see People lulled asleep with solid and elaborate Discourses of Piety, who would be warmed and transported out of themselves by the Bellowings and Distortions ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... foreigner having been created a Peer by Charles the First: nor does it appear likely from the names of persons created Baronets by Charles the First, that Lady Fanshawe could mean Baronet. The splendid and elaborate work entitled the "Memorias Genealogicas da Casa de Sousa," does not advert to the circumstance.] She told me in discourse one day this of a French Ambassador, that had lately been in that Court, ...
— Memoirs of Lady Fanshawe • Lady Fanshawe
... man, and whatever he undertook to do, he did thoroughly. All his speeches bear evidence of his careful study of everything that had been spoken or written on the subject under consideration. He was elaborate almost to excess; and spared no pains to adapt himself to the various capacities of his audience. Withal, he possessed much practical sagacity, great strength of purpose, and power to direct the issues of action with ...
— Self Help • Samuel Smiles
... body, was to her an incongruity, and a defection from the laws of the universe;—show and ostentation she despised,—and though she loved beautiful things, she found them,—as she herself said,—much more in the everyday provisions of nature, than in the elaborate designs of art. When she passed the gay shops in the principal thoroughfares she never paused to look in at the jewellers' windows,—but she would linger for many minutes studying the beauty of the sprays of orchids and other delicate blossoms, arranged in baskets and vases ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli |
