"Filigree" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... little dressing-table at the foot, which, like all the rest, was ornamented with various girlish trifles, framed photographs being not the least conspicuous among them. Sue's table had a moderate show, two men in their filigree and velvet frames standing together beside ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy
... From parapets of porphyry hang gold stalactites, side by side with icicles of silver. Moreover, all its marvelous fretwork is distinctly visible, for the light film of water pulsates over it so delicately that it can no more hide the filigree beneath than a ...
— John L. Stoddard's Lectures, Vol. 10 (of 10) - Southern California; Grand Canon of the Colorado River; Yellowstone National Park • John L. Stoddard
... blown flowers and little gilt-speckled liqueur glasses; there were knives with steel blades, knives all of silver, and gold fruit knives; there were slim oyster forks, entree forks of solid design, and forks of filigree; a bank of spoons by a plate that would be presently removed, ...
— The Happy End • Joseph Hergesheimer
... very noticeable bracelet, the gold setting being a mere feather-weight piece of native filigree work—almost too fragile to trust on the wrist—and the pearl being, as I have said, of a size and quality not often seen. Well, Heath and his wife arrived late one evening, and after lunch the following day, most of the men being off by themselves—shooting, I think—my daughter, my sister (who ...
— Martin Hewitt, Investigator • Arthur Morrison
... which was neither ribbon nor flannel. He also looked hungry; but it was not for food. The other stopped when he saw him, and pulled something from his pocket. It was a watch, a repeater, in a gold filigree case of exquisite workmanship, with raised figures depicting the loves of an Arcadian shepherd and shepherdess; and, as it lay on the white hand of its owner, it bore an evanescent fragrance that seemed ...
— Frances Kane's Fortune • L. T. Meade
... refusal by Lysbeth, Dirk van Goorl had left Leyden, and returned to Alkmaar, where his father lived. His cousin and friend, however, Hendrik Brant, remained there studying the jeweller's art under the great master of filigree work, who was known as Petrus. One morning, as Hendrik was sitting at breakfast in his lodging, it was announced that a woman who would not give her name, wished to see him. Moved more by curiosity than by any other reason, he ordered her to be admitted. When she ...
— Lysbeth - A Tale Of The Dutch • H. Rider Haggard
... thick inlaid With jewels wrought in golden filigree, An opal from some elfin treasury Burning with fire and flashing every shade; While round the dim horizon, wide displayed The clouds pile up their largess tenderly As if to clothe the beauty of the sea In filmy ...
— The Rose-Jar • Thomas S. (Thomas Samuel) Jones
... then, when he found already seated in the salotta an elderly, quite well-known, very cultured and very well-connected English authoress. She was charming, in her white hair and dress of soft white wool and white lace, with a long chain of filigree gold beads, like bubbles. She was charming in her old-fashioned manner too, as if the world were still safe and stable, like a garden in which delightful culture, and choice ideas bloomed safe from wind and weather. Alas, never was ...
— Aaron's Rod • D. H. Lawrence
... precious stones. Besides the Egyptian, there are some of Etruscan origin, taken from the tombs of this ancient people. We cannot leave this subject without noticing the beauty and perfection of the filigree-work, executed about 2400 years ago, and equal to modern workmanship. Some exquisite specimens from Pompeii are ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 455 - Volume 18, New Series, September 18, 1852 • Various
... true Moore. These facts you must hereafter relate to your son or whoever may be fortunate enough to inherit from you. It is the legacy which goes with this house and one which no inheritor as yet has refused either to receive or to transmit. Listen. You have often noted the gold filigree ball which I wear on my watch-guard. This ball is the talisman of our house, of this house. If, in the course of your life you find yourself in an extremity from which no issue seems possible mind the strictness of the injunction—an extremity ...
— The Filigree Ball • Anna Katharine Green
... of his fiber cloak and of the heavy gold headpiece with its precisely positioned crystals, being careful to note the red, green and blue glow of the various jewels. Meticulously, he filled in details of the gracefully formed filigree which formed mounts to support the glowing spheres. And he indicated the padded headpiece with its incrustation of crystal carbon, so his servitor could make no mistake. The man was more sensitive than one of the village ...
— The Weakling • Everett B. Cole
... been wallowing, in spite of a thousand prohibitions, in that slough of melancholy, whence thou hast already fished out Bertha, and come back with thy tresses dishevelled, like a girl who has been ill-treated by a regiment of soldiers! Where are thy golden aiglets and bells, thy filigree flowers of fantastic design? Where hast thou left thy crimson head-dress, ornamented with precious gewgaws that cost a ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... Beneath a large abai or cloak of black Cashmere, with Indian patterns embroidered about the collar and skirts, he wore a long gombaz of very dark green silk embossed with tambour work; his sash was of the plainest purple silk, and his sidriyeh or vest was of entire cloth of gold with gold filigree buttons: on the head a plain tarboosh, and in his hand sometimes a cane ornamented with ivory or a rosary of sandal-wood. His gold watch and chain were in ...
— Byeways in Palestine • James Finn
... the Sultan sat his two sons, while his right was occupied by his councillors; just behind him, sat the carrier of his betel-nut casket. The casket was of filigree silver, about the size of a small tea-caddy, of oblong shape, and rounded at the top. It had three divisions, one for the leaf, another for the nut, and a third for the lime. Next to this official was the pipe-bearer, who did not appear to ...
— The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes • Fedor Jagor; Tomas de Comyn; Chas. Wilkes; Rudolf Virchow.
... her. She could see the shape of it, pale in its light-colored shirt, against the dark filigree of shrubs at the bottom of the steps. His answer sounded indifferent ...
— Treasure and Trouble Therewith - A Tale of California • Geraldine Bonner
... with six amethysts between repousse oak-leaves, and is jointed to a circular boss surrounded with four vertical bands enriched with cairngorms, while between the bands are carbuncles set off by filigree work. There are also silver bosses at the joints of the ebony portions of ...
— Report Of Commemorative Services With The Sermons And Addresses At The Seabury Centenary, 1883-1885. • Diocese Of Connecticut
... heroic about the plan that pleased the camp. Stumpy was retained. Certain articles were sent for to Sacramento. "Mind," said the treasurer, as he pressed a bag of gold- dust into the expressman's hand, "the best that can be got,—lace, you know, and filigree-work and frills,—d—n the cost!" Strange to say, the child thrived. Perhaps the invigorating climate of the mountain camp was compensation for material deficiencies. Nature took the foundling to her broader breast. In that rare atmosphere of the Sierra foothills,—that ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... and twists itself like a Gordian knot; disappears and reappears, almost on the same spot, but higher up on the mountain, and then glides rapidly on along the brinks of fearful abysses, over long iron bridges looking like some fanciful filigree work, some giant spider's web, extending across great valleys, chasms, and precipices, over which great mountain rivers splash down, roaring and foaming in gigantic falls. What giant power has cleft the way for these waters—Vulcan or Neptune? Or was it laid down in Euclid's adventurous ...
— Dr. Dumany's Wife • Mr Jkai
... ashes grew as freely as on flat ground. Their feet were bedded deep in sweet fern and wild raspberries, and golden-rod, and purple scabious, and tall blue campanulas. Above them, and before them, and below them, the ashes shook their green filigree in the bright sunshine; and through them glimpses were seen of the purple cliffs above, and, right in front, of the great cataract of Nant Gwynnant, a long snow-white line zigzagging down coal-black cliffs for many a hundred feet, and above it, depth beyond depth of purple shadow away ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume II. • Charles Kingsley
... that pipe. It had no delicate amber stem nor circlet of filigree gold. There was no meerschaum ornamentation. It was just a good old Jimmy pipe with a full-grown cake in the black burnt bowl, and a well bitten, hard rubber mouth piece. It looked like one of those that father used to consent to have boiled once a year, after mother ...
— "And they thought we wouldn't fight" • Floyd Gibbons
... describes it in a letter of that year to Mr. Conway. "You perceive by my date that I am got into a new camp, and have left my tub at Windsor. It is a little plaything-house that I got out of Mrs. Chenevix's shop, and is the prettiest bauble you ever saw. It is set in enamelled meadows, with filigree hedges:- ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... languor of satiety—of indifferentism? And thus soul-rusted and earth-charmed, what mate is he for his former youth? Drunken with the world-lees, what can he do but pourtray nature drunken as well, and consumed with the same fever or stupor that consumes himself, making up with gilding and filigree what he lacks in truth and sincerity? and what comparison shall exist here and between what his youth might or could have done, with a soul innocent and untroubled as heaven's deep calm of blue, gazing on earth with seraph eyes—looking, but not longing—or, ...
— The Germ - Thoughts towards Nature in Poetry, Literature and Art • Various
... from thy peevish grandam so uncourteous a lesson as hate of the foreigner. As thou growest into womanhood, know that Norman knight is sworn slave to lady fair;" and, doffing his cap, he took from it an uncut jewel, set in Byzantine filigree work. "Hold out thy lap, my child; and when thou nearest the foreigner scoffed, set this bauble in thy locks, and think kindly of William, Count of ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... the table changed as if by the waving of a wand, and silently as a dream. And at this moment, the dessert being arranged, fruits and their beautiful companions, flowers, reposed in alabaster baskets raised on silver stands of filigree work. ...
— Tancred - Or, The New Crusade • Benjamin Disraeli
... to speak to you as I am speaking. But I am heart-set on you, and to win you there is not a precious stone I would leave unturned. Conceive a parure all of white stones—diamonds, white sapphires, white topazes, tourmalines. Another, of rubies and amethysts, set in gold filigree. Rings that once were poison-combs on Florentine fingers. Red roses for your hair—every petal a hollowed ruby. Amulets and ape-buckles, zones and fillets. Aye! know that you would be weeping for wonder before you had seen a tithe of these gauds. Know, too, Miss ...
— Zuleika Dobson - or, An Oxford Love Story • Max Beerbohm
... this rustic hoyden," thought Mrs. Mellicent, who, in contriving some occupation for so active a mind, recollected that Mrs. Beaumont's dressing-plate had not been cleaned lately, and undertook to make Isabel expert in furbishing the delicate filigree. She called on Constantia to give up the key, it being considered as her property, who blushed, hesitated, begged not to be questioned on the subject, and at last ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... the chatelaine: some very artistic things come in this pretty ornament now, with colored plaques representing antique figures, etc.). Sometimes a costly intaglio is sunk in silver and set as a pin. Clocks of silver, bracelets, statuary in silver, necklaces, picture-frames, and filigree pendants hanging to silver necklaces which resemble pearls; beautiful jewel-cases and boxes for the toilet; dressing-cases well furnished with silver; hand-mirrors set in fretted silver; bracelets, pendant ...
— Manners and Social Usages • Mrs. John M. E. W. Sherwood
... art of dress, as are their Parisian sisters. Tea was served, not in cups and saucers, as Jennie had been accustomed to seeing it handed round, but in goblets of clear, thin Venetian glass, each set in a holder of encrusted filigree gold. There were all manner of delicious cakes, for which the city is celebrated. The tea itself had come overland through Russia from China and had not suffered the deterioration which an ocean voyage produces. The decoction was served clear, ...
— Jennie Baxter, Journalist • Robert Barr
... papier-mache work-box, and 5 fitted up 1 morocco work-bag, ornamented 3 with bright steel; fitted up with scissors, thimble, etc 1 lady's Russia leather 15 shopping-bag, with silver and gilt clasps for chain and key 1 18-karat gold filigree 20 card-case 1 set gold whist-markers, in 50 hands on little box, a present unto her 1 lady's small work-bag, silk 5 fittings 1 solid silver porte-monnaie 19 1 little blue porte-monnaie; 3 velvet, and cords ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... Bacchiacca drew a filigree of attenuated fancies, threw them on a ground of single delicate colour, and sent them for weave to the celebrated masters, John Rost and Nicholas Karcher. (Plates facing pages 84 and 85.) These men at that time (1550) had set their Flemish ...
— The Tapestry Book • Helen Churchill Candee
... the city's quarter once given over to the Spaniard. Here were still his forbidding abodes of concrete and adobe, standing cold and indomitable against the century. From the murky fissure, the eye saw, flung against the sky, the tangled filigree of his Moorish balconies. Through stone archways breaths of dead, vault-chilled air coughed upon him; his feet struck jingling iron rings in staples stone-buried for half a cycle. Along these paltry avenues had swaggered the arrogant Don, had caracoled and ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry
... so long that he went and sat down in an alcove. What had possessed him to give his card to a rackety young fellow, who went about with a thing like that? And Fleur, always at the back of his thoughts, started out like a filigree figure from a clock when the hour strikes. On the screen opposite the alcove was a large canvas with a great many square tomato-coloured blobs on it, and nothing else, so far as Soames could see from where he sat. He looked at his catalogue: "No. 32 'The Future Town'—Paul ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... so successfully as to bring back unwonted smiles to Campion's face, who now freely forgave me for the gaucheries at the marriage service. Then the guests strolled around, looking at the marriage presents—the usual filigree and useless things that are flung at the poor bride. Bittra took me into a little boudoir of her own to ...
— My New Curate • P.A. Sheehan
... wooden benches, sculptured mosaic tables and ponderous sideboards covered with choice pottery from Gubbio and Savona, and Lucca della Robbia ware. Sunk in recesses there are dark cupboards filled with mediaeval salvers, goblets, and flagons, gold dishes, and plates, and vessels of filigree and silver. Ivory carvings hang on the walls beside dingy pictures, or are ranged on tables of Sicilian agate and Oriental jasper. Against the walls are also placed cabinets and caskets of carved walnut-wood and ebony inlaid with lapis-lazuli, jasper, and precious stones; also long, narrow coffers, ...
— The Italians • Frances Elliot
... attractive. They are slender, and their heads sit beautifully above long swan-like necks. They dress their hair in a rather tightly drawn pompadour, and ornament it with filigree combs set with seed pearls, or, if they are able, with jewelled butterflies and tiaras. Jewellery is not only a fashion here, but an investment. Outside of Manila, Iloilo, and Cebu, banks are practically unknown. The provincial man who is well to ...
— A Woman's Impression of the Philippines • Mary Helen Fee
... hour the lads sauntered on, interested in the people rather than the shops. They bought a few things. Jack invested in half a pound of Egyptian tobacco and a gaily-decorated pipe for his Uncle Ben, two little filigree brooches, and a couple of very large silk handkerchiefs of many colours, with knotted fringes, for ...
— A Chapter of Adventures • G. A. Henty
... be seen, in mosaic, generals offering conquered cities to the Emperor on the palms of their hands. And on every side are columns of basalt, gratings of silver filigree, seats of ivory, and tapestries embroidered with pearls. The light falls from the vaulted roof, and Antony proceeds on his way. Tepid exhalations spread around; occasionally he hears the modest patter of a sandal. Posted in the ante-chambers, the custodians—who resemble automatons—bear ...
— The Temptation of St. Antony - or A Revelation of the Soul • Gustave Flaubert
... such a city, with its close-huddled roofs, arranged for the most part amphitheatre-wise above a picturesque harbour, and crowned by a glorious cathedral front with triple-arched Gothic doorways, belfry towers, and filigree spires, is a spectacle surely in every way the sublimest on earth. Religion towering above daily life, to put men continually in mind of the End and the way, is in truth a thoroughly Spanish conception. But now surround this picture by the Mediterranean, and a burning sky, imagine a few palms ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... stinker!" he said. "What used to be there was a nice late sixteenth- or early seventeenth-century North Italian pistol, all covered with steel filigree-work. A real beauty; ...
— Murder in the Gunroom • Henry Beam Piper
... objects from the animal or vegetable kingdoms. To that part which fell immediately behind the heels, there were attached thin plates of gold; or, by way of variety, it was studded with golden stars and filigree-work; sometimes ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v2 • Thomas de Quincey
... Drainage and sanitary arrangements do not exist. The caves of the highlands are often used as dwellings. The most remarkable buildings in Abyssinia are certain churches hewn out of the solid rock. The chief native industries are leather-work, embroidery and filigree metal-work; and the weaving of straw mats and baskets is extensively practised. The baskets are particularly well made, and are frequently used to ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... elect a spokesman, as I could not deal with all at once, and Muhammad abu Hasan was pushed forward. He squatted, facing me, upon the ground, his men behind him. The twigs and leaves of olives overhead spread a filigree of moving shade upon their puckered faces. They were evidently much ...
— Oriental Encounters - Palestine and Syria, 1894-6 • Marmaduke Pickthall
... these are translucent and glowing from the setting of the sun until the stars appear. In Greece we are dreamers in that subtle atmosphere, and in Egypt visionaries under the spell of an ethereal loveliness where the filigree patterning of white dome and minaret and interlacing palm and feathery pepper tree leaves little wonder in the mind that the ornamentation of their architecture is so ...
— Public Speaking • Irvah Lester Winter
... They could be darkened, during the heat of the day, by shutters. With the exception of these windows, the others throughout the house contained no glass, the light entering through innumerable holes that formed a filigree work in the thin slabs of stone that ...
— The Tiger of Mysore - A Story of the War with Tippoo Saib • G. A. Henty
... basins still shed their diamond drops, and the twelve lions which support them cast forth their crystal streams as in the days of Boabdil. The court is laid out in flower-beds, and surrounded by light Arabian arcades of open filigree work, supported by slender pillars ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 8 • Charles H. Sylvester
... come to the edge of the Serpentine, on which there lay an ethereal film of baby ice almost like frosted gauze. The leafless trees, with their decoration of filigree, suggested the North and its peculiar romance—nature trailing away into the mighty white solitudes where the Pole star reigns ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens
... thousand eyes, and, seated on a vermilion lacquer dais, a Buddha, with heavy eyelids that hid his strange eyes, presided over an illumination of smoking flame. The smell of joss-sticks was heavy on the air, and the filigree cloak worn by the Buddha was enriched with red and green ...
— The Pointing Man - A Burmese Mystery • Marjorie Douie
... the novitiate. The fact is that it is an exceedingly dull book: and that to have made it anything else, while retaining anything like its present "propriety," either an entire metamorphosis of spirit, which might have made it as passionate as Manon itself, or the sort of filigree play with thought and phrase which Marivaux would have given, would be required. As a "Crebillonnade" (v. inf.) it might have been both pleasant and subtle, but it could only have been made so by ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... women "lazie Squaes" when they saw the latter embroidering coifs instead of digging in the fields. Mr. Brownell, the Boston schoolmaster in 1716, taught "Young Gentle Women and Children all sorts of Fine Works as Feather works, Filigree, and Painting on Glass, Embroidering a new Way, Turkey-work for Handkerchiefs two new Ways, fine new Fashion purses, flourishing and plain Work." We find a Newport dame teaching "Sewing, Marking, Queen Stitch and Knitting," ...
— Customs and Fashions in Old New England • Alice Morse Earle
... of the constitution. It would be of the utmost consequence that they should be occasionally shown to them, under proper regulations, and for a small fee. The Sword of State is a most beautiful piece of workmanship, a present from Pope Julius II. to James IV. The scabbard is richly decorated with filigree work of silver, double gilded, representing oak leaves and acorns, executed in {p.211} a taste worthy that classical age in which the arts revived. A draughtsman has been employed to make sketches of these articles, ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume V (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... Consul, presented us with a quantity of chocolate and as much sugar, with twelve fine sarcenet napkins laced thereunto belonging, with a very large silver pot to make it in, and twelve very fine cups to drink it out of, filigree, with covers of the same, with two very large salvers to set ...
— Memoirs of Lady Fanshawe • Lady Fanshawe
... wore on my arm a bracelet that had the advantage of pleasing him. It was a Persian trinket, more singular than beautiful. I can see it now; it was formed of three large plates of gold ornamented with grotesque animals, and joined by a filigree network. I valued this bracelet; it had been brought to me from Teheran. By means of a secret spring, one of the plates opened, and I had had engraved inside the most interesting dates of my life, and underneath them my profession ...
— Samuel Brohl & Company • Victor Cherbuliez
... will be said that the defect of Stevenson is expressed by these very qualities, fancy and ingenuity, because they are contradictory, and the second destroys the first. Be this as it may, there are many people whose pleasure is not spoiled by elaboration and filigree work. ...
— Emerson and Other Essays • John Jay Chapman
... For five miles the plane fled as if in panic. Evelyn clung to the filigree side of the cockpit. The city dwindled behind them. Then Aten climbed steeply. Tommy was looking keenly at the glittering thing which propelled the ship. It seemed like a crystal gridwork, like angular lace contrived of glass. But a cold blue flame burned in it and Tommy was obscurely reminded ...
— The Fifth-Dimension Tube • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... all sound. "Herzgewaechse," the setting of the poem of Maeterlinck made contemporaneously with these pieces, makes fantastic demands upon the singer, asks the voice to hold high F pppp, to leap swiftly across the widest intervals, and to maintain itself over a filigree accompaniment of celesta, harmonium and harp. But it is in the piano-music that the sonorities are most rudely neglected. At moments they impress one as nothing more than abstractions from the idiosyncrasies and mannerisms of the works ...
— Musical Portraits - Interpretations of Twenty Modern Composers • Paul Rosenfeld
... thought you?— Past our devisal (O filigree petal!) Fashioned so purely, Fragilely, surely, From what Paradisal Imagineless metal, Too costly for cost? Who hammered you, wrought you, From argentine vapor?— God was my shaper. Passing surmisal, He hammered, He wrought me, From curled silver vapor, To lust of His mind:— Thou couldst not ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 3 (of 4) • Various
... fantastic exaggeration, his original Westmoreland gable into Rouen porch, and his original square roof into Coventry spire; but he must not put within his splendid porch, a little door where two persons cannot together get in, nor cut his spire away into hollow filigree, and mere ornamental perviousness ...
— Val d'Arno • John Ruskin
... years, shook from it a shower of receipts, newspaper clippings, verses. She let them lie. She took out a long violet box with a perfumer's seal upon it. It held a bunch of dried violets. She took out a bonbonniere of gold filigree. It was empty. A powder box, a glove box, a froth of lace, a handful of jewelers' boxes, a jewel flung loose into the drawer. This she pounced upon. It was a brooch! She let it fall—turned to the ...
— The Coast of Chance • Esther Chamberlain
... former times their costume was picturesque and becoming, and some traces of the old style are yet to be seen throughout the pastoral districts; a close body, a jaunty little cap on the head, with a heavy tassel, ornamented with gold or silver bands, silver clasps to their belts, and filigree buttons down the front, give them a very pleasing appearance. Of late years, however, fashion has begun to assert her sway, even in this isolated part of the world, and the native costume ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... Marguerite is out," he said, as he conducted me into a reception room. The walls were hung with seal-brown draperies. There were richly upholstered chairs and a divan piled high with fluffy pillows. In one corner stood a bookcase of burnished metal filigree. ...
— City of Endless Night • Milo Hastings
... her dream. Yet now the dream might change; a strange youth might come riding out of the east, sitting a sorrel horse with a star and a white hind ankle, a long rangy neck and strong quarters; and he—the youth—would wear a broad, gray hat, with a band of silver filigree, a scarlet kerchief at his throat, a scarlet sash at his waist, and ...
— The Lions of the Lord - A Tale of the Old West • Harry Leon Wilson
... see her, in the loose white morning-gown folded in plaits about the swelling bosom, her slender waist clasped by a flowing blue sash, the dark brown satin bands of her hair confined by a large gold filigree pin, and half concealed by a jaunty little French cap, with the ribbons floating about her pear-shaped ears; and while her soft, dark hazel eyes were bent eagerly toward the solid old skipper, her round, rosy, dimpled fingers clasped a miniature ...
— Captain Brand of the "Centipede" • H. A. (Henry Augustus) Wise
... upon every keystone of which some grim, grotesque head is peering; the massive cornices; the heavy corbels carved into ten thousand strange and uncouth fancies; but finer than all, the taper and stately spire, fretted and perforated like some piece of silver filigree, stretches upward towards the sky, its airy pinnacle growing finer and more beautiful as it nears the stars it points to. How full of historic associations is every dark embrasure, every narrow casement around! Here may have stood the ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... awoke to find ourselves in fairyland. We were living in a great white palace, with ceiling and walls of filmy glittering webs. The long, delicate strands of gray moss which draped themselves from tree to tree and branch to branch were each one converted into threads of crystal, forming a filigree ...
— Camps and Trails in China - A Narrative of Exploration, Adventure, and Sport in Little-Known China • Roy Chapman Andrews and Yvette Borup Andrews
... D. Home was that he could take burning coals from the fire with impunity and carry them in his hand. He could then—and this comes nearer to the point at issue—place them on the head of anyone who was fearless without their being burned. Spectators have described how the silver filigree of the hair of Mr. Carter Hall used to be gathered over the glowing ember, and Mrs. Hall has mentioned how she combed out the ashes afterwards. Now, in this case, Home was clearly, able to convey, a ...
— The Vital Message • Arthur Conan Doyle
... The real-lace fichu was fastened at the waist with an amethyst pin and at her throat she wore a string of silver beads. Her white hair was beautifully dressed, and somewhere, among the smooth coils and fluffy softness, one caught the gleam of a filigree silver comb. ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed
... on New York's stateliest avenue, in a big brown-stone palace that was like a palace in an Eastern story, with its velvet carpets, its arabesques, its filigree work, its chairs, and tables, and sofas touched up and inlaid with gold, and cushioned ...
— The Unseen Bridgegroom - or, Wedded For a Week • May Agnes Fleming
... revered parents through the streets; bonnets rouges, banderolles, ca iras, carmagnoles, fraternisations, accolades; the properties, as well as the text of the plays, borrowed from Ancient Greece or Rome. What a bewildering retrospect! A period well summed up by Emerson:—"To-day, pasteboard and filigree; to-morrow, madness and murder." Tigre-singe, Voltaire's epigrammatic definition, describes his countrymen of the Reign ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various
... obvious, when we consider that our musical public is obliged to take everything on trust. For instance, if we read on one page of some history (every history of music has such a page) that Mozart's sonatas are sublime, that they do not contain one note of mere filigree work, and that they far transcend anything written for the harpsichord or clavichord by Haydn or his contemporaries, we echo the saying, and, if necessary, quote the "authorities." Now if one had occasion to read over some of the clavichord music ...
— Critical & Historical Essays - Lectures delivered at Columbia University • Edward MacDowell
... the distance, they are very slovenly in their hair and dress on closer acquaintance, and generally exhibit the traces of their Oriental origin. They are great experts in the making of Maltese lace, for which they have won a world-wide reputation, and their native filigree work is also very famous and very beautiful. Churches (where weddings are celebrated in the evening) are very numerous, and priests and friars are always to be seen in the streets. The boys of our regiment said that Malta was ...
— A Soldier's Sketches Under Fire • Harold Harvey
... Beside the yard gate there stood a locust tree, and on a bough of this, midway up, for he never goes to the tree-tops at this season, David saw a cardinal. He was sitting with his breast toward the clear crimson sky; every twig around him silver filigree; the whole tree glittering with a million gems of rose and white, gold and green; and wherever a fork, there a hanging of snow. The bird's crest was shot up. He had come forth to look abroad upon this strange wreck of nature and peril to his kind. David had scarcely stopped ...
— The Reign of Law - A Tale of the Kentucky Hemp Fields • James Lane Allen
... own room, there stood on her dressing-table a long silver-paper and filigree box. Wondering, she raised the lid, to be met with a gust of exquisite perfume and confronted with a mass of frail yellow roses, lovely with the quaint, virginal beauty of suggestion that separates them from all their other-colored kin. Across ...
— From the Car Behind • Eleanor M. Ingram
... of politeness—their dear politeness! What a system of simagree it is, after all! and how can honest human nature bear to be penned up all its days by the Chinese paling of ceremony, or that French filigree work, politesse? English human nature cannot endure this, as yet; and I am glad of it—heartily glad of ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. 6 • Maria Edgeworth
... shelf above her escritoire, and between the candlesticks was a photograph in a filigree silver frame. Towards this she looked every now and then, in the pauses of her writing, with a happy, trustful expression of quiet love. During one pause she noticed that her little clock pointed to 8.30. 'Jim will just be going on,' she said to herself. ...
— Prose Fancies • Richard Le Gallienne
... of filigree gold. Round her neck was a massive gold chain. On her fingers sparkled several rings of price—diamonds, rubies and opals. In figure her ladyship was tall, and upright as a dart. She was, however, slightly lame of one foot, which necessitated the ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 1, January, 1891 • Various
... lit our pipes, and we three began to play all-fours and euchre, sometimes one pair, sometimes another. As for Mr. Knightley and Starlight, they got out a curious filigree sort of a little card-table and began to play some outlandish game that I didn't know, and to look very ...
— Robbery Under Arms • Thomas Alexander Browne, AKA Rolf Boldrewood
... Miss Calverley written in a very degage style of spelling and hand-writing, scrawling freely over the filigree paper, and commencing by calling Mr. Harry, her dear Hokey-pokey-fokey, lay on his bed table by his side, amid keys, sovereigns, cigar-cases, and a bit of verbena, which Miss Amory had given him, and reminding him ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray
... the truth, a scanty portion, and which constant refining daily renders still more scanty. Considered in itself, the classic style is always tempted to accept slight, insubstantial commonplaces for its subject materials. It spins them out, mingles and weaves them together; only a fragile filigree, however, issues from its logical apparatus; we may admire the elegant workmanship; but in practice, the work is of little, none, or ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine
... slippers, or change money, or are ready for anything in the shape of barter. Seated in the shade of that small niche in the wall, as on a tailor's shop-board, is an adool, or public notary, selling advice to a client; in the alcove next him is a worker in beads and filigree; from a dusty forge beyond comes the clang of anvils, where half-naked smiths are hammering out bits or fashioning horse-shoes. Mules with Bedouins perched, chin on shin, amid the bales of merchandise on their backs, cross the bazaar at every moment; or files of donkeys, stooping under bundles ...
— Romantic Spain - A Record of Personal Experiences (Vol. II) • John Augustus O'Shea
... was a small, but beautiful room, the walls covered with Moorish work, such as I had seen at the Alhambra. I lay on a divan-bed, in an alcove without windows; but in the room beyond, I saw one with a dainty filigree frame, supported by a marble pillar. There was also an archway, from which a curtain was pushed aside, and I could see the end ...
— The Car of Destiny • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... seemed made expressly for her light gloves, her ivory opera-glass, and her spangled fan. The tawdry glitter of the theatre, the red and gold of the hangings, were genuine splendor to her. She bloomed among them like a pretty paper flower in a filigree jardiniere. ...
— Fromont and Risler, Complete • Alphonse Daudet
... on the contrary, they are open from top to bottom, pierced as with needles' eyes, long narrow windows of which the opening seems filled with a herring-bone of enormous size, or a gigantic comb with teeth on each side. They spring into the air, as light as filigree; and the sky gets into the mouldings, plays between the mullions, peeps through the tracery and the innumerable lancets, in strips of blue, is focussed and reflected in the little carved trefoils above. These ...
— The Cathedral • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... 1768—has inscribed on its base "The property of Lydia Cario" and "1769." The cover has an undersurface of horn, and the silver on the outer surface is inlaid with mother-of-pearl and tortoise shell in a filigree pattern. ...
— Presentation Pieces in the Museum of History and Technology • Margaret Brown Klapthor
... books, (Fortunate race!) and built their nests like rooks In lonely towers, to which the Jongleur brought His pedler's-box of cheap and tawdry thought, With here and there a fancy fit to see Wrought in quaint grace in golden filigree,— Some ring that with the Muse's finger yet Is warm, like Aucassin and Nicolete; The morning newspaper has spoilt his trade, (For better or for worse, I leave unsaid,) 110 And stories now, to suit a public nice, Must be half epigram, half ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... Turks, and from them came the whispering voice—the voice said to be that of the Evil One. The Tziganes—that brown-faced race of gipsy wanderers, the women with their bright-coloured skirts and head-dresses, and the men with the wonderful old silver filigree buttons upon their coats—-had related to him many weird stories regarding Hetzendorf and the meaning of those whispers. Yet none of their stories was so curious as that which Murie had just told him. Similar sounds were actually heard in the old castle up in the Highlands! ...
— The House of Whispers • William Le Queux
... aborigines, and look almost solemn ranged against the wall. In this house there are twenty-four lacquered urns, or tea-chests, or seats, each standing two feet high on four small legs, shod with engraved or filigree brass. Behind these are eight lacquered tubs, and a number of bowls and lacquer trays, and above are spears with inlaid handles, and fine Kaga and Awata bowls. The lacquer is good, and several of the urns have daimiyo's crests ...
— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird
... the Eastern Shore. Instinctively I paused at the dressing-room door. Nay, my dears, you need not cry out, such was the custom of the times. A dainty bower it was, filled with the perfume of flowers, and rosy cupids disporting on the ceiling; and china and silver and gold filigree strewn about, with my tea-cups on the table. The sunlight fell like a halo round Dorothy's head, her hands strayed over the keys, and her eyes were far away. She had not heard me. I remember her dress,—a silk with blue cornflowers on a light ground, and the flimsiest of ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... rill's blithe minstrelsy; In willow bough or alder bush Birds sing, o'er golden filigree Of pebbles 'neath the ...
— Dreams and Days: Poems • George Parsons Lathrop
... original builders of that house were short people, or they would have planned the old kitchen a few inches higher. But then I am always knocking my head nearly off against something. I have left gleanings from it on the sharp edges of a thousand swinging signs and on the cruel filigree of as many low-hung chandeliers. My slightly bald spot, due to severe mental effort, or something, if examined closely would be found to resemble an old battlefield in France. But this is digression. As I was saying, Henry Jones was hewing at the big old cross-beam, trying to ...
— Dwellers in Arcady - The Story of an Abandoned Farm • Albert Bigelow Paine
... &c.) Or mark how D'Espremenil, who has his own confused way in all things, produces at the right moment in Parlementary harangue, a pocket Crucifix, with the apostrophe: "Will ye crucify him afresh?" Him, O D'Espremenil, without scruple;—considering what poor stuff, of ivory and filigree, ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... reticulation, network; inosculation^, anastomosis, intertexture^, mortise. net, plexus, web, mesh, twill, skein, sleeve, felt, lace; wicker; mat, matting; plait, trellis, wattle, lattice, grating, grille, gridiron, tracery, fretwork, filigree, reticle; tissue, netting, mokes^; rivulation^. cross, chain, wreath, braid, cat's cradle, knot; entangle &c (disorder) 59. [woven fabrics] cloth, linen, muslin, cambric &c V. cross, decussate^; intersect, interlace, intertwine, intertwist^, interweave, interdigitate, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... trousers and tasselled fez, or by swarthy, oily-skinned girls with bushy hair and garments of Oriental colouring, or in tailor-made gowns, and with the ubiquitous fez as a badge of their office—or servitude; rugs and draperies, attar of roses in gilded vials, souvenir spoons, filigree in gilt and silver, toys of unknown form and name, cloying Turkish sweets, foreign stamps, coins, relics, all came under her unsophisticated eyes, while her spouse gazed upon Moorish daggers, swords ...
— Against Odds - A Detective Story • Lawrence L. Lynch
... of Titihuti were tattooed from toes to ankles with a net-like pattern, and from the ankles to the waistline, where the design terminated in a handsome girdle, there were curves, circles and filigree, all in accord, all part of a harmonious whole, and most pleasing to the eye. The pattern upon her feet was much like that of sandals or high mocassins, indicating a former use of leg-coverings in a cold climate. Titihuti herself, after an anxious inch-for-inch ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien
... stall of a man who sold filigree work, and at his invitation squatted down and had a pipe and a cup of coffee, while he asked the price of several things. That was very well, but when he began to inquire about the object of his search, the shopkeeper lost all ...
— For Fortune and Glory - A Story of the Soudan War • Lewis Hough
... in going the circuit of the room, fell upon a trumpery filigree card-rack of pasteboard that hung dangling by a dirty blue ribbon from a little brass knob just beneath the middle of the mantelpiece. In this rack, which had three or four compartments, were five or six soiled cards and a solitary letter. This last was much soiled and ...
— The Great English Short-Story Writers, Vol. 1 • Various
... curtains of the tents. There were enough pretty faces in the crowd to justify such familiarities, and even so modest a success was not without solace to his vanity. He lingered for some time in the square, answering the banter of the blooming market-women, inspecting the filigree-ornaments from Genoa, and watching a little yellow bitch in a hooped petticoat and lappets dance the furlana to the music of an armless fiddler who held the bow in his teeth. As he turned from this show Odo's eye was caught by a handsome girl who, on the arm ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... exquisite detailed imagery as that of the poem To a Snowflake—the delicate silver filigree of verse—rank him among the most privileged of the ministrants in Nature's temple, standing very close to the shrine. Yet here again there is repulse for the flying soul. This fellowship, like that of ...
— Among Famous Books • John Kelman
... remembered transition, and they were at dinner—where each plate was of two almost imperceptible layers of solid diamond between which was curiously worked a filigree of emerald design, a shaving sliced from green air. Music, plangent and unobtrusive, drifted down through far corridors—his chair, feathered and curved insidiously to his back, seemed to engulf and overpower him as he drank his first glass of port. He tried drowsily to answer a question that ...
— Tales of the Jazz Age • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... those descriptions in stories which read like extracts from an upholsterer's price-list, nor yet those accounts of meals that, after all, are only menus writ large, so it may suffice to say that the saloon of the Grashna was an arrangement of sandal-wood panels, framed in thin silver filigree, and hung with exquisite little masterpieces in water-colour, and black and white, and crayon, mostly sea-scapes, with here and there a beautiful head with living eyes which followed you everywhere; that the ...
— The Mummy and Miss Nitocris - A Phantasy of the Fourth Dimension • George Griffith
... evidently persons of consequence: large bulky men wrapped in fresh muslins and reclining side by side on muslin-covered divans and cushions. Black slaves had placed before them brass trays with pots of mint-tea, glasses in filigree stands, and dishes of gazelles' horns and sugar-plums, and they sat serenely absorbing these refreshments and gazing with large calm eyes upon the motionless ...
— In Morocco • Edith Wharton
... flying fish skimmed past us along the surface of the water, occasionally rising to a considerable height above it. Their beautiful wings, glittering in the bright sunlight, looked like delicate silver filigree-work. In the night one flew on board, only to be preserved in spirits by ...
— A Voyage in the 'Sunbeam' • Annie Allnut Brassey
... of hills which encircle Florence smile cheerfully in the sunshine, clapping their hands and skipping like lambs, if little hills ever did make such a demonstration. These environs of the town are like a frame of golden filigree, almost too fantastic a one for so shadowy and sombre a city. The green hill-sides and plains are sown thickly with palaces and villas glancing whitely through silvery forests of olives and myrtle; while the distant Apennines, like guardian giants, lift their ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... Arabs in the room, talking in low tones over by the window. I could imagine the smaller of the two as a peddler of lace and filigree-silver in the States, who had taken out papers for the sake of privilege and returned full of notions to exploit his motherland. But the tall one—never. He was a Bedouin, if ever a son of the desert breathed. If he had visited the States, then he had come back ...
— Jimgrim and Allah's Peace • Talbot Mundy
... to a Corsair's bride, was hidden in a large black-silk-hooded opera-cloak. Beneath the hood it was evident that her rebellious hair was bound up with red silk, and fastened by some device in her ears (unless she had them pierced, which was too dreadful a thing to suppose!) were long brass filigree earrings. ...
— Ann Veronica • H. G. Wells
... Ponsonby had invited him to repair, to be introduced to his daughter, and to taste his oranges. The servant who received him led Mr. Ferrers to a very fine plane-tree, under whose spreading branches was arranged a banquet of fruit and flowers, coffee in cups of oriental filigree, and wines of the Levant, cooled in snow. The worthy Consul was smoking his chibouque, and his daughter, as she rose to greet their guest, let her guitar fall upon the turf. The original of the portrait proved that ...
— Sketches • Benjamin Disraeli
... eyes in a background of perpetual fire. His large, swollen nose had a vinous tint, acquiring purplishness in cold weather. Tiny red veins, as numerous as the cracks in Satsuma-ware, spread across both cheeks in a carmine filigree. ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts
... God the Invisible King and Also Sprach Zarathustra. Even the magnificent Book of Hours bearing the monogram of Diana of Poictiers and bound by Aldo Manuzio, Byzantine fashion, in carved ivory wreathed about with gold filigree and studded with ...
— The Orchard of Tears • Sax Rohmer
... of judgment more or less, whether you theoretically admit the principle or not. Take that floral gable;* you don't suppose the man who built Stonehenge could have built that, or that the man who built that, would have built Stonehenge? Do you think an old Roman would have liked such a piece of filigree work? or that Michael Angelo would have spent his time in twisting these stems of roses in and out? Or, of modern handicraftsmen, do you think a burglar, or a brute, or a pickpocket could have carved it? Could ...
— The Queen of the Air • John Ruskin
... Bart was cruising in the Mediterranean with the Dorsets, but it had not occurred to him that there was any chance of running across her on the Riviera, where the season was virtually at an end. As he leaned back, silently contemplating his filigree cup of Turkish coffee, he was trying to put some order in his thoughts, to tell himself how the news of her nearness was really affecting him. He had a personal detachment enabling him, even in moments ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton
... gold). Associated words: alchemist, alchemy, auriferous, alloy, assay, assayer, assaying, filigree, aurated, auric, aureate, aurific, aurigraphy, aurivorous, aurocephalous, platinum, aurous, billet, carat, chlorination, chrysography, cupel, foil, cupellation, gild, orphrey, vermeil, gilded, gilding, gilt, orris, amalgamated, goldsmith, bonanza, schlich, inaurate, inauration, ingot, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... of entertainment. The fragrance of innumerable libations and the smoke of incense-breathing cigars and pipes shall ascend day and night through the arches of his funereal monument. What are the poor dips which flare and flicker on the crowns of spikes that stand at the corners of St. Genevieve's filigree-cased sarcophagus to this perpetual offering ...
— Pages From an Old Volume of Life - A Collection Of Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... length. Others, on the contrary, do not exceed two, or two and a half inches. They are of all sizes and patterns, some consisting of two or three twists, some of large links, some of small links, some massive and heavy, others as light and flexible as the finest Venetian filigree. The humblest peasant girl, as well as the lady of highest rank, might have her necklet; and the woman must be poor indeed whose little store comprised no other ornament. No mere catalogue of bracelets, diadems, collarettes, or insignia of nobility ...
— Manual Of Egyptian Archaeology And Guide To The Study Of Antiquities In Egypt • Gaston Camille Charles Maspero
... the moon and the sun, these filigree phrases and unintelligible fancies—There must, at least, be a point, a ...
— Shallow Soil • Knut Hamsun
... had loved to paint or Chantrey model. And the daintiest cares of a mother, who, as yet, has her darling all to herself—her toy, her plaything—were visible in the large falling collar of finest cambric, and the blue velvet dress with its filigree ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... everything is behind time in this easy-going land, there are two or three hours of broiling gossip on the glowing pavement before the Sacred Presence is announced by the ringing of silver bells. As the superb structure of filigree gold goes by, a movement of reverent worship vibrates through the crowd. Forgetful of silks and broadcloth and gossip, they fall on their knees in one party-colored mass, and, bowing their heads and beating their breasts, they mutter their mechanical prayers. There are thinking ...
— Castilian Days • John Hay
... time of life that ever I had anything to do with," replied Jacky, with a certain wave of the head, peculiar to sensible women, "had something to show before her age. Bella had worked the globe long before she was sixteen; and Baby did her filigree tea-caddy the first quarter she was at Miss Macgowk's," glancing with triumph from the one which hung over the mantelpiece, to the other which stood on the tea-table, shrouded in a ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
... and durability transfers itself or its expression from the material to the impression of the artifice which moulds it, and crystallizes itself in the effect. We see continually very ingenious imitations of objects cut out in paper filigree; there have been people who showed as much of an artist's eye in this sort of work, and of an artist's hand, as Miss Linwood of the last generation in her exquisite needlework; in both cases a trick, a tour-de-main, was raised into the dignity of a fine art; and yet, because the slightness of the ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. II (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... trembling and our eyes ablaze with excitement, for such an amount of pure gold as that already discovered we had never seen before. But the treasure was not yet half exhausted. The jar seemed a perfect mine of wealth—gold chains, plain and of filigree workmanship, each worth from L10 to L30; ornaments of the same metal of every sort of design, and executed in a style for which the Delhi jewellers are celebrated all over India. Then came small silver caskets filled with pearls, together to the number ...
— A Narrative Of The Siege Of Delhi - With An Account Of The Mutiny At Ferozepore In 1857 • Charles John Griffiths
... having a broad scarlet border, and, in addition, a lion-skin tippet with long tails. On their right side hangs a curved sword in a red leather scabbard, and a richly ornamented hilt, while a hide shield, ornamented with gold filigree bosses, and with silver plates, is worn on the left arm, and a long spear is grasped in the right hand. The most invincible enemies of the Amharas have been the heathen tribes of the Gallas, inhabiting the regions to the south of Abyssinia. At the end of last century, however, ...
— Our Soldiers - Gallant Deeds of the British Army during Victoria's Reign • W.H.G. Kingston
... styles of paper and envelopes, and all stamped in gilt with a monogram composed of the initials E. C., and there was a tiny box of filigree silver filled ...
— The Masked Bridal • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... long colonnade of white stone ornamented with black filigree-work and supported by columns in pairs. The entablature is surmounted by a row of statues, and the end-towers have parapets with balustrade. The colonnade, with a chocolate-brown back wall, affords shelter and relief for bronze and marble ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, August, 1878 • Various
... is impossible to forget the fact that in his piano works he was first and foremost a piano virtuoso, a child prodigy: of whom filigree work (we cannot call this Orientalism, for it was more or less of German pattern, traced from the fioriture of the Italian opera singer) was expected by the public for which his sonatas were written.... We need freshness and sincerity in forming our judgments of art.... If we ...
— Edward MacDowell • Lawrence Gilman
... matter. You see the cutting, polishing, and general sale of stones is one of those industries which is entirely dependent upon wealth. If we do not support it, it must languish, which means misfortune to a considerable number of people. The same applies to the gold filigree work which you noticed in the court. Wealth has its responsibilities, and the encouragement of these handicrafts are among the most obvious of them. Here is a nice ruby. It is Burmese, and the fifth largest in existence. I ...
— The Doings Of Raffles Haw • Arthur Conan Doyle
... cutting out delicate things, ornamental iron work for aesthetic purposes, and all that ... all you'll have to do will be to swing the hammer gently, while I direct the blows and cut put the dainty filigree the "Master" sells to folk, afterward, ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... this Prince great gratitude for the encouragement of so many skilled craftsmen, and for the preservation of Indian arts and crafts. There were four hundred fine-wood carvers, and four hundred fine-stone carvers, carving filigree ornaments, chains, and foliage of the most astonishing realism in these materials. Fancy, actual chains in granite, pendants from elephants' heads! Most of the skilled masons and joiners of India, I am told, have ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch
... St. Jean Pied de Port, Bidache, Cambo, Terciis, &c., for her health, and was always received on her return to Bayonne with sovereign honours. The magistrates of the town went, on one occasion, to meet her with offerings of fruit, flowers, expensive wines, hams, and game, all in silver filigree baskets, ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... of gold filigree (facciamo lavorare una bottegha d'arte di seta ... facciamo un pocho di trafico a Napoli}. As he was 59 years old in 1480, he certainly would not have been alive at the time of Leonardo's death. But ...
— The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, Complete • Leonardo Da Vinci
... steeped the verdant sod, The moon-rays shimmered o'er the spangled lea, And taught the soul the eloquence of God, Tinging the far horizon o'er the sea With silver film and sheeny filigree, While o'er the gray expanse with trembling wing The ling'ring zephyr hovered sleepily, And faintly breathed o'er every dormant thing Its soft, sad benediction. ...
— The Minstrel - A Collection of Poems • Lennox Amott
... of its luxuriance, in the dense misery of the place, where one imagines the builder saying, "Here I culminate. Let us give thanks to Satan," there is a bridge of yellow brick, and through it, as through some gate of filigree silver opening on fairyland, one passes ...
— A Dreamer's Tales • Lord Dunsany [Edward J. M. D. Plunkett]
... not easy to determine, but it may probably be placed in the eighth century of our era. The Ardagh Chalice belongs probably to about the same date. It was found in a rath at Ardagh, county Limerick, in 1868. It measures 7 inches in height and 9-1/2 in diameter. Around the cup is a band of fine filigree interlaced ornament in the form of panels divided by half beads of enamel. Below this are the names of the twelve Apostles in faint Celtic lettering. The two handles are beautifully decorated with panels ...
— The Glories of Ireland • Edited by Joseph Dunn and P.J. Lennox
... bricks out of the jamb, and raked the hollow space inside with his hand, and brought forth a steel purse of English manufacture, filled with shillings at one end, and fifteen golden guineas at the other; they rolled out through the decayed filigree, rusted, probably, by the rain percolating through the chimney, and the purse crumbled to iron-mould ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend
... two Custis children and his mother-in-law, Mrs. Dandridge. Not only were clothes and materials ordered, fine ivory combs, stockings, etc., but toys. Here is a selection made by the Cary firm—a child's fiddle, a coach and six in a box, a stable with six horses, a toy whip, a filigree watch, a neat enameled watch box, a corner cupboard and a child's ...
— Seaport in Virginia - George Washington's Alexandria • Gay Montague Moore
... which he engaged was the wretched architecture of small houses. As he travelled through the United States he was appalled by it. Where the houses were not positively ugly, they were, to him, repellently ornate. Money was wasted on useless turrets, filigree work, or machine-made ornamentation. Bok found out that these small householders never employed an architect, but that the houses were put up by builders from their ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok (1863-1930)
... stores the people could be watched at work of all kinds, from blacksmithy to finest filigree silver work inlaid with the tiny colored feathers of the brightly colored kingfisher; and from rough carpenter work to the finest ivory carving for which the Chinese are famous. Of course the amount they pay ...
— Wanderings in the Orient • Albert M. Reese
... a foolish little clock of filigree gilt—stood on the shelf at the foot of the bed; and as the Lady in Black looked at it she remembered the wave of anger that had surged over her when she had thrust out her hand and silenced it that night three months before. It had ...
— The Tangled Threads • Eleanor H. Porter
... from one of those trees that stood where Thriepmuir was but the Bavelaw burn, a furtive trickle among the moss-hags, a brown rushy confusion between two moors. It was as bright as any flower with its yellow leaves, and as fine as filigree; and its preservation of this brightness and fineness through all the angry river's tumbling gave it an air of brave integrity. She watched it benignly, and peered beneath the bridge to see if it would have the clear ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... by two horn-like tufts of carroty hair, informed me at a glance. Followed Mrs. A.-S., the British matron incarnate. Literally there seemed to be acres of her; black silk below and white skin above on which set in filigree floated big green stones, like islands in an ocean. Her countenance too, though stupid was very stern and frightened me. Followed the progeny of this formidable pair. They were tall and thin, also red haired. The girls, whose age I could not guess in the least, were exactly ...
— The Ancient Allan • H. Rider Haggard
... pelisse, her train held by two negro female slaves, received us at the head of the stairs and ushered us into a large room with a divan round three sides of it. Sweetmeats and water and pipes and coffee were brought as usual, some of the cups and their filigree stands very handsome. We went out to see the town, preceded by a tall black slave in a gorgeous blue velvet jacket, with a great silver stick in his hand. Under his guidance we visited the khans, the bazaar, and the ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... threw a light veil over their heads, and a gauze cloud passed over their bright eyes as smoke over a starry sky. Some of these Persians wore leathern belts embroidered with pearls, from which hung little triangular bags. From these bags, embroidered with golden filigree, they drew long narrow bands of scarlet silk, on which were braided verses of the Koran. These bands, which they held between them, formed a belt under which the other dancers darted; and, as they passed each verse, following the precept it contained, they either prostrated ...
— Michael Strogoff - or, The Courier of the Czar • Jules Verne
... be said in favour of Hayley's attempt, but that it is better than Boyd's. His mind was a tolerable specimen of filigree work,—rather elegant, and very feeble. All that can be said for his best works is that they are neat. All that can be said against his worst is that they are stupid. He might have translated Metastasio tolerably. But he was utterly unable to ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Contibutions to Knight's Quarterly Magazine] • Thomas Babington Macaulay |
