"Gaudy" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Apis. From Cairo you have proceeded to Sakkara. Or are the gaudy hue of my hair and the yeoman proportions of my shape responsible for ...
— The Orchard of Tears • Sax Rohmer
... choose, as gaudy shows, Those saucy sprigs of pride The peony, the red, red rose; But give to me the flower that grows Petite ...
— Poems - Vol. IV • Hattie Howard
... o'clock when we halted upon the outskirts of the dark forest. Hardly a ray of the hot sun penetrated the woods; all was gloomy and silent. Occasionally a parrot upon the borders of the forest uttered a shrill scream, and then spreading its gaudy wings sought shelter upon the bough of a tall tree, from whence it could ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... slouch hat. This typical head gear of the West had no attraction for him. The formal black or brown derby for winter and the seasonable straw hat for summer seemed necessary to tone down the frivolity of his neckties, which were chosen with a cowboy's gaudy taste. To the day of his death Field delighted to present neckties, generally of the made-up variety, to his friends, which, it is needless to say, they never failed to accept and seldom wore. Often in the afternoon ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... and clouds and winds, All things well and proper; Trailer, red and white, Dark and wily dropper. Midges true to fling Made of plover hackle, With a gaudy ...
— The Squire of Sandal-Side - A Pastoral Romance • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... wrapped his Bible in an end of comforter, and pulling a doll's trunk from under the bed, put it away. Natalie had a glimpse of the contents of the trunk; she said afterward, it was like the inside of his head; beside the Bible, there were sundry pieces of dried moose meat, a gaudy silk handkerchief, tobacco and a brass watch-chain of the size of a small cable. He took out the latter and ...
— Two on the Trail - A Story of the Far Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... John brought out another of his store of gaudy toy books and went into the parlor. His father, following a few moments later, looked down at the little figure on the carpet before ...
— A Son of the City - A Story of Boy Life • Herman Gastrell Seely
... could, 'as if he had spoiled it out of principle.' But this is not credible. The painting was in the artist's usual manner, and neither better nor worse—and his best was bad enough, in all conscience. His usual faults of gaudy colour, bad drawing, and senseless composition were of course to be found; but then, these were equally apparent in all his other works. Later in life his sight began to fail him, and he received from Queen Anne a pension of L200 a year for his ...
— Art in England - Notes and Studies • Dutton Cook
... husband was at work farther down the gully, she kept a sort of sly grog-shop, and passed the day in selling and drinking spirits, swearing, and smoking a short tobacco-pipe at the door of her tent. She was a most repulsive looking object. A dirty gaudy-coloured dress hung unfastened about her shoulders, coarse black hair unbrushed, uncombed, dangled about her face, over which her evil habits had spread a genuine bacchanalian glow, whilst in a loud masculine voice she uttered the most awful words that ever disgraced the mouth of man ten thousand ...
— A Lady's Visit to the Gold Diggings of Australia in 1852-53. • Mrs. Charles (Ellen) Clacey
... line with their bodies winged their flight above the tree-tops. Pelicans displayed their ungainly forms, as they snapped at the passing fish and neatly laid them away for future reference in their pouches. Strange birds of gaudy plumage flew from side to side, harshly screaming as they hid themselves in the dense foliage. Huge alligators sunned themselves along the shore, or showed their savage muzzles, as they slowly swam across our path. Frequently ...
— The Twenty-fifth Regiment Connecticut Volunteers in the War of the Rebellion • George P. Bissell
... that of some other native trees. "Liriodendron" translated means "lily-tree," says my learned friend who knows Greek, and that is a fitting designation for this tree, which proudly holds forth its flowers, as notable and beautiful as any lily, and far more dignified and refined than the gaudy tulip. I like to repeat this smooth-sounding, truly descriptive and dignified name for a tree worthy all admiration. Liriodendron! Away with the "common" names, when there is such ...
— Getting Acquainted with the Trees • J. Horace McFarland
... cedars with loose mossy tresses, White powdered dog-trees, and stiff hollies flaunting Gaudy as rustics in their May-day dresses, Blue pelloret from purple leaves upslanting A modest gaze, like eyes of a young maiden Shining beneath dropt lids the evening ...
— The Culprit Fay - and Other Poems • Joseph Rodman Drake
... stage. The salmon is cooked when already in the tin, and the heating is so severe that all the bone becomes soft too. You know this well in tinned salmon, don't you? You know, too, the look of the tins, with their gaudy-coloured labels, as they are sold in shops in England? These labels are stuck on after they leave the cannery, which deals with the insides, not the outsides, of the tins. There is a sarcastic saying at the canneries, ...
— Round the Wonderful World • G. E. Mitton
... glowing terms my execrable Spanish would permit. It was an animated scene; the men in the checkered serape, or stripped blankets, conical sombreros, with broad brims, calzoneros of velveteen, with rows of shining buttons, and a sash of gaudy color, encircling their waists. The women were no less conspicuous; draped in the graceful sebazo, the short vogna, and ...
— Seven and Nine years Among the Camanches and Apaches - An Autobiography • Edwin Eastman
... force dissolve the chains of frost, Prolific waves the scaly nations trace, And tempt the toils of man's laborious race. Tho rich Brazilian strands, beneath the tide, Their shells of pearl and sparkling pebbles hide, While for the gaudy prize a venturous train Plunge the dark deep and brave the surging main, Drag forth the shining gewgaws into air, To stud a sceptre or emblaze a star; Far wealthier stores these genial tides display, And works less dangerous with their spoils repay. The Hero saw the hardy crews advance, ...
— The Columbiad • Joel Barlow
... the gods of mythology and literature he is dealing, not with really religious gods. For the old-fashioned faith of the country he entertains only the kindliest regard. The images that rise in his mind at the mention of religion pure and undefiled are not the gaudy spectacles to be seen in the marbled streets of the capital. They are images of incense rising in autumn from the ancient altar on the home-stead, of the feast of the Terminalia with its slain lamb, of libations of ruddy wine and offerings of bright flowers ...
— Horace and His Influence • Grant Showerman
... Where scarcely a second before she had been on the outer fringe of the crowd, she now appeared to be in the very center of it. Women were pushing up behind her, women who wore shawls as she did, only the shawls were mostly of gaudy colors; and men pushed up behind her, mostly men of swarthy countenance, who wore circlets of gold in their ears; and, brushing her skirts, seeking vantage points, ragged, ill-clad children wriggled and wormed their way deeper into the press. It was a crowd composed ...
— The White Moll • Frank L. Packard
... air. By degrees, as he wandered—pursued by the distant music from the drenched volcanoes—a feeling of suffocation overtook him. All these men and women about him stared and smiled, but all were breathless. They wore their gaudy clothes with an air, no doubt. The Kings struck regal attitudes. The cricketers had a set manner of bringing off dreamy, difficult catches. The actresses were properly made up to charm, and the statesmen must surely have brought plenty of ...
— Tongues of Conscience • Robert Smythe Hichens
... the remainder of this letter to the few domestic fowls of our yards, which are most known, and therefore best understood. At first the peacock, with his gorgeous train, demands our attention; but, like most of the gaudy birds, his notes are grating and shocking to the ear: the yelling of cats, and the braying of an ass, are not more disgustful. The voice of the goose is trumpet-like, and clanking; and once saved the Capitol at Rome, ...
— The Natural History of Selborne • Gilbert White
... rights; at least, prevent the curses of posterity from being heaped upon your memories. If you, with united zeal and fortitude, oppose the torrent of oppression; if you feel the true fire of patriotism burning in your breasts; if you, from your souls, despise the most gaudy dress which slavery can wear; if you really prefer the lonely cottage, while blessed with liberty, to gilded palaces, surrounded with the ensigns of slavery you may have the fullest assurance that tyranny with her whole accursed train, will hide her ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... in a background of truth, its falsity may be disguised, the whole book may even pass for a scene of the human comedy; it may be accepted as a piece of reality, on the same level, say, as Eugenie Grandet or Les Parents Pauvres. That is evidently his aim, and if only his romance were a little less gaudy, or his truth not quite so true, he would have no difficulty in attaining it; the action would be subdued and kept in its place by the pictorial setting. The trouble is that Balzac's idea of a satisfying crime ...
— The Craft of Fiction • Percy Lubbock
... the time as he listened; the lad's sensitive frame thrilled with passionate envy at the narrative. At last he had met a hero face to face. What were those old Greek fellows—Ajax, or Hector or any of those gaudy warriors—compared with this quiet ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... shaded by half a dozen magnificent oaks, elms, and horse-chesnuts, beyond the little village, which did not seem to contain more than seven or eight cottages, each half-buried in trees, or overgrown with creepers, except one red brick house, that flared in all the pride of newness, and of the gaudy flowers in its spruce little garden. In the middle of the irregular square, or rather of the wide part of the village road, for it could not be called a street, stood a tall May-pole, still adorned with two or three faded remnants of the streamers ...
— Ellen Middleton—A Tale • Georgiana Fullerton
... garden-bed on which there grew, Low down amid gay grass, a violet, With flame of poppy flickering over it, And many gaudy spikes and blossoms new, Round which the wind with amorous whispers blew. There came a maid, gold-haired and lithe and strong, With limbs whereof the delicate perfumed flesh Was like a babe's. She broke ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, April, 1876. • Various
... a pair of stairs, which brought us into an old-fashioned room, where a gaudy crowd of odoriferous Tom-Essences were walking backwards and forwards, with their hats in their hands, not daring to convert them to their intended use lest it should put the foretops of their wigs into some disorder. ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... insects, whose attentions they are specially designed to solicit. Everybody has heard over and over again that roses, orchids, and columbines have acquired their honey to allure the friendly bee, their gaudy petals to advertise the honey, and their divers shapes to insure the proper fertilization by the correct type of insect. But everybody does not know how specifically certain blossoms have laid themselves out for a particular species of fly, beetle, or tiny moth. Here on the higher ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... brother. A man would receive quicker reward for inventing an amusement or a gaudy costume for the king than by winning him a battle. Later in life the high road to his favor was in ridding him of his wife and helping him to a new one—a dangerous way though, as Wolsey found to his sorrow when he sank his glory in poor ...
— When Knighthood Was in Flower • Charles Major
... gate might be over low to let it pass; and it was drawn by four right small little horses, with dark matted coats and bright, wilful eyes. A few hounds of choice breed ran behind it. From within the hangings came a sharp, shrill screaming as were of many gaudy parrots. ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... letters, as Virgil bound the Muses, to the footstool of thrones, to flatter the frail humanity thereon with the incense of divine honors. Homer's Muses, like true Americans, pay no higher honors to the diadem on the king's head than to the gaudy plumage of the peacock's tail. Young America would derive great advantages from an intimate acquaintance with Homer. He wrote in a language which gives to all the arts and sciences their technical terms. Hence, the previous study of the Greek ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... doubled his fists like the Capuzzi below, and shouted in exactly the same furious way, and in the same high-pitched voice, "May all the spirits of hell sit at your heart, you abominable nonsensical Pasquale, you atrocious skinflint—you love-sick old fool—you gaudy tricked-out ass with the cap and bells dangling about your ears. Take care lest I snuff out the candle of your life, and so at length put an end to the infamous tricks which you try to foist upon the good, ...
— Weird Tales. Vol. I • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... brightness on the Sabbath. Her lamp was brimming with oil against the judgment day, and she was as one divinely appointed to be the chastener of the unrighteous. So, at least, Honora beheld her. Her attire was rich but not gaudy, and had the air of proclaiming the prosperity of Israel Simpson alone as its unimpeachable source: her nose was long, her lip slightly marked by a masculine and masterful emblem, and her eyes protruded in such a manner as to give the impression ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... A gaudy transparency in front of a cellar caught his eye, and invited him to come and enjoy the hospitalities of Madame X——'s Varieties. An inward voice bade him shun the place, but as he was only going for ...
— The Secrets Of The Great City • Edward Winslow Martin
... came not with a gaudy show, Nor was His kingdom of the world below: The crown He wore was of the pointed thorn In purple He was crucified, not born. They who contend for place and high degree Are not His sons, but ...
— Remember the Alamo • Amelia E. Barr
... moment! It is long—very long, since I have entered a sanctuary like this! Here is music; and there the frame for the gaudy tambour—these windows look on a landscape, soft as thine own nature; and yonder ocean can be admired without dreading its terrific power, or feeling disgust at its coarser scenes. Thou ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... the green coat with its gaudy buttons, and leaned against his brother as they used to go arms over shoulders to school. Soule's big throat was full of tears; he had never felt so full of sorrowful pity as in this the foulest purpose of his life. Unselfish it seemed to him. O God! what a hard life Stephen's had been! This ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 75, January, 1864 • Various
... as constitutional questions, our ambitious fluency often begins with the general deluge, and ends with its own. It is thus that even the good sense and reason of some become wearisome, while the undisciplined fancy of others wanders into all the extravagances and the gaudy phraseology which distinguish our western orientalism.' A specimen of this 'orientalism' we gave in our last number. Here is another example of a somewhat kindred character. A western orator recently ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, May 1844 - Volume 23, Number 5 • Various
... shriek, oaths, shouts, and the orchestra stopped playing. Men jumped to their feet from the faro layouts, and then, mob-like, began to surge toward the door, while in the lead, uttering scream on scream, ran one of the dance-hall girls with her gaudy dress bursting into enveloping flame. She had the terror of a panic-stricken animal flying into the danger of the ...
— The Plunderer • Roy Norton
... Africans of the highest grade, who occupy two-story stone houses enclosed all around by spacious piazzas, the rooms furnished with gaudy richness; and the whole their own property, being built from the ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams
... believed herself to be one of the sneezer-chubco-mico's last wives. The man's white and original wife and daughters made an excuse to walk by, to have a look at the aboriginal interloper. The latter had just received from my landlord a present of a pair of gaudy bracelets, for which he had paid eighteen dollars at another sneezer's,—bracelets worth about four. I was told how the man came by this red mate of his. He had taken a young chiefs wife in her husband's absence. ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol I, Issue I, January 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... called, was a painted tambourine with a bunch of bright ribbons tied to the rim; and it was hung upon the wall between the settee and the fireplace at about the height of a man's head. Of course it might be no more than it seemed to be—a rather gaudy and vulgar toy, such as a woman like Mme. Dauvray would be very likely to choose in order to dress her walls. But it swept Ricardo's thoughts back of a sudden to the concert-hall at Leamington and the apparatus of a spiritualistic show. ...
— At the Villa Rose • A. E. W. Mason
... was forbidden to go into the town, it being placed out of bounds for the occasion, and therefore to slip out and drink cider at the corner shop and come back with your pockets stuffed with buns and solid country sweets of gaudy hues was a deed that placed you high in the respect of your fellows. Ishmael achieved this once as a matter of form, and then, having no real interest in it, turned his attention to other matters. On ordinary days the boys had a very real ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... purse can buy, But not expressed in fancy; rich, not gaudy: For the apparel oft proclaims the man. 94 SHAKS.: Hamlet, ...
— Handy Dictionary of Poetical Quotations • Various
... meeting-house began to toll as the Orangeman whose death had caused such commotion was carried to the waiting carriage where he would ride alone. Almost simultaneously with the starting of the gaudy yet sombre Orange cortege, with its yellow scarfs, glaring banners, charcoal plumes and black clothes, the labour procession approached the Manitou end of the Sagalac bridge. The strikers carried only ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... room; an assembly-room; and chamber of audience: each particularly brilliant and appropriate; while, in the latter, you observe a throne, or chair of state, of antique form, but entirely covered with curious gilt carvings—rich, without being gaudy—and striking without being misplaced. You pass on—room after room—from the ceilings of which, lustres of increasing brilliance depend; but are not disposed to make any halt till you enter a small apartment with a cupola roof—within a niche of which stands the small ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Three • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... Earths rich bosome filleth, And with Pearle embrouds each Meadow, We will make them like a widow, 250 And in all their Beauties dresse thee, And of all their spoiles possesse thee, With all the bounties Zephyre brings, Breathing on the yearely springs, The gaudy bloomes of euery Tree In their most beauty when they be, What is here that may delight thee, Or to pleasure may excite thee, Can there be a dainty thing That's not thine if thou ...
— Minor Poems of Michael Drayton • Michael Drayton
... more of this, my child. Not under such a plebeian's roof shouldst thou have lodged, nor from a stranger's board been fed: but at Rome, my last relative worthy of the trust is dead;—and at the worst, obscure honesty is better than gaudy crime. Thy spirit troubles me already. Back, my child; I must to my closet, ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... instrumental, floated out upon the streets to tempt the miners to enter, while away an hour, and incidentally part with their well-earned dust. Some of these hells had "lady waitresses," poor, faded, blear-eyed creatures, in gaudy finery, and upon whose features was stamped the everlasting brand of God's outlawry. These dens of iniquity were only too frequently the scene of awful tragedies, and the sawdust floors drank up the blood of many a poor unfortunate. If the encounter was between ...
— Reminiscences of a Pioneer • Colonel William Thompson
... covered with crimson trappings, and hundreds of wreaths of white oleander hang curtain-wise round what is within—the god and goddess decked with jewels and smothered in flowers. Round and round the barge is poled, and in the coloured light all that is gaudy and tawdry is toned, and becomes only oriental and impressive; and the white shrine in the centre reflected in the calm coloured water appears in its alternating dimness, and shining more like a fairy creation ...
— Lotus Buds • Amy Carmichael
... cart, drawn by Josephus (who actually looked water-soaked and dripped from every angle), delivering the Sunday papers, which came up from the city. The family gave up most of their time all day to the gaudy magazine supplements and the so-called "funny sections" which were a ...
— Janice Day at Poketown • Helen Beecher Long
... ornaments of which glittered far and wide, and reflected a thousand rich tints against the setting sun. The coverings of the large pavilions were of the gayest colours— scarlet, bright yellow, pale blue, and other gaudy and gleaming hues—and the tops of their pillars, or tent-poles, were decorated with golden pomegranates and small silken flags. But besides these distinguished pavilions, there were what Thomas ...
— The Talisman • Sir Walter Scott
... the historical mystery of James de la Cloche. HIS 'buth' is 'wrapped up in a mistry,' HIS 'ma' is a theme of doubtful speculation; his father (to all appearance) was Charles II. We know not whether James de la Cloche—rejecting the gaudy lure of three crowns—lived and died a saintly Jesuit; or whether, on the other hand, he married beneath him, was thrown into gaol, was sentenced to a public whipping, was pardoned and released, and died at the age of twenty-three, full of swaggering and impenitent impudence. Was there ...
— The Valet's Tragedy and Other Stories • Andrew Lang
... when I reached the tavern. I looked round for the caravans. They were nowhere to be seen. All I could see, beside one or two miserable wagons, was a big cage from which, as I drew near, came the cry of a wild beast. The beautiful gaudy colored caravans belonging to the Driscoll ...
— Nobody's Boy - Sans Famille • Hector Malot
... that has taken the gaudy fly, felt a check and recognised that a Power had her in hand, recognised in the light-going and fair-speaking Pinckney something of adamant, a will not to be ...
— The Ghost Girl • H. De Vere Stacpoole
... other of the churches in Lisieux, that of St. Jacques, a large edifice, in a bad style of pointed architecture, and full of gaudy altars and ordinary pictures. On the outside of the stalls of the choir towards the north is some curious carving; but I should scarcely have been induced to have spoken of the building, were it not for one of the paintings, which, however ...
— Account of a Tour in Normandy, Vol. II. (of 2) • Dawson Turner
... between him and the object of his desire. He had not the least idea that this had cost ten guineas—as much as his own good self was worth; for it happened to be the first dahlia seen in that part of the country. That gaudy flower at its first appearance made such a stir among gardeners that Mr. Swipes gave the Admiral no peace until he allowed him to order one. And so great was this gardener's pride in his profession that he would not take an order for a rooted slip or cutting, from the richest man in ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... attracted her attention. She rushed to the window. There was a chariot painted in gay colors, and men in scarlet and gold uniforms, and such music! The new dress was forgotten, and she flew down stairs and out of the door. With a troop of children she followed the gaudy chariot and gayly caparisoned horses ...
— Harper's Young People, May 18, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... and every now and again collected by the shrill summons of the mother; and the mother herself, by a suggestive circumstance which might have afforded matter of thought to a more experienced observer than Archie, wrapped in a shawl nearly identical with Kirstie's, but a thought more gaudy and conspicuously newer. At the sight, Kirstie grew more tall - Kirstie showed her classical profile, nose in air and nostril spread, the pure blood came in her cheek evenly in ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... inanimate to living objects; since I penned the last line I have been sitting with Mme. de Stael.... By appointment we called at 12.[41] For a few moments we waited in a gaudy drawing-room; the door then opened and an elderly form dressed a la jeunesse appeared; she is not ugly; she is not vulgar (Edward begs to differ from this opinion, he thinks her ugly beyond measure); her countenance is pleasing, ...
— Before and after Waterloo - Letters from Edward Stanley, sometime Bishop of Norwich (1802;1814;1814) • Edward Stanley
... I toil from morn to eve, And scorning idleness, To tribes of gaudy sloth I leave The ...
— Poems Every Child Should Know - The What-Every-Child-Should-Know-Library • Various
... were limited to the monastery duties and to the extreme trouble occasioned by the numerous goats which trespassed upon the unfenced gardens, and inflicted serious damage. The chapel, which was under his control, was of the usual kind, and at the same time rough and exceedingly gaudy, the pulpit being gilded throughout its surface, and the reredos glittering with gold and tawdry pictures of the lowest style of art, representing the various saints, including a very fat St. George and the meekest possible dragon. Our old friend had never seen ...
— Cyprus, as I Saw it in 1879 • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... the deposit casually to friends; and to strangers, too; to everybody, in fact; but not as a new thing—on the contrary, as a matter of life-long standing. He could not keep from buying trifles every day that were not wholly necessary, it was such a gaudy thing to get out his bank-book and draw a check, instead of using his old customary formula, "Charge it" Harry sold a lot or two, also—and had a dinner party or two at Hawkeye and a general good time with the money. Both men held on pretty strenuously for ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 3. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner
... handkerchief," went on Andy. "Give us a whiff," and before the dude could stop him the younger Racer boy had snatched it from his pocket. "Whew! Yes, this is it!" he cried, holding his nose as he handed the gaudy linen back. "How did it happen, Chet? Did you drop it somewhere? It's awful!" and he pretended to stagger back. "Better ...
— Frank and Andy Afloat - The Cave on the Island • Vance Barnum
... found the count standing before some copies of Albano and Fattore that had been passed off to the banker as originals; but which, mere copies as they were, seemed to feel their degradation in being brought into juxtaposition with the gaudy colors that covered the ceiling. The count turned round as he heard the entrance of Danglars into the room. With a slight inclination of the head, Danglars signed to the count to be seated, pointing significantly to ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... the costume of the devil, as being the most appropriate, and mounting a jackass, he rode down in his dress to the masquerade. But, as Jack was just going in, he perceived a yellow carriage, with two footmen in gaudy liveries, draw up, and with his usual politeness, when the footmen opened the door, offered his arm to hand out a fat old dowager covered with diamonds; the lady looked up, and perceiving Jack covered with hair, with ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Frederick Marryat
... by the law, and by nobody else, for many years. Desperado, murderer, train robber and road agent, he was a man beyond the pale of human pity. He had deserved a dozen deaths, and the Los Amigos folk grudged him so gaudy a one as that. He seemed to feel himself to be unworthy of it, for he made two frenzied attempts at escape. He was a powerful, muscular man, with a lion head, tangled black locks, and a sweeping beard which covered his broad chest. When he was tried, there was no finer head ...
— Round the Red Lamp - Being Facts and Fancies of Medical Life • Arthur Conan Doyle
... she turned the corner of a street, her eye rested on a huge colored placard—rested but for a moment, for she would not look on the great, gaudy thing. Just at this time a noble lord had shown his interest in the British drama by spending an enormous amount of money in producing, at a theatre of his own building, a spectacular burlesque, the gorgeousness of which surpassed anything that had ever been done in ...
— Macleod of Dare • William Black
... entrance, whence she gazed at the lofty, severe, bare nave stretching between the brightly coloured aisles. Raising her head a little, she examined the high altar, which she considered too plain, having no taste for the cold grandeur of stonework, but preferring the gilding and gaudy colouring of the side chapels. Those on the side of the Rue du Jour looked greyish in the light which filtered through their dusty windows, but on the side of the markets the sunset was lighting up the stained glass with lovely tints, limpid ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola
... "It's just—gaudy!" said Cornelia to herself, using her favourite superlative with sublime disregard of suitability. She looked across the room to where Elma sat, resting her head against a brocaded blue cushion. One of the half-dozen cases of miniatures hung just behind the chair, and it was impossible ...
— Flaming June • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... no inkling of this. She is under the impression that she is one of the world's cosmic forces. In the rag-bag of her brain whence she fishes out the innumerable formless and gaudy-coloured pilferings from which she fashions her "special articles," she cherishes an extraordinary illusion that she is a sort of modern Hypatia. She says Aspasia, but that is only because she has confused Kingsley's heroine ...
— An Ocean Tramp • William McFee
... own age has passed from it; and the greatness that is dead looks greater when every link with what is slight and vulgar has been severed. We can only see it at all in the reflected, refined light which a great education creates for us. Can we bring down that ideal into the gaudy, perplexed ...
— The Renaissance: Studies in Art and Poetry • Walter Horatio Pater
... garments heaped on the grass. Here and there high circles of lights threw a strong, steady glare upon the half-clad figure of a robust acrobat, or the thin, drooping shoulders of a less stalwart sister. Temporary ropes stretched from one pole to another, were laden with bright-coloured stockings, gaudy, spangled gowns, or dusty street clothes, discarded by the performers before slipping into their circus attire. There were no nails or hooks, so hats and veils were pinned ...
— Polly of the Circus • Margaret Mayo
... in vain to relieve. A few years ago two single- horse chairs were imported from Boston, to the great offence of these prudent citizens; nothing appeared to them more culpable than the use of such gaudy painted vehicles, in contempt of the more useful and more simple single-horse carts of their fathers. This piece of extravagant and unknown luxury almost caused a schism, and set every tongue a-going; some predicted the approaching ruin of those ...
— Letters from an American Farmer • Hector St. John de Crevecoeur
... perfection. But there are just a few things that bother me, and, no doubt, others like me. In the first place, must you make your covers as lurid and as contradictory to good design as they are? Really, I blush when my newsdealer hands me the gaudy thing. People interested in science do not usually succumb to circus ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, December 1930 • Various
... members of the Neuman household, and rather enjoyed it. There were several comely girls in evidence. Jake did not look a typical Northwest foreman and laborer. Booted and spurred, with his gun swinging visibly, and his big sombrero and gaudy scarf, he looked exactly what he was, a ...
— The Desert of Wheat • Zane Grey
... opens into others which run all round the house. The floors are marble or stucco—the roofs beams of pale blue wood placed transversely, and the whole has an air of agreeable coolness. Everything is handsome without being gaudy, and admirably adapted for the climate. The sleeping apartments have no windows, and are dark and cool, while the drawing-rooms have large windows down to the floor, with green shutters kept closed ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca
... one's husband, or a sortie de bal for oneself. Here also you can buy izars to walk about the bazars incognita. They are mostly brilliantly hued and beautifully worked in gold. There was also the divan, where one bought beautiful stuffs, gaudy Persian rugs, and prayer-carpets for furnishing the house. There was the bazar where one bought henna, wherewith to stain the hands, the feet, and the finger- nails. And last, but by no means least, there was the pipe or narghileh bazar, which contained ...
— The Romance of Isabel Lady Burton Volume II • Isabel Lady Burton & W. H. Wilkins
... discordant rumblings of a drum. The fantastic procession advances, forming a double column, composed of men and women side by side. The former are stamping and the latter tripping lightly, but all are keeping time. They certainly present a weird appearance, tricked out in their gaudy apparel and ornamented with flashy trinkets. The hair of the men is worn loose; tufts of green and yellow feathers flutter over the forehead, while around their necks and dangling over their naked chests are seen strings of porcupine quills, shell beads, turquoises, bright ...
— The Delight Makers • Adolf Bandelier
... ground was wet and comfortless; a part of the reed walls was lined with cots bearing mattresses and silk-covered pillows, a cross between a divan and a couch: the only ornaments were a few weapons, and a necklace of gaudy beads suspended near the door. I was placed upon the principal seat: on the right were the governor and the Hammal; whilst the lowest portion of the room was occupied by Mohammed Sharmarkay, the son and heir. The rest of the company squatted upon chairs, or rather stools, of peculiar construction. ...
— First footsteps in East Africa • Richard F. Burton
... Feature-encrusted; complex; gaudy; verging on excessive. Said of hardware or (esp.) software designs, this has many of the connotations of {elephantine} or {monstrosity} but is less extreme and not pejorative in itself. "Metafont even has features to introduce random ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0
... power, like the raging billows, dashes its bounds with indignation, but dares not overpass them. But where thou art not, how changed the scene! how tasteless, how irksome labour! how languid industry! Where are the beauteous rose, the gaudy tulip, the sweet-scented jessamine? where the purple grape, the luscious peach, the glowing nectarine? wherefore smile not the valleys with their beauteous verdure, nor sing for joy with their golden harvest? All are withered by ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Bampfylde Moore Carew • Unknown
... took a hand in the game. He crawled out of the car, taking off his soiled panama to wipe his bald head with a gaudy silk handkerchief. ...
— Ralestone Luck • Andre Norton
... admire her as we have never admired a nation before. We ourselves are an old and experienced people, who have, we hope, outlived gaudy and dangerous dreams; but we have not been tested like the French, and we do not know whether we or any other nation could endure the test they have endured. It is not merely that they have survived and kept their strength. ...
— New York Times, Current History, Vol 1, Issue 1 - From the Beginning to March, 1915 With Index • Various
... printing is well done, the coloring matter does not thoroughly penetrate the material, and only a faint blurred design appears on the back of the cloth; the gaudy designs of cheap calicoes and ginghams often do not show at all on the under side. Such carelessly made prints are not fast to washing or light, and soon fade. But in the better grades of material the printing is well done, and the color designs are fairly fast, and a ...
— General Science • Bertha M. Clark
... radiance—a harmony of high tints—which I scarce know how to describe. There are yellow walls and green blinds and red roofs, there are intervals of brilliant brown and natural-looking blue; but the picture is not spotty nor gaudy, thanks to the distribution of the colours in large and comfortable masses, and to the washing-over of the scene by some happy softness of sunshine. The river-front of Florence is in short a delightful composition. Part of its charm comes of course from the generous aspect of those high-based ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James
... looked back at the stage, just as the queen was leading Florestein off, and he sees a frail-looking figure heaped in gaudy toggery, that looks as though it would drag her down with its weight; and, above it, is a pale flower-like face, with great dark, weary-looking eyes, and a heavy coronet of yellow hair twisted with ...
— Six Girls - A Home Story • Fannie Belle Irving
... to Chia Chen: "This just reminds me that although this place is perfect in every respect, there's still one thing wanting in the shape of a wine board; and you had better then have one made to-morrow on the very same pattern as those used outside in villages; and it needn't be anything gaudy, but hung above the top of a ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... all new," she explained. "Aunt Abigail's taste was not like her heart! She kept the old furniture, but she had gaudy wall-papers and thick lace curtains, and I have had them all replaced. They aren't done yet, everywhere, but these main rooms are. And she had the fireplace bricked up and a stove in the living-room. I found ...
— The Wide Awake Girls in Winsted • Katharine Ellis Barrett
... every marry there's always a place for her here with us. A pretty girl in a pretty frock is mighty handy to wait table." Again the wideflung hands of the proprietor of the Silver Moon Tavern embraced in their gesture the shiny tables, booths, chromium-trimmed chairs, and the gaudy ...
— Blue Ridge Country • Jean Thomas
... broad-brimmed hats, which in some instances cost more than all the rest of their suits, the leggings, flannel overshirts, and gaudy handkerchiefs tied ...
— The Great Cattle Trail • Edward S. Ellis
... wrong, if He can only thereby secure the man's invaluable services. Be sure that every motive which comes not from the single eye; every motive which springs from self; is by its very essence unheroic, let it look as gaudy or as beneficent ...
— Health and Education • Charles Kingsley
... stood, devoutly bowing and crossing themselves, though it was difficult to say what particular object claimed this respect. Altogether the procession, from the wild look of the priests, their loud voices, and the gaudy banners waving in the air, had much more of a heathen than a ...
— Fred Markham in Russia - The Boy Travellers in the Land of the Czar • W. H. G. Kingston
... quick secured, a green and gaudy bench, And paid my humble penny to a very buxom wench. The tide was running out amain, and slowly, bit by bit, She moved her back seats forward till she left me in the pit. Stout Mr. BIGGS, the hair-dresser, the Bond-Street mould of form, Sat next me with his family, and seemed to find ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 103, September 3, 1892 • Various
... The thoroughfares that lead to the scene of the performance are blocked with carriages: lamp-posts and telegraph posts, to which eager spectators cling like monkeys, rise above the dense crowd; and, while a tatterdemalion band of the old style, in gaudy garb of vermilion and yellow, bangs and tootles away on drums and trumpets of an antique pattern, the procession of barefooted soldiers in brilliant uniforms steps briskly along to the lively strains of a modern military band playing "Marching ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... little mining settlement. Under his tuition, men began to understand that the resources of their native language were less limited than they had supposed, and that it was possible to convey their impressions with accuracy without the aid of a gaudy ...
— The Captain of the Pole-Star and Other Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... ostentatious, pompous; garish, gaudy, meretricious, gorgeous, flashy, bedizened, gay, conspicuous, tinsel. Antonyms: ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... A gaudy dress and gentle air May slightly touch the heart; But it's Innocence and Modesty That polishes ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb
... fact, there were few roads in British Columbia fit to propel one on. An American friend had sent Miss Savine a wheel which, after a few journeys over a corduroy road, groaned most distressfully whenever she mounted it. Helen desired to ride in to the railroad, but the gaudy machine complained even more than usual, and when at last one of its wheels declined to revolve, Julius Savine called Geoffrey's ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss
... whole Irish race, through the sad centuries which part the era of saints from the present time. We see the Irish women kneeling beside some well, whose waters were hallowed, ages since, by the fancied miracle of some mythic saint, and hanging gaudy rags (just as do the half savage Buddhists of the Himalayas) upon the bushes round. We see them upon holy days crawling on bare and bleeding knees around St. Patrick's cell, on the top of Croagh Patrick, the grandest mountain, perhaps, with the grandest outlook, in these British ...
— The Hermits • Charles Kingsley
... a trusting nature, and an overflowing heart; so that the smoke from this poor chimney has gone upward with a better fragrance than the richest incense that is burnt before the richest shrines in all the gaudy temples of this world!—Upon your own hearth; in its quiet sanctuary; surrounded by its gentle influences and associations; hear her! Hear me! Hear everything that speaks the language ...
— The Cricket on the Hearth • Charles Dickens
... up a simple constitution, which he carried in the crown of his cap, and he distributed beads and gaudy trappings as marks of honour. Nor did he forget the frequent pipe of peace, made possible to all by generous gifts of tobacco. Anyone can found a kingdom abaft the Barren Grounds with tobacco, beads, and ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... him. He is distinguished by his portly person in all, and by his favourite light-brown dress in three places. At his devotions he is standing all in white before the tutelary god of his house, Hardeo.[15] In various parts, Krishna is represented at his sports with the milkmaids. The colours are gaudy, and apparently as fresh as when first put on eighty years ago; but the paintings are all in the worst possible taste and style.[16] Inside the dome of Ranjit Singh's tomb the siege of Bharatpur is represented ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... unequal is thy fate, Since title deck'd my higher birth, Yet envy not this gaudy state, Thine is the ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. I. (of VI.) - With his Letters and Journals. • Thomas Moore
... by them. There are no new books, no new Plays, no new novels; nay, no new fashions. They have dragged old Mademoiselle Le Maure out of a retreat of thirty years, to sing at the Colis'ee, which is a most gaudy Ranelagh, gilt, painted, and becupided like an Opera, but not calculated to last as long as Mother Coliseum, being composed of chalk and pasteboard. Round it are courts of treillage, that serve for nothing, and behind it a canal, very like ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... overflow the limits of perfect moderation; if it is to be controlled, there must be something to control, in pruning there must be some strong shoots to cut back, and in toning down there must be some over-gaudy colours to subdue. It is better that there should be too much life than too little, and better that criticism should find something vigorous enough to lay hold of, rather than something which cannot ...
— The Education of Catholic Girls • Janet Erskine Stuart |
