"Magnificent" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the fifth magnificent day—like magnificence, unfit for turning to much account—for we cannot walk till sunset. I had two hours' walk, or nearly, before breakfast, however: It is the loveliest country I ever had experience of, and we shall prolong our stay perhaps—apart from the concern for poor Cholmondeley and his ...
— Life and Letters of Robert Browning • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... left. My hair was as much astir as Aaron's had been one morning, not long before, and I truly believe there was as much of theology in it. No one was abroad. People sleep late on Sunday mornings. The east was blossoming into a magnificent sunflower. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 60, October 1862 • Various
... region I want to speak of the marvelous beauty of the Platte River islands, a magnificent view of which could be had from the bluffs. Looking out upon the long stretch of river either way were islands and islands of every size whatever, from three feet in diameter to those which contained miles of area, resting here and there in the most ...
— In the Early Days along the Overland Trail in Nebraska Territory, in 1852 • Gilbert L. Cole
... when in England before. At Oxford, the city of so many classical recollections, I stopped but a few moments to dine. I was here also when before in England. It is a most splendid city; its spires and domes and towers and pinnacles, rising from amid the trees, give it a magnificent appearance ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Samuel F. B. Morse
... the money," thought Adams, as the glass swing-door was opened by a flunkey as magnificent as a Lord Mayor's footman, who took the visitor's card and the card of M. Thenard and presented them to a functionary with a large pale face, who was seated at a ...
— The Pools of Silence • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... sent to Jupiter's poles to watch and measure and study the tremendous auroral displays there, where Jupiter's vast magnetic field sucked in countless quintillions of the flying electrons from the sun, and brought them circling in, in a vast, magnificent display ...
— The Ultimate Weapon • John Wood Campbell
... of his very restlessness and unexpectedness—that made life in his neighbourhood seldom less than interesting. His temper this morning would probably be of the worst. Something, or some one, had defeated all his schemes for a magnificent assertion of the rights of man. His park was in the hands of the invaders. The public plough was impudently at work. And at the same moment his secretary had given warning, and the new catalogue—the darling of his heart—would be thrown on his hands. It would not be surprising to ...
— Elizabeth's Campaign • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... absolutely the same—I put something instead of "angel"; and in the sequel my epithet seemed the more apt, for when eventually we heard from Corvick it was merely, it was thoroughly to be tantalised. He was magnificent in his triumph, he described his discovery as stupendous; but his ecstasy only obscured it—there were to be no particulars till he should have submitted his conception to the supreme authority. He had thrown up his commission, ...
— Embarrassments • Henry James
... now an industrial home, was then a stately mansion, shaded by magnificent trees. Here Poe spent much of his time, and one evening in this friendly home he recited "The Raven" with such artistic effect that his auditors induced him to give it as a public reading at the Exchange Hotel. Unfortunately, it was in midsummer, and both literary Richmond ...
— Literary Hearthstones of Dixie • La Salle Corbell Pickett
... passe, that about the beginning of May, it being then a very milde and serrene season, and he leading there a much more magnificent life, then ever hee had done before, inviting divers to dine with him this day, and as many to morrow, and not to leave him till after supper: upon the sodaine, falling into remembrance of his cruell Mistris, hee commanded all his servants to forbeare his ...
— Ravenna, A Study • Edward Hutton
... great want of Venice. Many of the canals, dividing lines of houses as lofty as those of the Old Town of Edinburgh, are not wider than the wynds of that celebrated city. And yet there we see the landing-places and entrances of magnificent mansions, though more frequently the houses on such narrow canals have the air of ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 425 - Volume 17, New Series, February 21, 1852 • Various
... with the love of natural scenery as was Schamyl, should here be more occupied with contemplating the grandeur of the mountain tops than in chasing the timid, graceful animals which thereupon find a home. If in the course of his ascent he had kept his eyes pretty steadily fixed upon the magnificent summits far off white with snows, but nearer blue with the ice which has led the Tartars to give to them the name of Ialbus or ice-mane; if lower down he had gazed with admiration at the oaks which for two centuries had grasped ...
— Life of Schamyl - And Narrative of the Circassian War of Independence Against Russia • John Milton Mackie
... that those of the city go on well also. A new bridge, for example, is begun at the Place Louis Quinze; the old ones are clearing of the rubbish which encumbered them in the form of houses 5 new hospitals erecting; magnificent walls of inclosure, and Custom-houses at their entrances, &c. &c. &c. I know of no interesting change among those whom you honored with your acquaintance, unless Monsieur de Saint James was of that number. His bankruptcy, and taking ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... see what was there, but he dared not, for dear life's sake. But at the end of the third week he was so curious that he could resist no longer. He opened the fourth door and went down the steps into the cellar, and there was a magnificent coal-black horse chained to a manger, and the manger was filled with red-hot coals. At the horse's tail was a basket ...
— Tales of Folk and Fairies • Katharine Pyle
... world; as the great traveller who wrote books about the Himalayas, as the politician who swept constituencies with a startling sort of Tory Democracy, and as the great dabbler in art, music, literature, and, above all, acting. Sir Claude was really rather magnificent in other than American eyes. There was something of the Renascence Prince about his omnivorous culture and restless publicity—, he was not only a great amateur, but an ardent one. There was in him none of that antiquarian ...
— The Wisdom of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... When he became Pope (1447-55) he collected scholars about him, built up the university at Rome, laid the foundations of the great Vatican Library, and made Rome a great literary center. After the death of Lorenzo the Magnificent at Florence, in 1492, the glory that had been Florence passed to Rome, and it in turn became the cultural center ...
— THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION • ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY
... unsuitably assigned. For Tully (De Invent. Rhet. ii) assigns four parts to fortitude, namely magnificence, confidence, patience, and perseverance. Now magnificence seems to pertain to liberality; since both are concerned about money, and "a magnificent man must needs be liberal," as the Philosopher observes (Ethic. iv, 2). But liberality is a part of justice, as stated above (Q. 117, A. 5). Therefore magnificence should not be reckoned a part ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... only real port in the whole country nearer than Port Said did not tend to relieve the strain, for the natural disadvantages of Jaffa as a port prevented its being utilised to the full, while Haifa, although it possesses a magnificent harbour, had not as yet ...
— With Our Army in Palestine • Antony Bluett
... offended, lent a hand. Masses of ivy grew up, completely covering the walls, till the place looked like an abbey; and it was discovered that the view from the front, over the Casterbridge chimneys, was one of the most magnificent in the county. A neighbouring earl once said that he would give up a year's rental to have at his own door the view enjoyed by the inmates from theirs—and very probably the inmates would have given up the ...
— Far from the Madding Crowd • Thomas Hardy
... still in the courtyard of the palace when he heard the outburst of shots and then the cries. He comprehended. Stripping his turban from his head he bound it over the eyes of his stallion and, spurring to a gallop, he dashed out over the parapet of the Citadel and down—down—down! Magnificent! He did not die of it, but alas! he did not escape. Wounded as he was he managed to reach the house of a relative, but the soldiers of the Sultan tracked him there and seized him.... ...
— The Palace of Darkened Windows • Mary Hastings Bradley
... needs and personal traits enlisted her special regard. This was true of one middle-aged Union captain, to whom at first she had no call to speak, for apparently he was not very seriously wounded. Even before his face was cleansed from the smoke and dust of battle his large, dark eyes and magnificent black beard caught her attention. Later on, when feeding a helpless man near him, he spoke to her and held out a photograph. She took it and saw the features of a blond young girl scarcely as ...
— Miss Lou • E. P. Roe
... wield as magic a pencil as did Benjamin West, that mighty paint-king, how quickly would glow upon canvas one of the most beautiful and magnificent landscapes that ever entranced the eye of a scenery-loving traveler—a landscape upon which you might gaze enraptured every day for years, as I have done, and yet never tire nor grow less fond of beholding it. I would paint for your especial ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 6 June 1848 • Various
... forest," said Grattan, "too old to be transplanted at fifty." "He was a man," said one who also knew him well, Sir Jonah Barrington, "of profound abilities, high manners, and great experience in the affairs of Ireland. He had deep information, an extensive capacity, and a solid judgment." In his own magnificent "Ode to Fame," he has pictured his ideal of the Patriot-orator, who finds some consolation amid the unequal struggle with the enemies of his country, foreign and domestic, in a prophetic vision of his own renown. Unhappily, the works of this great man come ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... the manner born, made her way through the midst of this throng in the magnificent gallery, and Anne followed her closely, conscious of words of admiration and inquiries who she was. Into the Prince's presence chamber, in fact his day-nursery, they came, and a sweet and gentle-looking lady met them, and embraced Lady Oglethorpe, who made known Mistress Woodford ...
— A Reputed Changeling • Charlotte M. Yonge
... that the final ceremony of unveiling took place technically called "opening the eyes" (kaigan). On that occasion the Empress Koken, attended by all the great civil and military dignitaries, held a magnificent fete, and in the following year the temple—Todai-ji—was endowed with the taxes of five thousand households and the revenue from twenty-five thousand acres ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... theory which he taught to his followers, and had never tried or proved himself. He never asked his friends to accept any such untested theories. He lived all his own lessons. He was not a mere teacher; he was a leader of men. Thus his strong friendship was full of magnificent inspiration. He called men to new things in life, and was ready to help them reach the highest ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller
... She is magnificent in her expenditure; to be sure she can afford to be so, for her income amounts to 600,000 livres. Amboise was her jointure, but she ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... the sierra. The climate had gradually changed, and the men and horses, especially the latter, suffered severely from the cold, so long accustomed as they had been to the sultry climate of the tropics.2 The vegetation also had changed its character; and the magnificent timber which covered the lower level of the country had gradually given way to the funereal forest of pine, and, as they rose still higher, to the stunted growth of numberless Alpine plants, whose hardy natures found a congenial temperature ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... magnificent Suzanne before him, holding her legs between his knees. She let him do as he liked, although in the street she was offish enough to other men, refusing their familiarities partly from decorum and partly for contempt for their commonness. She now ...
— The Jealousies of a Country Town • Honore de Balzac
... and her plans as we see them developed on the surface of this little planet which we inhabit, the astronomer would fain learn the plan on which the whole universe is constructed. The magnificent conception of Copernicus is, for him, only an introduction to the yet more magnificent conception of infinite space containing a collection of bodies which we call the visible universe. How far does this universe extend? What are the distances and arrangements ...
— Side-lights on Astronomy and Kindred Fields of Popular Science • Simon Newcomb
... plantains and cocoas, guavas and papaws and mameys and avocados and all luxurious West Indian fruits; the very weeds of their orchards had tropical luxuriance in their fragrance and in their names; and from the doors of their little thatched huts they looked across these gardens of delight to the magnificent lowland forests, and over those again to the faint line of far-off beach, the fainter ocean-horizon, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 5, No. 28, February, 1860 • Various
... is known to be increased, and when ten, or a hundred, or any larger number of such alternations are placed in conformable association with each other, the power of the whole becomes proportionally exalted, and we obtain that magnificent instrument of philosophic research, ...
— Experimental Researches in Electricity, Volume 1 • Michael Faraday
... Hebrew population. His last public service was the bloodless suppression of an insurrection in Pannonia (13). He died at Campania in March of the year following his fifty-first year. Augustus honoured his memory by a magnificent ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... beauty of the search light, Lieut. Fiske refers to the magnificent one with which he lighted up Philadelphia last autumn, during the electric exhibition in that city. One night he went to the tower of the Pennsylvania railroad station and watched the light stationed at the Exhibition building ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 520, December 19, 1885 • Various
... first selection is as follows: Hrothgar, king of the Danes, or Scyldings, elated by prosperity, builds a magnificent hall in which to feast his retainers; but a monster, Grendel by name, issues from his fen-haunts, and night after night carries off thane after thane from the banqueting hall. For twelve years these ...
— Anglo-Saxon Grammar and Exercise Book - with Inflections, Syntax, Selections for Reading, and Glossary • C. Alphonso Smith
... "sham technical twaddle" between the worker and what should be the spontaneous inspiration of his work. What such combination has produced in past times, may perhaps best be understood by some reading in old church inventories of the simply infinite store of magnificent embroidered vestments which once adorned our churches. In an inventory of Westminster Abbey I find mentioned such patterns as roses and birds, fleur-de-luces and lybardes, angels on branches of gold, roses and ships, eagles and angels of gold, castles ...
— Embroidery and Tapestry Weaving • Grace Christie
... storm held, Peter Rolls went several times each dreadful day to the room of the mirrors and dosed his dryads with Balm of Gilead. The medicine—or something else—sustained them marvellously. And it occurred to Peter that they would make a magnificent advertisement, if there were any way of using them—the kind ...
— Winnie Childs - The Shop Girl • C. N. Williamson
... Caloveglia was perhaps of use to the other in the accumulation of classical relics which—the Italian Government forbidding the export of antique works of art—were smuggled at night-time on board the FLUTTERBY to be incorporated in a magnificent museum somewhere out West, a museum which was destined to be presented by van Koppen as a gift to the great American people. Again, it might be inferred that these two elderly gentlemen, choice representatives of two conflicting civilizations, widely experienced ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... plan of their first house. How chatty and cheery a pair of newly mated birds appear, in counsel over their nest-building! This schoolmaster and mistress are home from their toil and care for the day, and are again devoting an evening to the scheme of their first dwelling. It is not a large or magnificent concern, but it has already been neatly draughted, carefully considered, and builders' estimates footed up. All seems to be about right; but Elizabeth has gone off into a brown study. Her countenance betrays unusual agitation, and her pensive eye is filled with ...
— Elizabeth: The Disinherited Daugheter • E. Ben Ez-er
... yourself any anxiety," said the Griffin, "about my return to the town. I shall not remain there. Now that I have that admirable likeness of myself in front of my cave, where I can sit at my leisure, and gaze upon its noble features and magnificent proportions, I have no wish to see that abode ...
— Short-Stories • Various
... with their cloud-wreathed tops, and the valleys where sunshine and shade sleep side by side—at the frowning precipices, made more awful by the impenetrable forest-foliage which shrouds the abysses below, leaving the impression of an ocean depth—at the broad lawns and magnificent savannahs glowing in verdure and sunlight—at the princely estates and palace mansions—at the luxuriant cultivation, and the sublime solitude of primeval forests, where trees of every name, the mahogany, the boxwood, the rosewood, the cedar, the palm, the fern, the bamboo, ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... from the sky, he was sent back to the earth in further pursuit; for, whence came the rain, his books told him, but from the sea? That sea he had read of, though never yet beheld, and he knew it was magnificent in its might; gladly would he have hailed it as an intermediate betwixt the sky and the earth—so to have the sky come first! but, alas! the ocean came first in order. And then, worse and worse! how was the ocean fed but ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... expectations in which it attained the significance of becoming the specific conviction of Christian faith. With the hope of the resurrection of the body was originally connected the hope of a happy life in easy blessedness under green trees in magnificent fields with joyous feeding flocks and flying angels clothed in white. One must read the Revelation of Peter the Shepherd or the Acts of Perpetua and Felicitas in order to see how entirely the fancy of many Christians and not merely of those who were uncultured ...
— History of Dogma, Volume 1 (of 7) • Adolph Harnack
... their mature characters, simple habits, manly aims, and resolute purposes; fortunate in a laborious Faculty, whose well-earned fame from time to time brings honorable and urgent calls to carry their light to other and wealthier seats of learning; fortunate in her magnificent roll of alumni, unsurpassed in its average of good manhood and excellent work, and bright with names of transcendent lustre. The genius of the place bespeaks our reverence and awe. For to the mind's eye this sequestered spot is peopled to overflowing with youthful forms ...
— The History of Dartmouth College • Baxter Perry Smith
... government more worthy of their respect and love or a land so magnificent in extent, so pleasant to look upon, and so full of generous suggestion to enterprise and labor. God has placed upon our head a diadem and has laid at our feet power and wealth beyond definition or calculation. But we must not forget that we take these gifts upon the condition that ...
— U.S. Presidential Inaugural Addresses • Various
... of his admiration of the magnificent creature, saw him whirl about and look behind himself in alarm. His aunt pointed at his coat ...
— The Old Tobacco Shop - A True Account of What Befell a Little Boy in Search of Adventure • William Bowen
... on the arm of the president, passed into the hall of conference, where her Majesty's table had been prepared under a magnificent dais of crimson silk, and covers for nearly three hundred guests had been laid by the caterer Robert, in the different halls of the palace. To the dinner succeeded a brilliant ball. The most remarkable thing in this fete was the indescribable ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... walked up the hill, followed by Danny and the cart. We found the house a large, low, old-fashioned farm-house, standing near the road with a long piazza in front, and a magnificent view of mountain-tops in the rear. Within, the lower rooms were large and low, with quite a good deal of furniture in them. There was no earthly reason why we should not be perfectly jolly and comfortable here. The more we saw the more delighted we were at the ...
— Humorous Masterpieces from American Literature • Various
... rock, but the walls were faced with white limestone; some of the chambers are vaulted, and all of them decorated with bas-reliefs of exquisite workmanship, perhaps the finest examples of this period. Thutmosis I. scarcely did more than lay the foundations of this magnificent building, but his mummy was buried in it with great pomp, to remain there until a period of disturbance and general insecurity obliged those in charge of the necropolis to remove the body, together ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 4 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... firm. They were now twenty feet in air. A dark pool of water lay beneath them. The boy gave one glance at the blue heavens and the blinking stars; then, stooping, he picked up the dog and held him in his arms. He stood there like a statue, a magnificent symbol of calm in the ...
— The Blue Envelope • Roy J. Snell
... necessities that prevented this arose from his domestic situation. This little property, with a considerable addition that still leaves it very small, lies beautifully upon the banks of a rill that gurgles down the side of Skiddaw; and the orchard and other parts of the grounds command a magnificent prospect of Derwent Water, the Mountains of Borrowdale and Newlands. Not many years ago I gave the place to my daughter. [In pencil on opposite page in Mrs. Quillinan's handwriting—Many years ago, sir, for it was given when she was ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... to the people of her time and her new home, were by no means great or magnificent enough for Barbara. Even the most superb show seemed to her too ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... bend their knees, and pray in the open air, and then retire to their huts to rest. The sun-light gilding the tops of those stupendous mountains, upon which the blue vault of heaven seems to rest, the magnificent scenery around, and the voices of the shepherds sounding from rock to rock the praise of the Almighty, must fill the mind of every ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 335 - Vol. 12, No. 335, October 11, 1828 • Various
... was a very beautiful woman, a magnificent type of the Magyar race. She was tall, powerful, only perhaps a trifle too broad-shouldered. Her intensely dark hair and sparkling black eyes suited the warm bronze hue of her plump face, which, with its little mouth filled with magnificent teeth, its fresh full lips, the transparent, enamel ...
— How Women Love - (Soul Analysis) • Max Simon Nordau
... method we can, indeed, exhibit only a general idea, at once magnificent and confused; an idea of the writings of many nations, collected from distant parts of the world, discovered sometimes by chance, and sometimes by curiosity, amidst the rubbish of forsaken monasteries, and the repositories of ancient families, and brought hither from every ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson
... surprising if a man who is passionately fond of music falls in love with a woman who has a magnificent voice, or a power which amounts to magic over the strings of her violin. Appreciation is as essential to happiness as accomplishment, and when the two are balanced in marriage, comradeship is inevitable. An artist may marry a woman who ...
— The Spinster Book • Myrtle Reed
... fear of the conflagration spreading as it had done in the day-time. The wind had sunk, and the copious dews of evening effectually put a stop to the progress of the fire. The children could now gaze in security upon the magnificent spectacle before them without the excitement produced by its rapid spread during the day-time. They lay down to sleep in perfect security that night, but with the consciousness that, as the breeze sprung up in the morning, they must be on the alert to secure ...
— Lost in the Backwoods • Catharine Parr Traill
... dancing began. The floor of the two great rooms that had been thrown open for the use of the guests had been polished till they shone, and at the far end of the room a platform had been erected, upon which sat the musicians, partly screened by magnificent palms. The rooms were decorated from end to end with flowers and the air was heavy with ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... captain would have been a marquis," he exclaimed to himself, "the Marquis de Medea, and owner of those magnificent estates. Well, truly he had something to live for, and yet he was cut off—while I who have not a peco beyond my pay, and little enough of that, have been allowed to remain in existence. I cannot understand these matters—it is very ...
— Ronald Morton, or the Fire Ships - A Story of the Last Naval War • W.H.G. Kingston
... hardly be said that Norwegian politics stood the trial in the situation. To a Norwegian, that which followed may appear as a powerful and magnificent achievement. Outsiders can content themselves by stating that the high-flown Radical politics of the last 20 years ...
— The Swedish-Norwegian Union Crisis - A History with Documents • Karl Nordlund
... favorite outlook, and, as they were passing the Hunt cottage they saw Dr. Stanley on the porch and invited him to join them. The sun was just setting as they reached their point of observation, where the view, illuminated by the vivid crimson and gold in the western sky, was impressive and magnificent beyond description. ...
— Katherine's Sheaves • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... easily perishable, and hence can be held almost indefinitely. The development of the magnificent elevator system, based upon the principle that the cereals can be handled like water, greatly simplifies the holding and preservation of ...
— The Young Farmer: Some Things He Should Know • Thomas Forsyth Hunt
... yet to hold your admiration," replied Mr. Delancy, rising also. "June gives us wide green carpets and magnificent draperies of the same deep color, but her red and golden broideries are few; it is the hand of July that throws them ...
— After the Storm • T. S. Arthur
... very outskirts of the crowd, delivered without manuscript or notes an address which in logic and eloquence has rarely if ever been equaled by any woman in the land.... At its conclusion she received an ovation and was presented with a magnificent ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... me as it was—beautiful Nature, and all that humbug? It is nothing but that. Well, the world was watching; and it saw "The Piano," the "White Girl," the Thames subjects, the marines ... canvases produced by a fellow who was puffed up with the conceit of being able to prove to his comrades his magnificent gifts, qualities which only needed a rigorous training to make their possessor to-day a master, instead of a dissipated student. Ah, why was I not a pupil of Ingres? I don't say that out of enthusiasm for his pictures; ...
— The Mind of the Artist - Thoughts and Sayings of Painters and Sculptors on Their Art • Various
... blazed the fire of the sun; it quivered in the tree-tops, bent low with their burden of snow; it was like a sea in the valley, so vivid that the unfrozen stream running through the heart of it was black. Never had Miki seen a day so magnificent. Never had his heart pounded at the sight of the sun as it pounded now, and never had his blood burned with a wilder exultation. He whined, and ran back to Neewa. He barked in the gloom of the cavern ...
— Nomads of the North - A Story of Romance and Adventure under the Open Stars • James Oliver Curwood
... hundred years, to a sort of Hortus inclusus where nothing human grows. These mediaeval men of science apply their scientific energies to mastering, collecting, comparing and generalising, not of any single fact of nature, but of the words of other theologians. The magnificent sense of intellectual duty, so evident in Abelard, and in a dozen monastic authors quoted by him, is applied solely to fantasticating over Scripture and its expositors, and diverting their every expression from its literal, ...
— Renaissance Fancies and Studies - Being a Sequel to Euphorion • Violet Paget (AKA Vernon Lee)
... dress for dinner, Capt. Hopkins divulged to me the plans which had been formed by him and Pedro. 'D'ye see, Ben, my child, Don Pedro and I have arranged the matter in A No. 1 style; and if we can only work the traverse, it'll be magnificent—and I don't very well see why we can't. To day is Thursday, you know. Well, I shall hoist my last box of sugar aboard to-morrow night, and, after dark, Don Pedro is going to run a boat alongside with his plunder and valuables. Your sweetheart must go ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... dim sky hung, dotted with innumerable stars, prominent among which, not far above the horizon, gleamed that glorious constellation, the Southern Cross. Beatrice, who hesitated for a moment as if to decide upon her song, at last caught her idea from this scene around her, and began one of the most magnificent of Italian compositions: ...
— Cord and Creese • James de Mille
... Attic estates, their wealth and resources, elsewhere secured, were enormous. The temple of Delphi having been destroyed by fire, they agreed with the Amphictyons to rebuild it, and performed the holy task with a magnificent splendour far exceeding the conditions of the contract. But in that religious land, wealth, thus lavished, was no unprofitable investment. The priests of Delphi were not insensible of the liberality of the exiles, and Clisthenes, ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... but not pursued by the hound, and so absorbed in his private meditations that he failed to see me, though I stood transfixed with amazement and admiration, not ten yards distant. I took his measure at a glance,—a large male, with dark legs, and massive tail tipped with white,—a most magnificent creature; but so astonished and fascinated was I by this sudden appearance and matchless beauty, that not till I had caught the last glimpse of him, as he disappeared over a knoll, did I awake to my duty as a sportsman, ...
— In the Catskills • John Burroughs
... British; and the question will be decided not only on the field of battle, but by the action of our Government and people after peace is declared. The next fifty years will decide for all time whether those magnificent and still empty countries are to be the home of great nations speaking our language, carrying on our institutions, and valuing our traditions. When the future of our Dominions is secure, the part of England as a ...
— Outspoken Essays • William Ralph Inge
... name conjured up in my mind a picture of the lusty two-year-old heir of two fortunes, as the feature articles in the Star had described that little scion of wealth— his luxurious nursery, his magnificent toys, his own motor car, a trained nurse and a detective on guard every hour of the day and night, every possible precaution for his ...
— The War Terror • Arthur B. Reeve
... and set at liberty the dark masses of her shining hair, which floated like an ample veil of raven blackness over the dazzling whiteness of her skin. Imagination might have invested her forehead with a halo, so magnificent was the lustrous effect of the sun upon the silken glossiness of ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... anywhere. Thus the war drags on inconclusively at a cost of L5,000,000 and 2,000 casualties every day. But the voluntary principle has been respected and vindicated! Has it? True it is that there has been a magnificent response to the Government's appeals. The patriotism and devotion of one half of the nation have effectively enabled the other half to evade its duty. But the time has again come when the demand for more men is imperative. Voluntarism is making its last efforts. Its ...
— Freedom In Service - Six Essays on Matters Concerning Britain's Safety and Good Government • Fossey John Cobb Hearnshaw
... their floude, and the familiar spirites of their countrie. And when their kyng washeth his heade, thei make solempne feast, and sende his highnes greate giftes, eche man enuyenge other, who maye shewe hym self most riche, and magnificent. ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries - Vol. II • Richard Hakluyt
... elegant furniture arrived, spring blinds were fitted to the windows, carpenters who had been employed in the various preparations, alterations, and repairs, made confidential statements to the different maid-servants in the row, relative to the magnificent scale on which the Miss Willises were commencing; the maid-servants told their 'Missises,' the Missises told their friends, and vague rumours were circulated throughout the parish, that No. 25, in Gordon-place, had been taken by four ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... a consequence. In 1530 he renewed the Edict of Worms and was opposed by a League of Protestant princes, who applied for help from England, France, and Denmark against the oppressive Emperor. He would have set himself to crush them if his dominions had not been menaced by Soliman the Magnificent, a Turkish Sultan with an immense army. He was obliged to secure the co-operation of the Protestants against the Turks that he might drive the ...
— Heroes of Modern Europe • Alice Birkhead
... of Mayfair, the very centre of fashion in the West End, reminds us that in this magnificent quarter of London a fair used to be held in May in the time of Charles II. This gives us an idea of how the district must have changed since then. Farm Street, in Mayfair, has its name from a farm which was still there in the middle of ...
— Stories That Words Tell Us • Elizabeth O'Neill
... first time, a magnificent solar phenomenon could be observed, a halo with two parhelions; the doctor observed it, and took its exact dimensions; the exterior arc was only visible for about thirty degrees each side of the horizontal diameter; the two images of the sun ...
— The Voyages and Adventures of Captain Hatteras • Jules Verne
... close to the bank of the river, that he might be once more during his life within sight of a British Commander-in-Chief, though he could no longer see one. There the old patriarch sat listening with intense delight to the remarks of the host of his descendants around him, as the Governor-General's magnificent fleet passed along,[6] every one fancying that he had caught a glimpse of the great man, and trying to describe him to the old gentleman, who in return told them (no doubt for the thousandth time) what sort of a person the great Lord Clive was. His son, the old ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... magnificent, watchful head of the stallion. The heart of Hal Dunbar swelled in him. By fair means or foul, he must have that horse, and on the spot he made his proposition to Hunter. He had only to climb on the back of Diablo and ride south with him; the pay would be anything—double ...
— Bull Hunter • Max Brand
... a foot in thickness, pays very well. Leaving the mine, we rode on past some old Kafir copper-workings—circular pits—which must have been abandoned, to judge from their appearance, a hundred years ago, till we came to the banks of the great "Olifants'" or "Elephants'" river. This magnificent stream, though it is unnavigable owing to frequent rapids, has stretches miles long, down which a man-of-war could steam, and after its junction with the Elands' River it grows larger and larger till, pursuing a north-east course, ...
— Cetywayo and his White Neighbours - Remarks on Recent Events in Zululand, Natal, and the Transvaal • H. Rider Haggard
... know about the price; perhaps it was a trifle stiff; you might even say it crackled; but the tale——! Brodrick went on in the soft, even voice that was a sign with him of profound excitement—the tale was a corker. He didn't care if it was gruesome. It was magnificent. ...
— The Creators - A Comedy • May Sinclair
... only possible to make out that there must have been a well-developed clerestory and a high vaulted central aisle. What makes this destruction all the more regrettable is the fact that the church was full of splendid tombs, especially that of the Holy Constable himself: a magnificent piece of carving in alabaster sent from Flanders by Dom Joao's daughter, ...
— Portuguese Architecture • Walter Crum Watson
... signed to the guests to withdraw. Many had already escaped the painful scene by the side-door. Marie was now alone in the magnificent apartment, with Herr Gedicke and Moritz. She still stood, with concealed face, in the centre ...
— Old Fritz and the New Era • Louise Muhlbach
... one who visits Rome goes to St. Peter's, so every one who visits Cairo goes to the mosque of Mohammed Ali in the citadel, a gorgeous building in a magnificent situation, the interior of which always makes me think of Court functions, and of the pomp of life, rather than of prayer and self-denial. More attractive to me is the "Blue Mosque," to which I returned again and again, ...
— The Spell of Egypt • Robert Hichens
... are now entring upon, is an Instance of that Sublime which is not mixed and worked up with Passion. The Author appears in a kind of composed and sedate Majesty; and tho the Sentiments do not give so great an Emotion as those in the former Book, they abound with as magnificent Ideas. The Sixth Book, like a troubled Ocean, represents Greatness in Confusion; the seventh Affects the Imagination like the Ocean in a Calm, and fills the Mind of the Reader, without producing in it any thing ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... stone-age when first discovered, and had no bows and arrows. On the other hand, with coco-nut, bananas and bread-fruit, they had abundant means of sustenance, and were thoroughly at home in their magnificent canoes. Thus their island-life was rich in ease and variety; and, whilst rude in certain respects, they were almost civilized in others. Their racial affinities are somewhat complex. What is almost certain is ...
— Anthropology • Robert Marett
... The horizon was very narrow, and nothing happened to disturb the peace of the little oasis. The Duchy was indeed a little oasis in the large desert of Central Germany. The landscape was beautiful: there were rivers small and large—the Mulde and the Elbe; there were magnificent oak forests; there were regiments of firs standing in regular columns like so many grenadiers; there were parks such as one sees in England only. The town, the capital of the Duchy of Anhalt-Dessau, had been cared for by successive rulers—men mostly far in advance of their ...
— My Autobiography - A Fragment • F. Max Mueller
... reign, and the reaction showed itself mainly in a more delicate and graceful style of interior decoration. It was reserved for the Empire to set the seal of official approval on the Roman Revival. The Arch of Triumph of the Carrousel, behind the Tuileries, by Percier and Fontaine, the magnificent Arc de l'toile, at the summit of the Avenue of the Champs Elyses, by Chalgrin; the wing begun by Napoleon to connect the Tuileries with the Louvre on the land side, and the church of the Madeleine, by Vignon, erected as ...
— A Text-Book of the History of Architecture - Seventh Edition, revised • Alfred D. F. Hamlin
... sympathized with human nature as Dostoievsky did. Indubitably nobody ever with the help of God and good luck ever swooped so high into tragic grandeur. But the man had fearful falls. He could not trust his wings. He is an adorable, a magnificent, and a profoundly sad figure in letters. He is anything you like. But he could not compass the calm and exquisite soft beauty of "On the Eve" or "A House ...
— Books and Persons - Being Comments on a Past Epoch 1908-1911 • Arnold Bennett
... birch-bark, lined with hair and feathers. The stream affords the parr,[57] a small species of trout seldom exceeding eight inches in length, marked on the sides with nine large bluish spots, and on the lateral line with small red ones. No traveller should omit visiting Yorke Cascade, a magnificent cataract, amidst most suitable scenery, about a mile distant from the house. This country is very mountainous, has no natural woods, except of birch; but the vast plantations that begin to cloath the hills will amply supply ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume II. • Mrs. Thomson
... Lieutenant Russell's firsts acts of kindness to Nellie Dawson was to present her with his massive dog Timon. She had shown great admiration from the first for the magnificent brute, who became fond of her. The maiden was delighted beyond measure and thanked the donor so effusively that he was embarrassed. It is not probable, however, that Timon himself was ever aware of the change of ownership, for it brought no ...
— A Waif of the Mountains • Edward S. Ellis
... her eyelids she watched the girl's every movement. Oh, how she hated her, this healthy, blooming creature, with her splendid stature, her round white arms, and her magnificent bust! How she hated her! Her freshness, her youth, her beauty, her soft young body with which she had seduced the ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein
... partition line that separates Derbyshire from Yorkshire. In this road, the ruin in the Cut is the first object that claims the attention of the tourist in his progress to the Peak; being part of a once magnificent abbey, founded by Robert Fitz-Ranulph, Lord of Alfreton; as an expiation for the part he is said to have taken in the murder of Thomas a Becket. The late Dr. Pegg, the antiquary, discountenances this tradition. His arguments, however, which are chiefly founded ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 563, August 25, 1832 • Various
... that is!" says this magnificent old lady, as she deposits her queen very quietly and folds her arms. "I should be sorry to utter a word disagreeable ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... of dishonesty, dishonesty magnificent in its proportions, and climbing into high places, has become at the same time so rampant and so splendid that there seems to be reason for fearing that men and women will be taught to feel that dishonesty, ...
— Autobiography of Anthony Trollope • Anthony Trollope
... in this way, a summer, a winter, part of a spring, and Hetty's forty-fifth birthday came, and found her a seriously unhappy woman. Yet, strange to say, nobody dreamed of it. So unchanged was the external current of her life: such magnificent self-control had she, and such absolute disinterestedness. Little Raby was the only one who ever had a consciousness that things were not right. He was Hetty's closest comrade and companion now. All the hours that she did not spend driving with the doctor (and she drove ...
— Hetty's Strange History • Anonymous
... her now in this vein of magnificent bitterness, but Grizel seldom rewarded him by crying, "Oh, oh!" She might, however, give him a patient, reproachful glance instead, and it had the irritating effect of making him feel that perhaps he was under life-size, instead of ...
— Tommy and Grizel • J.M. Barrie
... napkins, and gaudy gold and flowery cut glass a little overdone, but on the whole not so bad. She had seen such almost as grand at a few New York houses. The lace in the cloth and in the napkins was merely a little too magnificent. It made the table lumpy, it made the napkins unfit for use. But the way the dinner was served! You would have said you were in a glorified palace-hotel restaurant. You looked about for the cashier's desk; ...
— The Price She Paid • David Graham Phillips
... sudden way in which Raychow's son gets fired with the desire to turn civil engineer just when he has got a magnificent opening in life as a doctor is merely the usual flightiness of young men, who do not see where their true advantages lie—and the conduct of the men in dying, after digging a canal is normal, and modern experiences support it, for men who dig canals down in West Africa ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... returned from the war, and his subjects told him all the news of the kingdom, and the thing they talked about the least was his wife and children. One day the king looked out of the window and saw the palace opposite furnished in a magnificent manner. "Who lives there?" he asked, but no one could answer him. He looked again and saw the brothers and sister, the former with the apples in their hands, and the latter with the star on her brow. "Gracious! if I did not know that my wife had given birth to three puppies, ...
— Italian Popular Tales • Thomas Frederick Crane
... Coeur-de-Lion—the friend of Blondel, and the antagonist of Saladin. Constance, perfectly unsuspicious of the meditated treason, accepted the invitation of her brother-in-law, and set out from Rennes with a small but magnificent retinue to join him at Pontorson. On the road, and within sight of the town, the Earl of Chester was posted with a troop of Richard's soldiery, and while the Duchess prepared to enter the gates, where she expected to be received with honor and welcome, he suddenly rushed ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... saw it now! But wait. I turned eastward, and there to my astonishment was a magnificent rainbow, a perfect semicircle, stretching from the foot of Parnes to that of Hymettus, framing Athens and its hills, which grew brighter and brighter—the brightness for which there is no name among ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing
... to thine eternal resting place Shalt thou retire alone, nor couldst thou wish Couch more magnificent. Thou shalt lie down With patriarchs of the infant world—with kings, The powerful of the earth—the wise, the good, Fair forms, and hoary seers of ages past, All in one mighty sepulcher. The hills Rock-ribbed and ancient as the sun—the vales ...
— Eighth Reader • James Baldwin
... you are a little precipitate in thinking America so much nearer to be subdued, which you have often swallowed up as if you were a minister; and yet, methinks, that era has been so frequently put off, that I wonder you are not cured of being sanguine—or rather, of believing the magnificent lies that every trifling advantage gives birth to. If a quarter of the Americans had joined the Royalists, that have been said to join, all the colonies would not hold them. But, at least, they have been like the trick of ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole |
