"Spectacles" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... but of course, as a modern Frenchman,— one of a nation for whom the Latin and Gothic ideas of libertas have entirely vanished,—he is not on his guard against the trap here laid for him. He looks at the word libertas through his spectacles;—can't understand, being a thoroughly good antiquary, [1] how such a virtue, or privilege, could honestly be carved with approval in the twelfth century;—rubs his spectacles; rubs the inscription, to make sure of its every letter; stamps it, to make surer still;—and at last, ...
— Val d'Arno • John Ruskin
... see kun Guldets Lue, But their majesty unviewing, Ikke de AErvaerdighoie! And their lustre but Saete dem som Pragt tilskue descrying, For et mat, nysgjerrigt Oie! Them as spectacles ye're shewing To the silly ...
— The Gold Horns • Adam Gottlob Oehlenschlager
... did not seem to hear; then they hailed him again and ran toward him; then he turned and stopped, and seeing men running toward him, took out a large pair of round spectacles, and put them on to look at them. By this artifice that which in reality completed his disguise seemed but a natural movement in an old man to see better who it ...
— A Perilous Secret • Charles Reade
... singular!" said Aunt Plenty, bringing her spectacles to bear upon the pills, with a face so full of respectful interest that it was almost too ...
— Eight Cousins • Louisa M. Alcott
... I forgot my spectacles; I left them in the 349th page of Hall's "Chronicles," where he tells a great wonder of a multitude of mice, which had almost destroyed the country, but that there resorted a great mighty flight of owls, that destroyed them. Anamnestes, read these ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various
... and he that was a Criminal one day, was made a Judge another. I shall never forget one of their Trials, which for the curiosity of it, I shall relate. The Judge got up into a tree, having a dirty tarpaulin over his shoulders for a robe, and a Thrum Cap upon his head, with a large pair of spectacles upon his nose, and a monkey bearing up his train, with abundance of Officers attending him, with crows and hand-spikes instead of wands and tip-staves in their hands. Before whom the Criminals were brought out, ...
— Pirates • Anonymous
... words. I do not think it strange that, when that great master of eloquence, Edmund Burke, stood where I now stand, he faltered and remained mute. Doubtless the multitude of thoughts which rushed into his mind was such as even he could not easily arrange or express. In truth there are few spectacles more striking or affecting than that which a great historical place of education presents on a solemn public day. There is something strangely interesting in the contrast between the venerable antiquity ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... as Mark had pictured him. Instead of the lithe enthusiast with flaming eyes he saw a heavily built man with blunted features, wearing powerful horn spectacles, his expression morose, his movements ungainly. He had, however, a mellow and strangely sympathetic voice, in which Mark fancied that he perceived the power he was reputed to wield over the soldiers for whose ...
— The Altar Steps • Compton MacKenzie
... their accession to power, they always said, "May you have the virtue and goodness of Trajan!" yet the deadly conflicts of gladiators who were trained to kill each other, to make sport for the spectators, furnished his chief pastime. At one time he kept up those spectacles for 123 days in succession. In the tortures which he inflicted on Christians, fire and poison, daggers and dungeons, wild beasts and serpents, and the rack, did their worst. He threw into the sea, Clemens, ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... "Bless my spectacles! Of course it wasn't! Now, look here. Tom, you just make up your mind that I know what I'm talking about, and we'll get along better. I don't blame you for being a bit puzzled at first, but just you listen. You believe there are such things ...
— Tom Swift in Captivity • Victor Appleton
... from looking on life through your spectacles!" cried she impetuously, stung by the contemptuous smile which curled his lips. "Amen." Taking his hands from her shoulder, he threw himself back into his chair. There was silence for some ...
— Beulah • Augusta J. Evans
... nailed up the bracket under an old etching and placed the cow thereon, and, after contemplating it over his spectacles, went into the drawing-room to tea with ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley
... gaoler, who wore spectacles to read with, glanced over them to assure himself that he had taken his place, and went through the list, making a similar short pause at each name. There were twenty-three names, but only twenty were responded to; for one of the prisoners so summoned had died ...
— A Tale of Two Cities - A Story of the French Revolution • Charles Dickens
... a paper out of his pocket, fixed a pair of spectacles on his nose, and studied the document intently—"Yes!—it reads in this way:—' Everything of which I die possessed to my son, Cyrillon Vergniaud, born out of wedlock, but as truly my son in the sight of God, as Ninette Bernadin was his mother, and ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... an odd-looking chap, tall and thin, with a long, lean face under a mop of black hair that was badly in need of trimming. His near-sighted eyes blinked from behind the round lenses of a pair of rubber-rimmed spectacles and his rather nondescript clothes seemed on the point ...
— Left End Edwards • Ralph Henry Barbour
... believe I should have welcomed the invitation, so weary was I of the monotony of the nights in our lodgings; and as for Miss Duncan, an invitation to tea was of itself a pure and unmixed honour, and one to be accepted with all becoming form and gratitude: so Mr. Dawson's sharp glances over his spectacles failed to detect anything but the truest pleasure, and ...
— Round the Sofa • Elizabeth Gaskell
... needs not only to replenish the physical substance of the organ by constant care, but to replenish all his dwindling stores of knowledge, ideas, and even of verbal resources. Among the older authors there were some who offered melancholy spectacles of mental exhaustion; and the practised reader knows how to look for particular features in their work, just as he looks for Wouvermans' white horse and Beaumont's brown tree. These literary spinners forget the example ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman
... such as ours, with paradigmatic and immaterial forms, and demiurgic intellections. But as the divine Plato says, it is the province of our soul to collect things into one by a reasoning process, and to possess a reminiscence of those transcendent spectacles, which we once beheld when governing the universe in conjunction with divinity. Boethus,[13] the peripatetic too, with whom it is proper to join Cornutus; thought that ideas are the same with universals in sensible natures. However, whether these universals are prior to particulars, they ...
— Introduction to the Philosophy and Writings of Plato • Thomas Taylor
... document. Porthos' procureur—and that was naturally the successor of Master Coquenard—commenced by slowly unfolding the vast parchment upon which the powerful hand of Porthos had traced his sovereign will. The seal broken—the spectacles put on—the preliminary cough having sounded—every one opened his ears. Mousqueton had squatted himself in a corner, the better to weep and the better to hear. All at once the folding-doors of ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... shoulders significantly, but made no response. In the ray of light which fell upon him, his gold-rimmed spectacles glinted, while his shrewd dark eyes twinkled behind them, as though he delighted in ...
— Hushed Up - A Mystery of London • William Le Queux
... snow from his leggings, made like his cap of yellow cloth, and from his knitted comforter, which allowed scarcely more of his face to be seen than a few tufts of grizzling beard and a pair of enormous green spectacles made as convex as the glass of a stereoscope. An alpenstock, knapsack, coil of rope worn in saltire, crampons and iron hooks hanging to the belt of an English blouse with broad pleats, completed the accoutrement of ...
— Tartarin On The Alps • Alphonse Daudet
... He advanced, and shook hands with his grandson as if he were greeting a distinguished member of the board of directors. Then he turned to his son, and shook hands with him also, solemnly. His eyes shone through his gold-rimmed spectacles, but his voice was ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various
... had been losing, observed the luck of her neighbour, a burly Dutchman, with envious eyes. With a remonstrance in every fingertip, a debonnaire Frenchman was laughingly upbraiding his fellow for giving him bad advice. From above his horn-rimmed spectacles an old gentleman in a blue suit watched the remorseless rake jerk his five pesetas into "the Bank" in evident annoyance. Cheek by jowl with a dainty Englishwoman, who reminded me irresistibly of a Dresden shepherdess, a Spanish Jew, who had won, was explosively disputing with a croupier the amount ...
— Jonah and Co. • Dornford Yates
... at a baker's shop to get a lunch. When I got through I offered the bill. The old Dutchman put on his spectacles, and he looked first at the bill, then at me. Then he threatened to have me arrested for passing bad money. I told him I'd go out in the back yard and settle it with him. I tell you, boy, I'd have knocked him out in one round, and he knew it, so ...
— Driven From Home - Carl Crawford's Experience • Horatio Alger
... very brilliant buckles gave the lie to the extreme poverty implied by the other portions of his dress. His head was bare, and entirely bald, with the exception of a hinder part, from which depended a queue of considerable length. A pair of green spectacles, with side glasses, protected his eyes from the influence of the light, and at the same time prevented our hero from ascertaining either their color or their conformation. About the entire person there was no evidence of a shirt, but a white cravat, of filthy appearance, ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 5 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... as the new day dawned, Murmuring some musical phrase; Horses were drinking and floundering in the pond, And the tired stars thinned their gaze; Yet these were not the spectacles at all that he conned, But an ...
— Moments of Vision • Thomas Hardy
... was dressed up like a clergyman, with a white necktie, broad-brimmed hat, and blue spectacles, and wrapped in a long black cloak. He carried a large book under his arm, and was a very good counterfeit of a missionary. He was rowed to the shore, where he would inform the natives that their old friend, Rev. ...
— The Land of the Kangaroo - Adventures of Two Youths in a Journey through the Great Island Continent • Thomas Wallace Knox
... the two representatives of the War Office in the House of Commons are singularly alike. When answering their daily catechism both wear spectacles—Mr. FORSTER an ordinary gold-rimmed pair, Mr. MACPHERSON the fearsome tortoise-shell variety which gives an air of antiquity to the most youthful countenance; and each, when he has to answer an awkward "supplementary," begins by carefully taking off his glasses and so giving himself an ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, February 28, 1917 • Various
... and handkerchiefs. I never saw anything to equal his ingenuity in ferreting out such articles, and his incorrigible mischief in destroying them. I chained him in the yard after he had torn my father's silk hat into shreds, and made off with his favorite spectacles. Whether he wore them or not I don't know; he chewed up the case; the glasses no man thereafter saw. I couldn't endure his piteous cries for reconciliation while he was in banishment, so I gave him away to a friend who was suffering from an ...
— Camp and Trail - A Story of the Maine Woods • Isabel Hornibrook
... carts, banged and stroked and tinkled enthusiastically by crew after crew of maddened tympanists. And then came the others, on foot: tambourines and wood blocks and parade cymbals and castanets. At the tail of this portion of the Procession came a single old man wearing spectacles and riding in a small cart drawn by a donkey. He had white hair and he was playing on a series of water-glasses filled to various levels. His ear was cocked toward the glasses with painstaking care. He was entirely inaudible ...
— Pagan Passions • Gordon Randall Garrett
... insisted, should drive away old John and the cows, so that Dorothy should have less care. The mother was packed into the chaise with a vast collection of wraps, which almost obliterated Jimmy. As they started, Dorothy ran out in the rain with her mother's spectacles and the five letters, which always lay in a box on the table by her bed. Evesham took her gently by the arms and lifted her back across ...
— In Exile and Other Stories • Mary Hallock Foote
... ceremonies, borrowed from Byzantine pomp, had been established since Charles the Great, and had remained essentially the same, although, in the course of time, many details had been altered and others had been introduced. The magnificence of these spectacles is no longer rivalled by the pageantry of our days. The multitudes of dukes and counts, of bishops and abbots, knights and nobles with their retinues, the splendor of their attire, the strangeness of their faces and their tongues, the martial array of warriors, the ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 5 • Various
... a pair of spectacles and bent down over the tray; and at this moment I felt Ruth's hand touch my arm, lightly, at first, and then with a strong, nervous grasp; and I could feel that her hand was trembling. I looked round at her anxiously and saw that she ...
— The Vanishing Man • R. Austin Freeman
... that green spectacles would meet your case. Then the cats which are now white would appear to you green ...
— The Grey Brethren and Other Fragments in Prose and Verse • Michael Fairless
... search, found a dingy house in a court and over it a sign on which were painted three balls and the name of Jacob Smith. Emlyn dismounted and, the door being open, entered, to be greeted by an old, white-bearded man with horn spectacles thrust up over his forehead and dark eyes like her own, since the same gypsy blood ran ...
— The Lady Of Blossholme • H. Rider Haggard
... with so much pride! How he had contrived to pacify her—lie upon lie he must have had recourse to—I know not. He was indebted also to his poor washerwoman in five or six shillings for at least a quarter's washing; and owed five times that amount to a little old tailor, who, with huge spectacles on his nose, turned up to him, out of a little cupboard which he occupied in Closet Court, and which Titmouse had to pass whenever he went to or from his lodgings, a lean, sallow, wrinkled face, imploring him to "settle his small account." All the cash in hand which he had to meet ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
... professional enthusiast would call a "lovely case" of filaria, the entire white of one eye being full of the active little worms and a ridge of surplus population migrating across the bridge of the nose into the other eye, under the skin, looking like the bridge of a pair of spectacles. It was past eleven before I had anything like done, and my men had long been sound asleep, but the chief had conscientiously sat up and seen the thing through. He then went and fetched some rolls of bark cloth to put on my plank, and I gave him a handsome cloth I happened ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... most cases she could give the names and ages of the children. The picture given of her in this volume is a copy from a daguerrotype taken when she was ninety-two years old. For several years before her demise she did not use spectacles, and could read ordinary print with ease, or do fine needlework. She retained her faculties to the last, and died at ...
— Life in Canada Fifty Years Ago • Canniff Haight
... wore knee-pants and ever so thick spectacles with a half-moon cut in 'em," resumed the narrator, "and he carried a tin box strung to a strap I took for his lunch till it flew open on him and a horn toad hustled out. Then I was sure he was a botanist—or whatever yu' say they're called. Well, he would have owl eggs—them ...
— The Virginian - A Horseman Of The Plains • Owen Wister
... chin, their black silk stock, and an authoritative demeanor acquired from a habit of command in circumstances requiring despotic rapidity. There was nothing of the old man in the Baron, it must be admitted; his sight was still so good, that he could read without spectacles; his handsome oval face, framed in whiskers that were indeed too black, showed a brilliant complexion, ruddy with the veins that characterize a sanguine temperament; and his stomach, kept in order by a ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... True!" This dealer in lumber read through large goggles, and when he had decided to admit he knew you were in his shop he bent his head, and questioned you steadily but without a word over the top of his spectacles. If you showed no real interest in what you proposed to buy he ...
— Waiting for Daylight • Henry Major Tomlinson
... a beautiful old lady with gold spectacles and enormous white cap. She thanked Rosa for the eggs, gave her delicious tea with strawberries, cream, and cakes, and then said, 'You can play in the garden until the bell rings. Only do ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... and awful effects—volcanic spectacles of nightmare and eruption. A black sheet of eccentric shape rose out of the caldron and descended upon the three children, who had ...
— Penrod • Booth Tarkington
... this informality," he said, blinking through his great spectacles, which had dust on them: "but time was by ill luck arrested hereabouts on a Thursday evening, and so the maid is out indefinitely. I would suggest, therefore, that the lady wait outside upon the porch. For the neighbors to see her go in ...
— Jurgen - A Comedy of Justice • James Branch Cabell
... ventures to offer an opinion upon this abstruse subject in any circle where he is not known to be profoundly read in either Arabic or Sanskrit lore; nor would he venture to give a prescription without first consulting, 'spectacles on nose', a book as large as a church Bible. The educated class, as indeed all classes, say that they do not want our physicians, but stand much in need of our surgeons. Here they feel that they are helpless, and we are strong; and ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... the usual variety of people on the ship. The rich family travelin' with children and servants and unlimited baggage; the party of school girls with the slim talkative teacher in spectacles, tellin' 'em all the pints of interest, and stuffin' 'em with knowledge gradual but constant; the stiddy goin' business men and the fashionable ones; the married flirt and the newly married bride ...
— Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife • Marietta Holley
... there's the miscellany," he writes, "an apron for Stella, a pound of chocolate, without sugar, for Stella, a fine snuff-rasp of ivory, given me by Mrs. St. John for Dingley, and a large roll of tobacco which she must hide or cut shorter out of modesty, and four pair of spectacles for the Lord knows who." The tobacco was clearly not for smoking, but for Dingley to operate upon with the snuff-rasp, and so supply herself with snuff—a luxury, which in those days, was as much enjoyed and as universally used by women as ...
— The Social History of Smoking • G. L. Apperson
... not lose sight of the fact that the Indio is a child badly educated, but a big child completely developed in his passions. He acts not from conscience but from fear; he is moved not by reasons but by impressions; a friend of novelties and spectacles, he acts to the tune of the various impressions which he receives. Naturally he is inconstant and flighty, desiring one thing and another, now liking what he formerly disliked, without firmness nor stability in anything, without knowing many times what to like, nor what befits ...
— The Legacy of Ignorantism • T.H. Pardo de Tavera
... Ansarey were faithful to such deities. The marvel was why men should ever have deserted them. But man had deserted them, and man was unhappy. All, Eva, Tancred, his own consciousness, the surrounding spectacles of his life, assured him that man was unhappy, degraded, or discontented; at all events, miserable. He was not surprised that a Syrian should be unhappy, even a Syrian prince, for he had no career; he was not surprised that the ...
— Tancred - Or, The New Crusade • Benjamin Disraeli
... seen one of the most extraordinary spectacles in the history of modern literature. Two houseless Hebrew youths might be discovered, in the moonlit streets of Berlin, sitting in retired corners, or on the steps of some porch, the one instructing the other, with a Euclid ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... have spoken, the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries witnessed the invention or wide application of a considerable number of practical devices which were unknown to the Greeks and Romans. Examples of these are, besides printing, the compass, gunpowder, spectacles, and a method of not merely softening but of thoroughly melting iron so that it could ...
— An Introduction to the History of Western Europe • James Harvey Robinson
... attentively to the preaching and exhortations of Father Olmedo; but their faith in their own gods was unshaken, the bloody sacrifices were carried on as usual in the temples, and these horrible spectacles naturally excited the wrath and indignation of the Spaniards to the utmost; although they themselves had, in Cuba and the islands, put to death great numbers of the natives in pursuance of their own ...
— By Right of Conquest - Or, With Cortez in Mexico • G. A. Henty
... seated, gentlemen. [He puts on his spectacles and begins to read slowly.] "Imprirmis; whereas, my nephew, Francis Millington, by his disobedience and ungrateful conduct, has shown himself unworthy of my bounty, and incapable of managing my large estate, I do ...
— McGuffey's Fifth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... "clever actors used to declaim, under a mask, the verses of Euripides and Menander. Now they no longer recite dramas, they act in dumb show; and of the divine spectacles with which Bacchus was honoured in Athens, we have kept nothing but what a barbarian—a Scythian even—could understand—attitude and gesture. The tragic mask, the mouth of which was provided with metal tongues that increased the sound of the voice; the ...
— Thais • Anatole France
... His career was short; he could not even retain his influence. As the English people wearied of the yoke of a Puritan Protector, and hankered for their old pleasures, so the Florentines remembered the sports and spectacles and fetes of the old Medicean rule. Savonarola had arrayed against himself the enemies of popular liberty, the patrons of demoralizing excitements, the partisans of the banished Medici, and even the friends and counsellors ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VI • John Lord
... went into a poorly furnished watchmaker's shop, but the lady there could do nothing for my watch. She told me that, being an optician in a small way as well, she had had a whole stock of spectacles and glasses. When the Germans came through the town in October, they demanded fieldglasses. The few ones she had they stole, and then because she had no more they stole her watchmaker's tools, and swept all the spectacles and glasses and watches on to the ...
— The Doings of the Fifteenth Infantry Brigade - August 1914 to March 1915 • Edward Lord Gleichen
... of dramatic literature the increase of scenic spectacles and of scenic pomp went hand in hand. Dramatic representations obtained their regular place in the public life not only of the capital but also of the country towns; the former also now at length acquired by means of Pompeius a permanent theatre (699;(12)), and the Campanian ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... manifest advantage from having all the States, South as well as North, fully represented, making it the first real "National" convention to assemble, it was said, since 1860. Besides, it was a picturesque convention, full of striking contrasts and unique spectacles. In the hotel lobbies Weed and Richmond, walking together, seemed ubiquitous as they dominated the management and arranged the details. Raymond and Church sat side by side in the committee on resolutions, while the delegates from Massachusetts and South Carolina, for ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... was short and round, with a fat face that seemed remarkably good- natured. He was clothed all in green and wore a high, peaked green hat upon his head and green spectacles over his eyes. Bowing before ...
— The Marvelous Land of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... convinced the new-comer was the main-spring of the change; called a suit in consequence against the father-in-law;—and it was the son-in-law who appeared for the defence. I saw him there, seated at his ease, with spectacles on brow; still young, much of a gentleman in looks, and dressed in faultless European clothes; and presently, for my good fortune, he rose to address the court. It appears he has already stood for the Hawaiian parliament; but the people (I was told) ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... at him through her spectacles one minute, and two, and three; and then she said, "He's sick; and a bairn's a bairn, ...
— The Water-Babies - A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby • Charles Kingsley
... eagerly, for the carriages they had left in quest of better stations. Here, a little knot gathered round a pea and thimble table to watch the plucking of some unhappy greenhorn; and there, another proprietor with his confederates in various disguises—one man in spectacles; another, with an eyeglass and a stylish hat; a third, dressed as a farmer well to do in the world, with his top-coat over his arm and his flash notes in a large leathern pocket-book; and all with ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... from town to town collecting the king's taxes, that he noted down those bits of inn and wayside life and character that abound in the pages of "Don Quixote:" the Benedictine monks with spectacles and sunshades, mounted on their tall mules; the strollers in costume bound for the next village; the barber with his basin on his head, on his way to bleed a patient; the recruit with his breeches in his bundle, tramping along the road singing; the reapers ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... end. "Seven doors from the Cheshire Cat public house under the railway bridge. I used to take my lunch there when my business called me to the city. Cloete would come in to have his chop and make the girl laugh. No need to talk much, either, for that. Nothing but the way he would twinkle his spectacles on you and give a twitch of his thick mouth was enough to start you off before he began one of his little tales. ...
— Within the Tides • Joseph Conrad
... was probably ever before accumulated by a Virginia farmer or a lawyer beginning life without patrimony; and when wealth was obtained, living with that modesty and simplicity so becoming to great genius and great wealth, ever looking with just contempt on that most piteous of all spectacles, the spectacle of lofty genius debruised and debased by the accursed thirst for gold; and presenting in all the private relations of life an example which may be held up for the imitation of the old and the young. When you have ...
— Discourse of the Life and Character of the Hon. Littleton Waller Tazewell • Hugh Blair Grigsby
... weather, they a wild unwinged stork-flight, through the astonished country, wend their way. Travellers of all sorts they stop; especially travellers or couriers from Paris. Deputy Lechapelier, in his elegant vesture, from his elegant vehicle, looks forth amazed through his spectacles; apprehensive for life;—states eagerly that he is Patriot-Deputy Lechapelier, and even Old-President Lechapelier, who presided on the Night of Pentecost, and is original member of the Breton Club. ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... Justice In fair round Belly, with good Capon lin'd, With Eyes severe, and Beard of formal Cut, Full of wise Saws and modern Instances; And so he plays his Part. The sixth Age shifts Into the lean and slipper'd Pantaloon, With Spectacles on Nose, and Pouch on Side; His youthful Hose, well sav'd, a world too wide For his shrunk Shank; and his big manly Voice Turning again tow'rd childish treble Pipes, And Whistles in his Sound. Last Scene of all, That ...
— Some Account of the Life of Mr. William Shakespear (1709) • Nicholas Rowe
... old gentleman was sitting at a table writing,—gray hair, spectacles, white neck-cloth, black clothes,—just as if he had never either doffed or donned himself since he went away. But before Joe could put out his hand, or say a civil word to him, he glinted up at Joe through his spectacles very fierce like, and grunted out ...
— The Squire of Sandal-Side - A Pastoral Romance • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... mothers, women who shall realize that the highest, grandest, mightiest institution on earth is the home. It is not necessary that they should have the same old-time manners of the country farm-house, or wear the old-fashioned cap and spectacles and apron that her glorified ancestry wore; but I mean the old spirit which began with the Hannahs and the Mother Lois and the Abigails of Scripture days, and was demonstrated on the homestead where some of us were reared, though the old house long ago was pulled ...
— The Wedding Ring - A Series of Discourses for Husbands and Wives and Those - Contemplating Matrimony • T. De Witt Talmage
... dark blue coat with a strap round the waist, sat respectfully beside him. Ovsyanikov always had a nap after dinner and visited the bath-house on Saturdays; he read none but religious books and used gravely to fix his round silver spectacles on his nose when he did so; he got up, and went to bed early. He shaved his beard, however, and wore his hair in the German style. He always received visitors cordially and affably, but he did not bow down to the ground, nor fuss over them and press them to partake of every ...
— A Sportsman's Sketches - Works of Ivan Turgenev, Vol. I • Ivan Turgenev
... Doumer as the Republican candidate to fill it. M. Doumer's friend, M. Floquet, was not then at the head of the Government, and General Boulanger was still in command of his army-corps at Clermont, coming up to Paris, as the Government affirmed, disguised and wearing blue spectacles, to organise political mischief, and generally making himself a terror and a trouble to the 'true Republicans,' who had made a great man of him ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... 'good situation,' which had so often been mentioned to me, when one morning I was summoned into the steward's office—a mysterious and frightful place to us children. He himself was a stout, dirty man, wearing large blue spectacles and a black silk skullcap; and from morning until night, summer and winter, he sat writing at a desk behind a little grating, hung with green curtains. Round the room were ranged the registers, in which our names were recorded and our appearances described, together ...
— The Count's Millions - Volume 1 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... turned for consolation in his remote solitude.—Perhaps to another, the novelty of the scene, the differences of mind and manners might have atoned for a want of social and literary agremens: but Sir James is one of those who see nature through the spectacles of books. He might like to read an account of India; but India itself with its burning, shining face would be a mere blank, an endless waste to him. To persons of this class of mind things must be translated into words, visible images ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt
... he saw, engaged in conversation with Zabulon, a man of about forty, of short stature, somewhat round shouldered with spectacles. He wore a high silk hat, a loose coat and a large golden chain across his waistcoat. In a somewhat sing-song voice he was speaking of the greatness of Buenos Aires, of the future that awaited those of his race in that city, of the good business he had done. The affectionate attention with ...
— Luna Benamor • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... curtains in front that afternoon when Beth crept out of the attic window on to the roof, and she was paralysed with horror for a moment, expecting to see the child roll off into the street. She was a sensible woman, however, and quickly recovering herself, she ran across the road, with her spectacles on, and rapped at Mrs. Caldwell's door. Beth, hacking away at the lead with the carving-knife, did not heed the rap. Presently, however, she heard hurried footsteps on the stairs, and climbed back into the attic incontinently, ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... bridegroom. Count Saito was a small, wise man, whom long sojourn in European countries had to some extent de-orientalised. His hair was grizzled, his face was seamed, and he had a peering way of gazing through his gold-rimmed spectacles with head thrust forward like a man half blind, which he ...
— Kimono • John Paris
... in the mirror, and held for a moment fascinated. In that brief space of time the revelation and recognition were completed. Dr. Ravenshaw's glance was the first to break away. The hard brown eyes watching him followed the direction of his view to a pair of spectacles resting on the table. Thalassa understood the intention, and harshly ...
— The Moon Rock • Arthur J. Rees
... her own counsel did look at her. Joseph Mason opposite and Dockwrath fixed their gaze closely upon her. Sir Richard Leatherham and Mr. Steelyard turned their eyes towards her, probably without meaning to do so. The judge looked over his spectacles at her. Even Mr. Aram glanced round at her surreptitiously; and Lucius turned his face upon his mother's, almost with an air of triumph. But she bore it all without flinching;—bore it all without flinching, though the state of her mind at that moment must have been pitiable. ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope
... are "tragedies of blood." There is no likeness of plot, characterization, action or diction. There is in "Titus" none of Kyd's "huffing, bragging, puft" language. A ghost concludes "Jeronimo" whose "hopes have end in their effects" "when blood and sorrow finish my desires," "these were spectacles to please my soul." In "Titus," even the Satanic Aaron, "in the whirlwind of passion," "acquires and begets a temperance" that "gives ...
— The Critics Versus Shakspere - A Brief for the Defendant • Francis A. Smith
... they have turned up," said a very big man with spectacles—a big man in more ways than one. And a note went down in red ink in a particular page of a huge index, to appear duly printed in the next edition of that portentous volume. Only, after the note, there ...
— Letters from France • C. E. W. Bean
... man laid down his book, and stood in the kitchen doorway. He was in his shirt-sleeves, his spectacles ...
— Tom Grogan • F. Hopkinson Smith
... tall and wide high-posted bedstead, and in the very middle of it sat an elderly woman drawn up into the smallest compass into which she could possibly compress herself. Her eyes were closed, her jaws were dropped, her spectacles hung in front of her mouth, her gray hair straggled over her eyes, and her skin was of ...
— A Bicycle of Cathay • Frank R. Stockton
... her a diagram on which the enemy was represented by a series of black dots and our soldiers by a series of red dots, she took the paper and tore it in two. And worst of all when the old scholar who was teaching her Turkish—for a princess must be able to speak all languages—dropped his horn spectacles on the floor, she deliberately stepped on them and ...
— The Laughing Prince - Jugoslav Folk and Fairy Tales • Parker Fillmore
... in remembrance of her past glories, perhaps, because the imaginary Voices told her. For this relapse into the sorcery and heresy and anything else you like, she was sentenced to be burnt to death. And, in the market-place of Rouen, in the hideous dress which the monks had invented for such spectacles; with priests and bishops sitting in a gallery looking on, though some had the Christian grace to go away, unable to endure the infamous scene; this shrieking girl—last seen amidst the smoke and fire, holding a crucifix ...
— A Child's History of England • Charles Dickens
... anchor in the little inlet called Watson's Bay. The gig was soon sent alongside, and we were speedily on board. I was delighted to see Tom looking so much better, though he was still obliged to wear a pair of green spectacles. After a somewhat lengthy inspection of the yacht Lord and Lady Carrington and party returned to town, and ...
— The Last Voyage - to India and Australia, in the 'Sunbeam' • Lady (Annie Allnutt) Brassey
... the door of the magician's shop, he was busy with some scraps of leather. Around him were bottomless chairs, topless tables, and melancholy sofas with sagging springs exposed to view, and in one corner a tall, empty clock-case. With his spectacles on the tip of his nose and a pair of large shears in his hand, Morgan might have sat for the picture of some wonder-working genius. Looking up, he discovered his visitors, and a smile illumined his rugged face, ...
— Mr. Pat's Little Girl - A Story of the Arden Foresters • Mary F. Leonard
... said simply. For a moment she blinked up at him bewilderedly through brass-rimmed spectacles, and then she put her arms around him and bent back to look up at him again. Then, still without a word, she led him on tiptoe to an open door ...
— In Happy Valley • John Fox
... from heat, cold and thirst. I also believe that hooding the eyes with this article, Badawi-fashion, produces a sensation of coolness, at any rate a marked difference of apparent temperature; somewhat like a pair of dark spectacles or looking at the sea from a sandy shore. (Pilgrimage i., 210 and 346.) The woman's "Lisam" (chin-veil) or Yashmak is ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... our departure, as we had feared they might, and in a short time we had become so absorbed in the strange spectacles of the narrow streets, lined with shops and filled with people on foot, while small air ships continually passed just above the roofs, that we forgot the necessity of keeping our landmark constantly in view, and ...
— A Columbus of Space • Garrett P. Serviss
... to see the potatoes on (for the new cook simply made "kettlefuls of fish" of every thing put upon the fire), and now at her husband's call she went to her work-box for his spectacles, which he was not allowed to wear except on Sundays, for fear of injuring his eyesight. Equipped with these, and drawing nearer to the window, the lawyer gradually made out this: first a broad faint line of red, as if some attorney, now a ghost, had cut his finger, and ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... female's sperit a little, and wuz walkin' along quite comfortable in mind when like an arrow out of a bo, the old pain and anxiety stabbed me afresh. Another hour gone and Josiah Allen not found! What shall I do? Where shall I turn the eyes of my spectacles? Jest as I wuz askin' this question to my troubled soul I hearn a boy speak to another one about a futur' state of punishment in sich a vulgar and familiar way that I turned round to once, carryin' out my roll of Promisicous Adviser, and I sez, "You wicked boys you, to talk ...
— Samantha at Coney Island - and a Thousand Other Islands • Marietta Holley
... was doubtless connected with the place where his childhood was passed. Eleusis was the centre of the most famous worship of Demeter, with its processions, its ceremonies, its mysteries, its impressive spectacles and nocturnal rites; and these were intimately connected with the Greek beliefs about the human soul, ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... a long while at one of the copyists—an old man, decrepit and almost blind, with heavy convex spectacles that gave him the appearance of a sea-monster, whose hands trembled with senile unsteadiness. Renovales recognized him. Twenty years before, when he used to study in the Museo, he had seen him in the same spot, always copying Los Borrachos. Even if he should become completely ...
— Woman Triumphant - (La Maja Desnuda) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... solved all the difficulties which these imposing narratives place in the way of theologians. M. Carriere was rather inclined to laugh at his sanguine ideas, and compared his efforts to those of an old woman who tries to thread her needle by holding it tight between the lamp and her spectacles. At last the cotton passes so close to the eye of the needle that she says "I have done it now!"—'Not so, though she was scarcely a hairsbreadth off; but ...
— Recollections of My Youth • Ernest Renan
... service than the Turks in case it came to fighting over a small area like the Gallipoli Peninsula: he begged, therefore, that whatever else we got, or did not get, we might be fitted out with a contingent of up-to-date aeroplanes, pilots and observers. K. turned on him with flashing spectacles and rent him with ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume I • Ian Hamilton
... instructions for the concert at his Ferragosto on the first of August; and—most vexatious of all—a couple of goldsmiths came with their work, and with rival models of a button for the Pontifical cope. Giuseppe fumed and fretted while the Holy Father put on his spectacles to examine the great silver vase which was to receive the droppings from his table, its richly chased handles and its festoons of acanthus leaves, and its ingenious masks; and its fellow which was to stand in his cupboard and hold water, and had a beautiful design representing ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... the people down and under by mental suppression—by the engine of superstition—were cheaper and more effective than to employ force or resort to the old-time methods of shows, spectacles, pensions and costly diversions. When the Church took on the functions of the State, and sought to substitute the gentle Christ for Caesar, she had to recast the teachings of Christ. Then for the first time coercion and love ...
— Little Journeys To The Homes Of Great Teachers • Elbert Hubbard
... permitted by his eldest son to be a witness of, was this day to be exposed to the view of his friends; was to be cried over; and was finally to be deposited in the tomb of his ancestors. As this was one of their imposing spectacles which I had never yet seen, I was anxious to witness it. We soon got a boat ready, and a party of us joined the throng, and proceeded with them to the village. Upon our arrival thither, we found an immense concourse of people assembled; for here, ...
— A Narrative of a Nine Months' Residence in New Zealand in 1827 • Augustus Earle
... of spectators was introduced; and twelve years later the capture of several elephants in the first Punic war proved the means of introducing the chase, or rather the slaughter, of wild beasts into the Roman circus. The taste for these spectacles increased of course with its indulgence, and their magnificence with the wealth of the city and the increasing facility and inducement to practice bribery which was offered by the increased extent of provinces subject to ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... difficult to believe—yet true—that amidst all this tumult and terror of noise one German prisoner was taken as he sat very calmly in his dug-out reading a book of religious meditations through gold-rimmed spectacles. Perhaps it was the man—I only guess—in whose pocket-book was found a letter to his wife saying, "The position here is hellish, and death is certain. I only pray that ...
— The Better Germany in War Time - Being some Facts towards Fellowship • Harold Picton
... Marfa observed that, from the day of the burial, he devoted himself to "religion," and took to reading the Lives of the Saints, for the most part sitting alone and in silence, and always putting on his big, round, silver-rimmed spectacles. He rarely read aloud, only perhaps in Lent. He was fond of the Book of Job, and had somehow got hold of a copy of the sayings and sermons of "the God-fearing Father Isaac the Syrian," which he read persistently for years together, understanding ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... idleness, or time lost, provided they are the pleasures of a rational being; on the contrary, a certain portion of your time, employed in those pleasures, is very usefully employed. Such are public spectacles, assemblies of good company, cheerful suppers, and even balls; but then, these require attention, or else your time is ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... work drop for a moment into her lap, and gazed over her spectacles at Frau von Treumann. "Wirklich?" she said in a voice of deep interest. "Those ...
— The Benefactress • Elizabeth Beauchamp
... having the time of his life, and so busy was he at it that his attention was not attracted by the opening of a door in the nearby white house and the sudden appearance of an elderly, grim-looking woman behind a pair of gold-rimmed spectacles; brandishing a long, swinging buggy whip, with broad, bright bands here and there along its length. Rushing toward ...
— Watch Yourself Go By • Al. G. Field
... and Jimmy the good times had begun already. The five Dunlees entered the house, little Eddo clinging fast to Jimmum's forefinger. They passed an old lady who sat on the veranda knitting. She gazed after them through her spectacles, and said to Mr. Templeton ...
— Jimmy, Lucy, and All • Sophie May
... people he governed. "When I entered the world, in 1807," said Guizot, "chaos had reigned for a long time; the excitement of 1789 had entirely disappeared; and society, being completely occupied in settling itself, thought no more of the character of its amusements; the spectacles of force had replaced for it the aspirations towards liberty. In the midst of the general reaction, the faithful heirs of the literary salons of the eighteenth century remained the only strangers in them. The mistakes and disasters of the ...
— Worlds Best Histories - France Vol 7 • M. Guizot and Madame Guizot De Witt
... tongue. Lord Stawell, a Tory peer, who could not conceal his horror at the remorseless manner in which his poor neighbours were butchered, was punished by having a corpse suspended in chains at his park gate. [446] In such spectacles originated many tales of terror, which were long told over the cider by the Christmas fires of the farmers of Somersetshire. Within the last forty years, peasants, in some districts, well knew the accursed spots, and passed them unwillingly ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... lay a crumpled parchment." The Grand Chew Chew felt in the sleeve of his kimono and brought out a bit of crumpled silver paper, and adjusting his horn spectacles, read slowly. ...
— The Royal Book of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... got a black suit, my sonnies, and a white tie, and a soft hat that looks large on the head, but can be folded and stowed in your tail pocket." Complacency shone over the speaker's shrivelled cheeks, and beamed from his horn-spectacles. "You can tell 'en at a glance for a Circuit-man ...
— The Delectable Duchy • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... to the drawing-room he found it filled with the sound of talk and laughter. But it was a talk and laughter in which the Grosville family seemed to have itself but little part. Lady Grosville sat stiffly on an early Victorian sofa, her spectacles on her nose, reading the Times of the preceding day, or appearing to read it. Amy Grosville, the eldest girl, was busy in a corner, putting the finishing touches to a piece of illumination; while Caroline, seated on the floor, was showing the small child of a neighbor how to put a picture-puzzle ...
— The Marriage of William Ashe • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... silver spectacles upon his nose. "Yes," he said, "the Princess: very right. But the warrant, madam, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... were not in dread of being robbed or persecuted by the governor of the mines, they ventured to produce them in open day. These cottons of Malabar are dyed of remarkably bright and gaudy colours; and, when the slaves appeared decked in them, it was to me one of the gayest spectacles I ever beheld. They were dancing with a degree of animation of which, till then, I never ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... age, the worthy Jesuit Martin Martini, the author of the admirable Atlas Sinensis, one whose honourable zeal to maintain Polo's veracity, of which he was one of the first intelligent advocates, is apt, it must be confessed, a little to colour his own spectacles:—"That the cosmographers of Europe may no longer make such ridiculous errors as to the QUINSAI of Marco Polo, I will here give you the very place. [He then explains the name.] ... And to come to the point; this is the very city that hath ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... a wallet which bore the signs of long wear, and, opening it, deliberately drew out a folded sheet of note paper, grown yellow with age and brittle with much handling. Then, adjusting his spectacles, he added: "Here's something I'd like to read to you, Albert. It's written by ...
— Five Hundred Dollars - or, Jacob Marlowe's Secret • Horatio Alger
... a dead silence. Then Brian staggered as if he would have fallen, and caught at Percival's arm. But the weakness was only for a moment. He said, simply, "I thank God," and stood erect again. Mr. Colquhoun put on his spectacles and stared at him. Angela, pale to the lips, did not move; Hugo's head was still resting against her shoulder. It was Brian's voice that broke the silence, and there was pity and kindliness ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... drawing-room at the Tuileries, next to the Throne Room, when the Minister of the Interior, M. Thiers, burst in like a whirlwind, and, beckoning to my two brothers and me, led us into the embrasure of a window. "My dear princes," said he, looking at us over his spectacles, "it is more than likely there will be an attempt on the life of the King, your father, to-day. We have been warned from several quarters. They say there will be an infernal machine somewhere near the Ambigu Theatre. It ...
— Memoirs • Prince De Joinville
... him seated on the side of his bed, with his little black silk cap, his spectacles, and the well-worn volume, which he never ceased perusing. Every morning, the first rays of the sun rested on his bed, always to him a fresh subject of rejoicing and thankfulness to God. To witness his gratitude, one might have supposed that the sun ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 443 - Volume 17, New Series, June 26, 1852 • Various
... countless birds with which the neighbourhood abounded. The dances of the aphish-looking Nautch girls, dressed though they were in magnificent brocades, gave Burton disgust rather than pleasure. The Gaikwar, whose state processions were gorgeous to a wonder, occasionally inaugurated spectacles like those of the old Roman arena, and we hear of fights between various wild animals. "Cocking" was universal, and Burton, who as a lad had patronised this cruel sport, himself kept a fighter—"Bhujang"—of which he speaks affectionately, as one might of an only child. The account of the ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... the little Irishman made him drop the shoe he was at work upon and glare at her over his spectacles, and with his scant reddish hair ruffled up. This, with his whiskers, made him ...
— The Corner House Girls at School • Grace Brooks Hill
... and sat on the fence. He saw old Stephen Strong close his book, place his spectacles on it, and kneel down by his chair. The old man remained on his knees for some time and then, taking up his candle, left the kitchen. The man on the fence still sat there. Truth to tell, he was chuckling to himself as he recalled ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1902 to 1903 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... But an officious sacriledge commits. How my tears strive to do thee fairer right, And from the characters divide my sight. Untill it (dimmer) a new torrent swells, And what obscur'd it, falls my spectacles Let the luxurious floods impulsive rise, As they would not be wept, but weep the eyes, The while earth melts, and we above it lye But the weak bubbles of mortalitie; Until our griefs are drawn up by the Sun, And that (too) drop the exhalation. How in thy dust we humble now our ...
— Lucasta • Richard Lovelace
... nothing is done until that is done, some release from their intolerable subjection to sex, so that for us everything else in life, respect, freedom, social standing, is entirely secondary to that. But what has to be done? We women do not know. Our efforts to know are among the most desolating of spectacles. I read the papers of those suffrage women; the effect is more like agitated geese upon a common than anything human has a right to be.... That's why I turn to you. Years ago I felt, and now I know, there is about you a simplicity of mind, a foolishness ...
— The Passionate Friends • Herbert George Wells
... more reminded of thee, dear Italy, I threw a large cloak over my hunch, and a huge pair of spectacles over my nose, and ensconced myself in a box at the Haymarket Theatre, to witness the fourth appearance of my rival puppet, Charles Kean, in Romeo. He is an actor! What a deep voice—what an interesting lisp—what a charming whine—what a vigorous ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, July 24, 1841 • Various
... his spectacles and looked at the little hirelings more critically. Their youth and diminutive size had been a shock to him. He had expected bouncing children with rosy faces, long auburn hair, and a good deal of well-developed leg showing beneath a short frock. These, measured against ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various
... smaller, and had a brown beard about four or five inches below his chin (motioning with her hand). "Dok-took" was a short man, with a big stomach and red beard, about the same length as "Agloocar's." All three wore spectacles, not snow goggles, but, as the interpreters said, all ...
— Schwatka's Search • William H. Gilder
... seated in his little study, clad in his dark camlet[1] robe of knowledge, with his black velvet cap, after the manner of Boerhaave,[2] Van Helmont,[3] and other medical sages, a pair of green spectacles set in black horn upon his clubbed nose, and poring over a German folio that reflected back the darkness of his physiognomy. The doctor listened to their statement of the symptoms of Wolfert's malady with profound attention, but when ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne |
