"Varnish" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... come out of that and get into the canoe, he wept bitter tears of repentance and vowed that never, never, never, as long as he lived would he ever again let liquor touch his lips. A frame of mind which lasted in strength for nearly one day and a half, and did not entirely varnish ...
— Rolf In The Woods • Ernest Thompson Seton
... ship-carpenter's ax, and the whiteness of the fresh wood. The square sails have been rent, and mended with seams and patches; the sides and bulwarks of the vessel have been buffeted by heavy seas off the Newfoundland coast; the paint and varnish which shone on them as she dropped down the reaches of the Zuyder Zee from Amsterdam, five months ago, have become whitened with salt and dulled by fog and sun and driving spray. Across her stern, above the rudder of ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... the profound aversion which the mere name inspired in the monarch. He pushed this hatred so far that, having one day noticed from the heights of his balcony a superb new equipage, of which the body was painted with orange-coloured varnish, he sent and asked the name of the owner; and, on their reporting to him that this coach belonged to a provincial intendant, a relative of the Chancellor, his Majesty said, the same evening, to the magistrate-minister: "Your relative ought to ...
— The Memoirs of Madame de Montespan, Complete • Madame La Marquise De Montespan
... where I stand. That is what I am getting at. That is what I am naturally anxious to make clear to you now that we have intermarried, now that you are my stepson-in-law. You're young, you know, you're young, and you're hard and fast. Only years can give a mind tone—mitigate the varnish of education. I gather from this letter—and your face—that you are one of the party that participated in that ...
— Love and Mr. Lewisham • H. G. Wells
... at the beautiful little boat glistening and brown in its varnish, with its three little fenders hanging on either side to protect it from chafing against boat-side or pier, and its rowlocks of highly polished gun-metal, and then lost sight of it ...
— Jack at Sea - All Work and no Play made him a Dull Boy • George Manville Fenn
... mixter uv the more desprit variety he hed picked up in Washinton and Baltimore, I felt that it wuz indeed well with us. He wuz talkin ez a Dimokrat to Dimokrats; and it wuz appreciated. Strippin off all uv the disguise he hed bin a wearin for four years,—washin off, in rage and whisky, the varnish and putty with wich he hed shined up his dullness, and filled up the cracks and cavities wich hed alluz troubled him,—he stood forth ez we knowd him—Androo Johnson! How he did froth and foam! How he did lash his late associates! and how those Dimokrats ...
— "Swingin Round the Cirkle." • Petroleum V. Nasby
... the necessary materials were stacked at the front of the room. The kids sat in a half circle, their brows furrowed in concentration as lumber, nails and hammers moved under the guidance of their minds. When they had finished, the table was complete, even to the sanding and a coat of varnish. ...
— Stopover • William Gerken
... it is used as an insulator and dielectric. Its alcoholic solution is used to varnish glass plates of influence machines, for the coils of induction coils and ...
— The Standard Electrical Dictionary - A Popular Dictionary of Words and Terms Used in the Practice - of Electrical Engineering • T. O'Conor Slone
... on the safe door, slight and minute as it was, was his starting-point. How had it been made? He had found by experiment that it was impossible to make such a scratch upon the varnish without the exercise of considerable force. It was clear, therefore, that the scratch by the keyhole could not have been made by the thief in his trembling anxiety to get the business he had undertaken accomplished. But why was ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IV. • Editors: Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... leads, among other curses, to indolence and drunkenness, as the next woe shows. The people described make drinking the business of their lives, beginning early and sitting late. They have a varnish of art over their swinishness, and must have music as well as wine. So, in many a drink-shop in England, a piano or a band adds to the attractions, and gives a false air of aestheticism to pure animalism. Isaiah feels the incongruity that music should be so prostituted, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... humiliations of that kind, and they had considered that he looked down upon them, and had accused him of haughtiness ever since. He could read their inmost thoughts as he fathomed their natures in this way. Society with its polish and varnish grew loathsome to him. He was envied and hated for his wealth and superior ability; his reserve baffled the inquisitive; his humility seemed like haughtiness to these petty superficial natures. He guessed ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac
... aspect of the house. The unsullied snow of the door-step reproduced itself in the unsullied snow of his shirt-front; the brilliancy of the brass-plate was reflected in the glittering brightness of his gold-studs; the varnish on the door was equalled by the lustrous surface of his black-satin waistcoat; the careful pointing of the brickwork was in a manner imitated by the perfect order of his polished finger-nails and the irreproachable ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon
... home of many patrician families of the Commonwealth. In St. Andrew's Holborn, the Vanes, father and son, worshipped, together with the kindred of many that had gone to dwell beyond seas. It is a large impressive interior, after the manner of Wren, and at the moment of our visit was smelling of varnish; most London churches smell of mortar, when in course of their pretty constant reparation, and this was at least a change. St. Stephen's Coleman-Street, may draw the Connecticut exile, as the spiritual home of that ...
— London Films • W.D. Howells
... so called to which we have above alluded, and which is sold in our bird marts under that name, is a viscid, sticky preparation, closely resembling a very thick and gummy varnish. It is astonishingly "sticky," and the slightest quantity between the fingers will hold them together with remarkable tenacity. What its effect must be on the feathers of a bird can ...
— Camp Life in the Woods and the Tricks of Trapping and Trap Making • William Hamilton Gibson
... so well our Victors ear, declare That rather Greece from us these Arts deriv'd; Ill imitated, while they loudest sing The vices of thir Deities, and thir own 340 In Fable, Hymn, or Song, so personating Thir Gods ridiculous, and themselves past shame. Remove their swelling Epithetes thick laid As varnish on a Harlots cheek, the rest, Thin sown with aught of profit or delight, Will far be found unworthy to compare With Sion's songs, to all true tasts excelling, Where God is prais'd aright, and Godlike men, The Holiest of Holies, and his Saints; ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... gicaras, made of a species of gourd, or rather a fruit resembling it, and growing on a low tree, which fruit they cut in two, each one furnishing two dishes; the inside is scooped out, and a durable varnish given it by means of a mineral earth, of different bright colours, generally red. On the outside they paint flowers, and some of them are also gilded. They are extremely pretty, very durable and ingenious. The beautiful colours which they employ in painting ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca
... Necker and his wife came over from Paris and paid him a long visit in Bentinck Street, when his laurels were just fresh. "I live with her" he writes, "just as I used to do twenty years ago, laugh at her Paris varnish, and oblige her to become a simple reasonable Suissesse. The man, who might read English husbands lessons of proper and dutiful behaviour, is a sensible, good-natured creature." The next year he returned ...
— Gibbon • James Cotter Morison
... said: Distillery. Two dusty oleanders planted in half casks stood beside the doorway. A long bar with its tin measuring cups was on the left as you entered. The large room was decorated with casks painted a gay yellow, bright with varnish, and gleaming with copper taps ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... conveniences. Of this, Fig. 4 shows the front side;—covered first with strong canvas, stretched and nailed on. Over this is pasted panel-paper, and the upper part is made to resemble an ornamental cornice by fresco-paper. Pictures can be hung in the panels, or be pasted on and varnished with white varnish. To prevent the absorption of the varnish, a wash of gum isinglass (fish-glue) must be ...
— The American Woman's Home • Catherine E. Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe
... "Going for the Parson," as well as two fragile gilt chairs, which considerate guests would not sit in but leave exposed to view, and a complete new set of black walnut, the effect that day—which included a grand smell of varnish—was nothing ...
— The Boss of Little Arcady • Harry Leon Wilson
... vanity wear the coat of philanthropy, shall that pass? If an angry bigot assumes this bountiful cause of Abolition, and comes to me with his last news from Barbadoes, why should I not say to him, 'Go love thy infant; love thy wood-chopper; be good-natured and modest; have that grace; and never varnish your hard, uncharitable ambition with this incredible tenderness for black folk a thousand miles off. Thy love afar is spite at home.' Rough and graceless would be such greeting, but truth is handsomer than the affectation ...
— Essays, First Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... and ship English hardware and cotton fabrics for the Mediterranean and Greece, and bring back currants from Zante and lemons from Portugal. She goes for the nimble shilling. Well, you know ships wear out: and if you varnish them rotten, and insure them high, and they go to glory, Mr. Plimsoll is down on you like a hammer. So, when she had paid my purchase-money three times over, some fellows in the city made an offer for The Rover—that was her name. ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... me only the living satin of the surface; there was no doubt that everything was lovely, but I wanted to see, in the expression of her eyes, that all that my imagination created had life and was endowed with feeling. The Oriental costume is a beautiful varnish placed upon a porcelain vase to protect from the touch the colours of the flowers and of the design, without lessening the pleasure of the eyes. Yusuf's wife was not dressed like a sultana; she wore the costume of Scio, with a short skirt which concealed neither the perfection of ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... nuts and vitriol, powder them and spread them on paper like a varnish, then write on it with a pen wetted with spittle and it will turn as black ...
— The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, Complete • Leonardo Da Vinci
... lady came in. She had green-grey trousers, shiny like varnish, and a blue gown, and her hair was pulled back very tight, and twisted into a little ...
— New Treasure Seekers - or, The Bastable Children in Search of a Fortune • E. (Edith) Nesbit
... money on your easel, don't save on the construction and strength of it, but on the finish. Let the polish and varnish go, but get a well-made easel with solid wood. The heavier it is, the less easily it packs away, to be sure, but the more steadily it ...
— The Painter in Oil - A complete treatise on the principles and technique - necessary to the painting of pictures in oil colors • Daniel Burleigh Parkhurst
... Where village statesmen talk'd with looks profound, And news much older than their ale went round. Imagination fondly stoops to trace 225 The parlour splendours of that festive place; The white-wash'd wall, the nicely sanded floor, The varnish'd clock that click'd behind the door; The chest contriv'd a double debt to pay, A bed by night, a chest of drawers by day; 230 The pictures plac'd for ornament and use, The twelve good rules, the royal game of goose; The hearth, except when winter chill'd ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith
... Isambard Brunel took his first lessons in forming the Thames Tunnel from the tiny shipworm: he saw how the little creature perforated the wood with its well-armed head, first in one direction and then in another, till the archway was complete, and then daubed over the roof and sides with a kind of varnish; and by copying this work exactly on a large scale, Brunel was at length enabled to construct his shield and accomplish his great ...
— How to Get on in the World - A Ladder to Practical Success • Major A.R. Calhoon
... as all our American raw linseed oil has been heated by the manufacturers, to qualify it for quick drying and an early market, thereby impairing its quality. After linseed oil has been boiled, it becomes a poor varnish; it remains soft and pliable when used in paint, giving way to air pressure from the wood in hot weather, forming blisters. Turpentine causes no blistering; it evaporates upon being exposed, and leaves the paint in a porous condition for the gas in the wood to escape; ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 443, June 28, 1884 • Various
... parlour, there to read the letter from home, which he had nearly forgotten. A few women, who were not seasick, were scattered through the room, lolling in their chairs in a state of limp exhaustion. The saloon smelled of plush and varnish. It was decorated with a number of mirrors in gold frames, there was a grand piano, and the sound of footsteps was muffled by the soft carpet covering the floor. The ...
— Atlantis • Gerhart Hauptmann
... every point. The bridle cord is fastened 6 inches from each end of the box. This is best done before the cloth is put on the kite. Light cheese cloth may be used, and should be secured with glue and small brads at the last lap. When the cloth is in place paint it with thin varnish or glue to fill up the meshes and ...
— Camping For Boys • H.W. Gibson
... the other colours which Painters use, which are transparent, and us'd to varnish over all other paintings, 'tis well enough known that the laying on of them thinner or thicker, does very much dilute ...
— Micrographia • Robert Hooke
... big limousine, in front of the huge Renaissance pile that Waldron's millions had raised on land which had cost him more than as though he had covered it with double eagles; and Flint himself ascended the steps of Pentelican marble. The limousine, its varnish and silver-plate flashing in the bright spring sun, stood by the curb, purring softly to itself with all six cylinders, a thing of matchless beauty and rare cost. The chauffeur, on the driver's seat, did not ...
— The Air Trust • George Allan England
... enjoyment from success. Nor has [this particular matron], amid her pearls and emeralds, a softer thigh, or-limbs mere delicate than yours, Cerinthus; nay, the prostitutes are frequently preferable. Add to this, that [the prostitute] bears about her merchandize without any varnish, and openly shows what she has to dispose of; nor, if she has aught more comely than ordinary, does she boast and make an ostentation of it, while she is industrious to conceal that which is offensive. This is the custom with men of fortune: when they buy horses, ...
— The Works of Horace • Horace
... here and there looked up at us with blue eyes; in sheltered spots, fresh, reddish sprouts pricked the moist earth, here a whorl of delicate green, there a tender spike, guarding some imprisoned loveliness; buds on the beeches were brightening under a new varnish; naked thickets, no longer dead gray, softened into harmonies of pink and gold and ...
— The Maids of Paradise • Robert W. (Robert William) Chambers
... a picture of "The Lord Mayor and Court of Aldermen," in the Shakespeare Gallery, that the varnish was chilled and the figures rather sunk, the proprietors directed one of their assistants to give it a fresh coat of varnish. "Must I use copal or mastic?" said the young man. "Neither one nor the other," said a gentleman present; "if you ...
— The Jest Book - The Choicest Anecdotes and Sayings • Mark Lemon
... it would possibly be cheaper to cover it with silk plush than to go over it as the skilled workmen have done. Let us buy less ephemeral stuff, to be set adrift and stove in when we have skimmed over it. Let us season our reading, polish it, grain it, varnish it, repolish it and revarnish it, until we are just like it ourselves—clear, concise, intelligent. How enjoyable it is to meet ...
— The Golden Censer - The duties of to-day, the hopes of the future • John McGovern
... while a medallion picture in the atrium, with heads of Mars and Venus, gave rise to the second appellation. The colors of this picture are still quite fresh, a result which Signor Fiorelli attributes to his having caused a varnish of wax to be laid over the painting at the time of its discovery. Without some such protection the colors of these pictures soon decay; the cinnabar, or vermilion, especially, turns black after a few days' ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... since. A wavering pencil-mark had scored the page here and there. Dare shut it up, and replaced it among its brethren. How triste and silent the house seemed! He wondered what the old uncle had been like, and sauntered into the staircase hall, much in need of varnish, where the Dares that had gone before him lived. But these were too ancient to have his predecessor among them. He went into the long oak-panelled dining-room, where above the high carved dado were more Dares. Perhaps that man with the book was his ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley
... success in gallantry. But the great show of the night was the Russian ambassador, Count Orloff, whose gigantic figure was all in a blaze with jewels, and in whose demeanour the untamed ferocity of the Scythian might be discerned through a thin varnish of French Politeness. As he stalked about the small parlour, brushing the ceiling with his toupee, the girls whispered to each other, with mingled admiration and borror, that he was the favoured lover of his august mistress; that be had borne the chief part in the revolution ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... between Nannie and Sally? Give it up? Why, Sally'll have a baby-grand, but Nannie has a grand baby!" The hot and breathless nursery rang with mirth; it seemed to Jane that the very pink room was growing hotter and hotter, and it smelt stiflingly of moist varnish and talcum powder and warm olive oil and expensive soap, and the baby, sitting solemnly erect for his powdering, a steadying hand at his fat back, looked like a pink celluloid Kewpie leering at her knowingly. She heard herself saying with unconsidered mendacity that ...
— Jane Journeys On • Ruth Comfort Mitchell
... There is nothing in this opinion that is strained, insincere, or artificial. It is frank and manly. It is solid masonry, without crack or flaw. He does not resort to legal paint or putty, or to verbal varnish or veneer. He states the position of his brethren of the bench with perfect fairness, and overturns it with perfect ease. He has drawn an instructive parallel between the decisions of the olden time, upholding ...
— The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Volume VIII. - Interviews • Robert Green Ingersoll
... canvas, and upon this she painted, with the few colors that she could procure, a pattern of flowers of every kind that she was familiar with,—blue roses and green lilies having the preference, as making more show than their humbler sisters. This, when finished, she covered with a thick coat of varnish, thus making a very good substitute for the ...
— The New England Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, Bay State Monthly, Volume 4, No. 4, April, 1886 • Various
... not a foolish one; Mark, whatever else he was, could scarcely be called a fool, and had a certain share of the literary faculty; it was full of smart and florid passages that had evidently been industriously polished, and had something of the perishable brilliancy of varnish. There is a kind of vulgarity of mind so subtle as to resist every test but ink, and the cheap and flashy element in Mark's nature had formed a deposit, slight, perhaps, but perceptible in more than one page of 'Sweet Bells Jangled.' ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey
... carefully filtered so as to get rid of any deposit which may form, and must be preserved in a well-corked bottle, when it will keep for a long time. The plate is first coated with a varnish of bitumen of Judea on the edges (if those parts are not already covered with albumen) and on the back, so that the etching liquid can only act on the lines to be engraved. It is then placed, with the side to be engraved downwards, in a porcelain basin, into which ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 344, August 5, 1882 • Various
... painted Moths, your gold-eyed plumage furl, Bow your wide horns, your spiral trunks uncurl; Glitter, ye Glow-worms, on your mossy beds; Descend, ye Spiders, on your lengthen'd threads; Slide here, ye horned Snails, with varnish'd shells; 30 Ye Bee-nymphs, ...
— The Botanic Garden. Part II. - Containing The Loves of the Plants. A Poem. - With Philosophical Notes. • Erasmus Darwin
... busily occupied. Each day one group solicited donations while another stayed at the store to arrange the goods. Many articles of furniture, more or less decrepit, were received, and a man was hired to varnish and patch and put the chairs, stands, tables, desks and whatnots into the best condition possible. Alora Jones thought the stock needed "brightening," so she induced her father to make purchases of several new articles, which she presented ...
— Mary Louise and the Liberty Girls • Edith Van Dyne (AKA L. Frank Baum)
... this retired Adonis had nothing manly about him; he seemed to be employing this toilet varnish to hide the ruins occasioned by the military service of gallantry only. But we must hasten to add that his voice produced what might be called an antithesis to his blond delicacy. Unless you adopted the opinion of certain observers of the human heart, and thought that the ...
— An Old Maid • Honore de Balzac
... Great Britain approached. First came the body of Life Guards, their belts well whitened with pipeclay, and their heads plastered with pomatum and powder; and then followed the royal carriage, as fine as gold and paint and varnish could make it. ...
— True Blue • W.H.G. Kingston
... my future means of repayment, no inconsiderable quantity of ready money. With the means thus accruing I proceeded to procure at intervals, cambric muslin, very fine, in pieces of twelve yards each; twine; a lot of the varnish of caoutchouc; a large and deep basket of wicker-work, made to order; and several other articles necessary in the construction and equipment of a balloon of extraordinary dimensions. This I directed ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... next need some spools or hanks of No. 6 linen shoe thread, metal sockets, a supply of strong piano wire, a quantity of closely-woven silk or cotton cloth, glue, turnbuckles, varnish, etc. ...
— Flying Machines - Construction and Operation • W.J. Jackman and Thos. H. Russell
... coat must be allowed to dry thoroughly before another is applied. Over night is a sufficient time for this. Varnishing also should be done rapidly to prevent dust settling on it. It is best done in a warm room, without draughts. Do not use stains ready-mixed with varnish, as these do not last as long, nor look so well as pure stains varnished after application. When the boards are in bad condition they should be first sandpapered. Cracks should be filled with wedges of wood hammered ...
— Practical Suggestions for Mother and Housewife • Marion Mills Miller
... whose judgment I could trust. I cannot tell how soon they may find reason to change their minds on the subject. Their satisfaction may only be that they have not tried to rub the varnish off the gilding so much as I, and therefore the gilding itself still shines a little ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald
... seemingly so insignificant, and consisting almost exclusively of the wages of labour. Plane is the wood in common use, and the cost of the wood in an ordinary sized box does not exceed 1d.; the paints and varnish are rated at 2d.; and though something is lost by selecting timber of the finest colour, the whole expense of the raw material falls considerably short of 1/2 per cent. on the return ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 565 - Vol. 20, No. 565., Saturday, September 8, 1832 • Various
... McK., of Md.—"What kind of silk is used for balloons, what is the varnish which covers them, and what amount of common illuminating gas will support one pound weight?" Silk for large balloons is now rarely used, stout cotton cloth being substituted. Ordinary boiled linseed oil makes a good varnish. Any elastic varnish will do, however. ...
— Scientific American, Vol. 17, No. 26 December 28, 1867 • Various
... Rethoricke, O she needs it not, To things of sale, a sellers praise belongs: She passes prayse, then prayse too short doth blot. A withered Hermite, fiuescore winters worne, Might shake off fiftie, looking in her eye: Beauty doth varnish Age, as if new borne, And giues the Crutch the Cradles infancie. O 'tis the Sunne that maketh all ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... straw, fastening labels on satin-covered boxes, sorting out, marking and packing; the innumerable details of the toy trade, that great industry upon which Paris places the sign-manual of its refined taste. There is a smell of green wood, of fresh paint, of glistening varnish, and in the dust of the garrets, on the rickety stairways where the common people deposit all the mud through which they have tramped, chips of rosewood are strewn about, clippings of satin and velvet, bits of tinsel, all the debris of the treasures employed to dazzle childish eyes. Then the shop-windows ...
— The Nabob, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... DOPE—A varnish-like liquid applied to the linen or cotton wing fabrics. It is made chiefly of acetone, and shrinks the fabric around the wooden wing structure until it becomes as tight as a drum. The highly polished surface lessens friction of the plane ...
— Opportunities in Aviation • Arthur Sweetser
... case made of sycamore wood of proper shape. Upon this draw the design with a pencil, trace over the pencil-marks with Indian ink and a fine crow-quill; then fill in the ground with Indian ink and a camel's-hair brush. After two or three days, varnish with ...
— The Lady's Album of Fancy Work for 1850 • Unknown
... disagreeably close proximity, we had of course a perfect view of the French frigate, and a most superb craft she certainly was. A bran-new ship, to all appearance: she seemed to have been at sea scarcely long enough to wash the varnish off her teak and mahogany deck-fittings. The planks of her deck were almost snow-white, and some little taste and trouble appeared to have been expended in a successful effort to impart a graceful effect to the decorations about the front of her spacious ...
— Under the Meteor Flag - Log of a Midshipman during the French Revolutionary War • Harry Collingwood
... bricks was begun. Boston harbor beheld its first steamboat. The new canal between Providence and Worcester was opened and produced an instant increase of traffic for New England. In the other Eastern States factories grew in number and new processes were introduced. Thus, the first varnish made in America was produced at New York. Damask table linen was manufactured at Pittsburg. The first straw paper was turned out at Meadville, Pennsylvania. The planing mill was introduced. The Franklin Institute at Philadelphia ...
— A History of the Nineteenth Century, Year by Year - Volume Two (of Three) • Edwin Emerson
... have used a mixture of oil and varnish for this picture, which alone, without the various other causes of its ruin, would have prevented any long duration of its beauties. It is ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... in order that I might speak with authority, the sleigh was ordered round to the door forthwith, with a view first to take a turn with me. The winter equipage of Guert Ten Eyck was really a tasteful and knowing thing. I had often seen handsomer sleighs, in the way of paint, varnish, tops and mouldings; for to these he appeared to pay very little attention. The points on which its owner most valued his sleigh, was the admirable manner in which it rested on its runners—pressing lightly both behind and before. Then the traces were nearer on ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper
... used to get quite het up about it. Julius sounds like you was an old Roman or something, and in the business you got to have a good easy name. Say, speaking of that, I ain't with Lowry any more; I'm chief salesman for the AEtna Automobile Varnish and Wax Company. I certainly got a swell territory—New York, Philly, Bean-Town, Washi'nun, Balt'more, Cleveland, Columbus, Akron, and so on, and of course most especially Detroit. Sell right direct to the jobbers and the big auto companies. ...
— The Job - An American Novel • Sinclair Lewis
... woods. Rub it in thoroughly and liberally at first, and after you have established a good glaze, a little replenishing from day to day will be sufficient. And don't fool with soap and towels where insects are plenty. A good safe coat of this varnish grows better the longer it is kept on—and it is cleanly and wholesome. If you get your face and hands crocky or smutty about the campfire, wet the corner of your handkerchief and rub it off, not forgetting ...
— Woodcraft • George W. Sears
... Harold" to live his day such as he is; it had been more agreeable, and certainly more easy, to have drawn an amiable character. It had been easy to varnish over his faults, to make him do more and express less, but he never was intended as an example, further than to show, that early perversion of mind and morals leads to satiety of past pleasures and disappointment in new ones, and that even the beauties of ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron
... as dirt in a limestone country. The very mud off the roads in rainy weather is not dirt at all, sticky though it undoubtedly is. It consists almost entirely of lime, which, though it burns all the varnish off your carriage if allowed to remain on it for a few days, has nothing repulsive about its nature, like ...
— A Cotswold Village • J. Arthur Gibbs
... rather impressed upon me the necessity of preserving the outline of these tell-tale marks while they were still plain to the eye. Taking out my penknife, I lightly ran the point of my sharpest blade around each separate impression till I had fixed them for all time in the well worn varnish of ...
— The Filigree Ball • Anna Katharine Green
... every interstice is filled, it is turned over (care being taken to avoid the inclusion of an air-bubble), and held in a central position in contact with the bottom of the jar. When cold and firmly coagulated, the jelly is coated over with white varnish. A few days later, when the surface of the varnish is firm, this again is thinly coated with a film of jelly, and thereby preserved from the ultimate danger of cracking. The jar is fixed with glue into a suitable wooden stand. The gelatine which yields the strongest ...
— Practical Taxidermy • Montagu Browne
... fall of a fire ball, in Lusatia, March, 1796; fall of a gelatinous substance, after the explosion of a meteorite, near Heidelberg, July, 1811. In the Edinburgh Philosophical Journal, 1-234, the substance that fell at Lusatia is said to have been of the "color and odor of dried, brown varnish." In the Amer. Jour. Sci., 1-26-133, it is said that gelatinous matter fell with a globe of fire, upon the island of Lethy, ...
— The Book of the Damned • Charles Fort
... hours later, father and sons sallied out for a day's sport, George with a fowling-piece, Fred with a sketch-book, and Mr Sudberry with a fishing-rod, the varnish and brass-work on which, being perfectly new, glistened in ...
— Freaks on the Fells - Three Months' Rustication • R.M. Ballantyne
... positions of honour. The gilt, so-called, was in reality eighteen-carat gold overlaid upon soft brass by a process not now practised. Delightfully decorative trinket stands, card trays, and little baskets were made in this way; and as they were afterwards coated over with a transparent varnish, they have preserved their colour; indeed, when found black with age, after carefully washing in soap and water, they frequently come out bright and untarnished. Then if brushed over with white of egg or some transparent white varnish they will keep their colour ...
— Chats on Household Curios • Fred W. Burgess
... the collar and carried him to the edge of the water—it was about six inches deep,—and threw him in,—with much the same force as, let us say, a pen is thrown into ink or a brush dipped into a pot of varnish. ...
— Moonbeams From the Larger Lunacy • Stephen Leacock
... grass," said Hugh; "but did you never try him on white daisies? It wouldn't do, of course, to feed common horses on them, but a blood steed like yours, why, it would make his coat shine like varnish." ...
— In the Mist of the Mountains • Ethel Turner
... Byrtonne," and, in still others, the whole of the short-verse pieces, "Songe to Aella" and "The Accounte of W. Canynge's Feast." These scraps of vellum are described as about six inches square, smeared with glue or brown varnish, or stained with ochre, to give them an appearance of age. Thomas Warton had seen one of them, and pronounced it a clumsy forgery; the script not of the fifteenth century, but unmistakably modern. Southey describes another as written, for the most part, in an attorney's regular engrossing ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... and on the pebbles men are patching and pitching old barges which have been hauled up on the bank. A skiff partly drawn up on the beach rocks as the current strives to work it loose, and up the varnish of the side glides a flickering light reflected from the wavelets. A fleet of such skiffs are waiting for hire by the bridge; the waterman cleaning them with a parti-coloured mop spies me eyeing his vessels, and before ...
— Nature Near London • Richard Jefferies
... been! Indigestion from the countless gallons of sugared water drunk at the Congressional bar; callouses on his feet from endless promenades along the central corridor, absentmindedly knocking the varnish off the tiles of the wainscoating with the tip of his cane; an incalculable quantity of pesetas spent on carriages, through fault of his supporters, who sent him trotting every morning from one Ministry to the next, asking for the earth, ...
— The Torrent - Entre Naranjos • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... the blame on the thunder. And if—but no, it is quite impossible to suppose that, outside of those two inevitable, fearful house-cleaning weeks in each year, there could have been any disorder in the cold prim, varnish-odored ...
— Beauty and The Beast, and Tales From Home • Bayard Taylor
... endowed with an excellent memory, he let nothing that he had once heard escape him. He had, besides, the talker's gift of neatly stringing together these tags he had pulled off other people, of connecting them, and giving them a varnish of originality. ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... a light indoors there appeared upon the table a thin glistening streak, as if a brush of varnish had been lightly dragged across it. Oak's eyes followed the serpentine sheen to the other side, where it led up to a huge brown garden-slug, which had come indoors to-night for reasons of its own. It was Nature's second way of hinting ...
— Far from the Madding Crowd • Thomas Hardy
... bottom of the national life the slime was thus constantly accumulating more and more deleteriously and deeply, so much the more smooth and glittering was the surface, overlaid with the varnish of polished manners and universal friendship. All the world interchanged visits; so that in the houses of quality it was necessary to admit the persons presenting themselves every morning for the levee ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... strength of 89 tons per sq. in., and 21/2% elongation in 5 ft. and 5% in 8 in. Cast steel clamps hold the cable together, and to these the suspending rods are attached. The cables are wrapped in cotton duck soaked in oxidized oil and varnish, and are sheathed in sheet iron. A later bridge, the Manhattan, is designed to carry four railway tracks and four tramway lines, with a wide roadway and footpaths, supported by cables 211/4 in. ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various
... do it. There are a few men who contrive to be great and to be men of the world at the same time. But what society wants is polish. You can put gloss on varnish, but some of these men are too original to be sand-papered down to a fashionable uniformity. No, no! Old Red Sandstone and his wife over there are well enough at a lion soiree, but how would their Silurian manners shine at the ...
— The Faith Doctor - A Story of New York • Edward Eggleston
... Smith is the man !" cried he, laughing violently. "Harry Fielding never drew so good a character!— such a fine varnish of low politeness!—such a struggle to appear a gentleman! Madam, there is no character better drawn anywhere—in any book ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... of pieces sewed together; an art which we did not find to the southward, but is strongly, though not very neatly, performed here. There is also a particular sort that is thin, much resembling oil-cloth; and which is actually either oiled or soaked in some kind of varnish, and seems to resist the action of ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16 • Robert Kerr
... that he was not to be, without ignorance or prejudice, mistaken for a gentleman, my father most strongly asseverates; because it is a principle of his that no man who was not a true gentleman at heart ever was, since the world began, a true gentleman in manner. He says, no varnish can hide the grain of the wood; and that the more varnish you put on, the more the grain will express itself. Well! This man pursued Miss Havisham closely, and professed to be devoted to her. I believe she had not shown much susceptibility up to that time; but all the susceptibility ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... with ichthyol (one part ichthyol, one part distilled water), which is swabbed on after the skin has been cleansed with olive oil. Allow this to almost dry, and then sprinkle on talcum powder which smooths over the dry varnish of ichthyol. This is worn every night and during the day, in bad cases, even when the eczema is on the face. It is renewed each day, and is preceded by the olive-oil bath. No water or soap is ever used in eczema. Fortunately, the ...
— The Mother and Her Child • William S. Sadler
... not only a new method in wall decoration, but one that was entirely practicable. Glass would not craze like tiles or mosaic; it would not crinkle as will canvas; it needed no varnish. It would retain its color, freshness, and beauty, and water would readily cleanse ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok
... it all became clear to him: this was veritably his brother's room. If it were not an exact copy of one of the many studios that Adriance had fitted up in various parts of the world, wearying of them and leaving almost before the renovator's varnish had dried, it was at least in the same tone. In every detail Adriance's taste was so manifest that the room seemed to ...
— The Troll Garden and Selected Stories • Willa Cather
... iniquity, and had the means of accomplishing results that none but men who are known to be really rich can command. He, therefore, now quitted all vulgar associations, and determined not to outrage any of the virtues, except under varnish, gilding, and polish that would keep everything perfectly respectable. Let him trust to that as long ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 21, July, 1859 • Various
... Coventry's, and there staid and talked a good while with him till all the rest come. We went up and saw the Duke dress himself, and in his night habitt he is a very plain man. Then he sent us to his closett, where we saw among other things two very fine chests, covered with gold and Indian varnish, given him by the East India Company of Holland. The Duke comes; and after he had told us that the fleet was designed for Algier (which was kept from us till now,) we did advise about many things as to the fitting of the fleet, and so went away to ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys
... As with varnish red and glistening Dripped his hair; his feet were rigid; Raised, he settled stiffly sideways: You could see the ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde
... give it the name of green ebony, which the customer pays well for; and when our wood-men light upon it, they may make what money they will of it: But to bring it to that curious lustre, so as 'tis hardly to be distinguished from the most curiously diaper'd olive, they varnish their work with the china-varnish, (hereafter described) which infinitely excels linseed-oyl, that Cardan so commends, speaking of this root. The truth is, the bruscum and molluscum to be frequently ...
— Sylva, Vol. 1 (of 2) - Or A Discourse of Forest Trees • John Evelyn
... dirty and unwashed as the foulest in that crowd. His khaki coat bore a varnish of grease, his hat was without band or binding, and the growth of beard which covered his face like the bristles of a brush gave him the aspect of one who had long been the companion and warder of sheep upon the hills. With the added disguise ...
— Claim Number One • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... she, and the dark chestnut horses driven by Abraham the coloured coachman, and the barouche in which she drove; a carriage of other times, one of those deathless conveyances turned out in Long Acre in the days when varnish was varnish and hand labour had not been ousted by machinery. It was painted in a basket-work pattern, the pattern peculiar to the English Royal carriages, and the whole turn-out had an excellence and a style of its own—a thing ...
— The Ghost Girl • H. De Vere Stacpoole
... space utilized and everything convenient to the hand. The amount of woodwork is reduced to a minimum, since wood is a harboring place for insects and germs. Where it must be used it is of hard wood, or of pine painted and varnished, the varnish destroying those qualities in paint which are deleterious to health. The plumbing must be open, with no dark corners in which dust may hide. Odors from cooking pass out through a register in the chimney, and ventilation is afforded by transom and window. Blessed ...
— The Complete Home • Various
... the house he hated the dining-room worst. It was here that he had had to do his Latin and Greek lessons with his father. It had a smell of some particular kind of polish or varnish which was used in polishing the furniture, and neither I nor Ernest can even now come within range of the smell of this kind of varnish without our ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler
... experimenters all over the world were building monoplanes, some of them machines of the weirdest description. The craft built by this enthusiast seemed all right in its appearance; nothing had been spared, for instance, in the way of varnish. When wheeled into the sun, for its first rolling test under power, it looked an imposing piece of work. Friends were in attendance, photographers also; and the would-be aviator was in faultless flying gear. Mounting a ladder, which had been placed ...
— Learning to Fly - A Practical Manual for Beginners • Claude Grahame-White
... muttered the coachman, not so much abashed as they had expected. "And I wouldn't care for it if they did. I found that bit of bottle in the ash-barrel outside, and fished it out to put varnish in. I liked ...
— The House of the Whispering Pines • Anna Katharine Green
... had been in the ascendant all day long: he had thumped the desk with his great fists, abused, found fault unreasonably, uttered outrageous things, and behaved generally as he actually was—beneath the thin veneer of acquired business varnish. He had done and said everything to wound all that was woundable in an ordinary secretary, and though Jones fortunately dwelt in a region from which he looked down upon such a man as he might look down on the blundering of a savage animal, the strain had nevertheless ...
— Four Weird Tales • Algernon Blackwood
... drop one single word that can directly or indirectly be construed as fishing for applause. Be your character what it will, it will be known; and nobody will take it upon your own word. Never imagine that anything you can say yourself will varnish your defects, or add lustre to your perfections! but, on the contrary, it may, and nine times in ten, will, make the former more glaring and the latter obscure. If you are silent upon your own subject, neither envy, indignation, nor ridicule, will obstruct or allay the applause which you ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... the fresh, humid air and the odor of the wheat coming from the parched ground, he looked on the passing gardens, forests; the rye fields just turning yellow, the emerald streaks of oats, and the furrows of the dark-green, flowering potato. Everything looked as if covered with varnish: the green and yellow colors became brighter; the ...
— The Awakening - The Resurrection • Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy
... own as well as the experience of other countries, that golden shackles, by whomsoever or by whatever pretense imposed, are as fatal to it as the iron bonds of despotism. The presses in the necessary employment of the Government should never be used "to clear the guilty or to varnish crime." A decent and manly examination of the acts of the Government should be not only ...
— U.S. Presidential Inaugural Addresses • Various
... spirits of turpentine, on both sides, those parts which are to be the brightest, such as the moon and fire; and those parts requiring less brightness, only on one side. Then lay on immediately with a pencil, a varnish made by dissolving one ounce of Canada balsam in an equal quantity of spirit of turpentine. Be cautious with the varnish, as it is apt to spread. When the varnish is dry, tinge the flame with red lead and gamboge, slightly ...
— The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, • Mary Eaton
... perhaps should have done. Indeed, considering that he was careless about the world, Mr. Pen ornamented his person with no small pains in order to make himself agreeable to it, and for a weary pilgrim as he was, wore very tight boots and bright varnish. ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray
... of the "General" with a brand new coat of paint and varnish in a deal box, consigned to His Worship, the Mayor of Quebec sent by unknown hands, was made an occasion of rejoicing to every friend of the British hero whom Quebec contained, and they were ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine
... every branch, blade, and trunk is coated with frozen rain, so that you can touch nothing truly. The spikes of the pines are sunk into pear-shaped crystals, and each fence-post is miraculously hilted with diamonds. If you bend a twig, the icing cracks like varnish, and a half-inch branch snaps off at the lightest tap. If wind and sun open the day together, the eye cannot look steadily at the splendour of this jewelry. The woods are full of the clatter of arms; the ringing of bucks' horns in flight; the stampede ...
— Letters of Travel (1892-1913) • Rudyard Kipling
... he progressed in jerks, in jumps, in somersets; he crawled up-stairs like a little Scotch plaid spider, on "all fours;" he came down stairs on the banisters, the balance of power lying between his steel buttons and the smooth varnish of the mahogany. On several memorable occasions, he has narrowly escaped pitching head first into the hall lamp. His favorite method of locomotion, however, consisted in a series of thumps, beginning with a gentle tread, and increasing in impetus by ...
— Gypsy Breynton • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... artful dodges, contributed by Lonney's faithful coterie, with the sonorous Kinney perpetually sounding the picture's merits, and with the solvent prestige of the pioneer Briscoe covering it like a precious varnish, it seemed that the San Saba country could not fail to add a reputation as an art centre to its well-known superiority in steer-roping contests and achievements with the precarious busted flush. Thus was created for the picture an atmosphere, due rather to externals than to the artist's brush, ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry
... In other respects the individual forms agree very well with your delineations." Another observer had discovered a marvellous resemblance between the solar spots and the hollows left by the breaking and subsidence of bubbles, which rise when oil varnish, which has moisture in it, is boiled, and the streaky channels are left by the retiring liquid. "I cannot help," adds Sir John, "fancying a bare possibility of some upward outbreak, followed by a retreat of some gaseous matter, or ...
— James Nasmyth's Autobiography • James Nasmyth
... bit of candle was still burning on the floor, and in its dim light the familiar haunt was cruelly like itself of innocent memory. A lesser ladder still ascended to a tinier trap-door in the apex of the tower; the fixed seats looked to me to be wearing their old, old coat of grained varnish; nay the varnish had its ancient smell, and the very vanes outside creaked their message to my ears. I remembered whole days that I had spent, whole books that I had read, here in this favorite fastness of my boyhood. The dirty little place, with the ...
— A Thief in the Night • E. W. Hornung
... technical kind, than that which warms the heart and elevates the feelings. There was, indeed, about Winterblossom, nothing that was either warm or elevated. He was shrewd, selfish, and sensual; the last two of which qualities he screened from observation, under a specious varnish of exterior complaisance. Therefore, in his professed and apparent anxiety to do the honours of the table, to the most punctilious point of good breeding, he never permitted the attendants upon the public taste to supply the wants of others, until all his own private ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... I feel sure, is nothing to it! We will not look critically at the lining of the noble barouche, nor at the varnish on its panels, still less make disagreeable remarks about the liveries, which do not always fit their wearers—it is economical to have liveries made a good medium size, so that if the servants are changed the clothes are not;—one can always feel grateful for the polite and agreeable attendants. ...
— Spanish Life in Town and Country • L. Higgin and Eugene E. Street
... three or four touches and then gets "furred" at the point, and if of very hard wood it slips on the glass. Bamboo is good; but the best of all—that is to say for broad stick-lights—is an old, sable oil-colour brush, clogged with oil and varnish till it is as hard as horn and then cut to a point; this "clings" a little as it goes over the glass, and is ...
— Stained Glass Work - A text-book for students and workers in glass • C. W. Whall
... required to give to ground glass surfaces a temporary transparency. This is to be done by using a film of oil of the same refractive index as the glass. Cornu has employed a varnish consisting of a mixture of turpentine and oil of cloves, but the yellow-brown colour of the latter is often a disadvantage. It will be found that a mixture of nut oil and oil of bitter almonds, or of bromo-napthalene and acetone, can ...
— On Laboratory Arts • Richard Threlfall
... sausages; rice; sago; seeds, garden, &c.; silk (manufactures of), &c.; silk-worm gut; skins (articles manufactured of); soap, hard and soft; spa-ware; spirits, viz., brandy, geneva, and other foreign spirits, &c.; steel manufactures; tallow; tapioca; tin; tobacco; tongues; turnery; twine; varnish; wafers; washing-balls; wax (sealing); whipcord; wire; woollen manufactures. If any of the articles here enumerated was the production of a British possession, they were to be admitted at a reduced duty. Thus, while the woollen goods of foreign countries ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... he replied. 'The owner's carriage. It is the paint which is causing all this flame, an essence of alcohol and varnish. ...
— Selected Writings of Guy de Maupassant • Guy de Maupassant
... missionaries to the fact that they alone, of all the natives of the New World, possessed a literature written in "letters and characters," preserved in volumes neatly bound, the paper manufactured from the bark of a tree and sized with a durable white varnish.[5-] ...
— The Books of Chilan Balam, the Prophetic and Historic Records of the Mayas of Yucatan • Daniel G. Brinton
... Lieutenant were rummaging through the drawers of the knee-hole table in search of an ancient recipe of the former's for manufacturing varnish of a peculiar excellence wherewith to beautify the ...
— A Tall Ship - On Other Naval Occasions • Sir Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie
... Gustavus Adolphus attempted, without success, to form a regiment of Laplanders. Grotius says of these arctic tribes, arma arcus et pharetra, sed adversus feras, (Annal. l. iv. p. 236;) and attempts, after the manner of Tacitus, to varnish with philosophy their ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon
... to perpetuate a man's memory; and virtue was never so beholding to human nature, as it received his due at the second hand. Neither had the fame of Cicero, Seneca, Plinius Secundus, borne her age so well, if it had not been joined with some vanity in themselves; like unto varnish, that makes ceilings not only shine but last. But all this while, when I speak of vain-glory, I mean not of that property, that Tacitus doth attribute to Mucianus; Omnium quae dixerat feceratque arte quadam ostentator: for that proceeds not of ...
— Essays - The Essays Or Counsels, Civil And Moral, Of Francis Ld. - Verulam Viscount St. Albans • Francis Bacon
... authorcraft are of small amount to that. One would say the primary character of the Koran is this of its genuineness, of its being a bona-fide book. Prideaux, I know, and others, have represented it as a mere bundle of juggleries; chapter after chapter got-up to excuse and varnish the author's successive sins, forward his ambitions and quackeries: but really it is time to dismiss all that. I do not assert Mohammed's continual sincerity: who is continually sincere? But I confess I can make ...
— Sacred Books of the East • Various
... subject of which had all her colours (and more) flying, and was making great way through a sea of a regular pattern, like a lady's collar. A benevolent, elderly gentleman of the last century, with a powdered head, kept guard, in oil and varnish, over a most perplexing piece of furniture on a table; in appearance between a driving seat and an angular knife- box, but, when opened, a musical instrument of tinkling wires, exactly like David's harp packed for travelling. Everything became a nick-nack in this curious room. The ...
— The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices • Charles Dickens
... themselves like spiders. By three o'clock the beam was hoisted and fixed; and they broke off their work to attend their shipmates' funeral. After the funeral they fell to again, though more silently, and before nightfall the beam shone with a new coat of varnish. ...
— The Ship of Stars • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... should think I do know him; I am proud to know him, for I venerate him. He is only a french polisher and by no means handsome, his face is furrowed and seamed by care and sorrow, his hands and clothing are stained with varnish. Truly he is not much to look at, but if any one wants an embodiment of pluck and devotion, of never-failing patience and magnificent love, in my ...
— London's Underworld • Thomas Holmes
... the patches of soft yielding sand, and on the great rocks over which we so painfully clambered. These rocks have a singular appearance, from being dislocated and twisted in every direction, and covered with a thin black glaze, as if highly polished and coated with lamp-black varnish. This seems to have been deposited while the river was in flood, for it covers only those rocks which lie between the highest water-mark and a line about four feet above the lowest. Travellers who have visited the rapids ...
— A Popular Account of Dr. Livingstone's Expedition to the Zambesi and Its Tributaries • David Livingstone |
