"Voluptuous" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... from those of Debussy. Emerson is definite in that his art is based on something stronger than the amusing or at its best the beguiling of a few mortals. If he uses a sensuous chord, it is not for sensual ears. His harmonies may float, if the wind blows in that direction, through a voluptuous atmosphere, but he has not Debussy's fondness for trying to blow a sensuous atmosphere from his own voluptuous cheeks. And so he is an ascetic! There is a distance between jowl and soul—and it is not measured by the fraction of an inch between Concord and Paris. ...
— Essays Before a Sonata • Charles Ives
... the month of March; but at two in the afternoon the air was almost uncomfortably hot. Accustomed to the cold wind of Madrid and to the winter rains, Rafael inhaled, with a sense of voluptuous pleasure, the warm breeze that wafted the perfume of the blossoming orchards through the narrow lanes of ...
— The Torrent - Entre Naranjos • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... pleasure the theatre-party. He wanted to go; he was glad he was going; the memory of Lois in the tea-palace excited him. And he could refuse a hearing to his conscience, and could prevent himself from thinking uncomfortably of the future, as well as most young men. His secret, unadmitted voluptuous eagerness was alloyed only by an apprehension that after the scene over the telephone Lois might be peevish and ungracious. The ...
— The Roll-Call • Arnold Bennett
... Highgate Hill. There were a few fishermen loitering by the cliffs, on which their nets were hung up to dry; and, at a distance, the sound of some rustic pipe (more common at that day than in this), mingled now and then with the bells of the lazy mules, broke the voluptuous silence,—the silence of declining noon on the shores of Naples. Never till you have enjoyed it, never till you have felt its enervating but delicious charm, believe that you can comprehend all the meaning ...
— Zicci, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Vogelweide, and Count Kraft von Toggenburg, and your own ancestor, I dare say, Burkhart von Hohenfels. They were always singing of the gentle summer-time. They seem to have lived poetry, as well as sung it; like the birds who make their marriage beds in the voluptuous trees." ...
— Hyperion • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... as a natural or amusing thing. Alcohol, gambling, and all unhealthy excitements must be shunned. Above all, the imagination must be controlled; nothing is more dangerous than the indulgence in voluptuous dreams. Longings so fostered, so pent up without outlet, are too apt to break out, in despite of scruples and resolves, if a favorable and alluring opportunity occurs. The battle against sin is won more in private than in the ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake
... have stated what were the characteristics which enabled her to hold the pleasure-loving cardinal so surely and to secure her recognition as the mother of several of his acknowledged children. We may imagine her to have been a strong and voluptuous woman like those still seen about the streets of Rome. They possess none of the grace of the ideal woman of the Umbrian school, but they have something of the magnificence of the Imperial City—Juno and Venus are united in them. They would resemble the ideals of Titian ...
— Lucretia Borgia - According to Original Documents and Correspondence of Her Day • Ferdinand Gregorovius
... contains a clipping, a dozen closely written pages, and a photograph—a small photograph of a girl. The photograph is printed on the picture of a scroll, and the likeness of the girl does not throb with life as it did thirty years ago when it was taken. Then the plump, voluptuous arm and shoulders in the front of the picture seemed to exude life and to bristle with the temptation that lurked under the brown lashes shading her big, innocent, brown eyes. And her hair, her wonderful brown hair that fell in a great rope to her knees, in this photograph is ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... almost animal, even voluptuous, in mothers' love, for there was nothing I liked so much as having baby naked on my knee and devouring its sweet body all over with kisses—putting its little fat hands and even its little ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... generation, from this passion, of voluptuousness, the transmission of this voluptuousness into passion, and the apprehension, by means of passion, of its unreality, forthwith altered his name for that of "Ch'ing Tseng" (the Voluptuous Bonze), and changed the title of "the Memoir of a Stone" (Shih-t'ou-chi,) for that of "Ch'ing Tseng Lu," The Record of the Voluptuous Bonze; while K'ung Mei-chi of Tung Lu gave it the name of "Feng Yeh Pao Chien," "The Precious Mirror of Voluptuousness." ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... Europe. The Italian is diagnosed as a cruel voluptuary: the dog-starver is passed over as such a hopeless fool that it is impossible to take any interest in him. Why not test the diagnosis scientifically? Why not perform a careful series of experiments on persons under the influence of voluptuous ecstasy, so as to ascertain its physiological symptoms? Then perform a second series on persons engaged in mathematical work or machine designing, so as to ascertain the symptoms of cold scientific activity? Then note the symptoms of a vivisector performing ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma: Preface on Doctors • George Bernard Shaw
... succeeding years Mr. Vanley assured me—that, although he had in India (as is well known to the public) enjoyed all the luxuries of a Nabob whilst he served in those regions under Sir Arthur Wellesley, yet never had any Indian bed been so voluptuous to him as that straw-bed amongst the sheep upon the ...
— Walladmor: - And Now Freely Translated from the German into English. - In Two Volumes. Vol. II. • Thomas De Quincey
... the dark, tall statures of the Princes Metzengerstein—their muscular war-coursers plunging over the carcasses of fallen foes—startled the steadiest nerves with their vigorous expression; and here, again, the voluptuous and swan-like figures of the dames of days gone by, floated away in the mazes of an unreal dance to the strains ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 4 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... of the Feast of Venus in the island of Cythera: about eleven feet by seven. There is also another, of himself, in the Garden of Love—with his two wives—in the peculiarly powerful and voluptuous style of his pencil. The picture is about four feet long. His portrait of one of his wives, of the size of life, habited only in an ermine cloak at the back (of which the print is well known) is an extraordinary production ... as to colour ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Three • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... of himself in the bars of African public-houses, in mosques, in the two-pair-backs of dervishes, in bazaars—which he pictured to himself like those opened by royalties at the Queen's Hall—in Moorish interiors surrounded by voluptuous ladies with large oval eyes, black tresses, and Turkish trousers of spangled muslin, flitted before his mental gaze. When the train ran upon Dover Pier, and the white horses of the turbulent Channel foamed at his feet, he started as one roused from a Rip Van Winkle sleep. Severe illness occupied ...
— The Mission Of Mr. Eustace Greyne - 1905 • Robert Hichens
... spring; with Romeo, his change of passion, his sudden marriage, and his rash death, are all the effects of youth;—whilst in Juliet love has all that is tender and melancholy in the nightingale, all that is voluptuous in the rose, with whatever is sweet in the freshness of spring; but it ends with a long deep sigh like the last breeze of the Italian evening. This unity of feeling and character ...
— Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher • S. T. Coleridge
... front seat on the platform, drew it in with great heavings of his chest. He loved that smell. It fairly intoxicated him every time. It soared singing through his nostrils into his brain, like gin. There could be no more violent and voluptuous contrast of sensations than to come straight from the cold, biting air of Upthorne and to step into that perfect smell. It was a thick, a sweet, a fiery and sustaining smell. It helped him to face without too intolerable an agony the line ...
— The Three Sisters • May Sinclair
... in this group; and the Franklin, the voluptuous country gentleman, contrasted with the Physician, and, on his other hand, with two Citizens of London. Chaucer's characters live age after age. Every age is a Canterbury Pilgrimage; we all pass on, each sustaining one of these characters; nor can a child be born who is ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... the Audhra country have tender bodies, they are fond of enjoyment, and have a liking for voluptuous pleasures. ...
— The Kama Sutra of Vatsyayana - Translated From The Sanscrit In Seven Parts With Preface, - Introduction and Concluding Remarks • Vatsyayana
... of the rose knows well a gay voluptuous beetle, whose pleasure is to lie embedded in a fount of beauty. Deep among the incurving petals of the blushing-fragrance, he loses himself in his joys sometimes, till a breezy waft reveals him. And when the sunlight breaks upon his luscious dissipation, few would ...
— Crocker's Hole - From "Slain By The Doones" By R. D. Blackmore • R. D. Blackmore
... the obscene stories, the voluptuous debaucheries, the cruel and torturous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness, with which more than half the Bible [NOTE: It must be borne in mind that by the "Bible" Paine always means the Old Testament alone.—Editor.] is filled, it would be more consistent that we called it the word ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... silent invitation of the voluptuous little settee with its pile of cushions. He stood instead upon the hearth rug, gazing around him. The room, in its way, was a revelation. Josephine, ever since their first meeting at Etaples, had always seemed to him to carry with her a faint suggestion of sadness, which everything in ...
— The Profiteers • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... themselves this osculation of intellects, and shrugged their shoulders, and decided once more that men were incomprehensible. These great ones in London, falling in love like the rest! But no! Love was a ribald and voluptuous word to use in such a matter as this. It was generally felt that the Reverend Archibald Jones and Miss Chetwynd the elder would lift marriage to what would now be termed ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... equal to you!" he exclaimed. "Voluptuous fatigues of labor which render the mattresses of idleness so sweet. Not the satisfaction of self-esteem nor the feverish slumbers stifled beneath the heavy drapery of mysterious alcoves equals that calm and honest ...
— Bohemians of the Latin Quarter • Henry Murger
... was retired, solitary, very still. No sound was to be heard save the singing of a lark, and at intervals the melancholy cry of a peacock. Abel Larinski was overcome by a mysterious emotion; he felt a voluptuous languor steal through his veins. He watched the smoke over Paris, and he saw floating in it an ethereal form whose face was partly concealed by a red hood. It smiled on him, and he read in this smile a promise of all the joys of ...
— Samuel Brohl & Company • Victor Cherbuliez
... Rome, he said, on the affairs of his see. In the full consistory Urban preached on the text, "I am the Good Shepherd," and inveighed in a manner not to be mistaken against the wealth and luxury of the cardinals. Their voluptuous banquets were notorious—Petrarch had declaimed against them. The Pope threatened a sumptuary law that they should have but one dish at their table: it was the rule of his own order. He was determined to extirpate simony. ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... fatigue of his journey through the heat of the day had led him to look forward to a voluptuous hour of indolence following upon dinner, with pipe and book and glass. The hour was come, the elements were there, but since he could not abandon himself to their dominion the voluptuousness was wanting. ...
— The Lion's Skin • Rafael Sabatini
... in Ephesus, and they were likewise in Christ. What did it mean to be in Ephesus? Ephesus was one of the great centers of paganism. It was adorned with costly and magnificent temples. It was rich and voluptuous. Both private and public life were utterly corrupt. Even the religious practises of the Ephesians were unspeakably vile. This city was a moral bog, a sink of pollution, filled with all corruption, and reeking with vileness. It was a second Sodom. ...
— Heart Talks • Charles Wesley Naylor
... as Countess Cecile de Chabrillant; the large heavy shoulders full of vulgar madder tints, coarse, strawberry-colour, enormous as a Paul Neron; clustering white shoulders, grouped like the blossoms of an Aimee Vibert Scandens, and, just in front of me, under my eyes, the flowery, the voluptuous, the statuesque shoulders of a tall blonde woman of thirty, whose flesh is full of the exquisite peach-like tones of a Mademoiselle Eugene Verdier, blooming in all its pride ...
— Muslin • George Moore
... shooting above the eastern horizon as suddenly as the volcanic cone had been lifted above the fog. This hot sun burned away the mists in a few minutes and there, stretching below us, in all its oriental beauty was the sinewy, voluptuous form of the ...
— Flash-lights from the Seven Seas • William L. Stidger
... The tempest raves, and arrowy lightnings leap— Yet deep beneath, the wild flowers lone and light, On slender stems in breezeless silence sleep. Skyward the racing eagles wildly fling Their savage clamor to the echoing dell— While sheltered deep, the bee with folded wing, Voluptuous slumbers in his fragrant cell. Around, the splintered rocks are heaped to heaven, With grisly caverns yawning wide between, As if the Titans there had battle given, And left their ruin written on the scene! Yet o'er these ...
— Poems • Sam G. Goodrich
... compassed round Of mine own brood, that on my bowels feed? Thou art my father, thou my author, thou My being gav'st me; whom should I obey But thee? whom follow? Thou wilt bring me soon To that new world of light and bliss, among The gods who live at ease, where I shall reign At thy right hand voluptuous, as beseems Thy daughter and thy darling, without end." Thus saying, from her side the fatal key, Sad instrument of all our woe, she took; And, towards the gate rolling her bestial train, Forthwith the huge portcullis high up-drew, Which, but herself, not ...
— Paradise Lost • John Milton
... sound. I know this Antony. When I was but a child, budding into womanhood, I saw him; but my eyes were ever quick, and I took his measure. Half Hercules and half a fool, with a dash of genius veining his folly through. Easily led by those who enter at the gates of his voluptuous sense; but if crossed, an iron foe. True to his friends, if, indeed, he loves them; and ofttimes false to his own interest. Generous, hardy, and in adversity a man of virtue; in prosperity a sot and a slave to ...
— Cleopatra • H. Rider Haggard
... massive architecture—a dwelling for a warrior; but the other is of a lighter and more graceful construction, and was designed for those soft languishments of passion with which the fascinating Diane de Poitiers had filled the bosom of that voluptuous monarch. ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 4 (of 10) • Various
... vice which I propose," said the third demon who came forward, "is involved in the general cultivation of music, which I contend would render men effeminate, indolent, voluptuous, and finally vicious and corrupt, so that whole nations might eventually be kept out of heaven and secured for hell through its ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson
... bed. So sinks the Muse's offspring, doom'd to try, Like a caged eagle panting tow'rds the sky, A foil'd ascent, while adverse fortune flings Her strong link'd meshes o'er his flutt'ring wings, Sinks, while exalted Ignorance supine, Unheeded slumbers like the pamper'd swine; Obsequious slaves in his voluptuous bowers Young pleasures warble, while the dancing Hours In sickly sweetness languishingly move, Like new-waked virgins flush'd with dreams of love— Him, when by Death's dark angel swept away From sloth's embrace, in premature decay, ...
— Poems (1828) • Thomas Gent
... mass of the feudal chiefs things fared similarly. These men who, in the days of Nobunaga, Hideyoshi and Ieyasu, had directed the policies of their fiefs and led their armies in the field, were gradually transformed, during the lone peace of the Tokugawa era, into voluptuous faineants or, at best, thoughtless dilettanti, willing to abandon the direction of their affairs to seneschals and mayors, who, while on the whole their administration was able and loyal, found their account in ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... a reaction against the hard, marmoreal forms of the "Parnasse," and in its train there came inevitably a general attack on poetic traditions. This movement was hailed with joy by the young men of Latin America, who are by nature more emotional and who live in a more voluptuous environment than their cousins in Spain; for they had come to chafe at the coldness of contemporary Spanish poetry, at its lack of color and its "petrified metrical forms." With the success of the movement there was for a time a reign of license, when poet vied with poet in defying ...
— Modern Spanish Lyrics • Various
... said at her death, "It is more than a queen, it is monarchy itself that has died,"—this woman could not exist without the intrigues of government, as a gambler can live only by the emotions of play. Although she was an Italian of the voluptuous race of the Medici, the Calvinists who calumniated her never accused her of having a lover. A great admirer of the maxim, "Divide to reign," she had learned the art of perpetually pitting one force against another. No sooner had she grasped the reins of power than she was forced to keep ...
— Catherine de' Medici • Honore de Balzac
... sin of impurity was the reigning vice in India amongst the Portuguese, he applied himself, in a particular manner, to withdraw them from their voluptuous living. The first rule of his proceeding was to insinuate himself into the favour, not only of the concubinarians, but of their mistresses; and he compassed this by the mildness of his aspect, by the obligingness of his words, and sometimes by good offices. Yet we cannot ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume XVI. (of 18) - The Life of St. Francis Xavier • John Dryden
... mortal man impassion'd far At these voluptuous accents, he arose, Ethereal, flush'd, and like a throbbing star Seen mid the sapphire heaven's deep repose Into her dream he melted, as the rose 320 Blendeth its odour with the violet,— Solution sweet: meantime the frost-wind blows Like Love's alarum pattering the sharp sleet Against ...
— Keats: Poems Published in 1820 • John Keats
... less, to feed voluptuous thought, The beauteous forms of Nature wrought,— Fair trees and gorgeous flowers; The breezes their own languor lent; The stars had feelings, which they sent Into ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... Further, Jerome, commenting on Matt. 11:8, "Behold they that are clothed in soft garments are in the houses of kings," says: "Hence we gather that an austere life and severe preaching should avoid the palaces of kings and the mansions of the voluptuous." But the needs of secular business induce men to frequent the palaces of kings. Therefore it is unlawful for religious to occupy themselves with ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... carelessly about her head, from which the dark lustrous ringlets escaped, her eyes of fire gleamed as if they would burn their orbits. Her round face with its prominent cheek-bones, laughing lips and rather broad nose, that gave it a wild-wood, voluptuous expression, reminded the painter of the faun of the Borghese, a cast of which he had seen and been struck with admiration for its freakish charm. A faint down of moustache accentuated the curve of the full lips. A bosom ...
— The Gods are Athirst • Anatole France
... war-ship, becalmed in the offing, and only waiting the rising of the capricious breeze, to waft her onward on her THEN peaceful mission of dispatch. Lost indeed to all perception of the natural must he have been, who could have listened, without a feeling of voluptuous melancholy, to the plaintive notes of the whip-poor-will, breaking on the silence of night, and harmonising with the general stillness of the scene. How often have we ourselves, in joyous boyhood, lingered amid these beautiful haunts, drinking ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... style and construction. Not only is the slow assimilation of the mass of heterogeneous elements thrown together in these dramas not astonishing, but to the thoughtful student it must appear to be inevitable. On the one hand was the insatiable desire for voluptuous spectacle, for the lascivious pseudo-classicism of the pictorial dance, for the bewildering richness of movement which had originated in the earlier triumphal processions, and for the stupendous scenic apparatus made possible ...
— Some Forerunners of Italian Opera • William James Henderson
... for the honour of mating with the ruler of Florence, was a Roman lady of such noble birth that it was not considered essential that she should bring a substantial dowry. Clarice Orsini was dazzled at her wedding-feast by the voluptuous splendour of ...
— Heroes of Modern Europe • Alice Birkhead
... fluttering pinions lit Upon the darkened silver of her eyes. Her bright, voluptuous glances upward rise Into the vague and ...
— Enamels and Cameos and other Poems • Theophile Gautier
... women," he says, "sell poultry and old rags.... and find in interpreting dreams, in philter selling, and in fortune-telling the most lucrative industries. They sing, and play various instruments, accompanying the music with the most voluptuous and licentious dances and attitudes; but woe to the man who would obtain from these Bayaderes any boon beyond their provocative exhibition. From the Indus to Gibraltar, the contrast of obscenity in language ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... flood of verdure and of trees going to mountains, a spit of sand where is an inlet of the river, with a crowd of native boats, perhaps waiting for a wind. On the left is the big bend of the Nile, singularly beautiful, almost voluptuous in form, and girdled with a radiant green of crops, with palm-trees, and again the distant hills. Sebek was well advised to have his temples here and in the glorious Fayum, that land flowing with milk and honey, where the air is full of the voices of the flocks and herds, and alive with the wild ...
— The Spell of Egypt • Robert Hichens
... but, unlike Fox, he had not a heart to love. He was fond of books and of wine and of women; he was a great drinker of wine, even for those days of deep drink. Beneath all the apparent energy and daring of his character there lay a voluptuous love of ease and languor. He was not a lazy man, but his inclination was always to be an indolent man. He leaped up to sudden political action when the call came, like Sardanapalus leaping up to the inevitable fight; but, ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume I (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... him. This, indeed, was one of the causes of the deep silent sadness of Orlando, who was compelled to witness the swift deterioration of his conquering race, whilst Sacco, the Italian of the South—served as it were by the climate, accustomed to the voluptuous atmosphere, the life of those sun-baked cities compounded of the dust of antiquity—bloomed there like the natural vegetation of a soil saturated with the crimes of history, and gradually grasped everything, ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... view. No part is disproportionate or inappropriate. The arresting overture describing the swift and sudden approach of the Red Death, the gay, thoughtless security of Prince Prospero and his guests within the barricaded abbey, the voluptuous masquerade held in a suite of seven rooms of seven hues, the disconcerting chime of the ebony clock that momentarily stills the grotesque figures of the dancers, prepare us for the dramatic climax, ...
— The Tale of Terror • Edith Birkhead
... "French Revolution" paints a wonderfully vivid picture of the idle, voluptuous noblesse of the eighteenth century: compare the ...
— War Letters of a Public-School Boy • Henry Paul Mainwaring Jones
... certain realities, with the old life which he thought was dead but which was not yet buried. When he looked upon her, he heard the old familiar sounds of the sea, of music and siren-voices of civilizations in their decay—breathed again the intoxicating atmosphere of that exotic, voluptuous, sensuous existence in which he had been reared and had lived, and with which he was saturated and from which he was striving to escape. But when he thought of Chiquita, he heard the murmur of forests and waters and saw the broad expanse of ...
— When Dreams Come True • Ritter Brown
... change from the rough vicissitudes of campaigning life to all the luxury and voluptuous elegance of a brilliant court, created too much confusion in my mind to permit of my impressions being the most accurate or most collected. The splendor of the scene, the rank, but even more the talent of the individuals by whom I was surrounded, had all their full effect upon me. And ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... is necessary for you, therefore, to put into practice that salutary rigor by which M. de Metternich prolongs his statu quo; but we would advise you to do so with more tact and with still more tenderness; for your wife is more crafty than all the Germans put together, and as voluptuous ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part II. • Honore de Balzac
... since the days of the celebrated Felix Babylon, the founder of the hotel, post-lunch coffee was merging into afternoon tea. The number of idle persons in the world, and the number of busy persons who ministered to them, and the number of artistic persons who played voluptuous music to their idleness, struck Mr. Prohack as merely prodigious. He had not dreamed that idleness on so grandiose a scale flourished in the city which to him had always been a city of hard work and limited meal-hours. He saw that he had ...
— Mr. Prohack • E. Arnold Bennett
... and exquisitely shapen; her chin rounded faultlessly. The face was thinner than it might have been, like the face of youth and beauty in the midst of sorrow; but the thinness was not emaciation; it had but refined and spiritualized those matchless outlines, giving to them not the voluptuous beauty of the Greek ideal, but rather the angelic or saintly beauty of the medieval. She was young too, and the bloom and freshness of youth were there beneath all the sorrow and the grief. More ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... fascinated, she had stung me, and had returned to her proper shape, gliding from me after inflicting the mortal wound, and instilling deadly poison into every pore; but her form lost none of its original brightness by the change of character, but was all glittering, beauteous, voluptuous grace. Seed of the serpent or of the woman, she was divine! I felt that she was a witch, and had bewitched me. Fate had enclosed me round about. I was transformed too, no longer human (any more than she, to whom I had knit myself) my feelings were marble; ...
— Liber Amoris, or, The New Pygmalion • William Hazlitt
... the sentence. I can imagine that there is something rich and voluptuous and sating about amber, its color, and its lustre, and its scent; but for others, not for me. Yea, you have beauty, after all," turning suddenly, and withering me with his eye,—"beauty, after all, as you didn't say just now.—Mr. Willoughby is in the garden. I ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 27, January, 1860 • Various
... it. Why was it so unconscious and ladylike? The composure of the eyes irritated him. They repelled him and defied him: there was no passion in them, no rapture. He thought of what Gallaher had said about rich Jewesses. Those dark Oriental eyes, he thought, how full they are of passion, of voluptuous longing!... Why had he married the ...
— Dubliners • James Joyce
... confused me. Lauretta, apparently the elder of the two, looked about her with sparkling eyes, and talked away at my embarrassed old uncle with gushing vivacity and with demonstrative gestures. She was not too tall, and of a voluptuous build, so that my eyes wandered amid many charms that hitherto had been strangers to them. Teresina, taller, more slender, with a long grave face, spoke but seldom, but what she did say was more intelligible. Now and ...
— Weird Tales. Vol. I • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... wife of Francis, Earl of Shrewsbury: amongst many shameless women she was the most shameless, and her face seems to have well expressed her mind. In the round, fair visage, with its languishing eyes, and full, pouting mouth, there is something voluptuous and bold. The forehead is broad, but low; and the wavy hair, with its tendril curls, comes down almost to the fine arched eyebrows, and then, falling into masses, sets off white shoulders which seem to designate ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 1 • Grace Wharton and Philip Wharton
... gratifying the cravings of licentious appetites, or in opposing by writings the progress of the reformation. In his reign Sebastian Cabot, that eminent mariner, finding himself shamefully neglected by the capricious and voluptuous monarch, went over to Spain. There he got employment for several years, and made some new and useful discoveries in America for the Spanish nation. After the young Prince Edward ascended the English throne, the enterprising merchants of Bristol invited Cabot to return ...
— An Historical Account Of The Rise And Progress Of The Colonies Of South Carolina And Georgia, Volume 1 • Alexander Hewatt
... too thankful to go. A waltz was being played, and Dan passed them, dancing with Bertha Petterick. They glided over the floor together with the gentle voluptuous swing, dreamy eyes, and smiling lips of two perfect dancers, conscious of nothing but the sensuous delight of interwoven paces ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... opportunity to annoy him, took Father Gerhardt under its protection, and opposed the ban on these grounds: "It is well known that the Devil tempted St. Anthony with the most licentious representations and voluptuous enticements; and if the Devil dared to act so with a saint, whose equal was not to be found in the calendar, what should prevent him from playing off his pranks with a Dominican? We must therefore advise the monk to follow the example ...
— Faustus - his Life, Death, and Doom • Friedrich Maximilian von Klinger
... clears her throat and lays a voluptuous cud of chewing gum upon the piano as the first notes of the accompaniment ring ...
— Rolling Stones • O. Henry
... not here speak of the attractions of an atheistic and materialist philosophy, of a voluptuous, often, and demoralizing literature and poetry, of an unimaginable prostitution of art to the vilest passions, which the relics of Pompeii ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud
... grown quite an idiot, compelled his royal forefathers to share in the ball, by making their dry bones dance in their biers. Death, becoming a go-between whether he would or no, lent a sharp spur to the voluptuous revel. Then broke out those unclean fashions of an age when ladies made themselves taller by wearing the Devil's horned-bonnet, and gloried in dressing as if they were all with child.[64] To this fashion they ...
— La Sorciere: The Witch of the Middle Ages • Jules Michelet
... the rose-tinged whiteness of her hands, from her elastic, but at the same time as it were, irresolute gait, from the very sound of her sweet and languorous voice—there breathed, like a delicate perfume, a subtle and incomprehensible charm—something which was at once tender and voluptuous and modest—something which it was difficult to express in words, which stirred the imagination and disturbed the mind, but disturbed it with sensations which were not ...
— Liza - "A nest of nobles" • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
... poverty, as pernicious to the police as to morality, we should see the poverty of the earlier ages, humble, modest, frugal, robust, industrious, and laborious. Then, indeed, the fable of Plato might be realised: Poverty might be embraced by the god of Riches; and if she did not produce the voluptuous offspring of Love, she would become the fertile mother of Agriculture, and the ingenious parent of the Arts ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... and the partial paralysis of the sensory nerves. Hundreds of times I have enjoyed that harmless aesthetic intoxication which I believe to be more delicious to the initiated than the sweet delights of an opium eater—a musical intoxication which does not only fill the brain with floods of voluptuous delight, but sends thrills down the spinal column and to the very finger-tips, like so many electric shocks. As a boy, every experience of this sort fired my imagination with ambition, and led to all sorts of noble resolutions, some ...
— Chopin and Other Musical Essays • Henry T. Finck
... Major of Quebec, a trusted confederate of the Intendant Bigot, the proprietor of this land, was the husband of the beautiful Angelique de Meloises, the inamorata of the voluptuous and munificent Intendant. In her youth she had been a pupil of the Ursuline nuns. In his Reminiscences of Quebec, 2nd edition republished in 1859, Col. Cockburn thus alludes to this St. Louis street house (now Dominion ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine
... wild Oriental dream? Could it all be real—the glittering fires, the gayly-costumed crowds, the illuminated barge, the voluptuous strains of music? Might it not be some gorgeous freak of the emperor, such as the sultan in the Arabian Nights enjoyed at the expense of the poor traveler? Surely there could be nothing real like it since the days of the ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... stereotyped. Liszt tells of the capricious life infused into its courtly measures by the Polish aristocracy. It is at once the symbol of war and love, a vivid pageant of martial splendor, a weaving, cadenced, voluptuous dance, the pursuit of shy, coquettish woman ...
— Chopin: The Man and His Music • James Huneker
... story. The subtle, satirical, epigrammatic tale-telling spirit stamped on every page of Rabelais is the faithful expression of the Tourangian mind,—a mind polished and refined as it should be in a land where the kings of France long held their court; ardent, artistic, poetic, voluptuous, yet whose first impulses subside quickly. The softness of the atmosphere, the beauty of the climate, a certain ease of life and joviality of manners, smother before long the sentiment of art, narrow ...
— Parisians in the Country - The Illustrious Gaudissart, and The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac
... seats common to both sexes. The use of the "speculum," or mirror, was also confined to the female sex; indeed, even Pallas or Minerva was represented as shunning its use, as only befitting her more voluptuous fellow-goddess, Venus.] ...
— The Fables of Phdrus - Literally translated into English prose with notes • Phaedrus
... a sound of revelry by night— "Columbia's" capital had gathered then Her beauty and her chivalry: and bright The lamps shone o'er fair women and brave men. A thousand hearts beat happily; and when Music arose with its voluptuous swell, Soft eyes looked love to eyes that spoke again, And all went merry ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... displays an almost classical intensity of voluptuous passion, and belongs in all probability to a period later than the Carmina Burana. I have ventured, in translating it, to borrow the structure of a song which occurs in Fletcher's Rollo (act v. scene 2), the first stanza of which is also found in Shakespeare's Measure for Measure ...
— Wine, Women, and Song - Mediaeval Latin Students' songs; Now first translated into English verse • Various
... mistress at his will, concerns himself not in the slightest degree as to what becomes of his companions, is not an every-day touch. Nor is the strong contrast of the chambers of feast and dalliance—undisturbed, voluptuous, terrestrial-paradisaic—with "the horror and the hell" in the courts below. Nor, last of all, the picture of the more than half innocent Marion, night-garbed or ungarbed, but with sword drawn, first hanging ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... herself in the inexhaustible variety of her steps and her movements. First, in rapid transition, we saw her pass from a serious dignity to transports of pleasure, at first moderate, but growing more and more animated; then to soft and voluptuous languors; then to the delirium of joy, and then to some strange ecstasy more delirious still. Next, she disappeared in the far-off darkness of the huge hall, and the clash of the castanets grew feeble in proportion to the distance, and diminished ever till, as we ceased to ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... about going down, and its long, golden rays streamed over hill and dale, palace and cot, clothing all in a voluptuous ...
— Town and Country, or, Life at Home and Abroad • John S. Adams
... quoted) an air impregnated with the odours of innumerable flowers of the greatest fragrance, of which there is a perpetual succession throughout the year, the sweet flavour of which captivates the soul, and inspires the most voluptuous sensations." Although this luxurious picture may be drawn in too-warm tints it is not however without its degree of justness. The people of the country are fond of flowers in the ornament of their persons, and encourage their growth, as well as ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden
... expectation; but now the war-drum rumbles from afar, the brazen trumpet brays its thrilling note, and the rude clash of hostile arms speaks fearful prophecies of coming troubles. The gallant warrior starts from soft repose—from golden visions and voluptuous ease; where, in the dulcet "piping time of peace," he sought sweet solace after all his toils. No more in Beauty's siren lap reclined he weaves fair garlands for his lady's brows; no more entwines with flowers his shining sword nor through the livelong ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... individuals, the Fathers of this age are all condemned "for wonderful corruption of the doctrine of repentance." How so? Because the austerity of the Canons in vogue at that time is particularly obnoxious to this plausible sect which, better fitted for dining-rooms than for churches, is wont to tickle voluptuous ears and to sew cushions on every arm (Ezech. xiii. 18). Take the next age, what offence has that committed? Chrysostom and those Fathers, forsooth, have "foully obscured the justice of faith." Gregory Nazianzen whom the ancients called eminently "the Theologian," is in the judgment ...
— Ten Reasons Proposed to His Adversaries for Disputation in the Name • Edmund Campion
... the edge of a sword. St. Cecilia refused to lend the divine touch to lips steeped in pleasure. He who sings for love of gold finds his voice becoming metallic. In art, also, Hitchcock has said: "When the brush grows voluptuous it falls like an angel from heaven." Fra Angelico refuses an invitation to the Pitti palace, choosing rather his crust and pallet in the cell of the monastery. The artist gave his mornings to the poor, his evenings to his canvas. But when the painter had worn his ...
— The Investment of Influence - A Study of Social Sympathy and Service • Newell Dwight Hillis
... from the crowded streets, Glaucus the Greek, newly returned to Pompeii after a journey to Naples, bent his steps towards a solitary part of the beach; and the two, seated on a small crag which rose amidst the smooth pebbles, inhaled the voluptuous and cooling breeze which, dancing over the waters, kept music with its invisible feet. There was something in the scene which invited them to silence ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VI. • Various
... Helen is, the total cycle of her spirit's history, is to enter his heart and become a vital portion of his discipline. It is probable that the youth does not realize every thing that Helen means and is; still he beholds her, and that in itself is an education. Helen is not merely a figure of voluptuous beauty, which captivates the senses; she bears in her the experience of complete humanity; she has erred, she has transformed her error, she has been restored to that ethical order which she had violated. ...
— Homer's Odyssey - A Commentary • Denton J. Snider
... they set themselves to learn from Veronese or Florentine, the Paduans contribute their chiselled drawing, their learned perspective, their archeological curiosity. Yet even early in the day the Venetians escape from that hard and learned art which is so alien to their easy, voluptuous temperament. Jacopo Bellini cannot conform to it, and his greatest son is ready to follow feeling and emotion, and in his old age is quick to discover the first flavour of the new wine. If Venetian art had gone on upon the lines we have been tracing up to now, there would ...
— The Venetian School of Painting • Evelyn March Phillipps
... foam; her heavy hair Fraught with the perfume of a thousand forests Tossed round about her beauty: and her mouth A scarlet mystery of distant flower Up-turned to take the kisses of the sun. But like a troop of boys let loose from school The adventurers went by, startling the stillness Of that voluptuous dream-encumbered shore With echoing shouts of laughter and ...
— Collected Poems - Volume One (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... man would say at first, second, or third sight of Angelique des Meloises. She was indeed a fair girl to look upon,—tall, and fashioned in nature's most voluptuous mould, perfect in the symmetry of every part, with an ease and beauty of movement not suggestive of spiritual graces, like Amelie's, but of terrestrial witcheries, like those great women of old who drew down the very gods from ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... silence for some minutes, he apparently pondering over her last words, she with the cloud passing from her face as, with her head a little thrown back and her eyes half-closed, she sniffed the strong, salty air with an almost voluptuous expression of content. She was perfectly dressed for the country, from her square-toed shoes, which still seemed to maintain some distinction of shape, the perfectly tailored coat and skirt, to the smart little felt ...
— The Devil's Paw • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... genius. Thus unfit to support himself in the world, he was exposed to variety of distress, from which he could invent no means of extricating himself, but by writing mendicant letters. It will appear amazing, but impartiality obliges us to relate it, that this man, of so abject a spirit, was voluptuous and luxurious: He had no taste for any thing elegant, and yet was to the last degree expensive. Can it be believed, that often when he had received half a guinea, in consequence of a supplicating letter, he would go into a tavern, order a supper to be prepared, drink of ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753),Vol. V. • Theophilus Cibber
... the organization of the Moriscos lay in the character of their king. Aben-Humeya, at first popular, soon displayed traits of character which lost him the support of his followers. Surrounded by a strong body-guard, he led a voluptuous life, and struck down without mercy those whom he feared, no less than three hundred and fifty persons falling victims to his jealousy or revenge. His cruelty and injustice at length led to a plot for his death, and his brief reign ended in assassination, ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume VII • Charles Morris
... shield He braved the dangers of the martial field, Or sought the antlered trophies of the chase In forest and sequestered hunting place; Or, tiring of the hunt's exciting sport, Enjoyed the idle pleasures of the court, Whiling away the time with games of chance, With music and the more voluptuous dance, The hollow paths of vanity pursued, Laughed, jested, swore, drank, danced, and even wooed; No tongue more prone to questionable wit, Nor chaste, when time and place demanded it; His basso voice, both voluble and strong, Excelled in wassail mirth and ribald song; He swore with oaths ...
— Mountain idylls, and Other Poems • Alfred Castner King
... time; he would effect a moral eclipse of its influence. He loved Henrietta Temple. She should be his. Who could prevent him? Was he not an Armine? Was he not the near descendant of that bold man who passed his whole life in the voluptuous indulgence of his unrestrained volition! Bravo! he willed it, and it should be done. Everything yields to determination. What a fool! what a miserable craven fool had he been to have frightened himself with the flimsy shadows of petty worldly cares! ...
— Henrietta Temple - A Love Story • Benjamin Disraeli
... strands, gently waving from her haste, and the parted lips that poured forth her soul's deep loyalty, and the dear form of ardent love—a maiden's form. All these came upon him like the dawn, and the citadel of life's frowning mystery was stormed at last. How voluptuous, after all, in its holiest sense, is God's purpose for ...
— St. Cuthbert's • Robert E. Knowles
... hardly a plop. She had neither capacity for exactitude nor tireless fidelity to tone. It made her neck ache. She had never graduated from musical sensation to cerebration; a theme washed her over with all the voluptuous abandon of a Henner sea siren letting the water tickling up the beach to roll over ...
— Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst
... de Sousa's O Missionario. Antonio de Moraes, in this story, is not so strong in will as Taunay's vicar of sorrows. Antonio is a missionary "with the vocation of a martyr and the soul of an apostle," on duty in the tropics. The voluptuous magnetism of the Amazon seizes his body. Slowly, agonizingly, but surely he succumbs to the enchantment, overpowered by the ...
— Brazilian Tales • Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis
... person, her smiling eyes, her faultlessly sloping shoulders and rosy-tinged white hands, her light and yet languid movements, the very sound of her voice, slow and sweet, there was an impalpable, subtle charm, like a faint perfume, voluptuous, tender, soft, though still modest, something which is hard to translate into words, but which moved and kindled—and timidity! was not the feeing it kindled. Lavretsky turned the conversation on the theater, on the performance of the previous day; she at once began herself to discuss ...
— A House of Gentlefolk • Ivan Turgenev
... to their riot. Look upon these others who sit and stand here in a voluptuous bevy, hand in hand under the brazen sun, or flaunt to and fro, lolling in one another's arms and laughing in one another's faces. And see how closely above them hover the winged loves! One, upside down in the air, sprinkles them with rose-leaves; another waves over them a blazing ...
— Yet Again • Max Beerbohm
... lace, over the voluptuous bosom of her adjustable bust-form, stood back to get the effect. "Maybe you're right, Joel," she acknowledged placidly, "but I'm going to that meeting at Sophia Warren's Saturday if I have to sew all Friday night to get my week's ...
— Other People's Business - The Romantic Career of the Practical Miss Dale • Harriet L. Smith
... of the Hyperborean race, with whom he had once passed a summer. Glancing my eye then to the south,—"See," said I, "while the Kamtschadale is providing his supply of furs and of fish, for the long winter which is already knocking at the door of his hut, the gay and voluptuous native of the Sandwich and other islands between the tropics. How striking the contrast! The one passes his life in ease, abundance, and enjoyment; the other in toil, privation, and care. No inclemency of ...
— A Voyage to the Moon • George Tucker
... careless of the destiny of the country entrusted to his care. He liked to withdraw to the privacy of his palace, and, isolated in the midst of his guards, to live that life of the distrustful and voluptuous despots of the East. The palace of Bar-el-Beda, which he had built on the road to Suez in the open desert, a palace without water, lifting its head in the solitude like a silent witness of a useless life and tragic death, ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 12 (of 12) • S. Rappoport
... talk, had no more effect upon her prey than on a stone image. No; although she hung over him, tapped him with too eloquent fingers, whispered jokes in his ear, and filled his nostrils with an exquisite and voluptuous ...
— The Road to Mandalay - A Tale of Burma • B. M. Croker
... was, and many were incorrupt, that their choice of a sovereign should be regulated solely by the public interest; and it was hardly to be expected that the emperor, the czar, and the King of Sweden would prove unsuccessful rivals to the cruel, and voluptuous, and bigoted duke of Anjou, whose political interests were too remote and novel to have raised any faction ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... freshness, and the cavaliers, with their royal libertine, had become as obnoxious to public decency as the Tartuffes. Butler appears to have turned aside, and to have given an adverse direction to his satirical arrows. The slavery and dotage of Hudibras to the widow revealed the voluptuous epicurean, who slept on his throne, dissolved in the arms of his mistresses. "The enchanted bower," and "The amorous suit," of Hudibras reflected the new manners of this wretched court; and that Butler had become the satirist of the party ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... knew that, had it been she herself plunging from the tower, she still would have been that spectator. Too well she knew that she would have analyzed what she thought and felt. She would have rated even the second before eternity in its degree as a frisson; and, no doubt, would have been aware of a voluptuous satiety, while anticipating the second after. She hated herself, and she hated too the smart, ultra-refined life that had brought her to it. How many of those past years, or of the years to come would she not give to shed a few tears without ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... Thucydides, parts of Tacitus, parts of the tragedians, at school, but now he had it in his power to study a great author entire, and as a whole. Never before did he fully appreciate the "thunderous lilt" of Greek epic, the touching and voluptuous tenderness of Latin elegy, the regal pomp of history, the gorgeous and philosophic mystery of the old dramatic fables. Never before had he learnt to gaze on "the bright countenance of truth, in the mild and dewy air of delightful studies." Those who decry classical ...
— Julian Home • Dean Frederic W. Farrar
... little scope for brilliancy, and, as a matter of fact, I had none of that quality at my disposal. The only singer in my company who had any claim to such a distinction was Mme. Tedesco, a rather grotesque but voluptuous type of Jewess who had returned from Portugal and Spain after having had great triumphs in Italian operas. She did not conceal her satisfaction at having secured an engagement at the Paris Opera through my unwilling ...
— My Life, Volume II • Richard Wagner
... is why the people of Brittany are so chaste a race. Their lively imagination creates an aerial world which satisfies their aspirations. The true poetry of such a love as this is the sonnet on spring in the Song of Solomon, which is far more voluptuous than it is passionate. "Hiems transiit; imber abiit et recessit.... Vox turturis audita est in terra nostra.... ...
— Recollections of My Youth • Ernest Renan
... one of the noblest of the nobility of France, alike in birth and in spirit. In his youth a voluptuous liver, he had afterwards undergone a genuine and solemn conversion. While in Switzerland, the news of the guillotining of his brother gave him such a shock, that it revolutionized his motives and his life. The gay, impassioned, fascinating man of the world became ...
— The Friendships of Women • William Rounseville Alger
... about such an untheoretical subject as Central Africa is deterred from bestirring himself to prove them by the test of exploration. His opinion of such a man is, that he unfits himself for his duty, that he is very likely to become a slave to theory—a voluptuous ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley
... her dark hair to shine through its translucent texture, and just encircling the outline of her oval face. This scarf, hanging down below the waist, but half concealed her white rounded arms, and only partially hindered the view of a figure of the most elegantly voluptuous tournure. Around her waist another scarf of bright scarlet formed a sort of cincture or belt, leaving its long fringed ends to hang over the skirt of her silken robe, and blending its colours with those of the light veil that fell ...
— Wood Rangers - The Trappers of Sonora • Mayne Reid
... of the enemy, wrought in him a great purity of heart, and prepared him for most extraordinary heavenly communications. The conversion of count Oliver, or Oliban, lord of that territory, added to his spiritual joy. That count, from a voluptuous worldling, and profligate liver, became a sincere penitent, and embraced the order of St. Benedict. He carried great treasures with him to mount Cassino, but left his estate to his son. The example of Romuald had also such an influence on Sergius, his ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... grew gloomy and joyless, like those funeral cypresses whose roots feed on the decay of the graves and whose black summits in a still evening hour seek in vain to reach the sky. Thrown by the unknown forces of life into each other's embraces, they mingled tears with kisses, voluptuous pleasures with pain, and they felt themselves doubly slaves, obedient slaves to life, and patient servants of the silent Nothingness. Ever united, ever severed, they blazed like sparks and like sparks lost themselves in the ...
— Famous Modern Ghost Stories • Various
... I say, Rose smiles in answer to my smile and we remain silent; our eyes gaze without seeing and our idle hands trail in the wet grass. We hear, without listening, the hoarse, fat, cooing-voluptuous voices of the doves: in the cool air of the morning, among the leaves, the flowers and the branches, it is an undercurrent of joy rising and falling, suspended for a moment and then ...
— The Choice of Life • Georgette Leblanc
... for you! beards grown where brandy freezes! but, they are thawed out now. Look at these men: hear their wild northern tongue, how it rolls out the sounds that frighten Italians back to sleepy sonnets and voluptuous songs. Hurrah, my Russians! look fate in the face. Your ...
— The Continental Monthly , Vol. 2 No. 5, November 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... ruby-colored elixir there lurked a divine power to chase away the genius of ennui, without subsequently abusing this power. True it is that generations have used laudanum as an anodyne (for instance, hospital patients) who have not afterward courted its powers as a voluptuous stimulant; but that, be sure, has arisen from no abstinence in them. There are in fact two classes of temperaments as to this terrific drug—those which are and those which are not preconformed to its power; those which genially expand to its temptations, and those which frostily exclude them. ...
— The Opium Habit • Horace B. Day
... come to Hanavave to bring back two young women. One was dark, a voluptuous figure in a pink satin gown over a lace petticoat. A leghorn hat, trimmed with shells and dried nuts, sat coquettishly upon her masses of raven hair. Upon her neck, rounded as a young cocoanut-tree, was a ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien
... 'little or no water') and on an empty stomach. This coffee falls into your stomach, which, as you have learned from Brillat-Savarin, is a sack with a velvety interior, lined with little pores and papillae; it finds nothing else, so it attacks this delicate and voluptuous lining; it becomes a sort of food which demands its digestive juices; so it wrings them forth, it demands them as a pythoness calls upon her god, it maltreats those delicate walls as a truckman maltreats a pair of young horses; the plexus nerves inflame, ...
— Honor de Balzac • Albert Keim and Louis Lumet
... close of the sixteenth century, this castle was in the possession of Ferdinand, fifth marquis of Mazzini, and was for some years the principal residence of his family. He was a man of a voluptuous and imperious character. To his first wife, he married Louisa Bernini, second daughter of the Count della Salario, a lady yet more distinguished for the sweetness of her manners and the gentleness of her disposition, than for her beauty. She brought ...
— A Sicilian Romance • Ann Radcliffe
... talkative Annette, that this young man was making a change for the worse, and could not forbear silently lamenting, that he should be drawn from the innocence and beauty of these scenes, to the corrupt ones of that voluptuous city. ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... swim in, drink up, eat up, wallow in; feast on; gloat over, float on; smack the lips. live on the fat of the land, live in comfort &c. adv.; bask in the sunshine, faire ses choux gras[Fr].. give pleasure &c. 829. Adj. enjoying &c. v.; luxurious, voluptuous, sensual, comfortable, cosy, snug, in comfort, at ease. pleasant, agreeable &c. 829. Adv. in comfort &c. n.; on a bed of roses &c. n.; at one's ease. Phr. ride si sapis [Lat][Martial]; voluptales ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... finish his sentence; nor did he need to. A sudden light dawned in Ellen's eyes; her lips instinctively parted; and then she turned her face away. And thus they sat for what seemed an hour, while the sympathetic widow poured out voluptuous harmonies ...
— The Prodigal Father • J. Storer Clouston
... white witch of a creature, with its petals moulded in wax or ivory, its golden-brown leaf-sheathings, and its unequalled emerald (is it a tint, or is it but a shadow?) far down within the lovely cup, with that overpowering voluptuous odor, burdening the atmosphere, permeating the innermost fibres of sensation, steeping the soul in lethargy! What more fit exponent can there be for this weird plant's expression than the song of the serpent-charmer, the singing which can root the feet ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 4, October, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... perilous Rousseau-like temperament, neither sincere enough for safety, nor false enough to alarm; the winning tenderness that thrills and softens at the mere neighborhood of a woman, and fascinates by its reality those whom no hypocrisy can deceive. It was a nature half amiable, half voluptuous, that disarmed others, seeming itself unarmed. He was never wholly ennobled by passion, for it never touched him deeply enough; and, on the other hand, he was not hardened by the habitual attitude of passion, for he was never really insincere. Sometimes it seemed as if nothing stood between ...
— Malbone - An Oldport Romance • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... elbows upon it, her hands upturned and her chin nestling in her palms. The smoke from the cigarette, now held in her fingers, mingled with her disheveled hair. She looked fully into my face, a long, searching look; then her lips parted in the slow, voluptuous smile of the Orient. Without moving her head she turned the wonderful eyes (rendered doubly luminous by the kohl with which her lashes and ...
— The Hand Of Fu-Manchu - Being a New Phase in the Activities of Fu-Manchu, the Devil Doctor • Sax Rohmer
... effeminate, yielding, pleasure-seeking favorite of the empress—you saw him devoted only to amusement and enjoyment, and you said to yourself: 'That is the man I need. As I cannot myself be made regent, let it be him! I will govern through him; and while this voluptuous devotee of pleasure gives himself up to the intoxication of enjoyments, I will rule in his stead.' Well, Mr. Field-Marshal, ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... practising physician, and father of Cornelius Ford, generally known by the name of parson Ford, the same who is represented near the punch-bowl in Hogarth's Midnight Modern Conversation. In the life of Fenton, Johnson says, that "his abilities, instead of furnishing convivial merriment to the voluptuous and dissolute, might have enabled him to excel among the virtuous and the wise." Being chaplain to the earl of Chesterfield, he wished to attend that nobleman on his embassy to the Hague. Colley Cibber has recorded the anecdote. "You should ...
— Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 - The Works Of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D., In Nine Volumes • Samuel Johnson
... Born at Stockholm, where her father was employed at the Royal Opera, she made her debut at Vienna, where she created an immediate sensation. Hitherto ballet dancing had been somewhat realistic and voluptuous, as illustrated by the performances of the celebrated Madame Vestris, but La Taglioni put poetry and imagination into her work, which was more ideal in character, and her supremacy was soon unquestioned. Among her most ...
— Women of the Romance Countries • John R. Effinger
... standing on the verandah of her cottage, staring far away into the distance, where she could see the tall chimney and huge mound of white earth which marked the whereabouts of the Pactolus claim. She was a tall voluptuous-looking woman of what is called a Junoesque type—decidedly plump, with firm white hands and well-formed feet. Her face was of a whitish tint, more like marble than flesh, and appeared as if modelled from the antique—with the straight Greek nose, high and smooth forehead, and ...
— Madame Midas • Fergus Hume
... the intense excitement that thrilled me when I found myself rolling along on the magnificent avenue of pollard-elms, that runs all the way from Rivoli to Turin. The voluptuous air, which seemed to fill the landscape with a dreamy gaiety; the intense sunlight, which tinted every object with extraordinary brilliancy, from the bright leaves overhead, to the burning domes of ...
— Pilgrimage from the Alps to the Tiber - Or The Influence of Romanism on Trade, Justice, and Knowledge • James Aitken Wylie |
