"Burnish" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... cried, "what wond'rous master In his school of art hath form'd thee, That so deftly and so truly, From the sketch unto the burnish, Thou hast finish'd such ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 348 • Various
... Americans say), or the colours dashed on to the canvas with the proper amount of daring. Still, I fear, they must be satisfied with what is offered: my palette affords no brighter tints; were t to attempt to deepen the reds, or burnish the ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... wife ere half way gone, For 'twas uneasy travelling alone; And, in this masquerade of mirth and love, Mistook the bliss of heaven for Bacchanals above. Sure he presumed of praise, who came to stock The ethereal pastures with so fair a flock, Burnish'd, and battening on their food, to show 390 Their diligence of careful herds below. Our Panther, though like these she changed her head, Yet, as the mistress of a monarch's bed, Her front erect with majesty she bore, The crosier wielded, and the mitre wore. Her upper part of decent ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol I - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... should be too soft, another too hard, and the third piece of the right quality. Fix them in a vice, about an inch apart and in a vertical position, and with the light from a window shining upon them. Burnish them if necessary, and you will see a band of light reflected ...
— The Aeroplane Speaks - Fifth Edition • H. Barber
... may be, I would not rest till my grandfather had put the musket into my arms. I could scarcely lift it, but from the first it had a charm for me, and now and then, in spite of my mother's protests, I was let to handle it, to learn its parts, to burnish it, and by-and-bye—I could not have been more than six years old—to rest it on a rock and fire it off. It kicked my shoulder roughly in firing, but I know I did not wink as I pulled the trigger. Then I got a wild hunger to fire ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... funereal tapers throw A holy lustre o'er his brow, And burnish with their rays of light The mass of curls that gather bright Above the haughty brow and eye Of a young ...
— The Universal Reciter - 81 Choice Pieces of Rare Poetical Gems • Various
... one admirable word here, enbarnis, which has so long been lost to French that it is not even in Littre. But Dryden's "burnish into man" probably preserves it in English; for this is certainly not the other "burnish" from brunir. ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... the brink of a superb adventure. To rummage about in the lumber-room of a bygone period: to wipe away the dust from long-neglected annals: to burnish up old facts and fancies: to piece together the life-story of some loved hero long dead: that is a work of reverent thought to be undertaken in peace and seclusion. But to plunge boldly into the study of a living personality: to strive to measure ...
— Hilaire Belloc - The Man and His Work • C. Creighton Mandell
... and when serving at table, a wise man's advice on the books his little Jack should read, the best English poets,—then Gower, Chaucer, Occleve, and Lydgate,—not the Catechism and Latin Grammar. It was very pleasant to come off the directions not to conveye spetell over the table, or burnish one's bones with one's teeth, to the burst of enthusiasm with which the writer speaks of our old poets. He evidently believed in them with all his heart; and it would have been a good thing for England if our educators since had followed ...
— Caxton's Book of Curtesye • Frederick J. Furnivall
... leaves provide, And lift the dread Destroyer on his side. So, with bright wreath of serpent-tresses crown'd, Severe in beauty, young MEDUSA frown'd; Erewhile subdued, round WISDOM'S Aegis roll'd 220 Hiss'd the dread snakes, and flam'd in burnish'd gold; Flash'd on her brandish'd arm the immortal shield, And Terror lighten'd o'er the ...
— The Botanic Garden - A Poem in Two Parts. Part 1: The Economy of Vegetation • Erasmus Darwin
... powerful in the dark terra cotta, which can ennoble even the fattest and flattest faces with its wonderful faculty for making mere surface markings, mere crowsfeet, interesting. Thus also with bronze: the polished, worked bronze, of fine chocolate burnish and reddish reflections, mars all beauty of line; how different the unchased, merely rough cast, greenish, with infinite delicate greys and browns, making, for instance, the head of an old woman like ...
— Euphorion - Being Studies of the Antique and the Mediaeval in the - Renaissance - Vol. II • Vernon Lee
... scenes! a sad farewell! To you my grateful heart still fondly clings, Tho' fluttering round on Fancy's burnish'd wings Her tales of future Joy Hope loves to tell. Adieu, adieu! ye much-lov'd cloisters pale! 5 Ah! would those happy days return again, When 'neath your arches, free from every stain, I heard of ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... my name runs ringing through Reviews, And maids, wives, widows, smitten with my Muse, Assail me with Platonic billet-doux. From this suburban attic I'll dismount, With Coutts or Barclays open an account; Ranged in my mirror, cards, with burnish'd ends, Shall show the whole nobility my friends; That happy host with whom I choose to dine, Shall make set-parties, give his-choicest wine; And age and infancy shall gape to see The lucky bard, and whisper ...
— Poems (1828) • Thomas Gent
... various critics may give of Poe and his writings, they must all agree that he is original. He is a clever writer in a limited field. His writings have a glow and burnish that have their origin in his fondness for sensations, color, and vividness of details. He loves mystery and terror,—not the fancies and fears of a child, but overwrought nerves. His material is unreal, and remote from ordinary life. His characters are abnormal, and the world they ...
— Short-Stories • Various
... of gold deposited from a hot cyanide solution is spongy in the extreme, and if the maximum wear-resisting effect is to be obtained, it is advisable to burnish the gold rather than to rely upon the scratch ...
— On Laboratory Arts • Richard Threlfall
... taken off, and the sun danced in the gold lustres of her hair. She was all aglow; she belonged out in the fresh air and the sunlight like this; she could stand it; that dusky-gold radiance played from her like a burnish. Steering sat down on the log bench and watched her, hypnotised by her into haunting fancies of something, somebody, somewhere. She was one of those beings whose rich magnetism of face and personality brings them close to you, not only for the present, but also for the past, one ...
— Sally of Missouri • R. E. Young
... poison, turnspits for the clown, The drunkard's football, laughing-stocks of Time, Whose brains are in their hands and in their heels, But fit to flaunt, to dress, to dance, to thrum, To tramp, to scream, to burnish, and to scour For ever slaves at home ...
— Early Reviews of English Poets • John Louis Haney
... third group, and it too has a drift. Unknown as the names in it are, it is the epoch of restoration, and its 'bright consummate flower' is 'Jesus who is called the Christ.' He will be a better David, will burnish again the tarnished lustre of the monarchy, will be all that earlier kings were meant to be and failed of being, and will more than bring the day which Abraham desired to see, and realise the ideal to which 'prophets and righteous men' unconsciously were tending, when as yet there ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... In that illustrious catalogue of names, which she claims as of her children, and with honest pride holds up to the admiration of other nations, the name of LA FAYETTE has already for centuries been enrolled. And it shall henceforth burnish into brighter fame: for, if in after days, a Frenchman shall be called to indicate the character of his nation by that of one individual, during the age in which we live, the blood of lofty patriotism shall ...
— Life and Public Services of John Quincy Adams - Sixth President of the Unied States • William H. Seward
... out of the ground, Were of one colour with the robe he wore. From underneath that vestment forth he drew Two keys, of metal twain: the one was gold, Its fellow silver. With the pallid first, And next the burnish'd, he so ply'd the gate, As to content me well. "Whenever one Faileth of these, that in the key-hole straight It turn not, to this alley then expect Access in vain." Such were the words he spake. "One is more precious[1]: but the other needs, Skill and sagacity, ...
— Song and Legend From the Middle Ages • William D. McClintock and Porter Lander McClintock
... in, like a burnish'd throne, Burn'd on the water; the poop was beaten gold; Purple the sails, and so perfumed that The winds were love-sick with them: the oars were silver, Which to the tune of flutes kept stroke, and made The water, ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume III • John Lord
... when the wattle gold trembles 'Twixt shadow and shine, When each dew-laden air draught resembles A long draught of wine; When the sky-line's blue burnish'd resistance Makes deeper the dreamiest distance, Some song in all hearts hath existence, — Such songs ...
— An Anthology of Australian Verse • Bertram Stevens
... a native pilot; for the post of the Blonde, and some other light ships, was between the blockading fleet and the blockaded, where perpetual vigilance was needed. This sharp service was the very thing required to improve his character, to stamp it with decision and self-reliance, and to burnish his quiet, contemplative vein with the very frequent friction of the tricks of mankind. These he now was strictly bound not to study, but anticipate, taking it as first postulate that every one would cheat him, if permitted. To a scrimpy ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... never shall be one. Our Imperium was organized to secure our rights within the United States and we will make any sacrifice that can be named to attain that end. Our efforts have been to wash the flag free of all blots, not to rend it; to burnish every star in the cluster, but to pluck ...
— Imperium in Imperio: A Study Of The Negro Race Problem - A Novel • Sutton E. Griggs
... projecting a soul into the ranks of an army, of making legions and their leader one. Disobedience only he punished; anything else he forgave. After a victory his soldiery did what they liked. He gave them arms, slaves to burnish them, women, feasts, sleep. They were his comrades; he called them so; he wept at the death of any of them, and when they were frightened, as they were in Gaul before they met the Germans, and in Africa before they encountered Juba, Caesar frightened them still more. He permitted ...
— Imperial Purple • Edgar Saltus
... movements, the movements as it were of a peasant. Always there is about him the feeling of the fields, the sense of nature's presence in his life, the atmosphere of distances. Nothing in his appearance suggests either the smear or the burnish ...
— Painted Windows - Studies in Religious Personality • Harold Begbie
... the exterior of the barrel, lay it flat on a bench or board, to avoid bending it. The practice of supporting the barrel at each end, and rubbing it with a strap, buffstick, ramrod, or any other instrument to burnish it, is pernicious, and should ...
— Ordnance Instructions for the United States Navy. - 1866. Fourth edition. • Bureau of Ordnance, USN
... illustrations—it is as difficult to understand the true nature and constituents of the supposed Italian standard set up for the regulation of our judgments, as it is to measure the degree of approach made to that standard in this particular work. Eugenie is celebrated for the artificial burnish of the style, but otherwise has been little relished. It has the beauty of marble sculpture, say the critics of Goethe, but also the coldness. We are not often disposed to quarrel with these critics as below the ...
— Biographical Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... to choose my own time and place for fighting, and I would thank the Duc de Nemours to wait till my men have time to shoe their horses and burnish ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume VII • Charles Morris
... phrase: "But, generally speaking, he closed his literary toils at dinner;" "Considering the burnish of her French tastes, her noticing ...
— An English Grammar • W. M. Baskervill and J. W. Sewell
... The car drew up and she stepped into it—a tall, slim figure, wonderfully graceful in her unrelieved black, her hair gleaming as though with some sort of burnish, as she passed underneath the electric light. She looked back at him with a smile of farewell as he stood bareheaded upon the steps, a smile which reminded him somehow of her father, a little sardonic, a little tender, having in it some faintly challenging ...
— The Evil Shepherd • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... the stout harvesters falleth the grain, As when the strong storm-wind is reaping the plain, And loiters the boy in the briery lane; But yonder aslant comes the silvery rain, Like a long line of spears brightly burnish'd ...
— The Children's Garland from the Best Poets • Various
... it suiteth me," said Mr Headley coolly. "He wotteth well that Hillyer hath none who can burnish plate ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte M. Yonge
... you itch, Michael! how you burnish! Will not this Souldiers heat out of your bones yet, Do your ...
— Rule a Wife, and Have a Wife - Beaumont & Fletcher's Works (3 of 10) • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... the tide, Then his clear glitt'ring side Is burnish'd with silver and gold; And the sweep of his flight Seems a rainbow of light, As again he sinks down in ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... people sing, the people say. The ancient bridegroom and the bride, Smiling contented and serene, Upon the blithe, bewildering scene, Behold, well pleas'd, on every side Their forms and features multiplied, As the reflection of a light Between two burnish'd mirrors gleams, Or lamps upon a bridge at night Stretch on and on before the sight, Till the long vista ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education
... sxargi. Burdensome multepeza. Bureau (office) oficejo. Burgess burgo. Burglar domorabisto. Burial enterigxo. Buried, to be enterigxi. Burn (trans.) bruligi. Burn (intrans.) bruli. Burner (gas) flamingo. Burnish poluri. Burrow kavigi. Bury (something) enfosi. Bury (inter.) enterigi. Bush arbetajxo. Bushel busxelo. Buskin duonboto. Business (profession) profesio. Business (in general) afero. Business-man aferisto. Bust busto. Bustle ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... gold and the face of the Father of his Country gleamed with irridescent benignity. Some were hopelessly worn and battered; some had a hole in them or a piece nicked out of the rim. These I exchanged with my mother for more perfect ones which I could burnish. ...
— Confessions of Boyhood • John Albee
... and poetic motion, were slow, free, and light-attracting. The ancients believed that some pearls were constituted by flashes of lightning playing on bubbles within the oyster. A relative of the family here seemed to be wooing the tropic sun of its beams, if not to vitalise, at least to burnish its treasure. ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... reported his misgivings to God, and God upbraided the Prophets for their sloth. "Is there no one who can do this for me?" He cried. "Are all the cunning men in Hell? Shall I make all Heaven drink the dregs of my fury? Burnish your rusted armor. Depart into Hell and cry out: 'Is there one here who knows the Welsh Nonconformists?' Choose the most crafty and release him and ...
— My Neighbors - Stories of the Welsh People • Caradoc Evans
... sair distrest, Down drops her ance weel burnish'd crest, Nae joy her bonnie buskit nest Can yield ava; Her darling bird that she loves ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... dwell on her choicest possession, the legacy of her good and faithful men—that she well preserve their fame, if unquestion'd—or, if need be, that she fail not to dissipate what clouds have intruded on that fame, and burnish it newer, truer ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... following selections notice that the first tells us how to burnish a photograph; the second, how to split ...
— Composition-Rhetoric • Stratton D. Brooks
... sir; your mark is at the fairest. Forswear her love, and seal it with a kiss Upon the burnish'd splendour of this blade, Or it shall rip the ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various
... did the first thing that was familiar since he was seen with the company—he laid his hand on Don Ruy's shoulder and felt that the horse lost was as a brother lost, and Chico had a fancy of his own to caress it, and even burnish the silver ...
— The Flute of the Gods • Marah Ellis Ryan
... overflowing long ago. Zaniloff, charged with the command to restore order in the city at any cost, cared not a straw what the world without might say of him. The rifle, the bayonet, the revolver, the whip—here were fine tools and proved. Let but a breath of suspicion frost the burnish of a reputation and he would have that man or woman at the bar, though arrest might cost a hundred lives. Thus it came about that those within the gates were a heterogeneous multitude to which all classes had contributed. The milliner's assistant crouched side by side with the Countess, ...
— Aladdin of London - or Lodestar • Sir Max Pemberton
... He saw a girl in a dress of pink silk, standing in the front of the box, with her hands upon the ledge and leaning her head a little forwards beyond it. The glare striking up from the stage beneath her gave a burnish of copper to her hair and a warm light to her face. She seemed of a fragile figure and with features regular and delicate. Drake received a notion of unimpressive prettiness and turned his attention to the stage. When the lights were ...
— The Philanderers • A.E.W. Mason
... are return'd from viewing The number, strength, and posture of our foes, Who now encamp within a short hour's march; On the high point of yon bright western tower, We ken them from afar; the setting sun Plays on their shining arms and burnish'd helmets, And covers all the field with ...
— Cato - A Tragedy, in Five Acts • Joseph Addison
... of manners. My father gave us an excellent example in behaviour and in that gentleness, unselfishness, and sincerity which is the foundation of good breeding. My mother, who was never shy, and very good at mental diagnosis, added that burnish without which good manners often lose half their power. What she particularly insisted on was the practice of that graciousness of which she herself afforded so admirable an example. Naturally, like a good mother, she always reproved ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey
... there is a temporary absence of more. Nothing shows everything more plainly and yet why is there more safety than numbers. Nobody knows the cloth to be blue. Nobody knows and nobody says what everybody seats himself to burnish. ...
— Matisse Picasso and Gertrude Stein - With Two Shorter Stories • Gertrude Stein
... no novelty to Lad. But when a bath tub contained certain ingredients from boxes on the dog-closet shelf,—ingredients that fluff the coat and burnish it and make all its hairs stand out like a Circassian Beauty's, ...
— Further Adventures of Lad • Albert Payson Terhune
... silver on the burnish'd board Sparkled and shone; so genial was the hearth: And on the right hand of the hearth he saw Philip, the slighted suitor of old times, Stout, rosy, with his babe across his knees; And o'er her second ...
— Enoch Arden, &c. • Alfred Tennyson
... sad farewell! To you my grateful heart still fondly clings, Tho' fluttering round on Fancy's burnish'd wings, Her tales of future joy Hope loves to tell. Adieu, adieu! ye much loved cloisters pale! Ah! would those happy days return again, When 'neath your arches, free from every stain, I heard of guilt, and wonder'd at the tale! Dear haunts! where oft my simple ...
— The Life of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - 1838 • James Gillman
... old together and illustrious together; their several achievements, both at home and in observatories on strange shores to which they voyaged, always associated; with what affectionate care she trained the favorite nephew, who was to burnish into still more effulgent brightness the star-linked name of Herschel, the story of all this is full of attractiveness, and forms one of the warm and poetic episodes in the high, cold annals of science. The union ...
— The Friendships of Women • William Rounseville Alger
... With vocal sounds, that emulate the lyre; And Thebes, such, Fate, are thy disastrous turns! Now prostrate o'er her pompous ruins mourns; A monkey-god, prodigious to be told! Strikes the beholder's eye with burnish'd gold: To godship here blue Triton's scaly herd, The river-progeny is there preferr'd: Through towns Diana's power neglected lies, Where to her dogs aspiring temples rise: And should you leeks or onions eat, no time Would expiate the sacrilegious ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin
... lark, weary of rest, From his moist cabinet mounts up on high, And wakes the morning, from whose silver breast The sun ariseth in his majesty; 856 Who doth the world so gloriously behold, That cedar-tops and hills seem burnish'd gold. ...
— Venus and Adonis • William Shakespeare
... to be taught how to ride, how to handle a sabre or a gun, or how to balance himself in the goose-step—matters which he had taken the pains to master long ago—there were still certain things to learn, and the button stick, and the flat and chain burnish, and the pots of chrome yellow, and blacking, and pipeclay, were just as strange to him as they would have been to any other raw recruit; so that he was teaching his business at one end and learning it at the other for a matter of ...
— VC — A Chronicle of Castle Barfield and of the Crimea • David Christie Murray
... serve thy cup of wine, Whose beauty was so rare? When last in Raby towers we met, The boy I closely eyed, And often marked his cheeks were wet, With tears he fain would hide: His was no rugged horse-boy's hand, To burnish shield or sharpen brand, Or saddle battle-steed; But meeter seemed for lady fair, To fan her cheek or curl her hair, Or through embroidery, rich and rare, The slender silk to lead: His skin was fair, his ringlets gold, His bosom—when ...
— Marmion: A Tale of Flodden Field • Walter Scott
... at his work, burnishing gold and melting silver, had no time to warm his love or to burnish and make shine his fantasies, nor to show off, gad about, waste his time in mischief, or to run after she-males. Now seeing that in Paris virgins do not fall into the beds of young men any more than roast pheasants ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 3 • Honore de Balzac
... sun In his red prime, her pale, sharp fingers crept After the wind and felt about the moss, And seem'd to pluck from shrinking twig and stem The burning leaves—while groan'd the shudd'ring wood. Who journey'd where the prairies made a pause, Saw burnish'd ramparts flaming in the sun, With beacon fires, tall on their rustling walls. And when the vast, horn'd herds at sunset drew Their sullen masses into one black cloud, Rolling thund'rous o'er the quick pulsating plain, They seem'd to sweep between two fierce red suns Which, hunter-wise, shot at ...
— Old Spookses' Pass • Isabella Valancy Crawford
... the light of her superior knowledge, and our walk was enlivened by some rather too lively discussions between us. We walked about together, however, till the shadows of the firs by the mills stretched nearly across the pond and the white moon began to put on a silvery burnish. Then we wound up by a bitter dispute, during which Gussie's eyes were very black and each cheek had a round, red stain on it. She had a little air of ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1896 to 1901 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... maple-leaved or Virginia thorn (suitable for hedging), hawthorn, wild May cherry, or service berry, water beech, fringe tree, red bud, black alder, common alder, sumach, elder, laurel, witch-hazel, hazel-nut, papaw, chinkapin, burnish bush, nine bark, button-bush, honeysuckle, several varieties of the whortleberry or ...
— History and Comprehensive Description of Loudoun County, Virginia • James W. Head
... made of glass, (for glass mirrors cannot be shown to have existed before the thirteenth century,) but of polished metals; and amongst these, silver was in the greatest esteem, as being capable of a higher burnish than other metals, and less liable to tarnish. Metallic mirrors are alluded to by Job, xxxvii. 18. But it appears from the Second Book of Moses, xxxviii. 8, that in that age, copper must have been ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v2 • Thomas de Quincey
... Rose-crown'd; and ever, when the sun went down, A hundred lamps beam'd in the tranquil gloom, From tree to tree all through the twinkling grove, Revealing all the tumult of the feast— Flush'd guests, and golden goblets foam'd with wine; While the deep-burnish'd foliage overhead Splinter'd the silver arrows of the moon. It may be that sometimes his wondering soul From the loud joyful laughter of his lips Might shrink half startled, like a guilty man Who wrestles with his dream; as some ...
— Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... have observed since, of flowers and plants, and grass-plots, and of suburb delights, seems to me borrowed from 'that first garden of my innocence'—to be slips and scions stolen from that bed of memory. In this manner the darlings of our childhood burnish out in the eye of after years, and derive their sweetest perfume from the first heartfelt sigh of pleasure ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... clear brow in sunlight glow'd; On burnish'd hooves his war-horse trode; From underneath his helmet flow'd His coal-black curls as on he rode, As he rode down to Camelot. [14] From the bank and from the river He flashed into the crystal mirror, "Tirra lirra," by the river [15] Sang ...
— The Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson • Tennyson
... for? is it for us The beautiful world is burnish'd and blent? If we had not eyes, would blossoms shine thus? If we had not nostrils, would they ...
— Harry • Fanny Wheeler Hart
... was a puddle of gloom and of shadowy things, He sped till the red and the gold of invisible day Was burnish and flames to the undermost spread of his wings, So he outlighted the stars as he poised ...
— Tam O' The Scoots • Edgar Wallace |
