"Buttons" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... upon it each time it is worn, which take but a few minutes and mean so much in all departments of dress. By carefully brushing and shaking into folds, removing all spots, hanging right side out, picking and pulling straight flowers, bows, and ribbons as soon as removed, adding buttons and taking up dropped stitches when needed,—all these little attentions if given promptly will keep a wardrobe fresh and in good order. New braid on the bottom of skirts, sponging and pressing, little alterations and addition of new trimming to collar and ...
— Textiles and Clothing • Kate Heintz Watson
... enemies insinuated that it was obviously a symbol of conspiracy. The costume thus amended was worn by the gentlemen themselves, as well as by their servants. Egmont dined at the Regent's table, after the Cardinal's departure, in a camlet doublet, with hanging sleeves, and buttons stamped with the bundle ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... from the uniforms of the other officers had been carefully removed everything which in the least degree suggested the Empire, no such deletion had taken place with the equipment of the young man. On the contrary, the buttons, the brasses, the braids, the tricolored cockade; in short, everything was just as ...
— The Eagle of the Empire - A Story of Waterloo • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... Shop. It was a coach like Cinderella's, though not so pumpkiny. It was drawn by two nice brown horses who might have begun life as rats. On one rode a postilion, and out of a window leaned an old man in a tall hat and a brown coat with brass buttons and a high velvet collar and ruffles at the wrist. His hair was powdered, and he wore a white stock wound round his throat. If we had met him on the road, without an explanation, we should have thought ...
— The Heather-Moon • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... Dolly finished her speech, she looked at William Deane, whose countenance did not seem to please her. Maurice was whistling, and Ellen knitting as fast as possible. Little George was counting William Deane's buttons. "Pray, Mr. Deane," cried Mrs. Dolly, turning full upon him, "what may your advice and opinion be? since nothing's to be done here without your leave and word of command, forsooth. Now, as you know so much and have seen so much of the world, would you be pleased to tell this ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... in their tight-fitting uniforms with gold braid and buttons, hurried here and there, scurrying through the lobbies and drawing-rooms, calling out the names of guests ...
— Bought and Paid For - From the Play of George Broadhurst • Arthur Hornblow
... crooked, my eyes upon the clouds with the birds sailing against them, and when I became conscious I found wicked flaunting poppies sprouted right up against the sweet modest clover-pinks, while the whole paper of bachelor's-buttons was sowed over everything—which I immediately began to dig right up again, blushing furiously to myself over the trowel, and glad that I had caught myself before they grew up to laugh in my face. However, I got that laugh anyway, and I might ...
— The Melting of Molly • Maria Thompson Daviess
... moment a cardinal came in, clad in town costume—his sash and his stockings red, but his simar black, with a red edging and red buttons. It was Cardinal Sarno, a very old intimate of the Boccaneras; and whilst he apologised for arriving so late, through press of work, the company became silent and deferentially clustered round him. This ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... of property with regard to the other sex. "Our men," on the other hand, is redolent of sentimental domesticity. I never hear it without thinking of women who are mothers and makers of men; who sew on trouser buttons and cook savoury messes for those who are fighting the battle of life for them in a rough world, sustained by an abiding vision of noble womanhood and the sanctity of home. It is an extraordinarily appealing phrase and Lady Moyne ...
— The Red Hand of Ulster • George A. Birmingham
... to hurrah, and a rocket went down his throat. Before that man could ask for a drink of water to quench that thing, it blew up and scattered him all, over the forty-five States, and—really, now, this is true—I know about it myself—twenty-four hours after that it was raining buttons, recognizable as his, on the Atlantic seaboard. A person cannot have a disaster like that and be entirely cheerful the rest of his life. I had another uncle, on an entirely different Fourth of July, who was blown up that way, and really it trimmed him as it would ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... up the former stream. They had seen the shells left by hungry muskrats, and even gathered a few to admire the rainbow-hued inside coating, which Owen told them was used in the manufacture of pearl buttons. ...
— With Trapper Jim in the North Woods • Lawrence J. Leslie
... face was pale, there was something feminine about the child. He still wore his hair in long, wavy curls, and his mother would not have him give up embroidered collars, and little jackets fastened with frogs and spindle-shaped buttons; evidently she took a thoroughly feminine pleasure in the costume, a source of as much interest to the mother as to the child. The elder boy's plain white collar, turned down over a closely fitting jacket, made a contrast with his brother's clothing, but the color and material were ...
— La Grenadiere • Honore de Balzac
... full of menials and officials and gold lace and brass buttons. I hope you haven't done anything to ...
— Abroad with the Jimmies • Lilian Bell
... one may have objections to hearts hanging like humble buttons, or to buttons being humble at all, but one should not stop to quarrel about such trifles with a poet who ...
— A Collection of Stories, Reviews and Essays • Willa Cather
... her hands. But she was forced to look at them again by a sense that these people were strange in a way that was at once unpleasant and yet interesting and exciting. They were both clad in uniforms cut unskilfully out of poor cloth, the man in a short coat with brass buttons, braided trousers, and a circular cap like a sailor's, and the woman in an old-fashioned dress with a tight-fitting bodice and a gored skirt; and round his cap and round the crown of her poke-bonnet were ribbons on which ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... portion of the mixed Catholic and Protestant assembly, who would kneel and kiss his hand. A schoolmaster meeting boys in society, who, instantly on his appearance should begin unbuttoning their brace buttons behind, would hardly ...
— What I Remember, Volume 2 • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... assortment; they whistle in my ear o' nights like a north- easter. I trust yours don't dine with the family; mine are better mannered; you will hear nought of them till, 2 A.M., except one, to be sure, that I have made a pet of, but he is small; I keep him in buttons, so as to avoid commentaries; you will like him much - if you like what ...
— The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 1 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... maybe, that my agility is not what it was fifteen years ago. I do not leap across the fences. But I am not yet comic. Yonder stout man waddles as if he were a precious bombard. He strains at his forward buttons. Unless he mend his appetite, his shoes will be lost below his waistcoat. Already their tops and hulls, like battered caravels, disappear beneath his fat horizon. With him I bear no fellowship. But although nature has not ...
— Chimney-Pot Papers • Charles S. Brooks
... her nice hair parted to one side on the right and pinned above her left ear with a white artificial rose. Her maid had black coat and trousers. She had some bracelets on, but her jewels were less beautiful than those of the other women. One very pretty woman had buttons on her coat of emeralds surrounded with pearls, and on her arm a lovely bracelet of pearls. After tea, the great ladies went into an inner room, with the exception of two. One of these two had a very sad face. I watched ...
— Letters from China and Japan • John Dewey
... and some of the girls of the graduating class were to have them; but Ruth chose something so durable and at so low a price that she hoped Uncle Jabez would not be sorry for his generosity. She saw the goods, and lace, and buttons, and all the rest, made up into a neat package and sent across to the other counter with the bill, and then went out of the store and up Market Street toward ...
— Ruth Fielding of the Red Mill • Alice B. Emerson
... the afternoon at Mrs. Francis's (suggested by C.). Danny's new coat had a velvet collar lovely to feel (suggested by C.). Pearl had a wonderful new dress—the kind she had often dreamed of—made out of one of Mrs. Francis's tea gowns. (Not only suggested but made by C.). It had real buttons on it, and there was not one pin needed. Pearl felt she was just as well dressed as the little girl on the starch box. Her only grief was that when she had on her coat—which was also new, and represented one-half month of Camilla's wages—the velvet on her dress did not show. But Camilla, anticipating ...
— Sowing Seeds in Danny • Nellie L. McClung
... better than sunshine; any head by Titian has twice the character, and seen by daylight instead of gas. The rest of the picture is as false in light and shade as it is pretentious, made up chiefly of gleaming buttons in places where no light could possibly reach them; and of an embossed belt on the shoulder, which people think finely painted because it is all over lumps of color, not one of which was necessary. That embossed execution ...
— Lectures on Landscape - Delivered at Oxford in Lent Term, 1871 • John Ruskin
... little sand, that had accumulated at the bottom near one of the stretchers. Picking it up, he found that it was a handsome button that had apparently dropped from the dress of some lady. This he examined with the most intense eagerness; when the thought struck him that it was very like some buttons that belonged to a dress occasionally worn by Kate. Of this, however, he was not sufficiently certain; so, thrusting it into his pocket, he turned away, more perplexed than ever with the mystery that surrounded him. Hurrying to the Rock ...
— Ridgeway - An Historical Romance of the Fenian Invasion of Canada • Scian Dubh
... Each boy's buttons were in a straight line with those of the next boy, each shoulder-strap set at the same angle as its fellows, each gun was as well polished as its neighbor, and the spick and span appearance the line presented, after its long fatiguing march, ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 27, May 13, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... met one of the knee-buttons sewed into a piece of the tripe, and it was impossible for him to fail discovering the cheat. The rage, however, was not confined to Andy. As soon as it was understood what had been done, there was an universal rush for Paddy and Jillen; but Paddy was much ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 20, No. 562, Saturday, August 18, 1832. • Various
... and so dazed, and had such trouble in making the little new kind of hook-buttons on my gloves stay fastened, that before I knew it we drew up at a queer kind of old warehouse down in a part of New York where I had never been, with a line of the ocean or the bay or the river or the harbor, I couldn't tell which, just beyond. Then I was scared, for instead of Sam being in danger, ...
— Over Paradise Ridge - A Romance • Maria Thompson Daviess
... dress-coat, his bosom covered with the finest of linen, and with glittering diamond buttons, with ruddy side-whiskers, a pale and lean face, unbending, irreproachable in dress, and correct in posture, he stood in the middle of his study, and was drawing on his light gloves very slowly. Taking his hat he thought that he felt a decided sourness and a bitterness ...
— The Argonauts • Eliza Orzeszko (AKA Orzeszkowa)
... jars, and the quaintest of Dutch schnapps bottles, cheek by jowl with an iron warming-pan, a bootjack, a rusty leather bellows, and a box packed with empty patent-medicine bottles, under the pantry shelf. A helmet creamer would be full of little rolls of twine, odd buttons, a wad of beeswax, a piece of asafetida, elastic bands, and corks. She had used a Ridgway platter with a view of the Hudson River on it, as a dinner plate for her hound, for we found it wrapped up, with "Nipper's platter" scrawled on ...
— A Woman Named Smith • Marie Conway Oemler
... porter had a new livery, and beneath his tunic with its buttons of silver-gilt his paunch protruded, majestic. All the same M. Joyeuse had not allowed himself to be tempted, even after Passajon, opening wide his shallow-set blue eyes, had whispered into his ear with emphasis these ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... ditch. A fire-ball came crashing over the rampart, rolled down the grass slope and lay sputtering, and in the infernal glare he saw all his comrades' faces—every detail of their dress down to the moulded pattern on their buttons. "Fourth! Fourth!" some one shouted, and then voice and vision were caught up and drowned together in a hell of musketry. He must win across or be carried he knew not where by the brute pressure of the crowd. A cry broke from him and he ...
— The Laird's Luck • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... too: washes yourself three or four times a day, allus shaves yerself mornin's an' oils an' brushes yer hair. You don't go ter bed wi' yer boots and breeches on; you sleeps in a dinky suit o' pyjamas with stripes on 'em, an' braid, an' fancy buttons. I ain't complain'n' none, mind you. I gotter tremendous admiration fer all these yer signs of gentlemanhood. Only they makes me feel ter'ble humble, Kiddie. I feel 's if I oughter be sayin' 'sir' or 'your lordship' ...
— Kiddie the Scout • Robert Leighton
... thus distinguished are known to science as Lophophora Williamsii and Lophophora Williamsii, var. Lewinii. In the United States they are called mescal buttons, and in Mexico peyote. The Tarahumares speak of them as the superior hikuli (hikuli waname), or simply hikuli, they being the ...
— Unknown Mexico, Volume 1 (of 2) • Carl Lumholtz
... Victor Nevill pressed an electric bell, in answer to which there presently appeared, from some mysterious source downstairs, a boy in buttons carrying a tray on which reposed a small pot of coffee, one of cream, a pat of butter, and a couple of crisp rolls. Nevill ate his breakfast with the mechanical air of one who is doing a tiresome but necessary thing, meanwhile consulting a tiny memorandum-book, ...
— In Friendship's Guise • Wm. Murray Graydon
... me. It also showed the weapons in their hands, and for a moment I felt reassured when I saw that these were swords, for I had seen them before with foils in their hands practising for exercise, as they said, in the great garret. But the swords had buttons on them, and this time the tips were sharp and shone in ...
— The Golden Slipper • Anna Katharine Green
... and an American; when he has given you all the materials for having a good time, he believes that you must be happy, because there is nothing to hinder. It isn't that I want to be happy in the greedy way that men think we do, for then I could easily be happy. If you have a soul which is not above buttons, buttons are enough. But if you expect to be of real use, to help on, and to help out, you will be disappointed. I have not the faith that they say upholds you Altrurians in trying to help out, if I don't see my way out. It seems to me that my reason has some right to satisfaction, and that, ...
— Through the Eye of the Needle - A Romance • W. D. Howells
... is,' said Hans, 'that I was obliged to. You see the winter was a very bad time for me, and I really had no money at all to buy bread with. So I first sold the silver buttons off my Sunday coat, and then I sold my silver chain, and then I sold my big pipe, and at last I sold my wheelbarrow. But I am going to buy them ...
— The Happy Prince and Other Tales • Oscar Wilde
... good, sir?" objected Tolliday. "We can't talk a word of the lingo, and if your idea be to march through the country till we can find a boat, bless my buttons if we can do it, 'cos the first cuss I say will be the ...
— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang
... from the horrors of starvation by generously dividing with me a bag of sugar-plums. But for this unlooked-for aid, I should have been reduced, like a famous handful of shipwrecked mariners, to feed upon my watch-chain and vest-buttons. To a man so absorbed in his grief, as you are, the news of the death from starvation of a friend upon the desert island of a railway station, would make very little impression; but I not being in love with any Irene de Chateaudun, have preserved a pleasant recollection of this touching scene, ...
— The Cross of Berny • Emile de Girardin
... on, turning to Lucien, who stood amazed at this, "you are well made, you have a graceful figure, you wear your clothes with an air, you look like a gentleman in that blue coat of yours with the yellow buttons and the plain nankeen trousers; now I should look like a workingman among those people, I should be awkward and out of my element, I should say foolish things, or say nothing at all; but as for you, ...
— Two Poets - Lost Illusions Part I • Honore de Balzac
... mental, emotional, or behavioral impairment in an individual. Hallucinogens are drugs that affect sensation, thinking, self- awareness, and emotion. Hallucinogens include LSD (acid, microdot), mescaline and peyote (mexc, buttons, cactus), amphetamine variants (PMA, STP, DOB), phencyclidine (PCP, angel dust, hog), phencyclidine analogues (PCE, PCPy, TCP), and others (psilocybin, psilocyn). Hashish is the resinous exudate of the cannabis or hemp plant (Cannabis sativa). Heroin is a semisynthetic ...
— The 2005 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... e't all the bacon and prunes and sugar and dog-food," Elijah reported, "and gosh darn my buttons, if they didn't gnaw open the sacks and scatter the flour and beans and rice from Dan to Beersheba. I found empty sacks where they'd dragged them a quarter ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London
... it would be wise to make a friend of the big woman, so as to gain her confidence, so he sat on the back of her chair and chattered to her while she mended her stockings and sewed silver buttons on some golden shoes that were as big as row-boats. This pleased the Giantess and she would pause at times to pat the Monkey's head. The little Brown Bear curled up in a corner and lay still all day. The Owl and the Canary found they could converse together ...
— The Tin Woodman of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... The very thing. Ah! Here comes my baggage." And the others saw a policeman bicycling up the avenue, with a small portmanteau balanced precariously between the handlebars and the front buttons of ...
— The Strange Case of Mortimer Fenley • Louis Tracy
... eyes were like two pale gooseberries firmly imbedded in a swollen and gravy-smeared mask of putty. His breath came in short wheezes; a senatorial roll of adipose tissue denied a fashionable set to his upturned coat collar. Buttons that had been sewed upon his clothes by kind Salvation fingers a week before flew like popcorn; strewing the earth around him. Ragged he was, with a split shirt front open to the wishbone; but the November breeze, carrying ...
— The Trimmed Lamp and Others • O Henry
... Jewelry is at once removed from its settings, and the gold is either melted or the engraving is burnished out, so as in either case to make identification impossible. Rich velvet and silk garments are transmogrified by the removal and re-arrangement of the buttons and trimmings. Pointed edges are rounded, and rounded edges are pointed, entirely changing the whole aspect of the garment, with such celerity that the lady who had worn the dress in the morning would not have the slightest suspicion that it was the ...
— The Secrets Of The Great City • Edward Winslow Martin
... bagman," muttered John Effingham, as the first arrival touched the deck. "That worthy has merely exchanged the basket of a coach for the deck of a packet; we may now learn the price of buttons." ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... the sigh of some sleeper, and once more he lay down hot, weary, and uncomfortable, for sleeping in his clothes seemed to be a horrible mistake. He had never before realised how many buttons he had about him; for, if he lay on one side, a brass button seemed to be thinking that it was a seal, and his ribs were wax. On the other side it was just as bad. If he turned over on his face, as if about to swim in the soft sand, the sensation ...
— Mother Carey's Chicken - Her Voyage to the Unknown Isle • George Manville Fenn
... South African varieties of the ibex, springbok, and similar horned sheep and cattle, are brought over to this country and mounted as ornaments. It is said that the old art of impressing or stamping horn and tortoiseshell has long been discarded, and is only retained for stamping buttons. Fancy hair ornaments were frequently so moulded, the horn or tortoiseshell being afterwards decorated with inlaid silver ...
— Chats on Household Curios • Fred W. Burgess
... smiled with a sense of security at the faces around. His ears were bending down under the weight of his battered felt hat. The torn tails of his black coat flapped in fringes about the calves of his legs. He unbuttoned the only two buttons that remained and every one saw that he had no shirt under it. It was his deserved misfortune that those rags which nobody could possibly be supposed to own looked on him as if they had been stolen. His neck was long and ...
— The Nigger Of The "Narcissus" - A Tale Of The Forecastle • Joseph Conrad
... back yard, and ascend the stairs with the spindling bannisters to his dressing room. Here Malachi would have laid out the black swallow-tail coat with the high velvet collar, trousers to match, double-breasted waistcoat with gilt buttons, and fluffy cravat of ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith
... aroused by the creaking of boards. Lifting himself upon his elbow, he saw a sergeant prowling among the sleeping forms. The sergeant carried a candle in an old brass candle-stick. He would have resembled some old farmer on an unusual midnight tour if it were not for the significance of his gleaming buttons and striped sleeves. ...
— The Little Regiment - And Other Episodes of the American Civil War • Stephen Crane
... days that followed I saw several of these masked men. The worst cases were not allowed to walk about. The ones I saw were invariably dressed with the most scrupulous care in the smartest uniforms, Sam Browns polished and buttons shining. They had hope, and took a pride in themselves—a splendid sign! Perhaps you ask why the face-cases should be kept in France. I was not told, but I can guess—because they dread going back to England to their girls until they've got rid of their disfigurements. ...
— The Glory of the Trenches • Coningsby Dawson
... said Bobby; "six of them, and six boxes, make twelve, you know. I've only one cloak, but it's red on one side and blue on the other, and two kinds of buttons. Well; I come on left for the First Traveller, with my cloak the red side out, ...
— A Great Emergency and Other Tales - A Great Emergency; A Very Ill-Tempered Family; Our Field; Madam Liberality • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing
... women workers need skill in hand sewing. Before girls enter the industry they should have careful and systematic training in plain sewing stitches, sewing on buttons and other fasteners, and button ...
— Wage Earning and Education • R. R. Lutz
... available property. Add to this, a remnant of my last month's pay— in truth, not enough to provide me with that much coveted article, a civilian's suit: in proof of which, my old undress-frock, with its yellow spread-eagle buttons, clung to my shoulders like a second shirt of Nessus. The vanity of wearing a uniform, that may have once been felt, was long ago threadbare as the coat itself; and yet I was not wanting in friends, who fancied that it might still exist! How ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... dark greenish gray suit, a stripe in it—little rough stripe; black bow cravat; shirt with three little stripes in it; black laced shoes; false teeth; one finger gone; three buttons ...
— Outwitting Our Nerves - A Primer of Psychotherapy • Josephine A. Jackson and Helen M. Salisbury
... always addressed his parent as "Brother Plum," and bore himself, altogether in such a superior manner that Ruth longed to put bent pins in his chair. Both father and son wore the long, single breasted collarless coats of their society, without buttons, before or behind, but with a row of hooks and eyes on either side in front. It was Ruth's suggestion that the coats would be improved by a single hook and eye sewed on in the small of the back where the buttons ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 3. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner
... villas and country-seats adorned with gardens, vineyards and choice shrubbery. It has its English and Chinese quarters, the latter as essentially Chinese as if built in the Celestials' own land, and brought over, mandarin buttons, tiny teapots, opium-pipes and all, in one of their own junks. The English quarter contains, besides the government buildings, several schools, hospitals, churches and benevolent institutions, the public library, a polytechnic hall, a national museum, theatres and ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 87, March, 1875 • Various
... told, was remarkable for his extravagant love of finery, and whose cell was plastered over with glaring colored prints and patches of colored paper ornamentally disposed. He wore on his hat a broad strip of tarnished lace, and had decorated his waistcoat with several perpendicular rows of pearl buttons. ...
— Letters of a Traveller - Notes of Things Seen in Europe and America • William Cullen Bryant
... League of the Iroquois, p. 602.] describes a game played by the Iroquois with buttons or dice made of elk-horn, rounded and polished and blackened on one side. The players spread a blanket on the ground; and the dice were tossed with the hand in the air and permitted to fall on the blanket. The counts were determined as in the game of platter by the color ...
— Indian Games • Andrew McFarland Davis
... they knew what he signified; but a white woman to them was as fabulous a creature as a mermaid or a hamadryad. Their eyes were saved for Clare. They fixed on her as hard, bright, and unwinking as jet buttons. They conveyed nothing but an animal curiosity. Clare nodded and smiled to them in her own way, but no muscle of ...
— The Woman from Outside - [on Swan River] • Hulbert Footner
... braided in the same material, and with silver buttons. I had had this strange costume made when I was on Bernadotte's staff, since it was the fashion there to wear this uniform when travelling in hot weather. I decided to wear this outfit on the journey to Toulouse, as I was not with my regiment, ...
— The Memoirs of General the Baron de Marbot, Translated by - Oliver C. Colt • Baron de Marbot
... seemed made for armor, whereas he himself would surely have been crushed under so much as a Crusader's buckler. Being so very small, and perched so very high, he cut a ludicrously martial figure with his plumed hat and epaulettes and gold buttons and braid and medals and exquisitely mounted sabre. It was not a French uniform that he wore, but Mexican Imperial, and stupendously ornate. And within the brave array, he was such a little, little ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... Chief of these was a fine book called "Pilgrim's Progress," with many pictures. There was a doll,—one that Faith's Aunt Priscilla had brought her from New York. This doll was a very wonderful creature. She wore a blue flounced satin dress, and the dress had real buttons, buttons of gilt; and the ...
— A Little Maid of Ticonderoga • Alice Turner Curtis
... their doublets. Every one had a gallant sword by his side, the hilt and handle whereof were gilt, and the scabbard of velvet, of the color of his breeches, the end in gold, and goldsmith's work. The dagger of the same. Their caps were of black velvet, adorned with jewels and buttons of gold. Upon that they wore a white plume, most prettily and minion-like parted by so many rows of gold spangles, at the end whereof hung dangling ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VII (of X)—Continental Europe I • Various
... compelled to come to a parley with one of us. Akaitcho had seen Terregannoeuck soon after our departure; he was much terrified, and thrust his spear at him as he had done at Augustus; but was soon reconciled after the demonstrations of kindness the Indians made, in cutting off the buttons from their dress to present ...
— Narrative of a Journey to the Shores of the Polar Sea, in the years 1819-20-21-22, Volume 2 • John Franklin
... human face greeted our searching glances. In looking to the rear—into the great corral, or cattle-yard—we could see numerous peons in their brown leathern dresses, with naked legs and sandalled feet; vaqueros in all their grandeur of velveteens, bell-buttons, and gold or silver lace; with a number of women and young girls in coloured naguas and rebosos. A busy scene was presented in that quarter. It was the great cattle enclosure, for the estate of Don Ramon de Vargas ...
— The War Trail - The Hunt of the Wild Horse • Mayne Reid
... because everything seemed so warm and wonderful and she could think and think and think. What she thought about was Donal's face, his delightful eyes, his white forehead with curly hair pushed back with his Highland bonnet. His plaid swung about when he ran and jumped. When he held her tight the buttons of his jacket hurt her a little because they pressed against her body. What was "Mother" like? Did he kiss her? What pretty stones there were in his clasps and buckles! How nice it was to hear him laugh and how fond he was of laughing. Donal! Donal! Donal! ...
— The Head of the House of Coombe • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... trophies torn from Doctor Monk And he has really tattered foully The vestments of Archbishop Howley No button could I late discern on The garments of Archbishop Vernon, And never had his fingers mercy Upon the garb of Bishop Percy. The buttons fly from Bishop Ryder Like corks that spring from ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan
... you really mean that?" he cried. "It IS their infernal buttons that makes most of the worry!—And their prayers?—What IS the difference anyway between a morning and an evening prayer?—And this awful responsibility about cereals? And how in the world do you make sure ...
— Fairy Prince and Other Stories • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... were his weakness, and Dolly's great difficulty was to pilot him safely through his shoals of doubt and self-reproach, and she had her own way of managing it. Just now her way of managing it was to confront him bravely, coming quite close to him again, and taking hold of one of his coat buttons. ...
— Vagabondia - 1884 • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... females, however, did not correspond with their dress; for they were rude and troublesome in the highest degree; they surrounded me in numbers, begging for amber, beads, &c.; and were so vehement in their solicitations, that I found it impossible to resist them. They tore my cloak, cut the buttons from my boy's clothes, and were proceeding to other outrages, when I mounted my horse and rode off, followed for half a mile by ...
— Life and Travels of Mungo Park in Central Africa • Mungo Park
... parlor where your grandfather was—he wasn't deaf then. I thought I should choke; but I caught hold of one of the buttons on his coat, and spoke as ...
— Little Prudy • Sophie May
... secured to the central ridge of the bed by strips of lath. When rolled up, the rollers are held in place by loops of rope around their ends and when they are down they are held by similar loops to the notched tent-pins driven into the ground or to wooden buttons fastened to the sides and ends of the frame as ...
— Tomato Culture: A Practical Treatise on the Tomato • William Warner Tracy
... not see this myself, and I do not know the fair Therese or the gentleman who buttons his coat under his whiskers; but you should have heard one of these ballooning enthusiasts tell it to me in the Taverne du Pantheon the other night. His only regret seemed to be that he, too, could not have ...
— The Real Latin Quarter • F. Berkeley Smith
... been off on a little trip, blessing everything from his baggage check to his suspender buttons," laughed the young inventor, as he recalled his eccentric acquaintance. "I shall be glad to ...
— Tom Swift among the Fire Fighters - or, Battling with Flames from the Air • Victor Appleton
... same ease, the same unconstraint, the same absence of provincial anxiety which makes a Washington a lighter and friendlier London. There were rather more sallow attaches; in their low-cut white waistcoats, with small brass buttons, they moved more consciously about, and looked weightier personages than several foreign ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... grew dark. This was taking the buttons off with a vengeance. He made a movement, but restrained himself. "You ...
— The Wild Geese • Stanley John Weyman
... his appearance made Madame Claes quiver as he descended the stairs. Balthazar entered, dressed in the fashion of the period. He wore highly polished top-boots, which allowed the upper part of the white silk stockings to appear, blue kerseymere small-clothes with gold buttons, a flowered white waistcoat, and a blue frock-coat. He had trimmed his beard, combed and perfumed his hair, pared his nails, and washed his hands, all with such care that he was scarcely recognizable to those who had seen ...
— The Alkahest • Honore de Balzac
... for the East; her stature rather above the ordinary height, and clothed in the rich dress usual among the Syrian ladies. She wore an amber vest of gold-embroidered silk, fitting closely to her shape, and fastening with buttons of precious stones from the bosom to the waist, there opening like a tunic, so that her limbs were free to range in her huge Mamlouk trousers, made of that white Cashmere a shawl of which can be drawn through a ring. These, fastened ...
— Tancred - Or, The New Crusade • Benjamin Disraeli
... Napoleons, or Beethovens; who have not one virtue to rub against another in the field of active life, and yet perhaps, in the life of contemplation, sit with the saints. We see them on the street, and we can count their buttons; but heaven knows in what they pride themselves! heaven knows where they have ...
— Across The Plains • Robert Louis Stevenson
... very like the cotton drawers worn in Madagascar. Two of the seven natives had coats of padded nankeen, differing little in shape from those of the Chinese. Others wore long gowns, which were fastened by means of a waist-belt and some little buttons, so that they had no need of drawers. Their heads were bare, but one or two of them wore bearskin bands. They had their forelocks and faces shaven, but the back hair kept about eight or ten inches long, in a different fashion from the Chinese, however, who leave only a round tuft of hair, ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part 2. The Great Navigators of the Eighteenth Century • Jules Verne
... the old houses and the old things, the old faces and voices, the whole irrevocable human scene which the genial hand of Goldsmith has passed over to him, and there is no inquiry about them that he is not in a position to answer. He is intimate with the buttons of coats and the buckles of shoes: he knows not only exactly what his people wore, but exactly how they wore it, and how they felt when they had it on. He has sat on the old chairs and sofas, and rubbed against the old ...
— Picture and Text - 1893 • Henry James
... he said low and rapidly in French. 'If you are buying so manythe difference between two buttons and four would keep a fire all winter for one of Rosy's old women who has no ...
— The Gold of Chickaree • Susan Warner
... motion of the blaze, and offering, let the eye wander where it might, interminable vistas of the same rich colour. The old oak wainscoting, the beams, the chairs, the seats, reflected it in a deep, dull glimmer. There were fires and red curtains in the very eyes of the drinkers, in their buttons, in their liquor, ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... Liberal journalists will do their best to suggest that the South African wrong consisted in what they call Martial Law. That is, that there is something specially wicked about men doing an act of cruelty in khaki or in vermilion, but not if it is done in dark blue with pewter buttons. The tyrant who wears a busby or a forage cap is abominable; the tyrant who wears a horsehair wig is excusable. To be judged by soldiers is hell; but to be ...
— Utopia of Usurers and other Essays • G. K. Chesterton
... advances with a certain dignity to meet his guests. He is garbed in a coat made of watered silk, its straight collar faced with dark-green material edged with gold. A green and gold shoulder knot sets off the garment, which is provided with large opal buttons set in brilliants, this same adornment appearing on the hilt of his sword, which he lays aside as he approaches. From the sides of his wig depend two carefully-arranged locks, dusted with a tan-colored powder. His ...
— The Mississippi Bubble • Emerson Hough
... was a congenial element to us both in old times, you know, so no wonder your brood take to it like ducks or hippopotamuses. I say, we ought to have come in by the rear. Couldn't that imp of a buttons of yours come and scrape us before ...
— The Two Sides of the Shield • Charlotte M. Yonge
... foot over where it is widest, which is about the middle, the top and bottom having a narrow compass, much like the form of an egg. Behind the furnace are placed two high pair of bellows, whose noses meet at a little hole near the bottom: these are compressed together by certain buttons placed on the axis of a very large wheel, which is turned round by water, in the manner of an overshot mill. As soon as these buttons are slid off, the bellows are raised again by a counterpoise of weights, whereby they are made to play alternately, the one giving its blast whilst ...
— The Forest of Dean - An Historical and Descriptive Account • H. G. Nicholls
... officers, merely ornamental additions to shining characters. On a Sunday, for instance, in the early part of the cruise, the said bump receives as it were a strengthening plaster, at the sight of officers and men in full dress—the first resplendent in gold-banded caps—multiplied buttons—shining sword hilts, et cetera, et cetera, and the men in white ducks, blue shirts, et cetera, scattered about the decks in picturesque groups. The captain, from the fact of his occupying a private cabin, and seeing the officers merely ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 6, No. 1, July, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... put on a dozen different things, A mixture of buttons and hooks and strings, Till she strongly resembled a notion store; Then, taking some seventeen pins or more, She thrust them into her ruby lips, Then stuck them around from waist to hips, And never once hesitated. And the maiden didn't know, perhaps, That ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For • Various
... peddling-box, he had read Epictetus. And the thought that such a great soul maintained its purity, its integrity, even in bonds, encouraged and consoled him. "How can they hurt me," he asks, "if spiritually I am far from them, far above them? They can do no more than place gilt buttons on my coat and give me a cap to replace this slouch. Therefore, I will serve. I will be a slave, even ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... tail coat and brass buttons a victory Amused after their tiresome work of slaughter And her voice, against herself, was for England As for comparisons, they are flowers thrown into the fire As if the age were the injury! Brains will beat Grim Death if we have enough of them But a great success is full of temptations Could ...
— Quotations from the Works of George Meredith • David Widger
... saw the woman's face; she was sitting on a sack filled with straw, with her husband's plaid round her, and his big-coat, with its large, white metal buttons, over ...
— The Great English Short-Story Writers, Vol. 1 • Various
... femme d'esprit. Here he would sit with his friends and his women, and thereafter drive his chariot across the Pont Neuf to the sunnier gaiety of the Palais-Royal. A finished dandy, he wore by preference a grey-white coat with silver buttons; his breeches and stockings were on a famous occasion of black silk; while a sword, scabbarded in ...
— A Book of Scoundrels • Charles Whibley
... silver or brass in artistic designs, and are connected by strands of beads passing under the chin (Fig. 6). Large wooden ornaments are also worn by the men, but more prized are large ivory ear plugs made like enormous collar buttons (Plates II-IV). These are very rare, since the ivory for their manufacture must be secured from Borneo, and by the time it has passed through the hands of many traders it has assumed a value which limits the possession of articles made from it to a few ...
— The Wild Tribes of Davao District, Mindanao - The R. F. Cummings Philippine Expedition • Fay-Cooper Cole
... letting out the dress and setting forward the buttons on her raincoat. Mr. Muldoon was inclined to be sulky. He sat at the back of the cave, playing solitaire and every now and then examining the road maps. Aggie was depressed too. But, as Tish said, getting rid of Muldoon ...
— More Tish • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... cupid-lips were laughing, and more than all, the two deep, round dimples in the olive cheeks were laughing. Even the little rings of black hair on her low forehead seemed to quiver with mirth, as her head moved with quick, bird-like gestures. She was dressed all in grey, and the cut-steel buttons on her dress twinkled as if they too ...
— The Princess Passes • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... in my haversack, Billy," laughed Dennis, producing a German helmet minus the spike; and what with buttons and bits of shells, when the small fry retired to resume their study of French irregular verbs it is to be feared the verbs were ...
— With Haig on the Somme • D. H. Parry
... sarapes, the dresses of the gentlemen (most, I believe, Spaniards), with their handsome horses, high Mexican saddles, gold-embroidered anqueras generally of black fur, their Mexican hats ornamented with gold, richly-furred jackets, pantaloons with hanging silver buttons, stamped-leather boots, silver stirrups, and graceful mangas with black or coloured ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca
... one being allowed to see it except the Prioress. The great difficulty was to find beads large enough for the eyes, and it threatened to frustrate the making of their beast. But the latest postulant suggested that perhaps the buttons off her jacket would do, they were just the thing,' and the legs of the beast were most natural and life-like; it had ...
— Sister Teresa • George Moore
... very robust. I took off his white beaver hat, and pushed the curls away from his forehead. He had his riding-whip in his hand. I took that, too, and snapped it at our little dog, Kip. Father's clothes also pleased me—a lavender-colored coat, with brass buttons, and trousers of the same color. I mentally composed for myself a suit to match his, and thought how well we should look calling at Lady Teazle's house in London, only I was worried because my bonnet ...
— The Morgesons • Elizabeth Stoddard
... varied assortment such articles as pleased his errant fancy. He had no prejudices against bits of feminine attire, often sporting a dark green cashmere basque trimmed with black velvet ribbon and gilt buttons. It was double breasted and when it surmounted a pair of trousers cut to the right length but not altered in width, the effect would have startled any more exacting community than ours. Jacob was always tired and went ...
— The Girl and the Kingdom - Learning to Teach • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... said Archie. "I thought that was quite understood. I have been getting my traps together." The getting of his traps together had consisted in the ordering of a sailor's jacket with brass buttons, and three pair ...
— The Claverings • Anthony Trollope
... wounded; and I'll take my affidavy that there warn't an officer in the fleet as lost the number of his mess in that action, and a most clipping affair it was; only think of mounseer turning tail to marchant vessels! Damn my old buttons! what will our ...
— Newton Forster • Frederick Marryat
... his blue coat with brass buttons out of the pop-shop just now," cried another; "and he'll hold his head so high that he won't look at us ...
— Frank Oldfield - Lost and Found • T.P. Wilson
... Then, after another sidelong glance at me, she said: "Yes, I believe there is. I wish to see some buttons, some braid, and—oh, ever so many things. ...
— Kent Knowles: Quahaug • Joseph C. Lincoln
... than ever of knives and string and buttons. His smile when he was happy lightened his face, changing the lines of it, making it if not handsome pleasant and friendly. He would talk to himself in English, ruffling his hands through his hair: "And then, at three o'clock I must go with Andrey Vassilievitch ..." or ...
— The Dark Forest • Hugh Walpole
... birch from veneer cut in New England. The better grades are also used for furniture and cabinet work, and the "burls" found on this species are highly valued for making fancy articles, gavels, etc. It is extensively used for turnery, buttons, spools, bobbins, wheel hubs, etc. Maine to Minnesota and southward ...
— Seasoning of Wood • Joseph B. Wagner
... Margarita Josephine Dolores, "and I have had nothing to eat since the man with the shining buttons gave me meat between bread a great many hours ago. I wish I might see another such man. He might be willing to give me more. Will you look out and tell me if you ...
— Margarita's Soul - The Romantic Recollections of a Man of Fifty • Ingraham Lovell
... also caused him to examine, more times than was really necessary, the revolver which had already done him such good service, and he went through a preliminary drill, consisting of placing it inside his waistcoat, a couple of buttons being left carelessly unfastened; next thrusting his hand within, in an indifferent manner, then instantly jerking out and pointing the weapon at an imaginary foe in front of him. This maneuver he repeated scores of times, narrowly escaping the firing of the weapon, until he satisfied himself ...
— Through Apache Lands • R. H. Jayne
... of the strong elder race were factory workers. The world had been made better by an output of thousands of shiny new buttons when at last the six o'clock whistle blew ...
— Little Lost Sister • Virginia Brooks
... Meissonier, Art itself adores and cultivates, especially during the carnival. The man in whom poor Agathe thought she recognized her son was astride the last two classes of poverty. She saw the ragged neck-cloth, the scurfy hat, the broken and patched boots, the threadbare coat, whose buttons had shed their mould, leaving the empty shrivelled pod dangling in congruity with the torn pockets and the dirty collar. Scraps of flue were in the creases of the coat, which showed plainly the dust that filled ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... but once since she came to Camp Alabama, and she gave me warm and kindly welcome as I came in, the last of the group, having found in my tent some unexpected employment. Being a soldier, I shall not shock my fair readers if I confess that it was—buttons. Ah! me, I am frivolous. But I linger in the spirit of that happy hour. Grace's chair was shaded by a gracefully draped flag; the major stood near her, his love for her as visible in his eye as his cordial kindness for us. To me, in honor of my 'juniority,' as Mrs. Fanning said, was assigned a place ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... engineers, a French Consul, and a Dalmatian professor. Besides the above, there was an Italian patriot, whose devotion to the 'Kingmaker' displayed itself in a somewhat eccentric fashion. With much mystery, he showed me a portrait of Garibaldi, secreted in a watchkey seal, while his waistcoat buttons and shirt studs contained heads of those generals who served in the campaign of the Two Sicilies. It was rather a novel kind of hero-worship, though, I fear, likely to be little appreciated by ...
— Herzegovina - Or, Omer Pacha and the Christian Rebels • George Arbuthnot
... has all her clothes made and keeps a maid to sew on her buttons, I think it is very nice of you to learn girls how to sew. You must be a great ...
— Drusilla with a Million • Elizabeth Cooper
... presume are the necessary controlling buttons," said T. B., pointing to a number of white discs; ...
— The Secret House • Edgar Wallace
... younger, trimmer, cleaner. Vennard, instead of his sloppy clothes and shaggy hair, was groomed like a Guardsman; had a large pearl-and-diamond solitaire in his shirt, and a white waistcoat with jewelled buttons. He had lost all his self-consciousness, grinned cheerfully at the others, warmed his hands at the fire, and cursed the weather. Cargill, too, had lost his sanctimonious look. There was a bloom of rustic health on his cheek, and a sparkle in his eye, so that he had the appearance of some ...
— The Moon Endureth—Tales and Fancies • John Buchan
... and a little copper and silver money. On the sofa, too, lay a gorgeous tea gown resplendent with pink satin, also a pair of gold embroidered slippers, not over small, and an odd gant de Suede, with such an extraordinary number of buttons that it almost looked like the cast- off ...
— Colonel Quaritch, V.C. - A Tale of Country Life • H. Rider Haggard
... muffled and lost in a mass of corded black fleece, but the rest of him sharply clipped from the chest aft; and his trim, slim legs were clipped, though tufts were left at his ankles, and at the tip of his short tail, with two upon his hips, like fanciful buttons of an imaginary jacket; for thus have such dogs been clipped to a fashion proper and comfortable for them ever since (and no doubt long before) an Imperial Roman sculptor so chiselled one in bas-relief. In brief, this dog, who caused Kitty Silver so much disquietude, ...
— Gentle Julia • Booth Tarkington
... not glance at the mass of matter. With a muttered "Thank you," she gazed thoughtfully at the row of white push buttons inlaid at her elbow. There were more than a dozen of them and they ranged from the pantry to the kitchen, from the garage to the stable. By means of them the mistress of The Crags kept in touch with nearly fifty servants. Here at her desk she could plan her campaigns, lay counter ...
— Prince or Chauffeur? - A Story of Newport • Lawrence Perry
... and somewhat cadaverous-looking as to features, with a clean-shaven upper lip, a short goatee beard, and light hair, slightly touched with grey, worn so long that it came down over the collar of his coat, which was of faded blue cloth, adorned with brass buttons. His trousers were braced up high enough to reveal his ankles, and he wore a pair of ancient red morocco slippers upon his otherwise naked feet. His head was adorned with a peakless cap of what looked like wolfskin, fitted ...
— Turned Adrift • Harry Collingwood
... use foils with buttons on the points, and fight according to the strict rules of fencing. The game is won by touching the adversary over the heart with the sheathed ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 36, July 15, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... and the effort has taken the fight out of him. I never saw him resent a joke but once. That was when Pelty Amthorne told him that his wife considered the Democrat to be the best paper she had ever seen. He let Ayers burst a couple of buttons from his vest in his swelling pride before he explained that the Democrat, when cut in two, exactly fitted his wife's pantry shelves, and that she didn't have to trim it a bit. The old man turned on his heel without a word and that week he kindled his old-time fires and wrote the ...
— Homeburg Memories • George Helgesen Fitch
... hands, and toes. Its virtues were that it fully protected the most fragile frock against all the perils of the kitchen; and that it could be slipped on or off in one second, without any manipulation of tapes, pins, or buttons and buttonholes—for it had no fastenings of any sort and merely yawned behind. In one second the drudge could be transformed into the elegant infanta of boudoirs, and vice versa. To suit the coquetry of the age the pinafore was enriched ...
— The Price of Love • Arnold Bennett
... have been getting on." He went behind a screen and opened a door, and soon returned with a decanter, leaving the door open. Now in the next room sat, unbeknown to Skinner, a young woman with white eyelashes, sewing buttons on Mr. Hardie's shirts. That astute gentleman gave her instructions, and important ones too, with a silent gesture; then reappeared and filled the bumper high to his faithful servant. They drank one another's healths with great cordiality, real or apparent. Mr. Hardie then asked ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... occasionally have befallen them. His costume was antique. Around his thick neck he wore a soiled choker. His waistcoat was low, and from it protruded the front of a fluted shirt. A dark-blue swallow-tail coat with big buttons and a high collar wrapped his huge body, and over his shoulders hung a heavy mass of black hair, upon which his advanced age had made ...
— Tin-Types Taken in the Streets of New York • Lemuel Ely Quigg
... said, 'to my underwoods at Zusha; I can seize the opportunity to have a look at Tchapligino; you know my oakwood; they're felling timber there.' 'By all means.' He ordered his horse to be saddled, put on a green coat with bronze buttons, stamped with a boar's head, a game-bag embroidered in crewels, and a silver flask, slung a new-fangled French gun over his shoulder, turned himself about with some satisfaction before the looking-glass, and called his dog, Hope, a gift from his cousin, an ...
— A Sportsman's Sketches - Volume II • Ivan Turgenev
... medicine-closets with orderly rows of labeled bottles, linen-rooms with great stacks of sheets and towels, long vistas of shining floors and lines of beds. There were brisk internes with duck clothes and brass buttons, who eyed her with friendly, patronizing glances. There were bandages and dressings, and great white screens behind which were played little or big dramas, baths or deaths, as the case might be. And over all brooded the mysterious authority of the superintendent of the ...
— K • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... who sits here has taught them to wield it according to the rules. My series has served many in duelling, and I, Andreas, their master, have made tierce follow quarte and side-thrust tierce thousands of times, but always with buttons on the foils and against padded doublets. Outside the walls, in the battle-field, no one, often as I have pressed upon the leaders, has ever stood against me in single combat. This Brescian sword-blade has more than once pierced a Spanish ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... heart grew a strange unrest, a wild, irrepressible longing to see these things in the wonderful country of the white men, to whom, in time of sickness and death, came smiling, round-faced priests, with long black clothes and many buttons; instead of hideous medicine-men, with painted faces and strings of ...
— The Promise - A Tale of the Great Northwest • James B. Hendryx
... you, uncle," exclaimed Susie. "How nice! I'll save this big bed for nasturtiums, and the bachelor's buttons ...
— Uncle Robert's Geography (Uncle Robert's Visit, V.3) • Francis W. Parker and Nellie Lathrop Helm
... There was a chest of drawers against the wall, in which we found, half-rotted away, old-fashioned articles of a man's dress, such as might have been worn eighty or a hundred years ago by a gentleman of some rank; costly steel buckles and buttons, like those yet worn in court-dresses, a handsome court sword; in a waistcoat which had once been rich with gold-lace, but which was now blackened and foul with damp, we found five guineas, a few silver coins, and an ivory ticket, probably for some place of entertainment ...
— Haunted and the Haunters • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... still!" he said and pierced their heads With a bodkin from his sack. "This way we put the buttons on, For that's our tailor's knack! Hallo, thou tailor-fellow, Now get thee out of hell—oh, We do not need this dressing, For what we will, is ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various
... the coat and four pieces for the waistcoat; and there were pocket flaps and cuffs, and buttons all in order. For the lining of the coat there was fine yellow taffeta; and for the button-holes of the waistcoat, there was cherry-coloured twist. And everything was ready to sew together in the morning, all measured and sufficient—except that there ...
— The Tailor of Gloucester • Beatrix Potter
... to be made with bracken fronds to keep them from being mixed up with the mushrooms he gathered from time to time—not big, flat, dark, brown-gilled fungi, such as grow in moist spots and rich old pastures, but delicate, plump little buttons, which he found here and there dotted about the soft velvety bits of sheep-cropped pasture hidden ...
— The Vast Abyss - The Story of Tom Blount, his Uncles and his Cousin Sam • George Manville Fenn
... hurried to her uncle's study. He was not there. He had not yet come in. She gave a gesture of despair, and flung herself down in the old leather chair opposite to his own, on which many a one had sat who had come to him for help or consolation. All the buttons had been gradually worn off that chair by restless or heavy visitors. Some had been lost, but others—the greater part, I am glad to say—Mr. Alwynn had found and had deposited in a Sevres cup on the mantle-piece, till the wet afternoon should come when he and his long packing-needle ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley
... blouse, running up the arm of the loose garment or round the full front above the tight waistband, as fancy took him, and enjoying the warmth of his master's body. It was very interesting and amusing to see him poke his little head out between the buttons, or through a buttonhole of the blouse at intervals to ask, with glittering eye and jerky movement, for an occasional fly from his master's hand caught on the shafts or cover ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten
... biscuit). With other ships matters might have been arranged, but the Torreador was a crack ship, and flew the blue ensign, even on week-days; her captain was an F.R.A.S., and her boys (whose parents paid heavy premiums for the glitter) wore brass buttons to everyday work, and were rated as midshipmen, no less! The day after her arrival some of them were leaning over the rail looking at our barque, and acquaintance might have been made then and there, but Jones (who fancied himself a wit) spoiled the chances ...
— The Brassbounder - A Tale of the Sea • David W. Bone
... at the end of the line. He began to cut the Canadian buttons off his coat and to remove his badges. Several men near by assisted and replaced them with such of their own as they could spare; each man perhaps contributing a button. They had no thread nor time to use it if they had, so tacked ...
— The Escape of a Princess Pat • George Pearson
... will not be treated with neglect. To gratify the eye with glittering objects, if this be necessary, may be done with more safety by toys of tin and polished iron: a common steel button is a more desirable plaything to a young child than many expensive toys; a few such buttons tied together, so as to prevent any danger of their being swallowed, would continue for some ...
— Practical Education, Volume I • Maria Edgeworth
... of us, mostly ruined shopkeepers, rejected masters of arts, and law-clerks from the Swabian provinces. They are a rare set of fellows, brother, capital fellows, I promise you; they will steal you the very buttons off each other's trousers in perfect security, although in the teeth of a loaded musket,* and they live in clover and enjoy a reputation for forty miles round, which ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... the revolutionary movements of buckets in a well, and his eye-glass set round with false pearls, are admirably "en suite" with his bugle optics. The frowsy madam in faded finery, with all the little Buttons, attended by a red-haired poor relation from Inverness (who is at once their governess and their victim), form the happy tenantry of this moving closet. No less than three, crests surmount the arms ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... to say nothing of the occasional balls,—no, what attracted him and took him out there now and then even Lor his morning glass, was a pavilion standing close by the "Society House," in which a major with a historical name and most affable manners, dressed in a faultless blue frock coat with gold buttons, kept the bank. This was only too often the resort of my father, who, when he had lost a considerable sum and had correspondingly enriched the pot of the bank keeper, instead of being out of sorts over it, simply drew ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various
... exactly so many coats, to spend so much money on their dress, so much on their wives' dress, and certain men could have fine cloth and others coarse cloth; everything was graded, even to the number of buttons on clothes, and they went so far even as to try in some early legislation to say what men should have to eat; the number of courses a man should have for his dinner were prescribed by law at one time in England, varying according to the man's rank. All such legislation ...
— Popular Law-making • Frederic Jesup Stimson
... I go on painting badly, as you say, because I want to learn. I like it, at any rate. And I like being here; it is a place to come to, every day; it is better than sitting in a little dark, damp room, on a court, or selling buttons ...
— The American • Henry James
... except in the above one instance, from backwardness on the part of their troops, but from utter incapacity when the hour of trial came. Those who succeeded were men always noted for caring something more about the hearts than the whiskers and buttons of their men. That the officer who delights in harassing his regiment in times of peace will fail with it in times of war and scenes of peril seems to me to be a rule almost as well established as that he, who in the junior ranks of the army delights most to kick against ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... nonsense,' said Mr. Hackit, sticking one thumb between the buttons of his capacious waistcoat, and retaining a pinch of snuff with the other—for he was but moderately given to 'the cups that cheer but not inebriate', and had already finished his tea; 'they began to sing the wedding psalm for a new-married couple, as ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot
... was the father of the late Dr. Joel B. Houston, of Catawba, and the grandfather of R.B.B. Houston, Esq., who now wares the gold sleeve buttons of his patriotic ancestor with his initials, J.H. engraved upon them. Dr. J.H.G. Houston, of Alabama, who married Mary ...
— Sketches of Western North Carolina, Historical and Biographical • C. L. Hunter
... man swiveled slightly and punched out a code on a series of buttons. Almost immediately, an area of approximately one square foot sank down from the upper right-hand corner of his desk, to rise again ...
— Expediter • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... for the Virginia militia, and an over confident belief that the British soldier was invincible. He believed absolutely that the methods of war that were used on European battlefields would overwhelm anything in America, and he liked to see his redcoats with their boots polished and their buttons furbished, marching in solid platoon formation, turning and wheeling with the mathematical regularity of a machine. His men were drilled and disciplined until they were automatons, for Braddock was a martinet. Their ...
— A Treasury of Heroes and Heroines - A Record of High Endeavour and Strange Adventure from 500 B.C. to 1920 A.D. • Clayton Edwards
... Scraps," said Dorothy, looking curiously at the eyes, which were merely two round black buttons sewed upon the ...
— The Lost Princess of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... a jacket and waistcoat, with brass buttons; and a cap with a gold band. He then sauntered along the wharves and went aboard the Trois Freres, and told the skipper that no news had been received of his sister's husband. It had been agreed that it was best ...
— No Surrender! - A Tale of the Rising in La Vendee • G. A. Henty |
