"Gimcracks" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... importance. "Culture!" writes Henry Morley, "the aim of culture is to bring forth in their due season the fruits of the earth." Any learning, any accomplishments, that do not serve a man to bring forth the fruits of the earth in their due season are merely mental gimcracks, flimsy toys, to admire perhaps, to play with, and to be thrown aside as useless when duty makes its ...
— Germany and the Germans - From an American Point of View (1913) • Price Collier
... Wren. He tore himself from Oxford with great regret, proceeding by Birmingham on his way home to Shrewsbury: "Birmingham," he says, "famous for its buttons and locks, its ignorance and barbarism—its prosperity increases with the corruption of taste and morals. Its nicknacks, hardware, and gilt gimcracks are proofs of the former; and its locks and bars, and the recent barbarous conduct of its populace,*[2] are evidences of the latter." His principal object in visiting the place was to call upon a stained glass-maker respecting a window for the new ...
— The Life of Thomas Telford by Smiles • Samuel Smiles
... anvils in a tinkling, jingling chorus of musical clinks and taps. Golden eyes focused like lenses over winking jewels and gimcracks. Busy elves. ...
— The Door Through Space • Marion Zimmer Bradley
... "Stick as many gimcracks as you like about your own room, Elspie," he had remarked when the first attempt was made, "but leave me my hall in peace. It iss quite pleased with it I am ...
— The Buffalo Runners - A Tale of the Red River Plains • R.M. Ballantyne
... in here, and we will have luncheon together in my study—which was never so honoured before; but I think it is the pleasantest place in the house. The other rooms my sister fills with gimcracks, till I cannot turn round there without fear of breaking something, Now my old folios and octavos have tried a fall many a time—and many a one has tried a fall with them—ha! ha!—and no harm to anybody. Sit down there now, Miss Eleanor, and rest. ...
— The Old Helmet, Volume I • Susan Warner
... words, fellow-countrymen, came out)—I tell you what it is, the things that are wanted now are boots, and shoes, and stockings, and jackets—and not gingerbread, and sugar plums, and spruce beer, and gimcracks of that kind." ...
— Mike Marble - His Crotchets and Oddities. • Uncle Frank
... cogitation, "we were shown some bits of brickwork, marked out in divisions like the foundations of a house: and a place with a hole in the floor which, they said, was a bath-room. We also saw a piece or two of tesselated pavement, with a lot of other gimcracks; but I certainly had to exercise a good deal of fancy to imagine a villa out of all these scattered details, like the Marchioness in Dickens' Old Curiosity Shop, which I was reading the other day, 'made ...
— Bob Strong's Holidays - Adrift in the Channel • John Conroy Hutcheson
... least happy that study wisdom, as being in this twice fools, that when they are born men, they should yet so far forget their condition as to affect the life of gods; and after the example of the giants, with their philosophical gimcracks make a war upon nature: so they on the other side seem as little miserable as is possible who come nearest to beasts and never attempt anything beyond man. Go to then, let's try how demonstrable this is; not by enthymemes ...
— The Praise of Folly • Desiderius Erasmus
... hats, flimsy little women's bonnets, dancing pumps, and even crepe-de-chene nighties. These serve as playthings for the grown-ups, many of whom, especially the Indians and Eskimos, are quite childlike with gimcracks. I recall once seeing an Eskimo parading around on a warm day in the glory of a full dress coat and silk hat, the coat drawn on over his ordinary clothing. He was ...
— The Story of Grenfell of the Labrador - A Boy's Life of Wilfred T. Grenfell • Dillon Wallace
... of nomadic living facing us, and we are at all knowing, we realize the utter helplessness of demonstrating our good taste, purchase any bits of furniture that a vagrant fancy may fasten upon, and give space to whatever gimcracks our friends may foist upon us, trusting that in the whirligig of removals the plush rocker, the mission table, and the brass parlor stand may each find itself in harmony with something else at one time or another. ...
— The Complete Home • Various
... from the morn to the dusk again, Gave his gimcracks to peoples who mocked at him, Trampled on them, ...
— The Certain Hour • James Branch Cabell
... all, because Christmas is a feast of hearts and not of poor bits of cut-down trees stuck up in sawdust and covered with lights and tinsel, even if they are hung with the most expensive gewgaws and gimcracks that ever are bought for gifts by people who are expected to give, whether they like or not. But when the heart for Christmas is there and is beating, then a very little tree will do, if there be none ...
— The Little City Of Hope - A Christmas Story • F. Marion Crawford
... Boltrope; "let me tell you, my worthy leaf-turner, that if you call such a light diet wholesome, you know but little of salt water and sea-fogs! However, Mr. Griffith is a seaman; and if he gave his mind less to trifles and gimcracks, he would be, by the time he got to about our years, a very rational sort of a companion.—But you see, parson, just now, he thinks too much of small follies; such as man- of-war discipline.—Now there is ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper
... not as good? I don't live in such a fine house, crammed full of gimcracks; but I've got a dictionary that you can study in, and big Peter, your father, shall hang a great switch over the mantelpiece, to remind you that he won't stand any nonsense, or idleness, from you. Dear me! how glad he will be to see you! Come, run with a hop, skip, and jump, to the stable, and ...
— The Two Story Mittens and the Little Play Mittens - Being the Fourth Book of the Series • Frances Elizabeth Barrow
... strong detachment Of beadles, constables, and watchmen, T' attack the cunning-man fur plunder, Committed falsely on his lumber; When he, who had so lately sack'd 105 The enemy, had done the fact; Had rifled all his pokes and fobs Of gimcracks, whims, and jiggumbobs, When he, by hook or crook, had gather'd, And for his own inventions father'd 110 And when they should, at gaol delivery, Unriddle one another's thievery, Both might have evidence enough, To render neither halter proof. He thought it desperate ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... classed them, in the way they were proceeding, with apothecaries, and gardeners, and mechanics, who might now "all put in for, and get the prize." Even at a later period, Sir William Temple imagined the virtuosi to be only so many Sir Nicholas Gimcracks; and contemptuously called them, from the place of their first meeting, "the Men of Gresham!" doubtless considering them as wise as "the Men of Gotham!" Even now, men of other tempers and other studies are too apt to refuse the palm of philosophy to the patient race of naturalists.[258] ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... turning and still holding her candle aloft, only looked about the little sitting-room at her gimcracks and curtains and cushions. "My maid shall pack up," she repeated. "Bonte divine, what rubbish! I feel like a strolling actress; ...
— The Europeans • Henry James
... easily he spent it. She had been irritated by his way of spending it, and she had been contemptuous; but she had never really cared. So it appeared that they did not have even money in common. The earning had been all hers; the spending had been all his. If she had liked to buy gimcracks, they would have had that in common, and perhaps he would have been fond of her? "But I never knew how to be a fool," she thought, simply. Yes; she didn't know how to spend, she only knew how to earn. Of course, if he had had to earn what he spent, ...
— The Iron Woman • Margaret Deland
... Gus put on no gimcracks nor did he make fancy swings. He merely made a step forward, raised his arm to throw and held it about two seconds—then there came across the plate something more like a streak than a ball—so it seemed to Siebold—and little Kerry, who had been squatting, nearly went over backward ...
— Radio Boys Loyalty - Bill Brown Listens In • Wayne Whipple
... What gimcracks, genuine Japanese: 70 Gape-jaw and goggle-eye, the frog; Dragons, owls, monkeys, beetles, geese; Some crush-nosed human-hearted dog: Queer ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning
... called Anton stood before one of the Indian shops and stared at the window's contents. Carved ivory statuettes from the Far East, cameras from Japan, ebony figurines, chess sets of water jade, gimcracks from everywhere. ...
— Border, Breed Nor Birth • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... little man. "It was smashed to atoms in the world and thrown away. But, ho, ho, ho! there is nothing that I cannot mend, and a mended fiddle is an amended fiddle. It improves the tone. Now teach me that dance, and I will patch up all the rest of the gimcracks. Is it a bargain?" ...
— The Brownies and Other Tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... the mission skipper modestly, "but thank God the new hospital-ship is cruisin' wi' the Short Blue just now. I saw her only yesterday, so we'll put you aboard of her and there you'll find a reg'lar shore-goin' surgeon, up to everything, and with all the gimcracks and arrangements of a reg'lar shore-goin' hospital. They've got a new contrivance too—a sort o' patent stretcher, invented by a Mr Dark o' the head office in London—which'll take you out o' the boat into the ship without movin' a bone or muscle, so keep your mind easy, ...
— Personal Reminiscences in Book Making - and Some Short Stories • R.M. Ballantyne
... city friends had crushed themselves up against the chancel to congratulate him, and in his heart he was deeply thankful to escape the flower-pelting, white gloves, rice-throwing, and ponderous stupidity of a breakfast, and indeed all the regulation gimcracks of the usual marriage celebrations, and it was with a hand trembling with absolute happiness that he assisted his little Indian wife into the old muddy buckboard that, hitched to an underbred-looking pony, was to convey them over the first stages ...
— The Moccasin Maker • E. Pauline Johnson
... was brought hither in the last century, into old, old England, out of old, old Italy, by some contemporary dandy with a taste for foreign gimcracks. Here it has stood for a hundred years, keeping its clear firm hues in this quiet light that has never ...
— A Passionate Pilgrim • Henry James
... what I advance,) it does not suit with decorum for a judge to be drunk on the bench; nor a crier in the court exercising his office, [hiccup, ki—— book;] a parson in the pulpit; an experimental philosopher in shewing of his gimcracks; nor a freemason on the top of ...
— Ebrietatis Encomium - or, the Praise of Drunkenness • Boniface Oinophilus
... his reflections as he walked through the somewhat squalid streets of his own quarter. The afternoon was wet and the houses looked dingier than usual; dirty, inconvenient little places most of them, with a few cheap gimcracks making a brave show as near the window as possible. Mr. Smith observed them with newly opened eyes, and, for perhaps the first time in his life, thought of the draw-backs and ...
— At Sunwich Port, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... bareness and emptiness, corrected later by habit. Everything necessary was to be found there,—large brass bedsteads with snowy coverings, all the modern contrivances for the toilet, chests of drawers, each surmounted by a bright looking-glass; even a number of tiny and curious gimcracks ornamented the narrow mantelpiece; but to a French eye the absence of curtains to the bed, and the unconcealed display of washing utensils, suggested a cabinet de toilette rather than a bedroom. This simplicity has now become quite fashionable among wealthy French ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... me he brings what he calls an 'offrande'. All these things"—she indicated, with a comprehensive sweep of the arm, the Union Jack cushion, the little men mounting ladders inside bottles, the hen sitting on her nest, and the other trumpery gimcracks—"all these things are presents from Anastasius. It would hurt him not to see them here when ...
— Simon the Jester • William J. Locke
... view lasted for three hours. Brunner offered his arm when Cecile went downstairs. As they descended slowly and discreetly, Cecile, still talking fine art, wondered that M. Brunner should admire her cousin's gimcracks ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... You know these girls—when they find out that their pappies have made a little bit of money, there is no peace till it's spent. My girl is taking me out shopping, to buy gimcracks and things! I'll be glad when I get her home ...
— Cruel As The Grave • Mrs. Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... the two chairs, got out a cigar, lighted it, and sat for some moments looking around at this wilderness of gimcracks. ...
— Affairs of State • Burton E. Stevenson
... nothing of. Thus it fared with me, even in a place so near the town as this. When I came into the coffee-house,[344] I had not time to salute the company, before my eye was diverted by ten thousand gimcracks round the room and on the ceiling. When my first astonishment was over, comes to me a sage of a thin and meagre countenance; which aspect made me doubt, whether reading or fretting had made it so philosophic: but I very soon perceived him to be of that sect which the ancients call Gingivistae,[345] ...
— The Tatler, Volume 1, 1899 • George A. Aitken
... said the old gentleman "we don't know much about nobility and such gimcracks in this country. I'm not much of a courtier. I am pretty much accustomed to speak my mind as I think ...
— Queechy, Volume I • Elizabeth Wetherell
... all round as high as a pick-ax could reach."[9] "Walpole," writes Leslie Stephen, "is almost the first modern Englishman who found out that our old cathedrals were really beautiful. He discovered that a most charming toy might be made of medievalism. Strawberry Hill, with all its gimcracks, its pasteboard battlements and stained-paper carvings, was the lineal ancestor of the new law-courts. The restorers of churches, the manufacturers of stained glass, the modern decorators and architects of all varieties, the Ritualists and the High Church party, should think of him with kindness. ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... river half-mooning it and a lagoon before it. In the rear room he bedded and baited himself. The more spacious front room into which his housekeeping quarters opened was a store of sorts where he retailed print goods staple, tinned foods assorted and gimcracks various to his customers, these mostly being natives. The building was crowned with a tin roof and on top of the roof there perched a round water tank, like a high hat on a head much too large for it. The use of this tank was ...
— From Place to Place • Irvin S. Cobb
... the cooking utensils, a half dozen plates, cups and saucers and about a dozen other pieces for the table, four tablecloths, all the bed linen, all our clothes, including some old clothes we had been upon the point of throwing away, a few personal gimcracks, and for furniture the following articles: the folding wooden kitchen table, a half dozen chairs, the cot bed in the boy's room, the iron bed in our room, the long mirror I gave Ruth on her birthday, and a sort of china closet that stood in the dining-room. To this ...
— One Way Out - A Middle-class New-Englander Emigrates to America • William Carleton
... gold on a green ground. Two small inlaid tables stood near the divan, one at each end, and two deep English easy-chairs, covered with red leather, were placed symmetrically beside them. There was no other furniture, and there were no gimcracks about, such as Europeans think necessary in ...
— The Primadonna • F. Marion Crawford
... they are dispersed, will make a bonfire of their gimcracks, as an army destroy their artillery when forced to raise a siege. And as for the holes, Edie, I abandon them as rat-traps, for the benefit of the next wise men who may choose to drop the substance to snatch ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... people we were talking of at Leeds," said Moulder, turning to Kantwise. "Mason and Martock; don't you remember how you went out to Groby Park to sell some of them iron gimcracks? That was old Mason's son. They are the ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope
... the wench do?" asked Sally, contemptuously. "Ye're never going to be taken in, at your time of life, by hair-dyes and such gimcracks, as can only take in young girls whose ...
— Ruth • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... handsome, to be sure, but pronounced her to be uncommon fine dressed, as indeed she was—with the finest of shawls, the finest of pelisses, the brilliantest of bonnets and wreaths, and a power of rings, cameos, brooches, chains, bangles, and other nameless gimcracks; and ribbons of every breadth and colour of the rainbow flaming on her person. Miss Amory appeared meek in dove-colour, like a vestal virgin—while Master Francis was in the costume, then prevalent, of Rob Roy Macgregor, a celebrated Highland outlaw. The Baronet was not more ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... in the supernatural potency of these gimcracks? No, and yes. Not to be foolhardy, he quietly slipped down every day to the levee, had a slave-boy row him across the river in a skiff, landed, re-embarked, and in the middle of the stream surreptitiously cast a picayune over his shoulder into the river. Monsieur D'Embarras, the imp of ...
— The Grandissimes • George Washington Cable
... quoth the grazier, I am married, and would not be otherwise for all the pairs of spectacles in Europe; nay, not for all the magnifying gimcracks in Africa; for I have got me the cleverest, prettiest, handsomest, properest, neatest, tightest, honestest, and soberest piece of woman's flesh for my wife that is in all the whole country of Xaintonge; I'll say that for her, ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... the burning house. They won't forget that sight, I'll bet a sovereign, not even when they grow up. We rode away and left them, a forlorn little group, standing among their household goods—beds, furniture, and gimcracks strewn about the veldt; the crackling of the fire in their ears, and smoke and flame streaming overhead. The worst moment is when you first come to the house. The people thought we had called for refreshments, and one of the women went to get milk. Then we had to tell them ...
— With Rimington • L. March Phillipps
... that I've done toted so many tunes in these old arms. Go, Marser Arthur; never you mind old Phillis, she'll get on somehow. Mebby the young lady in thar kin show me the things and tell me the names of yer Yankee gimcracks." ...
— Darkness and Daylight • Mary J. Holmes
... covered with Brussels carpet (and let me tell you in passing that no better covering for stairs was ever yet invented; it wears well and can be turned, and when the uppers are worn you can move the whole thing down one file and put the steps where the uppers were. None of your cocoanut stuff or gimcracks for the honest house: when there is money you should have Brussels, when you have none linoleum—but I digress). The stair-rods were of brass and beautifully polished, the banisters of iron painted to look like mahogany; and this staircase, which I ...
— On Nothing & Kindred Subjects • Hilaire Belloc
... of good presence, gentlemanly, elegant—never tying his cravat in a ring, nor starring his fingers, his wrists or his shirt-front with those jewelled gimcracks so ...
— Godfrey Morgan - A Californian Mystery • Jules Verne
... never see your likes yet, not since I was born. Come, miss, let's cry quits. You pass me out o' this on the quiet. I dessay as I can make shift to get down without the ladder; an' I'll leave all these here gimcracks just as I found 'em. Now I've seen ye once, I'm blessed if I'd take so much as an ear-drop, unless it was in the way of a keepsake. Pass me out, miss, and I'll promise—no, I'm blowed if I think as I can promise—never to come here ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville
... she garbed herself in plain appearing dark blue and went down town in the Subway like common mortals, visiting paper-box factories and flower factories, tenement homes where whole families sat pasting toys and gimcracks for fourteen or sixteen hours a day, and still could not buy enough food to make full-sized men and women ...
— Sylvia's Marriage • Upton Sinclair
... said he. "My bait has taken. You must pack up these gimcracks at once and send them off, or she'll smile like a marble Satan in your face, and stick you full of ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... and exercises a most astringent influence upon credit; striking terror into the heart of the smallest tradesman, and freezing the blood in the veins of a poet susceptible enough to care about the bits of wood, silken rags, dyed woolen stuffs, and multifarious gimcracks entitled furniture. ...
— Eve and David • Honore de Balzac
... heavy rain-storm, with low mutterings of distant thunder, drove the pleasure-people from the meadow to the booth. It was a long canvas tent with a drinking-bar at one end, and stalls in the corners for the sale of gingerbreads and gimcracks. The grass under it was trodden flat, and in patches the earth was bare and wet beneath the trapesing feet of the people. They were a mixed and curious company. In a ring that was cleared by an athletic plowman the fiddler-postman of Newlands, ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine
... honest women are nothing now-a-days, while the harlotings are set up for fine ladies, and look upon us no more nor the dirt they walk upon: but let me tell you, my fine spoken Ma'am, I must have my money; so seeing as how you can't pay it, why you must troop, and leave all your fine gimcracks and fal der ralls behind you. I don't ask for no more nor my right, and nobody shall dare for to go for to ...
— Charlotte Temple • Susanna Rowson
... that he began to feel certain natural, filial longings for this dear American mother of us all. They say the most hopeless truants and triflers have come to it. He came to it, at all events; he packed up his books and pictures and gimcracks, and bade farewell to Europe. This house which he now occupies belonged to his wife's estate. She had, for sentimental reasons of her own, commended it to his particular care. On his return he came to see it, liked it, turned a parcel of carpenters ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 5 • Various
... send the bill to Mistress Joyce. She gave me lodging fro' Setterday to Monday, and bade me see to 't that yo' had all things comfortable. 'Don't split sixpences,' she saith; 'the bigger the charges the better, so long as they be for true comfort and not for gimcracks.' So, Madam, I hope we've hit your Ladyship's liking, for me and Mrs Joyce, we tried hard—me at choosing, and she at paying. So that's ...
— It Might Have Been - The Story of the Gunpowder Plot • Emily Sarah Holt
... a tiny drawing-room, full of flowers and gimcracks, and fuller of four tall angular women, in dark dresses in the rear of the fashion, and sandy hair. They had decided in council, or rather Miss Isabella had decided for them, that since he was to be received, they would remember only his gentle blood; and therefore they shook hands ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... untractable. When I came quietly, lawfully, and in the name of the Lord, for their plate, what did they? Instead of surrendering it like honest and conscientious men, they attacked me and my people on horseback, with syllogisms and centhymemes, and the Lord knows with what other such gimcracks, such venemous and rankling old weapons as those who have the fear of God before their eyes are fain to lay aside. Learning should not make folks mockers—should not make folks malignants—should not harden their hearts. We came ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXVIII. February, 1843. Vol. LIII. • Various
... their plate, what did they? Instead of surrendering it like honest and conscientious men, they attacked me and my people on horseback, with syllogisms and enthymemes, and the Lord knows with what other such gimcracks; such venomous and rankling old weapons as those who have the fear of God before their eyes are fain to lay aside. Learning should not make folks mockers ... should not make folks malignants ... should not harden their hearts. We ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... course of the week. Coral ornaments, forsooth! And pray, Miss, what of the other jewels with which your person was decorated,—the rubies, pearls, and sapphires? One by one Lizzie assumes her modest gimcracks: her bracelet, her gloves, her handkerchief, her fan, and then—her smile. Ah, that ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 89, March, 1865 • Various
... Colonel was wrestling with some vague impression difficult for him to formulate. "You see, you can't build anything with wood that's better than a log-cabin. For looks—just looks—it beats all your fancy gimcracks, even brick; beats everything else hollow, except stone. Then they've got candles. We went on last night about the luxury of oil-lamps. They don't ...
— The Magnetic North • Elizabeth Robins (C. E. Raimond)
... eat nothin': we warmed her mess an' we salted it; no, nothin' 'u'd do. We tried all manner o' gimcracks an' fussin' with her. Finally says Jim—my man—say she: 'Perhaps she's the Sacred Cow,' says he, laffin', an' went in an' got a hymn-book an' sot it up afore her, and"—Belle O'Neill shivered—"what does the ...
— Vesty of the Basins • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... room—fortunately he knew the latitude of the place —and moving his hand with gingerly precaution along the mantel-shelf, lest he should upset any of the gimcracks thereon, soon obtained the articles named, and struck a light. The lady was leaning wearily against the door-post, but now she came forward, and dropped exhausted into the downy pillows ...
— The Midnight Queen • May Agnes Fleming |
