"Houri" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... choice Circassian, Georgian, and European beauties. The neglige toilet of the harem bath and the seductive influence of this terrestrial Koranic seventh heaven was too much for the warm Soudanese blood of the chief; his forays were not suspected until a blonde Circassian houri presented her lord and master, the Cherif, with a suspiciously mulatto-looking son and heir. A consultation of the Koran failed to explain this discrepancy, and suspicion pointed to the chief eunuch, ...
— History of Circumcision from the Earliest Times to the Present - Moral and Physical Reasons for its Performance • Peter Charles Remondino
... brushed up, washed, and displayed; the dark floor had been newly waxed; even the cook had a newly plaited cap—in short, the whole house was renovated. The fair Rosalie stood in the midst of all this splendor, in a dress of yellow silk, trimmed with purple flowers, gorgeous as a houri of Paradise, and, like them, prepared to receive her elect. Her mother smoothed the thick folds of her dress, looked triumphantly at her, and said, in a transport of motherly love, "How beautiful you are to-day, Rosalie, ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag
... dressmaker and the confessor. The mistress of the house united a great personal charm with this acquired science—a science visible even in her black and very simple dress, which brought out her nun-like pallor, her houri-like eyes, her shining and plaited hair drawn back from a narrow, child-like forehead, a forehead of which the small mouth accentuated the mystery, hiding from the inquisitive the former favourite's whole varied past, she who had no age, who knew not herself ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... a most fascinating woman," continued the major. "That Juno-like beauty which so distinguishes her on the stage scarcely shows itself in the drawing-room. On the stage she is queenly—in private, soft, voluptuous and winning as a houri. I don't wonder that she has ...
— After the Storm • T. S. Arthur
... comes to visit her she will intercede with me for her. 'Sir,' she will say (for she will not dare to call me son, for fear of offending me by so much familiarity), 'do not, I beseech, treat my daughter with scorn; she is as beautiful as an Houri, and entirely devoted to you.' But my mother-in-law may as well hold her peace, for I will take no notice of what she says. She will then pour out some wine into a goblet, and give it to my wife, saying, 'Present ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... of postulants to see this heavenly Eastern houri and buy her confection, which is very like Scotch butter-cake, but not so digestible; and even more filling at the price. And three of us sat on a bench, while three times running Barty took his place in that procession—soldiers, sailors, workmen, chiffonniers, people of all sorts, women as many ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... that angel trod, Where deep thoughts are a duty, Where Love's a grown-up God, Where the Houri glances are Imbued with all the beauty Which we ...
— The Golden Treasury of American Songs and Lyrics • Various
... Lanswell was startled out of her calm. There entered the most beautiful girl she had ever beheld—tall, slender, graceful, exquisitely dressed, moving with the most perfect grace and harmony; her face like some grand, passionate poem—a girl lovely as a houri, who walked up to her with ...
— A Mad Love • Bertha M. Clay
... somewhat softened the incensed Houri of Mr. Gordon's Paradise, and she very civilly ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... the taster rise, Of Dervish or of Almeh dances! Of Eblis, or of Paradise, Set all aglow with Houri glances! ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... with an air of supreme satisfaction; "but—" and here my philosopher sighed deeply—"we cannot dine again till to-morrow! Happy, happy, happy common people, who can eat supper! Would to Heaven, that I might have one boon—perpetual appetite—a digestive Houri, which renewed its virginity every time it was touched. Alas! for the instability of human enjoyment. But now that we have no immediate hope to anticipate, let us cultivate the pleasures of memory. What thought you of ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... loveliness, fairness, elegance, comeliness, pulchritude, grace, exquisiteness, charm, attraction. Associated Words: aesthetics, aesthetician, aestheticism, aesthete, aesthetic, esthetology, Apollo, Adonis, Venus, Hebe, Hyperion, Houri, Aphrodite. ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... malice, "do you realise that you are both ornamental and young? Why so young and murderous, fair houri? Why delight in manslaughter in any degree? Why cultivate assault and battery? Why swipe ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers
... sure, Jack, I've read the Arabian Nights. You never saw such eyes in your life: what a houri she is!" ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Captain Frederick Marryat
... affected with liquor, nor ever descend to any known vice, while he was one of the most courteous, gentlemanly and intelligent companions I have ever met. Besides, he had an extra inducement to be a good man, for he had a wife of matchless beauty and loveliness: her eye could match that of any houri, and her face defy the genius of a Canova to imitate; her temper and disposition were of surpassing sweetness; in addition, she seemed as much devoted to him and his every interest as a young mother is to ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 26, August, 1880 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... I understand, have been collecting butterflies. And I tell you, pleasure and pain have nothing to do with heaven or hell. Pleasure and pain—bah! What is your theologian's ecstasy but Mahomet's houri in the dark? This store which men and women set on pleasure and pain, Prendick, is the mark of the beast upon them,—the mark of the beast from which they came! Pain, pain and pleasure, they are for us only so long as we ...
— The Island of Doctor Moreau • H. G. Wells
... a fiction? No. Go to Simoorie And look at their baby, a twelve-month old Houri, A pert little, Irish-eyed Kathleen Mavournin— She's always about on the Mall of ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... her again. He owned the lure, at last, with a bitter ruefulness. But—he brightened up at that—it was partly his duty to himself. Now he had all sorts of fool imaginings about this girl. He was remembering her as something lovelier than a Houri, more enchanting than fairy magic, more sweet than spring. He owed it to himself to rout these imbecile prepossessions and prove clearly and dispassionately that the girl was just a very nice little girl, a pretty bride, marrying into a very distinct life from his own—and ...
— The Fortieth Door • Mary Hastings Bradley
... came, that releases man from Toil, He play'd the Chess of Social Intercourse; Prepared his Banquet Hall like Paradise, Summon'd his Houri-faced Musicians, And, when his Brain grew warm with Wine, the Veil Flung off him of Reserve. Now Lip to Lip Concerting with the Singer he would breathe Like a Messias Life into the Dead; Now made of the Melodious-moving Pipe A Sugar-cane between his Lips that ran Men's Ears ...
— Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam and Salaman and Absal • Omar Khayyam and Ralph Waldo Emerson
... houri from heaven," said Lancelot; "but a houri in a patched print frock—" He shuddered ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... monkey in a state of excited pleasure, protruded itself under the canopy of straw, which protected his head, but he, who had withstood the amorous advances of the widow Zuma, or of the fat and deaf widow Laddie, could not be supposed to yield to the fascinations and allurements of a Badagry houri. Richard therefore returned to his dwelling, fully satisfied with himself, but by no means having satisfied the ladies of Badagry, that an European was a man of love ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... closed behind them, the entire company remaining in the salon gathered about M. Cambray. The ladies seized his hands; and while a blonde houri on his right sought to attract his attention, a brunette beauty claimed it on his left—both women ignoring the attempts of the men to shake hands with the ...
— The Nameless Castle • Maurus Jokai
... Bonsa and chuck her into water. Very wild man, that Arab, but priests catch him at last and fill him with hot gold before Little Bonsa because he no care a damn for ghosts. So he die saying Hip, hip, hurrah! for houri and green field of Prophet and to hell with Asika and Bonsa, Big and Little! Now he sit up there and at night time worst ghost of all the crowd, always come to finish off Mungana. That all she say, and quite enough too. Come on quick, she want ...
— The Yellow God - An Idol of Africa • H. Rider Haggard
... am called Heliobas. A strange name? Oh, not at all! It is pure Chaldee. My mother—as lovely an Eastern houri as Murillo's Madonna, and as devout as Santa Teresa—gave me the Christian saint's name of Casimir also, but Heliobas pur et simple suits me best, and by it I ...
— A Romance of Two Worlds • Marie Corelli
... saw yesterday on a balcony a black-haired beauty far beyond pari or houri of my imagination!—majestic as Juno, voluptuous as Venus, with eyes that maddened, and smile that ravished me. Unless I find this houri, I ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach
... who shames the willow wand; * Nor sun nor moon can like her rising shine: 'Tis as her honey dew of lips were blent * With wine, and pearls of teeth were bathed in wine: Her form, like heavenly Houri's, graceful slim; * Fair face; and ruin dealt by glancing eyne: How many a dead done man her eyes have slain * Upon her way of love in ruin li'en: An live I she's my death! I'll say no more * But dying without her vain were life of ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... was a cunt, and I got my pleasure and relief up it, whatever its owner might have been. A sensuous imagination aided me. When once my prick was up a woman she was for the time more or less invested with charms, and her imperfections forgotten. I used to shut my eyes, and fancy I was stroking a houri with the finest limbs and ivory flesh, and could fancy all this up to the moment of ejaculation, I fancied thighs and cunt which were not those of the woman who was at that moment doing her ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous
... fancied myself a queen of Sheba or some Eastern houri screened by silken curtains from the vulgar gaze. What extravagances my imagination in its pride might have led me into it is impossible to say, but for the bodily discomfort. The camel is called the "ship of the desert," but surely no ship ever pitched and rolled so unmercifully. The howdah ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, September, 1878 • Various
... difference!' 'Was she really ugly?' I asked. 'Well, I don't know what you call ugly,' he answered, 'but if you had seen her stare, you would have thought her ugly enough! Had she been as beautiful as a houri, though, I don't imagine I should have been less frightened!' 'Well,' said I, for he had come to a pause, 'and what came next?' 'I can not tell. I came to myself all trembling, and as cold and as wet as if I had been dipped in a well' 'You are sure ...
— Home Again • George MacDonald
... hangs, how pointed and red and rough are her elbows, how clumsily waved her hair. "I don't think anybody will notice," she sighs, and is contemptuously conscious of her own stolid, straight, healthy waist, while her mother flutters about and pretends to believe that she is curved like a houri, like Helen of ...
— The Job - An American Novel • Sinclair Lewis
... little table and drink bad brandy at one franc and a half. In a fenced off part are the Oriental Dances, a familiar feature of every Parisian Show. These dances—at twenty cents a turn—are supposed to represent all the languishing allurement of the Oriental houri—I think that is the word. The dancers in Paris—it is only fair to state—have never been nearer to the Orient than the Faubourg St. Antoine, where they were brought up and where they learned all the Orientalism that they know. Their "dance" is performed with ...
— Behind the Beyond - and Other Contributions to Human Knowledge • Stephen Leacock
... houri, lovelier than the full moon, and graceful as a young gazelle, should appear for the delight ...
— The Brass Bottle • F. Anstey
... a benison to me Wakes my sick soul to dreamful ecstasy, I fancy that some old Arabian night Saw you my houri and ...
— The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... every waking hour of the day. But, in order to do this, I must apply the test to these three hours. In my dreamy moods, I like to personify an Hour and spell it with a capital. I like to think of an hour as the singular of Houri which the Mohammedans call nymphs of paradise, because they were, or are, beautiful-eyed. My Hour then becomes a goddess walking through my life, and, as the poet says, et vera incessu patuit dea. If I show her that I ...
— Reveries of a Schoolmaster • Francis B. Pearson
... himself on soon possessing the beautiful and piquant creature, who, when she came to devote herself to him, would spice his days with endless variety. The thought that this high-spirited, positive, strong-minded American girl might crave better and more important work than that of an Eastern houri or a Queen Scheherezade, never occurred to him. He blundered, with many other men, in supposing that, if once married, the wayward belle would become subservient to his tastes and modes as a matter of course. In his matrimonial ...
— From Jest to Earnest • E. P. Roe
... was a quickness and yet a grace of motion about her which was quite new to him. The ladies upon whom the Duke had of late most often smiled had been somewhat slow,—perhaps almost heavy,—though, no doubt, graceful withal. In his early youth he remembered to have seen, somewhere in Greece, such a houri as was this Madame Goesler. The houri in that case had run off with the captain of a Russian vessel engaged in the tallow trade; but not the less was there left on his Grace's mind some dreamy memory of charms which had impressed him very strongly ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope
... The scientist snapped his fingers. "This girl was created for you. That other—you will forget her the moment you set eyes on the sweet flesh of this Athalia. She is an houri from Paradise—a maiden of musk and incense." He held the girl's photograph toward the young man. "Keep it. She is yours, if you are strong enough ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science February 1930 • Various
... mutes and slaves, A mameluke, he loved her.——Waves Dashed not more hopelessly the paves Of her high marble palace-stair Than lashed his love his heart's despair.— As souls in Hell dream Paradise, He suffered yet forgot it there Beneath Rommaneh's houri eyes. ...
— Poems • Madison Cawein
... tale portrays the palace Of fay, or wizard (where in bright confusion Blaze gold and gems) so glorious fair, as seemed, Tricked in the rainbow-colours of my fancy, Caesario's form this morn:——Too late I know thee; The spell is broke; and where an Houri smiled, Now scowls a fiend. Oh! thus benighted pilgrims Admire the glow-worm's light, while gloom prevails But find that seeming lamp of fiery lustre A poor dark worthless worm, when viewed in sunshine. ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 5, May 1810 • Various
... Not a houri. Nary a carnival. No strain of the "Blaue Donau" has wooed his ear. No one has nailed him with sachet eggs. He has not been choked by quarts of confetti. His conscience is as pure as the brews of Munich. He is still in a beneficent state of primeval and ...
— Europe After 8:15 • H. L. Mencken, George Jean Nathan and Willard Huntington Wright |
