"Showy" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... now was laid in grass, which, before the demonstration waved long and green; but as the hours went on and the thousands of feet passed over it, the grass was all crushed and torn. There were half a dozen bands—two of them dressed in the showy uniform which descends from the pictures of Robert Emmet in the dock—and they played continuously and for the most part discordantly. There were also many banners, there was a long procession of men ...
— Donahoe's Magazine, Volume 15, No. 2, February 1886 • Various
... records (Anec. p. 109):—'In answer to the arguments urged by Puritans, Quakers, etc. against showy decorations of the human figure, I once heard him exclaim:—"Oh, let us not be found, when our Master calls us, ripping the lace off our waistcoats, but the spirit of contention from our souls and tongues! ... Alas! Sir, a man ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... time, the faithful, efficient quartermaster became a plodding, painstaking lawyer, a safe, industrious attorney-general, and a dignified, respectable judge; but he had not distinguished himself, nor did he possess the striking, showy characteristics of mind or manner often needed in a doubtful and bitterly contested campaign. Heretofore place had sought him by appointment. He became attorney-general when Aaron Burr gave it up for the United States Senate; and a year ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... things, 553-u. Simon Magus, founder of the Gnostics, on the manifestations of God, 270-m. Simon Magus taught that the Supreme Being produced three couples of—, 552-l. Simon of Cyrene crucified instead of Christ, 554-u. Simple life of our ancestors preferable to the showy, loud, of today, 806-l. Simplicius held that in each Star there is an immortal Soul, 671-m. Sin and evil reconciled with the wisdom and beneficence of God, 686-u. Sin being congenital with Humanity, God's Justice would have annihilated man, 846-u. Siphra de Zeniutha contains reference ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... animal act maybe, to please the children, or a Japanese troupe with their gorgeous kimonos and vividly harmonizing stage draperies, or a troupe of white-clad trapeze artists flying against a background of black. Whatever the act is, it must be a showy act, for it closes the performance and sends the audience home pleased with the program to the very ...
— Writing for Vaudeville • Brett Page
... worthy of his succession, showy, ambitious, and malignant, followed; each with some vivid literary contribution, some powerful and popular work, a new despotic of combustion in that mighty mine on which stood in thin and fatal security the throne of France. Rousseau, the most impassioned of all romancers, ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... soul was visible. He went into the corridor and listened at a door which he knew to be that of the drawing-room; there was no sound, and on turning the handle he found the room empty. A fire burning low in the grate was the sole light of the apartment; its beams flashed mockingly on the somewhat showy Versaillese furniture and gilding here, in style as unlike that of the structural parts of the building as it was possible to be, and probably introduced by Felice to counteract the fine old-English gloom of the place. Disappointed ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... infirmity of noble minds. I think he had not rightly considered the subject. I believe that last infirmity is the love of getting things cheap! Understand me, now. I don't mean the love of getting cheap things, by which one understands showy, trashy, ill-made, spurious articles, bearing certain apparent resemblances to better things. All really sensible people are quite superior to that sort of cheapness. But those fortunate accidents which put within the power of a man things ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 75, January, 1864 • Various
... its way to that quarter of the city which is made up of streets with geographical names, and seems as if it were intended to lodge all the nations under heaven. It stopped in the Rue de Naples, before a house that was somewhat showy, but which showed from its outside, that it was not inhabited by high-bred people. There were pink linings to lace curtains at the windows, and quantities of green vines drooped from the balconies, as if to attract attention from the passers- by. Madame Strahlberg, with her ostentatious and ...
— Jacqueline, v3 • Th. Bentzon (Mme. Blanc)
... costume and Nellie's. Of course, the boys were wonderful Indians, and Harry a splendid Frenchman; Mrs. Bobbsey, Aunt Sarah, and Aunt Emily only had to add lace headpieces to their brightest dinner gowns to be like the showy Italians, while Freddie looked like a little prince in his black velvet suit, with Flossie's red sash tied from shoulder to waist, in gay court fashion. Flossie wore the pink slip that belonged under her lace dress, and on her head was a silk handkerchief ...
— The Bobbsey Twins at the Seashore • Laura Lee Hope
... of St John or Henry Bolingbroke. In a former paper we said that Edmund Burke reminded us less of a man than of a tutelar Angel; and so we can sometimes think of the "ingrate and cankered Bolingbroke," with his subtle intellect, his showy, sophistical eloquence, his power of intrigue, his consummate falsehood, his vice and his infidelity as a "superior fiend"—a kind ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... out, but in this she was greatly mistaken. It was evidently a new house, in a quarter where many houses were new and where some were not in the most perfect taste, though none were monstrosities. It was not exceptionally big, and was certainly not showy; on the whole, it had the unmistakable air of having been built by a good architect, of the very best materials and in a way to last as long as hewn stone can. Such beauty as it had lay in its proportions ...
— Fair Margaret - A Portrait • Francis Marion Crawford
... I had gone through the list with her, selecting just the right people to be asked to meet the Landors, our new neighbours. Not a mere cumbrous county gathering, nor yet a showy imported party from town, but a skillful blending of both. Had anything happened already? I had been late for dinner and missed the arrivals in the drawing-room. It was Leta's fault. She has got into a way of coming into my room and putting the last touches to my toilet. I let ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery - Riddle Stories • Various
... corslets and winged helmets of steel and their uniforms of divers colors; civic functionaries in their gorgeous robes of office; dignitaries of the church in their rich vestments; a long array of priests in their white dalmatics, until all Christendom seemed present in its noblest and most showy representatives. Heathendom may have been represented also, for it may be that messengers from the great caliph of Bagdad, the renowned Haroun al Raschid, the hero of the "Arabian Nights' Entertainments," were present in the church. Many members of the royal family of Charlemagne ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 6 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality. French. • Charles Morris
... sidewalk of Yorkbury, whereon the young people did their promenading after school in the afternoon. Joy always fancied coming here, gay in her white chenille and white ribbons, and dainty parasol lined with white silk. There is nothing so showy as showy mourning, and Joy made the ...
— Gypsy's Cousin Joy • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... worse, this aberration of a people, decked with the showy title of "patriotism," proudly walks abroad, passing itself off as a highly moral influence. Thus it has spread its inflammatory contagion all over the world, proclaiming its fever flush to be the best sign ...
— Creative Unity • Rabindranath Tagore
... commonplace. Don't expect anything of the impetuous and boiling style. We go it weak here. I don't know whether you were ever in Brussels. It is a striking, picturesque town, built up a steep promontory, the old part at the bottom, very dingy and mouldy, the new part at the top, very showy and elegant. Nothing can be more exquisite in its way than the grande place in the very heart of the city, surrounded with those toppling, zigzag, ten-storied buildings bedizened all over with ornaments and emblems so peculiar to ...
— Memoir of John Lothrop Motley, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... night before Milly, popping so very oddly into the National Gallery for a farewell look, found you and me together. They were then to get off a day or two later. But they've not got off—they're not getting off. When I see them—and I saw them this morning—they have showy reasons. They do mean to go, but they've postponed it." With which the girl brought out: "They've postponed it for you." He protested so far as a man might without fatuity, since a protest was itself credulous; but Kate, ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume II • Henry James
... other side of the bridge were the business streets and the clustering shops, most of them old-fashioned and dark, with low, beetling fronts and narrow panes in the windows, and only here and there a showy and modern establishment, with its stucco front and its plate glass. The streets were all so narrow that they seemed as if they must be only passages leading to broader thoroughfares. The stranger walked on and on, thinking he was coming to the ...
— The Galaxy, Volume 23, No. 2, February, 1877 • Various
... bought by Crabbe in the shops of St. Laurent, Main Street, one of canary and black lace, another of rose colour, and a third of apple-green. There were veils enough to stock a store, ties, collars, ribbons, small handkerchiefs and showy stockings in profusion, with a corresponding dearth of strong sensible clothing. The trousseau of Pauline was essentially French in its airiness; its cheap splendours attested to one side of her peculiar character and the sturdier and more sensible attributes of the belle Canadienne ...
— Ringfield - A Novel • Susie Frances Harrison
... must prompt me if I forget anything. Your desk will be furnished with everything really useful. Merely showy matters we can dispense with. Now let us see. Here is a great empty place that I think wants some paper to fill it. Show me some of different ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Susan Warner
... and the soldiers of Jerusalem lay in advance of the allies of France and Germany, and nearer the beleaguered city, as the place of honor for the brave young leader who led the van of battle. From the looped-up entrance to a showy pavilion in the centre of King Baldwin's camp, the fair young maiden, Isabelle of Tyre, who, as was the custom of the day, had come with other high-born ladies to the place of siege, looked out upon the verdant and attractive gardens ...
— Historic Boys - Their Endeavours, Their Achievements, and Their Times • Elbridge Streeter Brooks
... festive hall to be a smallish oblong room, the walls of which were garnished with a number of little looking-glasses, polished brass basons, and various other small matters, including little baskets made of palm-branches. The floor was covered with matting and a few showy carpets, and one or two ottomans were arranged for seats. In the centre of the room was placed an enormous wooden dish, full of bazeen, or thick boiled pudding, made of barley-meal, with olive-oil, and sauce of pounded dates poured upon it. Every person ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... wealthier class of citizens to settle, and officials were not wanting in showy attire. Black silk breeches and hose, enormous shoe buckles, stiff stocks, velvet and satin coats and beaver hats were often seen. Ladies rejoiced in new importations, and in winter went decked in costly furs. Even ...
— A Little Girl in Old Detroit • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... demand of striking effect. Viewed from one point it might have been taken for a castle; from another, it suggested itself as a spireless church. Strangers halted to gaze at it; street laborers looked at it in admiration. It was showy in a neighborhood ...
— The Colossus - A Novel • Opie Read
... from outrage. The produce of the country might likewise be obtained (at first) at a low rate in exchange for European goods suited to native tastes. In addition to the articles I have already mentioned, I must here add pins, needles, and thread, both gold and white, showy cheap velvets, yellow, green, and red cloth, Surat silks, cottons, colored beads (for the Dyaks), nankeens in small quantities, gold-lace of various qualities, gunpowder, muskets, pistols, flints, &c., &c. ...
— The Expedition to Borneo of H.M.S. Dido - For the Suppression of Piracy • Henry Keppel
... seen people in the country in the summer time trampling down the daisies and the beautiful violets, the lovely wild flowers in their efforts to get a branch of showy flowers off a large tree, which, perhaps, would not compare in beauty and delicacy and loveliness to the things they trampled under their feet in trying to ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... then Cecilia would not have deceived her father; nor I think have told a blackamoor that she wished "Heaven had made her such a man." Her mind harmonizes with her person: it is a companionable mind. Her talents are not showy, but, take them altogether, they form a pleasant whole: she has good sense enough in the practical affairs of life, and enough of that ineffable womanly gift called tact to counteract the effects of whimsical natures like mine, and yet enough sense of the humouristic views of ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... texture of the owl's feathers is very remarkable: these birds remind me of a huge moth. The owls were more showy than the hawks, though it is commonly said that without sunlight there is no colour—as in the case of plants grown in darkness. Yet the hawks are day birds, while the owls fly by night. There came the sound of footsteps; and I retreated, casting one glance ...
— The Amateur Poacher • Richard Jefferies
... the regular line of promotion. In a word, he wore the unpretending uniform of a master. A century ago, the dress of the English naval officer was exceedingly simple, though more appropriate to the profession perhaps, than the more showy attire that has since been introduced. Epaulettes were not used by any, and the anchor button, with the tint that is called navy blue, and which is meant to represent the deep hue of the ocean, with white facings, composed the principal peculiarities ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... wonderful and undoubted case of protective resemblance in a butterfly which I have ever seen, is that of the common Indian Kallima inachis, and its Malayan ally, Kallima paralekta. The upper surface of these insects is very striking and showy, as they are of a large size, and are adorned with a broad band of rich orange on a deep bluish ground. The under side is very variable in colour, so that out of fifty specimens no two can be found exactly ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: - The Naturalist as Interpreter and Seer • Various
... to gather a great company, and Flosi rode till he came to Kirkby, to Surt Asbjorn's son. Then Flosi sent after Kolbein Egil's son, his brother's son, and he came to him there. Thence he rode to Headbrink. There dwelt Thorgrim the showy, the son of Thorkel the fair. Flosi begged him to ride to the Althing with him, and he said yea to the journey, and spoke thus ...
— The story of Burnt Njal - From the Icelandic of the Njals Saga • Anonymous
... rather village, of C—-. It then consisted chiefly of one long street, parallel with the shore of the lake, and the houses, with very few exceptions, were built of wood; but they were all finished, and painted with such a degree of neatness, that their appearance was showy, and in some instances elegant, from the symmetry of their proportions. Immediately beyond the bounds of the village, we, for the first time, witnessed the operation of clearing up a thick cedar-swamp. The soil looked black and rich, but the water stood ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... extra prices for these; but from the rest—and he has some three hundred of them—he let us choose any we liked at one price, and I think I can say that we shall be as well mounted a corps as any out here. Of course we avoided the showy-looking horses, and chose those specially suited to the country and likely to be fast. Mr. Duncan had several thoroughbreds from home, and there is no doubt that his stock has benefited by it; they are all of the country type, sturdy and compact, and yet somewhat ...
— With Buller in Natal - A Born Leader • G. A. Henty
... handsome brown silk dress and Reuben a new writing-desk, and Sam a silver watch, and Jim a showy vest-pattern. ...
— Self-Raised • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... of science. Shepstone, clever as he is, only won a fight from him by claiming a foul, because Billy lost his temper and spiked him. That's the worst of Billy; he can't keep his feelings in. But no fine-lady sparrer can stand afore that ugly rush of his. Do you think he'll care for Cashel's showy long shots? Not he: he'll just take 'em on that mahogany nut of his, and give him back one o' them smashers that he settled poor Dick ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... are the showy treasures, What are the noisy pleasures? The gay, gaudy glare of vanity and art: The polish'd jewels' blaze May draw the wond'ring gaze; And courtly grandeur bright The fancy may delight, But never, never ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... than likely to discover that nature has furnished this innocent-looking member of the carp family with two rows of very decent lacerators. The best result nevertheless of that day's fishing was the receipt in a letter two days later of a specimen of the showy yellow leopard's bane from my friend. We had pointed out to each other solitary wildflowers left alone to tell of a summer that was past, and he had found this somewhat sparingly-located bloom two months overdue ...
— Lines in Pleasant Places - Being the Aftermath of an Old Angler • William Senior
... derive the word gallant from all sorts of roots in divers languages, meaning gay, brave, festive, proud, lascivious, and so on. Why not derive if from the Latin gallus, rooster? A rooster combines in himself all the different meanings of the word gallant. He is showy in appearance, brave, daring, attentive to females, and, above all, chivalrous, that is, inclined to show disinterested courtesy to the weaker sex, as we have just seen. In this last respect, it is true, the ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... the most showy and gallant figure, so far as apparel went, anywhere to be seen among the multitude. He wore a profusion of ribbons on his garment, and gold lace on his hat, which was also encircled by a gold chain, and surmounted with a feather. There was a sword at his side and a sword-cut on his forehead, which, ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... through before I reached home. There was Mr. Strong, too, and he wanted me to meet his wife and little girl. And Mr. Pastor! I had almost forgotten Mr. Pastor. I arrived at the corner of Washington and Dover Streets, on my way home, and looked into Mr. Pastor's showy drug store as I passed, and that reminded me of the history of ...
— The Promised Land • Mary Antin
... with a steamer or two at hand, and a few small vessels lying on either side of the jetty; a town irregularly built, with showy-looking hotels; a few people straggling on the beach; two or three ears at the railroad station, which runs along the shore as far as Dublin; the sea stretching interminably eastward; to the north the Hill of Howth, lying gray behind the mist; and, directly under his feet, upon the wet, ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors - Vol. II Great Britain And Ireland, Part Two • Francis W. Halsey
... genius in this showy court figure. In 1669, when the Venetian Republic had asked France to lend her an efficient soldier to lead against the rampant Turk, the great Marshal Turenne had chosen Frontenac for the task. Crete, which Frontenac was to rescue, the Turk ...
— The Conquest of New France - A Chronicle of the Colonial Wars, Volume 10 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • George M. Wrong
... the presidency on no factitious qualities. They urged that his characteristics were such as to commend him to the confidence of every true republican and well-wisher of his country. While his attainments were not of the showy and popular cast possessed by many public men, they yet were of that solid, practical and valuable description which must ever receive the sanction ...
— Life and Public Services of John Quincy Adams - Sixth President of the Unied States • William H. Seward
... at everything I do is thanking me. That makes it seem so hard to put on a showy thing like that. He'll only laugh ...
— The Young Castellan - A Tale of the English Civil War • George Manville Fenn
... a large, showy shop, with Virgins and crucifixes and altar candelabra's in the windows, and pictures of bleeding hearts. He went in and stood at the counter. A rosy-faced servant-girl, with a shy, pleased expression, was making choice of a rosary. A ...
— Saint Patrick - 1887 • Heman White Chaplin
... before us now. But the service cannot be overrated, to all parties, of the protest which his life and all his words were against dangers which were threatening all parties, and not least the Liberal party—the danger of shallowness and superficial flippancy; the danger of showy sentiment and insincerity, of worldly indifference to high duties and calls. With the one great exception of Arnold—Keble's once sympathetic friend, though afterwards parted from him—the religious Liberals of our time have little reason to look back with satisfaction to ...
— Occasional Papers - Selected from The Guardian, The Times, and The Saturday Review, - 1846-1890 • R.W. Church
... swell who, after all, is brought to grief in the middle of the season, because he has got nothing to ride! A farmer's horse is never lame, never unfit to go, never throws out curbs, never breaks down before or behind. Like his master, he is never showy. He does not paw, and prance, and arch his neck, and bid the world admire his beauties; but, like his master, he is useful; and when he is wanted, he ...
— Hunting Sketches • Anthony Trollope
... his compliment to the showy appearances of the late war in our favor, is in the utmost haste to tell you that these appearances were fallacious, that they were no more than an imposition.—I fear I must trouble the reader with a pretty long quotation, in order to set before him the more clearly this author's ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. I. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... made force of arms the merit most worthy of their rewards. The growth of the people in the mechanical arts took the direction of improving the instruments of warfare; the increase of refinement and humanity tended less to diminish war than to make it more civilized, showy, and glorious. The armies of the Romans seem prosaic when we turn to the brilliant array of chivalry, to the ranks of steel-clad knights couching the lance to win fame, the smile of woman, or the reward of religious devotion;—men to whom war seemed a grand tournament, in which ...
— A History of English Prose Fiction • Bayard Tuckerman
... He is like a rare wit in our social or political circles. Everybody is talking about him and quoting his remarks, and all are delighted with his company. He is not without great merits as a songster; but he is well known and admired, because he is showy, noisy, and flippant, and sings only in the open field, and frequently while poised on the wing, so that everybody who hears him can see him, and know who is the author of the strains that afford him so much delight. He sings also ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various
... their victuals, unsavoured by salt (prohibited to them, we are told, because an emblem of eternity), became tasteless and insipid—the stately halls were turned into miserable damp caverns—all the delights of the Elfin Elysium vanished at once. In a word, their pleasures were showy, but totally unsubstantial—their activity unceasing, but fruitless and unavailing—and their condemnation appears to have consisted in the necessity of maintaining the appearance of constant industry or enjoyment, though their toil ...
— Letters On Demonology And Witchcraft • Sir Walter Scott
... Horrors! The General has been trying Swallow. I fear he may steal him. Of course he has every right to any horse in the regiment, but it is quite difficult to smile. Swallow is, unfortunately, even more showy than Rinaldo was; but he shied at a goat, bless him, and I think that may just turn the scale. I shall now proceed to train Swallow to shy at every blade of grass, every grain of sand. Long live that goat! We are still "standing by." It is a wearing existence. I bathed yesterday in a ...
— Letters to Helen - Impressions of an Artist on the Western Front • Keith Henderson
... in sight of Lucy's home, a straggling cottage which would have been improved by paint and the services of a carpenter. Both lacks were partially concealed by vines which climbed over its sagging porch, and tall rows of hollyhocks, generously screening with their showy beauty its weather-beaten sides. A girl was in the back yard chopping wood, a rather slatternly girl with disordered hair. Peggy descended on her briskly to ask ...
— Peggy Raymond's Vacation - or Friendly Terrace Transplanted • Harriet L. (Harriet Lummis) Smith
... the great, fanciful iron gates of the cemented residence. He could see the well-kept garden and the showy house from where he worked, and he frequently ceased his half hearted rapping at the tough stone to watch children playing on the lawn. He was particularly interested in a tall, 'severe-looking, fair-haired woman, who appeared on the ...
— The Missing Link • Edward Dyson
... many-coloured dresses. The chief's wives and younger children sat near us in a group by themselves; and were distinguished from their companions by their superior dress. Manchester cloths of inferior quality, but of the most showy patterns, and dresses made of common English bed-furniture, were fastened round the waist of several sooty maidens, who, for the sake of fluttering a short hour in the gaze of their countrymen, had sacrificed in clothes the earnings of a twelve-month's labour. All the women ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XIX. No. 541, Saturday, April 7, 1832 • Various
... reclaimed from the Back Bay, near the foot of Beacon street, in which the richer citizens of Boston are continually building and furnishing the most showy houses. ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 3, September 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... which have been very showy and pretty from the latter part of May to the end of July will now have reached their highest stage of perfection. Such plants as geraniums, calceolarias, lobelias, &c., make an exceedingly small amount of growth all through ...
— Little Folks - A Magazine for the Young (Date of issue unknown) • Various
... feeble light of the baron's small lamp rather dim, Matamore bad gone out to the chariot and brought back two showy candelabra, which ordinarily did duty on the stage. They each held several candles, which, in addition to the warm radiance from the blazing fire, made quite a brilliant illumination in this room, so lately dark, cheerless, and deserted. It had become warm and comfortable by ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... afflicted S. Etheldreda, a swelling in the neck, which she held to be a fit punishment for the vanity of her youthful days, when she was fond of wearing necklaces and jewels. "Saint Audrey's laces" became corrupted into "Tawdry laces"; and so the adjective has been applied to all cheap and showy pieces of female ornament. ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Ely • W. D. Sweeting
... uncertain gleam, Which tempts us still to give such fancies scope, As shock not reason, while they nourish hope? No, no, believe me, 'tis not so—even now, While yet upon Columbia's rising brow The showy smile of young presumption plays, Her bloom is poisoned and her heart decays. Even now, in dawn of life, her sickly breath Burns with the taint of empires near their death; And, like the nymphs of her own withering clime, She's old in youth, ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... opinion concerning a branch of college education. He objected to the modern practice of teaching the natural sciences by means of a profusion of drawings, models, showy experiments, and other expedients addressing the mind so strongly through the eye. While these might be allowable in popular lectures, before audiences lacking in early intellectual discipline, where amusement was a consideration, and where without it the public ear could not be secured, he ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 21, July, 1859 • Various
... which all Washington is computed obtains at the hotels as elsewhere, with this peculiarity,—that the differences are infinitely great, instead of infinitely small. While the fronts are very fine, showy, and youthful as the Lecompton Constitution, the rears are coarse, common, and old as the Missouri Compromise. The furniture in the rooms that look upon Pennsylvania Avenue is as fresh as the dogma of Squatter Sovereignty; ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 39, January, 1861 • Various
... the end of the week he began to feel a warmer feeling for Miss Janet. It was not in the nature of things that John should walk and talk with a pleasant girl a week, and not feel something more than his first interested desire to marry a showy wife. His heart began to be touched, and he resolved to bring things to a crisis as soon as possible. He therefore sought an opportunity to propose. But it was hard to find. For though Mrs. Holmes ...
— Duffels • Edward Eggleston
... the Bacchic myths he usually carries a thyrsos, and it is a showy weapon, certainly; but it is not of ...
— Jurgen - A Comedy of Justice • James Branch Cabell
... store on lower Broadway. He was fortunate in the location of his store, as he finished work at half-past five, and was able to be at supper at the regular hour. He seemed rather fond of dress and indulged in a variety of showy neckties, being able to get ...
— Andy Grant's Pluck • Horatio Alger
... adaptations. The turning lathe occupies a considerable part of it; but when he requires more space, the village smith with his stithy, and the miller with his water-power, are always ready to help him. His tools, though not showy, are effective. His best lenses are made by himself: those which he buys are not to be depended upon. The best flint glass is obtained from Paris in blocks, which he divides, grinds, and polishes to ...
— Men of Invention and Industry • Samuel Smiles
... costly fashion Round the wealthy, titled bride: But when compar'd with real passion, Poor is all that princely pride. What are the showy treasures? What are the noisy pleasures? The gay gaudy glare of vanity and art: The polish'd jewel's blaze May draw the wond'ring gaze, And courtly grandeur bright The fancy may delight, But never, never ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... interest and stir the imagination by a few words on waifs and strays—the curiosities of MS. research. Some few leading instances have been mentioned, but in thinking over the collections I have examined and the documents I have had to copy or edit, others, less immediately showy, occur to my memory. ...
— The Wanderings and Homes of Manuscripts - Helps for Students of History, No. 17. • M. R. James
... to a showy building which seemed a center of attraction. It seemed well filled, and people were constantly coming in and going ...
— The Young Explorer • Horatio Alger
... of the rising generation." He paused, blinked, and added with an ingratiating chuckle: "You will go running away with an impression that I am metamorphosed into red-hot revolutionary. No, thank you! I am intrinsically a man of peace!" With a flourish he jerked out a showy gold watch. "Ah—getting late! Very agreeable exchanging amenities with old schoolfellows. But I have an appointment in the Palace Gardens, at the time they feed the muggers. That is a sight you should see, Mr Sinclair—when the beasts ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... then, that I have described, this Vicente de la Roca, this bravo, gallant, musician, poet, was often seen and watched by Leandra from a window of her house which looked out on the plaza. The glitter of his showy attire took her fancy, his ballads bewitched her (for he gave away twenty copies of every one he made), the tales of his exploits which he told about himself came to her ears; and in short, as the devil no doubt had arranged it, she fell ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... perceive. He saw precisely where the strength of the Royalists lay, and by what means alone that strength could be overpowered. He saw that it was necessary to reconstruct the army of the Parliament. He saw also that there were abundant and excellent materials for the purpose, materials less showy, indeed, but more solid, than those of which the gallant squadrons of the King were composed. It was necessary to look for recruits who were not mere mercenaries, for recruits of decent station and grave character, fearing ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... appearance that ennobles a vulgar reality. Their strict sense of truth is rightly offended by the falsity of manners; unfortunately, they class politeness in this category. It displeases them that the noisy and showy so often eclipse true merit, but they are no less shocked that appearance is also demanded from merit, and that a real substance does not dispense with an agreeable form. They regret the cordiality, the energy, and solidity of ancient ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... of his manuscript. He looks round upon his congregation, a few hundred, recently seated anew for the year, arranged according to rank and age. There are the old men in the pews beneath the pulpit. There are the young men in the gallery, or near the door, with ruffs, showy belts, gold and silver buttons, "points" at the knees, and great boots. There are the young women, with "silk or tiffany hoods or scarfs," "embroidered or needle-worked caps," "immoderate great sleeves," "cut works,"—a ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. September, 1863, No. LXXI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... Gemmen? Lor bless yer, he ain't no account, nohow. Can't 'it a 'ole in a pound o' butter, 'e can't. Allus was a muff and a muddler; middling showy style, and a bit dodgy with his dooks, but neither a slogger nor a stayer, and, atween you and me and the post, allus ready to hist the white feather when 'ard pressed. Wot's that you say? His 'Travelling Company'? A reglar swindle, and a fair frost, Gemmen. Went 'round ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, November 7, 1891 • Various
... corner he came to a standstill, proposing to himself the question of turning back toward the showy and fashionable restaurant in which he usually dined on the evenings of his especial luxury. Just then a girl scuddled lightly around the corner, slipped on a patch of icy snow and fell ...
— The Four Million • O. Henry
... other hand, he should avoid those houses built on speculation to sell. In these a showy appearance is gained at the expense of durability of construction, and the purchaser will find that he must pay in plumbing, coal bills, and general repairs an amount he had not calculated upon as interest on the home, for, ...
— Practical Suggestions for Mother and Housewife • Marion Mills Miller
... and ready smile, her dark expressive eye, the animation and sprightliness of her conversation, and her refined taste and manners, made her a favorite in all circles. Her dress, for which she was indebted to the liberality of British friends, was more rich and showy than she would have chosen for herself, and as has been said, excited unkind remarks from some who did not care to investigate her reasons for wearing it. Elegant as it was said to be, it was certainly far better she should wear it, even ...
— Lives of the Three Mrs. Judsons • Arabella W. Stuart
... way of Society badges and regalia, to let him know about it, for he said the C.S.S. was goin' to take a decided stand and show their colors. They wuz goin' to help protect his women endangered sect, an' he wanted sunthin' showy and suggestive. ...
— Samantha on the Woman Question • Marietta Holley
... horrible wife, an Englishwoman who had been on the stage. It was said she used to beat poor Savage with his mahl-stick and when the domestic finances were low to lock him up in his studio and tell him he should n't come out until he had painted half a dozen of his daubs. She had a good deal of showy beauty. She would then go forth, and, her beauty helping, she would make certain people take the pictures. It helped her at last to make an English lord run away with her. At the time I speak of she had quite disappeared. Mrs. Light was then a very handsome girl, though by no means so handsome as ...
— Roderick Hudson • Henry James
... of my youthful Sundays is fragrant with wintergreens, black birch, and crinkle-root, to say nothing of the harvest apples that grew in our neighbor's orchard; and the memory of my Sundays in later years is fragrant with arbutus, and the showy orchid, and wild strawberries, and touched with the sanctity of woodland walks and hilltops. What day can compare with a Sunday to go to the waterfalls, or to "Piney Ridge," or to "Columbine Ledge," or ...
— Our Friend John Burroughs • Clara Barrus
... her clumsy plush cape. Thea had bought this cape at a big department store and had paid $16.50 for it. As she had never paid more than ten dollars for a coat before, that seemed to her a large price. It was very heavy and not very warm, ornamented with a showy pattern in black disks, and trimmed around the collar and the edges with some kind of black wool that "crocked" badly in snow or rain. It was lined with a cotton stuff called "farmer's satin." Mrs. Harsanyi was one woman in a thousand. As she lifted this cape from Thea's ...
— Song of the Lark • Willa Cather
... of the dining room. The furnishing may be simple and inexpensive,—beauty in a home is not dependent upon expense,—but let it be substantial, tasteful, harmonious in color and soft in tone, nothing gaudy or showy. Use no heavy draperies, and have no excess of ornament and bric-a-brac to catch dust and germs. A hard-finished wood floor is far superior to a carpet in point of healthfulness, and quite as economical and easy to keep clean. The general furnishing of the room, besides the dining ...
— Science in the Kitchen. • Mrs. E. E. Kellogg
... one had said that this showy wealth, which indicated a noble affluence, was also such a mere wig as the other, covering the baldness of his riches; if some one had said that these hand-kissing companions, in whose every word was melody when they ...
— Debts of Honor • Maurus Jokai
... lordly tastes; proud not merely of being nobles, but Guelf nobles; always loyal champions, once the martyrs, and now the hereditary assertors, of the great Guelf cause. The Cerchi, with less character and less zeal, but rich, liberal, and showy, and with more of rough kindness and vulgar good-nature for the common people, were more popular in Guelf Florence than the Parte Guelfa; and, of course, the Ghibellines ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... had made a drinker out of Huerlin, it was just the opposite with Heller. Nor had he, like the manufacturer, fallen suddenly from the height of showy riches; he had gone down slowly and steadily, with the necessary pauses and interludes, from an uncommon workman to a common vagabond. His good and energetic wife had been unable to save him; rather, the hopeless struggle had been too much for her, though ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... of social New York, Paliser's father had driven four-in-hand, and at a pace so klinking that social New York cut him dead. A lot he cared! The high-steppers in their showy harness flung along as brazenly as before. He did not care. He had learned to since. Age is instructive. It teaches that though a man defy the world, he cannot ignore it. But tastes are inheritable. Monty Paliser came in for a few, but not for the four-in-hand. Less ...
— The Paliser case • Edgar Saltus
... that. And I'll tell you something else, now that we're on business matters. The First National Bank over the way there is built up in the air too high; it's got all the weaknesses of the Holton family—showy without any real bottom to it. Some of their stock has always been owned around through the state—quite a bunch of it—and Bill has had to sell part of his own holdings lately; he's got only a scant ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson
... on his guard against showy virtues, which of their very nature encourage vainglory, the bane of ...
— The Spirit of St. Francis de Sales • Jean Pierre Camus
... handsome bird—this newcomer—in his showy white suit, spotted with black. And he gave Tommy Fox a bold, hard look, acting for all the world as if he had spent his whole life in Pleasant Valley, instead of ...
— The Tale of Grumpy Weasel - Sleepy-Time Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey
... expected to dine there, and this was an expense which he did not feel able to incur. He threw himself down in the shade of a tree, and remained there until after he heard the church clock strike two. He was still lying there when a young man, smartly dressed, sporting a showy watch chain and locket and an immense necktie, came up the ...
— Herbert Carter's Legacy • Horatio Alger
... not to say impossible, to find anywhere in the mountains more flowery and highly perfumed mossy banks than those of the Engadine. We do not make this assertion because of the rhododendrons that abound on the borders of the lakes: we are not fond of this showy, pretentious shrub, whose flowers look as if they were moulded in wax for the decoration of some altar; but is it not delightful to walk on a greensward, almost black with rich satyrion and vanilla? And what would ...
— Samuel Brohl & Company • Victor Cherbuliez
... decorated apartments, lofty and elaborate, were put to uses that had an appearance of being incongruous. The cot of the soldier, shrouded in a mosquito bar, stood in the midst of sumptuous furniture, before towering mirrors in showy frames, and from niches looked down marble statues that would have been more at home in the festal scenes of pompous life in the sleepy cities of dreamy lands. There was no more striking combination than a typewriting machine mounted on a magnificent ...
— The Story of the Philippines and Our New Possessions, • Murat Halstead
... of one who is showy in dress, expensive or apparently so in his mode of living, and inclined to spree. Formerly used exclusively among students; now of ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall
... an immense success when first produced. The glitter and tinsel of the story suited Meyerbeer's showy style, and besides, even when the merely trivial and conventional had been put aside, there remains a fair proportion of the score which has claims to dramatic power. The triumph of 'Robert' militated ...
— The Opera - A Sketch of the Development of Opera. With full Descriptions - of all Works in the Modern Repertory • R.A. Streatfeild
... that quality which is most easily developed, especially in young persons. It is also its most showy quality, and the temptation to give it an inordinate development is strong. The habit of getting things by rote, is easily acquired by practice. It is astonishing what masses of Scripture texts young children will get by heart, when under some ...
— In the School-Room - Chapters in the Philosophy of Education • John S. Hart
... Paganism which it had superseded. The heathen gods were replaced by canonised mortals; Venus and Cupid by the Virgin and Child; Lares and Penates by images and crucifixes; while incense, flowers, tapers, and showy dresses came to be regarded as essential parts of the ceremonial of the new religion as they had been of the old. Madonnas winked and bled again, as the statues of Juno and Pompey had done before; and stones and relics worked miracles as in the time ...
— The Huguenots in France • Samuel Smiles
... he was making preparations for that enterprise, he was seized with a distemper, of which he expired in the forty-second year of his age, and the twenty-third of his reign; a prince more splendid and showy than either prudent or virtuous; brave, though cruel; addicted to pleasure, though capable of activity in great emergencies; and less fitted to prevent ills by wise precautions, than to remedy them, after they took place, by his vigor ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part B. - From Henry III. to Richard III. • David Hume
... Philadelphia. Seven or eight years ago some street fakir got hold of a showy two-blade penknife at about $2 a dozen. He took his stand on the street and they went off readily at 25 cents. The business seemed to spread all over the country like wild-fire, and especially during the fair season. ...
— A Man of Samples • Wm. H. Maher
... then came the impassive official procession, always the same for marriages, deaths, baptisms, openings of Parliament, or receptions of sovereigns, the interminable cortege of glittering carriages, with large windows and showy liveries bedizened with gilt, which passed through the midst of the dazzled people, to whom they recalled fairy-tales, Cinderella chariots, while evoking those "Oh's!" of admiration that mount and die away with the rockets on the evenings of firework displays. And in ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... wind. Many of the species are favourite garden plants; among the best known is Anemone coronaria, often called the poppy anemone, a tuberous-rooted plant, with parsley-like divided leaves, and large showy poppy-like blossoms on stalks of from 6 to 9-in. high; the flowers are of various colours, but the principal are scarlet, crimson, blue, purple and white. There are also double-flowered varieties, ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 2, Part 1, Slice 1 • Various
... Sunday to dinner, and made a shindy all the afternoon. She was a big, noisy girl, with a taste for loud colours and a strident laugh; and this Sunday she had outdone all her previous intrusions by bringing in a fellow with her, a chap as showy as herself. And Mr. Coombes, in a starchy, clean collar and his Sunday frock-coat, had sat dumb and wrathful at his own table, while his wife and her guests talked foolishly and undesirably, and laughed aloud. Well, he stood that, and after ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... schoolgirl. I hated my school! It was called a "Young Ladies' Seminary." It was a fashionable, intellectual hot-house, where premature, fleeting blooms were cultivated regardless of any future consequence. But I was a barren bush! I never fashion-flowered into a profusion of showy blossoms. Aunt Patsey said that I did not reap the harvest of my golden opportunities; but pa, he growled and grumbled a good deal when the bills came pouring in, but paid them, and roundly swore that he was glad he had no more fool-daughters to finish off ...
— The Inner Sisterhood - A Social Study in High Colors • Douglass Sherley et al.
... She wore a white muslin gown stamped with gay little bunches of flowers, and pointed, high-heeled shoes, with open-work stockings. To Philip's inexperience it seemed that she was wonderfully dressed; he did not see that her frock was cheap and showy. Her hair was elaborately dressed, with a neat curl in the middle of the forehead: it was very black, shiny and hard, and it looked as though it could never be in the least disarranged. She had large black eyes and her nose ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... shallow mind is very apt to clothe itself with propriety as with a garment. A brain that cannot handle large things very often undertakes to manage a multiplicity of little things, and runs naturally into those minute proprieties of life which are showy, and which appear to the ignorant to indicate great powers and acquisitions in reserve. Most proper men are nothing but a shell, although many of them pass with the world for more. Their life is all on the ...
— Lessons in Life - A Series of Familiar Essays • Timothy Titcomb
... stand regular and in order, along wide straight streets. There are swift cars, drawn by electricity, for such as can afford them. Men are brisk and alert even in the summer heats, and there are shops of a very good kind, though a trifle showy. There are many newspapers to help the Milanese to be better men and to cultivate charity and humility; there are banks full of paper money; there are soldiers, good pavements, and all that man requires to fulfil him, soul and body; cafes, arcades, mutoscopes, ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc
... will shrink from attitudes and the facile hysteria of "no parley with the enemy." They will not embark upon enterprises, however arduous and austere, which are likely to involve the martyrdom of their country and the discrediting of their ideals. It is by slower and less showy methods that the new world must be built: by industrial efforts after self-government, by proletarian training in technique and business administration, by careful study of the international situation, by a prolonged and devoted propaganda ...
— The Practice and Theory of Bolshevism • Bertrand Russell
... breaks through the veil of a ridiculously affected and outre politeness. Notwithstanding the complacent grimaces of his face, the self-sufficiency of his looks, his systematically powdered and dressed hair, his showy dress, his counted and short bows, and his presumptuous conversation, teeming with ignorance, vulgarity, and obscenity, he cannot escape even the most ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... was setting, that with Frank's failure he failed, and that this disgrace—these public charges—meant his own undoing. His hair had grown very gray in but a few weeks, his step slow, his face pallid, his eyes sunken. His rather showy side-whiskers seemed now like flags or ornaments of a better day that was gone. His only consolation through it all was that Frank had actually got out of his relationship with the Third National Bank without ...
— The Financier • Theodore Dreiser
... men and women in the world, praise be to God!—not many of them, but a few. They are not the showy folk. (Nature is an old-fashioned shopkeeper; she never puts her best goods in the window.) They are only the quiet, strong folk; they are stronger than Fate. The storms of life sweep over them, and the biting frosts creep round them; but the winds and the frosts pass away, and they are still ...
— Leaves of Life - For Daily Inspiration • Margaret Bird Steinmetz
... nothing of all this, and Miss Barnes's lively, slangy conversation and stylish, showy clothes ...
— Betty Wales Freshman • Edith K. Dunton
... calling to her. I could distinguish her pale, beautiful features. Her cheek was wan with weeping, and her rich golden hair hung dishevelled from her shoulders, reaching to the withers of her horse. She was covered with a serape, and a young Indian rode beside her, mounted upon a showy horse, and dressed in the habiliments ...
— The Scalp Hunters • Mayne Reid
... very frequently are by nature disposed to reflection and even like often to be alone, consequently are undoubtedly a more thinking nation, although not so brilliant, but experience has proved that patient and undeviating perseverance, ultimately, outsteps the more showy and sparkling quality of genius. For the sympathies of the heart I have found the French females most keenly alive, no mothers can be more devotedly attached to their children than they are, and it is repaid to them with ...
— How to Enjoy Paris in 1842 • F. Herve
... resident in the midst of his flock, preaching to them a silent sermon every day and almost every hour by his example among them, would naturally seem flat, tame and impalpable when compared with the more showy effects resulting from the rousing preaching of the itinerant. Such a life as that of the parish priest would have been to Wesley himself simply unbearable. He was of opinion—surely a most erroneous opinion—that if he were confined ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton
... fellow who came from Rockford, Illinois. He was never a star player, but was a fair and showy player, lacking in stamina. He was only a fair batsman, and after his release by Chicago he played for a time in some of the other League teams, principally Cincinnati. He then managed the Rockford team in the Illinois State League, after which he settled down ...
— A Ball Player's Career - Being the Personal Experiences and Reminiscensces of Adrian C. Anson • Adrian C. Anson
... something. I had money back of me, I thought, and position, and a mind—well, not much of a mind, but when you think what that Italian woman does with half-wit children—surely the right educators could have made something quite showy out of me. The energy I had put into acquiring skill at games and in learning the short cuts to pleasure, might have been expended on righteousness and the development of character. Most at ease with the great, I might, during the dearth of great men, have aspired to be ...
— We Three • Gouverneur Morris
... a cousin. She was dark, high-coloured, glossy-haired, stout, and showy. She was as neat as a new pin, and had a will of her own. Her hair was firmly fixed by bandoline, her garibaldis by an arrangement which failed when applied to those of the widow, and her opinions by the simple process of looking at everything from one point of view. Her forte was dress and ...
— The Brownies and Other Tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... in stores and banks on limited salaries who in the vain attempt to keep the wardrobe of their family as showy as other folk's wardrobes are dying of muffs, and diamonds, and camel's-hair shawls, and high hats, and they have nothing left except what they give to cigars and wine suppers, and they die before their time, and they will expect us ministers to ...
— The Wedding Ring - A Series of Discourses for Husbands and Wives and Those - Contemplating Matrimony • T. De Witt Talmage
... plant world, also, the male as a rule is dominant. Behold the showy catkins of the chestnuts, the butternuts, the hazelnuts, the willows, and other trees. The stamens of most flowers are numerous and conspicuous. Our Indian corn carries its panicle of pollen high above the silken tresses which mother the ...
— Under the Maples • John Burroughs
... with his stage well filled with tables covered with gorgeous dragon-be-decked draperies that reach the ground, and behind which useful assistants could be easily concealed. His own garments are roomy and his sleeves could contain a multitude of billiard balls and rabbits. But he gives a showy performance with clean bright articles, ending up occasionally, as I have seen, with the production of twelve large Chinese ...
— Indian Conjuring • L. H. Branson
... faculties with all kinds of displays. You acknowledge that the scene last night was well got up; and if you should see the trial of some of our 'Grands Democrats,' be assured that your admiration will not be attracted by showy vesture, blue lights, or the harmonies of the old asthmatic organ in yonder gallery; our pattern will be taken from the last scene of 'Il Don Giovanni.' You will have no pasteboard figure suspended from the roof, and wafted upward ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLII. Vol. LV. April, 1844 • Various
... out of the staff-room would have won his marshal's baton in Napoleon's day, I suppose, though he was out of keeping with those showy times. I did not then know that he was to be Commander-in-Chief; only that all France thrilled with his name, which time will forever associate with Douaumont. At once you felt the dynamic quality under his agreeable ...
— My Second Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... wide-brimmed, airy, shading her lusty, animal eyes. The artist had caught her spirit quite accurately, the dash, the assumption, the bravado based on the courage of inexperience, or lack of true subtlety. A refreshing thing in its way, a little showy, as everything that related to her was, and inclined to arouse jealousy in those not so liberally endowed by life, but fine as a character piece. In the warm glow of the guttered gas-jets she looked particularly brilliant here, ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser
... after our arrival I took a carriage and drove around the city and out to the camp, which was situated about a mile and a half from the hotel on the other side of the river. In the city itself I was unpleasantly disappointed. The showy architecture, beautiful grounds, semi-tropical foliage, and brilliant flowers of the Tampa Bay Hotel raise expectations which the town across the river does not fulfil. It is a huddled collection of generally insignificant ...
— Campaigning in Cuba • George Kennan
... the swing of the long line, the crack of the driver's mighty whip and his warning shouts to "Jack" or "Pete" to pull and keep step, the steady chop-chop thud of the sand-shaker, will be seen and heard no more. In the place of the horse-plough has come the electric sweeper, a less showy but a good deal more ...
— Children of the Tenements • Jacob A. Riis
... who justified Mrs. Pompley's pride in her. Her cheek-bones were rather high, it is true, but that proved the purity of her Caledonian descent; for the rest, she had a brilliant complexion, heightened by a soupcon of rouge—good eyes and teeth, a showy figure, and all the ladies of Screwstown pronounced her dress to be perfect. She might have arriven at that age at which one intends to stop for the next ten years, but even a Frenchman would not have called ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, July, 1851 • Various
... the sitting-room she paused to listen, then, going to the window, peeped through the slits of the Venetian blind and saw her youthful admirer, more dejected in the consciousness of his wasted efforts and useless attire, mount his showy young horse, as aimlessly spirited as himself, and ride away. Miss Sally did not regret this; neither had she been entirely sincere in her defense of her mysterious correspondent. But, like many of her sex, ...
— Colonel Starbottle's Client and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... once more, the vision of the wave, Where, on the horizon's dip, A many-sailed ship Pursued alone her distant purpose grave; And, by steep steps rock-hewn, to the dim street I led her sacred feet; And so the Daughter gave, Soft, moth-like, sweet, Showy as damask-rose and shy as musk, Back to her Mother, anxious in the dusk. And now 'Good-night!' Me shall the phantom months no more affright. For heaven's gates to open well waits he Who keeps himself ...
— The Victories of Love - and Other Poems • Coventry Patmore
... the village, though real, was hardly enough to bring a serious blush to the face of coyness. Neighbours' minds had become so saturated by the abundance of showy military and regal incident lately vouchsafed to them, that the wedding of middle-aged civilians was of small account, excepting in so far that it solved the question whether or not Mrs. Garland would consider herself too genteel to mate with a ...
— The Trumpet-Major • Thomas Hardy
... mentioned. But it was at Streatham that she tasted, in the highest perfection, the sweets of flattery mingled with the sweets of friendship. Mrs. Thrale, then at the height of prosperity and popularity-with gay spirits, quick wit, showy, though superficial, acquirements, pleasing, though not refined, manners, a singularly amiable temper and a loving heart-felt towards Fanny as towards a younger sister. With the Thrales, Johnson was domesticated. He was an old friend of Dr. Burney; but he had probably taken ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... from the mine, before it had yet received the advantages of cutting and setting; the other was the ornamented gem, which, cut into facets and richly set, had lost perhaps a little of its original substance, yet still, at the same time, to the eye of an inspector, had something more showy and splendid than when it was, according to the phrase of lapidaries, en brut. In the one case, the value was more artificial; in the other, it was the more natural and real of the two. Chance, therefore, had made a temporary alliance between two men, the foundation of ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... 'I know it is Macheath, for Mr. Tritton showed him to Gilbert and me, when he had just got him, and said he was a showy beast, but incurably lame, so he should get what he could for him from Laing. Now, James, isn't it?' he called to the servant who was sedulously turning away a grinning face, but just muttered, ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Fetes of July, as the Fetes of the Republic. There is but one national festival now,—and that is on the 15th of August, and in honor of St. Napoleon. There are no more "glims" to smash; the old oil reverberes have been replaced by showy gas-lamps, and the sergents de ville would make short work of any roisterers who attempted to take liberties with them. The old Paris of the Restoration and the Monarchy is dead; but the Thane of Cawdor—I mean ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 87, January, 1865 • Various
... over, the canvas men had busied themselves in taking them down, and packing them for transportation to a town ten miles distant on the railroad, where they were to give two exhibitions the next day. The showy chariots, the lions, tigers, elephants and camels, with all the performers, were gone. But Mr. Barlow, the owner of the circus, had remained at the Smyrna Hotel all night, preferring to journey ...
— The Young Acrobat of the Great North American Circus • Horatio Alger Jr.
... imitation to start with, and an a plomb to which ignorance is more conducive than knowledge. Hence the standard of excellence has become one of superficial accomplishment, and the man of matured mind who enters into competition with these handsome, showy, and illiterate boys, puts himself at a discount. Look at Loewenberg. All his literary acquirements and artistic tastes (and he really has a great deal of both) go for nothing. The little beaux can speak nearly as many languages as he can, and dance and dress better. The only thing they can appreciate ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various
... fools and peacocks around him, has sent to the War Department a project of a showy uniform for himself and his staff. It would be to laugh at, if it were not insane. McClellan very likely ...
— Diary from March 4, 1861, to November 12, 1862 • Adam Gurowski
... leisurely—I remember when they were electric in their rapidity and frequency. But Mr. Chamberlain is a distinctly ready man. Whatever gifts he has, are always at his command. He is like the shopman who puts all his goods in the window. The goods are not very fine nor very good, but they are showy and cheap, and, above all things, take the eye. Mr. Chamberlain in his day has been a poor attendant in Parliament—a friend of his used to tell him, when he was supposed to have the reversion of the Liberal leadership, ...
— Sketches In The House (1893) • T. P. O'Connor
... for instance, jetting out of a seam in a gray ledge of rock, its many crimson and flame-colored flowers shaking in the breeze; but it is mostly for the eye. The spring-beauty, the painted trillium, the fringed polygala, the showy lady's-slipper, are all more striking to look upon, but they do not quite touch the heart; they lack the soul that perfume suggests. Their charms do not abide with you as ...
— The Wit of a Duck and Other Papers • John Burroughs
... other words, they are the judges of the manner in which he fulfils his trust; and how are they to judge, except by the standard of their own opinions? How are they even to select him in the first instance but by the same standard? It will not do to choose by mere brilliancy—by superiority of showy talent. The tests by which an ordinary man can judge beforehand of mere ability are very imperfect; such as they are, they have almost exclusive reference to the arts of expression, and little or none to the worth of what is expressed. ...
— Considerations on Representative Government • John Stuart Mill
... Blue, 1 in. broad or less, irregular, grouped at end of stem, and upheld by long leaf-like bracts. Calyx of 3 unequal sepals; 3 petals, 1 inconspicuous, 2 showy, rounded. Perfect stamens 3; the anther of 1 incurved stamen largest; 3 insignificant and sterile stamens; 1 pistil. Stem: Fleshy, smooth, branched, mucilaginous. Leaves: Lance-shaped, 3 to 5 in. long, sheathing ...
— Wild Flowers, An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and - Their Insect Visitors - - Title: Nature's Garden • Neltje Blanchan
... honourable," said Mr. Lyon. "Of the thousands and tens of thousands who toil up the steep and often rugged paths to wealth, and attain the desired eminence, how few are ever heard of beyond the small community in which they live! Some of these, to perpetuate a name, establish at death some showy charity, and thus build for themselves a monument not overshadowed by statelier mausoleums amid the rivalries of a fashionable cemetery. Pah! All this ranges far below my aspiring. I wish to make a name while living. ...
— The Good Time Coming • T. S. Arthur
... Laura Dixon and Miss Pearl Pennington, former vaudeville stars, between whom and the DeVere girls there was not the best of feeling. Ruth and Alice thought that the two actresses were of a rather too "showy" type, and Miss Pennington and Miss Dixon rather looked down on Alice and Ruth as being ...
— The Moving Picture Girls at Rocky Ranch - Or, Great Days Among the Cowboys • Laura Lee Hope
... yet committed themselves to formal hospitality of the somewhat showy character that obtained in the neighborhood, but they kept open house for all who liked to come, and whom they themselves liked well enough to ask in the first instance. And here (as in some other matters) ...
— The Shadow of the Rope • E. W. Hornung
... of life was expected to conform; and if it assumed the shape of the enormous amount of specie which was poured into the coffers of the State or distributed amongst the legionaries, its chief effects were the heightening of prices and a showy appearance of a vast increase of wealth which corresponded to no real increase ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge |
