"Comeliness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... in it, and the reaction in favour of naturalism in poetry begins in that century, early. There are, thus, the born romanticists and the born classicists. There are the born classicists who start with form, to whose minds the comeliness of the old, immemorial, well-recognised types in art and literature, have revealed themselves impressively; who will entertain no matter which will not go easily and flexibly into them; whose work aspires only to be a variation upon, or study from, ...
— Appreciations, with an Essay on Style • Walter Horatio Pater
... look at her new home. It could not help but seem cheerful. The bright beams of sunlight streaming in through the windows lighted on the wall and the old wainscoting, and paintless and rough as they were, Nature's own gilding more than made amends for their want of comeliness. Still Ellen was not much pleased with the result of her survey. The room was good-sized, and perfectly neat and clean. It had two large windows opening to the east, through which, morning by morning, the sun looked in; that was another blessing. But the floor was without the sign of a carpet, ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Susan Warner
... perfect witchery of well-ordered manners. The maiden raised her eyes and suffered them to linger upon her companion with a bashful and admiring gaze. Then, as if desirous of judging what value her own simple comeliness might have side by side with so much brilliancy, she cast a glance toward the full-length looking glass in front of which they happened to be standing. It was one of the truest plates in the world and incapable ...
— Short Stories of Various Types • Various
... brave feared that the comeliness of his dear captive would cause her to be coveted by the chiefs of the land. His soul yearned to keep her all to himself. He said: "Let us go to the clear waters of Kalulu. There we will fish together for the kala and the aku, and there I will spear the turtle. I will hide you, my beloved, ...
— Hawaiian Folk Tales - A Collection of Native Legends • Various
... the remains of a calculation in his tone, which calculation had been the reduction to figures of the probable monetary magnetism necessary to overpower the resistant force of her present purse and the woman's love of comeliness, "here's a sovereign—a gold sovereign, almost new." He held it out between his finger and thumb. "That's as much as you'd earn in a week and a half at that rough man's work, and it's yours for just letting me snip off what ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... that the firewood is not unusually speckled or dirty, as the child that is to come might be lacking in due comeliness. I have seen many a husband assiduously peeling off the bark from the ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan
... ceiling is supported. Brilliant and singular as is this effect, it is almost eclipsed by the appearance of the Mistress of the House; who, decorated with rich and rare gems, and seated upon a sort of elevated throne—uniting great comeliness and (as some think) beauty of person—receives both the homage and (what is doubtless preferable to her) the francs of numerous customers and admirers. The "wealth of either Ind" sparkles upon her hand, or glitters upon her attire: and if the sun of her beauty ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Two • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... sorrow or complaint in that land since he held the kingship. Oh, come with me, Connla of the Fiery Hair, ruddy as the dawn, with thy tawny skin. A fairy crown awaits thee to grace thy comely face and royal form. Come, and never shall thy comeliness fade, nor thy youth, till the last awful ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... round his own, whether for security against accidents from fire, or that they want the art of building. With them in truth, is unknown even the use of mortar and of tiles. In all their structures they employ materials quite gross and unhewn, void of fashion and comeliness. Some parts they besmear with an earth so pure and resplendent, that it resembles painting and colours. They are likewise wont to scoop caves deep in the ground, and over them to lay great heaps of dung. Thither they retire for shelter in the winter, and ...
— Tacitus on Germany • Tacitus
... ye?" said the tall lady, and at that moment Betty herself arrived. She was a plump person with a kind of vulgar comeliness, and Glory had a vague sense of having ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... supporting Ann's hammock—a garden of odd, unexpected nooks and lawns, with borders of old English flowers, without definite form and looking as if it had grown of its own sweet will into its present comeliness. But the garden conjured up before Cara's mental vision was a very different one—a stately, formal garden entered through an arch of jessamine, with a fountain playing in its centre, tinkling coolly into a marble basin, and a high-backed, carved ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler
... none was scorned, Adorn her as was none adorned. I make this maiden an ensample To Nature, through her kingdoms ample, Whereby to model newer races, Statelier forms and fairer faces; To carry man to new degrees Of power and of comeliness. These presents be the hostages Which I pawn for my release. See to thyself, O Universe! Thou art better, and not worse.'— And the god, having given all, Is ...
— Poems - Household Edition • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... beauty, the beautiful, to kalon [Gr.], le beau ideal. [Science of the perception of beauty] aesthetics, callaesthetics^. [-beauty of people] pulchritude, form, elegance, grace, beauty unadorned, natural beauty; symmetry &c 242; comeliness, fairness &c adj.; polish, gloss; good effect, good looks; belle tournure^; trigness^; bloom, brilliancy, radiance, splendor, gorgeousness, magnificence; sublimity, sublimification^. concinnity^, delicacy, refinement; charm, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... in he was struck aglow by Kedzie's comeliness and by a certain authority she had, Liliane pointed to her, as an artist might point to a canvas with which he has had success, and demanded his admiration. His eyes paid the tribute his ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... a tall, sweet-looking girl of two-and-twenty,—not pretty, except in her brother's opinion, but possessing a soft, fair comeliness that made her pleasant to look upon. In voice and manner she was extremely quiet,—almost grave; and only those who lived with her had any idea of the repressed strength and energy of her character, and the almost masculine clearness of intellect that lay under the soft exterior. One side of her ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey
... observed law Did Policy in her broad bosom draw. 130 One hand a mathematic crystal sways, Which, gathering in one line a thousand rays From her bright eyes, Confusion burns to death, And all estates of men distinguisheth: By it Morality and Comeliness Themselves in all their sightly figures dress. Her other hand a laurel rod applies, To beat back Barbarism and Avarice, That follow'd, eating earth and excrement And human limbs; and would make proud ascent 140 To seats ...
— The Works of Christopher Marlowe, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Christopher Marlowe
... offered for twenty dollars in order to induce some one to take the final or marginal one. What does this mean? It means that this purchaser will pay fourteen dollars and no more in order to have the second utility, consisting in comeliness, added to the first utility, capacity to keep him warm. This man would give more than twenty dollars rather than go uncloaked; for it is plain that, if he will pay fourteen dollars for comeliness, he will give ...
— Essentials of Economic Theory - As Applied to Modern Problems of Industry and Public Policy • John Bates Clark
... nothing superannuated about Bracegirdle when she made her exit, for the actress still displayed that comeliness which had, until recently, held the attention of London. "She was of a lovely height," says Tony Aston, "with dark brown hair and eyebrows, black, sparkling eyes, and a fresh, blushy complexion; and, whenever she exerted herself, had an involuntary flushing in her breast, neck, ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins
... course of study under private tutors, Emma was still left morally and physically to the care of her pious friend. Dora planted in hope, and now the precious shoot was caused to spring forth by Him who giveth the increase. This precious shoot of moral strength, ungainly, and without form or comeliness to the world, she watered, tended, and watched, with earnest faith for the Husbandman, whose pruning knife should convert it into a goodly tree. Emma sometimes came to her friend with puzzling questions; among those most ...
— Be Courteous • Mrs. M. H. Maxwell
... favoured by nature; and the forlorn and wretched condition of the people in general seemed to belie and disgrace their native soil. Certain it is, that the natives of the southern parts of Europe have neither the beauty, the strength, nor comeliness of men born in more northern climates. I have seen in the South of France, in Spain, and Portugal, the aged especially of both sexes, who hardly appeared human! nor do you see, in general, even among the youthful, much more beauty than that which youth alone must give; for youth itself ...
— A Year's Journey through France and Part of Spain, 1777 - Volume 1 (of 2) • Philip Thicknesse
... perfections of manhood and womanhood are wrought quits the quarry to meet us, and converts us to stone, if we do not rather transform that to life and beauty. Hostile, predatory, it rushes upon us; and we, cutting at it in brave self-defence, hew it above our hope into shapes of celestial and immortal comeliness. So that angels are born, as it were, from the noble fears of man,—from an heroic fear in man's heart that he shall fall away from the privilege of humanity, and falsify the divine vaticination ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 55, May, 1862 • Various
... with her treasure, and going to the cart climbed into the front, sliding over the seat to a space at the head of the mattress. She bent over the still figure, looking into the face. Its youth and comeliness smote her, seemed to knock at her heart and soften something there that had been hard. An uprush of intense feeling, pity for this blighted creature, this maimed and helpless thing, rescued by chance from a horrible death, rose and flooded ...
— Treasure and Trouble Therewith - A Tale of California • Geraldine Bonner
... wert the seed and not the flower, Having no form or comeliness, in chief Sharing thy thoughts with thine acquaintance Grief; Thou wert despised, rejected in thine hour Of loneliness and God-triumphant power. Oh, not three days alone, glad slumber brief, That from thy travail brought Thee sweet relief, Lay'st Thou, outworn, beneath ...
— A Hidden Life and Other Poems • George MacDonald
... is the meed of her beauty,' said Bedford. 'Sister Kate likes not worship at any shrine save one. Look at our suite: our knights—yea, our very grooms are picked for their comeliness; to wit that great feather-pated oaf of a Welshman, Owen Tudor there; while dames and demoiselles, tire-women and all, are as near akin as may be ...
— The Caged Lion • Charlotte M. Yonge
... colored American, have eliminated from the discussion all difficulties surrounding their settlement—save the impossible effacement of race or color. All have admitted that the bronzed American may have character, intellect, capacity, wealth, industry and comeliness—yet he is a social "Pariah" because of his social identification. A problem that otherwise would be simple is thus converted into a perpetual issue by reason of race, and hence we have a "race problem." The race issue is particularly acute ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various
... looked twenty. For Peak's disadvantages of person, his studious bashfulness and poverty of attire were mainly responsible. With improvement in general health even his features might have a tolerable comeliness, or at all events would not be disagreeable. Earwaker's visage was homely, and seemed the more so for ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing
... into a covenant with thee, saith the Lord God, and thou becamest Mine." "And thou wast exceeding beautiful, and thou didst prosper into a kingdom. And thy renown went forth among the heathen for thy beauty: for it was perfect through My comeliness, which I had put upon thee.... But thou didst trust in thine own beauty, and playedst the harlot because of thy renown." "As a wife treacherously departeth from her husband, so have ye dealt treacherously with Me, O house of Israel, saith the Lord;" "as a wife that ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White
... power of a mighty all-compelling love for one human soul, and, through it, for all the souls of men. All this lay growing and developing; but as yet she was still a girl, with a new shyness and comeliness and a ...
— The Quest of the Silver Fleece - A Novel • W. E. B. Du Bois
... in the Pittsburgh waterfront is its value for recreation and as an element of civic comeliness and self-respect. One of the deplorable consequences of the short-sighted and wasteful commercialism of the later nineteenth century lay in its disregard of what might have been the asthetic byproducts of economic improvement; in the false impression spread abroad that ...
— The French in the Heart of America • John Finley
... stain is properly ascribed to corporeal things, when a comely body loses its comeliness through contact with another body, e.g. a garment, gold or silver, or the like. Accordingly a stain is ascribed to spiritual things in like manner. Now man's soul has a twofold comeliness; one from the refulgence of the natural light of ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) - From the Complete American Edition • Saint Thomas Aquinas
... to us that we make Him to be. I want to emphasize that word "all." Some men make Him to be "a root out of a dry ground," "without form or comeliness." He is nothing to them; they do not want Him. Some Christians have a very small Saviour, for they are not willing to receive Him fully, and let Him do great and mighty things for them. Others have a mighty Saviour, because they make Him to ...
— The Way to God and How to Find It • Dwight Moody
... the moccasins that encased her feet were half hidden in the loose pile of dry leaves which had drifted high against the root of the tree. There was, however, no visible eye there to observe her youthful comeliness or her youthful distress. If some angel was near, regarding her, she did not know it, and if she had, she would not have been much interested; there was nothing in her mood to respond to angelic ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... common sharing of a common comeliness among them there was a reason. In a land where physical perfection literally is worshipped, good-looking men, brawny and broad, are surest of winning an asylum and wives and tribal equality. To Pratt it seems to have been a source of wonderment ...
— From Place to Place • Irvin S. Cobb
... at that time, before it drops with the sun, and these two huge branches lay in dark ruin covering half the lawn. They spread across it and towards the house. They left an ugly gaping space upon the tree, so that the Lebanon looked unfinished, half destroyed, a monster shorn of its old-time comeliness and splendor. Far more of the Forest was now visible than before; it peered through the breach of the broken defenses. They could see from the windows of the house now—especially from the drawing-room and bedroom windows—straight out into ...
— The Man Whom the Trees Loved • Algernon Blackwood
... she, too, and still vigorous. Unlike her, also, he was a handsome man; had been very handsome in his young days; and, as Mrs. Barclay's eye roved over the table, she thought few could show a better assemblage of comeliness than was gathered round this one. Madge was strikingly handsome in her well-fitting black dress; Lois made a very plain brown stuff seem resplendent; she had a little fleecy white woollen shawl wound about her shoulders, and Mrs. Barclay could ...
— Nobody • Susan Warner
... school-fellow till the change he had predicted had thoroughly come to pass. Farms were everywhere to let, and a general cry to parliament for aid rang through the land. Dutton called at the office upon business, accompanied by a young woman of remarkable personal comeliness, but, as a very few sentences betrayed, little or no education in the conventional sense of the word. She was the daughter of a farmer, whom—it was no fault of hers—a change of times had not found in a better condition for weathering them. Anne Mosely, in fact, was a thoroughly ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 440 - Volume 17, New Series, June 5, 1852 • Various
... capital city. I went up at the end of the visit to come home with them. Since the death of Irving Whately nothing had ever roused his wife to the pleasure of living like this preparation for Marjie's marriage, and Mrs. Whately, still a young and very pretty woman, bloomed into that mature comeliness that carries a grace of permanence the promise of youth may only hint at. She delighted in every detail of the coming event, and we two most concerned were willing to let anybody look after the details. We had other matters to ...
— The Price of the Prairie - A Story of Kansas • Margaret Hill McCarter
... for the young poet, but the moment he entered he carried with him his best recommendation. Every one who met Browning in those early years of his buoyant manhood seems to have been struck by his comeliness and simple grace of manner. Macready stated that he looked more like a poet than any man he had ever met. As a young man he appears to have had a certain ivory delicacy of colouring, what an old friend perhaps somewhat ...
— Life of Robert Browning • William Sharp
... mustache, and slender of figure, on whom his clothes, lustrous from much sitting down and leaning up, grew like the bark on a tree, and who moved slowly and gently about, and spoke with a low, kind voice. In his young comeliness he was like a god, as the gods were fancied in the elder world: a chewing and a spitting god, indeed, but divine in ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... man says, at least in his heart, "There is no form or comeliness in Christ; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him," (Isa 53:2); but he lies. This he speaks, as having never seen him. But they that stand in his house, and look upon him through the glass of his Word, by the help of his ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... beautifully, and, with Ronsard, regret for the lost wonder of his own youth was perhaps the acutest emotion he ever knew. He was himself, in his early years, one of those glorious youths who have the genius of charm and comeliness, of grace and strength and the arts. He excelled at football as in lute-playing. He danced, fenced, and rode better than the best; and, with his noble countenance, his strong limbs, his fair beard, and his "eyes full of gentle gravity," he must have been the picture of the perfect ...
— Old and New Masters • Robert Lynd
... not deceived. Olympia de Soissons was a handsome woman, and with so much comeliness, such ready wit, and such unrivalled powers of conversation, she might gird up her loins to do battle with her rivals. Was not Madame de Maintenon her elder by three years? And as for De Montespan, was she not wasting away into an old woman? If they had found it possible to win the heart ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach
... celestial King, most Holy Father, that this Lady, His spouse, sends her children whom you see here, who are not of a lower condition than those who came long before them. They do not degenerate; they have the comeliness both of their Father and their mother, since they make profession of the most perfect poverty. There is, therefore, no fear of their dying of poverty, being the children and heirs of the Immortal King, born of a poor mother, of the image of Jesus Christ, by the virtue of the ...
— The Life and Legends of Saint Francis of Assisi • Father Candide Chalippe
... San Filippo, Italy, that have built up a calcareous wall over a mile long and several hundred feet thick; the renowned springs of Cashmere, that are believed by the people to be the source of the comeliness of their women,—if I were to follow up my subject in this direction, I say, it would lead me into deeper and more troubled waters than I am in quest ...
— The Writings of John Burroughs • John Burroughs
... but the nearest he had ever come to something more than a mere jolly friendship for a girl was the regard in which he held his partner in the "Mixed Doubles," but that was all on account of her exuberant health, spirits, general comeliness of face and form, and exquisite skill in tennis. But this day a new and eager longing was eating at his heart; a strange, dull pang seemed to seize upon it as he noted in a flash that the seat that was ...
— Found in the Philippines - The Story of a Woman's Letters • Charles King
... could not get the story out of his head. Perhaps because he was sick and weakly, the radiant health of Red appealed to his imagination. Himself an ugly man, insignificant of appearance, he prized very highly comeliness in others. He had never been passionately in love, and certainly he had never been passionately loved. The mutual attraction of those two young things gave him a singular delight. It had the ineffable beauty of the Absolute. He went ...
— The Trembling of a Leaf - Little Stories of the South Sea Islands • William Somerset Maugham
... He could see now the face hidden half by the tangled black hair and beard and the gag—but who could doubt it?—the deep blue eye, the chiselled profile, the small, fine lips, yes, and the godlike form visible in its comeliness despite the bands. He was gazing upon the man who two years ago had called ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... stone from the signet, and the diamond itself remains as valuable as ever, while the lesser gems are comparatively of little value. And this is the true reading of thy parable; for what sayeth the poet Mansour: 'It is the favour of man which giveth beauty and comeliness to woman, as the stream glitters no longer when the ...
— The Talisman • Sir Walter Scott
... men so tawny and thick-skinned, so rough and prickly-bearded, like an emblem of winter or old age, while women have such dainty, smooth cheeks, such a low, gentle voice, and so pure a complexion, as if Nature had drawn them for a standing pattern of all symmetry and comeliness? Besides, what greater or juster aim and ambition have they than to please their husbands? In order whereunto they garnish themselves with paint, washes, curls, perfumes, and all other mysteries of ornament; yet, after all, they become acceptable ...
— Little Journeys To The Homes Of Great Teachers • Elbert Hubbard
... disgust because Mr. d'Alcacer was a civilized man and though he had no illusions about civilization he could not but admit the superiority of its methods. It offered to one a certain refinement of form, a comeliness of proceedings and definite safeguards against deadly surprises. "How idle all this is," he thought, finally. His next thought was that women were very resourceful. It was true, he went on meditating with unwonted cynicism, ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad
... answered Selma, her liking for a sententious speech rising paramount even to the pleasure caused her by the allusion to her personal appearance. Nevertheless it was agreeable to be preferred to his female cousins on the score of comeliness. ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant
... lumbermen or travellers in the prairie? Did you ever eat the poorest rye or oatcake with a beautiful maiden in the wilderness? and did you not find that the mixture of sun and sky with your bread gave it a certain mundane savour and comeliness?" ...
— The Last Harvest • John Burroughs
... entertain all men who came, and Onomastos the son of Agaios of Elis; these, I say, came from Peloponnesus itself: from Athens came Megacles the son of that Alcmaion who went to Croesus, and besides him Hippocleides the son of Tisander, one who surpassed the other Athenians in wealth and in comeliness of form: from Eretria, which at that time was flourishing, came Lysanias, he alone from Euboea: from Thessalia came Diactorides of Crannon, one of the family of the Scopadai: and from the ...
— The History Of Herodotus - Volume 2 (of 2) • Herodotus
... it, and it seems incredible to you that there should be anything worth your picking up there. Ah! dear friends, Jesus Christ, when He was here, 'in whom were hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge,' had to the men that looked upon Him 'neither form nor comeliness that they should desire Him,' and He was to them a stumbling-block and foolishness. And Christ's Gospel comes among busy men, worldly men, men who are under the dominion of their passions and desires, men who are pursuing ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... characteristics, which she had fought valiantly—love of good times and of pretty clothes—made ingress easy for this sinister and cynical idea. Having gained a foothold it pressed forward boldly. Cutty, who had everything—strength, comeliness, wisdom, and money. To live among all those beautiful things, never to be lonely again, to be waited on, fussed over, made much of, taken into the high world. Never more to add up accounts, to ...
— The Drums Of Jeopardy • Harold MacGrath
... youth saw, he said to him, "What ails thee, O bath-keeper, to lament thus?" And he answered, saying, "O my lord, my lamentation is for thee, because thou art in sore straits, for all thy fair fortune and goodliness and exceeding comeliness, seeing thou hast naught wherewithal to do and receive delight, like unto other men." Quoth the youth, "Thou sayst sooth, but thou mindest me of somewhat I had forgotten." "What is that?" asked the bathkeeper, ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... comeliness; and when we shall see Him, there is no beauty that we should desire Him."—Isaiah ...
— Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. VII (of 8) • John Henry Newman
... understand; and he pillaged an infinity of Genoese and Venetian ships—which were notoriously the richest laden—of jewels, veils, silks, furs, embroideries and figured stuffs, wherewith to enhance the comeliness of Melicent. It seemed an all-engulfing madness with this despot daily to aggravate his fierce desire of her, to nurture his obsession, so that he might glory in the consciousness of treading ...
— Domnei • James Branch Cabell et al
... concealed one side of the face and the chin. No one could behold them without wishing that the eclipse had been total. No epithet commonly applied to women in this country could adequately describe their want of comeliness. They kept their faces to their work, and except that they held their rags between their teeth, they gave no sign of knowing that ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... (You don't drink, sir.) When Master Francis was sixteen, and Master Clinton eight, the former was sent abroad on his travels with a German tutor, and did not return to England for many years afterwards; meanwhile Master Clinton grew up to the age of fourteen, increasing in comeliness and goodness. He was very fond of his studies, much more so than Master Francis had been, and was astonishingly forward for his years. So my lord loved him better and better, and would scarcely ever suffer him to be out of ...
— The Disowned, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Al-Muktafi seems to have been an afterthought, added when the poet first saw him. Struck by his comeliness, he recited the poem to some companions and inserted his name at the end. The sequel is amusing and very characteristic. "Some time after, the katib Abu Abd Allah Muhammad Ibn Ismail Ibn Zenji ...
— A Boswell of Baghdad - With Diversions • E. V. Lucas
... as of force, an indomitable, unconquerable force. Melancholy is not there, but spirit; that fire and light which means hope. It is as though they were molded of iron—those faces—but illuminated from within. And with that strength goes the California comeliness. ...
— The Californiacs • Inez Haynes Irwin
... and the upper part of it seemed too large for the lower portion. She had a large, square forehead, white enough, but strongly marked with inequalities of surface, which, however much they might have delighted a phrenologist, were not conducive to girlish comeliness. Her hair was of the very light reddish quality, which has not a single touch in it of that rich sunny auburn, which makes so many heads charming, red though they be. Her face was perfectly white, yet not clear of complexion. And the pale grey eyes beneath their all but colourless brows completed ...
— A Siren • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... dragon soaring high. What is her chastity like? Like a white plum in spring with snow nestling in its broken skin; Her purity? Like autumn orchids bedecked with dewdrops. Her modesty? Like a fir-tree growing in a barren plain; Her comeliness? Like russet clouds reflected in a limpid pool. Her gracefulness? Like a dragon in motion wriggling in a stream; Her refinement? Like the rays of the moon shooting on to a cool river. Sure is she to put Hsi Tzu to shame! Bound to put Wang Ch'iang to the blush! What a remarkable person! Where ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... which has sent them to the East, either for business or in the service of their country. And their Burmese companions—of course I speak of a condition of things which is gradually ceasing to exist—are all picked women, selected for the comeliness of their persons and the sweetness of ...
— An Australian in China - Being the Narrative of a Quiet Journey Across China to Burma • George Ernest Morrison
... tongue in public until she gave him leave to speak, Mrs. Glenarm, without further hesitation, said Yes—having, be it observed, said No, in the course of the last two years, to at least half a dozen men who were Geoffrey's superiors in every conceivable respect, except personal comeliness and ...
— Man and Wife • Wilkie Collins
... a warm and fervent love: so do you love one another. 7. I love with a holy, spiritual love, as new men who have my image stamped on, and my holy nature in you, and as you are made perfect by the comeliness and beauty I have put on you: so do you love one another, because you are a lovely and holy people unto me. 8. I love you with a constant and unchangeable love; notwithstanding of all your weaknesses, yea, unkindness too, and unworthy walkings before ...
— The Divine Right of Church Government • Sundry Ministers Of Christ Within The City Of London
... yet he was but tender-bodied, and the only son of my womb; when youth with comeliness plucked all gaze his way; when for a day of Kings' entreaties, a mother should not sell him an hour from her beholding; I—considering how honour would become such a person; that it was no better than picture-like to hang by the wall, if renown made it not stir,—was pleased to let him ...
— Shakespeare's Lost Years in London, 1586-1592 • Arthur Acheson
... wife in a higher grade of society and the sister agrees that their ways henceforth must be apart—that scene for truth and power is one of the master-strokes. The reader finds that Jeanie Deans somehow grows steadily in his belief and affection: quietly but surely, a sense of her comeliness, her truthful love, her quaint touch of Scotch canniness, her daughterly duteousness and her stanch principle intensifies until it is a pang to bid her farewell, and the mind harks back to her with a fond recollection. Take her for all in all, Jeanie Deans ranks ...
— Masters of the English Novel - A Study Of Principles And Personalities • Richard Burton
... street—were, as a rule, of merely medium stature, sturdily built, and not particularly intellectual in expression, while the colour of their skin was something very nearly approaching to ruddy copper, very few even of their womenkind having any pretentions to comeliness, to say nothing of beauty. The occupants of the buildings, however, who viewed the procession from their windows or the flat roofs of their houses, and who might be taken to represent a somewhat better class, were not only lighter in colour ...
— Harry Escombe - A Tale of Adventure in Peru • Harry Collingwood
... secrets of the past night. I would fain shun it—the garish light disturbed me. The morning sun, which had ever been my delight, seemed now a mocking imp of curiosity; the house and grounds looked bare and desolate; a blight had fallen upon their former comeliness. ...
— Strange Visitors • Henry J. Horn
... herself over Socknersh, when she had borne unmoved the courtship of Arthur Alce for seven years? Was it just because Alce had red whiskers and red hands and red hair on his hands, while Socknersh was dark and sweet of face and limb? It was terrible to think that mere youth and comeliness and virility should blind her judgment and strip her of common sense. Yet this was obviously the lesson she must ...
— Joanna Godden • Sheila Kaye-Smith
... young people; and the princess was careful to please every body, and to keep an arrow adapted to every mark. If you are thirsty, you can have here your choice of drink; if you love dancing and singing, you can get here your fill. If her comeliness entice you to lust for the body of a female, she has only to lift up her finger to one of the officers of her father, (who surround her at all times, though invisibly), and they will fetch you a lass in a minute, or the body of a harlot newly buried, and will go into her ...
— The Sleeping Bard - or, Visions of the World, Death, and Hell • Ellis Wynne
... benevolent expression, were extremely pleasing, and must, some years ago, have been beautiful. Even now, what with her fresh complexion, her white teeth, and plump figure, she made no slight pretensions to comeliness. She possessed the same good sense and integrity of character as her brother, together with his strong religious feeling, but entirely ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth
... boasting again! But I say, Congrio, yon homunculus—yon pigmy assailant of my cranes—yon pert-tongued neophyte of the kitchen, was there aught but insolence on his tongue when he maligned the comeliness of my sweetmeat shapes? I would not be out of the ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
... her comeliness and the goodliness of her singing and her eloquence and what other qualities she comprised and rejoiced with joy exceeding; and for the stress of that which overcame him of delight, he descended from the couch and sitting down with her upon the floor, said to her, "Thou hast done well, O Tohfah. ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... with cocoanut leaves, which required poles to keep them in place. It had several doors, and cross-latticed windows. There was no particular shape to the structure, and certainly nothing of neatness or comeliness about it. A large banana tree grew near it; a woman stood at one of the doors, staring with wonder at the strangers, and a couple of half-naked coolies were at work farther away. The morality of the residents of this section could ...
— Across India - Or, Live Boys in the Far East • Oliver Optic
... as "Bouncing Bet." It is a common and in places a troublesome weed in this valley. Bouncing Bet is, perhaps, its English name, as the pink-white complexion of its flowers with their perfume and the coarse, robust character of the plant really give it a kind of English feminine comeliness and bounce. It looks like a Yorkshire housemaid. Still another plant in my section, which I notice has been widely distributed by the agency of water, is the spiked loosestrife. It first appeared many years ago along the Wallkill; now it may be seen ...
— A Year in the Fields • John Burroughs
... derangement of the physical organs. The face, too, was singularly manly, and had once been handsome, even; nay, it was not altogether without claims to be so considered still; though intemperance was making sad inroads on its comeliness. This person was about fifty years old, and his air, as well as his attire, denoted a mariner; not a common seaman, nor yet altogether an officer; but one of those of a middle station, who in navies used to form a class by themselves; being of a rank that entitled them to the honours of the ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... places it sends its shaft skyward into the sunshine; it is an elemental growth: its simplicity equals its beauty. But until the flower blooms, after its ages of preparation, the plant seems to have no meaning, proportion, or comeliness; only when those golden petals have unfolded upon the summit of their stately eminence do we comprehend the symmetry and significance that had so ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... fitness of conforming his actions to it, that he cannot but in his own mind acquit himself when he does so; and condemn himself when he does otherwise.' And as to the second—viz., Phil, iv., 8, where the same apostle recommends the practice of Virtue, upon the fore-mentioned principles of comeliness and reputation.—'These principles,' says he, 'if duly attended to, were sufficient to instruct men in the whole of their duty towards themselves, and towards each other. And they would also have taught them their duty towards God, their Creator and Governor, if they had diligently pursued ...
— Ancient and Modern Celebrated Freethinkers - Reprinted From an English Work, Entitled "Half-Hours With - The Freethinkers." • Charles Bradlaugh, A. Collins, and J. Watts
... he continued in this case lo! a pastern of the palace, which was carefully kept private, swung open and out of it came twenty slave girls surrounding his bother's wife who was wondrous fair, a model of beauty and comeliness and symmetry and perfect loveliness and who paced with the grace of a gazelle which panteth for the cooling stream. Thereupon Shah Zaman drew back from the window, but he kept the bevy in sight espying them from a place whence he could ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... fierce-eyed warriors and the grey beasts that played like dogs around Cormac, and the lad was adopted as a pupil by the King, to be taught arms and poetry and law. Much talk there was of his coming, and of his strange companions that are not wont to be the friends of man, and as the lad grew in comeliness and in knowledge the eyes of all were turned to him more and more, because the rule of mac Con ...
— The High Deeds of Finn and other Bardic Romances of Ancient Ireland • T. W. Rolleston
... life of the woman, even as mere animal, becomes poor and morbid and artificial. By dint of much attention and many devices, the outside of the body is maintained comely in the eyes of people whose notions of comeliness are thoroughly artificial and sophisticated. But how can there be any health with high eating, little exercise, above all, with the mind left absolutely vacant of all interests? The Belgravian mother does not even understand the miserable trade she has chosen. ...
— Modern Women and What is Said of Them - A Reprint of A Series of Articles in the Saturday Review (1868) • Anonymous
... for lack of aliment, who will not be reminded of life itself? the animated form, the body instinct with vitality, changing and changing as time sweeps along, till the spirit that gave it vigor and comeliness, and power and beauty, is called away, and it becomes at last mere dust and ashes. And then again, when the pipe itself falls from the teeth, or the table, or the mantel, or the shelf—as fall it surely will, sooner or later—and is broken, and the fragments are thrown out of the ...
— Wild Northern Scenes - Sporting Adventures with the Rifle and the Rod • S. H. Hammond
... room was not very light, there being only one window and the doors, but Duane could see plainly enough. Mrs. Laramie lay, hollow-checked and haggard, on a bed. Once she had evidently been a woman of some comeliness. The ravages of trouble and grief were there to read in her worn face; it had not, however, any of the hard and bitter lines ...
— The Lone Star Ranger • Zane Grey
... shall never be able to draw for you the hideous death-mask this man was wearing for a face. Seamed and scarred, shriveled and livid in purple and crimson welts, you would think a nine-thonged whip of fire had scourged out every semblance of comeliness, leaving only the skeleton frame on which to hang this ghastly caricature of a human face. Fearing him not at all, I could scarce forbear a shudder at the sight of this walking death-mask of the ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde
... meditatively; it was marked by a day's more growth than on the previous morning, which did not enhance his comeliness or lessen his state of vagabondage. There was something about his appearance that made him out less a fool and more an uncouth rascal; one might easily have trusted him as well as pitied him yesterday—but to-day—Patsy's gaze was critical ...
— Seven Miles to Arden • Ruth Sawyer
... replied the woman in a soft, musical voice which well suited the comeliness of her face; "but though the priceless treasure has been taken from its casket, it cannot have been carried out of the house, for you know that every approach has been watched closely since it was brought here. Come, in this house it must be, and ...
— The Mummy and Miss Nitocris - A Phantasy of the Fourth Dimension • George Griffith
... did not at this time appear. Leonard Everard, who had some time ago finished his course at college, was living partly in London and partly on the Continent. His very absence made him of added interest to his old play-fellow. The image of his grace and comeliness, of his dominance and masculine force, early impressed on her mind, began to compare favourably with the actualities of her other friends; those of them at least who were within the circle of her ...
— The Man • Bram Stoker
... invention might supply, nor any harm which human interference might mend, we come at last to set ourselves face to face with ourselves, expecting that in creatures made after the image of God we are to find comeliness and completion more exquisite than in the fowls of the air and the things that pass through the ...
— Modern Painters Volume II (of V) • John Ruskin
... strolled up and down several women came to the spring and filled their buckets. They wore shawls or hoods and their garments were somber, but, nevertheless, they appeared to have youth and comeliness. They saw him, looked at him curiously, and then, without speaking, went back on the well-trodden path. Presently down the path appeared a woman—a girl in lighter garb. It was almost white. She was shapely and walked with free, graceful step, reminding him of the Indian girl, Glen ...
— The Rainbow Trail • Zane Grey
... than English; and French verse, above all while Hugo lives, it will not do to place upon one side. What is more to our purpose, a phrase or a verse in French is easily distinguishable as comely or uncomely. There is then another element of comeliness hitherto overlooked in this analysis: the contents of the phrase. Each phrase in literature is built of sounds, as each phrase in music consists of notes. One sound suggests, echoes, demands, and harmonises ...
— The Art of Writing and Other Essays • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the woods and came out at old Abner Davis' ranch. The two things Abner valued most were a windmill and a scratching-post for hogs. They were equally beautiful, and the fame of their comeliness had gone widely abroad. To them Joab naturally paid his attention. The windmill, who was called Lucille Ashtonbury Clifford, received him with expressions of the liveliest disgust. His protestations of affection were met by creakings of contempt, and as ...
— The Fiend's Delight • Dod Grile
... lithe, and active, and bright,—and was at this moment of her life at her best. Her growing charms had as yet hardly reached the limits of full feminine loveliness,—which, when reached, have been surpassed. Luxuriant beauty had with her not as yet become comeliness; nor had age or the good things of the world added a pound to the fairy lightness of her footstep. All this had been tendered to Frank,—and with it that worldly wealth which was so absolutely necessary ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... looking at each other, both of them quite aware of the remarkable contrast they made. Harry's tall, slight form, black hair, and large brown eyes were a vivid antithesis to John's blond blue-eyed strength and comeliness. To her youngest son, Mrs. Hatton, who was a daughter of the Norman house of D'Artoe, had transmitted her quick temperament, her dark beauty, and ...
— The Measure of a Man • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... and impulse to please God, in such duties of holiness and righteousness, a sympathy with such ways of integrity and godliness, and an innate antipathy against such ways as were displeasing to him or dishonourable to the creature. There is a kind of comeliness and sweet harmony and proportion between such works, as the love of God and man, the use of all for his glory, of whom all things are, and man's reasonable being. Such a thing doth suit and become it. Again, ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... My sight right upward, but it was quite daz'd By a bright something sailing down apace, Making me quickly veil my eyes and face. . . . . . . . Her locks were simply gordianed up and braided Leaving in naked comeliness unshaded Her pearl round ears, white neck, and orbed brow. . . . I see her hovering feet More bluely veined, more whitely sweet Than those of sea-born Venus when she rose From out her cradle shell. The wind out-blows Her scarf into a fluttering ...
— Romance of Roman Villas - (The Renaissance) • Elizabeth W. (Elizbeth Williams) Champney
... the doorway shook her head. She was thin and narrow-chested. Her hair was already gray, though she could not have been more than thirty-five, and youth and comeliness had been long since battered from her face, partly by misery of mind, partly by direct ill usage of which there were evident traces. She ...
— The Case of Richard Meynell • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... than what his physic taught him, barely upon the consideration of this so exact frame of the body, challenges any one, upon a hundred years' study, to find out how any the least fiber, or most minute particle, might be more commodiously placed, either for the advantage of use or comeliness. His stature erect, and tending upward to his center; his countenance majestic and comely, with the luster of a native beauty that scorned the poor assistance of art or the attempts of imitation; His body of so much ...
— The World's Great Sermons, Vol. 2 (of 10) • Grenville Kleiser
... quite keenly aware of his lack of outward comeliness and lamented it, for he was a passionate worshipper of beauty in everything. He told Mother once that he'd rather like to be made over again ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1909 to 1922 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... unless it be when she walketh apace for her pleasure, or to catch her a heat in the cold mornings. Nevertheless it is not so decent in a meaner person, as I have discerned in some counterfeit ladies of the country, which use it much to their own derision. This comeliness was wanting in queen Mary, otherwise a very good and honorable princess. And was some blemish to the emperor Ferdinando, a most noble-minded man, yet so careless and forgetful of himself in that behalf, as I have seen him run up a pair of stairs so swift and nimble a ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... the sisters of Saint Bridget," said the abbot, "most of whom have been either sorely misused by time, or their comeliness destroyed by some mishap previously to their being received into the seclusion ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... more in voice than in words; more in thought than in action; more in atmosphere than in conscious life. It is a spiritual quality, and is felt more than it is seen. It is not a matter of size, nor bodily attitude, nor attire, nor personal comeliness: it is a state of inward being, and of knowing your cause is just. And so you see it is a great and profound subject after all, great in its ramifications, limitless in extent, implying the entire ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... what is more essential, homey, I have read somewhere, 'A woman's house should be as personal a matter as a spider's web or a snail's shell; and all the thought, toil and love she puts into it should be preserved a part of its comeliness and homelikeness forever, and be her monument ...
— Mary at the Farm and Book of Recipes Compiled during Her Visit - among the "Pennsylvania Germans" • Edith M. Thomas
... with it." So Scaliger ingenuously confesseth, exercit. 274. [3491]"I am beyond all measure affected with music, I do most willingly behold them dance, I am mightily detained and allured with that grace and comeliness of fair women, I am well pleased to be idle amongst them." And what young man is not? As it is acceptable and conducing to most, so especially to a melancholy man. Provided always, his disease proceed ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... He felt himself coming to a better adjustment with her mature and massive comeliness, her rich and elaborate attire, her full-toned and friendly fluency. "We are always busy, and are expecting to be busier still; but we are never too busy for a call like this." He considered that that was doing pretty fairly for an old man who was immersed in affairs and altogether alien to ...
— With the Procession • Henry B. Fuller
... races. Now and then a pretty face was seen, rarely a beautiful one. Many were plump, even to corpulence, and these were the closest veiled, being considered the greatest beauties I presume, since with the Turk obesity is the chief element of comeliness. As the carriages passed along in review, every now and then an occupant, unable or unwilling to repress her natural promptings, would indulge in a mild flirtation, making overtures by casting demure side-glances, throwing us coquettish kisses, or waving ...
— The Memoirs of General Philip H. Sheridan, Vol. II., Part 6 • P. H. Sheridan
... we can for her," said Storms. "With the material which I have on hand we can construct garments that will keep her clad with comeliness, though she may not be in the fashion; and yet I don't know but what she will," he added, with a smile, "for we may strike some of the vagaries without knowing it. Then, too, ...
— Adrift on the Pacific • Edward S. Ellis
... been, she romantically reflected, a handsome figure of a man. Then naively the writer had passed on to a second description: "If I have any favour of comeliness it can matter naught to me save as it giveth pleasure to my deare husbande, yet I shall endeavour to sette downe truly ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck
... her quizzing manner, "I am a long way behind the marigold or any flower in comeliness and innocence, but at least I wish ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... are said to relinquish perfumes and to pursue after ill scents; so Stoical love, having used itself to the most foul and deformed persons, if by means of philosophy they change into good form and comeliness, becomes presently disgusted. ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... any Virtue or Comeliness in a Charles Stuart," says Father, "can hardly be expected to acknowledge the rugged ...
— Mary Powell & Deborah's Diary • Anne Manning
... of imagination; and the reason why the souls of whom I am going to speak were so content to dwell where they were, was simply that they had no imagination beyond, but dwelt happily among the delights which upon earth are represented by sound and colour and scent and comeliness and comfort. This was a perpetual surprise to me, because I saw in these fine creatures such a faculty of delicate perception, that I could not help believing again and again that their emotions were as deep and varied too; but I found little ...
— The Child of the Dawn • Arthur Christopher Benson
... somehow or other—though dull and heavy as all which seemed to inspire them—they had a kind of force. Each man seemed to have the faculty of getting, after some rude fashion, at the sense and feeling that was in him; and without glibness, without smoothness, without form or comeliness, still the object with which each one rose to speak was accomplished,—and what was more remarkable, it seemed to be accomplished without the speaker's having any particular plan for doing it. He was surprised, too, to observe how loyally every man seemed to think himself bound to speak, and ...
— Doctor Grimshawe's Secret - A Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... Margaret, and though her own stock of enthusiasms was run low, she could enjoy thoroughly Margaret's young enchantment in all that was exquisite. She was a plain woman; but there was no envy in her, and she took the keenest pleasure in Margaret's comeliness. It was almost with maternal pride that she watched each year add a new grace to that exceeding beauty. But her common sense was sound, and she took care by good-natured banter to temper the praises which extravagant admirers at the drawing-class lavished upon the ...
— The Magician • Somerset Maugham
... my honour.—Fame? Fame brings not happiness to Cagliostro. Wealth? Not so. Ducats, pistoles, louis-d'or, have brought no panacea to the sorrows of Balsamo. Beauty? Nay; for, in the profligate experience of capitals, the sage is saddened with the knowledge that comeliness, at best, is but an exquisite hypocrisy. I have striven also, vainly, for contentment in the luxuries of voluptuous living. The talisman of Epicurus has evaded my grasp—the glittering bauble![5] The ravishing ideal JOY, has been to me not as the statue to Pygmalion: I have grovelled ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various
... abiding loneliness (as with Pope and Ufford and Sire Raimbaut)—and wherein one very often is allured into unsavory alleys (as with Herrick and Alessandro de Medici)—in search of that raw material which loving labor will transshape into comeliness. ...
— The Certain Hour • James Branch Cabell
... that, once seated, she found herself unable to move, and though all the gods endeavoured to extricate her, their efforts were unavailing. Hephaestus thus revenged himself on his mother for the cruelty she had always displayed towards him, on account of his want of comeliness and grace. Dionysus, the wine god, contrived, however, to intoxicate Hephaestus, and then induced him to return to Olympus, where, after having released the {99} queen of heaven from her very undignified position, he became reconciled ...
— Myths and Legends of Ancient Greece and Rome • E.M. Berens
... if it had just got out of bed, and had not finished its toilet. The glowing green of everything strikes me: green hedges in place of our rail-fences, always ugly, and our rude stone-walls, which are not wanting in a certain look of fitness approaching to comeliness, and are really picturesque when lichen-coated, but poor features of landscape as compared to these universal hedges. I am disappointed in the trees, so far; I have not seen one large tree as yet. Most of those ...
— Our Hundred Days in Europe • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... waits to hear that voice That shall restore her comeliness, And make her wastes rejoice. Come, Lord, and wipe away The curse, the sin, the stain, And make this blighted world of ours Thine own fair world again. ...
— A Brief Commentary on the Apocalypse • Sylvester Bliss
... He daily grows less likely to attract the favorable notice of Esther Lockwin, or any other woman of consequence. His face has not only lost comeliness, but character. It would seem that the carmen fimbrications just under the skin of his cheeks flame forth with renewed anger. The difficulty in his throat increases. He relies nowadays ...
— David Lockwin—The People's Idol • John McGovern
... ways, or heavier punishment will befall her," cried Paslew, severely. "'Sortilegam non patieris vivere' saith the Levitical law. If she be convicted she shall die the death. That she is comely I admit; but it is the comeliness of a child of sin. Dost thou know the man with whom she is wedded—or supposed to be wedded—for I have seen no proof of the marriage? He is ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... we would certainly agree with "our Horace" when he says he has seen much handsomer women than either. We have no adequate image of their surpassing loveliness, the beholding of which would cause us to feel how merited was their meed of praise, how fair the contemporary comment on their comeliness, and how just the wide fame of a beauty which tradition has epitomized for us in the phrase, "The Fair Gunnings." Though the print publishers of the time actively issued portraits, we feel that none of them picture such a person as would set society and the whole city of ...
— Some Old Time Beauties - After Portraits by the English Masters, with Embellishment and Comment • Thomson Willing
... coachmen, Col. Lloyd owned one named William, who, strangely enough, was often called by his surname, Wilks, by white and colored people on the home plantation. Wilks was a very fine looking man. He was about as white as anybody on the plantation; and in manliness of form, and comeliness of features, he bore a very striking resemblance to Mr. Murray Lloyd. It was whispered, and pretty generally admitted as a fact, that William Wilks was a son of Col. Lloyd, by a highly favored slave-woman, who was still ...
— My Bondage and My Freedom • Frederick Douglass
... own son, Oisin of the strong hands." "Why did you give your love to him beyond all the troops of high princes that are under the sun?" said Finn. "It was by reason of his great name, and of the report I heard of his bravery and of his comeliness," she said. "And though there is many a king's son and high prince gave me his love, I never consented to any till I set my ...
— Gods and Fighting Men • Lady I. A. Gregory
... for love as for war," said Setanta. "He is peerless in beauty, and his strength and courage are equal to his comeliness, and his chivalry and battle-splendour ...
— The Coming of Cuculain • Standish O'Grady
... recognize gladly, not death or decay at all, but the serene and gracious comeliness of a dignified and ...
— Beautiful Europe - Belgium • Joseph E. Morris
... a lover of all beautiful forms; this will lead him on to consider that the beauty of the mind is more honorable than the beauty of the outward form. So that if a virtuous soul have but a little comeliness, he will be content to love and tend it, and will search out and bring to the birth thoughts which may improve the young, until his beloved is compelled to contemplate and see the beauty of institutions and laws, and understand that all is of one ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume I (of X) - Greece • Various
... were usually bold enough, but, as he clasped the little brooch on, his fingers were almost irritatingly deft and steady. Men, she knew, did not make fools of themselves from a purely artistic appreciation of feminine comeliness. ...
— The Cattle-Baron's Daughter • Harold Bindloss
... And said he wha told us, 'The gilt ball fell frae the standard pole, and there's nane to think that a good omen!' But I saw it," said Mother Binning. She turned her wheel, a woman not yet old and with a large, tranquil comeliness. "What I ...
— Foes • Mary Johnston
... is a little matter: be it so; but of a truth I do tell thee, Cecil, it shall master full many a bold heart that the Spaniard cannot trouble; it shall win to it full many a proud and flighty one that even chivalry and manly comeliness cannot touch. I may shake titles and dignities by the dozen from my breakfast-board; but I may not save those upon whose heads I shake them from rottenness and oblivion. This year they and their sovereign ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... quickly: "I am going to see the thing through." And the others endorsed his words. When the clergyman came, and looked at the face of this Magdalene, he was struck by its comeliness and quiet. All else seemed to have been washed away. On her breast lay a knot of white roses—white roses ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... in Fidelis whose comeliness so nearly drew the hero from his old allegiance, has 'a strong and good, rather than a pretty, face,' with a 'large and substantial figure.' Adam Drewe concluded on first sight of her that she was a nice woman. Later on he finds her 'looking the very incarnation ...
— Australian Writers • Desmond Byrne
... to write. Even the female sex, those arch innovators upon the tranquillity, the honesty, and gray-beard customs of society, seemed for a while to conduct themselves with incredible sobriety and comeliness. ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 8 • Charles H. Sylvester
... consume Such powers of wit and soul as are of force To raise their beings to eternity, May be converted on works fitting men: And, for the practice of a forced look, An antic gesture, or a fustian phrase, Study the native frame of a true heart, An inward comeliness of bounty, knowledge, And spirit that may conform them actually To God's high figures, which they have in power; Which to neglect for a self-loving neatness, Is sacrilege ...
— Cynthia's Revels • Ben Jonson
... grace! Thy comeliness Hath ever favor won and fond caress. Thy faithful lovers' lives are bound in thine; They joy in thy security, but pine And weep in gloom O'er ...
— Jewish Literature and Other Essays • Gustav Karpeles
... had but six or seven days from Bonjem to Misratah, near the coast. The gull suggested to my drooping spirits sea-breezes to restore my shattered frame, and gave me new life. As we neared Misratah the country increased in comeliness (because after so much desert), and near Misratah the hills were actually green and flowery, so long black and hideously bare. But indeed, it was the best time of Spring. We passed on every side scattered Arab tents,—to us pavilions of pleasure,—with ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... taken a step or two to the bay-window, where, with hands thrust within his trouser-pockets, he stood staring gloomily out on the bright flower-beds that, next to the comeliness and order of her ministering to the Church—garnishing of the altar, lustration of the holy vessels, washing and mending of vestments,—were the pride ...
— Nicky-Nan, Reservist • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... vain. At length he fell asleep, but it was only to dream of his patron,—now, as he had last seen him, with the paleness of death upon his features, then again transformed into all the vigour and comeliness of youth, approaching to expel him from the mansion-house of his fathers. Then he dreamed, that after wandering long over a wild heath, he came at length to an inn, from which sounded the voice of revelry; and that when he entered, the first person he met was Frank Kennedy, ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott
... and the numerous forces of the Moderns half inclining to a retreat, there issued forth, from a squadron of their heavy-armed foot, a captain whose name was Bentley, the most deformed of all the Moderns; tall, but without shape or comeliness; large, but without strength or proportion. His armour was patched up of a thousand incoherent pieces, and the sound of it, as he marched, was loud and dry, like that made by the fall of a sheet of lead, which an Etesian wind blows suddenly down from ...
— The Battle of the Books - and Other Short Pieces • Jonathan Swift
... there came from Memphis the wife of Potiphar, and she cast her eyes upon Joseph, of whose comeliness of person she had heard from the eunuchs. She told her husband how that a certain shopkeeper had grown rich through a young Hebrew, and she added: "But it is said that the youth was stolen away out of the land of Canaan. Go, therefore, and sit in judgment upon his owner, ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg
... beautiful dog to be seen than the show Collie of the present period. Produced from the old working type, he is now practically a distinct breed. His qualities in the field are not often tested, but he is a much more handsome and attractive animal, and his comeliness will always win for him many admiring friends. The improvements in his style and appearance have been alleged to be due to an admixture with Gordon Setter blood. In the early years of exhibitions he showed the shorter head, heavy ears, and much of the black and tan colouring ...
— Dogs and All About Them • Robert Leighton
... be guiding and underlying our English Renaissance, a Renaissance many-sided and wonderful, productive of strong ambitions and lofty personalities, yet for all its splendid achievements in poetry and in the decorative arts and in painting, for all the increased comeliness and grace of dress, and the furniture of houses and the like, not complete. For there can be no great sculpture without a beautiful national life, and the commercial spirit of England has killed that; no great drama without a noble national life, and the ...
— Miscellanies • Oscar Wilde
... Coutances; and a more delightful evening's walk I never enjoyed. The women of every description—ladies, housekeepers, and servant maids—were all abroad; either sitting upon benches, or standing in gossiping groups, or straying in friendly pairs. The comeliness of the women was remarkable; a certain freshness of tint, and prevalence of the embonpoint, reminded me of those of our own country; and among the latter, I startled—as I gazed upon a countenance which afforded but too vivid a resemblance ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume One • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... thoroughfares. I remembered afterward, with shame, that I myself had smiled at the first sight of its antiquated ugliness; but her face was one which it gave you a sense of rest to look upon—it was so earnest, tender, true, and strong. It had little comeliness of shape or color in it, it was thin, and pale; she was not young; she had worked hard; she had evidently been much ill; but I have seen few faces which gave me such pleasure. I think that she was the wife of a poor clergyman; and I think that clergyman must be ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... change is most marked in regions once noted for leanness, angularity, and sallowness of complexion, but throughout the country the types of physical manhood are more numerous; and if women of rare and exceptional beauty are not more numerous, no doubt the average of comeliness and beauty has been raised. Thus far, the increase of beauty due to better development has not been at the expense of delicacy of complexion and of line, as it has been in some European countries. Physical well-being is almost entirely a matter of nutrition. Something is due in our case to ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... jumped up, took Emerson by the collar, and giving him one of his friendly shakes, asked how it was that in England we could always tell an American? This led to an interesting conversation, in the course of which Emerson said how much he had been everywhere struck by the haleness and comeliness of the English men and women; and then they diverged into a further discussion of the influences which air, climate, moisture, soil, and other conditions exercised upon the physical and moral development of a people. The conversation ...
— Lives of the Engineers - The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson • Samuel Smiles
... or by Ambition, which are the Noblest of passions, and that they be imputed to the evil counsell of Flatterers; that so the respect, which is alwayes due unto Kings, may be preserved. You shall see there, Reader, if I be not deceived, the comeliness of things and conditions exactly enough observed; neither have I put any thing into my Book, which the Ladies may not read without blushing. And if you see not my Hero persecuted with Love by Women, it is not because he was not amiable, and that he could not be loved, but ...
— Prefaces to Fiction • Various
... fierce dart leaps forth beyond, to plunge Into the tall stem of an oak or pine. So that death-ravening spear of Peleus' son Clear through the goodly steed rushed on, and pierced Penthesileia. Straightway fell she down Into the dust of earth, the arms of death, In grace and comeliness fell, for naught of shame Dishonoured her fair form. Face down she lay On the long spear outgasping her last breath, Stretched upon that fleet horse as on a couch; Like some tall pine snapped by the icy mace Of Boreas, earth's forest-fosterling Reared by a spring to stately ...
— The Fall of Troy • Smyrnaeus Quintus
... when first their father was vexed in his heart with Obriareus and Cottus and Gyes, he bound them in cruel bonds, because he was jealous of their exceeding manhood and comeliness and great size: and he made them live beneath the wide-pathed earth, where they were afflicted, being set to dwell under the ground, at the end of the earth, at its great borders, in bitter anguish for a long time and ...
— Hesiod, The Homeric Hymns, and Homerica • Homer and Hesiod
... and valour. Should Athelstane of Coningsburgh obtain the prize, Ivanhoe is like to hear evil tidings when he reaches England.—How looked he, stranger, when you last saw him? Had disease laid her hand heavy upon his strength and comeliness?" ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... taken aback was he by this astounding announcement, that he could not speak. The younger woman stared at him with her hard blue eyes, and a smile played round her full lips. The mother also looked at him in an engaging way, as though she rather admired his youthful comeliness in spite of his ...
— The Opal Serpent • Fergus Hume
... refuse to regard a turret-ship as a ship at all. It overturns our every notion of what a ship should look like. A low, black, mastless, raft-like, cruel-looking machine, without the faintest pretension to form or comeliness, a turret-ship is simply a fighting-engine, a floating battery—an ingenious and formidable instrument of death and destruction, no doubt, but nothing more. Yet these are among the leading war-ships of the present, and, as far as can at present be seen, ...
— Man on the Ocean - A Book about Boats and Ships • R.M. Ballantyne |
