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More "Iridescence" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... dimply hand; and just as fitful were the gleams of warm sunshine that lazed through the stately trees on the broad campus of Wellington College. It was a brave day—Summer defying Nature, swishing her silken skirts of transparent iridescence into the leaves already trembling before the master hand of Autumn, with his brush poised for their fateful stroke of poisoned beauty; every last bud of weed or flower bursting in heroic tribute, and every breeze cheering the pageant ...
— Jane Allen: Junior • Edith Bancroft
... was composed of neither rock, mud, sand, nor shells; the sounding-lead brought up nothing but a kind of metallic dust, which glittered with a strange iridescence, and the nature of which it was impossible to determine, as it was totally unlike what had ever been known to be raised from the ...
— Off on a Comet • Jules Verne
... altogether clear, logical, honest, amicable, affectionate young man, and respected as such here, though sometimes felt to be rather colourless, even aqueous, no religion in any form traceable in him." And similarly of his friend, Mrs. Taylor, "She was a will-o'-the- wispish iridescence of a creature; meaning nothing bad either"; and again of Mill himself, "His talk is sawdustish, like ale when there is no wine to be had." Such criticisms, some ungrateful, others unjust, may be relieved by reference to the close of two friendships to which (though even these were clouded ...
— Thomas Carlyle - Biography • John Nichol
... admire the beauty and fragrance of the flowers and fruit, or the exquisite workmanship of the vases they had brought. What struck us most was the lovely iridescence which they all displayed in different lights. The vases in particular seemed to be carved out of living opals, yet each was large enough to contain several pints of liquor. Miss Carmichael decorated the dinner-table with a selection from the trays, but although we ...
— A Trip to Venus • John Munro
... each morning over his toilet, smoothing every feather into place with the most exact nicety, polishing his delicately arched bill, and proudly spreading his tail. Then, when the sun shone full upon him, the peculiar markings of his wings seemed fairly radiant in their glorious iridescence. ...
— Chico: the Story of a Homing Pigeon • Lucy M. Blanchard
... silver ribbon of a stream. Far up in the blue vault two great eagles soared and circled. Here and there the last golden rays of sunlight fell on the distant ridges and lighted up the tree tops with a beautiful iridescence. ...
— Buffalo Roost • F. H. Cheley
... handsome young man; a successful man as young men go, with the oratorical temperament and enough of a head to be a good consulting lawyer as well as a jury lawyer with more than local reputation; add to the young man that vague social iridescence, or aura or halo that young men wear in glamor, and that old men wear in shame—a past; and then let public opinion agree that he is his own worst enemy and declare that if he only had some strong woman to take hold of him—and behold there are ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... descent to a water set in fetid mud, its iridescence declaring the presence of iron; oozing out of the ground, it discharges during rains into the river: and, throughout the dry season, it keeps its little valley green with trees and shrubs. I observed what appeared to be the Esere or Calabar bean (Physostigma venenosum), whose hairy ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... reflected by the atmosphere, and produces that mellow, golden, rapturous light that hangs like a veil of enchantment over the land of Mizora for six months in the year. It was followed by six months of the shifting iridescence of ...
— Mizora: A Prophecy - A MSS. Found Among the Private Papers of the Princess Vera Zarovitch • Mary E. Bradley
... when she left the house a drizzle had begun to wet the flagstones, and every lamp-post was now hooded with ghostly iridescence. ...
— The Crimson Tide • Robert W. Chambers
... hot, the more elevated slopes about the peaks do not lose their covering of eternal snow. On the contrary it then gleams with double resplendence down upon the green of the trees in the valley; but the winter's snow is melted off their lower parts. Then becomes visible the bluish or greenish iridescence of the glaciers which are bared and gleam down upon the valley below. At the edge of this iridescence, there where it seems from the distance like a fringe of gems, a nearer view reveals confused masses of wild and monstrous boulders, slabs, and fragments piled up in chaotic ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VIII • Various
... perhaps millions, of microscopic fissures running at all angles, so that no matter from what position the stone may be viewed, a great number of these fissures are certain to split up the light into prismatic colours causing brilliant iridescence. Similar fissures may often be seen with the naked eye on glass, especially if scorched or cooled too rapidly (chilled), and on the surface of clear spar and mica, their effects being of extreme interest, from a colour point of ...
— The Chemistry, Properties and Tests of Precious Stones • John Mastin
... at through the meshes of a handkerchief, show diffraction phenomena. The diffraction effects obtained in looking through a bird's feathers are, as shown by Schwerd, very brilliant. The iridescence of certain Alpine clouds is also an effect of diffraction which may be imitated by the spores of Lycopodium. When shaken over a glass plate these spores cause a point of light, looked at through the dusted plate, to ...
— Six Lectures on Light - Delivered In The United States In 1872-1873 • John Tyndall
... 9 inches. Weight about equals that of robin, but the starling, with its short, drooping tail, is chunkier in appearance. Male — Iridescent black with glints of purple, green, and blue. On back the black feathers, with iridescence of green and bronze, are tipped with brown, as are some of the tail and wing feathers. In autumn and early winter feathers of sides of head, breast, flanks and underparts are tipped with white, giving a gray, mottled appearance. During the winter most of the white ...
— Bird Neighbors • Neltje Blanchan
... was reason for asking! As the service proceeded and Neale's hair grew dryer, the sun shining upon his head revealed a wealth of iridescence that attracted more ...
— The Corner House Girls at School • Grace Brooks Hill
... the very birds that haunt them; for, instead of the restless crowd, hoarse-voiced and sable-winged, drifting on the bleak upper air, the St. Mark's porches are full of doves, that nestle among the marble foliage, and mingle the soft iridescence of their living plumes, changing at every motion, with the tints, hardly less lovely, that have stood unchanged for ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 7 - Italy, Sicily, and Greece (Part One) • Various
... interesting, like the slow droop of Eleonora Duse's magic eye. Though her features were rigid, the woman's glance spoke to Baldur, spoke eloquently. Her eyes were—or was it the iris?—symbols of a soul-state, of a rare emotion, not of sex, nor yet sexless. The pupils seemed powdered with a strange iridescence. He became more troubled than before. What did the curious creature want of him! She was neither coquette nor cocotte, flirtation was not hinted by her intense expression. He resumed his former position, but her eyes made ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... humming began, from some point overhead. It wavered and shrilled and mounted in intensity, and then fell to a steady monotone. The dome about him flickered with a queer, cold iridescence, and slowly vanished. The hidden room vanished, and he was looking into the shadowy interior of a deserted barn. The barn vanished; blue sky appeared above, streaked with wisps of high cirrus cloud. The ...
— Police Operation • H. Beam Piper
... sensitive is he, that, when connected with you by any intimate rapport, even if but momentary, he almost divines your thoughts. He is full of perpetual surprises. I am sure he was a nightingale before he was Rose. An iridescence like sea-foam sparkled in him that evening, he laughed as lightly as the little tinkling mass-bells at every moment, and seemed to diffuse a rosy glow wherever he went in the room. Yet gayety was not his peculiar specialty, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 5, No. 28, February, 1860 • Various
... Cause of Iridescence in Clouds.—By G. JOHNSTONE STONEY.—An interesting theory of the production of prismatic colors in clouds, referring it to ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 613, October 1, 1887 • Various
... the edge of a well whose walls were of that same green vaporous iridescence through which we had just come, but finer grained, compact; as though here the corpuscles of which they were woven were far closer spun. Thousands of feet above us the mighty cylinder uprose, and in the lessened circle that was its mouth ...
— The Metal Monster • A. Merritt
... of the stump of a fallen tree, out in the glade not more than eight or ten yards distant, clung one of the monsters, scintillating blue-green and amethyst in the full blaze of the sun. Its wings, exquisitely netted and of crystal transparency, were tinged with an ineffable purple iridescence. Its jointed body, slightly longer than Grom's arm, was nearly as thick as his wrist, and ended at the tail with a formidable double claw. Its six legs, arranged in three pairs under the thorax, were armed on the inner sides with powerful spines, needle-pointed and ...
— In the Morning of Time • Charles G. D. Roberts
... copper minarets on the Hebrew synagogue behind Union square tiny green, coppery flames next began to shoot forth. They grew quickly larger, and as the heat increased in intensity there shone from the two great bulbs of metal sheathing an iridescence that blinded like a sight into a ...
— Complete Story of the San Francisco Horror • Richard Linthicum
... her. After she died he would not go to school. He was not in any sense educated. His father and grandfather had been illiterate men and he had inherited their underdeveloped brain cells. But he loved poetry and read all he could get of it. It overlaid his primitive nature with a curious iridescence of fancy and furnished him with ideals and hungers his environment could never satisfy. He loved beauty in everything. Moonrises hurt him with their loveliness and he could sit for hours gazing at a white narcissus—much to his aunt's exasperation. He was solitary by nature. He felt horribly ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1909 to 1922 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... peculiar look on the rotten wood on the ground round here; to-night it has patches and flecks of iridescence like one sees on herrings or mackerel that have been kept too long. The appearance of this strange eerie light in among the bush is very weird and charming. I have seen it before in dark forests at night, but never so much ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... conviction-tension comes resolve to make the audience share that conviction-tension. Purpose is the backbone of force; without it speech is flabby—it may glitter, but it is the iridescence of the spineless jellyfish. You must hold fast to your resolve if you would hold ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein
... greatest possible emphasis to the effect of sunlight and shadow. If you keep your shadows cool, your lights will be the richer and more sparkling because of that contrast. If you want more strength in a note of color, get its complement as near it as you can. Look for their iridescence of edges of shadow, and of the contours of objects. You will get greater relief of light and shade by contrast of warm and cool than contrast ...
— The Painter in Oil - A complete treatise on the principles and technique - necessary to the painting of pictures in oil colors • Daniel Burleigh Parkhurst
... to be happy? Scarcely, for she did not trust him enough to be frank with him. Sophisticated men soon tire of candid women: it was in this faith that Isabel had clouded herself in such an iridescence of mystery and coquetry, laughing when she felt more inclined to cry, eluding Lawrence when she would rather have rested in his arms. Roses and steel: innocence in a saffron scarf: ascendancy won and held only by surrender: such was to be the life of the woman who married Lawrence Hyde, ...
— Nightfall • Anthony Pryde
... that his nationality was now liked less rather than more there, I should still be sorry to disturb what is at the worst no worse than a fond illusion. The case is by no means the contrary, and yet in consenting to some reason in the iridescence which the situation wears in the American fancy I should wish to distinguish. For a beginning I should not wish to go farther than to say that the sort of Englishmen who have always liked Americans, ...
— London Films • W.D. Howells
... 32) by Severini, the painter calls: "An arabesque of the movement produced by the twinkling colours and iridescence of the frills and furbelows on show; the electric light divides the scene into defined zones. A study of simultaneous penetration." The deathly grin of the modiste is about the only "simultaneous penetration" that I could ...
— Ivory Apes and Peacocks • James Huneker
... lip and turned away again. A sudden mist blurred the sunset splendour, the bronze and purple iridescence of the ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... in the road and came upon a stretch of old stump fencing. From one of the stumps appeared to be hanging a grotesque figure of some remarkable cut; it looked both ancient and romantic, sharply silhouetted against the iridescence of the dawn. ...
— Seven Miles to Arden • Ruth Sawyer
... grey, in pairs; sand-eels, slim and stiff, like shavings of pewter; herrings, slightly twisted, with bleeding gills showing on their silver-worked skins; fat dories tinged with just a suspicion of carmine; burnished mackerel with green-streaked backs, and sides gleaming with ever-changing iridescence; and rosy gurnets with white bellies, their head towards the centre of the baskets and their tails radiating all around, so that they simulated some strange florescence splotched with pearly white and ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola
... and respected as such here, though sometimes felt to be rather colourless, even aqueous, no religion in any form traceable in him." And similarly of his friend, Mrs. Taylor, "She was a will-o'-the- wispish iridescence of a creature; meaning nothing bad either"; and again of Mill himself, "His talk is sawdustish, like ale when there is no wine to be had." Such criticisms, some ungrateful, others unjust, may be relieved by reference to the close of two friendships to which (though even these were clouded ...
— Thomas Carlyle - Biography • John Nichol
... the choir, and of the chapel of St. Savinien, is of the thirteenth century. The colour is exceedingly brilliant, lively, and harmonious, with the iridescence of a mosaic of ...
— The Cathedrals of Northern France • Francis Miltoun
... beneath the opposite bank. Here a graceful Annelid describes Hogarth's line of beauty upon the sandy bottom. There another glides over the surface with sinuous course, rowed by more oars than a Venetian galley, more brilliant in its iridescence than ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 11, September, 1858 • Various
... towering growths where the valley widened. Like no trees of Earth, these monsters towered high in air, their black trunks branching to end in tendrils that raised high above them. And the tendrils were a waving, ever-moving sea of color, where rainbow iridescence was stabbed through with the flash of crimson buds. A down-draft of air ...
— Astounding Stories, May, 1931 • Various
... Eliot, in 'Middlemarch,' 'ever pinched into its pilulous smallness the cobweb of pre-matrimonial acquaintance?' And, to press the metaphor, the cobweb, as far as Mark and Mabel were concerned, brilliantly as it shone in all its silken iridescence, would have rolled up into a particularly small pill. Mark was anxious that his engagement should be as short as possible, chiefly from an uneasy fear that his great happiness might elude him after all. The idea of losing Mabel became day by day, as he knew her better, a ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey
... were a shining blue-black, while his back was a rich, shining brassy-green. His wings and tail were much like his head and neck. As Peter watched it seemed as if the colors were constantly changing. This changing of colors is called iridescence. One other thing Peter noticed and this was that Creaker's eyes were yellow. Just at the moment Peter couldn't remember any other bird with ...
— The Burgess Bird Book for Children • Thornton W. Burgess
... edge of a well whose walls were of that same green vaporous iridescence through which we had just come, but finer grained, compact; as though here the corpuscles of which they were woven were far closer spun. Thousands of feet above us the mighty cylinder uprose, and in the lessened circle ...
— The Metal Monster • A. Merritt
... has a bewildering iridescence of aspect. Each present impulse is reformatory. Correction, like a centipede, shows a hundred legs and wants to run upon them all. Much of the so-called philanthropy is not well balanced and is run by cranks. Cranks attach themselves to any social movement, as a shaggy gown will gather ...
— The Warriors • Lindsay, Anna Robertson Brown
... Tour,[1] itself made nearly thirty years ago, is a delight, almost a marvel; the style, the torrent of simile, the vivid thought, rank it as a classic. But M. Taine's is less a book of travel than a work of art; in the iridescence of the descriptions, you lose the reflection of the things described. Even hand-books, the way-clearing lictors of travel, prove, as to the Pyrenees region, first scarce and then scanty. The few we unearth ...
— A Midsummer Drive Through The Pyrenees • Edwin Asa Dix
... day." The romantic poets sought for words—whether noble or vulgar—that were coloured, concrete, picturesque. The tendency culminated with Gautier, to whom words were valuable, like gems, for their gleam, their iridescence, and their hardness. Lost treasures of the language were recovered; at a later date new verbal inventions were made. By degrees, also, grammatical structure lost some of its rigidity; sentences and periods grew rather than were built; phrases were alive, and learnt, ...
— A History of French Literature - Short Histories of the Literatures of the World: II. • Edward Dowden
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