"Embellish" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... council of Newcastle ordered a sweet stop to be added to the organ. This was after Avison became organist, his appointment to that post having been in 1736. So we know that he at least had a "trumpet stop" and a "sweet stop," with which to embellish his ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke
... ought to be bending over a sheet of paper, ruled in pretty parallels of fives, trying to embellish the same with semi-breves and crotchets.' That is what I think to myself, thinks I; and the thought leaves me gasping. I am utterly unable to conceive your state ...
— The Lady Paramount • Henry Harland
... Sir, I am highly honoured. Ba-ath is favoured. Mrs. Dowler, you embellish the rooms. I congratulate you on your ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... Government is of exactly the same character; and the countries they governed have, I believe, the same wretched appearance—they are swarms of human locusts, who prey upon all that is calculated to enrich and embellish the face of the land they infest, and all that can tend to improve men in their social relations, and to link their affection to their soil and their government.[21] A Hindoo prince is always running to the extreme; he can never take and keep a middle course. ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... the governor was short, but decisive. The gaoler stated the case against him, adding to the facts here and there to embellish his story; and in a very short space of time he found himself manacled with heavy chains, which fastened him down to the floor of the damp cell into which he had ...
— Heiress of Haddon • William E. Doubleday
... it rather poor and wished to embellish it," Verdi replied, remembering the reception he had had at ...
— The World's Great Men of Music - Story-Lives of Master Musicians • Harriette Brower
... his injuries, pondering the means of a retaliation; there were no hours of manumission in the inn; the reed was still. And yet, to do him justice, there was even then the frank and suave exterior; no boorish awkward silence in his ancient gossips made him lose his jocularity; he continued to embellish his conversation with morals based on universal ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro
... have engendered towards the colonists in the, mass of the Mexican nation, feelings of unconquerable jealousy and hostility. Yes! our superiority in enterprise, in learning, in the arts and in all that can dignify life, or embellish human nature, instead of exciting in them a laudable ambition to emulate, to equal, or excel us—excites the most hateful of all the passions—envy—and has caused them to endeavor for years past, by an unremitting series of vexatious, oppressive and unconstitutional acts, to retard ...
— Texas • William H. Wharton
... descriptions true?' somebody once asked our authoress. 'Yes, yes, yes, as true, as true as is well possible,' she answers. 'You, as a great landscape painter, know that in painting a favourite scene you do a little embellish and can't help it; you avail yourself of happy accidents of atmosphere; if anything be ugly you strike it out, or if anything be wanting, you put it in. But still the picture ...
— Our Village • Mary Russell Mitford
... is the making of books. There can be no necessity for it; the author is quite sure to have added the illustrations that are requisite for the volume. It is only books that were published without illustrations that we are justified in attempting to embellish. Illustrations in a book are invariably a question of the author's and publisher's tastes; the cost of their production is not usually an all-important item: it is the setting up of the type, the paper, and the ...
— The Book-Hunter at Home • P. B. M. Allan
... philosophers had taught him something. He feared that with all his successes his throne would be overturned unless he could amuse the people and find work for turbulent spirits. Consequently he concluded on the one hand to make a change in the foreign policy of France, and on the other to embellish his capital and undertake great public works, at any expense, both to find work for artisans and to develop ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume X • John Lord
... a very candid tone, takes a very different view of the prophet's death. "In tracing the circumstances of Mahommed's illness, we look in vain for any proofs of that meek and heroic firmness which might be expected to dignify and embellish the last moments of the apostle of God. On some occasions he betrayed such want of fortitude, such marks of childish impatience, as are in general to be found in men only of the most ordinary stamp; and such as extorted from his ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon
... that modern invention has employed to embellish it, there are to be seen, on the chimney-piece in a drawingroom, the arms of Cardinal Richelieu, just as they were during the lifetime of his father, which the cardinal desired to leave there, because they comprise a collar of the Holy Ghost, in order to prove to those ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... wealth, would leave behind them a name renowned and glorious, if they possessed, together with their store of the goods of Fortune, a mind filled with grandeur and inclined to those things that not only embellish the world, but also confer vast benefit and advantage on the whole race of men! And what works can or should Princes and great persons undertake more readily than noble and magnificent buildings and edifices, both on account of the ...
— Lives of the most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol. 06 (of 10) Fra Giocondo to Niccolo Soggi • Giorgio Vasari
... Dupin, "abounds with very strict analogies to the immaterial; and thus some color of truth has been given to the rhetorical dogma that metaphor, or simile, may be made to strengthen an argument as well as to embellish a description. The principle of the vis inertiae, for example, seems to be identical in physics and metaphysics. It is not more true, in the former, that a large body is with more difficulty set in motion than ...
— The Great English Short-Story Writers, Vol. 1 • Various
... Bachelier de Salamanque as a translation. Will it be said that Le Sage's other works prove him to have been capable of inventing Gil Blas? It will be still without foundation. All his critics agree, that, though well qualified to embellish the ideas of others, and master of a flowing and agreeable style, he was not an inventive or original writer. Such is the language of Voltaire, M. de la Martiniere, and of Chardin, and even of M. Neufchateau himself; and yet, it is to a person ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 344, June, 1844 • Various
... to be realized, for greater triumphs still than those she had enjoyed in Italy awaited Bonaparte in Paris. The days of quietude, and the pleasures of home, which Josephine so much loved, and which she so well understood how to embellish with friendships and joys, were now forever past away. Placed at the side of a hero whose fame already filled all Europe, she could no longer calculate upon living in modest retirement, as she would have wished to do: it was her lot to share his burden of glory, as she also was ...
— The Empress Josephine • Louise Muhlbach
... those audacious stories which Frenchmen alone seem to have enough originality to invent. Captain Mago is sent by Hiram King of Tyre, on a voyage to Tarshish (Spain) to procure a supply of silver and other treasure with which to embellish the temple of David, King of the Jews, which was to be erected at Jerusalem. During his absence of several years, he met with innumerable strange and perilous adventures by land and sea. In itself ...
— Sara Crewe - or, What Happened at Miss Minchin's • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... manes! may they enjoy more repose, than that troubled world which their extraordinary, yet different talents seemed equally destined to embellish and to embroil, though it would be difficult to name any two modern writers, who have expressed, with more eloquence, a cordial love of peace, and a zealous desire to promote the ...
— The Stranger in France • John Carr
... the "seven wonders of Wales," is three miles from Holt, and is four hundred years old. Few churches built as early as the reign of Henry VIII. can compare with this. It is dedicated to St. Giles, and statues of him and of twenty-nine other saints embellish niches in the tower. Alongside of St. Giles is the hind that nourished him in the desert. The bells of Wrexham peal melodiously over the valley, and in the vicarage the good Bishop Heber wrote the favorite hymn, "From Greenland's ...
— England, Picturesque and Descriptive - A Reminiscence of Foreign Travel • Joel Cook
... hundreds of years old, and with long, swaying, gray beards of moss, looking white and ghostly under the deep shadows of their boughs. And beneath, creeping round trunk and matting over stones, were many and many of those wild, beautiful things which embellish the shadows of these northern forests. Long, feathery wreaths of what are called ground-pines ran here and there in little ruffles of green, and the prince's pine raised its oriental feather, with a mimic cone on the top, as if it conceived itself to be a grown-up tree. ...
— The Pearl of Orr's Island - A Story of the Coast of Maine • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... gubernatorial wages, salary nice, exquisite haughty, arrogant letter, epistle pursue, prosecute use, utility use, utilize rival, competitor male, masculine female, feminine beauty, esthetics beauty, pulchritude beautify, embellish poison, venom vote, franchise vote, suffrage taste, gust tasteful, gustatory tasteless, insipid flower, floral count, compute cowardly, pusillanimous tent, pavilion money, finance monetary, pecuniary trace, vestige face, countenance turn, revolve bottle, vial grease, ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... were able," he observed, "to boil his tea and thrum his lyre in here, there wouldn't even be any need for him to burn any more incense. But the execution of this structure is so beyond conception that you must, gentlemen, compose something nice and original to embellish the tablet with, so as not to render such a place of ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... God's earthly gifts, and that men and women ought not to be happier free than slaves. God forbid that I should so have read my Bible. But such cases as Susan's do occur, and far oftener than the raw-head and bloody-bones' stories with which Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe has seen fit to embellish that interesting romance, Uncle ...
— Aunt Phillis's Cabin - Or, Southern Life As It Is • Mary H. Eastman
... and pressed her thin hand reverently to his lips, the eyes of Marie de Medicis brightened, and a faint colour rose to her wasted cheeks. For a time she forgot all her sufferings; and they talked together of the proud period of her power, when she had laboured to embellish her beloved city of Paris, and summoned Rubens to the Luxembourg to execute the magnificent series of pictures which formed its noblest ornament; but this happy oblivion could not long endure, and scarcely an hour had elapsed ere they were engaged in concerting ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... this here Elixir of Long Life, I might embellish it with a great many high-sounding epithets; but I disdain to follow the example of every illiterate vagabond, that, from idleness, turns quack, and advertises his nostrum in the public papers. I am neither a felonious drysalter ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett
... appear'd adorn'd with such variety of dazling Colours, that she was fain presently to command him to withdraw, but the Images in her Hangings, did, for many daies after, appear to her, if the Room were not extraordinarily darken'd, embellish'd with several offensively vivid Colours, which no body else could see in them; And when I enquir'd whether or no White Objects did not appear to her adorn'd with more luminous Colours than others, and whether ...
— Experiments and Considerations Touching Colours (1664) • Robert Boyle
... voice of her, to whom Coming thro' Heaven, like a light that grows Larger and clearer, with one mind the Gods Rise up for reverence. She to Paris made Proffer of royal power, ample rule Unquestion'd, overflowing revenue Wherewith to embellish state, 'from many a vale And river-sunder'd champaign clothed with corn, Or labour'd mines undrainable of ore. Honour,' she said, 'and homage, tax and toll, From many an inland town and haven large, Mast-throng'd beneath her shadowing citadel In glassy ...
— The Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson • Tennyson
... certainty, ready to give a warm reception to any boarders!" continued Wilder, who rarely paid much attention to the amplifications with which Fid so often saw fit to embellish the discourse. "It would be no easy matter to carry a ship thus prepared, if her people ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper
... told the fisherman this, but he knew the statement would make a sensation and chose to embellish what he ...
— Robert Coverdale's Struggle - Or, On The Wave Of Success • Horatio, Jr. Alger
... revolutions, desolations, and plagues, would, on the contrary, wisely spring forward to the anticipated fields of future cultivation and improvement, to the future extent of those generations which are to replenish and embellish this boundless continent. There the half-ruined amphitheatres, and the putrid fevers of the Campania, must fill the mind with the most melancholy reflections, whilst he is seeking for the origin and the intention of those structures with which he is surrounded, and for the cause ...
— Letters from an American Farmer • Hector St. John de Crevecoeur
... western side of the church, the latter itself has been curtailed; but as it was necessary to reconstruct some sort of entrance, one architect closed the nave by a facade in Greek style; then, perhaps, feeling remorseful, or desiring (a presumption which will be accepted more readily), to embellish his work still further, he afterwards added some columns "which imitate fairly well the architecture of the eleventh century," says the notice. Let us be silent and bow our heads. Each of the arts has its own particular leprosy, its mortal ignominy that eats its face away. Painting has ...
— Over Strand and Field • Gustave Flaubert
... seating myself at his feet, attentively surveyed his countenance. The emotions which were visible during wakefulness had vanished during this cessation of remembrance and remorse, or were faintly discernible. They served to dignify and solemnize his features, and to embellish those immutable lines which betokened the spirit of his better days. Lineaments were now observed which could never coexist with folly or ...
— Edgar Huntley • Charles Brockden Brown
... was founded and dedicated to St. Matthew in 1084 by Robert Guiscard, who plundered the temples of Paestum of their marbles and sculptures to embellish it. ...
— The Brochure Series of Architectural Illustration - Vol 1, No. 9 1895 • Various
... of improving the handiwork of nature, and perhaps prompted by a desire to add to the engaging expression of his countenance, had seen fit to embellish his face with three broad longitudinal stripes of tattooing, which, like those country roads that go straight forward in defiance of all obstacles, crossed his nasal organ, descended into the hollow of his eyes, and even skirted the borders of his mouth. Each completely spanned ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville
... to say, in love with him, she took a judicious line—and kept it: no hankering after Mayfair, no talking about "Lord this" and "Lady that," to commercial gentlewomen; no amphibiousness. She accepted her place in society, reserving the right to embellish it with the graces she had gathered in a higher sphere. In her home, and in her person, she was little less elegant than a countess; yet nothing more than a merchant-captain's wife; and she reared that commander's children ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... their new theological dogmas, "The Harmonial Philosophy," of which Reason is the final umpire. Revelation no longer speaks to them in tones of authority. From the Bible, it is claimed, "the seal of infallibility must be broken away, before a new light and beauty can enliven and embellish the mystical disclosures of any seer, prophet, or evangelist." So writes Andrew Jackson Davis, the Poughkeepsie seer, one of the leaders of this new school, who complains that "owing to the dogmatism of infallibility, ...
— A Brief Commentary on the Apocalypse • Sylvester Bliss
... possess greatness of soul; to have knowledge, to have probity, to have virtue. In M. Carnot all these rare and valuable qualities were combined: and, far from acquiring any personal lustre from this great name of patriot, he seemed on the contrary to embellish the name by wearing it; so well had he preserved it in its primitive purity, amid the debasement into which it had been plunged by the excesses of the revolution, and the abuses ...
— Memoirs of the Private Life, Return, and Reign of Napoleon in 1815, Vol. I • Pierre Antoine Edouard Fleury de Chaboulon
... 755 With feet coerulean; thirst-provoking sauce She brought them also in a brazen tray, Garlic[20] and honey new, and sacred meal. Beside them, next, she placed a noble cup Of labor exquisite, which from his home 760 The ancient King had brought with golden studs Embellish'd; it presented to the grasp Four ears; two golden turtles, perch'd on each, Seem'd feeding, and two turtles[21] form'd the base. That cup once fill'd, all others must have toil'd 765 To move it from the board, but it was light In Nestor's hand; he lifted it with ease.[22] The ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer
... the human body and mind more perfect, chastity must more universally prevail, and that chastity will never be respected in the male world till the person of a woman is not, as it were, idolized when little virtue or sense embellish it with the grand traces of mental beauty, or the ...
— A Vindication of the Rights of Woman - Title: Vindication of the Rights of Women • Mary Wollstonecraft [Godwin]
... such linguistic phenomena are often observed in the case of children and uneducated people. Not long ago the writer was urged by a gardener to embellish his garden with a ruskit arch. When metathesis extends beyond one word we have what is known as a Spoonerism, the original type of which ...
— The Romance of Words (4th ed.) • Ernest Weekley
... propensities of their age—a disinterested taste for pleasures of the mind, and that readiness of sympathy, that warmth and ardour of curiosity, that necessity for moral improvement and free discussion, which embellish the social relations with ...
— Memoirs To Illustrate The History Of My Time - Volume 1 • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... the antiquities of Vienne, antiently called Vienna Allobrogum. It was a Roman colony, and a considerable city, which the antients spared no pains and expence to embellish. It is still a large town, standing among several hills on the banks of the Rhone, though all its former splendor is eclipsed, its commerce decayed, and most of its antiquities are buried in ruins. The church of Notre Dame de la Vie was undoubtedly ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... "abounds with very strict analogies to the immaterial; and thus some color of truth has been given to the rhetorical dogma, that metaphor, or simile, may be made to strengthen an argument, as well as to embellish a description. The principle of the vis inertiae, for example, seems to be identical in physics and metaphysics. It is not more true in the former, that a large body is with more difficulty set in motion than a smaller one, and that its subsequent ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... verified or disproved at the trial. Meanwhile, come what may, Colonel Moran will trouble us no more, the famous air-gun of Von Herder will embellish the Scotland Yard Museum, and once again Mr. Sherlock Holmes is free to devote his life to examining those interesting little problems which the complex life of ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes - Magazine Edition • Arthur Conan Doyle
... considerin' the bluff of the Grey Fox plenty profound, allows he won't call it. Thar shall be peace between the Apache an' the paleface to the no'th'ard of that line. Then the Grey Fox an' Cochise shakes hands an' says "How!" an' Cochise, with a bolt or two of red calico wherewith to embellish his squaws, goes squanderin' back to his people, permeated to the ...
— Wolfville Nights • Alfred Lewis
... attitude of realism. He states God and inward experience as he would state sunshine and the growth of grass. This, with the devout depth of his nature, makes the rare beauty of his hymns and poems of piety and trust. He does not try to make the facts by stating them; he does not try to embellish them; he only seeks to utter, to state them; and even in his most perfect verse they are not half so melodious as they ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 77, March, 1864 • Various
... Carthage might be, it could not pretend to compare with a city more than a thousand years old, which at all periods of its history had maintained the princely taste for building, and which a long line of emperors had never ceased to embellish. ...
— Saint Augustin • Louis Bertrand
... disturb its deep tranquillity, or to ruffle its mirror-like surface. Even the forests appeared to be slumbering in the sun, and a few piles of fleecy clouds had lain for hours along the northern horizon like fixtures in the atmosphere, placed there purely to embellish the scene. A few aquatic fowls occasionally skimmed along the water, and a single raven was visible, sailing high above the trees, and keeping a watchful eye on the forest beneath him, in order to detect anything having ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... the contrary, words exact and truthful in themselves seem always too thrilling, too great for the subject; seem to embellish it unduly. I feel as if I were acting, for my own benefit, some wretchedly trivial and third-rate comedy; and whenever I try to consider my home in a serious spirit, the scoffing figure of M. Kangourou rises up before me, the matrimonial ...
— Madame Chrysantheme • Pierre Loti
... after my health and enjoy myself as best I could. I would settle down and have a good time after a genteel fashion and, as the poet says: "Gather ye rosebuds while ye may." I would cultivate the little niceties and amenities that go to embellish and round out one's life and character. I would add a few touches to enhance my personal charms. I would manicure my nails; iron out my "crow feet"; bleach out my freckles; keep my hair softened up with hirsute remedies, and my mustache ...
— Confessions of a Neurasthenic • William Taylor Marrs
... clear therefore that she was originally distinct from Bau. For Gudea, Ga-tum-dug is the mother who produced him. He is her servant and she is his mistress. Lagash is her beloved city, and there he prepares for her a dwelling-place, which later rulers, like Entena, embellish. She is called the 'brilliant' (Azag), but as this title is merely a play upon the element found in the city, Uru-azagga, sacred to Bau, not much stress is to be laid upon this designation. Unfortunately, ...
— The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria • Morris Jastrow
... yourself," said the buccaneer. "He has shown good stuff, but our two narratives have struck him; he will remember this night for a long time, and, what is better, he will talk about it. Believe me, all the exaggerations which he will use to embellish his recitals will only add to the strange stories afloat concerning ...
— A Romance of the West Indies • Eugene Sue
... take us for supernatural beings. When Europeans came among them for the first time, they were mistaken for creatures of a higher race. When this sheik comes to speak of to-day's meeting, he will not fail to embellish the circumstance with all the resources of an Arab imagination. You may, therefore, judge what an account their legends will ...
— Five Weeks in a Balloon • Jules Verne
... in the cities, they have all the airs and ignorance of the ladies who give the tone to the circles of the large trading towns in England. They are fond of their ornaments, merely because they are good, and not because they embellish their persons; and are more gratified to inspire the women with jealousy of these exterior advantages, than the men with love. All the frivolity which often (excuse me, Madam) renders the society of modest women so stupid in England, here seemed to throw still more leaden fetters on their charms. ...
— Posthumous Works - of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman • Mary Wollstonecraft
... saloon is decorated in a singular style, the panels being painted with upright landscapes, the leafings of which are executed with a kind of silver lacker. The views seem to be Italian, and are reputed to have been the work of Salvator Rosa, purposely executed to embellish this apartment. The receipt of the painter is said to be in the possession of Mr. Wilcox, the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XIX. No. 554, Saturday, June 30, 1832 • Various
... Sepulchre. To the rapacious and profligate she offered the plunder of fertile plains and wealthy cities. Unhappily, the ingenious and polished inhabitants of the Languedocian provinces were far better qualified to enrich and embellish their country than to defend it. Eminent in the arts of peace, unrivalled in the "gay science," elevated above many vulgar superstitions, they wanted that iron courage, and that skill in martial exercises, which distinguished the chivalry of the ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... present to Your Majesties the homage of our respects, and to thank you for the noble present you have made to our land in the person of your illustrious daughter, Madame, Duchess of Berry. May the future Queen of Spain long embellish the throne on which she is about to take her seat, and reign over the hearts of her new subjects as her heroic sister reigns over ours. Long live the ...
— The Duchess of Berry and the Court of Charles X • Imbert De Saint-Amand
... dates of their deaths are very clearly marked by the different fashions of their dresses—a compact and upstanding ruff adds to the stiff precision of the first wife's appearance; while the sloping lines of a 'Vandyke' collar embellish the dress ...
— Devon, Its Moorlands, Streams and Coasts • Rosalind Northcote
... certain of the tone in which he ought to reply to any observation, or whether the speaker was jesting or in earnest. And so in any event he would embellish all his facial expressions with the offer of a conditional, a provisional smile whose expectant subtlety would exonerate him from the charge of being a simpleton, if the remark addressed to him should ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... might merit the honourable name of history from the truths contained in them, as I shall prefer truth to embellishment. In fact, to embellish my story I have neither leisure nor ability; I shall, therefore, do no more than give a simple narration of events. They are the labours of my evenings, and will come to you an unformed mass, to receive its shape from your hands, or as a chaos on ...
— Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois, Complete • Marguerite de Valois, Queen of Navarre
... pleasure and improvement by persons not unacquainted with learning of the same kind. For whilst you call to mind ancient facts and things sufficiently known, you do it in such a manner, that you illustrate, you embellish them; still adding something new to the old, something entirely your own to the labours of others: by placing good pictures in a good light, you make them appear with unusual elegance and more exalted beauties, even to those who have seen ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin
... day. She was more stern than usual with her pupils, and would not so much as answer them when they asked her where the piano and all the books had come from. Which was a foolish thing to do, since the four Boyle children were keen enough to guess, and sure to carry the news home, and to embellish the truth in true ...
— Rim o' the World • B. M. Bower
... famous history; they have caught the fancy of poets and literary men who have sought in various ways to reproduce and embellish them. Among English-speaking peoples the poem of Tennyson on this subject is a prime favorite. But in Homer the Lotus-eaters are not an isolated fact, they are a link in the chain of a grand development; this inner connecting thought is the ...
— Homer's Odyssey - A Commentary • Denton J. Snider
... slight difference between Me and my epic brethren gone before, And here the advantage is my own, I ween (Not that I have not several merits more, But this will more peculiarly be seen); They so embellish, that 't is quite a bore Their labyrinth of fables to thread through, Whereas ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... had sat by the side of Leonard in his garret. She was about the middle height, still slight, but beautifully formed; that exquisite roundness of proportion which conveys so well the idea of woman, in its undulating, pliant grace,—formed to embellish life, and soften away its rude angles; formed to embellish, not to protect. Her face might not have satisfied the critical eye of an artist,—it was not without defects in regularity; but its expression was eminently ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... affecting, and at others comical, when directing her steps towards her place of banishment, her arrival at the ruinous chateau which has neither doors nor windows, and which is haunted by ghosts, and the attempts to embellish the tumble-down place, and people it with gaiety, animation, and life, are so many scenes to which the piquant style of Mademoiselle gives singular attractiveness. Whilst avenues were being planted and a theatre built, matrimonial negotiations went on as briskly as ever, and pretenders to her ...
— Political Women, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... the story of her strange life. She was the only daughter of John Carr, a grain merchant, who lived in Bristo Street. It would be easy to ascribe to her all the ordinary and extraordinary charms that are thought so necessary to embellish heroines; but as we are not told what these were in her case, we must be contented with the assurance that nature had been kind enough to her to give her power over the hearts of men. We shall be nearer our purpose when we state, ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Vol. XXIII. • Various
... his neighbour. Like Steele, he deems it humanity to laugh at an indifferent jest, and he has thereby earned for himself the reputation of being readily diverted. If he lacks the urbanities which embellish conversation, he is correspondingly free from the brutalities which degrade it. If his instinct does not prompt him to say something agreeable, it saves him from being wantonly unkind. Plain truths may be salutary; but unworthy truths are those which are destitute ...
— Americans and Others • Agnes Repplier
... are not to judge the universe by the small size of our globe and of all that is known to us. For the stains and defects in it may be found as useful for enhancing the beauty of the rest as patches, which have nothing beautiful in themselves, are by the fair sex found adapted to embellish the whole face, although they disfigure the part they cover. Cotta, in Cicero's book, had compared providence, in its granting of reason to men, to a physician who allows wine to a patient, notwithstanding that ...
— Theodicy - Essays on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man and the Origin of Evil • G. W. Leibniz
... grace, more stern, and of a less ideal expression than Greek statues, though equally made by Greek artists. Under Augustus, and the following Roman Emperors, to meet the demand for Greek statues to embellish their houses and villas, several copies and imitations of celebrated Greek works were manufactured by the sculptors of the age. The Apollo Belvidere, the Venus of the Capitol, and several copies of celebrated Greek works, in various Museums, such as the Faun, Cupid, Apollo Sauroctonos, and Venus ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... senior wife now anxiously begged to tattoo a little figure on my arm, which she had no sooner done than the youngest insisted on making the same mark; and while all around were running about and screaming in the greatest confusion, these two poor creatures sat quietly down to embellish me. When the boat landed, a general rush was made for the privilege of carrying our things down to it. Awarunni, who owned the little dog which slept with me, ran and threw him as a present into the boat; when, after a general koonik, we pushed ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry
... at least I wish it may be less spoken. Yet I love its artless and picturesque expressions, its lively recollections of customs and manners which have long ceased to exist, like those old ruins which still embellish our landscape. But the tendency which is gradually effacing the vestiges of our old language and customs is but the tendency ...
— Jasmin: Barber, Poet, Philanthropist • Samuel Smiles
... crumbling top; little knots of men too in the road beyond—evidently expecting something. Even this is in keeping with the poet's grave, which should not be sombre and melancholy, like other graves; and what could better embellish and enliven its aspect than young, blushing life clustering around it? We linger awhile among the boisterous children playing on the churchyard wall, and then we hear a confused sound of voices and music in ...
— A Tramp's Wallet - stored by an English goldsmith during his wanderings in Germany and France • William Duthie
... splendour of this coronation ceremony was singularly spoiled by the pitiable taste of those who had charge of it. These worthies took upon themselves to mutilate the sculpture work on the marvellous facade and to "embellish" the austere cathedral with Gothic decorations of cardboard. The century, like the author, was young, and in some things both were incredibly ignorant; the masterpieces of literature were then unknown to the most learned litterateurs: CHARLES NODIER had never read the "Romancero", and VICTOR ...
— The Memoirs of Victor Hugo • Victor Hugo
... specifications for "One Thousand and One Afternoons." The title, I believe, came later, along with details like the salary. Hang the salary! I doubt if Ben even heard the figure that was named. He merely said "Uh-huh!" and proceeded to embellish his dream—his dream of a department more brilliant, more artistic, truer (I think he said truer), broader and better than anything in the American press; a literary thriller, a knock-out ... ...
— A Thousand and One Afternoons in Chicago • Ben Hecht
... will not cast such a doubt upon the character of my country. Against the sneer of the foe, and the skepticism of the foreigner, I will still point to the domestic virtues, that no perfidy could barter, and no bribery can purchase, that with a Roman usage, at once embellish and consecrate households, giving to the society of the hearth all the purity of the altar; that lingering alike in the palace and the cottage, are still to be found scattered over this land—the relic of what she was—the source perhaps of what she may be—the lone, ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein
... miscall and embellish my perverse tyranny, as much to defy the Charterises as to do her justice. I am more ashamed now that I have the secret of your yielding!' she added, with downcast eyes, yet a sudden smile ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... of Mrs. Hemans will ever keep her memory fresh. "In these 'gems of purest ray serene,' the peculiar genius of Mrs. Hemans breathes, and burns, and shines pre-eminent; for her forte lay in depicting whatever tends to beautify and embellish domestic life, the gentle overflowings of love and friendship, home-bred delights and heartfelt happiness, the associations of local attachment, and the influences of religious feelings over the soul, whether arising from the varied circumstances and ...
— Excellent Women • Various
... the fifty new churches by the Commissioners in Queen Anne's reign, was consecrated in 1723, and had a district assigned to it. It was entirely rearranged and restored in 1868, and has lately been repainted. It is a most peculiar-looking church, with a spire cased in zinc. Small figures of angels embellish some points of vantage, and the symbols of the four Evangelists appear in niches. The windows are round-headed, with tracery of a peculiarly ugly type; but the interior is better than the exterior, and has lately been repaired and ...
— Holborn and Bloomsbury - The Fascination of London • Sir Walter Besant
... its aid to embellish this retreat; Virgil has placed the cavern of Cacus upon Mount Aventine, and the Romans, so great by their history, are still more so by the heroic fictions with which the bards have decorated their fabulous origin. ...
— Corinne, Volume 1 (of 2) - Or Italy • Mme de Stael
... that every man is the architect of his own fortune. Apart from this consideration, the memory of Bewick should be cherished by all our readers; since he re-invented the ingenious means by which we are enabled to embellish unsparingly each ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XX. No. 557., Saturday, July 14, 1832 • Various
... [3] The wonders related of Arthur, he tells us, have been recounted so often that they have become fables. "Not all lies, nor all true, all foolishness, nor all sense; so much have the storytellers told, and so much have the makers of fables fabled to embellish their stories that they have made all seem fable." [4] He omits the prophecies of Merlin from his narrative, because he does not understand them. "I am not willing to translate his book, because I do not know how to ...
— Arthurian Chronicles: Roman de Brut • Wace
... but the idea of the thing evokes the idea. Schopenhauer was right; we do not want the thing, but the idea of the thing. The thing itself is worthless; and the moral writers who embellish it with pious ornamentation are just as reprehensible as Zola, who embellishes it with erotic arabesques. You want the idea drawn out of obscuring matter, and this can best be done by the symbol. The symbol, or the thing itself, that is the great artistic question. In earlier ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore
... good things, all things sweet, delicious and poetic, which embellish life and make it enjoyable, were withdrawing from her, because she was growing old! It was all finished! Yet she still found within her the tenderness of the young girl and the passionate impulses of the young woman. Nothing had grown old but her body, that miserable skin, that stuff over the ...
— Strong as Death • Guy de Maupassant
... I think it, as I did at the kindness which led you to think of me when you met with any thing that you imagined would give me pleasure. Your strictures, which are as true as if they had no wit in them, served to embellish every page as I went on, and were more intelligible and delightful to me than the scientific annotations in the margin. The author is, indeed, a poet; and I wish, with you, that he had devoted his exuberant fancy, his opulence of imagery, and his correct and melodious versification. to subjects ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... extend my thanks to the distinguished ladies who have had the kindness to honor and embellish our tables with their presence; and permit me to invite you to drink with them and with me, hoping that the national harmonizing of individual rights and just liberties, which is called the United States of America, may ...
— Latin America and the United States - Addresses by Elihu Root • Elihu Root
... would very willingly be rid. And being then asked why he did not discharge them, declared that they were bailiffs, who had introduced themselves with an execution, and whom, since he could not send them away, he had thought it convenient to embellish with liveries, that they might do him credit while they stayed. His friends were diverted with the expedient, and by paying the debt discharged their attendants, having obliged Sir Richard to promise that they should never ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins
... doubt as to his vast respect for the greatest living poet, but his remarks do not indicate that he ranked Dryden with Virgil, Tasso, or Milton; for he recognized as well as we that the power to embellish and to imitate successfully does not constitute the highest excellence in poetry. In the Epistle to a Friend he affirmed his admiration for Dryden's matchless style, his harmony, his lofty strains, his youthful fire, and even his wit—in the main, qualities of style and expression. ...
— Epistle to a Friend Concerning Poetry (1700) and the Essay on Heroic Poetry (second edition, 1697) • Samuel Wesley
... felt to know something of the lives of men who have consecrated their genius to embellish noble feelings through works of art, through which they shine like brilliant meteors in the eyes of the surprised and delighted crowd. The admiration and sympathy awakened by the compositions of such men, attach immediately to their own names, which are at once elevated ...
— Life of Chopin • Franz Liszt
... that she had developed the subtle quality which calls up thoughts of love. Not marry? Why, the vagrant fire had just lighted on her—and the fact that she was poor and unattached, with her own way to make, and no setting of pleasure and elegance to embellish her—these disadvantages seemed as nothing to Amherst against the warmth of personality in which she moved. And besides, she would never be drawn to the kind of man who needed fine clothes and luxury to point him to the charm of ...
— The Fruit of the Tree • Edith Wharton
... in the most difficult mountain ascents. His dark-blue jacket, fitting tightly at the waist, was adorned on the shoulders with epaulets, and in the back with designs in colored embroidery similar to those that embellish the vests of the Breton peasantry. His yellow breeches were fastened at the knee by large buckles. Upon his head he wore a broad-brimmed brown hat with a red-and-black band, and his legs were usually incased either in coarse cloth gaiters or in ...
— Ticket No. "9672" • Jules Verne
... precious manuscript to his bosom friend, Sidney Rigdon, that he might embellish and alter it, as he might think expedient. The publisher now dead, Rigdon allowed this chef-d'oeuvre to remain in his desk, till, reflecting upon his precarious means, and upon his chances of obtaining a future livelihood, a sudden idea struck him. Rigdon well knew his countrymen, and their ...
— Monsieur Violet • Frederick Marryat
... eagerness roused the hope that perhaps here they might find something with which to embellish a story in which, so far, they had uncovered little to add to that of yesterday. But first they must know who this ...
— The Fate of Felix Brand • Florence Finch Kelly
... people sympathise with us and follow us we must make them believe that we want, not to overthrow the Republic, but, on the contrary, to restore it, to cleanse, to purify, to embellish, to adorn, to beautify, and to ornament it, to render it, in a word, glorious and attractive. Therefore, we ought not to act openly ourselves. It is known that we are not favourable to the present order. We must ...
— Penguin Island • Anatole France
... rather for ostentation or luxury, than any real usefulness or necessity, as in baths, amphitheaters, circuses, obelisks, triumphal pillars, arches, and mausoleums; for what they added to the aqueducts was rather to supply their baths and naumachias, and to embellish the city with fountains, than out of any real necessity ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 7 - Italy, Sicily, and Greece (Part One) • Various
... enjoyed it generously and kindly. No lover ever delighted more to cherish and adorn a mistress, to heighten and illustrate her charms, and to vindicate and defend her against all the world than did the Moors to embellish, enrich, elevate, and defend their beloved Spain. Everywhere I meet traces of their sagacity, courage, urbanity, high poetical feeling, and elegant taste. The noblest institutions in this part of ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... or the elegant gentle curve of the Roman dome was substituted for the fanciful lofty Gothic. A rounded arch replaced the pointed. And the ancient Greek orders—Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian— were dragged from oblivion to embellish the simple symmetrical buildings. The newer architecture was used for ecclesiastical and other structures, reaching perhaps its highest expression in the vast cathedral of St. Peter, which was erected at Rome in the sixteenth century ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes
... the writer would not, for the wealth of England, steal from poesy a single lie with which to embellish this narrative. The following is a true history, on which you may safely spend the treasures of your sensibility—if you ...
— Madame Firmiani • Honore de Balzac
... notion), that all things are in a perpetual flux, still these changes are often unconscious, and devoid either of pleasure or pain. We assume, then, that there are three states—pleasureable, painful, neutral; we may embellish a little by calling them gold, silver, and that which ...
— Philebus • Plato
... and its cracked wall, on which hung strips of an old yellow paper. In the sonorous emptiness of the place, there ensued a heated discussion. Monsieur Marescot exclaimed that it was the business of shopkeepers to embellish their shops, for a shopkeeper might wish to have gold put about everywhere, and he, the landlord, could not put out gold. Then he related that he had spent more than twenty thousand francs in fitting ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... in a violent access of self-contempt, "it is a name of abandoned omen and is destined only to reach the ears of posterity to embellish the proverb of scorn, 'The lame duck should avoid the ploughed field.' Can there—can there by no chance ...
— Kai Lung's Golden Hours • Ernest Bramah
... phenomena made it impossible for the mere scientist to be the sponsor. It became a question of faith rather than knowledge; and man's instinctive struggle against the risk of extinction impelled him to cling to this larger hope of salvation, and to embellish it with an ethical and moral significance which at first was lacking in the eternal search for the elixir ...
— The Evolution of the Dragon • G. Elliot Smith
... and embellish the city of Mexico, which was again as well peopled by natives as ever it had been before the conquest. All of these were exempted from paying tribute to his majesty, till their houses were built, and till the causeways, bridges, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. IV. • Robert Kerr
... Henry II of France, he removed to Paris. He established a workshop in the vicinity of the royal Palace of the Tuileries, and was thereafter known as "Bernard of the Tuileries." He was employed by the king and queen and some of the greatest nobles of France to embellish their palaces and gardens with the products of his ...
— Eclectic School Readings: Stories from Life • Orison Swett Marden
... island strongholds. Will you have a less stormy and belligerent company to people the hill? In the quieter days of the fourteenth century, on any bright afternoon, you could have sat beside some friendly artist-monk, and watched him color and embellish those wondrous missals that made the manuscripts of the Brothers famous throughout France. Earlier yet, in those naive centuries, Robert de Torigny, that "bouche des Papes," would doubtless have discoursed to you on any subject dear to this "counsellor of kings"—on ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd
... We have been induced, in the first instance, to reprint a thing which he put forth in a friend's volume some years since, entitled 'The Confessions of a Drunkard,' seeing that Messieurs the Quarterly Reviewers have chosen to embellish their last dry pages with fruitful quotations therefrom; adding, from their peculiar brains, the gratuitous affirmation, that they have reason to believe that the describer (in his delineations of a drunkard, forsooth!) partly sat for his own picture. The truth is, that ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various
... of our heavens is but a poor perfunctory conception, for all that the highest and cleverest among us have done their very utmost to decorate and embellish it, and make life there seem worth living. So impossible it is to imagine or invent beyond the sphere ...
— Peter Ibbetson • George du Marier et al
... or ensemble dance, or a song number will live. Without atmosphere the dance becomes all perspiration and no sense. There must be a definite idea behind a dance or underneath it. Everything must be done to embellish the theme or general idea. No idea must be overproduced; just enough must be done in the way of creating atmosphere for a dance to allow it to get over properly. In other words, it must be fully realized and produced properly, in a ...
— The Art of Stage Dancing - The Story of a Beautiful and Profitable Profession • Ned Wayburn
... And perhaps it is the case that the greatest artists live and die, the world and themselves alike ignorant what they possess. Who would not mourn that an ample palace, of surpassingly graceful architecture, fill'd with luxuries, and embellish'd with fine pictures and sculpture, should stand cold and still and vacant, and never be known or enjoy'd by its owner? Would such a fact as this cause your sadness? Then be sad. For there is a palace, to which the courts of the most sumptuous kings ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... Pompeii is naturally the chief place for its study, and in Pompeii the untouched Casa Nuova is all important for the student. According to Pliny, the inventor of this pleasing style of decoration was a certain Ludius, who flourished in the reign of Augustus, and first persuaded the Romans to embellish their flat wall-surfaces with designs of "villas and halls, artificial gardens, hedges, woods, hills, water basins, tombs, rivers, shores, in as great a variety as could be desired; figures sitting at ease, mariners, ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan
... the steps of Mr. FROTHINGHAM'S church, and scare each other with thrilling stories of the gentle ANNIE'S fierce exploits and deeds of daring. Among the best authenticated of these (stripped of the ornate figures of speech with which the pious newsboys are wont to embellish the ...
— Punchinello Vol. 2, No. 28, October 8, 1870 • Various
... watch-chain with its pendant "charms," could lower his chin a quarter of an inch till bed-time. But more was yet to come. There were cuffs to put on, which left one to guess what had become of Mr Booms's knuckles, and a light jaunty necktie to embellish the "dicky." Then, with a plaintive sigh, he produced a blue figured waistcoat, and after it a coat shaped like the coat of a robin to cover all. Finally there appeared a hat, broad-brimmed, low-crowned, ...
— Reginald Cruden - A Tale of City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... towards Saint Paul's, chiefly occupied in conversation on the great merit displayed in the excellent designs of Mr. Cruikshank, which embellish the work they had just been viewing; nor did they discover any thing further worthy of notice, till Bob's ears were suddenly attracted by a noise somewhat like that of a rattle, and turning sharply round to discover from whence it came, was amused with the sight of several small busts of great men, ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... behold the cities of Strasburg and Frankfort, Friendly Mannheim, too, that is cheerful and evenly builded. He that has once beheld cities so cleanly and large, never after Ceases his own native city, though small it may be, to embellish. Do not the strangers who come here commend the repairs in our gateway, Notice our whitewashed tower, and the church we have newly rebuilded? Are not all praising our pavement? the covered canals full of water, Laid with a wise distribution, ...
— Hermann and Dorothea • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... digested what Meynell had told me," continued Bradshawe, "when I met Shortridge, and lo! L'Isle had already found them out in their dirty lodgings," and the colonel went on to repeat and embellish Shortridge's narrative of L'Isle's kind attention, and the origin of their intimacy. Various were the comments of the company on the affair. But they all agreed to the justness of their colonel's criticism, ...
— The Actress in High Life - An Episode in Winter Quarters • Sue Petigru Bowen
... likewise another Original of Architecture, which is taken from the Inventers of the several Orders, and those that added the Ornaments to embellish them. For it's the common Opinion, that the first Fabrick that was made, according to any of the Orders, was the Temple that King Dorus built in Honour of Juno in the City Argos. And it obtained the ...
— An Abridgment of the Architecture of Vitruvius - Containing a System of the Whole Works of that Author • Vitruvius
... are far from having exhausted the significance of the few symbols we use," also (2, b), above; "He could embellish the characters with new traits without violating probability;" "He could not help holding out his hand ...
— An English Grammar • W. M. Baskervill and J. W. Sewell
... the most fashionable of Parisian belles; for they bestow much labour, time, and thought, and endure much actual suffering in the elaborate patterns with which they tattoo, and, as they vainly suppose, embellish their faces and persons. The ancient Britons, who painted themselves in various devices, also bore witness to the natural craving after personal adornment, which seems to be inherent in the whole ...
— Routledge's Manual of Etiquette • George Routledge
... toast which old M'Dermott had provided for me, sat nodding and dozing on one side of the fire. The old cobbler had fallen fast asleep on the other side while poring over a dictionary, noting down sonorous and impressive-sounding words with which to embellish the oration he intended to deliver ...
— A Girl Among the Anarchists • Isabel Meredith
... Valley which she knew so well and loved so dearly. It is the first of her novels in which she celebrates her birthplace. There are walks along the country pathways, long meditations at night, village weddings and fetes. All the poetry and all the picturesqueness of the country transform and embellish the story. ...
— George Sand, Some Aspects of Her Life and Writings • Rene Doumic
... of these primers is to convey information in such a manner as to make it both intelligible and interesting to very young pupils, and so to discipline their minds as to incline them to more systematic after-studies. The woodcuts which illustrate them embellish and explain the ...
— History of France • Charlotte M. Yonge
... vicious, sharp flash in his eyes: "That patrician viper! Every where in everything—she spoils it all! But wait a while! I fancy she will soon be removed from our path, and then. . . . No, even now, at the present time, I will not allow that we should be deprived of what would embellish life, of doing a thing which may turn the scale in my favor in the day of judgment. The wishes of a dying man are sacred: So our fathers held it; and they were right. The old man's will must be done! Yes, yes, yes. It is settled. As soon as that hindrance is removed, we will keep house ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... whose bright shining beames Adorne the worlde with like to heavenly light, And to your willes both royalties and Reames Subdew, through conquest of your wondrous might, With this fayre flowre your goodly girlonds dight Of chastity and vertue virginall, That shall embellish more your beautie bright, And crowne your heades with heavenly coronall, Such as the Angels weare before ...
— Spenser - (English Men of Letters Series) • R. W. Church
... hesitatingly, and are loth to mar the exquisite shadings and perfect outlines of the vessel in which the rich juices are served. Therefore, in stocking the acre with fruit, the proprietor has not ceased to embellish it; and should he decide that fruit-trees must predominate over those grown for shade and ornament only, he can combine almost as much beauty ...
— The Home Acre • E. P. Roe
... mahogany furniture, now, alas! in scattered remnants, meets the eye at every turn. Treasures and elegant trifles of many lands attest the artistic taste of the owners. Gorgeous china, plate and glass are there in everyday use. Fruits of the loom in rarest silk and linen, embellish the chambers and luxury sits enthroned. The chatelaine, gracious and cultured, is to the manner born: and from season to season she fills her house with congenial people who are invited to come, but not, as with present house parties, told when to go. As long as they found it comfortable ...
— Historic Papers on the Causes of the Civil War • Mrs. Eugenia Dunlap Potts
... these solemnities really are, is but little known, and they seem to differ widely in each tribe. In some, the young girls have a couple of front teeth knocked out; in others they lose a joint of the little finger; and at that time the hideous lumps with which the men embellish their bodies must be raised. These curious ornaments are formed by cutting gashes in the flesh three-quarters of an inch long, and stuffing the wound with mud, which prevents the edges from adhering, and when the skin ...
— Australian Search Party • Charles Henry Eden
... the world—as, for example, to make Hannibal and Scipio contemporaries with Alexander—but in the dark recesses of antiquity a great poet may and ought to feign such things as he finds not there, if they can be brought to embellish that subject which he treats. On the other side, the pains and diligence of ill poets is but thrown away when they want the genius to invent and feign agreeably. But if the fictions be delightful (which they always are if they be natural) if they be of a piece; if the beginning, the middle, ...
— Discourses on Satire and Epic Poetry • John Dryden
... permission to enquire after her health the next day; he came, he was enchanting; polite, lively, soft, insinuating, adorned with every outward grace which could embellish virtue, or hide vice from view, to see and to love him was almost the ...
— The History of Emily Montague • Frances Brooke
... by effecting a general disarmament, and he ordered that all weapons should be sent in to his capital at Hienyang. This "skillful disarming of the provinces added daily to the wealth and prosperity of the capital," which he proceeded to embellish. He built one palace within the walls, and the Hall of Audience was ornamented with twelve statues, each of which weighed twelve thousand pounds. But his principal residence named the Palace of Delight, was without the walls, and there he laid out magnificent ...
— China • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... wished for peace. He was constructing vast works to embellish and improve the empire. Thousands of workmen were employed in cutting magnificent roads across the Alps. He was watching with intensest interest the growth of fortifications and the excavation of canals. He was in the possession of absolute power, ...
— Napoleon Bonaparte • John S. C. Abbott
... was altered. About the time of Pyrrhus silver plate began to make its appearance on Roman tables, and the chroniclers date the disappearance of shingle roofs in Rome from 470.(40) The new capital of Italy gradually laid aside its village-like aspect, and now began to embellish itself. It was not yet indeed customary to strip the temples in conquered towns of their ornaments for the decoration of Rome; but the beaks of the galleys of Antium were displayed at the orator's platform in the Forum(41) and on ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... simple and probable account of the discovery of Madeira in Purchas. Clarke has chosen to embellish it with a variety of very extraordinary circumstances, which being utterly unworthy of credit, we do not think necessary to be inserted in this place. See Progress of ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. II • Robert Kerr
... A few centuries before, Greece had reached the summit of science and art. No country, in ancient or modern times, has surpassed the acumen of her philosophical writers and the aesthetic perfection of her poets and artists. Rome made use of her to embellish her cities, and inherited her taste for ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud
... which, having left its nest, although its mother had forbidden it to do so, flew to the top of a chimney, fell down the flue into the fire, and died a victim to his disobedience. The person who told the story thought it necessary to embellish it from his own imagination. 'That's not right,' said the child at the first change which was made, 'the mother said this and did that.' His cousin, not remembering the story word for word, was obliged to have recourse to invention to fill up gaps. But the child could not stand it. He slid ...
— The Story Hour • Nora A. Smith and Kate Douglas Wiggin
... nibbling buttered scones at five o'clock tea mounts the pulpit and addresses us upon the subject of the Holy Trinity. On this subject naturally he has nothing to tell us, and naturally we are bored. Rather than abolish ritual I would embellish it, calling to my aid all the resources of art and music. I would invest my ritual with awe and majesty, and my priests should be a ...
— The Orchard of Tears • Sax Rohmer
... beautiful wife to embellish his canvas, disfigured hitherto by an injudicious selection of models; a virtuous wife to be his crown; a prudent wife to save him from ruin; a cheerful wife to sustain his spirits, drooping at times by virtue of his artist's temperament; ...
— Christie Johnstone • Charles Reade
... Leonard in his garret. She was about the middle height, still slight but beautifully formed; that exquisite roundness of proportion, which conveys so well the idea of woman, in its undulating pliant grace—formed to embellish life, and soften away its rude angles—formed to embellish, not to protect. Her face might not have satisfied the critical eye of an artist—it was not without defects in regularity; but its expression was eminently gentle and ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various
... which receives this, not only is content with the exaggeration of the first mind, but its own report adds its own effect of endeavours to embellish, and so by this action, and by the deception which it also receives from the goodwill generated in it, good report is made more ample than it should be; either with the consent or the dissent of the conscience; even as it was with the first ...
— The Banquet (Il Convito) • Dante Alighieri
... as to come off, to escape by a fetch; to fall on, to attack; to fall off, to apostatize; to break off, to stop abruptly; to bear out, to justify; to fall in, to comply; to give over, to cease; to set off, to embellish; to set in, to begin a continual tenour; to set out, to begin a course or journey; to take off, to copy; with innumerable expressions of the same kind, of which some appear wildly irregular, being so far distant from the sense of the simple words, that no sagacity will be able ...
— Preface to a Dictionary of the English Language • Samuel Johnson
... aspects of nature, that all art is primarily representative—this notion is as unsound as the theory that Friday is an unlucky day, and is dying as hard. One even finds some trace of it in Anatole France, surely a man who should know better. The true function of art is to criticise, embellish and edit nature—particularly to edit it, and so make it coherent and lovely. The artist is a sort of impassioned proof-reader, blue-pencilling the lapsus calami of God. The sounds in a Beethoven symphony, ...
— Damn! - A Book of Calumny • Henry Louis Mencken
... pitch her voice fairly into the room, gradually ceased. Gabriel recognised the prelude. It was that of an old song of Aunt Julia's—Arrayed for the Bridal. Her voice, strong and clear in tone, attacked with great spirit the runs which embellish the air and though she sang very rapidly she did not miss even the smallest of the grace notes. To follow the voice, without looking at the singer's face, was to feel and share the excitement of swift and secure flight. Gabriel applauded loudly ...
— Dubliners • James Joyce
... song, The Keys of Heaven—the words of which hold such a tender, whimsical understanding of the feminine heart. Perhaps the refusal of the coach and four black horses "as black as pitch," and of all the other good things wherewith the lover in the song seeks to embellish his suit, was not rendered with quite as much emphasis as it should have been. One might almost have suspected the lady of a desire not to be too discouraging in her denials. But the final verse ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler
... not only has mythology used this fruit to embellish the joy and sacredness of the marriage rite, but the Holy Bible makes the apple tree a type of the lover and of love; for we read: 'As the apple tree among the trees of the wood, so is my beloved among the sons.' And, 'Comfort me with apples.' Such pictures as these suggest ...
— The Kentucky Ranger • Edward T. Curnick
... that angel is, that with such glee Beholds our queen, and so enamour'd glows Of her high beauty, that all fire he seems." So I again resorted to the lore Of my wise teacher, he, whom Mary's charms Embellish'd, as the sun the morning star; Who thus in answer spake: "In him are summ'd, Whatever of buxomness and free delight May be in Spirit, or in angel, met: And so beseems: for that he bare the palm Down unto Mary, when the Son of God Vouchsaf'd to clothe him in terrestrial ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... forsake us entirely, it still will take with it nothing of what we have given, nor will there be lost one single sincere, religious, disinterested effort that we have put forth to ennoble this faith, to exalt or embellish it. Every thought we have added, each worthy sacrifice we have had the courage to make in its name, will have left its indelible mark on our moral existence. The body is gone, but the palace it ...
— The Buried Temple • Maurice Maeterlinck |
