"Embroidery" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... artists, of all nations; from the earliest Egyptian potters downwards—Greeks, Byzantines, Hindoos, Arabs, Gauls, and Northmen—all joining in the toil; and consummating it in Florence, in that century, with such embroidery of robe and inlaying of armor as had never been seen till then; nor probably, ever will be seen more. Angelico merely takes his share of this inheritance, and applies it in the tenderest way to subjects which are peculiarly acceptant of it. But the inspiration, if it exist ...
— The Ethics of the Dust • John Ruskin
... a mistake when we demand of Whitman what the other poets give us,—studies, embroidery, delicate tracings, pleasing artistic effects, rounded and finished specimens. We shall understand him better if we inquire what his own standards are, what kind of a poet he would be. He tells us over and over again that he would emulate the great forces and processes of Nature. He seeks ...
— Whitman - A Study • John Burroughs
... time for twenty years,—at his niece's wedding. Hester's beauty, and what Mrs Grey had said about it to her maid, were discussed, just at the moment when Hester, passing the shop, was entreated by Sophia to look at a new pattern of embroidery which had lately arrived from London, and was suspended at the window. Mrs Howell and her gossips caught a glimpse of the face of the young lady, through the drapery of prints and muslins, and the festoons of ribbons; and when the party proceeded down the street, there ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau
... "folderols" in her education. Sewing, cooking, housework she was taught root and branch in the time not spent at school, both grammar and high. During the last year Mrs. Champney permitted her to learn French and embroidery in a systematic manner at the school established by the gentle Frenchwomen in The Gore; but she steadily refused to permit the girl to cultivate her voice through the medium of proper instruction. This denial of the girl's strongest desire was always a common subject ...
— Flamsted quarries • Mary E. Waller
... it would be as well for her to begin next week. From eight to twelve. And she is so young there is no real need of her beginning other things. Betty can teach her to sew and do embroidery." ...
— A Little Girl in Old Boston • Amanda Millie Douglas
... wide-eyed indignation. "Why, I paid $16. for this waist. It's worth twenty-five. A woman left it to be laundered, and never called for it. The boss sold it to me. It's got yards and yards of hand embroidery on it. Better talk about that ugly, ...
— The Trimmed Lamp and Others • O Henry
... encased her feet, which were guiltless of stockings. White, full trousers were gathered close at the knee and fell over nearly to her ankles. Her dress was a short purple velvet skirt embroidered round the bottom and up the front with gilt braid in a showy vine pattern; the same embroidery on her black silk jacket, which was open in front, but without any lace; and around her neck was a magnificent string of pearls. Her hair (what there was of it) was drawn back from her face, braided, and the end of the little "pig tail" fastened to her ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XVII. No. 101. May, 1876. • Various
... hope to equal the neat-handed Sister Frances. She had a variety of other accomplishments; but her humility and good sense forbade her, upon the present occasion, to mention these. She said nothing of embroidery, or of painting, or of cutting out paper, or of carving in ivory, though in all these she excelled: her cuttings-out in paper were exquisite as the finest lace; her embroidered housewives, and her painted boxes, and her fan-mounts, and her curiously ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. 6 • Maria Edgeworth
... carpets on pageant days) which still remain in the stained whitewash, the seams of battered bricks of the solid old escutcheoned palaces; see them sometimes displayed like the worm-eaten squares of discoloured embroidery which the curiosity dealers take out of their musty oak presses; and sometimes dragging about mere useless and befouled odds and ends, like the torn shreds which lie among the decaying kitchen refuse, the broken tiles and ...
— Euphorion - Being Studies of the Antique and the Mediaeval in the - Renaissance - Vol. I • Vernon Lee
... marketings." They sold his books without his knowledge. "They made nothing of deserting him," he was often heard to complain. They continued to live with him five or six years after his marriage. But at last the situation became intolerable to both parties, and they were sent out to learn embroidery in gold or silver, as a means of obtaining their livelihood. Deborah, the youngest, was included in the same arrangement, though she seems to have been more helpful to her father, and to have been at one time his principal reader. Aubrey says that he "taught her Latin, and that she was his amanuensis." ...
— Milton • Mark Pattison
... the King of Phoenecia by night, and carried off many of his treasures and captives, among whom probably were these Sidonian women. Tyre and Sidon were famous for works in gold, embroidery, etc., and for whatever pertained to magnificence ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer
... up her embroidery again before she answered him. In her opinion the needle is to the woman what the cigarette is to ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... sat in the principal drawing-room, with her embroidery-frame before her, determined not to be flurried or disturbed by the bride's return. She sat at a respectful distance from the blazing logs, with a screen interposed carefully between her complexion and the fire, the very image of stiffness and propriety; not one of her dull-brown ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... and oil standing inside its door, and workmen, behind a barrier of barrels and planks, laying a cement sidewalk in front. They passed the Five-and-Ten-Cent Store, its unwashed windows jammed with pyramids of dry-looking chocolates, post cards, and jewellery, and festoons of trashy embroidery, and the corner fruit stands heaped with tomatoes and sprawling grapes. At the Palace Candy Store a Japanese boy in his shirt-sleeves was washing the show window, which was empty except for some rumpled sheets of sun-faded pink crepe paper. By the ...
— Martie the Unconquered • Kathleen Norris
... dressed entirely in black cloth, with a splendid frilled shirt adorned with one diamond. The three friends observed a young and pretty woman sitting near the desk, working at some embroidery. ...
— Unconscious Comedians • Honore de Balzac
... upside down as upside up. To be sure, very sensitive people can always discover from the design itself how it should be viewed, and, without much difficulty, will place correctly a piece of lace or embroidery in which there is no informatory clue to guide them. Nevertheless, when an artist makes an intricate design it is tempting and, indeed, reasonable, for him to wish to provide a clue; and to do so he has only to work into his design ...
— Art • Clive Bell
... For a second it looked as though they were doomed to annihilation, for once they were scattered among those narrow streets they would be shot down like dogs. At this point Wilson became conscious of the presence of a gaunt figure, dressed in a long, black robe, bearing upon back and chest in gold embroidery the ...
— The Web of the Golden Spider • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... wear coats made of green blankets, others of blue ones, and some of a scarlet red. There are hunting-shirts of dressed deerskin, with plaited skirt, and cape, fringed and jauntily adorned with beads and embroidery—the favourite style of the backwoods hunter, but others there are of true Indian cut—open only at the throat, and hanging loose, or fastened around the waist with a belt—the same that secures the knife and pistol. There are cloth ...
— The War Trail - The Hunt of the Wild Horse • Mayne Reid
... carried was in the Brixton Road, near to the White House public-house. Fifty years ago it had been a rich merchant's home and was almost a country house, but now, like many similar houses, it had fallen to a dingy estate: it was, without embroidery of description, a lodging-house. Miss Squibb, who opened the door to him, had a look of settled depression on her face that was not, as he at first imagined, due to disapproval of him, but, as he speedily discovered, to a deeply-rooted conviction that the rest of humanity was ...
— The Foolish Lovers • St. John G. Ervine
... nothing!" says the Eternal Painter. "If you feel important, remember that man's hectic bustling makes but worm-work on the planet. Live and breathe joyfully and magnificently! Do not strain your eyes over embroidery! Come to my open gallery! And how do you like the way I set those silver clouds a-tumbling? Do you know anything better under the dome of any church or capitol? Shall I bank them? Line them with purple? It is done! But no! Let ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer
... stir, and lace and ribbons, and the twelve flounces, and the embroidery, and all the rest crackled and disappeared. He then put in her hands the butter basket she had brought to take on to her grandmother's, and accompanied her to the edge of the wood, where it merged in the undulating open country in which her ...
— The Romantic Adventures of a Milkmaid • Thomas Hardy
... come, and they had meant to drive a little bargain between them and keep some of the best land and settle Jasiek Gryb on it like a nobleman, and he was to marry Orzchewski's Paulinka. You know, she had learnt embroidery from the squire's wife, and Jasiek had been doing work in the bailiff's office and now goes about in an overcoat on high-days and holidays and...give me another thimbleful, or I shall feel faint ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various
... ourselves, with wine and good cake, and saw the show very well. In which it is impossible to relate the glory of this day, expressed in the clothes of them that rid, and their horses and horses clothes, among others, my Lord Sandwich's. Embroidery and diamonds were ordinary among them. The Knights of the Bath was a brave sight of itself; and their Esquires, among which Mr. Armiger was an Esquire to one of the Knights. Remarquable were the two men ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... leap frantically into the gutter. Sunsets over the western dunes and the Bay were hazily wonderful fantasies of crimson and purple and gold and sapphire, with the nets and poles of the distant fish weirs scattered here and there about the placid water like bits of fairy embroidery. And then to end his walk by turning in at the Phipps' gate; the lamplight in the cozy dining room shining a welcome and Martha's pleasant, attractive face above the teacups. It was like coming home, like ...
— Galusha the Magnificent • Joseph C. Lincoln
... yards, 8 dollars each; Burgones, of 10 yards long the piece, 45 dollars the corge; sleeve silk, the best made colours, 3 dollars the cattee; the best musk, 22 dollars the cattee; the best sewing gold thread, 15 knots, and every knot 30 threads, one dollar; velvet hangings with gold embroidery, 18 dollars; upon sattins, 14 dollars; white curtain stuffs, 9 yards the piece, 50 dollars the corge; flat white damask, 9 yards the piece, 4 dollars each; white sugar, very dry, 3-1/2 dollars the pekul; very ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. VIII. • Robert Kerr
... cloak like this is yet in condition to render that resplendent uniform invisible. Not a spangle of that magnificent gold embroidery can be seen, it is all overshadowed by the ragged old cloak which Munnich so much despises! Oh, the good field-marshal will rejoice to find his mantle in such good company, and I hope my cloak may leave some visible memento upon its embroidered ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... out of his way to make the clothing of his thoughts thus heterogeneous. He counts every stolen scrap he can work in an improvement—a literary caddis worm. Yet would he consider it improvement to put a piece of even the richest of old tapestry or gold embroidery into ...
— Certain Personal Matters • H. G. Wells
... less than Fanning Harding and Regina Mortlake. While Peggy and the daughter of the designer of the Mortlake aeroplane chatted in one corner, Fanning placed his arm on Roy's shoulder and drew him out upon the veranda where Miss Prescott sat with her embroidery. ...
— The Girl Aviators' Sky Cruise • Margaret Burnham
... Italian and Italianized singers a chance to show off the mellow qualities of their voices to the best advantage. The very word cantabile emphasizes, by antithesis, the unvocal character of the old florid style. Fioritura means embroidery, while cantabile means "song-like." But now, note how the sins of one period are visited on the next. The evils of the florid style did not terminate with its supremacy. They cast a shadow before, which prevented the real ...
— Chopin and Other Musical Essays • Henry T. Finck
... each day he went to the treasury only to find it locked. The sacristan could give him no comfort. "Perhaps to-morrow, my lord," he would say when the earl put his customary question; "it is the annual cleaning, and sometimes a jewel needs resetting, an embroidery to be repaired—all this takes time—perhaps to-morrow. Shall I uncover the Palo d'Oro, my Lord, or light up the alabaster column; they are both very fine?" And the earl would turn on his heel and leave the church, only to come back in an hour to repeat ...
— The Turquoise Cup, and, The Desert • Arthur Cosslett Smith
... wearing silver chains around their necks and words at their sides, and officers in uniform; and then gildings everywhere, almost enough to blind you. At length we found the bald gentleman in a saloon with some other gentlemen, all laced over with embroidery; he introduced us into a large room, where we found M. Rudolph—that is to say, the prince, dressed very plainly, and looking so kind, so frank, so little proud—in fine, he looked so much like the M. ...
— Mysteries of Paris, V3 • Eugene Sue
... Pocahontas with her wistful eyes and braided hair and finger on her lips; Nantauquas; Dale, the knight-marshal, and Argall with his fierce, unscrupulous face; my cousin George Percy, and my mother with her stately figure, her embroidery in her hands. I knew that they were but phantoms of my brain, but their ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston
... remember very well, one evening at her own house, I was working at some embroidery (I never saw her with that feminine implement, a needle, in her fingers, and have a notion she despised those who employed it, and the results they achieved), and I was listening with perfect satisfaction ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... hesitate to employ verse. Certainly, the subject is inviting, and I am surprised that no singer has arisen. How can any one view the Viceroyal halo of scarlet domestics, with all the bravery of coronets, supporters, and shields in golden embroidery and lace, without emotion! How can the tons of gold and silver plate that once belonged to John Company, Bahadur, and that now repose on the groaning board of the Great Ornamental, amid a glory of Himalayan flowers, or blossoms from Eden's fields of asphodel, be reflected ...
— Twenty-One Days in India; and, the Teapot Series • George Robert Aberigh-Mackay
... the cool refreshing air, many of the girls were frankly lounging, as became the tropics, others were turning the leaves of the Journal des Modes, dabbling in water colours, pensively frowning at an embroidery frame. Of the three young men present one was absorbed in the Racing Calendar, another was making himself generally agreeable, offering to read aloud or hold wool, and a third was flirting in a corner ...
— The Gorgeous Isle - A Romance; Scene: Nevis, B.W.I. 1842 • Gertrude Atherton
... ceiling, painted to represent the sky lit up by the crescent moon, was supported by eight arabesque pillars, four on either hand. Around the bases of the pillars, and scattered here and there over the rich carpet, were seats made of huge soft cushions, covered with matchless embroidery. Near one of these luxurious seats was a low carved table upon which lay an open volume of Ronsard's poems, and close by it, thrown carelessly on the carpet, was a lute with a cluster of streaming ribbons, and a black and white satin sling attached to it. Behind this stood ...
— Orrain - A Romance • S. Levett-Yeats
... a little thin man in white linen coat and waistcoat and a large straw hat, and his wife, a fat woman, doing embroidery, sat behind him. ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... dog's ribs or stomach. This back band is generally covered with little brass bells; the collar is also hung with larger bells, and tufts of gay-coloured ribbons or fox-tails are put upon it. Great pride is taken in turning out a train of dogs in good style. Beads, bells, and embroidery are freely used to bedizen the poor brutes, and a most comical effect is produced by the appearance of so much finery upon the woefully frightened dog, who, when he is first put into his harness, usually looks the ...
— The Great Lone Land - A Narrative of Travel and Adventure in the North-West of America • W. F. Butler
... chanted out his lesson, passed as haughtily by him as if his own had been the better office, which in this place was very well taken, though Bronchus for his high mind happened afterward upon some disasters, too long to tell, that spoiled much of his embroidery. ...
— The Commonwealth of Oceana • James Harrington
... sopranos, is equally familiar. It is based upon a lovely melody, first given out by the first soprano, and then by the second, after which the two voices carry the theme through measure after measure of mere vocal embroidery, closing with an extremely brilliant cadenza in genuine operatic style. The fourth number is the bass aria "Pro peccatis," the two themes in which are very earnest and even serious in character, and come nearer to the church style than any other parts of the work. ...
— The Standard Oratorios - Their Stories, Their Music, And Their Composers • George P. Upton
... she had dreamed that he brought her a dress, and the precious stones and gold embroidery on it were ...
— The Blue Fairy Book • Various
... thirty-years ago are old times; in Paris ten years, or five; in Weatherbury three or four score years were included in the mere present, and nothing less than a century set a mark on its face or tone. Five decades hardly modified the cut of a gaiter, the embroidery of a smock-frock, by the breadth of a hair. Ten generations failed to alter the turn of a single phrase. In these Wessex nooks the busy outsider's ancient times are only old; his old times are still new; ...
— Far from the Madding Crowd • Thomas Hardy
... side walked a handsome boy of about three, clad, like his companion, in gay colors. His tiny surcoat of scarlet velvet was rich with embroidery, while beneath was a close-fitting tunic of white silk. His doublet was of scarlet, while his long hose of white were cross-gartered with scarlet from his tiny sandals to his knees. On the back of his brown curls sat a flat-brimmed, round-crowned hat in which a single ...
— The Outlaw of Torn • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... won't let the poet say that the sun shone or the night was dark without seeing some hidden and mystic meaning in it. They always seem to chercher midi a quatorze heures, and irritate me beyond measure. There is invention enough in Dante without all their embroidery. But this grubbing and grouting seems to be infectious among Dante ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse
... luxury well attested by the quality of the beautiful utensils formerly employed in them. But there were, and still are, incense-ceremonies much more elaborate and costly than the tea-ceremonies,—and also much more interesting. Besides music, embroidery, poetical composition and other branches of the old-fashioned female education, the young lady of pre-Meiji days was expected to acquire three especially polite accomplishments, —the art of arranging flowers, (ikebana), the art of ceremonial tea-making ...
— In Ghostly Japan • Lafcadio Hearn
... young friends can readily make with the help of the following description: Cut of Bordeaux velvet one piece eleven inches and three-quarters long and six inches wide for the outside, and cut three pieces of white satin of the same size for the lining. Apply embroidery worked on white cloth to the velvet. Having transferred the design to the material, which is pinked on the edges and inside of the figures, work the flowers in chain stitch with coral red silk in several shades, the stamens in knotted stitch and point Russe with yellow silk, and the spray in herring-bone ...
— Harper's Young People, November 11, 1879 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... for a short time and then taking up an embroidery frame, drew a chair nearer to the light and began to work at her embroidery. In a moment or two she stopped whistling, and we could almost feel the silence in the room. Madge, of course, only partly knew what ...
— Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall • Charles Major
... past at the moment and next day all the Glen heard that the manse children had been having another praying competition and had wound it up by chasing each other all over the graves with a lantern. This piece of embroidery was probably suggested by the fact that, after the signing and sealing was completed, Carl had taken the lantern and had walked circumspectly to the little hollow to examine his ant-hill. The others had gone quietly into ...
— Rainbow Valley • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... clear, incisive pictures of the Woodhouses, Knightleys, and Bennets, as neighbors who might have served for the originals of those characters were announced. Feminine tact instantly obliterated every sign of literary occupation: the quill was thrown aside, and her sister's canvases and embroidery were strewn over the writing-table to cover every scrap ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, Old Series, Vol. 36—New Series, Vol. 10, July 1885 • Various
... and when gathered up round the waist by the girdle (cingulum) just clears the ground. Albs were originally quite plain, but about the 10th century the custom arose of ornamenting the borders and the cuffs of the sleeves with strips of embroidery, and this became common in the 12th century. These at first encircled the whole border; but soon it became customary to substitute for them square patches of embroidery or precious fabrics. These "parures'' "apparels'' or "orphreys'' (Lat. parun'ae, grammala, aurifeisia, &c.), were ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... not guess the pleasure, madame. Needlework and embroidery is their excitement and delight. They will ask me closely about all I have seen and done for months past, and the history of the day at Fairmead will be a ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... aspect was that of a man vexed and tormented beyond all patience, and harassed almost to death. He went hastily down, and was followed by a dignified person, dressed in a purple velvet suit, with very rich embroidery; his demeanor would have possessed much stateliness, only that a grievous fit of the gout compelled him to hobble from stair to stair, with contortions of face and body. When Doctor Byles beheld this figure on the ...
— The Short-story • William Patterson Atkinson
... little likelihood of the gown being ready by Easter. It would be shipped at the earliest convenience, but it could hardly catch the necessary boat. Helen had a good cry, and then came a wild rush to get John Taylor's cloth ready. Still, Helen was querulous. She decided that silk embroidery must embellish the skirt. ...
— The Quest of the Silver Fleece - A Novel • W. E. B. Du Bois
... received five dollars for transferring a piece of embroidery for a wealthy acquaintance. She had hesitated about accepting it; it would be the first Fotherington that ever took wages,—Margaret's pay was salary; but conscience put down pride, and she gave thanks, and shut her purse,—and ...
— Our Young Folks—Vol. I, No. II, February 1865 - An Illustrated Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... adaptation to man's need, desire, and discipline, God's daily preparation of the earth for him, with beautiful means of life. First, a carpet, to make it soft for him; then a coloured fantasy of embroidery thereon; then, tall spreading of foliage to shade him from sun-heat, and shade also the fallen rain, that it may not dry quickly back into the clouds, but stay to nourish the springs among the moss. Stout wood ...
— Frondes Agrestes - Readings in 'Modern Painters' • John Ruskin
... artistic odds and ends—her fiddle, of course, and piles of music, her violin stand, a few deal tables and cane chairs beautified by a number of chiffons, bits of Liberty stuffs with the edges still ragged, or cheap morsels of Syrian embroidery. On the tables stood photographs of musicians and friends—the spoils of her visits to Manchester, and of two visits to London which gleamed like golden points in the girl's memory. The plastered walls were covered with an odd medley. Here was a round ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... on some little hook or something they had to fasten it up to. And the little babes had long dresses. Come down to your feet when you hold the baby in your lap. And embroidered from the bottom of the skirt all the way up. Oh, they were embroidered up in the finest sort of embroidery. ...
— Slave Narratives Vol. XIV. South Carolina, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... I have given the cloth, but that you do the embroidery, and that your imagination enriches far too much the plain reality. I give you my oath that the present hour I cannot remember the quarter of what causes you grief, and you meditate over it so obstinately ...
— The Queen Pedauque • Anatole France
... mean for an instant to propose that every one should read poetry. The man whose imagination has never taken fire from literature of any kind, whose brain is literal and dislikes any embroidery upon the surface of plain fact, who is deaf to music, unresponsive to ideas, and limited in his emotions—such a man in my opinion is unfortunate, although he is often an excellent citizen, lives happily, makes a good husband, ...
— Definitions • Henry Seidel Canby
... excellency's legs and arms, holding him so tightly to the chair he could scarcely move. Having completed this task, Mr. Heatherbloom next, with vandal hands, whipped from the wall a bit of priceless embroidery, threw it over the nobleman's head and, in spite of sundry frenzied objections, effectually gagged him. Then drawing the heavy curtains so that they almost concealed the bound figure in the dim recess, the young man stepped once more out into ...
— A Man and His Money • Frederic Stewart Isham
... pupil pursues with great application. He is twice a day in the Mall, where he studies the dress of every man splendid enough to attract his notice, and never comes home without some observation upon sleeves, button-holes, and embroidery. At his return from the theatre, he can give an account of the gallantries, glances, whispers, smiles, sighs, flirts, and blushes of every box, so much to his mother's satisfaction, that when I attempted ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson - Volume IV [The Rambler and The Adventurer] • Samuel Johnson
... letters came twice a month at first, afterward four times, and finally twice, thrice, and even five times a week. Heraine was quick and flushed. She passed but two or three hours daily in my apartment, and substituted for the embroidery a dress of such bright hues that it dazzled my eyes. One day she took her accustomed seat, with a face subdued to sadness and ...
— Tales of the Chesapeake • George Alfred Townsend
... his friends," and, in order to turn this poetic material to account, finally bethought him that Bligh's Narrative of the mutiny of the Bounty would serve as a framework or structure "for an embroidery of rare device"—the figures and foliage of a tropical pattern. That, at least, is the substance of Clinton's analysis of the "sources" of The Island, and whether he spoke, or only feigned to speak, with authority, his criticism is sound and to the point. The story of the mutiny ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... actually saw were the best of Gobelin tapestries, the best of Sevres china, the best of mural paintings. We walked on silken carpets, bearing the fleur-de-lis. We sat on sofas of embroidery as fine as an engraving and as rich in color as a painting by Morland. The bright autumn sunshine illuminated the ormulu brass of the First Empire, gilt eagles, crowns, cupids, and the only letter of the alphabet ...
— With the French in France and Salonika • Richard Harding Davis
... part being too small to fit the head, it is held upon the skull by means of two strings tied under the chin. There are also conical brown and grey felt ones, not unlike filters used in chemical laboratories, and these, when of the better quality, are frequently ornamented with gold, blue, or red embroidery of Chinese manufacture. An impressive headgear was worn by the medicine man attached to the band of robbers I had interviewed. It resembled at first sight an exaggerated jockey's cap of red silk, but closer examination showed that it consisted of two long strips of red silk, ...
— In the Forbidden Land • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... a Devil came and sat upon my bed, His eyes were full of laughter for his heart was full of crime. "Why don't you take up fancy work, or embroidery?" he said, "For a needle is as manly a tool as a pen that makes a rhyme!" "You little ugly Devil," said I, "go back to Hell For the idea you express I will not listen to: I have trouble enough with poetry and poverty as well, Without having to ...
— Main Street and Other Poems • Alfred Joyce Kilmer
... contest, a mortal dared to come in competition with Minerva. That mortal was Arachne, a maiden who had attained such skill in the arts of weaving and embroidery that the nymphs themselves would leave their groves and fountains to come and gaze upon her work. It was not only beautiful when it was done, but beautiful also in the doing. To watch her, as she took the wool ...
— TITLE • AUTHOR
... khil'at," owing to the quantity of embroidery on it. The perfection of these oriental dresses is, to be so stiff as to stand on ...
— Bagh O Bahar, Or Tales of the Four Darweshes • Mir Amman of Dihli
... at the monastery of Tronosha, to celebrate the anniversary of its consecration. The next day, accordingly, he set off with the Natchalnik and his companions, all gallantly armed and mounted, and in gala dresses covered with gold embroidery; and, dashing up hill and down dale, through the majestic forests which covered the ascent of the mountains, they arrived in due time at Tronosha, "an edifice with strong walls, towers, and posterns, more like a ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various
... shoes and stockings, a plain georgette blouse of a soft, brownish wood-gray, with a bit of heavy brown silk embroidery decorating the front, and the jacket. The dress was of silky changeable tricolette, the skirt plain. Where a fold lifted and was strongly lighted, it was an exquisite silver-gray; where a shadow fell deeply it was gray-brown. The coat reached half way to the knees. ...
— Her Father's Daughter • Gene Stratton-Porter
... months ago he had drifted into a little town near San Marcos, wearing the title of "professor," and got together a class of private pupils, chief among them three daughters of a wealthy hacendado. Rebels came one day and in the exuberance that follows a full meal long delayed, with pulque embroidery, one of them fired two shots through the window not far from his venerable British head. The "professor" picked up a two-foot mahogany ruler, marched out into the plaza and, rapping the startled rebel over the skull, took his rifle away from ...
— Tramping Through Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras - Being the Random Notes of an Incurable Vagabond • Harry A. Franck
... his keen-edged knife is rich with figures, rings, and stars filed from gold coins and set in the horn. The very stock of his long, single-barreled rifle is inlaid like an Arab's gun, and, as for his buckskin hunting suit, it is a mass of embroidery and colored quills from his beaded moccasins to the fringed ...
— The Black Wolf Pack • Dan Beard
... and little, bright gems of purple carbuncle in the rims of the basin. A mantle she had, curly and purple, a beautiful cloak, and in the mantle silvery fringes arranged, and a brooch of fairest gold. A kirtle she wore, long, hooded, hard-smooth, of green silk, with red embroidery of gold. Marvellous clasps of gold and silver in the kirtle on her breasts and her shoulders and spaulds on every side. The sun kept shining upon her, so that the glistening of the gold against the sun from the green silk was manifest to men. On her head were two golden-yellow tresses, in ...
— The Harvard Classics, Volume 49, Epic and Saga - With Introductions And Notes • Various
... being equal to the Ladies in their Understandings, employ all their Care and Capacity in decorating the Outside; and have a Notion that he's the most ingenious Man, who makes the cleanest Figure, and is best dress'd for the Assembly or Drawing-Room. Among these pretty Triflers, a good Embroidery on their Clothes, or a Sword Knot of a new Invention, raises more Emulation than a Piece of new Wit does among the bad Poets; in their View of Things, a Man of Sense is a very insignificant Creature; and if, with the Eclat of their ...
— The Theater (1720) • Sir John Falstaffe
... corner on that dream and wake up." Each word of this climbed a note in tone until the last was almost a shout. Then Judith's hand moved to Jane's slipper on her own (Judith's) forget-me-nots, the little floral pieces that adorned a very dainty garment with the embroidery on Judith's chest—arms and neck ...
— Jane Allen: Junior • Edith Bancroft
... analogy to lyric poetry. This lyricism makes them seem mostly Greek—often I have thought them Persian, sometimes again, Indian; certainly he learned something from the Chinese in their porcelains and in their embroidery. I am sure he has been fond of these outer influences, these Oriental suggestions which were for him the spiritual equivalent from the past for his spontaneous ideas, for he, too, had much of all this magic, as he had much ...
— Adventures in the Arts - Informal Chapters on Painters, Vaudeville, and Poets • Marsden Hartley
... Feathertop paused, and throwing himself into an imposing attitude, seemed to summon the fair girl to survey his figure, and resist him longer, if she could. His star, his embroidery, his buckles, glowed, at that instant, with unutterable splendor; the picturesque hues of his attire took a richer depth of coloring; there was a gleam and polish over his whole presence, betokening the perfect witchery of well-ordered manners. The maiden ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various
... the cheeks; "but you were the dearest and sweetest of my guardian angels. You know you were, you rogue. Why, sir, you will hardly believe it, but this little creature, when she knew our money was nearly gone, taught herself the art of embroidery, with the aid of some illustrations from an old magazine, and in less than a fortnight could work so beautifully, that she was able to earn from three to four dollars a week. When she first told me that she was going out to look for work, I opposed it fiercely; but ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... appendage to her dress, a small silken purse or pocket to hold tobacco and a pipe, with the use of which many of them are not unacquainted at this tender age. Some indeed are constantly employed in working embroidery on silks, or in painting birds, insects, and flowers on thin gauze. In the ladies' apartments of the great house in which we lived at Pekin, we observed some very beautiful specimens of both kinds in the pannels of the partitions, and I brought home a few articles which I understand ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow
... will be a child as long as she lives." Mrs. Grey said this as if she were sighing over some radical defect in the mind of her daughter, and the delicate cheek of Fanny showed a tint somewhat deeper as she spoke, and she went on with her embroidery ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... among the Manbos is a closed square-cut garment with sleeves and with a sufficient opening on top to admit the head. It fits the body either closely or fairly loosely. It is made of abak fiber when imported cloth is not available. It is always adorned with embroidery of imported red, white, blue, and yellow cotton, on the cuffs, on the seams of the shoulders and the side, and on the neck and lower edges. The garment of the man differs from that of the woman in being all of ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan
... connecting the two houses. At the near end of the garden, in a kind of greenhouse built somewhat in the style of a Japanese pavilion, they found Madame Deberle and her sister Pauline, both idling away their time, for some embroidery, thrown on the little table, lay ...
— A Love Episode • Emile Zola
... in width, and from twelve to sixteen inches in length; that is to say, wide enough to extend from the armpits to the lower part of the abdomen, and long enough to go once and a half times around the child, having the double fold to come over the abdomen. There should be no embroidery about this. A shirt, which it is desirable should be woollen, is to be provided to place over the binder. It should be made to come up tolerably high in the neck, and to extend down the arm. Neither it nor any other portion of the child's clothing should be starched. ...
— The Physical Life of Woman: - Advice to the Maiden, Wife and Mother • Dr. George H Napheys
... the voyage, made me so seeck. But it ees much better already, for now I can read a little and can also sew." As she spoke Marie took from a little bag lying by her side a piece of embroidery which to Ruth's eyes seemed a marvel of ...
— Glenloch Girls • Grace M. Remick
... fire had been lighted in the great hearth as the evenings were chilly; and Sir Nicholas was standing before it, still in his riding-dress, pouring out resentment and fury to his wife, who sat in a tall chair at her embroidery. She turned silently and held out a hand to Isabel, who came and stood beside her, while Hubert went and sat down near his father. Sir Nicholas scarcely seemed to notice their entrance, beyond glancing up for a moment under his fierce white eyebrows; but went ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson
... clever with her needle and right out of the blue sky could make the most beautiful flowers and figures with colored silks. She could also do beading and she was teaching Mary how to do it. Already Mary could do quite nice embroidery and exquisite ...
— Carl and the Cotton Gin • Sara Ware Bassett
... protest, however, for she sighed as she rustled into her new organdie, frowned darkly at herself as she tied her bonnet strings in an irreproachable bow, wrestled viciously with pins as she put on her collar, wrinkled up her features generally as she shook out the handkerchief, whose embroidery was as irritating to her nose as the present mission was to her feelings, and when she had squeezed her hands into tight gloves with three buttons and a tassel, as the last touch of elegance, she turned to Amy with an imbecile expression of ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... a more remarkable pair still: a "lady" and a "man" apparently, or so they might be described at home. She is dressed in the latest fashion and with killing effect—muslin, silk, embroidery, chains, bracelets, laces, ribbons, the newest thing in bonnets, and the last in parasols—and has quite the air of a fine lady. He is a burly rough, bearded to the eyes, the shapeless remnant of a coarse wide-awake covering a head of hair that has seemingly been long unknown to the barber; ...
— Brighter Britain! (Volume 1 of 2) - or Settler and Maori in Northern New Zealand • William Delisle Hay
... more tasteful and ambitious than that of the ordinary two-story dwellings. In place of the prevailing hair-cloth covered furniture, the visitor had the satisfaction of seating himself upon a chair covered with some of the Widow's embroidery, or a sofa luxurious with soft caressing plush. The sporting tastes of the late Major showed in various prints on the wall: Herring's "Plenipotentiary," the "red bullock" of the '34 Derby; "Cadland" and "The Colonel"; "Crucifix"; "West-Australian," fastest of modern racers; and ugly, game old ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 37, November, 1860 • Various
... men as they moved on to the field. "They can wear their boots out on that defence line of ours an' be derned to 'em. An', Bottles, you got to play the game of your life to-day. None of your fancy embroidery, just plain knittin'. Every feller on the ball an' every feller play to his man. There'll be a lot of females hangin' around, but we don't want any frills for the girls to admire. But all at it an' all the time." Sam's little red eyes glowed ...
— The Major • Ralph Connor
... with a look, at once, of pride and wretchedness. Her strong and rigid features had an awe about them, unlike that of the white Old Maid, but as of something evil. She passed up the steps, leaning on a gold- headed cane; the door swung open, as she ascended,—and the light of a torch glittered on the embroidery of her dress, and gleamed on the pillars of the porch. After a momentary pause—a glance backwards— and then a desperate effort—she went in. The decipherer of the coat of arms had ventured up the lowest step, and shrinking back immediately, pale and tremulous, affirmed that the torch ...
— The White Old Maid (From "Twice Told Tales") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... sly aside, as if the words were not meant to reach his ears: 'He is afraid he will never come out from here alive; yet all is peace; there is no need of such an army.' The remark would be overheard, and would have its educational effect. They soon eased him of his embroidery and purple, by playful allusions to flower and colour. 'Spring is early.'—'How did that peacock get here?'—'His mother must have lent him that shawl,'—and so on. The same with the rest, his rings, his elaborate coiffure, and his table excesses. Little by little he came to his senses, ...
— Works, V1 • Lucian of Samosata
... before them; she was pale from vigil, and the sunlight coming through the misty evening air fell upon her swaying arms and her dress with its curious embroidery of peacock's feathers; the dark hollows of her eyes were alight and as she spoke inspiration came to her; her voice rose and fell, commanding, warning, whispering, beseeching; its strange rich music flooded the woods ...
— AE in the Irish Theosophist • George William Russell
... brisk demand for these—fish, presumably from the lake, alive and swimming about in a large tank from which they were withdrawn as required by means of a hand net; light flimsy muslins, white or dyed in a number of brilliant colours; lengths of exquisite embroidery in gold, silver, or silk thread, and in some cases studded with what looked very much like uncut gems; saddlery and harness, some of it richly mounted or embroidered with gold; queershaped household utensils made of copper or some other metal that had the colour and sheen of gold; jewellery, ...
— The Adventures of Dick Maitland - A Tale of Unknown Africa • Harry Collingwood
... honor, all the Hindus dressed magnificently. Some of them wore darias of rich striped satin, no end of gold bangles, necklaces mounted with diamonds and emeralds, gold watches and chains, and transparent Brahmanical scarfs with gold embroidery. The fat fingers and the right ear of our host were simply blazing ...
— From the Caves and Jungles of Hindostan • Helena Pretrovna Blavatsky
... debating, the door of the room again opened. There appeared an athletic, adventurous-looking officer in brilliant uniform who was smiling at something called after him from the antechamber. His blue coat was spick and span and very gay with double embroidery at the collar, coat-tails, and pockets. His white waistcoat and trousers were spotless; his netted sash of blue with its stars on the silver tassels had a look of studied elegance. The black three-cornered hat, broidered with gold, and adorned with ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... they wear are invariably black like the veils, set off perhaps with some red embroidery or silver spangles. They are unfastened across the chest, and, by a narrow opening which descends to the girdle, disclose the amber-coloured flesh, the median swell of bosoms of pale bronze, which, during their ephemeral youth at least, are of a perfect contour. The faces, ...
— Egypt (La Mort De Philae) • Pierre Loti
... in the meadows. The birds had many of them golden beaks, and human voices. The flowers perfumed the air with smells of incense, ambergris, and pulvillios; and were so interwoven with one another, that they grew up in pieces of embroidery. The winds were filled with sighs and messages of distant lovers. As I was walking to and fro in this enchanted wilderness, I could not forbear breaking out into soliloquies upon the several wonders which lay before me, when, to my great surprise, ...
— Essays and Tales • Joseph Addison
... rugs made by the Biluch women with geometrical patterns. These are excellent in colouring. They are rather difficult to procure as they are not made for sale. The weaving of China silk is a common industry in Amritsar, Bahawalpur, Multan, and other places. The phulkari or silk embroidery of the village maidens of Hissar and other districts of the Eastern Panjab, and the more elaborate gold and silver wire embroideries of the Delhi bazars, are excellent. The most artistic product of the plains is the ivory ...
— The Panjab, North-West Frontier Province, and Kashmir • Sir James McCrone Douie
... some one was addressing me, and turned to find the Duke of Borthwicke, his hand laid lightly on my shoulder, his countenance of baffling serenity, and his voice mellow and of a conciliating quality. He wore gray satin of an elegant finish, but neither embroidery nor jewels, and, notwithstanding his position and power, conveyed the impression in some adroit way, subtler than I can set forth, that he deprecated his temerity in addressing so austere a person as myself. I had seen women use this essence of flattery, ...
— Nancy Stair - A Novel • Elinor Macartney Lane
... afternoon sun streamed in through a single tall window. Francesca sat on a small sofa which stood crosswise between the window and the writing-table. She had a frame before her on which was stretched a broad band of deep red satin, a piece of embroidery in which she was working heraldic beasts and armorial bearings ...
— Casa Braccio, Volumes 1 and 2 (of 2) • F. Marion Crawford
... nearly over. On Monday the great fancy fair was to be held, and the side-table in Miss Grantley's pleasant parlour was covered with samples of all kinds of needle-work, in lace, wool, crewel, applique, and on linen, satin, velvet, silk, and cloth. There were handscreens, water-colour sketches, embroidery, bead-work, and all kinds of dainty knick-knacks, and we still had the finishing touches to put to some of our presents—still had a few completing stitches to put to some of the plainer articles, which were to make the back ground for the stall ...
— Miss Grantley's Girls - And the Stories She Told Them • Thomas Archer
... grim," said Pamela to herself. "Something must be done. First of all, I must get them to send me some rugs—they will cover this awful floor—and half a dozen cushions and some curtains and bits of embroidery and some table linen and sheets and things. Idiot that I was not to bring them with me!... And what could I do to the walls? I don't know how far one may go with landladies, but I hardly think one could ask them to repaper walls to each ...
— Penny Plain • Anna Buchan (writing as O. Douglas)
... up with a laugh of enjoyment over her embroidery of her idea—an enjoyment that her face communicated to Strether, who almost wished none the less at this moment that she would let poor Waymarsh alone. HE knew more or less what she meant; but the fact wasn't a reason for ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James
... deserve the attention of every man who wishes to become acquainted with the full power of the English language. They abound with passages compared with which the finest declamations of Burke sink into insignificance. They are a perfect field of cloth of gold. The style is stiff with gorgeous embroidery. Not even in the earlier books of the Paradise Lost has the great poet ever risen higher than in those parts of his controversial works in which his feelings, excited by conflict, find a vent in bursts of ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIII • John Lord
... and bright embroidery At the first call of Spring the fair young bride, On whom as yet Sorrow has laid no scar, Climbs the Kingfisher's Tower. Suddenly She sees the bloom of willows far and wide, And grieves for him she lent ...
— A Lute of Jade/Being Selections from the Classical Poets of China • L. Cranmer-Byng
... by the Muses, it is but Gratitude in us to encourage Poetical Merit wherever we find it. The Muses, contrary to all other Ladies, pay no Distinction to Dress, and never partially mistake the Pertness of Embroidery for Wit, nor the Modesty of Want for Dulness. Be the Author who he will, we push his Play as far as it will go. So (though you are in Want) ...
— The Beggar's Opera • John Gay
... to bed early at Stantons. At ten o'clock precisely a clinking of bedroom candlesticks was heard in the hall, followed by the sound of locking doors. This was the signal. Mrs. Baxter laid aside her embroidery with the punctuality of a religious at the sound of a bell, and ...
— The Necromancers • Robert Hugh Benson
... tense, crystalline water is first dashed into coarse, granular spray mixed with dusty foam, and then divided into a diamond pattern by following the diagonal cleavage-joints that intersect the face of the precipice over which it pours. Viewed in front, it resembles a strip of embroidery of definite pattern, varying through the seasons with the temperature and the volume of water. Scarce a flower may be seen along its snowy border. A few bent pines look on from a distance, and small fringes of cassiope and rock-ferns are growing in fissures near the head, but these ...
— The Mountains of California • John Muir
... pearls from the Gulf of California. They appear to have been treated with much consideration by their husbands; and passed their time in indolent tranquillity, or in such feminine occupations as spinning, embroidery, and the like; while their maidens beguiled the hours by the rehearsal of ...
— The Antediluvian World • Ignatius Donnelly
... possibly be more happily imagined, as the mutilation of poor St. Peter was continuing daily, and in full force;" alluding to the Emperor's rough reformations: and he does not certainly spare the coat any more than Jack in our Tale of a Tub, when he is rending away the embroidery. Here, however, the parallel must end; for Jack, though zealous, was never accused of burning the lace, if I remember right, and putting the gold in his pocket. It happened oddly, that chatting freely one day before dinner with some literary friends on the subject of coat armour, we had talked about ...
— Observations and Reflections Made in the Course of a Journey through France, Italy, and Germany, Vol. I • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... the doorstep, his mind involuntarily formed an anticipatory image of the child whose first stitches in embroidery were like a fairy's weaving to the strong man who worked in ore and possibly figured out bridges. That she would prove to be of the anemic type, common among working girls gifted with an imagination they have but scant opportunity to ...
— Initials Only • Anna Katharine Green
... officers, drummers, and fifes, received him on his landing with a deafening noise. The new Pasha, who was robed in white, then mounted a splendid barb, richly caparisoned with precious stones and silk embroidery, and rode to the palace, whence he sent the French envoy a present of an ox, six sheep, twenty-four fowls, forty-eight hot loaves, and six dozen wax candles; to which the Sieur le Page responded with gold and silver watches, scarlet cloth, and ...
— The Story of the Barbary Corsairs • Stanley Lane-Poole
... entered the house with his brother-in-law, and conducted him to an apartment opening out of the hall, usually occupied by Mistress Assheton, and where, in fact, they found that amiable lady employed at her embroidery, he left Sherborne with her, and, making some excuse for his own hasty retreat, betook himself to another ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... figure; Frances, after pulling the covers off of several beds and finding nothing to suit her fanciful taste, had snatched a gorgeous silk afghan from the leather couch in the library. It was an expensive affair of intricate pattern, delicate stitches; and beautiful embroidery with a purple velvet border and a yellow satin lining. She had dragged one corner of it through the mud puddle and torn a big rent in ...
— Miss Minerva and William Green Hill • Frances Boyd Calhoun
... broadcloth blankets adorned with designs and borders made of white pearl buttons—thousands of buttons—a style which had come in when the white traders came to Alaska. Many wore the native Chilcat blanket of ceremony made of the hair of the mountain goat. These were marvels of savage embroidery done in conventionalized designs that might have startled a Cubist painter had they not been woven with the softest-toned native dyes—yellow, pale-blue and green and rust. Huge, fierce detached eyes, the Thlinget symbol of intelligence glared from some. Mouths with queer, squared lips ...
— Where the Sun Swings North • Barrett Willoughby
... in shades of blue silk, with narrow box plaits between, with a trail of blue silk flowers on each. Over this there was a short robe of crimson brocaded silk, with a broad border of cream-white satin, with the same exquisite floral embroidery in shades of blue silk. Above this was a tippet of three rows of embroidered lozenge-shaped "tabs" of satin. The child wore a crown on her head, the basis of which was black velvet. At the top was an aigrette of diamonds of the purest water, the centre one as large as a ...
— The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs. Bishop)
... that," she said. "She is really lovelier in this simple fashion than to be loaded with lace and embroidery." Then, her sweet face growing more earnest,—"There will be more of us here to-day than at the next communion—more of us ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... colored silk stockings of doubtful cleanliness. The breeches, of ribbed cloth, apricot color with metal buttons, were too large; they were baggy about the body, and the lines of their creases seemed to indicate a sedentary man. A marseilles waistcoat, overloaded with embroidery, open, and held together by one button only just above the stomach, gave to the wearer a dissipated look,—all the more so, because his jet black hair, in corkscrew curls, hid his forehead and hung down his cheeks. Two steel watch-chains were festooned upon ...
— An Historical Mystery • Honore de Balzac
... cool," said the young man. He caught up a light scarf of Chinese embroidery and laid it lightly about her shoulders. She looked him for the first time squarely in the face. She saw chiefly a pair of rather small, deep-set blue eyes; at the outer corners were multitudinous little wrinkles, dug ...
— IT and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... her embroidery, and prepared to leave the sheltered seat in which this conversation had been held. She certainly was not acting now, for Closs saw that her eyes ...
— The Old Countess; or, The Two Proposals • Ann S. Stephens
... Lovell[26] is her tutor, visiting her after school hours, to direct her course of study. She has been through the arithmetic, while most of us never have been beyond proportion. Having finished the accidence she has begun Latin; she can tambour, make embroidery, draw, paint, play the harpsichord, and sing so charmingly that people passing along the street stop to listen to the ...
— Daughters of the Revolution and Their Times - 1769 - 1776 A Historical Romance • Charles Carleton Coffin
... whelps, the old man thinks, are now fed more judiciously than the children—and likewise against the enchantresses' charms and blessings, which in cases of sickness so often take the place of the physician's counsel. He advises to keep the girls at embroidery, that they may afterwards understand how to judge properly of embroidered and textile work, and not to allow them to put off the child's dress too early; he warns against carrying boys to the gladiatorial ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... walls and ceilings, the huge chandeliers, &c. But warm, deep crimson is relieved by cool pale green, and sage wainscot meets the dull red of feathery leaves on other walls. The Queen's Closet, which misses its meaning when it is called a boudoir, with the steel-like embroidery on its walls, matching the grey blue of its cut velvet hangings, recalls the natural pauses in a busy life, when the Queen awaits the call of public duty, or withdraws for a breathing space from the pressure of ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen V.1. • Sarah Tytler
... dexterous management we catch the falling flakes and mould them to our will, sometimes doing nothing more than spangling a sheet of glass, and again working out the most elaborate and fantastic marvels of embroidery. But in art our productions are almost endless. We color the tiniest blades of grass and beds of strawberry leaves until the moss upon which they rest look like velvet with floss needlework. We polish the chestnuts till they appear as if carved ...
— Prince Lazybones and Other Stories • Mrs. W. J. Hays
... honeysuckle and running roses. The summer-house had four entrances, opening on four paths that divided the ground into quarter-sections occupied by vegetables and small fruits, and around these, like costly embroidery on the hem of a homespun garment, ran a wide border of flowers that blossomed from early April to late November, shifting from one beauty to another as each ...
— Aunt Jane of Kentucky • Eliza Calvert Hall
... doing a peculiar little piece of bead embroidery. She did it every day for ten minutes after lunch with a look at Clifford every now and then, occasionally counting her beads, as if she was not altogether quite sure whether or not he ate them when she wasn't looking. This was the moment that ...
— Bird of Paradise • Ada Leverson
... and have their way with us. And so, from music, the school of Giorgione passes often to the play which is like music; to those masques in which men avowedly do but play at real life, like children "dressing up," disguised in the strange old Italian dresses, parti-coloured, or fantastic with embroidery and furs, of which the master was so curious a designer, and which, above all the spotless white linen at wrist and throat, ...
— The Renaissance: Studies in Art and Poetry • Walter Horatio Pater
... Ahmed, and Ganj Bhash, his chaplain, or spiritual adviser, a saintly mortal who admonished him of his sins and kept his feet in the path that leads to paradise, are both delightful, if such an adjective can apply, and are covered with exquisite marble embroidery, almost incredible in its perfection of detail. It is such as modern sculptors have neither the audacity or the imagination to design nor the skill or patience to execute. But they are not well kept. The rozah, or courtyard, in which the great king lies sleeping, ...
— Modern India • William Eleroy Curtis |
