"Exquisite" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... This frameless picture had a curious effect. Veronica, in some mysterious way, had contrived to dispose of the white margin of the picture, and the saint looked out from the soft ashy tint of the wallpaper. Opposite was an exquisite engraving, which was framed with dark red velvet. At the end of an avenue of old trees, gnarled and twisted into each other, a man stood. One hand grasped the stalk of a ragged vine, which ran over the tree near him; the other hung helpless by his ...
— The Morgesons • Elizabeth Stoddard
... to the tenth century there were incredible changes among the European nations. Gone were the gleaming cities of the South and the worship of art and science and the exquisite refinements of the life of scholarly leisure. Gone were the flourishing manufactures since the warrior had no time to devote to trading. Gone was the love of letters and the philosopher's prestige now ...
— Heroes of Modern Europe • Alice Birkhead
... of your acquaintance is so great a happiness, so exquisite a pleasure, that I had a great desire to ...
— The School for Husbands • Moliere
... so quiet that the week seemed to be all Sundays. Were not these things sufficient for herself? Did she ever tire of those long pine vistas, with the narrow strip of clearest blue between the gently waving tree-tops? The dreamy murmur of the forest gave her an exquisite pleasure. To see the bloom on the pink and grey trunks of the pines, and the sun on the moss and lichen beneath, was so deep a satisfaction to her soul that the thought that others who had been knocked about by life would not feel ...
— The Benefactress • Elizabeth Beauchamp
... constitutes Plato's extraordinary power. Socrates, a man of humble stem, but honest enough; of the commonest history; of a personal homeliness so remarkable, as to be a cause of wit in others,—the rather that his broad good nature and exquisite taste for a joke invited the sally, which was sure to be paid. The players personated him on the stage; the potters copied his ugly face on their stone jugs. He was a cool fellow, adding to his humor a perfect temper, and a knowledge of his man, be he ...
— Representative Men • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... And colors rush together, Fusing and floating away... Pale worn gold like the settings of old jewels... Mauves, exquisite, tremulous, and luminous purples And burning spires in aureoles of light Like ...
— The Ghetto and Other Poems • Lola Ridge
... days, was wholly rid of fever. My health improved enormously; and while I was following this cure, I went on always working at the models of the chalice. I may add that, during the time of that strict abstinence, I produced finer things and of more exquisite invention than at any other period of my life. After fifty days my health was re-established, and I continued with the utmost care to keep it and confirm it. When at last I ventured to relax my rigid diet, I found myself as wholly free from those infirmities as though I had been born again. Although ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini
... two ornaments, the breast fans and the spiral tipped tail wires, are altogether unique, not occurring on any other species of the eight thousand different birds that are known to exist upon the earth; and, combined with the most exquisite beauty of plumage, render this one of the most perfectly lovely of the many lovely productions of nature. My transports of admiration and delight quite amused my Aru hosts, who saw nothing more in the "Burong raja" than we do in the robin of ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume II. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... punished bitterly. In 1834 she captured him, and the preliminary formalities of flirtation were hastily overpassed. But once they were embarked on the maelstrom of passion, they seem to have been of exquisite torment and terror to each other. Liszt fell into a period of atheism which, to his constitutionally religious soul, was agony. As for the comtesse, death entered upon the romance and took away one of her three children. For awhile she was only a broken-hearted mother, ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 2 • Rupert Hughes
... servant, and gave some directions which resulted in her bringing in several dresses of an ancient pattern but exquisite texture, and laying them upon ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... Soldier: 1914-1915 (CONSTABLE) are letters to a mother; letters also of an artist, and full of an exquisite sensibility, a fine candour. I can best give you an impression of the charming personality of this young French soldier (who survived his first great battle, to be reported missing after the counter-attack, since when no news of him has reached his friends), by quoting little sentences of his, and ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Sept. 5, 1917 • Various
... divine man never stood forth in full proportion until Jesus Christ stepped upon this planet. What strength! What gentleness! Behold His exquisite sympathy! Behold the instinct of confidence, that drew little children to His arms! How did men, defiled within and without, throng round Him, while His presence wrought the miracle of miracles in cleansing them! Then for the first time in history did disheveled ones so feel the beauty of ...
— A Man's Value to Society - Studies in Self Culture and Character • Newell Dwight Hillis
... chimney, and the hangings were of Spanish leather, with all the wondrous history of Santiago's relics, including the miracle of the cock and hen, embossed and gilt upon them. There was a Venetian mirror, in which the ladies saw more of themselves than they had ever done before, and with exquisite work around; there were carved chests inlaid with ivory, and cushions, perfect marvels of needlework, as were the curtains and coverlets of the mighty bed, and the screens to be arranged for privacy. There ...
— Two Penniless Princesses • Charlotte M. Yonge
... in that way. Where she was exceptional, bless her sweet heart, lay, as we shall see, in the fact that while all the rest were sunk in ignorance and foulest barbarism, and mentall utterly barren,—she alone had the grace to combine her Kilkenny Cattery with an exquisite and wonderful illumination of culture. While she tore herself to pieces with one hand, with the other she was holding up the torch of learning,—and a very real learning too, —to benighted Europe; and then (bedad!) she found another hand again, to be holding the pen ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... cheerily, cleaned, and swept and rubbed, and polished, and touched up things a little here and there, until the room was arranged with exquisite taste and neatness; then took her work-basket, in which lay a variety of little infant's socks, and fine fleecy under-garments, knit of zephyr worsted, which looked so pure and soft that even she touched them daintily, as she lifted them out to find her needles, ...
— May Brooke • Anna H. Dorsey
... perfect June evening, the fitting sequel to a day of unbroken sunshine. A marvelous amber light hovered beyond the level line of the sea to the west; an exquisite blue suffused the horizon from south to east, deepening from sapphire to ultramarine as it blended with the soft shadows of a summer's night. He found himself comparing the sky's southeasterly tint with the azure depths of Cynthia ...
— Cynthia's Chauffeur • Louis Tracy
... She leaned back in her chair, fascinated, while the wonderful voice went on, covering its own offences with exquisite resonances and overtones. ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... individual does not know the natural taste of most foods. He seasons them so highly that the normal taste is hidden or destroyed. Those who wish to know the exquisite flavor of such common foods as onions, carrots, cabbage, apples and oranges must eat them without seasoning or dressing for a while. To get real enjoyment from food it is necessary to eat ...
— Maintaining Health • R. L. Alsaker
... whereupon, with some greatness of soul, our hero put himself in the hands of the Tahukus, and, with still greater, persevered until the process was complete. He had certainly to bear a great expense, for the Tahuku will not work without reward; and certainly exquisite pain. Kooamua, high chief as he was, and one of the old school, was only part tattooed; he could not, he told us with lively pantomime, endure the torture to an end. Our enamoured countryman was more ...
— In the South Seas • Robert Louis Stevenson
... inclined to suffer spasmodically from exaltation of the ego. And if she had not always been pampered with every luxury that money has induced modern civilisation to invent, the fact was not apparent; she dressed with such exquisite taste as only money can purchase, if it be not innate; she carried herself with the ease of affluence founded upon a rock, while her nervousness was manifestly due rather to impatience than ...
— Nobody • Louis Joseph Vance
... or sight-seeing among the clouds; but there is something more majestic and stable about a big machine like the Sky-Bird II which a pilot soon begins to love with a passion he never feels toward the little 'plane. An exquisite community of spirit grows up between machine and pilot; each, as it were, merges into the vitals of the other. The levers and controls are the nervous system of the airplane, through which the will of the aviator may be expressed—expressed in an ...
— Around the World in Ten Days • Chelsea Curtis Fraser
... struggle. I would have done so if I had been able, but I was caught in a grip so skillful that the smallest move gave me the most exquisite pain. At that time I had not even heard the words jiu jitsu, but I have looked them up since. Cortinez, the sleepy sentry, without changing his position, had opened his eyes and was grinning ...
— The Killer • Stewart Edward White
... his emotion when with his uncle, but seeing Mrs Raymond again in the dismal little old drawing-room dealt him a terrible blow. He saw, only too vividly, the picture of his suave, exquisite uncle, standing out against this muddled, confused background, in the midst of decoration which was one long disaster and furniture that was one desperate failure. To think that the owner of Selsey House had spent hours here! The thought ...
— Love's Shadow • Ada Leverson
... in the least before the fierce gaze he encountered. The form of Uncas dilated, and his nostrils opened like those of a tiger at bay; but so rigid and unyielding was his posture, that he might easily have been converted by the imagination into an exquisite and faultless representation of the warlike deity of his tribe. The lineaments of the quivering features of Magua proved more ductile; his countenance gradually lost its character of defiance in an expression of ferocious joy, and heaving ...
— The Last of the Mohicans • James Fenimore Cooper
... admiration. Then she held up a dainty lavalliere, with a pendant containing a superb pearl. Louise had the mate to this, but the one Patsy found had a pearl of immense size, its color being an exquisite shade of pink, such as is rarely seen. Arthur displayed a ring set with a splendid white pearl, while Uncle John's box contained a stick pin set with a huge black pearl of remarkable luster. Indeed, they saw ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces Out West • Edith Van Dyne
... "Exquisite was it in design, Perfect in each minutest part, A marvel of the lutist's art; And in its hollow chamber, thus, The maker from whose hands it came Had written ...
— Among the Great Masters of Music - Scenes in the Lives of Famous Musicians • Walter Rowlands
... and hawking as if the translation stuck in his throat. At length, having premised that the poem was a dialogue between the poet Oisin, or Ossian, and Patrick, the tutelar Saint of Ireland, and that it was difficult, if not impossible, to render the exquisite felicity of the first two or three lines, he said the sense was to ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... train of a man like Mr. Dyson roused, of course, an answering hubbub among the Timminsites. The whole of Jerry's circle was stirred up, in fact, like a hive of wasps; their ribaldry grew with what it fed on; and every day some new and exquisite method of harrying the devout occurred to ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... his own hands had closed for ever; he whispered words of passionate love, vows of undying gratitude and remembrance, in the shell-like ears. He bathed with fresh water and reclad in fragrant linen the exquisite body, upon which faint discolouring patches already heralded the inevitable end. When he had done, he swathed her in a sheet, and fetched a bolt of new white canvas from the store-waggon, and lined the grave ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... laughing the while and repeating verses and telling stories and talking gaily with pleasant sayings such as sorted with the entertainment. We ate and drank, then removed to another room, which confounded beholders with its beauty and which reeked with exquisite perfumes. Here they brought us a tray of fruits freshly-gathered and sweetmeats the finest flavoured, whereat our joys increased and our cares ceased. But withal the Caliph" (continued Ibn Hamdun) "ceased not to wear a frowning face and smiled not at that which gladdened all ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 9 • Richard F. Burton
... these exquisite birds so rare, even in situations so favourable to them as the one I have described? Are they killed by severe frosts? An ornithological friend from Oxfordshire assures me that it will take several favourable seasons to make good the losses of the late ...
— Birds in Town and Village • W. H. Hudson
... character may stand, is not fit to be the modeller of the youthful mind, and only wants the opportunity to betray that bigotry which would gladly burn his dissenting neighbour at the stake, or lash a faith, with exquisite tortures, into the children of those whom, in his saintly pride, he may ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... like velvet!" cried Lucile. "And those exquisite flowering shrubs! What do you call ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... "Athena came from heaven, and stood behind him and caught him by the yellow hair." Another god would have stayed his hand upon the hilt, but Athena only lifts his hair. "And he turned and knew her, and her dreadful eyes shone upon him." There is an exquisite tenderness in this laying her hand upon his hair, for it is the talisman of his life, vowed to his own Thessalian river if he ever returned to its shore, and cast upon Patroclus' pile, so ordaining that there ...
— The Queen of the Air • John Ruskin
... under the command of Colonel Clarke and Major Aldworth respectively, which made for Italy by different routes, after leaving Troyes. Colonel Clarke's train reached Dijon on the second evening; Lyons early the next morning; throughout that day the exquisite and fruitful Rhone Valley passed before the delighted eyes of the men. The journey was slow, and when Avignon was reached at 2 a.m. on the 25th, the train was already twelve hours late. Still further time was then lost owing to an accident at Toulon, which station was only entered at dusk after ...
— The War Service of the 1/4 Royal Berkshire Regiment (T. F.) • Charles Robert Mowbray Fraser Cruttwell
... many vary their diet with blossom, fruit, or berries, and naturally their bills are slender and sharply pointed, rarely finch-like. The yellow-breasted chat has the greatest variety of vocal expressions. The ground warblers are compensated for their sober, thrush-like plumage by their exquisite voices, while the great majority of the family that are gaily dressed have notes that either resemble the trill of mid-summer insects or, by their limited range and feeble utterance, sadly belie the family name. Bay-breasted Warbler. Blackburnian Warbler. Blackpoll ...
— Bird Neighbors • Neltje Blanchan
... Theresa who melts into ecstasy at the brooding presence of the heavenly Lover, and can only think of the Evil One himself with commiseration as one who cannot love. It is true that Francis of Assisi also thought and spoke of Christ with a lover's ecstasy, but then Francis in his exquisite tenderness of nature, was more woman than man. No such thought visited the stern heart of Dominic, nor any of those makers of theology who have built systems and disciplines upon the divine poetry of ...
— The Empire of Love • W. J. Dawson
... approbation, for the next fifty years, upon the zodiacal light, the interplanetary ether, and other rarities, which the professional body of astronomers would naturally keep (if they could) for their own private enjoyment? There is no want of variety now, nor in fact of irregularity: for the most exquisite clock-work, which from enormous distance seems to go wrong, virtually for us does go wrong; so that our friend of the last century, who complained of the solar system, would not need to do so any longer. There are anomalies enough to keep him cheerful. ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... probable that he would have paid very little attention to so unimportant an affair; but he had long nursed a grudge against his son, and he was delighted to have an opportunity of disgracing the philosophical exquisite from St. Petersburg. There ensued a storm, attended by noise and outcry. Malania was locked up in the store-room.[A] Ivan Petrovich was summoned into his father's presence. Anna Pavlovna also came running to the scene of confusion, and tried to appease her husband; but ...
— Liza - "A nest of nobles" • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
... were real. They were as changeless as wax. They did not even wink. The critic may notice that the hands of the women are large and brown, and the children's faces not free from sunburn. But there is no other hint that these exquisite pictures are made up from the village boys and girls, those who on other days milk the cows and scrub the floors in the little town. The marvelously varied costumes and the grouping of these tableaux are the work of the drawing-teacher, ...
— The Story of the Innumerable Company, and Other Sketches • David Starr Jordan
... wrote an angry letter to the publisher, and when he got the manuscript back, in bitter, hopeless rage burned it up? Years afterward the publisher admitted that the manuscript contained some of the most exquisite work Hawthorne had ever written. This story emphasizes the intense sensitiveness of the author about his work. Often after two or three rejections he will give the manuscript up as hopeless and of no value, while it may be that he ...
— The Building of a Book • Various
... earth if they would eat the fruits of it, and because the temperature is too low to make an idle life enjoyable. In the south, the soil is more productive, while less food is wanted and fewer clothes; and, in the exquisite air, exertion is not needed to make the sense of existence delightful. Therefore, in the south we find ...
— Prose Masterpieces from Modern Essayists • James Anthony Froude, Edward A. Freeman, William Ewart Gladstone, John Henry Newman and Leslie Steph
... seen. Certainly her beauty was superb, of the Spanish-Irish type that is world-famous,—black hair that clustered in soft ringlets about the forehead, black brows very straight and delicate, skin of olive and rose, features so exquisite as to make one marvel, long-lashed eyes that were neither black nor grey, but ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell
... making such a comparison, the principal difference to be noticed would be that arising out of the prohibitions of the Koran. The Persian potter had to content himself with the resources of pure ornament, resources upon which he drew with an exquisite skill that forbids us to regret the absence of men and animals from his work. The coloured surfaces of the Babylonian buildings must have had more variety than those of the great mosque at Ispahan or the green mosque at Broussa. But ...
— A History of Art in Chaldaea & Assyria, v. 1 • Georges Perrot
... being blinded by my bashfulness, I caught my toe in a small hole in aunt's rag carpet, the result being that I very abruptly deposited both glasses of milk, bottom up, in the lap of Blue-Eyes. A feeling of horror overpowered me as I saw that exquisite toilet in ruins—those dainty ruffles, those cunning bows the color of her eyes, submerged in the ...
— The Blunders of a Bashful Man • Metta Victoria Fuller Victor
... obscenity, meanness, and exaggerated triviality of much of his work, there have been few poets who could turn a prettier compliment, make a neater jest, or enshrine the trivial in a more exquisite setting. Take the beautifully finished poem to Flaccus in the eighth book (56), wherein Martial complains that times have altered since Vergil's day. 'Now there are no patrons ...
— Post-Augustan Poetry - From Seneca to Juvenal • H.E. Butler
... another interruption. A stray ass, turned out to browse on the common, seemingly actuated thereto by sympathy or proximity of either man or beast, burst into one of those hysterical, though exquisite cadences, which defy all imitation, and at the same time produce an extraordinary and irresistible effect on ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... motives of others; no mean jealousy ever entered her mind, no repining at the prosperity, however unmerited, of other people. She drew pleasure from the purest of all sources, from the contemplation of the success, the happiness, and the welfare of her friends and acquaintance. With an exquisite tact, without the slightest appearance of art, frank without severity, open without imprudence, always negligent of self and considerate of others, all her thoughts, impulses, and actions were regulated by the ...
— The Greville Memoirs (Second Part) - A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852 - (Volume 1 of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... forehead is large and clear; her eyes, which we are told were remarkable for their vivacity, are swollen with weeping and lustreless, but beautifully tender and serene. In the whole mien there is a simplicity and dignity which, united with her exquisite loveliness and deep sorrow, are inexpressibly pathetic. Beatrice Cenci appears to have been one of those rare persons in whom energy and gentleness dwell together without destroying one another: her nature was simple and profound. The crimes and miseries ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... seem to have been specially prepared, by long abstinence from sweet smells, to appreciate the scents and odours of aromatic plants and flowers. The soft shade of foliage, the refreshing green, and the gay colours everywhere, fill the eye with pleasure, not less exquisite than that which fills the ears from the warblings and chatterings of birds, the gentle tones of domestic animals, and the tinkling of rills. The mere solidity of the land, under foot, forms an element of pleasure after the tossings of the restless sea, and all the sweet influences put together ...
— The Battery and the Boiler - Adventures in Laying of Submarine Electric Cables • R.M. Ballantyne
... selected, several are new versions to old airs; the majority, though unknown as the compositions of Lady Nairn, are already familiar in the drawing-room and the cottage. For winning simplicity, graceful expression, and exquisite pathos, her compositions are especially remarkable; but when her muse prompts to humour, the laugh is sprightly ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... of Mademoiselle des Touches is noted in Paris as being the last refuge where the old French wit has found a home, with its reserved depths, its myriad subtle byways, and its exquisite politeness. You will there still find grace of manner notwithstanding the conventionalities of courtesy, perfect freedom of talk notwithstanding the reserve which is natural to persons of breeding, and, above all, a liberal flow of ideas. No ...
— Another Study of Woman • Honore de Balzac
... almost always finds the consoling word to say and the right tone to take with her wounded soldiers. That profound solidarity which is one of the results of conscription flowers, in war-time, in an exquisite and ...
— Fighting France - From Dunkerque to Belport • Edith Wharton
... geraniums blazed, and the heliotrope languished, and the "Puritan pansies" lifted their sweet faces and looked gravely about, as if reproving the other flowers for their frivolity; while shy Mignonette, thinking herself well hidden behind her green leaves, still made her presence known by the exquisite perfume which all her gay sisters would have ...
— Queen Hildegarde • Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards
... a child desiring him to play with her, he yielded to her mood, watching her all the time with delighted eyes, that anything so exquisite and lovely should stoop to sue for his favor. Of course he would be her partner! He entered into the arrangements with a zest, though he let her do all the planning, and heeded little what character she had chosen ...
— The Witness • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... gown, his pale, spiritual face more tender and beautiful than ever. This was the last marriage service he ever performed, and it was as pathetic as original, his whole appearance so in harmony with the exquisite sentiments he uttered that we who listened felt as if for the time being we had entered with him into ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... out very well that Admiral Killigrew was fond of butterflies. Still, he should have been equally glad to know that the sailor's hobby inclined toward the exploits of pirates. M. Ferraud was a modest man. That his exquisite brochure on lepidopterous insects was in nearly all the public libraries of the world only gratified, but added nothing ...
— A Splendid Hazard • Harold MacGrath
... Ellicott was a gentleman of exquisite literary taste and critical judgment. He discovered in Banneker the elements of a cultivated gentleman and profound scholar. He threw open his library to this remarkable Negro, loaded him with books and astronomical instruments, and ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams
... has not volume enough to give full force to his beautiful and stirring thoughts. His writings, like his sermons, are full of strong and rugged points, and are frequently interspersed with brilliant passages of exquisite beauty that will compare favorably with many of the finest word-paintings in the ...
— Cleveland Past and Present - Its Representative Men, etc. • Maurice Joblin
... me—let me be your daughter." Saying which, Rebecca went down on HER knees in a most tragical way, and, taking Sir Pitt's horny black hand between her own two (which were very pretty and white, and as soft as satin), looked up in his face with an expression of exquisite pathos and confidence, when—when the door opened, and ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... family. However, she was not idle; without taking part in the intrigues, she was studying them—planning her future tactics; in all relations she was diplomatic, her conversation ever displaying exquisite tact. ...
— Women of Modern France - Woman In All Ages And In All Countries • Hugo P. Thieme
... made hundreds of miniature falls among the great boulders and stones which dotted the stream. Right and left he could gaze along a deep winding ravine, while in front, across the river, there was a narrow band of exquisite green, dotted with pale purple gentian and fringed with ragwort, and beyond, the mountain rose up steeply, looking almost perpendicular, but broken by rifts and crevices and shelves, among which the spiring larch and pine towered up, showing ...
— Three Boys - or the Chiefs of the Clan Mackhai • George Manville Fenn
... answer," he said. The rest of a very short interview was passed in exquisite discomfort. Indeed discomfort, exquisite and otherwise, within a few weeks of Noel's return, had begun to pervade all the habitual congregation of Pierson's church. It was noticed that neither of the two sisters attended Service now. Certain people who went in the sincere ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... expert in supplying all the wants of a secluded family; robust with health and exercise, yet neither coarse in her person, vulgar in her manners, nor sordid in her mind. Constantia was mistress of every elegant accomplishment; she painted, sung, touched the lute with exquisite sweetness; melted at every tale of woe; loved all the world except her father's enemies, and was willing, as far as her slender frame permitted, to perform the lowest offices that would promote the welfare of others. Eustace was a year older than the ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... black ingratitude he would throw up the job suddenly and depart. To his employers the reasons he gave were obviously inadequate. They said 'Confounded fool!' as soon as his back was turned. This was their criticism on his exquisite sensibility. ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... which is called Reman, and the other Busan, he learnt from some deserters that many persons had removed their treasures there for protection, trusting to their lofty and strong walls; and it was also added that there was there, with a great many valuables, a woman of exquisite beauty, the wife of a citizen of Nisibis named Craugasius, of great consideration by birth, character, and influence; ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus
... Long folds of blue and yellow, the class colors, hung from the highest point in the ceiling over the pulpit to the windows on either side. Directly in the center, in large gold letters, was the class motto "Forward." Huge bouquets of the most exquisite roses, sent in by friends and pupils, were everywhere. A bank of ferns in front of the platform completed the decorations. Just before the time to go to the church a heavy thunder shower came up ...
— The American Missionary — Volume 48, No. 7, July, 1894 • Various
... with her to England, combined with what she had called "sophistication," but which was rather her exquisite appreciation of values and effects, she took with her when she went the next day to Charing Cross Station and arranged herself at her ease in the railway carriage, while her maid bought their tickets ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... table was, in fact, quite enough to dazzle the eyes. There were articles of every sort and description there—silks, laces, jewelry and trinkets, little antiques, even rare books—everything small and portable, some of the richest and most exquisite, others of the cheapest and most tawdry. It was a truly remarkable collection, which the raiding detectives had ...
— Constance Dunlap • Arthur B. Reeve
... and the triple hat. He led by the hand my Lady, still clad in her Shroud; but over it, descending from the crown of her head, was a veil of very old and magnificent lace of astonishing fineness. Even in that dim light I could note the exquisite beauty of the fabric. The veil was fastened with a bunch of tiny sprays of orange-blossom mingled with cypress and laurel—a strange combination. In her hand she carried a great bouquet of the same. Its sweet intoxicating odour floated up to my nostrils. It and the sentiment which its very ...
— The Lady of the Shroud • Bram Stoker
... no admittance fee: the entrance is free. Beer and other liquids are served out at a small cost. Guests are coming and going all the time. Sometimes as many as five thousand people will visit one of these places in the course of an evening. The music is a great attraction to the Germans. It is exquisite in some places, especially in the Atlantic Garden, which is situated in the ...
— The Secrets Of The Great City • Edward Winslow Martin
... the room; and then placed myself by Margaret's side. She was dressed in pale yellow—a colour which gave new splendour to her dark complexion and magnificently dark hair. Once more, all my doubts, all my self-upbraidings vanished, and gave place to the exquisite sense of happiness, the glow of joy and hope and love which seemed to rush over my heart, the moment I ...
— Basil • Wilkie Collins
... influenced by such powers, he passed early under the influences of Harvard. Later he took his young experience as a soldier under Albert Sidney Johnston. He began his civil life in a delicious home, with the love of an exquisite young wife. And in the Confederate service he was associated with the best and the bravest volunteers ...
— Memorial Addresses on the Life and Character of William H. F. Lee (A Representative from Virginia) • Various
... could not connect it with some local legend." Scott had to the full the romantic love of mountain and lake, yet "to me," he confesses, "the wandering over the field of Bannockburn was the source of more exquisite pleasure than gazing upon the celebrated landscape from the battlements of Stirling Castle. I do not by any means infer that I was dead to the feeling of picturesque scenery. . . . But show me ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... cried to the gondolier, who was waiting for him beneath. Never had he hated anyone as he hated this gondolier, and he swore to take an exquisite revenge. ...
— Casanova's Homecoming • Arthur Schnitzler
... shame! The man must have done it with no other object than to rob me of every wink of sleep. If I swallow the outrage and retire, will you promise to tell me every word to-morrow? You preached a most exquisite sermon last Sunday about the meanness and ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... atmosphere, the light, bore each an orchestral part in this universal lull. Moonlight and the first timid tremblings of the dawn were by this time blending; and the blendings were brought into a still more exquisite state of unity by a slight silvery mist, motionless and dreamy, that covered the woods and fields, but with a veil of equable transparency. Except the feet of our own horses,— which, running on a sandy margin of the road, made but little disturbance,—there was no sound ...
— The English Mail-Coach and Joan of Arc • Thomas de Quincey
... background of mountains, its foreground of blue-green sea. In the neighbourhood of the shops, she sent away her victoria, which was to pick her up at Rumpelmayer's at five o'clock. She was charmingly dressed, and had secured ten pounds with which to buy an exquisite antique Italian watch which had taken her fancy a day or two before; never had there been so little need to worry about the future from a pecuniary point of view; still, Kate was not happy. She had lost interest in the watch, lost interest in her shopping expedition ...
— The Castle Of The Shadows • Alice Muriel Williamson
... mortal can stand anything. Revenge is not my only motive. Either you or I must go, and as I have now found the means of boundless distraction, I live. I have been on the point of killing myself and you more than once. But my power to injure you gave me an exquisite satisfaction; and then, I always hoped. Now the time for the period has come." Her chin sank to her neck, and she stared at him until her eyes filled. "Do you love them so much more than you ever ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... marvellous as to the skill with which its foliaged and crocketed pinnacles and elaborate traceries are worked. Ruskin was probably right in this estimate at least,—"The central gable is the most exquisite piece of pure flamboyant style extant." At the present day this west front is undergoing such restoration and general repair that the entire gable, rose window, and part of the flanking towers are completely covered with a most hideous ...
— The Cathedrals of Northern France • Francis Miltoun
... There is a habit among nearly all the writers of imaginative literature, of adulterating the conversations of the poor with barbarisms and grammatical blunders which have no more fidelity than elegance. Hawthorne's integrity as well as his exquisite—taste prevented him from falling into this error. There is not in the world a large rural population that speaks its native language with a purity approaching that with which the English is spoken by the common people of New England. The vulgar words and phrases which in other states are supposed ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... was the voice of the man who tilted at life picturesquely in a broad-brimmed hat, who loved his darling griefs and fitted them as a Rembrandt fits its background. And still, in the same voice, the voice he knew, he said: "I feel as if we had died and our souls were meeting. You know Aldrich's exquisite lines: ...
— Judith Of The Plains • Marie Manning
... came to a river in the deep woods. It was an exquisite bit of forest with the bells of a hermit thrush ringing in one of its towers. Their call and the low song of the river were the only sounds in the silence. The glow of the setting sun which lighted the western windows of the forest had a color like that of the music-golden. Long ...
— A Man for the Ages - A Story of the Builders of Democracy • Irving Bacheller
... difficulty when there is so much that is quite as beautiful and yet not difficult? Why try to make a bouquet of oak trees when the ground is covered with exquisite flowers? The piano is a solo instrument and has its limitations. Some piano music is said to sound orchestral. As a matter of fact, a great deal of it would sound better with ...
— Great Pianists on Piano Playing • James Francis Cooke
... vessel I hail as a treasure; For often, at noon, when returned from the field, I found it the source of an exquisite pleasure, The purest and sweetest that nature can yield. How ardent I seized it, with hands that were glowing, And quick to the white-pebble bottom it fell; Then soon, with the emblem of truth overflowing, And dripping with coolness, it rose from the well: The old oaken bucket, ...
— McGuffey's Fourth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... was a vision of beauty. Most of its broad avenues are lined with close set rows of cherry trees which were now bursting into blossom in all the most delicate and exquisite shades of pink known to nature. Komatsu guided them about the city with a kind of pleased and gratified delight as if he were showing his own property. Sometimes he stood up and pointed to the feathery tops of carefully nurtured cherry trees, ...
— The Motor Maids in Fair Japan • Katherine Stokes
... had bene thair, and lyking for to heir His facound toung and termis exquisite, Of Rhetorick the prettick he micht leir, In breif sermone are pregnant sentence wryte, Befoir Cupide veiling his cap alyte, Speiris the caus of that vocatioun? And he anone schew his intentioun." —Laing's ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Volume I. • R. Dodsley
... life it was. Resting, eating, sleeping; negative pleasures became positive ones. Life's great principle of compensation worked on our behalf, and to lie at ease, reading an old paper, seemed an exquisite enjoyment. ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service
... outrageously hideous look. In the late excellent Dr Horsfield's work on the animals of Java, there are some engravings of bats by Mr Taylor, who acquired among engravers the title of "Bat Taylor," so wonderfully has he rendered the exquisite pileage or fur of these creatures. It is wonderful how numerous the researches of naturalists, such as Mr Tomes, of Welford, near Stratford, have shown the order Cheiroptera to be in genera and species. ...
— Heads and Tales • Various
... of yourself, when with a proper appreciation of your possibilities you can be a pleasing picture? It is just as glorious to be a fine picture or a poem as it is to paint the one, or write the other. Indeed, a woman who harmoniously develops the best within her has the charm of an exquisite poem and inspires poets to sing; and if by the grace and beauty of her dress she enhances her natural endowments and makes herself a pleasing picture, the world becomes ...
— What Dress Makes of Us • Dorothy Quigley
... but twice," she thought; "and it is as if I had a new, strange, exquisite life. Ought I tell my mother? But how can I? I have no words to explain—I do not understand—I thought it would break my heart to leave the good Sisters and my studies, and the days so calm and holy; and now—I do not even wish to go back. Sister Langaard told ...
— The Maid of Maiden Lane • Amelia E. Barr
... leafless tree. They may, however, say that we pay dearly for this by having the land covered with mere naked skeletons for so many months. This is too true; but our senses thus acquire a keen relish for the exquisite green of the spring, which the eyes of those living within the tropics, sated during the long year with the gorgeous productions of those glowing climates, can never experience. The greater number of the trees, with the exception of some of the Blue-gums, do not attain a large ...
— A Naturalist's Voyage Round the World - The Voyage Of The Beagle • Charles Darwin
... which your Londoner has at bottom a most unequivocal and hearty relish. They will most likely spend a few hours in wandering through the picture-galleries in the palace, then take a stroll in the exquisite gardens, where the young fellow who is thoughtless enough to pluck a flower for his sweetheart, is instantly and infallibly condemned to drag a heavy iron roller up and down the gravel-walk, to the amusement of a thousand or two ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 441 - Volume 17, New Series, June 12, 1852 • Various
... a case in which was an exquisite book in a queer wrigglesome language, bearing the legend that from this volume Fitzgerald had translated the Rubaiyat, Dr. Mittyford waved his hand and looked ...
— Our Mr. Wrenn - The Romantic Adventures of a Gentle Man • Sinclair Lewis
... things had been taken for granted between Sylvia and myself, I saw her at her mother's house, and I must admit that although it had given me such exquisite pleasure to feel that she was mine in the coarse gray gown of a "sister," it delighted me more to feel she was mine in the ordinary costume of society. She was as gay as a butterfly ought to be which had just ...
— The House of Martha • Frank R. Stockton
... hardwood floor lay a profusion of brightly colored Navajo rugs, the walls being hung with others of exquisite workmanship and coloring, interspersed with weapons and trophies of the chase, while in other parts of the room were rare specimens of pottery from ancient adobe houses ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in New Mexico • Frank Gee Patchin
... tired; and me, like an old fool, talking away here, when the tea should have been ready long since." And Nancy dashed into her preparations with great energy. The tea was made in the little black teapot, as usual; but it was the best tray, and Nancy's exquisite china, that were laid on the mahogany stand brought from the parlour for the occasion; for Nancy seemed determined to do her great honour. By a strong effort, Lilias checked her tears after the first gush, and sat watching the movements and listening to the rather unconnected ...
— The Orphans of Glen Elder • Margaret Murray Robertson
... while the exquisite music flooded his starved old soul. Toward the end he closed his eyes and tears trickled from beneath the lids down his wrinkled face. He brushed them off impatiently and the boys noticed ...
— The Radio Boys Trailing a Voice - or, Solving a Wireless Mystery • Allen Chapman
... you didn't," he said, and forgot her in caring for the bird. He ordered a box and some cotton batting—"and give me your handkerchief." As he spoke, he took it from her surprised hand and tore it into strips; then, lifting the broken wing with exquisite gentleness, he bound it into place. She looked at the bandages ruefully, but Sam was perfectly matter-of-course. "It would have been better without lace," he said; "but it will do. Will you look at him sometimes? Just your touch will cure ...
— The Awakening of Helena Richie • Margaret Deland
... of the most exquisite of his satires, speaking of the vanity of "adding house to house, and field to field," has these most ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 50. Saturday, October 12, 1850 • Various
... [The exquisite poet-composer of the operas "The Barber of Baghdad," "The Cid," and "Gunlod," which have at last attained ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 1, "From Paris to Rome: - Years of Travel as a Virtuoso" • Franz Liszt; Letters assembled by La Mara and translated
... shines in its full lustre. Tho' he enjoyed all that fire of imagination, and divine enthusiasm, for which some of the ancient poets are so deservedly admired, yet did his fancy never run away with his reason, but was always guided by superior judgment; and the music of his verse is exquisite.' ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. IV • Theophilus Cibber
... joyful truth was revealed to me. I sat up and hastily examined my body to make sure that the rash had not disappeared, and then my spirit sang a song of thanksgiving of which the refrain was, "I have the measles!" I lay back in bed and enjoyed the exquisite luxury of thinking of the evils that I had escaped. For once my morbid sense of atmosphere was a desirable possession and helpful to my happiness. It was delightful to pull the bedclothes over my shoulders and conceive the feelings of a small boy who should ride to ...
— The Ghost Ship • Richard Middleton
... anywhere, with the south side all glass and sun, and the girls sitting on the floor to study on a table about a foot and a half high; no beds or chairs to litter up the rooms. Then after we were taken over some of the other rooms, we went back to the dining-room and had a most exquisite Japanese vegetarian Buddhist lunch served—just a sample, all on a little plate, but including the sweets for dessert, five or six things all quite different and elegantly cooked. Also ...
— Letters from China and Japan • John Dewey
... and making his band of pilgrims so large. He could get them together and make them travel in company without any sacrifice of dramatic truth, which, however, he was forced to disregard when the time came for their dismissal. The exquisite pathos of the description of the passage of the river by Christian and Hopeful blinds us to what may be almost termed the impossibility of two persons passing through the final struggle together, ...
— The Life of John Bunyan • Edmund Venables
... beautiful features of the Cathedral is the unbroken length of roof at the same height through nave and choir, the effect intensified by the exquisite richness and grace of the vaulting. And the spreading fans gain an added grace, springing as they do from that 'distinctive group of shafts' which, says Canon Edmonds, 'makes the Exeter pillar the very type of the union of beauty and strength.' In the central ...
— Devon, Its Moorlands, Streams and Coasts • Rosalind Northcote
... facts were all related by my wife herself. I did not ask to hear them. I asked for nothing more than she told. The dread that my jealousy should be suspected made me put on a sturdy aspect of indifference; and that exquisite sense of delicacy, which governed every movement of my wife's heart and conduct, forbade her to say—what yet she certainly desired I should know—that, in all that time, she had not seen him, nor he her. She had studiously kept aloof in her chamber so long as he remained. Meanwhile, ...
— Confession • W. Gilmore Simms
... bounty. And farther, because the dread of evil is a much more forcible principle of human actions than the prospect of good[i]. For which reasons, though a prudent bestowing of rewards is sometimes of exquisite use, yet we find that those civil laws, which enforce and enjoin our duty, do seldom, if ever, propose any privilege or gift to such as obey the law; but do constantly come armed with a penalty denounced against transgressors, either ...
— Commentaries on the Laws of England - Book the First • William Blackstone
... corrective' meant. 'Why, Sir, (said he,) that the laird was so exquisite, that he set art right, when ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell
... he was walking in enchanted ground as he followed her into the large room, the windows opening into the conservatory, the whole air fragrant with flowers, the furniture and ornaments so exquisite of their kind, and all such a fit scene for the beautiful little damsel, who, with her slender dog by her side, tripped on demurely, and rather shyly, but with a certain skipping lightness in her step. A very tall overgrown schoolboy did Norman feel himself for one bashful moment, ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... land. They have built large factories right in the very heart of the country where the best grapes grow and there the grapes are taken while the dew is still on them and their luscious fragrant deliciousness is squeezed out, poured into bottles and quickly sealed to prevent any escape of the exquisite bouquet. ...
— Armour's Monthly Cook Book, Volume 2, No. 12, October 1913 - A Monthly Magazine of Household Interest • Various
... what he had been going toward, not only on those terrible roads in France, but all through the years of his life. An exquisite, imperious little officer's girl with divinely compassionate eyes, who wasn't ashamed to dance with a private, and who had let him hold her hand at parting while she said in accents an angel might have envied, "Good-by, ...
— Quin • Alice Hegan Rice
... of rudeness, I would have looked away, but I found myself for an instant unable to do so. It was ridiculous to fancy it, and yet I could not help imagining that the girl's exquisite face lighted up with an expression akin to interest as her eyes ...
— The House by the Lock • C. N. Williamson
... supported the heavy beams of the ceiling. Six of these beams were visible: all were covered with highly colored sculptures. Their decorations harmonized with, those of the wainscot, and seemed an expansion of it, as though the architect wished the exquisite ornaments of the beams of the ceiling to be considered a luxuriant verdure, springing from trunks rooted in the ...
— The Amulet • Hendrik Conscience
... haue portrayed out in rude lineaments my Westerne Atlantis or America: assuring you, that if I had bene able, I would haue limned her and set her out with farre more liuely and exquisite colours: yet, as she is, I humbly desire you to receiue her with your wonted and accustomed fauour at my handes, who alwayes wil remaine most ready and deuoted to do your honour any poore seruice that I may; and in the meane ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of The English Nation, Vol. XII., America, Part I. • Richard Hakluyt
... gentleman revealed when she opened the door was probably the last great merchant in America to wear the chin beard. White as white frost, it was trimmed short with exquisite precision, while his upper lip and the lower expanses of his cheeks were clean and rosy from fresh shaving. With this trim white chin beard, the white waistcoat, the white tie, the suit of fine gray cloth, the ...
— Alice Adams • Booth Tarkington
... he felt as if he hated that mug more than he had ever before hated anything in his life. It seemed to have been left behind there, on purpose to mock him. Here he was with only an earthenware mug in sight, he who might have been surrounded by the exquisite and delicate porcelain that he remembered in his father's factory at Limoges. All that beauty and luxury belonged to him by right; they might still have been his, if only he had not listened for years to the Voice. And now ...
— A Book of Quaker Saints • Lucy Violet Hodgkin
... paid a splendid tribute to Judith by applying to her who is pre-eminently the strong or valiant woman (mulier fortis) full of the strength that always wore the exquisite veil of humility, the words spoken to this valiant woman of the Hebrews by her countrymen, as they adored the Lord, who had given her the victory. See the lesson read on the Feast of ...
— Our Catholic Heritage in English Literature of Pre-Conquest Days • Emily Hickey
... bright and clear-cut, like copper, sank gently beneath the long banks of purple-red clouds massed in artistic and majestic confusion. Everything, at this time, was enveloped in the cooler, quieter tints of purple and blue, and hills, peaks, and icy bay all lay bathed in exquisite color. ...
— A Woman who went to Alaska • May Kellogg Sullivan
... charming companion to share it with," said Sir Lawrence, in his most florid manner, "the—ah—poorest home would prove a Paradise indeed! And I suppose now, my dear young lady," he added, raising his voice to address Sylvia, "you are busy making your future abode as exquisite as taste and research can render it, ransacking all the furniture shops in London for treasures, and going about to auctions—or do you—ah—delegate that department ...
— The Brass Bottle • F. Anstey
... find words in which to plead forgiveness, he had almost reached the study door; and she stood motionless, watching him go, her face aflame with anger at her own unwitting thoughtlessness, and humiliation at the exquisite gentleness ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... saying that I was a poor-spirited creature, a mere tool in Brough's hands, and had not saved a shilling. Opinions, however, differed; and I believe it was considered by the turnkeys that I was a fellow of exquisite dissimulation, who had put on the appearance of poverty in order more effectually to ...
— The History of Samuel Titmarsh - and the Great Hoggarty Diamond • William Makepeace Thackeray
... that she was almost afraid; it seemed too good to be really true and lasting. Gradually, as she stood there by the window, looking at what seemed to her "the treasures of the snow," it came to her mind what she had been thinking about that; the myriads of wonderfully fashioned, exquisite crystal stars, for every one of which God took care. Then she remembered, "the hairs of your head are all numbered;" and if so, of course no event that happened to any of God's children could be without meaning ...
— The House in Town • Susan Warner
... judgment. Ah! if all those who attempt to judge books had been able to hear, what a lesson! Nothing escapes him. At the end of a passage of a hundred lines, he remembers a weak epithet! he gave me two or three suggestions of exquisite detail for Saint-Antoine. ...
— The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters • George Sand, Gustave Flaubert
... which had preceded: and ma, in the openness of her heart, offered the governess an acidulated drop, and the governess, gratified to be taken notice of, retired behind her pillar again with a brighter countenance: and the whole party seemed quite happy, except the exquisite in the back of the box, who, being too grand to take any interest in the children, and too insignificant to be taken notice of by anybody else, occupied himself, from time to time, in rubbing the place ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... Corantin rose, but as she left the room she made a point of keeping Bobby beside her, and in her inimitable way she asked Ramsey to fetch her cloak. For a moment Bobby had the exquisite joy ...
— War-time Silhouettes • Stephen Hudson
... hers which is considered the most exquisite, that creation of hers whose beauty is everywhere conceded the most perfect and original—woman. Has not man made, for his own use, an animated and artificial being which easily equals woman, from the point of view of plastic beauty? Is there a woman, whose form ...
— Against The Grain • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... which hours should on occasions be allowed to stretch themselves. Wines that shall be drinkable. Quick attendance. Bills that shall not be absolutely extortionate, smiling faces, and an absence of foul smells. There are many who desire more than this—who expect exquisite cookery, choice wines, subservient domestics, distinguished consideration, and the strictest economy; but they are uneducated travelers, who are going through the apprenticeship of their hotel lives; who may probably never become free of the ...
— Volume 2 • Anthony Trollope
... certain capacity for battling with Fate. After this last episode Roland gave in. Not even the exquisite agony of hearing himself described in church as a bachelor of this parish, with the grim addition that this was for the second time of asking, could stir him to a ...
— A Man of Means • P. G. Wodehouse and C. H. Bovill
... looked an awful dandy in a brand-new frock-coat. I heard afterwards that he had ordered it in Moscow expressly for the occasion from his own tailor, who had his measure. He wore immaculate black kid gloves and exquisite linen. He walked in with his yard-long strides, looking stiffly straight in front of him, and sat down in his place with a ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... like this as you see these glorious mountains clothed in exquisite veils that brood over their serene loveliness, steeping their sunny outlines in infinite gradations of azure and purple hues. The swift flowing streams with their liquid music rising from the distant woods; the graceful forms of hemlock and elm; ...
— See America First • Orville O. Hiestand
... the strong room. It was beautifully decorated and furnished. On the walls was a sort of heavy, velvety green wall-paper. Exquisite hangings were draped about, and on the floor were thick rugs. In all I noticed that the prevailing ...
— The Dream Doctor • Arthur B. Reeve
... a situation, one so public, it must be also recollected that it was a situation of excessive agitation; but, if they alluded to the horrors of the moment, no situation more naturally opens the heart to affection and confiding love than the recoil from scenes of exquisite terror. ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... Barbara, however, upheld the honor of England all over the Continent. In Paris, at the baths of Germany, at Vienna, Florence, Venice, Rome, Naples—every where, they were distinguished by their fine persons, their fine equipage, their exquisite tastes, and their splendid entertainments. They were courted and caressed by all the distinguished, both of their own countrymen and of foreigners. Tom's horses and equipage were the admiration of the natives. He drove, he rode, ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... the simple yet stirring choruses of the Israelites and the pompous and warlike ones of the Philistines, the exquisite love-song of Samson and Delila, and last but not least the charming ballet-music, with its truly Eastern character entitle the opera to rank amongst the very ...
— The Standard Operaglass - Detailed Plots of One Hundred and Fifty-one Celebrated Operas • Charles Annesley
... and that the capacity of increased pleasure entails the capacity of increased sensibility to pain. To this, the only answer that can be given is two-fold: (1st) the consciousness of Power is itself the most exquisite of pleasures, and is unceasingly gratified in the progress onwards with new means for its exercise and (2ndly) as has been already said—THIS is the only road by which there is the faintest scientific likelihood that "Death" ...
— Five Years Of Theosophy • Various
... Adrienne; "with scrupulous and exquisite discretion, whenever you spoke to me of the deep love felt by Prince Djalma, you carried your reserve and delicacy so far as to inform me that it was not ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... for her behaviour amused me; they were never exquisite, like Frances's, but she was anxious that you ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Various
... you, if one or two points occur to you for elucidation," he said, feeling vaguely a liar, and generally guilty. But when, on the departure of the dunce, Winifred held out her arms, everything fell from him but the sense of the exquisite moment. Their lips met for the first time, but only for an instant. He had scarcely time to realise that this wonderful thing had happened before the mobile creature had darted to his book-shelves and was examining a ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... most exquisite delight of which the human mind is capable, Master Salkeld," he said one day, when he had tormented and plagued me beyond endurance, "to sit here in these pleasant quarters and think of your cousin at home. He hath doubtless entered upon the family estates and married the lady ...
— In the Days of Drake • J. S. Fletcher
... a "number-one" dinner, and a number-one dinner always begins with bird's-nest soup, the greatest delicacy a Chinese can offer; also, the most expensive. Well, we began with it, and truly it is "number-one"—gelatinous, delicate, with an exquisite flavor altogether indescribable. Then followed the other courses. As this dinner was given to foreigners, we had only twelve courses, whereas the usual Chinese dinners run up into the dozens; "forty ...
— Peking Dust • Ellen N. La Motte
... sound of his voice, until he began murmuring, "Wheat! Wheat! Wheat!" in his sleep. In the earliest dawn a robin awoke him singing, "Cheer up! Cheer up!" and he answered with a sleepy "Cheer! Cheer! Cheer!" Later the robin sang again with exquisite softness and tenderness: "Cheer up, Dearie! Cheer up, Dearie! Cheer up! Cheer up! Cheer!" The Cardinal, now fully awakened, shouted lustily, "Good Cheer! Good Cheer!" and after that it was only a short time until he was on his way toward the shining river. It was ...
— The Song of the Cardinal • Gene Stratton-Porter
... a painter his colors, and now we have a bold royal sketch, cloudy outlines of gigantic proportions, shadowy scenes of indefinite grandeur, done with a few strong, words and magnificent adjectives; and now a little paragraph, charming in its exquisite daintiness, like a miniature rarely done upon the face of a costly gem. It is in this word-painting that he is surpassingly admirable. Delineation, description, portraiture are his forte. The same quality of mind which gives dreams of princely ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol III, Issue VI, June, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... not. This he did with infinite talent and with a perspicuity beyond all praise. But to my thinking it was remarkable that he seemed to regard the witnesses as a dissecting surgeon may be supposed to regard the subjects on which he operates for the advancement of science. With exquisite care he displayed what each had said and how the special saying of one bore on that special saying of another. But he never spoke of them as though they had been live men and women who were themselves as much entitled to justice at his hands as either the prosecutor in this matter or she ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope
... then half-past ten. Renine went for a walk into the country, with his hands clasped behind his back and without vouchsafing a glance at the exquisite spectacle of the white meadows. He came back for lunch, still absorbed in his thoughts and indifferent to the talk of the customers of the inn, who on all ...
— The Eight Strokes of the Clock • Maurice Leblanc
... first close view of the ruined chancel. The east window has lost most of its tracery, and has the appearance of a great archway; its date, together with the whole of the chancel, is late Decorated, but the exquisite little chapterhouse is later still, and may be better described as early Perpendicular. It is octagonal in plan, and has in each side a window with an ogee arch above. The stones employed are remarkably large. The richly moulded arcading inside, consisting of ogee arches, has been exposed ...
— Yorkshire Painted And Described • Gordon Home
... enjoying her first glance of surprise and delight. I of course had no such inducement to look straight ahead, and my glances therefore wandered carelessly here and there to the right and left, noting the exquisite shapes and colours of the flowers and fruit and the luxuriant foliage and ...
— The Congo Rovers - A Story of the Slave Squadron • Harry Collingwood
... boots, in the rack overhead rested a shining silk hat of the newest fashion, an orange-wood walking-stick, and a pair of gray suede gloves. An evening paper lay between his feet, open, as though it had been read, and in his buttonhole there was a single mauve orchid of exquisite beauty and delicacy. The body was quite alone in the compartment, and there was not a scrap ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew
... composed in his twentieth year, though not published till 1711, established his reputation as a writer of neat, clear, sparkling, and elegant verse. The Rape of the Lock raised his reputation still higher. Macaulay pronounced it his best poem. De Quincey declared it to be "the most exquisite monument of playful fancy that universal literature offers." Another critic has called it the "perfection of the mock-heroic." Pope's most successful poem— if we measure it by the fame and the money it brought him— was his translation of the Iliad of Homer. A great scholar ...
— A Brief History of the English Language and Literature, Vol. 2 (of 2) • John Miller Dow Meiklejohn
... for example, had been presented to the mind of Adam, no doubt he would have been necessarily compelled to "love, relish, and delight in them." But this feeling of love and delight, thus necessarily evolved out of the bosom of his natural disposition, however exquisite and enrapturing, would not have been his virtue or holiness. It would have been the spontaneous and irresistible development of the nature which God had given him. We may admire it as the most beautiful unfolding ...
— A Theodicy, or, Vindication of the Divine Glory • Albert Taylor Bledsoe
... it in silence, but in the dark she was not afraid of betraying the expression that the thrill of exquisite recollection brought to her countenance; and leaning back in her corner indulged in listening to the narration, as Albinia, unaware of the special point of the episode, related Maurice's desperate enterprise, going ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Born in the Moon, and coming hither to make Discoveries, by a strange Invention arrived to by the Virtuosoes of that habitable World, the Emperor of China prevailed with him to stay and improve his Subjects, in the most exquisite Accomplishments of those Lunar Regions; and no wonder the Chinese are such exquisite Artists, and Masters of such sublime Knowledge, when this Famous Author has blest them with such ...
— The Consolidator • Daniel Defoe
... walls; the houses, and the gay columns of white, yellow, and red; the delicate pavements of mosaic; the skeletons of dusty cisterns and dead fountains; inanimate garden spaces with pygmy statues suited to their littleness; suites of fairy bed-chambers, painted with exquisite frescos; dining-halls with joyous scenes of hunt and banquet on their walls; the ruinous sites of temples; the melancholy emptiness of booths and shops and jolly drinking-houses; the lonesome tragic theatre, with a modern Pompeian drawing water from a well there; the ...
— Italian Journeys • William Dean Howells
... than the ballads of the country. In Madrid there are more pilluelos who whistle Bu qui s'avance than the Hymn of Riego. The Cancan has taken its place on the boards of every stage in the city, apparently to stay; and the exquisite jota and cachucha are giving way to the bestialities of the casino cadet. It is useless perhaps to fight against that hideous orgie of vulgar Menads which in these late years has swept over all nations, and stung the loose world into ...
— Castilian Days • John Hay
... ruined so easily?" murmured the girl, her exquisite tact leading her to avoid any ...
— The Wings of the Morning • Louis Tracy
... his great Madonnas, the Virgin and Children are of surpassing loveliness. It is finished in such a soft, melting style that to see it in its exquisite coloring, one could easily imagine it vanishing imperceptibly into the blaze of some splendid sunset. While we are talking of Raphael's color it may be interesting to call your attention to a very ...
— Great Artists, Vol 1. - Raphael, Rubens, Murillo, and Durer • Jennie Ellis Keysor
... being was agitated, had developed an artistic feeling of peculiar lucidity. Since he had killed, his frame seemed lightened, his distracted mind appeared to him immense; and, in this abrupt expansion of his thoughts, he perceived exquisite creations, the reveries of a poet passing before his eyes. It was thus that his gestures had suddenly become elegant, that his works were beautiful, and were all at once rendered ...
— Therese Raquin • Emile Zola
... carry away in the memory some striking characteristic of French cathedrals, and no one can forget the exquisite tint of the building-stone here, a ruddy hue as of gold lighting up the dark, richly-sculptured mass without, nor the charming cluster of airy columns joining the Lady Chapel to the choir within, daintiest bit of architectural fancy. ...
— The Roof of France • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... been a particularly agreeable day, although to a woman no doubt it would have been laden with moments of exquisite ecstasy. Feminine apparel for me has lost for ever the charm of mystery that formerly touched it with enchantment. There is nothing I do not know now. Its innermost secret has been revealed and its revelation has brought with it its full burden of ...
— Biltmore Oswald - The Diary of a Hapless Recruit • J. Thorne Smith, Jr.
... others, was a mere happen-so. At any rate it was a fortunate happening, for immediately this method of glazing earthenware was carried to England, where Doulton of Lambeth began manufacturing some very beautiful gres. For gres can be of exquisite beauty as well as of most ordinary type. Do not forget that. The term serves to cover those opaque earthenwares which are fired until vitrification or an external glassing results. At first all styles of gres were called Gres de Flandres, but later the single term gres was given them. You will ...
— The Story of Porcelain • Sara Ware Bassett
... so heavy that a thousand men and five pair of oxen could not drag her away from her home. An officer who tried to kiss Anastasia was struck blind. Under torture, the purity of the virgins is always powerful; from their exquisite white limbs, torn by instruments, milk flows instead of blood. Ten different times the story is told of the young convert who, to escape from her family, who wish her to marry against her will, assumes the garb of a monk, is accused of ...
— The Dream • Emile Zola
... they delight in treasuring the weeds. Well, I, for one, wish that they could live among these weeds for just so long a time as to become quite sick of them—when, doubtless, they would return to us only too anxious to see nothing but the simple flowers, and each simple flower an exquisite joy in itself—although ...
— Over the Fireside with Silent Friends • Richard King
... man for his exquisite graciousness, for his tact and reserve, and for his ageless, monkey-like self-surety. They talked of horses, and of Derbyshire, and of farming. The stranger warmed to the young fellow with real warmth, and Brangwen was excited. ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence
... recreation hour was done Each went in to her task. Alone In the library, with its great north light, Clotilde wrought at an exquisite Wreath of flowers For ...
— Sword Blades and Poppy Seed • Amy Lowell
... condition, with listlessness and debility and disinclination for movement. Very commonly the child ceases to move one of his lower limbs—pseudo-paralysis—and screams if it is touched; a swelling is found over one of the bones, usually the femur, accompanied by exquisite tenderness; the skin is tense and shiny, and there may be some oedema. These symptoms are due to a sub-periosteal haemorrhage, and associated with this there may be crepitus from separation of an ...
— Manual of Surgery - Volume First: General Surgery. Sixth Edition. • Alexis Thomson and Alexander Miles
... Betterton, appeared on the stage together, and the ladies taking hold of him, represented his infirmities of age, and pleaded his ancient merit, in a very natural and moving manner: This epilogue is exquisite in its kind. The profits arising from that benefit, we are told, amounted to 500 l. He had also a promise that the ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. III • Theophilus Cibber
... and bright, when Devas, Nagas, spirits, all assembled, amidst the void raise heavenly music, and make their offerings as the law directs. A gentle cooling breeze sprang up around, and from the sky a fragrant rain distilled; exquisite flowers, not seasonable, bloomed; sweet fruits before their time were ripened. Great Mandaras, and every sort of heavenly precious flower, from space in rich confusion fell, as tribute to the illustrious monk. Creatures of every different ...
— Sacred Books of the East • Various
... Upstairs are exquisite frocks and impeccable evening clothes; good jewels and, incidentally, a good many tired faces—from uptown. Down here it is different. The crowd is younger, poorer, more strikingly bizarre—immeasurably more interesting. Everyone here does something, or thinks ...
— Greenwich Village • Anna Alice Chapin |
