"Gaudy" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... spur of the moment, and scarcely five minutes after the mad idea had entered Tommy's head the three boys stood in a dark corner of the drive with their booty, consisting of table silver, some valuable miniatures, and a collection of gold coins, securely tied up in a gaudy gold-embroidered Indian tablecloth that Tommy had taken from the drawing-room. The Colonel still ...
— The Rebellion of Margaret • Geraldine Mockler
... pretty little miss, being a very pretty little miss, being a very much-admired little miss, being a very good little miss, who always minded her book, and had passed through her sampler-doctrine with high applause; had even stitched out, in gaudy propriety of colors, an Abraham offering up Isaac, a Sampson and the Philistines; and flowers, and knots, and trees, and the sun and the moon, and the seven stars, all hung up in frames with glasses before them, for ...
— Clarissa, Volume 6 (of 9) - The History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... other tents are of the same pattern and the same gaudy colours within: each of them contains two little iron bedsteads, two Turkish rugs, two washstands, one dressing-table, and such baggage as we had imagined necessary for our comfort, piled around the tent-pole,—this by way ...
— Out-of-Doors in the Holy Land - Impressions of Travel in Body and Spirit • Henry Van Dyke
... and in their place come soft, gray tones and silence. The scarlet tanager seeks some hidden perch and soon from the same tree slips a silent, ghostly owl; the ruby of the hummingbird dies out as the gaudy flowers of day close their petals, and the gray wraiths of sphinx moths appear and sip nectar from ...
— The Log of the Sun - A Chronicle of Nature's Year • William Beebe
... attractions the one which made the greatest appeal to Glen—and the only one he could afford, for his sole fortune was the nickel he had for car-fare—was the merry-go-round with its gaudy horses and its gurdy tunes. He bought a ticket and mounted one of the turbulent steeds with a little thrill of anticipatory pleasure. The music began, the movement gradually quickened, and he was just giving himself ...
— The Boy Scout Treasure Hunters - The Lost Treasure of Buffalo Hollow • Charles Henry Lerrigo
... plunged into the seething life of the native city. The road was crammed with an apparently impenetrable crowd of men and beasts, the latter—water-buffaloes, humpy cattle, and donkeys—strolling about and getting in everybody's way with perfect nonchalance, while men in strange raiment of gaudy hue pursued their lawful occupations with much clamour. The variety ...
— A Holiday in the Happy Valley with Pen and Pencil • T. R. Swinburne
... notice, that the charms of gaudy inartistic colouring frequently exercise a powerful sway even over minds familiar with better things; although that sway is always indicative of the decay of intellectual or moral freshness. Thus, it is remarked by an old Greek author ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 432 - Volume 17, New Series, April 10, 1852 • Various
... faces gave faithful witness of their habitual intemperance; and men, whose threadbare and ragged garments betokened sloth and poverty; and men, whose vulgar and ostentatious display of showy clothing, and gaudy chains, and rings and breast-pins, which they did not know how to wear, indicated dishonest pursuits; and men, whose blue jackets and bluff, brown faces showed them to be sailors; and men, whose scowling brows and fiendlike countenances marked them as villains of the blackest and lowest ...
— The Runaway - The Adventures of Rodney Roverton • Unknown
... Winifred, in a dress of silvery velvet, and holding a gaudy bunch of flowers in her hand, waited with keen impatience in the schoolroom, looking down the drive for Gudrun's arrival. It was a wet morning. Under her nose was the strange fragrance of hot-house ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence
... of La Madelena, dedicated to St. Mary Magdalene, is a neat structure of granite and marble. Its decorations are less gaudy than those one usually sees, the most valued ornaments being a pair of massive altar candlesticks and a crucifix, all of silver, the gift of Lord Nelson, in acknowledgment of the kindness and hospitality he received from the islanders while his fleet lay in the harbour. On the base of the candlesticks ...
— Rambles in the Islands of Corsica and Sardinia - with Notices of their History, Antiquities, and Present Condition. • Thomas Forester
... Fawn; she, with a few young Indian girls, half hid among the whortleberry bushes growing luxuriantly around the smaller wigwams of the camp, were dividing their attention between the stately captives and weaving the gaudy wampums to be bestowed, with the shy little weavers themselves, upon such young braves as should be deemed worthy by the great council. Their stolen glances of admiration and pity, however, were intercepted by the young brave who brought home and so suspiciously guarded the prisoners. ...
— Birch Bark Legends of Niagara • Owahyah
... nor dare he return to England; he is too profligate to think of any person but himself, and the painted, gaudy creature and her children who are gone with him. But I hope my young lady will find a friend with you, Madam, for I am sure you are ...
— The Boarding School • Unknown
... a gorgeous kite, the giant butterfly of childhood, twinkling with gilding, and soaring to the sky? The children forget the string that holds it, some passer-by cuts it, the gaudy toy turns head over heels, as the boys say, and falls with terrific rapidity. Such was Esther as she listened ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... hour of evening a bevy of ladies approached through the dark groves of citron trees, so gaily dressed in silks of the brightest dyes of yellow, blue, and scarlet, that no bouquet of flowers could have been more gaudy. They were attended by numerous slaves, and the head servant politely requested me to withdraw during the interview. Thus turned out of my tent, I was compelled to patience and solitude beneath a ...
— The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia • Samuel W. Baker
... beauty faults conspicuous grow; The smallest speck is seen on snow. As near a barn, by hunger led, A peacock with the poultry fed; All viewed him with an envious eye, And mocked his gaudy pageantry. He, conscious of superior merit, Contemns their base reviling spirit; His state and dignity assumes, And to the sun displays his plumes; 10 Which, like the heaven's o'er-arching skies, Are spangled with a thousand eyes. The circling rays, and varied light, ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... comic operas to ours is, they have no refinement or colours or subtleties to please the eye—all is gaudy and blatant. The "Merry Widow," for instance, could make one weep, it is so vulgar and changed, especially the end. But if the people prefer it like that the managers are quite right to let them have what ...
— Elizabeth Visits America • Elinor Glyn
... who, seeing malefactors in the theatres in golden tunics and purple robes with crowns on and dancing, admire them and marvel at them, thinking them happy, till they see them goaded and lashed and issuing fire from their gaudy but cheap garments.[829] For most wicked people, though they have great households and conspicuous offices and great power, are yet being secretly punished before they are seen to be murdered or hurled down rocks, which ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... the town was a large, open, shapeless space, or market-place, of black trodden earth, surrounded by the same flat material of dwellings, new red-brick becoming grimy, small oblong windows, and oblong doors, repeated endlessly, with just, at one corner, a great and gaudy public house, and somewhere lost on one of the sides of the square, a large window opaque and darkish green, which was the ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence
... himself by detachments. Already his upper man had been rubbed by Pierre, and clothed with a shirt, vest and velveteen coat from his wardrobe. Now he was polishing his nether extremities with a towel, preparatory to adding a pair of gaudy striped trousers to his borrowed gear. Striding up to him with a ferocious air, the lawyer presented the smoking glass, exclaiming: "Drink this down, Wilks, or I'll kill ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell
... amaze, he looked back at the stage, just as the queen was leading Florestein off, and he sees a frail-looking figure heaped in gaudy toggery, that looks as though it would drag her down with its weight; and, above it, is a pale flower-like face, with great dark, weary-looking eyes, and a heavy coronet of yellow hair twisted ...
— Six Girls - A Home Story • Fannie Belle Irving
... the branches of which were swaying and the leaves rustling cheerily in the strong sea-breeze which rushed through them. The sunlight flashed brilliantly upon the swaying foliage, and gleamed upon the plumage of the bright-winged birds and gaudy butterflies which flitted restlessly from tree to tree; while the long, luxuriant grass in the distance— where I could see it—bowed and undulated beneath the strong breeze like a billowy sea; the background of clear, pure, blue sky beyond completing a picture, ...
— Under the Meteor Flag - Log of a Midshipman during the French Revolutionary War • Harry Collingwood
... one of these bursts of hilarity Mr Hazlit entered the room. The sound seemed to grate on his feelings, for he frowned as he walked, in an absent mood, up to a glass case full of gaudy birds, and turned his back to it under the impression, apparently, ...
— Under the Waves - Diving in Deep Waters • R M Ballantyne
... explanation. A fairly brave and skilled soldier, a vainer man than General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna never wore sword, and one of his foibles was to see himself surrounded by a glittering escort. The officers of his staff were very peacocks in their gaudy adornment, and as a rale, the best-looking of them were his first favourites. Santander, on returning to Mexico, was appointed one of his aides-de-camp, and being just the sort—a showy fellow—soon rose to rank; so that the defeated candidate for a captaincy ...
— The Free Lances - A Romance of the Mexican Valley • Mayne Reid
... the Rich, the splendours of the Powerful, what is the pride of the Great, what are the gaudy pleasures of ...
— Crome Yellow • Aldous Huxley
... balanced a steaming coffee-pot on a pair of crossed green sticks at one corner of the chimney. In the ashes I could see little mounds which I afterward found to be flaky, nutty com-pones, and I flew to kneel at her side with my head on her gaudy neckerchief. ...
— Over Paradise Ridge - A Romance • Maria Thompson Daviess
... passages resemble nothing so much as the rude, stark folk-song bequeathed to the world by medieval Russia. Rimsky-Korsakoff's love of brilliant, gay materials had been in generations and generations of peasant-artists, in every peasant who on a holiday had donned a gaudy, beribboned costume, centuries before the music of "Scheherazade" and "Le Coq d'or" was conceived. So, too, the temperaments and sensibilities of the others. They had but to touch these emblems and reliques ...
— Musical Portraits - Interpretations of Twenty Modern Composers • Paul Rosenfeld
... spring days. If there is anything more beautiful in the West than their gaudy Indian summer, it is the half scared spring. The wind is a bit blustery and pretentious, but otherwise Nature seems doubtful as to whether she will paint her landscape or not. Each night a grand sunset crowns the ...
— Letters of a Dakota Divorcee • Jane Burr
... of compasses. In his rear were to be seen a pillar and a red velvet curtain, and (distantly) a fine storm of clouds and lightning. Never was a respectable old sailorman so misrepresented; but all his descendants except one regarded this gaudy daub with almost religious veneration. Every family has its one great man; the admiral was ours. His was the distinction of being the only Pendarves who had ever managed to amass a fortune. It had dribbled through the fingers of succeeding generations; but there was a tradition that ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various
... prince or duke at least. He was dressed (contrary to all sumptuary laws of the time) in a suit of crimson velvet, a little the worse, perhaps, for wear; by his side were a long Spanish rapier and a brace of daggers, gaudy enough about the hilts; his fingers sparkled with rings; he had two or three gold chains about his neck, and large earrings in his ears, behind one of which a red rose was stuck jauntily enough among the ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... almost to ride over them. A few sombre garbed Israelites, and occasionally the Turks, attendant on official duties of the Pashalic in this part of the government, also mingle in the passing or seated crowd; when the solemn, saturnine air of the latter, with their flowing, gaudy apparel, forms a striking contrast to the daring, dirty, independent air of the almost ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 13, - Issue 377, June 27, 1829 • Various
... delightful visit, had sent down a whole boxful of gaudy and unsuitable clothes for Leucha; but Hollyhock, with her true and rare eye for colour, would not let Leucha be so attired. She spoke privately to ...
— Hollyhock - A Spirit of Mischief • L. T. Meade
... place,—something higher, nobler, worthier. This something is enlightenment; and to effect the exchange we shall have to begin at the beginning, and enlighten the mothers. Follies and fripperies, in cooking or dressing, will give way before enlightenment, just as do the skin paintings, tattooings, gaudy colors, glass beads and tinsel, and other absurdities of savage tribes; just as have done the barbaric customs and splendors of the barbaric ages. Woman is not quite out of her barbaric stage yet. At any rate, she is not fully enlightened. ...
— A Domestic Problem • Abby Morton Diaz
... which was all over dirt, They did give him clean holland, this was no great hurt: On a bed of soft down, like a lord of renown, They did lay him to sleep the drink out of his crown. In the morning when day, then admiring he lay, For to see the rich chamber both gaudy ...
— The Book of Brave Old Ballads • Unknown
... of unpretentious Hindu temples, and the Maharaja is said to be quite punctilious in his observance of religious forms. He was absent from the city, but several brothers of his were seen driving, clad in long garments of gaudy-colored striped calico, and wearing small turbans; the dress of the women was also peculiar, the skirt being so full that as they walked they resembled balloons; they are noted for wearing a profusion of jewelry,—necklaces by the half-dozen, bracelets ...
— Travels in the Far East • Ellen Mary Hayes Peck
... tales to the little ones, but do thou this—' His old eyes fell on the gaudy paintings of the wall, the blue and red dome, and the flames of the poinsettias beyond. 'Tell them first of those things that thou hast seen and they have seen together. Thus their knowledge will piece out thy imperfections. Tell them of what thou alone hast seen, then what thou hast heard, ...
— Life's Handicap • Rudyard Kipling
... papers for the stove—flowers! paper-flowers!' She is the accredited herald of summer—a phenomenon, this year, of very late appearance. We should have seen her six weeks ago, if the summer had not declined to appear at the usual season. She is the gaudy, party-coloured ephemera of street commerce, and will disappear from view in a fortnight's time, to be seen no more until the opening summer of '53. Her wares, which are manufactured with much taste, and ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 448 - Volume 18, New Series, July 31, 1852 • Various
... and return suggest—was the deity, the one really existing god. Nominally, figuratively, even concretely, there were others; a whole host, a hierarchy vaster than the Aryans knew; a great crowd of divinities less grandiose than gaudy, that swarmed in space, strolled through the dawns and dusk, thronged the temples, eyed the quick, confronted the dead. They were but appearances, mere masks, expressions, hypostases, eidolons ...
— The Lords of the Ghostland - A History of the Ideal • Edgar Saltus
... the Peacock's gaudy dress: If she prefers That gray of hers, I don't admire her taste, I must confess. 'And as for legs and feet—well, I declare, The pair she's got Are really not The kind that I'd be ...
— Dick, Marjorie and Fidge - A Search for the Wonderful Dodo • G. E. Farrow
... impression of him is apt to be less flattering to his head than to his heart. He is a person, however, that improves with acquaintance, and is probably more intelligent than he looks. He seems to be living here in a very plain and unpretentious manner; no gaudy stained glass, no tinsel, no mirror-work, no vain gew-gaws of any description impart a cheap and garish glitter to the place; no gorgeous apparel bedecks his ample proportions. Clad in the ordinary dress of a well-to-do Persian ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... cultivates his own peculiarities unhindered, Ben was considered a "character." He was a short, thick man of enormous physical strength, and he sported a beard like a quickset hedge, hence his nickname. He was clad in an entire suit of fur like an Eskimo, with a gaudy red worsted sash ...
— The Woman from Outside - [on Swan River] • Hulbert Footner
... life had been rather hum-drum, until the advent of the "gasoline gigs" as Jack, Cora's brother, slangily dubbed them. Jack, with whose fortunes we shall concern ourselves at more length presently, had a car of his own—one strictly limited to two—a low-slung red and yellow racing car, "giddy and gaudy," Cora ...
— The Motor Girls on Waters Blue - Or The Strange Cruise of The Tartar • Margaret Penrose
... figure of a lady. She appeared to be nearer fifty than forty, and was dressed suitably to her age, in a handsome suit of flowered silk; she had a profusion of trinkets and jewellery about her person, and many rings upon her fingers. But although very rich, her dress was not gaudy or in ill taste. But what was remarkable in the lady was, that although her features were handsome, and upon the whole pleasing, the pupil of each eye was dimmed with the whiteness of cataract, and she was evidently stone-blind. I was for some seconds so surprised ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume III. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... Reserve. The stream of his medicine-loving patients had ceased to flow. The little room was heavy with the reek of his pipe. So he had risen from his chair and passed to the door for a breath of air. It was then that he was confronted by a gaudy coloured apparition. An Indian, whose race was foreign to him, was patiently sitting on the back of a mean-looking skewbald pony, clad in a parti-coloured blanket of flaming hues. The moment Ross appeared in the doorway the Indian produced a ...
— The Heart of Unaga • Ridgwell Cullum
... thin, tense-faced Hebrew girl of eighteen or nineteen came rushing in, carrying a wire basket full of typewritten sheets. She was as gaunt as a plucked spring chicken, and her cheap, gaudy clothes might have been thrown on her. She looked as if she were running to catch a train and in mortal dread of missing it. While Miss Devine examined the pages in the basket, Becky stood with her ...
— A Collection of Stories, Reviews and Essays • Willa Cather
... with the varicoloured paints that he has compounded in nature's mortar. The woman enters into the work with intelligent zest, and when completed the whole array of blended colours is beyond the criticism of the tribe. The back of an Indian's war-bonnet and war-shirt is always more gaudy and sumptuous than the front view and this because when Indians pass each other their salutation is brief and formal. They ride right on. But after the meeting they turn in the saddle and look back to take an inventory. ...
— The Vanishing Race • Dr. Joseph Kossuth Dixon
... came a shrill, high shriek, oaths, shouts, and the orchestra stopped playing. Men jumped to their feet from the faro layouts, and then, mob-like, began to surge toward the door, while in the lead, uttering scream on scream, ran one of the dance-hall girls with her gaudy dress bursting into enveloping flame. She had the terror of a panic-stricken animal flying into the danger of ...
— The Plunderer • Roy Norton
... daring to raise his eyes to the alluring iniquities of the painted imagery which, gaudy in crimson and blue, still blazed out upon the desolate solitude, uninjured by that rainless air. But he was young, and youth is curious; and the devil, at least in the fifth century, busy with young brains. Now Philammon believed most utterly in the devil, ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley
... Rococo as regards artistic taste. They have forgotten the Middle Ages and have not yet found modern art. To the peasant of the Black Forest, the splendid, baroque, dome-shaped church of St. Blasien is a much greater marvel of native art than the Freiburg cathedral. Gaudy, exaggeratedly fantastic Rococo saints are generally considered by Catholic country people very much more edifying than a picture in the severe style of the Middle Ages or of the modern school. In ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VIII • Various
... petty passion, selfishness, or care, and offered up the homage of a tranquil mind, a trusting nature, and an overflowing heart; so that the smoke from this poor chimney has gone upward with a better fragrance than the richest incense that is burnt before the richest shrines in all the gaudy temples of this world!—Upon your own hearth; in its quiet sanctuary; surrounded by its gentle influences and associations; hear her! Hear me! Hear everything that speaks the language of your ...
— The Cricket on the Hearth • Charles Dickens
... Dandelion, should choose and find such a different dress to wear. It was not the rarer flowers that I brought home, at first. My hands were filled with Dandelions and Buttercups. The Saint-John's-Wort delighted me, and even the gaudy Sunflower. I trained the vines which had been drooping round our old house,—the gray time-worn house; the "natural-colored house," the neighbors called it. I thought of the blind boy who fancied the sound of the trumpet must be scarlet, as I trained up the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, No. 38, December, 1860 • Various
... edge. It was as though he had plunged into a green cavern far below the sea. In slow waves, to and fro, swayed the firmament of palms; lower, flowering lianas, jewel-colored, idle as weeds of the sea, ran in tangles and gaudy mazes from tree to tree. He sat himself down in the green gloom, broke seal, unwrapped the silk, and read the letter, which he had acutely guessed could not fail of being sent by so responsible a hand as the friar's from one dignitary of the order ...
— Sir Mortimer • Mary Johnston
... at the bottom of the ocean—or rather, at the bottom of many oceans in one. No light comes to you except through the grottos about you—grottos haunted by weird forms of the deep, from graceful to grotesque, from almost colorless to gaudy-hued. To your dilated pupils the light itself has the weird glow of unreality. It is all like the wonders of the Arabian Nights made tangible or like a strange spectacular dream. If one were in a great diving-bell at the bottom of the veritable ocean he could ...
— A History of Science, Volume 5(of 5) - Aspects Of Recent Science • Henry Smith Williams
... to pursue her. She had, however, the grace to restore his sight on due apologies being made. Becoming Prioress of the convent which she founded, she died therein on October 14th, 740, which day was afterwards held as a gaudy day. Possibly because her indignant lover was a king, it was held ominous for any monarch to enter the Chapel of Saint Frideswide in her convent church. King John, who was as superstitious on some points as he was profane on others, never dared to ...
— One Snowy Night - Long ago at Oxford • Emily Sarah Holt
... may his Joys secure, Turns Limbetham and keep some Gaudy whore, Thinks her his own—when Satan knows her his mind, Is like her Body not to be confin'd, As constant as the Moon, she plays her part, And like a Viper preys upon his Heart: Draws him so poor, till like her Slaves, Which she bestows on some smart Fop she ...
— The Fifteen Comforts of Matrimony: Responses from Men • Various
... more to Dorothy, whose huge scissors clipped the square of gay stuff lying before her as if to make the gaudy quilt was the one object of her life, but she ran upstairs to the bedroom she shared with Betty, and found her there, as she expected, exchanging her working gown, with its large apron, for what was called an afternoon frock, with a dainty kerchief ...
— Bristol Bells - A Story of the Eighteenth Century • Emma Marshall
... of the mother; and the mother herself, by a suggestive circumstance which might have afforded matter of thought to a more experienced observer than Archie, wrapped in a shawl nearly identical with Kirstie's, but a thought more gaudy and conspicuously newer. At the sight, Kirstie grew more tall - Kirstie showed her classical profile, nose in air and nostril spread, the pure blood came in her cheek evenly ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... man liberated from prison; but I have reason to believe that the people are in general amazingly disappointed in my pulpit exercises. They expected great things—things gaudy, stately, and speculative,—and I gave them the simplest and most practical things I can find in the Bible, and that in the plainest way. You would be amused at the sayings of some of the plain Methodist ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson
... think he never could recapture The first fine careless rapture! And though the fields look rough with hoary dew, All will be gay, when noontide wakes anew The buttercups, the little children's dower; —Far brighter than this gaudy melon-flower! ...
— The Poetry Of Robert Browning • Stopford A. Brooke
... high condition. During the prevalence of cold weather they lie in deep and easy water, but as the season advances, they draw into the great rough streams, taking up their stations where they are likely to be least observed. But there the wily wand of the practiced angler casts its gaudy lure, and "Kinmont Willie," "Michael Scott," or "The Lady of Mertoun," (three killing flies,) darting deceitfully within their view, a sudden lounge is made—sometimes scarcely visible by outward signs—as often accompanied by a watery ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various
... on the purchase of a house. By beginning this way, when the family expenses are small, it is comparatively easy, and without any deprivations, to own the home outright in a few years. Many couples foolishly buy gaudy and unnecessary furniture, and live in more expensive homes than their means justify, in order to create an impression, when first married, which they later regret. If part of the money, which the young husband has undoubtedly saved,—or ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Vol. 3 (of 4) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • W. Grant Hague
... little gaudy metropolis the lofty tent of the queen domineered over the rest like a stately palace. The marques of Cadiz had courteously surrendered his own tent to the queen: it was the most complete and sumptuous in Christendom, and had ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving
... blither than roses in thine eyes, Shall I not rend this raiment of pangs and fears, This Colchian cloth white flames ensorcelise, This gaudy-veil distained with blood and tears?— What praise? "O marriage-beauty garlanded For festival, O sumptuous flowery stole For rites of adoration!"—See instead A cilice drenched with torment of my soul! Nevertheless the ...
— The Hours of Fiammetta - A Sonnet Sequence • Rachel Annand Taylor
... midnight when he saw the lights of town, panelled in gold against a peacock sky. Acres and acres of blue darkness lay close-pressing upon the gaudy grids of light. Here one might really look at this great miracle of shadow and see its texture. The dulcet air drifted lazily in deep, silent crosstown streets. "Ah," he said, "here ...
— Where the Blue Begins • Christopher Morley
... rebellious waves in it, but her eyebrows were still dark. She was dressed in black, with a good deal of lace about her; and on her ungloved hand Lady Caroline's keen sight enabled her to distinguish some very handsome diamond rings. The effect of the costume was a little spoiled by a large gaudy fan, of violent rainbow hues, which hung at her side; and perhaps it was this article of adornment which decided Lady Caroline in her opinion of the woman's social status. But about the man she was equally positive in ...
— A True Friend - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... so), and I don't know that it gives much assistance to a sober, prosaic view of the subject like the present. "O Luxury, thou curst by heaven's decree," sounds very grand; but I have not the least idea what it means. The pictures drawn in the poem of simple rural pleasures, and of gaudy city delights, are very pleasing; and the moral drawn from it all, viz., that nations sunk in luxury are hastening to decay, may be true enough; but what strikes one most is that, if Goldsmith thought that England was hastening to decay ...
— Interludes - being Two Essays, a Story, and Some Verses • Horace Smith
... imperishable glory amidst the embattled ranks of his country's foes. He lashes the cold and cruel heartlessness of the world with a noble scorn. He addresses the skeletons of departed friends with passionate longing. He finds that life and its gaudy pleasures are as dust and ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 98, March 22, 1890 • Various
... a low, lazy sort of whistle sounded across the lawn, so low and so slow that it was apparently an unconscious accompaniment to reverie or speculation. It was quite dark except where the light shone from the hall. All the gaudy paper lanterns had been extinguished, and when the confidential notes of "Rally 'round the flag, boys," came closer, and the whistler emerged from the deeper shadows, he could only distinguish two figures at the foot of the steps, and they could only locate him by the glow of his ...
— The Bondwoman • Marah Ellis Ryan
... in the woodland dell; It whispered in low, soft zephyrs That breathed o'er the lake and fell. How it glowed in the mystic star-shine Of the clear blue Northern sky; How it crmison'd and flushed in grandeur In the sunset's sweet good-bye! And gaudy birds from the South-land Made brilliant the poplar grove, And plaintiff calls came sounding, From the haunts where the ...
— Lays from the West • M. A. Nicholl
... symbolical figures The sky is too glaring; the light crude, implacable; never has this old town of Nagasaki appeared to me so old, so worm-eaten, so bald, notwithstanding all its veneer of new papers and gaudy paintings. These little wooden houses, of such marvelous cleanly whiteness inside, are black outside, time-worn, disjointed and grimacing. When one looks closely, this grimace is to be found everywhere: in the hideous masks laughing in the shop fronts ...
— Madame Chrysantheme • Pierre Loti
... different now from what it had been when he first saw it. There were four little masts put up in it, on which were hoisted gay and gaudy flags. Her "hull," or body, was now coppered and neatly painted, while all the rubbish of the building-yard was cleared away, so that everything looked neat and clean. The stocks, or framework on which she had been built, sloped towards the water, so that when the props ...
— The Life of a Ship • R.M. Ballantyne
... race-horses straining against the rider. Now the spectators could make out plainly the boatmen. It could be seen that they had decked themselves out for the occasion. Their heads were bound with bright-colored fillets, their necks with gay scarves. The paddles were adorned with gaudy woollen streamers. New leggings, of holiday pattern, were intermittently visible on the bowsmen and steersmen as they half rose to give added ...
— Conjuror's House - A Romance of the Free Forest • Stewart Edward White
... drum. The fantastic procession advances, forming a double column, composed of men and women side by side. The former are stamping and the latter tripping lightly, but all are keeping time. They certainly present a weird appearance, tricked out in their gaudy apparel and ornamented with flashy trinkets. The hair of the men is worn loose; tufts of green and yellow feathers flutter over the forehead, while around their necks and dangling over their naked chests are seen strings of porcupine quills, ...
— The Delight Makers • Adolf Bandelier
... gaudy light of the candle, and while we do so, we remember far away at home our wife and the little boy asleep in her arms. They do not get up at 6:30. It is at this hour we remember the fragrant drawer in the dresser at home where our clean shirts, and collars and cuffs, and ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VIII (of X) • Various
... him. "Why, how d'ye do, Mr. Norman?" said she. And her friendliness and assurance of manner jarred upon him. There was not a suggestion of forwardness; but he, used to her old-time extreme reserve, felt precisely as if she were bold and gaudy, after the fashion of so many of the working girls who were popular with ...
— The Grain Of Dust - A Novel • David Graham Phillips
... to see us through, began at his persiflage immediately, and congratulated me upon the house I should play to, speaking of box-office receipts and a benefit night. Tucson is more than half a Mexican town, and in its crowd upon the platform I saw the gaudy shawls, the ear-rings, the steeple straw hats, the old shrivelled cigarette-rolling apes, and the dark-eyed girls, and sifted with these the loungers of our own race, boots, overalls, pistols, hotel clerks, ...
— Red Men and White • Owen Wister
... in those days that far away from the dust of the grimy shelves, in the very middle of the room, there was a table with all the latest works of fiction in their gaudy bindings, a few volumes of poetry and a few memoirs. Close to this table Miss Milton sat, wrapped, in the warmest weather, in a thick shawl and knitting endless stockings. She hated children, myself in particular. She was also a ...
— The Cathedral • Hugh Walpole
... establishing her in the palace at Greenwich under the same roof with the queen, with reception rooms, and royal state, and a position openly acknowledged,[159] the gay court and courtiers forsaking the gloomy dignity of the actual wife for the gaudy splendour of her brilliant rival. Tamer blood than that which flowed in the veins of a princess of Castile would have boiled under these indignities; and we have little reason to be surprised if policy and prudence were ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude
... a gaudy chime, Swords that clatter in onsets tall, The words that ring and the fames that climb - Youth is the sign of them, one and all. Hymnals old in a dusty stall, A bald, blind bird in a crazy cage, The scene of a faded festival - These are a type of the ...
— Poems by William Ernest Henley • William Ernest Henley
... only when accomplishments are rendered subservient to the development of moral goodness, that they may become pursuits at all worthy of an accountable being. We were not sent into this world to flutter through life, like the gaudy butterfly, only to be seen and admired. We were designed to be useful to our fellow beings; and to make all our powers and capabilities, in some way or other conducive to the happiness and welfare of our co-journeyers on the path of time. To this end, we wish our fair countrywomen ...
— The Ladies' Work-Table Book • Anonymous
... picture being larger than any other in the room, and having bright masses of red and blue in it: let him be assured that the picture is in reality not one whit the better for being either large, or gaudy in color; and he will then be better disposed to give the pains necessary to discover the merit of the more profound and solemn works of Bellini and Tintoret. One of the most wonderful works in the whole gallery ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume III (of 3) • John Ruskin
... she presented! She had been painted from head to hoofs in broad stripes of red, white and blue. The white was her own natural colour, but the red and blue were a gaudy, cheap paint still partly wet. Nevertheless, the work was the work of an artist. The body was done in graceful, sweeping lines, while the legs were circled red, white and blue alternately down to each hoof. Even the ...
— The Spoilers of the Valley • Robert Watson
... whose circumstances placed the usual means of acquiring knowledge beyond their reach; but as books became accessible, they were no longer needed; the printing press made the Bible, from which the plots of the miracle plays were usually derived, common among the people, and these gaudy representations were swept away by the Reformation; but they were temporarily revived in Queen Mary's time, with the other abominations of the church papal, for we find that "in the year 1556 a goodly stage play of the Passion of Christ was presented at the ...
— Bibliomania in the Middle Ages • Frederick Somner Merryweather
... These sometimes gaudy handkerchiefs were not mere ornaments. They served the same purpose to which Babe was then devoting his, and as the eastern lads learned later, the silk or cotton squares formed very effective protection to nose and mouth while riding range in the thick, heavy dust stirred up by the feet of thousands ...
— The Boy Ranchers - or Solving the Mystery at Diamond X • Willard F. Baker
... governor, was very scantily furnished: a few old chairs, a couple of tables, and the walls whitewashed and decorated with prints of the Virgin Mary and his excellency's patron saint. The house of the priests, which adjoined the cathedral, was in much better repair, and more gaudy in the inside. ...
— Borneo and the Indian Archipelago - with drawings of costume and scenery • Frank S. Marryat
... journals of America mention may be made of Puck, the rough and gaudy cartoons of which have often what the Germans would call a packende Derbheit of their own that is by no means ineffective. Of the other American—as, indeed, of the other British—comic papers I prefer to say nothing, except that I have often seen them in houses and in ...
— The Land of Contrasts - A Briton's View of His American Kin • James Fullarton Muirhead
... This quaint and gaudy spectacle so wrought upon the rejoicing people, that their acclamations utterly smothered the small voice of the child whose business it was to explain the thing in eulogistic rhymes. But Tom Canty was not sorry; for this loyal uproar was sweeter music to him than any poetry, no matter ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... the parched pilgrim's On Arab sands the false mirage, which offers A lucid lake to his eluded thirst, Are gone. Around me are the stars and waters— Worlds mirrored in the Ocean, goodlier sight[ee] Than torches glared back by a gaudy glass; 70 And the great Element, which is to space What Ocean is to Earth, spreads its blue depths, Softened with the first breathings of the spring; The high Moon sails upon her beauteous way, Serenely smoothing o'er the lofty walls Of those tall piles and sea-girt palaces,[ef] ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... plants as chrysanthemums, auriculas, geraniums, and many others, to be exposed to the influence of cold, frosty nights, as when the "fell destroyer" commences to exert its power all plants touched by it rapidly decay. Gladioli will now be clothed in the full glory of their gaudy, but handsome dress; they are comparatively easy to manage in well-drained spots, and being such continuous bloomers, at least three or four or even half a dozen should be in every small garden. In winter they must be covered ...
— Little Folks (Septemeber 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... future perils, This little, little ring. [SAV. makes awkward gesture of refusal. Angry murmurs from the crowd. Cries of 'Take thou the ring!' 'Churl!' 'Put it on!' etc. Enter the Borgias' FOOL and stands unnoticed on fringe of crowd.] I hoped you 'ld like it— Neat but not gaudy. Is my taste at fault? I'd so look'd forward to— [Sob.] No, I'm not crying, But just a little hurt. [Hardly a dry eye in the crowd. Also swayings and snarlings indicative that SAV.'s life is again not worth a moment's ...
— Seven Men • Max Beerbohm
... strangers. Two of the youngest and most attractive of these ladies advanced to within twenty yards, and received with much apparent delight, and a great deal of capering and dancing about on the sand, some strips of a gaudy handkerchief conveyed to them by a lad decorated with streamers of pandanus leaf at the elbows and wrists—evidently the Adonis of the party. Some of the men had formerly been off to the ship, and one or two carried axes of the ...
— Narrative Of The Voyage Of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Commanded By The Late Captain Owen Stanley, R.N., F.R.S. Etc. During The Years 1846-1850. Including Discoveries And Surveys In New Guinea, The Louisiade • John MacGillivray
... walk stands the jackdaw, looking rather a funereal object in his black suit, on this gaudy-colored day; his gray head very much on one side, his round, sly eyes turned upward in dishonest meditation. A worse bird than Jacky does not hop. His life is one long course of larceny, and I know that ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton
... him made so wretched, scorn'd a Thing. How little cause has mankind to be proud Of Noble Birth, the Idol of the Crowd! Have I abroad in Battels Honour won To be at home dishonourably undone? Mark'd with a Star and Garter, and made fine With all those gaudy Trifles once call'd mine, Your Hobby-Horses [1] and your Joys of State, And now become the Object of your Hate; But, d———'ee, Sir, I'll be Legitimate. I was your Darling, but against your Will, And know that I will be the Peoples still; And when you're dead, I and my Friends, ...
— Quaint Gleanings from Ancient Poetry • Edmund Goldsmid
... intimacy had been established between them. Varney was formal and distant to Ardworth, and Ardworth felt a repugnance to Varney. With the instinct of sound, sterling, weighty natures, he detected at once, and disliked heartily, that something of gaudy, false, exaggerated, and hollow which pervaded Gabriel Varney's talk and manner,—even the trick of his walk and the cut of his dress. And Ardworth wanted that boyish and beautiful luxuriance of character which belonged to Percival St. John, easy to please and to be pleased, and expanding ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... the dance. The musician sat high and solitary upon two starch-boxes, fiddle on knee, staring and waiting. Half the floor was bare; on the other half the revellers were densely clotted. At the crowd's outer rim the young horsemen, flushed and swaying, retained their gaudy dance partners strongly by the waist, to be ready when the music should resume. "What is it?" they asked. "Who is it?" And they looked in across heads and shoulders, inattentive to the caresses which ...
— Lin McLean • Owen Wister
... every actor in the pageant to a bloody grave, we can scarcely believe that it is a scene of joy and festivity that we are witnessing. The angel of death seems to hover over them; there is something dreadful in their rejoicing; their gaudy robes, their mantles, their vases, their fringes of gold, assume the sable hue of the grave; and, instead of a baptismal train, it seems like a funeral procession ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various
... of the morning, or the beams of the morning star turned to human flesh. It was the self-possession of this happy mind, the purity of this virgin body, she would fain have perturbed, as a pledge to herself of her own gaudy claim to supremacy. King Theseus, as she knew, had had at least two earlier loves; for once she would be a first love; felt at moments that with this one passion once indulged, it might be happiness thereafter to remain chaste for ever. And then, by accident, yet surely reading indifference ...
— Greek Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater
... book is so stupid. I think novels are stupid nowadays; the heroes are so gaudy, and the heroines have not a spark of spirit. You may talk to me instead, if you like. What have you been ...
— Our Bessie • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... embrace thy king; And, as gross vapours perish by the sun, Even so let hatred with thy sovereign's smile: Live thou with me as my companion. Lan. This salutation overjoys my heart. K. Edw. Warwick shall be my chiefest counsellor: These silver hairs will more adorn my court Than gaudy silks or rich embroidery. Chide me, sweet Warwick, if I go astray. War. Slay me, my lord, when I offend your grace. K. Edw. In solemn triumphs and in public shows Pembroke shall bear the sword ...
— Edward II. - Marlowe's Plays • Christopher Marlowe
... wonderful Gulf Stream, once a myth, still a mystery, the strange current of human existence bears each and all of us with a strong, steady sweep from the tropic lands of sunny childhood, enameled with verdure and gaudy with bloom, through the temperate regions of manhood and womanhood, fruitful or fruitless as the case may be; on to the often frigid, lonely shores of old age, snow-crowned and ice-veined; and individual ...
— The Gentleman from Everywhere • James Henry Foss
... of the room. The rest looked too, and laughed. Turning, I saw that the plain-faced woman had unwound her comforter, and now I could see, hanging low on her chest, an immense lump wrapped in clean white linen and bound up with a gaudy yellow handkerchief. It ...
— The Delectable Duchy • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... Praxed's ear to pray Horses for ye, and brown Greek manuscripts, And mistresses with great smooth marbly limbs? —That's if ye carve my epitaph aright, Choice Latin, picked phrase, Tully's every word, No gaudy ware like Gandolf's second line— Tully, my masters? Ulpian serves his need! And then how I shall lie through centuries, And hear the blessed mutter of the mass, And see God made and eaten all day ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 4 (of 4) • Various
... boy the chain was worthless. But Arturo was desperate. He knew better than to go to Manuel. Manuel would have spent the twenty-five cents long ago, and Arturo pleaded with the grocer. The grocer's wife was in and out, looking after her romping children. She held the worthless, gaudy chain before her black-eyed baby, who clutched it and laughed. The mother laughed, too. Her husband laughed. The baby kept the ...
— Out of the Triangle • Mary E. Bamford
... With its roses, and broad arched windows, its bell-turret, and roofs of slate, it looked as though painted in sepia against the blue of the sky. He fixed his eyes at last on the sombre depths of the Rue Montorgueil, where fragments of gaudy sign boards showed conspicuously, and on the corner of the Rue Montmartre, where there were balconies gleaming with letters of gold. And when he again glanced at the cross-roads, his gaze was solicited by other sign boards, on which such inscriptions as "Druggist and ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola
... the count standing before some copies of Albano and Fattore that had been passed off to the banker as originals; but which, mere copies as they were, seemed to feel their degradation in being brought into juxtaposition with the gaudy colors that covered the ceiling. The count turned round as he heard the entrance of Danglars into the room. With a slight inclination of the head, Danglars signed to the count to be seated, pointing significantly to a gilded arm-chair, covered with white satin embroidered with gold. The ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... congregate beneath detached masses and loose stones. In these fervid and fecund waters life is real, life is earnest. Here, are elaborately armoured crayfish (PALINURUS ORNATUS), upon which the most gaudy colours are lavished; grotesque crabs, fish brilliant in hue as humming-birds. Life, darting and dashing, active and alert, crawling and slithering, slow and stationary, swarms ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... sought eventually to cover up the unfortunate escapade. He would hand you English letters—and Scotch ones too!—with an air of covert insolence that was the joy of half the village. And on Sundays he was to be seen, garbed in knickerbockers, gaudy stockings, and sometimes high, yellowish spats, walking with his peasant girl along the very road his more spirited forbear ...
— A Prisoner in Fairyland • Algernon Blackwood
... afar at these and a hundred similar things, lo! there came by us a gaudy, strapping quean of arrogant mien, and after whom a hundred eyes were turned; some made obeisance, as if in worship of her, a few put something in her hand. I could not make out what she was, and so I enquired. "Oh," said my friend, "she is one whose entire dowry is on show, and yet ...
— The Visions of the Sleeping Bard • Ellis Wynne
... of this gaudy, pink concern. It's so brutally big. It can't live, you know, without sucking the life out of the little booksellers. They mayn't have made a great thing out of it, but they were happy enough before we ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... passed into other rooms these objects were taking different positions; but from every window there were beauties to be seen. The rooms were lofty and handsome, and their furniture suitable to the fortune of its proprietor; but Elizabeth saw, with admiration of his taste, that it was neither gaudy nor uselessly fine; with less of splendour, and more real elegance, than the furniture ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... hearers the importance of bright colours and flowers instead of the ordinary habiliments and accoutrements of woe. For when a soul is on its way to paradise, he said, we should be glad. The Yokohama cortege was headed by men bearing banners; then came girls all in white, riding in rickshaws; then the gaudy hearse; then priests in rickshaws; and finally the relations and friends. The effect conveyed was not one of melancholy; but even if every one had been in black, impressiveness would have been wanting, for no one can ...
— Roving East and Roving West • E.V. Lucas
... she might with her busy needle, the day was drearily long; and few genuine cuckoo-carols have been listened to with such grateful rejoicing as greeted those metallic gutturals that once in every sixty minutes issued from the throat of the gaudy automaton caged ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... one could have designed so delicate and intricate a pattern. If it was cloudy, still, glancing over the cornfields, just as you turned partly round to look, there seemed a brilliant streak of sunshine across them. This was a broad band of charlock: its light yellow is so gaudy and glaring in the mass that as it first catches the eye it seems as if the land were lit up by the sun. After it the buttercups appear of a quiet colour, like dead gold ...
— Round About a Great Estate • Richard Jefferies
... about the race Porter's horse Lauzanne was in, but had hesitated for fear he should say something which might give rise to a suspicion of his errand. He heard the rolling thunder of hoof beats in the air. From where he stood, over the heads of many people he could see gaudy colored silk jackets coming swiftly up the broad straight boulevard of the race course; even as he looked they passed by with a peculiar bobbing up-and-down motion. The effect was grotesque, for he could not see the horses, could not see the motive power ...
— Thoroughbreds • W. A. Fraser
... stores have done a great deal of good in educating the poor, white and black alike. These stores have everywhere sold small brown art prints of many of the great paintings, to take the place of the gaudy ...
— The Upward Path - A Reader For Colored Children • Various
... ground with a thick carpet of palm-leaves. Ere long, a cavalcade of between thirty and forty amazons - they all rode astride - came racing up the valley at full speed, their merry shouts proclaiming their approach. Gaudy strips of MARO were loosely folded around their legs for skirts. Their pretty little straw hats trimmed with ribbons, or their uncovered heads with their long hair streaming in the wind, confined only by a wreath of fresh orange flowers, added to their irresistible charm. Certainly, ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke
... quitted it, leaving behind him very beautiful studies strangely undervalued, and sold for little. The fact is, he was too true to the solemnity and sobriety of nature to please a public led away by gaudy display and meretricious colouring. Yet was he a man of more genius—in landscape—than any nine out of ten of our best artists that have, these last ten years, attempted to show nature or art upon our academical walls. Poor Fearnley! ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Vol. 56, No. 346, August, 1844 • Various
... this the voice of truth and of reason would be drowned, and, with both of them on his side, he who opposed it would make many enemies and few converts—nay, I am apt to think that some of these, if he made any, would say to him, as soon as the gaudy visions of error were dispelled, and till they were accustomed to the simplicity of truth, "Pol me occidistis." Prudence forbids me, therefore, to write as I think to the world, whilst friendship ...
— Letters to Sir William Windham and Mr. Pope • Lord Bolingbroke
... greasy jackets, the firemen, the stage manager strutting about with his hat on his head, the supernumeraries sitting among the hanging back-scenes, the ropes and pulleys, the heterogeneous collection of absurdities, shabby, dirty, hideous, and gaudy, was something so altogether different from the stage seen over the footlights, that Lucien's astonishment knew no bounds. The curtain was just about to fall on a good old-fashioned melodrama entitled Bertram, ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... amazed at these manners. After a while he stepped quietly into the chart-room, and opened his International Signal Code-book at the plate where the flags of all the nations are correctly figured in gaudy rows. He ran his finger over them, and when he came to Siam he contemplated with great attention the red field and the white elephant. Nothing could be more simple; but to make sure he brought the book out on the bridge for the purpose of comparing the coloured drawing with the real thing at the ...
— Typhoon • Joseph Conrad
... may be a common experience—to find S. Mark's, as seen for the first time, especially on a Sunday or fete day, when the vast red and green and white flags are streaming before it, a little garish, a little gaudy; too like a coloured photograph; not what one thinks a cathedral ought to be. Should it have all these hues? one asks oneself, and replies no. But the saint does not long permit this scepticism: after a while he sees that the doubter drifts into his vestibule, to be rather taken by the novelty ...
— A Wanderer in Venice • E.V. Lucas
... I will no longer attend the sale of Malvolio's busts and statues, and gaudy books. I will fly to ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... white people put an exorbitant price on the flour and trinkets they give in exchange for the Indians' work, the latter ask, when selling for money, what seems more than its full value; but many who travel that way, provided with cheap trinkets and gaudy ribbons, ...
— A Trip to Manitoba • Mary FitzGibbon
... beneath; but it is at least a harmonious desolation. There are no wire-fenced walks among the ruins, no feeding-booths and cheap reconstructions of draw-bridges and police-notices at every corner; no gaudy women scribbling to their friends in the "Residenzstadt" post cards illustrative of the "Burgruine," while their husbands perspire over mastodontic beer-jugs. There is ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas
... sun shining on objects quite new, and (although you have made the voyage a dozen times,) quite strange. Mrs. X. and you occupy a very light bed, which has a tall canopy of red "percale;" the windows are smartly draped with cheap gaudy calicoes and muslins; there are little mean strips of carpet about the tiled floor of the room, and yet all seems as gay and as comfortable as may be—the sun shines brighter than you have seen it for a year, the sky is a thousand ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... memoirs of a friend of Scanderbeg, which would introduce me to the man, the time, and the place. In the old and national history of Marinus Barletius, a priest of Scodra, (de Vita. Moribus, et Rebus gestis Georgii Castrioti, &c. libri xiii. p. 367. Argentorat. 1537, in fol.,) his gaudy and cumbersome robes are stuck with many false jewels. See likewise Chalcondyles, l vii. p. 185, l. viii. ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon
... the palm and cocoa-tree, the rice-field, the tank, the huge trees, older than the Mogul Empire, under which the village crowds assemble, the thatched roof of the peasant's hut, the rich tracery of the mosque where the Imam prays with his face to Mecca, the drums, the banners and gaudy idols, the devotee swinging in the air, the graceful maiden with the pitcher on her head, descending the steps to the riverside, the black faces, the long beards, the yellow streaks of sect, the turbans and the flowing robes, the spears and silver maces, the elephants with their canopies ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 7 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Orators • Elbert Hubbard
... fitted to them, and all these lattices were closed. Against the walls, which were as dark in colour as the mashrebeeyeh work, there were a number of carved brackets, on which were placed various extremely common things—cheap and gaudy vases from Naples and Paris, two more Swiss cuckoo-clocks, a third clock with a blue and white china face—and a back that looked as if were made of brass, a musical-box, and a grotesque monster, like a dragon with ...
— Bella Donna - A Novel • Robert Hichens
... liberated Africans of the highest grade, who occupy two-story stone houses enclosed all around by spacious piazzas, the rooms furnished with gaudy richness; and the whole their own property, being built from the proceeds of their ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams
... of a Scotch tour nowadays is to watch the pipers playing and dancing on the quays where the steamers touch. Their gay tartan attire and quaint instruments, with their gaudy bags and fringes, make a bright note of colour, and, judging by the money collected, bagpiping must be a fairly ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... are azure with bluebells, among which the brake is thrusting itself up; others, again, are red with ragged robins, and the fields adjacent fill the eye with the gaudy glare of yellow charlock. The note of the cuckoo sounds above the rushing of the train, and the larks may be seen, if not heard, rising high over the wheat. Some birds, indeed, find the bushes by the railway the quietest place in which to build ...
— Nature Near London • Richard Jefferies
... pine-trees, a rudely constructed, but roomy block-house. In front of the building, and between two massive perpendicular beams, connected by cross-bars, swung a large board, upon which was to be distinguished a grotesque figure, painted in gaudy colours, and whose diadem of feathers, tomahawk, scalping-knife, and wampum, denoted the Indian chief. Beneath this sign a row of hieroglyphical-looking characters informed the passer-by that he could here find "Entertainment for man and beast." On that side of the house, or rather ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 367, May 1846 • Various
... days, To turn a willing world from righteous ways! Well, Heydegger, dost thou thy master serve; Well has he seen his servant should not starve, Thou to his name hast splendid temples raised In various forms of worship seen him prais'd, Gaudy devotion, like a Roman, shown, And sung sweet anthems in a tongue unknown. Inferior offerings to thy god of vice Are duly paid, in fiddles, cards, and dice; Thy sacrifice supreme, an hundred maids! That solemn rite ...
— English Satires • Various
... wearing suits with a brightly colored metallic surface. The modern anodized aluminium coatings glisten and sparkle with an effect like he describes. If these are space-suits, there is a good reason for making them gaudy. If they were worn in space while working on and around a ship, they should be as bright and eye-catching as possible, in the case the man became detached and floated away. He would be quite visible against the blackness ...
— The Four-Faced Visitors of Ezekiel • Arthur W. Orton
... known as subscription books, as a rule, though some valid exceptions exist. Most of such books are profusely illustrated and in gaudy bindings, gotten up to dazzle the eye. If works of merit, it is better to wait for them, than to subscribe for an unfinished work, which perhaps may ...
— A Book for All Readers • Ainsworth Rand Spofford
... frowned at him as she answered. "Can't you look at me, and see? Starving!" She eyed his gaudy watch and chain greedily. "Money don't seem to be scarce with you. Have you made ...
— The Fallen Leaves • Wilkie Collins
... with gaudy pride, By flowery vale and mountain side, And shepherds waste the sunny hours By cooling streams, and bushy bowers; While I, a victim to despair, Avoid the sun's offensive glare, And in sequester'd wilds deplore The perjured vows ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume II. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... gowns. The new, exaggerated toilettes of the actresses, their gait, even the spurious elegance of their speech, which seemed to her of the highest distinction, and with it all the tawdry magnificence of the gilding and the lights, the gaudy placard at the door, the long line of carriages, and all the somewhat unwholesome excitement that springs up about a popular play; that was what she loved, that was what ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... followed by a shamed-looking dog, might have been seen creeping stealthily from the boat-house at the "Swan" towards the railway station, dressed in the following neither neat nor gaudy costume: ...
— Three Men in a Boa • Jerome K. Jerome
... during our acquaintance stooped to a slouch hat. This typical head gear of the West had no attraction for him. The formal black or brown derby for winter and the seasonable straw hat for summer seemed necessary to tone down the frivolity of his neckties, which were chosen with a cowboy's gaudy taste. To the day of his death Field delighted to present neckties, generally of the made-up variety, to his friends, which, it is needless to say, they never failed to accept and seldom wore. Often in the afternoon as it neared two o'clock he ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... two he resignedly took his belongings, and dropping into the wet and dirty boat with Bauda, he lifted an umbrella over his gaudy cap and disappeared ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien
... caught up a gaudy jug, and without further words, went out. When he had gone, the Princess rose and, taking the knife he had used to cut the bread and ham, she kissed the handle on the place where his fingers had grasped it. "You're a very silly girl, Virginia, my dear," she said. "But ...
— The Princess Virginia • C. N. Williamson
... young squaw promenading, who believed herself to be one of the sneezer-chubco-mico's last wives. The man's white and original wife and daughters made an excuse to walk by, to have a look at the aboriginal interloper. The latter had just received from my landlord a present of a pair of gaudy bracelets, for which he had paid eighteen dollars at another sneezer's,—bracelets worth about four. I was told how the man came by this red mate of his. He had taken a young chiefs wife in her husband's ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol I, Issue I, January 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... in the shack were a source of never-ending pride and pleasure to him. Often when at work he found himself proudly comparing his place with its newly added prettiness with the more gaudy ornaments of Mrs. Sharp's or even with Gertie's more pretentious abode. And it was not altogether the pride of ownership that made them ...
— The Land of Promise • D. Torbett
... social indiscretions and innumerable boyish jokes—and I saw nothing left of his former self, but the old tendency to vulgar smartness in his dress. The man was a wreck; but his clothes and his jewellery—in cruel mockery of the change in him—were as gay and as gaudy as ever. ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins
... They looked out and saw the giant coming with the white feather in his hair, for he had taken the feather and put it in his own hair. They thought he was the brave warrior of whom they had heard so much. The elder sister had made her lodge look very gaudy, and had dressed herself in all her beads and quills. The younger sister had left her tent just as it was, and was dressed neatly. When the giant came along, he chose the elder sister. She would have nothing to do with the dog, but the younger sister felt sorry for it and let it ...
— Thirty Indian Legends • Margaret Bemister
... but if they are not told exactly what colors to use they employ every shade, color and tint they can secure. The Basey mats are distinguished by the multitude of colors used. In general it may be stated that the chief criticism of this product is the gaudy effect produced by the colors used. In some cases the colors are well toned and harmoniously combined, but the majority of the mats produced contain vivid colors which are not all harmonious. Through the schools, efforts have been ...
— Philippine Mats - Philippine Craftsman Reprint Series No. 1 • Hugo H. Miller
... speak to him of her happiness, of Zanoni!—how gladly show to him her child! Poor Clarence! she had forgotten him till now, as she had all the fever of her earlier life,—its dreams, its vanities, its poor excitement, the lamps of the gaudy theatre, the ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... to the number of thirty or more. The other half was used as a dining and living room. A long table, spread with oilcloth, extended down the center, with a row of chairs on either side. The walls were decorated with gaudy lithographs, circus posters and colored sheets taken from the Sunday papers that occasionally drifted out that way. On a side table were a number of well-thumbed magazines that Mrs. Melton had sent down for the men to read in their rare ...
— Bert Wilson in the Rockies • J. W. Duffield
... the soul of the earth itself exhaled to the amorous air. Behind an alabaster shrine she lighted a holy-taper, slowly to waste and pale in the spreading day. We went to the window, where among the ivy-nooks day's life was just astir with gaudy wings. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various
... in the ordinary sense, princely. His whole being seemed to have crystallized itself into an external splendor, wherewith he glittered in the eyes of the world, and had no other life than upon this gaudy surface. He had married a lovely woman, whose nature was deeper than his own. But his affection for her, though it showed largely, was superficial, like all his other manifestations and developments; ...
— The Blithedale Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... with their young leaves and their blossoms, their sunshine and their dew, their song of the chaffinch and their rapturous music of the thrush. Appreciation is heightened by contrast; and the buttercup—England's gift to her little children—is pronounced far brighter than the "gaudy melon-flower" which the exiled Englishman has at ...
— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... omission proceeded from forgetfulness. Consequently, I sent the tirewoman, in the Queen's hearing, to order the jewels to be brought in. Smilingly, Her Majesty replied, 'No, no! I have not forgotten these gaudy things; but I do not intend that the lustre of my eyes should be outshone by the one, or the whiteness of my teeth by the other; however, as you wish art to eclipse nature, I'll wear them to satisfy ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... and Holofernes" is announced by a great glaring, painted cloth, while the platform is occupied by a gentleman in Roman armor and a lady in Eastern attire, who are no doubt the principal characters of the play. A gaudy Harlequin and his brother Scaramouch invite the attention of the passers-by. In another booth rope-dancing of men and women is offered to the less tragically minded, and in yet another the world-renowned Faux displays the announcement of his conjuring marvels. A peep-show of the siege of Gibraltar ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume I (of 4) • Justin McCarthy |
