"Gem" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Mystic obtains a deeper comprehension when he opens his Bible and ponders the first five verses of that brightest gem of all spiritual lore: ...
— The Rosicrucian Mysteries • Max Heindel
... a need-be in its doom. I'll ne'er believe that genuine, that is blessed. The fate of this life would not suffer it. Ah! if it would, if Heaven should leave a gem like that outside her walls, we should ...
— The Bride of Fort Edward • Delia Bacon
... a stone, a bone, or a shell, a flat piece of wood, bark or leaf of a tree, a plate of metal, the facet of a gem, any one of a thousand things can be used and has been used for this purpose. The Egyptians and Greeks were in the habit of using the fragments of broken pottery for their less important records. The materials which ...
— Books Before Typography - Typographic Technical Series for Apprentices #49 • Frederick W. Hamilton
... his breath in with a low gasp of amazement. The room was a gem of exquisite beauty. The parquet floor was inlaid with rare hardwoods from a hundred different worlds. Parthian marble veneer covered with lacy Van tapestries from Santos formed the walls. Delicate ...
— The Lani People • J. F. Bone
... passionate in hue, a siren vintage; finally, thin, waning and watery, with only memories of the deeper, rosy-hued days. Now here, my good, but muddled friend, is your youthful maiden!" Holding toward the lamp a glass, clear as crystal, with luster like a gem. "Dancing eyes; a figure upright as a reed; the bearing of a nymph; the soul of a water lily before it has opened its ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... letters with secret delight, repeating to himself at every particular place where it suited him best, "Glorious!" and at the close of all, "I must reward Bill for this. He's a perfect gem of ...
— Eveline Mandeville - The Horse Thief Rival • Alvin Addison
... each Memory Gem of her school days became, in truth, a gem stored away for future years. Long after she had outgrown the little rural school scraps of poetry returned to her to rewaken the enthusiasm of childhood and to teach her again to "hear the lark within the songless egg and find the ...
— Patchwork - A Story of 'The Plain People' • Anna Balmer Myers
... that are very rarely found," Majendie answered. "I may be mistaken, but that is my opinion. If I am right, the actual gem, when cut, would be comparatively small. It is enclosed, as it were, in a thick casing ...
— The Master Detective - Being Some Further Investigations of Christopher Quarles • Percy James Brebner
... the citron, smelled it, and could not take his eyes off it. He called over his wife to him, and showed her, with a happy smile, the citron, as if he were showing her a precious jewel, a priceless gem, a rare antique, or an ...
— Jewish Children • Sholem Naumovich Rabinovich
... bottom, poured in water and mixed up a lot of mud with which we chinked up the interstices between the logs and covered the wood in the chimney. The earth that had been thrown up in digging the hole, we now banked up against the log wall all around, which made it wind proof; and then over this gem of architecture we stretched our fly. We had no closed tents—only a fly, a straight piece of tent cloth all open at the sides. Our fly, supported by a rude pole, and drawn down and firmly fastened to the top of the log wall, made ...
— From the Rapidan to Richmond and the Spottsylvania Campaign - A Sketch in Personal Narration of the Scenes a Soldier Saw • William Meade Dame
... Lucy," he declared, "you are wonderful—a perfect cameo, a gem. To look at you now, with your delightful white hair and your flawless skin, one would never believe that you had ever spoken a single angry word, that you had ever felt the blood flow through your veins, or that your eyes ...
— The Vanished Messenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... (meat) of Her Majesty's Hounds" is a piece of dog biscuit. No. 32 is a leaky can of water. "The Maiden's Joy" (obviously) is a wedding ring. "The Fall" is a lady's veil. No. 35, "Motherhood," is the gem of the collection, and should be kept carefully hidden (say by a handkerchief thrown over it) until the company have had time to read and appreciate Mr. Caverley's graceful lines, when the veil is removed, and behold—an egg! No. 36, "A Friendly ...
— Entertainments for Home, Church and School • Frederica Seeger
... unfashionable streets into which she directed it, she was never annoyed. Her maid went with her into the shops, and one of the grooms always stood at the door within call, to the intense delight of the neighborhood. And one day she found what, from her point of view, was a perfect gem. It was a poor, cheap-looking, tarnished silver medal, a half-dollar once, undoubtedly, beaten out roughly into the shape of a heart and engraved in script by the jeweller of some country town. On one side were two clasped ...
— Gallegher and Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... my trunk," she continued promptly; "and your signature will make a unique gem of what is already a precious treasure. And you, dear Professor Totts, when I am unpacked, you will surely not refuse me the same honor? Professor Totts, you know," she added to me, "has proved ...
— How Doth the Simple Spelling Bee • Owen Wister
... presumptuous mortal stay: Let artist gods this beauteous bust portray; Splendor, royalty, magnificence combined, A Venus in Diana's arms entwined. The tiny hand, so soft, so pure, so white, Robs its emerald gem of half its light. The secret charms beneath her robe-folds hidden, Like heavens' joys to mortal eyes forbidden, Are dimly outlined to our rapturous gaze, Like veiled statues through a marble haze. Her fairy foot, as in the graceful waltz it glides, Our admiration equally divides. And proves, ...
— The History of Minnesota and Tales of the Frontier • Charles E. Flandrau
... mixes his ink is in itself a little gem. It is chiselled out of a piece of jade, and represents a tiny lake with a carved border imitating rockwork. On this border is a little mamma toad, also in jade, advancing as if to bathe in the little lake in which ...
— Madame Chrysantheme Complete • Pierre Loti
... element (see pp. 31, 37) in the manifestation of the Deity, just as the Chinese and Japanese Buddhists have done for China and Japan, and the modern reformers of Indian religion have done for India. This too is a 'gem of purest ray.' ...
— The Reconciliation of Races and Religions • Thomas Kelly Cheyne
... frequently obtainable, and it may be doubted whether it be desirable: yet I think that to the full enjoyment of it, a certain abandonment of form is necessary; sometimes by reducing it to the shapeless glitter of the gem, as often Tintoret and Bassano; sometimes by loss of outline and blending of parts, as Turner; sometimes by flatness of mass, as often Giorgione and Titian. How far it is possible for the painter to represent those mountains of Shelley as the poet sees them, "mingling ...
— Modern Painters Volume II (of V) • John Ruskin
... finish the sentence; for he did not hope that Wilford Cameron would win the gem he had so ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes
... dark-green color showed it to be a body of deep water. For a long time we sat enjoying the view, for we had become fatigued with mountains, and the free expanse of moving waves was very grateful. It was set like a gem in the mountains, which, from our position, seemed to inclose it almost entirely. At the western end it communicated with the line of basins we had left a few days since; and on the opposite side it swept ...
— The Lake of the Sky • George Wharton James
... those days, and swagger about Kingston as proud as peacocks, when every one of them had done that at home they should be cashiered for. Maum Buckey would not have to do with these light-come-light-go gallants. "Me wash for Gem'n Ship-Cap'n, Gem'n Marchants, Gem'n Keep-store," she would observe; "me not ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 2 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... pictures on old-fashioned pieces of music. Those pictures lure me still with strange sensations such as no others make me feel. I wish I could realise now as vividly as I realised then the beauty of that lovely lady on the song, and the whole pathetic story—the gem that decked her queenly brow and bound her raven hair, remained a sad memorial of blighted love's despair; and that other young creature who wore a wreath of roses on the night when first we met; and the one who related that we met, 'twas in ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... been made in the diamond mines of South Africa. Why should he not be as successful as others? The romance of the Cullinan might be repeated, even surpassed. Well he recalled how he had been thrilled by the sensational story of the discovery of that colossal gem, more than three times the size of the Excelsior, the wonder of the modern world. In imagination, he saw it now. An old-fashioned Boer farm, transformed into a modern mining camp. A moonlight night. A man strolling idly along the rugged, desolate veldt, ...
— The Mask - A Story of Love and Adventure • Arthur Hornblow
... star dilated, more vitreous, larger than usual. Not as in some clear nights when the larger stars entirely outshine the rest. Every little star or cluster just as distinctly visible and just as high. Berenice's hair showing every gem, and new ones. To the north-east and north the Sickle, the Goat and Kids, Cassiopeia, Castor and Pollux, and the two Dippers. While through the whole of this silent indescribable show, inclosing and bathing my whole receptivity, ran the thought ...
— Adventures in Criticism • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... turn he did not remain sitting in the flitter, listening to the com-tech's heavy breathing, but walked a circular beat which took him into the darkness of the night in a path about the flyer. Overhead the stars were sharp and clear, glittering gem points. But in the dead city no light showed, and he was sure that no ...
— Star Born • Andre Norton
... something of a thrill. He was a connoisseur of jewels, and a fine gem affected him much as a fine picture affects the artistic. He ran the diamonds through his fingers, then scrutinized them again, ...
— The Intrusion of Jimmy • P. G. Wodehouse
... just begun! A life has just begun! Another soul has won The glorious spark of being! Pilgrim of life all hail! He who at first called forth, From nothingness the earth; Who piled the mighty hills, and dug the sea, Who gave the stars to gem Night like a diadem, Thou little child, made thee! Young creature of the earth, Fair as its flowers, though brought in ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19. No. 538 - 17 Mar 1832 • Various
... own nation! Was it not chosen by Providence to become the leading nation on earth? And does it not tower mountain high over other nations? Is it not the gem of the ocean? Is it not incomparably virtuous, ideal and brave? The result of such ridiculous teaching is a dull, shallow patriotism, blind to its own limitations, with bull-like stubbornness, utterly incapable of judging of the capacities ...
— Mother Earth, Vol. 1 No. 2, April 1906 - Monthly Magazine Devoted to Social Science and Literature • Various
... the breasted terns that flit Was the smooth arm's rounded shape As she idly played with a pomegranate To anger a chained grey ape; And her Sun-God's self for diadem Had kissed her curls to gold; But blue—sea-blue as the sapphire gem, Her ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, June 17, 1914 • Various
... first one of the diamond cuff-buttons recovered for you, with my compliments," said Holmes triumphantly, laying the gem on the table before the astonished Earl. "Your coachman is not really the thief,—only a receiver of stolen goods. Thorneycroft," he added, as he turned to the latter, "the game is up! I'm onto you! You stole the cuff-button ...
— The Adventures of the Eleven Cuff-Buttons • James Francis Thierry
... their pilgrim friends to the North Star, hide them and feed them during the day, and then return to the plantation to care for the loved ones of the men who starved Union soldiers and hunted them down with bloodhounds! This is the brightest gem that history can place upon the brow of the Negro; and in conferring it there is no one ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams
... Woodforde, and seven fresh horses. At fourteen miles came across a splendid reach of water, about one hundred and fifty yards wide, but how long I do not know, as we could not see the end of it. It is a splendid sheet of water, and is certainly the gem of Sturt Plains. I have decided at once on returning, and bringing the party up to it, as it must be carefully examined, for it may be the source of the Camfield, or some river that may lead me through. On approaching ...
— Explorations in Australia, The Journals of John McDouall Stuart • John McDouall Stuart
... conflicting that no one could judge of its value. What reason, I asked myself, was there to suppose that it would be different now? No shoplifter in her senses was likely to lift the great Kimberley Queen gem with the eagle eyes of clerks and detectives on her, even if she did not discover that it was only a paste jewel. And if Craig gave the woman, whoever she was, a good opportunity to get away with it, it would be a case ...
— The Dream Doctor • Arthur B. Reeve
... sorrowingly from the deck, clasping the precious volume to his heart. Allusive or discursive speech scared him like indecency; and I had used his gem but as a peg whereon flauntingly to hang it. It took me three days to tame him and to induce him to show me another of his treasures, recently acquired in Athens. Ioannes Georgius Godelmann's Tractate de Lamiis, printed by Nicholas Bassaeus of Frankfurt. I read him Keats's poem ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... will begin earlier than mine. Do you remember showing me my first glow-worm at Beauchastel? I used to think that the gem of my walks, before I knew better. It is a great treat to have poor Walter here in the holidays, so good and pleasant; but I must say one charm is the pleasure ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. II) • Charlotte M. Yonge
... into a rapture of applause; but even that scarcely marred the effect of the beautiful sad waking words of the Queen, "Spirits of peace, where are ye?" I never enjoyed anything so much in my life before; and never felt so inclined to shed tears at anything fictitious, save perhaps at that poetical gem of Dickens, the death ...
— The Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll • Stuart Dodgson Collingwood
... berry question, I might answer it with a gem from Dr. Watts, relative to 'Satan' and idle hands,' but will merely say, that, as a matter of public safety, you'd better leave me alone; for such is the destructiveness of my nature, that I shall certainly eat something hurtful, break something valuable, or sit upon something ...
— A Modern Cinderella - or The Little Old Show and Other Stories • Louisa May Alcott
... of an acquaintance of Mrs. Shiffney's who was away in Europe. Miss Fleet had been there before and knew the servants, who gladly gave her permission to show Charmian everything. After wandering through the house, which was a pure gem of Arab architecture, five hundred years old, and in excellent preservation, they descended into the garden, which was on the slope of the hill over which the houses of Mustapha Superieur are scattered. Here no sounds of voices reached ...
— The Way of Ambition • Robert Hichens
... navigation improvements, and trade fail to reach the Fair Play settlers. This lends further support to their independent and self-sufficient existence. Turner's concluding paragraph is, however, a gem of economic determinism and bears repeating in full. Found on page 100, it reads ...
— The Fair Play Settlers of the West Branch Valley, 1769-1784 - A Study of Frontier Ethnography • George D. Wolf
... but scalding satire. I could always tell which of them was talking without looking for his name. Naylor had a polished style and a happy knack at felicitous metaphor; Norris's style was wholly without ornament, but enviably compact, lucid, and strong. But after all, Calder was the gem. He never spoke when sober, he spoke continuously when he wasn't. And certainly they were the drunkest speeches that a man ever uttered. They were full of good things, but so incredibly mixed up and wandering that it made one's ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... sprang up, and great trees with leafy branches rose on every side.... As they rode on beneath the leafy trees from every tree the birds sang out, for the spell of silence over the lonely moor was broken for ever." This unpretentious story, a child's story, is as engaging as a gem. And so, I think, are most of the others. One more example to illustrate the quality of Leamy's style—say, the description of the contest of the bards before the High King at the Feis of Tara in the story called "The Huntsman's ...
— Irish Fairy Tales • Edmund Leamy
... novel of the present season. It is studded with intellectual brilliants. Its satire is keener than that of Bernard Shaw. Behind all this foolery there shines the light of Truth. A brilliant piece of satire—a gem that sparkles from any point of view the reader may choose to regard ...
— Margarita's Soul - The Romantic Recollections of a Man of Fifty • Ingraham Lovell
... of lieges and of lords— Girt he for travel, with his princely kin, Great Yudhishthira, Dharma's royal son. Crest-gem and belt and ornaments he stripped From off his body, and, for broidered robe A rough dress donned, woven of jungle-bark; And what he did—O Lord of men!—so did Arjuna, Bhima, and the twin-born pair, Nakula ...
— Indian Poetry • Edwin Arnold
... in their bower. Silk white as new-fallen snow, silk green as the leaves in spring did they shape into garments worthy to be worn by the King and Sir Siegfried, and amid the gold embroideries glittered many a radiant gem. ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 2 (of 12) • Various
... The balmy, soft influence of a June atmosphere, resting upon this lovely scene of water, woods, and rocks—a perfect gem in creation, deeply impressed me. Under a strong sense of its geological frame-work of cliffs and winding paths, it appeared that it only required a poetic drapery to be thrown over it and its historical associations, to render it a pleasing theme of description. So unlike English scenery, ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... excellent actors. In actresses, also, the theatre is well provided, and the whole tone of its company and performances is such as to render it one of the most correct and agreeable in Paris. But the gem of the Gymnase, its grand attraction, to our thinking, is that delightful little actress, Rose Cheri. Never, assuredly, was a pretty name more appropriately bestowed. Her plump, fresh, pleasant little face, reminds one of the Rose, and cherie she assuredly ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCLXXVI. February, 1847. Vol. LXI. • Various
... a bit of description of Banks Land, from the anthology of that country, which, so far as we know, consists of two poems by a seaman named Nelson, one of Captain McClure's crew. The highest temperature ever observed on this "gem of the sea" was 53 deg. in midsummer. The lowest was 65 deg. below zero in January, 1853; that day the thermometer did not rise to 60 deg. below, that month was never warmer than 16 deg. below, and the average of the month was 43 deg. below. A pleasant climate ...
— If, Yes and Perhaps - Four Possibilities and Six Exaggerations with Some Bits of Fact • Edward Everett Hale
... yard that made up the town at night. "Looks like a crowd down the hill," he said, "by 'The Cricketers,'" and remained watching. Thence his eyes wandered over the town to far away where the ships' lights shone, and the pier glowed—a little illuminated, facetted pavilion like a gem of yellow light. The moon in its first quarter hung over the westward hill, and the stars were clear ...
— The Invisible Man • H. G. Wells
... all his joy in them. He showed her how it was Hebrew history made into a series of exquisite and touching legends; he dwelt on the sweet, idyllic treatment, the lovely landscape, the tender idealism throughout, the perfect adaptedness of gem-like colouring. ...
— The Emancipated • George Gissing
... nugget, or a diamond, which was quite a prize. One such was found by Lewis about this time, which, although sadly dim and soiled when first discovered, proved to be such a precious and sparkling gem that he resolved to wear it himself. He and Emma one day paid a visit to the cabin, where they found old Mrs Roby alone, and had a long chat with her, chiefly about the peculiarities of the Captain and ...
— Rivers of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... congregation of Premonstratensians allow ladies to visit only the library, which is approached from the outer courtyard; the picture gallery is unfortunately closed to them, a small collection but of value, its gem ...
— From a Terrace in Prague • Lieut.-Col. B. Granville Baker
... of their rhymes. It is a bad substitute perhaps, but better than the total absence of form, favoured by the atomic character of our words, and the flat juxtaposition of our clauses. The art which was capable of making a gem of every prose sentence, — the art which, carried, perhaps, to, a pitch at which it became too conscious, made the phrases of Tacitus a series of cameos, — that art is inapplicable to our looser medium; we cannot give clay the finish and nicety of marble. ...
— The Sense of Beauty - Being the Outlines of Aesthetic Theory • George Santayana
... in doing good. With a constancy and vigor based on this life-giving principle, let each one endeavor to make his influence felt throughout the world; becoming, in his sphere, like one of those fixed stars that sparkle in the midnight sky—a blazing sun to those that are near, a gem of sweetest ray to ...
— The Faithful Steward - Or, Systematic Beneficence an Essential of Christian Character • Sereno D. Clark
... marching, marching, marching. See! There go the kings of France, in piteous file. The deadly diamonds shining in their crowns Do wound the foreheads of their Majesties And glitter through a setting of blood-gouts As if they smiled to think how men are slain By the sharp facets of the gem of power, And how the kings of men are slaves of stones. But look! The long procession of the kings Wavers and stops; the world is full of noise, The ragged peoples storm the palaces, They rave, they laugh, they thirst, they lap the stream That trickles from the regal vestments down, And, ...
— The Poems of Sidney Lanier • Sidney Lanier
... up these same waterways and along these trails came settlers singly or in groups, the daring vanguard of an advancing civilization, and planted themselves as pleased their fancy in choice spots, in sunny nooks sheltered by bluffs, by gem-like lakes or flowing streams, but mostly on the banks of the great rivers, the highways for their trade, the shining links that held them to their kind. Some there were among those hardy souls who, severing all bonds behind them, sought only escape from their fellow men and from their past. ...
— The Foreigner • Ralph Connor
... precious ring, that lightens all the hole] There is supposed to be a gem called a carbuncle, which emits not reflected but native light. Mr. Boyle believes the ...
— Notes to Shakespeare, Volume III: The Tragedies • Samuel Johnson
... business pursuits were irregular and partook of mystery. He always smoked cigarettes and chewed gum. He wore loud shirts and a diamond scarf-pin which had upon him the appearance of stolen goods. The gem had belonged to Margaret's own mother, but when Camille expressed a desire to present it to Jack Desmond, Margaret had yielded with no outward hesitation, but afterward she wept miserably over its loss when alone in her room. The spirit had gone out of Margaret, ...
— The Copy-Cat and Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... is not happy. The figures are not Italian; nor is the costume of the age of the book. His "Girl and Cupid" is a little gem, reminding us of Schidoni. We presume these ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Vol. 56, No. 346, August, 1844 • Various
... his possession, as there could be no rival, he might command his own price. None but monarchs could aspire to the possession of such a treasure, and these would compete with each other at his desk for a gem that ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot
... breath and the bloom of the year in the bag of one bee; All the wonder and wealth of the mine in the heart of one gem; In the core of one pearl all the shade and the shine of the sea; Breath and bloom, shade and shine—wonder, wealth, and—how far above them— Truth, that's brighter than gem, 5 Trust, that's purer than pearl— Brightest truth, purest trust ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning
... that imperishable name and hidden it with care in my maiden heart. Hermit, why do you look perturbed? Has that name only a deceitful glitter? Say so, and I will not hesitate to break this casket of my heart and throw the false gem to the dust. ...
— Chitra - A Play in One Act • Rabindranath Tagore
... whatever I chance to get my hands on, here in Glencaid," she retorted, "just as I converse with whoever comes along. I am hopeful of some day discovering a rare gem hidden in the midst of the ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish
... aims were his country's," and his whole country's. He desired that every act of that country should bear the broadest light, and challenge the closest and most searching scrutiny; that each should be a new and brighter gem in the diadem of her glory, and that her magnanimity should be most conspicuous in her transactions with the weakest. This he especially desired, and labored to effect, in all her transactions with the Indians. He viewed ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks
... eyes, deep in thought, for some time after Pauline had left her, then looked uneasily at the little gem of a watch dangling on its ormolu and jasper stand. A quarter to one. Violet must have gone to bed hours ago; unless, indeed, Violet were like her mother, too unhappy to be able to sleep. Mrs. Tempest was seized with a sudden ...
— Vixen, Volume II. • M. E. Braddon
... over the entire area Climate: mostly semiarid; subtropical along coast; sunny days, cool nights Terrain: vast interior plateau rimmed by rugged hills and narrow coastal plain Natural resources: gold, chromium, antimony, coal, iron ore, manganese, nickel, phosphates, tin, uranium, gem diamonds, platinum, copper, vanadium, salt, natural gas Land use: arable land 10%; permanent crops 1%; meadows and pastures 65%; forest and woodland 3%; other 21%; includes irrigated 1% Environment: lack of important arterial rivers or lakes requires extensive water conservation and control measures ...
— The 1992 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... and implored. She offered the merchant her pearls and every other gem she had if he would but let her keep the ring, but ...
— Tales of Folk and Fairies • Katharine Pyle
... close and strange succession over lands and seas ever since. He could therefore talk best about himself, though he talked modestly. "These things to hear would Desdemona seriously incline," and there came times when even a tear was not wanting to gem the ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable
... personals have long since been knocked down by the hammer of the auctioneer, under direction of the sheriff, to pay off some gambling bond in preference to his honest creditor; yet who still flourishes a fashionable gem of the first water, and condescends to lend the lustre of 33 his name, when he has nothing else to lend, that he may secure the advantage of a real loan in return. His patrimonial acres and heirlooms remain indeed untouched, because the court ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... a page can be opened where the eye does not light upon some antique gem. Mythology, history, art, manners, topography, have all their fitting representatives. It is the highest praise to say, that the designs throughout add to the pleasure with which Horace is ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 218, December 31, 1853 • Various
... is heavily dependent on the extraction and processing of minerals for export. Mining accounts for 20% of GDP. Rich alluvial diamond deposits make Namibia a primary source for gem-quality diamonds. Namibia is the fourth-largest exporter of nonfuel minerals in Africa, the world's fifth-largest producer of uranium, and the producer of large quantities of lead, zinc, tin, silver, and tungsten. The mining sector employs only about 3% ...
— The 2005 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... glassy water drove his cheek in lines; A little dry old man, without a star, Not like a king: three days he feasted us, And on the fourth I spake of why we came, And my bethrothed. 'You do us, Prince,' he said, Airing a snowy hand and signet gem, 'All honour. We remember love ourselves In our sweet youth: there did a compact pass Long summers back, a kind of ceremony— I think the year in which our olives failed. I would you had her, Prince, with all my heart, With my full heart: but there were widows here, Two widows, ...
— The Princess • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... also an old butler dressed up like a bard. These were all arranged on a dais, and sang national melodies; and when the performance was finished Lord Bute, with a charming smile, presented Lady Llanover with a ring. This bore on its large gem an engraving of a Welsh harp, below which was the motto in Welsh, "The language of the soul is in ...
— Memoirs of Life and Literature • W. H. Mallock
... darling blue eyes! Look at them, Mary; ain't they like the blossoms on a peacock's tail? Musha, may sorrow never put a crease in that beautiful cheek! The saints watch over you, for your mouth is like a moss-rose! Be good to her, yer honor, for she's a raal gem: devil fear you, Mr. Charles, but ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... A new gem has been added to sacred literature, and this is the accidental discovery by Nicolas Notovich of a Buddhist history of a phase of Christ's life left ...
— Violets and Other Tales • Alice Ruth Moore
... completely hung with an old figured tapestry framed in gray wainscot. The bed, draped in dimity curtains, was turned down and exhaled that odor of freshly washed linen which invites one to stretch one's self in it. On the table, a little gem dating from the beginning of the reign of Louis XVI, were four or five books, evidently chosen by Oscar and placed there for me. These little attentions touch one, and naturally my thoughts recurred ...
— Monsieur, Madame and Bebe, Complete • Gustave Droz
... pleasant surprise for the frequent visitor. The morning light shows one picture, the evening light another: the sunrise adorns this window, the sunset that. There is no hour from dawn to dark in which some gem of ancient painting does not look its best, while little noticed, if seen at all, at other hours. Some are seen by a reflected light; others, when the church is so dark that one may stumble against a person ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, September 1880 • Various
... revived, and after dinner he took up the role of showman of the Roper scenery once more, and had us scrambling over boulders and cliffs along the dry bed of the creek that runs back from the Punch Bowl, until, having clambered over its left bank into a shady glen, we found ourselves beneath the gem of the Roper—a wide-spreading banyan tree, with its propped-up branches turning and twisting in long winding leafy passages and balconies, over a feathery grove of young palm trees that had crept into ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... in our action of the law of honour, but it is another thing to be in ourselves absolutely sincere, to look up into the eyes of God, as a truthful child looks up into the eyes of its mother, to possess our own hearts like a flawless gem, with nothing to hide, nothing to keep back, and nothing to be ashamed of—that is to have truth in the inward parts, and that is what God demands. It is what He found in Christ, one of the things which made Him say time after time, ...
— The After-glow of a Great Reign - Four Addresses Delivered in St. Paul's Cathedral • A. F. Winnington Ingram
... celebrating his funeral obsequies. The honour of the greatest men depends on the estimation of the least: and the good-will of the meanest peasant is a brighter ornament to the fortune, a greater accession to the grandeur of a prince, than the most radiant gem in his royal diadem. However, the spite and enmity of one (and him the most weak otherwise and contemptible) person, may happen to spoil the content of our whole life, and deprive us of the most comfortable enjoyments thereof; may divert our thoughts from our delightful ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. I • Francis Augustus Cox
... (Alfred ordered me made). This was discovered in 1693 in Newton Park, near Athelney, and through it one is enabled to touch the far-away life of a thousand years ago. But greater and more imperishable than this archaic gem is the gift that the noble King left to the English nation—a gift that affects the entire race of English-speaking people. For it was Alfred who laid the foundations for ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... uttered,—but a deep And solemn harmony pervades The hollow vale from steep to steep, And penetrates the glades. Far distant images draw nigh, Called forth by wondrous potency Of beamy radiance, that imbues Whate'er it strikes with gem-like hues! In vision exquisitely clear, Herds range along the mountain-side; And glistening antlers are descried; And gilded flocks appear. Thine is the tranquil hour, purpureal Eve! But long as god-like wish, or hope divine, Informs my spirit, ne'er can ...
— The Lights and Shadows of Real Life • T.S. Arthur
... and finish of this portrait on vellum, done in crayons or body-colour, make it a gem of the first water. The drawing was done in black chalk, and the tints have been rubbed in with coloured crayons or given with the point where lines of colour were required. The work has the delicacy of a water-colour and the strength of oils. The broad, ...
— Holbein • Beatrice Fortescue
... her own—had not as yet once suspected that every human gladness—even to the most transient flicker of delight—is the reflex—from a potsherd it may be—but of an eternal sun of joy?—Stay, let me pick up the gem: every faintest glimmer, all that is not utter darkness, is from the shining face of the Father of Lights.—Not a breath stirred the ivy leaves about her window; but out there, on the wide blue, the breezes were frolicking; and in the harbour the new boat must be tugging to get free! She dressed ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald
... such another gem as the nest of the hummingbird. The finding of one is an event to date from. It is the next best thing to finding an eagle's nest. I have met with but two, both by chance. One was placed on the horizontal branch of a chestnut-tree, with a solitary green leaf, ...
— In the Catskills • John Burroughs
... and resolution, the lost beauty was restored to daylight and honour. Not a word of all this is, however, named by any French chronicler, although Berangere is now the heroine and the boast of Le Mans, the object of interest to travellers, the gem of the cathedral, and the pride of ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... it; the other was like a fairy by her side; slight and tiny, dressed in something of mixed threads of white and crimson that shone in the sun, with a velvet bodice, a green ribbon over it, and a gem over the shoulder that flashed in the sun, a tiny scarlet hood from which such a quantity of dark locks streamed as to give something the effect of a goldfinch's crown, and the face was a brilliant little brown one, with glowing cheeks, ...
— Under the Storm - Steadfast's Charge • Charlotte M. Yonge
... have yet a gem, Which a purer lustre flings Than the diamond flash of the jewelled crown On the lofty brow of kings; A wonderful pearl of exceeding price, Whose virtue shall not decay; Whose light shall be as a spell to thee, And a blessing on ...
— The Vaudois of Piedmont - A Visit to their Valleys • John Napper Worsfold
... far the most beautiful and absorbing of all the books of the Bible; it seemed full of rich and dim pictures, things which I could not interpret and did not wish to interpret, the shining of clear gem-like walls, lonely riders, amazing monsters, sealed books, all of which took perfectly definite shape in the childish imagination. The consequence is that I can no more criticise it than I could criticise old tapestries or pictures familiar from ...
— Joyous Gard • Arthur Christopher Benson
... pondering this gem of information. And then, "But you have to own, Mrs. Lockwood, that ...
— The Kingdom Round the Corner - A Novel • Coningsby Dawson
... luxuriance yet to come. Soon the island ring is clothed with rich and beautiful vegetation, cocoa-nut palms begin to sprout and sea-fowl to find shelter where, in former days, the waves of the salt sea alone were to be found. In process of time the roving South-Sea islanders discover this little gem of ocean, and take up their abode on it; and when such a man as Cook sails past it, he sees, perchance, the naked savage on the beach gazing in wonder at his "big canoe," and the little children swimming like ducks in the calm waters ...
— The Cannibal Islands - Captain Cook's Adventure in the South Seas • R.M. Ballantyne
... estate was then greater than that slave-property. I merely wish to show I have no selfish motive in giving, as I shall, the true Southern defence of slavery. (Applause.) I speak from Huntsville, Alabama, my present home. That gem of the South, that beautiful city where the mountain softens into the vale,—where the water gushes, a great fountain, from the rock,—where around that living stream there are streets of roses, and houses of intelligence and gracefulness and gentlest hospitality,—and, withal, where so high ...
— Slavery Ordained of God • Rev. Fred. A. Ross, D.D.
... a gem of purest ray serene. To me the monosyllable gorp is a thing of beauty and a joy for ever. Take a youth, who has passed his life as an underling on some secluded farm, to an exhibition of wax figures, gorgeously ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie
... sailed into the salon in all her Queen of Sheba splendour, it was to be greeted by her sister-in-law in a modest dress of muslin, without a solitary gem to relieve its simplicity; and—horror!—to find that the room had been re-decorated in blue by the artful Josephine—a colour absolutely fatal to her green magnificence! It was thus a very disgusted Princess who made her early exit ...
— Love affairs of the Courts of Europe • Thornton Hall
... winding through flats of natural meadow and copse. Then let him transport his stream into the great Palm-house at Kew, stretch out the house up hill and down dale, five miles in length and two thousand feet in height; pour down on it from above a blaze which lights up every leaf into a gem, and deepens every shadow into blackness, and yet that very blackness full of inner light—and if his fancy can do as much as that, he can imagine to himself the stream up which we rode or walked, now winding along the ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley
... was a Quilted ear-tab, which had lost its velvet mate; R was a Ring with a glassy gem ...
— The Jingle Book • Carolyn Wells
... shelter to other lodgers who had called themselves gentlemen, and who had been pompous and grandiose of manner in their intercourse with the widow and her daughter; but O, what pitiful lacquered counterfeits, what Brummagem paste they had been, compared to the real gem! Mary Anne Kepp had seen varnished boots before the humble flooring of her mother's dwelling was honoured by the tread of Horatio Paget, but what clumsy vulgar boots, and what awkward plebeian feet had worn them! The lodger's slim white ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon
... thousand acres last year, but Dad has leased another ten thousand on the other side of the river. Oh, Judy, my dear, if ever you come to the West I'll show you what real fun is! Sometimes I ride all day—and such riding! I've a gem of a little mare—Patsy's her name—she's as good a chum as I ever had until I came here last year. Aren't mothers bricks?" she added with a little catch in her voice. "Mother really needs me, but she just insisted on my coming—she taught me in her spare time until I came here last year, ...
— Judy of York Hill • Ethel Hume Patterson Bennett
... asserted to have been used for a signal station and to have been surrounded by gun stations, was said to have been demolished by the German guns. This act created a sensation throughout the world, for Rheims Cathedral was like a gem from Paradise, regarded by most art lovers as one of the most beautiful buildings in the world. Every civilized country was shaken with grief when the news of the disaster to Rheims ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume II (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... like rainbow-tinted spray. It is a fountain-jet of musical notes, each note a cut gem," ...
— The Lady Paramount • Henry Harland
... sizes, and shapes, plain, foreign note, pens, ink, and a generous supply of stamps. I felt like writing a dozen letters there and then, and was on the point of giving way to my inclination, when my attention was arrested by what I considered the gem of the whole turn-out. I refer to a nice little bookcase containing copies of all our Australian poets, and two or three dozen novels which I had often longed to read. I read the first chapters of four of them, and then lost myself in Gordon, and sat on my dressing-table ...
— My Brilliant Career • Miles Franklin
... extreme rarity, as a piece of good fortune. Among the extremely rare editions of the Latin Classics, in which the Grenville Library abounds, the unique complete copy of Azzoguidi's first edition of Ovid is a gem well deserving particular notice, and was considered, on the whole, by Mr. Grenville himself, the boast of his collection. The Aldine Virgil of 1505, the rarest of the Aldine editions of this poet, is the more welcome to the Museum, as it serves to supply a lacuna; the copy mentioned in the Catalogue ...
— English Book Collectors • William Younger Fletcher
... become a broker in this market street and find rest from my groaning in labour and my licking of platters." As soon as morning morrowed he did on such wise, when suddenly a merchant approached him, hending in hand a costly gem whose light burned like a lamp or rather like a ray of sunshine, and 'twas worth the tribute of Egypt and Syria. Hereat the Caliph marvelled with exceeding marvel, and quoth he to the trader, "Say me, wilt thou sell this jewel?" and quoth the other, "Yes." ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... the forest, which terminated at the foot of a range of hills rearing their heads in mural peaks, and on ascending them, they found that they overlooked a beautiful plain below, in the centre of which a vast lake stretched away over many miles, and lay nestled in that wilderness like a gem in a setting of emerald. This lake was studded with numerous islands which were heavily timbered, and formed a beautiful scene. Taking a circuitous route so as to reach the lake in safety, they encamped on its banks as the last rays ...
— The American Family Robinson - or, The Adventures of a Family lost in the Great Desert of the West • D. W. Belisle
... enough by food, and keep its colour without much help of virtue. He may have the heart of a hero along with it; I aver nothing to the contrary. Ask Domenico there if the lapidaries can always tell a gem by the sight alone. And now I'm going to put the tow in my ears, for thy chatter and the bells together are more than I can endure: so say no more to me, but ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... inscription; his wife and several other persons, including two later Emperors, are buried here also. As was quite the custom of the time, the tomb is surrounded by a garden of thirteen acres. Farther on, was the Tomb of a Saint, a perfect gem! It is built of white marble, is eighteen feet square, and is surrounded by a broad veranda. Around the covered grave there is a low marble rail, and over it a beautiful canopy, inlaid with mother-of-pearl; in the walls are finely pierced screens. Near this tomb is a handsome red sandstone ...
— Travels in the Far East • Ellen Mary Hayes Peck
... Sharpening of Cutting Tools, Abrasive Processes, Lapidary Work, Gem and Glass Engraving, Varnishing and Lackering, Apparatus, Materials ...
— Mechanical Drawing Self-Taught • Joshua Rose
... And as they journeyed toward the deacon's home, The child related how he came to roam, Until the listening deacon understood The touching story of his orphanhood. Then, finding in the little waif a gem Worthy to deck the Saviour's diadem, He drew him to his loving breast, and said, "My child, you shall by me be clothed and fed; Nor shall you go from hence again to roam While God in love provides for us a home." And as the weeks and months roll on apace, ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For, Book Two • Various
... or natural man; and hence it is common to every animal, n. 94. But conjugial love belongs to the internal or spiritual man; and hence this love is peculiar to man, n. 95, 96. With man conjugial love is in the love of the sex as a gem in its matrix, n. 97. The love of the sex with man is not the origin of conjugial love, but its first rudiment; thus it is like an external natural principle, in which an internal spiritual principle is implanted, n. 98. During the implantation of conjugial love, the love ...
— The Delights of Wisdom Pertaining to Conjugial Love • Emanuel Swedenborg
... much more than she had originally intended. There was such a gem of a frock—black velvet and a ...
— The Phantom Lover • Ruby M. Ayres
... perfect loveliness, and a Moorish arcade of aerial lightness and beauty. The rich stucco and the arabesque decorations of the inner walls and ceilings, finished in gold and blue, the original colors still there after centuries of exposure, together form perhaps the gem of the Alhambra. Yet one hesitates to pronounce any one hall, chamber, or court as excelling another where all are so transcendently beautiful. The characteristic embodiment of the architecture seemed to ...
— Due West - or Round the World in Ten Months • Maturin Murray Ballou
... twenty volumes are enumerated, embracing some writings of Bede and Isidore.[354] As a proof of his bibliomanical propensities, I refer the reader to the celebrated Benedictional of the Duke of Devonshire; that rich gem, with its resplendent illuminations, place it beyond the shadow of a doubt, and prove Ethelwold to have been an amator librorum of consummate taste. This fine specimen of Saxon ingenuity is the production of a cloistered monk ...
— Bibliomania in the Middle Ages • Frederick Somner Merryweather
... call you 'Gem,' because it is short for Jemima, and in honor of these corn muffins, which we call 'gems' in our part of the world," added Phil. "We'll think of a name yet. Come on, girls, we must get to work; there is so much to be done. Lillian, you ...
— Madge Morton, Captain of the Merry Maid • Amy D. V. Chalmers
... thousand kokus; and his name was changed to Hotta Hida no Kami. He also received again his original castle of Sakura, with a revenue of twenty thousand kokus: so that there can be no doubt that the saint was befriending him. In return for these favours, the shrine of Sogoro was made as beautiful as a gem. It is needless to say how many of the peasants of the estate flocked to the shrine: any good luck that might befall the people was ascribed to it, and night and day the devout worshipped ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford
... "Rose-cheeked Laura," which is now tolerably familiar in anthologies) are charming, though never so charming as his rhymed "Airs." The poetry is, indeed, mostly in flashes, and it is not very often that any song is a complete gem, like the best of the songs from the dramatists, one or two of which will be given presently for comparison. But by far the greater number contain and exemplify those numerous characteristics of poetry, as distinguished ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
... wonderful work of art does not toss his jewels together in any haphazard way. He often has to wait for months to get the right ruby, or the right pearl, or the right diamond to fit in the right place. Those who do not know might think one gem just like another, but the artist knows. He has been looking at gems, examining them under the microscope. There is a meaning in every facet, in every shade of color. He sees blemishes which the ordinary eye ...
— Great Pianists on Piano Playing • James Francis Cooke
... voice that would make her famous on the stage, but she uses it all the time, as she says, 'in the service of the King!' I think she's narrow on that point, but I know she's sincere. Edith has had a great sorrow, and it makes her nobility stand out, pure and wonderful, like a white gem in a black setting. It seems to be the law that one must rub shoulders with sorrow before he really begins to live. And any afternoon you can find her down in the children's ward, singing with that wonderful voice to ...
— The Cow Puncher • Robert J. C. Stead
... time when Tacitus lived until shortly before the day when Vindelinus of Spire first ushered the last six books to the admiring world from the mediaeval Athens. When it appeared it was at once pronounced to be the brightest gem among histories; its author was greeted as a most wonderful man,—the "unique historian", for so went the ...
— Tacitus and Bracciolini - The Annals Forged in the XVth Century • John Wilson Ross
... Anne Champneys felt that the glamour of Florence had departed with him. It was as if the sunshine had been withdrawn, along with that polished presence, that gem-like mind. She missed him to an extent that astonished her. She thought that even Giotto's Campanile looked bleak, the day ...
— The Purple Heights • Marie Conway Oemler
... which she was standing. She lifted her head—and advanced quickly to meet me with a faint flush on her face, which came and died away again in a moment. I happen to have visited the picture gallery at Dresden in former years. As she approached me, nearer and nearer, I was irresistibly reminded of the gem of that superb collection—the matchless Virgin of Raphael, called "The Madonna di San Sisto." The fair broad forehead; the peculiar fullness of the flesh between the eyebrow and the eyelid; the delicate outline of the lower face; the tender, sensitive lips; the color of the complexion ...
— Poor Miss Finch • Wilkie Collins
... Erik did so; and the building appears to have been so ingenious that His Majesty was able to move about in it unseen and to disappear without a possibility of the trick's being discovered. When the Shah-in-Shah found himself the possessor of this gem, he ordered Erik's yellow eyes to be put out. But he reflected that, even when blind, Erik would still be able to build so remarkable a house for another sovereign; and also that, as long as Erik was alive, some one would know ...
— The Phantom of the Opera • Gaston Leroux
... God the chorus breaks, From every host, from every gem: But one alone the Saviour speaks, It is the Star ...
— The World's Best Poetry Volume IV. • Bliss Carman |
