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noun
Gems  n.  (Zool.) The chamois.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Gems" Quotes from Famous Books



... collections to the French and Scandinavian or the Slavonic fields. Meanwhile it may be assumed that the stories that have pleased all European children for so long a time are, by a sort of international selection, best fitted to survive, and that the Fairy Tales that follow are the choicest gems in the Fairy Tale field. I can only express the hope that I have succeeded in placing them ...
— Europa's Fairy Book • Joseph Jacobs

... three days we remained in Paris, I visited the Louvre and its stolen goods. It was a brilliant treat; never was any palace so decorated with such gems of art, nor, I hope, under the same circumstances, ever will be again. On the day Louis le Desire entered, I paid a napoleon for half a window in the Rue St. Denis to ...
— A Sailor of King George • Frederick Hoffman

... their memory, Those glorious Greeks of old— On shore and sea the Famed, the Free, The Beautiful—the Bold! The mind or mirth that lights each page, Or bowl by which we sit, Is sunfire pilfer'd from their age— Gems splinter'd from their wit. Then drink we to their memory, Those glorious Greeks of yore; Of great or true, we can but do What ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various

... treasures; but the glow and sparkle were for the tall figure beside her, however her feminine pride might be gratified at this splendid array. So long as Richard Temple honored her among women with his heart's devotion, there needed not the glitter of gems ...
— Idle Hour Stories • Eugenia Dunlap Potts

... the fields and over the hills, holding up the train of summer as she walks so sedately, think him adorable. If summer stops but for a moment I see them slipping slyly into his arms, laying golden heads on his drab waistcoat and gazing with wonder-blue eyes at his coruscating gems. I think well of old man Barberry, too; better I fancy than he does of me. I admire his stocky growth which has a sturdy grace of its own, and I love him for the birds that he shelters, the yellow warblers that love ...
— Old Plymouth Trails • Winthrop Packard

... this matter and exhibited some of the supposed correspondences in "The Belief in Talismans". Some further particulars are shown in the annexed table, for which I am mainly indebted to AGRIPPA. But, as in the case of the zodiacal gems already dealt with, the old authorities by no means agree as to the majority ...
— Bygone Beliefs • H. Stanley Redgrove

... mellow showers Opens the way for early flowers; Then after her comes smiling May, In a more rich and sweet array; Next enters June, and brings us more Gems than those two that went before: Then (lastly) July comes, and she More wealth brings ...
— The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 • Robert Herrick

... In her hair, in her breast, on her neck, her fingers. Her father, when luck came to him, had found his greatest joy in decking with these gems ...
— A Little Rebel - A Novel • Margaret Wolfe Hungerford

... After passing the gems from hand to hand, the owner of the bungalow replaced them in the wallet, returning the latter to the same pocket ...
— The Motor Boat Club and The Wireless - The Dot, Dash and Dare Cruise • H. Irving Hancock

... bought for three and sixpence, but which in the forties cost at least half-a-guinea. Very proud is the little girl, with the Kenwigs pigtails, and the Kenwigs frills, of that mahogany desk, and its infinite capacities for literary labour, above all, gem of gems, its stick of variegated sealing-wax, brown, speckled with gold, and its little glass seal with an intaglio representing two doves—Pliny's doves perhaps, famous in mosaic, only the little girl had never heard of ...
— The Idler, Volume III., Issue XIII., February 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly. Edited By Jerome K. Jerome & Robert Barr • Various

... foolish! Worship your love, give her the best of you to see; be to her like the western lands (they bring us such strange news of) to the Spanish Court; send her only your lumps of gold, fans of feathers, your spirit-like birds, and fruits and gems. So shall you, what is unseen of you, be supposed altogether a paradise by her,—as these western lands by Spain: though I warrant there is filth, red baboons, ugly reptiles and squalor enough, which they bring Spain as few samples of ...
— An Introduction to the Study of Browning • Arthur Symons

... to be an unusually successful one for the divers. The crop of oysters was large, and many pearls were found. The gems which were to go to the Sultan were superb, and there would be enough of them to make a truly ...
— Anting-Anting Stories - And other Strange Tales of the Filipinos • Sargent Kayme

... many voices and see before us scenes of fair women and handsome men, diamonds flash, silks rustle, and no garden of flowers ever displayed a greater variety of rich and dainty color intermingled, or flashed more brightly its gems of morning dew. But hark! From behind that bower of blossoms and evergreens in yonder recess come strains of music which set the little white slipper to tapping out the time as its wearer waits impatiently for the waltz to begin, ...
— From the Ball-Room to Hell • T. A. Faulkner

... bags, pockets and bosom, about thirty natural brackets, some very large and fearfully heavy. One was so heavy that I brought it home by kicking it down the mountain. I have just got some flower seeds for fall planting, and the children are looking them over as some would gems from the mine. ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss

... fill bulky volumes. In this little book we shall confine our attention to some of the interesting discoveries that were made by him among the romantic islands of the South Pacific—islands which are so beautiful that they have been aptly styled "gems of ocean," but which, nevertheless, are inhabited by savage races so thoroughly addicted to the terrible practice of eating human flesh, that we have thought fit to adopt the other, and not less appropriate, ...
— The Cannibal Islands - Captain Cook's Adventure in the South Seas • R.M. Ballantyne

... France. Scarcely had he started when the royal treasurer rushed into the presence of the queen and persuaded her to send a messenger to bring Columbus back. Then his terms were accepted. He was to be admiral of all the islands and countries he might discover, and have a part of all the gems, gold, ...
— A Brief History of the United States • John Bach McMaster

... Napoleon the Great to command the city, while in every direction are views almost impossible of description. To the east is that glorious cemetery known as the "tombs of the khalifs," which contains many of the finest architectural gems of mediaeval Egypt; to the west is Fostat, the original "city of the tent," from which Cairo sprang, while over the rubbish heaps of old Babylon, the Roman aqueduct stretches towards Rhoda, that beautiful garden island on whose banks tradition has it that the infant Moses ...
— Peeps at Many Lands: Egypt • R. Talbot Kelly

... soon made. Tracy was taken into full and equal partnership, and he went straight to work, with dash and energy, to reconstructing gems of art whose accessories had failed to satisfy. Under his hand, on that and succeeding days, artillery disappeared and the emblems of peace and commerce took its place—cats, hacks, sausages, tugs, fire engines, pianos, guitars, rocks, gardens, flower-pots, landscapes—whatever was wanted, he ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... lupins. There were the rose-coloured blossoms of the wild althea, and the brilliant orange of Californian poppies—glancing among the green leaves like so many balls of fire— while lower upon the surface grew the humble violas, sparkling like azure gems. ...
— The Boy Hunters • Captain Mayne Reid

... my aerenoid, I stood on the balcony, entranced at the beauty of the scene before me, which lay bathed in a wonderful starlight—far more brilliant than the light of the full moon upon Earth—shed by a myriad of blazing gems in a sky that knew no clouds. A perfect stillness reigned, save for the rippling laughter of a little stream, that wended its way through an avenue of trees to a lake of glistening silver, ...
— Zarlah the Martian • R. Norman Grisewood

... which precede the selections from prominent authors, are admirable in construction, gems of literary ...
— Dikes and Ditches - Young America in Holland and Belguim • Oliver Optic

... "The gems of earth are still within Her silent unwrought mines; There hide they, all unknown, unseen, No sparkle ...
— Twilight And Dawn • Caroline Pridham

... the rail of the chair the rich cloak which covered her in the carriage, and sat now in the full light, in the splendor of satin and lace and gems, her arms bare, her throat and shoulders white and bare, her figure recognized graciously by every line of a superb gowning such as we had not yet learned on this side of the sea. Never had I seen, and never ...
— 54-40 or Fight • Emerson Hough

... purchasable save at distant marts; and they were welcomed as merchants where they would have been spurned as missionaries."(101) All the while their hearts were uplifted to God for wisdom to present a treasure more precious than gold or gems. They secretly carried about with them copies of the Bible, in whole or in part; and whenever an opportunity was presented, they called the attention of their customers to these manuscripts. Often an interest to read God's word was thus awakened, ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White

... the night sped away; and, tortured with anxiety for the pale young being whom he had left senseless on his pillow, Wilkins walked the narrow precincts of his cell moody and disconsolate. For with all the evil of this man's strange nature, there were some pure and sparkling gems of good, which cast a radiance, bright and purifying, over the dark traits of his character. This love for Guly was one of these. Springing up, as it did, from among the rank weeds of sin and recklessness in his breast, it proved that he could appreciate the lovely, and ...
— The Brother Clerks - A Tale of New-Orleans • Xariffa

... Harding the oars again plunged into the water, causing a regular shower of gems, and the boat was urged forward towards the light, which was now not more than half a cable's ...
— The Secret of the Island • W.H.G. Kingston (translation from Jules Verne)

... with minerals, deriving from those she liked a sense of concentrated life. Her impressions of the precious stones, corresponded with many superstitions of the ancients, which led to the preference of certain gems for amulets, on which ...
— Summer on the Lakes, in 1843 • S.M. Fuller

... people he lived among it was a mere spectacle; Quentin made that bright, ardent world real to her, and serious. He gave her books to read; he took her to hear music; he showed her the pictures, the statues, the gems and porcelains that she had before accepted as part of the background of life hardly seeing them. From being the background of life they became, in a sense, suddenly its object. But not their object—not his and hers,—though they talked of them, looked, listened and understood. ...
— Amabel Channice • Anne Douglas Sedgwick

... gems of paste; Parisian robes thy withered limbs conceal; Thy wrinkled cheeks are rouged; in vulgar taste A modern ...
— Poems • John L. Stoddard

... Paul, and St. Andrew, and there is a fine shield of the arms of England, with a border or mantling of France, and surmounted by a label of three points azure.[80] The quality of the glass is exceedingly good, and the window, when the sun shines through it, resembles a screen of gems, and puts its neighbours to shame. The fourth window from the west, however, by Clayton & Bell, is of considerable merit. The vaulting-shafts are in clusters of three, and have overhanging bell-shaped bases with polygonal plinths, while upon the capitals are angels bearing shields, ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Ripon - A Short History of the Church and a Description of Its Fabric • Cecil Walter Charles Hallett

... however, was uncommonly well-informed, and would discourse to the groups in his store, sitting with his stout legs hanging over the counter, with a coarse brilliancy, original and sagacious, from which the more cultured might cull gems of thought, fresh and striking, despite the terrible swearing, which would startle ...
— The Cabin on the Prairie • C. H. (Charles Henry) Pearson

... tried to comfort Inzana as she played with her silver moon, but she would not hear Them, and went in tears to Slid, where he played with gleaming sails, and in his mighty treasury turned over gems and pearls and lorded it over the sea. And she said: "O Slid, whose soul is in the sea, bring ...
— Time and the Gods • Lord Dunsany [Edward J. M. D. Plunkett]

... recklessness, near the long-necked giraffe, type of his Africa,—his magnificent wife, seated on the grass, her little feet nestling in the tame lion's mane, her long black hair flowing over crimson drapery and covered with gems from mines before the flood. Higher up is Shem, leaning his arm over that mouse-colored horse,—his Arab steed. His wife, in pure white linen, feeds the elephant, and plays with his lithe proboscis,—the mother of Terah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, David, and Christ. ...
— Slavery Ordained of God • Rev. Fred. A. Ross, D.D.

... pain, which had broken down the fair mind itself,—but it had all created a gracious form for the memory to dwell on, an undying association with the "Tancredi," as beautiful, instructive, and joy-giving as the "Divino Amore" of Raphael, the exquisite onyx heads in the "Cabinet of Gems," or that divine prelude the Englishman was at that moment pouring out from his piano in a neighboring palazzo, in a flood of harmony as golden and rich as the wine of Capri, every note of which, we ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various

... river this very day had come canoes rowed by men of bronze and filled with spoils of the chase, fish of strange shapes and brilliant hues, golden, luscious fruits, flowers also fairer than amaranth or asphodel, gold beads and green stones. Gold and gems went into the treasure-chests aboard the ships, but all besides came kindly in for the furnishing of that rich feast. Nor were lacking other viands, for grain and flesh and wine had been abundant in Nueva Cordoba, whose storehouses now the English ...
— Sir Mortimer • Mary Johnston

... well-known tale. Each evening he descends to Thetis' lap, The while men think he bathes him in the sea. O, but when he returneth whence he came Down to the west, then dawns his deity, Then doubled is the swelling of his looks. He overloads his car with orient gems, And reins his fiery horses with rich pearl. He terms himself the god of poetry, And setteth wanton songs unto ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VIII (4th edition) • Various

... the Queres there was limited commercial intercourse, for the Tanos claimed the veins of turquoise that abound on the heights near some of their villages, and the Queres went thither at rare intervals to trade for the gems which they were ...
— The Delight Makers • Adolf Bandelier

... question appeared in the 'Book of Gems,' an annual edited by Mr. S. C. Hall. The writer, after stating that Clare had 'for many years existed in a state of poverty, as utter and hopeless as that in which he passed his youth;' that he had 'a wife and a very large ...
— The Life of John Clare • Frederick Martin

... disappearing. The gas-jets shone more clearly; the 'buses broke into a decorous trot. The long line of lights came out suddenly, crossing each other like a string of many-coloured gems. ...
— Mary Gray • Katharine Tynan

... shall we do with our Maid? How shall we treat her best? Shall the gems that are rare be strewed in her hair? And shall she in silks be drest? Shall we make her a gift of gold? Shall we make her our queen? Perhaps. But whatever we make her, wherever we take her, We never must make ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, August 8, 1891 • Various

... would wind the pearl necklace round her fingers, make the facets of the crystal gems sparkle, ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant

... what degree of color the earth or stone possesses naturally, the color of the phosphorescence is nearly the same in all cases; chemically precipitated amorphous alumina, rubies of a pale reddish yellow, and gems of the prized 'pigeon's blood' color glowing alike in the vacuum." These results, as well as the spectra obtained, he stated further, corroborated Becquerel's observations. In consequence of the opposite results obtained by ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 613, October 1, 1887 • Various

... may answer his Adoration and Worship, demand many unreasonable things of us, and use their utmost endeavors to subjugate and afterwards murder us. Then taking up a Cask or Cabinet near at hand, full of Gold and Gems, he proceeded in this manner: This is the Spaniards God, and in honour of him if you think well of it, let us celebrate our Arcytos (which are certain kinds of Dances and caprings used among them); and by this means his Deity being appeas'd, he will impose his Commands on the Spaniards ...
— A Brief Account of the Destruction of the Indies • Bartolome de las Casas

... the elves, were ruled by a king, who, in various countries of northern Europe, was known as Andvari, Alberich, Elbegast, Gondemar, Laurin, or Oberon. He dwelt in a magnificent subterranean palace, studded with the gems which his subjects had mined from the bosom of the earth, and, besides untold riches and the Tarnkappe, he owned a magic ring, an invincible sword, and a belt of strength. At his command the little men, ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber

... pale, sick pearls, or icy, chilly diamonds for me! I like gems with fire and color in 'em. I do!" she exclaimed, as she drew on a pair of yellow kid gloves over her plump hands, and sailed out of her room, to the great admiration of Luce, who ...
— Her Mother's Secret • Emma D. E. N. Southworth

... his fellow man. Kay's was the rowdiest house in the school, and the cream of its rowdy members had come to camp. There was Walton, for one, a perfect specimen of the public school man at his worst. There was Mortimer, another of Kay's gems. Perry, again, and Callingham, and the rest. A pleasant gang, fit for anything, if it could be ...
— The Head of Kay's • P. G. Wodehouse

... shades and gleams. We passed freely under their lofty boughs, lost up in the shadows of the waves, while at our feet organ-pipe coral, stony coral, star coral, fungus coral, and sea anemone from the genus Caryophylia formed a carpet of flowers all strewn with dazzling gems. ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne

... come back soon. On the north of the Kailasa peak near the mountains of Mainaka, while the Danavas were engaged in a sacrifice on the banks of Vindu lake, I gathered a huge quantity of delightful and variegated vanda (a kind of rough materials) composed of jewels and gems. This was placed in the mansion of Vrishaparva ever devoted to truth. If it be yet existing, I shall come back, O Bharata, with it. I shall then commence the construction of the delightful palace of the Pandavas, which is to be adorned with every kind ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Part 2 • Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa

... come, the storm was passed, rain and wind and thunder ceased, the sombre clouds rolled away and down beamed the sun to show us a new and radiant world of vivid greens spangled as it were with a myriad shimmering gems, a very glory ...
— Martin Conisby's Vengeance • Jeffery Farnol

... "The Hill of the Rising Day," at the other. Man is a miniature kingdom, with its reproduction, sometimes in dwarf, of everything that other kingdoms have. It has four little rivers, the Neb, Colby, Black and Gray Waters, with little gems of cascades; has its own dialect, the Manx, and a parliament in miniature, known as the Council, or Upper House, and the House of Keys. It is a healthful resort, for all the winds that blow come from the sea, and its sea-views are striking, ...
— England, Picturesque and Descriptive - A Reminiscence of Foreign Travel • Joel Cook

... offered by Ba[c]ahol as the price of royalty, indicates that such carved gems were in high esteem. [c]uval is translated by Guzman and others, "diamond;" but it ...
— The Annals of the Cakchiquels • Daniel G. Brinton

... Yet all is but setting to what the place contains; objects of bigotry and virtue that appeal to the artistic as much as to the religious instincts of the devout. More sacred still are the things treasured in the sanctum of the priests. There you will find gems of art for whose sake only the most abnormal impersonality can prevent you from breaking the tenth commandment. Of the value set upon them you can form a distant approximation from the exceeding richness and the amazing number of the silk ...
— The Soul of the Far East • Percival Lowell

... the sensation of the eye as such. Yet there is no branch of aesthetic which is so incomplete. We know that the sensation of light or color, if not too weak or too violent, is in itself pleasing. The bright, the glittering, shining object, so long as it is not painful, is pleasantly stimulating. Gems, tinsel, lacquer, polish, testify to this taste, from the most primitive to the most civilized man. Color, too, if distinct, not over-bright, nor too much extended in field, is in itself pleasing. The single colors have been the object of comparatively little study. Experiment seems to ...
— The Psychology of Beauty • Ethel D. Puffer

... garments of different colours, and the greater part in silk; the ambassadors themselves, who were of the nobility of their country, were in cloth of gold, and adorned with massy chains, ear-rings and rings of gold: their caps were covered with bracelets set full of pearls and other gems: in a word, they were set out with all those things that, among the Utopians, were either the badges of slavery, the marks of infamy, or the playthings of children. It was not unpleasant to see, on the one side, how they looked big, when ...
— Ideal Commonwealths • Various

... members of the municipality, dressed in their official robes, proceeded to the gate where they were to welcome him; the windows of all the houses were open; and there appeared beautiful women, adorned with flowers and gems, awaiting his approach. The imperial guard formed in line to the soul-stirring notes of their band, and the Kings of Saxony and Wuertemberg, and the whole host of German princes, had assembled in the large hall of the government ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach

... are all incrusted with gorgeous marbles and precious stones, from malachite, porphyry, lapis-lazuli, chalcedony, agate, to all the finer and more expensive gems which shone in Aaron's ephod. When one considers that an ear-ring or a brooch, half an inch long, of Florentine mosaic work, costs five or six dollars, and that here is a great church of the same material and workmanship as a breastpin, one may imagine ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various

... Madame de Pompadour called Madame du Hausset to look at them; she was dazzled, but sceptical, and made a sign to show that she thought them paste. The Count then exhibited a superb ruby, tossing aside contemptuously a cross covered with gems. 'That is not so contemptible,' said Madame du Hausset, hanging it round her neck. The Count begged her to keep the jewel; she refused, and Madame de Pompadour backed her refusal. But Saint-Germain insisted, and Madame de Pompadour, thinking that ...
— Historical Mysteries • Andrew Lang

... lovely wives, whose multi-colored costumes made a glowing garden on the rugs at the foot of the dais, while on the embroidered cushions at the side of the monarch a lovely Scheherazade in shimmering white satin with strings of glistening gems in her hair, on her breast, on her arms and ankles, made an alluring picture of the new-made bride. Tall palms reared their stately fronds above the group and slave girls, with fierce Nubians in attendance, waited in mute homage ...
— Miss Pat at School • Pemberton Ginther

... observations from different parts of the world, his extraordinary powers of analysis would have enabled him to reach a satisfactory theory. He certainly opened up many mines full of intellectual gems; and his successors have never ceased in their explorations. This has led to improved mathematical methods, which, combined with the greater accuracy of observation, have rendered physical astronomy of to-day the ...
— History of Astronomy • George Forbes

... author of What Is Art?, it may safely be hazarded that at least fifty per cent of the "familiar quotations" we children laboriously copied into ruled blank books in our school days and have ever since regarded as nuggets of truth and gems of poetry are neither true nor, beyond the fact of rhyme, poetic. Something as a wave of suggestion passed over Europe and sent thousands of little ones down to their deaths in the Children's Crusades, thousands of youngsters ...
— Penguin Persons & Peppermints • Walter Prichard Eaton

... cowbird. The impertinence of this disreputable bird in thrusting her plebeian offspring upon the divine songster, to rear at the expense of her own lovely brood, was not to be tolerated. The dirty speckled egg looked strangely out of place among the gems that belonged to the nest, and I removed it, careful not to touch nest or eggs. So pertinacious is this parasite upon bird society that my friend says that in Illinois, where the wood thrush represents the charming family, almost every wood thrush nest, in the early summer, ...
— Upon The Tree-Tops • Olive Thorne Miller

... peculiarity in my temper. Whether it were that I derived from nature some jealousy and suspicion of all happiness which seems too perfect and unalloyed—[a spirit of restless distrust, which in ancient times often led men to throw valuable gems into the sea, in the hope of thus propitiating the dire deity of misfortune, by voluntarily breaking the fearful chain of prosperity, and led some of them to weep and groan when the gems thus sacrificed were afterwards brought back to their hand by ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey

... following Novellette was originally published in the PICTORIAL DRAWING-ROOM COMPANION, and is but a specimen of the many deeply entertaining Tales, and gems of literary merit, which grace the columns of that elegant and highly popular journal. The COMPANION embodies a corps of contributors of rare literary excellence, and is regarded as the ne plus ultra, by its ...
— The Heart's Secret - The Fortunes of a Soldier, A Story of Love and the Low Latitudes • Maturin Murray

... cent. In China, Siam, India, the Philippine Islands, and Syria I found substantially similar anxieties though the proportions naturally varied. "True, there has been commerce since the early ages, but caravans could afford to carry only precious goods, like fine fabrics, spices and gems. These luxuries did not reach the multitude, and could not materially change environment. But modern commerce scatters over all the world the products of every climate, in ever ...
— An Inevitable Awakening • ARTHUR JUDSON BROWN

... noisy, was the enemy's 1-pound Maxim. A very loud hammering, quickly repeated, and almost simultaneously a whirring in the air, followed by four quick explosions, and then we knew this poisonous devil was at work. The shells were little gems in their way, and when they did not burst, which was often the case, were tremendously in request as souvenirs. Not much larger than an ordinary pepper-caster, when polished up and varnished they made really charming ornaments, and ...
— South African Memories - Social, Warlike & Sporting From Diaries Written At The Time • Lady Sarah Wilson

... than a precious ornament. Some diamonds, however, whose natural form and polish were more favourable to the development of their clouded brilliancy, foretold the splendour they would display were it possible to cut and polish them as other gems. Numerous attempts were made to attain this desired end, but all in vain, until, about 1460, Louis de Berghen, a young jeweller of Bruges, succeeded in cutting the ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 456 - Volume 18, New Series, September 25, 1852 • Various

... I got so nervous my mouth simply ached to let out a cayoodle. The words kept trying to crawl through my sesophagus, and when I backed 'em up, they slid down and stood around in groups, hanging onto the straps, gradually filling me with witful gems of thought. ...
— Pardners • Rex Beach

... motion. Her brocade-robe about which costly laces hung in gossamer clouds, rustled down in rich folds to the marble floor of the vestibule, while with every pulsation of her heart, and movement of her body, gems flashed out in the moonlight. Long, shining curls, slightly tossed by the night breeze, floated down over her cheeks and bosom, half concealing the rare beauty of her face. It was Helen! The door was at length opened, and attended by her drowsy maid, ...
— May Brooke • Anna H. Dorsey

... feel certain, bears such ample and such regular interest as gems of English, Latin, or Greek literature deposited in the memory during childhood and youth, and taken up from time to time in ...
— Chips From A German Workshop, Vol. V. • F. Max Mueller

... thought we knew more about this distinguished American than anybody else; but it was through certain passages in the "Memoirs on Marie Antoinette and her Court" that I turned to his autobiography, and then to such letters of his as could be found. That autobiography is one of the gems of American history, though it does not reveal the whole man. If he had been as frank as Cardinal de Retz, his autobiography would have been suppressed; but, then, no Philadelphian could ever be quite frank in his memoirs. It has never been done! ...
— Confessions of a Book-Lover • Maurice Francis Egan

... picture enticing. Already the beautiful American girl had, as Mr. Heatherbloom suspected, surreptitiously thrust several valuable jewels upon the youth as a reward for this preliminary service. Having experienced a foretaste of riches, Francois perhaps secretly longed for more of the glittering gems and for some of those American dollars which sounded five times as large in francs. Besides, this man, the great detective, or emissary, inspired confidence; his ...
— A Man and His Money • Frederic Stewart Isham

... way in which a thing can consist of two natures is when it is so combined of two that the elements of which it is said to be combined continue without changing into each other, as when we say that a crown is composed of gold and gems. Here neither is the gold converted into gems nor is the gem turned into gold, but both continue without surrendering their ...
— The Theological Tractates and The Consolation of Philosophy • Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius

... and buttons on his garters; his vest, also of white velvet, embroidered in gold with diamond buttons; a crimson velvet coat, with facings of white velvet, and embroidered on all the seams, the whole sparkling with gold and gems. A short cloak, also of crimson, and lined with white satin, hung from his left shoulder, and was caught on the right over his breast with a double clasp of diamonds. On such occasions it was customary for the grand chamberlain ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton

... These columns supported the building, nine stories in height, and containing one thousand dormitories for priests. The roof was of sheet copper, and the walls were embellished with beads which shone resplendent like gems. The great hall was supported on golden pillars resting on lions, and in the centre was an ivory throne with a golden sun and silver moon on either side, while above it glittered Imperial Chinta, the white canopy of dominion. It was destroyed, then rebuilt, ...
— Travels in the Far East • Ellen Mary Hayes Peck

... traverse the debris of many cities which lay over it; at last at a depth of about fifty feet he found in the deepest bed of debris the traces of a mighty city reduced to ashes, and in the ruins of the principal edifice a casket filled with gems of gold which he called the Treasury of Priam. There was no inscription, and the city, the whole wall of which we have been able to bring to light, was a very small one. A large number of small, very ...
— History Of Ancient Civilization • Charles Seignobos

... fittings are neither convenient nor conventional, they are at least costly," said he, looking round at his shelves. "I have expended nearly a quarter of a million of money upon these objects which surround you. Books, weapons, gems, carvings, tapestries, images—there is hardly a thing here which has not its history, and it ...
— Tales of Terror and Mystery • Arthur Conan Doyle

... rose hills of spice and frankincense, Which smiled upon the flowery vales below, Where living crystal found a sweet pretence With musical impatience to flow, And delicately chide the gems beneath Because no smoother they had ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan

... to soothe a savage breast,'" quoted Peter, who was getting into the habit of adorning his conversation with similar gems. "That's in one of Shakespeare's plays. I'm reading them now, since I got through with ...
— The Golden Road • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... mountains, an inland sea, ancient river, and palmy plain, for races of new kinds of men inhabiting a new and odorous land, for fields of gold and golcondas of gems, for a new flora and a new fauna, and, above all the rest combined, there was room for me! Many well-meaning friends tried to dissuade me altogether, and endeavoured to instil into my mind that what I so ardently wished to attempt was simply deliberate suicide, and to persuade me of the truth of ...
— Australia Twice Traversed, The Romance of Exploration • Ernest Giles

... heels. Down below it was as light as day, for in the centre of the room hung a great lamp that shone with a bright light and lit up all the place as bright as day. In the floor were set three great basins of marble: one was nearly full of silver, one of gold, and one of gems of ...
— Twilight Land • Howard Pyle

... his hand again, and eyed it lovingly. "It's from the East somewhere," he said quietly. "It's badly cut, but it's a diamond of diamonds, a king of gems." ...
— The Skipper's Wooing, and The Brown Man's Servant • W. W. Jacobs

... things to all oceans; he is like a poet seated upon a throne—magnificent, simple, barbarous, pensive, generous, impulsive, changeable, unfathomable— but when you understand him, always the same. Some of his sunsets are like pageants devised for the delight of the multitude, when all the gems of the royal treasure-house are displayed above the sea. Others are like the opening of his royal confidence, tinged with thoughts of sadness and compassion in a melancholy splendour meditating upon ...
— The Mirror of the Sea • Joseph Conrad

... Zohar,[52] or Hebrew "Book of Splendor," a feat for which no Hebrew scholar has had the heart. This Bible of Kabbalism is indeed so confused and confusing that only a "golden dustman" would have had the patience to sift out its gems from the mountain of dross, and attempt to reduce its wide-weltering chaos to order. Even Waite, with all his gift of research and narration, finds little more than gleams of dawn in a dim forest, brilliant vapors, and glints that tell by their very ...
— The Builders - A Story and Study of Masonry • Joseph Fort Newton

... came the melting lilt of the golden oriole. By and by madame's gaze returned to the miniature. For a brief space poppies burned in her cheeks and the seed smoldered in her eyes. Then, as if the circlet of gold and gems was distasteful to her sight, she hastily thrust it into the bosom of her gown. Madame had not slept well of late; there were shadows under ...
— The Grey Cloak • Harold MacGrath

... spoiled by over-admiration must be approached with something else as unlike it as may be—pique—annoy—irritate—outrage, but take care that you interest her Let her only come to feel what a very tiresome thing mere adulation is, and she will one day value your two or three civil speeches as gems of priceless worth. It is exactly because I deeply desire to gain her affections, I have begun ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever

... Florida, and the way it happened was this: I was sitting in a "sto' do'," as the "Crackers" say, waiting for the clerk to load some "number eights," when my friend said, "Look at the cowboys!" This immediately caught my interest. With me cowboys are what gems and porcelains are to some others. Two very emaciated Texas ponies pattered down the street, bearing wild-looking individuals, whose hanging hair and drooping hats and generally bedraggled appearance would remind you at once of the Spanish-moss which hangs so quietly ...
— Crooked Trails • Frederic Remington

... flushes of a winter's dawn crept up along the far-off eastern sky. Everything spoke of peace and purity. God's hand had clothed the earth, the trees with a stainless robe of majestic beauty studded with countless flashing gems. Man's works were hidden or but dimly seen here and there, with all their imperfections withdrawn from sight under that snowy veil. And man himself was absent. An all-absorbing sense of the nearness of God stole over the young traveller's ...
— Amos Huntingdon • T.P. Wilson

... given her on the occasion of her wedding to offer it as a gift to Our Lady of Lourdes; and Gerard confirmed this assertion, saying that the jewellery had been handed over to the treasurer of the Basilica that very morning with a golden lantern studded with gems and a large sum of money destined for the relief of the poor. However, the Blessed Virgin could not have been touched as yet, for the sufferer's condition seemed, if anything, to ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola

... odd. I most certainly shall not be there." But he remembered the occasion, and showed that he did so by sending to the bride the handsomest of all the gems which graced her exhibition of presents, short of the tremendous set of diamonds which had come from ...
— Marion Fay • Anthony Trollope

... tales of youth—"Arabian Nights," and all—seem tame, compared with the living, growing reality. Yes, growing reality; for the process is going on before your eyes. Successive coats of these incrustations, have been perfected and crowded off by others; so that hundreds of tons of these gems lie at your feet, and are crushed as you pass, while the work of restoring the ornaments for nature's boudoir, is proceeding around you. Here and there, through the whole extent, you will find openings in the sides, into which you may thrust the person, and often stand ...
— Rambles in the Mammoth Cave, during the Year 1844 - By a Visiter • Alexander Clark Bullitt

... listened," said he, "with equal edification and pleasure to the classic discourse of our friend, sparkling with gems alike of intellect and fancy, but I differ from him toto caelo. He may say what he will as to the supreme vigor and condensation of thought and speech characteristic of classic Greece and Rome; but, for my part, I think there is nothing equal to our own vernacular in these particulars, and ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore

... fact that Edith and Mrs. Hartley were with her at the time, but she could not feel satisfied about the propriety of her conduct, and she had a subtle argument with herself as to the necessity of returning the gems sooner or later, unless she was prepared to be compromised in the opinion of ...
— Name and Fame - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant

... Cardinal-Archbishop, very old and supported by his priests, half walked and half tottered down the length of the people; his head, grown weary with age, barely supported the mitre, from which great jewels, false or true, were flashing. In his hand he had a crozier that was studded in the same way with gems, and that seemed to be made of gold; the same hands had twisted the metal of it as had hammered the hinges of the cathedral doors. Certainly there here appeared one of the resurrections of Europe. The matter of life seemed to take on a fuller stuff and to ...
— Hills and the Sea • H. Belloc

... where he had dropped it when he was first attacked. The box was the same which now lies open upon your table. A key was hung by a silken cord to that carved handle upon the top. We opened it, and the light of the lantern gleamed upon a collection of gems such as I have read of and thought about when I was a little lad at Pershore. It was blinding to look upon them. When we had feasted our eyes we took them all out and made a list of them. There were one ...
— The Sign of the Four • Arthur Conan Doyle

... devoted to the industrial arts and sciences, those natural manifestations of the high mental development of the age. Every number of the journal has sixteen imperial pages, embellished with engravings, as illustrations, which are gems of art in themselves. It is most ably edited, and its usefulness is not impaired by technical terms ...
— Scientific American, Vol.22, No. 1, January 1, 1870 • Various

... held long vistas of wavering forms and vanishing faces; against the walls of the rooms had beaten unremembered tides of strong and of gentle voices. In the parlors what scenes of lights and music, sheen of satins, flashing of gems; in the dining rooms what feastings as in hale England, with all the robust humors of the warm land, of ...
— The Mettle of the Pasture • James Lane Allen

... tower of jewels the building rose. Alone among a wilderness of trees and streams it towered in a strange beauty: moonlit to silver, lighted from within to a mass of brilliant gems, it stood ...
— The Runaway Skyscraper • Murray Leinster

... in the Belgian exhibit is sunthin' to remember for a hull lifetime, and its pottery, and gems, and bronzes. And the exhibit of Switzerland, though not so large as some of the rest, is uneek. Their exhibit is all surrounded by a panorama of the Alps, the high mountains a-lookin' down into the peaceful valley, with its arts ...
— Samantha at the World's Fair • Marietta Holley

... without bothering with the herbs and fruits. I suppose the gold and jewels were particularly cheering ingredients, and perhaps entitled the drink to its name of precious water. Indeed, it would be cheering to the spirits nowadays to have the precious metals and gems that were so lavishly used ...
— Customs and Fashions in Old New England • Alice Morse Earle

... beautiful, elegant, sumptuous, recherche, was swallowed up in my dazzling orbit! Would you believe, madame, that my reputation for liberality had spread over Europe? Nay, more; a Chandernagor lapidary sent me an Indian saber with its handle studded with gems, enclosing a pretty, laconic note in these words: 'This cimeter belonged to Tippo-Saeb; it should belong to M. Saint-Herem. The weapon is worth twenty-five thousand francs, payable at the Rothschild house, in Paris. Received twenty-five thousand francs.' Yes; the rarest and most precious objects ...
— A Cardinal Sin • Eugene Sue

... answered Sir Piercie; "surely it is but a toy, a trifle, a slight thing which shows but poorly with this doublet—marry, when I wear that of the murrey-coloured double-piled Genoa velvet, puffed out with ciprus, the gems, being relieved and set off by the darker and more grave ground of the stuff, show like stars giving a lustre ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott

... maps and framed photographs of famous diamonds hung on the walls, but there was nothing about the man seated at the table to suggest association with precious stones except the gleam of his small grey eyes, which were as hard and glistening as the specimen gems in the showcase at his elbow. His face was long, thin and yellow, of a bilious appearance. His gaunt frame was clothed in black, and his low white collar ended in front in two linen tags, fastened with ...
— The Hand in the Dark • Arthur J. Rees

... cabin skylight and began turning them over, and, picking out certain gems of phraseology, read them aloud to the skipper. The latter listened at first with scorn and then ...
— Sea Urchins • W. W. Jacobs

... Love may bring me joy or woe, Both measureless, but either counted gain Since given by her. For pain and pleasure flow Like tides upon us of the self-same sea. Tears are the gems of joy ...
— Rose and Roof-Tree - Poems • George Parsons Lathrop

... Scythia and Germany stretched their limbs under the shade of the Italian palm-trees, and compelled the beautiful daughters of the proud senators of the fallen capital to attend on them like slaves, while they quaffed the old Falernian wines from goblets of gold and gems. Nothing arrested the career of the Goths. Their victorious leader now meditated the invasion of Africa, but died suddenly after a short illness, and the world was relieved, for a while, of a ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord

... few excerpts which may be called "Gems for the Easy Chair;" but those given are no better than thousands of others that are scattered ...
— Bay State Monthly, Vol. II. No. 5, February, 1885 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various

... till our eyes became accustomed to the gloom, we could not help remarking the deep, intense stillness and the unutterable gloom of all around us; and, as I thought of the stupendous dome above, and the countless gems that had sparkled in the torch-light a few minutes before, it came into my mind to consider how strange it is that God should make such wonderful and extremely-beautiful works never to be seen at all, except, indeed, by ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne

... arrive in single file, with smiles and curtseys. One offers me the spirit-lamp and the teapot; another, preserved fruits in delightful little plates; the third, absolutely indefinable objects upon gems of little trays. And they grovel before me on the floor, placing all this plaything of a ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... time Athelstane, who was passing jealous of the power of Harald Fairhair, sent a messenger to Norway bearing a precious sword as a gift to King Harald. The sword was done with gold about the hilt and set with dear bought gems, and well tempered in the blade. So the messenger fared to Lade, in Thrandheim, where Harald dwelt, and said he: 'Here is a sword which the King of England sendeth thee, bidding thee take it withal.' ...
— Olaf the Glorious - A Story of the Viking Age • Robert Leighton

... outward. Thoughtful-faced, she made no comment on his analysis of the situation, unless a much more observant person than Rodney might have imagined there was one in the deliberate way in which she turned her rings, one at a time, so that the brilliant masses of gems were inside, and then ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster

... all that could not be carried away. Some put on the turbans studded with jewels; others hung necklaces of enormous value round their necks, or covered their arms with bracelets. None knew the value of the costly gems they had become possessed of; and few indeed of the officers could discriminate between the jewels of immense value and those which ...
— In Times of Peril • G. A. Henty

... counterfeit pleasures they make naught; as of pride in apparel and gems, or in vain honours; or of dicing; or hunting, which they deem the most abject kind of butchery. But of true pleasures they give to the soul intelligence and that pleasure that cometh of contemplation of the truth, and the pleasant remembrance of the good life past. Of pleasures of the ...
— The World's Greatest Books—Volume 14—Philosophy and Economics • Various

... have everything to make you happy. Your husband is handsome, and generous as a prince. To prove it: yesterday he gave me five hundred dollars, and to-day I clasped upon my arm a splendid bracelet, flashing with beautiful gems, also his gift. The wheel of fortune turns, and those who were poor and obscure but yesterday, are rich to-day. Your day of power is over. Do not be the last to see it. Show some spirit. Be up and doing. Your society has lost its charm for your husband, ...
— Clemence - The Schoolmistress of Waveland • Retta Babcock

... the resources of many kinds of art. Some were plates of ivory or rare wood covered with wonderful carvings. Some were plates of chiseled gold or silver. Some were brilliant with enamel. Medallions and pictures in the best style of art ornamented them. Gems of every kind, cut and uncut, added color and brilliancy to the effect. As late as 1583 when the great age of book-cover ornamentation was already past, Henry III of France decreed that ordinary citizens should not use more than four diamonds ...
— Books Before Typography - Typographic Technical Series for Apprentices #49 • Frederick W. Hamilton

... is no longer a living poet. I have always enjoyed his verse very much; the art is so perfect, so superior to that of Browning or Wordsworth, even to that of Byron. I know of no poet to equal Tennyson in finish except Shelley, Keats, and Horace, and those three only in gems." ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al

... requests to show his things drove him mad. "The women—oh, the women!" he wailed, and interrupted himself to describe a heavy-footed German Princess who had marched past his treasures as if she were inspecting a cavalry regiment, applying an unmodulated Mugneeficent to everything from the engraved gems to the ...
— Tales Of Men And Ghosts • Edith Wharton

... known by some of his fellow-members to have an address in Hatton Garden, and to be more or less of a diamond merchant there. He often carried about with him, in a pocket-book, or in neat little packages of grocer's gay paper, borne in the waistcoat-pocket, a collection of gems of considerable value, and would show them to his intimates with the insouciance of a man who was accustomed to handling things of price. He never was without money, made little journeys at times, which rarely took him away from town for more ...
— Young Mr. Barter's Repentance - From "Schwartz" by David Christie Murray • David Christie Murray

... alas! that there is a heavy weight in the other scale—that Heine's magnificent powers have often served only to give electric force to the expression of debased feeling, so that his works are no Phidian statue of gold, and ivory, and gems, but have not a little brass, and iron, and miry clay mingled with the precious metal. The audacity of his occasional coarseness and personality is unparalleled in contemporary literature, and has hardly been exceeded by the license of former days. Yet, when all ...
— George Eliot; A Critical Study of Her Life, Writings & Philosophy • George Willis Cooke

... opportunity of seeing him at home, thought they had not been in Florence. The house where he lived was worthy of his refined taste and cultivated judgment, for he had formed a museum of antiquities—inscriptions, marbles, coins, vases, and engraved gems. There he not only received students and strangers, but conversed with sculptors and painters, discussing their inventions as freely as he criticised the essays of the scholars. . . . . Vespasiano's account of ...
— The Private Library - What We Do Know, What We Don't Know, What We Ought to Know - About Our Books • Arthur L. Humphreys

... shall have the water about my ears presently. I thought I was drowning on a mermaid's bosom. Read no more, Virginia. One nibble at a time is enough of Spenser. He ought to be made into a thousand little poems. Then we should have a multitude of gems instead of a great granite mountain that ...
— Semiramis and Other Plays - Semiramis, Carlotta And The Poet • Olive Tilford Dargan

... naked, her raiment was but scanty, for she had nought to cover her save one short and strait little coat of linen, and shoes on her feet. Yet Ralph deemed her to be of some degree, whereas he caught the gleam of gold and gems on her hands, and there was a golden chaplet on her head. She stood now by the horse's head with her hands folded, looking on, as if what was tiding and to betide, were but a play ...
— The Well at the World's End • William Morris

... unsafe, the Adjutant's figure and face were most familiar. When after her death, Kate Lee's photo appeared in 'The War Cry,' the call came from many of these haunts, 'Get me that Angel's picture, we want it down here.' She won some of her gems in those quarters. From one locality she persuaded three women to go to one of our Homes and none returned ...
— The Angel Adjutant of "Twice Born Men" • Minnie L. Carpenter

... rite held in the great Mosque of Ceuta, now purified as the Cathedral, and after it the town was thoroughly and carefully sacked from end to end. The plunder, of gold and silver and gems, stuffs and drugs, was great enough to make the common soldiers reckless of other things. The "great jars of oil and honey and spices and all provisions" were flung out into the streets, and a heavy rain swept away what would have kept a large ...
— Prince Henry the Navigator, the Hero of Portugal and of Modern Discovery, 1394-1460 A.D. • C. Raymond Beazley

... garden, from which flows a river, the river of life, whose water is clear as crystal, cold as snow, and sweet as nectar. The believer who takes a draught shall thirst no more. Even the oriental imagination fails to describe the glories of this paradise—its fountains and flowers, pearls and gems, nectar and ambrosia, all in unmeasured profusion. To crown the enchantment of the place, to each faithful Moslem is allotted seventy-two houris, resplendent beings, free from every human defect, perpetually renewing ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 3 No 3, March 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... feminine without them. For our parts, we confess, that, although no enemies to a pretty foot, it is by no means a sine qua non in our estimate of female perfection; being in no way disposed, where the head and heart are gems, to undervalue these in consideration of any deficiency in the heels. Captain de Haldimar probably thought otherwise; for when he had passed his unwilling hand over the foot of Oucanasta, which, whatever her face might have been, was certainly any thing but delicate, and encountered ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson

... braced Over the mighty stone—an apron made Of iron purified from every dross— Such dread had he that day of the Gaebulg. His crested helm of battle on his head He last put on—a helmet all ablaze From forty gems in each compartment set, Cruan, and crystal, carbuncles of fire, And brilliant rubies of the Eastern world. In his right hand a mighty spear he seized, Destructive, sharply-pointed, straight and strong:— On his left side his sword of battle swung, Curved, with its hilt and pommel of red gold. ...
— Poems • Denis Florence MacCarthy

... our damsel this was not the case: Her dress was many-colour'd, finely spun; Her locks curl'd negligently round her face, But through them gold and gems profusely shone: Her girdle sparkled, and the richest lace Flow'd in her veil, and many a precious stone Flash'd on her little hand; but, what was shocking, Her small snow feet had ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron

... uphill walks begin their climb of the mountains, from the foot of votive shrines set round with tablets commemorating in German, French, Russian, Hebrew, Magyar and Czech, the cure of high-well-borns of all those races and languages. Booths glittering with the lapidary's work in the cheaper gems, or full of the ingenious figures of the toy- makers, alternate with the shrines and the cafes on the way to the Posthof, and with their shoulders against the overhanging cliff, spread for the passing crowd a lure of Viennese jewelry in garnets, opals, ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... our feelings, our sentiments, affections, etc., are fine and keen, delicate and many; what we call refined. Why? Because we get them as we get our old swords and gems and laces—from our grandsires, mothers, and all. Refined they are—after centuries of refining. But the feelings handed down to Clemence had come through ages of African savagery; through fires that do not refine, but that blunt and blast and blacken ...
— The Grandissimes • George Washington Cable

... as servants; they opened the door, which was of beaten gold. And when he entered, he saw his wife upon a throne which was made out of a single block of gold, and which was quite six cubits high. She had on a great golden crown which was three yards high and set with brilliants and sparkling gems. In one hand she held a sceptre, and in the other the imperial globe, and on either side of her stood two rows of halberdiers, each smaller than the other, from a seven-foot giant to the tiniest ...
— The Green Fairy Book • Various

... to admire, the cathedral, be it said, is not of a superlative quality; but as a thing of beauty in many of its details and because of its aforesaid commanding situation, it is one not to be ignored when the really fine gems of mediaeval treasures are catalogued. It is another of those types, so far as its choir is concerned, which rise to a loftiness of soaring height, which, in later days, degenerated, or were lost altogether ...
— The Cathedrals of Northern France • Francis Miltoun

... was sacred in our regard; the volumes were like no other books; and we supposed that she derived from them those stores of knowledge on all subjects which she unconsciously dispensed among us,—for she was always telling us something of metals, or minerals, or gems, or plants, or animals, which awakened our curiosity, stimulated our inquiries, and, above all, led us to wonder where she had learned it all. Even the slight restrictions which her neat habits imposed on our breezy and turbulent natures seemed all quite graceful and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 104, June, 1866 • Various

... when the Aphrodite brought them all to Aden. And it may be said here that the monetary value of the treasure was not great—its utmost figure being placed at L50,000. The two missing wallets were those containing the gems. Probably that was another story which the desert has in safe keeping. The Italian Foreign Office behaved generously to the disappointed archeologist. He was acquitted from any blame in regard to the affray at the Well of Moses, and he was asked to select for his own collection ...
— The Wheel O' Fortune • Louis Tracy

... him shall be to espouse thee, whatever be his condition, or though he dwell in the most distant region." The princess rejoined, "No one slew the monster but the youth who entered the garden of gems, and was bearing off the fruit, whom thou wast just now on the point ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 4 • Anon.

... unconsciously use the words correctly, or as habits of speech. The same principles apply in learning the addition and multiplication tables, and the tables of weights and measures in arithmetic; in the memorization of gems of poetry and prose; in the learning of dates, lists of events, and important provisions of acts in history; and in the memorization of lists of places and products in geography, where this is desirable. ...
— Ontario Normal School Manuals: Science of Education • Ontario Ministry of Education

... revolver, placed myself in front of the pile, and shouted to them that I would shoot the first one who laid a finger on the stuff. And in the same breath I sent Geoffrey hurrying to find some of the city authorities to come and rescue what would probably be some thousands of dollars' worth of gems. ...
— The Dragon's Secret • Augusta Huiell Seaman

... bright galleries of creation, Yet, to their strange destiny ne'er wake. Yon mighty hunter in his silver vest, That o'er those azure fields walks nightly now, In his bright girdle wears the self-same gems That on the watchers of old Babylon Shone once, and to the soldier on her walls Marked the swift hour, as they do now to me. Prose is the dream, and poetry the truth. That which we call reality, is but Reality's worn surface, that one thought Into the bright and boundless all might pierce, ...
— The Bride of Fort Edward • Delia Bacon

... north; while, owing to the influence of the Gulf Stream, we find many of those lovely and singular creatures upon our comparatively northern shores. Of late years, as every one knows, we have all over the land been gathering these marine gems, and studying their peculiar habits with deep interest in that miniature ocean the aquarium. In the same parallel on the other side of the Atlantic none of these little lovers of heat ...
— The Ocean and its Wonders • R.M. Ballantyne

... the Low Countries ever devised; towers which served as landmarks for miles around, their soaring height silhouetted against the pale northern sky. The irregular streets and open places contained one or two gems of Renaissance architecture, such as the stone-built Town Hall and "Guild House," both very similar in character to buildings of the same date in sleepy old Flemish towns. The many gushing fountains of mediaeval bronze and iron-work in the streets added to the extraordinary ...
— The Days Before Yesterday • Lord Frederick Hamilton

... Bianchi, Antonio Cocchi, Raymond Cocchi, Joseph Bianchi, J. B. Pelli, the Abbe Lanzi, and Zacchiroli. The last three all wrote elaborate descriptions of the Gallery during the last decades of the eighteenth century. There was unhappily an epidemic of dishonesty among the custodians of gems at this period, and, like the notorious Raspe, who fled from Cassel in 1775, and turned some of his old employers to ridicule in his Baron Munchausen, Joseph Bianchi was convicted first of robbing his cabinet ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett

... gathered along the river bank as the ship bearing Gunther and his bride came into view. Then Queen Uta, followed by a long line of maidens, arrayed in many-colored garments that glittered with the most precious of gems, slowly moved down to the strand, while Kriemhild ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V3 • Charles H. Sylvester

... office is to bless. If blessings could be compassed by my prayer, High heaven should set star-gems in ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... desire. Thither from alien seas and skies Comes the far-questioned merchandise:— Wrought silks of Broussa, Mocha's ware Brown-tinted, fragrant, and the rare Thin perfumes that the rose's breath Has sought, immortal in her death: Gold, gems, and spice, and haply still The red rough largess of the hill Which takes the sun and bears the vines Among the haunted Apennines. And he who treads the cobbled street To-day in the cold North may meet, Come month, come year, the dusky East, And share ...
— The Moon Endureth—Tales and Fancies • John Buchan

... smiled, and said, "If you really love gems better than anything else in the world, I can tell you where to find all and more ...
— Harper's Young People, January 13, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... looked more closely, bound as a king might bind his choicest treasure, the sweet-scented leather on it was no doubt frayed; the golden arabesques upon the covers had long since shed their eyes of inset gems, the jewelled clasp locking its learning up from vulgar gaze was bent and open. Yet it was a lordly tome with an odour of sanctity about it, and lifting it with difficulty, I noticed on its cover a red stain of mouse's blood. Those who put it to this quaint use of mouse-trap had already had some ...
— Gulliver of Mars • Edwin L. Arnold

... him Who is the wisest, bravest, best amongst us Fall in this fearful pit. Now ye who read The hidden books of nature say—who is The man most envied by his fellows,—by the gods Most lov'd?—That man is more than all the gems This teeming earth can boast. Name but that man And in an instant shall the debt be paid; For Rome's best ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 14, - Issue 401, November 28, 1829 • Various

... see crystal vessels, whose price is enhanced by their fragility, for among the ignorant the risk of losing things increases their value instead of lowering it, as it ought. I see murrhine cups, for luxury would be too cheap if men did not drink to one another out of hollow gems the wine to be afterwards thrown up again. I see more than one large pearl placed in each ear; for now our ears are trained to carry burdens, pearls are hung from them in pairs, and each pair has other single ones fastened above it. ...
— L. Annaeus Seneca On Benefits • Seneca

... honours. In fact, Sir William Devereux was deeply impregnated with the notion of his time,—that ability and inspiration were the same thing, and that, unless you were thoroughly idle, you could not be thoroughly a genius. I verily believe that he thought wisdom got its gems, as Abu Zeid al Hassan* declares some Chinese philosophers thought oysters got ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... little blocks of metal or gems with which the tables and seats were inlaid, but could make nothing of them. They resembled a carbon formation sometimes found in quartzite, but were many times more brilliant than anything I had ever seen, excepting ...
— Under the Andes • Rex Stout

... reflected a homely dignity and mobile, felicitous vein in which the poet seems endowed with every attribute of a melodist. Exquisite, graceful and diverse he, at times, would soar to flights of highest inspiration and bedeck the page with gems of rarest worth. In the heptasyllabic couplet he ...
— Pastoral Poems by Nicholas Breton, - Selected Poetry by George Wither, and - Pastoral Poetry by William Browne (of Tavistock) • Nicholas Breton, George Wither, William Browne (of Tavistock)

... cherubim or symbolical winged figures, the precious woods, the rich hangings and curtains of crimson and purple, the brazen altars, the lamps, the sacred vessels of solid gold and silver, the elaborate carvings and castings, the rare gems,—these all together must have required a greater expenditure than is seen in the most famous temples of Greece or Asia Minor, whose value and beauty chiefly consisted in their exquisite proportions and their marble pillars and figures of men or animals. But no representation of man, no statue to ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume II • John Lord

... 1878, a dies non, which never was born. Lost, strayed, or stolen—a rare diadem, composed of twenty-four precious gems—some diamonds bright, some rubies rare, some jet as black as night. It was to have been displayed at midnight to an admiring few who nightly gaze upon the stars, but when looked for it was nowhere to be found. A well-known party, familiarly known as Old Sol, is thought to be concerned in ...
— Round the World • Andrew Carnegie

... Mrs. Ney. 'We make use of any material in proportion to its beauty and suitability. If we find gems or pearls really useful for decorative purposes, and sufficiently beautiful when thus used to compensate in their aesthetic attractiveness for their cost, we make use of them without hesitation. But that does not apply to ...
— Freeland - A Social Anticipation • Theodor Hertzka

... and wiggle; And the grasses gleam in a light blood-red; There are emerald stars, and their tails they wriggle, And ghastly they glare on the face of the dead. But the worst of all are the stars of whiteness, That spill in a pool of pearly flame, Pretty as gems in their silver brightness, And etching a man for ...
— Rhymes of a Red Cross Man • Robert W. Service

... proceeding on these great and important missions. "I am not frightened at trifles, gentlemen," replied Mr. Tickler, somewhat agitated; "but it seems to me that this shaving you speak of is not generally known among barbers. And I have read every book written by Ike Marvel (and bright gems, hung in the murky firmament of our maudlin literature, they are, too!); but not a word does he say about secretaries of Legations paying penance in this manner with their beards. However, if his excellency has courage to ride the flying horse, Orlando Tickler ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"

... crystal glass; aventurine; murrhine glass; strass (artificial gems); schmelze (Bohemian glass); ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming

... thinking of the fortune that had slipped through his fingers. Depressed, and yet at times overjoyed, for Katrine's glance had been full of hope. But he must trace the money that had been taken, and the gems—how lovely they would look ...
— The Dark House - A Knot Unravelled • George Manville Fenn

... enormous wardrobe with light creeping through its chinks. The Fairy Berylune took a diamond key from her pocket and opened the wardrobe. One cry of amazement burst from every throat. Precious stuffs were seen piled one on the top of the other: mantles covered with gems, dresses of every sort and every country, pearl coronets, emerald necklaces, ruby bracelets.... Never had the Children beheld such riches! As for the Things, their state was rather one of utter bewilderment; and this was only natural, when ...
— The Blue Bird for Children - The Wonderful Adventures of Tyltyl and Mytyl in Search of Happiness • Georgette Leblanc

... by earthquakes, with thunder and lightning. Then he jots down his postscript from his wandering mind, to cover accidents. "But it is possible that the programme may be wholly changed in the mean time." Yes, one of the brightest gems in the New England weather is the dazzling uncertainty of it. There is only one thing certain about it: you are certain there is going to be plenty of it—a perfect grand review; but you never can tell which end of the procession ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... the hall, across a covered way, to the gallery that held the gems—and the refuse—that Philip Harris had gathered up from the world. She looked about her with a proud, imperious gesture. She knew—better now than when the pictures were purchased—which ones were good, and which were very bad; but she could not interfere ...
— Mr. Achilles • Jennette Lee

... Like the genuine pearl which is the result of a bruise and the outcome of suffering, these pearls of the far east are said by geologists to be the result of great volcanic forces that tore them away from the continent and set them out six hundred miles as "gems in the ocean." More than three thousand there are of these islands all together, and their combined area is nearly equal to that of Japan or California. I visited the Philippines a short time before the world war broke out and at that time there were seven million acres of arable land ...
— Birdseye Views of Far Lands • James T. Nichols

... him looked down many a sweet and noble countenance, such as should have made the room a temple of serenity. Nowhere was there a token of vulgar sensualism; the actress, the ballet-nymph had no place among these chosen gems of art. On the dwarf book-cases were none but works of pure inspiration, the best of old and new, the kings of intellect and their gentlest courtiers. Fifteen years had gone to the adorning of this sanctuary; of money, no great sum, for ...
— Denzil Quarrier • George Gissing

... throne of gold, dressed with a magnificence that dazzled the eyes of the strangers, and made even his subjects exclaim, 'Jemshid? who was he? or Darab? or Nushirvan? that they should be mentioned in the same breath?' On the right and left of the throne stood the princes, more beautiful than the gems which blazed upon their father's person. At a distance were placed the three viziers of the state, those depositaries of wisdom and good council; and, with their backs to the wall, each bearing ...
— The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan • James Morier

... over such a forest, could only be swarming with birds of all sizes, with plumage of the richest colours and hues; and what else could such a luxuriant country have in the way of butterflies and insects than some which resemble precious gems in the iridescent tones ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor

... compel us to break off once more, which is a source of regret, especially when our path is strewn with such gems as these:— ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 344 (Supplementary Issue) • Various

... metal; lodges built in air Which on all sides the wealthy pile surround, Clear colonnades with crystal shafts upbear. Of green, white, crimson, blue and yellow ground, A frieze extends below those galleries fair. Here at due intervals rich gems combine, And topaz, ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto



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