"Heighten" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... he knew it would heighten his own tortures, could not avoid expressing his opinion of such treatment of the sensitive History. He did not know whether he was more disgusted and enraged at the actual pain the Crows had given their captives or at the ridiculous plights they had put them in, but he did know that he regarded ...
— The Dozen from Lakerim • Rupert Hughes
... Lady Booby's innocent freedoms, it is certain they made no impression on young Andrews, who never offered to encroach beyond the liberties which his lady allowed him,—a behaviour which she imputed to the violent respect he preserved for her, and which served only to heighten a something she began to conceive, and which the next chapter will open ...
— Joseph Andrews Vol. 1 • Henry Fielding
... in the affairs of men, and held frequent and familiar intercourse with our race. They descend to the battle-field of Troy, and mingle in the bloody strife. They grace the wedding-feast by their presence, and heighten the gladness with celestial music. They visit the poor and the stranger, and sometimes clothe the old and shrivelled beggar with celestial beauty. They inspire their favorites with strength and courage, and fill their mouths ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... philosophy enough," said he, "for pure water, there are innocent infusions to strengthen the stomach against the nausea of aqueous quaffings. Sage, for example, has a very pretty flavor; and if you wish to heighten it into a debauch, it is only mixing rosemary, wild poppy, and other ...
— International Short Stories: French • Various
... Laura, in her white dress and her straw hat and her silly little bronze-and-blue-silk slippers printing the roadside gravel, leaning on Grant Ledwith's arm, seemed only to have gained a fresh, graceful adjunct to set off her own pretty goings and comings with, and to heighten the outside interest of that little point of eternity that she called her life. Mr. Ledwith was not so much a man who had won a woman, as Laura was a girl who had ...
— Real Folks • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... with his children, is theatrical pathos of the most correct kind, and each little speech of little William and little Anne is uttered as much for the audience as for their father, implying in every word "See, how we, poor innocents, heighten the pity of it." The hastily written A Blot in the 'Scutcheon is, perhaps, of Browning's dramas the best fitted for theatrical representation. Yet it is incurably weak in the motives which determine the action; ...
— Robert Browning • Edward Dowden
... angels moving O'er each flow'ret's heighten'd hue? Are their smiles the day improving, Have ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron
... overlapping leather plates covered with blood-red designs. Over his head was fitted the cochlea shaped shell of some animal, spiraling to a point in front: two small openings had been drilled in it for eye holes. Great, finger-long teeth had been set in the lower edge of the shell to heighten the already fearsome appearance. The only thing at all human about the creature was the matted and filthy beard that trickled out of the shell below the teeth. There were too many other details for Jason to absorb ...
— The Ethical Engineer • Henry Maxwell Dempsey
... was a purple wine, so cool that the cup into which it was poured became covered with vapory dew; yet it seemed to warm the veins with strange fire. To Ming-Y, as he drank, all things became more luminous as by enchantment; the walls of the chamber appeared to recede, and the roof to heighten; the lamps glowed like stars in their chains, and the voice of Sie floated to the boy's ears like some far melody heard through the spaces of a drowsy night. His heart swelled; his tongue loosened; and words flitted from his lips that he had fancied ...
— Some Chinese Ghosts • Lafcadio Hearn
... mighty to save, can not at length save thee, but only weep over thee, drop tears into thy flame, which assuage it not; but (tho they have another design, even to express true compassion) do yet unavoidably heighten and increase the fervor of it, and will do so to all eternity. He even tells thee, sinner, "Thou hast despised My blood; thou shalt yet have My tears." That would have saved thee, these do only lament thee lost. But the tears wept over others, as lost and past hope, ...
— The World's Great Sermons, Vol. 2 (of 10) • Grenville Kleiser
... up or fall, was this evening unclosed and thrown black, its silver fringe gleaming through the clustering tresses that fell in all their native richness and raven blackness over her shoulders, parted and braided on her brow, so as to heighten the chaste and classic expression ...
— The Vale of Cedars • Grace Aguilar
... is straight. But he has scarcely returned home, when he falls in love with Anael, a Druse girl, whose devotion to her tribe is a religion, and who is determined to marry none but the man who will deliver it; and he is then seized by an impulse to heighten the act of deliverance by a semblance of more than human power. He declares himself Hakeem, the Divine founder of the sect, again present in human form, and who will again be transformed, or "exalted," so soon as by the slaughter of their tyrant he has ...
— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... cannot understand, and walk them into a cloud of steam as if going overboard in a fog, and you have a passable reproduction of the scene. A bright fire should be burning on shore to throw its contrast of light and shadow over the surroundings and heighten ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox
... if it were any earthly color—a queer, dull, bronzy green, with streaks here and there of the original red to heighten the ghastly effect. Never in all her life had Marilla seen anything so grotesque as Anne's hair at ...
— Anne Of Green Gables • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... the prime organ of a man's enjoyment, brings with it certain inevitable cares and disappointments. The happiness of such an one comes to depend greatly upon those fine shades of sensation that heighten and harmonise the coarser elements of beauty. And thus a degree of nervous prostration, that to other men would be hardly disagreeable, is enough to overthrow for him the whole fabric of his life, to take, except at rare moments, the edge off his pleasures, and to meet him wherever he ...
— The Pocket R.L.S. - Being Favourite Passages from the Works of Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson
... (now let me see— Something by way of simile) Was it more like Strymonian cranes, Or winds, low murmuring, when it rains. 610 Or drowsy hum of clustering bees, Or the hoarse roar of angry seas? Or (still to heighten and explain, For else our simile is vain) Shall we declare it like all four, A scream, a murmur, hum, and roar? Let Fancy now, in awful state, Present this great triumvirate, (A method which received we find, In other cases, ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill
... painted, were covered with an encaustic varnish, both to heighten the colors and to preserve them from the injurious effects of the sun or the weather. Vitruvius describes the process as a Greek practice. When the wall was colored and dry, Punic wax, melted and ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... classical conditions. He says as to the laws of the old comedy (meaning by "laws," such matters as the unities of time and place and the use of chorus): "I see not then, but we should enjoy the same licence, or free power to illustrate and heighten our invention as they [the ancients] did; and not be tied to those strict and regular forms which the niceness of a few, who are nothing but form, would thrust upon us." "Every Man in His Humour" is written in prose, a novel practice ...
— The Poetaster - Or, His Arraignment • Ben Jonson
... different and exaggerated stories passing from mouth to mouth. The witnesses of the event had told it over so many time that they had worked it up into a most dramatic scene, and embellished it with whatever could heighten its awfulness. Outsiders had taken up invention also. The Colonel's wife had gone insane, they said. The children had rushed into the parlor and rolled themselves in their father's blood. The hotel clerk said that he noticed there was murder in the woman's eye when he saw her. A person who had ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 6. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner
... Saxon general, which was held at Kaunitz under the pretext of negotiating for a peace, the seal was put to the conspiracy, and the conquest of Bohemia was the first fruits of this mutual understanding. While Wallenstein was thus personally endeavoring to heighten the perplexities of Austria, and while the rapid movements of the Swedes upon the Rhine effectually promoted his designs, his friends and bribed adherents in Vienna uttered loud complaints of the public calamities ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. III • Kuno Francke (Editor-in-Chief)
... as it has been the fashion to say of late years, "set the heather on fire," and perhaps in no literary instance on record did the blaze spread and heighten itself with such extraordinary speed and intensity. His book must have been written a little before the middle of the twelfth century: by the end thereof the legend was, except for the embellishments and amplifications ...
— The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory - (Periods of European Literature, vol. II) • George Saintsbury
... to bring into the courts of philosophy and to heighten with the classic style of one who was "brought up upon Latin," the sheer, natural, incorrigible love of life, of such persons, rich or poor, as have the earth in their blood and the shrewd wisdom of the earth and ...
— Suspended Judgments - Essays on Books and Sensations • John Cowper Powys
... in matters of this kind. There was no blushing or palpitation when I begged a third time for a temporary loan. The occasion soon presented itself, and I asked deliberately for the sum I wanted. Mr Gilbert likewise had grown familiar with these demands; and familiarity, they say, does not heighten our politeness and respect. He had not the money by him, but he might get it, though, from a friend, he thought, if it were absolutely necessary. But then a friend is not like one's self. He must be paid for what he did. Well, for once in the way, I could ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 335, September 1843 • Various
... For most people choice is a curse General worsening of things, familiar after middle life Happy in the indifference which ignorance breeds in us Hard to think up anything new Heart of youth aching for their stoical sorrows Heighten our suffering by anticipation If one were poor, one ought to be deserving Look of challenge, of interrogation, almost of reproof Malevolent agitators Meet here to the purpose of a common ostentation Neatness that brings despair Noble uselessness Openly ...
— Widger's Quotations from the Works of William Dean Howells • David Widger
... exercise; Fleda knew it only from in occasional hint now and then, and by her childish intuitive reading of the lines it had drawn round the mouth and brow. It had no disagreeable bearing on his everyday life and manner; and the quiet fact probably served but to heighten the love and reverence in which his family held ...
— Queechy, Volume I • Elizabeth Wetherell
... their personalities is the peculiarity of the timid, which their fitful efforts of will only heighten, alienating from them the sympathy which might be ...
— Poise: How to Attain It • D. Starke
... not put together with so much art and niceness as those of the universe. What then must be a design so extensive, so coherent, so excellent, so beneficial? The necessity of those laws, instead of deterring me from inquiring into their author, does but heighten my curiosity and admiration. Certainly, it required a hand equally artful and powerful to put in His work an order equally simple and teeming, constant and useful. Wherefore I will not scruple to say with the Scripture, "Let every star haste to go whither ...
— The Existence of God • Francois de Salignac de La Mothe- Fenelon
... Up—down—up—down. [A voice: "There are two right arms!"] That arises from some slight defect in the arrangement of the light; the uplifted arm does not entirely vanish when the lowered arm appears. But to the thoughtful observer, such slight contrasts only heighten enjoyment. ...
— Five Hundred Dollars - First published in the "Century Magazine" • Heman White Chaplin
... over the whole of the evening, the strangeness of my being there with such a companion, the curious atmosphere of the place, which so far had completely puzzled me,—these things may all have served to heighten the illusion. Yet it seemed to me then that, dreaming or waking, this thing with which I was confronted was the last impossibility. I suppose that I must have stared at him like some wild creature, for the conversation around us suddenly stopped. Standing upon the threshold, looking around ...
— The Lost Ambassador - The Search For The Missing Delora • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... again, just as painters heighten the effect of their pictures by the combination of light and shade, so by censure abuse detraction and ridicule of the opposite virtues secretly praise and foment the actual vices of those they flatter. Thus they censure modesty as ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... one of the evidences of a merciful providence that their lives have been spared, as it is nearly impossible to keep them out of mischief and danger. To forbid one to ride a certain dangerous horse only serves to heighten his anxiety to master the outlaw, and to banish him from the branding pens means a prompt return with or without an excuse. On one occasion, on the Double Mountain ranch, with the corrals full of heavy cattle, I started down to the pens, ...
— Reed Anthony, Cowman • Andy Adams
... of all those bare, sheeny shoulders, and those supple necks, above whose napes were coiled tresses of fair or raven hair. Bare arms emerged like living flowers of flesh from amidst the mingling lace and silk of soft-hued bodices. The fans played slowly, as if to heighten the fires of the precious stones, and at each beat wafted around an odore di femina blended with a predominating ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... combats, therefore, must be based mainly on preparatory practice, intended to strengthen the arm, give command of the weapon, heighten the man's energy, and, above all, aim at securing the most perfect harmony between man and horse by constant exercise in those forms of individual riding which are really needed in the fight: the rapid turning about of the horse; ...
— Cavalry in Future Wars • Frederick von Bernhardi
... Mr. Wyllard's strong points merely heighten Gregory's virtues, I've nothing more to say. Any way, I'll reserve my homage until I've seen Gregory. Perfection ...
— Masters of the Wheat-Lands • Harold Bindloss
... though this one be full as big, if no bigger, than all theirs. Here, again, I should consider the sin of David, of Solomon, of Manasseh, of Peter, and the rest of the great offenders; and should also labour, what I might with fairness, to aggravate and heighten their sins by several circumstances: but, alas! ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... being fixed for her undoing, she spent the best part of the day in preparing for the rendezvous: nothing was omitted in the article of dress, which might heighten her charms and secure her conquest:—the glass was consulted every moment, and every look and various kind of languishment essayed, in order to continue in that which she thought would most become the occasion. As she ordinarily past a great ...
— The Fortunate Foundlings • Eliza Fowler Haywood
... mutually hiding important secrets; but for all that they were drawn together by one and the same impulse, which now, as a result of this interview, assumed the dimensions of a passion. They recognized in each other qualities which promised to heighten all the pleasures to be derived from either their contest or their union. Perhaps both of them, living a life of adventure, had reached the singular moral condition in which, either from weariness or in defiance of fate, the mind rejects serious reflection and flings ...
— The Chouans • Honore de Balzac
... the princess in the fairy story, he was conscious of a rose-leaf out of place. Dearly as he loved to talk, he could not enjoy nor shine in a conversation when he thought himself unsuitably dressed. Dearly as he loved eating, he "knew not how to eat alone;" pleasure for him must heighten pleasure; and the eye and ear must be flattered like the palate ere he avow himself content. He had no zest in a good dinner when it fell to be eaten "in a bad street and in a periwig-maker's house;" and ...
— Familiar Studies of Men & Books • Robert Louis Stevenson
... had gained him the confidence of the troops, had determined upon his measures before an express order from the Court could prevent him. This was one of those occasions in which the difficulties you encounter heighten the glory of success. Though the general's capacity, in some measure, afforded comfort to the Court, they nevertheless were upon the eve of an event, which in one way or other must terminate both ...
— The Memoirs of Count Grammont, Complete • Anthony Hamilton
... committed murders. The primary object of all those writers was to create an interest by exciting sympathy. To enhance our sympathy personages were introduced who were very vile indeed,—as Bucklaw, in the guise of a lover, to heighten our feelings for Ravenswood and Lucy; as Wild, as a thief-taker, to make us more anxious for the saving of Jack; as Ralph Nickleby, to pile up the pity for his niece Kate. But each of these novelists might have appropriately begun with an Arma virumque cano. The song was to ...
— Thackeray • Anthony Trollope
... wind and waves, and the boatswain in the Tempest, instead of anticipating our curiosity, as in most other first scenes, and in too many other first acts;—or they act, by contrast of diction suited to the characters, at once to heighten the effect, and yet to give a naturalness to the language and rhythm of the principal personages, either as that of Prospero and Miranda by the appropriate lowness of the style,—or as in King John, by the equally appropriate stateliness of official harangues ...
— Literary Remains, Vol. 2 • Coleridge
... Leading afar past wild magnificence, Spiral through ruggedest loopholes, and thence 600 Stretching across a void, then guiding o'er Enormous chasms, where, all foam and roar, Streams subterranean tease their granite beds; Then heighten'd just above the silvery heads Of a thousand fountains, so that he could dash The waters with his spear; but at the splash, Done heedlessly, those spouting columns rose Sudden a poplar's height, and 'gan to enclose His diamond path with fretwork, streaming round Alive, and ...
— Endymion - A Poetic Romance • John Keats
... back the Trojans, Jupiter saw nothing of what was going on, for his attention had been drawn from the field by the wiles of Juno. That goddess had arrayed herself in all her charms, and to crown all had borrowed of Venus her girdle, called "Cestus," which had the effect to heighten the wearer's charms to such a degree that they were quite irresistible. So prepared, Juno went to join her husband, who sat on Olympus watching the battle. When he beheld her she looked so charming that the fondness ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... watching her with admiring interest. She noted the impression, and cunningly kept it up. There was such a contrast between Effie and Kate, rather to Effie's disadvantage, I had to confess, and Kate's affected expressions of intense feeling, rather served to heighten Effie's natural coldness of manner. Why waste words—the conclusion is already divined. The coquette succeeded—and ere a week had passed Lucien was her infatuated, devoted admirer; Effie was quite forgotten. Lucien's ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol. XXXII No. 2. February 1848 • Various
... this fit of Wyatt which contributed to heighten the curiosity with which I was already possessed. Among other things, this: I had been nervous— drank too much strong green tea, and slept ill at night—in fact, for two nights I could not be properly said to sleep at all. Now, my state-room opened into the main cabin, or dining-room, ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... we bow before some stern Fate, as its lord, and try to be as stern as It? Shall we think of some frivolous Chance, as tossing its unguided waves, and try to be as frivolous as It? Shall we try to be content with an animal limitation to the present, and heighten the bright colour of the little to-day by the black background that surrounds it, saying, 'Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die'? Is it not better, happier, nobler, every way truer, to look ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... sort of love for the whole body of which his own progenitors formed a group. Partly for his romantic purposes, and merely as an expedient of art, Hawthorne chose to treat this life at its most picturesque points; and to heighten the elements of terror which he found there was an aesthetic obligation with him. But there is even a subtler cause at work toward this end. The touches of assumed repugnance toward his Puritan forefathers, which appear here ...
— A Study Of Hawthorne • George Parsons Lathrop
... a majority of observers would give the preference to the appearance of Mr. Powis," said Eve, struggling to be steady, but permitting a blush to heighten her colour, in ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper
... tender parent, endowed his darling child with every mental accomplishment, seemed resolved that no external ornaments should be wanting to render her universally amiable; he clothed her, therefore, in the most splendid habit, and bestowed upon her everything that Art could produce, to heighten and improve her charms. Aeschylus, who being himself author, actor, and manager, took upon him the whole conduct of the drama, and did not neglect any part of it; he improved the scenery and decorations, brought his actors ...
— A History of Pantomime • R. J. Broadbent
... first make acquaintance with the house which is the subject of this Christmas piece. I saw it in the daylight, with the sun upon it. There was no wind, no rain, no lightning, no thunder, no awful or unwonted circumstance, of any kind, to heighten its effect. More than that: I had come to it direct from a railway station: it was not more than a mile distant from the railway station; and, as I stood outside the house, looking back upon the way I had come, I could see the goods train running smoothly along the embankment in the ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... violent temper: so much the more vigorously did he oppose the law, annoyed the commons, and persecuted the tribunes, as it were by a regular war. The prosecutor suffered the accused to rush on headlong, and to heighten the charges against him by the flame and material of the popular odium thus incurred: in the mean time he proceeded with the law, not so much in the hope of carrying it through, as to provoke the temerity of Caeso. There many inconsiderate expressions and actions passing ...
— The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 • Titus Livius
... something in every occurrence to excite their good humor. The most calamitous events, either to themselves or others, can bring no new affliction; the world is to them a theater, in which only comedies are acted. All the bustle of heroism, or the aspirations of ambition, seem only to heighten the absurdity of the scene, and make the humor more poignant. They feel, in short, as little anguish at their own distress, or the complaints of others, as the undertaker, though dressed in black, feels ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... ways:—1. Reason will consider thus with himself. For what am I thus tormented? and will easily find it is for nothing but that base and filthy thing, sin; and now will vexation be mixed with punishment, and that will greatly heighten the affliction. 2. Reason will consider thus with himself. How long must this be my state? And will soon return to himself this answer: This must be my state for ever and ever. Now this will greatly increase the torment. 3. Reason. will consider ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... "then if Mr. Wyllard's strong points are merely to heighten Gregory's credit, I've nothing more to say. Anyway, I'll reserve my homage until I've seen him. Perfection among men ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss
... of the day was devoted to high discourses and exalted expressions, which I uttered as solemnly as I could, and I enjoyed the sight of seeing him become more and more fanatical. To heighten the effect of my mystic exhortation I dosed him heavily with wine, and did not let him go till he had fallen ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... fascination that had stupefied my reason and judgment when I beheld her for the first time. The black robes she wore, the long crape veil thrown back from her clustering hair and mignonne face, all the somber shadows of her mourning garb only served to heighten and display her beauty to greater advantage. A fair widow truly! I, her lately deceased husband, freely admitted the magnetic power of her charms! She paused for an instant on the threshold, a winning smile on her ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... rationally vindicated, who exposes his person to destruction, and, by consequence, his expedition to miscarriage, only for the pleasure of an idle insult, an insignificant bravado. All that can be urged in his defence is, that, perhaps, it might contribute to heighten the esteem of his followers, as few men, especially of that class, are philosophical enough to state the exact limits of prudence and bravery, or not to be dazzled with an intrepidity, how improperly soever exerted. It may be added, that, perhaps, the Spaniards, whose notions of courage are sufficiently ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 6 - Reviews, Political Tracts, and Lives of Eminent Persons • Samuel Johnson
... became speedily engaged in embellishing his person with unguents and garlands and ornaments. And while he was doing all this, thinking of that damsel of large eyes, the day seemed to him to be without an end. And the beauty of Kichaka, who was about to forsake his beauty for ever, seemed to heighten, like the wick of a burning lamp about to expire. And reposing the fullest confidence in Draupadi, Kichaka, deprived of his senses by lust and absorbed in the contemplation of expected meeting, did not even perceive that the day had departed. Meanwhile, the beautiful ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... other Instances of Milton's wonderful Art in the Collocation of Words, by which the Thoughts are exceedingly heighten'd. ...
— Letters Concerning Poetical Translations - And Virgil's and Milton's Arts of Verse, &c. • William Benson
... And my pretext to strike at him admits A good construction. I rais'd him, and I pawn'd Mine honour for his truth: who being so heighten'd, He water'd his new plants with dews of flattery, Seducing so my friends; and to this end He bow'd his nature, never known before But to ...
— The Tragedy of Coriolanus • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... a squaw in a flame-red petticoat; others in bright shawls squatted about on the rocks, each with a circle of dogs and papooses. But all this warmth of color only served, like a winter sunset, to heighten the chilly and desolate sentiment of the scene. The light dresses of the ladies on the veranda struck cold upon the eye; in the faces of the sojourners who lounged idly to the steamer's landing-place, the passenger ...
— A Chance Acquaintance • W. D. Howells
... my Socialistic colleague, who (with all his dreadful talk of arbitration) is a gentleman also. In fact, he comes of the Staffordshire Percys, a branch of the old house and has the black hair and pale, clear-cut face of the whole family. I cannot but refer it to vanity that he should heighten his personal advantages with black velvet or a red cross of considerable ostentation, and ...
— Manalive • G. K. Chesterton
... is no special objection. Every man has a right to heap virtues and graces upon his hero, and to heighten their effect by as much uncouthness and insincerity as he chooses to attribute to the subordinates; but so far as he professes to represent life, he should keep within the bounds of natural laws. If he chooses to introduce time-honored personages, we shall not quarrel with him, although ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 75, January, 1864 • Various
... his full-dress uniform, the General his also, and I had given some extra attention to my toilette. Francis was dressed plainly as usual, without much regard for the day or the visitors; and yet there was something original in her style of dress, an elegance which seemed to heighten her beauty considerably. I was struck by the richness and weight of the silver, all engraved with the family coat-of-arms. I felt sure that the Captain and Francis had put their money together to ...
— Major Frank • A. L. G. Bosboom-Toussaint
... whose beauty, decked with laces and satin, her hair coquettishly falling in a myriad of curls about her throat, resembled that of a flower encased in its foliage. Madame Evangelista, robed in a gown of cherry velvet, a color judiciously chosen to heighten the brilliancy of her skin and her black hair and eyes, glowed with the beauty of a woman at forty, and wore her pearl necklace, clasped with the "Discreto," a visible contradiction ...
— The Marriage Contract • Honore de Balzac
... creates and often increases joy, doth also, upon occasion, heighten sorrow: and so it fared now with our portly monk, who had no sooner explained away his portion of provender, than he began to weep and bewail ...
— Maid Marian • Thomas Love Peacock
... difference: he was trying to create Greeks of a nobler order than his contemporaries. Men in those days, he says, were of huger stature than they are now. And yet, when his imagination is not actually at work to heighten and ennoble the portrait of a hero, real Greek life of his own times does not fail sometimes—to obtrude on him. So he lets in bits now and again that belong to the state of things Hesiod describes, and confirm the truth of Hesiod's ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... hospitality. If any thing were wanting to complete the illusion, the sound of the early mass bell, summoning to the worship of that God whom no pageantry of man may dispossess of homage, would amply crown and heighten the effect of the whole, while the chaunting of the hymn of adoration, would appear a part of the worship of the Deity, and of the ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... herself. She seemed well dressed by dint of looking well in her clothes; but she had not chosen to make herself look well. In the exasperated phase of revolt through which she was passing, she could not have been persuaded to dress so as to heighten the effect of her appearance, and so make of herself a trap to catch admiring glances. To be neat and fresh was all her care; but that was enough. The young man with the pointed beard, who had been looking about the room uneasily, seemed ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... her poetic glooms, only served to heighten the lustre of the fairy fete; and as I receded through the wood, the little shoal of light gleamed and twinkled through "branches overgrown," and the distant sounds began to fall into solitary silence—even saddening to meditation—so fast do the dying ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 12, Issue 330, September 6, 1828 • Various
... the room. Was this real passion, or was it the mere exhibition of an accomplished artist, who could call up expression at will, as easily as a painter could heighten colour? Kate Kearney evidently believed the former, as her heaving chest and her tremulous lip betrayed, while the cold, simpering smile on Walpole's face, and the 'brava, bravissima' in which he broke the ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... not to omit mentioning that he has been told in France that he personally resembles the Emperor, and I suspect he is trying to heighten the resemblance by training his mustache on the pattern of that which adorns the imperial upper lip. He is a genuine American character, though modified by a good deal of travel; a very intelligent man, full of various ability, with eyes all over him for ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... Old World. These people will mix their blood, their temperaments, and their traditions, and not only will a new variety of human being emerge, but the mixing of opposites in idea and temperament will quicken self-consciousness and heighten mental power and speed up its activity. The opportunity of the blond beasts of prey has lain in the torpor and inactivity and ignorance of the multitude. But I find no torpor in California. And where ...
— Is civilization a disease? • Stanton Coit
... scherzo is, I think, less good). Of this final allegro an exposition has been vouchsafed. While in the preceding movements, it is said, he aimed at expressing tragic details, in the last he has tried to generalise. He wished "to heighten the darkness of tragedy by making it follow closely on the heels of triumph. Therefore, he attempted to make the last movement a steadily progressive triumph, which, at its close, is utterly broken and ...
— Edward MacDowell • Lawrence Gilman
... beautiful Lord's Day, were Sarah Lowe and her brother and sister. It was a moving sight to see that gentle girl, with a mature thoughtfulness far beyond her years, take that younger brother and sister by the hand, and kneel with them at the mercy-seat—a sight to heighten the ...
— Children's Edition of Touching Incidents and Remarkable Answers to Prayer • S. B. Shaw
... which she had not much noticed before, became evident, but there was a certain distinction in the man's general air which this rather seemed to heighten. His manner of delicate solicitude for her was the perfection of good-breeding, and when she answered him reassuringly, and walked by his side to the dining-room, a sudden conviction seized her that she had come into her own—that ...
— A Manifest Destiny • Julia Magruder
... meek girl who had served him at the feast. Anon, when he summoned her to clear the things away, he would bid her tell him the tale of her lowly passion. He poured a second glass of port, sipped it, quaffed it, poured a third. The grey gloom of the weather did but, as he eyed the bottle, heighten his sense of the rich sunshine so long ago imprisoned by the vintner and now released to make glad his soul. Even so to be released was the love pent for him in the heart of this sweet girl. Would that he loved ...
— Zuleika Dobson - or, An Oxford Love Story • Max Beerbohm
... that can hardly be claimed for any city which does not make use of the natural features to heighten the effect of the embellishments which the hand of man has added to what nature has already given. London possesses these features to a remarkable degree, and she should make the best of them, even if to go so far as to form one of those twentieth-century ...
— Dickens' London • Francis Miltoun
... stout, straight, well-coloured, and with no appearance or trace of water having been used to heighten it, which may be easily detected on a careful inspection, although the unwary have on several occasions been known to have purchased, and shipped home to Britain, quantities of the common firewood in place of it, as after being ...
— Recollections of Manilla and the Philippines - During 1848, 1849 and 1850 • Robert Mac Micking
... Lamb had to hide himself under some disguise, a name, 'Elia,' taken literally as a pen name, or some more roundabout borrowing, as of an old fierce critic's, Joseph Ritson's, to heighten and soften the energy of marginal annotations on a pedant scholar. In the letter in which he announces the first essays of Elia, he writes to Barron Field: 'You shall soon have a tissue of truth and fiction, impossible to be extricated, the interleavings shall be so delicate, ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons
... he in his mode of conferring his favors, as to greatly augment the value of them, and at the same time heighten the esteem of the recipients for the donor." Outside of her alumni Dartmouth had few warmer ...
— The History of Dartmouth College • Baxter Perry Smith
... the story itself there are signs of roughness and want of skill, which make one suspect that the prose was only put together to connect a series of songs—a series of songs so moving and attractive that people wished to heighten and dignify their effect by a regular framework or setting. Yet the songs themselves are of the simplest kind, not rhymed even, but only imperfectly assonant, stanzas of twenty or thirty lines apiece, all ending with a similar vowel sound. And ...
— The Renaissance - Studies in Art and Poetry • Walter Pater
... you must be, all beautiful that you are, that those charming airs serve only to heighten the ...
— Evelina • Fanny Burney
... or antipathetic vibration. On this circumstance hangs that subtle congruity between subject and vehicle which is otherwise such a mystery in expression. If to think of Athena and to look on ivory are congruous physiological processes, if they sustain or heighten each other, then to represent Athena in ivory will be a happy expedient, in which the very nature of the medium will already be helping us forward. Scent and form go better together, for instance, in the violet or the rose than ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... of these remarkable words was to heighten my interest and raise me into a state of renewed hope, if not of ...
— The Filigree Ball • Anna Katharine Green
... I am a mere listener: far the reverse. I throw in masterly touches, which, while they seem only to heighten her picture, produce the full effect by me intended. Thus, when she described the faith and truth and love of the innocents of her own creation, how did I declaim against the abuse to which such doctrine, ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... that Waller was forgotten. He passed his time in the company that was highest both in rank and wit, from which even his obstinate sobriety did not exclude him. Though he drank water, he was enabled, by his fertility of mind, to heighten the mirth of Bacchanalian assemblies; and Mr. Saville said, that "no man in England should keep him company without drinking, ...
— Lives of the Poets, Vol. 1 • Samuel Johnson
... that Soap-stick was high enough (for I made no farther use of the sights than to ascertain this fact), I pulled trigger, and off she went. I have always found that the most creditable way of relieving myself of derision was to heighten it myself as much as possible. It is a good plan in all circles, but by far the best which can be adopted among the plain, rough farmers of the country. Accordingly, I brought old Soap-stick to an order with an air of triumph; tipped Billy a wink, and observed, "Now, Billy, 's your time ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume IV. (of X.) • Various
... allowing them time for rest or reflection, hurried them along during the whole day by rugged and thorny paths. Their shoes were worn off by the rocks, their clothes torn, and their feet and limbs lacerated and stained with blood. To heighten their misery one of the savages began to make love to Miss ———, (the intended of Major S.) and while goading her along with a pointed stick, promised in recompense for her sufferings to make her his squaw. This at once roused all the energies of her mind and called its powers ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler
... streaks of steely light came a thin rain to heighten Crispin's discomfort, for of late he had been overmuch in the saddle, and strong though he was, he was yet flesh and blood, and subject to its ills. Towards ten o'clock they passed through Denham. When they ...
— The Tavern Knight • Rafael Sabatini
... Some words are to be culled out for ornament and colour, as we gather flowers to strew houses or make garlands; but they are better when they grow to our style; as in a meadow, where, though the mere grass and greenness delight, yet the variety of flowers doth heighten and beautify. Marry, we must not play or riot too much with them, as in Paronomasies; nor use too swelling or ill-sounding words! Quae per salebras, altaque saxa cadunt. {114a} It is true, there is no sound but shall find some lovers, as the bitterest confections are grateful to some palates. ...
— Discoveries and Some Poems • Ben Jonson
... concluded more quickly, and to his own surprise he had repeatedly promised himself in a morning that he would to-day give Gwendolen the opportunity of accepting him, and had found in the evening that the necessary formality was still unaccomplished. This remarkable fact served to heighten his determination on another day. He had never admitted to himself that Gwendolen might refuse him, but—heaven help us all!—we are often unable to act on our certainties; our objection to a contrary issue (were it possible) is ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... the taking Of my degree cost me twelve French crowns, and Thirty-five pounds of butter in Upper Germany. I can make your beauty and preserve it, Rectifie your bodie and maintaine it, Clarifie your blood, surfle your cheeks, perfume Your skin, tinct your hair, enliven your eye, Heighten your appetite; and as for Jellies, Dentifrizes, Dyets, Minerals, Fricasses, Pomatums, Fumes, Italia masks to sleep in, Either to moisten or dry the superficies, Faugh! Galen Was a goose and Paracelsus a ...
— Primitive Psycho-Therapy and Quackery • Robert Means Lawrence
... the supernatural the Teutonic nations have generally preserved a touch of humor. This is so intrinsically true to the Teutonic way of feeling that the humor seems to go with and to heighten the terror of the supernatural. When Hamlet, in the scene on the midnight terrace, addresses the ghost as "old mole," "old truepenny," etc., we may be sure that he is in a frenzy of excitement and apprehension. Perhaps the explanation of this mixture of humor and terror, ...
— Emerson and Other Essays • John Jay Chapman
... drawing nearer the fire with an amiable little shiver, well excused by the mountain coolness, but Rebecca was beguiled into stepping out into the moonlight The brightness of the moon and the blackness of the shadows cast by trees and rocks and undergrowth, seemed somehow to heighten the effect of the intense and utter stillness reigning around them,—even the occasional distant cry of some wandering wild creature marked, rather than broke in upon, the silence. Rebecca's glance about ...
— Lodusky • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... of this nature she usually, as has been hinted, accompanied every act of compliance with her brother's inclinations; and surely nothing could more contribute to heighten the merit of this compliance than a declaration that she knew, at the same time, the folly and unreasonableness of those inclinations to which she submitted. Tacit obedience implies no force upon the will, and consequently may be easily, and without any pains, preserved; ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... To heighten the effect, they decided to do their preparation on the spot, and so not only impress the sleeper when he awoke, but advertise themselves to the outside world as boys who by no means neglected the serious side of school life for its ...
— The Cock-House at Fellsgarth • Talbot Baines Reed
... of faded virtue. In order to convey these intentions more conspicuously, should the result of an evening be in your favour, your winnings should be consigned to your waistcoat pocket; and if you have any particular desire to heighten the effect, a piece of moderate value may be left on ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, November 13, 1841 • Various
... accent. Yet the voice had an accent of crudity, and the plump whiteness of the skin and waving fulness of the hair gave the girl a look of an adventuress. She was dressed in black with a white collar which, by contrast, seemed to heighten her unusual nature. ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... admirers of the two heroes, in an ecstasy at their wisdom, gave vent to another peal of laughter, while the rest of us were silent and amazed. Euthydemus, observing this, determined to persevere with the youth; and in order to heighten the effect went on asking another similar question, which might be compared to the double turn of an expert dancer. Do those, said he, who learn, learn what they know, or what ...
— Euthydemus • Plato
... shadow is once seen, it is impossible to forget that it may come again and darken the sun. I do not mean that the days of that summer were absolutely without things to trouble me; I had changes of light and shade; but, on the whole, nothing that did not heighten the light. They were pleasant days that I had in Juanita's cottage at the time when my ankle was broken; there were hours of sweetness with crippled Molly; and it was simply delight I had all alone with my ...
— Daisy • Elizabeth Wetherell
... their mansions so warm, Heed not the rude blast of the pitiless storm— The loud-roaring tempest, the elements din, Serve only to heighten their comforts within. ...
— The Poets and Poetry of Cecil County, Maryland • Various
... so admirable as the one you have just published. The importance and the rarity of the species therein described, as well as the beauty of the figures, will make the work an important one in ichthyology, and nothing could heighten its value more than the accuracy of your descriptions. It will be of the greatest use to me in my History of Fishes. I had already referred to the plates in the second edition of my "Regne Animal." I shall do all in my power to accelerate the ...
— Louis Agassiz: His Life and Correspondence • Louis Agassiz
... his learning, that it would greatly compensate the tutor for his pains with the additional scholar; for the young gentleman would be ashamed to be outdone by one of like years and stature with himself. And little rewards might be proposed to the greatest proficient, in order to heighten the emulation. ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... is a land of impermanence. Rivers shift their courses, coasts their outline, plains their level; volcanic peaks heighten or crumble; valleys are blocked by lava-floods or landslides; lakes appear and disappear. Even the matchless shape of Fuji, that snowy miracle which has been the inspiration of artists for centuries, is said to have been ...
— Kokoro - Japanese Inner Life Hints • Lafcadio Hearn
... must at once give us the whole of it, must let us into every secret without delay, or his exposition is plainly misleading. It is assumed that he tells all, if he once begins. And so, too, if the book were cast autobiographically and Strether spoke in person; he could not hold back, he could not heighten the story of his thought with that touch of suspense, waiting to be resolved, which stamps the impression so firmly into the memory of the onlooker. In a tale of murder and mystery there is one man who cannot possibly be the narrator, and that is the murderer ...
— The Craft of Fiction • Percy Lubbock
... to heighten the anxiety of all, and stimulate the soldiers to make as good progress as they could without too greatly distressing the wounded man. Several times, in the dim light, the groaning and pallor of her husband led Mrs. Jones to fear he was dying, and, with Tom and Robert, she watched every change ...
— The Cabin on the Prairie • C. H. (Charles Henry) Pearson
... more remarkable for the spontaneousness of the whole thing and the admirable way in which the pair played into one another's hands. The deaf one even played his deafness, making it worse than it was so as to heighten the comedy. By and by we came to a stile which they pretended to have a delicacy in crossing, but the lady helped them over. We concluded that if these young men were average specimens of the Italian student—and I should say they were—the Italian character has an enormous ...
— Alps and Sanctuaries of Piedmont and the Canton Ticino • Samuel Butler
... temple-music doubtless tended to heighten devotional feeling among the worshipers, and possibly a similar popular effect was produced by the festivals that were common in the ancient world. Here the whole population took part, there were religious ...
— Introduction to the History of Religions - Handbooks on the History of Religions, Volume IV • Crawford Howell Toy
... concealed, Like some fair bud close folded in its sheath, Gives not to view the blooming of its beauty. But what am I saying? In real truth, this bark-dress, though ill-suited to her figure, sets it off like an ornament. The lotus with the Saivala entwined Is not a whit less brilliant: dusky spots Heighten the lustre of the cold-rayed moon: This lovely maiden in her dress of bark Seems all the lovelier. E'en the meanest garb Gives to true beauty ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson
... fit to serve? And both invited, but you would not swerve, All meaner prizes waiving that you might In civic duty spend your heat and light, Unpaid, untrammelled, with a sweet disdain Refusing posts men grovel to attain. Good Man all own you; what is left me, then, To heighten praise with ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... when dry might be washed even with warm water with perfect impunity. When dry it did not fear water; though a saponaceous medium, it was not again soluble in water. What does Vasari mean by "che accende i colori"—"which heightens the colours?" Borax is an alkali. Alkalis are known to heighten colours, "e gli fa lucidi;" now, linseed and nut oil alone, particularly the former, takes away the lucid character from paint. Had Vasari been describing the working of this vehicle of P. Rainier, he could not have better described it than in the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 356, June, 1845 • Various
... care is then taken that these linings do not come into the direct view of the observer, and operate prejudicially on the face by contrast, overpowering the little color which by reflection they should heighten. The fronts of bonnets so lined, therefore, do not widen greatly forward, and bring their ...
— Sketches of the Fair Sex, in All Parts of the World • Anonymous
... question'd there By all the men that have been robb'd that year; So now whatever Fate or their own will Scor'd up in life, Cupid must pay the bill. Their servant's falsehood, jealousy, disdain, And all the plagues that abus'd maids can feign, Are laid on him, and then to heighten spleen, Their own deaths crown the sum. Press'd thus between His fair accusers, 'tis at last decreed He by those weapons, that they died, should bleed. One grasps an airy sword, a second holds Illusive fire, and in vain wanton folds Belies a flame; others, less kind, appear To let him blood, ...
— Poems of Henry Vaughan, Silurist, Volume II • Henry Vaughan |
