"Showy" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... what you're going to say. You think it's too showy. Now I want you to tell me just what you think about everything—everything. I shan't be offended. I'm not so silly. You know I've come here to learn all sorts of things. To-morrow you shall go over all my dresses with me, and those you don't like I'll get rid of. I've never had anyone ...
— The Paying Guest • George Gissing
... whilst standing behind his mistress's chair at dinner, to the confusion which she carried into the hostile camp, and might be supposed to renew such discussions in the servants' hall with singular advantages for a favorable attention. For he was a showy and most audacious Londoner, and what is technically known in the language of servants' hiring offices as "a man of figure." He might, therefore, be considered as one dangerously armed for shaking religious principles, ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... stores and banks on limited salaries who in the vain attempt to keep the wardrobe of their family as showy as other folk's wardrobes are dying of muffs, and diamonds, and camel's-hair shawls, and high hats, and they have nothing left except what they give to cigars and wine suppers, and they die before their time, and they will expect us ministers to preach about them as though they were the victims of ...
— The Wedding Ring - A Series of Discourses for Husbands and Wives and Those - Contemplating Matrimony • T. De Witt Talmage
... with his ten or fifteen thousand perhaps will walk down the street buttoned up in an ungainly greatcoat and an old hat, not half so smartly dressed as a well-paid mechanic, and far behind the drapers' assistants in style. There is a species of contempt among them for the meretricious and showy; they believe in the solid. This very fact makes them good friends to shopkeepers, who have no better customers. They carry this leading idea too far, for they admire an article in precisely a corresponding ratio to the money it costs, totally oblivious ...
— The Toilers of the Field • Richard Jefferies
... him turn out to church, wake, or fair—there's a beau for you! If he has not his best slop on, which has never yet been defiled by touch of labor, he is conspicuous in his blue, brown, or olive-green coat, and waistcoat of glaring color—scarlet, or blue, or green striped—but it must be showy; and a pair of trowsers, generally blue, with a width nearly as ample as a sailor's, and not only guiltless of the foppery of being strapped down, but if he find the road rather dirty, or the grass dewy, they are turned up three or four inches at the bottom, so as to show the lining. On those ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... Flashy shops and showy houses of San Francisco. Rich Bar charmingly fresh and original. A diminutive valley. Rio de las Plumas, or Feather River. Rich Bar, the Barra Rica of the Spaniards. An acknowledgment of "a most humiliating consciousness of geological deficiencies". Palatial splendor of ...
— The Shirley Letters from California Mines in 1851-52 • Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clappe
... whose ambitions extended beyond the limits of the public school, the master had begun a Euclid class, which was at once his despair and his pride. In the Twentieth school of that date there was no waste of the children's time in foolish and fantastic branches of study, in showy exercises and accomplishments, whose display was at once ruinous to the nerves of the visitors, and to the self-respect and modesty of the children. The ideal of the school was to fit the children for the struggle into ...
— Glengarry Schooldays • Ralph Connor
... to see the busy young man sit down so confidently in our best chair. He said his name was Dixon, and he took out from his satchel a book with a fine showy cover. He said it was called "Living Selections ...
— Adventures In Contentment • David Grayson
... a cousin. She was dark, high-coloured, glossy-haired, stout, and showy. She was as neat as a new pin, and had a will of her own. Her hair was firmly fixed by bandoline, her garibaldis by an arrangement which failed when applied to those of the widow, and her opinions by the simple process of looking at everything from one ...
— The Brownies and Other Tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... this same spirit manifested in an excessive care for showy furniture, in the encouragement of artificial and numberless wants, and in a willingness to live on resources dishonestly obtained, and on means belonging rightfully to another, sooner than relinquish one particle of former splendors. In ambitious entertainments, how often is woman ...
— The Young Maiden • A. B. (Artemas Bowers) Muzzey
... felicitous touch, with here and there a smack of the conventional hymn-book and pulpit twang—such weak and characterless effusions are all that is left of the passion-ridden pseudo-genius of Haworth. Real genius is perhaps seldom of such showy temperament. ...
— Emily Bront • A. Mary F. (Agnes Mary Frances) Robinson
... Oxford, the state of parties, and of the peculiar idiosyncrasies of the Irish Low Church clergymen, on all of which subjects Herbert found that Mr. Prendergast had a tolerably strong opinion of his own. The dinner was very good, though by no means showy,—as might have been expected in a house in Bloomsbury Square—and the wine excellent, as might have been expected in any ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope
... this handsome conveyance, and a flood of serious reflections suddenly burst upon me. I had begun to imagine myself the lucky centre of a thousand and one happy possibilities. I was grown up, and out in the world, the wife of a very rich man, with costly plumes in my bonnet, and rich lace on my showy parasol, like the lady who had just driven by: I was quite my own mistress, with servants and other people to obey me. I had a dashing barouche of my own, and was rolling in conscious grandeur past my step-mother's window, with the back of ...
— The Doctor's Daughter • "Vera"
... large, showy shop, with Virgins and crucifixes and altar candelabra's in the windows, and pictures of bleeding hearts. He went in and stood at the counter. A rosy-faced servant-girl, with a shy, pleased expression, was making choice of a rosary. ...
— Saint Patrick - 1887 • Heman White Chaplin
... emphatically in him when we return to our own land after a prolonged absence. Hence we panted not for the dinner-hour, that should show us the faces whose voices we recognized as to our own manner born. That hour came, however, as all hours come to those who know how to wait. We descended to the showy table, with its floral decorations of paper, muslin, and gay paint, the ladies in the evening dress of flowers, trains, and decolletee bodices which is the absurd custom of pretentious London pensions. We glanced along the table to note the new-comers. They were ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, November 1885 • Various
... trouble of this sort in future, I substituted drain-pipes set on end; the first of those ideas which have won commendation from great authorities. Drain-pipes do not encourage insects. Filled with earth, each bears a showy plant—lobelia, pyrethrum, saxifrage, or what not, with the utmost neatness, making a border; and they last eternally. But there was still much stooping, of course, whilst I became more impatient of it. One day a remedy flashed through my mind: that happy thought which became ...
— About Orchids - A Chat • Frederick Boyle
... I deserved. One of these was a plain, honest manly man; he was one of Uncle Andrew's engineers. He wasn't handsome, but he was the kind of man that sensible women love. The other was a handsome, showy, witty man, also an employee of the railroad, considered 'the catch' among the girls. Really, Lottie, both of them tried to propose and I wouldn't let them, I didn't know which one of them I liked best. But if things had taken the usual course, I should have married the handsome ...
— Danger Signals • John A. Hill and Jasper Ewing Brady
... minstrel tour that Charles Frohman gave the first real expression to his talents for publicity. Everything about a minstrel company was showy and flashy. So Charles originated a unique idea of establishing a reputation for solvency. He bought a small iron safe about three feet high. On it were painted in large gilt letters, "Treasurer, ...
— Charles Frohman: Manager and Man • Isaac Frederick Marcosson and Daniel Frohman
... days, nights—or had them at least, showed them by a mysterious law of her own, when in addition to everything she happened also to be a woman of genius. She was an obscure person, a muffled person one day, and a showy person, an uncovered person the next. He thought of Madame de Vionnet to-night as showy and uncovered, though he felt the formula rough, because, thanks to one of the short-cuts of genius she had taken all his categories by surprise. ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James
... as going through the agency," offered Lowell. "The car is big enough and showy enough to attract ...
— Mystery Ranch • Arthur Chapman
... charged with neglecting her lover to the common danger.... The inspector said the man was in a pitiful state, morally quite uncombed and infested with vulgar, showy ideas...." ...
— The Secret Places of the Heart • H. G. Wells
... impossible for a man to form the picture, this sounds as though it were elegant. Again she writes: "Cousin's dress is white, ... like your aunts, only differently trimmed and ornamented; her train being wholly of white crape, and trimmed with white ribbon; the petticoat, which is the most showy part of the dress, covered and drawn up in what are called festoons, with light wreaths of beautiful flowers; the sleeves white crape, drawn over silk, with a row of lace round the sleeve near the shoulder, another half way down the arm, and a third upon ...
— Woman's Life in Colonial Days • Carl Holliday
... "If wide and showy thus the shop, What must the habitation prove? The true house with no name a-top— The mansion, distant one remove, Once get him ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke
... show off her beauty in ball-dresses, who yet will not let her pay wages which will command any but the poorest and most inefficient domestic service. The woman is worn out, her life made a desert by exhaustion consequent on a futile attempt to keep up a showy establishment with only half the hands needed for the purpose. Another family will give brilliant parties, have a gay season every year at the first hotels at Newport, and not be able to afford the wife a fire in her chamber in ...
— Atlantic Monthly,Volume 14, No. 82, August, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... the other a few years older—rode the bridegrooms; one, a sullen-looking fellow who, I was told, already had five wives and plainly showed it, astride a magnificent gray Arab; the other, who was still a boy, on a showy bay stallion, both animals being decked with flowers and caparisoned in trappings of scarlet leather trimmed with silver. The bridegrooms, naked to the waist, were, like their brides, dyed a vivid yellow; their sarongs were of cloth-of-gold and they were loaded with jeweled necklaces, bracelets, ...
— Where the Strange Trails Go Down • E. Alexander Powell
... mansion in Faubourg Saint-Honore about four o'clock, might have seen before the lofty arched gateway, beside the Princesse de Dions' quiet livery of the color of dead leaves, and many genuine coats of arms, the showy, pretentious crests, the multi-colored wheels of a multitude of financiers' equipages and the tall powdered ...
— The Nabob, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... and Claw-of-the-Eagle were given presents also, but less showy ones. Smith went into his own little house and after hunting through his sea-chest, brought out a silver bracelet which he slipped ...
— The Princess Pocahontas • Virginia Watson
... of love, amid all the envyings and distractions of showy competition; fidelity, pity, and sympathy hold the long night-watch by the bedside of the suffering neighbor, amidst the surrounding poverty and squalid misery. Devoted men go from city to city to nurse those smitten down by the terrible ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... thought she did, Sergeant, though not much given to showy and parade evolutions, I would shoulder Killdeer and quit the garrison before her pretty eyes had time to frown. No, no; Mabel knows me better, though we are but new acquaintances, for there has been no want of Mingos to enliven the short march we ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... nobles, but Guelf nobles; always loyal champions, once the martyrs, and now the hereditary assertors, of the great Guelf cause. The Cerchi, with less character and less zeal, but rich, liberal, and showy, and with more of rough kindness and vulgar good-nature for the common people, were more popular in Guelf Florence than the Parte Guelfa; and, of course, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... showy, but I hear that Benson thinks a lot of it," Walters went on. "It's a pity Monty takes it so badly, for the crew has come along immensely and with ordinary luck ought to make a cert ...
— Two Daring Young Patriots - or, Outwitting the Huns • W. P. Shervill
... me fifty pounds, the sum my mother bade me name as the salary I should require; and here, I hesitated about engaging myself, as I feared the children would be too old, and their parents would require some one more showy, or more experienced, if not more accomplished than I. But my mother dissuaded me from declining it on that account: I should do vastly well, she said, if I would only throw aside my diffidence, and acquire a little more confidence in myself. I was just to give ...
— Agnes Grey • Anne Bronte
... a mile from the hamlet, was not a showy edifice; but it was reverenced as much by the young race of village scholars as if it had been the most stately mansion in the land; it was a low roofed, long, thatched tenement, sheltered by a few reverend oaks, under which many generations of hopeful children ...
— The Parent's Assistant • Maria Edgeworth
... out of the staff-room would have won his marshal's baton in Napoleon's day, I suppose, though he was out of keeping with those showy times. I did not then know that he was to be Commander-in-Chief; only that all France thrilled with his name, which time will forever associate with Douaumont. At once you felt the dynamic quality under his agreeable ...
— My Second Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... propose in convocation. Thus much I am sure of, if a classical play-bill were duly announced for the next grand commemoration, it would "draw" almost as well as the Duke; the dresses might be quite as showy, the action hardly less graceful, than those of the odd-looking gentlemen who are dubbed doctors of civil law on such occasions; and the speeches of Prometheus, Oedipus, or Antigone, would be more intelligible to the learned, and more amusing to the ladies, than those Latin essays ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 54, No. 338, December 1843 • Various
... year in which Scott hoped to reach the Pole, the ideal date he had given being December 21. This was the year that Campbell and his party were looking forward to so eagerly—if only they could be successful in landing their gear and equipment in King Edward VII. Land—and, for the less showy but more scientific sledgers, 1911 held a wealth of excitement in store. Griffith Taylor and Debenham knew pretty well that next New Year's Day would see them in the midst of their Western journey with the secrets of those rugged mountains revealed ...
— South with Scott • Edward R. G. R. Evans
... Sun, gave everyone the impression of a man eaten by ambition as by a fire, or even a disease. But though Kidd knew a great deal about Sir Claude—a great deal more, in fact, than there was to know—it would never have crossed his wildest dreams to connect so showy an aristocrat with the newly-unearthed founder of Catastrophism, or to guess that Sir Claude Champion and John Boulnois could be intimate friends. Such, according to Dalroy's account, was nevertheless the fact. The two had hunted in couples at school and college, and, though their social ...
— The Wisdom of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... she at once let the merchants in. And the merchants appeared, bowed low to the beautiful korolevna, unfolded the showy velvets and golden brocades, strewed around the pearls and precious stones, such stones and pearls as had never been seen before in Buzan. The nurses and the maidens opened their mouths in amazement, and the korolevna herself seemed to be greatly pleased. ...
— Folk Tales from the Russian • Various
... Cloud. By noon every corner and vantage point of the landscape is seized upon, when, with a blare of trumpets and the rattle of cavalry, the President arrives in his turnout a la Daumont, two postilions in blue and gold, and a piqueur, preceded by a detachment of the showy Gardes Republicains on horseback, and takes his place in the little pavilion where for so many years Eugenie used to sit in state, and which has sheltered so many crowned heads under its simple roof. Faure's arrival is the signal for the racing to begin, from ...
— Worldly Ways and Byways • Eliot Gregory
... why I said "after all," but till that moment it had never struck me that Derrick was particularly gifted. He had so far got through his Oxford career creditably, but then he had worked hard; his talents were not of a showy order. I had never expected that he would set the Thames on fire. Even now it seemed to me that he was too dreamy, too quiet, too devoid of the pushing faculty to ...
— Derrick Vaughan—Novelist • Edna Lyall
... puffed, tranquilly. It was a fine night. The first showy splendour of sunset had passed; but the upper sky was still aflush with colour. And in the centre of this frail cloud, which faded as he watched it, ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... of the impetuous and boiling style. We go it weak here. I don't know whether you were ever in Brussels. It is a striking, picturesque town, built up a steep promontory, the old part at the bottom, very dingy and mouldy, the new part at the top, very showy and elegant. Nothing can be more exquisite in its way than the grande place in the very heart of the city, surrounded with those toppling, zigzag, ten-storied buildings bedizened all over with ornaments and emblems so peculiar to the Netherlands, with the brocaded Hotel de Ville ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... ornament, and considered more curious than useful, "some of them are the very best of the summer squashes for table use; far superior to either the scolloped or warted varieties." When trained as directed for the Egg-squash, it is equally showy ...
— The Field and Garden Vegetables of America • Fearing Burr
... this tall and showy monument, standing, as we have said, in the most conspicuous spot of the cemetery, Sand's grave must be looked far in the corner to the extreme left of the entrance gate; and a wild plum tree, some leaves of which every passing traveller carries away, ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... came to a standstill, proposing to himself the question of turning back toward the showy and fashionable restaurant in which he usually dined on the evenings of his especial luxury. Just then a girl scuddled lightly around the corner, slipped on a patch of icy snow and fell plump ...
— The Four Million • O. Henry
... thatching the stupendous cliffs with softest beauty, some of the delicate fronds seeming to float on the warm moist air, without any connection with rock or stream. Nor is there any lack of colored plants wherever they can find a place to cling to; lilies and mints, the showy cardinal mimulus, and glowing cushions of the golden bahia, enlivened with butterflies and bees and all the other small, happy humming creatures that ...
— The Yosemite • John Muir
... increase. Every year makes fresh accessions to their ranks, and their follies and extravagances multiply in proportion. They occupy the majority of the mansions in the fashionable streets, crowd the public thoroughfares and the Park with their costly and showy equipages, and flaunt their wealth so coarsely and offensively in the faces of their neighbors, that many good people have come to believe that riches and vulgarity are inseparable. They make themselves the ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... There were a few people standing by the counter; and the jeweller, a certain Mr. Pearce, was attending to them. Maggie felt impatient. She awaited her turn as best she could. How she disliked those showy-looking people who were purchasing goods of some value, whereas she only wanted to sell! She could scarcely restrain her great impatience, and was relieved when ...
— The School Queens • L. T. Meade
... my back to the wall, staring blankly at the trembling landlord, who was ready at any moment to foam at the mouth, and at the dour landlady, who was quite capable of keeping him in order, there came in one of those dark, showy Italian girls with a man. She wore a blouse and skirt, and no hat. Her hair was perfectly dressed. It was really Italy. The man was soft, dark, he would get stout later, trapu, he would have somewhat the figure of Caruso. But as yet he was ...
— Twilight in Italy • D.H. Lawrence
... or three cupids hovering in the air, some of them touching the shoulders of a pretty girl who was supposed to be opening a box of chocolates. There was a good deal of color and embossed writing also on the cover, and altogether it was as showy and, in Stephanotie's opinion, as handsome a thing as ...
— Light O' The Morning • L. T. Meade
... receive at fashionable establishments, yet it was quite sufficient for my station in life, which no one expected me to rise above. I had not studied either French or music or dancing, nor sported fine dresses or showy bonnets; for our whole bringing up was in keeping with our position. Was I not to be a sewing-girl?—and how improper it would have been to educate me with tastes which all the earnings of a sewing-girl would be unable ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865 • Various
... houses are all of stone, and stand regular and in order, along wide straight streets. There are swift cars, drawn by electricity, for such as can afford them. Men are brisk and alert even in the summer heats, and there are shops of a very good kind, though a trifle showy. There are many newspapers to help the Milanese to be better men and to cultivate charity and humility; there are banks full of paper money; there are soldiers, good pavements, and all that man requires to fulfil him, soul and body; cafes, arcades, mutoscopes, and every sign of the ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc
... 1823 he felt himself bound to give himself more exclusively to the work of a clergyman, and left Oxford to be his father's curate. There was nothing very unusual in his way of life, or singular and showy in his work as a clergyman; he went in and out among the poor, he was not averse to society, he preached plain, unpretending, earnest sermons; he kept up his literary interests. But he was a deeply convinced Churchman, finding his standard and pattern of doctrine and devotion ...
— The Oxford Movement - Twelve Years, 1833-1845 • R.W. Church
... was different. He was a desperado, one of the dashing, reckless kind—more famous along the Pecos and Rio Grande than more really desperate men. His attire proclaimed a vanity seldom seen in any Westerner except of that unusual brand, yet it was neither gaudy or showy. ...
— The Rustlers of Pecos County • Zane Grey
... you see, and there are no marks to guide us." As he spoke two men came down the garden path, from round the angle of the house. The one was an elderly man, with a strong, deep-lined, heavy-eyed face; the other a dashing young fellow, whose bright, smiling expression and showy dress were in strange contract with the business which ...
— Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... her earlier youth? Their possession might only, perchance, have tempted her to desert the post which Nature, under Divine guidance, has instructed her to fill. Obedient to its teaching, she has thus despoiled herself of the showy pinions which (essential to her enjoyment in the fields of air) would only have encumbered her in the narrower but more ...
— The Wedding Guest • T.S. Arthur
... impudence. It is a terrible thing for any man to find out that his elders are wrong. And this almost unkindly courage of youth must partly be held responsible for the smartness of Dickens, that almost offensive smartness which in these earlier books of his sometimes irritates us like the showy gibes in the tall talk of a school-boy. These first pages bear witness both to the energy of his genius and also to its unenlightenment; he seems more ignorant and more cocksure than so great a man should be. Dickens was never stupid, but he was sometimes silly; and he is occasionally ...
— Appreciations and Criticisms of the Works of Charles Dickens • G. K. Chesterton
... busied himself in getting into the good graces of a young fellow who was seeing the world. Less lonely became the shores, as the boat, panting as if from long exertion, steamed on. Carrolton and Lafayette were left behind. Now along the banks stretched the showy houses and slave plantations of the sugar planters; and soon, from the deck of the boat, the dome of the St. Charles and the cathedral towers ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... indispensable condition of satisfactory vocational training. "I venture to think," says Mr Hichens, "that the tendency of modern education is often in the wrong direction—that too little attention is given to the foundations which lie buried out of sight, below the ground, and too much to a showy superstructure. We pay too much heed to the parents who want an immediate return in kind on their money, and forget that education consists in tilling the ground and sowing the seed—forget, too, that the seed must ...
— Cambridge Essays on Education • Various
... true the bumblebee may dwell among almost any flowers, but he has decided preferences for such showy ones as have adapted themselves to please his love of certain colors (not yellow), or have secreted nectar so deeply hidden from the mob that his long tongue may find plenty preserved when he calls. Occasional visitors alighting on the agrimony for pollen may distribute some, but the little blossoms ...
— Wild Flowers, An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and - Their Insect Visitors - - Title: Nature's Garden • Neltje Blanchan
... coachman on the box, a handsome, smooth-shaven man of thirty-five and a richly gowned woman leaning back and looking out over the pond with bored eyes. And that last, the half-cynical, half-contemptuous expression on the two faces, impressed Hazel Weir far more than the showy equipage, the outward manifestation ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... yesterday while sitting out on a Bench with her—his Wife—a brave Woman, of the O'Dowd sort; and she wanted to know all about you and yours. We like Ramsgate very much: genial air: pleasant Country: good Harbour, Piers, etc.: and the Company, though overflowing, not showy, nor vulgar: but seemingly come to make the most of a Holiday. I am surprized how little of the Cockney, in its worse aspect, is to ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald in Two Volumes - Vol. II • Edward FitzGerald
... But there remain others in which his heart and soul were engaged, and in these he reaches a very high level. Our classification is a rough one, for often in those which we consider his best, there is plenty of showy technique. With the exception of Mozart's sonata in C minor, and Haydn's "Genziger" and "London" sonatas, both in E flat, also some of Rust's, of which we shall soon have something to say, there are, to our thinking, none which in spirit come nearer to Beethoven than some of Clementi's. Mr. E. ...
— The Pianoforte Sonata - Its Origin and Development • J.S. Shedlock
... and strikin' in the way of Society badges and regalia, to let him know about it, for he said the C.S.S. was goin' to take a decided stand and show their colors. They wuz goin' to help protect his women endangered sect, an' he wanted sunthin' showy ...
— Samantha on the Woman Question • Marietta Holley
... as a general rule, was, when young, noted for his preference of sprightly and dashing women: a showy shape and air, a lively wit, a ready tongue, chiefly seemed to attract him. He never, however, proposed to any of these brilliant belles whose society he sought; and all at once he seriously fell in love with and eagerly wooed a girl who ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... deities of fashion have been swept away in the flood of revolution. The millionaire of two years ago, intent at that time on the means by which the revenues from his brown-stone houses and pet railroad stocks could be spent to the most showy advantage, has become the struggling man of to-day, intent upon keeping up appearances, and happy if diminished and doubtful rents can even be made to meet increasing taxes. The struggling man of that time has meanwhile ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... themselves—all these things engrossed the observant faculties of the young man, who looked out upon the serio-comic harlequinade playing about him as a hostage of the Roundheads might have taken part in the showy festivities of the Cavaliers, in the years when the chances of battle had not gone over wholly to the Puritans. Not that the figure illustrates the contrasting conditions adequately. For, if the South prided itself at all—and the South did pride itself vauntingly, clamorously, ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... storksbill) Plants of the genus Geranium, with pink or purplish flowers. Various plants of the genus Pelargonium, native chiefly to southern Africa and widely cultivated for their rounded and showy clusters of red, pink, or ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... that quarter of the city which is made up of streets with geographical names, and seems as if it were intended to lodge all the nations under heaven. It stopped in the Rue de Naples, before a house that was somewhat showy, but which showed from its outside, that it was not inhabited by high-bred people. There were pink linings to lace curtains at the windows, and quantities of green vines drooped from the balconies, as if to attract attention from the passers-by. Madame Strahlberg, with her ostentatious and undulating ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... crown anemone may in many sunny, sheltered gardens be had in bloom all the year round. This is saying a great deal, but it is true; indeed, it is questionable if we have any other popular garden flower which is at once so showy, so hardy, and so continuous in its blossoming. A friend beside me says: "Ah! but what of violas?" To which I reply: "Grow both in quantity, since both are as variable as they are beautiful." But when viola shrinks in foggy November from the ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 458, October 11, 1884 • Various
... pay, that he may in every way live at his ease.' The eunuch furnished him with a house, and set up a jeweller's shop for him to carry on the traffic, and prepared everything that was requisite. In a short time, his shop became so brilliant and showy, that whatever rich khil'ats or superb jewels were required for the king and his nobles, could only be procured there; and by degrees his shop so flourished, that all the rarities of every country were to be found ...
— Bagh O Bahar, Or Tales of the Four Darweshes • Mir Amman of Dihli
... gambling house. The double room was covered with a soft, thick carpet, chandeliers depended from the ceiling, frequent mirrors reflecting the brilliant lights enlarged the apparent size the apartment, and a showy bar at one end of the room held forth an alluring invitation which most failed to resist. Around tables were congregated men, young and old, each with an intent look, watching ...
— The Store Boy • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... might use gasolene. I had slippers to match, but I couldn't find but one. I brought that along. I thought you might do something with it. They were horribly expensive—made to order, you know. Then this cerise chiffon, all covered with sequins, is really too showy for a girl in your station, but in case you get a chance to act you might need it, and anyhow I never cared for it. It isn't becoming to me. Here's an indigo charmeuse with silver trimmings. I got horribly tired of it, but you will look stunning in it. It might even ...
— The Witness • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... unanswerable, besides having been beautifully eloquent, and that Scarlett's speech was a fallacy from beginning to end. Again I am told Peel was not good; his was a speech for effect, evidently prepared, showy, but not argumentative; Scarlett triumphantly refuted all his reasoning. Thus it is that a fair judgment is never formed upon any question; the spirit of party influences every man's opinions. It is not extraordinary that each individual ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... Solennelle," but neither of these added to the reputation won in his previous career. The "Stabat Mater," publicly performed for the first time in 1842, has been recognized, it is true, as a masterpiece; but its entire lack of devotional solemnity, its brilliant and showy texture, preclude its giving Rossini any rank ...
— Great Italian and French Composers • George T. Ferris
... you? Well, I should have preferred something a little more showy myself; but as you chose this last night, I, of course, gave way, and after all, I believe you're right, it ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Vol. 2 • Charles James Lever
... and we are told that the slave-traders, finding their occupation decreasing on the western coast, have lately, for the first time, penetrated to the interior, and tempted many of the natives to sell their children for showy European goods. Lieutenant Macleod, of the Royal Navy, proposes to ascend the Niger in a steam-launch, and when up the country, to cross over to, and descend the Gambia, with a view to discover new sources of trade; and Mr Macgregor Laird is still ready to ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 452 - Volume 18, New Series, August 28, 1852 • Various
... visit, under the supervision of her grandmother, by the careful hands of Betty. The musk-coloured damask, which she had coveted, was the first article provided, and a cherry-coloured velvet mantle, lined with squirrel-skins, was to be worn with it. A blue satin hood completed this rather showy costume. A wadded calico wrapper, for morning wear; a hoop petticoat wider than Rhoda had ever worn before; the white dress stipulated by Molly; small lace head-dresses, instead of the old-fashioned commode; aprons of various colours, silk and satin; ...
— The Maidens' Lodge - None of Self and All of Thee, (In the Reign of Queen Anne) • Emily Sarah Holt
... reviewer, 'whose style is for the most part easy and dignified, with a praiseworthy absence of all inflation or bombast, seems at times to have been smitten by a fatal desire to "split the ears of the groundlings" and produce an impression by showy parades of a not overwhelmingly profound scholarship; and the effect of these contrasts would be grotesque in the extreme, were it not absolutely painful in a work of such high average merit. What, for instance, will be thought of ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey
... a great personage, an honest nobody, a mill-horse at the wheel of office. He is probably drudging over his desk at this moment; but Madame is of another mould. "La voila!" He turned suddenly, and made a profound bow to a very showy female, who had advanced from a group for the purpose of receiving the Jew and the stranger. I had now, for the first time, the honour of seeing this remarkable personage. Her figure was certainly striking, and her physiognomy conveyed a great deal of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 343, May 1844 • Various
... of Lucy's home, a straggling cottage which would have been improved by paint and the services of a carpenter. Both lacks were partially concealed by vines which climbed over its sagging porch, and tall rows of hollyhocks, generously screening with their showy beauty its weather-beaten sides. A girl was in the back yard chopping wood, a rather slatternly girl with disordered hair. Peggy descended on her briskly to ask ...
— Peggy Raymond's Vacation - or Friendly Terrace Transplanted • Harriet L. (Harriet Lummis) Smith
... everything was dark-colored, massive, grand in its proportions, of great price, but not flashy. Not the least object was showy or fantastic; nothing was visible save dignity and comfort. There were books behind the glass of a splendid bookcase, two great pictures on the wall, a desk with piles of papers, in the middle of the room a round table covered with maps, pamphlets, thick ...
— The Argonauts • Eliza Orzeszko (AKA Orzeszkowa)
... by land and sea than to the comforts of his home, if he had a home. He looked like a commercial traveler. I noticed that his jewelry was in profusion; rings on his fingers, pin in his scarf, studs on his cuffs, with photographic views in them, showy trinkets hanging from the watch-chain across his waistcoat. Although he had no earrings and did not wear a ring at his nose I should not have been surprised if he turned out to be an American—probably ...
— The Adventures of a Special Correspondent • Jules Verne
... some of course, and before coming we had the pleasure of meeting two of them, in the shape of a retired grocer (or something of that kind in the wholesale line) and his wife. They both declared that "Cauterets was a vile 'ole, with 'igh streets and showy 'ouses, and that a sensible 'uman being wouldn't stay there ha hour;" but it must be mentioned in their favour, that the day on which they went was rather damp, and there was only one grocer's shop open. ...
— Twixt France and Spain • E. Ernest Bilbrough
... likewise be obtained (at first) at a low rate in exchange for European goods suited to native tastes. In addition to the articles I have already mentioned, I must here add pins, needles, and thread, both gold and white, showy cheap velvets, yellow, green, and red cloth, Surat silks, cottons, colored beads (for the Dyaks), nankeens in small quantities, gold-lace of various qualities, gunpowder, muskets, pistols, flints, &c., &c. The head man of Sibnow (Orang Kaya), when I asked him why he ...
— The Expedition to Borneo of H.M.S. Dido - For the Suppression of Piracy • Henry Keppel
... opposite the great, fanciful iron gates of the cemented residence. He could see the well-kept garden and the showy house from where he worked, and he frequently ceased his half hearted rapping at the tough stone to watch children playing on the lawn. He was particularly interested in a tall, 'severe-looking, fair-haired woman, who appeared on ...
— The Missing Link • Edward Dyson
... Many armed Moros appeared on the first hill—bowmen, lancers, and some gunners, linstocks in hand. All along the hillside stood a large number of culverins. The foot of the hill was fortified by a stone wall over fourteen feet thick. The Moros were well attired after their fashion, and wore showy head-dresses, of many colors, turned back over their heads. Many of them were beating drums, blowing horns made from shells, and ringing bells. The number of men ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803 - Volume III, 1569-1576 • E.H. Blair
... himself felt in debate: his irruption, so to speak, upon the ranks of the ministerialists, was sudden and effective. Mr. Disraeli has written an elaborate memoir of the noble lord, which exaggerates his capabilities and achievements, and in a style less eloquent than showy, holds up his policy to the admiration of his country. Mr. Disraeli, however, pays in many respects a tribute that is no more than just to the memory of Lord George, and his book affords material for an impartial ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... spectacle is interesting from the Batterie d'Esnotz. High up the Rue Peysette,—up all the precipitous streets that ascend the mornes,—a far gathering of showy color appears: the massing of maskers in rose and blue and sulphur-yellow attire.... Then what a degringolade begins!— what a tumbling, leaping, cascading of color as the troupes descend. Simultaneously from north and south, from ...
— Two Years in the French West Indies • Lafcadio Hearn
... showy single flower, and very easily and quickly accomplished. There are but five petals, cut from bright yellow wax; colour them half-way down each with crimson: cup them a little in the palm of the hand, not using a pin at all. The foundation is rather ...
— The Royal Guide to Wax Flower Modelling • Emma Peachey
... "I know it was weak and foolish of me to want to have a showy thing like that to wear; but I was not so English ...
— Glyn Severn's Schooldays • George Manville Fenn
... these; but from the rest—and he has some three hundred of them—he let us choose any we liked at one price, and I think I can say that we shall be as well mounted a corps as any out here. Of course we avoided the showy-looking horses, and chose those specially suited to the country and likely to be fast. Mr. Duncan had several thoroughbreds from home, and there is no doubt that his stock has benefited by it; they are all of the ...
— With Buller in Natal - A Born Leader • G. A. Henty
... best that have ever been written, embracing those recommended by Dr. Watts, as standards for the guidance of other writers. 12 pages. Well printed, with four elegant illustrations in colors. Showy pictorial covers, ...
— Naughty Puppies • Anonymous
... Hurdly, in crossing a hall. He had been out on horseback, and still wore his riding-clothes. The correct and carefully fitted leggings showed legs that were thin and shapeless. Beneath them were small feet, on which their owner did not step very firmly. The somewhat showy waistcoat and short coat had an air of displaying themselves and concealing the form beneath them, which was perhaps a high tribute to his tailor's art. His chest looked narrower, his face more wrinkled, his hair thinner, than Bettina ...
— A Manifest Destiny • Julia Magruder
... his hole in the nearest bank. The laurels were just coming into bloom,—the yellow lilies, earlier than their fairer sisters, pushing their golden cups through the water, not content, like those, to float on the surface of the stream that fed them, emblems of showy wealth, and, like that, drawing all manner of insects to feed upon them. The miniature forests of ferns came down to the edge of the stream, their tall, bending plumes swaying in the night breeze. Sweet odors from oozing pines, ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... that he had grossly underrated the powers of this remarkable woman. He had been lost in admiration of Miss Chatterton's elaborate intrigue and bold independent action; but now he came to think of it, though Miss Chatterton's style was more showy, Mrs. Fazakerly had played by far the better game of the two. Durant, who had regarded himself as a trump card up Mrs. Fazakerly's sleeve, perceived with a pang that he had counted for nothing in the final move. Mrs. Fazakerly had not, as he idiotically ...
— The Return of the Prodigal • May Sinclair
... slipped back the blanket. There was revealed the thin, aquiline face of a man dressed in rather dandified clothing. There were rings on both hands, a rather showy but valuable stickpin in the scarf. The hands were not those of a laboring man. At the bridge of the nose a faint depression showed that he wore eyeglasses. His complexion was blond, and his eyes, open now only to a slit, might also have been light in color. There was on his features, indefinably ...
— The Sagebrusher - A Story of the West • Emerson Hough
... not a good camel, only a thing which people personally unacquainted with camels could believe in. Now I am ambitious to make a picture, if I make one at all, that people who do know the original can believe in—even if they criticise its points—and so I give you details a more showy artist would omit. ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... The showy lady's slipper (C. hirsutum) is found in swamps and rich meadows. Old settlers tell of gathering the pink and white "moccasin flower" by the bushel, to decorate for some special occasion. Today we are trying to shield a few in their last hiding places. The draining ...
— Trees, Fruits and Flowers of Minnesota, 1916 • Various
... performance good, but not one fine singer to fill these fine parts. Duprez has had a great reputation, and probably has sung better In former days; still he has a vulgar mind, and can never have had any merit as an artist. At present I find him unbearable. He forces his voice, sings in the most coarse, showy style, and aims at producing effects without regard to the harmony of his part; fat and vulgar, he still takes the part of the lover and young chevalier; to my sorrow I saw him in Ravenswood, and he has well-nigh disenchanted for me the Bride ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... doubtless there were stirring days in the village capital of "His Majesty's Colony of Virginia." Barges of the river planters were tied alongshore, and about the "tavernes" were horses, carts and a very few more pretentious vehicles. Many of the people on the streets were in showy dress; though only the governor, councillors, and heads of "Hundreds" were allowed to wear gold on ...
— Virginia: The Old Dominion • Frank W. Hutchins and Cortelle Hutchins
... obtains from a successful triumphal arch. The chief fault of the tower above is that it lacks the long lifting lines that would give a sense of aspiration. It seems just a little squat and fat-as if it were too heavy on top and splayed out at the sides and bottom. It is also somewhat "showy," with too much hung-on ornament; and the green columns against red walls are not satisfying-this being one of the very few failures of the color scheme in ...
— An Art-Lovers guide to the Exposition • Shelden Cheney
... life's illusions have vanished," they said of the Democratic candidate, "he has no selfish aspirations, no vaulting ambition to carry him astray: no vanity to lead where it is glory enough to follow." They accorded to Mr. Toombs "a very showy cast of talent—better suited to the displays of the stump than the grave discussions of the legislative hall. His eloquence has that sort of splendor mixed with the false and true which is calculated to dazzle the multitude. He ...
— Robert Toombs - Statesman, Speaker, Soldier, Sage • Pleasant A. Stovall
... the crowd was everywhere large. They stopped for a minute or two in front of a booth of more pretensions than the generality. In front of it a man was beating a drum, and a negro walking up and down attired in showy garments. The drum ...
— At Agincourt • G. A. Henty
... his face. Why, to him, a job like that, entailing loss of time in personal supervision, was hardly worth three. The plans were perfunctory, and as far as there was anything in them, could be used again elsewhere. He could employ his precious days meanwhile to better purpose in some more showy and profitable work than this half-hatched viaduct. But this was an upset price. "Not enough," he murmured, slowly, shaking his bullet head. "It's a fortune to the young man. You must make ...
— Michael's Crag • Grant Allen
... by forcing, detail. All other idealism is the brown foreground over again, and hence only art in the sense of a game, like cup and ball. All other realism is not art at all - but not at all. It is, then, an insincere and showy handicraft. ...
— The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 1 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Every one who thinks he can afford it, keeps a team of his own, the horses being generally of European stock. A few horses have been brought from St. Petersburg; the journey occupies a full year, and the animals, when safely arrived, are very costly. Private turnouts are neat and showy, and on a fine afternoon the principal drives of the city are quite gay. General Korsackoff has a light wagon from New York for his ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox
... Georgian; his State, like the other Gulf States, less civilized and orderly than Virginia and South Carolina, less critical and more enthusiastic; the Georgian, "the southern Yankee," "loving success, strength, straightforwardness, and the solid virtues generally, neither is he averse to the showy ones; but above all he loves virtue in action." Among Southerners, says Trent, the Georgian is nearest to a normal American. Toombs inherited property; grew up like other Southern boys of the prosperous class; rode and hunted and studied a little in the interims. As a lawyer, he would not ...
— The Negro and the Nation - A History of American Slavery and Enfranchisement • George S. Merriam
... Louis XVIII., as dead as the Fetes of July, as the Fetes of the Republic. There is but one national festival now,—and that is on the 15th of August, and in honor of St. Napoleon. There are no more "glims" to smash; the old oil reverberes have been replaced by showy gas-lamps, and the sergents de ville would make short work of any roisterers who attempted to take liberties with them. The old Paris of the Restoration and the Monarchy is dead; but the Thane of Cawdor—I mean George Cruikshank—lives, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 87, January, 1865 • Various
... was a man of middle age, with a thin face and a nose like a Hawk. He was well dressed, and across his vest was visible a showy gold chain with a cameo ...
— Mark Mason's Victory • Horatio Alger
... woolly haired, radical leaves are grayish green and somewhat rumpled like those of Savoy cabbage. From among them rise the 2-foot tall, square, branching, sparsely leaved stems, which during the second year bear small clusters of lilac or white showy flowers in long spikes. The smooth brown or marbled shining seeds retain their ...
— Culinary Herbs: Their Cultivation Harvesting Curing and Uses • M. G. Kains
... had been attacked on the high roads, and whose only attempt at bringing the robbers to justice was to help the widow of one and send the others safe out of the country, at his own expense, not Government's. None of these were notable or showy deeds—scarcely one of them got, even under the disguise of asterisks, into the newspaper; the Norton Bury Mercury, for its last dying sting, still complained (and very justly) that there was not a gentleman in the county whose name so seldom headed a charity subscription ...
— John Halifax, Gentleman • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik |
