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Varnish   Listen
noun
Varnish  n.  
1.
A viscid liquid, consisting of a solution of resinous matter in an oil or a volatile liquid, laid on work with a brush, or otherwise. When applied the varnish soon dries, either by evaporation or chemical action, and the resinous part forms thus a smooth, hard surface, with a beautiful gloss, capable of resisting, to a greater or less degree, the influences of air and moisture. Note: According to the sorts of solvents employed, the ordinary kinds of varnish are divided into three classes: spirit, turpentine, and oil varnishes.
2.
That which resembles varnish, either naturally or artificially; a glossy appearance. "The varnish of the holly and ivy."
3.
An artificial covering to give a fair appearance to any act or conduct; outside show; gloss. "And set a double varnish on the fame The Frenchman gave you."
Varnish tree (Bot.), a tree or shrub from the juice or resin of which varnish is made, as some species of the genus Rhus, especially Rhus vernicifera of Japan. The black varnish of Burmah is obtained from the Melanorrhoea usitatissima, a tall East Indian tree of the Cashew family. See Copal, and Mastic.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Varnish" Quotes from Famous Books



... golden shackles, by whomsoever or by whatever pretense imposed, are as fatal to it as the iron bonds of despotism. The presses in the necessary employment of the Government should never be used "to clear the guilty or to varnish crime." A decent and manly examination of the acts of the Government should be not only ...
— U.S. Presidential Inaugural Addresses • Various

... of a dazzling incoherence of splendor, of a blare as of thousands of musical instruments all sounding different notes of delight, of a weaving pattern of colors, too intricate to master, of a mingled odor of paint and varnish, and pine and hemlock boughs, and then she spelled out the letters of the details. She looked at those counters set with the miniature paraphernalia of household life which give the first sweet taste of domesticity and housekeeping ...
— The Portion of Labor • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... pity for Lady Sellingworth in misfortune. But Lady Sellingworth was cruel, too, had been cruel to him. And he saw humanity without tenderness, teeth and claws at work, barbarity coming to its own through the varnish. ...
— December Love • Robert Hichens

... he had spared them further humiliations of that kind, and they had considered that he looked down upon them, and had accused him of haughtiness ever since. He could read their inmost thoughts as he fathomed their natures in this way. Society with its polish and varnish grew loathsome to him. He was envied and hated for his wealth and superior ability; his reserve baffled the inquisitive; his humility seemed like haughtiness to these petty superficial natures. He guessed the secret unpardonable crime which he had committed against them; he had overstepped the ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac

... you hear? Eight quires, like this sample, gilt-edged... it must be exactly like the sample. Varnish, sealing wax, as in ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy

... may be termed, by way of distinction, the age of sentiment, a word which, in the implication it now bears, was unknown to our plain ancestors. Sentiment is the varnish of virtue to conceal the deformity of vice; and it is not uncommon for the same persons to make a jest of religion, to break through the most solemn ties and engagements, to practise every art of latent fraud and open seduction, and yet ...
— Essays on Various Subjects - Principally Designed for Young Ladies • Hannah More

... simply to draw, with a very hard lead pencil, on ground glass, then to cover the ground surface with varnish, which ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls - Volume XIII, No. 51: November 12, 1892 • Various

... that quite too large a number of fictitious works are subtle poison. The plots of some of the most popular novels turn on the sexual relation and the violation in some form of the seventh commandment. They kindle evil passions; they varnish and veneer vice; they deride connubial purity; they uncover what ought to be hid, and paint in attractive hues what never ought to be seen by any pure eye or named by any modest tongue. Another objection to many of the most advertised works of fiction is that they deal with the sacred ...
— Recollections of a Long Life - An Autobiography • Theodore Ledyard Cuyler

... her true character before him. Not that she wished to speak ill of her sister, only that she would be true and give this lover a chance to escape some of the pain if possible, by seeing the real Kate as she was at home without varnish or furbelows. Yet she reflected that those who knew Kate's shallowness well, still loved her in spite of it, and always ...
— Marcia Schuyler • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz

... his eye. We dug him out of the sand and put him back where he belonged, and he immediately departed into another dreamless but jumpy slumber. At this juncture somebody sold Dick six tickets at a dollar per for a ball that had been given over a month ago by the Varnish Makers' Union, K. of L., No. 229. Upon learning that he had been bunked, Dick became very dignified, and said he would remember the fellow perfectly, and that the day would come when they would be brought face ...
— Billy Baxter's Letters • William J. Kountz, Jr.

... fellaheen, eating a good deal of what he called 'muck' with great enjoyment, walking arm in arm with a crazy derweesh, fetching home a bride at night and swearing lustily by the Prophet. The good manners of the Arab canaille, have rubbed off the very disagreeable varnish which ...
— Letters from Egypt • Lucie Duff Gordon

... Harold" to live his day such as he is; it had been more agreeable, and certainly more easy, to have drawn an amiable character. It had been easy to varnish over his faults, to make him do more and express less, but he never was intended as an example, further than to show, that early perversion of mind and morals leads to satiety of past pleasures and disappointment in new ones, and that even the beauties of nature and the stimulus ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron

... something of them all, though some are not worth speaking of" (she wrote to her daughter). "I shall begin, in respect to his dignity, with Lord Bolingbroke, who is a glaring proof how far vanity can blind a man, and how easy it is to varnish over to one's self the most criminal conduct. He declares he always loved his country, though he confesses he endeavoured to betray her to popery and slavery; and loved his friends, though he abandoned them in distress, with all the blackest circumstances of treachery. His ...
— Lady Mary Wortley Montague - Her Life and Letters (1689-1762) • Lewis Melville

... no sooner his foot within his master's apartment, than he found every object in harmony with his own disposition. The colours finely ground, and ranged in the neatest boxes, the pencils so delicate as to be almost imperceptible, the varnish in elegant phials, the easel just where it ought to be, filled him with agreeable sensations, and exalted ideas of his master's merit. Gerard Dow on his side was equally pleased, when he saw him moving about with all due circumspection, and noticing his little ...
— A Wanderer in Holland • E. V. Lucas

... mischief. But the man is not so easy to account for. He tries hard to get busy. He spades the garden as if he were looking for diamonds. He cleans the horse until the poor brute hates the sight of him. He piles his wood so carefully that the neighbors passing call out and ask him if he "intends to varnish it." He mends everything that needs it, and is glad when he finds a picket off the fence. He tries to read the Farmers' Advocate. They brought in a year's number of them that they had never got time to read on the farm. Someway, they have lost their charm. It ...
— In Times Like These • Nellie L. McClung

... eight. Very good white rice, cased, worth, the fares, eight three-fifths. Rice of a worse sort, the bale, worth seven three-tenths. At Jedo, Osaka, and Miaco, there is the best dying of all sorts of colours, as red, black, and green; and for gliding gold and silver, is better than the Chinese varnish. Brimstone is in great abundance, and the pekul may be bought for seven. Saltpetre is dearer in one place than another, being worth one and a half. Cotton-wool, the pekul, may ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume IX. • Robert Kerr

... noms de plume]; that's enough—he is known at the city limits. Take notice. They are to be sent prepaid, without crack or repair, and they are to be rich and amiable. Beauty isn't required. The varnish goes, and the bottom of ...
— The Galaxy, Volume 23, No. 2, February, 1877 • Various

... taste. At length a dominie appeared among them who struck out in a different vein. He depicted the New Jerusalem as a place all smooth and level; with beautiful dykes, and ditches, and canals; and houses all shining with paint and varnish, and glazed tiles; and where there should never come horse, or ass, or cat, or dog, or anything that could make noise or dirt; but there should be nothing but rubbing and scrubbing, and washing and painting, and gilding and varnishing, for ever and ever, amen! Since that time, ...
— The Crayon Papers • Washington Irving

... father before me as no daguerreotype could do. There was his name cut on the beam, John Carville. It may seem absurd to you people, but do you know, I realized then, as I looked up and saw my father's name on that beam, nearly smothered with countless coats of varnish, I realized how a young man of family feels, a Cecil, say, a Talbot or a Churchill, when he sees his ancestors' names in the history books. My father had done something, he was something. I don't know anyone who can better that title: a ...
— Aliens • William McFee

... great desideratum, and this can be best attained by having all woodwork in and about the kitchen coated with varnish; substances which cause stain and grease spots, do not penetrate the wood when varnished, and can be easily removed with a damp cloth. Paint is preferable to whitewash or calcimine for the walls, since it is less affected ...
— Science in the Kitchen. • Mrs. E. E. Kellogg

... that the sun, which had begun by pouring in at one port-hole and out at the other, which had bathed the prisoner in his bunk about the time of his trial by Raffles, now crowned me with fire if I sat upon the locker, and made its varnish sticky if I did not. The atmosphere of the place was fast becoming unendurable in its unwholesome heat and sour stagnation. I sat in my shirt-sleeves at the top of the stairs, where one got such air as entered by the open window below. Levy had kicked off his ...
— Mr. Justice Raffles • E. W. Hornung

... resembling marble, and was capable of being detached from the wall and transported in a wooden frame to any distance. The colors were applied when the composition was still wet. The fresco wall, when painted, was covered with an encaustic varnish, both to heighten the color and preserve it from the effects of the sun or the weather. But this process required so much care, and was attended with so much expense, that it was used only in the better ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord

... of all the marshes, and all the fens, more than a thousand years before the word 'accoucheur' ever came from the lips of woman, and before the thought came into her mind? And here, even in the use of this word, we have a specimen of the refined delicacy of the present age; here we have, varnish the matter over how we may, modesty in the word and grossness in the thought. Farmers' wives, daughters, and maids, cannot now allude to, or hear named, without blushing, those affairs of the homestead, which they, within my memory, used to talk about as freely as of milking or spinning; ...
— Advice to Young Men • William Cobbett

... an exceptional kind, as compared with those existing between the others. By daylight they were wont to walk together, and to sit together. At night, they would desist together, and rest together. Really it was a case of harmony in language and concord in ideas, of the consistency of varnish or of glue, (a close friendship), when at this unexpected juncture there came this girl, Hseh Pao-ch'ai, who, though not very much older in years (than the others), was, nevertheless, in manner so correct, and in features so beautiful that the consensus of opinion was that Tai-y herself ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin

... The varnish was an orange-brown Lustered like glass that's long laid down Under a crumbling villa stone. Purfled stoutly, with mitres which point Straight up the corners. Each curve and joint Clear, and bold, and thin. ...
— Men, Women and Ghosts • Amy Lowell

... next morning she took the clipping from the paper down to the paint store, bought a can of enamel, a bottle of varnish and a paint brush, and after dinner went after that bath tub. First she scrubbed it thoroughly; then she dried it; and then she put on the white enamel; a good job too. But as she stood back and looked at it, it did not quite fill the bill; it was rather thin; the ...
— Continuous Vaudeville • Will M. Cressy

... variety he hed picked up in Washinton and Baltimore, I felt that it wuz indeed well with us. He wuz talkin ez a Dimokrat to Dimokrats; and it wuz appreciated. Strippin off all uv the disguise he hed bin a wearin for four years,—washin off, in rage and whisky, the varnish and putty with wich he hed shined up his dullness, and filled up the cracks and cavities wich hed alluz troubled him,—he stood forth ez we knowd him—Androo Johnson! How he did froth and foam! How he did lash his late associates! and how ...
— "Swingin Round the Cirkle." • Petroleum V. Nasby

... stinking of the varnish of yesterday's veneering, since you like it," said he; "suffice it for the Tumble-Bugs that they come of a race that rolled their fragrant spheres down the solemn aisles of antiquity, and left their imperishable works embalmed in the Old Red Sandstone to proclaim it to the wasting centuries ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... Saturday the unfortunate prisoner, despoiled of her man's dress, had much to fear. Brutality, furious hatred, vengeance, might severally incite the cowards to degrade her before she perished, to sully what they were about to burn. Besides, they might be tempted to varnish their infamy by a "reason of state," according to the notions of the day—by depriving her of her virginity they would undoubtedly destroy that secret power of which the English entertained such great dread, who perhaps might recover their courage ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various

... using the colours as her fancy dictated, or as the various colours held out. The effect was remarkable. A succeeding rector began at once the work of restoration, scraping off the paint and substituting oak varnish; but when my friend took a morning service for him the work had not been completed, and he preached ...
— Vanishing England • P. H. Ditchfield

... of eyes needed), a jar of liquid cement, dry glue (for melting up for papier-mache), dry paper pulp, plaster of paris, Venetian turpentine, boiled linseed oil, boracic acid, some refined beeswax, a little balsam-fir, white varnish, turpentine, alcohol, benzine and a student's palette of tube oil colors (such as vermilion, rose madder, burnt sienna, yellow ochre, cadmium yellow middle, zinc white, cobalt blue, French ultramarine ...
— Taxidermy • Leon Luther Pray

... already. His name—supposed name—was Clarke. Man, I am about to speak plainly of that stranger—his character and his fate. And yet—yet you are his son! I would fain soften the colouring; but I speak truth of myself, and I must not, unless I would blacken my name yet deeper than it deserves, varnish truth when I speak of others. Houseman joined, and presented to me this person. From the first I felt a dislike creep through me at the stranger, which indeed it was easy to account for. He was of a careless and somewhat insolent manner. His countenance was impressed with the lines ...
— Eugene Aram, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... things that would help him very much in his work. Jonas carried the money into the city the next time he went, and bought him a small hone to sharpen his knife, a fine-toothed saw, and a bottle of black varnish, with a little brush, to put it on with. He brought these things home, and gave them to Georgie's father; and he carried them into the house, and put ...
— Rollo at Work • Jacob Abbott

... out our way. It's a machine, and we treat it as such. Most of our people couldn't take a lobster to pieces to save their lives, but you ought to see them go through the shell of an auto. Too many Americans buy portable parlors with sixty-seven coats of varnish, and are then shocked and grieved to discover when too late that said parlors have gizzards just like any other automobile and that they should ...
— Homeburg Memories • George Helgesen Fitch

... away, the long broad streets with their bushy maple trees empty, and the air filled with hoarse plaints, the rumbling speech of the railroad. She was homesick and fearful, as they mounted the steps to the new house and pushed open the shining oak door that stuck and smelled of varnish. The next morning Lane whisked off on a trolley to the A. and P. offices, while Isabelle walked around the house, which faced the main northern artery of Torso. From the western veranda she could see the roof of the new country club through a ragged group of trees. On the other side were ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)

... comb, coarse and fine combined Paint, wax, and varnish brushes Foot rule Tape measure Putty knife Pointing trowel ...
— Home Taxidermy for Pleasure and Profit • Albert B. Farnham

... theatric sack, Carries his whole regalia at his back; His royal consort heads the female band, And leads the heir apparent in her hand; The pannier'd ass creeps on with conscious pride, Bearing a future prince on either side. No choice musicians in this troop are found, To varnish nonsense with the charms of sound; No swords, no daggers, not one poison'd bowl; 220 No lightning flashes here, no thunders roll; No guards to swell the monarch's train are shown; The monarch here must be a host alone: No solemn ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill

... of December, late in the evening, before the city of Kan-tchoo-foo, which is remarkable for nothing that I could learn except for the great quantity of varnish trees the Rhus vernix I suppose, that are cultivated in the neighbourhood. In the course of the journey we had picked up two varieties of the tea plant, taken out of the ground and potted by our own gardener; and which, being in good growing order, were intended to be sent to Bengal as soon ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow

... the thought, Miss Deane, that your presence on the island will in no way affect my fate at the hands of the Dyaks. Had they caught me unprepared today my head would now be covered with a solution of the special varnish they carry on every ...
— The Wings of the Morning • Louis Tracy

... almost thank him for condescending to be in their debt; still, much as I esteem the honor, I can't afford it any longer, nor can the laundress, nor can the hairdresser. Eight hundred francs a year for washing! Three clean shirts a day, three cravats! Boots blacked, soles and all, and with such varnish! But then he has such exquisite taste! why, he blackballed a friend of his who wanted to enter his club, because the candidate's boots were polished with bad blacking. I wonder whether the king will do anything for him? It is Mr. Brummell's dressing ...
— Standard Selections • Various

... galloped; he progressed in jerks, in jumps, in somersets; he crawled up-stairs like a little Scotch plaid spider, on "all fours;" he came down stairs on the banisters, the balance of power lying between his steel buttons and the smooth varnish of the mahogany. On several memorable occasions, he has narrowly escaped pitching head first into the hall lamp. His favorite method of locomotion, however, consisted in a series of thumps, beginning with a gentle tread, and increasing in impetus ...
— Gypsy Breynton • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps

... Noble, manufacturer of, and wholesale and retail dealer in Beach's Patent Shaving Soap, Beach's Liquid Opodeldoc, and Black Varnish, &c., &c. ...
— A Sketch of the History of Oneonta • Dudley M. Campbell

... Spanish story (JAFL 27 : 128) one of the adventures of Pedro di Urdemales is to make a pact with the Devil in return for much money. In hell he wins his freedom by sticking the demons to their chairs with varnish and then frightening them with a cross. This version seems nearly related to our story. In a Tepecano tale of the same hero (ibid., 171) Pedro frightens and beats devils with a ...
— Filipino Popular Tales • Dean S. Fansler

... be made acquainted with some of the leading provisions of this famous document, thus laid down above all the constitutions as the organic law of the land. A few plain facts, entirely without rhetorical varnish, will prove more impressive in this case than superfluous declamation. The American will judge whether the wrongs inflicted by Laud and Charles upon his Puritan ancestors were the severest which a people has had to ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... the picture how one will, dress up the story with what flowers of fancy one may, it is at best but a patched and broken business. The varnish brings out dark spots in the picture; the flowers have a faded meretricious look, not the bloom and dew of the garden; no sophistry can overcome the inherent ugliness of the thing—an honest man's name dishonoured; two culprits planning ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon

... politeness had never extended to the major, and since an occurrence connected with this very bag, to be related shortly, it had ceased altogether. Whether it was that Jefferson had always seen through the peculiar varnish that made bright the major's veneer, or whether in an unguarded moment, on a previous visit, the major gave way to some such outburst as he would have inflicted upon the domestics of his own establishment, forgetting for the time the superior position ...
— A Gentleman Vagabond and Some Others • F. Hopkinson Smith

... that the orthodox interpretation of the Bible does not hold water. But this will not be effected without a struggle, for your orthodox people are very tenacious in their dogmatism, and they will apply to themselves a certain quantity of Athanasian varnish which will close their eyes and ears. Yes, I should much like to be there! And I am about, it may be, to cut off my arms, for the priests will be all powerful yet a while, and it may well be that there will be nothing to be done without being a priest, as Ronge and Czerski were. I ...
— Recollections of My Youth • Ernest Renan

... foam. The shore rises like a sea beach, and on the pebbles men are patching and pitching old barges which have been hauled up on the bank. A skiff partly drawn up on the beach rocks as the current strives to work it loose, and up the varnish of the side glides a flickering light reflected from the wavelets. A fleet of such skiffs are waiting for hire by the bridge; the waterman cleaning them with a parti-coloured mop spies me eyeing his vessels, and before I know exactly what is going on, and whether ...
— Nature Near London • Richard Jefferies

... Islands, near Arran, the amygdaloid sometimes contains elongated cavities filled with brown spar; and when the nodules have been washed out, the interior of the cavities is glazed with the vitreous varnish so characteristic of the pores of slaggy lavas. Even in some parts of this rock which are excluded from air and water, the cells are empty, and seem to have always remained in this state, and are therefore undistinguishable from some modern lavas. (MacCulloch Western ...
— The Student's Elements of Geology • Sir Charles Lyell

... the rest come. We went up and saw the Duke dress himself, and in his night habitt he is a very plain man. Then he sent us to his closett, where we saw among other things two very fine chests, covered with gold and Indian varnish, given him by the East Indy Company of Holland. The Duke comes; and after he had told us that the fleet was designed for Algier (which was kept from us till now), we did advise about many things as to the fitting of the fleet, ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys

... the Prior of S. Maria delle Grazie complained that Lionardo stood for days looking at his fresco, and for weeks never came near it; how the monks of the Annunziata at Florence were cheated out of their painting, for which elaborate designs had yet been made; how Leo X., seeing him mix oils with varnish to make a new medium, exclaimed, "Alas! this man will do nothing; he thinks of the end before he makes a beginning." A good answer to account for the delay was always ready on the painter's lips, as that the man of genius works most when his hands are idlest; Judas, sought in ...
— Renaissance in Italy Vol. 3 - The Fine Arts • John Addington Symonds

... edged the carved foliations of the marble mantel, above which loomed a tarnished mirror reflecting darkness. Fleetwood rose, drew a window-shade higher, and nodded toward several pictures; and Plank moved slowly from one to another, peering up at the dead Siwards in their crackled varnish. ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers

... death for a difference of creed had not occurred to them. It may justly be affirmed that in the horrors of Smithfield and the Campo Santo, the innate barbarism of the Aryan, breaking through his thin varnish of civilization, was found, far transcending the utmost barbarism of the Indian. [Footnote: The Aryans of Europe are undoubtedly superior in humanity, courage and independence, to those of Asia. It is possible that the finer qualities which distinguish the western branch ...
— The Iroquois Book of Rites • Horatio Hale

... Arthur that this queer intoxication of mine should have altered him so in my foolish eyes—as though one had scrubbed all the golden varnish from an old picture, and left it crude and charmless. It is not his fault—is mine. In Europe we loved the same things; his pleasure kindled mine. But here he enjoys nothing that I enjoy; he is longing for a tiresome day to end, when my heart is ...
— Lady Merton, Colonist • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... went down to it, did not impress her any more favourably; for here, too, the furniture was new and shiny with a sticky kind of shininess, as if the treacly varnish had not yet dried; there was not a comfortable chair in the room; the pictures were the most gruesome ones of Dore's, and there was a text over the mantel-piece as aggressive and as hideous in colouring as those in her room. A lukewarm leg of mutton, very underdone, was on the ...
— At Love's Cost • Charles Garvice

... public amusements are most attractive. She believed that if she could familiarize his mind with the real gold and clear diamond flash of pure home pleasures, and those which are enjoyed in good society, he would eventually become disgusted with gilt, varnish, and paste. If Laura had been a very plain girl, she might have seconded Mrs. Arnot's efforts to the utmost without any unpleasant results, even if no good ones had followed; and it may well be doubted whether any of the latter would have ensued. Haldane's ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe

... them to be rugged, wilted, and of faded, frost-bitten hue; but at a distance, and in the mass, and enlivened by the sun, they have still somewhat of the varied splendor which distinguished them a week ago. It is wonderful what a difference the sunshine makes; it is like varnish, bringing out the hidden veins in a piece of rich wood. In the cold, gray atmosphere, such as that of most of our afternoons now, the landscape lies dark,—brown, and in a much deeper shadow than if it were clothed in green. But, perchance, a gleam ...
— Passages From The American Notebooks, Volume 2. • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... is large, recently built, and smells strongly of mortar and varnish. In winter Mr. Carey has to preach to a scanty congregation; but in summer, when the lodging-houses are full, there is always a goodly number ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various

... sagged, and the furniture was shabby, and the walls were faded and dingy; what though the great beams in the dining-room were dirty and the carpets in the halls bedraggled, and the onyx gapping in great cracks upon the warped walls of the office; what though the paint had faded and the varnish cracked all over the house! To Margaret Mueller and also to the eldest Miss Morton, who only managed to breathe below her locket when they were under the stars, it was a dream of marble halls, and the frowsy Freddie Kollander and the other waiter who ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White

... good side. It has been said not without reason that "hypocrisy is a concession which vice makes to virtue." In their nakedness human thoughts are often so sadly vulgar and so offensive that a little varnish improves them. In this sense, and when it comes from a feeling of shame or good-will, hypocrisy deserves a good deal of the eulogy which Mark Twain has heaped on it in his charming satire, "The Decadence of the Art ...
— The Sexual Question - A Scientific, psychological, hygienic and sociological study • August Forel

... slung at their backs every known game-killer—from rifle to duck gun—they would have been a strange picture to the European officer to which their splendid horsemanship and lithe, agile figures could have added no varnish to make him believe ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon

... of as the largest of their kind, are a black walnut-tree (sown anno 1757), about forty feet high, and five feet four inches in girth; a cedar of Libanus (planted in 1756), eight feet eight inches in girth; a willow-leaved oak (sown anno 1757), four feet in girth; the Rhus Vernix, or varnish sumach, four feet in girth; and a stone pine of very singular growth. Its girth at one foot from the ground is six feet four inches; at that height it immediately begins to branch out, and spreads, at least, twenty-one ...
— A Walk from London to Fulham • Thomas Crofton Croker

... from the settee. Gillier, returning to his varnish, sprang up, dropping the paper, ...
— The Way of Ambition • Robert Hichens

... tiring-room, or closet, or something of that nature, fitted up hastily for our accommodation, and there were signs of a woman's dainty hand and occupation about it The floor was carpeted, the wall was hung with arras; a varnish 'scrutoire, some sweet-wood boxes, two little statues of marble, two raised silver candlesticks with snuffers conform, broidery-work unfinished, and my lord's picture, in a little gilded frame hanging over a dressing-table, ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro

... another kind of glass. When people criticise Ryan for not doing more with his lighting effects-in this dome they evidently don't know that a mistake was made when the glass was sent and Ryan could do very little with it. In order to carry out his original plans Ryan would have to apply a coat of varnish to the interior of the dome, a rather expensive process. However, it ...
— The City of Domes • John D. Barry

... inn at Pont, when we called there for the bags, were overcome with marvelling. At sight of these two dainty little boats, with a fluttering Union Jack on each, and all the varnish shining from the sponge, they began to perceive that they had entertained angels unawares. The landlady stood upon the bridge, probably lamenting she had charged so little; the son ran to and fro, and called out the neighbours to enjoy the sight; and we paddled away from quite a crowd of wrapt ...
— An Inland Voyage • Robert Louis Stevenson

... elegance as could be achieved by Beans alone, unaided by any Bunker, was here concentrated; a melodeon that groaned to his touch, with the startling effect of a voice from a long-closed tomb; a centre-table, luminous with varnish; gilded chairs in formal array; portraits in gilded frames; and best of all, a "whatnot," a thing to fit a corner, having many shelves and each shelf loaded with fascinating objects that maddened one because they must not be touched. Varnished pine-cones, flint arrow-heads, ...
— Bunker Bean • Harry Leon Wilson

... to get quite het up about it. Julius sounds like you was an old Roman or something, and in the business you got to have a good easy name. Say, speaking of that, I ain't with Lowry any more; I'm chief salesman for the AEtna Automobile Varnish and Wax Company. I certainly got a swell territory—New York, Philly, Bean-Town, Washi'nun, Balt'more, Cleveland, Columbus, Akron, and so on, and of course most especially Detroit. Sell right direct to the ...
— The Job - An American Novel • Sinclair Lewis

... opinion upon an affair of so much importance. Yet there was sometimes an occasion for a more supported assurance. I remember to have seen him, after giving his opinion that the colouring of a picture was not mellow enough, very deliberately take a brush with brown varnish, that was accidentally lying by, and rub it over the piece with great composure before all the company, and then ask if he had not improved ...
— The Vicar of Wakefield • Oliver Goldsmith

... his fine person and for his success in gallantry. But the great show of the night was the Russian ambassador, Count Orloff, whose gigantic figure was all in a blaze with jewels, and in whose demeanour the untamed ferocity of the Scythian might be discerned through a thin varnish of French Politeness. As he stalked about the small parlour, brushing the ceiling with his toupee, the girls whispered to each other, with mingled admiration and borror, that he was the favoured lover of his august mistress; that be had borne the chief part ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay

... affection (as the Schooles rather confined then defined zeale) neither yet any mixt affection (as the later, rather compounded then comprehended the nature of it) but an hot temper, higher degree or intension of them all. As varnish is no one color, but that which gives glosse & lustre to all; So the opposites of zeale, key-coldnes and lukewarmnesse, which by the Law of contraries must bee of the same nature, are no affections, but severall ...
— A Coal From The Altar, To Kindle The Holy Fire of Zeale - In a Sermon Preached at a Generall Visitation at Ipswich • Samuel Ward

... minutes the court was empty—a singular little theatre of pale varnish and tawdry hangings, still rather snug and homely in the heat and light of its obsolete gas, and with as little to remind one of the play as any other theatre when the curtain is down and the house empty. But there was clamor ...
— The Shadow of the Rope • E. W. Hornung

... duty of all to do. So our housie being rather large, (two rooms and a kitchen, not speaking of a coal-cellar and a hen-house,) and having as yet only the expectation of a family, we thought we could not do better than get John Varnish the painter, to do off a small ticket, with "A Furnished Room to Let" on it, which we nailed out at the window; having collected into it the choicest of our furniture, that it might fit a genteeler lodger and produce a better rent—And a lodger soon ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - Tailor in Dalkeith, written by himself • David Macbeth Moir

... in light oil. This insures preservation and restores their natural luster. Every three months or so, rub them with oil again—their most delicate colors will remain brilliant for years. Don't ever use shellac, lacquer or varnish. Get a reference book from your library and identify your shells. Keep an account of when and where you ...
— Let's collect rocks & shells • Shell Oil Company

... larger sizes of magnet wire. Both of these materials possess the disadvantage of being hygroscopic, that is, of readily absorbing moisture. This disadvantage is overcome in many cases by saturating the coil after it is wound in some melted insulating compound, such as wax or varnish or asphaltum, which will solidify on cooling. Where the coils are to be so saturated the best practice is to place them in a vacuum chamber and exhaust the air, after which the hot insulating compound ...
— Cyclopedia of Telephony & Telegraphy Vol. 1 - A General Reference Work on Telephony, etc. etc. • Kempster Miller

... this department of science as that there shall be no unsettled questions about any known material or method: that it shall be an entirely ascertained and indisputable matter which is the best white, and which the best brown; which the strongest canvas, and safest varnish; and which the shortest and most perfect way of doing everything known up to that time: and if any one discovers a better, he is to make it public forthwith. All of them taking care to embarrass ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume III (of 3) • John Ruskin

... (6) metallic ores; (7) earths, clays, lime, chalk, stone, including marble, bricks, slates and tiles; (8) Chinaware and glass; (9) paper and paper-making materials; (10) soap, paint and colours, including articles exclusively used in their manufacture, and varnish; (11) bleaching powder, soda ash, caustic soda, salt cake, ammonia, sulphate of ammonia and sulphate of copper; (12) agricultural, mining, textile and printing machinery; (13) precious and semiprecious stones, pearls, mother-of-pearl and coral; ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 7, Slice 2 - "Constantine Pavlovich" to "Convention" • Various

... stayed for a week; saw the sun rise over the sea of pines, wheel across the sky, drop behind the rock whence its last glow painted every tree top with a golden varnish. Then came evening, long and still, a great rush of color to the west, birds winging their way homeward, shadows slanting blue over the slopes, brimming purple in the hollows. Then night with its majestic silence and its large, serene stars. He lay in the cave mouth looking ...
— Treasure and Trouble Therewith - A Tale of California • Geraldine Bonner

... but not at an exciting speed; and Americans want excitement. Not only that, but you saw for yourself that they expect a handsome car of the latest make, shining with brass and varnish. Amateurs always do. What will they say when my world-worn old veteran bursts, ...
— My Friend the Chauffeur • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... toward the east. On the archway of the entrance are carved representations of the sun and moon. Hieroglyphics are found in the interior. Besides the sculptured bassi relievi, these stones bear hieroglyphics painted with a kind of red varnish which remains unimpaired. The second is a great stone slab covered with inscriptions or hieroglyphics. The third is the figure of a wild animal sculptured on a rock ...
— Ancient America, in Notes on American Archaeology • John D. Baldwin

... tank can be made from a large water bottle or demijohn. File a line around the top and carefully break it off. For the back yard, cut a paint barrel in two or coat a tub inside with spar varnish. Anything that will hold a few gallons of water, two inches of clean sand, and some water plants will be a suitable home for fish and other creatures. A boy handy with tools can make a frame, and with plate glass and proper ...
— Boy Scouts Handbook - The First Edition, 1911 • Boy Scouts of America

... there's little to exalt; Nothing that speaks to all men and all times; A sort of varnish over every fault; A kind of common-place, even in their crimes; Factitious passions—Wit without much salt— A want of that true nature which sublimes Whate'er it shows with Truth; a smooth monotony Of character, in those at least who have ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron

... inhaling the fresh, moist air—filled with the smell of corn and wet earth that had long been waiting for rain—he stood looking at the gardens, the woods, the yellow rye fields, the green oatfields, the dark-green strips of potatoes in bloom, that glided past. Everything looked as if covered over with varnish—the green turned greener, the yellow ...
— Resurrection • Count Leo Tolstoy

... a common parlour! it was ornamented with a sofa, having springs and upholstered in green rep—the only sofa of its kind in Szybow—several armchairs to match it, and a piano. It is true, it was not very new. In several places the varnish had been rubbed off, and the narrowness of the keys and the yellowness of the ivory betrayed its great antiquity. In fact, it was the only piano in the whole of Szybow. When a year ago it had been bought for the exclusive use of Mera, it caused a small revolution in the town and Pani Hannah's ...
— An Obscure Apostle - A Dramatic Story • Eliza Orzeszko

... for the banquet. In the big dining-room adorned with German oleographs and smelling of geraniums and varnish there were two tables, a larger one for the dinner and a smaller one for the hors-d'oeuvres. The hot light of midday faintly percolated through the lowered blinds. . . . The twilight of the room, the Swiss views on the blinds, the geraniums, the thin slices of sausage ...
— The Schoolmaster and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov

... simplicity which Quintilian sought in vain from a lifelong rhetorical training is present unsought in Frontinus; a clear proof that it is the occupation of life and the nature of the man, not the varnish of artistic culture, however elaborately laid on, that determines the main ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell

... a desired occupation to her, and the furniture, instead of losing its value in her eyes, became ever more precious. To use things without hurting them or soiling them or scratching the woodwork or clouding the varnish, that was the problem which soon became the mania of the old maid's life. Sylvie had a closet full of bits of wool, wax, varnish, and brushes, which she had learned to use with the dexterity of a cabinet-maker; she had her ...
— Pierrette • Honore de Balzac

... the house he hated the dining-room worst. It was here that he had had to do his Latin and Greek lessons with his father. It had a smell of some particular kind of polish or varnish which was used in polishing the furniture, and neither I nor Ernest can even now come within range of the smell of this kind of varnish without our ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler

... folks in general:" with whom he had proposed to connect some Perfectly New people. "Everything new about them. If they presented a father and mother, it seemed as if THEY must be bran new, like the furniture and the carriages—shining with varnish, and just home from the manufacturers." These groups took shape in the Lammles and the Veneerings. "I must use somehow," is the remark of another letter, "the uneducated father in fustian and the educated boy in spectacles whom Leech and I saw at Chatham;" of which ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster

... as dirt in a limestone country. The very mud off the roads in rainy weather is not dirt at all, sticky though it undoubtedly is. It consists almost entirely of lime, which, though it burns all the varnish off your carriage if allowed to remain on it for a few days, has nothing repulsive about ...
— A Cotswold Village • J. Arthur Gibbs

... mentioned are represented; while a medallion picture in the atrium, with heads of Mars and Venus, gave rise to the second appellation. The colors of this picture are still quite fresh, a result which Signor Fiorelli attributes to his having caused a varnish of wax to be laid over the painting at the time of its discovery. Without some such protection the colors of these pictures soon decay; the cinnabar, or vermilion, especially, turns black after a few days' exposure to ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy

... keep his office as it is. It suggests stability, dignity, soundness. A person feels like he is entering the office of secure, reliable, established lawyers when he comes in here. It has twice the effect of entering a bright, shiny, new office, smelling of varnish ...
— Spring Street - A Story of Los Angeles • James H. Richardson

... up to it, laid a hand on the propeller, where its varnish was still smooth. Through a rift in the rock wall a bright yellow beam of sunlight slid kindly along the padded rim of the pilot's pit; touched Johnny's face, ...
— Skyrider • B. M. Bower

... the wall paper slips down from the walls and crumples to a heap on the floor. The paint and varnish drop from the woodwork like so much sand. Every cobweb and speck of dust rolls off and falls in a ...
— Common Science • Carleton W. Washburne

... wailings mocked the heart-felt grief within; from festival or crowded meeting, where hilarity sprung from the worst feelings of our nature, or such enthralment of the better ones, as impressed it with garish and false varnish; from assemblies of mourners in the guise of revellers. Once however I witnessed a scene of singular interest at one of the theatres, where nature overpowered art, as an overflowing cataract will tear away the puny manufacture of a mock cascade, which had before ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley

... a few things, Frank," Ned answered. "I know that's not a Snyders over the mantelpiece—bet you three to one it's a copy. We'll restore it, my boy. A lick of varnish, and it will come out wonderfully, sir. That old fellow in the red gown, I ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray

... inunction[obs3]; incrustation, superimposition, superposition, obduction|; scale &c. (layer) 204. [specific coverings: list] veneer, facing; overlay; plate, silver plate, gold plate, copper plate; engobe[obs3]; ormolu; Sheffield plate; pavement; coating, paint; varnish &c. (resin) 356a; plating, barrel plating, anointing &c. v.; enamel; epitaxial deposition[Engin], vapor deposition; ground, whitewash, plaster, spackel, stucco, compo; cerement; ointment &c. (grease) ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... off toward the Dipylon gate, stood the shop of Clearchus the potter. A low counter was covered with the owner's wares,—tall amphorae for wine, flat beakers, water-pots, and basins. Behind, two apprentices whirled the wheel, another glazed on the black varnish and painted the jars with little red loves and dancing girls. Clearchus sat on the counter with three friends,—come not to trade but to barter the latest gossip from the barber-shops: Agis the sharp, knavish cockpit and ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis

... the royal shoemaker make you a shoe of goat-skin very loose and comfortable, while I prepare a varnish to paint over it of which I alone have the secret!' So saying, the doctor bowed himself out, leaving the king more cheerful and hopeful than he had been ...
— The Orange Fairy Book • Various

... brass mortar, and beat it for several hours with a heavy iron pestle, dropping in slowly some boiled lintseed oil; this is oil which has been oxygenated, and has acquired a drying quality, by being boiled with litharge. This lute is more tenacious, and applies better, if amber varnish be used instead of the above oil. To make this varnish, melt some yellow amber in an iron laddle, by which operation it loses a part of its succinic acid, and essential oil, and mix it with lintseed oil. Though the lute prepared with this varnish ...
— Elements of Chemistry, - In a New Systematic Order, Containing all the Modern Discoveries • Antoine Lavoisier

... double-teinted fruit of Pallas, maid "Of unsoil'd purity; autumnal fruits, "Cornels, in liquid lees of wine preserv'd; "Endive, and radish, and the milky curd; "With eggs turn'd lightly o'er a gentle heat: "All serv'd in earthen dishes. After these "A clay-carv'd jug was set, and beechen cups, "Varnish'd all bright with yellow wax within. "Short the delay, when from the ready fire "The steaming dish is brought; and wine not long "Press'd from the grape, again went round, again "Gave place to see the third remove produc'd. "Now comes the nut, the fig, the ...
— The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I & II • Ovid

... a few minutes before, Daisy only grimaced in return. He was generally regarded as somewhat formidable, this gruff, square-shouldered doctor, with his iron-grey hair and black moustache, and keenly critical eyes. There was no varnish in his curt speech, no dissimulation in any of his dealings. It was said of him that he never sugared his pills. But his popularity was wide-spread nevertheless. His help was sought in a thousand ways outside his profession. To see his strong face melt into a smile was like sunshine on a gloomy ...
— The Way of an Eagle • Ethel M. Dell

... writers have made many awkward attempts to varnish over this atrocious act of perfidy in their favorite hero. Zurita vindicates it by a letter from the Neapolitan prince to Gonsalvo, requesting the latter to take this step, since he preferred a residence in Spain to one in France, but could not with decency ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V3 • William H. Prescott

... arrival at Versailles. "He was nothing more than an old wrinkled balloon, out of which all the gas that inflated it has gone," says St. Simon: "he went off to Paris and to Villeroi, having lost all the varnish that made him glitter, and having nothing more to ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... spun and the stories they told would not bear repetition here, but many of them had morals which, while exposing the weakness of mankind, stung like a whiplash. Some were, no doubt, a thousand years old, with just enough of verbal varnish and alterations of names and date to make them new and crisp. By virtue of the last named application, Lincoln was enabled to draw from Balzac a 'droll story' and locating it 'in Egypt' (Southern Illinois) or in Indiana, ...
— Lincoln • Nathaniel Wright Stephenson

... hand on a closed door, drawing the while nearer and nearer to the fire. "What a perfectly beautiful oak chest! That's genuine! One can see it at a glance. The lovely elbow-grease polish can never be imitated. So different from the faked-up, over-carved things glittering with varnish that one sees so often nowadays. What a shame to keep it hidden ...
— Big Game - A Story for Girls • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... The oblong gilt frame disposed its enclosing lines; the poplars and willows, the reeds and river—a river of which he didn't know, and didn't want to know, the name—fell into a composition, full of felicity, within them; the sky was silver and turquoise and varnish; the village on the left was white and the church on the right was grey; it was all there, in short—it was what he wanted: it was Tremont Street, it was France, it was Lambinet. Moreover he was freely ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James

... make linoleum last much longer and have a better appearance, give it a good coat of varnish every ...
— Fowler's Household Helps • A. L. Fowler

... cobalt or chromo-cyanogen salts, or by an alkaline mellonide arsenite, etc. Sulphureted hydrogen, or a sulphide, will give a brown, or black tone, which may be protected against oxygen and dampness by a resinous varnish. ...
— Photographic Reproduction Processes • P.C. Duchochois

... traveling with an outfit of pinkish paper cut into shavings. You've seen them, haven't you?—the kind of packing they put into music boxes, fine toys, and the like, flummoxy twisted paper ravelings that protect the varnish and have no weight to speak of. Well, that was what was in them trunks, and Old Dibs was pawing it out till it stuck up in the room, yards high, like a mountain. Occasionally he seemed to strike something harder than paper—something that would take both ...
— Wild Justice: Stories of the South Seas • Lloyd Osbourne

... dinner at a small village a few miles from Westfield. There was but one store, but it kept a barrel of stove gasoline in an apple orchard. The gasoline was good, but the gallon measure into which it was drawn had been used for oil, varnish, turpentine, and every liquid a country store is supposed to keep—not excepting molasses. It was crusted with sediment and had a most evil smell. Needless to say the measure was rejected; but that availed little, since the young clerk poured ...
— Two Thousand Miles On An Automobile • Arthur Jerome Eddy

... educative only as it represents a reaction of the information into the individual's own powers, so that he can bring them under control for social ends. Culture, if it is to be genuine and educative, and not an external polish or factitious varnish, represents the vital union of information and discipline. It designates the socialization of the individual in his whole outlook upon life and mode of dealing with it." I have had a large number of graduate students who found it very difficult to state the point of this paragraph, ...
— How To Study and Teaching How To Study • F. M. McMurry

... with the head from side to side, and may lie down and get up, not with violence, but with care for itself, perfectly protecting the surface of the belly from any violence. At first we find a decided constipation; the droppings if passed are small and hard, coated with a viscous varnish or even with false membranes. In from 36 to 40 hours the constipation is followed by diarrhea. The alimentary discharge becomes mixed with a sero-mucous exudation, which is followed by a certain amount of suppurative matter. The animal becomes rapidly exhausted and unstable, staggers on ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture

... colors that she could procure, a pattern of flowers of every kind that she was familiar with,—blue roses and green lilies having the preference, as making more show than their humbler sisters. This, when finished, she covered with a thick coat of varnish, thus making a very good substitute ...
— The New England Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, Bay State Monthly, Volume 4, No. 4, April, 1886 • Various

... Emily's kindness was still fresh in Mirabel's memory: he was in no humor to submit to the jealous resentment of a woman whom he regarded with perfect indifference. Through the varnish of politeness which overlaid his manner, there rose to the surface the underlying insolence, hidden, on all ordinary occasions, from all human eyes. He answered ...
— I Say No • Wilkie Collins

... particularize all the virtues of this Sweet-Gum or Liquid-Ambar, not having learned all of them from the natives of the country, who would be no less surprised to find that we used it only as a varnish, than they were to see our surgeons bleed their patients. This balm, according to them, is an excellent febrifuge; they take ten or a dozen drops of it in gruel fasting, and before their meals; and if they should take a little more, they have no reason ...
— History of Louisisana • Le Page Du Pratz

... room from the bar, roulette and faro tables, bright with varnish and gaudy with nickel trimmings, were waiting with invitations to feverish excitement. The room was a modern presentation of Scylla and Charybdis. Scylla, the bar, stimulated to the daring of Charybdis across the way, and Charybdis, the roulette, ...
— Blue Goose • Frank Lewis Nason

... befitting that could be used. That object is nothing less than an attempt to cover the enormous frauds which have marked the proceedings of the Pro-Slavery agents in Kansas, from their initiation, with a varnish of smooth and plausible pretexts. Adroitly taking up the question at the point which it had reached when his own administration began, he leaves out of view all the antecedent crimes, treacheries, and tricks by which the people of the Territory had been led into civil war, and thus assumes ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various

... least in the past, is to so proof and stiffen the hat-forms as to leave them in a suitable condition for the subsequent dyeing process. In proofing the felt, the fibres become varnished over with a kind of glaze which is insoluble in water, and this varnish or proof is but imperfectly removed from the ends of the fibres on the upper surface of the felt. The consequence is a too slight penetration of the dyestuff into the inner pores of the fibres; indeed, ...
— The Chemistry of Hat Manufacturing - Lectures Delivered Before the Hat Manufacturers' Association • Watson Smith

... fire was all over it was customary for the unfortunate owner further to increase the amount of his loss by dealing out liquid refreshments to everybody concerned. On parade days each company turned out with its machine brought to a high state of polish by varnish, and with the members resplendent in uniform, carrying pole-axes and banners. If the rivalries at the fire could only be ended in a general free fight, ...
— The Forty-Niners - A Chronicle of the California Trail and El Dorado • Stewart Edward White

... planed and painted, while this"—pointing to the more costly equipage—"is as hard as a rock, and has been rubbed smooth, then polished until the surface is as fine as silk. Then it is flowed all over with the best varnish, left to dry ten days, and over-flowed again. That makes all the difference in the look of wagons. Two of them may be built just alike, and one will look like a grocer's errand-cart, while the other is a regulation gentleman's turnout. It is all the effect of polish ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland

... oil, for which the Van Eycks are commonly known, was not literally that of mixing colours with oil, which was occasionally done before their day. It was the combining oil with resin, so as to produce at once a good varnish, and avoid the necessity of drying pictures in the sun, a bright thought, which may stand in the same rank with the construction, by James Watt, of that valve which rendered practicable the application of steam to ...
— The Old Masters and Their Pictures - For the Use of Schools and Learners in Art • Sarah Tytler

... it is superior to every other species of candle. This candle is nearly translucent, and can be made to exhibit the wick, when the candle is held up between the eye and the light, while the surface is as glossy as polished wax or varnish. The principal ingredient is lard; and the value of this manufacture can be hardly exaggerated. Taking durability into account, it can be made as cheap as any other candle; and there exists no single element of comfort, convenience, profit, and economy, in which this article has not the advantage ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 420, New Series, Jan. 17, 1852 • Various

... to the other chair, with its broken spindles and obfuscated varnish. With things as he wanted them, his correspondent would be sitting there and letter-writing would ...
— Bertram Cope's Year • Henry Blake Fuller

... of a bald fact, because there it is, and there is nothing to be done with it. It is too crude a thing for cultured men to handle. If a local barrister were forced to state in court a plain fact, without varnish, he would die of cerebral ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas

... wall, the nicely sanded floor, The varnish'd clock that click'd behind the door; The chest, contriv'd a double debt to pay,— A bed by night, a chest of drawers ...
— Familiar Quotations • John Bartlett

... faster and faster, until under the smoke came out clearly the cylinder of a locomotive, drawing behind it a short row of wagons. This was the train, and small, fresh, elegant. This train glittered in the sunlight with its yellow brass fittings, gleamed in its sapphire-colored varnish. Its rich interior, with cushions of purple velvet, was visible through the windows. A conductor opened the door of a car and stood near it in an expectant position. Maryan, with a motion of request, indicated ...
— The Argonauts • Eliza Orzeszko (AKA Orzeszkowa)

... shellac in alcohol, or procure shellac varnish at the druggists', stir in lampblack, and apply with a sponge or bit of rag. This will adhere to metal, as well as wood, and is used for the inside ...
— American Handbook of the Daguerrotype • Samuel D. Humphrey

... success. Nor has [this particular matron], amid her pearls and emeralds, a softer thigh, or-limbs mere delicate than yours, Cerinthus; nay, the prostitutes are frequently preferable. Add to this, that [the prostitute] bears about her merchandize without any varnish, and openly shows what she has to dispose of; nor, if she has aught more comely than ordinary, does she boast and make an ostentation of it, while she is industrious to conceal that which is offensive. This is the custom with men ...
— The Works of Horace • Horace

... quarter of an inch in diameter, so that a number of them may constitute a star, or other device. The dark color of the skin prevents any coloring matter being deposited in these figures, but they love much to have the whole surface of their bodies anointed with a comfortable varnish of oil. In their unassisted state they depend on supplies of oil from the Palma Christi, or castor-oil plant, or from various other oliferous seeds, but they are all excessively fond of clarified butter or ox fat. Sheakondo's old wife presented some manioc roots, and then politely ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone



Words linked to "Varnish" :   Japanese varnish tree, surface, shellack, seal, coating, nail varnish, shellac, varnish tree, fixative, shellac varnish



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