"Brilliant" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... big object at the far end of the darkened room moved slowly underneath a mass of white, as Uncle Felix, aware that some one was watching him, rolled over in his bed, opened his sleepy eyes, and stared. At the same moment the robin twitched, and fixed its brilliant glance upon him. It had found the ...
— The Extra Day • Algernon Blackwood
... for two hours the man who was no longer manikin and the girl who in real life was only a frail little bookkeeper played to David: a brilliant polonaise, a nocturne that was moonlight and shadow set to music, a concerto that only the masters attempt, a few noble old classics. Between them she sang thrice, songs chosen by Jonathan, each a little more taxing ...
— The House of Toys • Henry Russell Miller
... fighting, as was his wont, in the thickest of the fray. Pyrrhus had achieved a victory, but his were unfruitful laurels; the victory was creditable to the king as a general and as a soldier, but it did not promote his political designs. What Pyrrhus needed was a brilliant success which should break up the Roman army and give an opportunity and impulse to the wavering allies to change sides; but the Roman army and the Roman confederacy still remained unbroken, and the Greek army, which was nothing without its leader, was fettered for a ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... later in conjunction with our Allies you counter-attacked. The Allied armies gained a brilliant victory that marks the turning point of the war. You did more than to give the Allies the support to which, as a nation, our faith was pledged. You proved that our altruism, our pacific spirit, and our sense of justice have not blunted our virility ...
— "And they thought we wouldn't fight" • Floyd Gibbons
... time could hardly be said to exist at all. To this consideration we must add the remarkable fact (which, though in classical history, throws light upon our inquiry) that, not to produce other instances, the greater part of Cicero's powerful and brilliant orations against Verres were never delivered at all. Nor must it be forgotten that Cicero specifies memory in his enumeration of the distinct talents necessary for a great orator. And then we have in corroboration ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman
... artillery the Indian troops took the offensive. The Serapeum garrison, which had stopped the enemy three-quarters of a mile from the position, cleared its front, and the Tussum garrison by a brilliant counter-attack drove the enemy back. Two battalions of Anatolians of the Twenty-eighth Regiment were thrown vainly into the fight. Our artillery gave them no chance, and by 3:30 in the afternoon a third of the enemy, with the exception ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... outburst of applause from the brilliant audience, there came a tiny echo of it from across the courtyard. It was Jigger, enraptured by a vision of heaven and the sounds of it. Al'mah turned towards the window with a shining face, and waved a kiss out of the light and glory where she was, to the sufferer in the ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... age in letters, a Tory; and was attached to the political army which is best represented in letters by the virile laughter and leisure of Wilson's Noctes Ambrosianae. But he had nothing in common with that environment. It remained for some time as a Tory tradition, which balanced the cold and brilliant aristocracy of the Whigs. It lived on the legend of Trafalgar; the sense that insularity was independence; the sense that anomalies are as jolly as family jokes; the general sense that old salts are the salt of the earth. It still lives ...
— The Victorian Age in Literature • G. K. Chesterton
... Lady Catherine(100) grew frightened, lest her infanta should vex herself sick, and summoned a jury of matrons to consult whether she should give her hartshorn or lavender drops? Mrs. Selwyn,(101) who was on the panel, grew very peevish, and said, "Pho! give her brilliant drops." Such are the present anecdotes of the ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... Jealous Bridegroom is the earliest, and most certainly one of the weakest of Mrs. Behn's plays. This is, however, far from saying that it is not a very good example of the Davenant, Howard, Porter, Stapylton school of romantic tragi-comedy. But Aphara had not yet hit upon her brilliant vein of intrigue. In The Forced Marriage she seems to have remembered The Maid's Tragedy. The situation between Alcippus and Erminia, Act ii, III, has some vague resemblance to that of Amintor and Evadne, Act ii, I. Aminta also faintly recalls Dula, whilst the song 'Hang love, for I ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. III • Aphra Behn
... the bridge at Strasbourg, and it is all up with the Orleans at Paris,"—the Duke was carried away by a feeling of ambition, patriotism, and exaltation. Born to glory, he imagined himself divinely summoned to a magnificent destiny; wide and brilliant horizons opened before him. His eager imagination was kindled by a hidden flame. In his youthful dreams he saw himself resuscitating Poland, restoring the glories of the Empire. He prepared for the part he was to ...
— The Happy Days of the Empress Marie Louise • Imbert De Saint-Amand
... that Philippe's career was swift and brilliant and that, after a probationary term at Luneville and another at Chateauroux, he was appointed professor of history at Versailles. He then published, at a few months' interval, two remarkable books, which caused much heated controversy: The Idea of Country in Ancient ...
— The Frontier • Maurice LeBlanc
... many tales about the caution of Russell Sage and the cleverness with which he outwitted those who sought to get some of his money from him. Two brilliant promoters went to him one time and presented a scheme. The financier listened for an hour, and when they departed they were told that Mr. Sage's decision would be mailed to ...
— Toaster's Handbook - Jokes, Stories, and Quotations • Peggy Edmund & Harold W. Williams, compilers
... whenever we hold one of his books, and to feel that the friend is pouring out his whole heart for our delight and inspiration. Naturally a person must keep alert when he is reading from Charles Lamb, for no one can predict what course the brilliant mind will take. When once a reader has learned to understand his oddities, delicate sentiment, bright wit and loving faithfulness, every word becomes a living thing, and every reading a new delight, a higher inspiration. In none of his essays is he seen to greater advantage than in Dream Children, ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 8 • Charles H. Sylvester
... permitted to go on shore; the band played, and several boat-races took place, very much to the delight of the people on shore, as well as those on board. At six o'clock the ship was opened for the reception of visitors, who came off in large numbers to inspect the vessel. After dark there was a brilliant display of fireworks, and the Young America blazed with blue-lights and Roman candles, set off by boys on the cross-trees, and at the yard-arms. At ten the festivities closed, and all was still in the steerage ...
— Outward Bound - Or, Young America Afloat • Oliver Optic
... passed through the somber arcade, lined with monks, and turned the corner which led to the chapel, than twenty hoods were thrown into the air, and eyes were seen brilliant with joy and triumph. Certainly, they were not monkish or peaceful faces displayed, but bristling mustaches and embrowned skins, many scarred by wounds, and by the side of the proudest of all, who displayed the most celebrated scar, stood a woman covered with a ...
— Chicot the Jester - [An abridged translation of "La dame de Monsoreau"] • Alexandre Dumas
... grew smaller. Evidently, as a result of the lesson, they were creeping backward on their stomachs to a less exposed position. Two had quite disappeared, or else the brilliant play of light had melted them into the golden carpet of reflected sunshine on which they rested. Directly, Jack saw two figures creeping over the rim of ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer
... be married with the Colonel's consent, we could without it; and I thanked Providence that she need suffer no actual hardships at Fairmead now, while with her advice and encouragement the future looked brilliant. We could reach the flag station in two hours if we started at once. And then, with a chill, I remembered my promise to the Colonel, and that I stood, as it were, on a parole of honor. Yet a rash promise seemed a small thing to wreck two lives; and, saying nothing, I set my ...
— Lorimer of the Northwest • Harold Bindloss
... upon the flute. Our evenings would pass quickly away, in reading Shakspeare, Corneille, Racine, Metastasio, or the modern writers of English literature: after which we would remain till the night had far advanced, enjoying the beautiful compositions of Beethoven, Gluck, and Mozart, or the brilliant overtures ...
— Monsieur Violet • Frederick Marryat
... thought they looked very like lovers bending over the same book, and their eyes speaking to each other, and in harmony with it went rippling on one of the wildest and most plaintive of the Lieders under Bluebell's sympathetic and brilliant fingers. ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
... of his friend's mind, he began to realise his own deficiencies. His friend had an extraordinary grasp of political and social movements. He was acquainted with the progress of philosophy and with the development of ideas. It was a brilliant, active, well-equipped intellect, moving easily and with striking lucidity in the regions of accurate knowledge. Sometimes, in talking to his friend, Hugh became painfully aware of the weakness of his own slouching, pleasure-loving mind. It seemed to him that, in the intellectual region, ...
— Beside Still Waters • Arthur Christopher Benson
... framework of the social structure of Pianura, so that there was not a labourer in the mulberry-orchards or a weaver in the silk-looms but depended for his crust of black bread and the leaking roof over his head on the private whim of some member of that brilliant company. ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... was of tortoise shell, lined with blue velvet, was a marvel of beauty, while the pin was a cluster of five diamonds with a larger one in the center, but the ear-rings were solitaires, large and brilliant, and Dolly's delight knew no bounds as she took the dazzling stones in her hands and examined them carefully. Diamond were the jewels of all others which she coveted, but which Frank never felt warranted in buying, and now they were hers, and for a time ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes
... appealed to. Hilda's production of Mrs. Halliday was so perfect that it failed absolutely to touch him, almost to interest him. He had no means of measuring or of valuing that kind of woman, the restless brilliant type that lives upon its emotions and tilts at the problems of its sex with a curious comfort in the joust. He was too far from the circle of her modern influence to consider her with anything but impatience if he had met her original person, and ...
— The Path of a Star • Mrs. Everard Cotes (AKA Sara Jeannette Duncan)
... earth, the moon's attraction and other perturbing forces comparatively slight, the signals no longer sounded and the point of light ceased its irregular motion, becoming almost stationary. The chief pilot brought both cross-hairs directly upon the brilliant point, which for some time they had been approaching more and more nearly, adjusted the photo-cells and amplifiers which would hold them immovably upon it, and at the calculated second of time, cut out the starting power by means ...
— Spacehounds of IPC • Edward Elmer Smith
... beautiful cities in England, and the resort of the fashion and rank of the kingdom, who came to take the waters. It is beautifully situated on both sides of the Avon, and has many fine walks and public buildings. The aspect of the city is markedly cheerful and brilliant, owing to the nature of the white stone of which the principal houses are built, and to the exquisite amphitheatre of ...
— Sir William Herschel: His Life and Works • Edward Singleton Holden
... retort, repartee, smartness, ready wit, quid- pro-quo; ridicule &c 856. jest, joke, jape, jibe; facetiae [Lat.], levity, quips and cranks; capital joke; canorae nugae [Lat.]; standing jest, standing joke, private joke, conceit, quip, quirk, crank, quiddity, concetto^, plaisanterie [Fr.], brilliant idea; merry thought, bright thought, happy thought; sally; flash of wit, flash of merriment; scintillation; mot [Fr.], mot pour rire [Fr.]; witticism, smart saying, bon-mot, jeu d'esprit [Fr.], epigram; jest book; dry joke, quodlibet, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... the murderer, thus permitted to haunt him, embodied before the eyes of men? Such were the troubled thoughts that disturbed me throughout the night. Long before sunrise I was up, endeavouring to calm the fever into which I had wrought myself, by pacing my apartment in the cool of morning. A brilliant sunshine ushered in the day, and under its enlivening influence my perturbed spirits gradually subsided to their usual tone. At breakfast, I confess, I was disposed again to enter on the topic, if an opportunity ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 350, December 1844 • Various
... his head thrown forward, his whole attitude rigid with attention. Outside the street was absolutely deserted. Those two men might still be crouching in the doorway, but I could no longer see them. All was still and dark, save only that brilliant yellow screen in front of us with the black figure outlined upon its centre. Again in the utter silence I heard that thin, sibilant note which spoke of intense suppressed excitement. An instant later he pulled me back into the blackest corner ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Mrs. Earle, and so energetic and suggestive in regard to the scope of the Institute, that she was presently chosen a member of the council, which was the body charged with the supervision of the fortnightly entertainments. It occurred to her as a brilliant conception to have Littleton address the club on "Art," and she broached the subject to him when he next returned to Benham and appeared before the church committee. He declared that he was too busy to prepare ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant
... brighter than usual; the grate was bright; the furniture was bright; the face of the clock, whose interior seemed about to explode on every occasion of striking the hour, was bright—almost to smiling; and the pot-lids, dish-covers, etcetera, were bright—so bright as to be absolutely brilliant. Joe Dashwood and his little wife were conversing near the window, but, although their faces were unquestionably bright by reason of contentment, coupled with a free use of soap and the jack-towel, there was, nevertheless, a shade of sadness in ...
— Life in the Red Brigade - London Fire Brigade • R.M. Ballantyne
... from side to side in endless repetition. The inside of this chilly abode was divided into several compartments of every fantastic shape: in some the glittering icicles hung like curtains from the roof; in others, the vault was smooth as glass. Beautifully brilliant were the prismatic colours reflected from the varied surface of the ice, when the torches flashed suddenly upon them as they passed from cave to cave. Around, above, beneath, everything was of solid ice, ...
— Ice-Caves of France and Switzerland • George Forrest Browne
... limited to those who appeal equally to both the husband and the wife. Common friends are fine, but for this purpose there is special need of friends for either spouse who can call forth those sides of his or her nature that are not aroused by the mate. A brilliant man may be bored by his wife's slower-thinking women friends, but these may be just what she needs as a relief from the high-pressure intellectual life she is leading with him. A stylish woman may be appalled at the slouchy appearance of some of her husband's cronies, who are ...
— The Good Housekeeping Marriage Book • Various
... the duty imposed by these acts, and of a high trust connected with it, it is with deep regret I have to state the loss which has been sustained by the death of Commodore Perry. His gallantry in a brilliant exploit in the late war added to the renown of his country. His death is ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 3) of Volume 2: James Monroe • James D. Richardson
... of darkness. Every man who thinks purely, speaks purely, and acts purely is a servant of Ormazd, the king of light, and thereby helps on his cause. The result of this doctrine was that wonderful Persian empire, which astonished the world for centuries by its brilliant successes; and the virtue and intelligence of the Parsees of the present time, the only representatives in the world of that venerable religion. The one thing lacking to the system is unity. It lives in perpetual conflict. ...
— Ten Great Religions - An Essay in Comparative Theology • James Freeman Clarke
... faith of his engagements? Do we believe that, after the conclusion of peace, he would not still sigh over the lost trophies of Egypt, wrested from him by the celebrated victory of Aboukir and the brilliant exertions of that heroic band of British seamen whose influence and example rendered the Turkish troops invincible at Acre? Can he forget that the effect of these exploits enabled Austria and Russia, in one campaign, to recover from France all which she had acquired by his ...
— Selected Speeches on British Foreign Policy 1738-1914 • Edgar Jones
... an ideal one, as happy as it was brilliant. Esme, thereafter had spent half her time in Europe with her sister, half in America with her aunt, who was growing old. Then had come the war. At first it had covered the duke with laurels. But a certain dark day ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti
... to market about the end of the year, and frequently earlier. The merchant judges of its quality by breaking it, and observing the closeness of its grain, and its brilliant copper, or violet blue colour. The weight in some measure proves its quality, for heavy indigo of every colour is always bad. Good indigo almost entirely consumes away in the fire, the bad leaves a quantity of ashes. In water also pure and fine indigo entirely melts and dissolves, ...
— An Historical Account Of The Rise And Progress Of The Colonies Of South Carolina And Georgia, Volume 2 • Alexander Hewatt
... out by secret ways in the enormous roof. The children recognised the exit of the separate brilliant stream they had encountered in the sky—the one especially that went to the room of pain and sickness in La Citadelle. Again they understood. That unselfish thinker of golden thoughts knew special sources of supply. No wonder ...
— A Prisoner in Fairyland • Algernon Blackwood
... gray eyes softened; pride, that had made the love in them brilliant, faded until they grew almost sombre. Silent, her aloof gaze remained fixed on the horizon; her lips rested on each other in sensitive curves. There was no sound save the curling ...
— Blue-Bird Weather • Robert W. Chambers
... were alone under the brilliant frozen sky retracing the paths across the fields by which they had come in the morning. Anna was still excited. She talked less and less, and then ceased altogether, as though she had succumbed to fatigue or to the mysterious emotion of the night. She leaned affectionately ...
— Jean-Christophe Journey's End • Romain Rolland
... roundabout filled the air with a pungent flavour of oil and with equally pungent music. Members of the club, who had attended church in the morning, were splendid in badges of pink and green, and some of the gayer-minded had also adorned their bowler hats with brilliant-coloured favours of ribbon. Old Fletcher, whose conceptions of holiday-making were severe, was visible through the jasmine about his window or through the open door (whichever way you chose to look), poised delicately on a plank ...
— The Invisible Man • H. G. Wells
... most warlike portion of the Transvaal in ten days by one energetic commander, with a list of twenty-five casualties to ourselves. The thanks of the Secretary of War were specially sent to him for his brilliant work. From then until the end of the year 1901, numbers of smaller captures continued to be reported from the same region, where Plumer, Spens, Mackenzie, Rawlinson, and others were working. On the other hand there was one small setback which occurred to a body of ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle
... as a whole, is so much more brilliant, interesting, and complete than in the older texts, that I thought of substituting it entirely for the other. But so much doubt and difficulty hangs over some passages of the Ramusian version that ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... the weather-beaten station shed, the solitary passenger watched it absently, brows drawn into a single dark line above the bridge of his straight nose. Tall, lean, with legs spread apart a bit and shoulders slightly bent, he made a striking figure against that background of brilliant sky and drenching, golden sunlight. For a brief space he did not stir. Then of a sudden, when the train had dwindled to the size of a child's toy, he turned abruptly and drew a long, ...
— Shoe-Bar Stratton • Joseph Bushnell Ames
... wages in any scale which prevails throughout a level of pay. It is equally efficient in leveling men in the community. The employer does not pay the working man on any level of wages in accordance with the value of the few brilliant, trusty or inventive men in that group, but he pays each man just that wage which he must offer to the last man he hires. The marginal man standardizes the wage. The religious values of men are standardized not upon the brilliant or saintly or accomplished, not ...
— The Evolution of the Country Community - A Study in Religious Sociology • Warren H. Wilson
... they are false towards themselves, squint-eyed, whited cankers, glossed over with strong words, parade virtues and brilliant ...
— Thus Spake Zarathustra - A Book for All and None • Friedrich Nietzsche
... and great advantages, she undoubtedly surpasses all in this, that she shines with a brilliant hope over the future, and never suffers the spirit to be weakened or to sink. Besides, he who looks on a true friend, looks, as it were, upon a kind of image of himself; wherefore, friends, though absent, are still present; though in poverty, they are rich; though weak, yet in the enjoyment ...
— For Auld Lang Syne • Ray Woodward
... but Hans Sachs overhears their conversation, and when they are about to leave their hiding-place and depart, he flings open his shutter so that a broad beam of light streams across the old street. It makes such a brilliant illumination that it is impossible for any one to pass unseen. This ruse, which proves such a hindrance to the lovers, is equally distasteful to Beckmesser, who has come down the street and has ...
— Stories of the Wagner Opera • H. A. Guerber
... them the instruction to journey eastward as far as possible.[311] There he built a city for them, surrounded by an iron wall, so high that the sun could not shine into the city. But Abraham provided them with huge gems and pearls, their lustre more brilliant than the light of the sun, which will be used in the Messianic time when "the moon shall be confounded and the sun ashamed."[312] Also Abraham taught them the black art, wherewith they held sway over demons and spirits. It is from this city in the east that Laban, ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg
... which were to signalise my first appearance in the Great Close—how I was to run the ball from one end of the field to the other, overturning, dodging, and distancing every one of the enemy, finishing up with a brilliant and mighty kick over the goal. After which I was to have my broken limbs set by a doctor on the spot, to receive a perfect ovation from friend and foe, to be chaired round the field, to be the "lion" at the supper afterwards, and finally to have a whole column of the ...
— Parkhurst Boys - And Other Stories of School Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... way up their long slender trunks, with a lop-sided mop of leaves at the top, like a wig which has slipped awry. I trust that I am not finding everything couleur de rose; but I certainly do find the cheeks of children and young persons of such brilliant rosy hue as I do not remember that I have ever seen before. I am almost ready to think this and that child's face has been colored from a pink saucer. If the Saxon youth exposed for sale at Rome, in the days ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... of sight. But as to Enoch there was no such scenic display. "He was not found, for God took him." It was a quiet but beautifully fitting end. Moonlight rising into sunlight, the sweet calm light of a starlit sky becoming flushed with the auroral tints of a brilliant morning. ...
— Men of the Bible; Some Lesser-Known Characters • George Milligan, J. G. Greenhough, Alfred Rowland, Walter F.
... bearded, shaggy-haired, painted white man, totally nude save for a narrow breechclout and a quiver containing several long hunting arrows. In one hand he carried a strong bow of really excellent workmanship. This was his only weapon. He wore no ornament, unless streaks of brilliant red paint be considered ornaments. He was wild and savage in appearance and manner as any cannibal Indian. ...
— The Pathless Trail • Arthur O. (Arthur Olney) Friel
... the brilliant sunlight, bareheaded still; looking dreamily off across the wide reach of the canyon. How peaceful, how sublimely beautiful, it all appeared; how delicately the tints of those distant trees blended and harmonized ...
— Beth Norvell - A Romance of the West • Randall Parrish
... survived, while at the same time it entered upon new phases.[211] Accordingly, Nabubaliddin assigns several deities who act the part of assistants to Ea. The names of these deities point to their functions. Nin-igi-nangar-bu is the 'lord who presides over metal-workers'; Gushgin-banda, 'brilliant chief,' is evidently the patron of those skilled in the working of the bright metals; Nin-kurra, 'lord of mountain,' the patron of those that quarried the stones; while Nin-zadim is the patron of sculpture. ...
— The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria • Morris Jastrow
... to walk through a street with lighted shops; the gas is so brilliant, the display of goods so much more vividly shown than by day, and of all shops a druggist's looks the most like the tales of our childhood, from Aladdin's garden of enchanted fruits to the charming Rosamond with her purple jar. ...
— Mary Barton • Elizabeth Gaskell
... acquaintance would be odious in a wife: the perfect innocence of Virginia promised security to his domestic happiness, and he did not change his views, though he was less eager for the period of their accomplishment. "I cannot expect every thing that is desirable," said he to himself: "a more brilliant character than Virginia's would excite my admiration, but could not ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. III - Belinda • Maria Edgeworth
... carry at all in the winter, and its mechanism is apt to refuse duty in the cold. The 3A Graflex cannot be turned to make a perpendicular photograph, but must always be used with the greatest dimension horizontal. Except in brilliant sunshine it is difficult to get a sharp focus, and, even though the focus appear sharp on the ground glass, the negative may prove blurred. Then the instrument is a great dust catcher and seems to have been constructed with ...
— Ten Thousand Miles with a Dog Sled - A Narrative of Winter Travel in Interior Alaska • Hudson Stuck
... the scene of our story to pursue those brilliant and unscrupulous political intrigues so well known to the historian of those times, and whose results were so disastrous to himself. His duel with the ill-fated Hamilton, the awful retribution of public opinion ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various
... continually stimulated, that they have always as their beacon a man or an idea, that they follow a line of conduct clearly traced. The second category of leaders, that of men of enduring strength of will, have, in spite of a less brilliant aspect, a much more considerable influence. In this category are to be found the true founders of religions and great undertakings: St. Paul, Mahomet, Christopher Columbus, and de Lesseps, for example. Whether they be intelligent or narrow-minded is of no importance: ...
— The Crowd • Gustave le Bon
... optimism about ourselves if it be founded on actual spiritual activity which ceaselessly tries to reproduce the Christ-experience in us, even the experience of the Passion by the voluntary self-discipline to which we subject ourselves. A brilliant writer has spoken of those whose view of their lives is drawn from "that fountain of all optimism—sloth." That is a true saying: our optimism is often no more than an idle refusal to face facts; a quaint and good-natured assumption that nothing ...
— Our Lady Saint Mary • J. G. H. Barry
... light grey eyes, dressed with scrupulous precision and quietness, who had retreated to the other end of the room and taken up a book, was Walter. The elder girl, Caroline, was about fifteen, a very pleasing likeness of her mother, with a brilliant complexion, bright blue eyes, and a remarkably lively and pleasant smile, which Marian was so much taken with, that she wished she could have found something to say, but the dress and air both gave her the appearance of being older than ...
— The Two Guardians • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... assembly the blue dress shone out as though it would attract everything to itself. "She's very pretty," thought Maggie, who was more conscious of her shabby clothes than ever. But her chief feeling was of surprise that so brilliant a bird had been able to penetrate into the chapel at all. "She must be a stranger just come out of curiosity." Then the girl's eyes suddenly met Maggie's and held them; the brilliant creature smiled and Maggie ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole
... find he's a half better. Clear es a bottle o' gin, an' flawless es the pope! Tommy Dartmoor, ye're in luck, s' welp me never ef ye ain't, an' that's a brilliant yer can show the polis ...
— Stories by English Authors: Africa • Various
... The second, or more brilliant-looking part of courage, the courageous act itself (like Roosevelt's when he is shot), which everybody notices, is easy. The ...
— Crowds - A Moving-Picture of Democracy • Gerald Stanley Lee
... of European poetry which finds response and recognition among cultivated persons of all nationalities; and he enjoyed a European distinction not attained by any other English poet since Byron. Browning, on the contrary, with his long and brilliant gallery of European creations, Browning, who claimed Italy as his "university," remains, as a poet, all but unknown even in Italy, and all but non-existent for the rest of the civilised world beyond the Channel. His cosmopolitan sympathies worked through the ...
— Robert Browning • C. H. Herford
... accordingly slung several over my back to carry home: they would, I hoped, prove useful to eat with our roasted partridges. Not far off was another ant-hill, and on this were growing a number of other mushrooms. Some were of a brilliant red, and others of a dull light blue. I examined them; but from their consistency and general appearance, I was afraid of eating them lest they might prove poisonous, for such I knew is the character ordinarily of ...
— In the Wilds of Africa • W.H.G. Kingston
... sacrificed their lives to their zeal. (Hear, hear.) To the two latter explorers belonged the praise—which time would never obscure or diminish—of having been the first to solve the practicability of traversing this great continent from south to north. The names which he mentioned constituted a brilliant catalogue; and he ventured to think that no inferior splendour would henceforth illustrate the names—now familiar as household words—of Stuart, Landsborough, and McKinlay. (Cheers and loud cries of ...
— Journal of Landsborough's Expedition from Carpentaria - In search of Burke and Wills • William Landsborough
... tenet; whereas the competitive individual can best achieve his ends if he combines the barbarian's energy, initiative, self-seeking and disingenuousness with the savage's lack of loyalty or clannishness. It may be remarked by the way, that the men who have scored a brilliant (Napoleonic) success on the basis of an impartial self-seeking and absence of scruple, have not uncommonly shown more of the physical characteristics of the brachycephalic-brunette than of the dolicho-blond. The greater ...
— The Theory of the Leisure Class • Thorstein Veblen
... followed him in Eighteen Twenty-four; Election was exciting—the details I shall ignore. But his inauguration as our country's President Was, take it from McMaster, some considerable event. It was a brilliant function, and I think I ought to add The Philadelphia "Ledger" said ...
— Something Else Again • Franklin P. Adams
... her automobile, were exciting joys to her friends. She always had money in her pocket, and boxes of candy for the entertainment of other children, and Lucy was proud of her own position as Ada's intimate friend. So when it came to making a choice between this brilliant companion and the gingham-clad daughter of a factory hand, Lucy Berry's courage and sympathy oozed away, and she sat back on the window-seat, while Ada began talking about ...
— Jewel's Story Book • Clara Louise Burnham
... they'll talk about my teapot and tea-things next, I suppose!" She vanished with the teapot, cups, and saucers, and reappeared with a tea-service in white china, and a packet wrapped in brown paper. This was removed, together with folds of tissue- paper underneath; and a brilliant silver teapot appeared. ...
— Under the Greenwood Tree • Thomas Hardy
... appear to have been intended for seapoy regiments proposed to be raised, and others for the service of the Mahrattas. The plan of operations in India was probably extensive, but the early declaration of war by England put a stop to them, and obliged His Excellency to abandon the brilliant prospect of making a figure in the annals of the East; he then came to Mauritius, exclaiming against the perfidy of the British government, and with a strong dislike, if not hatred to the whole nation. I arrived about three ...
— A Voyage to Terra Australis Volume 2 • Matthew Flinders
... of the service you have rendered to the country by the capture of the frigate Esmeralda, and the brilliant manner in which you conducted the gallant officers and seamen under your orders to accomplish that noble enterprise, on the night of the memorable 5th of November, have augmented the gratitude due to your former services by the Government, as well ...
— Narrative of Services in the Liberation of Chili, Peru and Brazil, - from Spanish and Portuguese Domination, Volume 1 • Thomas Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald
... now! I beg your pardon,' cried Alice, recognising in the thin nutcracker parchment visage and shabbily-dressed figure the remnant of the brilliant aquiline countenance and gay attire of eighteen years ago. 'Mrs. Houghton! I am so glad to have met you, you were so kind to me. And ...
— Nuttie's Father • Charlotte M. Yonge
... together, after which his Majesty, accompanied by the King of Saxony, his brothers and nephews, repaired to the meadow behind the palace, where fifteen thousand men of the guard awaited him in as fine condition as on the most brilliant ...
— The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Constant
... spacious room, at least a hundred feet long and half as high, with a ceiling painted in fresco by Sir James Thornhill. As a work of art, I presume, this frescoed canopy has little merit, though it produces an exceedingly rich effect by its brilliant coloring and as a specimen of magnificent upholstery. The walls of the grand apartment are entirely covered with pictures, many of them representing battles and other naval incidents that were once fresher in the world's memory than now, but chiefly ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 65, March, 1863 • Various
... cannot be gained by invidious attacks upon the rights and characters of others;—by countenancing the addresses of a thousand;—or that the finest assemblage of features, the greatest taste in dress, the genteelest address, or the most brilliant wit, cannot eventually secure a ...
— The Contrast • Royall Tyler
... pinnace clear with their oars, and so left the frigate, and hurried home to their ship, where "within an hour after" this young man of great hope ended his days, "greatly lamented of all the company." He was buried in that place, with Richard Allen his shipmate, among the brilliant shrubs, ...
— On the Spanish Main - Or, Some English forays on the Isthmus of Darien. • John Masefield
... and the memory of Charles the Second's courtly days. His progress was necessarily slow. He did not get rises; he lost situations; there was something in his eye employers did not like; he would have lost his places oftener if he had not been at times an exceptionally brilliant salesman, rather carefully neat, and a slow but ...
— The History of Mr. Polly • H. G. Wells
... however, that the answer may prove to be in the affirmative, and I am quite sure that if any Organization is able to cause it to work out this way, that Organization is the Salvation Army, whose brilliant business capacity can, as I know, make a commercial success of ...
— Regeneration • H. Rider Haggard
... side of the clypeus, and sprinkled with erect black hairs. Thorax: the posterior margin of the prothorax with a line of silvery pubescence; the metathorax with a short light-brown pubescence at the apex, and thinly clothed with black hairs; wings dark brown, with a brilliant violet iridescence. Abdomen blue-black, smooth ...
— Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnean Society - Vol. 3 - Zoology • Various
... of a "charging rhino" would have been a brilliant success but for one thing—the rhino ...
— In Africa - Hunting Adventures in the Big Game Country • John T. McCutcheon
... capacities; and as I was proud and sensitive, this was to me a source of much suffering, which often became terrible as I advanced in years. But at that time the position of the literary man or scholar, with the exception of a very few brilliant magnates who had "made money," was in the United States not an enviable one. Serious interest in art and letters was not understood, or so generally sympathised with, as it now is in "Quakerdelphia." ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland
... proclamation of the truth combined with a good moral public life is in itself a tremendous power. Indeed, we need in all the avenues of life men whose university training will give them influence in public life. But let it never be forgotten those captains of industry, those brilliant and successful professional men, those progressive farmers—valuable as they all may be—must count more as leaders of Catholic thought than as money-makers. If not, they will be found wanting when the Church needs them the most. We emphasize ...
— Catholic Problems in Western Canada • George Thomas Daly
... brilliant besides being profound. As a man, he is simple—and France admires simplicity; he is elegant—and France loves the elegance that is the expression of fine thinking, fine feeling; he is modest of his own attainments, ...
— Foch the Man - A Life of the Supreme Commander of the Allied Armies • Clara E. Laughlin
... of her more prominent operatic roles. She sang the Page's song, which had been hers in her first appearance on a critical stage. "Nobil signors," she sang, her voice lingering. And then presently there fell from her lips the sparkling measures of Coquette, indescribably light, indescribably brilliant in her rendition. Melody after melody, score after score, product of the greatest composers of the world, she gave to a listener who never definitely realized what privilege had been his. She slipped on and on, forgetting herself, revelling, ...
— Heart's Desire • Emerson Hough
... they arrived at the great house and walked among the brilliant throng no Prince was to be seen!—It might be he had ...
— His Hour • Elinor Glyn
... mis'able thing 'at done it!" he cried, then groaned again, but weakly. The pain had suddenly become so severe as to turn him faint while the brilliant branches overhead began to dance and sway before his dizzy sight as no wind could make them do. "I—I'm gettin' light-headed. Help me up, Keehoty. I'm broke. I'm broke all to smash. My leg—my ...
— The Brass Bound Box • Evelyn Raymond
... it, thinking that no pains should be spared to get at the merits of a controversy which now involves, not only the moral and social qualities of the great lexicographer, but the degree of confidence to be placed in the most brilliant and popular of modern critics, biographers and historians. It is no impeachment of his integrity, no detraction from the durable elements of his fame, to offer proof that his splendid imagination ran away with him, or that reliance on his wonderful memory made him careless ...
— Autobiography, Letters and Literary Remains of Mrs. Piozzi (Thrale) (2nd ed.) (2 vols.) • Mrs. Hester Lynch Piozzi
... Amy, down on her knees before the bag, and running her fingers through the brilliant mass delightedly. "How do they ...
— The Outdoor Girls on Pine Island - Or, A Cave and What It Contained • Laura Lee Hope
... noble, broad-spreading, open, symmetrical head, the lower branches massive, horizontal, or slightly ascending, more or less pendulous at the extremities, the upper coarse and spreading, rising at a sharper angle; branchlets stout; foliage brilliant green, easily set in motion; the sterile trees gorgeous in spring with ...
— Handbook of the Trees of New England • Lorin Low Dame
... Reynolds held, genius itself. Thus what he had done rapidly was done well; and, for the rest, the writer, who had yet to give the world "Martin Chuzzlewit," "The Christmas Carol," "David Copperfield," and "Dombey," was not "coming down like a stick." There were many more stars, and of very brilliant colours, to be showered out by that rocket; and the stick has not even yet ...
— Life of Charles Dickens • Frank Marzials
... again, I would remain single as long as I could, without the risk of being an old maid.' How injudicious, how short-sighted is the policy, which thus mars the whole happiness of life, in order to make a few brief years more gay and brilliant! I have known many instances of domestic ruin and discord produced by this mistaken indulgence of mothers. I never knew but one, where the victim had moral courage enough to change all her early ...
— The American Frugal Housewife • Lydia M. Child
... the Warriston lady. His eldest, Sir Thomas Burnett, was physician to royalty from Charles II to Queen Anne. The third was Gilbert, Bishop of Salisbury, of whom it is not my intention to give any detailed account. His brilliant talents and great influence made him many friends, and even more enemies. History is beginning to do justice to his character without concealing his weaknesses. He seems to have been more honest than was the ...
— Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character • Edward Bannerman Ramsay
... the boxing in, the wiring to the house, and the making of connections with the wiring to the house after the town company's service was dispensed with, and it was a proud moment when Gus turned on the first bulb and got a full and brilliant glare. ...
— Radio Boys Cronies • Wayne Whipple and S. F. Aaron
... hear about so many gifted infants in these days, and remember that I seldom said anything smart when I was a child. I tried it once or twice, but it was not popular. The family were not expecting brilliant remarks from me, and so they snubbed me sometimes and spanked me the rest. But it makes my flesh creep and my blood run cold to think what might have happened to me if I had dared to utter some of the smart things of this generation's "four-year-olds" where my father ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... girl, then laughed softly, disclosing his brilliant teeth, made a slight inclination of his handsome head and said nothing. The spy continued: "You fire, and I have in my stomach what I did not swallow. I fall, but am not dead. After a half-hour of agony I am dead. But at any given instant of that half-hour I was either alive or ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Vol. II: In the Midst of Life: Tales of Soldiers and Civilians • Ambrose Bierce
... brought from his capacious pockets a number of frogs, snails, lizards, and other creatures of Japanese manufacture—very grotesque in form and brilliant in colour. While we were looking at them he asked the waiter to place sixty-four tumblers on the club table. When these had been brought and arranged in the form of a square, as shown in the illustration, he placed ...
— The Canterbury Puzzles - And Other Curious Problems • Henry Ernest Dudeney
... attire was neater than it had been when she had seen him on other occasions, he still wore the bush packer's usual dress. There was, however, a subtle grace in his manner, and, though he was by no means a brilliant conversationalist, there was something in his voice and the half-whimsical tricks of fancy which now and then characterized him that made a wide distinction between him and the general hired hand. Once more it seemed to her that when he had called the old ...
— The Gold Trail • Harold Bindloss
... Aunt Kate were whisked in a big limousine to the play, and Wonota enjoyed the brilliant spectacle and the music as much as ...
— Ruth Fielding in the Great Northwest - Or, The Indian Girl Star of the Movies • Alice B. Emerson
... of brilliant things followed like shooting stars; two or three rose trees grew, budded, and bloomed before her eyes; and he laid the fresh, sweet blossoms in her hands. They turned to violets later, but that did not matter; nothing mattered any longer as long as she could lie there and gaze at him—the most ...
— The Green Mouse • Robert W. Chambers
... the theatre was full from parterre to gallery; the boxes presented a truly brilliant spectacle. The curtain went ...
— The Fool Errant • Maurice Hewlett
... as to a new world, so completely had I been separated from it during the two last years. It was as if one of the spirits in the metempsychosis imagined by Fourier, had returned to the brilliant sphere from which death had driven him in temporary exile. I was at first enchanted, intoxicated. The mental activity which had seemed so intense in the sluggish province, needed to be quickened fourfold to keep abreast of the intellects with ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 2 • Various
... varying distances. If all the stars were alike, then those which were farthest away would be faintest and we could judge a star's distance by its brilliancy. This is not the case, however. Some of the more brilliant stars are far more distant than some of the fainter ones. There are stars near and remote and an apparently faint star may in reality be larger and more brilliant than a star of the first magnitude. Vega, for instance, is infinitely farther away from ...
— Lectures in Navigation • Ernest Gallaudet Draper
... "beautiful to soul and eye," tall and slight, with brilliant complexion, sparkling gray eyes, and a profusion of golden wavy hair. She had an aquiline nose,—strange to say for a Hapsburg, an exceedingly lovely mouth,—and very beautiful hands and arms. Her voice ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 4 of 8 • Various
... milieu—the world of journalism, of Catholicism seen from two opposite points of view, of artists, of the bourgeoisie, as the case may be. There are in the best work of the Goncourts astonishingly brilliant scenes; there is dialogue vivacious, witty, sparkling, to an extraordinary degree. And this dialogue, as in Charles Demailly, is not only supremely interesting, but intrinsically true to nature. It could not well be otherwise, for the speeches assigned to Masson, Lamperiere, Remontville, ...
— Rene Mauperin • Edmond de Goncourt and Jules de Goncourt
... sunset sky more brilliant. Painter never threw on canvas colours so full of a living beauty. Deep purple and lucent azure,—crimson and burnished ...
— The Good Time Coming • T. S. Arthur
... however, when on tasting the food, he found the bread to be made of chalk, the chicken of cardboard, and the brilliant ...
— The Adventures of Pinocchio • C. Collodi—Pseudonym of Carlo Lorenzini
... he bestowed a greeting on the new-comer which evidenced a secret awe, and in other ways showed so plain a desire to please, that I felt my fears of the priest return in force. I reflected that the talents which in such a garb could win the respect of M. Francois d'Agen—a brilliant star among the younger courtiers, and one of a class much given to thinking scorn of their fathers' roughness—must be both great and formidable; and, so considering, I received the monk with a distant courtesy which I had once little thought to extend to him. I put ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman
... aristocracy, the opposition began to find a literary expression. In the time of Catherine II., when Gallomania was at its height in Court circles, comedies and satirical journals ridiculed those who, "blinded by some externally brilliant gifts of foreigners, not only prefer foreign countries to their native land, but even despise their fellow-countrymen, and think that a Russian ought to borrow all—even personal character. As if ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... B. Reed, of Maine, is to be the leader of the Republican minority in Congress this winter. He is a smart, fat, brilliant, lazy man, with a Shakespearian head and face and clean-cut record. He is a great improvement on the Hon. J. Warren Keifer, of Ohio, who was the Republican leader (so-called) last winter. It would be hard ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... She is easily the best and foremost woman speaker in the world and in her appearance Portland will enjoy a rare treat. Her eloquence is seldom equalled and she is a woman of deep learning, a cogent reasoner and a brilliant thinker.... She has wonderful magnetism and a rare voice of round, rich tones and great carrying capacity. An unusual combination of dignity and wit is hers and many brilliant remarks intersperse the numbers on the program, keeping the audience in fine humor and constant interest." ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume V • Ida Husted Harper
... maize porridge, the prime dish of the Rathor. [565] The Rathor princes have been not less ready in placing themselves and the forces of their States at the disposal of the British Government, and the latest and perhaps most brilliant example of their loyalty occurred during 1914, when the veteran Sir Partap Singh of Idar insisted on proceeding to the front against Germany, though over seventy years of age, and was accompanied by his ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell
... of Lucius Vitellius, not of low birth nor without sense, a man who, on the contrary, had become famous by his governorship of Syria. In addition to his other brilliant exploits as an official he spoiled a plot of Artabanus in that region. He encountered the latter, who had suffered no punishment for Armenia, already close to the Euphrates and terrified him by his sudden appearance. He then induced him to come to a conference and finally ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol. 4 • Cassius Dio
... finally cleared and the moon came out, cold and brilliant, there was something uncanny and weird in its light lying upon earth's white shroud rent here and there by long, dark shadows across the trail. There was an indefinable mystery in the atmosphere. Micmac John, accustomed as he was to the wilderness, felt an uneasiness in his ...
— Ungava Bob - A Winter's Tale • Dillon Wallace
... Gordon away from him. As Gordon staggered backward, Arlok's tentacle lashed upward and levelled upon him. Its twin tips again glowed brilliant green and livid blue. Instantly every muscle in Gordon's body was paralyzed. He stood there as rigid as a statue, his body completely deadened from the neck down. Beside him stood Leah, also frozen motionless in ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science January 1931 • Various
... and autumn is upon us with all its mists and shadows of purple and grey. The camphor-trees look from the distance like great balls of fire, and the eucalyptus-tree, in its dress of brilliant yellow, is a gaily painted court lady. If one short glimpse of thee my heart could gladden, then all my soul would be filled with the beauty of this time, these days of red and gold. But now I seek thee the long night through, and turn to make my arm thy pillow— but ...
— My Lady of the Chinese Courtyard • Elizabeth Cooper
... used to go up every Wednesday and Friday to the chapel in the hills, where Lancelot had met her, for an hour's mystic devotion, set off by a little graceful asceticism. As for Lancelot, she never thought of him but as an empty-headed fox-hunter who had met with his deserts; and the brilliant accounts which the all smoothing colonel gave at dinner of Lancelot's physical well doing and agreeable conversation only made her set him down the sooner as a twin clever-do-nothing to the despised Bracebridge, whom she hated for keeping her father ...
— Yeast: A Problem • Charles Kingsley
... your letter moved me; above all, when I compare our widely different destinies! How brilliant is the world you are entering, how peaceful the retreat where I shall end my ...
— Letters of Two Brides • Honore de Balzac
... Henrietta they stole many a covert glance at Mildred Annister, who sat beside her, dignified and beautiful, her cheeks glowing and eyes brilliant with excitement, listening with ...
— The Fate of Felix Brand • Florence Finch Kelly
... Gleeful shouts of discovery grew more and more frequent as they swarmed up and down the creek banks, over fallen logs and through the underbrush, merry and chattering as the squirrels themselves. Chicken Little counted seven blue-birds and Gertie ten, besides one brilliant cardinal that flashed by like ...
— Chicken Little Jane • Lily Munsell Ritchie
... the bar between the gutter and the lead I succeeded in loosening it, and then, heaving at it with our shoulders, we beat it up till the opening was wide enough. On putting my head out through the hole I was distressed to see the brilliant light of the crescent moon then entering in its first quarter. This was a piece of bad luck which must be borne patiently, and we should have to wait till midnight, when the moon would have gone to light up the Antipodes. On such a fine ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... The most brilliant of all the exploits of the navy during the year 1862 were those carried on under the command of Flag-Officer David G. Farragut, who, though a born Southerner and residing in Virginia when the rebellion broke out, remained loyal to the ...
— A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln - Condensed from Nicolay & Hay's Abraham Lincoln: A History • John G. Nicolay
... difficulty which the common herd must have felt in verifying his assertions. His zeal in collecting examples was probably stimulated by the fact that some of the exploits which he attributes to the ancient Sargon had been recently accomplished by a king of the same name: the brilliant career of Sargon of Agade would seem to have been in his estimation something like an anticipation of the still more glorious life of the Sargon of Nineveh.* What better proof of the high veneration in which the learned men of Assyria held ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 3 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... Yn recognised Pao-y's voice, he entered the room with hurried step. On raising his head, his eye was attracted by the brilliant splendour emitted by gold and jade and by the dazzling lustre of the elegant arrangements. He failed, however, to detect where Pao-y was ensconced. The moment he turned his head round, he espied, on the left side, a large cheval-glass; behind which appeared to view, standing side by side, ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... esteemed Curio the third best Orator of the age; perhaps, because his language was brilliant and pompous, and because he had a habit (for which I suppose he was indebted to his domestic education) of expressing himself with tolerable correctness: for he was a man of very little learning. But it is a circumstance of great importance, what ...
— Cicero's Brutus or History of Famous Orators; also His Orator, or Accomplished Speaker. • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... sure a bad opening: "Business," sez I, "don't let go one cent unless it's goin' to grab another an' fetch it back home;" an' I knew that all I gave this feller would keep in circulation for the balance of eternity. Then a brilliant thought struck me, an' I told him I'd give him one fourth of all he got for the pony over ten dollars. He looked at the pony an' sez, "Who gets the ...
— Happy Hawkins • Robert Alexander Wason
... learn from it? We turn at once to our own great light-giver, the sun, to whom we owe not only all life, but also all the colour and beauty on earth. It is well known to men of science that colour lies in the light itself, and not in any particular object. That brilliant blue cloak of yours is not blue of itself, but because of the light that falls on it. If you cannot believe this, go into a room lighted only by gas, and hey, presto! the colour is changed as if it were a conjuring trick. You cannot tell now by looking at the cloak ...
— The Children's Book of Stars • G.E. Mitton
... eat?" I motioned to the brilliant fungal forest. I had begun to fear that Ray would never get ...
— Astounding Stories, April, 1931 • Various
... fine, had so long been irreproachable that I rose without misgiving on the morning of Lord Thornaby's dinner to the other Criminologists and guests. My chief anxiety was to arrive under the aegis of my brilliant friend, and I had begged him to pick me up on his way; but at five minutes to the appointed hour there was no sign of Raffles or his cab. We were bidden at a quarter to eight for eight o'clock, so after all I had ...
— A Thief in the Night • E. W. Hornung
... of a guilty conscience, Glossin now arose and looked out upon the night. The scene which we have already described in the third chapter of this story, was now covered with snow, and the brilliant, though waste, whiteness of the land gave to the sea by contrast a dark and livid tinge. A landscape covered with snow, though abstractedly it may be called beautiful, has, both from the association of cold and barrenness and from its comparative infrequency, ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... The gaiety of his dramatic tone may be seen in this little scene between two brilliant sisters, from his comedy, The Funeral, or Grief a la Mode. Dick wrote this, he said, from "a necessity of enlivening his character", which, it seemed, the Christian Hero had a tendency to make too decorous, grave, and respectable in the eyes of ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... You've managed to dig out of your life quite a brilliant philosophy, though I suppose you do not know what that is. It's holding to your ideal, the thing that seems most worth while, and forcing everything else into line with that. Now, you see I had a bad handicap—a clutch on me that made me a weak, sickly fellow, but through it all I kept ...
— The Place Beyond the Winds • Harriet T. Comstock
... Extravagance is good for all of us, now and then." He glanced leisurely about the brilliant room, then out to the street, bleakly windswept. He leaned back and drummed a bit with his fingers on the satin-smooth cloth. "Now and then. Tell me, Fanny, what would you say, off-hand, was the most interesting thing you see from here? You ...
— Fanny Herself • Edna Ferber
... of religion,—widely known; and, by special [1] invitation, have allowed myself to be elected an associate life-member of the Victoria Institute, which numbers among its constituents and managers—not barmaids, but bishops—profound philosophers, brilliant scholars. [5] ...
— Miscellaneous Writings, 1883-1896 • Mary Baker Eddy
... his attire, with the request to Aunt Mabel that she would bestow them upon some needy person, or, in default of this, make them over to the Missionary Society for distribution among the heathen,—a purpose for which some of them, by reason of their brilliant colors, were certainly most admirably adapted. Under his changed view of life, it appeared to Reuben that every unnecessary indulgence, whether of dress or food, was a sin. With the glowing enthusiasm of youth, he put such beautiful construction upon the rules ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 97, November, 1865 • Various
... this is a sound edition—sadly needed—of one of the most brilliant lyrical writers of his time. It contains a charming portrait; and the editor's enthusiasm, when it does not lead him ...
— Adventures in Criticism • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... as to base on them appropriate legislation which would curtail the power of such autocrats. Contrasted with the baseness and hypocrisy of the trading class, Vanderbilt's qualities of brutal candor and selfishness shine out as brilliant virtues. [Footnote: No observation could be truer. As a class, the manufacturers were flourishing on stolen inventions. There might be exceptions, but they were very rare. Year after year, decade after decade, the reports of the ...
— Great Fortunes from Railroads • Gustavus Myers
... on the ruler to meet his parliament once a year, rendered it imperative upon him to summon the Council and Assembly for the despatch of business. He recommended to the assembled wisdom before him the propriety of continuing several temporary acts then in force; congratulated them on the brilliant success of His Majesty's arms; alluded with pride to the conquest of the Cape of Good Hope; and touched upon the repeated victories obtained by Sir John Stuart in Calabria. The Assembly replied in terms most flattering to the President personally, promising to do as ...
— The Rise of Canada, from Barbarism to Wealth and Civilisation - Volume 1 • Charles Roger
... and molasses kegs, like water-logged ships, roll heavily below. Broken boards and planks, old hoops, and staves, and barrel-heads innumerable, are buoyant with this change of the elements; while floating turnips and apples, with, here and there, a brilliant cabbage head, gleam in this subterranean firmament, like twinkling stars, dimmed by the effulgence of the moon at her full. Magnificent among the lesser vessels of the fleet, "like some tall admiral," rides the enormous "mash-tub," while ...
— Farm drainage • Henry Flagg French
... opened in Hyde Park on the 1st of May, was a complete success, a brilliant triumph indeed, for the Prince, over six million people visiting it; it remained open till the Autumn, and the building, some time after its removal, was re-erected at Sydenham, at ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Vol 2 (of 3), 1844-1853 • Queen Victoria
... money before now,' said Mr Crummles, with a look of disappointment. 'What do you think of a brilliant display of fireworks?' ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... all that H. B. S. does stand for H. B. Smith. There are ever so many charming walks about here and from some points the scenery is wonderfully picturesque. I never was in the country so late as to see the trees after a frost, and although the foliage here is less brilliant, it is said, than that of American forests, I find it hard to believe that there can be anything more beautiful than the wooded mountains covered with the softest tints of every shade and coloring interspersed ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... friends! First will I win to us each citizen Who prizes liberty and values most The public honor and his country's weal. The spirit of ancient Rome is yet alive;— The last faint spark is not yet wholly dead. Now into brilliant flames it shall be fanned, More glorious than ever flames before! Alas, too long the stifling gloom of thraldom, Dark as the night, lay blanketed on Rome. Behold,—this realm—though proud and powerful It seems—totters upon the edge of doom. Therefore the stoutest hand must seize ...
— Early Plays - Catiline, The Warrior's Barrow, Olaf Liljekrans • Henrik Ibsen
... together, jesting, good-humouredly enough, at Strahan's sudden hobby for building, then putting questions to me about mutual acquaintances, but never waiting for an answer; and every now and then, as if at random, startling us with some brilliant aphorism, or some suggestion drawn from abstract science or unfamiliar erudition. The whole effect was sparkling, but I could well understand that, if long continued, it would become oppressive. The soul has need of pauses of repose,—intervals ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... subtleties of what underground opposition of political influence and twelve per cent finance, is not to be set down here. The government publications tell, in their brief and pregnant records, this story of one of the most complete and brilliant victories in the history of American hygiene. My concern is with the story, not of the typhus epidemic, but of a man who fought for and surrendered and finally retrieved his own manhood and the honor of the paper which was his honor. His ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... brilliant red juice dyed his lips, and he closed his eyes in happy contentment, oblivious, for the time, of the sand and fallen trunks that seemed to dance in the parching rays of the sun, oblivious, even, of the loss ...
— Tales of the Malayan Coast - From Penang to the Philippines • Rounsevelle Wildman
... differently. Flint glass contains lead; the lead makes the glass dense, and gives it great refractive power, enabling it to bend and separate light in all directions. Cut glass and toilet articles are made of flint glass because of the brilliant effects caused by its great refractive power, and imitation gems are commonly nothing more than polished ...
— General Science • Bertha M. Clark
... of an animated substance, if Constantine could have regenerated his new metropolis, by transfusing into it the vital and vivifying principles of old Rome,—that brilliant spark no longer remained for Constantinople to borrow, or ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... other where the "respectables" do congregate; and the woman says to her companion, with a humorous sarcasm, "Put forward your best foot!" that is, we must be very correct passing along here in this brilliant light. ...
— Introduction to Robert Browning • Hiram Corson
... a khalifa, lieutenant of a great country kaid, met midmost Dukala, in a place of level barley fields new cut with the media luna. Brilliant poppies and irises stained the meadows on all sides, and orchards whose cactus hedges, planted for defence, were now aflame with blood-red flowers, became a girdle of beauty as well as strength. The khalifa rode a swiftly-ambling mule, a beast of price, his yellow ...
— Morocco • S.L. Bensusan |
