"Brocade" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... talking to a young man who called old furniture delicious and Spanish brocade sweetly pretty. 'The modern Englishman,' said Mr. Lawrence, 'was made to live in barracks or in a stable. Probably he is only in his right place when he is on a horse. Could any one but he live at Bowshott and dress in shabby shooting clothes, and ...
— Peter and Jane - or The Missing Heir • S. (Sarah) Macnaughtan
... dwarf riding upon a horse, stately, and foaming, and prancing, and strong, and spirited. And in the hand of the dwarf was a whip. And near the dwarf they saw a lady upon a beautiful white horse, of steady and stately pace; and she was clothed in a garment of gold brocade. And near her was a knight upon a warhorse of large size, with heavy and bright armour both upon himself and upon his horse. And truly they never before saw a knight, or a horse, or armour, of such remarkable size. And they were all near ...
— The Mabinogion • Lady Charlotte Guest
... days the carriage commanded by the princess was ready. It was of green velvet, scattered over with large golden thistles, and lined inside with silver brocade embroidered with pink roses. It had no windows, of course; but the fairy Tulip, whose counsel had been asked, had managed to light it up with a soft glow that came ...
— The Orange Fairy Book • Andrew Lang
... had his own views on this question. With a courteous wave of one dusky hand, he motioned us gracefully into somebody else's deck chairs, and then sat down on another beside us, while the gorgeous suite stood by in respectful silence—unctuous gentlemen in pink-and-gold brocade—forming a court all round us. Elsie and I, unaccustomed to be so observed, grew conscious of our hands, our skirts, our postures. But the Maharajah posed himself with perfect unconcern, like one well used to the fierce light of royalty. ...
— Miss Cayley's Adventures • Grant Allen
... a dart, the delicately chiselled features and alabaster complexion, the soft silvery hair, the perfect hand, whiter and more transparent than the hand of girlhood, the stately movements and bearing, all combined to make Lady Maulevrier a queen among woman. Her brocade gown of a deep shade of red, with a border of dark sable on cuffs and collar, suggested a portrait by Velasquez. She wore no ornaments except the fine old Brazilian diamonds which flashed and sparkled ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... frame was hung over the washstand. Some poor engravings of landscapes and several nude figures were hung in gold frames on the wall. The gilt-framed chairs were upholstered in pink-and-white-flowered brocade, with polished brass tacks. The carpet was of thick Brussels, pale cream and pink in hue, with large blue jardinieres containing flowers woven in as ornaments. The general effect was light, rich, and ...
— The Financier • Theodore Dreiser
... and there were narrow pouches below them; the whites were bloodshot and indefinite. He was flashily dressed in the mode of the day, typical of his calling. A silk hat tilted rakishly over his brow. His waistcoat was a loud brocade, his necktie a single black band, knotted once. There was a great paste diamond in his soiled shirt-front. A long checked coat, with tails and sidepockets, trousers of the same material, completed his ordinary makeup. ...
— The Rose in the Ring • George Barr McCutcheon
... subject for 'La Caricature'?" said a so-called lady of the bedchamber to a duchess, who could hardly help laughing at the aspect of Zelie, glittering with diamonds, red as a poppy, squeezed into a gold brocade, and rolling along like the casts of ...
— The Lesser Bourgeoisie • Honore de Balzac
... injustice, and how in her turn she is not always careful of the rights and feelings of her rivals. But whatever her faults and mistakes may have been, she is always kindly and generous, human and lovable. A year or two passes, and we see her, royally arrayed in brocade and jewels, standing up in the great council hall of Venice, to plead her husband's cause before the Doge and Senate. Later on we find her sharing her lord's counsels in court and camp, receiving king and emperor at Pavia or Vigevano, fascinating the susceptible heart of Charles VIII. by her charms, ...
— Beatrice d'Este, Duchess of Milan, 1475-1497 • Julia Mary Cartwright
... asked what was to be seen. Nothing here but churches and monks. One of the little girls, three years old, looked with avidity at the Virgin Mary, three feet high, in gold brocade. The old verger observing this, led her nearer to it, ascribing her admiration probably to piety, when, to his horror, she screamed out, "Quel jolie poupee!" Solomon says, "Out of the mouths of babes shall ye be taught wisdom." The old ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... Dictionary[650]. He certainly was mistaken; or if he imagined at first that he was imitating Temple, he was very unsuccessful; for nothing can be more unlike than the simplicity of Temple, and the richness of Johnson. Their styles differ as plain cloth and brocade. Temple, indeed, seems equally erroneous in supposing that he himself had formed his style upon Sandys's View of the State of Religion in the Western parts ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... Drawing-room. Wall-paper of big grey peonies sprawling over a shiny pale salmon ground. Over-mantel in black and gold. Large mirrors: cut-glass gaselier, supplemented by two standard lamps with yellow shades. Furniture upholstered in yellow and brown brocade. Crimson damask hangings. Parian statuettes under glass, on walnut "What-nots"; cheap china in rosewood cabinets. Big banner-screen embroidered in beads, with the Tidmarsh armorial bearings, as recently ascertained by the Heralds' College. Time, twenty minutes ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 104, January 28, 1893 • Various
... lace stomachers, paniers over brocaded skirts with lace panels; feet encased in high heel satin slippers with jewelled buckles; and gracefully managing their ostrich feather fans as they curtsy to their partners; the latter wearing wigs also powdered white, long coats of brocade, elaborately embroidered waistcoats with lace jabots, satin knee breeches, silk stockings and a garter with jewelled buckle on the right leg, and helping themselves to snuff out of gold or silver boxes during brief pauses in the dance. Such is the picture that can be conjured up in imagination ...
— The Pianolist - A Guide for Pianola Players • Gustav Kobb
... small swords with hilts of mother-of-pearl, or long blades such as the Cid carried, would then wrap themselves in mantles of crimson silk darkened by ages. Others would throw over their shoulders damask counterpanes of priceless old brocade, peasant skirts with great flowers of gold, farthingales of richly woven texture that crackled ...
— Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) - A Novel • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... Werve was most richly attired; but there was in her dress an absence of ornament which appeared strange at that period of extreme pomp and show. A waist of sky-blue velvet encircled her slender form, and a brocade skirt fell in large folds to her feet. Only on her open sleeves appeared some gold thread, and the clasp which fastened the chamois-skin purse suspended from her girdle was ...
— The Amulet • Hendrik Conscience
... ladies—and gentlemen never see whether one is dressed in brocade or sackcloth," returned Agatha, rather maliciously;—"only, 'old Major Harper' as you are pleased to call ...
— Agatha's Husband - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik (AKA: Dinah Maria Mulock)
... afternoon of the day before the fight that this conversation took place between my uncle and myself in the dainty sanctum of his Jermyn-Street house. He was clad, I remember, in his flowing brocade dressing-gown, as was his custom before he set off for his club, and his foot was extended upon a stool—for Abernethy had just been in to treat him for an incipient attack of the gout. It may have been the pain, or it may have been his disappointment at my career, but his ...
— Rodney Stone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... walls in the drawing-room—blue paper and white wood, and a touch of yellow in the draperies. I saw some brocade at Liberty's which would be the very thing!" chimed in his wife, while Mrs Asplin gasped and looked askance at the extraordinary trio who began to discuss the furnishings of a house before they had even ascended the staircase. She coughed in a deprecatory ...
— More About Peggy • Mrs G. de Horne Vaizey
... flaunt in her mistress's sack! Here Trip wear his master's brocade on his back! Here a hussy may ride, and a rogue take the ...
— Collected Poems - In Two Volumes, Vol. II • Austin Dobson
... yielding the right hand of the boy which was clasped to and in his own, the laird closed the door of the room, and advancing the whole length of it, stopped at a sofa covered with a rich brocade, and seating himself thereon, slowly, and with a kind of care, drew him between his thin knees, and began to talk to him. Now there was this difference between the relation of these two and that of most fathers ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... he had expected other things from Mr Browning: HE ought to know his duty to youth. At the intercession of a relation Mr Browning now did his best, and the minstrel, satisfied at last, repeated his conviction of his superiority to the authors of The Angel in the House and Beau Brocade. Probably no man, not even Mr Gladstone, ever suffered so much from minstrels as Tennyson. He ...
— Alfred Tennyson • Andrew Lang
... guests had assembled, all beautifully dressed. Mrs. Aylmer the great and Mrs. Aylmer the less found themselves side by side. Mrs. Aylmer the great was in a magnificent robe of violet brocade, open at the throat, displaying a quantity of rich lace. On her head glittered diamonds, and her light eyes flashed as she glanced from time to time at Mrs. Aylmer ...
— A Bunch of Cherries - A Story of Cherry Court School • L. T. Meade
... here close by me, and we will have a little flirtation, like in the old days. Only you must imagine these brocade flowers are real red field poppies, and this sofa is a haycock, just at the back of Copthorne Farm. I can almost hear the lazy hum of the bees, and smell the fresh mown grass. I am not in a silk tea jacket, but my old blue cotton frock with the tear in the ...
— When the Birds Begin to Sing • Winifred Graham
... that there be those who would rather have a piece of brocade or velvet for a stomacher than the touchingest copy of verses, with a bleeding heart ...
— Citation and Examination of William Shakspeare • Walter Savage Landor
... Bernardine's eyes had become accustomed to the dim, uncertain light. Turning her head in the direction whence the sound proceeded, she saw a very grand lady, dressed in stiff, shining brocade satin, with rare lace and sparkling diamonds on her breast and fair hands, sitting in a crimson velvet arm-chair—a grand old lady, cold, ...
— Jolly Sally Pendleton - The Wife Who Was Not a Wife • Laura Jean Libbey
... in actual life; because its tragedy is enhanced by dramatic contrasts, the splendour of the bright, breezy, sunlit garden contrasting with the road of ashen spiritual desolation the soul must take; the splendour of the gorgeous stiff brocade and the futility of the blank, soft, imprisoned flesh; the obstreperous heart, beating in joyous harmony with the rhythm of the swaying flowers, changed by one written word into a desert of silence. It is the sudden annihilation of purpose and significance in a body and mind ...
— The Advance of English Poetry in the Twentieth Century • William Lyon Phelps
... found in a leaden coffin enclosed in one of stone. The body of the little Chrysogone had been enveloped in a rich brocade ...
— In Troubadour-Land - A Ramble in Provence and Languedoc • S. Baring-Gould
... there great Catalonian knives with open blades, daggers in rich sheaths and with engraved handles, and even an open velvet-lined case with a pair of chased ivory pistols. Some photographs on the chimney-piece and on the gold brocade-covered piano arrested Wilhelm's attention. First of all, Pilar in two different positions, then the pictures of three children, a girl and two boys, and finally the full-length portrait of a gentleman in the embroidered ...
— The Malady of the Century • Max Nordau
... a woman of forty-eight, of an ample though still beautiful figure. Her flowing dress of white brocade made no attempt to compress, to sustain or to attenuate. No one could say that a woman who stood as she did, with the port of a goddess—the small head majestically poised over such shoulders and such a breast—was getting fat; yet no one could deny that there was redundancy. She was not ...
— Tante • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... wummin, "Lord Bellew's Bride" is finished. Everything was cleared up at the end, an' the young man Lord Bellew was jealous o' turns oot to be only her brither. The last chapter tells aboot the christenin' o' the heir, an' she wears a white brocade goon, trimmed wi' real pearls an' ostrich feathers. Fancy you an' me in a frock like that! Wad it no' mak' ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan
... steel retain their faithful gripe, and enormous energies run to and fro with an obedient click; while forces that tear the arteries of the earth and heave volcanoes, spin the fabric of an infant's robe, and weave the flowers in a lady's brocade. ...
— Humanity in the City • E. H. Chapin
... Her banquets, like Eve's, consisted of little beside fruits and herbs, and the only ornaments she could arrange in the apartments were flowers; but she had preserved the damask table-suit of her own spinning; and the gold brocade gown, received as an heir-loom from her mother, was in high preservation. She thought an exhibition of these would convince the rebel lady, that though the King's friends now wore sad-coloured camlet, they had once been people of consequence. ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... in the haunted midnight hours, When star-shells droop through the shattered trees, Steal they back to their ancient bowers, Beau Brocade and his Belle Marquise? Greatly loving and greatly daring— Fancy, perhaps, but the fancy grips, For a junior subaltern woke up swearing That a gracious ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, May 16, 1917. • Various
... display'd The beauties of the gay brocade, The nymphs, who found their power decline, Proclaim'd her not so fair as fine. 'Fate! snatch away the bright disguise, And let the goddess trust her eyes.' Thus blindly pray'd the fretful fair, And Fate, malicious, heard the prayer; ...
— Poetical Works of Johnson, Parnell, Gray, and Smollett - With Memoirs, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Samuel Johnson, Thomas Parnell, Thomas Gray, and Tobias Smollett
... attics and cellars. In beginning the world, friend Lionel, if you don't wish to get chafed at every turn, fold up your pride carefully, put it under lock and key, and only let it out to air upon grand occasions. Pride is a garment all stiff brocade outside, all grating sackcloth on the side next to the skin. Even kings don't wear the dalmaticum except at a coronation. Independence you desire; good. But are you dependent now? Your mother has given you an excellent education, and you have already ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... subject to ups and downs. For my part, I was speaking a la chaperon, my sole thought being to safeguard you from the disagreeable busy-bodies who misconstrue one's motives. And now, let us talk of something more amusing. You see that woman in old rose brocade—she is sitting with a bald-headed man at the third table on your left. Well, that is the Countess of Porthcawl, and the man with her is Roger Ducrot, the banker. Porthcawl is a most complaisant husband. He never comes within ...
— Cynthia's Chauffeur • Louis Tracy
... silver, of which my sleeves were likewise made; the fashion of the costume was copied from sundry pictures of Titian and Paul Veronese—the pointed body, cut square over the bosom and shoulders, with a full white muslin shirt drawn round my neck, and wide white sleeves within the large blue and silver brocade ones. Comprenez-vous all this? My head was covered with diamonds (not real; I'm anxious for my character), and what delighted me much more was that I had jewels in the roses of my shoes. I think if I had been Portia I never would have worn any ornaments but two large diamonds in my shoe ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... brightest fair That e'er deserved a watchful spirit's care; Some dire disaster, or by force, or flight; But what, or where, the Fates have wrapt in night. Whether the nymph shall break Diana's law, Or some frail China jar receive a flaw; Or stain her honour, or her new brocade; Forget her prayers, or miss a masquerade; Or lose her heart, or necklace, at a ball; Or whether Heaven has doom'd that Shock must fall, 110 Haste then, ye spirits! to your charge repair: The fluttering fan be Zephyretta's care; The drops to thee, ...
— The Poetical Works Of Alexander Pope, Vol. 1 • Alexander Pope et al
... in rough little Hillsboro. But her elder sister, Ann Mary, who was a tall girl of nineteen, remembered—or thought she remembered—big houses that were made all over of sawn planks, and chairs that were so shiny you could see your face in them or else stuffed and cushioned in brocade as soft—"as soft as a ...
— Hillsboro People • Dorothy Canfield
... exclamation-point at the bottom of a blank page. The room, rich and simple, was a place of perfection as well as of splendour in delicate tints, with precious specimens of French furniture of the last century ranged against walls of pale brocade, and here and there a small, almost priceless picture. George Dallow had made it, caring for these things and liking to talk about them—scarce ever about anything else; so that it appeared to represent him still, what was best in his kindly, limited nature, his friendly, ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James
... deserves the name of apparel (a word that before long will be inexplicable), was, on the evening in question, of costly brocade,—for Madame Soudry possessed over a hundred dresses, each richer than the others, the remains of Mademoiselle Laguerre's enormous and splendid wardrobe, made over to fit Madame Soudry in the last fashion of the year 1808. Her blond wig, frizzed ...
— Sons of the Soil • Honore de Balzac
... judge. Honoria asks All Wiltshire Belles here; Felix basks Like Puss in fire-shine, when the room Is thus aflame with female bloom. But then she smiles when most would pout; And so his lawless loves go out With the last brocade. 'Tis not the same, I fear, with Mrs. Frederick Graham. Honoria should not have her here,— And this you might just hint, my Dear,— For Felix says he never saw Such proof of what he holds for law, That 'beauty is love ...
— The Victories of Love - and Other Poems • Coventry Patmore
... high-living governor, gorgeous in scarlet and gold; British officers, redcoated and gold-laced, and all the neighboring gentry in the handsomest clothes that London credit could furnish. The bride was attired in silk and satin, laces and brocade, with pearls on her neck and in her ears; while the bridegroom appeared in blue and silver trimmed with scarlet, and with gold buckles at his knees and on his shoes. After the ceremony the bride was taken home in a coach and six, her husband riding beside her, mounted on a splendid ...
— George Washington, Vol. I • Henry Cabot Lodge
... the furniture, for she had made straight for the window on entering. She looked about her now. There were dark tapestries on the walls. There was a big polished table in the middle, and a dozen or more carved chairs, covered with faded brocade, were arranged in regular order on the three sides away from the windows. The high vault was roughly painted in fresco, with cherubs and garlands of flowers in the barbarous manner of Italian art fifty years ago. There was a low marble ...
— Taquisara • F. Marion Crawford
... doublets of violet satin, holding gilded staves in their hands. They paced before the Papal chair, a brave sight to see. And first there marched his guard, and then his grooms, who carried him aloft beneath a rich canopy of brocade, which was sustained by members of the College, while round about the chair walked the Signory." The procession moved onward to the Church of S. Maria del Fiore, where the Pope stayed to perform certain ceremonies at the high altar, after which he was carried to his apartments at S. ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds
... were bettered again before they appeared in his first play. For example, in "Dorian Gray" Lord Henry Wotton, who is peculiarly Oscar's mouthpiece, while telling how he had to bargain for a piece of old brocade in Wardour Street, adds, "nowadays people know the price of everything and the value of nothing." In "Lady Windermere's Fan" the same epigram is perfected, "The cynic is one who knows the price of everything and ...
— Oscar Wilde, Volume 1 (of 2) - His Life and Confessions • Frank Harris
... dependant of Belgravia, they set up their breathless Lares and panting Penates, and settled down with a sense of comfort that grew upon them day by day. The place undeniably had its charm, if not its merit. The drawing-room chairs were in a proper pattern of brocade, and, though abraded at their edges and corners, were of a tasteful frame; the armchairs, covered like the sofa in a cheerful cretonne, lent the parting guest the help of an outward incline; the sofa, heaped with cushions, could not conceal a broken spring, though it braved it out with the consciousness ...
— London Films • W.D. Howells
... obscure allusion to the TSO CHUAN, where Tzu-ch'an says: "If you have a piece of beautiful brocade, you will not employ a mere learner to ...
— The Art of War • Sun Tzu
... which had many points of interest. Foremost among these was the big four-poster which occupied a large space at my right. I had never seen its like in use before, and I was greatly attracted by its size and the air of mystery imparted to it by its closely drawn curtains of faded brocade. In fact, this bed, whether from its appearance or some occult influence inherent in it, had a fascination for me. I hesitated to approach it, yet could not forbear surveying it long and earnestly. Could it be possible that those curtains concealed some one in hiding behind them? ...
— The Filigree Ball • Anna Katharine Green
... Brunetta, rival beauties. Phyllis procured for a certain festival some marvellous fabric of gold brocade in order to eclipse her rival, but Brunetta dressed the slave who bore her train, in a robe of the same material and cut in precisely the same fashion, while she herself wore simple black. Phyllis died of mortification.—The Spectator ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... heart on Cornelio, the son of Ascanio Rotulo, whom you well know—a spruce young gallant, point-de-vice in his attire, with white hands, curly locks, mellifluous voice, amorous discourse—made up, in short, of amber and sugar-paste, garnished with plumes and brocade. She never cared to bestow a look on my less dainty face, nor to be touched in the least by my assiduous courtship; but repaid all my affection with disdain and abhorrence; whilst my love for her grew ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... cavern, Ali Baba was surprised to see a large chamber, well lighted from the top, and in it all sorts of provisions, rich bales of silk, stuff, brocade, and carpeting, gold and silver ingots in great heaps, and money ...
— The Children's Hour, v 5. Stories From Seven Old Favorites • Eva March Tappan
... and dart; astragal^, zigzag, acanthus, cartouche; pilaster &c (projection) 250; bead, beading; champleve ware [Fr.], cloisonne ware; frost work, Moresque [Lat.], Morisco, tooling. [ornamental cloth] embroidery; brocade, brocatelle^, galloon, lace, fringe, trapping, border, edging, trimming; hanging, tapestry, arras; millinery, ermine; drap d'or [Fr.]. wreath, festoon, garland, chaplet, flower, nosegay, bouquet, posy, daisies pied and violets blue, tassel, [Love's Labor's Lost], knot; shoulder ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... Saw ye ever such a maid, With the feathers swaling o'er her, And her spangled rich brocade? In her fairy hand a horsewhip, On her foot a buskin small, So she stepped, the stately damsel, Through the ...
— The Bon Gaultier Ballads • William Edmonstoune Aytoun
... all seized by the Austrians. Among them were four superb coaches, highly finished, varnished, and gilt; what is iron or brass in common carriages was here gold or silver-gilt. Two large chests were filled with stuff of gold brocade, India gold muslins, and shawls and laces of very great value. Eighty thousand louis d'or in ready money; a service of gold plate of twenty covers, which formerly belonged to the Kings of France; two small boxes full of diamonds and brilliants, the intrinsic worth ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... Marmion's train passed by, Looked on at first with careless eye, Nor marvelled aught, well taught to know The form and force of English bow; But when they saw the lord arrayed In splendid arms and rich brocade, Each Borderer to his kinsman said:- "Hist, Ringan! seest thou there! Canst guess which road they'll homeward ride? Oh! could we but on Border side, By Eusedale glen, or Liddell's tide, Beset a prize so fair! That fangless Lion, too, their guide, Might chance ...
— Marmion: A Tale of Flodden Field • Walter Scott
... one after the other, on the edge of a bench and shattered to fragments with our snow-balls. Thus perished, not without laughter and in a good cause, three archangels, two Dantes, a nondescript lady with brocade garments and a delectable amorino whose counterpart, the sole survivor, was reserved for a better fate—being carried home and presented as a gift to my ...
— Alone • Norman Douglas
... one. Against a background of harsh, dark blue, there stands out the figure of the Duchess (for it is Medea, the real Medea, a thousand times more real, individual, and powerful than in the other portraits), seated stiffly in a high-backed chair, sustained, as it were, almost rigid, by the stiff brocade of skirts and stomacher, stiffer for plaques of embroidered silver flowers and rows of seed pearl. The dress is, with its mixture of silver and pearl, of a strange dull red, a wicked poppy-juice color, against which the flesh ...
— Hauntings • Vernon Lee
... those aspiring to the proudest titles and birth of family. To describe the most imposing and costly dresses worn on this evening would be a difficult task. Ladies arrayed in the most gorgeous and priceless brocade and satins ablaze with diamonds and gems, snowy silks studded with pearls, velvet robes lined with costly furs and covered with lace at a fabulous price and texture, coronets of jewels, necklaces, bracelets, and beautiful trinkets, made the suggestion to a beholder that Heaven ...
— Lady Rosamond's Secret - A Romance of Fredericton • Rebecca Agatha Armour
... altogether possible for the woman who "does her own work" to be as "well set-up"—to borrow a sporting phrase from John—as her rich neighbor who can drag a train over Oriental rugs from the moment she rises to a late breakfast until she sweeps yards of brocade and velvet up the polished stairs after ball, ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland
... morning the sun was pouring in between her curtains of old brocade, and its refraction from the ripples of the Canal was drawing a network of golden scales across the vaulted ceiling. The maid had just placed a tray on a slim marquetry table near the bed, and over the edge of the tray Susy discovered the small serious face of Clarissa Vanderlyn. At the sight of ...
— The Glimpses of the Moon • Edith Wharton
... about twice as large as those we have in America. Everything is lovely outside. Inside, innumerable gems of art and mechanism cover the tables. . . . In the evening . . . the group of airily dressed children; the tender mother in her rich brocade and lace mantle; the happy father; the agreeable governess (Miss Cumberland is a remarkably accomplished person, and has been with the family fifteen years); the music, talk, and aesthetic tea,—it is a charming picture. . . . The grave butler brings in a tray with cups and ...
— Memories of Hawthorne • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop
... the Hunters', handsomely and artistically furnished. The woodwork and furniture are in the period of Louis XVI. The walls and furniture are covered with yellow brocade, and the curtains are of the same golden material. At the back are two large windows which give out on Fifth Avenue, opposite the Park, the trees of which are seen across the way. At Left is a double doorway, ...
— The Climbers - A Play in Four Acts • Clyde Fitch
... reply to Mrs. C., in which they requested her acceptance of the accompanying gift, as a slight testimonial of their high appreciation of an act so honourable and so rare as to call forth unqualified admiration. Accompanying the letter was sent a superb brocade silk dress, and some laces of exquisite texture and ...
— The Book of Three Hundred Anecdotes - Historical, Literary, and Humorous—A New Selection • Various
... of Bengal, under the administration established by Clive, did not yield such a surplus as had been anticipated by the Company; for, at that time, the most absurd notions were entertained in England respecting the wealth of India. Palaces of porphyry, hung with the richest brocade, heaps of pearls and diamonds, vaults from which pagodas and gold mohurs were measured out by the bushel, filled the imagination even of men of business. Nobody seemed to be aware of what nevertheless was most undoubtedly the truth, that India was a poorer country ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... green window seat in the corner is well supplied with pillows covered in green and gold brocade, and up and around the window there clambers ...
— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke
... work to be carried on with such diligence, and employed so many workmen, that the dome was soon finished. Within it was erected a tomb, which was covered with gold brocade. When all was completed, the sultan ordered prayers to be said, and appointed a day for the obsequies of ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 3 • Anon.
... yonder tent of pure and dazzling white, Whose rich brocade reflects a quivering light; An ebon seat surmounts the ivory throne; There frowns in state a warrior of renown. The crowding slaves his awful nod obey, And silver moons around his banners play; What Chief, or Prince, has grasped the hostile sword? Friburz, the son of Persia's ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 1,Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous
... masquers; whose costumes if not gotten up on strict historical lines, made up any lack by the variety of other contrivances, each one following his own sweet will in dressing. They had gone through with the minuet and the pantomimes; and Charlotte, in a peaked hat and a big flowered brocade gown rich with tambour lace, had sung "like a nightingale," as more than one declared, and now the room was in a ...
— Five Little Peppers Grown Up • Margaret Sidney
... Daphne's chamber that she went first. "Oh, Miss Heritage," she began, quite pleasantly, "I'm going to ask you to do something for me. I don't at all like the effect of those jewels they've sewn on to the front of my satin-brocade. I'm sure they would look much better on my cloth-of-gold skirt. Would you mind getting both skirts from my wardrobe and just making the necessary alterations for me? You had better set to work at once, as I may be requiring the cloth-of-gold ...
— In Brief Authority • F. Anstey
... sleeves, and large coloured bibs or plastrons which they call "pieces," of the same stuff as their dresses. The girls' aprons are plain, without pockets, but the women's are of coloured silk, some of a rich brocade. A shawl with fringed border completes the costume. Some of the women had their heads and shoulders wrapped up in a triangular, black, shaggy ...
— Brittany & Its Byways • Fanny Bury Palliser
... The carpet on the floor was costly, but hideous as staring colours and execrable design could make it. The furniture was cumbrous, and the fact that the ugly chairs were rosewood, and their cushions brocade, made them neither beautiful nor comfortable. On the bureau were some bottles of red Bohemian glass, such as were thought handsome fifty years ago; an elephant of a writing-desk, staring with plush and gilding, almost covered the table. Altogether, the ...
— Peggy • Laura E. Richards
... Spring has a winter home, wherein she dwells contentedly while the northern land is locked in the chill embrace of the Snow King. In February, unless the north wind sweeps down jealously and stays her hand, she flings a golden brocade of poppies over the green hillsides and the lower slopes which the forest has left her. Time was when she spread a deep-piled carpet of mustard over the floor of the valley as well, and watched smiling while it grew thicker ...
— The Gringos • B. M. Bower
... and we shall have to dine at seven, and keep as we are, I suppose?" with a glance at the stately folds of her brocade dress. ...
— The Village by the River • H. Louisa Bedford
... naturally, using beautiful language. He was most interesting when he told us about the Commune, and all the horrors of that time in Paris. He was in the Tuileries when the mob sacked and burned the palace; saw the femmes de la halle sitting on the brocade and satin sofas, saying, "C'est nous les princesses maintenant"; saw the entrance of the troops from Versailles, and the quantity of innocent people shot who were merely standing looking on at the barricades, having never had a gun ...
— Chateau and Country Life in France • Mary King Waddington
... of his family. But in such things Judge Bengt had a will of his own and he married Sigrid without Birger's consent. This so displeased the proud jarl that he sent Bengt a cloak, half of which was made of gold brocade and the other of coarse and common baize. This was in token of the difference in rank of the families of Bengt and Sigrid and a significant hint that he should separate ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 9 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality. Scandinavian. • Charles Morris
... which opened various rooms—a library, with a wood fire, the latest possible London and Paris papers, a flat-topped desk and a large map; a very large drawing-room, which is Sir John French's private office, with white walls panelled with rose brocade, a marble mantel, and a great centre table, covered, like the library desk, with papers; a dining room, wainscoted and comfortable. There were other rooms, which I did not see. In the square hall an orderly sat all day, waiting for ...
— Kings, Queens And Pawns - An American Woman at the Front • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... in America, wished to know how you dress. That seemed to be their principal interest. I wasn't able to tell them—but they seemed to have the right idea: that you never wear anything less than black brocade." ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 2 (of 2) • Henry James
... kingdoms, the protection of damsels, the succour of orphans and minors, the chastisement of the proud, and the recompense of the humble. With the knights of these days, for the most part, it is the damask, brocade, and rich stuffs they wear, that rustle as they go, not the chain mail of their armour; no knight now-a-days sleeps in the open field exposed to the inclemency of heaven, and in full panoply from head to foot; no one now takes a nap, as they call ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... had been reserving herself, he felt that so graceful an impulse needed no special explanation. She had the art of making it seem quite natural that they should move away together to the remotest of Mrs. Boykin's far-drawn salons, and that there, in a glaring privacy of brocade and ormolu, she should turn to him with a smile which avowed her intentional ...
— Madame de Treymes • Edith Wharton
... healthful, and whose conscience clear, Because he wants a thousand pounds a year. Honour and shame from no condition rise; Act well your part, there all the honour lies. Fortune in men has some small difference made, One flaunts in rags, one flutters in brocade; The cobbler aproned, and the parson gowned, The friar hooded, and the monarch crowned, "What differ more (you cry) than crown and cowl?" I'll tell you, friend! a wise man and a fool. You'll find, ...
— Essay on Man - Moral Essays and Satires • Alexander Pope
... empress should be seated in the chairs. The platform is intended for the military, while the seats should be filled with dignitaries, officers, and ladies. The empress's costume consists of a rich brocade, heavily ornamented with jewelry, gold or silver lace, and any other decoration that will be appropriate, and will add to the richness of the costume. A small crown should adorn the head, which can be made showy by using paste pins of various sizes. The emperor's costume consists of a blue velvet ...
— Home Pastimes; or Tableaux Vivants • James H. Head
... Sir G. Birdwood tells us of patterns of an Indian brocade called "Chundtara" (moon and stars), figured all over ...
— Needlework As Art • Marian Alford
... there in her gown of brocade, beautifully flowered in peach color, dainty, confident, challenging me to note one fault. Nor could I, from the gold hair-pegs in her hair to the tip of her slim, pompadour shoes peeping from the lace of her ...
— The Maid-At-Arms • Robert W. Chambers
... they should bring splendid presents for the hero. The presents were these: A throne of turquoise, adorned with rams' heads; a royal crown set about with jewels; a robe of brocade of gold, such as is worn by the King of kings; a bracelet and a chain of gold; a hundred maidens, with faces fair as the full moon, and girdles of gold; a hundred youths, whose hair was fragrant with musk; a hundred horses, harnessed with gold and silver; a hundred mules with ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 2 (of 12) • Various
... dress?" she asked, opening the parcel; but her fingers would tremble a little, in spite of her will. And then, as the rich folds of the black brocade came into view, she asked, in a business-like tone, in what style Mrs. Cheyne would wish it made, and how soon she required it. To all of which Mrs. Cheyne responded in the same dry, curt manner; and then the usual process of ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey
... must pay a ransom, the sum being fixed at three thousand ducats. This amount was paid instanter, and the captives were at once released. As they approached Rome, they were met by Alexander, who was attired as a layman, in black and gold brocade, with his dagger at his belt. When Ludovico Sforza heard what had happened, he remarked, with a smile, that the ransom was much too small, and that if the sum of fifty thousand ducats had been demanded it would have been paid with equal readiness, as these ladies were ...
— Women of the Romance Countries • John R. Effinger
... of the White Lady hanging in a Gothic passage near his room, among other ancestral portraits, and it by no means made a terrible impression on anyone who looked at it, but rather the contrary. The ghost, dressed in stiff, gold brocade and purple velvet, and with a hawk on her wrist, looked like one of those seductive Amazons of the fifteenth century, who exercised the art of laying men and game at their feet with ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume IV (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... Massachusetts, or abalone shells, or burnt-leather pillows, or a whole collection of photographic views so minute that they could all be packed in a single walnut shell. Next door were shops of Japanese and Chinese goods presided over by suave, sleepy-eyed Orientals, in wonderful brocade, wearing the close cap with the red coral button atop. Shooting galleries spit ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White
... impose a high tax on those articles (570). A multitude of new and for the most part frivolous articles—silver plate elegantly figured, table-couches with bronze mounting, Attalic dresses as they were called, and carpets of rich gold brocade—now found their way to Rome. Above all, this new luxury appeared in the appliances of the table. Hitherto without exception the Romans had only partaken of hot dishes once a day; now hot dishes were not unfrequently produced at the second meal (-prandium-), and for the principal ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... much altered as the surroundings, was comfortable without luxury, as will be understood by a glance round the room where the little party were now assembled. A pretty Aubusson carpet, hangings of gray cotton twill bound with green silk brocade, the woodwork painted to imitate Spa wood, carved mahogany furniture covered with gray woolen stuff and green gimp, with flower-stands, gay with flowers in spite of the time of year, presented a very pleasing and homelike aspect. ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... reluctantly. But Madame Dravikine held them all in awe, and before her they did not dare the protest that their Princess might have listened to. When the sisters were alone, they crossed the room together and seated themselves on a great sofa upholstered in a beautifully faded old brocade, made before the birth of the great Catharine. And while Caroline, mindful of her fresh gauzes, sat upright, like a bird poised for flight, her sister lay back, wearily, crushing the veil of her headdress against ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... put on the pretty kirtle or vasquin of pure silk camlet: above that went the taffety or tabby farthingale, of white, red, tawny, grey, or of any other colour. Above this taffety petticoat they had another of cloth of tissue or brocade, embroidered with fine gold and interlaced with needlework, or as they thought good, and according to the temperature and disposition of the weather had their upper coats of satin, damask, or velvet, and those either orange, tawny, green, ash-coloured, blue, yellow, bright red, ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... and just one graceful piece of furniture—Una's dressing-table; a room pervasively feminine in its scent and in the little piles of lingerie which Mrs. Golden affected more, not less, as she grew older. The living-room, with stiff, brown, woolen brocade chairs, transplanted from their Panama home, a red plush sofa, two large oak-framed Biblical pictures—"The Wedding-feast at Cana," and "Solomon in His Temple." This living-room had never been changed since the day of their moving in. Una repeatedly coveted the German color-prints she saw in ...
— The Job - An American Novel • Sinclair Lewis
... gilt. The housings of the mule were of fine crimson cloth; the borders embroidered with gold; the reins and head-piece were of satin, curiously embossed with needlework of silk, and wrought with golden letters. The queen wore a brial or regal skirt of velvet, under which were others of brocade; a scarlet mantle, ornamented in the Moresco fashion; and a black hat, embroidered round the ...
— Washington Irving • Charles Dudley Warner
... room received its latest guest with a first glow of pseudo-hospitality, a hectic, haggard, perfunctory welcome like the specious smile of a demirep. The sophistical comfort came in reflected gleams from the decayed furniture, the ragged brocade upholstery of a couch and two chairs, a foot-wide cheap pier glass between the two windows, from one or two gilt picture frames and a brass bedstead in ...
— The Four Million • O. Henry
... rich as an air from Verdi played on the piano; tender green velvet, pastoral as hautboys heard beneath trees in a fair Arcadian vale; blue turquoise faille fanciful as the tinkling of a guitar twanged by a Watteau shepherd; gold brocade, sumptuous as organ tones swelling through the jewelled twilight of a nave; scarves and trains of midnight-blue profound as the harmonic snoring of a bassoon; golden daffodils violent as the sound of a cornet; bouquets of pink roses and daisies, charmful ...
— Muslin • George Moore
... who represented long and well the royal matronhood of England, the Duchess of Cambridge, was, along with her Duke, prevented from being present at the Queen's ball in consequence of a recent death in her family. The Duchess of Kent wore a striped and "flowered" brocade, with quantities of black lace relieving the white satin of her train. The Duchess of Gloucester, sweet pretty Princess Mary of more than fifty years before, came in the character of a much less happy woman, Marie Leczinska, the queen of Louis XV. She must have looked ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen, (Victoria) Vol II • Sarah Tytler
... worthy of her face, was extremely magnificent; it consisted of a robe of gold-and-silver brocade, and a mantle of nacarat velvet, lined with vair. Her head-dress was a sort of hennin, with two high points; and pearls of splendid lustre made it bright and luminous as a crescent moon. Her little white hand held a wand. That wand drew my attention ...
— The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard • Anatole France
... is the Lady in gay brocade who followed the Knight with the red cockade who rode on the Horse that pranced and neighed when he saw the Woodman sober and staid who slung the Ax with a shining blade that chopped the Tree of a dusky shade that gave the Wood that heated the Oven that baked ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf; a Practical Plan of Character Building, Volume I (of 17) - Fun and Thought for Little Folk • Various
... smiled. "Well, we had our pretty things. Alice's dresses are lovely, but she hasn't anything more elegant than my second day dress. It was a brown and silver silk brocade with thread lace chemisette and under sleeves. And my next best was apple green and pink changeable, trimmed in yards and yards of narrow black velvet ribbon all sewed ...
— Chicken Little Jane on the Big John • Lily Munsell Ritchie
... Grove who spoke. She was dressed in grey, a gown cut away from sheer points on her shoulders, with a girdle of small gilt roses, her hair in a binding of grey brocade and amber ornaments; and above her elbows were bands ...
— Cytherea • Joseph Hergesheimer
... of grey taffeta or brocade, bunched at the back and trailing on the ground; there were ruffles, of priceless lace at the elbow-sleeves and V-shaped neck; a plain straw poke-bonnet served for all outdoor functions, and an ebony stick, called "the ...
— The Hawk of Egypt • Joan Conquest
... why he could live without his wedded wife and her gold and her brocade, and the silk and the Persian rugs, and the grand piano and the carriages and the high silk hat from Piccadilly. Her husband had had the luxuries of wealth, and here he was living like a Spartan on his hill— and ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... tied with leather thongs, once shone in rainbow hues of satin slippers and silken hose. A sunbonnet for the tiara of osprey plumes; a dress spun and woven by her own hand out of her own flax, instead of the stiff brocade; log hut for manor-house; one negro boy instead of troops of servants: to have possessed all that, to have been brought down to all this, and not to have been ruined by it, never to have lost distinction or been coarsened by coarseness never to have parted with grace of manner or grace of spirit, ...
— The Choir Invisible • James Lane Allen
... the top of the old ballad: which always leaves you in a state of uncertainty whether the ingenious professor has cleaned one half, or dirtied the other. The furniture of this sala is a sort of red brocade. All the chairs are immovable, and the sofa weighs ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens
... brocade, and pinch'd in stays, Her patches, paint, and jewels on; All day let envy view her face, And ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... shimmering waters rimmed with velvety green. Every raindrop on the pines was a prism; the mountain a brocade of blossom. To the right Fuji, the graceful, ever lovely Fuji; capricious as a coquette and bewitching in her mystery, with a thumbnail moon over her peak, like a silver tiara on the head of a proud beauty; at her base the last fleecy clouds of the day, gathered like worshipers ...
— The Lady and Sada San - A Sequel to The Lady of the Decoration • Frances Little
... records bearing witness to their good blood, their "maintenances de noblesse," which they considered as much a family necessity as a house and furniture. From the records of their baptisms, marriages and deaths, from bits of old furniture, jewelry, glass, old miniatures, portraits, scraps of silk and brocade, flimsy fragments and the like, the author has made an interesting story and well illustrated it. There is a regret that some of these achievements of the past are so deeply hidden for the lack of records to throw light thereupon ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 6, 1921 • Various
... in which Cleopatra sat among red cushions, fanned by two pretty maids. Julia's black eyes sparkled as she glanced about her, feeling very queen-like with a golden crown on her head, all the jewelry she could muster on her neck and arms, and grandmother's yellow brocade shining in the light. Belle and Grace waved their peacock fans like two comely little Egyptian damsels, and the many-colored lanterns made a pretty ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag, Vol. 5 - Jimmy's Cruise in the Pinafore, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... women removed her wraps and proceeded to get her in readiness for the night. Herman watched the proceedings with a curiosity not unmingled with superstitious fear. When at last she was attired in cap and gown, the old woman looked less uncanny than when she wore her ball-dress of blue brocade. ...
— The Queen Of Spades - 1901 • Alexander Sergeievitch Poushkin
... it is ten to one but you learn something of her gown and petticoat. A ball is a great help to discourse, and a birthday furnishes conversation for a twelvemonth after. A furbelow of precious stones, a hat buttoned with a diamond, a brocade waistcoat or petticoat, are standing topics. In short, they consider only the drapery of the species, and never cast away a thought on those ornaments of the mind that make persons illustrious in themselves and ...
— Essays and Tales • Joseph Addison
... was just closing the door upon her. As she turned back, she heard steps on the stairs and, looking up, saw a sight she loved always afterward to remember. Two little Old World ladies, one in white and brocade, the other in flowered pink satin, came down the winding stairs, their eyes bright with excitement, their hair rough, and the big blue hair-ribbons, which they had quite forgotten to remove, showing incongruously above their ...
— The Wide Awake Girls in Winsted • Katharine Ellis Barrett
... waits him there? To see profusion that he must not share/ 310 To see ten thousand baneful arts combin'd To pamper luxury, and thin mankind; To see those joys the sons of pleasure know Extorted from his fellow creature's woe. Here, while the courtier glitters in brocade, 315 There the pale artist plies the sickly trade; Here, while the proud their long-drawn pomps display, There the black gibbet glooms beside the way. The dome where Pleasure holds her midnight reign Here, richly deck'd, admits ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith
... walls are hung with Brussels tapestry, representing the gardens of Versailles as they were at the time. The chimney-piece, which is sculptured of verde antique and white marble, supports two black marble vases on its mantel. Over the mantel-piece is a full-length portrait of Queen Anne, in a rich brocade dress, wearing the collar and jewels of the Garter, bearing in one hand a sceptre, and in the other a globe. There are two splendid buhl cabinets in the room, and a table of costly stone from Italy; it is mounted on a ...
— Sunny Memories Of Foreign Lands, Volume 1 (of 2) • Harriet Elizabeth (Beecher) Stowe
... bridegroom, the bride's brother and eighteen other patrician youths, assembled in the Palazzo Balbi, whence they went on horseback to conduct Lucrezia to the Ducal Palace. They were all sumptuously dressed in crimson velvet and silver brocade of Alexandria, and rode chargers superbly caparisoned. Other noble friends attended them; musicians went before; a troop of soldiers brought up the rear. They thus proceeded to the court-yard of the Ducal ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells
... had missed from the tree. Elise had a great many gifts—exquisite trifles sent to her by sophisticated friends—a wine-jug of seventeenth-century Venetian glass, a bag of Chinese brocade with handles of carved ivory, a pair of ancient silver buckles, a box of rare lacquer filled with Oriental sweets, a jade pendant, a crystal ball on a bronze base—all of them lovely, all to be exclaimed over; but the things I wanted were drums and horns and ...
— The Gay Cockade • Temple Bailey
... the swallow-tailed coat he wore, which had evidently been made for a much larger man; the sleeves came to his finger tips, and the tails touched his heels. The cloth of which it was made was very fine dark blue, with buttons of brass. His waistcoat of maroon brocade came half way to his knees. Warm as the day was he wore a broad tie of plaid silk arranged in a bow, above which a white muslin collar rose to his ears. He was evidently an ancient beau of the plantations in ...
— The Bondwoman • Marah Ellis Ryan
... entirely composed of the manufactures of Spitalfields. Over a skirt with a demi-train of ponceau velvet edged with fur there was a surcoat of brocade in blue and gold lined with miniver (only her Majesty wore this royal fur). From the stomacher a band of jewels on gold tissue descended. A mantle of gold and silver brocade lined with miniver was so fastened that ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen V.1. • Sarah Tytler
... of the disaster that had befallen Talia, after weeping bitterly, he placed her in that palace in the country, upon a velvet seat under a canopy of brocade; and fastening the doors, he quitted for ever the place which had been the cause of such misfortune to him, in order to drive all remembrance of it ...
— Stories from Pentamerone • Giambattista Basile
... dishes on the table, madame became greatly embarrassed. 'That is a dinner,' she said, 'that ought to be ashamed of showing its mean face in the presence of two little princesses so beautiful, and dressed in brocade! Why, it is nothing but an omelet and a salad.' And she then cut off a small piece of the omelet and put it among the green leaves of the salad. We looked on, and the dish seemed by far more desirable to us than the imperial ox. In spite of our brocade dresses, we were not at all ashamed of ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach
... odds and ends. It was a very small slipper, nearly new, with high pointed heel and a square jet buckle at the instep: evidently of foreign make, and cut after the arch pattern of the slippers we see peeping from the flowered brocade skirts of Sir Peter Lely's full-length ladies. It was such an absurd shoe, a toy shoe, a ...
— The Queen of Sheba & My Cousin the Colonel • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... came Doctor Sackett and Culver. The room was flooded with light—the infinite light of the late-spring afternoon reflected on the white enamel and white brocade of walls and furniture. On the floor in the heaps and coils ...
— The Cost • David Graham Phillips
... to please and flatter than to analyse. [Sidenote: Titian, c. 1490-1576] But withal there is often a truth to nature that make many {678} of the portraits of that time like the day of judgment in their revelation of character. Titian's splendid harmonies of scarlet silk and crimson satin and gold brocade and purple velvet and silvery fur enshrine many a blend of villainies and brutal stupidities. What is more cruelly realistic than the leer of the satyr clothed as Francis, King of France; than the bovine dullness of Charles V and the lizard-like dullness of his son; or than that strange combination ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... were doubtless the reason of the Queen's uneasy mood, and she vented her ill-humour upon her tire-women, boxing their ears if they failed to please her in the erection of her head-gear, or did not arrange the stiff folds of her gold-embroidered brocade over the ...
— Penshurst Castle - In the Days of Sir Philip Sidney • Emma Marshall
... wanting, this young attorney later became chief justice of the United States Supreme Court and wrote a decision that reversed the former action. All these and many other facts and events went into Mrs. Stowe's mind as raw silk, and came out tapestry and brocade. The fuel of events fed the flames of enthusiasm. It was a great age, when men had to speak. The time was ripe, the soil was ready, God gave the good seed of liberty, and the sower ...
— The Battle of Principles - A Study of the Heroism and Eloquence of the Anti-Slavery Conflict • Newell Dwight Hillis
... rapid, but almost noiseless motion, through one of the broad streets of a fashionable quarter of the city. The light which flickered down from the silver coach-lamps revealed magnificent hangings of brocade and velvet, looped back with twisted cords of silk and silver thread. The driver and footman were clad in livery which corresponded with the elegant style of the equipage. They turned in a broad, aristocratic-looking ...
— May Brooke • Anna H. Dorsey
... monarch. The King, who was sitting at a table, rose for a moment and encouraged me by his greeting. I made the three pauses and three reverences as I gradually approached Madame de Maintenon, who occupied a large and rich armchair of brocade. She did not rise; etiquette forbade it, and principally the presence of the all-powerful King of kings. Her complexion, ordinarily pale, and with a very slight tone of pink, was animated suddenly, and took all the colours of the rose. She made me a sign to seat myself on a stool, and it ...
— The Memoirs of Madame de Montespan, Complete • Madame La Marquise De Montespan
... day, and how brave and bright Mrs. James was, selling off the pretty old things which she had loved: heirlooms of her family and her husband's; old clocks, old vases, old ornaments, and jewels, old china and glass, old samplers and bits of embroidery or brocade, old furniture, old pictures and transparencies, and everything of value except old books, which she adored because his library had been her husband's life. It was clever of her, I think, to group the treasures together in the little drawing-room with its oak panelling ...
— The Heather-Moon • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... to his tailor and his valet, "rather rich than gaudy," (as Miss Byron said of Sir Charles Grandison,) except in the grand article of the waistcoat, a brocade brode of resplendent lustre, which combined both qualities. His shoes were bright with the new French blacking, and his jewellery, rings, studs, brooches, and chains (for he wore two, that belonging to ...
— The London Visitor • Mary Russell Mitford
... to confront, or be confronted by, an austere lady in stiff satin or brocade and with bristling iron-gray hair! He noticed, however, that unlike the maid, she had a ...
— A Man and His Money • Frederic Stewart Isham
... all the seams with red silk, and strewn with tiny silver flowers; in morocco shoes, with high iron heels—danced the gorlitza as swimmingly as peacocks, and as wildly as the whirlwind; how the youths—with their ship-shaped caps upon their heads, the crowns of gold brocade, with a little slit at the nape where the hair-net peeped through, and two horns projecting, one in front and another behind, of the very finest black lambskin; in kuntushas of the finest blue silk with red borders—stepped forward one by one, ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: Russian • Various
... healthy, demands for food is Sun-light, that invaluable medicine for all forms of nervous disease, which Americans, more than any other people, curtain carefully out for fear of fading carpets and furniture. But what are French moquettes, brocade, or satin, compared with rosy cheeks, clear complexions, and steady nerves? If we would only draw up the shades, open the shutters, and loop the heavy curtains out of the way, or, better still, take them down altogether, might we not look for a marked ...
— The Education of American Girls • Anna Callender Brackett
... immediate craving for his dinner, and Judge Marshall's fine, thin face no longer looked so "well-preserved" as he prided himself that it did. As for Dexter Sprague, he almost folded up against the coral brocade draperies. It was the women, oddly enough, who kept the ...
— Murder at Bridge • Anne Austin
... up into what had once been the priest's narrow seat, Bubbles called out that it was delightfully nice and quiet in there, as well as dark—for there still hung over the aperture through which she had just passed a curtain of green silk brocade embroidered ...
— From Out the Vasty Deep • Mrs. Belloc Lowndes
... was lighted up and thronged with the most motley crowd, and the usual mixture of holy and profane, which we know at the Catholic fetes also; but more prononce here. Dancing girls, glittering with gold brocade and coins, swaggered about among the brown-shirted fellaheen, and the profane singing of the Alateeyeh mingled with the songs in honour of the Arab prophet chanted by the Moonsheeds and the deep tones of the 'Allah, Allah' of ...
— Letters from Egypt • Lucie Duff Gordon
... upper story, approached by a ladder and also by an external staircase, was sacred to Judith; Tita occupied some outbuildings. The sitting-room was hung with rich stuffs of warm and glowing colours; here and there fitful rays of the sun flickered upon gold brocade and Oriental embroidery; rugs and mats, which must have been offered for sale in the bazaars of Egypt and Morocco, were littered about in strange contrast with the bracken-strewed floor. On the ...
— The Forest of Vazon - A Guernsey Legend Of The Eighth Century • Anonymous
... Bernard was talking to Mrs. Jack Bendish, for the sufficient reason that she disliked him and disliked talking to any one while Laura played. Her defiant sparkle, her gipsy features, her slim white shoulders emerging from the brocade and sapphires of a sleeveless bodice cut open almost to her waist, produced the effect of a Carolus Duran lady come to life and threw Laura back into a dimmed and tired middle age. Jack's eyes glowed as they dwelt on her. His marriage had been a trial ...
— Nightfall • Anthony Pryde
... a long, rather low room, hung with an old French paper of nondescript grey, upon which were some water-colours which were supposed to be valuable. The carpet was of faded green, with ferns and roses. The curtains were of thick crimson brocade under a gilt canopy. There was a large Chippendale mirror, undoubtedly valuable, over the white marble mantelpiece, upon which were three great vases of blue Worcester and some Dresden china figures. The furniture was upholstered ...
— The Squire's Daughter - Being the First Book in the Chronicles of the Clintons • Archibald Marshall
... lists until the end of the jousts". Dinner was then served, amid a scene of unparalleled splendour, and Chieregati avers that the "guests remained at table for seven hours by the clock". The display of costume on the King's part was equally varied and gorgeous. On one occasion he wore "stiff brocade in the Hungarian fashion," on another, he "was dressed in white damask in the Turkish fashion, the above-mentioned robe all embroidered with roses, made of rubies and diamonds"; on a third, he "wore royal robes down to the ground, of gold brocade lined with ermine"; while "all the ...
— Henry VIII. • A. F. Pollard
... cleared, which was between three and four o'clock in the morning, the bride was presented with the gift sent by the illustrious Duke of Milan; it consisted of five different pieces of gold brocade and two rings, a diamond and a ruby, the whole worth a thousand ducats. Thereupon I presented your Highness's gift with suitable words of congratulation on the marriage and good wishes for the future, together with the offer of your services. The present greatly pleased ...
— Lucretia Borgia - According to Original Documents and Correspondence of Her Day • Ferdinand Gregorovius
... ever. The exquisite gentlemen of the finest breeding wore little pendent trinkets that chinked as they languidly moved; these golden fetters rang like precious little bells; and what with that ringing, and with the rustle of silk and brocade and fine linen, there was a flutter in the air that fanned Saint Antoine and his ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... as those fibres in their raw state, came from Asia to Europe. Dozens of names of Eastern origin still remain to describe the silk, cotton, hair, and mixed fabrics which came to Europe from China, India, Cashmere, and the cities of Persia, Arabia, Syria, and Asia Minor. Brocade, damask, taffeta, sendal, satin, camelot, buckram, muslin, and many varieties of carpets, rugs, and hangings, which were woven in various parts of those lands, have always since retained the names of the places ...
— European Background Of American History - (Vol. I of The American Nation: A History) • Edward Potts Cheyney
... set forth at daybreak he was splendidly equipped in every way with horses, servants, armour, and clothes suitable to his position. As we have seen, dress was a very expensive thing in those days, when gentlemen of rank wore velvet, brocade, and satin, both for evening and riding costume as a matter ...
— Bayard: The Good Knight Without Fear And Without Reproach • Christopher Hare
... is King, you know, the King of Naples. The father ceded Naples, that the son Being a King, might wed a Queen—O he Flamed in brocade—white satin his trunk-hose, Inwrought with silver,—on his neck a collar, Gold, thick with diamonds; hanging down from this The Golden Fleece—and round his knee, misplaced, Our English Garter, studded with great emeralds, Rubies, I know ...
— Queen Mary and Harold • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... indeed, was the exception, and rich with such profusion as Jenny Cadine or Madame Schontz might have displayed. There were lace curtains, cashmere hangings, brocade portieres, a set of chimney ornaments modeled by Stidmann, a glass cabinet filled with dainty nicknacks. Hulot could not bear to see his Valerie in a bower of inferior magnificence to the dunghill of gold and pearls owned by a Josepha. The drawing-room was furnished with red ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac |
