"Circassian" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Rogers, "from Portland to see you. I expected them some weeks ago, but they disappointed me. They arrived on the Circassian last night; they expected to have got in five days ago, but ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... a slight blush adds to the beauty of a maiden's face; and the Circassian women who are capable of blushing, invariably fetch a higher price in the seraolio of the Sultan than less susceptible women.[32] But the firmest believer in the efficacy of sexual selection will hardly ...
— The Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals • Charles Darwin
... on the other liberty, peace of mind, affluence, social enjoyments, honorable distinctions. Strange to say, the only hesitation was on the part of Frances. Dr. Burney was transported out of himself with delight. Not such are the raptures of a Circassian father who has sold his pretty daughter well to a Turkish slave-merchant. Yet Dr. Burney was an amiable man, a man of good abilities, a man who had seen much of the world. But he seems to have thought that going to court was like going to heaven; that to see princes and princesses ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... calls herself a 'princess' does she?" returned the man, grinning again at Ruth in an offensive way. "Well, I have managed a South Sea Island chief, a pair of Circassian twins, and a bunch of Eskimos, in my time. I guess I know how to act in the presence of ...
— Ruth Fielding on the St. Lawrence - The Queer Old Man of the Thousand Islands • Alice B. Emerson
... the whole Reading is, not Polly—the small puss turns out to be such a cunningly reticent little emissary—but her Doll, a "lovely specimen of Circassian descent, possessing as much boldness of beauty as was reconcileable with extreme feebleness of mouth," and combining a sky-blue pelisse with rose-coloured satin trousers, and a black velvet hat, "the latter seemingly founded on the portraits of the late ...
— Charles Dickens as a Reader • Charles Kent
... grace, and love. "Come, faded belles, who would your youth renew, And learn the wonders of Olympian dew; Restore the roses that begin to faint, Nor think celestial washes vulgar paint; Your former features, airs, and arts assume, Circassian virtues, with Circassian bloom. Come, battered beaux, whose locks are turned to gray, And crop Discretion's lying badge away; Read where they vend these smart engaging things, These flaxen frontlets with elastic springs; No ...
— The Village and The Newspaper • George Crabbe
... their hinder parts from their African congeners. Not many women along the sunny roads which seem white hot. Some of the feminine types are, however, sufficiently remarkable, dressed out in a quasi-military costume, wearing soft boots and a cartouche belt in the Circassian style. You must take care of the stray dogs, hungry brutes with long hair and disquieting fangs, of a breed reminding one of the dogs of the Caucasus, and these animals—according to Boulangier the ...
— The Adventures of a Special Correspondent • Jules Verne
... thousand troops being under arms. In the uniformity of size and build of the men, exactness of equipment, and precision of movement, it would be difficult to imagine anything more perfect. All sense of the individual soldier was lost in the grand sweep and wheel and march of the columns. The Circassian chiefs, in their steel skull-caps and shirts of chain mail, seemed to have ridden into their places direct from the Crusades. The Cossacks of the Don, the Ukraine, and the Ural managed their little brown or black horses (each regiment having its own color) so wonderfully, that, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various
... the same species of animal has the same parasite, wherever it may be found. According to Latreille, the pediculus found in the woolly heads of African negroes 'is sufficiently distinct from that of the Circassian to entitle it to the rank of a distinct species;' from which, and similar instances, the doctor concludes: 'Whatever may be urged in behalf of the hypothesis of the unity of the animal creation, based upon the alleged ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 426 - Volume 17, New Series, February 28, 1852 • Various
... exerted their usual inspiriting influence, and we began gradually to take a more cheerful view of the situation. Summoning the taiyon, and quickening his dull apprehension with a preliminary pipe of strong Circassian tobacco, we succeeded in making arrangements for our transportation to the next Korak encampment in the north, a distance of about forty miles. Orders were at once given for the capture of twenty reindeer and the preparation of sledges. Snatching hurriedly ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... splendid bearing. The women particularly gaped at him as though he were a wild animal, but he went his way gloomily without paying attention to any one. He was accompanied by two servants, one a negro, completely dressed in red satin, and the other a Circassian in his full gleaming uniform. Suddenly he saw Wanda, and fixed his cold piercing look upon her; he even turned his head after her, and when she had passed, he stood still and followed ...
— Venus in Furs • Leopold von Sacher-Masoch
... (official); Kurdish, Armenian, Aramaic, Circassian widely understood; French, English ...
— The 2007 CIA World Factbook • United States
... attended the sultan to the pillar El-Serujah, in order to have the whole matter exactly laid before her, and then took counsel with her most trusty female slaves. She chose, and in a moment rejected, this means and that; at length, Melechsalah, an old and cunning Circassian, spoke. ...
— The Oriental Story Book - A Collection of Tales • Wilhelm Hauff
... always take the most time. Kitty's red hair was curled in thirty-four ringlets, Sarah Maud's was braided in one pig-tail, and Susan's and Eily's in two braids apiece, while Peoria's resisted all advances in the shape of hair oils and stuck out straight on all sides, like that of the Circassian girl of the circus—so Clem said; and he was sent into the bed-room for it too, from whence he was dragged out forgivingly by Peoria herself, five minutes later. Then—exciting moment—came linen collars ...
— The Birds' Christmas Carol • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... with a healthy, clear complexion, a good deal bronzed with the sun; teeth as white as pearls, and as even as possible; rather a wide, but very prettily shaped mouth; fine nose; cheeks oval and richly tinted; fine black eyes filbert shaped, and delicately-pencilled eyebrows, perfectly Circassian; a small white forehead, and shining black hair in braids: the expression of her smile was the most simple and innocent imaginable, and the total absence of anything like thought or intellect, made her face a ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... with grain from Odessa, coming down from the Black Sea; for the vessels of ancient shape and build, such as the Argonauts might have sailed in when questing for the Golden Fleece; for the graceful caiques rowed by boatmen in zouaves of crimson and gold, in the sterns of which the flower of Circassian beauty in gossamer veils reclined on divans and carpets from the most famous looms of Persia and Bokhara. These visions touched him not: he was crossing into Asia Minor, a country of which he knew nothing, and his attention was divided between the country ahead and the map with ...
— Round the World in Seven Days • Herbert Strang
... the party, not having completed their purchases at the bazaars, went out upon a shopping excursion, and passing near the Nubian slave-market, were induced to enter. Christians are not admitted to the place in which Circassian women are sold, and can only obtain entrance by assuming the Turkish dress and character. My friends were highly interested in one woman, who sat apart from the rest, apparently plunged into the deepest melancholy; the others manifested little sorrow at their condition, which was ...
— Notes of an Overland Journey Through France and Egypt to Bombay • Miss Emma Roberts
... with a gesture of helpless despair, both Brigit and Monny felt that Islam had already raised a barrier between them and this delicate creature it had taken into its keeping. In the white wool robe she wore—the kind of loose dressing gown affected by Turkish women—she looked more like a Circassian than an American girl. Always she had seemed to her would-be rescuers a charming doll, a feminine thing of exactly the type which would appeal to a Turk, weary of dark beauties: her hair was so very golden, her eyes so very big and blue, her ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson
... his vanity is French and victorious. In the atmosphere of breathing music and faint perfume he looks around the glancing boxes, and knows he has but to throw his sultanic handkerchief to have the handsomest Circassian in the glowing circle of female beauty. But he does not throw it, for all that. His manner plainly says: "Beautiful dames, it would do me much of pleasure if I could elope with you all on the road of iron, but the bete noir, the Moral, will not permit. Behold ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 11, - No. 22, January, 1873 • Various
... The name hints at a Circassian origin and a tyrannical disposition. Ostrovsky frequently gives to the persons in his plays names that suggest ...
— Plays • Alexander Ostrovsky
... attempting to land her cargo she was seized by a Russian man-of-war and confiscated, first, on the ground of the violation of the blockade, to which the Russian government had subjected the whole of the Circassian coast; and, secondly, for an alleged violation of the custom-house regulations established by the same authority in the ports of that country. This proceeding of the Russian government was generally denounced as unjustifiable; ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... Hoja, a holy man, dressed in green robe and caftan and wearing yellow slippers—self-proclaimed as one who had made the pilgrimage to Mecca. He was followed by a very small donkey laden with panniers. By my side on the footwalk stood a Circassian who had been flourishing in the air, whilst the troops went by, a formidable-looking yataghan, and had been cheering in some language of which I did ...
— The Making Of A Novelist - An Experiment In Autobiography • David Christie Murray
... York for it. The one downstairs in the drawing room is all right, but I like to have this one handy, so that I can play whenever the spirit moves me. This is my bedroom," she continued, pushing aside the silken curtains that separated the two rooms. The girls exclaimed over the Circassian walnut furniture and could not decide as to ...
— Grace Harlowe's Junior Year at High School - Or, Fast Friends in the Sororities • Jessie Graham Flower
... the favourite. The Ambassador told me that the note he had sent me yesterday was written by the youngest. After chatting a little longer I took my leave, the Pasha begging of me to preserve him my friendship. I gave him Dr Loewe's Circassian-Turkish and English Dictionary, with which he seemed much pleased, and asked me to thank Dr Loewe in his name for it. Later we paid our farewell visits to all the Barons de Rothschild and their families, and prepared for ...
— Diaries of Sir Moses and Lady Montefiore, Volume I • Sir Moses Montefiore
... such gentleness, we could understand it no way. 'Twas all a hurry in Redcleugh as well as a sort of fright among us in the hall, every one whispering and wondering and questioning all to no end; for from that night we never knew more of her home or kindred, save that it was suspected she was a Circassian, and had left a noble home for the love she bore to master. Nor was she ever inquired after by her friends, except once, when a great eastern lord, as they said, came in a strange equipage to see her; but her change to a Christian shocked ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume VI • Various
... with some great kingdoms: but it is famous on account of the beauty of the people. They are fair, like Europeans, with handsome features, and fine figures. But their beauty has done them harm, and not good; for the cruel Turks purchase many of the Circassian women, because they are beautiful, and shut them up in their houses. Perhaps you will be surprised to hear that the young Circassians think it a fine thing to go to Turkey—to live in fine palaces and gardens, instead ...
— Far Off • Favell Lee Mortimer
... of them excites my ire. I never saw such a useless, expensive set. I hate (there is no other word for it) these Arabs; and I like the Blacks—patient, enduring, and friendly, as much as the Arab is cowardly, cruel, and effeminate. All the misery is due to these Arab and Circassian Pashas and authorities. I would not stay a day here for these wretched creatures, but I would give my life for ...
— General Gordon - A Christian Hero • Seton Churchill
... Toomey's pink silk negligee fell away from her bare arm as she stood arranging her hair before the wide-topped dresser of Circassian walnut that looked so well against a background of pale gray wall paper with ...
— The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart
... most notorious international spy in the world—a protean individual with aliases, professions, and experiences sufficient for an entire jail full of criminals. His father was a German Jew; his mother a Circassian girl; he was educated in Germany, France, Italy, and England. He has been a member of the socialist group in the Reichstag under one name, a member of the British Parliament under another; he did dirty work for Abdul ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers
... describing the Persians, says their "blood is now highly refined by frequent intermixtures with the Georgians and Circassians, two nations which surpass all the world in personal beauty. There is hardly a man of rank in Persia who is not born of a Georgian or Circassian mother." He adds that they inherit their beauty, "not from their ancestors, for without the above mixture, the men of rank in Persia, who are descendants of the Tartars, would be extremely ugly." (2. These quotations are taken ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin
... summer hotels. Mr. M. himself feels ridiculous. He never enters the room without a groan and a remark on the order of "Good God, what a colour!" His personal taste finds its supreme enjoyment in the Circassian walnut panelling, desk, and tables of the directors' room in the Millionaire's Trust and Savings Bank. "Rich and tasteful": how many times he has used this phrase to express his approval! In the mid-Victorian red plush of his club, too, he is comfortable. "Waiter, another whiskey ...
— The Merry-Go-Round • Carl Van Vechten
... night out, nevertheless, and next morning walked in to Gondokoro, N. Lat. 4 deg. 54' 5", and E. long. 31 deg. 46' 9", where Mahamed, after firing a salute, took us in to see a Circassian merchant, named Kurshid Agha. Our first inquiry was, of course, for Petherick. A mysterious silence ensued; we were informed that Mr Debono was THE man we had to thank for the assistance we had received in coming from Madi; and then ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... particular interest, that they invested Their own proper persons in layers and rows Of muslins, embroideries, worked underclothes, Gloves, handkerchiefs, scarfs, and such trifles as those; Then, wrapped in great shawls, like Circassian beauties, Gave good-by to the ship, and go by to the duties. Her relations at home all marveled, no doubt, Miss Flora had grown so enormously stout For an actual belle and a possible bride; But the miracle ceased when ...
— Little Masterpieces of American Wit and Humor - Volume I • Various
... for the afternoon, a giant and a midget, a magician, an Egyptian fortune teller, a trick mule, a Circassian beauty, and a strong man." Ben looked around proudly, and the boys burst into peals ...
— Ted Strong's Motor Car • Edward C. Taylor
... Djulya received cards of invitation to a grand ball at the Sultan's palace, given to celebrate the arrival of a choice lot of Circassian beauties in the market. The first thing the wicked sisters did was to flourish these invitations triumphantly before the eyes of Pollimariar, who declared she did not believe a word of it; indeed, she professed such aggressive incredulity that she had to ...
— Cobwebs From an Empty Skull • Ambrose Bierce (AKA: Dod Grile)
... a little round fat fellow, with beardless face, and small hands and feet. Zaida was a beautiful Circassian, her eyelids painted with kool, her teeth blackened with betel, her nails reddened with henna. On perceiving Hussein Pacha, the eunuch fell upon his knees; Zaida raised her head. The dey's eyes flashed, and he clutched the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 341, March, 1844, Vol. 55 • Various
... mother was a Circassian by birth, who in early youth had been torn away from her home. Her father had been a farmer, and she had always lived peacefully with her parents and her little brother and sister. War broke out suddenly, ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde
... circle of stone bearing, without date, the name of "Sultan Selim Khan el-Fatih," who first laid out the pilgrim-route along the Red Sea shore. Inside the dark cool porch a large inscription bears the name "El-Ashraf Kansur (sic)[EN137] El-Ghori," the last but one of the Circassian Mamluk kings of Egypt, who was defeated and slain by the Turkish conqueror near Aleppo in A.D. 1501. Above it stand two stone shields dated A.H. 992 ( A.D. 1583—1584). In the southern wall of the courtyard ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton
... wet stone, which is used by the Brahmins for marking their foreheads after religious bathing. The seeds are used by Indian jewelers as weights, each seed weighing uniformly four grains. They are known as Circassian beans. Pounded and mixed with borax, they form an adhesive substance. They are sometimes used as food. The plant belongs ...
— Catalogue of Economic Plants in the Collection of the U. S. Department of Agriculture • William Saunders
... the body of the people are unaffected, so long will it be corruption in high places, varying in form, not in matter. Egypt is usurped by the family of the Sandjeh of Salonique, and (by our folly) we have added a ring of Circassian pashas. The whole lot should go; they are as much strangers as we would be. Before we began muddling we had only to deal with the Salonique family; now we have added the ring, who say, 'We are Egypt.' ...
— The Romance of Isabel Lady Burton Volume II • Isabel Lady Burton & W. H. Wilkins
... could have been worse concerted than the expedition—ill-provisioned, without boats to cross the canals, without engines of war, the soldiery disorganized; while the Mameluke force were picked soldiers, recruited from the handsomest Circassian children, bred up for arms alone, and with an esprit de corps that rendered them a terror to friend and foe almost down to our own times. They harassed the Christians at every step, and destroyed their ...
— Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... an itinerant photographer; there too hung a photograph of Fenitchka herself, which was an absolute failure; it was an eyeless face wearing a forced smile, in a dingy frame, nothing more could be made out; while above Fenitchka, General Yermolov, in a Circassian cloak, scowled menacingly upon the Caucasian mountains in the distance, from beneath a little silk shoe for pins which fell right on ...
— Fathers and Children • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
... some twenty more on view upon the counter, did indeed present a spectacle of indecision not quite compatible with unalloyed happiness, but the light cloud passed. The lovely specimen oftenest chosen, oftenest rejected, and finally abided by, was of Circassian descent, possessing as much boldness of beauty as was reconcilable with extreme feebleness of mouth, and combining a sky-blue silk pelisse with rose-coloured satin trousers, and a black velvet hat: which this fair stranger to our northern shores would seem to have founded on ...
— Mugby Junction • Charles Dickens |
