"Embellishment" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... sure he would so look upon me," answered Miss Bellairs, more seriously, "I cannot but dread an old age without great means of embellishment. Old people, except in poetry and in very primitive society, are dishonored by wants and cares. And, indeed, before we are old—when neither young nor old—we want horses and ottomans, kalydor and conservatories, books, pictures, and silk curtains—all quite out ...
— Stories by American Authors (Volume 4) • Constance Fenimore Woolson
... conditions in which they are placed, they are undesirable; and it would be well for those having the interest of the village in charge, to adopt an early resolution to accept no gifts, and to allow no work of construction or embellishment, which is not, first of all, appropriate to the modest character ...
— Village Improvements and Farm Villages • George E. Waring
... schools, the cost may be roughly computed by taking the number of seats at a price per seat. In the case of churches and chapels, taking a minimum area of 8 ft. each, the cost varies from L10 upwards, the difference being due to the amount of architectural embellishment or the addition of a tower. Schools may be estimated as averaging L9 per scholar; we find that, taking schools of various sizes erected by the late London School Board, their cost varied from L7:12:4 to L10:1:10 per scholar. Hospitals vary from L100 ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various
... speeches, both political and judicial, we see him continually trying to show his learning by the way. And one may discover the different temper of each of them in their speeches. For Demosthenes's oratory was, without all embellishment and jesting, wholly composed for real effect and seriousness; not smelling of the lamp, as Pytheas scoffingly said, but of the temperance, thoughtfulness, austerity, and grave earnestness of his temper. Whereas, Cicero's love of mockery ...
— The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch - Being Parts of The "Lives" of Plutarch • Plutarch
... embellishments it is vitally important for the student to remember one or two very important points in connection with his investigation. One point is the understanding of the nature of the instrument for which the composer wrote when he had the embellishment in mind. The instruments of the early eighteenth century were characterized by a tone so thin and of such short duration that the composers and players (and it should be remembered that in those days practically all of the great composers played, and most of the ...
— Great Pianists on Piano Playing • James Francis Cooke
... to please the eye or gratify the sense of beauty. No edifices in the world —not even the Pyramids—are more deficient in external ornament. The buttresses and the air-holes, which alone break the flat uniformity of the walls, are intended simply for utility, and can scarcely be said to be much embellishment. If any efforts were made to delight by the ordinary resources of ornamental art, it seems clear that such efforts did not extend to the whole edifice, but were confined to the shrine itself—the actual abode of the god—the chamber which crowned the whole, and was alone, strictly ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 1. (of 7): Chaldaea • George Rawlinson
... twenty feet. Then the balustrade of the gallery runs around the hall, and above the gallery are six arched windows on each side, richly painted with historic subjects. The roof is ornamented and gilded, and everywhere throughout there is embellishment of color and carving on the broadest scale, and, at the same time, most minute and elaborate; statues of full size in niches aloft; small heads of kings, no bigger than a doll; and the oak is carved in all parts of the panelling as faithfully ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... I omit to mention, what I trust may be considered as a change belonging to religious feeling—viz., that conversation is now conducted without that accompaniment of those absurd and unmeaning oaths which were once considered an essential embellishment of polite discourse. I distinctly recollect an elderly gentleman, when describing the opinion of a refined and polished female upon a particular point, putting into her mouth an unmistakable round oath as ...
— Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character • Edward Bannerman Ramsay
... the chuck-wagon when Sundown arrived lugging the inert body of the wolf-dog. They gathered around and asked brief questions. Sundown, busy washing the dog's wounds, answered as well as he could. His account of the fight did not suffer for lack of embellishment, and while he did not absolutely state that he had taken a hand in the fight, his story ...
— Sundown Slim • Henry Hubert Knibbs
... undertaken them, regardless of expense; she has asked me to come and stay with her—board and lodging gratis—and keep an eye on the grammatical eccentricities of her pensionnaires. I am the extension, my good Prosper; I am the embellishment! I live for nothing, and I straighten up the accent of the prettiest English lips. The English lips are not all pretty, heaven knows, but enough of them are so to make it a gaining bargain ...
— A Bundle of Letters • Henry James
... these two persons only did Clotilde reveal her secrets and convey the thoughts of her spotless soul. She spent her time in voluntary seclusion, not in the luxuries of the court or the gaieties of society, but in embroidery, knitting, and in the unnecessary embellishment ...
— Filipino Popular Tales • Dean S. Fansler
... Wood. The first two are Printed independently of the Work; the latter in connection with it; either incorporated with the Text, or otherwise, as may be desired. Each of these modes may be employed with advantage, where Embellishment is intended, or information beyond that which description is adapted to convey. Coloured Engravings are also frequently ...
— The Author's Printing and Publishing Assistant • Frederick Saunders
... regulation, and yet are in no wise inferior to those that bear these authoritative titles; inferior neither in their intrinsic value, nor their moral import, nor their impression upon society. As a friend, as a companion, as a citizen at large; in the connections of domestic life; in the improvement and embellishment of his leisure, he has a sphere of action, revolving, if you please, within the sphere of his profession, but not clashing with it; in which if he can show none of the advantages of an improved understanding, whatever may be his skill or proficiency in the other, he is no more ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman
... of fortune and refinement in the country, has diffused a degree of taste and elegance in rural economy that descends to the lowest class. The very laborer, with his thatched cottage and narrow slip of ground, attends to their embellishment. The trim hedge, the grass-plot before the door, the little flower-bed bordered with snug box, the woodbine trained up against the wall, and hanging its blossoms about the lattice; the pot of flowers in the window; the ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving
... did not disdain the embellishment of humbler objects. As Rufe Kinnicutt approached a little log cabin nestling in a sheltered cove he realized that a year had gone by since Renfrow had seen it first, and that thus it must have appeared ...
— A Chilhowee Lily - 1911 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... of the idea that ornament was a leading consideration in the employment of these coarse fabrics, we have the well-known fact that simple cord-markings, arranged to form patterns, have been employed by many peoples for embellishment alone. This was a common practice of the ancient inhabitants of Great Britain, as shown by Jewett. The accompanying cut (Fig. 60) is copied from ...
— Prehistoric Textile Fabrics Of The United States, Derived From Impressions On Pottery • William Henry Holmes
... being presently served up stairs, he kept a watch on Fledgeby until Miss Podsnap's cup was empty, and then directed him with his finger (as if that young gentleman were a slow Retriever) to go and fetch it. This feat he performed, not only without failure, but even with the original embellishment of informing Miss Podsnap that green tea was considered bad for the nerves. Though there Miss Podsnap unintentionally threw him out by faltering, 'Oh, is it indeed? How does it act?' Which he was ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... proposal, which will solve your difficulties," he said. "I have money, papers, clothing, everything I will need, outside the reservation. Suppose you just let me leave here. Then, if there is any trouble, you can use this fiction about the indiscreet underlings, without the unnecessary embellishment of ...
— The Mercenaries • Henry Beam Piper
... city or the country, the church (if Protestant) is decorated with masses of flowers in some such elaborateness as standards, or arches, or hanging garlands in the church itself, as well as the floral embellishment of the chancel. The service is conducted by a bishop or other distinguished clergyman, with assistant clergymen, and accompanied by a full choral service, possibly with the addition of a celebrated opera ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
... sure, as he lives among all the great people, if there were any such, he would know them." This was all of Mr Joseph Andrews's speech which I could get him to recollect, which I have delivered as near as was possible in his own words, with a very small embellishment. But I believe the reader hath not been a little surprized at the long silence of parson Adams, especially as so many occasions offered themselves to exert his curiosity and observation. The truth is, he ...
— Joseph Andrews, Vol. 2 • Henry Fielding
... is such a man as Parent du Chatelet; exploring all that most tries the senses and the sentiments, and reporting all truthfully, but soberly, chastely, without needless circumstance, or picturesque embellishment, for a useful end, and not for a mere ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... white, and his breast in high feather, black, prettily skirted with gray or invaded with white from below; but his yellow spots, set like gleaming gold in various parts of his plumage, constitute his most marked embellishment, being found on the crown, rump, throat, and each ...
— Birds of the Rockies • Leander Sylvester Keyser
... sentiments a stranger might enter Paris at the time we did, his feelings must have been the same with regard to the monuments of ancient magnificence, or of modern taste, which it contained. All that the vanity or patriotism of a long series of Sovereigns could effect for the embellishment of the capital in which they resided; all that the conquests of an ambitious and unprincipled Army could accumulate from the spoils of the nations whom they had subdued, were there presented to the eye of the stranger with a profusion which obliterated every former ...
— Travels in France during the years 1814-1815 • Archibald Alison
... the hierarchy, he gives his entire individuality up, for henceforth he lives under the eye of the master, feels the daily and direct pressure of the terrible hand which grasps him, and he forcibly becomes a mere tool.[3138] These historic names, moreover, contribute to the embellishment of the reign. Napoleon hauls in a good many of them, and the most illustrious among the old noblesse, of the court of the robe and of the sword. He can enumerate among his magistrates, M. Pasquier, M. Seguier, M. Mole; among his prelates, M. de Boisgelin, M. du Barral, ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 5 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 1 (of 2)(Napoleon I.) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... which is the beginning of all other persuasions, as do the Rhetoricians, and the most powerful persuasion to render the audience attentive is to promise to say new and wonderful things, I add to the prayer made for attention, this persuasion, or embellishment, announcing to them my intention to speak of new things, that is, the division which is in my mind; and great things, namely, the power of their star; and I say this in those last ...
— The Banquet (Il Convito) • Dante Alighieri
... thirty-four of metal mines; twenty new insurance companies were started, twenty-three banks, twelve navigation and packet companies, three fisheries, two for boring tunnels under the Thames, three for the embellishment and improvement of the metropolis, two for sea-water baths, and the rest for miscellaneous purposes; it is a somewhat significant fact that two only had for their object the establishment of newspapers. Notwithstanding the manifest absurdity of many of these projects, the ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt
... chuckle; the settlers who had "turned out" growled or chaffed, according to temperament, as they followed suit, and the natives spent half an hour in uproarious merriment over Booby's dramatic representation of the whole incident, which he performed with graphic power and much embellishment. ...
— The Settler and the Savage • R.M. Ballantyne
... embellishment did take place history sayeth not, but it is certain that Darsie Garnett made a very charming picture on the following Sunday afternoon, and that her dainty style of beauty showed to peculiar advantage against the oak panelling of the stately old ...
— A College Girl • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... allowed her the right to fly, in the manner of kings, as we have heard, consenting to the privileges acted on by cats. These may not address their Majesties, but they may stare; nor will it be contested that the attentive circular eyes of the humble domestic creatures are an embellishment to Royal pomp and grandeur, such truly as should one day gain for them an inweaving and figurement—in the place of bees, ermine tufts, and their various present decorations—upon the august great robes back-flowing and ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... throng our temple gates, as well as for those who are to come after us. Every line of this book has been written in the conviction that the real history of Masonry is great enough, and its simple teaching grand enough, without the embellishment of legend, much less of occultism. It proceeds from first to last upon the assurance that all that we need to do is to remove the scaffolding from the historic temple of Masonry and let it stand out in the sunlight, where all men can see its ...
— The Builders - A Story and Study of Masonry • Joseph Fort Newton
... ever had with a Lynx I shall remember when all the other meetings have been dimmed by time, but I have used the incident without embellishment in the early part of "Two Little Savages," so shall not ...
— Wild Animals at Home • Ernest Thompson Seton
... and plundering the hedges, far and wide, for nosegays of wild flowers, with which he would return laden, home; and which it took great care and consideration to arrange, to the best advantage, for the embellishment of the breakfast-table. There was fresh groundsel, too, for Miss Maylie's birds, with which Oliver, who had been studying the subject under the able tuition of the village clerk, would decorate the cages, in the most approved ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens
... and could have gained nothing further than the Capitol and the very money which they received without taking that fortress. The account of Polybius throws light upon many discrepant statements, and all of them, not even excepting Livy's fairy-tale-like embellishment, may be explained by means of it. The Romans attempted to prove that the Gauls had actually been defeated, by relating that the gold afterward taken from the Gauls and buried in the Capitol was double the ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 2 • Various
... immediately about it is naturally beautiful and romantic, especially up the Potomac, in the region of the Great Falls; and, though the soil be poor as compared with that of my present home, it is susceptible of easy improvement and embellishment. The social advantages cannot be surpassed even in London, Paris, or Vienna; and among the resident population, the members of the Supreme Court, Senate, House of Representatives, army, navy, and the several executive departments, may be found an intellectual ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman
... similar occasion by the Queen's Theatre in the Haymarket. There, few are bold enough either to applaud or disapprove. Many simple, perhaps, but beautiful and refined, characteristics of the composer or performer, may pass unnoticed; but some common-place embellishment, which is considered safe, will command the expression of approbation which the trait of real genius had failed to elicit. After a few representations, the fear of applauding unwisely is diminished, but still, as was once said of the French under similar circumstances, "they affirm with the lips, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various
... music of the Romantics] Liszt and Chopin added the wonderful tracery of Orientalism. The difference between these two is, that with Chopin this tracery developed poetic thought as with a thin gauze; whereas with Liszt [in his piano music] the embellishment itself made the starting-point for almost a new art in tonal combination, the effects of which one sees on every hand to-day. To realise its influence one need only compare the easy mastery of the arabesque displayed in the simplest piano ...
— Edward MacDowell • Lawrence Gilman
... fishing town on the Gulf of Spezia. Here I met with an adventure which with a little exaggeration and embellishment, such as no real story-teller ever spares, would make an admirable morceau for a quarto tourist; but, in simple truth, was ...
— The Diary of an Ennuyee • Anna Brownell Jameson
... circumstances in which he found himself, and the impressions which these circumstances had made on his own mind. He calls things by their right names; no euphuism or transcendentalism,—the plainer and commoner the better. He tells us of his farm life, its joys and sorrows, its mirth and care, with no embellishment, with no concealment of repulsive and ungraceful features. Never having seen a nightingale, he makes no attempt to describe the fowl; but he has seen the night-hawk, at sunset, cutting the air above him, and he tells of it. Side by side with his waving ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... stories and re-wrote them from memory for his father with such charming naivete that the father chose the son's version in preference to his own, and published it. But the tales of Perrault, nevertheless, show the embellishment of the mature master-Academician's touch in subduing the too marvelous tone, or adding a bit of court manners, or a satirical hit at the vanity and failings ...
— A Study of Fairy Tales • Laura F. Kready
... go a-ringing for Sarah!" with considerable finish and expression, and since his Uncle DODDLEWIG had presented him with half-a-crown for his performance, he had given the air with variations, and the song with every description of embellishment, all over the paternal mansion, and in most corners of ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, Jan. 2, 1892 • Various
... cannot be commenced until they return. Amongst the Uma Tow (or Lepu Tau) the daughter of a chief must be tatued before any of the other females of the house; should the chiefs daughter (or daughters) die before she has been tatued, all the other women of the house are debarred from this embellishment ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall
... Gervaise gently, "but surely you cannot call putting on a fresh paper, instead of this that hangs in strips, an embellishment. Whitening the curbing, too, comes under, the head of necessary repairs." She only required ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... delight in swilling liquors and battening upon gross and luscious meats, which help to swell out their tall and goodly figures. Many of them have died possessed of considerable riches, part of which they have not unfrequently bequeathed to the erection or embellishment of religious houses. ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... obscure home the two lived entirely alone. They had neighbors, of course, but none of them could tell how they contrived to subsist. The mother did no work, except for herself and her child; she had but a small garden in front of the house, the embellishment of which was her particular care; and she was surrounded with books, in the reading of which she spent all her leisure time, having little intercourse with her neighbors. The gossips that exist everywhere ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various
... space below. This fine monument was removed to the east side of the south transept during the destructive alterations of the early nineteenth century, but had been worse treated by its friends in 1748, when a large sum was spent on its "embellishment." Its history, combined with that of the Priors who erected it, may be summed up in the opening words of the inscription which was placed in a marble tablet at the back of the tomb to commemorate the embellishment referred to, not without a touch of sarcasm, ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: Southwark Cathedral • George Worley
... like wing." And, in truth, the really kingly speeches which Shakespeare assigns to him, as to other kings weak enough in all but speech, are but a kind of flowers, worn for, and effective only as personal embellishment. They combine to one result with the merely outward and ceremonial ornaments of royalty, its pageantries, flaunting so naively, so credulously, in Shakespeare, as in that old medieval time. And then, the force of Hotspur is but transient youth, ...
— Appreciations, with an Essay on Style • Walter Horatio Pater
... fortalice-form he was pleased therewith and so were all of his suite and retinue; whereupon he went up to it and beholding the ordinance and the ornamentation and the cupolas and the gardens and the edification and embellishment of the whole, he sent for the Architects and Master-masons and the artificers whom he thanked for their work, and he bestowed upon them robes of honour and gifted and largessed them and assigned to them rations and pay and allowances. So ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... important and interesting event which he did not witness, may be favorably received by the people of Kentucky. The class of readers who will be gratified by an account of such adventures as will be herein related, will readily forgive any lack of embellishment. My practical countrymen prefer the recital of substantial facts, and the description of scenes which their own experience enables them to appreciate, to all the fictions of which the Northern war literature ...
— History of Morgan's Cavalry • Basil W. Duke
... already on his feet, of course. He plunged into an accurate narrative of what had happened, and what he had overheard, on Saturday night. He told it all without embellishment or flourish, and wound up by calling attention to Jordan's plain enough ...
— Dick Prescotts's Fourth Year at West Point - Ready to Drop the Gray for Shoulder Straps • H. Irving Hancock
... went to old Drury, where we found a countryman, and townsman, Mr. Stephen Price, in the chair of Sheridan. The season was over, but we were shown the whole of the interior. It is also a magnificent structure in extent and internal embellishment, though a very plain brick pile externally. It must have eight or ten times the cubic contents of the largest American theatre. The rival building, Covent Garden, is within a few hundred feet of it, and has much ...
— Recollections of Europe • J. Fenimore Cooper
... mountains, must present themselves to view in stages rising above each other, the mountains clustering together towards the central point; and next, that an observer familiar with the several vales, must, from their various position in relation to the sun, have had before his eyes every possible embellishment of beauty, dignity, and splendour, which light and shadow can bestow upon objects so diversified. For example, in the vale of Winandermere, if the spectator looks for gentle and lovely scenes, his eye is turned towards the south; if for the grand, towards the north: in the ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... strange music, Liszt and Chopin added the wonderful tracery of orientalism. As I have said before, the difference between these two is that with Chopin this tracery enveloped poetic thought as with a thin gauze; whereas with Liszt, the embellishment itself made the starting point for almost a new art in tonal combination, the effects of which are seen on every hand to-day. To realize its influence, one need only compare the graceful arabesques of the most simple ...
— Critical & Historical Essays - Lectures delivered at Columbia University • Edward MacDowell
... Memoirs of the patriot Miller;—the daring and recklessness of crime, as in the vivid sketch of First and Last;—the picturesque country and ceremonies of Arabia and its religious people, as drawn by Burckhardt;—and the architectural embellishment of the Metropolis, as shown ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 13, No. - 361, Supplementary Issue (1829) • Various
... placed beneath; its dry legal phraseology was not at all inviting. The other sheets were, however. They too were written all over in Felix Page's hand, but bore the blunt, direct phrases of a man used to expressing himself without any rhetorical embellishment ...
— The Paternoster Ruby • Charles Edmonds Walk
... to approach the matter with an unbiased viewpoint. Don't read that hooey put out by an inspired reporter who blames the laxness of the city government; I'll give you the facts without embellishment. Nothing beyond the bare fact of the disappearance is known about the first case. Robert Prosser, aged eleven, was sent to the grocery store by his mother about six-thirty last night and failed to return. That's all ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science September 1930 • Various
... rendering of the call of Zarathustra is free both from miraculous embellishment and from undue exaltation of the person of the prophet, and forms a great contrast to later statements in the Avesta, where the prophet is placed in secret conclave with Ahura, asking him questions and receiving detailed replies which at once rank as revelation. In the Gathas, ...
— History of Religion - A Sketch of Primitive Religious Beliefs and Practices, and of the Origin and Character of the Great Systems • Allan Menzies
... public life is a very bad hand to engage in book-making. I often wonder whether this trifle, now intended as an offering to the reading people, will ever get into print. A little memorandum-book supplies the materiel, and a tolerable memory the embellishment. An engineer-officer, of all other functionaries, needs a memory; settling at one moment the expenditure of vast sums; at another, looking into the merits of a barrack damage worth sixpence; then, field-officer of the day inspecting guards—next, making experiments on the destructive ...
— Canada and the Canadians, Vol. 2 • Richard Henry Bonnycastle
... published amidst preparations for war. The publisher apologized for lack of variety in the year's work, by saying that we in America "are deprived of one considerable fund of entertainment which contributes largely to the embellishment of the magazines in Europe, viz., discoveries of curious remains of antiquity.... We can look no further back than to the rude manners and customs of the savage aborigines of North America ... but the principal difficulty in our way is the present importunate ...
— The Philadelphia Magazines and their Contributors 1741-1850 • Albert Smyth
... wanderings about the gardens, Magdalen and her sisters being invited guests, and Vera in a continual state of agitated expectation. Had not Wilfred Merrifield always been a cavalier of her own? And here he was, paying no attention to her, with all the embellishment of her bridesmaid's adornments, and squiring instead that little insignificant Felicia, in a simple hat, and hair still on her shoulders; whilst she had to put up with nothing better than a young Varney, who was very shy, and had never probably ...
— Modern Broods • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... by the normal mature human being before taking deliberate action, or in making studied provision for possible future action, are natural procedures, in that they employ the intellectual powers bestowed by nature, without artificial modification or embellishment. ...
— Sound Military Decision • U.s. Naval War College
... for a European, or an American, who has not visited Egypt, to realize the conception of a Great Pyramid. The pyramidal form has gone entirely out of use as an architectural type of monumental perfection; nay, even as an architectural embellishment. It maintained an honourable position in architecture from its first discovery to the time of the Maccabee kings (1 Mac. xiii. 28); but, never having been adopted by either the Greeks or the Romans, it passed into desuetude in the ...
— Ancient Egypt • George Rawlinson
... the poet related to me with much embellishment and flourish all that had passed since the maids left London, most of which I already knew, yet was not loth to hear again ...
— Sir Ludar - A Story of the Days of the Great Queen Bess • Talbot Baines Reed
... settee is an arm-chair, on the right a round table and another chair. Books and periodicals are strewn upon the table. Against the wall at the back, between the doors, are an oblong table and a chair; and other articles of furniture and embellishment—cabinets of various kinds, jardinieres, mirrors, lamps, etc., etc.—occupy spaces not ...
— The Big Drum - A Comedy in Four Acts • Arthur Pinero
... jewelled earrings and wearing a beautiful garland and crown, entered the Asoka woods, like an embodiment of the vernal season. And dressed with care, Ravana looked like the Kalpa tree in Indra's garden. But though adorned with every embellishment, that inspired her only with awe, like a beautified banian in the midst of a cemetery. And that night wanderer, having approached the presence of that slender-waisted lady, looked like the planet Saturn in the presence of Rohini. And smitten with the shafts of the god of the flowery emblem ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 2 • Translated by Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... whelpage. Else it is a mockery. Where is the woman of character who would sell the be-all and end-all of her existence for a neat catalogue of possible advantages? Where is the man who would frankly and without embellishment dare make such proposal? You point to yourself. But you have never explained yourself to Hester, and even to me you are embellishing the matter with all the ...
— The Kempton-Wace Letters • Jack London
... mound, betoken to the experienced eye the evidence of a dismantled chase or park, which must originally have been of no common dimensions. On one side of the house the lawn slopes towards the river, divided from a terrace, which forms the most important embellishment of the pleasure-grounds, by that fence to which has been given the ingenious and significant name of "ha-ha!" A few scattered trees of giant growth are the sole obstacles that break the view of the river, which has often ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... among these devoted relics fragments of the humble communion-tables and undecorated pulpits which I recognized as having been torn from the meeting-houses of New England. Those simple edifices might have been permitted to retain all of sacred embellishment that their Puritan founders had bestowed, even though the mighty structure of St. Peter's had sent its spoils to the fire of this terrible sacrifice. Yet I felt that these were but the externals of religion, and might most safely be relinquished ...
— Earth's Holocaust (From "Mosses From An Old Manse") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... attaining the greater. But such of us who move in these humbler walks of the profession are not ignorant that, as the natural dignity of the subject is less, the more all the little ornamental helps are necessary to its embellishment. It would be ridiculous for a painter of domestic scenes, of portraits, landscapes, animals, or of still life, to say that he despised those qualities which have made the subordinate schools so famous. The art of colouring, and the skilful management ...
— Seven Discourses on Art • Joshua Reynolds
... expression seemed to have been imperfectly chipped out with a dull-edged chisel. There were some marks in it that might have been dimples, if the material had been softer and the instrument finer, but which, as it was, were only dints. The chisel had made three or four of these attempts at embellishment over his nose, but had given them up without an effort to smooth them off. I judged him to be a bachelor from the frayed condition of his linen, and he appeared to have sustained a good many bereavements; for he wore at least four mourning ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... her graces. But Elizabeth's jealousy on the subject of her favorites' marriages is well known, and her anger was lasting, in proportion to the value which she set on the incense of Raleigh's flattery. He retired, on his disgrace, to his new estate, in the improvement and embellishment of which he felt great interest. But though deeply alive to the beauties of nature, he had been too long trained to a life of ambition and adventure to rest contented in the tranquil routine of a country life; and during this period of seclusion he again turned ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 1 of 8 • Various
... meditate on the scene she had just witnessed, the most terrific pictures of slaughter and destruction presented themselves to her imagination; among which, a full-length portrait of Mr. Peter Magnus borne home by four men, with the embellishment of a whole barrelful of bullets in his left side, was among the very least. The more the middle-aged lady meditated, the more terrified she became; and at length she determined to repair to the house of the principal magistrate of the town, and request ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... luxury and fashion, which are eagerly purchased by the inhabitants of Kola, and the borders of the White Sea. Long life to Commerce! My soul expands at the sight of its life. What has not commerce done from the beginning of the world for the embellishment of life, for promoting the friendly intercourse of countries and people, for the refinement of manners! It has always given me the most heartfelt delight, that the wisest and most humane of the lawgivers of antiquity—Solon—was ...
— Strife and Peace • Fredrika Bremer
... actually lodged somewhere in that grand place, which contains the king's collection of the Italian pictures he would so willingly copy. Its gardens also are magnificent, with something, as we understand from him, altogether of a novel kind in their disposition and embellishment. Ah! how I delight myself, in fancy at least, in those beautiful gardens, freer and trimmed less stiffly than those of other royal houses. Methinks I see him there, when his long summer-day's work is over, enjoying the cool shade of the stately, broad-foliaged ...
— Imaginary Portraits • Walter Pater
... (Eurychorus)[1482] as a public square, which, like the Piazza di San Marco at Venice, became the great resort of the inhabitants for business and pleasure. Having thus provided for utility and convenience, he next proceeded to embellishment and ornamentation. The old temples did not seem to him worthy of the renovated capital; he therefore pulled them down and built new ones in their place. In the most central part of the city[1483] he erected a fane for the worship of Melkarth and Ashtoreth, probably retaining the old site, ...
— History of Phoenicia • George Rawlinson
... women an attraction due to the law of opposites. Myrt was nineteen. She earned twelve dollars a week. She knew all the secrets of the moving picture business, but even that hideous knowledge had left her face unscarred. Myrt's twelve was expended wholly upon the embellishment of Myrt. Myrt was one of those asbestos young women upon whom the fires of life leave no mark. She regarded Martha Eggers, who dwelt in one room, in the rear, across the hall, with that friendly contempt which nineteen, cruelly conscious of its charms, bestows ...
— Defenders of Democracy • The Militia of Mercy
... which such voluptuousness exposed her, she entered upon her dark and gloomy career. This, however, was but one of her abodes. It was but one even of her country seats. At Versailles there were other palaces, in the construction and the embellishment of which the revenues of the kingdom had been lavished and in whose luxurious chambers all the laws of God had been openly set at defiance by those earthly kings who ever forgot that there was one enthroned above them as ...
— Maria Antoinette - Makers of History • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
... discoverers. They speak of the island as being sixteen miles long, which recent surveys show nearly correct. Many of the trees, animals, and fish were new to them, and like all travelers, they did not neglect to give a fair embellishment in their report to Raleigh. Their stay in the country was brief, less than sixty days, and on their return, they carried with them two of the Indians, named Wanchese and Mantco, who were regarded as a great curiosity by the English. They were exhibited at London to thousands, and gave ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. V, May, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... benefit the poor of London. It is situate in Little Saffron Hill, Farringdon Road, the service being held in a barn-like room, which on weekdays serves for school, and is capable of accommodating a thousand children. No money has been expended in architectural embellishment, and no question of a controversial character is likely to arise in connection with accessories in the shape of altar, surplice, or candles. The Ragged Church avoids these stumbling-blocks by the simple expedient of doing without candles, surplices, or altar. It does not even ...
— Faces and Places • Henry William Lucy
... and embellishment of the book, the same care and attention have been lavished as on the preceding volume. The pencil of Mr. BAYES and the graver of the BROTHERS DALZIEL have again been employed in the work of illustration; and it is hoped that the favour bestowed by the public on the former volume may be extended ...
— What the Moon Saw: and Other Tales • Hans Christian Andersen
... a coward and no thief, so also he was a snob and no gentleman. His boasted elegance was not more respectable than his art. Fine clothes are the embellishment of a true adventurer; they hang ill on the sloping shoulders of ...
— A Book of Scoundrels • Charles Whibley
... She struggles for no kind of chimerical credit, disclaims the appearance of every affectation, and is in all things just what she seems, and others would be thought. Nature, not art, is the great standard of her manners; and her exterior wears no varnish, or embellishment, which is not the genuine signature of an open, undesigning, and benevolent mind. It is not in her power, because not in her nature, to hide, with a fawning air, and a mellow voice, her aversion or contempt, where her delicacy is hurt, here temper ...
— Sketches of the Fair Sex, in All Parts of the World • Anonymous
... dull country. The unexpected is the usual in small and in great things alike as they happen on a farm, and I make no apology to the reader for entering them in my narrative. I only ask him, if he be a city man, to take my word for the truth as to the general facts. To some elaboration and embellishment I plead guilty, but the groundwork is truth, and the facts stated are as real as the foundations of my buildings or the cows in my stalls. If the fortunate reader be a country man, he will need no assurance from me, for his eyes have seen and his ears have heard the strange and startling ...
— The Fat of the Land - The Story of an American Farm • John Williams Streeter
... And then she began at the beginning—with her daughter's engagement to young Andrew McCrae, her happiness, her security—and quietly, with only now and then a slight tension of her body and her voice, she told it all to them, exactly as it happened, without plea or embellishment. She had only one stress, and that she tried to make reasonable to them—her ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... page for shaking my young boughs over his foolscap apron? Was it not an intoxicating vision of gold and glory? I should doubtless have revelled in its wealth and splendor, but for learning that the FIFTY CENTS was to be considered a rhetorical embellishment, and by no means a literal expression of past fact or ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... slippers up and down the room; a period of continually hearing a well-known, strident voice exclaim: "So you have been playing the fool again!" at times when the child, weary of the mortal monotony of his task, had added a superfluous embellishment to his copy; a period of experiencing the ever-familiar, but ever-unpleasant, sensation which ensued upon those words as the boy's ear was painfully twisted between two long fingers bent backwards at the tips—such is the miserable picture of that youth of which, in later life, Chichikov ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... embellishment to this story by saying that Saladin sent only one horse at first—the one that he supposed most worthy of being sent as a gift from one sovereign to another; but that Richard, before mounting him himself, directed one of his ...
— Richard I - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... pronounce worthless. This is the fate of all men. But the reading of Pope, as a general result or measure of his judicious choice, is best justified in his writings. They show him well furnished with whatsoever he wanted for matter or for embellishment, for argument or illustration, for example and model, or for ...
— Biographical Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... distended nostrils, like a dormer window on the roof of a house; others convex and twisted like a buck-handled knife; and others magnificently efflorescent, like a full-blown cauliflower. But as to the persons that were attached to these noses, fancy any distortion, protuberance, and fungous embellishment that can be produced in the human form by high and gross feeding, by the bloating operations of malt liquors, and by the rheumy influence of a damp, foggy, vaporous climate. One old fellow was an ...
— Washington Irving • Charles Dudley Warner
... more thoroughly enjoy the whole, so he who examines each part of a fine view may also thoroughly comprehend the full and combined effect. Hence, a traveller should be a botanist, for in all views plants form the chief embellishment. Group masses of naked rock even in the wildest forms, and they may for a time afford a sublime spectacle, but they will soon grow monotonous. Paint them with bright and varied colours, as in Northern Chile, they will become fantastic; clothe them with vegetation, ...
— A Naturalist's Voyage Round the World - The Voyage Of The Beagle • Charles Darwin
... much talk of travel. The admiral had touched nearly every port, Fitzgerald had been round three times, and Breitmann four. The girl experienced a sense of elation as she listened. She knew most of her father's stories, but to-night he drew upon a half-forgotten store. Without embellishment, as if they were ordinary, every-day affairs, they exchanged tales of adventure in strange island wildernesses; and there were lion hunts and man hunts and fierce battles on land and sea. Never had any story-book opened a like world. She felt a longing ...
— A Splendid Hazard • Harold MacGrath
... merit the honourable name of history from the truths contained in them, as I shall prefer truth to embellishment. In fact, to embellish my story I have neither leisure nor ability; I shall, therefore, do no more than give a simple narration of events. They are the labours of my evenings, and will come to you an unformed mass, to receive its shape from your hands, or as a chaos on ...
— Memoirs And Historical Chronicles Of The Courts Of Europe - Marguerite de Valois, Madame de Pompadour, and Catherine de Medici • Various
... Massachusetts; and which, like the ghost of Banquo, would never down?" "The murdered Coalition!" Sir, this charge of a coalition, in reference to the late administration, is not original with the honorable member. It did not spring up in the Senate. Whether as a fact, as an argument, or as an embellishment, it is all borrowed. He adopts it, indeed, from a very low origin, and a still lower present condition. It is one of the thousand calumnies with which the press teemed during an excited political canvass. It was a charge of which there was not only no proof or probability, ...
— Public Speaking • Irvah Lester Winter
... if every word a'most I've said ain't quite true,"—which, with the exception of Dick's embellishment about the handsome sailors and soldiers, proved ...
— Middy and Ensign • G. Manville Fenn
... Tenderfoot, but I hitched my six-shooter around to the front, resolved to find out how good I was at wing-shooting horses. But Tunemah declared he would die for his convictions. "All right," said we, "die then," with the embellishment of profanity. So we stripped him naked, and stoned him into the raging stream, where he had one chance in three of coming through alive. He might as well be dead as on the other side of that stream. He won through, however, and now I believe he'd ...
— The Mountains • Stewart Edward White
... series has made it his special object to confine himself very strictly, even in the most minute details which he records, to historic truth. The narratives are not tales founded upon history, but history itself, without any embellishment, or any deviations from the strict truth so far as it can now be discovered by an attentive examination of the annals written at the time when the events themselves occurred. In writing the narratives, the author has endeavored ...
— Richard I - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... king who built a palace at Pollanarrua was Sri Sanga Bo II., A.D. 642. His successor, Sri Sanga Bo III., took up his residence there temporarily, A.D. 702; it was made the capital by Kuda Akbo, A.D. 769, and its embellishment, the building of colleges, and the formation of tanks in its vicinity, were the occupations of ...
— Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and • James Emerson Tennent
... the theme through its paces." That is, there was no unfolding of the poetic possibilities of the melody. The successive variations were all in the same key; the harmonic basis was practically unchanged and the treatment consisted of dressing up the theme with stereotyped embellishment-figures and of systematic rhythmic animation—produced by the addition of more and more notes to each time unit. A standard illustration of this type of Variations is the so-called Harmonious Blacksmith of Handel from his Suite in E Major. This ...
— Music: An Art and a Language • Walter Raymond Spalding
... the obscure struggle in his mind? At any rate she seemed anxious to cut short their tete-a-tete. She asked him to come and look at some engravings which the Duchess had sent round for the embellishment of the dining-room. Then she summoned Madame Bornier, and asked him a number of questions on Leonie's behalf, with reference to some little investment of the ex-governess's savings, which had been dropping in value. Meanwhile, as she kept him ...
— Lady Rose's Daughter • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... modifications of his plan, coupled with laborious efforts with individual members and his own overmastering eloquence upon that floor, he finally secured the admission of the State. Brightly and captivating as it had previously shown, it was now perceived that his great eloquence was a mere embellishment, or at most but a helping hand to his inventive genius and his devotion to his country in the day ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... thing that is true than in saying the thing that merely is wonderful. Here as in every case the principle holds that, should the naked truth appear at the moment less interesting, less great and noble than the imaginary embellishment it lies in our power to bestow, the fault must rest with ourselves who still are unable to perceive the astonishing relation in which this truth always must stand to our being, and to universal law; ...
— The Life of the Bee • Maurice Maeterlinck
... being frustrated, I sunk into dreariness and inactivity. I felt as if no dependence could be placed upon my courage, as if any effort I should make for self-destruction would be fruitless; yet existence was as void as ever of enjoyment and embellishment. My means of living were annihilated. I saw no path before me. To shun the presence of mankind was my sovereign wish. Since I could not die by my own hands, I must be content to crawl upon the surface, till a superior fate should ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown
... horror and despair which transpired in the snowy Sierra in the winter of 1846-7, need no exaggeration, no embellishment. From all the works heretofore published, from over one thousand letters received from the survivors, from ample manuscript, and from personal interviews with the most important actors in the tragedy, the facts have been carefully ...
— History of the Donner Party • C.F. McGlashan
... honeysuckles, and the rose. An avenue of columns in long rows Of varied splendor, leads to shining courts Where skilful spirit hands with perfect arts Have chiselled glorious forms magnificent, With ornate skill and sweet embellishment. Their golden sculpture view on every hand, Or carved images in pearl that stand In clusters on the floor, or in long rows; And on the walls of purest pearl there glows The painting of each act of kindest deed Each soul performs on ...
— Babylonian and Assyrian Literature • Anonymous
... without Avignon. Every city repeats the same thing, and if they were all to be listened to, the Holy Father, freed from the cares of administration, might devote his undivided attention to the interests of the Church and the embellishment of Rome. The Romans themselves, so they be neither princes, nor priests, nor servants, nor beggars, declare that they have devoted themselves long enough, and that M. Thiers may ...
— The Roman Question • Edmond About
... paint like nature dying; Whose dissolving struggle lent Wealth of hues so richly blent That, through weary years of trying, Artist skill pre-eminent May not copy or invent Such divine embellishment. ...
— Poems - Vol. IV • Hattie Howard
... imaginary flowers which adorned the chain, not that man should wear his fetters denuded of fanciful embellishment, but that he should throw off the chain, ...
— Selected Essays • Karl Marx
... to be found in the old guilds, altars, shrines, vestments and sacred vessels were given in incredible quantities for the furnishing and embellishment of the chapel or church; funds also for the maintenance of priestly offices especially dedicated to ...
— Towards the Great Peace • Ralph Adams Cram
... they are), some of which are newly-founded Institutions, and some old establishments transplanted. There is a tendency in these pieces of architecture to shoot upward unexpectedly, like Jack's bean-stalk, and to be ornate in spires of Chapels and lanterns of Halls, which might lead to the embellishment of the air with many castles of questionable beauty but for the restraining consideration of expense. However, the manners, being always of a sanguine temperament, comfort themselves with plans and elevations of Loomings in the future, ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... a Carnival night, or the statues upon Santa Trinita at Florence, bathed in moonlight, and their outline distinctly revealed against sky and water, cannot but realize how harmoniously sculpture may illustrate and heighten the architecture of the bridge. More quaint than appropriate is pictorial embellishment; a beautiful Madonna or local saint placed midway or at either end of a bridge, especially one of mediaeval form and fashion, seems appropriate; but elaborate painting, such as one sees at Lucerne, strikes us as more curious than desirable. The bridge which divides ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 74, December, 1863 • Various
... of the nave to which the attention was directed appeared too finely, spotlessly radiant, ever to have been touched by mortal hands. Entranced and bewildered, the observation roamed over the surface of the brilliant scene, until, wearied by the unbroken embellishment of the prospect, it wandered for repose upon the dimly lighted aisles, and dwelt with delight upon the soft shadows that hovered about their distant pillars, and the gliding forms that peopled their dusky recesses, or loitered past their ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins
... which the letters of royal and distinguished personages in the East are written is usually perfumed, and covered with curious devices in gold. This was scented with amber. The degree of embellishment is generally regulated according to the ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 1,Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous
... Dove did not start the next afternoon. A telegram had detained the sheriff, and he did not reach Chakchak till night. He spent the evening with them, taking a great fancy to Clyde. He even blossomed out as a story teller, spinning yarns without embellishment and with great clearness. He told of cattle wars, of outlaws, of Indian fighters, of strange occurrences, of strange men, primitive of mind and of action, who had played their parts in the history of the West. It was information at first-hand, rare ...
— Desert Conquest - or, Precious Waters • A. M. Chisholm
... is it that I have read, that a Frenchman has no idea of gardening? Nothing can be more false: the French peasants infinitely excell the English of the same order in the knowledge and practice of this embellishment. ...
— Travels through the South of France and the Interior of Provinces of Provence and Languedoc in the Years 1807 and 1808 • Lt-Col. Pinkney
... which he has torn from its support. The contrast between the savage character of the beast and his absurdly peaceful employment gives a touch of terrific comedy to this design. After studying these figures, one cannot help thinking what a noble embellishment either of them would be, put in bronze, of colossal size, in the public grounds of one of our great Western cities. And inasmuch as the rich citizens of the West not only know what a grizzly bear is, but ...
— Confessions and Criticisms • Julian Hawthorne
... look over him while he painted; would bewilder him with the pedigree of the horse; would have the animal done in the most unpicturesque view; and sternly forbade all introduction of "tone," "light and shade," or purely artistic embellishment of any kind, in any part of the canvas. In short, the squire wanted a sign-board instead of a picture, and he at last got what he wanted to ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... meaning except the one that this day also was won by the same units as did the fighting of the 21st. This was a handling of fact which appealed neither to the Black Watch, whose achievements need no aid of embellishment from imagination, nor to the Leicestershires, who were made to appear spectators through the savage fighting of two days. If the reader turns to the chapter in this book entitled 'The Battle for Samarra,' he will learn what actually happened on April 22, 1917. ...
— The Leicestershires beyond Baghdad • Edward John Thompson
... are expected "to come out," to be developed, inspired, and made beautiful. What healthy ear can endure such enormities in tone formation, such tortures in singing? These, then, are the modern contributions for the embellishment of art! A curse on these evil spirits! If my feeble pen shall assist in bringing such singing-teachers to their senses, and shall help to save only a few of our fine voices, I shall consider my mission fulfilled, and the aim of this book, so far as ...
— Piano and Song - How to Teach, How to Learn, and How to Form a Judgment of - Musical Performances • Friedrich Wieck
... the women may not sew, spin, weave, embroider sufficiently for the embellishment of their persons, and even enough to raise envy in each other, without ...
— The Querist • George Berkeley
... war are plentiful. Sketches taken on the spot they depict, sometimes by a hand that had momentarily laid down a rifle to take them, and always by a draughtsman who drew in overt or covert peril of his life, gain in verisimilitude what they must lose in elaboration or embellishment; are the richer in their realism by reason of the absence of the imaginary and ...
— A Soldier's Sketches Under Fire • Harold Harvey
... S. de R——d is not more distinguished by its profuse decoration, than by the fine taste which has guided the vast expenditure. Its halls of arabesque are almost without a rival; there is not the slightest embellishment in which the hand and feeling of art are not recognised. The rooms were very crowded; everybody distinguished in Paris was there: the lady of the Court, the duchess of the Faubourg, the wife of the financier, the constitutional Throne, the ...
— Coningsby • Benjamin Disraeli
... came into a high-ceiled apartment, cylindrical in shape, with plastered walls painted green everywhere save for the quaint embellishment of a large oval, wherein a woman, having an eagle's beak, grasped in one hand a serpent and in the other a knife. Sir Thomas Browne seemed to recognize this curious design, ...
— The Certain Hour • James Branch Cabell
... and belongings, and absolutely careless as to the comforts of life. The waste in his household was something fabulous, but it is a question whether he ever participated in luxuries showered upon others. His one hobby had been the embellishment of Groote Schuur, which he had really transformed into something absolutely fairylike as regards its exterior beauties and the loveliness of its grounds and gardens. Inside, too, the house, furnished after the old Dutch style, struck one by its handsomeness, though it was neither homelike nor ...
— Cecil Rhodes - Man and Empire-Maker • Princess Catherine Radziwill
... seen. Some predecessor with domestic instincts had left behind him half a package of "Rising Sun," and Billy had found it and was intending to blacken the stove just as soon as he finished the dishes. That he had left it as a crowning embellishment, rather than making it the foundation of his house-cleaning, only proved his inexperience in that line. Billy had "bached" a great deal, but he had never blacked ...
— The Long Shadow • B. M. Bower
... imagination which a host of imitators could not exhaust,—still I am far from wishing to deny that the author of these great poems found a rich fund of tradition, a well-stocked mythical storehouse from whence he might derive both subject and embellishment. But it is one thing to use existing romances in the embellishment of a poem, another to patch up the poem itself from such materials. What consistency of style and execution can be hoped for from such an attempt? or, rather, what bad taste and tedium will not ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer
... force to the explanations in the text. They embrace all branches of science and of natural history, and depict the most famous and remarkable features of scenery, architecture, and art, as well as the various processes of mechanics and manufactures. Although intended for instruction rather than embellishment, no pains have been spared to insure their artistic excellence; the cost of their execution is enormous, and it is believed that they will find a welcome reception as an admirable feature of the Cyclopaedia, and worthy ...
— The Electoral Votes of 1876 - Who Should Count Them, What Should Be Counted, and the Remedy for a Wrong Count • David Dudley Field
... which they lavished upon Adrienne, there seemed to be at least as much of affection as of deference and respect. They appeared to derive an ardent pleasure from the services which they rendered to their lovely mistress. One would have thought that they attached to the dressing and embellishment of her person all the merits and the enjoyment arising from the execution of a work of art, in the accomplishing of which, fruitful of delights, they were stimulated by the passions of love, of ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... Karpin was lying in his teeth. That dramatic little touch about McCann's body hovering over the dome before disappearing into the void, that sounded more like the embellishment of fiction than the circumstance of truth. And the string of coincidences were just too much. McCann just coincidentally happens to die right after he and his partner make their big strike. He happens to write out the cash-return form just before ...
— The Risk Profession • Donald Edwin Westlake
... this tale, so thoroughly life-like, surrendering her perfect faith and her loving sympathy to the different persons in the tale, and the natural distresses in which they are involved, without suspecting, for a moment, that by so much as a breathing of exaggeration or of embellishment the pure gospel truth of the narrative could have been sullied. She listened, in a kind of breathless stupor, to my frank explanation—that not part only, but the whole, of this natural tale was a pure invention. Scorn and indignation flashed from her eyes. She regarded herself as one ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... you, I shall tell you my latest anecdote,' Mina said; and, heedless of the half-laughing, half-eager protest of Gladys, she related the incident of the portrait, with a little embellishment which made him appear in rather ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan
... this town, one cannot but be surprised at the absence of Fountains—those charming pieces of architecture and of street embellishment. In this respect, Rouen has infinitely the advantage of Caen: where, instead of the trickling current of translucent water, we observe nothing but the partial and perturbed stream issuing from ugly wells[106] as ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume One • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... her husband was faithfully repeated by Mrs. Smith to her daughters, with some innocent exaggeration and unconscious embellishment. She always wanted to make ...
— Princess • Mary Greenway McClelland
... it really and truly better and more acceptable worship that came to breathe through him when alone with God under the open vault of Heaven, with endless stars above and beyond, or was the best that which was beautified and guided by priests, with all that man's devices could lavish upon its embellishment?' Such, though in more broken and hesitating words, was the herd boy's difficulty, and Henry put his head back, and after having once said, 'Adam had the one, God directed the other,' he shut his eyes, and Hal feared he would put it aside as he had with the moon and the tides, but after some ...
— The Herd Boy and His Hermit • Charlotte M. Yonge
... — N. ornament, ornamentation, ornamental art; ornature^, ornateness; adornment, decoration, embellishment; architecture; jewelry &c 847.1. [surface coatings for wood: list] garnish, polish, varnish, French polish, veneer, japanning, lacquer. [surface coatings for metal] gilding, plating, ormolu, enamel, cloisonne. [surface coatings for human skin] cosmetics (in general), ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... volume to have been almost unprecedentedly rapid, (a fourth edition being called for within two years) in comparison with the usual slow sale of scientific works. This success may easily be traced. The title of the work is not extraordinarily inviting, illustration, not embellishment, is attempted in a few outline diagrams, and the only external inducement to read, is a plain, legible type, to suit all sights. Looking further, we find the great cause in the manner as well as the matter of the volume, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 405, December 19, 1829 • Various
... of Claudius, the successor of Caligula, little or nothing was done toward the enlargement or the embellishment of the palace of the Caesars. Nero, however, the successor of Claudius, conceived the gigantic plan of renewing and of rebuilding from the very foundations, not only the imperial residence, but the whole metropolis. In the rebuilding of the city the emperor secured for himself the lion's ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 7 - Italy, Sicily, and Greece (Part One) • Various
... gentle, simple-hearted girl, with one sole affection, namely, for the brother, who was the whole world to her; and taking Miss Martindale, on his word, as an object of reverence and admiration. It was impossible not to thaw towards her: and when Theodora spoke of the embellishment of the portrait, she needed no more to make her spring up, and fetch a portfolio to exhibit her brother's drawings. Admirable they were; sketches of foreign scenery, many portraits, in different styles, of ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... elegance, rendered yet more delightful by the elemental war, reigned triumphant within a large and splendidly furnished apartment in the noble mansion of M. Dantes, the Deputy from Marseilles, in the Rue du Helder. Every embellishment which art could invent, luxury court, wealth invoke, or even imagination conceive, seemed there lavished with a most prodigal hand. The soft atmosphere of summer, perfumed by the exotics of a neighboring conservatory, delighted ...
— Edmond Dantes • Edmund Flagg
... great seeming reluctance and with many protestations of regret, that must have made him seem like a particularly mischievous monkey apologizing for stealing nuts, repeated, with a cunning lack of embellishment, the plain statement that he had made to the retainer. Thereupon, Messer Folco, in a great rage which it took all his boasted philosophy to keep under control, called to him two or three of his old cronies that were still lingering about the deserted tables. These folk ...
— The God of Love • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... embellishing art must be sought in that stage of animal development when instinct began to discover that certain attributes or adornments increased attractiveness. When art in its human sense came into existence ideas of embellishment soon extended from the person, with, which they had been associated, to all things with which man had to deal. The processes of the growth of the aesthetic idea are long and obscure and cannot be ...
— Origin and Development of Form and Ornament in Ceramic Art. • William Henry Holmes
... a fair way of using a story," said the doctor. "You should take a story as you get it, and not play the dissector upon it, mangling its poor body to discover the bit of embellishment; and as long as a raconteur maintains vraisemblance, I contend you are bound to receive the whole ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover
... alternately from us to him, as if in expectation of something they were disappointed in not perceiving. Regarding the chief attentively, I thought his lineaments appeared familiar to me. As soon as his full face was turned upon me, and I again beheld its extraordinary embellishment, and met the strange gaze to which I had been subjected the preceding night, I immediately, in spite of the alteration in his appearance, recognized the noble Mehevi. On addressing him, he advanced at once in the most cordial manner, and greeting me warmly, seemed to enjoy ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville
... buildings in Mandalay, however, are the monasteries, of which there are a large number, many of great interest, the principal one being the "Queen's Golden Monastery," for beauty of design and elaborate embellishment unquestionably the finest structure of its kind ...
— Burma - Peeps at Many Lands • R.Talbot Kelly
... have been deemed illegal. Had the king been enabled to carry his power still further, and made the houses be rebuilt with perfect regularity, and entirely upon one plan, he had much contributed to the convenience, as well as embellishment of the city. Great advantages, however, have resulted from the alterations though not carried to the full length. London became much more healthy after the fire. The plague, which used to break out with great ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part F. - From Charles II. to James II. • David Hume
... and without life." Truthfully, it is a remarkably ugly building of the middle eighteenth century, with no details of note and no memorials worthy of even a passing regard, except a monument to the Duc de Berry, who died in 1820. What embellishment is given to the interior, is accounted for by the exceeding ruddy glow shed by the contemporary coloured glass of the ...
— The Cathedrals of Northern France • Francis Miltoun
... but, stripped of such ornamental embellishment, there can be little doubt that it was within the Tower's grim walls that Dudley first learnt to love the lady who was to be his Queen, and in whose life he was destined to play such a romantic part, when she should wear her crown, ...
— Love Romances of the Aristocracy • Thornton Hall
... abroad; but doubtless also it was the effect of a kindly nature. Even in the matter of selling a few thousands of them to fight the battles of a bad cause on the other side of the world, he had the best of motives, and faithfully applied the proceeds to the payment of the state debt and the embellishment ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... most part, splendid specimens of the style which luxury and good-living have attained in this country. Such are their internal recommendations; but to the public they are interesting for the architectural embellishment which they add to the streets of the metropolis. If we reason on Bishop Berkeley's theory—that all the mansions, equipages, &c. we see abroad, are intended for our gratification—we must soon forget the turtle, venison, and claret that are stored in the larders and cellars ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 12, No. 334 Saturday, October 4, 1828 • Various
... the Picayune, has sailed once more for Paris, to superintend there the completion of his great work on the late war in Mexico upon which he has been engaged for the last two years. The highest talent has been employed in the embellishment of this book, and the care and expense incurred may be estimated from the fact that sixty men, coloring and preparing the plates, can finish only one hundred and twenty copies in a month. The original sketches were taken by a German, Carl ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. I, No. 6 - Of Literature, Art, And Science, New York, August 5, 1850 • Various
... which we have only too brief descriptions. Then, too, there was Richard, the monk who decorated the grand new guests' hall deliciose, as we are told, and who painted pictures and carried out other works of embellishment at a pace which none could have kept up, but that he had his father to help him with his brush, and another artist, John of Wallingford, to carry out his great designs, and many more skilled limners whose names ...
— The Quarterly Review, Volume 162, No. 324, April, 1886 • Various
... strictly in accordance with artistic forms. The songs did not require this; for they possessed in themselves a peculiar power, a plaintive, emotional beauty, and other characteristics which seemed entirely independent of artistic embellishment. These characteristics were, with a most refreshing originality, naturalness, and soulfulness of voice and method, fully developed by the singers, who sang with all their might, yet with most ...
— Music and Some Highly Musical People • James M. Trotter
... Brezes, Gerald, the Felixsons, Miss Cecilia Brown, and Gideon Hart, all intelligent, all people who could talk. It was further frugally resolved to have the dinner on a Friday and let it be followed by the usual evening party, thus making the same embellishment of the house do for two occasions, as well as augmenting their visitor's opportunity to make acquaintance with the Anglo-American ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall
... a cut not so ancient as to be at all odd, and it fitted his broad shoulders with precision. He wore a white waistcoat and a flowing black tie, which helped to carry out the impression of his being a boy whose hair had accidentally turned gray. As he danced he put every possible embellishment of posture and step into his task, and when he bowed to Roberta his attitude expressed the deepest reverence, offset only by his laughing face as he advanced ...
— The Twenty-Fourth of June • Grace S. Richmond
... glorious school of virtue.'[49] What the repairs then made exactly involved is unfortunately not stated. But, according to Scylitzes, they were so extensive that 'to tell in detail what the emperor and empress did for the embellishment of the church would surpass the labour of Hercules.'[50] Probably they concerned chiefly ...
— Byzantine Churches in Constantinople - Their History and Architecture • Alexander Van Millingen
... seeming calmness, but when Bissell returned the foreman got his revenge. He outlined with full detail and considerable embellishment the constant progress that Larkin was making with Juliet. Disclaiming any interest of his own in the matter, he explained that the reason for his complaint was the ...
— The Free Range • Francis William Sullivan
... fascinate misspelled accommodate mischievous possession accordance miscellaneous accuracy muscle recollection succeed susceptible dispelled occasional miscellaneous occur existence monosyllable experience intellectual across sentence parallel amount embellishment apart foregoing wholly arouse forehead woolly village already forty villain all right foreign till forfeit amateur formally perpetual grandeur formerly persuade perspiration appal fulfill apparatus willful police appetite policies approximate guardian ...
— Practical Grammar and Composition • Thomas Wood
... emperor by the Praetorians. He took Augustus for his model, was well disposed, and contributed greatly to the embellishment of the capital. But he was gluttonous and intemperate, and subject to the influence of women and favorites. He was feeble in mind and body. He was married to one of the worst women in history, and Messalina has passed into a synonym for infamy. By this woman he was influenced, and ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord
... death in 1617. Why he had not told it before is difficult to explain. Perhaps he had promised Powhatan to keep it secret, lest the record of his sentimental clemency should impair his authority over the tribes. Or it may have been an embellishment of some comparatively trifling incident of Smith's captivity, suggested to his mind as he was compiling his "General History of Virginia." It can never be determined; but certainly his relations with the Indian girl were ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... hearing about your adventure, Tom, with a handsome lie added for embellishment. Now pulverize that lie to dust! What measures have you taken? ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... has visited this country at intervals during the last ten years said, "There is no such uniformity of beautiful interiors anywhere else in the world. There are palaces in France and Italy, and great country houses in England, to the embellishment of which generations of owners have devoted the best art of their own time; but in America there is something of it everywhere. Many unpretentious houses have drawing-rooms possessing colour-decoration which would distinguish them as examples ...
— Principles of Home Decoration - With Practical Examples • Candace Wheeler
... which is devoid of all softness, mildness, tenderness, indulgence or levity, or (in literature and art) devoid of unnecessary ornament, amplification, or embellishment of any kind; as, a severe style; as said of anything painful, severe signifies such as heavily taxes endurance or resisting power; as, a severe pain, fever, or winter. Rigid signifies primarily stiff, resisting ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... apartment, opening on one side into an ante-room, on the other into a music-room. It had several tables stationed at convenient distances; one consecrated to the novelties of literature, another to the novelties of embellishment; others unoccupied, and at the disposal of the company. The walls were covered with a copious collection of ancient and modern books; the ancient having been selected and arranged by the Reverend Doctor Folliott. In the ante-room were card-tables; ...
— Crotchet Castle • Thomas Love Peacock
... years; the tiger hunt; the method of catching the elephant in Ceylon; the pearl fishery; Sepoy establishment; in short I must have appeared to them a Ulysses or a Sindbad, and I dare say that they thought I added from time to time a little embellishment from my imagination, tho' I can safely and solemnly aver that I did not extenuate nor exaggerate any thing, but simply related what I had myself ...
— After Waterloo: Reminiscences of European Travel 1815-1819 • Major W. E Frye
... ease his situation. Kerr turned on hearing this outburst and inquired what it meant. Hargus repeated the prisoner's request with obscene embellishment. They made no secret of each other's identity, speaking familiarly, as if in the presence of one who would make no future charges. Kerr found the request reasonable, and ordered Hargus to tie Lambert's hands ...
— The Duke Of Chimney Butte • G. W. Ogden
... steps had been to ask Aunt Helen to come and live with me; to which she finally consented, though the consequent necessity of disestablishing her cosey little parlor, upon the embellishment of which she had spent the overflow of her income for years, cost her many a pang. But she was a far-seeing woman, and had I dare say, while accepting my offer, a delightful vision of helping me to live up to the duties of my position. I can only say that she soon began to impress the ...
— A Romantic Young Lady • Robert Grant
... is not found in any copy except in the Crusca Italian, and, with a little modification, in another at Florence, belonging to the Pucci family. It is just possible that it was the embellishment of a transcriber or translator; but in any case it is very old, and ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... grandest mansion without them. Their dwelling, they called the "Louvre", and in their poor pupils, the eye of faith enabled them to discern ornaments more costly, more precious and more prized than all the splendour which art can devise and wealth purchase for the embellishment of regal palaces, for what is the value of a palace, compared with that of ...
— The Life of the Venerable Mother Mary of the Incarnation • "A Religious of the Ursuline Community"
... forcibly upon an English jury. It is disappointing to listen to Mr. Gordon for the first time. His appearance is sufficiently distingue, for he is tall of stature, and he has a decidedly intellectual cast of countenance. But when he commences to speak there is an almost painful absence of embellishment or emotional feeling; his language is severely practical and argumentative; but his logic is unimpeachable, and he can summon to his aid no end of hard and dry, albeit ...
— Western Worthies - A Gallery of Biographical and Critical Sketches of West - of Scotland Celebrities • J. Stephen Jeans |
