"Madonna" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the cathedral are cloisters that the guide books mention; they inclose a courtyard that was once decorated with statues of saints. By some accident or miracle—there are always miracles in shelled towns—one of these images, perhaps that of the Madonna, has been lifted from its pedestal and thrown into the branches of a tree, which seems almost to hold ...
— They Shall Not Pass • Frank H. Simonds
... coveted delight of studying the face, that had made summary shipwreck of his matrimonial fortune. No slightest detail escaped him; the burnished locks curled loosely around the forehead smooth as a sleeping baby's, the broad arch of the delicately-pencilled black brows, the Madonna droop of the lids whose heavy sable fringes deepened the bluish shadows beneath the eyes, the straight, flawless nose, the perfect chin with its deeply-incised dimple, the remarkably beautiful mouth, which despairing grief had kissed and made ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... crazy old New England conscience! If you were all Spanish, you'd look as innocent as a madonna for a week, and if you were my kind of Californian you'd cheek it and make your elders feel that they were impertinent for taking ...
— The Californians • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... Liber Amoris, the passionate confession which had first brought the poet his fame. As a matter of fact, several ladies had 'stood' for this series, but the poet had artfully generalised them into one supreme Madonna, whom Annette believed to be herself. Indeed, she had furnished the warmest and the most tragic colouring. Rondel, however, had for some time kept his address a secret from Annette. But the candle set upon ...
— Prose Fancies • Richard Le Gallienne
... other over to Poland. That my father thought of this in later times is proved by the numerous bequests and codicils in his will. Among others there is one that touched me more deeply than I can tell: "The head of the Madonna by Sassoferrato I ...
— Without Dogma • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... predecessors (whom I had particularly selected) had already made the most gratifying progress among the bric-a-brac, two intelligent Airdale puppies had chewed satisfactory holes in the Art Nouveau furniture, even the Sistine Madonna had wrenched loose from its supports and considerately annihilated the jewel-studded Oriental lamp ...
— Murder in Any Degree • Owen Johnson
... whalers and China traders and West-Indiamen brought home gold and blacks, Cashmere shawls and sweet sandalwood, Malay oaths and the jawbones of whales. The Applebys could see by the electric lights bowered in the lilac-bushes that a stately grass walk, lined with Madonna lilies and hollyhock and phlox, led to the fanlight-crested white door, above which hung the mocking tea-pot sign. The house was lighted, the windows open. To the right of the hall was the arts-shop where, among walls softened with silky Turkish rugs and paintings of blue dawn amid the ...
— The Innocents - A Story for Lovers • Sinclair Lewis
... Hence the disappointment of all such persons as think that the beautiful and significant things of the world ought to give them delight without any trouble on their part: they think that it is the fault of a Swiss mountain, or a Titian Madonna, or a poem by Browning if it does not at once ravish their inert souls into a seventh heaven. Yet these are people who occasionally ride, or play at golf or whist, and who never expect the cards and the golf clubs to play the game by themselves, nor the very ...
— Hortus Vitae - Essays on the Gardening of Life • Violet Paget, AKA Vernon Lee
... convent, and it is a little startling to see the church facade, with a statue of the Madonna over the central porch. At the steps a number of women stood waiting with pots and jars and handkerchiefs full of food for their relatives within; and when the doctor appeared several rushed up to ask about ...
— The Land of The Blessed Virgin; Sketches and Impressions in Andalusia • William Somerset Maugham
... establishment. Mrs. Henry Lee Scott's social sway in Washington was almost unprecedented. She was as grand in appearance as she was in character, and during one of her visits to Rome she sat for a distinguished artist as a model for his pictures of the Madonna. General Scott seemed to derive much pleasure and satisfaction from the society of his former companions in arms, who were always welcomed to his hospitable board. Among those I especially recall were Colonels John Abert, Roger Jones, William ...
— As I Remember - Recollections of American Society during the Nineteenth Century • Marian Gouverneur
... passionate career; the charming, child-like creature, to whom he looked back, at the end of his life, with an unchanged tenderness and disappointment: "Vous n'avez rien compris a ma simplicite," as he lamented. In the case of Dowson, however, there was a sort of virginal devotion, as to a Madonna; and I think, had things gone happily, to a conventionally happy ending, he would have felt (dare I say?) that his ...
— The Poems And Prose Of Ernest Dowson • Ernest Dowson et al
... on those poor lips, And, under the white hospital-array, A flower-like body, to frighten at a bruise You'd think, yet now, stabbed through and through again, Alive i' the ruins. 'Tis a miracle. It seems that when her husband struck her first, She prayed Madonna just that she might live So long as to confess and be absolved; And whether it was that, all her sad life long Never before successful in a prayer, This prayer rose with authority too dread— Or whether because earth was hell to her, By compensation when the blackness broke, She ...
— Browning's Heroines • Ethel Colburn Mayne
... stone marks her small green bed With "Anna" and "Adieu". Madonna Mary, rest her head On your dear ...
— An Anthology of Australian Verse • Bertram Stevens
... of marvels, Bouvard and Pecuchet experienced a kind of bedazzlement. The fantastic style appeared to them reserved for princes. The temple to philosophy would be cumbersome. The votive offering of the Madonna would have no signification, having regard to the lack of assassins, and—so much the worse for the colonists and the travellers—the American plants would cost too much. But the rocks were possible, as well as the shattered trees, the immortelles, and the moss; and in their ...
— Bouvard and Pecuchet - A Tragi-comic Novel of Bourgeois Life • Gustave Flaubert
... way. Special regulations dealt with all these, and it is only at the end of the list that anconae are mentioned. The ancona was a gilded framework, having a compartment containing a picture of the Madonna and Child, and others with single figures of the saints, and these were the only pictures proper produced at this date. The demand for anconae was, however, large, and they were very early placed, ...
— The Venetian School of Painting • Evelyn March Phillipps
... her face from her hands. She saw before her a great door which stood open. Above it was a statue of the Madonna and Child, and on either side were two angels with swords and stars. Underneath was written, in ...
— The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens
... of returning life glimmered back into his brain, he first was dimly aware of a pale Madonna face that appeared to hover close above him. His clearing gaze gradually made out the girl's features. There was no colour even in her lips. Her eyes were wide ...
— Bloom of Cactus • Robert Ames Bennet
... that on every account I was delighted to see him face to face. I can't tell you what else we have done or not done. It's a great dazzling heap of things new and strange. Barry Cornwall (Mr. Procter) came to see us every day till business swept him out of town, and dear Mrs. Jameson left her Madonna for us in despite of the printers. Such kindness, on all sides. Ah, there's kindness in England after all. Yet I grew cold to the heart as I set foot on the ground of it, and wished myself away. Also, the sort of life is not perhaps the ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume II • Elizabeth Barrett Browning
... alighted from her chariot, or the Sibyl of the tempest that was rolling around her, the only living thing within hail at that moment, except ourselves. On seeing me safe she did not wait to greet me, as might have been expected; but, calling out to me, 'Ah! can' della Madonna, xe esto il tempo per andar' al' Lido,' ran into the house, and solaced herself with scolding the boatmen for not foreseeing the 'temporale.' Her joy at seeing me again was moderately mixed with ferocity, and gave me the idea of a tigress over ...
— Byron • John Nichol
... ain't goin' to give up to no fash'nable swell. I'm's good's she is, an' I've got my rights an I'll hev 'em. An' besides, there's baby—!" Her face softened and took on a love light; and immediately Michael was reminded of the madonna picture again. "I've got to think o' him!" Michael marvelled to see that the girl was revelling in her possession, of the little helpless burden who had been the cause ...
— Lo, Michael! • Grace Livingston Hill
... book is intended as a companion volume to "Child-Life in Art," and is a study of Madonna art as a revelation of motherhood. With the historical and legendary incidents in the life of the Virgin it has nothing to do. These subjects have been discussed comprehensively and finally in Mrs. Jameson's splendid work on the "Legends of the Madonna." ...
— The Madonna in Art • Estelle M. Hurll
... to the remotest branches, were much in evidence, refurbished, and coming in solemn state to testify their approval of an alliance so honorable to their house, with many wise worldly maxims and pious thanks to the Madonna. ...
— The Royal Pawn of Venice - A Romance of Cyprus • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... the beautiful Madonna, to which you have given so much time, and on which you have expended so much care!' Then with a sudden change of tone, in which astonishment darkened into fear, she exclaimed: 'Are you ill, Jemschid? You have already worked too long upon it. You will ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. IV. October, 1863, No. IV. - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... church frescoed by Correggio. All heaven upsidedown; fat angels turning somersaults, saints like butchers, and martyrs simpering feebly. Like C.'s babies much better. Heaven can't be painted, and they'd better not try. Madonna, by Girolamo, was lovely. Room of the Abbess, with rosy children peeping through the lattice, very charming. Madonna della Scodella—the boy Christ very charming. The old Farnese Theatre most ...
— Shawl-Straps - A Second Series of Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag • Louisa M. Alcott
... occupied him for a moment. "Every man should be engaged, I think, to at least one woman. It is the homage we owe to womankind, and a duty to our souls. His fiancee is indeed the Madonna of a true-hearted man; the thought of her is a shrine at the wayside of one's meditations, and her presence a temple wherein we cleanse our souls. She is mysterious, worshipful, and inaccessible, something ...
— Select Conversations with an Uncle • H. G. Wells
... made prisoners of his wife and of his children who were still very young. By thinking they could not be safe unless they got possession of the citadel, which the governor refused to surrender, they obtained a promise from Madonna Caterina, for so the Countess was named, that on their permitting her to enter the citadel she would cause it to be given up to them, her children in the mean time remaining with them as hostages. On which undertaking they suffered her to enter the citadel. But no sooner had she got ...
— Discourses on the First Decade of Titus Livius • Niccolo Machiavelli
... the beauty of execution in this picture, it is unsurpassed. It is in this respect like the most beautiful things ever painted by Raphael,—like the Madonna del Cardellino, whose face has light within, "luce di dentro," as is the expressive Italian phrase,—and is also like another picture that I have seen, attributed to Raphael, in the collection of the late Baron Kestner ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865 • Various
... and gazed out across the garden. Down by the yew-hedge, where a narrow path of turf wound in and out among beds of tall Madonna lilies and Canterbury bells, the two children were playing a solemn game of follow-my-leader, the blind boy close on his sister's heels, she turning again and again to watch that he came ...
— Shining Ferry • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... same face which he had seen for a moment in the library at Arnstead — the glorified face of Margaret Elginbrod, shimmering faintly in the dull light. Instinctively he pressed his hands together, palm to palm, as if he had been about to kneel before Madonna herself. Delight, mingled with hope, and tempered by shame, flushed his face. Ghost or none, she brought no ...
— David Elginbrod • George MacDonald
... chenille net on her black hair, sits at the piano in her own parlor. On the Brussels carpet stands, among others, Her Majesty, Queen Miriam, in a lilac silk, with bare neck and arms save for the protection afforded by a bertha of applique lace trimmed with pink ribbon, with hair a la madonna, and fastened low on her neck. Is she not handsome as she stands fronting the folding doors, her hand in tall Mr. Trezevant's, just as she commences to dance, with the tip of her black bottine just showing? Vis-a-vis stands pretty Sophie, with her large, graceful ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson
... tell you. She was the prettiest little baggage I've set eyes on for years. And she was not of an iron virtue. But she wouldn't look at a little thing like me. Can't think why. Come, now, don't look so demure. We aren't all plaister saints like you. I'm not, in spite of my Madonna face. Wasn't that the truth? The Marchesa story is for the gallery. But you and I are behind the scenes. Mum's the word. But wasn't that why Carstairs was hanging about the house after everyone else had gone just for the same reason that ...
— Prisoners - Fast Bound In Misery And Iron • Mary Cholmondeley
... a Madonna-like face with swimming eyes, "I see no change in him: he is very brave, and daring, and saucy. But so he always was. To be sure he says extravagant things, and stares one out of countenance with his eyes: well, and so he always did—ever since I ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... the top of the carriage. 'Santa Maria! Madonna mia! it isn't any thing, merely a bread-basket!' cried Francesco, who, delighted to find out he had not killed his passenger and so lost a scudo, at once harnessed in three horses abreast to the vettura, interspersing his performance ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2 No 4, October, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... so much like one of Murillo's Madonnas," thought Truesdale. "This isn't really the most important thing that has ever happened in the universe, after all." Then he sighed lightly. "Still, I suppose she is a good deal nearer to a Madonna than I am ...
— With the Procession • Henry B. Fuller
... they rested again on the picture Nancy made—the cool curve of her bent neck, the rise and fall of the breast in which the breathing had quickened perceptibly since his coming,—the child swathed in the long folds of white linen outlined against the Madonna blue of the dress that she was wearing. Nancy blushed under the intentness of his gaze, understanding, thanks to Caroline's report of his conversation with Betty, something of what was in his mind ...
— Outside Inn • Ethel M. Kelley
... reached a widening in the passage where, it seemed, there had once been a chapel; at least, there was a small table against the wall, like an altar, and above, the faded, almost entirely obliterated picture of a Catholic Madonna. A small silver lamp hanging before it barely illumined it. The Tatar stooped and picked up from the ground a copper candlestick which she had left there, a candlestick with a tall, slender stem, and snuffers, pin, and extinguisher ...
— Taras Bulba and Other Tales • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... much effort, Domenico might have fished out of his obscure consciousness had you summoned him to explain how the ancient gods could possibly be immortal. As to him, he had always heard of them as immortal, and although he had not been taught any respect or love for them as for Christ, the Madonna, and the saints, they must be existing somewhere since immortal means that which ...
— Renaissance Fancies and Studies - Being a Sequel to Euphorion • Violet Paget (AKA Vernon Lee)
... masculine admiration, as a Japanese girl, when married, blackens her teeth? Or had the ladies inflicted the frightful things upon themselves, by way of penance for some grievous sin? I should have liked to ask, especially as one of the wearers was very pretty, with a large, madonna loveliness. But under my dreaming eyes, she began eating honey with her knife, and I sprang from the table hastily. As I paused, I heard two stolid Cockneys asking each other why the—dickens they had come to this "beastly, ...
— The Princess Passes • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... "Madonna?" I challenged, and emulating something of old Falcone's attitude, I drew myself erect, flung back my head, and brought my eyes to the level of her own by an effort of will such as I had ...
— The Strolling Saint • Raphael Sabatini
... streets in Boston,—with houses stuccoed outside, and with gratings at their ground-floor windows; with mouldering archways between the buildings, and at the corners feeble lamps glimmering before pictures of the Madonna; with weather-beaten shutters flapping overhead, and many balconies from which hung the linen swathings of young infants, and love-making maidens furtively lured the velvet-jacketed, leisurely youth below: a place haunted by windy voices of blessing and cursing, with ...
— Suburban Sketches • W.D. Howells
... left, precisely, to show what wonder she could work under pressure. Her friend felt—how could she not?—as the truly pious priest might feel when confronted, behind the altar, before the festa, with his miraculous Madonna. Such an occasion would be grave, in general, with all the gravity of what he might look for. But the gravity to-night would be of the rarest; what he might look for would depend so on ...
— The Golden Bowl • Henry James
... gazed at the picture—he was feeling a little sad—the sadness melted away. The frail figure, bright yet dim, vaguely appearing through vaporous curtains, holding an impossible gold flower, had the effect on him of a beautiful Madonna on a deeply devout Catholic. It produced in him a form of religious ecstasy. He adored her with passion, and with the selfishness and jealousy of passion, but circumstances and his temperament caused it to take the outward form, principally, of care for her happiness. When she was actually ...
— The Limit • Ada Leverson
... of countries, figures and scenes, like painters; of bodies, like sculptors; save that painters and sculptors know how to paint and to sculpture those images, while we possess them only within our souls. They believe that anyone could have imagined a Madonna of Raphael; but that Raphael was Raphael owing to his technical ability in putting the Madonna upon the canvas. Nothing can be more false than this view. The world of which as a rule we have intuitions, is a small thing. It consists of little expressions which ...
— Aesthetic as Science of Expression and General Linguistic • Benedetto Croce
... raising his troubled eyes, looked fixedly at a large print of the Sistine Madonna that hung on the study wall just opposite his desk. As he gazed at its ineffable tenderness there came to him a slow surcease of strain. Flotsam and jetsam of eternity they might all be, his missionaries and Clark and himself, but underneath were the ever-lasting ...
— The Rapids • Alan Sullivan
... light supple grace with which she moved. He thought he had never seen a more charming woman in appearance. She still somehow retained the slim figure and taking ways of a girl, in conjunction with the soft rounded curves of a present-day Madonna. ...
— A Texas Ranger • William MacLeod Raine
... was a dream- dwelling. I knew, for I turned suddenly and caught the grand piano cavorting in a spacious corner of the room. I did not say anything, for just then we were being received by a gracious woman, a beautiful Madonna, clad in flowing white and shod with sandals, who greeted us as though she ...
— The Cruise of the Snark • Jack London
... a quick turn, as if by impulse, into an old church. "There is a lovely Madonna here," he said. "Who painted it?" "Some pupil of Raphael's perhaps." Serafino removed his hat and stood reverently before this beautiful face, so human, so tender. "I have heard you say so much against the Church, the Papacy—I thought you were not in the Church," I said. ...
— Children of the Market Place • Edgar Lee Masters
... Beldover. They would represent culture. And as there was no one of higher social importance than the doctors, the colliery-managers, and the chemists, they would shine, with their Della Robbia beautiful Madonna, their lovely reliefs from Donatello, their reproductions from Botticelli. Nay, the large photographs of the Primavera and the Aphrodite and the Nativity in the dining-room, the ordinary reception-room, would make dumb the ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence
... driven from my soul, for had it not been for the devil, I would have leaped for joy, and not fainted when father mentioned the black veil. "No," said the holy mother, "had it not been for the devil you would rejoice to take the holy black veil blessed by the Holy Madonna and the blessed saints Clara and Theresa. It is a holy privilege that very few can enjoy on earth. Yea, my daughter, there can not be a greater sin in the sight of the Madonna and the blessed saints, than ...
— Life in the Grey Nunnery at Montreal • Sarah J Richardson
... by age, and were partially covered by dull red stuff. Against this latter hung three pictures from the famous Sansevero collection: a Holy Family by Leonardo da Vinci, a triptych by Perugino, and a Madonna by Correggio. Hardly less celebrated, but sharply at odds with the ecclesiastical subjects of the paintings, was the mantle, carved in a bacchanalian procession of satyrs and nymphs—a model said to have been made by ...
— The Title Market • Emily Post
... like a Madonna, with her golden hair and her eyes fringed with such long lashes that they made a shadow on her cheeks when she ...
— My Double Life - The Memoirs of Sarah Bernhardt • Sarah Bernhardt
... the picture that will remain longest in your memory—the dim candle-light in the white-washed chapel at the Indian Reservation at Pala, during Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament—the young Indian Madonna, with her naked baby lying in her ...
— The Pride of Palomar • Peter B. Kyne
... just that, Malcom. But I must tell you something more about this same Greek Byzantine painting, for there is a school of it to-day. Should you go to Southern Italy or to Russia, you would find many booths for trading, in the back of which you would see a Madonna, or some saint, painted in just this style. These pictures have gained a superstitious value among the lower classes of the people, and are believed to possess a miraculous power. In Mt. Athos, Greece, is a school that still produces ...
— Barbara's Heritage - Young Americans Among the Old Italian Masters • Deristhe L. Hoyt
... idea. It was a fancy of her husband's, to paint her as Madonna. She had refused to touch the Bambino—sometimes petulantly, sometimes in silent scorn. The tiny figure lay always on the studio floor, dusty and disarranged. The artist picked it up. It was an absurd little wooden face in the lace cap. He straightened the velvet mantle and smoothed the crumpled ...
— Unfinished Portraits - Stories of Musicians and Artists • Jennette Lee
... more. Georgina had been sending money,—she had managed, apparently, to send a good deal,—and the whole country seemed to have been living on it and making merry. At one moment the baby had died and received a most expensive burial; at another he had been intrusted (for more healthy air, Santissima Madonna!) to the woman's cousin in another village. According to a version, which for a day or two Benyon had inclined to think the least false, he had been taken by the cousin (for his beauty's sake) to Genoa ...
— Georgina's Reasons • Henry James
... of his eavesdropping to the assembled gods, and stimulates them thereby to desperate resolutions. Elsewhere, it is true, in his writings, Thetis, Ceres, Aeolus, and other pagan deities pay willing homage to the glory of the Madonna. ...
— The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy • Jacob Burckhardt
... substantial change since the Norman Conquest. The "feeling" of the scene is the same as it always was, the outlook of the people, their habit of mind, is the same. The one apparent difference is in religion, and that is not a difference of substance but of accident. We have forgotten the Madonna and the Saints, who were taken away from us by violence. We still go to church, but they are not there any more. They were expelled with a fork: one Cromwell but completed what another began. And now it is late in the day: they ...
— In a Green Shade - A Country Commentary • Maurice Hewlett
... was standing not only Madame, but also a young girl whom she was holding by the hand. The golden hair, the fine-drawn, delicate contours, the face with its bewitching oval—a face which might have served as a model for the countenance of the Madonna, since it was of a type rarely to be met with in Russia, where nearly everything, from plains to human feet, is, rather, on the gigantic scale; these features, I say, were those of the identical maiden whom Chichikov had encountered on the road when he had been fleeing from Nozdrev's. His emotion ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... the same root as monna, a woman; more especially an old crone, in reference to the fancied resemblance of the weazened face of a monkey to that of a withered old woman. Madam and madonna are other forms of words from the same root, so wide and sweeping are the changes in meaning which usage and ...
— The Log of the Sun - A Chronicle of Nature's Year • William Beebe
... his visitation in 1319, and had ordered them to be at once remedied. During the alterations made about one hundred and twenty years ago, the monument of a Knight Hospitaller was found, and within the last few years small pieces of carved stone have been dug up—amongst others, a Madonna's head with traces of blue and gold still upon it; a monk kneeling, and a knight and lady hand in hand. The Abbey is now the property of Sir ...
— Devon, Its Moorlands, Streams and Coasts • Rosalind Northcote
... vision which describes our Ladies of Sorrow, particularly in the dark admonition of Madonna, to her wicked sister that hateth and tempteth, what root of dark uses may lie in moral convulsions: not the uses hypocritically vaunted by theatrical devotion which affronts the majesty of God, that ever and in all things loves Truth—prefers sincerity that is erring to piety that cants. ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... one appeals to the sense and understanding, the other to the will and the affections. The truly beautiful and grand attracts the mind to it by instinctive harmony, is absorbed in it, and nothing can ever part them afterwards. Look at a Madonna of Raphael's: what gives the ideal character to the expression,—the insatiable purpose of the soul, or its measureless content in the object of its contemplation? A portrait of Vandyke's is mere indifference and still-life in the comparison: it has not in it the principle of growing ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... too, though he knew that the resemblance went no further than looks. Her hair was soft and light, with a silvery glint when the sun struck it, and it had a pretty trick of falling down about her forehead in two Madonna-like bands, framing the soft, rose-tinted cheeks sweetly enough, and hiding with the pale shining tresses the ...
— Nautilus • Laura E. Richards
... How like a Saint or Goddess she appears; Diana or Madonna, which I know not! In attitude and aspect formed to be At once the artist's ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... lovely a bit of mutton," her father said, "as ever a man would wish to stick a knife into." She had sat to the painter for all sorts of characters; and the curious who possess any of Gambouge's pictures will see her as Venus, Minerva, Madonna, and in numberless other characters: Portrait of a lady—Griskinissa; Sleeping Nymph—Griskinissa, without a rag of clothes, lying in a forest; Maternal Solicitude—Griskinissa again, with young Master Gambouge, who was by this time the offspring of ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... declared that Duke Schafgotch was too fond of the joys and pleasures of the world to be a good priest; that he thought too much of the beautiful women of this world to be able to offer to the holy Madonna, the mother of God, the sanctified, ardent, but pure and modest love of a true son of the church. The pious Silesians refused to believe that the duke was sufficiently holy to be their bishop. The sage fathers of the city of Breslau assured ...
— Berlin and Sans-Souci • Louise Muhlbach
... certain leading characteristics are quite unmistakable. An Italian Picture-Gallery seems to me a pretty fair type of the Italian mind and character. The habitual commingling of the awful with the paltry—the sacred and the sensual—Madonna and Circe—Christ on the Cross and Venus in the Bath—which is exhibited in all the Italian galleries, seems an expression of the National genius. Am I wrong in the feeling that the perpetual (and often execrable) ...
— Glances at Europe - In a Series of Letters from Great Britain, France, Italy, - Switzerland, &c. During the Summer of 1851. • Horace Greeley
... fine Madonna, commonly called La Virgen del Pez, from a fish which young Tobit holds in his hand. It is rather tawny in color, as if it had been painted on a pine board and the wood had asserted itself from below. It is a charming picture, with ...
— Castilian Days • John Hay
... in a drab-colored silk cloak, and plain, borderless Quaker cap; a most benevolent countenance; Guido Madonna face, calm, benign. "I must make an inquiry; is Maria Edgeworth here? And where?" I went forward; she bade us come and sit beside her. Her first smile, as she looked upon me, I can never forget. The prisoners came in, and in an orderly manner ranged themselves on the benches. All ...
— Elizabeth Fry • Mrs. E. R. Pitman
... lofty and heroic life? Is it not better to be a Moses than to be a Michael Angelo making statues of Moses? Is not the life of Paul a sublimer work of art than Raphael's cartoons? Are not the patience, the faith, the undying love of Mary by the cross, more beautiful than all the Madonna paintings in the world. If, then, we would speak truly of our fathers, we should say that, having their minds fixed on that celestial beauty of which Plato speaks, they held in slight esteem that more ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... animated, and full of passion as Macready (God bless him!) in the last scene of Macbeth. In an indistinct place, which was quite sublime in its indistinctness, I was visited by a Spirit. I could not make out the face, nor do I recollect that I desired to do so. It wore a blue drapery, as the Madonna might in a picture by Raphael; and bore no resemblance to any one I have known except in stature. I think (but I am not sure) that I recognized the voice. Anyway, I knew it was poor Mary's spirit. I was not at all afraid, but in a great delight, ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... modified by his Italian colonization, than by any other record or memorial in existence. In those vaults which still remain closed, owing to the indolence or stupidity of the existing generation, eaten up as it is by monkery, and spending more upon a fete to the Madonna, or the liquifying of St Januarius's blood, than would lay open half the city, there is every probability that some of the most important literature of antiquity still lies buried. Why will not some English company, tired of railroad speculations and American stock, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 57, No. 352, February 1845 • Various
... him! oh, Madonna! Two are slain if he is slain; Shield his life, and guard his honour, Let me not entreat in vain. Sullenly the brindled savage Tears and tosses up the sand; Horns that rend and hoofs that ravage, ...
— Poems • Adam Lindsay Gordon
... purpose for them to read. Undoubtedly they give great relief to solitary young persons, who must have some ideal reflection of themselves, and know not where to look since Protestantism has taken away the crucifix and the Madonna. The recipient of these letters sometimes wonders, after reading through one of them, how it is that his young correspondent has managed to fill so much space with her simple message ...
— A Mortal Antipathy • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... Saxony, was negotiating the purchase of Italian paintings for the royal gallery in Dresden, the "St. Cecilia" was offered to him for $18,000, but the price was thought too high, and a copy by Denis Calvaert sufficed. This still hangs in the Zwinger at Dresden, the home of the Sistine Madonna. According to Vasari, the organ and other musical instruments in this picture were painted by one of the master's pupils, Giovanni da Udine. Raphael again designed a St. Cecilia in the now ruined fresco ...
— Among the Great Masters of Music - Scenes in the Lives of Famous Musicians • Walter Rowlands
... blessed name so dear To all the loving Saviour who revere, Madonna-like be thou in every grace That shall adorn thee in exalted place, And thine the happy privilege to prove The depth, the tenderness of woman's love; So shall the heart that honors thee today Bow ...
— Poems - Vol. IV • Hattie Howard
... himself with Sahwah and Agony, and Slim took Gladys and Veronica. Migwan got into the boat with Mr. Wing, an arrangement which pleased them both, for Migwan thought Mr. Wing the most charming man in the world, and he was very fond of the sweet, Madonna-faced girl with the beautiful, thoughtful ...
— The Camp Fire Girls Do Their Bit - Or, Over the Top with the Winnebagos • Hildegard G. Frey
... on at her efforts with a feeling of deep compassion. Was not her face becoming soft like a mother's, lovely and round when she bent down to the children? The Madonna type—and still this woman had ...
— The Son of His Mother • Clara Viebig
... the vision of Zada as a mother. The Madonna pose had fascinated this Magdalen, but she would find that mothers have many, many other things to do for their infants than to sit for portraits and give them picturesque nourishment—many, many other things. If ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... N. angel, archangel; guardian angel; heavenly host, host of heaven, sons of God; seraph, seraphim; cherub, cherubim. ministering spirit, morning star. saint, patron saint, Madonna; invisible helpers. Adj. angelic, seraphic, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... self-conceit and pride entered his heart. He considered it necessary, to preserve his respectability, to separate himself from the humble society he hitherto frequented, and cease to be a member of the Congregation of the Madonna, composed of industrious and virtuous youths who labored honestly for their livelihood. St. Francis, on hearing of this slight on the congregation and insult to Mary, was fired with a holy indignation. He sought ...
— Alvira: the Heroine of Vesuvius • A. J. O'Reilly
... the toil. So far as they go, the enjoyments of the healthy body are as innocent and as ardent as those of the soul. As there is no ground of comparison, so there is no ground of antagonism. How compare a sonata and a sea-bath or measure the Sistine Madonna against a gallop across country? The best thanksgiving for each is to enjoy the other also, and educate the mind to ampler nobleness. After all, the best verdict on athletic exercises was that of the great Sully, when he said, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 41, March, 1861 • Various
... one of his favourite servants. A few steps before reaching the railway station, we meet a modest Catholic procession, consisting of a few newly converted pariahs and some of the native Portuguese. Under a baldachin is a litter, on which swings to and fro a dusky Madonna dressed after the fashion of the native goddesses, with a ring in her nose. In her arms she carries the holy Babe, clad in yellow pyjamas and a red Brah-manical turban. "Hari, hari, devaki!" ("Glory to the holy Virgin!") exclaim the converts, unconscious of any difference ...
— From the Caves and Jungles of Hindostan • Helena Pretrovna Blavatsky
... re-appearing in the peachy cheek apparently as she willed it. Her hair, a rare tint of golden auburn was wreathed around her head in heavy coils that reminded me of the aureoles the old masters painted about the beautiful Madonna faces. Her mouth, I concluded, was the one defect in the otherwise perfect face. The teeth were natural and purely white, but long, and sharp, reminding one in a disagreeable way of the fangs of an animal of prey; the lips, a rich scarlet, were too thin, and tightly drawn for a judge ...
— Medoline Selwyn's Work • Mrs. J. J. Colter
... lustre to his reign. In such cases the judgments of rustic, undisciplined tastes, though marked by narrowness, and often by involuntary obedience to vulgar ideals (which, for instance, makes them insensible to all the deep sanctities of beauty that sleep amongst the Italian varieties of the Madonna face), is not without its appropriate truth. Servants and rustics all thrilled in sympathy with the sweet English loveliness of Miss Smith; but all alike acknowledged, with spontaneous looks of homage, the fine presence and finished beauty of Miss ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... as the ground was covered with mud and I didn't care to wet my feet, I asked a young rascal who was selling post-cards what that place was. I didn't quite understand his explanation, which I am sure was very amusing. He confused Emperors with the Madonna and the saints. I gave the lad a lira and had some trouble in escaping from there, because he followed me around ...
— Caesar or Nothing • Pio Baroja Baroja
... did on the Antoine, that Carmen's figure had the lines of the Venus of Milo, that her head would have been a model either for a Madonna, or for Joan of Arc, or the famous Isabella of Aragon. Having visited the Louvre and the Luxembourg all in one day, he felt he was entitled to make such comparisons, and that in making them he was on sure ground. He had loved to kiss Carmen in the neck, it was ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... the varied tints of leaves and flowers; but you can represent the figure of a man or woman more beautiful than any one man or woman that has ever appeared. What mortal woman ever expressed the ethereal beauty depicted in a Madonna of Raphael or Murillo? And what man ever had such a sublimity of aspect and figure as the creations of Michael Angelo? Why, "a beggar," says one of his greatest critics, "arose from his hand the patriarch of poverty; the hump of his dwarf is impressed with dignity; his infants are men, ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VI • John Lord
... Bianconi, who was close behind the man carrying the glass, answered that it was "the Repeal of the Union!" The old woman's delight was unbounded! She knelt down on her knees in the middle of the road, as if it had been a picture of the Madonna, and thanked God for having preserved her in her old age to see the Repeal of ...
— Men of Invention and Industry • Samuel Smiles
... sacred of human functions, the nursing of the babe; the daughter from her original duty, in the pastoral age, of milking the cows. The lady was so-called from the social obligations entailed on the prosperous woman, of "loaf-giving," or dispensing charity to the less fortunate. As dame, madame, madonna, in the old days of aristocracy, she bore equal rank with the lord and master, and carried down to our better democratic age the co-partnership of civic ...
— Practical Suggestions for Mother and Housewife • Marion Mills Miller
... a M. de Bussieres, who had some business to transact in the sacristy. The Jew, who professed complete infidelity, meantime was looking at the pictures. But M. de Bussieres, when his business was done, found him prostrate on the pavement in front of a picture of the Madonna. The Jew on coming to himself declared that the Virgin had stepped from her frame, and addressed him, with the result, as he said, that having fallen to the ground an infidel, he rose a convinced Christian! Mademoiselle D'Henin writes in a tone ...
— What I Remember, Volume 2 • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... the corbels are carved with the heads of hairy Franks and Saxons, according to the tradition of the older Norman architecture at the Church of St. Paul's, which we shall next visit, near the river. Near the western end, on the northern exterior, is a dilapidated Madonna, and an old bricked-up doorway. But it is the inside that will chiefly repay you for your trouble. Through the triple portal of the west entrance, with plain round arches set on slightly carved Norman ...
— The Story of Rouen • Sir Theodore Andrea Cook
... Fishing![460] Carry him through CAMILLO'S cabinet of Dutch pictures, and you will see how instinctively, as it were, his eyes are fixed upon a sporting piece by Wouvermans. The hooded hawk, in his estimation, hath more charms than Guido's Madonna:—how he envies every rider upon his white horse!—how he burns to bestride the foremost steed, and to mingle in the fair throng, who turn their blue eyes to the scarcely bluer expanse of heaven! Here he recognises Gervase Markham, spurring his courser; ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... in them. But she smiles like a girl of sixteen, she was never cross or bitter to one of us hounds, and I believe she never even wanted to complain in all her days. And there's a look of noble capacity in her face, of soul dignity, that you never saw in any Madonna's. I tell you no "virgin mother" could be as beautiful as my mother, who bore seven children for love of my father and for love of the thought of us.' Isn't it queer, sir, that I remember that—for it seemed only grotesque at the ...
— The Seeker • Harry Leon Wilson
... three wretched prisoners; they were led in ropes by their captors, and with blows from knotted cords were stimulated to beg. Two, as they passed, held out their hands, crying piteously, "For the love of God and the Holy Madonna, give us something ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IV. • Editors: Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... upon the souls of men, then assuredly no bread, wine or oil, can do it.[6] Hence, we see, a prophet is born, not made. No consecration can make one any more than installing a scene painter in the studio of a Raphael could ensure a reproduction of a Transfiguration, or the Madonna di Foligno. And no desecration, no excommunication from church, chapel or sanhedrin can unmake him. The prophet is one of those royal beings who are kings by right Divine, aye and human too, for all fall down instinctively before him. It is the verdict of history ...
— Morality as a Religion - An exposition of some first principles • W. R. Washington Sullivan
... believing it to be such a pagan rite.[986] Councils and edicts prohibited these processions in Gaul, but a more effectual way was to Christianise them. The Rogation tide processions with crucifix and Madonna, and the carrying of S. John's image at the Midsummer festivals, were a direct continuation of the older practices. Images were often broken by Christian saints in Gaul, as they had been over-turned ...
— The Religion of the Ancient Celts • J. A. MacCulloch
... Englishman, an artist, who lived in Italy—my mother a peasant woman from Lombardy, such as these who come to work in the mills. When she was young she was beautiful—like a Madonna by an old master." ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... finished our coffee we went for a walk—not the two old ladies, who settled down at once to their embroidery frames; one of them showed me her work—really quite beautiful—a church ornament of some kind, a painted Madonna on a ground of white satin; she was covering the whole ground with heavy gold embroidery, so thick ...
— Chateau and Country Life in France • Mary King Waddington
... same great pictures hung in the same places, and the same dark frescoes arched above them. Twice, of old, I went there with her; she had a great understanding of art. She understood all sorts of things. Before the Madonna of the Chair I stood a long time. The face is not a particle like hers, and yet it reminded me of her. But everything does that. We stood and looked at it together once for half an hour; I ...
— The Diary of a Man of Fifty • Henry James
... call it so hereafter," seconded Red Shirt. If I was included in that "We," it was something I least cared for. Aoshima was good enough for me. "By the way, how would it look," said Clown, "if we place Madonna by Raphael upon that rock? It would ...
— Botchan (Master Darling) • Mr. Kin-nosuke Natsume, trans. by Yasotaro Morri
... knelt at the Madonna's shrine, With the empty chapel, cold and grey, Telling her beads, while grief with marring line And bitter tear stole all ...
— The Miracle and Other Poems • Virna Sheard
... e ben nate erbe Che Madonna pensando premer sole; Piaggia ch'ascolti su dolci parole E del bel piede ...
— Cinq Mars, Complete • Alfred de Vigny
... never come again," she whispered over her shoulder, as she crept away with a childish twist hiding her white front from me; "only I shall come sometimes—oh, here they are, Madonna!" ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... and the Captain and Miss De Souza, to take the evening meeting. Nobody is in there except the two children, and they are asleep." Her smile, he thought, made a Madonna of her. "Indeed, we are quite alone, you and I, in the flat now. So please don't be afraid, Mr. Lindsay! Say whatever is in your heart, ...
— The Path of a Star • Mrs. Everard Cotes (AKA Sara Jeannette Duncan)
... would take a chartered accountant at least 122-214 days to check his figures. One can gather from this some idea of the enormous industry of men of science. For myself, I could more easily paint the Sistine Madonna or compose a Tenth Symphony than be content to loose myself into this universe of numbers. Pythagoras, I believe, discovered a sort of philosophy in numbers, but even he did not ...
— The Pleasures of Ignorance • Robert Lynd
... the whole cast of her features strongly plebeian, and even vicious, she seemed as unpleasant as the man; but there was something beautifully soft, a sort of light of tenderness, as on some Dutch Madonna, that came over her face when she looked at the man. They talked for a while together through the window; the man seemed to have been asking money. 'Ye ken the last time,' she said, 'I gave ye two shillin's for your ludgin', and ye ...
— The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 1 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... sways, and gives, and closes again. Here comes a great banner on which is embroidered the ominous white vulture of risen Poland, the ghostly bird that has sojourned a hundred years in the death kingdoms, and on the reverse side of the banner is depicted the Madonna and Child. The crowd becomes instantly bareheaded, and the Germans in it wisely take off their hats, too. Polish patriots follow, dressed in white and bearing aloft notice-boards wreathed in coloured cloths; on the ...
— Europe—Whither Bound? - Being Letters of Travel from the Capitals of Europe in the Year 1921 • Stephen Graham
... legend of an artist who long sought for a piece of sandalwood, out of which to carve a Madonna. He was about to give up in despair, leaving the vision of his life unrealized, when in a dream he was bidden to carve his Madonna from a block of oak wood which was destined for the fire. He obeyed, and produced a masterpiece from a log of common firewood. Many of us lose great opportunities ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... Instead the light from the stained-glass windows made the mists and shadows luminous. A nave, the lofty pillars dividing it from the side aisles, the choir and the altar emerged slowly into view. From the walls pictures of the Madonna and the saints, unstained and untouched, looked down upon him. One of the candles near the altar had been lighted, and it burned with a ...
— The Hosts of the Air • Joseph A. Altsheler
... picture in the world, I am convinced, is Raphael's "Madonna della Seggiola." I was familiar with it in a hundred engravings and copies, and therefore it shone upon one as with a familiar beauty, though infinitely more divine than I had ever seen it before. An artist was copying it, and producing certainly something ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... Princesses and girl-queens ought to be of her type; tall and very slim, with gracious, sloping shoulders and a long throat, the chin slightly lifted: pale, with great appealing violet eyes under haughty brows, and quantities of yellow-brown hair dressed in some sort of Madonna style. ...
— The Lion's Mouse • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... charge of one of the nurses, a gentle, madonna-faced woman. She was quickly put to bed, and everything done for her that skill and experience could suggest. Hubert Varrick begged permission to sit by her couch and watch the progress of ...
— Kidnapped at the Altar - or, The Romance of that Saucy Jessie Bain • Laura Jean Libbey
... he thought, "but she has not a single perfect feature—not one that an artist would copy, except perhaps the eyes, and even they are not soft and Madonna-like." ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe
... refers to the [altarpiece called the] "Madonna of the Rose Garlands," painted for the chapel of S. Bartolommeo, the burial-place of the German colony. About the year 1600 it was bought for a high price by the Emperor Rudolf II, who is said to have had it carried [over ...
— Memoirs of Journeys to Venice and the Low Countries - [This is our volunteer's translation of the title] • Albrecht Durer
... she had a magnificent marble monument erected over the tomb, recording all his virtues, and with a bas-relief of herself (a very inaccurate representation, I am told, as it gave her a Madonna-like appearance to which she can lay no claim in real life) shedding tears upon ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, June 13, 1917 • Various
... is the subject of the next panel, followed by "Ideals in Art." In this appear concrete symbols of the chief motives of art, the classic nude of the Greeks, the Madonna and Child of Religion, Joan of Arc for Heroism, Youth and Material Beauty represented by a young woman, and Absolute Nature by the peacock. A mystic figure in the background holds the cruse wherewith to feed the sacred flame. A winged figure bears laurels for the ...
— The Jewel City • Ben Macomber
... of. If you speak of St. Paul's Church, Beckenham, as vast, grand, magnificent, you have no language left wherewith to describe St. Paul's, London. If you call Millais' Huguenots sublime or divine, what becomes of the Madonna St. Sisto of Raphael? If you describe Longfellow's poetry as the feeblest possible trash, the coarsest and most unparliamentary language could alone express ...
— Interludes - being Two Essays, a Story, and Some Verses • Horace Smith
... came relapses into abject fear, And hollow prayer and praise from craven heart. Before a sculptured Venus I would kneel, Crown her with flowers, worship her, and cry, 'O large and noble type of our ideal, At least my heart and prayer return to thee, Amidst a faithless world of proselytes. Madonna Mary, with her virgin lips, And eyes that look perpetual reproach, Insults and is a blasphemy on youth. Is she to claim the worship of a man Hot with the first rich flush of ripened life?' Realities, like phantoms, glided by, Unnoted 'midst the torment and delights Of my conflicting ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. I (of II.), Narrative, Lyric, and Dramatic • Emma Lazarus
... head,—the sad, sweet one people call a Madonna. We call it Mother, and love it very much, for Laura says it is like our mother. I never saw her, but my sister remembers the dear ...
— A Garland for Girls • Louisa May Alcott
... the Poems of Pentaur. This is true also of some of the Greek Poets who had a deep insight into divine things. It is not a little interesting to note also that artists of different nations paint the Madonna after the style of their own women. Very few of the pictures in the great art galleries are after the style of face which you see in the Orient. Hence there are Dutch Madonnas, and Italian and French and English types. There were ...
— By the Golden Gate • Joseph Carey
... tortuous vicoletto, lighted only by a single lamp burning in the niche of a Madonna. The purity and transparency of the air gave a celestial softness and clearness to the very darkness itself; and one could find one's way without difficulty under such a limpid night. But in a little while we began to pass through a "venella," or, in Neopolitan parlance, ...
— The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard • Anatole France
... she opened an odd little box of queer curiosities, whence she took a case containing an exquisite ivory carving, a copy of the 'Madonna della Sedia,' so fine that a magnifier alone could fully reveal the delicacy and accuracy of the features and expression. It was mounted as a bracelet clasp, and was a remnant of poor Mr. Dynevor's treasures. ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. I) - or, The Clue of Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... in the early morning, was a sea of liquid gold. There were wonderful, magical nights, too, nights of mellow moonlight and sweet, mysterious perfumes, nights when a breath of clean, fragrance from distant bean-fields mingled with the richer, heavier scent of roses and Madonna lilies. ...
— The Making of a Soul • Kathlyn Rhodes
... the good monk arose in the first purple of the dawn, and instinctively betook him to a review of his drawings for the shrine, as a refuge from troubled thought. He took his sketch of the Madonna and Child into the morning twilight and began meditating thereon, while the clouds that lined the horizon were glowing rosy purple and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 50, December, 1861 • Various
... O sweet Madonna of Blacherne! Do not let her die. Darkness is nothing to thee. Thou art clothed in brightness. Oh, as thou lovest all thy children, descend hither, and open her eyes, ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 2 • Lew. Wallace
... have glimpsed this now and then, in the old triune godhead of Isis, Osiris and Horus; and in our modern worship of the Madonna ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... behaviour during his imprisonment enlisted the respect of every one in jail. Singular as the taste may seem, he had his corner in the cell decorated with little framed prints. Among them we noticed one of the crucifixion, and another of the Madonna. After reading the chapters, they retired to their hard beds. About nine o'clock the next morning, Daley came to the door with a piece of neck meat, so tainted and bloody that its smell and looks more ...
— Manuel Pereira • F. C. Adams
... struggling painter in an Italian studio, conceived the idea of painting a picture of the Madonna. He shut his doors to visitors in order to give full play to his imagination. Days and nights were spent in dreaming and working, until he lost consciousness of the outer world and only lived for his work, for this picture, he was sure would make him famous. Days rolled into weeks and weeks ...
— Bohemian Society • Lydia Leavitt
... it by his lamp. A strange array of rings was there, small and delicate, huge, bizarre; great signet rings and poison rings, love tokens, charms and amulets, rings which had been worn by wives, by mistresses, by favorite slaves and by young girls in convents; rings with the Madonna and rings with many other saints graven on large heavy stones; rings French and Russian, Polish, Italian, Spanish, Syrian. Some were many centuries old. In nine shallow metal trays they filled the safe ...
— His Family • Ernest Poole |
