"Picturesque" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of its once mighty abbey. The town, situated as it is in a picturesque valley through which the beautiful Tavy rushes, crystal clear, from the moors, is one of the most attractive in all Devon. It is the finest centre for exploring the western part of Dartmoor, for the ...
— Legend Land, Volume 2 • Various
... the coach party here found relief in a half hysteric explosion of laughter, in which even the dogged Hiram and Sophy joined. It seemed as impossible to withstand the girl's invincible audacity as her beauty. She was quick to perceive her advantage, and, with a responsive laugh and a picturesque gesture of invitation, said:— ...
— From Sand Hill to Pine • Bret Harte
... master. In this manner they rode on for about a couple of miles, the evening growing darker as they proceeded, when a green opening in the road brought them within view of a gipsy's encampment; the scene was so sudden and so picturesque, that it aroused the young traveller from his reverie, and as his tired horse walked slowly on, the bridle about its neck, he looked with an earnest eye on the vagrant settlement beside his path. The moon had just risen above a dark copse in the rear, and cast ...
— Eugene Aram, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... camped for the night.... Next morning in a fierce and searching sun we rambled into a village set upon a wonderful defile in the heart of the mountains, where we ate our frugal meal.... At night we reached the Jhelum coursing gracefully over rocky beds and through picturesque gorges that rise into the azure and serene skies of the Himalayan heavens.... It was a delightful place to camp for the night.... At nine the next morning we had reached the little hamlet strung along the river bank and known as Tongua.... Here ...
— Rescuing the Czar - Two authentic Diaries arranged and translated • James P. Smythe
... Greeks were polytheists; their religion was local; almost the only object of all their knowledge, art and taste, was their gods; and, accordingly, their productions were, if the expression may be allowed, statuesque, whilst those of the moderns are picturesque. The Greeks reared a structure, which in its parts, and as a whole, fitted the mind with the calm and elevated impression of perfect beauty and symmetrical proportion. The moderns also produced a whole, a more striking whole; but it was by blending materials and fusing the parts together. ...
— Literary Remains, Vol. 2 • Coleridge
... of old centuries, in the clear solitudes of the great desert, but in what the advertisement writer calls a "commodious flat" in Victoria Street. No little jackals thronged about him in sinful circle by night. No school of picturesque disciples surrounded him by day. If he peeped above his blinds he could see the radiant procession of omnibuses on their halting way towards Westminster. The melodies of wandering organs sang in his ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens
... of literature, she gave little thought to the details of the new phase of life before her. Whatever Tarrant proposed would be good in her sight. Probably he would wish to live in the country; he might discover the picturesque old house of which he had so often spoken. In any case, they would now live together. He had submitted her to a probation, and his last letter declared that he ...
— In the Year of Jubilee • George Gissing
... to have consisted simply of a shirt collar and a pair of spurs. But, in truth, these warriors, with shoulders and limbs in a state of nudity, with faces bestreaked with paints, with jingling trinkets dangling to their knees, and with feathered war caps waving above them, presented a truly picturesque and romantic appearance. When the center of the council house had been cleared and the musicians with the shell rattlers had taken their places, the dance commenced, and for an hour and a half—perhaps two hours—it proceeded with surprising spirit and energy. ...
— Legends, Traditions, and Laws of the Iroquois, or Six Nations, and History of the Tuscarora Indians • Elias Johnson
... by the very necessity of his position, would have to be regarded throughout as though he were a noun of multitude signifying many. Slashed doublets and trunk hose, might just possibly be deemed by some more picturesque, if not in outline, at least in colour and material, than the evening costume of now-a-days. But, apart from this, whatever would meet the gaze of the spectator in either instance would bear the like aspect of familiarity or of incongruity, in contrast ...
— Charles Dickens as a Reader • Charles Kent
... Appian Way, a short distance out of Rome, the traveller is shown a picturesque ancient building, of enormous strength, called the Mole of Caecilia Metella. It is a castle in size, but is believed to have been the tomb erected to the memory of Caecilia, the daughter of Metellus Creticus, and the wife of Crassus ...
— The Life of Cicero - Volume II. • Anthony Trollope
... preaching on giddy heights, standing on rocks or rustic pulpits of the trunks of trees. A few shepherds and cheese-makers, their leather caps in their hands, and women with their heads dressed up in the costume of the canton group themselves about in picturesque attitudes; the scenery is pretty, the pastures green, or the harvest just over, cascades to the road, and flocks with their bells ringing every note on the mountain. All that, ve that's decorative, ...
— Tartarin On The Alps • Alphonse Daudet
... a Danish belief, any one wandering under an elder-bush at twelve o'clock on Midsummer Eve will see the king of fairyland pass by with all his retinue. Fairies' haunts are mostly in picturesque spots (such as among the tufts of wild thyme); and the oak tree, both here and in Germany, has generally been their favourite abode, and hence the superstitious reverence with which certain trees are held, care being taken not ...
— The Folk-lore of Plants • T. F. Thiselton-Dyer
... a sea breeze, as interesting as some ancient chronicle. We never tired of listening to his stories, and his quaint remarks and comments were a continual delight to us. Uncle Jesse was one of those interesting and rare people who, in the picturesque phraseology of the shore folks, "never speak but they say something." The milk of human kindness and the wisdom of the serpent were mingled in Uncle Jesse's composition ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1909 to 1922 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... cheeked, cherry cheeked; rosy, ruddy; blooming, in full bloom. brilliant, shining; beamy[obs3], beaming; sparkling, splendid, resplendent, dazzling, glowing; glossy, sleek. rich, superb, magnificent, grand, fine, sublime, showy, specious. artistic, artistical[obs3]; aesthetic; picturesque, pictorial; fait a peindre[Fr]; well-composed, well grouped, well varied; curious. enchanting &c. (pleasure-giving) 829; becoming &c. (accordant) 23; ornamental &c. 847. undeformed, undefaced, unspotted; spotless &c. (perfect) 650. Phr. auxilium non leve vultus habet [Lat][Ovid]; "beauty ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... was "the very prettiest affair; and so picturesque!" "And those dear Salisbury girls—how sweet they looked, to be sure!" Why, St. John's blossomed out like a veritable garden, just with that blooming company of girls; to say nothing of the exquisite flowers, and ropes of laurel, and palms, and the broad white satin ribbons to divide the favored ...
— Five Little Peppers at School • Margaret Sidney
... almost as ignorant as their companions. But it was above all things necessary that England at breakfast should be amused and thrilled and interested, whether Gordon lived or died, or half the British army went to pieces in the sands. The Soudan campaign was a picturesque one, and lent itself to vivid word-painting. Now and again a 'Special' managed to get slain,—which was not altogether a disadvantage to the paper that employed him,—and more often the hand-to-hand nature ...
— The Light That Failed • Rudyard Kipling
... windows on the upper story, and queer little dormers in the roof. Below, roomy bows had been added at a much later date than the building of the cottage. The principal doorway was sheltered by a rustic porch, spacious and picturesque, with a bench on each side of the entrance. The garden was tolerably large, and in decent order, and beyond the garden was a fine old orchard, divided from lawn and flower-beds only by a low hedge, full of bush-roses ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... clear, fine night, and both gentlemen formed conspicuous figures, Sir Brian because of his unusual height and upright military bearing, and the Frenchman by reason of his picturesque cloak and hat. Up Northumberland Avenue, across Trafalgar Square and so on up to Piccadilly Circus went the two, deep in conversation; with the tireless man in the raincoat always dogging their footsteps. So the procession proceeded on, along Piccadilly. Then Sir Brian and M. Max turned ...
— The Yellow Claw • Sax Rohmer
... the rebuilders of Jerusalem to certain critical lookers-on who would fain be informed by what authority a picturesque ruin was disturbed. It is a serviceable answer still. There are always those to whom the activity of the Christian Church is a standing puzzle. Religion, or at any rate revealed religion, having, as they think, received its death-blow, the unmistakable ...
— A Short History of the Book of Common Prayer • William Reed Huntington
... setting, a touch of warm romance may light up even so apparently prosaic a theme. The coming of the swallows in the spring is scarcely a more delightful event in Cornwall than the annual arrival of the onion-sellers from Brittany. What a picturesque world we invade when we get among those dreamy old fishing-villages ...
— Mushrooms on the Moor • Frank Boreham
... on the steep river-bank, its trellis-like skeleton could be seen, and in foggy weather and on still winter days, when its delicate iron girders and all the scaffolding around was covered with hoar frost, it presented a picturesque and even fantastic spectacle. Kutcherov, the engineer who was building the bridge, a stout, broad-shouldered, bearded man in a soft crumpled cap drove through the village in his racing droshky or his open carriage. Now and then on holidays navvies working on the ...
— The Witch and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... someone talking about it when I was dining with the Bedells. It sounded priceless. I had a sort of idea it was quite small, and had a prince, but it's really quite big, and it's got a king over it, and they all wear the old picturesque dress, and the scenery's gorgeous. And, if it was wet, we could ...
— The Brother of Daphne • Dornford Yates
... seen through the mist that shrouds early western history, is striking and picturesque in itself; yet its chief interest lies in the fact that he was but a type of many other men whose lives were no less lonely and dangerous. He had no qualities to make him a leader when settlements sprang up around him. To the end of his days ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Two - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1777-1783 • Theodore Roosevelt
... when Henry said to himself that he would go and see Aunt Tipping, he did not propose to himself a visit to the country seat of some quaint old lady of quality. Baronial towers and stately avenues of ancestral elm did not make a picturesque background for his thoughts as he ...
— Young Lives • Richard Le Gallienne
... still full of arrivals, while up the wide central staircase trooped masks and dominos in a changing kaleidoscope of form and colour. Eager heads thrust this way and that, picturesque figures grouping and greeting, cavaliers of all periods, maidens of all nations, monks, barbarians, cardinals, queens, and clowns—sometimes the wisest heads under the most foolish caps—while here and there a few favoured paper-folk ...
— A Modern Mercenary • Kate Prichard and Hesketh Vernon Hesketh-Prichard
... It is a narrow ridge boldly projecting into the lake (once called Benacus) which was formerly a marsh, but now made into an island by the simple process of ditch cutting: at the southern end is the Sermione hill and its picturesque Scottish-German Castle. To the north are some ruins supposed to be the old Villa of Catullus, but they seem too extensive to serve ...
— The Carmina of Caius Valerius Catullus • Caius Valerius Catullus
... change in the scenery. The valley had been contracting and opening out again and again; but now we seemed to come at once upon a portion of the river where the sides rose up almost perpendicularly, forming a wild, jagged, picturesque, but terrible gorge, down which the river came thundering, reduced to narrow limits, and roaring through at a terrible speed. The noise, multiplied as it was by echoes, was deafening, and as we stood gazing at the vast forbidding chasm, our journey in this direction ...
— To The West • George Manville Fenn
... here conducts the Spodden through a scene of wild, woodland, and picturesque beauty. Drayton, in his Polyolbion, has thus ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... also constructed from its remains, as were other buildings in Ravenna. Then like the Rocca Malatestiana at Rimini it came to be used as a mere prison, and when it failed to prove useful for that purpose it was allowed to become the picturesque ruin ...
— Ravenna, A Study • Edward Hutton
... another's hand and whizzed through the figures he scarcely took his eyes from her, and when, at about midnight, he succeeded in getting her apart for a promenade, he poured forth his soul to her in the picturesque English of the quadroon quarter of New Orleans. "An' now, to proof to you my lorv, Ma'm'selle Lee-lee"—he gesticulated vigorously as he spoke—"I am geeving you wan beau-u-tiful Christmas present—I am goin' to geeve you—w'at you t'ink? My borgee!" ...
— Moriah's Mourning and Other Half-Hour Sketches • Ruth McEnery Stuart
... picturesque crowd about 200 saddled horses were standing, each with the Mexican saddle, with its lassoing horn in front, high peak behind, immense wooden stirrups, with great leathern guards, silver or brass bosses, and coloured saddle-cloths. The saddles were the only element of ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird
... voyage to Italy very well and, in due time, the family were installed in the Villa Reale di Quarto, the picturesque old Palace of Cosimo, a spacious, luxurious place, even if not entirely cheerful or always comfortable during the changeable Tuscan winter. Congratulated in a letter from MacAlister in being in the midst of Florentine sunshine, he answered: "Florentine sunshine? ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... don't express your inference," he retorted. "You mean that Mario Escobar has been at Rackham Park too much." He paused whilst he drew out his cigarette-case and selected a cigarette from it. "And I agree," he added. "Mario Escobar is too picturesque a person for these ...
— The Summons • A.E.W. Mason
... let us meet them frankly and wisely. Let us have the spiritual vision and the reverence for truth that will enable us, for example, to show the child how the servants of God in those ancient times used the bold, picturesque figure of "feathers" and "wings" to express the brooding love and care of God; how they told the wonderful story of God's creation of the world in the most beautiful account they could conceive; how they showed forth ...
— How to Teach Religion - Principles and Methods • George Herbert Betts
... of one of the tents several gypsy boys sat grouped in picturesque attitudes, industriously twanging guitars and mandolins. The whole encampment was lighted by flaring torches on the ends of long poles, and was the final touch needed to give ...
— Grace Harlowe's Senior Year at High School - or The Parting of the Ways • Jessie Graham Flower
... myself, for I want to retain the romantic feeling about the name; and I have done myself some harm already by seeing the monotonous and heavy form of the Brocken from the suburbs of Brunswick. But whether the mountains be picturesque or not, the tricks which the goblins (as I am told) teach the crystals in them, are incomparably pretty. They work chiefly on the mind of a docile, bluish-colored, carbonate of lime; which comes out of a gray limestone. The goblins take the greatest possible care of its ...
— The Ethics of the Dust • John Ruskin
... the coast; the face of the country is everywhere interspersed with a pleasing variety of hills and valleys; and the windings of the Senegal river, which descends from the rocky hills of the interior, make the scenery on its banks very picturesque ...
— Life and Travels of Mungo Park in Central Africa • Mungo Park
... off in the direction of the snow-ridge, and for a few moments Aldous stood looking after the tall, picturesque figure until it disappeared behind a clump of spruce. Swiftly he was telling himself that it was not the hunting season, and that it was not a prospector whom they had seen on the snow-ridge. As a matter of caution, there could ...
— The Hunted Woman • James Oliver Curwood
... colors. He liked to describe tournaments, battles, sieges, and feats of arms. Kings and nobles, knights and squires, are the actors on his stage. Froissart traveled in many countries and got much of his information at first hand from those who had made history. Out of what he learned he composed a picturesque and romantic story, which ...
— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER
... those days, and, indeed, even to-day the sightseers who find their way there are for the most part Americans. From the ridge of hills which shuts in and practically surrounds the estate—hills all densely wooded—a panoramic and truly glorious view can be obtained of the wonderfully picturesque scenery that unfolds itself on all sides. Here, then, it was that, on the 28th day of February, 1912, many hundreds of people from all parts of the country, exclusive of local residents and of Lord Cranmere's own tenantry, were to assemble for a week ...
— The Four Faces - A Mystery • William le Queux
... "Regie," or if Bey or Effendi, a Tshibuk or Narghile, gravely drawing on the amber mouthpiece and slowly exhaling the perfumed smoke. The gorgeous officers' uniforms, mostly a vivid red, blue and gold; the picturesque flowing robes and burnouses, with here and there a six-foot stalwart silk trousered Albanian with gold and silver inlaid daggers and pistols thrust in his sash, make a picture ...
— The Secrets of the German War Office • Dr. Armgaard Karl Graves
... the little isolated tarn takes its name, is the alluvial mud fiat of a lateral torrent—the mud flat, in fact, which the railway from Porlezza traverses for twenty minutes before it begins its steep and picturesque climb by successive zigzags over the mountains to Menaggio. Similarly the influx of the Adda at the upper end of Como has cut off the Lago di Mezzola from the main lake, and has formed the alluvial level that stretches so drearily all around Colico. Slowly the mud ...
— Science in Arcady • Grant Allen
... forest-clad bluffs, or by the margin of undulating fields, the Rappahannock flowed calmly to the sea. Old mansions dotted this beautiful land—for beautiful it was in spite of the chill influences of winter, with its fertile meadows, its picturesque woodlands, and its old roads skirted by long lines of shadowy ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... a homestead, situated on one of the picturesque branch valleys of the Housatonic, that has such a spring flowing by the foundation walls of the house, and not a little of the strong overmastering local attachment that holds the owner there is born of that, his native spring. He could not, if he would, ...
— The Writings of John Burroughs • John Burroughs
... trammels, and become a religion for all men, and a religion to which all men gathered? The Roman organisation was an admirable vehicle for Christianity; but the vehicle does not make that which it carries, or account for it. M. Renan's picture of the Empire abounds with all those picturesque details which he knows so well where to find, and knows so well, too, how to place in an interesting light. There were then, of course, conditions of the time more favourable to the Christian Church than would have been the conditions of other times. ...
— Occasional Papers - Selected from The Guardian, The Times, and The Saturday Review, - 1846-1890 • R.W. Church
... returning from war ever were accorded such a welcome as that tendered to the homecoming 369th by the residents of New York, Manhattan Island and vicinity, irrespective of race. Being one of the picturesque incidents of the war, the like of which probably will not be repeated for many generations, if ever, it well deserves commemoration within the ...
— History of the American Negro in the Great World War • W. Allison Sweeney
... formalist,—Leonardo suits him better; Titian is not pure enough for the religionist,—Raphael suits him better; Titian is not polite enough for the man of the world,—Vandyke suits him better; Titian is not forcible enough for the lovers of the picturesque,— Rembrandt suits him better. So Correggio is popular with a certain set, and Vandyke with a certain set, and Rembrandt with a certain set. All are great men, but of inferior stamp, and therefore Vandyke ...
— The Two Paths • John Ruskin
... and manufacturing town on the Forfarshire coast, 17 m. N. of Dundee, with the picturesque ruins of an extensive old abbey, of which Cardinal Beaton was the last abbot. It is ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... his way to the lake, and took passage in one of the skiffs which, in charge of a skilled oarsman, makes a tour of the pretty and picturesque sheet of water. ...
— Hector's Inheritance - or The Boys of Smith Institute • Horatio Alger
... account of the picturesque interview between Count de Frontenac and Sir Wm. Phipps' envoy in 1690, will be found in Quebec Past and Present, ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine
... I, astounded, 'is your master then married?—since when?'—visions of a fair Tartar, fit mate for my baron, immediately springing somewhat alluringly before my mental vision. But the answer dispelled the picturesque fancy. ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various
... barn," said Felicity, flitting back to them with a hint of animation. "Is it picturesque inside? Would it lend itself to treatment?" She wandered toward it, and there was nothing for the others to do ...
— The Nest Builder • Beatrice Forbes-Robertson Hale
... Russian and Bavarian minxes were neurotic, fickle, shifting as sand; the daughters of Judaea were sane, cheerful, solid. Then he thought of his own sister married to that vulgarian, Friedland. He saw her, a rosy-cheeked girl, sitting at the Passover table, with its picturesque ritual. How happy were those far-off pious days! And then he felt a cold wind, remembering how Riekchen had hidden her face to laugh at these mediaeval mummeries, and to spit out the bitter ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... mythology, mostly from Greek models, and write fluently about Jupiter and Juno, Venus and Mercury, either attributing to them the recognised characters and legends, or varying them so as to make them more picturesque and interesting—perhaps even improving them—but all the time believing no more in the stories they are telling, or in the deities themselves, than Tennyson need have believed in King Arthur and Guinevere. The gods ...
— Life in the Roman World of Nero and St. Paul • T. G. Tucker
... with a bent glass shade. The other model is a group of fruitage, covered with a glass shade more than four feet high, and nearly three feet across, being the largest ever yet blown in England. It was manufactured from designs supplied by Mrs. Peachey herself, and cost L200. Nothing can be more picturesque or artistic than these models: full of wonderful detail which it is impossible to pursue, and implying a marvellous amount of labour and ingenuity, they lead us to regret that any misunderstanding should have led to their absence from the Crystal ...
— The Royal Guide to Wax Flower Modelling • Emma Peachey
... of writers who are recognized authorities on their several subjects, and while thoroughly trustworthy as history, present picturesque and dramatic "stories" of the Men and of the events ...
— Bismarck and the Foundation of the German Empire • James Wycliffe Headlam
... ending in a bloody contest, in which the Sioux were victorious. With rude tents pitched, without order or method, in an open glade of the forest, with horses tethered around, and little dusky imps fighting with the lean dogs that lay lolling their tongues lazily about, there was yet a picturesque air about the place and its extraneous features, which would have captivated the eye of one in search of nature's sunshiny spots. Deeply embosomed within the autumnal tinted wood, a purling spring that burst from the green slope of a little mound was the feature which had attracted the Indians ...
— Tales for Young and Old • Various
... story of the life of this notable traitor that we propose to tell, but simply to depict some picturesque scenes in his career. Charles V. gladly welcomed him, and made him his lieutenant-general in Italy, so that he became leader against the French in their invasion of that land. We next find him during the siege ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 6 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality. French. • Charles Morris
... the present volume is to deal with Old English Customs, not so much in their picturesque aspect—though that element is not wholly wanting—as in their fundamental relations to the organized life of the Middle Ages. Partly for that reason and partly because the work is comparatively small, it embraces only such usages as are of ...
— The Customs of Old England • F. J. Snell
... must be allowed, though less picturesque than the Gothic, is lighter, more stately, and more ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... about the field with singular motions. The Caliph and Manzor looked on with wonder; but as she stood in a picturesque attitude upon one foot, and fluttered her wings gracefully, they could no longer contain themselves—an irresistible laughter burst forth from their beaks, from which they could not recover themselves for a long time. The Caliph first collected himself. ...
— Tales of Wonder Every Child Should Know • Various
... very beautiful hair once. Her thin hands and thinner face and neck looked more like brown parchment than ever, as she sat in the lamplight, my old blue dressing-gown folded negligently round her, and taking picturesque folds which it never did when I was inside it. Those long, gaunt limbs must have been graceful once. Her feet were bare in her slippers—in my slippers, I mean. She looked rather ...
— The Lowest Rung - Together with The Hand on the Latch, St. Luke's Summer and The Understudy • Mary Cholmondeley
... Italian women for the simplicity of their church-attire: their black dresses and lace veils make a picturesque contrast with the gorgeous ceremonials of the high altar. But there was something in this quiet toilet, so fresh and simple and girl-like, that struck me as the one touch of grace that the American woman can give to the best even of foreign ...
— On the Church Steps • Sarah C. Hallowell
... success, and urging men on to higher achievements. The biographers have never been able to fully account for the pathetic sadness and gloom of the closing days of Daniel Webster. Horace Greeley once said that "Webster's intellect is the greatest emanation from the Almighty mind now embodied." For picturesque majesty and overpowering mentality he is doubtless our most striking figure. That enormous and beautiful head, those wonderful eyes, that stately carriage, that Jove-like front, led men to call him "the godlike Daniel." When ...
— A Man's Value to Society - Studies in Self Culture and Character • Newell Dwight Hillis
... bandit raids. Creatures like El Negrito know no law but their own; they can't be hired or bribed or coerced and no one knows when they will take it into their heads to appear, murdering and looting and burning. It's a picturesque country, ...
— The Fifth Ace • Douglas Grant
... and good-natured banter, interspersed with the clink of gold and silver and the soft pat-pat of the onlookers' feet unconsciously keeping time to Lefty's song. Notwithstanding the grim assertiveness of belts full of .45's and the peeping handles of long-barreled Colts, set off with picturesque chaps, sombreros and tinkling spurs, the scene was one of peaceful ...
— Hopalong Cassidy's Rustler Round-Up - Bar-20 • Clarence Edward Mulford
... de Turpe is situated near the town of Neuchatel-en-Bray, famous for its cheese. It has fewer interesting details than the Manoir d'Ango and is in even poorer repair, but in massing and general picturesque effect it offers many suggestions which can be utilized to advantage in ...
— The Brochure Series of Architectural Illustration, Vol. 1, No. 10, October 1895. - French Farmhouses. • Various
... the inanity of repeating the old decorative devices—trophies, cartouches, classical figures, Roman ruins, and other international conventions that had lost their significance by the 1780's, although a spurious classicism was still kept alive for genteel consumption and the romantic picturesque ...
— Why Bewick Succeeded - A Note in the History of Wood Engraving • Jacob Kainen
... This picturesque touch—quite in Tomkins's way— Called forth from the savantes a general hurrah; While inquiries among them, went rapidly round, As to where this young stratified man could be found. The "learned Theban's" discourse ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... days of autumn in Anaheim, a town situated in Southern California, are days of joy and celebration. The grape gathering is finished and the town is crowded with the vineyard hands. There is nothing more picturesque than the sight of these people, composed partly of a sprinkling of Mexicans, but mainly of Cahuilla Indians, who come from the wild mountains of San Bernardino to earn some money by gathering grapes. They scatter through the streets and market places, called ...
— Sielanka: An Idyll • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... three embarked upon the sampan whose owner had found out the anchorage of Moung San, and the tiny craft was thrust into the river and pulled across the flowing stream. Jack looked with much interest on the pretty, picturesque little craft with its bow and stern curving upwards, and on its boatman, a strong Shan clad in wide trousers and a great flapping hat, who stood up to his couple of oars and sent the light skiff along at ...
— Jack Haydon's Quest • John Finnemore
... Lathers's reach, Cully bounded up the road like a careering letter X, with arms and legs in air. If there was any one thing that delighted the boy's soul, it was, to quote from his own picturesque vocabulary, "to set up a job on de ole woman." Here was his chance. Before he reached the stable he had planned the whole scene, even to the exact intonation of Lathers's voice when he referred to the dearth of mustaches in the Grogan household. Within a few minutes of his arrival the ...
— Tom Grogan • F. Hopkinson Smith
... in the Chinese, I'll show you Oriental San Francisco. It lies in the heart of the city and its very atmosphere is saturated with Eastern customs. It is much more sanitary but not as picturesque as it was before the fire." I flushed as I saw his amusement, and quickly called his attention to the receding shores where the encircling green hills had thrown out long banners of yellow mustard and blue lupins. To the right was ...
— The Lure of San Francisco - A Romance Amid Old Landmarks • Elizabeth Gray Potter and Mabel Thayer Gray
... air was filled with the voices of wild-ducks, who could be heard, but not seen. On Friday, the 19th, in latitude 59 deg. 54 min. north, and longitude 60 deg. 45 min. west., thirteen icebergs were to be seen during the morning, and were of the most varied and picturesque description. One appeared like a huge circus tent, with an adjoining side-show booth; while near by another was a most perfect representation of a cottage by the sea, with gables toward the observer, and chimneys rising at proper intervals along the roofs. On ...
— Schwatka's Search • William H. Gilder
... was obscured by some sorrow. "What is the matter with you now?" the good-natured Begum asked. The major pretended a headache from the fatigue and sunshine of the day. The carriage wheeled off the course and took its way Londonwards, not the least brilliant equipage in that vast and picturesque procession. The tipsy drivers dashed gallantly over the turf, amid the admiration of foot-passengers, the ironical cheers of the little donkey-carriages and spring vans, and the loud objurgations of horse-and-chaise men, with whom the reckless post-boys came in contact. ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray
... had many Indian friends. Isaac Zane, who lived most of his life with the Wyandots, said the American redman had been wrongfully judged a bloodthirsty savage, an ignorant, thieving wretch, capable of not one virtue. He said the free picturesque life of the Indians would have appealed to any white man; that it had a wonderful charm, and that before the war with the whites the Indians were kind to their prisoners, and sought only to make Indians of them. He told tales of how easily white boys become ...
— Betty Zane • Zane Grey
... could see from my windows: none of which were shops, but all private dwellings. The people who passed up and down the streets on line days were all of one stamp, well-to-do persons, who could afford to wear good and handsome clothes; but who were infinitely less interesting than the dear, picturesque beggars of Italian towns, or the sprightly, well-dressed peasantry of French cities. The rooms on the third floor—my rooms, which I had not been allowed to leave since we entered the house, three weeks before—were very badly furnished, ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton
... "here's another joyful spot. Mabel, it was along here somewhere that Paine acquired the habit of carrying you about like a bundle. It must have been a picturesque performance. Wish I might have ...
— The Rise of Roscoe Paine • Joseph C. Lincoln
... expect to start on a preliminary cruise through the North and Baltic seas; drifting southward so as to reach Sicily and Malta as soon as cool weather permits. Do you wonder that so charming and picturesque ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... colour, with a vast dewlap, and strong sculptured horn. This eland in his lifetime strode majestic on the hill-side, where he dwelt with his mates and their progeny, all English-born, like himself." Three pairs of the same species of deer were left to roam at large on the picturesque elopes throughout the day, and to return to their home at pleasure. "Here, during winter, they are assisted with roots and hay, but in summer they have nothing but the pasture of the park; so that, in point of expense, they cost no more than cattle of the best description." Travellers ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... against it; but oftener I'd tramp up and down past it, where it heaved up beside the narrow way. They was always going to pull it down, but there never rose no call for wood and it was let bide year after year—a very picturesque and ancient object. ...
— The Torch and Other Tales • Eden Phillpotts
... of wine without his head becoming affected. He looks down with entire disregard on the laws of God and man, as made for inferior beings. As for any worthy moral quality,—as for anything beyond a certain picturesque brutality and bull-dog disregard of danger, not a trace of such a thing can be found ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... is always something to look at, for there are canoes constantly going up and down, and there is plenty of variety among them—from the sluggish dhows, laden with up country produce, to the long canoes with a score of paddlers and some picturesque ruffian sitting in the stern. It adds to the interest when you know that the crews are cutthroats to a man, and would make but the shortest possible work of you if they had got ...
— Among Malay Pirates - And Other Tales Of Adventure And Peril • G. A. Henty
... stood El Castillo de La Punta, an older, but smaller defence erected by Philip II., in 1589. Immediately behind the Morro, Fort La Cahanas spread away for nearly half a mile on the top of a picturesque range of hills. This is one of the largest forts in the world, and cost (as I was informed) thirty million dollars. When the King of Spain heard of its vast price, he took his telescope at once, and told his courtiers ...
— Donahoe's Magazine, Volume 15, No. 2, February 1886 • Various
... which serves as park and garden to the palace of Schoenbrunn is much too small to belong to an imperial residence; but, on the other hand, it would be hard to find one more beautiful or better arranged. The park of Versailles is grander and more imposing; but it has not the picturesque irregularity, the fantastic and unexpected beauties, of the park of Schoenbrunn, and more closely resembles the park at Malmaison. In front of the interior facade of the palace was a magnificent lawn, sloping down to a broad lake, decorated ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... importance with other big fronts in Europe. It is the gateway to the Orient for central Europe. Here the armies engaged are numbered only by the hundred thousands, none reach a million. But from the point of view of human interest and political intrigue it is by far the most picturesque. Here the hatred between the combatants is most bitter; indeed so bitter that when it burst into flame a mad whirlwind of passion swept over half the world. For here ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume II (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... fascinating pictures of mediaeval England, its habits of thought and manner of life, which live in the mind for many a day after perusal, and assist to a clearer conception of what is one of the most charming and picturesque epochs of history. ...
— Philip Winwood • Robert Neilson Stephens
... the description of our romantic and picturesque passage down the Tigris. By the care of Providence, our whole party completed this stage, as they had completed the previous and more fatiguing ones, in safety and comfortable health. We arrived in Mosul on the 16th of May, in seven days from Diarbekr, and immediately ...
— Thrilling Adventures by Land and Sea • James O. Brayman
... reigned as upon the street. The door was indeed closed, but in the interior of the house all the doors stood wide open; the house cock stood in the midst of the sitting room, and crowed in order to give information that there was some one in the house. As to the rest, the house was entirely picturesque; it had an open balcony looking out upon the court—upon the street would have been too lively. The old sign hung over the door and creaked in the wind; it sounded as if it were alive. I saw it from my window; I saw also how the grass had overgrown the pavement of the street. The ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... abundant and picturesque description. Mr. Horne should write us more Fairy Tales; we know none to equal him since the days ...
— Notes and Queries, Issue No. 61, December 28, 1850 • Various
... a picture by the artist. We all feel this when gazing on natural scenery. We are actuated by an unconscious eclecticism, and make the composition for ourselves. To some natural scenes, no skill could impart interest of any kind; others attain to a certain character of the picturesque; while others, again, combine in themselves all the elements of a good picture. But even with these last, mere imitation will not do. Nature, as Hazlitt observes, 'has a larger canvas than man'—a canvas immensely larger; and the artist, since he cannot copy, must select. The same reasoning applies ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 432 - Volume 17, New Series, April 10, 1852 • Various
... "that is, I said that they were some girl's letters. It made it more picturesque. I am afraid they were bills. I should say I did remember it," he continued, enthusiastically. "You wore a black dress and little red slippers with big black rosettes, and you looked as beautiful as—as night—as ...
— Cinderella - And Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... to picture the veritable paradise into which it were possible to transform the front lawn. In the exuberance of her fancy she portrayed winding gravel walks among rose bushes and beds of gay flowers; rustic bowers over which honeysuckle and ivy clambered; picturesque miniature Swiss cottages in the trees for birds to nest in; an artificial lake well stocked with goldfishes, and upon whose tranquil bosom a swan or two would glide majestically through the mist of the fountain that perennially would shower down ...
— The House - An Episode in the Lives of Reuben Baker, Astronomer, and of His Wife, Alice • Eugene Field
... west, the land rises in long, picturesque ridges and mountains of medium altitude; and still beyond and above these, in the west and northwest, loom Mt. Washington, Madison, Kearsarge and other ...
— When Life Was Young - At the Old Farm in Maine • C. A. Stephens
... Winterfeld, directly on the back of this Conference, took a Tour to the Bohemian Baths, "To Karlsbad, or Toplitz, for one's health;" and wandered about a good deal in those Frontier Mountains of Bohemia, taking notes, taking sketches (not with a picturesque view); and returned by the Saxon Pirna Country, a strange stony labyrinth, which he guessed might possibly be interesting soon. The Saxon Commandant of the Konigstein, lofty Fortress of those parts, strongest in Saxony, was of Winterfeld's ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVII. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Seven-Years War: First Campaign—1756-1757. • Thomas Carlyle
... can trust Fra Ilario's letter as a genuine record, which is unhappily a matter of some doubt, we have in this narration not only a picturesque, almost a melodramatically picturesque glimpse of the poet's apparition to those quiet monks in their seagirt house of peace, but also an interesting record of the destiny which presided over the first great work of literary art ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds
... replied her father. "The houses are empty, the old mill is silent, the streets are overgrown; in fact, it's nothing but a picturesque ruin ...
— Patty at Home • Carolyn Wells
... temptations of the earlier part of the evening had completely passed away. He walked slowly because a big yellow moon hung down from the sky, and because Mr. Waddington's rooms were in a neighborhood of leafy squares and picturesque houses. When he came back to the more travelled ways he ceased, however, to look about him. He took a 'bus to Westminster and returned to his rooms. Somehow or other, the possession of the sheets acted like a sedative. He felt a new confidence ...
— The Double Life Of Mr. Alfred Burton • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... layer of clay placed over them: above this was a thickly-thatched pointed roof, so that the snow and wet could not rest on it. Harry and Willy, with the assistance of the doctor, put up a porch in the front of Mrs Morley's house, which gave it a picturesque look. As there was no planking to spare, the doors and window-shutters were formed of rough frames and bars across, with grass thickly interwoven between them. These served to keep out the wind and cold, and, as Willy said, looked excessively ...
— The Voyages of the Ranger and Crusader - And what befell their Passengers and Crews. • W.H.G. Kingston
... a number of deserted streets in Bristol, I at last found myself upon a high road with a signpost which told me that I was on my way to Wells, that picturesque little city at the foot of the Mendip Hills. So, fearing lest I might be followed, I went "all out" through Axbridge and Cheddar, until at last I came to the fine old cathedral at Wells, which I knew quite familiarly. Near it was ...
— The Golden Face - A Great 'Crook' Romance • William Le Queux
... as they feed and loiter on the way. The supper-horn sends forth a hoarse but mellow fugue in swells and cadences from the farm-house. Over all this sweet rural scene of mountain, valley, river and farm, and over the picturesque camp, with stock, tent and wagons, now brightened by the grace of a young girl, the twilight lingers like love over a home. As I listen and look a soft voice from the carriage at my side says, "Is the ground damp? ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 31. October, 1873. • Various
... themselves are so precisely alike, that one can in no manner be distinguished from the other. Owing to the vast antiquity, the style of architecture is somewhat odd, but it is not for that reason the less strikingly picturesque. They are fashioned of hard-burned little bricks, red, with black ends, so that the walls look like a chess-board upon a great scale. The gables are turned to the front, and there are cornices, as big as all the rest of the house, over the eaves and over the main doors. The ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 4 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... more value than Property, which will one day put the living value of industry above the dead value of capital. Our republic was not born under Cancer, to go backward. Perhaps we do not like the prospect? Perhaps we love the picturesque charm with which novelists and poets have invested the old feudal order of things? That is not the question. This New World of ours is to be the world of great workers and small estates. The freemen whose capital is ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II., November, 1858., No. XIII. • Various
... most Boer villages, being situated on the pleasant little Mooi River, whose clear, rapid current reminded us of our home streams. There are a few trees in the vicinity, whilst on the further bank and beyond the railway rise the serrated, well-wooded, and extremely picturesque Gatsrand Hills. ...
— The Second Battalion Royal Dublin Fusiliers in the South African War - With a Description of the Operations in the Aden Hinterland • Cecil Francis Romer and Arthur Edward Mainwaring
... here. There is a brook, so near the house that we shall be able to hear its ripple in the summer evenings, . . . . but, for agricultural purposes, it has been made to flow in a straight and rectangular fashion, which does it infinite damage as a picturesque object. . ...
— Passages From The American Notebooks, Volume 2. • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... have just described in the castle vault meant not merely the tragedy of a hero's death, nor merely the destruction of a faction or party, it meant the end of an epoch. With Sickingen's death one of the most salient and picturesque elements in the mediaeval life of Central Europe received its death-blow. The knighthood as a distinct factor in the polity of ...
— German Culture Past and Present • Ernest Belfort Bax
... the wind applied to a windmill is much used for driving pumps. It is a long step forward from the ancient and picturesque Dutch form of windmill, consisting of only four arms with cloth sails, to the modern improved forms of wheels constructed in wood and in iron, with a large number of impulse blades, and provided with devices regulating the ...
— The Home Medical Library, Volume V (of VI) • Various
... is repeated in reverse, and the Black Maria presently rumbles away empty. In that building, whose exterior Narcisse found so picturesque, the vagrant at length finds food. In that question of food, by the way, another question arose, not as to any degree of criminality past or present, nor as to age, or sex, or race, or station; but as to the having or lacking fifty cents. "Four bits" a day was the open sesame to a department ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable
... of the dance other visitors appeared, who formed themselves into cotillions and reels; and the lawn being at length well filled, the evening delightful, and the moon risen in all her full glory, the whole formed a scene truly picturesque. ...
— Travels through the South of France and the Interior of Provinces of Provence and Languedoc in the Years 1807 and 1808 • Lt-Col. Pinkney
... computer-science conference in Berkeley, California, the first time either of us had been on the West Coast. When not in the conference sessions, we had spent our time wandering the length of Telegraph Avenue, which (like Harvard Square in Cambridge) was lined with picturesque street vendors and interesting little shops. On that street we discovered Uncle Gaylord's Berkeley store. The ice cream there was very good. During that August visit JONL went absolutely bananas (so to speak) over one particular ...
— THE JARGON FILE, VERSION 2.9.10
... Indian was being restricted to a small part of the great region west of the Mississippi, there was being enacted on the plains one of the most picturesque of all American dramas. Beyond the settled parts of the states just west of the "Father of Waters," bounded north and south by Canada and the Rio Grande, and extending west to the Rocky Mountain foot-hills, lay a ...
— The United States Since The Civil War • Charles Ramsdell Lingley
... unforgettable glimpse of the Place Stanislas, with its bronze gates, fountains, and statue, worthy of a great capital; of the beautiful figure of Duke Antonio of Lorraine, on horseback, under an archway of flamboyant Gothic; of the Ducal Palace and its airy colonnade; lastly, of the picturesque old city gate, the Porte de la Craffe, one of the most striking monuments of ...
— In the Heart of the Vosges - And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... cradled infant," the "pickpurse," and other circumstances too grotesque or ludicrous to harmonise with the dreadful group around them. Some points, also, of sublimity, have escaped the modern poet. Such is the appropriate and picturesque accompaniment of ...
— The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author • Sir Walter Scott
... formed by trunks of trees thrown over the stream, which support others of smaller growth, that are laid across them. These bridges are not very pleasant to pass, for they totter under the tread of a man, and tremble most frightfully beneath a horse or a waggon; they are, however, very picturesque. The great height of the trees, the quantity of pendant vine branches that hang amongst them; and the variety of gay plumaged birds, particularly the small green parrot, made us feel we were in a new world; and a repetition of our walk the ...
— Domestic Manners of the Americans • Fanny Trollope
... been extremely interested in what they saw. Stephen Strong was an old hand and knew it intimately, and the whole party was so merry and gay. The snow fortunately had held, and they rushed about in little sleighs seeing the quaint buildings and picturesque streets and the churches with their bright gilt domes. Moscow was really Russian, Prince Solentzeff-Zasiekin told them, unlike Petersburg, which at a first glance might be Berlin or Vienna, or anywhere else; but Moscow is like no ...
— His Hour • Elinor Glyn
... length of quiet, old St. Paul street, then an Indian trail, following the course of the river through the oak forest, must often have known the presence of this picturesque warrior in his weather-beaten garments of the doublet and long hose then in vogue. "Over the doublet he buckled on a breastplate, and probably a back piece, while his thighs were protected by cuisses of steel and his head by a plumed casque. Across his shoulders hung the strap of his baudolier ...
— Famous Firesides of French Canada • Mary Wilson Alloway
... are hollowed out towards the top, and terminate in a sort of turrets communicating with the interior of the keep itself. The distant appearance of this huge building, with these singular accompaniments, is as interesting to the lovers of the picturesque, as the interior of the castle is to the eager antiquary, whose imagination it carries back to the days of the Heptarchy. A barrow, in the vicinity of the castle, is pointed out as the tomb of the memorable Hengist; and various monuments, of great ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... month after the raising of the flag, they came from the river, the night having been the most perfect they had seen, dark, sombre, picturesque. The moon was hidden behind the banks of clouds, which foretold the coming of rain, yet there was a soft, exquisite glow on land and water, as if blue-black tints were being cast from aloft by some mysterious, experimenting artist among the gods. It had been a quiet, dreamy ...
— Nedra • George Barr McCutcheon
... house in a square there—all was classically in order. The poet was at home. The visitor as shown in.... 'I had,' he was destined to tell Mr. Gosse, 'waited in the little parlour at least two hours, when the door was opened and a most picturesque gentleman, with hair flowing nearly or quite to his shoulders, a beautiful velvet coat and a Vandyck collar of lace about a foot deep, appeared, rubbing his hands and smiling ethereally, and saying, ...
— And Even Now - Essays • Max Beerbohm
... men had indulged in too many tests of Oak Creek whiskey, called "Pizen" by the natives. The cow-boys were picturesque enough. in their wide sombreros, woolly chaps, gay shirts, and a swagger that matched their trick of shooting. The miners were swarthy, bearded foreigners, who wore long boots, loose shirts, and belts ...
— Polly of Pebbly Pit • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... intervals, an expectation, like the anticipation of an inevitable note or requisite word, arises in the mind, and its non-satisfaction involves a shock. This shock, if caused by the emphatic emergence of an interesting object, gives the effect of the picturesque; but when it comes with no compensation, it gives us the feeling of ugliness and imperfection — the defect which symmetry avoids. This kind of symmetry is accordingly in itself a negative merit, but often the condition of the greatest ...
— The Sense of Beauty - Being the Outlines of Aesthetic Theory • George Santayana
... author of Georgia Scenes (1835). Edwards' best work is to be found in his short stories of black and white life after the manner of Richard Malcolm Johnston. He has written several novels, but he is essentially a writer of human-nature sketches. "He is humorous and picturesque," says Fred Lewis Pattee, "and often he is for a moment the master of pathos, but he has added nothing new and nothing commandingly distinctive."[3] An exception to this might be made in favor ...
— The Best American Humorous Short Stories • Various
... that one with the fragments broken off by stupid picturesque tourists, with the name of Peachey ...
— Julian Home • Dean Frederic W. Farrar
... "that, regarded by the eye of the senses, it is a thing that in its best day had small pretensions to beauty, and is not elevated into the Picturesque even by neglect and decay. But, my friend, regarded by the eye of the inner man—of the rural philosopher and parochial legislator—I say it is by neglect and decay that it is rendered a very pleasing feature in what I may ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various
... corridor. The electric light was also brightening it, but the fire was unlit, and the presence of the unpacked trunk, taking up a position of prominence on the floor, gave it a very unhomelike feel. In itself the room was particularly picturesque. It had two charming lattice windows, set in deep square bays. One window faced the fireplace, the other the door. The effect was slightly irregular, but for that very reason all the more charming. The walls of the room were painted light blue; ...
— A Sweet Girl Graduate • Mrs. L.T. Meade
... rat-hunting, and was as clever at it as a Scotch terrier. At that time I was living in that blind alley of the Doyenne, now destroyed, where Gerard de Nerval, Arsene Houssaye and Camille Rogier were the heads of a little picturesque and artistic Bohemia, the eccentric mode of life in which has been so well told by others that it is unnecessary to relate it over again. There we were, right in the centre of the Carrousel, as independent and solitary as on a desert island in Oceanica, under the shadow ...
— My Private Menagerie - from The Works of Theophile Gautier Volume 19 • Theophile Gautier
... at all times, but most detestable by day. At night it is customary, a work of darkness which lights up the dark, picturesque, magnificent, with a fitness Tartarean and diabolic. But under a glaring sun, amid green fields and blue skies, all its wickedness is revealed without its beauty. You see its works, and little more. The flame is hardly noticed. All ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley
... arranged; but all was enclosed, cramped, and unhandy, and the difficulty was to get a clear space anywhere. I walked with M. Durez in the evening to a tiny mound in his garden, from which he assured me a good view could be got; but although the sunset and colouring through the haze was rather picturesque, one couldn't see much. Durez was very apprehensive about his family and himself, and was most urgent in his inquiries as to what was going to happen. I could not tell him much beyond the rumour that the German force in front was reported not to ...
— The Doings of the Fifteenth Infantry Brigade - August 1914 to March 1915 • Edward Lord Gleichen
... in St. Sava, the procession was reformed, and took its way to the Castle of Vissarion, which is some distance off across a picturesque creek, bounded on either side by noble cliffs of vast height. The King led the way, the Queen walking with him and holding his hand . . . The Castle of Vissarion is of great antiquity, and picturesque beyond belief. ...
— The Lady of the Shroud • Bram Stoker
... brilliant account of the expedition. The first edition, amounting to fifty thousand copies, was sold within a fortnight, and Alarcon's name became famous throughout the peninsula. The book is not in any sense a formal history; it is a series of picturesque impressions rendered with remarkable force. On his return from Africa Alarcon did the Liberal party much good service as editor of La Politica, but after his marriage in 1866 to a devout lady, Paulina Contrera y Reyes, ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... capital one and full of variety, and presents us with many picturesque scenes of Southern life. Young Wingfield, who is conscientious, spirited, and 'hard as nails,' would have been a man after the ...
— The Dash for Khartoum - A Tale of Nile Expedition • George Alfred Henty
... corruption of Parliaments and enclosure of country-sides, by turning men's minds from the foreign glories of the great Whigs like Churchill and Chatham; and one of its first acts was to terminate the alliance with Prussia. Unfortunately, whatever was picturesque in the piracy of Potsdam was beyond the imagination of Windsor. But whatever was prosaic in Potsdam was already established at Windsor; the economy of cold mutton, the heavy-handed taste in the arts, and the strange northern blend of boorishness ...
— The Crimes of England • G.K. Chesterton
... them to all comers; and a motley enough looking crowd, every member of which is puffing away at a cigar, forms are applauding circle round the dancers, who smoke like the rest. One cannot help being struck by the picturesque costumes and graceful motions of the performers, who appear to dance not only with their legs, but with all their hearts and souls. Lacosse is a particular admirer of these fandangos, and he very ...
— California • J. Tyrwhitt Brooks
... wall that flanks the gate on the side opposite that which supports the girl, are another man and woman, who cast from time to time pitying glances at the pale face beneath the straw bonnet. These are as raggedly picturesque in their attire as the rest—a short red petticoat, a blanket substituted for a shawl, and a bundle on the back, distinguish the female; a long great coat and short trousers the male. They are deep in conversation upon the common theme. A young man of more stalwart ...
— Gladys, the Reaper • Anne Beale
... statements about themselves. Dulany is still, so far as I can judge, honest. To-day he told me the history of himself, with a gay humor in the telling. He is a descendant, it seems, of the great and the gifted. There are lawless loves behind him, a picturesque ancestry, artistic and, on the wrong side of the blanket, aristocratic ...
— Katrine • Elinor Macartney Lane
... progress of civilization, he carried from New-Jersey into the beautiful valley of the Mohawk—not many years after the original proprietors of that section of the republic had been finally driven away by those who understood tilling their land better than they. It was in this picturesque and delightful valley, on the banks of the river, and in a town alike celebrated for the taste of its people in architecture, and distinguished as a seat of learning, that my friend and hero, Daniel, first saw the light. I have cast no figure to ascertain which of the divinities presided ...
— Ups and Downs in the Life of a Distressed Gentleman • William L. Stone
... was, however, truly picturesque. Here a bay window was judiciously thrown out; there a portico appended or hanging balcony added to break the gray expanse of wall or sullen glare of windows; and a small gray tower or belfry, containing a clock that chimed the hours, and a fine telescope, rose from the octagon ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield
... sent her to Peggy as "a semi-annual birthday gift," he said. She had adapted herself to her new surroundings with unusual promptitude and been adopted by the other four-footed members of the estate as "a friend and equal." The trio formed a picturesque group as they ...
— Peggy Stewart at School • Gabrielle E. Jackson |
