"Silken" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... In his silken robes, clean and bright, With his cap on his head, looking so respectful, From the hall he goes to the foot of the stairs, And (then) from the sheep to the oxen[1]. (He inspects) the tripods, large and small, ...
— The Shih King • James Legge
... see them come—the knights and ladies of my revel. Plumed and turbaned they come, clad in mail and silken broideries, gentle maids in Quaker gray, gay princes in scarlet cloaks, coquettes with roses in their hair, monks in cowls that might have covered the tall Minster Tower, demure little girls hugging paper ...
— The World I Live In • Helen Keller
... dominated every will in the process of his achievements, he who defiantly told his masters that he would not suffer his "feet to be entangled" by their amateurish absurdities, was entangled for a time by a rapturous infatuation and allowed a giddy woman with seductive habits and a silken voice to cajole, dominate, ridicule, and ignore him. His imploring theatrical appeals to her to come to him are piteously pathetic. The rational parts of his letters are without example in neat concise phrase, and portray a man possessed of great ...
— The Tragedy of St. Helena • Walter Runciman
... individual freedom which is on trial in battle with the Prussian system—and as one is going to bed the sound of guns in the heart of the city! From the window one looked upward to see, under a searchlight's play, the silken sheen of a cigar-shaped sort of aerial phantom which was dropping bombs on women and children, while never a shot is fired at ...
— My Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... where I would fain have laid my head,—shoulders faintly rosy, which seemed to blush as if uncovered for the first time; modest shoulders, that possessed a soul, and reflected light from their satin surface as from a silken texture. These shoulders were parted by a line along which my eyes wandered. I raised myself to see the bust and was spell-bound by the beauty of the bosom, chastely covered with gauze, where blue-veined globes of perfect outline were softly hidden in waves of lace. The slightest details ...
— The Lily of the Valley • Honore de Balzac
... where the feast was spread the servants had placed trestles, over which long boards were fitted. Benches covered with silken cushions served as seats. The cloth was of linen dyed scarlet in the rare Montpellier dye, and over it was spread another of white linen, embroidered in open-work squares. At each end of the table was a large silver dish, one containing a meat-pie, ...
— Masters of the Guild • L. Lamprey
... soft coo the pigeon nestled closer in John's arms. Reaching under its wing, he found a scroll of writing tied there securely with a silken cord. ...
— John of the Woods • Abbie Farwell Brown
... the spirit of love. Oh, that it could have remained so forever! There was not a painted cheek in Eden, nor a bald head, nor a false tooth, nor a bachelor. There was not a flounce, nor a frill, nor a silken gown, nor a flashy waist with aurora borealis sleeves. There was not a curl paper, nor even a threat of crinoline. Raiment was an after thought, the mask of a tainted soul, born of original sin. Beauty ...
— Gov. Bob. Taylor's Tales • Robert L. Taylor
... maiden trimly girt Bore in her gleaming upheld skirt Fair silken balls sewed round with gold; Which when the others did behold Men cast their mantles unto earth, And maids within their raiment's girth Drew up their gown skirts, loosening here Some button on their bosoms ...
— Romance of Roman Villas - (The Renaissance) • Elizabeth W. (Elizbeth Williams) Champney
... her by an irresistible power. It must have been difficult for the Empress to give severity to that seductive look; but she could do this, and well knew how to render it imposing when necessary. Her hair was very beautiful, long and silken, its nut-brown tint contrasting exquisitely with the dazzling whiteness of her fine fresh complexion. At the commencement of her supreme power, the Empress still liked to adorn her head in the morning with a red madras handkerchief, which gave her a most ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... and dropped her head back upon the silken pillows when his signal sounded in telegraphic sequence on ...
— Athalie • Robert W. Chambers
... one wore the antiquated Queen Anne Court suit, now superseded by modern garments, perhaps more convenient but certainly not so picturesque. Bagwig and flowered waistcoat, and hanging cast-steel rapier, and silken calves and buckled shoes,—and above all the abundant real point lace (upon which Lord Houghton more than once has commented with me as to the comparative superiority of his or mine,—both being of ancestral ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... Olga Lermontof should need to economise by having such a small room and one so high up. She was invariably well-dressed—Diana had frequently caught glimpses of silken petticoats and expensive shoes—and she had not in the least the air of a woman who is accustomed to ...
— The Splendid Folly • Margaret Pedler
... with oil till one side was dressed. Then she turned them over and, behold, the kitchen wall crave asunder, and therefrom came a young lady, fair of form, oval of face, perfect in grace, with eyelids which Kohl lines enchase.[FN106] Her dress was a silken head kerchief fringed and tasseled with blue: a large ring hung from either ear; a pair of bracelets adorned her wrists; rings with bezels of priceless gems were on her fingers; and she hent in hand a long rod of rattan cane which she thrust into the frying ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... his own brass bed in the silken nest of his mother, a white-capped nurse by his side. The little boy's face was flushed and his head tossing restlessly to and fro on the embroidered pillows. "There's no use," he was muttering. "I tell you, it's quite silly to ...
— The Halo • Bettina von Hutten
... lay nobles. Various charges against him were forwarded to England, and in 1534 he was summoned to London to answer for his conduct. Before setting out on his last journey to London he appointed his son, Lord Thomas Fitzgerald (Silken Thomas), then a youth of twenty-one, to take charge of the government. The latter had neither the wisdom nor the experience of his father. Rumours of his father's execution, spread by the enemies of the Geraldines, having reached his ears, despite the earnest entreaties of Archbishop ...
— History of the Catholic Church from the Renaissance • Rev. James MacCaffrey
... call she paused, but did not turn. He came up with her. ... he caught at her robe, soft to the touch as silken gauze, and overwhelmed by a sudden emotion of awe and reverence, he ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... not. Men calling themselves the superior race, the race of culture and of gentle blood, scanned his quaint Chinese hat, with peaked roof and ball on top, and his long queue dangling down his back; his short silken blouse, curiously frogged and figured (and, like the rest of his raiment, rusty, dilapidated, and awkwardly put on); his blue cotton, tight-legged pants, tied close around the ankles; and his clumsy blunt-toed ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... James Chettam. Mrs. Cadwallader, the Dowager Lady Chettam, and Celia were sometimes seated on garden-chairs, sometimes walking to meet little Arthur, who was being drawn in his chariot, and, as became the infantine Bouddha, was sheltered by his sacred umbrella with handsome silken fringe. ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... had just put in a billowy robe, buoyed out with the wind, and sweeping down from the shoulders of a stately figure in such free and graceful folds that she would have liked to take it in her hand and feel the silken texture; and then he told her how absorbing it was to study the mysteries of color and the differences of light. "There is enough in that to make one happy," he said. "It is thought by some that we will all come ...
— A Little Pilgrim - Stories of the Seen and the Unseen • Margaret O. (Wilson) Oliphant
... the houses across the wide river, she often established a pretend-home. Her father was with her always; her mother, too,—in a silken gown, with a jeweled chaplet on her head. But her household was always blissfully free of those whose chief design it was to thwart and terrify her—Miss Royle, Jane, Thomas; her teachers [as a ...
— The Poor Little Rich Girl • Eleanor Gates
... is the secret sympathy, The silver link, the silken tie, Which heart to heart and mind to mind In body ...
— Leaves of Life - For Daily Inspiration • Margaret Bird Steinmetz
... the woman till the canoe drove in closer and her bizarre beauty peremptorily demanded notice. A close-fitting blouse of moose-skin, fantastically beaded, outlined faithfully the well-rounded lines of her body, while a silken kerchief, gay of color and picturesquely draped, partly covered great masses of blue-black hair. But it was the face, cast belike in copper bronze, which caught and held Mrs. Sayther's fleeting glance. Eyes, ...
— The God of His Fathers • Jack London
... chiefs, and priests. Nor in person, did he belie his origin. No far-descended dwarf was he, the least of a receding race. He stood like a palm tree; about whose acanthus capital droops not more gracefully the silken fringes, than Media's locks upon his noble brow. Strong was his arm to wield the club, or hurl the javelin; and potent, I ween, round ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville
... dimensions of increasing urgency. This detail concerns Fa Fai, who had already been referred to by a person of literary distinction, in a poetical analogy occupying three written volumes, as a pearl-tinted peach-blossom shielded and restrained by the silken net-work of wise parental affection (and recognizing the justice of the comparison, Wong Ts'in had been induced to purchase the work in question). Now that Fa Fai had attained an age when she could fittingly ...
— Kai Lung's Golden Hours • Ernest Bramah
... light horse, for fear of the liberties which the wind might take with her. And the king grew more apprehensive with increasing years, till at last he would not allow her to walk abroad without some twenty silken cords fastened to as many parts of her dress, and held by twenty noble-men. Of course horseback was out of the question. But she bade good-bye to all this ceremony when she got into the water. So remarkable were its effects upon her, especially in restoring her for the time to the ordinary ...
— Adela Cathcart, Vol. 1 • George MacDonald
... myself a queen of Sheba or some Eastern houri screened by silken curtains from the vulgar gaze. What extravagances my imagination in its pride might have led me into it is impossible to say, but for the bodily discomfort. The camel is called the "ship of the desert," but surely no ship ever pitched and rolled so unmercifully. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, September, 1878 • Various
... seasons of the yeare First lusty spring all dight in leaves and flowres Then came the jolly sommer being dight in a thin silken cassock coloured greene Then came the autumne all in yellow clad Lastly came winter, clothed all in frize Chattering his teeth, for cold ...
— Palaces and Courts of the Exposition • Juliet James
... On a silken pallet lying, under hangings stiff with gold, Now is Coeur-de-Lion sighing, weakly sighing, he the bold! For with riches, power, and glory now forever he must part. They have told him he is dying. Keen remorse is at his heart Life is grateful, life is glorious, with ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 6, No. 33, July, 1860 • Various
... listening to the glad bird-voices from the garden, her soft, fringed eyelids closed, her white breasts gently heaving, her small feet crossed, her slender, bare arms pillowing the little Greek head; a heavy plait of the silken wealth that crowned it drawn down on either side of the sweet, pale face and the pure throat, intensifying their virginal beauty. The dull smart of loneliness, the famished ache of loss, were gone altogether. She felt strangely peaceful and calm and glad. Then she ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... to the room and blew out the candle. Then, taking a short hold on my silken rope, I clambered out over the window ledge and started to let myself down, hand over hand, ...
— The Man with the Clubfoot • Valentine Williams
... stranger topped him by half a head. He motioned the physician to follow him, and the two went down the hall to the front room. The place was flushed with a rose-colored glow from several lamps. On a silken couch, in the midst of pillows, lay a woman dying with consumption. She was like a lily, white, shapely, graceful, with feeble yet charming movements. She looked at the doctor appealingly, then, seeing in his eyes the involuntary verdict that her hour was at hand, she turned ...
— The Shape of Fear • Elia W. Peattie
... not in rags; he was elegantly attired. His silken vest was bound with a girdle of gold-thread studded with jewels; and over it he wore a caftan, with wide sleeves, of the finest dark-blue cloth. The round cap of black lamb's-wool became his handsome head. His complexion was pale olive, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 87, January, 1865 • Various
... Gottlieb had slept most with the day on his eyelids, for Werner hung like a nightmare over him. Margarita lay and dreamed in rose-colour, and if she thrilled on her pillowed silken couch like a tense-strung harp, and fretted drowsily in little leaps and starts, it was that a bird lay in her bosom, panting and singing through the night, and that he was not to be stilled, but would musically utter the sweetest secret thoughts of a love-bewitched maiden. Farina's devotion ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... were they glancing yesternight? Saw ye Imogen dancing, dancing, Imogen dancing all in white? Laughed she not with a pure delight, Laughed she not with a joy serene, Stepped she not with a grace entrancing, Slenderly girt in silken sheen? ...
— Poems: New and Old • Henry Newbolt
... as soft and healthy-looking as a baby's, and glowed in the lights of the lanterns like tinted ivory, and underneath this silken covering the great biceps and muscles moved in and out and looked like the coils of a snake around the branch ...
— Short Stories for English Courses • Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.)
... daughters of satraps. The wedding was thus conducted: in one great hall eighty double seats were placed, and here the bridegrooms sat down to feast, till the brides entered, in jewelled turbans, wide linen drawers, silken tunics, and broad belts. Alexander rose, took his princess by the hand, and led her to his seat, and all the rest followed his example—each led his lady to his seat, kissed her, and placed her beside him, then cut a loaf of bread ...
— Aunt Charlotte's Stories of Greek History • Charlotte M. Yonge
... her poverty, into the hands of some poor gambling officer, she attached herself to him as a dog to its master, sharing the discomforts of the military life, which indeed she comforted, as content under the roof of a garret as beneath the silken hangings of opulence. Italian and Spanish both, she fulfilled very scrupulously the duties of religion, and more than once ...
— Juana • Honore de Balzac
... cries and sounds, however alarming, you must on no account enter,' said the jogi, walking over to a closet where lay the silken cord that ...
— The Lilac Fairy Book • Andrew Lang
... he and his father started on the pilgrimage. The king was received with much honour by the pope, to whom he presented a gold crown of four pounds weight, ten dishes of the purest gold, a sword richly set in gold, two gold images, some silver-gilt urns, stoles bordered with gold and purple, white silken robes embroidered with figures, and other costly articles of clothing for the celebration of the service of the church, together with rich presents in gold and silver to the churches, bishops, clergy, and other dwellers in Rome. They ...
— The Dragon and the Raven - or, The Days of King Alfred • G. A. Henty
... well as they? In what weak colours would the plaid appear, Work'd to a quilt, or studded in a chair! The skin, that vies with silk, would fret with stuff; Or who could bear in bed a thing so rough? Ye knowing fair, how eminent that bed, Where the chintz diamonds with the silken thread, Where rustling curtains call the curious eye, And boast the streaks and paintings of the sky! Of flocks they'd have your milky ticking full: And all this for the benefit of wool! "But where," say they, "shall we bestow these weavers, That spread our streets, and are such piteous cravers?" ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift
... his heart's content, and played go (the game of 360 checkers) with Ko-suzumi the little daughter. In the evening Mrs. Sparrow would bring out the refreshments and the wine, and seat the old man on a silken cushion, while she played the guitar. Mr. Sparrow and his two daughters danced, sung and made merry. The delighted old man leaning on the velvet arm-rest forgot his cares, his old limbs and his wife's tongue, and felt like ...
— Japanese Fairy World - Stories from the Wonder-Lore of Japan • William Elliot Griffis
... for his dirty habit of wetting his thumb when turning over the leaves of the book. [440] What a rare tale is that of the Ensorcelled Prince, alias The Young King of the Black Isles, who though he sat in a palace where fountains limbecked water "clear as pearls and diaphanous gems," and wore "silken stuff purfled with Egyptian gold," was from his midriff downwards not man but marble! Who is not shocked at the behaviour of the Three Ladies of Baghdad! In what fearful peril the caliph and the Kalendars placed themselves when, in spite of warning, they would ask questions! How ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... the inn at Stettin, Sidonia got all her baggage carried in from the waggon, and there dressed herself with all her finery: silken robes, golden hairnet, and golden chains, rings, and jewels, that all the people saluted her when she came forth, and went to the castle to ask for his Highness the Duke. He was in his workshop, and had just finished turning a spinning-wheel; he laughed aloud when ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V1 • William Mienhold
... Sir Kay (he being clad only in a silken tunic of green color and with scarlet hosen and velvet shoes, fit for the court of a lady) he was afraid, and he wist not how to bear himself in the presence of Sir Boindegardus. Then Sir Boindegardus said, "Where is King Arthur?" And Sir Kay made no reply because of fear. Then one of ...
— The Story of the Champions of the Round Table • Howard Pyle
... the hall the chandelier was burning, and as the carriage stopped a flame of light seemed suddenly to burst from every window as the gas heads were turned up, so that Katy caught glimpses of rich silken curtains and costly lace as she went up the steps, clinging to Wilford and looking ruefully around for Esther, who had disappeared through the basement door. Another moment and they stood within the marbled hall, Katy conscious of ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes
... course, was not conscious of the smallest reproach in the matter. Dainty and costly dress was second nature to her; she never thought about it. But this morning as she first took up the elaborate silken thing, to which pale girls in hot Parisian workrooms had given so much labour of hand and head, and then caught sight of her own face and shoulders in the cracked glass upon the wall, she was seized with certain ghastly perceptions that held her there motionless in the semi-darkness, shivering ...
— Eleanor • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... I do with it—saturated as it was with my blood, and owing as I did my life to it? Perhaps, sweet and gentle lady, you think that I preserved it in a costly vase, over which I might weep, or had it made up by some fair hands systematically into a silken belt, and still wore it next my heart, or, at least, that I placed it in a china flower-vase, and planted a rose-tree therein, which I watered daily by my tears. Alas! for the lovers of the romantic, I did none of these. I told you before all my ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... was a success. The women praised it, the men stared and admired. The dark-blue silken jersey, sparkling with closely studded indigo beads, fitted the slim graceful figure as a serpent's scales fit the serpent. The coquettish little blue silk toque, the careless cluster of gold-coloured poppies, against the glossy brown hair, the large sunshade of old gold satin lined with ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... to the largest mirror in sight she began to smooth and twist her silken sash into place. Somewhere at wrist or ankle twittered the ...
— Molly Make-Believe • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... voyage. Presently he came to Silk Land, loveliest of all the Cloth Islands. There the inhabitants dress only in the finest of silks; the roofs and walls are covered with layers of silk; the sun always shines, and pretty birds with silken plumage chatter ...
— The Firelight Fairy Book • Henry Beston
... receive phantoms than real living guests, would not permit me to offer you more comfortable accommodations. If I had been able to follow my inclinations, I should have lodged you in a luxurious chamber, where you could have reposed between fine linen sheets, under silken curtains, instead of resting uneasily ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... people and children of the village near at hand will come down to the water-side on a fire-fly hunt. The tiny gleaming creatures now flash along the surface of river and lake, like a myriad of fairy lanterns flitting through the dusk. They are caught and imprisoned in little silken cages. At the bottom of the cage there is a very small mound of earth in which a millet seed has been planted and has sprung up to the height of an inch or more, and beside the little plant there is a tiny bowl of water. Here the firefly will live for several days, to the ...
— Peeps at Many Lands: Japan • John Finnemore
... the breeze of a joyful dawn blew free In the silken sail of infancy, The tide of time flow'd back with me, The forward-flowing time of time; And many a sheeny summer morn, Adown the Tigris I was borne, By Bagdat's shrines of fretted gold, High-walled gardens green and old; True Mussulman was I ...
— The Arabian Nights - Their Best-known Tales • Unknown
... three separate heads, and each of them fiercer than the two others; but, fierce as they were, King Pluto patted them all. He seemed as fond of his three-headed dog as if it had been a sweet little spaniel with silken ears and curly hair. Cerberus, on the other hand, was evidently rejoiced to see his master, and expressed his attachment, as other dogs do, by wagging his tail at a great rate. Proserpina's eyes being drawn to it by its brisk motion, she saw that this tail ...
— Myths That Every Child Should Know - A Selection Of The Classic Myths Of All Times For Young People • Various
... this strange, romantic face on its long, romantic throat and looked at Hudson. Then she got to her feet. She was soft and silken, smooth and tender, gleaming white of skin. She had put on an old black dress, just a scrap of a flimsy, little worn-out gown. A certain slim, crushable quality of her body was accentuated by this flimsiness of covering. She looked as though she could ...
— Hidden Creek • Katharine Newlin Burt
... bronze, eyes wide apart, intelligent and daring, a bubble, a mote, a beautiful flash and sparkle of life. You have seen wonderful glorious creatures—animals, anything, a leopard, a horse-restless, eager, too much alive ever to be still, silken of muscle, each slightest movement a benediction of grace, every action wild, untrammeled, and over all spilling out that intense vitality, that sheen and luster of living light. The boy had it. Life poured out of him almost in an effulgence. His skin glowed with it. It burned in his ...
— The Night-Born • Jack London
... exchange for that help. Also remember that, superman though you may be, your mentality cannot cope with the forces I have bearing upon you. Neither will your being a superman enable your body to retain life after I have pushed you through yonder door, dressed as you are in a silken tunic." ...
— Skylark Three • Edward Elmer Smith
... The native merchants. Despair was in their hearts; starvation threatened them, even amid the dainty appointments of their luxurious villas; what is the use of marble baths and silken hangings, tesselated pavements, and pictures, and books, and statues, if there is no food to be had, though one bid for it all the pictures in the house? With the merchants, there were the priests, the physicians, the lawyers, the actors and mimics, the artists, the teachers, all who minister to ...
— The History of London • Walter Besant
... nut-brown calf, were held upon his feet by one solitary button and a piece of string; while his headgear consisted of a sailor-hat, with battered brim, and blue ribbon band so stained and faded that only with difficulty one could make out the name upon its silken surface—H.M.S. Dreadnought—a most appropriate one for the ship in which this dauntless mariner sailed, for he had in truth a ...
— Two Little Travellers - A Story for Girls • Frances Browne Arthur
... ate, Dent had an interview with the master of the house, a short, stout Burman in silken kilt and headgear of flaming scarlet, and their business was put in hand at once. The Burman sent a native boatman off to see if Moung San had ...
— Jack Haydon's Quest • John Finnemore
... is Mary coming now," said Cora in a low voice as she heard some one approaching from behind the silken draperies that separated part of ...
— The Motor Girls • Margaret Penrose
... asked, surrender to the minority? Davis, replying on the 17th, contended that Douglas had, on the Kansas policy of the Administration, put himself outside the Democratic organization. He desired no divided flag for the party. He preferred that the Senator's banner should lie in its silken folds to feed the moth; "but if it impatiently rustles to be unfurled in opposition to ours, we will plant our own on every hill." Douglas retorted, and again attacked the caucus dictation. "Why," he asked, "are all the great measures for the public good made to give ...
— Abraham Lincoln, A History, Volume 2 • John George Nicolay and John Hay
... leash or racing after his prey across the desert sands. The Egyptians loved him and appreciated him centuries before the pyramids were built. In those days he wore a feathered tail, and his ears were heavy with a silken fringe of hair. His type was that of the modern Arabian Slughi, who is the direct and unaltered descendant of the ancient hound. The glorious King Solomon referred to him (Proverbs xxx. 31) as being one of the four things which "go well and are ...
— Dogs and All About Them • Robert Leighton
... what I say to you: Find me my silken mantle blue. Go with me into my bower anon: My richest of velvets and furs do on. Two of you shall deck me in scarlet and vair, The third shall wind pearl-strings into my hair. All my jewels and gauds bear away with ye! [The handmaids ...
— The Feast at Solhoug • Henrik Ibsen
... of which it incloses itself. It is then called a chrysalis. In this cocoon the butterfly is formed, either white or black, yellow or green, and there it remains inactive and imprisoned, like a baby in swadding-clothes. In spring it perforates its silken prison, and soon makes its escape a splendid butterfly, subsisting upon the juices of the flowers obtained through its proboscis. Surely you were not ignorant of all ...
— Adventures of a Young Naturalist • Lucien Biart
... back to it, the light was scarcely less gentle with Madame. It brought silver into her white hair, shimmered along the silken surface of her grey gown, and deepened the violet shadows in her eyes. It threw into vivid relief the cameo that fastened the lace at her throat, rested for a moment upon the mellow gold of her worn wedding-ring as she filled Alden's cup, and paused reminiscently at the ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed
... was soon to be brought against the widow of the late Colonel Jere Lansdale. Not with her antiquated gown, her assisting staff, the gay bonnet, nor yet with the showy small slippers and silken hose tinted unseasonably to her years did scandal engage itself; but rather with ...
— The Boss of Little Arcady • Harry Leon Wilson
... chains were surrounding them. These chains pulled them whenever they moved. They made their presence felt when they spoke, when they sat down, and when they rose up. They were with them at dinner; they were with them whenever Miss Tredgold put in an appearance. Perhaps they were silken chains, but, all the same, they were intensely annoying. Verena was the most patient of the nine. She said ...
— Girls of the Forest • L. T. Meade
... one could find him when it happened, and now all they could tell him was the story of an upturned canoe found drifting on the lake, of a woman's light summer shawl caught in the thwarts, of a child's little silken bonnet washed ashore. [Fact.] The great-hearted men of the West had done their utmost in the search that followed. Miners, missionaries, prospectors, Indians, settlers, gamblers, outlaws, had one and all turned ...
— The Moccasin Maker • E. Pauline Johnson
... hanging like stalactites from some sparry cavern. This roof is supported by columns of white marble, fashioned in the shape of palm trees, the work of Italian artists, and which forms arcades around the chamber. Beneath these arcades runs a noble divan of green and silver silk, and the silken panels of the arabesque walls have been covered with subjects of human interest by the finest artists of Munich. The marble floor, with its rich mosaics, was also the contribution of Italian genius, though it was difficult at the present moment to trace its varied, graceful, and brilliant ...
— Tancred - Or, The New Crusade • Benjamin Disraeli
... bring a book with him and read. If he chanced to look up, he saw Eleanore bending over the writing table, her hair, bathed in a flood of golden light from the lamp, falling in fine silken threads over her temples, while her mouth was firmly closed, her lips inclined to droop at the corners, but in a lovely fashion. Then he saw Gertrude. She did not wear her hair loose; she put it up in a tight knot above ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann
... yourself, and to igspress your meaning clearly affterward: the simpler the words the better, praps. You may, for instans, call a coronet an 'ancestral coronal,' if you like, as you might call a hat a 'swart sombrero,' a glossy four-and-nine, a 'silken helm, to storm impermeable,' and 'lightsome as a breezy gossamer;' but in the long run it's as well to call it a hat. It is a hat, and that name is quite as poeticle ...
— Lippincott's Magazine. Vol. XII, No. 33. December, 1873. • Various
... Piece a Venus, under a Purple Canopy furled with curious Wreaths of Drapery, half naked, attended with a Train of Cupids, who were busied in Fanning her as she slept. Behind her was drawn a Satyr peeping over the silken Fence, and threatening to break through it. I frequently offered to turn my Sight another way, but was still detained by the Fascination of the Peeper's Eyes, who had long practised a Skill in them, to recal the parting Glances of her Beholders. You see my Complaint, ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... wrought the change. All the chairs, tables, sofas, and screens, little and big, had either been spirited away or pushed back against the wall for tired dancers. Over the wide floor was stretched a linen crash; from the ceiling and bracketed against the white walls, relieved here and there by long silken curtains of gold-yellow, blazed clusters of candles, looking for all the world like so many bursting sky-rockets, while at one end, behind a mass of flowering plants, sat a quartette of musicians, led by an old darky with a cotton-batting head, ...
— Kennedy Square • F. Hopkinson Smith
... awoke, and opened eyes upon Cupid (himself invisible), which so startled him that in his confusion he wounded himself with his own arrow. Heedless of his wound, his whole thought now was to repair the mischief he had done, and he poured the balmy drops of joy over all her silken ringlets. ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... elderly couple exhibiting towards each other an assiduity pleasant to behold, displayed by the husband's arranging the shawl or cloak of his wife, or the wife gently brushing away with her glove the silken threads left on his sleeve by ...
— The Idler in France • Marguerite Gardiner
... Bidasari, and with bowls Of gold, and vases of souasa, filled With water. All of this beside the couch Was placed, with yellow siri, and with pure Pinang, all odorous, to please the child. And all was covered with a silken web. Young Bidasari bracelets wore, and rings, And ear-rings diamond studded. Garments four All gem-bedecked upon a cushion lay, For Bidasari's wear. When night had come Young Bidasari waked. Her parents dear Then bathed her, and her tender body rubbed With musk ...
— Malayan Literature • Various Authors
... course: grey inside, as you see—Handsome Dan!" The girl laughed quietly, drawing aside an edge of the garment to reveal its inner face of silken grey and the fluted ruffles ...
— The Brass Bowl • Louis Joseph Vance
... good, they choose no other into the next primum mobile but of the ablest cudgel and football players? Which done as soon as said, your primum mobile, consisting of no other stuff, must of necessity be drawn forth into your nebulones and your galimofries; and so the silken purses of your Senate and prerogative being made of sows' ears, most of them blacksmiths, they will strike while the iron is hot, and beat your estates into hob-nails, mine host of the Bear being strategus, and king piper lord ...
— The Commonwealth of Oceana • James Harrington
... remember how long it was—fell over the pillow, nearly reaching to the floor. I pressed my lips against it, where it trailed over the bedstead, till they bled. I have it still upon my lips, the mingling of the cold iron and the warm, soft silken hair. He told me, when I came down again, that I had been gone three-quarters of an hour. And we went out of the house together, he and I. That is the last ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome
... and lighted up the contending armies, the difference between their appearance was very marked. That of the League was gay with the gilded armour, waving plumes, and silken scarfs of the French nobles, whose banners fluttered brightly in the air, while the Walloons and Flemish rivalled their French comrades in the splendour of their appointments. In the opposite ranks there was neither gaiety nor ...
— By England's Aid or The Freeing of the Netherlands (1585-1604) • G.A. Henty
... apparently a protection of 30 per cent., practically ranging indeed to 78, or even 145 per cent, on some made up articles, such as net and bonnets, or turbans: but a false reliance was placed on that protection. It was a delusion: many houses in London and Paris undertook to introduce silken goods into this country at half the duty. The revenue and the trade were robbed by the smuggler; and the manufacturer was deluded by an unreal protection. With respect to silks, he proposed, therefore, to adopt a new principle. The general rule ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... entertainments, and with beds and couches for repose; and they were all attended by beautiful girls who stood at the doors of them inviting Nero and his party to land, as they passed along the river in their barges. He used to fish with a golden net, which was drawn by silken cords of a rich scarlet color. Occasionally he made grand excursions of pleasure through Italy or into Greece, in the style of royal progresses. In these expeditions he sometimes had no less than a thousand carts to convey his baggage—the mules that ...
— Nero - Makers of History Series • Jacob Abbott
... mingled together, may be seen soldiers of the Swiss guard, with their shining helmets, long halberds, and party-colored uniforms, designed by Michel Angelo,—chamberlains of the Pope, all in black, with their high ruffs, Spanish cloaks, silken stockings, and golden chains,—contadini from the mountains, in their dully brilliant costumes and white tovaglie,—common laborers from the Campagna, with their black mops of tangled hair,—forestieri of every nation,—Englishmen, with long, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 27, January, 1860 • Various
... ne'er before Had tamed me thus, all soothed and unafraid— It seemed the touch the children used to know When Christ was here, so dear it was—so dear,— At once I loved her as the leaves love dew In midmost summer when the days are new. Barely an hour I knew her, yet a curl Of silken sunshine did she clip for me Out of the bright May-morning of her hair, And bound and gave it to me laughingly, And caught my hands and called me "Little girl," Tiptoeing, as she spoke, to kiss me there! And I stood dazed and ...
— Riley Love-Lyrics • James Whitcomb Riley
... touting, the bookies were shouting 'Bar one, bar one, bar one!' With a glint and a glimmer of silken shimmer The field shone bright in the sun, When Farmer Brown came riding down: 'I hain't much time to spare, But I've entered her name, so I'll play out the game, On the back o' my old ...
— Songs of Action • Arthur Conan Doyle
... was erect and soldierly, and he rode his horse with the careless grace of a man whose life had been spent in the saddle. In common garb, his masterful face and flashing eye would have marked him as one who was born to rule; but now, with his silken tunic powdered with golden fleurs-de-lis, his velvet mantle lined with the royal minever, and the lions of England stamped in silver upon his harness, none could fail to recognize the noble Edward, most ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle
... to saddle his horse with a Tcherkess saddle, put a silken bridle into his mouth, and leading him out, mounted, and rode into the open fields. But as soon as he applied the spur, the horse grew restive, reared higher than the waving forests, plunged lower than the flying clouds; mountains and rivers he left behind; small ...
— The Russian Garland - being Russian Falk Tales • Various
... he saw by the gaoler's torch were not those he expected. The King, I say, looked towards them, and his hands trembled, and the moisture on them glistened. They were dark, and one of them was concealed by a silken mask. ...
— Orpheus in Mayfair and Other Stories and Sketches • Maurice Baring
... understand. When the fresh irons proved too hot, they hooked them on iron rods and dipped them into cold water. This again required a precise and subtle judgment. A fraction of a second too long in the water and the fine and silken edge of the proper heat was lost, and Martin found time to marvel at the accuracy he developed—an automatic accuracy, founded upon criteria that were ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London
... himselfe, when he a Swan would be, For love of Leda, whiter did appeare; Yet Leda was (they say) as white as he, Yet not so white as these, nor nothing neare; So purely white they were, That even the gentle streame, the which them bare, Seem'd foule to them, and bad his billowes spare To wet their silken feathers, least they might Soyle their fayre plumes with water not so fayre, And marre their beauties bright, That shone as heavens light, Against their Brydale day, which was not long: Sweete Themmes! runne softly, till I end ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... balloon, and breaking its neck, or coming down in the parachute. It is filled full with gaseous matter, with whim and fancy, with alliteration and antithesis, with heated passion and bloated metaphors, that burst the slender, silken covering of sense; and the airy pageant, that glittered in empty space and rose in all the bliss of ignorance, flutters and sinks down to its native bogs! If the Irish orator riots in a studied neglect of his subject and a natural confusion of ideas, playing with ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt
... is usual on such occasions, gave no other evidence of having heard their greeting than that which by a frown and a flash of her dark eyes might be construed into a signal of displeasure, as she disappeared behind the silken hangings of the bucentoro. ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach
... the smoothest and most silken tones, but they carried with them such a singular suggestion of doubt and inquiry that they seemed like ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 49, November, 1861 • Various
... stealing into the silken seclusion of the palace, where he was wallowing in his sensuality like a hog in the sty, the tidings of another peasant Teacher that had risen up among the people. Christ's name had been ringing through the land, and been sounded with blessings in ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Mark • Alexander Maclaren
... absolutely to become expressive of pain. Her eye, however, did not droop, but turned upon him with a firm and peculiar sparkle. She had been stooping with her mouth near his ear, as the reader knows, but she now stood up quickly, shook back her hair, that had been hanging in natural and silken curls about her blushing cheeks, and exclaimed: "No—no. Let me alone Bryan;" and on uttering these words she ...
— The Emigrants Of Ahadarra - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... powers to clear the flight, it is in the affair of CLOTHES that the right of succession tells, and "the hard heir strides about the land" in trousers long ago framed for fraternal limbs—frondes novas et non sua poma. A bitter thing indeed! Of those pretty silken threads that knit humanity together, high and low, past and present, none is tougher, more pervading, or more iridescent, than the honest, ...
— Dream Days • Kenneth Grahame
... officials, wearing decorations, conversing freely and easily, writing notes, summoning men before them, and giving orders. Here, wearing a cross on his breast, near them, is prosperous- looking old Priest in a silken cassock, with long gray hair flowing on to his cope; before a lectern who wears the golden cross and has a Gospel bound ...
— The Kingdom of God is within you • Leo Tolstoy
... is her den, where she studies and works, it is a spacious parlor, where all is light, color, warmth and above all, quiet. A thick crimson carpet hushes the footfall. A luxurious couch piled with silken cushions, and comfortable arm chairs are all in the same warm tint; over the grand piano is thrown a cover of red velvet, gold embroidered. Portraits of artists and many costly trifles are scattered here ...
— Vocal Mastery - Talks with Master Singers and Teachers • Harriette Brower
... any member of a family becomes attacked by the small-pox, "Devi nikali", that is, Devi has shown herself in that family, or in that individual. And the person affected can wear nothing but plain white clothing, not a silken or coloured garment, nor an ornament of any kind; nor can he or any of his family undertake a journey, or participate in any kind of rejoicings, lest he give offence to her. They broke the arm of ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... angrily, throwing open the door of a wardrobe where hung silken things, "make the most of your luck. What will you wear? Here is mallow satin sewn with pearls, and with a running border of jasmine flowers done in sweet embroidery silks. Will it please you? Here is a silver ...
— The Faery Tales of Weir • Anna McClure Sholl
... he said. He took his former seat, but now laid on the heap of rejected MSS., not the silken cylinder he had so daintily poised there before, but a gray fedora that fell carelessly over in lazy curves and hollows. "I wish to modify by adding the effect of further observation and adjusting it to my first conclusions. ...
— Imaginary Interviews • W. D. Howells
... tricks. For example, we came upon the agency of a Moscow factory, which makes a woolen imitation of an Oriental silken fabric, known as termalama. The agent acknowledged that it was an imitation, and said that the price by the piece was twenty-five cents a yard. In the Moscow Oriental shops the dealers sell it for eight times that price, ...
— Russian Rambles • Isabel F. Hapgood
... aside, but the drops that glittered on her cheek now were not caused by the rain. Her shimmering silken robes seemed to utter continuous soft whispers of applause to her nervous yet graceful movements. Altogether she was an incongruous object in the unhome-like bareness of a bachelor's apartments. "You are not very cordial, monsieur," she remarked in a cold ...
— An Algonquin Maiden - A Romance of the Early Days of Upper Canada • G. Mercer Adam
... Pleas I yode tho, {81} Where sat one with a silken hood; I did him reverence, for I ought to do so, And told my case as well as I could, How my goods were defrauded me by falsehood. I got not a mum of his mouth for my meed, And for lack of ...
— Playful Poems • Henry Morley
... for queens are large and free, And fashioned fine with care, And lined with softest, silken shreds ...
— Mother Truth's Melodies - Common Sense For Children • Mrs. E. P. Miller
... Charles opened the dressing-room door, and paused a moment, smiling. There sat Amabel on the floor before the fire, her hand stretched out, playfully holding back the little one, who, with scanty, flossy, silken curls, hazel eyes and jet-black lashes, plump, mottled arms, and tiny tottering feet, stood crowing and shouting in exulting laughter, having just made a triumphant clutch at her mamma's hair, and pulled down all the light, shining locks, while under their shade the ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Julia in admiring Silvia. But his body did not change; his smile was still affectionate, and Valentine confided to him the great secret that Silvia had now promised to run away with him. "In the pocket of this cloak," said Valentine, "I have a silken rope ladder, with hooks which will clasp the window-bar ...
— Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare • E. Nesbit
... Somewhere on this wild mountainside was Jack, huddled from the wind in a cave, or wandering miserably through the storm. Wrapped in soft luxury all her life, Mrs. Singleton Corey shuddered as she looked forth through her silken veil, and saw what Jack was enduring because she had never taught her son to love her; because she had not taught him the lessons of love and ...
— The Lookout Man • B. M. Bower
... inflation, it being shrewdly calculated by the proprietor, that, as the balloon got full, the stomachs of the lookers on would be getting empty, and that the refreshments would go off while the tedious work of filling a silken bag with gas was going on, so that the appetites and the curiosity of the public would be at ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... constant motion by striking them with his elbows and then with his hands. He next performed a still more difficult feat. He balanced on his nose a small stick, which had at the top of it an inverted ball or cup. From the rim of the cup were suspended by silken threads twelve balls with holes in them. He next placed in his mouth twelve rods of ivory, and while the balls were made to fly round, by managing the rods with his lips and tongue, he contrived to fit a rod into every ball, when, letting ...
— My First Voyage to Southern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... palace are great riches and towers filled with gold, silken garments and all precious stones. He does not issue forth from his palace save once in the year, at the feast which the Mohammedans call El-id-bed Ramazan, and they come from distant lands that day to see him. ...
— The Itinerary of Benjamin of Tudela • Benjamin of Tudela
... production, attracts and supports certain species, while others no longer appear, or the individuals are fewer. As for the second cause, it is the more surprising, since it produces opposite effects on the same point: where man has no longer silken, but woolly hair, there the sheep ceases to be covered with wool.' M. St. Hilaire remarked on these facts, that the degree of domestication of animals is proportional to the degree of civilization ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... of the Years, it shall stand midmost on that line that divideth equally the North from the South and that parteth the seasons asunder as with a screen. On the Northern side when summer is in the North thy silken guards shall pace by dazzling walls while thy spearsmen clad in furs go round the South. But at the hour of noon in the midmost day of the year thy chamberlain shall go down from his high place and into the midmost court, and men with trumpets shall go down behind him, and he ...
— Tales of Wonder • Lord Dunsany
... an introductory paragraph. As everybody knows, there are eggs and eggs. An egg new-laid has a tiny air-space at each end, betwixt the shell and the silken lining membrane. If left lying, this confined air changes its locality—leaves the ends for the upmost side of the shell. Shells are porous—through them the white evaporates—thus the air bubble on top gets bigger and bigger. By the size of it you can judge fairly the egg's age—unless ...
— Dishes & Beverages of the Old South • Martha McCulloch Williams
... had been disappointed in Cairo because a villain had not lurked behind each of the trees in the Esbekiya Gardens, and notes tied with silken black hairs had not tumbled on his respectable bald head from the mystery of latticed windows; but he was thoroughly enjoying his Nile trip, and learning something every day to tell at home. Lady Biddell had humiliated him twice, once by asking me if "those old ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson
... tresses fair, The silken snares of thy curled hair; Lest, finding neither gold nor ore, The curious silk-worm ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 2 (of 4) • Various
... meadow stretched away Into the crystal sunshine, wastes of sod, Acres of withered vervain, purple-gray, Branches of aster, groves of goldenrod; And yonder, toward the sunlit summit, strewn With shadowy boulders, crowned and swathed with weed, Stand ranks of silken thistles, blown to seed, Long silver ...
— Lyrics of Earth • Archibald Lampman
... referred to, written, let us say, from thirty or forty years to a century or two ago, amuse us in a way their poor dead authors never intended. Most amusing are the dead ones who take themselves seriously, whose books are pulpits quaintly carved and decorated with precious stones and silken canopies in which they stand and preach to ...
— A Crystal Age • W. H. Hudson
... however, were some not unworthy to be perceived by him; and besides these, there were some foreign officers; one in particular, from Spain, of high rank and birth, of the sangre azul, the blue blood, who have the privilege of the silken cord if they should come to be hanged. This Spaniard was a man of distinguished talent, and for him Horace might have been expected to shine out; it was his pleasure, however, this day to disappoint expectations, and to do "the dishonours ...
— Helen • Maria Edgeworth
... in her hand illuminating the dusk with gold, and warming its coolness with its crimson boards and silken linings. One poem after another she read, nor knew how the time passed, until the voice of her aunt in her ears warned her to finish her skimming, and carry the jug to the pantry. But already Letty had taken a little cream off the book also, and already, ...
— Mary Marston • George MacDonald
... of folding letters in a flat square form, which were then divided into small pages, in the manner of a modern book. When forwarded for delivery, they were usually perfumed and tied round with a silken thread, the ends of which were ...
— Roman Antiquities, and Ancient Mythology - For Classical Schools (2nd ed) • Charles K. Dillaway
... bullet driving thither; sees Drummond take the field-glass and, resting it on the eastward ledge, gaze long and fixedly out over the eastward way; sees him start, draw back the glass, wipe the lenses with his silken kerchief, then peer again; sees him drop them with a gesture almost tragic, but she cannot hear the moan that ...
— Foes in Ambush • Charles King
... us and up into the father's face, or the cruel uncle's—which was he? I think he was the father. So this was the end of them. Not school, as I at first had imagined. The mother was gone, who had given them the heaps of pretty books, and the pretty studs in the shirts, and the pretty silken clothes, and the tender—tender cares; and they were handed to this scowling practitioner of Trente et Quarante. Ah! this is worse than school. Poor little men! poor mother sitting by the vacant little beds! ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray |
