"Velvety" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... we rode over many suspension bridges and crossed the backbone of Japan in unforgettable scenes of romantic beauty. From the craggy paths of our highlands, amid a wealth not only of gorgeous flowers and greenery but of great velvety butterflies, we saw the far-off snow-clad ...
— The Foundations of Japan • J.W. Robertson Scott
... with thick red lips, the lower pendent; they tell me I have the Austrian mouth. My teeth are dazzling, though three are decayed and stopped; fortunately, they cannot be seen. My ears are small and with very colored lobes. My chin is very fat, and at 18 it was smooth and velvety as a woman's; at present there is a slight beard, always shaved. Two beauty spots, black and velvety, on my left cheek, contrast with my blue eyes. My nose is thin and straight, with delicate nostrils and a slight, almost ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... no tangible results it was an experience of which we often think. We started just at dusk and installed ourselves in the bushes a few yards from the water hole. In half an hour the forest was enveloped in the velvety blackness of the tropic night. Not a star nor a gleam of light was visible and I could not see my ...
— Camps and Trails in China - A Narrative of Exploration, Adventure, and Sport in Little-Known China • Roy Chapman Andrews and Yvette Borup Andrews
... by the letter, leave out the velvety product of La Savonnerie from the aristocratic society of hangings woven in the classic stitch of the Gobelins. They have reason. Yet, because the weave is one we often see in galleries, also on furniture ...
— The Tapestry Book • Helen Churchill Candee
... By-the-way, John has kept the grounds looking well, hasn't he? The lawn doesn't seem to have a weed on it," said Bessie, walking to the window and gazing out at the soft velvety sward in the ...
— Paste Jewels • John Kendrick Bangs
... alone at the Htel des Rois, Monsieur Duchanel himself doing them the honor of serving the repast, which Hermia soon discovered had none of the characteristics of the vagabond fare promised her—a velvety soup—petits pois la crme, an entre, then poulet rti, salade endive, cheese and coffee—a meal for the gods, which these mortals partook of with unusual enjoyment. The coffee served, their host departed with one last inquiry for their comfort, which more even than the ...
— Madcap • George Gibbs
... stone steps, winding down the side of a steep declivity, led me to the bottom of a narrow valley which spreads and stretches between a double chain of high wooded hills. A small river flows lazily through it under the shade of alder-bushes, dividing two strips of meadows as fine and velvety as the lawns of a park; it is crossed over by an old bridge with a single arch, which reflects in the placid water the outlines of its graceful ogive. On the right, the hills stand close together in the form of a circus, and seemed to join their verdure-clad ...
— Led Astray and The Sphinx - Two Novellas In One Volume • Octave Feuillet
... velvety bee at the moment came booming along, his ponderous flight almost level with the ground and not far above it. He sailed in and out among the trees and branches, now burying himself for a few seconds ...
— The Galaxy, Volume 23, No. 2, February, 1877 • Various
... in a glass jar, I have in the past obtained a small red beetle, known as the truffle-beetle (Anisotoma cinnamomea, Panz.), and various Diptera, among which is a Sapromyzon which, by its sluggish flight and its fragile form, recalls the Scatophaga scybalaria, the yellow velvety fly which is found in human excrement in the autumn. The latter finds its refuge on the surface of the soil, at the foot of a wall or hedge or under a bush; but how does the former know just where the truffle lies ...
— Social Life in the Insect World • J. H. Fabre
... articulated breath; of consonants that resist with the firmness of a maid of honor, or half or wholly yield to the wooing lips; of vowels that flow and murmur, each after its kind; the peremptory b and p, the brittle k, the vibrating r, the insinuating s, the feathery f, the velvety v, the bell-voiced m, the tranquil broad a, the penetrating e, the cooing u, the emotional o, and the beautiful combinations of alternate rock and stream, as it were, that they give to the rippling flow of speech,—there is a fascination in the skilful handling ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... veiling his voice and speaking with a velvety courtesy that was unusual in him, "I have brought you here to tell you first that I repent my act to-day, by which I placed your comrade's life in seeming danger. I was hasty, but I had been goaded greatly, and it may be, too, that ...
— The Free Rangers - A Story of the Early Days Along the Mississippi • Joseph A. Altsheler
... of ships; their sharp masts, surmounted with colored lanterns, were outlined against the sky. The sea reflected the lights and appeared to be sown with yellow spots, which trembled upon its soft velvety black bosom, rising and falling regularly. The sea was sleeping the healthy sound sleep of the laborer after ...
— Twenty-six and One and Other Stories • Maksim Gorky
... will also reveal an interesting feature of the marsh. The soft, velvety grass, which abounds in such places, is so pliant and yielding that it responds to every breath, and each approaching wave of air is heralded by an advancing curl of the grass. At our feet these grass-waves intersect and recede, giving a ...
— The Log of the Sun - A Chronicle of Nature's Year • William Beebe
... came upon beds of Menyanthes—an ugly name, and its common one of buck-bean is not much better. They could find but few perfect specimens of the pretty white velvety flowers, with their yellow and brown anthers, as it was rather ...
— Happy Days for Boys and Girls • Various
... fair flesh vanished in golden gleams and how its rounded contours shone like silk in the candlelight. He thought of his old dread of Woman, of the Beast of the Scriptures, at once lewd and wild. Nana was all covered with fine hair; a russet made her body velvety, while the Beast was apparent in the almost equine development of her flanks, in the fleshy exuberances and deep hollows of her body, which lent her sex the mystery and suggestiveness lurking in their shadows. She was, indeed, that Golden Creature, blind as brute force, whose ...
— Nana, The Miller's Daughter, Captain Burle, Death of Olivier Becaille • Emile Zola
... in Sanscrit, in Choctaw you write, Sweet singer who gave us the Voices of Night, Though in buskin or slipper your song may be shod; Or the velvety verse ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... the fragrance of mignonette and roses and petunias was wafted into the rooms looking over the garden, and that of wild thyme and honeysuckle into those which looked over the fields; when the tall acacias began to shoot upwards straight and graceful from their velvety green carpet, and scattered upon it their perfumed moth-like flowers; while we listened to the humming of the happy bees in the sweet-smelling lime trees and to the wondrous song of the rival nightingales challenging each other from bower to bower in the calm, warm nights ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... withdraw her hand and he felt a gentle warmth radiating from her velvety skin; his love for her burst into fresh flames, but this time he felt ...
— Married • August Strindberg
... raised to Inari Sama, the patron god of farming, or to some other tutelary deity of the place. At the eastern outlet of the valley a strip of blue sea bounds the horizon; westward are the distant mountains. In the foreground, in front of a farmhouse, snug-looking, with its roof of velvety-brown thatch, a troop of sturdy urchins, suntanned and stark naked, are frisking in the wildest gambols, all heedless of the scolding voice of the withered old grandam who sits spinning and minding the house, while her son and his wife are away toiling ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford
... ago:—a wide stretch of hill and valley, quivering with cornfields, rolled away in pasture lands, thick with sturdy woods, or dotted over with old apple-trees, whose dense leaves caught the slant sunshine, glowing on their tops, and deepening to a dark, velvety green below, and far, far away, on the broad blue sky, the lurid splendors of a thunder-cloud, capped with pearly summits, tower upon tower, sharply defined against the pure ether, while in its purple base forked lightnings sped to and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... sorts and sizes of clothes— small brown coats of mice; and one velvety black mole- skin waist-coat; and a red tail- coat with no tail belonging to Squirrel Nutkin; and a very much shrunk blue jacket belonging to Peter Rabbit; and a petticoat, not marked, that had gone lost in the washing —and at ...
— A Collection of Beatrix Potter Stories • Beatrix Potter
... granulations, which are of uniform size, of a pinkish-red colour, and moist with a slight serous exudate containing a few dead leucocytes. They grow until they reach the level of the surrounding skin, and so fill the gap with a fine velvety mass of granulation tissue. At the edges, the young epithelium may be seen spreading in over the granulations as a fine bluish-white pellicle, which gradually covers the sore, becoming paler in colour as it thickens, and eventually forming the smooth, non-vascular ...
— Manual of Surgery - Volume First: General Surgery. Sixth Edition. • Alexis Thomson and Alexander Miles
... fine, the air was balmy; many people were out. Chester and his companion strolled about the walks and across the velvety stretches of grass. They watched for a time, a "gentlemanly game of cricket," but it was too slow altogether ...
— Story of Chester Lawrence • Nephi Anderson
... the race as vocalists depend. But to one class of listener the opera is decently if not scientifically constituted. There is the loud and cheerful, if not shrill, bleating of the soprano, the strenuous booming of the bass, the velvety softness and depth of the contralto and the thin high tenor. Hordes of the alert, sharp-featured, far-leaping grass frog represent the chorus, and they have a perfectly rehearsed theme. Down on the flat along the edge of the pandanus grove the preliminary chords are uttered—a merry, unreflective, ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... walked in the quiet lane; a rattling, furious peal, like leaden weights poured in a cascade upon a vast boarded floor—an inconceivable sound, from its sharpness, its tangibility, its solidity, to proceed from those soft regions of the air, in which a velvety greyness dwelt suffused, with a lurid redness in the west. The rain fell a moment afterwards in a soft sheet, leaping in the road, and making a mist above ...
— Beside Still Waters • Arthur Christopher Benson
... snow-laden forest, and above that the steel of the glacier which rose till its awful limits plunged into the grey world of cloud. The dugout was not yet in view; there was a scored and riven crag, black and barren, impervious to the soft caresses of velvety snow, to be passed ere the home which was theirs would be sighted. Besides, as yet neither of the men had turned their eyes from the trailing footprints to look ahead. Thus they came to ...
— In the Brooding Wild • Ridgwell Cullum
... gown, my dear. These lines affect the Venus length. Ned declared when he first saw me in this that I was put together in sections—couldn't possibly be all in one piece," and she laughed in the deep, velvety tone that, perhaps, more than anything else about her interesting personality, proclaimed her the ...
— Dorothy Dale's Camping Days • Margaret Penrose
... my dear Queen Catherine, may this velvety night be spread under your feet even as Raleigh's cloak was spread for HIS queen's, so that you may walk dry shod as to all pain over ...
— Sidney Lanier • Edwin Mims
... spot from which the view of the sea could be obtained. The flaming abyss of emptiness, the liquid, undulating glare, the tragic brutality of the light, made her long for the friendly night, with its stars stilled by an austere spell; for the velvety dark sky and the mysterious great shadow of the sea, conveying peace to the day-weary heart. She put her hand to her eyes. Behind ...
— Victory • Joseph Conrad
... its spikes of greyish blue flowers, its fibrous, velvety leaves, its strong, pungent perfume, which is not squandered or repressed, is the stoic of my native terraces. It responds generously to the personal touch, and serves the Lebanonese, rich and poor alike, with a little luxury. Ay, who ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... after hour they plodded on, the prisoner in front, O'Connor in the center, and Frank Hardman bringing up the rear. It was an Arizona night of countless stars, with that peculiar soft, velvety atmosphere that belongs to no other land or time. In the distance the jagged, violet line of mountains rose in silhouette against a sky not many shades lighter, while nearer the cool moonlight flooded a land grown magical ...
— Bucky O'Connor • William MacLeod Raine
... picture, this fearful king of the jungle, whose terrific strength, as scientific tests have proven, is one-fifth greater than that of the African lion. His massive head was erect; his eyes shone, and his sinewy, graceful body, covered with its soft, velvety and spotted fur was like the beauty of some deadly serpent. His long tail slightly swayed from side to side, and, although the boys could not hear it, they were sure he ...
— Brave Tom - The Battle That Won • Edward S. Ellis
... partridges, florican and jungle-cocks, the two latter greatly esteemed for their flesh. I shot a jungle-cock, and was quite disappointed at finding him a facsimile of our barndoor game-cock, for I had imagined that he would have the velvety black wing starred with cream-coloured eyes, which we associate with the "jungle-cock wing" of salmon flies. The so-called "jungle-cock" in a "Jock Scott" fly is furnished by a bird found, I believe, ...
— Here, There And Everywhere • Lord Frederic Hamilton
... rear, saluted the chieftain with his arm and his spear on high as he swept past, suddenly drew up his rearing steed, and trotted slowly back again, making his horse perform its paces. He was extraordinarily velvety and ...
— The Lost Girl • D. H. Lawrence
... delicious! As thirsting men on the desert dream of splashing fountains and flowing wells, so dreamed I of easement from the constriction of the jacket, of cleanliness in the place of filth, of smooth velvety skin of health in place of my poor parchment-crinkled hide. But I dreamed with a ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London
... by the bow. If I draw the bow above the fingerboard instead of keeping it near the bridge, I have a decided contrast in color. This color contrast may always be established: playing near the bridge results in a clear and sharp tone, playing near the fingerboard in a veiled and velvety one. ...
— Violin Mastery - Talks with Master Violinists and Teachers • Frederick H. Martens
... the castle, the last fires of sunset were burning in the sky behind it—the long irregular mass of buildings stood out in varying shades of blue, against varying, dying shades of red: the grey stone, dark, velvety indigo; the pink stucco, pink still, but with a transparent blue penumbra over it; the white marble, palely, scintillantly amethystine. And if he was interested in her environment, now he could study it to his heart's content: the wide ...
— The Cardinal's Snuff-Box • Henry Harland
... unapproachable in effect in this particular place and with its surroundings. It has the richness and softness of velvet, and the red of the mahogany doors and furniture finds exactly its foil in the blue greens and soft browns of the web, while the polished floor and velvety antique rugs bring all the richness of the walls down to one's feet and to the hearth with its glow of fire. But this particular room hardly makes an example for general following. It is really a house of state, a house without children, one in ...
— Principles of Home Decoration - With Practical Examples • Candace Wheeler
... ejaculated Helen. "Now come and get your sugar and give me a kiss," and the animal daintily picked up a lump of the sweet stuff from Helen's hand, and then lightly touched her cheek with his velvety muzzle. ...
— Joe Strong on the Trapeze - or The Daring Feats of a Young Circus Performer • Vance Barnum
... ultimate decision, the wisdom of this course was incontestable. As she paused, smiling, expecting him to stop, he lifted his hat and drove onward. Perhaps it was only his imagination that caught in her great, velvety brown eyes an expression of surprise and pain; but whether his sight was accurate or not, the memory of the moment smote him. The process of "easing the first one off" would probably prove difficult. "I shall have to ...
— The Side Of The Angels - A Novel • Basil King
... sandy soil well fertilized is by far the best. If possible it should be sloping toward the south, although we have had good success on level land well drained. One should have the best seed possible, and if you get hold of a good strain of seed that produces nice, velvety beans earlier than your neighbor, save as much of that seed as you can. Of course now that the price of seed is $10.00 to $14.00 a bushel one ...
— Trees, Fruits and Flowers of Minnesota, 1916 • Various
... They were then in flower—the flowers being of a lilac colour, and growing at the tops of the branches in little cymes. They had no corolla—only a coloured calyx. Now these characters correspond with those of the daphne. Besides, the leaves were lanceolate, velvety on the surface, and of purplish colour; and the flowers were of an exceedingly sweet scent—as is the case with all the daphnads. I did not think of examining them at the time; but, now that I recall ...
— The Cliff Climbers - A Sequel to "The Plant Hunters" • Captain Mayne Reid
... the moonlight falls In silver radiance o'er the time-stained walls, A man and woman stand—he, strong and fair, She, lovelier than the flowers that scent the air. Her eyes are velvety and soft and brown, Her hair—a shimmering splendor falls low down, Her dark robes sweep the marble floor; one hand Is clasped in his; in silence now they stand, No need of words when silence speaketh more Than all the wealth ...
— Love or Fame; and Other Poems • Fannie Isabelle Sherrick
... graceful assurance of a yacht running aslant a craft-swarming harbor, cut into the crowd that surged through the Union Station. She brought up in an empty corner of the iron fence, close beside the exit gate through which passengers were hurrying from the last train that had arrived. Her velvety black eyes flashed an eager glance at the out- pouring stream, perceived a Mackinaw jacket, and turned to make swift comparison of the depot clock and the tiny bracelet watch on her ...
— Out of the Primitive • Robert Ames Bennet
... They drank velvety ripe old port. Sir Peter was for the moment out of pain and anxious to assert his freedom from doctors. The conversation shifted to submarines. Sir Peter thought them an underhand and decadent development suited to James, who was in ...
— The Dark Tower • Phyllis Bottome
... air Is floating in velvety blackness shot with steel-blue lights, But no breath stirs the heat Leaning its ponderous bulk upon the Ghetto ...
— The Ghetto and Other Poems • Lola Ridge
... little woman; this will give me a three miles walk and about use up the rest of the forenoon. In the afternoon I have promised to go to the woods with the children, all of whom are as brown as Indians. My room is all aflame with two great trees of maple; I never saw such a beautiful velvety color as they have. We have just had a very pleasant excursion to a mountain called Haystack, and ate our dinner sitting round in the grass in view of a splendid prospect.... I have thus given you the history of our summer, as far as its history can be written. Its ecstatic joys have ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... shoe of the Spanish type, in which they moved loosely. Her hair, which she had always worn with a certain Greek simplicity, was parted at one side. Yet her face, with its regularity of feature, and small, thin, red-lipped mouth, was quite unchanged; and her velvety brown eyes were as ...
— Stories in Light and Shadow • Bret Harte
... desert, hot and velvety, like the wings of a mother-bird covering her children; but before darkness fell, the tents glimmered under the stars. There were two only, a large one for the women, and one very small for Maieddine. The Negroes would roll themselves in their ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... somebody had just disclosed to her some terrible news. But she held her ground, Razumov noticed, without timidity. "She is incredibly shabby," he thought. In the sunlight her black costume looked greenish, with here and there threadbare patches where the stuff seemed decomposed by age into a velvety, black, furry state. Her very hair and eyebrows looked shabby. Razumov wondered whether she were sixty years old. Her figure, though, was young enough. He observed that she did not appear starved, but rather as if she had been fed on unwholesome ...
— Under Western Eyes • Joseph Conrad
... clumsy Bedford coach, drawn by stout Flemish mares,—for thorough-breds are as yet unknown,—is covered with a sail-cloth to keep the wet away from the six "insides." The grass, wherever the land is stocked with grass, is as velvety as now. The wheat in the near county of Herts is fair, and will turn twenty bushels to the acre; here and there an enterprising landholder has a small field of dibbled grain, which will yield a third more. John Worlidge's drill is not in request, and is ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 73, November, 1863 • Various
... the bathroom to the bedroom, I again looked out of my lofty window across the sea. As I did so, leaning a little over the ledge, something soft and velvety touched my hand;—it was a red rose clambering up the turret just within my reach. Its opening petals lifted themselves towards me like sweet lips turned up for kisses, and I was for a moment startled, for I could have sworn ...
— The Life Everlasting: A Reality of Romance • Marie Corelli
... figure of the "Torch-Bearer," gives an inviting charm to the side entrance, considered ornate but in accord with the architectural design of the Palace. The site of Festival Hall is somewhat raised and the slopes that lead down to the Avenue of Palms are in terraces of velvety lawn, broken by wide flights of steps. On either side of the main stairway are two sculptural groups, the "Flower Girl," before which, on one side, is placed an enticing "Pan" and on the other, a shy, girlish figure partially ...
— The Architecture and Landscape Gardening of the Exposition • Louis Christian Mullgardt
... there as anywhere else, we sent him a postcard and went. This would be in June or early in July. All day we walked across a plain of vines, past hurdles of wattled cannes and great wind-screens of velvety cypresses, sixty feet high, all white with dust on the north side of 'em, for the mistral was having its three-days' revel, and it whistled and roared through the cannes till scores of yards of 'em at a time were bowed nearly to the earth. ...
— Widdershins • Oliver Onions
... Hudson and Mohawk rivers here bore on their waters many swift canoes filled with Algonquins and French. The English marched and fought here from Hudson's time and that of Samuel Champlain until the close of the revolutionary period. This fair land, with its green, velvety meadows, peaceful, fruitful valleys, and broad, majestic streams has indeed been rightly named 'the ...
— See America First • Orville O. Hiestand
... well advanced on his daily pilgrimage down the western sky, and Grace's usually rapid steps lagged as she crossed the dear familiar campus. Her eyes strayed lovingly from the green velvety carpeting under her feet to the red and yellow pennants of autumn which the trees were flaunting so bravely. It was hard to say at which season of the year Overton campus was most beautiful. To Grace it was like some familiar ...
— Grace Harlowe's Return to Overton Campus • Jessie Graham Flower
... hear no more, but went into Mother's room. The little bed chamber was fragrant with the perfume of flowers. A cluster of big Jacqueminot roses drooped their velvety petaled heads over the sides of the blue and white pitcher on the bureau. Mother loved flowers and I frequently brought her the old fashioned posies from Dorinda's little garden or wild blossoms from the woods and fields. But roses such as these ...
— The Rise of Roscoe Paine • Joseph C. Lincoln
... rocks of the shore, and seemed to be the basis of the island; but it was covered with a crust of calcareous stone, in some places fifty feet thick. The soil at the top was little better than sand, but was overspread with shrubs, mostly of one kind, a whitish velvety plant—(artriplex reniformis of Brown),* nearly similar to what is called at Port Jackson, Botany Bay greens. Amongst these the petrels had everywhere undermined; and from the excessive heat of the sun, the reflection from the sand, and frequently stepping up to the mid-leg in the burrows, ...
— A Voyage to Terra Australis • Matthew Flinders
... Church, and the ruin of cloister and chapel above the ancient wood was sharp against the low pale sky. Even the house itself was Tudor, but wealth from generation to generation had kept it in repair; and the lawns were as velvety, the hedges as rigid, the trees as aged as any in his own works. It was not a castle nor a great property, but it was quite perfect; and for a long while he felt like a bridegroom on a succession of honeymoons. He often ...
— The Bell in the Fog and Other Stories • Gertrude Atherton
... park that the millennium exhibition of 1896 took place. A still more delightful resort is the Margaret island, a long narrow island in the Danube, the property of the archduke Joseph, which has been laid out in the style of an English park, with fine trees, velvety turf and a group of villas and bath-houses. The name of the island is derived from St Margaret, the daughter of King Bela IV. (13th century), who built here a convent, the ruins of which are still in existence. To the west of ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various
... is, but then she wouldn't know when to wake me, and even if I could teach her to wake me the moment Agnes cried, I don't think she would be a nice one to do it; for if I didn't come awake with a pat of her velvety pin-cushions, she might turn out the points of the pins in them, and scratch me awake. There's the clock; it's always awake; but it can't tell you the time till you go and ask it. I think it might be made to wind up a string that should pull ...
— Gutta-Percha Willie • George MacDonald
... side it was different. The sky would be dark and full of stars, and the woods, great spaces of velvety shadow. Then through the leaves of the artu would come a sigh, and the leaves of the breadfruit would patter, and the sound of the reef become faint. The land breeze had awakened, and in a while, as if it had blown them ...
— The Blue Lagoon - A Romance • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... the brook, his feet treading the elastic, velvety turf, and crushing heedlessly late primrose and stray violet, his blood quickened by the soft spring breeze, fragrant with hawthorn and the smell of the moist brown earth, La Boulaye's happiness gathered strength from the joy that ...
— The Trampling of the Lilies • Rafael Sabatini
... writhes, and creeps with microscopic life, until the brain grows dizzy at the sight. At night it is no less marvellous to hear the myriad denizens of the swamps and woods; and terrible when your tread on some soft, velvety substance reveals a sleeping snake, who, at the same moment, attacks you with his poisonous ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens
... colon, there are, it is estimated, over 20,000,000 rootlets (called glands, lacteals, follicles, villi), which take up intestinal juices as roots of a plant take sap from the soil. These millions of rootlets give a velvety appearance to the alimentary canal, like a nap or downy surface. Intestinal rootlets of the small intestines, like vegetal rootlets, demand a certain amount of normal fluid and solid substance, free ...
— Intestinal Ills • Alcinous Burton Jamison
... change had touched him. He felt the velvety waters grasp his body and rejoiced in it; the little waves which he sent to the reedy bank made him smile with their huddling and back-rushing and laughing; he held up his arm as he swam to see the sun flash through the drops of water from his hand. What a sweet bed of death! ...
— The Art of Disappearing • John Talbot Smith
... our orator became greatly elated with his success, and rallied me upon the difference between the broad, velvety wing of the miller and the long, sharp pointed wing of his species. The opportunity was too good to be lost. I replied, "Well, my brother, I had a thought last night, when I saw you towering to such dizzy heights in your speech." "What was it?" he enquired, eagerly. "Oh!" ...
— Thirty Years in the Itinerancy • Wesson Gage Miller
... could make out nothing. Then he could see, through his lashes, the velvety dark blue of the night sky and the big white Southern stars shining through a soft cloud. Inconsequentially, his vagrant mind recalled that, below Miami, the Southern Cross is smudgily visible on the horizon, somewhere around two in the morning. And he wondered if he could descry ...
— Black Caesar's Clan • Albert Payson Terhune
... gathered around wonderingly. They were curious to know the story of that casket, for they had not seen one like it for many years. But the ceremony, however painful, was beautiful—beautiful in the caressing glory of the sunlight that was all around, in the fragrant, velvety verdure that composed the bed to which we consigned the ashes of the beloved one, in the gentle music of the birds that nested hard by and knew no fear, and in the love which we bore ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... "Of course there are other spinners in the universe, however. The spider, for example, is a most industrious spinner, and I have read that in the past scientists tried to see if some of the larger spiders could not be utilized for silk-making. The velvety pouch, or bag, was removed and by some skilful process the greyish thread inside it was carded off. But the experiment was unsuccessful, for the silk thus made was far less firm and strong than that which came from the silkworm. After this ...
— The Story of Silk • Sara Ware Bassett
... And what would you think of a wealth of gentians, large and small; great yellow arnicas; beautiful Martagon lilies; and St.-Bruno lilies; of every variety of daphne; of androsace, with its rose-coloured clusters; of the flame-coloured orchis; of saxifrage; of great, velvety campanulas; of pretty violet asters, wrapped in little, cravat-like tufting, to protect them from the cold? Besides, near the runnels, following whose borders the cattle have tracked out graded paths, ...
— Samuel Brohl & Company • Victor Cherbuliez
... The blue, velvety sky darkened as the stars grew brighter. The wind grew stronger and colder. I heard sand blowing against the stones like the rustle of silk. Otherwise it was a singularly quiet night. I wondered where the coyotes were and longed for their chorus. ...
— The Rustlers of Pecos County • Zane Grey
... night, seemed almost cold, so that involuntarily I drew the lapels of my thin jacket together and buttoned the garment from throat to waist. Quickly, yet by imperceptible gradations, the lightening of the eastern sky spread and strengthened, the soft, velvety, star-lit, blue-black hue paling to an arch of cold, colourless pallor as the dawn asserted itself more emphatically, while the stars dwindled and vanished one by one in the rapidly-growing light. As the pallor of the sky extended itself insidiously ...
— The Pirate Slaver - A Story of the West African Coast • Harry Collingwood
... to the decoration of the national palaces, &c. Nothing, in the shape of carpets, can answer this purpose better than those manufactured here, the colours of which are extremely brilliant. The close, velvety texture of the manufacture gives a peculiar expression to objects which are copied from nature, such as the hair of animals, the down of fruit, and ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... the Black Forest, whose velvety slopes reminded them too much of the Swiss meadows and from whose points of view you could look over to the Alps on a clear day, became a torture to both the man and woman. They felt they must get away; the dark firs, the immense green forest became too monotonous for ...
— The Son of His Mother • Clara Viebig
... hip to back, making a sturdy back for the splendid full tails which almost touched the ground. In front they stood up straight, deep-chested, with clean bony heads, large luminous eyes and long slender ears, tapering into a point as velvety and soft as the tendril-bud on the tip of ...
— The Bishop of Cottontown - A Story of the Southern Cotton Mills • John Trotwood Moore
... next morning, she herself brought me a cup of chocolate. I have never drunk anything like it, soft, velvety, perfumed, delicious. I could scarcely take my lips away from the cup, and she had hardly left the room when Rivet came in. He seemed nervous and irritable, like a man who had not slept, and he said to me crossly: "If you go on like this, ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... is high on the mainland, and lies dark within its four stone walls. The road to it is by a tunnel of trees that make a shade velvety black even when the moon is turning all the sea silver. The churchyard is very old, and has no monuments of importance: only green headstones bent sideways and sunk to their neck and shoulders in the earth. A postern gate, ...
— An Isle in the Water • Katharine Tynan
... the Conservatory together in Boston, and they are such friends! Miss Desmond would never have played here—intends to take pupils in Portland in the winter—if Miss Axewright hadn't come," and the pleasant old tabby purred on, with a velvety pat here, and a delicate scratch there. But Gaites heard with one ear only; the other was more devotedly given to the orchestra, which also claimed both his eyes. While he learned, as with the mind of some one else, that the Desmonds had been very much ...
— A Pair of Patient Lovers • William Dean Howells
... lay over a velvety plain, and for a couple of hours we rode on, the only incident at all exciting, being an effort on my part to leave my head perched upon a heavy limb of an overhanging tree. This danger past, no new danger presented itself to disturb our ...
— Six Days on the Hurricane Deck of a Mule - An account of a journey made on mule back in Honduras, - C.A. in August, 1891 • Almira Stillwell Cole
... did come back soon, this worthy woman, with triumphant bearing and flashing eyes, looking as the cat looks when it has a mouse in its soft velvety paws, and is going to push its poisonous claws into the quivering flesh. She took her knitting-work up and bade Tison to go up ...
— Marie Antoinette And Her Son • Louise Muhlbach
... took another bite of sandwich, and clenching his great fist drew up his forearm until the biceps muscles looked like a roll of Vienna bread—except that they had the velvety gleam of life. So I measured first one arm, then ...
— Great Possessions • David Grayson
... kinds of straight aspiring things: their ambition seemed—to get up, not to spread abroad. He stepped out of the window, drawn as by the enchantment of one of childhood's dreams, and went wandering down a broad walk, his foot sinking deep in the velvety grass, and the loveliness of the dream did not fade. Hollyhocks, gloriously impatient, whose flowers could not wait to reach the top ere they burst into the flame of life, making splendid blots of colour along their ascending ...
— Donal Grant • George MacDonald
... Edwin was working realized that it was time to gather the stones that were scattered here and there throughout the meadow into piles that they might be hauled away before they became lost in the soft, velvety carpet of green; for should they be left where they were, later on the knives of the mowing-machine and the teeth of the hay-rake would be badly damaged and perhaps broken. Edwin was told, therefore, that his work for a time would be to gather all the ...
— The Poorhouse Waif and His Divine Teacher • Isabel C. Byrum
... gable. The door, which one reaches by a broad stone stair, is framed by two vines, their vigorous branches stretching up to the side of the windows, yielding to the hand, when September is come, their velvety, ruby bunches. Behind the house, a little garden surrounded by a hedge of green, at once an orchard, flower ...
— The Grip of Desire • Hector France
... still. It was black near the huge cliff, and overhead velvety blue, with stars of white fire. It seemed to him that he had become more thoughtful and observing of the aspects of his wild environment, and he felt a welcome consciousness of loneliness. Then sleep came to ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Campfire Stories • Various
... happy grace, "which enters the soul by a thousand little paths,"[137] bring with them the pleasures of beautiful speech and honest thought; and we cannot but feel their charm. Compared with the restless and troubled art of to-day, his music strikes us by its calm, its tranquil harmonies, its velvety modulations, its crystal clearness, its smooth and flowing style, and an elegance that cannot be put into words. Even his classic coldness does us good by its reaction against the exaggerations, sincere as they are, of the new school. At times one feels ...
— Musicians of To-Day • Romain Rolland
... sweet! I never saw any one so sweet as Vallie, when she had been found fault with and was sorry; the tears used to come up into her big brown eyes very slowly and stay there, making them look like velvety pansies with dewdrops ...
— My New Home • Mary Louisa Molesworth
... warm and beautiful, sprinkling the world at first with silver and then with gold, the sky gradually turning to a deep velvety blue, as intense as any that the shiftless one had ever seen. The myriads of raindrops stood out at first like silver beads on grass and leaves, and then dried up rapidly under the brilliant rays of the sun. A light breeze blew ...
— The Eyes of the Woods - A story of the Ancient Wilderness • Joseph A. Altsheler
... after the manner of trained animals, returned to his muttons; in other words, he conceived that this unusual entrance, and consequent dramatic tableau, meant "shop." He therefore dropped Zonela's hand and pattered on his velvety little feet over towards the grim figure of the Wondersmith, holding out his poor little paw for the customary copper. He had but one idea drilled into him,—soulless creature that he was,—and that was, alms, But I have seen ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... finger comes in contact with the key, the whole arm, hand and fingers are relaxed—as loose as possible. You caress the keys as though you loved them, as though they were a very part of you; you cling to them as to something soft, velvety or ...
— Piano Mastery - Talks with Master Pianists and Teachers • Harriette Brower
... down the last slips of a theatre notice at midnight and am here in this chair"—Mr. Sinclair brought his open palm down upon the arm of it—"by eleven the following day!" Mr. Sinclair's chin was thrust passionately forward, moisture dimmed the velvety brightness of those eyes which, in more dramatic moments, he confessed to have inherited from a Nawab great grandfather. "But I don't complain," he said, and drew in his chin. It seemed to bring his argument to a climax over which he looked at Hilda ...
— Hilda - A Story of Calcutta • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... indeed," answered Nycteris, "and shall be again. But why you should be, I cannot in the least understand. You must know how gentle and sweet the darkness is, how kind and friendly, how soft and velvety! It holds you to its bosom and loves you. A little while ago, I lay faint and dying under your hot lamp.—What is it ...
— Stephen Archer and Other Tales • George MacDonald
... came in, the choir rose to sing, and the exercises of the morning began. Bradley thought Miss Graham, with her heavy-lidded, velvety-brown eyes, looked like Miss Wilbur. Her eyes were darker, he decided, and she was taller and paler; in fact, the resemblance was mainly in her manner which had ...
— A Spoil of Office - A Story of the Modern West • Hamlin Garland
... and presently reached a little hill, from which she saw a valley full of lovely fruit trees, bearing flowers and fruit together. The ground was also covered with fruit and flowers, and in the middle of the valley rose a fountain surrounded by a velvety lawn. ...
— The Grey Fairy Book • Various
... very pretty, with a vivid, irregular, bewitching type of prettiness. There was a gloss as of brown nuts on her satin-smooth hair and a soft, ripe glow on her round cheeks. Her eyes were big and brown and velvety, under oddly-pointed black brows, and her crooked mouth was rose-red. She wore a smart brown suit, with two very modish little shoes peeping from beneath it; and her hat of dull pink straw, wreathed with golden-brown poppies, had the indefinable, ...
— Anne Of The Island • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... dragon-fly, a couple of swallows skimmed by him, darted over the wall, and were gone. Then, flopping idly along in its clumsy flight, came a white butterfly, and directly after a bee—one of the great, dark, golden-banded fellows, with a soft, velvety coat. ...
— The Weathercock - Being the Adventures of a Boy with a Bias • George Manville Fenn
... reminiscent voice. The moon shone full down into her very lovely face, fell across her white throat and shimmered into the faint rose folds of her dainty gown. Her close, dark braids showed black against the fragrant wistaria vines and her eyes were deep and velvety in the soft light. "Yes, it was the summer I was eighteen and I had gone over with my father for a month or two of recuperation for him after a long extra session of Congress. Monsieur LaTour was staying in the ...
— The Road to Providence • Maria Thompson Daviess
... eyes; blue versus black and black versus blue, to put it both ways. And by black we mean black with orange-brown lights in it—the eye called tortoise-shell; and velvety browns with other browns, also hazels. Blue includes all blues, from ultramarine, or violet, to the palest blue of a pale sky; and all greys down to the grey that is almost white. Our preference for this or that colour is supposed to depend on nothing but individual taste, or fancy, and ...
— Afoot in England • W.H. Hudson
... segment two brown spots. Spiracles well marked with outer circle, brown, then black; white and black dot in the center. Anal segment with brown ribs, the intervals black with white dots; head shining, black with two brown bands on the face, forming a triangle. Other larvae in fourth stage, velvety black, with coral-red spines; others ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 344, August 5, 1882 • Various
... to the Siluridae, and had four fleshy appendages on the lower lip, and two on the upper; dorsal fin 1 spine 6 rays, and an adipose fin, pectoral 1 spine 8 rays; ventral 6 rays; anal 17 rays; caudal 17-18 rays; velvety teeth in the upper and lower jaws, and in the palatal bones. Head flat, belly broad; back of a greenish silver-colour; belly silvery white; length of the body 15-20 inches. It made a singular noise when taken ...
— Journal of an Overland Expedition in Australia • Ludwig Leichhardt
... distance from the shore rose from the sea the dark outlines of vessels, thrusting up into the dark sky their pointed masts with various colored lights at their tops. The sea reflected the lights, and was spotted with masses of yellow, quivering patches. This was very beautiful on the velvety bosom of the soft, dull black water, so rhythmically, mightily breathing. The sea slept the sound, healthy sleep of a workman, wearied out by his ...
— Creatures That Once Were Men • Maxim Gorky
... And, above all, there was an evening sky, peaceful and luminous, from which a light wind blew towards the two girls sitting by the open window. One, the elder, had a face like a Watteau sketch, with black velvety eyes, hair drawn back from a white forehead, delicate little mouth, with sharp indentations at the corners, and a small chin. The other was much more solidly built—a girl of seventeen, in a plump phase, which however an intelligent eye would have read ...
— Lady Connie • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... and the arbutus, the prettiest sweet-scented flowering vine our woods hold is the common mitchella vine, called squaw-berry and partridge-berry. It blooms in June, and its twin flowers, light cream-color, velvety, tubular, ...
— The Writings of John Burroughs • John Burroughs
... secular character by strong ecclesiastical suggestions in the shape of the furniture, the pattern of the carpet, and the prints on the wall; where, if a nap is taken, it is an easy-chair with a Gothic back, and the very feet rest on a warm and velvety simulation of church windows; where the pure art of rigorous English Protestantism smiles above the mantelpiece in the portrait of an eminent bishop, or a refined Anglican taste is indicated by a German print ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot |
