"Elegancy" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of this Academy, before you can give the accent correctly; there are other points which require to be noted also, in this refined courtier's writings, as this criticism will inform us]. Let me supervise the canzonet. Here are only numbers ratified, but for the elegancy, facility, and golden cadency of poesy, caret. Ovidius Naso was the man. And why, indeed, Naso; but for smelling out the odoriferous flowers of fancy, the jerks of invention. Imitari is nothing; so doth the ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... There is an elegancy and wildness of thought which recommends all their compositions; and our geniuses are as much too cold for the entertainment of such sentiments, as our climate is for their fruits and spices. If any of these beauties are to be found ...
— The Poetical Works of William Collins - With a Memoir • William Collins
... and entertained here, and an elegancy ran through every thing, persons as well as furniture, yet all plain. And my master said to the good housewife, Do your young boarding-school ladies still at times continue their visits to you, Mrs. Dobson? Yes, sir, said she, I expect three or ...
— Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded • Samuel Richardson
... are upon that Account on the same Foot and Interest with the Commons. Now of the Excellency of this Temperament in a Commonwealth, we have a most remarkable Commendation in Cicero, taken by him out of Plato's Books de Republica; which, because of its singular Elegancy, we shall here ...
— Franco-Gallia • Francis Hotoman
... for teas, and, indeed for all occasions, it is well to remember that the more ornamentation there is the less elegance there will be. The materials should be rich but not showy—the best-dressed person is the one who calls least attention to his or ...
— Book of Etiquette • Lillian Eichler
... towards perfection. Yes, she would accuse herself of being too happy, too content, and would wonder whether she ought not to seek heaven by some austerity of scowling. Janet had everything: a kind disposition, some brains, some beauty, considerable elegance and luxury for her station, fine shoulders at a ball, universal ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... features which were most to her liking, while the rest of the company believed her regards were disposed in a quite contrary direction. With what humility of complaisance did she receive the compliments of those who could not help praising the elegance of the banquet; and how piously did she seize that opportunity of commemorating the honours of her sire, by observing that it was no merit in her to understand something of entertainments, as she ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... haven't a proper, handsome house, with long windows from the ceiling to the floor and a high roof and a carved front door and with black marble chimneypieces instead of these rough stone fireplaces," Chloe would sigh, for she thought that the elegance of that time was none too good for the people she loved. It may be that Ralph sighed with her, but Felix and Barbara were frankly delighted with the painted floors, the casement windows, and the low, big-beamed rooms. In the evenings, as the two would sit on the wide ...
— The Windy Hill • Cornelia Meigs
... whose features they could distinctly see, seemed not more than sixteen years old, and extremely beautiful. The bridegroom, for some seconds, moved rather with his shoulder towards them, and his face averted; but his elegance of form and step struck the sisters at once with the same apprehension. As he turned his face suddenly, he was frightfully realized, and they saw, in the gay bridegroom before them, Sir Philip Forester. His wife uttered an imperfect exclamation, at the sound of which the whole scene ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... be, as the word canoe comes from the name the West Indian natives gave their dug-outs when questioned by Columbus. Nowadays the dug-out is generally used for the dirtier work of 'longshore fisheries. It has lost its elegance of form, and may be said to have reverted to a lower type. But this reversion only serves the better to remind the twentieth century of what all sorts of craft were like, not twenty, ...
— All Afloat - A Chronicle of Craft and Waterways • William Wood
... we see most distinctly the vice of our educational system. It neglects the plant for the sake of the flower. In anxiety for elegance, it forgets substance. While it gives no knowledge conducive to self-preservation—while of knowledge that facilitates gaining a livelihood it gives but the rudiments, and leaves the greater part to be picked up any how in after ...
— Essays on Education and Kindred Subjects - Everyman's Library • Herbert Spencer
... was making myself daily more worthy to claim this beloved girl as my own, spread through my soul a delicious, all-pervading sense of uninterrupted happiness. No man, however rough, could thus associate with a delicate and refined woman without acquiring some of the elegance which distinguished her. I imperceptibly lost the clownish air which had so often bitterly mortified me; and as my perceptions became more acute I saw in my own manners all that could render me repulsive, and ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, July, 1851 • Various
... of men, and what do you think must be its effect on those of weak women, whom even trifles can disturb? Neither offices of state, nor of the priesthood, nor triumphs, nor badges of distinction, nor military presents, nor spoils, can fall to their share. Elegance of appearance, and ornaments, and dress, these are the women's badges of distinction; in these they delight and glory; these our ancestors called the women's world. What else do they lay aside when in mourning, except their gold and purple? ...
— History of Rome, Vol III • Titus Livius
... exasperating contrast of rustic awkwardness and dainty grace, as she and Peggy stood side by side, that her heart died down within her. Poor Mellicent! her new coat and skirt had been made by the very best dressmaker in the village, and had been considered a miracle of elegance by the admiring home circle; so that she had looked forward to making quite a triumphant entrance, and now here she was, looking her very worst, and conscious of a dozen shortcomings as she looked at her friend's graceful figure. Peggy's features still retained their miniature-like ...
— More About Peggy • Mrs G. de Horne Vaizey
... through massed purple and silver shrubberies, receded into bland glooms of well-thought-out boscage. The architecture, a judicious mixture of haughty roofs and opulent chimneys, preened itself behind exclusive screens of wall and vine, and the entire frontage of Mockwood presented a polished elegance which did not entirely conceal a ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... the boy made was amazing. Within two years he was unrecognisable as the half-savage who had so shocked the Court of Belgrade. He could speak the Servian tongue with fluency and grace; he had acquired elegance of manners and speech, and a winning courtesy of manner which to his last day was his most marked characteristic; he had mastered many accomplishments, and he excelled in most manly exercises, ...
— Love affairs of the Courts of Europe • Thornton Hall
... perceptible difference in the elegance and correctness of the English in our versions of the Old and New Testament. I cannot yield to the authority of many examples of usages which may be alleged from the New Testament version. St. Paul is very often most inadequately rendered, and there are slovenly phrases ...
— Specimens of the Table Talk of S.T.Coleridge • Coleridge
... a larger part of his darling was lost to him, decided to be content with the smaller share; so he put on the necktie, and felt really proud of its brilliance and aggressive elegance. ...
— The Woggle-Bug Book • L. Frank Baum
... devotion in the great body of the people; and having given themselves up to indolence, were become altogether incapable of making any vigorous exertion in defence even of their own establishment. The clergy of an established and well endowed religion frequently become men of learning and elegance, who possess all the virtues of gentlemen, or which can recommend them to the esteem of gentlemen; but they are apt gradually to lose the qualities, both good and bad, which gave them authority and influence with the inferior ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith
... imbued with their respective learning. He is a "learned" writer who has embraced most knowledge on the particular subject of his investigation, as he is a "classical" one who composes with the greatest elegance. Sir David Dalrymple dedicates his "Memorials relating to the History of Britain" to the Earl of Hardwicke, whom he styles, with equal happiness and propriety, "Learned in British History." "Scholarship" has hitherto been a term reserved for the adept ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... a house where tapestries abound, is to feel oneself welcomed even before the host appears. The bending verdure invites, the animated figures welcome, and at once the atmosphere of elegance and cordiality envelopes the ...
— The Tapestry Book • Helen Churchill Candee
... ate more rapidly than is consistent with consummate elegance. I remember that Tip imitated me, and that Allis opened her eyes at me. I recall distinctly the fact that I had passed my plate ...
— Men, Women, and Ghosts • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... his seraglio. He viewed her figure, and beheld a person of a tawny complexion and feeble frame of body. She appeared to him in a contemptible light, inasmuch as the lowest menial in his harem, or seraglio, surpassed her in beauty and excelled her in elegance. Mujnun, in his sagacity, penetrated what was passing in the royal mind, and said: "It would behoove you, O king, to contemplate the charms of Laila through the wicket of a Mujnun's eye, in order that the miracle of such a spectacle might be illustrated ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 2, Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous
... bowed profoundly. The music rang out in the stately measure of the pavane, and the dance began: the ladies gliding, bowing, bending, their fans raised above their heads, then pressed to their bosoms as they bowed again; the cavaliers no whit behind them in elegance and grace. The court of Versailles itself had not danced better, for to dance badly meant disgrace with the Duke ...
— A German Pompadour - Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Graevenitz, - Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg • Marie Hay
... on fruits? The autumn of a woman's life offers many that are very toothsome,—those looks, for instance, bold, and yet reserved, bathed with the last rays of love, so warm, so sweet; that all-wise elegance of speech, those magnificent shoulders, so nobly developed, the full and undulating outline, the dimpled hands, the hair so well arranged, so cared for, that charming nape of the neck, where all the resources of art ...
— Beatrix • Honore de Balzac
... held by the hand a youth cast in beauty's mould, all elegance and perfect grace; so fair that his comeliness deserved to be proverbial; for he was as a green bough or the tender young of the roe, ravishing every heart with his loveliness and subduing every soul with his coquetry ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... rapid writer, and even grammatical faults are not infrequent in his papers. He explicitly declares that 'Elegance, purity, and correctness were not so much my purpose, as in any intelligible manner as I could to rally all those singularities of human life ... which obstruct anything that was really good and great'. [Footnote: Dedication to The Drummer.] His style varies with ...
— The Coverley Papers • Various
... and he advised me to obtain an introduction to the nobleman, who would not fail to invite me to share his table. His name was Antonio Dolfin, and he had been nicknamed Bucentoro, in consequence of his air of grandeur and the elegance of his toilet. Fortunately I did not require to beg an introduction, for M. Grimani offered, of his own accord, to present me to the magnificent councillor, who received me in the kindest manner, and invited me at once to take my ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... the simplicity of her dress was in almost too great contrast with its elegance—a contrived simplicity that left no room for any trace of careless youth or girlishness. Slender and rather delicate-looking, she had brown eyes, regular features, and soft, light-brown hair waving loosely about her face and hanging in two long, demure curls from ...
— Elsie Marley, Honey • Joslyn Gray
... laurel, and with the least marks of decay on their branches, are Rogers and Campbell; neither of them, it may be remarked, voluminous writers, and both distinguished rather for the fine taste and consummate elegance of their writings, than for that fiery passion, and disdainful vehemence, which seemed for a time to be so much more in ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... at the rococo elegance as if there were fifty things it didn't give her, so that he suggested with urgency the most absent. But she met his remedy with a smile. "I've the best advice in the world. I'm acting under it now. I act upon it in receiving you, in talking with you thus. One can't, as I tell ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume II • Henry James
... suggested to the Berlin Academy, in the next century, the method adopted by that body for the culture and improvement of the national speech. In this writing, as in all his German compositions, he manifested a complete command of the language, and imparted to it a purity and elegance of diction very uncommon in his day. The German of Leibnitz is less antiquated at this moment than the English ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... get to a place with something like society, with residences which had pretensions to elegance, with people of some breeding, with a newspaper, and "stores" to advertise in it, and with two or three churches to keep each other alive by wholesome agitation. ...
— Elsie Venner • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... says, 'The young heifers of North Devon, with their taper legs, the exact symmetry of their form, and their clear coats of dark red, are pictures of elegance.' Their superiority for grazing and draught was proved by the high prices demanded for them, but they were not equally esteemed as dairy animals,[749] though of late years this reproach has been removed. The ploughing of two acres of fallow land ...
— A Short History of English Agriculture • W. H. R. Curtler
... carry on their faces. Do your praises halt? 'Tis envy, 'tis treason! Away with you, Philoxenus that you are, to Syracusan quarries!—Let them be orators, let them be philosophers, if they will: what matter for a solecism here and there? Find Attic elegance, find honey of Hymettus in every word; and pronounce it law henceforth, ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata
... taller than the gross-paunched parvenu who had married his only sister, his slim form seemed to tower over him in easy elegance. An aristocratic insolence and intelligence radiated from the handsome face that so many women had found irresistible, uniting, as it did, three universal types of beauty—the Jewish, the ancient Greek, and the Germanic. The Orient gave complexion and fire, the nose was Greek, the shape ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... quietly realistic a type and of too refined a wit and humour to be attractive to the coarser and less intelligent audiences of Rome. Terence, the dimidiatus Menander, as Caesar called him, though he won himself a great name with the cultured classes by the purity and elegance of his Latin and the fine drawing of his characters, was a failure with popular audiences owing to his lack of broad farcical humour. Plautus with his coarse geniality and lumbering wit made a greater success. He had grafted ...
— Post-Augustan Poetry - From Seneca to Juvenal • H.E. Butler
... man of fifty, dressed with studied elegance a hundred years out of date, advancing cordially to shake hands with his visitor] Pray excuse me, Mr Savoyard. I suddenly recollected that all the bookcases in the library were locked—in fact theyve never been opened since we came from Venice—and as our literary guests will probably use the ...
— Fanny's First Play • George Bernard Shaw
... of my old friend Jeb Hilson there had once been a "lookin' glass" of no mean proportions, if those of his neighbors may be taken as the standard, and how else do we measure elegance or style? It had occupied a black frame, and a position on the wall directly over a "toilet," which was the most conspicuous piece of furniture in the room. At the present time there was nothing to tell the tale but a large nail (from which ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 19, June, 1891 • Various
... in this speculation, and with his increased profits, himself and his children assumed a higher and more important tone and bearing in society. In fact, his sons and daughters passed as ladies and gentlemen, not only in external appearance, but in elegance of manners and cultivation of mind; for he spared no expense on their education, as well in his original as in his subsequent condition of life; besides that at this period, and for a long time previous, the County of Limerick was ...
— The Tithe-Proctor - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... been got from New York. You must make your style of living, Mrs. Chapman said, keep pace with the progress of the family. And it would not do to let those new, rich, and stylish people who were coming up from New York get ahead of you in the way of elegance. ...
— The Von Toodleburgs - Or, The History of a Very Distinguished Family • F. Colburn Adams
... approached, I saw the glowing cheeks of Margaret pale a little, her lips press together, and her chin become a little proud, but her eyes never wavered; but Mistress Helen beats me to be describing. There was an elegance about her and an air of languor, maybe from her sombre dark eyes, yet her every movement was graceful, and her smile a thing to be looking for, and she was slender as the stalk of a bluebell. The Laird of Scaurdale was in great humour, well on to seventy, his teeth still strong ...
— The McBrides - A Romance of Arran • John Sillars
... though it has the better cause, while adroit error, intelligently put and courteously commended, will win the day. This is a lesson which the Christian Church greatly needs to learn. Mr. Chatterji's work is the more formidable for its charming graces of style. He has that same facility and elegance in the use of the English language for which so many of his countrymen, Sheshadri, Bose, Banergea, Chunder Sen, Mozoomdar, and others have been distinguished. He is a model of courtesy, and he ...
— Oriental Religions and Christianity • Frank F. Ellinwood
... Father Antoine took his simple dinners on the porch. It was cool there, and the vines and flowers gave to the little nook a certain air of elegance which Father Antoine enjoyed without recognizing why. On this evening Marie lingered after she had removed the table. She fidgeted about, picking up a leaf here and there, and looking at her master, till he perceived that she had something on ...
— Hetty's Strange History • Helen Jackson
... sources of revenue, gave him for the twelvemonth an income of about fifty thousand francs. In the Beaujon mansion the workmen soon accomplished prodigies, transforming its dilapidated rooms into ship-shape and elegance. Bilboquet issued special instructions for apartments to be fitted up for Gringalet and Zephirine—a bedchamber and small salon, both circular and sculptured, with paintings on the arches, worthy of ...
— Balzac • Frederick Lawton
... the ward, the house of William Skinner of the silk-mill overlooks the city. A central and pleasant square encloses the home of W.A. Chase, the agent of the Water Power Company, and houses with all the appointments of elegance and luxury are owned by Messrs. Whiting, Dillon, Farr, Metcalf, Mackintosh, W.A. Prentiss Clark, E.W. Chapin, Ramage, Newton, Corser and many others. Fairmount Square is a new section just opened for good residences. In the southerly part of the city is the farm of Congressman ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 5 • Various
... my pocket-book in its receptacle in my coat, the driver had absolutely vanished! I could not see him anywhere. I was the more annoyed at this, as I found that (by mistake) I had given him notes on the Bank of Elegance, which everyone knows are of less value than notes on the Bank of England. However, it was too late to search for the vendor, and I walked away as I could, leading by the bridle the steed I had so ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., December 27, 1890 • Various
... one of the undying names in literature would hardly be extravagant. Not that I would endow Ariel with the stature and sinews of a Titan; this were to miss his distinctive qualities: delicacy, elegance, charm. He belongs to a category of writers who are more read and probably will ever exercise greater influence than some of greater name. The latter show us life as a whole; but life as a whole is too vast and too remote to excite in most of us more ...
— The Red Lily, Complete • Anatole France
... selection of modules from the members of the work itself and, starting from these individual parts of members, constructing the whole work to correspond. Arrangement includes the putting of things in their proper places and the elegance of effect which is due to adjustments appropriate to the character of the work. Its forms of expression (Greek [Greek: ideai]) are these: groundplan, elevation, and perspective. A groundplan is made by the proper successive use of compasses and rule, through which we get outlines for the plane ...
— Ten Books on Architecture • Vitruvius
... several years a travelling Showman came along; he had a large aviary of birds of all sorts, some for sale, some not. Among them was a glorious Humming Bird of wonderful brilliancy and plumage, a creature full of beauty and grace and charm and elegance. The man became passionately attached to it; he was ready to perpetrate any folly for the sake of obtaining possession of it, and indeed he did commit numbers of regrettable actions, and at last stole the bird from the Showman ...
— The Damsel and the Sage - A Woman's Whimsies • Elinor Glyn
... Clair besought his sister to come out from England and preside over his home and care for his children; and that he might forget his grief, he gave himself, heart and mind, to his business. Wealth came to him, and under his sister's rule his home became a place of cultured elegance and ...
— The Man From Glengarry - A Tale Of The Ottawa • Ralph Connor
... Lovelace, who in 1649 published the elegant collection of amorous and other poems entitled Lucasta, was an amiable and accomplished gentleman: by the men of his time (the time of the civil wars) respected for his moral worth and literary ability; by the fair sex, almost idolized for the elegance of his person and the sweetness of his manners. An ardent loyalist, the people of Kent appointed him to present to the House of Commons their petition for the restoration of Charles and the settlement of the government. The petition gave offence, and the bearer ...
— Books and Authors - Curious Facts and Characteristic Sketches • Anonymous
... Utility, comfort and elegance are, as Cowper shows, the three successive purposes for which furniture was designed. And to-day the order of development remains also the order of importance. The first things to be desired in any article of furniture are durability and simple application to its purpose. These being found, ...
— Practical Suggestions for Mother and Housewife • Marion Mills Miller
... Dressed with all the elegance of a city man, Fritz Brunner sat in full view of the house displaying a bald crown of the tint beloved by Titian, and a few stray fiery red hairs on either side of it; a remnant spared by debauchery and want, that the prodigal might have a right to spend ...
— Cousin Pons • Honore de Balzac
... tale. The Count is thirty years old, but might be thought older, for there are grey streaks in his smooth black hair, and there is a grey tone in the complexion of his tired face. In figure he is thin, broad shouldered, sinewy, well made and graceful. He moves easily and with a certain elegance. His arms and legs are long in proportion to his body. His head is well shaped, bony, full of energy—his nose is finely modelled and sharply aquiline; a short, dark moustache does not quite hide the firm, well-chiselled lips, and the clean-cut chin ...
— A Cigarette-Maker's Romance • F. Marion Crawford
... stones, and especially wood cast on shore from wrecks, had been chiefly employed. Then his paint-brush was seldom idle; and, as he remarked, "variety is pleasant," he coloured differently every room, both inside and out, increasing thereby the gay appearance, if not the tasteful elegance, of the structure. ...
— Tales of the Sea - And of our Jack Tars • W.H.G. Kingston
... a Nithsdale beauty. Love and sorrow were strongly mingled in her early history: that she did not look so lovely in other eyes as she did in those of Burns is well known: but he had much of the taste of an artist, and admired the elegance of her form, and the harmony of her motion, as much as he did her ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... gold-embroidered velvet robes, light crape and lace dresses, and hats and topknots of charming elegance. ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... itself in several remarks that we may make upon the English language. As, first of all, by its abounding in monosyllables, which gives us an opportunity of delivering our thoughts in few sounds. This indeed takes off from the elegance of our tongue, but at the same time expresses our ideas in the readiest manner, and consequently answers the first design of speech better than the multitude of syllables which make the words of other ...
— Essays and Tales • Joseph Addison
... she was told, and they retraced their steps. The young officer now approached, and touching his hat with an air of unspeakable elegance, and then swinging his cane, said, "You asked me, sir, to show the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... education, are much too vulgar to delight in either song or ballad that rises to the dignity of poetry. They appreciate the buffooneries of the "Negro Minstrelsy," and the inanities and the vapidities of sentimental love songs, but the elegance of such writers as Thomas Moore, and the force of such vigorous thinkers and tender lyrists as Robert Burns, are above their sphere, and are left to scholars in their closets and ladies in their drawing- rooms. ...
— Cavalier Songs and Ballads of England from 1642 to 1684 • Charles Mackay
... Jennie, that the fact of my travelling on a train de luxe has not deluded you regarding my wealth. I should have told you that I usually travel third class when I am transporting myself in my private capacity. I am wringing this pampered elegance from the reluctant pockets of the British taxpayer. When I travel for the British Government I say, as Pooh Bah said to Koko in the 'Mikado,' 'Do it well, my boy,' or ...
— Jennie Baxter, Journalist • Robert Barr
... hour of expansion, as if now at last the catholic church might venture to show her outward lineaments as they really were, worship—"the beauty of holiness," nay! the elegance of sanctity—was developed, with a bold and confident gladness, the like of which has hardly been the ideal of worship in any later age. The tables in fact were turned: the prize of a cheerful temper on a candid survey of life was no longer with the pagan world. ...
— Marius the Epicurean, Volume Two • Walter Horatio Pater
... Kazunzumi had delivered his pyrotechnic speech of thanks, and had directed that Aaron's gifts be placed on a velvet-draped dais at the end of the room, a roast kid was brought in. Waziri, half drunk with the elegance of it all, fell to like any other adolescent boy, and was soon grease to the armpits. Aaron, more careful, referred his actions to the Sarki's. The bread must be broken, not cut; and it was eaten with the right hand only, the left lying in the lap ...
— Blind Man's Lantern • Allen Kim Lang
... new art, but had no teacher to instruct him. But literature is a progressive art, and soon the writers of the age developed two marked tendencies of their own,—the tendency to realism, and the tendency to that preciseness and elegance of expression which marks our literature for the ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... compels me to state that I never slept better in my life), turned upon my unexpected meeting with Clara Saville. The year and a half which had elapsed since the night of the ball had altered her from a beautiful girl into a lovely woman. Without in the slightest degree diminishing its grace and elegance, the outline of her figure had become more rounded, while her features had acquired a depth of expression which was not before observable, and which was the only thing wanting to render them (I had almost ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... music I ever heard played, by the band, we took steamboat for Greenwich, and, landing there, walked to Blackheath, where we had an engagement to dine at Lee Grove with a London merchant. Here we had a fine opportunity to witness the luxury and elegance of English social life. This gentleman, now in the decline of life, has an exquisitely beautiful place, situated in a park of some sixty acres. The railroad has been run through his estate, and, of course, ...
— Young Americans Abroad - Vacation in Europe: Travels in England, France, Holland, - Belgium, Prussia and Switzerland • Various
... and general elegance of appearance seemed to denote that she was a person of superior rank, was disinclined to dance; and as the attendant persisted in urging her forward, she struggled to escape, and at length fell into ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... side of the ship, smoking a cigar. His back was toward all this bustle and confusion, and he seemed to have an air of isolation and of indifference to what was going on about him. His tall person was clad in a heavy overcoat, which seemed to combine comfort with elegance, and gave to him, even in his leaning posture, a distingue air. But that which drew Annie's attention was the difference of his manner from that of all others, who were either excited by their surroundings, ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe
... or rather of my family. I have no such materials as you, and (our objections already made) your attack fills me with despair; it is direct and elegant, and your style is always admirable to me - lenity, lucidity, usually a high strain of breeding, an elegance that has a pleasant air of the accidental. But beware of purple passages. I wonder if you think as well of your purple passages as I do of mine? I wonder if you think as ill of mine as I do of yours? I wonder; I can tell you at least what is wrong with yours ...
— Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 2 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... and throw out the muscles in bolder relief; let the Italian costume of the days of Leo X. be exchanged for the sombre and plain uniform of a youth bred in the simplicity of rural life, who seeks no elegance in dress,—and, if the pensive and languid attitude be retained, you will have the striking likeness of our "Raphael" at ...
— Raphael - Pages Of The Book Of Life At Twenty • Alphonse de Lamartine
... beautiful, and, being skilled in art and endowed with learning, they built temples of the noblest design, erected statues of the richest order, painted pictures of the grandest conception. Odeum and theatre all sprang forth in magical beauty and power, whilst villas replete with elegance combined to make it one of the loveliest cities, surrounded with hills and groves and the traditions of a line ...
— Saronia - A Romance of Ancient Ephesus • Richard Short
... to get tipsy without the food, but he was impressed by the elegance and experience of his friend, who found on the carte so many extraordinary sauces. He had never seen a man like him, he declared, so dainty and so difficult. He wondered if all southerners were the same as he ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... countenance; these were the general features which rendered it impossible to overlook the countess in the salon, the concert-room, or the opera-house, and these were enhanced by the choicest toilets, the elegance of which was surpassed by few, even in the salons of the Faubourg St. Germain. That fantastic dreams were hidden behind the purity of her profile, and passion, burning passion, under the soft melancholy of her expression, was known to but a few, at the time ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 2 • Rupert Hughes
... of the old-fashioned English sort, which scorns to learn a lesson of brightness and elegance from France. The private room can only be described as a museum for the exhibition of dirt in all its varieties. Behind the bars of the rusty little grate a dying fire was drawing its last breath. Mrs. Sowler clamoured for wood and coals; revived the fire ...
— The Fallen Leaves • Wilkie Collins
... this fair rose-bud expanded in the soil best suited to perfect its attractions, the sheltered vale of domestic privacy, where, unconscious of its super-eminence, and screened from every blast, it preserved the undying fragrance of modest worth, and the soft elegance ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... was something extremely civilised about her, so that it surprised you to see her in those surroundings, and you thought of those famous beauties who had set all the world talking at the Court of the Emperor Napoleon III. Though she wore but a muslin frock and a straw hat she wore them with an elegance that suggested the woman of fashion. She must have been ravishing ...
— The Trembling of a Leaf - Little Stories of the South Sea Islands • William Somerset Maugham
... Fonteyne, the physician of his second wife, Marguerite of France, who was then ill of small-pox, the King warns him not on any account to allow the Queen to exert herself until she has completely recovered, "and if you do," adds the monarch in French, of considerably more force than elegance, and not too suitable for exact quotation, "you ...
— A Forgotten Hero - Not for Him • Emily Sarah Holt
... was covered, however, as Salemina had supposed, and the occurrence gave us a precious opportunity of chaffing that dungeon of learning. He was tolerably alert and vigorous, too, although he certainly did not impart elegance to a vehicle, and he knew every street in the court end of Edinburgh, and every close and wynd in the Old Town. On this our first meeting with him, he faltered only when Francesca asked him last of all to drive to 'Kildonan House, Helmsdale'; supposing, not unnaturally, that it ...
— Penelope's Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... at last vun day he has in all the children vun arter another, shaves each on 'em wery clean, and gives him vun kiss on the crown o' his head; then he has in the two assistants, and arter cuttin' and curlin' of 'em in the first style of elegance, says he should like to hear the woice o' the greasiest bear, vich rekvest is immediately complied with; then he says that he feels wery happy in his mind and vishes to be left alone; and then he dies, previously cuttin' his own hair and makin' one flat curl in ...
— Master Humphrey's Clock • Charles Dickens
... though to gain a better sight of Barry Houston's features. He surveyed him carefully, from the tight-drawn reversed cap with the motor goggles resting above the young, smooth forehead, to the quiet elegance of the outing clothing and well-shod feet. He spat, reflectively, and drew the back of ...
— The White Desert • Courtney Ryley Cooper
... Josie's doubts were soon entirely removed, however; he was convinced of the reality of all he had heard and seen that morning, when he observed his brother standing on Mrs. Wyllys's steps, and the widow coming out to receive him, with a degree of elegance in her dress, and graciousness in her manner, quite perceptible across the garden: the fair lady admired the vegetables, ordered them carried into the cellar, and received Coleridge's Ancient Mariner from Uncle Dozie's hands, while they were still standing beneath the rose-covered porch, ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... back in her chair to laugh at that, greatly to the surprise of the little girls, who were much impressed with the elegance ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, January 1878, No. 3 • Various
... in high winds. The Hon. Daines Barrington says, his pipe comes nearest to the nightingale, of any bird he ever heard. The description, however, given by Wilson, in his own inimitable manner, as far excels Pennant and Barrington as the bird excels his fellow-songsters. Wilson tells that the ease, elegance and rapidity of his movements, the animation of his eye, and the intelligence he displays in listening and laying up lessons, mark the peculiarity of his genius. His voice is full, strong, and musical, and capable of almost every modulation, from the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 13, No. 356, Saturday, February 14, 1829 • Various
... exactly! But I don't know as we can blame her if she did. The poor child is doubtless unversed in polite correspondence, and she did her best,—but she felt she needed a little more elegance of construction and so forth, and she picked out some dressy phrases from ...
— Patty and Azalea • Carolyn Wells
... very mild case, and in him there is not only an element of romance, but also a fine element of irony which warns us against taking all this elegance too seriously. Above all, he shows his sense in not making his noblemen so incredibly equipped with impromptu repartee. This habit of insisting on the wit of the wealthier classes is the last and most ...
— Heretics • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... remainder of the ride, envying the careless ease with which Percival and his friends, and even Uncle Peter, wore the prescribed evening regalia of gentlemen, and yearning for the distinguished effect of its black and white elegance upon himself. ...
— The Spenders - A Tale of the Third Generation • Harry Leon Wilson
... a soft lawn, stretching away into a broad park, through which a stream ran; and beyond was a green hillside. The quiet, the perfect order and discipline, gave a pleasant tingle to Gaston's veins. It was all so easy, and yet so admirable—elegance without weight. He felt at home. He was not certain of some trifles of etiquette; but he and Sir William were alone, and he followed his instincts. Once he frankly asked his grandfather of a matter of form, of which he was uncertain the evening before. ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... tree, and rooted in a light sandy alluvial soil. A new species of Bauhinia, with large white blossoms, growing in small groves, or scattered in the scrub, particularly near the creeks, was conspicuous for its elegance, and was the greatest ornament of this part of the country. It is a tree about twenty-five feet high, with long drooping branches; the foliage is of a rich green colour, and affords a fine shade. A climbing Capparis, with broad lanceolate leaves, had also large white showy blossoms; and ...
— Journal of an Overland Expedition in Australia • Ludwig Leichhardt
... small, tastefully and conveniently arranged house, with pretty rooms, a cheerful drawing-room, lovely garden, exactly suited to have therein a quiet, agreeable, informal pastime. Josephine possessed in the highest degree the art of her sex to furnish rooms with elegance and taste, so as to make every one in them comfortable, satisfied, at ...
— The Empress Josephine • Louise Muhlbach
... Monsieur Mafflu. He is a man of about fifty, dressed for ease rather than elegance, and a little vulgar. He turns over the papers on the tables, studies himself in the mirror, and readjusts his tie. Madame Nerisse then comes in. She has Monsieur Mafflu's visiting card in her hand. They ...
— Woman on Her Own, False Gods & The Red Robe - Three Plays By Brieux • Eugene Brieux
... have made them. "The Greeks made the best plays and the best statues, and were the best architects; of course, they were the best tailors too," said he; and was never weary, when he could find a tolerant listener, of dwelling on the simplicity, the economy, the elegance both of means and effect, which made their ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... actually sitting beside her, breathing the same air, listening to her voice. She exhaled a delicate perfume such as incorporates itself in persons of high degree and becomes a natural emanation, an incense vague and indescribable. He felt that he was gazing on the culmination of youth, beauty, and elegance... Yes, Fitzgerald was right. To beggar one's self for love; honor and life, and all to the winds ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath
... not observed one day, after my glances had grown very careless, and almost involuntary, a rich lace veil hanging against the same little window where had hung the placard. There was no mistaking it—the veil was of the richest Mechlin lace. I knew very well that no lady of elegance could occupy such apartment, or, indeed, was to be found (I mean no disrespect to the abbe) in that quarter of Paris. The window plainly belonged to some thievish den, and the lace formed a portion of the spoils. I began to be distrustful of late visits to the abbe's quarters, and full ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... Standon saw his friend thus engaged he stood on the pavement and expressed his surprise with more force than elegance; whereupon Captain Bontnor went out and explained to him exactly how it stood. So marked was the old sailor's influence on the social affairs at Somarsh that there was a notable revival of literary taste and discussion at the corner of the Lifeboat House, where the ...
— The Grey Lady • Henry Seton Merriman
... was translated into several languages, not forgetting the Latin, and even Voltaire was pleased, in after years, to come down from his critical throne and honour Mr. Addison's verses with his praise.[A] "The first English writer," he said, "who composed a regular tragedy and infused a spirit of elegance through every part of it was the illustrious Mr. Addison." ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins
... grand financial luxury of some notaries, or the reported toilets of their wives, to the gloomy mansion of M. Ferrand, so contemptuous of elegance and splendor, the clients felt a kind of respect, or, rather, of blind confidence for this man, who, from the number of his employers and the fortune he was supposed to possess, could have said, like many of his brethren, "My equipage, my country-house, ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue
... the old Croghan house. What it lacks in elegance of appointment it gains in hospitality. If we had a dish of tea to brew for you gentlemen we would do it; but Indian willow makes a vile and bitter tea, and I had as lief go tealess, as I do and expect to continue until our husbands teach the ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... a stone, Mr. Leavenworth?" asked Debby, possessed with a mischievous desire to shock the piece of elegance ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... statue with paint. This giant, now! How can you have ventured to thrust his huge, disproportioned mass among the seemly outlines of Grecian fable, the tendency of which is to reduce even the extravagant within limits, by its pervading elegance?" ...
— The Three Golden Apples - (From: "A Wonder-Book For Girls and Boys") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... although it was almost midsummer when he passed over it. He arrived at Rich Bar the latter part of June, and found the revivifying effect of its bracing atmosphere far surpassing his most sanguine hopes. He soon built himself an office, which was a perfect marvel to the miners, from its superior elegance. It is the only one on the Bar, and I intend to visit it in a day or two, when I will give you a description of its architectural splendors. It will perhaps enlighten you as to one peculiarity of a newly discovered mining district, when I inform you that although there were but two or three physicians ...
— The Shirley Letters from California Mines in 1851-52 • Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clappe
... them in the coarse cloth of the country, made in the style common among the peasantry of Bergen; but the delicacy of his limbs, the smallness of his head, the easy elegance of his poise, and the natural gracefulness of his movements and attitudes, all seemed ...
— The Waif of the "Cynthia" • Andre Laurie and Jules Verne
... that they do not entertain as freely, and as often, as any other people. The only difference between them and the English, in this respect, or between them and ourselves, is in the better taste and ease which regulate their intercourse of this nature. While there is a great deal of true elegance, there is no fuss, at a French entertainment; and all that you have heard of the superiority of the kitchen in this country, is certainly true. Society is divided into castes in Paris, as it is everywhere else; and the degrees of elegance and refinement ...
— Recollections of Europe • J. Fenimore Cooper
... girls set off together. They made a contrast which must have been discernible to the eyes of all those who saw them: Aneta the very essence of elegance; Maggie spotlessly neat, but, compared to her companion, downright plain. Aneta was tall and slim; Maggie was short. Nevertheless, her figure was her good point, and she made the most of it by having perfectly fitting clothes. This ...
— The School Queens • L. T. Meade
... because they were impressive; there was no other reason. And they were impressive because they believed themselves important. The adults of the family were impregnably formal; they dressed with reticent elegance, and wore the same nose and the same expression—an expression which indicated that they knew something exquisite and sacred which other people could never know. Other people, in their presence, were apt to feel ...
— Penrod • Booth Tarkington
... go into the little sitting room.' Then without saying another word she got up, left the room, and went along the passage to the chamber in question. It was a small room, furnished, as they all thought at Granpere, with Parisian elegance, intended for such visitors to the hotel as might choose to pay for the charm and luxury of such an apartment. It was generally found that visitors to Granpere did not care to pay for the luxury of this Parisian elegance, and the room was almost always empty. Thither Marie went, and seated herself ...
— The Golden Lion of Granpere • Anthony Trollope
... and his vigorous health, so essential to himself and to the world, was corroborated by temperance and exercise. In his familiar discourse he was grave and modest; and if he was ignorant of the Arabic language, he spoke with fluency and elegance the Persian and Turkish idioms. It was his delight to converse with the learned on topics of history and science; and the amusement of his leisure hours was the game of chess, which he improved or corrupted ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... swordmanship of these last months had given Andre-Louis a grace of movement, a poise, and a curious, indefinable air of dignity, of command. He seemed taller by virtue of this, and he was dressed with an elegance which if quiet was none the less rich. He wore a small silver-hilted sword, and wore it as if used to it, and his black hair that Le Chapelier had never seen other than fluttering lank about his bony cheeks was glossy now and gathered ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini
... moment we heard his footstep, and the door opened. Mr. Widemann was a very handsome young man, of thirty or thirty-two, with black whiskers entirely surrounding his manly and expressive face; his morning dress showed a certain rural elegance. He seemed at first not only embarrassed but pained by our visit. The aimless curiosity of which he seemed to be the object was indeed odd. I hastened to give him Mr. G——'s letter and to tell him what reason brought me. Then ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... his late portraits are even more energetic than those of his early maturity. He shows himself a wise man of the world. "Do not be a grovelling sycophant," some of them seem to say, "but remember that courtly manners and tempered elegance can do you no harm." Titian, then, was ever ready to change with the times, and on the whole the change was toward a firmer grasp of reality, necessitating yet another advance in the painter's mastery of his craft. Titian's real greatness consists in the fact that ...
— The Venetian Painters of the Renaissance - Third Edition • Bernhard Berenson
... scholar, Foch is brilliant besides being profound. As a man, he is simple—and France admires simplicity; he is elegant—and France loves the elegance that is the expression of fine thinking, fine feeling; he is modest of his own attainments, and proud of ...
— Foch the Man - A Life of the Supreme Commander of the Allied Armies • Clara E. Laughlin
... genius was scarcely inferior to his oratorical, had it been cultivated with equal industry. He published another poem called Limon, of which Donatus has preserved four lines in the life of Terence, in praise of the elegance and purity of that poet's style. He composed in the Greek language, and in the style and manner of Isocrates, a Commentary or Memoirs of the Transactions of his Consulship. This he sent to Atticus, with a ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus
... am not aware that there is any evil in me. If you are not displeased at the lack of grace in my legs, or the lack of whiteness in my hands, or the lack of elegance in my words, I fail to see what you find to hate in me. From my childhood I have had to listen to evil precepts, but I have not accepted them. I have never considered it permissible to do a bad deed; or, at least, I have never found it pleasurable. If I have ...
— Mauprat • George Sand
... Paris, starting from the west. The colleges, which are, in fact, the intermediate ring between the cloister and the world, hold the middle position in the monumental series between the Hotels and the abbeys, with a severity full of elegance, sculpture less giddy than the palaces, an architecture less severe than the convents. Unfortunately, hardly anything remains of these monuments, where Gothic art combined with so just a balance, richness and economy. The churches (and they were numerous and splendid in the ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... apparently quite satisfied with his position and prospective hardships, not giving a thought to the humble accommodations of his friends' shanty; which, on the first entrance, had contracted in Robert's vision into a mere wood-cutter's hut, devoid of every elegance and most of the comforts of civilised life. He imagined that thus it would be seen through Argent's eyes. But if it was so, Argent neither by look nor manner gave token of the least thought of ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe
... of Henry's Court Charles Brandon was pre-eminent, not only for his personal beauty and the elegance that attended every movement which the various evolutions of the game required, but for his courage, judgment, and skill, qualities which he displayed to great advantage at the royal festivities. ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson
... route was depended upon for shelter and entertainment. Some of the plantations visited were of great extent, and among others, that called Guayalke was especially noticeable for its size, and also for the beauty and elegance of the farm house of the estate, which was constructed entirely of stone, and was truly palatial in its proportions. This building is fully described by Mr. Stephens.[19-*] The works of this writer form an excellent hand-book ...
— The Mayas, the Sources of Their History / Dr. Le Plongeon in Yucatan, His Account of Discoveries • Stephen Salisbury, Jr.
... over herself, and did not hesitate to address to her child terms of reproach and abuse, which a vulgar mind could only conceive, and a coarse tongue alone express. What a contrast to Cherbury, to the mild maternal elegance and provident kindness of Lady Annabel, and the sweet tones of Venetia's ever-sympathising voice. Cadurcis, though so young, was gifted with an innate fastidiousness, that made him shrink from a rude woman. His feelings were different in regard to men; he sympathised at a very early age with ...
— Venetia • Benjamin Disraeli
... formed by the chimney, with one elbow resting upon the mantel, and his cheek upon his hand. He was motionless as a statue, and had composed his features into such calm and serene rigidity, that not the movement of a muscle could be detected. As usual, he was dressed simply, but with great elegance. A large flowing wig, with abundant curls, such as were used by elderly gentlemen at that day, covered his head. His costume, which was admirably fitted to a form as perfect as Grecian sculptor ever ...
— Benjamin Franklin, A Picture of the Struggles of Our Infant Nation One Hundred Years Ago - American Pioneers and Patriots Series • John S. C. Abbott
... Francatelli, and Soyer, and they are the names of foreigners [Footnote: A fourth work before me has no clue to the author, but it is like the others, of an alien complexion. It is called "French Domestic Cookery, Combining Elegance and Economy. In twelve Hundred Receipts, 12mo, 1846." Soyer's book appeared in the same year. In 1820, an anonymous writer printed a Latin poem of his own composition, called "Tabella Cibaria, a Bill of Fare, etc., etc., with Copious Notes," which seem more important than the text]. No English ...
— Old Cookery Books and Ancient Cuisine • William Carew Hazlitt
... you; this house which you have built in Jager Street is stately and handsome, and large enough for a cavalier of my pretensions. You have, also, at the cost of the king, furnished it with such princely elegance that it is in all things an appropriate residence for a cavalier. Do you not remember my description of such a house? The king called it then a Spanish air-castle. You, great-hearted man, have made my castle in the air a splendid reality, and now that it is finished and furnished, you will, ...
— Frederick the Great and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... names;—their new names, when they had any, being but a sort of incognito, a veil which those who would speak of them were careful to draw aside, so as to make themselves understood. Thinking that Beauty—in the order of feminine elegance—was governed by occult laws into the knowledge of which they had been initiated, and that they had the power to realise it, I accepted before seeing them, like the truth of a coming revelation, ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... alacrity to his movements, waddling grotesquely like a hastening waterfowl. Between him and the secretary they dressed my Lord the Seneschal, and decked him out till he was fit to compare with a bird of paradise for gorgeousness of colouring if not for harmony of hues and elegance of outline. ...
— St. Martin's Summer • Rafael Sabatini
... deemed, although with grave misgivings, that they would not too violently shock the polite taste of the eighteenth century. The eighteenth century, wearied to death of its own politeness, worn out by the heartless elegance of Pope and the insipid sentimentality of Prior, gave these fresh, simple melodies an unexpected welcome, even in the face of the reigning king of letters, Dr. Johnson, who forbade them to come to court. But good poems are not slain by bad critics, and the old ballads, despite the burly ...
— Ballad Book • Katherine Lee Bates (ed.)
... had to hurry out on the street in her petticoat and little light dressing-sack that she wore for work, for they gave her no time to change. For this service the girl would get 10 cents a week from each of the women she did errands for. They did not—the boss starcher explained to me with quiet elegance—think of such a thing as drinking beer behind the boss's back, but they 'just ...
— Making Both Ends Meet • Sue Ainslie Clark and Edith Wyatt
... special pretence to learning, possessed at least five languages. Egmont, who was accounted an ignorant man, was certainly familiar with three. The Cardinal, however, wrote not only with ease, but with remarkable elegance, vigor and vivacity, in whatever language he chose to adopt. The style of his letters and other documents, regarded simply as compositions, was inferior to that of no writer of the age. His occasional orations, too, were esteemed models of smooth and flowing ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... seen more Company here than we ever did in Barcelona. I am this Evening going to a Ball; unfortunately Fandangos are not fashionable dances, but they have another called the Bolero, which in grace and Elegance stands unrivalled, but would scarcely be admitted in the less licentious circles of our N. Climate. I shall take lessons at Cadiz, and hope to become an adept in all those dances before I see you. If you write within a fortnight—and of course ...
— Before and after Waterloo - Letters from Edward Stanley, sometime Bishop of Norwich (1802;1814;1814) • Edward Stanley
... precious stones were disposed of in various ways, so as to deprive them of their identity, is easy to understand, but where have the vases gone? Were it not for the rough sketches made at the time of discovery we should not be able to form an idea of their beauty and elegance of shape. They were not the work of goldsmiths of the fifth century, but were of classical origin; in fact they represent a portion of the imperial state jewels, which Honorius had inherited from his predecessors, and which he had offered to Maria on her wedding ...
— Pagan and Christian Rome • Rodolfo Lanciani
... the discussion, he took occasion to talk to me about the manner of my writing; observed that, though I had the advantage of my antagonist in correct spelling and pointing (which I owed to the printing-house), I fell far short in elegance of expression, in method and in perspicuity, of which he convinced me by several instances. I saw the justice of his remarks, and thence grew more attentive to the manner in writing, and determined to ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... road between the gum trees brought them to the fruit gardens, where Mollie saw peaches that made up by their magnificence for any hothouse elegance lacking in the grapes. Large as apples, soft and downy as velvet, glowing with crimson and gold, they were a perfect revelation of what peaches could be when they tried, and Mollie could hardly bear to wait till they reached the ...
— The Happy Adventurers • Lydia Miller Middleton
... beginning with Old Orchard, perhaps the finest beach on the Atlantic coast, what delightful harbors and islands there are. And in the Maine woods there is a wealth of health and sport. Grandeur is found in the White Mountains, comfort and elegance at their great hotels. And here, as well as through the hundreds of rural towns on and among the Green Mountains, are the quiet farmhouses where one may abide, and see the New England character—sometimes, not always—at ...
— The New England Magazine Volume 1, No. 6, June, 1886, Bay State Monthly Volume 4, No. 6, June, 1886 • Various
... time in Stockholm, but quite sufficient to enable me to see much that was grandly beautiful in its neighbourhood. Lakes, rocks, and noble trees abounded, and exquisite residences peeped out through the woods, giving evidences of high civilisation. Elegance of taste and perfect domestic arrangements supplied every form of rational comfort and enjoyment. My old friend Sir John Ross, of Arctic celebrity, was settled at Stockholm as chief consul for Her Majesty. He introduced me to several of the leading English merchants, from whom I received ...
— James Nasmyth's Autobiography • James Nasmyth
... apartment. The ceiling was composed of cross-beams curiously wrought. On one of these was represented a grim head in the act of devouring a child—which tradition affirmed was the great giant Tarquin at his morning's repast. The room was fitted up with cumbrous elegance. A few pieces of faded tapestry covered one side of the apartment. In a recess stood a tester bed, ornamented with black velvet, together with curtains of black stuff and a figured coverlet. A wainscot cupboard ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... islands; but the inhabitants far surpass all the neighbouring islanders in the management of their plantations. In the low grounds, adjoining to the bay where we lay at anchor, these plantations were divided by deep and regular ditches; the fences were made with a neatness approaching to elegance, and the roads through them were thrown up and finished in a manner that would have done credit to ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 17 • Robert Kerr
... Mr. and Miss Darling were conducted by an attendant to one of the housekeeper's rooms, where they were asked to partake of some refreshment. They had never before seen such a display of magnificence and elegance; and as they took their meal, they could scarcely help smiling at the contrast between their own humble home and the luxuries which were strewn around them. The housekeeper knew how at once to please the Duchess and her visitors, ...
— Grace Darling - Heroine of the Farne Islands • Eva Hope
... noticed that it was mainly composed of comparatively young men, some in middle age, and a few beyond that period. They were nearly all plainly dressed, with a view to comfort rather than elegance. Many of the faces turned towards me wore a look of expectancy and suppressed enthusiasm; all had the earnestness which might be expected of men engaged in an enterprise beset with difficulty and perhaps with peril. ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... the theories of political philosophers. But the Boers were, and are still, a strictly practical people. Their houses give them cover from sun and rain, but nothing more; there is little comfort and no elegance. So their institutions were the fewest and simplest under which men have ever governed themselves. It is therefore no theoretical attachment to democracy that has helped the Boers to resist the English; it is merely the wish to be left alone, ...
— Impressions of South Africa • James Bryce
... corruption that prevailed in the national life. But it is necessary, more especially with a view to judge correctly the influence of these comedies on the life of the Roman people, to point out the abyss which yawned beneath all that polish and elegance. The coarsenesses and obscenities, which Menander indeed in some measure avoided, but of which there is no lack in the other poets, are the least part of the evil. Features far worse are, the dreadful desolation of life in which the only oases are lovemaking ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... to Acton-Common, where he had a house furnished with great elegance—"kept a post-chaise, saddle-horses, and pointers—and fished, fowled, hunted, coursed, and lived in an easy independent manner." There he continued his irregular but rapid and energetic course of composition, pouring out poem after poem as if he felt his time to ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill
... invariably dropped her veil at my approach, her admirable movement, as she walked, or stooped to pick a flower, betrayed that conscious possession of beauty and habitual confidence in her own grace and elegance, which assured me of attractions worth taking trouble to know. By one of those "unavoidable accidents" which any respectable guardian angel will contrive, to oblige one, I was a visiter to the gentleman and lady—father and daughter—soon ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol. XXXII No. 2. February 1848 • Various
... our style and the fineness of our perception. Although we have been told to write news stories in the common every-day words of conversation, we are not so limited in the human interest story. The elegance of our style depends very largely upon the size of our vocabulary, and elegance is not out of place in this kind of story. Although we have been told to use dialogue sparingly in news stories, our human interest story may be composed entirely of dialogue. ...
— Newspaper Reporting and Correspondence - A Manual for Reporters, Correspondents, and Students of - Newspaper Writing • Grant Milnor Hyde
... ship-building, and extended the market for eastern wares in Europe. The products of Damascus, Mosul, Alexandria, Cairo, and other great cities were carried across the Mediterranean to the Italian seaports, whence they found their way into all European lands. The elegance of the Orient, with its silks, tapestries, precious stones, perfumes, spices, pearls, and ivory, was so enchanting that an enthusiastic crusader called it ...
— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER
... bearing testimony to their merits and capabilities. It appears to us impossible to produce instruments of the same size possessing a richer and finer tone, more elastic touch, or more equal temperament, while the elegance of their construction renders them a handsome ornament for the library, boudoir, or drawing-room. (Signed) J. L. Abel, F. Benedict, H. R. Bishop, J. Blewitt, J. Brizzi, T. P. Chipp, P. Delavanti, C. H. Dolby, E. F. Fitzwilliam, W. Forde, Stephen Glover, Henri ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 238, May 20, 1854 • Various
... Andrews talked volubly of the foreigner's ease and elegance and fastidious musical taste, and Mr. Manning listened courteously and bowed coldly in reply. When they reached home she invited him to dinner on the following Thursday, to ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... arrangement of the Improprieties frequent in Writing and Conversation, with Corrections for attaining to purity and elegance ...
— Christmas, A Happy Time - A Tale, Calculated for the Amusement and Instruction of Young Persons • Miss Mant
... has bequeathed to modern times, few have attained, at intervals, to such popularity; few have so gripped the interest of scholars and men of letters, as has this scintillating miscellany known as the Satyricon, ascribed by tradition to that Petronius who, at the court of Nero, acted as arbiter of elegance and dictator of fashion. The flashing, wit, the masterly touches which bring out the characters with all the detail of a fine old copper etching; the marvelous use of realism by this, its first prophet; the sure knowledge of the perspective and background best adapted to each episode; ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter
... has thawed a little since, and has permitted Annie to accept a gingham frock which I made for her, and some stockings and shoes. Such dainty little feet as hers are, and such a lovely child! I have scarcely ever seen one so beautiful, and it is not common beauty, but of the rarest sort, with elegance and refinement in every feature and movement. It is a thousand pities that she should be left here to grow up in poverty without education, or any of the things she was born to, for, as I told you in my last, the family was once wealthy, and Annie herself would be a great ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge
... the car comprised one long apartment with folding berths and benches for laying out the lithographs. At the far end was a steam boiler, used in making paste with which to post the bills. That compartment had nothing either of elegance or comfort. ...
— The Circus Boys on the Plains • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... distinction; in your trimmed and measured dress, he might be taken for a Frenchman. Do not think me flattering. You have conducted Eve from Paradise to Paris, and she really looks prettier and smarter than before she tripped. With what elegance she rises from a most awful dream! You represent her (I repeat your expression) as springing up en sursaut, as if you had caught her asleep and tickled the young creature ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... J. Bayard gives a caressin' pat to his Grand Duke whiskers and glances approvin' down at the patent leathers which finish off a costume that's the last word in afternoon elegance. You've seen a pet cat stretch himself luxurious after a full meal? Well, that's J. Bayard. He'd hypothecated the canary. If he hadn't been such a dear friend of mine too, I ...
— Shorty McCabe on the Job • Sewell Ford
... observed young Brown, who was rather pedantic; "he is my favourite among the poets. I have been accustomed to read him from my boyhood. I always admire his description of character. Who but a Cowper could have written that admirable extract just given to us by Mr. Burr, and which was read with such elegance?" ...
— Talkers - With Illustrations • John Bate
... that I were exempted from this miserable study! "Discipline" of the mind! Say rather starvation, confinement, torture, annihilation! But it must be. I feel myself becoming a personification of Algebra, a living trigonometrical canon, a walking table of Logarithms. All my perceptions of elegance and beauty gone, or at least going. By the end of the term my brain will be "as dry as the remainder biscuit after a voyage." Oh to change Cam for Isis! But such is my destiny; and, since it is so, be the pursuit contemptible, below contempt, ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan
... Petrarch, who lived some two centuries before Shakespeare. As written by him it was characterized by a complicated rime scheme,[5] {65} which gave each one of these short poems an atmosphere of unusual elegance and polish. ...
— An Introduction to Shakespeare • H. N. MacCracken
... pronounces, should be religious, or allegorical, or political; asserting the "Lutrin" of Boileau to be a trifle only in appearance, covering the deep political design of reforming the Popish Church!—With the yard of criticism he takes measure of the slender graces and tiny elegance of Pope's aerial machines, as "less considerable than the human persons, which is without precedent. Nothing can be so contemptible as the persons or so foolish as the understandings of these hobgoblins. Ariel's speech is one continued impertinence. After he has ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... like himself, her influence had always been great, and they had gone on together most happily. His two other children were of very inferior value. Mary had acquired a little artificial importance, by becoming Mrs Charles Musgrove; but Anne, with an elegance of mind and sweetness of character, which must have placed her high with any people of real understanding, was nobody with either father or sister; her word had no weight, her convenience was always to give way—she ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... published an account of his impressions of England, remarked: "The English take a great delight in the public gardens, near the metropolis, where they assemble and drink tea together in the open air. The number of these in the capital is amazing, and the order, regularity, neatness, and even elegance of them are truly admirable. They are, however, very rarely frequented by people of fashion; but the middle and lower ranks go there often, and seem much delighted with the music of an organ, which is usually played in an ...
— Dickens' London • Francis Miltoun
... the year of grace 1683, when the wife of Captain Oldfield, gentleman by birth and Royal Guardsman by profession, brought into the busy, unfeeling world of London a pretty mite of a girl. 'Twas a year of grace indeed, for the little stranger happened to be none other than Anne Oldfield, whose elegance of manner, charm of voice and action and loveliness of face would in time make her the most delightful comedienne of her day. Perhaps she found no instant welcome, this diminutive maiden who came smiling into existence laden with a message from ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins |
