"Mother-of-pearl" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... in pearls, mother-of-pearl, shells, shark fins, etc. [66] The Sultan, in Spanish times, had a sovereign right to all pearls found which exceeded a certain size fixed by Sulu law—hence it was very difficult to secure an extraordinary specimen. The Mahometans trade at great distances in their small craft, called vintas, ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... sat cross-legged. At each angle there rises a square vertical shaft supporting a canopy, with a minaret or pinnacle surmounted by a rich gold and jewelled finial. The entire height of the throne is nine or ten feet. The materials are precious woods, ebony, sandal-wood, etc., with shell, mother-of-pearl, silver, and gold. ...
— Threads of Grey and Gold • Myrtle Reed
... her cargo, for a cargo she carries. She has just arrived from a trading voyage to the South Sea Isles, extending to the Indian Archipelago, whence her lading—a varied assortment, consisting of tortoise-shell, spices, mother-of-pearl, Manilla cigars, and such other commodities as may be collected among the Oriental islands. Hence also the myas monkeys—better known as orang-outangs—seen playing about her deck. These she has ...
— The Flag of Distress - A Story of the South Sea • Mayne Reid
... a slit in the roof. This hollow in the wall goes as far as Timea's bedroom, where in former times Herr Brazovics' guests used to pass the night. The concealed passage ends in a glass door which is hidden from the room by a picture. This picture is a mother-of-pearl mosaic representing St. George and the dragon, and appears to be a votive image built into the wall. It has often been proposed to take the picture away, but Timea never would allow it. One of the pieces of mosaic can be slipped aside, and through the blank space everything that ...
— Timar's Two Worlds • Mr Jkai
... the earthquakes and hurricanes so frequent in this part of the world. They have all one story, with a ground-floor; the upper part, generally occupied by the family, is surrounded by a wide gallery, opened or shut by means of large sliding panels, the panes of which are thin mother-of-pearl. The mother-of-pearl permits the passage of light to the apartments, and excludes the heat of the sun. In the military town are all the monasteries and convents, the archbishopric, the courts of justice, the custom-house, the hospital, the governor's palace, and ...
— Adventures in the Philippine Islands • Paul P. de La Gironiere
... pottery, brasses, the curious embroidered hangings which line the tents of the chiefs, and other specimens of Arab art. One room reproduces a barber's shop in the bazaar, its benches covered with fine matting, the hanging mirror inlaid with mother-of-pearl, the razor-handles of silver niello. The horseshoe arches of the outer gallery look out on orange-blossoms, roses and the sea. It is all beautiful, calm and harmonious; and if one is tempted to mourn the absence of life and local colour, one has only to visit an abandoned Medersa to see that, ...
— In Morocco • Edith Wharton
... Lydia, naturally very inquisitive, and as slow as every Englishwoman is about undressing herself, moved over to the table, pretended she was looking for a pin, lifted up the mezzaro, and saw a long stiletto—curiously mounted in silver and mother-of-pearl. The workmanship was remarkably fine. It was an ancient weapon, and just the sort of one an amateur would have ...
— Columba • Prosper Merimee
... coach-builder's admiration of the sumptuous furniture provided by the amorous Denisart as a setting for his fair one, describing it all in detail with diabolical complacency for Antonia's benefit," continued Desroches. "The ebony chests inlaid with mother-of-pearl and gold wire, the Brussels carpets, a mediaeval bedstead worth three thousand francs, a Boule clock, candelabra in the four corners of the dining-room, silk curtains, on which Chinese patience had wrought pictures of birds, and hangings over the doors, worth more than ...
— A Man of Business • Honore de Balzac
... the Gad el-Khuraybah, the little inlet near the Gumruk ("custom-house"), as we called in waggery the shed of palm-fronds at the base of the eastern sandspit, lay five small Sambuks, which have not yet begun fishing for mother-of-pearl. Here we found sundry tents of the Tagaygat-Huwaytat, the half Fellahs that own and spoil the once goodly land; the dogs barked at us, but the men never thought of offering us hospitality. We had an admirable view of the Tihamah Mountains—Zahd, with its "nick;" the ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton
... only article on which the English smoker prided himself. It was made of various materials—wood, bone, ivory, mother-of-pearl, and silver: and the forms which it assumed were exceedingly diversified. Out of a collection of upwards of thirty tobacco-stoppers of different ages, from 1688 to the present time, the following are the most remarkable: a bear's tooth tipped with ...
— Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce • E. R. Billings
... gloomy ashen grey. On the slope on the further side they could see the rye—some in stacks and sheaves here and there as though strewn about by the storm, and some freshly cut lying in swathes; the oats, too, were ripe and glistened now in the sun like mother-of-pearl. It was harvest-time. To-day was a holiday, to-morrow they would harvest the rye and carry the hay, and then Sunday a holiday again; every day there were mutterings of distant thunder. It was misty and looked like rain, and, gazing now at the fields, everyone thought, God grant we ...
— The Witch and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... a high-shouldered young fellow, with a round red face, a short crop of sandy hair, a very broad humorous mouth, a turned-up nose, and a great sleeved waistcoat of purple bars, with mother-of-pearl buttons, that seemed to be growing upon him, and to be in a fair way—if it were not pruned—of covering his head and ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... eye most was his trousseau. Say! he was dressed to the minute, from the pink in his buttonhole, to the mother-of-pearl gloves; and the back of his frock coat had an in-curve such as your forty-fat sisters dream about. Why, as far as lines went, he had Jimmy Hackett and Robert Mantell on the back shelf. Oh, he was ...
— Shorty McCabe • Sewell Ford
... climb the stairs. He remembered the rooms that would seem bare enough to him now, he supposed, but were then filled with exciting possibilities—a little round brown table, his mother's work-box with mother-of-pearl shells upon the cover, a stuffed bird with bright blue feathers under a glass case, a screen with coloured pictures of battles and horses and elephants casted upon it. He remembered the exact sound that the tinkling bell made when it summoned them to meals, he remembered ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole
... stables, and his stud of sea-horses; but they are seldom made use of, except upon public feasts or rejoicing days. Some, after they have trained them, take delight in riding them, and show their skill and dexterity in races; others put them to chariots of mother-of-pearl, adorned with an infinite number of shells of all sorts, of the brightest colours. These chariots are open; and in the middle there is a throne upon which the king sits, and shows himself to his subjects. The horses are trained up to draw by themselves; so that there ...
— Fairy Tales From The Arabian Nights • E. Dixon
... all in English dresses, all rouged, and all with bad teeth: which you notice instantly from their contrast to the almost animal, too glossy mother-of-pearl whiteness and the regularity of the teeth of the laughing, loud-talking country-women and servant-girls, who with their clean white stockings and with slippers without heel quarters, tripped along the dirty streets, as if they were secured ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... on No. 2," I said, "I am using splinters of mother-of-pearl. Last week, with No. 1, I used a steel ring hanging by its rim to a shred of linen, two safeties, and a hairpin found on ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Nov. 14, 1917 • Various
... was made of a beautiful red copper that shone in the sunlight like burnished gold and seemed almost a dark red in the shadow. He had never seen anything half so fine before. The ceiling was of mother-of-pearl, with tints of red and blue and yellow and green, all blending into gleaming white, as only mother-of-pearl can. From the middle of this handsome ceiling hung a large gilded bird-cage containing a ...
— The Book of Stories for the Storyteller • Fanny E. Coe
... white hat, and I like a shawl round my neck wore loose and easy. Sitting down is my favourite posture. If I have a taste in point of personal jewelry, it is mother-of-pearl buttons. There you have me ...
— Doctor Marigold • Charles Dickens
... of late years, been denuded of its layers of capes, and is now cut for the sole purpose, apparently, of supporting perpendicular rows of wooden platters or mother-of-pearl counters, each of which would be nearly large enough for the top of a lady's work-table. Mackintosh-coats have, in some measure, superseded the box-coat; but, like carters' smock-frocks, they are all the creations of speculative minds, having the great advantage ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... rod. Collectively they weigh just a little over thirty pounds. Swimming against the current, they take the fly eagerly; and one cannot hope to land a more gaudy or more gamy fish. Its big dorsal fin is rainbow-tinct, the tail an iridescent blue, and the scales pure mother-of-pearl. Mr. Keele has had "The Complete Angler" for two years with him in the fastnesses, and as he helps us prepare the catch for our evening meal over the coals, quotes blithely that the grayling is eating fit only for ...
— The New North • Agnes Deans Cameron
... Try me sometime and see," said the girl. Apparently Tom believed there was no time like the present, for he slid his right hand under the left lapel of his coat, and when he brought it away there was a large single-action Colt's revolver in it—a massive weapon upon the mother-of-pearl handle plates of which were carved two steers' heads. Those steers' heads Tom had removed from a gun belonging to a famous bad man, suddenly deceased, and there was a story that ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... the speed with which the clouds above and the dim earth below went rushing past. But soon he began to see that the sky was very lovely, with mottled clouds all about the moon, on which she threw faint colours like those of mother-of-pearl, or an opal. The night was warm, and in the lady's arms he did not feel the wind which down below was making waves in the ripe corn, and ripples on the rivers and lakes. At length they descended on the side of ...
— At the Back of the North Wind • George MacDonald
... herald raised his eyes as seeking approval of one far off; his wings stirred, and spread slowly and majestically, on their upper side white as snow, in the shadow vari-tinted, like mother-of-pearl; when they were expanded many cubits beyond his stature, he arose lightly, and, without effort, floated out of view, taking the light up with him. Long after he was gone, down from the sky fell the refrain in measure mellowed by distance, "Glory to God in the ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace
... the pretty creatures next to the Carrara (who was not there) was Mrs. Bunbury; so that with her I was in love till one o'clock, and then came home to bed. The Duchess of Queensberry had a round gown of rose-colour, with a man's cape, which, with the stomacher and sleeves, was all trimmed with mother-of-pearl earrings. This Pindaric gown was a sudden thought to surprise the Duke, with whom she had dined in another dress. Did you ever see so ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various
... boats, beds, tables, caskets, and thrones gold or covered with gold plate, also inlaid with ivory, mother-of-pearl and colored wood so ornamentally that artists must have worked tens of years at them. There were weapons, shields and quivers glittering with jewels. There were pitchers, plates, and spoons of pure gold, costly ...
— The Pharaoh and the Priest - An Historical Novel of Ancient Egypt • Boleslaw Prus
... — N. semitransparency, translucency, semiopacity; opalescence, milkiness, pearliness^; gauze, muslin; film; mica, mother-of-pearl, nacre; mist &c (cloud) 353. [opalescent jewel] opal. turbidity &c 426.1. Adj. semitransparent, translucent, semipellucid^, semidiaphanous^, semiopacous^, semiopaque; opalescent, opaline^; pearly, milky; frosted, nacreous. V. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... guildhouse, the roof of which you can just descry rising above that maze of buildings, in the upper hall of justice, is a species of glass shrine, in which the relic is to be seen: a sword of curious workmanship, the blade is of keen Toledan steel, the heft of ivory and mother-of-pearl. 'Tis the sword of Cordova, won in the bloodiest fray off St. Vincent's promontory, and presented by Nelson to the old capital of the much-loved land of his birth. Yes, the proud Spaniard's sword is ...
— Souvenir of the George Borrow Celebration - Norwich, July 5th, 1913 • James Hooper
... window-panes are green," admitted Candace. "Some of them are so old that they have colors all over them like mother-of-pearl,—red and blue and yellow. I liked to see them; and she told us that last summer an architect who was going by the house stopped and looked at them a long time, and then rang the bell and offered to give her new sashes with great big panes in them if she would exchange; ...
— A Little Country Girl • Susan Coolidge
... below, then rose again and either flew aloft in wide and circling flight or rushed headlong upon the swarm once more. Across the iridescent cluster passed a gleam and glow of peacock and iris, opal and mother-of-pearl; while from its heart ascended a deep murmur, telling of tremendous and accumulated energy suddenly launched into this peaceful glade of apple-blossom and ambient green. The frenzy of the moment held all ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts
... went away, and at length she did somewhat relax—smiling, and in a moment growing grave; but after a while she really and truly laughed, and when the whole harem was shown to the visitors, she slipped her bare and dyed feet into her pattens, inlaid with mother-of-pearl, and joined them in the courts, nestling to them, and apparently losing the sense of her new position for a time; but there was less of the gaiety of a child about her than in the elderly widows. Her ...
— Celebrated Women Travellers of the Nineteenth Century • W. H. Davenport Adams
... lose sight of her own kith and kin. She saw Rosy swim past once or twice, and was gratified by constant glimpses of an active and radiant Truesdale. Once Statira Belden drove by in saffron satin and a mother-of-pearl tiara. "And that's her daughter with her," commented Jane. "And there's that girl from New York. And there goes her son—that smooth-faced little snip. Huh!—compare him ...
— With the Procession • Henry B. Fuller
... we had broad-water patches, in and out, inlaid on land, like mother-of-pearl in brown Shittim wood. To a wild duck, born and bred there, it would almost be a puzzle to find her own nest amongst us; what chance then had I and Kickums, both unused to marsh and mere? Each time when we thought that we ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... out of packing-boxes and cushions covered with Morris chintzes; or brown Windsor chairs, evidently imported straight from the kitchen. A battered old writing-desk had an incongruous look when placed next to a costly buhl clock on a table inlaid indeed with mother-of-pearl, but wanting in one leg; and so no valuable blue china was apt to pass unobserved upon the mantelpiece because it was generally found in company with a child's mug, a plate of crusts, or a painting-rag. ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... Maori hero, invented barbs for hooks, angling has been essentially one and the same thing. South Sea islanders spin for fish with a mother-of-pearl lure which is also a hook, and answers to our spoon. We have hooks of stone, and hooks of bone; and a bronze hook, found in Ireland, has the familiar Limerick bend. What Homer meant by making anglers throw 'the horn of an ox of the stall' into the sea, we can only guess; perhaps a horn minnow is ...
— Andrew Lang's Introduction to The Compleat Angler • Andrew Lang
... the water, the other would lead him back to camp. Once or twice Dol got away from the trail, but he quickly found it again; and in due time emerged from the forest twilight into the broad glare of the sun, to see Squaw Pond lying before him like a miniature mother-of-pearl sea, so protected by its evergreen woods that scarcely a ...
— Camp and Trail - A Story of the Maine Woods • Isabel Hornibrook
... bit of writing, which looked as if he were fast forgetting the art. It bade Ambrose inform his mother and all his friends and kin that he was well and coming to preferment, and inclosed for Aldonza a small mother-of-pearl cross blessed by the Pope. Giles added that he should bring her finer gifts ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte M. Yonge
... had spent all her own, obtained the two jars in potichomanie, and was regarding them with a face worth painting. Harvey Anderson had a doll, George Rivers a wooden monkey, that jumped over a stick; and, if Hector Ernescliffe was enchanted at winning a beautiful mother-of-pearl inlaid workbox, which he had vainly wished to buy for Margaret, Flora only gained a match-box of her own, well known always to miss fire, but which had been decided to be good enough ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... would greet her in a sugary voice; but elsewhere Olive was tremendously admired, there were always men about her, serenades rising from the lawn beneath her window, and Laurel herself had seen Olive's dressing table laden with bouquets in frilly lace paper. She had one now, in a holder of mother-of-pearl, with a gilt chain and ring. Her wide skirt was a mass of over-drapery, knots of moss roses and green gauze ribbons; while a silver cord ending in a tassel fell ...
— Java Head • Joseph Hergesheimer
... with the view of ascertaining if he were quite correctly put together, while Gluck stood contemplating him in speechless amazement. He was dressed in a stashed doublet of spun gold, so fine in its texture, that the prismatic colours gleamed over it, as if on a surface of mother-of-pearl; and, over this brilliant doublet, his hair and beard fell full halfway to the ground, in waving curls, so exquisitely delicate that Gluck could hardly tell where they ended; they seemed to melt into air. The features of the face, however, were by no means ...
— Famous Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... an air of distrustful inscrutability. The hand which took my letter was very large, very white, and looked as if it would feel horribly flabby. With the other he put on his nose a pair of enormous mother-of-pearl-framed spectacles—things exactly like those of a cobra's—and began to read. He had said precisely nothing at all. It was for him and what he represented that I had thrown over Carlos and what he represented. I felt that I deserved to be received with acclamation. ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... that produce textiles, soap, olive-wood carvings, and mother-of-pearl souvenirs; the Israelis have established some small-scale modern ...
— The 2001 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... Italians. The manufacture of Lutes, Viols, and Guitars in Germany had in 1650, or a little later, reached its zenith, and the exquisite pieces of workmanship, in the shape of Lutes, Viols da Gamba, and Viols d'Amore, richly inlaid with mother-of-pearl, ivory, and tortoiseshell, made at this period, evidence the high state of ...
— The Violin - Its Famous Makers and Their Imitators • George Hart
... charms. But there is also the utilitarian view, and a new form of charm will sometimes become popular, just as a new sanctuary becomes popular, because it is reported to have been effective in some particular case. Probably no change of fashion will ever banish horns made of coral or mother-of-pearl; being pointed, they are supposed to attract and break up the evil glance as a lightning conductor is supposed to attract and break up ...
— Diversions in Sicily • H. Festing Jones
... the present commercial product, but who probably borrowed the original idea from the Chinese, call to their assistance the pearl oyster itself. The oysters are gently opened, small hemispherical discs of mother-of-pearl are introduced between shell and mantle and the oyster replanted. The foreign material is coated by the oyster with true pearly layers as usual, and after several years a sufficiently thick accumulation of pearly layers is thus deposited on the nucleus so that the oyster may be gathered ...
— A Text-Book of Precious Stones for Jewelers and the Gem-Loving Public • Frank Bertram Wade
... the tomb is surrounded by a garden of thirteen acres. Farther on, was the Tomb of a Saint, a perfect gem! It is built of white marble, is eighteen feet square, and is surrounded by a broad veranda. Around the covered grave there is a low marble rail, and over it a beautiful canopy, inlaid with mother-of-pearl; in the walls are finely pierced screens. Near this tomb is a handsome red sandstone mosque, called Jumat Khana, and in the vicinity are a number of other important tombs of artistic design, two having elaborately carved marble doors, the ...
— Travels in the Far East • Ellen Mary Hayes Peck
... finished by coming forward with one of the smaller things in his hand, which he offered personally to Louis, and then shook hands with us all and retired. Among these smaller presents were many fish-hooks for large fishing, laboriously carved from mother-of-pearl shell. One man came with one egg in each hand saying 'carry these to Scotland with you, let them hatch into cocks, and their song shall remind you of Tautira.' The schoolmaster, with a leaf-basket of rose apples, made his ...
— The Life of Robert Louis Stevenson for Boys and Girls • Jacqueline M. Overton
... broad-minded man, for we found paintings of the Annunciation side by side with pictures of the Hindu god Ganesh. It is intensely interesting to see the place just as it was hundreds of years ago. In the great Mosque Quadrangle there is a marble mausoleum, delicately carved, a priceless piece of work in mother-of-pearl, erected to Akbar's high priest; and our guide was his lineal descendant, glad to get five rupees for ...
— Olivia in India • O. Douglas
... though: it can't go on like this," he said, trying to give himself courage. He squared his chest, took out a cigarette, took two whiffs at it, flung it into a mother-of-pearl ashtray, and with rapid steps walked through the drawing room, and opened the other door into his ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... tiny table of mother-of-pearl was brought, and on it some exquisite little striped porcelain cups, standing not in saucers, but in silver filigree cups into which they exactly fitted. Lucy remembered her Chinese experience, and did not venture to ask for milk or sugar, but she ...
— Little Lucy's Wonderful Globe • Charlotte M. Yonge
... gave utterance to her feelings, her attention was attracted by a pair of scrolls of black lacquer, inlaid with mother-of-pearl, suspended on the pillars, and she asked Hsiang-yuen to tell her what the ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... is devoted to scented bottles—the intervening ones, containing perfumed head-dresses, formed of braids of ribands and gold lace, which descend to the ground. A warehouse of Turkish tables exhibited the luxurious ingenuity of the workers in mother-of-pearl. They were richly wrought in gold and silver ornaments. Within seven miles of Cairo, there still exists a wonder of the old time, which must have made a great figure in the Arab legends—a petrified forest lying in the desert, and which, to complete the wonder, it is evident ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 57, No. 352, February 1845 • Various
... her attention, and interrogatively held up a decanter of wine and a glass. She started as the sound struck on her delicate nerves; and, looking at young Thorpe directly, signed that she did not wish for any wine. The sudden movement of her body thus occasioned, shook off her lap a little mother-of-pearl bodkin case, which lay more than half out of one of the pockets of her apron. The bodkin case rolled under the stool, without her seeing it, for she was looking towards the supper-table: without being observed by Mat, for his eyes were following the direction of her's: without being heard by ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... the past centuries whose work was superb, but the twenty-eight are deemed to be the immortals of this particular art. One of these great men, Ogawa Ritsuo, is famous for the number and variety of the materials—mother-of-pearl, coral, tortoise-shell, &c. &c., he used in his work. A profuse richness is its chief characteristic. One of his pupils imitated in his work various materials—pottery and wood-carving, and bronzes. The last famous artist in lacquer, Watanobe Tosu, died ...
— The Empire of the East • H. B. Montgomery
... the suggestion absurd. Joseph was always clean shaven; this youth had a smudgy moustache and a pair of incipient red whiskers. He was dressed in the loudest check suit I have ever seen, off the stage. He wore patent-leather boots with mother-of-pearl buttons, and a necktie that in an earlier age would have called down lightning out of Heaven. He had a low-crowned billycock hat on his head, and a big evil-smelling cigar ...
— Novel Notes • Jerome K. Jerome
... burst into the room. Sir Chichester, with larger mother-of-pearl buttons on his fawn-coloured overcoat than ever decorated even a welshing bookmaker on Brighton Downs, led Hillyard up ...
— The Summons • A.E.W. Mason
... has a pearl-grey tint; while, at the zenith, purple clouds, like the tufts of a gigantic mane, stretch over the blue vault. These purple streaks grow browner; the patches of blue assume the paleness of mother-of-pearl. The bushes, the pebbles, the earth, now wear the hard colour of bronze, and through space floats a golden dust so fine that it is scarcely distinguishable from the ...
— The Temptation of St. Antony - or A Revelation of the Soul • Gustave Flaubert
... 17th century tarsia was more used for domestic furniture than for stationary decoration. The character of the design changed in consequence, and mother-of-pearl, ivory, tortoiseshell, silver, and other materials were used. The first Tuscan, or one of the first who did so was Andrea Massari of Siena. A few works in tarsia were still executed, but none of much importance. ...
— Intarsia and Marquetry • F. Hamilton Jackson
... indeed heard without, inquiring of nobody in a blandly conversational tone as she advances: 'Eh? Indeed! Are you quite sure you saw my mother-of-pearl button-holder on the work-table in my room?' is at once solicited for walking leave, and graciously accords it. And soon the young couple go out of the Nuns' House, taking all precautions against the discovery of the so vitally defective boots of Mr. Edwin Drood: precautions, ...
— The Mystery of Edwin Drood • Charles Dickens
... holds that somewhere there is a flower to be plucked, a lamp to be rubbed, or a form of words to be spoken which will reverse the humdrum laws of Nature, call up unwilling spirits bound to incredible services, and change all this brown life of ours to scarlet and azure and mother-of-pearl. Little by little, even our children are losing this happy gift of believing the incredible, and that class of writing which seems to require less effort than any other, and to be a mere spinning of gold thread ...
— Gossip in a Library • Edmund Gosse
... upon the bed a complete dress of the Incroyable of the very latest fashion. It consisted of a short coat, cut square across the front and long behind, of a soft shade between a pale-green and a pearl-gray; a waistcoat of buff plush, with eighteen mother-of-pearl buttons; an immense white cravat of the finest cambric; light trousers of white cashmere, decorated with a knot of ribbon where they buttoned above the calves, and pearl-gray silk stockings, striped transversely with the same green as the coat, and delicate pumps ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas
... be hers; but at least no facile or mediocre attachments should fill his place. So at once there is posted a letter, as kind as cruelty can make it, and with it go a little ormolu clock, a pair of mother-of-pearl opera-glasses, a lovely fan it was hard, Isabel, to part with,—and there is an end ...
— The Romance of Zion Chapel [3d ed.] • Richard Le Gallienne
... rose as we entered and pressed us to take a seat with them, and when we would not, the father and grown-up son showed us into the guest-room and seated us on the opium-dais under the canopy. The opium-lamps were already lit; on a beautiful tray inlaid with mother-of-pearl there were pipes for visitors, and phials of prepared opium. Here we insisted on their leaving us and returning to their supper; they finished speedily and returned to their visitors. We were given good tea and afterwards a single cigar was handed to ...
— An Australian in China - Being the Narrative of a Quiet Journey Across China to Burma • George Ernest Morrison
... scanned most carefully as the boat skimmed along, my uncle steering, and after trying the sharpness of the hooks he performed what always seemed to me a conjuring trick, in bringing a couple of mother-of-pearl baits out of his waist-cloth, with a ...
— Nat the Naturalist - A Boy's Adventures in the Eastern Seas • G. Manville Fenn
... evening a carriage was at their disposal, and they visited the theatre and the opera. We can easily realise the excitement and joy Balzac felt in showing them all his treasures—the bust by David D'Angers, the precious Medici furniture of ebony encrusted with mother-of-pearl, the Cellini statuettes, and the pictures by ...
— Honore de Balzac, His Life and Writings • Mary F. Sandars
... the present day; Romans, distinguishable among the others for a certain dash that artists call flafla; Spanish wreaths in bold relief; Flemings and Germans with quaint figures, tortoise-shell frames inlaid with copper and brass and mother-of-pearl and ivory; frames of ebony and boxwood in the styles of Louis Treize, Louis Quatorze, Louis Quinze, and Louis Seize—in short, it was a unique collection of the finest models. Pons, luckier than the art museums of Dresden and Vienna, possessed ...
— Cousin Pons • Honore de Balzac
... unrenewed air of a room that was never used. On a large centre table a number of artistic objects were lying together in a promiscuous jumble: Japanese knick-knacks; an ivory card-case that had lost its cover, and a broken- bladed paper-knife; glove and collar and work-boxes of sandal-wood, mother-of-pearl, and papier-mache, with broken hinges; faded fans and chipped paper-weights; gorgeous picture-books with loosened covers, and a magnificent portrait-album which had been deflowered and had nothing left in it ...
— Fan • Henry Harford
... his orders to the boatmen, dived briskly into the little cabin, and reappeared with a concertina in his hand. "Neat, Miss Milroy, isn't it?" he observed, pointing to his initials, inlaid on the instrument in mother-of-pearl. "My name's Augustus, like my father's. Some of my friends knock off the 'A,' and call me 'Gustus Junior.' A small joke goes a long way among friends, doesn't it, Mr. Armadale? I sing a little to my own accompaniment, ladies and gentlemen; and, if quite agreeable, ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... lacquered and carved cabinets and tables. The wall space above these was pictureless, but two great ivory tusks were crossed over a doorway. Above the fireplace rows of weapons were ranged—queer swords and daggers with gold and mother-of-pearl on their hilts, a ship's cutlass, several scimitars, and the strangest guns and pistols. Chicken Little was fascinated with the frightful array. A huge bearskin lay on the floor among strange, beautifully colored ...
— Chicken Little Jane on the Big John • Lily Munsell Ritchie
... fleecy clouds covered the heavens to the southeast, but in the blue between a huge rift the sun shone down benignly. And in its bright rays they could count nine islands and islets, sprinkled here and there like emeralds in a sparkling sheet of mother-of-pearl. It needed only a glance at the chart to tell them that these were the Samoan group, and a little searching also told them that the nearest large one ...
— Around the World in Ten Days • Chelsea Curtis Fraser
... artistic playthings, porcelain figures, suggested a child amused with dolls yet; but a multitude of large books in gilt bindings suggested the active and methodical development of a young mind, which surely had dreams of Paradise on that lace and satin bed which covered a bedstead inlaid with mother-of-pearl. On all the furniture: small arm-chairs, tables, screens, which reminded one of butterfly-wings, mother-of-pearl rainbow-tints passed into milk-white. Spring tones, joyous motives, light and graceful ...
— The Argonauts • Eliza Orzeszko (AKA Orzeszkowa)
... clear looking-glass, ornamented with columns and little images of alabaster; a portrait of Edward VI., brother to Queen Elizabeth; the true portrait of Lucretia; a picture of the battle of Pavia; the history of Christ's passion, carved in mother-of-pearl; the portraits of Mary Queen of Scots, who was beheaded, and her daughter; {17} the picture of Ferdinand, Prince of Spain, and of Philip his son; that of Henry VIII.—under it was placed the Bible curiously written upon ...
— Travels in England and Fragmenta Regalia • Paul Hentzner and Sir Robert Naunton
... sheep-skins round the tent, and by one of these three women were standing. Two of these were richly dressed in gowns of handsome striped materials. They wore head-dresses of silver work with beads of malachite and mother-of-pearl, and had heavy silver ornaments hanging on their breasts. Their hair fell down their backs in two thick braids. The other woman was evidently of inferior rank. All were leaning over a pile of skins covered with costly furs, on ...
— Condemned as a Nihilist - A Story of Escape from Siberia • George Alfred Henty
... Islands consists chiefly of pearls, mother-of-pearl shell, tortoise-shell, birds of paradise, and Trepang; but the trade of Dobbo is not dependent on the productions of the Arrou Islands alone. The Bughis proas import large quantities of British calico, iron, hardware, muskets, gunpowder, ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 2 • John Lort Stokes
... coat were shiny, the sleeves were short, there was a pucker across the shoulders; the winged-collar gave evidence of having gone to the native laundry once too often; the studs in the shirt-bosom were of the cheapest mother-of-pearl, and the cuff-buttons, ordinary rupee silver. The ensemble suggested that since the purchase of these habiliments of civilization the man ...
— Parrot & Co. • Harold MacGrath
... good old merchant, over whose shoulder we were peeping, while he read the newspaper. Let us now suppose him putting on his three-cornered gold-laced hat, grasping his cane, with a head inlaid of ebony and mother-of-pearl, and setting forth, through the crooked streets of Boston, on various errands, suggested by the advertisements of the day. Thus he communes with himself: I must be mindful, says he, to call at Captain Scut's, in Creek Lane, and examine his rich velvet, whether it be fit for my apparel ...
— Old News - (From: "The Snow Image and Other Twice-Told Tales") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... thicker, uglier and uglier; till no heart any longer can be felt beating through them, so thick, callous, calcified are they; and all over it has now grown mere calcified oyster-shell, or were it polished mother-of-pearl, inwards almost to the very heart of the poor man:—yes then, you may say, his usefulness once more is quite obstructed; once more, he cannot go abroad and do business in the world; it is time that he take to bed, and prepare for departure, ...
— Past and Present - Thomas Carlyle's Collected Works, Vol. XIII. • Thomas Carlyle
... window, up one street and down another, crying aloud each time for joy when she saw pretty things displayed. They bought white slippers with little bows, a splendid wreath of white lilies of the valley, a great veil of woven lace, a white-ivory prayer-book, a mother-of-pearl rosary with a little glass peep-hole in the silver crucifix, showing all manner of pretty things. Horieneke sighed with happiness. Mother haggled and bargained, said within herself that it was "foolishness to waste all that money," but bought and went on buying; and, ...
— The Path of Life • Stijn Streuvels
... Claire's garments had been purchased with a lavish hand, the only anxiety being to secure the most becoming specimen of its kind. There were long crinkly gloves, and a lace handkerchief, and a fan composed of curling feathers and mother-of-pearl sticks, and a dainty bag hanging by golden cords, and a cloak of the newest shape, composed of layers of different-tinted chiffons, which looked more like a cloud at sunset than a garment manufactured by human hands and supposed to ...
— The Independence of Claire • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... incoherent clay, the fossils which it envelops become not unfrequently wholly detached from it, so that, on a smart blow dealt by the hammer, they leap out entire, resembling, from the degree of compression which they exhibit, those mimic fishes carved out of plates of ivory or of mother-of-pearl, which are used as counters in some of the games of China or the East Indies. The material of which they are composed, a brittle jet, though better suited than the stone to resist the disintegrating influences, is in most cases greatly too fragile for preservation. One may, however, acquire ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller
... after this, as the king wished to see all my scientific instruments, we walked down to the camp; and as he did not beg for anything, I gave him some gold and mother-of-pearl shirt studs to swell up his trinket-box. The same evening I made up my mind, if possible, to purchase a stock of beads from the Arabs, and sent Baraka off to Kufro, to see what kind of a bargain ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... of lapis-lazuli, there were scattered boxes of jewels, their lids precisely enamelled; several scent boxes of rock crystal, and other implements and utensils of the toilet, some formed of shells, some of mother-of-pearl, and others of ivory, covered with ornaments of gold in extraordinary taste. Two large figures, modelled in silver with antique purity; supported an oval swing mirror, which had for its rim, in place of a frame curiously carved, a fresh garland of natural flowers, renewed every ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... intoxicating rhythm of the song. Slowly and with great dignity they entered the clearing and stood, a score of slender creatures, in the full blaze of the moon, their lithe-limbed bodies clad only in delicate mother-of-pearl rigolos. ...
— The Cruise of the Kawa • Walter E. Traprock
... quivering about them, page 420. f. A clear metallic voice, page 420. g. Like that of a kettle on the boil, page 421. h. As smooth and polished as a river, page 421. i. The prismatic colors gleamed over it, as if on a surface of mother-of-pearl, page 422. j. In order to allow time for the consternation ... to evaporate, ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 10 - The Guide • Charles Herbert Sylvester
... Spanish, for you were even then studying in the Ateneo. [44] I paid no attention, but amused myself by running after the needle-like dragon-flies and the butterflies with their rainbow colors and tints of mother-of-pearl as they swarmed about among the flowers. Sometimes I tried to surprise them with my hands or to catch the little fishes that slipped rapidly about amongst the moss and stones in the edge of the water. Once you disappeared suddenly and ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... blooms, now and then, pale as an opal; the white sea is the flower of the breathless midsummer. And in its clear, silent waters, a few days, in the culmination of the heat, bring forth translucent living creatures, many-shaped jelly-fish, coloured like mother-of-pearl. ...
— The Rhythm of Life • Alice Meynell
... a little round black cap, from which escapes his pigtail. He stands bowing before us and shaking hands with himself, which, as a method of greeting, is perhaps better than our own way. He takes us into a dark gloomy room full of cabinets of black lacquer richly decorated with gold and mother-of-pearl. There are sombre carved wood chairs set back against the wall. It is all very costly, but to us it seems uncomfortable and funereal. The chief things that attract us are rows of little red pieces of paper of odd lengths hanging ...
— Round the Wonderful World • G. E. Mitton
... neither large nor in plenty. They find conchs, mussels, and other shellfish on the reef, which they gather at low-water, and eat raw with bread-fruit before they come on shore. They have also very fine cray-fish, and they catch with lines, and hooks of mother-of-pearl, at a little distance from the shore, parrrot-fish, groopers, and many other sorts, of which they are so fond that we could seldom prevail upon them to sell us a few at any price. They have also nets of an enormous size, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 12 • Robert Kerr
... surrounded by massive railings of pure silver; monster wax candles are standing at the head and foot of each coffin, in curiously wrought candlesticks of solid silver that must weigh a hundred pounds each at least; ranged around the room are silver caskets, inlaid with mother-of-pearl, in which rare illumined copies of the Koran are carefully kept, the attendant who opened one for my inspection using a silk pocket-handkerchief to turn the leaves. The Stamboul Bazaar well deserves its renown, since there is nothing ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... including articles exclusively used in their manufacture, and varnish; (11) bleaching powder, soda ash, caustic soda, salt cake, ammonia, sulphate of ammonia and sulphate of copper; (12) agricultural, mining, textile and printing machinery; (13) precious and semiprecious stones, pearls, mother-of-pearl and coral; (14) clocks and watches, other than chronometers; (15) fashion and fancy goods; (16) feathers of all kinds, hairs and bristles; (17) articles of household furniture and ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 7, Slice 2 - "Constantine Pavlovich" to "Convention" • Various
... resorted to by cabinet-makers who copied mosaics with their inlaying, and invented that form known as pietra-dura—polished bits of marble, agates, pebbles and lapis lazuli. Ivory was carved and used as bas-reliefs and ivory and tortoise shell, brass and mother-of-pearl used as inlay. Elaborate Arabesque designs inlaid were souvenirs of the Orient, and where the cabinetmaker's saw left a line, the cuts were filled in with black wood or stained glue, which brought ...
— The Art of Interior Decoration • Grace Wood
... moon; and the sea was mother-of-pearl. Almost every sound was hushed, for the air was but faintly stirring; and the town lay panting, waiting for the night to cool. Offshore lay the fruit steamer Andador, of the Vesuvius line, full-laden and scheduled to sail at six in the ...
— Cabbages and Kings • O. Henry
... forest in a region whose lowlands were once all sylvan chase, as its highlands were breast-deep heather—slept the shadow of a cloud; the distant hills were dappled, the horizon was shaded and tinted like mother-of-pearl; silvery blues, soft purples, evanescent greens and rose-shades, all melting into fleeces of white cloud, pure as azury snow, allured the eye with a remote glimpse of heaven's foundations. The air blowing on the brow was ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... clasping the trunk with his arms, arching his body with the feet against the tree, and then walking up precisely in the mode of the Torres Strait Islanders. Like these last people too, they open the nut with a sharp stick, and use a shell (a piece of mother-of-pearl oyster) for scraping out the pulp. After a stay of half an hour we returned to the boat leaving the natives in good humour. Our search for a safe anchorage for the ship was unsuccessful, ...
— Narrative Of The Voyage Of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Commanded By The Late Captain Owen Stanley, R.N., F.R.S. Etc. During The Years 1846-1850. Including Discoveries And Surveys In New Guinea, The Louisiade • John MacGillivray
... in the long parlor, playing Patience. She was sitting in a straight-backed chair,—for Mrs. Dale scorned the weakness of a rocking-chair,—before a spindle-legged table, covered with green baize and with a cherry-wood rim inlaid with mother-of-pearl and ivory. On it were thirteen groups of cards, arranged with geometrical exactness at ...
— John Ward, Preacher • Margaret Deland
... child my own mother-of-pearl beads, mounted in silver, and was glad I had it to give. The children moved away, murmuring the ...
— My New Curate • P.A. Sheehan
... informally into a large white-and-gold reception-room, with inhospitable chairs and settees whose satin slipperiness offered no inducements to sit down. There were gold-lacquered tables and a curious concert-grand piano, also gold inlaid with mother-of-pearl cupids and flowers. Everything was most elaborate. Gila, in her soft transparencies, looked like a wraith amid it all. The young man chose to think she was too rare and fine for ...
— The Witness • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... at that point of the compass showed the glow of the false dawn. Down in the cove the night mist wrapped the shipping about in an almost opaque veil. Only the lofty tops of craft like the Seamew were visible, black streaks against the mother-of-pearl sky line. ...
— Sheila of Big Wreck Cove - A Story of Cape Cod • James A. Cooper
... (fortunes so vast that the owners cannot trust even the strong hand of the Government to protect them, but take refuge in the waterless sands), and drive sumptuous C-spring barouches, and buy beautiful girls and decorate their palaces with gold and ivory and Minton tiles and mother-of-pearl, I do not see why Jukes's tale should not be true. He is a Civil Engineer, with a head for plans and distances and things of that kind, and he certainly would not take the trouble to invent imaginary traps. He could earn more by doing his legitimate work. He never ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... of the Pacific islanders, made of mother-of-pearl, with hair tufts, serving at once both as ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... became fire; the fire lit up a heaven of chrysoprase and rose. Where the lake had been as a metal mirror for the stars, it rippled and dimpled and gleamed with the tints of mother-of-pearl. He knew the sun must be on the farther slope of the Green Mountains, because the face they turned toward him was dense in shadow, like the unilluminated portion of the moon. On the western shore the Adirondacks were rising out of the bath of ...
— The Wild Olive • Basil King
... overlapped at the back. I also glue a small piece of leather on the left-hand side of the bow above the handle to prevent the arrow chafing the wood at this spot. This is called the arrow plate and usually is made of mother-of-pearl or bone; leather is better. These finishing pieces are wrapped temporarily with string until ...
— Hunting with the Bow and Arrow • Saxton Pope
... spectroscope splits up light-waves into their colours. But nature is constantly splitting the light into its different-lengthed waves, its colours. The rainbow, where dense moisture in the air acts as a spectroscope, is the most familiar example. A piece of mother-of-pearl, or even a film of oil on the street or on water, has the same effect, owing to the fine inequalities in its surface. The atmosphere all day long is sorting out the waves. The blue "sky" overhead means that the fine particles in the upper atmosphere catch the shorter waves, ...
— The Outline of Science, Vol. 1 (of 4) - A Plain Story Simply Told • J. Arthur Thomson
... slightest possible tint of amber, meandered an imperceptible network of blue veins; the mouth, fresh as a flower, ripe and ruddy as a fruit, slightly opened by a half smile, and illuminated by a gleam of mother-of-pearl; and above all, the eyes, whose glances, passing between a thick double fringe of black lashes, possessed an irresistible fascination. It was the Greek form with the Arab character: the style of beauty would have had something startling in a London or Paris drawing-room, but ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, No. 382, October 1847 • Various
... which stood close at hand, with its low gable toward him. Late summer still lorded it in the land; only a few fleecy clouds shared the blue of the sky with the ripening sun, and on the hot ridges the air pulsed and trembled, like vaporized layers of mother-of-pearl. ...
— Salted With Fire • George MacDonald
... the more fragile substance, which would account for their destruction. In this case their ornamentation may have been either by carving or painting, the bosses and rosettes being perhaps in some cases of metal, mother-of-pearl, or ivory. Ornaments of this kind were discovered by hundreds at Nimrud in a chamber which contained arms of many descriptions. Quivers have in some cases a curious rounded head, which seems to have been a lid ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 2. (of 7): Assyria • George Rawlinson
... quarter of an hour the coach was back. The Fairy, who was waiting at the door of the house, lifted the poor little Marionette in her arms, took him to a dainty room with mother-of-pearl walls, put him to bed, and sent immediately for the most famous doctors of the neighborhood ...
— The Adventures of Pinocchio • C. Collodi—Pseudonym of Carlo Lorenzini
... absence of metal, and the occurrence of stone implements, are important. But it must be remembered that stone was used long into the 'Bronze' Age, and contemporaneously with copper. There is no sudden break between the two periods. Fragments of shell and mother-of-pearl, often with incised designs, are very characteristic of the earliest period. Coins are of late date; a tell with coins on it is certain to contain buildings as late as the fourth or third century B.C. (though it may also contain far older buildings as well). One ...
— How to Observe in Archaeology • Various
... Henri de Prerolles approached a sort of counter, and, drawing from his pocket thirty thousand francs in bank-notes, he exchanged them for their value in mother-of-pearl "chips" of different sizes, representing sums from one to five, ten, twenty-five, or a hundred louis. Paul Landry took twenty-five thousand francs' worth; Constantin Unaieff, fifteen thousand; the others, less fortunate or more prudent, took smaller sums; and about midnight ...
— Zibeline, Complete • Phillipe de Massa
... for their extraordinary diving. Speaking of the inhabitants of the island of Fakaraya, near Tahiti, de la Quesnerie says that the pearl-fishers do not hesitate to dive to the depth even of 100 feet after their coveted prizes. On the Ceylon coast the mother-of-pearl fishers are under the direction of the English Government, which limits the duration and the practice of this occupation. These divers are generally Cingalese, who practice the exercise from infancy. As many as 500 small boats can be seen ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... in another noise-way. From the veranda he had seen him fling sticks of exploding dynamite into a screeching mass of blacks who had come raiding from the Beyond in the long war canoes, beaked and black, carved and inlaid with mother-of-pearl, which they had left hauled up on the beach at ...
— Jerry of the Islands • Jack London
... quite the countess of Hanny's description. Mr. Gerard brought her some rare and pretty articles to examine. The others strolled around, the children uttering ejaculations of delight. Such elegant fans and card cases and mother-of-pearl portemonnaies bound with silver and steel! Such vases and card receivers—indeed, all the pretty bric-a-brac, as ...
— A Little Girl in Old New York • Amanda Millie Douglas
... all over, the colour of mother-of-pearl; only the inner side of her wings glowed with the tender flush of an opening rose; a wreath of valley lilies entwined the scattered curls upon her little round head; and, like a butterfly's feelers, two peacock feathers waved drolly above her ...
— Dream Tales and Prose Poems • Ivan Turgenev
... the noise made by a stone falling into a well. The young woman nervously pressed my hand, as if she were trying to avoid a precipice, and shivered when that man, at whom she happened to be looking, turned upon her two lifeless, sea-green eyes, which could be compared to nothing save tarnished mother-of-pearl. ...
— Sarrasine • Honore de Balzac
... of your life put together, I would tell you what sort of face Puppet's was; that it was a bright face, with blue eyes, just the color of the blue ribbon that went first round the guitar's neck, and then round Puppet's; that Puppet's teeth were as white as the mother-of-pearl pegs that held her guitar strings at the bottom; that her cheeks were as white as the ivory keys; that her hair was long, and yellow—just the shade ...
— Happy Days for Boys and Girls • Various
... almost the whole produce comes to Macassar in native vessels. These islands are quite out of the track of all European trade, and are inhabited only by black mop-headed savages, who yet contribute to the luxurious tastes of the most civilized races. Pearls, mother-of-pearl, and tortoiseshell find their way to Europe, while edible birds' nests and "tripang" or sea-slug are obtained by shiploads for the ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume II. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... background has been used with pleasing effect to exhibit the various forms of shells. The process of making pearl buttons and numerous articles made of mother-of-pearl add largely to the ...
— Library Work with Children • Alice I. Hazeltine
... geometrical designs—yet each separate piece plays well its part in working out the harmonious and decidedly pretty effect of the whole. All the furniture the large apartment boasts is a crimson-and-gold divan or two, a few strips of rich carpet, and an ebony stand-table, inlaid with mother-of-pearl; but suspended from the ceiling are several magnificent cut-glass chandeliers. At night, when these Persian mirrored rooms are lit up, they present a scene of barbaric splendor well calculated to delight the eye of the sumptuous Oriental; every tiny square ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... at many shops and fingered the cheap silver toys, the little blue and green Ikons, the buckles and beads and rosaries that thronged the trays, but I could not find anything for Nina. Then suddenly I saw a square box of mother-of-pearl and silver, so charming and simple, the figures on the silver lid so gracefully carved that I ...
— The Secret City • Hugh Walpole |
