"Motley" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... my custom invites A stroll in old London for curious sights, I am likely to stray by a devious way Where goodies are spread in a motley array, The things which some eyes would appear to despise Impress me as pathos in homely disguise, And my battered waif-friend shall have pennies to spend, So long as I've got 'em (or chums that will lend); And the urchin shall share in my joy and declare That ...
— Songs and Other Verse • Eugene Field
... A motley throng—a motley throng! Prince and beggar, sinner and saint, butcher and baker and candlestick maker, tinkers and tailors, and plowboys and sailors—all jostling along together. Here the counsel in his wig and gown, and here the ...
— Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow • Jerome K. Jerome
... Causerie, there's an aim Which many know and some might even name; But see yon motley muster, Like shades in Eblis wandering up and down! Types there of every 'Show Class' in the Town Elbow and glide ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, January 25th, 1890 • Various
... night of ages strike the gleams, And leading on the gilded host appears An old man writing in a book of dreams, And telling tales of lovers for the years; Still Troilus hears a voice that whispers, Stay; In Nature's garden what a mad rout sings! Let's hear these motley pilgrims wile away The tedious hours with stories of old things; Or might some shining eagle claim These lowly numbers ...
— The Book of American Negro Poetry • Edited by James Weldon Johnson
... private mind, Unhindered by repression, To make his motley life a kind, Of Midas' ...
— De Libris: Prose and Verse • Austin Dobson
... of the prayers and ejaculations which issued from the lips of the motley group that scrambled, and crushed, and screamed, on their knees around the well. In the midst of this ignorance and absurdity, there were visible, however, many instances of piety, goodness of heart, ...
— Phelim O'toole's Courtship and Other Stories • William Carleton
... young a soldier was selected to conduct such an undertaking proved how surely he had deserved and won the confidence of his superior officers. In those days railroad travelling was far from pleasant. The train upon which Lieutenant Chalaron embarked at Knoxville was a motley affair,—perhaps a single passenger-car, rough and dilapidated (crowded with those who, though ill, made shift to sit up or recline upon the seats), box-cars and cattle-cars filled with suffering men helplessly sick. In order ...
— Memories - A Record of Personal Experience and Adventure During Four Years of War • Fannie A. (Mrs.) Beers
... Along the street a motley of colour took itself like a sea of shades and tints. Green, crimson, lemon yellow, lapis-lazuli, royal purple, intermingled with the naked brown bodies of coolies clad only in loin-cloths, for every race and class emerged ...
— The Pointing Man - A Burmese Mystery • Marjorie Douie
... back again, this time as king, with a motley army of mercenaries gathered to crush the two brothers De Lacy, who for the moment dominated all Ireland—the one, Hugo, being Earl of Ulster, and Viceroy; the other, Walter, Lord of ...
— The Story Of Ireland • Emily Lawless
... LUN appear'd, with matchless art and whim, He gave the power of speech to every limb; Tho' mask'd and mute, conveyed his quick intent, And told in frolic gestures what he meant: But now the motley coat and sword of wood Require a tongue to make ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... the luggage of the fur-clad gentleman, sat and reclined four travellers, whom the owner of the vehicle had gradually picked up, and who formed a motley company. ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... smoking; the other was the one from which Trenholme had descended. Its seats, upholstered in red velvet, were dusty from the smoke and dirt of the way; its atmosphere, heated by a stove at one end, was dry and oppressive. It would have been impossible, looking at the motley company lounging in the lamplight, to have told their relations one to another; but it was evident that an uncertain number of young people, placed near the lady who held the baby, were of the same party; they slept ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... us a branch road ran into that along which we and our motley assemblage of companions-in-arms were travelling. This road curved down the side of a well-wooded hill, and then over the level for a quarter of a mile or so before opening on the other. Just at the brow of the rising ground there stood a thick bristle ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... ball. Numbers of artists had arranged to go, accompanied by a whole cohort of models and pupils, who, by midnight, began to create a tremendous din. Raoul climbed the grand staircase at five minutes to twelve, did not linger to look at the motley dresses displayed all the way up the marble steps, one of the richest settings in the world, allowed no facetious mask to draw him into a war of wits, replied to no jests and shook off the bold familiarity of a number of couples who had already become a trifle too gay. Crossing the big crush-room ...
— The Phantom of the Opera • Gaston Leroux
... his country's courage and its caution in equal proportions; and, like a wise man, he did not choose to trust his money by risking it to strangers. In such a motley company it would not be safe to do so now a-days; but it would have been much less so then. For, at that time, and especially on the Borders, the law of mine and thine was still imperfectly understood. But Andrew's determination to ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume III • Various
... day from that, he commanded him to be brought out and beheaded on the scaffold at Wollin. He wore a white shroud, bordered with black gauze, over his motley jacket, and a priest and melancholy music accompanied him all the way; but Master Hansen had directions that, when the fool was seated in the chair with his eyes bound, he should strike the said fool on the neck with a sausage ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V1 • William Mienhold
... up their household in the old Penn mansion (long since torn down) on a scale of magnificence in no way warranted by Arnold's means. Their great coach-and-four was seen thundering back and forth through the streets of the quiet little town, and a motley throng of guests, Whig and Tory, were entertained at a table where nothing was thought too choice and costly for their delectation. Matters were carried with such extravagance that debt soon pressed upon the thoughtless pair, and prudent ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XVII. No. 101. May, 1876. • Various
... of Europe are, and have been for many years, as it is hardly necessary to state, a very motley and heterogeneous crowd. The same thing may be said of American travelers now, but it was not so much the case at the time of which I am writing. It is not so with the people of any other nation; and foreigners are apt to sneer on occasion at the unkempt and queer specimens of humanity which often ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 87, March, 1875 • Various
... Hornsey Wood House has a name not unknown in the simple annals of tea-drinking. It is now part of Finsbury Park, but in the middle of the last century its long-room 'on popular holydays, such as Whit Sunday, might be seen crowded as early as nine or ten in the morning with a motley assemblage eating rolls and butter and drinking tea at an extravagant price.' 'Hone remembered the old Hornsey Wood House as it stood embowered, and seeming a part of the wood. It was at that time kept by two sisters—Mrs. Lloyd and Mrs. Collier—and ...
— In the Name of the Bodleian and Other Essays • Augustine Birrell
... mystified; and they ventured to assert that he would not find so free a country when the devil became his keeper. "Mas'r tink 'e carry 'e plantation t' t'oder world wid him, reckon," Uncle Sparton grumblingly concludes, joining the motley conclave of property about ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... few of the expressions that came from a motley assemblage of persons as they stood in a train shed in Hoboken, one June morning. Motley indeed was the gathering, and more than one traveler paused to give a second look at the little group. Perhaps a brief list of them may ...
— The Moving Picture Girls at Oak Farm - or, Queer Happenings While Taking Rural Plays • Laura Lee Hope
... the pain—amazement and a feeling of an inexplicable incongruity when he saw the leather-winged creatures that had him in their grip. And again there were figures high overhead—white, floating figures on pinions of pure white; their faces, kindly and serene, looked down upon the motley throng. ...
— The Finding of Haldgren • Charles Willard Diffin
... land of Moab for refuge, and himself took up his abode in the caves of the wild limestone hills that had become familiar to him when he was a shepherd. Brave captain and Heaven-destined king as he was, his name attracted around him a motley group of those that were in distress, or in debt, or discontented, and among them were the 'mighty men' whose brave deeds won them the foremost parts in that army with which David was to fulfill the ancient promises to his people. There were his three nephews, Joab, ...
— A Book of Golden Deeds • Charlotte M. Yonge
... man of prompt decision, resource, and confidence, will take the command, whatever his position. Hope, as well as timidity and fear, is infectious, and one cheery voice will revive the drooping spirits of a multitude. Paul had already established his personal ascendency in that motley company of Roman soldiers, prisoners, sailors, and disciples. Now he stands forward with calm confidence, and infuses new hope into them all. What a miraculous change passes on externals when faith looks at them! The circumstances were the same ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren
... It was a motley crowd of young men of all ages from seventeen to thirty or more. Students of the everlasting type, sent here by their parents as a last resource, for—"he can always be an engineer"; young sparks who paid more attention to their toilet than their books, and ...
— The Great Hunger • Johan Bojer
... arrived at Quebec. In the colony of New York Sir William Johnson, the rough and cheery Irishman, much loved of the Iroquois, was gathering forces to attack Canada. Early in July, 1755, Johnson had more than three thousand provincial troops at Albany, a motley horde of embattled farmers, most of them with no uniforms, dressed in their own homespun, carrying their own muskets, electing their own officers, and altogether, from the strict soldier's point of view, a rabble rather than an army. To meet this force ...
— The Conquest of New France - A Chronicle of the Colonial Wars, Volume 10 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • George M. Wrong
... he had noted so many times before, the motley appearance of the army, but with involuntary motion he began to straighten and smooth his own shabby uniform. He was about to enter the presence of a woman and he was ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... was seen advancing toward them, who, observing their approach, fell back a few steps, and threw himself on the ground at the foot of a large old apple-tree. Around this were clustered a motley group of men, women, and boys, who opened and made way for the stranger. He advanced, and bowing gracefully took off his forage cap, from beneath which a quantity of soft curling flaxen hair fell over his brow ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly
... gems with icicles the sheltering eaves; —Thy muffled friend his nectarine-wall pursues, What time the sun the yellow crocus wooes, Screen'd from the arrowy North; and duly hies [Foonote 4] To meet the morning-rumour as it flies; To range the murmuring market-place, and view The motley groups that faithful TENIERS drew. When Spring bursts forth in blossoms thro' the vale, And her wild music triumphs on the gale, Oft with my book I muse from stile to stile; [Footnote 5] Oft in my porch the listless noon beguile, Framing loose numbers, till declining day Thro' the green trellis ...
— Poems • Samuel Rogers
... studying during 1909 at Gottingen and during 1910 at the University of Berlin. Since his return to America he has been connected with the publishing house of Charles Scribner's Sons. His first volume, "The Human Fantasy", 1911, attracted attention by the faithfulness with which it depicted the motley life of New York. His second was "The Beloved Adventure", 1912; followed by "Love and Liberation", 1913, and "Dust and Light", 1919. The last volume, from which the selections in this anthology are taken, contains some of Mr. Wheelock's finest lyrical work, work ...
— The Second Book of Modern Verse • Jessie B. Rittenhouse
... eyes, and carried their swords drawn. Three had hatchets. Fitzurse, with the axe he had taken from the carpenters, was foremost, shouting as he came, "Here, here, king's men!" Immediately behind him followed Robert Fitzranulph, with three other knights, and a motley group—some their own followers, some from the town—with weapons, though not in armour, brought up the rear. At this sight, so unwonted in the peaceful cloisters of Canterbury, not probably beheld since the time when the monastery had ...
— MacMillan's Reading Books - Book V • Anonymous
... is a small full-length figure of a girl, balancing an empty pitcher upon her head, at the time of moonrise. Anticipating the Eastern subjects which future years produced, we may note a picture of Old Damascus, showing the Jews' quarter in that fabled city, in all its motley picturesqueness, and the delightful Moorish Garden,—A Dream of Granada, which were exhibited in 1874. A powerful picture, shown in 1875, of the Egyptian Slinger,[4] is illustrated later in this volume, but no reproduction can quite suggest the striking colouring ...
— Frederic Lord Leighton - An Illustrated Record of His Life and Work • Ernest Rhys
... your eye; Bring all your items up to date, And do your best to multiply Your sheep by next subtracting votes From over-suffraged Tory goats. By Registration Law perplexed, Take "qualifying periods" next, And at one swoop reduce with glee Twelve months, or more, to only three. Add labour to your motley crew, Subtract (from life) a church or two. Produce, with geometric skill, The lines of many a promised bill. But state—the Unionists to vex— That Home Rule always equals x. Raise, in a rash, disastrous hour, Campaigning Ireland to a power. And ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, July 30, 1892 • Various
... rust-eaten nail, had been wrought into a fantastic shape. As they drove through the gateway, a green lizard scampered down from the top of one of the posts, where he had been sunning himself, and a rattlesnake lying in the path lazily uncoiled his motley brown length, and sounding his rattle, wriggled slowly off into the rank grass and weeds ...
— The Colonel's Dream • Charles W. Chesnutt
... swoln, and legs whose monstrous size disgraced The human form divine, their caterer, Hight GLUTTONY, set forth the smoaking feast. And by his side came on a brother form, With fiery cheek of purple hue, and red And scurfy-white, mix'd motley; his gross bulk, Like some huge hogshead shapen'd, as applied. Him had antiquity with mystic rites Ador'd, to him the sons of Greece, and thine Imperial Rome, on many an altar pour'd The victim blood, with godlike titles graced, BACCHUS, or DIONUSUS; son of JOVE, Deem'd falsely, for ...
— Poems, 1799 • Robert Southey
... and from the mainland. The insignia of royalty were ostentatiously displayed, and the captains and leaders within the fortress fulfilled the duties of this mimic and motley court in honour of ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... at Musselburgh or Shinnecock, In motley Hose or humbler motley Sock, The Cup of Life is ebbing Drop by Drop, Whether the Cup be filled ...
— The Golfer's Rubaiyat • H. W. Boynton
... also weigh with me, And one of more especial gravity; Say that there lurked among our motley band Some sneaking, sly pretender to her hand; Say, his attentions became undisguised,— We should be ...
— Love's Comedy • Henrik Ibsen
... street, surrounded by a company whom their chief has courteously summoned at my request, when I say to him, 'I have come to speak to your people,' I do not need to begin by telling them that there is a God. Looking on that motley assemblage of villagers,—the bold, gaunt cannibal with his armament of gun, spear, and dagger; the artisan with rude adze in hand, or hands soiled at the antique bellows of the village smithy; women who have hasted from their kitchen fire with hands white with the manioc dough or still grasping ...
— The Negro • W.E.B. Du Bois
... does not enhance, ought not, we think, to diminish from the reputation of its author; but as a mannerism becomes increasingly disagreeable by repetition, we suspect that, without having less merit, this work will have less popularity than its predecessors. The style is the same "motley wear," and has the same jerking movement—seems at times a thing of shreds and patches hung on wires—and is so full of brief allusions to his own previous writings, that to a reader unacquainted with these it would be scarce intelligible. With all this ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various
... be received on a Saturday at eleven. We went in the prescribed costume, black silk, with the picturesque Roman veil thrown over the head. From the foot of the Scala Regia, (Royal Staircase) one of the papal guard, in a motley suit which seemed one glare of black and yellow, escorted us to the door of a long corridor, known as the Loggia of Raphael, where we were received by a higher official in rich array of crimson velvet. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 86, February, 1875 • Various
... the friendliest feeling to the United States, and the strongest wish to remain at peace with them. I wish the newspapers were blameless; but there was a sneering, exulting tone in many of them after the military disasters of the North which was likely to irritate. Mr. Motley said long ago that the Times would, if possible, work up a war between the two countries, and though I can't speak from my own knowledge, as I have seldom looked at its articles, I have no doubt from what John and others say that he was right.... There can be no doubt that we have done deeds very ...
— Lady John Russell • Desmond MacCarthy and Agatha Russell
... been able to say with so much truth, "My writings are my confessions." Her biography lies there, presented, indeed, in a fragmentary shape and under wayward disguises, but nevertheless giving to the motley groups the strong and uumistakable charm of reality. Her grandmother, by whom she was brought up, disgusted at her not being a boy, resolved to remedy the misfortune as far as possible by educating her like a boy. We may say ...
— George Eliot; A Critical Study of Her Life, Writings & Philosophy • George Willis Cooke
... motley regiment, Some young in the war of life, Some chiefs in the Royal Army, Some old and sick with strife, Some limped in the sacred pathway, Some were foot sore and worn, Some had their lances all shivered, Some ...
— Victor Roy, A Masonic Poem • Harriet Annie Wilkins
... of old New York reads like a romance. There is scarcely a plot of ground below Fourteenth Street without its story and its associations, its motley company of memories and spectres both good and bad, its imperishably adventurous savour of the past, imprisoned in the dry prose of registries and records. Let us just take a glance, a bird's-eye view as it were, of that region which we now know as Washington Square, as it was when ...
— Greenwich Village • Anna Alice Chapin
... after the time of which the history is required. The historians of this day write of the past; and the historian of our present civil war is not yet born, who shall emulate the completeness and conciseness of Irving's Columbus, or Prescott's Ferdinand and Isabella, or Motley's Dutch Republic. Nor can we expect an early solution to the 'Fremont question,' which shall be full and satisfactory, though the length of time involved be but one hundred days. But it is different with Gen. Patterson. It is true that his loyalty ...
— Continental Monthly - Volume 1 - Issue 3 • Various
... junks, flags flying from every mast. On the dark green, which is the dominant shade around, stand out these thousand scraps of bunting, emblems of the different nationalities, all displayed, all flying in honor of far-distant France. The colors most prevailing in this motley assemblage are the white flag with a red ball, emblem of the Empire of the Rising Sun, ...
— Madame Chrysantheme • Pierre Loti
... of her unsteadiness; anger and fear and relief in quick succession had left her rather weak. Once through the motley crowd of loungers, she saw an old gray stage-coach and four lean horses. A grizzled, sunburned man sat on the driver's seat, whip and reins in hand. Beside him was a younger man with rifle across his ...
— The Man of the Forest • Zane Grey
... last correspondence with Mr. Motley, including telegraphic dispatches, etc., relative to his recall as minister to the Court ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Ulysses S. Grant • James D. Richardson
... Germany, and working like a German. Emerson was a Junior in College. Hawthorne, Longfellow, Holmes, Whittier, and Poe were school-boys; Mrs. Stowe was a school-girl; Whipple and Lowell were in the nursery, and Motley and the younger Dana had not long been ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various
... permitted to go in the gondola, in which we oldsters proceeded, to the same destination by water. It was arranged that the "'buses" should meet us at Richmond, where both descriptions of conveyances were to disgorge their motley contents; and, the several and hitherto-severed parties, joining issue, would set about making as pleasant a day of it as could be effected under ...
— She and I, Volume 1 • John Conroy Hutcheson
... of bigots, this artistic sorcerer, had made my flesh creep first in the gallery at Madrid with a work representing a horrible army of living skeletons scattered about an immense space, in conflict with a motley crowd of desperate and confused men and women, whom they were dragging into an abyss where Death awaited them. Only from the diseased imagination of a man alarmed by the terrors of damnation could such an extravagant conception have ...
— Holland, v. 1 (of 2) • Edmondo de Amicis
... the whole of the time, in the motley-coloured crowd, of one of the diabolical trio ...
— Jack Harkaway and his son's Escape From the Brigand's of Greece • Bracebridge Hemyng
... whose white face is so deeply seared with the small-pox, and whose dirty shirt-front is inlaid with open-work, and embossed with coral studs like ladybirds, is the low comedian and comic singer of the establishment. The remainder of the audience—a tolerably numerous one by this time—are a motley group of ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... After examination of the great fortresses in the Duchy of Luxembourg, he went into Germany, tarrying at Heidelberg, Nuremberg, Munich, and Vienna. He then passed down "the beautiful blue Danube" to Buda-Pesth, where, having been given letters and commendations from J. L. Motley, the historian of the Netherlands and our minister at Vienna, he saw the glittering pageant which united the crowns of Austria and Hungary. This was performed in the parish church in Buda, an edifice built over six hundred years ago. It had been captured ...
— Charles Carleton Coffin - War Correspondent, Traveller, Author, and Statesman • William Elliot Griffis
... in real life as Rousseau and Mademoiselle de Lespinasse, one such demonstration of the same moral in fiction as Werther, were enough to discourage the man of feeling. Therefore, when he still exists, he takes to motley, the only wear for the human race in troublesome circumstances which beset it with unpleasant recurrence. When you cannot exactly believe anything in religion, in politics, in literature, in art, and yet neither wish nor know how to do without it, the safe way is to make ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... taken command of it. The united regiments had been formed up under cover of a line of ridges, on the summit of which the watchful scouts stood out against the sky, looking north. The sun was already shining on the motley picture formed by the light uniforms of the dismounted troopers and the motionless rows of horses. They were all half ...
— In the Field (1914-1915) - The Impressions of an Officer of Light Cavalry • Marcel Dupont
... comparison to that of private interests, which so crossed each other and in so many different ways, which turned with such mobility, that, in the ignorance which prevailed of the secret motives of the principal actors in that drama so vivid, motley, and turbulent, nothing could be predicated of what they would do, and a looker-on might have been disposed at times to have pronounced them as insensates, who were rather their own enemies than those ...
— Political Women (Vol. 1 of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... continued their walk up the street until they came into the motley stream of people who were wending their way down to the piers, where the steamers were constantly coming in and going out with passengers from and to ...
— One of Life's Slaves • Jonas Lauritz Idemil Lie
... safe issue from the situation was to take part in and shape the action of that gathering. Under his lead a committee from the Pittsburgh meeting, followed by a large body of the citizens, went out to the rendezvous. Here they found a motley assemblage, arrayed in the picturesque campaign costume which the mountaineers wore when they equipped themselves to meet the Indians,—yellow hunting-shirts, handkerchiefs tied about their heads, and rifles on the shoulder; the militia were on foot, and the light horse of the counties ...
— Albert Gallatin - American Statesmen Series, Vol. XIII • John Austin Stevens
... the emigrants formed rather a motley band. Among them, besides those of our friends already mentioned, there were our hero's mother and all the Leather family. Captain Stride's daughter as well as his "Missus," and Mr Crossley's housekeeper, Mrs Bland. That good woman, however, had been much subdued and rendered harmless by the ...
— Charlie to the Rescue • R.M. Ballantyne
... and into the room rushed a motley crowd of men. Most of them were young students, but here and there I saw older men, and at the head of the mob was a white-bearded individual, wearing an astrachan cap, who brandished a copy of some Russian periodical ...
— The Blue Germ • Martin Swayne
... the street in which Joanna lived was thronged with the faithful, who, undeterred by sarcasm, fully credited her prediction. They bivouacked on the side-walks in motley crowds of men, women, and children; and as the hours wore on, and their interest increased, burst forth into spontaneous psalmody. The adjacent thoroughfares were as densely jammed with curious and incredulous spectators, and the mutton pie and ...
— The Humbugs of the World • P. T. Barnum
... guillotined four days before Robespierre, whose death would have saved him. His young widow left prison, reduced to extreme want, and took refuge with her father-in-law, at Fontainebleau; then she made her appearance in the motley society which, first showed itself in the drawing-room of Madame Tallien, then at the Luxembourg under Barras. Rivalling Madame Tallien and Madame Recamier in popularity, she smiled through her tears, like Andromache in Homer. ...
— The Court of the Empress Josephine • Imbert de Saint-Amand
... but it must be recollected that De Tisnacq lived in dangerous times, and may have found it necessary to walk warily in them; that through him had been sent, only the year before, that famous letter from William of Orange, Horn, and Egmont, the fate whereof may be read in Mr. Motley's fourth chapter; that the crisis of the Netherlands which sprung out of that letter was coming fast; and that, as De Tisnacq was on friendly terms with Egmont, he may have felt his head at times somewhat ...
— Historical Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... captain, having been elected to succeed himself the previous fall. At this moment, attired in the Crimson sweater, moleskin trousers, and black and crimson stockings that made up the school uniform, he looked every inch the commander of the motley array that ...
— The Half-Back • Ralph Henry Barbour
... of them was a motley crowd of Russian officers all talking and gesticulating together. I came nearer to Vera and at once I said to myself, "Lawrence is here somewhere." She was standing, her head up, watching the doors, her eyes glowed with anticipation, her lips were a little parted. She never moved at all, ...
— The Secret City • Hugh Walpole
... and a masquerade—all these things work themselves into my mind, and feed me, without a power of satiating me. The wonder of these sights impels me into night walks about her crowded streets, and I often shed tears in the motley Strand from fulness of joy at so much life. All these emotions must be strange to you; so are your rural emotions to me. But consider, what must I have been doing all my life, not to have lent great portions of my heart with usury ...
— Charles Lamb • Walter Jerrold
... see any three men tackle this crowd, that's what!" he went on to remark, as he swept his eye proudly over the motley array of weapons; for even Allan had armed himself, having a stout stick, with which he doubtless felt able to render a good account of ...
— The, Boy Scouts on Sturgeon Island - or Marooned Among the Game-fish Poachers • Herbert Carter
... forms its proper foundations," the other Vedas being devoted to the soma sacrifice.(2) The Yajur-Veda has two divisions, known as the Black and the White Yajur, which have common matter, but differ in arrangement. The Black Yajur-Veda is also called the Taittirya, and it is described as "a motley undigested jumble of different pieces".(3) Last comes Atharva-Veda, not always regarded as a Veda properly speaking. It derives its name from an old semi-mythical priestly family, the Atharvans, ...
— Myth, Ritual, and Religion, Vol. 1 • Andrew Lang
... a curtain of thin silk for the chair, so that I, when I was set therein, had great privacy, though I knew by the sounds that I was attended by the motley crowd which usually is in following at such affairs, beside the little troop of horse which was my escort, and my brother and Parson Downs riding on either side. Parson Downs, though some might reckon ...
— The Heart's Highway - A Romance of Virginia in the Seventeeth Century • Mary E. Wilkins
... Caesar had been serving his apprenticeship as a soldier. The motley forces which Mithridates had commanded had not all submitted on the king's surrender to Sylla. Squadrons of pirates hung yet about the smaller islands in the Aegean. Lesbos was occupied by adventurers who were fighting ...
— Caesar: A Sketch • James Anthony Froude
... stage, which was supposed to connect with the passenger train and carry forward its human freight to Superior City was filled to overflowing, I determined to take advantage of the construction train, and travel on it as far as it would take me. A very motley group of lumberers, navvies, and speculators assembled for breakfast at five o'clock a.m. at Tom's table, and although I cannot quite confirm the favourable opinion of my friend the express agent as to the quality of the viands which graced it, I can at least testify to the ...
— The Great Lone Land - A Narrative of Travel and Adventure in the North-West of America • W. F. Butler
... themselves to the theory of an accomplished break-up of the Union and berating the North for continuing, through pride alone, a bloody conflict doomed to failure. Meanwhile in midsummer attention was diverted from the ethical causes at issue by the publication in the Times of Motley's letter analysing the nature of the American constitution and defending the legal position of the North in its resistance to secession. Motley wrote in protest against the general British press attitude: "There is, ...
— Great Britain and the American Civil War • Ephraim Douglass Adams
... future of every person presented was to be. Well pleased the little magician hastened away to prove the powers of the spectacles in the theatre; no place seeming to him more fitted for such a trial. He begged permission of the worthy audience, and set his spectacles on his nose. A motley phantasmagoria presents itself before him, which he describes in a few satirical touches, yet without expressing his opinion openly: he tells the people enough to set them all thinking and guessing; but in order to hurt nobody, he wraps his witty oracular judgments in a transparent ...
— Andersen's Fairy Tales • Hans Christian Andersen
... the country, perhaps without knowing it, and who saw no way to get back to it. I advertised my wants in a morning paper, and asked my son, who was on vacation, to interview the applicants. From noon until six o'clock my ante-room was invaded by a motley procession—delicate boys of fifteen who wanted to go to the country, old men who thought they could do farm work, clerks and janitors out of employment, typical tramps and hoboes who diffused very naughty smells, and a few—a very few—who seemed to know what they ...
— The Fat of the Land - The Story of an American Farm • John Williams Streeter
... my hearties," roared the leader, turning to his motley crew, "fine pickings here indeed. A swine of God fattened upon the sweat of such poor, honest devils as we, and a young shoat who, by his looks, must have pieces ...
— The Outlaw of Torn • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... friend as a student at Goettingen, and the man of whom he spoke with warm affection all his life, was the American historian Motley. ...
— Germany and the Germans - From an American Point of View (1913) • Price Collier
... throng outside the gate covers the road leading off to Joppa. Turning from the Pharisee, we are attracted by some parties who, as subjects of study, opportunely separate themselves from the motley crowd. First among them a man of very noble appearance—clear, healthful complexion; bright black eyes; beard long and flowing, and rich with unguents; apparel well-fitting, costly, and suitable for the season. He carries a staff, and wears, suspended by a cord from his ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace
... pantomime and a masquerade—all these things work themselves into my mind, and feed me, without a power of satiating me. The wonder of these sights impels me often into night-walks about her crowded streets, and I often shed tears in the motley Strand from fullness of joy at so much life. All these emotions must be strange to you; so are your rural emotions to me. But consider, what must I have been doing all my life, not to have lent great portions of my heart with usury ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various
... Cockneyisms and Parisian argot, with constant reminiscences of the authorised version of the Old Testament, and with chips off Molie're, and with shreds and tags of what-not snatched from a hundred-and-one queer corners. It was, in fact, an Autolycine style. It was a style of the maddest motley, but of motley so deftly cut and fitted to the figure, and worn with such an air, as to become a gracious harmony for ...
— Yet Again • Max Beerbohm
... seated. Say no more. My kinswoman's introduction is all-sufficient. I am happy in having caught your attention in so motley ...
— At a Winter's Fire • Bernard Edward J. Capes
... have thronged the sight to greet, And motley figures throng the spacious street; Majestical and calm through all they stride, Wearing the blanket with a monarch's pride; The gazers stare and shrug, but can't deny Their noble forms and blameless symmetry. If the ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... literature to find the wisest and most poignant utterances thus laid in the mouths of poor men clad in motley. Some of the most daring things in Shakespeare, the newest heresies of the Renaissance, are voiced by irresponsibles. Of all dramatic figures, that of the fool is most suited to the expression of concentrated feeling. ...
— Growth of the Soil • Knut Hamsun
... not whether I am proud, But this I know, I hate the crowd, Therefore pray let me disengage My verses from the motley page, Where others, far more sure to please Pour forth their choral song ...
— The Poet's Poet • Elizabeth Atkins
... name and forms of the Holy Roman Empire. The members of this so-called Empire were, however, a multitude of independent States; and the chief of these States, Austria, combined with its German provinces a large territory which did not even in name form part of the Germanic body. The motley of the Empire was made up by governments of every degree of strength and weakness. Austria and Prussia possessed both political traditions and resources raising them to the rank of great European Powers; but the sovereignties of the second order, such as Saxony ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... impart. The sliding roof had rarely been known to close entirely. There was always a pair of giraffe-legs sticking out, or an elephant-trunk, taking from the stiffness of its outline, and reminding us that our motley crowd of friends inside were uncomfortably cramped for room and only too ready to leap in a cascade on the floor and browse and gallop, flutter and bellow and neigh, and be their natural selves again. I think that none ...
— Dream Days • Kenneth Grahame
... every one of these dens, what a crowd of victims were collected! "A motley company indeed—black-legs, and would-be-gentlemen—the cheater and the cheated." The widow parting with her last trinkets, or, perchance, her last disposable article of dress, to procure one more meal for her famishing children! ...
— Ups and Downs in the Life of a Distressed Gentleman • William L. Stone
... Moor had with difficulty waited this licence to utter such sentiments as death only could banish from that unconquerable heart. He rose, descended from the couch, and, standing a little below the king, and facing the motley throng of all of wise or brave yet ...
— Leila, Complete - The Siege of Granada • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... system was necessary: in internal and in external affairs. To strengthen the state internally a complete revolution of its administration was begun under the auspices of Count F. W. Haugwitz (1700-1765); the motley system which had survived from the middle ages was gradually replaced by an administrative machinery uniformly organized and centralized; and the army especially, hitherto patched together from the quotas raised ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 - "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" • Various
... Morley sauntered across Union Square with a pitying look at the hundreds that lolled upon the park benches. They were a motley lot, he thought; the men with stolid, animal, unshaven faces; the women wriggling and self-conscious, twining and untwining their feet that hung four inches above the ...
— The Trimmed Lamp and Others • O Henry
... exemplified in the individual instance of him from whom the manuscript was obtained, of which a somewhat modernized version is printed on these pages. He has been dead some years, leaving no kin; and under his will, such of his motley treasures as it cared to accept went to a local museum, while the rest and his other property were sold for the benefit of a mystical brotherhood, for the old fellow was a kind of spiritualist. Therefore, there is no harm in giving his plebeian ...
— The Virgin of the Sun • H. R. Haggard
... with the sinner proud, And the priest in his gloomy cowl, And Dives walks in the motley crowd With Lazarus, cheek by jowl; And the daughter of toil with her fresh young heart As pure as her spotless fame, Keeps step with the woman who makes her mart In the haunts of sin ...
— The Canadian Elocutionist • Anna Kelsey Howard
... the choice of a subject and the method of its treatment, has been signally illustrated by a countryman of our own. The interest of the general reader and the approbation of historical scholars were at once enlisted by Motley's "Rise and Fall of the Dutch Republic." That work differs from and is superior to any American historical composition by virtue of a certain fluent animation, a certain decided and sustained tone, such as can be derived only from an absolute relation between the author's mind and heart and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, Issue 35, September, 1860 • Various
... our people; it would be difficult to imagine a company composed of experiences which differed so completely. We find one hut contains an experience of every country and every clime! What an assemblage of motley knowledge! ...
— Scott's Last Expedition Volume I • Captain R. F. Scott
... after the flood he was offering $1,000 for enough wood alcohol to heat malted milk for his infant grandchild. Monday he was no more successful in buying provisions. He appeared with a basket on his arm, rubbed elbows with those nearest in the motley line and apparently none was more grateful than he when his basket was filled with beans, potatoes, canned vegetables, rice and other staples. He was eager to pay for his supplies, but money is refused at the supply depots. It was arranged ...
— The True Story of Our National Calamity of Flood, Fire and Tornado • Logan Marshall
... no homage paid to his genius by the class whose admiring welcome is most seductive to scholars has ever spoiled; our fellow-citizen, the historian of a great Republic which infused a portion of its life into our own,—John Lothrop Motley. ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... city's most perfect beauty. The sun was setting, and flung a mellowing glow over the great golden domes and minarets of the mosques, the bazaars glittering with trifles and precious with elements of Oriental luxury, the tortuous thoroughfares with their motley throng, the quiet streets with their latticed windows, and their atmosphere heavy with silence and mystery, the palaces whose cupolas and towers had watched over so many centuries of luxury and intrigue, pleasure and crime, the pavilions, groves, gardens, kiosks which ...
— What Dreams May Come • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... the motley, looking neither to right nor left, came Scotchman McPherson; but though he passed fair before the leader's eyes and not a yard away, no number was spoken; no hint of recognition, of cognisance, crossed the latter's face. Implacable, relentless as time, he ...
— Where the Trail Divides • Will Lillibridge
... were younger and lighter of foot than we sober married folks, ran on before; so that when the blanket, that served the purpose of a door, was unfastened, we found a motley group of the dark skins and the pale faces reposing on the blankets and skins that were spread round ...
— The Backwoods of Canada • Catharine Parr Traill
... few general actions has the personality of the commander counted for so much, after the battle joined. In a letter of July 26 to Chauncey, he had written: "The men that came by Mr. Champlin are a motley set, blacks, soldiers, and boys. I cannot think you saw them after they were selected."[75] Chauncey replied, somewhat testily, "I regret you are not pleased with the men sent you; for, to my knowledge, a part of them are not surpassed by any seamen we have in the fleet; ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 2 • Alfred Thayer Mahan
... Suddenly in eerie harmonies of newest French or oldest Tartar, here are the tricks and traits where meet the extremes of latest Romantic and primeval barbarian. In this motley cloak sounds the typical Yankee tune, first piping in piccolo, then grunting in tuba. Here is Uncle Sam disporting himself merrily in foreign garb and scene, quite as if at home. If we wished, we might see a political ...
— Symphonies and Their Meaning; Third Series, Modern Symphonies • Philip H. Goepp
... lingers with one, as the market is left, and one passes on and out to the Strand and its motley stream of life, lingering through Fleet Street and the winding ways into the City, past St. Paul's, and still on till London Bridge is reached and the Borough is near. Fare as one may, north or south, west or east, ...
— Prisoners of Poverty Abroad • Helen Campbell
... I once saw him, in the company of the above mentioned Mr. Tucker, seat himself, at Edmonton Fair, in one of those vulgar vehicles called swings: he was highly delighted with the novelty of the exercise, which he enjoyed amidst the rude stare and boisterous grins of the motley group around him; "this is life," said he, upon getting out of the swing, "what shall we see next?" In his poem of Hypocrisy, he has beautifully eulogized General Graham, who showed his sense of this intellectual tribute by sending the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 19, - Issue 553, June 23, 1832 • Various
... Genoa, the violet in granite of Catalonia, the mourning-hued corridor veined black and white in slate of Murviedro, the pink corridor in cipolin of the Alps, the pearl corridor in lumachel of Nonetta, and the corridor of all colours, called the courtiers' corridor, in motley. ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... of John L. Motley may wish to see if their favorite passages are listed in this selection. The eBook editor will be glad to add your suggestions. One of the advantages of internet over paper publication is the ...
— Quotations From John Lothrop Motley • David Widger
... North America, John Quincy Adams was succeeded by Andrew Jackson. Calhoun was re-elected Vice-President. A motley crowd of backwoodsmen and mountaineers, who had supported Jackson, crushed into the White House shouting for "Old Hickory." For the first time the outgoing President absented himself from the inauguration ...
— A History of the Nineteenth Century, Year by Year - Volume Two (of Three) • Edwin Emerson
... left the cabins and the intolerable red sands upon which they were situated. It was not the first time she had seen the uncouth faces and forms of the motley group who had been vengefully regarding her; but their appearance had seemed doubly appalling when viewed in the light of being her associates for life. Out of their sight she breathed freely again, and coming ...
— Hubert's Wife - A Story for You • Minnie Mary Lee
... doubtless have been pleasant to behold, but Priscilla garbed in a "blew Mohere peticote," a "tabby bodeys with red livery cote," and an "immoderate great rayle" with "Slashes," with a laced neckcloth or cross cloth around her fair neck, and a scarlet "whittle" over all this motley finery; with a "outwork quoyf or ciffer" (New England French for coiffure) with "long wings" at the side, and a silk or tiffany hood on her drooping head,—Priscilla in ...
— Sabbath in Puritan New England • Alice Morse Earle
... essential feature in our discussion. The audience of Plautus was not of a high class. Terence, even in later times, when education had materially progressed, often failed to reach them by over-finesse. Plautus with his bold brush pleased them. Surely a turbulent and motley throng they were, with the native violence of the sun-warmed Italic temperament and the abundant animal spirits of a crude civilization, tumbling into the theatre in the full enjoyment of holiday, scrambling for vantage points on the sloping ground, if such ...
— The Dramatic Values in Plautus • William Wallace Blancke
... the story of my early life, he will remember that the tale of the death of a certain Isabella de Siguenza is pieced into its motley. He will remember how this Isabella, in the last moments of her life, called down a curse upon that holy father who added outrage and insult to her torment, praying that he might also die by the hands of fanatics and in ...
— Montezuma's Daughter • H. Rider Haggard
... of the day following the encounter in Bloomsbury Square, a little group of excited loiterers filled the entrance and passage way at 59 Bradwell Street, the former lodgings of the two young gentlemen from Scotland. The motley assemblage seemed for the most part to make merry at the expense of a certain messenger boy, who bore a long wicker box, which presently he shifted from his shoulder to a more convenient resting ...
— The Mississippi Bubble • Emerson Hough
... becomes a swollen torrent. But they subside as quickly as they rise, and the particular river which barred our road had lost its menace before the sun had risen in a cloudless morning sky. All the valley seemed in motion. We joined the motley throng of camels, carts, and horsemen; and even the motor car coughed and wheezed its way to Urga under the stimulus of two ...
— Across Mongolian Plains - A Naturalist's Account of China's 'Great Northwest' • Roy Chapman Andrews
... had spent in India I had seen a good deal of both sides of that motley, amazing fabric which we call life. I had felt the throbbing of its great loom. I had touched with my own shrinking hand the closeness of the texture, had marked the interweaving of the alien strands, had marvelled and been dismayed, had marvelled and been ...
— The Lowest Rung - Together with The Hand on the Latch, St. Luke's Summer and The Understudy • Mary Cholmondeley
... was a motley crowd of farmers, labourers and visitors, with a Welsh choir from a neighbouring village, singing hymns and patriotic songs. The bonfire was to be fired on the stroke of ten, by a neighbouring landowner, whose white head and beard flashed hither and thither through the crowd ...
— Helena • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... direction, to get hold of original letters, where he could, copies, where he could not, certificates and journals, catching at every gossipping story he could hear of in any quarter, supplying by suspicions what he could find no where else, and then arguing on this motley farrago, as if established on gospel evidence. And while expressing his wonder, 'at the age of eighty-eight, the strong passions of Mr. Adams should not have cooled '; that on the contrary, 'they had acquired the mastery of his soul,' ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson |
