"Sparkle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... with her several times. Her cheeks were glowing and the lustre of her eyes was like the sparkle of the stars. Her lips were slightly parted, and now and then her breath came quickly. As they swung round and round, she sometimes closed her eyes and then slowly opened them again. He became aware of some strange emotion that he had never ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine
... smiled at these small scintillations of wit, which in the talk of lovers sparkle to them like diamond-dust ...
— A Romance of the Republic • Lydia Maria Francis Child
... Henry IV., ranging in date of subject from the trial and death of Admiral Chabot to the treason and execution of Marshal Biron. The two plays bearing as epigraph the name of that famous soldier and conspirator are a storehouse of lofty thought and splendid verse, with scarcely a flash or sparkle of dramatic action. The one play of Chapman's whose popularity on the stage survived the Restoration is "Bussy d'Ambois" (d'Amboise)—a tragedy not lacking in violence of action or emotion, and abounding ...
— The Age of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... most exquisitely to her it seemed that he put her love for Idas into music. When he spoke to her of his love she thought, "Thus, and thus did Idas speak," and a sudden memory of the human lad's halting words brought to her heart a little gush of tenderness, and made her eyes sparkle so that Apollo gladly thought, "Soon she will ...
— A Book of Myths • Jean Lang
... made to please me) taken in Dresden (October 15, 1873), where the brow, perfectly smooth and white, has widened out, the whiskers have become less chubby, and the small, scrutinizing eyes absolutely sparkle with malice. Here, you say at last, is no poet, indeed, but an unusually cultivated banker or surprisingly adroit solicitor. Here the hair, retreating from the great forehead, begins to curl and roll ...
— Henrik Ibsen • Edmund Gosse
... the guilty sparkle of the eye. The sparkle in the eyes of beauty, the glance of joy, of enthusiasm, of rapture, is not so poetical as it seems, inasmuch as it is no more than intensified secretion of tears. The latter gets its increase through nervous excitation, so that the guilty sparkle should also ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... is the spark that lights the flame on the altar of the inner man, dear, and you'll have to sparkle when your time comes," he warned me, as I hurried what might have been a very tender parting, the last night ...
— The Tinder-Box • Maria Thompson Daviess
... Lille is narrow, and not particularly bright, so it was pleasant to walk beneath the green trees, to feel the crisp gravel under her feet, and to see the gleaming white statues in the sunlight, with the sparkle on the round fountain pond, by the side of which she sometimes sat. Her favorite statue was one of a woman that stood on a pedestal near the Rue de Rivoli. The arm was thrown over her head, and there was a smile on the marble face which was inscrutable. ...
— The Face And The Mask • Robert Barr
... all a-done, An' brooks do sparkle in the zun, An' naisy-builden rooks do vlee Wi' sticks toward their elem tree; When birds do zing, an' we can zee Upon the boughs the buds o' spring,— Then I'm as happy as a king, A-vield wi' health ...
— Poems of Rural Life in the Dorset Dialect • William Barnes
... the sun shone into the room so brightly that every one turned to the windows. Such a sparkle! The evergreens were covered with shining ice-drops, and the tall trees pointed their glistening branches toward the few clouds that were ...
— St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 5, March, 1878 • Various
... its lower part very plainly. Through the tumbling water of the fall, near the bottom, sunlight was shining. Behind the water was an opening some six feet high, and as the water fell across this opening the sunlight from without shone through it, making it glow with green and sparkle with white. The water-fall hung over this opening like ...
— The Old Tobacco Shop - A True Account of What Befell a Little Boy in Search of Adventure • William Bowen
... bronzes and blue ware, and a black boy who is trudging along with a very useful clock on his back, are many quaint animals of polished brass—even mice are not missing, with wonderfully long tails—that sparkle and glisten in the firelight. Ascending the staircase you find etchings after Alma Tadema, Briton Riviere, and others; the walls ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 27, March 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... upon the wave, and stems 95 The tempest of the... Which fervid from its mountain source Shallow, smooth and strong doth come,— Swift as fire, tempestuously It sweeps into the affrighted sea; 100 In morning's smile its eddies coil, Its billows sparkle, toss and boil, Torturing all its quiet light Into columns ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... shall persevere. In many ways the casual observer would say that he was hopeless. He is a poor performer at Bridge, as I was compelled to hint to him on Saturday night. His eyes have no animated sparkle of intelligence. And the cut of his clothes jars my sensitive soul to its foundations. I don't wish to speak ill of a man behind his back, but I must confide in you, as my Boyhood's Friend, that he wore a made-up tie at dinner. But no more of a painful subject. ...
— Psmith in the City • P. G. Wodehouse
... with them again, returned on the following morning. It seemed to Howat that the former was almost lovely; she had a gayer sparkle, a clearer colour, than he had ever seen her possess before. On the other hand, Myrtle was dull; the dress, it seemed, had not been the unqualified success she had hoped for. Something newer had arrived in the meantime from London. ...
— The Three Black Pennys - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... dilated. A savage fire, the desire for scalps, began to sparkle in the dark eyes of the wilderness children. At this crucial moment of excitement Colonel de Peyster caused cups to be brought and wine to be passed. All drank, except Henry and the great chief, the White Lightning of the Wyandots. De Peyster himself felt the effect of the strong ...
— The Border Watch - A Story of the Great Chief's Last Stand • Joseph A. Altsheler
... midst of all the confusion that had ensued, Miss de Compton remained cool, serene, and apparently indifferent, but I observed a glow upon her face and a sparkle in her eyes, as Tom Tunison, riding his gallant gray and heading the hunters, easily and gracefully took a couple of fences when the ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various
... is obtained by a flat gold wire being spun spirally round; the rough has a duller and more yellow appearance, which is owing to the wire having been rounded; the check is bright and sparkling, and consists of the flattened wire spun in a different way, so that parts of it catch the light and sparkle; the wire check is the same thing, but duller and of a deeper yellow, owing again to its being made of the ...
— Embroidery and Tapestry Weaving • Grace Christie
... be hers! 'The success of the evening was made by the actress who took the role of the maidservant, and who had perhaps six words to utter. But with what vivacity, with what esprit were they delivered! Every gesture, every sparkle of the eyes, betokened the comedienne. For myself, I ceased to regard the fatuous ingenue, I forgot the presence of the famous leading lady; I watched absorbed the facial play of this maidservant, whose brains and beauty, I predict, will speedily bring Paris ...
— A Chair on The Boulevard • Leonard Merrick
... have spoken more plainly; indeed, she had been surprised into speaking much more plainly than she intended. The moment after her pride rebuked her, and made her cheeks burn with shame; and a feeling of anger at having so betrayed herself put a sparkle into her eyes. Bressant, looking at her, was stricken by the angry glow of her beauty. It began to dazzle his reason, and bind his will. Their eyes met fully for a moment; a world of fatal significance can sometimes be conveyed ...
— Bressant • Julian Hawthorne
... had been a clear, shining brown, with the pebbles showing white and yellow through it; but out here in the middle of the river it was all a blaze and ripple and sparkle of blue and gold. Hildegarde rested on her oars, and sat still for a few minutes, basking in the light and warmth; but soon she found the glory too strong, and pulled over to the other side, where high steep banks threw a shadow on the water. Here the water was very deep, and the rocks showed as ...
— Hildegarde's Holiday - a story for girls • Laura E. Richards
... composition, and place it before me as I write. I see the shallow, shining puddles in the hard, fair French road; the pale blue sky, diluted by days of rain; the disgarnished autumnal fields; the mild sparkle of the low horizon; the solitary figure in sabots, with a bundle under its arm, advancing along the "chaussee;" and in the middle I see the little ochre-colored monument, which, in spite of its antiquity, looks bright and gay, ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3 • Various
... now a liquid Paradise: its great pellucid braes and hillocks shone with the sparkle and the hues of all the jewels in an emperor's crown. Imagine—after three days of inky sea, and pitchy sky, and Death's deep jaws snapping and barely missing—ten thousand great slopes of emerald, aquamarine, ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... swell; and then, dipping down into the rolling mass, the hue would change to a dark green, and, coming up again under the brig's black counter, would swish out into a little shower of bubbles, and sparkle again joyously. ...
— Captain Brand of the "Centipede" • H. A. (Henry Augustus) Wise
... he detached this third figure from the group to be so closely allied after Christmas-tide—the date fixed for the wedding—he perceived that there was a great gap in the picture, that the warmth and sparkle had suddenly gone. All the tenderness in the world could not disguise that ...
— The Courting Of Lady Jane • Josephine Daskam
... But this did not mean that the good wine of the play had been kept to the end. Indeed it had been practically exhausted about the middle of the Third Act, and the rest was barley-water, sweet but relatively insipid. So long as Mr. HENRY AINLEY was just allowed to sparkle, with beaded bubbles winking all round the brim of him, everything went well and more than well; the trouble began when the author, Mr. DOUGLAS MURRAY, remembered that no British audience would be contented with mere irresponsible badinage, however fresh and delicate; that ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, April 7, 1920 • Various
... barrier walls. It was an irregular oval that appeared to curve at the far end. Gulches reached back, occasionally thick with timber that grew in clumps among the rocks and on the ledges, dotting the green grass of the floor. She caught the sparkle of a little cascade, the gleam of a streamlet. The cliffs were terraced and battlemented in red and white and gray. Their facades showed fantasies of weather sculpture that looked like ruined castles and cathedrals with cave mouths for entrances. Here and there a monolith of stone stood up out ...
— Rimrock Trail • J. Allan Dunn
... Nore, the Lagan, and many others. The men on board sat contentedly on the barrels and smoked and made slow remarks to one another; and overhead the sky was blue and wonderful, immeasurably distant, filled from horizon to horizon with sparkle and warmth. Mary Makebelieve went slowly on towards the Park. She felt very happy. Now and then a darker spot flitted through her mind, not at all obscuring, but toning the brightness of her thoughts to a realizable serenity. She wished her skirts were long enough to be held up languidly ...
— Mary, Mary • James Stephens
... watched him from a window as he went up the street. He walked rapidly, a fine, easy figure, swinging his stick in a way that suggested exhilaration. Alice, staring after him through the irregular apertures of a lace curtain, showed no similar buoyancy. Upon the instant she closed the door all sparkle left her: she had become at once the simple and sometimes troubled girl ...
— Alice Adams • Booth Tarkington
... hour Paul sat around the office nursing his disappointment, waiting for Burns to send him out. About two o'clock Wells hurried into the office, bringing with him the afternoon papers still wet from the press. In his eyes was an unwonted sparkle. He crossed directly to Anderson and ...
— Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories • Rex Beach
... attempt to conceal the wicked sparkle in her eyes as she turned to him. "How crude! I suppose it was you who set those dreadful newspapers on poor Madame Zattiany." She turned back to her hostess. "That has been a shocking ordeal for you. You know how we always avoid that sort of thing. We've felt for you—I wanted to come ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... people, assembled at breakfast on a summer morning, is as nearly perfect a form of reunion as can be devised. All are in full strength from their night's rest; the hour is fresh and lovely, and they are in condition to give each other the very cream of their thoughts, the first keen sparkle of the uncorked nervous system. The only drawback is that, in our busy American life, the most desirable gentlemen often cannot spare their morning hours. Breakfast parties presuppose a condition of leisure; but when they can be compassed, they are ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... who paints the autumn leaves. Others, again, are sometimes red inside, perfused with a beautiful blush, fairy food, too beautiful to eat,—apple of the Hesperides, apple of the evening sky! But like shells and pebbles on the sea-shore, they must be seen as they sparkle amid the withering leaves in some dell in the woods, in the autumnal air, or as they lie in the wet grass, and not when they have wilted and faded ...
— Wild Apples • Henry David Thoreau
... moralist and his promising protege. Whilst the rugged common-sense and sound literary judgments of the Doctor imparted increasing accuracy and insight to his friend's views of the world and of literature, it was the sparkle, freshness, and wit of Miss More's conversation, and her light-heartedness of character, that often dispelled the clouds of depression from the mental horizon of her sage and trusty adviser, and smoothed the rough edges of his outspoken ...
— Excellent Women • Various
... swung like a white sickle in the sky to warn him that his life must be mown like grass. At night to sleep in a bag of fur and wool, by day the steely wind, or the air shaking with a filmy powder of frost; while the illimitably distant sun made the tiny flakes sparkle like silver—a poudre day, when the face and hands are most like to be frozen, and all so still and white and passionless, yet aching with energy. Hundreds upon hundreds of miles that endless trail ...
— Northern Lights • Gilbert Parker
... in the Upper Tarn do not often reach a large size, because by growing they become too conspicuous in such clear water; but their flesh obtains that firmness which is the gift of mountain streams. The wine grown upon the slopes of the gorge is a petit vin with a sparkle in it, and it comes as a delightful change to those who have been drinking the tasteless, deep-coloured wines of the Beziers and Narbonne region, with which the South of France has been flooded since the new vineyards upon the plains and slopes of the Mediterranean have been yielding ...
— Wanderings by southern waters, eastern Aquitaine • Edward Harrison Barker
... were traversing this weird and desolate valley, and when the sun cast long shadows across our track as he sank to rest, his ruddy light falling upon the dark bowlders, polished with the sand storms of thousands of years, stray pieces of red granite would catch his rosy glint, and sparkle like giant rubies in a setting of ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 1157, March 5, 1898 • Various
... as any place can show. The tapers which are lighted down there, flash and gleam on alti-rilievi in gold and silver, delicately wrought by skilful hands, and representing the principal events in the life of the saint. Jewels, and precious metals, shine and sparkle on every side. A windlass slowly removes the front of the altar; and, within it, in a gorgeous shrine of gold and silver, is seen, through alabaster, the shrivelled mummy of a man: the pontifical robes with which it is adorned, radiant ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens
... with me for thy rhapsodist, what'll Rival the sparkle of bard and of bottle— The bottle in cups effervescent, In couplets ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, June 25, 1892 • Various
... which these apparent conventionalities were uttered, and some occult quality of quiet conviction in the young man's manner, brought a pleasant sparkle to the eyes of ...
— A Phyllis of the Sierras • Bret Harte
... beating. There it was: the fulfilment of Romaine's apprehension was before me; the paper was laid open at the capture of Clausel. I felt as if I could take a little curacoa myself, but on second thoughts called for brandy. It was badly wanted; and suddenly I observed the waiter's eye to sparkle, as it were, with some recognition; made certain he had remarked the resemblance between me and Alain; and became aware—as by a revelation—of the fool's part I had been playing. For I had now managed to put my identification ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... manner to the music of bells. Down they go into the gullies, through thick and thin, with a ludicrous contrast and juxtaposition of faces; all forced in spite of themselves to give expression to their several humors, mirth, deviltry, or spleen. Cheeks glow, eyes shine, spectacles sparkle, glances fly impudently to the windows where the face of beauty presses against the cold pane. The runner sinks into a 'rut,' and that makes the company bow to each other, and gives that old rascal of a sexegenarian an excuse to bring his gray whiskers very near to the ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, April 1844 - Volume 23, Number 4 • Various
... fathomless eternity; for though 'the heaven of each is but what each desires'—though the Aryan heaven be a place of gradation and precedence, a realm to reign in—though the heaven of the Jewish apostle-seer burn with the gold and sparkle with the gems dear to his race— though the paradise of the sun-scorched Arab be dark with shade of evergreen trees, and cool with ripple of never-failing streams—yet is the universal art so intertwined with ideal bliss that ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... treated, with the same epic dignity, a dispute over the placing of the reading desk in a parish church. Pope was the Homer of the drawing-room, the boudoir, the tea-urn, the omber-party, the sedan-chair, the parrot cage, and the lap-dogs. This poem, in its sparkle and airy grace, is the topmost blossom of a highly artificial society, the quintessence of whatever poetry ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... not unlike the days that had gone before. There was the same apologetic rush in the morning, the same monotonous succession of buyers and near-buyers at the counter, the same glitter and sparkle and chatter—the youth, and love, and laughter. Then at night ...
— The Tangled Threads • Eleanor H. Porter
... very soft and beautiful, there is no comparison with the splendor of such a scene in America. The day-sky of Italy better deserves its reputation. Although no clearer than our own, it is of a far brighter blue, arching above us like a dome of sapphire and seeming to sparkle all over with a ...
— Views a-foot • J. Bayard Taylor
... bully you into telling me things you are afraid I ought not to know. But I will tell you just how much I do know. It is all a queer sort of black dream. I absolutely can't remember seeing anything, until I found myself watching the sparkle of the ripples on the sea. But I vaguely remember hearing things. There was always a kind voice. Of course that was yours, Helen. Also there was a kind hand. I used to try not to do anything which could hurt the kind hand. Then, there were several strange voices; they came and went. Then ...
— The Upas Tree - A Christmas Story for all the Year • Florence L. Barclay
... growing aversion to the death penalty and to brutality in punishment. The saints, with their extravagance of human tenderness, are the great torch-bearers of this belief, the tip of the wedge, the clearers of the darkness. Like the single drops which sparkle in the sun as they are flung far ahead of the advancing edge of a wave-crest or of a flood, they show the way and are forerunners. The world is not yet with them, so they often seem in the midst ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James
... uncontrollable surprise. The falling rock had disclosed the interior of a cavern whose outlines were lost in impenetrable gloom, but which here and there in a vague fashion, as it caught the light of the candle flickering in his hat, seemed to sparkle as if its walls ...
— Drolls From Shadowland • J. H. Pearce
... talked much. So far today she had not said a word. She was sitting on the sill of the window across from Lucy Knox. She swung her hat on her knee, and loose, moist rings of dark hair curled around her dark, alert face. There was a sparkle in her grey eyes that boded ill to the men who were peaceably pursuing their avocations, rashly indifferent to what the women might be saying in ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1902 to 1903 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... Spring; The colors of hope to the valley cling, And weak old Winter himself must shiver, Withdrawn to the mountains, a crownless king: Whence, ever retreating, he sends again Impotent showers of sleet that darkle In belts across the green o' the plain. But the sun will permit no white to sparkle; Everywhere form in development moveth; He will brighten the world with the tints he loveth, And, lacking blossoms, blue, yellow, and red, He takes these gaudy people instead. Turn thee about, and from this height Back on the town direct thy sight. Out of the hollow, gloomy gate, ...
— Faust • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... might have been mistaken in the darkness for patterns embossed or incised on the surface of the steel, developed into figures draped in long, straight, pleated robes; and at the highest point of the firmament there hovered amid a sparkle of rubies and sapphires a woman crowned, pale of face, dressed like the Moorish mother of the northern side in Carmelite-brown and green; and she too held an infant, a child, like herself, of the white race, clasping a globe in one hand, and ...
— The Cathedral • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... sunsets, that deepen In the glory and gloom of night; In waters that glance and sparkle, In the ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 5, November, 1863 • Various
... he is not a finer essayist than Dean Inge, he is at least as good; he may not be so academic, but he is as learned; if he has not quite the charm of Mr. Lucas he is at least more versatile. His essays sparkle with epigrams, they are full of paradox. He has said that Plato said silly things and yet was the wonder of the ancient world. He can lament that H.G. Wells has come to the awful conclusion that two and two are four, and at the same time ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Patrick Braybrooke
... I'm going out. I'll find dry places between the puddles for my dainty paws to step on. An imperceptible thrill runs through the streaming garden, making the jewels hung all about, tremble and sparkle.... The slanting rays of the setting sun find their reflection in my eyes which are spangled with green and gold. Down near the horizon, where the sky is still unsettled, a glittering sword leaps up and puts to flight the dark, fuming cloud-horses, that have been ...
— Barks and Purrs • Colette Willy, aka Colette
... should we fear youth's draught of joy, If pure, would sparkle less? Why should the cup the sooner cloy Which ...
— A Brief Memoir with Portions of the Diary, Letters, and Other Remains, - of Eliza Southall, Late of Birmingham, England • Eliza Southall
... the shrubbery he came out to meet her, giving her his hand with a frank, easy air and a pleasant smile. His smile was as bright as the ripple of the sea, and his eye would then gleam, and the slightest sparkle of his white teeth would be seen between his lips, and the dimple of his chin would show itself deeper than at other times. "It is very good of you. I thought you'd come. John ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... day of the 23d of February, 1800, sleeping nature dreamed of spring; a brilliant, almost joyous sun made the grass in the ditches on either side of the road sparkle with those deceptive pearls of the hoarfrost which vanish at a touch, and rejoice the heart of a tiller of the earth when he sees them glittering at the points of his wheat as it pushes bravely up through the soil. All the windows of the diligence were lowered, to give entrance to this earliest ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas, pere
... the afternoon lent an added flush and sparkle to Winifred's face as she entered the study where her father and Miss Standish were playing chess together after the family dinner. Self-absorbed as she was at the moment, she found leisure to be struck with the picture of the two sitting ...
— Flint - His Faults, His Friendships and His Fortunes • Maud Wilder Goodwin
... it was to face the thought of going before an audience again! And especially in such circumstances. There were to be gayety and life and light and sparkle all about me. There were to be lassies, in their gay dresses, and the merriest music in London. And my part was to be merry, too, and to make the great audience laugh that I would see beyond the footlights. And I thought of the Merryman in The Yeomen of the Guard, and that I must be a ...
— A Minstrel In France • Harry Lauder
... Panney, "it must be such things as those that make your eyes sparkle! But of course it warms your heart to give her delicate eating when she first comes to you, and to have a fine pair of horses for her to drive behind. If your face beams as it does now while she is away, it will serve as an electric light when she comes back. Good fortune! Oh, yes, of course, ...
— The Girl at Cobhurst • Frank Richard Stockton
... have made me the most weary? It is not the bad people, nor the foolish people; we can get along with all such because of a streak of common humanity in us all, but I cannot survive without extreme lassitude the decorous people; those who slip through life without sound or sparkle, those who behave themselves upon every occasion, and would pass through a dynamite explosion without rumpling a hair; those who never have done anything out of the way and never will, simply for the same reason that a fish cannot perspire—no blood in 'em! ...
— A String of Amber Beads • Martha Everts Holden
... still held in brown hands ready for further plucking of the sonorous strings. And the room was alive with the uproar of Italian voices talking their native language, with the large and unselfconscious gestures of Italian hands, with the movement of Italian heads, with the flash and sparkle of animated Italian eyes. Chianti was being drunk; macaroni, minestra, gnocchi, ravioli, alaione were being eaten; here and there Toscanas were being smoked. Italy was in the warm air, and in an instant from Craven's consciousness London was ...
— December Love • Robert Hichens
... imagined himself to be the specially favoured man, and was Aurora's most devoted slave, and the girl played upon his big, affectionate heart, with no object but to awaken in Done a sparkle of the recent fire. One night Aurora danced with him through a lively reel, and at its conclusion, in a spirit of mirthless mischief, put up her red mouth to be kissed. Not for all the powers of good and evil would Tim have foregone that delight. He kissed her, but ...
— In the Roaring Fifties • Edward Dyson
... cheerfully replied my friend, drawing from his pocketbook three notes of a thousand francs, the sight of which made his wife's eyes sparkle. "I can no more resist the pleasure of offering them to you," he added, "than you can that of accepting them. This is the anniversary of the day I first saw you, and the diamonds will perhaps ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part II. • Honore de Balzac
... can I woo you in this ancient suit? You do not notice it, of course; I know it. My soul is burdened with a shapeless boot, Your heart is singing welcome to your poet. Here in the shadowy settle I can sit And sparkle with you, brightly confidential, But when into the lamp-bright zone you flit, I shrink into some corner penitential. A well-dressed crowd, their tailors all unpaid, Throng round you there, and cuffs and collars ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, December 5, 1891 • Various
... Ezra, still leaning over the chair, with an angry light beginning to sparkle in his dark eyes. "Why can you never ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... found that his manner was more than ordinarily kind to her; and there was moreover something about him which seemed to make him sparkle with contentment, but he said no word about Frank, nor did he make any allusion to the business which had taken him up ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope
... hatred of the commonplace becomes a mania, and it is by his head-long hunt after the best that he has lost by the way its useful enemy, good. In prose he would have every sentence shine, in verse he would have every line sparkle; like a lady who puts on all her jewellery at once, immediately after breakfast. As his own brain never rests, he does not realise that there are other brains which feel fatigue; and as his own taste is for what is hard, ringing, ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons
... beauty in her face. It was painfully thin, painfully long and haggard. Her life had written a fatal inscription across it as their life writes upon the faces of poor street-bred children the one word—Want. As they have too little this dancing woman had had too much. The sparkle of her robe of gold tissue covered with golden coins was strong in the lamplight. Domini looked at it and at the two sharp knives above her head, looked at her violent, shuddering movements, and shuddered too, thinking of Batouch's story ...
— The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens
... started. For a moment it seemed as if he were about to speak. But instead, he stared hard at Maida, falling gradually into a brown study. From time to time he came out of it long enough to look sharply at her. The sparkle had all gone out of her face. She was ...
— Maida's Little Shop • Inez Haynes Irwin
... that left the trade and took shelter under the flag of England. But the first thing is to bring down the price of gold, which will bring down both freight and profits, and enable the poor to enjoy the sparkle of the black diamonds. And now, Mr. Smith, let me say that what with the city, the State, and the national taxes, I am obliged to raise my rents, and I take the liberty to notify you that houses are scarce; and although I regret ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 103, May, 1866 • Various
... and asked to be allowed to wash out a panful of gold. The pay streak was very rich but standing at the bottom of the shaft, and looking at it by the light of a candle, all that could be seen was a yellowish looking dirt with here and there the sparkle of a little gold. Ogilvie took out a big panful and started to wash it out, while several miners stood around betting as to the result. Five hundred dollars was the highest estimate, but when the gold was weighed it came to a little over $590, or nearly L120. This I can vouch ...
— From Paris to New York by Land • Harry de Windt
... emphasis that the angel defines the sphere of salvation as being 'their sins.' The Messianic expectation had been degraded as it flowed through the generations, as some pure stream loses its early sparkle, and gathers scum on its surface from filth flung into it by men. Mere deliverance from the Roman yoke was all the salvation that the mass wanted or expected, and the tragedy of the Cross was foreshadowed in this prophecy which declares an inward emancipation from ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... must have glamoured her mind, for her eyes continued to sparkle, and mine was half a guess that ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London
... white-gloved hand and said, "So this is little Rose," the girl felt a sudden chill succeed the warmth of hospitality which had served to banish all her timid reserve, had brought a glow of happy color to her cheeks and a sparkle to her luminous eyes, and had made her as wholly natural as she would have been at home among her simple ...
— 'Smiles' - A Rose of the Cumberlands • Eliot H. Robinson
... indolent, and keeping late hours, sleepily jocular of a morning from under his bed-clothes, but with gleams of infatuation in his heavy lidded eyes, and always with some money in his pockets. There was no sparkle of any kind on the lazy stream of his life. It flowed through secret places. But his barque seemed a roomy craft, and his taciturn magnanimity accepted as a matter of ...
— The Secret Agent - A Simple Tale • Joseph Conrad
... plate-glass windows, and pity the brown soldiers,—or sneer at the black ones? to reduce the speed of trotting horses a second or two below its old minimum? to color meerschaums? to flaunt in laces, and sparkle in diamonds? to dredge our maiden's hair with gold-dust? to float through life, the passive shuttlecocks of fashion, from the avenues to the beaches, and back again from the beaches to the avenues? Was it for this that the broad domain of the Western hemisphere was kept ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... moment with his large thumb,—he who was liberal as nature in June,—and when the fruit-vender was wrought up to the proper point of ecstasy he was allowed to receive the money, which he did with a smile of Italian gracefulness and sparkle, while my father looked conscious of the mirthfulness of the situation with as lofty a manner as you please. As for the peasant women we met, under their little light-stands of head-drapery, they were easily comprehensible, and expressed without a shadow of reserve ...
— Memories of Hawthorne • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop
... with a critical eye to see if it displayed any fresh geological treasures to send Fergus in quest of. She began eagerly to pour forth the sister's never-ending tale of her brother's cleverness, and thus they came down the outside lane to the lower gate, seeing beforehand the sparkle of bicycles ...
— Modern Broods • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... contributed the requisite scholarship and the accurate knowledge, while Lillyston and De Vayne would often throw out some literary illustration or historical parallel, and Kennedy gave life and brightness to them all, by the flow and sparkle of his gaiety and wit. But it must be admitted that Kennedy was the least studious element in the party, and was too often the cause of digressions, and conversations which led them to abandon altogether the immediate object of ...
— Julian Home • Dean Frederic W. Farrar
... of ornament; but by far the greater number prefer them as snuff-boxes. In France they are made into bonbonnieres, and are much esteemed by the many thousands whose cheeks still glow and whose eyes still sparkle at ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... stand clear of clouds. Needles of every height and most fantastic shapes rise from the central ridge, some solitary, like sharp arrows shot against the sky, some clustering into sheaves. On every horn of snow and bank of grassy hill stars sparkle, rising, setting, rolling round through the long silent night. Moonlight simplifies and softens the landscape. Colours become scarcely distinguishable, and forms, deprived of half their detail, gain in majesty and size. The mountains seem greater far by night than day—higher heights and ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds
... mood of wild exhilaration caught them. The inevitable psychological reaction had set in. Their morbid horror of Nature vanished in its vitalizing flood like a cobweb in a flame. Never had sea or sky or earth seemed more lovely, more lusciously, voluptuously lovely. The sparkle of the salt wind tingled through their bodies like an electric current. The warmth in the air lapped them like a hot bath. Joy-in-life flared up in them to such a height that it kept them running and leaping meaninglessly. They shouted wild phrases to each other. They burst into ...
— Angel Island • Inez Haynes Gillmore
... her bodice, and substituted the pale-blue cashmere blouse for the ugly and threadbare garment she had removed. Whether the blouse was becoming to Susy Hopkins or not remains to be proved, but it certainly delighted its wearer, causing her eyes to sparkle and the color in her cheeks ...
— The Rebel of the School • Mrs. L. T. Meade
... whiteness of his hair was he like the old Feller. His tone, the boyish sparkle of his black eyes, those full, expressive lips playing over the brilliant teeth, his easy grace, his quick and telling gestures—they were of the Feller of cadet days. Something in his look as he stopped in front of her startled Marta. Suddenly he bent over and drew ...
— The Last Shot • Frederick Palmer
... —Ah, tired madcaps! you lie still; But were you at the window now, To look forth on the fairy sight Of your illumined haunts by night, 355 To see the park-glades where you play Far lovelier than they are by day, To see the sparkle on the eaves, And upon every giant-bough Of those old oaks, whose wet red leaves 360 Are jewell'd with bright drops of rain— How would your voices run again! And far beyond the sparkling trees Of the castle-park one sees The bare heaths ...
— Matthew Arnold's Sohrab and Rustum and Other Poems • Matthew Arnold
... A little satiric sparkle leaped to life in Stoddard's eyes. He looked at the innocent, upraised face in wonder. The most experienced manoeuverer of Society's legion could not have handled a difficult ...
— The Power and the Glory • Grace MacGowan Cooke
... first with a sparkle of coquetry in her eye, then with a glance of compassion as she noticed how much the debonair visitor had changed for the worse since she saw him last. She looked at him solicitously, as though she would ...
— The Moon Rock • Arthur J. Rees
... dressed in the garb of a hunter. Long yellow curls hung on his shoulders, and a heavy beard and moustache of the same colour concealed the lower part of a bronzed and handsome countenance. His bright blue eyes seemed to sparkle with good humour as he gazed inquiringly, yet sadly, at the astonished faces of ...
— The Crew of the Water Wagtail • R.M. Ballantyne
... fire. Death had no terrors for him, who had seen it by land and sea, in brawls and shipwrecks, by hunger and by scurvy. He laid the bodies side by side, and warmed the infant at the fire. Looking up from the living child's face, he caught the sparkle of the crucifix he had discovered, where it stood in the narrow window-sill. There were gems of various colors in it, and they reflected the firelight lustrously, like a slender chandelier, or, as the Jew remembered in the version of the Evangels, like the gifts ...
— Tales of the Chesapeake • George Alfred Townsend
... thus with Marechal, Madame Desvarennes was walking about the office. She was still the same woman with the broad prominent forehead. Her hair, which she wore in smooth plaits, had become gray, but the sparkle of her dark eyes only seemed the brighter from this. She had preserved her splendid teeth, and her smile had remained young and charming. She spoke with animation, as usual, and with the gestures of a man. She placed herself before her secretary, seeming to appeal to him as a ...
— Serge Panine, Complete • Georges Ohnet
... have been compared with the social satirettes of Lucian, Swift, and Voltaire. It is true they have not the fine touch and exquisite polish of the witty Greek of Samosata, nor the subtle irony of Voltaire and Montesquieu, nor the profound grasp of the Dean. But they are full of wit, observation, sparkle, and fun. The style is careless and even incorrect, but it is full of point and life. The effects are rather stagey, and the smartness somewhat strained—that is, if these boyish trifles are compared with Candide and ...
— Studies in Early Victorian Literature • Frederic Harrison
... of wisdom made the Almanac sparkle. The mechanical execution of the work excelled that of any of its predecessors; but this literary feature marked the Almanac as marvellous. It became popular at once. Every body who saw it, admired and bought it. The ...
— From Boyhood to Manhood • William M. Thayer
... coast iv Porther Ricky, Gin'ral Miles gazes out, an' says he, 'This looks like a good place to hang th' hammicks, an' have lunch,' says he. 'Forward, brave men,' says he, 'where ye see me di'mon's sparkle,' says he. 'Forward, an' plant th' crokay ar-rches iv our beloved counthry,' he says. An' in they wint, like inthrepid warryors that they ar-re. On th' beach they was met be a diligation fr'm th' town of Punch, con-sistin' iv th' mayor, th' common council, th' polis an' ...
— Mr. Dooley in Peace and in War • Finley Peter Dunne
... took the chief share in that lively yet intellectual intercourse. Marion only put in a word occasionally; and, though very amiable, still did not show so much cordiality as her sister. But Miss O'Halloran! what wit! what sparkle! what mirth! what fun! what repartee! what culture! what refinement! what an acquaintance with the world! what a knowledge of men and things! what a faultless accent! what indescribable grace of manner! what a generous ...
— The Lady of the Ice - A Novel • James De Mille
... than it does with us. My own notion is that mine was the ideal age for such a part. I think of that little supper—Fanny's tremulous sips of Burgundy from my wash-stand tumbler, the warm flush in her pale cheeks, and the sparkle in her brown eyes—as crystallising a good deal of the phase in which I was living just then. I am quite sure I did ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson
... entwined, His hand kept chorus to my lay. No more! O, we were happier than the happy birds; And sweeter were our lives than the sweet flowers; The stars were not more tranquil in their course, Yet not more bright! The fountains in their play Did most resemble us, that as they flow Still sparkle! ...
— Count Alarcos - A Tragedy • Benjamin Disraeli
... some time looking out with eyes that hardly saw the heavenly blue of the sky, or the sparkle of the waves as they rose and fell in the sunshine. Then, as though her spirit had already traversed the unending stretch of ocean, she said with a throb of ...
— Glenloch Girls • Grace M. Remick
... sky is clear on the seventh night, the lovers are fortunate; and their stars can be seen to sparkle with delight. If the star Kengy[u] then shines very brightly, there will be great rice crops in the autumn. If the star Shokujo looks brighter than usual, there will be a prosperous time for weavers, and for every kind of ...
— The Romance of the Milky Way - And Other Studies & Stories • Lafcadio Hearn
... what, rather, did the working genius of the language, do? It adopted, but, in adopting, modified slightly yet effectually the word, changing it into 'Karfunkel,' thus retaining the framework of the original, yet at the same time, inasmuch as 'funkeln' signifies 'to sparkle,' reproducing now in an entirely novel manner the image of the bright sparkling of the stone, for every knower of the German tongue. 'Margarita,' or pearl, belongs to the earliest group of Latin ...
— On the Study of Words • Richard C Trench
... suspended different descriptions of arms, richly manufactured; on the right, they consist of swords and poniards; on the left, of various kinds of muskets and pistols. Gold, silver, and precious stones sparkle out from these arms. Under these weapons are ranged three rows of divans, covered with a thick sort of red silk. The centre of the apartment is furnished with magnificent Persian carpets. On the lowest of the divans, the principal courtiers seat themselves, on solemn days of reception, ...
— Notes in North Africa - Being a Guide to the Sportsman and Tourist in Algeria and Tunisia • W. G. Windham
... idea we'd be interrupting a session of the brain trust," Phyl added with a mischievous sparkle in her brown eyes. "Maybe we should go away ...
— Tom Swift and The Visitor from Planet X • Victor Appleton
... Mrs. Shaw could see me now," he whispered, almost inaudibly, "how her magnificent eyes would sparkle, and what a heavenly smile would animate her angelic features! Yes, yes, I will remember her smile—it shall find an echo in the jubilant accords of my Creation. But ...
— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach
... been stuck end up in the sand, and its cheerful glow threw a radiance over all the little island and caused the silvery white sand to sparkle brilliantly. ...
— The River of Darkness - Under Africa • William Murray Graydon
... o'clock the next morning, Raphael Aben-Ezra was lying in bed, alternately yawning over a manuscript of Philo Judaeus, pulling the ears of his huge British mastiff, watching the sparkle of the fountain in the court outside, wondering when that lazy boy would come to tell him that the bath was ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley
... charming little old lady who would have commanded attention on her own merits in any less preoccupied assembly than that of the studio. Her exceedingly bright eyes and her exceedingly white hair seemed to accentuate her animation of manner; there was so much sparkle in her face that even her ...
— A Bookful of Girls • Anna Fuller
... can I know the true secret of power? How can I attain to a true and lasting greatness? How can I fill the whole of life with a happiness, a peace, a joy, a satisfaction that is ever rich and abiding, that ever increases, never diminishes, that imparts to it a sparkle that never loses its lustre, that ever ...
— What All The World's A-Seeking • Ralph Waldo Trine
... her gorgeous robe compose; In many a fold the shining vestment flows; And far behind sends forth a sweeping Train, Which Dame Cornelys scarcely can sustain. Gems bright as those which Eastern Monarchs wear, Hang on her breast and sparkle in her hair. She but commands, and lo!—submissive Art Is proud its curious labours to impart. She but commands,—and eager Nature brings The best and fairest of her offerings. The distant Climates with each ...
— The First of April - Or, The Triumphs of Folly: A Poem Dedicated to a Celebrated - Duchess. By the author of The Diaboliad. • William Combe
... finally fell, this creature of its making had already passed the danger-point, and so stood unshaken; Biarritz had become too popular, its clientele too devoted, to part company. Even in the winter it has its increasing colony; in summer its vogue is beyond caprice. The sparkle of the royal occupation has gone, and the royal villa is tenantless; but the place no longer needs a helping hand, for it is abundantly able to ...
— A Midsummer Drive Through The Pyrenees • Edwin Asa Dix
... sorrow shall be turned into joy." "The morning cometh"—that bright morning when the dew-drops collected during earth's night of weeping shall sparkle in its beams; when in one blessed moment a life-long experience of trial will be effaced and forgotten, or remembered only by contrast, to enhance the fulness of the joys of immortality. What a revelation of gladness! ...
— The Words of Jesus • John R. Macduff
... the lad caught sight of himself in the little looking-glass that hung over his chest of drawers. Mira, watching him, saw the sparkle go out of his eyes, saw his shoulders droop, and his head sink ...
— The Green Satin Gown • Laura E. Richards
... even in caverns, afford no protection to us. What can be more wretched than such a life? and what than such a death? when they could not be buried by their friends and relations. At length they sparkle in heaven. He has scarcely lived who has lived in Christian ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... of her something glistening in the stretch of the prairie. The moonlight seemed to sparkle on it. ...
— The Curlytops at Uncle Frank's Ranch • Howard R. Garis
... her clothes, got her skates, and ran out into the snap and sparkle of the day. The winter darkness had settled down before she returned, all glowing and rosy, and bright-eyed. Her blood was racing through her body. Her lips were parted. The drudgery of the past three weeks seemed to have been blotted ...
— Fanny Herself • Edna Ferber
... stones on Earth have their counterparts in the heavens, presenting in a jewelled form contrasts of colour, pleasing harmonies, and endless variety of shade. The diamond, sapphire, emerald, amethyst, topaz, and ruby sparkle among crowds of stars of more sombre hue. Agate, chalcedony, onyx, opal, beryl, lapis-lazuli, and aquamarine are represented by the radiant sheen emanating from distant suns, displaying an inexhaustible variety of colour, blended in ...
— The Astronomy of Milton's 'Paradise Lost' • Thomas Orchard
... in reading any other kind of literature. To see him unwrapping the packages which his English mail had brought was to see a happy man. For in addition to books by post, there would be bundles of sale-catalogues. Then might you behold his eyes sparkle as he spread out the tempting lists; the humorous lines about the corners of his mouth deepened, and he would take on what a little girl who watched him called his 'pussy-cat look.' Then with an indelible ...
— The Bibliotaph - and Other People • Leon H. Vincent
... long wave crept up the ocean marge, To steal the silver sparkle of the sand; Then lapsing from the shore, I scarce could feel Its soft pulsations underneath the keel, As I sat patiently within the barge, Until the breeze should bear ...
— Across the Sea and Other Poems. • Thomas S. Chard
... face, with fondness, Let me gaze, fair queen of night, For my Annie's tears of sorrow Sparkle ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume II. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... the soul, prompting to the same unwearied and self-denying activity in doing good. With a constancy and vigor based on this life-giving principle, let each one endeavor to make his influence felt throughout the world; becoming, in his sphere, like one of those fixed stars that sparkle in the midnight sky—a blazing sun to those that are near, a gem of sweetest ray ...
— The Faithful Steward - Or, Systematic Beneficence an Essential of Christian Character • Sereno D. Clark
... accustomed to analyze character and investigate human nature, he detected the varnished insincerity of Randal's artful address. His colour rose, his voice swelled, his fancy began to play, and his wit to sparkle, when he came to take to pieces his younger antagonist's rhetorical mosaic. He exposed the falsehood of its affected moderation; he tore into shreds the veil of words, with their motley woof of yellow and blue, and showed that not ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... to camp Nielsen had gone to bed and the fire had burned low. I threw on some branches of sage. The fire blazed up. But it seemed different from other camp-fires. No cheer, no glow, no sparkle! Perhaps it was owing to scant and poor wood. Still I thought it was owing as much to the place. The sadness, the loneliness, the desolateness of this place weighed upon the camp-fire the same as ...
— Tales of lonely trails • Zane Grey
... cliffs and the trees that grow along their summit. It was too high up, too large, and too steady for a kite; and as it was dark, it could not be a star. For although a star were as black as ink and as rugged as a walnut, so amply does the sun bathe heaven with radiance, that it would sparkle like a point of light for us. The village was dotted with people with their heads in air; and the children were in a bustle all along the street and far up the straight road that climbs the hill, where we could still ...
— An Inland Voyage • Robert Louis Stevenson
... understanding than her husband, she should be very industrious to conceal it; but it is like wise true, that the natural vanity of the sex is difficult to check, and the vanity of a poet still more difficult: wit in a female mind can no more cease to sparkle, than she who possesses it, can cease to speak. Mr. Pilkington began to view her with scornful, yet with jealous eyes, and in this situation, nothing but misery was likely to be their lot. While these jealousies subsisted, Mr. Pilkington, contrary to the advice ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753),Vol. V. • Theophilus Cibber
... plants that hang their golden blossoms in the pathways and carrying up the dewdrops that sparkle like diamonds from their leaves in the daybreak. And it was pleasant to see them work, ...
— Childhood's Favorites and Fairy Stories - The Young Folks Treasury, Volume 1 • Various
... the Tower—the end of all things, so far as London was concerned. Beyond it she saw the wide rolling hills, the bright reaches of the river, and the sparkle of ...
— Come Rack! Come Rope! • Robert Hugh Benson
... vividness of the parks and the green billowing of the trees that line most of the streets. Landing, the newcomer is at once steeped in the depressing air of a seaport town that has not troubled to keep its houses in the brightest condition. As many of those houses are of wood, the youthful sparkle of which vanishes in the maturity of ill-kept paintwork, the first impression of Halifax is actually more melancholy ...
— Westward with the Prince of Wales • W. Douglas Newton
... Their technical procedure is different, and based on an optical law which proves that pure primary colours, put alongside of each other in alternating small quantities, will give, at a certain distance, a freshness and sparkle of atmosphere not attained by the earlier technical methods of the impressionistic school, which does not in the putting on of the paint differ from the old school. Besides, this use of pure paint enabled them to have the mixing of the paint, ...
— The Galleries of the Exposition • Eugen Neuhaus
... mother. Fraulein Emilie Sendel was a lively lady of four-and-twenty or thereabouts, possessing a smart figure and pretty face, the latter somewhat wanting in refinement. Her blue eyes although rather too prominent, had a merry sparkle; her cheeks had not yet been entirely despoiled by envious rouge of their natural healthful tinge; her hair, of that peculiar tint of red auburn which the French call a blond hasarde, was more remarkable for abundance and flexibility than for fineness ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various
... night, before he shrieked out that the black cats were there. Neither Eustace nor Gaston could see them, but that was only a proof that they were not under the power of the enchantment, and John Ingram was quite sure that he had not only seen the sparkle of their fiery eyes, but felt the scratch of their talons, which struck him to the ground, with his foot caught in the rope of the tent, while he was walking about with ...
— The Lances of Lynwood • Charlotte M. Yonge
... a note," she said; and Mr. Fairchild saw that the pretty waxen doll could sparkle and blush, and look as happy as his own children ...
— The Fairchild Family • Mary Martha Sherwood
... good graces; and they recommend him back again to his own, where he finds so kind a reception that he wonders how he does fail of it everywhere else. His passion is as easily set on fire as a fart, and as soon out again. He is charged and primed with love-powder like a gun, and the least sparkle of an eye gives fire to him and off he goes, but seldom or never hits the mark. He has commonplaces, and precedents of repartees, and letters for all occasions, and falls as readily into his method of making love as a parson does into his form of matrimony. ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... followed the foiled attempt to open it. He recognized the voice as lady Ann's, and made haste to admit her. But her ladyship stood motionless on the door-mat, erect and cool. Anger itself could not warm her, for that she was angry was plain only from the steely sparkle ...
— There & Back • George MacDonald
... other, Pointing with outstretched hands, and saying, "Look!" he had vanished. So they returned to their homes; but Alden lingered a little, Musing alone on the shore, and watching the wash of the billows Round the base of the rock, and the sparkle and flash of the sunshine, Like the spirit of God, moving visibly ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... All ancient history was written with a moral object; the ethical interest predominates almost to the exclusion of all others. Tacitus is never merely literary. The [Greek: semnotes] which Pliny notes as the characteristic of his oratory, never lets him sparkle to no purpose. All his pictures have a moral object 'to rescue virtue from oblivion and restrain vice by the terror of posthumous infamy'.[2] His prime interest is character: and when he has conducted some skilful piece of moral diagnosis there attaches to his verdict some of the severity ...
— Tacitus: The Histories, Volumes I and II • Caius Cornelius Tacitus
... sapphire with its sparkle of diamonds had flashed into sight, she had seemed to read his mind. She guessed he must be telling himself that his informant—the Countess, or some other—had mistaken ...
— The Second Latchkey • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... said, "as far as I know: 'One flew east and one flew west and one flew over the cuckoo's nest.'" I wish I could convey by words the lilt of her clear, fearless, boyish voice, the sparkle of mischief and daring in her eyes, and deep beneath, like treasures in the sea, that look of steadfastness, of praying, that made you wonder if she was really as happy and as carefree as she seemed to be, and not some loyal martyr upon ...
— We Three • Gouverneur Morris
... excursions into the surrounding country shooting, though with indifferent results. The Crown Prince Danilo's birthday came one day during our stay, and Governor, staff, and officials went to church attired in glorious raiment. They literally sparkle in gold lace embroidery, orders, and decorations, and for a gorgeous but absolutely tasteful effect commend me to the gala dress of the Montenegrin high official. It is the most artistic blending of gold, crimson, ...
— The Land of the Black Mountain - The Adventures of Two Englishmen in Montenegro • Reginald Wyon
... your convent will leave you of a surpassing ignorance, which may cover you with confusion when you find yourself in fine company. There are accomplishments without which youth is no more admired than age and grey hairs; and to sparkle with wit or astonish with learning is a necessity for a woman of quality. It is only by the advantages of education that we can show ourselves superior to such a hussy as Albemarle's gutter-bred duchess, who was the ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... in morbid or irritable moods. He was excitable, and had a high and sometimes furious temper, but even his habit of study never extinguished his gay and lively spirits. On the other hand, beneath the surface sparkle of his mind was a British ruggedness and tenacity, and a stubborn oneness of purpose, whatever might be the object, with which no lighter mood interfered. All this Rachael lived long enough to ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... by the Wuerzburg master radiated a vivid charm, which with the spell of the small room, decorated with such tender affection for old memories, and the greenish-golden sparkle of the Rhine wine in the hock glasses, brought back the German home in all its deep-seated force and beauty—a beauty, it is true, unintelligible, and therefore non-existent, to the average ...
— Atlantis • Gerhart Hauptmann
... Thirdly, there are no ghosts there; that can be demonstrated. It renders a case unsubstantial to introduce these flimsy spirits. Fourthly, the map is lost, and it might be asked was there ever such a map? Fifthly, the people are all gone. Sixthly, no one ever saw any particular sparkle on the brook there, and the clouds appear to be of the same commonplace order that go about everywhere. Seventhly, no one can find these footpaths, which probably led nowhere; and as for the little old man with silver buckles on his shoes, it is a story only ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies
... circle round, raising and stamping their feet and waving their arms; a kind of tune crept into their rhythmic recitation, and a refrain,—"Aloola," or "Balloola," it sounded like. Their eyes began to sparkle, and their ugly faces to brighten, with an expression of strange pleasure. Saliva dripped from their ...
— The Island of Doctor Moreau • H. G. Wells
... dusky air; Sparkle the delicate dews, the distant snows; The great deep thrills—for through it everywhere ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... little girl, Moreland? She's the child of my dreams—the very one I've been hunting for weeks. She has not only the sparkle and spirit that I want to put into those pictures I was telling you about, but the grace and the curls and the mischievous eyes as well. Reckon I could get ...
— Georgina of the Rainbows • Annie Fellows Johnston
... photograph of a Christmas tree whose trimming is entirely home-made. The brilliant colors and shining gilt of the papers used, give a sparkle and life that are most captivating, and the ornaments are so easily made that the children themselves can do much toward decorating a tree in ...
— Little Folks' Handy Book • Lina Beard
... water to his feet, and wine to cool his throat; and hell, hell, hell, and its flames, was aye the word in his mouth. They brought him water, and when they plunged his swoln feet into the tub, he cried out it was burning; and folk say that it did bubble and sparkle like a seething caldron. He flung the cup at Dougal's head, and said he had given him blood instead of burgundy; and, sure aneugh, the lass washed clotted blood aff the carpet the neist day. The jackanape they caa'd ...
— The Haunters & The Haunted - Ghost Stories And Tales Of The Supernatural • Various
... stood where he was, in spite of the dangerous sparkle that shone in his visitor's wet eyes. A frown gathered on ...
— A Woman Intervenes • Robert Barr
... talk, while the Wall street owners act. Let me tell you a story. I once had a dog trained so that he would lay down and roll over for a cracker, and would hold a piece of meat on his nose until his mouth would water and his eyes sparkle, but he would wait for me to snap my fingers before he would toss the meat in the air with his nose and snatch it in his mouth, and swallow it whole for fear I would get it away from him. He would stand on his hind legs ...
— Peck's Bad Boy With the Cowboys • Hon. Geo. W. Peck
... unsteadiness of the wing. The most splendid results of Shakspeare's poetry are still separated by some interposing defect; but the poetry of Comus may be contemplated as a series of gems strung on golden wire, where the sparkle shoots along the line with scarcely the intervention of one ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol. I. No. 3. March 1810 • Various
... jostle, whirl and flutter! They whisper, babble, twirl, and splutter! They glimmer, sparkle, stink and flare— A true witch-element! Beware! Stick close! else we shall severed ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... killed him once a week. Without doubt he does his literary lectures well, but also without doubt he prepares them fifteen minutes before he is due on his platform and thus gets into them a freshness and sparkle which they might lack if they underwent the ...
— Chapters from My Autobiography • Mark Twain |
