"Tortoise-shell" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... had taken the six-foot spring that plumped him into the middle of the pool. And on the neighboring banks the maiden-hair spread its flat disk of embroidered fronds on the wire-like stem that glistened polished and brown as the darkest tortoise-shell, and pale violets, cheated by the cold skies of their hues and perfume, sunned themselves like white-cheeked invalids. Over these rose the old forest-trees,—the maple, scarred with the wounds which had drained away its sweet life-blood,—the beech, its smooth gray bark ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... handkerchief to her face, and her neck shake a minute convulsively. Duff Salter here sneezed loudly: "Jericho! Jerichew! Je-ry-cho-o!" He produced a tortoise-shell snuff-box, and Podge took a pinch, for fun, and sneezed until the tears came to her eyes and her hair was shaken down. She wrote ...
— Bohemian Days - Three American Tales • Geo. Alfred Townsend
... which was richly decorated; the dipluviatum, where the roof, instead of sloping inward, sloped outward and threw off the rain-water into the street; the testudinatum, in which the roof looked like an immense tortoise-shell, etc. But these forms of roofs, especially the last mentioned, were rare, and the Tuscan atrium was almost everywhere predominant, as we find ...
— The Wonders of Pompeii • Marc Monnier
... at the time when men of fashion wore large wigs, was even at public places an act of gallantry. The combs, for this purpose, were of a very large size, of ivory or tortoise-shell, curiously chased and ornamented, and were carried in the pocket as constantly as the snuff-box. At Court, on the Mall, and in the boxes, gentlemen conversed and combed their perukes "(Sir John Hawkins' ...
— The Tatler, Volume 1, 1899 • George A. Aitken
... she put on a white silk gown which turned her into a pale spirit flitting hither and thither in the silver dusk. Still Knight had not come. She pulled out the four great tortoise-shell pins which held up her hair, and let it tumble over her shoulders. As she began to twist it into one heavy plait, she walked to the window ...
— The Second Latchkey • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... into an adjoining room: the door of which was open. It was a large room, with a great window. Behind a desk, sat two old gentleman with powdered heads: one of whom was reading the newspaper; while the other was perusing, with the aid of a pair of tortoise-shell spectacles, a small piece of parchment which lay before him. Mr. Limbkins was standing in front of the desk on one side; and Mr. Gamfield, with a partially washed face, on the other; while two or three bluff-looking men, in top-boots, were ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens
... waist was bare. She wore long pink drawers of silk, and for girdle she had the blue buds of the lotus, which are symbols of virginity. She was young and exquisitely formed. In her face you read strange records, and on her lips were promises as rare. Her eyes were tortoise-shell, her hair was black ...
— Mary Magdalen • Edgar Saltus
... man, about fifty, slightly stooped, with a bulging midriff, tortoise-shell glasses, graying hair, and a strange look in his eyes. I'd noticed him standing outside Shannon's Bar for about ten minutes, pacing back and forth. Then he came in and sat down next to me. It was late afternoon, ...
— "To Invade New York...." • Irwin Lewis
... weather the friction of a tortoise-shell comb will electrify the hair and make it cling to the teeth. Sometimes persons emit sparks in pulling off their flannels or silk stockings. The fur of a cat, or even of a garment, stroked in the dark ...
— The Story Of Electricity • John Munro
... there was published an instruction book in this art, called Chelys Minuritionum, i.e., the 'Tortoise-shell of Diminutions,' hence (Chelys meaning a lyre, made of a tortoise-shell) 'The Division Viol.' The book is by Christopher Sympson, a Royalist soldier, who was a well-known viol-da-gamba player. The work is in three parts, the third of which is devoted ...
— Shakespeare and Music - With Illustrations from the Music of the 16th and 17th centuries • Edward W. Naylor
... lace fan. Then, when I had put the finishing touch, in the shape of dear Ida's present—a vinaigrette of oxidized silver formed like a half-furled fan—I was quite satisfied with my toilette; before the day was over, however, my ceinture was adorned with a tortoise-shell chatelaine, whistle, and tablets, as well as a dainty riding-whip—papa's present—and I deeply mourned the impossibility of wearing two beautiful pictures, a new novel, and a large box ...
— The Story of a Summer - Or, Journal Leaves from Chappaqua • Cecilia Cleveland
... glad," said she with a little laugh. "I'd imagined you a horrid elderly person with a white cravat and tortoise-shell spectacles. It ...
— Roger Ingleton, Minor • Talbot Baines Reed
... attired in golden rays, he bore in his hands, O king, a staff made of gold and a waterpot made of the same precious metal. Accomplished in song and dance and adored by gods and Brahmanas, he had with him a beautiful Vina of melodious notes, made of the tortoise-shell. A provoker of quarrels and ever fond of quarrels, the celestial Rishi came to that spot where the handsome Rama was resting. Standing up and sufficiently honouring the celestial Rishi of regulated vows, Rama asked him ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... and looked round the bedroom, with renewed admiration of everything that she saw. At the sight of the hairbrushes and the comb, she clapped her hands in ecstasy. "Oh, how different from mine!" she exclaimed. "Is the comb tortoise-shell, sir, like one sees in the shop-windows?" The bath and the towels attracted her next; she stood, looking at them with longing eyes, completely forgetful of the wonderful comb. "I've often peeped into the ironmongers' shops," she said, "and thought I should be the happiest girl in the world, ...
— The Fallen Leaves • Wilkie Collins
... in a suppressed voice, "it is a fox-squirrel, and such a beauty! See! it is marked like a tortoise-shell cat! Papa would give twenty dollars for such ...
— The Boy Hunters • Captain Mayne Reid
... alarmed if in the evening, when the fire is burning brightly and you are chatting gayly beside it, he should take off one of your shoes and stockings, put your foot on his lap, and in a moment of forgetfulness carry irreverence so far as to kiss it; if he likes to pass your large tortoise-shell comb through your hair, if he selects your perfumes, arranges your plaits, and suddenly exclaims, striking his forehead: "Sit down there, darling; I have an idea how to ...
— Monsieur, Madame and Bebe, Complete • Gustave Droz
... Poulton and Sanders[45] were made with 600 pupae of Vanessa urticae, the "tortoise-shell butterfly." The pupae were artificially attached to nettles, tree-trunks, fences, walls, and to the ground, some at Oxford, some at St. Helens in the Isle of Wight. In the course of a month 93% of the pupae at Oxford were killed, chiefly by ...
— Evolution in Modern Thought • Ernst Haeckel
... old friend Moreno, at Havana," said Captain Brand, as he sat down on the settee, and with a pretty tortoise-shell knife cut round the seals. "Ah! what says he? 'Happy to inform you,' is he? 'Packages of French silks seized by custom-house on account of informal invoice and clearance.' Why didn't the fool forge others, then? Well, what next? 'Schooner "Reel," ...
— Captain Brand of the "Centipede" • H. A. (Henry Augustus) Wise
... less venturesome, and they all sat down on the floor to make a selection. Reba chose a quaint, silver buckle, Reliance selected a mother-of-pearl card-case, Edna decided upon a tortoise-shell comb. ...
— A Dear Little Girl's Thanksgiving Holidays • Amy E. Blanchard
... snowed a little, then it rained, then snowed again, seeming as if the weather was determined on some kind of storm, but had not yet made up its mind for snow, rain, or hail. Now the wind roared in the chimney, and started out of her sleep a great tortoise-shell cat, that lay on the rug which Aunt Kindly had made for her. Tabby opened her yellow eyes suddenly, and erected her smellers, but finding it was only the wind and not a mouse that made the noise, she stretched out a great paw and yawned, and then cuddled her head ...
— Two Christmas Celebrations • Theodore Parker
... well deserved the treatment it received at the hands of the Mexicans to whom we are indebted for it. At the royal banquets frothing chocolate was served in golden goblets with finely wrought golden or tortoise-shell spoons. The froth in this case was of the consistency of honey, so that when eaten cold it would gradually dissolve in the mouth. Here is a luscious suggestion for twentieth century housewives, handed to them from five ...
— The Food of the Gods - A Popular Account of Cocoa • Brandon Head
... in the centre, sat a very fat and red-faced gentleman, in tortoise-shell spectacles, whose dignified appearance announced the judge; and round a long green-baized table below, something like a billiard-table without the cushions and pockets, were a number of very self-important-looking personages, in stiff neckcloths, and black gowns with white fur collars, ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... sleep. She would sustain the loud parts, then linger over the melody; there were movements that she would play with tenderness and others with little bursts of passion. She bent over the piano, then rose again, the light playing on the top of her tortoise-shell comb one moment, while the next moment it could scarcely be seen in her black hair. The two candles on the piano flickered to the noise, throwing a light over her profile or sending their flame over her forehead, her cheeks, and her chin. The shadow from her ear-rings—two coral balls—trembled ...
— Rene Mauperin • Edmond de Goncourt and Jules de Goncourt
... his own special fields of labour. He is a great trader with the countries near home, and sends out many junks to the East Indies, the Malay Islands, and the South Sea Islands, to collect edible birds' nests, trepang, ornamental woods, pearls, pearl-shells, tortoise-shell, and the skins of birds of paradise. At Singapore, there are hundreds of Chinese shopkeepers, who sell all kinds of miscellaneous articles, such as penknives, cotton thread, writing-paper, gunpowder, and corkscrews, often at a price which ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... among daffodils and lilies, afraid lest the dew make her coat damp and ragged before her lover joins her. She sniffs at the young lavender and calls. Her call is answered by the black tom-cat which appears, broad-backed like a marten, on the neighbour's fence; but the gardener's tortoise-shell approaches from the cow-shed and the fight begins. Handfuls of the rich, black soil are flying about in all directions, and the newly-planted radishes and spinach plants are roughly awakened from their quiet sleep and dreams of the future. The stronger ...
— Married • August Strindberg
... tongue in daily danger of telling his hopes to a mixed but assuredly interested company. As he walked by the Lunn house, on his way to and from the harbor side, he looked at it with a feeling of relationship and love; he admired the clean white curtains at the windows, he envied the plump tortoise-shell cat on the side doorstep; if he saw the composed and pleasant face of Maria glancing up from her sewing, he swept his hat through the air with as gallant a bow as Longport had ever seen, and blushed with joy and pride. Maria Lunn owned ...
— The Life of Nancy • Sarah Orne Jewett
... is a tortoise-shell, yellow and black, With a lot of white about him: If you tease him, at once he sets up his back: He's a quarrelsome Tom, ne'er doubt him! I think we shall call him this— I think we shall call him that; Now, don't you fancy "Scratchaway" A nice ...
— The Nursery, April 1877, Vol. XXI. No. 4 - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest Readers • Various
... his hands and drew the burning brazier close to his feet; then, suddenly, from a sleeve of his robe he took a little box of the sacred tortoise-shell, pressed his lips to it, opened it, poured its contents upon the flame, leaned over with his face close to the brazier and inhaled the little puff of ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... as he drooped it into her little arms. Her visits to the stable had been discovered and forbidden, but the scandal was even greater when she was found in the paddock, standing on an inverted bucket, and grooming the white horse with Lady Louisa's tortoise-shell dressing-comb. ...
— Jan of the Windmill • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... by the extraordinary variety of the work of the 16th and 17th centuries, and very often of the 18th also. The basis of the cabinet has always been wood, carved, polished or inlaid; but lavish use has been made of ivory, tortoise-shell, and those cut and polished precious stones which the Italians call pietra dura. In the great Flemish period of the 17th century the doors and drawers of cabinets were often painted with classical or mythological scenes. Many French and Florentine cabinets ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... shabbily in a sort of cape such as would be worn in Switzerland or North Italy at that time of year. But, at any rate, all the minor details of his costume, the little studs, and collar, the buttons, the tortoise-shell lorgnette on a narrow black ribbon, the signet-ring, were all such as are worn by persons of the most irreproachable good form. I am certain that in summer he must have worn light prunella shoes with mother-of-pearl ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... empty tortoise-shell He stretched some chords, and drew Music that made men's bosoms swell Fearless, or brimmed their eyes ...
— The Vision of Sir Launfal - And Other Poems • James Russell Lowell
... the draperies. Then she went back to her stool and began to paint in silence. The stuffs were coloured and dark and pale; they made a curious swarm of lines and colours upon the counterpane, with the reddish lumps of stone and peacocks' feathers and clear pale tortoise-shell ...
— The Voyage Out • Virginia Woolf
... several kinds are abundant. The land turtle reaches a foot in length. Its shell is of a dark colour. It is eaten, but is not esteemed of so good a quality as the sea turtle. The coasts are frequented by various species of sea turtle, known as the green, the hawks-bill—which affords the best tortoise-shell to commerce—and the trunk-turtle, which is larger than either of its two relatives. From its flesh is extracted a kind of oil, which is of ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston
... they cannot be firm when danger threatens the government, nor lend support when it is reeling, of what use then shall they be as Assistants?'—Besides, you are wrong in what you said. When a rhinoceros or tiger breaks out of its cage—when a jewel or tortoise-shell ornament is damaged in its casket—whose fault ...
— Chinese Literature • Anonymous
... ground as if they were a crooked dial-plate, and himself the only figure on it. With hair and whiskers deficient in colour at all times, but feebler than common in the rich sunshine, and more like the coat of a sandy tortoise-shell cat; with long nails, nicely pared and sharpened; with a natural antipathy to any speck of dirt, which made him pause sometimes and watch the falling motes of dust, and rub them off his smooth white hand or glossy linen: Mr Carker the Manager, sly of manner, sharp of tooth, soft of foot, watchful ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... glad to be back. I was still a boy, under twenty. My pockets bulged with the bank notes into which I had converted Mrs. Rushworth's cheque, and I found myself master of infinite delight. I presented Blanquette with a tortoise-shell comb and Narcisse with a collar, and I electrified my intimate and less fortunate friends by giving them a dinner in the dismal entresol at Didier's which was superbly styled the "Salle des Banquets." Fanchette and one or two of her colleagues being ...
— The Beloved Vagabond • William J. Locke
... Carr's object seemed to be entirely that of trading for tortoise-shell; he was alongside the Mangles, and not at a considerable distance off; he was so near as to ask one of the people on the poop to throw him a rope, to get fast to the vessel, which was done, but owing to the sea running high he was obliged to let it go; upon which ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 1. • J Lort Stokes
... sandy bottom was struggling forth a convex shield that, when floating, showed its lower face smooth and yellow. The four wrinkled paws and the serpent-like head of the turtle were emerging from its cuirass of tortoise-shell. The little sea horses, slender and graceful as chess-pieces, were rising and descending in the bluish environment, wiggling their tails and twisting themselves in the form ...
— Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) - A Novel • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... if to justify her caution, a sharp, acute pain seized the queen, who turned deadly pale, and threw herself back in the chair, with every symptom of a sudden fainting fit. Molina ran to a richly gilded tortoise-shell cabinet, from which she took a large rock-crystal bottle of scented salts, and held it to the queen's nostrils, who inhaled it wildly for a few minutes, ...
— Louise de la Valliere • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... open the tortoise-shell box, and give Mr Merdle the tortoise-shell knife. On his doing so, his wife said to ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... instance, Tom, and if the poor brute was killed and skinned he'd look exactly like a white cat or a tortoise-shell." ...
— Hunting the Skipper - The Cruise of the "Seafowl" Sloop • George Manville Fenn
... of the family. He talked little, but he sat long. He filled the father's pipe when it was empty, gathered up the mother's knitting needle, or ball of worsted, when it fell to the ground, stroked the sleek coat of the tortoise-shell cat, and replenished the teapot for the daughter from the bright copper kettle that sang before the fire. All these quiet little offices may seem of trifling import, but when true love is translated into Low Dutch it is in this way that it ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... at the farm here now. Papa's favorite is a little tortoise-shell kitten he has named "Sour Mash," and a little spotted one "Fannie." It is very pretty to see what papa calls the cat procession; it was formed in this way. Old Minniecat headed, (the mother of all ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... one out of countenance nor made one fearful to set foot upon it. It was a jolly, chummy sort of carpet that seemed to say, "Walk on me all you want to, and don't be afraid to spill your crumbs; I like crumbs." A very large tortoise-shell cat lay stretched along the arm of the couch, half asleep, and purred as Eve dipped her fingers in the long fur. The windows on the side of the room were open and the draperies swayed gently with the little breeze. Wade, seated at the other end of the couch from his hostess, was feeling ...
— The Lilac Girl • Ralph Henry Barbour
... drank less, I don't fancy their morals would suffer much," Madame Valtesi remarked with exceeding dryness, looking at Mr. Smith's budding tonsure through her tortoise-shell eyeglass. ...
— The Green Carnation • Robert Smythe Hichens
... ex-Collector's ghost; but that is what the Southern Bhils believe. Even our men, who might be called moderately cool, don't care to beat that country if they hear that Jan Chinn is running about on his tiger. It is supposed to be a clouded animal—not stripy, but blotchy, like a tortoise-shell tom-cat. No end of a brute, it is, and a sure sign of war or pestilence or—or something. There's a nice family ...
— The Day's Work, Volume 1 • Rudyard Kipling
... half sitting on the edge of one of the bunks, nursing the big stray tortoise-shell tom-cat which had shared his lodgings in the forepeak, and he had mistaken it for a rat as it crept up and down the chain-pipe to see what it could pick up in the cook's galley at meal-times, which it seemed to know by some peculiar ...
— Afloat at Last - A Sailor Boy's Log of his Life at Sea • John Conroy Hutcheson
... the kingdom in which he had lived in his dream. A terrace surrounded by a guard of ants was the residence of the King and Queen, two winged insects with red heads. Twenty feet or so along another gallery was found an old tortoise-shell covered with a thick growth of moss; it was the Tortoise-back Hill of the dream. In another direction was found a small mound of earth round which was coiled a root in shape like a dragon's tongue; it was the grave of the King's daughter, Ch'un-yue's ...
— Myths and Legends of China • E. T. C. Werner
... Geckoes,—their power of reproducing limbs 185, Crocodiles Their power of burying themselves in the mud Tortoises—Curious parasite Land tortoises Edible turtle Huge Indian tortoises (note) Hawk's-bill turtle, barbarous mode of stripping it of the tortoise-shell Serpents.—Venomous species rare Cobra de capello Instance of land snakes found at sea Tame snakes (note) Singular tradition regarding the cobra de capello Uropeltidae.—New species discovered in Ceylon Buddhist veneration for the cobra de capello ...
— Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and • James Emerson Tennent
... world. Another year was spent in preparing her equipage, for she was too proud to consent to appear at Court like a poor and humble frog from the marshes. A little sedan-chair was made for her, large enough to hold a couple of eggs comfortably, and this was covered outside with tortoise-shell and lined with lizard-skin. From the little green frogs that hop about the meadows she selected fifty to act as maids of honour, and each of these was mounted on a snail. They had dainty saddles, and rode in dashing style ...
— Old-Time Stories • Charles Perrault
... turned out to be only portions of gorse bushes projecting through the snow. My optical delusions as to colour were perhaps the most remarkable; the protruding rocks invariably appeared of a strange orange yellow, with black lines along them, producing a short of tortoise-shell effect. I took these mysterious appearances at first for dead animals, ponies or sheep, and touched them to try to ascertain the fact. My hands, however, were so utterly devoid of sensation, that they were of no more use than my eyes in identifying objects. I was therefore quite ...
— A Night in the Snow - or, A Struggle for Life • Rev. E. Donald Carr
... Pedro Lopez, said, "Who is deceiving me in these things among these Moros?" He then set free the Moros, and left the said trader Quenena, in Borney with a pack containing seven or eight hundred pieces of cloth, so that he might trade it for camphor, wax, and tortoise-shell, and then go to Malaca with it in one of the two ships that I said were about to sail to Malaca. The said captain bought eight Javanese slaves, and the king presented to him two more, making a total of ten. Each slave ...
— The Philippine Islands 1493-1898, Vol. 4 of 55 - 1576-1582 • Edited by E. H. Blair and J. A. Robertson
... any shareholder has any question to put, I shall be glad to answer it." A soft thump. Old Jolyon had let the report and accounts fall, and stood twisting his tortoise-shell glasses between thumb ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... same prince, who possessed the whole coast, from Berenice. The exports from this place were confined to ivory, brought from the interior on both sides of the Nile; the horns of the rhinoceros, and tortoise-shell. The imports were very numerous, forming an assortment, as Dr. Vincent justly observes, as specific as a modern invoice: the principal articles were, cloth, manufactured in Egypt, unmilled, for the Barbarian market. The term, Barbarii, was applied to the ...
— Robert Kerr's General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 18 • William Stevenson
... tell you that you look an utter fool with that extra-intelligent edition of tortoise-shell glasses that you wear?" Trudy retorted. Gay was her husband and her property as long as she saw fit to stay his wife, and she did not approve of his constant attendance on the Gorgeous Girl. Even her deliberate retaliation by flirting with the gouty-toe brigade did not make ...
— The Gorgeous Girl • Nalbro Bartley
... naturally as quiet and timid as sheep, bit each other very furiously, until they foamed at the mouth. And, lastly, a large mastiff made his appearance, walking in a slow, measured gait, with a sleek tortoise-shell cat on his back; and she, in turn, was surmounted by a mouse, which formed the apex of ...
— A Voyage to the Moon • George Tucker
... fireplace in which a fire had recently been made with a few sticks for the purpose of boiling a kettle. Bedclothes were heaped on the sofa-bedstead in a disordered state, and in the midst of them nestled a large tortoise-shell cat. ...
— The Hampstead Mystery • John R. Watson
... islands, traveling for nine months, and then returned to pay religiously even for the merchandise that the Chinamen did not remember to have given them. The products which they in exchange exported from the islands were crude wax, cotton, pearls, tortoise-shell, betel-nuts, dry-goods, etc. [5] ...
— The Indolence of the Filipino • Jose Rizal
... home to a hair," squeaked a little finicking personification of a modern Peruquier, sidling up to him, picking his teeth with a tortoise-shell comb. ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... custom. Besides, the attractions of her slender stock were all exhausted. She had not the means of refreshing it with pretty novelties and sentimental toys in that line,—with albums and valentines, fancy portfolios and pocket-secretaries, pearl paper-knives and tortoise-shell cardcases, Chinese puzzles and papier-mache checker-boards. Nor was the Library replenished "to keep up with the current literature of the day"; its last new novel was a superannuated dilapidation; not one of its yearly subscribers but ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various
... the women whom he knew. There in the mountains young girls did not wear them, save of the "circular" variety, designed to hold back "shingled" tresses. But from underneath a box of faded gum-drops and the store's one carton of cigars, came some of imitation tortoise-shell, gilt ornamented, of the sort old ladies sometimes stuck into their hirsute knots for mountain "doings" of great elegance, and the best of these Madge bought. Also she bought lace—great quantities of it, ...
— In Old Kentucky • Edward Marshall and Charles T. Dazey
... all mosaicked with tarsia, and carved by Maestro Giacomo of Florence," a worker of considerable repute. One of the first to adopt the use of ivory, pearl, and silver for inlay was Andrea Massari of Siena. In this same way inlay of tortoise-shell and brass was made,—the two layers were sawed out together, and then counterchanged so as to give the pattern in each material upon the other. Cabinets are often treated in this way. Ivory and sandal-wood or ebony, too, have been sometimes thus ...
— Arts and Crafts in the Middle Ages • Julia De Wolf Addison
... seen little Kittens before—Kittens that belonged to other Cats—but she was certain that none of them had looked at all like her three charming babies. She could not decide which one of them was the most beautiful. She was a Tortoise-shell Cat herself, and her fur was spotted with white, black, and yellow. The babies had the same colors on their soft coats, but not in just the ...
— Among the Farmyard People • Clara Dillingham Pierson
... also sans comptes. "My aunt," says the Duc de Luynes, "was always buying, and never baulked her fancy." Pictures, books, coins, jewels, engravings, gems (over 8,000), tapestries, and furniture were all alike precious to Madame de Verrue. Her snuff- boxes defied computation; she had them in gold, in tortoise-shell, in porcelain, in lacquer, and in jasper, and she enjoyed the delicate fragrance of sixty different sorts of snuff. Without applauding the smoking of cigarettes in drawing-rooms, we may admit that it is less repulsive ...
— Books and Bookmen • Andrew Lang
... entered, bringing a pair of yellow gloves; she looked me over critically, saying nothing; glanced at the portrait, withdrew, and presently reappeared, with the high tortoise-shell comb in her hand. She placed it carefully in my hair, surveyed me again, and again looked at the picture. Yes, it was true, the necklace was wanting; but ...
— The Green Satin Gown • Laura E. Richards
... Morning. Fontange, the Tire-woman, her Account of my Lady Blithe's Wash. Broke a Tooth in my little Tortoise-shell Comb. Sent Frank to know how my Lady Hectick rested after her Monky's leaping out at Window. Looked pale. Fontange tells me my Glass is not ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... wearily, and began to shake out the masses of her black hair, that was as the thickness of night spun fine. And as she drew out the thick tortoise-shell pins that bore it up, it rolled down heavily in a soft dark flood and covered her as with a garment. Then she leaned back and sighed again, and her eyes fell on a book that lay at the corner of her dressing-table, where she had left it ...
— Doctor Claudius, A True Story • F. Marion Crawford
... one respect the two representatives of the War Office in the House of Commons are singularly alike. When answering their daily catechism both wear spectacles—Mr. FORSTER an ordinary gold-rimmed pair, Mr. MACPHERSON the fearsome tortoise-shell variety which gives an air of antiquity to the most youthful countenance; and each, when he has to answer an awkward "supplementary," begins by carefully taking off his glasses and so giving himself an extra moment or two ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, February 28, 1917 • Various
... on orange or red; in Magarornis the bosom is black, and beautifully ornamented with small leaf-shaped spots of a delicate straw-colour. There are several other very pretty birds in this homely family; but the finest of all is Thripodectes flammulatus, the whole body being tortoise-shell colour, the wings and tail bright chesnut. The powerful tanager-like beak of this species seems also to show that it has diverged from its timid shade-loving congeners in another direction by becoming a seed and ...
— The Naturalist in La Plata • W. H. Hudson
... travelled in the hope of meeting her American acquaintance, or of making acquaintance with such Americans as she did meet, and for the purpose of buying mementos for her relations. She was perpetually adding to her store of articles in tortoise-shell, in mother-of-pearl, in olive-wood, in ivory, in filigree, in tartan lacquer, in mosaic; and she had a collection of Roman scarfs and Venetian beads, which she looked over exhaustively every night before she went to bed. Her conversation bore mainly upon the manner in which she intended to dispose ...
— Georgina's Reasons • Henry James
... again, and taking off her spectacles harangued the tortoise-shell cat, who was sitting on the rug ...
— Bessie's Fortune - A Novel • Mary J. Holmes
... mine had a favourite tortoise-shell cat, named Monkey, who always sat on his shoulder when he was shaving, and evinced every sign of deep attachment. He left her under the care of some friends when he went abroad; and, two years after, these ladies were surprised the ...
— Anecdotes of the Habits and Instinct of Animals • R. Lee
... up, and every piece of hard substance disinterred was carefully scrutinised; but, alas! no more golden images or nuggets of the precious metal gladdened our eyes! Nothing came in view but sand and lava, lava and sand, varied occasionally by the sight of some fragment of half-fossilised tortoise-shell, or the chalky bones of cuttlefish and similar debris of the deep, washed up by the sea, and buried a fathom deep and more amid the strata ...
— The Island Treasure • John Conroy Hutcheson
... sweet pickles, the dress-maker's sharp swarthy person stood out vividly between the neutral-tinted sisters. Miss Mellins was a small woman with a glossy yellow face and a frizz of black hair bristling with imitation tortoise-shell pins. Her sleeves had a fashionable cut, and half a dozen metal bangles rattled on her wrists. Her voice rattled like her bangles as she poured forth a stream of anecdote and ejaculation; and her round black eyes jumped with acrobatic velocity ...
— Bunner Sisters • Edith Wharton
... that he had been quite right in supposing that the air would be windless here, and full of great content he sat down with his back to the house wall. A tortoise-shell butterfly, encouraged by the warmth, was flitting about among the Michaelmas daisies that bordered the path and settling on them, opening its wings to the genial sun. Two or three bees buzzed there also; the summer-like tranquillity inserted into the middle of ...
— Michael • E. F. Benson
... profusion among the guests as they arrived. Cotton napkins and ewers of water were placed before them as they took their seats at the board. Tobacco was them offered, in pipes, mixed with aromatic substances, or in the form of cigars inserted in tubes of tortoise-shell or silver. It is a curious fact that the Aztecs also took the dried tobacco leaf in the pulverized form ...
— The Antediluvian World • Ignatius Donnelly
... from the t'other madman,' said Sam to Ben Allen and Bob Sawyer, who had done nothing but dodge round the group, each with a tortoise-shell lancet in his hand, ready to bleed the first man stunned. 'Give it up, you wretched little creetur, or ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... moved here without injury. I think the S. Jerome is the more satisfying, a benevolent old scientific author—a Lord Avebury of the canon—with his implements about him on a tapestry tablecloth, a brass candlestick, his cardinal's hat, and a pair of tortoise-shell eyeglasses handy. S. Augustine is also scientific; astronomical books and instruments surround him too. His tablecloth ...
— A Wanderer in Florence • E. V. Lucas
... rings on her fingers as the old woman of Banbury Cross; and pretty, small feet which she was fond of showing, with great gold clocks to her stockings, and white slippers with red heels; and an odour of musk was shaken out of her garments whenever she moved or quitted the room, leaning on her tortoise-shell stick, little Fury, the dog, barking at her heels, and Mrs. Tusher, the ...
— Boys and girls from Thackeray • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... provide myself with certain necessaries for the way. These were not numerous. The silver-mounted dressing-case is here supplied by a rag containing a miswak, a bit of soap, and a comb—wooden, for bone and tortoise-shell are not, religiously speaking, correct. Equally simple was my wardrobe: a change or two of clothing. The only article of canteen description was a zemzemiyah, a goatskin water-bag, which communicates to its contents, especially when new, a ferruginous aspect ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... very fine animal. It is a drawing-room tiger. What suppleness, what extraordinary finesse! Here is this little yellow one pretending to sleep, in order that the tortoise-shell one may not notice it, but fall upon its brother; and this one, how it tears the other! See how it sticks its claws into its side! It would kill and eat it, I fully believe, if it were the stronger. It is very amusing. What ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... Great news indeed! But where was the child? Nanna stood stock-still, gazing stupidly around the empty room. "Esmay," she murmured, in a half-whisper, and passed out into the corridor. She went straight to the door leading to Quinton Edge's apartments. A tiny hair-pin of tortoise-shell lay on the floor. Nanna picked it up with a sob and regarded it fixedly. She knocked twice upon the door, but there was no response. She tried her strength against it, and shook her head. Nothing could be done here. She went down-stairs, and looked to see if ...
— The Doomsman • Van Tassel Sutphen
... buttoned down the front with dark black buttons, and a great breastpin of twisted gold. Her hair was looped down over her ears in two folds like shiny drab satin. It scarcely looked like hair, the surface was so smooth and unbroken; and a great tortoise-shell comb topped it like ...
— Comfort Pease and her Gold Ring • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... just returned from a trip to the village for the Sunday papers to amuse his leisure. Noah is a very cultivated person; he not only reads perfectly, but he wears tortoise-shell-rimmed spectacles while he does it. He also brought from the post office a letter from you, written Friday night. I am pained to note that you do not care for "Gosta Berling" and that Jervis doesn't. The only comment ...
— Dear Enemy • Jean Webster
... a moment's notice; the bed itself was beautifully dressed; the dressing-table was decked with all manner of scent-bottles, mirrors, and trays, together with every conceivable toilet implement in tortoise-shell with a silver-inlay monogram—apparently A-M-S; the rugs were silken, princely, priceless; elusive wraiths of seductive perfumes haunted the air like memories ...
— Nobody • Louis Joseph Vance
... smiled at his discomfiture and her own untutored grace, and she made bold and took a step or two on her own dependence. Then there chimed eight from the old French clock of black boule that sat upon a cabinet of tortoise-shell, and it stirred the swains to think of donning 'broidered waist-coats and high-heeled shoon preparatory to the prandial hour, when fresh game and old wine would strengthen stomach and head; and they bowed low over tapering fingers and cast a parting dart at ...
— Mistress Penwick • Dutton Payne
... between them merely a Fellowship of the Super-Mind, or what a Wimp wearing Tortoise-Shell ...
— Knocking the Neighbors • George Ade
... boxes—tabatiere and bonbonniere. What lady carries snuff-box now, hey? Suppose your astonishment if a lady in an assembly were to offer you a prise? I can remember a lady with such a box as this, with a tour, as we used to call it then; with paniers, with a tortoise-shell cane, with the prettiest little high-heeled velvet shoes in the world!— ah! that was a time, that was a time! Ah, Eliza, Eliza, I have thee now in my mind's eye! At Bungay on the Waveney, did I not walk with thee, Eliza? Aha, did I not love thee? Did I not walk with thee then? Do ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... morning Madame de Mortsauf wore a rose-colored gown patterned in tiny stripes, a collar with a wide hem, a black belt, and little boots of the same hue. Her hair was simply twisted round her head, and held in place by a tortoise-shell comb. Such, my dear Natalie, is the imperfect sketch I promised you. But the constant emanation of her soul upon her family, that nurturing essence shed in floods around her as the sun emits its light, her inward nature, her cheerfulness on days serene, her resignation ...
— The Lily of the Valley • Honore de Balzac
... into an unused tower dimly lighted, hung with cobwebs, and filled with old red velvet furniture. I sat down on a sofa, and before long became conscious that I was being gazed upon by a haughty young woman, with an aristocratic nose, large dark eyes, hair caught back by tortoise-shell combs under a peculiar head-dress, having a gleam of gold directly on the top. Her gown was of dark green, with white puffs let into the sleeves below the elbows; around her tapering waist was a narrow belt of jewels; the front of her corsage was also trimmed with ...
— Shapes that Haunt the Dusk • Various
... Dungemarsh Court, there was no doubt as to its effectiveness at the Woolpack. The whole room held its breath as she sailed in, with a rustle of amber silk skirts. Her hair was piled high against a tortoise-shell comb, making her ...
— Joanna Godden • Sheila Kaye-Smith
... in a fine house, a tortoise-shell Cat and a pretty white Dog: the Cat's name was Tittums; the Dog's, Fido. In course of time the pretty Dog fell in love with the Cat, and only waited for a good chance to disclose his affections. This came one day, when Tittums had put ...
— The Faithless Parrot • Charles H. Bennett
... singing the burden of the last catch he had trolled with his fellows at the ale-house, all on a sudden he stumbled into a circle of sorcerer-cats squatting around a cross of stone. They were of immense size and of all colours, black, grey, white, tortoise-shell, and when he beheld them seated round the crucifix, their eyes darting fire and the hair bristling on their backs, his song died upon his lips and all his bellicose feelings, like those of Bob Acres, ...
— Legends & Romances of Brittany • Lewis Spence
... his window and leave it at that—he did, indeed, place there a smiling lady with a wonderful jewelled comb and a radiant row of teeth, but around this he built up a magnificent world of silver brushes, tortoise-shell combs, essences and perfumes and powders, jars and bottles and boxes. Manning was the finest artist in the town. Ponting, at the top of the street just at the corner of the Close, was an artist too, but in quite another ...
— Jeremy • Hugh Walpole
... mistress, "never speak without first considering all things. There is no woman like her. If you do not love her now you will love her when you know her better; no good man could help feeling affection for her. You saw her last evening in a green silk dress, also wearing a tortoise-shell comb and gold ornaments—was she not elegant, senor? Did she not then appear to your eyes a woman suitable for a wife? You have been everywhere, and have seen many women, and perhaps in some distant place ...
— The Purple Land • W. H. Hudson
... lay a large tortoise-shell paper knife. That, thrust under the door as a wedge, would be almost as good as a lock. At least she might count on it to protect her for those so necessary five minutes. But if she pushed it through to the other side Jim ...
— Winnie Childs - The Shop Girl • C. N. Williamson
... bewildered to dress with care, and neither too old nor too wicked nor too ugly to find pleasure in it. She might have been a born lady just restored to the habits of her youth, to judge by her delight over the ivory brushes and tortoise-shell comb, and great mirror. In an hour or so she made her appearance—I can hardly say reappeared, she was so altered. She entered the room neither blushing nor smiling, but wiping the tears from her eyes like a too blessed child. What Mrs. Sclater would have felt, I dare hardly think; for ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald
... only comfortable chair in the house, by the way—had, in his less distinguished days, been his throne. In it he would sit all day long, cutting and whittling, filing and polishing curious trinkets of tortoise-shell for watch-guards and tiny baskets made of cherry-stones, cunningly wrought and finished. He was an expert, too, in corn-cob pipes, which he carved for all his friends; and pin-wheels for everybody's children. When it ...
— Kennedy Square • F. Hopkinson Smith
... door open, and he calls, 'Kitty, kitty, kitty!' and that great tiger tommy comes in with his tail up, rubbing round his legs, and all the other cats followed after. I shut the door before these last ones got into the parlor." Susan Adkins regarded malevolently the three tortoise-shell cats of three generations and various stages of growth, one Maltese settled in a purring round of comfort with four kittens, and one perfectly black cat, which sat glaring at her ...
— The Copy-Cat and Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... the trade carried on by the Chinese supercargos of the ships frequenting the port is principally transacted by barter, they giving their manufactures for the produce of their fishery, &c., and for edible birds'-nests, tortoise-shell, beche de mer, mother-of-pearl ...
— Recollections of Manilla and the Philippines - During 1848, 1849 and 1850 • Robert Mac Micking
... for 50 dressing the hair 1 box artificial flowers l5 1 lot new ribbon, for sashes; 35 velvet, silk, and satin 1 small miniature model piano, 50 played by mechanism, from Vienna 1 lady's writing-desk, inlaid 200 with tortoise-shell and mother-of-pearl, lined with silk velvet, with compartments and secretary; carved mother-of-pearl paper-knife, gold seal, gold pencil, case full of fancy writing paper; made in Paris 1 bula work-box, elegant; inlaid 125 with silver and lined with ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... dragon how he could get away from the cave, and the dragon nodded his head in the direction of his tail, as much as to say he should seat himself upon it. So he climbed up, and in the twinkling of an eye he was down on the ground, and the dragon had disappeared. He then went on until he found a tortoise-shell full of beautiful pearls. But they were magic pearls, for if you flung them into the fire, the fire ceased to burn and if you flung them into the water, the water divided and you could walk through the midst of it. The ...
— The Chinese Fairy Book • Various
... place the chair a steward was carrying for her. There was plenty of room on the quarter-deck. I could not imagine why she gazed about her with such obtrusive caution. She inspected the occupants of the various chairs around with deliberate scrutiny through a long-handled tortoise-shell optical abomination. None of them seemed to satisfy her. After a minute's effort, during which she also muttered a few words very low to her husband, she selected an empty spot midway between our group and ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... beautiful sunny October days when autumn seems to have borrowed from summer, and the air is as warm and balmy as June. Great flocks of sea-gulls wheeled screaming round the cliffs, their wings flashing in the sunshine; red admiral and tortoise-shell butterflies still fluttered over late specimens of flowers, and the bracken was brown and golden underfoot. The girls were wild with the delight of a few hours' emancipation from school rules, and flew about gathering belated harebells, and running to the top of any little eminence to ...
— A Patriotic Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... nursery. After that, the fairy never appeared except when he was at school: but long after, when I was looking in a lumber-room with my brother for some mislaid toys, I found in a box the mask of Abracadabra and the horn. I put it hurriedly on, and blew a blast on the horn, which seemed to be of tortoise-shell with metal fittings. To my amazement, he turned perfectly white, covered his face with his hands, and burst out with the most dreadful moans. I thought at first that he was making believe to be frightened, but I saw in a ...
— Where No Fear Was - A Book About Fear • Arthur Christopher Benson
... he saw the wide ocean, He soon took a notion 'T would be nicer to stay with his friends. So he traded his hat For a tortoise-shell cat— And that's how the ...
— The Peter Patter Book of Nursery Rhymes • Leroy F. Jackson
... doubt due to the same cause that some butterflies on small and exposed islands have their wings reduced in size, as is strikingly the case with the small tortoise-shell butterfly (Vanessa urticae) inhabiting the Isle of Man, which is only about half the size of the same species in England or Ireland; and Mr. Wollaston notes that Vanessa callirhoe—a closely allied South European form of our red-admiral butterfly—is permanently smaller in the small and ...
— Darwinism (1889) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... of the downright vulgarity of phrase in the last stanza, Wordsworth invents an impossible tortoise-shell, and thus robs his story of the reality which alone gave it a living interest. Any extemporized raft would have floated the boy down to immortality. But Wordsworth never quite learned the distinction between Fact, which suffocates the Muse, and Truth, which ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... face down, upon the mats, her high headdress and tortoise-shell pins standing out boldly from the rest of the horizontal figure. The train of her tunic appeared to prolong her delicate little body, like the tail of a bird; her arms were stretched crosswise, the sleeves spread out like wings, and her long ...
— Madame Chrysantheme Complete • Pierre Loti
... Innumerable had been the meetings of financial boards at which Mr. Parr had glanced at Langmaid, who had never failed to respond. He was that sine qua non of modern affairs, a corporation lawyer,—although he resembled a big and genial professor of Scandinavian extraction. He wore round, tortoise-shell spectacles, he had a high, dome-like forehead, and an ample light brown beard which he stroked from time to time. It is probable that he did not believe in ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... all apparently on the best of terms with themselves, and they all seemed to make a point of absolutely ignoring Pritchard's presence. Elizabeth was the one exception. She was carrying a tiny Chinese spaniel under one arm; with the fingers of her other hand she held a tortoise-shell mounted monocle to her eye, and stared directly at the two men. Presently she came languidly across the room ...
— The Tempting of Tavernake • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... of the temporal bone, in which the hair changed from a mouse-color to a reddish-brown; and Squire records a congenital case in a deaf mute, in whom the hair on the left side was in light patches of true auburn and dark patches of dark brown like a tortoise-shell cap; on the other side the hair was a dark brown. Crocker mentions the changes which have occurred in rare instances after death from dark brown ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... the chair," I said, for it creaked under me very fearfully, having legs not so large as my finger; "if the chair breaks, Annie, your fear should be, lest the tortoise-shell run into me. Why, it is striped like a viper's loins! I saw some hundreds in London; and very cheap they are. They are made to be sold to the country people, such as you and me, dear; and carefully kept they will last for almost half a year. Now will you come ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... said to have a larger hump than the cow. In the Scotch deer-hound the two sexes differ in size more than in any other variety of the dog,[162] and, judging from analogy, more than in the aboriginal parent-species. The peculiar colour called tortoise-shell is very rarely seen in a male cat; the males of this variety being of a rusty tint. A tendency to baldness in man before the advent of old age is certainly inherited; and in the European, or at least in the {74} Englishman, is an attribute of the male sex, and may almost ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Volume II (of 2) • Charles Darwin
... hedge to hedge, festooned with only those rarest roses from which the Attar Gul, more precious than gold, is distilled, and illuminated in rich and fanciful forms with lanterns of the triple-colored tortoise-shell of Pegu.[346] Sometimes, from a dark wood by the side of the road, a display of fireworks would break out, so sudden and so brilliant, that a Brahmin might fancy he beheld that grove, in whose purple shade the ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... comes down from the Morut country, by the great river; a great deal of wax, some gold, much birds'-nests of an inferior quality, any quantity of sago, cassia, clove-bark, pepper, betel-nut, rattans, camphor-oil, &c., tripan, tortoise-shell, &c. ...
— The Expedition to Borneo of H.M.S. Dido - For the Suppression of Piracy • Henry Keppel
... sitting up in bed nearly suffocated by her cough. The great four-post bed blocked up the little window. The remains of a meal were still on the big round table. Some clothes were drying by the hearth; a thin tortoise-shell cat was licking up a stream of milk that was filtering slowly across the floor, in the midst of jugs, cans, a broken broom, some children's toys, and two or three boots. The bed looked as though it had not been made for days; the quilt and valance were deplorably dirty; but the poor creature ...
— Uncle Max • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... given by the waiter was pretty explicit: a tall man, with a slight stoop, wearing a reddish-brown beard cut into a point, a tortoise-shell eyeglass with a black silk ribbon, and an ebony walking-stick with a handle shaped ...
— The Teeth of the Tiger • Maurice Leblanc
... on the broad, luxurious couch that marked the precise centre of the semi-circle and was evidently intended to be the section of honour. Mr. Bingle leaned back, stretched out his slender legs, crossed his feet, and looked over his tortoise-shell glasses with a fine assumption of tolerance. He was still trying, after many years, to enjoy his own importance. Sad to relate, he still expected to wake up and find that he had but half an hour in which to eat his breakfast and get across town ...
— Mr. Bingle • George Barr McCutcheon
... minutest deviation from daily routine and ritual. She would tell her friends—she ran over their names one by one—exactly what measures she had taken against the lace cover on the radiator-top and in regard to her two tortoise-shell hair brushes and the comb at right angles. How she had set everything in order—everything in order. She roved further afield as she wriggled her toes luxuriously on the hot-water bottle. If it pleased our dear ...
— A Diversity of Creatures • Rudyard Kipling
... 'Tis but a polished tortoise-shell, of which the living inhabitant has long since crumbled to dust; but it still gleams in the sun ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... shall go to-morrow And take a present to the poor blind aunt And her old mother,—for they love you well." "A present! Why, Miss Percival, there's nothing I do so love to do as to make presents. I've made three in my lifetime; one a ring Of tortoise-shell; and one—" ...
— The Woman Who Dared • Epes Sargent
... receive more letters than a State functionary," Aunt Rose informed me when I came upon her early the next morning, already installed behind her huge flat-topped desk, her tortoise-shell spectacles tipped down towards the end ...
— With Those Who Wait • Frances Wilson Huard
... quite plain, with neither frill, tuck, flounce, nor anything of the kind. Necklaces and ear-rings are worn, but I am glad to say the nose in Ceylon seems to be preserved from the indignity of rings. The men's dress is rather scanty, their weakness being a large tortoise-shell comb, which every one wears; it reaches from ear to ear, and the hair is combed straight back and confined by it. Women are denied this crowning ornament, and must content themselves with a pin in the hair, the head of which, however, ...
— Round the World • Andrew Carnegie
... often admired the tortoise-shell of which combs are made, with its beautiful wavy lines and markings; it is taken from the outside of the shell of the turtle or sea-tortoise, which is caught not only for the sake of its shell, but because its flesh is so good to eat. ...
— Twilight And Dawn • Caroline Pridham
... of the base of the leaf of the Seaforthia palm, the latter principally used for containing water. Formerly bark canoes were in general use, but they are now completely superseded by others, hollowed out of the trunk of a tree, which they procure ready-made from the Malays, in exchange for tortoise-shell, and in return for ...
— Narrative Of The Voyage Of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Commanded By The Late Captain Owen Stanley, R.N., F.R.S. Etc. During The Years 1846-1850. Including Discoveries And Surveys In New Guinea, The Louisiade • John MacGillivray
... a tortoise-shell dagger just here, and gave her head an absent-minded shake so that her lustrous coil of hair uncoiled itself and fell on her shoulders in a ruddy spiral. It was a sight to induce covetousness, but one couldn't be envious of Egeria. ...
— Penelope's Postscripts • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... he said to himself, and he went softly to another stone upon which there was only one, a handsome reptile, which looked as if it had been painted by nature to imitate polished tortoise-shell. ...
— Yussuf the Guide - The Mountain Bandits; Strange Adventure in Asia Minor • George Manville Fenn
... aversion. And chief amongst these is the domestic cat. You might as well try to keep a journalist from his writing-paper as country cats from the coverts. They are inveterate and determined poachers, and, alas, they meet with scant mercy from the keeper if he catches them. Many a fireside tabby or tortoise-shell dies a violent death in the course of every year, and is buried in a secret grave. This often gives rise to disturbance, for the cottager, to whom the deceased was as the apple of her eye, may make complaint of the keeper to his master. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 104, January 28, 1893 • Various
... bed, but freshened and brightened and deceptively free from pain, he woke at last to find the pleasant yellow sunshine mottling his dingy carpet like a tortoise-shell cat. Instinctively with his first yawny return to consciousness he reached back under his pillow ...
— Molly Make-Believe • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... the castle I was shown into a large parlour, in which was an old lady sitting in an arm-chair by the fireside, knitting. On the rug lay a very pretty tortoise-shell cat. As soon as mentioned, the old lady rose; and when Mr. O'Callaghan (for that, I learned, was his name) told her who I was, she said in the most cordial tone that I was welcome, and asked me to sit down. In the course ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... up in a marvellous chignon on the top of her head. First, her maids washed it beautifully clean with the juice of the lime and the lather of the soap-nut; then it was combed and brushed until every hair glistened like ebony; next it was twisted up and stuck full of the quaint golden and tortoise-shell bodkins, with here and there a ...
— Tales of the Malayan Coast - From Penang to the Philippines • Rounsevelle Wildman
... used for Domestic and Ornamental Purposes. Division I. Bone and Ivory. Division II. Horns and Hoofs. Division III. Tortoise-shell. Division IV. Shells and Marines. Animal Products for Manufacture, Ornaments, etc. Division V. ...
— Voices for the Speechless • Abraham Firth
... suggestions of the past—colour, atmosphere, the subtle fragrance and flavour of other days. We read that James Anderson of Broadway has just arrived from London "in the brig Betsy" with a load of "the best finished boot legs." Another gentleman urges people to inspect his "crooked tortoise-shell combs for ladies and gentlemen's hair, his vegetable face powder—his nervous essence for the toothache, his bergamot, lemon, lavendar ...
— Greenwich Village • Anna Alice Chapin
... be a round man with huge round tortoise-shell glasses and round red face to match. He shook hands with a manner that suggested that in doing so he was making rather ...
— Dennison Grant - A Novel of To-day • Robert Stead
... as low as the knee, a rude kilt-like garment composed of white cotton cloth or of deerskin hangs and flaps. It is ornamented with an embroidery of red and black threads, and quills of the porcupine. Below the knee, garters of buckskin, tinged red and yellow, form a fringe to which are attached tortoise-shell rattles and bunches of elk-hoofs. The ankles are encased with strips of the white and black fur of the skunk, and from the waist a fox-skin hangs, fastened to the back and reaching almost as far as the heel. Each man carries a tuft of hawk's feathers in his left hand, while the right grasps a rattle ...
— The Delight Makers • Adolf Bandelier
... a moment over his tortoise-shell rimmed glasses. Then, "I believe you could," he had ...
— Roast Beef, Medium • Edna Ferber
... amandine is filled into the jars, the top or face of it is marked or ornamented with a tool made to the size of half the diameter of the interior of the jar, in a similar way to a saw; a piece of lead or tortoise-shell, being serrated with an angular file, or piece of an "old saw," will do very well; place the marker on the amandine, and turn the jar ...
— The Art of Perfumery - And Methods of Obtaining the Odors of Plants • G. W. Septimus Piesse
... best of a very disappointing situation. He exchanged bows with his new acquaintances, declined tea and was at once taken possession of by Lady Somerham, a formidable-looking person in tortoise-shell-rimmed spectacles, with a rasping voice and a ...
— Nobody's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... nose on either side of the mouth. Above the nose there was a sort of bump, from which the low forehead slightly retreated to the curves of strong white hair. The ears were large but well shaped. In order to read he had put on pince-nez with tortoise-shell rimmed glasses, from which hung a rather broad black riband. His thin figure looked stiff even in an arm-chair. His big brown-red hands held the book up. His legs were crossed, and his feet were strongly defined by the snowy white spats which partially concealed the varnished ...
— December Love • Robert Hichens
... my love...." while she rushed about her room cursing a tortoise-shell pin which had got lost in all the rubbish. She lost patience, began to grumble, and roared. Although he could not see her Christophe followed all her movements on the other side of the wall in imagination and laughed to himself. At last he heard steps approaching, ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... prolate in form, and in colour white, streaked with very light pink, which contained the ashes of Augustus, found in the ruins of his mausoleum, and now in the Vatican; the bust of Julius Caesar, made of the variety tartaruga, from the resemblance of its brownish-yellow markings to tortoise-shell, in the Museum of the Capitol; and the two large blocks of alabastro a pecorella, brought from the Villa of Hadrian, in the fourth portico of the Vatican, the largest and most beautiful specimens of this very rare alabaster ...
— Roman Mosaics - Or, Studies in Rome and Its Neighbourhood • Hugh Macmillan
... cost those who made them infinite labour. They consisted of planks exceedingly well wrought, and in many places adorned with carving; these planks were sewed together, and over every seam there was a stripe of tortoise-shell, very artificially fastened, to keep out the weather: Their bottoms were as sharp as a wedge, and they were very narrow; and therefore two of them were joined laterally together by a couple of strong spars, so that there was a space of about six or eight feet between ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 12 • Robert Kerr
... but in reply to your comments on state affairs (hang them!) or in applause of your Italian friend, of whom I say, as Charles II. said of the honest yeoman, "I can admire virtue, though I can't imitate it," I think it highly probable that your letter might still remain in a certain box of tortoise-shell and gold (formerly belonging to the great Richelieu, and now in my possession), in which I at this instant descry, "with many a glance of woe and boding dire," sundry epistles, in manifold handwritings, all classed under the one ...
— The Disowned, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... and jacket of blue alpaca, had that perfect fit and finish which makes the simplest dress seem all that can be desired. There was a knowing look to each little detail, from the slender silver bangles which appeared beneath the loose wrinkled wrists of their very long gloves to the tortoise-shell pins with which their hats were fastened to the tightly braided hair coiled low down on the nape of the neck. Candace's hair fell in curls to her waist. She had always worn it so, and no one had ever thought anything about it; but now, all in a moment, she felt ...
— A Little Country Girl • Susan Coolidge
... have caused envy to Cornejo Duque and Verbruggen, if they had been present; a drawing-room upholstered in buttercup damask, and with doors, cornices, skirting-board, and embrasures in ebony; a library arranged in bookcases inlaid with tortoise-shell and brass in Boule style; a bathroom in yellow and black marble, with stucco bass-reliefs; a dome boudoir, whose ancient paintings had been restored by Edmond Hedouin; a gallery lighted from above, which we recognized later in the collection of Cousin Pons. There were what-nots ...
— Balzac • Frederick Lawton
... off a boy to the Mendez house with word that I was coming, sent out for flowers and made a lovely little fuss about me. I tried to make myself look as pretty as possible in a pale tulle, with little rosy wreaths upon it, and the high old tortoise-shell comb, that had been mother's, in my hair. The excitement gave me more color than I had had for weeks. I thought, "Even if I am not happy, at least I ...
— The Other Side of the Door • Lucia Chamberlain
... drew up her tall, gaunt, richly-clad figure and examined Private Thomson through eye-glasses on a long tortoise-shell handle. ...
— Wee Macgreegor Enlists • J. J. Bell
... tortoise-shell and gold brushes and boxes I had had put on the dressing table for her, there was not an indication that anyone stayed there, none of the usual things women have about in their rooms. One could see she looked upon it just as an hotel, and not a permanent abode. There ...
— Man and Maid • Elinor Glyn
... likewise had belonged to her said former husband, as also wore silver knee-buckles, and had two dozen silver buttons upon a double-breasted vest, made of stript lutstring: That he frequently had about him a folding penknife, that had a brown tortoise-shell handle, and a plate upon the end of it, on which was cut a naked boy, or some such device, with which he often sealed his letters: That one day when he was dressing some hooks while the deponent was by, she observed that he was cutting his hat with ...
— Trial of Duncan Terig, alias Clerk, and Alexander Bane Macdonald • Sir Walter Scott
... furnished with luxurious elegance. Satin hangings covered the walls; the furniture was upholstered with rare gobelin tapestry. Gilded cabinets veneered with tortoise-shell held, behind glass doors, all sorts of costly toys, and dolls in full costume. On a Venetian table with mosaic top lay a pack of cards and three heaps of money—one of gold, one of silver, the third of copper. On a low, three-legged ...
— The Nameless Castle • Maurus Jokai
... soft silk cravat artificially tied in a bow knot with wide and floating ends, and he purchased a French silk hat with a broad and curving brim. Having satisfied himself that the effect was good, he laid in a stock of similar articles, and further adorned his appearance with a pair of tortoise-shell-rimmed spectacles, and a green umbrella. For possibly cool or rainy weather he provided himself with a coffee-coloured overcoat that had a velvet collar and tails reaching ...
— Fair Margaret - A Portrait • Francis Marion Crawford
... cultivators. Now the absorption of so much labour in the cultivation of this one product must necessarily have raised the price of food and other necessaries; and when it was abolished, more rice would be grown, more sago made, more fish caught, and more tortoise-shell, rattan, gum-dammer, and other valuable products of the seas and the forests would be obtained. I believe, therefore, that this abolition of the spice trade in the Moluccas was actually beneficial to the inhabitants, and that it was an act both wise in itself and ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume II. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... cavalcade. The Usher of the Black Rod carried, on a cushion placed on a seat of the carriage, a black portfolio stamped with the royal crown. At Brentford, the last relay before London, the carriages and escort halted. A four-horse carriage of tortoise-shell, with two postilions, a coachman in a wig, and four footmen, was in waiting. The wheels, steps, springs, pole, and all the fittings of this carriage were gilt. The horses' harness was of silver. This state coach was of an ancient and extraordinary shape, and would have been distinguished by its ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... are propelled by short paddles, or a sail of palm-leaf matting when the wind is fair. Considerable nicety is also shown in the making of fishing lines and hooks. The former are made from the fibres of a species of climber very neatly twisted. The fish-hooks are made of tortoise-shell, or nails procured from wreck timber. They are without barbs, and our fish-hooks are eagerly sought for in ...
— The Overland Expedition of The Messrs. Jardine • Frank Jardine and Alexander Jardine
... afternoon just before dinner, being rather tired with my day's work, I was lying on the couch with a book in my hand, when gazing upwards I saw a large mass of something overhead which I had not noticed before. Looking more carefully I could see yellow and black marks, and thought it must be a tortoise-shell put up there out of the way between the ridge-pole and the roof Continuing to gaze, it suddenly resolved itself into a large snake, compactly coiled up in a kind of knot; and I could detect his head and his bright eyes in the very centre of the folds. The noise of the evening before ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume I. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... white awning, with the blue sky at its edges, the sunny park beyond; the warm-hued carpets on the marble pavement; the wicker chairs, with their bright cushions; the table, with its books and bibelots—the yellow French books, a tortoise-shell paperknife, a silver paperweight, a crystal smelling-bottle, a bowlful of drooping poppies; and the marble balustrade, with its delicate tracery of leaves and tendrils, where the jessamine ...
— The Cardinal's Snuff-Box • Henry Harland
... possessed a timepiece in Boule's first and best manner, for Boule had two manners, as Raphael had three. In the first he combined ebony and copper; in the second—contrary to his convictions—he sacrificed to tortoise-shell inlaid work. In spite of Pons' learned dissertations, Schmucke never could see the slightest difference between the magnificent clock in Boule's first manner and its six predecessors; but, for Pons' sake, Schmucke was even more careful among the "chimcracks" ...
— Cousin Pons • Honore de Balzac
... this particular occasion, as she brushed her hair and inserted the tortoise-shell curling-pins which should secure to-morrow's decorative effects, she felt almost daring and dangerous. She wondered whether she had really enjoyed the evening or not; whether she had held her own and shown independence ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet |
