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Adorn   Listen
verb
Adorn  v. t.  (past & past part. adorned; pres. part. adorning)  To deck or dress with ornaments; to embellish; to set off to advantage; to render pleasing or attractive. "As a bride adorneth herself with her jewels." "At church, with meek and unaffected grace, His looks adorned the venerable place."
Synonyms: To deck; decorate; embellish; ornament; beautify; grace; dignify; exalt; honor. To Adorn, Ornament, Decorate, Embellish. We decorate and ornament by putting on some adjunct which is attractive or beautiful, and which serves to heighten the general effect. Thus, a lady's head-dress may be ornament or decorated with flowers or jewelry; a hall may be decorated or ornament with carving or gilding, with wreaths of flowers, or with hangings. Ornament is used in a wider sense than decorate. To embellish is to beautify or ornament richly, not so much by mere additions or details as by modifying the thing itself as a whole. It sometimes means gaudy and artificial decoration. We embellish a book with rich engravings; a style is embellished with rich and beautiful imagery; a shopkeeper embellishes his front window to attract attention. Adorn is sometimes identical with decorate, as when we say, a lady was adorned with jewels. In other cases, it seems to imply something more. Thus, we speak of a gallery of paintings as adorned with the works of some of the great masters, or adorned with noble statuary and columns. Here decorated and ornamented would hardly be appropriate. There is a value in these works of genius beyond mere show and ornament. Adorn may be used of what is purely moral; as, a character adorned with every Christian grace. Here neither decorate, nor ornament, nor embellish is proper.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Adorn" Quotes from Famous Books



... mighty forests, which clothe the earth between the tropics of both the Old and New World, assembling by hundreds in those lands where the Palm, the Banyan, the Baobab, the Bombax, and thousands of magnificent trees adorn the soil; where the most delicious fruits are to be procured, by merely stretching out the hand to separate them from their parent stem; no wonder that both apes and monkeys there congregate, and strike the European, on his first arrival among ...
— Anecdotes of the Habits and Instinct of Animals • R. Lee

... supposed at first to have been a phantom, the news of his death in the very front at Culloden being current in the army generally. This was the Master of Ballantrae, my Lord Durrisdeer's son, a young nobleman of the rarest gallantry and parts, and equally designed by nature to adorn a Court and to reap laurels in the field. Our meeting was the more welcome to both, as he was one of the few Scots who had used the Irish with consideration, and as he might now be of very high utility in aiding my escape. Yet what founded our particular friendship was ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. XII (of 25) - The Master of Ballantrae • Robert Louis Stevenson

... arrangements were all made, that her wedding trousseau was being gotten up by a fashionable modiste, that Delmonico had received orders for the feast, and that the oranges were budded, which, when burst into flowers, were to adorn her forehead on her bridal day. She despised Linmere with her whole soul, she dreaded him inexpressibly, yet she scarcely gave her approaching marriage with him a single thought. She wondered that she did not; when she thought ...
— The Fatal Glove • Clara Augusta Jones Trask

... entirely to books. We have a very handsome clubhouse, and much taste and discrimination have been exercised in its adornment. There are many good paintings, including portraits of the various presidents of the club, which adorn the entrance hall. After books, perhaps the most distinctive feature of the club is our collection of pipes. In a large rack in the smoking-room—really a superfluity, since smoking is permitted all over the house—is as complete an assortment of ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various

... starved as she worked, but no attendance officer had ever been required to compel her children to school. It would have taken force to keep them away. But what of their future? Who can say? But of one thing I am very sure, and it is this: that, given fair opportunity, the whole family will adorn any station of life that they ...
— London's Underworld • Thomas Holmes

... which might deprive their country of the honours and advantages which she enjoyed as the seat of the government of the Universal Church. It was in Italy that the tributes were spent of which foreign nations so bitterly complained. It was to adorn Italy that the traffic in Indulgences had been carried to that scandalous excess which had roused the indignation of Luther. There was among the Italians both much piety and much impiety; but, with very few exceptions, neither ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... popular taste. They summoned their best novelists to throw themselves recklessly upon the English language, and extort from it its highest expression in color and lyrical beauty, the novelists whose mission it is, in the newspaper campaign against realism, to adorn and dramatize the commonest events of life, creating in place of the old-fashioned "news" the highly spiced "story," which is the ideal aspiration of ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... related all that I knew of what had happened to Sada, and what was about to happen. There was no reason for me to adorn the story with any fringes for it to be effective. Billy's face was grim. He said little; put a few more questions, then left me saying he would join me at ...
— The Lady and Sada San - A Sequel to The Lady of the Decoration • Frances Little

... the persons who happen to be their least inadequate representatives; the sagacity to analyze the age or the moment, and to reveal its tendency and meaning. Mr. Howells has produced a great deal of finely wrought tapestry; but does not seem, as yet, to have found a hall fit to adorn ...
— Confessions and Criticisms • Julian Hawthorne

... an attempt to surround our schoolchildren during their impressionable youth with reproductions of historic masterpieces, and have already decorated many schoolrooms in this way. For a modest sum it is possible to tint the bare walls an attractive color—a delight in itself—and adorn them with plaster casts of statues and solar prints of pictures and buildings. The transformation that fifty or sixty dollars judiciously expended in this way produces in a schoolroom is beyond belief, and, as the advertisements say, ...
— The Ways of Men • Eliot Gregory

... true, at an end; there remain none but the subordinate participators in the revolts, who are reduced by Henry IV., more by policy than by warlike achievements. To overcome this dearth of matter, Shakspeare was in the second part obliged to employ great art, as he never allowed himself to adorn history with more arbitrary embellishments than the dramatic form rendered indispensable. The piece is opened by confused rumours from the field of battle; the powerful impression produced by Percy's fall, whose name and reputation were peculiarly ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black

... says of the assertion, that the legitimate Sonnet suits not our language, "its truth cannot be demonstrated," he should perhaps rather have observed, that its fallacy is proved by the great number of beautiful legitimate Sonnets, which adorn our National Poetry, not only by Milton, but by many of ...
— Original sonnets on various subjects; and odes paraphrased from Horace • Anna Seward

... gifts to a reincarnation of his country's old heroes. He himself has tried to do this. "He has made armor, shields and swords for them of saga's steel, and borrowed horses for them from the ancient bards, but he has no cloth fit for the coats of such elegant knights nor feathers beautiful enough to adorn their helmets. He can sound a challenge but has no voice for singing; he can ring a bell but can not play the lute." In other words, he can depict the thoughts and ideals of the old heroes but lacks the poetical ability ...
— Hymns and Hymnwriters of Denmark • Jens Christian Aaberg

... of this utterly dead school are, first the wilful closing of its eyes to natural facts;—for, however ignorant a person may be, he need only look at a human being to see that it has a mouth as well as eyes; and secondly, the endeavour to adorn or idealize natural fact according to its own notions: it puts red spots in the middle of the hands, and sharpens the thumbs, thinking to improve them. Here you have the most pure type possible of the principles of idealism in all ages: whenever ...
— The Two Paths • John Ruskin

... Snow, discontentedly; "but somehow it don't seem as though she could fit in anywhere better than just the spot she is in now. I know it don't sound well to talk about old maids, because of the foolish notions folks have got to have; but Graeme did seem one that would 'adorn the doctrine' as an old ...
— Janet's Love and Service • Margaret M Robertson

... any absence of literary merit will not impair the author's cherished design to "impart a moral," should he fail to "adorn a tale." ...
— Shadow and Light - An Autobiography with Reminiscences of the Last and Present Century • Mifflin Wistar Gibbs

... responsible, that execution being your affair and not mine. What I was thinking of was how I'd feel when I saw you and every damned one of your pirates hanging at the end of ropes over the edges of the various fancy balconies and other trimmings which adorn this palace. It will be going clean against my principles to arrange that kind of obituary dangle for you, Captain. I may have some trouble soothing my conscience afterwards. But I expect that can be managed. You may call me ...
— The Island Mystery • George A. Birmingham

... not unfrequently to the castle to see her; for the kindhearted woman spoiled her. Not only did she admire her beauty, and stand amazed at her wonderful cleverness, but she drew from her little store a good part of the money that went to adorn the pretty butterfly. She gave her at the same time the best of advice, and imagined she listened to it; but the young who take advice are almost beyond the need of it. Fools must experience a thing themselves ...
— Heather and Snow • George MacDonald

... "If called to adorn her warm, white bosom, What have you to offer for such a place, Beside my fragrant and splendid blossom, Ripe with ...
— Poems of Sentiment • Ella Wheeler Wilcox

... present day. The title as well as that of the college are of course connected with the emblem of the Pelican feeding her young from her own breast. Little pelicans, alternately with Tudor portcullises, profusely adorn ...
— John Keble's Parishes • Charlotte M Yonge

... of this world's kingdoms than a clergyman's wife ought ever to see, even for another. She decided that Clementina's chances of making a splendid match, somewhere, were about of the nature of certainties, and she contended that she would adorn any station, with experience, and with her native tact, especially if it were a very high station in Europe, where Mrs. Lander would now be sure to take her. If she did not take her to Europe, however, she ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... will be more honorable to you than your most celebrated victories. It will adorn your head with a far brighter diadem than that which you wear, as it will be the fruit only of your own virtue. Your statues have been thrown down: if you pardon this insult, you will raise yourself others, not of marble or brass, which time destroys, but such as will ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler

... which could not fail to be interesting to a man of taste. When the curtain drew up the first scene presented a view of old Brabantio's house. It was accurately copied from one of the sumptuous structures of Scamozzi, or Sansovino, or Palladio, which adorn the Grand Canal of Venice. In the distance rose the domes of St. Mark and the lofty Campanile. Vivian could not fail to be delighted with this beautiful work of art, for such indeed it should be styled. He was more surprised, however, but not less pleased, on the ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield

... afternoon came to Portugal Street before he himself went out to dinner, choosing the hour at which his aunt was wont to adorn herself. "And so you are to be the hero of Patagonia?" said Arabella as she put out her hand to congratulate him on ...
— The American Senator • Anthony Trollope

... in any State. Indeed, under all the circumstances, the nation cannot afford to leave all the sacrifice, and all the glory of such an achievement, to the South only. It will be a grand historical fact in the progress of humanity, and must adorn the annals of ...
— The Continental Monthly , Vol. 2 No. 5, November 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... was a rival for the great dandies of the day. Coralie, like all zealots, loved to adorn her idol. She ruined herself to give her beloved poet the accoutrements which had so stirred his envy in the Garden of the Tuileries. Lucien had wonderful canes, and a charming eyeglass; he had diamond studs, and scarf-rings, and signet-rings, besides an assortment of waistcoats ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac

... were filled with delight the next morning to hear Sahwah calling for her breakfast in her natural voice and clucking to the chipmunks as of old. Migwan sped to the woods for a bouquet of the brightest flowers she could find to adorn the tent, while Hinpoha clattered around the kitchen concocting delicacies. Gladys hovered over her like a fond grandmama, brushing her hair, washing her face and plumping up the pillows, and the rest of the Winnebagos looked in every five minutes to see how she felt. Sahwah ...
— The Camp Fire Girls in the Maine Woods - Or, The Winnebagos Go Camping • Hildegard G. Frey

... it should be finely seen. From every direction its peculiar form and graceful, majestic beauty of expression never fail to charm. Its height from its base to the ridge of the roof is about 2500 feet, and among the pinnacles that adorn the front grand views may be gained of the upper basins of ...
— The Yosemite • John Muir

... certainly; but I don't want to stop your activity. Your gift is the gift of expression, and there is nothing I can do for you that will make you less expressive. It won't gush out at a fixed hour and on a fixed day, but it will irrigate, it will fertilise, it will brilliantly adorn your conversation. Think how delightful it will be when your influence becomes really social. Your facility, as you call it, will simply make you, in conversation, the most charming ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. II (of II) • Henry James

... way in which these precious irradiations of joy beam and hover over man; startled and frightened often out of the presence even of his image while they thus adorn and decorate him; and then they love him for what they fondly dream to be the halo of his proper spirit; for the light and tenderness, the purity, the gentleness, the refinement and grace, that have their life and element and colour, only in the deep yet overflowing heart ...
— Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, March 1844 - Volume 23, Number 3 • Various

... that was wont to adorn the face of Mrs. Temple was fled, and had it not been for the support of unaffected piety, and a consciousness of having ever set before her child the fairest example, she must have ...
— Charlotte Temple • Susanna Rowson

... had graciously sent him as a present, in recognition of his fame as a warrior of skill and courage. The poor Indian probably understood all this very imperfectly, but he was easily brought to view the manacles as Turey or a gift from Heaven, and willingly held out his wrists that his guest might adorn them with ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume III • Charles Morris

... comes a native of this region to enliven, if not adorn, the landscape. This lean, swarthy young fellow, under his sombrero with ample brim, exhibits a fair specimen of the peasants of Alemtejo. His sheep-skin jacket hangs loosely from his shoulders, and between his nether garment and his ...
— The Actress in High Life - An Episode in Winter Quarters • Sue Petigru Bowen

... oftentimes Been to me aiding, others to adorn, Whom ye thought worthy of your graceful rhymes, That even the greatest did not greatly scorn To hear their names sung in your simple lays, But joyed in their praise; And when ye list your own mishaps to mourn, Which death, or love, or fortune's wreck did raise, Your string could soon ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 2 (of 4) • Various

... adapted both for seeing and hearing are such theatres! It has, for scenery, the model of a Palace, curiously carved in wood, which represents a Royal Palace, for the ancients never shifted their scenes, and this may account for their adhering so strictly to the unities. Statues and bas-reliefs adorn this beautiful little theatre. Many years ago, on particular occasions, it was the custom to act plays here, either translated from the Greek, or taken strictly from the Greek model. This theatre is esteemed ...
— After Waterloo: Reminiscences of European Travel 1815-1819 • Major W. E Frye

... deep accents Of reconcilement sounded, Lo! Ingeborg sudden enters, rich adorn'd, And to her brother's heart she trembling sinketh. He with his sister's fears Deep-moved, her hand all tenderly in Frithiof's linketh, His burden soft transferring to ...
— Told by the Northmen: - Stories from the Eddas and Sagas • E. M. [Ethel Mary] Wilmot-Buxton

... masses; others shave it off altogether. Many shave part of it into ornamental figures, in which the fancy of the barber crops out conspicuously. About as many dandies run to seed among the blacks as among the whites. The Man ganja adorn their bodies extravagantly, wearing rings on their fingers and thumbs, besides throatlets, bracelets, and anklets of brass, copper, or iron. But the most wonderful of ornaments, if such it may be called, ...
— A Popular Account of Dr. Livingstone's Expedition to the Zambesi and Its Tributaries • David Livingstone

... he says about the "splendidly illustrated" portion of his book. "It will be a source of satisfaction to the reader," says he, "that the engravings of individuals who adorn this work are not drawn by the flighty imagination from airy nothingness, but represent the lineaments of men," etc. "Airy ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 5, May, 1884 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various

... to come to the place where they danced, she immediately concluded he was the Duke of Nemours. The Duke's person was turned in so delicate a manner, that it was impossible not to express surprise at the first sight of him, particularly that evening, when the care he had taken to adorn himself added much to the fine air of his carriage. It was as impossible to behold the Princess ...
— The Princess of Cleves • Madame de La Fayette

... to be expelled. The intruder soon won for himself a large popularity; held his ground against criticism and opposition. He was no mere journeyman dauber. From the first he had taken distinct rank as an artist. Lustrous names adorn the muster-roll of scene-painters. Inigo Jones planned machinery and painted scenes for the masques, written by Ben Jonson, for performance before Anne of Denmark and the Court of James the First. Evelyn lauds the ...
— Art in England - Notes and Studies • Dutton Cook

... to his left, at the other side of the room. The window is behind him. In the fireplace, a gas stove. On the table a bell button and a telephone. Portraits of past Mayors, in robes and gold chains, adorn the walls. An elderly clerk with a short white beard and whiskers, and a very red nose, ...
— Augustus Does His Bit • George Bernard Shaw

... mantelpiece, then I begin to give myself virtuous airs. I have always held, too, that pistol practice should be distinctly an open-air pastime; and when Holmes, in one of his queer humors, would sit in an arm-chair with his hair-trigger and a hundred Boxer cartridges, and proceed to adorn the opposite wall with a patriotic V. R. done in bullet-pocks, I felt strongly that neither the atmosphere nor the appearance of our ...
— Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

... Altar of Freedom; And though neither marble nor gilding Was used in those days to adorn Our simple republican building, Corbleu! but the MERE GUILLOTINE Cared little for splendor or show, So you gave her an axe and a beam, And a plank and ...
— Ballads • William Makepeace Thackeray

... a good woman toward a man. A woman who acted from love might change her mind; but duty was safe, was always there when a man came back from wanderings which were mere amiable, natural weaknesses in the male. Love might adorn a honeymoon or an escapade; duty was the proper adornment ...
— The Cost • David Graham Phillips

... Fielding, Scott, Dickens, Irving and Thackeray, as though each had striven for a tablet here. Art had denied herself that her canvases might be hung on these walls; and even the Church, on that first Sunday of my visit, forgot the blood of her martyrs that she might adorn an appropriate niche in the setting. The clergyman, at one of the dinner parties, gravely asked a blessing as upon an Institution that included and absorbed all other ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... kisses on the wood imprints. The wood his lips repels. Then thus the god:— "O laurel, though to be my bride deny'd, "Yet shalt thou be my tree; my temples bind; "My lyre and quiver shalt thou still adorn: "The brows of Latian conquerors shalt thou grace, "When the glad people sing triumphant hymns, "And the long pomp the capitol ascends. "A faithful guard before Augustus' gates, "On each side hung;—the sturdy oak between. "And as perpetual youth adorns my head ...
— The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I & II • Ovid

... in the earlier poems exceptions to this style— attempts to adorn nature, and dazzle with a barbaric splendour akin to that of Keats—as, for instance, in the "Recollections of the Arabian Nights." But how cold and gaudy, in spite of individual beauties, is that poem by the ...
— Literary and General Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley

... Isabel, that you do not love this destiny, glittering though it seem,—that your heart is not in the vocation which your talents adorn." ...
— Zicci, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... emancipation but for her vain and thriftless mother, who, socially ambitious for herself but more for her handsome, clever children, found herself increasingly embarrassed for funds. She lacked the means with which to suitably adorn herself and her children for the station in life to which she aspired and for which good clothes were the prime equipment and to "eddicate" Tony as he deserved. Hence when Annette had completed her second year at the High School her mother withdrew her from the school ...
— To Him That Hath - A Novel Of The West Of Today • Ralph Connor

... I hang on the chamber walls? And what shall the pictures be that I hang on the walls, To adorn the burial-house ...
— Our American Holidays: Lincoln's Birthday • Various

... all things deck themselves that wed; How birds and plants grow fine to please Each other in their marriages; And how (which certainly is true— It never struck me—did it you?) Dress was, at first, Heaven's ordinance, And has much Scripture countenance. For Eliezer, we are told, Adorn'd with jewels and with gold Rebecca. In the Psalms, again, How the King's Daughter dress'd! And, then, The Good Wife in the Proverbs, she Made herself clothes of tapestry, Purple and silk: and there's much more I had not thought about before! But Fred's so clever! Do you know, Since Baby ...
— The Victories of Love - and Other Poems • Coventry Patmore

... as dark and intricate as a mouse-hole. I have already given my landlady orders for an entire reform in the state of my finances. I declaim against hot suppers, drink less sugar in my tea, and check my grate with brickbats. Instead of hanging my room with pictures, I intend to adorn it with maxims of frugality. Those will make pretty furniture enough, and won't be a bit too expensive; for I will draw them all out with my own hands, and my landlady's daughter shall frame them with the parings of my black waistcoat. Each maxim is to be inscribed on ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving

... "Most people adorn their gate-posts with stone balls, vases, or griffins; your living images are a great improvement, love, especially the happy boy in the middle," said Mr. George, eying Ben with interest, as he nearly tumbled ...
— Under the Lilacs • Louisa May Alcott

... men who make advances with such a respectful air, who display such delicate and refined sentiments, so flattering to vanity, who, in a word, seem to breathe only through them, only for them, and have no other desire than their happiness; how often, I repeat, are those men, who adorn themselves with such beautiful sentiments, influenced by reasons entirely the contrary? Study, penetrate these good souls, and you will see in the heart of this one, instead of a love so disinterested, only ...
— Life, Letters, and Epicurean Philosophy of Ninon de L'Enclos, - the Celebrated Beauty of the Seventeenth Century • Robinson [and] Overton, ed. and translation.

... day were passing through a huge lock (with sides like those of a canyon, and scarlet doors such as might adorn the house of an ogre) in which we nearly stuck, and were saved by Antoun seizing the pole from the inferior hands of a Nubian boatman; also a visit to Esneh, a very Coptic town, starred with convents built by the ever-present Saint ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson

... appear to coincide with the designs of the Polifilo: a more accurate examination might, perhaps, prove the fact; and then little doubt would remain. The building is much dilapidated; and, unless speedily repaired, these basso-relievos, which would adorn any museum, will utterly perish. In spite of neglect and degradations, the aspect of the mansion is still such that, as my friend observed, one would expect to see a fair and stately matron standing in the porch, attired in velvet, waiting ...
— Architectural Antiquities of Normandy • John Sell Cotman

... Frances showed as much moderation as her words; for though she was strongly tempted to adorn her new dwelling with those specimens of her skill, which had long been the glory of her apartment in the convent, yet she resisted the impulse, and contented herself with hanging over the chimney-piece of her school-room a Madonna of ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. 6 • Maria Edgeworth

... name of LAFAYETTE, is associated with the most perilous, and most glorious periods of our Revolution;—with the imperishable names of Washington, and of that numerous host of heroes which adorn the proudest archives of American history, and are engraved in indelible traces on the hearts of the whole ...
— Memoirs of General Lafayette • Lafayette

... declared in danger's front How far my duty and my valour lead me. Allegiance still my thirst of glory fired, And all my bravely gather'd, envy'd laurels Were purchased only to adorn my queen: ...
— The Earl of Essex • Henry Jones

... be thought a little too fanciful, let me adorn these pages with a passage from one of the great masters of English prose—Walter Savage Landor. Would that the pious labour of transcription could confer the tiniest measure of the gift! In that bundle of imaginary letters ...
— Obiter Dicta - Second Series • Augustine Birrell

... Quoth she, Those need not he asham'd 165 For being honorably maim'd, If he that is in battle conquer'd, Have any title to his own beard; Though yours be sorely lugg'd and torn, It does your visage more adorn 170 Than if 'twere prun'd, and starch'd, and lander'd, And cut square by the Russian standard. A torn beard's like a tatter'd ensign, That's bravest which there are most rents in. That petticoat about your shoulders 175 Does ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler

... a general smile among the adventurers at the simplicity of the young couple's project in regard to this wondrous and invaluable stone, with which the greatest monarch on earth might have been proud to adorn his palace. Especially the man with spectacles, who had sneered at all the company in turn, now twisted his visage into such an expression of ill-natured mirth, that Matthew asked him, rather peevishly, what he himself meant to do with the ...
— The Great Stone Face - And Other Tales Of The White Mountains • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... fallen through the first sin in Paradise. Obedience leads to God and His Holiness. It is in obedience that the will is moulded, and the character fashioned, and an inner man built up which God can clothe and adorn with ...
— Holy in Christ - Thoughts on the Calling of God's Children to be Holy as He is Holy • Andrew Murray

... by being baptized with the name of piety. In this way he may gain a metropolitan pulpit; the avenues to his church will be as crowded as the passages to the opera; he has but to print his prophetic sermons and bind them in lilac and gold, and they will adorn the drawing-room table of all evangelical ladies, who will regard as a sort of pious "light reading" the demonstration that the prophecy of the locusts whose sting is in their tail, is fulfilled in the fact of the Turkish commander's having taken a horse's ...
— The Essays of "George Eliot" - Complete • George Eliot

... Hayes was at Bridgeport she gave, at Barnum's request, a concert for the benefit of "Mountain Grove Cemetery," and the large proceeds were devoted to the erection of the stone tower and gateway that now adorn the entrance to that beautiful resting place of the dead. Barnum had bought the eighty acres of land for this cemetery a few years before from several farmers. He had been in the habit of tramping over ...
— A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career. Life of Hon. Phineas T. • Joel Benton

... are gone, See how brightly shines the sun; The violet sweet and primrose pale, Now adorn ...
— The Keepsake - or, Poems and Pictures for Childhood and Youth • Anonymous

... thinking of a benevolence that is only measured by its works. Love is inexhaustible, and if its estate is wasted, its granary emptied, still cheers and enriches, and the man, though he sleep, seems to purify the air and his house to adorn the landscape and strengthen the laws. People always recognize this difference. We know who is benevolent, by quite other means than the amount of subscription to soup-societies. It is only low merits that can be enumerated. Fear, when your friends ...
— Essays, Second Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson

... "You may adorn yourself as you please," said Howard, "and of course, dearest child, there are hundreds of things you can do for me. I am the feeblest of managers; I live from hand to mouth; but I am not going to submerge you either. If you won't be the girl-bride, you are not to be the professional ...
— Watersprings • Arthur Christopher Benson

... served, in the case of old Persimmon Sneed, in the stead of industry, of rectitude, of perseverance, of judgment, of every quality that should adorn a man. So eager was he to be off and at the road again that he could scarcely wait to swallow his refection. All the charms of the profusely spread board had not availed to decoy him from the subject, and the repast of the devoted jury of view was seasoned with his sage advice ...
— The Mystery of Witch-Face Mountain and Other Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock

... queen, drawn by Apelles hand. Of perfect beauty did the pattern stand! But then bright nymphs from every part of Greece Did all contribute to adorn ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.

... period, and to continue to be its masters, by converting themselves frankly and truly into its friends. For my part, as one of the people, I confess I like the colours and shows of feudalism, and would retain as much of them as would adorn nobler things. I would keep the tiger's skin, though the beast be killed; the painted window, though the superstition be laid in the tomb. Nature likes external beauty, and man likes it. It softens the heart, enriches the ...
— Captain Sword and Captain Pen - A Poem • Leigh Hunt

... into I cannot better publish than by an Application to you. My Wares are fit only for such as your Readers; and I would beg of you to print this Address in your Paper, that those whose Minds you adorn may take the Ornaments for their Persons and Houses from me. This, Sir, if I may presume to beg it, will be the greater Favour, as I have lately received rich Silks and fine Lace to a considerable Value, which will be sold cheap for a quick Return, and as I have also a large Stock of other ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele

... forced on my attention, let me record my increased conviction of the privilege of an education within the borders of the Society; of the great value and importance of its spiritual profession, and the awful responsibility of its members to walk so as to adorn its doctrines, and shine as lights in ...
— A Brief Memoir with Portions of the Diary, Letters, and Other Remains, - of Eliza Southall, Late of Birmingham, England • Eliza Southall

... "navy," which, together with Solomon's "came once in three years from Tarshish," was their navy; and Tarshish was none other than Tartessus, their own province, just beyond Gibraltar on the Spanish coast. Nor is it at all improbable that Spanish gold was used to adorn the temple which the great Solomon was building. (I Kings ix., x.) Shakspere, who says all things better than anyone else, makes Othello find in the fatal handkerchief "confirmation strong as proofs from ...
— A Short History of Spain • Mary Platt Parmele

... believe your lordships equal to your progenitors in abilities; and therefore, since you cannot but outgo them in experience, am confident that you may make improvements in the fabrick which they have erected; that you may adorn it with new beauties, or strengthen it ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 11. - Parlimentary Debates II. • Samuel Johnson

... roof. In this manner they construct the temple with admirable art, raised high above the ground. They also prepare an ascent into it by successive branches of the trees, extended from the trunk and firmly connected together. Moreover, they adorn the temple without and within in various ways, by disposing the foliage into forms: thus they build entire groves. But it was not permitted me to see the character of these temples within: I was only told that the light of ...
— Earths In Our Solar System Which Are Called Planets, and Earths In The Starry Heaven Their Inhabitants, And The Spirits And Angels There • Emanuel Swedenborg

... first consider certain difficulties. The first that suggests itself is the question whether art is at all worthy of a philosophic treatment. To be sure, art and beauty pervade, like a kindly genius, all the affairs of life, and joyously adorn all its inner and outer phases, softening the gravity and the burden of actual existence, furnishing pleasure for idle moments, and, where it can accomplish nothing positive, driving evil away by occupying its place. Yet, although art wins its way ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various

... man of no inconsiderable merit, whom he put to death with the most cruel tortures, and without any one coming forward to avenge him, because, when writing familiarly to his wife, he had put a postscript in Greek, "sy de noei, kai stephe ten pylen."—"Do you take care and adorn the gate," which is a common expression to let the hearer know that something of importance is ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus

... erected, it was found here too that no water was to be had—no natural and gratuitous supply. And now when the stranger wonders at this tall disfigurement, and inquires into its meaning, he is told how the spirited efforts of the Brightonians to adorn their town have been rendered fruitless by the parsimony of water-companies. Once a week, however, his cicerone will advertise him—once every week and for two hours together—the fountain is let off to the sound of music, and the people are gathered together to see it play—or rather, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCLXXVI. February, 1847. Vol. LXI. • Various

... deed might be inscribed on a lasting leather medal and adorn the walls of the War Department, that it might act as an incentive to some future occupant of that lofty station! I advise the use of leather, because if we used any metal it might convey to our minds the idea of 'a sounding brass or ...
— Henry Ossian Flipper, The Colored Cadet at West Point • Henry Ossian Flipper

... golden Autumn, wreath'd in ripen'd corn, From purple clusters pour'd the foamy wine, Thy genius did his sallow brows adorn, And made the beauties of the season thine. With rustling sound the yellow foliage flies, And wantons with the wind in rapid whirls, The gurgling rivulet to the vallies hies, Whilst on its bank the spangled serpent curls. * * * * * Pale rugged Winter bending o'er his tread; His ...
— Lives of the English Poets - From Johnson to Kirke White, Designed as a Continuation of - Johnson's Lives • Henry Francis Cary

... took to itself wings. At length the dragoon, no longer recognizing the woman whom he had wedded, left her to live on a little property at Strasbourg, until the time when it should please God to remove her to adorn Paradise. She was one of those virtuous women who, for want of other occupation, would weary the life out of an angel with complainings, who pray till (if their prayers are heard in heaven) they must ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne

... was his pride, And ev'n his failings lean'd to virtue's side; But in his duty prompt, at every call, He watch'd and wept, he pray'd and felt for all; At church, with meek and unaffected grace, His looks adorn'd the venerable place; Truth from his lips prevail'd with double sway, And fools, who came to scoff, remain'd to pray. The service past, around the pious man, With steady zeal, each honest rustic ran; Ev'n children followed with endearing wile, And pluck'd his gown, to share the good man's ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall

... adorn herself to appear before the sultan; but before she went, she took her sister Dinarzade apart, and said to her, "My dear sister, I have need of your assistance in a matter of great importance, and must pray you not to deny ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous

... Wouvermans, Berghem, Van Huysum, Polemberg, and others. On a small table was placed an elegantly cut caraffe of carnations of every variety of colour that you can possibly imagine. There is nothing in which Mr. Beckford is more choice than in his bouquets. At every season the rarest living flowers adorn the house. ...
— Recollections of the late William Beckford - of Fonthill, Wilts and Lansdown, Bath • Henry Venn Lansdown

... be in a swimming state before her eyes. Only Mr. Carlisle's "can's" and "must's" obeyed him, she felt sure, as well as everything else. She felt stunned. Holding her on one arm, Mr. Carlisle began to pluck flowers and myrtle sprays and to adorn her hair with them. It was a labour of love; he liked the business and played with it. The beautiful brown masses of ...
— The Old Helmet, Volume I • Susan Warner

... was conscious of nothing but terrified wonder till she saw close to her a round boyish face, lower than her own, and heard a treble voice saying, "Sister, you carry the Anathema about you. Yield it up to the blessed Gesu, and He will adorn you with ...
— Romola • George Eliot

... sense God has given you. Learning you already possess enough of, to have, in a reasonable time, all that a man need have. With this, you are thrown out early into the world, where it will be your own fault if you do not acquire all, the other accomplishments necessary to complete and adorn your character. You will do well to make your compliments to Madame St. Germain and Monsieur Pampigny; and tell them, how sensible you are of their partiality to you, in the advantageous testimonies which, you are informed, they have ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield

... is celebrated among the most famous, and his paintings adorn the galleries of kings and emperors. The plot of the story ...
— Contemporary Russian Novelists • Serge Persky

... forehead—a brown felt wide-awake, very much battered in appearance, suggesting the idea that the captain had used it constantly as a night-cap, which, indeed, is the fact. Nothing but a flannel shirt, of the brightest possible scarlet, clothes the upper portion of his burly frame, while brown corduroys adorn the lower. Boots of the most ponderous dimensions engulf, not only his feet, but his entire legs, leaving only a small part of the corduroys visible. On his heels, or, rather, just above his heels, are strapped a pair of enormous Mexican spurs, with ...
— The Golden Dream - Adventures in the Far West • R.M. Ballantyne

... heading to each division. There is a sloping hipped roof to the window, and a broad moulded corbel below it. The well-known rebus is boldly displayed upon the central of the five square panels (all sculptured) which adorn the face of this picturesque chamber (oriolum), probably built as a convenient private pew for the Prior, from which he could survey the whole of the choir and the Founder's tomb. The Tudor doorway, which now opens into ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Priory Church of St. Bartholomew-the-Great, Smithfield • George Worley

... and enjoyment when the parcel was opened in the evening; everything that happened was treasured up to tell it when they met, or, if it was not there, to write to it on the pink note-paper; the very smartest sash belonging to her best doll was taken to adorn the cat's thin neck; and the secrecy which surrounded all this made it doubly delightful. Ruth had never been a greedy child, and if Nurse Smith wondered sometimes that she now spent all her money on cakes, she concluded that they must ...
— The Kitchen Cat, and other Tales • Amy Walton

... days are spent, where habits are formed which are to continue through the future, and where the foundation is laid upon which the superstructure of after-years is to be built. What a halo lingers about the blessed spot! and how the soul of the exile cherishes the pictures which adorn the halls of memory,—pictures which the rude hand ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various

... Began enticing with her Sorcery. Now from her Hair would twine a musky Chain, To bind his Heart—now twist it into Curls Nestling innumerable Temptations; Doubled the Darkness of her Eyes with Surma To make him lose his way, and over them Adorn'd the Bows that were to shoot him then; Now to the Rose-leaf of her Cheek would add Fresh Rose, and then a Grain of Musk lay there, The Bird of the Beloved Heart to snare. Now with a Laugh would break the Ruby Seal That lockt ...
— Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam and Salaman and Absal • Omar Khayyam and Ralph Waldo Emerson

... in great Belshazzar's hall, Where his proud lords attend their monarch's call; The rarest dainties of the teeming East Provoke the revel and adorn the feast. But why, O king, Why dost thou start, with livid cheek?—why fling The untasted goblet from thy trembling hand? Why shake thy joints? thy feet forget to stand? Why roams thine eye, which seems in wild amaze To shun ...
— Home Pastimes; or Tableaux Vivants • James H. Head

... efforts to remove the gigantic cross from the steeple of Ivan the Great, to the possession of which the Russians attached the salvation of their empire. The Emperor determined that it should adorn the dome of the invalids, at Paris. During the work it was remarked that a great number of ravens kept flying round this cross, and that Napoleon, weary of their hoarse croaking, exclaimed, that "it seemed ...
— History of the Expedition to Russia - Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 • Count Philip de Segur

... have queer ideas about their dress. The women wear strangely figured garments, and adorn their heads, like some Indian nations, with ...
— New National Fourth Reader • Charles J. Barnes and J. Marshall Hawkes

... figure, the President's—not so tall as it appears when he draws himself up and stands dominating the assembly with eyes that brood and glow—you would say one of the Assyrian Kings, whose sculptured heads adorn our Museums, the very profile of Tiglath-Pileser. In sooth, the beautiful sombre face of a kingly dreamer, but of a Jewish dreamer who faces the fact that flowers are grown in dung. A Shelley "beats in the ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill

... towing-steamer, "Troubadour." A steam calliope is part of the visible furniture of the establishment, and its praises as a noise-maker are sung in large type in the handbills which, with numerous colored lithographs of the performers, adorn the shop windows in ...
— Afloat on the Ohio - An Historical Pilgrimage of a Thousand Miles in a Skiff, from Redstone to Cairo • Reuben Gold Thwaites

... looking-glasses in yellow gilt tin frames, beads of various colours, needles, cheap scissors, and knives, vermilion paint, and coarse scarlet cloth, etcetera. They were of priceless value, however, in the estimation of the savages, who delighted to adorn themselves with leggings made from the cloth, beautifully worked with beads by their own ingenious women. They were thankful, too, for knives even of the commonest description, having none but bone ones of their own; and they gloried in daubing their faces with intermingled ...
— The Dog Crusoe and his Master • R.M. Ballantyne

... be, as witness his noble statute gin by our school children to France this present year. That his statute and G. Washington's should be gin to France by America, and that Josiah Allen's wife and Josiah should also be permitted to adorn their shores simeltaneous and to once, what a proud hour for France! Well might she put her best foot forrerd and ...
— Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife • Marietta Holley

... flowers among Western communities is even more appalling than the way they are treated by Eastern Flower Masters. The number of flowers cut daily to adorn the ballrooms and banquet-tables of Europe and America, to be thrown away on the morrow, must be something enormous; if strung together they might garland a continent. Beside this utter carelessness of life, the guilt of the Flower-Master becomes insignificant. He, at least, respects ...
— The Book of Tea • Kakuzo Okakura

... said he, "to say that you would await me to-night, and to ask for the necklace to adorn yourself ...
— The Indiscretion of the Duchess • Anthony Hope

... nearly two hundred feet long, with tesselated marble floor, and with the busts of the great men of Trinity ranged around the walls. The wood-carvings of Grinling Gibbons that adorn this room, of flowers, fruit, wheat, grasshoppers, birds, are of singular beauty, and make the hard oak fairly blossom and live. This library contains the most complete collection of the various editions of Shakespeare's Works which exists. Thorwaldsen's statue of Byron, who was a student ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors - Vol. II Great Britain And Ireland, Part Two • Francis W. Halsey

... Alfred! advance, offspring of tender love, child of our hopes; advance a soldier on the road to which I have been the pioneer! I will make way for thee. I have already put off the carelessness of childhood, the unlined brow, and springy gait of early years, that they may adorn thee. Advance; and I will despoil myself still further for thy advantage. Time shall rob me of the graces of maturity, shall take the fire from my eyes, and agility from my limbs, shall steal the better part of life, eager expectation and passionate love, and shower them in double portion ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley

... moment was almost arrived that was to unite them forever in the bands of wedlock, when happening to take a walk together toward one of the gates of Babylon, under the palm trees that adorn the banks of the Euphrates, they saw some men approaching, armed with sabers and arrows. These were the attendants of young Orcan, the minister's nephew, whom his uncle's creatures had flattered into ...
— International Short Stories: French • Various

... these, women had augmented during this conversation, naturally enough; affection and devotion are qualities that are able to adorn and render beautiful a character that is otherwise unattractive, and ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 4. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner

... virtue, that they should endure such a death?" No such things did he speak, or even think; but steadily bore all, tho bereaved of them after bestowing on them so much care. For as an accomplished statuary framing golden images adorns them with great care, so he sought properly to mold and adorn their souls. And as a husbandman assiduously waters his palm-trees, or olives, inclosing them and cultivating them in every suitable way; so he perpetually sought to enrich each one's soul, as a fruitful olive, with increasing virtue. But he saw the trees overthrown ...
— The World's Great Sermons, Volume I - Basil to Calvin • Various

... suppressed,—woman's beauty, music, painting, poetry. Society will not be overthrown, that is true, but, I ask you, who would willingly accept such a life? All useful things are ugly and forbidding. A kitchen is indispensable, but you take care not to sit there; you live in the salon, which you adorn, like this, with superfluous things. Of what use, let me ask you, are these charming wall-paintings, this carved wood-work? There is nothing beautiful but that which seems to us useless. We called the sixteenth century the Renascence with admirable truth of language. That century was ...
— Modeste Mignon • Honore de Balzac

... near a roaring stream a hut built on the gnarled logs hides itself among the trees. Over its kogon thatch clambers the branching gourd-vine, laden with flowers and fruit. Deer antlers and skulls of wild boar, some with long tusks, adorn this mountain home, where lives a Tagalog family engaged in ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal

... popular with her fellow artists on the stage. Jealousy and ill-will not seldom reign among the surroundings of a star. It is a trial to human nature to be but a lesser light revolving round some brilliant luminary—but the setting to adorn the jewel. But Mary Anderson won the hearts of every one on the boards, from actors to scene-shifters. And at Christmas, in which she is a great believer, every one, high or low, connected with the Lyceum, was presented with some kind and thoughtful ...
— Mary Anderson • J. M. Farrar

... it, since you like to sit among us as our Prince and our father, these festivities become an augury to us of still greater benefit. The day will perhaps come when Italy, restored to this new life, may be able to adorn its circus with the monuments of its own bravery which will also be the monuments of your glory; and Italy, being never doomed to perish, whatever great deeds may be wrought by Italians in the course of centuries will be due to the hero who has recalled them to life.'" After the races ...
— The Court of the Empress Josephine • Imbert de Saint-Amand

... characterises the mansions of the present Ghorka chiefs in the modern capital! Here the carving is more rich, the ornaments more massive, the houses themselves are more lofty and capacious. Sometimes two or three elaborately-carved balconies adorn the sombre but not less imposing exterior; from the projecting eaves wooden tassels, forming a sort of fringe, swing to and fro ...
— A Journey to Katmandu • Laurence Oliphant

... which remain. The four horses which the emperor Theodosius had brought from Chios and placed in the hippodrome escaped, by some lucky chance, the general plunder, and were taken to Venice, where they still adorn ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume VI. • Various

... with much anecdotal erudition, Heaven knows of what degree of credibility! on the customs of savage peoples. But in very truth there was no necessity for such important aid, for one often meets in ordinary life poets who adorn themselves with their poetry, like cocks that raise their crests, or turkeys that spread their tails. But he who does such things, in so far as he does them, is not a poet, but a poor devil of a cock or turkey. The conquest of woman does not suffice to explain the art fact. It would be just as correct ...
— Aesthetic as Science of Expression and General Linguistic • Benedetto Croce

... light, some marl, others rich black Mould; here barren of Pine, but affording Pitch, Tar, and Masts; there vastly rich, especially on the Freshes of the Rivers, one part bearing great Timbers, others being Savanna's or natural Meads, where no Trees grow for several Miles, adorn'd by Nature with a pleasant Verdure, and beautiful Flowers, frequent in no other Places, yielding abundance of Herbage for Cattle, Sheep, and Horse. The Country in general affords pleasant Seats, the Land (except ...
— A New Voyage to Carolina • John Lawson

... it. There must indeed have been a sad time when the buildings were slipping into decay, and the church stood ruined and roofless. But how soon the scars are healed! How calmly nature smiles at the eager schemes of men, breaks them short, and then sets herself to harmonise and adorn the ruin, till she makes it fairer than before, writing her patient lesson of beauty on broken choir and tottering wall, flinging her tide of fresh life over the rents, and tenderly drawing back the broken fragments into her bosom. If we could but learn from her not ...
— The Thread of Gold • Arthur Christopher Benson

... the usual gradations which we find in the old school; the views of distant cities are absolutely fantastic and infantile creations; only the green plain is often illumined, in an unusual manner, by tiny flowerets of many hues, while mystic roses crown the angels' locks, adorn overflowing baskets, or rise on long stalks at the foot of the Virgin's throne ...
— Fra Angelico • J. B. Supino

... turning round and giving him a chance to communicate with his receptacle, he quickly presented himself with the assurance that now he thought he knew where a serpent might be lodged. The Indian servants all devoutly believed in his skill; but it is impossible not to be ashamed of Europeans, who adorn their books with marks of similar gullibility.—Abridged ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 19, No. 543, Saturday, April 21, 1832. • Various

... your severe and searching gaze, lest you should damn the brute with his close-shaven cheeks and his disgusting appearance by a mere glance at his face, when you saw a young man with his features stripped of the beard and hair that should adorn them, his eyes heavy with wine, his lids swollen, his broad[18] grin, his slobbering lips, his harsh voice, his trembling hands, his breath[19] reeking of the cook-shop. He has long since devoured his fortune; nothing is left him of his patrimony save ...
— The Apologia and Florida of Apuleius of Madaura • Lucius Apuleius

... professional excitement reads detective novels at home, and the sacrificial rites of—of what or whom I shall leave unsaid. But it must have been an unconscious survival of something of the sort that prompted the butcher to adorn with gay ribbons the poor nag led to the slaughter in the wake of the town drummer. He designed it as an advertisement that there would be fresh horse-meat for sale that day. The horse took it as a compliment and ...
— The Making of an American • Jacob A. Riis

... the world! The very hospitality of the house becomes suspect, their friendship is but fictitious; those rare and goodly gifts of fondness and sisterly affection which grow up in happier circumstances, are here but rivalry, envy, and ill-conceived hatred. The very accomplishments which cultivate and adorn life, that light but graceful frieze which girds the temple of homely happiness, are here but the meditated and well-considered occasions of display. All the bright features of womanhood, all the freshness ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever

... of Dryden's Satires of Juvenal and Persius, published in 1702, was the first 'adorn'd with Sculptures.' The Frontispiece represents at full length Juvenal receiving a mask of Satyr from Apollo's hand, and hovered over by a Cupid who will bind the Head to its Vizard with ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele

... pray God to raise up at the right moment one capable of dealing with the weightier matters, and those who may be able to help him in the work. My son, if I were to begin to-night to transform and rebuild the Vatican, where should I find a Raphael to adorn it with his paintings? or even a Giovanni? Still, I do not say ...
— The Saint • Antonio Fogazzaro

... those who had the care of his infancy, the youth of this extraordinary personage did not pass away without some of those incidents, which might afford a glimpse of the sublimity of his genius; and some of those prodigies, with which superstition is prompt to adorn the story of the founders of nations, and the conquerors of empires. In the mean time, his understanding was enlarged by travel. It is not to be supposed that he frequented the neighbouring countries, without making some of those profound observations ...
— Four Early Pamphlets • William Godwin

... agonised moments, of the brilliant, high-bred woman who had been but yesterday the centre of an almost European network of friendships and interests! Love, loss, death,—oh, how unalterable is this essential content of life, embroider it and adorn it as ...
— Miss Bretherton • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... back of it. With the donation of $100 by a Los Angeles woman both were made attractive with flags, engravings and furnishings. Above a handsome desk the suffrage flag with its four stars is draped and photographs of prominent women adorn the walls. The suffrage papers are kept on file and quantities of fresh literature are ready for distribution. Stationery, photographs, medallions, etc., are for sale, a register is open for the enrollment of friends and a member of the league is always ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various

... the theatre, came also the desire for ornaments. Her costumes remained as before, simple, in good taste, and always modest; but she soon began to adorn her ears with huge rhinestones, which glittered and sparkled like real diamonds. Around her neck she wore strings of false pearls, on her arms bracelets of imitation gold, and combs set with ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant

... afford to let you gratify your youthful spirits. Too much was at stake, and it is most providential that things had gone no further, and that your own good sense has preserved you to adorn a much higher sphere." ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge

... the trackless wastes of the Pacific and the Atlantic; and with how much fidelity did memory recall the peculiar graces, whether of body or mind, of each of the dear girls in particular! Since my recent experience in London, Emily Merton would occasionally adorn the picture, with her more cultivated discourse and more finished manner; and yet I do not remember to have ever given her more than a third place on the scale of ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper

... down and secretly smile. Clem was a spy whom they had sent out into the world of men. He had come back with the good news that there was nobody to compare with the Four Black Brothers, no position that they would not adorn, no official that it would not be well they should replace, no interest of mankind, secular or spiritual, which would not immediately bloom under their supervision. The excuse of their folly is in two words: scarce ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson

... place, 'for the sake of others, he found himself going on, and liking his labour, for his own sake: for the virtues of those great men served him as a looking-glass, in which he might see how, more or less, to order and adorn his own life. Indeed, it could be compared,' he says, 'to nothing less than living with the great souls who were dead and gone, and choosing out of their actions all that was noblest and worthiest to know. What greater ...
— Town and Country Sermons • Charles Kingsley

... Venus the great picture of the Tribuna. Titian himself has given no indication that the beautiful Venetian woman who lies undraped after the bath, while in a sumptuous chamber, furnished according to the mode of the time, her handmaidens are seeking for the robes with which she will adorn herself, is intended to present the love-goddess, or even a beauty masquerading with her attributes. Vasari, who saw it in the picture-closet of the Duke of Urbino, describes it, no doubt, as "une Venere giovanetta a giacere, con fieri e certi panni sottili attorno." It is manifestly borrowed, ...
— The Later works of Titian • Claude Phillips

... shine in to adorn our festival, but it must be tempered and shaded, or that will also offend. Accuracy is essential to beauty, and quick perceptions to politeness, but not too quick perceptions. One may be too punctual and too precise. He must leave the omniscience of business at the door, when he comes into the palace ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson

... prevailed on her royal mistress to take with her a few little necessaries, besides a small picture of the king, and some of her jewels, which the queen contrived to conceal under her night-clothes, in the midst of that hair they were used to adorn, when her loved husband delighted to see it displayed in flowing ringlets round her snowy neck. This lady, during the life of her fond husband, was by his tender care kept from every inclemency of the air, and preserved ...
— The Governess - The Little Female Academy • Sarah Fielding

... a hundred or more, that adorn the walls of the great Stickeen River Canyon, this is the largest. It draws its sources from snowy mountains within fifteen or twenty miles of the coast, pours through a comparatively narrow canyon about ...
— Travels in Alaska • John Muir

... associated with men not for what they could do for him, but for what he could do for them. Although poor, he charged nothing for his teachings. He seemed to despise riches, since riches could only adorn or pamper the body. He did not live in a cell or a cave or a tub, but among the people, as an apostle. He must have accepted gifts, since his means of living were exceedingly ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume I • John Lord

... a string of yokes of oxen reaching from the Atlantic to the Pacific; and as for his woman's son, Micky Free, he afterwards became an Indian scout and interpreter, and about as infamous a scoundrel as those who generally adorn that profession. I am on very friendly terms with him and all his family, and would not write a word in derogation of his character, or of his step-father, John Ward, ...
— Building a State in Apache Land • Charles D. Poston

... their views and writings may be distorted and belied) the whole Gospel of a crucified and risen Saviour, in all its freeness, and in all its fullness, was what they sought to publish, and by their lives to adorn. ...
— A Sermon Preached at the Quaker's Meeting House, in Gracechurch-Street, London, Eighth Month 12th, 1694. • William Penn

... said Dennis. "It's painting the lily to adorn them. On ye go; and mind ye keep near to us, and we'll make a landlubber's parliament in a ...
— We and the World, Part II. (of II.) - A Book for Boys • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... pictures, the Chinese adorn their rooms with painted lanterns, and with pieces of white satin, on which sentences are written: they have also book-cases and china jars. But they have no fire-places, for they never need a fire to keep themselves warm: ...
— Far Off • Favell Lee Mortimer

... three or four modern, as well as the classic, languages, a mathematician, a writer of beautiful, clear English, although it is not his mother tongue, he carries it with the modesty, the broad-minded tolerance, the easy urbanity that always adorn, though they by no means always accompany, the profession of the scholar; and one is better able to understand after some years' acquaintance with such a man, after falling under the authority of his learning ...
— Ten Thousand Miles with a Dog Sled - A Narrative of Winter Travel in Interior Alaska • Hudson Stuck

... she adorns the life she gives. One has seen homely faces so refined and glorified by the fair soul that shone through them as to be, 'as it were, the face of an angel.' Gracefulness should be the outward token of inward grace. Some good people forget that they are bound to 'adorn the doctrine.' But they who have drunk most deeply of the fountain of Wisdom will find that, like the fabled spring, its waters confer strange loveliness. Lives spent in communion with Jesus will ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... Highness is no Stranger to Love, and it is that which calls me back to my own Country. Be pleased therefore, to grant me Permission to return, which will not a little augment your Glory, that I shall there appear in Chains instead of those Trophies which I hop'd to have adorn'd my Return." The majestic Air with which this young Warriour delivered himself, moved Zeokinizul, who immediately answered, "You are at full Liberty to depart, and may Love do you more Justice than Fortune." ...
— The Amours of Zeokinizul, King of the Kofirans - Translated from the Arabic of the famous Traveller Krinelbol • Claude Prosper Jolyot de Crbillon



Words linked to "Adorn" :   encrust, outfit, wreathe, bedight, stucco, modify, barde, clothe, hang, bespangle, bedeck, beautify, trim, engild, smock, applique, be, festoon, vermiculate, fret, scallop, tinsel, ornament, prank, color, blazon, invest, paint the lily, filet, bedizen, colour, caparison, illustrate, flag, gild the lily, bard, spangle, embellish, beset, flight



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