"Circassian" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... for the afternoon, a giant and a midget, a magician, an Egyptian fortune teller, a trick mule, a Circassian beauty, and a strong man." Ben looked around proudly, and the boys burst ...
— Ted Strong's Motor Car • Edward C. Taylor
... Mohammedans—fatalists—the Russians hurled themselves against the powerful batteries and got to close quarters with the enemy. For nearly twenty minutes a wild, surging sea of clashing steel—bayonets, swords, lances and Circassian daggers—wielded by fiery mountaineers and steady, cool, well-disciplined Teutons, roared and flowed around the big guns, which towered over the lashing waves like islands in a stormy ocean. A railway collision would seem mild compared ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume V (of 12) - Neuve Chapelle, Battle of Ypres, Przemysl, Mazurian Lakes • Francis J. Reynolds, Allen L. Churchill, and Francis Trevelyan
... this market come the gum-copal, the hides, the orchilla weed, the timber, and the black slaves from Africa. Bagdad had great silk bazaars, Zanzibar has her ivory bazaars; Bagdad once traded in jewels, Zanzibar trades in gum-copal; Stamboul imported Circassian and Georgian slaves; Zanzibar imports black beauties from Uhiyow, ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley
... prisoners taken since the morning of the 28th, namely, 38 of the Sixteenth Regiment, 139 of the Thirty-third Regiment, and three of the Thirteenth Regiment. A Circassian prisoner carried a wounded private of Royal Scots into ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 5, August, 1915 • Various
... The Circassian custom of breeding young girls, on purpose to be sold in the public market to the highest bidder, is generally known. Perhaps, however, upon minute examination, we shall find that women are, in some degree, bought and sold in every country, whether ...
— Sketches of the Fair Sex, in All Parts of the World • Anonymous
... all in a heap together. I remember I was at a funeral in Sahalin. Beside the newly dug grave stood four convict bearers ex officio; the treasury clerk and I, in the capacity of Hamlet and Horatio, wandering about the cemetery; the dead woman's lodger, a Circassian, who had come because he had nothing better to do; and a convict woman who had come out of pity and had brought the dead woman's two children, one a baby, and the other, Alyoshka, a boy of four, wearing ...
— Letters of Anton Chekhov • Anton Chekhov
... ringlets, Sarah Maud's was braided in one pig-tail, and Susan's and Eily's in two braids apiece, while Peoria's resisted all advances in the shape of hair oils and stuck out straight on all sides, like that of the Circassian girl of the circus—so Clem said; and he was sent into the bed-room for it too, from whence he was dragged out forgivingly by Peoria herself, five minutes later. Then—exciting moment—came linen collars for some and neckties and bows for others, and Eureka! the Ruggleses were dressed, ...
— The Birds' Christmas Carol • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... mind and soul have not kept pace with her body. Yesterday she was a slave, sold in Circassian mart, and freedom to her is so new and strange that she does not know what to ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard
... women particularly gaped at him as though he were a wild animal, but he went his way gloomily without paying attention to any one. He was accompanied by two servants, one a negro, completely dressed in red satin, and the other a Circassian in his full gleaming uniform. Suddenly he saw Wanda, and fixed his cold piercing look upon her; he even turned his head after her, and when she had passed, he stood still and followed her with ...
— Venus in Furs • Leopold von Sacher-Masoch
... ladies of the party, not having completed their purchases at the bazaars, went out upon a shopping excursion, and passing near the Nubian slave-market, were induced to enter. Christians are not admitted to the place in which Circassian women are sold, and can only obtain entrance by assuming the Turkish dress and character. My friends were highly interested in one woman, who sat apart from the rest, apparently plunged into the deepest melancholy; the others manifested little sorrow at their ...
— Notes of an Overland Journey Through France and Egypt to Bombay • Miss Emma Roberts
... great political club had migrated from its palatial home to a shrunken habitation in a less prosperous quarter; its place was filled by the flamboyant frontage of the Hotel Konstantinopel. Gorgeous Turkey carpets were spread over the wide entrance steps, and boys in Circassian and Anatolian costumes hung around the doors, or dashed forth in un-Oriental haste to carry such messages as the telephone was unable to transmit. Picturesque sellers of Turkish delight, attar-of-roses, and brass-work coffee services, squatted under the portico, on terms of obvious good ...
— When William Came • Saki
... showed a number of booths, tents and canvas enclosures within which performances were already in progress. The Fabiani family was late in arriving, but a spot was found, between the sword-swallower and the Circassian lady, which suited Cleofonte's purpose. So the routlotte was backed into place and Cleofonte, his coat off, his brows beading, directed the erection of the canvas barrier within which the performances were to ...
— Madcap • George Gibbs
... chimerical hopes, on the other liberty, peace of mind, affluence, social enjoyments, honorable distinctions. Strange to say, the only hesitation was on the part of Frances. Dr. Burney was transported out of himself with delight. Not such are the raptures of a Circassian father who has sold his pretty daughter well to a Turkish slave-merchant. Yet Dr. Burney was an amiable man, a man of good abilities, a man who had seen much of the world. But he seems to have thought that going to court was like going to heaven; that to see princes ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... sultan of Morocco, son of Sultan Mulai el Hasan III. by a Circassian wife. He was fourteen years of age on his father's death in 1894. By the wise action of Si Ahmad bin Musa, the chamberlain of El Hasan, Abd-el Aziz's accession to the sultanate was ensured with but little fighting. Si Ahmad became regent and for six ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... the floor, soft and thick, which Lucy told him was a genuine Smyrna. There was a leopard skin, with stuffed head and red, gaping jaws. There were two handsome overstuffed leather chairs, and the bedroom set was Circassian ...
— The She Boss - A Western Story • Arthur Preston Hankins
... softly. From the end of the salon he could mark the short flight of steps which led to the mezzanine, with its walls heavily tapestried, and broken by rich oak doors opening into lavatories and lounging rooms, itself widening at the far end into the grand billiard and smoking parlors, done off in Circassian walnut, with tables and furniture to harmonize. From the mezzanine he saw the grand stairway falling away in great, sweeping curves, all in blended marble from the world's greatest quarries, and delicately chased and carved into classic designs. Two tapestries, ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... adolescent loveliness conceived by Correggio. Where the painter found their models may be questioned but not answered; for he has made them of a different fashion from the race of mortals: no court of Roman emperor or Turkish sultan, though stocked with the flowers of Bithynian and Circassian youth, have seen their like. Mozart's Cherubino seems to have sat for all of them. At any rate they incarnate the very spirit of the ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds
... certain sanction; but when realized in connection with the quiet, peaceful aspect of Japanese domestic life, the contrast renders the system more repulsive than it appears elsewhere. The young women in these public establishments are really slaves, as much as Circassian girls sold into Turkish harems, or at Moorish Tangier. In Japan they are also sold, while yet children, by their parents, for this purpose, and for a period of ten years. At the close of their term such women are not ...
— Due West - or Round the World in Ten Months • Maturin Murray Ballou
... between them, while we enjoy ourselves, if we can. Weren't we happy in the Mahomet, boy—we two? Didn't you roll whole weeks drunk? That was better than Colmoor, eh, Alfie? And didn't I have my incense, my grapes, my little Circassian, and ten thousand pounds in yellow gold a year? Wasn't that all right? Well, we may have it again!—not in the Mahomet, perhaps, but somewhere. Do nothing—not yet: till I give the word. If you must kill, get a dog, or a horse, or an obscure old man, ...
— The Lord of the Sea • M. P. Shiel
... twelfth century to the sixteenth about slaves. Priests were the notaries in these contracts, in spite of the state, the popes, and the councils. Slaves were brought from every country in the Levant, including Circassian and Georgian girls of twelve and fourteen. Slaves passed entirely under the will of the buyer.[871] Biot[872] finds evidence of slavery in Italy until the ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner
... notorious international spy in the world—a protean individual with aliases, professions, and experiences sufficient for an entire jail full of criminals. His father was a German Jew; his mother a Circassian girl; he was educated in Germany, France, Italy, and England. He has been a member of the socialist group in the Reichstag under one name, a member of the British Parliament under another; he did dirty work for Abdul Hamid; dirtier ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers
... stayed with a Circassian family in a little house of only one room into which were crowded his two horses, a mule, two donkeys, a yoke of oxen, some sheep and goats, a crowd of cocks and hens, four small dirty children and their father and mother; and a great multitude ...
— The Book of Missionary Heroes • Basil Mathews
... and one-eighth of his whole fortune; and then, tranquillized, he wrapped himself up, lay down in the sledge, and again dozed off. His imagination was now turned to the future: to the Caucasus. All his dreams of the future were mingled with pictures of Amalat-Beks, Circassian women, mountains, precipices, terrible torrents, and perils. All these things were vague and dim, but the love of fame and the danger of death furnished the interest of that future. Now, with unprecedented courage and ...
— The Cossacks • Leo Tolstoy
... from Stamboul, to guard the streets through which the Sultan will pass on his way to a certain mosque to perform some ceremony in connection with the feast just over. At the designated place I find the streets already lined with Circassian cavalry and Ethiopian zouaves; the latter in red and blue zouave costumes and immense turbans. Mounted gendarmes are driving civilians about, first in one direction and then in another, to try and get the streets cleared, occasionally fetching ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... she turned her hand, and gave it him direct. "You told me a different story when you were paying your court to me; then you were to be my servant,—all hypocritical sweetness. You had better go and marry a Circassian slave. They don't wear stays, and they do wear trousers; so she will be unfeminine enough, even for you. No English lady would let her husband dictate to her about such a thing. I can have as many ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade
... regiment of wood and hill In bright detachment stand. Behold! Whose multitudes are these? The children of whose turbaned seas, Or what Circassian land? ...
— Poems: Three Series, Complete • Emily Dickinson
... fashionable peruke, had drawn him from home, and that during his absence, a lad, in breathless haste, as if dispatched by the principal, entered the shop, stating that Sir. Money wanted a wig which was in the window, with some combs and hair-brushes, for the Gentleman's inspection, and also a pot of his Circassian cream. The bait ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... for, though not so durable as hemp, it is stronger, and far more soft and elastic; and I will add (since there is an aesthetics in all things), is much more handsome and becoming to the boat, than hemp. Hemp is a dusky, dark fellow, a sort of Indian; but Manilla is as a golden-haired Circassian to behold. The whale line is only two thirds of an inch in thickness. At first sight, you would not think it so strong as it really is. By experiment its one and fifty yarns will each suspend a weight of one ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... sugar-candy, cakes of ginger-bread and macaroons. For all that, they paid a visit to the wax-works, where they saw Monseigneur Sibour's body lying in state at the Archbishop's Palace, the execution of Mary Queen of Scots, models of people's legs and arms disfigured by various hideous diseases, and a Circassian maiden stepping out of the bath—"the purest type of female beauty," as a placard duly informed the public. Madame Ewans examined this last exhibit with a curiosity that ...
— The Aspirations of Jean Servien • Anatole France
... is not regularly put up for sale and bartered for, like the Oriental houris; but she is none the less an article of merchandise, to be paid for by him who would aspire to her hand. She has no more freedom in the choice of her husband than has the Circassian slave." ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... Sultanas, Rebeccas, Sapphos, Roxalanas— Circassian slaves whom Love would pay Half his maternal realms to ransom;— Young nuns, whose chief religion lay In looking most profanely handsome;— Muses in muslin-pastoral maids With hats from the Arcade-ian shades, And fortune-tellers, rich, 'twas plain, ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... it is famous on account of the beauty of the people. They are fair, like Europeans, with handsome features, and fine figures. But their beauty has done them harm, and not good; for the cruel Turks purchase many of the Circassian women, because they are beautiful, and shut them up in their houses. Perhaps you will be surprised to hear that the young Circassians think it a fine thing to go to Turkey—to live in fine palaces and gardens, instead of remaining in their own simple cottages. But I think that when they find ...
— Far Off • Favell Lee Mortimer
... an idolized being before whose cheering influence all frowns and clouds must disappear. When he entered, the smile resumed its seat on the languid features of Lady Tinemouth; Miss Egerton's eye lighted up to keener archness; Lady Sara's Circassian orbs floated in pleasure; and for Mary herself, her breast heaved, her cheeks glowed, her hands trembled, a quick sigh fluttered in her bosom; and whilst she remained in his presence, she believed that happiness had lost its usual evanescent ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter
... where, as your highness knows, the women are reckoned to be more beautiful than in any other country, except indeed Circassia; but, in my opinion, the Circassian women are much too tall, and on too large a scale, to compete with us; and I may safely venture my opinion, as I have had an opportunity of comparing many hundreds of the finest specimens of both countries. My father and mother, although not rich, were in easy circumstances; ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Frederick Marryat
... a slight blush adds to the beauty of a maiden's face; and the Circassian women who are capable of blushing, invariably fetch a higher price in the seraolio of the Sultan than less susceptible women.[32] But the firmest believer in the efficacy of sexual selection will hardly suppose that blushing was acquired as a sexual ornament. This view would also be opposed ...
— The Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals • Charles Darwin
... the Prussian and the French Consuls at Salonika were attacked and murdered by the mob. In Smyrna and Constantinople there were threatening movements against the European inhabitants; in Bulgaria, the Circassian settlers and the hordes of irregular troops whom the Government had recently sent into that province waited only for the first sign of an expected insurrection to fall upon their prey and deluge the land ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... and agreeable young informant used to discourse, in our evenings in the Lazaretto at Malta, very eloquently about the beauty of his wife, whom he had left behind him at Cairo—her brown hair, her brilliant complexion, and her blue eyes. It is this Circassian blood, I suppose, to which the Turkish aristocracy that governs Egypt must be indebted for the fairness of their skin. Ibrahim Pasha, riding by in his barouche, looked like a bluff jolly-faced English ...
— Notes on a Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo • William Makepeace Thackeray
... what he called a ballyhoo man. Which was the first I ever hearn them called that, but I got better acquainted with them since. They are the fellers that stands out in front and gets you all excited about the Siamese twins or the bearded lady or the snake-charmer or the Circassian beauties or whatever it is inside the tent, as represented upon the canvas. The doctor says he will do it fur a week, jest fur fun, and mebby pick up another feller to ...
— Danny's Own Story • Don Marquis
... (official); Kurdish, Armenian, Aramaic, Circassian widely understood; French, English ...
— The 2007 CIA World Factbook • United States
... In the uniformity of size and build of the men, exactness of equipment, and precision of movement, it would be difficult to imagine anything more perfect. All sense of the individual soldier was lost in the grand sweep and wheel and march of the columns. The Circassian chiefs, in their steel skull-caps and shirts of chain mail, seemed to have ridden into their places direct from the Crusades. The Cossacks of the Don, the Ukraine, and the Ural managed their little brown or black horses (each ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various
... that furnishes red sandal wood. A dye is obtained simply by rubbing the wood against a wet stone, which is used by the Brahmins for marking their foreheads after religious bathing. The seeds are used by Indian jewelers as weights, each seed weighing uniformly four grains. They are known as Circassian beans. Pounded and mixed with borax, they form an adhesive substance. They are sometimes used as food. The plant belongs ...
— Catalogue of Economic Plants in the Collection of the U. S. Department of Agriculture • William Saunders
... two bedrooms. But the left has a sitting-room and bedroom, with a bathroom between the two. It seems selfish in me to have so much room, but Mrs. Gray insists that I need it and wishes me to be thoroughly comfortable. She wanted me to have circassian walnut bedroom furniture, but I chose oak. I don't wish my rooms to suggest luxury. It wouldn't seem in touch with the spirit ...
— Grace Harlowe's Return to Overton Campus • Jessie Graham Flower
... henceforward live at my ease in a cavern on the sea-shore, dressing his dinners one moment, and my own sweet person the next in pearls and rubies, stolen by him, during some of his plundering expeditions, from the fair throat and arms of a shrieking Circassian beauty, whose lord he had knocked on the head. Till these genteel adventures of mine begin, I beg you to believe me, dear ...
— A Walk from London to Fulham • Thomas Crofton Croker
... with goods for the coast of Circassia. On attempting to land her cargo she was seized by a Russian man-of-war and confiscated, first, on the ground of the violation of the blockade, to which the Russian government had subjected the whole of the Circassian coast; and, secondly, for an alleged violation of the custom-house regulations established by the same authority in the ports of that country. This proceeding of the Russian government was generally denounced ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... Turkish, Circassian, and Slavic Mohammedans are concerned, their interests are bound up with those of the Sultan. They do not distinguish between the Caliphate and the Sultanat. Their ruler is the Imam-ul-Mussilmin, their law is the Sheraat, their country is the Dar-Islam; and when they ...
— The Contemporary Review, January 1883 - Vol 43, No. 1 • Various
... standing near them a small bow-legged man, a stranger to us, in a sheepskin jacket, and a papakha, or Circassian cap, with a long overhanging white crown. As soon as we came near where he stood, he took a few irresolute steps, and put on his cap; and several times he seemed to make up his mind to come to meet us, and then stopped again. ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: Russian • Various
... another cart, which I was surprised to see four oxen pulling with the greatest ease, notwithstanding that it was loaded to the top. Behind it walked the owner, smoking a little, silver-mounted Kabardian pipe. He was wearing a shaggy Circassian cap and an officer's overcoat without epaulettes, and he seemed to be about fifty years of age. The swarthiness of his complexion showed that his face had long been acquainted with Transcaucasian suns, and the premature greyness of his moustache was ...
— A Hero of Our Time • M. Y. Lermontov
... amorous eyes, With India's glow through snows Circassian, The Muses' love since Dorian lightning ran Kindling the west to perilous surprise,— Crowned with thy dawn-star, lo! portentous-wise, Steps the stern pupil of the Mantuan And lowers toward moon-mute deserts African Where, stained with rapine's ...
— Iolaeus - The man that was a ghost • James A. Mackereth
... obvious enough that she was a foreigner in a strange land, in a land that brought out her national characteristics. She must be of some race, perhaps Semitic, perhaps Sclav—of some incomprehensible race. I had never seen a Circassian, and there used to be a tradition that Circassian women were beautiful, were fair-skinned, and so on. What was repelling in her was accounted for by this difference in national point of view. One is, after all, not so very remote from the horse. What one does ...
— The Inheritors • Joseph Conrad
... account of her physiognomy, purchased by her late husband, then travelling in Turkey, from a merchant of Circassian slaves, when she was under seven years of age, and sent for her education to a relative of the Count, an Abbess of a convent in Languedoc. On his return from Turkey, some years afterwards, he took her under his own care, ...
— Memoirs of the Court of St. Cloud, Complete - Being Secret Letters from a Gentleman at Paris to a Nobleman in London • Lewis Goldsmith
... host's end of the table. We had scarce time to recover from this unexpected sally of the count, when a young notabilite, a poet of the romantic school of France, whose face was very pale, who wore a Circassian profusion of black hair over his shoulders, a satin waistcoat over his breast, and Byron-tie (noeud Byron) round his neck—permitted his muse to say something flattering to us across the table about Shakspeare. ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various
... green, like a corpse, with sunken eyes under leaden lids and a sharp, pinched nose—still reddish—above his dishevelled whiskers. He lay dressed in his invariable Caucasian coat, with the cartridge pockets on the breast, and blue Circassian trousers. A Cossack cap with a crimson crown covered his forehead to his very eyebrows. In one hand Tchertop-hanov held his hunting whip, in the other an embroidered tobacco pouch—Masha's last gift to him. On a table ...
— A Sportsman's Sketches - Volume II • Ivan Turgenev
... that they invested Their own proper persons in layers and rows Of muslins, embroideries, worked underclothes, Gloves, handkerchiefs, scarfs, and such trifles as those; Then, wrapped in great shawls, like Circassian beauties, Gave good-by to the ship, and go by to the duties. Her relations at home all marveled, no doubt, Miss Flora had grown so enormously stout For an actual belle and a possible bride; But the miracle ceased when she turned inside out, ...
— Little Masterpieces of American Wit and Humor - Volume I • Various
... I never saw such a useless, expensive set. I hate (there is no other word for it) these Arabs; and I like the Blacks—patient, enduring, and friendly, as much as the Arab is cowardly, cruel, and effeminate. All the misery is due to these Arab and Circassian Pashas and authorities. I would not stay a day here for these wretched creatures, but I would give ...
— General Gordon - A Christian Hero • Seton Churchill
... should reside under the same roof with herself, therefore she was much annoyed and disgusted to find that her husband had not thought it necessary to give any orders concerning their removal, and she had only been a few days at Pallamcotta, when she learned that there were three Circassian beauties sumptuously cared for and absolutely residing in apartments fitted up for them; though not actually in the Bungalow, they communicated with it by means of a short covered way leading from ...
— Vellenaux - A Novel • Edmund William Forrest
... the original. I owe to Professor Sche'fer, Membre de l'Institut, the information that he is in possession of a manuscript in which the text is fuller, and more correctly given. The Mamelook dynasty was, as is well known, of Circassian origin, and a large proportion of the Egyptian Army was recruited in Circassia even so late as in the XVth century. That was a period of political storms in Syria and Asia Minor and it is easy to suppose that the Sultan's minister, to whom Leonardo ...
— The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, Complete • Leonardo Da Vinci
... to stand; but Arthur thought him hardly worthy to be master of such fine-looking beings as Abou Ben Zegri and many others of the Moors, being in fact a little sturdy Turk, with Tartar features, not nearly so graceful as the Moors and Arabs, nor so handsome and imposing as the Janissaries of Circassian blood. Turkish was the court language; and even if he understood any other, an interpreter was a necessary part of the etiquette. M. Dessault instructed the interpreter, who understood with a readiness which betrayed that he was one of ...
— A Modern Telemachus • Charlotte M. Yonge
... revived there came by an old Hoja, a holy man, dressed in green robe and caftan and wearing yellow slippers—self-proclaimed as one who had made the pilgrimage to Mecca. He was followed by a very small donkey laden with panniers. By my side on the footwalk stood a Circassian who had been flourishing in the air, whilst the troops went by, a formidable-looking yataghan, and had been cheering in some language of which I did not understand ...
— The Making Of A Novelist - An Experiment In Autobiography • David Christie Murray
... "You must mean Circassian or English walnut, which is the same thing. It grows abundantly in France. You are wrong in calling it French walnut, though, because ...
— Growing Nuts in the North • Carl Weschcke
... mind and soul have not kept pace with her body. Yesterday she was a slave, sold in a Circassian mart, and freedom to her is so new and strange that she is unfamiliar with her environment, and she does not know what to ...
— Love, Life & Work • Elbert Hubbard
... parasites; but, as he shews, the same species of animal has the same parasite, wherever it may be found. According to Latreille, the pediculus found in the woolly heads of African negroes 'is sufficiently distinct from that of the Circassian to entitle it to the rank of a distinct species;' from which, and similar instances, the doctor concludes: 'Whatever may be urged in behalf of the hypothesis of the unity of the animal creation, based upon the alleged metamorphosic changes of types, it is my opinion that the relations of their ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 426 - Volume 17, New Series, February 28, 1852 • Various
... joys and passions of men reappeared, but transformed by the magic influence of the drug, made monstrous or fairylike, intensified or turned to voluptuous languors, through which the Ouled Nail floated like a syren, promising ecstasies unknown even in Baghdad, where the pale Circassian lifts her lustrous eyes, in which the palms were heavy with dates of solid gold, and the streams ...
— The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens
... Next day we went up the river in the boat, passing the city of Asso, which stands on its banks in the midst of a forest. I here found one Nicholas Capella, of Modena, who commanded in these parts, and a Circassian woman named Martha, who had been the slave of a person of Genoa, but was now married. This Martha received me with much kindness, and with her I staid two days. Phasis is a city of Mingrelia, subject to prince Bendian, whose dominions extend only about ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. II • Robert Kerr
... Persians, Indians, of Louis XIV. and the King of Prussia, of La Bourdonnais, Dupleix, and Admiral Saunders; of rice, and women that dance naked; of camels, gingham, and muslin; of millions of millions of lires, pounds, rupees, and cowries; of iron cables and Circassian women; of Law and the Mississippi; and ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists - Volume II. • John Morley
... blow too roughly on you, mother," said Olga, with a scornful laugh. "He is a descendant of those Magyars who had Circassian slaves, and adores them as playthings. I ...
— A Coin of Edward VII - A Detective Story • Fergus Hume
... advertises beauty, grace, and love. "Come, faded belles, who would your youth renew, And learn the wonders of Olympian dew; Restore the roses that begin to faint, Nor think celestial washes vulgar paint; Your former features, airs, and arts assume, Circassian virtues, with Circassian bloom. Come, battered beaux, whose locks are turned to gray, And crop Discretion's lying badge away; Read where they vend these smart engaging things, These flaxen frontlets with elastic springs; No female eye the fair deception sees, Not Nature's self so natural as these." ...
— The Village and The Newspaper • George Crabbe
... Brigit and Monny felt that Islam had already raised a barrier between them and this delicate creature it had taken into its keeping. In the white wool robe she wore—the kind of loose dressing gown affected by Turkish women—she looked more like a Circassian than an American girl. Always she had seemed to her would-be rescuers a charming doll, a feminine thing of exactly the type which would appeal to a Turk, weary of dark beauties: her hair was so very golden, ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson
... the whole Reading is, not Polly—the small puss turns out to be such a cunningly reticent little emissary—but her Doll, a "lovely specimen of Circassian descent, possessing as much boldness of beauty as was reconcileable with extreme feebleness of mouth," and combining a sky-blue pelisse with rose-coloured satin trousers, and a black velvet hat, "the latter ...
— Charles Dickens as a Reader • Charles Kent
... marathons of slaves. A dish called The Shield of Minerva was one of their greatest delights; this being an Irish stew compounded of lamprey-milt, pike-livers, flamingo-tongues, and the tiny, tasty brains of pheasants and peacocks; eaten while viewing the floor-show of strip-teasing Circassian girls or—Galba's invention, this—elephants walking tight-rope. Grand, Wes. No meals like that at the supermarket; no shows like ...
— The Great Potlatch Riots • Allen Kim Lang
... obliterated, which gave him the appearance of a eunuch. In this condition he seemed to have kept a perfect control of himself and passions until made chief eunuch of the Cherif, who possessed a well-assorted harem of choice Circassian, Georgian, and European beauties. The neglige toilet of the harem bath and the seductive influence of this terrestrial Koranic seventh heaven was too much for the warm Soudanese blood of the chief; his forays were not suspected until a ...
— History of Circumcision from the Earliest Times to the Present - Moral and Physical Reasons for its Performance • Peter Charles Remondino
... not to be susceptible of consolation from others, by being so miserable in the right as to think other women what they really are. Such a one can't but be desperately fond of any creature that is quite different from these. If the Circassian be utterly void of such honor as these have, and such virtue as these boast of, I am content. I have detested the sound of honest woman, and loving spouse, ever since I heard the pretty ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IV (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland II • Various
... have retained in greatest perfection the original traits,—I do not see how we are to avoid the conclusion that this Caucasian type was the type of Adamic man. Adam, the father of mankind, was no squalid savage of doubtful humanity, but a noble specimen of man; and Eve a soft Circassian beauty, but exquisitely lovely beyond ...
— The Testimony of the Rocks - or, Geology in Its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed • Hugh Miller
... was that first Golden Fleece? I do not know, nor care. The old Hellenes said that it hung in Colchis, which we call the Circassian coast, nailed to a beech tree in the war-god's wood; and that it was the fleece of the wondrous ram, who bore Phrixus and Helle across the Euxine Sea. For Phrixus and Helle were the children of the cloud ...
— Myths That Every Child Should Know - A Selection Of The Classic Myths Of All Times For Young People • Various
... they understood Archie's account. He forgot to mention that several fortresses had been erected by the Russians on the Circassian coast. Their garrisons were, however, seldom able to venture far beyond their walls, the brave mountaineers being continually on the watch to attack them. Among other pieces of news that Archie had heard, was that the Furious, ...
— The Three Commanders • W.H.G. Kingston
... adjectives were exhausted long before she had seen half of it. She tried to make her own personal choice between the dull, soft, dark colors and carved Circassian walnut furniture in the dining-room, and the sharp contrast of the reception hall, where the sunlight flooded a rosy-latticed paper, an old white Colonial mantel and fiddle-backed chairs, and struck dazzling gleams from the brass fire-dogs and irons. ...
— Saturday's Child • Kathleen Norris
... it's completely sickening," continued Mrs. Stevens, "to see them together; he calls her my dear, and is as tender and affectionate to her as if she was a Circassian—and she nothing ...
— The Garies and Their Friends • Frank J. Webb
... doubtless, in the Eastern sense, proud of his own long descent, but perfectly indifferent to any such matter as a noble pedigree in the choice of a wife; quite capable, if he had not chanced to be born a Christian, of taking to himself, even by purchase, the jealously-guarded daughter of a Circassian horse-thief, or of a Georgian cut-throat, a girl brought up in seclusion for sale, like a valuable thoroughbred; but a man who revolted at the thought of marrying a woman who could show herself upon the stage, and for money, who could sing for money, and for the applause ...
— Fair Margaret - A Portrait • Francis Marion Crawford
... them at his peril, so he said he understood them to mean, offering to shoot at him if he advanced, the fellow came back no wiser than he went, only that by their dress, he said, he believed them to be some Tartars of Kalmuck, or of the Circassian hordes; and that there must be more of them on the great desert, though he never heard that ever any of them were seen ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1808) • Daniel Defoe
... Russo-Asiatic commerce disturbs the universal harmony. In a full light upon the wall hangs a single silk carpet of wonderful tints, famous in the history of Eastern collections, and upon it is set at a slanting angle a single priceless Damascus blade—a sword to possess which an Arab or a Circassian would commit countless crimes. Anastase Gouache is magnificent in all his tastes and in all his ways. His studio and his dwelling are his only estate, his only capital, his only wealth, and he does not ...
— Don Orsino • F. Marion Crawford
... "blood is now highly refined by frequent intermixtures with the Georgians and Circassians, two nations which surpass all the world in personal beauty. There is hardly a man of rank in Persia who is not born of a Georgian or Circassian mother." He adds that they inherit their beauty, "not from their ancestors, for without the above mixture, the men of rank in Persia, who are descendants of the Tartars, would be extremely ugly." (2. These quotations are taken from Lawrence ('Lectures on Physiology,' etc., 1822, p. 393), who ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin
... wife was a Circassian, and a fairer vision it would not be easy to see. Intellectual in expression she could hardly be called; yet she was full of dignity, as well as of pliant grace and of sweetness. Her large black eyes, beaming with a soft and stealthy radiance, seemed ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... English barber and chiropodist, is usually credited with the discovery of vaccination. The doubtful honor, however, belongs in reality to an old Circassian woman who, according to the historian Le Duc, in the year 1672 startled Constantinople with the announcement that the Virgin Mary had revealed to her an unfailing ...
— Nature Cure • Henry Lindlahr
... Northern Division, extending along the northern slopes of the Caucasus, between the Caspian and the northern shores of the Black Sea, as far as the Straits of Yenikale; its subdivisions are Lesghian, Kistian, and Circassian, each with its dialects. Formerly the Circassians numbered about 500,000, but large numbers of them emigrated to European Turkey, where they were dexterously planted by the government to impede the social progress of their ...
— Russia - As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Various
... sought it elsewhere, in the brilliant bazaars by day, and by night in the winding alleys, where the dark-eyed Jews looked stealthily forth from the low-browed doorways; where the Circassian girls promenade, gleaming with golden coins and barbaric jewels; where the air is alive with music that is feverish and antique, and in strangely lighted interiors one sees forms clad in brilliant draperies, or severely draped in the simplest pale-blue garments, moving in languid dances, ...
— The Spell of Egypt • Robert Hichens
... with a white streamer for a crest. He seemed more bent on having the way cleared before him than anxious about the manner of it; so couching his lance as he came, while Sacripant did the like with his, he dashed upon the Circassian with such violence as to cast him on the ground; and though his own horse slipped at the same time, he had it up again in an instant with his spurs; and so, continuing his way, was a mile off before the Saracen ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Vol. 2 • Leigh Hunt
... calls herself a 'princess' does she?" returned the man, grinning again at Ruth in an offensive way. "Well, I have managed a South Sea Island chief, a pair of Circassian twins, and a bunch of Eskimos, in my time. I guess I know how to act in the presence of Injun royalty. Trot ...
— Ruth Fielding on the St. Lawrence - The Queer Old Man of the Thousand Islands • Alice B. Emerson
... itself, and gazing down upon itself with aristocratic disdain. And after a while this began to penetrate the vulgarest mind, and to fill it with awe; one cannot remain long in an apartment which is trimmed and furnished in rarest Circassian walnut, and "papered" with hand-embroidered silk cloth, without feeling some excitement—even though there be no one to mention that the furniture has cost eight thousand dollars per room, and that the wall covering has ...
— The Metropolis • Upton Sinclair
... into the square dressed and washed to look at the young women errand-going, and to laugh some time afterward to each other, it presented a glare of light; and here even came the cheap jacks and the Fair Circassian, and the showman, who, besides playing "The Mountain Maid and the Shepherd's Bride," exhibited part of the tall of Balaam's ass, the helm of Noah's ark, and the tartan plaid in which Flora McDonald wrapped Prince ...
— Auld Licht Idyls • J.M. Barrie
... you two or three of the Caucasian legends to which I have alluded. One day, in the company of the officers, Misha began to brag of a Circassian sabre which he had obtained in barter.—"A genuine Persian blade!"—The officers expressed doubt as to whether it were really genuine. Misha began to dispute.—"See here," he exclaimed at last,—"they say that the finest judge of Circassian sabres is one-eyed Abdulka. I will ...
— A Reckless Character - And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... battle chance and skilled to wield the nut-brown lance and the blade with bright glance. He drove at Kanmakan, saying, "Woe to thee! Knewest thou to whom these herds belong thou hadst not done this deed. Know that they are the goods of the band Grecian, the champions of the ocean and the troop Circassian; and this troop containeth none but valiant wights numbering an hundred knights, who have cast off the allegiance of every Sultan. But there hath been stolen from them a noble stallion, and they have vowed not to return hence without him." ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... offensive and defensive weapons, and who might well have served as a bodyguard to the proudest of Eastern monarchs. This splendid troop consisted of five hundred men and each horse which it contained was worth an earl's ransom. The riders were Georgian and Circassian slaves in the very prime of life. Their helmets and hauberks were formed of steel rings, so bright that they shone like silver; their vestures were of the gayest colours, and some of cloth of gold or silver; the sashes were twisted with silk and gold, their rich ...
— The Talisman • Sir Walter Scott
... profitable traffic in gold, dried fish, and corn. They had also become infamous for their freebooting practices. From every coast they stole men, women, and children, thereby maintaining a considerable slave-trade, the relic of which endures to our time in the traffic for Circassian women. Minos, King of Crete, tried to suppress these piracies. His attempts to obtain the dominion of the Mediterranean were imitated in succession by the Lydians, Thracians, Rhodians, the latter being the inventors of ...
— History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper
... End Avenue. Louis liked the apartments there. Luxurious. Quiet. Residential. Circassian walnut or mahogany dining room? Alma should decide. A baby-grand piano. Later to be Alma's engagement gift from "mamma and—papa." No, "mamma and Louis." ...
— The Vertical City • Fannie Hurst
... parents never did run much on dress; and I often felt mortified at my inferiority to others in this respect. Such articles were then much dearer, and more in vogue than at the present day, and a blue Circassian formed my entire stock of gala dresses, and went the rounds of all the children's parties I attended; my mother seemed to think, (with respect to me, at least,) that as long as a dress was clean and in good repair, there was no need of a change—she left nothing ...
— A Grandmother's Recollections • Ella Rodman
... Europe in 1851 to inspect fortifications and study the methods of guerrilla warfare which have been successfully used in the old world. I have pondered the uprisings of the slaves of Rome, the deeds of Spartacus, the successes of Schamyl, the Circassian Chief, of Touissant L'Overture in Haiti, of the negro Nat Turner who cut the throats of sixty Virginians in a single ...
— The Man in Gray • Thomas Dixon
... and others from his tribe have bought wives. Remember that beautiful Circassian girl?" the Tartar continued without raising or lowering ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... understand it no way. 'Twas all a hurry in Redcleugh as well as a sort of fright among us in the hall, every one whispering and wondering and questioning all to no end; for from that night we never knew more of her home or kindred, save that it was suspected she was a Circassian, and had left a noble home for the love she bore to master. Nor was she ever inquired after by her friends, except once, when a great eastern lord, as they said, came in a strange equipage to see ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume VI • Various
... the man, as he dried each little foot, "so small, so slender, rivalling the arch of Ctesisphon, dimpled as the sky at dawn, never in the most perfect Circassian have I seen feet so wonderful, glory be to Allah, ...
— Desert Love • Joan Conquest
... women in his harem, and they say the Sultan of Turkey has over five hundred. Some of these women are very beautiful, others are quite ugly. I heard of one man who followed a veiled lady for about three miles, thinking she was some wonderful Circassian beauty. He managed to talk to her too, but when she lifted her veil he was dumbstruck. Instead of being young and charming, she was old, haggard, toothless and revolting. All is not gold that glitters, and beauty is not always ...
— The Kangaroo Marines • R. W. Campbell
... doctor. "Nothing can be more unlike the Mongol type than the pure Circassian I have before me,—yet let me see the slipper. I want to be sure that all ...
— Say and Seal, Volume I • Susan Warner
... be so fond of him,' said the ingenuous young lady. She had to thank Nevil for a Circassian dress and pearls, which he had sent to her by the hands of Mrs. Culling—a pretty present to a girl in the nursery, she thought, and in fact she chose to be a little wounded by the cause ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... the programme nailed up for the musicians," said Cecil. "There are some dances I never saw—Varsoviana, Circassian Circle, and Caledonians." ...
— Mates at Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... left in some corner of his heart; for after the fatted calf was eaten, and they were all settled in the Doctor's study, it came out that his carpet-bag contained little but presents, and those valuable ones—rare minerals from the Ural for his father; a pair of Circassian pistols for Mark; and for little Mary, to her astonishment, a Russian malachite bracelet, at which Mary's eyes opened wide, and ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley
... archetypes, in spite of their chiselled profiles, were drifting across from the Hindo-Koosh, in the blanket-and-tomahawk stage of civilisation. Also, the slant-eyed ideal of China has a decent record. Further still, the German is facially coarser, and mentally higher, than the Circassian." Again I paused. ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... black slaves in every variety of costume and colour; veiled ladies from Constantinople; cattle and buffaloes ruminating in the pastures; Arab horses clothed in the most sumptuous trappings of velvet and gold; caiques filled with Armenian and Circassian young women, seated under the shade or playing with their children, some of the most ravishing beauty, form a scene of variety and interest probably unique in the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 349, November, 1844 • Various
... of the yellow locks, I suspect the face of my 'Espendermad' might easily be matched among the maidens of the Caucasus, who furnish the most perfect types of Circassian beauty. You know there is a tradition that when Leonardo da Vinci chanced to meet a man with an expression of character that he wished to make use of in his work, he followed him until he was able to delineate the face on canvas; but, ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... the night out, nevertheless, and next morning walked in to Gondokoro, N. Lat. 4 deg. 54' 5", and E. long. 31 deg. 46' 9", where Mahamed, after firing a salute, took us in to see a Circassian merchant, named Kurshid Agha. Our first inquiry was, of course, for Petherick. A mysterious silence ensued; we were informed that Mr Debono was THE man we had to thank for the assistance we had received ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... Mirza had two favourite attendants who served him as secretaries, stewards and body-servants. One was named Topaz; he was handsome and well-made, as fair as a Circassian beauty, as gentle and obliging as an Armenian, and as wise as a Parsee. The other was called Ebony; a good-looking Negro, more active and more industrious than Topaz, and one who never made objections. To them he spoke about his journey. Topaz tried ...
— Tales of Wonder Every Child Should Know • Various
... shaggy sides. The energies of innumerable tribes are throbbing in its breast. It clasps regions yet raw in history as well as those that are grey with tradition, and incloses in one empire the bones of the Siberian mammoth and the valleys of Circassian flowers. And it is great not only by geographical extent, but by political purpose—great by the idea which is involved with its destiny—an idea austere as the climate, tremendous as the forces, indomitable as the will of ...
— Humanity in the City • E. H. Chapin
... people—the countless varieties of lineament and costume observable among the warlike bands lounging and parading about their streets and gardens. The capital wore the semblance of some enormous masquerade. Circassian noblemen in complete mail, and wild Bashkirs with bows and arrows, were there. All ages, as well as countries, seemed to have sent their representatives to stalk as victors amidst the nation which but yesterday had claimed glory above the dreams of antiquity, and the undisputed ...
— The History of Napoleon Buonaparte • John Gibson Lockhart
... little flight of marble steps, guarded by its hand-rail of heavy metal, shod with crimson velvet, one reaches the elevator. This pretty enclosure of iron and glass, of classic detail in the period of Henry II., of Circassian walnut trim, with crotch panels, has more the aspect of boudoir than elevator. The deep seat is of walnut, upholstered with fat cushions of crimson velvet edged in dull gold galloon. Over the seat is a mirror cut into small squares by wooden muntins. At each side are electric ...
— The Spenders - A Tale of the Third Generation • Harry Leon Wilson
... was originally a Circassian slave, and said to have been a tribesman and near relation of the famous Abaza. During the revolutions which distracted the minority of Mohammed, he became grand-vizir for a few months, (Oct. 1654-May 1655,) but was cut off by an unanimous insurrection ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXII. - June, 1843.,Vol. LIII. • Various
... will furnish us up like he did Leon and Irma—only, I don't want mahogany—I want Circassian walnut. He gave them their flat-silver, too, Puritan design, for an engagement present. Think of it, mamma, me having that stuck-up Irma Sinsheimer for a relation! It always made her sore when I got chums with Amy at school and got my nose in it with the ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various |
