"Comeliness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... {blessings} had fallen, if you except the crime of his killing Phocus. The Trachinian land[22] received him guilty of his brother's blood, and banished from his native home. Here Ceyx, sprung from Lucifer for his father, and having the comeliness of his sire in his face, held the sway without violence and without bloodshed, who, being sad at that time and unlike his {former} self, lamented the loss of his brother. After the son of AEacus, wearied, both with troubles ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Copious Notes - and Explanations • Publius Ovidius Naso
... was a man gazing wistfully at the woman that sat behind Herodias. He was tall and sinewy, handsome with the comeliness of the East. His beard was full, unmarred at the corners; his name was Judas. Now and then he moistened his under lip, and a Thracian who sat at his side heard him murmur "Mary" and some words of Syro-Chaldaic which the ...
— Mary Magdalen • Edgar Saltus
... command. These were soon in readiness, and running upon the enemy, as soon as it was perceived by Masistius, who commanded the cavalry of the barbarians, a man of wonderful courage and of extraordinary bulk and comeliness of person, he turned his steed and made towards them. They sustained the shock and joined battle with him, as though by this encounter they were to try the success of the whole war. But after Masistius's horse received a wound, ...
— The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch - Being Parts of The "Lives" of Plutarch • Plutarch
... thwarted with a branching mustache, and slender of figure, on whom his clothes, lustrous from much sitting down and leaning up, grew like the bark on a tree, and who moved slowly and gently about, and spoke with a low, kind voice. In his young comeliness he was like a god, as the gods were fancied in the elder world: a chewing and a spitting god, indeed, but divine in his ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... encountered those of the young man at the fire, they fell before the gaze of admiration with which she saw, or fancied she saw, he greeted her. Each, in truth, felt that interest in the other which similarity of age, condition, mutual comeliness, and their novel situation would be likely to inspire in ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... wondrous and more awful than all else in the land of Egypt, there sits the lonely Sphinx. Comely the creature is, but the comeliness is not of this world. The once worshipped beast is a deformity and a monster to this generation; and yet you can see that those lips, so thick and heavy, were fashioned according to some ancient mould of beauty—some mould of beauty ...
— Eothen • A. W. Kinglake
... in her choice of dress and ornaments to set herself off to the most advantage; that her height was above the middle size, her shape easy, with that due proportion of plumpness which gives an appearance of majesty and comeliness. Her eyes were full, black, and sparkling; she had bright, chestnut-coloured hair, and a complexion fresh and blooming. Her skin was delicately white, and her neck admirably well formed; and this so generally admired ...
— Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois, Complete • Marguerite de Valois, Queen of Navarre
... a step or two to the bay-window, where, with hands thrust within his trouser-pockets, he stood staring gloomily out on the bright flower-beds that, next to the comeliness and order of her ministering to the Church—garnishing of the altar, lustration of the holy vessels, washing and mending of vestments,—were the ...
— Nicky-Nan, Reservist • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... up and down several women came to the spring and filled their buckets. They wore shawls or hoods and their garments were somber, but, nevertheless, they appeared to have youth and comeliness. They saw him, looked at him curiously, and then, without speaking, went back on the well-trodden path. Presently down the path appeared a woman—a girl in lighter garb. It was almost white. She was shapely and walked with free, graceful step, reminding him of the ...
— The Rainbow Trail • Zane Grey
... Valentine Goodland; who was really a pretty deserving Gentleman, Heir to about fifteen hundred Pounds a Year; which, however, did not so much recommend him, as the Sweetness of his Temper, the Comeliness of his Person, and the Excellency of his Parts: In all which Circumstances my obliging Acquaintance equal'd him, unless in the Advantage of their Fortune. Old Sir George Goodland knew of his Son's Passion for Philibella; and tho' he was generous, and of a Humour sufficiently complying, ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume V • Aphra Behn
... as it comes out against its vivid light, becomes luminous like a pillar of gold. Brick and marble are of equal aesthetic value in this magic city, in which the uncomely parts and materials have a more abundant comeliness by reason of the medium through which they are seen. Over all things lingers permanently the transfiguring glow that comes to northern lands only in the afternoon. In that land it is always afternoon; the ruins bathe as it were in a perpetual sunset. The air is constantly flooded with a radiance ...
— Roman Mosaics - Or, Studies in Rome and Its Neighbourhood • Hugh Macmillan
... voluptuous charm of youthful Bacchus, with so much of anguish in his martyred features as may serve to heighten his daemonic fascination. On the richer panels of the Venetian masters he glows with a flame of earthly passion aspiring heavenward. Under Guido's hand he is a model of mere carnal comeliness. And so forth through the whole range of the Italian painters. We know Sebastian only by his arrows. The case is very different with Antinous. Depicted under diverse attributes—as Hermes of the wrestling-ground, as Aristaeus or Vertumnus, as Dionysus, as Ganymede, as Herakles, or as a god of ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... was already well-advanced in years. He had entered upon the winter of life, that sprinkles the head with snow that never melts, but he was still hale, ruddy, and active. Nature had, indeed, moulded him in an unpropitious hour for personal comeliness, but in compensation had seated a great heart and a graceful mind in a body low of stature, and marked by a slight deformity. His piercing eyes, luminous with intelligence and full of sympathy for everything ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... him the little daughter of the Woodcutter, and she put her hand upon his shoulder and said, 'What doth it matter if thou hast lost thy comeliness? Stay with us, and I ...
— A House of Pomegranates • Oscar Wilde
... very light, there being only one window and the doors, but Duane could see plainly enough. Mrs. Laramie lay, hollow-checked and haggard, on a bed. Once she had evidently been a woman of some comeliness. The ravages of trouble and grief were there to read in her worn face; it had not, however, any of the hard and bitter lines ...
— The Lone Star Ranger • Zane Grey
... had not seemed to involve any one but herself. Now, there seemed to be others to consider—her family, above all, her child. The little Vesta was now eighteen months of age; she was an interesting child; her large, blue eyes and light hair giving promise of a comeliness which would closely approximate that of her mother, while her mential traits indicated a clear and intelligent mind. Mrs. Gerhardt had become very fond of her. Gerhardt had unbended so gradually that his interest was not even yet clearly discernible, but he had a distinct feeling of kindliness ...
— Jennie Gerhardt - A Novel • Theodore Dreiser
... the gods endeavoured to extricate her, their efforts were unavailing. Hephaestus thus revenged himself on his mother for the cruelty she had always displayed towards him, on account of his want of comeliness and grace. Dionysus, the wine god, contrived, however, to intoxicate Hephaestus, and then induced him to return to Olympus, where, after having released the {99} queen of heaven from her very undignified position, he became reconciled to ...
— Myths and Legends of Ancient Greece and Rome • E.M. Berens
... ruffled. She was a homely little woman with nothing of the ordinary Musgrave comeliness. Candor even compels the statement that in her pudgy swarthy face there was a ...
— The Rivet in Grandfather's Neck - A Comedy of Limitations • James Branch Cabell
... been as it were solved by a perfected art, this Russian Church was still under bondage to the once accepted but now discarded notion that the Redeemer ought to be represented as one who had no form or comeliness. Art in the Western world gained access to the beautiful, the perfect, and the divine, as soon as it was permitted to the painter or the sculptor to develop to uttermost perfection the idea of the Man-God. All such conceptions of the infinite, whether it be that of Jupiter ...
— Russia - As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Various
... amiable. Their persons are so superiorly charming and preferable in whatever can recommend them to be notice of mankind, that the German youth often visit Saxony in quest of companions for life. Exclusive of their beauty and comeliness of appearance, they are brought up in a knowledge of all those arts, both useful and ornamental, which are so brilliant an addition to their native attractions. But what chiefly enhances their value, and gives it reality and duration, is a sweetness of temper and festivity ...
— Sketches of the Fair Sex, in All Parts of the World • Anonymous
... however, regarded with much more pleasure by the nephew than by the aunt, to whose flame they were fuel only; and this was increased by the addition of dress, which was indeed not wanted to set off the lively colours in which Nature had drawn health, strength, comeliness, and youth. In the afternoon Joseph, at their request, entertained them with an account of his adventures: nor could Lady Booby conceal her dissatisfaction at those parts in which Fanny was concerned, especially when Mr Booby launched ...
— Joseph Andrews, Vol. 2 • Henry Fielding
... thyself supremely and alone. But when I consider thy tragedies, throughout which is diffused the inmost soul of poesy, my crude yet labored metres seem to me as the body of a maiden, not indeed devoid of a certain comeliness and grace, yet into whose waiting bosom hath not yet been breathed ...
— Shakespeare's Insomnia, And the Causes Thereof • Franklin H. Head
... khalif Al-Muktafi seems to have been an afterthought, added when the poet first saw him. Struck by his comeliness, he recited the poem to some companions and inserted his name at the end. The sequel is amusing and very characteristic. "Some time after, the katib Abu Abd Allah Muhammad Ibn Ismail Ibn Zenji repeated the verses to Abu 'l-Abbas Ibn Al-Furat, saying that they were composed ...
— A Boswell of Baghdad - With Diversions • E. V. Lucas
... comeliness of the daughters of Israel, nor their shekels, nor their brains, nor their ancient and most valuable blood. It knows the secret virtue of that mechanical transfusion of fluids familiar to science under ...
— Peter Ibbetson • George du Marier et al
... woman, and that any one looking at the two would pick Mrs. Vance for her raiment alone. It was a trying, though rather unjust thought, for Carrie had now developed an equally pleasing figure, and had grown in comeliness until she was a thoroughly attractive type of her colour of beauty. There was some difference in the clothing of the two, both of quality and age, but this difference was not especially noticeable. It served, however, to augment ...
— Sister Carrie • Theodore Dreiser
... than in words; more in thought than in action; more in atmosphere than in conscious life. It is a spiritual quality, and is felt more than it is seen. It is not a matter of size, nor bodily attitude, nor attire, nor personal comeliness: it is a state of inward being, and of knowing your cause is just. And so you see it is a great and profound subject after all, great in its ramifications, limitless in extent, implying the entire science of right ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... dwelt this gracious lady, and the garden-fountain wherein she bathed in summer. Moralists, anxious to prove that the way of righteousness is hard, say that beauty dies, but they err, for beauty is immortal. The habitations of a lovely woman never lose the enchantment she has cast over them, her comeliness lingers in their empty chambers like a subtle odour; and centuries after her very bones have crumbled to dust it is her presence alone that is felt, her footfall that is heard on the ...
— The Land of The Blessed Virgin; Sketches and Impressions in Andalusia • William Somerset Maugham
... the triumph, after she waxed solitary, love presented her with the idea of Rosader's perfection, and taking her at discovert struck her so deep, as she felt herself grow passing passionate. She began to call to mind the comeliness of his person, the honor of his parents, and the virtues that, excelling both, made him so gracious in the eyes of every one. Sucking in thus the honey of love by imprinting in her thoughts his rare qualities, she began to surfeit with the contemplation of his virtuous ...
— Rosalynde - or, Euphues' Golden Legacy • Thomas Lodge
... behold What beauty doth adorn me, Or in a glath when I behold How thweetly God did form me. Hath God thuch comeliness bethowed And on me made to dwell?— What pity thuch a pretty maid Ath I thoud ...
— The Maid-At-Arms • Robert W. Chambers
... he said to the Knight of the Mirrors, "If, sir knight, your great eagerness to fight has not banished your courtesy, by it I would entreat you to raise your visor a little, in order that I may see if the comeliness of your countenance corresponds with that of ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... anything which kept her away from him: her lover, if she had one; her pride, her modesty, her honor, if she were fancy-free. Aware of Sleeny's good looks, if not of his own ugliness, he hated them both for the comeliness that seemed to make them natural mates for each other. But it was not in his methods to proceed rashly with either. He treated Maud with distant respect, and increased his intimacy with Sleeny until he found, to his delight, that he was not the prosperous lover ...
— The Bread-winners - A Social Study • John Hay
... at me was love, or desire; but his eyes, naturally wanton, and now inflamed with passion, spoke a great deal more than he durst have imagined they did. Hitherto, indeed, I had only taken notice of the comeliness of the youth, but without the least design: my pride alone would have guarded me from a thought that way, had not Mr. H....'s condescension with my maid, where there was not half the temptation, in point of person, set me a dangerous example; but now I began to look on this ...
— Memoirs Of Fanny Hill - A New and Genuine Edition from the Original Text (London, 1749) • John Cleland
... we can for her," said Storms. "With the material which I have on hand we can construct garments that will keep her clad with comeliness, though she may not be in the fashion; and yet I don't know but what she will," he added, with a smile, "for we may strike some of the vagaries without knowing it. Then, too, ...
— Adrift on the Pacific • Edward S. Ellis
... spectator, but how, or why, or for what reason, he cannot pretend to determine. There is a manner, a grace, an ease, a genteelness, an I-know-not-what, which some men possess above others, which is very different from external beauty and comeliness, and which, however, catches our affection almost as suddenly and powerfully. And though this MANNER be chiefly talked of in the passion between the sexes, where the concealed magic is easily explained, yet surely much of it prevails in all our ...
— An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals • David Hume
... maidenhead. She straightway conceived by me and accomplishing the time of her pregnancy, gave birth to this dear little daughter; in whom I rejoiced, for that she was lovely to the utterest, and she hath inherited her mother's wit and her father's comeliness. ...
— Tales from the Arabic Volumes 1-3 • John Payne
... San Filippo, Italy, that have built up a calcareous wall over a mile long and several hundred feet thick; the renowned springs of Cashmere, that are believed by the people to be the source of the comeliness of their women,—if I were to follow up my subject in this direction, I say, it would lead me into deeper and more troubled waters than I am ...
— The Writings of John Burroughs • John Burroughs
... Europe to open the mouths of sovereigns and princes as freely as the jockeys look into those of horses and colts. Bad teeth, too common among us, help to breed good dentists, no doubt; but besides this there is an absolute demand for a certain comeliness of person throughout all the decent classes of our society. It is the same standard of propriety in appearances which lays us open to the reproach of caring too much for dress. If the national ear for music is not so acute as that of some other peoples, the national ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various
... youth, were exaggerated until they were transformed from very venial offences into the most mortal of sins, while in the same way the delight manifested by Princess Charlotte at the admiration and homage to which her comeliness gave rise—a very natural feeling when one recalls the snubbings and humiliations to which she had been subjected until then—were construed into frivolity and deep-dyed coquetry, altogether unworthy of a royal princess. She was taxed, too, with an ...
— The Secret Memoirs of the Courts of Europe: William II, Germany; Francis Joseph, Austria-Hungary, Volume I. (of 2) • Mme. La Marquise de Fontenoy
... Before us lay the town: to the outer eye a poor and mean village, indeed, but to the inner the stronghold and capital of our race in the western world, the germ from which might spring stately cities, the newborn babe which might in time equal its parent in stature, strength, and comeliness. So I and a few besides, both in Virginia and at home, viewed the mean houses, the poor church and rude fort, and loved the spot which had witnessed much suffering and small joy, but which held within it the future, which was even now a bit ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston
... of a common comeliness among them there was a reason. In a land where physical perfection literally is worshipped, good-looking men, brawny and broad, are surest of winning an asylum and wives and tribal equality. To Pratt it seems to have been a source of wonderment that almost without exception ...
— From Place to Place • Irvin S. Cobb
... he was struck aglow by Kedzie's comeliness and by a certain authority she had, Liliane pointed to her, as an artist might point to a canvas with which he has had success, and demanded his admiration. His eyes paid the ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... stagnant. The life of the woman, even as mere animal, becomes poor and morbid and artificial. By dint of much attention and many devices, the outside of the body is maintained comely in the eyes of people whose notions of comeliness are thoroughly artificial and sophisticated. But how can there be any health with high eating, little exercise, above all, with the mind left absolutely vacant of all interests? The Belgravian mother does not even ...
— Modern Women and What is Said of Them - A Reprint of A Series of Articles in the Saturday Review (1868) • Anonymous
... spoken so gracefully, that it was admired by all present. It appeared matter of astonishment that a youth of sixteen should reason with all the gravity and powers of an orator of ripe years. The comeliness of his person, which at all times pleads powerfully in favour of a speaker, was in him set off by the laurels obtained in two victories. In short, it was difficult to say which most contributed to make him the admiration ...
— Memoirs And Historical Chronicles Of The Courts Of Europe - Marguerite de Valois, Madame de Pompadour, and Catherine de Medici • Various
... pardon me if I also remembered that I was a favourable-looking young man. When we grow elderly, how the room brightens, and begins to look as it ought to look, on the entrance of youth, grace, health, and comeliness! You do not want them for yourself, perhaps not even for your son, but you look on smiling; and when you recall their images—again, it is with a smile. I defy you to see or think of them and not smile with an infinite and intimate, but quite impersonal, pleasure. Well, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... madden to crime. The genus has a wide geographical distribution, being found wherever sought and deplored wherever found. The maiden is not altogether unpleasing to the eye, nor (without her piano and her views) insupportable to the ear, though in respect to comeliness distinctly inferior to the rainbow, and, with regard to the part of her that is audible, bleating out of the field by the canary—which, ...
— The Devil's Dictionary • Ambrose Bierce
... on the uplift. It snubs and encroaches upon the illimitable fields with its fine American architecture, and its stone university buildings. It has new suburbs full of houses of symmetrical Western comeliness in a tract wearing ...
— Westward with the Prince of Wales • W. Douglas Newton
... suddenly grew tall, and something like comeliness appeared on a Sunday, when I had time to wash my face, and put on clean clothes. My master had once or twice caught hold of me in the passage; but I instinctively avoided his disgusting caresses. One day however, when the family ...
— Posthumous Works - of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman • Mary Wollstonecraft
... the Billingtons, worshipful Master Howland, lackey of the governor, and page-boy to his wife," demanded the voice that had interrupted Mistress Hopkins, and turning toward it, Howland confronted a short, square woman, not without a certain vulgar comeliness of her own, although now her buxom complexion was florid with anger and her black eyes snapping angrily, while the arms akimbo, the swaying figure, and raised voice betrayed Helena Billington for precisely what she was, a common scold and shrew. Howland was a brave man; he had already showed ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... acts, the more grievous is not always the more vile. For the comeliness of a man has its source in his reason: wherefore the sins of the flesh, whereby the flesh enslaves the reason, are viler, although spiritual sins are more grievous, since they proceed from greater contempt. In like manner, sins that are committed through deceit are viler, in so far as they seem ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... acquaintances did not at this time appear. Leonard Everard, who had some time ago finished his course at college, was living partly in London and partly on the Continent. His very absence made him of added interest to his old play-fellow. The image of his grace and comeliness, of his dominance and masculine force, early impressed on her mind, began to compare favourably with the actualities of her other friends; those of them at least who were within the circle of her personal interest. 'Absence makes the heart grow fonder.' ...
— The Man • Bram Stoker
... that the firewood is not unusually speckled or dirty, as the child that is to come might be lacking in due comeliness. I have seen many a husband assiduously peeling off the bark from ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan
... and so to say heavenly art to exhibit prettie blandishments, caresses, frolickings, beauties and delights, and the loves of the Nymphs and Fauns in the woods. And he would have it there was none offence in these naked bodies, clothed upon enow with their owne grace and comeliness. ...
— The Merrie Tales Of Jacques Tournebroche - 1909 • Anatole France
... all difficulties surrounding their settlement—save the impossible effacement of race or color. All have admitted that the bronzed American may have character, intellect, capacity, wealth, industry and comeliness—yet he is a social "Pariah" because of his social identification. A problem that otherwise would be simple is thus converted into a perpetual issue by reason of race, and hence we have a "race problem." ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various
... could only be soothed by Saracen cards painted with the images of Love and Death and Madness; and, in his trimmed jerkin and jewelled cap and acanthus-like curls, Grifonetto Baglioni, who slew Astorre with his bride, and Simonetto with his page, and whose comeliness was such that, as he lay dying in the yellow piazza of Perugia, those who had hated him could not choose but weep, and Atalanta, who ...
— The Picture of Dorian Gray • Oscar Wilde
... selected for him by his mother, and strongly recommended to him on account of her good character and her physical strength. In the opinion of Ivan's mother, beauty was a kind of luxury which only nobles and rich merchants could afford, and ordinary comeliness was a very secondary consideration—so secondary as to be left almost entirely out of sight. This was likewise the opinion of Ivan's wife. She had never been comely herself, she used to say, but she had been a good wife to her husband. He had never complained about ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... Brightwel, was not deficient in excellent qualities. This was no other than the individual whom Mr. Falkland had, some months before, dismissed upon an accusation of murder. His courage was gone, his garb was squalid, and the comeliness and clearness of his countenance was utterly obliterated. He also was innocent, worthy, brave, and benevolent. He was, I believe, afterwards acquitted, and turned loose, to wander a desolate and perturbed spectre through the world. My ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin
... comeliness and the goodliness of her singing and her eloquence and what other qualities she comprised and rejoiced with joy exceeding; and for the stress of that which overcame him of delight, he descended from the couch and sitting down ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... widow, he attracted no particular attention—when he visited the sick and dying at the pool of Bethesda, he was not at first recognized as any extraordinary personage, and the prophet intimates that he possessed "no form nor comeliness: but his visage was marred more than any man, and his form more than the sons of men." It was before the majesty of his character this Syrophenician woman bowed with holy reverence and humble admiration. Conscious of having no claim upon his notice, but such as her affliction conferred—and this ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. II • Francis Augustus Cox
... afterwards. He saw nothing in it different from usual. But it was terrible to me! He read words that I never knew were in our Scriptures—concerning One whom it seemed to me must be—must be, He whom you call Messiah. 'As a root out of a dry ground'—'no form nor comeliness'—'no beauty that we should desire Him,'—'despised and rejected of men'—and lastly, 'we hid our faces from Him.' For we did, Doucebelle,—we did! I could think of nothing else for a while. For we did not hide them from others. We welcomed Judas of Galilee, and Barchocheba, ...
— Earl Hubert's Daughter - The Polishing of the Pearl - A Tale of the 13th Century • Emily Sarah Holt
... speak, Mrs. Glenarm, without further hesitation, said Yes—having, be it observed, said No, in the course of the last two years, to at least half a dozen men who were Geoffrey's superiors in every conceivable respect, except personal comeliness ...
— Man and Wife • Wilkie Collins
... had a young Woman, who was look'd upon as a most extraordinary Beauty by those of her own Complexion. He had at the same time two young Fellows who were likewise Negroes and Slaves, remarkable for the Comeliness of their Persons, and for the Friendship which they bore to one another. It unfortunately happened that both of them fell in love with the Female Negro above mentioned, who would have been very glad to have taken either of them for her Husband, ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... Mongolian and Caucasian races. Now and then a pretty face was seen, rarely a beautiful one. Many were plump, even to corpulence, and these were the closest veiled, being considered the greatest beauties I presume, since with the Turk obesity is the chief element of comeliness. As the carriages passed along in review, every now and then an occupant, unable or unwilling to repress her natural promptings, would indulge in a mild flirtation, making overtures by casting demure side-glances, ...
— The Memoirs of General Philip H. Sheridan, Vol. II., Part 6 • P. H. Sheridan
... I took occasion to commend your good qualities; as the sweetness of your humour, the comeliness of your person, your good mein, your valour; but, above all, ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Volume 4 (of 18) - Almanzor And Almahide, Marriage-a-la-Mode, The Assignation • John Dryden
... seems incredible to you that there should be anything worth your picking up there. Ah! dear friends, Jesus Christ, when He was here, 'in whom were hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge,' had to the men that looked upon Him 'neither form nor comeliness that they should desire Him,' and He was to them a stumbling-block and foolishness. And Christ's Gospel comes among busy men, worldly men, men who are under the dominion of their passions and desires, men who are pursuing science and knowledge, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... any thing was known of your previous career. The reply to that question has astonished and shocked me, as it has shocked and astonished every right-thinking person in this court who heard it. We knew to what base purpose you had used the comeliness and youth and good address with which nature had endowed you; and now we have learned how evilly you have misused your talents—with what perverted ingenuity you have striven, at so early an age, to set at naught those precautions ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn
... England families is known for its singular length and strength of arm. Beauty is a mark in one family, and size is a mark in the other. Because man is made in the image of God we naturally look for those divine trademarks in man's body called comeliness and complexion, just as we look for the artist's name on the corner of his picture, or the sculptor's name on the pedestal of his statue. By so much as a babe's cheek is higher than the blushing ...
— A Man's Value to Society - Studies in Self Culture and Character • Newell Dwight Hillis
... not speak. The younger woman stared at him with her hard blue eyes, and a smile played round her full lips. The mother also looked at him in an engaging way, as though she rather admired his youthful comeliness in spite of ...
— The Opal Serpent • Fergus Hume
... dream-dark eyes upon the windows, or verifying additions and making change, she was as likely as not to be stealing consultations with the mirror opposite, making sure she hadn't, in the last few minutes, gone off in her looks. Not that her comeliness bade fair ever to prove the cause of any real excitement. Mama Therese made a first-rate dragon: she was very much on the job of discouraging enterprising young men, and this without respect for union hours or overtime. And when she wasn't ...
— Red Masquerade • Louis Joseph Vance
... passionate worshipper of beauty. Every lovely thing heard or seen gave him a deep, subtle, inner joy that irradiated his life. He was quite keenly aware of his own lack of outward comeliness and lamented it. ...
— Anne's House of Dreams • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... a grey riding-dress with a little silver lace about it, and looked wonderfully plump and well, full of importance and complacency, and with such a return of comeliness that Aurelia would hardly have recognised the lean, haggard, fretful Harriet of the previous year. Her sentiment and romance, her soft melancholy and little affectations had departed, and she was already the notable prosperous wife of a beneficed clergyman, of whose ...
— Love and Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... see any Virtue or Comeliness in a Charles Stuart," says Father, "can hardly be expected to acknowledge the rugged Merits of ...
— Mary Powell & Deborah's Diary • Anne Manning
... bidding. Even the gray- haired men would tell you over their wine of some rare woman whom they had known in their youth, and who was still their standard of all that was gentle and gracious, and for whom they would claim a charm of manner and stately comeliness that—"my dear sir, not only illumined her drawing-room but ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith
... upon him the woes of the world till he was bowed and bent, as with the weight of years. The tears of sympathy grooved his cheeks, as when streams carve their way down mountain sides. Because of this men looked at him and saw neither form nor comeliness; neither was there any beauty in him ...
— Christ, Christianity and the Bible • I. M. Haldeman
... Comeliness becomes every day more and more an affair of chemistry. Science has now found what bids fair to be a very "glass of fashion"—not a metaphorical, but a literal glass, at least for lean people. The chemical properties of each color in the solar spectrum have long been ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 12, No. 32, November, 1873 • Various
... but little understood by the degenerate age for which I am doomed to write. Even the female sex, those arch innovators upon the tranquillity, the honesty, and grey-beard customs of society, seemed for a while to conduct themselves with incredible sobriety and comeliness. ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... teacher made a great impression on the pupil, though the progress in intellectual acquirement was as unsatisfactory in one case as in the other. It is characteristic of that subtle impressionableness to physical comeliness, which in ordinary natures is rapidly effaced by press of more urgent considerations, but which Rousseau's strongly sensuous quality retained, that he should have remembered, and thought worth mentioning ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley
... taken a toodle over Windsor-bridge on a market-day within the last fifteen years, her parents being market gardeners in the neighbourhood; and her two unmarried sisters, both fine girls, are equally celebrated with the Bath orange-women for the neatness of their dress and comeliness of their persons. There is a sprightliness and good-humour about the Comic Muse that turns aside the shafts of ill-nature; and had she made her selection more in accordance with propriety, and her own age, she might have escaped our notice; but, alas!" said Crony, ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... the numerous forces of the Moderns half inclining to a retreat, there issued forth, from a squadron of their heavy-armed foot, a captain whose name was Bentley, the most deformed of all the Moderns; tall, but without shape or comeliness; large, but without strength or proportion. His armour was patched up of a thousand incoherent pieces, and the sound of it, as he marched, was loud and dry, like that made by the fall of a sheet of lead, which an Etesian wind blows suddenly down from the roof of some steeple. ...
— The Battle of the Books - and Other Short Pieces • Jonathan Swift
... indeed made new, restored to the lustre and fulness of her young womanhood. He remembered then that she had long been silent when he came near her, plainly conscious of his presence but with an apparent constraint, with something almost tentative in her manner. With her return to health and comeliness there had come back to her a thousand little graces of dress and manner and speech. She drew him, with his starved love of beauty and his need of companionship; drew him with a mighty power, and he knew it at last. He remembered how he had felt and faintly thrilled under a certain soft suppression ...
— The Lions of the Lord - A Tale of the Old West • Harry Leon Wilson
... went to my wife; for the burden was past bearing, and I must satisfy myself. I found her tending the plants on her window-ledge; and when she turned, I saw that years had not taken from her comeliness one jot. And I ...
— Noughts and Crosses • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... indifference to deceiving the very man she loves, is sufficiently remarkable, as she stands out of the canvas. But De Flores,—the broken gentleman, reduced to the position of a mere dependant, the libertine whose want of personal comeliness increases his mistress's contempt for him, the murderer double and treble dyed, as audacious as he is treacherous, and as cool and ready as he is fiery in passion,—is a study worthy to be classed ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
... prettier wife, they said, when he was not present, than was deserved by a mere freight engineer, very recently elevated from the post of fireman. Perhaps, also, the petty malevolence of the women was due to the wife's superior comeliness. Be that as it may, each afternoon at half-past four or thereabouts, when Tom's whistle was blown at the crossing by the planing-mill, loungers in the grocery store and wives in their kitchens smiled knowingly ...
— Tales From Bohemia • Robert Neilson Stephens
... girl in Fidelis whose comeliness so nearly drew the hero from his old allegiance, has 'a strong and good, rather than a pretty, face,' with a 'large and substantial figure.' Adam Drewe concluded on first sight of her that she was a nice woman. Later ...
— Australian Writers • Desmond Byrne
... streets. It was a street prodigiously crowded, especially with young people; and the princess was careful to please every body, and to keep an arrow adapted to every mark. If you are thirsty, you can have here your choice of drink; if you love dancing and singing, you can get here your fill. If her comeliness entice you to lust for the body of a female, she has only to lift up her finger to one of the officers of her father, (who surround her at all times, though invisibly), and they will fetch you a lass in a minute, or the body of a harlot newly buried, and ...
— The Sleeping Bard - or, Visions of the World, Death, and Hell • Ellis Wynne
... glances were usually bold enough, but, as he clasped the little brooch on, his fingers were almost irritatingly deft and steady. Men, she knew, did not make fools of themselves from a purely artistic appreciation of feminine comeliness. ...
— The Cattle-Baron's Daughter • Harold Bindloss
... a great many chariots and horsemen, and against whomsoever he made war he returned conqueror, and advanced the affairs of the Hebrews to a great degree of success and prosperity, and made them superior to other nations; and he made such of the young men as were remarkable for tallness and comeliness the ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... It could not help but seem cheerful. The bright beams of sunlight streaming in through the windows lighted on the wall and the old wainscoting, and paintless and rough as they were, Nature's own gilding more than made amends for their want of comeliness. Still Ellen was not much pleased with the result of her survey. The room was good-sized, and perfectly neat and clean. It had two large windows opening to the east, through which, morning by morning, the sun looked ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Susan Warner
... but that some, in that day, loudly protested against the award.[306] "The Episode of Bentley and Wotton," in "The Battle of the Books," is conceived with all the caustic imagination of the first of our prose satirists. There Bentley's great qualities are represented as "tall, without shape or comeliness; large, without strength or proportion." His various erudition, as "armour patched up of a thousand incoherent pieces;" his book, as "the sound" of that armour, "loud and dry, like that made by the fall of a ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... what authority shall these be pretty masters? Look well, and nothing have they invented—nothing put together for comeliness' sake. ...
— The Gentle Art of Making Enemies • James McNeill Whistler
... worlds around us, their wondrous magnificence and ever-varying aspects of beauty and happiness were inexpressibly fascinating. The author's well-reasoned conjectures as to the majesty and beauty of their landscapes, the fertility and diversity of their soil, and the exalted intelligence and comeliness of their inhabitants, found hosts of believers; and nothing else formed the staple of conversation, until the beaux and belles, and dealers in small talk generally, began to grumble, and openly express their wishes that the Dickens had Doctor Dick ...
— The Humbugs of the World • P. T. Barnum
... can. (You don't drink, sir.) When Master Francis was sixteen, and Master Clinton eight, the former was sent abroad on his travels with a German tutor, and did not return to England for many years afterwards; meanwhile Master Clinton grew up to the age of fourteen, increasing in comeliness and goodness. He was very fond of his studies, much more so than Master Francis had been, and was astonishingly forward for his years. So my lord loved him better and better, and would scarcely ever suffer him to ...
— The Disowned, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... reduced to the position of steward or director in the house of Araminte, a rich young widow, to whose hand he is induced to aspire by Dubois, his former servant, now in her employ, who, by his profound knowledge of the feminine heart, aided by his master's comeliness, succeeds in overcoming the prejudice of social standing in the mind of Araminte, and triumphantly marries her to Dorante, in spite of Madame Argante's horror at the match and her enthusiastic ...
— A Selection from the Comedies of Marivaux • Pierre Carlet de Chamblain de Marivaux
... and swung his thin arm nervously. Probably he was the elder of the two, and he looked twenty. For Peak's disadvantages of person, his studious bashfulness and poverty of attire were mainly responsible. With improvement in general health even his features might have a tolerable comeliness, or at all events would not be disagreeable. Earwaker's visage was homely, and seemed the more so for his sprouting ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing
... ideals of beauty, for her nose made a short line far from regular and her hair, though carelessly dressed, was worn, in some absurd modern fashion with which I was unfamiliar. And yet in a general way I may say that there seemed to be no doubt as to her comeliness. She was quite small and crouched as she was upon the floor before the fire she even seemed childish—quite too unimportant a creature to have made such a hullabaloo in this small world ...
— Paradise Garden - The Satirical Narrative of a Great Experiment • George Gibbs
... and loosened a tress: There is a rose in the garden; Poor comfort she had of her comeliness And the bird sings ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... living rooms had every accommodation required for the decent bringing-up of a family; and the parlour, with its carpets, knick-knacks, and highly-polished solid furniture, showed both taste and luxury. Mrs. Hanna, a buxom lady of middle age, was hard at work, but for all that, the picture of comeliness and neatness. The children were just coming in from school, well clad and good-looking, the boys ruddy and strong, the girls modest and lady-like. Mr. Hanna was hard at it in some contiguous field, but he came round and told me that he held twenty ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... English Renaissance, a Renaissance many-sided and wonderful, productive of strong ambitions and lofty personalities, yet for all its splendid achievements in poetry and in the decorative arts and in painting, for all the increased comeliness and grace of dress, and the furniture of houses and the like, not complete. For there can be no great sculpture without a beautiful national life, and the commercial spirit of England has killed that; no great drama without a noble national life, and the commercial spirit ...
— Miscellanies • Oscar Wilde
... and the town houses of the rural gentry. Fronted by miry roadway, or at best an occasional strip of rough boulder pavement, over which wheeled carriages could rarely pass, these lines of houses had no form or comeliness, save what might be due to an occasional bit of small flower-garden before the few that were large and inhabited by persons in comparatively easy circumstances. Farther back the ground rose more rapidly and showed some scattered suburban houses. ...
— St George's Cross • H. G. Keene
... disseminated frugality, thrift, industry, and the cheerful virtues in "Poor Richard's Almanack," he was the benefactor and the blessing of the city of his adoption. He founded her famous library; he devoted the results of his scientific studies to her comfort, welfare, and comeliness; he maintained her defences as a military engineer, and was prepared to serve her gallantly in the field against the Indians as a colonel of Militia of his own raising. No man ever lived a fuller life or did so many things with more indomitable ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume III (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... towering over the slouching thick-set form beside him, his pale intensity of look giving a rare dignity and beauty to the face which owed so little of its attractiveness to comeliness of feature. He had the makings of a true shepherd of men, and his mind as he spoke was crossed by a hundred different currents of feeling—bitterness, pain, and yearning unspeakable. No man could feel the wrench that lay ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... a face distinguished by considerable comeliness. The forehead, however, overhung the features beneath it and gave to a mouth and chin, which would otherwise have aroused no criticism, an appearance of irresolution. The one noticeable difference in Mallinson was the addition of an air of constraint. ...
— The Philanderers • A.E.W. Mason
... Pyramids, more wondrous and more awful than all else in the land of Egypt, there sits the lonely Sphinx. Comely the creature is; but the comeliness is not of this world; the once worshipped beast is a deformity and a monster to this generation; and yet you can see that those lips, so thick and heavy, were fashioned according to some ancient mould of beauty, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various
... perhaps was searching for the philosopher's stone or the elixir of life, wherewith to turn the grey hairs of age to the flowing locks of youth—the feeble gait of one stricken in years to the vigour and comeliness of manhood. Vain wish! and needless; for why will they not look at life in its truer aspect, and feel that the nearer they approach to death the younger ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 5, May, 1891 • Various
... I am jealous of their honour and concerned for the dignity and comeliness of their service. I was, most likely, the only writer that neat lady had ever caught in the exercise of his craft, and it distressed me not to be able to remember when it was that I dressed myself last, and how. No doubt that would be all right ...
— A Personal Record • Joseph Conrad
... and also, collectively, upon several wooded isles engulfing it, which together were known as the dominions of one monarch. That monarch was Donjalolo. Just turned of twenty-five, he was accounted not only the handsomest man in his dominions, but throughout the lagoon. His comeliness, however, was so feminine, that he was sometimes ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville
... by a sudden vision of themselves in the guise of damsels arrayed in green, and radiant in beauty and grace; and many a sportsman had his path crossed by their white hounds of supernatural fleetness and comeliness, the Cwn Annwn; but never had any one been favoured with more than a passing view of either, till an old farmer residing at Dyssyrnant, in the adjoining valley of Dyffryn Gwyn, became at last the lucky captor of one of their milk-white kine. ...
— Welsh Folk-Lore - a Collection of the Folk-Tales and Legends of North Wales • Elias Owen
... And in your slow good-night, had made a fact Of what before I fancied might be so; Yet knowing how men lie, by look and act, I still had doubted. But I doubt no more, I know you love me, love me. And I feel Your satisfaction in my comeliness. ...
— Poems of Purpose • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... feet of the obstinate Achilles. The mariners of the indefatigable Ulysses, put off their limbs, bristled with the hard skins [of swine], at the will of Circe: then their reason and voice were restored, and their former comeliness to their countenances. I have suffered punishment enough, and more than enough, on thy account, O thou so dearly beloved by the sailors and factors. My vigor is gone away, and my ruddy complexion ...
— The Works of Horace • Horace
... assistance can be any way useful to you." Instead of returning a direct answer, "Would," said they, "we had never seen or known you! Several gentlemen have honoured us with their company before you; but never one of them had that comeliness, that sweetness, that pleasantness of humour, and that merit which you possess; we know not how to live without you." After they had spoken these words, they began to weep bitterly. "My dear ladies," said I, "have the kindness not to keep me any longer in suspense: tell me the cause of your sorrow." ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... strayed off into the woods and came out at old Abner Davis' ranch. The two things Abner valued most were a windmill and a scratching-post for hogs. They were equally beautiful, and the fame of their comeliness had gone widely abroad. To them Joab naturally paid his attention. The windmill, who was called Lucille Ashtonbury Clifford, received him with expressions of the liveliest disgust. His protestations of affection were met by creakings of contempt, and as he turned sadly away he ...
— The Fiend's Delight • Dod Grile
... how the room brightens and begins to look as it ought to look, on the entrance of youth, grace, health and comeliness! You do not want them for yourself, perhaps not even for your son, but you look on smiling; and when you recall their images—again it is with a smile. I defy you to see or think of them and not smile with an infinite and intimate ...
— The Pocket R.L.S. - Being Favourite Passages from the Works of Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson
... The emperor leaned back his head, and closed his eyes, as he was accustomed to do, when listening attentively. Reclining among the purple-velvet cushions of his luxurious arm-chair, Leopold presented a handsome picture of imperial comeliness. His fine figure was set off to advantage by his close-fitting Spanish doublet of black velvet; his short Spanish cloak, looped up with large diamond solitaires, fell in graceful folds from his shoulders, ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach
... face possessed no striking comeliness of shape or color; but the brown, becoming beard made it manly, and the broad arch of a benevolent brow added nobility to features otherwise not beautiful,—a face plainly expressing resolution and rectitude, inspiring respect as naturally as it certain protective kindliness of manner won ...
— Work: A Story of Experience • Louisa May Alcott
... could not understand; and he pillaged an infinity of Genoese and Venetian ships—which were notoriously the richest laden—of jewels, veils, silks, furs, embroideries and figured stuffs, wherewith to enhance the comeliness of Melicent. It seemed an all-engulfing madness with this despot daily to aggravate his fierce desire of her, to nurture his obsession, so that he might glory in the consciousness of treading down no ...
— Domnei • James Branch Cabell et al
... Olivier, a youth with hair like an Irishman—all red. I had known her somewhat, and she was just that kind of girl in whom one feels the thrust of a fate. She was thin, for one thing, and without any of the comfortable comeliness that makes young men doubtful and old men sure. She had a face that was always rapt, lips that parted of themselves as if in wonder at great things newly seen, and big troubled eyes that spoke, despite her leanness and long legs, of a spring of hot blood crouching within ...
— Vrouw Grobelaar and Her Leading Cases - Seventeen Short Stories • Perceval Gibbon |
