"Contrast" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... these perennially humid mountains. At the Himalaya forests of gigantic trees, many of them deciduous, appear from a distance as masses of dark gray foliage, clothing mountains 10,000 feet high: here the individual trees are smaller, more varied in kind, of a brilliant green, and contrast with gray limestone and red sandstone rocks and silvery cataracts. Palms are more numerous here;* [There are upwards of twenty kinds of Palm in this district, including Chamaerops, three species of Areca, two ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker
... alone, intrenched behind his desk, on his throne of business; the dark back of the chair, towering over his head, set off in contrast his gray garb and his cold face; to Mayo, who halted respectfully just inside the door, he appeared a sort of bas-relief against that background—something insensate, without ears to listen or ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... was one portion of the circle which stood out in marked contrast to the rest. The men here were for the most part in their early twenties; their faces were serene, their eyes untroubled by any doubt; and there were no women with them. While the others stood weighed down by uncertainty, they lounged full length on the ...
— When the West Was Young • Frederick R. Bechdolt
... speaking, proper as could be; except that Vedrine, unable to support these fashionable formalities, scandalised Freydet, who carried his high collar with much gravity, by exclaiming, 'Here's a lily of the valley,' or pulling off a bough, and presently, struck with the contrast between the splendid passivity of nature and the futile activity of man, ejaculated, as he gazed on the great woods that climbed the opposite hill-side, and the distance composed of clustered roofs, shining water and blue haze, 'How beautiful, how peaceful!' With an involuntary ...
— The Immortal - Or, One Of The "Forty." (L'immortel) - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet
... commonplace work of participation in such organizations. These serve to authenticate the pecuniary reputability of their members, as well as gratefully to keep them in mind of their superior status by pointing the contrast between themselves and the lower-lying humanity in whom the work of amelioration is to be wrought; as, for example, the university settlement, which now has some vogue. But after all allowances and deductions have been made, there is left some remainder ...
— The Theory of the Leisure Class • Thorstein Veblen
... country on the east bank had become a vast marshy plain dotted here and there by tree-clad patches of higher land. The morning was rainy; a contrast to the fine weather we had hitherto encountered. We passed wood-yards and cattle-ranches. At one of the latter the owner, an Argentine of Irish parentage, who still spoke English with the accent of the land of his parents' ...
— Through the Brazilian Wilderness • Theodore Roosevelt
... in behalf of woman. It is also recognized by the female bourgeois, active in the Woman Movement. These, together with the males of their mental stamp, stand, accordingly, with their demands in contrast to the larger portion of the men, who oppose them, partly out of old-fogy narrowness, partly also—in so far as the admission of woman to the higher studies and the better-paid public positions is concerned—out ...
— Woman under socialism • August Bebel
... on meeting an older woman, and then to inquire after the health of each member of the family. It seemed to take a lot of time, but all the other girls did it, and there seemed to be no hurry about anything, ever, in that elegant old Residenz-stadt. Surely a contrast ...
— Vanished Arizona - Recollections of the Army Life by a New England Woman • Martha Summerhayes
... cushion or sides of the coach they fell on directly, lit up the whole interior with a pearly glimmer. By this subdued light Vedia looked bewitchingly charming and coquettish, all the more because of the contrast between her elaborate coiffure and the simple ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... at the white child, uneasily. The two made a wonderful contrast. Charlie was big and bronze and deep chested, with regular features although they were a little heavy. Lydia, growing fast, was thinner than ever but ...
— Lydia of the Pines • Honore Willsie Morrow
... of the Younger Pitt. Who is he?' asked Sir Hugh, with a touch of enthusiasm that was in striking contrast with ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... struck one most alarmingly—it seemed impossible that the ship could win her way through them, and led one to imagine all sorts of possibilities, such as remaining to be drifted north and freed later in the season, and the contrast now that the ice all around is little more than 2 or 3 feet thick is an immense relief. It seems like release from a horrid captivity. Evans has twice suggested stopping and waiting to-day, and on three occasions I have felt my own decision trembling in the balance. If this condition ...
— Scott's Last Expedition Volume I • Captain R. F. Scott
... in build of these two men—a likeness accentuated, rather than slurred, by their contrast in colour and face, was now seen to extend even to their feet. When the stranger stood up at length in Zeb's shoes, they fitted him to a nicety, the broad steel buckles lying comfortably over the instep, ...
— I Saw Three Ships and Other Winter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... Burton had been making concessions to him throughout their journey, that he could have walked miles further in the time without fatigue, carrying his swag as jauntily as if it were a butterfly poised on his back. His boyish exuberance of manner when stirred was in direct contrast to the quiet assurance with which he went about ordinary affairs. He was never in difficulties, never at a loss; the Bush was his living-room, bedroom, and larder. He had already shown himself independent of what the stores could provide ...
— In the Roaring Fifties • Edward Dyson
... affirmative, and gradually leading him to perceive in what its affirmativeness consists; and then, when once he has got the clue to the element of strength which exists in his accustomed form of belief, the perception of the contrast between that and the non-essential accretions will grow up in his mind spontaneously, thus gradually bringing him out into a wider and freer atmosphere. In going through such a process as this, he will never have had his thoughts directed into any channel to ...
— The Hidden Power - And Other Papers upon Mental Science • Thomas Troward
... beautifully situated at the head of Porthluney Cove, is the successor of the old Trevanion mansion, and was built about a century since by Nash, the architect of Buckingham Palace and Regent Street. For the sake of contrast, it is interesting to remember that the Brighton Pavilion was also Nash's work; and thus the mind can wander from this peaceful Cornish cove to that most populous of British watering-places. At Portholland is a small hamlet wedged ...
— The Cornwall Coast • Arthur L. Salmon
... inhabiting high tracts within either of the regions above marked out, we shall find that they coincide with those which prevail in the level or low parts of more northern tracts. The Swiss, in the high mountains above the plains of Lombardy, have sandy or brown hair. What a contrast presents itself to the traveller who descends into the Milanese, where the peasants have black hair and eyes, with strongly-marked Italian and almost Oriental features. In the higher parts of the Biscayan country, instead of the swarthy complexion and black hair of the Castilians, ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams
... inhabitant of a democratic country compares himself individually with all those about him, he feels with pride that he is the equal of any one of them; but when he comes to survey the totality of his fellows, and to place himself in contrast to so huge a body, he is instantly overwhelmed by the sense of his own insignificance and weakness. The same equality which renders him independent of each of his fellow-citizens taken severally, exposes him alone and unprotected to the influence of the greater ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 2 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... conditions possibly to be imposed on her unless she went straight to the relieving phial; and the burden of keeping it under, set her wildest humour alight, somewhat as Redworth remembered of her on the journey from The Crossways to Copsley. This ironic fury, coming of the contrast of the outer and the inner, would have been indulged to the extent of permanent injury to her disposition had not her beloved Emma, immediately after the tension of the struggle ceased, required her tenderest aid. Lady Dunstane chanted victory, and at night collapsed. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... the bright sky and glowing air, shone like transparent gold—staircase upon staircase of great exotic translucent leaves, with specks of lovely blue sky that seemed to come down and perch among the top branches. Charming as these sights were, contrast doubled their beauties; for all these dimples of bright blue and flakes of translucent gold were eyed from the cool and from ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... a century. The elastic, light step of an Indian was gone, and in its place he was compelled to toil his tardy way over the ground, inch by inch. His dark, wrinkled countenance was in singular and wild contrast with the long white locks which floated on his shoulders, in such thickness, as to announce that generations had probably passed away since they had ...
— The Last of the Mohicans • James Fenimore Cooper
... easily picture the scene. This plainly dressed rustic with his bent shoulders is in striking contrast to the prosperous plantation owners, with their powdered hair, ruffled shirts, knee-breeches, and silver shoe-buckles. They give but a listless attention as Henry begins in quiet tones to read his resolutions. "Who cares what this country fellow thinks?" is their attitude. "Who is ...
— Stories of Later American History • Wilbur F. Gordy
... said Jack, humbly, "I would not hurt your feelings for the world; but there is such a contrast between his father and you, and his mother is just ...
— Camp-fire and Wigwam • Edward Sylvester Ellis
... to have any share in your happiness," Hugh said, with downcast features. "Well, I daresay I would feel the same myself were I in your place; but, be generous, Traverse. Think how long I have loved her, before you ever saw her at all, and contrast the blank my life will be with the happiness in store for you in the future. Let me do something for ...
— Miss Dexie - A Romance of the Provinces • Stanford Eveleth
... singular. Above all, her generosity amazed and won the hearts of all the young persons who approached her. These good qualities, her liberality above all, together with a simplicity of thought and character, which formed a beautiful contrast to the depth of acquired knowledge which she was well-known to possess,—these, and her total want of ostentation, made her superiority be pardoned among her companions. Still there was notice taken of some peculiarities, exaggerated perhaps by envy, which seemed to draw ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume XIII, No. 370, Saturday, May 16, 1829. • Various
... the gong sounded and the two men rose from their chairs that the contrast between the toughened ex-professional and the lithe, graceful amateur brought forth a little murmur of delight ...
— The Long Trick • Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie
... was slowly rolled up so as to expose the first picture, and Cap'n Cod, pointer in hand, in all the glory of the blue swallow-tail with brass buttons, stepped on the stage. His appearance was greeted with a silence that was almost painful in its contrast with ...
— Raftmates - A Story of the Great River • Kirk Munroe
... where Germaine and Alice de Breville were arranging a mass of scarlet nasturtiums, twining their green leaves and tendrils amongst the plates of hors d'oeuvres and among the dust-caked bottles of Chablis and Burgundy—Alice, whose dark hair and olive skin are in strong contrast to Germaine's saucy beauty. ...
— A Village of Vagabonds • F. Berkeley Smith
... siege of Paris by French troops. The Archbishop and other hostages were murdered, and at last the city was set on fire. Nothing even in the First Revolution equalled the madness of this period. What a curious contrast to the even tenour of London life! I find in my diaries no ...
— Memoirs of the Life and Correspondence of Henry Reeve, C.B., D.C.L. - In Two Volumes. VOL. II. • John Knox Laughton
... upon. In one hand the little lady carried a very large parasol, in the other a gayly-colored silk reticule of corresponding size, this last not by a ribbon or string, but with its hem gathered up in her hand. All in singular contrast to Elsie with her slight, graceful form, fully a head taller, and her simple yet elegant costume. But the niece no more thought of feeling ashamed of her aunt, than ...
— Elsie's Girlhood • Martha Finley
... following morning another cavalcade filed down past the monastery of San Sebastian; but this procession was in great contrast to the one that had gone by five years before. Instead of gaily caparisoned warriors, it was composed mainly of women and slaves, with a mere handful of guards to lead the way. There were bondmaidens and seamstresses, an ancient ...
— Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories • Rex Beach
... sharper and more affecting contrast. Outside, all suggests the competitions and struggles of trade, the crowded street, the bustle of the exchange, the cold and dry elements of purely unimaginative life. Inside, all suggests the quietness and composure ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... be led—possibly the Duchess's hint referred to Madame de Berny. "My character," he said, "is the most singular one I have ever come across. I study myself as I might another person. I comprise in my five feet two every incoherence, every contrast possible; and those who think me vain, prodigal, headstrong, frivolous, inconsistent, foppish, careless, idle, unstable, giddy, wavering, talkative, tactless, ill-bred, impolite, crotchety, humoursome, will be just as right as those who might affirm me to be ...
— Balzac • Frederick Lawton
... obliged to crawl on our hands and knees. Occasionally, greater difficulties than these presented themselves. Certain parts of the gallery dipped into black, ugly-looking pits, crossed by thin planks, over which we walked dizzily, a little bewildered by the violent contrast between the flaring light that we carried above us, and the pitch darkness beneath and before us. One of these places terminated in a sudden rising in the rock, hollowed away below, but surmounted by a narrow projecting wooden platform, to ...
— Rambles Beyond Railways; - or, Notes in Cornwall taken A-foot • Wilkie Collins
... was benevolent, and counteracted the lower part of his face, which in itself would be pugnacious. His nose was short, broad, and thick. His jaw betrayed the determination of the bulldog. The combination made an exceedingly interesting study. His coarse clothes formed a curious contrast to the elegance of his speech and the grace of his manner. He was simple, unaffected, gentle, and possessed, in common with all his race, the trait upon which I have remarked before, a keen, intelligent interest in America ...
— Abroad with the Jimmies • Lilian Bell
... The contrast between them was strongly marked. Nita was pretty—extremely pretty, and looked as out of place in this land she was native to as Steve looked surely a part of it. But her charm was of that purely physical type which gains nothing from within. Her eyes were wide, child-like, and of a deep ...
— The Heart of Unaga • Ridgwell Cullum
... innocence had bewitched him; there was something quaint and original about her naive remarks. The disappointed man might have found her brightness refreshing—her very contrast to Margaret might have been her attraction in his eyes. Well, Raby supposed that it was all right; no doubt she was an idolized little woman. Hugh seemed to keep her in a glass case; nothing was allowed to trouble her. She will be thoroughly spoiled by ...
— Wee Wifie • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... interesting and accurate view of the world that we get in the pre-Crusading Christian science. The square, but not conventional outline is detailed with considerable care and precision. The writing, though minute, is legible; but the Nile, which, like the Red Sea in Africa, is coloured red, in contrast to the ordinary grey of water in this example, is made to wander about Africa from side to side, with occasional disappearances, in a thoroughly mythical fashion. This map, from a ms. of Priscian's ...
— Prince Henry the Navigator, the Hero of Portugal and of Modern Discovery, 1394-1460 A.D. • C. Raymond Beazley
... have a long mat, or scarf, of ruby, or some other colored plush, with fringed and embroidered ends, laid the entire length down through the center of the table. This affords a charming contrast to the snowy napery, and sets the keynote of color for the floral decorations. The center decorative pieces are now no longer high, thus rendering a glimpse of the person opposite almost impossible, ...
— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke
... planning to sell out your business, and travel and write. Well! Those ambitions are of a kind that won't be harmed by your dropping out of your social setting. On the contrary, such work as you want to do ought to gain by it, because you'll be brought nearer to life-as-it-is, in contrast to life-as-a-visiting-list....' ...
— The Long Run - 1916 • Edith Wharton
... establishing dreadful reputations among the neat, knickerbocker "sissies" who were foolish enough to cross them. Dress, Mrs. McArdle declared, was now a real trial. The girls had to be "in trim all the time," and the boys were as violently in contrast to their fellows as a litter of brindle barn-kits beside a well-groomed tabby-cat's family. "I'm clean worn out with it, Mart," she confessed. "We've been here two weeks the day, and the children howlin' the whole time to go back and McArdle workin' himself to the figger ...
— Money Magic - A Novel • Hamlin Garland
... is for just such dull places. These dreary, soot-begrimed streets are the very streets she loves best to appear in, on a sudden, some astonished day, with a sound of silk skirts and a spring wind of attar of roses. Contrast, surprise,—these are her very soul. Dull places and bright people,—these she loves to bring together, and watch for laughter and tears. You are never safe from Romance, and the place to seek her is never the place where she ...
— The Romance of Zion Chapel [3d ed.] • Richard Le Gallienne
... sight, to behold the blue rippling sea, covered with nearly six hundred of these picturesque craft, all under sail, and darting through the water like dolphins in pursuit of prey; all crowded with natives, whose white dresses formed a lively contrast with the deep blue of the water. The large peroquas, in which were Philip and Krantz, with the native commanders, were gaily decorated with streamers and pennons of all colours, that flowed out and snapped with the fresh breeze. It appeared rather to be an expedition of mirth and merriment, ...
— The Phantom Ship • Frederick Marryat
... Such a contrast to the house of Hoher Aladar—the rich justice of the peace and of Ilona his wife! Elsa knew and expected that the usual homily on the subject would not fail to be forthcoming as it did on every Sunday afternoon; she only wondered what particular form ...
— A Bride of the Plains • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... bayonets or equipments. Uniforms were the exception; even many of the Continentals were dressed in citizens' clothes.[91] The militiamen, hurriedly leaving their farms and affairs, came down in homespun, while some of the State troops raised earlier in the spring appeared in marked contrast to them, both in dress and discipline. Smallwood's Marylanders attracted attention with their showy scarlet and buff coats. The Delawares, with their blue uniform, were so nearly like the Hessians as to be mistaken for them in the field. Miles' ...
— The Campaign of 1776 around New York and Brooklyn • Henry P. Johnston
... Descartes there were two closely connected points which demanded clarification and correction, viz., his double dualism (1) between extended substance and thinking substance, (2) between created substance and the divine substance. In contrast with each other matter and mind are substances or independent beings, for the clear conception of body contains naught of consciousness, thought, representation, and that of mind nothing of extension, matter, motion. In comparison with God they are not so; apart from the creator they can neither ...
— History Of Modern Philosophy - From Nicolas of Cusa to the Present Time • Richard Falckenberg
... apartments in the palace of Versailles. The royal couch, massive in its architecture, richly curtained in its embroidered upholstery of satin and gold, presented a bed whose pillowed luxury exhibited haggard death in the strongest possible contrast. ...
— Louis XIV., Makers of History Series • John S. C. Abbott
... God did not dwell amid the twilight of the ages and in far-away Judea, but were reserved to a later time, and a region then undiscovered of men, and that the American republic was ordained of God to illustrate upon the theater of the New World the possibilities of free government in contrast with the failures and tyrannies and corruptions of the Old, I do truly believe. That is the first article in my confession of faith. And the second is like unto it, that Washington was raised up by God to create ...
— Marse Henry, Complete - An Autobiography • Henry Watterson
... for something to tie to," said Murphy. "I think it's going to be the dramatic contrast between the ruined cities and the new domed valleys. How the Earth settlers succeeded where the ancient people failed to meet the challenge ...
— Sjambak • John Holbrook Vance
... countryman in Phrygia digging in the ground, asked him what he was doing, the man replied with a sigh, "I am seeking for Antigonus." Just so at this time it recurred to many to reflect on the noble and placable character of those princes, and to contrast them with Antipater, who, although he pretended to be only a private citizen, wore shabby clothes, and lived on humble fare, really tyrannized over the Athenians in their distress more grievously than either ...
— Plutarch's Lives Volume III. • Plutarch
... the scholarship of Warburton, who seems to have had always some choice spirits of his legion as spies in the camp of an enemy, and who sought their tyrant's grace by their violation of the social compact. The tyrant himself had an openness, quite in contrast with the dark underworks of his satellites. He boldly interrogated our critic, and Taylor replied, undauntedly and more poignantly than Warburton might have suspected, that "he did not recollect ever saying that Dr. Warburton was no ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... stood gazing at Carrissima as if unable to believe either her ears or her eyes; then with a slow, gliding movement, in contrast with the other's more rapid, impulsive manner, she came forward holding out ...
— Enter Bridget • Thomas Cobb
... to be performed by all persons whenever the Emperor appeared in public. No notice being taken of this broad hint, so artfully introduced, they proceeded to compare their wide petticoats with our breeches, and to contrast the play and freedom of their knee-joints with the obstruction that our knee-buckles and garters must necessarily occasion. This brought them directly to the point, and they finished by recommending, in the warmth of their friendship, that ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow
... I black—what a pretty contrast it makes!' said the Darning-needle. 'Now I can be seen to advantage! If only I am not sea-sick! I should give myself up ...
— The Yellow Fairy Book • Leonora Blanche Alleyne Lang
... sometimes thus: "Brethren, let us work double tides." And then he would deliver a long fervent prayer, and follow it up immediately with a torrent of blasphemies so terrific, that coming in such a contrast they made Alfred's body wet with perspiration to hear a poor creature so defy his Creator. No rest, no peace. When it was still, the place was like the grave; and ever and anon, loud, sharp, tremendous, burst ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... abundance of negatives in her conversation, she was ambitious. One night we had been called on to "go on" as peasants and sing a chorus and do a country dance, and poor Semantha had sung so freely and danced so gracefully and gayly, that it was a pleasure to look at her. She was such a contrast to the two others. One had sung in a thin nasal tone, and the expression of her face was enough to take all the dance out of one's feet. With frowning brows and thin lips tightly compressed, she attacked the figures with such fell determination ...
— Stage Confidences • Clara Morris
... than 3700 antonyms. These are valuable as supplying definition by contrast or by negation, one of the most effective methods of defining being in many cases to tell what a thing is not. To speakers and writers antonyms are useful as ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... frowned at the idea of rejoining that gay throng. He was in a state of mental exaltation—so far up in the clouds that the idea of attending a reception given by his brilliant hostess seemed by contrast ...
— An Algonquin Maiden - A Romance of the Early Days of Upper Canada • G. Mercer Adam
... internal situation of the United States," they continued, "we deem it equally natural and becoming to compare the present period with that immediately antecedent to the operation of the government, and to contrast it with the calamities in which the state of war still involves several of the European nations, as the reflections deduced from both tend to justify as well as to excite a warmer admiration of our free constitution, ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... character from himself. Adalbert, while a churchman of great ability, was a courtier full of ambitious views. He was one of the most polished and learned men of his time, at once handsome, witty, and licentious, his character being in the strongest contrast to the stern harshness of Hanno and the coarse manners of ...
— Historical Tales, Vol 5 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality, German • Charles Morris
... cliff. It is under it so accurately, that if the nearly vertical falling line of that cliff be continued, it strikes the sea-base of the pier to a hair's breadth. But Turner knew better than any man the value of echo, as well as of contrast,—of repetition, as well as of opposition. The round pier repeats the line of the main cliff, and then the sail repeats the diagonal shadow which crosses it, and emerges above it just as the embankment does above the cliff brow. Lower, come the opposing curves ...
— The Harbours of England • John Ruskin
... Except for the jewels, she was dressed exactly like Yasmini, which is to say that her gauzy stuff was all but transparent. But Yasmini uses raiment as she does her eyes; it is part of her, and of her art. The maid, who would have shone among many women, looked stiff and dull by contrast. ...
— King—of the Khyber Rifles • Talbot Mundy
... stately sound steamers, declasse tramp steamers, coasters, dredgers, scows, and everywhere pervading the entire bay impudent little tugs puffing and whistling officiously;—these were the craft which churned the sunlight waters as far as the eye could reach. In calm contrast to the hurry of sailing vessel and steamer a silent fleet of white ...
— The King In Yellow • Robert W. Chambers
... boats is of equal importance with the first appearance of steamboats in Lake Superior. It may be worth while to abandon for a moment the orderly historical sequence of this narrative, to emphasize the wonderful contrast between the commerce of Lake Superior in the days of the "Independence" and now—periods separated by scarcely sixty years. To-day the commerce of that lake is more than half of all the great lakes combined. It is conducted in steel vessels, ranging from 1500 to 8500 tons, and every year ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot
... the middle of the room, and might have been taken for automatons, save for the solemn regularity with which they ever and anon lifted to their moustachioed lips their several goblets, and then, with a complacent grunt, re-settled to their contemplations. Striking was the contrast which their northern phlegm presented to a crowd of Italian clients, and petitioners, and parasites, who walked restlessly to and fro, talking loudly to each other, with all the vehement gestures and varying physiognomy of southern vivacity. There was ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... of gas generators, and big hose-pipes trailed everywhere across the intervening space. Close at hand was his now nearly deflated balloon and the car on its side looking minutely small, a mere broken toy, a shrivelled bubble, in contrast with the gigantic bulk of the nearer airship. This he saw almost end-on, rising like a cliff and sloping forward towards its fellow on the other side so as to overshadow the alley between them. There was a crowd of excited ...
— The War in the Air • Herbert George Wells
... greet you with a radiant smile in public, and will be sullen at home. She will be dull when you are merry, and will make you detest her merriment when you are moody. Your two faces will present a perpetual contrast. ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part III. • Honore de Balzac
... First, a "pauper pilot," then the viceroy of a new world; alternately hoping, and fearing, despondent, and triumphant, he had passed through strange vicissitudes of good and evil fortune. But no two events in his life stand out in stronger contrast to each other than his return to Spain after his first voyage, and his return now. He was then a conqueror; he was now a prisoner. He was then the idol of popular favour; he was now the unpopular victim of insidious maligners. In truth, the ...
— The Life of Columbus • Arthur Helps
... matter is no more limited, in regard to that matter, than the mind that conceived it. Consequently, if we could comprehend everything in the Bible there would be no divinity of infinite attributes about it to contrast with the limited powers of human nature. Its miracles are proof of ...
— The Christian Foundation, Or, Scientific and Religious Journal, - Volume I, No. 9. September, 1880 • Various
... a strange expression. There was now no animosity in it, but rather a mild resignation, in strange contrast to his previous anger. ...
— The Crooked House • Brandon Fleming
... serve as a travelling relief-fund—he is made to fall in love with one of the Adair girls. And that's almost the whole story. One may always trust Mrs. HINKSON to get her atmosphere right; but she is not so happy in her attempt to contrast the preternaturally unselfish Darling who, like an earlier Mr. Darling, would have been content to live in a kennel) with the inordinately self-indulgent ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, June 25, 1919 • Various
... heavy, though, as I went back to the foyer, where I had left my hat. There I found Laurence Gerard, but she was fetched away the next moment. I was standing near her, and as I looked in the glass I was struck by the contrast between us. She was plump, with a wide face and magnificent black eyes; her nose was rather canaille, her mouth heavy, and there was a very ordinary look about her generally. I was fair, slight, and frail-looking, like a reed, with a long, pale face, blue eyes, a rather sad mouth and a general ...
— My Double Life - The Memoirs of Sarah Bernhardt • Sarah Bernhardt
... little Eugenia Gonzalez, was a striking contrast to her foster-sister. She was a couple of inches shorter in stature, and less slender in figure; a blonde, with blue eyes and just the faintest suggestion of ruddiness in the tints of her hair; a merry, good-humoured expression of countenance; and altogether, though of humble ...
— The Rover's Secret - A Tale of the Pirate Cays and Lagoons of Cuba • Harry Collingwood
... antiquity, Bushire is rich in these. With this exception, it much more resembles a Moorish or Turkish city. The native population, largely mixed with Arabs, carries out the illusion, and bright-coloured garments, white "bournouses," and green turbans throng the streets, in striking contrast to the sombre, rook-like garments affected by the natives of Iran. A stranger, too, is struck by the difference in the mode of life adopted by Europeans as compared with those inhabiting other parts of the Shah's dominions. ...
— A Ride to India across Persia and Baluchistan • Harry De Windt
... the whole series of buildings around the Cloister Green Court, and forming the south-eastern portion in which were the royal rooms that formed the residential centre of the extensive palace. Where this large part of the old edifice had been razed Wren erected, in striking contrast to the Tudor portions left standing north and west of it, the Renaissance building, which is probably remembered by many visitors as the chief feature of Hampton Court. Contrasting strongly with the earlier portions of the Palace ...
— Hampton Court • Walter Jerrold
... message with which he greets his kingly audience. The whole drama goes to show the ugliness of the treachery and cruelty inherent in unchecked self-indulgence. In the play the conflict of ideals is between the King and the Queen, between Agnimitra and Dharini, and the significance of the contrast lies hidden in the very names of the hero and the heroine. Though the name Agnimitra is historical, yet it symbolises in the poet's mind the destructive force of uncontrolled desire—just as did the name Agnivarna in Raghuvamsha. Agnimitra, "the friend ...
— Creative Unity • Rabindranath Tagore
... husband in the most contemptuous way; and Geoffrey avoided her in return, spending most of his time in hunting in the woods, where he used to wear the spray of broom that became the cognizance of his house, and caused their surname of Plantagenet. Perhaps it was in contrast to his wife's haughtiness that he chose to adopt this plant, considered as the emblem of humility, and reminding her that she had married the descendant of ...
— Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... speakers in the confession in i. 15-ii. 5 are clearly the remnant in Jerusalem. i. 15, "To the Lord our God belongeth righteousness, but unto us confusion of face ... to the men of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem." The Exiles are mentioned by way of contrast to the speakers; ii. 4, 5, "He hath given them to be in subjection to all the kingdoms that are round about us to be a reproach among all the people round about where the Lord hath scattered them. Thus were they cast down ... ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various
... an extremely characteristic type, with a subtle psychology, carefully worked out; her honesty and goodness form an indispensable contrast to the ...
— Contemporary Russian Novelists • Serge Persky
... except perhaps the battalion commander of the cavalry, a gentleman whose gold leaves were as dazzlingly new as the senior's were old and withered, and just about to be changing into silver, the silver of the lieutenant-colonel. The contrast between Major White's spirited handling of his battalion of foot and Major Chrome's listless management of a similar body of horse was vivid in the last degree. The latter and two of his troops belonged to Atherton's fine regiment, the —th, the other two troops, Cranston's ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... Africa's first majority-run government, income inequality remains among the world's most extreme. Many of the white one-seventh of the South African population enjoy incomes, material comforts, and health and educational standards equal to those of Western Europe. In contrast, most of the remaining population suffers from the poverty patterns of the Third World, including unemployment, lack of job skills, and bleak living conditions. The main strength of the economy lies ...
— The 1997 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... on the next floor in a corridor similar to the one I had just left. Like it, it was desolate and dimly lit. Like it, it showed room after room silent and empty. Agitated as I was, the contrast with the bright and busy vestibule and the throng of uniformed servants below was so marked that it struck me with convincing force. Even the hotels, it seemed, were part and parcel of the great German publicity bluff which I had noted in my reading of the German ...
— The Man with the Clubfoot • Valentine Williams
... He looked about a year older than John, but he had the air and manners of a man of the world—so John thought. Also, he was very good-looking, handsomer than Desmond, and in striking contrast to that smiling, genial youth, being dark, almost swarthy of complexion, with strongly-marked features and rather ...
— The Hill - A Romance of Friendship • Horace Annesley Vachell
... for the stapes bone, he obtained a wonderful series of curves which showed the vibrations of the human voice as recorded by the ear. One can scarce imagine a stranger picture than Bell must have presented in the conduct of those experiments. We can almost see him with his face the paler in contrast with his black hair and flashing black eyes as he shouted and whispered by turns into the ghastly ear. Surely he must have looked the madman, and it is perhaps fortunate that he was not observed by impressionable members of the public else they would have been convinced that ...
— Masters of Space - Morse, Thompson, Bell, Marconi, Carty • Walter Kellogg Towers
... By contrast with Germany, in Japan we have occupied a country still possessing an organized and operating governmental system. Although severely damaged, the Japanese industrial and transportation systems have been able to insure at least a survival ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... tale. Sitting at the bottom of the sand-trap, the memory of Watson's Hotel, with its swinging punkahs, white-robed attendants, and the sallow-faced Armenian, rose up in my mind as vividly as a photograph, and I burst into a loud fit of laughter. The contrast was too absurd! ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling
... In striking contrast was the next meeting. I was out at midnight, jacking, and passed close by a point where I had often seen the big bull's tracks. He was not there, and I closed the jack and went on along the shore, listening for any wood folk ...
— Wood Folk at School • William J. Long
... everything's alive!" He lingered yet a while in the kirkyard. A tuft of primroses was blooming hard by the leg of an old, black table tombstone, and he stopped to contemplate the random apologue. They stood forth on the cold earth with a trenchancy of contrast; and he was struck with a sense of incompleteness in the day, the season, and the beauty that surrounded him—the chill there was in the warmth, the gross black clods about the opening primroses, the damp earthy smell that ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XIX (of 25) - The Ebb-Tide; Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... gold there might have been some humour in it. The "wax" candles and "silken" curtains (if they had been Arabian Nights lamps and oriental drapery the same might be said) are always insisted on. If there is any joke here it seems to lie in the contrast with Wilson's actual habits, which were very simple. For instance, he gives us a gorgeous description of the apparatus of North's solitary confinement when writing for Blackwood; his daughter's unvarnished ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury
... excepting our lost American chestnuts, that retain their full distinctive flavor through cooking. Nothing can replace its flavor in candy or cake making. The tree is indigenous to America and, in contrast to the Persian, has only decades, rather than centuries of selective breeding behind it. No one can tell what even one short century of intelligent selection may ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Thirty-Seventh Annual Report • Various
... servant at the door saying something which went unheard. Then Susan Burford came into the room, an odd contrast in her placid simplicity to the amazed magnificence of Mr. Waverton or Alison's tremulous, furious beauty. Alison was turned away from her and too much engaged to hear or ...
— The Highwayman • H.C. Bailey
... table. All the bravest of the warriors, committing the care of the house, the family affairs, and the lands, to the women, old men, and weaker part of the domestics, stupefy themselves in inaction: so wonderful is the contrast presented by nature, that the same persons love indolence, and hate tranquillity! [91] It is customary for the several states to present, by voluntary and individual contributions, [92] cattle or grain [93] to their chiefs; which ...
— The Germany and the Agricola of Tacitus • Tacitus
... Carlyle's expression in reference to Comte. "I found him to be one of those men who go up in a balloon and take a lighted candle to look at the stars." What a deep shadow upon the intellectual landscape of America is seen in this picture of collegiate ignorance in contrast with foreign enlightenment. While the sovereigns of England, France, and Russia have been communing with the higher world, our college presidents have their heads and eyes covered with the cowl of monkish superstition ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, June 1887 - Volume 1, Number 5 • Various
... excessive physical charm of the Creole had first attracted her, for Edna had a sensuous susceptibility to beauty. Then the candor of the woman's whole existence, which every one might read, and which formed so striking a contrast to her own habitual reserve—this might have furnished a link. Who can tell what metals the gods use in forging the subtle bond which we call sympathy, which we might as well ...
— The Awakening and Selected Short Stories • Kate Chopin
... the staircase of the towers, crossed the church, full of shadows and solitude, and all reverberating with uproar, which formed a frightful contrast, and emerged into the courtyard of the cloister by the red door. The cloister was deserted; the canons had fled to the bishop's palace in order to pray together; the courtyard was empty, a few frightened lackeys were crouching in dark corners. They directed their steps towards the door which ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... attracts in the pages of a good writer, or the talk of a brilliant conversationalist, is the apt choice and contrast of the words employed. It is indeed a strange art to take these blocks rudely conceived for the purpose of the market or the bar, and by tact of application touch them to the finest meanings and distinctions. ...
— Fifteen Thousand Useful Phrases • Grenville Kleiser
... works of the Goncalo-Machico highway, the telegraph-posts, and the yellow-green lines of sugar-cane, were the only changes I could detect in Eastern Madeira. Nothing more charming than the variety and contrast of colours after the rusty-brown raiment which Southern Europe dons in mid-December. Even the barren, arid, and windswept eastern slopes glowed bright with the volcanic muds locally called laterites, and the foliated beds of saibros and macapes, decomposed ...
— To the Gold Coast for Gold - A Personal Narrative in Two Volumes.—Vol. I • Richard F. Burton
... in the market, and content himself with simple and well-proved effects for the most part, trusting rather to beauty of design to give distinction to his work than to variety of colour and startling effects of contrast. ...
— Intarsia and Marquetry • F. Hamilton Jackson
... resemblance of its extremities to those of the Turtles may lead us to conjecture: its movements, however, must have been very awkward on land; and its long neck must have impeded its progress through the water, presenting a strong contrast to the organisation which so admirably fits the Ichthyosaurus to cut through the waves." As its respiratory organs were such that it must of necessity have required to obtain air frequently, we may ...
— The Ancient Life History of the Earth • Henry Alleyne Nicholson
... most picturesque period of history is that when the ancient rough and wild manners of a barbarous age are just becoming innovated upon, and contrasted, by the illumination of increased or revived learning, and the instructions of renewed or reformed religion. The strong contrast produced by the opposition of ancient manners to those which are gradually subduing them, affords the lights and shadows necessary to give effect to a fictitious narrative; and while such a period entitles the author to introduce incidents of a marvellous and improbable ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... by M. de Kercadiou, in completest contrast. On legs of the shortest, the Lord of Gavrillac carried a body that at forty-five was beginning to incline to corpulence and an enormous head containing an indifferent allotment of intelligence. His countenance ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini
... once begun. In spite of the cruel throb of his injured hand, Bob found the labour pleasant by sheer force of contrast. The air was cool, the shade refreshing, the frantic necessity of struggle absent. He raked carefully his broad path among the pine needles, laying bare the brown earth; hoed and chopped in the tarweed and brush. Several ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White
... emotion, when he lived again the sweet raptures of hours alone with Plutina in the mountain solitude. But the moods of retrospection were short, perforce. They weakened him too greatly. The very heart seemed to flow from him like water, as memories crowded. The contrast of the present was too hideous for endurance. Again, the ghastly despair—the black rage, the whining of the dog, and the thrust of the cold muzzle to distract for a moment. Then, once ...
— Heart of the Blue Ridge • Waldron Baily
... death mask. There was no mist here; the beautiful coral houses gleamed under the moonbeams as if turned to marble, and Alexander forgot the horror of the waters and paused to note, as he had done many times before, the curious Alpine contrast of these pure white masses against the green and burnished arches of tropic trees. Then he passed through the swimming-bath to his bed, and a half-hour later slept as soundly as if the terrible forces of the Caribbean world ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... letter afforded Washington no hope for reconciliation between the secretaries. The contrast between his and Hamilton's was remarkable. Hamilton held affectionate, courteous, forbearing, and patriotic language toward the president; Jefferson's exhibited much of the opposite qualities; and his implacable hatred of the man whom he had scourged into active retaliation ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing |
