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Drapery   Listen
noun
Drapery  n.  (pl. draperies)  
1.
The occupation of a draper; cloth-making, or dealing in cloth.
2.
Cloth, or woolen stuffs in general. "People who ought to be weighing out grocery or measuring out drapery."
3.
A textile fabric used for decorative purposes, especially when hung loosely and in folds carefully disturbed; as:
(a)
Garments or vestments of this character worn upon the body, or shown in the representations of the human figure in art.
(b)
Hangings of a room or hall, or about a bed. "Like one that wraps the drapery of his couch About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams." "All the decent drapery of life is to be rudely torn off."
Casting of draperies. See under Casting. "The casting of draperies... is one of the most important of an artist's studies."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Drapery" Quotes from Famous Books



... relieved from the pale greenish background by a vermilion scarf; and the full hues of both are beautifully echoed, as it were, in a lower key by the purple-lake coloured stuffs and bluish iron armour of the saint, besides an ample balance to the vivid azure drapery on the foreground in the indigo shades of the wild ...
— Intentions • Oscar Wilde

... her enter the darkened room. The blinds were drawn down, cooling liquids had been sprinkled about, there was nothing to horrify, nothing to disgust. The rigid figure, covered with white drapery, lay stretched upon the table. Without faltering, Alexia advanced, and, removing with a steady hand the cloth at the upper end, looked at the dead ...
— A Bachelor's Dream • Mrs. Hungerford

... the completion of which Mimi was especially interested. In fact, the poet had given his companion hopes that out of the fruit of his labors he would purchase a certain summer gown, that she had noticed one day at the "Deux Magots," a famous drapery establishment, to the window of which Mimi's coquetry used very frequently to pay its devotions. Hence, ever since the work in question had been begun, Mimi had been greatly interested in its progress. ...
— Bohemians of the Latin Quarter • Henry Murger

... windows of every store lay in thousands of pieces below their sashes, and the entire stock of merchandise whether furniture or drapery, groceries or dairy products, had been hurled through them into the middle of the thoroughfare. Above these were piled pell-mell bedding and chairs, wardrobes and wash basins, all splintered and broken—the whole making the most pitiable conglomeration I ever hope to witness. One plucky dealer ...
— My Home In The Field of Honor • Frances Wilson Huard

... length, and men, and maids, who found An awkward spectacle their eyes before; Antonia in hysterics, Julia swoon'd, Alfonso leaning, breathless, by the door; Some half-torn drapery scatter'd on the ground, Some blood, and several footsteps, but no more: Juan the gate gain'd, turn'd the key about, And liking not the ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron

... were of polished oak, and the walls of plaster polished like glass. One of the first rooms we were shown into contained forty or fifty babies, ranged in rows along the wall. The cradles were covered with white drapery, and their appearance was very neat. Four long rows stretched across the apartment, and in the center there was a fire, round which the nurses were gathered, attending to the wants of the hungry and complaining babies. But if the sight of the cradles was pleasant, the noise which greeted my ...
— Paris: With Pen and Pencil - Its People and Literature, Its Life and Business • David W. Bartlett

... no apprehension in celebrating the memory of its last effort, amidst the tumult of a riot and the clamours of intemperance. In the neighbourhood of Lichfield, the sportsmen of the party appeared in the Highland taste of variegated drapery; and their zeal descending to a very extraordinary exhibition of practical ridicule, they hunted, with hounds clothed in plaid, a fox dressed in a red uniform. Even the females at their assembly, and the gentlemen at the races, affected to wear ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett

... arrive any moment now,' George said, and then his bright handsome face disappeared from the window, and in another moment he had come as quietly as was possible for him, into the sunny parlour, now beautified by silken drapery, worked by Lucy's clever fingers, and sweet with the fragrance of flowers in the beau-pot on the hearth and fresh rushes ...
— Penshurst Castle - In the Days of Sir Philip Sidney • Emma Marshall

... The innumerable caravan, which moves To that mysterious realm, where each shall take His chamber in the silent halls of death, Thou go not, like the quarry-slave at night, Scourged to his dungeon, but, sustained and soothed By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave, Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch About him, and lies ...
— Graded Poetry: Seventh Year - Edited by Katherine D. Blake and Georgia Alexander • Various

... prophet: "And let us set for him there a bed and a table and a stool and a candlestick." The other incident is some 420 years later, when, in the allusion to the grandeur of the palace of Ahashuerus, we catch a glimpse of Eastern magnificence in the description of the drapery which furnished the apartment: "Where were white, green, and blue hangings, fastened with cords of fine linen and purple, to silver rings and pillars of marble; the beds were of gold and silver, upon a pavement of red and ...
— Illustrated History of Furniture - From the Earliest to the Present Time • Frederick Litchfield

... block, which has all the appearance of a veiled priest, covered with a large mantle, which conceals his hands and face. The height of the figure is about eight feet as it sits; the feet, huge unformed masses, covered with what seems drapery, are supported on a square pedestal, which is again sustained by one larger, which projects from the angle of the building. The veil, the ample mantle, and two under-garments, all flowing in graceful folds, ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello

... upstairs. The first room was not furnished, but in the second, which was their bedroom, was a mahogany bedstead in an alcove with red drapery. A shell box adorned the chest of drawers, and on the secretary near the window a bouquet of orange blossoms tied with white satin ribbons stood in a bottle. It was a bride's bouquet; it was the other one's. She looked at it. Charles noticed ...
— Madame Bovary • Gustave Flaubert

... fast and a storm and a difficult canyon were just the medicine I needed. When I passed Mirror Lake, I scarcely noticed it, for I was absorbed in the great Tissiack—her crown a mile away in the hushed azure; her purple granite drapery flowing in soft and graceful folds down to my feet, embroidered gloriously around with deep, shadowy forest. I have gazed on Tissiack a thousand times—in days of solemn storms, and when her form shone ...
— Steep Trails • John Muir

... once into all the tricks and manners of the new school. She had taken to short waists and broad sashes, and a style of drapery which accentuated the elegant slimness of her figure. She affected out-of-the-way colours, and quaint combinations—pale pinks and olive greens, tawny yellow and faded russet—and bought her gowns at a Japanese warehouse, where limp lengths of flimsy cashmere were mixed in ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon

... silver, with the borders of the drapery plated with gold, and the whole finished in a manner surpassing almost anything extant, was among the things found at Macon on the Saone, in the year 1764, and published by Caylus. It represents Cybele, the universal mother, with ...
— The God-Idea of the Ancients - or Sex in Religion • Eliza Burt Gamble

... sacred edifice. A dense crowd assembled about it, and in front of it. Through these David managed to make his way, full of curiosity about the cause of their interest. He at length forced himself far enough forward to see inside the chapel. He saw a structure, in the centre of the chapel, covered with drapery, upon which was a cushion. Lying on this cushion was the image of a child, clothed in rich attire, and spangled with jewels, and adorned with gold and silver. Whether it was made of wood or wax he could not tell, but thought it was the former. ...
— Among the Brigands • James de Mille

... Mint mark. The reverse, is a human figure with an enormous pair of wings,[6] holding a book in its left hand, which book rests on an altar, and with its other is represented as if writing in it; the word Constitution is already seen there. The figure is naked, except a slight drapery on the left arm; behind the figure is a bundle of staves, like the Roman Fasces, surmounted by the cap of liberty, and behind the altar is a cock standing on one leg; the inscription is Regne de la Loi. L'An ...
— A Trip to Paris in July and August 1792 • Richard Twiss

... one goes there in summer. I must see them now. There's no time like it; in their drapery of snow and ice; in the sternness and solitude, ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, February 1844 - Volume 23, Number 2 • Various

... wonderful sense of height and solitude. You almost feel the frost of the high, rare atmosphere. Satan is a very powerful figure,—not the vulgar devil, but the determined will, the unsanctified power. The figure of Christ is simple and expressive,—even the flow of the drapery being full of significance and beauty. Another composition of great beauty represents a group of souls rising from earth, and soaring upwards to heaven. The highest ones are already rejoicing in the heavenly ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 23, September, 1859 • Various

... dissensions among the Moors; when Granada is conquered, remember that the nobles themselves are at Granada. Ave Maria! blessed be the Holy Mother, under whose eyes are the hearts of kings!" Ferdinand crossed himself devoutly; and then, rising, drew aside a part of the drapery of the pavilion, and called; in a low voice, the name of Perez. A grave Spaniard, somewhat past the verge of ...
— Leila or, The Siege of Granada, Book II. • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... spoke her eyes sparkled more and more, and her colour went and came, and she shook her curls till they emitted through the air the same soft feeling of a perfume that her note had produced. Then her foot peeped out from beneath the black and yellow drapery of her dress, and the Duke saw that it was perfect. And she put out her finger and touched his arm as she spoke. Her hand was very fair, and her fingers were bright with rich gems. To men such as the Duke, a hand, to be quite fair, should be bright with rich gems. "You must come," she said,—not ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope

... to the fairylike brightness of the island in the lagoon. The green leafage of the shrubbery was suffused in tender light; the waters reflected calmly all their drapery, but none of the savage desolation of the pyre in the Court of Honor. Beyond where the gracious pile of the Art Building stretched across the horizon the light clouds of smoke floated, a gray wreath in the night. The ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick

... upon wearing his own shirt of mail and his girdle of strength; and these took much drapery to hide. Great was the laughter in the halls of Asgard that night as the Battle Maidens brushed and curled Thor's long yellow hair, and set a jewelled headdress upon it; and finally, when the maidens proceeded to cover up his thick beard and angry eyes with a silken ...
— Told by the Northmen: - Stories from the Eddas and Sagas • E. M. [Ethel Mary] Wilmot-Buxton

... of Tom Robinson's thinking of one of us!" cried Annie Millar. "What could possess him to imagine that we should ever get over the shop—granted that it is a Brobdingnagian shop, an imposing mart of linen-drapery, haberdashery, silk-mercery enough to serve ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Sarah Tytler

... difficult words. But this was not the poet's only preparative measure—another will be presently explained; and a third was to assume the dress of a Bedouin, that he might not be known, covering his face, the eyes only excepted, with a litham (piece of drapery), as is usual with the Arabs of the desert. Thus disguised, he went to the palace, and having obtained permission, entered and saluted the king, who said to him: "Who art thou, O brother of the Arabs? and what ...
— Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers • W. A. Clouston

... from without. Then he quickly entered the box through the right-hand door. The President was sitting in an easy armchair in the left-hand corner of the box nearest the audience. He was leaning on one hand and with the other had hold of a portion of the drapery. There was a smile on his face. The other members of the party were intently watching the performance ...
— Lincoln's Yarns and Stories • Alexander K. McClure

... [Footnote: Muller, 125.] Like the other great artists of this school, there was the grandeur and sublimity for which Phidias was celebrated, but a greater refinement and luxury, and skill in the use of drapery. ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord

... all happiness, and sparks flew from them. She was under the charm, and fearlessly intoxicated herself with a felicity of which she had dreamed long. She seemed then so marvelously beautiful to Henri, that all this phantasmagoria of rags and old age, of worn red drapery and of the green mats in front of the armchairs, the ill-washed red tiles, all this sick and dilapidated ...
— The Girl with the Golden Eyes • Honore de Balzac

... unbolted by the woman, who proved to be young and rather pretty. She had a light in her hand, and directing them to follow her, led the way to a sort of anteroom, divided, as it appeared, from a larger room by a thick black curtain. Drawing aside the drapery, their conductress ushered them into the presence of three individuals, who were seated at a table strewn with papers, most of which were covered with ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth

... cross-hatching whatever, except in a few unimportant bits of background, so rude as to need scarcely more than one touch to each interstice. Albert Duerer crosses more definitely; but yet, in any fold of his drapery, every white spot differs in size from every other, and the arrangement of the whole is delightful, by the kind of variety which the spots on ...
— Ariadne Florentina - Six Lectures on Wood and Metal Engraving • John Ruskin

... rose over the babel of human voices the deep music of the bloodhound in full cry. The crowd shrieked with fear and delight, then surged and parted, and the dog came running through with its stern up, its head down, its forehead wrinkled, and the long drapery of its ears and flews hanging in folds about its face. In a moment it was gone, its mellow note was dying away in the neighbouring streets, and a gang of ruffians were racing after it. "That'll find the feller if he's in London!" somebody shouted; it was the man with the bandaged forehead—and ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine

... learn, had no foundation, unless it be that, in the arranging of the flag around its staff, the stars might have been more distinctly visible than the stripes. The walls were profusely adorned with drapery, and there were numerous flags disposed in festoons. Truly a wonderful thing to make a story of, and then parade it in the newspapers from Maine ...
— Sunny Memories Of Foreign Lands, Volume 1 (of 2) • Harriet Elizabeth (Beecher) Stowe

... minutes, while the old lady fussed round her father, inquiring anxiously if he were cold, if he were tired, and pressing all manner of refreshments upon him. Even over dinner itself she received scanty attention. She had put on a pretty blue dress, with a drapery of lace over the shoulders, arranged her hair in a style copied from the latest fashion book, and snapped the gold bangles on her arms, with a result which seemed highly satisfactory upstairs, but not quite so much so when ...
— Sisters Three • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... lions. A sceptre is in his right hand; but he has no crown. The inscription, OWENUS ... PRINCEPS WALLIAE. On the reverse Owyn is represented on horseback in armour: in his right hand, which is extended, he holds a sword; and with his left, his shield charged with four lions rampant: a drapery, probably a kerchief de plesaunce, or handkerchief won at a tournament, pendent from the right wrist. Lions rampant also appear upon the mantle of the horse. On his helmet, as well as on his horse's head, is the Welsh dragon. The area ...
— Henry of Monmouth, Volume 1 - Memoirs of Henry the Fifth • J. Endell Tyler

... conception inconsistent with the fine discipline of the hand. Consider that whatever animal or human form is to be suggested, must be projected on a flat surface; that all the features of the countenance, the folds of the drapery, the involutions of the limbs, must be so reduced and subdued that the whole work becomes rather a piece of fine drawing than of sculpture; and then follow out, until you begin to perceive their endlessness, the resulting differences of character which will ...
— Stones of Venice [introductions] • John Ruskin

... his daughter's care, And how the daughter slaughtered the son, It clearly mention'd where. Then the Pope cried, "Heaven's will be done," And a loud Hosanna sung, The incense fumed to the lofty dome. Like ray-beam drapery hung. And they canoniz'd the holy dove, Like the soul of a martyr dead, The deed is still in the calendar, In capital letters red. Now when to Britain the tidings came Of her island's perish'd hope, The monks took hatchets to Winchcomb Wood, And they glorified the Pope. And after many a night ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XX. No. 556., Saturday, July 7, 1832 • Various

... imaginations arise again; and, similarly, the fancy is content with the rudest symbols by which they can be formalized to the eyes. You cannot understand that the rigid figure (2) with checkers or spots on its breast, and sharp lines of drapery to its feet, could represent, to the Greek, the healing majesty of heaven: but can you any better understand how a symbol so haggard as this (Fig. 5) could represent to the noblest hearts of the Christian ages the power and ministration of angels? ...
— Aratra Pentelici, Seven Lectures on the Elements of Sculpture - Given before the University of Oxford in Michaelmas Term, 1870 • John Ruskin

... of the day, and the drumming is chronic. My young barbarians are all at play. I look out from the broken windows of this forlorn plantation-house, through avenues of great live-oaks, with their hard, shining leaves, and their branches hung with a universal drapery of soft, long moss, like fringe-trees struck with grayness. Below, the sandy soil, scantly covered with coarse grass, bristles with sharp palmettoes and aloes; all the vegetation is stiff, shining, semi-tropical, with nothing soft or delicate in its texture. ...
— Army Life in a Black Regiment • Thomas Wentworth Higginson

... morning, and gladdened by sight of the glorious sea and the soothing tones it murmured in her ear, she came down to the parlor clad in simple white, with only a bunch of violets in her hair, and no other ornament than the handsome pearls her aunt had given to her. Standing at the open window, with the drapery of the lace curtain sweeping gracefully behind her, she did not look much like the Anna who led the choir in Hanover and visited the Widow Hobbs, nor yet much like the picture which Thornton Hastings had formed of the girl who he knew was there for his ...
— The Rector of St. Mark's • Mary J. Holmes

... his Cnidian Venus; for the inspection of which, many persons before now have purposely undertaken a voyage to Cnidos. The artist made two statues of the goddess, and offered them both for sale: one of them was represented with drapery, and for this reason was preferred by the people of Cos, who had the choice; the second was offered them at the same price, but on the grounds of propriety and modesty they thought fit to choose the other. Upon ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume II (of X) - Rome • Various

... fray the grim figures perched along the red ramparts of the cliff had shown signs of excitement, lifting their high shoulders and half unfolding the stiff drapery of their wings. As they saw their fellow overwhelmed they launched themselves from their perch and came hooting hoarsely over the rank, green tops of the palms and feathery calamaries. Swooping and circling they gathered over the hideous final struggle, ...
— In the Morning of Time • Charles G. D. Roberts

... range of poetry, that altogether equals. For most people have not a distinct idea of the clumsiness and massiveness of a large wave. The word 'wave' is used too generally of ripples and breakers, and bendings in light drapery or grass: it does not by itself convey a perfect image. But the word 'mound' is heavy, large, dark, definite; there is no mistaking the kind of wave meant, nor missing the sight of it. Then the term 'changing' has a peculiar force also. Most people think ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various

... high. Its lofty ceiling is arched and decorated with bright red and buff penciling upon a sky blue ground, while the walls are relieved by broad square pilasters, painted in brilliant bronze, with tall windows and arched tops rising between, and other spaces between the columns covered with drapery in more subdued colors. Up to a few feet from the floor the painting is in a dark-hued bronze. The coloring is in the Moorish style throughout, and the effect of the whole is very fine. At the north end is the platform for the desks of the Vice-President ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe

... pictures, most of them by Luca Giordano; and the superb high altar. I think it was the Church of the Gesuata which astonished us most. The whole of the inside walls and columns are encrusted with Carrara marble inlaid with verd-antique, in a kind of damask pattern; over the pulpit it fell like drapery, so easy, so graceful, so exquisitely imitated, that I was obliged to touch it to assure myself of the material. Then by way of contrast followed the Church of San Giorgio Maggiore,—one of Palladio's masterpieces. After the dazzling ...
— The Diary of an Ennuyee • Anna Brownell Jameson

... temple of Life, and his goddess is my mare, and shall go in the dust cart; if I find a jewel as I sweep, I will fasten it on the curtains of the doors, nor heed if it should break the fall of a fold of the drapery. ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald

... the particular void that ensues upon the sound of the dressing-bell. She had almost had time to weary of the human scene; her own humanity at any rate, in the shape of a smutch on her scanty skirt, had held her so long that as soon as she raised her eyes they rested on a high fair drapery by which smutches were put to shame and which had glided toward her over the grass without her noting its rustle. She followed up its stiff sheen—up and up from the ground, where it had stopped—till at the end of a considerable ...
— What Maisie Knew • Henry James

... with Cynthia. It was either a relief or a disappointment, he was not sure which, to find only Molly in the room. Molly, half lying on the couch in the bow-window which commanded the garden; draped in soft white drapery, very white herself, and a laced half-handkerchief tied over her head to save her from any ill effects of the air that blew in through the open window. He was so ready to speak to Cynthia that he hardly knew what to say to ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

... much more terrible sketch of a model drawing-room. All the plate is carefully described as "silver"; if it had been 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 ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury

... instrument as boat-shaped and without a neck, as, for instance, Carl Engel. This is due to the fact that the part of the instrument where neck joins body is in deep shadow, so that the correct outline can hardly be distinguished, being almost hidden by hand on one side and drapery on the other. ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various

... colors,—paroquets from Brazil, cockatoos, ring-doves, and canaries; fresh flowers, in vases on the mantel-pieces, and a blue-ribboned guitar in the corner. No books, no pictures. A great many scarfs, bonnets, and drapery generally, fell about ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 72, October, 1863 • Various

... see the same figure that he had seen on the railway platform, the same gloomy drapery, the same quiet, almost deathlike demeanor, nay, almost the same veil over her features; but the Lady Ongar whom he now saw was as unlike that Lady Ongar as she was unlike that Julia Brabazon whom he had known in old days at Clavering Park. ...
— The Claverings • Anthony Trollope

... the girls set off for the woods. I provided myself with a sheet, and took care to be in the tower before midnight. I tied two long sticks together in the shape of a cross, stuck my hat on the top, and threw the linen over the whole; and a capital ghost it was. Then I got under the drapery, pushing up the stick, so as to give the idea of a gigantic human figure with extended arms. I had no fear of being discovered, for the Syndic had the key still in his possession, and I had made good my entrance through a gap in the wall sufficiently well ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various

... jumping about with nervous, excited gestures. I sat in the armchair he had indicated, and looked from him to the picture on the easel over which a drapery was flung, and back again to him. For an indefinable feeling of dread was coming over me, as I noted the disordered dress and the bloodshot eyes of my strange host. He had failed, then, to keep his pledges; had yielded to temptation. ...
— A Romantic Young Lady • Robert Grant

... guns drawn back, and stared. The figure slowly extended its arm, carrying drapery with it. A man's breast was bared. There, over the heart, was a great gaping wound, fresh, as if a broad, heavy ...
— And Thus He Came • Cyrus Townsend Brady

... were ignorant that Boccaccio was a bitter satirist of Churchmen, or that "he transferred the functions and histories of Hebrew prophets and prophetesses, and of Christian saints and apostles, nay, the highest mysteries and most awful objects of Christian Faith, to the names and drapery of Greek and Roman mythology."—(Unpublished MS. note of S. T. Coleridge, written in his copy of Boccaccio's Opere, 4 vols. 1723.) They had their revenge on Boccaccio, and Byron has had his revenge ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron

... stood at the regent's right, calmly and composedly looking down the long board as she arranged her drapery before reseating herself, this new favorite of the regent appeared in the full costume of the American native! A long soft tunic of exquisitely dressed white leather fell below her hips, intricately embroidered in the native bead work of America, and stained with great blotches of colors done ...
— The Mississippi Bubble • Emerson Hough

... Was it not curious? I thought I saw there behind your man"—she hesitated, but he must be a servant, she argued—"the shadow of great, white wings. It was but the light on the drapery. What a turn it gave me." And she smiled again. With her came a tall, handsome, young naval officer. Hearing his lady refer to the servant, he hardly looked at him, but held his gilded cap carelessly toward him, and the stranger placed it ...
— Darkwater - Voices From Within The Veil • W. E. B. Du Bois

... Donatello, is forgotten beside it. Madonna enthroned among the Cherubim in her oval mandorla, upheld by four puissant fair angels, turns with a gesture most natural and lovely to St. Thomas, who kneels to her, his drapery in beautiful folds about him, lifting his hands in prayer. Above, three angels play on pipes and reeds; while in a corner a great bear gnaws at the bark of an ...
— Florence and Northern Tuscany with Genoa • Edward Hutton

... of Christmas to Come is the third spirit. It is a stately figure, surrounded in black and impenetrable drapery. It leads SCROOGE into the heart of the city, and he hears his acquaintance talking jestingly of one departed; into the Exchange, and he sees another standing against his peculiar pillar; into a haunt of infamy, where wretches ...
— Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, March 1844 - Volume 23, Number 3 • Various

... reflected, in many-coloured expressive symbols, the actual passions, the hopes, sorrows, joys of living men; but dwelt in a remote conventional world in /Castles of Otranto/, in /Epigoniads/ and /Leonidases/, among clear, metallic heroes, and white, high, stainless beauties, in whom the drapery and elocution were nowise the least important qualities. Men thought it right that the heart should swell into magnanimity with Caractacus and Cato, and melt into sorrow with many an Eliza and Adelaide; but the heart was in no haste either to swell or to melt. Some pulses of heroical ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

... workmanship and lifelike in attitude that, although mute, the excellence of their sculpture and make-up instructed [the beholder]. I do not describe the grace of their shapes, the beauty of their features, the easy flow of the hair, the undulations of the drapery, spangled with bits of glass, and the other accompaniments of beautiful ornaments and fantasies of art, in order not to weary [my readers] with prolixities. They were significant of the excellent progress which the prince made in both ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXXVI, 1649-1666 • Various

... of the place Where first he show'd the world his face. Thus far the fable's clear as light; But, if we take a nearer sight, There lurks within its drapery Somewhat of graceless sophistry; For who, that worships e'en the glorious sun, Would not prefer to wed some cooler one? And doth a flea's exceed a giant's might, Because the former can the latter bite? And, by the rule of strength, the rat Had sent his bride to wed the ...
— The Fables of La Fontaine - A New Edition, With Notes • Jean de La Fontaine

... exertion. The very children catch the contagion from their parents; they are instructed in every effeminate art—to dance in soft unmanly attitudes; to modulate their voices by musical instruments, and to adjust the floating drapery of their dress. These are the arts in which both sexes are instructed from their infancy; but no one is taught to wield the arms of men, to tame the noble steeds in which the country abounds, to observe his rank in war, or to bear the indispensable hardships of a military life. Hence this celebrated ...
— The History of Sandford and Merton • Thomas Day

... opening night of a season, he would be puzzled for any other reply than that it was permanently fashionable, because it was prodigiously absurd. On the opening of our theatre this season the house was full of MEN. The audience presented one dark tissue of drab and brown, and black and blue woolen drapery, with here and there a solitary exception of cheering female attire. Had there been a heavy fall of snow, the ladies would have been sleighing—had there been a public ball the darkness of the streets would have been broken by multitudes of attractive meteors in muslin, either "hanging ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Volume I, Number 1 • Stephen Cullen Carpenter

... the Greek faith present a general resemblance in their internal decorations. There is a glitter of gold, silver, and flaring colors in the poorest. Statues are not permitted, but the pictures of dark Saviours and Saints are generally covered with a drapery of silver, with openings for the head and hands. Konewitz, however, boasts of a special sanctity, in possessing the body of Saint Arsenius, the founder of the monastery. His remains are inclosed in a large coffin of silver, elaborately ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 79, May, 1864 • Various

... To Lucifer the cock must breathe His song, when still he slumbered deep, The sun had mounted high his steep, A passing snowstorm wreathed away With pallid light, but Eugene lay Upon his couch insensibly; Slumber still o'er him lingering flies. But finally he oped his eyes And turned aside the drapery; He gazed upon the clock which showed He long should have been ...
— Eugene Oneguine [Onegin] - A Romance of Russian Life in Verse • Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin

... left. The margin of the road on either side is strewn with fragments of hewn marble, travertine, and peperino. Broken tablets, retaining a few letters of the epitaphs of the dead; mutilated statues and alto-relievos; drums and capitals of pillars; a hand or a foot, or a fold of marble drapery,—every form and variety of sculpture, the mere crumbs that had fallen from a profuse feast of artistic beauty, which nobody considers it worth while to pick up, lie mouldering among the grass. At frequent intervals, ...
— Roman Mosaics - Or, Studies in Rome and Its Neighbourhood • Hugh Macmillan

... without offering to take it or look at him—and, after a miserable pause, he left the study. But before he had reached the front door he heard a swish and swirl of drapery behind him, and felt her light hand on his arm. "Ah, no!" she said, clinging to him, "I can't let you go like this. I didn't mean all the things I said just now. I do believe in you, Horace—at least, I'll try hard to.... And I shall always, always love you, Horace.... I shan't ...
— The Brass Bottle • F. Anstey

... to feelings vaguer, but not less potent, than those which find expression in the simple human form. To painting, again, belongs the play of feature, indicative of internal movement, through a whole gamut of modulations inapprehensible by sculpture. All that drapery by its partial concealment of the form it clothes, and landscape by its sympathies with human sentiment, may supply to enhance the passion of the spectator, pertains to painting. This art, therefore, owing to the greater variety of means at its disposal, and ...
— Renaissance in Italy Vol. 3 - The Fine Arts • John Addington Symonds

... spectator saw the surface of the river, with the current rippling forward upon it, and the sunlight just touching the waves. Through the flood swam the daughters of the Rhine, sweeping fair arms backward as they floated, their drapery trailing heavy behind them, darting straight as arrows, or winding sinuously, from bottom to top, from side to side, singing wildly as the Lorelei. The scene changed, and it was the depths of the earth, red-glowing and full of gnomes. And a third time, after a change, you saw from mountain-tops ...
— The Last Leaf - Observations, during Seventy-Five Years, of Men and Events in America - and Europe • James Kendall Hosmer

... was next to Edith's. The only difference in the furniture was in the color of the hangings. The curtains and bed drapery of mine were pink, hers blue. Both opened into an upper piazza, whose lofty pillars were wreathed with flowering vines, and crowned with Corinthian capitals. Surely my love for the beautiful ought to have been satisfied; ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz

... on the walls. Evening. Moonlight outside. A couch with cushions on it. A small table with flagon of wine, cups, plate of grapes, etc., also the cup of Scene I. A chair with drapery on it. ...
— Becket and other plays • Alfred Lord Tennyson

... invited by Mr. Malcolm Guthrie of that city to join in an investigation which he was conducting with the aid of one or two persons who had turned out to be sensitive, from among the employees of the large drapery firm of George Henry ...
— Telepathy - Genuine and Fraudulent • W. W. Baggally

... portrait should chance to visit the National Museum in Budapest, he would come upon the bust of a woman whose features seemed familiar to him. They would grow upon him as those of the woman with the yellow shawl over her light-brown hair, a drapery of red on her shoulders and fastened at her throat, who had looked out at him from the Bonn portrait. The bust, made at a more advanced age, he would find had been placed in the museum in honor of the woman who founded the first home for friendless ...
— The Loves of Great Composers • Gustav Kobb

... Herald, of Shanghai, describes the scene at the examination at the beginning of September last. The streets, he says, are thronged with long-robed, large-spectacled gentlemen, who inform the world at large by every fold of drapery, every swagger of gait, every curve of nail, that they are the aristocracy of the most ancient empire of the world. Wuchang had from 12,000 to 15,000 bachelors of arts within its walls, who came from the far borders of the province for the examination for the provincial degree. ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 841, February 13, 1892 • Various

... will be very long now, and if you curl up under this rug, if it is a rug, you may go to sleep, and then you will forget about being hungry," said Nealie, gripping something which felt like drapery, and dragging it ...
— The Adventurous Seven - Their Hazardous Undertaking • Bessie Marchant

... to the hotel, King Arthur's Round Table was ready for us in its white drapery, and the head waiter and his first assistant, in swallow-tails and white cravats, brought in the soup and the hot plates ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... he skims along, Uttering his sweet and mournful cry; He starts not at my fitful song, Or flash of fluttering drapery; He has no thought of any wrong; He scans me with a fearless eye. Stanch friends are we, well tried and strong, The little ...
— Birds and Poets • John Burroughs

... the sough of drapery, and a soft and striding step. Somebody was coming quickly. She drew back into her ...
— Bella Donna - A Novel • Robert Hichens

... evening, for then the workshops and factories and warehouses are closed, and the handsome youth of Whitechapel is free to amuse itself. Most of the girls work at the millinery establishments, and most of the boys at the wholesale drapery houses. The High Street is one of the most picturesque main streets of London. The little low butchers' shops, fronted by raucous stalls, the gabled houses, and the flat-faced hotels, are some of the loveliest bits of eighteenth-century domestic architecture remaining in London. And the ...
— Nights in London • Thomas Burke

... his father's body to be placed upon a couch of ivory, covered with gold, studded with gems, and hung with drapery of byssus and purple. Fragrant wine was poured out at its side, and aromatic spices burnt next to it. Heroes of the house of Esau, princes of the family of Ishmael, and the lion Judah, the bravest of his sons, surrounded the sumptuous bier of Jacob. "Come," said Judah to his brethren, ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg

... White. Chrome Yellow, Gamboge, Yellow Ochre; or all three.* *Gamboge is best for drapery; Ochre for the face. Light Red. Indigo. Burnt ...
— The History and Practice of the Art of Photography • Henry H. Snelling

... head against the cushions, remained motionless, all in a red glow, from the sun filtering through the awning. A strange laziness had taken possession of me, and at the same time the sight of this woman with her Greek form that showed through the clinging drapery sent a thrill of admiration through my veins. Her eyes were veiled, the lips slightly parted; her whole presence expressed powerlessness, and seemed to say, "I ...
— Without Dogma • Henryk Sienkiewicz

... query. He leaned forward and with eager eyes gazed in admiration at the new-comer. He seemed hypnotized by the vision, which moved slowly from between the blue-tinted portieres and stood for the instant, a perfect embodiment of radiant womanhood, silhouetted against the silken drapery. ...
— The Fifth String, The Conspirators • John Philip Sousa

... sets to work on the lectern. He works with a file, a chisel, and an awl. He is perfectly successful in the cross on the lectern, the gospel, and the drapery that hangs down from the lectern. Then he begins on the dove. While he is trying to carve an expression of meekness and humility on the face of the dove, Matvey, lumbering about like a bear, is coating with ice the cross he has made of wood. He takes the cross and dips ...
— The Cook's Wedding and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov

... soul of the greater artist, Periander. That drapery never fell so upon Aurelian; nor was Aurelian's form or bearing ever like this. It is all ennobled, and exalted above pure nature, by the divine power of genius. The true artist, under every form and every line of nature, sees another form and line of more perfect grace and ...
— Aurelian - or, Rome in the Third Century • William Ware

... a bench near him, quite idle; her gown, a tawny drapery, whose half-hidden suggestions of blue were like shy spring flowers, was sheathed closely about her; her eyes were following the pale wide river below the garden; her hair, so light that it made her eyes seem lighter, was piled above the warm, creamy tan of her forehead; ...
— Sally of Missouri • R. E. Young

... and while they were passing a large drapery warehouse, Willie gave his friend a violent ...
— Wee Macgreegor Enlists • J. J. Bell

... at any rate, it was no longer difficult to discover; for now I knew that the male figure was no mortal, but a god, a spirit, a DAEMON (in the Greek sense of the word); and the female figure I saw by the marked shortness of her drapery to be no Athenian, but a Spartan; no matron either, but a maiden, a lass, a LASSIE; and now I had forced on ...
— Prince Zaleski • M.P. Shiel

... ago, purely out of curiosity, as they were said to be the finest pieces in Italy: but I cannot say they please me; the coloring is dark and heavy; the figures do not swell nor come out enough; and the drapery is very bad. In short, notwithstanding the encomiums lavished upon them, they are not, in my opinion, a true representation of nature. I approve of no paintings but where I think I behold Nature herself; ...
— Classic French Course in English • William Cleaver Wilkinson

... is applicable to her. At all events, her toilets are the most charming in the world: she dresses to perfection! In her presence one never thinks of anything but the wonderful combination of colors, and the graceful flowing of drapery, that have produced certain artistic effects in her outward adorning. She is style, fashion, elegance, taste personified; consequently she is very charming as an exhibition of the newest and most captivating costumes,—as an inventor and leader of modes that become the rage when they ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie

... negroes, from negroes to white citizens, and from these to strangers, till dead men were seen literally dangling from the boughs of trees upon every roadside, and in numbers almost sufficient to rival the native Spanish moss of the country, as a drapery ...
— Lincoln's Inaugurals, Addresses and Letters (Selections) • Abraham Lincoln

... worn in places, but soft in tone and unmistakably of the Orient. The desk was of fumed oak, somewhat massive and dignified with a touch of hand carving. The chairs were of the same dark oak with leather cushions, and the couch so covered by his bed drapery that he could not see it, but he remembered its comfort. There was nothing showy or expensive looking but everything simple and good. One or two fine old pictures on the wall gave evidence of good taste. The only luxury seemed ...
— The City of Fire • Grace Livingston Hill

... you say? Yes, there is another. A cloudless blue sky overhead. The gorgeous air-flowers, delicate and fragrant. Trees covered with a drapery of orchidaceae. The loveliest of flowers and shrubs. Birds of rainbow beauty, painted by the hand of God, as only He can. Flamingoes, parrots, humming-birds, butterflies of every size and hue. Arborescent ferns; cacti, thirty feet ...
— Through Five Republics on Horseback • G. Whitfield Ray

... worst. To touch anything at such a moment is a trial. We groped down the passage; I felt the handle of the first door, and turned that of the second, and in we went. The window-blind of this room was drawn up, and the moonlight streamed over everything. A nest of white drapery covered one chair, a muslin dress lay like a sick ghost over a second, some little black satin shoes and web-like stockings were on the floor, a gold watch and one or two feminine ornaments lay on the table; and in the bed reposed—not Bedford, ...
— Mrs. Overtheway's Remembrances • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... furnishings had cost her less than a hundred dollars. In the first days of their housekeeping she made several additions, and Stefan contributed a large second-hand easel, a stool, and a piece of strangely colored drapery for the divan. This he discovered during a walk with Mary, in the window of an old furniture dealer, and instantly fell a victim to. He was so delighted with it that Mary had not the heart to veto its purchase, though ...
— The Nest Builder • Beatrice Forbes-Robertson Hale

... wrinkled, as Tithonus in his swaddling bands, my opinion will be still the same. But I forgive your incredulity and want of sympathy. In order to understand me fully, it is necessary that you should see Nyssia in the radiant brilliancy of her shining whiteness, free from jealous drapery, even as Nature with her own hands moulded her in a lost moment of inspiration which never can return. This evening I will hide you in a corner of the bridal chamber... you ...
— King Candaules • Theophile Gautier

... roused. Paris was thronged with the multitudes that from all the surrounding country crowded her streets. The day was to be ushered in by a vast and imposing procession. "The houses along the line of march were hung with mourning drapery, and altars rose at intervals." Before every door was a lighted torch in honor of the "holy sacrament." Before daybreak the procession formed, at the palace of the king. "First came the banners and crosses of the several parishes; next appeared the citizens, ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White

... as Queen of the Fairies. You shall lie on a bed of rose-leaves, and have gossamer, cloudy sort of drapery all around you. Never fear, Nora, you will look lovely—leave ...
— Red Rose and Tiger Lily - or, In a Wider World • L. T. Meade

... and lay down in a doorway. He had scarcely got a wink of sleep, when up comes Punch with Toby. He was darting to Toby for consolation and advice, when he saw the frill, and stopped, in the middle of the street, appalled. The show was pitched, Toby retired behind the drapery, the audience formed, the drum and pipes struck up. My country dog remained immovable, intently staring at these strange appearances, until Toby opened the drama by appearing on his ledge, and ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie

... old palace in or near Genoa is - how time and the sea air have blotted it - how the drapery painted on the outer walls has peeled off in great flakes of plaster - how the lower windows are darkened with rusty bars of iron - how the courtyard is overgrown with grass - how the outer buildings are dilapidated - how the whole pile seems devoted to ruin. ...
— To be Read at Dusk • Charles Dickens



Words linked to "Drapery" :   drape, furnishing, portiere, festoon, material, mantle, textile, blind, drop curtain, theatre curtain, shower curtain, fabric, drop



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