"Finery" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... mamma, I heard Aunt Easygo say that velvet, point-lace, and Cashmere were the cheapest finery that could be bought, because ...
— Atlantic Monthly,Volume 14, No. 82, August, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... they only knew what an unfinished girl I am—that I can't talk Italian, or use globes, or show any of the accomplishments they learn at boarding schools, how they would despise me! Better sell all this finery and buy myself grammar-books and dictionaries and a history of ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy
... Bible readings before breakfast, while your hearts vibrate between holiness and hash—between Christ and the cook— should know; but it's dollars to doughnuts you don't. You probably imagine that when you present your out-of-fashion finery to your poor relations, then wait for a vote of thanks or a resolution of respect; that when you permit a tramp to fill a long-felt want with the cold victuals in your cupboard, which even your pug dog disdains, that the Recording ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... doing as she did about the chapter and hymn, they never had such a prayer-meeting as that. One day she and me and my mother was standing talking, and she was warning her about something, when she says of a sudden, 'Here comes Miss Letty in all her finery, and it's time for me to be off.' And with that she gave a swirl round on her feet, and raises up in the air, and round and round she goes, and up and up, as if it was a winding stairs she went up, only far swifter. She went up ...
— The Celtic Twilight • W. B. Yeats
... however, when dressed in her bridal robes, could not help scampering about the room after a mouse seen upon the floor; and when Plutarch was in Egypt it had already become a proverb, that any one in too much finery was as awkward as a cat ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 10 (of 12) • S. Rappoport
... the Emperor. 'Doesn't it sit well!' And he turned himself again to the mirror to see if his finery ...
— The Yellow Fairy Book • Leonora Blanche Alleyne Lang
... front parlour window was draped with white muslin curtains, which covered it entirely, preventing the eyes of the curious from taking surreptitious glances at the finery therein displayed, and destined to be seen for the first time at church on the persons of the fortunate owners. Just now, a fortnight before Christmas, the array of gay dress material which lay about on tables ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 5, May, 1891 • Various
... which has become universal; the sumptuary law of the Republic has not yet robbed them of colour, and instead of the present "coffin" we see canopies of gaily-hued stuffs supported on four light pillars. The gondolier himself is commonly tricked out in almost fantastic finery; red cap with long golden curls flowing down over the silken doublet, slashed hose, the light dress displaying those graceful attitudes into which the rower naturally falls. On the left side of the canal its white ...
— Stray Studies from England and Italy • John Richard Green
... can't make a tragedy, my dear girl, out of the failure to pay duties on a few things bought for one's personal use, and not for sale. Why, nearly every woman in the world smuggles when she gets the chance—on her clothes and finery. You must know that. Your sex as a class doesn't regard it as disreputable in the least. At the worst, it is a peccadillo, not a crime. The law was passed to enable our native tailors to shear the ...
— The Law-Breakers and Other Stories • Robert Grant
... Mr. Bull, complacently, as he stretched his limbs in his own particular arm-chair, into which no member of his family ever intruded. "But the red-coats carry the day with plenty of girls who ought to know better. You women are always caught by a bit of finery. However, there's no use our bothering our heads about it. As she has brewed she ...
— In the Yule-Log Glow, Book II - Christmas Tales from 'Round the World • Various
... severity of aspect, but in the sweetest, softest little voice in the world, appeared to have the desired effect. The eyes were dried, the sobs checked, and soon Elleney emerged from her garret, and came clattering down the corkscrew stairs in her unyielding little best boots, clad all in her Sunday finery, every sunshiny hair in its place, and her blooming face a vision of wonder and delight to any ...
— North, South and Over the Sea • M.E. Francis (Mrs. Francis Blundell)
... or "small-clothes," which reached only to the knee, being there fastened with large (?) silver buckles, which ornament was also used in fastening the straps of shoes. The gentlemen quite equalled the ladies at this period in the amount of finery, and the brilliancy of colors in which they indulged. A light blue coat with large fancy buttons, a white satin embroidered waistcoat, red velvet breeches, silk stockings, and buckled shoes, with a neckcloth, or scarf, of finely embroidered cambric, or figured stuff, the ends ...
— Old New England Traits • Anonymous
... at the word of command; to fetch and carry like a spaniel. A hundred times the changing crowd has paid its paltry fee to watch the little play that is daily acted behind the stout iron bars by the man and the beast. The man, the nobler, braver creature, is arrayed in a wretched flimsy finery of tights and spangles, parading his physical weakness and inferiority in the toggery of a mountebank. The tiger, vast, sleepy-eyed, mysterious, lies motionless in the front of his cage, the gorgeous stripes of his velvet coat following each curve of his body, ...
— The Witch of Prague • F. Marion Crawford
... about these things properly enough, too, or they would not make such good use of them. They are in no danger of becoming less worthy women, provided they do not exclude thoughts on higher things. But girlishness, construed to mean just a love of dress and finery, does not make womanliness. If it did, every well-clothed girl on the street would be virtuous. I confess, however, that it would require a good deal of persuasion to make me believe that untidy skirts, buttons clinging by a thread, or utter inattention to style, ...
— Hold Up Your Heads, Girls! • Annie H. Ryder
... Ann," her mother would answer. "You would look ridiculous going through the fields and along the dusty roads in such finery, and among all these plainly attired country people you would appear overdressed. I hope that my little daughter is too much of a lady in her tastes to ever want to call attention to herself in that ...
— Mildred's Inheritance - Just Her Way; Ann's Own Way • Annie Fellows Johnston
... opens to show Florence trimming a hat. She is a pathetic figure as she looks down at the hat and realizes that such finery is beyond her owning. She looks up and smiles gratefully as the owner of the place comes from paying others in view, and drops an envelope on table ...
— Writing the Photoplay • J. Berg Esenwein and Arthur Leeds
... about it here in the house, but when people have once had great reverses they get nervous about spending money) so I shall not miss the Clarence and greys ... and I do entreat you not to put those two ideas together again of me and the finery which has nothing to do with me. I have talked a great deal too much of all this, you will think, but I want you, once for all, to apply it broadly to the whole of the future both in the general view and the details, so that we need not return to ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... white dimity small clothes without spot or blemish. He caught rabbits, and sold them, till he obtained money enough to purchase brass buckles for his knees, and for the straps of his shoes. The first time he made his appearance in the city with this new finery, he felt his ambition concerning personal decoration completely satisfied. The neatness of his dress, and his manly way of proceeding, attracted attention, and induced his customers to call him "THE LITTLE GOVERNOR." For several ...
— Isaac T. Hopper • L. Maria Child
... to foxes, wolves, and bears, with which, and game in general, Russia abounds more than any other part of the world; and to such sports, manly exercises, and feats of gallantry and activity, as show the gentleman better than musty Greek or Latin, or all the perfume, finery, and capers of ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchausen • Rudolph Erich Raspe
... negatived any attempt at taking private property, thereby incurring Mrs Major Negus's enmity, for he refused passage to three large trunks of hers which she had declared were absolutely indispensable, but which, on being opened, were found to contain only a lot of tawdry finery which might possibly have helped to astonish the natives of Waikatoo, but was perfectly useless, even to herself, on the inhospitable shores where the passengers of the Nancy Bell were about to seek ...
— The Wreck of the Nancy Bell - Cast Away on Kerguelen Land • J. C. Hutcheson
... going there as a blind. Will I reform when I am married? Perhaps so—if he gives me heaps of money. I am no worse than thousands of girls, single and married, who put on airs of purity and church-going. I know plenty of ladies who pay five hundred dollars at the store for silks and finery, which they persuade their husbands they bought for one-fourth of the price. And, for my part, I am going to eat well, dress well, and enjoy myself as long as ever I can get the money, by hook ...
— Danger! A True History of a Great City's Wiles and Temptations • William Howe
... on the splendid dress she had herself embroidered. She wore no stays, and was already well formed for her age, and the dress fitted her very fairly. With what shy pleasure she looked at herself in the great mirror! Ah! how lovely she will be in her wedding finery! Perhaps she thought, too, that she would inspire love! Perhaps she felt her heart beat; and possibly a flame was already alight there which would cause her grief ...
— Timar's Two Worlds • Mr Jkai
... rapids, in the sudden attack of wild beast and hostile man, or in the unexpected approach of any danger; men who, having been well tried, needed not to boast, and who, having carried off triumphantly their respective brides many years ago, needed not to decorate their persons with the absurd finery that characterised their younger brethren. They were comparatively few in number, but they composed a sterling band, of which every man was a hero. Among them were those who occupied the high positions of bowman and steersman, and when we tell the ...
— The Young Fur Traders • R.M. Ballantyne
... standing in the middle of the dwelling; when their future inmates, arrayed in rudimental vestments, went round and round them, attaching various articles of finery, dyed scarfs, ivory trinkets, and other decorations. Upon the propriety of this or that adornment, the three Vowels now and then pondered apart, or together consulted. They talked and they laughed; they were silent and sad; now merry at their bravery; ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. II (of 2) • Herman Melville
... civilized habits. After a while, it was proposed that they should be married according to the Christian form, as they had previously been by Indian ceremonies. No attempt was made to offer higher inducements than the exhibition of wedding-finery, and the assurance that all William's relatives would be made very happy, if they would conform to the custom of his people. The bride's dress was a becoming hybrid between English and Indian costumes. Loose trousers of emerald-green merino were fastened with scarlet ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 65, March, 1863 • Various
... ones as they trooped through the hall, in their white finery, Sir George said he had no idea that so many children remained in Ladysmith, and perhaps at that moment his heart was heavy with a deeper sense of the responsibility thrust upon him. But fortunately we have ...
— Four Months Besieged - The Story of Ladysmith • H. H. S. Pearse
... ammunition, mustered a crew of twenty-six prime seamen, the pick of the Barracouta's crew—men who would go anywhere, and face anything—we carried an ample supply of blankets, beads, brass wire, old muskets, and tawdry finery of various descriptions, priceless in the eyes of savages, for the purpose of peaceable ransom, if such could be accomplished; but we lacked an interpreter, a man acquainted with the barbaric language of the up-river natives, through whom we should be able to communicate with them and carry ...
— The Pirate Slaver - A Story of the West African Coast • Harry Collingwood
... rooms on each side had been fitted up in a modern and expensive manner with shelves and counters, middle-aisle showcase, and so forth. The right-hand division was a drygoods and millinery department, with such a display of hats and finery as never had been seen before in Jordantown. The left division contained everything necessary to thrifty existence, from horse collars to hams, sugar and molasses, ...
— The Co-Citizens • Corra Harris
... delicate chip and a wreath of artificial flowers. Is it because the girl's physique is more delicate and complicated, that she is thus denied the natural and healthy exercise of her powers, and burdened with a load of finery under which the strong man would halt and stagger? The more delicate the organization, the smaller the lungs, the more absolutely important is perfect freedom of dress and motion, and the more essential is life in the open air. If we must keep any of the children in-doors ...
— The Education of American Girls • Anna Callender Brackett
... is large, six girls and two boys, and although our father is pretty well to do, as you know, when we ask him for money to dress with, he answers, "Girls, if you want finery, earn it!" And that is why I came ...
— Frederic Mistral - Poet and Leader in Provence • Charles Alfred Downer
... finished only at twelve o'clock the night before, gave him unmixed pleasure. And handsome he looked in it. All the little girls proclaimed that in their shy, admiring glances, while the big girls teased and petted and threatened to kiss him. Of course the boys all scorned him and his finery, and tried to "take him down," but Hughie was so unfeignedly pleased with himself, and moved so easily and naturally in his grand attire, and was so cheery and frank and happy, that no one thought of ...
— Glengarry Schooldays • Ralph Connor
... new and wild expression of longing, he understood who put it into her mind. Whenever his wife complained that she was not so well dressed as some other women whose husbands were plain workmen, and expressed a wish for some tawdry bit of finery, Sam could trace the desire, by very little questioning, back to ...
— All He Knew - A Story • John Habberton
... course! Why had he not thought of that? He hurried into his sister's room to make a selection of a few necessities for the emergency—only to have his assurance desert him at the very threshold. The room was immaculate, with no feminine finery lying about. Cornelia Dunham's maid was well trained. The only article that seemed out of place was a hand-box on a chair near the door. It bore the name of a fashionable milliner, and across the lid was pencilled in Cornelia's large, angular hand, "To be returned to Madame Dollard's." ...
— The Mystery of Mary • Grace Livingston Hill
... clothes of the country-people struck my friend no less. The total absence of tawdriness and finery on Sundays, the equally total absence of rags and squalor on week-days, afforded a striking contrast to what we are accustomed to see at home. It is more especially in the matter of foot-gear that the working-classes in France show ...
— The Roof of France • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... the day after the funeral. But there stands your cook, fidgeting and looking this way, as if she had a word to put in on the occasion. This expl'ite of Neb's will set the niggers up in the world; and it wouldn't surprise me if it cost you a suit of finery all round." ...
— Miles Wallingford - Sequel to "Afloat and Ashore" • James Fenimore Cooper
... circumstances were detailed to me by a gentleman present, and who really was rather alarmed at their warlike appearance and war-disposed manner and language. Having seated themselves with all their military finery in the carriage, they carefully placed their two brace of horse pistols in the front pocket, taking care to leave the butt-ends sticking out, threateningly visible to every eye that surveyed them. A crowd was collected round the carriage to witness the departure of ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 1 • Henry Hunt
... was gone, her finery a-flutter in the sweeping west wind, Arline muttered aloud her opinion of men, and particularly of politicians who rode about in special trains and expected the ...
— Lonesome Land • B. M. Bower
... The trunks of the fallen trees must have made a pleasant prospect for the New Inn, the fine red-brick building which in Parkhurst's day was built for a tavern, and which still stands, but has now fallen to shops. But in the days when the city aldermen brought their wives to show off their finery, and the young sparks threw their money about at Epsom, what a bustling, handsome, pursy, turtle-soup sort of place the Wells must have been. John Toland, writing in 1711, describes Epsom Wells at their height. Eudoxa is his mistress, and to Eudoxa ...
— Highways and Byways in Surrey • Eric Parker
... indeed, were happy; a few days' work in the course of the year secured them subsistence; and irregular labor for wages, on the plantations of their old masters, gave them the means of gratifying their liking for dress and finery. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... yield to it—but their temptation is, to waste of the very simplest—I had almost said, if I may be pardoned the expression, of the most barbaric—kind; to an oriental waste of money, and waste of time; to a fondness for mere finery, pardonable enough, but still a waste; and to the mistaken fancy that it is the mark of a lady to sit idle and let servants do ...
— Health and Education • Charles Kingsley
... take stock of the damage there. Previous to 1692, Port Royal was reputed the richest and the wickedest spot on earth, for it was the headquarters of the Buccaneers; here they divided their ill-gotten gains, and here they strutted about bedizened in their tawdry finery, drinking and gambling. I should be inclined to distrust the local legend that in the many taverns the wine was all served in jewelled golden cups, for, given the character of the customers, one would imagine that the gold cups would be apt to leave the taverns with ...
— Here, There And Everywhere • Lord Frederic Hamilton
... the corridor she brushed by an over-dressed woman, whose cheap finery gave clear indication of her tastes. Hardly noticing another's presence she turned and took McIntyre's arm and they strolled off together, her soft laugh floating back to where Mrs. Sylvester stood ...
— The Red Seal • Natalie Sumner Lincoln
... again settled upon the Hamiltons. Mrs. Hamilton, in the whitest of white aprons, prepared to be on hand to annoy the cook still more; Kit was ready to station herself where she could view the finery; Joe had condescended to promise to be home in time to eat some of the good things, and Berry—Berry was gorgeous in his evening suit with the white waistcoat, as he directed the ...
— The Sport of the Gods • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... this country the king was in this new town, and there went to see him Christovao de Figueiredo[405] with all of us Portuguese that came with him, and all very handsomely dressed after our manner, with much finery; the king received him very well, and was very complacent to him. The king was as much pleased with him as if he had been one of his own people, so much attention did he evince towards him; and also towards those amongst us who went ...
— A Forgotten Empire: Vijayanagar; A Contribution to the History of India • Robert Sewell
... wearable. The original clothing, such as conformity with the rules of the streets implies, remains serviceable, however obsolete in "style," which is another word for fashion, "that pitiful, lackey-like creature which struts through one country in the cast-off finery of another." For the privilege of citizenship in what, at present, is the freest country in the world my direct taxation amounts to 1 5s. per annum; and, since "luxuries" are not in demand, indirect contributions to State ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... an old lady and her three daughters who sat on the camp-stools by the step-ladder; the same fat old lady, bedizened with finery, and the same three young ladies, with strong features and dismal dresses, which the traveler encounters all over the Continent of Europe. The old lady was in a state of chronic agony lest the young ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... ever you felt or found this in a London street; if ever it furnished you with one serious thought, or any ray of true and gentle pleasure; if there is in your heart a true delight in its green railings, and dark casements, and wasteful finery of shops, and feeble coxcombry of club-houses, it is well; promote the building of more like them. But if they never taught you any thing, and never made you happier as you passed beneath them, do not ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... finery and flirtation excite the sexual appetite. Many other sentiments are accessory, such as admiration, the pleasure of possession, respect, pity, etc. Inclination is an important element, but in no way necessary to ...
— The Sexual Question - A Scientific, psychological, hygienic and sociological study • August Forel
... mantle, and such a flowery bonnet was she arrayed, that Lord Ormersfield bowed to her as a stranger, and Louis talked of the transformations of the Giraffe. 'Is it not humiliating,' she said, 'to be so altered by finery? You might dress Isabel for ever, and her nobleness ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. II) • Charlotte M. Yonge
... nigger's a nigger; and I spec' ef you're to talk to me till you was hoarse 'bout your Yankee ways of scrubbin', and sweepin', and moppin' with a broom, I shouldn't be an atomer white-folksey than I is now. Besides Mas'r John, wouldn't bar no finery; he's only happy when the truck is mighty nigh a foot thick, and his things is lyin' round loose ...
— Bad Hugh • Mary Jane Holmes
... poured in with cowl, and cross, and minstrelsy; the lover paused for a moment at the door. I could divine the tumult of his feelings; but he mastered them, and entered. There was a long interval. I pictured to myself the scene passing within: the poor novice despoiled of her transient finery, and clothed in the conventual garb; the bridal chaplet taken from her brow, and her beautiful head shorn of its long silken tresses. I heard her murmur the irrevocable vow. I saw her extended on a bier; the death-pall spread over her; the ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... is all independence and caprice. Then she set herself to look for mushrooms or for truffles, going over to Grenoble to sell them. But the gaudy trifles in the town were very tempting, the few small coins in her hand seemed to be great riches; she would forget her poverty and buy ribbons and finery, without a thought for tomorrow's bread. But if some other girl here in the town took a fancy to her brass crucifix, her agate heart or her velvet ribbon, she would make them over to her at once, glad to give happiness, for she ...
— The Country Doctor • Honore de Balzac
... no more till you meet at the church. Justin, my coach! Lomaque, pick up my hood. Monsieur Trudaine, thanks for your hospitality; I shall hope to return it with interest the first time you are in our neighborhood. Mademoiselle, put on your best looks to-morrow, along with your wedding finery; remember that my son's bride must do honor to my son's taste. Justin! my coach—drone, vagabond, idiot, where is ...
— After Dark • Wilkie Collins
... to be in the same situation as before: the lamp gave out its weak light, the perfumes exhaled their sweets, and the distressed lady exhibited the same strange contrast between her reduced sickly condition and the superb finery ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 2 - Historical, Traditional, and Imaginative • Alexander Leighton
... doctrine of plain dress into our diplomatic representation. Even older nations are becoming tired of mere shows; and, certainly, the representatives of a republic ought not to begin to put on the finery which monarchies are ...
— Sunny Memories Of Foreign Lands, Volume 1 (of 2) • Harriet Elizabeth (Beecher) Stowe
... in going home besides those which underlay the motive which we have assigned. If as he travelled he at all regarded the finery of all that he had acquired, it was that he might by it delight the parents who loved him with such pride. Though not a fop, his hand trembled on the last morning of his journey when he fastened a necktie of the colour his mother loved best. He took an earlier train than ...
— The Mermaid - A Love Tale • Lily Dougall
... spider in it; and why not? In your eyes, to be sure, Nature decks herself out like a rosy-checked maiden on her bridal day. To me she appears an old, withered beldame, with sunken eyes, furrowed cheeks, and artificial ornaments in her hair. How she seems to admire herself in this her Sunday finery! But it is the same worn and ancient garment, put off and on some hundreds of thousands of times.' But how natural is the explanation of all given at the beautiful close of the dialogue! 'Here,' said the jocund Edwin, 'I first met my Juliet.'—'And it was under these linden-trees,' ...
— The Eclipse of Faith - Or, A Visit To A Religious Sceptic • Henry Rogers
... usury, and a general absence of litigation. They told the truth: as a Greek, he could not help noticing that. The men were exceptionally brave; the women, chaste and virturous. But "in contrast to the general simplicity of their style, they loved finery and ornaments. Their robes were worked in gold, adorned with precious stones, and they wore flowered garments of the finest muslin. Attendants walking behind held ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... few Days after, her Husband steals an Opportunity to go thither, and sees the Furniture increas'd, and finds his Entertainment more delicate than it us'd to be; he enquir'd from whence this unaccustomed Finery came: They said, that a certain honest Gentlewoman of his Acquaintance, brought these Things; and gave them in Charge, that he should be treated with more Respect for the future. He presently suspected that ...
— Colloquies of Erasmus, Volume I. • Erasmus
... reverently to the wig. In this he did what he conceived was proper, from the introduction which the dean, on his first arrival, had given him to this venerable stranger; for, in reality, Henry had a contempt for all finery, and had called even his aunt's jewels, when they were first shown to him, "trumpery," asking "what they were good for?" But being corrected in this disrespect, and informed of their high value, he, like a good convert, gave up his reason to his faith; and becoming, like all converts, ...
— Nature and Art • Mrs. Inchbald
... us cruel. But beautiful is the unconscious irony of nature in comparison with that which exists in human circumstances. We have here an example of this before us. See these sparkling false diamonds, this red gauze finery, these ruins of theatrical ornament. They seem to mock the misery of the room about which they are strewn. In that wretched room is want of light; want, not only of all the comforts of life, but also of its most necessary things. And ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer
... linen, bleached in the June showers and wonderfully ironed, whereon a stain must not be found, for along that table would pass the holy bread and wine. Across the aisle on either side, the pews were filled with stalwart men, solemn beyond their wonted gravity, and kindly women in simple finery, and rosy-cheeked bairns. The women had their tokens wrapped in snowy handkerchiefs, and in their Bibles they had sprigs of apple-ringy and mint, and other sweet-scented plants. By-and-by there would be a faint ...
— Kate Carnegie and Those Ministers • Ian Maclaren
... eyes, turbaned in brilliant gauzes, with draperies of dirty curtain muslin over tawdry brocaded caftans. Their paler children swarmed about them, little long-earringed girls like wax dolls dressed in scraps of old finery, little boys in tattered caftans with long-lashed eyes and wily smiles, and, waddling in the rear, their unwieldy grandmothers, huge lumps of tallowy flesh who were probably still in ...
— In Morocco • Edith Wharton
... pleased to say, "that the woman who has your love, shouldn't change it away against a kingdom, I think. I am a country-bred woman, and cannot say but the ambitions of the town seem mean to me. I never was awe-stricken by my lady duchess's rank and finery, or afraid," she added, with a sly laugh, "of anything but her temper. I hear of Court ladies who pine because her Majesty looks cold on them; and great noblemen who would give a limb that they might wear a garter on the other. ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... let himself be dragged along by his merry talkative friend, and they soon got to the cottage. The procession was just sallying forth on its way to church. The young countryman was in his usual linen frock; all his finery consisted in a pair of leather breeches, which he had polisht till they shone like a field of dandelions: he had a very simple look, and was a ...
— The Old Man of the Mountain, The Lovecharm and Pietro of Abano - Tales from the German of Tieck • Ludwig Tieck
... because you never fulfil a single downright precept of the Book, that you are so careful for its credit: and just because you don't care to obey its whole words, that you are so particular about the letters of them. The Bible tells you to dress plainly,—and you are mad for finery; the Bible tells you to have pity on the poor,—and you crush them under your carriage-wheels; the Bible tells you to do judgment and justice,—and you do not know, nor care to know, so much as what ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... unfashionable; but she checked herself in the midst of this exordium, by recollecting that the intellects of her pupil were unequal to all investigation, but that her inclination, youth, and temper could be more easily wrought upon. She began to load her with finery, take her to the play, though she fell asleep in the second act, speak of her in her own hearing as a wit and a beauty, shake her head knowingly whenever her city connections were alluded to; and therefore it was no wonder that in a short time the child forgot the friends she had loved, grew ashamed ...
— The Barbadoes Girl - A Tale for Young People • Mrs. Hofland
... upon the bed, over whose face the blue billow of death was rolling rapidly, and whose eyes sought in his daughter's the promise of mercy from on high, was the mysterious parent who had never arrived—the Judge from Fauquier. In that old man's long waxed mustache, crimped hair, and threadbare finery the Congressman recognized Old Beau, the outcast gamester and mendicant, and the father of ...
— Tales of the Chesapeake • George Alfred Townsend
... and importance of the treasure she was about to guard, I cannot say. Flip darted an interrogatory look at Lance, who nodded a quiet assent, and she flew into the inner room. She did not linger on the details of her toilet, but reappeared almost the next moment in her new finery, buttoning the neck of her gown as she entered the room, and chastely stopping at the window to characteristically pull up her stocking. The peculiarity of her situation increased her usual shyness; she played with the black and gold beads of a handsome necklace—Lance's last gift—as the merest ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte
... passed over the usually serious mouth of Cambyses. His vanity was flattered by Nitetis' desire to win his approbation, and, accustomed as he was to see women grow up in idleness and ignorance, thinking of nothing but finery and intrigue, her persevering industry seemed to him both wonderful and praise worthy. So he answered with evident satisfaction: "I rejoice that we can speak without an interpreter. Persevere in learning the beautiful language of my forefathers. Croesus, who sits at my table, ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... slight breakfast I mounted the horse, which, decked out in his borrowed finery, really looked better by a large sum of money than on any former occasion. Making my way out of the yard of the inn, I was instantly in the principal street of the town, up and down which an immense number of horses were ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... of her small, dainty boot, peeping out from under the hem of the skirt, up to the beautiful coloring of her face and the purity of her low, white feminine brow Dick noted in turn. He had never seen Laura look so attractive, not even in her dainty ball finery of the night before. He had never felt so strongly drawn toward her as he did now. He longed to tell her so, and not lightly, either, but with ...
— Dick Prescott's Second Year at West Point - Finding the Glory of the Soldier's Life • H. Irving Hancock
... must be uncommonly prosperous. Probably tourists' visits are not few and far between: but anyhow, even the most unsuspicious bumpkin of a lover, would be inclined to ask a few questions about this finery. However, her performance was as fine as the dress, and she looked quite the ZELIE-ZERLINA, so fascinating to ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, May 16, 1891 • Various
... on festival days, parading about the streets, dressed in white muslin gowns trimmed with lace, and short sleeves displaying their black arms. Very short petticoats, seldom extending below the ankle, serve to exhibit the tawdry finery of red silk stockings and light blue satin shoes. From their ears are suspended long gold drops, and their uncovered necks are not unfrequently adorned with costly necklaces. A negress, who was a slave belonging to a family of my acquaintance, possessed a necklace composed of fine ...
— Travels in Peru, on the Coast, in the Sierra, Across the Cordilleras and the Andes, into the Primeval Forests • J. J. von Tschudi
... horse slipped and came down. The glass splintered as the painted and now screaming face was dashed through it. A wet crowd of roughs and pavement vagabonds gathered and made hoarse remarks on the woman's dress as she was hauled out in her finery, bleeding and half fainting, her silk gown a prey to the mud, her half-naked shoulders a hostage to the wind. Two men in opera-hats, walked towards their club, discussing a divorce case, and telling funny stories through the rain. A very small, pale, and filthy boy stood with bare feet ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens
... the well-marked road which runs out to the Mission from the town he encountered Costantin, the missionary's servant, driving a donkey burdened with two jars of water up towards the house. Costantin remarked upon his finery, and asked where he was going. He showed an amiable inclination to stop and talk. But Iskender hurried on, merely explaining that he was going to be a great painter in the land of the English. Costantin stood scratching his head ...
— The Valley of the Kings • Marmaduke Pickthall
... household arrangements. They have a splendid wardrobe for company, and a shabby and sordid one for domestic life. A woman puts all her income into party-dresses, and thinks anything will do to wear at home. All her old tumbled finery, her frayed, dirty silks and soiled ribbons, are made to do duty for her hours of intercourse with her dearest friends. Some seem to be really principled against wearing a handsome dress in every-day life; they ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various
... waddles out. Harlequin vanishes too. He is back in a moment to find Eglantine sunk in the chair facing the mirror to see—finery! And what else? ...
— The Harlequinade - An Excursion • Dion Clayton Calthrop and Granville Barker
... coffee was being served the three received a genuine surprise. Laura appeared. All her finery was laid off. She wore the simplest, the most veritably monastic, of her dresses, plain to the point of severity. Her hands were bare of rings. Not a single jewel, not even the most modest ornament relieved her sober appearance. She was very ...
— The Pit • Frank Norris
... the girl who walked with Foster past the engineers' quarters. It would be hard to find a more striking contrast than was presented by the two women as they sat facing each other: the one in the flush of health and beauty, calm, sweet, self-possessed; the other still retaining some of the shabby finery of old days, but pale and haggard, with black rings under her eyes, and ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 6 • Various
... out of the way in the young lady altogether," he said. "That little black dress, fitting her like a glove, and no ornament or finery of any description. It is not so with girls in general. ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant
... gladiator. But this was a new land, and Iberville could ever do what another of his name or rank could not. There was only one other man in Canada who could do the same—old Count Frontenac himself, who, dressed in all his Court finery, had danced a war-dance in ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... questions of taste, whether in manners, diet, clothing, or household decoration, we cannot afford to take the attitude of the Rev. Mr. Honeythunder, "Come up and be blessed, or I'll knock you down!" We may find a preference for cheap finery very exasperating, but our own example is far more likely to be followed in the long run if we do not insist upon it too much at first. Begin by teaching the homemaker to mend and keep the clothing in good order, and give her some of your ...
— Friendly Visiting among the Poor - A Handbook for Charity Workers • Mary Ellen Richmond
... likewise, "interviewed" prize-fighters, before they proceeded to take action in some "merry little mill;" Mormon prophets' wives, who had come east to purchase Parisian finery for the after delectation of Utah eyes, and the envy of other polygamous families not so favoured as they; Chinese missions, under the escort of a Burlinghame; condemned criminals, awaiting the fatal noose, and who wished to give their "last speech and confession" to ...
— She and I, Volume 2 - A Love Story. A Life History. • John Conroy Hutcheson
... He was accustomed to all sorts of weather and his finery could not be spoiled. He drew his bare legs up under him, threw the skin water bag over his head and shoulders ...
— Virgilia - or, Out of the Lion's Mouth • Felicia Buttz Clark
... So he went and got all the farm tenants who were there to help him. Some pulled at the head and the forelegs of the mare and others pushed from behind, and at last they got her up the stairs and into the room. There lay all the wedding finery ready. ...
— The Junior Classics, Volume 1 • Willam Patten
... Henri, he found no one; Marguerite, they said, was at the end of the famous avenue. When he had gone about two-thirds down it, he saw at the end, in an arbor covered with jasmine, clematis, and broom, a group covered with ribbons, feathers, velvets, and swords. Perhaps all this finery was slightly old-fashioned, but for Nerac it was brilliant, and even Chicot, coming straight from Paris, was satisfied with the coup ...
— The Forty-Five Guardsmen • Alexandre Dumas
... fantastic shapes; the flooring, consisting of three-inch planks, was upheaved in several places; the gangways leading to the sleeping-cabins at the sides were shot away; the handrails were gone, and the elegant carpet was concealed beneath a chaos of fragments of finery. The books on the shelves of the library remained unmoved; the piano was thrown on one side; and the floor presented huge upheaved and rent chasms, through which might be seen the still greater ruin in the lower cabin. Below the saloon, or drawing-room, is the saloon of the lower ...
— Man on the Ocean - A Book about Boats and Ships • R.M. Ballantyne
... insisted upon knowing how I came by the garments, and demanded whether I had worn any of them myself. This day I had for the first time indulged myself with wearing a pair of yellow slippers, the only finery I had reserved for myself out of all the tempting goods. Convinced by my wearing these slippers that I could have had no insidious designs, since I shared the danger, whatever it might be, the merchants were a little pacified; but what was my terror and remorse ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... taking note of the fellow's barbaric finery, the solemn stateliness of his air, and the superb indifference he manifested to the stare of passers-by, when a man approached the chair on the opposite side. The curtain of the front window was raised, and through it, Sergius observed the ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace
... apartment by a bevy of the fair Bruces, all solicitous to render her such assistance as they could, and all, perhaps, equally anxious to indulge their admiration, for the second or third time, over the slender store of finery, which Edith good-naturedly opened to their inspection. In this way the time fled amain until Mrs. Bruce, more considerate than her daughters, and somewhat scandalised by the loud commendations which they passed on sundry articles of dress such as were never before seen ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird
... it," she counselled her daughter, Minnie. "Don't you be a rube like your pa," she cautioned John, the older boy. And they profited by her advice. Minnie went to work at Commercial when she was seventeen, an over-developed girl with an inordinate love of cheap finery. At twenty she married an artisan, a surly fellow with anarchistic tendencies. They moved from town to town. He never stuck long at one job. John, the older boy, was as much his mother's son as Minnie was her mother's ...
— Half Portions • Edna Ferber
... Peyton's approving hand pushing back the worn straw hat from his childish forehead. A faint color rose to his cheeks; his eyes momentarily dropped. The highest art could have done no more! The slight aggressiveness of his youthful finery and picturesque good looks was condoned at once; his modesty conquered where self-assertion might have provoked opposition, and even Mrs. Peyton felt herself impelled to come forward with an outstretched hand scarcely less frank than her husband's. Then Clarence lifted ...
— Susy, A Story of the Plains • Bret Harte
... and rustling with finery and homelier than before her troubles, little though they disturbed her, marched into the shop and up to the end counter, where Hilda ...
— The Fortune Hunter • David Graham Phillips
... the time when I could first feel, I have been victimized for Adeline. I was beaten, and she was petted; I was dressed like a scullion, and she had clothes like a lady's; I dug in the garden and cleaned the vegetables, and she—she never lifted a finger for anything but to make up some finery!—She married the Baron, she came to shine at the Emperor's Court, while I stayed in our village till 1809, waiting for four years for a suitable match; they brought me away, to be sure, but only to make me a work-woman, and to offer me clerks or captains like coalheavers for a husband! I ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac
... poor hats!" said the Duchessa, eyeing ruefully those damaged pieces of finery. "I fear no gardener can ...
— The Cardinal's Snuff-Box • Henry Harland
... to embrace her knees. She had on no hat, no gloves, no ornaments, except the rings on her fingers, and a little jewelled watch in a leather bracelet on her wrist. There was, indeed, about her whole figure an air of almost professional escape from finery. ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... black coat, a pair of olive velvet breeches, and a small cocked hat. He had a few gray hairs plaited and clubbed behind, and his beard seemed to be of some eight-and-forty hours' growth. The only piece of finery which he bore about him was a bright pair of square silver shoe-buckles; and all his baggage was contained in a pair of saddle-bags, which he carried under his arm. His whole appearance was something out of the common run; and my wife, who is a very shrewd little body, at once set him down ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... all their barbaric finery. They wore beautiful headdresses of feathers, red and white and blue and yellow. Their faces were painted, but not so glaringly as those of the warriors. Even here in the wilderness woman's taste, to a certain extent, prevailed. They wore tunics of finely dressed deerskins, or, ...
— The Riflemen of the Ohio - A Story of the Early Days along "The Beautiful River" • Joseph A. Altsheler
... rare alertness and minuteness of his observation: not a fair young face could dash past us in its drapery of muslin, but the eye of the old gentleman drank in all its freshness and beauty with the keen appetite and the grateful admiration of a boy; not a dowager brushed past us bedizened with finery, but he fastened the apparition in my memory with some piquant remark,—as the pin of an entomologist fastens a gaudy fly. No rheumatic old hero-invalid, battered in long wars with the doctors,—no droll marplot ...
— Dream Life - A Fable Of The Seasons • Donald G. Mitchell
... said Edith, coldly and wearily. "I am going directly upstairs to divest myself of this mocking finery as soon as possible." ...
— The Masked Bridal • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... course, to differentiate the personal from the impersonal. Nothing clings so ill to the back as borrowed finery and I have yet to find the family which has settled itself fondly and comfortably in chairs which were a part of some one else's aesthetic plan. As a matter of fact many of our millionaires would be more at home in an atmosphere concocted from the ingredients of plain ...
— The Merry-Go-Round • Carl Van Vechten
... quite plainly between his shirt-waist buttons and through the gashes he called pockets. This was his ordinary costume, and the funds of the house of Mogilewsky were evidently unequal to an outer layer of finery. ...
— Little Citizens • Myra Kelly
... "My finery was not renewed; at first I had a plain suit and did my work under the footman, and two years ago, when the footman was sent away, rather than be under the orders of another, I volunteered to do the work, which I have done ever since, and ...
— Valerie • Frederick Marryat
... snobbish of me to long for finery so much that I'm even willing to live in another person's and show off in it," she ...
— The Second Generation • David Graham Phillips
... it costs to clothe one of these gaudy creatures I cannot say; but the silks and finery worn by them are known to every shopkeeper as expensive articles. As I have never been able to indulge in such, I have been content to admire them as they flirted by me in the street, or swept up the aisles of our church on Sunday. It is so natural for ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865 • Various
... was full of peril, especially on the road from York, which ran through dense woods, where Indians often waylaid the traveller. The bridegroom's father was present with the rest. It was a concourse of men in homespun, and women and girls in such improvised finery as their poor resources could supply; possibly, in default of better, some wore nightgowns, more or less disguised, over their daily dress, as happened on similar occasions half a century later among the frontiersmen of West Virginia.[51] After an evening of rough ...
— A Half Century of Conflict - Volume I - France and England in North America • Francis Parkman
... whose lips were red, whose nose was his most decided feature. His hat was new and shining, his black overcoat of superfine cloth was ornamented with a collar of undoubted sable; he carried a gold-mounted umbrella. But there was one thing on him that put all the rest of his finery in the shade. In the folds of his artistically-arranged black satin stock lay a pearl—such a pearl as few folk ever have the privilege of seeing. It was as big as a moderately sized hazel nut, and the three men who looked at it knew that it ...
— The Middle of Things • J. S. Fletcher
... and you may easily distinguish who has most lately made his Pretensions to Business, by the whitest and most ornamental Frame of his Window: If indeed the Chamber is a Ground-Room, and has Rails before it, the Finery is of Necessity more extended, and the Pomp of Business better maintaind. And what can be a greater Indication of the Dignity of Dress, than that burdensome Finery which is the regular Habit of our Judges, Nobles, and Bishops, with which upon certain Days we see them incumbered? ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... sometimes, and it makes them very tender to men not their equals. However, old Mrs. Lamar, before she died, gave her house-servants their free papers, and Nan was among them. So she set off, with all the finery little Floy could give her: went up into that great, dim North. She ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 54, April, 1862 • Various
... all this glittering finery? Is the devil United to an angel? When a snake Is met with in Arabia, it ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 1,Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous
... parents of her husband, who greet her with costly gifts. In her next excursion of this kind her husband (unless a king) accompanies her, and valuable presents are mutually bestowed. A large sum of money, with jewels and other finery, is deposited with the father and mother of the bride. This is denominated Zoon, and at the birth of her first child it is restored to the young mother by ...
— The English Governess At The Siamese Court • Anna Harriette Leonowens
... for, to believe my grandmother, she made other women look no more than the big French fashion-doll that used to be shown on Ascension days in the Piazza. She was one, at any rate, that needed no outlandish finery to beautify her; whatever dress she wore became her as feathers fit the bird; and her hair didn't get its color by bleaching on the housetop. It glittered of itself like the threads in an Easter chasuble, and her skin was ...
— Crucial Instances • Edith Wharton
... if time did not fail us, 'tis a large subject—or a very small one—so I will but say, don't have too much of it; have none for mere finery's sake, or to satisfy the claims of custom—these are flat truisms, are they not? But really it seems as if some people had never thought of them, for 'tis almost the universal custom to stuff up some rooms so that you can scarcely move in them, ...
— Hopes and Fears for Art • William Morris
... Life-Saving Station indicated that building with his thumb, and told his daughter of the white muslin dress to kindle a fire in the stove. She slid her future wedding finery into a large paper bag, and entered the saloon by the "Family Entrance," ardently followed by her ...
— The Spread Eagle and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... mine that you stole last week? You can't go to camp-meeting with that on your conscience. Come, now, better take off your finery and repent ...
— A Beautiful Possibility • Edith Ferguson Black
... bedroom under the roof was bright with the confusion of cheap finery scattered everywhere and swept aside at the sudden entrance of the death angel. A neighbor had done her best to push away the crude implements of complexion that were littering the cheap oak bureau top, and the doctor's ...
— The City of Fire • Grace Livingston Hill
... to death; but did ever any body think of abolishing haberdashery on this account? He was persuaded the Negroes in the West Indies were cheerful and happy. They were fond of ornaments; but it was not the characteristic of miserable persons to show a taste for finery. Such a taste, on the contrary, implied a cheerful and contented mind. He was sorry to differ from his friend Mr. Wilberforce, but ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the - Abolition of the African Slave-Trade, by the British Parliament (1839) • Thomas Clarkson
... to have combined to form an earthly Paradise, and where the surrounding mountain-scenery is unsurpassed on the earth's surface, we might look for enlarged notions of the power, the majesty, and wisdom of that God who created it all. But images, like dolls, tricked out in the tawdry finery, are the objects which this people adore, and to whom they attribute more miraculous powers than were ever ascribed to the gods of their heathen ancestors. Humboldt says, "This people have changed their ceremonies, but not ...
— Mexico and its Religion • Robert A. Wilson
... to the Temple church outside—is effectually kept up all the evening, and much loss of time and temper saved. Note how, in the hall, too, the crowd of dancers are kept, in their own interest, within bounds. Half a score of the little drummers of the Grenadiers are on duty there, in all the finery of scarlet, braid and overwhelming bearskins. These, as soon as the band strikes up a waltz or galop, raise slender barriers of silken cords at intervals across the hall, cutting up the whole big area into three or four moderate-sized ones, in ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 12, No. 32, November, 1873 • Various
... our mummers in very many a country village; but the sport is now confined to the village boys, who, either masked or with painted faces, ribbons, and other finery (I have known them tricked out with paper streamers, obtained from a neighbouring paper mill), act a play(!), and, of course, ask for money at its conclusion. By some, it is considered that this play originated in the commemoration ...
— A Righte Merrie Christmasse - The Story of Christ-Tide • John Ashton
... came wheezing up the hill again about the middle of the forenoon. He did not alight himself, but Ida May needed the presence of nobody to lend her assurance. She hopped out of the car with her bag and flaunted her cheap finery through the gate and in ...
— Sheila of Big Wreck Cove - A Story of Cape Cod • James A. Cooper
... my dear Mericourt! (To De la Brive) The ladies have kept you waiting, sir. Ah! They are putting on their finery. For myself, I was just on the point of dismissing—whom do you think?—an aspirant to the hand of Mlle. Julie. Poor young man! I was perhaps hard on him, and yet I felt for him. He worships my daughter; but what could I do? He has only ten ...
— Mercadet - A Comedy In Three Acts • Honore De Balzac
... false pearls. The native princes do these things; and why should not he? Why, Sir, simply because he is not a native prince, but an English Governor General. When the people of India see a Nabob or a Rajah in all his gaudy finery, they bow to him with a certain respect. They know that the splendour of his garb indicates superior rank and wealth. But if Sir Charles Metcalfe had so bedizened himself, they would have thought that he was out of his wits. They are not such fools as the ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... talking loudly and always with authority; was polished, however, and of good manners when she pleased. Being the most imperious woman in the world, the Cardinal was fairly tied to her apron-strings, and scarcely dared to breathe in her presence. In dress and finery she spent like a prodigal, played every night, and lost large sums, oftentimes staking her jewels and her various ornaments. She was a woman who loved herself alone, who wished for everything, and who refused herself nothing, ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... lying around, the little pots of powder and ointment, the strange medicaments for the hair, the mirrors, the row of little shoes, the bits of jewellery lying on fat pincushions, the skirts and wrappers and feminine finery hanging behind the door, these and fifty other things appealed to the softest spot in his susceptible nature. He took up the ewer, and poured water into the basin; but he was ashamed to place his dirty coat on a thing so clean as was ...
— The Tale of Timber Town • Alfred Grace
... ecstasy. The dark, shining floor was thronged with dancers, who, before primrose-color entirely withdrew from evening twilight, had rushed to their usual amusement. Half-breeds, quarter-breeds, sixteenth-breeds, Canadian French, Americans, in finery that the Northwest was able to command from marts of the world, crossed, joined hands, and whirled, the rhythmic tread of feet sounding like the beating of a great pulse. The doors of double timber stood open. From where he paused outside, Owen could see mighty hinges stretching across ...
— The Cobbler In The Devil's Kitchen - From "Mackinac And Lake Stories", 1899 • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... Niel Andreevich insistently. "I am going to woo you in earnest. I need a housekeeper, a modest woman, who is no coquette, and has no taste for finery, who never glances at another man, ...
— The Precipice • Ivan Goncharov
... the mean little street, past dark passages, leading into tenements; past knots of lounging men; little mothers with heavy babies struggling in their thin arms; rowdies with vacuous eyes; and girls flaunting cheap finery. ...
— Old Valentines - A Love Story • Munson Aldrich Havens
... the public place; but now, when a husband was to be won, privilege of all sorts was pleaded, in which discussion there was more noise than sound reason, and so many violent measures to secure the envied morceaux, that some destruction of finery took place where there was none to spare; and, at last, seniority was agreed upon to decide the question; so that when Nance had the first plunder of the chest which held all their clothes in common, and Biddy made the second grab, poor Kitty had little left but her ordinary rags to appear in. ...
— Handy Andy, Volume One - A Tale of Irish Life, in Two Volumes • Samuel Lover
... than myself. In addition to beautiful new bonnets and very gay shawls which we bought, she began to tease my mother for a silk dress, an article which had never been seen in our house. But as the latter prudently insisted on treating us with equal indulgence, and as I thought my time for such finery had not come, I was unwilling to go to that expense, so Jane was obliged to do without it. But I was now to ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 96, October 1865 • Various
... thee!" said Musa suddenly, just as, all arrayed in her finery, she was opening the ...
— The Lion's Share • E. Arnold Bennett
... we are ugly and dirty," he said; "but we should, perhaps, look pretty and elegant too, if we could put on finery to ride about in splendid carriages. But we have to work, and we have to suffer, that we may be able to pay our taxes. For if we did not do this, our king and his family would not be able to strut around in this ...
— Marie Antoinette And Her Son • Louise Muhlbach
... indispensable ceremony here in receiving a present of cloth: and Medua, wife to Oripai, the king's brother, took a great liking to the Captain's laced coat, which he immediately put on her with much gallantry; and that beautiful princess seemed much elated with her new finery. I cannot ommit a circumstance of this lady's attachment to dress. There was a custom which had prevailed for a long time, to present the god with all red feathers that could be procured; but thinking she would become ...
— Voyage of H.M.S. Pandora - Despatched to Arrest the Mutineers of the 'Bounty' in the - South Seas, 1790-1791 • Edward Edwards
... about the young man, which induces one to set him down at once as a junior clerk to a tradesman or attorney. The girl no one could possibly mistake. You may tell a young woman in the employment of a large dress- maker, at any time, by a certain neatness of cheap finery and humble following of fashion, which pervade her whole attire; but unfortunately there are other tokens not to be misunderstood—the pale face with its hectic bloom, the slight distortion of form which no artifice of dress can wholly conceal, the unhealthy ...
— Sunday Under Three Heads • Charles Dickens
... week, Mrs Mosk gave way. She did not approve of Bell's mention of evening service as amusement, but she did approve of her going to church, so when the young lady had exhibited herself to the invalid in all her finery, she went away in the greatest good-humour. As the evening was hot, she had put on a dress of pale blue muslin adorned with white ribbons, a straw hat with many flowers and feathers, and to finish off her costume, her gloves and shoes and sunshade ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume
... such a life," said John Gordon. "A woman should not wear a stuff gown always; but the silk finery and the stuff gown should follow each other. To my taste, the more there may be of the stuff gown and the less of the finery, the more it will be to ...
— An Old Man's Love • Anthony Trollope
... right now in the wind-up. I'm no better, I'm no worse, than the rest of our fellows, but I'm Irish—I can see. The Celt can always see, even if he can't act. And I see dark days coming for this old land. England is wallowing. It's all guzzle and feed and finery, and nobody cares a copper about ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... floor between the two men, a shapeless heap of finery. Rieseneck looked his brother in the face and answered the insult calmly. From the moment when he had recognised Clara, he had felt that he must see the whole horror of her fall with his own eyes in order to be avenged ...
— Greifenstein • F. Marion Crawford
... been thrown on shore on a raft. To this Amine owed the care and attention that was paid to her; that part of New Guinea being somewhat civilised by occasional intercourse with the Tidore people, who came there to exchange European finery and trash for the more useful ...
— The Phantom Ship • Frederick Marryat
... Miss Nanny Spruce, 'ever since I can remember, has been in dress and finery; for whenever I did as I was bid, I was promised fine coats, ribbons, and laced caps; and when I was stubborn and naughty, then my fine things were all to be locked up, and I was to wear only an old stuff coat; so that I thought ...
— The Governess - The Little Female Academy • Sarah Fielding
... seamsters to work, to manufacture garments of a proper cut for them, from materials which he had in a storehouse for trading with the neighboring chiefs; who, like all savages, were greatly given to finery. Thus, by the end of the week, the boys were able once more to make a show which would have passed muster in a ...
— Under Drake's Flag - A Tale of the Spanish Main • G. A. Henty
... exercises,[118] but 'tis over now; our brow is crowned with hair whiter than the swan. We must, however, rekindle a youthful ardour in these remnants of what was, and for myself, I prefer my old age to the curly hair and the finery of all ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al
... had stripped of their finery and arms, and enforced the most strict discipline upon them and all ...
— The Red True Story Book • Various
... have the New Romance. Here is no bygone ideal newly decked and dressed out, trimmed up with fresh finery. It is the men of our own time ...
— Maxim Gorki • Hans Ostwald
... day before the wedding, the prince left Nastasia in a state of great animation. Her wedding-dress and all sorts of finery had just arrived from town. Muishkin had not imagined that she would be so excited over it, but he praised everything, and his praise rendered her ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... midnight; but dim lights were burning in the big, deserted store, so she crept through the door of her window and walked down the long aisles, pausing now and then to look with much curiosity at the wealth of finery confronting ...
— American Fairy Tales • L. Frank Baum
... lot of derisive comment because the groom's mother provided him with a complete and elaborate trousseau from London, enormous trunks full of every sort of raiment imaginable. That part of it all was very nice; her mistake was in inviting a group of friends in to see the finery. The son was so mortified by this publicity that he appeared at the wedding in clothes conspicuously shabby, in order to counteract the "Mama's-darling-little-newly-wed" effect that the publicity of her generous ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
... daughter of one of his poor clients. Moreover he adopted views in regard to continence on the part of the husband similar to those which everywhere prevail in slave countries; a wife was throughout regarded by him as simply a necessary evil. His writings abound in invectives against the chattering, finery-loving, ungovernable fair sex; it was the opinion of the old lord that "all women are plaguy and proud," and that, "were men quit of women, our life might probably be less godless." On the other hand the rearing of children born in wedlock was a matter which touched his heart and his honour, ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... my lady. But after a few weeks, Mr. John Scott was frequent away from home for days together. But this didn't trouble Mrs. John Scott much. I soon saw as she wasn't that deep in love with him as she couldn't live without him. And so he kept her well supplied with finery and dainties, or with the money to get them, he might go off as often, and stay as long as he liked. She lived an idle, easy, merry life, and frequent went to the play-house, and took me. 'And all was merry ...
— The Lost Lady of Lone • E.D.E.N. Southworth
... pitiful-looking bridegroom to go with all that finery: I should not think you would ...
— The Rector of St. Mark's • Mary J. Holmes
... followed, but could not overtake her. She left behind one of her glass slippers, which the Prince took up most carefully. She got home, but quite out of breath, without her carriage, and in her old clothes, having nothing left her of all her finery but one of the little slippers, fellow to the one she had dropped. The guards at the palace gate were asked if they had not seen a princess go out, and they replied they had seen nobody go out but a young girl, ...
— The Tales of Mother Goose - As First Collected by Charles Perrault in 1696 • Charles Perrault
... without being able, for some minutes, to open his lips; then pulling me aside by the sleeve, and fixing his eyes on mine, accosted me thus: "Random, where the devil have you been! eh? What is the meaning of all this finery? Oho! I understand you. You are just arrived from the country! what, the roads are good, eh? Well, Random, you are a bold fellow, and a lucky fellow! but take care, the pitcher goes often to the well, but is broke at last." So saying, he pointed to his collar; by ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett
... of Scotland, but born at Carrickfergus." Now this is very good; but how should our Chinese philosopher find it out by instinct? Beau Tibbs, a prominent character in this little work, is the best comic sketch since the time of Addison; unrivalled in his finery, his vanity, and ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... was intended as an example for the latter, for I heard the lady superior say to them, 'You see, my dear children, the result of good behavior. Be diligent and dutiful, like our dear Marguerite, and God will reward you as He has rewarded her.' And, meantime, miserable in my finery, I waited—waited for M. de Chalusse, who was ...
— The Count's Millions - Volume 1 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... parish of Denmark it used to be the custom at Whitsuntide to dress up a little girl as the Whitsun-bride and a little boy as her groom. She was decked in all the finery of a grown-up bride, and wore a crown of the freshest flowers of spring on her head. Her groom was as gay as flowers, ribbons, and knots could make him. The other children adorned themselves as best they could with the yellow flowers of the trollius and caltha. Then ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... down the two young ladies. No lady could have been so difficult to please as to complain of him, and yet Mrs. Thompson thought that he was not as agreeable as usual. Those horrid boots and those horrid gloves gave him such an air of holiday finery that neither could he be at his ease wearing them, nor could she, in seeing ...
— The Chateau of Prince Polignac • Anthony Trollope
... once begun there was no preventing the whole detachment from imitating it; and those who came latest into the fashion, not finding men's clothes sufficient to equip themselves, were obliged to take up with women's gowns and petticoats, which (provided there was finery enough) they made no scruple of putting on and blending with their own greasy dress. So that, when a party of them thus ridiculously metamorphosed first appeared before Mr. Brett, he was extremely surprised at their appearance and could not immediately be satisfied ...
— Anson's Voyage Round the World - The Text Reduced • Richard Walter
... paper and tied with ribbon. She opened it carefully, with the deep gravity and circumstance of a priest before an altar. Appeared a little red-satin Spanish girdle, whale-boned like a tiny corset, pointed, the pioneer finery of a frontier woman who had crossed the plains. It was hand-made after the California-Spanish model of forgotten days. The very whalebone had been home-shaped of the raw material from the whaleships traded for in hides and tallow. The black lace trimming her mother had made. The triple edging ...
— The Valley of the Moon • Jack London
... return for her many kindnesses. Herself she would just make do with the simpler things she could buy in town. And so, without saying anything to Richard, who would probably have objected that Henry Ocock was well able to afford to pay for his own wife's finery, Mary tied up the box and drove to Plevna House, on the outer edge of ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... wolverene,[64] is here in the highest repute; insomuch, that a Kamtschadale looks upon himself as most richly attired, when a small quantity of this fur is seen upon him. The women adorn their hair with its pats, which are white, and considered as an extraordinary piece of finery; and they have a superstitious opinion, that the angels are clad with the skins of those animals. It is said, that this creature is easily tamed, and taught a number of ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 17 • Robert Kerr
... in pearl silk with a train half the length of the room, pearl silk, point lace, white-camelias, and Neapolitan corals and cameos, incrusted with diamonds—Trix, in all the finery six thousand dollars can buy, drew a long breath of ...
— A Terrible Secret • May Agnes Fleming |
