"Looking-glass" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... a looking-glass, A hair like golden wire; The smallest grain of mustard-seed As fierce as ...
— Songs of Childhood • Walter de la Mare
... seeking what she might devour, she found four small jam tarts and ate them, while the cook snored softly. Then, by the table, that looked so like a great loaf-platter, she stood contemplating cook. Old darling, with her fat, pale, crumply face! Hung to the dresser, opposite, was a little mahogany looking-glass tilted forward. Nedda could see herself almost down to her toes. 'I mean to be prettier than I am!' she thought, putting her hands on her waist. 'I wonder if I can pull them in a bit!' Sliding her fingers ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... after-dinner nap, the two girls presented themselves at the door of Martha's little sewing-room, where she sat with her sleeves rolled up, hemming pillow-cases. It was a sunny little room, with a pleasant smell of pennyroyal about it. There was a little mahogany table that might have done duty as a looking-glass, and indeed did reflect the wonderful bouquet of wax flowers that adorned it; a hair-cloth rocking-chair, and a comfortable wooden one with a delightful creak, without which Martha would not have felt at home. On the walls were some bright prints, and a framed temperance pledge (Martha ...
— Hildegarde's Holiday - a story for girls • Laura E. Richards
... bodies of ours. In reality, we have gone far indeed from pure physical life; for ages, our life has been psychical, we have been centred and immersed in the psychic nature. Some of the schools of India say that the psychic nature is, as it were, a looking-glass, wherein are mirrored the things seen by the physical eyes, and heard by the physical ears. But this is a magic mirror; the images remain, and take a certain life of their own. Thus within the psychic realm of our life there grows up an imaged world wherein we dwell; a world of the images of things ...
— The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali • Charles Johnston
... be something like a looking-glass up in the sky to catch the sunlight and reflect it down to us when we ...
— Melbourne House • Elizabeth Wetherell
... blue woolen Havre frock, with a new silk handkerchief round his neck, passed through one of the vertebral bones of a shark, highly polished and carved. His trowsers were of clear white duck, and he sported a handsome pair of pumps, and a tarpaulin hat bright as a looking-glass, with a long black ribbon streaming behind, and getting entangled every now and then in the rigging; and he had gold anchors in his ears, and a silver ring on one of his fingers, which was very much worn and bent from pulling ropes and other work on board ship. ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville
... heard, Stepan Trofimovitch could not contain himself, and suddenly shouted "Hurrah!" and even made some gesticulation indicative of delight. His ejaculation was not over-loud and quite polite, his delight was even perhaps premeditated, and his gesture purposely studied before the looking-glass half an hour before tea. But something must have been amiss with it, for the baron permitted himself a faint smile, though he, at once, with extraordinary courtesy, put in a phrase concerning the universal and befitting emotion of all Russian hearts in view of the great event. Shortly afterwards ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... or so - Neither mamma nor nurse need know!) From your nice nurseries you would pass, Like Alice through the Looking-Glass Or Gerda following Little Ray, To wondrous countries far away. Well, and just so this volume can Transport each little maid or man Presto from where they live away Where other children used to play. As from the house ...
— New Poems • Robert Louis Stevenson
... avocations were! Then she paid me some compliments on my appearance—a thing that I never thought of, except when I came to a question of likeness, or chanced to be thinking of things, coming up as they will, at a looking-glass. ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore
... made a present of a silver looking-glass to the jailor, was allowed to go into the room where Paul was; then she set down at his feet, and heard from him the great things ...
— The Forbidden Gospels and Epistles, Complete • Archbishop Wake
... at first blush, more gratifying to Simon than the original statement. Yet, when Eliza was gone, he went and looked in his bit of a looking-glass, half hoping to find some touch of the latent ruffian in his face. All he saw there was a kindly, unalarming countenance, with a full blond beard, and thick blond hair. The eyes had a look of bewilderment which did not lessen their habitual mildness. He straightened his tall ...
— Peak and Prairie - From a Colorado Sketch-book • Anna Fuller
... drunk two or three small glasses (for I had taken care not to have large ones), she poured the coffee into one of the two large cups. "This is yours," said she; "and this is your friends's; let them stand a little." She then observed our hands and our faces; after which she drew a looking-glass from her pocket, into which she told us to look, while she looked at the reflections of our faces. She next took a glass of wine, and immediately threw herself into a fit of enthusiasm, while she inspected my cup, and considered all the lines formed by the dregs of the coffee ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XV. and XVI., Volume 2 • Madame du Hausset, and of an Unknown English Girl and the Princess Lamballe
... sloppy with the drippings of the water-soaked pail. This bench held a tin basin and half a bar of rosin soap. Beside it was a single post sprouting hickory prongs, on which were hung as many cleanly scoured milk- pails glittering in the sun. On this post Hank had nailed a three-cornered piece of looking-glass—Hank had a sweetheart in the village below—a necessity and useful luxury, he told Oliver afterward, "in slickin' yerself ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith
... held sacred to the girls. Then he put on a clean collar (which was a daring and outrageous defiance of authority, which allowed but two a week), and prepared to face consequences. The family brush and comb were kept in a small bag which hung on a nail beside the scratched and defaced old family looking-glass, and Paul was artistically at work upon his hair when his mother entered the kitchen. The excellent woman sat down to laugh, and Armstrong came in with his customary vague air ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray
... Fruit Slugs Snowdrops Soups Spinach Spruce Fir Spur pruning Stews Stocks Strawberries Summer-savory Sweet Williams Thorn Hedges Thyme Tigridia Pavonia Transplanting Tree lifting Tulips Turnips Vegetable Cookery Venus's Looking-glass Verbenas Vines ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 43, Saturday, August 24, 1850 • Various
... stretched an ocean without limit. The dark sand of the desert spread further than eye could reach in every direction, and glittered like steel struck with bright light. It might have been a sea of looking-glass, or lakes melted together in a mirror. A fiery vapor carried up in surging waves made a perpetual whirlwind over the quivering land. The sky was lit with an Oriental splendor of insupportable purity, leaving ...
— A Passion in the Desert • Honore de Balzac
... the Red Cross station, Pant disappeared with his pole inside an old shed that flanked the Red Cross building. Johnny saw little more of him that day. Pant went out after lunch to return with a cheap looking-glass and a glass cutter. There was an amused grin lurking about his lips as Johnny stared at him, but he said nothing; only returned to his shed ...
— Panther Eye • Roy J. Snell
... poker. They invited and insisted on me changing in, so at last I sat down and took a hand. One of the old bucks soon began to cheat. He had an old hat in front of him, and inside of the hat he had a looking-glass, so that he could see on his deal every card he dealt out. I knew he was after me, so I told him to put the hat away and play fair. He saw that I was no "sucker," so he put it away. We played for ...
— Forty Years a Gambler on the Mississippi • George H. Devol
... all directions, and low caves which seemed to be dwellings, many of them richly ornamented and furnished. In one of these caves he observed a looking-glass, and wondered which of the dwarf men trimmed his beard before it. He met a great many little men scurrying about, who cast anxious glances at the giant who had strayed among them. Karl had frequently to stoop; the ceilings seemed very low ...
— Fairy Tales from the German Forests • Margaret Arndt
... board at the invitation of the strangers. Old Wakatta was one of these, and he had received a wonderful present from the white chief, which he had often exhibited to Eiulo, and which, from his description of it, appeared to be neither more nor less than a small looking-glass. The great canoe had, by throwing overboard a part of her cargo, got off from the reef at the rising of the tide, and resumed her voyage. It was pretty evident that the arrival of a European vessel at the islands, was an event of very rare occurrence, and in all probability ...
— The Island Home • Richard Archer
... flew close round our heads, screaming angrily, we abated not in attention to the water; and watched with straining eyes for the score of bubbles that usually precede the rising of a seal; and the water being brilliant and smooth as a looking-glass, they ...
— A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden - 2nd edition • W. A. Ross
... over the back. Then a chest of drawers with two of the brass handles off, and a tawdry, broken china inkstand placed on it by way of ornament for the top. Then the dressing-table, adorned by a very small looking-glass, and a very large pincushion. Then the window—an unusually large window. Then a dark old picture, which the feeble candle dimly showed me. It was the picture of a fellow in a high Spanish hat, crowned ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery - Riddle Stories • Various
... the bar before me. Mr. Lillie read her indictment, which was in substance, "That, whereas Mrs. Rebecca Pindust, of the parish of Saint Martin-in-the-Fields, had, by the use of one instrument called a looking-glass, and by the further use of certain attire, made either of cambric, muslin, or other linen wares, upon her head, attained to such an evil art and magical force in the motion of her eyes and turn of her countenance, that she the said ...
— Isaac Bickerstaff • Richard Steele
... The money on a plate. The doctor can see in the looking-glass that the patient takes twenty-five roubles from the plate ...
— Note-Book of Anton Chekhov • Anton Pavlovich Chekhov
... passionate bursts of rage under the supposed constraint of whispering them in the ear of him of her to whom they were addressed, thus keeping both voice and gesture in subjection to the real impulse of the feeling.... I was obliged also to have frequent recourse to the looking-glass, and had two or three large ones in my room to reflect each view of the posture I might have fallen into, besides being under the necessity of acting the passion close to a glass to restrain the tendency to exaggerate its expression—which was the most difficult of all—to repress the ready ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various
... any power, any force, that could tear thee from me. You might sooner tear a pension out of the hands of a courtier, a fee from a lawyer, a pretty woman from a looking-glass, or ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... around the looking-glass, unless in your private boudoir. If you wish to display them, keep them in a suitable basket or vase on the mantle ...
— How To Behave: A Pocket Manual Of Republican Etiquette, And Guide To Correct Personal Habits • Samuel R Wells
... to the looking-glass. Both eyes were blacked, his lip had been cut, and there was a purple weal well up on his left cheek. He stopped himself from grinning only just in time to save another ...
— The Yukon Trail - A Tale of the North • William MacLeod Raine
... ornaments of the house, for there was an Indian paper with birds and beasts and insects on it, on all the other sides. There were coats of arms, of the various families with whom the Hanburys had intermarried, all over these panels, and up and down the ceiling as well. There was very little looking-glass in the room, though one of the great drawing- rooms was called the "Mirror Room," because it was lined with glass, which my lady's great-grandfather had brought from Venice when he was ambassador there. There were china jars of all shapes and sizes round and about the room, and some china ...
— My Lady Ludlow • Elizabeth Gaskell
... before his eyes, carried him to the windows and cried "See there! see there!" with fresh tones of love and pity, without his seeming to be in the least edified by it all. She tossed him before the looking-glass; but he did not seem to be comforted by the glimpse of himself, done up in a blanket, which he caught; until, at last, after putting everything into every place in which it didn't belong, and trying to make him look at things he didn't care to see, she resolutely ...
— The Angel Children - or, Stories from Cloud-Land • Charlotte M. Higgins
... who was very fond of nice clothes, went for a swim on the pond. At first she paddled around, gazing down in the water, which was just like the looking-glass some men shave by, and she thought: "Oh, what a lovely bonnet I have! How fine I shall look when I go for ...
— Lulu, Alice and Jimmie Wibblewobble • Howard R. Garis
... place almost as complete as that from chrysalis to butterfly. The toilet of a lady of Yasmini's nice discrimination takes time in the easiest circumstances; in a lumbering coach, not built for leg-room, and with a looking-glass the size of a saucer, it was a mixture of horse-play and miracle. Between them they upset the perfume bottle, as was natural, and a shrill scream at one stage of the journey (that started a rumor all over Sialpore to the ...
— Guns of the Gods • Talbot Mundy
... fire blazes on the hearth; and at the moment grimalkin is purring on the rug. Master John, the adopted, is poring over a picture-book, probably an early edition of Peter Parley's Travels, and Mr. Hardesty is standing before a broken fragment of looking-glass, ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, January 1844 - Volume 23, Number 1 • Various
... a great deal and kissed the gentlewoman as soon as they got into the passage; and thence into Mrs. Bowls's front parlour, with the red moreen curtains, and the round looking-glass, with the chained eagle above, gazing upon the back of the ticket in the window ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Love. As for the women's vestry in the Interpreter's House, Matthew Henry saw the thirty-first chapter of the Proverbs hung up on that vestry wall, and Christiana making her morning toilet before it with Mercy beside her. Who would find a virtuous woman, let him look before that looking-glass for her, and he will be sure to find her and her daughters and her daughters-in- law putting ...
— Bunyan Characters - Third Series - The Holy War • Alexander Whyte
... the light of a farthing candle. The rest of the party said that he would not. He perhaps had conceived the plan before. Taking a wooden bowl, he lined it with putty, and into it embedded small pieces of looking-glass, by which means a perfect reflector was formed; he then placed his rushlight in front of it, and won his wager. Among the company was Mr William Hutchinson, dock-master of Liverpool, who seizing the idea, made use of copper lamps, and formed reflectors ...
— A Yacht Voyage Round England • W.H.G. Kingston
... Child who lived in a little hut, and in the hut there was nothing but a little bed and a looking-glass which hung in a dark corner. Now the Child cared nothing at all about the looking-glass; but as soon as the first sunbeam glided softly through the casement, and kissed his sweet eyelids, and the finch and the linnet waked him merrily with their morning songs, he arose, and went out into ...
— Peter Schlemihl etc. • Chamisso et. al.
... half-sheet of paper with some writing on it and put it on the mantelpiece and stare at that. Next he would turn it upside down and stare at it so, then sideways, then all ways, then he would hold it before a looking-glass and stare at the looking-glass, and so on. When asked how she knew all this, she confessed that her niece Jane had seen it through the ...
— Colonel Quaritch, V.C. - A Tale of Country Life • H. Rider Haggard
... wrote odes and sundry dramas, of which the "Muses' Looking-Glass" and "Amyntas" are the best, ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... and was sent home with a pint of good red Alicant wine in him, while the rest had a right merry evening. After which they all departed—Amyas and Cary to Ireland, Frank to the court again. And so the Brotherhood of the Rose was scattered, and Mistress Salterne was left alone with her looking-glass. ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume V. • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... everything, Ramsay examined a splendid clock on the mantelpiece, before a line glass, which mounted to the very top of the lofty room, when, accidentally casting his eyes to the looking-glass, he perceived in it that the door of the room, to which his back was turned, was open, and that a female was standing there, apparently surprised to find a stranger, and not exactly knowing whether to advance or retreat. Ramsay remained in the same position, as if ...
— Snarley-yow - or The Dog Fiend • Frederick Marryat
... these, I had a dim recollection of having secreted my clothes, in the disordered condition of my brain the night before. So I cast desultory glances about me for these articles on the way, having first set out on a search for a looking-glass. In one dark recess I came into forcible contact with a hanging-shelf of pies. I thought what a moment that would have been for Grandpa Keeler and the little Keelers! but I had been brought up on hygienic, as well as ...
— Cape Cod Folks • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... praise his valet's waiting at table, praise some fine old sporting prints upon the wall. He went so far, indeed, as to chuckle discreetly—immaculately faithful husband though he was—over certain photographs of ladies, more fair and kind than wise, which were stuck in the frame of the looking-glass over the chimneypiece. In return for which acts of good-fellowship Lord Shotover accompanied him as far as the steps of the mansion in Albert Gate. There he paused, remarking with ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... which borders the line of rooms. If you put the idea to profit, O overtoasted friends of Flemming, I shall not regret my forced inspection of Carlsruhe. I would distinguish less honorably that small oblique looking-glass inserted in the bevel of the window-jamb, and common to all the dwellings of Carlsruhe—a handy article, an entertaining distraction, a discreet but immoral spy, which places at your mercy all the mysteries of the public street. This contrivance, which enables you to see the world ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 12, No. 32, November, 1873 • Various
... Bessemer process of making steel cheaply, which has revolutionized the iron industry throughout the world. His method consists simply in forcing hot air from below into several tons of melted pig-iron, so as to produce intense combustion; and then adding enough spiegel-eisen (looking-glass iron), an ore rich in carbon, to change the whole mass to steel. He discovered this simple process only after trying in vain much more ...
— Architects of Fate - or, Steps to Success and Power • Orison Swett Marden
... or for looking-glass grimacing; Down my hair went as I hurried, tumbling half-way to my heels; God forbid your ever knowing, when there's blood around her flowing, How the lonely, helpless daughter of ...
— Poems of American Patriotism • Brander Matthews (Editor)
... men with heads close together over a small table in the center of the opposite stateroom. The tilted mirror transferred the view into their own looking-glass. The men appeared to be examining a map, or, at any rate, some paper, and their manner was ...
— The Moving Picture Boys on the War Front - Or, The Hunt for the Stolen Army Films • Victor Appleton
... knew her own face when she was led up to the looking-glass. The light rings of hair lay very prettily on the forehead, the "curly knot" showed the shape of the small head; it all looked easy and natural, and as if it was meant to be so. She smiled involuntarily. The girl in the glass ...
— A Little Country Girl • Susan Coolidge
... the king soon married another wife, who became queen, and was very beautiful, but so vain that she could not bear to think that anyone could be handsomer than she was. She had a fairy looking-glass, to which she used to go, and then she would gaze upon herself in it, ...
— Grimms' Fairy Tales • The Brothers Grimm
... worshippers break the stillness of the aisles. It was small enough for a nun's apartment, and dainty in its neatness as the waxen cell of a bee. The bed and low window were draped in spotless white, with fringes of Mary's own knotting. A small table under the looking-glass bore the library of a well-taught young woman of those times. "The Spectator," "Paradise Lost," Shakspeare, and "Robinson Crusoe" stood for the admitted secular literature, and beside them the Bible and the works then published of Mr. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858 • Various
... pressed close to her breast a shapeless and dirty rag baby, her most valued possession. A boy of twelve had saved a well-used pair of skates, for which he had traded the day before, while an old woman, blear-eyed and wrinkled, hobbled about, groaning, holding in one hand a looking-glass, an article the most unlikely of all, one would think, to be of ...
— Slow and Sure - The Story of Paul Hoffman the Young Street-Merchant • Horatio Alger
... gentleman. When he had uttered all those "ve-rys," one after another with still increasing emphasis, Rachel had no doubt believed them all. And she was taking great trouble with herself, practising every day for two hours together, with a looking-glass before her on the pianoforte, as Mr. Moss had made her quite understand that the opening of her mouth wide was the chief qualification necessary to her, beyond that which nature had done for her. Rachel did ...
— The Landleaguers • Anthony Trollope
... that looking-glass frames may be cleansed with a damp cloth, without injury, provided they are varnished with the pure white alcoholic varnish, used for transferred engravings and other delicate articles of fancy-work. This would save the trouble ...
— The American Frugal Housewife • Lydia M. Child
... ruffian love of the one, and the avarice of the other. The very sympathy which both received on account of their misfortunes whetted this passion to a continued keenness. There was no danger of its dying within the breast of either. The looking-glass alone would keep it alive in Vizcarra's bosom for the rest ...
— The White Chief - A Legend of Northern Mexico • Mayne Reid
... me at the mirror, here I deck me, But never does my sister Rachel leave Her looking-glass, and ...
— Dante's Purgatory • Dante
... a sly glance into the looking-glass, and saw a pearly tear trickling down her subject's fair cheek. So she went on, all sympathy outside, and remorselessness within. "To think of that face, more like an angel's than a man's, to be dragged through a nasty horse-pond. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 103, May, 1866 • Various
... past days I had often followed a ring over the table, across chairs, and nearly out at the window, but that was when I blew one by accident and was loath to let it go. Now I distributed them among my friends, who let them slip away into the looking-glass. I think I had almost forgotten what I was doing and where I was when an awful thing happened. My ...
— My Lady Nicotine - A Study in Smoke • J. M. Barrie
... string of beads, her finest kerchief and her stiffest damask petticoat, in preparation for the interview. Hurrying from her chamber to the parlor, she had ever since been viewing herself in the large looking-glass and practising pretty airs—now a smile, now a ceremonious dignity of aspect, and now a softer smile than the former, kissing her hand likewise, tossing her head and managing her fan, while within the mirror an unsubstantial little maid repeated every gesture and ...
— Short Stories of Various Types • Various
... had gone by the king took another wife, a beautiful woman, but proud and overbearing, and she could not bear to be surpassed in beauty by any one. She had a magic looking-glass, and she used to stand before it, and look ...
— Household Stories by the Brothers Grimm • Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm
... his window beat, And wishes to himself he were a lord, That he might lie a-bed.— He rubs his eyes, and stretches out his arms; Heigh ho! heigh ho! he drawls with gaping mouth, Then most unwillingly creeps out of bed, And without looking-glass puts on his clothes. With rueful face he blows the smother'd fire, And lights his candle at the red'ning coal; First sees that all be right amongst his cattle, Then hies him to the barn with heavy tread, Printing his footsteps on the new fall'n snow. From out the heap ...
— Poems, &c. (1790) • Joanna Baillie
... apartment is perfectly dazzling in its glittering splendor; the floor is of highly polished marble, the walls consist of mirror-work entirely, as also does the lofty, domed ceiling; not plain, large squares of looking-glass, but mirrored surfaces of all shapes and sizes, pitched at every conceivable angle, form niches, panels, and geometrical designs—yet each separate piece plays well its part in working out the harmonious and decidedly pretty effect ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... of more madrigals than would fill a big book. At the Louvre he has seen me the—what is that Mr. What's-his-name, your friend's old school-master, the Republican poet, calls it—'the cynosure of neighbouring eyes.' Don't think me vain, ma mie. I am an old woman now, and I hate my looking-glass ever since it has shown me my first wrinkle; but in those days I had almost as many admirers as Madame Henriette, or the Princess Palatine, or the fair-haired Duchess. I ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... of monuments. Their general shape and construction are peculiar to Scotland, being a perpendicular tablet of marble or other stone, within a framework of the same material, somewhat resembling the frame of a looking-glass; and, all over the churchyard, those sepulchral memorials rise to the height of ten, fifteen, or twenty feet, forming quite an imposing collection of monuments, but inscribed with names of small general significance. ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... the edge of the cot, tried to dress her head with the stolen gift of her brother Nicholas, Francois, kneeling, presented a fragment of looking-glass to his sister, who, with her head half-turned round, was occupied in tying the ends of the silk into a large rosette. Very attentive, and very much struck with this coiffure, Francois neglected for a moment to hold the glass in such a position that his sister could see. ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue
... already on; the hairdressing was almost done. Sonya was finishing dressing and so was the countess, but Natasha, who had bustled about helping them all, was behindhand. She was still sitting before a looking-glass with a dressing jacket thrown over her slender shoulders. Sonya stood ready dressed in the middle of the room and, pressing the head of a pin till it hurt her dainty finger, was fixing on a last ribbon that squeaked as the pin went ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... said Jim; "that fellow in the car yonder is bound to get to Dayton, and we are putting things through." Brakes lifted, bell rung, and off again. Amid the rush and pitch of the train there was no chance to prepare our toilet, and no looking-glass, and it was quite certain that we would have to step from the train immediately into the lecturing hall. We were unfit to be seen. We were sure our hair was parted in five or six different places, and that the cinders had ...
— Around The Tea-Table • T. De Witt Talmage
... do. You've got eyes and a looking-glass. Come now, be honest. You know you never saw a girl as pretty as yourself, and you never saw a man that ...
— The Bread-winners - A Social Study • John Hay
... think that people who can go to the theatre and enjoy "As in a Looking-Glass," and witness some of the satyrical or billy-goat traits of humanity so graphically exhibited in "La Tosca," with evident satisfaction; or attend the more robust plays of "Virginius" or of "Galba, the Gladiator," with all its suggestions of the Caesarian section, and the lust and the ...
— History of Circumcision from the Earliest Times to the Present - Moral and Physical Reasons for its Performance • Peter Charles Remondino
... let it be understood that he intended on such occasions to punish the last man off the lower deck. He was a tall, thin man—so tall that he found his height very inconvenient in a ten-gun brig, and he used to put his looking-glass on deck and his head through the cabin skylight when he wanted to shave in the morning. Billy Blazes, who was a quartermaster, was about as short and stout as the commander was tall and thin. One ...
— The Three Lieutenants • W.H.G. Kingston
... have followed him, perhaps, if Duvillard and Fonsegue had not at that moment come out of the former's room. Having finished their cigars they also spoke of going downstairs. And Eve had to rise and smile and show dry eyes, while Camille, standing before a looking-glass, arranged her hair, and stanched the little drop of blood that ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... seven. Shortly before this Widdowson entered the house and went to the sitting-room; Monica was not there. He found her in the bed-chamber, before the looking-glass. At the sight of his ...
— The Odd Women • George Gissing
... prints which the commercial traveller delights to sow broadcast over the unsuspecting country towns. Only the so-called salon boasted the luxury of a cottage piano, a polished table, a few cane chairs, and a looking-glass over the chimneypiece, on which lay a box of dominoes and a backgammon board, eloquently suggestive of mine host's ideas as to the most ...
— The Malady of the Century • Max Nordau
... persevered: sometimes with merely a shocked glance of disapproval, which she had practised before the looking-glass until she could do it perfectly; sometimes with some tender, tactful little hint. 'Don't you think, dear papa,' she would say softly, on a Sunday morning, 'don't you think you could write your newspaper article on some other day—is it a work of ...
— The Talking Horse - And Other Tales • F. Anstey
... that there should be a central particle, so accurately placed in the middle, as to be always equally attracted on all sides, and, thereby, continue without motion, seems to me a supposition fully as hard as to make the sharpest needle stand upright upon its point on a looking-glass. For, if the very mathematical centre of the central particle be not accurately in the very mathematical centre of the attractive power of the whole mass, the particle will not be attracted equally on all sides. And much harder ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 6 - Reviews, Political Tracts, and Lives of Eminent Persons • Samuel Johnson
... knives, rough silver bangles, heaps of elaborate mats, a handful of rather disappointing pearls, a scarlet head-dress with a feather that had been a famous chief's, a gun without a lock, and, what pleased him most (must have), a bit of looking-glass big enough to see half of his face in at a time. They allowed him to choose his own house-keeper; and, although several beauties were knocked down in the ensuing riot, he managed to satisfy them that his unalterable choice rested upon ...
— IT and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... he leaves the creative, poetic and more properly artistic aspect of his own function out of the question; if he is making himself a mere transcriber, holding the mirror up to nature with such entire forgetfulness of self as to be rather looking-glass than man, this is what he must do. But the moment he approaches nature in this spirit he ceases to be an artist, and the better he succeeds as painter of something that might pass for a coloured photograph, the more inevitably must he fail to satisfy, or indeed to appeal ...
— The Note-Books of Samuel Butler • Samuel Butler
... morning of Christmas Eve. At about nine o'clock a boy came into his room who was accustomed to call for orders for the day. "Jem," he said to the boy, "there's half a crown lying there on the looking-glass." Jem looked and acknowledged the presence of the half-crown. "Is it a head or a tail, Jem?" asked the boy's master. Jem scrutinized the coin, and declared that the uppermost surface showed a tail. "Then take that letter and post it," said George Vavasor. Whereupon ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... the sense of touch, and find its surface to be circular; that is, having some parts gradually receding further from the eye than others. So when a child, or a cat, or a bird, first sees its own image in a looking-glass, it believes that another animal exists before it, and detects this fallacy by going behind the glass to examine, if another tangible ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. II - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin
... taking an interest in human affairs again, and so he let me put my pants and jacket on. I got a butcher to shave me, and when ten o clock came I looked quite presentable for a skeleton. I was sitting up in bed, with a little round zinc frame looking-glass, noting the changes in my personal appearance, when a door opened and Jim entered, dressed up in his best, with the rebel angel on his arm, and followed by six boys from the regiment. They came in as solemn as any party I ever saw. The angel ...
— How Private George W. Peck Put Down The Rebellion - or, The Funny Experiences of a Raw Recruit - 1887 • George W. Peck
... and significance imparted to them. The swing, the see-saw, the tension of the giant-stride ropes, the fall and rebound of the football, the advantage of a small boy over a large one when turning short, particularly in slippy weather; all became subjects of investigation. A lady stands before a looking-glass, of her own height; it was required to know how much of the glass was really useful to her? We learned with pleasure the economic fact that she might dispense with the lower half and see her whole ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... wretch who ever woke to see the sun shining upon the day of his execution could have been more profoundly wretched than the bailiff's daughter, as she dressed herself mechanically in her one smart silk gown, and stood in a kind of waking trance before the quaint old-fashioned looking-glass which reflected her pale hopeless face. She had no girlish companion to assist in that dismal toilet. Long ago there had been promises exchanged between Ellen Carley and her chosen friend, the daughter of ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon
... watched as the man's fastidiously pressed trousers and polished shoes cleared the closing door. Nell immediately went to the looking-glass—a cracked little mirror that hung by the mantelpiece—and studied the reflection of herself with newly awakened interest. She had never seemed so radiant—her smooth hair, her lineless face, her large gray eyes and perfect throat. "I ain't so bad ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various
... us to visit the palace, which glares with looking-glass, gilding, and cut velvet, most sumptuously fringed and spangled. The chapel, though small, is richer than anything Croesus ever possessed, let them say what they will. Not a corner but shines with gold, diamonds, and scraps ...
— Dreams, Waking Thoughts, and Incidents • William Beckford
... Apollo with his beams Doth dry my hair from soaking streams, His light doth glaze the water's face, And make the sea my looking-glass. ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde
... him now. "She will obey her mother," he thought. "She will marry Panshine. But even if she refuses him—will it not be just the same as far as I am concerned?" Passing at that moment in front of a looking-glass, he just glanced at his face in it, and then ...
— Liza - "A nest of nobles" • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
... the Queen eight black English horses, very handsome, large, brave, and useful horses for the coach, and now in good case; four saddle-horses he had formerly presented to her, all of them were in this place worth to be sold L1000. The looking-glass which he gave the Queen when she was his Valentine was worth L100, besides an English Bible richly bound, English stuffs, a cabinet of spirits, and other smaller presents. The Queen's officers gave no reward to Whitelocke's ...
— A Journal of the Swedish Embassy in the Years 1653 and 1654, Vol II. • Bulstrode Whitelocke
... had their places at the corners of the dais supporting the throne, while above it a gigantic plume of Prince of Wales's feathers reared itself in spun glass. The chambers and corridors of the Mansion House were fitted up with "acres of looking-glass, statuary, flowers, &c., &c.," provided for the crowd of guests that could not obtain admittance to the hall, where little room was left for dancing. The supper, to which the Queen was conducted, was in the crypt. It was made to resemble a baronial hall, ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen, (Victoria) Vol II • Sarah Tytler
... Fairchild, "you need not measure there," as the cabinet-maker was taking the dimensions of her rooms. "I shall have a looking-glass there." ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 1 July 1848 • Various
... good boards all around, and a good window"—of two whole squares originally, only the cat had passed out that way lately. There was a stove, a bed, and a place to sit, an infant in the house where it was born, a silk parasol, gilt-framed looking-glass, and a patent new coffee-mill nailed to an oak sapling, all told. The bargain was soon concluded, for James had in the meanwhile returned. I to pay four dollars and twenty-five cents tonight, he to vacate at five tomorrow morning, selling to nobody else meanwhile: I to take ...
— Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience • Henry David Thoreau
... the press open and ransacked. A lamp still burned before the "kivott"[56] equally empty; but a small looking-glass hanging between the door and window had not been taken away. What had become of the inmate of this simple maiden's cell? A terrible apprehension crossed my mind. I thought of Marya in the hands of the robbers. My heart failed me; I burst into tears ...
— The Daughter of the Commandant • Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin
... intense astonishment at what she had done, at the irrevocable step she had taken. Her quiet life had been interrupted by an event which to her appeared more stupendous than if a mountain had been moved. Standing by the mantle-piece, she looked at her pale face in the little looking-glass, and ...
— The Clique of Gold • Emile Gaboriau
... he said at length, pocketing the little looking-glass, "that a woman might love me still. What do ...
— A Roman Singer • F. Marion Crawford
... to my sister, Jane Thomas, the large looking-glass that is hanging up in the east bed-room of my house, and which was once the property of our ...
— The Sea Lions - The Lost Sealers • James Fenimore Cooper
... should have lost nothing of the fulness of tone or the power and energy of execution. It worried him that the notes no longer flowed so clearly; it vexed him to hear a sharp, whistling sound, that seemed to accompany the melody as with a painful sigh. He threw the flute aside, and stepped to a looking-glass, which he took ...
— The Merchant of Berlin - An Historical Novel • L. Muhlbach
... or Hospitality revived; being a Looking-glass for Rich Misers, wherein they may see (if they be not blind) how much they are to blame for their penurious house-keeping, and likewise an encouragement to those noble-minded gentry, who lay out a great part of their ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson
... inviting Ridley to come with them, which he emphatically refused to do, exclaiming that Rachel he expected to be a fool, but Helen surely knew better, they turned to go. He stood over the fire gazing into the depths of the looking-glass, and compressing his face into the likeness of a commander surveying a field of battle, or a martyr watching the flames lick his toes, rather than that ...
— The Voyage Out • Virginia Woolf
... on the morning after Charles's departure,—having made a vow to hear it daily,—Eugenie bought a map of the world, which she nailed up beside her looking-glass, that she might follow her cousin on his westward way, that she might put herself, were it ever so little, day by day into the ship that bore him, and see him and ask him a thousand questions,—"Art thou well? Dost thou suffer? Dost thou think of me when the star, whose beauty and usefulness ...
— Eugenie Grandet • Honore de Balzac
... inarticulate and stammering pronunciation he overcame and rendered more distinct by speaking with pebbles in his mouth; his voice he disciplined by declaiming and reciting speeches or verses when he was out of breath, while running or going up steep places; and that in his house he had a large looking-glass, before which he would stand and go through his exercises. It is told that some one once came to request his assistance as a pleader, and related how he had been assaulted and beaten. "I am sure," said Demosthenes, "nothing of the kind can ...
— The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch - Being Parts of The "Lives" of Plutarch • Plutarch
... drapery. The sitting-room is famous. Dinner is already laid in it for three; and the napkins are folded in cocked-hat fashion. The floors are of red tile. There are no carpets, and not much furniture to speak of; but there is abundance of looking-glass, and there are large vases under glass shades, filled with artificial flowers; and there are plenty of clocks. The whole party are in motion. The brave Courier, in particular, is everywhere: looking after the beds, having wine poured down his throat by his ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens
... up his jacket, ran to the washing-place, plunged his head and hands in water and hastily dried them, smoothed down his hair with his pocket-comb at a piece of looking-glass that had been stuck up against the wall above the basins, and adjusting his cap to the correct angle made his way to Major Horsley's quarters, wondering much what he could be wanted for, but supposing that he was to be sent on some message ...
— The Dash for Khartoum - A Tale of Nile Expedition • George Alfred Henty
... young men have only to use the looking-glass to see the portrait of one guilty of this loathsome sin. The effects are plainly discernible in the boy's appearance. The face and hands become pale and bloodless. The eye is destitute of its natural ...
— Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners • B.G. Jefferis
... priest was quoting from, and which suffered martyrdom in the brazier," Dick added, with a smile, "I had a thought of wearing the black coat (but was ashamed of my life you see, and took to this sorry red one)—I have often thought of Joe Addison—Doctor Cudworth says, 'A good conscience is the best looking-glass of Heaven'—and there's a serenity in my friend's face which always reflects it—I wish you ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... should wait till he came back. But 'tis true, Mrs Avery, a May babe never liveth, no more than a May chick thriveth; nor is a May kit ever a mouser. 'Tis the unluckiest month in all the year. I never brake in all my life a steel glass [looking-glass] saving once, and that was in May; and sure enough, afore the same day next May died one ...
— Robin Tremain - A Story of the Marian Persecution • Emily Sarah Holt
... people here, who are grown up, but what have lost their teeth, and have stinking breaths. Near to this is the little city Seplasium, which admits of no tradesmen but perfumers. It is a town of great commerce with the people of Viraginia, especially the Locanians, who use to change their looking-glass with them for oils and pastils. The agreeableness of the place, and the bounty of the heavens, is favourable to their art; for the whole track of land, at certain seasons, is covered with aromatic comfits, that fall like hail-stones: ...
— Ideal Commonwealths • Various
... watching or looking for the enemy; a policemen does not catch pickpockets by standing about in uniform watching for them; he dresses like one of the crowd, and as often as not gazes into a shop window and sees all that goes on behind him reflected as if in a looking-glass. ...
— Scouting For Girls, Official Handbook of the Girl Scouts • Girl Scouts
... mother—nobody to talk to—so she had long ago made a confidante of her own reflection in the looking-glass. And to the mirror she now went, meeting the reflected eyes shyly, yet smiling ...
— A Young Man in a Hurry - and Other Short Stories • Robert W. Chambers
... by fools is occupied, And whom the sight of a fool displeases, Within his chamber himself should hide, And break his looking-glass ...
— The Expedition to Birting's Land - and other ballads - - - Translator: George Borrow • Thomas J. Wise
... unavoidable encumbrance attached to the property, which divers thrifty-minded gentlemen were willing to put up with. To put up with!—at the thought, her pride rose in a hot blush, and, it must be confessed, she sought consolation in the looking-glass. ...
— The Eagle's Shadow • James Branch Cabell
... "It's all right," Baird assured him. "It's a camera trick, see? It may look now as if you were shooting into the mirror but it comes perfectly right on the film. You'll see. Go on, aim carefully, right smack at that looking-glass—fire!" Still somewhat doubting, Merton fired. The mirror was shattered, but a dozen feet back of him the treacherous Mexican threw up his arms and fell lifeless, a bullet through his cowardly heart. It was a puzzling bit of trick-work, he thought, but Baird of course would know what ...
— Merton of the Movies • Harry Leon Wilson
... curiously shaped boxes, and coloured Venetian glasses, and filagree pouncet-boxes, and with a small mirror whose frame was inlaid with gold and ivory. A large coffer, likewise inlaid, stood against the wall, and near it a cabinet, of Dutch workmanship, a combination of ebony, ivory, wood, and looking-glass, the centre retreating, and so arranged that by the help of most ingenious attention to perspective and reflection, it appeared like the entrance to a magnificent miniature cinque-cento palace, with steps ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... room with a table in the window, and on it a fan and two or three pairs of tiny white kid-gloves; she took up the fan and a pair of the gloves and was just going to leave the room, when her eyes fell upon a little bottle that stood near the looking-glass. She uncorked it and put it to her lips, saying to herself, "I do hope it'll make me grow large again, for, really, I'm quite tired of being such a tiny ...
— Alice in Wonderland • Lewis Carroll
... very fond of water, both for bathing and drinking, and seldom nests far from it. Whether he uses the quiet ponds and smooth streams also for a looking-glass to comb his hair and arrange his gay coat by, we cannot be sure, but he always looks as trig as if ...
— Citizen Bird • Mabel Osgood Wright and Elliott Coues
... had somewhat subsided, when Stitz, the tailor, entered with the so-much and the so-long-expected garments. The stranger was forgotten; the door was bolted, the clothes tried on, and they fitted to a miracle. A small three-cornered piece of looking-glass was held in every direction by the delighted tailor, who declared this performance his chef-d'oeuvre and Hans felt, for the first time in his life, that he looked like a gentleman. Without a moment's hesitation, or the slightest hint at discount for ready money, he gave the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, October 16, 1841 • Various
... are! Oh, how funny you look!" chattered the Monkey on a Stick in a whisper to the Cotton Doll, as they were both shut up together in the teacher's desk. "You don't know how funny you look! If I only had a looking-glass ...
— The Story of a Monkey on a Stick • Laura Lee Hope
... me were, first, the colossal width of the river. As we gazed across the translucent surface, reflecting as in a looking-glass the fringe of trees along the edge, the first impression was that your eyes actually perceived the opposite bank; but we were undeceived by one of the residents, who observed that was only an island, and that there were several such between us and ...
— South African Memories - Social, Warlike & Sporting From Diaries Written At The Time • Lady Sarah Wilson
... your final answer?' asked he, rising, fingering his lace, and viewing himself in a looking-glass upon the wall. ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... of mounted gendarmerie and infantry took their station upon the place before the prison, where a great concourse of people had already assembled. An open car was at the door. Before he went out Peytel asked the gaoler for a looking-glass; and having examined his face for a moment, said, 'At least, the inhabitants of Bourg will see that I have ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... scent. The physicians pronounced the disease mortal, and that the patient could not be removed into the air without immediate danger. Awhile after, being in his bed-chamber undressed, and no one present but Manoury, Sir Walter held a looking-glass in his hand to admire his spotted face,[72] and observed in merriment to his new confidant, "how they should one day laugh for having thus cozened the king, council, physicians, Spaniards, and all." The excuse Rawleigh ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... "And here's a great looking-glass," continued the woodman, setting one up against the outside of the cottage, for it would not ...
— Junior Classics, V6 • Various
... Clarendon taking as much of a glance at himself in the little wooden-framed looking-glass, opposite the breakfast-table, as the size of it would allow, when he heard this ...
— Hurrah for New England! - The Virginia Boy's Vacation • Louisa C. Tuthill
... flesh-colored flowers ten and twelve feet high. A pretty and curious little weed, sometimes found growing in the edge of the garden, is the clasping specularia, a relative of the harebell and of the European Venus's looking-glass. Its leaves are shell-shaped, and clasp the stalk so as to form little shallow cups. In the bottom of each cup three buds appear that never expand into flowers; but when the top of the stalk is reached, one and sometimes two buds open a large, delicate purple-blue corolla. All the first-born ...
— A Year in the Fields • John Burroughs
... to the looking-glass above the mantel-piece. As she stood there, lifting her long arm to fasten a puff that had slipped from its place in her intricate hair, Archer was struck by something languid and inelastic in her attitude, and wondered ...
— The Age of Innocence • Edith Wharton
... drawn by Andr['e] without the aid of a looking-glass on the morning of the day fixed for his execution. A respite of twenty-four hours was, however, given. To Maj. Tomlinson, then acting as officer of the guard, ...
— The Greatest Highway in the World • Anonymous
... cheery as a fresh apple-blossom, and began busily plying her knife, looking at the garment she was ripping with an astute air, as if she were about to circumvent it into being a new dress by some surprising act of legerdemain. Mrs. Scudder walked to the looking-glass and began changing her bonnet ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 23, September, 1859 • Various
... this process of self-examination in her looking-glass, which was not limited to a single occasion, established more firmly than ever in Selma's opinion the malignant falsity of the imputation, and yet she was still haunted by it. She was tortured by the secret thought that, though her ambition had ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant
... felt awkwardly, as if all the company had come in and found him standing before the looking-glass. "The Lord made it," he said. "I don't think it is for man to make it ...
— The Europeans • Henry James
... pocket at little ruby ring which he had carried often in his pocket to the attorney's house, thinking that perhaps then might come the happy hour in which he could get her to accept it. But the hour had never come as yet, and the ring had remained in the little drawer beneath his looking-glass. It need hardly be said that she now accepted ...
— The American Senator • Anthony Trollope
... out of jealousy to add his name to the subscription list for Wilson's "American Ornithology." Robert Buchanan wrote, "If Audubon had one marked fault it was vanity; he was a queer compound of Actaeon and Narcissus—having a gun in one hand and flourishing a looking-glass in the other." Grosart is much too severe when he styles Audubon "a great ...
— The Philadelphia Magazines and their Contributors 1741-1850 • Albert Smyth
... abjuring Charles Stuart, were they all without taint of the Single Person heresy in other forms. Some of them, including Whitlocke and Berry, would have liked to restore Richard; and Fleetwood and Lambert were not wrongly suspected of seeing the most desirable Single Person every morning in the looking-glass. Milton's former regard for Fleetwood must have suffered considerably by recent events; and he thought of Lambert as the very "Achan" to be dreaded. But, farther, even had the two aristocracies been of perfectly satisfactory ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... also, of making up faces, when he was trying to speak hard words; and, in order to cure himself of this, he used to practice speaking before a looking-glass, that he might see himself, and try to correct ...
— Parker's Second Reader • Richard G. Parker
... cheap? and some chenille portieres for two and a half. Now what have YOU been doing since I last saw you? Did Mr. Heise finally get up enough courage to have his tooth pulled yet?" Trina took off her hat and veil and rearranged her hair before the looking-glass. ...
— McTeague • Frank Norris
... "bright," and the highest mark of approval is found in that rather aggressive word. Tin pans, scoured to that point of polish which meets the New England necessity for thoroughness, are "bright," and the near observer blinks as he suddenly comes upon them in the sun. A bit of looking-glass handled judiciously by the small boy, has the same quality, and is warranted to disconcert the most placid temperament; and so the New England woman is apt to have jagged edges and a sense of too much light for the situation. "Sweetness and light" is the desirable combination, and may come ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell
... tolerably successful in hiding their trace. Never, when dressing for court or gala, had she consulted her mirror so closely; and now, though the tears were dried, she was shocked at the lines of anguish—those delvers of the wrinkles of age—which marked her countenance. She sat before her looking-glass, one hand supporting her head, the other clutching the hidden letters which she had not yet the courage to open. There was a light ...
— The Wedding Guest • T.S. Arthur |
