"Motley" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the cellar walls, is a motley throng, curious, eager, expectant; among the faces peering down may be seen that of the portly gentleman; his diamond pin glistening as he turns this way and that; his great coat blown back by the gusts of wind, and a natty umbrella clutched firmly in his plump, gloved hand. Not far distant is ...
— The Diamond Coterie • Lawrence L. Lynch
... is there for the Volucella to disguise herself as a wasp? Any fly, whether clad in drab or motley, is admitted to the burrow directly she makes herself useful to the community. The mimicry of the bumblebee fly, which was said to be one of the most conclusive cases, is, after all, a mere childish ...
— The Life of the Fly - With Which are Interspersed Some Chapters of Autobiography • J. Henri Fabre
... motto and superscription on their portals—"This is the gate of the Lord, into which THE RIGHTEOUS ONE shall enter!" Jesus refused and disowned none of these gratulations—He spurned no voice in all that motley Jerusalem throng. There were endless diversities and phases, doubtless, of human character and history there. The once proud formalist, the once greedy extortioner, the hated tax-gatherer, the rich nobleman, the child of penury, ...
— Memories of Bethany • John Ross Macduff
... good man prayed for all the world And all its motley crew, For pagan, Hindoo, sinners, Turk, And unbelieving Jew,— Though the congregation doubtless thought That the cowboys as a race Were a kind of moral outlaw With no ...
— Cowboy Songs - and Other Frontier Ballads • Various
... names. Still, it is a privilege to have known such men as John Lawrence, Guizot, Thiers, Landseer, Merimee, Comte de Flahault, Doyle, Lords Elgin and Dalhousie, Duc de Broglie, Pelissier, Panizzi, Motley, Delane, Dufferin; and of gifted women, the three Sheridans, Lady Seymour - the Queen of Beauty, afterwards Duchess of Somerset - Mrs. Norton, and Lady Dufferin. Amongst those who have a retrospective interest were Mr. ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke
... of being recognised; whereas concealment at private masquerades can seldom be preserved to the last. It is most usual for ladies who visit the theatres to see the masked balls only to remain in a box with their party, and from thence to view the motley group; there are however some females even of rank who cannot resist the charm of going entirely incognito, to puzzle and perplex different persons whom they know will be there, only confiding to one or two dearest ...
— How to Enjoy Paris in 1842 • F. Herve
... Medina-Sidonia, Duke of Mediterranean, command of the Mends, Dr. Stilon —— Admiral Sir W. Merchant Service, foreign seamen in our; historical relations of the navy with the; its exemption from impressment (see alsounder Commerce) Minorca Mischenko, General Mortality from disease in war Motley, ...
— Sea-Power and Other Studies • Admiral Sir Cyprian Bridge
... escape from this confinement, and are then frizzed and curled, like a mop or a poodle's coat. Leonard Harper and I returned in this boat, Tahitian steering, Samoan, Futuman, and Anaiteans making one motley crew. The brisk trade soon carried us to the beach in front of Mr. Inglis's house, and arrived at the reef I rode out pick-a-back on the Samoan, Leonard following on a half-naked Anaitean. We soon found ourselves in the midst of a number of men, women and children, ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... an easy victory that evening. She had furnished for the occasion her keenest wit, her sweetest laughter, her finest derision, her most sparkling sarcasm; and as she and her escort joined the motley throng who were patiently making their way into the packed doorway she whetted ...
— The Witness • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... smote at him with swords, or made feints at his eyes with spears, or burned sulphur under his nose, or displayed before him scrolls of poetry or learning, or shrieked blasphemies in his ears, or surveyed him from a little distance with glances of leering affection; while a motley crowd of goblins, wearing the heads of boars or lions, or whisking the tails of dragons, winged, or hoofed, or scaled, or feathered, or all at once, incessantly jostled and wrangled with each other and their betters, mopping and ...
— The Twilight of the Gods, and Other Tales • Richard Garnett
... year round; for she couldn't afford to sit idle through the long summer months—well, I should say not!—with eight small brothers and sisters at home, and a rather incompetent father, and sixteen dollars a month rent! The experiences of a score of shops, and the motley crew of people she had worked with in these busy years, Bessie in her careless, simple narrative had the power to invest with ...
— The Long Day - The Story of a New York Working Girl As Told by Herself • Dorothy Richardson
... the train stops, out get all the passengers, and a very motley assemblage they form as they pace up and down on the platform. Uniforms of all sorts predominate, from the modern-coated, richly-laced officer of the Emperor's guard, to the sombre-dressed rank and file of the line. There were Circassians and Georgians, and Cossacks ...
— Fred Markham in Russia - The Boy Travellers in the Land of the Czar • W. H. G. Kingston
... bearing himself proudly, riding at their heels; a negro following on, also mounted, with a huge bundle in his arms before him, and a shivering, yellow-haired lad of about my own age on a pillion behind him; clustering about these, a motley score of poor people, young and old, some bearing household goods, and all frightened out of their five senses—this is what ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic
... "Homer, Plutarch, Herodotus, and Plato; Virgil, Livy, and Tacitus; Dante, Tasso, and Petrarch; Cervantes; Thomas a Kempis; Goethe and Schiller; Chaucer, Spenser, Shakespeare, Milton, Bacon, Sir Thomas Browne, Bunyan, Addison, Gray, Scott, and Wordsworth; Hawthorne, Emerson, Motley, Longfellow, Bryant, Lowell, Holmes, and Whittier. He who reads these, and such as these, is not in serious danger of spending his time amiss. But not even such a list as this is to be received as a necessity by every reader. One may find Cowper more profitable than Wordsworth; to another the reading ...
— Hold Up Your Heads, Girls! • Annie H. Ryder
... was beginning for the next dance, and people passed in couples, laughing and talking gaily, a motley procession, on ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore
... craven cur, that licks the hand that lashed him!—a poor court fool that thinks it joy enough to carry his bauble, and marvel at his motley coat and his silvered buttons! That he should be my ...
— The White Lady of Hazelwood - A Tale of the Fourteenth Century • Emily Sarah Holt
... Mary out of her sense of bereavement. Subsequent letters still occasionally admit 'low spirits'. But the entries in the Journal make it clear that the year 1819-20 was one of the most pleasantly industrious of her life. Not Dante only, but a motley series of books, great and small, ancient and modern, English and foreign, bespoke her attention. Not content with Latin, and the extemporized translations which Shelley could give her of Plato's Republic, she started Greek in 1820, and soon came to delight ...
— Proserpine and Midas • Mary Shelley
... affected strangeness, a sickliness about his melodies despite their evidently FORCED unlikeness to familiar phrases, an utter ignorance of design everywhere apparent in his lengthened works...The entire works of Chopin present a motley surface of ranting hyperbole and excruciating cacophony. When he is not THUS singular, he is no better than Strauss or any other waltz compounder... such as admire Chopin, and they are legion, will admire these Mazurkas, which are supereminently Chopin-ical; that ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... neighbourhood, were prepared to resist our advance on Aligarh, and that they expected to be aided by a large number of mutineers from Delhi. We came in sight of Aligarh shortly before daybreak on the 5th October. Our advance was stopped by a motley crowd drawn up before the walls, shouting, blowing horns, beating drums, and abusing the Feringhis in the choicest Hindustani; but, so far as we could see, there were no sepoys amongst them. The Horse Artillery coming up, these valiant defenders ...
— Forty-one years in India - From Subaltern To Commander-In-Chief • Frederick Sleigh Roberts
... and interested, and what a bustle and movement there was! The banging of the guns on the men-of-war began again as the motley, fascinatingly interesting crowd, cavalry outriders, Sikhs, Parsees, Gourkas, Hindoos, and Mussulmen, sped away down to the Apollo Bundar to see the Prince go off to the flagship. H. and I went with the tide, a jolly cheery medley of coloured races, waddling, ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch
... his fingers through his crisp hair, pulled it into a peak, stepped to the seat and sitting on the railing, he lifted his elbows, tilted his head, and began a motley outpouring of half-spoken, half-whistled trills and imploring cries. There was enough similarity that the Girl instantly recognized the red bird. Out of breath the Harvester dropped to ...
— The Harvester • Gene Stratton Porter
... had noted so many times before, the motley appearance of the army, but with involuntary motion he began to straighten and smooth his own shabby uniform. He was about to enter the presence of a woman and he was young ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... ran the length of the beach, shaded by trees, and crossing a gentle stream. Along this avenue was all the life and commerce of Tai-o-hae. Two traders' shops, empty offices, a gendarme, a handful of motley half-castes lounging under the trees—this was all that was left of former greatness. Only nature had not changed. It flung over the broken remnants of the glory and the dream its lovely cloak of verdure and of flower. Man had almost ceased to be a figure in the scene he had ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien
... later he came back again, this time as king, with a motley army of mercenaries gathered to crush the two brothers De Lacy, who for the moment dominated all Ireland—the one, Hugo, being Earl of Ulster, and Viceroy; the other, Walter, Lord of the Palatinate ...
— The Story Of Ireland • Emily Lawless
... characterize all great literature. Has any text-book in history ever appealed to you as a work of literature? What literary qualities have you noticed in standard historical works, such as those of Macaulay, Prescott, Gibbon, Green, Motley, Parkman, and ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... up to date, And do your best to multiply Your sheep by next subtracting votes From over-suffraged Tory goats. By Registration Law perplexed, Take "qualifying periods" next, And at one swoop reduce with glee Twelve months, or more, to only three. Add labour to your motley crew, Subtract (from life) a church or two. Produce, with geometric skill, The lines of many a promised bill. But state—the Unionists to vex— That Home Rule always equals x. Raise, in a rash, disastrous hour, Campaigning Ireland to a power. And thus, to prayers and protests ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, July 30, 1892 • Various
... his uncle's woods; but who were those long-legged, lank fellows who took just as much care of their rifles and knapsacks as the Indians did? They were hunters, and Tom could not resist the temptation to turn his eyes away from the fore-castle back to the main-deck to take a second survey of the motley group of men he had seen there. They were cowboys all of them, and their clothing, especially their hats and boots, were as nearly perfect as money could buy. They were all young fellows, from twenty to twenty-five years of age, and wore their six-shooters ...
— Elam Storm, The Wolfer - The Lost Nugget • Harry Castlemon
... quiet early dawn 320 British regulars and 400 Canadian militia were in readiness to embark; and, as sunrise coloured the sky, a motley fleet pushed off from the Canadian shore. The war vessel Queen Charlotte and the batteries at Sandwich opened fire, while the wooded shores re-echoed to the savage yells of 600 painted braves. Brock ...
— Tecumseh - A Chronicle of the Last Great Leader of His People; Vol. - 17 of Chronicles of Canada • Ethel T. Raymond
... be difficult to find a more motley and diversified company than sat down to the ungarnished fare which Katty laid before them. There were first Fathers Philemy, Con, and the Auxiliary from the far part of the diocese; next followed Captain Wilson, Peter Malone, and Father ...
— The Station; The Party Fight And Funeral; The Lough Derg Pilgrim • William Carleton
... world, seeks for his creations a like seclusion. He writes to Raczynski: "As you are wishing to send my picture to the public exhibition in Berlin, I cannot refrain from expressing my anxiety. Paintings of this kind appear to me not fitted to be seen by the motley multitude usually gathered together in exhibitions. The general public are almost sure to measure wrongly works like this, for as the eye is attracted to outward means and is engaged on technical splendours, pictures in which ...
— Overbeck • J. Beavington Atkinson
... The motley crowd of vendors, clamouring, gesticulating, are chiefly distinguished by their hats—the Arabs in white turbans, the Turks in dingy fezes jauntily cocked over dark, unshaven faces, some fezes swathed in bright silk scarves; ...
— A Tramp's Sketches • Stephen Graham
... rapidly gaining ground for women to have some pet scheme of reform. A few of them have such ambition for publicity they take their pet scheme, and the platform, and go trailing over the land like comets. Now I do not wish you to join this motley crowd, though your heart does burn over the unacknowledged perfections ...
— Medoline Selwyn's Work • Mrs. J. J. Colter
... converse of the professors, until an approaching storm drives us in-doors. Within the "shooting box", as the young man who has traveled christens the house,— thinking that an appropriate title for a domicile where so many members of the Hunt family are collected,—there is a motley assembly, as they gather around the sitting room table. There are Portuguese, Michiganders, Pennites, Illinoisyones, Bangorillas, and other specimens of natural history such as would have puzzled Agassiz himself; and the question arises, ...
— Over the Border: Acadia • Eliza Chase
... It did not take long to move away the stones and to transfer the plates from the floor to the table, after which three much flustered hostesses opened the door and gushed a welcome to their guests. It was rather a motley group who entered: Irene as a nun in waterproof and hood; Agnes as a Red Cross Nurse; Esther a Turk, with a towel for a turban; Joan a sportsman in her gymnasium knickers; Sheila, in a tricolor cap, represented France; and Lorna was draped ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil
... black Baal blocked the heavens he had no hymns from us. Children we were—our forts of sand were even as weak as we, High as they went we piled them up to break that bitter sea. Fools as we were in motley, all jangling and absurd, When all church bells were silent our ...
— Poems • G.K. Chesterton
... little, skiffs, with a layer of coal dust on their pretentious, freshly-painted names, tied to the pier and rocking to the slightest motion of the water. From her windows Sidonie could see the restaurants on the beach, silent through the week, but filled to overflowing on Sunday with a motley, noisy crowd, whose shouts of laughter, mingled with the dull splash of oars, came from both banks to meet in midstream in that current of vague murmurs, shouts, calls, laughter, and singing that floats without ceasing up and down the ...
— Fromont and Risler, Complete • Alphonse Daudet
... which had been rising for some time, now gave very unequivocal notice of an approaching storm. The rain began to fall, and the decks were quickly cleared of their motley groups. ...
— Flora Lyndsay - or, Passages in an Eventful Life • Susan Moodie
... and striving, Elsie contrived to secure for herself and her grandchild stations in the piazza in front of the church, in the very front rank, where the procession was to pass. A motley assemblage it was, this crowd, comprising every variety of costume of rank and station and ecclesiastical profession,—cowls and hoods of Franciscan and Dominican,—picturesque headdresses of peasant-women of different districts,—plumes ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 54, April, 1862 • Various
... sor," replied Mick, with a broad grin, as he cuddled the monkey up to him in his arms; Jocko taking off Mick's cap the while, and carefully scattering its motley contents to the winds. "Oi call him, sure, a Saint Michael's ...
— Young Tom Bowling - The Boys of the British Navy • J.C. Hutcheson
... motley crowd having melted away upon his appearance, General Selig Brounckers was saying to ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... had spent in India I had seen a good deal of both sides of that motley, amazing fabric which we call life. I had felt the throbbing of its great loom. I had touched with my own shrinking hand the closeness of the texture, had marked the interweaving of the alien strands, had marvelled ...
— The Lowest Rung - Together with The Hand on the Latch, St. Luke's Summer and The Understudy • Mary Cholmondeley
... England or Ireland, are wrong. We are not sure whether Mr. Kemble, who, as an excellent critic has observed, is always seeking for novelty and always running into error, may not lately have added that patch to his motley garb of new readings; but his authority is disallowed. Even Garrick, whose claims were of a very superior kind, when he attempted to render the English language, already too unstable, more so, by his innovations, was ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Volume I, Number 1 • Stephen Cullen Carpenter
... semi-lunatic," George Francis Train. She published his letter in The Revolution with an answer by Mrs. Stanton which not only pointed out how often the Republicans had failed women but reminded Garrison how he had welcomed into his antislavery ranks anyone and everyone who believed in his ideas, "a motley crew it was." She recalled the label of fanatic which had been attached to him, how he had been threatened and pelted with rotten eggs for expressing his unpopular ideas and for burning the Constitution which he declared sanctioned slavery. With such a background, ...
— Susan B. Anthony - Rebel, Crusader, Humanitarian • Alma Lutz
... the prospect of success, had certainly given the lady's complexion a fine tint. Her dainty profile offered a striking contrast to the motley crew of negroid Arabs who surrounded her. And she came to meet them in a buoyant spirit, though the fierce sun was scorching her delicate skin through the thin ...
— The Wheel O' Fortune • Louis Tracy
... 'amidst this motley crew Of Georgians, Russians, Nubians, and what not, All ragamuffins differing but in hue, With whom it is our luck to cast our lot, The only gentlemen seem I and you; So let us be acquainted, as we ought: If I could yield you any ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... North African Moors, Tartar bowmen, Negro wrestlers, Indian divers, and Turks, who generally accompanied the Cardinal on his hunting expeditions. When he was overtaken by an early death (1535), this motley band carried the corpse on their shoulders from Itri to Rome, and mingled with the general mourning for the open-handed Cardinal their medley of tongues ...
— The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy • Jacob Burckhardt
... must have been, for the Pinto thrilled, and bounded double strong. The white man yelled and spared not lash nor spur. Red Rover flinched, then sprang as he had never sprung before. But the demon pony in the motley coat swung faster, faster, faster yet; his nostrils flared; his breath was rushing—snorting—his mighty heart was pounding, the song of the wind and the flying wings seemed to enter into his soul. He double-timed his hoofbeats ...
— The Preacher of Cedar Mountain - A Tale of the Open Country • Ernest Thompson Seton
... shadow than if it were clothed in green. But, perchance, a gleam of sun falls on a certain spot of distant shrubbery or woodland, and we see it brighten with many hues, standing forth prominently from the dimness around it. The sunlight gradually spreads, and the whole sombre scene is changed to a motley picture,—the sun bringing out many shades of color, and converting its gloom to an almost laughing cheerfulness. At such times I almost doubt whether the foliage has lost any of its brilliancy. But the clouds intercept the sun again, and lo! old Autumn appears, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 104, June, 1866 • Various
... motley assemblage of different characters, and contains, under any political form, some examples of that variety, which the humours, tempers, and apprehensions of men, so differently employed, are likely to furnish. Every profession has its point of honour, and its system ...
— An Essay on the History of Civil Society, Eighth Edition • Adam Ferguson, L.L.D.
... David's advice, "Fret not thyself because of evil-doers" (Psa. 37:1) "Be not thou afraid when one is made rich, when the glory of his house is increased" (Psa. 49:16). But go thou into the sanctuary of thy God, read His Word, and understand the end of these men-(Mason). Often, as the motley reflexes of my experience move in long processions of manifold groups before me, the distinguished and world-honoured company of Christian mammonists appear to the eye of my imagination as a drove of camels heavily laden, yet all at full speed; and each in the confident expectation of passing ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... Congregated together were about fifty sunburnt laborers, arrayed in coarse woollen shirts. To their despondent-looking trousers the blue tenacious prairie mud clung like glue. Several nationalities were represented in the motley assembly, for it was the time of the great North-West boom, and men had been drawn ...
— A Lover in Homespun - And Other Stories • F. Clifford Smith
... sheltering canopy, among the luggage of the fur-clad gentleman, sat and reclined four travellers, whom the owner of the vehicle had gradually picked up, and who formed a motley company. ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... something terrible had happened, he sprang to his feet, buckled on his cutlass, and, snatching up a pistol in one hand and a lamp in the other, hurriedly stepped out of the cabin to investigate. He was just in time to encounter at the foot of the companion-ladder a motley crowd of swarthy-skinned strangers, who, with bared daggers and sword-blades, were making their way down to the cabin. That they were enemies was so instantly apparent that George unhesitatingly levelled his pistol at the foremost man and fired. The bullet struck the man in the shoulder, ...
— The Voyage of the Aurora • Harry Collingwood
... look too much at the outward landscape, lest their hearts should by the loveliness of earth be estranged from heaven. I do not think that Russian priests or pilgrims incur any such danger. When they are neither praying nor eating they are sleeping; in short, I did not among the motley multitude see a single eye open to the loveliness of colour in the sky above, or to the beauty of form in the earth beneath. It is singular how obtuse these people are; I have noticed in a crowded railway carriage that not a face would be turned to the glory of the setting sun, but if a church tower ...
— Russia - As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Various
... her shoulders impatiently. I think I was a little disappointed in her. I expected then people to be more of a piece than I do now, and I was distressed to find so much vindictiveness in so charming a creature. I did not realise how motley are the qualities that go to make up a human being. Now I am well aware that pettiness and grandeur, malice and charity, hatred and love, can find place side by side in ...
— The Moon and Sixpence • W. Somerset Maugham
... observant man once wrote of the hand being subdued to what it works in. The man who wrote that surely never tramped along the Haworth road as the bell rang for twelve o'clock. From out the factories poured a motley mob of men, women and children, not only with hands dyed, but with clothing, faces and heads as well. Girls with bright-green hair, and lemon-colored faces, leered and jeered at me as they hastened pellmell ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 2 of 14 - Little Journeys To the Homes of Famous Women • Elbert Hubbard
... his Cabinet were in accord in regard to the controversy with Great Britain as to the Alabama Claims. Mr. Sumner advocated a more exacting policy. Mr. Motley appeared to be following Mr. Sumner's lead, and the opposition to Mr. Sumner extended to Mr. Motley. It had happened that the President had taken on a prejudice to Mr. Motley at their first interview. This I learned when I said something to the President in the line ...
— Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs, Vol. 2 • George S. Boutwell
... above the grass, and by far the most interesting portion of the exercises had been concealed from view. The butterflies, while naturally the most conspicuous element, were now seen to be in a small minority among the insect gathering, the bramble leaves being peopled with a most motley and democratic assemblage of insects. Class distinctions were apparently forgotten in the common enthusiasm; the plebeian bluebottle and blowfly now consorted with Aphrodite and sipped at the same drop. Many a leaf was begemmed ...
— My Studio Neighbors • William Hamilton Gibson
... was to crack the best joke, and sing the best song,—he could. Unluckily, however, this functionary was for the present obliged to absent himself from St. Ronan's; for, not recollecting that he did not actually wear the privileged motley of his profession, he had passed some jest upon Captain MacTurk, which cut so much to the quick, that Mr. Meredith was fain to go to goat-whey quarters, at some ten miles' distance, and remain there in ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... "'A motley crew' we are!" cheerfully announced Doctor George, and all the children radiantly clapped their hands at his joke. Even the White House baby, which had been carried to the feast, gurgled and crowed loudly ...
— A Big Temptation • L. T. Meade
... who manifested this violent emotion, was a young man, dressed in a mean and tattered garb, his face begrimed corresponding with that of the motley crew by which he was surrounded. He was a perfect stranger to the others present, and had not participated in their previous conversation, nor been personally ...
— City Crimes - or Life in New York and Boston • Greenhorn
... lightning-quick intelligence and heavy heart, and these are the Hamlet qualities which were not brought into prominence in the youthful Romeo. Passages taken at haphazard will suffice to establish my contention. "Motley's the only wear," says Jaques, as if longing to assume the cap and bells, and Hamlet plays the fool's part with little better ...
— The Man Shakespeare • Frank Harris
... doctors, crying sacrilege and blasphemy, sprang forward in a transport of fury to fall upon the Jew; and a troop of monks, in motley dresses of black and white, advanced with a standard on which were painted pincers, gridirons, lighted fagots, and the words Justice, Charity, Mercy.* "It is necessary," said they, "to make an example of these ...
— The Ruins • C. F. [Constantin Francois de] Volney
... a fantastic shape. As they drove through the gateway, a green lizard scampered down from the top of one of the posts, where he had been sunning himself, and a rattlesnake lying in the path lazily uncoiled his motley brown length, and sounding his rattle, wriggled slowly off into the rank grass and weeds that bordered the ...
— The Colonel's Dream • Charles W. Chesnutt
... about from one to the other of the passers-by who had crowded in, and the grave gentlemanly Turks bowed and left in the most courteous manner, while the others, a very motley assembly, showed some disposition to stay, but were eventually persuaded to go outside, ...
— Yussuf the Guide - The Mountain Bandits; Strange Adventure in Asia Minor • George Manville Fenn
... left by some of these rich men was a curious conglomeration of almost every stamp, showing the results of a mixed assemblage of customers. There were Spanish pistoles, guineas, Arabian coin, bank dollars, Dutch and French money—a motley assortment all carefully heaped together. Without doubt, those enterprising pirate captains, Kidd and Burgess, and their crews, were good customers of these accommodating and undiscriminating merchants. It was a time when money was triply valued, for little of it passed in circulation. ...
— History of the Great American Fortunes, Vol. I - Conditions in Settlement and Colonial Times • Myers Gustavus
... was ever ready to show them acts of kindness. He for a considerable time used to visit the green room, and seemed to take delight in dissipating his gloom by mixing in the sprightly chit-chat of the motley circle then to be found there. But at last—as Mr. David Hume related to me from Mr. Garrick—he denied himself this amusement ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IX. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... of this so-called Empire were, however, a multitude of independent States; and the chief of these States, Austria, combined with its German provinces a large territory which did not even in name form part of the Germanic body. The motley of the Empire was made up by governments of every degree of strength and weakness. Austria and Prussia possessed both political traditions and resources raising them to the rank of great European Powers; but the sovereignties of the second ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... fell from her forehead and temples, dropping over her shoulders in two ribbon bound braids. A tall, gray-cowled monk, whose military bearing gave the lie to his cassock, a Spanish grandee, and a fool in motley saw her at the same moment and hurried to intercept her, but with a slide which carried him a quarter of the way across the floor the Bedouin arrived first, and before the others had come up he was drifting away with her in the ...
— The Lighted Match • Charles Neville Buck
... waiting for it; Merryman in his plain clothes, and so forth; during which contemplation the joke was uttered and laughed at, and Mr. M., resuming his professional duties, was tumbling over head and heels. Do not suppose I am going, sicut est mos, to indulge in moralities about buffoons, paint, motley, and mountebanking. Nay, Prime Ministers rehearse their jokes; Opposition leaders prepare and polish them; Tabernacle preachers must arrange them in their minds before they utter them. All I mean is, that I would like to know any one of these performers thoroughly, ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... the Americans was not due to special training; for the British service was better trained in gunnery, as in everything else, than the motley armies and fleets that fought at New Orleans and on the Lakes. Critics constantly said that every American had learned from his childhood the use of the rifle; but he certainly had not learned to use cannon in shooting birds ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... for a long time in Aliva's armory—that contained, besides weapons of the date, a motley assortment of the tools of war that would have done great credit to a museum of antiquities—produced two pistols. He handed, one to the missionary and one to Miss McClean, advising her to hide hers underneath her clothing. "You know what they're for?" he asked. ...
— Rung Ho! • Talbot Mundy
... was a motley crowd of Russian officers all talking and gesticulating together. I came nearer to Vera and at once I said to myself, "Lawrence is here somewhere." She was standing, her head up, watching the doors, her eyes glowed with anticipation, her lips were a little parted. ...
— The Secret City • Hugh Walpole
... notified, they assemble at the girl's hogan fairly early in the evening. When dusk has settled, the medicine-man begins his songs, singing first the twelve "hogan songs" of the Bahozhonchi. After he has finished, anyone present who so desires may sing songs taken from the ritual of the same order. This motley singing and hilarity continue until well toward sunrise, when the mother brings in a bowl of yucca suds and washes the girl's hair. Her head and hair are dried with corn-meal, after which the girl takes her last run toward the east, this time followed by many ...
— The North American Indian • Edward S. Curtis
... words, MR. G. LLOYD says, "It is also stated, I do not know on what authority, that the old and lamented warrior, Sir Charles Napier, wrote on the conquest of Scinde, Peccavi!" The author of Democritus in London, with the Mad Pranks and Comical Conceits of Motley and Robin Good-Fellow, thus alludes to this saying in that work. I presume he had good authority ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 215, December 10, 1853 • Various
... outer ward, a strange scene presented itself to the view. Motley groups were scattered about—most of the persons composing them being clad in threadbare doublets and tattered cloaks, and wearing caps, from which the feathers and ornaments had long since disappeared; but there were a few—probably new coiners—in ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 2 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth
... distinguished American and British historians would be even more calamitous than that of their Continental brethren. If the touchstone of impartiality were applied, Prescott might perhaps pass unscathed through the trial. But few will deny that Motley wrote his very attractive histories at a white heat of Republican and anti-Catholic fervour. He, as also Bancroft, are classed by Mr. Gooch amongst those who "made their histories the vehicles of political and religious propaganda." ...
— Political and Literary essays, 1908-1913 • Evelyn Baring
... motley throng of soldiers, in soiled uniforms, traders, voyageurs, pale-faced women, and wondering children, streamed to the narrow beach beyond the water gate, all could see the approaching boats as, in long-extended line and with flashing oars, one after another ...
— At War with Pontiac - The Totem of the Bear • Kirk Munroe and J. Finnemore
... the Rebel camp—clerks, teamsters, employer, negros, hundreds of white and colored women, in all forming a motley crowd of between one and two thousand, were gathered together in a group between the end of the rifle pits and the Star Fort. They had a good view from there, but a still better one could be had, a little farther to the right, and in ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... As on the noblest of the land Fell the stern headsman's bloody hand— The dungeon, block, and nameless tomb 555 Prepare—for Douglas seeks his doom! —But hark! what blithe and jolly peal Makes the Franciscan steeple reel? And see! upon the crowded street, In motley groups what maskers meet! 560 Banner and pageant, pipe and drum, And merry morris dancers come. I guess, by all this quaint array, The burghers hold their sports today. James will be there; he loves such show, 565 Where the good yeoman bends his bow, And the tough wrestler foils his foe, ...
— Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... him is so full of interpolations and corruptions, introduced by his transcribers, and particularly by a simpleton who is called Samuel, or his master Beulanus, or both, who appear to have lived in the ninth century, that it is difficult to say how much of this motley production is original and authentic. Be that as it may, the writer of the copy printed by Gale bears ample testimony to the "Saxon Chronicle", and says expressly, that he compiled his history partly from the records of the Scots and Saxons (8). At the end is a confused but very curious ...
— The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle • Unknown
... check brought confusion, and some man in his excitement fired a pistol. The battle had begun, and although the camp was taken by surprise, and drink made many heavy sleepers, the drums beat quickly to arms and the peasant warriors had little advantage. Grey's motley cavalry was scattered in a moment, and Lord Rosmore, who was amongst those who charged upon them, laughed aloud. This was ...
— The Brown Mask • Percy J. Brebner
... her motley history, an old-clothesman, one Domenico— he and his "Compagnia del Bruco," his Company of the Worm[1]— reigned over Siena and gave to her people a taste for blood. It was bloodshed on easy terms they had; for ...
— Earthwork Out Of Tuscany • Maurice Hewlett
... makes existence happy or bitter, deep and human, remains a closed book. Neither religion nor morality, neither science nor art, exists for him. Instead of a real and ardent faith, he feels in himself a motley array of feelings. His habitual veneration of religious rites mingles with mean superstitions. He is not courageous enough to deny God, not strong enough to believe in Him. He does not love his fellow-men, and cannot ...
— Contemporary Russian Novelists • Serge Persky
... from the reputation of its author; but as a mannerism becomes increasingly disagreeable by repetition, we suspect that, without having less merit, this work will have less popularity than its predecessors. The style is the same "motley wear," and has the same jerking movement—seems at times a thing of shreds and patches hung on wires—and is so full of brief allusions to his own previous writings, that to a reader unacquainted with these it would be scarce intelligible. With all this it has the same vigour, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various
... her companions, loving Phoebe like a parent, and the other two like a nurse, and really liking the brother. All took delight in the winter paradise of Hyeres, that fragment of the East set down upon the French coast, and periodically peopled with a motley multitude of visitors from all the lands of Europe, all invalids, ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... multiplicity of parties was as nothing in comparison to that of private interests, which so crossed each other and in so many different ways, which turned with such mobility, that, in the ignorance which prevailed of the secret motives of the principal actors in that drama so vivid, motley, and turbulent, nothing could be predicated of what they would do, and a looker-on might have been disposed at times to have pronounced them as insensates, who were rather their own enemies ...
— Political Women (Vol. 1 of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... of these men, numbering between sixty and seventy, advanced upon Red River Colony. They were a motley crew, all mounted on horseback and armed with guns, spears, tomahawks, bows, and scalping-knives, besides which they were painted and plumed a la sauvage, and were in the habit when rushing to battle, of yelling like the Red-men whose blood mingled with that of the White-man ...
— The Buffalo Runners - A Tale of the Red River Plains • R.M. Ballantyne
... arm, each with his cigar in his mouth, saunter, for hours together, along the leading streets and thoroughfares, making acute observations and deep reflections upon the ever-moving and motley scenes around them. Most frequently, however, they would repair, at half-price, to the theatres; for Snap had the means of securing almost a constant supply of "orders" from the underlings of the theatres, ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
... smoking, and splashing, after the most orthodox fashion of fire-boats in general. I had now time and opportunity to look around me. Every available spot of the deck and paddle-boxes of the small, flat-bottomed iron steamer, was crowded with as motley a set of passengers as ever sailed since the days of Captain Noah. Sepoys returning from furlough to join their regiments; lascars, or enlisted workmen belonging to the different civil branches of the army; and camp-followers in ...
— Chambers' Edinburgh Journal - Volume XVII., No 423, New Series. February 7th, 1852 • Various
... subject-monarchs of the subdued nationalities that were gathered round the tyrant's standard were used, with the wicked craft of conquerors in all ages, to bring still other lands under the same iron dominion. 'The kings were assembled'—we see them gathering their far-reaching and motley army, mustered from all corners of that gigantic empire. They advance together against the rocky fortress that towers above its girdling valleys. 'They saw it, they marvelled'—in wonder, perhaps, at its beauty, as they ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... cried Adrian. "Dupe, cozen, jockey the trustful young creature. Do. There 's a great-hearted gentleman. You need n't fear my undeceiving her. I know my place; I know who holds the purse-strings; I know which side my bread is buttered on. Motley's my wear. So long as you pay my wages, you ...
— The Lady Paramount • Henry Harland
... gorgeously dressed official may be seen, with a long line of attendants, wending his steps towards the river's front. Infirm old men and little children, crazy-looking devotees and comely youths, boys and girls, people of all ages and degrees, are represented in the motley groups who come to these muddy waters for moral purification. There is a singular mingling of races also, for these people do not all speak one tongue. They are from the extreme north and the extreme south of India, while the half-starved vagrants seen among them, and who come from Middle ...
— Foot-prints of Travel - or, Journeyings in Many Lands • Maturin M. Ballou
... over the trampled bodies and trampled standards of England's bravest sons; had a French general dictated to the English capital, and a French army been quartered in Hyde Park; had Paris poured forth its motley population, and the wealthy bourgeoise of every French trading town swarmed to London; crowding its squares; filling its streets with their equipages; thronging its fashionable hotels, and places of amusements; ...
— The Crayon Papers • Washington Irving
... the conversation of so motley an assemblage lack a certain pictorial quality, a somewhat fantastic opulence of reference and allusion. Of what might its members speak while they waited for the drawing aside of the piece of baize which hung between them and an ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston
... beer-garden; among the rhododendron trees Madame Blavatzky, Colonel Olcott and Mr. Sinnett move mysteriously in the performance of their wonders; and the wealthy tourist from America, the botanist from Berlin, and the casual peer from Great Britain, are not wanting to complete the motley crowd. There are no roads in Simla proper where it is possible to drive, excepting one narrow way, reserved when I was there, and probably still set apart, for the exclusive delectation of the Viceroy. Every one ...
— Mr. Isaacs • F. Marion Crawford
... As Belllounds opened it there came a pattering rush of many padded feet, and a chorus of barks and whines. Wade's surprised gaze took in forty or fifty dogs, mostly hounds, browns and blacks and yellows, all sizes—a motley, mangy, hungry pack, if he had ever ...
— The Mysterious Rider • Zane Grey
... venturesome mind, must needs attempt all manner of tricks upon this motley company of soldiers. He would dig a pit with Little John and Much, and hide it up with branches and earth, so that Master Carfax might stray into it and haply break ...
— Robin Hood • Paul Creswick
... not mean to apply the latter part of these observations to Lady Lillycraft, for whose simple kindheartedness I have a very great respect, and who is really a most amiable and worthy being. I cannot refrain, however, from mentioning some of the motley retinue she has brought with her; and which, indeed, bespeak the overflowing kindness of her nature, which requires her to be surrounded with objects ...
— Bracebridge Hall • Washington Irving
... Puerperal Fever Currents and Counter-currents in Medical Science Border Lines of Knowledge in Some Provinces of Medical Science Scholastic and Bedside Teaching The Medical Profession in Massachusetts The Young Practitioner Medical Libraries Some of My Early Teachers A Memoir of John Lothrop Motley A Memoir of Ralph Waldo Emerson Our ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... sit apart from the crowd, just under the shadow of the tree, or in some favourite corner where you can smoke, and contemplate the motley guests, formed into calm and solemn groups, who wish to hold no communion with the Giaour. There is ample food here for the observer of character, costume and pretension: the tradesman, the mechanic, the soldier, ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... personages came into the house at times and ludicrous, motley events arose. The police would appear suddenly together with disguised detectives and arrest some seemingly respectable, irreproachable gentlemen and lead them off, pushing them along with blows in the neck. At times brawls would spring up between the drunken, trouble-making ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... A motley throng compose the inhabitants of Pueblo. The dark-hued Mexican, his round face shaded by the inevitable sombrero, figures conspicuously. But if you value his favor and your future peace of mind have a care how you allude to his nationality. He is a Spaniard, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XXVI., December, 1880. • Various
... was no sooner concluded, than your worship burst into a horse-laugh, and stamping your foot on the floor, the room was instantly filled with as motley a group as ever giggled decorum out of countenance at a masquerade: among whom I recognized a zany, with a blue perriwig, bestriding a large goose, and brandishing a golden egg, whilst your worship was clapping your hands in all the raptures of ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol I, No. 2, February 1810 • Samuel James Arnold
... looked out at us, only raising their heads from their crossed arms; grave Turks, smoking their nargiles in front of the cafes that open on the Marina, turned their chairs round to look at us without stopping their hubble-bubbling; and all about us, where nothing else was, a line of motley humanity—Greek, Turk, Egyptian, Nubian, Abyssinian, under hats, caps, tarbouches, turbans, hats Persian and ecclesiastical, and no hats at all—half circled us with ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various
... treaty was formally announced to the British Government through Mr. Motley, who succeeded Mr. Johnson as Minister in London. Mr. Fish, in his letter of instructions, suggested to Mr. Motley the propriety of suspending negotiations for the present on the whole question. At the same time he committed the Government ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... would be very unfair to a man like Mr. Wells to suggest that in his vision the Englishman and the American are to embrace only in the sense of clinging to each other in terror. He is a man who understands what friendship is, and who knows how to enjoy the motley humours of humanity. But the political reconstruction which he proposes is too much determined by this old nightmare of necessitarianism. He tells us that our national dignities and differences must be melted into the huge mould of a World ...
— What I Saw in America • G. K. Chesterton
... found for the most part silent and empty. There were a few omnibuses, filled with National Guards and men en blouse, and heavy ammunition-wagons under the disorderly escort of men in motley uniforms, with guns and bayonets. Here and there were groups of "patriots" seated on the curbstones, playing pitch-farthing, known in France by the name of "bouchon." Their guns were resting quietly against the wall behind them, with, in many instances, a loaf of bread stuck on the bayonet. ...
— France in the Nineteenth Century • Elizabeth Latimer
... Adams, assured me that the government of Austria was especially desirous of not being regarded by the United States as responsible in any manner for the attempt to establish an empire under the Austrian archduke in Mexico. Mr. Motley thought a visit by me to Vienna while the Mexican question was pending might produce undue excitement. Hence I limited my tour in that ...
— Forty-Six Years in the Army • John M. Schofield
... was to find a vessel suited for their purpose. After inspecting a number, a beautiful little Spanish schooner, of about eighty tons, which had just come into the harbour, was purchased, and a motley crew engaged. The crew consisted of one Englishman, who had been twenty years from home, a negro, a Tahitian, and a native Indian; but still they all pulled wonderfully well together. Charley Blount was captain; Elton, first ...
— Washed Ashore - The Tower of Stormount Bay • W.H.G. Kingston
... Oswald sails without definite destination. The ship's prospective course is unknown. This "tramp" steamer has an oddly assorted cargo. Her officers and crew are a motley mixture of different nationalities. Cabin and steerage passengers hail from many ...
— Oswald Langdon - or, Pierre and Paul Lanier. A Romance of 1894-1898 • Carson Jay Lee
... forty years had passed since the ex-private secretary landed at New York with the ex-Ministers Adams and Motley, when they saw American society as a long caravan stretching out towards the plains. As he came up the bay again, November 5, 1904, an older man than either his father or Motley in 1868, he found the approach more striking than ever — wonderful ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams
... an operation. As the metropolitan trains load and unload in a morning, what does one see? Gross upon gross of steel pens, a few quills, whole carriages full of bricklayers' trowels, and how strange it seems to watch all the bank-books sorting themselves out from the motley, and arranging themselves in the first classes, just as we see them on the shelf in the bank! It is a curious sight. The little shop-girl there, what is she but a roll of pink ribbon?—nay, she is but half-a-yard. And the poor infinitesimal porters ...
— Prose Fancies • Richard Le Gallienne
... brown, and green coral, rising from the mass below. Before us, on the shore, there spread the rich growth of tropical vegetation, shaded by palms and cocoa-nuts, and enlivened by the presence of native women in red, blue, and green garments, and men in motley costumes, bringing fish, fowls, and bunches of cocoa-nuts, borne, like the grapes brought back from the land of Canaan ...
— A Voyage in the 'Sunbeam' • Annie Allnut Brassey
... heads, and scattering silver and smiles and apologies he crowded past the motley line to the window and fairly snatched the miles of green ticket from the Copt's ...
— The Palace of Darkened Windows • Mary Hastings Bradley
... Mark the intellectual history of Northampton. During its history this town has sent out 114 lawyers, 112 ministers, 95 physicians, 100 educators, 7 college presidents, 30 professors, 24 editors, 6 historians, 14 authors, among whom are George Bancroft, John Lothrop Motley, Professor Whitney, the late J.G. Holland; 38 officers of State, 28 officers of the United States, including members of the Senate, and one President.[1] How comes it that this little colony has raised up this great company of authors, statesmen, reformers? No mere chance is working here. The ...
— A Man's Value to Society - Studies in Self Culture and Character • Newell Dwight Hillis
... a motley group; officers, soldiers, fur-traders, adventurers, and two young men from New England. These latter were two brothers, Samuel William and Gideon Hollister Pond, from Washington, Connecticut. At this time, Samuel ...
— Among the Sioux - A Story of the Twin Cities and the Two Dakotas • R. J. Creswell
... is easily earned repetition to state that Josephine St. Auban's was a presence not to be concealed. Even such a boat as the Mount Vernon offered a total deck space so cramped as to leave secrecy or privacy well out of the question, even had the motley and democratic assemblage of passengers been disposed to accord either. Yet there was something in the appearance of this young woman and her companion which caused all the heterogeneous groups of humanity to make way for them, as presently ...
— The Purchase Price • Emerson Hough
... noble, rich, and great, From Levite, Pharisee and Priest, Down to the lowest dregs of fate, From mightiest even to the least; Yes, in this motley throng we find The palsied, sick, ...
— Mountain idylls, and Other Poems • Alfred Castner King
... richer collection of love-songs than Scotland. We have a song for every phase of the motley-faced passion,—from its ludicrous aspect to its highest and most rapturous form. Every pulsation of the heart, as moved by love, has had its poetic expression; and we have lovers pouring out the depths of their souls to all kinds of maids, and in all kinds of situations. And maids are represented ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... constituents, every politician of every grade who thought he had the party in his debt, every adventurer who on any pretext could make a showing of party service rendered, poured into Washington. It was a motley horde. ...
— Lincoln • Nathaniel Wright Stephenson
... was one way of seeing Venice: but I would much rather sit at a little table on the Riva degli Schiavoni, with a plate of bread and cheese and a mezzo of Chianti before me, watching the motley crowd in the street and the many-coloured sails in the harbour; or spend a lazy afternoon in a gondola, floating through watery alley-ways that lead nowhere, and under the facades of beautiful palaces whose names I did not even care to know. Of course I should like to see a fine ...
— Days Off - And Other Digressions • Henry Van Dyke
... frequently attended by the Greegree men, or sorcerers, who, on account of the fantastic dress which they wear, form a most motley group; the Greegree men, trying to outvie each other in the hideous and fantastic style of their dress, and the more frightful they make themselves appear, the greater they believe is the effect of their sorcery. The principal festivals are those of circumcision and of funeral. Whenever former ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... whitewashed streets lined with little shops, gaily decorated with gold and bright colours, form a fitting background to the smartly dressed groups moving about among them. We did not pause to make any purchases, but stopped the carriage at many points to admire the motley crowd and the curious and beautiful mosques ...
— The Last Voyage - to India and Australia, in the 'Sunbeam' • Lady (Annie Allnutt) Brassey
... of the newcomers went over the bright pattern of the grazing cattle. A motley bunch they were, red, black and white, with here and there descendants of the yellows which none but John Dement had ever owned in Lost Valley. Dement, riding near the head of the line saw this and muttered in ...
— Tharon of Lost Valley • Vingie E. Roe
... prompter, touch the bell! Children of mirth and midnight, fare ye well! The vision melts away, the motley crowd Is veiled by Prospero in a passing cloud; Like his dissolving pageantry they fade, The vap'ry stuff whereof our dreams are made; No more malignant winter to beguile, Nor start the virgin's tear, the judge's smile; Save when some annalist, ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, January 1844 - Volume 23, Number 1 • Various
... The motley crew of Gafsa have become his favourites ever since his arrival in the country two weeks ago, and he has a theory that it is a mistake to endeavour to learn their language—it only leads you astray, it spoils the ...
— Fountains In The Sand - Rambles Among The Oases Of Tunisia • Norman Douglas
... perfection in affectation, when we were obliged to bid adieu to these interesting copper and coal-skinned ladies, as the ship was reported ready for sea, and the following morning we weighed and stood out of the harbour. As we passed the point we saw handkerchiefs without number waved by our dear, motley-coloured damsels as a farewell. We beat up to St. Domingo and anchored in Cape St. Nicholas mole, where we found the Leviathan, Raisonable, Sampson, and several frigates. We remained a week, and sailed with the above-named ships on a cruise round the island. On the third night after ...
— A Sailor of King George • Frederick Hoffman |
