"Obelisk" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... architecture, adorned with marble columns and statues, executed after the design of Buonaroti. Within-side you find yourself in a noble piazza, from whence three of the principal streets of Rome are detached. It is adorned with the famous Aegyptian obelisk, brought hither from the Circus Maximus, and set up by the architect Dominico Fontana in the pontificate of Sixtus V. Here is likewise a beautiful fountain designed by the same artist; and at the beginning of the two principal streets, are two very elegant ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... many men; and they say that it comes from a verb which stands for to know, that is, nosco. But this is most false, for, if this could be, those things which were most named and best known in their species would in their species be the most noble. Thus the obelisk of St. Peter would be the most noble stone in the world; and Asdente, the shoemaker of Parma, would be more Noble than any one of his fellow-citizens; and Albuino della Scala would be more Noble than Guido da Castello di Reggio. Each ...
— The Banquet (Il Convito) • Dante Alighieri
... Royale, the Church of the Madeleine. That is one of the most beautiful of the Paris churches, and you shall visit it, of course, but not now. To-day I want you to get merely a birdseye view, a sort of general idea of locations. But here we are in the Place de la Concorde. The Obelisk, which you see in the centre, was brought from Egypt many years ago. It is very like our own Obelisk in Central Park, and also Cleopatra's needle in London. From here we turn into one of the most beautiful avenues in the world, the Champs ...
— Patty in Paris • Carolyn Wells
... shining and hardened element were seen modelled into a thousand quaint and grotesque patterns. Here a fountain, perfectly formed with Ionic and Doric columns, was reflecting a thousand prismatic hues from the diamond-like stalactites which had attached themselves to its crest. There a huge obelisk, which, if of stone, might have come from ancient Thebes, lay half buried beneath a pile of fleecy snow. Farther on we came to what might have been a Roman temple or vast hall in the palace of a Caesar, where many half-hidden pillars and monuments erected their tapering summits above the piles of ...
— Russia - As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Various
... say here that the stone which Doctor Franklin erected, as above, became so dilapidated that in 1827, the citizens of Boston replaced it by a granite obelisk. The bodies repose in the old Granary cemetery, beside ...
— From Boyhood to Manhood • William M. Thayer
... light on the matter. He knew ever variety of windmill and weathercock, but was not a whit the wiser as to the aerial sign in question. He had even dabbled in Egyptian hieroglyphics, and the mystic symbols of the obelisk, but none furnished a key to the reply of Nicholas Koorn. He called a meeting of his council. Anthony Van Corlear stood forth in the midst, and putting the thumb of his right hand to his nose, and the thumb of his left ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... statue, by T. S. Burnett, A.R.S.A., of General Gordon (1888). At the east end of Union Street is the bronze statue of Queen Victoria, erected in 1893 by the royal tradesmen of the city. Near the Cross stands the granite statue of the 5th duke of Gordon (d. 1836). Here may also be mentioned the obelisk of Peterhead granite, 70 ft. high, erected in the square of Marischal College to the memory of Sir James M'Grigor (1778-1851), the military surgeon and director-general of the Army Medical Department, who was thrice elected lord rector of the ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... Mexican War fame, died at San Antonio, Texas, June 7, 1849. The monument was dedicated with a parade and a review November 25, 1857, and the General's remains interred under the south side. In bands around the obelisk are recorded the names of the battles in which Worth took part. On the east face, cut in the stone, may be read "Ducit Amor Patriae" and on the west face, "By the Corporation of the City of New York, ...
— Fifth Avenue • Arthur Bartlett Maurice
... dooryard. She had pinned a spray of arbutus to the lapel of her tan riding-coat; it spoke to her of the blue horizons of the near Virginia hills. The young buds in the maples hovered like a mist in the tree-tops. Towering over all, the incomparable gray obelisk climbed to the blue arch and brought it nearer earth. Washington, the center of man's hope, is also, in spring, the capital of ...
— The Port of Missing Men • Meredith Nicholson
... has been called Kingstown ever since, for its name was changed in honor of the monarch's {25} visit to his Irish subjects. The tourist who has just arrived at Kingstown by the steamer from Holyhead, and who takes his seat in the train for Dublin, may see from the window of the railway carriage an obelisk, not very imposing either in its height or in its sculptured form, which seems a little out of place amid the ordinary accessories of a railway and steamboat station. This is the monument which the grateful authorities of the Irish ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume IV (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... close by. The sun illuminated it, and threw a rainbow from it a hundred feet long, upon the white and green dome of chestnut-trees near. When I was farther down the avenue, I had the dancing column of water, the obelisk, and the Arch of Triumph all in line, and ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... was the hour when Paris sits at small green tables in front of the cafes and sips its absinthe or cassis; when the boulevards are thronged, and the rich equipages come and go. There was not a cloud in the tender blue sky against which the reddish obelisk of Luxor looked like a column of jet; the fountains were playing in the Place de la Concorde, and in the Tuileries gardens beyond the breeze dreamily stirred the foliage which hid from Lynde's view the gray facade of the gutted palace, ...
— The Queen of Sheba & My Cousin the Colonel • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... to erect in the Piazza di San Pietro the ponderous egyptian obelisk[27], which formerly adorned Nero's circus at the Vatican, he forbade on pain of death that any one should speak lest the attention of the workmen should be taken off from their arduous task. A naval officer of S. Remo, ...
— The Ceremonies of the Holy-Week at Rome • Charles Michael Baggs
... frequently been open to this duplicate interpretation, that is, the upright pillar. The Egyptian obelisk, the pillars of "Irmin" or of "Roland," set up now of wood, now of stone by the ancient Germans, the "red-painted great warpole" of the American Indians, the May-pole of Old England, the spire of sacred edifices, ...
— The Religious Sentiment - Its Source and Aim: A Contribution to the Science and - Philosophy of Religion • Daniel G. Brinton
... 1827, Lord Dalhousie laid the first stone of the beautiful obelisk overlooking what is now known as Dufferin Terrace, to commemorate the heroism of Wolfe and Montcalm, and ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan
... had considerable architectural splendor. This account of Babylon, however, is probably exaggerated, especially as to the height of the walls. The tower of Belus, the Palace of Nebuchadnezzar, and the Obelisk of Semiramis were probably wonderful structures, certainly in size, which is one of the ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume III • John Lord
... over. Lady Northumberland made a pompous festino for him t'other night; not only the whole house, but the garden, was illuminated, and was quite a fairy scene. Arches and pyramids of lights alternately surrounded the enclosure; a diamond necklace of lamps edged the rails and descent, with a spiral obelisk of candles on each hand; and dispersed over the lawn were little bands of kettle-drums, clarionets, flutes, etc., and the lovely moon, who came without a card. The birthday was far from being such a show; empty and unfine as possible. In truth, popularity ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... dined on the Pylon at Karnak? After dinner you tried to show me the ruins by moonlight, and wherever we went a black-robed watchman followed us, or a black-robed watchman glided from behind a pillar, or an obelisk, or a crumbling wall, and faced us, and at last we took to flight. Well, that's what life is like to certain women; that's what life has been for a long time to me. Whenever I've tried to look at anything ...
— Bella Donna - A Novel • Robert Hichens
... dressing;—he was a gentleman, and always had it covered with a large peignoir, to save the silk covering my grandmother embroidered. Then the little room downstairs from which went the orders to throw up a bank of earth on the hill yonder, where you may now observe a granite obelisk,—"the study" in my father's time, but in those days the council-chamber of armed men,—sometimes filled with soldiers; come with me, and I will show you the "dents" left by the butts of their muskets all over the floor. With all ...
— The Professor at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes (Sr.)
... preceded the Reformation. It has cost Rome dear. We do not allude to the twelve millions its erection is said to have cost, but to the mighty rent to which it gave rise in the Roman world. In the centre of the magnificent piazza of St Peter's stands an Egyptian obelisk, brought from Heliopolis, with the words graven upon it, "Christ reigns." Verily that is a great truth; and there are few spots where one feels its force so strongly as here. The successive paganisms of the world have been overruled as steps in the ...
— Pilgrimage from the Alps to the Tiber - Or The Influence of Romanism on Trade, Justice, and Knowledge • James Aitken Wylie
... opposite me. It consisted of a woman's face, with serpents for hair, and a virgin's breasts, with stumps for arms, ending in blue butterflies' wings, the whole changing at the waist into a goat's body, which ended below in an obelisk upside-down, to the apex at the bottom of which were appended, by graceful chains, an altar, and ...
— Ariadne Florentina - Six Lectures on Wood and Metal Engraving • John Ruskin
... to the body; the flesh swelled, and the form of the brand could never be obliterated. Many slaves passed from one plantation to another, being sold and resold, till their bodies were as thick with marks as an obelisk. How different from the symbols of care in the furrowed face and stooping form of a free laborer, where the history of a humble home, planted in marriage and nursed by independent sorrow, is printed ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 65, March, 1863 • Various
... The pillars of the gigantic colonnade of Bernini, as we jolted along, "seemed to be marching by," in broad platoons. The fountains piled their flexile columns of spray and waved them to and fro. The great bell clanged from the belfry. Groups wandered forth in the great Piazza. The old Egyptian obelisk in the centre pointed its lean finger to the sky. We were in Rome! This one moment of surprised sensation is worth the journey from Civita Vecchia. Entered by no other gate, is Rome so suddenly and completely possessed. Nowhere is the contrast ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 18, April, 1859 - [Date last updated: August 7, 2005] • Various
... encamped at the foot of an obelisk in the centre of some noble ruins. It was a sacred spot with the Shoshones. Their traditions told them of another race, who had formerly lived there, and which had been driven by them to the south. It must have been ages back, for the hand of time, so lenient in this climate, ...
— Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet • Captain Marryat
... considerable portions of history to this test. The records of Shalmaneser II., Tiglath-Pileser III. and Sennacherib, kings of Assyria, of Nebuchadrezzar, king of Babylon, and of Cyrus, king of Persia, all contain direct references to Hebrew history. An obelisk of Shalmaneser II. contains explicit reference to the tribute of Jehu of Samaria, and graphically depicts the Hebrew captives. Tiglath-Pileser III., a usurper who came to the throne of Assyria in 745 B.C., and whose earlier name of Pul proved a source of confusion to the later Hebrew writers, left ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 3 - "Chitral" to "Cincinnati" • Various
... lamps were alight, and they cast reflections upon the still damp pavement about them. To either side, the trees of the Tuileries gardens and of the Cours la Reine and the Champs-Elysees lay in a solid black mass; in the middle, the obelisk rose slender and straight, its pointed top black against the sky; and beneath, the water of the Nereid fountains splashed and gurgled. Far beyond, the gay lights of the rue Royale shone in a yellow cluster; and beyond these still, the tall columns of the Madeleine ended the long vista. ...
— Jason • Justus Miles Forman
... which gave their appellations to the very manors on which they stood—have been repeatedly demolished in Scotland. An obelisk of thirteen feet in height, and imparting its name to a landed estate in Kincardineshire, was recently thrown down; and a large monolith, which lent its old, venerable name to a property and mansion within three or four miles of Edinburgh, was, within the memory of ...
— Archaeological Essays, Vol. 1 • James Y. Simpson
... the enigma, feeling just on the verge of comprehension, but baffled. I kept gazing from one to the other till Palus rounded the further goal and was largely hidden by the posts, the stand for the bronze tally-eggs, the obelisk and the other ornaments of the spina. ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... is no bad test, as I think the landscape painter is the gardener's best designer. The eye requires a sort of balance here; but not so as to encroach upon probable nature. A wood or hill may balance a house or obelisk; for exactness would be displeasing. . . It is not easy to account for the fondness of former times for straight-lined avenues to their houses; straight-lined walks through their woods; and, in short, every kind of straight line, where the foot has to ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... their pretty towers. The bats came out, as if they knew how precious is their black at evening against the ethereal lemon color, the orange and the red. The little obelisk beyond the last sphinx on the left began to change, as in Egypt all things change at sunset—pylon and dusty bush, colossus and baked earth hovel, sycamore, and tamarisk, statue and trotting donkey. It looked like a mysterious finger ...
— The Spell of Egypt • Robert Hichens
... and when he was doing neither, and the needle proved refractory in his cold fingers, he was swearing to himself. For there was no fire in the room. The materials for a fire were there, and a white tile stove, as cozy as an obelisk in a cemetery, stood in the corner. But fires are expensive, and hardly necessary when one sleeps with all one's windows open—one window, to be exact, the room being very small—and spends most of the day in a warm and comfortable ...
— The Street of Seven Stars • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... tumult, the fugitives succeeded in traversing, without being recognized, the broad central avenue of the garden of the Tuileries. Emerging by the gate of the Pont Tournant, they reached the foot of the obelisk in the Place de la Concorde. It was one o'clock in the afternoon; the duke had ordered the carriages to be ready for them there. But the mob, recognizing the carriages as belonging to the royal family, had dashed them ...
— Louis Philippe - Makers of History Series • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
... Mr. Widdicomb were, by a revolution, placed on the throne of Brentford, people would be equally fascinated by his irresistibly majestic smile and tremble as they knelt down to kiss his hand. If he went to Dublin they would erect an obelisk on the spot where he first landed, as the Paddylanders did when Gorgius visited them. We have all of us read with delight that story of the King's voyage to Haggisland, where his presence inspired such a fury of loyalty and where the most famous man of the country—the ...
— The Book of Snobs • William Makepeace Thackeray
... employed laborers each day,—which is not at all the same thing. For he has paid nothing for that immense power which results from the union and harmony of laborers, and the convergence and simultaneousness of their efforts. Two hundred grenadiers stood the obelisk of Luxor upon its base in a few hours; do you suppose that one man could have accomplished the same task in two hundred days? Nevertheless, on the books of the capitalist, the amount of wages paid would have been the same. Well, a desert to prepare for cultivation, a house to build, ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon
... must be free and not forced. Virtue may be defended, as vice may be withstood, by a statute, but no virtue is or can be created by a law, any more than by a battering ram a temple or obelisk can be reared.—Bartol. ...
— Pearls of Thought • Maturin M. Ballou
... the equestrian and colossal statue which he had seen in the Forum of Trajan; but when he had maturely weighed the difficulties of the execution, [42] he chose rather to embellish the capital by the gift of an Egyptian obelisk. In a remote but polished age, which seems to have preceded the invention of alphabetical writing, a great number of these obelisks had been erected, in the cities of Thebes and Heliopolis, by the ancient ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... current could not sweep away: it made a nucleus for alluvial deposit, and the island gradually arose. Several hundred years afterward it was built into the form of a ship, as bridges and wharves are built, with a temple in the midst, and a tall obelisk set up in guise of its mast. In mediaeval days a church replaced the heathen fane, and now it stands between its two bridges, a huddle of houses, terraces and gardens, whence one looks down on the fine mass of the Ponte Rotto ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 86, February, 1875 • Various
... distrust were manifest in several colonies, and apprehensions of other encroachments by the British Parliament upon what they held to be their constitutional rights. Even the General Assembly of Virginia, which had in the spring session voted a statue to the King, and an obelisk to Mr. Pitt and several other members of Parliament, postponed, in the December following, the final consideration of the resolution until the next session. The Virginia press said: "The Americans are hasty in expressing their gratitude, if the repeal of the Stamp Act is ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 1 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Egerton Ryerson
... their chogas of velvet and Chinese silk—gathered in the court. They were kneeling with their backs towards him and the doorway, so that not one of them had noticed his approach. They were facing a small rough-hewn obelisk of stone which stood at the head of a low mound of earth at the far end of the court. Six of them were grouped in a sort of semi-circle, and the seventh, a man clad from head to foot in green robes, knelt a little in advance and alone. But from none of ...
— The Broken Road • A. E. W. Mason
... for many years in the centre of the Square an obelisk with the inscription, "Obtusum Obtusioris Ingenii Monumentum Quid me respicis viator? Vade." And an attempt has been made to read the mysterious inscription as a Cromwellian epitaph. Pennant says that in his time the obelisk ...
— Holborn and Bloomsbury - The Fascination of London • Sir Walter Besant
... London when we return, the bragging, boasting blasphemies of this or that conquering king, all to the same tune—'I came, I saw, I conquered; I slew so many thousands of the people—I took so many thousands into captivity—I built this temple to the gods—I raised this obelisk or that pyramid'—and all by hand labour, with the miserable, belaboured slaves dying by their thousands upon thousands under their taskmasters' lashes, to be cast afterwards into the Nile, or left to the jackals and ...
— In the Mahdi's Grasp • George Manville Fenn
... which veiled the Great Sacrifice was observed by a heathen astronomer, Dionysius the Areopagite. We found nothing, however, on the site of this ancient city, except a small garden of orange-trees, with a magnificent obelisk in the centre. ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume 19 - Travel and Adventure • Various
... 'It lies west on top of the chain of heights flanking the river. A monument to the generals stands near here, in the Castle gardens, with the names on opposite sides of the square block. To be sure, how death levels us all! Lord Dalhousie built that obelisk when he was Governor in 1827. You see, as it is the only bit of history we possess, we never can commemorate it enough; so there's another ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe
... enchantment, a garden most gorgeous, a plain sprinkled with coloured meteors, a forest with sparks of purple and ruby and golden fire gemming the foliage; a region, not of trees and shadow, but of strangest architectural wealth—of altar and of temple, of pyramid, obelisk, and sphinx: incredible to say, the wonders and the symbols of Egypt teemed ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... far as the Obelisk with the O'Kelly and the Signora, who were then living together in Lambeth. Till that morning I had not seen the O'Kelly since my departure from London, nearly two years before, so that we had much to tell each other. For the third time now had the O'Kelly ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome
... the count continued to descend the Corso. As they approached the Piazza del Popolo, the crowd became more dense, and above the heads of the multitude two objects were visible: the obelisk, surmounted by a cross, which marks the centre of the square, and in front of the obelisk, at the point where the three streets, del Babuino, del Corso, and di Ripetta, meet, the two uprights of the scaffold, between which glittered the curved knife of ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... uncle of the unhappy Duchess of Praslin. A charge was ordered, the crowd was driven over the bridge, and the Municipal Guard, a company of dragoons and a squadron of hussars took up a position at the foot of the Obelisk of Luxor. "Long live the dragoons!" shouted the people. "Down with the Municipal Guard!" accompanied by hootings, groans, shouts and showers of stones. The troops, with sheathed sabres, charged. One of the immense fountains afforded the gamins a place of shelter. Suddenly the flood ...
— Edmond Dantes • Edmund Flagg
... worship is universally found. An upright conical stone is frequently mentioned. Many of the stone idols or pillars, the worship of which was forbidden by the Bible, come under this group. Likewise, the obelisk, found not only in Egypt, but in modified forms in many other countries as well, embodies the same phallic principle. The usual explanation of the obelisk is that it represented the rays of the sun striking the earth: when ...
— The Journal of Abnormal Psychology - Volume 10
... conspicuous from its size and height, rises a mound of earth shaped into the semblance of an urn or vase, crusted thickly with bits of rock, moss, and pebbles, and overgrown with a tangle of tiny vines. Surmounting this picturesque pedestal is an obelisk of black-veined marble on a granite base, the whole rising some seven feet from the ground. On the polished surface of this memorial pillar is inscribed, in large black capitals, the following ...
— The Aldine, Vol. 5, No. 1., January, 1872 - A Typographic Art Journal • Various
... not many trees that assume the shape of an obelisk, or a long spire; but Nature, who presents to our eyes an ever-charming variety of forms as well as hues, in the objects of her creation, has given us the figure of the obelisk in the Chinese Juniper, in the Balsam Fir, in the Arbor-Vitae, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, Issue 35, September, 1860 • Various
... tremendous a tempest as ever raged in Chelsea or Battersea-reach, "great, square and solid, black clouds drew off like curtains, and revealed to him a magnificent city rising out of the sea. Tower and dome, arch, and column, and spire, and obelisk, and lofty terraces, and many-windowed palaces, rose in all directions from a mass of building, which appeared each instant to grow more huge, till at length it seemed to occupy the whole horizon." ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 322, July 12, 1828 • Various
... companies, and the U. S. troops passed him in regular succession, with flags flying and music floating in the air. The troops then formed themselves again in line, and Lafayette on foot, passed down the line. He was carried to the obelisk, situated on the spot where Vimionel had stormed the second redoubt.—The review over, and Lafayette having seen and been seen by all the troops, be mounted his barouche in company with the governor, and was followed by the other carriages. The whole body of military and citizens then ...
— Memoirs of General Lafayette • Lafayette
... like whispering into the ear of the Sphinx, and listening at her locked lips,... and to go out in April and see them suddenly abloom is as though the lips of the Sphinx should part and utter solemn words. A bunch of white flowers at the tip of the obelisk, flowers springing white and wonderful out of this dead, gaunt, prickly thing—is not that Nature's consummate miracle, a symbol of resurrection more profound than the lily of ...
— The Romance of the Colorado River • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... On the small obelisk in the garden, erected by Pope to the memory of his mother, he placed the following ...
— Flowers and Flower-Gardens • David Lester Richardson
... we catch sight of the monticule crowned by an obelisk; surmounting the vine-clad slopes, we also obtain a glimpse of its "Ormes de Sully," or group of magnificent elms, one of many in France supposed to have been planted by the great Sully. Since my first acquaintance with this neighbourhood, more than twenty years ago, ...
— East of Paris - Sketches in the Gatinais, Bourbonnais, and Champagne • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... great square, with its obelisk and circle of statues, its pavilions and balustrades; beautiful now, and peaceful, but peopled with ghastly memories—for it was here the Revolution set up its guillotine, and it was here that some four thousand men and women, high and low, looked their ...
— The Destroyer - A Tale of International Intrigue • Burton Egbert Stevenson
... Madison Square, extending from Fifth to Madison avenues. The block from Twenty-fourth to Twenty-fifth streets is occupied by the Albemarle and Hoffman Houses, in the order named, both of white marble. Just opposite, at the junction of Broadway and Fifth avenue, is a handsome granite obelisk, with appropriate ornaments in bronze, erected to the memory of General W. J. Worth. Immediately beyond this is the Worth House, fronting on Broadway and Fifth avenue. The vicinity of Madison Square is the brightest, ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... the second place of honor belongs to the Massachusetts Historical Society of Boston. The Tammany Society met in the great wigwam on the 12th day of October, 1792 (old style), and exhibited a monumental obelisk, and an animated oration was delivered by J. B. ...
— Christopher Columbus and His Monument Columbia • Various
... intelligent. She was also intensely bored with her home where, as if packed in a tight box, her individuality—of which she was very conscious—had no play. She strode like a grenadier, was strong and upright like an obelisk, had a beautiful face, a candid brow, pure eyes, and not a thought of her own in her head. He surrendered quickly to all those charms, and she appeared to him so unquestionably of the right sort that ...
— Tales of Unrest • Joseph Conrad
... difficulty the musicians reached the Obelisk and at the foot of the monument they formed a circle, while at a distance the crowd ...
— A Royal Prisoner • Pierre Souvestre
... front of the monument is on the south side, the statue of Lincoln being on that side of the obelisk, over Memorial Hall. On the east side are three tablets, upon which are the letters U. S. A. To the right of that, and beginning with Virginia, we find the the abbreviations of the original thirteen ...
— Lincoln's Yarns and Stories • Alexander K. McClure
... from the crowd who dart impatiently across the road when a practicable breach presents itself, equally so, it is found that too dense a population is less favourable to the brotherhood of the broom than one ever so sparse and thin. Had the negro of Waithman's obelisk survived the advent of Shillibeer, he would have had to shift his quarters, or to have drawn upon his three-and-a-half per cents. to maintain his position. The sweepers who work on the great lines of traffic from Oxford Street west to Aldgate, are consequently not nearly so numerous as they ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 437 - Volume 17, New Series, May 15, 1852 • Various
... describe it," replied the sculptor. "A great open place, and in the midst of it an obelisk, which is ...
— What the Moon Saw: and Other Tales • Hans Christian Andersen
... events in the reign of thirty-five years of his successor, Shalmaneser III., is contained on the Black Obelisk of Nimroud, discovered by Layard and preserved in the British Museum. He conquered the whole country round Lake Van, ravaging the country "as a savage bull ravages and tramples under his feet the fertile fields." An attack on Damascus led to a terrible but indecisive battle, Benhadad, ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XI. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... Isaac Brock. At the latter place he received an address from one hundred and sixty survivors of the War of 1812 at the hands of Chief Justice Sir J. Beverley Robinson and, on September 18th, laid the corner-stone of an obelisk in honour of the chief Canadian hero of that contest. A visit to Port Dalhousie and Hamilton followed, and at the latter place the reception was marked by splendid decorations ...
— The Life of King Edward VII - with a sketch of the career of King George V • J. Castell Hopkins
... those beyond, on the other side of the Rhine, which are very much loftier—the first impression gives no idea of the extraordinary height of the spire. We continued to descend, slowly and cautiously, with Saverne before us in the bottom. To the left, close to the road side, stands an obelisk: on which is fixed, hi gilt letters, this ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Two • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... from the coupe of a diligence, upon Italy from the cushion of a carrozza. The broken windows of Apsley House were still boarded up when I was in London. The asphalt pavement was not laid in Paris. The Obelisk of Luxor was lying in its great boat in the Seine, as I remember it. I did not see it erected; it must have been an exciting scene to witness, the engineer standing underneath, so as to be crushed by the great stone if it disgraced him by falling in the process. As for the dynasties ...
— Our Hundred Days in Europe • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... great public places in the city of Paris, moreover, commemorate, more or less openly, what might be called the great stains on the history of the nation. The Place de la Concorde is that of the Guillotine, and the Luxor obelisk is the monument of the more than twenty-eight hundred victims beheaded by that axe. The Place de l'Hotel de Ville was formerly the Place de Greve, famous in all hangmen's annals,—burnings alive, tearings asunder by horses, breakings on the wheel, decapitations, hangings,—from Catherine ...
— Paris from the Earliest Period to the Present Day; Volume 1 • William Walton
... long-legged young man with a very little empty donkey-cart, standing near the Obelisk, in the Blackfriars Road, whose eye I caught as I was going by, and who, addressing me as 'Sixpenn'orth of bad ha'pence,' hoped 'I should know him agin to swear to'—in allusion, I have no doubt, to my staring at him. I stopped to assure him that I had not done so in ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... our passports, kept us wandering through the streets nearly all day; and we saw nothing in the slightest degree interesting, except the tomb of Smollett, in the burial-place attached to the English Chapel. It is surrounded by an iron railing, and marked by a slender obelisk of white marble, the pattern of which is many times repeated ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... portraying the meaning by significant emblems.' With Clement agrees the Arabian, Abenephi, who uses this language: (This Arabic writing is preserved in the Vatican library, but not as yet printed: it is often quoted by Athanasius Kircher, in his Treatise on the Pamphilian Obelisk, whence these and other matters stated by us have been taken.) 'But there were four kinds of writing among the Egyptians: First, that in use among the populace and the ignorant; secondly, that in vogue among the philosophers and the educated; thirdly, ...
— Mysticism and its Results - Being an Inquiry into the Uses and Abuses of Secrecy • John Delafield
... fought with distinction and maintained their reputation right up to the end of the siege. Visitors to Mafeking may now see near the obelisk in front of the pretty town hall of the famous siege town, a five-pounder gun "captured by the Cape Police during the siege". This gun was seized by the coloured Sergeant Bell and two other subalterns of the "Cape Boys" contingent; their contingent was ...
— Native Life in South Africa, Before and Since • Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje
... for it became apparent just then that the opening close ahead of them was too narrow for the sledge to pass. It was narrowed by a buttress, or projection, of the cathedral-berg, which jutted up close to a vast obelisk of ice about forty ...
— The Giant of the North - Pokings Round the Pole • R.M. Ballantyne
... Zoe with her arm round nurse's neck, and her handkerchief to nurse's eyes, murmuring, "There—there—don't cry, nurse; everybody esteems you, and that lady did not mean to affront you; she did not say 'obelisk;' she said 'obstacle.' That only means that you stand in the way of her improvements; there was not much harm in that, you know. And, nurse, please give that lady her way, to oblige me; for it is by my brother's invitation she ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... books; (3) that the measure of the golden statue of Dura, sixty cubits by six, is irreconcileable with any theory of proportion suited to the human figure, and still more so with the canon of Assyrian art, as seen in their sculpture, and can apply only to an obelisk; (4) that Daniel has made honourable mention of himself; (5) that the position of the book in the third part of the Jewish canon, the Cethubim or Hagiographa, shows that it was ...
— History of Free Thought in Reference to The Christian Religion • Adam Storey Farrar
... South Head, and a great many carriages and horsemen frequently go down there to spend the day, or to see any vessels which may appear off the land. On South Head are, a Flag-staff, a Lookout-house, and an Obelisk; and betwixt it and the North Head, is a narrow entrance, by which vessels enter the port, about seven miles from Sydney. The small island in the centre is called Pinch-gut, which name originated from some persons being placed there on an allowance of provisions for some offence, where ...
— The Present Picture of New South Wales (1811) • David Dickinson Mann
... mass of reports, letters, pamphlets and books, a man had cleared a space for himself where he was now seated, clutching his hair impatiently from time to time, as he endeavored to decipher a page of notes, compared to which the hieroglyphics on the obelisk of Luxor, would have been transparently intelligible. Just as the secretary's impatience was approaching desperation, the door opened and a young officer wearing an aide's ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas
... little worked, from which patient and cautious investigators may one day extract the most valuable literary treasures. The stone obelisks are but few, and are mostly in a fragmentary condition. One alone is perfect—the obelisk in black basalt, discovered by Mr. Layard at Nimrud, which has now for many years been in the British Museum. [PLATE XL., Fig. 1.] This monument is sculptured on each of its four sides, in part with ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 2. (of 7): Assyria • George Rawlinson
... you do? You sat silent as the obelisk in the Place de la Concorde. It was I who made all the conversation. Monsieur ...
— The Mountebank • William J. Locke
... climbing up every possible elevation, and a bright-faced girl who had conquered a high place on the base of the obelisk was chattering down at a group of her friends who ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine
... shame," returned the hunchback in a tone of lamentation; "I have been here since last night, I slept out of doors to keep my place, and here is this abominable giant comes to stick himself in front of me like an obelisk." ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - NISIDA—1825 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... the vicinity is also supposed to have lost its natural brackish taste on account of the infant Jesus having been bathed in it. A half-mile farther on is Heliopolis, the old City of the Sun. It is now marked by the solitary obelisk, which alone remains to remind us of a past that stretches untold centuries back of the Muslim conquest of Egypt in 640; and of a city that was the exponent of the most ancient ...
— Travels in the Far East • Ellen Mary Hayes Peck
... remarkable promontory of Howth or on the elevation of which Dunsink is the summit. On the south side of Dublin there are several eminences that would have been suitable: the breezy heaths at Foxrock combine all necessary conditions; the obelisk hill at Killiney would have given one of the most picturesque sites for an Observatory in the world; while near Delgany two or three other good situations could be mentioned. But the Board of those pre-railway days was naturally guided by the question of proximity. Dunsink was accordingly chosen ...
— Great Astronomers • R. S. Ball
... Such a concourse of people of all ranks and nations had never been seen at any public ceremony on the Bosphorus as that which, on July 24, accompanied the remains of Hobart Pasha to their last resting place in the English cemetery at Scutari, not far from the spot where a tall granite obelisk records the brave deeds and glorious death of those heroes who perished in ...
— Sketches From My Life - By The Late Admiral Hobart Pasha • Hobart Pasha
... semi-circle of gigantic yet admirably proportioned pillars which encloses the grand square in front of St. Peter's reminds me vividly of the general conformation of our great water-fall, while the column or obelisk in the center of the square (which column is a mistake, in my humble judgment, and should be removed) has its parallel in the unsightly tower overlooking the main cataract from the extreme point of Goat Island. Eternal endurance ...
— Glances at Europe - In a Series of Letters from Great Britain, France, Italy, - Switzerland, &c. During the Summer of 1851. • Horace Greeley
... was designed by Major Young of the 97th Regiment. To the top of the surbase is fourteen feet from the ground; on this rests a sarcophagus, seven feet three inches high, from which rises an obelisk forty-two feet eight inches in height, and the apex is two feet one inch. The dimensions of the obelisk at the base are six feet by four feet eight inches. A prize medal was adjudged to J.C. Fisher, LL.D. for the following inscription on ...
— The Backwoods of Canada • Catharine Parr Traill
... An obelisk of gray Canadian granite now stands on this historic ground. Madame de la Peltrie did not remain more than two years in Ville-Marie, but returned to the convent at Quebec which she had left in a moment ...
— Canada • J. G. Bourinot
... was succeeded by his son Shalmaneser III (860-825 B.C.), whose military activities extended over his whole reign. No fewer than thirty-two expeditions were recorded on his famous black obelisk. ...
— Myths of Babylonia and Assyria • Donald A. Mackenzie
... or nation of which we have any record has avoided a recrudescence of barbarism for an hundred generations. A few centuries of our wasting climate obliterates inscriptions on brass and wrecks the proudest monuments of marble. The recently imported Egyptian obelisk, which stood for ages on Nilus' plain, is already falling into ruins. We can scarce decipher the deep-cut epitaphs of the Pilgrim Fathers. The mansion of the sire is uninhabitable for the son. The history of McKinley's promised era of "Progress and ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... Paris to this place is about 24 miles: the road of course excellent, as is uniformly the case in the route to Chalons; but the only thing during the stage which remains on my recollection, is an obelisk inscribed, "Dieu, le Roi, et les dames;" a melange perhaps compounded in compliment to Louis XV. who greatly improved a part of this road, which was once nearly impassable. Corbeil, a neat flourishing town within half a mile of Essonne, and possessing ...
— Itinerary of Provence and the Rhone - Made During the Year 1819 • John Hughes
... become so dilapidated in 1827, that the citizens of Boston supplied its place with a granite obelisk, on which the foregoing ...
— The Printer Boy. - Or How Benjamin Franklin Made His Mark. An Example for Youth. • William M. Thayer
... counted 6192 menhirs, including those which formed parts of alignements and cromlechs. Several of these attain to a great size. That to Locmariaquer (Morbihan), now unfortunately fallen and broken, measured over 60 feet in height, being thus not much shorter than the Egyptian obelisk which stands in the Place de la ...
— Rough Stone Monuments and Their Builders • T. Eric Peet
... the old man appears again. When eighty years had passed, he walked once more in King street. Five years later, in the twilight of an April morning, he stood on the green beside the meeting-house at Lexington where now the obelisk of granite with a slab of slate inlaid commemorates the first-fallen of the Revolution. And when our fathers were toiling at the breastwork on Bunker's Hill, all through that night the old warrior walked his rounds. Long, long may it be ere he comes ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... known as the "Maison de France" . . . Within its walls the illustrious Champollion and his ally Rosellini lived and worked together in 1829, during part of their long sojourn at Thebes. Here the naval officers sent out by the French in 1831 to remove the obelisk which now stands in the Place de la Concorde took up their temporary quarters. And here, most interesting to English readers, Lady Duff Gordon lingered through some of her last winters, and wrote most of her delightful "Letters from ...
— Letters from Egypt • Lucie Duff Gordon
... dwellings; not by miles, but by rods. The poles of the great magnet that draws in all the iron tracks through the grooves of all the mountains must be near at hand, for here are crossings, and sudden stops, and screams of alarmed engines heard all around. The tall granite obelisk comes into view far away on the left, its bevelled cap-stone sharp against the sky; the lofty chimneys of Charlestown and East Cambridge flaunt their smoky banners up in the thin air; and now one fair bosom of the three-pilled city, with its dome-crowned ...
— Pages From an Old Volume of Life - A Collection Of Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... gestures he urged them to do so. He understood that this was the way they paid respect to their own great chiefs. Having arranged about getting a supply of water, he walked with Messrs. Anderson and Wilder into the country, to visit an obelisk of wickerwork, fifty feet high, standing in a morai. A native had been selected as a guide, and wherever they went the people fell prostrate before the captain. The morai was similar to those seen at Otaheite. In and about it were ...
— Captain Cook - His Life, Voyages, and Discoveries • W.H.G. Kingston
... hounds. During the periodical cuttings of the copse, which the necessities of the family of St. Ronan's brought round more frequently than Ponty would have recommended, some oaks had been spared in the neighbourhood of this massive obelisk, old enough perhaps to have heard the whoop and halloo which followed the fall of the stag, and to have witnessed the raising of the rude monument by which that great event was commemorated. These trees, with their broad ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... went to see the famous obelisk presented by Mehemet Ali to the British Government, who have not shown a particular alacrity to accept this ponderous present. The huge shaft lies on the ground, prostrate, and desecrated by all ...
— Notes on a Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo • William Makepeace Thackeray
... pillars, or obelisks, which referred to the sea; and upon which was delineated the whole system both of heaven and earth; [Greek: amphis], all around, both on the front of the obelisk, and on the other sides. [Greek: Kiones Kosmou] were certainly maps, and histories of the universe; in the knowledge of which the Atlantians seem to have instructed their brethren the Herculeans. The Grecians, in their accounts, by putting one person for a people, have rendered the history ...
— A New System; or, an Analysis of Antient Mythology. Volume II. (of VI.) • Jacob Bryant
... these remains is a ruin in the island of Bearnarey, in the Sound of Harris. It is evidently a chapel of the saint and is called Cill Aisaim. Near it once stood an obelisk about eight feet high, bearing sculptured symbols, and in comparatively recent years this was surrounded by heaps of coloured pebbles, coins, bone pins, and bronze needles, which were probably pilgrims offerings. The obelisk was broken up some years ago ...
— A Calendar of Scottish Saints • Michael Barrett
... and fall of political and ecclesiastical systems, has been constantly advancing towards perfection in every succeeding age. If there had been no such common Humanity, then the dark and massive Egyptian obelisk would not have everywhere reappeared in the sepulchral architecture of our own times, and the light and graceful orders of Greece and Italy would not as now have been the models of our villas and our dwellings, nor would the ...
— Autographs for Freedom, Volume 2 (of 2) (1854) • Various
... kinds of tree; who scattered the flowers, of all seasons and of every clime, abundantly over those green, central lawns; who scooped out hollows in fit places, and, setting great basins of marble in them, caused ever-gushing fountains to fill them to the brim; who reared up the immemorial obelisk out of the soil that had long hidden it; who placed pedestals along the borders of the avenues, and crowned them with busts of that multitude of worthies—statesmen, heroes, artists, men of letters and of song—whom the whole world claims as its chief ornaments, though Italy produced ...
— The Marble Faun, Volume I. - The Romance of Monte Beni • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... and mildewed appearance; and if they can be said to have any vices at all, perhaps drinking and cheating are the most conspicuous among them. Their residences are usually on the outskirts of 'the Rules,' chiefly lying within a circle of one mile from the obelisk in St. George's Fields. Their looks are not prepossessing, ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... Obelisk is affixed to the dates which depend upon conjecture. Those preceded by an Asterisk denote the year of ...
— Architectural Antiquities of Normandy • John Sell Cotman
... now, touched with pity, would gladly have welcomed him. He broke from them all, lived his own life, was reputed to be a freethinker, and when he came to his estate, a long while afterwards, he put up the obelisk, and recorded in Latin how Death, the foul adulterer, had ravished his sweet bride—the coward Death whom no man could challenge—and that the inconsolable bridegroom had erected this monument in memory of her matchless virtues. That was all: no blessed resurrection nor trust in the Saviour. ...
— The Revolution in Tanner's Lane • Mark Rutherford
... at Pasagarda, situated in a fertile valley, called the Queen's Girdle, because its revenues were appropriated to that costly article of the royal wardrobe. This pleasant city had once been the favourite residence of Cyrus the Great, and a plain obelisk in the royal gardens marked his burial-place. The adjacent promontory of Taoces afforded a convenient harbour for Tyrian merchants, and thus brought in the luxuries of Phoenicia, while it afforded opportunities ...
— Philothea - A Grecian Romance • Lydia Maria Child
... sun. A more classical tradition recognized the figures of Bellerophon and Pegasus; and the free attitude of the steed seemed to mark that he trod on air, rather than on the earth. 7. A square and lofty obelisk of brass; the sides were embossed with a variety of picturesque and rural scenes, birds singing; rustics laboring, or playing on their pipes; sheep bleating; lambs skipping; the sea, and a scene of fish ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon
... Cheeryble had directed him was a row of mean and not over-cleanly houses, situated within 'the Rules' of the King's Bench Prison, and not many hundred paces distant from the obelisk in St George's Fields. The Rules are a certain liberty adjoining the prison, and comprising some dozen streets in which debtors who can raise money to pay large fees, from which their creditors do NOT derive any ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... colossal temple of Luxor, looking as out of place now as the poor obelisk which Egypt gave us as a present, and which stands to-day in ...
— Egypt (La Mort De Philae) • Pierre Loti
... express-wagon; a sullen Southerner contrasts with a grinning Gaul, a darkly-vested bishop with a gayly-attired child, a daintily-gloved belle with a mud-soiled drunkard; a little shoe-black and a blind fiddler ply their trades in the shadow of Emmet's obelisk, and a toy-merchant has Montgomery's mural tablet for a background; on the fence is a string of favorite ballads and popular songs; a mock auctioneer shouts from one door, and a silent wax effigy gazes from another. Pisani, who accompanied Prince Napoleon ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 110, December, 1866 - A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics • Various
... park at once. The crisp autumn air was perfect for his ride, and Brewster found a number of smart people already riding and driving in the park. His horse was keen for a canter and he had reached the obelisk before he drew rein. As he was about to cross the carriage road he was nearly run down by Miss Drew in ...
— Brewster's Millions • George Barr McCutcheon
... symbolism, which recommended itself to the barbarous childhood of nations. But it was not until the pyramid was sharpened and spiritualized into the spire that it gained its completest triumph over the secret emotions of men. The Egyptians made the nearest approach to it in the obelisk. That mysterious people felt very keenly the suggestiveness of the pyramidal form, and refined the language of its sentiment into some very beautiful expressions. Yet between the mausoleums of Gizeh and the hieroglyphic shafts of Luxor and Karnac ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 27, January, 1860 • Various
... with which they desecrated the true religion were worse in the eyes of Maieddine than the foolish faith of Christians, who, at least, were not backsliders. He would not even point out to Victoria the strange minaret of the Abadite mosque at Berryan, which tapered like a brown obelisk against the shimmering sky, for to him its very ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... amusing, and with always something new and original to say. As we wandered through the beautiful grounds, some of which are reclaimed from the wild heath which stretches for miles round the house, he pointed out to me the curious obelisk, grey and time-worn, which still perpetuates the memory of the historic mansion once known as "Fireproof." For it was here that George III. and Queen Charlotte once breakfasted in peace in the drawing room upstairs, whilst the dining-room below was purposely ignited to prove that ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III, March 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... is, therefore, the apex of a cone, from which the descent is equally steep on all sides, and which is only approached by a series of steps. To give in a few words an idea of the height of this tower, we may compare it to the obelisk of Luxor on its pedestal. The pedestal of the tower of Issoudun, which hid within its breast such archaeological treasures, was eighty feet high on the side towards the town. In an hour the cart was taken off its ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... named others the Do-darto, the Fagonne, the Bignonne, the Phelipee. These are compliments proper to be made by the botanists, not only to those of their own rank, but to the greatest persons; for a plant is a monument of a more durable nature than a medal or an obelisk; and yet, as a proof that even these vehicles are not always sufficient to transmit to futurity the name conjoined with them, the Nicotiana is now scarcely known by any other ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 6 - Reviews, Political Tracts, and Lives of Eminent Persons • Samuel Johnson
... ancient world, until the time of the Greeks. They were called Aryans by Herodotus. They had spread over the highlands of Western Asia in the primeval ages, and formed various tribes. The first notice of this Aryan (or Arian) race, appears in the inscriptions on the black obelisk of Nimrod, B.C. 880, from which it would appear that this was about the period of the immigration into Media, and they were then exposed to the aggressions of the Assyrians. "The first king who menaced their independence ...
— Ancient States and Empires • John Lord
... king even in the inscriptions upon her monument. Her edifices are said to be "the most tasteful, most complete and brilliant creations which ever left the hands of an Egyptian architect." The largest and most beautifully executed obelisk; still standing at Karnak, bears her name. On the walls of her unique and beautiful temple at Dayr el Baharee, we see a naval expedition sent to explore the unknown land of Punt, the Somali country on the East coast ...
— Chess History and Reminiscences • H. E. Bird
... menhir known, but it has been broken into three pieces, some say by thunder. Put together, it measures about 67 feet in length, and is 16 feet in diameter. The wonder is how it was placed there, for it is little less than the obelisk of St. Peter's, which took 800 to 900 men and 70 horses nearly a year to raise,—a work which was the great triumph of Fontana the engineer. The menhir is estimated to be one-third the height ...
— Brittany & Its Byways • Fanny Bury Palliser
... light! In the north the moon scatters silver over the water: here it was gold. The circulating lanterns of the lighthouse now exhibited their dazzling light, now were totally extinguished. The torches of the fishing-boats threw their obelisk-formed blaze along the surface of the water, or else the boat concealed them like a black shadow, below which the surface of the water was illuminated. One fancied one could see to the bottom, where fishes and plants were in motion. Along the street itself thousands ...
— The True Story of My Life • Hans Christian Andersen
... now he had been aware of her presence in Marseilles without thinking of her—aware of her as he was aware of the Hotel de Ville, or of the Consigne, as of the obelisk in the Place Castellane. These things were facts, had their place, and she was a fact. She had become imprinted on his memory as on a sensitive plate. So one dusk on the Prado, as he met her, he was no more surprised than if, ...
— The Wind Bloweth • Brian Oswald Donn-Byrne
... Gate is an obelisk, set up in commemoration of a visitation of the Plague in 1669, when the country people brought their produce and left it outside the gate to be taken in by the city dwellers, who deposited the money for the goods in bowls of vinegar, ...
— Winchester • Sidney Heath
... an elongated truncated pyramid, or obelisk, fluted on all sides (Fig. 7). The handle is in the spiral shape so frequent in Eskimo skin-scrapers from Norton Sound and vicinity, and exactly fits the thumb and the last three fingers. Marks 5 ...
— Throwing-sticks in the National Museum • Otis T. Mason
... The obelisk generously presented by the Khedive of Egypt to the city of New York has safely arrived in this country, and will soon be erected in that metropolis. A commission for the liquidation of the Egyptian debt has lately concluded ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... pulpit, which is the identical one from which he preached. A bas-relief in white marble by the American sculptor, Story, commemorating the work of Wyclif, has been placed in the church at a cost of more than ten thousand dollars, and just outside a tall granite obelisk has been erected in his honor. In cleaning the walls recently, it was discovered that under several coats of paint there were some remarkable frescoes which, being slowly uncovered, were found to represent scenes in the life of ...
— British Highways And Byways From A Motor Car - Being A Record Of A Five Thousand Mile Tour In England, - Wales And Scotland • Thomas D. Murphy
... driven by the lash to tortured effort, swarmed and sweated and groaned that some high priest or royal personage might in mummied grandeur await his soul's return to its foul, flinty, wrinkled and desolate home. Near, floating northward with the tide, was a great obelisk of granite weighing more than forty tons, held upon the surface by parallel rafts of buoyant logs ...
— Chit-Chat; Nirvana; The Searchlight • Mathew Joseph Holt
... itself, it had not yet, as the reader will understand from the foregoing explanation, either the fine colonnade of Bernini, or the dancing fountains, or that Egyptian obelisk which, according to Pliny, was set up by the Pharaoh at Heliopolis, and transferred to Rome by Caligula, who set it up in Nero's Circus, where it remained till 1586. Now, as Nero's Circus was situate on the ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... within twenty or thirty feet of the floor, serves to give great effect to the large enclosed space of an antique hall. Against the walls are several marble monuments; one to the Earl of Chatham, a statue of white marble, with various allegorical contrivances, fronting an obelisk or pyramid of dark marble; and another to his son, William Pitt, of somewhat similar design and of equal size; each of them occupying the whole space, I believe, between pavement and ceiling. There is likewise ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... of the plinth, right across the inscription. Doubtless a few shillings would repair the damage; but may I suggest, Sir, that some worthier memorial is due to this pioneer of woman's higher activities? I have thought of a plain obelisk on Shakespeare's Cliff, a locality of which he was ever fond; or a small and inconspicuous lighthouse might, without complicating the navigation of this part of the Channel, serve to remind Englishmen of one who diffused so much light during ...
— From a Cornish Window - A New Edition • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... achievements of the present possible, are the historic landmarks which bear the names of some of these brave men. But these are very few in number. Pike's Peak lifts its snowy head to heaven in silent commemoration of the early traveler whose name it bears. Simpson's Rest, a lofty obelisk, commemorates the mountaineer whose life was for the most part passed upon its rugged slopes, and whose last request was that he should be buried on its summit. Another cloud-capped mountain-height bears the name of Fisher's Peak, and thereby ...
— Last of the Great Scouts - The Life Story of William F. Cody ["Buffalo Bill"] • Helen Cody Wetmore
... controversy. O too humble fools, why should you wish to destroy your enemies? You have done something more to them. You have created your enemies. You wish to pull down that gigantic silver hammer, which stands, like an obelisk, in the centre of the Broadway of Hammersmith. Fools! Before Notting Hill arose, did any person passing through Hammersmith Broadway expect to see there a gigantic silver hammer? You wish to abolish ...
— The Napoleon of Notting Hill • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... no reply, but went on: and taking one or two turns through the tortuous lanes in the neighbourhood, arrived at a spot where a small obelisk, of no very graceful form or great dimensions, planted in the middle of the road, marked the boundary of four distinct parishes. She paused there for a moment, and leaned upon the landmark, as if from fatigue, weakness, or agitation. The light was now dim, but it was ...
— The King's Highway • G. P. R. James
... and there is in the north-western bay a pointed door, differing only from those of about a hundred years earlier in having twisted shafts. One curious feature is the parapet of the central aisle, which is like a row of small classical pedestals, each bearing a stumpy obelisk. By far the finest feature of the outside is the great west door. On each side are clusters of square pinnacles ending in square crocketed spirelets, and running up to a horizontal moulding which, as so often, gives the whole design a rectangular form. Within comes the doorway itself; a large ...
— Portuguese Architecture • Walter Crum Watson
... as Obod-as (Al Ubayd), Aretas (Al-Haris), etc. Mr. Isaac Taylor (The Alphabet i. 169), preserves the old absurdity of "eleph-ant or ox-like (!) beast of Africa." Prof. Sayce finds the word al-ab (two distinct characters) in line 3, above the figure of an (Indian) elephant, on the black obelisk of Nimrod Mound, and suggests ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... high bluff, covered with wood, contiguous to the college, I observed a monument or obelisk, which I ascertained to have been erected to the memory of Kosciusko, a Polish patriot, who took a prominent part in the annihilation of British rule in America. It had a very picturesque effect, and was ...
— An Englishman's Travels in America - His Observations Of Life And Manners In The Free And Slave States • John Benwell
... tires des coll. MSS. de la bibliotheque royale (Fr. gov.), iv. 483, etc. Compare the excellent narratives of the Duc d'Aumale and Prof. Soldan. The Bulletin de la Soc. de l'hist. du prot. fr., i. (1853) 429, gives a representation of a monument, in the form of an obelisk, about eleven feet in height, erected by the Department of the Charente, in 1818, on the spot where Conde fell. A somewhat similar monument, raised in 1770 by the Count de Jarnac, was destroyed during the ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird
... time of Thothmes III. (about 1600 years B. C.), when, also, it was set up in the temple of Karnak, at Thebes. It is a tall, rectangular pillar, tapering from the base to near the top, where it is pointed like a flattened pyramid; its sides are inscribed with hieroglyphics. The obelisk was taken to Alexandria by Queen Cleopatra, and was named after her. Some think that Cleopatra's Needle was another stone, quarried by order of Ramesis II., and set up in Heliopolis, the City of the Sun; but several obelisks have borne the name, ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, V. 5, April 1878 - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... direction of the cabin from which he issues; are the sights which a traveler may remark on coming on deck at Kingstown pier on a wet morning—let us say on an average morning; for according to the statement of well-informed natives, the Irish day is more often rainy than otherwise. A hideous obelisk, stuck upon four fat balls, and surmounted with a crown on a cushion (the latter were no bad emblems perhaps of the monarch in whose honor they were raised), commemorates the sacred spot at which George IV. quitted ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors - Vol. II Great Britain And Ireland, Part Two • Francis W. Halsey
... matters have been which, even with their best efforts applied in conjunction, they could have attempted or accomplished. Now (to pause while upon this example and look in it as in a glass) let us suppose that some vast obelisk were (for the decoration of a triumph or some such magnificence) to be removed from its place, and that men should set to work upon it with their naked hands; would not any sober spectator think them mad? And if they ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot
... worship is everywhere to be found accompanying the triune God, called by the Hindoos, Trimourti or Trinity, and the significant form of the single obelisk or pillar called the Linga or Lingham;[3] and it should be observed, in justice to the Hindoos that it is some comparative and negative praise to them, that this emblem, under which they express the éléments and operations of nature is not externally indecorous. Unlike the abominable realities ...
— Aphrodisiacs and Anti-aphrodisiacs: Three Essays on the Powers of Reproduction • John Davenport
... ascents, upon other summits; for by this time I was thousands of feet above Little Ararat, the next highest peak visible, and could scarcely guess how many thousands. From this tremendous height it looked more like a broken obelisk than an independent summit twelve thousand eight hundred feet in height. Clouds covered the farther side of the great snow basin, and were seething like waves about the savage pinnacles, the towers of the Jinn palace, which guard its lower margin, and past which my upward ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... Whalley repeated; and suddenly his heart failed him. He paused. The shores, the islets, the high ground, the low points, were dark: the horizon had grown somber; and across the eastern sweep of the shore the white obelisk, marking the landing-place of the telegraph-cable, stood like a pale ghost on the beach before the dark spread of uneven roofs, intermingled with palms, of the native town. Captain ...
— End of the Tether • Joseph Conrad
... some distance into the land. Soon afterwards the big rock mentioned in O'Gorman's document separated itself from the background of bush and trees with which it had hitherto been merged, and proclaimed itself as an obelisk-like monolith of basalt rearing its apex to a height of some ninety feet above the water level. When fairly abreast of this the canvas was clewed up, and the brig slid into the loch with the way that she had on her. This loch, or channel, wound gradually round for a length of about ...
— The Castaways • Harry Collingwood
... of a large mining village in the Midlands. A man addressing a small gang of colliers from the foot of a stumpy memorial obelisk. Church bells heard. Churchgoers passing along the ...
— Touch and Go • D. H. Lawrence
... States and cities. He wore the rings and pins and badges of different fraternal orders to which he belonged. Even his cuff-buttons were engraved with hieroglyphics, and he was more inscribed than an Egyptian obelisk. Once when he sat down to chat, he told us that in the immigrant car ahead there was a family from "across the water" whose destination was ...
— My Antonia • Willa Sibert Cather |
