"Onyx" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... (vulg. billaur) retaining the venerable tradition of the Belus- river. In Al-Hariri (Ass. of Halwan) it means crystal and there is no need of proposing to translate it by onyx or to identify it with ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... Warren had turned for confirmation was a slight, trim, gray-eyed man. Sometimes the gray of the eyes turned almost black, but always they were hard as onyx. There was about the man something sinister, something of eternal wariness. His glance had a habit of sweeping swiftly from one person to another as if it questioned what purpose might ...
— A Man Four-Square • William MacLeod Raine
... pavement I saw the merchant fast asleep and breathing heavily, with his face and the palms of his hands towards the sky, and slaves were fanning him to keep away the flies. And from the market-place I came to a silver temple and then to a palace of onyx, and there were many wonders in Perdondaris, and I would have stayed and seen them all, but as I came to the outer wall of the city I suddenly saw in it a huge ivory gate. For a while I paused and admired it, then I came nearer and perceived the dreadful truth. The gate was ...
— Tales of Three Hemispheres • Lord Dunsany
... foretold, to the City of Never perched upon Toldenarba, and saw late twilight on those pinnacles that know no other light. All the domes were of copper, but the spires on their summits were gold. Little steps of onyx ran all this way and that. With cobbled agates were its streets a glory. Through small square panes of rose-quartz the citizens looked from their houses. To them as they looked abroad the World far-off seemed happy. Clad though that city was in one robe always, ...
— The Book of Wonder • Edward J. M. D. Plunkett, Lord Dunsany
... a great dispute has arisen. Some think that onyx is the material described, a conjecture founded on the variety of colors which that stone presents. To this it is objected, that onyx and murrha, onyx vases and murrhine vases are alike mentioned by Latin writers, and never with ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... gracious shapes; the sharp chisel must cut into the marble, to fashion by keen, driving blows the fair statue; the fine, piercing instrument, "the little diamond-pointed ill," it is that traces the forms of beauty on the hard onyx. There had been sorrow in the tale of my friend, temptation at least, if not sinful yielding, labor and pain, which had broken down the fair mind itself,—but it had all created a gracious form for the memory to dwell ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... side, looking closely into her face, and the first thing that struck her was the extreme brightness of his eyes. They shone like black onyx. ...
— The Obstacle Race • Ethel M. Dell
... the further end of the hall, by the foremost of three or four persons vested in silver, with belts of the crimson metal which plays the part of our best-tempered steel, and bearing in their hands wands of a rose-coloured jewel resembling a clouded onyx in all but the hue. Each of them wore over his dress a band or sash of gold, fastened on the left shoulder and descending to the belt on the right, much resembling the ribbons of European knighthood. These supported on the left breast a silver star, or heraldic mullet, of six points. ...
— Across the Zodiac • Percy Greg
... agree, monsieur; I'll assure you it was both decocted and dried where no sun came, and kept in an onyx ...
— Cynthia's Revels • Ben Jonson
... them. Well, upon the walls of the tomb of the Princess Arjamand are about two acres of surface covered with such mosaics as fine and as perfect as if each setting were a jewel intended for a queen to wear—turquoise, coral, garnet, carnelian, jasper, malachite, agate, lapis lazuli, onyx, nacre, bloodstone, tourmaline, sardonyx and a dozen other precious stones of different colors. The guide book says that twenty-eight different varieties of stone, many of them unknown to modern times, are inlaid ...
— Modern India • William Eleroy Curtis
... crystal forms the caul of the head-dress, another is placed below the waist. The large shell is supported by the tail of the whale on one side, and on the other by the serpent which twists around it; in this reptile's head a turquoise is set, the eyes are formed of garnet, and the tongue of red onyx. The whole is of silver-gilt, and within the mouth is a small figure of Jonah, whose adventure is thus strangely mixed with the general design. The sea is quaintly indicated by the circular base, chased with figures of sea-monsters disporting in the waves. ...
— Rambles of an Archaeologist Among Old Books and in Old Places • Frederick William Fairholt
... lingered. When they took leave she gave Mrs. Churchley, without intention and without defiance, but from the simple sincerity of her pain, a longer look into the eyes than she had ever given her before. Mrs. Churchley's onyx pupils reflected the question as distant dark windows reflect the sunset; they seemed to say: "Yes, I AM, if that's what you ...
— The Marriages • Henry James
... purple, and scarlet twice dyed." Thirdly, he had the ephod, which covered his shoulders and his breast down to the girdle; and it was made of gold, and violet and purple, and scarlet twice dyed and twisted linen: and on his shoulders he bore two onyx stones, on which were graven the names of the children of Israel. Fourthly, he had the rational, made of the same material; it was square in shape, and was worn on the breast, and was fastened to the ephod. On this rational there were twelve precious stones set ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) - From the Complete American Edition • Saint Thomas Aquinas
... Dalis hesitated. "Your word!" he snapped, looking at each Sarka in turn, and each in his turn nodded. They had given their word, but not their love, to Dalis. Dalis bowed low to Sarka the Youngest, who darted to the onyx base in which revolved the Master Beryl, and pressed a small lever of metalized jade, set in a slot on the southern side of the base of onyx. The humming sound within the Beryl became perceptibly louder, and as the minutes passed, and Sarka stood, ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science July 1930 • Various
... limbs were entwined necklaces of enormous pearls. Upon his back, which was covered with a magnificent Persian carpet of striped pattern, stood a sort of estrade overlaid with gold finely chased, and constellated with onyx stones, carnelians, chrysolites, lapis-lazuli, and girasols; upon this estrade sat the young queen, so covered with precious stones as to dazzle the eyes of the beholders. A mitre, shaped like a helmet, on which pearls formed flower designs and letters after the Oriental ...
— King Candaules • Theophile Gautier
... out of Paradise flows among the plains through a certain province, and it expands, embracing the whole province with its various windings. There are found emeralds, sapphires, carbuncles, topazes, chrysolites, onyx, beryl, sardius, and many other precious stones. There, too, grows the ...
— Storyology - Essays in Folk-Lore, Sea-Lore, and Plant-Lore • Benjamin Taylor
... and fine linen and goats' hair and red skins of rams and badgers' skins brought them. And all the women that were wise-hearted did spin with their hands, and brought that which they had spun, both of blue and of purple and of scarlet and of fine linen. And the rulers brought onyx-stones, and stones to be set, and spice, and oil for the light. The children of Israel brought a willing offering unto the Lord, every ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 87, January, 1865 • Various
... lace, yellow with age, that her grandmother had sent from England; a long chain of fine gold, too frail to be worn; a brooch set with diamonds in a bygone fashion; a ring with her father's seal carved in onyx. ...
— Jonah • Louis Stone
... chipped flint or obsidian, deftly and securely tied to the shaft with tough and durable strings of sinews; shell beads, pipes, bone awls, punches, needles, etc.; stone fetiches in semblance of animals, the like of which were never seen on land or sea; ornaments of shell, turquoise and onyx, and even a kind of jade; sandals and mats of yucca fibre, and exquisitely delicate feather robes,—these are some of the things that the excavators have found. Corn-cobs, melon rinds and grass seeds may ...
— The Grand Canyon of Arizona: How to See It, • George Wharton James
... Theophile Gautier, Leconte de Lisle, Theodore de Bauville, and Baudelaire. The modern use of the word dates from the publication of "La Parnasse Contemporain" (Lemerre, 1866).] carve urns of agate and of onyx, but inside the urns what is there?—ashes. Their work lacks feeling, seriousness, sincerity, and pathos—in a word, soul and moral life. I cannot bring myself to sympathize with such a way of understanding poetry. The talent shown is astonishing, but stuff ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... years later, it was but the hundredth. In spite of some attempts at reaction by Augustus, this passion for splendor reached a frantic pitch. A freedman in the reign of Claudius decorated his triclinium with thirty-two columns of onyx. I say nothing of the slaves that were counted by thousands in the old palaces, and by hundreds in the triclinium ...
— The Wonders of Pompeii • Marc Monnier
... white moon dawned; the sunset died; And stars were trembling when we spied The rose-red temple of our dreams: Its lamp-lit gardens glimmered cool With many an onyx-paven pool, Amid soft sounds of flowing streams; Where star-shine shimmered through the white Tall fountain-shafts of crystal ...
— Collected Poems - Volume One (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... cranium where bumps ought to be; moreover, he wants a little time left to energize in other directions than in the practice of his craft. One of the functions of architecture is to reveal the inherent qualities and beauties of different materials, by their appropriate use and tasteful display. An onyx staircase on the one hand, and a portland cement high altar on the other, alike violate this function of architecture; they transgress that beautiful necessity which decrees that precious materials should serve precious uses and common materials should serve utilitarian ...
— Architecture and Democracy • Claude Fayette Bragdon
... about his shoulders—it seemed to be windy in the colonnade. It was princely; and his turkish trousers were of pure gold. At his side was a bent sabre, and on his head a turban, with a stone in it—certainly onyx, or sardonox, or a pearl, or a precious ...
— Walter Pieterse - A Story of Holland • Multatuli
... cxiopova. Omnipresence cxieesto. Omniscient cxioscia. On sur. Once foje, unu fojon. Once upon a time iam. One unu. One day (sometime) iam. One-eyed unuokula. Oneness unueco. Onion bulbo. Only nur. Onset atako. Ontology ontologio. Onward antauxe, n. Onyx onikso. Ooze traguteti. Opal opalo. Opaque maldiafana. Open malfermi. Open, to throw malfermegi. Open (candid) nekasxema. Open (uncork, etc.) malsxtopi. Open (of flowers) ekflori. Open-hearted malkovranima. Openly nekasxeme, tutkora. Opera ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... me so rich as I am able to help my neighbours. There is a little head cut in an onyx that I take to be a very good one, and the dolphin is (as you say) the better for being cut less; the oddness of the figures makes the beauty of these things. If you saw one that my brother sent my Lady Diana last ...
— The Love Letters of Dorothy Osborne to Sir William Temple, 1652-54 • Edward Abbott Parry
... question was, how Gwendolen's coffee and toast should still be of the hottest and crispest; and when she appeared with her freshly-brushed light-brown hair streaming backward and awaiting her mamma's hand to coil it up, her large brown eyes glancing bright as a wave-washed onyx from under their long lashes, it was always she herself who had to be tolerant—to beg that Alice who sat waiting on her would not stick up her shoulders in that frightful manner, and that Isabel, instead of pushing up to her and asking questions, would ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... clung round his neck and possessed him—came a roar of sound. The brass band from Black Mountain was in possession of the platform. The golden windows shone comfortably in the cold spring evening, and Hazel ran towards them as she would have run towards the wide-flung onyx doors of faery. ...
— Gone to Earth • Mary Webb
... with amber cups, around, Pouring the flowery wines of Crete; And, as they passed with youthful bound, The onyx shone beneath their feet.[3] While others, waving arms of snow Entwined by snakes of burnished gold,[4] And showing charms, as loth to show, Through many a thin, Tarentian fold, Glided among the festal throng Bearing rich urns of flowers ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... of Tyrus, and say unto him, Thus saith the Lord God; Thou sealest up the sum, full of wisdom, and perfect in beauty. Thou hast been in Eden, the garden of God; every precious stone was thy covering, the sardius, topaz, and the diamond, the beryl, the onyx, and the jasper, the sapphire, the emerald, and the carbuncle, and gold: the workmanship of thy tabrets and of thy pipes was prepared in thee in the day that thou wast created. Thou art the anointed cherub that covereth; and I have set thee so; thou was ...
— Studies in Prophecy • Arno C. Gaebelein
... I did not have to play the philosopher, and wear this thick, hot beard,[28] I would not be ashamed to show my head anywhere." Then while he perfumed himself with oil of saffron out of a little onyx bottle, he ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... attention to the quaint relics lying upon the long low bench between us, which is covered with white silk: a metal mirror, found in preparing the foundation of the temple when rebuilt many hundred years ago; magatama jewels of onyx and jasper; a Chinese flute made of jade; a few superb swords, the gifts of shoguns and emperors; helmets of splendid antique workmanship; and a bundle of enormous arrows with double-pointed heads of brass, ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan - First Series • Lafcadio Hearn
... of an Oriental palace is inside the walls. Within the blank outer wall of stone and mud-brick, arched roofs, painted and gilded within, were upheld by slender round pillars of fine stone—marble, jasper, porphyry, onyx, red syenite, highly polished and sometimes brought from old palaces and temples in other lands. Intricate carving in marble or in fine hard wood adorned the doorways and lattices, and the balconies with their high lattice-work railings where ...
— Days of the Discoverers • L. Lamprey
... he was good to look on in the eyes of his companion, and yet, perhaps, there was a ruffle in her soul that called for some answering disturbance on the part of that superbly tranquil young man, and certainly called in vain. Cicely had set up for herself a fetish of onyx with eyes of jade, and doubtless hungered at times with an unreasonable but perfectly natural hunger for something of flesh and blood. It was the religion of her life to know exactly what she wanted and to see that she got it, but there was no possible guarantee ...
— When William Came • Saki
... manganese. Avanturine is a beautiful variety of quartz, of a rich brown colour, which, from a peculiarity of texture, appears filled with bright spangles. Small crystals of quartz, tinged with iron, are found in Spain, and have been termed hyacinths of Compostella. Flint, chalcedony, carnelian, onyx, sardonyx, and bloodstone, or heliotrope, and the numerous varieties of agates, are principally composed of quartz, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 560, August 4, 1832 • Various
... looked up she saw through the glass roof the flickering of stars in the summer sky. In the centre of the room, immediately under the dome, stretched a billiard-table, and near it was a circular one of black marble, inlaid with red onyx and lapis lazuli, which formed a miniature zodiac similar to that at Denderah, while in the middle of this table sat a small Murano hour-glass, filled with sand from the dreary valley of El Ghor. A huge plaster ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... clear as an onyx, seemed to protest against the plea of age. The MS. was in the vilest Shikastah or running-hand; and, as I carried it off, the writer declined to take the trouble of copying ...
— The Kasidah of Haji Abdu El-Yezdi • Richard F. Burton
... Chimaera, Was on the floor; and from its lion's mouth The flame had issued, like the flame of life That flickered and went out with him gold-crowned. A target stood near by, and on it clashed Griffon and stag, adverse as right and wrong. About, lay cups of onyx set in gold. On conic jars were bacchanalian scenes,— Nude chubby Bacchi, grotesque leering fauns, All linked 'neath vines that grew important grapes; And in the jars were rings and flowers of gold. ...
— Stories in Verse • Henry Abbey
... without its stone,—which was found, however, in the third cinerarium; a most extraordinary circumstance. It can be explained by supposing that both bodies were cremated at the same time, and that their ashes were somehow mixed together. The stone, probably an onyx, was injured by the action of the fire, and its engraving nearly effaced. It seems to represent a lion in repose. Nothing was found in the fourth; the fifth furnished two heavy gold rings with cameos representing respectively a mask and a bear-hunt. The last urn, inscribed with the name ...
— Pagan and Christian Rome • Rodolfo Lanciani
... silver, were several rolls of parchment and papyrus, the books of the day, some of them splendidly emblazoned and illuminated; a lyre of tortoiseshell, and near to it the slender plectrum by which its cords were wakened to melody. Two or three little flasks of agate and of onyx containing some choice perfumes, a Tuscan vase full of fresh-gathered flowers, and several articles yet more decidedly feminine, were scattered on the board; needles, and thread of various hues, and twine of gold and silver, and some embroidery, half finished, and as it ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 1 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... rose. Lily wore a green house-dress, which set her off as the leaves and stem set off a flower. It was of some soft material which clung about her and displayed her tender curves. She wore at her throat an old cameo brooch which had belonged to her grandmother, and which had upon its onyx background an ivory head as graceful as her own. Maria, beside Lily, although she herself was very pretty, looked ordinary in her flannel blouse and black skirt, ...
— By the Light of the Soul - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... run the whole gamut of human emotions in a single sentence? Sitting in that miserable cottage at Fordham he wrote of the splendor of dream palaces beyond the dreams of art. He hung those grimy walls with dream tapestries, paved those narrow halls with black marble and polished onyx, and into those low-roofed chambers he brought all the treasured imagery of fancy, from the "huge carvings of untutored Egypt" to "mingled and conflicting perfumes, reeking up from strange convolute censers, together with multitudinous, flaring ...
— A Collection of Stories, Reviews and Essays • Willa Cather
... o'clock she climbs to her boudoir. I finding errands in the hallway hear The desultory taking up of books, And through her open door, see her at last Cast off her dinner gown and to the bath Step like a ray of moonlight. Then she snaps The light on where the onyx tub and walls Dazzle the air. I enter then her room And stand against the closed door, do not pry Upon her in the bath. Give her the chance To fly me, fight me standing face to face. I hear her flounder in the water, hear Hands slap ...
— Toward the Gulf • Edgar Lee Masters
... to the left, was dark and still and unsympathetic and expensive; a vista of brocade-covered French-gilt chairs and a marquetry table and a table of onyx top, on which was one book bound in ooze calf, and one vase; cream-colored heavy carpet and a crystal chandelier; fairly meretricious paintings of rocks, and thatched cottages, and ragged newsboys with faces like Daniel Webster, all ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... the 'Onyx,' an English-built yacht, but owned by M. Charles, one of the few Frenchmen to be found who really seems to like yachting; plenty ...
— The Voyage Alone in the Yawl "Rob Roy" • John MacGregor
... where arose four pinnacles beckoning to heaven, and midmost between the pinnacles there stood the dome, vast, as the gods had dreamed it. All around, terrace by terrace, there went marble lawns well guarded by onyx lions and carved with effigies of all the gods striding amid the symbols of the worlds. With a sound like tinkling bells, far off in a land of shepherds hidden by some hill, the waters of many fountains turned again home. Then the gods awoke and there stood Sardathrion. Not to common ...
— Time and the Gods • Lord Dunsany [Edward J. M. D. Plunkett]
... before it came into existence, was beginning to spread, like the story of the whippings; it would be talked about, all round the world, as something stunning, a more complete show than the Tivoli at Sidney or the New York Hippodrome. Harrasford was credited with designs for a palace in onyx and marble. He had bought or was going to buy a theater with the object of transforming it; names and prices were given. Everybody was interested in it. Just now, especially, when the bioscopes and the gramophones ...
— The Bill-Toppers • Andre Castaigne
... reproductions of them were new to us. Mrs. Stowe was full of enthusiasm, and we lingered long over the wonderful things which the brothers brought forward to show. Among them was the head of an Egyptian slave carved in black onyx. It was an admirable work of art, and while we were enjoying it one of them said to Mrs. Stowe, "Madam, we know what you have been to the poor slave. We ourselves are but poor slaves still in Italy: you feel for us; will you keep this gem as a slight ...
— Authors and Friends • Annie Fields
... back The Snider's snarl and the carbine's crack, And the blithe revolver began to sing To the blade that twanged on the locking-ring, And the brown flesh blued where the bay'net kissed, As the steel shot back with a wrench and a twist, And the great white bullocks with onyx eyes Watched the souls of the dead arise, And over the smoke of the fusillade The ...
— Departmental Ditties and Barrack Room Ballads • Rudyard Kipling
... fifth, Issachar, like sapphire; the sixth, Zebulon, like jasper; the seventh, Dan, like ligure; the eighth, Naphtali, like amethyst; the ninth, Gad, like agate; the tenth, Asher, like chrysolite; the eleventh, Joseph, like beryl; and the twelfth, Benjamin, like onyx. ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME IV BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG
... of settees and armchairs, similarly carved and gilded and richly upholstered. The floor was paved with an intricate mosaic of parti-colored bits of marble, its expanse broken only by the great gorgeous carpet before the throne, by the chair set for Brinnaria, by the onyx table, supported on sculptured monsters like griffons, beside the throne, and by the throne itself, a curule seat of ivory mounted with gold, its crimson cushion glowing, set far out in ...
— The Unwilling Vestal • Edward Lucas White
... ONYX, a variety of agate or chalcedony, in which occur even layers of white and black or white and brown, sharply defined in good specimens; they come from India, and are ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... Mr. Haye and came to them, and presently was deep in quartz and silica, and onyx and chalcedony, and all manner of stones that are precious. He told all that Elizabeth wanted to know, and much more than she had dreamed of knowing. Even Rose listened; and Rufus was eagerly attentive; and Elizabeth after she had asked questions as far as her knowledge ...
— Hills of the Shatemuc • Susan Warner
... suddenly stands among them. His gossamer robes seemed woven of the deep blue of the fields of space through which he had just passed, and the stars were glittering through the graceful folds bound with rare devices, wrought from the jasper, onyx, and chrysoprase of the ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. IV. October, 1863, No. IV. - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... and shaken spear, Stands at the prow, and guides them; but astern The cowering merchants in long robes Sit pale beside their wealth Of silk-bales and of balsam-drops, Of gold and ivory, Of turquoise-earth and amethyst, Jasper and chalcedony, And milk-barr'd onyx-stones. The loaded boat swings groaning In the yellow eddies; The Gods behold them." [Footnote: Arnold, ...
— A Study of Poetry • Bliss Perry
... twenty-two of which are of superior size to the rest, and of eighteen pendants, shaped like the bud of a flower, and delicately chased.[1226] There are others where gold beads are intermixed with small carnelian and onyx bugles, while the pendants are of gold, like the beads; or where gold and rock-crystal beads alternate, and a single crystal vase hangs as pendant in the middle; or where alternate carnelian and gold ...
— History of Phoenicia • George Rawlinson
... each stone containing the name of one of the tribes. It was held in position by the ephod, which consisted of another piece of cloth, with a back and front part, which were united into one on the shoulders. On each shoulder it was clasped by an onyx stone bearing the names of six of the tribes. Thus twice, on the shoulders, the seat of power, and on the heart, the organ of thought and of love, Aaron, entering into the presence of the Most High, bore 'the names of the ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers • Alexander Maclaren
... palaces of Ecbatana and Susa boasted greater magnificence and luxury than this one-time dwelling of Croesus. The ceilings of the wide banqueting halls rose on pillars of emerald Egyptian malachite. The walls were cased with onyx. Winged bulls that might have graced Nineveh guarded the portals. The lions upbearing the throne in the hall of audience were of gold. The mirrors in the "House of the Women" were not steel but silver. The gorgeous carpets were ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... case with the Scarabaeus which, under the hands of the Etruscan cutter, lost at once all specific character. He might be Scarabaeus anything: he is not pilularius; and, instead of being made of basalt, porphyry, smalt, and very rarely of pietra dura, as in Egypt, he is engraved in carnelian, onyx, sardonyx, and all the rare and lovely varieties of pietra dura,—which, being essentially the same, change their names with their colors,—but mainly in an opaque carnelian, admirably calculated to show off the beauty of the workmanship. The change from use ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 108, October, 1866 • Various
... hand-hammered brass or copper, or of pottery, of which there are so many beautiful pieces of American manufacture in dull greens, blues, browns, grays, and reds. These lamps are not expensive—no more so than their onyx and brass forbears—and are quiet, restful, beneficent in their influence. Jardinieres we find in the same wares and colorings, which not only throw the plant into relief but tone in with the other decorations of a room in which nothing stands out distinct from its fellows, but all things ...
— The Complete Home • Various
... declaration of war," said poor Francis, twisting an Italian onyx which adorned his irresolute hand. ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... there is at least one man here who has had the honor of commanding men as elevated as yourself." Saying which, he hastily drew from his bosom, where it hung suspended from his neck, a large flat tablet of remarkably beautiful onyx, on one side of which was sculptured a very striking face; but on the other, which he presented to the gaze of the colonel, was a fine representation of an eagle grovelling on the dust, and beginning to expand its wings—with ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... the Mediterranean can be perfectly imitated by taking a cast of a coral branch and filling in the mold with celluloid of the same color and hardness. The clear luster of amber, the dead black of ebony, the cloudiness of onyx, the opalescence of alabaster, the glow of carnelian—once confined to the selfish enjoyment of the rich—are now within the reach of every one, thanks to this chameleon material. Mosaics may be multiplied indefinitely ...
— Creative Chemistry - Descriptive of Recent Achievements in the Chemical Industries • Edwin E. Slosson
... dabchicks have "delicate rose-colored bills, harlequin-like markings, and rosy-white aprons." The harlequin-like markings I should call, rather, agate-like, especially on the head, where they are black and white, like an onyx. The bodies look more like a little walnut-shell, or nutmeg with wings to it, or things that are ...
— Love's Meinie - Three Lectures on Greek and English Birds • John Ruskin
... being shown into a large suite on the second floor, where he had to wait an hour in a lofty anteroom with no other company but a statue of Pocahontas. He was oppressed by the gorgeousness of the surroundings—by the frowning pictures, the gilt furniture, the onyx-topped tables, the vases, the mirrors, the ornate clocks. He was in a fever of expectation, and could not fight down his growing timidity. He had not seen Florence for a year, and his heart would have been as much in his mouth had ...
— Love, The Fiddler • Lloyd Osbourne
... whose fine onyx eyes failed to blink, even though Milly's questions might have been taken as drawing her rather further than she had originally meant to go—"well, Kate is thoroughly aware of my views for her, and that I take her being ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume 1 of 2 • Henry James
... connoisseur, turning over his fine collection of Mare Antonios, and his Turner's 'Liber Studiorum,' of which he was a warm admirer, or examining with a magnifier some of his antique gems and cameos, 'the head of Alexander on an onyx of two strata,' or 'that superb altissimo relievo on cornelian, Jupiter AEgiochus.' He was always a great amateur of engravings, and gives some very useful suggestions as to the best means of forming a collection. ...
— Intentions • Oscar Wilde
... figures across the tablet are impressed on it with seals called from their shape cylinders, which were rolled over the soft moist clay. These cylinders were generally of some valuable, hard stone—jasper, amethyst, cornelian, onyx, agate, etc.,—and were used as signet rings were later and are still. They are found in great numbers, being from their hardness well-nigh indestructible. They were generally bored through, and through the hole was passed either a string to wear them on, or a metal axis, to roll them more ...
— Chaldea - From the Earliest Times to the Rise of Assyria • Znade A. Ragozin
... was an onyx bowl. She took from it a perfectly plain ring of orichalch and slipped it on my left ring-finger. I saw that she wore one ...
— Atlantida • Pierre Benoit
... next instant, for, as he stood there under the dome, the curtains of the central arch were drawn with a rattle, and disclosed a double line of tall slaves in rich raiment, their onyx eyes rolling and their teeth flashing in their chocolate-hued ...
— The Brass Bottle • F. Anstey
... deep-tufted upholstery of maroon and royal blue velvets, its lace and twisted cords with heavy tassels, and hassocks crowded on the sombrely brilliant rugs sacred in mosques. There was a mantle in colored marbles, cabinets of fretted ebony, tables of onyx and floriated ormolu, ivories and ornaments of Benares brass ...
— Cytherea • Joseph Hergesheimer
... figure of the conventionalised serpent-god on the onyx tablet found in 1895 in the Valley of Mexico and taken to the Museum of Chicago (see Holmes's "Ancient Cities of Mexico") strongly reminds me of the figure on the stone from Chavin in Peru (see "The Andes ...
— Mexico • Charles Reginald Enock
... many guests, he had risen up and rubbed her feet, to fulfil some wager or promise; that he had suffered the Ephesians to salute her as their queen; that he had frequently at the public audience of kings and princes received amorous messages written in tablets made of onyx and crystal, and read them openly on the tribunal; that when Furnius, a man of great authority and eloquence among the Romans, was pleading, Cleopatra happening to pass by in her litter, Antony started up and left them in the middle of their cause, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 2 • Various
... night my garden is o'erhung with gems Fixed in an onyx setting. Fireflies Flicker their lanterns in my dazzled eyes. In serried rows I guess the straight, stiff stems Of ...
— A Dome of Many-Coloured Glass • Amy Lowell
... the variety called "onyx" having very regular bands, and the "sardonyx" being an onyx agate in which some of the ...
— A Text-Book of Precious Stones for Jewelers and the Gem-Loving Public • Frank Bertram Wade
... corner, and the upright piano near the center of the room formed a background for a precisely draped, imitation mandarin skirt and a convenient shelf for family photographs and hand-painted vases. On the mantel an elaborate onyx-and-bronze clock ticked inaudibly. ...
— Broken to the Plow • Charles Caldwell Dobie
... little for being late, and set it in a brass candlestick in the middle of the table. Then Mr. Clerk takes a little rule from his pocket, measures an inch down on the candle, sticks into the grease at that point a scarf-pin with an onyx head that Elzevir lent him, and lights the wick. Now the reason of this was, that the custom ran in Moonfleet when either land or lease was put up to bidding, to stick a pin in a candle; and so long as the pin held firm, it was open to any to make a better ...
— Moonfleet • J. Meade Falkner
... Jean made me a present of an onyx of great beauty. It was a cameo, representing Venus bathing, and a genuine antique, as the name of the artist, Sostrates, was cut on the stone. Two years later I sold it to Dr. Masti, at London, for three hundred pounds, and it is possibly still in ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... the limestone, hunting out each other and coming together in concretions and forming flint or chert nodules; or see them in the process of petrifaction slowly building up a tree of chalcedony or onyx in place of a tree of wood, repeating every cell, every knot, every worm-hole—dead matter copying exactly a form of living matter; or see the phenomenon of crystallization everywhere; see the solution of salt mimicking, as Tyndall says, the architecture of ...
— The Breath of Life • John Burroughs
... been coarsely recrystallized by metamorphism. The marble of commerce includes a small quantity of serpentine as quarried and sold in Massachusetts, California, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Vermont, and also a small amount of so-called onyx marble or travertine obtained from caves and other deposits in Kentucky and other states. The principal uses of marble are for building and monumental stones. Of the twenty-two states producing marble, the leaders are Vermont, Georgia, ...
— The Economic Aspect of Geology • C. K. Leith
... the mirrors, the marbles and the bronze, the myriad lamps of every fantastic form, the quaint and daring designs for shop fronts, the infinite arts employed to "set off" goods, and the surprising, never-ceasing varieties of art-manufacture—whether in chocolate or the popular Algerian onyx—bewilder strangers. Does successful Mr. Brown, who, having doffed the apron of trade, considers it due to himself to become—so far as money can operate the strange transformation—a fine fleur; does he desire also to make of plain, homely Mrs. ...
— The Cockaynes in Paris - 'Gone abroad' • Blanchard Jerrold
... the slightest degree. It was made in light woods, and the woods were curved and twisted as though they had recently spent seven years in a purgatory for sinful trees. Here and there in the design onyx-stones had been set in the wood. The seat itself was beautifully soft. What captured Vera was chiefly the fact that it did not open at the top, as most elaborate music-stools do, but at either side. You pressed a button ...
— The Grim Smile of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... thereabouts. "Aunt Lizzie" was a refugee from the City of Mexico, and had left that troublesome country in such a panic that she had brought little besides a bundle of the reports of a Humane Society with which she had been identified, and an onyx apple, to which it was assumed there was much sentiment attached, since she refused to trust it to the baggage car, and was carrying it in ...
— The Dude Wrangler • Caroline Lockhart
... within himself. 'Mine,' she said, 'is the male.' And she was wont to put on her carbuncle, a bracelet, or some selected gem, to write letters to certain friends. One of her friends she coupled with the onyx, another in a decided way with the amethyst. She learned that the ancients esteemed this gem a talisman to dispel intoxication, to give good thoughts and understanding 'The Greek meaning is antidote against drunkenness.' She characterized ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. I • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... stared at her pearly little teeth. There was something funny about her mouth. Even when she strained it wide it was narrow and tiny—rabbity. She raised a short arm and began patting her peak of hair with a tiny hand which showed a small onyx seal ring on the little finger. "Ask Judy!" she ...
— Pointed Roofs - Pilgrimage, Volume 1 • Dorothy Richardson
... fascinating sight upon this drive was that of the Painted Desert whose variously colored streaks of sand, succeeding one another to the rim of the horizon, made the vast area seem paved with bands of onyx, agate, and carnelian. ...
— John L. Stoddard's Lectures, Vol. 10 (of 10) - Southern California; Grand Canon of the Colorado River; Yellowstone National Park • John L. Stoddard
... In Sterling's "Onyx Ring," Walsingham, the poet, takes down a volume from Sir Charles Harcourt's library, and reads a charming romance, apparently from its pages. A lady of the company afterwards turned to the same ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 97, November, 1865 • Various
... stalls are after a Renaissance Viennese model, and are inlaid with ivory; both of these fittings were the gift of Anne, Duchess of Argyll. The central picture is by Father Philpin de Riviere, of the London Oratory, and it is surmounted by onyx panels in gilt frames. The two angels on each side of a cartouche are of Italian workmanship, and were given by the late Sir Edgar Boehm. The oratory is famous for its music, and the crowds that gather here are by no means ...
— The Kensington District - The Fascination of London • Geraldine Edith Mitton
... are so dreadful, Elizabeth. Nobody can possibly wear them, except people like some of Harris's friends. But things like these—what would you do with these?" She held out a discolored pasteboard box broken at the corners and with no lid; a pair of onyx earrings lay in the faded blue cotton. "I never saw her wear them but once, and they ...
— The Iron Woman • Margaret Deland
... stones bright and pure, With carbuncle and sapphire, Kalsedonys and onyx clere, Sette in golde newe; Diamondes and rubies, And ...
— Needlework As Art • Marian Alford
... Lokara a blue shirt, a long red sash, and a crimson fez, to his great delight. The chiefs were much struck with the present intended for Kabba Rega; this consisted of three rows of roman pearls as large as marbles, with a gilt shield, and onyx-pendant tied up with green ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... patriot, and the philanthropist, who would fain unite the love of peace with the faith in the progressive melioration of mankind, cannot estimate at too high a price. It cannot be valued with the gold of Ophir, with the precious onyx, or the sapphire. No mention shall be made of coral, or of pearls: for the price of wisdom is above rubies. The clergyman is with his parishioners and among them; he is neither in the cloistered cell, nor in the wilderness, ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... already composed the first sentence of his address to the United Chambers of Commerce of the Five Towns; his mind was full of it; he sat down at once to his vast desk, impatient to begin dictating. Then it was that he perceived the letter, lodged prominently against the gold and onyx inkstand given to him on his marriage by the Prince and Princess of Wales. The envelope was imperfectly fastened, or not fastened at all, and the flap came apart as ...
— The Matador of the Five Towns and Other Stories • Arnold Bennett
... to his eldest sister Katherine 1200 pounds, or deliver up the said lease to her. She also left him her own and her husband's picture set in gold, his father's picture by Lilly, and her own by Toniars, with all her seals, particularly a gold ring, with an onyx- stone, engraved, her purse of medals, all the gold she had by her at the time of her death, a Spanish towel, and comeing-cloth, together with all the books, MSS., writings, &c., sticks, guns, swords, and turning instruments, ...
— Memoirs of Lady Fanshawe • Lady Fanshawe
... distinguish the figures in the room. There was a tall Jew with a black beard and flaming brown eyes; he was smiling quite sweetly. Children in their shirts crowded into the half-open door, and very large eyes, dark as balls of onyx, looked fixedly over at Billy from under tangled black hair. Behind the counter sat a Jewess, the false wig of red-brown hair pulled a little too far down on her forehead; her yellow, regular face and elongated brown eyes expressed ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... was made in which the stones were set, entirely filling it. These stones are called "stones to be set." As to the bezel it is called mishbetzet (Mem Shin Bet Tsadi Tav. In the ephod, and in the breastplate]. Onyx stones for the ephod and "stones to be set" for the breastplate. The breastplate as well as the ephod are described in Tezaweh[83]; they are two ...
— Rashi • Maurice Liber
... came, however, when the foolish monarch required Rustem's services, and, as Tamineh was not able at that time to bear the long journey, Rustem bade her a fond farewell, leaving an onyx bracelet bearing the image of the Simurgh, with which he bade her deck their expected child. In due time the lovely princess gave birth to a beautiful boy, whom she called Sorab (sunshine), but, fearing lest ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber
... a very devil of a little chap, of the name of Rubiochico, a great ally in wickedness with Master Longtram; the last in this eventful history being a staid, sedate looking, elderly—young man, of the name of Onyx Steady, an extensive foreign merchant, with a species of dry caustic readiness about him that was dangerous enough.—We sat down, Isaac Shingle doing the honours, confronted by Eschylus Stave, and all was right, and smooth, and pleasant, and in no way different from a party of well bred ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... a very imposing and towering affair, with onyx and gilded halls. The elevator that fairly shot us skyward when we ascended to our eerie nest ten stories above the street, and was a boundless joy to the Precious Ones, who would gladly have made their playhouse in the gaudy little car with the brown boy in blue and brass. Our fine belongings looked ...
— The Van Dwellers - A Strenuous Quest for a Home • Albert Bigelow Paine
... a childish attempt at display. His shirt-front was decorated with a diamond, and his cuff-buttons were of onyx with diamond settings. His clothes were expensive and perceptibly new, and he often changed his costumes, but with a noticeable disregard for propriety. He was very conscious of his silk hat, and frequently wiped it with a ...
— A Mountain Woman and Others • (AKA Elia Wilkinson) Elia W. Peattie
... a cup of chocolate on a tray. After he had drunk it, he drew aside a heavy portiere of peach-coloured plush, and passed into the bathroom. The light stole softly from above, through thin slabs of transparent onyx, and the water in the marble tank glimmered like a moonstone. He plunged hastily in, till the cool ripples touched throat and hair, and then dipped his head right under, as though he would have wiped away the stain of some shameful memory. When he stepped out he felt almost at peace. The ...
— Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories • Oscar Wilde
... in these desert wastes, but borax, nitre, sulphur, silver, salt, soda, opals, garnets, turquoises, onyx, and marble form a part of its resources. Rich gold mines have built the towns of Randsburg and Johannesburg in the midst of the Mohave desert, while finds of rich ore made elsewhere are of frequent occurrence. It is thought that in the near future sufficient nitre can be obtained ...
— Wealth of the World's Waste Places and Oceania • Jewett Castello Gilson
... hopelessly old-fashioned white lace curtains and gilt-framed mirrors. Even Captain Holly's big clock—"an impossibly hideous thing," Mrs. White called the frantic bronze horses and the clinging tiger, on their onyx hillside—was serenely ticking, and the pink china vases were filled with flowers. And there was an air of such homely comfort, after all, about the big rooms, such a fragrance of flowers, and flood of sunny fresh air, that the whole effect ...
— The Rich Mrs. Burgoyne • Kathleen Norris
... they brought gold, agate, and onyx, incense and myrrh, and the perfumes of Arabia; pearls, spices, ivory, ebony, ostrich plumes and apes ...
— History Of Ancient Civilization • Charles Seignobos
... the sand are innumerable pebbles of all sizes and colours—onyx, cornelian, agate, and many more, as well as sea fossils and other petrifactions which boys would love to collect. And it is also curious to notice that the rocks which crop up in all directions become sunburnt, and limestone, naturally of a dazzling white, often ...
— Peeps at Many Lands: Egypt • R. Talbot Kelly
... the moment could be caucussed and the shaky partisan resworn to fealty, attractive and home-like; the plainly tiled floor, leather-covered lounging-chairs, and numerous and convenient cuspidors lending an air of democratic comfort which was somehow missing in the resplendent, bemirrored, onyx-plated bar, blazing with its cut ...
— The Honorable Senator Sage-Brush • Francis Lynde
... went through the brief ceremonial as coolly as if it had been the settlement of a water-rate, and was angered by the tears that poor Mary Anne shed under her cheap black veil. He had forgotten the poetic superstition in favour of a wedding-ring, but he slipped a little onyx ring off his own finger, and put it on the clumsier finger of his bride. It was the last of his jewels—the rejected of the pawnbrokers, who, not being learned in antique intaglios, had condemned the ring as trumpery. There is always something a little ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon
... late for luncheon," said Fraeulein, hastily, blushing down to the onyx brooch at her turn-down ...
— Red Pottage • Mary Cholmondeley
... for choice decorative materials has been the means of opening out many marble quarries all over the world. Transit being easy, a large scale of varieties is available. One fine addition is the Mexican onyx. My feeling is that the most beautiful marbles are those where the soft and sinuous veins melt and die into the general body, comparatively sharp markings dying right away at the edges into innumerable gradations. Marbles having strong and hardly marked veins present great difficulties in distribution. ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 799, April 25, 1891 • Various
... shaped like a state capitol, on the mantel. There was a silver gong in the clock which made beautiful music. There was a nice reading table with books on it, and a lamp. The lamp had a shade made up of queerly-shaped bits of material like onyx, and a fringe of rose-colored beads. Yet for all this, it did not seem a pleasant room. You could feel that something was wrong. You know, there are always so many things in a ...
— Everychild - A Story Which The Old May Interpret to the Young and Which the Young May Interpret to the Old • Louis Dodge
... In the gold was set an onyx, graven with the monogram of Christ, a wreath, and the motto, 'Vivas in Deo.' Marcus knelt, and pressed the seal ...
— Veranilda • George Gissing
... thy windows of agates" (Isa. liv. 12). Two of the angels in heaven, Gabriel and Michael, once disputed about this: one maintained that the stone should be an onyx, and the other asserted it should be a jasper; but the Holy One—blessed be He!—said unto them, "Let it be as both say, which, in ...
— Hebraic Literature; Translations from the Talmud, Midrashim and - Kabbala • Various
... features were clean-cut, bronzed, and lean—with the sinewy leanness of health. His gray flannel shirt rolled open at the throat, about which was loosely drawn a silk scarf of robin's-egg blue, held in place by the tip of a buffalo horn polished to an onyx luster. The hand holding the bridle reins rested carelessly upon the horn of his saddle. With the other he raised ...
— The Gold Girl • James B. Hendryx
... breath from them receives; Where tulips peep with heliotrope and pink, With violets upon a gleaming brink Of silver gliding o'er a water-fall That sings its purling treasures o'er a wall Of rugged onyx sparkling to the sea: A spot where Zir-ri[4] sport oft merrily, Where Hea's[5] arm outstretched doth form a bay, Wild, sheltered, where his sea-daughters play; A jasper rock here peeps above the waves Of emerald hue; with them ...
— Babylonian and Assyrian Literature • Anonymous
... her eyes on him. "In a 'pork-pie' hat, with her hair in a long net. That was so 'smart' then; especially with one's skirt looped up, over one's hooped magenta petticoat, in little festoons, and a row of very big onyx beads over one's braided velveteen sack—braided quite plain and ...
— The Finer Grain • Henry James
... he was leaving, or where he was going—and there was no time for anything but business. If there was any trouble for him, Samuel J. Blount was at the bottom of it, and he drove straight up to the bank. It was a huge, granite structure with massive onyx pillars and smiling young clerks at the grilles; but he hurried past them all and turned down a hall to a room that was marked: President—Private. This was no time for dallying or sending in cards—he opened the door and ...
— Shadow Mountain • Dane Coolidge
... castles; velvet-green fields with aloe hedges grey as lines of broken slate; dark, noble gorges sprinkled with mother-o'-pearl flakes of white wild roses, that drifted down the red rock into water green as onyx. There were blossomy bits of Holland and long tracts of Switzerland. Glacier-mills in narrow gorges were like empty niches for colossal statues of saints; pink and white orchards foamed at the feet of ancient look-out towers; black rocks, like huge watch-dogs, seemed ...
— The Car of Destiny • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... body of this graceful statue, when theatrical distress drives her to force expression: I mean the stage in Germany, not Rome, whence females are excluded. But the vases in this Borghese villa! the tables! the walls! the cameos stuck in the walls! the frames of the doors, all agate, porphyry, onyx, or verd antique! the enormous riches contained in every chamber, actually takes away my breath and leaves me stunned. Nor are the gardens unbecoming or inadequate to the house, where on the outside appear such bas-reliefs as would be treasured up by the sovereigns ...
— Observations and Reflections Made in the Course of a Journey through France, Italy, and Germany, Vol. I • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... ugly head, it seemed impatient to climb the rocks. The floor was covered with Byzantine carpets, pillows embroidered by the yellow men of Cathay, and the skins of Libyan lions. Perfumed smoke arose from golden censers. Flowering plants grew in large onyx vases. And at the far end, in the purple shadow, gleamed the gold nails on the shell of a huge Indian tortoise turned upside down, which served as the bed of the actress. It was here that every day, to the murmur of ...
— Thais • Anatole France
... marble tablet, is the word "Love." In this room the mosaic marble floor of white has a Romanesque border and is decorated with sprays of fig leaves bearing fruit. The room is toned in pale green with relief in old rose. The mantel is of onyx and gold. Before the great bay window hangs an Athenian lamp over two hundred years old, which will be kept always burning day and night. Leading off the "Mother's Room" are toilet apartments, with full-length French mirrors ...
— Pulpit and Press • Mary Baker Eddy
... playhouse of a Caesar, its walls bearded like a pard's face with tufted laurel and splotched like a brandy drunkard's with red stains; a church that is a dismal ruin without and a glittering Aladdin's Cave of gold and gems and porphyry and onyx within; a wide and handsome avenue starting from one festering stew of slums and ending in another festering stew of slums; a grimed and broken archway opening on a lovely hidden courtyard where trees are green and flowers bloom, and in ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb
... more certain? But that does not prevent the halcyon from hatching when the sea is calm, and the phoenix from spreading her wings when the sunbeams shine on her nest. This is what the husband remarks, and, guided by the onyx, the alexander, &c., after a mock ...
— The English Novel in the Time of Shakespeare • J. J. Jusserand
... spear Stands at the prow, and guides them; but astern, The cowering merchants, in long robes, Sit pale beside their wealth Of silk-bales and of balsam-drops, Of gold and ivory, Of turquoise-earth and amethyst, Jasper and chalcedony, And milk-barred onyx-stones. The loaded boat swings groaning In the yellow eddies. The ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 107, September, 1866 • Various
... of liquid onyx Toward the high fire-laden altars Move the saints of Manhattan In endless pilgrimage to death, Amidst the asphodel and ...
— Precipitations • Evelyn Scott
... in the Richardsonesque style; the eastern staircase is in classic style; and a circular staircase in the interior is in the most flamboyant Gothic which could be got for money. To be sure, there are rooms at Albany on which precious Siena marble and Mexican onyx are lavished, but these are used so as to produce mainly the effect of an unintelligent desire to ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White Volume II • Andrew Dickson White
... she cast the two kitchen gods, green and gold, of ancient plaster, into the embers of the fire. There in the morning the cook-rice amahs found the onyx stones that had been their eyes. The house was still unlocked, the gate-keeper at the feast. Like a shadow she moved along the wall and through the gate. The smell of the lilies blew past her. Drums and chants echoed up the road, and ...
— O Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1919 • Various
... will arise and open it and see what is within, though within it were sudden death!" Then he took the key and, opening the door,[FN50] saw therein no treasure but he espied a vaulted and winding staircase of Yamani onyx at the upper end of the chamber. So he mounted the stair, which brought him out upon the terrace- roof of the palace, whence he looked down upon the gardens and vergiers, full of trees and fruits and beasts and birds warbling praises of Allah, ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 8 • Richard F. Burton
... jewelry: list] necklace, bracelet, anklet; earring; locket, pendant, charm bracelet; ring, pinky ring; carcanet^; chain, chatelaine; broach, pin, lapel pin, torque. [gemstones: list] diamond, brilliant, rock [Coll.]; beryl, emerald; chalcedony, agate, heliotrope; girasol^, girasole^; onyx, plasma; sard^, sardonyx; garnet, lapis lazuli, opal, peridot, tourmaline, chrysolite; sapphire, ruby, synthetic ruby; spinel, spinelle; balais^; oriental, oriental topaz; turquois^, turquoise; zircon, cubic zirconia; jacinth, hyacinth, carbuncle, amethyst; alexandrite^, cat's eye, bloodstone, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... lofty ceiling shone With richest tracery, the beams were bound In golden coverings; no scant veneer Lay on its walls, but built in solid blocks Of marble, gleamed the palace. Agate stood In sturdy columns, bearing up the roof; Onyx and porphyry on the spacious floor Were trodden 'neath the foot; the mighty gates Of Maroe's throughout were formed, He mere adornment; ivory clothed the hall, And fixed upon the doors with labour rare Shells of the tortoise gleamed, from Indian seas, With frequent emeralds studded. ...
— Pharsalia; Dramatic Episodes of the Civil Wars • Lucan
... surroundings. He did not even know that the desk on which he wrote was of mahogany. He did not notice the imported Daghestan under his feet. He was unconscious of the orchids in the low desk-vase of French silver. He was oblivious of the onyx and marble elegance ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine
... d'hotes where Kenny was inclined to twinkle at the youthful art students who affected pretentious ties, the quiet old German restaurant that once had been a church, Chinatown where you ate unskillfully with chopsticks upon a table of onyx, and the Turkish restaurant where everything, ...
— Kenny • Leona Dalrymple
... with great apparent ease withdrew the bolts. As soon as he had lifted up the lid he beheld a beautiful gem, which appeared to be a rare specimen of the onyx. In the middle of it was a golden hook, to which a chain was attached, by which it might be suspended from the neck. Upon the stone was an engraving of an altar, upon which a sacrificial fire was burning, and before it a suppliant family bowed ...
— Eastern Tales by Many Story Tellers • Various
... sideboard in a white waistcoat with large gold and onyx buttons, watching his valet screw the necks of three champagne bottles deeper into ice-pails. Between the points of his stand-up collar, which—though it hurt him to move—he would on no account have had altered, the ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... diamonds; the sceptre, which is considered to be far the most ancient in the collection, and probably a part of the original regalia, is covered with jewels and gothic enamel work, surmounted with an onyx dove, was found by the present keeper in the year 1814, and is estimated at a very high value. St. Edward's staff, made of beaten gold, and which is borne before the King in the coronation procession, is 4 feet 7 inches ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... seemed carved out of blue stone; trees with stems dark-veined as marble rose up to give rest to boughs which drooped the altered hues of their foliage like the feathers of peacocks at roost. Jewel within jewel they burned through every shade from blue to onyx. The white blossoms of a cherry-tree had become changed into turquoise, and the tossing spray of a fountain as it drifted and swung was like a column of blue fire. Where a long inlet of sea reached in and touched the feet of the hanging gardens the stars showed ...
— The Blue Moon • Laurence Housman
... gold, of statues and flowers and fountains, Vases of onyx and jasper from Indian emperors sent; Pictures out of the heart of tropical sunlit mountains, Of rocks of porphyry piled at the gates ...
— The Coming of the Princess and Other Poems • Kate Seymour Maclean
... IVORY SCEPTRE was made for Maria d'Este, consort of James II. It is mounted in gold, and terminated by a golden cross, bearing a dove of white onyx. ...
— The Illustrated London Reading Book • Various
... useful facts, all serviceable for original proverbs, and an encyclopaedic mind which would enable him to take a high place in a popular competition unassisted by a single work of reference." Much impressed by the adventure the charitably-inclined emperor presented Wei Chung with an onyx crown (which the philosopher at once threw into an adjacent well), and returning to his capital published a decree that each day at sunrise every person should stand at the door of his dwelling, and after observing for a period, ...
— The Mirror of Kong Ho • Ernest Bramah
... inside, and our two Christians on the box. Up there, where the Alps of Death descend to join the Lakehorn Alps, above the Wolfswalk, there is a world of whiteness—frozen ridges, engraved like cameos of aerial onyx upon the dark, star-tremulous sky; sculptured buttresses of snow, enclosing hollows filled with diaphanous shadow, and sweeping aloft into the upland fields of pure clear drift. Then came the swift descent, the plunge into the pines, moon-silvered on their frosted ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... carbon, made inside the earth. Rock-crystals, which you know probably under the name of Irish diamonds, are crystallized quartz; and so, with slightly different colourings, are agates, opals, jasper, onyx, cairngorms, and many other precious stones. Iron, copper, gold, and sulphur, when melted and cooled slowly build themselves into crystals, each of their own peculiar form, and we see that there is here a wonderful order, such as we should never have dreamt of, if we had not proved ...
— The Fairy-Land of Science • Arabella B. Buckley
... about the only ornament that can be worn, save a delicate onyx cameo. Flowers: white water-lilies, camellias, or the darkest, duskiest, damask roses, and none of these in such profusion as to ...
— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke
... out of the second room, which she had inspected in her lightning-like way before greeting her sister, "our room is lovely. You are a gem, an onyx, a fickle wild rose. It's all splendid—a perpetual picnic place, to which we'll bring our own provisions and cook 'em our own way. No boss biddies in this establishment. It's ever so much better than I expected after you once get here; but ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe
... I go down Washington street, I choose something in the shop windows for my castle—an engraving at Williams & Everett's, a mosaic or classic onyx at Jordan's, or a camel's hair—for a dressing gown, of course at Hovey's. It really costs surprisingly little, and is an agreeable exercise of taste and judgment. It is likewise an exercise of benevolence. I select as many things for my guests as I do for myself. ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 3, September 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... is the fourfold river that maketh no moan, Fair are the trees fruit-bearing of the wood, Fair are the gold and bdellium and the onyx stone, And I know the gold ...
— Poems • Christina G. Rossetti
... of the Sunday Times tells us that Colonel NORTH is "having a new ball-room"—(he wouldn't have an old one built, would he? But no matter)—"the walls of which are composed of onyx." Of course, a Billionaire pays all the workmen punctually and regularly; therefore, "Owe-nix" walls are an appropriate ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98 January 11, 1890 • Various
... mockery passed over Reuben's face, and he proceeded to examine the casket. One by one he trifled with the gems—the rich onyx, the sapphire, the crystal, the coral, the pearl, the ruby, and the topaz, and first he pushed them from him, and then he drew them back again. And seeing them thus cheapened in Reuben's hairy fingers, the precious jewels which had clasped his Ruth's soft wrist and her white ...
— The Scapegoat • Hall Caine
... dense shrubberies, over drenched lawns her way was; it led her to the lily-pond, which lay hidden within rhododendron walls, with a narrow cincture of grass path all about it. Dark-brown, still and translucent like an onyx it lay before her. It was her haunt of election when she was troubled, as now she was, when she gave ...
— Rest Harrow - A Comedy of Resolution • Maurice Hewlett
... golden cup on an onyx table. On a stand beside it was an unpierced wine jar set in an enormous bowl of snow. She looked at Pertinax—and shrugged her shoulders, possibly because the wind blew through the opened ...
— Caesar Dies • Talbot Mundy
... celebrities reviewed the marching armies of peace and war, are heaps of refuse; for the old Brunswick has had to give place to yet one more of the twenty-storied, emblazoned hostelries, whose alabaster halls, frescoed walls, mosaic floors, and onyx and silver bathtubs are designed to minister to the comfort of our great and free people when they needs must wander from the luxury of their homes. When I had dressed I crossed over to the old Delmonico's opposite, and, in a ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson
... followed his thrilling way, hearing always the Excelsior of his calling as it were the voice direct of Heaven. What no merits of his could give, the land which he had chosen gave, Mesopotamia pretty soon proving herself a treasury of mineral riches: here is bdellium and the onyx- stone; and where the streaming Pison, dawdling, draws his twine of waters over that happy valley of Havilah, there is gold—hoard stored from before the Eozoic, as misers bury for their heirs, in mine and friable quarry, rollick rain: "and the gold of ...
— The Lord of the Sea • M. P. Shiel
... the excavation and subsequent refilling and decoration of the limestone caves of Kentucky and Indiana apply equally well to those of other states; but it is to be remembered that at the time of Dr. Owen's report, onyx, the most beautiful and valuable of dripstones, had not yet been discovered in the United States; while now especially fine deposits are known in California, Utah, Missouri, South Dakota and Arkansas; the Missouri supply being exceptionally valuable on account of the marvelous delicacy ...
— Cave Regions of the Ozarks and Black Hills • Luella Agnes Owen
... wore it on his thumb." Other stones described as being on this shrine were sumptuous, the whole being damascened with gold wire, and "in the midst of the gold, rings; or cameos of sculptured agates, carnelians, and onyx stones." A visitor to Canterbury in 1500 writes: "Everything is left far behind by a ruby not larger than a man's thumb nail, which is set to the right of the altar. The church is rather dark, and when we went to see it the sun was nearly gone down, and the weather was cloudy, yet we saw the ...
— Arts and Crafts in the Middle Ages • Julia De Wolf Addison
... oblong, curved at the ends, and so vast that the roof was vague. On the walls were slabs of different colors, marble spotted like the skin of serpents, and onyx flecked with violet. On two sides were galleries supported by columns of sandstone. A third gallery formed a semicircle. Opposite, at the further end, on a dais, was the table of ...
— Mary Magdalen • Edgar Saltus |
