"Picturesque" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... sides rose nearly two hundred feet above the surrounding prairie. A thin growth of pine-trees covered it; while stunted pinons and cedars hung out from its cliffs. There were agaves, and yucca palms, and cacti, growing along its edges, giving it a very picturesque appearance. ...
— The Boy Hunters • Captain Mayne Reid
... say that it is done for the picturesque, that is another thing. Lord Rufford is a wealthy lord, and can afford to be picturesque. A green sward I should have thought handsomer, as well as less expensive, than a ploughed field, but that is a matter of taste. Only why ...
— The American Senator • Anthony Trollope
... for Wilbur Wright. Climbing from his seat and walking round the biplane, he made a careful examination for himself, and then returned quietly to the front of the machine. People who came to see him fly, and expected some picturesque hero, leaping lightly into his machine and sweeping through the air, found that reality disappointed them. This quiet, unassuming man, who slept in his shed near his aeroplane, and took his meals there also, refused to be feted or made ...
— Learning to Fly - A Practical Manual for Beginners • Claude Grahame-White
... high. I was somewhat hurt at his way of viewing what had always seemed to me perfection, at least all that could be reasonably expected for the poor—our pet school, our old women, our civil dependents in tidy cottages, our picturesque lodges; and I did not half like his trenchant questions, which seemed to imply censure on all that I had hitherto thought unquestionable, and perhaps I told him somewhat impatiently that, when he had been a little longer here, he would ...
— My Young Alcides - A Faded Photograph • Charlotte M. Yonge
... wanting in sweetness and gayety; and, instead of the frantic riot of satyrs and bacchanals, the rejoicing was chastened by the solemn religious recollections with which it was associated, in a manner, remarkably pleasing and picturesque.[63] ...
— Palestine or the Holy Land - From the Earliest Period to the Present Time • Michael Russell
... worth (to my mind) any half-dozen of novels written about us by 'foreigners' who, starting with the Mudie-convention and a general sense that we are picturesque, write commentaries upon what is a sealed book and deal out judgments which are not only wrong, but wrong with a thoroughness only ...
— From a Cornish Window - A New Edition • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... that almost all that Ireland possesses of picturesque beauty is to be found on, or in the immediate neighbourhood of, the seaboard; and if we except some brief patches of river scenery on the Nore and the Blackwater, and a part of Lough Erne, the assertion is not devoid of ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... or while a part only of the whole had been completed. There was first a period when the spacious lakes, of which we still may trace the boundaries, lay at the foot of mountains of moderate elevation, unbroken by the bold peaks and precipices of Mont Dor, and unadorned by the picturesque outline of the Puy de Dome, or of the volcanic cones and craters now covering the granitic platform. During this earlier scene of repose deltas were slowly formed; beds of marl and sand, several hundred feet thick, ...
— The Student's Elements of Geology • Sir Charles Lyell
... which, from an early period, has been used by the shepherds of the south of Scotland, and the appearance of which gives a romantic air to the peasantry and middle classes; and which, although less brilliant and gaudy in its colours, is as picturesque in its arrangement as the more military tartan mantle of the Highlands. When they approached near to each other, the lady might observe that this friend of her guide was a stout athletic man, somewhat ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... to Mount Pitt in the morning of the 4th, and arrived there at noon: from the top of this mount, I had a complete view of the whole island, and a part of its sea-coast. The whole exhibited a picturesque scene of luxuriant natural fertility, being one continued thick wood, and I found the soil every where excellent. Within a mile of the summit of Mount Pitt, the ground, which is a red earth, was full of ...
— An Historical Journal of the Transactions at Port Jackson and Norfolk Island • John Hunter
... boys and girls, of all the mingled nationalities that made this war in China so picturesque, appear in the story and give it vigor, variety, and unflagging ...
— Breaking Away - or The Fortunes of a Student • Oliver Optic
... hands at the corner. Mrs Morgan went down a narrow street which led to Grange Lane, after this interview, with some commotion in her mind. She took Mr Wentworth's part instinctively, without asking any proofs of his innocence. The sun was just setting, and St Roque's stood out dark and picturesque against all the glory of the western sky as the Rector's wife went past. She could not help thinking of him, in his youth and the opening of his career, with a kind of wistful interest. If he had married Lucy Wodehouse, ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... mile from the school ran the river. Its course lay in picturesque variety through peaceful pastoral country, cornfields, and orchards. One part of it was spanned by an old wooden bridge. This bridge had become so dilapidated by time and wear that the county justices had decided that it was dangerous ...
— The Hero of Garside School • J. Harwood Panting
... Rejoicing in this work of his hands on the left, he longed to turn his murderous weapons against the right side. He was labored with; he bided his time; but I knew in my heart that whoever went there next summer would find that picturesque road bristling with barbed wire on both sides. It will be as ugly as man can make it, but it will be "tidy" (New England's shibboleth), for no sweet green thing will grow up beside it. Nature doesn't take kindly to ...
— Little Brothers of the Air • Olive Thorne Miller
... its rise in the Vosges, pours itself through the Ardennes wood, pierces the rocky ridges upon the southeastern frontier of the Low Countries, receives the Sambre in the midst of that picturesque anthracite basin where now stands the city of Namur, and then moves toward the north, through nearly the whole length of the country, till it mingles ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... may be so prescribed as to prevent right angles from being made on the basement, but the complementary angles are ingeniously made out by allowing the joists to be of extra length, and cutting the ends off when they come to the square. The effect is extremely picturesque, and I cannot remember seeing this ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various
... nationality. She regarded a public life as the noblest and most engrossing of careers, and combined with great social versatility an equal gift for reading blue-books and studying debates. So sincere was the latter taste that she passed without regret from the amenities of a European life well stocked with picturesque intimacies to the rawness of the Midsylvanian capital. She helped Mornway in his fight for the Governorship as a man likes to be helped by a woman—by her tact, her good looks, her memory for faces, her knack of saying the right thing to the right person, and her capacity for obscure hard work ...
— The Hermit and the Wild Woman and Other Stories • Edith Wharton
... on the subject is a volume written by Edward O'Reilly, for the Iberno-Celtic Society, on the Native Irish Poets: an interesting work, and containing morsels invaluable to a picturesque historian. ...
— Thomas Davis, Selections from his Prose and Poetry • Thomas Davis
... "U. S. A." yet conspicuous upon its canvas cover, had been overturned and fired in front of the hospital tent to give light to the raiders. Grouped about beneath the trees, and within the glow of the flames, was a picturesque squad of horsemen, hardy, tough-looking fellows the most of them, their clothing an odd mixture of uniforms, but every man heavily armed and admirably equipped for service. Some remained mounted, lounging carelessly in their saddles, but far the larger number were ...
— My Lady of the North • Randall Parrish
... The lonely and picturesque beauty of the scene, and the associations connected with it, at first diverted the current of Arthur's thoughts; but Lucie soon resumed her influence over his imagination. Yet a painful impression, that he had wasted some moments in this dream of fancy, which should have ...
— The Rivals of Acadia - An Old Story of the New World • Harriet Vaughan Cheney
... telling you about. They made it as a quick getaway, to the water, in case a war-party of Seminoles should drop in on them from the Everglades. I came through here, once—oh, it must be twenty years ago—I was a school-kid, at the time. An old Seminole chief, with the picturesque Indian name of Aleck, showed it to me. His dad once cut off a party of refugees, somewhere along here, on their way to the sea, and deleted them. Several of the modern Seminoles knew the path, he said. But almost no white men .... Get that queer odor, ...
— Black Caesar's Clan • Albert Payson Terhune
... woods, upon a commanding eminence, about a mile to the north-east of the town of Chesterfield. Green fields dotted with fine trees slope away from the house in all directions. The surrounding country is undulating and highly picturesque. North and south the eye ranges over a vast extent of lovely scenery; and on the west, looking over the town of Chesterfield, with its church and crooked spire, the extensive range of the Derbyshire hills bounds the distance. The Midland Railway skirts ...
— Lives of the Engineers - The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson • Samuel Smiles
... at Barbadoes to cruise off Martinique, to prevent supplies being furnished to the garrison of the island, and we proceeded there immediately. I do not know anything more picturesque than running down the east side of this beautiful island—the ridges of hill spreading down to the water's edge, covered with the freshest verdure, divided at the base by small bays, with the beach of dazzling white sand, and where the little ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat
... introduced him, in the evening, to the private Academy. Here, live people were the models to study from. Here he was free to use the palette, and to mix up the pinkest possible flesh tints with bran-new brushes. Here were high-spirited students of the fine arts, easy in manners and picturesque in personal appearance, with whom he contrived to become intimate directly. And here, to crown all, was a Model, sitting for the chest and arms, who had been a great prize-fighter, and with whom Zack joyfully ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... or of one of our few uncorrupted masters of the art. Still more remarkable, the good short stories that I meet with in my reading are the trivial ones,—the sketchy, the anecdotal, the merely adventurous or merely picturesque; as they mount toward literature they seem to increase in artificiality and constraint; when they propose to interpret life they become machines, and nothing more, for the discharge of sensation, sentiment, or romance. And this is true, so far as I can discover, of the stories ...
— Definitions • Henry Seidel Canby
... back of the town, we found ourselves rambling in some beautiful picturesque fields in the rear. Kent is a beautiful county, and the trimly kept gardens, and the clustering vines twining around the neatly thatched cottages, remind one of the rich, luxuriant soil and climate of the South. Forgetting that we were in search ...
— Jorrocks' Jaunts and Jollities • Robert Smith Surtees
... to the Sparrow Hills, from which Napoleon first saw Moscow and the Kremlin, was also interesting; but the city itself, though picturesque, disappointed me. Everywhere were filth, squalor, beggary, and fetishism. Evidences of official stupidity were many. In one of the Kremlin towers a catastrophe had occurred on the occasion of the Emperor's funeral, a day or two before our arrival: some thirty men had been ringing one of ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White
... in more effective folds, and wondered how it would look as one came up the woodland path. She thought it would look rather picturesque. It was a nice heliotrope colour. It would look like a giant Parma violet against the dark green background. She hoped her hair was tidy. And that her hat was not very crooked. However little one desires to attract, one may at least wish one's hat ...
— The Incomplete Amorist • E. Nesbit
... Kennedy with interest, for the Tong wars always make picturesque newspaper stories, when a knock at the door announced the arrival of Dr. Leslie, anxious for ...
— The Romance of Elaine • Arthur B. Reeve
... to become master of Constantinople, and vast were the preparations and the implements of war which he had provided for its capture or its destruction. The story of the siege need not here be told; nowhere has it been recorded with more picturesque and energetic brevity than in the glowing pages of Gibbon. Operations were carried on with unprecedented vigour and effect, rendered more terrible by the lavish use of gunpowder and artillery, then almost ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 419, New Series, January 10, 1852 • Various
... vegetation that it fosters, carves them and sharpens them like a great grindstone revolving against their sides. At a place called the Pali—and at the Needles, on the island of Maui—it has worn through the mountain-chain and made deep and very picturesque gorges where, in the case of the Pali, the wind is so strong and steady that you can almost lie ...
— Time and Change • John Burroughs
... side track, and then he heard Miss Sue Northwick call to her horses and saw her pulling them up. She had her father's fondness for horses, and the pair of little grays were a gift from him with the picturesque sledge they drew. The dasher swelled forward like a swan's breast, and then curved deeply backward; from either corner of the band of iron filagree at the top, dangled a red horsetail. The man who had driven her to the station sat ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells
... evenings." His ancestry went back for several generations through the sturdy bonde class, though his father was a preacher and his mother the daughter of a preacher. The father's people dwelt in the province of Smland and the mother's ancestors had lived in the picturesque province of Vrmland. The future poet was born on the 13 of November, 1782, at Kyrkerud, Vrmland, his father holding a benefice in that province. While he was yet a mere child of nine the father died and the family was left in poverty. A friend of the Tegnr family, the judicial officer ...
— Fritiofs Saga • Esaias Tegner
... through a sort of narrow loop-hole penetrated a grey beam of early light. This however lent no aspect of cheerfulness to the hut. On the contrary, the ruddy blaze of a fire had given a more human and habitable (though at the same time more picturesque) air to a dwelling which seemed expressly contrived to shut out the sun and the revelations of day light.—Looking round, he observed that the old woman was asleep: he drew near and touched her: she did not however awaken under the firmest pressure of his hand; but still in dreams continued ...
— Walladmor: - And Now Freely Translated from the German into English. - In Two Volumes. Vol. I. • Thomas De Quincey
... she and Constantia stood ready to receive his Highness. As he alighted, the advanced-guard formed a semicircle beside the carriage; and when his foot rested on the first step of the entrance-stairs, the two ladies passed the threshold, to meet him with due respect. It was a picturesque sight—the meeting of that rugged and warlike man with two such females;—for Lady Frances, though deficient in what may be termed regular beauty, had an air and fascination about her that was exceedingly captivating; and as she waited, one foot a little in advance, ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... faithful Christians. The Catholic worship was formerly celebrated with much solemnity in their church, consecrated under the invocation of "Our Lady of the Beach" (Notre Dame des Greves); and the mothers of the worthy fishermen who give to Polet an aspect so picturesque, have forgotten only the precise date of the adventure we are ...
— Purgatory • Mary Anne Madden Sadlier
... Mediterranean sea were as verdant and beautiful, in those ancient days, and perhaps as fruitful and as densely populated as in modern times. The same Italy and Greece were there then as now. There were the same blue and beautiful seas, the same mountains, the same picturesque and enchanting shores, the same smiling valleys, and the same serene and genial sky. The level lands were tilled industriously by a rural population corresponding in all essential points of character with the peasantry of modern times; and shepherds ...
— Romulus, Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... that the eye delights to rest upon them. Nor is the wild charm of solitude to be forgotten in alluding to the character of these soft and gracefully undulating mountains. Indeed we scarcely knew anything more replete with those dream-like impressions of picturesque romance which, in a spirit so perfectly solitary, sleep, still and solemn, far from the on-goings of busy life, in the distant recesses of these barren solitudes. Many a time when young have we made our summer journey across the brown hills, which lay between us and the ...
— The Tithe-Proctor - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... about him among themselves behind his back. This was no American they said. No American could command as this green-eyed one commanded. No American had such gift of tongues, such gestures, such picturesque and varied and awesome oaths. No American carried small bright flashing daggers such as he carried in his inner pockets, nor did Americans talk glibly as he talked of weird poisons, not every day drugs, but marvelous, death dealing concoctions done up in lustrous jewel-like capsules or diluted ...
— Wild Wings - A Romance of Youth • Margaret Rebecca Piper
... graceful, airy, in its form; whereas the Gothic is in nature and design profound, solemn, majestic. The genius of the one runs to a simple expressiveness; of the other to a manifold suggestiveness. That is mainly statuesque, and hardly admits any effect of background and perspective; this is mainly picturesque, and requires an ample background and perspective for its characteristic effect. There the mind is drawn more to objects; here, more to relations. The former, therefore, naturally detaches things as much ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... message sent 'to collect.' Then she dashed off, as quickly as she could, a brief and very graphic account of the disaster which had overtaken the Caloric. If this account was slightly exaggerated, Miss Brewster had no time to tone it down. Picturesque and dramatic description was what she aimed at. Her pen flew over the paper with great rapidity, and she looked up every now and then, through her state-room window, to see dangling from the ropes the boat that was to make the attempt to reach the Irish coast. As ...
— A Woman Intervenes • Robert Barr
... Mr. Adolphus, counsel for the plaintiff, had eloquently and ingeniously stated his case and given a picturesque and appetizing outline of the evidence that he was going to call, and the facts that he was going to prove; after this preliminary flourish was over, behold, up got Mr. Sergeant Runnington, who appeared on behalf of the defendant, and let fall ...
— Archibald Malmaison • Julian Hawthorne
... himself with other new-comers in a tent in the corner of the camp. The Irishman was there, still lamenting in picturesque phrases the loss of his ...
— Our Casualty And Other Stories - 1918 • James Owen Hannay, AKA George A. Birmingham
... night of happy contentment. In picturesque groups on the deck the company slept, their eyes covered from the light of the tropical night. The sentry tramped the deck, listened to the cries from the forest and the salty pool, watched the fireflies as they darted to and fro, and called out the hours and the state of the night ...
— Sea-Dogs All! - A Tale of Forest and Sea • Tom Bevan
... Premiers of all the colonies. Among them Wilfrid Laurier, or Sir Wilfrid as he now became, stood easily preeminent. In the Jubilee festivities, among the crowds in London streets and the gatherings in court and council, his picturesque and courtly figure, his unmistakable note of distinction, his silvery eloquence, and, not least, the fact that this ruler of the greatest of England's colonies was wholly of French blood, made him the ...
— The Canadian Dominion - A Chronicle of our Northern Neighbor • Oscar D. Skelton
... comprises nearly one-half of the territory of the State. Throughout the greater part it presents an endless succession of hills and dales, though the surface near the mountains is of a bolder and sometimes of a rugged cast. The scenery of this section is as remarkable for quiet, picturesque beauty, as that of the Western ...
— School History of North Carolina • John W. Moore
... the stranger, now scholastically and artistically eying the picturesque speaker, as if he were a statue in the Pitti Palace; "very beautiful:" then with the gravest interest, "yours, sir, if I mistake not, must be a beautiful soul—one full of all love and truth; for where beauty ...
— The Confidence-Man • Herman Melville
... two failures in two days were sufficient, and he made up his mind that there should not be a third. He took a bus for the long ride to Hampstead Heath, where the illustrator lived, and finally stood before a picturesque Queen Anne house that one would have recognized at once, with its lower story of red brick, its upper part covered with red tiles, its windows of every size and shape, as the inspiration of Kate Greenaway's pictures. ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok
... indeed, pretty, seen through the archway of the handsome stone bridge. The church tower and picturesque village were set off by the frame that closed them in; and though they lost somewhat of the enchantment when the boat shot from under the arch, they were still a fair and ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... spasmodic attempt to play the squire of Mellor on his native heath, Richard Boyce rose, drew his emaciated frame to its full height, and stood looking out drearily to his ancestral lawns—a picturesque and elegant figure, for all its weakness ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... group themselves about Jesus, the most dramatic and picturesque figure is certainly that of John the Baptist. There is in him a most extraordinary combination of audacity and humility. He is bold, denunciatory, confident; but at the same time he is self-effacing ...
— Mornings in the College Chapel - Short Addresses to Young Men on Personal Religion • Francis Greenwood Peabody
... at the three faces, peering at him over the brink, and then drew himself together jauntily. His position, perched on the face of the cliff, was picturesque, and he made ...
— The Masters of the Peaks - A Story of the Great North Woods • Joseph A. Altsheler
... dark and one was fair; both possessed a wonderful wealth of beautiful glossy hair, gold in the one case, in the other brown, rolling back from the brow in upstanding pompadours, which were, however, more picturesque than stiff, and rolled into coil after coil at the back of the neck. Done-up hair—that was very "finished" indeed! Both were distinctly good-looking, and the younger, though the smaller of the two, possessed a personality which at once seemed to constitute her mistress ...
— Betty Trevor • Mrs. G. de Horne Vaizey
... the king to reward them; and asserts that the hostilities of the Portuguese must be checked before much can be done to convert the natives. A document without signature narrates the events of "the voyage to Luzon" in May, 1570. It is a simple but picturesque account of the campaign which resulted in the conquest of Luzon and the foundation of Spanish Manila—evidently written by one who participated in those stirring events. The Moros (Mahometans) of Manila profess a readiness to make a treaty of ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803 - Volume III, 1569-1576 • E.H. Blair
... other philanthropists was on the tory side, he was early converted to the whig party. He was well fitted to be a popular writer. His thought, never deep, is always clear and vivid. None knew better how to seize a dramatic incident or a picturesque simile, or to strike the weak points in his adversary's armour. It has been said of him that he always chose to storm a position by a cavalry charge, certainly the most imposing if not the most effective method. Many of his contributions to the Edinburgh Review were afterwards ...
— The Political History of England - Vol XI - From Addington's Administration to the close of William - IV.'s Reign (1801-1837) • George Brodrick
... caution. The face of Alison, puckered with some score of wrinkles in addition to those with which it was furrowed when Morton left Scotland, now presented itself, enveloped in a toy, from under the protection of which some of her grey tresses had escaped in a manner more picturesque than beautiful, while her shrill, tremulous voice demanded the cause of the knocking. "I wish to speak an instant with one Alison Wilson, who resides ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... slowly and revealed a very pretty scene representing a public square where several streets met, surrounded by picturesque houses with small latticed windows, overhanging gables, high peaked roofs, and smoke curling upwards from the slender chimneys ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... captain did not wish to come with me, but when he saw that I was determined to make him he came of his own accord. I left the chief who came with me as captain there. This town of Jauja is very fine and picturesque, with very good level approaches, and it has an excellent river-bank. In all my travels I did not see a better site for a Christian settlement, and I believe that the Governor intends to form one there, though some think that it would be more convenient to select a position near ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 9 • Various
... reign marks the beginning of the present age. It was indicated in many ways, and among others by the declining use of sedan chairs, which had been the fashion for upwards of a century, and by the change in dress. Gentlemen were leaving off the picturesque costumes of the past,—the cocked hats, elaborate wigs, silk stockings, ruffles, velvet coats, and swords,—and gradually putting on the plain democratic garb, sober in cut and color, by which ...
— The Leading Facts of English History • D.H. Montgomery
... children and dogs were the only critics who appreciated his merits without discovering the defects which lessened the favorable appreciation of him by men and women. He dressed neatly, but his morning coat was badly made, and his picturesque felt hat was too old. In short, there seemed to be no good quality about him which was not perversely associated with a drawback of some kind. He was one of those harmless and luckless men, possessed of excellent qualities, ...
— I Say No • Wilkie Collins
... squirrels' skins, which would pass equally well on both sides of the frontier. The fire bag, in which tobacco, tinder, and other small matters were carried, was of Indian workmanship, as was the cord of his powder horn and bullet pouch. Altogether, his get-up was somewhat brighter and more picturesque than that of English scouts, who, as a rule, despised ...
— With Wolfe in Canada - The Winning of a Continent • G. A. Henty
... current of the Danube, along whose left bank extended a beautifully formed mountain chain, whose declivity toward the river presented a rich variety to the eye, for sometimes it was clothed in budding groves, sometimes displayed picturesque bare cliffs, and again vineyards in which labourers were working. From the farthest distance the steeples of Ratisbon offered the first ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... through the heart of the Odenwald. Then they explored the Hartz, climbed the Brocken, and there, among the clouds, discussed the adventures of Faust and his kinsman, Manfred. Anon, the arrival of the Grahams disturbed the quiet of Eugene's life, and, far away from the picturesque haunts of Heidelberg students, he wandered with them over Italy, Switzerland, and France. Engrossed by these companions, he no longer found time to commune with her, and when occasionally he penned a short letter it was hurried, constrained, and unsatisfactory. ...
— Beulah • Augusta J. Evans
... thought I might depend upon you, Mr Eames; I did indeed." Then again she put her hand upon his arm, and as he looked into her eyes he began to think that after all she was good-looking in a certain way. At any rate she had fine eyes, and there was something picturesque about the entanglement of her hair. "Think of it, and then come back and talk to me again," ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope
... and picturesque Gilpin has chosen to denominate this pavement "a piece of miserable workmanship," which can only be owing to the manner in which he injudiciously viewed it. By placing the light in a proper position, the spectator will observe that the effect of the whole piece gives the idea of ...
— A Walk through Leicester - being a Guide to Strangers • Susanna Watts
... on his errand, I had time to survey the mansion. It stood some short distance below the road, on the side of a hill sweeping down to the Tweed; and was as yet but a snug gentleman's cottage, with something rural and picturesque in its appearance. The whole front was overrun with evergreens, and immediately above the portal was a great pair of elk horns, branching out from beneath the foliage, and giving the cottage the look of a hunting lodge. The huge baronial pile, to which this modest mansion in a manner ...
— Abbotsford and Newstead Abbey • Washington Irving
... could well prepare one for a first view of Gloom Cottage. Its location in a hollow which had gradually filled itself up with trees and some kind of prickly brush, its deeply stained walls, once picturesque enough in their grouping but too deeply hidden now amid rotting boughs to produce any other effect than that of shrouded desolation, the sough of these same boughs as they rapped a devil's tattoo against each other, and the absence of even the rising column of smoke which bespeaks domestic ...
— The Golden Slipper • Anna Katharine Green
... orange ribbon, and then around her head she bound a broader band of ribbon the same color with a single black feather just above her forehead on the left side. With her dark hair and high cheek bones, which to-night were crimson with excitement, she made an unusually picturesque Indian girl. Mollie's hair was softer in texture and less heavy, so that she wore it hanging loose ...
— The Camp Fire Girls at Sunrise Hill • Margaret Vandercook
... delivered himself of some unhallowed hopes concerning the rival house, and Jim, as he passed the opposition Inn on a certain evening, had the picturesque devastations vividly in mind. It so happened that a masting team of oxen was standing patiently outside awaiting the driver who was refreshing himself at the bar. A masting team consists of six to twelve strong, ...
— The Preacher of Cedar Mountain - A Tale of the Open Country • Ernest Thompson Seton
... pang of compunction for her former hard judgment of Mrs. Chiverton. If it was ever just, time and circumstances were already reversing it. The early twilight overtook them some miles from Castlemount, but it was still clear enough to see a picturesque ivied tower not far removed from the ...
— The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax • Harriet Parr
... like it when five-pound notes are left? On the other hand, there is the disguise; the only reason that we know of for that would be that he was bolting with the diamonds. But the really puzzling thing is the mark on the forehead. Why that? Of course, the picturesque and romantic thing to suppose is that it is the mark of some criminal club or society. But criminal associations, such as exist, don't do silly things like that. When criminals rob and murder, they don't go leaving their tracks behind them purposely—they ...
— The Red Triangle - Being Some Further Chronicles of Martin Hewitt, Investigator • Arthur Morrison
... been unable to solve. My own thoughts on the subject had rested in the idea that the primitive intention of nature would have so arranged the earth's surface as to have fulfilled at all points man's sense of perfection in the beautiful, the sublime, or the picturesque; but that this primitive intention had been frustrated by the known geological disturbances—disturbances of form and color—grouping, in the correction or allaying of which lies the soul of art. The force of this idea ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... it part of your profession to look as picturesque as our stiff-cut broadcloth will permit," ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... miles. The two roads diverged after passing Fontainebleau, the shorter by Nemours and the longer by Moret. The first road was the smoother, but apart from the chance of seeing the Vendange the route de Burgoyne was far the more picturesque. Smollett's portraiture of the peasantry in the less cultivated regions prepares the mind for Young's famous description of those "gaunt emblems of famine." In Burgundy the Doctor says, "I saw a peasant ploughing ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... comfortable rapid traveling in a Vienna carriage, and the solitude of the road, all had a gladdening effect on Pierre. The estates he had not before visited were each more picturesque than the other; the serfs everywhere seemed thriving and touchingly grateful for the benefits conferred on them. Everywhere were receptions, which though they embarrassed Pierre awakened a joyful feeling in the depth of his heart. In one place the peasants ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... second day out and the three girls were leaning against the rail, gazing dreamily out over the boundless expanse of ocean. They wore natty white middy suits and, with floppy little sailor hats shading flushed cheeks and laughing eyes, they made an alluringly picturesque little group that had attracted much attention from ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... The costume of the race showed very similar tastes to those of their more southern brethren. The men of rank wore white or dyed cotton tunics, and the women mantles fastened by means of golden clasps. The warlike splendour of the men was characteristically picturesque, their chief decorations being breast-plates of gold and magnificent plumes for the head. They, too, employed as weapons darts, bows and arrows, clubs, lances, and slings. The fate of the Chibchas was, of course, the same as that of the Incas. Their bodies decked ...
— South America • W. H. Koebel
... which shows how it was thought out, rearranged, tried first in one fashion and then in another, recast, developed. Separate chapters, introductions, "experimental essays and discarded beginnings," treatises with picturesque and imaginative titles, succeeded one another in that busy work-shop; and these first drafts and tentative essays have in them some of the freshest and most felicitous forms of his thoughts. At one time his enterprise, connecting itself with ...
— Bacon - English Men Of Letters, Edited By John Morley • Richard William Church
... the eye, suggesting to all lovers of golf the admirable use to which it is put from early spring to latest fall. Now, links, as well as parterres and driveways, are lying under an even blanket of winter snow, and even the building, with its picturesque gables and rows of be-diamonded windows, is well-nigh indistinguishable in the shadows cast by the heavy pines, which soar above it and twist their limbs over its roof and about its forsaken corners, with a moan and ...
— The House of the Whispering Pines • Anna Katharine Green
... hollyhocks; and occasionally when we went travelling together dressed in our suits of hardy perennials, we were the cynosure of all eyes. In the Autumn the rich red of the maple gave us an aspect of gayety in respect to our clothes that was most picturesque; and then when the winter blasts began to blow, our garments of pine, cedar and hemlock were not only warm, but appropriate and becoming. It is true that clothes made of hemlock were not altogether ...
— The Autobiography of Methuselah • John Kendrick Bangs
... has very extensive copses which line the river. Coming in sight of Sir W. Fownes's, the scenery is striking; the road mounts the side of the hill, and commands the river at the bottom of the declivity, with groups of trees prettily scattered about, and the little borough of Innisteague in a most picturesque situation, the whole bounded by mountains. Cross the bridge, and going through the town, take a path that leads to a small building in the woods, called Mount Sandford. It is at the top of a rocky declivity ...
— A Tour in Ireland - 1776-1779 • Arthur Young
... Canary," by Metzu; a "Kermesse," by Braurver, a perfect treasure, glitter, like the gems they are, in the midst of panoplies, between the high branches of palm-trees planted in enormous delft vases. A mysterious light filters into that fresh and picturesque apartment through ...
— Serge Panine, Complete • Georges Ohnet
... crossed over the Colorado river and continued our march. We passed the divide between the Colorado and Gila rivers, and arrived at Gila City that afternoon, eighteen miles. Our route was the old overland stage route on the south side of the Gila. Here we first saw that peculiar and picturesque cactus, so characteristic of the country, called by the Indians "petayah," but more generally known as the "suaro," and recognized by botanists as ...
— Frontier service during the rebellion - or, A history of Company K, First Infantry, California Volunteers • George H. Pettis
... a happy smile on her fair face, and good-will in her sweet heart to all mankind—womankind included, which says a good deal for her—was busy with a beautiful sketch of a picturesque watermill, meditating on the stirring scene she had so recently witnessed, when a ...
— The Floating Light of the Goodwin Sands • R.M. Ballantyne
... worst scenes they describe are too wretchedly familiar. The true realist is such a man as Parent du Chatelet; exploring all that most tries the senses and the sentiments, and reporting all truthfully, but soberly, chastely, without needless circumstance, or picturesque embellishment, for a useful end, and not ...
— Ralph Waldo Emerson • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... they came in sight of Murphy's. It was only a mining-settlement of the most primitive description. A few tents and cabins, with rough, bearded men scattered here and there, intent upon working their claims, gave it a picturesque appearance, which it has lost now. It was then a more important place than at present, however, for the surface diggings are exhausted, and it is best known-to-day by its vicinity to the famous ...
— The Young Explorer • Horatio Alger
... that the annals and the aspects of no State in the Union are better known—even to the local peculiarities of life and language—to the general reader, than those of Virginia, from negro melody to picturesque landscape, from old manorial estates to field sports, and from improvident households to heroic beauties; and among the freshest touches to the historical and social picture are those bestowed ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol IV, Issue VI, December 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... foliage as yet, but only a deepening of color, like a flush on the cheek of beauty. As he was driving along the familiar road, farm-house and grove, and even tree, rock, and thicket, began to greet him as with the faces of old friends. At last he saw, nestling in a wild, picturesque valley, the quaint outline of his former home. His heart yearned toward it, and he felt that next to his mother's face no other object could ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe
... The expressions of Cardinal de Retz are positive and picturesque: On y vecut toujours ensemble avec le meme respect, et la meme civilite que l'on observe dans le cabinet des rois, avec la meme politesse qu'on avoit dans la cour de Henri III., avec la meme familiarite que l'on voit dans les colleges; avec la meme modestie, qui se remarque dans les noviciats; ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon
... or golden pavilion shrine, so called because its interior was gilt, the gold foil being thickly superposed on lacquer varnish. On this edifice, on the adjacent palace, and on a park where deer roamed and noble pine trees hung over their own shadows in a picturesque lake, immense sums were expended. Works of art were collected from all quarters to enhance the charm of a palace concerning which the bonze Sekkei declared that it could not be ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... the cemetery which had been described, you remember, to us one evening in the study. It is on the confines of the city, and is made but of an old quarry. I liked it better than any cemetery I ever saw; it is unlike all I had seen, and, though comparatively small, is very picturesque, I may almost say romantic. The walls are lofty, and are devoted to spacious tombs, and the groundwork abounds in garden shrubbery and labyrinth. Some of the monuments are striking. The access to this resting-place is by a steep cut through the rock, and you pass under an archway ...
— Young Americans Abroad - Vacation in Europe: Travels in England, France, Holland, - Belgium, Prussia and Switzerland • Various
... and the rose garden, and the talk turned for a time upon Rendezvous. "They have the tidiest garden in Essex," said Manning. "It's not Mrs. Rendezvous' fault that it is so. Mrs. Rendezvous, as a matter of fact, has a taste for the picturesque. She just puts the things about in groups in the beds. She wants them, she says, to grow anyhow. She desires a romantic disorder. But she never gets it. When he walks down the path all the plants dress instinctively.... ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells
... spot, and the walks are picturesque in the extreme. The farm consists of grazing land lying at the bottom of an irregular valley. On each side are the fantastic limestone hills, formed of rock so soft that you can break it away with your ...
— The Last Galley Impressions and Tales - Impressions and Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... philosopher nor even as a poetess, she asserted her right to be considered a finished connoisseur in the arts of poetry and music; and if she preferred reclining to sitting how should she have done otherwise, since she was fully aware how well it became her to extend herself in a picturesque attitude on her cushions, and to support her head on her arm as it rested on the back of her couch; for that arm, though not strictly speaking beautiful, always displayed the finest specimens of Alexandrian workmanship ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... had been a month in their little craft, and the monotony of it all, in spite of the beautiful scenery and picturesque country through which they passed, was beginning to tell on the voyagers. They were becoming irritable and pettish. Mark Arden had on several occasions made himself particularly disagreeable—airing his views as to the wanton waste ...
— Under the Rebel's Reign • Charles Neufeld
... they supply him. He can drink an enormous quantity of wine without his head becoming affected. He looks down with entire disregard on the laws of God and man, as made for inferior beings. As for any worthy moral quality,—as for anything beyond a certain picturesque brutality and bull-dog disregard of danger, not a trace of such a thing can be found ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... entirely realistic, was picturesque and amusing, and coral reefs and rocky cliffs covered with seaweed gave aquatic impressions, even ...
— Patty in Paris • Carolyn Wells
... biography give us nothing new in relation to the hero, still it may be of great interest and value from the manner in which well-known authorities are collected and digested, and the facts presented in a picturesque, fascinating, living narrative. Such a work is Irving's "Goldsmith." Such a work is not Marx's "Beethoven." It is neither one thing nor another,—neither a biography nor a critical examination of the master's works. It is a little of both,—an attempt to ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various
... have revealed a definite and enduring trend—that through the diurnal fluctuations of the strife for personal power and wealth a seasonal political change in society is now showing itself. Certain lines of cleavage seem to show themselves, so that through the welter of striking, picturesque, sensational but meaningless events, ...
— China, Japan and the U.S.A. - Present-Day Conditions in the Far East and Their Bearing - on the Washington Conference • John Dewey
... seemed held up in the air by some invisible agency to let the shafts of sunlight glimmer through,—once more he saw the great roses in his garden, pink and white and cream and yellow, clambering over the walls and up to the very roof of his picturesque and peaceful home—the white doves nesting in the warm sun—the ripe apples hanging on the gnarled boughs, the simple peasantry walking up his garden paths, coming to him with their little histories of pain and disappointment ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... reigned as upon the street. The door was indeed closed, but in the interior of the house all the doors stood wide open; the house cock stood in the midst of the sitting room, and crowed in order to give information that there was some one in the house. As to the rest, the house was entirely picturesque; it had an open balcony looking out upon the court—upon the street would have been too lively. The old sign hung over the door and creaked in the wind; it sounded as if it were alive. I saw it from my window; I saw also how the grass had overgrown the pavement of the street. The sun shone clear, ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... life—the ladies moving along those open loggias, the young men in plumed caps and curling hair with one foot on those doorsteps, the knights in armour and the sumpter mules and red-robed Cardinals defiling through those gates into the courts within. The modern bricks and mortar with which that picturesque scene has been overlaid, the ugly oblong windows and bright green shutters which now interrupt the flowing lines of arch and gallery; these disappear beneath the fine remembered touch of a sonnet sung by Folgore, when still ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... cruel, but not weak. What a disastrous marriage! doomed from the outset, even if no Rendell had come on the scene. Isabel dismissed Rendell rather scornfully: in that night at Myrtle Villa she felt pretty sure that the duel had been fought out between husband and wife: the very staging of it, picturesque for Lizzie Hyde and tragic for her husband, must for the entrapped lover have taken a frame of ignominious farce. A gleam shot through Isabel's eyes-as she imagined Rendell trying to face Hyde, and Hyde sparing him and sending him away untouched. ...
— Nightfall • Anthony Pryde
... ruined Norman castle. The town is made up largely of cottages with thatched roofs, surrounded by the bright English flower gardens. It was typical of several other places which we passed on our way. I think that in no section of England did we find a greater number of picturesque churches than in Essex, and a collection of photographs of these, which was secured at Earl's Colne, we ...
— 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
... of the fortnight he made a clean breast of his love and of his scruples. He chose an occasion when they had strolled far along the shore and were resting among picturesque rocks overlooking the ocean. She listened shyly, as became a woman, but once or twice while he was speaking she looked up at him with unmistakable ardor and joy in her brown eyes which let him know that his feelings ...
— The Law-Breakers and Other Stories • Robert Grant
... is dying from a disease the ravages of which are hideous to watch, and which many people believe, too, to be infectious. Let me advise you, madame, to learn also a little wisdom. Let me beg of you not to be led away by these efforts of sentiment, however picturesque and delightful they may seem. The only life that is worth considering is our own. The only death that we need fear is our own. We ought ...
— The Mischief Maker • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... Stockholm. Do you notice that it lies at the easterly end of a large lake? That is the Maelar, beautiful with winding channels, pine-covered islands, and rocky shores. It is peaceful and quiet now, and palace and villa and quaint Northern farmhouse stand unmolested on its picturesque borders. But channels, and islands, and rocky shores have echoed and re-echoed with the war-shouts of many a fierce sea-rover since those far-off days when Olaf, the boy viking, and his Norwegian ships of war ploughed through the narrow sea-strait ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... happiness, by depriving them of a natural birthright, healthful exercise, free access to the pure air, the bright sunshine, the blue sky and the unnumbered charms of country life, with its fascination of ever changing landscape, a picturesque mingling of verdure clad hills, green meadows, shady forests, clear lakes and bold mountains? Why should these children be compelled to live a cramped, unnatural life, confined to the narrow streets, poisoned both ...
— Solaris Farm - A Story of the Twentieth Century • Milan C. Edson
... whose very "bends are adornings." What loftiness and awe have I seen expressed in the step of an actress, not yet deceased, when first she advanced, and came down towards the audience! I was ravished, and with difficulty kept my seat! Pass we to the mazes of the dance, the inimitable charms and picturesque beauty that may be given to the figure while still unmoved, and the ravishing grace that dwells in it during its endless changes ...
— Thoughts on Man - His Nature, Productions and Discoveries, Interspersed with - Some Particulars Respecting the Author • William Godwin
... prominent buildings is the Athenaeum, containing a reading-room and library. From the high roof of this building the stroller will do well to take a glance at the surrounding country. He will naturally turn seaward for the more picturesque aspects. If the day is clear, he will see the famous Isle of Shoals, lying nine miles away—Appledore, Smutty-Nose, Star Island, White Island, etc.; there are nine of them in all. On Appledore is Laighton's Hotel, and near it the summer cottage of Celia Thaxter, the poet of the Isles. On ...
— An Old Town By The Sea • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... advised, and don't change. You'll get everything twenty per cent. cheaper in that rig-out. Besides, you are so much more picturesque. Your costume may save us from starvation if we run short of cash. You can get enough for both of us as a professional tramp. Oh, well, if you insist, I'll wait. Good advice is thrown away on ...
— In the Midst of Alarms • Robert Barr
... picturesque little figures by this time, and the figures in their turn had spied the riding-party and had begun to dance merrily in the fire-light. They were dressed in brown from head to foot, with long ears on their brown hoods and long, pointed toes ...
— Betty Wales Senior • Margaret Warde
... publiee par La Borde, 2 vols., a beautiful and interesting work; La Borde, Voyage Pittoresque en Autriche, 3 vols., plates finely coloured; La Borde, Descripcion de un Pavimento de Mosayco, with coloured plates; the Fine Picturesque Works of Coney, Neale, Haghe, Lawis, Mueller, Nash, and Wilkie, all fine and picked sets, complete; an Interesting Collection of Illustrious and Noble Foreigners, arranged in 5 vols.; Genealogical Illustrations of the Ancient Family of Gruee, ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 59, December 14, 1850 • Various
... with a charming scene, which he thus describes: "Our" station, "this night, had a beauty about it, which would have made any one, possessed with the least enthusiasm, fall in love with a bush life. We were sitting on a gently-rising ground, which sloped away gradually to a picturesque lake, surrounded by wooded hills,—while the moon shone so brightly on the lake, that the distance was perfectly clear, and we could distinctly see the large flocks of wild fowl, as they passed over our heads, and then splashed into the ...
— Australia, its history and present condition • William Pridden
... to you before, but their father wished to keep them; he is always so happy when they are near," a little, dark-eyed woman, clad in picturesque robes of brilliant crimson and gold, said rapidly, as she threw herself down on a pile of soft cushions ...
— Dyke Darrel the Railroad Detective - Or, The Crime of the Midnight Express • Frank Pinkerton
... visited an Eskimo Moravian station. They—the Eskimos, not the Moravians—are a jolly little people, and picturesque as possible. Not that any aspersions on the Moravians are intended, for I have the greatest respect for them. My shining leather coat made a great hit. They fondled it and stroked it, and coo-ed at it as if it were a new baby. All the women past their very first youth seemed ...
— Le Petit Nord - or, Annals of a Labrador Harbour • Anne Elizabeth Caldwell (MacClanahan) Grenfell and Katie Spalding
... bye, there is a most picturesque contrast in these lines, of thy and me, living and dying, and thine and mine. Ah! a prize upon it! Dick, after all, was the man. Ecod! he rounded it off. But, to return to this unhappy young man, would you believe it, he tossed ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... nowhere such a background for heroism as the noble, terrifying, and picturesque conditions of some of our sea fights. Hawke's battle in the tempest, and Aboukir at the moment when the French Admiral blew up, reach the limit of what is imposing to the imagination. And our naval annals owe some of their interest to the fantastic ...
— Virginibus Puerisque • Robert Louis Stevenson
... of Claudia's character found some scope. She raved at the so-called tomb of Juliet, was never tired of rambling among the ruins of the Roman amphitheatre, and made herself ill with the fresh figs and grapes presented in such abundance in the picturesque old market-place. I confess I should as soon have dreamed of danger from some ancient volcano of the Alps, as from the political system of the country which we were traversing. Indeed, it never could have occurred to us that a ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 440 - Volume 17, New Series, June 5, 1852 • Various
... our left, on the summit of some rocks, were two forts of somewhat ancient appearance, the guardians of the town, while on the west was another fort of no very terrific aspect. But perhaps the chief attraction of the landscape, next to the picturesque outline, was its exquisitely varied tinting and colouring, and the ever-changeful shadows which were cast over it by the passing clouds. White and bright are the houses in the town, with their red ...
— My First Voyage to Southern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... short they were inseparable. Shall we call the painters that decorated the architecturally fantastic and airy walls of Pompeii in Alexandrian or perhaps Syrian taste artisans or artists? And how shall we classify the goldsmiths, Alexandrians also, who carved those delicate leaves, those picturesque animals, those harmoniously elegant or cunningly animated groups that cover the phials and goblets of Bosco Reale? And descending from the productions of the industrial arts to those of industry itself, one might also trace the growing influence of the Orient; one might show ...
— The Oriental Religions in Roman Paganism • Franz Cumont
... Mount Pleasant had been an irregular, low-roofed, picturesque residence, built with only one floor, and surrounded on all sides by large verandahs. In the old days it had always been kept in perfect order, but now this was far from being the case. Few young bachelors can keep a house in order, but no bachelor young or old can do so under such a doom as that ...
— Miss Sarah Jack, of Spanish Town, Jamaica • Anthony Trollope
... formerly the seat of the Hon. Mrs. Egerton, of whom it was purchased by Queen Charlotte, in 1792, who made considerable additions to the house and gardens. The grounds were laid out by Uvedale Price, Esq. a celebrated person in the annals of picturesque gardening. The ornamental improvements were made by the direction of the Princess Elizabeth, (now Landgravine of Hesse Homburg,) whose taste for rural quiet we noticed in connexion with an Engraving of Her Royal Highness' Cottage, adjoining Old ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 17, - Issue 495, June 25, 1831 • Various
... sorcery and witchcraft was alive in certain classes of society. And then, as is apt to occur in such cases, the expiring folly occasionally gave tokens of its existence with a convulsive vehemence, and became only the more picturesque and impressive through the strong contrast of lights and ...
— Lives of the Necromancers • William Godwin
... in which there were at least a dozen rich men's lodges. They were all in sight from the lake—at some point, at least. Each beautiful place had a water privilege, and the landings and boathouses were very picturesque. There was a whole fleet of craft here, too, ranging in size from a cedar canoe to a steam yacht. The latter belonged to Dr. Shelton, the man who had accused John Jarley of stealing the motor boat Bright Eyes and the five thousand dollars' worth of silver images ...
— Wyn's Camping Days - or, The Outing of the Go-Ahead Club • Amy Bell Marlowe
... picturesque. Picturesque, with the sort of unbeautifulness that takes the fancy of women more than Greek proportion. I think it would require a girl peculiarly feminine to feel the attraction of such a man—the fascination of his being grizzled and slovenly and rugged. She would have to be rather ...
— Between The Dark And The Daylight • William Dean Howells
... their torches, and leaving suspended behind them a long train of rain, like a vaporous robe. Freed by an effort from the rocky defiles that for a moment had arrested their course, they irrigate, in Bearn, the picturesque patrimony of Henri IV; in Guienne, the conquests of Charles VII; in Saintogne, Poitou, and Touraine, those of Charles V and of Philip Augustus; and at last, slackening their pace above the old domain of Hugh Capet, halt murmuring on the towers of ...
— Cinq Mars, Complete • Alfred de Vigny
... in three acts, but this division is the work of stage managers or directors who treat each of the three scenes as an act. At the Metropolitan Opera House, in New York, Mr. Mahler introduced a division of the first scene into two for what can be said to be merely picturesque effect, since the division is not demanded by ...
— A Book of Operas - Their Histories, Their Plots, and Their Music • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... their eternal pine-woods, Sweden and Finland are dismal enough regions to traverse in the cold season of the year, although on the Swedish side the line crosses a succession of uplands divided by deep valleys, which are probably very picturesque after the melting of the snows. It was noticeable that all the important viaducts in Sweden were protected by elaborate zeribas of wire entanglement although the country was neutral, a form of defensive measure which was much less noticeable in England ...
— Experiences of a Dug-out, 1914-1918 • Charles Edward Callwell
... to bear some resemblance to one set for an adventure. The rolling ocean, a coast steamer dragging a great column of black smoke, and cast high upon the beach the wreck of a schooner, her masts tilting drunkenly, gave color to our purpose. It became filled with greater promise of drama, more picturesque. I began to thrill with excitement. I regarded Edgar appealingly, in eager supplication. At last he broke the ...
— My Buried Treasure • Richard Harding Davis
... Dhananjaya were highly pleased when the Pandavas had succeeded in regaining and pacifying their dominions, and they deported themselves with great satisfaction, like unto Indra and his consort in the celestial regions, and amidst picturesque woodland sceneries, and tablelands of mountains, and sacred places of pilgrimage, and lakes and rivers, they travelled with great pleasure like the two Aswins in the Nandana garden of Indra. And, O Bharata, the high-souled Krishna and the son of Pandu ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... Coke, and later to the Cobham family. Thomas's son John, grandson of the founder, greatly enlarged and beautified the place and far down into the nineteenth century it was one of the notable country seats of England. This John Penn also built another country place called Pennsylvania Castle, equally picturesque and interesting, on the Isle of Portland, of ...
— The Quaker Colonies - A Chronicle of the Proprietors of the Delaware, Volume 8 - in The Chronicles Of America Series • Sydney G. Fisher
... in the low, swampy grounds, appeared insignificant and mean, and the wharves and landing places at the river's side were neither picturesque nor beautiful. The architecture of the houses, however, with porticoes, verandas, and terraces, excited my admiration. I also saw, in the distance, palm and cocoanut trees, and banana and plantain shrubs, with leaves six ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper
... which once acknowledged the authority of Spain in the New World, no portion, for interest and importance, can be compared with Mexico—and this equally, whether we consider the variety of its soil and climate; the inexhaustible stores of its mineral wealth; its scenery, grand and picturesque beyond example; the character of its ancient inhabitants, not only far surpassing in intelligence that of the other North American races, but reminding us, by their monuments, of the primitive civilisation of Egypt and Hindostan; and ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XII. - Modern History • Arthur Mee
... tried to excite your feelings and sympathies by attempts at pathetic or picturesque descriptions of suffering. But the minister of a just God is bound to proclaim that God demands not SENTIMENT, but JUSTICE. The Bible knows nothing of the "religious sentiments and emotions," whereof we hear so much talk nowadays. It speaks of DUTY. "Beloved, if God so loved ...
— Sermons on National Subjects • Charles Kingsley
... us. I don't care about being in Hastings; there's too much cockneyism in the place at this time of year. There's a little village called Harold's Hill, within a mile or so of St. Leonard's—a dull, out-of-the-way place, but rustic and picturesque, and all that kind of thing—the sort of place that women like. Now, I'd rather stay at that place than at Hastings. So you can take a fly at the station, drive straight to Harold's Hill, and secure the best lodgings you ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon |
