"Colosseum" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... latest civilization show unblushing flower faces among the heaving mass of the "great unwashed" who crowd our court-rooms—and listen to revolting details more repugnant to genuine modesty, than the mangled remains in the Colosseum. The rosy thumbs of Roman vestals were potent ballots in the Eternal City, and possibly were thrown only in the scale of mercy; but having no voice in verdicts, to what conservative motive may be ascribed the presence of women at criminal ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... amplifies well, but we think we could trump him. There is an obvious effort in his best works. The result is a want of unity of effect. Hesiod and Tennyson, the Caverns of Ellora, and the magic caves of the Regent's Park Colosseum, are jumbled confusedly one upon another. He never achieves the triumph of art—repose. Besides, he wants variety. A country box, consisting of twenty feet square of tottering brickwork, a plateau of dirt, with a few diseased shrubs and an open drain, ...
— The Bon Gaultier Ballads • William Edmonstoune Aytoun
... dedicated to the meager purses of just these, and held in New York's super-opera-house, the Amphitheater, a great bowl of humanity, the metaphor made perfect by tiers of seats placed upon the stage, rose from orchestra to dome. A gigantic Colosseum of a cup, lined in stacks and stacks of faces. From the door of his dressing-room, leaning out, Leon Kantor could see a great segment of it, buzzing down into adjustment, orchestra twitting and tuning ...
— O Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1919 • Various
... Lafitte; and we can miss over a volume and a half of foreign scenes, which you can imagine; for they are to be found in every one of the forty novels I sent for. Just imagine that the Countess takes her daughters abroad—that Berville encounters them in the Colosseum by moonlight—quarrels—doubts—suspicions—and a reconciliation; finally, they all come home, and you will find the last chapter of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various
... formerly exhibited in Regent's Park, in a great building called the Colosseum. This was opened in 1829, and attracted crowds of people. It stood on the east side of Regent's ...
— Hampstead and Marylebone - The Fascination of London • Geraldine Edith Mitton
... how affectionately he wrote of them to his boy! How he read books of travels and looked over the maps of Europe! and said, "Rome, sir, glorious Rome; it won't be very long, major, before my boy and I see the Colosseum, and kiss the Pope's toe. We shall go up the Rhine to Switzerland, and over the Simplon, the work of the great Napoleon. By jove, sir, think of the Turks before Vienna, and Sobieski clearing eighty thousand of 'em off the ...
— Boys and girls from Thackeray • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... combat. The vast amphitheatre within which the battle is fought, with the whole heavens for its roof, is coextensive with civilization itself. The scene in that great Flavian Amphitheatre, the famous Colosseum, is a faint type of what we are witnessing; but that is not without its lesson. Bloody games, where human beings contended with lions and tigers, imported for the purpose, or with each other, constituted an institution of ancient Rome, only mildly rebuked ...
— The Duel Between France and Germany • Charles Sumner
... see the galleries of marbles, even where there are not many separately admirable, amid the cypresses and ilexes of Roman villas; and a picture that is good at all, looks best in one of these old palaces. I have heard owls hoot in the Colosseum by moonlight, and they spoke more to the purpose than I ever heard any other voice on that subject. I have seen all the pomps of Holy Week in St. Peter's, and found them less imposing than an habitual acquaintance with the church itself, ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. II • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... controversy. Enchanting, if not enchanted, it certainly appeared that morning, and, as we drew nearer, its imposing mass continued to suggest old Roman architecture, from Hadrian's Mausoleum by the Tiber to the huge circle of the Colosseum. ...
— John L. Stoddard's Lectures, Vol. 10 (of 10) - Southern California; Grand Canon of the Colorado River; Yellowstone National Park • John L. Stoddard
... under whose direction he studied subject and portrait painting. He painted fifteen theatrical portraits for Mr. Cumberland in illustration of his "British Drama," and a collection of these works was afterwards exhibited at that melancholy monument to past exhibitions, the Colosseum in the Regent's Park. He was employed by Charles Knight in the illustrations to his "Shakespeare," "London," "Old England," "Chaucer," and the now forgotten "Penny Magazine," for all of which publications he ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt
... those in the baths of Diocletian, a natural and obvious source, though happily he stole them elsewhere.[115] The vandalism proceeded at an incredible pace. Pius II. issued a Bull in 1462 to check it; in 1472 Sixtus IV. issued another. Pius, however, quarried largely between the Capitol and the Colosseum. The Forum was treated as an ordinary quarry which was let out on contract, subject to a rental equivalent to one-third of the output. But in 1433, and still more during the first visit, there was comparatively little ...
— Donatello • David Lindsay, Earl of Crawford
... dearly. But he did not think much of Italy. In Rome, the great monuments of the past left him cold. Of the Temple of Vespasian, all he thought was that it would be a devil of a place to be bunkered behind. The Colosseum aroused a faint spark of interest in him, as he speculated whether Abe Mitchell would use a full brassey to carry it. In Florence, the view over the Tuscan Hills from the Torre Rosa, Fiesole, over which his bride waxed enthusiastic, ...
— The Clicking of Cuthbert • P. G. Wodehouse
... Buildings on the site of Carlton House. 3. Belgrave Square, and the adjoining Squares and Streets. 4. The Entrance Lodges and Bridge in Hyde Park, with the improvements in the Roads and Walks of the same. 5. The Regent's Park, with its Terraces, Villas, Public Buildings, Zoological Gardens, and Colosseum. 6. The London University. 7. The British Museum. 8. The Post Office. 9. London Bridge, and its Vicinity. 10. St. Katherine's Docks. 11. The New Buildings and Alterations connected with the Houses of Parliament, the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 13, No. - 361, Supplementary Issue (1829) • Various
... others?" I fancy I hear my readers' inquiries. Look again. Who sits at the table writing so busily, and every instant turning over the leaves of a large book? It is George. Emma has gone with her papa and mamma to the Colosseum; but George was obliged to remain a prisoner at home, having been much inconvenienced by a severe cold. He is now working diligently to create a surprise for his sister on her return; and anxiety to please her gives such impetus to his exertions, that he ...
— The World of Waters - A Peaceful Progress o'er the Unpathed Sea • Mrs. David Osborne
... the eighth wonder of the world, but the description of them here would occupy too much space. Suffice it to say, in the words of Isabel, "When God Almighty had finished making the earth, He threw all the superfluous rocks together there." From these caves they went to Fiume, and explored the Colosseum there, which, though not so famous as that of Rome, almost rivals it in its ruins and its interest. Another excursion was to Lipizza, the Emperor of Austria's stud farm. It was about two hours from Trieste, and ...
— The Romance of Isabel Lady Burton Volume II • Isabel Lady Burton & W. H. Wilkins
... xxxi.). Tacitus gives a similar account with that of our author of the extent and splendour of the works of Nero. Annal. xv. c. xlii. Reaching from the Palatine to the Esquiline hill, it covered all the intermediate space, where the Colosseum now stands. We shall find that it was still further enlarged by Domitian, c. xv. of his ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus
... not quite such a goose. I wanted to see the Tiber, and the Colosseum, and Trajan's Pillar, and the Tarpeian Rock, and the one everlasting city that binds ancient ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... bare knees. Thus, he who reaches the highest step secures an indulgence of two hundred and fifty-two years, whether he remains here, or finds himself in purgatory. Whoever kisses a cross at one end of the Colosseum of Rome, acquires an indulgence of one year and forty days; and there is a wooden cross in the centre of the arena, which secures an indulgence of two hundred days to ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... ancient gods of Rome were the devils who had the most reason to punish that city for their dethronement, and that the great amphitheatre was the chosen haunt of these demon gods, an ox decorated with garlands, after the ancient heathen manner, was taken in procession to the Colosseum and solemnly sacrificed. Even this proved vain, and the Church authorities then ordered expiatory processions and ceremonies to propitiate the Almighty, the Virgin, and the saints, who had been offended by this temporary ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... the ruins of Rome is certainly that of the Colosseum, symbol of the decay of a great people debauched by their lusts and their rulers. The Colosseum is sometimes included in the list of the wonders of the world, and it is certainly one of the most remarkable ruins of antiquity. If all modern Rome ...
— Europe—Whither Bound? - Being Letters of Travel from the Capitals of Europe in the Year 1921 • Stephen Graham
... they changed to the carriage in which Glory and John were sitting. Apparently they had dined before leaving their club at Maidenhead, and they talked at Glory with covert smiles. "Going to the Colosseum tonight?" said one. "If there's time," said another. "Oh, time enough. The attraction doesn't begin till ten, don't you know, and nobody goes before." "Tell me ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... to a stately castle (the court of Louis XV. whose minister—perhaps Cardinal Fleury?—is "an old and rankled mage"); and finally to Rome, where a lady yclept Vertu holds court in the ruins of the Colosseum, among mimes, fiddlers, pipers, eunuchs, painters, ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... came up mouldy. They picnicked in the tomb of Caecelia Metella, flirted in the palace of the Caesars—not in the classical manner, however,—got cold by moonlight in the Colosseum, and went sketching in the Baths of Caracalla, which last amusement generally ended in the gentlemen and ladies drawing each other, and returning delighted with the study ...
— Shawl-Straps - A Second Series of Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag • Louisa M. Alcott
... incense and mouldy cloth, and, over all, a dim dust-discoloured light. Fancy all this, and you will have before you a Roman church. On your way you pass no fine buildings, for to tell the honest truth, there are no fine buildings in Rome, except St Peter's and the Colosseum, both of which lie away from the town. Fragments indeed of old ruins, porticoes built into the wall, bricked-up archways and old cornice-stones, catch your eye from time to time; and so, on and on, over broken pavements, up and down endless hills, through ...
— Rome in 1860 • Edward Dicey
... times imitated them. Among their greatest buildings were the amphitheaters, from the benches of which crowds watched gladiators fighting one another or struggling with wild beasts. The largest of these amphitheaters was the Colosseum, the ruins of which still exist. Its outer walls were one hundred and sixty feet high. In one direction it measured six hundred and seventeen feet and in another five hundred and twelve. There were seats enough for forty-five thousand persons. The ...
— Introductory American History • Henry Eldridge Bourne and Elbert Jay Benton
... a little this way. Do you see the Colosseum over yonder? Who do you think will remember, and do remember, that with most pleasure; Vespasian and Titus who built it, or the Christians who gave themselves to the lions there ...
— The End of a Coil • Susan Warner
... Campo S. Giacomo; Piazza S. Marco; Church and Piazza of SS. Giovanni and Paolo. Florence. The Piazzetta. Hampton Court. The Colosseum. London. Scuola di San Rocco; Interior of the Rotunda at Ranelagh; S. Pietro in Castello, Venice. Paris. Louvre: Church of S. Maria della Salute. Venice. Heading; Courtyard of a Palace. Vienna. Liechtenstein Gallery: Church and Piazza of S. Mark, Venice; Canal of the Giudecca, ...
— The Venetian School of Painting • Evelyn March Phillipps
... when Morgan came to town, They nailed the Colosseum down. A great Collector! Once his Fad Was Coins, but when in time he had Collected all the coin in sight, To Europe's Art his thoughts took flight. But let not Europe palpitate For fear of an Art Syndicate. There are more Rembrandts, strange to say, Than ever were in Rembrandt's day; ...
— Confessions of a Caricaturist • Oliver Herford
... to send my presents home in the old one by you, and take this to fill up in Rome. Think of it! A lovely new French trunk, and Rome full of pictures, statues, St. Peter's, and the Colosseum. It takes my breath away and makes ...
— A Garland for Girls • Louisa May Alcott
... they had any opportunity for acquiring the requisite knowledge. But I suppose an Englishman is nothing if he is not dictatorial, and has a right to say that the pictures in the Louvre are "orrid" or that the Colosseum is a "himposition." "I don't know what they mean by Lucerne being the Queen of the Lakes," said a Yankee to me, "but I calc'late Lake St. George is a doocid deal bigger." The criticism was true as far as it went, but the man ...
— Interludes - being Two Essays, a Story, and Some Verses • Horace Smith
... horrid sights; and in Arsenius's own time, his miserable pupil, the weak Honorius, bethought himself of celebrating once more the heathen festival of the Secular Games, and formally to allow therein an exhibition of gladiators. But in the midst of that show sprang down into the arena of the Colosseum of Rome an unknown monk, some said from Nitria, some from Phrygia, and with his own hands parted the combatants in the name of Christ and God. The mob, baulked for a moment of their pleasure, sprang on him, and stoned him to death. But the crime was followed by a sudden revulsion of feeling. ...
— The Hermits • Charles Kingsley
... of strength which you can obtain in a pointed arch, you must go to an immensely greater cost in stone or in labor. Stonehenge is strong enough, but it takes some trouble to build in the manner of Stonehenge: and Stonehenge itself is not so strong as an arch of the Colosseum. You could not raise a circle of four Stonehenges, one over the other, with safety; and as it is, more of the cross-stones are fallen upon the plain of Sarum than arches rent away, except by the hand of man, from the mighty ...
— Lectures on Architecture and Painting - Delivered at Edinburgh in November 1853 • John Ruskin
... of brutes; but we have learned something since then, I hope, and I cannot have you make my barn a Colosseum. Who proposed this?" asked ...
— Little Men - Life at Plumfield With Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... field, platform; scene of action, theater; walk, course; hustings; stare, boards &c (playhouse) 599; amphitheater; Coliseum, Colosseum; Flavian amphitheater, hippodrome, circus, race course, corso [Sp.], turf, cockpit, bear garden, playground, gymnasium, palestra, ring, lists; tiltyard^, tilting ground; Campus Martins, Champ de Allars^; campus [U.S.]. boxing ring, canvas. theater of war, seat of war; battle-field, battle-ground; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... weight. With women he likes a hand that can remain an unnecessary moment within his own, an eye that can glisten with the sparkle of champagne, a heart weak enough to make its owner's arm tremble within his own beneath the moonlight gloom of the Colosseum arches. A dash of sentiment the while makes all these things the sweeter, but the sentiment alone will not suffice for him. Mrs. Talboys did, I believe, drink her glass of champagne, as do other ladies, but with her it had no such pleasing effect. It loosened only her tongue, ...
— Stories By English Authors: Italy • Various
... Destroying Angel, the Villa Medici dominating the entire city, the terrace of the Pincio with its marbles showing whitely among its scanty verdure; and the thick-foliaged trees of the Villa Borghese, whose green crests bounded the horizon. Vainly however did Pierre seek the Colosseum. ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... the man must be of a resolute and steady temper who enters upon that study.' And so it should seem from the event. One night, Cellini, with a companion familiar with the Black Art, attended the priest to the Colosseum, where the latter, 'according to the custom of necromancy, began to draw marks upon the ground, with the most impressive ceremonies imaginable; he likewise brought thither asaf[oe]tida, several precious perfumes and fire, with ...
— The Superstitions of Witchcraft • Howard Williams
... I shall be here no longer," answered Gouache. "They will whitewash the Corso, they will make a restaurant of the Colosseum, and they will hoist the Italian flag on the cross of St. Peter's. Then I will go to Constantinople; there will still be some years before Turkey ...
— Saracinesca • F. Marion Crawford
... at dusk the whispering lovers in the Campus, or the romping hide-and-seek of lads and lasses at the corners of the streets or squares, just as you may watch them to-day on spring or winter evenings amongst the lower arches of the Colosseum;—it is a microcosm, a cameo, of that old-world life. Horace knew, and feared not to say, that in his poems, in his Odes especially, he bequeathed a deathless legacy to mankind, while setting up a lasting monument ...
— Horace • William Tuckwell
... invited to see the Colosseum and the Forum illuminations, and were asked to go to the Villino, which stands in the gardens of the Palace of the Caesars, ...
— In the Courts of Memory 1858-1875. • L. de Hegermann-Lindencrone
... glory; it remains the most interesting city in the world; is filled with the sublime ruins and monuments of its pagan greatness and the priceless art-treasures of its mediaeval period; of ruined buildings the most imposing are the Colosseum (a vast amphitheatre for gladiatorial shows) and the Baths of Caracalla (accommodated 1600 bathers); the great aqueducts of its Pre-Christian period still supply the city with water from the Apennines and the Alban Hills; the Aurelian Wall (12 m.) still surrounds the city, enclosing ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... killing as an exercise; he loves it as a spectacle; he loves it as the origin of his greatest emotion. When that there is merely a brutish criminal to be hanged, human beings crowd the converging roads to the spectacle as centuries ago they crowded to the Colosseum. And it is to be recorded to the credit of wild beasts that no traveler ever yet came upon a battlefield that they had strewn with the dead bodies of ...
— On the Vice of Novel Reading. - Being a brief in appeal, pointing out errors of the lower tribunal. • Young E. Allison
... Stradella knew the city well, and led Ortensia to many lovely spots unknown to fashion, and into many dim old churches, more than one of which had echoed to his own music on great feast-days, from the Lateran and Santa Croce and Santa Maria in Domnica, far away beyond the Colosseum, in the wilderness within the southern wall of the city, to the fashionable Santa Maria in Via, and ...
— Stradella • F(rancis) Marion Crawford
... which he found. To say that he found, in the visible universe, a little wooden theatre of Thespis, a trteau or shed of vagrants, and that he presented us, at a price of toil and of anxiety that cannot be measured, with a Roman colosseum,—that is to say nothing. It is to undertake the measurement of the tropics with the pocket-tape of an upholsterer. Columbus, when he introduced the Old World to the New, after all that can be said in his praise, did in fact only introduce the majority to the ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey |
