"Costliness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... hire of our state coach did not enable us to visit that suburb, where the reader may imagine villas standing in grounds with lawns and gardens about them. The English have prevailed nothing against the local civilization in most things, while they have infected it with the costliness of the whole Anglo-Saxon life. We should not think seven hundred dollars in New York dear for even a quite small house, but it has come to that in Gibraltar, and there they think it dear, with other things proportionately so. Of course, it is an artificial ...
— Roman Holidays and Others • W. D. Howells
... natural. It might perhaps have been better had not the value of the whole been stated in one of the newspapers of the day. Who was responsible for the valuation was never known, but it seemed to indicate that the costliness of the gifts was more thought of than the affection of the givers; and it was undoubtedly true that, in high circles and among the clubs, the cost of the collection was much discussed. The diamonds were known to a stone, and Hampstead's rubies were spoken of ...
— Marion Fay • Anthony Trollope
... the heart grow fonder. Perhaps not actually fonder, but at any rate more tolerant, more curious, more eager. Two difficulties, however, stand in the way of the widespread adoption of the remedy. One lies in its costliness: the average couple cannot afford a double establishment, even temporarily. The other lies in the fact that it inevitably arouses the envy and ill-nature of those who cannot adopt it, and so causes a gabbling of scandal. The world ...
— In Defense of Women • H. L. Mencken
... smiled upon you most pleasingly, that you have obtained many riches; and because some of you have obtained more abundantly than that of your brethren ye are lifted up in the pride of your hearts, and wear stiff necks and high heads because of the costliness of your apparel, and persecute your brethren because ye suppose that ye are better ...
— The Book Of Mormon - An Account Written By The Hand Of Mormon Upon Plates Taken - From The Plates Of Nephi • Anonymous
... picture to dispose of he had only to take it to Lord Timon and pretend to consult his taste as to the merits of it; nothing more was wanting to persuade the liberal- hearted lord to buy it. If a jeweler had a stone of price, or a mercer rich, costly stuffs, which for their costliness lay upon his hands, Lord Timon's house was a ready mart always open, where they might get off their wares or their jewelry at any price, and the good-natured lord would thank them into the bargain, as if they had done him a piece of courtesy in letting him have the refusal ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... mankind. We recognize your greatness and your power. Deign to give us from your abundance, not that we may live comfortably when serving the Lord, but live in luxury like you, and compete with you in the sumptuousness of our banquets and in the costliness of our furniture and our works of art, and be your companions and equals in social distinctions, and be enrolled with you as leaders of society." On the contrary they said, "We ask nothing from you. We do not wish ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VII • John Lord
... had not yet been thought of; but the beautiful suspension bridge at Menai was already in existence, and was the most remarkable bridge then existing in the world. I was more struck by the beauty of the structure than by its costliness or size; the journal says, "It is indeed wonderfully beautiful." On one of our excursions we saw what in rainy weather is a good waterfall, and I find a reference to this that I quote for the curious bit of Welsh-English that is included in it,—"We came to a little village, which has in ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... would otherwise have happened; for every member of the corporation gave two annual entertainments in his official character. And such was the rivalship which prevailed, that often one quarter of the year's income was spent upon these galas. Nor was any ridicule thus incurred; for the costliness of the entertainment was understood to be an expression of OFFICIAL pride, done in honor of the city, not as an effort of personal display. It followed, from the spirit in which these half-yearly dances originated, that, being given on the part of the city, every stranger of ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... that the ceremonial should be very arduous and the expenditure very light. He thus appointed many observances, whose knowledge is extremely important, and whose expense far from burdensome. Thus in religious worship he added devotion and removed costliness. He was also the first to introduce markets, games, and the other usual methods of assembling and uniting men. By these establishments, he inclined to benevolence and amiability spirits whom the passion for war had rendered savage and ferocious. Having thus reigned in the ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... These bells are very necessary appendages, as little noise is made by the approach of a sleigh over the soft snow, and they serve to warn travellers in the dark. The cheerful tinkling music thus occasioned on the Canadian roads is very pleasing. Sleighs vary a good deal in structure and costliness of decoration; and one often meets a rough, cheerful Canadian habitant sitting in his small box of a sledge (painted sometimes red and sometimes green), lashing away at his shaggy pony in a fruitless attempt to keep up with the large graceful sleigh of a wealthy inhabitant of Montreal, who, wrapped ...
— Hudson Bay • R.M. Ballantyne
... of treasure to be found in many country houses is indeed enormous. In Holinshed's Chronicle of Englande, Scotlande and Irelande, published in 1577, there is a chapter on the "maner of buylding and furniture of our Houses," wherein is recorded the costliness of the stores of plate and tapestry that were found in the dwellings of nobility and gentry and also in farm-houses, and even in the homes of "inferior artificers." Verily the spoils of the monasteries and churches must have been fairly evenly ...
— Vanishing England • P. H. Ditchfield
... at Florence in 1469 and afforded an excuse for lavish hospitality. The bride received her own guests in the garden of the villa where she was to reign as mistress. Young married women surrounded her, admiring the costliness of her clothing and preening themselves in the rich attire which they had assumed for this great occasion. In an upper {35} room of the villa the bridegroom's mother welcomed her own friends of mature years, and listened indulgently ...
— Heroes of Modern Europe • Alice Birkhead
... characteristics, circumstances, position and life of the house-owner and his family. This is the true mission of the decorator, although it is not always so understood. What is called business talent may lead him to invent schemes of costliness which relate far more to his own profit than to the wishes or character ...
— Principles of Home Decoration - With Practical Examples • Candace Wheeler
... this limit—where the Frenchman deploys all his seductive, and vain, and frivolous airs; where he wears his best clothes and his best manners; where he loves to be seen, and observed, and saluted—the tradesmen of the capital have installed establishments the costliness and elaborateness of which it is hardly possible to exaggerate. The gilding and 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, ...
— The Cockaynes in Paris - 'Gone abroad' • Blanchard Jerrold
... definite. It is of undoubted value as a local anodyne in sciatica and neuralgia, especially in ordinary facial or trigeminal neuralgia. The best method of application is by rubbing in a small quantity of the aconitine ointment until numbness is felt, but the costliness of this preparation causes the use of the aconite liniment to be commonly resorted to. This should be painted on the affected part with a camel's hair brush dipped in chloroform, which facilitates the absorption of the alkaloid. ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... king of Persia for three years, he gave a feast for all his officials, officers, and servants. The commanders of the armies of Persia and Media, the nobles and governors were before him; while for one hundred and eighty days he showed them the wonderful riches of his kingdom and the costliness of his magnificent regalia. ...
— The Children's Bible • Henry A. Sherman
... to be observed in the costliness of the clothing of the different classes of society in Upper Canadian towns and cities, and much less difference in the taste with which these articles are selected, than might be expected. With the exception of the lower class of labourers, all persons ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... French society is unexacting in the matter of refreshments, it runs to waste in regard to dress. The toilettes worn at all entertainments of any extent and formality far surpass in costliness and beauty any festal garbs which feminine humanity can contrive to don in America. In this birthplace of dress, dress is a pre-eminent and all-important feature. Two great points are de rigueur in a Frenchwoman's toilette: it must ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Volume 15, No. 89, May, 1875 • Various
... nothing of wines and did not suspect the costliness of those which during the entire voyage they drank ...
— Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison - Fifteen Years in Solitude • Austin Biron Bidwell
... to Beteddeen, and witnessed the sad spectacle of the Ameer Besheer's luxurious palace in a process of daily destruction by the Turkish soldiery, who occupied it as a barrack. Accounts had been read by me in Europe {405} of its size and costliness, but the description ...
— Byeways in Palestine • James Finn
... The Presbyters and the Asceticks, I believe, changed the Palluim for the Toga in the infancy of the christian world; but all other christians were left undistinguished by their dress. These were generally clad in the sober manner of their own times. They observed a medium between costliness and sordidness. That they had no particular form for their dress beyond that of other grave people, we team from Justin Martyr. "They affected nothing fantastic, says he, but, living among Greeks and ...
— A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume I (of 3) • Thomas Clarkson
... of refinement, like her dress or her furniture, is distinguished, not for its costliness and profusion, but for a pervading air of graceful originality. She is quite sensible of the regard due to the reigning fashion of the day, but her own tasteful discrimination is always perceptible. She instinctively avoids every thing that is hackneyed, vulgar, ...
— The Jewish Manual • Judith Cohen Montefiore
... by Mrs. Bines a reputation for wit that she was never able quite to destroy. There had been talk of a banquet to a visiting celebrity the night before, for which the menu was one of unusual costliness. Mr. Milbrey had dwelt with feeling upon certain of its eminent excellences, such as loin of young bear, a la Granville, and the boned quail, ...
— The Spenders - A Tale of the Third Generation • Harry Leon Wilson
... effect did her aunt say, discussing the subject quite artistically and unconsciously appealing to several of Rose's ruling passions. One was a love for the delicate fabrics, colors, and ornaments which refined tastes enjoy and whose costliness keeps them from ever growing common; another, her strong desire to please the eyes of those she cared for and gratify their wishes in the smallest matter if she could. And last, but not least, the natural desire of a young and pretty woman to enhance the ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott
... human form of strangely mingled materials, of giant size no doubt, and of majestic aspect. Barbarous enough it would have looked beside the marble lovelinesses of Greece, but it was quite like the coarser art which sought for impressiveness through size and costliness. Other people than Babylonian sculptors think that bigness is greatness, and ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... form of academic lectures he was probably a teacher of medicine at Rome. As might be expected from what we know of the relations of the rest of the family to the nobility of the time, it is easy to understand, especially in connection with hints in Alexander's favorite modes of therapeutics, that costliness of remedies made no difference to his patients, that he must have had the treatment of some of ...
— Old-Time Makers of Medicine • James J. Walsh
... discharge of his State duties), he staid behind in the Palace in London, passing his time peacefully and pleasantly in a splendid library, and vying at the expense of his princely patron with the magnificence of the king himself in the sumptuousness of his fare and the costliness of his apparel: "Dominus meus, quasi continuo abest, vagus ut Scytha, ego autem hic dego, in quiete libris involvor. Providetur mihi pro victu et vestitu, idque est satis, neque enim amplius vel Rex ex hoc tanto apparatu rerum capit." ...
— Tacitus and Bracciolini - The Annals Forged in the XVth Century • John Wilson Ross
... materials for it shall cost, say, a penny, and the charge for it to a patient with 100 pounds a year be half-a-crown. And, on the other hand, a hygienic measure has only to be one of such refinement, difficulty, precision and costliness as to be quite beyond the resources of private practice, to be ignored or ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma: Preface on Doctors • George Bernard Shaw
... and our actors and actresses must have little respect for their own powers, if they think that dignity of gesture is dependent on the flash of jewellery, or the pathos of accents connected with the costliness of silk. Perfect execution of music by a limited orchestra is far more delightful, and far less fatiguing, than the irregular roar and hum of multitudinous mediocrity; and finished instrumentation by an adequate ...
— Modern Painters, Volume IV (of V) • John Ruskin
... dear Mr. Wylder, six hundred pounds would leave little more than a hundred remaining after Burlington and Smith have had their costs. You have no idea of the expense and trouble of title, and the inevitable costliness, my dear Sir, of all conveyancing operations. The deeds, I have little doubt, in consequence of the letter you directed me to write, have been prepared—that is, in draft, of course—and then, my dear Sir, I need not remind you, that there remain the costs to me—those, ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu |
