"Cynosure" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... papered, the pulpit platform was covered with a gay carpet, two shining brass chandeliers were suspended from the ceiling, the windows were frosted glass with a row of lurid blue and red panes around each, and behind the minister was the centre of attraction and cynosure of all eyes, the choir and ...
— Duncan Polite - The Watchman of Glenoro • Marian Keith
... consecrated by the earliest glories of our war—by the mountain Iliad of McClellan, the initial action at Philippi, and the prompt trampling out of West Virginia secession by the victories of Cheat River. This tameless, mountain-lapped, hemlock-tinted river had long been our fancied cynosure. "Each mortal has his Carcassonne," said, after a French poet, the late lamented John R. Thompson, using the term for what is long desired and never attained; and Mr. Matthew Arnold, in writing of a "French ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 31. October, 1873. • Various
... could do for her. She should be the sharer av our heart an' throne. Her lovely brow should be graced by the crown av Spain an' the Injies. She should be surrounded by the homage av the chivalry av Spain. She should fill the most dazzlin' position in all the worruld. She should be the cynosure av r'y'l majistic beauty. She should have wealth, an' honors, an' titles, an' dignities, an' jools, an' gims, all powered pell-mell into her lap; an' all the power, glory, moight, majisty, an' dominion av the impayrial Spanish monarchy should be widin the grasp av her little hand. ...
— A Castle in Spain - A Novel • James De Mille
... and rode and walked about the town the cynosure of all eyes—and some of them of admiring men, who would have been very ready, doubtless, to start a flirtation; both for their own pleasure and in the hope of gaining my good ...
— The Colonel of the Red Huzzars • John Reed Scott
... he had immediately broken by asking anxiously for news of his dog. Learning that Patch was below, and well and happy, he had spoken no more. After eighteen hours he had awaked, greatly refreshed, to find himself the cynosure of three pairs of eyes. These were all kindly and full of cheer. Two pairs were contributed respectively by the nurse and Lady Touchstone, while the third was set in the face of an overgrown cherub, ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates
... perspective of vineyards, cornfields, groves, and gardens, pointed by numberless white villas. At his right loomed the gaunt mass of the Gnisi, with its black forests, its bare crags, its foaming ascade, and the crenelated range of the Cornobastone; and finally, climax and cynosure, at the valley's end, Monte Sfiorito, its three snow-covered summits almost insubstantial-seeming, floating forms of luminous pink vapour, in the evening sunshine, against the intense ...
— The Cardinal's Snuff-Box • Henry Harland
... vowel is short in Greek, so that here at least the strange lengthening cannot be ascribed to the Grecians. The false theory of a long y has not affected 'cynic' or 'cynical', while 'Cyril' has been saved by being a Christian name. We may yet hope to retain y short in 'cylinder', 'cynosure', 'lycanthropy', 'mythology', 'pyramid', 'pyrotechnic', 'sycamore', 'synonym', 'typical'. As for 'h[y]brid' it seems as much a caprice as '[a]crid', a pronunciation often heard. Though 'acrid' is a false formation ...
— Society for Pure English Tract 4 - The Pronunciation of English Words Derived from the Latin • John Sargeaunt
... the rattling street, beginning to understand that the attention he excited was not owing to a visible brand of Cain, but to his beard and hair which were at variance with the fashion of that day. He was neither more nor less a cynosure than at other times. But he was more sensitive to notice, and it now occurred to him that his unique appearance was unsafe as well as irksome. Were a certain body found, in connection with evidence more or less circumstantial, ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne
... following his death, there was a great gathering of the most celebrated physicians of the day and his books and records fetched fabulous prices. But one special tome, ponderous, silver-clasped and locked, entitled: "Macrobiotic, The True and Complete Secret of Long, Healthy Life," was the cynosure of every avaricious eye. The auctioneer shrewdly reserved it until the last. Amidst a scene of unparalleled excitement and competition the Great Book was at length knocked down to a famous London physician for no less a sum than seven thousand Gulden. When ...
— Valere Aude - Dare to Be Healthy, Or, The Light of Physical Regeneration • Louis Dechmann
... "princess in disguise," And wear a robe of fireflies All strung and wove together, And be the cynosure of all At Madame Haut-ton's carnival, In ...
— Poems - Vol. IV • Hattie Howard
... buttoned hat, sitting on the top of his cabin calmly smoking Paradise, alias opium, while his gong boomed and his boat flew fourteen miles an hour, and all things scuttled out of his celestial way. And there, looking majestically down on all these water ants, the huge Agra, cynosure of so many loving eyes and loving hearts in England, lay ...
— Great Sea Stories • Various
... I should ever have regretted leaving this ramshackle and much-dilapidated place, but of course I should have shrunk from the disgrace, the exposure, the feeling that I was the cynosure of all eyes. That, indeed, would have cut me to the quick. Had your father consented to sell O'Shanaghgan and live in England, it would have been a moment of great rejoicing for me; but the place to be sold up over his head was quite a different matter. This, ...
— Light O' The Morning • L. T. Meade
... horrors of delirium tremens,—one of these peripatetics led about with him a goat, perhaps as a scapegoat and sin-offering; tobacco was as odious as rum; and I remember that George Thompson, the eloquent apostle of emancipation, during his tour in this country, when on one occasion he was the cynosure of a protracted antislavery meeting at Peterboro, the home of Gerrit Smith, deeply offended some of his co-workers, and lost the admiration of many of his admirers, the maiden devotees of green tea, by his use of snuff. To "lift up ...
— Washington Irving • Charles Dudley Warner
... rhetorician, and win yourself the imposing and reverend style of Professor. You tell me life is for you not worth living, if you cannot clothe yourself in that power of the word which shall make you invincible and irresistible, the cynosure of all men's admiration, the desired of all Grecian ears. Your one wish is to be shown the way to that goal. And small blame, youngster, to one who in the days of his youth sets his gaze upon the things that are highest, and knowing not how he shall attain, comes as you ...
— Works, V3 • Lucian of Samosata
... to remain undisturbed. During the progress of the game, he had become the cynosure of a large circle of eyes,—belonging to the women and ...
— The Boy Slaves • Mayne Reid
... remarks which Miss Chandos has faithfully, if not flatteringly, reported, and the enunciation of which quite confused me as I sat the centre and cynosure of that wondering group, I was glad to learn that I was an open man, though possessed of sufficient caution and not defective in moral courage. In fact "pluck" was large. I really wished Mr. Burns would relieve me by finding some bad bumps; but no—the worst he could say of ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies
... growing capital of St. Louis, the new Governor was also the central figure of all social activities, the cynosure of all eyes. But the laughing belles of St. Louis at length sighed and gave him up—they loved him as Governor, since they might not as man. Wise, firm, deliberate, kind, sad—he was an old man now, though still ...
— The Magnificent Adventure - Being the Story of the World's Greatest Exploration and - the Romance of a Very Gallant Gentleman • Emerson Hough
... last I saw of the Slasher for years. He was the cynosure of all eyes then, and observed of all observers. But there is no wolf so strong but he may find another to make wolves' meat of him; and Tom Sayers, who had fought his first fight—so tradition tells—on the canal bank within a mile of the Slasher's ...
— The Making Of A Novelist - An Experiment In Autobiography • David Christie Murray
... and turn whither she would fascinated groups followed her steps. Salome's reputation as a brilliant belle had become extended since Irene's long seclusion, yet to-night, on the reappearance of the latter, it was apparent to even the most obtuse that she had resumed her sway—the matchless cynosure of that social system. Fully conscious of the intense admiration she excited, she moved slowly from room to room, smiling once or twice when she met her father's proud look of fond triumph ...
— Macaria • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... coffin, the hearse, the black train of tenants and servants—few was the number of relatives—the gaping vault, the silent church, the solemn service. Then I thought of Eliza and Georgiana; I beheld one the cynosure of a ball-room, the other the inmate of a convent cell; and I dwelt on and analysed their separate peculiarities of person and character. The evening arrival at the great town of—scattered these thoughts; night gave them quite another turn: ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte
... the occurrence Parker was the cynosure for all eyes. Pieces of the clothing that he wore were solicited and given to his enthusiastic witnesses of the deed, to be preserved as trophies of his action in preventing the third shot. No one present at ...
— Shadow and Light - An Autobiography with Reminiscences of the Last and Present Century • Mifflin Wistar Gibbs
... sponge off her first kiss from his lips—was probably a true instinct. How was it possible a girl of that class should escape the sordid attentions of street swains? Even when she was in the country she was well-nigh of woo-able age, the likely cynosure of neighbouring ploughboys' eyes. And what of ...
— Merely Mary Ann • Israel Zangwill
... a man of more than ordinary attraction. His features were fine and his figure impressive. He might have been the cynosure of all eyes had he chosen to enter crowded drawing-rooms, or even to frequent public assemblages, but having turned his back upon everything of the kind in his youth, he had found it impossible to alter his habits with advancing ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Detective Stories • Various
... Bonaparte into the Tuileries, the revolution closed, and blissful days of tranquillity and gay festivity followed. Josephine and Hortense were the cynosure of all these festivals, for they were, likewise, the animating centre whence the grace and beauty, the attractive charm, and the intellectual significance of them ...
— Queen Hortense - A Life Picture of the Napoleonic Era • L. Muhlbach
... the cynosure of every eye, rose and stood panting into Gyp's face. She took the occasion ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... de Bellegarde. The chance of the rivals in the favour of the lady herself could scarcely be doubtful, as the Duc de Bouillon, Prince of the Blood though he was, possessed few personal attractions, while the gay, the gallant, the magnificent Bassompierre was the cynosure of all eyes; superb in person, he was moreover of high birth, great wealth (although his profusion occasionally fettered his means), in high favour with the monarch, and celebrated alike for his wit and his attainments. ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... with so much love, and he fled to go into seclusion abroad and become a great man, not thinking any more about women. This was the purpose of the brief lines he had sent her on his disappearance. A lie, an absolute lie! She saw something else. The wretch had run away with a cocotte who was the cynosure of all eyes on the beach at Biarritz. An ugly thing, who had some vulgar charm about her, for all the men raved over her. That young "sport" was tired of respectable people. He probably was offended because she ...
— Woman Triumphant - (La Maja Desnuda) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... returned his parting benediction, slowly ascended Mount Hymettus. When they paused to rest upon its summit, a glorious prospect lay stretched out before them. On the north, were Megara, Eleusis, and the cynosure of Marathon; in the south, numerous islands, like a flock of birds, reposed on the bright bosom of the Aegean; to the west, was the broad Piraeus with its thousand ships, and Athens in all her magnificence ...
— Philothea - A Grecian Romance • Lydia Maria Child
... and Fallows Gray, Where the nibling flocks do stray, Mountains on whose barren brest The labouring clouds do often rest: Meadows trim with Daisies pide, Shallow Brooks, and Rivers wide. Towers, and Battlements it sees Boosom'd high in tufted Trees, Wher perhaps som beauty lies, The Cynosure of neighbouring eyes. 80 Hard by, a Cottage chimney smokes, From betwixt two aged Okes, Where Corydon and Thyrsis met, Are at their savory dinner set Of Hearbs, and other Country Messes, Which the neat-handed Phillis dresses; And then ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... proud page, Cally threaded her way among the glittering tables for the telephone and Jefferson 4127, unaware for once that she was the cynosure of many eyes. She was buoyed within, thrilled with a sense of strange adventure, baffling to analysis, but somehow comparable to that soaring moment last week. She was captain of her soul. That she ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... The cynosure of wondering beaux, I boast a soul above thee; No fate can mar my calm repose, Or make me cease to love thee; Supreme above the common tile, My own affronts unheeding, I bow and compliment and ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 103, September 17, 1892 • Various
... the two youths were eagerly directed towards her, as they followed Lord Talbot. Was she not indeed the cynosure of all the realm? Did she not hold the heart of every loyal Englishman by an invisible rein? Was not her favour their dream and their reward? She was a little in advance of her suite. Her hair, of that light sandy tint which is slow to whiten, was ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... hinted at himself as one of the glorious company. Daniel knew his newspaper ethics. He knew that the newspaper man is not the story, however they may regard it in France, for instance, where the reporter is ever the bright particular cynosure of any interview that bears ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... Cecil at last went down to the weights, all his friends of the Household about him, and all standing "crushers" on their champion, for their stringent esprit de corps was involved, and the Guards are never backward in putting their gold down, as all the world knows. In the inclosure, the cynosure of devouring eyes, stood the King, with the sangfroid of a superb gentleman, amid the clamor raging round him, one delicate ear laid back now and them, but otherwise indifferent to the din; with his coat ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... while since, Victorine, how should she not like his society? I can fancy no man more fit to be the cynosure of a woman's eye than Larochejaquelin. He has that beauty which women love to look on: the bold bright eye, the open forehead, the frank, easy smile, and his face is only a faithful index to his heart; he is as frank as brave, and yet as tender-hearted as he looks to ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope
... had been at hand all his infancy, boyhood, and young manhood: he was in the world with his father in his heart: that was the kingdom of heaven. Lonely man on the hillside, or boy the cynosure of doctor-eyes, his father was everything to him:—'Wist ye not that I must be in my ...
— Hope of the Gospel • George MacDonald
... made way for them, covering Verena with gratulations of word and look. Ransom could see that, according to a phrase which came back to him just then, oddly, out of some novel or poem he had read of old, she was the cynosure of every eye. She looked beautiful, and they were a beautiful couple. As soon as she saw him, she put out her left hand to him—the other was in Mr. Burrage's arm—and said: "Well, don't ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. II (of II) • Henry James
... to enter the hall by the dons' entrance, and for this enormity to be perpetrated by a fresher immediately made her the cynosure of all eyes. Poor Priscilla was unconscious of any offense. She grew scarlet under the gaze of the merciless young eyes and further added to her sins by sitting down at one of the tables at ...
— A Sweet Girl Graduate • Mrs. L.T. Meade
... you, O Mistress of the Witch Stone, O Cynosure of the 'Eye of Gluskap!'" answered Desbra. "I am, indeed, so much impressed that I was taking pains to remind the Powers of the transfer I have just effected! I desire to hide me from the 'Eye of Gluskap' by taking refuge behind a certain ...
— Earth's Enigmas - A Volume of Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts
... took up, Nick Lang came along, he was the "cynosure of every eye," as Reggie Van Alstyne was heard to ...
— The Chums of Scranton High - Hugh Morgan's Uphill Fight • Donald Ferguson
... brought to Old Point were a machete, the captured property of a colored trooper, a fine Spanish sword, taken from an officer and a little Cuban lad about nine years old, whose parents had bled for Cuba. His language and appearance made him the cynosure of all eyes. He was dressed in a little United States uniform and had pinned to his clothing a tag which read: "Santiago buck, care of Col. C.L. Wilson, Manhattan Club, New York." His name is ...
— History of Negro Soldiers in the Spanish-American War, and Other Items of Interest • Edward A. Johnson
... conversant, convivial, correlate, corrigible, corroborate, corrosive, cosmic, covenant, crass, credence, crescent, criterion, critique, crucial, crucible, cryptic, crystalline, culmination, culpable, cumulative, cupidity, cursive, cursory, cutaneous, cynosure. ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... astronomers no doubt designed, in blasphemous profanation of the heavens, to represent their bloodhounds hunting fugitive slaves, placing it in disgusting proximity to our own Northern Ursa Major. And the friends of the slave are hereby invited to make that new constellation their cynosure, vowing by it, and anti-slavery lovers arranging their matrimonial engagements, if possible, so as to plight their troth only when it is ...
— The Sable Cloud - A Southern Tale With Northern Comments (1861) • Nehemiah Adams
... unto the youth who really fell in love. His courtship was the cynosure of all eyes. Its progress was reported hourly. His presence was noted and his absence commented upon. His ardor was gauged by the thermometer of many eyes, and the barometer of hotel partisanship betrayed the ...
— A Tar-Heel Baron • Mabell Shippie Clarke Pelton |
