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Decorate   /dˈɛkərˌeɪt/   Listen
Decorate

verb
(past & past part. decorated; pres. part. decorating)
1.
Make more attractive by adding ornament, colour, etc..  Synonyms: adorn, beautify, embellish, grace, ornament.  "Beautify yourself for the special day"
2.
Be beautiful to look at.  Synonyms: adorn, beautify, deck, embellish, grace.
3.
Award a mark of honor, such as a medal, to.
4.
Provide with decoration.  Synonym: dress.



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"Decorate" Quotes from Famous Books



... "Wilt thou decorate the room with the evergreens for to-morrow? I shall return in time to milk the cows, but they should be ...
— Sielanka: An Idyll • Henryk Sienkiewicz

... it is compared with the splendid presents which were offered either by the hand, or by order, of the emperor, to all the celebrated places of devotion in the Roman world; and with the sums allotted to repair and decorate the ancient temples, which had suffered the silent decay of time, or the recent injuries of Christian rapine. Encouraged by the example, the exhortations, the liberality, of their pious sovereign, the cities and families resumed the practice of their neglected ceremonies. ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon

... the eighteenth century, nevertheless absolutely revel in material furnished by that time; the gentlemen in wigs have become their most profitable heroes, and in real life, as well as in our novels, we can find no more modern way to decorate our parlors and our furniture than by covering them with the scroll work of the wig-age. This is only an apparent contradiction. It is not the Pigtail but the Rococo that we are reviving so industriously, not the academic constraint of rules, but the subjective arbitrariness, the spirit ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VIII • Various

... as pleased as she ever allowed herself to look over anything a man suggested. It was the delight of her heart to plan and decorate and contrive. Her own house was a model of comfort and good taste, and Miss Sally was quite ready for new worlds to conquer. Instantly Eden assumed importance in her eyes. She might be sorry for the misguided bride who was rashly ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1909 to 1922 • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... singular band we note but eleven professed laborers, four carpenters, one blacksmith, one bricklayer, and one mason: but we are not surprised to find a barber to aid in making the toilet of the "gentlemen," a tailor to decorate their persons, and a drummer to contribute to their ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various

... coat is evidently derived from the frock, or from something like the frock, by turning back the skirts. Remains of this process may be seen in the buttons which, without serving any useful purpose, still continue to decorate the coat-tails in many military uniforms, and in servants' liveries, and in those which, without being so remarkable, still adhere to the tails of an ordinary dress-coat. This arrangement may be noticed very distinctly ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various

... that will thrive in the broiling sun, while some of the owners have planted buoy-like barrels at the four corners of their enclosures and filled them with the same assortment of foliage plants with which they would decorate a village lawn. This use of flowers seemed at once to draw the coolness from the easterly breeze and intensify the heat that vibrates from ...
— The Garden, You, and I • Mabel Osgood Wright

... that hath given me a daughter. Praise Ukko, my son, that thou hast won this lovely maiden, the pride of the Northland, who is purer than the snow, more graceful than the swan, and more beautiful than the stars. Let us make our dwelling larger, and decorate the walls most beautifully in honour of thy lovely bride, the fairest maid ...
— Finnish Legends for English Children • R. Eivind

... continued the voice, "shine faintly on your lodge, but they have a power to transform it into the lightness of the skies, and decorate it with the colors of the clouds. Come, Osseo, my son, and dwell no longer on earth. Think strongly on my words, and look steadfastly at my beams. My power is now at its height. Doubt not—delay not. It is the voice of the Spirit of the stars that ...
— The Myth of Hiawatha, and Other Oral Legends, Mythologic and Allegoric, of the North American Indians • Henry R. Schoolcraft

... me," said Auberon, "that the tradition of ten centuries is being broken, and the House of Barker is rebelling against the Crown of England. It would be with regret (for I admire your appearance) that I should be obliged forcibly to decorate your head with the remains ...
— The Napoleon of Notting Hill • Gilbert K. Chesterton

... included in this Plan Book on pages 7 and 8. The builder or owner of the Home selected should be willing to loan it to the General Committee for the Demonstration Week, without charge. He should also be willing to landscape the grounds, decorate the walls and carry all insurance and damage risks. This has been gladly done by builders in Syracuse, Cleveland, Milwaukee, Kansas City and elsewhere. There is no better selling method for homes than that of putting on display a completely ...
— Better Homes in America • Mrs W.B. Meloney

... Deb wistfully. "You used to all the time, and you most never do now. And—and it's Christmas, and we aren't going to decorate, or have a party, or people staying!" Deb's chin trembled. "I ...
— Lewis Rand • Mary Johnston

... accepted, someone was sure to say: "You know, my dear, your mother was far the prettiest girl in Edinburgh. Oh, Christina, you were!..." It was true, too, a French artist who had come to Scotland to decorate Lord Rosebery's ballroom at Dalmeny had pestered Mrs. Melville to sit to him, and had painted a portrait of her which had been bought by the Metropolitan Museum in New York. Ellen had never had a clear idea of what the picture was like, for though ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West

... initials of Diane de Poitiers, and of her admirer, Henri, everywhere interlaced. Again, a colossal monogram reproduces itself in the chimney-piece with the frescoes of Nicolo dell' Abbate, and fifty figures of mythological gods and heroes decorate the window casings. ...
— Royal Palaces and Parks of France • Milburg Francisco Mansfield

... not strange, if this were the case, that the natives—who, though apparently gentle and well disposed, were barbarians—should naturally have possessed the taste so characteristic of a barbarous people, and have loved to decorate themselves even lavishly with ornaments rudely fashioned in this rare metal. Yet they seemed to know little of its value, and to care less for it than for fuss and feathers. Either they were a singularly stupid race, simpler even than the child of ordinary intelligence, or they ...
— In the Footprints of the Padres • Charles Warren Stoddard

... blossoms That decorate the trees, And shower down their petals With every breath of breeze, There is nothing so sweet or fair to me As the delicate ...
— Poems - Vol. IV • Hattie Howard

... was dressed and sitting at her bedroom window watching the lane. For she had promised Auntie Jinit that she would be off to the creek at the earliest hour to gather violets and lady's-slippers and swamp lilies to decorate the tables for the wedding breakfast. Charlie Stuart had promised to call for her at sunrise, but she was too ...
— 'Lizbeth of the Dale • Marian Keith

... afterwards passed round to the relations and guests. They dance and sing all night, but the companions of the bride are excluded—they feast among themselves in separate apartments, far from the tumult of the nuptials. The modern Greeks, like the ancient, on the nuptial day, decorate their doors with green branches ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 14, - Issue 403, December 5, 1829 • Various

... spell. It was for him, she had said, that she wanted to secure a new paying-guest who had plenty of money to put into the "system," and who loved gambling better than anything else. He had helped Eve and the codfish decorate both drawing-room and dining-room for Christmas, in order that Mary might take a fancy to the place, and consent to come as a boarder. There were a good many pine branches pinned on to curtains and stuck into huge, ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... the garden front of Windsor Castle, taken from an Illustrated London News, but embellished with many Indian characteristics. The purely decorative part of these wall pictures is often graceful and harmonious, and one can look forward to the day when the Christian Indian artist will joyfully decorate, in his own traditional style, the bare white walls of the village Church of St Crispin, and beautiful saints and angels will take the place of ...
— India and the Indians • Edward F. Elwin

... and diffidence. They are silent and almost sullen. When the Italian fleet first visited Pola there was hardly a cheer...."] "Now let me tell you," says the Frenchman, "that our entry into Alsace was different. Foch was not obliged to send emissaries in advance in order to decorate the houses with flags and to erect triumphal arches. The French cockades had not nestled in the dark hair of our Alsatian women since 1870, for forty-eight years the tricolors had been waiting, piously folded at the bottom of those wooden ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 2 • Henry Baerlein

... psychological problem to decorate the house in a way to give true balance to the aesthetic sense. No matter how great one's admiration for a thing, there is always a final point of satiety at which the desire needs rest or balance. A woman ...
— Color Value • C. R. Clifford

... feathers of the Eagle's tail rendered their arrows invincible. The Indian mountain tribes east of Tennessee venerated the Eagle as their bird of war, and placed a high value on his feathers, which they used for headdresses and to decorate ...
— Birds, Illustrated by Color Photography [July 1897] - A Monthly Serial designed to Promote Knowledge of Bird-Life • Various

... by the thick copse wood that covers its domain, which extends over three neighbouring hills. Under the principal facade is a large lake, whose blue waves bathe the walls; an immense mirror, ever reflecting the numberless turrets, and the grotesque birds and beasts which decorate the extremity of every waterspout; wherein, too, the tranquil marble giants, who support the broad balcony on their heads, seem to contemplate and admire their own imperturbable countenances—countenances ...
— Le Morvan, [A District of France,] Its Wild Sports, Vineyards and Forests; with Legends, Antiquities, Rural and Local Sketches • Henri de Crignelle

... with its vases and pictures and trinkets, was something quite wonderful. Indian incense burned in a mysterious little dish, pictures of purple ladies were hung in odd corners, calendars in letters nobody could read, served to decorate, if not to educate, and glass vases of strange colours and extraordinary shapes stood about filled with roses. None of these things were awful. At least no one would have dared say they were. But what was awful ...
— The Children's Book of Christmas Stories • Various

... the Roman Empire, through its new trade channels opening up with the East (the result of the crusades) led to the importation of rich and many-coloured Oriental stuffs; the same wealth ultimately established looms in Italy for making silks and velvets, to decorate man and his home. There was no longer simplicity in line and colour scheme; gorgeous apparel fills the frames of the Renaissance and makes amusing reading for those who consult old documents. The ...
— Woman as Decoration • Emily Burbank

... had hung up the curtains, he looked under the bedsteads for a large bundle, and said, as he opened it, "I shall now decorate Madam Seagrave's sleeping-place. It ought to be handsomer than the others." The bundle was composed of the ship's ensign, which was red, and a large, square, yellow flag with the name of the ship Pacific in large black letters upon it. These two flags Ready festooned and tied up round ...
— Masterman Ready - The Wreck of the "Pacific" • Captain Frederick Marryat

... over two days in accomplishing the task. There was no discomfort about the process: it just came off gradually all along my forehead, leaving a smooth bare line which I could feel with my fingers. As soon as it was all gone, McMurtrie proceeded to decorate me with some kind of stain that he had specially prepared for my face and neck—a composition which according to him would remain practically unaffected either by washing or exposure. It smelt damnably in the pot, but directly it was rubbed in ...
— A Rogue by Compulsion • Victor Bridges

... many sorts, such as amazed the beholder and confounded thought and mind. As for this, Tohfah was the means of the enrichment of the Barmecides and the Abbasides, and they had endurance in their delight. Then the Caliph went forth and bade decorate the city: so they decorated it and the drums of glad tidings were beaten; and they made banquets to the people for whom the tables were spread seven days. And Tohfah and the Commander of the Faithful ceased not to enjoy the most delightsome of life and the most prosperous ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton

... this house if you would give it to me. There! I would a thousand times rather have a little bit of a cottage, just large enough for—for two people, and everything in it just as cosy and simple as it could be. Then we—then I could learn to paint and decorate—I've learned a little already—and embroider and such things, and slowly, very slowly, you know, I would fill the house with pretty things that would belong to it and be a part of it, and a part of me, too, ...
— The House that Jill Built - after Jack's had proved a failure • E. C. Gardner

... eighteen she displayed the girl on all occasions and strove hard to force her into the arms of a horrible little middle-aged baronet. She still craved a title for Doris, no matter what moral and physical blemishes that title might decorate. More than once she had hinted to Bullard that he might purchase a "handle." And glancing sidelong at Doris, Bullard had more than once reflected that she would be worth the money—if only he had it to spare. For Bullard's ...
— Till the Clock Stops • John Joy Bell

... admitted Philip, "and really our way is exceedingly simple and comfortable. Ras loads up the seat pantry at the nearest village and then we cast off all unnecessary ballast every morning. Of course we couldn't very well camp twice in the same place—we decorate so heavily—but that's a negligible factor. Oh, yes," added Philip smiling, "we've blazed our trail with buns and cheese for miles back. Ras thinks whole processions of birds and dogs and tramps and chickens are already following us. If it's true, we'll most ...
— Diane of the Green Van • Leona Dalrymple

... Armagh wallet is made of one piece of leather, folded to form a case a foot long, a little more than a foot broad, and two and a half inches thick. The Book of Armagh does not fit it properly. Interlaced work and zoomorphs decorate the leather. Remains of rough straps are ...
— Old English Libraries, The Making, Collection, and Use of Books • Ernest A. Savage

... place of honour. A rest is made with supports like an easel. A lattice-work of slender willow rods passed down the front, which is covered by a long strip of buffalo hide. Against this the chief rests. Each member of the family has his allotted place inside the lodge and he may decorate his own section according to ability or fancy. Here the warrior hangs his war-bonnet and sometimes records his achievements in the chase or on the warpath. Lying all about the circle are many highly coloured parflesche bags containing the minor details of dress or any personal ...
— The Vanishing Race • Dr. Joseph Kossuth Dixon

... and a little worn, now, but dressed a merveille and delightful in her pride at her genius-boy. His sister, a wonderful, modern young woman, has learned her "trade," indeed, though one that her mother never dreamed of, and will decorate, furnish and supply with everything from ancestral portraits to patent mouse-traps any structure from a hotel to a steam-yacht that you may place in her capable, college-bred hands. A remarkable achievement is young Susan—the achievement of the fin de siecle generation. At the wedding-breakfast ...
— Margarita's Soul - The Romantic Recollections of a Man of Fifty • Ingraham Lovell

... answered his purpose; the Medici gave him great honour; he was well paid by them, and got the commission to decorate the Chapel of the Palazzo Vecchio—a very good specimen of his fresco painting, in which he never reached his father's excellence, although in oil he far surpassed him. The chapel is small; the groined roof is covered with emblematical designs on a blue ground, a Trinity in the midst with ...
— Fra Bartolommeo • Leader Scott (Re-Edited By Horace Shipp And Flora Kendrick)

... largely responsible for it," answered Grace. "She has the most original ideas about decorations and things. You know the juniors always decorate for the ...
— Grace Harlowe's Sophomore Year at High School • Jessie Graham Flower

... of Dantzic art, on which day the council had agreed that the prize for the clock was to be adjudged. It was a great fete for the town. At an early hour of the morning the inhabitants began to decorate their houses with tapestry, and to hang garlands over the door-posts. All classes prepared their dresses of brightest colors, and their gayest, happiest smiles. And none was happier than Marguerite, for Dumiger had written to tell her that on the next day he was certain to be ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. 1, No. 2, July 8, 1850 • Various

... hang it up by the heels to bleed to death so that our veal cutlet may be white; we nail geese to a board and cram them with food because we like the taste of liver disease; we tear birds to pieces to decorate our women's hats; we mutilate domestic animals for no reason at all except to follow an instinctively cruel fashion; and we connive at the most abominable tortures in the hope of discovering some magical cure for our ...
— Revolutionist's Handbook and Pocket Companion • George Bernard Shaw

... sir. Pilot Harkness will bear me out in this. You would decorate us for being the first to navigate space; but we are ...
— The Finding of Haldgren • Charles Willard Diffin

... Or from the polisht brass woke thin-toned tinkling music, While from the many there boomed and blared hoarse blast of the horn-trump, And with its horrid skirl loud shrilled the barbarous bag-pipe, Showing such varied forms, that richly-decorate couch-cloth 265 Folded in strait embrace the bedding drapery-veiled. This when the Thessalan youths had eyed with eager inspection Fulfilled, place they began to provide for venerate Godheads, Even as Zephyrus' ...
— The Carmina of Caius Valerius Catullus • Caius Valerius Catullus

... since then this seizure has been made by the police; it is not usual to decorate a man who is summoned before the court of assizes. You seem not to notice that the seizure argues a strong ill-will against Monsieur Thuillier, and, I may add, against yourself, monsieur, for you are known to be the culprit. You have not, I think, ...
— The Lesser Bourgeoisie • Honore de Balzac

... unexpected addition to the day's festivities, but Mrs. Maynard was equal to the occasion. She scurried around and found flags to decorate the table, and tied a red, white, and blue balloon to the back of each chair, which gave the ...
— Marjorie at Seacote • Carolyn Wells

... he was attempting to rival and redeemed by little or nothing of the quality proper to himself. But, apparently, it answered its purpose. It freed him from preoccupation with the work of others. When his great opportunity came to him, in the commission to decorate the Camera della Segnatura, his painfully acquired knowledge was sufficiently at his command to give him no further trouble. He could concentrate himself on the essential part of his problem, the creation of an entirely appropriate, dignified, and beautiful decorative ...
— Artist and Public - And Other Essays On Art Subjects • Kenyon Cox

... of Florence, being chosen to decorate the cupola of San Giovanni with mosaics, carried out the said work in the most perfect fashion. Every figure was treated in the Greek manner, which Tafi had learned during his sojourn at Venice, where he had seen workmen busy adorning the walls of San Marco. He had even ...
— The Well of Saint Clare • Anatole France

... husband are both certainly under much obligation to this nobleman for his care to procure them comparatively decent persons to decorate their levees and drawing-rooms, who, though they have no claim either to morality or virtue, either to honour or chastity, are undoubtedly a great acquisition at the Court of St. Cloud, because none of them has either ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... memorials had been set up by a most virtuous antiquity. Besides all this, in order to build churches for the use of the Christians, not only were the most honoured temples of the idols destroyed, but in order to ennoble and decorate S. Peter's with more ornaments than it then possessed, the mole of Hadrian, now the castle of S. Angelo, was despoiled of its stone columns, as well as of many other things which are now seen ...
— The Lives of the Painters, Sculptors & Architects, Volume 1 (of 8) • Giorgio Vasari

... additional allowance for their support. One woman remarked, that as she had left her child at Sierra Leone, she wanted another in its place, to carry at her back; and before they obtained the Governor's permission for the indulgence of their wishes, they took the beads off their own necks to decorate their newly-adopted favourites. This philanthropic disposition was happily not confined to people of colour, (most of whom had fallen under the protection of the British flag, from similar situations, i.e. the holds of slave-vessels), ...
— A Voyage Round the World, Vol. I (of ?) • James Holman

... necessary work is justly entitled to a full share of the results. The men who put the slates on are just as indispensable as the men who lay the foundations. The work of the men who build the walls and make the doors is just as necessary as the work of the men who decorate the cornice. None of them would be of much use without the architect, and the plans of the architect would come to nothing, his building would be a mere castle in the air, if it were not for the other workers. Each part of the work is equally necessary, useful and indispensable ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell

... escutcheons. A large pennon, emblazoned with the arms and alliances of the high-born damsel, was suspended, according to custom, in place of the lamp of the sanctuary. The lusters, girandoles, and candelabras of the king had been furnished in profusion, to decorate the sacred edifice, and the pavements were all covered ...
— The Crayon Papers • Washington Irving

... Pope Paul having built a chapel on the same floor as the before-mentioned Sistine, he desired to decorate it in his own memory, and he made Michael Angelo paint the frescoes on the side walls. In one is represented the crucifixion of St. Peter; in the other the story of St. Paul—how he was converted by the apparition of Jesus Christ—both stupendous in general composition as in ...
— Michael Angelo Buonarroti • Charles Holroyd

... at the same time; which shews how well he had taken care of the whole. When they had made an end of putting into the boat the things just mentioned, our guide, who still remained with us, desired us to decorate the young plaintain trees with looking-glasses, nails, medals, beads, &c. &c. This being accordingly done, we landed with these in our hands, and were conducted towards the chief, through the multitude; they making a lane, as it were, for us to pass through. We were ...
— A Voyage Towards the South Pole and Round the World, Volume 1 • James Cook

... some a tubular, others mushroom-like, a few almost globular, and still others branched or hand-shaped; in the warmer seas they hang in fantastic and gorgeous fans from the roofs of submarine caverns, or decorate the sides with vases of classic elegance, though of nature's handiwork. Nor are their colors less various: some are of the most brilliant scarlet or the brightest yellow, others green, brown, blackish, or shining white; while Peron mentions one procured by him in the South ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various

... bed or to carry her to her chair, rather than let the kitchen-maid come upstairs and, perhaps, 'make an impression' on my aunt, she would send out for Theodore. And this lad, who was regarded, and quite rightly, in the town as a 'bad character,' was so abounding in that spirit which had served to decorate the porch of Saint-Andre-des-Champs, and particularly in the feelings of respect due, in Franchise's eyes, to all 'poor invalids,' and, above all, to her own 'poor mistress,' that he had, when he bent down to raise my aunt's head from her pillow, the same air of preraphaelite ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust

... musical treasures of Germany until the time comes when they are able to create a music of their own! This is a kind of peaceful conquest to which our art is accustomed. "Now then, Frenchmen," as Du Bellay used to say, "walk boldly up to that fine old Roman city, and decorate (as you have done more than once) your temples and altars with its spoils." Besides, let us remember that the German masters of the eighteenth century, whose words M. Buchor has plagiarised, did not hesitate to plagiarise themselves; ...
— Musicians of To-Day • Romain Rolland

... when necessary, and divides her all with her kin and friends—white and black. She wages a war on ground-moles, at which she laughs and says she resembles. Ground-mole beans almost a foot long protect and decorate her yard. She has apple and fig trees, and scuppernong grape vines grow rank and try to climb ...
— Slave Narratives Vol. XIV. South Carolina, Part 1 • Various

... two elements: first, the genius of paganism, the faculty of expressing spiritual experience in myth and external symbol, and, second, the experience of disillusion, forcing that pagan imagination to take wing from earth and to decorate no longer the political and material circumstances of life, but rather to remove beyond the clouds and constitute its realm of spirit beyond the veil of time and nature, in a posthumous and metaphysical sphere. A mythical economy abounding ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana

... while, with an equipage at his disposal, and a salary of L1500 a year. Subsequently, on the persuasion of Lord Exeter, Verrio was induced to lend his aid to royalty once more, and he condescended to decorate the grand staircase at Hampton Court for King William. Walpole suggests that he accomplished this work as badly as he could, 'as if he had spoiled it out of principle.' But this is not credible. The painting ...
— Art in England - Notes and Studies • Dutton Cook

... horse and greyhound. In elephant-hunting iron bullets weighing a quarter of a pound are used; throwing-clubs are employed for small game, and lions are hunted with the spear. Lion skins belong to the emperor, but the slayer keeps a strip to decorate ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... exists in most of the breakfast cereals which flood our tables and decorate our bill-boards. Some of these are made of the waste of flouring mills, known as "middlings," "shorts," or bran, which were formerly used for cow-feed. The claims of many of them are greatly exaggerated, for they contain ...
— A Handbook of Health • Woods Hutchinson

... unfortunate lady dressed herself with sensations how different from the days in which she was wont to decorate herself in all the pride of conscious beauty! She endeavoured to delay the completing her dress as long as she could, until, terrified by the impatience of Varney, she was obliged to declare herself ready to ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott

... dismiss these gloomy images from her mind, and, after arranging her garlands, went to decorate the shrine and altar,—a cheerful labor of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 45, July, 1861 • Various

... the rest of you"—and out came strings of corals and beads, handkerchiefs and photographs, silk stockings and filagree work, until the floor was strewn with pretty things. After all the presents were distributed, it was time to begin to get dinner, and to decorate the great table laid for sixteen. There was a turkey, of course, and a huge chicken pie as well, not to mention mince pies and squash pies and apple pies, a plum pudding and vanilla ice-cream; angel cakes and fruit cakes and chocolate ...
— The Old Gray Homestead • Frances Parkinson Keyes

... held obscurer rank. The crowd is fickle, and Clarendon took little care to secure its lenient judgment. Already his mansion was nicknamed Dunkirk House, and the quidnuncs told how it was built out of the bribes which had made him contrive the sale of that port to France. To decorate his mansion it was his ambition to collect a gallery of portraits, which should represent all those who had foremost places in the eventful history of his time. Such a design involved an expenditure very small compared with the notions of the present day. Clarendon procured all the notable ...
— The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon V2 • Henry Craik

... whispered, "that decorations can be good or bad, just as men and women can be good or bad? These decorations are bad. They are a mockery of all decorations—a travesty the most heartless of the motives for which good and pure people decorate. There is nothing honest or straightforward about them. They are a mean confusion of all the symbols of joy. They are put up for some cruel ...
— The Crooked House • Brandon Fleming

... with weapons of their own, which he was much more anxious to avoid than they his missiles. These were two pairs of very dirty hands filled and covered with liquid mud with which the damsels attempted to decorate his person. Okoya was clearly on the defensive, and the advantage so far seemed on the side of his aggressors. Shyuote flew to his assistance. Rushing to a large vessel of burnt clay, standing alongside the wall and ...
— The Delight Makers • Adolf Bandelier

... used to devote himself to the cultivation of the kitchen garden, which he had raised into this respectability from a spot not excelling a common kail-yard, while Richard Middleman did his utmost to decorate with flowers and shrubs a sort of arbour, usually called Miss ...
— The Surgeon's Daughter • Sir Walter Scott

... about it, she was an apt pupil, and the whole performance seemed great fun. In less than an hour the two girls had quite transformed the room. Everything was clean and tidy, and Marjorie had scampered out and picked a bunch of daisies and clover to decorate the mantel. ...
— Marjorie's Vacation • Carolyn Wells

... to Gould, decorate their dwellings with great taste. "They instinctively fasten thereon," he stated, "beautiful pieces of flat lichen, the larger pieces in the middle, and the smaller on the part attached to the ...
— The Industries of Animals • Frederic Houssay

... a lot of dried seaweed to decorate it," said Cricket, working busily. "That's right, Kenneth. Bring all the pretty shells you can, and we'll put them all around the sides. Look, Eunice! doesn't ...
— Cricket at the Seashore • Elizabeth Westyn Timlow

... days The Luck was usually carried to the gulch from whence the golden store of Roaring Camp was taken. There, on a blanket spread over pine boughs, he would lie while the men were working in the ditches below. Latterly there was a rude attempt to decorate this bower with flowers and sweet-smelling shrubs, and generally some one would bring him a cluster of wild honeysuckles, azaleas, or the painted blossoms of Las Mariposas. The men had suddenly awakened to the fact that there ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte

... were not so gaudily attired as the men. Their decorations were expended on clothing, as it was not considered good form to decorate ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Treasures of the Island • Roger Thompson Finlay

... to her and depend on Mr. Bradford or Mr. Duffield to entertain me. Watch what a match-maker I am, Mrs. Cornwall. Let us go through the house and then into the garden. My aunt insisted that I hurry back. What a delightful place for your dance! We can decorate with hydrangeas and golden glow. John, the garden looks just the same as it did that Sunday afternoon two years ago when we sat on this same bench under the arbor of ripening grapes and I told you my dream of the humming birds. For a while I regretted having done so, knowing that you saw too ...
— Chit-Chat; Nirvana; The Searchlight • Mathew Joseph Holt

... all the prints, that have been mentioned, were hung up in frames on the motives severally assigned to them, no others were to be seen as their companions. It is in short not the practice[38] of the society to decorate their houses in ...
— A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume I (of 3) • Thomas Clarkson

... adorned with ribbons, either red or blue. Even a great many of the men wear streamers of vari-colored ribbons in the buttonholes of their coats. A few of them carefully cultivate a forelock of hair by wrapping it in twine, and on such festive occasions decorate it with a narrow ribbon streamer. Big meetings afford a fine opportunity to the younger people to meet each other dressed in their Sunday clothes, and much rustic courting, which is as enjoyable as any other kind, ...
— The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man • James Weldon Johnson

... decorate the galley with all the flags on board: should set every one to work to make great flags with the cross of the Order to hoist to the masthead of the prizes, instead of the little things that are now flying; and under them we will hoist the flags of ...
— A Knight of the White Cross • G.A. Henty

... vitreous mass been dumped upon the Champs de Mars from the clouds in a viscous state like the Alpine mers de glace, it would have assumed much such a thick disk-like shape as it actually wore. Then decorate it with some spun-sugar pinnacles and some flags of silver paper, and the confiseur stood confessed. Nevertheless, motive was there. Catch anything French ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. XVII, No. 99, March, 1876 • Various

... exclaimed Sim Roller, who had proposed the matter. "Some of the masks are the same as the boys used in France. But others are new ones they got from the gov'ment lately to decorate the meetin' room. I reckon they'd be fresh, with charcoal in and ...
— The Boy Ranchers in Death Valley - or Diamond X and the Poison Mystery • Willard F. Baker

... is of vital importance that they should be protectively coloured in all those parts of the body which are exposed during incubation. To secure this end all the bright colours and showy ornaments which decorate the male have not been acquired by the female, who often remains clothed in the sober hues which were probably once common to the whole order to which she belongs. The different amounts of colour acquired by the females have no doubt depended on peculiarities of habits and of ...
— Darwinism (1889) • Alfred Russel Wallace

... "Oh, nothing. Nothing, of course. I—I guess it's loneliness. There are a lot of people who think because I have a motor to smell, a yacht to make my friends seasick and a club window to decorate, that I'm contented with my lot. But at heart I'm the most domestic individual that ever desecrated a dinner coat; and sometimes the natural tendencies of the gregarious male animal will not down. There's too much of the concentrated ...
— A Fool There Was • Porter Emerson Browne

... the planting of the May—a privilege which existed at the commencement of the French Revolution." In Cornwall, too, it seems to have been the custom to plant "stumps of trees" before the houses, as well as to decorate them with boughs and blossoms. And Mr. Aubrey (1686) says, "At Woodstock in Oxon they every May-eve goe into the parke, and fetch away a number of haw-thorne-trees, which they set before their dores; 'tis a pity that they make such a destruction ...
— Miscellanea • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... me/ sticks in Orth'ris, 'but that's like life. Them wot's really fitted to decorate society get no show while a blunderin' Yorkshireman ...
— Soldiers Three • Rudyard Kipling

... pale. She went about meekly with downcast eyes, and the bright fervor of her spirit seemed dimmed. It was not until one afternoon when Allison suggested that they get Jane Bristol and Howard Letchworth and go for bittersweet-berry vines and hemlock-branches to decorate for the Christian Endeavor social that her spirits seemed to return, and the unwholesome experience was put away in the ...
— Cloudy Jewel • Grace Livingston Hill

... could keep in good humour with one's wife for a year and a day, unless one was to live on the very spot, which is one of the sweetest scenes I ever saw. It is the brink of a high hill; the Trent wriggles through at the foot; Lichfield and twenty other churches and mansions decorate the view. Mr. Anson has bought an estate [Shugborough] close by, whence my Lord used to cast many a wishful eye, though without the least pretensions even to a ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume I • Horace Walpole

... chalking up a title for his new dug-out—"Jock's Lodge," or "Burns' Cottage," or "Cyclists' Rest"—supplemented by a cautionary notice, such as—No Admittance. This Means You. Thereafter, with shells whistling over his head, he will decorate the parapet in his immediate vicinity with picture postcards and cigarette photographs. Then he leans back with a happy sigh. His work is done. His home from home is furnished. He is now at leisure to think about "they Gairmans" again. That may sound like an exaggeration; but ...
— All In It K(1) Carries On - A Continuation of the First Hundred Thousand • John Hay Beith (AKA: Ian Hay)

... were the subject of ridicule at home and abroad, even at an early period. Witness the ancient limner's jest in 1570, who, being employed to decorate the gallery of the Lord Admiral Lincoln with representations of the costumes of the different nations of Europe, when he came to the English, drew a naked man, with cloth of various colours lying by him, and a pair of shears held ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 13, No. 354, Saturday, January 31, 1829. • Various

... others, enough to decorate the road for miles in both directions. If Pepsy as chef could live up to Pee-wee's promises the neighborhood would soon become famous. That was her one forlorn hope, that the fame of their offerings would get abroad and lure the traffic from its wonted path. But Pee-wee's enthusiasm and energy ...
— Pee-wee Harris • Percy Keese Fitzhugh

... of his search. He had not asked direct questions about her, but he would have to before he left. There seemed some mystery always just before him. The mail-driver would not be ready to go before noon, so Dorian would have time to get the tree and help the children decorate it. Then he would have to find out all there was to know about Carlia. Surely, she was somewhere in ...
— Dorian • Nephi Anderson

... they selected two exactly alike, and charged the tailor to sew on each of their hats about twenty yards of ribbon, and to procure them two of the long silk sashes of different colors with which the lower orders decorate themselves on fete-days. Albert was impatient to see how he looked in his new dress—a jacket and breeches of blue velvet, silk stockings with clocks, shoes with buckles, and a silk waistcoat. This picturesque attire set him off to great advantage; and when he ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... of the death of kings. But they cut off Sentry-go's head and nailed it over the gate. So he died, and she very imprudently married the master knacker, who had heard she was an heiress in her own right, and wanted to decorate his coat-of-arms with an escutcheon of pretence; and besides, his doctor had recommended a ...
— Old Fires and Profitable Ghosts • A. T. Quiller-Couch

... whiteness was carefully drawn over his expansive chest, and in his equally white shawl-turban was placed an ostrich feather, the prized gift of the lady of the mansion. On all occasions of festivity, and latterly in the field, he was wont thus to decorate himself; and never did the noble warrior appear to greater advantage than when habited in this costume. The contrast it offered to his swarthy cheek and mobile features, animated as they were by the frequent flashing of his eagle eye, seldom failed to excite ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson

... regard as equivalent to a conversion to Christianity. The image of our Lady of Loretto, in the French invasion of Italy, had been carried off from Rome; of course, the sorrows of the true believers were unbounded. The image was certainly not intended to decorate the gallery of the Louvre, for it was as black as a negro; and, from the time of its capture, it had unfortunately lost all its old power of working miracles. But it has at length been restored to its former abode, and myriads of the ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846 • Various

... not, though they have the greatest respect for his memory—decorate his grave regularly, drink toasts to him, and so on. But he hasn't been deified. They got the idea for this god of theirs ...
— The Return • H. Beam Piper and John J. McGuire

... driver is filled, and our laps and baskets are filled with the more delicate blossoms. We look as if we were on our way to the ceremonies of Decoration Day. So we are. All June days are decoration days in Colorado Springs, but it is the sacred joy of life that we decorate,—not the sacred sadness of death." But Mrs. Jackson, with her pleasant home, could not rest from her work. Two novels came from her pen, Mercy Philbrick's Choice and Hetty's Strange History. It is probable ...
— Lives of Girls Who Became Famous • Sarah Knowles Bolton

... Prince Hagen invites the Four Hundred with one hand and knocks them down with the other! Pretty good! Pretty good! What's this? Three millions to decorate his palaces... half a ...
— Prince Hagen • Upton Sinclair

... lead glaze, either clear or covered with an oxide. The English sgraffito-ware found at Jamestown was made near Barnstaple, in North Devonshire, probably after 1640. The reddish-brown floral and geometric designs which decorate the vessels are unusually attractive against colorful yellow backgrounds. Sgraffito is an ...
— New Discoveries at Jamestown - Site of the First Successful English Settlement in America • John L. Cotter

... it should be so served in order that our friends may with more satisfaction eat our repast than our everyday practice would produce on them. But the change should by no means be made to their material detriment in order that our fashion may be acknowledged. Again, if I decorate my sideboard and table, wishing that the eyes of my visitors may rest on that which is elegant and pleasant to the sight, I act in that matter with a becoming sense of hospitality; but if my object be to kill Mrs. Jones with ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope

... trees, before it a smouldering campfire, over which a cooking-pot hung. The two lads, of ten years or so, rushed from the tent to regard me, both attired in shirts and leggings of deerskin profusely fringed after the manner in which the red Indians decorate their outing or lounge-suits. They were armed with sheath knives and revolvers, and ...
— Ruggles of Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson

... muskets, like the cutlasses that decorate the bulkhead of a man-of-war's cabin, were a great variety of rude spears and paddles, javelins, and war-clubs. This then, said I to Toby, must be the armoury ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville

... as in the order of nature, they sought neither escape nor redress, and soon learned to bear what the wind brought them. They even made use of it to enrich those figures of speech with which the native impulses of coloured people decorate their communications: they flavoured metaphor, simile, and invective with it; and thus may be said to have enjoyed it. But the man who produced it took a hot bath as soon as he reached his home the evening of that ...
— Alice Adams • Booth Tarkington

... it, so I am going to back you. It will not take much money. For furnishings for the shop I would refer you to our attic. Auntie Gibbs hates to throw anything away, or give it away for that matter, and you will find chairs and tables and that sort of thing. You girls can decorate the place to suit yourselves. Now what do you think about it? ...
— The Merriweather Girls and the Mystery of the Queen's Fan • Lizette M. Edholm

... are not content alone with the display of natural ornament, but make use of further aesthetic appeal in the construction of their homes in a truly beautiful manner. Some species of humming-birds are said to decorate the exterior of their nests in great taste with lichens, feathers, etc. The bower-birds of Australia construct bowers on the ground, ornamented with shell, feathers, bones and leaves. Both sexes take part in the ...
— The Truth About Woman • C. Gasquoine Hartley

... exclaimed Caesar. "Their statues serve only to decorate a public garden." "They had their lives," replied Laura, gaily; "now we ...
— Caesar or Nothing • Pio Baroja Baroja

... the Lady Virgilia in her most costly garments. Thou wilt bind jewels in her hair and hang strings of pearls about her neck. Her fingers, too, shall be laden with rings. Tell Alexis to decorate the whole house with flowers and make it ...
— Virgilia - or, Out of the Lion's Mouth • Felicia Buttz Clark

... Lilmuku, 2 the festival of Babylon, 3,4 his pageant of dignity 5 within it, I caused to decorate 6 with beryls ...
— Babylonian and Assyrian Literature • Anonymous

... was all in all to Mr Vanslyperken, and Mr Vanslyperken was all in all to him; moreover, we may say, that he is the hero of the TAIL. This was one of the ugliest and most ill-conditioned curs which had ever been produced:—ugly in colour; for he was of a dirty yellow, like the paint served out to decorate our men-of-war by his Majesty's dock-yards:—ugly in face; for he had one wall-eye, and was so far under-jawed as to prove that a bull-dog had had something to do with his creation:—ugly in shape; for ...
— Snarleyyow • Captain Frederick Marryat

... of was a very simple one, and one that I knew grandmamma would like. It was that we should have tea out-of-doors, in an arbour where there was a table and seats all round. And we were to decorate it with flowers, and a wicker arm-chair was to be brought out for granny, and wreathed with greenery and flowers, to show that she was queen ...
— My New Home • Mary Louisa Molesworth

... baronial banquet hall, is not only vulgar taste, but is helping along the extermination of these ancient types. An animal like the moose or the wapiti represents a line of unbroken descent of vast antiquity, and the destruction of the finest members of the race to decorate a hallway cannot be too ...
— American Big Game in Its Haunts • Various

... was carried out; but Leigh Hunt's imprisonment in Horsemonger Lane Gaol was the merest farce of incarceration. He could not indeed go beyond the prison walls. But he had a comfortable suite of rooms which he was permitted to furnish and decorate just as he liked; he was allowed to have his wife and family with him; he had a tiny garden of his own, and free access to that of the prison; there was no restriction on visitors, who brought him presents just as they chose; and he became a kind of fashion with the Opposition. Jeremy ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury

... canopy. Foliage, flowers and fruit of colossal luxuriance, strange birds, beasts, griffins and chimeras in endless multitudes, the rank vegetation and the fantastic zoology of a fresher or fabulous world, seemed to decorate and to animate the serried trunks and pendant branches, while the shattering symphonies or dying murmurs of the organ suggested the rushing of the wind through the forest, now the full diapason of the storm and now the gentle cadence ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... gliding noiselessly over the thick carpets, and went into the room it had been his pleasure to furnish and decorate as his wife's boudoir. Its seashell pinkness was merged in darkness, faintly striped by the grey dawn-glimmer, but the door of the bedroom that opened from it was ajar. Light edged the heavy fold of the portiere curtain and made a pool upon the carpet. She held her breath ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves

... of the body; and it is a grand irrelevancy, we repeat, to speak of such a thing, when the question relates, not to the freedom of the body, but the freedom of the mind. Calvin truly says, that to call this external freedom from co-action or natural necessity a freedom of the will, is to decorate a most diminutive thing with a superb title; but the philosopher of Malmsbury, and his ingenious disciple, seem disposed to confer the high-sounding title and empty name on us, in order to reconcile us to the servitude and chains in which they have ...
— A Theodicy, or, Vindication of the Divine Glory • Albert Taylor Bledsoe



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