"Elegance" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... They seek as far as possible to restrain and ennoble the sexual instinct.... What they want in a woman is not a bed-fellow ... They do not ask for the cleverness which shows itself in continual lying. They want especially, if they are artists, freshness, elegance, humanity, the capacity for motherhood.... They do not swill vodka at all hours of the day and night, do not sniff at cupboards, for they are not pigs and know they are not. They drink only when they are free, on occasion.... For they want ...
— Letters of Anton Chekhov • Anton Chekhov
... by the window: they were not alone. In a large elbow-chair sat a middle-aged man, listening, or appearing to listen, to the prattle of a beautiful little girl—Arthur Beaufort's sister. This man was not handsome, but there was a certain elegance in his air, and a certain intelligence in his countenance, which made his appearance pleasing. He had that kind of eye which is often seen with red hair—an eye of a reddish hazel, with very long lashes; the eyebrows were ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... by instinct, but bred with frugality enough to find the charm of continual surprise in that delicate new Athens, draws, as he goes, the full savour of its novelties; the marbles, the space and finish, the busy gaiety of its streets, the elegance of life there, contrasting with while it adds some mysterious endearment to the thought of his own rude home. Without envy, in hope only one day to share, to win them by kindness, he gazes on the motley garden-plots, the soft bedding, the showy toys, the delicate keep of the children ...
— Greek Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater
... evident the social divisions in Gopher Prairie but they had also enfeebled the love of activity. It was so rich-looking to sit and drive—and so easy. Skiing and sliding were "stupid" and "old-fashioned." In fact, the village longed for the elegance of city recreations almost as much as the cities longed for village sports; and Gopher Prairie took as much pride in neglecting coasting as St. Paul—or New York—in going coasting. Carol did inspire a successful skating-party in mid-November. Plover Lake glistened ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... smartly dressed little woman, all airy elegance, but the usually smiling lips were compressed, and the smooth white brow was wrinkled with a frown. She was examining a book of photographs—most of them signed by ...
— A Crooked Path - A Novel • Mrs. Alexander
... running it into the square of the bed plate.[3] The spreading portion is emphasized by surface ornament, and the necking is again emphasized, this time more decisively, by a moulding, forming a series of parallel rings round the column. If we wish to give our column an expression of more grace and elegance, we can further reduce the thickness of it (Fig. 9), and give more spread to the capital, always taking care to be sure that the strength of the column is not reduced below what the weight which it has to carry requires. In ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 633, February 18, 1888 • Various
... ivory and mother of pearl, in ornamenting the most sumptuous apartments in oriental palaces. It is exceedingly durable and elegant. 'The choosing olive out of every other kind of wood, for the adorning these sumptuous apartments, shows the elegance and grandeur of the taste in which Solomon's temple was built, where the doors of the oracle, and some other parts, were of olive wood.'—Harmer, Scheuzer, Lady M. ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... but had no mercy on the seducer—"a vicious youth, without one accomplishment to endear vice." For vice, Lord Bendham thought (with certain philosophers), might be most exquisitely pleasing, in a pleasing garb. "But this youth sinned without elegance, without one particle of wit, or an atom of ...
— Nature and Art • Mrs. Inchbald
... house-parties are given in these roomy old houses with broad verandas, surrounded with lawn and garden. But this need not deter those having less delightful surroundings from offering their best to their friends. It is not so much the elegance of what we offer as the manner in which it is offered that makes our friends remember their ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... to a wealthy earldom, he had never abused what the world called 'his prospects.' Yet his establishment, his little house in Mayfair, his horses, his moderate stud at Melton, were all unique, and everything connected with him was unparalleled for its elegance, its invention, and its refinement. But his manner was his magic. His natural and subdued nonchalance, so different from the assumed non-emotion of a mere dandy; his coldness of heart, which was hereditary, not acquired; his cautious courage, and his unadulterated self-love, ...
— The Young Duke • Benjamin Disraeli
... elegance and I wouldn't get along well together," Abe answered. "It would be like going into partnership with ...
— A Man for the Ages - A Story of the Builders of Democracy • Irving Bacheller
... looking, in their cool elegance, as if life were the most pleasant thing; as though the very perfume of their garments would preserve them from that plague ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... in "Dr. Birch," singing in his nightgown to the big boy in bed. There is Betsinda dancing with her plum-bun in "The Rose and the Ring." The burlesque drawings of that delightful child's book are not its least attraction. Not arriving at the prettiness of Mr. Tenniel, and the elegance of Mr. Du Maurier, and falling far short of their ingenious fantasy, they are yet manly delineations of great adventures. The count kicking the two black men into space is a powerful design, full of action; and it would be hard to beat the picture ...
— Lost Leaders • Andrew Lang
... here before," said Amidon, "and have no feeling except surprise at the elegance about me, and a sneaking fear that Brassfield may come in at any time and eject us. ...
— Double Trouble - Or, Every Hero His Own Villain • Herbert Quick
... her was one of those dismal places, a public parlour in a boarding-house of second or third rank. Respectable, but forlorn. Nothing was ragged or untidy, but nothing either had the least look of home comfort or home privacy. As to home elegance, or luxury, the look of such a room is enough to put it out of one's head that there can be such things in the world. The ugly ingrain carpet, the ungraceful frame of the small glass in the pier, the abominable portraits ...
— Nobody • Susan Warner
... come in, said the servant. (They now kept one servant.) Mrs. St. Clair was lying down. Jamie went into the parlor, contrary to his wont, and sat down awkwardly. It was furnished quite with elegance: Mercedes had been so proud of it! His little girl! And now he had married her to a thief! People might come to scorn ...
— Pirate Gold • Frederic Jesup Stimson
... be a long story—and it is of no importance—to tell you how I came to be dining—for I am no particular friend of his—with a man who thought he combined elegance with economy, but who appeared to me to be both mean and lavish, for he set the best dishes before himself and a few others and treated the rest to cheap and scrappy food. He had apportioned the wine in small decanters of three different ...
— The Letters of the Younger Pliny - Title: The Letters of Pliny the Younger - - Series 1, Volume 1 • Pliny the Younger
... of each of those large veined blossoms lay, like a great drop of dew, a single splendid diamond. The women were noble samples of fair and dark beauty, and their whole appearance, coming in together attired with such elegance and becoming magnificent simplicity, produced an effect of surprise and admiration on the whole brilliant assembly." Of this year's Drawing-rooms we happen to have two characteristic reports. Baroness Bunsen attended one on April 8th, and wrote: "I was extremely struck with the splendour of the scene ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen V.1. • Sarah Tytler
... Canterbury, was seized with a fit of the dead palsy in the chapel of Whitehall, and died on the twenty-second day of November, deeply regretted by the king and queen, who shed tears of sorrow at his decease; and sincerely lamented by the public, as a pattern of elegance, ingenuity, meekness, charity, and moderation. These qualities he must be allowed to have possessed, notwithstanding the invectives of his enemies, who accused him of puritanism, flattery, and ambition; and charged him with having conduced to a dangerous schism in the church, by accepting the archbishopric ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... ate more rapidly than is consistent with consummate elegance. I remember that Tip imitated me, and that Allis opened her eyes at me. I recall distinctly the fact that I had passed ...
— Men, Women, and Ghosts • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... marbles, but looked longer at the pictures, which I understand and taste better; saw the gardens and the stud, and then came here; went directly to the Cathedral, with which I was exceedingly delighted, having seen nothing like it for extent, lightness, and elegance. There is one modern tomb by Chantrey which is very fine, that of Lord Malmesbury, erected by his sister; but, however skilfully executed or admirably designed, I do not like such monuments so well, nor think them so appropriate to our cathedrals, ...
— The Greville Memoirs (Second Part) - A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852 - (Volume 1 of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... the second number, the reviewer says it is by no means inferior to the first either in music or in poetry. The air "Oh! weep for the hour" ("The Pretty Girl of Derby O!") is harmonized in a style of great elegance; and that, and "The Red Fox," "The Black Joke," and "My Lodging is on the Cold Ground," have particularly pleased us in their arrangement. The song which Mr. Moore has written to "The Black Joke," is ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Volume I, Number 1 • Stephen Cullen Carpenter
... most distinctly the vice of our educational system. It neglects the plant for the sake of the flower. In anxiety for elegance, it forgets substance. While it gives no knowledge conducive to self-preservation—while of knowledge that facilitates gaining a livelihood it gives but the rudiments, and leaves the greater part ...
— Essays on Education and Kindred Subjects - Everyman's Library • Herbert Spencer
... I remarked, without any great show of emotion, feeling, I suppose, that without worldly goods we might consistently be without elegance. And in the back of my brain I was silently revising our old Kansas ...
— The Prairie Mother • Arthur Stringer
... of that crowing?" the Yard Cock inquired of his hens and chickens. "It was a little rough—the elegance was wanting." ...
— What the Moon Saw: and Other Tales • Hans Christian Andersen
... is graceful is marked by elegance and harmony, with ease of action, attitude, or posture, or delicacy of form. Graceful commonly suggests motion or the possibility of motion; beautiful may apply to absolute fixity; a landscape or a blue sky is beautiful, but neither is graceful. Graceful commonly ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... end of the car comprised one long apartment with folding berths and benches for laying out the lithographs. At the far end was a steam boiler, used in making paste with which to post the bills. That compartment had nothing either of elegance or comfort. ...
— The Circus Boys on the Plains • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... means; to seek elegance rather than luxury, and refinement rather than fashion; to be worthy, not respectable, and wealthy, not rich, to study hard, think quietly, talk gently, act frankly; to listen to stars and birds, to babes and sages with open heart; ...
— The Madcap of the School • Angela Brazil
... sight of her. I think her quite as beautiful as ever, and even more captivating; for she has now a look of ease and happiness that animates her whole face. Miss Linley was with her; she is very handsome, but nothing near her sister; the elegance of Mrs. Sheridan's beauty is unequalled by any I ever saw, except Mrs. Crewe. I was pleased with her in all respects. She is much more lively and agreeable than I had any idea of finding her; she was very gay, and very unaffected, and totally free ...
— Some Old Time Beauties - After Portraits by the English Masters, with Embellishment and Comment • Thomson Willing
... announced to her old patrons that she would give a house-warming, at which arrack, punch, wine, cold ham, tongue, and other delicacies of the day would be served. The event was duly noted in the newspapers, one stating that "the agreeable situation and the elegance of the new house had occasioned a great resort of ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... difference between them and the English, in this respect, or between them and ourselves, is in the better taste and ease which regulate their intercourse of this nature. While there is a great deal of true elegance, there is no fuss, at a French entertainment; and all that you have heard of the superiority of the kitchen in this country, is certainly true. Society is divided into castes in Paris, as it is everywhere else; and the degrees ...
— Recollections of Europe • J. Fenimore Cooper
... slowly around the group of reporters, ignoring the chair offered by the attorney, and seated herself in a position as remote as possible from the guests of the house and commanding a full view of the servants. Her gown was noticeable for its elegance, and her jewelled hands toyed daintily with a superb fan, from whose waving black plumes a perfume, subtle and exquisite, was wafted to ...
— That Mainwaring Affair • Maynard Barbour
... be the wife of a genius, to share his glory! What ravages must such a vision make in the heart of a girl brought up among such a family! What hopes must it raise in a young creature who, in the midst of sordid elements, had pined for a life of elegance! A sunbeam had fallen into the prison. Augustine was suddenly in love. So many of her feelings were soothed that she succumbed without reflection. At eighteen does not love hold a prism between the world and the eyes of a young ...
— At the Sign of the Cat and Racket • Honore de Balzac
... hebdomadal use its proper function was to hold dirty dishes and soiled clothes for the washing. And indeed this had at one time been Mary's own view (though tempered by vague aspirations towards a softer existence, as we might have guessed from the elegance of her brown shoes) before a year of the higher life had shaken her ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 146., January 21, 1914 • Various
... a game of elegance and interest, and the being a good chess-player, carries with it a certain impression of general ability and of intellectual activity and resource. Perhaps I may allow that playing at chess adds a certain degree of interest ...
— Advice to a Young Man upon First Going to Oxford - In Ten Letters, From an Uncle to His Nephew • Edward Berens
... indeed; but the total, with other sources of revenue, gave him for the twelvemonth an income of about fifty thousand francs. In the Beaujon mansion the workmen soon accomplished prodigies, transforming its dilapidated rooms into ship-shape and elegance. Bilboquet issued special instructions for apartments to be fitted up for Gringalet and Zephirine—a bedchamber and small salon, both circular and sculptured, with paintings on the arches, worthy of ...
— Balzac • Frederick Lawton
... Dust covered every thing. Books and ornaments which lay around were soiled and spoiled. In that apparently deserted house there seemed to have been no one for years who cared to preserve the original grace and elegance of its decorations. But Edith did not have a very long time to give to her survey of this room, for in a few minutes she heard the rustle of a dress, and, turning, she saw a woman approaching who ...
— The Living Link • James De Mille
... the men had climbed aboard by this time. They stood around, staring at the elegance to which they were unaccustomed; yet not venturing to so much as lift a finger toward taking possession of things. Until their leader gave the word they would refrain from looting the captured boat. His simple word was law ...
— Chums in Dixie - or The Strange Cruise of a Motorboat • St. George Rathborne
... plains whose precious liquid is brought up the steep trail daily on the heads of women, in three or five gallon jars, the carrying of which gives to the poise of the head and neck a native grace and elegance, as characteristic of Pueblo women as of the girls of Capri. Moreover, on the summit of the mesa there are, usually, hollows in the rock, partly natural, partly artificial, which serve as reservoirs to retain rain water and keep it fresh ...
— John L. Stoddard's Lectures, Vol. 10 (of 10) - Southern California; Grand Canon of the Colorado River; Yellowstone National Park • John L. Stoddard
... to be studied, these marks should be isolated and investigated on their own account. For it is a defect, in an argument, to employ more premisses than the conclusion demands: what mathematicians call elegance results from employing only the essential principles in virtue of which the thesis is true. It is a merit in Euclid that he advances as far as he is able to go without employing the axiom of parallels—not, ...
— Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays • Bertrand Russell
... curiosity. He is tall, approaching to six feet, slender, and his gait and manner, bespeak liveliness and activity. Of that elegance and fashion, with which my imagination had decked him (I know not why), I could distinguish no trace. Great allowance should, however, be made for depression and unavoidable deficiency of dress. His face is thoughtful and intelligent; to a strong cast of countenance ...
— A Complete Account of the Settlement at Port Jackson • Watkin Tench
... Quadrille is perhaps the most graceful and animated of any. Within the last few years it has become a great favourite in fashionable circles, probably owing to its revival at the state balls of Her Majesty. It admits of much skill and elegance in executing its quick and varied figures, a correct acquaintance with which is absolutely requisite to all who take part in it. Unlike the common quadrille, the Lancers must be danced by four couples only in each set; ...
— Routledge's Manual of Etiquette • George Routledge
... apparently quite satisfied with his position and prospective hardships, not giving a thought to the humble accommodations of his friends' shanty; which, on the first entrance, had contracted in Robert's vision into a mere wood-cutter's hut, devoid of every elegance and most of the comforts of civilised life. He imagined that thus it would be seen through Argent's eyes. But if it was so, Argent neither by look nor manner gave token of the least thought of ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe
... Kensington, Hampstead, Highgate, Islington, and Stepney, "to be much pleasanter than the paths of the gospel," the people flocked to those suburban resorts with their wives and children, to take tea under the trees. In one of Coleman's plays, a Spitalfield's dame defines the acme of elegance as: ...
— The Little Tea Book • Arthur Gray
... of May. The general air and appearance of the room is that of an old-fashioned, decorous, comfortable interior. There are no electric lights and no electric bells. Two bell ropes as in old-fashioned houses. The room is in dark tones inclining to sombre and of old-fashioned elegance. ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911: The New York Idea • Langdon Mitchell
... know a thing about it, girls," said Madame du Clozel, "or, rather than yield the scepter of beauty and elegance for but one evening, she will stay in the white chapel. What! at sixteen you don't know what the white chapel is? It ...
— Strange True Stories of Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... that she should not be able to go to the ball on Thursday evening. It was to be the most brilliant assemblage of the aristocratic families of the town that had ever been known in the wilderness and the first endeavour to transplant beyond the mountains the old social elegance of Williamsburg, Annapolis, and Richmond. Not to be seen in the dress that Mrs. Falconer, dreaming of her own past, had deftly made—not to have her beauty reign absolute in that scene of lights and dance and music—it was the long, slow crucifixion of all the impulses ...
— The Choir Invisible • James Lane Allen
... of scenery, the elegance of which it is almost impossible to render with due force in another language, and the true and delicate touches of human nature which everywhere abound in the work, especially in the long dialogue in Chapter II, are almost marvellous when we consider the sex ...
— Japanese Literature - Including Selections from Genji Monogatari and Classical - Poetry and Drama of Japan • Various
... removed, for they lay in her line of vision as she sighted the Florina. I then went below, cleared off the table, washed the dishes, and put them in the lockers, swept out the cabin and cook-room, and put everything in good order. The interior of the yacht was a model of comfort and elegance, and it was unpleasant to see anything out of ...
— Desk and Debit - or, The Catastrophes of a Clerk • Oliver Optic
... human being had suspected him. Uncle Josie's doubts were soon entirely removed, however; he was convinced of the reality of all he had heard and seen that morning, when he observed his brother standing on Mrs. Wyllys's steps, and the widow coming out to receive him, with a degree of elegance in her dress, and graciousness in her manner, quite perceptible across the garden: the fair lady admired the vegetables, ordered them carried into the cellar, and received Coleridge's Ancient Mariner from Uncle Dozie's hands, while they were still ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... skill in rearing a firmly-constructed edifice, towering aloft on its own self-supported basis, but resting on, and upheld by, some internal principle of necessity. I regretted in it the total absence of what I desired to find; and thus it seemed a mere work of art, serving only by its elegance and exquisite finish to captivate the eye. Nevertheless, I listened with pleasure to this eloquently gifted man, who diverted my attention from my own sorrows to the speaker; and he would have secured my entire acquiescence if he had appealed to my heart ...
— Peter Schlemihl etc. • Chamisso et. al.
... tyranny, ripened with the results of glorious but too profitable victories. Perhaps the time in which the state of transition was most favourably visible was just prior to the death of Cimon. It was not then so much the over-refinement of a new and feebler generation, as the polish and elegance which wealth, art, and emulation necessarily imparted to the same brave warriors who exchanged posts with the Spartans at Plataea, and sent out their children and old men to fight and conquer ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... salmon-coloured wisp of a turban—over them there is the arch of the frogged foot of the lateen sail. All but Bow are in full sunlight, sweating at their oars, he is in the shadow the sail casts on our bow. We recline, to quote our upholsterer, in "cairless elegance" on the floor of the stern, on Turkey red cushions under the shadow of the awning, and I feel sorry we have spent so much ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch
... of the kingdom is the eye of a man ever anxious to improve. Already the silk manufactures of Sardinia almost rival those of Lyons: in their own departments the tradesmen of Turin exhibit an artistic elegance and elaborate finish, scarcely exceeded in the wares of London and Paris. The King's internal regulations are admirable; his laws, administered with the most impartial justice—his forts and defences ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... without appearing to do so; was familiar without laying aside his dignity, and possessed that prudent coldness which inspires respect, though we scarcely know why. All this was blended with so much elegance, urbanity, and decorum, that it would have been difficult for the most acute eye to have distinguished the acquired, the artificial, and the assumed, from the plain and natural. Faustus, who had as yet seen few of those men of ...
— Faustus - his Life, Death, and Doom • Friedrich Maximilian von Klinger
... Chavis forgathered with M. Cazotte, a litterateur of the category "light," an ingenieux ecrivain, distinguished for "gaiety, delicacy, wit and Attic elegance," and favorably known for (inter alia) his poem "Olivier," his "Diable Amoureux," "The Lord Impromptu," and a travesty of The Nights called "The Thousand and One Fopperies." The two agreed to collaborate, the Syrian translating the Arabic into French, and the Parisian metamorphosing the manner ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... like the other, was furnished in a style of severe elegance, relieved by tasteful ornament. It showed some pictures by famous masters, statues, bronzes, and rare carvings in ivory. The Count threw a glance of singular interest round the interior of this chamber, which was his own—on the familiar objects—on the sombre hangings—on the bed, prepared ...
— Monsieur de Camors, Complete • Octave Feuillet
... it. She has the manners of a lady, and can tell many stories of the various members of the Buonaparte family. Those who fancy that Napoleon was born in a mean dwelling of poor parents will be surprised to find so much space and elegance in these apartments. Of course his family was not rich by comparison with the riches of French or English nobles. But for Corsicans they were well-to-do, and their house has an air of antique dignity. The chairs of the ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds
... the household. Says Lord Bacon: 'God Almighty first planted a garden; and indeed it is the purest of human pleasures. It is the greatest refreshment to the spirits of man; without which buildings and palaces are but gross handyworks; and a man shall ever see that when ages grow to civility and elegance, men come to build stately sooner than to garden finely; as if gardening were the greater perfection. I do hold it in the royal ordering of gardens, there ought to be gardens for all the months in the year; in which severally things of beauty may be ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 5, May, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... music of the Latin tones and measures, and the elegance with which Horace knew to select, and to regulate them, recompense the obscurity which is so frequent in his allusions, and in the violence of his transitions from one subject to another, between which the line of connexion is with difficulty traced. What is called a faithful translation of these ...
— Original sonnets on various subjects; and odes paraphrased from Horace • Anna Seward
... met with beauty and elegance at every step; gold and silver apples glittered among the green leaves, and even the fir and pine cones were of gold, while birds of golden plumage hopped among the twigs and branches. Two maids ...
— The Hero of Esthonia and Other Studies in the Romantic Literature of That Country • William Forsell Kirby
... person who accompanied the embassy, to dwell on those subjects which have been treated by him in so masterly a manner; or to recapitulate those incidents and transactions, which he has detailed with equal elegance and accuracy. ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow
... a panther's in its grace, So lithe and supple, and of medium height, And garbed in all the elegance of fashion. His large black eyes were full of fire and passion, And in expression fearless, firm, and bright. His hair was like the very deeps of night, And hung in raven clusters 'round a face ...
— Maurine and Other Poems • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... quarters, overlooking everything, and furnished with a couch, a table, and a cathedra, or chair, cushioned, and with arms and high back—articles which the imperial dispensation permitted of the utmost elegance. ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace
... ran a hundred pages without alluding at all to the ship on which he wrote. Well! the earliest of these was by far the most elegant in appearance. My eyes watered a little, as Ingham showed me on the first page, in the stiff Italian hand which our grandmothers wrote in, when they aspired to elegance, the dedication,— ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 84, October, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... perpetuate the memory of an illustrious nobleman and his heroic father (the famous Lord Granby), is, after an existence of only sixteen years, tottering to its fall." Mr. Whitelaw continues: "Unhappily, a savage barbarism that seems hostile to every idea of order or decency, of beauty and elegance, prevails among but too many of the lower orders; and hence the decorations of almost every public fountain have been destroyed or disfigured: the figure, shamefully mutilated, of the water-nymph in this fountain has been reduced ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 11, - No. 22, January, 1873 • Various
... that he used soap and water copiously. This was his transformation scene: he passed into the office a rather frail young working-man noticeably begrimed, and passed out of it to the pavement a cheerfully pre-occupied sample of gentry, fastidious to the point of elegance. ...
— The Turmoil - A Novel • Booth Tarkington
... mortgages or limit the use that may be made of it, or how it may be made to bring in returns to commercially-inspired minds. A woman devised a style of dress which she wore for her comfort at her own convenience. Another woman gave exactly the same pattern and details to the public, and is now living in elegance on the income derived from another. A man—a worker—invents an improvement, or a better method of doing things. The firm adopts and makes money out of it, and its originator is forgotten. There are, however, clever people who ...
— Insights and Heresies Pertaining to the Evolution of the Soul • Anna Bishop Scofield
... at the table of the British governor that a regiment, just landed from England, contained among its officers some of the finest specimens of martial elegance in his Majesty's service; in fact, the most superb-looking fellows ever landed upon the shores of the new World. 'I wager your excellency a pair of gloves,' said Mrs. Morris, an American lady, 'that I will show you a finer man in the procession to-morrow than your excellency can select from your ...
— From Farm House to the White House • William M. Thayer
... every shoot and branch which that stem throws out, grows a leaf, composed of three pair of leaflets, beautifully veined, and tinted with reddish purple, from between the last pair of which springs a tendril of extreme elegance. Indeed, noble as is this plant in every part, I think this tendril is the crowning grace of the whole: it is exceedingly slender, throwing off side-branches, which, again, repeatedly fork off at acute ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 454 - Volume 18, New Series, September 11, 1852 • Various
... temper all, thou world-reviving sun, Into the perfect year! Nor ye who live In luxury and ease, in pomp and pride, Think these lost themes unworthy of your ear. Such themes as these the rural Maro sung To wide-imperial Rome, in the full height Of elegance and taste, by Greece refined. In ancient times, the sacred plough employed The kings and awful fathers of mankind; And some, with whom compared your insect tribes Are but the beings of a summer's day, Have held the scale of empire, ruled the storm Of mighty war, then with victorious ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum
... gauzy, ethereal-looking audience I ever saw. The young women are not generally pretty, but they walk remarkably well, and in their personal carriage and the management of their veils, display much innate grace and elegance. There were some men present: not very many: and a few of these were kneeling about the aisles, while everybody else tumbled over them. Innumerable tapers were burning in the church; the bits of silver and tin about the saints (especially in the Virgin's necklace) sparkled brilliantly; ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens
... completed, but not by experience, and these years know their own tragedies. It is the time of life when one finds it unendurable not to seem perfect in all outward matters: in worldly position, in the equipments of wealth, in family, and in the grace, elegance, and dignity of all appearances in public. And yet the youth is continually betrayed by the child still intermittently insistent within him, and by the child which undiplomatic people too often assume him to be. Thus ...
— Seventeen - A Tale Of Youth And Summer Time And The Baxter Family Especially William • Booth Tarkington
... unconsciously perhaps, gets a good deal of pleasure out of the house (and the butler), for Dolly, with innate genius, has given it an air of quiet elegance and culture which he secretly enjoys. There is, also, a certain contentment in living life along a definite routine. He flies every night but Sunday, and two afternoons a week. And then, if Dolly has her house, ...
— The Trimming of Goosie • James Hopper
... rough Saturnian measure gave way to later elegance (Ep. II, i, 157). Pope aptly introduces these fine ...
— Horace • William Tuckwell
... is more daring still, for it is he who disposes, at a word, without any comment, just in passing merely,—from his practical stand-point,—of 'the flutes and trumpets of the Greeks,' like the other making nothing at all in his theory of criticism of mere elegance, though it is the Gascon, it is true, who undertakes the more lively and extreme practical demonstrations of this theoretical contempt of it,—setting it at nought, and flying in the face of it,—writing in as loquacious and homely a style as he possibly can, just for the ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... 'yes. He has the quickness, the finesse, and the elegance of mind and of manner which belong to the South. The want of book-learning contributes to ...
— Correspondence & Conversations of Alexis de Tocqueville with Nassau William Senior from 1834 to 1859, Vol. 2 • Alexis de Tocqueville
... eye, at least, the figure was not shrunken. It was that of a man still young, and of a handsome face and much distinction of bearing. The dress was perfect in its quiet elegance; the air of the man composed,—a trifle sad, a trifle mocking. Haward snapped his fingers at the reflection. "The portrait of a gentleman," he said, and ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston
... ghastly wounds, of wanderings in strange families, of rapid flights, of bad treatment from other females amongst whom she is brought a stranger by her captor; and rarely do you see a form of unusual grace and elegance, but it is marked and scarred by the furrows of old wounds; and many a female thus wanders several hundred miles from the home of her infancy, being carried off successively to ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... Elena had developed a certain strength of character and resolution during their troubles, and absolutely refused to listen to this idea; so that finally the old man was obliged to give way, and turn his attention to arranging the rooms, in a style of what he considered, surpassing elegance and comfort. ...
— Soap-Bubble Stories - For Children • Fanny Barry
... young man, genteel, and thoroughly versed in the intricacies of etiquette. The majority of the human race was, without any loss to itself, unaware that he existed; but the "ladies" and "gentlemen" on the staff of Mogg's Mammoth Emporium viewed him as the supreme arbiter of elegance. And just because the average human being would have asserted—and asserted correctly—that for such as him there is no hope save drowning in puppyhood, I would tell his story. It is the exception which proves the rule. It is the proof that we are the slaves of custom and environment; and that, ...
— No Man's Land • H. C. McNeile
... elegance of black muslin and silk gloves, was in the library. Anne looked excited and the colonel, there also, quite pleasurably stirred. Lydia was hardly within the door when Anne threw the news ...
— The Prisoner • Alice Brown
... to themselves; their dancing was evidently much admired. Especially our friend and his sweetheart Miss Bushy Tail distinguished themselves by the elegance ...
— Fairy Tales from the German Forests • Margaret Arndt
... holds up a glass to the statue of the goddess in one corner. The children are kissing each other and carrying about baskets of fruit; these baskets are hung with rich pearls and rubies and gems of all kinds. The green, fresh trees wave against a summer sky, and the work is full of tender, sensitive elegance and love. It shows to me an entirely new side of Titian in its extreme delicacy and sweetness. Nobody can ever speak of a "want of refinement" in Titian, if they thought so before, after seeing these pictures. Then there is the Herodias, the same as the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... loitering in the shade, and I made haste towards the station. When near the buildings I met a white man, in such an unexpected elegance of get-up that in the first moment I took him for a sort of vision. I saw a high starched collar, white cuffs, a light alpaca jacket, snowy trousers, a clean necktie, and varnished boots. No hat. Hair parted, brushed, oiled, under a green-lined parasol held in a big white ...
— Heart of Darkness • Joseph Conrad
... little too much like a mournful banqueting on jam and honey, it is still most deftly and ingratiatingly made. On the whole, even though his music touches us only superficially it rarely fails to awaken some gratitude for its elegance. But there is an essential that his music wants. It wants the imprint of a decided and important individuality. In all the elaborate score of "The Island of the Dead," in the very one of M. Rachmaninoff's ...
— Musical Portraits - Interpretations of Twenty Modern Composers • Paul Rosenfeld
... a committee, or corporation, often in discrepant layers of taste and plan. One mind does not stand out or above the whole, fashioning the tout- ensemble to the symmetrical lines of one governing, all-pervading and shaping thought. You see no exquisite artistry of drawing-room or boudoir elegance and luxury running through living apartments of home, out into the conservatories, lawns, gardens, park and all its surroundings and embellishments, making the whole like a great illuminated volume of family life, which you may ...
— A Walk from London to John O'Groat's • Elihu Burritt
... dress themselves. No better place could be found to carry out and popularize infant hygiene in its relation to nutrition. It would be a work of social regeneration to convince the public of the economy they might effect by such practises, to show them that elegance and propriety in themselves cost nothing—nay, more, that they demand simplicity and moderation, and therefore exclude all that superfluity which ...
— Spontaneous Activity in Education • Maria Montessori
... with this, but also communicated to the Empress Josephine his observations on the queen and her ladies. The Empress Josephine, who was the embodiment of taste, gave orders accordingly; and for two days her hairdressers and women were occupied exclusively in giving lessons in taste and elegance to their Spanish brethren. This is a striking evidence of how the Emperor found time for everything, and could descend from his elevated duties to the ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... wont, the agent was attired in a style of severe elegance—with gloves and boots fitting him to perfection—but an unusually winning smile played upon his lips. "You see I have been waiting for you," exclaimed ...
— The Count's Millions - Volume 1 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... verse which gave the critics and commentators some clue as to the probable date of the composition; the parrot, they reminded the public, was in high vogue as a type of elegance in the days of Hafiz of Shiraz; in the quatrains of Omar ...
— The Toys of Peace • Saki
... Madame Blanc placidly knitting under the trees, while I spread her fan to dry, he fancied I was in her service; the fancy was given color by the fact that my companion, as usual, was dressed with extreme elegance, whilst I was insignificant in an ...
— The Bondwoman • Marah Ellis Ryan
... admit of any other. We were in the central saloon of the villa when she arrived. She was still in mourning, and approached, leaning on the Count's arm. As they ascended the marble portico, I was struck by the elegance of her figure and movement, by the grace with which the mezzaro, the bewitching veil of Genoa, was folded about ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... the most beautiful gold-embroidered velvet robes, light crape and lace dresses, and hats and topknots of charming elegance. ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... virtues of the Wonderful Lamp,[FN165] which, whoso possessed, him it gifted with fairest favour and finest figure, with wealth and with wisdom. The folk admired Alaeddin's liberality and exceeding generosity and all were distraught seeing his charms and elegance, his gravity and his good manners, they glorified the Creator for this noble creation, they blessed him each and every and, albeit they knew him for the son of Such-an-one, the tailor, yet no man envied him; nay, all owned that he deserved his great good fortune.—And Shahrazad was surprised ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... float on the surface of the forest—like stars, and often covered the whole bush, so that the slopes looked like a charming carpet of the loveliest pattern. This tree, the most beautiful of the tropical forest, far surpasses the palm in elegance, whose crown too often looks ...
— Two Years with the Natives in the Western Pacific • Felix Speiser
... at her; then, at last, he fell into her mood. She generally began at the breakfast table, where she came looking as beautiful as a picture; the loveliest hue of the rose on her face, the freshness of the morning in her dark eyes and on her lips; dressed with great elegance, always with one lovely flower in her hair, and a knot of fresh, fragrant blossoms at her breast; the fairest of women, but how I disliked her. I can imagine that to any gentleman her society must have been ...
— My Mother's Rival - Everyday Life Library No. 4 • Charlotte M. Braeme
... work to be noticed, as one of enduring interest on the Deistical controversy. Bishop Berkeley's 'Alciphron, or the Minute Philosopher,' is one of the few exceptions to the general dreariness and unreadableness of controversial writings in the dialogistic form. The elegance and easiness of his style, and the freshness and beauty of his descriptions of natural scenery by which the tedium of the controversy is relieved, render this not only a readable, but a fascinating book, even to the modern reader who has no present interest in the controversial question. ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton
... earnest thought, approached Mrs. Frostwinch's gate that afternoon, he looked up suddenly to find himself face to face with Mrs. Fenton. She was dressed in dark, heavy cloth, set down the waist with small antique buckles of dark silver; and seemed to him the perfection of elegance and beauty. ...
— The Puritans • Arlo Bates
... N. ornament; floridness c^. adj.. turgidity, turgescence^; altiloquence &c adj.^; declamation, teratology^; well-rounded periods; elegance &c 578; orotundity. inversion, antithesis, alliteration, paronomasia; figurativeness &c (metaphor) 521. flourish; flowers of speech, flowers of rhetoric; frills of style, euphuism^, euphemism. big-sounding words, high-sounding words; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... character of the domestic architecture of that period,—the whole front being of the purest red brick, wrought, by means of moulds, into rich designs of flowers and pomegranates, with heads of cherubim over two niches in the centre of the building. The elegance of the design and the perfect finish of the structure were such as to secure its protection, when a branch railway was brought from the Ware and Cambridge line to Enfield. The old school-house was converted into the station-house, and the railway company had ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 39, January, 1861 • Various
... Madame de Geyling bowed profoundly. The music rang out in the stately measure of the pavane, and the dance began: the ladies gliding, bowing, bending, their fans raised above their heads, then pressed to their bosoms as they bowed again; the cavaliers no whit behind them in elegance and grace. The court of Versailles itself had not danced better, for to dance badly meant disgrace with ...
— A German Pompadour - Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Graevenitz, - Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg • Marie Hay
... his wife's likes and inclinations somewhat silly; she considered his sordid and material. The husband's business was that of a gunmaker in a thriving city northwards, and his soul was in that business always; the lady was best characterized by that superannuated phrase of elegance 'a votary of the muse.' An impressionable, palpitating creature was Ella, shrinking humanely from detailed knowledge of her husband's trade whenever she reflected that everything he manufactured had for its purpose the destruction of life. She could only recover her equanimity by assuring ...
— Wessex Tales • Thomas Hardy
... sweetness of some passages; but with the exception of a version by John Oxenford published in "The Monthly Magazine" for 1842, which being in blank verse does not represent the form of the original, no complete translation into English has been attempted. Some scenes translated with considerable elegance in the metre of the original were published by Archbishop Trench in 1856; but these comprised only a portion of the graver division of the drama. The present version of the entire play has been made ...
— The Wonder-Working Magician • Pedro Calderon de la Barca
... windows, nor the destruction of its maze of useless corridors; and it was therefore allowed to remain unmolested and unadorned; unless when an occasional visit from some member of the Greville family demanded an addition to its rude attempts of splendour and elegance. But it was difficult to convey the new tangled luxuries of the capital to this remote spot; and the tapestry, whose faded hues and moulding texture betrayed the influence of the sea air, had not yet given plan to richer hangings. The suite ...
— Theresa Marchmont • Mrs Charles Gore
... itself is alone sufficiently above suspicion to act as your chaperone; and even the Times must sometimes thank its stars that new plays are not produced every day, since after each such event its gravity is compromised, its platitude turned to epigram, its portentousness to wit, its propriety to elegance, and even its decorum into naughtiness by criticisms which the traditions of the paper do not allow you to sign at the end, but which you take care to sign with the most extravagant flourishes ...
— Man And Superman • George Bernard Shaw
... Their mirrors are of bronze, the reflecting surface being of silver, and polished, the back and handle ornamented with various devices. Everything, indeed, that a Japanese artisan produces, exhibits a neatness and elegance which speaks well for the taste of ...
— In the Eastern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... The Spectator No. 135 expresses a typically moderate opinion on the matter: the English language, he says, abounds in monosyllables, which gives us an opportunity of delivering our thoughts in few sounds. This indeed takes off from the elegance of our tongue, but at the same time expresses our ideas in the readiest manner, and consequently answers the first design of speech better than the multitude of syllables, which make the words of other languages more tunable ...
— An Apology For The Study of Northern Antiquities • Elizabeth Elstob
... flower, gemmed with the unevaporated morning dew, and colonized with the Aphides, Alticae, and swarms of the most beautiful butterflies clinging to their stalks. Gramina laeta after Virgil's own heart, were these. Their elegance and unusual variety were sufficient to throw a botanist into a perfect HAY fever, and our own first paroxysm only went off, when, after an hour's hard collecting, we came to a place which demanded another sort of enthusiasm; for THERE stood without a veil the Temple of Segeste, with one or two ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLV. July, 1844. Vol. LVI. • Various
... and the music are ended. Gone! And the rapture dies out of the skies. And, on my arm, in her elegance splendid, The woman of fashion smiles up in ...
— Myth and Romance - Being a Book of Verses • Madison Cawein
... lines of canvas sheets appear, and spacious enclosures formed of kanauts secure the utmost privacy to the dwellers of the populous camp; while the elephants, who have trodden out the ground, and smoothed it for the chief's or master's tent, retire to their bivouac. Not only comfort, but even elegance is imparted to these temporary abodes, fitted up with such rapidity in the midst of the wildest jungle. Gay-coloured shawls form the roof and sides, rich carpets the floor, and soft couches run round the walls of the ...
— Mark Seaworth • William H.G. Kingston
... have had the intention to impress him a little with her elegance and freshly-acquired social education, but now, as fate would have it, she did not look at him less blushingly or shyly than he ...
— Dame Care • Hermann Sudermann
... can climb? After all, we must set it down to the account of Robin's democratic turn: he is no aristocrat, but one of the people; and therefore we should expect stability in his workmanship, rather than elegance. ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... the preceding ruling families it gradually sank into the usual insignificance. Some of the Ashikaga shoguns, however, were men of uncommon ability and their services to their country deserve to be gratefully remembered. A number of them were men of culture and evinced their love of elegance and refinement by the palaces which they built in Kyoto. Ashikaga Yoshimitsu was shogun from A.D. 1368 to 1393, and at the latter date retired in favor of his young son Yoshimotsu, but lived in official retirement in Kyoto till A.D. 1409. He built the palace ...
— Japan • David Murray
... very little opportunity, as will be easily supposed, for study or polish. Under these circumstances, it can hardly be necessary to deprecate the criticism of the reader. Composition is not one of the acquirements usually expected of a soldier. What is looked for in his narrative is not elegance, but plainness. He sees more than other people, but he studies less, and the strangeness of his story must make up for the want of ornament. I can hardly expect but that the reader may consider the style of my chapters inferior to many ...
— A Peep into Toorkisthhan • Rollo Burslem
... satisfaction of our little party as we first drove down through the streets of this capital of Europe—the centre of fashion and the abode of elegance. Our natures had adapted themselves to circumstances, and we no longer pined for the luxuries of the linum usitatissimum, but were ready to enter into all the pleasures of our new existence; which we well understood was to ...
— Autobiography of a Pocket-Hankerchief • James Fenimore Cooper
... REVIEW says: "The Globe Editions are admirable for their scholarly editing, their typographical excellence, their compendious form, and their cheapness." The BRITISH QUARTERLY REVIEW says: "In compendiousness, elegance, and scholarliness the Globe Editions of Messrs. Macmillan surpass any popular series of our classics hitherto given to the public. As near an approach to miniature perfection as ...
— Hume - (English Men of Letters Series) • T.H. Huxley
... the mere wish to appear as one of its members, often belongs to the artistic temperament, and many artists are unjustly disliked by their fellows and pointed at as snobs because they prefer, as an atmosphere, inane elegance to inelegant intellectuality. It is often forgotten by those who calumniate them that hereditary elegance, no matter how empty-headed, is the result of an hereditary cultivation of what is thought beautiful, and that the vainest, silliest woman who dresses ...
— Casa Braccio, Volumes 1 and 2 (of 2) • F. Marion Crawford
... disposition he bore little resemblance to his soft-hearted, liberal minded father, and still less to his refined, philosophic, sentimental, chivalrous, yet cunning grand-uncle Alexander I., who coveted the title of "the first gentleman of Europe.'' With high culture, exquisite refinement and studied elegance he had no sympathy and never affected to have any. Indeed, he rather gloried in the idea of being of the same rough texture as the great majority of his subjects. His straightforward, abrupt manner savoured sometimes of gruffness, while his direct, unadorned method of expressing himself harmonized ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... much impressed by such elegance. "We thought aunt Helen was coming. Ernest is holding the horse over here," and she led the way to a two-seated wagon where a twelve-year-old boy in striped shirt and old ...
— Jewel's Story Book • Clara Louise Burnham
... extravagant in this one particular had his firm-willed wife permitted, enjoyed more than an oyster stew, or which he had a chance to taste less often. Oysters could be had in town for sixty cents a quart, a sum that seems not large; but in Mrs. Peaslee's mind they were associated with the elegance and luxury of church "sociables," and with the dissipation of supper after country dances. They were extravagant food. Solomon ...
— The Calico Cat • Charles Miner Thompson
... sisters. Both these young persons have uncultivated spirits. So we see that the cultivation of the intellectual nature, the acquirement of accomplishments, the practice of any art, the advantages of travel, the surroundings of elegance, may or may not tend to the genuine culture of the spirit; and as wise and earnest parents and teachers perceive this truth, they realize more and more that the great problem of culture, alike for parent and teacher, is how to develop ...
— Letters to a Daughter and A Little Sermon to School Girls • Helen Ekin Starrett
... kind of elephant occurring amid the bone refuse at the bottom of the bed, and another and, it would seem, later kind at the top, one and the same type of flint instrument is found at every level alike; and the only development one can detect is a certain gain in elegance as regards the Mousterian 'point', the reigning substitute for the former coup-de-poing. Once more there is intensive progress only, so far at least as most of the Jersey evidence goes. One coup-de-poing, however, and that hardly Acheulean in conception ...
— Progress and History • Various
... had stinted herself to gratify her niece's whims, and their surroundings had always been of the most expensive kind, so it was not strange that Dr. Kennedy, accustomed only to ingrain carpet and muslin curtains, was dazzled by so much elegance. With a well-feigned start the lady arose to her feet, and going to his side offered him her hand, saying, "You are Dr. Kennedy, I am sure. I should have known you anywhere, for you are ...
— Cousin Maude • Mary J. Holmes
... met one day, A book of fables writ by Gay; And told her children, here's treasure, A fund of wisdom, and of pleasure. Such decency! such elegance! Such morals! such exalted sense! Well has the poet found the art, To raise the mind, and mend the heart. Her favourite boy the author seiz'd, And as he read, seem'd highly pleas'd; Made such reflections every page, The ...
— Life And Letters Of John Gay (1685-1732) • Lewis Melville
... excellent pottery capable of withstanding the heat of fire when used for cooking. Their boat-builders constructed sea-going canoes capable of travelling long distances. They also made a delicate cloth from the bark of the mulberry tree, upon which they printed from wooden blocks patterns of great elegance. Their spears and clubs also showed much taste in their construction and ornamentation. The women made fishing nets of coconut fibre, with which they captured an abundance of fish. The tribes on the different islands kept up a system of barter with one another, exchanging commodities, the making ...
— Adventures in Southern Seas - A Tale of the Sixteenth Century • George Forbes
... of his purpose was, of course, answered by a courteous invitation to partake of the Archducal meal, and every effort was used to render it fitting the splendour of a sovereign prince. Yet the refined taste of the Italian saw more cumbrous profusion than elegance or splendour in the display of provisions under ...
— The Talisman • Sir Walter Scott
... the case, early the next morning under the piers of this town, is a transition, which, to a person unused to foreign countries, can scarcely fail to appear otherwise than as a dream; so marked and so entire is the difference between the air of elegance and mutual resemblance in the buildings, of smartness approaching to splendor in the equipages, of fashion in the costume, of the activity of commerce in the movements, and of newness and neatness in every part of the one, contrasted in the other with a strong ...
— Account of a Tour in Normandy, Vol. I. (of 2) • Dawson Turner
... Priscilla had seen elegance and beauty since she went away; she had entered into the life of the cultivated, the intellectually great. In spite of her deep affection for Aunt Raby, she came back to the ugliness and the sordid surroundings of home with a pang ...
— A Sweet Girl Graduate • Mrs. L.T. Meade
... and lived at Bellville until that elegant mansion was destroyed by fire in 1842. After her return, she confined her entertainments almost exclusively to handsome dinner-parties, at which she presided with exceeding grace and elegance, and where it was said that, though the wines were fine, the flavor and brilliancy of the conversation were far superior. She never retired without a candle and writing-materials at her bedside, and if during the night any new idea or bright thought arose, she would immediately ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, Old Series, Vol. 36—New Series, Vol. 10, July 1885 • Various
... professional mathematician for an opinion of its merits. I gladly accepted this proposal, which was just what I wanted. In due course a copy of the report was sent me. One part of the work was praised for its elegance, but a lack of completeness and rigor was pointed out. It was accompanied by a pleasant note from Professor Henry remarking that, while not so favorable as I might have expected, it was sufficiently so to encourage ...
— The Reminiscences of an Astronomer • Simon Newcomb
... finest residence block in the city, and had a wide reputation for grandeur and beauty and superb management. I found the halls and rooms quite as elegant as I had any reason to expect, but was surprised to find that elegance undisturbed by the presence of sick or wounded men. In one back room a wounded officer looked lonely, and they said there were other rooms used for sick soldiers, but all I saw were parlors, reception rooms, offices and sleeping apartments for surgeons, ...
— Half a Century • Jane Grey Cannon Swisshelm
... more or less beautiful according to the rank of the inhabitant. There were paintings on all, but most of them have been removed to decorate the royal museums. Little winged figures and small ornaments of exquisite elegance yet remain. There is an ideal life in the forms of these paintings of an incomparable loveliness, tho most are evidently the work of very inferior artists. It seems as if from the atmosphere of mental ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Vol. V (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland III • Various
... of sight, poor Beauty began to weep sorely; still, having naturally a courageous spirit, she soon resolved not to make her sad case still worse by sorrow, which she knew was vain, but to wait and be patient. She walked about to take a view of all the palace, and the elegance of every part of it ...
— The Fairy Book - The Best Popular Stories Selected and Rendered Anew • Dinah Maria Mulock (AKA Miss Mulock) |
