"Elegant" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... God knows! is soporiferous enough. I was walking through the entrance saloon with my fair cousin on my arm, stepping out like a hero to the opening crash of a fine military band, towards the entrance of the splendid ball—room filled with elegant company, brilliantly lighted up and ornamented with the most rare and beautiful shrubs and flowers, which no European conservatory could have furnished forth, and arched overhead with palm branches and a profusion of evergreens, while the polished floor, like one vast ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... study of law. Doubtless the sirens sang to him, as to the noble youth of every country and time. Musing over Coke and Blackstone, perhaps he saw himself succeeding Ames and Otis and Webster, the idol of society, the applauded orator, the brilliant champion of the elegant ease, and the cultivated conservatism of Massachusetts. * * * But one October day he saw an American citizen assailed by a furious mob in the city of James Otis for saying with James Otis that a man's right to liberty is inherent and inalienable. As the jail doors closed upon Garrison ...
— A Man's Value to Society - Studies in Self Culture and Character • Newell Dwight Hillis
... posterity; and therefore I am careful to do justice to every man who hath fallen in the quarrel, on which side soever, as you will find by what I have said of Mr. Hambden himself. I am now past that point; and being quickened your most elegant and political commemoration of him, and from hints there, thinking it necessary to say somewhat for his vindication in such particulars as may possibly have made impression in good men, it may be I have insisted longer upon the argument than may be agreeable ...
— Characters from 17th Century Histories and Chronicles • Various
... the tan-brick buildings, "El Dorado" writ in elegant gilt script across the transom. Then up three flights of clean, new, fireproof stairs, Harry inserting his key into one of the two doors that ...
— Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst
... an issue for the Montauk, sir, I never would have counselled Captain Truck to lay in half the stores we did, and most essentially not the new lots of vines. Oh! sir, it is truly awful to have such a calamity wisit so much elegant preparation!" ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... daffodilly in April, are waiting with great thirst, and not a little impatience, for my promised appearance, from the sign of the Hen and Chickens, with the cordials, and a few biscuits on a salver—when, lo! an old bald-pated, oily-faced, red-nosed Cameronian ranter, whom by your elegant negligee capering you have fairly danced out of his dotard senses, comes pawing up to you like Polito's polar bear, drops on his knees, and before you can avert your nose from a love-speech, embalmed in the fumes of tobacco and purl, the hoary villain ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 12, No. 339, Saturday, November 8, 1828. • Various
... call elegant," said the voice; "but if it's the best you've got—why, of course, it ...
— 'Drag' Harlan • Charles Alden Seltzer
... be filled with white haricot beans piled up in the shape of a dome, with some chopped parsley sprinkled over the top. There are, perhaps, few dishes in vegetarian cookery that can be made to look more elegant. ...
— Cassell's Vegetarian Cookery - A Manual Of Cheap And Wholesome Diet • A. G. Payne
... a broken head instead of a broken neck. His most famous feats of escape, however, were due to dexterity and not to violence. On a cloudless summer morning he had come down a country road white with dust, and, pausing outside a farmhouse, had told the farmer's daughter, with elegant indifference, that the local police were in pursuit of him. The girl's name was Bridget Royce, a somber and even sullen type of beauty, and she looked at him darkly, as if in doubt, and said, "Do you want me to hide you?" Upon which he ...
— The Man Who Knew Too Much • G.K. Chesterton
... must work'; how that she is here, as a wife and mother, to entreat Lady Tippins to work; how that the carriage is at Lady Tippins's disposal for purposes of work; how that she, proprietress of said bran new elegant equipage, will return home on foot—on bleeding feet if need be—to work (not specifying how), until she drops by the ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... Riggs jest got caressed by the lady—as he was doin' the elegant," replied Moze, who ...
— The Man of the Forest • Zane Grey
... that the lords of the world banqueted in state at an expense that to us would seem modest indeed. And the women of ancient times, accused so sharply by the men of ruining them by their foolish extravagances, would cut a poor figure for elegant ostentation in comparison with modern dames of fashion. For example, silk, even in the most prosperous times, was considered a stuff, as we should say, for millionaires; only a few very rich women wore it; and, moreover, moralists detested ...
— Characters and events of Roman History • Guglielmo Ferrero
... was still standing at the curb where she had left it. Just beyond it on the left a stream of automobiles grazed by—but none so new and shiny, so altogether elegantly "sassy" as the Bear Cat. Mary V, when she stepped in and settled herself behind the steering wheel, matched the car, completed its elegant "sassiness," its general air of getting where it wanted to go, let the traffic be ...
— The Thunder Bird • B. M. Bower
... the door, stopped for an instant to contemplate one of those elegant female figures which must always command attention, if not love. Reposing on cushions, enveloped in silk and velvet, this lady was occupied in burning in the candle the end of a little stick of aloes, over which she bent so as to inhale the full perfume. By the manner in ...
— The Forty-Five Guardsmen • Alexandre Dumas
... the thought struck Abner that he was losing opportunities which spread themselves around him, so he jumped up and took down a book. The volume proved to be one of 'Elegant Extracts'; but after reading certain reflections 'Upon Seeing Mr. Pope's House at Binfield' he thought he would like something more in the nature of a story, and took up a thinner volume entitled 'Dick's Future State.' He turned over ...
— John Gayther's Garden and the Stories Told Therein • Frank R. Stockton
... slams the street door and says, "Well, that infliction's over, any way, —but I suppose I've got to go and see her—tiresome stuck-up thing!" Human nature appears to be just the same, all over the world. We see the diffident young man, mild of moustache, affluent of hair, indigent of brain, elegant of costume, drive up to her father's mansion, tell his hackman to bail out and wait, start fearfully up the steps and meet "the old gentleman" right on the threshold!—hear him ask what street the new British Bank is in—as if that were what he came for—and then bounce into his boat and ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... dear babe that I nursed on my knees?" she cried. "This great boy, with such a frank and resolute air, with these strong shoulders, this elegant form, and on whose lip I can already see signs of a mustache. Is ...
— The Waif of the "Cynthia" • Andre Laurie and Jules Verne
... comfortable deck-chairs, our two servants at our backs, the quintessence of elegant leisure, sipped delicate tea from beautiful, fragile cups, and looked on at these wretched ones whose labour made possible the journey of our little world. We did not speak to them, nor recognize their existence, any more than would they have dared ...
— The Mutiny of the Elsinore • Jack London
... five large palm-trees, and from these the Palmengarten takes its name. For the conservation of the botanical collection a mammoth structure was erected of glass and iron, and for the entertainment of visitors a commodious and elegant music- and dining-hall was added. The grounds were adorned with fountains, lakes, parterres, and promenades, and were equipped with every facility for family and popular recreation, not overlooking, by any means, the amusement of the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, October 1885 • Various
... off at the letter O. The fables are written in choliambic, i.e. limping or imperfect iambic verse, having a spondee as the last foot, a metre originally appropriated to satire. The style is extremely good, the expression being terse and pointed, the versification correct and elegant, and the construction of the stories is fully equal to that in the prose versions. The genuineness of this collection of the fables was generally admitted by scholars. In 1857 Minas professed to have discovered ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 - "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" • Various
... and she rose to let him put the elegant thing round her. She was one of those dangerous women who look their best when you are helping them to put on ...
— Tommy and Grizel • J.M. Barrie
... and impotent in act; often pinched for bread; keeping up an appearance of style, when their poverty is known to each half-naked Indian boy in the street, and they stand in dread of every small trader and shopkeeper in the place. He had a slight and elegant figure, moved gracefully, danced and waltzed beautifully, spoke the best of Castilian, with a pleasant and refined voice and accent, and had, throughout, the bearing of a man of high birth and figure. Yet here he was, with his passage given him, (as I afterwards learned,) ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... me nuss her the others is all wild and run under the barn we can hunt them wild ones Ive got 2 long poles to poke under the barn but I wont hunt the cats till you come. I get lots of aigs up on the ha when it arnt rainin I got four yesterda and sukt 2 and took 2 to mother the 2 I sukt was elegant but one of mothers had a ...
— Punchinello, Vol. II. No. 38, Saturday, December 17, 1870. • Various
... subject we owe to the care which the emperor Constantine Porphyrogenitus bestowed on the literary education of his son; an example which, at the distance of about six hundred years, was successfully rivalled by the elegant edition of the Delphin Classics, published under the aspics of Lewis XIV. But the Greek emperor had this advantage over the French monarch, that he himself was the author of some of the works published for the use of his son. In the first (published by Lerch ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... This is a very elegant looking lace, though simply made after the regular Battenburg method. A plain braid (No. 10, page 20) is chosen to form the outlines, and after the stitches are filled in, cord of a suitable size is carried around the petals and ...
— The Art of Modern Lace Making • The Butterick Publishing Co.
... said to his countryman, in fluent if not elegant Spanish, indicating the gentleman who had imitated Banks, "is a man of ideas, and a power in Todos Santos. He would control all the votes in his district if there were anything like popular suffrage here, and he understands the ...
— The Crusade of the Excelsior • Bret Harte
... your service," continued the officer, as he seated himself by the side of the young lieutenant, who was completely bewildered by the elegant and courtly speech of ...
— The Young Lieutenant - or, The Adventures of an Army Officer • Oliver Optic
... gun of very great caliber—a 131/4 inch steel coast and siege piece. This weighs 37 tons, and is 363/4 feet in length. Its projectile weighs from 924 to 1,320 pounds, according to its internal organization. Its conoid head is very elongated, and by reason of this elegant form it always falls upon its point, even at falling angles of an amplitude approaching 60 degrees. The charge used varies from 396 to 440 pounds, according to the nature of the powder. As for the ballistic properties of the piece, they are very remarkable. Its projectile has ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 598, June 18, 1887 • Various
... order to invite her to him as often as her other friends would spare her, indulged her in erecting and fitting up a diary-house in her own taste. When finished, it was so much admired for its elegant simplicity and convenience, that the whole seat (before, of old time, from its situation, called The Grove) was generally known by the name of The Dairy-house. Her grandfather in particular was fond ...
— Clarissa, Volume 1 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... that the severely elegant men and women on either hand watched her with a covert, chilly hostility. But there was something oddly simple in her acceptance of their attitude. Therein, no doubt, lay some of her power. She was herself. ...
— The Dark House • I. A. R. Wylie
... as such, perhaps, some ladies of indisputable correctness and gentility will condemn the action as immodest; but, you see, poor dear Rebecca had all this work to do for herself. If a person is too poor to keep a servant, though ever so elegant, he must sweep his own rooms: if a dear girl has no dear Mamma to settle matters with the young man, she must do it for herself. And oh, what a mercy it is that these women do not exercise their powers oftener! We can't resist them, ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... to God. I raised my hands to heaven, and remained sometime immoveable upon the beach. Every one also hastened to testify his gratitude to our old pilot, who next to God, justly merited the title of our preserver. M. Dumege, a naval surgeon, gave him an elegant gold watch, the only thing he had saved ...
— Thrilling Narratives of Mutiny, Murder and Piracy • Anonymous
... mountains. The air was most delicious, pure, though warm, and the scenery very beautiful, as we made our way among heights covered with a great variety of tropical trees and creepers bearing magnificent flowers. Among them were the tall, gently-curved palmetto, elegant tree ferns, unsurpassed by any of their neighbours in beauty, fuchsias in their native glory, passion-flowers, and wild vines, hanging in graceful festoons, and orchids with their brilliant red spikes. As we passed through the valley we saw directly before us the mountains ...
— On the Banks of the Amazon • W.H.G. Kingston
... quoting his entire works! And of Addison, Johnson wrote, "His page is always luminous, but never blazes in unexpected splendour"; and he adds, "Whoever wishes to attain an English style, familiar but not coarse, and elegant but not ostentatious, must give his days and nights ...
— The Glory of English Prose - Letters to My Grandson • Stephen Coleridge
... was sitting in his snug and elegant little parlor, in a lovely blue silk dressing-gown, with cuffs and facings of crimson satin, elaborately quilted. The remains of his breakfast were before him, and the dainty and costly little table service added a harmonious charm to the grace, beauty, and ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... The woman who approached me was certainly that, and of a most uncommon type. There could not have been a greater contrast between brother and sister, for Stapleton was neutral tinted, with light hair and gray eyes, while she was darker than any brunette whom I have seen in England—slim, elegant, and tall. She had a proud, finely cut face, so regular that it might have seemed impassive were it not for the sensitive mouth and the beautiful dark, eager eyes. With her perfect figure and elegant dress she was, indeed, a strange apparition upon a lonely moorland ...
— The Hound of the Baskervilles • A. Conan Doyle
... climb upward, and with a sudden turn around the mountain side, they came into view of an exquisite little lake, reflecting in its mirrored depths the peaks of the high mountains encircling it. Hundreds of silver birches, slender and elegant, fringed its edges, gleaming white against a background of ...
— The Motor Maids at Sunrise Camp • Katherine Stokes
... was long, and in Latin. They were two classics, who liked thus to refresh themselves and each other with epistles such as St. Augustine or Tertullian might have penned. The letter was of elegant scholarship, but its contents were unwelcome. It said that the Most Honourable the Syndic of San Beda had enjoyed a conference with the Prefect of the province, and it had therein transpired that the project for the works upon the river Edera ...
— The Waters of Edera • Louise de la Rame, a.k.a. Ouida
... a clean home, and a savory supper. During the hours of the afternoon she used to read and keep up her knowledge of languages; and all the time she worked she sang like a bird. Her taste made their poor home look nice, even elegant. ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... Mr. Beamish, we found him a most prepossessing young man, of elegant manners and refined speech; in short, a gentleman. He begged me to allow his portmanteau to be placed in the carriage; and as I observed that he was not expected to dress for our family dinner, he answered that it only contained ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... it, these two inelegant objects on a very elegant piece of furniture are the hero and ...
— Donald and Dorothy • Mary Mapes Dodge
... accomplishment, indefinite as to view, but still a hope: especially, since very civil answers came to his request, couched in terms of official guardedness. He had called anxiously upon "old friends," in pretty much of his usual elegant dress (for he was wise enough, or proud enough, never to let his poverty be seen in his attire), and they made many polite inquiries after "Mrs. Clements," and "Where are you living?" and "How is it you never come our way?" and "Clements has cut us all dead," and ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... Montgomery is finished, and gone to Havre, in nine cases, to lie for a conveyance. It is plain, but elegant, being done by one of the best artists here, who complains that the three hundred guineas allowed him is too little; and we are obliged to pay the additional charges of package, &c. We see, in the papers, that you have voted other monuments, but we have received no orders ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. I • Various
... while waiting could not fail to be impressed by what they saw around them. Walls, ceilings and doors were unique in their decorative effects. The furnishings of the apartment were elegant and sumptuous. There were rich hangings at the windows and costly ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable
... nursery. Standing in full ceremony behind Lady Powys, Anne saw the plump face and form she recollected in the florid bloom of a young matron, not without a certain royal dignity in the pose of the head, though in grace and beauty far surpassed by the tall, elegant figure and face of Lady Churchill, whose bright blue eyes seemed to be taking in everything everywhere. Anne's heart began to beat high at the sight of a once familiar face, and with hopes of a really kind word from one who as an elder girl had made much of the pretty ...
— A Reputed Changeling • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Chaeronea, it should be said of me, that there never was such a man as Plutarch, than that Plutarch was ill-natured, arbitrary, and tyrannical. And were I the bard of Venusia, sure I am, I had rather be entirely forgotten, than not be known for the polite, the spirited, and the elegant writer I ...
— Four Early Pamphlets • William Godwin
... while upper and sole hang together. They betrayed the age and sex of the wearer as clearly as a photograph. The shoddy slipper, with the high, French heels, of the smart shop-girl; the heavy bluchers, studded with nails, of the labourer; the light tan boots, with elegant, pointed toes, of the clerk or counter-jumper; the shoes of a small child, with a thin rim of ...
— Jonah • Louis Stone
... truth was that Zoe was trying to soothe her conscience with elegant praises of the man she had ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... be read to, to hear a hymn sung or a verse repeated, and to be left otherwise in perfect quiet. But she is continually pulling out and shaking up his pillows, bathing his head in hot vinegar and soaking his feet. It looks so odd to see her in one of the elegant silk dresses old .Mr. Underhill makes her wear, with her sleeves rolled up, the skirt hid away under a large apron, rubbing away at poor father till it seems as if his tired soul would fly out ...
— Stepping Heavenward • Mrs. E. Prentiss
... it took account of these general principles at all, assumed their existence, and displayed its strength in concrete judgments of individual literary works. His criticism may be said to imply at every step the existence of Coleridge's, or to rise like an elegant superstructure on the solid foundation which the other had laid. Hazlitt communicated to the general public that love and appreciation of great literature which Coleridge inspired only in the few elect. The latter, even more distinctly than ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... Passiflora gracilis.—This well-named, elegant, annual species differs from the other members of the group observed by me, in the young internodes having the power of revolving. It exceeds all the other climbing plants which I have examined, in the rapidity of its movements, ...
— The Movements and Habits of Climbing Plants • Charles Darwin
... Mrs. Quisque, and the two Miss Quisques, and all the family. I now and then see very pretty things of their writing in the Lady's Magazine. An elegy on a robin red-breast. The drooping violet, a sonnet. And others equally ecstatic. Quite charming! rapturous! elegant! flowery! sentimental! Some of them very smart, and epigrammatic. It is a family, my dear Trevor, that you must become intimate with. Your merit entitles you to the distinction. You will communicate your mutual ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... of European fame within the walls of our humble room in Baker Street. The one, austere, high-nosed, eagle-eyed, and dominant, was none other than the illustrious Lord Bellinger, twice Premier of Britain. The other, dark, clear-cut, and elegant, hardly yet of middle age, and endowed with every beauty of body and of mind, was the Right Honourable Trelawney Hope, Secretary for European Affairs, and the most rising statesman in the country. They sat side by side upon ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes • Arthur Conan Doyle
... apparently thinking of other things. She neither rebuked nor approved Anneli's speech; though it was hard that the little Saxon maid should have preferred to the sturdy, white-haired, fair-skinned warriors of her native land the elegant young gentlemen of ...
— Sunrise • William Black
... astonishment. This elegant person, then, was the man who was accused of trying to push his franchise through ...
— A Woman for Mayor - A Novel of To-day • Helen M. Winslow
... numbers in the neighborhood of 30,000. Omaha can boast of as fine business blocks, hotels, school-buildings and churches as can be found in many older and more pretentious cities in the East. There are also numerous elegant private residences, with grounds beautifully ornamented with trees and shrubbery, which sufficiently attest the solid prosperity ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens
... high demands upon the individual, had already formed a club of sorts, a tawdry little room hung with bright bunting and adorned with colored pictures from the cheaper magazines, pictures of over-elegant, amorously inclined young couples in ball-rooms or on yachts and beaches. Here the girls read poor literature, played games, made candy over the stove and gossiped about their young men. Imogen deeply disapproved of the ...
— A Fountain Sealed • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... far as to stay here,' he added. 'I am armed, and a sure shot. I have gone tiger-hunting, and fought on the deck when there was nothing for it but to win or die; but I don't care to trust yonder elegant scoundrel.' ...
— Gobseck • Honore de Balzac
... recent period, during the mastership of the celebrated Doctor Barnard, the present earl of Carlisle, whose classical taste is universally admitted, distinguished himself not less than his compeers, by some very elegant lines: those on the late Right Hon. C. J. Fox we are induced to extract as a strong proof of the noble earl's early penetration ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... scholar, who had only arrived the day before, advanced intrepidly to the rescue of the little victim. He was an inch shorter than Thorne, of a slight, elegant build, with a clear complexion and a bright, attractive face that would have been pronounced handsome by anyone. Judging from outward appearances, no one would have thought him the equal ...
— Frank and Fearless - or The Fortunes of Jasper Kent • Horatio Alger Jr.
... continued by various correspondents, with various success. I have collected only those of my own contribution, because I do not feel authorised to make use of those of other persons, however some may be desirable. One of the most elegant of literary recreations is that of tracing poetical or prose imitations and similarities; for assuredly, similarity is not always imitation. Bishop Hurd's pleasing essay on "The Marks of Imitation" will assist the critic in deciding on what may only be an accidental ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... man an elegant look to be in the militie, don't it? I should admire to have a cousin like that. It's dreadful becoming to have that what is it they call it? to let the beard grow over the mouth. I s'pose they can't do that without they be ...
— Queechy, Volume I • Elizabeth Wetherell
... day I sat motionless in a corner of the promenade deck, reading my Bible. Perfectly oblivious alike to the magnificent scenery that I was passing, and to the elegant toilettes such as my country-bred eyes had never before beheld, by which I was surrounded; I neither spoke to nor looked at any one, nor dared to leave my seat even to go to dinner; but endeavored to gain, from the sacred volume in my hands, ...
— The Story of a Summer - Or, Journal Leaves from Chappaqua • Cecilia Cleveland
... pantaloons, with a large number of buttons up the sides; a kind of waistcoat buttoning up to the throat; a jacket reaching to the hips, with close sleeves, and a turban. A chief's dress has many adornments of trinkets, and is quite elegant, a necessary part of his outfit being the barong (sword), which apparently he ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... natural scenery, and the taste with which those natural beauties had been cultivated, far surpassed the sanguine expectations Lord Colambre had formed, his lordship and his companions arrived at Tusculum, where he found Mrs. Raffarty, and Miss Juliana O'Leary, very elegant, with a large party of the ladies and gentlemen of Bray, assembled in a drawing-room, fine with bad pictures and gaudy gilding; the windows were all shut, and the company were playing cards with all their might. This was the fashion of the neighbourhood. ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. 6 • Maria Edgeworth
... ambassador and the secretary enjoyed the joke. "These theatres," says Busino, "are frequented by a number of respectable and handsome ladies, who come freely and seat themselves among the men without the slightest hesitation . . . . Scarcely was I seated ere a very elegant dame, but in a mask, came and placed herself beside me . . . . She asked me for my address both in French and English; and, on my turning a deaf ear, she determined to honor me by showing me some fine diamonds on her fingers, repeatedly taking off no fewer than three gloves, ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... to the humble home provided for her by a distant relative, she remarked, "I have seen the time, sir, when I could have invited you to an elegant home." She then said that when Major Eaton died, he left for her an ample fortune but that some years later she unfortunately married a man younger than herself, who succeeded in getting her property into his hands and then ...
— Something of Men I Have Known - With Some Papers of a General Nature, Political, Historical, and Retrospective • Adlai E. Stevenson
... elegant writer, indeed, of Latin verse, he is justly numbered amongst the most successful of the accomplished poets of our nation—Ben Jonson, Cowley, Milton, Marvell, Crashaw, Addison, Gray, Smart, T. Warton, Sir W. Jones, &c.—who have devoted their leisure to this species of ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 76, April 12, 1851 • Various
... Nevertheless, despite this elegant raillery, Lanty was enough concerned in the safety of her horse to visit it the next day with a view of bringing it nearer home. She had just stepped into the alder fringe of a dry "run" when she came suddenly upon the figure of a horseman in the "run," ...
— Openings in the Old Trail • Bret Harte
... performance, as the title imports, was originally composed in the Welch language. Its style is elegant and pure. And if the translator has not, as many of his brethren have done, suffered the spirit of the original totally to evaporate, he apprehends it will be found to contain much novelty of conception, ...
— Imogen - A Pastoral Romance • William Godwin
... long, black, and glossy as satin; his tail like a graceful plume, and his eyes as round and yellow as two little moons. His paws were very dainty, and white socks and gloves, with a neat collar and shirt-bosom, gave him the appearance of an elegant young beau, in full evening dress. His face was white, with black hair parted in the middle; and whiskers, fiercely curled up at the end, gave ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag, Vol. 5 - Jimmy's Cruise in the Pinafore, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... Daw at Prome, the Arracan near Mandalay, while in old Pagan, Pegu, Moulmein, and a host of other places, are temples which one might well think could not be surpassed for beauty. I have told you that these pagodas are usually bell-shaped—a delicate and most elegant form of design, which gains very much in effect from the habit the Burmese have of building their temples on a hill, so that the gradually ascending ground, on the different levels of which the pinnacles ...
— Burma - Peeps at Many Lands • R.Talbot Kelly
... in most of the principal cities and towns in the United States. The proceeds were devoted to the purchase of Mt. Vernon. In 1860, he was a candidate for the Vice Presidency of the United States, He is celebrated as an elegant and forcible writer, and ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... Mall is one. The palace of St. James's, Marlborough House, and the fine buildings in the street called Pall Mall, adorn this side of the park. At the east end is a view of the Admiralty, a magnificent edifice, lately built with brick and stone; the Horse Guards, the Banqueting House, the most elegant fabric in the kingdom, with the Treasury and the fine buildings about the Cockpit; and between these and the end of the grand canal is a spacious parade, where the horse and foot guards rendezvous every morning before ...
— London in 1731 • Don Manoel Gonzales
... Sidney, daughter of Philip, Earl of Leicester; of whom Waller was the unsuccessful suitor, and to whom he addressed those elegant effusions of poetical gallantry, in which she is celebrated under the name of Sacharissa. Walpole here alludes to the lines written ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... legs before the blaze, and began to look about him. "I have ever said, Haward, that of all the gentlemen of my acquaintance you have the most exact taste. I told Bubb Dodington as much, last year, at Eastbury. Damask, mirrors, paintings, china, cabinets,—all chaste and quiet, extremely elegant, but without ostentation! It hath an air, too. I would swear a woman had the ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston
... the bell, and did as she was bid. She was a little woman of six-and-twenty, very plain in face, but elegant in figure, very accomplished, and vain to her fingers' ends. Her mother, who was dead, had been Mrs. Levison's daughter, and her husband, Raymond Vane, was presumptive heir to the ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood
... has a cold and the syce[4] is a qualified fool, is he? H'm! I think it's high time you had a look in at little old England, my son, what? And who made you this elegant rapier? Ochterlonie Sahib or—who?" (Lieutenant Lord Ochterlonie was the Adjutant of the Queen's Greys, a friend of Colonel de Warrenne, an ex-admirer of his late wife, and a ...
— Snake and Sword - A Novel • Percival Christopher Wren
... "Oh! what perfectly elegant seats," exclaimed Alexia Rhys, waving her big ostrich fan contentedly, and sweeping the audience with a long gaze. "Everybody ...
— Five Little Peppers Grown Up • Margaret Sidney
... elegant peroration the magistrate, much relieved in his own mind, took up his newspaper, and Reginald was hurried once more down those steep ...
— Reginald Cruden - A Tale of City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... previous night, carefully locked up his elegant apparel, the gift of Mr. Dabney Kinzer. It was done after Dick was in bed; and, when daylight came again, he found only his old clothes ...
— Dab Kinzer - A Story of a Growing Boy • William O. Stoddard
... were waiting for us in carriages, and in a few moments we embraced them all. The sun was hot upon us, but, after a ride of two or three miles, we came to the Henrietta, my dear Edward and Susan's residence, and were soon under the roof of a spacious, elegant and most commodious mansion. And here we are with midsummer temperature and vegetation, but a ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume II • Samuel F. B. Morse
... hope for the honor." And, rising, he made her a bow which was such a capital imitation of Charlie's grand manner that she forgave him at once, exclaiming with amused surprise: "Why, Mac! I didn't know you could be so elegant!" ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott
... to eat and only the dirtiest old woman in all the world to cook it, but at three o'clock we managed to serve the patients with an elegant dish of underdone lentils for the first course, and overdone potatoes for the second, and partook ourselves gratefully thereof, after they had finished. In the afternoon of that day a meeting of the Red Cross Committee was held at the ...
— Field Hospital and Flying Column - Being the Journal of an English Nursing Sister in Belgium & Russia • Violetta Thurstan
... a place. After a good deal of searching we lighted upon a ship for Liverpool, and found the captain in the cabin; which was a very handsome one, lined with mahogany and maple; and the steward, an elegant looking mulatto in a gorgeous turban, was setting out on a sort of sideboard some dinner service which looked like silver, but it was only ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville
... juncture a knock sounded at the door, and a chauffeur appeared, looking very smart in his elegant livery; a thick-set man, mightily deep of chest, whose wide shoulders seemed to fill the doorway, and whose long, gorilla-like arms ended in two powerful hands; his jaw was squarely huge, his nose broad and thick, but beneath his beetling brows blinked two of ...
— The Definite Object - A Romance of New York • Jeffery Farnol
... Say that a blunt old Captain, a man not of words but of actions, Offers his hand and his heart, the hand and heart of a soldier. 150 Not in these words, you know, but this in short is my meaning; I am a maker of war, and not a maker of phrases, You, who are bred as a scholar, can say it in elegant language, Such as you read in your books of the pleadings and wooings of lovers, Such as you think best adapted to win the heart of ...
— Narrative and Lyric Poems (first series) for use in the Lower School • O. J. Stevenson
... Maupeou, might have become counselor in the court of excise at Paris, or chief-clerk in the Treasury department; he would have kept up a philosophical salon, with fashionable ladies and polished men of letters to praise his elegant and faulty translations. Amongst the future marshals, some of them, pure plebeians, Massena, Augereau, Lannes, Ney, Lefebvre, might have succeeded through brilliant actions and have become "officers of fortune," while others, taking in hand ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 5 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 1 (of 2)(Napoleon I.) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... I lived had been occupied by three generations of the family of which I was the only living representative in the direct line. It was a large, ancient wooden mansion, very elegant in an old-fashioned way within, but situated in a quarter that had long since become undesirable for residence, from its invasion by tenement houses and manufactories. It was not a house to which I could think of bringing a bride, much less so dainty a one as Edith ...
— Looking Backward - 2000-1887 • Edward Bellamy
... extinguished appetite, she was left with an annuity of twelve hundred pounds—improved beauty—superficial accomplishments—and an immoderate share of caprice, insolence, and vanity. As a proof of this, I must tell you that at an elegant entertainment lately given by this dashing cyprian, she demolished a desert service of glass and china that cost five hundred guineas, in a fit of passionate ill-humour; and when her paramour intreated her to be more composed, she became indignant—called ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... him, he politely leaves it. He retires to his retreat of Shene or Moor Park; and lets the King's party and the Prince of Orange's party battle it out among themselves. He reveres the Sovereign (and no man perhaps ever testified to his loyalty by so elegant a bow); he admires the Prince of Orange; but there is one person whose ease and comfort he loves more than all the princes in Christendom, and that valuable member of society is himself, Gulielmus Temple, Baronettus. One sees him in his retreat; between his study-chair and his tulip-beds, ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... elegant couplet was expected to serve as a scorching satire on a letter in the Biographia Literaria in which Coleridge says he saw a portrait of Lessing at Klopstock's, in which the eyes seemed singularly like his own. The time has gone by when that ...
— Recollections of Dante Gabriel Rossetti - 1883 • T. Hall Caine
... characteristics. Simple as the furniture was, it was set off by so many little adornments, of no value but for their taste and fancy, that its effect was delightful. The disposition of everything in the rooms, from the largest object to the least; the arrangement of colours, the elegant variety and contrast obtained by thrift in trifles, by delicate hands, clear eyes, and good sense; were at once so pleasant in themselves, and so expressive of their originator, that, as Mr. Lorry stood looking about ...
— A Tale of Two Cities - A Story of the French Revolution • Charles Dickens
... New York who just worships Aunt Tommy," I said. "He writes her most every day and sends her books and music and elegant presents. I guess she's pretty fond of him too. She keeps his photograph on her bedroom table and I've ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1905 to 1906 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... we call fashionable, for the word was not known; nor was she a woman of society, for, as we have said, there was no society in a feudal castle. What we call society was born in cities, where women reign by force of mind and elegant courtesies and grace of manners,—where woman is an ornament as well as a power, without drudgeries and almost without cares, as at the courts of the ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume V • John Lord
... which the speaker will discuss is that of the elastic arch. The theory of the elastic arch is now so well understood, and it offers such a simple and, it might be said, elegant and self-checking solution of the arch design, that it has a great many advantages, and practically none of the disadvantages of ...
— Some Mooted Questions in Reinforced Concrete Design • Edward Godfrey
... writes like Apollo has most of his spirit, And therefore 'tis just I distinguish his merit: Who makes it appear, by all he has writ, His judgment alone can set bounds to his wit; Like Virgil correct, with his own native ease, But excels even Virgil in elegant praise: Who admires the ancients, and knows 'tis their due Yet writes in a manner entirely new; Though none with more ease their depths can explore, Yet whatever he wants he takes from my store; Though I'm fond of his virtues, his pride I ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift
... dimensions; it was not a picturesque building, but the floor was smooth, and that was all they required. In a wonderfully short space of time, with the aid of flags innumerable, wreaths of flowers, and painted canvas, it was converted into a most elegant edifice, fit for a ball or supper room. The morning of True Blue's wedding day arrived, and up to Dame Pringle's door drove a postchaise with four horses, out of which stepped Sir Henry Elmore, now, as his full-dress uniform showed, a Post-Captain. He shook hands right cordially with ...
— True Blue • W.H.G. Kingston
... an account of Picton's Monument at Carmarthen, it has been altered. The statue, bas-reliefs, and ornaments of the Picton Monument, have been bronzed by the direction of Mr. Nash, on his late visit to this town. Elegant as this column was before, the effect of the bronze, and a few other alterations, have so improved its appearance, as to make it seem a different structure. Nothing now remains to complete the outside but the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 351 - Volume 13, Saturday, January 10, 1829 • Various
... dwelt on. The loss of the three ships and convoy, as well as that of the Saldanha, in which not less than five thousand men perished, was made a question in the House of Commons, when Mr. Yorke, first Lord of the Admiralty, touched on the mournful subject with so much feeling that it drew forth an elegant and well-merited expression from Mr. Whitbread, who observed, that "the calamities were the effect of misfortune alone, and that it was a consolation to reflect that no blame could be ...
— Memoirs and Correspondence of Admiral Lord de Saumarez. Vol II • Sir John Ross
... comes in from the hall; he is worn and pale, with red patches on his cheek-bones, and wears an elegant perfectly new visiting-suit, and ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 100, May 2, 1891 • Various
... quickly, and soon it was necessary for the boys to return to Putnam Hall. Dora Stanhope and the Laning girls had not been forgotten, and now these young folks sent gifts of dainty embroidered handkerchiefs, of which the boys were very proud. Tom and Sam had sent Nellie and Grace two elegant Christmas cards. What Dick had sent Dora he would not tell. Being behind the scenes we may state that it was a tiny gold locket, heart-shaped, and that ...
— The Rover Boys out West • Arthur M. Winfield
... particularly those of Hamilton; by writing with care and patient attention; and reading numerous, indeed multitudes of letters to and from his friends and correspondents. This obvious improvement was begun during the war." In 1785 a contemporary noted that "the General is remarked for writing a most elegant letter," adding that, "like the famous Addison, his writing excells his speaking," and Jefferson said that "he wrote readily, rather diffusely, in an easy and correct style. This he had acquired by conversation with the world, for his education was merely reading, writing ...
— The True George Washington [10th Ed.] • Paul Leicester Ford
... latter was an Athenian, and was born in B.C. 312. He was drowned at the age of 52, whilst swimming in the harbour of Piraeus. He wrote upwards of 100 comedies, of which only fragments remain; and the unanimous praise of posterity awakens our regret for the loss of one of the most elegant writers of antiquity. The comedies, indeed, of Plautus and Terence may give us a general notion of the New Comedy of the Greeks, from which they were confessedly drawn; but there is good reason to suppose that the works even of the latter Roman writer fell far short ...
— A Smaller History of Greece • William Smith
... utilitarianism has assumed a new character, and found a new field of action. These novel institutions, not organized and supported from a pure abstract love of the arts ostensibly promoted by them, but from dire necessity created by successful competition in the more elegant branches of manufacture, in which the exercise of taste and fancy is required, may eventually produce great general results; years, however, must necessarily elapse before their benefits can ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... elms reminded me of the Champs-Elysees? Thus, perchance, may I expiate the crime of having dreamed of Paris under the shadow of the Duomo, of having longed for our muddy streets on the clean and elegant flagstones of Porta-Renza. When I have some book to publish which may be dedicated to a Milanese lady, I shall have the happiness of finding names already dear to your old Italian romancers among those of women whom we love, and to whose memory I would beg ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... imagines it, the hand which shaped it with affection, the mind free and serene which chose it and exposed it to view. Now, the ancient German searches for more magnificent furs, for more splendid antlers of the stag, for more elegant drinking-horns; and the Caledonian chooses the prettiest shells for his festivals. The arms themselves ought to be no longer only objects of terror, but also of pleasure; and the skilfully-worked scabbard will not attract less attention than the homicidal edge ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... Tradition, the Catholic Church, the Councils, the Fathers, the Roman Church, the Scholastics, Reason, the authority of philosophers, and the authority of historians. His style is simple, concise, and elegant. ...
— History of the Catholic Church from the Renaissance to the French • Rev. James MacCaffrey
... will always be heard. He has an elegant form, a fine voice, and a brilliant imagination, and he can carry an ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various
... Muslim saint Allum Sayed at Baroda. It was built of stones taken from an old Jain temple whose ruins are still visible near by; and with a singular fitness, in view of its material, the Muslim architect has mingled his own style with the Hindu, so that an elegant union of the keen and naked Jain asceticism with the mellower and richer fancy of the luxurious Mohammedan has resulted in a perfect work of that art which makes death lovely by recalling its spiritual significance. Besides, a holy silence broods about the cactus and the euphorbian foliage, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. XVII, No. 99, March, 1876 • Various
... report—of which the proof-sheets were sent to him—the most offensive portion, Gentlemen of the Jury, I shall not be able to enlighten you with all the legal words of this "consummate judge." So be content with the following Elegant Extracts. ...
— The Trial of Theodore Parker • Theodore Parker
... elegant trifles and of a serious symphony is Harry Patterson Hopkins, who was born in Baltimore, and graduated at the Peabody Institute in 1896, receiving the diploma for distinguished musicianship. The same year he went to Bohemia, and studied with Dvorak. He returned ...
— Contemporary American Composers • Rupert Hughes
... hopes of making agriculturists of the wild people among whom we lived; nor did I wonder such as they were, they felt happy. What could they want besides their neat conical skin lodges, their dresses, which were good, comfortable, and elegant, and their women, who were virtuous, faithful, and pretty? Had they not the unlimited range of the prairies? were they not lords over millions of elks and buffaloes?—they wanted nothing, except tobacco. And yet it was a pity we could not succeed in giving them a taste for civilisation. They ...
— Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet • Captain Marryat
... of this world, and live a life of self-denying toil. Not a thought of that kind had ever entered her pretty head. A minister in her estimation was an orator, the idol of a wealthy people, and a gentleman of elegant ease. There was a fascination about this dark-eyed young minister; his graceful dignity and impassioned eloquence pleased her fancy, so the sudden attachment ...
— Divers Women • Pansy and Mrs. C.M. Livingston
... a cook—is actually claimed as one of its attractions. On the other hand, I need not tell you how decent, how seemly, is the dancer's attire; any one who is not blind can see that for himself. His very mask is elegant, and well adapted to his part; there is no gaping here; the lips are closed, for the dancer has plenty of other voices at his service. In old days, dancer and singer were one: but the violent exercise caused shortness of ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata
... No. 3127, etc., as he circled by in the last turn of the office. There was an apothecary store on the floor below, where the patient could sit in an easy-chair and read the papers while the prescription called for by his number was being fetched by an elegant young woman. ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... have to get up early and worry dumb-bells in his nightshirt; he just lies on a sofa in an elegant attitude and muscle comes to him. If his horse declines to jump a hedge, he slips down off the animal's back and throws the poor thing over; it saves argument. If he gets cross and puts his shoulder to the massive oaken door, we know ...
— The Angel and the Author - and Others • Jerome K. Jerome
... "This elegant species," writes Wilson, "is known throughout North America. Its favourite places of resort are high mountains, covered with the balsam-pine and hemlock." It prefers the woods—being seldom or never found in open plains. They are ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston
... beautiful little gazelle came bounding across our path. It put me in mind of an Italian greyhound, only it had a longer neck and was somewhat larger. I was quite sorry when Chickango, firing, knocked it over. It was, however, a welcome addition to our game bag. He called it Ncheri. It was the most elegant little creature I met with in Africa among the numberless beautiful animals which abound in the ...
— In the Wilds of Africa • W.H.G. Kingston |
