"Girdle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... guineas in four months. Concert-rooms were too small to hold her audiences, and she was obliged to use the great hall of the Public Exchange, which would hold more than four thousand people. At her last concert the Emperor and Empress loaded her with costly gifts, among them being a girdle of magnificent diamonds. ...
— Great Singers, First Series - Faustina Bordoni To Henrietta Sontag • George T. Ferris
... from the noble Princes in the name of the blessed Virgin, and the two boys saw a pilgrim standing at the gate, wrapt in a long robe of serge, with a staff in his hand, surmounted by a Cross, a scrip at his girdle, and a broad shady hat, which he had taken off, as he stood, making ...
— The Little Duke - Richard the Fearless • Charlotte M. Yonge
... in the chimney, and the fleecy fog is coming over Russian Hill from the Pacific, and hiding the ships in San Francisco Bay, and the last sheets from my pen are gathered up by Rajah, wearing in his girdle ...
— The Devil's Admiral • Frederick Ferdinand Moore
... point of view, in the descendants of free citizens who accepted from any vile enslaver—French, Spanish, German, or priest, or monk (represented with a piece of buffoonery, like a beehive on his head and a picklock key at his girdle)—the titles of counts and marquises. In Piedmont the matter is different: we must either have been the rabble or the lords; we were military, and we retain over the populace the same rank and spirit as our ancestors ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... is repeated at each of the seven gates; the keeper at each strips Ishtar of some article of her attire—her earrings, her necklace, her jewelled girdle, the bracelets on her arms and the bangles at her ankles, and lastly her long flowing garment. On each occasion the same words are repeated by both. When Ishtar entered the presence of Allat, the queen looked at her and taunted her to her face: ...
— Chaldea - From the Earliest Times to the Rise of Assyria • Znade A. Ragozin
... lineal, descendants of the first South Sea censors, of the great grand-children of those men who wore the girdles of leaves at the landing of the Marlboro school teacher a hundred years ago. The girdle-wearers are members of the Hawaiian legislature—soon to be succeeded by Japanese-native-born—and the censors, likely, are wives of financiers and sugar factors. Again the feeble remnant of the Hawaiian ...
— Nonsenseorship • G. G. Putnam
... my part that was quite enthralling and almost painful, I saw his hand appear on the other side of Miss Skiffins. Instantly, Miss Skiffins stopped it with the neatness of a placid boxer, took off that girdle or cestus as before, and laid it on the table. Taking the table to represent the path of virtue, I am justified in stating that during the whole time of the Aged's reading, Wemmick's arm was straying ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... of mid-winter, unheeded, unperished, Like the autumn-sown wheat 'neath the snow lying green, Like the love that overtook us, unawares and uncherished, Like the babe 'neath thy girdle that groweth unseen; ...
— Poems By The Way & Love Is Enough • William Morris
... feature of the whole region is the tableland falling away in a number of terraces, and broken by the shoulders of massive hills. The foot-hills proper of the Kenia begin with the highest terrace, where they form a girdle of varying breadth and height around the central mass of the mountain, which rises with a steep abrupt outline. This central mass, at a height of from 16,000 to 18,000 feet, bears a number of gigantic glacier-fields, from the midst of which ...
— Freeland - A Social Anticipation • Theodor Hertzka
... article of dress consists of a small breech-cloth of pandanus leaf passing between the legs, and secured before and behind to a string or other girdle round the waist—the females wear petticoats (noge) of the same leaf, divided into long grass-like shreds, reaching to the knee. That worn by the girls consists merely of single lengths made fast to a string which ties round ...
— Narrative Of The Voyage Of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Commanded By The Late Captain Owen Stanley, R.N., F.R.S. Etc. During The Years 1846-1850. Including Discoveries And Surveys In New Guinea, The Louisiade • John MacGillivray
... throne with a burning zone, And the moon's with a girdle of pearl; The volcanoes are dim, and the stars reel and swim, When the whirlwinds my banner unfurl. From cape to cape, with a bridge-like shape, Over a torrent sea, Sunbeam-proof, I hang like a roof, The mountains its ...
— The Hundred Best English Poems • Various
... a great crucifix to carry between her hands, with another at her girdle, and all the formalities of that garb being prepared, she set forward with the prayers and benedictions of the whole sisterhood, who told her, that they should be impatient till they saw her again, and expected great things from her at her return, ...
— The Fortunate Foundlings • Eliza Fowler Haywood
... is divided nearly in two, and the southern portion is sometimes called Lake Pskov. It may have been across the narrow part between the two ends of the lake that the hero is supposed to have waded, when, even during a great storm, the water reached only to his girdle. ...
— The Hero of Esthonia and Other Studies in the Romantic Literature of That Country • William Forsell Kirby
... same instant the girdle of sharp-shooters rose up smiting the air with their cries and charged in like madmen through the rain of detritus. They fired as they came, but it was unnecessary, for there was no longer a fight. It was a rout. The ...
— The Spoilers • Rex Beach
... midway there we came to Hochst, where I showed my pass and they let me go on; I spent 8 Frankfurt pf. there. From there we journeyed to Mainz; I have also paid I white pf. for landing my things, besides 14 Frankfurt thaler to the boatmen and 18 pf. for a girdle; and I took passage in the Cologne boat for myself and my things for 3 florins, and at Mainz also I spent 17 white pf. Peter Goldschmidt, the warden there, gave me two bottles of wine. Veit Varnbuler invited me, but his host would take ...
— Memoirs of Journeys to Venice and the Low Countries - [This is our volunteer's translation of the title] • Albrecht Durer
... be truly tasted; the Pyramids with their bases in the sand and their pointed summits somewhere near the stars; the Sphinx with its face that is like the enigma of human life; the great river that flows by the tombs and the temples; the great desert that girdles it with a golden girdle. ...
— The Spell of Egypt • Robert Hichens
... the effigy of a beast, the remains of which indicate it to have represented a lion. It has, from this circumstance, been inferred that the statue was that of William the Lion, the founder of the abbey. The figure has, however, been attired in flowing robes, and a purse hangs from the girdle. But the portions of this fragment which chiefly contributed to rouse curiosity, are some incrustations, which had at first the appearance of the effigies of lizards crawling along the main figure. It was supposed ...
— The American Architect and Building News, Vol. 27, Jan-Mar, 1890 • Various
... two priests to luncheon yesterday: the Bishop and Pere Remy. They were very pleasant, and quite clean too, which has been known sometimes not to be—even with bishops. Monseigneur is not unimposing; with his white beard and his violet girdle he looks splendidly episcopal, and when our three waiting lads came up one after another and kneeled before him in the big hall, and kissed his ring, it did me good for a piece of pageantry. Remy is very engaging; he ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... with perfect security by myself, only the beaks up in Dublin have given a strict order. As they pay for the pistols, I am bound to carry them." Then he lifted up the lappets of his coat and waistcoat, and showed half-a-dozen pistols stuck into his girdle. "Our friend there has ...
— The Landleaguers • Anthony Trollope
... is clad in a spruce skirt and a gray-stone jacket," thought the boy. "But around its waist it wears a girdle which has not its match in value, for it is embroidered with blue lakes and green groves. The great ironworks adorn it like a row of precious stones, and its buckle is a whole city with castles and cathedrals and ...
— The Wonderful Adventures of Nils • Selma Lagerlof
... In 1752 Lady Gooch, wife of Governor William Gooch, while in London bought for Mrs. Thomas Dawson a fashionable laced cap, a handkerchief, ruffles, a brocade suit, a blue satin petticoat, a pair of blue satin shoes, and a fashionable silver girdle. But it was not always necessary to send to England for clothing, for there were tailors in Virginia who advertised that they could make gentlemen's suits and dresses for the ladies "in the newest and genteelest fashions now wore in England." It was a valuable asset ...
— Patrician and Plebeian - Or The Origin and Development of the Social Classes of the Old Dominion • Thomas J. Wertenbaker
... Teneriffe is perhaps the most beautiful, but it is hard to judge between it and Grand Canary as seen from the sea. The superb cone this afternoon stood out a deep purple against a serpent-green sky, separated from the brilliant blue ocean by a girdle of pink and gold cumulus, while Grand Canary and Lancarote looked as if they were formed from fantastic-shaped sunset cloud-banks that by some spell had been solidified. The general colour of the mountains of Grand Canary, which rise peak after peak ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... doors of the cabinet, disclosing a surprising object indeed—a seated figure of clumsy proportions with the head of an elephant, supposed by these poor heathen to be a god, of whom the name escapes me. This also was ivory, with a necklace and girdle of small jewels inset. Mr Darcy applied to young Willoughby, by his side, for information of the attributes of this strange being, which he gave with an elegance as much out of the common as his figure, Mr Darcy ...
— The Ladies - A Shining Constellation of Wit and Beauty • E. Barrington
... in pieces broke See Pales weeping too in wild despair, And to the piercing winds her bosses bare. And see yon fading myrtle, where appears The Queen of Love, all bathed in flowing tears; See how she wrings her hands, and beats her breast, And tears her useless girdle from her waist: Hear the sad murmurs of her sighing doves! For grief they sigh, ...
— Lives of the English Poets: Prior, Congreve, Blackmore, Pope • Samuel Johnson
... commerce or the tiny cachinnation of a machine-made Chesterton paradox will not ring entirely hollow. As for his voice, it can at times be more musical than Melba's or Caruso's. Without being raised above a whisper, it can girdle the globe. It can barely breathe some delicious new melody; yet the thing will float forth not only undiminished, but gathering beauty, significance, and incisiveness in every land ...
— The Joyful Heart • Robert Haven Schauffler
... cunning, wert thou as old as Methuselah, thou couldst not be better provided than thou art now, at eighteen." What was the reply of Monsieur Cartouche? He answered, not by words, but by actions. Drawing his knife from his girdle, he instantly dug it into the captain's left side, as near his heart as possible; and then, seizing that imprudent commander, precipitated him violently into the waters of the Seine, to keep company with the gudgeons and river-gods. When he returned ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... the silken cocoon. The pupa of a 'swallowtail' (Papilionid) or a 'white' (Pierid) butterfly (fig. 23) may be found attached to a twig of its food-plant or to a wall, in an upright position, its tail fastened to a pad of silk and a slender silken girdle encircling its thorax. The pupa of a 'Tortoiseshell' or 'Admiral' (Nymphalid) butterfly hangs head downwards from a twig, supported only by the tail-pad of silk, which, useless as a shelter, serves only for attachment. The pupa is fastened ...
— The Life-Story of Insects • Geo. H. Carpenter
... in atonement for her sins, to sit at a frugal table; to consecrate her vast wealth to objects of benevolence; to wear haircloth next her skin, and around her waist a girdle with sharp points, which lacerated her body at every movement. She was also daily employed in making garments of the coarsest materials with her own hands for the sick in the hospitals, and for the poor ...
— Louis XIV., Makers of History Series • John S. C. Abbott
... Waller with his girdle, Donne with "that subtle wreath of hair about his arm," the mediaeval knight riding at tourney with his lady's sleeve at his helm, and all relic-worshipping lovers through the ages bear witness to that divine supernaturalism ...
— Vanishing Roads and Other Essays • Richard Le Gallienne
... left no doubtings whose daughter she was. I say this was plain on the lord deputy's coming home, when I did come into her presence. She chafed much, walked fastly to and fro, looked with discomposure in her visage; and I remember, she catched my girdle when I kneeled to her, and swore, 'By God's son I am no queen, that man is above me;—who gave him command to come here so soon? I did send him on other business.' It was long before more gracious discourse ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... whole day to fill in before we could get any news of Dawson's vigil in the Malplaquet, and I have never known a day as drearily long. Cary and I were both restless as peas on a hot girdle, and could not settle down to talk or to read or to write. Cary sought vainly to persuade me to read and pass judgment upon his Navy Book. In spite of my interest in the subject my soul revolted at the forbidding pile ...
— The Lost Naval Papers • Bennet Copplestone
... instances of capital punishment for breaking tabu, a thraldom deeply interwoven with the religious system, occurred in the last year of his reign, when one man was put to death for putting on a chief's girdle, another for eating of a tabooed dish, and a third for leaving a house under tabu, and entering ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird
... Caliph had scarcely breakfasted when the Grand Vizier appeared to accompany him upon his walk, as he had commanded him. The Caliph placed the box with the magic powder in his girdle, and, having directed his train to remain behind, he set out alone with his Grand Vizier. They went through the spacious gardens of the Caliph, and looked around, but in vain, for some living thing, that they might try their trick. The Vizier at length proposed that they should go further ...
— Tales of Wonder Every Child Should Know • Various
... forehead and over his body, for, with the exception of a pair of abbreviated leggings he was quite nude. His scalp-lock was adorned with a profusion of eagles' feathers, and his wrists and arms were set off with bracelets. Dangling from his girdle was an object that thrilled me with anguish, as the long white hair covered here and there with dark red splashes, I knew at once to be the scalp of my dear, murdered mother. I had read of the noble red man, and like most romantic people, conceived a very ...
— Seven and Nine years Among the Camanches and Apaches - An Autobiography • Edwin Eastman
... the working classes, it was hardly dress at all. I doubt whether the great mass of the labourers in Norfolk had more than a single garment—a kind of tunic leaving the arms and legs bare, with a girdle of rope or leather round the waist, in which a man's knife was stuck, to use sometimes for hacking his bread, sometimes for stabbing an enemy in a quarrel. As for any cotton goods, such as are familiar to you ...
— The Coming of the Friars • Augustus Jessopp
... work our way down the almost precipitous road, while the mules slid, scrambled, and tumbled after us as best they might. As I was pushing on a little in advance of the party, I was met, in a narrow turn of the path, by an old bearded man, with a dagger in his girdle, who reached out his hand toward me. I was uncertain at first how to understand it; but his only object was to press my hand to his lips with a fervent 'salam aleikum' (Peace be with you,) to which I responded, according to usual form, 'aleikum ...
— Thrilling Adventures by Land and Sea • James O. Brayman
... the idolatrous nations around them, to the living and true God. The heart of God was set upon them. His love was freely poured out upon them, and He had bound them to Himself, closely as a man bound around him his valued girdle. They were the descendants of faithful Abraham, of Isaac, and Jacob. They had become great, and mighty, and powerful, spreading themselves out like the cedars of Lebanon, and flourishing like the stately palms. All the surrounding nations ...
— Little Folks (July 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... innominatum may be so fractured that the pelvic girdle is broken, as in fracture of the iliac shaft, or in a manner that the girdling continuity of the innominate bones is not interrupted. It naturally follows that greater injury is done when the pelvic girdle is ...
— Lameness of the Horse - Veterinary Practitioners' Series, No. 1 • John Victor Lacroix
... she had to admit to herself that a timid little freshman might infinitely prefer staying at home from the sophomore reception to going in Eleanor's company, if she happened to be in a bad mood. And furthermore, as Betty lost her temper over Helen's girdle, which would go up in front and down behind, completely spoiling the effect of an otherwise pretty evening dress, she was in a position to realize that trying to help is by no means the soul-inspiring thing that it ...
— Betty Wales, Sophomore • Margaret Warde
... bringing them back to persons who are ill, thus making them well. These images are called jurong, two being males, the other female, and carrying a child on its back. While performing his rites over either sex the blian holds the female jurong in his right hand, the other two being inserted under his girdle, one in front, the other at the back, to protect him against his enemies. In the case of a child being ill its brua is brought back by means of the infant carved on the back of the effigy. Undoubtedly the images ...
— Through Central Borneo: - An Account of Two Years' Travel in the Land of Head-Hunters - Between the Years 1913 and 1917 • Carl Lumholtz
... universally worn. This is a kind of loose, open frock, reaching halfway down the thighs, with large sleeves, the body open in front, lapped over, and belted with a leathern girdle, held together with a buckle. The cape is large, and usually fringed with different colored cloth from that of the body. The bosom of this dress sometimes serves as a wallet for a "chunk" of bread, jerk or smoke-dried ...
— A New Guide for Emigrants to the West • J. M. Peck
... the prairie land stretches on the Illinois Central Railroad between Chicago and St. Louis. It may be pleasant in summer, but it is a dreary waste in winter. The space is too broad and too uniform to have beauty. The girdle of trees would be pretty, doubtless, if seen near, but in the distance and in winter it is only a black border to ...
— Maria Mitchell: Life, Letters, and Journals • Maria Mitchell
... to her as the Algerine conquest. Midway in the Pacific is the island of Tahita or Otaheite,—as fair a gem as the sun ever looked down upon. The soft and balmy air,—the undulating surface, rising to mountains and sinking into deep valleys, luxuriant with tropical verdure,—the distant girdle of coral reefs, which holds the island set in a circlet of tranquil blue waters,—the gentle and indolent temper of the natives,—have all conspired to throw an air of romance around the very name Otaheite. The Christian world is bound to it by another tie. For thither came Protestant ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 73, November, 1863 • Various
... dark and falls in a great bush of fluffy curls. When her headgear is off, her hair looks like a black corona. She is wonderfully beautiful, wonderfully beautiful. Her gown was of red stuff. Perhaps it was of velvet like the cap. It was hitched up with a cord and girdle, with tassels of gold lace and—and—Sir ...
— Yolanda: Maid of Burgundy • Charles Major
... made it all yourself! Why you're a wonder! Isn't she, Cloudy? Just take her in and look for yourself! She made that dress all herself out of old things that she washed and dyed. Why, it looks like an imported frock. Doesn't it look like one, Cloudy? And that girdle is ...
— Cloudy Jewel • Grace Livingston Hill
... come to you a penniless bride, but I have thought lately that I was mistaken. Maclutha, when she died, gave me all the jewels we carried away from the treasure room at Tezcuco. I selected all the most valuable ones, and sewed them into this broad girdle, which I put on under my things on the night when you escaped. Its loss has grieved me, though you have said that the two little bags you have, already, would suffice to make you rich. Still, they were Maclutha's, and I wanted to give you mine; but I ...
— By Right of Conquest - Or, With Cortez in Mexico • G. A. Henty
... sons, Antyllus, his eldest son by Fulvia was slain, because his schoolmaster Theodorus did betray him unto the soldiers, who strake off his head. And the villain took a precious stone of great value from his neck, the which he did sew in his girdle, and afterwards denied that he had it: but it was found about him, and so Caesar trussed him up for it. For Cleopatra's children, they were very honourably kept, with their governors and train that waited on them. ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume I (of X) - Greece • Various
... disappoint you," Angela answered coldly; "but Papillon and I have agreed that I am always to be her spinster aunt, and am to keep her house when she is married, and wear a linsey gown and a bunch of keys at my girdle, like Mrs. Hubbuck, ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... effects carried there, as a place of greater safety. The whole air was full of sparks and of flying masses of cotton, shingles, etc., some of which were carried four or five blocks, and started new fires. The men seemed generally under good control, and certainly labored hard to girdle the fire, to prevent its spreading; but, so long as the high wind prevailed, it was simply beyond human possibility. Fortunately, about 3 or 4 a.m., the wind moderated, and gradually the fire was got under control; but it had ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... unnecessary pain, My dear Lord Cardinal. Here, Mother, tie My girdle for me, and bind up this hair 160 In any simple knot; ay, that does well. And yours I see is coming down. How often Have we done this for one another; now We shall not do it any more. My Lord, We are quite ready. Well, 'tis ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... said, the chill was past. As soon as the sun had climbed above our girdle of trees, it fell with all its force upon the clearing, and drank up the vapours at a draught. Soon the sand was baking, and the resin melting in the logs of the block-house. Jackets and coats were flung aside; shirts thrown open at the neck, and rolled ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 6 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... quog, quog, quog! Oh! aren't you afraid you'll burst? You should have put on, dear Mr. Frog, Your girdle of leather first. But on he goes, with his good intent, The little gasping man; For every frog must sing in Lent, As loud ...
— The Nursery, March 1877, Vol. XXI. No. 3 - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest Readers • Various
... illuminates, is immensely larger than this whole earth, on which so many lofty mountains rise, and such vast oceans roll. A line extending from side to side through the centre of that resplendent orb, would measure more than 800,000 miles: a girdle formed to go round its circumference, would require a length of millions. Are we startled at these reports of philosophers? Are we ready to cry out in a transport of surprise, "How mighty is the Being who kindled such a prodigious fire, and keeps alive from age to age such an enormous ...
— The Illustrated London Reading Book • Various
... he stole into the church and by the wan light of a lantern carved his name deep on the girdle of the Virgin, and there do we read it today. The pride of the artist, however, afterward took another turn, for he never thereafter placed his name on a piece. "My work is unlike any other—no lover of the beautiful can mistake it," he ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 4 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Painters • Elbert Hubbard
... boys remarked among the gay throng an old man who seemed quite different from the rest. He wore a plain dark gown, with sandals on his feet. A long silvery beard flowed nearly to his girdle; and the boys liked his face, with its kind, ...
— Stories from English History • Hilda T. Skae
... Gilt at the tips, so sweetly doth it ring And clasp the bosom that it serves to lace: Yea, and the belt to such as understand, Bound round her waist, saith: here I'd ever cling.— What would my arms do in that girdle's place? ...
— Sonnets • Michael Angelo Buonarroti & Tommaso Campanella
... the high black wall surrounding Crimsworth's mill. Two hours had elapsed before my sensations had so far subsided as to leave me calm enough to remark for what wider and clearer boundaries I had exchanged that sooty girdle. When I did look up, lo! straight before me lay Grovetown, a village of villas about five miles out of X——. The short winter day, as I perceived from the far-declined sun, was already approaching its close; a chill frost-mist ...
— The Professor • (AKA Charlotte Bronte) Currer Bell
... man with a long grey beard, with a leather bag hanging from his girdle. He nodded cheerfully to the prince, and said: 'I know this place well, and can lead you out of it, if you will promise me a ...
— The Violet Fairy Book • Various
... have their Yule log, or Yuletide log, which is a huge log burning in the chimney corner, whilst the Yule cakes are baked on a "girdle," (a kind of frying pan) over the fire; little lads and maidens assemble nightly at some neighbouring friend's to hear the goblin story, and join in "fortune telling," or some game. There is a part of an old song which ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 290 - Volume X. No. 290. Saturday, December 29, 1827. • Various
... Feramorz, the young Prince. She wore "floating gauzes, bracelets, a small coronet of jewels, and a rose-coloured bridal veil." His dress was "simple, yet not without marks of costliness, with a high Tartarian cap, and strings of pearls hanging from his flowered girdle of Kaskan." Till four o'clock in the morning they danced. Then, still wearing the costumes of the romantic poem, they slipped away from the ball and were married before breakfast. It seems quite harmless, and natural, and as it should have ...
— Fifth Avenue • Arthur Bartlett Maurice
... point we should interpolate the reason why Hercules went against the Amazons. The ninth (as usually enumerated) of the twelve labours of Hercules was to fetch away the girdle of the queen of the Amazons, a gift from her father Ares, the god of fighting. Admete, the daughter of Eurystheus (at whose bidding the twelve labours were performed) desired this girdle, and Hercules was sent by her ...
— The Sources and Analogues of 'A Midsummer-night's Dream' • Compiled by Frank Sidgwick
... but as she employed all known remedies without delay, she promptly procured abortion. Often, even on the stage, she stripped before the eyes of all the people, and stood naked in their midst, wearing only a girdle about her private parts and groin; not because she had any modesty about showing that also to the people, but because no one was allowed to go on the stage without a girdle about those parts. In this attitude she would throw herself down on the floor, and lie on her back. ...
— The Secret History of the Court of Justinian • Procopius
... was the wish, to conquer or die was the resolution, of every division and of every soldier. Jealous of the preeminence of danger, the knights in their heavy armor leaped into the sea, when it rose as high as their girdle; the sergeants and archers were animated by their valor; and the squires, letting down the draw-bridges of the palanders, led the horses to the shore. Before their squadrons could mount, and form, and couch their Lances, the seventy thousand Greeks had vanished ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon
... wonderful nights rarely experienced save under the equator, or very close to the middle girdle of the globe. The luxuriant growths of the jungle seemed to be breathing in long, steady pulsations, so uniform was the lifting and ...
— Boy Scouts in the Canal Zone - The Plot Against Uncle Sam • G. Harvey Ralphson
... of an immoderate Length, being tied before in such a manner that the two Ends hung down to her Girdle; but whether these supply the Place of Kissing-Strings in our Enemy's Country, and whether our British Ladies have any occasion for them, I shall ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... it, and saw before him the image of a maiden beautiful as the day and sad as the tomb, clothed in a white robe, having a girdle of silver and a crown of pearls. The prince stood and gazed at her, as if he had been turned into stone, but as he looked the sadness which, was on her face seemed to pass into his heart, and he ...
— The Grey Fairy Book • Various
... ignorance in the humbler classes of the community, to which reference has just been made, is surely a blot on our social economy. It is seemingly easier to girdle the globe with a wire, than to make sure that every child in Her Majesty's dominions shall receive the simplest elements of education. Within the sphere of the mechanic or the chemist, flights beyond the bounds of imagination may be ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 429 - Volume 17, New Series, March 20, 1852 • Various
... as any. He came ashore dressed, not in the gleaming armor and crimson robes of a conqueror, as on his first return, but in the garb of what was known as a penitent—the long, coarse gown, the knotted girdle and peaked hood of a priest. For, you see, he did not know just what terrible stories had been told by his enemies; he did not know how the king and queen would receive him. He had promised them so much; he had brought them so little. He had sailed away so hopefully; he had come back humbled ...
— The True Story of Christopher Columbus • Elbridge S. Brooks
... a sharp arch, filled by a huge oak door of the same shape and size, which, for further security or ornament, is closely studded with large diamond-headed nails. A man with keys at his girdle like the ancient housewives opens the huge door to you with slight effort, so well oiled is it. You slip under a porch into an inclosed yard, the great door shuts almost of itself, and now it depends upon the ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... insolent. So much are the people already familiarized with the unnatural depravity of manners that begins to prevail, that the wife of the Colonel of a battalion now here walks the streets in a red cap, with pistols at her girdle, boasting of the numbers she has destroyed at the massacres in August ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... side, to right and left the tree-girdle reached out toward the blue distance, thick close and unsundered, save where it and the plain which it begirdled was cleft amidmost by a river about as wide as the Thames at Sheene when the flood-tide is at its highest, but so swift and full of eddies, that it gave token of mountains not ...
— The House of the Wolfings - A Tale of the House of the Wolfings and All the Kindreds of the Mark Written in Prose and in Verse • William Morris
... trampled on you and spat in your face as I passed. And now I have come to ask pardon and offer atonement for the insult of last year." With those words he prostrated himself again before the grave, and, drawing a dirk from his girdle, stabbed himself in the belly and died. And the chief priest of the temple, taking pity upon him, buried him by the side of the Ronins; and his tomb still remains to be seen with those of the ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford
... distributed her greetings, and defended her dog—all, as it were, in one breath—Lady Lydiard sat down by Isabel's side, and opened a large green fan that hung at her girdle. "You have no idea, Miss Pink, how fat people suffer in hot weather," said the old lady, using ...
— My Lady's Money • Wilkie Collins
... rejoicing. The proud Brunhild, however, is indignant at her sister-in-law wedding a vassal. In vain Guenther assures her that Siegfried is a mighty prince in his own country; the offended queen determines to punish his deception, and ties him hand and foot with her magic girdle, and hangs him upon a nail; Siegfried pitying the condition of the king, promises his aid in depriving the haughty queen of the girdle, the source of all her magic strength. He successfully accomplishes the feat, and in a luckless hour presents the trophy to Chriemhild, ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... alone, seated herself on her sofa, tucking her feet up under her as though she were seated somewhere in the East, pushed her ringlets back roughly from her face, and then placed her two hands to her sides so that her thumbs rested lightly on her girdle. When alone with something weighty on her mind she would sit in this form for the hour together, resolving, or trying to resolve, what should be her conduct. She did few things without much thinking, and though she walked very boldly, she walked ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope
... a queen I knew right well, And sometimes wore a splendour on my head Whose flashing even dead darkness could not quell— The like on neck and arms and girdle-stead; And men declared a light my closed eyes shed That killed the diamond in ...
— Lilith • George MacDonald
... the smoker feels satisfied. The girls that wait on one at the yadoyas and tea-houses carry their tobacco in the capacious sleeve-pockets of their dress, and their pipes sometimes thrust in the sash or girdle, and sometimes stuck in the back ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... of his in London, that justice might be done them when he died? There he goes in close custody, dressed in his bishop's gown and tippet, with a velvet scull cap on his head. Behind him comes Latimer, an old, old man in threadbare gown and leathern girdle, keeping up as well as he can with the rest. They pass along what is now called Cornmarket Street, and under the Bocardo gateway, where is St. Michael's Church, and as they get close beneath the prison each casts a look upwards if he ...
— Oxford • Frederick Douglas How
... that Grandma, the Demon, would join them, the silver cigarette case dangling at her girdle. Then was he sorely beset. They would perhaps talk about him over his head, discuss his points as if he were some new beast from ...
— Bunker Bean • Harry Leon Wilson
... old city have been leveled into broad promenades, shaded with nut-trees, encircling the town as with a girdle of green. Beyond, a new city has sprung up, spreading like a mushroom; but within the girdle the streets are narrow and crooked, and the houses gabled; leaning to one another as if seeking support for their ...
— The Black Cross • Olive M. Briggs
... eyes, was about the middle size, and elegantly formed; her dress consisted of six wadded silk garments, similar to our night-gowns, each fastened round the lower part of the waist by a separate band, and drawn close together from the girdle downwards; they were all of different colours, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 12, Issue 337, October 25, 1828. • Various
... Brahman-world' is to be explained as'the world which is Brahman'; just as according to the Purva Mimamsa the compound 'Nishada-sthapati' denotes a sthapati who is a Nishada (not a sthapati of the Nishadas). A thing even which is known as one only may be designated by a plural form, as in a mantra one girdle is spoken of as 'the fetters of Aditi.' And as to the case under discussion, we know on the authority of Scripture, Smriti, Itihasa, and Purana, that the wonderful worlds springing from the mere will of a perfect and omnipresent ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Ramanuja - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 48 • Trans. George Thibaut
... long sleeves falling back, and fringed with deep gold fringe, and should have diamond or pearl buttons. My caftan, of the same stuff with my drawers, is a robe exactly fitted to my shape, and reaching to my feet, with very long strait falling sleeves. Over this is the girdle, of about four fingers broad, which all that can afford have entirely of diamonds or other precious stones; those who will not be at that expense, have it of exquisite embroidery on satin; but it must be fastened before ...
— Lady Mary Wortley Montague - Her Life and Letters (1689-1762) • Lewis Melville
... indiscriminately use the terms knives and swords; indeed, the arms granted to the London Cutlers' Company in the sixteenth year of the reign of Edward IV are two swords, crossed; later a crest, consisting of an elephant bearing a castle, was added. Homer tells us of knives carried at the girdle in his day, and describes them as of triangular form. The Anglo-Saxons and the Normans carried about with them met-soex or eating knives, but it was not until the end of the fifteenth century that knives were used at table, other than those which were carried at the girdle, ...
— Chats on Household Curios • Fred W. Burgess
... the Pure abode, knowing the heart-ponderings of the prince, transformed himself into a hunter's likeness, holding his bow, his arrows in his girdle, his body girded with a Kashaya-colored robe, thus he advanced in front of the prince. The prince considering this garment of his, the color of the ground, a fitting pure attire, becoming to the utmost the person of a Rishi, ...
— Sacred Books of the East • Various
... and my brother Tom's papers, and my journalls, which I value much; and did send my two silver flaggons to Kate Joyce's: that so, being scattered what I have, something might be saved. I have also made a girdle, by which, with some trouble, I do carry about me L300 in gold about my body, that I may not be without something in case I should be surprised: for I think, in any nation but our's, people that appear (for we are not indeed so) so faulty as we, would have their ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... evening light on the opposite side of the rock glows through the green glass, for from this position the upper windows are opposite to one another and the light passes right through the building. The great mass of curiously simple yet most striking structures that girdle the summit of the rock and form the platform beneath the church, though built at different times, have joined in one consenescence and now present the appearance of one of those cities that dwell in the imagination when reading of "many tower'd Camelot" or the turreted walls of fairyland. ...
— Normandy, Complete - The Scenery & Romance Of Its Ancient Towns • Gordon Home
... economy and health—the bean being considered heating—the Kishr or follicle. This in Harar is a woman's drink. The men considering the berry too dry and heating for their arid atmosphere, toast the leaf on a girdle, pound it and prepare an infusion which they declare to be most wholesome, but which certainly suggests weak senna. The boiled coffee-leaf has been tried and approved of in England; we omit, however, to ...
— First footsteps in East Africa • Richard F. Burton
... multitude. Many of these unhappy victims were sawn asunder, according to a precedent to which David had given the sanction of his example. The victorious Jews devoured the flesh, licked up the blood, and twisted the entrails like a girdle round their bodies. See Dion Cassius, l. lxviii. p. 1145. * Note: Some commentators, among them Reimar, in his notes on Dion Cassius think that the hatred of the Romans against the Jews has led the historian to exaggerate the cruelties committed by the latter. Don. Cass. lxviii. ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... balsam scented foot-gear; and then the lingerie people drop in on you, along with shoemakers and squatting cobblers and slipper and sandal merchants and dealers in mallow dyes; and the belt makers flock around, and the girdle makers ...
— Amphitryo, Asinaria, Aulularia, Bacchides, Captivi • Plautus Titus Maccius
... contempt, and thought him a poor creature for a villain. Then the skirt of his coat, curling over as he grovelled and writhed, disclosed something that turned my thoughts into another channel. Crushed under his leather girdle was a little cape, or a garment of that kind, of velvet so lustrous that it shone in the dark place where I saw it, as the eyes shine in a toad. Nor it only: before he rolled over and hid it again, I espied embroidered on one corner of the velvet ...
— In Kings' Byways • Stanley J. Weyman
... the eyes of the damsel lost their fire and sought the floor; and she plucked at her girdle, and would not look on Deodonato. And they said outside, "It is very still in ...
— Comedies of Courtship • Anthony Hope
... yielding osiers aside, he drew out the ducks one by one, wrung their necks, and passing their heads through his girdle, made his way again to the coracle. Then he scattered another handful or two of grain on the water, sparingly near the mouth of the creek, but more thickly at the entrance to the trap, and then paddled back again by the way he ...
— The Dragon and the Raven - or, The Days of King Alfred • G. A. Henty
... infant frosts begin to bite, In hoary cranreuch drest; Ae night at e'en a merry core O' randie, gangrel bodies, In Poosie-Nansie's held the splore, To drink their orra duddies: Wi' quaffing and laughing, They ranted an' they sang; Wi' jumping and thumping, The vera girdle rang. ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... a witch, displeased at her son's choice, maliciously arrests by witchcraft the birth of Willie's son. Willie's travailing wife sends him again and again to bribe the witch, who refuses cup, steed, and girdle. Here our version makes such abrupt transitions, that it will be well to explain what takes place. The Belly Blind or Billie Blin (see Young Bekie, First Series, pp. 6, 7) advises Willie to make a sham baby of wax, ...
— Ballads of Mystery and Miracle and Fyttes of Mirth - Popular Ballads of the Olden Times - Second Series • Frank Sidgwick
... around him as a centre. Indeed some believed that it throbbed and radiated from his person, and not from the stormy heavens above them. The lightning had rent the wall of his prison, and released the iron staple of his chain, which he had wound about him like a girdle. In his hand he carried an iron fetter-bar, which he had found on the floor of the vault. More terrified at his aspect than at all the violence of the storm, the visitors, with many a shriek and cry, rushed out into the tempestuous night. By degrees, the storm died away. Its last flash revealed the ...
— Adela Cathcart, Vol. 3 • George MacDonald
... even upon his bridal tour, being plainly shown by these: a ring from Venice, of wrought gold with aquamarines, some Spanish embroideries, quaint carvings; and finally he put the cap upon his extravagance by producing from an inner pocket a girdle of Egyptian workmanship, too valuable by far for ...
— Nancy Stair - A Novel • Elinor Macartney Lane
... garden that evening with a fowling-piece on his shoulder, and two brace of prairie hens at his girdle. May was seated at her cottage door, basking in sunshine, chatting with her mother—who was knitting of course—and Shank was conversing with Hunky Ben, who rested after a day ...
— Charlie to the Rescue • R.M. Ballantyne
... attention to William Hinkley, whose mother, while this scene was in progress, had been occupied, as Calvert had begun, in stanching the blood, and trimming with her scissors, which were fortunately at her girdle, the hair from the wound. The son, meanwhile, had wakened to consciousness. He had been stunned but not severely injured by the blow, and, with the promptitude of a border-dame, Mrs. Hinkley, hurrying to a pine-tree, had gathered enough of its resin, which, spread upon a fragment of her cotton apron, ...
— Charlemont • W. Gilmore Simms
... Chick, it came from the queen. She was standing before her throne now. Around her waist a girdle of satin revealed the tender frailty of her figure. She gave Watson a close scrutiny, and ...
— The Blind Spot • Austin Hall and Homer Eon Flint
... This singular decoration is a large cushion, made of the skin of a crow, stuffed with any light material, and variously ornamented. It has two decorated sticks, projecting from it upward, and a pendent one beneath; this apparatus is secured upon the buttocks by a girdle passing round the body. The other actors in the scene were decorated with paints of several colors, fantastically disposed upon their persons. Several were painted with white clay, which had the appearance of being grooved in ...
— Great Indian Chief of the West - Or, Life and Adventures of Black Hawk • Benjamin Drake
... what a "light-year" means, let us remember that light could travel right round the earth at its equator seven times in the space of a single second, and that there are 31,556,925 seconds in a year. Light then could girdle the earth a thousand million times whilst it comes from Alpha Centauri. Or we may put it another way. The distance from Alpha Centauri exceeds the equator of the earth by as much as this exceeds an inch and a half; or by as much as the ...
— The Astronomy of the Bible - An Elementary Commentary on the Astronomical References - of Holy Scripture • E. Walter Maunder
... of clothes, but a piece of the rind of a tree tied like a girdle about their waists, and a handful of long grass, or three or four small green boughs full of leaves, thrust under their girdle, ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia] [Volume 2 of 2] • Phillip Parker King
... Riflemen encountered the Huron, it was upon the war-trail, and full a dozen more scalp-locks hung at his girdle!] ...
— The Riflemen of the Miami • Edward S. Ellis
... man, and again commence the race far life or death. But it seemed a hopeless attempt—so utterly helpless was the Sachem, and so unable to retain his seat. Quick as thought Oriana unbound her long twisted girdle of many colors; and, flinging it to Henrich, desired him to bind the failing form of her father to his own. He did so: and the nurse having mounted behind Oriana, again the now furious steeds started forward. All these actions had taken less time to perform than they have to relate; but yet ...
— The Pilgrims of New England - A Tale Of The Early American Settlers • Mrs. J. B. Webb
... an architectural gem of great purity. For the curious in such matters, the sacristy offers many wonders, among others a large fragment of the true cross, presented to Sens by Charlemagne. Less apocryphal are the vestments of our own Archbishop Thomas, alb, girdle, stole, and the rest, all most carefully preserved and exhibited in a glass case. It will be remembered that, when the turbulent Thomas of London, afterwards known as Becket, was condemned as a traitor, he fled to France. "This is a fearful day," said one of his ...
— East of Paris - Sketches in the Gatinais, Bourbonnais, and Champagne • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... people invest their kings, and which seems to answer, in some degree, to the European ensigns of royalty, it was carefully taken out of the cloth, in which, it had been wrapped up, and spread at full length upon the ground before the priests. It is a girdle, about five yards long; and fifteen inches broad; and, from its name, seems to be put on in the same manner as is the common maro, or piece of cloth, used by these people to wrap round the waist. It was ornamented with red ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16 • Robert Kerr |
