"Mirror" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and higgledy-piggledy slovenliness. It is so. But there are people who have lived fifty years in Manchester, Leeds, Hull and Hanley without noticing it. The English idiosyncrasy is in that awful external slovenliness too, causing it, and being caused by it. Every street is a mirror, an illustration, an exposition, an explanation, of the human beings who live in it. Nothing in it is to be neglected. Everything in it is valuable, if the perspective is maintained. Nevertheless, in the narrow individualistic novels of English literature—and in some of the best—you ...
— The Author's Craft • Arnold Bennett
... fetch that water though he burst the globe and wreck its kingdoms to accomplish it; and right bravely doth he work his magic and call upon his hellions to hie them hither and help, but not a whiff of moisture hath he started yet, even so much as might qualify as mist upon a copper mirror an ye count not the barrel of sweat he sweateth betwixt sun and sun over the dire labors of ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... cheerful voice was heard, chirping and singing as if he had not a trouble in the world. They took great care of him. He was never allowed to be too hot or too cold. Everybody gave him a cheerful word in passing his cage, and if his singing was too loud, they gave him a little mirror to look at himself in. He loved this mirror, and often stood before it for an hour ...
— Beautiful Joe • Marshall Saunders
... stair was marble white, so smooth And polish'd that therein my mirror'd form Distinct I saw. The next of hue more dark Than sablest grain, a rough and singed block, Cracked lengthwise and across. The third, that lay Massy above, seemed prophyry, that flam'd Red as the life-blood ...
— Dante: "The Central Man of All the World" • John T. Slattery
... downstairs to tell her mother, by means of emphatic signs, that there was some candy in a trunk for her. She returned in a few minutes and helped me put away my things. It was too comical to see her put on my bonnet and cock her head first on one side, then on the other, and look in the mirror, just as if she could see. Somehow I had expected to see a pale, delicate child—I suppose I got the idea from Dr. Howe's description of Laura Bridgman when she came to the Institution. But there's nothing pale or delicate about Helen. ...
— Story of My Life • Helen Keller
... behind you as you sat, uncrowned and expectant before the mirror, she would poise the hat four inches above your head, holding it in the tips of her fingers, a precious, fragile thing. Your fascinated eyes were held by it, and your breath as well. Then down it descended, slowly, slowly. ...
— One Basket • Edna Ferber
... receive it! You miss a point I saw? See others, then! Misread my meaning? Yet expound your own! Obscure one space I cleared? The sky is wide, And you may yet uncover other stars. For thus I read the meaning of this end: There are two ways of spreading light: to be The candle or the mirror that reflects it. I let my wick burn out—there yet remains To spread an answering surface to the ...
— Artemis to Actaeon and Other Worlds • Edith Wharton
... relations with Elodie. Through indolent and careless living she had grown gross and coarse, too unshapely and unseemly for her age. When the news of his speedy arrival in Paris reached her, she caught sight of herself in her mirror and with a sudden pang realized her lack of attraction. In a fever she corseted herself, creamed her face, set a coiffeur to work his will on her hair. But what retrieval of lost comeliness could be effected in a day or two? The utmost thing ...
— The Mountebank • William J. Locke
... upon them, as if the owner had just put them off; but all was disordered wildly, as if by the dying struggles of a madman, and the gorgeousness seemed to add to the horror of it. I trembled as I looked at the glimmering mirror and thought of what it might have reflected; our cousin's image seemed to rise up in all his pride and bravery as I last saw him, but with the ghastly face of death; so I hurried out and flung the door to behind us, and Althea ...
— Andrew Golding - A Tale of the Great Plague • Anne E. Keeling
... outside on the doorstep, listening, until, overcome by curiosity, I bent down and lifted the flap of the letter-box. The interior of the hall was plainly visible. Mr. Annot had ceased singing and was now standing before the mirror which hung beside the hatstand. He was a trifle unsteady, and swayed on his frail legs, but he was staring at himself with a kind of savage intensity. At last he turned away and I caught the expression on his face.... With ...
— The Blue Germ • Martin Swayne
... poked the fire, regarded herself in the mirror, and settled her cap—no, her head-dress, for Miss Grey always insisted that "dear Henrietta" was too young to wear caps, and admired fervently the still black—too black hair, the mystery of which was only known ...
— Christian's Mistake • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... justly termed tame and wanting in originality, which produced poems such as Pope's Satires, Gray's Odes and Elegy, the ballads of Gay and Carey, the songs of Burns and Cowper. In truth Poetry at this as at all times was a more or less unconscious mirror of the genius of the age; and the brave and admirable spirit of Enquiry which made the eighteenth century the turning-time in European civilisation is reflected faithfully in its verse. An intelligent reader will find the influence of Newton as markedly in the poems of ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... know myself. I am sure that I know her. Her countenance all living with emotion, changing and working with every thought of her mind and every feeling of her heart, reveals her with the truth of a magic mirror. She is not known ...
— Zenobia - or, The Fall of Palmyra • William Ware
... so; but it passed entirely from my mind. I was so absorbed in my work. I am editor-in-chief of the 'Dickinson Mirror.'" ...
— Hester's Counterpart - A Story of Boarding School Life • Jean K. Baird
... in "Dining-Room Tea", — a sort of trance state — or in the pendant sonnet. Analogous moods are not infrequent in the great poets. Rupert Brooke seems to have faltered, nervously, at times; these poems mirror faithfully such moments. But even when the image of life, imaginative or real, falters so, how essentially vital it still is, and clothed in an exquisite body of words like the traditional "rainbow hues of the dying fish"! For I cannot express too strongly my admiration of ...
— The Collected Poems of Rupert Brooke • Rupert Brooke
... the artist's power; Sophocles, Shakespeare, Moliere, and Goethe, in a very profound sense, make game of life. But to make game of life was to each of these the very loftiest and most imperative employ to be found for him on this planet; to hold the mirror up to Nature so that for the first time she may see herself; to 'be a candle-holder and look on' at the pageantry which, but for the candle-holder, would huddle along in the undistinguishable blackness, ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson • Walter Raleigh
... on thinking and wondering until he began to half-believe that he was dreaming again, so he got up and switched on the electric light. Then he turned involuntarily towards the wardrobe, which, as usual, had a long mirror running down the middle of it. To his amazement he did not see himself reflected in it. The mirror seemed to have vanished, and in its place was a ...
— The Mummy and Miss Nitocris - A Phantasy of the Fourth Dimension • George Griffith
... a few moments." He turned to the Princess Katal'halee and a hatred built up over generations flashed between them. Yet, their eyes seemed also to mirror a mutual respect. Mertaan said, "You are wrong about your betrayers. It was these two who made the arrangements—contacted our allies within your city. The tall one is very good at getting his points over with ...
— Before Egypt • E. K. Jarvis
... whom winter's wrath hath wasted, Art made a mirror to behold my plight: Whilome thy fresh spring flower'd: and after hasted Thy summer prowde, with daffodillies dight; And now is come thy winter's stormy state, Thy mantle mar'd wherein ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... his dresser and passed the brushes over his brown hair and snugged his tie up a bit. The face that looked back at him from the mirror was not, perhaps, handsome, although it by no means merited Tim's aspersions. There was a nice pair of dark brown eyes, rather slumberous looking, a nose a trifle too short for perfection and a mouth a shade too wide. But it was a good-tempered, pleasant face, on the whole, intelligent ...
— Left Guard Gilbert • Ralph Henry Barbour
... simple. I did it this morning with a hand mirror. You remember how bright the sun was about nine o'clock? Well, it was shining right into the room where I was, and when I saw that she was probably alone I caught the light on my little mirror and flashed the reflection into ...
— Charred Wood • Myles Muredach
... soul, gran'ther!" breathed Mary, clasping her little brown hands. "O my soul!" Her face grew curiously mature. It seemed to mirror his. She leaned forward, in a deadly earnestness. "Gran'ther," said she, "did they settle here first? Or—or was ...
— Tiverton Tales • Alice Brown
... again to the mirror, with a shrug of the shoulders, he raised the shears to his beard. Before he could use them, Jo's hand was on ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... the ship again and gazed into my little mirror, it was the pinched and wrinkled visage of an old man that peered out at me, but the eyes still twinkled and life was still entrancing. This wizening of our features was due to the strain of travel and lack of sleep; we had enough to eat, and I have only mentioned ...
— A Negro Explorer at the North Pole • Matthew A. Henson
... Monday morning, Neale, happening to catch sight of his reflection in the mirror which stood on his parlour mantelpiece, propounded the usual question with added force. There were reasons. It was a beautiful morning. It was early spring. There was a blue sky, and the rooks and jackdaws were circling in a clear air about the church tower ...
— The Chestermarke Instinct • J. S. Fletcher
... the habit of the extremely delicate Ctenophores or "sea-gooseberries," which the splash of a wave would tear into shreds. Whenever there is any hint of a storm they sink beyond its reach, and the ocean's surface must have remained flat as a mirror for many hours before they can be lured upwards from the calm ...
— The Outline of Science, Vol. 1 (of 4) - A Plain Story Simply Told • J. Arthur Thomson
... thousand Brahmanas all of whom were fully conversant with the four Vedas, he caused them to utter benedictions upon him. Touching next diverse kinds of auspicious articles and beholding himself in a clear mirror, Krishna addressed Satyaki, saying, "Go, O descendant of Sini, and repairing to Yudhishthira's abode, ascertain whether that king of great energy is dressed for visiting Bhishma." At these words of Krishna, Satyaki, proceeding quickly to the royal son of Pandu, said unto him, "The foremost ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... the small mirror sent her to bathe her hot, tear-stained face before venturing down to the letter-box on the corner. She dallied with the towel until there was no further excuse, she brushed her hair into unaccustomed smoothness; finally ...
— Polly of Lady Gay Cottage • Emma C. Dowd
... after year. Once it wins us it will stick with us. The success of those about us will shake our lethargic limbs and stimulate us to a desire to do as they do. We will be in a world of clean thought and action and our lives will mirror their lives, our thoughts will be filled with wholesome things and with good health. We will win ...
— Laugh and Live • Douglas Fairbanks
... "Good-bye, dad—cheer up;" and as she went up to her room the smile of hope vanished from her lips, and in its place came one of firm, dogged resolve. Allis needed much determination before she had accomplished the task she had set herself—before she stood in front of a mirror, arrayed in the purple and fine linen of her brother. She had thought Alan small, and he was for a boy, but his clothes bore a terribly suggestive ...
— Thoroughbreds • W. A. Fraser
... lay much of his power over her. Now, whenever Mrs. Euphemia threatened to get the better of him, he had only to fix his eyes steadily on the top of her head, or abstractedly rub his hand over his own yellow pate, to cause her to abandon her lecture and escape to her mirror, in order to assure herself that all was as ...
— In Blue Creek Canon • Anna Chapin Ray
... had come suddenly on her own reflection in a mirror. During a few seconds both looked stupefied, bewildered. ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville
... you in fragments, for the face That brimmed you up with beauty is no more; And die, dull heart, for you that were a mirror Are but a ball of passionate dust again! And level earth and plumy sea, rise up! ...
— The Countess Cathleen • William Butler Yeats
... accommodation-train of Whim, and whom, in the language of conductors, you may take up or put down anywhere, because he is no "dead-head," nor "ticketed through." This is he of whom I have spoken elsewhere,—in the magic mirror of whose memory (as to the last he saw of this wonder or of that) "a stony statuesqueness prevails, to produce an effect the weirdest of all; for there every living thing stands arrested in the attitude or gesture it presented at the fine instant to which his thought returns to ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various
... hidden beneath a linen cover, and the table showed a succession of layers of silk, worsted, and linen, topped by crocheted mats, on which rested several books with paper- enveloped covers. The chandelier, mirror, and picture frames gleamed dully from behind the mesh of pink mosquito netting. Even through the doorway into the hall might be seen the long, red-bordered white linen path that carried protection ...
— Oh, Money! Money! • Eleanor Hodgman Porter
... particular, did not admit of the presence of a janitor in his quarters, and he was of necessity his own janitor. His iron bed was spread with a pair of Pullman blankets, his toilet arrangements included nothing more elaborate than a shaving outfit, and the mirror above his washstand was only large enough to make a hurried shave, with much neck-stretching, possible. The table was littered with letters, but it filled up one corner of the room, and a rocking-chair and a trunk filled up another. The floor was spread with a Navajo blanket, and near ...
— Whispering Smith • Frank H. Spearman
... on the sea and overspreading the sky faded out, and all grew dark, save where there was a glow in the north. The stars had come out bright and clear, and covered the sky like so many points of light looking down at themselves in the mirror-like sea. The tide came up fast, and as the waves heaved and swayed and ran in, it seemed as if they were sweeping before them myriads and myriads of stars, for the water was covered with light, ...
— Devon Boys - A Tale of the North Shore • George Manville Fenn
... the long mirror before which he sat, while his dresser tugged at his boots, and threw up his ...
— Van Bibber and Others • Richard Harding Davis
... strikingly defective. With many fine strokes of the pencil, where the author confines himself to the literal fact, his portraits, as a whole, are overcharged with Bulwerism. His imagination is not a mirror. It can reflect nothing without vitiating it. He does not possess the power of passing a character through his mind and preserving its individuality. It goes in as Harold, or Duke William, or Lafranc, but it comes out as Sir E. Bulwer ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 3 September 1848 • Various
... and her mirror. Both were small, the room little more luxurious than the cell of a nun. But the roses hung over the window, the birds had built in the eaves, and over the wall the sun shone in. In one corner was an altar and a crucifix. If the walls were rough and white, ...
— Rezanov • Gertrude Atherton
... and of the word of warning from her father, her relations with Hubert continued to draw closer. For one thing, he had been the first to awaken in her the consciousness that she was lovable in herself, and the mirror that first tells that to a soul always has something of the glow of the ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson
... I found myself was long and narrow, dimly lighted by an oil lamp screwed fast into a blackened beam overhead. Along one side was the bare wall, unrelieved in its plain planking except for a small cracked mirror and a highly colored picture of the Virgin in a rude frame. Opposite, two berths were arranged one above the other, both partially concealed by a dingy red curtain extending from ceiling to floor. The only other furniture I noted in ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish
... ever been one of the most potential arms of race progress. It has been the means of throwing open to the race the columns of the great Anglo-Saxon newspapers hitherto closed against them. It has educated both races. It has been a mirror to reflect the advance made by the race from time to time. Like the Negro pulpit, it is far from being perfect. But its slow but steady progress constitutes the very best commentary on racial life, ...
— Sparkling Gems of Race Knowledge Worth Reading • Various
... halls. One of these halls opened into the great drawing-room on one side and a smaller reception room on the other, where callers were received. The stairs in this hall were of polished wood and were kept in a state of immaculate, mirror-like shininess by Jane, who took great pride in this ...
— Marjorie's Vacation • Carolyn Wells
... reminded her: it had the free flight of one of Ida's fine bridgings of space. With the sense of this was kindled for Maisie at the same time an inspiration. "Oh yes, I know everything!" and she became so radiant that her father, seeing it in the mirror, turned back to her and presently, on the sofa, had her at his knee again and was again particularly affecting. Maisie's inspiration instructed her, pressingly, that the more she should be able to say about mamma the less she would be called upon to speak of her step-parents. ...
— What Maisie Knew • Henry James
... in the ceiling, hung like a tent over it. The toilette-table was elaborately furnished. Between its twisted rosewood pillars, which were inlaid with pearl, in graceful device, swung an immense oval mirror, set in a frame of the same materials. Near it stood a small marble table, supported by an alabaster Psyche, around which were strewn perfumes, jewel-cases, and various costly articles for toilette uses. On each side of the mirror projected gas-burners ...
— May Brooke • Anna H. Dorsey
... sometimes a hill-top with its trees would look over the nearest hedgerow, just to make a middle distance for the sky; but that was all. The heaven was bare of clouds. The atmosphere, after the rain, was of enchanting purity. The river doubled among the hillocks, a shining strip of mirror glass; and the dip of the paddles set the flowers shaking ...
— An Inland Voyage • Robert Louis Stevenson
... hugely tall and walked with a stride which was as long as it was stately. He went in for dressing himself beautifully, strummed on the banjo, and had a playful little habit of arranging his tie in any mirror which he saw. His pride in himself was so monstrously open that no one with a grain of humour could be angry with him. He talked about every game under the sun as if they were all equally easy to him, ...
— Godfrey Marten, Undergraduate • Charles Turley
... American is essentially ambitious. He is wont to seek the shortest path to leadership, and, when blocked at one highway, to turn with undiminished ardor to another. And his ideal is a mirror of the age in which he lives. In revolutionary days he covets the glory of a minuteman, and in the deeds of Warren and Putnam finds the consummation of his hopes. Again, in the hour of civil war his eyes turn ...
— Prize Orations of the Intercollegiate Peace Association • Intercollegiate Peace Association
... of Rosaline. Might not some fairer and newer star have arisen to eclipse the image of the other? We will not credit the heresy. Far better that the curtain should fall upon the dying lovers, before one shadow of doubt or suspicion of infidelity has arisen to perplex the clear bright mirror ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 57, No. 352, February 1845 • Various
... streams of sweet, crystal-clear water; and when I awoke the sun was again rising above the horizon into a sky of fleckless blue reflected by an ocean of glassy calm unbroken by the faintest discoverable suggestion of a flaw of wind anywhere upon its mirror-like surface. My companions were also stirring; some of them contenting themselves by merely grasping the gunwale of the boat and so raising their bodies that they could look round them for a moment, and then sinking back with a moan of despair at the sight of the breathless calm ...
— The Log of a Privateersman • Harry Collingwood
... if you please," said the grave Elizabeth. And she led the way across the hall. The dining-room was a pleasant square room, with crimson curtains closely drawn. There was no cloth on the dark table, which shone like a mirror, reflecting the blaze of the candles in mellow points of light. At the head stood a shining silver tea-service and a Dresden chocolate-pot, surrounded by the prettiest cups and saucers that ever were seen; and a supper was laid out which seemed to have been specially planned ...
— Three Margarets • Laura E. Richards
... thee to thy rest! Man's breathing Miniature! thou mak'st me sigh— 15 A Babe art thou—and such a Thing am I! To anger rapid and as soon appeas'd, For trifles mourning and by trifles pleas'd, Break Friendship's mirror with a tetchy blow, Yet snatch what coals of fire on Pleasure's altar ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... Goldmark said the word—and presently escaped from Melky's embrace to look at herself and her necklace in the mirror. ...
— The Orange-Yellow Diamond • J. S. Fletcher
... door. Nine miles further down, by the help of a glass, he may view the flag-staff at the foot of the lake, and five miles further the East-end look-out, with its staff and watch-house. Herds of wild ponies dot the hills, and black duck and sheldrakes are heading their young broods on the mirror-like ponds. Seals innumerable are basking on the warm sands, or piled like ledges of rock along the shores. The Glascow's bow, the Maskonemet's stern, the East Boston's hulk, and the grinning ribs of the well-fastened Guide are spotting the sands, each ...
— Acadia - or, A Month with the Blue Noses • Frederic S. Cozzens
... it, the day after—a man, as he draws near middle age, begins to suspect every transient indisposition; to be careful of being caught in a shower, to shudder at sitting in wet shoes; he feels his pulse, he anxiously peruses his face in a mirror, he becomes critical as to the colour of his tongue. In early life illness is a luxury, and draws out toward the sufferer curious and delicious tendernesses, which are felt to be a full over-payment of pain and weakness; then there is the pleasant period of convalescence, when ...
— Dreamthorp - A Book of Essays Written in the Country • Alexander Smith
... at the end of his labors and satisfied with the result, presented a hand-mirror to ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas
... part of his life. Hence any one in whose possession it is can do him harm by injuring or destroying the photograph or picture, according to the method of reasoning already explained. The superstitions against looking in a mirror, especially after dark, or seeing one's reflection in water, are analogous cases. Here the reflection in the mirror or water is held to be the person himself, because savages do not understand the nature of the reflected image. It is the person himself, but has no corporeal substance; therefore ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India—Volume I (of IV) • R.V. Russell
... plumage of the birds seemed to have lost the bright gloss that rendered its colors so gorgeous in the sunlight. For, oh! the powers of his vision were almost completely absorbed in his mind; and that mind was a mirror wherein was now reflected with a painful vividness all the incidents of the ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... head as if it had been a hood [capellina]; it was all of gold, embroidered with stones of great value. They brought out an animal which she rode, the strangest that ever was seen. It had ears as large as two shields; a broad forehead which had but one eye, like a mirror; the openings of its nostrils were very large, but its nose was short and blunt. From its mouth turned up two tusks, each of them two palms long. Its color was yellow, and it had many violet spots upon ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 77, March, 1864 • Various
... press unwittingly sends forth many sorrows and diseases among the human family. It does this by giv- 197:1 ing names to diseases and by printing long descriptions which mirror images of disease distinctly in thought. A 197:3 new name for an ailment affects people like a Parisian name for a novel garment. Every one hastens to get it. A minutely described dis- 197:6 ease costs many a man his earthly days of comfort. What a price for human knowledge! ...
— Science and Health With Key to the Scriptures • Mary Baker Eddy
... bare ground fringed with wreckage, the little girl hurried home to assure herself that her mother and the big brothers had gotten into the storm-cellar, and that the blue mare was unhurt, and to gaze into the sitting-room mirror to see if her hair had turned white. Satisfied upon all points, she changed her clothes and started eastward on horseback, following the streaked road of the cyclone. As she traveled, she kept steadfastly on the lookout, and jogged along ...
— The Biography of a Prairie Girl • Eleanor Gates
... it because he knew that not many Americans ever bought the paper, and he feared that the hombre in charge might wonder why an American should pay a nickel for a copy of Las Nuevas. As it happened, the hombre in charge was looking into a mirror cunningly placed for the guarding of stock from pilferers, and he saw Starr steal the paper. Also he saw Starr slip a dime under a stack of magazines where it would be found later on. So he wondered a great deal ...
— Starr, of the Desert • B. M Bower
... knitting in her lap. This room that they shared, like the other rooms of the bungalow, was of light varnished wood and the floor was bare. The furniture was of the shabbiest, the simplest. The dressing-table, for instance, was a packing-case in a sprigged muslin petticoat, and the mirror above was very strange; it was as though a little piece of forked lightning was imprisoned in it. On the table there stood a jar of sea-pinks, pressed so tightly together they looked more like a velvet pincushion, and a special shell which Kezia had given her grandma for a pin-tray, and another ...
— The Garden Party • Katherine Mansfield
... one back to where the Angel stood before the mirror wrestling in a speaking silence with his tie. I had not been married long, but I had already learned that there are some moments in a man's life which are not for speech. He smiled at me in the glass to let ...
— At Home with the Jardines • Lilian Bell
... ability with which she had this day served us. Lady de Brantefield continued at intervals to bow her head while Mr. Montenero spoke, and to look at her watch, while Lady Anne, simpering, repeated, "Dear, how odd!" Then placing herself opposite to a large mirror, Lady Anne re-adjusted her dress. That settled, she had nothing to do but to recount her horrors over again. Her mother, lost in reverie, sat motionless. Berenice, meantime, while the messenger was away, made the most ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. IX - [Contents: Harrington; Thoughts on Bores; Ormond] • Maria Edgeworth
... across his shoulder, the sun glinting along its long, slender, blue barrel. Then he knelt down to drink, choosing a place where a current of the swift little brook had cut into the bank with a circular sweep, and had formed a pool of water as clear as the day, a forest mirror. ...
— The Riflemen of the Ohio - A Story of the Early Days along "The Beautiful River" • Joseph A. Altsheler
... except for the purpose of cleaning and dusting. But it may be presumed that it was a glory to her to have a room carpeted, with six horsehair chairs, and a round table, and a horsehair sofa, and an old mirror over the fireplace, and a piece of worsted-work done by her daughter and framed like a picture, hanging up on one of the walls. But there must have come from it, we should say, more of regret than of pleasure; for ...
— The Vicar of Bullhampton • Anthony Trollope
... washing away in the river the stains of the ooze, he first beheld the reflection of his own features in the clear mirror of the stream. He perceived that his skin, which had been so lately disfigured by foul blotches and frightful scales, so as to render him an object of abhorrance to his nearest and dearest friends, was now smooth, ...
— The Children's Portion • Various
... That was taking much interest in him assuredly. As, moreover, he had departed in triumph upon this medical expedition, so he returned triumphant by the reception of the King, which was imitated by all the Court. He remained only a few days, and then, his mirror telling sad tales, went away to Anet, to see if nose and teeth would come back to him with ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... enough in its arrangements, for Viola needed no cosmetics, no lotions, no manicure nor other evil inventions, was always a lovely object. On its pale rose covering lay her gold-backed brushes and comb, her gold hand-mirror with cupids playing on it, her little gold boxes of pins, and always vases of fresh geraniums, white and rose-pink. Out of the room at one side opened a smaller one, it was not used as a chapel nor yet as a dressing-room. We dressed together and took pleasure in so doing, as ...
— Five Nights • Victoria Cross
... had just finished dressing. He cast a parting glance at the large mirror which occupied an entire panel ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... as a young man of good family would wear, and an armourer brought him a morion and breast and back pieces of steel, handsomely inlaid with gold. When he was alone he attired himself in the quietest of his new suits, and looking at himself in the mirror burst into ...
— By Pike and Dyke: A Tale of the Rise of the Dutch Republic • G.A. Henty
... a ball for us to-night," Petticoat said, casually, as he powdered his nose in the recesses of his triplicate mirror. ...
— Ptomaine Street • Carolyn Wells
... There was a mirror over the sink, and she threw a glance into it. Very well; if he thought like that ...
— The Drums Of Jeopardy • Harold MacGrath
... have turned upon him and rent him for that speech. But it happened that she was in high good-humour that afternoon, and disposed to indulgence. She laughed, surveying herself in the small steel mirror that ...
— The Historical Nights Entertainment, Second Series • Rafael Sabatini
... go down stairs backwards after dark, and look into a mirror you held in your hand, and see something, I don't know what, but I'm going to try it. I'll try it just to know what I'd see, or to find out what would happen. He said something was sure, ...
— Princess Polly At Play • Amy Brooks
... been credited with meanings; but, in a given case, the psychologist must ask, how far does the accredited meaning represent the mere fancy of the interpreted and how far does it mirror actual conditions in the dreamer's mind. To seek aught beyond these is but idle divination. For of all dreams it is true, in the words of Ralph Waldo Emerson, "that the reason for them is always latent in the individual." "Things are ...
— The Journal of Abnormal Psychology - Volume 10
... pencil in one hand and a piece of rubber in another, did he show anything which in any way approached enthusiasm, and even then it was always the unmistakable enthusiasm born of dead things. Suddenly she laughed at herself in the little mirror, laughed softly but heartily. This was the guardian whom Fate had sent for her! ...
— The Tempting of Tavernake • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... this subject before, but it is so important that the reader must excuse repetition. There came an inevitable severance, an inevitable period of strife. The magic mirror of the soul, reflecting nature as heretofore in calm and simple grace, was suddenly cracked across. The new self-conscious man (not all at once but gradually) became alienated from his tribe. He lapsed into strife ...
— Pagan & Christian Creeds - Their Origin and Meaning • Edward Carpenter
... companion, and with that it was usual for him to be in the woods much of the time. He came back from his wanderings however as the day began to fall, and now sat on a stone outside the mill door, very busy. The little lake at his feet still and dark, with the side of the woody glen doubled in its mirror, and the sunlight in the tops of the trees reflected in golden glitter from the middle of the pool, was a picture to tempt the eye: but Rollo's eye, if it glanced, came back again. He was picking the feathers from a bird he had shot, and doing ...
— Wych Hazel • Susan and Anna Warner
... discovery had come, she was consumed with curiosity as to its effect upon the discoverer. At last she remembered to wash off the rouge and the messes necessary for stage-perspective. Her winsome face came back to her in the mirror, angelic by contrast, and while she was looking wonderingly at this mystic flashing mask of hers, there was a knock, and in another instant she was looking into the eyes burning unchanged under the white ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... gave exquisite peeps to the spectator as they wound out of the wood which here and there clothed its banks, occasionally dipping into the water. On the loft, attached to the glebe-house of the Protestant pastor of the parish, the eye rested upon a pond as smooth as a mirror, except where an occasional swan, as it floated onwards without any apparent effort, left here and there a slight quivering ripple behind it. Farther down, springing from between two clumps of trees, might be seen the span of a light ...
— Jane Sinclair; Or, The Fawn Of Springvale - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... room, a nurse arrives and brings me a great military coat, pantaloons, old shoes without heels, and a cap like a nightcap. I look at myself, thus grotesquely dressed, in my little mirror. Good Heavens, what a face and what an outfit! With my haggard eyes and my sallow complexion, with my hair cut short, and my nose with the bumps shining; with my long mouse-gray coat, my pants stained russet, my great hedless shoes, my colossal cotton cap, I am prodigiously ugly. ...
— Sac-Au-Dos - 1907 • Joris Karl Huysmans
... Elmo's fire,—burning at the end of the crossjack-yard. The yard lay square, and the polished sea beneath gave back the reflection so clearly that the mystic fire lay like a huge glow-worm on the black mirror. ...
— Stories by English Authors: The Sea • Various
... demanded the little beauty, contemptuously; "but I need not ask. You are like a bad mirror, which from radical ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter
... met face to face. Still, would he? The daring hope that he might not came to me in a flash. Might it not be possible to so disguise myself as to become unnoticeable? I sprang up to stare at my features in the small mirror hanging over the washstand. The face which confronted me in surprise was almost a strange one even to my eyes. Instead of the smart young soldier, smoothly shaven, with closely-trimmed hair, and rather carefully attired, as I had appeared on board the Warrior, ...
— The Devil's Own - A Romance of the Black Hawk War • Randall Parrish
... the voluminous lace draperies were almost overpowering. Satin lambrequins were festooned with colossal cord and tassels of bullion. A plate-glass mirror as wide as the mantel reflected the Florentine gilt carving of its own elaborate frame. There were bronzes on the mantel, and tall vases of Sevres, and statuettes of bisque brilliantly tinted. At the two sides of the mantel stood pedestals ...
— In the Footprints of the Padres • Charles Warren Stoddard
... how strangely you are looking at me, Atherton? Were my countenance a mirror I think you would be surprised to see ...
— The Beetle - A Mystery • Richard Marsh
... verb from which this noun is derived is often used in Scripture, both as referring to the heavens and in other connections. Thus in Job xxxvii. 18, the question is asked, "Canst thou with Him spread out the sky, which is strong as a molten mirror?" Eleazar, the priest, after the rebellion of Korah, Dathan and Abiram took the brazen censers of the rebels, and they were "made broad plates for a covering of the altar." The goldsmith described by Isaiah as making an idol, "spreadeth it over with gold"; whilst Jeremiah ...
— The Astronomy of the Bible - An Elementary Commentary on the Astronomical References - of Holy Scripture • E. Walter Maunder
... accident, to stretch themselves in the wayside dust without a reason? The answer to these questions was not in Chirk Street, but the questions themselves bristled there, and the girl's repeated pause before the mirror and the chimney-place might have represented her nearest approach to an escape from them. Was it not in fact the partial escape from this "worst" in which she was steeped to be able to make herself out again as agreeable to see? She stared into the tarnished glass too hard indeed ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume 1 of 2 • Henry James
... ashes—which testified to the pains taken to dispel humidity—filled the fireplace, whose marble mantlepiece supported a bust of Marie Antoinette in bisuit. Attached to the frame of the tarnished and discoloured mirror, two brass hooks, that had once doubtless served the ladies of old-fashioned days to hang their chatelaines on, seemed to offer a very opportune means of suspending my watch, which I took care to wind up beforehand; for, contrary to the opinion of the Thelemites, ...
— The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard • Anatole France
... and absently put the note in a little rack over the mantelpiece. Then, recollecting that a prying servant or landlady might misinterpret it, he transferred it to his pocket. After breakfast, having satisfied himself before the mirror that his dress was faultless, and his expression saintly, he went out and travelled by rail from Sloane Square to West Kensington, whence he walked to Laurel Grove. An elderly maid opened the gate. It was ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw
... of all castes had rallied to the Flag, and truly we had witnessed the truth of what the poet told us. 'The East is West and the West is East.'" Surrey Mirror. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, March 8, 1916 • Various
... yet heartily thankful that Colombo and I were still where we should be! Not that a short interval of tropical warmth would have been unwelcome that night, for although the cold was not so severe as it had been inland, I found on halting for breakfast that a mirror in a small bag under my pillow was coated with ...
— From Paris to New York by Land • Harry de Windt
... graciously to take off your clothes,' said the impostors, 'then we will put on the new clothes, here before the mirror.' ...
— The Yellow Fairy Book • Leonora Blanche Alleyne Lang
... end; it had been succeeded by light, variable airs from the south and south-east, carrying great banks of fog; and the anchorage, under lee of Skeleton Island, lay still and leaden as when first we entered it. The HISPANIOLA, in that unbroken mirror, was exactly portrayed from the truck to the waterline, the Jolly Roger ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson
... crisp skirt for clothes that would not rustle when she moved, and put herself neatly to rights, stripping off her rings and removing the dog-violets from her waist. Then she went to the round, old-fashioned mirror that hung between the windows of her room, and combed back her hair in a great roll from her forehead and temples, and stood there a moment or so when she had done, looking ...
— A Man's Woman • Frank Norris
... writings of Seneca. It is true that his style partakes of the defects of his age, that the brilliancy of his rhetoric does not always compensate for the defectiveness of his reasoning; that he resembles, not a mirror which clearly reflects the truth, but "a glass fantastically cut into a thousand spangles;" that side by side with great moral truths we sometimes find his worst errors, contradictions, and paradoxes; that his eloquent utterances about God often degenerate into a vague Pantheism; and ...
— Seekers after God • Frederic William Farrar
... into which our course next brought us, is a lovely sheet of water. In some places its banks are exceedingly picturesque, with beautiful headlands jutting out into the clear depths, where they, and the magnificent groups of trees which crown them, lie reflected as in a mirror. Now and then we would catch a glimpse of deer darting across the glades which at intervals opened through the woodlands, or a pair of sand-hill cranes would rise, slowly flapping their wings, and seek a place of more undisturbed repose. The flocks ...
— Wau-bun - The Early Day in the Northwest • Juliette Augusta Magill Kinzie
... all right. It isn't that, it's my face. Oh, I know I'm a hideous sight, Hardly a thing in place. Sort of gargoyle, you'd say. Nurse won't give me a glass, But I see the folks as they pass Shudder and turn away; Turn away in distress.... Mirror enough, I guess. I'm gay! You bet I am gay, But I wasn't a while ago. If you'd seen me even to-day, The darnedest picture of woe, With this Caliban mug of mine, So ravaged and raw and red, Turned to the wall—in fine Wishing that I was dead.... What has happened ...
— A Treasury of War Poetry - British and American Poems of the World War 1914-1917 • Edited, with Introduction and Notes, by George Herbert Clarke
... before them there was a flash of light. Jared Nye, on Drew's left, took off his hat and waved a wide-armed signal to answer Greyfeather's mirror. Two of the Pimas were scouting ahead on this two-day drive, and the Anglo riders were keeping the herd to a trot. Apaches, Kitchell, even bandidos from over the border, could be sniffing about the Range, eyeing its riches, ready to pick up anything left unprotected. The men ...
— Rebel Spurs • Andre Norton
... great thing to have a good glass to look in now and then and see yourself. They have had the mirror held ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... observed elsewhere,(183) in speaking of pronunciation, how masks came to continue so long upon the stage of the ancients; for certainly they could not be used, without considerably deadening the spirit of the action, which is principally expressed in the countenance, the seat and mirror of what passes in the soul. Does it not often happen, that the blood, according as it is put in motion by different passions, sometimes covers the face with a sudden and modest blush, sometimes enflames it with ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin
... long summer day crept slowly over. The sea, unbroken by foam or ripple, shone like a broad blue mirror, reflecting here and there some fleecy patches of snow-white cloud as they stood unmoved in the sky. The good ship rocked to and fro with a heavy and lumbering motion, the cordage rattled, the bulkheads creaked, the sails flapped lazily against ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... these dangerous heretics, who were punished like common criminals, mirror the innocence of their souls. They implored God to pardon all their sins, great and small; to grant good health to their cattle and their children. They thanked Him for all His mercies, prayed for the Tsar and all the Imperial ...
— Modern Saints and Seers • Jean Finot
... in time to see him sit up in bed with one of his shoes in his hand. Whiz! Before I could stop him he flung the shoe at the clock. I made a wild grab just as he did so, struck his arm, and disconcerted his aim. The shoe flew off sideways and smashed a mirror. Hartwick said several things. Then I got up and stopped the clock again. I dressed and went out for my walk, leaving Hartwick in bed, sleeping sweetly. When I came back I found him, about half dressed, jumping wildly up and down in the middle ...
— Frank Merriwell at Yale • Burt L. Standish
... exactly what I've been looking all over New York for! Now, isn't it too funny for anything that I should have found it right here the very minute I came in?" As Gabriella's face flashed back from the mirror the fashionable figure sprang suddenly to life, and the voice, ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow
... the situation of this town, it lieth just between the two worlds; and the first founder and builder of it, so far as by the best and most authentic records I can gather, was one Shaddai; and he built it for his own delight. He made it the mirror and glory of all that he made, even the top-piece, beyond anything else that he did in that country. Yea, so goodly a town was Mansoul when first built, that it is said by some, the gods, at the setting up thereof, came down to see it, and sang for joy. And as he made it goodly ...
— The Holy War • John Bunyan
... were at this time written on satin paper, and embellished with a quantity of ornamental work, painted in such gay and resplendent colors that the reader might behold his face reflected as if from a mirror. ...
— Forty Centuries of Ink • David N. Carvalho
... Sarah. She looked around. Near the bubbling brook, dark peaty hollows held little pools, which offered Nature's mirror for her toilet. ...
— Peter's Mother • Mrs. Henry De La Pasture
... news of the truants; but, one evening, Amarendra Babu was sitting in his parlour, spelling out a spicy leader in the Indian Mirror, when, to his unqualified amazement, Jogesh stepped in and unbidden took a seat. Amarendra Babu's first impulse was to shout for help and eject the intruder with every species of ignominy, but second ...
— Tales of Bengal • S. B. Banerjea
... as they approached, turned from a mirror, at which she was trying on a diamond crescent. Her face clouded at the sight of Count O'Halloran and Lord Colambre, and grew dark as hatred when she saw Sir James Brooke. She walked away to the farther end of the shop, and asked one of the ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. 6 • Maria Edgeworth
... she was seeing the old women of the slums—was seeing them as one sees in the magic mirror the vision of one's future self. And on the way home she said to herself, "It was a good thing that I was arrested today. It reminded me. It warned me. But for it, I might have gone on to make a fool ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... day more various, more ardent, more provoking to valor and every large design, even than "the spacious times of great Elizabeth," when all the world seemed new; and if we cannot find another bard, come out of a new Warwickshire, to hold once more the mirror up to nature, it will not be because the stage is not set for him. The time is such an one as he might rejoice to look upon; and if we would serve it as it should be served, we should seek to be human after his wide-eyed ...
— On Being Human • Woodrow Wilson
... she had heard at the sociable, and Mr. Murdoch groaned at times, but still he thanked her for her efforts. Meanwhile Mr. Black went to the engine-room with an errand for Jack that sent him over to the other side of the village. Jack looked in the little cracked mirror in the front room as he ...
— Crowded Out o' Crofield - or, The Boy who made his Way • William O. Stoddard
... seen "Mitred Halving," a somewhat weak joint, but necessary in mirror frames, etc., where good appearance is required on the face side (Fig. 28, 6). Its use is obvious if the face of the frame be moulded with beads or other sections which require to intersect one with the other. This also applies if the frame be moulded ...
— Woodwork Joints - How they are Set Out, How Made and Where Used. • William Fairham
... laughed. "You're under the delusion of a dream," she said. "Rub your eyes and look carefully! It's your reflection in the mirror." ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin |
