"Mother-of-pearl" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... at an ivory pianoforte on a mother-of-pearl music-stool, trying a sonata of Herz. She rose when thus apostrophized. Miriam de Mendoza ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray
... thou hast done me, O Hadji," he said, dismounted, "is in keeping with the acts of mercy to thy fellow-men with which I hear thou hast paved the road from El Katif as with mother-of-pearl." ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace
... imagination would never dare to suppose them to be mariners. Imagine a ship's crew, without a profile among them, in gauze pinafores and plaited hair; wearing stiff clogs a quarter of a foot thick in the sole; and lying at night in little scented boxes, like backgammon men or chess-pieces, or mother-of-pearl counters! But by Jove! even this is nothing to your surprise when you go down into the cabin. There you get into a torture of perplexity. As, what became of all those lanterns hanging to the roof when the Junk was out at sea? Whether they dangled there, banging and beating against each other, ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... Ambrose, and likewise a laborious bit of writing, which looked as if he were fast forgetting the art. It bade Ambrose inform his mother and all his friends and kin that he was well and coming to preferment, and inclosed for Aldonza a small mother-of-pearl cross blessed by the Pope. Giles added that he should bring her finer gifts by ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte M. Yonge
... embroidered cushions on the floor, round a small low table made of silver and mother-of-pearl. On this, each dish was placed separately; and all ate out of the same dish, after the Moorish fashion. The spoons were made of rosewood, tipped with amber, and the napkins were richly embroidered in gold, silver, and variously ...
— The Pirate City - An Algerine Tale • R.M. Ballantyne
... white-and-gold reception-room, with inhospitable chairs and settees whose satin slipperiness offered no inducements to sit down. There were gold-lacquered tables and a curious concert-grand piano, also gold inlaid with mother-of-pearl cupids and flowers. Everything was most elaborate. Gila, in her soft transparencies, looked like a wraith amid it all. The young man chose to think she was too rare and fine for ...
— The Witness • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... tarsia was more used for domestic furniture than for stationary decoration. The character of the design changed in consequence, and mother-of-pearl, ivory, tortoiseshell, silver, and other materials were used. The first Tuscan, or one of the first who did so was Andrea Massari of Siena. A few works in tarsia were still executed, but none of much importance. ...
— Intarsia and Marquetry • F. Hamilton Jackson
... tall hats, bright ties, dark coats, and white trowsers strapped tight under their boots, looked incongruous with the rest of the congregation, the most distinguished members of which were farmers in drab coats with huge mother-of-pearl buttons, and long gaiters buttoned up to their knees and strapped up to their gay waistcoats over their white corduroys. Their wives and daughters were in enormous bonnets, fluttering with ribbons; but then what my mother and Emily wore were no trifles. The rest of the congregation were— the ...
— Chantry House • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Lauteas, consisting both of strangers who have conquered the country, and natives who have embraced that religion. The inhabitants of Guzerat are very ingenious mechanics in works of silk, gold, ivory, mother-of-pearl, tortoise-shell, crystal, ebony, and other articles. They follow the rules of Pythagoras, killing no creature; but rather buy all, though even venomous, from those who take them, on purpose to set them free. They have even a set of men whose only employment is to go about ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VI - Early English Voyages Of Discovery To America • Robert Kerr
... beautiful indeed, but there were other things to catch the eye. At least a hundred hemispheres—little igloos of porcelain—were scattered about the floor of the cave. Each one was a different color. They shimmered and glittered. Scarlet, mauve, mother-of-pearl, the blue Capri, and the blue of cobalt. Pinks, yellows, oranges. Every possible shade had gone into those porcelain igloos. And the lighted walls of the cavern were covered from floor to ceiling with numberless figures, ...
— Hunters Out of Space • Joseph Everidge Kelleam
... pulled the tapestry back from the object. "Well, well. A .28 two-shot pocket gun. Gold-chased, beautifully engraved, mother-of-pearl handle. A regular gem." He picked it up and examined it closely. "One ...
— The Eyes Have It • Gordon Randall Garrett
... or in any of the ports on the way down, or in Patras itself. The green note to which I have been accustomed—which I have labored over all my life—is lacking, and a new palette takes its place—of mauve, violet, indescribable blues, and evanescent soap-bubble reds. The slopes of the hills are mother-of-pearl, their tops melting into cloud shadows so delicate in tone that you cannot distinguish where one leaves off ...
— The Parthenon By Way Of Papendrecht - 1909 • F. Hopkinson Smith
... for never did she feel in more delightful spirits than at this moment, when all her hopes for Caroline, as she thought, were realized; "and to complete 'the pleasing history,' no obstacle remained," she said, "but the Chinese mother-of-pearl curtain of etiquette to be withdrawn, by a dexterous, delicate hand, from between Shuey-Ping-Sin and her lover." Lady Jane, late as it was at night, took up a pen, to write a note to ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth
... as did also the lacquer industry. Vermilion lacquer was invented in the time of Temmu, and soon five different colours could be produced, while to the Nara artisans belongs the inception of lacquer strewn with makie. Lacquer inlaid with mother-of-pearl was another beautiful concept of the Nara epoch. A special tint of red was obtained with powdered coral, and gold and silver were freely used in leaf or in plates. As yet, history does not find any Japanese ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... you would capture him," says William Hamilton Gibson, "for he is off in a spangling streak of glitter. Nor is this golden sheen all the resource of the little insect; for in the space of a few seconds, as you hold him in your hand, he has become a milky, iridescent opal, and now mother-of-pearl, and finally crawls before you in a coat of dull orange." A dead beetle loses all this wonderful luster. Even on the morning-glory in our gardens we may sometimes find these jeweled mites, or their fork-tailed, black larvae, or the tiny chrysalids suspended by their tails, although it is the wild ...
— Wild Flowers, An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and - Their Insect Visitors - - Title: Nature's Garden • Neltje Blanchan
... herald raised his eyes as seeking approval of one far off; his wings stirred, and spread slowly and majestically, on their upper side white as snow, in the shadow vari-tinted, like mother-of-pearl; when they were expanded many cubits beyond his stature, he arose lightly, and, without effort, floated out of view, taking the light up with him. Long after he was gone, down from the sky fell the refrain in measure mellowed by distance, "Glory to ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace
... of an hour passed, when the carriage returned. The Fairy, who was waiting at the door of the house, took the poor puppet in her arms and carried him into a little room that was wainscoted with mother-of-pearl. She sent at once to summon the most famous doctors ...
— Pinocchio - The Tale of a Puppet • C. Collodi
... their inlaying, and invented that form known as pietra-dura—polished bits of marble, agates, pebbles and lapis lazuli. Ivory was carved and used as bas-reliefs and ivory and tortoise shell, brass and mother-of-pearl used as inlay. Elaborate Arabesque designs inlaid were souvenirs of the Orient, and where the cabinetmaker's saw left a line, the cuts were filled in with black wood or stained glue, which brought out ...
— The Art of Interior Decoration • Grace Wood
... stronger than any English line of the same thickness. Their fishing-nets, though coarse, answered their purpose. They were often eighty fathoms in length. Harpoons, made of cane, were used to catch fish, and fish-hooks of mother-of-pearl. One used for trawling had a white tuft of dog's or hog's hair attached to it, to look like the tail of a fish. The fishermen watched for the birds which always follow a shoal of bonetas, and seldom returned without a prize. Both sexes were expert swimmers, and would dash out ...
— Captain Cook - His Life, Voyages, and Discoveries • W.H.G. Kingston
... apartments, though not quite accordant in their style of ornament and comfort with our English ideas. The floor and roof were of rich and beautiful mosaics; the walls were adorned with the more memorable battles of the Sardinian nation; and the furniture was minutely and elaborately inlaid with mother-of-pearl. Three rooms more particularly attracted my attention. The first contained the throne of the kings of Savoy,—a gilded chair, under a crimson canopy, and surrounded by a gilt railing. I thought, as I gazed upon it, how often the power of that throne ...
— Pilgrimage from the Alps to the Tiber - Or The Influence of Romanism on Trade, Justice, and Knowledge • James Aitken Wylie
... the good old merchant, over whose shoulder we were peeping, while he read the newspaper. Let us now suppose him putting on his three-cornered gold-laced hat, grasping his cane, with a head inlaid of ebony and mother-of-pearl, and setting forth, through the crooked streets of Boston, on various errands, suggested by the advertisements of the day. Thus he communes with himself: I must be mindful, says he, to call at Captain Scut's, in Creek Lane, and examine his rich ...
— Old News - (From: "The Snow Image and Other Twice-Told Tales") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... as the gondolas glide along her watery ways. Here are no grim grey towers of defence, but fairy palaces of white and coloured marbles, which rise from the waters below as if they had been built by the sea nymphs, who had fashioned them of their own sea-shells and mother-of-pearl. ...
— Knights of Art - Stories of the Italian Painters • Amy Steedman
... expense. Beautiful designs are traced on the sword-blades, which also are unsurpassed for temper; their hilts and those of poniards are mounted with jewels; the stocks of rifles and pistols are inlaid with gold, silver, brass, and mother-of-pearl; while saddles and bridles are wrought with a profusion of nicely set stitches, with precious stones, and metals, besides being set off with toys ...
— Life of Schamyl - And Narrative of the Circassian War of Independence Against Russia • John Milton Mackie
... Government to protect them, but take refuge in the waterless sands), and drive sumptuous C-spring barouches, and buy beautiful girls and decorate their palaces with gold and ivory and Minton tiles and mother-of-pearl, I do not see why Jukes's tale should not be true. He is a Civil Engineer, with a head for plans and distances and things of that kind, and he certainly would not take the trouble to invent imaginary traps. He could earn more by ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... English dresses, all rouged, and all with bad teeth: which you notice instantly from their contrast to the almost animal, too glossy mother-of-pearl whiteness and the regularity of the teeth of the laughing, loud-talking country-women and servant-girls, who with their clean white stockings and with slippers without heel quarters, tripped along the dirty streets, as if they were secured by a charm from the dirt: with a lightness ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... in the Sea of our Lady, the Spaniards killed a quadruped resembling a badger, and in the sea they found considerable quantities of mother-of-pearl. Among other fish which they caught in their nets, was one resembling a swine, which was covered all over with a very hard skin except the tail, which was quite soft. In this sea among the islands, the tide was observed to rise and fall much more than in the other places where they had been ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. III. • Robert Kerr
... tobacco, turtles, hemp, artificial strings colored, chains, and such like things as at the instant they had about them. These are a fair-conditioned people. On all the sea-coast along we found mussel shells that in color did represent mother-of-pearl, but not having means to dredge, could not apprehend further knowledge thereof. This main is the goodliest continent that ever we saw, promising more by far than we any way did expect; for it is replenished with fair ...
— Great Epochs in American History, Vol. II - The Planting Of The First Colonies: 1562—1733 • Various
... "Their boats can't upset, Lal, and the waters are transparent, and shallow enough for them to fish up coloured shells, coral, and mother-of-pearl. There's a sunken treasure-ship half buried in the sands far upon the other side, Lal, ...
— The Tale of Lal - A Fantasy • Raymond Paton
... blue waters of the bay ran to meet a great stretch of absinthe green, the green joined a fairy sky of pink and gold and saffron. Islands of coral floated on the sea of absinthe, and derelict clouds of mother-of-pearl swung low above them, starting from nowhere and going nowhere, but drifting beautifully, like giant soap-bubbles of light and color. Where the lawn touched the waters of the bay the cocoanut-palms reached their crooked lengths far up into ...
— The Lion and the Unicorn and Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... semitransparency, translucency, semiopacity; opalescence, milkiness, pearliness^; gauze, muslin; film; mica, mother-of-pearl, nacre; mist &c (cloud) 353. [opalescent jewel] opal. turbidity &c 426.1. Adj. semitransparent, translucent, semipellucid^, semidiaphanous^, semiopacous^, semiopaque; opalescent, opaline^; pearly, milky; frosted, nacreous. V. opalesce. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... that produce cement, textiles, soap, olive-wood carvings, and mother-of-pearl souvenirs; the Israelis have established some small-scale, modern industries in the settlements ...
— The 1998 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... green," admitted Candace. "Some of them are so old that they have colors all over them like mother-of-pearl,—red and blue and yellow. I liked to see them; and she told us that last summer an architect who was going by the house stopped and looked at them a long time, and then rang the bell and offered to give her new sashes with great big panes in them if she would ...
— A Little Country Girl • Susan Coolidge
... day (at Manihiki of all places) I had the pleasure to meet Dodd. We sat some two hours in the neat little toy-like church, set with pews after the manner of Europe, and inlaid with mother-of-pearl in the style (I suppose) of the New Jerusalem. The natives, who are decidedly the most attractive inhabitants of this planet, crowded round us in the pew, and fawned upon and patted us; and here it was I put my questions, and Dodd ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... king's orders, Colonel Balby dressed and went to the pavilion. He did not find the king, but two strange men there. One of them had on a brown coat, the color of his own, ornamented with large buttons of mother-of-pearl; black pantaloons, and shoes with large buckles, set with dull white stones; the lace on his sleeves and vest was very coarse. He wore a three-cornered hat, without ornament; from under the hat ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach
... mere amateur—casually picked up a black-lip mother-of-pearl shell on an island some little distance away. It contained a blue pearl, the price of which gave him such a start in life, that he is now an owner of ships. May not other tides cast up on other shores other oysters whose lives ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... rooms were more like scenes of enchantment pencilled by a poet's fancy, than anything perhaps before displayed in a domestic habitation. Escritoires of ebony, inlaid with mother-of-pearl, and rich caskets for antique gems, exquisitely enamelled and adorned with onyx, opals, rubies, and emeralds; cabinets of ivory, curiously wrought; mosaic tables, set with jasper, blood-stone, and lapis-lazuli, their feet carved into the claws of lions and eagles; screens of old raised ...
— Women in the fine arts, from the Seventh Century B.C. to the Twentieth Century A.D. • Clara Erskine Clement
... article on which the English smoker prided himself. It was made of various materials—wood, bone, ivory, mother-of-pearl, and silver: and the forms which it assumed were exceedingly diversified. Out of a collection of upwards of thirty tobacco-stoppers of different ages, from 1688 to the present time, the following are the most ...
— Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce • E. R. Billings
... became aware of something unusual and strange at the opening of the tent. There was a soft, light step without, a guarded footfall. Then a tall, dark shadow distinctly appeared, with a glitter of mother-of-pearl ornaments and a waving of plumes. It stood there like a ghost of a vivid fancy, for a time. Gretchen's heart beat. It was not an unusual thing for an Indian to come to the tepee late in the evening; ...
— The Log School-House on the Columbia • Hezekiah Butterworth
... has a pearl-grey tint; while, at the zenith, purple clouds, like the tufts of a gigantic mane, stretch over the blue vault. These purple streaks grow browner; the patches of blue assume the paleness of mother-of-pearl. The bushes, the pebbles, the earth, now wear the hard colour of bronze, and through space floats a golden dust so fine that it is scarcely distinguishable from the vibrations ...
— The Temptation of St. Antony - or A Revelation of the Soul • Gustave Flaubert
... glue, put around the bow, and overlapped at the back. I also glue a small piece of leather on the left-hand side of the bow above the handle to prevent the arrow chafing the wood at this spot. This is called the arrow plate and usually is made of mother-of-pearl or bone; leather is better. These finishing pieces are wrapped temporarily with string ...
— Hunting with the Bow and Arrow • Saxton Pope
... little well, just big enough to wash in, the water of which was always springing fresh from the ground, and running away through the wall. Beside it lay the whitest of linen towels, with a comb made of mother-of-pearl, and a brush of fir-needles, any one of which she had been far too lazy to use. She dashed the glass out of the wise woman's hand, and there it lay, ...
— A Double Story • George MacDonald
... utilitarian view, and a new form of charm will sometimes become popular, just as a new sanctuary becomes popular, because it is reported to have been effective in some particular case. Probably no change of fashion will ever banish horns made of coral or mother-of-pearl; being pointed, they are supposed to attract and break up the evil glance as a lightning conductor is supposed to attract and break up a ...
— Diversions in Sicily • H. Festing Jones
... by distillation alone, many persons have supposed that it was engendered in the process. Recently, however, crystalline paraffine has been obtained from ozokerite by dissolving the latter in warm amyl alcohol; on cooling the greater part separates out in crystals having the luster of mother-of-pearl. By repetition of this process, a substance is obtained that is scarcely to be distinguished from the paraffine obtained by distillation. Apparently there exists then in ozokerite, together with paraffine, other substances not capable of crystallization ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 711, August 17, 1889 • Various
... temple were made of cedar, ivory, amber, and silver; the ceiling glistened with golden mosaics; the walls shone with polished marbles: and the capitals of the columns were laced with delicate carvings inset with mother-of-pearl, silver, and ...
— A Trip to the Orient - The Story of a Mediterranean Cruise • Robert Urie Jacob
... the gaze of the sun, Baroudi offered to Mrs. Armine an Egyptian dinner, or El-Ghada, served on a round tray of shining gold, which was set upon a low stool cased with tortoise-shell and ornamented with many small squares of mother-of-pearl. When she and Baroudi came into the room where they were to eat, the tray was already in its place, set out with white silk napkins, with rounds of yellow bread, and with limes cut into slices. The walls were hung with silks of shimmering ...
— Bella Donna - A Novel • Robert Hichens
... supposed we possessed fire-arms, and were therefore unwilling to approach nearer. They had just landed, we knew, from seeing two long, low canoes with high stems and sterns rudely carved and surmounted by plumes of feathers. A row of mother-of-pearl shells apparently ornamented each side of the gunwale. The men were armed with bows and arrows and huge clubs. Some of them also had spears in their hands, but we saw no guns among them. This was satisfactory. However, from their ...
— In the Eastern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... creamy stockings of silk, and shaggy slippers of rose leather with ruby buckles, completed his costume, and when he was thus attired the shaggy man looked at himself in a long mirror with great admiration. On a table he found a mother-of-pearl chest decorated with delicate silver vines and flowers of clustered rubies, and on the cover was a silver plate engraved with ...
— The Road to Oz • L. Frank Baum
... invented barbs for hooks, angling has been essentially one and the same thing. South Sea islanders spin for fish with a mother-of-pearl lure which is also a hook, and answers to our spoon. We have hooks of stone, and hooks of bone; and a bronze hook, found in Ireland, has the familiar Limerick bend. What Homer meant by making anglers throw 'the horn of an ox of the stall' ...
— Andrew Lang's Introduction to The Compleat Angler • Andrew Lang
... as milk, with a great white moon above the treetops. It made like mother-of-pearl the small grey house with pointed windows occupied, this December, by Stonewall Jackson. A clock in the hall was striking nine as Cleave lifted the knocker. An old negro came to the door. "Good-evening, Jim. Will you tell ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... on behalf of the village.... Each speaker finished by coming forward with one of the smaller things in his hand, which he offered personally to Louis, and then shook hands with us all and retired. Among these smaller presents were many fish-hooks for large fishing, laboriously carved from mother-of-pearl shell. One man came with one egg in each hand saying 'carry these to Scotland with you, let them hatch into cocks, and their song shall remind you of Tautira.' The schoolmaster, with a leaf-basket of rose apples, made his speech ...
— The Life of Robert Louis Stevenson for Boys and Girls • Jacqueline M. Overton
... several piles of sheep-skins round the tent, and by one of these three women were standing. Two of these were richly dressed in gowns of handsome striped materials. They wore head-dresses of silver work with beads of malachite and mother-of-pearl, and had heavy silver ornaments hanging on their breasts. Their hair fell down their backs in two thick braids. The other woman was evidently of inferior rank. All were leaning over a pile of skins covered with costly furs, on which a boy of seven or eight years old was lying. His father, ...
— Condemned as a Nihilist - A Story of Escape from Siberia • George Alfred Henty
... paper, stirred his large cup of coffee, and stared at the mother-of-pearl buttons on the waistcoat of the fat man, who was now gulping down soup, opposite him. "My land!" he was thinking, "friendship! I ain't even begun to make all those friends I was going to. Haven't done a thing. Oh, ...
— Our Mr. Wrenn - The Romantic Adventures of a Gentle Man • Sinclair Lewis
... callosity, wearing thicker and thicker, uglier and uglier; till no heart any longer can be felt beating through them, so thick, callous, calcified are they; and all over it has now grown mere calcified oyster-shell, or were it polished mother-of-pearl, inwards almost to the very heart of the poor man:—yes then, you may say, his usefulness once more is quite obstructed; once more, he cannot go abroad and do business in the world; it is time that he take to bed, and prepare for ...
— Past and Present - Thomas Carlyle's Collected Works, Vol. XIII. • Thomas Carlyle
... Black Bear took certain treasures that he gave to the four little Bunkers who visited his wikiup. He even sent some fresh-water mussel shells, polished like mother-of-pearl, to the absent Margy and Mun Bun, of whom Cowboy Jack ...
— Six Little Bunkers at Cowboy Jack's • Laura Lee Hope
... eye most was his trousseau. Say! he was dressed to the minute, from the pink in his buttonhole, to the mother-of-pearl gloves; and the back of his frock coat had an in-curve such as your forty-fat sisters dream about. Why, as far as lines went, he had Jimmy Hackett and Robert Mantell on the back shelf. Oh, he ...
— Shorty McCabe • Sewell Ford
... hundreds of lanterns; the illuminated pavilion, its whirling company of dancers seen under the uprolled walls; the night, with its strange contrast of a calm southern sky on the one hand pouring down its flood of moonlight, and in the north the great mother-of-pearl dome with its core of vibrant fire; the dance-music throbbing through the lindens; and all this growing out of the unwonted and curious life of the past few months, bore to me again that feeling of being yoked with some thaumaturge of wondrous power for ...
— Aladdin & Co. - A Romance of Yankee Magic • Herbert Quick
... cares and excitement of the day, she was half reclining on a sofa, in dressing-gown and slippers, her beautiful hair unbound and rippling over her shoulders, beside her a jewel-box of ebony inlaid with mother-of-pearl. ...
— Elsie's New Relations • Martha Finley
... presents, carpets, carved and inlaid mother-of-pearl boxes, cabinets, and some curious saddles, also gold-embroidered cushions and slippers. Some Arab horses were announced with great pomp from the Sultan's stables. I was rather interested in them, thought it would be amusing to drive ...
— My First Years As A Frenchwoman, 1876-1879 • Mary King Waddington
... merciless tearing of sleep from his soul wrought magic and transformed him into a glowing, jeweled specter. He sprouted toes and long legs; he rose and inflated his sleek emerald frog-form; his sides blazed forth a mother-of-pearl waist-coat—a myriad mosaics of pink and blue and salmon and mauve; and from nowhere if not from the very depths of his throat, there slowly rose twin globes,—great eyes,—which stood above the flatness of his head, as mosques above an oriental city. Gone were the neutralizing lids, and in their ...
— Edge of the Jungle • William Beebe
... creatures next to the Carrara (who was not there) was Mrs. Bunbury; so that with her I was in love till one o'clock, and then came home to bed. The Duchess of Queensberry had a round gown of rose-colour, with a man's cape, which, with the stomacher and sleeves, was all trimmed with mother-of-pearl earrings. This Pindaric gown was a sudden thought to surprise the Duke, with whom she had dined in another dress. Did you ever see ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various
... temples, where, beneath the slightest possible tint of amber, meandered an imperceptible network of blue veins; the mouth, fresh as a flower, ripe and ruddy as a fruit, slightly opened by a half smile, and illuminated by a gleam of mother-of-pearl; and above all, the eyes, whose glances, passing between a thick double fringe of black lashes, possessed an irresistible fascination. It was the Greek form with the Arab character: the style of beauty would have had something startling in a London or Paris drawing-room, but was perfectly ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, No. 382, October 1847 • Various
... of the more fragile substance, which would account for their destruction. In this case their ornamentation may have been either by carving or painting, the bosses and rosettes being perhaps in some cases of metal, mother-of-pearl, or ivory. Ornaments of this kind were discovered by hundreds at Nimrud in a chamber which contained arms of many descriptions. Quivers have in some cases a curious rounded head, which seems to have been a lid or cap used for covering the arrows. They have ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 2. (of 7): Assyria • George Rawlinson
... and then combed it out; and it was a mass of fluffy waves, gathered in bandeaux just above her ears. She had her mother's beautiful pearl earrings, that had come from France with the old French grandmother, and a handsome mother-of-pearl-topped ...
— A Little Girl of Long Ago • Amanda Millie Douglas
... or in art is like the iridescent hue of mother-of-pearl, which is intrinsic and necessary, being the result of the arrangement of the particles,—the flowering of the mechanism of the shell; or like the beauty of health which comes out of and reaches back again to the bones and the digestion. ...
— Birds and Poets • John Burroughs
... alter in dimension with the movements of the eye nor from the stimulus of light. On examining the eye by looking straight into it through the pupil, the anterior wall of the capsule appeared opaque in its whole extent, and of a color and luster like mother-of-pearl. On looking from the temporal side in an oblique direction into the pupil, there was visible in the anterior wall of the capsule a very small perpendicular cleft of about one line and a quarter ...
— The Mind of the Child, Part II • W. Preyer
... pavilion were placed many objects from the Royal, Museum, notably a large collection of ancient weapons, drums, cymbals, temple gongs, howdahs, some wonderful examples of mother-of-pearl work, hammered silver of antique designs, old lacquer, enormous elephant tusks, ancient theatrical costumes and properties, and portraits of Their Majesties the King and the Queen and His Royal Highness ...
— Final Report of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission • Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission
... be some time, though: it can't go on like this," he said, trying to give himself courage. He squared his chest, took out a cigarette, took two whiffs at it, flung it into a mother-of-pearl ashtray, and with rapid steps walked through the drawing room, and opened the other door into his ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... hung his head, and nervously fingered his mother-of-pearl cigarette-holder. After a moment's pause, Sarudine turned sharply round, and, jingling the keys loudly, opened the ...
— Sanine • Michael Artzibashef
... full moon; and the sea was mother-of-pearl. Almost every sound was hushed, for the air was but faintly stirring; and the town lay panting, waiting for the night to cool. Offshore lay the fruit steamer Andador, of the Vesuvius line, full-laden and scheduled to sail at six in the morning. There were no loiterers on ...
— Cabbages and Kings • O. Henry
... wanting to complete the whole, for in the old careless days Claire's garments had been purchased with a lavish hand, the only anxiety being to secure the most becoming specimen of its kind. There were long crinkly gloves, and a lace handkerchief, and a fan composed of curling feathers and mother-of-pearl sticks, and a dainty bag hanging by golden cords, and a cloak of the newest shape, composed of layers of different-tinted chiffons, which looked more like a cloud at sunset than a garment manufactured by human hands and ...
— The Independence of Claire • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... to be outdone by anybody, produced, from no one ever discovered where, a mother-of-pearl manicure set for the delight and mystification of the hero; and even Lazy Daisy went so far as to cut some red and yellow tissue-paper into squares under the delusion that some time, somehow, she would ...
— Old Lady Number 31 • Louise Forsslund
... for you were even then studying in the Ateneo. [44] I paid no attention, but amused myself by running after the needle-like dragon-flies and the butterflies with their rainbow colors and tints of mother-of-pearl as they swarmed about among the flowers. Sometimes I tried to surprise them with my hands or to catch the little fishes that slipped rapidly about amongst the moss and stones in the edge of the water. Once you disappeared ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... representations of sacred symbols and various other objects. The price paid for it was L1,000. There are also in the Museum some very rich chairs of modern Chinese work, in brown wood, probably teak, very elaborately inlaid with mother-of-pearl; they were ...
— Illustrated History of Furniture - From the Earliest to the Present Time • Frederick Litchfield
... a lamp to be rubbed, or a form of words to be spoken which will reverse the humdrum laws of Nature, call up unwilling spirits bound to incredible services, and change all this brown life of ours to scarlet and azure and mother-of-pearl. Little by little, even our children are losing this happy gift of believing the incredible, and that class of writing which seems to require less effort than any other, and to be a mere spinning ...
— Gossip in a Library • Edmund Gosse
... center of the valley was a great cluster of palaces that appeared to be built of crystal and silver and mother-of-pearl, and golden filigree-work. So dainty and beautiful were these fairy dwellings that Twinkle had no doubt for an instant but that she gazed upon fairyland. She could almost see, from the far mountain upon which she stood, the airy, gauze-winged ...
— Twinkle and Chubbins - Their Astonishing Adventures in Nature-Fairyland • L. Frank (Lyman Frank) Baum
... the d'Oylys—that apparently ill-matched pair. She drank a glass of champagne with the air of a connoisseur and finally, having displayed an excellent appetite, mounted a cigarette into a long thin mother-of-pearl holder, lighted it and sank with a sigh into the ...
— Who Cares? • Cosmo Hamilton
... notes of the bugle died away over the woods. Night was falling, and the sky faded slowly from mother-of-pearl to a leaden gray. We were alone. The chaplain gazed wistfully at the retreating figures, his face seemed suddenly shrunken, and I could see that he was very old. He took my arm and leaned heavily upon it. "I have been in the Army ...
— Leaves from a Field Note-Book • J. H. Morgan
... recalled the former heroine of the dainty suppers after the play, the Crenmitz of the good old days, not an audacious hussy after the style of our modern operatic stars, but entirely unaffected and nestling contentedly in her splendor like a fine pearl in its mother-of-pearl shell. Felicia, who was certainly determined to be agreeable to everybody that evening, led her thoughts to the chapter of reminiscences, made her describe once more her triumphs in Giselle and in the Peri, and the ovations from the audience, the visit of the princes to her dressing-room, ...
— The Nabob, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... this result the Japanese, who originated the present commercial product, but who probably borrowed the original idea from the Chinese, call to their assistance the pearl oyster itself. The oysters are gently opened, small hemispherical discs of mother-of-pearl are introduced between shell and mantle and the oyster replanted. The foreign material is coated by the oyster with true pearly layers as usual, and after several years a sufficiently thick accumulation of pearly layers ...
— A Text-Book of Precious Stones for Jewelers and the Gem-Loving Public • Frank Bertram Wade
... stone, wipe dry, wash, and polish with a little bath brick or sapolio. Clean carving knives and forks in the same way, going around the joinings with a rag-covered skewer. Spots can be removed from ivory handles with tripoli mixed with sweet oil; from mother-of-pearl with sifted whiting and alcohol, which is washed off and followed with a polishing with dry whiting and a flannel cloth. Cover rusted knife blades with sweet oil, rub in well, and leave for forty-eight hours, then rub with slaked lime. Britannia, pewter, and block ...
— The Complete Home • Various
... formerly ruled by a line of powerful princes as an independent fief, but now subject to a Dutch Governor, has become the capital of Celebes, and occupies an important commercial position. The wharves are filled with bales of copra, mother-of-pearl shells, plumage of native birds, dried fish, bundles of rattan, and precious woods from the primeval forests of the interior. The boom of the fisherman's drum echoes across the water in constant reverberations, a secularised relic of the religious ...
— Through the Malay Archipelago • Emily Richings
... the sea is white And mother-of-pearl in morning light, Quite lovely, but there is a glare That daunts me. Now the willow chair Suggests a more perplexing sea, Till my heart aches with memory And parrots dye the air around, And I forget ...
— ANTHOLOGY OF MASSACHUSETTS POETS • WILLIAM STANLEY BRAITHWAITE
... Bohemian horns, jewelled clasps, jade studs, enamels, grotesque figures in china, and a little Byzantine virgin with a vermilion ape; and all this was mingled in a golden twilight with the bluish shade of the carpet, the mother-of-pearl reflections of the foot-stools, and the tawny hue of the walls covered with maroon leather. In the corners, on little pedestals, there were bronze vases containing clusters of flowers, which made the ...
— Sentimental Education, Volume II - The History of a Young Man • Gustave Flaubert
... air of distrustful inscrutability. The hand which took my letter was very large, very white, and looked as if it would feel horribly flabby. With the other he put on his nose a pair of enormous mother-of-pearl-framed spectacles—things exactly like those of a cobra's—and began to read. He had said precisely nothing at all. It was for him and what he represented that I had thrown over Carlos and what he represented. I felt ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... clogs be despised? Much art has been expended on clogs. They have been made of lovely woods, and delicately inlaid with ivory, and with mother-of-pearl. A clog might be a dream of beauty, and, if not too high or too heavy, most comfortable also. But if there be any who do not like clogs, let them try some adaptation of the trouser of the Turkish lady, which is loose round the limb and tight ...
— Miscellanies • Oscar Wilde
... and offered his arm. On reaching Ada, she lightly touched her on the shoulder, white as mother-of-pearl, with her fan, and when the lady, somewhat surprised, turned, Frau von Jagerfeld, smiling pleasantly, said: "My dear child, let me present to you our best friend, Dr. Bergmann. I must devote myself to the rest of my ...
— How Women Love - (Soul Analysis) • Max Simon Nordau
... a few days of inevitable sadness a little later when its million petals fell and made a delicate carpet of snow on the ground. There they lay in a kind of fairy ring, as if there had been a shower of mother-of-pearl in the April night; and no human creature would have dared set a vandal foot on that magic circle, and mar the perfection of its beauty. All the same the Plum Tree had lost its petals, and that was hard to bear at first. But though ...
— Robinetta • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... Islands constitute a little civilized kingdom, tributary to China. There are thirty-six of them. The capital is Kinching. These isles were discovered by the Chinese many hundred years ago. Their products are sulphur, copper, tin, shells, and mother-of-pearl. The inhabitants vie with the Japanese in the manufacture of lacquered ware. Loo-choo itself is one of the most delightful places in the world, with a temperate climate and great fertility. All animal creation here is of a diminutive size, but all excellent in their kind. ...
— The World of Waters - A Peaceful Progress o'er the Unpathed Sea • Mrs. David Osborne
... by the window through which the shimmering lake shone in the sunset like rosy mother-of-pearl. Far up the mountain sounded the faint tinkling of goat-bells, and the clear, sweet yodelling of a peasant, on his homeward way. At intervals, the deep tolling of the bell of St. Oswald floated ...
— The Story of the Red Cross as told to The Little Colonel • Annie Fellows-Johnston
... correctly put together, while Gluck stood contemplating him in speechless amazement. He was dressed in a stashed doublet of spun gold, so fine in its texture, that the prismatic colours gleamed over it, as if on a surface of mother-of-pearl; and, over this brilliant doublet, his hair and beard fell full halfway to the ground, in waving curls, so exquisitely delicate that Gluck could hardly tell where they ended; they seemed to melt into air. The features of the face, however, were by no means finished with the same delicacy; ...
— Famous Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... margin compared with that of other makers. This will be found in nearly every genuine specimen. Unfortunately nuts wear out and become replaced with new ones, so that it is not always possible to obtain a bow that is original in all its parts. Dodd occasionally decorated the face of his bows with mother-of-pearl, as in the example shown in Fig. 31. He invariably stamped the name DODD in large, plain letters both on the side of the nut and on the stick. I have seen some that are stamped J. Dodd, but not many. Fig. 32 shows (actual size) a very early Dodd head, than which nothing, I think, could be more ...
— The Bow, Its History, Manufacture and Use - 'The Strad' Library, No. III. • Henry Saint-George
... No. 2," I said, "I am using splinters of mother-of-pearl. Last week, with No. 1, I used a steel ring hanging by its rim to a shred of linen, two safeties, and a hairpin found on ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Nov. 14, 1917 • Various
... high-shouldered young fellow, with a round red face, a short crop of sandy hair, a very broad humorous mouth, a turned-up nose, and a great sleeved waistcoat of purple bars, with mother-of-pearl buttons, that seemed to be growing upon him, and to be in a fair way—if it were not pruned—of covering his head and overrunning ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... the aid of her teeth drew out the stem. Into her palm rolled a circular button of some opaque reddish-brown substance, resembling tortoise shell, and enamelled with gilt bunches of grapes, and inlaid leaves of mother-of-pearl. Across the top, embossed in gilt letters ran the ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... prospect of dinner. Mrs. Percival travelled in the hope of meeting her American acquaintance, or of making acquaintance with such Americans as she did meet, and for the purpose of buying mementos for her relations. She was perpetually adding to her store of articles in tortoise-shell, in mother-of-pearl, in olive-wood, in ivory, in filigree, in tartan lacquer, in mosaic; and she had a collection of Roman scarfs and Venetian beads, which she looked over exhaustively every night before she went to bed. Her conversation bore mainly upon the manner in which she intended to dispose of these accumulations. ...
— Georgina's Reasons • Henry James
... stables, and his stud of sea-horses; but they are seldom made use of, except upon public feasts or rejoicing days. Some, after they have trained them, take delight in riding them, and show their skill and dexterity in races; others put them to chariots of mother-of-pearl, adorned with an infinite number of shells of all sorts, of the brightest colours. These chariots are open; and in the middle there is a throne upon which the king sits, and shows himself to his subjects. The horses are trained up to draw by themselves; so that there is ...
— Fairy Tales From The Arabian Nights • E. Dixon
... about the mocking mouth; a short chin, carried proudly, covered with a grizzled pointed beard; sea-green eyes that age might seem to have dimmed were it not for the contrast between the iris and the surrounding mother-of-pearl tints, so that it seemed as if under the stress of anger or enthusiasm there would be a magnetic power to quell or kindle in their glances. The face was withered beyond wont by the fatigue of years, yet it ...
— The Unknown Masterpiece - 1845 • Honore De Balzac
... canoe that came had five men on board. Girdles of beautifully plaited cocoa-nut fibre round their waists were their only clothing, but some had wreaths of flowers and green leaves round their heads, and most of them wore mother-of-pearl shells, beads, &c., round their necks and in their ears. They do not tattoo, but brand their skins. All five came, and presently three more, and then another; but seeing a large double canoe with perhaps twenty men ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... under glass plates cut to fit the shapes, occasional spots of a beautiful orange colour, like a marble used in inlays at S. Vitale, a very dark blue, almost black, a pale yellow-green, and a pale purple like chocolate powder. The white is generally mother-of-pearl, or marble, veined with a pale grey, and a good deal of Oriental alabaster is used. The panel above the simple bishop's throne has a hill, with a golden cross on a green ground diapered with mother-of-pearl, and with tall panels at the sides with the seven golden candlesticks. On ...
— The Shores of the Adriatic - The Austrian Side, The Kuestenlande, Istria, and Dalmatia • F. Hamilton Jackson
... double overcoat; but he had lost his colour, and he no sooner reached the deck than he lurched and sat down with a thud. Since no one helped him to rise, he remained seated, and gazed about him with a drugged and vacuous stare, while the light of the approaching sunset shimmered over his mother-of-pearl buttons. ...
— Merry-Garden and Other Stories • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... of light from the planets, so depthless the shadows, that the forest around him seemed but a vast mosaic in mother-of-pearl and ebony. ...
— In Secret • Robert W. Chambers
... pictures of the Hindu god Ganesh. It is intensely interesting to see the place just as it was hundreds of years ago. In the great Mosque Quadrangle there is a marble mausoleum, delicately carved, a priceless piece of work in mother-of-pearl, erected to Akbar's high priest; and our guide was his lineal descendant, glad to get five rupees ...
— Olivia in India • O. Douglas
... crept up a river of mother-of-pearl in the gauzy dawn to this island sanctuary. The Deacon met us, amazed at our number, and led us to the silver gray house just beyond theirs on a little, lifting hill, where "Angerleek" will ...
— Jane Journeys On • Ruth Comfort Mitchell
... in this part of the world. They have all one story, with a ground-floor; the upper part, generally occupied by the family, is surrounded by a wide gallery, opened or shut by means of large sliding panels, the panes of which are thin mother-of-pearl. The mother-of-pearl permits the passage of light to the apartments, and excludes the heat of the sun. In the military town are all the monasteries and convents, the archbishopric, the courts of justice, the custom-house, the hospital, the governor's palace, and the citadel, which overlooks ...
— Adventures in the Philippine Islands • Paul P. de La Gironiere
... coat were shiny, the sleeves were short, there was a pucker across the shoulders; the winged-collar gave evidence of having gone to the native laundry once too often; the studs in the shirt-bosom were of the cheapest mother-of-pearl, and the cuff-buttons, ordinary rupee silver. The ensemble suggested that since the purchase of these habiliments of civilization the man had ...
— Parrot & Co. • Harold MacGrath
... his pigtail. He stands bowing before us and shaking hands with himself, which, as a method of greeting, is perhaps better than our own way. He takes us into a dark gloomy room full of cabinets of black lacquer richly decorated with gold and mother-of-pearl. There are sombre carved wood chairs set back against the wall. It is all very costly, but to us it seems uncomfortable and funereal. The chief things that attract us are rows of little red pieces of paper of odd lengths hanging over strings from the ceiling, as if they were ...
— Round the Wonderful World • G. E. Mitton
... sexes is darker than that of the Tushepaws. In dress they resemble that nation, being fond of displaying their ornaments. The buffaloe or elk-skin robe decorated with beads, sea-shells, chiefly mother-of-pearl, attached to an otter-skin collar and hung in the hair, which falls in front in two queues; feathers, paints of different kinds, principally white, green, and light blue, all of which they find in their own country: these are the chief ornaments ...
— History of the Expedition under the Command of Captains Lewis and Clark, Vol. I. • Meriwether Lewis and William Clark
... journey beneath the lofty pines over holy ground, I saw a hedge of roses. The turtle-dove flew among the branches of the tall trees, and as the sunbeams fell upon her wings, they glistened as if they were mother-of-pearl. On the rose-bush grew a flower, more beautiful than them all, and to her the nightingale sung of his woes; but the rose remained silent, not even a dewdrop lay like a tear of sympathy on her leaves. At last she bowed her head over a heap of stones, and said, "Here rests the greatest ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... not how many Irish miles an hour. The Frenchman put on a silk macintosh with a cape, and was berated by everybody in the same seat because he stood up a moment and let the water in under the lap covers. His umbrella was a dainty en-tout-cas with a mother-of-pearl handle, that had answered well enough in heavy mist or soft drizzle. His hat of fine straw was tied with a neat cord to his buttonhole; but although that precaution insured its ultimate safety, it did not ...
— Penelope's Irish Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... Miss Lydia, naturally very inquisitive, and as slow as every Englishwoman is about undressing herself, moved over to the table, pretended she was looking for a pin, lifted up the mezzaro, and saw a long stiletto—curiously mounted in silver and mother-of-pearl. The workmanship was remarkably fine. It was an ancient weapon, and just the sort of one an amateur ...
— Columba • Prosper Merimee
... multitude of large books in gilt bindings suggested the active and methodical development of a young mind, which surely had dreams of Paradise on that lace and satin bed which covered a bedstead inlaid with mother-of-pearl. On all the furniture: small arm-chairs, tables, screens, which reminded one of butterfly-wings, mother-of-pearl rainbow-tints passed into milk-white. Spring tones, joyous motives, light and graceful forms, filled the room of that little daughter of a millionnaire with an atmosphere ...
— The Argonauts • Eliza Orzeszko (AKA Orzeszkowa)
... recognise no Redouza here: but the stair was fairly clear, and I soon came to one of those boudoirs which sweetly recall the deep-buried inner seclusion and dim sanctity of the Eastern home: a door encrusted with mother-of-pearl, sculptured ceiling, candles clustered in tulips and roses of opal, a brazen brasero, and, all in disarray, the silken chemise, the long winter-cafetan doubled with furs, costly cabinets, sachets of aromas, babooshes, ...
— The Purple Cloud • M.P. Shiel
... mother, with golden hair that waved naturally, and was amazingly long and thick. Her skin had the lustre of mother-of-pearl. She was visibly the offspring of a true marriage, of a pure and noble love in its prime. There was a passionate vitality in her countenance, a brilliancy of feature, a full fount of youth, a fresh vigor and abundance of health, which radiated ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac
... circular divan in the centre of the polished terrazza floor. She wasn't really tired in the least, the indefatigable old sight-seer; but a respite from picture-gazing would enable her to turn the talk. She put up her mother-of-pearl lorgnon, and glanced round the walls; then, lowering it, she frankly raised her eyes, full of curiosity and ...
— My Friend Prospero • Henry Harland
... from the Carolines.] In Guiuan I was visited by some Micronesians, who for the last fourteen days had been engaged at Sulangan on the small neck of land south-east from Guiuan, in diving for pearl mussels (mother-of-pearl), having undertaken the dangerous journey for the ...
— The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes • Fedor Jagor; Tomas de Comyn; Chas. Wilkes; Rudolf Virchow.
... presumed to be overpowering, when every other shop is devoted to scented bottles—the intervening ones, containing perfumed head-dresses, formed of braids of ribands and gold lace, which descend to the ground. A warehouse of Turkish tables exhibited the luxurious ingenuity of the workers in mother-of-pearl. They were richly wrought in gold and silver ornaments. Within seven miles of Cairo, there still exists a wonder of the old time, which must have made a great figure in the Arab legends—a petrified forest lying in the desert, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 57, No. 352, February 1845 • Various
... river's surface seems to be convex) and to our right the country is flat, and in the green woods are the overgrown ruins of the once splendid city of Ava. Certainly, of my most pleasant recollections, this wide landscape, and all its light tints of mother-of-pearl, will remain ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch
... has been used with pleasing effect to exhibit the various forms of shells. The process of making pearl buttons and numerous articles made of mother-of-pearl add largely to the charms of ...
— Library Work with Children • Alice I. Hazeltine
... the greatest attraction. When she entered the store, she already had her heart fixed upon the peculiar little tan jacket with large mother-of-pearl buttons which was all the rage that fall. Still she delighted to convince herself that there was nothing she would like better. She went about among the glass cases and racks where these things were displayed, and satisfied herself that the one she thought of was the proper one. ...
— Sister Carrie • Theodore Dreiser
... instruction to a less advanced class herself. For this purpose she habited herself in a peculiarly becoming dress of white linen, which reached to her feet and had full flowing sleeves like a surplice. It was girdled with a silver cord with long tassels, and had mother-of-pearl buttons and a hood at the back lined with white satin which came over her head. Below its hem as she sat and taught in a really rather advanced posture showed the toes of her white morocco slippers, and she called it her "Teacher's Robe." The class which she taught consisted of ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... of the present day; Romans, distinguishable among the others for a certain dash that artists call flafla; Spanish wreaths in bold relief; Flemings and Germans with quaint figures, tortoise-shell frames inlaid with copper and brass and mother-of-pearl and ivory; frames of ebony and boxwood in the styles of Louis Treize, Louis Quatorze, Louis Quinze, and Louis Seize—in short, it was a unique collection of the finest models. Pons, luckier than the art museums of Dresden ...
— Cousin Pons • Honore de Balzac
... Tom believed there was no time like the present, for he slid his right hand under the left lapel of his coat, and when he brought it away there was a large single-action Colt's revolver in it—a massive weapon upon the mother-of-pearl handle plates of which were carved two steers' heads. Those steers' heads Tom had removed from a gun belonging to a famous bad man, suddenly deceased, and there was a story that went ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... ship; and nothing in her cargo, for a cargo she carries. She has just arrived from a trading voyage to the South Sea Isles, extending to the Indian Archipelago, whence her lading—a varied assortment, consisting of tortoise-shell, spices, mother-of-pearl, Manilla cigars, and such other commodities as may be collected among the Oriental islands. Hence also the myas monkeys—better known as orang-outangs—seen playing about her deck. These she ...
— The Flag of Distress - A Story of the South Sea • Mayne Reid
... by one single quality," said the Minister, playing with his gold and mother-of-pearl dessert knife. "To wit: the power of always being master of himself; of profiting more or less, under all circumstances, by every event, however fortuitous; in short, of having within himself a cold and disinterested other self, who looks on as a spectator at all the changes of life, ...
— Another Study of Woman • Honore de Balzac
... phenomena of gratings must be attributed, too, the colors, often so brilliant, to be seen in mother-of-pearl. This substance is of a laminated structure; so much so, that in carving it the different folds are often cut in such a way as to form a regular net-work upon the surface. It is, again, to a phenomenon ...
— Young Folks' Library, Volume XI (of 20) - Wonders of Earth, Sea and Sky • Various
... of mother-of-pearl, bone, or wood, pointed and barbed with small bones or tortoise-shell. They are of various sizes and forms, but the most common are about two or three inches long, and made in the shape of a small fish, which serves as ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 17 • Robert Kerr
... chiefly metaphysical, of this pair. The scheme is too remote from our days and ways. These young persons were make-believe, after all, and while they sonorously declaimed their passion—hers for a speedy death, his for the new life—under a canopy with mother-of-pearl lining (Reinhardt, too, can be very Teutonic), I didn't believe in them, and, I fear, neither did Strauss. He has written sparkling music, Offenbachian music, rainbow music and music sheerly humouristic, yet the entire ...
— Ivory Apes and Peacocks • James Huneker
... hour the coach was back. The Fairy, who was waiting at the door of the house, lifted the poor little Marionette in her arms, took him to a dainty room with mother-of-pearl walls, put him to bed, and sent immediately for the most famous doctors of the neighborhood to ...
— The Adventures of Pinocchio • C. Collodi—Pseudonym of Carlo Lorenzini
... geometrical designs—yet each separate piece plays well its part in working out the harmonious and decidedly pretty effect of the whole. All the furniture the large apartment boasts is a crimson-and-gold divan or two, a few strips of rich carpet, and an ebony stand-table, inlaid with mother-of-pearl; but suspended from the ceiling are several magnificent cut-glass chandeliers. At night, when these Persian mirrored rooms are lit up, they present a scene of barbaric splendor well calculated to delight the eye of the sumptuous Oriental; every tiny square of glass ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... hung about with the most beautiful silken curtains and tapestries, and on the floor were spread rugs and carpets and cushions of Oriental magnificence. Tiny tables, inlaid with ivory and mother-of-pearl, were scattered about, on which were caskets filled with beautiful jewels and rare ...
— The Mysterious Shin Shira • George Edward Farrow
... Paul could just distinguish the scent of it, and then he noticed the lady's hands. Yes, they at least were faultless; he could not cavil at them; slender and white, with that transparent whiteness like mother-of-pearl. And what pink nails! And how polished! Isabella's hands—but he refused to ...
— Three Weeks • Elinor Glyn
... midst of this enclosure, there stood a throne of mother-of-pearl, borne aloft on two pillars, under cover of a high tent or pavilion, the pole of which was headed by a golden knob, the roof being of cloth of gold, and the ground covered by carpets. When the king came near, several noblemen were admitted, together ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume IX. • Robert Kerr
... dressing; everything that she put on seemed an adornment to her. She delighted in the rosy reflections of her skin, in her pretty light dress of a pinkish white material, in her broad sash of pink silk fastened behind with a buckle of mother-of-pearl, in her straw hat trimmed with bright pink ribbons on top and yellow-pink velvet on ...
— The Created Legend • Feodor Sologub
... different kinds of money, and stacks of different kinds of plates. There was a beautiful picture of a little girl washing a dog, which Jane liked very much. And in the middle of the window there was a dirty silver tray full of mother-of-pearl card counters, old seals, paste buckles, snuff-boxes, and all sorts of little dingy ...
— The Story of the Amulet • E. Nesbit |
