"Motley" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... stand, they are at least, in one important aspect, only a kind of annex to the public school system, as I shall shortly point out to you. For the moment, let us consider, together, what to my mind constitutes the very hopeful struggle of the two possibilities: either that the motley and evasive spirit of public schools which has hitherto been fostered, will completely vanish, or that it will have to be completely purified and rejuvenated. And in order that I may not shock you with general propositions, ...
— On the Future of our Educational Institutions • Friedrich Nietzsche
... miscellaneous curiosity of six or seven hundred minds devotes a full hour to the purpose. These questions are presumed to relate solely to musical topics, and the custom was instituted for the relief of timid yet earnest inquirers. A motley crew, however, frequently avail themselves of the masquerade privilege to steal in uninvited. Cecilia illustrates these fantastic ramifications of the young idea for the benefit of friends in the interior. She jots down some of these questions and ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, October, 1880 • Various
... President did not consult the Senator about the formation of his Cabinet. The breach was gradually widened, and thorough it the Senator finally became completely estranged from his old friend and associate in the Senate, Secretary Fish. When Mr. Motley was removed from the English mission, Mr. Sumner insisted upon regarding it as a personal insult, which he sought to repay by opposition to the acquisition of San Domingo. General Grant endeavored to appease the offended Senator, and on the evening of ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... our eyes discover as we walk along on Market street. Such a medley—infinite, incongruous, comical, pathetic, motley and sublime. ...
— Vignettes of San Francisco • Almira Bailey
... is a hound!—a craven cur, that licks the hand that lashed him!—a poor court fool that thinks it joy enough to carry his bauble, and marvel at his motley coat and his silvered buttons! That he should be ...
— The White Lady of Hazelwood - A Tale of the Fourteenth Century • Emily Sarah Holt
... for these people would give you no rest, would observe no rules of war, and were desperately earnest in their desire by hook or by crook to do you an injury. I began to realise how odious was our task as I looked upon the motley but ferocious groups who were gathered round the watch-fires in the garden of the Convent of the Madonna. It was not for us soldiers to think about politics, but from the beginning there always seemed to be a curse upon ...
— The Adventures of Gerard • Arthur Conan Doyle
... sickened as he contemplated the motley mass of humanity that presented itself with such eagerness for the attainment of so degrading an office; and as he listened to their vulgar boastings and brutal language, he blushed to think that such men were ...
— The Garies and Their Friends • Frank J. Webb
... into the saloon. His five feet eleven inches and one hundred and eighty pounds were more noticeable there, and it was part of his plan to attract attention to himself. No one, however, appeared to notice him. The pool-players were noisily intent on their game, the same crowd of motley-robed Mexicans hung over the reeking bar. Gale's roving glance soon fixed upon the man he took to be Rojas. He recognized the huge, high-peaked, black sombrero with its ornamented band. The Mexican's face was turned aside. He was in earnest, ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey
... come!' said Beletski, without the least surprise. 'But isn't it a pretty picture?' he added, pointing to the motley crowds. ...
— The Cossacks • Leo Tolstoy
... sweet Dawn on brighter fields afar Has walked among the daisies, and has breathed The glory of the mountain winds, and sheathed The stubborn sword of Night's last-shining star. In Bathrolaire when Day's old doors unbar The motley mask, fantastically wreathed, Pass through a strong portcullis brazen teethed, And enter glowing mines of cinnabar. Stupendous prisons shut them out from day, Gratings and caves and rayless catacombs, And the unrelenting rack and tourniquet Grind death in cells where jetting gaslight ...
— Forty-Two Poems • James Elroy Flecker
... authority, which, as subsequent events and later researches have shown, was the real intention in issuing the passport. Entirely unsuspecting any ulterior motive, however, in a few days after his arrival he convoked a motley gathering of Filipinos of all grades of the population, for he seems to have been only slightly acquainted among his own people and not at all versed in the mazy Walpurgis dance of Philippine politics, and laid before it the constitution for a Liga Filipina (Philippine League), an organization ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... Garden, he had come upon a sculptor's shop, oddly crowded in among Cockney carters and decaying vegetables. Faces of Greece and Rome gazed at him suddenly from a broad window, and for a few moments he forsook the motley beauty of modern London for the ordered ...
— The Worshipper of the Image • Richard Le Gallienne
... the plenteous supply of drink and free feeding;[1] and partly impelled by their savage fury against the "Hirish" or the "Fenians,"—suddenly become convertible terms with English writers and speakers—a motley mass of several thousands, mainly belonging to the most degraded of the population, were enrolled. All the streets in the neighbourhood of the prison were closed against public traffic, were occupied by police or "specials," and were crossed at close intervals by ponderous wooden barriers. ...
— The Dock and the Scaffold • Unknown
... motley crew was this first German party landed at Melbourne. I fear they were not all vinedressers. But the difficulty was to get them to describe themselves as such, even when they were so. This was almost as hard upon them as for an Indian Brahmin to write himself down a low-caste Hindoo. Upon any pretence ...
— Personal Recollections of Early Melbourne & Victoria • William Westgarth
... Cal!" cried Eddring, suddenly. "Open the gates! Let 'em out! I want to hear 'em holler!" The pack poured out, motley, vociferous, eager for the chase, filling the air with their wild music, with a riot of primeval, savage life. "Get me a horse saddled, Cal, quick," cried Eddring. "I want to feel leather under me again. I want to feel the air in my ears. I've got to ride, ...
— The Law of the Land • Emerson Hough
... Commandant Eloff, their leader, were then being marched through the town to the Masonic Hall, followed by a large crowd of jeering and delighted natives. Two of the nurses and myself ran over to look at them, and I never saw a more motley crew. In the dim light of a few oil-lamps they represented many nationalities, the greater part laughing, joking, and even singing, the burghers holding themselves somewhat aloof, but the whole community ...
— South African Memories - Social, Warlike & Sporting From Diaries Written At The Time • Lady Sarah Wilson
... recollection. At our feet flowed the Vire under its old stone bridge. On the middle of the bridge lay the figure of Shrove Tuesday on a litter of leaves, surrounded by scores of maskers dancing, singing, and carrying torches. Some of them in their motley costumes ran along the parapet like fiends. The rest, worn out with their revels, sat on the posts and dozed. Soon the dancing stopped, and some of the troop, seizing a torch, set fire to the effigy, after which they ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... an absorbing play in which a man loses the world but remains captain of his soul; actually he ends his life rather than exhibit himself as motley to the multitude. As a foil for the idealist Hetman—who is a sort of inverted Nietzsche; also a self-portrait in part of the dramatist—there is the self-seeking scamp Launhart who succeeds with the very ...
— Ivory Apes and Peacocks • James Huneker
... woods! thou motley fool! Who shall thy gay buffoonery describe? Thine ever-ready notes of ridicule Pursue thy fellows still with jest and gibe. Wit—sophist—songster—Yorick of thy tribe, Thou sportive satirist of Nature's school, To thee the palm of scoffing we ascribe, Arch scoffer, and mad Abbot ...
— Birds and Poets • John Burroughs
... hesitated before enlisting them. They were a mosaic of whites and blacks, men and boys, their clothes tatters, their equipments burlesques on military array, their horses—for they were all mounted—parodies on the noble war-charger. At the head of this motley array was a small-sized, thin-faced, modest-looking man, his uniform superior to that of his men, but no model of neatness, yet with a flashing spirit in his eye that admonished the amused soldiers not to laugh at his men in his presence. Behind his back they laughed ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 1 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... in what he knew at once to be the garb of a jester. A tall scarlet velvet cap, with three peaks, bound with gold braid, and each surmounted with a little gilded bell, crowned his head, a small crimson ridge to indicate the cock's comb running along the front. His jerkin and hose were of motley, the left arm and right leg being blue, their opposites, orange tawny, while the nether stocks and shoes were in like manner black and scarlet counterchanged. And yet, somehow, whether from the way of wearing it, or from the effect of the gold embroidery meandering over all, ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... men generally took the form of half-lengths with the simplest backgrounds. His subjects were of all kinds—Tennyson and Browning, Rossetti and Burne-Jones, Gladstone, Mill, Motley, Joachim, Thiers, and Anthony Panizzi.[34] His object was a national one, and the foreigners admitted to the company were usually closely connected with England. Sometimes the pose of the body and the hands helps the conception, as in Lord Lytton and Cardinal ...
— Victorian Worthies - Sixteen Biographies • George Henry Blore
... near enough to deliver the legs of mutton which had been ordered; the lumbering coal-carts 'still stopped the way.' A crowd—the easiest curiosity in the world to collect—soon gathered round the motley mob of butchers, bakers, candlestick-makers, and makers and sellers of everything else that mortal can want; the mob thronged the pavement, the carts filled the road, and soon the carriages of the noble of the ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 2 • Grace & Philip Wharton
... new regiments came a motley mixture of veterans of volunteer organizations, newly released slaves, and some freedmen of several years' standing but without military experience. They were eager to learn, and soon showed the same traits which distinguish the black regiments to-day,—loyalty ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various
... A motley company have here performed their parts: Savages of the mound-building age, rearing upon these banks curious earthworks for archaeologists of the nineteenth century to puzzle over; Iroquois war-parties, silently swooping upon sleeping villages of the ...
— Afloat on the Ohio - An Historical Pilgrimage of a Thousand Miles in a Skiff, from Redstone to Cairo • Reuben Gold Thwaites
... came back again, this time as king, with a motley army of mercenaries gathered to crush the two brothers De Lacy, who for the moment dominated all Ireland—the one, Hugo, being Earl of Ulster, and Viceroy; the other, Walter, Lord of ...
— The Story Of Ireland • Emily Lawless
... were found to be but a momentary protection, for I think in the first mile the last one went overboard, all having their covers burnt off from the frames, when a general melee took place among the deck passengers, each whipping his neighbour to put out the fire. They presented a very motley appearance on arriving at the first station." Here, "a short stop was made, and a successful experiment tried to remedy the unpleasant jerks. A plan was soon hit upon and put into execution. The three links in ...
— Railway Adventures and Anecdotes - extending over more than fifty years • Various
... of my brave dragoons. This was a most popular movement—the men, the very horses, evidently rejoiced. The fatigue of our hard riding was past in a moment—the riders laughed and sang, the chargers snorted and pranced; and, when we trotted, huzzaing, into the baggage lines, half their motley crowd evidently conceived that some sovereign prince was come in fiery haste to make the campaign. We were received with all the applause that is given by the suttler to all arrivals with a full purse ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 55, No. 340, February, 1844 • Various
... a bigoted or militant type; heresy had been wide-spread there since the thirteenth century, and the inhabitants had not the horror of it that was felt in some more orthodox countries. [Footnote: Motley, Rise of the ...
— European Background Of American History - (Vol. I of The American Nation: A History) • Edward Potts Cheyney
... pressed the knight's hand, caressed Bevis, who received his kindness graciously, and went home to dreams of happiness, which were realized, as far as this motley world permits, within ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... our party, who were younger and lighter of foot than we sober married folks, ran on before; so that when the blanket, that served the purpose of a door, was unfastened, we found a motley group of the dark skins and the pale faces reposing on the blankets and skins that were spread round the walls of ...
— The Backwoods of Canada • Catharine Parr Traill
... 'The motley crew, in vessels new, With Satan for their guide, sir, Pack'd up in bags, or wooden kegs, Come driving down ...
— The Old Bell Of Independence; Or, Philadelphia In 1776 • Henry C. Watson
... Quixote the "poetry of comedy," "the age of gold in self-mockery,"—pays a more reserved tribute to Calderon, ventures on the assertion that Cortes was "as great as Alexander," and gives a sketch, so graphic that it might serve as a text for Motley's great work, of the way in which the decayed Iberian chivalry, rotten through with the Inquisition, broke itself on the Dutch dykes. After a brief outline of the rise of the German power, which had three avatars—the overwhelming of Rome, the Swiss resistance to ...
— Thomas Carlyle - Biography • John Nichol
... that thing which is least, why take ye thought for the rest?" I got my worsted and sat down stairs at my work, to be ready to see the doctor when he should come. Mrs. Sandford took post at the window; and so we waited. The weather to-day was clear and bright; the street full yet of motley groups, returned soldiers and gathered civilians, looking however far less dismal than the day before. Mrs. Sandford from the window detailed all she saw; while my worsted needle went in and out to an interrupted refrain ...
— Daisy in the Field • Elizabeth Wetherell
... but how about practice? I am exasperated! there is the simple fact. And is it not enough? What a scene I have just witnessed! A motley crew of thousands of low people of all colors parading the streets with flags, torches, music, and all other accompaniments, shouting, screaming, exulting over the fall of Port Hudson and Vicksburg. The ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson
... unsubstantial in fact, but in appearance brilliant and pompous, had failed in his undertaking, and exposed himself to ridicule: but now, when he was going to commence the war a second time, taught by experience he concentrated his powers in a real and effectual preparation. Rejecting those motley numbers and many-tongued threats of the barbarians, and arms ornamented with gold and precious stones, which he considered to be the spoils of the victors, and to give no strength to those who possess ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume II • Aubrey Stewart & George Long
... sermon. For the clerical virus was strong in Emerson, and it was not for nothing that he was descended from eight generations of preachers. His concern was primarily with religion and ethics, not with the tragedy and comedy of personal lives, this motley face of things, das bunte Menschenleben. Anecdotes and testimonies abound to illustrate this. See him on his travels in Europe, least picturesque of tourists, hastening with almost comic precipitation past galleries, ...
— Four Americans - Roosevelt, Hawthorne, Emerson, Whitman • Henry A. Beers
... lightning-quick intelligence and heavy heart, and these are the Hamlet qualities which were not brought into prominence in the youthful Romeo. Passages taken at haphazard will suffice to establish my contention. "Motley's the only wear," says Jaques, as if longing to assume the cap and bells, and Hamlet plays the fool's part with ...
— The Man Shakespeare • Frank Harris
... the seals might charge 'em in a herd, bein' angered by the loss of their mates. In this way they pretty well cleared out the cave—all but one great beauty that old Leggo had sworn to take alive. For, instead of bein' yellow or motley-brown like the rest, this fellow was white as milk all over, besides bein' powerful as any other two. He seemed to know from the first that the three men didn't mean to shoot him. The lanterns and the firing never hurried him a bit, and he never threw himself into a rage over the ...
— Major Vigoureux • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... the coast, and on we went, steaming, smoking, and splashing, after the most orthodox fashion of fire-boats in general. I had now time and opportunity to look around me. Every available spot of the deck and paddle-boxes of the small, flat-bottomed iron steamer, was crowded with as motley a set of passengers as ever sailed since the days of Captain Noah. Sepoys returning from furlough to join their regiments; lascars, or enlisted workmen belonging to the different civil branches of the army; and camp-followers in all their varieties, were everywhere ...
— Chambers' Edinburgh Journal - Volume XVII., No 423, New Series. February 7th, 1852 • Various
... with its echoes. The Russian general came rushing from the north upon the right flank of our expiring column, and he brought back with him the winter which had quitted us at the same time with Kutusoff. The news of his threatening march accelerated our steps, and our motley array of from forty to fifty thousand men, women, and children hurried through the forest as rapidly as their weakness and the slipperiness of the ground, from the frost ...
— The Two Great Retreats of History • George Grote
... However, after I left the room the Duke arrived, and said the King [Footnote: The Duke of Clarence now became William IV] intended to appear in uniform, so the Duke, Lord Bathurst, Rosslyn, and Sir J. Murray, who were there, put on their uniforms. The group at the Council was most motley. Lords Grey, Lansdowne, Spencer, Tankerville, Sir J. Warrender, and some others being in black full dress. Lord Camden and some more in uniform, which several sent for after they arrived, as Salisbury and Hardinge. The mass, however, in plain black, some in ...
— A Political Diary 1828-1830, Volume II • Edward Law (Lord Ellenborough)
... of the vestibule, and the brilliantly lighted theatre flashed its colours and splendours upon them. The floor of the pit had been levelled to that of the stage, which, stripped of the scenic apparatus, opened vaster spaces for the motley crew already eddying over it in the waltz. The boxes, tier over tier, blazed with the light of candelabra which added their sparkle to ...
— Indian Summer • William D. Howells
... text and authorities by which the Papal Church defends its doctrine of Purgatory. That entailed a long and, no doubt, erudite reply, which lasted not only through the rest of the dinner, but till Mrs. Motley, edified by the discourse, and delighted to notice the undeviating attention which Darrell paid to her distinguished spouse, took advantage of the first full stop, and retired. Fairthorn finished his bottle of port, and, far from convinced that there was no Purgatory, but inclined to advance ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... lackeys, with smoking dishes and, full jugs, passed and repassed continually, although it was long past midnight. On entering the hall, they found Sir Randal at the head of a vast table, surrounded by a fiercer and more motley collection of individuals than had congregated there even in the time of Sir Rollo. The lord of the castle had signified that "it was his royal pleasure to be drunk," and the gentlemen of his train had obsequiously followed their master. Mercurius was delighted ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... group of dirty, disreputable-looking buildings containing the saloons, gambling houses and dance halls. He had little need of a guide, for, before the shabbiest and most disreputable of the entire lot, was gathered a motley crowd, gazing with awestruck curiosity at the building in which had been enacted the tragedy of the night before. It was a saloon with gambling rooms in the rear. Here Morgan had played his last game,—just to see what luck he would have,—as ...
— The Award of Justice - Told in the Rockies • A. Maynard Barbour
... parties, while La Rousseil, recently converted, howled a hymn, Durtal, sitting in a corner having a quiet smoke, had been struck by the physiognomy and bearing of Des Hermies, who stood out sharply from the motley throng of defrocked priests and grubby poets packed into Chantelouve's library ...
— La-bas • J. K. Huysmans
... Kirk that nursed, The Brownists and the ranters' crew; Foul error's motley vesture first Was oaded (98) in a northern blue; And what's th' enthusiastick breed, Or men of Knipperdolin's creed, But Cov'nanters ...
— Cavalier Songs and Ballads of England from 1642 to 1684 • Charles Mackay
... velvet plumage gay, With many an amorous dame, Fierce strutted o'er the way; And motley ducks Were waddling seen, And drake with neck Of ...
— Cottage Poems • Patrick Bronte
... also a tragedy, was first published under the title of The Discontented Colonel, in 1639, as a satire on the Scottish insurgents. The Goblins, a comedy in five acts, is enlivened by the presence of a motley crew of devils, clowns, wenches, and fiddlers; and an unfinished piece, entitled The Sad One, may also be classed as a tragedy, as it opens briskly with a 'murder within' in the very first scene, which undoubtedly ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2 No 4, October, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... with their motley crews of Negroes and Indians, the vultures soaring overhead or walking lazily on the beach, and the crowds of swallows on the churches and housetops, all served to occupy our attention till the custom-house officers visited us, and we were allowed to go on shore. Para contains about ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume 19 - Travel and Adventure • Various
... an unused room in the village hotel there began to accumulate a motley collection—a clock, a marble-topped table, a cradle, a patchwork quilt, a bureau, a hair wreath, a chair worn with age and use. And as this collection grew in size and fame, only that family which could not add to it counted itself abused and unfortunate, so great ...
— Across the Years • Eleanor H. Porter
... with the motley throng, my ears alert for any spoken opinions. I had seen the flying-belt thrown from the machine and the stoppage of the engine. I wanted now to learn something of the hot breath of the people who had set it in motion eleven months and ten ...
— The Underdog • F. Hopkinson Smith
... with thy motley coat, That from thy vaulted, wiry dungeon singest, Like thee I am a captive, and, like thee, I have ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... pressings, and rubbings; The varying madness of the crew, The anthill's ravings bring to view; But thou shalt see all this express'd, As though 'twere in a magic chest. Write these things down for folks on earth, In hopes they may to wit give birth."— Then she a window open'd wide, And show'd a motley crowd outside, All kinds of beings 'neath the sky, As in his writings one ...
— The Poems of Goethe • Goethe
... honour; but we were not ashamed. Weak if we were and foolish, not thus we failed, not thus; When that black Baal blocked the heavens he had no hymns from us. Children we were—our forts of sand were even as weak as we, High as they went we piled them up to break that bitter sea. Fools as we were in motley, all jangling and absurd, When all church bells were silent our cap and bells ...
— Poems • G.K. Chesterton
... certain. She counted the days that must elapse before he would return from Opar and discover what had transpired during his absence. After that it would be but a short time before he had surrounded the Arab stronghold and punished the motley crew of wrongdoers who ...
— Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... Sinnett move mysteriously in the performance of their wonders; and the wealthy tourist from America, the botanist from Berlin, and the casual peer from Great Britain, are not wanting to complete the motley crowd. There are no roads in Simla proper where it is possible to drive, excepting one narrow way, reserved when I was there, and probably still set apart, for the exclusive delectation of the Viceroy. Every one rides—man, woman, and child; and every variety ...
— Mr. Isaacs • F. Marion Crawford
... two horribly-ugly, black-faced pugs, underneath the driving seat of his vehicle; and you may generally hear his approach, when distant more than a mile, through the chirping, and squeaking, and squalling, of his motley cargo. ...
— She and I, Volume 1 • John Conroy Hutcheson
... various tobacco stores close, and their thousand of employees turn out into the streets. They form a motley yet effective feature among the wayfarers. The Malay girls are usually very pretty, with languishing eyes, shaded by long lashes, and supple figures, whose graceful lines are revealed by their thin clothing. In fine weather their bare feet ...
— The Boys of '98 • James Otis
... was full. It was a motley crowd, as all classes of Winsted were represented. The would-be Smart Set in rather elaborate hats and gowns, mingled with the quieter Three R's, and their own maid servants and the "gentlemen friends" ...
— The Wide Awake Girls in Winsted • Katharine Ellis Barrett
... a fine creature!" thought the captain. "I don't mind how much I see of her—but as to the rest of this motley herd, my mother is quite right in not letting the girls have anything to do with them. I suppose I put my foot in it bringing them here to-night. Well, that can't be helped now. I hope Miss Beatrice will soon come back. Her eyes flashed when I said even a word against those terrible little friends ...
— The Honorable Miss - A Story of an Old-Fashioned Town • L. T. Meade
... gentle, superstitious, ignorant race, devoutly subject to their priests and trained to the letter of their religious rites, came in from the mountains and the neighboring villages in numbers but rarely seen in the city: a motley throng—yet no shepherd among them was too poor to wear the boot of dark-green leather reaching to the knee—the bodine roughly fashioned and tough enough to protect them from the bites of the serpents ...
— The Royal Pawn of Venice - A Romance of Cyprus • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... noted so many times before, the motley appearance of the army, but with involuntary motion he began to straighten and smooth his own shabby uniform. He was about to enter the presence of a woman and he was young and so ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... They run to escape the fearful storm. They leave arms, ammunition, tents, blankets, trunks, clothes, books, letters, papers, pictures,—everything. They pour out of the intrenchments into the road leading to Dover, a motley rabble. A small steamboat lies in the creek above the fort. Some rush on board and steam up river with the utmost speed. Others, in their haste and fear, plunge into the creek and sink to rise no more. All fly except a brave little band in ...
— My Days and Nights on the Battle-Field • Charles Carleton Coffin
... Holy Ghost, he goes his way Wisdom his motley, Truth his loving jest; The mills of Satan keep his lance in play, Pity and innocence his ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... custodian, "and 'is lordship does not entertain, unless it be the new fool 'is lordship sent down 'ere to-day, who has been mopin' and moonin' in the corridors, as is ever the way of these wittol creatures when they are not heeded. He was 'ere in a rare motley of his own choosing, with which he thinks to raise a laugh, a moment ago. Ye see him not—not 'avin' the gift that belongs by right to my dread office. 'Tis a weird privilege I have—and may not be imparted ...
— Colonel Starbottle's Client and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... sixty, all told; of whom, however, Jack Keene, midshipman, and Tasker, the gunner's mate—who in his new ship held the rank of gunner—were the only individuals with whom I had already been shipmate; the rest were a motley crowd indeed, collected out of the gutters and slums of Freetown. The Dolphin, it was arranged, was to act in the first instance as tender to the Eros; but, later, might perhaps be detached for certain special work which was just then beginning to attract ...
— A Middy of the Slave Squadron - A West African Story • Harry Collingwood
... perhaps, never held a more motley crowd of revelers than on the night of the Famous Fiction masquerade. The faculty, who had been particularly interested in the idea of the masquerade, declared that for originality it was in line ...
— Grace Harlowe's Fourth Year at Overton College • Jessie Graham Flower
... with the crowd who waited on the human hyena to be cured of their hurts. It was a motley crowd that filled the dreaded pro-consul's ante-chamber—men, women and children—all of them too much preoccupied with their own troubles to bestow more than a cursory glance on the stranger who, wrapped in a dark mantle, quietly awaited ...
— The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... way of seeing Venice: but I would much rather sit at a little table on the Riva degli Schiavoni, with a plate of bread and cheese and a mezzo of Chianti before me, watching the motley crowd in the street and the many-coloured sails in the harbour; or spend a lazy afternoon in a gondola, floating through watery alley-ways that lead nowhere, and under the facades of beautiful palaces whose names I did not ...
— Days Off - And Other Digressions • Henry Van Dyke
... a start and an exclamation of amaze. Seated at the table within the recess, his chin resting on his hand, and his face cast down in abstracted revery, was a young man. So still was his attitude, so calmly mournful the expression of his face, so estranged did he seem from all the motley but brilliant assemblage which circled around the solitude he had made for himself, that he might well have been deemed one of those visitants from another world whose secrets the intruder had wished to learn. Of that intruder's presence he was evidently unconscious. Recovering ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... wandering disposition, romantic characters many of them, resembling the rovers and adventurers in the Caribbean or representing some of the many activities prevalent in England at the beginning of the seventeenth century. Thomas Weston, former ally of the Pilgrims, settled with a motley crew of rude fellows at Wessagusset (Quincy) and there established a trading post in 1622. Of this settlement, which came to an untimely end after causing the Pilgrims a great deal of trouble, only ...
— The Fathers of New England - A Chronicle of the Puritan Commonwealths • Charles M. Andrews
... sweat-streaked, motley-dressed homeseekers would straggle up to this end of the long trail. Their thoughts went back to their old homes, or to the loved ones that they had laid away tenderly in the shifting sands of the Plains. Most of them ...
— Ox-Team Days on the Oregon Trail • Ezra Meeker
... the clown had, at first, pretended to join in the pursuit of the nimble runaways, but only pretended. Then he suddenly perceived that they were growing breathless and had almost fallen beneath the feet of a mighty Norman horse. The man beneath his motley uniform rose to the emergency. Catching the bridle of a near-by pony, he flung the monkey from its back, scooped the babies up from the ground, set them in the monkey's place and, mounting behind them, triumphantly ...
— Dorothy's House Party • Evelyn Raymond
... Among all these unfamiliar sights and sounds I ranged disconsolate, awed by the vast concourse, deafened by the universal uproar, and not a little disgusted by the coarse humour and rough horse-play of this truly motley throng. ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol
... just such cravings, impossible of realization, and therefore all the more tantalizing. She had been a year in the wilderness, and the wilderness had not only lost its glamour, but had become a thing to flee from. Even the rude motley of Hazleton was a welcome change. Here at least—on a minor scale, to be sure—was that which she craved, and to which she had been accustomed—life, stir, human activity, the very antithesis of the lonely mountain fastnesses. She bestowed ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... gangway, and when presently it was raised to the side of the steamer, he still kept his position, so that he could instantly catch sight of his father as he passed down. I stood close behind him, and watched the motley procession of passengers; most of them had the dull colourless skin which bespeaks long residence in India, and a particularly yellow and peevish-looking old man was grumbling loudly as he slowly made his ...
— Derrick Vaughan—Novelist • Edna Lyall
... Sepulchre gazed down upon the city of my longing eyes with silent emotion and prayer. Every Christian bared his head; every Moslem and Jew saluted. We rode towards the Jaffa Gate, outside of which were stalls of horses and donkeys, and a motley crowd, including lines of hideous-looking lepers. I went to the Damascus Hotel, a comfortable and very quiet hostel, with no tourists or trippers, of which I was glad, for I had come on a devotional ...
— The Romance of Isabel Lady Burton Volume II • Isabel Lady Burton & W. H. Wilkins
... clear enough line. Two such examples in real life as Rousseau and Mademoiselle de Lespinasse, one such demonstration of the same moral in fiction as Werther, were enough to discourage the man of feeling. Therefore, when he still exists, he takes to motley, the only wear for the human race in troublesome circumstances which beset it with unpleasant recurrence. When you cannot exactly believe anything in religion, in politics, in literature, in art, and yet neither wish nor know how to do without it, the safe way is to ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... its origin in a laicising of the irreverent celebration of the Feast of Fools, or in that parade of fools which sometimes preceded a Mystery, it was essentially a farce, but a farce in which the performers, arrayed in motley, and wearing the long-eared cap, distributed between them the several roles of human folly. Associations of sots, known in Paris as Enfants sans Souci, known in other cities by other names, presented the unwisdom or madness of the world ...
— A History of French Literature - Short Histories of the Literatures of the World: II. • Edward Dowden
... London, this morning; now, I knowing of this hunting-match, or rather conspiracy, and to insinuate with my young master (for so must we that are blue waiters, and men of hope and service do, or perhaps we may wear motley at the year's end, and who wears motley, you know), have got me afore in this disguise, determining here to lie in ambuscado, and intercept him in the mid-way. If I can but get his cloke, his purse, and his hat, nay, any thing to cut him off, that is, ...
— Every Man In His Humor - (The Anglicized Edition) • Ben Jonson
... help me untie this rope, I b'lieve the crockery's in here," said Mrs. Nichols to 'Lena, who soon opened the chest, disclosing to view as motley a variety of ...
— 'Lena Rivers • Mary J. Holmes
... front, with its neat farm-houses at the eastern point, and its high bluff at the western extremity, crowned with the telegraph—the middle space occupied by tents and sheds for the cholera patients, and its wooded shores dotted over with motley groups—added greatly to the picturesque effect of the land scene. Then the broad, glittering river, covered with boats darting to and fro, conveying passengers from twenty-five vessels, of various size and tonnage, which rode ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... distinguished people of whom I could now record nothing interesting but their names. Still, it is a privilege to have known such men as John Lawrence, Guizot, Thiers, Landseer, Merimee, Comte de Flahault, Doyle, Lords Elgin and Dalhousie, Duc de Broglie, Pelissier, Panizzi, Motley, Delane, Dufferin; and of gifted women, the three Sheridans, Lady Seymour - the Queen of Beauty, afterwards Duchess of Somerset - Mrs. Norton, and Lady Dufferin. Amongst those who have a retrospective interest were Mr. and Lady Blanche Balfour, ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke
... heard Sir John Johnson slandered because he uses the Iroquois. But do not the rebels use them, too? My kinsman, General Haldimand, says that not only do the rebels employ the Oneidas, but that their motley congress enlists any Indian who will take ...
— The Reckoning • Robert W. Chambers
... Highness were his brother Prince Alfred, the Duke of Cambridge, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Earl Russell and the Earl of Derby. In 1867 and in 1870 he also spoke and on the latter occasion the speakers included Mr. J. Lothrop Motley, the American Minister, and Charles Dickens. At the banquet in 1871 the Prince spoke and at that of 1874 he drew special attention to the picture, "Calling the Roll," which afterwards made Miss Elizabeth Thompson so famous, and to a statue by J. E. Boehm ...
— The Life of King Edward VII - with a sketch of the career of King George V • J. Castell Hopkins
... brown-haired goats driven by milkmen through the streets; and, assembled near the dock around a group of English Salvation Army lads and lasses who were singing familiar hymns accompanied by cornet and drum, we saw a motley crowd of men, many of whom from their diverse and peculiar costumes were evidently sailors from various ports of the world. Then, having completed our hurried tramp through the city in the time allotted for that purpose, we ...
— A Trip to the Orient - The Story of a Mediterranean Cruise • Robert Urie Jacob
... Motley's John of Barnveld, you have always been inclined To speak,—well,—somewhat frankly,—to let us know your mind, And the Mynheers would have told you to be cautious what you said, Or else that silver tongue of yours ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... follies of which he could be capable. He considered himself as an inexhaustible quarry of humours, vanities, jealousies, whims, absurd enthusiasms, absurd mortifications. He was able, as he said, to sit at his ease in the side-scene and see himself jigging on the stage in motley or the tragic sock—see himself as a lover, and cry aloud in delight at the mad persistence of the fool he appeared; see himself directing the affairs of the nation, and be ready to die of laughing at himself for pretending to be serious, and at his countrymen for thinking him ...
— The Fool Errant • Maurice Hewlett
... fable, is unpleasingly broken. The spectators cannot bear to be so suddenly tossed from the serious to the mirthful, and from the mirthful to the serious. In short, such an heterogeneous adulteration has all the absurdity reproached to the motley mixture in tragi-comedy, without any thing of that connection which is preserved in that kind of justly exploded dramatic composition. How easy too to avoid this defect, by adapting the subjects of the dances to the different exigences of the different ...
— A Treatise on the Art of Dancing • Giovanni-Andrea Gallini
... few minutes the page came back, followed, close at his heels, by a man in motley dress, with a viol hung over his shoulders, Count Pierre, without waiting to greet the latter, thrust the parchment into his hands ...
— Gabriel and the Hour Book • Evaleen Stein
... claim to genius, if not to greatness. It is curious to observe how at this early period of Carlyle's life, when all the talent and learning of England bowed at these levees before the gigantic speculator and dreamer, he, perhaps alone, stood aloof from the motley throng of worshippers,—with them, but not of them,—coolly analyzing every sentence delivered by the oracle, and sufficiently learned in the divine lore to separate the gold from the dross. What was good and productive he was ready to recognize and assimilate; ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... making the ends of the earth contribute to his pictorial guazzetto;[L] and the certainty, that unless the composition of the latter be regulated by severe judgment, and its members connected by natural links, it must become more contemptible in its motley, than an honest study of ...
— Modern Painters Volume I (of V) • John Ruskin
... as the fog broke away before the waving plume, he saw that the sun was rising. Issuing with its bright beams through the passes of the snowy mountains beyond appeared a strange and motley crew. Instead of the dark and romantic visages of his last phantom train, the Father beheld with strange concern the blue eyes and flaxen hair of a Saxon race. In place of martial airs and musical utterance, ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... minutes afterwards the two Indians entered the defile, and the goats and sheep, which had been spread widely over the open valley, scampered, crowded, and overleaped one another as they closed into the narrow way. There seemed to be fully two thousand of them, intermingled with a motley herd of horses, mules, asses, and kine of all sizes and descriptions, numbering three hundred or more, all driven by a party ...
— Captured by the Navajos • Charles A. Curtis
... boyish mind a bundle made of scores of different sorts of black pieces rolled together is anything but expressive. On first opening it, Donald looked hopelessly at the motley heap; but the kind woman helped him somewhat by rapidly throwing piece after piece aside, with, "That can't be it—that's like little Tom's trousers;" "Nor that,—that's what I wore for poor mother;" "Nor that—that's ...
— Donald and Dorothy • Mary Mapes Dodge
... copies, where he could not, certificates and journals, catching at every gossipping story he could hear of in any quarter, supplying by suspicions what he could find no where else, and then arguing on this motley farrago, as if established on gospel evidence. And while expressing his wonder, 'at the age of eighty-eight, the strong passions of Mr. Adams should not have cooled '; that on the contrary, 'they had acquired the mastery of his soul,' (p. 100 ;) that 'where these were enlisted, no ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... to show is that the search for consistency and connection in the manifold impressions of the moment is a deeply rooted habit of the mind, and one which is retained in a measure during sleep. When, in this state, our minds are invaded by a motley crowd of unrelated images, there results a disagreeable sense of confusion; and this feeling acts as a motive to the attention to sift out those products of the dream-fancy which may be made to cohere. When once the foundations of a dream-action are laid, new images must to some extent fit ...
— Illusions - A Psychological Study • James Sully
... "Fret not thyself because of evil-doers" (Psa. 37:1) "Be not thou afraid when one is made rich, when the glory of his house is increased" (Psa. 49:16). But go thou into the sanctuary of thy God, read His Word, and understand the end of these men-(Mason). Often, as the motley reflexes of my experience move in long processions of manifold groups before me, the distinguished and world-honoured company of Christian mammonists appear to the eye of my imagination as a drove of camels heavily laden, yet all at full speed; and each in the confident ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... patiently for the motley train of Hard-Heart to disappear. When his scout reported that the last straggler of the Indians, who had joined their chief so soon as he was at such a distance from the encampment as to excite no jealousy by their numbers, had gone behind the most distant swell of the prairie, he gave forth ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper
... keepers and their families, and when cases of suffering come to their knowledge, as lately, when a keeper at the South was burnt out and lost all his possessions, are prompt with their assistance. In this instance they helped to sort and arrange the motley piles of donated literature, which was then bound up nicely, in uniform volumes, at the Government Printing Office, and a neat little library-case of strong oak wood was made, fitted up with shelves and having heavy metal clasps and handles; and just so many volumes, ...
— Illustrated Science for Boys and Girls • Anonymous
... a motley regiment, Some young in the war of life, Some chiefs in the Royal Army, Some old and sick with strife, Some limped in the sacred pathway, Some were foot sore and worn, Some had their lances all shivered, ...
— Victor Roy, A Masonic Poem • Harriet Annie Wilkins
... which, though not luxurious, was tolerably comfortable. After the fatigue of his journey, Ben enjoyed a good supper and a comfortable bed. The evening, however, he spent in the public room of the inn, where he had a chance to listen to the conversation of a motley crowd, some of them native and residents, others strangers who had been drawn to Centerville ...
— The Store Boy • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... residence at Nicomedia. As to the sentiment of patriotism of which you vaunt, was it not destroyed by your own emperors? When they had made Roman citizens of Gauls and Egyptians, Africans and Huns, Spaniards and Syrians, how could they expect that such a motley crew would remain true to the interests of an Italian town, and that town their hated oppressor. Patriotism depends on concentration; it cannot bear diffusion. Something more than such a worldly tie was wanted to bind the diverse nations together; they have found it in ...
— History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper
... well-dressed mob have thronged the sight to greet, And motley figures throng the spacious street; Majestical and calm through all they stride, Wearing the blanket with a monarch's pride; The gazers stare and shrug, but can't deny Their noble forms and blameless symmetry. If the Great ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... thither for bathing and flirtation in the season. When July's sun turns its tranquil mirror to hues of amber and gold, the slender mosquito sings Hum, sweet Hum, along its margin; and when Autumn hangs his livery of motley on the trees, the glassy surface breathes out a mist wherefrom arises a spectre, with one hand of ice and the other of flame, to scatter Chills and Fever. Strolling beside this picturesque watering-place in the dusk, ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 16, July 16, 1870 • Various
... critics of the day, and that was satirical writing. They could not tolerate that style—no, not for a moment; and many an author has had his cap and bells, aye, and the lining too, severed from the rest of his motley, simply because he would go and play with Satyrs instead of keeping company with plain ...
— Books Fatal to Their Authors • P. H. Ditchfield
... sang of war in the warm wet shires, Where rain nor fruitage fails, Where England of the motley states Deepens like a garden to the gates In the purple walls ...
— The Ballad of the White Horse • G.K. Chesterton
... Jean at once classed them—had ever seen Jean, but they knew him and knew that he was expected in Grass Valley. All but the one who had spoken happened to have their faces in shadow under the wide-brimmed black hats. Motley-garbed, gun-belted, dusty-booted, they gave Jean the same impression of latent force that he ...
— To the Last Man • Zane Grey
... undertaking proved how surely he had deserved and won the confidence of his superior officers. In those days railroad travelling was far from pleasant. The train upon which Lieutenant Chalaron embarked at Knoxville was a motley affair,—perhaps a single passenger-car, rough and dilapidated (crowded with those who, though ill, made shift to sit up or recline upon the seats), box-cars and cattle-cars filled with suffering men helplessly sick. In order that these might ...
— Memories - A Record of Personal Experience and Adventure During Four Years of War • Fannie A. (Mrs.) Beers
... Under this motley ceiling the room showed plainly it was the living-room of the house. There was a large cooking-stove that shone so you might have seen your face in it, a row of wash-tubs, leaning bottom side up against the wall, two wooden ...
— Miss Ashton's New Pupil - A School Girl's Story • Mrs. S. S. Robbins
... Motley procession! Twenty odd, disheveled, half-clothed men of these worlds. The changing, lightening gravity on the incline caught them. Dr. Frank bounded up to the rail under the impetus of his step; caught and held himself. Drew ...
— Brigands of the Moon • Ray Cummings
... Total Abstinence from Tobacco, as well as from Ardent Spirits. Thus, no report of modern times equals the good Squire's summing-up, which he gives on these occasions, from the great farm-wagon tribune, to the multitudinous and motley congregation assembled under his park trees. This year it was unusually rich and piquant, from the expanded area of events and aspects. In presenting these, as bearing upon the causes of Temperance, Peace, Anti-War, Anti- Slavery, Anti-Tobacco, ...
— A Walk from London to John O'Groat's • Elihu Burritt
... the storm that they might be at that dinner, and some had traversed a thirty mile trail that they might honor the old man and share his generous cheer. It was a remarkable and, perhaps we may say, a motley company that the Trapper looked upon as he took his place, knife and fork in hand, at the head of the table, with a hound on either side of his great chair, to perform the duty of host and ...
— Holiday Tales - Christmas in the Adirondacks • W. H. H. Murray
... Caucus, Causerie, there's an aim Which many know and some might even name; But see yon motley muster, Like shades in Eblis wandering up and down! Types there of every 'Show Class' in the Town Elbow and glide ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, January 25th, 1890 • Various
... Headlong Hall, Esquire, a young Welsh gentleman of means, and of generous though rather unchastened taste, finding, as Peacock says, in the earliest of his gibes at the universities, that there are no such things as men of taste and philosophy in Oxford, assembles a motley host in London, and asks them down to his place at Llanberis. The adventures of the visit (ending up with several weddings) form the scheme of the book, as indeed repetitions of something very little different form the scheme of all the other books, with the exception of The Misfortunes of ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury
... person presented was to be. Well pleased the little magician hastened away to prove the powers of the spectacles in the theatre; no place seeming to him more fitted for such a trial. He begged permission of the worthy audience, and set his spectacles on his nose. A motley phantasmagoria presents itself before him, which he describes in a few satirical touches, yet without expressing his opinion openly: he tells the people enough to set them all thinking and guessing; but in order to hurt ...
— Andersen's Fairy Tales • Hans Christian Andersen
... of the beach, shaded by trees, and crossing a gentle stream. Along this avenue was all the life and commerce of Tai-o-hae. Two traders' shops, empty offices, a gendarme, a handful of motley half-castes lounging under the trees—this was all that was left of former greatness. Only nature had not changed. It flung over the broken remnants of the glory and the dream its lovely cloak of verdure and of flower. ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien
... hanging lamps, and Rathburn looked about through a haze of tobacco smoke at a cluster of crowded gaming tables, a short bar, cigar counter, and at the motley throng which ...
— The Coyote - A Western Story • James Roberts
... origin in England is confessedly obscure. Prior to the second half of the 16th century, there was little trace of that flood of unorthodox speech which, in this year of grace eighteen hundred and ninety-six, requires six quarto double-columned volumes duly to chronicle—verily a vast and motley crowd! ...
— Musa Pedestris - Three Centuries of Canting Songs - and Slang Rhymes [1536 - 1896] • John S. Farmer
... pleasures. He seemed to know a great deal both about the fishing and the books, though of these not the most edifying; he spoke five or six languages, though chiefly the slang of each. He had evidently lived in varied cities and very motley societies, for some of his cheerfullest stories were about gambling hells and opium dens, Australian bushrangers or Italian brigands. Father Brown knew that the once-celebrated Saradine had spent his ...
— The Innocence of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... mediaeval name and forms of the Holy Roman Empire. The members of this so-called Empire were, however, a multitude of independent States; and the chief of these States, Austria, combined with its German provinces a large territory which did not even in name form part of the Germanic body. The motley of the Empire was made up by governments of every degree of strength and weakness. Austria and Prussia possessed both political traditions and resources raising them to the rank of great European Powers; but the sovereignties of the second order, such as ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... treated like a sans-culotte was guillotined four days before Robespierre, whose death would have saved him. His young widow left prison, reduced to extreme want, and took refuge with her father-in-law, at Fontainebleau; then she made her appearance in the motley society which, first showed itself in the drawing-room of Madame Tallien, then at the Luxembourg under Barras. Rivalling Madame Tallien and Madame Recamier in popularity, she smiled through her tears, like ...
— The Court of the Empress Josephine • Imbert de Saint-Amand
... engine, as it approached, was switched upon a side-track, but the cars, from which it had been detached, kept on their course until the brakes brought them to a stand in the depot. The passengers now swarmed forth by hundreds—a curious and motley crowd of men, women, and children; good-looking people, and ill-looking ones; the fine lady in silk, and the rough backwoods-man in homespun; the middle-aged woman in black, with three trunks and four bandboxes, and the smooth-faced dandy, whose sole baggage was ...
— Oscar - The Boy Who Had His Own Way • Walter Aimwell
... lover of virtue of that stamp as any other whatever), if he had listened and laid his ear close to himself and he did so no doubt—would have heard some jarring note of human mixture, but faint and only perceptible to himself. Man is wholly and throughout but patch and motley. Even the laws of justice themselves cannot subsist without mixture of injustice; insomuch that Plato says, they undertake to cut off the hydra's head, who pretend to clear the law ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... belief that Howe aimed at Philadelphia. He therefore gathered his forces and marched south to meet the enemy, passing through the city in order to impress the disaffected and the timid with the show of force. It was a motley array that followed him. There was nothing uniform about the troops except their burnished arms and the sprigs of evergreen in their hats. Nevertheless Lafayette, who had just come among them, thought that they looked like good soldiers, and the Tories woke up sharply ...
— George Washington, Vol. I • Henry Cabot Lodge
... neither recover one that he had lost nor summon a fresh one from the border of obscurity that surrounded a centre of almost intolerable brightness into which his mental images glided as into a brilliantly lighted chamber. Into this brightness a troop of hallucinations darted suddenly like a motley and ill-assorted company of players. He saw first a grotesque and indistinct figure, which he discerned presently to be the goblin his nurse had used to frighten him in his infancy; then the face of his uncle, ...
— The Miller Of Old Church • Ellen Glasgow
... Hurriedly and without changing her dress she had her hair done up and stuck white roses in her chignon and at her bosom. The little room was littered with the drawing-room furniture, which the workmen had been compelled to roll in there, and it was full of a motley assemblage of round tables, sofas and armchairs, with their legs in air for the most part. Nana was quite ready when her dress caught on a castor and tore upward. At this she swore furiously; such things only happened to her! Ragingly she took off her dress, a very simple affair ...
— Nana, The Miller's Daughter, Captain Burle, Death of Olivier Becaille • Emile Zola
... burnished broadsword dangling from his leathern belt. On this occasion they acted as rangers for beating up the thickets and rousing the game. These attendants filled up the court of the castle, spacious as it was. On the green without, you might have seen the motley assemblage of peasantry convened by report of the splendid hunting, including most of our old acquaintances from Tewin, as well as the jolly partakers of good cheer at Hob Filcher's. Gregory the jester, it may well be guessed, ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... lay beneath his glance, a vivid exposition of the vast, half-tamed valley's bounty, spoils, and promise; of its motley human life, scarcely yet to be called society, so lately and rudely transplanted from overseas; so bareboned, so valiantly preserved, so young yet already so titanic; so self-reliant, opinionated, and uncouth; so strenuous and materialistic in ...
— Gideon's Band - A Tale of the Mississippi • George W. Cable
... all was new and strange. She had a keen, quick eye for character, and a human interest in humanity, even though those around her did not belong to her "set." Therefore it was with appreciative eyes that she watched the motley groups of her fellow-passengers waving handkerchiefs and exchanging farewells with equally diversified ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe
... a motley group were assembled in the large mess-room of the log barracks of the fort. It was a long low room built of solid logs. The thick walls were loop-holed for musketry, and on wooden pegs, driven into the logs, the old Brown Bess muskets of the soldiers were stacked. Rude bunks were ranged ...
— Neville Trueman the Pioneer Preacher • William Henry Withrow
... stars. Merman and mermaid, nereid and triton, were there, rejoicing in the sunbeams thus poured upon them through this subtle conduit of ocean, as do the motes of summer in her rays; but soon these disappeared, a motley crowd, confused and joyous, leaving the vision free to pierce the depths, glowing with golden light, in search of ...
— Sea and Shore - A Sequel to "Miriam's Memoirs" • Mrs. Catharine A. Warfield
... rather a motley band. Among them, besides those of our friends already mentioned, there were our hero's mother and all the Leather family. Captain Stride's daughter as well as his "Missus," and Mr Crossley's housekeeper, Mrs Bland. That good ...
— Charlie to the Rescue • R.M. Ballantyne
... took the initiative. A number of papers editorially called for a convention, which was really a mass meeting, for there were no accredited delegates, and could be none. This met in Decatur on Washington's birthday, 1856. It was a motley assembly, from a political standpoint. It included whigs, democrats, free-soilers, abolitionists, and know-nothings. Said Lincoln: "Of strange, discordant, even hostile elements, we gathered from ...
— The Life of Abraham Lincoln • Henry Ketcham
... Aleksandra?" asked Foma, somewhat deafened by the loud speech of this tall, frank, red-faced fellow clad in a motley costume. ...
— Foma Gordyeff - (The Man Who Was Afraid) • Maxim Gorky
... the soft clay floor, while the only light, save that of the fire, was furnished by three torches stuck in sockets on the wall, which flickered and crackled, giving forth a strong resinous odor. All this was novel and strange to the cloister-bred youth; but most interesting of all was the motley circle of guests who sat eating their collops round the blaze. They were a humble group of wayfarers, such as might have been found that night in any inn through the length and breadth of England; but to him they represented that vague world against which he had ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle
... occasion with Mrs. Moffat's assistance. A sewing-school had hitherto been uncalled for, the women's work having been that of building houses, raising fences, and tilling the ground; now Mrs. Moffat met those who desired to learn as often as her strength would permit, and soon she had a motley group of pupils, very few of the whole party possessing either a frock or a gown. The scarcity of materials was a serious impediment to progress, but ornaments, which before the natives had held in high repute, were now parted with to purchase the skins of animals, which being ...
— Robert Moffat - The Missionary Hero of Kuruman • David J. Deane
... the most interesting portion of the exercises had been concealed from view. The butterflies, while naturally the most conspicuous element, were now seen to be in a small minority among the insect gathering, the bramble leaves being peopled with a most motley and democratic assemblage of insects. Class distinctions were apparently forgotten in the common enthusiasm; the plebeian bluebottle and blowfly now consorted with Aphrodite and sipped at the same drop. Many a leaf was begemmed with the blue ...
— My Studio Neighbors • William Hamilton Gibson
... would, arm in arm, each with his cigar in his mouth, saunter, for hours together, along the leading streets and thoroughfares, making acute observations and deep reflections upon the ever-moving and motley scenes around them. Most frequently, however, they would repair, at half-price, to the theatres; for Snap had the means of securing almost a constant supply of "orders" from the underlings of the theatres, and also from reporters to the Sunday Flash, (with which Messrs. Quirk and Gammon were ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
... A motley army they—strangest of all the armies ever seen before—with face and form and voice of youth, but filled with older purpose and courage, as on and on they march with Nicholas in command, the lines stretching behind for several miles; and still ...
— Ten Boys from History • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... eyes when he rode into that construction camp. The place was a bedlam. A motley horde of men appeared to be doing everything under the sun but work, and most of them seemed particularly eager to board a long train of box-cars and little old passenger-coaches. Neale made a dive for the train, and his sojourn ...
— The U.P. Trail • Zane Grey
... quarter. An American adventurer, named Ward, a man of considerable military ability, organized a small force of foreigners, which he led to such purpose against the T'ai-p'ings, that he rapidly gathered into its ranks a large if motley crowd of foreigners and Chinese, all equally bent on plunder, and with that end in view submitting to the discipline necessary to success. A long run of victories gained for this force the title of the Ever Victorious Army; until ...
— China and the Manchus • Herbert A. Giles
... has yet appeared upon this continent; Longfellow, with his tender touch; Holmes, with his three o'clock wit, as some one has called it, the man who was always awake; Lowell, with his rich culture and his passionate loyalty to all that was best in life and art; and the historians of the country, Motley, Prescott, Bancroft, and Francis Parkman, with his splendid record of patient and tireless energy. And then we have the New England writers of the second generation in Edmund Clarence Stedman, Thomas Bailey Aldrich, Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Charles Dudley Warner, John Fiske, and Henry James; ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various
... the Derby Day. Special trains carry thousands, and the field presents a gay picture framed in a quadrangle of equipages. It is sometimes difficult, even by charging large admission-fees, to keep the number of spectators within convenient limits. Notwithstanding the motley assemblage which a match always attracts, so unobjectionable are the associations of the cricket-field that clergymen do not feel it unbecoming to participate in the diversion, either as players, umpires ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Volume 11, No. 26, May, 1873 • Various
... characterizes love; I knew that it was the aureole which crowned the well-beloved. But that she should excite such heart-throbs, that she should evoke such fantoms with nothing but her beauty, her flowers, her motley costume, and a certain trick of turning she had learned from some merry-andrew; and that without a word, without a thought, without even appearing to know it! What was chaos if it required seven days ...
— The Confession of a Child of The Century • Alfred de Musset
... a few of the expressions that came from a motley assemblage of persons as they stood in a train shed in Hoboken, one June morning. Motley indeed was the gathering, and more than one traveler paused to give a second look at the little group. Perhaps a brief list of them may not ...
— The Moving Picture Girls at Oak Farm - or, Queer Happenings While Taking Rural Plays • Laura Lee Hope
... madam of a Peoria street resort, the listeners, a motley crowd of women gathered in the rear of a popular saloon and gambling house not far from the corner of Green and Madison streets, on the seething, congested West Side of Chicago. These women had assembled in that screened back ...
— Chicago's Black Traffic in White Girls • Jean Turner-Zimmermann
... two hours was employed in clearing the lists, and preparing the ground for the juego de la sortija,[9] which was peculiarly gratifying to the queen. This intermediate time was devoted by the assembled and motley crowd, to the rational, and provident purpose of ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio
... and Tom went into the beer hall. At the far end was a stage, and on it stood the minstrel, dimmed by intervening tobacco smoke. The floor was covered with damp saw-dust. The place was thronged with a motley crowd, sailors, gamblers, with here and there a sprinkle of wayward respectability. Painted girls attended the tables and everywhere was the slopping of beer and the stench ...
— An Arkansas Planter • Opie Percival Read
... charm for her wild and restless spirit. But from many of the associations of the stage, from nearly all actors and actresses, and from all green-room loungers, she instinctively recoiled, and held herself haughtily aloof from the motley little world behind the scenes,—apparently by no effort, but as sphered apart by the atmosphere of refinement and superiority which enveloped her. Yet she almost constantly accompanied her husband to rehearsal and play, where, for a time, her presence was grateful both to the pride ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 23, September, 1859 • Various
... back. Good fortune loosened the poor soprano's tongue, and as soon as the canonesses' litter was a safe distance ahead he began to beguile the way with fragments of reminiscence and adventure. Though few of his allusions were clear to Odo, the glimpse they gave of the motley theatrical life of the north Italian cities—the quarrels between Goldoni and the supporters of the expiring commedia dell' arte—the rivalries of the prime donne and the arrogance of the popular comedians—all these peeps into a tinsel world ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... The longed-for wisdom of to-day shows a kaleidoscopic front, in which are turning the slum-dweller and the millionaire; the white man, the yellow, and the black; the town and the territorial possession. The slave-colony, garbage-laws, magistrates, and murderers are mixed in motley, and there are whirling vacant-lot schemes abroad, potato-patches, wood-yards, organized charity, Wayfarers' Lodges, resounding cries of municipal reform, and various other ...
— The Warriors • Lindsay, Anna Robertson Brown
... that part of his growing importance. It would have done Na-tee-kah's proud heart good to have seen him in particular, and it would have been well worth the while of almost anybody else to have had a good look at the whole affair, as the motley array poured out into the moonlight from under the shadowy ...
— Two Arrows - A Story of Red and White • William O. Stoddard
... delayed the beginning of their Lent a whole week after it had been ordained by authority; and they had the pleasure of fasting seven days, while meat was exposed for sale by the command of the emperor. The Samaritans of Palestine [88] were a motley race, an ambiguous sect, rejected as Jews by the Pagans, by the Jews as schismatics, and by the Christians as idolaters. The abomination of the cross had already been planted on their holy mount of Garizim, [89] but the persecution ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon
... lightened as she left the cabins and the intolerable red sands upon which they were situated. It was not the first time she had seen the uncouth faces and forms of the motley group who had been vengefully regarding her; but their appearance had seemed doubly appalling when viewed in the light of being her associates for life. Out of their sight she breathed freely again, and coming shortly into the main road, a feeling almost ...
— Hubert's Wife - A Story for You • Minnie Mary Lee
... a motley crew. Women laden with bundles and dragging reluctant children by the hands panted up the steep slope with terror stamped on ...
— Complete Story of the San Francisco Horror • Richard Linthicum
... Claudio's life. Isabella, perceiving in this conduct only a further proof of the hypocrite's villainy, breaks out once more into a tempest of agonised despair. Upon her cry for immediate revolt against the scoundrelly tyrant, the people collect together and form a motley and passionate crowd. Luzio, who also returns, counsels the people with stinging bitterness to pay no heed to the woman's fury; he points out that she is only tricking them, as she has already tricked him—for he still believes in her shameless infidelity. Fresh confusion; increased despair ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... night, when my custom invites A stroll in old London for curious sights, I am likely to stray by a devious way Where goodies are spread in a motley array, The things which some eyes would appear to despise Impress me as pathos in homely disguise, And my battered waif-friend shall have pennies to spend, So long as I've got 'em (or chums that will lend); And the urchin shall share in my joy and declare That there's beauty and good in the ...
— Songs and Other Verse • Eugene Field
... souvenir in Mr. Stone's motley collection is a cotton print handkerchief, upon which are recorded scenes from the career of the emperor; the thing must have been of English manufacture, for only an Englishman (inspired by that fear and that hatred of Bonaparte which only Englishmen had) ...
— The Love Affairs of a Bibliomaniac • Eugene Field
... She was clad in a russet gown, much the worse for the wear, and a scarlet cloak, or rather a cloak that had once been scarlet, but was now completely faded from its original color. It had been broken here and there, but was pieced with different colored cloths, so as to appear a motley and strange garment; and her bony feet were bare and unprotected. Nanny, from different circumstances, was unanimously elected the witch or bugbear of the village; and though the brats were then so busy annoying her, at night, or in a lonesome place, they would fly like lightning even at her ...
— Ellen Duncan; And The Proctor's Daughter - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... Berkeley, with the motley crowd of sailors, longshoremen, freed slaves, and such as he could collect, sailed for Jamestown and reached it safely September 7th, 1676. The news of his approach reached Jamestown long before he did, and Colonel Hansford, one of ...
— The Real America in Romance, Volume 6; A Century Too Soon (A Story - of Bacon's Rebellion) • John R. Musick
... in 1848, made acquaintance with the fashionable world. He preferred the livelier and less strait ways of the Congressional boarding-house table, the Saturday parties at Daniel Webster's, and the motley crowd at the bowling-alley, as well as the chatterers' corner in the Congressional post-office. Still, as chairman of a committee, and by reason of his being a wonder from the hirsute West, he was invited to the receptions and feasts of the ...
— The Lincoln Story Book • Henry L. Williams
... whose volcanic peaks rose two miles in the air, and here a town duly laid out with canals and bridges, and trim gardens and stagnant pools, was baptized by the ancient and well-beloved name of Good Meadow, or Batavia, which it bears to this day" (Motley, ...
— A Visit to Java - With an Account of the Founding of Singapore • W. Basil Worsfold
... symbols of the power and majesty of death in the world. For the involuntary honour paid to death even by the ignorantly busy, and happy, he kept ever a grateful and a jealous eye; and as some funeral cortege passed like a dream, Charon's barge amid all the motley craft of merchandise and pleasure, he would watch sternly to see if the fat and prosperous moment would do honour to the carriages of the king. For a bowed head or a doffed hat he felt a personal gratitude. And, since Jenny died, he seemed to be always meeting that phantom procession ...
— The Romance of Zion Chapel [3d ed.] • Richard Le Gallienne
... tasseled ends. Her arms were bare to the elbows, and gay with bracelets; her hair fell from her forehead and temples, dropping over her shoulders in two ribbon bound braids. A tall, gray-cowled monk, whose military bearing gave the lie to his cassock, a Spanish grandee, and a fool in motley saw her at the same moment and hurried to intercept her, but with a slide which carried him a quarter of the way across the floor the Bedouin arrived first, and before the others had come up he was drifting away with her in the tide of ...
— The Lighted Match • Charles Neville Buck
... cordiality to be found in no colder latitude, the cosy breakfasts that prefaced days of real enjoyment—the midnight revels of the bal masque! And then the carnival!—those wild weeks when the Lord of Misrule wields his motley scepter—leading from one reckless frolic to another till Mardi Gras culminates in a giddy whirl of delirious fun on which, at midnight, Lent drops ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon |
